A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education Part 9

When a child hears, or reads a pa.s.sage, the teacher, who understands it himself, too often takes it for granted that the child as he proceeds is reiterating the ideas as well as himself, and is of course master of the subject. But this is not always the case; and wherever the child has not succeeded in doing so, all that follows in that lesson is usually to the child the cause of confusion and difficulty. He finds himself at a stand; and however far he may in these circ.u.mstances be dragged forward, he has not advanced a step, and he must at some future period,--and the sooner the better,--return again to the same point, and proceed anew under serious disadvantages.

In almost every stage of a child's education, the neglect of this principle is seriously and painfully felt. It is the cause of acute mental suffering to well affected and zealous pupils; and it is the chief origin of all the heartlessness, and idleness, and apathy, which are found to pervade and regulate the conduct of those that are less active. A careful appliance of this principle of individuation, therefore, is always of importance in education; but it ought never to be forgotten, that it is more peculiarly valuable and necessary at the commencement, than at any other period of a child's progress in learning. We shall advert to a few of the methods by which it may be applied in ordinary school education, in contrast with some instances in which it is neglected.

In teaching the alphabet to children, the principle of individuation is indispensable; and its neglect has been productive of serious and permanent mischief. A child of good capacity, by a proper attention to this principle, will, with pleasure and ease, learn the names and forms of the letters, with the labour of only a few hours;[15] while, by neglecting the principle, the same child would, after years of irritation and weariness, be still found ignorant of its alphabet. The overlooking of the principle at this period has done an immense deal of injury to the cause of education. It has, at the very starting post in the race of improvement, quenched and destroyed all the real, as well as the imaginary delights of learning and knowledge. It has given the tyro such an erroneous but overwhelming impression of the difficulties and miseries which he must endure in his future advance, that the disgust then created has often so interwoven itself with his every feeling, that education has during life appeared to him the natural and necessary enemy to every kind of enjoyment.

It used to be common, and the practice may still we believe be found lingering among some of the lovers of antiquity, to make a child commence at the letter A, and proceed along the alphabet without stopping till he arrived at Z; and this lesson not unfrequently included both the alphabets of capitals and small letters. Now the cruelty of such an exercise with a child will at once be apparent, if we shall only change its form. If a teacher were to read over to an infant twice a-day a whole page or paragraph _without stopping_ of Caesar or Cicero in Latin, and demand that on hearing it he shall learn it, we could at once judge of the difficulty, and the feelings of a volatile mind chained to the constant and daily repet.i.tion of such a task; and if this exercise were termed its "education," we can easily conceive the amount of affection that the child would learn to cherish towards it. Now this is really no exaggerated ill.u.s.tration of the matter in hand, for in both cases the principle of individuation, so carefully guarded and enforced by Nature, is equally outraged; and it is only where, by some means or other, a remedy for the evil accidentally occurs, that the result in the case of the alphabet, is not exactly the same as it would have been in the case of the cla.s.sics above supposed. The writer once saw in a Sunday school, where the children were taught twice each Sabbath, a cla.s.s in which some of the children had attended for upwards of two years, and were still in their alphabet; and if the same mode had been pursued, there is little doubt that they would have been in it yet.

The remedy for this evil is obvious. Instead of confounding the eye and the mind of the child, by rapidly parading twenty-six, or fifty-four forms, continuously and without intermission before the pupil, the letters ought to be presented to the child singly, or at most by two at a time; and these two should be rendered familiar, both in name and in form, before another character is introduced. When a few of the more conspicuous letters have become familiar, another is to be brought forward, and the child may be made to amuse himself, by picking out from a page of a book, all the letters he has learned, naming them, and if necessary describing them to a companion or a sub-monitor as they occur.

Or he may be set down by himself, with a waste leaf from an old book, or pamphlet, or newspaper, to p.r.i.c.k with a pin the new letter or letters last taught him; or, as an introduction to his writing, he may be made to score them gently with ink from a fine tipped pen. In these exercises, and all others which are in their nature similar, the principle of individuation is acknowledged and acted upon; and therefore it is, that a child will, by their means, acquire an acquaintance with the letters in an exceedingly short time, and, which is of still greater importance, without irritation or trouble. These methods may sometimes be rendered yet more effective, by the teacher applying the catechetical exercise to this comparatively dry and rather forbidding part of a child's education. It proceeds upon the principle of describing each letter, and attaching its name to the description, such as "round o,"

"spectacle g," "top dotted i," &c. as in the "Cla.s.sified Alphabet." The teacher has thus an opportunity of exercising the child's imagination, as well as its memory, and making a monotonous, and comparatively unintellectual exercise, one of considerable variety and amus.e.m.e.nt.

In teaching the alphabet to adults, whose minds are capable of appreciating and applying the principle of a.n.a.lysis, the "Cla.s.sified Alphabet" should invariably be used. By this means their memory, in endeavouring to recall the form and name of any particular letter, instead of having to search through the whole _twenty-six_, has never to think of more than the four or five which compose its cla.s.s,--a circ.u.mstance which makes the alphabet much more easily acquired by the adult than by a child. But even here, the principle of individuation must not be lost sight of; each letter in the cla.s.s must be separately learned, and each cla.s.s must be familiar, before another is taught.

The principle of individuation continues to be equally necessary in teaching children to combine the letters in the formation of words; and when it is attended to, and when the only real use of letters, as the mere symbols of sound, is understood by the pupil, a smart child may be taught to read in a few minutes. This is not a theory, but a fact,--evidenced in the experience of many, and in the presence of thousands. Nor is it necessary that the words which are taught, should consist only of two or three letters; if the word be familiar to the child in speech, it becomes instantly known, when divided and taught in parts or syllables; and when once it is learned by the sounds of the letters, though these sounds merely approximate to the p.r.o.nunciation of the word, it is sufficient to give a _hint_ of what the word is, and when once it is known, it will not likely be again forgotten. By this means, the child is never puzzled except by entirely new words; and by knowing the use of the letters in their sounds, he receives a key by which at least to _guess_ at them, which the sense of the subject greatly a.s.sists; so that one day, or even one hour, is sometimes, and we have no doubt will soon be generally, sufficient to overcome the hitherto forbidding and hara.s.sing drudgery of learning to read.

In teaching children their first lessons, it is of great importance that the main design of reading should be clearly understood, and attended to. As writing, philosophically considered, is nothing more than an artificial subst.i.tute for speaking, so reading is nothing more than an artificial subst.i.tute for hearing, and is subject to all the laws which regulate that act. Now one of the chief laws impressed by Nature on the act of _hearing_ the speech of others, is the very remarkable one formerly alluded to, namely, the exclusive occupation of the mind with the _ideas_ communicated, to the entire exclusion of the _words_, which are merely the means by which the ideas are conveyed. The words are no doubt heard, but they are never thought of;--for if they were, the mind would instantly become distracted, and the ideas would be lost. This law equally applies to the act of _reading_; and every one feels, that perfection in this art is never attained, till the mind is exclusively occupied with the ideas in the book, and never in any case with the words which convey them. But in learning to read, the difficulty of decyphering the words, tends to interfere with this law, and this must be guarded against. The remedy simply is, to allow the child time to overcome this first difficulty, by repeatedly, if necessary, reading the sentence till he can read it perfectly; and then, before leaving it, to discipline the mind to the perception of the ideas it contains, now that the child can read it well.

The catechetical exercise, as in the "First Cla.s.s Book on the Lesson System," will almost always accomplish the object here pointed out; and the value of the exercise it recommends will be best understood and appreciated, by observing the evils which invariably follow its neglect.

For if the child be allowed to read on and on, while the difficulty of decyphering the words in the book remains, the ideas will be left behind, the attention will be fatigued, and at last exhausted. The child will continue to read without understanding; and the habit thus acquired of reading the words, without perceiving the ideas at all, will soon be established and confirmed. Custom has robbed this relict of a former age of much of its repulsiveness; but it is not the less hurtful on that account. Were we to run a parallel with it in any other matter, its true nature and deformity would at once appear. For example, were we to suppose ourselves listening to an imperative message from a superior, by a messenger with whose language we were but partially acquainted, we would not allow him to proceed with his communication from beginning to end, while the very first sentence he uttered, had not been understood, and the mind was unprepared for that which was to follow. We would stop him at the close of the very first sentence, and would master the meaning of that, before we would advance with him another step; and then we would make him proceed at such a pace as we could keep up with him.

If he left us again behind, there would be but one remedy. He must return and repeat the sentence where he left us, till we had comprehended his master's meaning; and if he refused to do this, he could not conscientiously say to him on his return, that he had delivered his message. By following this plan, and adopting this branch of the natural principle of individuation in such a case, two benefits would arise. We would first become perfectly acquainted with the will and message of our superior; and next, we would, at the close of the exercise, be so much more familiar with the language in which it was delivered, as that it would require less effort on a future occasion, to comprehend the meaning of the same speaker. If this method had not been adopted, and the message had been given entire and without a pause, it might have been rehea.r.s.ed in our hearing a hundred times, but the meaning would neither have been mastered, nor would our knowledge of the language have been in the least improved.

The application of this principle of individuation in the early stages of a child's learning to read, suggests the propriety also of making some preparation for his reading every new lesson in succession. We have seen that it is chiefly the new words in a lesson that create difficulty, and prevent the operation of that important law in Nature which induces the mind at once to lay hold of the ideas. To obviate this distraction of mind therefore beforehand, the new words which _are to occur_ in the lesson should be selected, and made familiar to the child previously, and by themselves;--he should be taught to read them easily by the combination of their letters, and clearly to understand their meaning, in precisely the same shade in which they are used in the lesson he is to read. When this is done, the lesson will be read with ease and with profit;--while, without this, the difficulty will be much greater, if not beyond his powers. In accordance with this plan, the "First Cla.s.s Book," before referred to, has been constructed, and its efficiency on that account is greatly increased.

The neglect of this special application of the principle has been long and painfully felt in society, and most of all where the young have been sent earliest to school. The habit of reading the words without understanding the meaning of what they read, having once been acquired, the weak powers of children are not sufficient to overcome the difficulties with which this habit has surrounded them. They feel themselves burdened and hara.s.sed with unnatural and unmeaning exercises for years, before they can acquire the art of reading the words of the simplest school book; and, what is still worse, after they have left the school, and have entered upon the busy scenes of life, they find, that they have now to teach themselves an entirely new art,--the art of _understanding by reading_. Instead of all this waste of energy, and patience, and time, experience has fully proved, that by following the plain and easy dictates of Nature, as above explained, all the drudgery of learning to read may be got over in a week,--it has been times without number accomplished in a single day,[16]--and this without any hara.s.sing exertion, and generally with delight. Of the truth of this, a few out of many instances may here be enumerated.

In the summer of 1831, the writer one morning found himself, by mere accident, and a perfect stranger, in a Sunday school in the borough of Southwark, London. He attached himself first to a cla.s.s of children, some of whom he found on enquiry had been two years at the school, and were yet only learning the alphabet. In the same school, and on the same morning, a young man who only knew his letters, but had never yet attempted to put them together, was cla.s.sified with the infants, whom he had willingly joined in his anxiety to learn. He had a lesson by himself. By a rigid adherence to the above principle of individuation, this young man, to his own great astonishment, was able in a few minutes to read a verse. The lesson went on, and in somewhat less than half an hour he had mastered several verses, and now knew perfectly how to make use of the letters in decyphering the several words. By that one lesson he found himself quite able to teach himself. In proof of this, as was afterwards ascertained, he read that same day on going home, without help, nineteen verses of the same chapter; and these verses, on returning to school on the same afternoon, he read correctly and without hesitation, to his usual and astonished teacher. There can be no doubt, from this circ.u.mstance, that if it had been at all necessary, he could, without further aid, and with still greater ease, have read a second nineteen verses, and perfected himself by practice in this important, and supposed difficult art of reading, by this one lesson of less than half an hour.

In a later experiment, made in Dumfries, in the presence and under the sanction of Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, and the clergymen and teachers of that town, the power of this principle was put to a severe trial, in a very unexpected and extraordinary manner. The week-day teachers of that town having heard of some of the above circ.u.mstances, and of the powers of the Lesson System generally, in enabling children to read with but little trouble, were desirous of having its powers tested in that town, where the writer happened to be for a few days. He agreed; and Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, the Sheriff of the county, with the clergymen and teachers, at his request, formed themselves into a committee for the purposes of the investigation. A sub-committee of the week-day teachers were appointed to procure a boy to be taught, which they did, and who, on being closely examined at a preliminary public meeting of the whole examinators, was found totally ignorant of words, and knew not one letter from another, with the exception, of "the round o."

With this boy the writer retired, having agreed to call them again together at a public meeting, as soon as he was ready. This at the time he did not doubt would have been on the very next day;--but he was disappointed. He had not been five minutes with his pupil, till he found, to his great mortification, that he had little or no intellect to work upon. The boy was twelve years of age, and yet he was perfectly ignorant of all the days of the week, except one, the market day, on which he was in the practice of making a few pence by holding the farmers' horses. He could in no case tell what day of the week went before or followed another. He could count numbers forward mechanically till among the teens; but by no effort of mind could he tell what number came before nine, till he had again counted forward from one. The most obvious deduction from the simplest idea appeared to be quite beyond the grasp of his mind. For example, though repeatedly told that John was Zebedee's son, yet, after frequent trials, he could never make out, nor comprehend who was John's father. Yet this boy,--one certainly among the lowest in the grade of intellect of our species,--by a rigid application of the principle of individuation, was enabled to overcome a great part of the drudgery of learning to read, by exactly eight hours' teaching.

This boy, who at the preliminary meeting on Wednesday, knew only "the round o," read correctly in the Court-House on the following Monday, a section of the New Testament, to the Rev. Dr Duncan, minister of Ruthwell, before the Sheriff, clergymen, teachers, and a large a.s.sembly of the inhabitants of Dumfries. To ascertain that he had in that time really _learned to read_, and that he did not repeat the words of the section by rote, he was made to read before the audience, in a chapter of the Old Testament, and then from a newspaper, the same words that he had read in his lesson. This he did readily, and without a mistake.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] For some practical information and directions connected with the subjects in this chapter, see Note M.

[15] Note N.

[16] Note H.

CHAP. V.

_On the Means by which Nature may be imitated in Applying the Principle of Grouping, or a.s.sociation._

The principle of Grouping, or a.s.sociation, as employed by Nature in her educational process, is obviously intended to enable the pupil easily to receive knowledge, and to a.s.sist the memory in retaining and keeping it ever after at the command of the will. It is employed to unite many objects or truths into one aggregate ma.s.s, which is received as one,--having the component parts so linked, or a.s.sociated together, that when any one part is afterwards brought before the mind, it has the power of immediately conjuring up, and holding in review, all the others. For example, when a child enters a room in which its parents and relations are severally employed, the whole scene is at a single glance comprehended and understood, and will afterwards be distinctly remembered in all its parts. The elements of the scene are no doubt all familiar, but the particular grouping of these elements are _entirely new_, and form an addition to his knowledge, as we formerly explained, as substantial, and as distinct, as the grouping of any other kind of objects or circ.u.mstances could possibly do. Here then is a certain amount of knowledge acquired by the child, which could be recorded in writing, or which might be communicated by words; but which, by the operation of this principle of grouping, has been acquired with greater ease, and in much less time, than he could either have read it, or described it. It has been done in this instance by Nature bringing the _ideas_ suggested by the group directly before the mind of the child, without even the intervention of words; and we see by this example, how much more laborious it would have been to communicate the very same amount of knowledge to the pupil, by making him _read_ the description of it, and how utterly preposterous and unnatural it would be to compel him, for the same purpose, to commit the words of that description to memory. The words are merely an artificial contrivance for the conveying of ideas;--and the more they can be kept out of view, it will be better for the teacher, and more natural and easy for the child.

In communicating knowledge, therefore, to the young, the more directly and simply the ideas to be communicated are presented to the mind the better. They must usually be communicated by words; but these, as the mere instruments of conveyance, should be kept as much as possible out of view. To bring them at all under the notice of the child is a defect; but to make them the chief object of learning, or to make the pupil commit them to memory, is not only laborious and unnecessary, but is unnatural and hurtful.

In all this we ought simply to take our lessons from Nature, if we wish to succeed in conveying knowledge by the combination of simple objects.

In the above example, we have seen that a single glance was sufficient to give the infant a distinct idea of the whole scene; and the reason is, that the principle of individuation had previously done its work.

Each of the elements of which the scene was composed, had undergone an individual and separate examination, and therefore each was familiar.

This is Nature's method of communicating knowledge to the young; and it is obvious, that a different arrangement of the objects or actions would have made no difference in the effects produced by the operation of the principle. Whatever the circ.u.mstances might have been, the new scene, with all its variety of incidents, persons, and things, which it would take ten-fold more time to enumerate than to learn, would at once be impressed on the mind, and delivered over to the keeping of the memory, without labour, or any perceptible effort. The whole grouping forms a chain of circ.u.mstances, any one link in which, when afterwards laid hold of by the mind, brings up all the others in connection with it. The memory by this means is relieved from the burden of remembering all the individualities, and the innumerable details of the scene, by maintaining a comprehensive hold of the whole united group, as one undivided object for remembrance.

From this it appears evident, that this principle is intended to succeed that of individuation, and never to precede it. Objects and truths which form the elements of knowledge must be individually familiar, before they can be successfully grouped, or a.s.sociated together in ma.s.ses, in the way in which the several parts of the knowledge of the young are usually presented; but after these objects or truths have once become known, they may be permanently a.s.sociated together in any variety of form without fatigue, and be retained on the memory for use without confusion or distraction of any kind.

In our investigations into the nature and working of this principle, as detailed in a former chapter, we found several causes which gave rise to certain uniform effects, which, for the purpose of imitation or avoidance, may be cla.s.sed under the following heads:--We found,

1. That wherever the principle of grouping acted with effect, it had always been preceded by the principle of individuation.

2. That wherever the principle of individuation was made to interfere, the effect intended by the principle of a.s.sociation was in the same degree obstructed or destroyed.

3. That whenever ideas or objects, whether known or unknown, were presented to a child in greater number than the mind could receive or reiterate them, it silently dropped the surplus;--but if these were _forced_ upon the mind, all the mischiefs arising from the interference of the two hostile principles immediately took place.

4. That children, in grouping under the tuition of Nature, received and retained the impressions of objects presented to their notice, in a natural and regular order;--forming in their minds a continuous moving scene, where motion formed a part of it; and that this movement of the objects, actually was a portion of the grouping.

These being the facts connected with this portion of Nature's educational process, the object of the teacher should be to endeavour to imitate her in all these circ.u.mstances; carefully avoiding what she has shewn to be inoperative and hurtful, and copying as closely as possible all those that tend to forward the objects of instruction.

The first thing then to be attended to by the teacher, is, that in every attempt to communicate knowledge to a child by the grouping of objects, he takes care that the principle of individuation has preceded it;--that is, that the various ideas or objects to be grouped, be individually familiar to the pupil. In communicating a story, therefore, or an anecdote, or in teaching a child to read, care must be taken that the objects or individual truths, the words, or the letters, be previously taught by themselves, before he be called upon to group them in ma.s.ses, whether greater or smaller. If this be neglected, an important law of Nature is violated, and the lesson to this extent will be ineffective, or worse. But if, on the contrary, this rule be attended to, the pupil, when he comes to these objects in the act of grouping, is prepared for the process; he meets with nothing that he is not familiar with; he has nothing to learn, and has only to allow the objects to take their proper places, as when he looked into the room, and grouped its contents as before supposed. All this being perfectly natural, is accomplished without effort, and with ease and pleasure.--This precaution on the part of the teacher, will at once remove many of the difficulties and embarra.s.sments which have hitherto pressed so heavily upon the pupil in almost every stage of his advance, but more especially in the early stages of his learning to read.[17]

As an ill.u.s.tration of our meaning, we may notice here, that a child who knows what is meant by "sheep," and "the keeping of sheep," of "tilling the ground," and "making an offering to G.o.d," &c. is prepared to hear or to read an abridgement of the story of Cain and Abel. We say _an abridgement_ or _first step_, for reasons which shall afterwards be explained. Without a previous knowledge of these several elements of which this story is compounded, he could neither have listened to it with pleasure, nor read it with any degree of profit; but as soon as these are individually familiar, the grouping,--the knowledge of the whole story,--is a matter of ease, and generally of delight. As the story advances, it causes a constant and regular series of groupings on the mind by the imagination, which are at once exquisitely pleasing and permanent. The child, as in a living and moving picture, imagines a man laboriously digging the ground, and another man in a distant field placidly engaged in attending to the wants and the safety of a flock of sheep. He imagines the former heaping an altar with fruits and without fire; and the latter killing a lamb, laying its parts on an altar, while a stream of fire descends from the skies and consumes it. His imagination goes on with increasing interest to picture the quarrel-scene in the field; and he in effect sees the blow given by the club of Cain, that destroyed the life of his brother. All this living and moving scene will be remembered in groups; and these groups will be more or less closely linked together, and will be imagined more or less distinctly as a whole, in proportion to the mental advancement of the particular child.

The next thing to be attended to in communicating knowledge to a child by grouping, is, that no strange for unknown object or idea be introduced among those which he is called upon to group; because in that case, the operation will be materially interfered with, and either marred or destroyed. The completeness of this operation in the hands of Nature, depends in a great measure, as we have seen, upon the perfect composure and self-possession of the mind during the process. If there be no interruption,--no element of distraction introduced into the exercise,--all the circ.u.mstances, as they arise in the gradual developement of the story, are comprehended and grouped. The living and moving picture is permanently fixed upon the memory, so that it may be recalled and reviewed at any future time. But if, on the contrary, the placidity of the mind be interrupted,--if some strange and unknown object be introduced, whose agency is really necessary for connecting the several parts of the story,--the very attempt of the child to become individually acquainted with it, throws the whole process into confusion; and he has either to drop the contemplation of this necessary part of the machinery, or to lose the benefit of all that is detailed during the time he is engaged with it. In either case the end is not gained; and the great design aimed at by the teacher,--the communication of the knowledge connected with the narrative,--is more or less frustrated. Like the landscape pictured on the placid bosom of the lake, the formation and contemplation of his own undisturbed imaginings are delightful to the child; but the introduction of an unknown object, like the dropping of a stone in the former case, produces confusion and distortion, which are always unpleasant and painful.

One general reason why the introduction of unknown objects into these groupings of the child is so pernicious, may also be here adverted to.

It arises from the circ.u.mstance, that no person, whether young or old, can form, even in his imagination, the idea of an entirely new thing.

This is commonly ill.u.s.trated by the well known fact, that it is impossible to conceive of a new sense;--but it is equally applicable to the conception of a new object. Adults can no doubt conceive and picture on their imaginations, objects and scenes which they never saw;--but this mental act is not the imagining of an entirely new thing. All such scenes or things are compounded of objects, or parts of objects, which they have seen, and with which they are familiar. They can readily picture to themselves a centaur or a cerberus, a mermaid or a dragon,--creatures which have no existence, and which never did exist; but a little reflection will shew, that nothing which the mind conceives of these supposed animals is really new, but is merely a new combination of elements, or parts of other animals, already familiar. Children accordingly can easily conceive the idea of a giant or a dwarf, a woman without a head, or a man with two, because the elements of which these anomalies are compounded are individually familiar to them;--but were they told of a person sitting in a howdah, or being conveyed in a palanquin, without having these objects previously explained or described to them, the mind would either be drawn from the story to find out what these meant, and thus they would lose it; or they would, on the spur of the moment, subst.i.tute in their minds something else which perhaps had no likeness to them, and which would lead them into serious error. For example, they might suppose that the one was a house, and the other a s.h.i.+p;--a supposition which would distort the whole narrative, and would render many of its parts inconsistent and incomprehensible.

As adults then, in every similar case, are under the necessity of drawing materials from their general knowledge, for the purpose of compounding all such unknown objects, it must be much more difficult for a child to do this, not only because of his want of ability, but his want of materials. The remedy therefore in this case is, to explain and describe the objects that are to be grouped, before the pupil be called upon to do so. And when the object has not been seen by the child, and cannot be exhibited by a picture, or otherwise, the teacher must exert his ingenuity in enabling him to form an idea of the thing that is unknown, by a combination of parts of objects which are. Thus a tiger may be described as resembling a large cat; a wolf, a fox, or even a lion, as resembling certain kinds of dogs; a howdah as a smaller sofa, and a palanquin, as a light crib. In all these cases, it is worthy of notice, that a mere difference of size never creates confusion;--simply because, by a natural law in optics, such differences are of constant occurrence in the experience both of children and adults. A water neut will convey a sufficiently correct idea of a crocodile; and the picture of an elephant, only one inch square, will create no difficulty, if the correct height be given. When these rules have been attended to, it will be found, that this principle in Nature has been successfully imitated; and the pupil, by the previous process of individuation, will be perfectly prepared for the delightful task of grouping the objects which he now knows. When he comes to these objects in the narrative, he conceives the idea of them accurately, and he groups them without effort. There is no hesitation, and no confusion in his ideas. The painting formed upon the mind is correct; the whole picture is united into one connected scene, and is permanently imprinted on the memory for future use.

Another circ.u.mstance connected with this principle of grouping in children, we found to be, that when, at any time a greater number of objects were presented to the mind than it was able to reiterate and group, it silently dropt the surplus, and grouped those only which came within the reach of its powers; but if in any instance an attempt was made to _force_ the child to receive and reiterate the ideas of objects beyond a certain point, the mind got confused, and its powers weakened.--The imitation of Nature in this point is also of great importance in education, particularly in teaching and exercising children in reading. To perceive this more clearly, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the nature of the art of reading.

Reading is nothing more than a mechanical invention, imitative of the act of hearing; as writing is a mechanical mode of indicating sounds, and thus becomes a subst.i.tute for the art of speaking, and conveying ideas. But there is this material difference between reading and hearing, that in hearing the person giving attention is in a great measure pa.s.sive, and may, or may not attend as he pleases. He may receive part of what is said, and, as prompted by Nature, he may silently drop all that he cannot easily reiterate. But in the act of reading, the person has both the active and the pa.s.sive operations to perform. His mind, while he reads, must be actively engaged in decyphering the words of his book, and the ideas are, or should be, by this act, forced upon the observation of the mind at the same time. As long, therefore, as the child is required to read nothing except that which he understands, and to read no more, and no faster, than his mind can without distraction receive and reiterate the ideas which he reads, the act of grouping will be performed with ease, and with evident delight, and the powers of the mind will be healthfully and extensively exercised and strengthened:--But if this simple principle of Nature be violated, the exercise becomes irritating to the child, and most pernicious in its consequences. The neglect of this application of the principle is so common in education, that it usually escapes observation; but on this very account it demands from us here a more thorough investigation.

We say then, that this principle is violated when a child is required to read that which it does not, and perhaps cannot understand; and also when he is required to read more, or to read faster, than he is able to reiterate the ideas in his own mind. On each of these cases we shall say a few words, for the purpose of warning and directing the teacher in applying this important principle in education.

Let us then suppose a child set to read a section which he does not, and which there is every probability he cannot understand, and then let us carefully mark the consequences. The child in such a case reads the words in his book, which ought to convey to his mind the ideas which the words contain. This is the sole purpose of either hearing or reading.

But this is not accomplished. The words are read, and the ideas are not perceived; but the child is required to read on. He does so; and of course when the first part of the subject or sentence has been beyond his reach, the second, which most probably hangs upon it, must be much more so. In this therefore he also fails; but he is still required to read on. Here is a practice begun, which at once defeats the very intention of reading, and allows the child's mind to roam upon any thing or every thing, while the eye is mechanically engaged with his book. The habit is soon formed. The child reads; but his attention is gone. He does not, and at length he cannot, understand by reading. This habit, as we formerly explained, when it is once formed, it requires great efforts on the part of the child to overcome. Most people when they are actively engaged in life, do at last overcome it; while thousands, who have nominally been taught to read, never can surmount the difficulties it involves. Many on this account, and for want of practising an art which they cannot profitably use, lose the art altogether.

But again, let us suppose a child set to read that which he may understand, but which he is required to read more rapidly than allows him to perceive and to reiterate the ideas while reading, and let us mark what are the necessary consequences in such a case. The child is called on to read a sentence, and he does so. He understands it too. But the art of reading is not yet familiar, and he has to bend part of his attention to the decyphering of the words, as well as to the perception and reiteration of the ideas. This requires more time in a child to whom reading is not yet familiar, than to a child more advanced. But give him a little time, and the matter is accomplished the ideas have been received, and they will be reiterated, grouped, and committed to the keeping of the memory,--and then they will form part of his knowledge.

But if this time be not given,--if the child, while engaged in collecting the ideas from the words of one sentence, be urged forward to the reading of another, the mental confusion formerly described instantly takes place. More ideas are forced upon the mind than it can reiterate; no group can be formed, because the elements of which it ought to be composed, have not yet been perceived; the imagination gets bewildered;--the mind is unnaturally burdened;--its faculties are overstretched;--the child is discouraged and irritated; the powers of his mind fatigued and weakened; and the whole object of the teacher is at once defeated, and rendered worse than useless.--In every case, therefore, when the child is called on to read, sufficient time should be given;--the teacher taking care that the main design of reading, that of collecting and grouping ideas, be always accomplished; and that the pupil reads no more at one time than he can thoroughly understand and retain.

There is yet another circ.u.mstance connected with this process of grouping, which ought not to be overlooked. It refers to the order in which the objects to be grouped by the child are presented to his notice. A child under the guidance of Nature, receives and retains its impressions of objects in a natural and simple order. When it witnesses a scene, the group of objects, or actions formed and pictured on the mind by the imagination, is exactly as they were seen, the one circ.u.mstance following the other in natural and regular order. In telling a story therefore to a child, and more especially in composing lessons for them to read, this part of Nature's plan should be carefully studied and acted upon. The elements of which the several groupings are composed, or the circ.u.mstances in the narrative to be related, should be presented in the order in which the eye would catch them in Nature, or the order in which they occurred, that there may be no unnecessary retrogression of the mind, no confounding of ideas, no fear of losing the links that connect and bind together the minor groupings of the story. In the history of Cain and Abel, for example, the child is not to be required to paint upon his imagination, a deadly struggle between two persons of whom as yet he knows nothing; and then, retiring backwards in the story, be made acquainted with the circ.u.mstances connected with their several offerings to G.o.d; and last of all, their parentage, their occupations, and their characters. The minds of the young and inexperienced would be perplexed and bewildered by such a plan of proceeding; and the irregularity would most probably be the cause of their losing the whole story. The opposite of this plan is no doubt frequently adopted in works of fiction prepared for adults, and for the sake of effect; but every one must see that it is unnecessary in simple history, and is not at all adapted for the instruction of the young.

When Nature's method is adopted, the child collects and groups the incidents as he proceeds, and paints, without effort, the whole living and moving scene on his imagination, as if he himself had stood by, and been an eye-witness of the original events.

The ascertained benefits of these modes of imitating Nature, are literally innumerable; and it is happily within the power of every parent or teacher, in a single hour, to test them for himself. We shall merely advert to one or two instances which occurred in the recorded experiments, where their effects, in combination with the other principles, were conspicuous.