The Elements of General Method Part 3

We just spoke of interest, not as fluctuating and variable, but steady and persistent. It contains also the elements of ease, pleasure, and needed employment; that is, in learning something that has a proper interest, there is greater ease and pleasure in the acquisition, and occupation with the object satisfies an inner need. "When interest has been fully developed, it must always combine pleasure, facility, and the satisfaction of a need. We see again that in all exertions, power and pleasure are secured to interest. It does not feel the burden of difficulties but often seems to sport with them."--_Ziller_.

A natural interest is also awakened by what is strange, mysterious, and even frightful, but these kinds of interest concern us from a speculative rather than a pedagogical point of view. We are seeking for those interests which contribute to a normal and permanent mental action.

_Severe effort and exertion_ are a necessary part of instruction, but a proper interest in the subject will lead children to exert themselves with greater energy even when encountering disagreeable tasks. There are places in every subject when work is felt as a burden rather than as a pleasure, but the interest and energy aroused in the more attractive parts will carry a child through the swamps and mires at a speedier rate. It is not at all desirable to conceal difficulties under the guise of amus.e.m.e.nt. But by means of a natural interest it is possible to bring the mind into the most favorable state for action.

In opposition to a lively and humane treatment of subjects, a dry and dull routine has often been praised as the proper discipline of the mind and will. "It was a mistake," says Ziller, "to find in the simple pressure of difficulties a source of culture, for it is the opposite of culture. It was a mistake to call the pressure of effort, the feeling of burden and pain, a source of proper training, simply because will power and firmness of character are thus secured and preserved to youth. Pedagogical efforts looking towards a lightening and enlivening of instruction should not have been answered by an appeal to severe methods, to strict, dry, and dull learning, that made no attempt to adapt itself to the natural movement of the child's mind." (Ziller, Lehre vom E. U., p. 355.) Not those studies which are driest, dullest, and most disagreeable should be selected upon which to awaken the mental forces of a child, but those which naturally arouse his interest and prompt him to a lively exercise of his powers. For children of the third and fourth grade to narrate the story of the Golden Fleece is a more suitable exercise than to memorize the CXIXth Psalm, or a catechism.

A proper interest aims, finally, at the highest form of _quiet, sustained will exertion_. The succession of steps leading up to will energy, is interest, desire, and will. Before attempting to realize the higher forms of will effort, we must look to the fountains and sources out of which it springs. If a young man has laid up abundant and interesting stores of knowledge of architecture, he only needs an opportunity, and there is likely to be great will-energy in the work of planning and constructing buildings. But without this interest and knowledge there will be no effort along this line. In like manner children cannot be expected to show their best effort unless the subject is made strongly interesting from the start, or unless interest-awakening knowledge has already been stored in the mind. To make great demands upon the will power in early school years, is like asking for ripe fruits before they have had time to mature. Knowledge, feelings, and will-incentives of every sort must be first planted in the mind, before a proper will-energy can be expected. In teaching, we should aim to develop will power, not to take it for granted as a ready product. As the will should ultimately control all the mental powers, its proper maturity is a later outcome of education. Even supposing that the will has considerable original native power, it is a power that is likely to lie dormant or be used in some ill-direction, unless proper incentives are brought to bear upon it. The will is so const.i.tuted that it is open to appeal, and in all the affairs of school and life, incentives of all sorts are constantly brought to bear upon it. Why not make an effort to bring to bear the incentives that spring out of interest, that steady force, which is able to give abiding tendency and direction to the efforts? Why not cultivate those n.o.bler incentives that spring out of culture-bringing-knowledge? There are, therefore, important preliminaries to full will energy, which are secured by the cultivation of knowledge, the sensibilities, and desires.

There is a common belief that any subject can be made interesting if only the teacher knows the secret of the how; if only he has proper _skill_. But it is hard even for a skillful workman "to make bricks without straw," to awaken mental effort where interest in the subject is entirely lacking. It is often claimed that if there is dullness and disgust with a study it is the fault of the teacher. As Mr. Quick says, "I would go so far as to lay it down as a rule, that whenever children are inattentive and apparently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always look first to himself for the reason. There are perhaps no circ.u.mstances in which a lack of interest does not originate in the mode of instruction adopted by the teacher." This statement a.s.sumes that all knowledge is about equally interesting to pupils, and everything depends upon the _manner_ in which the teacher deals with it. But different kinds of knowledge differ widely in their power to awaken interest in children. The true idea of interest demands that the subject matter be _in itself_ interesting, adapted to appeal to a child, and to secure his partic.i.p.ation. If the interest awakened by bringing the mind in contact with the subject is not spontaneous, it is not genuine and helpful in the best sense. One of the first and greatest evils of all school courses has been a failure to select those subjects, which in themselves are adapted to excite the interest of children at each age of progress. If we could a.s.sume that lessons had been so arranged, we might then with Mr. Quick justly demand of a teacher a manner of teaching that must make the subjects interesting, or in other words a manner of treatment that would be appropriate to an interesting subject.

There are two kinds of interest that need to be clearly distinguished: _direct_ interest, which is felt for the thing itself, for its own sake, and _indirect_ interest which points to something else as the real source. A miser loves gold coins for their own sake, but most people love them only because of the things for which they may be exchanged. The poet loves the beauty and fragrance of flowers, the florist adds to this a mercenary interest. A snow-shovel may have no interest for us ordinarily, but just when it is needed, on a winter morning, it is an object of considerable interest. It is simply a means to an end. The kind of interest which we think is so valuable for instruction is direct and intrinsic. The life of Benjamin Franklin calls out a strong direct interest in the man and his fortunes. A humming bird attracts and appeals to us for its own sake. Indirect interest, so called, has more of the character of _desire_. A desire to restore one's health will produce great interest in a certain health resort, like the Hot Springs, or in some method of treatment, as the use of Koch's lymph. The desire for wealth and business success will lead a merchant in the fur trade to take interest in seals and seal-fis.h.i.+ng, and in beavers, trapping, etc. The wish to gain a prize will cause a child to take deep interest in a lesson. But in all these cases desire _precedes_ interest. Interest, indeed, in the thing itself for its own sake, is frequently not present. It is true in many cases that indirect interest is not interest at all. It is a dangerous thing in education to subst.i.tute _indirect_ for _direct_ or true interest. The former often means the cultivation, primarily, of certain inordinate desires or feelings, such as rivalry, pride, jealousy, ambition, reputation, love of self. By appealing to the selfish pride of children in getting lessons, hateful moral qualities are sometimes started into active growth in the very effort to secure the highest intellectual results and discipline. Giving a prize for superiority often produces jealousy, unkindness, and deep-seated ill-will where the cultivation of a proper natural interest would lead to more kindly and sympathetic relations between the children. The cultivation of direct interest in all valuable kinds of knowledge, on the other hand, leads also to the cultivation of desires, but the desires thus generated are pure and generous, the desire for further knowledge of botany or history, the desire to imitate what is admirable in human actions and to shun what is mean. The desires which spring out of direct interest are elevating, while the desires which are a.s.sociated with indirect interest are in many cases egotistic and selfish.

We often say that it is necessary to make a subject interesting so that it may be more _palatable_, more easily learned. This is the commonly accepted idea. It is a means of helping us to swallow a distasteful medicine. If the main purpose were to get knowledge into the mind, and interest only a means to this end, the cultivation of such indirect interests would be all right. But interest is one of the qualities which we wish to see permanently a.s.sociated with knowledge even after it is safely stored in the mind. If interest is there, future energy and activity will spring spontaneously out of the acquirements.

Indirect interest indeed is often necessary and may be a sign of tact in teaching. But it is negative and weak in after results. So far as it produces motives at all they may be dangerous. It cannot build up and strengthen character but threatens to undermine it by cultivating wrong motives. There is no a.s.surance that knowledge thus acquired can affect the will and bear fruit in action, even though it be the right kind of knowledge, because it is not the knowledge in this case that furnishes the incentives. The interest that is awakened in a subject because of its innate attractiveness, leaves incentives which may ripen sooner or later into action. The higher kind of interest is direct, intrinsic, not simply receptive, but active and progressive. In the knowledge acquired it finds only incentives to further acquisition. It is life giving and is prompted by the objects themselves, just as the interest of boys is awakened by deeds of adventure and daring or by a journey into the woods. The interest in an object that springs from some other source than the thing itself, is indirect, as the desire to master a lesson so as to excel others, or gain a prize, or make a money profit out of it. In speaking of interest in school studies, teachers quite commonly have only the indirect in mind; _i.e._, the kind that leads children to take hold of and master their lessons more readily.

Interest is thus chiefly a means of overcoming distasteful tasks. It is the merit of a direct or genuine interest that it aids in mastering difficulties and in addition to this gives a permanent pleasure in studies. One of the high aims of instruction is to implant a strong permanent interest in studies that will last through school days and after they are over.

A live interest springs most easily out of _knowledge subjects_ like history and natural science. Formal studies like grammar and arithmetic awaken it less easily. Herbart has cla.s.sified the chief kinds and sources of interest as follows: Interest in nature apart from man, and interest in man, society, etc. In _nature_ and natural objects as ill.u.s.trated in the natural sciences there are three chief kinds of interest. _Empirical_, which is stirred by the variety and novelty of things seen. There is an attractiveness in the many faces and moods of nature. Between the years of childhood and old age there is scarcely a person who does not enjoy a walk or a ride in the open air, where the variety of plant, bird, animal, and landscape makes a pleasing panorama. _Speculative_ interest goes deeper and inquires into the relations and causal connections of phenomena. It traces out similarities and sequences, and detects law and unity in nature. It is not satisfied with the simple play of variety, but seeks for the cause and genesis of things. Even a child is anxious to know how a squirrel climbs a tree or cracks a nut; where it stores its winter food, its nest and manner of life in winter. Why is it that a mole can burrow and live under ground? How is it possible for a fish to breathe in water? _Esthetic_ interest is awakened by what is beautiful, grand, and harmonious in nature or art. The first glance at great overhanging ma.s.ses of rock, oppresses us with a feeling of awe. The wings of an insect, with their delicate tracery and bright hues, are attractive, and stir us with pleasure. The graceful ferns beside the brooks and moss-stained rocks suggest fairy-land.

But stronger even than these interests which attach us to the things of nature, are the interests of _humanity_. The concern felt for others in joy or sorrow is based upon our interest in them individually, and is _sympathetic_. In this lies the charm of biography and the novel.

Take away the personal interest we have in Ivanhoe, Quenten Durward, etc., and Scott's glory would quickly depart. What empty and spiritless annals would the life of Frederic the Great and Patrick Henry furnis.h.!.+ _Social_ interest is the regard for the good or evil fortune of societies and nations. Upon this depends our concern for the progress of liberty and the struggle for free inst.i.tutions in England and other countries. On a smaller scale clubs, fraternities, and local societies of all kinds are based on the social interest.

_Religious_ interest finally reveals our consciousness of man's littleness and weakness, and of G.o.d's providence. As Pestalozzi says, "G.o.d is the nearest resource of humanity." As individuals or nations pa.s.s away their fate lies in His hand.

The _sources_ of interest therefore are varied and productive. Any one of the six is unlimited in extent and variety. Together they const.i.tute a boundless field for a proper cultivation of the emotional as well as intellectual nature of man. A study of these sources of genuine interest and a partial view of their breadth and depth, reveals to teachers what our present school courses tend strongly to make them forget, namely, that the right kind of knowledge contains in itself the stimulus and the germs to great mental exertion. The dull drill upon grammar, arithmetic, reading, spelling, and writing, which are regarded as so important as to exclude almost everything else, has convinced many a child that school is veritably a dull place. And many a teacher is just as strongly convinced that keeping school is a dull and sleepy business. And yet the sources of interest are abundant to overflowing for him who has eyes to see. That these sources and materials of knowledge, arousing deep and lasting interests, are above other things adapted to children and to the school room, is a truth worthy of all emphasis.

Interest is a good test of the _adaptability_ of knowledge. When any subject is brought to the attention at the right age and in the proper manner, it awakens in children a natural and lively feeling. It is evident that certain kinds of knowledge are not adapted to a boy at the age of ten. He cares nothing about political science, or medicine, or statesmans.h.i.+p, or the history of literature. These things may be profoundly interesting to a person two or three times as old, but not to him. Other things, however, the story of Ulysses, travel, animals, geography, and history, even arithmetic, may be very attractive to a boy of ten. It becomes a matter of importance to select those studies and parts of studies for children at their changing periods of growth, which are adapted to awaken and stimulate their minds. We shall be saved then from doing what the best of educators have so frequently condemned, namely, when the child asks for bread give him a stone, or when he asks for fish give him a serpent.

The neglect to take proper cognizance of this principle of _interest_ in laying out courses of study and in the manner of presenting subjects is certainly one of the gravest charges that ever can be brought against the schools. It is a sure sign that teachers do not know what it means "to put yourself in his place," to sympathize with children and feel their needs. The educational reformers who have had deepest insight into child-life, have given us clear and profound warnings.

Rousseau says: "Study children, for be sure you do not understand them.

Let childhood ripen in children. The wisest apply themselves to what it is important to _men_ to know, without considering what _children_ are in a condition to learn. They are always seeking the man in the child, without reflecting what he is before he can be a man." It is well for us to take these words home and act upon them.

It is worth the trouble to inquire whether it is possible to select subjects for school study which will prove essentially attractive and interesting from the age of six on. _Are_ there materials for school study which are adapted fully to interest first grade children? We know that fairy stories appeal directly to them, and they love to reproduce them. Reading and spelling in connection with these tales are also stirring studies. Reading a familiar story is certainly a much more interesting employment than working at the almost meaningless sentences of a chart or first reader. Number work when based upon objects can be made to hold the attention of little ones, at least in the last half of the first grade. They love also to see and describe flowers, rocks, plants, and pictures. It probably requires more skillful teaching to awaken and hold the interest in the first grade than in the second or any higher grade, unless older children have been dulled by bad instruction. On what principle is it possible to select both interesting and valuable materials for the successive grades? We will venture to answer this difficult question.

The main interest of children must be attracted by what we may call _real knowledge_ subjects; that is, those treating of people (history stories, etc.,) and those treating of plants, animals, and other natural objects (natural science topics). Grammar, arithmetic, and spelling are chiefly form studies and have less native attraction for children. Secondly, it may be laid down as a fact of experience that children will be more touched and stimulated by _particular_ persons and objects in nature than by any _general_ propositions, or laws, or cla.s.sifications. They prefer seeing a particular palm tree to hearing a general description of palms. A narrative of some special deed of kindness moves them more than a discourse on kindness. They feel a natural drawing toward real, definite persons and things, and an indifference or repulsion toward generalities. They prefer the story to the moral. Children are little materialists. They dwell in the sense-world, or in the world of imagination with very clear and definite pictures.

But while dealing with _things of sense_ and with particulars, it is necessary in teaching children to keep an eye directed toward general cla.s.ses and toward those laws and principles that will be fully appreciated later. In geography, arithmetic, language lessons, and natural science, we must collect more materials in the lower grades; more simple, concrete ill.u.s.trations. They are the basis upon which we can soon begin to generalize and cla.s.sify. The more attractive the ill.u.s.trative materials we select, the stronger the appeal to the child's own liking, the more effective will be the instruction. A way has been discovered to make the study of the concrete and individual lead up with certainty to the grasp of general notions and even of scientific laws as fast as the children are ready for them. If the concrete object or individual is carefully selected it will be a _type_, that is, it ill.u.s.trates a whole cla.s.s of similar objects. Such a typical concrete object really combines the particular and the general. It has all the advantage of object-teaching, the powerful attraction of real things, but its comparison with other objects will also show that it ill.u.s.trates a general law or principle of wide-reaching scientific importance. In both these steps natural interest is provided for in the best way. A full and itemized examination of some attractive object produces as strong an interest as a child is capable of. Then to find out that this object is a sort of key to the right interpretation of other objects, more or less familiar to him, has all the charm of discovery. The _sunflower_, for example, is a large and attractive object for itemized study. It the examination leads a step further to a comparison with other composite flowers, there will be an interesting discovery of kins.h.i.+p with dandelions, asters, thistles, etc. This principle of the type, as ill.u.s.trating both the particular and general, is true also of geographical topics that lead a child far from home and call for the construction of mental pictures. The study of _Pike's Peak_ and vicinity is very interesting and instructive for fourth grade children.

The valleys, springs at Manitou, Garden of the G.o.ds, Cheyenne Canon and Falls, the Cave of the Winds, the ascent of the peak by trail or by railroad, the views of distant mountains, the summit house on the barren and rugged top, the snow fields even in summer, the drifting mists that shut off the view, the stories of hards.h.i.+p and early history--these things take a firm hold on a child's interest and desire for knowledge. When this whole picture is reasonably complete a brief comparison of Pike's Peak with Mt. Was.h.i.+ngton, Mt. Marcy, Mt. Shasta, and Mt. Rainier, will bring forth points of contrast and similarity that will surprise and instruct a child. In every branch of study there are certain underlying principles and forms of thought whose thorough mastery in the lower grades is necessary to successful progress. They are the important and central ideas of the subject. It was a marked quality of Pestalozzi to sift out these simple fundamentals and to master them. It is for us to make these simple elements intelligible and interesting by the use of concrete _types_ and ill.u.s.trations drawn from nature and from human life. If we speak of history and nature as the two chief subjects of study, the simple, fundamental relations of persons to each other in society, and the simple, typical objects, forces, and laws of nature const.i.tute the basis of all knowledge. These elements we desire to master. But to make them attractive to children, they should not be presented in bald and sterile outlines, but in typical forms. All actions and human relations must appear in attractive _personification_.

Persons speak and act and virtues s.h.i.+ne forth in them. We do not study nature's laws at first, but the beautiful, _typical life forms_ in nature, the lily, the oak, Cinderella, and William Tell. For children, then, the underlying ideas and principles of every study, in order to start the interest, must be revealed in the most beautiful ill.u.s.trative forms which can be furnished by nature, poetry, and art. The story of William Tell, although it comes all the way from the Alps and from the distant traditional history of the Swiss, is one of the best things with which to ill.u.s.trate and impress manliness and patriotism. The fairy stories for still younger children, are the best means for teaching kindness or unselfishness, because they are so chaste, and beautiful, and graceful, even to the child's thought. The most attractive type-forms and life-personifications of fundamental ideas in history and nature are the really interesting objects of study for children. To put it in a simple, practical form--objects and human actions, if well selected, are the best means in the world to excite curiosity and the strong spirit of inquiry. While dwelling upon this thought of the attractiveness of type-forms as personified in things or persons, we catch a glimpse of a far-reaching truth in education.

The idea of _culture epochs_, as typical of the steps of progress in the race, and also of the periods of growth in the child, offers a deep perspective into educational problems. In the progress of mankind from a primitive state of barbarism to the present state of culture in Europe and in the United States, there has been a succession of not very clearly defined stages. In point of government, for example, there has been the savage, nomad, patriarch, kingdom, const.i.tutional monarchy, democracy, republic, federal republic. There have been great epochs of political convulsion in the conflicts with external powers and in civil struggles and revolutions. In the growth of handicrafts, arts, manufactures, and inventions, there has been a series of advances from the time when men first began to cultivate the ground, to reduce the metals, and to bring the forces of nature into service. In the development of human society, therefore, and in the progress of arts and human knowledge, there are certain typical stages whose proper use may help us to solve some of the difficult problems in educating the young. All nations have pa.s.sed through some of these important epochs.

The United States, for example, since the first settlements upon the east coast, have gone rapidly through many of the characteristic epochs of the world's history, in politics, commerce, and industry; in social life, education, and religion.

The importance of the culture epochs for schools lies in the theory, accepted by many great writers, that children in their growth from infancy to maturity, pa.s.s through a series of steps which correspond broadly to the historical epochs of mankind. A child's life up to the age of twenty, is a sort of epitome of the world's history. Our present state of culture is a result of growth, and if a child is to appreciate society as it now is, he must grow into it out of the past, by having traveled through the same stages it has traced. But this is only a very superficial way of viewing the relation between child and world history. The periods of child life are so similar to the epochs of history, that a child finds its _proper mental food_ in the study of the materials furnished by these epochs. Let us test this. A child eight years old cares nothing about reciprocity or free silver, or university extension. Robinson Crusoe, however, who typifies mankind's early struggle with the forces of nature, claims his undivided attention. A boy of ten will take more delight in the story of King Alfred or William Tell than in twenty Gladstones or Bismarcks. Not that Gladstone's work is less important or interesting to the right person, but the boy does not live and have his being in the Gladstonian age. Not all parts of history, indeed, are adapted to please and instruct some period of youth. Whole ages have been dest.i.tute of such materials, barren as deserts for educational purposes. But those epochs which have been typical of great experiences, landmarks of progress, have also found poets and historians to describe them. The great works of poets and historians contain also the great _object lessons_ upon which to cultivate the minds of children. Some of the leading characters of fiction and history are the best personifications of the steps of progress in the history of the race; Crusoe, Abraham, Ulysses, Alfred, Tell, David, Charlemagne, Moses, Columbus, Was.h.i.+ngton.

These men, cast in a large and heroic mold, represent great human strivings and are adapted to teach the chief lessons of history, if properly selected and arranged. These typical individual characters ill.u.s.trate the fundamental ideas that will give insight and appreciation for later social forms. They contain, hidden as it were, the essential part of great historical and social truths of far-reaching importance. The culture epochs will be seen later to be important in solving the problem of the _concentration of instruction_ along certain lines, but in the present discussion their value is chiefly seen in their adaptability to arouse the interest of children, by supplying peculiarly congenial materials of instruction in the changing phases of child progress.

The interest most worth awakening in pupils is not only direct but _permanent_. Hawthorne's Golden Touch embodies a simple cla.s.sic truth in such transparent form that its reperusal is always a pleasure. In the same way, to observe the autumn woods and flowers, the birds and insects, with sympathy and delight, leaves a lasting pleasure in the memory. The best kind of knowledge is that which lays a permanent hold upon the affections. The best method of learning is that which opens up any field of study with a growing interest. To awaken a child's permanent interest in any branch of knowledge is to accomplish much for his character and usefulness. An enduring interest in American history, for example, is valuable in the best sense, no matter what the method of instruction. Any companion or book that teaches us to observe the birds with growing interest and pleasure has done what a teacher could scarcely do better. This kind of knowledge becomes a living, generative culture influence. Knowledge which contains no springs of interest is like faith divorced from works. Information and discipline may be gained in education without any lasting interest, but the one who uses such knowledge and discipline is only a machine. A Cambridge student who had taken the best prizes and scholars.h.i.+ps said at the end of his university career: "I am at a loss to know what to do. I have already gained the best distinctions, and I can see but little to work for in the future." The child of four years, who opens his eyes with unfeigned interest and surprised inquiry into the big world around him, has a better spirit than such a dead product of university training. But happily this is not the spirit of our universities now. The remarkable and characteristic idea in university life today is the spirit of investigation and scientific inquiry which it constantly awakens. We happen to live in a time when university teachers are trying to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge in every direction, to solve problems that have not been solved before. No matter what the subject, the real student soon becomes an explorer, an investigator in fields of absorbing interest. The common school can scarcely do better than to receive this generous impulse into its work.

Can our common studies be approached in this inquisitive spirit? Can growth in knowledge be made a progressive investigation? A true interest takes pleasure in acquired knowledge, and standing upon this vantage looks with inquiring purpose into new worlds. Children in our schools are sometimes made so dyspeptic that no knowledge has any relish. But the soul should grow strong, and healthy, and elastic, upon the food it takes. If the teaching is such that the appet.i.te becomes stronger, the mental digestion better, and if the spirit of interest and inquiry grows into a steady force, the best results may be expected.

The cultivation of a _many-sided interest_ is desirable in order to _avoid_ narrowness, and to open up the various sources of mental activity, _i.e._, to stimulate mental vigor along many lines. We believe that most children are capable of taking interest in many kinds of study. The preference which some children show for certain branches and the dislike for others may be due to peculiar early surroundings, and is often the result of good or poor teaching as much as to natural gifts. As every child has sympathies for companions and people, so every child may take a real interest in story, biography, and history, if these subjects are rightly approached. So also the indifference to plant and animal life shown by many persons is due to lack of culture and suitable suggestion at the impressionable age. Unquestionably the lives of most people run in too narrow a channel. They fail to appreciate and enjoy many of the common things about them, to which their eyes have not been properly opened. The particular trade or business so engrosses most people's time that their sympathies are narrowed and their appreciation of the duties and responsibilities of life is stunted. The common school, more than all other inst.i.tutions, should lay broad foundations and awaken many-sided sympathies. The trade school and the university can afford to specialize, to prepare for a vocation. The common school, on the contrary, is preparing all children for general citizens.h.i.+p. The narrowing idea of a trade or calling should be kept away from the public school, and as far as possible varied interests in knowledge should be awakened in every child.

But this variety of interests may lead to scattering and _superficial knowledge_. And in its results many-sided interest would seem to point naturally to many-sided activity; that is, to multiplicity of employments, to that character which in Yankee phrase is designated as "Jack of all trades and master of none." If instead of being allowed to spread out so much, the educational stream is confined between narrow banks, it will show a deep and full current. If allowed to spread over the marshes and plains, it becomes sluggish and brackish.

Our course of study for the common schools in recent years, has been largely added to and has been extended over the whole field of knowledge. History, geography, natural science lessons and drawing have been added to the old reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar.

There may appear to be more variety, but less strength. When in addition to this greater variety of studies, enthusiastic teachers desire to increase the _quant.i.ty_ of knowledge in each branch and to present as many interesting facts as possible, at every point, we have the _over-loading_ of the school course. This effect will be noticed in a later chapter in its bearing upon concentration. Children have too much to learn. They become pack-horses, instead of free spirits walking in the fields of knowledge. _Mental vigor_, after all, is worth more than a mind grown corpulent and lazy with an excess of pabulum, overfed. The cultivation therefore of a many-sided interest ceases to be a blessing as soon as encyclopedic knowledge becomes its aim. In fact the desire on the part of teachers to make the knowledge of any subject complete and encyclopedic destroys all true interest.

The solution of this great problem does not consist in identifying many-sided interest with encyclopedic knowledge, but in such a detailed study of _typical_ forms in each case as will give insight into that branch without any pretension to exhaustive knowledge. Certainly a true interest in plants does not require that we become acquainted with all the species of all the genera. But a proper study of a few typical forms in a few of the families and genera might produce a much deeper interest in nature and in her laws.

The culture of a many-sided interest is essential to a full development and _perfection_ of the mental activities. It is easy to see that interest in any subject gives all thought upon it a greater vigor and intensify. Mental action in all directions is strengthened and vivified by a direct interest. On the other hand mental life diminishes with the loss of interest, and even in fields of knowledge in which a man has displayed unusual mastery, a loss of interest is followed by a loss of energy. Excluding interest is like cutting off the circulation from a limb. Perfect vigor of thought which we aim at in education, is marked by strength along three lines, the vigor of the individual ideas, the extent and variety of ideas under control, and the connection and harmony of ideas. It is the highest general aim of intellectual education to strengthen mental vigor in these three directions. Many-sided interest is conducive to all three. Every thought that finds lodgment in the mind is toned up and strengthened by interest. It is also easier to retain and reproduce some idea that has once been grasped with full feeling of interest. An interest that has been developed along all leading lines of study has a proper breadth and comprehensiveness and cannot be hampered and clogged by narrow restraints and prejudice. We admire a person not simply because he has a few clear ideas, but also for the extent and variety of this sort of information. Our admiration ceases when he shows ignorance or prejudice or lack of sympathy with important branches of study.

Finally, the unity and harmony of the varied kinds of knowledge are a great source of interest. The tracing of connections between different studies and the insight that comes from proper a.s.sociations, are among the highest delights of learning. The connection and harmony of ideas will be discussed under concentration.

The six interests above mentioned are to be developed along parallel lines. They are to be kept in proper _equipoise_. It is not designed that anyone shall be developed to the overshadowing of the others.

They are like six pillars upon which the structure of a liberal education is rested. A cultivation of any one, exclusively, may be in place when the work of general education is complete and a profession or life labor has been chosen.

It is also true that a proper interest is a _protection_ against the desires, disorderly impulses, and pa.s.sions. One of the chief ends of education is to bring the inclinations and importunate desires under mastery, to establish a counterpoise to them by the steady and persistent forces of education. A many-sided interest cultivated along the chief paths of knowledge, implies such mental vigor and such preoccupation with worthy subjects as naturally to discourage unworthy desires.

Locke says, self-restraint, the mastery over one's inclinations, is the foundation of virtue. "He that has found a way how to keep a child's spirit easy, active, and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to reconcile these seeming contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education."

But it is a secret still; the central question remains unanswered. How is the teacher to approach and influence the will of the child? Is it by supposing that the child has a will already developed and strong enough to be relied upon on all occasions? On the contrary, must not the teacher put incentives in the path of the pupil, ideas and feelings that prompt him to self-denial?

Interest as a source of _will-stimulus_ has peculiar advantages. It is not desired that the inclinations and feelings shall get the mastery of the mind, certainly not the disorderly and momentary desires. Higher desires, indeed, should properly influence the will, as the desire of the approval of conscience, the desire to attain excellence, to gain strength and mastery, to serve others, etc. But the importance of awakening interest as a basis of will cultivation is found in the favorable mental state induced by interest as a preliminary to will action along the best lines. Interest is not an impetuous force like the desires, prompting to instant action, but a quiet, permanent undertone, which brings everything into readiness for action, clears the deck, and begins the attack. It would be a vast help to many boys and girls if the irksomeness of study in arithmetic or grammar, which is so fatal to will energy, could give way to the spur of interest, and when the wheels are once set in motion, progress would not only begin but be sustained by interest.

It is pretty generally agreed to by thoughtful educators, that in giving a child the broad foundations of education, we should aim not so much at knowledge as at capacity and _appreciation_ for it. A universal receptivity, such as Rousseau requires of Emile, is a desideratum. Scarcely a better dowry can be bestowed upon a child by education, than a desire for knowledge and an intelligent interest in all important branches of study. Herbart's many-sided interest is to strengthen and branch out from year to year during school life, and become a permanent tendency or force in later years. No school can give even an approach to full and encyclopedic knowledge, but no school is so humble that it may not throw open the doors and present many a pleasing prospect into the fields of learning.

With Herbart, therefore, a many-sided, harmonious interest promotes _will-energy_ through all the efforts of learning from childhood up, and when the work of general education has been completed, the youth is ready to launch out into the world with a strong, healthy appet.i.te for information in many directions. The best fruitage of such a course will follow in the years that succeed school life. Interest is a very practical thing. It is that which gives force and momentum to ideas.

It is not knowledge itself, but, like the invisible principle of life, it converts dead matter into living energy. In our schools thus far we have had too much faith in the mechanics of education. Too much virtue has been imputed to facts, to knowledge, to sharp tools. We have now to learn that _incentive_ is a more important thing in education; that is, a direct, permanent, many-sided interest.

CHAPTER IV.

CONCENTRATION.

By concentration is meant such a connection between the parts of each study and such a spinning of relations and connecting links between different sciences that unity may spring out of the variety of knowledge. History, for example, is a series and collocation of facts explainable on the basis of cause and effect, a development. On the other hand, history is intimately related to geography, language, natural science, literature, and mathematics. It would be impossible to draw real history out by the roots without drawing all other studies out bodily with it. Is there then any reason why school history should ignore its blood relations.h.i.+ps to other branches of knowledge?

Concentration is so bound up with the idea of _character-forming_ that it includes more than school studies. It lays hold of _home influences_ and all the experiences of life outside of school and brings them into the daily service of school studies. It is just as important to bind up home experience with arithmetic, language, and other studies as it is to see the connection between geography and history. In the end, all the knowledge and experience gained by a person at home, at school, and elsewhere should be cla.s.sified and related, each part brought into its right a.s.sociations with other parts.

Nor is it simply a question of throwing the varied sorts of _knowledge_ into a net-work of crossing and interwoven series so that the person may have ready access along various lines to all his knowledge stores.

Concentration draws the _feelings_ and the _will_ equally into its circle of operations. To imagine a character without feeling and will would be like thinking a watch without a mainspring. All knowledge properly taught generates feeling. The will is steadily laying out, during the formative period of education, the highways of its future ambitions and activities. Habits of willing are formed along the lines of a.s.sociated thought and feeling. The more feeling and will are enlisted through all the avenues of study and experience, the more permanent will be their influence upon character.

In attempting to solve the problem of concentration the question has been raised whether a _single study_, the most important, of course, should const.i.tute a concentrating nucleus, like the hub in a wheel, or whether _all studies_ and _experience_ are to be brought into an organic whole of related parts. It is evident that history and natural science at least hold a leading place among studies and determine to some extent the selection of materials in reading and language lessons.

The _center_ for concentrating efforts in education is not so much the knowledge given in any school course as the _child's mind_ itself. We do not desire to find in the school studies a new center for a child's life so much as the means for fortifying that original stronghold of character which rests upon native mental characteristics and early home influences. We have in mind not the objective unity of different studies considered as complete and related sciences, nor any general model to which each mind is to be conformed, but the practical union of all the experiences and knowledge that find entrance into a particular mind.

The _unity of the personality_ as gradually developed in a child by wise education is essential to strength of character. Ackerman says on this point, ("Ueber Concentration," p. 20.) "In behalf of character development, which is the ultimate aim of all educative effort, pedagogy requires of instruction that it aid in forming the _unity of the personality_, the most primitive basis of character. In requiring that the unity of the personality be formed it is presupposed that this unity is not some original quality, but something to be first developed. It remains for psychology to prove this and to indicate in what manner the unity of the personality originates. Now, psychology teaches that the personality, the ego, is not something original, but something that must be first developed and is also changeable and variable. The ego is nothing else than a psychological phenomenon, namely, the consciousness of an interchange between the parts of an extensive complex of ideas, or the reference of all our ideas and of the other psychical states springing out of them to each other.

Experience teaches this. In infancy the ego, the personality, is consciously realized in one person sooner, in another later. In the different ages of life, also, the personality possesses a different content. The deeper cause for the mutual reference of all our manifold ideas to each other and for their union in a single point, as it were, may be found in the _simplicity of the soul_, which constrains into unity all things that are not dissociated by hindrance or contradiction. The soul, therefore, in the face of the varied influences produced by contact with nature and society, is active in concentrating its ideas, so that with mental soundness as a basis, the ego, once formed, in spite of all the transitions through which it may pa.s.s, still remains the same."

There is then a natural _tendency_ of the mind _to unify_ all its ideas, feelings, incentives. On the other hand the knowledge and experiences of life are so varied and seemingly contradictory that a young person, if left to himself or if subjected to a wrong schooling, will seldom work his way to harmony and unity. In spite of the fact that the soul is a simple unit and tends naturally to unify all its contents, the common experience of life discovers in it unconnected and even antagonistic thought and knowledge-centers. People are sometimes painfully surprised to see how the same mind may be lifted by exalted sentiments and depressed by the opposite. The frequent examples that come to notice of men of superiority and virtue along certain lines, who give way to weakness and wrong in other directions, are sufficient evidence that good and evil may be systematically cultivated in the same character, and that instead of unity and harmony education may collect in the soul heterogeneous and warring elements which make it a battle ground for life. All such disharmony and contradiction lend inconsistency and weakness to character. Not only can incompatible lines of thought and of moral action become established in the same person, but even those studies which could be properly harmonized and unified by education may lie in the mind so disjointed and unrelated as to render the person awkward and helpless in spite of much knowledge.

In unifying the various parts of school education, and in bringing them into close connection with children's other experiences, the school life fulfills one of its chief duties.

Among other things tending toward consistency of character there must be _harmony between the school and home_ life of a child. At home or among companions, perhaps unknown to the teacher, a boy or girl may be forming an habitual tendency and desire, more powerful than any other force in his life, and yet at variance with the best influence of the school. If possible the teacher should draw the home and school into a closer bond so as to get a better grasp of the situation and of its remedy. The school will fail to leave an effective impress upon such a child unless it can get a closer hold upon the sympathies and thus neutralize an evil tendency. It must league itself with better home influences so as to implant its own impulses in home life. How to unify home and school influences is one of those true and abiding problems of education that appeals strongly and sympathetically to parents and teachers.