How to Study and Teaching How to Study Part 13

As that seemed a large amount to invest in a rat hole, another plumber was consulted; but he made substantially the same report. Still not being satisfied, I went to a hardware store and asked, "Have you a man who can solder a thin metal plate over a small hole in a lead pipe?

The hole is about an inch in diameter and somewhat difficult to reach; but the work can be done by any one who knows his business." The merchant said that he had such a man. The man was sent over; he did the work in a few minutes, and the bill was seventy-five cents.

Plumbers are probably as honest and capable in their lines as most cla.s.ses of workmen; but many persons have learned to their sorrow not to place themselves as clay in their hands.

A man who builds a house should keep more than half an eye on his architect, otherwise the house is likely to cause numerous lifelong regrets. Even one's physician is not to be implicitly obeyed on all occasions. If a patient knows that quinine acts as a poison upon him, as it does upon some persons, he must refuse to take it. Also, if a physician gives too much medicine, as physicians have been known to do, one must discover the fact for himself, or his alimentary ca.n.a.l may suffer. Such men are merely types of the many persons who surround us and help us to live; we must be judges of the conduct of each of them toward us, if we wish to be healthy and happy.

Must we, then, pa.s.s upon everything; and is no person to be fully trusted? How can any one find time for the exercise of so much wisdom?

And what are specialists for?

Certainly many, many things must be taken for granted. When you board a train, you cannot make sure that the trainmen are all qualified for their positions and that all parts of the train and of the track are in proper condition. If, however, you choose a poorly managed road, in place of a well-managed one, you are more likely to be killed on the journey. In other words, while many things must be a.s.sumed, the responsibility of determining what they shall be rests with you, and you suffer the penalty of any bad selection. Your own judgment is still your guide.

Many persons must likewise be trusted. But who shall they be, and to what extent? The objects of choice have now been merely shifted from things to human beings, and independent judgment must still be exercised the same as before. The difficulty is fully as great, too.

Says Holmes, "We have all to a.s.sume a standard of judgment in our own minds, either of things or persons. A man who is willing to take another's opinion has to exercise his judgment in the choice of whom to follow, which is often as nice a matter as to judge of things for one's self." [Footnote: Holmes, _Autocrat of the Breakfast Table._]

Reasons for the use of independent judgment may be found in lack of knowledge on the part of others, or of skill, or of judgment, or of energy, or of honesty. But there is a more fundamental reason than either incompetence or dishonesty, and it is found in the peculiar circ.u.mstances of each person. The point of view of an architect is not the same as that of the owner of a house. Every one hundred dollars added to the cost of a building rejoices the architect's heart because it increases his income. On the other hand, every hundred dollars thus added tends to produce depression in the owner's mind. Similarly, the point of view of any specialist or friend is different from yours; it can never be fully your own. Just because no one can look at your affairs from your own point of view, no one is fully qualified to judge them for you, and you must rely upon yourself.

The people with whom we trade, therefore, the specialists and friends to whom we go, like the authors that the student consults, are all related to us merely as advisers. No one of them is fitted to tell us exactly what to do, and the proper att.i.tude toward them all is that of friendly suspicion.

_Greatness of each person's responsibility for judging._

This conception of each person's relation to ideas and to the world at large places his judgment on a high plane. Whether he will or not, every man is intellectually a sovereign whose own judgment in the decision of all his affairs is his court of last resort. This is a grave responsibility, indeed; and it is no wonder that many shrink from it. Yet what better state can be conceived? This responsibility proves the dignity of manhood; it is the price of being a man. Fairly good judgment, exercised independently of everybody, is one essential condition of self-direction and of leadership of others. The importance of good judgment is often emphasized; and the reason for it is here evident, since it must guide us at every turn. The reason for education of judgment is also evident. Every person is bound to make many mistakes; but he will make far fewer when his ability to judge has been properly trained. The utter inadequacy of instruction that aims mainly at acquisition of facts is likewise evident; for the exercise of judgment involves the use or adaptation of knowledge to particular conditions, and the mere possession of facts bears little relation to this ability.

_The basis that every student has for judging worth._

It may seem presumptuous for a young student of education to pa.s.s judgment upon the greatest writers on education that the world has produced, such as Spencer and Rousseau. Certainly the opinions of such great men are far more valuable and reliable, on the whole, than those of an immature student. The architect's knowledge of building, likewise, is superior to that or a novice in that line. Granted, therefore, that no one person is in a position to judge for another, what right, what basis has this other, particularly the inexperienced person, to judge any and every sort of affairs for himself? He has basis enough. Speaking of the value of expert knowledge, Aristotle says: "Moreover, there are some artists whose works are judged of solely, or in the best manner, not by themselves but by those who do not possess the art; for example, the knowledge of the house is not limited to the builder; the user, or, in other words, the master of the house will even be a better judge than the builder, just as the pilot will judge better of a rudder than the carpenter, and the guest will judge better of a feast than the cook." [Footnote: Aristotle, _Politics_ (Jowett), p. 88.] The reason that the non-expert can thus sometimes even surpa.s.s the expert himself in judging of the latter's work is found in the fact that the non-expert as well as the specialist has had much valuable experience bearing on the specialist's line.

A very important truth is here suggested concerning the student.

Nothing that one is fitted to study is wholly new or strange to him.

Any person must have had experiences that parallel an author's thought in order to understand that author. For, according to the principle of apperception, intimately related past experience is the sole basis for the comprehension of new facts.

Values are no newer or stranger to the student than other phases of experience. The student's related past, therefore, furnishes as good a basis for judging soundness or worth as it does for getting at meanings. When, for instance, he reads Spencer's statement that "acquisition of every kind has two values,--value as knowledge and value as discipline"--he can verify each use out of his own life. He can determine for himself that the a.s.sertion holds. On the other hand, he can quite likely recall how he has sometimes been aroused and stirred to new effort by things that he has read; and he may, in consequence, question whether Spencer has not here overlooked one great value of knowledge. Again, when the student is told by Rousseau that "in the hands of man everything degenerates," he can, no doubt, justify the a.s.sertion to some extent by recalling observed instances of such degeneration. But, in addition, when he recalls what he has observed and read about the wonderful advance made by man toward a higher civilization, and realizes that Rousseau is denying that there has been an advance, he is in a position to consider whether Rousseau is mainly in the right or mainly in the wrong.

It is true that the student may be wrong in his conclusions; also that, even though he be often right, he may become a confirmed fault- finder. But that is not discouraging, for he is surrounded with dangers. The essential fact remains that, just as his past related experience furnishes a fair basis for understanding the meaning of what he hears and reads, so, also, it furnishes a fair basis for estimating its value.

ABILITY OF CHILDREN TO JUDGE VALUES

_A conception of child nature that denies such ability._

Many persons who agree to the necessity of independent judgment on the part of adults may demur at the idea of placing similar responsibility upon children. Are not children normally uncritical and imitative or pa.s.sive? they say. And if we teach them to judge and criticise freely, are they not very likely to develop priggishness that will result in immodesty and disrespect for others? "Memory," says John Henry Newman, "is one of the first developed of the mental faculties; a boy's business, when he goes to school, is to _learn_, that is, to store up things in his memory. For some years his intellect is little more than an instrument for taking in facts, or a receptacle for storing them; he welcomes them as fast as they come to him; he lives on what is without; he has his eyes ever about him; he has a lively susceptibility of impressions; he imbibes information of every kind; and little does he make his own in the true sense of the word, living rather upon his neighbors all around him. He has opinions, religious, political, literary, and, for a boy, is very positive in them and sure about them; but he gets them from his schoolfellows, or his masters, or his parents, as the case may be. Such as he is in his other relations, such also is he in his school exercises; his mind is observant, sharp, ready, retentive; he is almost _pa.s.sive_ in the acquisition of knowledge. I say this is no disparagement of the idea of a clever boy. Geography, chronology, history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day. It is the seven years of plenty with him; he gathers in by handfuls, like the Egyptians, without counting; and though, as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the elements of mathematics, and for his taste in the poets and orators, still while at school, or at least till quite the last years of his time, he _acquires and little more;_ and when he is leaving for the university he is mainly the creature of foreign influences and circ.u.mstances, and made up of accidents, h.o.m.ogeneous or not as the case may be." [Footnote: John Henry Newman, _Scope and Nature of University Education,_ Discourse V.]

This view of childhood is somewhat common; and according to it children are almost exclusively _receptive,_ any active exercise of judgment scarcely beginning before college entrance.

_Extent of such ability.

1. as evidenced by individual examples of children's judgments._

Let us see to what extent this view holds when examined in the light of children's actual conduct. A first-grade pupil who had attended the kindergarten the previous year remarked to his former kindergarten teacher, "I wish I was back in the kindergarten." "Why?" said the kindergartner. "Because," said he, "we did _hard_ things in the kindergarten last year." Then he added confidentially, "You know our teacher was in the fourth grade last year. She used to come in to see us when we were playing, and she thinks we can't do anything else.

Why, the things she gives us to do are _dead easy._" His teacher herself afterward admitted that his criticism was just.

A small boy, being asked if he went to Sunday school, replied "Yes."

"Have you a good teacher?" was the next question; to which came the response, "Yes, pretty good; good for a Sunday school. She would not be much good for day school." Wasn't he probably right?

A five-year-old boy was taken to Sunday school for the first time by his nurse. There the chief topic of instruction happened to be eternal punishment. On the way home he was not altogether good, and the nurse, in the spirit of the day's lesson, a.s.sured him that he would go to the bad place when he died, and would burn there always. When he entered the house he hurried, sobbing, to his mother and declared vehemently: "Nurse says I'll go to the bad place when I die, and that I'll burn there always. I _won't_ burn always; I know I won't! I may burn a little bit. But I'm bad only part of the time; I am good part of the time; and I _know_ I won't burn always." His reasoning on theology was as sound as that of many a preacher.

I was standing near a second-year cla.s.s in reading one day when I overheard a boy say "Nonsense!" to himself, after reading a section. I agreed with him too fully to offer any reproof.

An eight-year-old girl said to her mother, "May I iron my ap.r.o.n? I ironed a pillowcase." "Did Sarah [the maid] say that you ironed it well?" asked the mother. "No, she didn't say anything," was the response. "But I know that I ironed it well." Is that an entirely pa.s.sive att.i.tude?

Rebecca had spent six years in the public schools of two large cities when she entered the seventh grade of the State Normal School. She had been called a "quiet child," "nervous" and "timid," by different teachers. After a very few days in the new school, however, she volunteered this expression of her thoughts: "I didn't think the Normal School would be anything like that. It's very different from the public schools. There only the teacher has opinions and she does all the talking; but in the Normal School the children can have opinions, and they can express them, and I like it."

Any one who has had close contact with children knows that they have a remarkably keen sense of the justice or injustice of punishments inflicted upon them. As a rule, I would rather trust their judgment of their teachers than their parents' judgment, although it is true that parents form such judgment largely from hearing remarks from their children. Children are reasonably reliable, also, in judging one another's conduct, which they are p.r.o.ne to do.

Such facts as these indicate that it is quite natural for children--even very young ones--to pa.s.s judgment of some kind on things about them, and that their judgments are fairly sound. They are hardly to be called merely pa.s.sive receivers of ideas, mildly agreeing with the people about them.

_2. As evidenced by the requirements of the school._

The school plainly a.s.sumes the presence of this ability by the requirements that it makes of children. One of the common questions in the combination of forms and colors, even in the kindergarten, is, "How do you like that?" In instruction in fine art throughout the grades their judgment as to what is most beautiful is continually appealed to.

The judging of one another's compositions and other school products is a common task for pupils. In connection with fairy tales six-year-olds are frequently asked what they think of the story. Many say, "It is beautiful"; but now and then a bold spirit declares, "I don't like it."

Children are expected to judge the quality of literature, distinguishing with ease between what is literal and what is imaginative, or figurative, or humorous. When they read that the rope with which the powerful Fenris-Wolf was bound was "made out of such things as the sound of a cat's footsteps, the roots of the mountains, the breath of a fish and the sinews of a bear, and nothing could break it," [Footnote: Hamilton Mabie's _Norse Myths,_ p. 166.] they are not deceived; they only smile. Now and then they make mistakes; but in general such stories as _Through the Looking-Gla.s.s_ and the "Uncle Remus" stories do not overtax their power to interpret conditions.

What literature or history is there for children that omits the pa.s.sing of moral judgments? Cinderella is approved of for her goodness, William Tell for his independence, Columbus for his boldness; Cinderella's sisters are condemned for their selfishness, and Gessler for his meanness. Without such exercise of judgment these two studies would miss one of their main benefits. The data that must be collected in nature study and history for the proof of statements give much practice in the weighing of evidence; and the self- government that is now so common, in various degrees, in good schools is supposed to be based upon a reasonable ability to weigh out justice. Thus the method both of instruction and of government in our better schools presupposes the ability on the part of pupils to judge worth; and the better teachers have considered it so important that they have constantly striven to develop it through instruction, just as sensible parents have placed upon their children some of the responsibility of buying their own clothing, doing the marketing, and planning work at home, in order to cultivate the power to make wise choice. If the ability to judge were really wanting in children, our supposedly best methods of teaching and governing them would need to be abandoned.

_3. As evidenced by requirements of child life._

The best proof that children possess this ability is that they can scarcely get on without it. Several years ago, when I reached Indianapolis on a journey, I gave my bag to a boy ten or eleven years of age to carry to my hotel. While we were walking along together another boy stopped him and drew him to one side. I observed that they were having a serious conversation, and when we soon proceeded further I inquired what the trouble was. "That boy," said he, "wants me to divvy up with him." "What do you mean by that?" said I. "He wants me to give him half of the money that I am to get from you for carrying this bag," was the reply. "But," I responded indignantly, "he has not helped you at all. Why, then, should he receive anything?" "He shouldn't," came the answer; "but he belongs to a crowd of fellows, and he told me that if I didn't divvy up with them they would pound the life out of me." I pondered for some time, but I gave no advice.

What advice should have been given?

This is a striking ease; but it only ill.u.s.trates very forcibly that children are not merely sleeping, and eating what is given to them, like cattle and sheep. Like adults they are surrounded with human beings and are leading moral lives. At home, in school, on the street, a hundred times a day they must "size up" people and situations and decide what is best to do. If they are weak in such decisions, they are regarded as weak in general; and if very weak, other persons must a.s.sume responsibility for them and "tote" them through life. On the other hand, if they are strong, they are cla.s.sed as sensible persons, and they "get on" well. Children distinguish themselves as balanced and sensible, just as adults do, simply because they are wise in measuring values.

Those persons who regard childhood as almost solely a period for receiving knowledge, seem to think that active life really begins only when one becomes of age. The fact is, it begins from eighteen to twenty-one years sooner than that; and throughout all those earlier years one has nearly as great a variety of trials, and trials usually of greater intensity for the moment, than adults have. In the midst of so much need, it would be strange, indeed, if one were endowed with no power, called judgment, to cope with difficult situations, if one had only the power to collect facts. That would leave us too helpless; it certainly would not be adaptation to environment, or normal evolution.

In conclusion, therefore, those who deny a fair degree of sound judgment to children deny what seems a marked natural tendency of childhood; they pa.s.s a sweeping criticism upon what is now supposed to be the best method of instructing and governing children; and, finally, they deny to the child the one power that can make his knowledge usable and insure his adaptation to his environment. Self- reliance, which parents and teachers strive for so much, becomes then impossible among children, for self-reliance is nothing more than independent direction of self, made possible by power to judge conditions. Certainly most persons are unwilling to take this position in regard to the nature of childhood. They will agree that a twelve- year-old boy, sitting for an hour in the presence of the President of the United States and hearing him converse freely, without forming judgments about him, and many fairly accurate ones too, would be an abnormality.

_Danger of priggishness._

What about the threatened priggishness and related evils that may result when the responsibility for pa.s.sing judgment frequently is laid upon children? Certainly a modest sense of one's own merit and proper respect for others are highly desirable qualities. These qualities, however, are not greatly endangered by the exercise of intellectual independence, for it is little related to immodesty and impertinence.

A few years ago when many distinguished scientists celebrated in Berlin the discovery of the Roentgen rays, Mr. Roentgen himself was not present. Although he had possessed boldness enough to enlarge the confines of knowledge, he lacked the courage to face the men who had met to do him honor, and he telegraphed his regrets. St. Paul, Erasmus, and Melanchthon were, intellectually, among the most independent of men; but St. Paul possessed the humility of the true Christian, and both Erasmus and Melanchthon were extremely modest.

Pestalozzi was once sent by his government as a member of a commission to interview Napoleon. On his return from Paris he was asked whether he saw Napoleon. "No," said he, "I did not see Napoleon, and Napoleon did not see me." Recognizing the greatness of a real educator, he took away the breath of his friends by ranking himself alongside Napoleon as a truly great man. Yet he was one of the most modest, childlike men that the world has ever known. These examples show that the keenest, boldest of a.n.a.lysts and critics may yet be the humblest of men.

Self-reliance is the more common name for similar independence among children; and it is no more nearly related to priggishness in their case than in the case of adults. The five-year-old child will often reject statements from his parents, even though he have the greatest respect and love for them. It is only natural for him to do so when a.s.sertions that he hears do not tally with his own experience; and he will retain such boldness throughout life unless made subservient by bad education.

There is some danger, however, that the cultivation of this independence may make one a chronic fault-finder. It should not be forgotten, therefore, that judging means approving as well as condemning, and in case of children probably much more of the former than of the latter. In addition, care should be taken that children shall pa.s.s judgment only on matters lying fairly within their experience, and shall recognize the need, too, of giving good reasons for their conclusions. If these precautions be taken, the danger of priggishness is reduced to the minimum. What danger remains can afford to be risked; for independent judgment is the very basis of scholarship among adults, and mental submissiveness in childhood is not the best preparation for it.