The Elements of General Method Part 9

There are few things so valuable as setting up _definite aims_ before children and then supplying them with incentives to reach them through their own efforts. It has been often supposed that the only way to do this is to use _reference books_, to study up the lesson or some topics of it outside of the regular order. But self-activity is by no means limited to such outside work. A child's self-activity may be often aroused by the manner of studying a simple lesson from a text-book.

When a reading or geography lesson is so studied that the pupil thoroughly sifts the piece, hunts down the thought till he is certain of its meaning; when all the previous knowledge the pupil can command is brought to bear upon this, to throw light upon it; when the dictionary and any other books familiar to the child are studied for the sake of reference and explanation, self-activity is developed.

Whenever the disposition can be stimulated to look at a fact or statement from _more than one standpoint_, to _criticise_ it even, to see how true it is, or if there are exceptions, self-activity is cultivated.

The pursuit of definite aims always calls out the will and their satisfactory attainment strengthens one's confidence in his ability to succeed. Every step should be toward a clearly seen aim. At least this is our ideal in working with children. They should not be led on blindly from one point to another, but try to reach definite results.

There is a gradual _transition_ in the course of a child's schooling from training of the will under guidance to its independent exercise.

Throughout the school course there must be much obedience and will effort under the guidance of one in authority. But there should be a gradual increase of self-activity and self-determination. When the pupil leaves school he should be prepared to launch out and pursue his own aims with success.

Will effort, however, to be valuable, must have its roots in those _moral convictions_ which it is the chief aim of the school to foster and strengthen. We have attempted to show in the preceding chapters how the central subject matter of the school could be chosen, and the other studies concentrated about it with a view to accomplishing this result. In concluding our discussion of general principles of education, and in summing up the results, basing our reasoning upon psychology, we are always forced to the conclusion that education aims at the _will_, and more particularly at the will as influenced and guided by moral ideas. This is the same as saying that we have completed the circle and come around to our starting point, that _moral character is the chief aim of education_.

Teachers who are interested in this phase of pedagogy will do well to study the _science of ethics_. Not that it will much aid them directly in school work, but it will at least give them a more comprehensive and definite notion of the field of morals and perhaps indicate more clearly where the _materials_ of moral education are to be sought, and the leading ideas to be emphasized.

Herbart projected a system of ethics, based on psychology, with the intention of cla.s.sifying the chief moral notions and of showing their relation to each other. He also developed a theory of the _origin_ of moral ideas and their best means of cultivation, and then based his system of pedagogy upon it.

The chief cla.s.ses of ethical ideas of Herbart are briefly explained as follows:

1. _Good will_. It is manifested in the sympathy we feel for the sorrow or joy of another person. It is ill.u.s.trated by the example of Sidney and Howard already cited.

2. _Legal right_. It serves to avoid strife by some agreement or established rule; _e.g._, the government of the United States fixes the law for pre-empting land and for homestead claims so that no two persons can lay claim to the same piece of land.

3. _Justice_, as expressed by reward or punishment. When a person purposely does an injury to another, all men unite in the judgment, "He must be punished." Likewise, if a kind act is done to anyone, we insist upon a return of grat.i.tude at least.

4. _Perfection of will_. This implies that the will is strong enough to resist all opposition. David's will to go out and meet Goliath was perfect. A boy desires to get his lesson, but indolence and the love of play are too strong for his will. There is nothing which goes so far to make up the character of the hero as strength of will which yields to no difficulties.

5. _Inner freedom_. This is the obedience of the will to its _highest_ moral incentive. It is ability to set the will free from all selfish or wrong desires and to yield implicit obedience to moral ideas. This of course depends upon the cultivation of the other ideas and their proper subordination, one to another.

The five moral ideas just given indicate the lines along which strength of moral character is shown. They are of some interest to the teacher as a systematic arrangement of morals, but they are of no direct value in teaching. They are the most abstract and general cla.s.ses of moral ideas and are of no interest whatever to children.

In morals the only thing that interests children is _moral action_.

Whether it be in actual life or in a story or history, the child is aroused by a deed of kindness or courage. But all talk of kindness or goodness in general, disconnected from particular persons and actions, is dry and uninteresting. This gives us _the key to the child's_ mind in morals. Not moralizing, not preaching, not lecturing, not reproof, can ever be the _original source_ of moral ideas with the young, but the _actions_ of people they see, and of those about whom they read or hear. Moral judgments and feelings spring up originally only in connection with human action in the concrete. If we propose then to _adapt moral teaching_ to youthful minds, we must make use of concrete materials, observations of people taken from what the children have seen, stories and biographies of historical characters. A story of a man's life is interesting because it brings out his particular motives and actions. This is the field in which instruction has its conquests to make over youthful minds.

We will gather up the fruits of our discussion in the preceding chapters. Having fixed the chief aim in the effort to influence and strengthen moral character, we find _concentration_ to be the central principle in which all others unite. It is the focusing of life and school experiences in the unity of the personality. The worth and choice of studies is determined by this. Interest unites knowledge, feeling, and will. The culture epochs supply the nucleus of materials for moral-educative purposes. Apperception a.s.similates new ideas by bringing each into the bond of its kindred and friends, spinning threads of connection in every direction. The inductive process collects, cla.s.sifies, and organizes knowledge, everywhere tending toward unity.

CHAPTER VIII.

HERBART AND HIS DISCIPLES.

"Then, only, can a person be said to draw education under his control, when he has the wisdom to bring forth in the youthful soul a great circle or body of ideas, well knit together in its inmost parts--a body of ideas which is able to outweigh what is unfavorable in environment and to absorb and combine with itself the favorable elements of the same." (Herbart.)

Herbart was an empirical psychologist, and believed that the mind grows with what it feeds upon; that is, that it develops its powers slowly by experience. We are dependent not only upon our habits, upon the established trends of mental action produced by exercise and discipline, but also upon our acquired ideas, upon the thought materials stored up and organized in the mind. These thought-materials seem to possess a kind of vitality, an energy, an attractive or repulsive power. When ideas once gain real significance in the mind, they become active agents. They are not the blocks with which the mind builds. They are a part of the mind itself. They are the conscious reaction of the mind upon external things. The conscious ego itself is a product of experience. In thus referring all mental action and growth to experience, in the narrow limits he draws for the original powers of the mind, Herbart stands opposed to the older and to many more recent psychologists. He has been called the father of empirical psychology.

Kant, with many other psychologists, gives greater prominence to the original powers of the mind, to the _innate ideas_, by means of which it receives and works over the crude materials furnished by the senses.

The difference between Kant and Herbart in interpreting the process of apperception is an index of a radical difference in their pedagogical standpoints. With Kant, apperception is the a.s.similation of the raw materials of knowledge through the fundamental categories of thought (quality, quant.i.ty, relation, modality, etc.) Kant's categories of thought are original properties of the mind; they receive the crude materials of sense-perception and give them form and meaning. With Herbart, the ideas gained through experience are the apperceiving power in interpreting new things. Practically, the difference between Kant and Herbart is important. For Kant gives controlling influence to innate ideas in the process of acquisition. Our capacity for learning depends not so much upon the results of experience and thought stored in the mind, as upon original powers, unaided and unsupported by experience. With Herbart, on the contrary, great stress is laid upon the _acquired fund_ of empirical knowledge as a means of increasing one's stores, of more rapidly receiving and a.s.similating new ideas.

Upon this is also based psychologically the whole educational plan of Herbart and of his disciples. As fast as ideas are gained they are used as means of further acquisition. The chief care is to supply the mind of a child at any stage of his growth with materials of knowledge suited to his previous stores, and to see that the new is properly a.s.similated by the old and organized with it. This acc.u.mulated fund of ideas, as it goes on collecting and arranging itself in the mind, is not only a favorable condition but an active agency in our future acquisition and progress. Moreover, it is the business of the teacher to guide and, to some extent, to control the inflow of new ideas and experiences into the mind of a child; to superintend the process of acquiring and of building up those bodies of thought and feeling which eventually are to influence and guide a child's voluntary action.

The critics therefore accuse Herbart of a sort of _architectural_ design or even of a _mechanical_ process in education. If our ability and character depend to such an extent upon our acquirements, and if the teacher is able to control the supply of ideas to a child and to guide the process of arrangement, he can build up controlling centers of thought which may strongly influence the action of the will. In other words, he can construct a character by building the right materials into it. This seems to leave small room for spontaneous development toward self-activity and freedom.

Herbart, on the other hand, criticises Kant's idea of the transcendental freedom of the will, on the ground that, if true, it makes deliberate, systematic education impossible. If the will remains absolutely free in spite of acquired knowledge, in spite of strongly developed tendencies of thought and feeling; if the child or youth, at any moment, even in later years, is able to retire into his trancendental _ego_ and arrive at decisions without regard to the effect of previously acquired ideas and habits, any well-planned, intentional effort at education is empty and without effect.

John Friedrich Herbart, the founder of this movement in education, was born at Oldenburg in 1776, and died at Gottingen in 1811 [Transcriber's note: this should be 1841]. He labored seven years at Gottingen at the beginning of his career as professor, and a similar period at its close. But the longest period of his university teaching was at Konigsberg, where, for twenty-five years, he occupied the chair of philosophy made famous before him by Kant. His writings and lectures were devoted chiefly to philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. Previous to beginning his career as professor at the university, he had spent three years as private tutor to three boys in a Swiss family of patrician rank. In the letters and reports made to the father of these boys, we have strong proof of the practical wisdom and earnestness with which he met his duties as a teacher. The deep pedagogical interest thus developed in him remained throughout his life a quickening influence. One of his earliest courses of lectures at the university resulted in the publication, in 1806, of his Allgemeine Padagogik, his leading work on education, and to-day one of the cla.s.sics of German educational literature. His vigorous philosophical thinking in psychology and ethics gave him the firm basis for his pedagogical system. At Konigsberg, so strong was his interest in educational problems that he established a training-school for boys, where teachers, chosen by him and under his direction, could make practical application of his decided views on education. Though small, this school continued to furnish proof of the correctness of his educational ideas till he left Konigsberg in 1833. This, we believe, was the first practice-school of its kind established in connection with pedagogical lectures in any German university. It should be remembered that, while Herbart was a philosopher of the first rank, even among the eminent thinkers of Germany and of the world, he attested his profound interest in education, not only by systematic lectures and extensive writings on education, but by maintaining for nearly a quarter of a century a practice-school at the university, for the purpose of testing and ill.u.s.trating his educational convictions. Lectures on pedagogy are more or less common-place, and often nearly worthless. The lecturer on pedagogy who shuns the life of the school room is not half a man in his profession. The example thus set by Herbart of bringing the maturest fruit of philosophical study into the school room, and testing it day by day and month by month upon children has been followed by several eminent disciples of Herbart at important universities.

Karl Volkmar Stoy (1815-1885) in 1843 began his career of more than forty years as professor of pedagogy and leader of a teachers' seminary and practice-school at Jena. (A part of this time was spent at Heidelberg.) During these years more than six hundred university students received a spirited introduction to the theory and practice of education under Stoy's guidance and inspiration. His seminary for discussion and his practice-school became famous throughout Germany and sent out many men who gained eminence in educational labors.

Tuiskon Ziller, in 1862, set up at Leipzig, in connection with his lectures on teaching, a pedagogical seminary and practice-school, which, for twenty years, continued to develop and extend the application of Herbart's ideas. Ziller and several of his disciples have attained much prominence as educational writers and leaders.

A year after the death of Stoy, 1886, Dr. Wilhelm Rein was called to the chair of pedagogy at Jena. He had studied both with Stoy and Ziller, and had added to this an extensive experience as a teacher and as princ.i.p.al of a normal school. His lectures on pedagogy, both theoretical and practical, in connection with his seminary for discussion and his practice school for application of theory, furnish an admirable introduction to the most progressive educational ideas of Germany.

The Herbart school stands for certain progressive ideas which, while not exactly new, have, however, received such a new infusion of life-giving blood that the vague formulae of theorists have been changed into the definite, mandatory requirements and suggestions of real teachers. The fact that a pedagogical truth has been vaguely or even clearly stated a dozen times by prominent writers, is no reason for supposing that it has ever had any vital influence upon educators.

The history of education shows conclusively that important educational ideas can be written about and talked about for centuries without finding their way to any great extent into school rooms. What we now need in education is definite and well-grounded theories and plans, backed up by honest and practical execution.

The Herbartians have patiently submitted themselves to thorough-going tests in both theory and practice. After years of experiment and discussion, they come forward with certain propositions of reform which are designed to infuse new life and meaning into educational labors.

The first proposition is to make the foundation of education immovable by resting it upon _growth in moral character_, as the purpose which serious teachers must put first. The selection of studies and the organization of the school course follow this guiding principle.

The second is _permanent, many-sided interest_. The life-giving power which springs from the awakening of the best interests in the two great realms of real knowledge should be felt by every teacher. Though not entirely new, this idea is better than new, because its deeper meaning is clearly brought out, and it is rationally provided for by the selection of interesting materials and by marking out an appropriate method of treatment. All knowledge must be infused with feelings of interest, if it is to reach the heart and work its influence upon character by giving impulse to the will.

Thirdly, the idea of _organized unity_, or concentration, in the mental stores gathered by children, in all their knowledge and experience, is a thought of such vital meaning in the effort to establish unity of character, that, when a teacher once realizes its import, his effort is toned up to great undertakings.

Fourthly, the _culture epochs_ give a suggestive bird's-eye view of the historical meaning of education, and of the rich materials of history and literature for supplying suitable mental food to children. They help to realize the ideas of interest, concentration, and apperception.

_Apperception_ is the practical key to the most important problems of education, because it compels us to keep a sympathetic eye upon the child in his moods, mental states, and changing phases of growth; to build hourly upon the only foundation he has, his previous acquirements and habits.

Finally, the Herbartians have grappled seriously with that great and comprehensive problem _the common school course_. The obligation rests upon them to select the materials and to lay out a course of study which embodies all their leading principles in a form suited to children and to our school conditions.

Some of the princ.i.p.al books published in English bearing on Herbart are as follows:

De Garmo, Charles. Essentials of Method. D. C. Heath, Boston.

Felkin. The Science of Education; a translation of some of Herbart's most important writings on education, with a short biography of Herbart. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.

Lange. Ueber Apperception, translated by the Herbart Club and edited by Dr. De Garmo. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.

Lindner's Psychology, translated by Dr. De Garmo. D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.

Smith, Miss M. K. Herbart's Psychology, translated. International Ed.

series. Appleton.

Van Liew. Outlines of Pedagogics, by Rein and Van Liew. C. W.

Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.

The latter book contains a full bibliography of the German works of the Herbart school as well as of those thus far published in English.