The Training of Teachers: The Old View of Childhood, and the New

DURING the Middle Ages, it was a pastime of philosophical monks to write treatises closing up “ mental and moral science.” In similar fashion, in our own day, it is assumed by many schoolmen that there is a definite and final “ code of principles ” of education. In education as in theology, it is granted, there may be sects, but the general impression exists that there are certain fundamental laws that are final, and certain definite principles with which teachers may be fitted out for their work. This it is fair to call the old, even mediæval view of education ; and the modern or scientific view is in such sharp contrast to it that, at this late time, it ought not to be necessary to explain the difference. To get some first-hand knowledge of what the normal schools are doing in this matter, and to ascertain to what extent the new conception of education has been accepted by them and is now followed in the training of teachers, I have recently visited all the normal schools of Massachusetts.

As an illustration of the mediæval conception of the mind and of the proper method of training it, I quote from the catalogue of one of the best of these schools an explanation of the method whereby teachers are trained there. In this explanation the tone of mediæval dogmatism — the tone of certainty and finality — is obvious. The italics are mine.

“The control of conduct of others through an appeal to their wills, of their wills through their feelings, and of their feelings through their intelligence, is made a matter of clear knowledge. The relation of free will to moral responsibility is revealed. The law of the development of power and of formation of habits by the activity of pupils themselves is traced from the simplest forms of perception through memory, imagination, reason, and all other kinds of mental action, even to the development of character by means of self-direction and self-control. The principles which determine the best methods of teaching are carefully grounded upon the necessary sequence of the different kinds of psychical action. The principles which determine the rational government of children are based upon the laws of the creation of power and habits through self-activity.”

The principles and many methods of education, one would infer from such an announcement, can be easily distributed among teachers ; and thus equipped, they may go forth prepared to practice the most difficult work that man or woman can undertake.

I visited, among others, a normal school which stands, in the practical school world, for all that is sound and modern. There are few schools superior to it in the perfection of detail in equipment. Its teachers are earnest, and devoted to education. I listened to a recitation in work which covers the subjects that usually appear under the head of psychology and principles of education. The following is an account of the recitation, slightly abbreviated : —

“ What is conscience ? ” was the teacher’s first question.

“ Conscience,” said the pupil who was called upon, “ is the power by which we know the moral quality of our choices, and feel the approbation or guilt which follows choice.”

“ Is conscience an infallible guide ? ”

This question caused some confusion, but the following answer finally won approval : —

“ In one sense conscience is infallible, and in another it is not. Conscience is not infallible in judging what is the highest good ; it is infallible in affirming that we should choose in accordance with our sense of obligation.”

“ How, then, are we to avoid the danger of erring judgment ? ”

“ We must take the utmost pains to know what is the highest good, and then we must follow this highest good as a choice.”

“ How do we feel when we make right choice ? ”

“ We feel that we are doing right.”

“ And in the case of a wrong choice ? ”

“ We feel that we are doing wrong.”

“ Always ? ”

An interesting discussion, admirably conducted as an illustration in the art of teaching, followed. Some pupils volunteered original views, and without answering them or otherwise curbing them for a time, the teacher allowed free discussion. One girl said she knew another girl who maintained that if a person did what her conscience told her was right, she did right. Another pupil told of her Sunday-school teacher, who, when asked whether theatre-going was right or wrong, replied that theatre-going was not right for her own conscience, but if her pupils’ consciences approved such conduct, it was right for them.

Finally, the teacher observed that there are evidently many notions of what things are right and what things are wrong, as the members of the class had indicated. “ Since there are so many human standards, what are we to do about it ? May these human standards all be wrong ? “

Class (in chorus) : “ Yes, sir.”

“ Is there any such thing, then, as an absolute right ? ”

Class : “ Yes, sir.”

“ Where shall we find this absolute standard ? ” asked the teacher, calling upon an individual.

“In the Word of God.”

“ The Word of God, then, makes a revelation of God’s will, and gives us a standard of absolute right ? ”

Class: “ Yes, sir.”

At this moment the Unexpected Pupil held up her hand and took part in the proceedings. She wanted to know what people who do not have the Bible at hand are going to do in making choices. There are many thousands of such people in the world. There are the Chinese, for example.

The teacher waved off the interruption with his hand. “ That is a minor matter,” he said.

“I can’t see that it is,” replied the girl, trembling, but standing her ground bravely. “ I can’t see how, on this theory, these people ever know what to do.”

“Is there a God?” demanded the teacher solemnly.

“ Yes, sir’,” she said, with more assurance in her words than in her accent.

“ Is there a Word of God ? ” was the next deep-toned question.

“ Yes, sir.”

“ Well, then ! ”

“ But these people have no Bible.”

“ Well, we have, have we not ? ”

“ Yes, sir, but ” —

“ Well, let us take what we have, and follow it. We are sure of this. That is enough for us. Let the other matter rest.”

The hand waved off further discussion of the subject authoritatively. The Unexpected Pupil sat down, and looked at her hands gravely.

Some illustrations were offered at this point by the class, and when the teacher again took up the thread of his argument, he quoted Whately’s analogy, writing on the blackboard the following : —

Sun Word of God

Watch Conscience

Business Character

In explanation of this scheme, the teacher pointed out that the business man regulates his business affairs by the time of his watch, and the time of the watch is regulated by comparing it with the sun time. This sun time is given by the sun-dial, and the teacher brought into the class a sun-dial to illustrate this point objectively. So also is it with conscience. Man is regulated in his character by his conscience, as the watch regulates the business man’s appointments. But neither con science nor watch is absolute. They must be regulated by a higher power. As the business man regulates and corrects his watch by the sun-dial, so we must regulate and correct our consciences by consulting the Bible. We must see to it that our consciences are in harmony with the Bible, as the business man sees to it that the watch agrees with the sun-dial, for God directly reveals himself through the Bible as the sun reveals itself through the agency of the sun-dial.

The Unexpected Pupil was again upon her feet. There was a quiver of adolescent fervor, as she nervously demanded, “Is the sun-dial infallible? The sun-dial does not give to the watch the time that we use.”

The teacher’s hand waved her off. However, she stood firm, and insisted that the time which we use is not the sun time. The sun-dial is not the infallible guide. We modify the sun-dial time before the business man uses it.

The teacher, more in sorrow than in anger, suffered the interruption, and admitted that what she said was true ; that there is a difference between sun and watch time. He intended to be kind and gentle in his manner, and this eager questioner was at last quieted. She did not press her point, and the teacher proceeded to drive home and to clinch his point. There is no absolute human standard, but we have an absolute standard at hand in the Word of God, if we search it in the right spirit. Moreover, we must proceed in this way, for “ that servant which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.”

“ What, then, is the position of conscience ? ” asked the teacher finally, summing up.

“ The conscience acts when we choose : hence it implies the action of the intellect, sensibility, and will.”

“ What are the marks of a strong will ? ”

“ Strength of will is shown by selfcontrol — that is, by the control of the natural impulses when they are in opposition to conscience —and by controlling other minds.”

“ How is the will cultivated ? ”

“ The will is cultivated by cultivating the intellect, which enables the mind to judge more wisely what is the highest good ; by listening to the voice of conscience in regulating the natural impulses ; by resolving to do always what ought to be done.”

In the same manner, a number of principles relative to what is learned from the study of the will were stated in accurate form. Finally this question was put: “ What does the moral training of the child require ? ”

“ Knowledge,” was the exact reply, “ that he may know what he ought to do, and, later on, that he may know why he ought to do it.”

“ How would you go about teaching a child what he ought to do ? ”

There was some fumbling for an answer. One pupil thought a child learned largely by imitation.

“ But what would you do first ? ”

“ Tell and show him what to do.”

“ Suppose he would not do it then ? ”

The pupil hesitated.

“ Require him to do it ? ” asked the teacher suggestively. " Would not you have him do the thing ?" ”

“Yes.”

“ And as he grows able to understand, then ” —

“ Explain why he ought to do the thing.”

“ Yes, correct,” said the teacher approvingly. " You would teach the child, in other words, to control himself. By requiring him to do it, by his doing it, and finally by explaining it, the moral training is accomplished. How many of you now see the principle in the moral training of children ? ”

Nearly all hands were raised. The hand of the Unexpected Pupil was among the exceptions, but she kept her own counsel.

“ What are the steps in the moral training of children ? ”

“ Right motives to induce them to choose correctly, the exertion of the will in doing what is right, practice till good habits are established.”

The recitation concluded with a brief recapitulation of the study of the sensibilities and the will.

At the close of the recitation, printed leaflets were passed to the members of the class, containing tha material for the next lesson. The teacher explained that, in preparing the lesson, the pupils should first think out for themselves the laws therein contained, and after thinking them out thoroughly by this introspective method they should carefully memorize the definitions, in the precise form that they would find upon the paper. He especially wished that this form should he accurately memorized, for these laws of thought were of the utmost importance, and the pupils should have them stored away in their minds in a form that they could never forget.

This illustration gives a clearer idea than any description could give how one of the principles of education, the important principle of moral training, is administered. In the school referred to, this course includes what usually goes under the head of psychology and pedagogy. It begins with the natural environment of man, and proceeds to an analysis of the physical laws of his being, then to the modes of his spiritual activity, that the student may acquire “ a knowledge of the conditions and products of the mind’s activity, and the ability to use this knowledge in the education of children.”

While the recitation and the work in this course may suggest many things, the reason for introducing the incident here is to illustrate the underlying assumption that there are established principles, and that the preparation of teachers consists in handing down to them a code. This purpose constitutes one part of normal work ; the other part deals with the application of the principles, in the form of methods for teaching, with special reference to the various subjects of the common school curriculum. It is clear that if there is any flaw in the original principles, the value of this elaborate system of method-teaching will be undermined.

Of the six other normal schools of Massachusetts which I visited, all maintain an elaborate system of teaching methods dependent upon this assumed code of established principles; but the departments of pedagogy in two of these schools do not recognize the existence of such a code, — an opposing tendency that will be discussed later. In one of the four others, the instructor in psychology and pedagogy on the occasion of my visit was attempting to analyze, by the introspective method, the elements of moral consciousness. The leaflet system was not in use, and while there was less evidence of blind memorizing and the discussions were freer, nevertheless, the essential dogma, that principles of education directly applicable to the teaching of children could be derived by analysis of adult consciousness, was the basis of the work. At a third school, the instruction in psychology and principles of education was not in progress at the time of my visit, but the plan as outlined to me by the instructor was in accord with those previously described. The system of the fifth school was practically identical with that of the school first described. One recitation that I heard was upon the formation of judgments.

“ What is a judgment ? ” asked the teacher, as he picked off a card from a pack containing the names of the members of the class.

“ A judgment,” replied the pupil upon whom the lot fell, “is a relation between concepts.”

“ What is the act of judging?” was asked as a fresh card was turned.

“ The act of judging,” said the pupil, “ is the act of knowing that the concept of the species is included in the concept of the genus.”

“ Give an example.”

“In the judgment ‘ a dog is an animal,’ the act of judging is the act of knowing that the concept ‘dog’is included in the concept ‘ animal.’ ”

“ In what two ways may concepts be compared ? ”

“ Concepts may be compared in two ways, — as to content and as to extent.”

“ What is a judgment of content ? ”

“ A judgment of content is the knowing that the content of one judgment is included in the content of another.”

The wording of this answer was not considered quite correct by the attentive class, and a correction was made.

“ What two kinds of judgment of extent are there ?” asked the teacher.

“ The two kinds of judgment of extent are common judgments of extent and scientific judgments of extent.”

“ What is a common judgment of extent ? ” and the turning of the card brought to her feet a ruddy-faced young woman, who said with considerable rapidity, “ A common judgment of extent is the knowing that judgment of extent is included in the concept of another, without genii or species.”

A titter admonished her, and she hastily corrected her statement: “ I mean, without genii or speciei.”

A peal of laughter followed, and the teacher kindly tried to smooth matters. Thus encouraged, the ruddy-faced young psychologist tried again. “ A common judgment of extent is the knowing,” she said carefully, " that the judgment of extent is included in the concept of another, without generalized species.”

This answer caused a second peal of laughter, and a turn of the cards brought a fresh contestant, who said in a tone of convincing certainty, “A common judgment of extent is the knowing that one judgment of extent is included in the judgment of another, without thinking them as genus or species.”

“ Are you sure you are correct ? ”

“ I think I am.”

Another card was turned, and the fresh recruit said, feeling her way from word to word, “ A common judgment of extent is the knowing that one judgment of extent is included in the judgment of another without being included as a species of the genus.”

This seemed the correct answer, and the inquiry into scientific judgments was next taken up in the same manner.

Space is given to the unfortunate contretemps that occurred, not as an evidence that lessons are not always learned, for accidents will occur in the best regulated schools, but as an illustration of the means by which these lessons are acquired. The course in principles in this school comprises one hundred and eighty recitations in psychology, sixty in the principles of education, forty in logic, and forty in the history of education. All of the teaching, with the exception of that in the history of education, is done by the gentleman who conducted the recitation quoted.

The purpose of this article is not to deal with the problem of the preparation of teachers in its local aspects, but the illustrations are taken from schools in Massachusetts upon the assumption that the problem as it is in Massachusetts is typical of general tendencies throughout the nation. A limited area of observation was chosen to warrant concrete and specific statement, and Massachusetts was selected for the historical reason that this State has been a leader in the systems of preparing teachers. More than one third of the graduates of the normal schools in Massachusetts have passed through the courses in the first and last of the schools where the recitations that I have quoted were heard, and I venture to say that, with the exception of the graduates of one other school, practically all the normal school graduates in Massachusetts up to the year 1896 memorized similar definitions, and were drilled systematically in these pretensions of settled principles of education under the name of “ psychology and principles of education.” The ruling tendency in the preparation of teachers proceeds on the assumption that a code of principles has been absolutely established upon the basis of the so-called introspective psychology, with its tastefully worded definitions and artistic classifications.

Now, this form of psychology was in the zenith of its popularity during the Middle Ages, — just after the time when a number of the sedate monks wearily withdrew from the mathematical disputes over the number of dancing demons a needle-point could comfortably accommodate, and fell to revealing, from their inner consciousness, the constructive principles by which God made the universe. The same view of psychology is the basis of much of the work done today in education, — in practice and theory, — although it has long since been abandoned in almost all other practical applications of the phenomena of mind. The teachers who promulgate these pretensions of the firm establishment of educational principles are honest and sincere to the core, and they are confident of the efficacy of the principles when properly applied according to the specific recipes which normal schools give their pupils. They believe what they say with the same fervid enthusiasm with which the ancients believed in the flatness of the earth. They come by these conceptions honestly and legitimately, for they were taught to accept them by their teachers as they are now retailing them to their own pupils. Thirty years ago this was the psychology of reputable colleges, and when the normal schools began to expand, it was considered proper, since teaching had to do with the training of the soul, to give instruction in the science which deals with the soul. Consequently a cargo of this old college psychology was shoveled into the normal schools, without much, if any, selection. The modern world has inherited this mediæval psychology as the horse has inherited his fetlock, not because he has any use for it, but simply because his ancestor had one.

But the cause of education is too important to the highest interests of the state, and of the individuals who compose it, to permit personal respect for good men and women to obscure the fact that the preparation of teachers is conducted upon a basis of the hallucinations of mediæval mysticism, —on the assumption that the problems of mind have all been solved, and that classification and definition constitute the solution. It was a puerile confusion even in the Middle Ages, for Aristotle had pointed out, centuries before, that there is an essential distinction between the state of possessing wealth and the ability to define wealth. Of course, a large amount of the time devoted to this obsolete psychology is spent in making harmless definitions and classifications which bear the same relation to modern psychology as those of Linnaeus bear to modern botany. Except for tiie loss of time and energy that might be usefully applied, there can be no great objection to classifying judgments as those of “ extent ” and " content; ” a farmer might, without injury to his produce, separate his pea-pods for market into those which contain an even number of peas and those which contain an odd number.

On the other hand, there are certain positive reasons why the institutions which pretend to prepare teachers and to lay the foundation for our educational system and methods should not be restricted in their work to the dogmas of defunct scholasticism. The development of the modern sciences of biology, anthropology, history, and genetic psychology has brought to light facts in radical conflict with most of the old principles, in the absolute and universal form in which they are promulgated. One of the fundamental conflicts between the old and the new arises from the fact that none of the older philosophies conceived the possibility that the child in its development from infancy to maturity could proceed on any other than a straight, unbroken line, or that at any stage of its growth it could essentially change in character. Consequently, an analysis was made of the mind simply at maturity, and education has proceeded upon the naïf assumption that these laws must apply equally well to any stage of growth. If this assumption be not true, and if the child in process of development is essentially different from the adult, then it is unfortunately clear that mediæval psychology and the pedagogical methods derived from it, which now constitute the stock in trade for the preparation of most teachers, rest on dogmatic foundations that are false.

Embryology throws some suggestive light upon the radical difference of childhood from maturity. The human fœtus roughly follows the disjointed line of development which marks the evolution of animal life. Up to four months before birth the organism is essentially an aquatic animal, provided with rudimentary gill slits and the developed nerves of equilibration characteristic of aquatic life. At a later stage it has a coat of hair, and a tail longer than its legs, with the necessary muscles for moving this organ. This class of singular phenomena constantly appear during the embryological period ; they are nourished and grow rapidly for a time, as if the whole destiny of the organism were to become some one of the lower forms of animal life. Then the purpose is more or less suddenly changed. New forms and new organs appear, displacing or absorbing the old, and the organism seems to obtain a new destiny, which in turn may wholly or partly disappear. Some of these forms do not wholly disappear, and physiologists now enumerate in the adult human organism more than one hundred parts of the body which have no known function, and whose presence cannot he explained except upon the theory that they are remnants, or rudimentary organs, of some of these broken tendencies through which the organism has passed. Such is the pineal gland, which was declared by Descartes to be the seat of the soul, but is now recognized as the remnant of the organ of vision as still found in lower reptiles. The semi-lunar fold at the internal angle of the eye is the remnant of the third eyelid of marsupials. The vermiform appendage, which is such a menace to human life, is the remnant of an enormous organ in herbivora. The ear muscles, which in few people are functional, are recognized as rudiments of muscles of much use to lower animals. In the earlier stages of the human fœtus, the brain is made up of three parts, of which the hinder part is by far the longest, as in the case of lower animals. There is then no trace of the cerebral hemispheres which constitute so large a part of the adult brain, just as there is no trace in the lower orders. The mid-brain later shows the same enlargement for the centres of sight and hearing that these portions have in birds and certain fishes. Still later the proportions are reversed: the hind-brain dwindles away relatively, to become the slight enlargement of the spinal cord at the base of the brain, known as the medulla oblongata ; the mid-brain shrivels, to become the small nodules known as the guadrigemina ; and the narrow neck connecting the fore-brain and the midbrain swells, to become the huge cerebral hemispheres. Embryological growth is clearly not a harmonious development. The line of growth is broken, proceeding in one direction for a time, and then suddenly turning off in a new direction, as if the organism were continually making mistakes and correcting them before it is too late. The path of growth is strewn with the remnants of these abandoned tendencies.

Moreover, the rate of growth is not constant, but proceeds by fits and starts. It would be patently absurd, in embryology, to attempt to apply the laws of activity of the matured fœtus to any of the lower stages. There is a species of land salamander provided with lungs instead of gills, but which is an evolutionary product of the common aquatic salamander that breathes by means of gills. If the young of this land salamander be cut from the mother at a certain period before normal birth, and thrown into the water, they swim and breathe through their gills ; but if they be thrown into water after normal birth, they drown. In the early stage they are water animals, and the laws of water animals govern them ; but if left to mature they become land animals. The same principle, we must admit, applies to the development of the human child.

In biology, the phenomenon of birth is merely a stage in a process, and implies nothing of a revolutionary nature in the sense in which scholasticism has regarded it. In fact, as respects changes in internal structure of the organism and in psychic phenomena, birth is in all probability of far less momentous significance than adolescence, which takes place years after birth. The same process of growth, by uncompleted tendencies, is everywhere observable. Up to the seventh or eighth year there is a very rapid growth of the body in height and weight; but from this time until the beginning of the pubertal changes, growth is relatively very slow. At the end of the third year, the brain has reached two thirds of its size at maturity, and from this period until the seventh or eighth year the rate of growth is slower. At the latter age the brain has practically reached its maximum, though growth does not actually cease until late in life. The senses of touch, taste, and smell are tolerably well developed at birth, but hearing is not acquired for some days, and the complete coördination of the eyes is not accomplished until several months have passed. There are distinct periods for learning to creep, to walk, and to talk, and each advance for a time almost monopolizes the organism’s attention and energy. Some of these accomplishments are not wholly, nor essentially, the result of training; swallows kept caged until after their usual time for learning to fly, and then released, fly readily. The feats are the developed results of forces which “ ripen ” internally at approximately definite times.

Training, to be beneficial, and not positively injurious, must follow closely the lines of these internal forces. In the matter of speech development, Lukens, Tracy, Steinhal, Schultze, Kussmaul, Prayer, and others have worked out very clearly the details that illustrate the internal development of muscle and nerve. In these coarser forms of education, at least, the teacher’s function is identical with that of the nurseryman, who, though he cannot make trees grow, can yet assist their growth by providing proper food and cultivation. The pedagogue’s notion that he can teach children to observe, to compare, to judge, and to reason, at any time or period of development he pleases, is a pretty conceit, very like the conceit of the farmer who deludes himself with the notion that it is he who makes trees grow. Muscles come into functional maturity by periodic growths ; the larger and more fundamental muscles arrive at maturity before the smaller. Yet the present principles of education require nearly all hand-work as now taught in the schools to be given in the reverse order. Hancock has shown by careful experiments that the functional development of the fine muscles, used in much of the kindergarten and primary school work, does not reach its height until much later in childhood than our school principles have provided for. Dr. Elmer E. Brown, Miss Shinn, and Dr. Lukens, in their studies of children’s spontaneous drawings, repeatedly chronicle periods of intense activity, almost approaching a mania for drawing, separated by periods in which there is slight interest in the exercise.

There appears during the time of rapid brain and body growth of children up to the seventh or eighth year a number of distinct classes of psychic phenomena, as singular in their way as are the rudimentary organs on the physical side. Some of these phenomena, such as dollplaying by girls, have a distinct bearing upon adult activities ; but there are others which seem to have no destiny whatever in the adult activities of civilized man. Frequently they appear in opposition to his best interests, just as the water-breathing habit of the embryonic land salamander appears in opposition to the activities of its matured destiny. Among the tendencies which manifest themselves in the early stages of childhood, and later dwindle away or wholly disappear, are the bullying and teasing proclivities of children, instincts to tight without adequate provocation, to fear imaginary monsters of the dark, to fear feathers and fuzzy things, to imagine life in inanimate things, to worship fetishes in a rudimentary way, and to maintain generally a most singular parallelism with early stages of growth of civilization in the race. President G. Stanley Hall, Professor Earl Barnes, their students, and others have collected a mass of curious phenomena of this sort, which is forcibly suggestive of the welling up into early childhood of ancestral traits, that come and go as did the gill slits in the embryo, and are directed in time and method of appearance by forces beyond the jurisdiction of the schoolmaster. In embryology, the view is now commonly accepted that these succeeding tendencies, though opposing, bear a necessary functional relation one to the other. The tail of the polliwog is necessary to the development of the legs of the frog. If the tail be cut off or seriously injured, the animal never reaches the frog stage.

The conclusion to which these studies are significantly pointing is the maintenance of a similar law in the psychic development of the child. These curious phenomena are not mistakes of nature nor errors in economy,—a view that scholasticism has impressed upon methods of education. They are stages of growth functional and necessary to the healthy development of the next stages. Dawson, in his monograph upon human monstrosities, develops this law in detail. He finds that the occurrence of one deformity in embryological growth tends to make others appear, and that human monstrosities are largely the result of arrested development at some one stage. If this law is general and is applicable to the period of childhood, as classified facts now strongly indicate, the dogmas of present school work which make a business of suppressing and maiming the tadpole tails of child nature, because they seem of no use to the adult period, need critical overhauling. The kindergarten, for example, takes away the child’s doll, and gives it block pyramids to play with; and the whole effort is distinctly to suppress the emotional, and to develop the intellectual, according to the codes and forms of adult thinking. These conditions indicate clearly that there is now urgently needed a pedagogy of the instincts, which will necessarily he radically different from the pedagogy of adult human reason that has been forced upon childhood by introspective psychology.

From the seventh or eighth year, when the body materially slackens its rate of growth and the brain practically reaches its maximum size, until the pubertal changes begin to appear, there is an enigmatic period upon which investigation has as yet shed little light further than to show that it is a period distinctly different in essential features from that which precedes and from that which follows. Accurate measurements of thousands of children in various countries, by Bowditch, Pagliani, Hertel, Erismann, Hansen, Roberts, and others, demonstrate that growth of the body at this time is relatively slow. From the psychic point of view there are few evidences of the appearance of new tendencies, and many already established manifest a dwindling process. Studies which have been made of children’s progress in drawing, in history, in arithmetic, during this period, by several different investigators, agree that psychic advance is on a dead level, as is physical growth. Yet current education under the established principles has taken no note of this singular fact. Dr. A. Caswell Ellis, in his study of the progressive stages of a child’s development, suggests of this stage that it is probably a time of preparation for the adolescent upheaval. As an animal pauses before its critical leap to gather all its forces, so the organism for the time seems motionless as it draws in all its available energy preparatory to the real birth of man.

It would be impossible to summarize even the main features of the adolescent period. The adolescent seems to obtain his heritage from his ancestors in a maddening and perplexing flux and fervor. There is a violent surging upward of interests, hopes, ideals, duties new to the individual, but probably old to the race. In the early pubertal changes there is a rapid acceleration in growth, with the appearance of a large number of new organs and functions, followed later by a period of retarded growth as the changes draw near completion. There are numerous alterations in size, form, and relative position of the bones and muscles, and of the heart and arteries, but of course the crucial changes are those of the sexual organs, the functions of which have lain dormant throughout childhood. Key and Hartwell, from studies of thousands of children and of juvenile death-rates, find that the periods of maximum growth are also the periods of maximum power to resist chronic diseases. Such studies as those of children’s interest in drawing and history, and their comprehension of arithmetic, agree in showing an accelerated activity in these lines. Lancaster finds, from a study of the biographies of one hundred musicians, that ninetyfive gave significant evidence of rare talent before the age of sixteen years. Of fifty artists, the average age at which a marked success was achieved was seventeen years; of one hundred actors, eighteen years : of fifty poets, eighteen years ; of one hundred scientists, eighteen years ; of one hundred professional men, twenty-four years ; of one hundred writers, thirty-one years; of fifty inventors, thirty-three years. The average time for leaving home of fifty missionaries was twenty-two years, and of one hundred pioneers seventeen years.

Such are a few illustrations of the more salient contributions that biology offers education. Other sciences, like anthropology and history, are equally rich. It needs no further argument to show that a mind which gravely accepts as a psychology for these varying periods of childhood the classifications of the adult mind, without even rolling up the trousers, taking in the waistband, or cutting off the sleeves, cannot be trusted to establish fixed principles of education. The fundamental conception of the soul which flourished when men believed that it resided in the pineal gland, as the hermit crab resides in its borrowed shell, dominates our education to-day. The new conception of the child is so radically different from the old that grave conflicts occur at the very beginning of the work of determining methods of training. We can no longer assert as a finality, for example, that the logical order, so manifest in adult thinking, is the order employed throughout the stages of child development. The facts already gathered about children’s thought processes point to the conclusion that while much of adolescent thinking and some of child thinking is by the formal order of observation, comparison, and judgment, as laid down by the old logicians, yet the great mass of processes by which a child’s conclusions and actions are produced belongs to a different order, the data for which we must seek in the thought processes of uncivilized man, and perhaps to some extent in those of animals. The indications are that the child is made up of blind instincts and impulses which well up from within, and that he jumps to conclusions in a way that shows the labored processes of the logical order not only meaningless, but injurious to the full development of the processes that follow. The numerous and careful studies in children’s drawings made by Barnes, Brown, Shinn, Lukens, Sully, Ricci, Maitland, and many others emphatically agree in showing that the subject does not unfold in the logical order from observation and comparison by synthesis to a conception of the whole, but, on the contrary, by the reverse process. Similarly, our present methods in arithmetic, in science, in music, in language, assume that the order of the development of instincts is logical. Experience has shown that there is something askew in the matter. Studies in child psychology are revealing the causes of this difficulty in the work of instruction. If there is an order of thinking which does not appear in adult logic, our primary methods are in need of revision.

The principles of language-teaching are giving no end of trouble in practice. One code of principles asserts that everything that the senses convey to the child’s mind must be immediately drawn out again in the form of language. I quote from the code : “ The power of language must keep step with the power of acquisition to hold thought for use.” This dictum is undoubtedly true for some periods of development. But the scientific studies of the subject so far made strongly confirm the view that there are certain growing periods when the mind seeks to take in much, and to discharge little in the form of language. The modern conception of mentality derived from the facts of the sciences of neurology and genetic psychology is becoming enlarged, and we are now not so ready to declare that consciousness occupies the whole field of mentality. There are evidences of necessary building processes in the sphere of mentality that must be permitted to work a long time before they rise to the threshold of consciousness, and still longer, perhaps, before consciousness is prepared to put them forth in language. There is proof that there are thousands of impressions of sense which are not sufficient, through lack of force or immaturity of nerve conduction, to set up a conscious state, but which nevertheless accomplish significant changes in the nervous mechanism below the threshold of consciousness. In the face of facts of this character, we are not able to assert, as this old code of principles asserts, that in all periods of the child’s growth he must be able to express in language every detail that his senses take in. There are evidences, too, of periods that are distinctly absorbent, when there is a paralysis of expressive power, and there are periods when the reverse is true.

There is another principle, sound and respectable within its own limits, which is forced at times by this spirit of universalizing principles of education to do injury. It is the principle of habit. It is true, as the code says, that habits are formed early in life. At least some habits are, such as sucking and walking ; others do not come in until adolescence. Some, as walking, are useful throughput the entire life; others, as sucking, serve their function, and then die. There are hundreds of these habits, welled up by the forces of instinct at approximately definite periods, of the same character, which probably perform as essential though perhaps not as manifest functions, and disappear in the same way. At their times of activity they probably are as necessary as the tail-wagging habit of the tadpole. Yet our education by the principles of the mediæval conception of the soul is constantly at war with these habits. A list of habits used by adult man is picked out, consecrated as virtuous, and taught to babes, in many cases years before the internal forces which give these habits a license to live are developed. Other habits not found in this class, though in every way, it may be. as essential to the development of the child’s next stage, are condemned and crushed by all the artifices known to the schoolmaster. Habit is a principle, but not a universal one ; it needs interpretation for each stage of growth.

It is not needful to multiply illustrations of this necessary conflict between the old conception of childhood and the new. In conclusion, therefore, let me flatly ask : Does the code of so-called principles, by which many normal schools for the preparation of teachers work, rest upon a substantial foundation ? Has the science of education in these schools kept abreast of the development of its sister sciences, and in touch with them ? If we must answer these questions negatively, what shall we say of the methods of teaching deduced from them, methods which the teachers are trained to learn, trained to believe in, and trained to defend ? But let me emphasize the warning that the new contributions of science cannot be offered as substitute dogmas for the old dogmas. They are not complete nor sufficient, nor by their very nature can they ever be sufficient, to constitute a code of principles for fitting out teachers as automatons.

Yet it would be untrue to leave the pessimistic impression that this mediæval tendency, which has been described, is an absolute one, although it is unquestionably the dominant one in normal school work. In certain schools in different parts of the country, a tendency based upon modern conceptions of mind is gaining ground. In two of the normal schools of Massachusetts, for example, the departments of pedagogy and psychology have abandoned the assumption that principles derived from an adult conception of mind are directly applicable to the child. It is true that in the methods of teaching the instruction still proceeds upon the old lines, but the work in methods is largely controlled, at least in Massachusetts, by the demands of the school officers who engage teachers. School superintendents naturally believe in the tenets of faith in which they have been schooled.

Of these two schools whose pedagogical and psychological departments form exceptions to the dominant tendency, the Westfield Normal School is attempting constructively and systematically to work out a course in psychology in consonance with modern views of the child’s development. One recitation that I heard at this school was in the psychology of childhood. The class was concluding a study of children’s reasoning. This study had been begun at some previous recitation, and a member was now making a report to the class upon Superintendent Hancock’s study of children’s reasoning, which had recently been published. Mr. Hancock, as chairman of a committee appointed by the Colorado Teachers’ Association, had issued a series of arithmetical questions for solution by schoolchildren, and had received replies from two thousand pupils of various ages. The student gave an account of this test, the manner in which the data had been collated, and the inferences which Superintendent Hancock had drawn. The report showed that among boys the percentage of error in reasoning increases from six to nine years, and decreases thereafter, while among girls the percentage of error increases until the age of ten years, and then steadily decreases. This rate of increase and decrease for the two sexes was illustrated to the class upon large charts by means of curves. Attention was drawn to the coincidence between the result of this study and the tabulations by Dr. Donaldson of the facts about the physical growth of children, indicating that the curve of accelerated growth in children is practically identical with the curve for accelerated activity in reasoning. As I was afterwards informed, a somewhat similar study had been made, by the pupils of the class, of data obtained from schoolchildren, and this report was given as a basis for comparison of results. The next topic taken up was the matter of growth in the weight and the height of children. Large curves had been drawn upon charts by members of the class from the data gathered by Dr. Bowditch, of Boston, Roberts, of London, and the teachers of Oakland, California, representing the heights and weights of several thousand children. These charts were compared and discussed by the class under the direction of the teacher. The comparison of the curves from data of these different investigators showed a remarkable coincidence in the rates of growth of children.

The work in psychology and pedagogy in this school had been only a few months under the direction of the teacher who was then in charge, and was yet largely a matter of plan. The course, as outlined to me by the instructor, proposes, during the first year, to introduce the subject of pedagogy by a series of studies in reminiscences of childhood activities. Topics are assigned, and each member of the class writes as much as he can remember of his mental states and conduct as a child. This exercise, it is considered, will give the pupils a personal feeling of acquaintance with the chief mental phenomena ; and this work, conducted on an inductive basis, will then lead to a study of the nervous system and general psychology, presented topically by material gathered from a number of authorities. In the final year, a course in special child psychology, upon the plan of the work already illustrated, is given. Under arrangements with certain school superintendents in the vicinity, series of questions, prepared by the normal school instructor, are submitted to the schoolchildren as topics for exercises in composition. Among the topics which have thus been arranged in the form of questions, to draw out the children’s ideas, are the geographical interests of children, their historic sense, fear, reasoning, imitation, and many others. The returns from the questions, which have ranged in number from two thousand to forty-five hundred individual papers, are given to the members of the normal school class, to arrange with reference to age, sex, and the ideas expressed. The results are compiled and reported to the class for discussion. Later, reports are presented upon similar studies which have been made by other persons, like the report on Superintendent Hancock’s study, already described. The topics chosen are usually such as have previously been studied in other institutions or by individual investigators, and thus the benefit of comparison of results is obtained. These studies, as I heard them discussed by the pupils, were treated in an admirable spirit. Conclusions were not regarded as established truths, but rather as possible suggestions toward the solution of a difficult problem. An additional requirement of all pupils is that during one of their vacations they shall systematically observe some child, and record the facts which they ascertain.

No special course is given in the “ principles of education.” A critical study of the history of education takes its place. Rousseau’s Emile, Comenius’s School of Infancy, Montaigne’s Education of Children, Pestalozzi’s Leonard and Gertrude, and Froebel’s Education of Man are subjected to critical class study. The attitude assumed toward these books, the instructor informed me, is that of a search for the culture material contained in the lives and ideals of these educational reformers. The principles which are put forth were carefully studied as showing the path along which education has traveled, not as final dogmas.

We have here a tentative first step. The work of the preparation of teachers has before it an inviting future. Mediævalism will necessarily be sloughed off. With the mass of facts which the industry of sister sciences has laid at the door of pedagogy, and the inspiration which comes with personal investigation, there is a force which bodes well for the future of education. But at present one thing is critically needed. In this pioneer age of reconstruction, the work of the schools demands teachers of discretionary intelligence and the power of suspended judgment, able to deal with working hypotheses. Not all the old is useless, but the old comes down to us in the terminal moraine of a glacier of mediæval metaphysics, now evaporating, and modern pedagogues must do what modern scientists, modern philosophers, and modern theologians are doing, — proceed to pick up from this detritus any odds and ends of precious metal for which the new world offers a market.

The great trouble caused by the old conception and method now is that principles are stated in universal form which in fact have only a limited application ; and the danger from the new spirit is that possible hypotheses are sometimes set forth as axioms. Pedagogy must be submitted to the same crucial process of Aufklarung, in the light of all the facts that the correlative modern sciences are offering, to which all other forces of civilization are subjected. To this spirit and method the normal school must open its doors. It must become, to some extent, a work-shop of first-hand investigators, not a retail junk-shop for the disposal of the catechisms of the Mahatmas who once lived on the Mountain, serenely contemplating the world and life as an unbroken plain, breathing an atmosphere of universality, and thinking in terms of reverberating definitions and ornamental classifications.

Frederic Burk.