Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ception of the doctrine of apperception and of her observing it in her daily work. The doctrine is one of those fundamental in modern education. It is not only important that the teacher clearly understand it and observe it in her daily work, but there must be a basis laid at home, before the child comes to school, for his future mental and moral development.

The lessons taken up by the child in school presuppose certain experiences before he entered school; if he has not had those experiences, he cannot grasp the lesson. Unless he has in his mind some facts in common with the lesson he is to learn, he cannot assimilate that lesson. It will mean nothing to him. In other words, his mental digestive organs must be able to digest the mental food that is taken in. Physiologists tell us that each kind of food requires a certain kind of an enzyme to digest it, and that if a food is taken into the digestive organs before the proper enzyme appears, it will remain in the stomach undigested and, after forming poisonous bacteria, will be absorbed into the system, causing all kinds of physical ailments. The results that follow the taking of mental food into the mental digestive organs before the proper enzyme appears is equally harmful and is the cause of most of the mental diseases. There are thousands of people in the world far below the proper standards in efficiency physically because they did not understand or failed to observe the laws of physical dietetics, and there are, also, many thousands of men and women far below the proper standards in mental and moral efficiency because they did not observe the law of mental and moral dietetics.

It is extremely important that the teacher observe the doctrine of apperception in her daily work. It is important that she find out what the child knows and what

his past experiences have been before she undertakes to instruct him. When she assigns a lesson, she should be sure that the apperceptive basis necessary to the learning of that lesson has been laid. She should for this reason never tell the child to take the next five pages, the next chapter, or the next topic, unless she knows that the proper enzyme for the digestion of that food has appeared in the child's mental digestive organs.

The doctrine of apperception holds as true for the moral as for the mental. It is a crime to eram into the child's mind religious creeds and dogmas that he cannot understand. Such a method is just as contrary to nature as it would be for the little child to take into his stomach a piece of meat he cannot digest, just because he might need later in life the food elements that meat contains. We hear people talk about the good that they have received from Scripture they memorized in their childhood, but there is always a doubt in our minds as to the good to be derived from such a course of training. We have always thought that such persons would have been much stronger morally if they had devoted their time to the cultivation of a basis for their moral growth. The child needs to be in an atmosphere of love and sympathy, to be associated with the good and true in real life, literature, and biography, and to have his poetic fancies and artistic instincts developed. The learning of moral precepts and religious dogmas is no substitute for this.

CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND MANHOOD

In the education of the child we must never lose sight of the fact that there is a very intimate connection between his childhood, youth, and manhood. In each stage we are to teach him and let him do what that stage calls for and cultivate his apperceptive centers so that he will

One

be ready for the next stage when he comes to it. of the chief characteristics of the new education is the emphasis placed on the present worth of the child. The old education placed its chief emphasis on preparation for manhood. It regarded the child as important only because after a while he would be a man. Everything was preparatory to manhood; but the new education says that by doing most for the child as he is now we make the best possible preparation for manhood. In all cases we are to satisfy the child's present needs. We are to teach him to read because he has in his life a felt need of knowing how to read. We are to give him numbers only when he needs number relations in his everyday life. We are to give him language lessons only when he feels the need of a better means of expressing his ideas. We are to give him nothing merely because of a need that may arise in the future. We are to give him nothing merely because it is customary for educated people to know or do such things. All our efforts are to be devoted to satisfying present needs.

In each stage the apperceptive basis is to be prepared for the next stage. In his childhood we are to bring him in contact with flowers and plants and create in him a love for these things preparatory to his study of botany later. If he takes up the study of botany without having this love for flowers and plants first cultivated in his heart, he will get nothing from it but a lot of dry facts that will be meaningless to him. He will think he has something when he has not. In the same way zoölogy is to be preceded by a love for animal life. Little children are not to study nature from books; come into contact with its to appreciate its beauties. to study it scientifically.

they are to living forms and learn thus Then they will be prepared There is no more valueless

study imaginable than botany or zoology without this apperceptive basis having been formed. There is no more valueless study than formal grammar before the child has learned to appreciate language. The cultivation in the heart of the child of an appreciation of language is the task of the first years of school life.

PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND MORAL

The unity of the physical, mental, and moral is a very real one, and must be kept in mind by the teacher. The three are one; they are not independent of one another, as is often thought, but they react upon one another in a very vital manner.

This is especially true with reference to the physical and mental. The two are not only related, but, in a very real sense, they may be said to be one. The physical is the organ of the mental. The brain and the nerves are the instruments of the mind. Dr. Hall says that "the cortical centers for the voluntary muscles extend over most of the lateral psychic zones of the brain, and muscle culture is brain building." Thus, there is a more intimate relation between physical and mental growth than we have heretofore dreamed of. The physical and the mental react on each other more intimately than we have thought. Every movement of the muscles affects us mentally, and, vice versa, every mental act affects muscular movement. Angelo Mosso, the great Italian specialist, says that the relation of mentality to movement is very close. The most intelligent animals are those that have the freest use of their limbs. The hand of the intelligent person shows intelligence in its every movement, while the hands of the feeble-minded show equally a lack of intelligence. It is so true that movement is intimately related to mentality that the feeble-minded

are taught through the use of their hands. Their brain centers are strengthened through muscular activity.

The relation between the physical and moral is also very close. Dr. Hall says, again, that "the muscles are the vehicles of habituation, imitation, obedience, character, and even of manners and customs." We are what we are morally or in character because our muscles have formed the habit of responding in a certain way to nerve centers that have got into the habit of discharging in a certain way. The muscles are the organs of the will, and it is extremely important, for this reason, that we maintain the proper coördination between the sensory and the motor nerve centers. If we do not maintain this coördination, we weaken down both sensory and motor activity, and threaten the foundation of character. The man who is always taking in good ideas without acting upon them, always having good impulses without carrying them out, will soon cease to have either good ideas or good impulses.

Then there is another evidence of the relation between the physical and the moral in that the morally weak most frequently are also physically weak. The bad boy at school is, in the great majority of cases, physically defective. Ninety per cent of the boys in the Boys' Training School (the state reformatory for boys) in Oklahoma are physically defective. Investigation has shown that the great majority of the inmates of penitentiaries are defective physically; all of this goes to show that there is a very intimate relationship existing between the physical and the moral.

The mental and moral also stand in a very close relationship to each other. In fact, they cannot be separated. The man who is mentally well balanced is also morally developed. The first prerequisite of moral strength is

« AnteriorContinuar »