THE CULTURE EPOCHS.
The problem that confronts us at the outset, when preparing a plan of concentration, is how to select the best historical (moral educative) materials, which are to serve as the central series of the course. The culture epochs (cultur-historische Stufen) are, according to the Herbartians, the key to the situation. (This subject was briefly discussed under Interest.)
According to the theory of the culture 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 the culture epochs is 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 certain predisposition of 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 imply an 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 a constant change and expansion of history and natural science together 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 a theory the 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, certain limits to 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 suitably described by 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 the literary masterpieces of 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 selected historical series of 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 a center or 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 severe criticism. 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 the English-speaking race in 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.
The history of our country since 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 distinguish four 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 the biographical and literary materials 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 pioneers from 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 native interest. But this must be a genuine and permanent interest to be of educative value. The moral quality in 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 very real. 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 what relations shall 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 possible oral language drill, while their partial written review is the basis of much of the regular composition work. 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.
Reading is 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.
Geography has 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.
The Mississippi valley is 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 grades natural science or 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 of natural-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 can heed the suggestions of 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. Drawing has a very intimate and important relation to the objects described in history, natural science, arithmetic, and geography; while the songs learned 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 of objects in 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 a close 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 of unsolved 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.