Beginner

“ Those intended for the young beginner should be exceedingly simple, and should not attempt to present any thing like a full view of the subjects treated. They should deal largely with familiar facts or phenomena. ”

“ You can make the group as simple or as difficult as you wish, and make it include any phase of study. The advantage of its possible variety, scope, and particularly, its convenience and cheapness and manageableness, make it the fundamental work for the beginner. ”

“ All which appearing to be anything rather than helpful or encouraging instruction for beginners, we shall, for the present, I think, do well to desire these enigmatical teachers to put up their pipes and be gone; and betaking ourselves in the humblest manner to intelligible business, at least set down some definite matter for decision, to be made a first stepping-stone at the shore of this brook of despond and difficulty. ”

“ We have said all this lest our less-instructed readers should fall into a mistake common to all beginners in study, that books, and schooling, and lectures, are the chief teachers in life; whereas most of the things we learn here are learned from the experience of home, and of the practical parts of our trades and amusements. ”

“ The drawing and applying of lessons, the exercise which we are here recommending, has been found a valuable remedy for this defect in ordinary reading. The object of the teacher by its use, is to accomplish in the pupil by reading, what we have shewn Nature so frequently does by observation;—that is, to train the child to apply for his own use, or the use of others, those truths which he acquires from his book, in the same way that he does those which he derives from experience. ”

“ The stages of development, the study of the individual child, the outlines of the curriculum, and special methods in selected phases of education, are discussed in other chapters. The present discussion therefore is devoted to the principles of educational psychology and of pedagogy,—how to conduct the process of education.
Education, Instruction, and Training. Education, in the large sense in which the term is here used, includes three pedagogical processes: (1) instruction; [26] (2) training; and (3) education [27] in its narrower meaning,—the developing of the child’s innate powers. ”

“ Education, in the sense in which I mean it, may be defined as the formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a certain outlook on life and the world. It remains to ask ourselves, what mental habits, and what sort of outlook, can be hoped for as the result of instruction? When we have answered this question we can attempt to decide what science has to contribute to the formation of the habits and outlook which we desire.
Our whole life is built about a certain number—not a very small number—of primary instincts and impulses. ”

“ Education, then, is the development of all the powers of man to the culminating point of action. What kind of action? Action in art. What is art? “The power of doing something not taught by nature or instinct; power or skill in the use of knowledge; the practical application of the rules or principles of science.” Again we have the last analysis of education—“skill in the use of knowledge; the application of the rules or principles of science.” And this is tool practice. ”

“ The simplest lessons in preparatory study are thus justified: they lead to a conscious judgment of one’s attainment. Study means nothing if it does not lead to this judgment. The power once gained, the pupil is his own best teacher, his own strongest helper. Prize, [99] then, all exercises which lead to this judgment. Instead of saying to the untrained pupil, “Read your lesson ten times,” when his present attainment or lack of attainment renders such repetition worse than useless, you will say, “Read the lesson and copy all the words whose meaning you do not know.” ”

“ This is the very essence of education, its informing spirit. The student no longer thinks merely of becoming an expert turner; he thinks of becoming a man! All the powers of his mind are roused to vigorous action; imagination illumes the path, and reason, following with firm but cautious step, drives straight to the mark. Rapid development results from the combination of practice with theory—rapid because orderly, or natural. ”

“ Let me reply at once that all human thinking is of two sorts: the sort which is involved in discovery—learning without the aid of teachers; and the sort which is involved in instruction—learning with the aid of teachers, who already know what the student must learn. ”

“ In all pedagogy the great thing is to strike the iron while hot, and to seize the wave of the pupil’s interest in each succcessive subject before its ebb has come, so that knowledge may be got and a habit of skill acquired—a headway of interest, in short, secured, on which afterward the individual may float. ”

“ Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. ”

“ Note the value of this word mastery. The pupil fast becomes independent of [85] the teacher, and ready to master the page for himself. Note, also, that this power becomes his in proportion to the teacher’s purpose to make him self-helpful, and her skill in finding the connecting link between the new knowledge and the old.
Two elements of learning to read have been presented here: sentence reading and word mastery. Of the study of the meaning of the words and the development of the power of imagination we shall speak elsewhere.
[86]
Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. ”

“ First come easy lessons and a familiarity, slowly attained by practice, with the groundwork of the subject; then the student may make proof, in the business of life, of the training which he has received. ”

“ I have eyes to see, and hands to copy what pleases me; and the school from which I derive instruction is the best in the world, and furnishes the most perfect models—that of Nature. I never bent my mind to anything that I wished to accomplish, and failed. But you shall judge for yourself. ”

“ Every exercise, lesson or lecture should have in view a well-defined object, the meaning and importance of which must be explained to, and understood by, the men at the beginning of the exercise, lesson or lecture. In other words, at the beginning, explain the main, [Pg 249] governing idea of the subject, and then take pains to explain in a simple, conversational way each phase as you come to it. Give the reasons for everything. You can not expect men to take an interest in things the meaning of which they do not understand and the reason for which they do not see. ”

“ These are the words of one who has evidently "read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested" the whole subject of education, and is prepared, at whatever sacrifice or cost, to stand up for a system of instruction that shall embrace preparation not only for the duties and exigencies of this life but also for that which is to come. ”

“ Now I am not quite sure that our way of studying the special subject is exactly the best method of beginning work on original authorities, but it may very well be the best that we can incorporate in a plan of gaining, in a year and a half's reading, a mental training, or the beginning of a mental training that may serve a lifetime. ”

“ And so gradual are the steps by which the pupil is led on towards proficiency, now mastering a small difficulty, then advancing to one a little greater, then to another, and another, that at last he accomplishes the evolution which at one time appeared to him of greatest difficulty with more facility than he at first accomplished the first lesson ”

“ If the teacher reads to the class, she shows simply what the writer’s message has been to her. In the reading lesson she gives to the pupils the opportunity of expressing what they themselves have read.
In reading, as in everything else, ease comes with practice. The class should have two varieties of practice. They should read and re-read a few selections which demand variety in expression; and they should read many easy selections which require very little effort in mastering. If the exercise is difficult enough to demand study, it will necessitate [135] hesitation if read at sight. ”

“ Results a test of instruction.—The second test of good instruction is our skill in handling the material of the lesson, and shaping the trend of thought and discussion. Are the children interested in the right things? Are the central truths of the lesson being brought out and applied? Is the discussion centered on topics set for our consideration, or does it degenerate into aimless talk on matters of personal or local interest which have no relation to the lesson? In short, does the recitation period yield the fruitful knowledge we had set as a goal for this lesson? ”

“ The logical presupposition of instruction is the order in which the subject-matter develops for the consciousness. The subject, the consciousness of the pupil, and the activity of the instructor, interpenetrate each other in instruction, and constitute in actuality one whole. ”

“ In what does the value of the lesson as a reading lesson consist? The exercise should aid the children in getting the thought or in expressing it fluently and naturally. The teacher should be assured that the mind of every reader is intelligently active in the thought getting, and that the practice in expression is such as will lead to independent skill. ”

“ There is another point connected with the practical use of our knowledge, which deserves a separate and careful consideration. It is the method of applying our knowledge, or rather the lessons derived from our knowledge, to the common and daily affairs of life. In this exercise both old and young are equally concerned;—but it is evident that youth is the proper time for training to its practice. ”

“ Our modern reformers, in their books, write too exclusively of the earliest years of the pupil. These lend themselves better to explicit treatment; and I myself, in dwelling so much upon the native impulses, and object-teaching, and anecdotes, and all that, have paid my tribute to the line of least resistance in describing. Yet away back in childhood we find the beginnings of purely intellectual curiosity, and the intelligence of abstract terms. ”

“ For teaching classes, I recommend blackboard lessons, based on the exercises and preceding the study of the text. Each lesson should embrace review-practice on foregoing sections and preparatory exercise on coming subjects. ”

“ Experience has shown that better results are obtained, both in the development of ability to think and ability to do, if the ability to “do” is given a maximum of attention at the beginning of the course, opportunities for original thinking being introduced gradually as the pupils’ knowledge, appreciation, and skill increase. ”

“ His incessant labours, first to learn and then to practise, again to learn and again to practise, and again, and again, and again to learn and practise, so long as his physical energies could support the activity of his intellect, ought to convey to us all a lesson of profound humility, and a stimulus to exertion of the most active kind. ”

“ After deciding upon the aims of education, the goals towards which all teaching must strive, the fundamental question to be answered is, "What have we to work with?" "What is the makeup with which children start in life?" ”

“ The many thousands who have gained from your direct personal teaching a real insight with the processes of nature, and a training in accuracy of thought and of language, will always recall with pleasure and pride that you were their teacher. ”

“ Now what we are at present in search of, is an exercise applicable to reading, as well as to observation;—to the school, as well as to the play ground or the parlour;—and to knowledge whose use may not be required at the instant, as well as that to which we are driven by necessity. ”

“ I think that we have gained a standpoint now from which we can study undergraduate life and make observations on it which have even scientific value. During an undergraduate career, the motive of interest in each successive step is wanting. There is no immediate object of430 pleasure or gain in the lesson to be learned next. Only exceptionally is it true that the learning of the lesson will gratify a taste or fill a desire. ”

“ I do not mean by this, that preparation for the pulpit should ever be made slightly, or esteemed an object of small importance. It doubtless demands, and should receive the best of a man’s talents and labors. What I contend for is, that a habit of mind may be acquired, which shall enable one to make a better and more thorough preparation at less expense of labor and time. He may acquire, by discipline, that ease and promptitude of looking into subjects and bringing out their prominent features, which shall enable him at a glance, as it were, to seize the points on which he should enlarge. ”

“ The Ideal school, most precisely representative of the present age—the age of science—is dedicated to a homogeneous system of mental and manual training, to the generation of power, to the development of true manhood. ”

“ The object therefore most to be desired by the teacher, is an exercise, or a series of exercises, by which, in his attempts to communicate knowledge to his pupil, this act of reiteration may be secured, and if possible repeated at pleasure, for more permanently fixing on the memory the knowledge communicated. ”

“ At the next exercise of the class, the instructor can read some good and some bad answers, point out the general mistakes, and advise them for the future. No exercise can be better than this in cultivating the habit of careful expression, and in learning how to make a clear and pointed exposition of a subject in a brief space of time. ”