$ 1. One of the great wants of middle-class education at present, is an ideal to work towards. Our old public schools have such an ideal. The model public school-man is a gentleman who is an elegant Latin and Greek scholar. True, this may not be a very good ideal, and some of our ablest men, both literary and scientific, are profoundly dissatisfied with it. But, so long as it is maintained, all questions of reform are comparatively simple. In middle-class schools, on the other hand, there is no terminus ad quem. A number of boys are got together, and the question arises, not simply how to teach, but what to teach. Where the masters are not university men, they are, it may be, not men of broad views or high culture. Of course no one will suppose me ignorant of the fact that a great number of teachers who have never been at a university, are both enlightened and highly cultivated; and also that many teachers who have taken degrees, even in honours, are neither. But, speaking broadly of the two classes, I may fairly assume that the non-university men are inferior in these respects to the graduates. If not, our universities should be reformed on Carlyle’s “live-coal” principle without further loss of time. Many non-university masters[471] have been engaged in teaching ever since they were boys themselves, and teaching is a very narrowing occupation. They are apt therefore to be careless of general principles, and to aim merely at storing their pupils’ memory with facts—facts about language, about history, about geography, without troubling themselves to consider what is and what is not worth knowing, or what faculties the boys have, and how they should be developed. The consequence is their boys get up, for the purpose of forgetting with all convenient speed, quantities of details about as instructive and entertaining as the Propria qu? maribus, such as the division of England under the Heptarchy, the battles in the wars of the Roses, and lists of geographical names. Where the masters are university men, they have rather a contempt for this kind of cramming, which makes them do it badly, if they attempt it at all; but they are driven to this teaching in many cases because they do not know what to substitute in its place. In their own school-education they were taught classics and mathematics and nothing else. Their pupils are too young to have much capacity for mathematics, and they will leave school too soon to get any sound knowledge of classics; so the strength of the teaching ought clearly not to be thrown into these subjects. But the master really knows no other. He soon finds that he is not much his pupils’ superior in acquaintance with the theory of the English language or with history and geography. There are not many men with sufficient strength of will to study whilst their energies are taxed by teaching; and standard books are not always within reach: so the master is forced to content himself with hearing lessons in a perfunctory way out of dreary school-books. Hence it comes to pass that he goes on teaching subjects of which he himself is[472] ignorant, subjects, too, of which he does not recognise the importance, with an enlightened disbelief in his own method of tuition. He finds it uphill work, to be sure, and is conscious that his pupils do not get on, however hard he may try to drive them; but he never hoped for success in his teaching, so the want of it does not distress him. I may be suspected of caricature, but not, I think, by university men who have themselves had to teach anything besides classics and mathematics. § 2. If there is any truth in what I have been saying, school-teaching, in subjects other than classics and mathematics (which I am not now considering), is very commonly a failure. And a failure it must remain until boys can be got to work with a will, in other words, to feel interest in the subject taught. I know there is a strong prejudice in some people’s minds against the notion of making learning pleasant. They remind us that school should be a preparation for after-life. After-life will bring with it an immense amount of drudgery. If, they say, things at school are made too easy and pleasant (words, by the way, very often and very erroneously confounded), school will cease to give the proper discipline: boys will be turned out not knowing what hard work is, which, after all, is the most important lesson that can be taught them. In these views I sincerely concur, so far as this at least, that we want boys to work hard, and vigorously to go through the necessary drudgery, i.e., labour in itself disagreeable. But this result is not attained by such a system as I have described. Boys do not learn to work hard, but in a dull stupid way, with most of their faculties lying dormant, and though they are put through a vast quantity of drudgery, they seem as incapable of throwing any energy into it as[473] prisoners on the tread-mill. I think we shall find on consideration, that no one succeeds in any occupation unless that occupation is interesting, either in itself or from some object that is to be obtained by means of it. Only when such an interest is aroused is energy possible. No one will deny that, as a rule, the most successful men are those for whom their employment has the greatest attractions. We should be sorry to give ourselves up to the treatment of a doctor who thought the study of disease mere drudgery, or a dentist who felt a strong repugnance to operating on teeth. No doubt the successful man in every pursuit has to go through a great deal of drudgery, but he has a general interest in the subject, which extends, partially at least, to its most wearisome details; his energy, too, is excited by the desire of what the drudgery will gain for him.[199]
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§ 3. Observe, that although I would have boys take pleasure in their work, I regard the pleasure as a means, not an end. If it could be proved that the mind was best trained by the most repulsive exercises, I should most certainly enforce them. But I do not think that the mind is benefited by galley-slave labour; indeed, hardly any of its faculties are capable of such labour. We can compel a boy to learn a thing by heart, but we cannot compel him to wish to understand it; and the intellect does not act without the will (v. supra p. 193). Hence, when anything is required which cannot be performed by the memory alone, the driving system utterly breaks down; and even the memory, as I hope to show presently, works much more effectually in matters about which the mind feels an interest. Indeed, the mind without sympathy and interest is like the sea-anemone when the tide is down, an unlovely thing, closed against external influences, enduring existence as best it can. But let it find itself in a more congenial element, and it opens out at once, shows altogether unexpected capacities, and eagerly assimilates all the proper food that comes within its reach. Our school teaching is often little better than an attempt to get sea-anemones to flourish on dry land.
§ 4. We see then, that a boy, before he can throw energy into a study, must find that study interesting in itself, or in its results.
Some subjects, properly taught, are interesting in themselves.
Some subjects may be interesting to older and more thoughtful boys, from a perception of their usefulness.
All subjects may be made interesting by emulation.
§ 5. Hardly any effort is made in some schools to[475] interest the younger children in their work, and yet no effort can be, as the Germans say, more “rewarding.” The teacher of children has this advantage, that his pupils are never dull and listless, as youths are apt to be. If they are not attending to him, they very soon give him notice of it; and if he has the sense to see that their inattention is his fault, not theirs, this will save him much annoyance and them much misery. He has, too, another advantage, which gives him the power of gaining their attention—their emulation is easily excited. In the Waisenhaus at Halle I once heard a class of very young children, none of them much above six years old, perform feats of mental arithmetic quite, as I should have said, beyond their age, and I well remember the pretty eagerness with which each child held out a little hand and shouted, “Mich! Bitte!” to gain the privilege of answering.
§ 6. Then again, there are many subjects in which children take an interest. Indeed, all visible things, especially animals, are much more to them than to us. A child has made acquaintance with all the animals in the neighbourhood, and can tell you much more about the house and its surroundings than you know yourself. But all this knowledge and interest you would wish forgotten directly he comes into school. Reading, writing, and figures are taught in the driest manner. The two first are in themselves not uninteresting to the child, as he has something to do, and young people are much more ready to do anything than to learn anything. But when lessons are given the child to learn, they are not about things concerning which he has ideas and feels an interest, but you teach him mere sounds—e.g., that Alfred (to him only a name) came to the throne in 871, though he has no[476] notion what the throne is, or what 871 means. The child learns the lesson with much trouble and small profit, bearing the infliction with what patience he can, till he escapes out of school and begins to learn much faster on a very different system.
§ 7. We cannot often introduce into the school the thing, much less the animal, which children would care to see, but we can introduce what will please them as well, in some cases even better, viz., good pictures. A teacher who could draw boldly on the blackboard, would have no difficulty in arresting the children’s attention. But, at present, few can do this, and pictures must be provided. A good deal has been done of late years in the way of illustrating children’s books, and even childhood must be the happier for such pictures as those of Tenniel and Harrison Weir. But it seems well understood that these gentlemen are incapable of doing anything for children beyond affording them innocent amusement, and we should be as much surprised at seeing their works introduced into that region of asceticism, the English school-room, as if we ran across one of Raphael’s Madonnas in a Baptist chapel.[200]
§ 8. I had the good fortune, many years ago, to be present at the lessons given by a very excellent teacher to the youngest class, consisting both of boys and girls, at the first Bürger-schule of Leipzig. In Saxony the schooling which the state demands for each child, begins at six years[477] old, and lasts till fourteen. These children were, therefore, between six and seven. In one year, a certain Dr. Vater taught them to read, write, and reckon. His method of teaching was as follows:—Each child had a book with pictures of objects, such as a hat, a slate, &c. Under the picture was the name of the object in printing and writing characters, and also a couplet about the object. The children having opened their books, and found the picture of a hat, the teacher showed them a hat, and told them a tale connected with one. He then asked the children questions about his story, and about the hat he had in his hand—What was the colour of it? &c. He then drew a hat on the blackboard, and made the children copy it on their slates. Next he wrote the word “hat” and told them that for people who could read this did as well as the picture. The children then copied the word on their slates. The teacher proceeded to analyse the word “hat, (hut).” “It is made up,” said he, “of three sounds, the most important of which is the a (u), which comes in the middle.” In all cases the vowel sound was first ascertained in every syllable, and then was given an approximation to consonantal sounds before and after. The couplet was now read by the teacher, and the children repeated it after him. In this way the book had to be worked over and over till the children were perfectly familiar with everything in it. They had been already six months thus employed when I visited the school, and knew the book pretty thoroughly. To test their knowledge, Dr. Vater first wrote a number of capitals at random on the board, and called out a boy to tell him words having these capitals as initials. This boy had to call out a girl to do something of the kind, she a boy, and so forth. Everything was done very smartly, both[478] by master and children. The best proof I saw of their accuracy and quickness was this: the master traced words from the book very rapidly with a stick on the blackboard, and the children always called out the right word, though I could not follow him. He also wrote with chalk words which the children had never seen, and made them name first the vowel sounds, then the consonantal, then combine them.
I have been thus minute in my description of this lesson, because it seems to me an admirable example of the way in which children between six and eight years of age should be taught. The method (see Rüegg’s P?dagogik, p. 360; also Die Normalw?rtermethode, published by Orell, Füssli, Zürich, 1876), was arranged and the book prepared by the late Dr. Vogel, who was then Director of the school. Its merits, as its author pointed out to me, are:—1. That it connects the instruction with objects of which the child has already an idea in his mind, and so associates new knowledge with old; 2. That it gives the children plenty to do as well as to learn, a point on which the Doctor was very emphatic; 3. That it makes the children go over the same matter in various ways till they have learnt a little thoroughly, and then applies their knowledge to the acquirement of more. Here the Doctor seems to have followed Jacotot. But though the method was no doubt a good one, I must say its success at Leipzig was due at least as much to Dr. Vater as to Dr. Vogel. This gentleman had been taking the youngest class in this school for twenty years, and, whether by practice or natural talent, he had acquired precisely the right manner for keeping children’s attention. He was energetic without bustle and excitement, and quiet without a suspicion of dulness or apathy. By[479] frequently changing the employment of the class, and requiring smartness in everything that was done, he kept them all on the alert. The lesson I have described was followed without pause by one in arithmetic, the two together occupying an hour and three quarters, and the interest of the children never flagged throughout.
§ 9. Dr. Vater’s method for arithmetic I cannot now recall; but I do not doubt that, as a German teacher who had studied his profession, he understood what English teachers and pupil-teachers do not understand, viz., how children should get their first knowledge of numbers. Pestalozzi and Froebel insisted that children should learn about numbers from things which they actually counted; and, according to Grubé’s method, which I found in Germany over 30 years ago, and which is now extending to the United States, the whole of the first year is given to the relations of numbers not exceeding ten (see Grubé’s Method by L. Seeley, New York, Kellogg, and F. L. Soldan’s Grubé’s M., Chicago). In arithmetic everything depends on these relations becoming thoroughly familiar. The decimal scale is possibly not so good as the scale of eight or of twelve, but the human race has adopted it; and even the French Revolutionists, with all their belief in “reason,” and their hatred of the past, recoiled from any attempt to change it. But in accepting it, they endeavoured to remove anomalies, and so should we. Everything must be based on groups of ten; and with children we should do well, as Mr. W. Wooding suggests, to avoid the great anomaly in our nomenclature, and call the numbers between ten and twenty (i.e., twain-tens or two-tens), “ten-one, ten-two, &c.” Numeration should by a long way precede any kind of notation, and the main truths about numbers should[480] be got at experimentally with counters or coins. In these truths should be included all that we usually separate under the “First Four Rules,” and with integers we may even from the first give a clear conception of the fractional parts of whole numbers, e.g., that one third of 6 is 2.[201]
Actual measuring and weighing, besides actual counting, go towards actual arithmetic for children.
All this teaching, if conducted as Dr. Vater would have conducted it, would not give children any distaste for learning or make them dread the sound of the school bell.
§ 10. I will suppose a child to have passed through such a course as this by the time he is eight or nine years old. Besides having some clear notions of number and form, he can now read and copy easy words. What we next want for him is a series of good reading-books, about things in which he takes an interest. The language must of course be simple, but the matt............