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Popular Educator

Volume XXIII

CONTENTS

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A represents the sensory processes - vision, hearing,

touch, etc.—which are occurring continually during waking

life, as objects in the world about one stimulate the senses.

B represents the central or mental processes that are con-

cerned with organizing and getting at the meaning of the

data streaming in from A. C represents the muscular or

motor processes which occur always in response to any

activity in A or B. Elementary, unorganized, chaotic in-

formation about the world is gained through A; it is corre-

lated, systematized, interpreted in B, and the appropriate

action in view of the conditions is secured through C.

This total process

- not B alone - constitutes our mental

life; what acts through A must produce some effect in C.
In other words, expression must follow impression.

Everyone has observed that children are incessantly doing
something with hands or legs or voice. They cannot sit
still, we are told; they are always getting into mischief.
There is one exception to this: a feeble-minded child will
stay where you put him, and "leave things alone." Physi-
cians always regard with alarm any child who is content to
sit or stand around with idle hands. Lack of activity at C
indicates some deficiency in A or B. It seems to be uni-
this was satisfactory; but a visitor asked the pupil to use the

versally true that a defect in one part of the arc is accompanied by defect throughout the whole of the arc. Imbeciles never develop the ability to do fine, delicate, highly complex work with the hand. Scientists say that the boys and girls who are sent to reformatories are generally not as well organized on the muscular side as normal children; they cannot climb a ladder as well, for instance, or execute any other difficult task with efficiency. Motor poise and ability is apparently essential to moral vigor and integrity. To keep out of jail in modern society requires constant restraint, inhibition of primitive impulses; but he who is deficient in motor control is likely to be found wanting in inhibiting power. A drunken man, whose motor control is largely destroyed, is a mere creature of his lower impulses. His self-restraint leaves him just about as rapidly as his tongue grows thick, his legs unsteady, and his fingers lose their cunning. So, too, perception becomes dull, memory untrustworthy, and reason suffers most of all. You see that the disintegration or undoing of intellect and character goes right along with motor disintegration. You cannot think of a person losing command of his muscles, and at the same time preserving intact his mental faculties.

Now what one sees taking place when one is losing his mental tone or vigor or ability, suggests what occurs as the child develops mentally. In a word, every advance he makes in mental organization is bound right up with motor organization. He will not go much farther in mental than in motor development. If you could tie up every one of a child's muscles at birth you would certainly put a stop to his mental growth at just that point. Perception, memory, imagination, and reason would never come to fruition unless they were enriched by data from muscular activity gained in reacting upon the objects to be perceived, remembered, and reasoned about. One's knowledge does not extend much beyond the power of doing; and this is the more true the younger the child is.

This last point is an extremely important one. To take simple illustrations: a child cannot see appreciatively a letter put on the board for him to copy until he has tried to reproduce it. Simply looking at it is not enough to apprehend the elements of the letter in their right relations. The child who has never had experience in making letters sees his copy the first time merely as a bunch of lines. Watch him as he tries to reproduce it. There is no telling where his pencil will go. He will simply scribble. And why? Because he sees nothing but scribbling. He will not see these lines as running in certain directions with definite spatial relations until he knows how it feels to make the letter. The making of it clarifies vision, renders it precise and detailed, gives individuality to verbal forms.

Have you learned to play golf or tennis? When you looked at an expert playing, did the thing seem simple to you? But when you came to try it yourself, alas! You had not seen in any detailed, special way. You saw only what you yourself could do. You did not see just the fine points that make the difference between the novice and the expert. So it is with everything we learn; we see in terms of what we have done, not much beyond this. The young child just entering school, then, sees most of what is presented to him in a general, obscure, indefinite, nonindividualized way. And he will continue to see all things

of the school in this way if you put him in a seat and keep him there. If you would help him to grow, you must give him a chance to actually perform what you are trying to teach him. This is the fundamental article in the educational creed of all those who place their faith in the principles of modern psychology; and it has, I think, been the fundamental article in the creeds of all great educational leaders from Aristotle down - Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Frobel, Spencer, for example.

There is one tendency more than any other that we must fight in all our teaching. We are inclined to accept mere word-memorizing as evidence of genuine learning, of real progress in mental development. But a pupil may be able to define a word and yet have no understanding of the thing it symbolizes. A boy was asked recently to define ferment. "It means to work," he said. Now the teacher thought word in a sentence, and this was given: "I would rather

play out-of-doors in summer than ferment in the schoolhouse." Here is another instance which illustrates how far astray a child may go in his thinking if you place great value on the mere pronunciation of words correctly.

In a school presided over by a teacher who believes that her mission is to give her pupils a mastery of tools and nothing else, a class was recently heard reading "The Old Oaken Bucket." They rattled off glibly the words:

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it;
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,

And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well!
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,

The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.

When they had finished, the teacher was asked if they appreciated the poem, and she appeared surprised at the question. "Didn't you hear them reading it? Didn't they pronounce the words correctly, and stop long enough at the commas, to count one, and at the semi-colons long enough to count two?" and so on. As a test of their understanding they were asked to go to the board and illustrate the poem. One child drew a large circle and put in four loops, and filled in the rest of the space with dots, when she appeared perfectly satisfied with her illustration. Asked to interpret it she pointed to the first loop and said, "E'en the rude bucket which hung in the well." Pointing to the second loop, "The old oaken bucket which hung in the well"; the third, "The iron-bound bucket which hung in the well"; the fourth, "The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well.” When asked what the dots meant she said: "Oh! those are the loved spots which my infancy knew."

I shall, in future articles, have many practical points to make in application of this principle of human nature, that one grows in mind as he has experience in dealing concretely with the world about him; but let me add, by way of exhortation, before I close, that one great aim in all your teaching should be to have things done rather than defined in book terms. There is not a principle to be taught in arithmetic, say, that cannot be taught in the manner indicated— all sorts of measures, all varieties of buying and selling, etc. Again, a pupil learns to read and write correctly and fluently by actual practice, not by the learning of grammatical rules, though there is no objection to learning these after the pupil has had much concrete experience. He learns to sing by actually trying it, not by learning the staff and rules about modulation and the like. A class that dramatizes a myth or fable or any literary or historical selection will gain an hundred-fold more than a class that simply pronounces the words accurately. So I might go through with all the studies, but it will not be necessary. Every teacher can see the bearing of the principle.

Teachers who rely largely upon mere defining in the school-room will fail altogether in giving pupils clear, precise notions in any subject being taught. Pupils brought up on definitions, a la the text-book, are very likely to go astray even in their defining. They get into the habit of depending on words, and it is exceedingly easy for a slip to occur in giving the synonyms for a word when none of them are comprehended. A pupil taught in the right way would, when asked to describe any object or phenomenon, state his experience with it, employing phrases of his own coining, although these might not be complete and correct in every respect. But, what is of chief importance, he would not use words which he knew little or nothing about, as a pupil. will do who has been trained to recite off formal definitions by note. If the latter pupil can not recall precisely the right synonym for any term, he has no means of aiding or correcting himself, since he has no real and vital experience with the situation denoted by the term in question.

A few years ago Caroline Le Row studied the examination papers of the pupils in a certain city where the definition method was in vogue. She has made a good-sized book out of the strange exhibitions of crooked thinking shown in

a majority of the papers. To illustrate my point I may, in conclusion, give a few typical instances of the results of mere verbal teaching in arithmetic and physiology, and these results could be duplicated wherever teachers place emphasis on learning by rote.

Subtraction is the minuend and the subtracted end.
When there are equal numbers it is called multiplication.
A partial product is one of the things you multiply with.

A quotient is a prime factor and is always a number or some part of a number.

A composite number is just the same as a prime factor.

Brokerage is the allowance for the breakerage and leakerage of bottles. Insurance is when you die or burn up your money and the insurance office pays you for it.

Exchange in Europe is when you go through London, Paris and places. When you exchange money all you have to do is to get the right change. If there are no units in a number you have to fill it up with all zeros. Units of any order are expressed by writing in the place of the order. If fractions have a common denominator, find the difference in the denominator.

Interest on interest is confound interest.

The rule for proportion is to multiply it by all the terms.

The spinal column is made up of little bones and it extends from the head to the heels.

The spine is triangular and situated in the nervous system.

The pulsation of the arteries is a movement of the heart and throws the blood into muscular contraction.

Breathing is something we cannot do without. It is something we have to do all our life.

Breathing is a substance which we cannot see. many cases.

We may hear it in

If we were to live without breathing we could not do it. It is one of the most important things we have to depend on.

If we could not breathe we should not be able to live, so therefore we are taught to breathe so that there might be somebody living.

Digestion is brought on by the lungs having something the matter with them.

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The Model School

Under the conditions that confront us, particularly in the large cities, with the rapid increase and constant migration of our home population, with the influx of vast hordes of people from abroad, alien in language, alien in modes of thought, and alien in tradition, the character of our elementary work is undergoing a profound transformation. We are beginning to see that every school should be a model of good housekeeping and a model of good government through co-operative management. What more may the schools do? They can provide knowledge and intellectual entertainment for adults as well as for children. They can keep their doors open summer as well as winter, evening as well as morning. They can make all welcome for reading, for instruction, for social intercourse, and for recreation. But I, for one, believe they may do still more. When I look upon the anæmic faces and undeveloped bodies that mark so many of the children of the tenements, when I read of the terrible ravages of tuberculosis in the same quarters, I cannot but think that the city should provide wholesome food at the lowest possible cost in public school kitchens. To lay the legal burden of learning upon children whose blood is impoverished and whose digestion is impaired by insufficient or unwholesome feeding is not in accord with the boasted altruism of an advanced civilization or with the Divine command: Feed the hungry. Is this not also a subject for investigation by our National Council?

-Superintendent Maxwell before the N. E. A.

The Period of Discovery

Wm. A. Smith

Topics for Sixth Grade History

I The knowledge of Geography before America was discovered by Columbus.

2 Some peculiar beliefs held by the people of Europe about unknown regions.

3 Columbus's early life.

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29 World? 30 Why English sailors sailing west found a different part of the New World not discovered by Spain.

What was the claim of England to a part of the New

31 coast?

32

33

What motives brought French sailors to the American

How the Spaniards treated the Indians.
The exploring expedition of De Soto.

34 The Indians of North America.- Manners of living; some of the powerful tribes; their appearance, occupations, treatment of women, dress, weapons, food.

35 Principal article of trade between the Indians and the white men.

36 Why the Indians were hostile to the whites.

57 Influence of this hostility upon the early history of the country.

The answers to the above topics will give the pupils a very fair knowledge of the early period of discovery and exploration. Most of the information in the sixth grade should be acquired by reading in the class and from the discussion naturally arising from this reading. The teacher should not try to go too much into detail. It is better to gain in this grade simply a general conception of this very interesting period. Every pupil should keep a history note book where the topic and the answer can be kept. Making a brief, definite statement in writing to each of these topics will help fit the historical facts. It is better during this stage of history work not to demand much knowledge of dates. Have the pupils gain a lively interest in the men and what each accomplished. The personal element in history is always of interest to children. The assignment of lessons and the method of the formal recitation should not be attempted. Let the reading of history at this stage appeal to the imagination and the charm of the narrative will become a part of the pupil's life. This history work should come about twice a week in place of the regular reading lesson.

Studies in American Literature

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VI

Inez N. McFee

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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1809-1894

"The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."

"The Poet Laureate of America."

LIVER WENDELL HOLMES was a many-sided man, the most unique character, perhaps, of that immortal group- Byrant, Emerson, Lowell, Whittier, and Longfellow and died last, the "Last Leaf on the Tree." He was a physician of high standing in his profession, for he made one or two medical discoveries which, though ignored at the time, are now universally accepted. He was a professor of anatomy for thirty-five years in the Cambridge Medical School, devoting himself to his profession, giving five lectures a week to the students. Besides this he was a scientist, wit, author, and poet.

Holmes was born August 29, 1809, in a quaint, oldfashioned house in classic Cambridge, under the very shadow of the buildings of Harvard College, and only a short distance from the historic elm under which Washington took command of the American Army. This old gambrel-roofed house was very dear to Holmes, and he makes frequent allusion to it in his writings:

Home of our childhood! how affection clings
And hovers round thee with her Seraph wings!
Dearer thy hills, tho' clad in autumn brown,
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown!
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas!

The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh,
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky!

For over forty years the poet's father, the Rev. Abiel Holmes, was pastor of the Congregational Church of Cambridge.

That ancient church whose lofty tower,

Beneath the loftier spire,

Is shadowed when the sunset hour
Clothes the tall shaft in fire.

He is reported to have been a good man of exemplary character and an author of some ability, but a "dry as dust preacher who fed his people sawdust out of a spoon." His second wife, the mother of Oliver Wendell Holmes, was the daughter of Hon. Oliver Wende 1, an eminent lawyer, a descendant of the best blue blood of New England. Mrs. Wendell was Mary Quincy Jackson, a daughter of Dorothy Quincy, the "Dorothy Q." of the immortal poem.

Oliver Wendell Holmes had the blood of six of the best colonial families in his veins. The Wendells, however, were from Holland:

Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee, Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, And Vandel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V. Young Holmes entered Harvard College at the age of sixteen, and graduated in the famous class of '29, numbering among his classmates Smith, the author of "America," Pierce, the astronomer, James Freeman Clarke, William Channing, and others whose names are known to fame. Many years after, at a class reunion, he read his famous poem, "The Boys," written in memory of the old college days:

Has there any old fellow got mixed with "The Boys"? If there has, take him out, without making a noise; Hang the Almanac's cheat, and the catalogue's spite! Old Time is a liar! We're twenty, to-night! Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! The stars of its winter, the dews of its May, And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, Dear Father, take care of thy children, "The Boys." After leaving college, Holmes studied law for one year, then changed his course and studied medicine. He went abroad for further medical study, and in 1838, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy in Dartmouth College, a position which he held for two years. He then returned to Boston to devote his life to the practice of medi

cine. About this time Dr. Holmes married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of Judge Jackson of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. They were the parents of three children, Oliver Wendell, Amelia Jackson, and Edward.

Dr. Holmes led a busy life as professor in college, in the lecture field, and as "beloved physician," yet he found time for voluminous writing. Among his principal literary works are, "Poems," "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," "The Professor at the Breakfast Table," "The Poet at the Breakfast Table," "Over the Tea-cups," "One Hundred Days in Europe," "Elsie Venner," "The Guardian Angel," "A Mortal Antipathy," and the "Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson." Popular favorites among his short poems are "Dorothy Q.," "Bill and Joe," "The Height of the Ridiculous," "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Last Leaf," "The Living Temple," and a number of popular hymns and medical writings.

Dr. Holmes included among his friends all the foremost literary people of his day. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly gave a breakfast in his honor. Dr. Holmes and his daughter, Mrs. Sargent, received the guests, who numbered about one hundred. They were assisted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe.

Holmes was a most delightful companion. One of his classmates once said of him: "He makes you feel like you

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were the best fellow in the world and he was the next best."

The charms of his personality were irresistible. Among the poor, among the literary, and among the society notables, he was ever the most welcome of guests. His frank, hearty manliness, his readiness to amuse and be amused, his fund of anecdotes, his tact and union of sympathy and originality made him the best of companions. Holmes was serious and studied the serious side of life. He never tried to be funny. His wit bubbled up spontaneously, and it was more brilliant and appreciated because it was so abrupt and unexpected. Dr. Holmes was first and foremost a conversationalist. He talked even on paper. Someone has said that, after reading Holmes, we feel that life is easier and simpler and a finer affair altogether and more worth living for than we had been wont to regard it. Holmes never grew "old"; the winters of four score years and five could not destroy the warm flow of his fellowship and good cheer. "Eighty years young" he was wont to say, with one of his genial smiles.

Holmes was intensely religious. He once wrote to his friend, Rev. Phillips Brooks: "My natural Sunday home is

King's Chapel. In that church I have worshipped for half a century. There, on the fifteenth of June, 1840, I was married; there my children were all christened; from that church my dear companion of so many blessed years was buried. In her seat I must sit, and through its door I hope to be carried to my last resting-place."

"The Last Leaf" passed from this life October 7, 1894, at the ripe age of eighty-five years, and the world will continue to smile for many generations to come because Oliver Wendell Holmes lived. "The wind mourned, the rain fell continuously, as loving hands bore into King's Chapel, upon Wednesday, October 10, all that was mortal of the famous poet. The casket, upon which rested wreaths of pansies and laurels, was borne up the aisle to the wailing strains of Handel's "Dead March in Saul." The funeral sermon was delivered by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, after which the body was laid to rest beside his wife in Mt. Auburn."

Memory Gems from Holmes

"There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days,

No greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise: Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold; But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold."-No Time Like the Old Time

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!"
-The Chambered Nautilus

"Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.

In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth
So far as I know, but a tree and truth."
-The Deacon's Masterpiece

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."

-The Professor at the Breakfast Table

"Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the Angel of Resurrection."

-The Autocrat of The Breakfast Table

"It is such a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much worse than to inherit a humpback or a couple of club feet, that I sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crippled souls, if I may use this expression, with a certain. tenderness which we need not waste on noble natures. One who is born with such congenital incapacity that nothing can make a gentleman of him, is entitled, not to our wrath, but to our profoundest sympathy."-The Autocrat

"You have been warned against hiding your talent in a napkin; but if your talent takes the form of a maple key, or acorn, and your napkin is the shred of the napkin that covers the lap of the arth,' you may hide it there unblamed; and when you render your account you will find that your deposit has been drawing compound interest all the time."-Selected

"To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it but we must sail, and not drift or lie at anchor."-The Autocrat

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I.

Contentment

Describe a home such as Holmes would like. II. Show the irony in this line, as revealed by the following stanzas:

"Little I ask; my wants are few."

III. Explain-Plenipo, St. James, gubernator, Midas' golden touch, Stradivarius, grasping pomp, buhl, wealth's wasteful tricks, vellum, red morocco's gilded gleam, selfish churls, plain brown stone, etc.

IV. Explain the following stanza :

"Thus humble let me live and die,

Nor long for Midas' golden touch: If Heaven more generous gifts deny, I shall not miss them much, Too grateful for the blessings lent Of simple tastes and mind content." Prose Works for Home Reading "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." "The Professor at the Breakfast Table." "Elsie Venner."

Questions on These Works as a Review Test

I Quote some rich gems from "The Autocrat." Describe the Company around the Breakfast Table in "The Autocrat."

2

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