Pupilage

“ For the teacher who understands the psychology of children, it is a true pleasure to witness the teaching at these Landerziehungsheime. The children take a delight in their school and become the comrades of their master. Physical exercise, [478] the development of the powers of reason and judgment, the education of the sentiments and will, are all harmoniously combined. The children are not given the dry text-books of our schools, but made familiar with the works of the great authors and men of genius. ”

“ What, then, are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary school,—the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained—those which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. ”

“ I have now sketched in outline the course of education from babyhood to about sixteen and a half, arranged with some attention to the rhythmic pulses of life. In some such way a general education is possible in which the pupil throughout has the advantage of concentration and of freshness. Thus precision will always illustrate subject-matter already apprehended and crying out for drastic treatment. Every pupil will have concentrated in turn on a variety of different subjects, and will know where his strong points lie. ”

“ Another mode of conducting an infant-school is to place the children in little classes, of six scholars, with a teacher for each, and proceed with singing, repeating commandments, singing, recitation for ten minutes, study of emblems, a ten-minute address, and prayers, having a verse or two of singing between every exercise, and no exercise longer than ten minutes. Thus an excellent system of infant-class [128] instruction proceeds, while the lady who has charge gives the address and superintends the teachers, etc., for the hour devoted to the school. ”

“ To his pupils, however, he must always appear in the threefold character of teacher, master, and developed human being; while they correspondingly present themselves to him as pupils, members of the school, and elementary human beings. Of these pairs of relationships two are contrasted and supplemental,—teacher and pupil, master and scholar, having nothing in common, each being precisely what the other is not. As human beings, however, pupil and teacher are akin and removed from one another merely by the degree of progress made by the elder 63 along a common path. ”

“ Not far removed is the talent which mind-wandering school-boys display during the hours of instruction, of noticing every moment in which the teacher tells a story. I remember classes in which, instruction being uninteresting, and discipline relaxed, a buzzing murmur was always to be heard, which invariably stopped for as long a time as an anecdote lasted. ”

“ The children enter the kindergarten at the end of the toddling age, and the little lads and lassies sit side by side in their delightful rooms and make their first songs of life, as they end them, together, their little arms and hands making the first efforts at rhythm together, awkward movements full of grace. They pass at eight years to the primary department and begin the toilsome upward pull of real study, and here their ways part,—the boys for the Peers’ School and the ruder ways of masculine effort. ”

“ The teacher in school, acquainted with the order in which the different powers of the mind develop in childhood, adapts his instructions to the growth in progress at any particular period. While not at all neglecting the general training of the child, he will direct his efforts particularly, at different stages of progress, to the development for example of perception, of imagination, of comparison or reason, in his pupil, as the mind under his charge grows in power. ”

“ Or the associations may all be required from the pupil. The words used as starters should be carefully chosen, of course, to meet the mental condition of the pupil; such words as Baby, Doll, Mamma, Bed, House, etc., being good for children of tender years.
[83]
Another excellent exercise is that of “Contrasts or Differences,” where the teacher says, “Boy,” and the pupil responds, “Girl.” “Black” calls forth “white,” “heavy” is responded to by “light,” etc.
Equally good is “Finishing Quotations” or “lines”—provided, of course, the pupil is old enough for such a mental exercise. ”

“ The effect which the Master seeks to produce by this wonderfully close association is the harmonizing and attuning of the pupil's vehicles — the same result which an Indian teacher tries to gain by keeping his disciples always in the neighborhood physically. Whatever may be the special kind of exercises of the special course of study prescribed, in all cases the principal effect upon the pupil is that produced not by either exercises or study, but by being constantly in the presence of the teacher. ”

“ I feel sure that the boy who commences his studies at ten will far outrun the one who commences study at six. Every child should commence his lessons in the best kindergarten, the nursery. Let object lessons be his primer—let him be taught by word of mouth—then, when his brain is what it should be for a boy of ten, his eyes will be the better able to bear the fatigue of the burdens which will be forced upon him. Listen to what Milton has left on record as a warning to those young boys or girls who insist upon reading or studying at night with bad illumination. ”

“ The effect of this principle in the infant is worthy of remark.—While the pupil remains under the teaching of Nature, there is no confusion,—no hurry,—no failure. The tasks which she prescribes for him are never oppressive, and are constantly performed with ease and with pleasure.—Although there be no [Pg 68] selection made by the parent or teacher for the child to exercise his faculties upon, yet he instinctively selects for himself, without hesitation, and without mistake. ”

“ For this reason, the Teacher in these lower Schools should be a partaker of the Idea, because it is his task imperceptibly to familiarize the youth with the high and noble before he is able for himself to distinguish these from the vulgar, to accustom him to these, and to estrange him from the low and ignoble. Thus guarded in his early years, and thus prepared for higher progress, the youth enters the University. ”

“ The vitalized teacher rejoices in the pictures that the child draws and turns this tendency to good account. Through this inclination to draw she finds the real child and so, as the psychologists direct, she begins where the child is and sets about attaching to this native tendency the work in nature study, geography, or history. When she discovers a constructive tendency in the child, she at once uses this in shifting from analytic to synthetic exercises in the school order. ”

“ We were enabled therefore to conclude that the real teacher is within the soul of the pupil, or, better still, the teacher is the pupil himself in the dynamism of his development. So that, far from limiting the autonomy of the disciple, the master, as the propulsive element of the pupil’s spontaneity, penetrates his personality, not to suppress it, but to help its impulses and facilitate its infinite development. ”

“ If it is necessary that the pupil should undertake any special system of psychic development on the physical plane, the Master will indicate it to him either directly or through one of His recognized pupils. What is prescribed in this way differs according to the character and need of the pupil, and it is usually best for us to wait until we are definitely told before attempting any practices of this kind. Even when we are told of them it is best that we should keep them to ourselves, and not discuss them with others, as it is more than probable that they would be unsuited to anyone else. ”

“ We begin our kindly ministrations with the little kindergarten scholar, to whom work [Pg 37] is presented as play, and who is expected to absorb the elements of education without conscious effort, and certainly without compulsion. We encourage him to feel that the business of his teacher is to keep him interested in his task, and that he is justified in stopping short as soon as any mental process becomes irksome or difficult. ”

“ This school spirit is something which is quickly communicated from one pupil to another, communicated even to the teacher, is apparently expressed in the tones of the voice, in the eyes, in the motions, in the zeal of emulation, it is something perfectly palpable, indispensable, and invaluable, and should, therefore, be the aim of every teacher. ”

“ Least of all need you, merely as teachers, deem it part of your duty to become contributors to psychological science or to make psychological observations in a methodical or responsible manner. I fear that some of the enthusiasts for child-study have thrown a certain burden on you in this way. By all means let child-study go on,—it is refreshing all our sense of the child's life. There are teachers who take a spontaneous delight in filling syllabuses, inscribing observations, compiling statistics, and computing the per cent. ”

“ In the sixth place, pupils will be dropped and promoted by a teacher, in such a class as has been described, according to the spirit and force and creativeness of their daily work. Promotion will be by elimination—that is, the pupil will stay where he is and the class will be made smaller for him. The superior natural force of each pupil will have full sway in determining his share of the teacher’s force. ”

“ But the Public School teacher will accomplish much if, reverently and sympathetically, he endeavours to preserve the freshness and ingenuousness of childhood and, by the influence of his own example, while leading the pupil up the golden ladder of mental acquisition, he encourages the cultivation of those graces of life which are the best adornments of youth.'—Feb. ”

“ At five or six years of age the pupil comes to the primary school. His experience is very limited; his senses are open to the impressions of color and sound and touch, and he eagerly or timidly mixes in the social group which is often to him bewilderingly large and strange. The key to the understanding of this period is to be found in the simple psychological principle that out of all the bewildering mass of childish experience it is persons who attract the child’s most vivid attention. ”

“ But it is obvious that in the usual schoolroom no such differentiation of appeal is possible; and the only really useful practical lesson that emerges from this analytic psychology in the conduct of large schools is the lesson already reached in a purely empirical way, that the teacher ought always to impress the class through as many sensible channels as he can. Talk and write and draw on blackboard, permit the pupils to talk, and make them write and draw, exhibit pictures, plans, and curves, have your diagrams colored differently in their different parts, etc. ”

“ The pupils rise.
Third Pupil
You dreamed it.
Wise Man I was awake as I am now.
First Pupil (to the others) I may be dreaming now for all I know.
He wants to show we have no certain proof
Of anything in the world.
Second Pupil
There is this proof That shows we are awake—we have all one world
While every dreamer has a world of his own,
And sees what no one else can.
Third Pupil
Teigue sees angels. So when the Master says he has seen an angel,
He may have seen one. ”

“ In almost every school, there are enough who can sing to begin, especially if the first experiment is made in a recess, or before or after school; and the beginning once made, the difficulty is over. If but few tunes are sung, a very large proportion of the scholars will soon learn them.
3. Let there be no other regular exercise until the close of the afternoon school. When that hour has arrived, let the teacher devote a very short period, five minutes perhaps, to religious instruction, given in various ways. At one time, he may explain and illustrate some important truth. ”

“ Most branches of study could muster only one or two pupils in each class: Five to ten minutes a day is all that can be allowed in such cases for a recitation. No thoroughness of instruction on the part of the teacher is possible, nor is there much improvement to be expected in the method of instruction where classes can not be formed. ”

“ In five ways the pupil should honour his teachers, who are the south quarter. By rising in their presence, by ministering to them, by obeying them, by supplying their wants, and by attentively receiving their instruction. And in five ways the teachers show their affection for their pupil. They train him up in all that is good, they teach him to hold fast knowledge, they instruct him in science and lore, they speak well of him to his friends and companions, and protect him from danger in every quarter. ”

“ In any graded course of study the pupils are expected to earn promotion from grade to grade by attaining a certain required average in their work. In the Junior Course the Pupil’s Book for Work and Study is, as the name implies, both a guide in study, and a means of fixing in mind the knowledge which has been gained. To meet the requirements of this book the pupil must do the daily Bible readings, learn the memory text or texts each week, do whatever reading is required, and learn the hymns that are printed in the book. ”