in which X is the internal and intrinsic part peculiar to the individual life, it may be said that every individual has his X. But in order toapproachto direct knowledge of X, it is essential to know P and E.
He who carries out an examination, or supposes himself to be performing a "psychical measurement" by dwelling on psychical results, is in reality measuring a mixture of two unknown quantities, one of which, being external to the individual, nullifies the results of research.
Hence, to study individual differences in isolated activities, such as the perception of colors, musical sounds, the letters of the alphabet; or the capacity for observation of surroundings and the detection of errors; or coordination of movements, language, etc., it is essential to have first determined aconstantelement: the means of development offered by environment.
Here a simple and clearly defined difference between pedagogy and psychology manifests itself: pedagogy determines experimentally the means of development and the method of applying them while respecting the internal or personal liberty of the individual; psychology studies average reactions or individual reactions in the species or the individual. But the two things are two aspects of a single fact, which is the development of man; the individual and the environment are the two factors X and E of the same product: the psychical entity.
Isolated psychical researches of a moral order must also, if they are to be of any real value, be based upon prolonged observation,after the internal activities have become orderly; because it is easy to make errors of judgment in a chaos. In clinical psychiatry or in criminal pathology, when we speak of "keeping a subject under observation" for purposes of diagnosis, we mean placing him inspecial surroundings, under hygienic and disciplinary conditions, etc., and observing him for some time in such an environment. Such a process has a value still more extensive and profound in the case of normal individuals in process of evolution. In such a case it is necessary not only to offer orderly external surroundings, but to reduce the chaotic internal world of the child to order, and, after this, to observe him for a considerable time.
We may offer as an illustration the following observations made upon two of the most interesting children who attended our schools. They were admitted into the training school for teachers during my last International Course in Rome.
There was a considerable clamor among the students; some were talking, some laughing. In the center of the room stood a pedometer. The behavior of the two children was almost identical. They were sitting apart quietly, working at the lacing frames which they had gone spontaneously to fetch from a neighboring room; they did not look up at the noise, nor join in the laughter. Their attitude was that of persons at work and anxious not to lose any time. When invited by a single gesture to come and be measured, they obeyed in a wonderful manner, leaving off work at once, and moving with smiles, as if fascinated; they evidently felt pleasure in obeying, and an internal delight which came from the consciousness of being able to work, and of being ready to leave something that they liked doing, at a summonsto something of a higher order. They arranged themselves very carefully on the pedometer to be measured; when any modification was necessary in the position of the body, it sufficed to murmur a word in their ears and the almost imperceptible movement required was made with the utmost exactitude; they could control their voluntary movements and direct them; they were able to translate the words they heard into actions:this enabled themto obey, and this constituted for them a fascinating internal conquest. When the measuring was over, nothing was said; they waited expectantly for a moment, then gave an intelligent glance and a smile, which was, as it were, their greeting; they had understood, and they returned voluntarily to their corner to take up their frames and resume their work. Presently they were wanted again, and the same actions were repeated.
When we think that children of their age (about four and a half), when left to themselves, will roam about, upsetting objects almost unconsciously, and requiring either some one to submit to their caprices, or to call them roughly to order, we shall recognize the internal perfection achieved in these two little ones, who have arrived at that stage of development in which work has become ahabit, and obedience a fascinating acquisition.
The anthropometric measurements had shown that one of the children,O, was normal in measurement (weight, stature, length of torso) and the other,A, below the normal measurements.
Here are some notes made by the teacher on the conduct of these two children when they were in the state of disorder, or undisciplined:
O: violent, turbulent, spiteful to his companions, never applies toanything, but looks on at what the others are doing and then interrupts them; or listens to the individual lessons given by the teacher with a scornful and cynical expression. The father of the child says that at home he is violent, overbearing, and intractable.
A: is quiet. But he has almost a mania for spying on his companions, and pointing out to the teacher every little action that might be considered wrong or incorrect.
Both of the children are very poor.Ois almost entirely neglected by his family.
Later judgmentthe teacher was enabled to form of these two children after they had reduced themselves to order by means of work:
O: all the turbulence shown byOin his home resolved itself into a struggle for bread; the father, who was very poor, but also neglectful, denied the child bread; the child did not resign himself, did not cry, but struggled constantly, with all the means at his disposal, in order to obtain his portion of bread. When the teacher asked the father why he denied the child bread, he replied: "Because, when he has eaten it, he asks for more."
In school, this child ran from group to group, from lesson to lesson, disturbing the others and passing over everything, because he was struggling to win his spiritual food after the same fashion.
He is a child who has an overpowering will to live: self-preservation seems to be his most strongly developed tendency.
When his life was assured, the child became not only gentle, but remarkable for his sweetness and delicacy of feeling. He was the child who, in his joy when he had learned or completed some task, lookedround lovingly at his companions, and blew little kisses to them from his fingers. Whereas for the other children who had entered into the phase of order or discipline, the teacher's note is: "work," forOthe note is: "work and kindness."
Before the daily hot meal was instituted, the children used to bring their own luncheons, which varied very much; two or three of the children were very generously provided, and had meat, fruit, etc.Owas seated next to one of these. The table was set, andOhad nothing to put upon his plate but the piece of bread he had so strenuously acquired; he glanced at his neighbor as if to regulate himself by the time the latter would take over his meal, but with no trace of envy; on the contrary, with great dignity he tried to eat his piece of bread very slowly, in order that he might not finish before the other, and thus make it evident that he had nothing more to eat while the other was still busy. He nibbled his bread slowly and seriously.
What a sense of his own dignity—subduing the desires of an appetite exposed to temptation—existed in this child, together with his sense of the fundamental needs of his own life, by which he was impelled to struggle and to conquer what was "necessary." And there was further that exquisite sensibility, which manifested itself in the affectionate expression of his mobile face, and in the effusion of a general tenderness which looked for no return.
A very remarkable thing was that this child, whom we might have expected to find ill-nourished, gave normal anthropological measurements and weight for his age. Born in poverty and neglect, he had defended himself; the normality of his body was due to an heroic effort.
A: this child was always calm and quiet; he very soon entered upon the phase of active, ordered, willing and thorough work. He applied himself with intense earnestness and perseverance. He would be the type of the clever, well-behaved child of the ordinary school. Very often he came to school without any food. Hisgoodnesshad apositivecharacter which became a mortal danger to himself; he accepted mal-nutrition without revolt; he profited greatly by the means of psychical life that were offered him, but he would never have been able to conquer them for himself. His goodness continued to be of the same type after as before the period of order; he showed neither agitation nor expansion. His anthropological measurements, which were below the normal, already indicated that he had started on life's pilgrimage with the gait of the victim; he belonged to the company of those "who must be saved by others."
The characteristic moral trait was "espionage." The teacher, when observing him, noticed that the child did not work simply like the others, but came to her very frequently to know if what he was doing was well or ill done. And this not only during his work with the materials, but also in reference to every act of a moral nature he accomplished; his great preoccupation seemed to be to know whether he was doing right or wrong. Then he endeavored to do right with the most scrupulous exactitude. With regard to his spying tendencies, the teacher noted the child never showed any animosity towards his companions; he watched them attentively, and then proceeded to say of them as he would say of himself: So and so did this; was it right or wrong? The child was then careful to avoid what had been pronounced "wrong" in others.
What appeared to be his spying proclivities were, in fact, a manifestation of the problem that dominated his childish conscience: the problem of right and wrong. The limited experience of his own life did not suffice him; he wanted to benefit by the experience of all the others in order to learn what things were right and what were wrong; almost as if the one feeling that absorbed him was the desire to do right and avoid wrong, and as if this were his sole aspiration. The case of this child recalls a popular superstition expressed in such terms as "too good to live." The childAseemed destined for the fate thus suggested. The needs of the body did not greatly concern him, and he seemed equally indifferent to those of the mind; goodness was the mainspring of his being. If society does not note such dispositions, and assume the special protection of such frail lives, children of this type go forward to premature death like angels gazing heavenwards.
These two accounts, due to Signorina Maccheroni's observation, correct a superficial judgment which, in an ordinary school, would have become a permanent record of character: the one child would have been branded asviolent, the other as aspy.
If we call that science which led to the translation of these words intoheroandangel, and touched so many hearts in the vicinity of these two children, when they had been interpreted by their wonderful instructress, we shall be able to assert that "the judgment of love is the judgment of knowledge." The mercy of Christ in judging is here illustrated.
"Psychical action," then, starts from a principle which may betranslated thus: "that the child lives." All the rest comes as a consequence.
This action of fundamental life manifests itself as apolarizationof the internal personality: almost at a point of crystallization, around which, provided there be homogeneous material and an undisturbed environment,the definitive form composes itself.
This initial action is a taskrepeatedwith a special intensity of attention.
In my "biographical chart," therefore, I do not give a long formula of analytical studies, but I give a "guide to psychological observations," founded upon the synthetical conception which I have sought to illustrate. Those who have not beeninitiatedinto this method of observation will gain no light from such a guide, which lies entirely outside the conceptions of psychological study now obtaining in connection with the observation of pupils. But those who have been initiated will understand it without the aid of illustration.
Our teachers have also a terminology by means of which they understand each other, without having recourse to the ordinary expressions, which do not convey an exact idea of the action they see in process of development. Thus they never say: The child is developing, or progressing, the child is good or naughty, etc. The only phraseology they use is: The childis becoming disciplinedoris not becoming disciplined. It is internal order that they await; and on this principle of being or not being, all or nothing depends.
This evokes a much deeper conception than that of "growth." To say that a living creaturegrowsis to make a very superficial statement, seeing that he grows indeed,but in virtue of the factthat, within, an orderly and regular disposition of substances is in progress.
When, for instance, the embryo of an animal is formed, it grows; but any one who has observed it internally must have been struck by a fact much more marvelous than that of the visible external "growth." A wonderful internal grouping of the cells takes place; some form, as it were, a leaf which folds over and makes the intestines, others separate to form the nervous system, one group isolates and specializes itself to make the liver, and thus an organization of parts, more and more pronounced, together with a minute differentiation of each individual arrangement of the cells, is carried on. The future functions of the body all depend upon the possibility of the cells so establishing themselves.
The important point is, not that the embryogrows, but that itcoordinates. "Growth" comes through and by order, which also makes life possible. An embryo which grows without coordinating its internal organs is not vital. Here we have not only the impulse, but the mystery of life. The evolution of internal order is the essential condition for the realization of vital existence in a life which possesses the impulse to exist.
Now the sum of the phenomena indicated in the "guide to psychological observation" actually represents the evolution of spiritualorderin the child.
Guide to psychological observation.Work.—Note when a child begins to occupy himself for any length of time upon a task.
What the task is and how long he continues working at it (slowness in completing it and repetition of the same exercise).
His individual peculiarities in applying himself to particular tasks.
To what tasks he applies himself during the same day, and with how much perseverance.
If he has periods of spontaneous industry, and for how many days these periods continue.
How he manifests a desire to progress.
What tasks he chooses in their sequence, working at them steadily.
Persistence in a task in spite of stimuli in his environment which would tend to distract his attention.
If after deliberate interruption he resumes the task from which his attention was distracted.
Conduct.—Note the state of order or disorder in the acts of the child.
His disorderly actions.
Note if changes of behavior take place during the development of the phenomena of work.
Note whether during the establishment of ordered actions there are:
crises of joy;intervals of serenity;manifestations of affection.
The part the child takes in the development of his companions.
Obedience.—Note if the child responds to the summons when he is called.
Note if and when the child begins to take part in the work of others with an intelligent effort.
Note when obedience to a summons becomes regular.
Note when obedience to orders becomes established.
Note when the child obeys eagerly and joyously.
Note the relation of the various phenomena of obedience in their degrees
(a) to the development of work;
(b) to changes of conduct.
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The possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of the child as natural phenomena and experimental reactions transforms theschool itself in actioninto a kind of scientific laboratory for the psycho-genetic study of man. It will become—perhaps in the near future—the experimental fieldpar excellenceof the psychologist. To prepare such a school as perfectly as possible, is therefore not only to prepare "a better method for the education of children," but also to prepare the materials for a renovated science. Every one now knows that students of natural science require in their laboratories an organization directed to thepreparationof the material to be observed. To observe a simple cell in movement, it is necessary to have a hollow glass slide with cavity for the hanging drop; to have ready "fresh solutions" in which the living cells may be immersed, to ensure their continued vitality; to have ready soils for cultures, etc. For all these ends there are special avocations, those of the so-called "preparers," who are not the assistants or helpers of the professor, butemployéswho were at one time upper servants, and then become superior workmen. At the present day they are, however, nearly always themselves scientific graduates. For, indeed, their task is a most delicate one; they must possess biological, physical, and chemical knowledge, and the more thoroughly they are "prepared" by aculture analogous to that of the masters of research themselves, the more rapid and secure is the march of science.
It is strange to think that among all these laboratories of natural science, only that of "experimental psychology" has judged it possible to dispense with an organization for the preparation of the subjects to be observed. If to-day a psychologist were told to arrange the work of his preparer, he would take this to mean the preparation of his "instruments," thus adopting more or less the standard of laboratories ofphysics.
But the idea of preparing the living being which produces the phenomenon would not enter his mind; and yet, if merely to observe a cell, a living microbe, the scientist needs a "preparer," how much greater must be the necessity for such an assistant when the subject to be observed is man!
Psychologists consider that they can prepare their "subjects" by arresting their attention with a word, and explaining to them how they are to proceed in order to respond to the experiment; any unknown person met by chance in the laboratory will serve their purpose. In short, the psychologist of to-day behaves somewhat like the child who catches a butterfly in flight, observes it for a second and then lets it fly away again; not like the biologist who takes care that his preparations are properly carried out in a scientific laboratory.
On the other hand, the picture of psychological development, even though it be incomplete, which is shown to us in our experiments, demonstrates the subtlety with which it is necessary to present to the child the means of his development and, above all, to respect his liberty; conditions which are essential to ensure that psychicalphenomena be revealed and may constitute a true "material for observation"; all this demands a special environment, and the preparation of a practical staff, forming a whole infinitely superior in complexity and in organization to the ordinary natural science laboratories. Such a laboratory can only be the most perfect school, organized according to scientific methods, where the teacher is a person answering to the "preparer" graduate.
True, all schools would not achieve this lofty scientific ideal. But it is indisputable that schools and teachers should all be directing their efforts towards the domain of the experimental sciences. The psychical salvation of children is based upon the means and the liberty to live, and these should become another of the "natural rights" accorded to the new generations; established as a social and philosophic conception, it should supersede the present "obligation to provide instruction," which is a burden not only on State economy but also on the vigor of posterity. If the psychical phenomena of the children in the national schools do not tend to enrich psychology, they become ends in themselves, just as the beauty of Nature is an end in itself.
The new school, indeed, must not be created for the service of a science, but for the service of living humanity; and teachers will be able to rejoice in the contemplation of lives unfolding under their eyes, without sharing the spectacle with science, wrapped in a holy egoism which will exalt their spirits as does every intimate contact with living souls.
It is unquestionable that with this method of education the preparation of the teacher must be madeex novo, and that the personality and social importance of the instructress will be transformed thereby.
Even after the first desultory experiments hitherto made, a new type of mistress has been evolved; instead of facility in speech, she has to acquire the power of silence; instead of teaching, she has to observe; instead of the proud dignity of one who claims to be infallible, she assumes the vesture of humility.
This transformation has a parallel in that undergone by the university professor, when the positive sciences began to play their part in the world. What a difference between the dignified old-world professor, draped in a robe often ermine-trimmed, seated on his high chair as on a throne, and speaking so authoritatively that students were not only bound to believe all he said, but to swearin verbo magistri, and the professor of to-day, who leaves the high places to the students that they may be able to see, reserving for himself the lowest station, on the bare floor; while the students are all seated, he alone stands, often clad in a gray linen blouse like a workman.
The students know that they will be on the way to the highest degree of progress when they are capable of "verifying" the theses of the professor—nay, more, of giving a further impetus to science, and inscribing their own names among those quoted as having contributed to its wealth or having discovered new truths.
Dignity and hierarchy in these schools have been superseded by interest in the chemical or physical or natural phenomena to be produced; and in presence of this all the rest disappears. The whole arrangement of the laboratory is subject to the same purpose; if the phenomenon requires light, all the walls are of glass; if darkness be necessary, the laboratory is so constructed that it may be transformed into acamera obscura. The one thing of importance is theproduction of the phenomenon, be this a bad smell or a perfume, an electric spark or the colors of Geissler's tubes, a resonance with Helmholtz's reverberators, or the geometrical arrangement of fine dust on a metallic plate in vibration; the shape of a leaf or the contraction of a frog's muscle; the study of the blind spot in the eye or the rhythm of cardiac pulsation; all is equal and all is included; the eager and absorbing quest is the quest of truth. It is this which the new generation demands from science, not the oratorical art of the professor, the noble gesture, the quip that lightens the weight of the discourse, the lively peroration of the carefully elaborated harangue, and all those expedients which were once developed by a special art for the express purpose of capturing the attention. It is passion for knowledge rather than attention which now animates our young people, who often come out of university halls remembering neither the voice nor the appearance of their professor.
But this does not connote the absence of love and respect for the master. Only, the veneration a modern student feels in the depths of his heart for the great scientist and benefactor of humanity, who stands before him unassumingly dressed in a linen blouse, differs essentially from the fear tempered by ridicule which the gown and wig once inspired.
The transformation of schools and teachers must now proceed on the same lines.
When in a school everything revolves around a fundamental fact, and this fact is a natural phenomenon, the school will have entered the orbit of science. Then the teacher must assume those "characteristics" which are necessary in the presence of science.
Among its devotees we find "characteristics" independent of the content of thought; in short, physicists, chemists, astronomers, botanists, and zoologists, though their content of knowledge is entirely different, are nevertheless all students of the positive sciences, and have characteristics which differentiate them from the metaphysicians of the past. These characteristics are related, not to the content, but to the method of the sciences. If, therefore, pedagogy is to take its place among the sciences, it must be characterized by its method; and the teacher must prepare herself, not by means of the content, but by means of the method.
In short, she should be distinguished byqualityeven more than byculture.
The fundamental quality is the capacity for "observation"; a quality so important that the positive sciences were also called "sciences of observation," a term which was changed into "experimental sciences" for those in which observation is combined with experiment. Now it is obvious that the possession of senses and of knowledge is not sufficient to enable a person to observe; it is a habit which must be developed bypractise. When an attempt is made to show untrained persons stellar phenomena by means of the telescope, or the details of a cell under the microscope, however much the demonstrator may try to explain by word of mouth what ought to be seen, the layman cannot see it. When persons who are convinced of the great discovery made by De Vries go to his laboratory to observe the mutations in the varied minute plants of the Ænothera, he often explains in vain the infinitesimal yet essential differences, denoting, indeed, a new species, among seedlings which have hardly germinated. It is well known that when a new discovery is to be explained to the public, itis necessary to set forth the coarser details; the uninitiated cannot take in those minute details which constituted the real essence of the discovery. And this, because they are unable to observe.
To observe it is necessary to be "trained," and this is the true way of approach to science. For if phenomena cannot beseenit is as if they did not exist, while, on the other hand, thesoul of the scientistis entirely possessed by a passionate interest in what he sees. He who has been "trained" to see, begins to feel interest, and such interest is the motive-power which creates the spirit of the scientist. As in the little child internalcoordinationis the point of crystallization round which the entire psychical form will coalesce, so in the teacher interest in the phenomenon observed will be the center round which her complete new personality will form spontaneously.
The quality of observation comprises various minor qualities, such aspatience. In comparison with the scientist, the untrained person not only appears to be a blind man who can see neither with the naked eye nor with the help of lenses; he appears as an "impatient" person.
If the astronomer has not already got his telescope in focus, the layman cannot wait until he has done so; while the scientist would be performing this task without even perceiving that he was carrying out a long and patient process, the layman would be fuming, and thinking, in great perturbation: "What am I doing here? I cannot waste time like this." When microscopists expect visits from a lay public, they prepare a long row of microscopes already in focus, because they know that their visitors will wish to see "at once" and "quickly," and that they will wish to see "a great deal."
We can easily imagine a scientist whose contributions to the work of the laboratory are of the highest order, who holds chairs and possesses civil dignities and honors of every sort, amiably consenting to show a lady a cellular tissue under the microscope. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he would proceed as follows, with solemn and serene gravity. He would cut off a minute portion of a piece of tissue preserved in spirit, and would carefully clean the slide on which the subject was to be placed and the slide that was to cover it; he would clean again the lenses of the microscope, focus the preparation, and make ready to explain. But undoubtedly the lady all this time will have been on the point of saying a hundred times: "Excuse me, Professor, but really ... I have an engagement ... I have a great deal to do...." When she has looked without seeing anything, her lamentations are bitter: "What a lot of time I have wasted!" And yet she has nothing to do, and fritters away all her time! What she lacks is not time but patience. He who is impatient cannot appraise things properly; he can only appreciate his own impulses and his own satisfactions. He reckons time solely by his own activity. That which satisfies him may be absolutely empty, valueless, nugatory; no matter, its value lies in the satisfaction it gives him; and if it gives him satisfaction, it cannot be said to be a waste of time. But what he cannot endure, and what impresses him as a loss of time is a tension of the nerves, a moment of self-control, an interval of waiting without an immediate result There is, indeed, a popular Italian proverb:aspettare e non venire è una cosa da morire(to wait for what does not come is a killing business). These impatient personsare like those busybodies who always make off when there is really work to be done.
A thorougheducationis indeed necessary to overcome this attitude; we must master and control our own wills, if we would bring ourselves into relation with the external world and appreciate its values. Without this preparation we cannot give due weight to the minute things from which science draws its conclusions.
The capacity for sustained and accurate application to a task the object of which is apparently of very small importance, is indeed a most valuable asset to him who hopes to advance in science. Let us call to mind what a physicist does to place an instrument absolutely level; how patiently he turns first one screw and then another, tries again and again, slowly and carefully: and to what end? to procure an absolutely horizontal direction for a surface. When this measure of comparison is established in hard metal, how carefully it must be preserved to ensure that the oscillations of temperature shall not modify the length even in the most infinitesimal degree; for this would be fatal to the scientific use of the instrument in measuring horizontals. And yet how slight a thing in itself is involved! the preservation of a measure! When the great chemist wishes to find out whethertracesof a substance can give a reaction he seems to be playing with his phials like a little boy; he takes a retort and fills it with the substance he wishes to study, and then empties it; afterwards he fills it with water, and watches for the reaction; the reaction takes place; then again he empties the retort, fills it anew with water, and sees whether there is a further reaction. Thus he establishes the degree of dilution in which the substance will leavetraces. In this case the minimum is the important thing; it was to find this imperceptible, negligible minimum that the great man acted like a child.
This attitude ofhumilityis an element of patience. In all things the scientist is humble: from the external action of descending from his professional throne to work standing at a little table, from the taking off of his robes to don the workman's blouse, from having laid aside the dignity of one who states an authoritative and indisputable truth to assume the position of one who is seeking the truth together with his pupils, and inviting them to verify it, to the end not that they should learn a doctrine but that they should be spurred to activity by the truth—from all this, down to the tasks he carries out in his laboratory. He considers nothing too small to absorb all his powers, to claim his entire attention, to occupy all his time. Even when social honors are heaped upon him, he maintains the same attitude, which is to him the only true honor, the real source of his greatness. A microbe, an excretion, anything, may interest the man of science, even though he be a senator or a Minister of State. The example of Cincinnatus is not to be compared with that of the modern scientist, for these workers surpass Cincinnatus immeasurably, in their power of bringing glory and salvation to humanity.
But the highest form of humility in men of science is their ready self-abnegation, not only in externals, but even in spiritual things, such as a cherished ideal, convictions that have germinated in their minds. Confronted with truth, the man of science has no pre-conceptions; he is ready to renounce all those cherished ideas of his own that may diverge therefrom. Thus, gradually, he purifieshimself from error, and keeps his mind always fresh, always clear, naked as the Truth with which he desires to blend in a sublime union.
Is not this, perhaps, the reason why the specialist in infantile diseases has at present a social dignity and authority far superior to those of a schoolmaster? Yet the specialist merely seeks for truth among the excretions of the child's diseased body; but the master veils its soul with errors.
But how would it be if the master should seek the truth in the soul of the child? What an incomparable dignity would be his! To raise himself to this height, however, he would have to be initiated into the ways of humility, of self-abnegation, of patience; and to destroy the pride which is built on the void of vanity. After this he, too, might put on the spiritual vesture of the scientist, saying to the people: What did you see in the other true sciences? Reeds shaken by the wind? Men clothed in soft raiment? No, you saw prophets; but I am more than a prophet; I am he who crieth in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.
More, indeed, than the other men of science; for they must always remain extraneous to the object of their study: electric energy, chemical energy, the life of microbes, the stars, are all things diverse and remote from the scientist. But the object of the schoolmaster is man himself; the psychical manifestations of children evoke something more in him thaninterest in the phenomenon; he obtains from them the revelation of himself, and his emotions vibrate at the contact of other souls like his own. All life may be his portion, not merely a part of life. Then thosevirtues, such ashumilityandpatience, which spring up in the man of sciencewithin the limitations of the external aims he has fixed for himself, may here enfold the entire soul. Then it will no longer be a question of the "patience of the man of science," or the "humility of the man of science," but of the virtues of man in all their plenitude.
That spiritual expansion of the man of science which is, as it were, compressed into a tube, like rays of light passing through the cylinders of the telescope, may here be diffused on the horizon like the dazzling splendor of the sun. The so-called virtues are thenecessary means, the methods of existenceby which we attain to truth; but the delight of the scientist in his work must vary in proportion as this truth is manifested in a physical force, a protozoan, or the soul of man. The one name seems scarcely suitable for the two forms. We understand at once that, in comparison with theschoolmaster, the scientist must be to some extent a limited and arid being. The nobility of his spirit is lofty as man, but its dimensions are those of a brute force or an inferior life.
The spiritual life of man may blend with the virtues of the man of science only when the student and the subject of study can be fused together. Then science may become a wellspring of wisdom, and true positive science may become one with the true knowledge of the saints. There is a real mechanism of correspondence between the virtues of the man of science and the virtues of the saints; it is by means of humility and patience that the scientist puts himself in contact with material nature; and it is by means of humility and patience that the saint puts himself in contact with the spiritual nature of things, and as a consequence, mainly with man. The scientist is virtuous only within the limits of his material contacts; the saint is "allcompact" of such virtue; his sacrifices and his enjoyments are alike illimitable. The scientist is a seer within the limits of his field of observation; the saint is a spiritual seer, but he alsoseesmaterial things and their laws more clearly than other men, and invests them with spirit.
The modern scientist knows that every living thing is marvelous, and that the simplest and most primitive most readily reveal natural laws which help us to interpret the most complicated beings. St. Francis indeed knew this: "Come closer, O my sister," he said to the grasshopper chirping beneath the fig-tree near the window of his cell; "the smaller the creature the more perfectly does it reveal the power and goodness of the Creator."
Each tiny thing is worthy of the scientist's minute attention; he counts the articulations which make up the claws of an insect, and knows the veinings of its most delicate wings; he finds interesting details where the ordinary eye would not linger for a moment. St. Francis also observed these things, but they awoke in him a feeling of spiritual joy and called forth a hymn of praise: "Who, who gave me these little fairy feet, furnished with healthy and flexible little bones, to enable me to spring swiftly from branch to branch, from twig to twig? Who further gave me eyes,crystal globes that revolveand see before and behind, to spy out all my enemies, the predatory kite, the black crow, the greedy goose? And he gave me wings,delicate tissues of gold and green and blue, which reflect the color of the skies and of my trees."
The vision of the teacher should be at once precise like that of the scientist, and spiritual like that of the saint. The preparation for science and the preparation for sanctity should form a new soul, forthe attitude of the teacher should be at once positive, scientific, and spiritual.
Positive and scientific, because she has anexacttask to perform, and it is necessary that she should put herself into immediate relation with the truth, by means of rigorous observation, that she should strip off all illusions, all the idle creations of the fancy, that she should distinguish truth from falsehood unerringly, that, in fact, she should follow the example of the scientist, who takes account of every minute particle of matter, every elementary and embryonic form of life, but eliminates all optical delusions, all the confusion which impurities and foreign substances might introduce into the search for truth. To achieve such an attitudelong practise is necessary, and a wide observation of lifeunder the guidance of the biological sciences.
Spiritual, because it is to man that his powers of observation are to be applied, and because the characteristics of the creature who is to be his particular subject of observation are spiritual.
I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the most simple forms of living things, with all those aids which science gives; I would make them microscopists; I would give them a knowledge of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their physiology; I would direct their observation to insects, and would make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature.
This complex program of observation must not exclude the physical aspects of the child. Thus the direct and immediate preparation for a higher task should be the knowledge of the physical needs of thechild, from birth to the age when psychical life is beginning to develop in his organization and becomes susceptible to treatment. By this I do not mean merely a theoretical course of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene; but a "practise" among little children, which aims at following their development closely, and foresees all their physical needs. The teacher, in other words, should prepare herself according to the methods of the biological sciences, entering with simplicity and objectivity into the very domain in which students of the natural sciences and of medicine are initiated, when they make their first experiments in the laboratory, before penetrating into the more profound problems of life related to their special study. In like manner those young men, who in our universities are destined to study vast and complex sciences, must in the beginning undertake the quiet and restful work of preparing an infusion, or the section of a rose-stalk, and thus experience, as they observe through the microscope, that emotion born of wonder, which awakens the consciousness and attracts it to the mysteries of life with a passionate enthusiasm. It was thus that we, accustomed hitherto to read in school only ponderous and arid printed books, felt that the book of Nature was opening before our spirit, infinite in its possibilities of creation and of miracle, and responding to all our latent and uncomprehended aspirations.
This should also be the book of the new teacher, the primer that should mold her for her mission of directing infant life. Such a preparation should generate in her consciousness a conception of life capable of transforming her, of calling forth in her a special "activity," an "aptitude" which shall make her efficient for hertask. She should become a providential "force," a maternal "force."
But all this is but a part of the "preparation." The teacher must not remain thus on the threshold of life, like those scientists who are destined to observe plants and animals, and who are accordingly satisfied with what morphology and physiology can offer. Nor is it her mission to remain intent upon "derangements in the functions of the body," like the medical specialist in infantile disease, who is content with pathology. She must recognize that the methods of those sciences are limited. When she chants her introit and sets foot upon those steps which in the temple of life ascend to the spiritual tabernacle, she should look upwards, and feel that among the adoring host in the vast temple of science, she is a priestess.
Her sphere is to be vaster and more splendid; she is about to observe "the inner life of man." The arid field which is limited to the marvels of organic matter will not suffice for her; all the spiritual fruits of the history of humanity and of religion will be necessary for her nourishment. The lofty manifestations of art, of love, of holiness, are the characteristic manifestations of that life which she is not only about to observe but to serve, and which is her "own life"; not a thing strange to her, and therefore cold and arid; but the intimate life she has in common with all men, the true and only real life of Man.
The scientific laboratory, the field of Nature where the teacher will be initiated into "the observation of the phenomena of the inner life" should be the school in which free children develop with the help of material designed to bring about development. When she feels herself,aflame with interest, "seeing" the spiritual phenomena of the child, and experiences a serene joy and an insatiable eagerness in observing them, then she will know that she is "initiated."
Then she will begin to become a "teacher."