Elementary education

“ Your best plea for the education of their children must be that the elementary education we impart to them will not be confined to the three R's, but will gradually include a knowledge of the things they should know for the intelligent and progressive use of their art, the cultivation of the eye, the dexterity of the hand,—that in the school must be laid the basis of special knowledge, on which the efficiency of the individual worker can best be cultivated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It provided very wisely for the development of elementary education, with the object of "conveying to the great mass of the people, who are utterly incapable of obtaining any education worthy of the name by their own unaided efforts, useful and practical knowledge, suited to every station in life." ”

“ The present widespread agitation for a more purposeful curriculum is fully recognized by this work on practical pedagogy. It discusses modern elementary education in a helpful manner, setting forth its acknowledged defects of standard, and presenting suggestions for the introduction of more industrial training. The book is broad in the best sense, and every problem affecting the school and its relation to the outside world is dealt with so simply and convincingly as to be clear to everybody, whether teachers or parents. Only the great issues of education are considered. ”

“ The Purpose of the Elementary School.—To enable us to answer the question, what is the purpose of the public elementary school, it is necessary that we should first be able to decide what is the purpose of education. ”

“ Apprehension of the true aim of elementary education as essentially and primarily a preparation for practical life has led to a corresponding development of instruction of a practical character, observation lessons and nature study being treated as a necessary element in the curriculum, while handicraft and gardening, and domestic subjects (for girls) , are encouraged by special grants. ”

“ The lessons in drawing and in Elementary education. elementary science should form part of the manual training, and the school curriculum should be unified so that all the subjects of instruction should be grouped together as parts of an organized system. ”

“ They in time gave aim and purpose to the elementary school of the nineteenth century, transforming it from an instrument of the Church for church ends, to an instrument of society to be used for its own regeneration and the advancement of the welfare of all. [9] The introduction of the study of natural objects in place of words, and much talking about what was seen and studied instead of parrot-like reproductions of the words of a book, revolutionized both the methods and the subject-matter of instruction in the developing elementary school. ”

“ That is to say, educational thought in America is tending towards the broad and natural conception expressed in the phrase 'education is a life.' But I wish that educationalists would give up the name Kindergarten. ”

“ This period of a child's life between his sixth and his ninth year should be used to lay the basis of a liberal education, and of the habit of reading for instruction. During these years the child should enter upon the domain of knowledge, in a good many directions, in a reposeful, consecutive way, which is not to be attained through the somewhat exciting medium of oral lessons. ”

“ And when we have taken more account than at present of the profound differences in individual capacities we shall cease to think of an education as something extraneous to the person educated, and to regard the school-curriculum as a Procrustean bed, to suit the dimensions of which the child’s mentality can be extended or truncated as required. ”

“ One thesis, which is, perhaps, new, that Education is the Science of Relations, appears to me to solve the question of a curriculum, as showing that the object of education is to put a child in living touch with as much as may be of the life of Nature and of thought. Add to this one or two keys to self-knowledge, and the educated youth goes forth with some idea of self-management, with some pursuits, and many vital interests. My excuse for venturing to offer a solution, however tentative and passing, to the problem of education is twofold. ”

“ Among the decisive and important steps marking the revival of educational interest among us, is that looking to the introduction into our primary schools of the simple lessons for what is called the 'education of the senses,' and what is in fact the solicitation of the perceptive faculties, and the storing of them, with their proper ideas, through the avenues of sense. ”

“ I am anxious to bring a quite successful educational experiment before the public at a moment when we are told on authority that “Education must be ... an appeal to the spirit if it is to be made interesting.” Here is Education which is as interesting and fascinating as a fine art to parents, children and teachers.
During the last thirty years thousands of children educated on these lines have grown up in love with Knowledge and manifesting a ‘right judgment in all things’ so far as a pretty wide curriculum gives them data. ”

“ The sort of curriculum I have in view should educate children upon Things and Books. Current thought upon the subject of education by Things is so sound and practical, and so thoroughly carried into effect, that I have not thought it necessary to dwell much here upon this part of education. ”

“ This problem will be treated in considerable detail when we come to consider the study lesson.
Pupils at work forming habits of thought, feeling, and action; acquiring knowledge of nature and of society; forming ideals which make for social well-being; and learning in all of this work to act independently, to function in the society of which they are a part: this is education, and these are the goals which we should strive to achieve every day and every hour that we teach. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Finally, I shall discuss intellectual education, its aims, its curriculum, and its possibilities, from the first lessons in reading and writing to the end of the university years. The further education which men and women derive from life and the world I shall regard as lying outside my scope; but to make men and women capable of learning from experience should be one of the aims which early education should keep most prominently in view. ”

“ This leads us to observe another circumstance connected with the operation of this principle, in the instruction of the young, which is the remarkable fact, that, by making the child familiar with a very few primitive elements, a parent or teacher may communicate an almost infinite variety of groupings, or stories, for cultivating the mind, and increasing the knowledge of his pupil. ”

“ I wish to discuss with you some phases of the problem that is perhaps foremost in the minds of the teaching public to-day: the problem, namely, of making education bear more directly and more effectively upon the work of practical, everyday life. ”

“ Education is a discipline—that is, the discipline of the good habits in which the child is trained. Education is a life, nourished upon ideas; and education is an atmosphere—that is, the child breathes the atmosphere emanating from his parents ”

“ There must therefore be, in all cases where the young are concerned, as careful a selection of the mental food, as there is of the food for the body; and the parent or teacher should, in all cases, present only such subjects, and such ideas to his pupils, as the state of their faculties, or the progress of their knowledge, enables them to understand and apply. ”

“ This condition of the new pedagogy results directly from its two fundamental principles: (1) that the aim of the school is development and not science, and (2) that development and the means for attaining it may be theoretically defined. ”

“ Education, instead of blindly following traditional forms, began to shape itself more and more to exact knowledge of the child nature and its needs—very slowly, cautiously and tentatively at first, but, as knowledge grew, with more and more boldness and freedom. ”

“ How to establish the moral aim in the center of the school course, how to subordinate and realize the other educational aims while keeping this chiefly in view, how to make instruction and school discipline contribute unitedly to the formation of vigorous moral character, and how to unite home, school, and other life experiences of a child in perfecting the one great aim of education—these are some of the problems whose solution will be sought in the following chapters. ”

“ Thanks to a teacher’s loving efforts, the children of the primary school may reach the highest levels of achievement; indeed, his benefactions may lift some child of small account to an exalted throne. Thus is it clearly demonstrated that by their essential nature, minds vary as to their capacity, while education also playeth a great role and exerteth a powerful effect on their development. ”

“ If now we can conceive of the eight grades of the common school as eight stages passing naturally from one to another, each a unit composed of a net-work of well related facts, but the epochs closely related to each other in a rising series, from childhood almost to maturity, or from the beginning of history up to the present state of culture, we shall be able also to think of education as a succession of powerful culture influences, that will bring the child to our present standpoint fully conscious of his duties and surroundings. ”

“ What is commonly and technically called education—the development and instruction of the faculties of children, is only preparatory; the scholastic education of the boy is but introductory to the practical education of the man. It is only this preparatory education of the children of the people that is the work of the schoolmasters. ”

“ By culture we mean the content of education, the presupposed heirloom which in the course of time must pass from the teacher to the pupil. This spiritual content, in being apprehended, appears under different aspects: as erudition and information; as formation of personal capacities and training of spiritual activities; as art and science; as experience of life and as concept and ideal of existence; as simple cognition and as a norm of conduct. It includes everything that comes within the scope of teaching, and from whose value education derives its peculiar worth. ”

“ The new method of education gives a gradual series of exercises, continuing the method of Nature. It cultivates the senses, by giving them the work of discriminating colors, sounds, &c.; sharpens perception by leading children to describe accurately the objects immediately around them. ”

“ It is preëminently the function of education to further the growth of the sense of reality, to give the child the sense of relationship between facts, material or social: that is, to further scientific conceptions. ”

“ Those connected with education, therefore, are here taught, that the training of the young should be so conducted, that while the attainments of the pupil shall in every instance benefit himself, they shall at the same time be of such a kind, and shall be communicated in such a way, as shall advantage the persons with whom he is to mingle, and the community of which he is to form a part. Unless this lesson, taught us by Nature, be attended to, her plan is obviously left incomplete. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There has been more instruction, it has been said, during the last thirty years, but less education; for the process of education consists in the building up within the child's mind of permanent and stable systems of ideas which shall hereafter function in the attainment and realisation of the various ends of life. ”

“ That science should be a staple of education, that the teaching of Latin, of modern languages, of mathematics, must be reformed, that nature and handicrafts should be pressed into service for the training of the eye and hand, that boys and girls must learn to write English and therefore must know something of history and literature ”

“ Lead learners to find out, to tell, and to do for themselves. 7. Train learners to assimilate into unity their acquisitions. 8. Train pupils to habitually do their best, in the best ways. 9. Lead the pupil through right ideas to right conduct." He then proceeds to define the fundamental teaching processes, and to state which are to be most largely employed in the several periods of education. ”

“ But throughout the civilized world those responsible for the training of the young—teachers, parents and statesmen—are giving themselves with resolute purpose to the discovery and ordering of the best means of education, for all ages from infancy to maturity. ”