Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1899: Volume LIV, No. 3, January 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Following out, then, somewhat as above, the psychology of the child,
what kind of education would be particularly adapted to his stage of
development? We ask not what _can_ the child be taught, but what
studies are for him most natural and therefore most economical. In the
first place, from the development of the senses and the perceptive
power above described, we infer that the child is ready to acquire a
knowledge of the world of objects around him through the senses of
sight, hearing, touch, temperature, taste, and smell. His education
will have to do with real things and their qualities, rather than with
symbols which stand for things. If we wish a general term for this
branch of instruction, we may call it natural science, or, to
distinguish it from science in its more mature form as the study of
laws and causes, we may call it natural history, or, more briefly,
Nature study. Although the appropriateness and economy of this study
for young children has been known and proclaimed for more than a
century, it is still in practice the study of later years, while young
children study _letters_.
In the second place, from the development of the retentive powers of
the child we infer that he is qualified to gain acquaintance not only
with the real world around him, but with the real world of the past.
We may call this history. History is now studied later by means of
text-books. It may be studied with far greater economy during earlier
years by means of direct narration by parent or teacher. It is
wonderful how eagerly a child will listen to historical narration, and
how easily he will retain it. This method of teaching history forms a
striking contrast to the perfunctory manner in which it is often
studied in the upper school grades, with the text-book "lesson,"
"recitation," and the "final examination." Upon the minds of many
young people the study of history has a deadening effect when the
history epoch is passed and the mathematical epoch has arrived. It has
already been proposed, at a conference of educators lately held in
Chicago, to extend the study of history downward into the lower
grades, a proposition fully sanctioned by psychological pedagogy. In
what I have here said about history for young people I refer not to
the philosophy of history, which comes much later in the life of the
student, but to history as a mere record of facts and events, the kind
of history which is now studied in the grammar and high schools, the
kind which many educators who would make all children philosophers are
now saying should not be studied at all.
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