The Children: Some Educational Problems Part 7

[31] Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, p. 292.

[32] _Ibid._ p. 329.

CHAPTER X

THE AIM OF THE INFANT SCHOOL

It is needless to point out that the method of educating the infant mind is the method of all education--viz., the regulation of the process by which experiences are acquired and organised so as to render the performance of future action more efficient. This, as we shall see later, is the fundamental truth at the foundation of the Kindergarten method of Froebel, and it must guide and control our conduct not only during the earlier stages but throughout the whole process of education.

Moreover, since the early acquisitions of the child are the bases upon which all further knowledge and practice are founded, we must realise how important these first experiences are for the whole future development of the child. Further, we have seen that all education--all acquiring and organising of experience in early life--must be motived by the felt desire to satisfy some instinctive need of the child's nature, and that it is these instinctive needs which determine the nature and scope of his early activities.

Later, indeed, acquired interests may be grafted upon the innate and instinctive needs, but at the beginning and during his first years the child's whole life is determined by the primitive desires of human nature.

Now, the first instinctive need which requires the aid of education is the need felt by the child to acquire some measure of control over his bodily movements and over the things in his immediate physical environment. Hence the first stage in education is the regulation of the process by which the child acquires and organises those experiences which shall give him this control. Nature herself indeed provides the means for the attainment of this end, but education can do much to aid in the attainment and to shorten the period of incomplete attainment. By means of the a.s.sistance given, the control exercised and the direction afforded, we enable the child to organise the lower centres of the nervous system which have to do with the control of the larger bodily movements, and thus establish organised systems of means for the attainment of certain definite ends.

The second stage supervenes when the need is felt by the child for some measure of control over his social environment. For the young child soon realises that it is only in so far as he can exert some influence over the persons intimately connected with his welfare that he can make his wants known and find means for the satisfaction of his desires. Hence arises the need for some method of communication with his fellows, and from this springs the desire for some system of signs and for a language to enable him to make his wants known. Chiefly by means of the educative process of imitating the experiences of others, he gradually acquires a language and finds himself at home in his social world.

During this period the centres called into activity, developed, and organised are mainly those connected with the lip and speech centres, and a certain stage of organisation having been attained, the opportunity is now afforded for the fuller functional development of the higher centres entrusted with the duty of receiving, discriminating, and co-ordinating the data of the special organs of sense.

The period during which the child is gradually acquiring control over his immediate physical and social environments may roughly be said to extend to the end of his third year.

From that time onwards the worlds of nature and of society for their own sake become objects of curiosity to the child. Every new object presents him with a variety of fresh sensations. He feels, tastes, and bites everything that comes within his reach, and so acquires a world of new experiences. Hence for "the first six years of his life a child has quite enough to do in learning its place in the universe and the nature of its surroundings, and to compel it during any part of that period to give its attention to mere words and symbols is to stint it of the best part of its education for that which is only of secondary importance, and to weaken the foundations of its whole mental fabric."[33]

If, then, during this period the child is left wholly to gather his experiences as he may, he no doubt acquires by his own self-activity a world of new ideas, but the result of this unregulated process will be that the knowledge gained will be largely unsystematised, and much of the experience acquired may be of a nature which may give a false direction to his whole after-development. Hence arise three needs. In the first place, we must endeavour to see that new experiences are presented to the child in some systematic manner, in order that the knowledge may be so organised that it may serve as means to the attainment of ends, and so render future activity more accurate and more efficient. In the second place, we must endeavour to prevent the acquisition of experiences which if allowed to be organised would give an immoral direction to conduct; and in the third place, we must endeavour to establish early in the mind of the child organised systems of means which may hereafter result in the prevalence of activities socially useful to the community.

Now, these three aims are or should be the aims of the Kindergarten School, and we shall now inquire into the ends which the Kindergarten School sets before it, and for this purpose we shall state the fundamental principles which Froebel himself laid down as the guiding principles of this stage of education.

On its intellectual side the Kindergarten as conceived by Froebel has four distinct aims in view. The first aim is by means of comparing and contrasting a series of objects presented in some regular and systematic manner to lead the child to note the likenesses and differences between the things, and so through and by means of his own self-activity to build up coherent and connected systems of ideas. By this method the teacher builds up in the mind of the young child systems of ideas regarding the colours, forms, and other sense qualities of the more common objects of his environment. The second aim is by means of some form of concrete construction to give expression to the knowledge so gained, to make this knowledge more accurate and definite, and thus by a dialectical return to make the experiences of the child definite and accurate, so as to render future action more efficient, and thus pave the way for further progress. The third aim is to utilise the play-activity of the child in the acquisition of new experiences and in their outward concrete expression. The fourth is to engage the child in the production of something socially useful, something which engages his genuine work-activity. In short, what Froebel clearly realised was that the mere taking in of new experiences by the child mind in any order was not sufficient. Experiences to be useful for efficient action must be a.s.similated--must be organised into a system--and in order that this may be possible the experiences must be presented in such a manner as will render them capable of being organised. Moreover, this mere taking in of new experiences is not enough. There must be a giving out or expression of the knowledge acquired, for it is only in so far as we can turn to use new experiences that we can be sure that they are really ours. Now, since the forms of expression natural to the young child are those which evoke his practical constructive efforts, all outward expression in its earlier stages must a.s.sume a concrete form. The aim of the so-called "Gifts" in Froebel's scheme is to build up an organised system of sense-knowledge; the aim of the "Occupations" of the Kindergarten is to develop the power of concrete expression of the child. The "Gifts" and the "Occupations" are correlative methods,--the one concerned with the taking in, the other with the outward expression of the same experience,--and throughout either aspect of the process the reason-activity of the child must be evoked both in the acquisition and in the expression of the new experience. Physiologically, this twofold process implies that during the Kindergarten period the sensory areas of the brain are being exercised and organised and that the a.s.sociative activity evoked is concerned with the co-ordination of the impressions derived through these areas. Psychologically, it implies that during this period we are mainly concerned with the formation of perceptual systems of knowledge composed of data derived through the special senses and through the active movements of the hands and limbs. Such a process, moreover, is a necessary preliminary for the full after-development of the higher a.s.sociation centres of the brain and for the formation by the mind of conceptual systems of knowledge.

For if we attempt prematurely to exercise the higher centres before the lower have reached a certain measure of development, if we attempt to form conceptual systems of knowledge, such as all language and number systems are, without first laying a sound perceptual basis, then we may do much to hinder future mental growth, if we do not even inflict a positive injury to the child. For the education of the senses neglected, "all after-education partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, and an insufficiency which it is impossible to cure."[34]

On its moral and social side the aims of the Kindergarten School are no less important. If left to follow the naive instinctive needs of his nature and to gather experiences where and how he may, the child is likely to make acquisitions which later may issue in wrong conduct.

Hence one aim of the Kindergarten is to present experiences which may eventually issue in right conduct, and to prevent the acquisition of experiences of an immoral kind. Hence also its insistence upon the need of carefully selecting the environment of the young child, so that as far as possible its early experiences--its first acquisitions--shall be of a healthy nature. Moreover, by means of the organised activities of the school, and by utilising the play-instinct of the child, it seeks to form and establish certain habits of future social worth to the community and to the individual. For, by means of the games and occupations of the Kindergarten School, the child may first of all learn what it means to co-operate with his fellows for a common end or purpose; may learn to submit to authority which he dimly and imperfectly, it may be, perceives to be reasonable; may be trained to habits of accuracy, of order, and of obedience. Above all, the Kindergarten system may rouse and foster in the mind of the child that sense of a corporate life and of a common social spirit the prevalence of which in after-life is the only secure foundation of society.

In England the extreme importance of the education of the infant mind has been, in recent years, clearly acknowledged. The new regulations of the Board of Education no longer allow children under five years of age to be included as "an integral part of a three-R grant-earning Elementary School." A special curriculum has been set forth for their education. They are to have opportunities provided "for the free development of their bodies and minds and for the formation of habits of obedience and attention."[35] What are known as "Kindergarten Occupations are not merely pleasant pastimes for children: if so regarded, they are not intelligently used by the teacher. Their purpose is to stimulate intelligent individual effort, to furnish training of the senses of sight and touch, to promote accurate co-ordination of hand movements with sense impressions, and, not least important, to implant a habit of obedience."

"Formal teaching, even by means of Kindergarten Occupations, is undesirable for children under five. At this stage it is sufficient to give the child opportunity to use his senses freely. To attempt formal teaching will almost inevitably mean, with some of the children, either restraint or over-stimulation, with constant danger to mental growth and health."[36]

From these extracts from the _Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers_ of the Head of the English Board of Education, it will be evident that the spirit of the "Kindergarten" now largely enters into the curriculum of the infant cla.s.ses. In the future we may hope to see it carried further and that no formal teaching of the child will be undertaken during the first six years of his life. Further, we may hope to see in the future the infant departments of our schools more thoroughly organised than they are at present on the Kindergarten principle, and the curriculum of the Infant School so devised that it shall fit into and pave the way for the curriculum of the Elementary School. For at the earlier stage much may be done by the methods of the Kindergarten to lay the basis for the teaching of the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic which it is the main business of the Primary School to lead the child to acquire. _E.g._, at the earlier stage, by the breaking up and reconstructing of concrete groups of things, the child can be initiated into the meaning of a number system. By means of pictures and of concrete forms he can be made gradually acquainted with alphabetic forms, and this teaching lays the basis for the future acquisition of the abstract symbols of printed and written words.

But while much has been done in England to recognise the importance of the early education of the child for the after moral and social good both of the individual and of the community, and to place the instruction of the infant cla.s.ses in the Public Elementary Schools upon a rational basis, little attention has been paid in Scotland to this subject. As a rule, children in that country do not enter school before the age of five, and there is no separate provision made for the teaching of children under that age; in fact, all scholars under seven years of age are cla.s.sified together and form the Junior Division of the school.

Such a state of matters reflects but little credit on the educational leaders of Scotland, and indicates an imperfect conception of the real nature of the educative process. For if education is the process of acquiring and organising experiences in order to render future action more efficient, it is surely the height of folly to allow the young child to gather his early experiences as he may. Moreover, in the case of the children of the slums, to allow them during their early years to gather into their brain without any correcting agency "all the sights and scenes of a slum is sheer social madness." "The child must be removed, or partially removed, from such an atmosphere, since it has reached the imitative stage, and is nearing the selective stage of life.

For the moment he imitates anything; presently he will imitate what pleases him, what gives him momentary pleasure. Before the unmoral selective stage is reached, the stage which inevitably precedes the moral and immoral selective stage, it is essential that children should receive definite and deliberate guidance, that the imitative faculty should be controlled."[37] In the case of the children of the poorer districts this can be done only through the agency of the Infant School.

Much may be done by making the instruction of the school attractive, to counteract the evil influences of the home and social environment, and to lead the child to acquire and organise experiences which will issue in moral and not in immoral conduct.

Hence what we need in the poorer districts of our large towns is Free Kindergarten Schools from which all formal teaching of the three R's is abolished, where for several hours in each day the child may be trained to use his senses in the accurate discrimination and accurate systematisation of sense knowledge; where he may have his constructive activities evoked by the expression in concrete form of what he has been led to perceive through the medium of the senses; where he may be trained to habits of order, of cleanliness, of submission to authority; and where for a time, at least, he may be accustomed to live in a purer and healthier atmosphere than he can find at home or in the street, and where for a brief s.p.a.ce he may have that feeling of home which he cannot find at home.[38]

The establishment in the poorer districts of our great towns of schools whose education follows the method of the Kindergarten if accompanied by some system of feeding the child would do much to secure the after social efficiency of the rising generation, and would by its reaction on the home-life tend gradually to raise the ideals of the very poor.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] _The Nervous System and Education_, by Sir James Crichton Browne, _ibid._ p. 345.

[34] _The Nervous System and Education_, by Sir James Crichton Browne, _ibid._ p. 345.

[35] Cf. on this subject the chapter on "School Nurseries" in _National Education and National Life_, ibid.

[36] _Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers_, chap. iii. (issued by the English Board of Education).

[37] Montmorency's _National Education and National Life_, ibid. p. 143.

The chapter on "School Nurseries" should be read by everyone, and especially by every Scotsman interested in the education of young children.

[38] Cf. Charles Lamb's Essay on _Popular Fallacies_.

CHAPTER XI

THE AIM OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL

During the past thirty years no part of our educational system has received so much attention as the Elementary Schools of the country. If we compare the condition of things which prevails at the present time with that which existed previous to 1870, there can be no doubt that a great advance has been made both in the better provision of the means of education and in the efficiency of the instruction given. Previous to 1870 a large number of the children of the poor received no education.[39] Of those attending school many left with but a scanty knowledge. Now practically every child[40] receives a training in the primary arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic; and with the gradual extension of the period during which the child must attend school, it has become possible to ensure that a larger and larger number of children leaving our Elementary Schools have received an education which may be of value for the after-fulfilment of the simpler practical ends of life. Again, previous to 1870 the school buildings were in many cases unfit for their purpose; now the Elementary Schools of the country both in their building arrangements and equipment are as a rule much superior to the voluntary and endowed schools providing secondary education.

Previous to 1870 anyone was thought good enough to undertake the work of teaching; since that time more and more attention has been paid to the qualifications of the teacher and to securing that he shall have attained a certain standard of education, and have received a certain measure of training before engaging upon the work of the instruction of the young. We, _e.g._, no longer entrust the instruction of the younger children in the school to the older, as was the custom under the monitorial system of Bell and Lancaster, and with the abolition of the pupil-teacher the last remnant of a system introduced at the beginning of the nineteenth century, as the only remedy to meet the dire educational necessities of the time, will have been removed.

But in spite of the great advances which have been made, there is a deep-seated feeling now beginning to find expression, that somehow or other the Elementary School has not realised all the expectations that were once thought likely to result from the universal education of the children of the nation, and that in particular the Primary School has failed to foster and to establish the moral and social qualities necessary for the welfare of a State whose government is founded on the representative principle.

This, it seems to me, is largely due to the wrong conception of the aims which the Primary School is intended to realise--a conception which prevailed for many years after the introduction of compulsory elementary education. For some time now, and especially during the past few years, a counter-reaction has set in against the narrowness of the aims of the preceding period, and like all reactions it tends to go to the opposite extreme, and so to broaden the aims of the Primary School as to be in danger of failing to realise efficiently any one of the ends which it sets before it.

The state of things immediately preceding 1870 not unnaturally gave rise to the idea that the acquisition of the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic was the one indispensable object to be attained in the elementary education of the child. This conviction was strengthened by the system of Government grants introduced into both English and Scotch schools, payments to school managers being largely based upon the successes obtained in pa.s.ses in the three elementary subjects.

Certain results naturally followed. In the first place, no provision was made for the special education of the infant cla.s.ses. Since the after-success of the child was measured by his attainments in the three R's, the sooner the infant mind was introduced to these subjects the better the after-result might be expected to be. Thus the grant-earning capacity of the child became the teacher's chief consideration. In the second place, the energies of the teacher were directed to secure a certain mechanical accuracy in the use of the three elementary arts rather than their intelligent apprehension. As a consequence, these subjects came in time to be thought of as subjects worthy of attainment for their own sake and their acquisition as an end in itself. Hence it was forgotten that the acquisition and organisation of these systems of elementary knowledge are only valuable because they are the indispensable means of all intercourse, of all commerce, and of all culture. Hence also their use as instruments for the after-realisation of many purposes in life tended to be neglected, or at least to fall into the background. Individual teachers, no doubt, in many cases realised the partial error in this conception of the aims of the Primary School, but the demands of Government inspectors and of school authorities, with their rule-of-thumb methods of testing the success of the teacher's work by the percentage of pa.s.ses gained, tended often to make the teacher, in spite of his better judgment, look upon the child mainly as a three-R grant-earning subject and to consider the chief aim of primary education to be the securing of a certain mechanical proficiency in the use of the three elementary arts.

Under such a method of examination it was certainly necessary for the teacher to pay some attention to the individuality of the child. If his efforts were to be at all successful it was inc.u.mbent upon him to discover as early as possible the range of the child's previous knowledge in the three grant-earning subjects and to find out in which of the three the power of acquisition of the child was naturally weak or naturally strong. Where the number of children in a cla.s.s was large, little individual attention could, of course, be paid to the child, and in such cases the acquisition of the subject was aided by the mechanical drilling of sections of the cla.s.s and by recourse to all manner of devices for ensuring the accurate acquisition of the essential subjects.

As a result of this partial and one-sided conception little attention was paid to the use to which these subjects may be put in the realisation of the practical ends of life. Arithmetic, _e.g._, seemed to the child to be made up of a number of kinds of arithmetic, each process having its own rules and methods of procedure; but it never entered into his mind, and but seldom into that of his teacher, that the various arithmetical processes are at bottom but diverse forms of the one fundamental process of adding to or subtracting from a group. Proportion was one kind of arithmetic, simple interest another, but that these processes symbolised real group-forming processes, or that they had to do with any of the realities of life, was apprehended, if at all, in the most imperfect and hazy manner.

In a similar manner, the overcoming of the mechanical difficulties of language construction occupied the major portion of the attention of the child during the school period, and the function of language in conveying a knowledge of things and persons and events received but a small share of his attention. Meanings of words were indeed tabulated and learnt by heart, and as a rule the child on examination-day could make a fair show in deluding the inspector that the pa.s.sage read was intelligently apprehended. In very much the same way, the overcoming of the mechanical difficulties of writing and the drilling of the child to form his letters in a uniform style received the chief share of the school-time devoted to the subject.

The interest and attention of the child having been thus mainly occupied in the overcoming of the mechanical difficulties involved in the learning of the three grant-earning subjects, and little attention having been paid to the use of these arts, it followed that upon the conclusion of the school period the child left the school without any real interests having been established as the result of the educative process.

Moreover, except in so far as by their teaching we may establish habits of order and of accuracy, the three elementary subjects in themselves possess no moral or social intent; hence unless we can make the child realise their value as instruments for the attainment of ends of social worth they in themselves fail to play any important part in the building up of character.

Let me put this in another way. We have defined education as the process of acquiring and systematising experiences that will render future action more efficient, or alternatively it is the process by which we organise and establish in the mind systems of ideas for the attainment of ends. But if we make the acquisition of these elementary arts ends in themselves, then it follows that the more efficient action we seek to realise is the more efficient manipulation of a number system or a language system. If, however, we realise that these arts are but means to the realisation of other ends, then we shall understand that it is the character of the latter which mainly determines the resulting character of the education given.