Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

to this, he knew mind thoroughly, in its faculties, powers, capabilities, laws of growth-in short, in its nature and character, he would know exactly how to adjust the subject-matter to be learned to the mind that is to learn it. Varying circumstances of state or condition would not prevent this certainty of adjustment-it would be like the scientist adjusting the object that he is examining to the focus of his microscope so that his eye can see it in defined outline. (3) If, succeeding these two suppositions, the teacher now turns his attention for the time exclusively to consider the ways in which his system of subject-matter shall be set before, or in the presence of, those faculties which are the native ones to acquire learning from this system, if he does this, he will be carrying on investigations in a province which is original and peculiar to the Profession of Teaching.

85. A recapitulation of these points presents: (1) The first field opened for the teacher-candidate is that of subject-matter to be taught by him, and that is to be learned by the student. This is the region of System,-of scholarship in the ordinary branches of learning as they are found in our schools, or as he may analyze and classify for presenting to his pupils. (2) The second field for the teacher-in-expectancy is also that of subject-matter, and is included within the range of our schools. It is special, however, to the Profession of Teaching, and is known by the name of Psychology, Mental Philosophy, or Intellectual Philosophy. (3) The third field is

that of the science and art of adapting objectmatter to the capabilities of the mind to be taught, that of adjusting objects to the focus of the intellectual vision of the pupil.

86. This is properly the Province of Methods of Teaching. This province is that of Principles-it is that of those Principles which exist in the constitution of things, and according to which certain subject-matter must be acquired by the mind in a certain fixed way, provided it ever becomes an actual knowledge within that mind. Some subject-matter is learned by one faculty, some by another. Intermediate between every kind of subject-matter and knowledge of it, there is the faculty which is native to the acquiring of that knowledge. If the proper faculty be not approached, true knowledge cannot be the product from this conclusion there is no escape.

87. "A principle is that which being derived from nothing, can hold to nothing. What is common to all first principles is that they are the primary source from which any thing is, becomes, or is known." (Fleming, Vocab. of Phil.)

66

88. A Principle is a central or representative truth in philosophy, science, art, religion, or morals, which is fundamental and general, and out of which other matters of a speculative or practical character flow, and become its practical illustration. 'He who fixes upon false principles treads upon infirm ground, and so sinks; and he who fails in his deductions from

right principles stumbles upon firm ground, and so falls.-South." (Smith, Syn. Discr., Doctrine.)

"Principle carries knowledge with it, and is applicable to action as a guide or basis of proceeding. A principle is a fundamental truth, or comprehensive law, from which others are derived, or on which they are founded. It may be observed, generally, that principles are last in the order of investigations, and first in the order of practice. They are arrived at by analysis, and when found become bases or starting-points for action or scientific inquiry." (Ibid., Proverb.)

89. Methods of Teaching are principles of adapting subject-matter to the capacities and powers of the pupil. When the teacher says that this subject-matter should be presented for cognizance by this or that faculty of the mind, and in such and such quantities, according to the strength of those faculties, he is acting within the province of Methods of Teaching. But when the teacher says that this point or step of this subject-matter should succeed that or that step or point, he is acting within the scope of a System of subject-matter.

In

90. These two distinct operations are often confounded, or used indiscriminately, causing great confusion in the proper use of terms. the following the word System is properly used: "The Gospel of St. John, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analytical and Interlineary Translation from the Italian, with full In

66

structions for its use, even by those who are wholly ignorant of the language. For the Use of Schools. By James Hamilton, Author of the Hamiltonian System, London, 1825." (Sydney Smith, Essays, p. 74, late ed.) In the expression, "Grube's Method of Teaching Number," the word Method is improperly used. It should be Grube's System, "because the author arranges the subject-matter in such a way that the processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, must be taught in such and such a sequence of order, and in such and such an order of steps. The teacher in this case is not investigating what faculties are to be incited to learn these steps, nor in what quantities the subject-matter shall be set to those faculties, as Methods require. The same remarks apply to the so-called A, B, C Method" of teaching children to read, the "Word Method," and all similar expressions, where Method is used improperly for System.

66

91. The questions relating to what branches shall be taught or studied, do not belong, in strict analysis, to the Province of Methods of Teaching. They are questions of Ethics and of Psychology, of the relations of the individual to the Family, the Society, and the State, of which he is a member and a part, according to the estimate of these relations by each people or nation for itself. They also are within the field of the development of man as man, in his subjective condition—that is, in his psychological

estate.

They belong to the wider field of Peda

gogics, or Education, or to what Mr. J. S. Mill calls" Ethology, the science of which education is the art. (Chamb. Encycl., article Education.)

[ocr errors]

92. "Ethics may be defined as the Science of Practice or Conduct: the latter term is preferable, as Practical Science is more conveniently used to include along with Ethics the cognate studies of Jurisprudence and Politics.

"All three alike are distinguished from speculative sciences by the characteristic that they attempt to determine not the actual but the ideal what ought to exist, not what does exist. An objection is sometimes taken to the application of the term 'Science' to such studies as these. It is said that a Science must necessarily have some department of actual existence for its subject-matter: and there is no doubt that the term Moral Sciences' is frequently-perhaps more frequently-used to denote studies that deal with the actually existent: viz. Psychology, or a portion of it; what Mr. Mill calls Ethology, or the inquiry into the laws of the formation of character; and Sociology, or (as it has also been termed) the Physiology of Society." (Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 1, ed. 1874, London.)

93. Voluntary and conscious instruction and. teaching are the handmaids of education, and are ways of approaching mind, setting before that mind those branches of study which Ethics and Psychology determine are best.

94. Those principles of Ethics and Psychology

« ElőzőTovább »