Part 13 (2/2)
The directress should select or devise simple breathing exercises, to be accompanied with arm movements, etc.
Exercises for proper use of _lips, tongue, and teeth_. These exercises teach the movements of the lips and tongue in the p.r.o.nunciation of certain fundamental consonant sounds, reinforcing the muscles, and making them ready for these movements. These gymnastics prepare the organs used in the formation of language.
In presenting such exercises we begin with the entire cla.s.s, but finish by testing the children individually. We ask the child to p.r.o.nounce, _aloud_ and with _force_, the first syllable of a word. When all are intent upon putting the greatest possible force into this, we call each child separately, and have him repeat the word. If he p.r.o.nounces it correctly, we send him to the right, if badly, to the left. Those who have difficulty with the word, are then encouraged to repeat it several times. The teacher takes note of the age of the child, and of the particular defects in the movements of the muscles used in articulating.
She may then touch the muscles which should be used, tapping, for example, the curve of the lips, or even taking hold of the child's tongue and placing it against the dental arch, or showing him clearly the movements which she herself makes when p.r.o.nouncing the syllable. She must seek in every way to aid the normal development of the movements necessary to the exact articulation of the word.
As the basis for these gymnastics we have the children p.r.o.nounce the words: _pane_--_fame_--_tana_--_zina_--_stella_--_rana_--_gatto_.
In the p.r.o.nunciation of _pane_, the child should repeat with much force, _pa_, _pa_, _pa_, thus exercising the muscles producing orbicular contraction of the lips.
In _fame_ repeating _fa_, _fa_, _fa_, the child exercises the movements of the lower lip against the upper dental arch.
In _tana_, having him repeat _ta_, _ta_, _ta_, we cause him to exercise the movement of the tongue against the upper dental arch.
In _zina_, we provoke the contact of the upper and lower dental arches.
With _stella_ we have him repeat the whole word, bringing the teeth together, and holding the tongue (which has a tendency to protrude) close against the upper teeth.
In _rana_ we have him repeat _r_, _r_, _r_, thus exercising the tongue in the vibratory movements. In _gatto_ we hold the voice upon the guttural _g_.
CHAPTER X
NATURE IN EDUCATION--AGRICULTURAL LABOUR: CULTURE OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS
Itard, in a remarkable pedagogical treatise: ”_Des premiers developpements du jeune sauvage de l'Aveyron_,” expounds in detail the drama of a curious, gigantic education which attempted to overcome the psychical darkness of an idiot and at the same time to s.n.a.t.c.h a man from primitive nature.
The savage of the Aveyron was a child who had grown up in the natural state: criminally abandoned in a forest where his a.s.sa.s.sins thought they had killed him, he was cured by natural means, and had survived for many years free and naked in the wilderness, until, captured by hunters, he entered into the civilised life of Paris, showing by the scars with which his miserable body was furrowed the story of the struggles with wild beasts, and of lacerations caused by falling from heights.
The child was, and always remained, mute; his mentality, diagnosed by Pinel as idiotic, remained forever almost inaccessible to intellectual education.
To this child are due the first steps of positive pedagogy. Itard, a physician of deaf-mutes and a student of philosophy, undertook his education with methods which he had already partially tried for treating defective hearing--believing at the beginning that the savage showed characteristics of inferiority, not because he was a degraded organism, but for want of education. He was a follower of the principles of Helvetius: ”Man is nothing without the work of man”; that is, he believed in the omnipotence of education, and was opposed to the pedagogical principle which Rousseau had promulgated before the Revolution: ”_Tout est bien sortant des mains de l'Auteur des choses, tout degenere dans les mains de l'homme_,”--that is, the work of education is deleterious and spoils the man.
The savage, according to the erroneous first impression of Itard, demonstrated experimentally by his characteristics the truth of the former a.s.sertion. When, however, he perceived, with the help of Pinel, that he had to do with an idiot, his philosophical theories gave place to the most admirable, tentative, experimental pedagogy.
Itard divides the education of the savage into two parts. In the first, he endeavours to lead the child from natural life to social life; and in the second, he attempts the intellectual education of the idiot. The child in his life of frightful abandonment had found one happiness; he had, so to speak, immersed himself in, and unified himself with, nature, taking delight in it--rains, snow, tempests, boundless s.p.a.ce, had been his sources of entertainment, his companions, his love. Civil life is a renunciation of all this: but it is an acquisition beneficent to human progress. In Itard's pages we find vividly described the moral work which led the savage to civilisation, multiplying the needs of the child and surrounding him with loving care. Here is a sample of the admirably patient work of Itard as _observer of the spontaneous expressions_ of his pupil: it can most truly give teachers, who are to prepare for the experimental method, an idea of the patience and the self-abnegation necessary in dealing with a phenomenon which is to be observed:
”When, for example, he was observed within his room, he was seen to be lounging with oppressive monotony, continually directing his eyes toward the window, with his gaze wandering in the void. If on such occasions a sudden storm blew up, if the sun, hidden behind the clouds, peeped out of a sudden, lighting the atmosphere brilliantly, there were loud bursts of laughter and almost convulsive joy. Sometimes, instead of these expressions of joy, there was a sort of frenzied rage: he would twist his arms, put his clenched fists upon his eyes, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth and becoming dangerous to those about him.
”One morning, when the snow fell abundantly while he was still in bed, he uttered a cry of joy upon awaking, leaped from his bed, ran to the window and then to the door; went and came impatiently from one to the other; then ran out undressed as he was into the garden. There, giving vent to his joy with the shrillest of cries, he ran, rolled in the snow, gathered it up in handfuls, and swallowed it with incredible avidity.
”But his sensations at sight of the great spectacles of nature did not always manifest themselves in such a vivid and noisy manner. It is worthy of note that in certain cases they were expressed by a quiet regret and melancholy. Thus, it was when the rigour of the weather drove everybody from the garden that the savage of the Aveyron chose to go there. He would walk around it several times and finally sit down upon the edge of the fountain.
”I have often stopped for _whole hours_, and with indescribable pleasure, to watch him as he sat thus--to see how his face, inexpressive or contracted by grimaces, gradually a.s.sumed an expression of sadness, and of melancholy reminiscence, while his eyes were fixed upon the surface of the water into which from time to time he would throw a few dead leaves.
”If when there was a full moon, a sheaf of mild beams penetrated into his room, he rarely failed to wake and to take his place at the window.
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