A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of EducationGall, James
Philosophy
A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education
Gall, James
Education
All this was very obvious in the several public experiments, where the
drawing of lessons, and the application of them by the pupils, were
introduced.--In the case of the adult prisoners in Edinburgh County
Jail, it was very observable; and the rolling of the eye, and the
unconscious movement of the head, as if deeply engaged in some mental
research when an application was required, were peculiarly pleasing and
obvious to all the spectators. The reason was, that they had to keep
before their mind, the circumstance, or statement involved in the
question asked, while they had, at the same time, to review the several
portions of their knowledge, chuse out the passage or example which was
calculated to direct them in the duty; and then, still keeping these
accumulated ideas present before the mind, they had to prepare and give
expression to their answers. The same thing had to be done, but to a
much greater extent, by the children in Aberdeen, in London, and in
Newry. But the most satisfactory evidence of the beneficial working of
this principle, in the drawing and applying of lessons, and by this
means in giving even to children a command of language, and a power of
extemporaneous speech which is but rarely attained even by adults, is to
be found in the Seventh Experiment in Leith. The writer feels more at
liberty in descanting upon the extraordinary results of that
investigation with the children, because he had no share in their
previous instruction; the peculiar merits of which belonged entirely to
their zealous and pious teacher. He was a plain unlettered man; and yet
he has trained hundreds of children in his Sunday school, whose
intellectual attainments, for their age and rank in life, the writer has
seldom known to be surpassed. There were exhibited by the children, from
the beginning of the experiment to the end, an amount of knowledge, a
degree of mental culture, a grasp of mind, and a fluency of expression,
which had never before been witnessed in children of a similar class, or
of the same age, by any person then present. The pupils were at the time
quite unprepared for any extraordinary exhibition;--the subjects were
chosen indiscriminately by the clergymen present, and were repeatedly
changed;--and what is still more extraordinary, it was found, upon
investigation, that the subjects were in general entirely new, or at
least they had never been previously used as exercises in the school.
The children, however, with all these disadvantages, were perfectly at
home in each one of them. There appeared to be no exhausting of their
resources; and the ease, and copiousness, and fluency of their language,
were remarked by all present, as extraordinary, and by some as almost
incredible. Many who were present, could scarcely believe that the
children spoke extemporaneously. All these phenomena were simply the
effects of the principle of which we are here speaking, regularly
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account