In particular, therefore: give this student all the mathematics he
can absorb, and pass him from arithmetic into geometry, leaving his
algebra till later. Give him plenty of grammar, taught inductively.
Start him early in the elements of physics and chemistry. And as
opposed to this, keep him out of the classes of descriptive botany and
zooelogy. Rather let him join exploring parties for the study of
plants, stones, and animals. A few pet animals are a valuable adjunct
to any school museum. If there be an industrial school or machine shop
near at hand, try to get him interested in the way things are made,
and encourage him to join in such employments. A false generalization
in the wheels of a cart supplies its own corrective very quickly, or
in the rigging and sails of a toy boat. Drawing from models is a fine
exercise for such a youth, and drawing from life, as soon as he gets a
little advanced in the control of his pencil. All this, it is easy to
see, trains his impulsive movements into some degree of subjection to
the deliberative processes.
With this general line of treatment in mind, the details of which the
reader will work out in the light of the boy's type, space allows me
only two more points before I pass to the sensory scholar.
First, in all the teaching of the type of mind now in question, pursue
a method which proceeds from the particular to the general. The
discussion of pedagogical method with all its ins and outs needs to
take cognizance of the differences of students in their type. The
motor student should never, in normal cases, be given a general
formula and told to work out particular instances; that is too much
his tendency already--to approach facts from the point of view of
their resemblances. What he needs rather is a sense of the dignity of
the single fact, and of the necessity of giving it its separate place,
before hastening on to lose it in the flow of a general statement. So
whether the teacher have in hand mathematics, grammar, or science, let
him disclose the principles only gradually, and always only so far as
they are justified by the observations which the boy has been led to
make for himself. For the reason that such a method is practically
impossible in the descriptive sciences, and some other branches, as
taught in the schoolbooks--botany, zooelogy, and, worse than all,
history and geography--we should restrict their part in the discipline
studies of such a youth. They require simple memory, without
observation, and put a premium on hasty and temporary acquisition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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