By concentration is meant such a connection between the parts of each study and such a spinning of relations and connecting links between different sciences that unity may spring out of the variety of knowledge. History, for example, is a series and collocation of facts explainable on the basis of cause and effect, a development. On the other hand, history is intimately related to geography, language, natural science, literature, and mathematics. It would be impossible to draw real history out by the roots without drawing all other studies out bodily with it. Is there then any reason why school history should ignore its blood relationships to other branches of knowledge?
Concentration is so bound up with the idea ofcharacter-formingthat it includes more than school studies. It lays hold ofhome influencesand all the experiences of life outside of school and brings them into the daily service of school studies. It is just as important to bind up home experience with arithmetic, language, and other studies as it is to see the connection between geography and history. In the end, all the knowledge and experience gained by a person at home, at school, and elsewhere should be classified and related, each part brought into its right associations with other parts.
Nor is it simply a question of throwing the varied sorts ofknowledgeinto a net-work of crossing and interwoven series so that the person may have ready access along various lines to all his knowledge stores. Concentration draws thefeelingsand thewillequally into its circle of operations. To imagine a character without feeling and will would be like thinking a watch without a mainspring. All knowledge properly taught generates feeling. The will is steadily laying out, during the formative period of education, the highways of its future ambitions and activities. Habits of willing are formed along the lines of associated thought and feeling. The more feeling and will are enlisted through all the avenues of study and experience, the more permanent will be their influence upon character.
In attempting to solve the problem of concentration the question has been raised whether asingle study, the most important, of course, should constitute a concentrating nucleus, like the hub in a wheel, or whetherall studiesandexperienceare to be brought into an organic whole of related parts. It is evident that history and natural science at least hold a leading place among studies and determine to some extent the selection of materials in reading and language lessons.
Thecenterfor concentrating efforts in education is not so much the knowledge given in any school course as thechild's minditself. We do not desire to find in the school studies a new center for a child's life so much as the means for fortifying that original stronghold of character which rests upon native mental characteristics and early home influences. We have in mind not the objective unity of different studies considered as complete and related sciences, nor any general model to which each mind is to be conformed, but the practical union of all the experiences and knowledge that find entrance into a particular mind.
Theunity of the personalityas gradually developed in a child by wise education is essential to strength of character. Ackerman says on this point, ("Ueber Concentration," p. 20.) "In behalf of character development, which is the ultimate aim of all educative effort, pedagogy requires of instruction that it aid in forming theunity of the personality, the most primitive basis of character. In requiring that the unity of the personality be formed it is presupposed that this unity is not some original quality, but something to be first developed. It remains for psychology to prove this and to indicate in what manner the unity of the personality originates. Now, psychology teaches that the personality, the ego, is not something original, but something that must be first developed and is also changeable and variable. The ego is nothing else than a psychological phenomenon, namely, the consciousness of an interchange between the parts of an extensive complex of ideas, or the reference of all our ideas and of the other psychical states springing out of them to each other. Experience teaches this. In infancy the ego, the personality, is consciously realized in one person sooner, in another later. In the different ages of life, also, the personality possesses a different content. The deeper cause for the mutual reference of all our manifold ideas to each other and for their union in a single point, as it were, may be found in thesimplicity of the soul, which constrains into unity all things that are not dissociated by hindrance or contradiction. The soul, therefore, in the face of the varied influences produced by contact with nature and society, is active in concentrating its ideas, so that with mental soundness as a basis, the ego, once formed, in spite of all the transitions through which it may pass, still remains the same."
There is then a naturaltendencyof the mindto unifyall its ideas, feelings, incentives. On the other hand the knowledge and experiences of life are so varied and seemingly contradictory that a young person, if left to himself or if subjected to a wrong schooling, will seldom work his way to harmony and unity. In spite of the fact that the soul is a simple unit and tends naturally to unify all its contents, the common experience of life discovers in it unconnected and even antagonistic thought and knowledge-centers. People are sometimes painfully surprised to see how the same mind may be lifted by exalted sentiments and depressed by the opposite. The frequent examples that come to notice of men of superiority and virtue along certain lines, who give way to weakness and wrong in other directions, are sufficient evidence that good and evil may be systematically cultivated in the same character, and that instead of unity and harmony education may collect in the soul heterogeneous and warring elements which make it a battle ground for life. All such disharmony and contradiction lend inconsistency and weakness to character. Not only can incompatible lines of thought and of moral action become established in the same person, but even those studies which could be properly harmonized and unified by education may lie in the mind so disjointed and unrelated as to render the person awkward and helpless in spite of much knowledge. In unifying the various parts of school education, and in bringing them into close connection with children's other experiences, the school life fulfills one of its chief duties.
Among other things tending toward consistency of character there must beharmony between the school and homelife of a child. At home or among companions, perhaps unknown to the teacher, a boy or girl may be forming an habitual tendency and desire, more powerful than any other force in his life, and yet at variance with the best influence of the school. If possible the teacher should draw the home and school into a closer bond so as to get a better grasp of the situation and of its remedy. The school will fail to leave an effective impress upon such a child unless it can get a closer hold upon the sympathies and thus neutralize an evil tendency. It must league itself with better home influences so as to implant its own impulses in home life. How to unify home and school influences is one of those true and abiding problems of education that appeals strongly and sympathetically to parents and teachers.
Concentration evidently involves a solution of the question as to the relative value of studies. All the light that the discussion ofrelative valuescan furnish will be needed in selecting the different lines of appropriate study and in properly adjusting them to one another. The theory ofinterestwill also aid us in this field of investigation.
Accepting therefore the results of the two preceding chapters, that history (in the broad sense) is the study which best cultivates moral dispositions; secondly, that natural science furnishes the indispensable insight into the external world, man's physical environment; and, thirdly, that language, mathematics, and drawing are but the formal side and expression of the two realms of real knowledge, we have thebroad outlinesof any true course of education. In more definitely laying out the parts of this course the natural interests and capacities of children in their successive periods of growth must be taken into the reckoning. When a course of study has been laid out on this basis, bringing the three great threads or cables of human knowledge into proper juxtaposition at the various points, we shall be ready to speak of the manner of really executing the plan of concentration.
Even after the general plan is complete and the studies arranged, the real work of concentration consists infixing the relationsas the facts are learned. Concentration takes for granted that the facts of knowledge will be acquired. It is but half the problem to learn the facts. The other half consists in understanding the facts by fixing the relations. Most teachers will admit that each lesson should be a collection of connected facts and that every science should consist of a series of derivative and mutually dependent lessons. And yet the study and mastery of arithmetic as a connection of closely related principles is not generally appreciated. With proper reflection it is not difficult to see that the facts of a single study like grammar or botany should stand in close serial or causal relation. If they are seen and fixed with a clear insight into these connections, by touching the chain of associations at any point one may easily bring the whole matter to remembrance.
Concentration, however, is chiefly concerned with therelation of different studiesto each other. In this larger sense of an intimate binding together of all studies and experience into a close network of interwoven parts, concentration is now generally ignored by the schools. In fact it would almost seem as if the purpose of teachers were to make a clear separation of the different studies from one another and to seal up each one in a separate bottle, as it were. Theproblemappears in two phases: 1. Taking the school studies as they now are, is it desirable to pay more attention to the natural connections between such studies as reading, geography, history, and language, to open up frequent communicating avenues between the various branches of educational work? 2. Or if concentration is regarded as still more important, shall the subject matter of school studies be rearranged and the lessons in different branches so adjusted to each other that the number of close relations between them may be greatly increased? Then with the intentional increase of such connecting links would follow a more particular care in fixing them. We have assumed the latter position, and claim that the whole construction of the school course and the whole method of teaching should contribute powerfully to theunificationof all the knowledge and experience in each child's mind.
Without laying any undue stress upon simple knowledge, we believe that a small amount of well articulated knowledge is more valuable than a large amount of loose and fragmentary information. A small, disciplined police force is able to cope with a large, unorganized mob. "The very important principle here involved is that the value of knowledge depends not only upon thedistinctnessandaccuracyof the ideas, but also upon thecloseness and extent of the relationsinto which they enter. This is a fundamental principle of education. It was Herbart who said, 'Only those thoughts come easily and frequently to the mind which have at some time made a strong impression and which possess numerous connections with other thoughts.' And psychology teaches that those ideas which take an isolated station in the mind are usually weak in the impression they make, and are easily forgotten. A fact, however important in itself, if learned without reference to other facts, is quite likely to fade quickly from the memory. It is for this reason that the witticisms, sayings, and scattered pieces of information, which we pick up here and there, are so soon forgotten. There is no way of bringing about their frequent reproduction when they are so disconnected, for the reproduction of ideas is largely governed by the law of association. One idea reminds us of another closely related to it; this of another, etc., till a long series is produced. They are bound together like the links of a chain, and one draws another along with it just as one link of a chain drags another after it. A mental image that is not one of such a series cannot hope to come often to consciousness; it must as a rule sink into oblivion, because the usual means of calling it forth are wanting." (F. McMurry, "Relation of natural science to other studies.")
We are not conscious of the constant dependence of our thinking and conversation upon thelaw of association. It may be frequently observed in the familiar conversation of several persons in a company. The simple mention of a topic will often suggest half a dozen things that different ones are prompted to say about it, and may even give direction to the conversation for a whole evening. Now if it is true that ideas are more easily remembered and used if associated, let usincrease the associations. Why not bind all the studies and ideas of a child as closely together as possible by natural lines of association? Why not select for reading lessons those materials which will throw added light upon contemporaneous lessons in history, botany, and geography? Then if the reading lesson presents in detail the battle ofKing's Mountain, take the pains to refer to this part of the history and put this lesson into connection with historical facts elsewhere learned. If a reading lesson gives a full description of thepalm tree, its growth and use, what better setting could this knowledge find than in the geography of Northern Africa and the West Indies?
The numerous associations into which ideas enter, without producing confusion make them moreserviceablefor every kind of use. "It is only by associating thoughts closely that a person comes to possess them securely and have command over them. One's reproduction of ideas is then rapid enough to enable him to comprehend a situation quickly, and form a judgment with some safety, his knowledge is all present and ready for use; while on the other hand, one whose related thoughts have never been firmly welded together reproduces slowly, and in consequence is wavering and undecided. His knowledge is not at his command and he is therefore weak." (F. McMurry.) The greater then the number of clear mental relations of a fact to other facts in the same and in other studies the more likely it is to render instantobedienceto the will when it is needed. Such ready mastery of one's past experiences and accumulations promotes confidence and power in action. Concentration is manifestly designed to give strength and decision to character. But a careless education by neglecting this principle, by scattering the mind's forces over broad fields and by neglecting the connecting roads and paths that should bind together the separate fields, can actually undermine force and decision of character.
In later years when we consider theresults of school methodsupon our own character we can see the weakness of a system of education which lacks concentration, a weakness which shows itself in a lack ofretentivenessand of ability to use acquired knowledge. We are only too frequently reminded of the loose and scrappy state of our acquired knowledge by the ease with which it eludes the memory when it is needed. To escape from this disagreeable consciousness in after years, we begin to spy out a few of the mountain peaks of memory which still give evidence of submerged continents. Around these islands we begin to collect the wreckage of the past and the accretions of later study and experience. A thoughtful person naturally falls into the habit of collecting ideas around a few centers, and of holding them in place by links of association. In American history, for instance, it is inevitable that our knowledge becomes congested in certain important epochs, or around the character and life of a few typical persons. The same seems to be true also of other studies, as geography and even geometry. The failure to acquire properhabits of thinkingis also exposed by the experience of practical life. In life we are compelled to see and respect the causal relations between events. We must calculate the influences of the stubborn forces and facts around us. But in school we often have so many things to learn that we have no time to think. At least half the meaning of things lies not in themselves, but in their relations and effects. Therefore, to get ideas without getting their significant relations, is to encumber the mind with ill-digested material. A sensible man of the world has little respect for this kind of learning.
One reason why knowledge is so poorly understood and remembered is because itsreal applicationto other branches of knowledge, whether near or remote, is so little observed and fixed. Looking back upon our school studies we often wonder what botany, geometry, and drawing have to do with each other and with our present needs. Each subject was so compactly stowed away on a shelf by itself that it is always thought of in that isolation,—like Hammerfest or the Falkland Islands in geography,—out of the way places. Are the various sciences so distinct and so widely separated in nature and in real life as they are in school? An observant boy in the woods will notice important relations between animals and plants, between plants, soil, and seasons that are not referred to in the text-books. In a carpenter shop he will observe relations of different kinds of wood, metals, and tools to each other that will surprise and instruct him. In the real life of the country or town the objects and materials of knowledge, representing the sciences of nature and the arts of life, are closely jumbled together and intimately dependent upon each other. The very closeness of causal and local connections and the lack of orderly arrangement shown by things in life make it necessary in schools to classify and arrange into sciences. But it is a vital mistake to suppose that the knowledge is complete when classified and learned in this scientific form. Classification and books are but a faulty means of getting a clear insight into nature and human life or society. Knowledge should not only be mastered in its scientific classifications but also constantly referred back to things as seen in practical life and closely traced out and fixed in those connections. The vital connections of different studies with each other are best known and realized by the study of nature and society.
In later life we are convinced at every turn of the need of being able to recognize and use knowledgeoutside of its scientific connections. A lawyer finds many subjects closely mingled and causally related in his daily business which were never mentioned together in textbooks. The ordinary run of cases will lead him through a kaleidoscope of natural science, human life, commerce, history, mathematics, literature, and law, not to speak of less agreeable things. But the same is true of a physician, merchant, or farmer, in different ways. Shall we answer to all this that schools were never designed to teach such things? They belong to professions or to the school of life, etc.
But it is not simply in professions and trades that we find this close mingling and dependence of the most divergent sorts of knowledge, this unscientific mixing of the sciences. Everywhere knowledge, however well classified, is one-sided and misleading, which does not conform to the conditions of real life. A wisemotherin her household has a variety of problems to meet. From cellar to garret, from kitchen to library, from nursery to drawing-room, her good sense must adapt all sorts of knowledge to real conditions. In bringing up her children she must understand physical and mental orders and disorders. She must judge of foods and cooking, of clothing, as to taste, comfort, and durability; of the exercises and employments of children, etc. Whether she is conscious of it or not, she must mingle a knowledge of chemistry, psychology, physiology, medicine, sanitation, the physics of light and air, with the traditional household virtues in a sort of universal solvent from which she can bring forth all good things in their proper time and place. As Spencer says, education should be a preparation for complete living; or, according to the old Latin maxim, we learnnon scholae sed vitae. The final test of a true mastery and concentration of knowledge in the mind is the ability to use it readily in the varied and tangled relations of actual experience.
We are accustomed to take refuge behind the so-called "mental discipline" that results from studies, whether or not anything is remembered that bears upon the relations of life. There are doubtless certain formal habits of mind that result from study even though, like Latin, it is cast aside as an old garment at the end of school days. Transferring our argument then to this ground, is there any "habit of thinking" more valuable than thatbent of mindwhich is not satisfied with the mere memorizing of a fact but seeks to interpret its value by judging of its influence upon other facts and their influence upon it? No subject is understood by itself nor even by its relation to other facts in the same science, but by its relation to the whole field of knowledge and experience. Unless it can be proven that the study of relations is above the schoolboy capacity, it is doubtful if there is any mental habit so valuable at the close of school studies as the disposition tothinkandponder, to trace relations. The relations which are of interest and vital importance are those which in daily life bind all the realms of science into a network of causally connected parts.
The multiplication of studies in the common school in recent years will soon compel us to pay more attention to concentration or the mutual relation of knowledges. There is a resistless tendency to convert the course of studies into anencyclopediaof knowledge. To perceive this it is only necessary to note the new studies incorporated into the public school within a generation. Drawing, natural science, gymnastics, and manual training are entirely new, while language lessons, history, and music have been expanded to include much that is new for lower grades. Still other studies are even now seeking admission, as modern languages, geometry, and sewing. In spite of all that has been said by educational reformers against making the acquisition of knowledge the basis of education, the range and variety of studies has been greatly extended and chiefly through the influence of the reformers. This expansive movement appears in schools of all grades. The secondary and fitting schools and the universities have spread their branches likewise over a much wider area of studies. We are in the full sweep of this movement along the whole line and it has not yet reached its flood.
Thesimplicityof the old course both in the common school and in higher institutions is in marked contrast to the present multiplicity. It was a narrow current in which education used to run, but it was deep and strong. In higher institutions the mastery of Latin and of Latin authors was thesine qua non. In the common school arithmetic was held in almost equal honor. Strong characters have often been developed by a narrow and rigid training along a single line of duty as is shown in the case of the Jesuits, the Humanists, and the more recent devotees of natural science.
As contrasted with this, the most striking feature of our public schools now is theirshallow and superficialwork. It is probable that the teaching in lower grades is better than ever before, but as the tasks accumulate in the higher grades there is a great amount of smattering. The prospect is, however, that this disease will grow worse before a remedy can be applied. The first attempt to cultivate broader and more varied fields of knowledge in the common school must necessarily exhibit a shallow result. Teachers are not familiar with the new subjects, methods are not developed, and the proper adjustments of the studies to each other are neglected. No one who is at all familiar with our present status will claim that drawing, natural science, geography, and language are yet properly adjusted to each other. The task is a difficult one, but it is being grappled with by many earnest teachers.
It is obvious that the first serious effort toremedythis shallowness will be made by deepening and intensifying the culture of the new fields. The knowledge of each subject must be made as complete and detailed as possible. Well-qualified teachers and specialists will of course accomplish the most. They will zealously try to teach all the important things in each branch of study. But where is the limit? The capacity of children! And it will not be long before philanthropists, physicians, reformers, and all the friends of mankind will call a decisive halt. Children were not born simply to be stuffed with knowledge, like turkeys for a Christmas dinner.
It appears, therefore, that we must steer between Scylla and Charybdis, or that we are in a first-class educationaldilemma. This conviction is strengthened by the reflection that there is no escape from fairly facing the situation. Having once put our hand to the plow we can not look back. The common school course has greatly expanded in recent years and there is no probability that it will ever contract. It has expanded in response to proper universal educational demands. For we may fairly believe that most of the studies recently incorporated into the school course are essential elements in the education of every child that is to grow up and take a due share in our society. It is too late to sound the retreat. The educational reformers have battled stoutly for three hundred years for just the course of study that we are now beginning to accept. The edict can not be revoked, that every child is entitled to an harmonious and equable development of all its human powers, or as Herbart calls it, a harmonious culture of many-sided interests. The nature of every child imperatively demands such broad and liberal culture, and the varied duties and responsibilities of the citizen make it a practical necessity. No narrow, one-sided culture will ever equip a child to act a just part in the complex social, political, and industrial society of our time. But the demand fordepthof knowledge is just as imperative as that forcomprehensiveness.
It is clear that two seriousdangersthreaten the quality of our education: First, loose and shallow knowledge; second, overloading with encyclopedic knowledge. What can concentration do to remedy the one and check the other? Thecurefor these two evils will be found in so adjusting the studies to each other, in so building them into each other, as to secure a mutual support. The study of a topic not only as it is affected by others in the same subject, but also by facts and principles in other studies, as an antidote against superficial learning. In tracing these causal relations, in observing the resemblances and analogies, the interdependence of studies, as geography, history, and natural science, a thoughtfulness and clearness of insight are engendered quite contrary to loose and shallow study.
Secondly, concentration at once discards the idea of encyclopedic knowledge as an aim of school education. It puts a higher estimate upon related ideas and a lower one upon that of complete or encyclopedic information. All the cardinal branches of education indeed shall be taught in the school, but only theessential, thetypical, will be selected and an exhaustive knowledge of any subject is out of the question. Concentration will put a constant check upon over-accumulation of facts, and will rather seek to strengthen an idea by association with familiar things than to add a new fact to it. No matter how thorough and enthusiastic a specialist one may be, he is called upon to curtail the quantity of his subject and bring it into proper dependence upon other studies.
Historicallyconsidered the principle of concentration has been advocated and emphasized by many writers and teachers. The most striking and decided attempt to apply it was made by Jacotot in the first quarter of this century and had great success in France. Mr. Joseph Payne, in interpreting Jacotot (Lectures on the Science and Art of Ed. p. 339), lays down as his main precept, "Learn something thoroughly and refer everything else to it." He emphasized above everything elseclearnessof insight andconnectionbetween the parts of knowledge. It was principally applied to the study of languages and called for perfect memorizing by incessant repetition and rigid questioning by the teacher to insure perfect understanding, in the first instance, of new facts acquired; and secondly, firm association with all previous knowledge. Jacotot and his disciples reached notable results by an heroic and consistent application of this principle and some of our present methods in language are based upon it. But on the whole the principle was only partially and mechanically applied. Its aim was primarily intellectual, even linguistic, not moral. There was no philosophical effort made to determine the relative value of studies and thus find out what study or series of studies best deserved to take the leading place in the school course. The importance ofinterest, as a means of rousing mental vigor and as a criterion for selecting concentrating materials suited to children at different ages, was overlooked.
A kind of concentration has long been practiced in Germany and to a considerable extent in our own schools which is known as theconcentric circles.
In our schools it is illustrated by the treatment of geography, grammar, and history. In beginning the study of geography in the third or fourth grade it has been customary to outline the whole science in the first primary book. The earth as a whole and its daily and yearly motion, the chief continents and oceans, the general geographical notions, mountain, lake, river, etc., are briefly treated by definition and illustration. Having completed this general framework of geographical knowledge during the first year, the second year, or at least the second book, takes up thesame round of topicsagain and enters into a somewhat fuller treatment of continents, countries, states, and political divisions. The last two years of the common school may be spent upon a large, complete geography; which, with larger, fuller maps and more names, gives also a more detailed account of cities, products, climate, political divisions, and commerce. Finally, physical geography is permitted to spread over much the same ground from a natural-science standpoint, giving many additional and interesting facts and laws concerning zones, volcanoes, ocean-beds and currents, atmospheric phenomena, geologic history, etc. The same earth, the same lands and oceans, furnish the outline in each case, and we travel over the same ground three or four times successively, each time adding new facts to the original nucleus. There is an old proverb that "repetition is the mother of studies," and here we have a systematic plan for repetition, extending through the school course, with the advantage of new and interesting facts to add to the grist each time it is sent through the mill. It is an attractive plan at first sight, but if we appeal to experience, are we not reminded rather that it was dull repetition of names, boundaries, map questions, location of places, etc., and after all not much detailed knowledge was gained even in the higher grades? Again, is it not contrary to reason to begin with definitions and general notions in the lower grades and end up with the interesting and concrete in the higher?
In language lessons and grammar it has been customary to learn the kinds of sentence and the parts of speech in a simple form in the third and fourth grades and in each succeeding year to review these topics, gradually enlarging and expanding the definitions, inflections, and constructions into a fuller etymology and syntax. In United States history we are beginning to adopt a similar plan of repetitions, and the frequent reviews in arithmetic are designed to make good the lack of thoroughness and mastery which should characterize each successive grade of work. The course of religious instruction given in European schools is based upon the same reiteration year by year of essential religious ideas. The whole plan, as illustrated by different studies, is based upon a successive enlargement of a subject in concentric circles with the implied constant repetition and strengthening of leading ideas. A framework of important notions in each branch is kept before the mind year after year, repeated, explained, enlarged, with faith in a constantly increasing depth of meaning. There is no doubt that under good teaching the principle of the concentric circles produces some excellent fruits, a mastery of the subject, and a concentration of ideas within the limits of a single study.
The disciples of Herbart, while admitting the merits of the concentric circles, have subjected the plan to a severecriticism. They say it begins with general and abstract notions and puts off the interesting details to the later years, while any correct method with children will take the interesting particulars first, will collect abundant concrete materials, and by a gradual process of comparison and induction reach the general principles and concepts at the close. It inevitably leads to a dull and mechanical repetition instead of cultivating an interesting comparison of new and old and a thoughtful retrospect. It is a clumsy and distorted application of the principle of apperception, of going from the known to the unknown. Instead of marching forward into new fields of knowledge with a proper basis of supplies in conquered fields, it gleans again and again in fields already harvested. For this reason it destroys a proper interest by hashing up the same old ideas year after year. Finally the concentric circles are not even designed to bring the different school studies into relation to each other. At best they contribute to a more thorough mastery of each study. They leave the separate branches of the course isolated and unconnected, an aggregation of unrelated thought complexes. True concentration should leave them an organic whole of intimate knowledge-relations, conducing to strength and unity of character.
There is a growing conviction among teachers that we need a closerarticulationof studies with one another. The expansion of the school course over new fields of knowledge and the multiplication of studies already discussed compels us to seek for a simplification of the course. A hundred years ago, yes, even fifty years ago, it was thought that the extension of our territory and government to the present limits would be impossible. It was plainly stated that one government could never hold together people so widely separated. Mr. Fiske says: (The Critical Period of Am. Hist., p. 60) "Even with all other conditions favorable, it is doubtful if the American Union could have been preserved to the present time without the railroad. Railroads and telegraphs have made our vast country, both for political and for social purposes, more snug and compact than little Switzerland was in the middle ages or New England a century ago." The analogy between the realm of government and of knowledge is not at all complete but it suggests at least the change which is imperatively called for in education. In education as well as in commerce there must be trunk lines of thought which bring the will as monarch of the mind into close communication with all the resources of knowledge and experience. Indeed in the mind of a child or of an adult there is much stronger necessity for centralization than in the government and commerce of a country. The will should be an undisputed monarch of the whole mental life. It is the one center where all lines of communication meet. London is not so perfect a center for the commerce and finance of England as is the consciousego(smaller than a needle's point) for all its forms of experience.
Besides the central trunk lines of knowledge in history and natural science there are branches of study which aretributaryto them, which serve also as connecting chains between more important subjects. Reading, for instance, is largely a relative study. Not only is the art of reading merely a preparation for a better appreciation of history, geography, arithmetic, etc., but even the subject-matter of reading lessons is now made largely tributary to other studies. The supplementary readers consist exclusively of interesting matter bearing upon geography, history, and natural science. It is a fact that reading is becoming more and more a relative study, and selections are regularly made to bear on other school work. Geography especially serves to establish a network of connections between other kinds of knowledge. It is a very important supplement to history. In fact history cannot dispense with its help. Geography lessons are full of natural science, as with plants, animals, rocks, climate, inventions, machines, and races. Indeed there are few if any school studies which should not be brought into close and important relations to geography. Again the more important historical and scientific branches not only receive valuable aid from the tributary studies but they abundantly supply such aid in return. Language lessons should receive all their subject-matter from history and natural science. While the language lessons are working up such rich and interesting materials for purposes of oral and written language, the more important branches are also illustrated and enriched by the new historical and scientific subjects thus incidentally treated.
An examination of these mutual relations and courtesies between studies may discover to us the fact that we are now unconsciously or thoughtlesslyduplicatingthe work of education to a surprising extent. For example, by isolating language lessons and cutting them off from communication with history, geography, and natural science, we make a double or triple series of lessons necessary where a single series would answer the purpose. Moreover, by excluding an interesting subject-matter derived from other studies, the interest and mental life awakened by language lessons are reduced to a minimum. Interest is not only awakened by well selected matter taken from other branches but the relationships themselves between studies, whether of cause and effect as between history and geography, or of resemblance as between the classifications in botany and grammar—the relations themselves are matters of unusual interest to children.
Many teachers have begun to realize in some degree the value of these relations, their effect in enlivening studies, and the better articulation of all kinds of knowledge in the mind. But as yet all attempts among us to properly relate studies are but weak and ineffective approaches toward the solution of the great problem of concentration. The links that now bind studies together in our work are largely accidental and no great stress has been laid upon their value, but if concentration is grappled with in earnest it involvesrelations at every step. Not only are the principal and tributary branches of knowledge brought into proper conjunction, but there is constant forethought and afterthought to bring each new topic into the company of its kindred, near and remote. The mastery of any topic or subject is not clear and satisfactory till the grappling hooks that bind it to the other kinds of knowledge are securely fastened.
Concentration on a large scale and with consistent thoroughness has been attempted in recent years by the scholars and teachers of theHerbart school. It is based upon moral character as the highest aim, and upon a correlation of studies which attributes a high moral value to historical knowledge and consequently places a series of historical materials in the center of the school course. The ability of the school to affect moral character is not limited to the personal influence of the teacher and to the discipline and daily conduct of the children; but instruction itself, by illustrating and implanting moral ideas, and by closely relating all other kinds of knowledge to the historical series, can powerfully affect moral tendency and strength. If historical matter of the most interesting and valuable kind be selected for the central series, and the natural sciences and formal studies be closely associated with it, there will be harmony and union between the culture elements of the school course.
The problem that confronts us at the outset, when preparing a plan of concentration, ishow to selectthe best historical (moral educative) materials, which are to serve as the central series of the course. Theculture epochs(cultur-historische Stufen) are, according to the Herbartians, the key to the situation. (This subject was briefly discussed underInterest.)
According to the theory of theculture epochs, the child, in its growth from infancy to maturity, is an epitome of the world's history and growth in a profoundly significant sense for the purpose of education. From the earliest history of society and of arts, from the first simple family and tribal relations, and from the time of the primitive industries, there has been a series of upward steps toward our present state of culture (social, political, and economic life). Some of the periods of progress have been typical for different nations or for the whole race; for example, the stone age, the age of barbarism, the age of primitive industries, the age of nomads, the heroic age, the age of chivalry, the age of despotism, the age of conquest, wars of freedom, the age of revolution, the commercial age, the age of democracy, the age of discovery, etc. What relation the leading epochs of progress in the race bear to the steps of change and growth in children, has become a matter of great interest in education. The assumption of theculture epochsis that the growth of moral and secular ideas in the race, represented at its best, is similar to their growth in children, and that children may find in the representative historical periods select materials for moral and intellectual nurture and a natural access to an understanding of our present condition of society. The culture epochs are those representative periods in history which are supposed to embody the elements of culture suited to train the young upon in their successive periods of growth. Goethe says, "Childhood must always begin again at the first and pass through the epochs of the world's culture." Herbart says, "The whole of the past survives in each of us," and again, "The receptivity (of the child) changes continually with progress in years. It is the function of the teacher to see to it that these modifications advance steadily in agreement with these changes (in the world's history)." Ziller has attempted more fully to "justify this culture-historical course of instruction on the ground of a certainpredispositionof the child's mental growth for this course." Again, "We are to let children pass through the culture development of mankind with accelerated speed." Herbart says, "The treasure of advice and warning, of precept and principle, of transmitted laws and institutions, which earlier generations have prepared and handed down to the latter, belongs to the strongest of psychological forces." That is, choice historical illustrations produce a weighty effect upon the minds of children, if selected from those epochs which correspond to a child's own periods of growth.
The culture epochs implyan intimate union between history and natural science, the two main branches of knowledge, at every step. The isolation between these studies, which has often appeared and is still strong, is unnatural and does violence to the unity of education historically considered. Men at all times have had physical nature in and around them. Every child is an intimate blending of historical and physical (natural science) elements. The culture epochs illustrate aconstant change and expansion of history and natural sciencetogether and in harmony (despite the conflict between them). As men have progressed historically and socially from age to age their interpretation of nature has been modified with growing discovery, insight, invention, and utilization of her resources. Children also pass through a series of metamorphoses which are both physical and psychological, changing temper and mental tendency as the body increases in vigor and strength.
The culture epochs, by beginning well back in history, with those early epochs which correspond to a child's early years and tracing up the steps of progress in their origin and growth, pave the way for a clear insight into our present state of culture, which is a complex of historical and natural science elements. It is comparatively easy for us to see that to understand the present political, economic, and social conditions of the United States we are compelled to go back to the early settlements with their simple surroundings and slowly trace up the growth and increasing complexity of government, religion, commerce, manufactures, and social life. The theory of the culture epochs implies that the child began where primitive man began, feels as he felt, and advances as he advanced, only with more rapid strides; that as his physique is the hereditary outcome of thousands of years of history, and his physical growth the epitome of that development, so his mental progress is related to the mind progress of his ancestry. They go still further and assume that the subject-matter of the leading epochs is so well adapted to the changing phases and impulses of child life that there is a strong predisposition in children in favor of this course, and that the series of historical object lessons stirs the strongest intellectual and moral interests into life.
As atheorythe culture epochs may seem too loose and unsubstantial to serve as the basis for such a serious undertaking as the education of children to moral character. There is probably no exact agreement as to what the leading epochs of the world's history are, nor of the true order of succession even of those epochs which can be clearly seen. The value of this theory is rather in its suggestiveness to teachers in their efforts to select suitable historical materials for children not in any exact order but approximately. So far as we are informed no one has yet tried to prove, in logical form, the necessary correspondence between the epochs of history and the periods of growth in children. It is rather an instinct which has been felt and expressed by many great writers. The real test of the value of this theory is not so much in a positive argument as in a general survey of the educational materials furnished by the historical epochs, and an experimental use of them in schools to see whether they are suited to the periods of child growth.
There are, however, certainlimitsto the theory of race progress that need to be drawn at once. It is easy to perceive that not all races have left such epochs behind them, because some are still in barbarism; others have advanced to a considerable height and then retrograded. Of those which have advanced with more or less steadiness for two thousand years, like England, France, and Germany, not every period of their history contains valuable culture elements. The great epochs are not clearly distinguishable in their origin and ending. Again, only those periods whose deeds, spirit, and tendency have been well preserved by history or, still better, have found expression in the work of some great poet or literary artist, can supply for children the best educative material.
The culture epochs of history can be of no service to us in schools except as they have been suitablydescribedby able writers. In history and literature, as handed down to us by the great literary artists, many of the culture epochs have been portrayed by a master hand. In the Iliad, Homer gives us vivid and delightfully attractive scenes from life in the heroic age. The historical parts of the Old Testament furnish clear and classic expression to great typical historical scenes as illustrated in the lives of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon. The chief poets have expended a full measure of their art in presenting to posterity attractive events from striking epochs of the world's history. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tennyson, and Longfellow have left for us such historical paintings as the Iliad, Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, Idyls of a King, Miles Standish, etc. Some of the best historians also have described such epochs of history in scarcely less attractive form. Xenophon's Anabasis, Livy's Punic Wars, Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Gallic Wars, the best biographies of Charlemagne, Columbus, Luther, Cromwell, Washington, are designed to give us a clear view of some of the great typical characters and events of history. Some of the leading novelists and imaginative writers in prose have performed a like service. Hypatia, Ivanhoe, Last Days of Pompeii, Romola, Uarda, and Robinson Crusoe are examples. The story of Siegfried, of King Arthur, of Bayard, of Tell, of Bruce, of Alfred, and the heroic myths of Greece, all bring out representative figures of the mythical age.
The typical epochs of the world's struggle and progress are reflected, therefore, in theliterary masterpiecesof great writers, whether poets, historians, biographers, or novelists. The simplest and choicest of these literary and historical materials, selected, arranged, and adapted for children, have been regarded by some thinkers as the strongest and best meat that can be supplied to children during their periods of growth. The history of each nation that has had a progressive civilization contains some such elements and masterpieces. It would be fortunate for each nation if it could find first in its own history all such leading epochs and corresponding materials. Then it could draw upon the historical and literary resources of other countries to complete and round out the horizon of thought.
Since the best materials selected from history are calculated to build a strong foundation of moral ideas and sentiments, this carefully selectedhistorical seriesof studies has been chosen as the basis for a concentration of all the studies of the school course. Ziller, as a disciple of Herbart, was the first to lay out a course of study for the common school with history materials as a central series, based upon the idea of the culture epochs. Since religious instruction drawn from the Old and New Testament has always been an important study in German schools, he established a double historical series. The first was scriptural, representing the chief epochs of Jewish and Christian history from the time of Abraham to the Reformation; the second was national German history from the early traditional stories of Thuringia and the Saxon kings down to the Napoleonic wars and the entry of Emperor William into Paris in 1871. It should be remarked that in the first and second grade religious instruction does not appear in regular form, but in devotional exercises, Christmas stories, etc. Fairy stories and Robinson Crusoe are the chief materials used in the first and second grades, so that the regular historical series begin in the third.
The two lines of religious and secular history are designed to illustrate for each grade corresponding epochs of national history, both Jewish and German. The parallel series stand as follows:
Religious. Secular.
1st Grade. Fairytales.
2nd Grade. Robinson Crusoe.
3d Grade. The patriarchs, Stories of Thuringia. Abraham, Joseph, Moses.
4th Grade. Judges and Kings. The Nibelungen Song, Samuel, Saul, David, Siegfried. Solomon.
5th Grade. Life of Christ. Henry I., Charlemagne, Boniface, Armenius.
6th Grade. Life of Christ. Teutonic migrations,Crusades, Attila, Barbarossa,Rudolph.
7th Grade. Life of Paul. Discovery of America,Reformation, Thirty Years'War.
8th Grade. Life of Luther. Frederick the Great, Wars against Napoleon, William I.
The above outline is Ziller's plan, modified by Professor Rein.
In each grade is selected a body of classical or choice historical materials, representing a great period of German as well as of Jewish or Christian life, and especially suited to interest and instruct children, while illustrating moral ideas and deepening moral convictions. The body of historical narrative selected for any one grade is calculated to form acenteror nucleus for concentrating all the studies of that year. Reading, language, geography, drawing, music, and arithmetic largely spring out of and depend upon this historical center, while they are also bound to each other by many links of connection. A full course for the eight grades of the common school, with this double historical series as a nucleus, has been carefully worked out and applied by Professor Rein and his associates. It has been applied also with considerable success in a number of German schools.
This great undertaking has had to run the gauntlet of a severecriticism. Its fundamental principles, as well as its details of execution, have been sharply questioned. But a long-continued effort, extending through many years, by able and thoroughly-equipped teachers, to solve one of the greatest problems of education, deserves careful attention. The general theory of concentration, the selection and value of the materials, the previous history of method, and the best present method of treating each subject, with detailed illustrations, are all worked out with great care and ability.
The Jewish and German historical materials, which are made the moral-educative basis of the common school course by the Herbartians, can be of no service to us except by way of example. Neither sacred nor German history can form any important part of an American course of study. Religious instruction has been relegated to the church, and German history touches us indirectly if at all. The epochs of history from which American schools must draw are chiefly those of the United States and Great Britain. France, Germany, Italy, and Greece may furnish some collateral matter, as the story of Tell, of Siegfried, of Alaric, and of Ulysses; but some of the leading epochs must be those of our own national history.
Has theEnglish-speaking racein North America passed through a series of historical epochs which, on account of their moral-educative worth, deserve to stand in the center of a common school course? Is this history adapted to cultivate the highest moral and intellectual qualities of children as they advance from year to year? There are few, if any, single nations whose history could furnish a favorable answer to this question. The English in America began their career so late in the world's history and with such advantages of previous European culture that several of the earlier historical epochs are not represented in our country. But perhaps Great Britain and Europe will furnish the earlier links of a chain whose later links were firmly welded in America.
Thehistory of our countrysince the first settlements less than three hundred years ago is by far the best epitome of the world's progress in its later phases that the life of any nation presents. On reaching the new world the settlers began a hand-to-hand, tooth-and-nail conflict with hard conditions of climate, soil, and savage. The simple basis of physical existence had to be fought for on the hardest terms. The fact that everything had to be built up anew from small beginnings on a virgin soil gave an opportunity to trace the rise of institutions from their infancy in a Puritan dwelling or in a town meeting till they spread and consolidated over a continent. In this short time the people have grown from little scattered settlements to a nation, have experienced an undreamed-of material expansion; have passed through a rapid succession of great political struggles, and have had an unrivaled evolution of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, inventions, education, and social life. All the elements of society, material, religious, political, and social have started with the day of small things and have grown up together.
There is little in our history to appeal to children below the fourth grade, that is, below ten years; but from the beginning of the fourth grade on, American history is rich in moral-educative materials of the best quality and suited to children. We are able to distinguishfour principal epochs: 1. The age of pioneers, the ocean navigators, like Columbus, Drake, and Magellan, and the explorers of the continent like Smith, Champlain, LaSalle, and Fremont. 2. The period of settlements, of colonial history, and of French and Indian wars. 3. The Revolution and life under the Articles of Confederation till the adoption of the Constitution. 4. Self-government under the Union and the growth and strengthening of the federal idea. While drawing largely upon general history for a full and detailed treatment of a few important topics in each of these epochs, we should make a still more abundant use of thebiographicalandliterarymaterials furnished by each. The concentration of school studies, with a historical series suggested by the culture epochs as a basis, would utilize our American history, biography, and literature in a manner scarcely dreamed of heretofore.
We shall attempt to illustrate briefly this concentration of studies about materials selected from one of the culture epochs. Take, for example,the age of pioneersfrom which to select historical subject-matter for children of the fourth and fifth grades. It comprehends the biographies of eminent navigators and explorers, pioneers on land and sea. It describes the important undertakings of Columbus, Magellan, Cabot, Raleigh, Drake, and others, who were daring leaders at the great period of maritime discovery. The pioneer explorers of New England and the other colonies bring out strongly marked characters in the preparatory stage of our earliest history. Smith, Champlain, Winthrop, Penn, Oglethorpe, Stuyvesant, and Washington are examples. In the Mississippi valley De Soto, La Salle, Boone, Lincoln, and Robertson, are types. Still farther west Lewis and Clarke, and the pioneers of California complete this historical epoch in a series of great enterprises. Most of them are pioneers into new regions beset with dangers of wild beasts, savages, and sickness. A few are settlers, the first to build cabins and take possession of land that was still claimed by red men and still covered with forests. The men named were leaders of small bands sent out to explore rivers and forests or to drive out hostile claimants at the point of the sword.
Any one who has tried the effect of these stories upon children of the fourth grade will grant that they touch a deep nativeinterest. But this must be a genuine and permanent interest to be of educative value. Themoral qualityin this interest is its virtue. Standish, Boone, La Salle, and the rest were stalwart men, whose courage was keenly and powerfully tempered. They were leaders of men by virtue of moral strength and superiority. Their deeds have the stamp of heroism and in approving them the moral judgments of children are exercised upon noble material. These men and stories constitute an epoch in civilization because they represent that stage which just precedes the first form of settled society. In fact some of the stories fall in the transition stage, where men followed the plow and wielded the woodman's axe, or turned to the war-path as occasion required. In every part of the United States there has been such a period, and something corresponding to it in other countries. We are prepared to assume, therefore, that these historical materials arouse a strong interest, implant moral ideas, and illustrate a typical epoch. They are also veryreal. These men, especially the land pioneers, were our own predecessors, traversing the same rivers, forests, and prairies where we now live and enjoy the fruits of their hardihood and labor.
Let us suppose that such a historical series of stories has its due share of time on the school program and that the stories are properly presented by the teacher and orally reproduced by the pupils. Into whatrelationsshall the other studies of the school enter to these historical materials? How shall language, reading, geography, natural science, and arithmetic be brought into the close relation to history required by the idea of concentration.
The oral reproduction of the stories by the children is the best possibleoral languagedrill, while their partial written review is the basis of much of the regularcompositionwork. Language lessons on isolated and unconnected topics can thus be entirely omitted. The element of interest will be added to oral and written language lessons by the use of such lively stories.
Readingis chiefly tributary to the historical series. Such selections should be made for reading lessons as will throw additional light upon pioneer history and its related geography. Descriptions of natural scenery and choice selections from our best historians, as Irving and Bancroft, describing events or men of this period, should be used for reading lessons. Especially the best literary selections are to be utilized, as the Landing of the Pilgrims, Webster's and Everett's orations at Plymouth, Evangeline and Hiawatha, Indian legends and life, Miles Standish, The Knickerbocker History, and some of the original papers and letters of the early settlers. Whatever poems or prose selections from our best literature are found to bear directly or indirectly upon pioneer events, will add much interest and beauty to the whole subject. A second series of reading materials for these grades would be those masterpieces and traditions of European literature, which are drawn from a corresponding pioneer epoch in those countries; for example, Siegfried in Germany, Alaric in Italy, and Ulysses in Greece. A selection of reading material along these lines would exhibit much variety of prose and poetry, history, and geography. Unity would be given to it by the spirit and labors of a typical age and an intimate relation to history at all points established.
Geographyhas an equally close relation to history stories. For these grades geography and history cover the same geographical regions. Instead of being totally isolated from each other they should be purposely laid out on parallel lines with interlacing topics. North America and the Atlantic ocean are the field of action in both cases. These maritime explorers opened up the geography of this hemisphere at its most interesting stage. No part of the Atlantic ocean or of its North American coasts was overlooked by the navigators. The climate, vegetation and people upon its islands and coasts were curious objects to European adventurers. The first pioneers surveyed the eastern coast and the adjacent interior of a new continent, with its bays, rivers, forests, and mountains. The stories themselves are not intelligible without full geographical explanations, and the personal interest in the narratives throws a peculiar charm upon the geography.
TheMississippi valleyis a great field for both history and geography. It is one of the striking physical features of North America and the best of stories find their setting in this environment. Not a great river of this region but is the scene of one of the stories. The lakes and streams were the natural highways of the explorers and settlers. The mountains obstructed their way, presenting obstacles but not limits to their enterprise. The great forests housed their game, concealed their enemies, and had to be cut down to make space for their homes and cornfields. The prairies farther west were a camping ground for them as well as for the deer and buffalo. There are no important physical features of the great valley that are not touched more or less in detail by the stories. It is the work of the geography of this year to enlarge and complete the pictures suggested by the stories, to multiply details, to compare and arrange and to associate with these the facts of our present political and commercial geography.
The relation between history and geography is so intimate that it requires some pedagogical skill to determine which of the two should take the lead. But we have already adjudged the history to be by far the more important of the two. Its subject-matter is of greater intrinsic interest to children, and as it already stands in the commanding center of the school course, we are disposed to bring the geography lessons into close dependence upon it.
In these gradesnatural scienceor nature study form a necessary complement to the circle of historical and geographical topics treated. Many interesting natural-science subjects, suggested by history and geography, can not be dealt with satisfactorily in those studies; for example, the tobacco plant, the cactus, the deer, the hot springs, the squirrel, the mariner's compass. Natural science studies begin naturally with the home neighborhood, with its plants, trees, animals, rocks, inventions, and products. But having surveyed and learned many of these things at home in his earlier years, the child is prepared, when geography and history begin, to extend his natural-science information to the larger geographical regions.
The history stories and geography suggest a large number ofnatural-science topics, so that there is abundant choice of materials while remaining in close connection with those studies. The vegetable and animal life and products of the sea, suggested by the voyages, are fishes, dolphins, whales, sea-birds, shells. Other topics are the construction of ships, the mariner's compass, and astronomy. The stories of the land pioneers open up a still richer field of natural science study for the common schools. Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat-fish, sword-fish, turtle, alligator, and many more. Among native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, beans, huckleberries, grapes, strawberries, cranberries, tobacco, pawpaw, mulberry, haw, plum, apple, and persimmon. Of trees are oak, hickory, walnut, cypress, pine, birch, beech, and others. Tools, instruments, and inventions are mentioned, with their uses, as guns, Indian weapons, compass, thermometer, barometer, boats, carpenter's tools; also, the uses of iron, lead, leather, and many of the simple arts and economies of life, such as weaving, tempering of metals, tanning, and cooking. The natural wonders of the country, such as falls, caves, hot-springs, canons, salt licks, plains, interior deserts, and salt lakes, kinds of rocks, soils, forests and other vegetation, the phenomena of the weather and differences in climate, are referred to. All these and other topics from the broad realm of nature are suggested, any of which may serve as the starting point for a series of science lessons.
How far the natural science lessons canheed the suggestionsof history and geography and still follow out and develop important science principles, is one of the great problems for solution. It would seem that the large number of natural-science topics touched upon by the history, when increased by the variety of home objects in nature and by still others called up by the geography work of these years, would give sufficient variety to the natural science work of the same period. By omitting some of these topics and enlarging upon others, developing the notions of classes and principles so far as is desirable, the natural-science lessons may be made sufficiently scientific without losing the close relation to the central subject-matter for the year. There is no doubt but the science-lessons will add greatly to many topics suggested by the stories and will bring the whole realm of nature into close relation to history and geography.
The subjects thus far discussed, that may be brought into close relation to the central stories, are oral and written language, reading and literature, geography, and the natural sciences. The connection between these branches are numerous and strong at every step.Drawinghas a very intimate and important relation to the objects described in history, natural science, arithmetic, and geography; while thesongslearned should express in those poetic and rhythmic forms which appeal so strongly to the feelings, many of the noblest ideas suggested by travel, scenery, history, and the experiences of home life.
Arithmetic, finally, seems to stand like an odd sheep among the studies. It is certainly the least social of the common school branches. While avoiding all forced connection between arithmetic and other studies, we shall find some points where the relations are simple and clear. Children in the first grade should see numbers in the leaves, flowers, trees, and animals they study. At the beginning of the first grade this would be a good informal way of beginning numbers. The value ofobjectsin first and second grade number is so great that it is only a question as to how far the objects suggested by other lessons may be used.
But we are speaking of concentration in the fourth and fifth grades. In the stories and in geography we deal with journeys up great rivers, with the height of mountains, with the extent of valleys and lakes, with regular forts, mounds, and enclosures, with companies and bodies of men, with railroads, cities, and agricultural products, and with many other topics which suggest excellent practical problems in arithmetic for these grades. All such careful arithmetical computations add clearness and definiteness to historical and geographical ideas. The natural sciences have been so little systematically taught in our common schools, that we are scarcely able to realize what connection may be made between them and arithmetic. We know that in the advanced study and applications of some of the natural sciences, mathematics is an essential part.
A brief retrospect will make it appear that the history stories, natural sciences, and geography, with the more formal studies, such as reading, language, and arithmetic, may be brought into aclose organic harmony. Each of them depends upon and throws light upon the other; and while the connections are natural, not forced, there is a concentration upon the central historical and literary matter that makes moral character the highest aim of teaching.
Since real concentration is practically a new educational undertaking, it involves a number ofunsolved subordinate problems; for instance, how far shall science lessons, grammar, and geography follow their own principles of selection, based on the nature and scientific arrangement of their materials, while keeping up the dependence upon and connections with the central subject. But if concentration is a true principle of education, it is evident that none of these problems can be solved until concentration has been agreed upon and made fundamental. In this case those teachers who are trying to lay out courses of study in geography, natural science, or history, without regard to the relation of studies to each other, will have most of their work to do over again.
A little reflection will convince us, perhaps, that a year's work thus concentrated will produce a much more powerful and lasting impression upon children than the loose aggregation of facts which is usually collected during a year's work. Not only will the moral effect be intensified, but the close dependence of each study upon the others will be perceptibly felt as valuable and stimulating to the children.
If now we can conceive of the eight grades of the common school as eight stages passing naturally from one to another, each a unit composed of a net-work of well related facts, but the epochs closely related to each other in a rising series, from childhood almost to maturity, or from the beginning of history up to the present state of culture, we shall be able also to think of education as a succession of powerful culture influences, that will bring the child to our present standpoint fully conscious of his duties and surroundings.
NOTE.—A careful criticism of the theory of the culture epochs is found in Lange's Apperception translated by the Herbart club, published by D. C. Heath, p. 110, etc.