TOPICS FOR REPORT AND INVESTIGATION

1. Work as a factor in the education of children.

2. Manual activity and moral training.

3. The educational philosophy of Jesus, as seen in the Four Gospels.

4. The correlation of knowledge gained from books with that gained from practical affairs.

5. The system of school credit for home and industrial work.

FURTHER READINGS

Gesell, Arnold L., and Beatrice Chandler. The Normal Child and Primary Education. Ginn & Co.

Hall, G. Stanley. Youth: Its Education, Regimen and Hygiene. D. Appleton & Co.

Ham, Charles H. Mind and Hand. American Book Co.

Hughes, James L. Froebel's Educational Laws, pp. 248-259. D. Appleton & Co.

Lee, Joseph. Play in Education. Macmillan.

Row, Robert K. The Educational Meaning of the Manual Arts Row, Peterson & Co.

and Industries.

Tanner, Amy Eliza. The Child. Rand McNally & Co.

BY

CHAPTER III

SELF-ACTIVITY IN EDUCATION

Y SELF-ACTIVITY we mean the activity that originates with self. It is the activity in which the whole being is enlisted. In activity the pupil may be putting just a part of himself into his work, and this is more than likely to be the case; but in self-activity all the powers are absorbed in the work at hand. They are used to their limit, and there results a symmetrical growth; it is extremely doubtful whether there is any real development unless there is a harmonious use of all the faculties. Whenever we use a faculty, it will grow, but there is a difference between growth and development; there is also a difference between the development of one faculty and the harmonious development of all the faculties. The pupil who is self-active is like a plant in a wholesome environment, with a rich soil, plenty of air, rain, and sunshine adapted to its needs. Such a plant grows from within outward and is harmoniously developed because it has found its proper environment. So the self-activity of the pupil indicates that he has found an environment suited to his needs.

Self-activity does not mean that the pupil is to be left to his own whims. It does not mean that he is to pass from one thing to another until he finds something that suits his fancy. It does not mean that he is to select his own course of study, or his own methods of study, for very often he does not know what is best for himself. He does not know what his needs are, and the greatest task of the teacher is to study the characteristics and needs of each particular child until she knows his needs better than the child knows them himself. The dietitian

studies the child's needs and the nature of the several foods so that he is able to adapt the one to the other. This is just what the teacher must do; she must be so well acquainted with the child's mental and moral needs that she will be able to adapt one to the other with exact precision. When she has done this, the child will appropriate as his own that which she has laid out for him, and will be self-active in its performance. The external stimulus of the teacher will become the internal stimulus of the pupil.

Then there is another important phase of self-activity that we must not overlook. There is such a divergence between the instinct of the child and its execution that we cannot always be sure that the method of execution we have selected for him is in line with his instincts. The child has the instinct of curiosity, for instance, but that instinct does not manifest itself long when he is brought face to face with the multiplication table. Civilization has side-tracked him, as it were, and he is often compelled to do things that his natural instincts do not call for. He must learn the mechanics of reading before he can read and thus fulfill his natural desire for the acquisition of knowledge; he must learn the mechanics of numbers before he can satisfy his felt number needs; and in almost every line of work he takes up, there is a mechanical side that must be mastered before the real subject can be enjoyed. There is a period of drudgery which every child must go through with; but in most cases, the prospect beyond will lead him through this darkest-period-just-before-dawn without much trouble.

THIS BASIC LAW NOT OBSERVED

But in spite of these limitations self-activity is the greatest law ever discovered in pedagogy. In fact, it is

the basic law of pedagogy, and other laws not founded upon it are valueless. The teacher fails in her work as she fails to arouse the pupil's self-activity. She may pour into his head information of various sorts, but unless this information reacts on the pupil and brings about his self-activity, it misses the mark. Information is to the teacher what medicine is to the physician: its purpose is to bring about a healthful reaction of the bodily organs. If it fails to do this, the physician is foolish to go on giving it day after day, and the teacher is equally foolish to go on day after day giving the child information when that information is failing to bring about a proper reaction in his life. Knowledge that does not result in self-activity is as worthless as medicine that does not result in a proper reaction of the bodily organs.

If this is true, it is evident that the results obtained by the average teacher are very meager. The average teacher is content to go on day after day, merely cramming into the child's head certain bits of information, and she never stops to find out whether or not such information is bringing about the proper reaction—which goes to show that we have not passed the first stage in the educational process. We have been satisfied with the pupil's being a passive recipient and have not sought to make him an active inquirer. Teachers to-day, the country over, are engaged in filling their pupils' heads with the customary quantum of information. In fact, teachers and parents have leagued themselves together for this purpose. The teacher's efficiency is measured by her ability to cram into her pupils' heads this information. Like Dombey, most parents are anxious for their children to be well informed, and they are not satisfied with the teacher's work unless she succeeds in filling their children's heads with the customary amount of information.

They want their children's minds, like their bodies, "dressed in the prevailing fashion." They want them adorned in ornaments of Greek, Latin, the history of Chaldea, and mathematical lore, not because they will ever need these things, but because it is the educational fashion. The mistress of the South Sea Islands would feel forever disgraced to appear in company without the accustomed beads around her neck, earrings in her ears, and nose ring in her nose. We all want to dress according to the prevailing fashion, and this is as true mentally as it is physically. We feel disgraced to appear in company with our compeers and not to know the things they expect us to know. This is why our school curriculum is filled with many things that do not satisfy in us any real need. It would, indeed, be interesting to make an unprejudiced survey of our school program in order to find out exactly how many things we require our pupils to study just because it is customary for educated men and women to know them.

Such emphasis in our schools on the accumulation of information has made them mere cramming machines. They are little more than intellectual hothouses, where, like Dr. Blimber, we produce all kinds of intellectual shrubs in all kinds of seasons. We produce "mental green peas at Christmas time, and intellectual asparagus all the year round." "Mathematical gooseberries (and very sour ones, too) are produced at all untimely seasons, and all kinds of Greek and Latin vegetables are gathered from the driest twigs of boys under the frostiest circumstances." We laugh at Dr. Blimber, but the average teacher is doing things just about as he did them, and the average school is little more than an intellectual hothouse where boys and girls are made to bloom at all untimely seasons.

Dr.