Course of study

“ A uniform course of study planned properly, representing the accumulated experience and judgment of our best educators, may have some flaws, but on the other hand it saves many of the gravest mistakes with the great mass of teachers and persons unaccustomed to thinking on educational subjects. ”

“ When we have learned the environment of a people, we are ready to study their elementary education. This takes us into the schoolroom, introduces us to the place where the school is held, indicates the course of study pursued, the discipline, methods of instruction, spirit and training of the teacher, as well as the results obtained. After this we are ready to consider the higher education, which completes the system and measures its efficiency. ”

“ Our instruction is adapted to the same end; we do not instruct them in studies above their rank in life; reading, writing, the elementary principles of arithmetic, geography, some of the natural sciences, and music, comprise the course of study. In the calling they select, we do what we can to make them intelligent and competent. ”

“ Nevertheless he succeeded, reduced the course of study to a system, and published the first catalogue and courses of study of the institution. The real nature and strength of the man is well shown at this period. ”

“ As a matter of fact neither history nor natural science occupies any such prominence in the school course as we have judged fitting. Much thoughtful study, experience in teaching, and pioneer labor in partially new fields will be necessary in order to bring into existence such a course of study based upon the best materials. ”

“ We believe that a critical examination of rational courses of study in the schools would show that little of the work could well be omitted; that nearly all contributes toward the end of a well-rounded education, indeed is necessary to that end; and that the training of faculty is only well begun at the end of the high-school course. Even the study of the classics, besides other incidental advantages, trains the critical powers, refines the taste, and is in an important sense a subjective study. ”

“ A good course of study will save the teacher much time and energy by the organization of material which it presents. In many of our larger cities a volume of from fifty to two hundred pages has been prepared for each subject. These manuals suggest the order in which it has been found by experience that the topics can best be presented. In many cases a helpful analysis of each large topic from the point of view of presenting it to children is included. ”

“ The course of study is not confined to any one department of literature, but comprises works of history, and science, philosophy and poetry, and a wide range of literature and topics of general interest. Works of fiction are reduced to a minimum, and those admitted to the course are unobjectionable both in character and matter.
Second—The course of reading is pursued in a methodical and orderly manner. A portion of each day is to be set apart for the required reading, and though the allotted time is brief, it is sufficient to secure habits of systematic study. A regular plan is insisted upon. ”

“ And this result is one which we may reasonably look for when parallel courses of study are offered to the choice of the student during the later years of the academic course, whatever might be true if the offer were made at the beginning. For the effect of the early years of training is to bring out the character of each individual mind, and to determine what are its native idiosyncrasies, and what it is possible to make of it. ”

“ We assert, then, that from a course or manner of instruction from which those characteristics of true study—real work of the learner's faculties, and a just consecution of steps—are largely omitted or excluded, the best sort of intellectual education can not, in the majority of instances, accrue. ”

“ A well-planned University course is a study of the wide sweep of generality, I do not mean that it should be abstract in the sense of divorce from concrete fact, but that concrete fact should be studied as illustrating the scope of general ideas. ”

“ You have been receiving your tuition. In this academy the study of Household Science begins with the rudiments. Scrubbing is one of the rudiments. As a new scholar you begin with the rudiments, of course. And I must say you are doing very well. You are making excellent progress. Apply yourself earnestly to your lessons and in a short time you will be promoted to another class. ”

“ The lower course not only prepares for the higher, but is also complete in itself for those who do not wish to advance farther. The branches of study include Latin, Greek, and modern languages, geography, history, religion, mathematics, natural history, physics, writing, drawing, singing, and gymnastics. ”

“ But in the course of several years of broad and intelligent study a beginning at least can be made, and later on, as the result of continuous growth while at work, a fine, solid, comprehensive scholarship may finally eventuate. ”

“ There is no such thing as a valuable observation and investigation of natural objects without language in which to embody the results at every step." (Geo. P. Brown.) Report on Correlation of Studies by Committee of Fifteen. With annotations by Geo. P. Brown.
[86] "Of course, there is great difference between the disciplinary value of that study in which the pupil solves his own difficulties and that teaching in which the teacher accompanies the pupil, supplying the needed information or suggestion at every step of his progress. ”

“ Moreover, if the school is related as a whole to life as a whole, its various aims and ideals—culture, discipline, information, utility—cease to be variants, for one of which we must select one study and for another another. ”

“ All the school studies have a use, to be sure—a direct use—in giving us something to help us in life in one way and another. But besides this, we get another help from study; namely, the employment of the mind in the right way. ”

“ I felt like a lad having to choose from fifteen nectar flavors of ice cream, only the courses of study from which I had the privilege of choosing went into the hundreds. Almost every theme of my desire was spread before me; explorations into literature, social life, fine arts, science, language, and economics. Old yearnings could be abundantly gratified at last: a formidable list of professors and a more formidable list of studies awaited my option. ”

“ The degree in which the study of certain subjects cultivates certain faculties is a matter on which we are far from agreeing. Nor is it decided—in fact we have scarcely begun to discuss—what faculties most need cultivation. ”

“ But I have thought that in an age in which education, and its improvement, are the subject of more, if not of profounder study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. ”

“ Mental discipline had then the same relation to human activity that it has now. Until schools were created, all study was in the direction of real or apparent utility; all study outside of the schools is at present for knowledge or utility. ”

“ The college student needs to be prepared for the lectures which he hears on natural philosophy, chemistry, etc., and for his study of those branches, by previous familiarity with the simpler portions of them acquired in the school-room. ”

“ The access to progressive examinations, of such a character as to test and attest advanced attainments, would, there is every reason to believe, at once begin to work in lengthening the period of study. ”

“ The study of real things rather than words about things, and useful things rather than subjects merely preparatory to college, became prominent features of the new courses of study. Among the most commonly found new subjects were algebra, astronomy, botany, chemistry, general history, United States history, English literature, surveying, intellectual philosophy, declamation, and debating. ”

“ In which direction does human nature most tend? In which direction do educational institutions, in particular, exert their influence? Does the average student, for example, subordinate his teachers and the ideas he acquires to himself? Or does he become subordinated to these, even submerged by them? This is the most important of all the problems concerning study ”

“ A course of studies, embracing definitely all branches of science and instruction to be procured, and rules for classification shall be drawn up, and comprise a complete course of education at the institution. ”

“ The relation of the mind to a study is determined by the nature of the mind and the nature of the study, and there seems to be no reason in psychology why a college-preparatory subject should be taught differently to one fitting for the duties of life. ”

“ In spite of helpful reductions in the curriculum from other sources, we must look to proper method of study as the principal means by which work for both the teacher and the pupil will be made lighter, more effective, and more enjoyable. ”

“ It seems plain that our scientific courses of study need to be remodeled. We should demand more for admission, and make them equivalent to the courses in classics. Before receiving a degree, a student should know some one science fairly well, understand the bearings of the others, have a good training in mathematics, literature, and logic, and be able to read easy French and German prose at sight. ”

“ This last stage of general education, destined to give the pupil a comprehensive and connected view of the things which he has already learnt separately, includes a philosophic study of the Methods of the sciences; the modes in which the human intellect proceeds from the known to the unknown. ”

“ To direct studies of306 the school the science of education must add full studies of the social life of which the school is a part and of the individual nature which is to be trained and molded through the educational processes. ”

“ Principles of education, philosophy of education, theory of education, educational psychology, genetic psychology, experimental education, child study, adolescence, moral education, educational sociology, social aspects of education. Educational theory may be divided into courses which are elementary in character, and those which are advanced. The purpose of the former is to present to beginning students the fundamentals of reasonably well-tested principles and laws, and to indicate to them something of the various phases of education. ”

“ For every one of these—sixty-six, or thereabouts in all, —a most careful syllabus, explaining what has to be studied and how to study it, has been drawn up by experienced persons, the greatest care being taken that both the theory and practice of each subject shall be mastered. ”

“ I maintain simply that they are those which for any reason whatever a man takes hold of, and which take hold of him. It matters not whether the study be in obedience to natural tastes, or whether it be forced upon the student. This is the thing—that the study be taken hold of, and that it take hold of the mind of the person studying. Now, in our primary instruction, the studies which I here advocate take hold of great numbers of pupils ”

“ By the time the fifth year of school has been reached the principal facts concerning each of the prominent factors of study can be talked about freely, as so much definitely understood knowledge, and the children can be expected to apply them in their various studies. ”

“ If every college student would daily for one or two years devote a third of his study time to either of the great subjects we have named, or to others which might be named, he would exercise his faculties in a discipline very different from that afforded by his linguistic and mathematical work. ”

“ If there have not been many express didactic treatises of late, there has been an innumerable host of small dissertations, in the form of addresses, speeches, incidental discussions, leading articles, sermons—all intended to guide both young and old in the path of useful study. What to read, when to read, and how to read,—have been themes of many an essay, texts of many a discourse. According as Education at large has been more and more discussed, the particular province of self-education, as here marked out, has had an ample share of attention from more or less qualified advisers. ”

“ Directed reading, conferences on knotty points, special lectures followed by the questioning of the lecturer, discussions upon matters of opinion, laboratory work when needful, fairly frequent test examinations, and a final examination for places, are the proper ingredients of a good modern College course, and in the necessity of leaving the Professor’s energies free for the direction of all this really educational work, lies another reason for that complete, explicit, well-arranged text-book upon which I am insisting. ”

“ The result of these examinations in spelling, geography, arithmetic, and history of the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades was that no one of the men examined made a passing mark in any subject. The reason is that the material on which they were examined, and which the children in the schools are daily learning, is of a sort that is seldom or never met with in the business of even the most successful men engaged in commercial and professional pursuits. ”