His advice.
“One is sometimes asked by young people to recommend a course of reading. My advice would be that they should confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever literature, or, still better, to choose some one great author and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him. For, as all roads lead to Rome, so do they likewise lead away from it, and you will find that in order to understand perfectly and to weigh exactly any vital piece of literature you will be gradually and pleasantly persuaded to excursions and explorations of which you little dreamed when you began, and will find yourselves scholars before you are aware. For, remember, there is nothing less profitable than scholarship for the mere sake of scholarship, nor anything more wearisome in the attainment. But the moment you have a definite aim, attention is quickened, the mother of memory, and all that you acquire groups and arranges itself in an order that is lucid, becauseeverywhere and always it is in intelligent relation to a central object of constant and growing interest. This method also forces upon us the necessity of thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all education. For what we want is not learning, but knowledge; that is, the power to make learning answer its true end as a quickener of intelligence and a widener of our intellectual sympathies. I do not mean to say that every one is fitted by nature or inclination for a definite course of study, or, indeed, for serious study in any sense. I am quite willing that these should ‘browse in a library,’ as Dr. Johnson called it, to their heart’s content. It is perhaps the only way in which time may be profitably wasted. But desultory reading will not make a ‘full man,’ as Bacon understood it, of one who has not Johnson’s memory, his power of assimilation, and, above all, his comprehensive view of the relations of things. ‘Read not,’ says Lord Bacon, in his ‘Essay of Studies,’ ‘to contradict and confute; not to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously (carefully), and some few to be read wholly and with diligence and attention.Some books, also, may be read by deputy.’
“This is weighty and well said, and I would call your attention especially to the wise words with which the passage closes. The best books are not always those which lend themselves to discussions and comment, but those (like Montaigne’s ‘Essays’) which discuss and comment ourselves.”[16]
Professor Phelps, in his lectures to divinity students, gives golden advice to the class of professional men whose life-work compels them to draw upon their productive intellect more than any other class of professional men.
Phelps.
“There is an influence exerted by books upon the mind which resembles that of diet upon the body. A studious mind becomes, by a law of its being, like the object which it studies with enthusiasm. If your favorite authors are superficial, gaudy, short-lived, you become yourself such in your culture and your influence. If your favorite authors are of the grand, profound, enduring order, you become yourself such to the extent of your innate capacity for such growth. Their thoughts become yours not by transfer, but by transfusion. Their methods of combining thoughts become yours; so that on different subjects from theirs you will compose as they would have done if they had handled those subjects. Their choice of words, their idioms, their constructions, their illustrative materials become yours; so that their style and yours will belong to the same class in expression, and yet your style will never be merely imitative of theirs.
“It is the prerogative of great authors thus to throw back a charm over subsequent generations which is often more plastic than the influence of a parent over a child. Do we not feel the fascination of it from certain favorite characters in history? Are there not already certain solar minds in the firmament of your scholarly life whose rays you feel shooting down into the depths of your being, and quickening there a vitality which you feel in every original product of your own mind? Such minds are teaching you the true ends of an intellectual life. They are unsealing the springs of intellectual activity. They are attracting your intellectual aspirations. They are like voices calling to you from the sky.
“Respecting this process of assimilation, it deserves to be remarked that it is essential to any broad range of originality. Never, if it is genuine, does it create copyists or mannerists. Imitation is the work of undeveloped mind. Childish mind imitates. Mind unawakened to the consciousness of its own powers copies. Stagnant mind falls into mannerism. On the contrary, a mind enkindled into aspiration by high ideals is never content with imitated excellence. Any mind thus awakened must, above all things else, be itself. It must act itself out, think its own thoughts, speak its own vernacular, grow to its own completeness. You can no more become servile under such a discipline than you can unconsciously copy another man’s gait in your walk or mask your own countenance with his.”[17]
“Give to yourself a hearty, affectionate acquaintance with a group of the ablest minds in Christian literature, and if there is anything in you kindred to such minds, they will bring it up to the surface of your own consciousness. You will have a cheering sense of discovery. Quarries of thought original to you will be opened. Suddenly, it may be in some choice hour of research, veins will glisten with a lustre richer than that of silver. You will feel a new strength for your life’s work, because you will be sensible of new resources.”[18]
Two ways of reading.
There are two ways of reading books,—one a help to thinking, the other destructive of ability to think. If the reader allows the ideas of a book to pass through his mind as a landscape passes before the eye of a traveller, ever seeking the excitement of something new and never stopping to reflect upon the contents of the book so as to weigh its arguments, tonotice its beauties, and to appropriate its truths, the book will leave him less able to think than before. Passive reading is permissible when the aim is merely recreation, but he who would read to gain mental strength must read actively, read books that he can understand only as the result of effort. President Porter gives this advice:
President Porter.
“The person, particularly the student, who has never wrestled manfully and perseveringly with a difficult book will be good for little in this world of wrestling and strife. But when you are convinced that a book is above your attainments, capacity, or age, it is of little use for you, and it is wiser to let it alone. It is both vexing and unprofitable to stand upon one’s toes and strain one’s self for hours in efforts to reach the fruit which you are not tall enough to gather. It is better to leave it till it can be reached more easily. When the grapes are both ripe and within easy reach for you, it is safe to conclude that they are not sour.”[19]
Reading as a source of material.
There are many phases of the library problem which do not call for consideration in this connection, but in addition to their value as a stimulus to thinking, the function of books in furnishing proper material for thought and suitable instruments of thought deserves special consideration on the part of those charged with the duty of teaching others to think. There was a time when libraries were managed as if it were the mission of the librarian to keep the books from being used. The modern librarian seeks to make the accumulated wisdom of the past accessible to all. He regards the library as a storehouse of knowledge, from which any one able to read can get what he needs. Cyclopædias and dictionaries of reference, cardcatalogues, and helps like Poole’s “Index to Periodical Literature” make the best thought of the best minds in these and other days accessible to the student. He who wishes to gain a hearing on any theme must know what others have said upon it. Disraeli has well said that those who do not read largely will not themselves deserve to be read. The prize debates between different colleges are teaching students how to utilize books in getting material for public discussions. Theses for graduation develop the ability to use books in the right way. And yet, valuable as books are for furnishing fuel to the mind, they may be used to destroy what little ability to think a pupil has otherwise developed. To assign topics for composition which require a culling of facts from books, and to allow the essays to be written outside of school hours, expose the pupil to unnecessary temptations. In the public schools there should be set apart each week several periods of suitable length, during which the pupil, under the eye of the teacher, writes out his thoughts. In such exercises the attention should not be riveted upon capitals, spelling, punctuation, grammatical construction, and rhetorical devices; the mind should be occupied solely and intensely with the expression of the thought. Mistakes should be corrected when the pupil reviews and rewrites his composition. Books can be used to furnish material for thought; the elaboration can be helped by oral discussions; the interest thereby aroused will make each member of the class anxious to express his thoughts; hesitation in composing and distraction from dread of mistakes can be overcome by making the class write against time.
Enriching one’s vocabulary.
Books are helpful in enriching one’s vocabulary. Treatises on rhetoric teach what words should be avoided. The student finds more difficulty in getting enough words to express his thoughts. The studyof a good series of readers is more valuable as a means of acquiring a good vocabulary than all the rules on purity, propriety, and so forth, which are found in the text-books on rhetoric. A good series of school readers employs from five to six thousand words. With these the average teacher is familiar to the extent of knowing their meaning when he sees them in sentences. He does not have a sufficient command of a third of them to use them in writing or speaking. The selections of a Fifth Reader contain more words than are found in the vocabulary of any living author. The step from knowing a word when used by another to the ability to use that word in expressing our own thoughts has not been taken in the case of the larger proportion of the words with which we are familiar on the printed page. Most persons use more words in writing than in oral speech, more words in public speaking than in ordinary conversation. We unconsciously absorb many words which we hear others use, but we pick up a far larger number from those we see in print simply because the printed page contains a larger variety of words than spoken language. In this respect there is a vast difference between the oral discourse and the written manuscript of the same person. The style is different; the sentences in oral discourse are less involved; the diction is less complicated; the vocabulary is less copious. Hence the advantage of the boy who has access to standard authors over the youth who has access to few books, and these not well selected. Without any effort, the former gains possession of a vocabulary which makes thinking easier and richer.
School readers.
The lack of a library of standard authors can be supplied, to some extent, by a judicious use of the school readers. If the mastery of the words and the getting of the thought precede the oral reading of the lesson, and if the vocal utterance is followed by oraland written reproduction of the thought, correct habits of study will be formed, and the working vocabulary of teacher and pupil will be vastly increased. The habit of eying every stranger on the printed page will be fixed, and the appropriation of new words will rise above the subconscious stage. Only one other exercise is comparable,—namely, the comparison of words in a lexicon for the purpose of selecting the right one in making a translation from some ancient or modern language. Such translations, if honestly made, enrich the vocabulary and furnish exercise in the study of the finer shades of meaning which words have, as well as in the use of the words for the purpose of expressing thought.
Franklin’s plan.
Correcting papers.
Most persons, when they face an audience or feel at all embarrassed, think in phrases, in broken sentences. Hence exercises designed to cultivate the habit of thinking in sentences are very valuable. Franklin’s plan of rewriting the thought of a book like “The Spectator,” and then comparing his own sentences with those of a master-mind, can be followed with great advantage, because it lifts the burden of correction from the teacher’s shoulders and throws it upon the pupil, giving the latter the full benefit of the exercise. Moreover, it cultivates in the pupil the habit of watching how thought is expressed by standard authors. The teacher’s interest in the thought side of language often makes him forget that the correct use of capitals, punctuation marks, sentences, and paragraphs is a matter of thinking quite as much as invention and the arrangement of materials. These externals of the process of composing must at some time be made the object of chief regard. The reason so many pupils do not learn their use is found in the fact that teachers hate the drudgery of correcting papers, and they expect the pupils to acquire this knowledge incidentally.The right use of books obviates the necessity for much of this drudgery, and secures the desired end with a minimum expenditure of time and effort. Skill in the use of capitals and punctuation marks is best acquired when the attention is not absorbed by the elaboration of ideas or by the labor of composing. The externals involved in putting sentences upon paper can claim the chief attention in the dictation of standard selections from a school reader. This exercise enables the pupil to make his own corrections, and is worth a dozen in which the teacher makes the corrections, only to be cast aside after a momentary glance by the pupil. The exercise may be varied by copying a selection from a standard author upon the black-board, covering it with a screen or shade (on rollers) during the dictation, and exposing it to view only while the corrections are made. If each one of the punctuation marks is made an object of special attention in a particular grade, there are enough grades to cover them all before the pupil reaches the high school.
Dictation.
A superintendent revolutionized the language-work of an entire county by dictating to the applicants at the annual examination for provisional certificates a selection from a First Reader for the purpose of testing their knowledge of capitals and punctuation and the other details of written speech. Every one saw the value of the test, and it led to a study of the school reader from a new point of view.
Books for all.
Right use of books.
It is not easy to overestimate the value of books, not merely for those who aspire to become thinkers, but even for all classes of men in civilized life. Books treasure the wisdom of the ages and transmit it to future generations. They kindle thought, enliven the emotions, and lift the soul into the domain of the true, the beautiful, and the good. They furnishrecreation and instruction, comfort and consolation, stimulation and inspiration. They confirm or correct the opinions already formed, and give tone to the entire intellectual life. They enlarge the vocabulary, exemplify the best methods of embodying thought in language, and show how master-minds throw their materials into connected discourse, how they organize facts, truths, inferences, and theories into systems of science or speculation. One can subscribe to all that is said in favor of object-teaching and laboratory methods, and still be consistent in maintaining that it should be one of the chief aims of the school to teach the right use of books, that the college and university fail in their mission if they neglect to put the student into the way of using a library to the best advantage. If the policy of many schools were adopted in other fields of human activity, the folly would be too glaring to escape notice. Suppose, by months of effort, a botanist could create in his son a liking for the plants of the nightshade family, some of which, like the potato and the tomato, are good for food and others are poisonous. Having created the appetite, the father makes no effort to gratify it. The son, failing to distinguish between the good and the bad, the esculent and the poisonous, and finding the latter within easy reach, begins to gratify his appetite by eating without discrimination. The deadly effects are more easily imagined than described.
Good literature.
A parallel folly has been committed in hundreds of communities which have taxed themselves to banish illiteracy and to make ignorance impossible among the young people. Reading is carefully taught; the ability to read is followed by an appetite for reading; a strong desire for the mental food derived from the printed page is created. Yet nothing is done to supply the right kind of books for the purposeof gratifying this appetite. The average youth is allowed to get what he can from the book-stalls, which contain much that is as deleterious to the soul as some plants of the nightshade family are to the body. It is as much a duty to supply proper literature as it is to impart the ability to read. When, in the twentieth century, some historian shall give an account of the educational development of Pennsylvania, he will record it as a fact passing strange and well-nigh incapable of explanation that for more than three decades there stood upon the statute-books of a great commonwealth a law preventing boards of directors from appropriating any school funds to the purchase of books for a school library except such works of a strictly professional character as were necessary for the improvement of the teachers. Within the last decade a new era has dawned in library legislation and in the purchase of books. Directors are now empowered to levy a tax for library purposes, and free libraries are springing into existence not only in the large centres of population, but even in the rural schools. The movement has come not a whit too soon; for habits of reading are sadly needed to supplement life in the factory and on the farm. To make from day to day nothing except the head of a pin, or the sixtieth part of a shoe, may develop marvellous skill and speed in workmanship, but such division of labor leaves little room for intellectual activity or for anything above the merest mechanical routine.
The factory.
It should not occasion surprise that operatives in factories seek the mental excitement which human nature always craves after hours of monotony. Far better that they should find recreation in a good book than in a game of cards, in a free library than in a drinking-saloon. That the workman may taste the joys of the higher life of thought, it is essential that he have access to the best literature in prose and poetry,to books of travel, biography, history, science, and sociology. If he lack these, his mind will lose itself in local gossip, in discontent over his lot, in envy of those who have more to eat and drink, better clothes to wear, and better houses to live in. Of the pleasures of the higher life he can have as many as, if not more than, others have; for at the close of the day his mind is not exhausted by professional thinking, and he can enjoy a good book far more than the men whose daily occupation obliges them to seek recreation in physical exercise.
The farm.
Twentieth century.
The same remarks apply to life on the farm. The incessant drudgery of monotonous toil day after day from early dawn till late at night has sent farmers and their wives to untimely graves, sometimes to the insane asylum. They need the intellectual stimulus which comes from good books, the health-giving recreation which comes with the change from the fatiguing toil of the day to the perusal of good literature in the evening. Under the more rational policy of providing a supply of good books along with the creation of a taste for reading, the working people of the next generation will be as well read, as well informed, and as capable of sustained thought as those who think money all day, or spend their strength in vocations which act upon the mind very much as a grindstone acts upon a knife,—narrowing the blade while sharpening the edge. Let it be hoped that early in the twentieth century the laboring classes will have shorter hours of work, more leisure for reading, and an appreciation of good books equal to that of Charles Lamb, who asserted that there was more reason for saying grace before a new book than before a dinner. Under the beneficent influence of free text-books and free libraries it should be possible to create in the rising generation a spirit like that of Macaulay, who declared that if any one should offer to make him thegreatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners and wines, and coaches and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that he should not read books, he would decline the offer, preferring to be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books rather than a king who did not love reading.
The degree of vision that dwells in a man is the correct measure of a man.Thomas Carlyle.When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indubitable, these are the jewels of knowledge.Dr. I. Watts.To behold is not necessarily to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy which prevails.Humboldt.You should not only have attention to everything, but quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room, their motions, their looks, and their words, yet without staring at them or seeming to be an observer. This quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be acquired with care; and, on the contrary, what is called absence, which is a thoughtlessness and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man so like either a fool or a madman, that, for my part, I see no real difference. A fool never has thought, a madman has lost it, and an absent man is for the time without it.Lord Chesterfield.
The degree of vision that dwells in a man is the correct measure of a man.
Thomas Carlyle.
When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indubitable, these are the jewels of knowledge.
Dr. I. Watts.
To behold is not necessarily to observe, and the power of comparing and combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not cultivated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy which prevails.
Humboldt.
You should not only have attention to everything, but quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room, their motions, their looks, and their words, yet without staring at them or seeming to be an observer. This quick and unobserved observation is of infinite advantage in life, and is to be acquired with care; and, on the contrary, what is called absence, which is a thoughtlessness and want of attention about what is doing, makes a man so like either a fool or a madman, that, for my part, I see no real difference. A fool never has thought, a madman has lost it, and an absent man is for the time without it.
Lord Chesterfield.
Inventors.
Very few thinkers have let us into the secret of their thinking. Probably most of them could not if they would. They are too much absorbed in that which engrosses their attention to pay any heed to the processes of the inner life. Occasionally an inventor or discoverer gives us a glimpse of the state of his mind when the new idea flashed into consciousness. Such glimpse always reveals his indebtedness to habits of careful observation. His thinking was stimulated by some felt want or puzzling phenomenon, and perhaps by contact with others engaged in similar lines of study. Oftentimes a number of persons are thinking of ways, means, and contrivances by which a widely felt want may be supplied or a perplexing fact explained. After prolonged effort and meditation, during which the mind is concentrated upon one thing to the neglect of everything else having no bearing upon the problem in hand, the happy thought is suggested by the observation of some neglected fact or the perception of some unsuspected relation. Probably half the inventions are made in that way. What seems accidental or a piece of good luck is in reality the result of long musing and reflection, during which many comparisons are made, until at length the right combination gives the desired result. Wants keenly felt by mankind in general or by some gifted individualin particular serve as a powerful stimulus to thought, and quicken the eye and the ear to perceive what was before unnoticed, thereby laying the foundation for invention, discovery, or progress in new fields of thought.
Writers.
Great writers are equally indebted to their powers of observation. Of the men of genius whom the world delights to honor, probably no one watched his inner development more closely than Goethe. He gives us the following account of how his works were produced:
Goethe.
“To each one of my writings a thousand persons, a thousand things have contributed. The learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, childhood and age have all a share therein. They all, without suspecting it, have brought me the gifts of their faculties, their thought and experience. Often they have sown, and I have reaped. My works are a combination of elements which have been taken from all nature and which bear the name—Goethe.”
Human nature.
Human nature furnishes as much room for observation as all the rest of nature. The hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, the trials and struggles, the thoughts and beliefs, the aspirations and achievements, the motives and deeds of the men and women whom we meet in our daily life and on the pages of history and fiction (such as is true to life) offer a field for observation as vast, as interesting, and as important as all the rocks and soils, the bugs and beetles, the insects, birds, beasts, and fishes that dwell beneath or above or on the surface of the earth. The larger proportion of the books taken from free libraries are works of fiction,—a fact which shows that the interest of most of those who read is centred upon the things of the human heart and in the observation of human life.
Goethe’s views of originality are these:
Originality.
“We are always talking about originality, but what do we mean? As soon as we are born the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. After all, what can we call our own except our energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be little left of my own.”
Observation.
Observation lies at the basis of the thinking which leads to invention in the arts, to discovery in the domain of science, to productivity in the fields of literature, journalism, and oratory. It lies at the foundation of success in the professions and in the ordinary walks of life. The medical school, for instance, seeks to develop the power of noting facts and making careful observations. It encourages the student to put his observations on paper while the patient is before him, to compare the diseased or injured part with the corresponding healthy part, and to watch symptoms as a basis for a correct diagnosis of the case to be treated.
Books.
Daily life.
The use of the encyclopædia, if pursued without any attempt to verify its statements, may destroy the habits of observation which are so essential to correct thinking. Mere reliance on books cannot beget trustworthy habits of thought, for books contain the errors, as well as the wisdom, of the ages. Errors of judgment may be corrected by thinking; errors of fact must be corrected by observation. Many a book is made useless by new observations and discoveries. “Send to the cellar as useless every book on surgery that is eight years old,” said the professor to the librarian of a great university. The order is an indication of the rapid advances which science is making under the influence of observation, experiment, hypothesis, and verification. Observation is needed not merely to extend our scientificknowledge, but far more imperatively to acquaint us with our environment. We cannot learn from books the multitudinous details of business, or of our daily life. Books cannot make us acquainted with the circle of friends in which we move, the pupils whom we teach, the things in dress, toilet, and behavior upon which our standing and reputation very largely depend. No thinker has a right to neglect these. Many a famous professor has diminished his usefulness by carelessness in the observation of such details. The worst failures in the class-room are due to failure in observing either the difficulties or the conduct of the pupils. If conduct is to be regulated, it must be observed; if difficulties are to be explained, the teacher must perceive when and where they occur.
Men noted for their absent-mindedness nevertheless owe much of their fame and success to their ability to make accurate observations in favorite lines of study. Notwithstanding the many ludicrous tales about Newton’s failure to see ordinary conditions and circumstances, he showed himself indefatigable in watching the effect of a glass prism upon the ray of light admitted into a dark room. The falling of an apple started in his mind a train of thought which led to the discovery of the law of gravitation.
Experiment.
Daguerre.
Our best thinking is based upon experience, and our two main sources of experience are observation and experiment. How does experiment differ from simple observation? In the latter we watch conditions, phenomena, and sequences as they follow one another in the ordinary course of nature. In an experiment we change or control the course of nature by varying the conditions and causes for the sake of seeing the effects produced. In experiment the relation of causes and effects is studied by adding or excludingone factor after another. Take the discovery which made Daguerre famous. Up to his time men had tried in vain to fix the impression of the image formed in the camera obscura. No alchemist ever went to work at a more unpromising task than the one Daguerre set before himself. “As years rolled on, the passion only took deeper hold upon him. In spite of utter failures and discouragement of all kinds, for years in loneliness and secrecy, suspected of mental weakness even by his wife, he kept on in the same line of experiment.” Finally an accident gave him a clue to discovery. The plates with which he experimented were stowed away in a rubbish closet. One day he found, to his surprise, upon one of these plates the very image which had fallen upon it in the camera. Something in the closet must have produced the effect. He removed one thing after another, getting the same effect, until nothing remained except some mercury which had been spilled upon the closet floor. This was inferred to be the agent which developed the image, and thus was laid the foundation of the modern art of photography.[20]
Accidental observations.
The observation of a fact often stimulates thought in new directions. In fact, new sciences have arisen from accidental observations. “Erasmus Bartholinus thus first discovered double refraction in Iceland spar; Galvini noticed the twitching of a frog’s leg; Oken was struck by the form of a vertebra; Malus accidentally examined light reflected from a distant window with a double refracting substance; and Sir John Herschel’s attention was drawn to the peculiar appearance of a solution of quinine sulphate. In earlier times there must have been some one who first noticed the strange behavior of a loadstone, or the unaccountablemotions produced by amber. As a general rule we shall not know in what direction to look for a great body of phenomena widely different from those familiar to us. Chance, then, must give us the starting-point; but one accidental observation well used may lead us to make thousands of observations in an intentional and organized manner, and thus a science may be gradually worked from the smallest opening.”[21]
Factories.
In recent years experimental research has become a regular occupation in connection with large manufacturing establishments. In some factories along the Rhine upward of sixty men are employed in chemical experiments for the purpose of finding what use can be made of waste products. In this way over two hundred useful products from petroleum have been discovered, and a large increase in profits has been the result. The great electrical works spend time and money upon experiments, and jealously censor every article written by their employees for scientific journals lest their valuable secrets should be given away. A company engaged in the manufacture of cash registers offers a yearly premium for the most helpful suggestion from the men and women in its employ. In one year the firm received over eleven hundred suggestions, of which at least eight hundred were utilized in improvements of various kinds.
Universities.
Where observation is needed.
The weather.
These instances are only samples of many that could be cited to show how systematic observation and experiment lend a helping hand to our national prosperity. Manufacturers carry them on for the sake of gain, the universities for the sake of widening the field of knowledge. To aid in such research large endowments have been established, and many of the common people willingly pay tax in support of State universities.Treatises on inductive logic and on the physical sciences have been prepared by Herschel, J. S. Mill, Jevons, and others for the purpose of showing the correct methods of research by the use of instruments of precision, of standards of measurement, and of other apparatus; for the laws of thought must be obeyed in the interpretation of natural phenomena. Although as a matter of discipline the teacher in our public schools may well study these advanced treatises, yet the habits of observation which the elementary school should aim to beget and to foster are simpler in detail, more easily acquired, and, it may be added, of inestimable value in the subsequent life of the pupils. Habits of observation are needed not only by authors, inventors, and scientists, but also by all other people for the interpretation of the books they may read and for the discharge of the daily duties devolving upon them. The engineer, the fireman, the conductor, the tradesman, the mechanic, the detective, the scout, the warrior, must be able to see things as they are or face partial failure. Too many of them have eyes and see not; they have ears and hear not. The study of nature is valuable as a preparation for life either in the country or in the city. Our rural population have not learned to see and appreciate the marvels in nature which are transpiring on every side. The way in which the almanac is consulted for signs to guide in sowing and planting, for prognostications of the weather, show how little the average man can make observations. The printers have found it necessary to retain these absolutely unreliable weather predictions in their almanacs; the attempted omission has been an experiment involving the loss of thousands of dollars. The success of the quack is largely due to limited observation. One cure is made much of while multitudes of failures are always forgotten.
Country and city.
Our rural population would be far more contented if the boys and girls were taught at school how to observe and appreciate their surroundings. They have many advantages over city folks which they never realize as sources of enjoyment. The senses themselves, which have been styled the gate-ways of knowledge, may be improved by judicious exercise; and the power of the mind to interpret sense-impressions may be developed to a marvellous degree. The savages of our North American forests had developed keen eyes and ears; the more civilized backwoodsmen were soon more than a match for the wily Indian. To-day, when the latter watches the trained sharp-shooters hitting with unerring accuracy a mark more than half a mile distant, he shakes his head and walks away in silence.
The child.
It has been asserted that a child gains more knowledge in the first seven years of its life than in all its subsequent days. If the domain of abstract and scientific knowledge be excluded from the comparison, this is probably true. At any rate, if the thinking which is based upon the knowledge of facts thus gained is to be correct, the facts must be correctly observed.
Observation a source of thought-material.
Observation is thus of prime importance, not merely as furnishing a stimulus to thought, but also as supplying abundant materials of thought. Travel, experience, experiment, as well as the ordinary course of natural phenomena, furnish abundant opportunity for the formation of correct habits of observation. The observations thus made should be recorded in the memory, if not on manuscript. From the storehouse of the memory, thus filled with materials for thought, the mind derives many of the best data for reaching conclusions. Observation, experience, and reading, as sources of thought-material, presupposean accurate and retentive memory in those who think well and act well. The relation of memory to thinking deserves treatment in a separate chapter.
Nature-study.
There is a limit to the number of observations which the mind can carry and use. Nature-study may be overdone. Mere seeing is not thinking. What the eye beholds must be sorted and assigned to its appropriate class; otherwise the treasure-house of memory will soon resemble a wilderness of meaningless facts. Than this only one thing can be worse,—namely, a wilderness of meaningless words.
Reading and observation.
Teaching a child to read.
First test.
Second test.
Reading is a species of observation. An exercise in oral reading, during which each pupil is called down as soon as he miscalls a word, is often an astonishing revelation, showing how few of the advanced pupils can accurately see and correctly name every word in a stanza or paragraph. Methods of teaching a beginner to read are correct in seeking to develop the ability to pronounce words without help from others. Faulty application of a method that is right in this respect may seriously retard, and even destroy, the power of thinking what is on the printed page. What on earth is a first-year pupil to do with the many hundred words which he is sometimes taught to pronounce? Often words are arranged in sentences which come dangerously near the slang of the slums, and which no child ever hears in a cultured home. Furthermore, some sentences in primers and first readers are well-nigh void of meaning, the aim being to teach the words for the sake of the combinations of letters which they contain. The first test to apply to a method of teaching a beginner to read is the question, How quickly does it teach that which must be known as a condition of pronouncing new words,—namely, the shape and thesound or sounds of each of the letters of the alphabet? As compared with the sound and the shape, the name of the letter is of relatively little importance. Students of Hebrew may read that language fluently without being able to repeat the Hebrew alphabet, the names of the letters being a mere matter of convenience in talking about them. The second great test to be applied to the method of teaching a beginner to read is the question, Does it form the habit of getting thought from the printed page? Grown men have admitted that they passed through several readers before they discovered that there was a meaning or connected story in the words which they were pronouncing. They saw and gave names to words very much as people see and give names to objects round about them without recognizing the significance of what is seen, or thinking the thoughts which the Author of the Universe has spread out before them in the great book of nature.
Third test.
The third test to be applied to the method of teaching reading is the question, Does it save the pupil from the unnatural tones of the school-room by training him to use his voice in the right way? To this test reference will be made later.
Observation should lead to thinking.
If observation is to have abiding value, it must lead to thinking. This is as true of the observation of words and sentences on the printed or written page as it is of the observation of earth and sky and sea, of the starry heavens above and the moral law within (which filled the soul of the philosopher Kant with never-ceasing awe). How the things obtained from books and from the world outside are appropriated in thought and made our own will appear more fully when we discuss the relation of memory to thinking.
Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave. Remember Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be overfull that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it: take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof.Thomas Fuller.To impose on a child to get by heart a long scroll of phrases without any ideas is a practice fitter for a jackdaw than for anything that wears the shape of man.Dr. I. Watts.The habit of laying up in the memory what has not been digested by the understanding is at once the cause and the effect of mental weakness.Sir W. Hamilton.There is no one department of educational work in which the difference between skilled and unskilled teaching is so manifest as in the view which is taken of the faculty of memory, the mode of training it, and the uses to which different teachers seek to put it.Fitch.
Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave. Remember Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be overfull that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it: take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof.
Thomas Fuller.
To impose on a child to get by heart a long scroll of phrases without any ideas is a practice fitter for a jackdaw than for anything that wears the shape of man.
Dr. I. Watts.
The habit of laying up in the memory what has not been digested by the understanding is at once the cause and the effect of mental weakness.
Sir W. Hamilton.
There is no one department of educational work in which the difference between skilled and unskilled teaching is so manifest as in the view which is taken of the faculty of memory, the mode of training it, and the uses to which different teachers seek to put it.
Fitch.