Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) by Herbert Spencer (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📖
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- Author: Herbert Spencer
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Step To More Complex Questions: All Of Which, Under Judicious
Management, He Will Puzzle Through Unhelped. Doubtless, Many Of Those
Brought Up Under The Old Regime, Will Look Upon This Assertion
Sceptically. We Speak From Facts, However; And Those Neither Few Nor
Special. We Have Seen A Class Of Boys Become So Interested In Making Out
Solutions To Such Problems, As To Look Forward To Their Geometry-Lesson
As A Chief Event Of The Week. Within The Last Month, We Have Heard Of
One Girl's School, In Which Some Of The Young Ladies Voluntarily Occupy
Themselves With Geometrical Questions Out Of School-Hours; And Of
Another, Where They Not Only Do This, But Where One Of Them Is Begging
For Problems To Find Out During The Holidays: Both Which Facts We State
On The Authority Of The Teacher. Strong Proofs, These, Of The
Practicability And The Immense Advantage Of Self-Development! A Branch
Of Knowledge Which, As Commonly Taught, Is Dry And Even Repulsive, Is
Thus, By Following The Method Of Nature, Made Extremely Interesting And
Profoundly Beneficial. We Say Profoundly Beneficial, Because The Effects
Are Not Confined To The Gaining Of Geometrical Facts, But Often
Revolutionise The Whole State Of Mind. It Has Repeatedly Occurred That
Those Who Have Been Stupefied By The Ordinary School-Drill--By Its
Abstract Formulas, Its Wearisome Tasks, Its Cramming--Have Suddenly Had
Their Intellects Roused By Thus Ceasing To Make Them Passive Recipients,
And Inducing Them To Become Active Discoverers. The Discouragement
Caused By Bad Teaching Having Been Diminished By A Little Sympathy, And
Sufficient Perseverance Excited To Achieve A First Success, There Arises
A Revulsion Of Feeling Affecting The Whole Nature. They No Longer Find
Themselves Incompetent; They, Too, Can Do Something. And Gradually As
Success Follows Success, The Incubus Of Despair Disappears, And They
Attack The Difficulties Of Their Other Studies With A Courage Insuring
Conquest.
A Few Weeks After The Foregoing Remarks Were Originally Published,
Professor Tyndall In A Lecture At The Royal Institution "On The
Importance Of The Study Of Physics As A Branch Of Education," Gave Some
Conclusive Evidence To The Same Effect. His Testimony, Based On Personal
Observation, Is Of Such Great Value That We Cannot Refrain From Quoting
It. Here It Is.
"One Of The Duties Which Fell To My Share, During The Period To
Which I Have Referred, Was The Instruction Of A Class In
Mathematics, And I Usually Found That Euclid And The Ancient
Geometry Generally, When Addressed To The Understanding, Formed A
Very Attractive Study For Youth. But It Was My Habitual Practice To
Withdraw The Boys From The Routine Of The Book, And To Appeal To
Their Self-Power In The Treatment Of Questions Not Comprehended In
That Routine. At First, The Change From The Beaten Track Usually
Excited A Little Aversion: The Youth Felt Like A Child Amid
Strangers; But In No Single Instance Have I Found This Aversion To
Continue. When Utterly Disheartened, I Have Encouraged The Boy By
That Anecdote Of Newton, Where He Attributes The Difference Between
Him And Other Men, Mainly To His Own Patience; Or Of Mirabeau, When
He Ordered His Servant, Who Had Stated Something To Be Impossible,
Never To Use That Stupid Word Again. Thus Cheered, He Has Returned
To His Task With A Smile, Which Perhaps Had Something Of Doubt In
It, But Which, Nevertheless, Evinced A Resolution To Try Again. I
Have Seen The Boy's Eye Brighten, And At Length, With A Pleasure Of
Which The Ecstasy Of Archimedes Was But A Simple Expansion, Heard
Him Exclaim, 'I Have It, Sir.' The Consciousness Of Self-Power,
Thus Awakened, Was Of Immense Value; And Animated By It, The
Progress Of The Class Was Truly Astonishing. It Was Often My Custom
To Give The Boys Their Choice Of Pursuing Their Propositions In The
Book, Or Of Trying Their Strength At Others Not To Be Found There.
Never In A Single Instance Have I Known The Book To Be Chosen. I
Was Ever Ready To Assist When I Deemed Help Needful, But My Offers
Of Assistance Were Habitually Declined. The Boys Had Tasted The
Sweets Of Intellectual Conquest And Demanded Victories Of Their
Own. I Have Seen Their Diagrams Scratched On The Walls, Cut Into
The Beams Upon The Play Ground, And Numberless Other Illustrations
Of The Living Interest They Took In The Subject. For My Own Part,
As Far As Experience In Teaching Goes, I Was A Mere Fledgling: I
Knew Nothing Of The Rules Of Pedagogics, As The Germans Name It;
But I Adhered To The Spirit Indicated At The Commencement Of This
Discourse, And Endeavoured To Make Geometry A _Means_ And Not A
_Branch_ Of Education. The Experiment Was Successful, And Some Of
The Most Delightful Hours Of My Existence Have Been Spent In
Marking The Vigorous And Cheerful Expansion Of Mental Power, When
Appealed To In The Manner I Have Described."
This Empirical Geometry Which Presents An Endless Series Of Problems,
Should Be Continued Along With Other Studies For Years; And May
Throughout Be Advantageously Accompanied By Those Concrete Applications
Of Its Principles Which Serve As Its Preliminary. After The Cube, The
Octahedron, And The Various Forms Of Pyramid And Prism Have Been
Part 1 Chapter 2 (Intellectual Education) Pg 35Mastered, May Come The More Complex Regular Bodies--The Dodecahedron And
Icosahedron--To Construct Which Out Of Single Pieces Of Cardboard,
Requires Considerable Ingenuity. From These, The Transition May
Naturally Be Made To Such Modified Forms Of The Regular Bodies As Are
Met With In Crystals--The Truncated Cube, The Cube With Its Dihedral As
Well As Its Solid Angles Truncated, The Octahedron And The Various
Prisms As Similarly Modified: In Imitating Which Numerous Forms Assumed
By Different Metals And Salts, An Acquaintance With The Leading Facts Of
Mineralogy Will Be Incidentally Gained.[1]
After Long Continuance In Exercises Of This Kind, Rational Geometry, As
May Be Supposed, Presents No Obstacles. Habituated To Contemplate
Relationships Of Form And Quantity, And Vaguely Perceiving From Time To
Time The Necessity Of Certain Results As Reached By Certain Means, The
Pupil Comes To Regard The Demonstrations Of Euclid As The Missing
Supplements To His Familiar Problems. His Well-Disciplined Faculties
Enable Him Easily To Master Its Successive Propositions, And To
Appreciate Their Value; And He Has The Occasional Gratification Of
Finding Some Of His Own Methods Proved To Be True. Thus He Enjoys What
Is To The Unprepared A Dreary Task. It Only Remains To Add, That His
Mind Will Presently Arrive At A Fit Condition For That Most Valuable Of
All Exercises For The Reflective Faculties--The Making Of Original
Demonstrations. Such Theorems As Those Appended To The Successive Books
Of The Messrs. Chambers's Euclid, Will Soon Become Practicable To Him;
And In Proving Them, The Process Of Self-Development Will Be Not
Intellectual Only, But Moral.
To Continue These Suggestions Much Further, Would Be To Write A Detailed
Treatise On Education, Which We Do Not Purpose. The Foregoing Outlines
Of Plans For Exercising The Perceptions In Early Childhood, For
Conducting Object-Lessons, For Teaching Drawing And Geometry, Must Be
Considered Simply As Illustrations Of The Method Dictated By The General
Principles Previously Specified. We Believe That On Examination They
Will Be Found Not Only To Progress From The Simple To The Complex, From
The Indefinite To The Definite, From The Concrete To The Abstract, From
The Empirical To The Rational; But To Satisfy The Further Requirements,
That Education Shall Be A Repetition Of Civilisation In Little, That It
Shall Be As Much As Possible A Process Of Self-Evolution, And That It
Shall Be Pleasurable. The Fulfilment Of All These Conditions By One Type
Of Method, Tends Alike To Verify The Conditions, And To Prove That Type
Of The Method The Right One. Mark Too, That This Method Is The Logical
Outcome Of The Tendency Characterising All Modern Improvements In
Tuition--That It Is But An Adoption In Full Of The Natural System Which
They Adopt Partially--That It Displays This Complete Adoption Of The
Natural System, Both By Conforming To The Above Principles, And By
Following The Suggestions Which The Unfolding Mind Itself Gives:
Facilitating Its Spontaneous Activities, And So Aiding The Developments
Which Nature Is Busy With. Thus There Seems Abundant Reason To Conclude,
That The Mode Of Procedure Above Exemplified, Closely Approximates To
The True One.
A Few Paragraphs Must Be Added In Further Inculcation Of The Two General
Principles, That Are Alike The Most Important And The Least Attended To;
Namely, The Principle That Throughout Youth, As In Early Childhood And
In Maturity, The Process Shall Be One Of Self-Instruction; And The
Obverse Principle, That The Mental Action Induced Shall Be Throughout
Intrinsically Grateful. If Progression From Simple To Complex, From
Indefinite To Definite, And From Concrete To Abstract, Be Considered The
Essential Requirements As Dictated By Abstract Psychology; Then Do The
Requirements That Knowledge Shall Be Self-Mastered, And Pleasurably
Mastered, Become Tests By Which We May Judge Whether The Dictates Of
Abstract Psychology Are Being Obeyed. If The First Embody The Leading
Generalisations Of The _Science_ Of Mental Growth, The Last Are The
Chief Canons Of The _Art_ Of Fostering Mental Growth. For Manifestly, If
The Steps In Our _Curriculum_ Are So Arranged That They Can Be
Successively Ascended By The Pupil Himself With Little Or No Help, They
Must Correspond With The Stages Of Evolution In His Faculties; And
Manifestly, If The Successive Achievements Of These Steps Are
Intrinsically Gratifying To Him, It Follows That They Require No More
Than A Normal Exercise Of His Powers.
But Making Education A Process Of Self-Evolution, Has Other Advantages
Than This Of Keeping Our Lessons In The Right Order. In The First Place,
It Guarantees A Vividness And Permanency Of Impression Which The Usual
Methods Can Never Produce. Any Piece Of Knowledge Which The Pupil Has
Himself Acquired--Any Problem Which He Has Himself Solved, Becomes, By
Virtue Of The Conquest, Much More Thoroughly His Than It Could Else Be.
The Preliminary Activity Of Mind Which His Success Implies, The
Concentration Of Thought Necessary To It, And The Excitement Consequent
On His Triumph, Conspire To Register The Facts In His Memory In A Way
That No Mere Information Heard From A Teacher, Or Read In A School-Book,
Can Be Registered. Even If He Fails, The Tension To Which His Faculties
Have Been Wound Up, Insures His Remembrance Of The Solution When Given
To Him, Better Than Half-A-Dozen Repetitions Would. Observe, Again, That
This Discipline Necessitates A Continuous Organisation Of The Knowledge
He Acquires. It Is In The Very Nature Of Facts And Inferences
Assimilated In This Normal Manner, That They Successively Become The
Premises Of Further Conclusions--The Means Of Solving Further Questions.
The Solution Of Yesterday's Problem Helps The Pupil In Mastering
To-Day's. Thus The Knowledge Is Turned Into Faculty As Soon As It Is
Taken In, And Forthwith Aids In The General Function Of Thinking--Does
Not Lie Merely Written On The Pages Of An Internal Library, As When
Rote-Learnt. Mark Further, The Moral Culture Which This Constant
Self-Help Involves. Courage In Attacking Difficulties, Patient
Concentration Of The Attention, Perseverance Through Failures--These Are
Characteristics Which After-Life Specially Requires; And These Are
Characteristics Which This System Of Making The Mind Work For Its Food
Specially Produces. That It Is Thoroughly Practicable To Carry Out
Instruction After This Fashion, We Can Ourselves Testify; Having Been In
Youth Thus Led To Solve The Comparatively Complex Problems Of
Perspective. And That Leading Teachers Have Been Tending In This
Direction, Is Indicated Alike In The Saying Of Fellenberg, That "The
Individual, Independent Activity Of The Pupil Is Of Much Greater
Importance Than The Ordinary Busy Officiousness Of Many Who Assume The
Office Of Educators;" In The Opinion Of Horace Mann, That "Unfortunately
Education Amongst Us At Present Consists Too Much In _Telling_, Not In
_Training_;" And In The Remark Of M. Marcel, That "What The Learner
Discovers By Mental Exertion Is Better Known Than What Is Told To Him."
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