FOOTNOTES:
[17] See Preface, page [xiii].
[18] The large calorie is herein always meant.
[19] S. I. Hall: “Purin Bodies.”
[20] H. C. Sherman: “Food Products.”
[21] H. C. Sherman: “Food Products.”
[22] Grams.
[23] Adapted to age. See pages [163-5].
t = teaspoonful
T = tablespoonful
s = supplied
CHAPTER X
THE EDUCATION OF THE LITTLE CHILD[25]
“Education should lead and guide man to clearness concerning himself and in himself, to peace with nature, and to unity with God; hence, it should lift him to a knowledge of himself and of mankind, to a knowledge of God and of nature, and to the pure and holy life to which this knowledge leads.”
—F. Froebel.
“Between educator and pupil, between request and obedience, there should invisibly rule a third something to which educator and pupil are equally subject. This third something is the right, the best, necessarily conditioned and expressed without arbitrariness in the circumstances.”
—F. Froebel.
“The mother, with her monotonous daily round of cares and tasks, wishes that she could give more time to instructing her children. She forgets that her industry, fidelity, cheerfulness, hope, courage, faith, reverence, calmness, kindliness, and courtesy, are all reproducing themselves in the minds of her children. This is education for health, vigor, power, and efficiency, not merely for learning. It builds up instead of puffing up.”
—J. M. Tyler.
The Purposes of Education. Education is as comprehensive as life itself. The education of the child begins as soon as he is born. Every moment thereafter is bringing influences that are shaping his character and his mental life. The educator is the person who acts as a mediator between life and the child, selecting the environment and influences that will give the largest values, helping him utilize, discriminate, and interpret his own forces and those of the universe. The work of the educator is analogous to that of the physician or hygienist, who cannot give or increase life, but can help the individual find the conditions that will increase his own organic efficiency. Education by trial and error, which is the method by which the race has had to learn, is a slow, painful process. The purpose of education is to reduce the wastage of life through errors and to give all-around efficiency, valuable habits, vision (ideals, ambitions, perspective), and command of methods for continued learning. It should be a preparation for larger living, not merely for intellectual examinations or artificial tests.
Froebel, Hall, Dewey, Montessori. The following foundation principles are emphasized by these educational leaders:
1. The function of education, serving to meet vital problems and to increase both efficiency and richness of life
2. The comprehensiveness of education, dealing with the whole life of the child—his thinking, feeling, doing—during every moment of his life
3. The moral purpose of life and therefore of education
4. The self-activity of the child as the method of education
5. The daily life of the child in the home and family and with nature as the natural environment for his education
6. The interest of the child as the basis of the curriculum
7. The study of the child as furnishing the key to his interests, his development, his ways of thinking, feeling, doing; and therefore the key to the methods of education
8. The development of the child as an evolution, progressing through a series of ascending stages which, in the main, follow the same general order in all individuals
9. Adaptation of education for the individual child, according to his nature and needs
The stages of development, the study of the individual child, the outlines of the curriculum, and special methods in selected phases of education, are discussed in other chapters. The present discussion therefore is devoted to the principles of educational psychology and of pedagogy,—how to conduct the process of education.
Education, Instruction, and Training. Education, in the large sense in which the term is here used, includes three pedagogical processes: (1) instruction;[26] (2) training; and (3) education[27] in its narrower meaning,—the developing of the child’s innate powers. Instruction is the easiest, but the most superficial and least valuable; development is the most vital and most difficult. Instruction is static; education is dynamic. Training is the method for habit-formation (which is a most essential phase of education through infancy and childhood), the method for drill and technical skill. The teacher must be able to discern when each of these phases should be utilized. In general, training should begin at birth, and habit-formation should be continued unremittingly until about the teens, although habits are fairly well fixed by seven years. During youth and adolescence, training is needed for acquiring of finer muscular and motor skill. Instruction, directly, is easily overdone, and the best general principle is not to give information that the child could obtain directly for himself by a reasonable amount of searching, use of his own observation, experimentation, or reasoning; and not to overload the child with a superfluity of unrelated information. Certainly he should not be crammed with a mass of facts in which he has no interest, much less those for which he has actual distaste. There is danger that the book will come between the child and the realities of life. Such instruction as is given should be in response to a real hunger or interest. Education, the developing of the self-activity of the child, should begin in the first few days of life, and should be naturally fostered through the careful selection of every factor in his environment as well as through consistent cultivation adapted to his stage of development.
The Biological Basis of Education. Education is possible only because the baby is born so helpless and plastic, with many instincts, with the nervous system great in its possibilities but incomplete in its development, and with few habits formed.
Every stimulus that comes to the child is carried by an incoming (sensory or afferent) nerve to the brain, either directly or by way of the spinal cord. The stimulus may come from an object, from an organic sensation within the body, or from a thought. That sensation or nerve impulse is carried to a nerve center in the brain or the spinal cord, and there is transferred to some one of the many outgoing (motor or efferent) nerves, which conveys the impulse to some muscle, producing a muscular action. For example: the rays of light from a shining, moving object are the stimulus to the child’s eye, and the optic nerve carries this stimulus to a center in the brain. The little baby must receive this stimulus many times before he begins to interpret it. At a few weeks of age he will simply stare, attempting to coördinate both eyes, or later, to follow it with the movement of his eyes; later still, to grasp for it with his hand. The optic nerve is here the sensory or afferent nerve, bearing the sensation; the nerve to the eye muscle or the hand is the efferent or motor nerve. This circuit is what is meant by a sensory-motor coördination, also called by some authors a neuro-muscular coördination, or the reflex arc. Many hundreds of these coördinations are to be made in the course of each day.
The first time a specific sensation is conveyed to a center, it is problematic which efferent or motor nerve will carry the outgoing impulse, but the choice is of great significance, for a habit is thereby begun. The second time the same sensation is conveyed, it will be easier for the same outgoing path to be followed. Thus habits are formed. Each repetition fixes it more firmly and makes more difficult the forming of a new manner of reaction to that stimulus.
Every sensation and thought tends thus to express itself in action. The little child is therefore especially susceptible to suggestion. Inhibition is the intervention of a second thought or stimulus which sends a counter impulse that prevents the action. If the expression of the action is continually prevented, or if through weakness of will or low vitality the expression is deferred, or not made, the power to express may become weak, and the individual thus degenerate into a mere dreamer. In extreme cases this becomes a condition known as dementia praecox.
Nerves completely developed (and therefore efficient for functioning) are covered by a sheath of tissue which may be compared to the insulation cover of an electric wire. At birth, few, if any nerves involved in voluntary action or thought are completely sheathed. This process requires many years, some nerves becoming sheathed earlier, others later. A regular evolutionary order is apparently followed, those nerves that control the racially older sensations or movements becoming sheathed and mature before the racially younger. This is the biological basis of the stages of development, and of the manifestations of different interests. It is useless, often injurious, to attempt to train a muscle or an interest before the nerves are ready. When they are ready, ample exercise must be permitted; this is the nascent stage of that interest. If exercise is now neglected, the golden opportunity for its education is passed. For instance, there is a stage, from about ten months to six years, when the special senses, as hearing, touch, sight are ripening. This is the time for training in sense accuracy and discrimination. The child’s spontaneous interests and activities furnish the best clue we now have to this development of nascent interests and the time for their exercise.
In the brain there are apparently special centers which receive the sensations from any one part of the body and which send back to that part the motor impulse. Thus there is a center for the arm, the hand, the fingers, another for the ear, another for the eye. Language has its special centers. This is the localization of functions in the brain. At birth these centers are undeveloped. In a right-handed child the language centers develop in the left hemisphere, and in the left-handed child in the right hemisphere. Ambidexterity is frequently found with stuttering and with low-grade mentality, and is not considered advantageous to foster.
At birth, also, there is little or no development of association fibers between the centers in the brain, or between related centers in the brain and in the spinal cord. These centers and the association fibers develop through attempted use, as the baby receives stimuli from without and attempts to respond. As a matter of experience, the child learns to associate the several qualities that are found together in one object, as the taste, odor, color, “feel”, shape, of a piece of bread. He also associates with an object his emotional states at the time, as bread with the comfort of feeding, a hot iron with the smart of pain, a ball with playful moods, a church with awe or reverence, a thunderstorm with fear or confidence. These early associations become ingrained and remain with him throughout life or with great difficulty are supplanted; they form his prejudices, his basis of morals and religion, his subconscious self.
The reference of a stimulus from a spinal nerve center to a brain center, and its transference in the brain to a motor nerve, requires thought. Thought is necessary for mental development, but it would be very exhausting if every sensation had thus to be consciously responded to. Nature is always working out short cuts. When a response is uniformly through one motor nerve, and a sensation is therefore uniformly followed by the same action, the stimulus, instead of journeying to the brain, transfers to the efferent nerve directly from the center in the spinal cord,—that is, the action becomes automatic. Not only thought but time and nervous energy are thereby economized.
The time required between stimulus and response is the reaction time. In an individual of phlegmatic temperament the reaction time is slow; in the active temperament it is quick, often impulsive. By a tonic régime (involving cold baths, laxative diet, vigorous physical exercise) the too phlegmatic may be developed into more alert responsiveness. By a quieting, sedative physical régime (increased sleep, rhythmic exercises, freedom from stress) the too active temperament may be toned down. Other temperamental changes may be developed, especially during infancy and early childhood, while the nervous system is still plastic.
The nervous system needs the stimulus of environment for its development. If the eyes of a normal baby were bandaged and his ears stuffed with cotton, so he could receive neither sight nor sound stimuli, and his arms and legs were kept bound tight so he could not move, his mental development would be hindered. If too many or too severe stimuli are presented, the nervous system is irritated, confused, overworked, and development is retarded. The child himself will select from a normal environment the stimuli that he needs. Others should not be forced upon him.
Whatever stimulus is exerting the strongest impression will hold the child’s attention and direct his emotions and action. If a child is himself absorbed with some normal object or interest, it is tactless to attempt to divert this to some imposed academic interest. If he is in physical discomfort, it is a waste of time to attempt to give him instruction until the discomfort is removed. On the other hand, if a discomfort cannot be removed, or if the object of his attention is morbid or unworthy, the supplying of a more attractive counter-stimulus (as the telling of an absorbing story or the observation of activities out of the window, or doing some other work with his hands) is the natural and constructive method.
The Psychological Basis of Education. Self-activity is the natural method of education. This is Froebel’s term. Rousseau called it learning to do by doing; Dewey calls it education by development; Montessori’s term is auto-education. Free play is the child’s self-activity, when he chooses what he shall play, how, and with what implements. Montessori calls this work, when it is doing something useful or intellectually educative.
The chief guide in the child’s self-activity is his interest. In this connection interest signifies not a passing whim or fancy but the child’s needs, the inner urgings of his instincts, his nerves, and muscles. Probably no one can know so well as the individual child exactly what his needs and interests are at any given time. The best the teacher can do is to know the typical interests of children at the same stage of development, and then to supply an environment that will provide stimulus and the most valuable means for exercise. For instance, at the noise-loving stage, providing a great range of instruments, suited to his muscular development, that will give good qualities and range of sound, and accustom his ear to melodious sounds.
Liberty, as Montessori means it, is freedom for self-activity. Her meaning is often misinterpreted and distorted, as will be noted from the following statement, quoted directly from her “Method”: “The liberty of the child should have as its limit the collective interest; as its form, what we universally consider good breeding. We must, therefore, check in the child whatever offends or annoys others, or whatever tends toward rough or ill-bred acts. But all the rest,—every manifestation having a useful scope,—whatever it may be, and under whatever form it expresses itself, must not only be permitted, but must be observed by the teacher.... If any educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of this life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks. It is, of course, understood that here we do not speak of useless or dangerous acts, for these must be suppressed, destroyed.”
The child’s life is a constant unity of physical-mental-spiritual, of thinking-feeling-willing-living-doing. Only for purposes of discussion should we attempt to separate these. In education there is danger of overemphasizing some one, especially the thinking, of neglecting the spiritual, the feeling and willing, and of ignoring the doing, the motor expression of the thought.
In teaching anything new, build on what the child already knows or is interested in or can do. Begin with simple processes and proceed by gradual steps to the more complex and difficult. The child thinks in concrete terms, therefore let his instruction and education be chiefly in concrete terms, at least up to nine years. Let his learning come through living experience, at first hand, so far as possible. Especially avoid mere forms of words, without meaning and appreciation. Cultivate initiative by following the child’s problems, rather than by substituting your problems for his and thus leading him to depend upon others for such initiative.
It is a great responsibility of early education to cultivate and plant many centers of normal interest, both of thought and feelings. The wider the range of the child’s normal interests and feelings, the greater the scope of richness in his life. Intensive development of interests has its period in youth and in later adolescence.
Any effort to force an interest is likely to result in a reaction against the subject; an effort to force any motor activity, as speech, walking, dancing, is likely to result in strain of muscles and nerves, and ultimate retardation. Too early an intellectual interest, of a bookish sort, needs careful watching, to see that it does not result in overstrain and later mediocrity. Such a child, especially of the nervous, slender type, may need to be diverted to wholly motor and outdoor interests, for the sake of his future good. Genius develops early, especially artistic genius, and needs much physical life to maintain a balance. Mental precocity often is not genius but a morbid development. Infant prodigies are not the ideal, and it is a false ambition to attempt to produce one. The mental powers should not atrophy, but they should be exercised in personal exploration, experimentation, construction, getting acquainted with the natural world, learning how to do motor work, and thinking leisurely on the countless problems that present themselves to the child’s own mind.
Sensory and Motor Training. These begin almost at birth and should proceed much together. The sense of touch should be cultivated by having a variety of shapes and sizes to handle from infancy; sound by a variety of musical toys and agreeable noise-producing implements; color and form by varieties of color in toys and fabrics. Sense discrimination begins consciously in the second and third year, and the child should then have graded series of sizes, shapes, colors, and sounds, to compare, match, discriminate between, and arrange in order. The child should learn to discriminate direction of sound, to judge of distances and relative weights. Every possible advantage should be taken of material about the house and in everyday life; many simple games should be invented for testing of sense discrimination and accuracy. Taste and smell deserve but little attention. With a very sensitive child a limited amount of sense-discrimination work should be done; with a phlegmatic child much of such training may increase his sensitiveness. Sensation should never be stimulated as an end in itself but as a means to perception and action.
Opportunity for exercise, and the simple exercises given elsewhere, are all the child needs for motor training during the first year. During the second year he should be taught how to go up and down stairs, to feed himself; and in the next year to dress himself, the fastenings of clothing being in front or on the shoulder, and the apparatus adapted to his fingers, using snappers or buttons that he can manage. By teaching rhythm, as elsewhere directed, marching and skipping can be done as soon as the necessary muscles and nerves are sufficiently developed. Swimming can be learned at about four years. Muscles of trunk, limbs, and hands (the fundamental muscles) should be trained early; the accessory muscles—fingers, eyes—are not ready for fine adjustments and training until about seven years. Space and apparatus are the chief needs in motor education, with occasional help in technique.
Language. After the babblings of the first year, with their natural voice gymnastics, language becomes a matter of observation and imitation. Provide all through childhood accurate examples of articulation, grammar, and accent. The first impressions and speech habits are relatively fixed. “Baby talk” to the child, as incorrect articulation and pronunciation, may retard normal speech a year or more, and give incorrect words that will be a cause of embarrassment and cost great effort to eradicate later. At one year the vocabulary will include about four words. The child who hears a wide range of vocabulary and who has his share of stories, will naturally acquire a vocabulary of several hundred words in the second year and about a thousand in each succeeding year. Sentence formation begins in the second year and should be cultivated in the third. Sounds incorrectly given by four years should receive special attention through brief imitation games, or have the attention of a specialist. The simplest rudiments of grammar may be given in youth, but correct grammatical speech is chiefly a matter of good examples in childhood. A large store of good adjectives and exclamations will be the surest preventive of slang. It is considered wiser to wait until about five years, when the child has mastered the accent, practical grammar, idioms and feeling for his native tongue, before cultivating intensive acquaintance with a foreign language. Such additional language teaching should, of course, be by conversation, songs, stories, games, following as closely as possible the natural method of learning the mother tongue. A few conversational phrases from a number of different languages will broaden the child’s horizon. They should be given by some one who speaks the language with native accent.
Reading and writing are further use of language through symbols. They are slower forms of expression than speech, and their acquisition at too early an age impedes the freedom of thought and may retard the natural growth of thought and language powers. The eyes and fingers are not ready for fine work until about eight years of age. The child needs the outdoor life and first-hand experiences. As a matter of general observation, normal children with a natural environment, who do not enter the traditional school until about nine years, are able to proceed with children of their own age who have spent three years in school. The former children pick up reading at home, and have acquired the physical development, power of initiative, and expression, which enable them to cope fully as well as, if not better than the earlier entering children, with the problems of the school curriculum and of life.
Attention. This is chiefly voluntary during the first six years. The child is capable of intense and long voluntary concentration. Avoid, so far as practicable, interrupting the baby’s staring or the child’s absorption in his play. The power of concentration thus developed will remain to be utilized with any interest. For necessary situations later, instead of attempting to force involuntary attention in an uninteresting problem, the more pedagogical way is to find the phase of interest in the problem; then concentration will follow automatically. To divert attention, provide some more absorbing interest. The child whose attention is absorbed should be spoken to only when his attention is required. From babyhood he should be trained to look directly at the person who is speaking to him, to obey the first time spoken to, and to follow a direction or command promptly without its repetition.
Observation. Children naturally observe action and striking or unusual characteristics. The range of objects and qualities they observe may be greatly increased by suggestion and by increasing their range of interests. Definiteness and accuracy of observation are increased by drawing, painting, modeling, and by any creative work, whether making a wagon or telling a story, particularly after six years of age. Alertness of observation is increased by games requiring quick action for defense, protection, or to win a point, as in “Drop the Handkerchief.” Observation of a larger number of details, as well as quickness and accuracy, are increased by asking for a description of persons or objects, of articles in a store window or on a table, or the imitation of a complex movement or series of movements seen only once.
Memory. Vividness of impression, variety of associations, and repetition are the factors in memorizing. The object or incident therefore must be clearly defined and must have the child’s full attention. Fewer repetitions will then be required. Obviously the child’s interest is a chief factor in attention. Energy is therefore economized by presenting data for memorizing when the child is interested and consequently ready for it. This applies very practically to formulæ, such as the alphabet, new words, mathematical tables. Rhythm and rhyme are easily memorized in childhood, and valuable facts put in this form will be retained longer. Such verbal memory is especially strong from two to seven years. This period should be utilized for teaching great thoughts, in poems and songs, especially those with emotional value, great songs and stories, chiefly in terms the child understands. The facts will be forgotten, but the emotions and ideals will remain with him through life. The period from nine to twelve is the time for much rote learning.
The greater the number of senses on which an impression is made, the greater will be the number of associations, and the more tenacious the memory of an object or incident. Different senses vary in the degree of retentiveness. Things heard about are forgotten soonest; things seen are remembered longer; things repeated or actions done remain longest in memory. A few repetitions on successive days are more effective than many repetitions on one day. Repeat as wholes, in units of stanzas or paragraphs, instead of lines or phrases.
Imagination. Develop vividness and wide range through exercise. In stories, put in colors and sounds. Ask questions about a story, to bring clear pictures of details. Encourage drawing, painting, and modeling of illustrations, and the dramatizing of stories. This is better training of imagination than to have stories already illustrated. Fanciful imagination is poetic, and some types of children are lacking in this. The child should be trained not only in visual, but also in auditory and motor imagery. Creation, whether of a story, song, building, picture, or game, requires and therefore trains imagination. Emotional imagination can be trained in part through dramatic play, in part through story-telling with this purpose. To be able to put one’s self in another’s place is a basis for sympathy, justice, and altruism. Between three and six years, when imagery is vivid and exact knowledge of the world is limited, many marvelous tales are told, with no intention of deception. This is normal and to be treated as fiction, in dealing with the child. Care should be taken that it does not develop into intentional deception for self-protection or vanity.
Reasoning. A regular and consistent régime is an early training in reasoning by association. Irregular or inconsistent régime brings confusion of thought. At five or six years of age, reason can be exercised by the allowing of choice, in situations where the child has some basis for passing judgment. Catering to the child’s choice in food or clothing, on the other hand, tends to develop whimsicality and dissatisfaction; asking him what he would like, or if he wouldn’t like, in any phase of his régime or play, has the same unfortunate result. If his choice is to be served, ask him directly to choose, and thereby let him use his own initiative in thought. Experimenting, taking things apart, are natural exercises in analysis, and therefore to be given widest possible opportunity. Building and constructing require synthetic reasoning, and finding the reasons for failures. Classifying of collections is an exercise in reasoning. The brain centers of abstract thought and reasoning are not developed until the adolescent period. Frequent exercises in judging what would be the best thing to do, or the best way to do, should be made a training in practical judgment in later childhood and youth.
Moral. Precepts and laws can be taught through stories, proverbs, and authoritative quotations. The child needs some of these, as a part of worldly wisdom. Much of this should be given during childhood. Every story and situation should be analyzed to see what will be its effect on the moral standards of the child. Moral action, however, further requires the training of the emotions, which are the springs of action, and the will, which holds emotions within the dictates of reason. The child’s moral ideals will be gathered more from the character he sees about him, and the stories told him, than from precepts. Good examples and daily practice are the chief methods of teaching morals and developing strong character. Respect for property and law can be taught by providing the child with property of his own, and regulating his life by an orderly régime. The care of his own property and responsibility for its orderliness will augment this.
Social virtues should be inculcated from infancy. The baby’s cry for attention is a deep-seated individualism. If encouraged, it makes later altruism more difficult. Self-reliance and self-dependence, for physical care and for amusement, should be systematically developed, instead of constant care, waiting upon, and amusement from others. Thoughtfulness for others can begin when the baby bites and slaps, though in play, by showing him how it feels; in the little child, by encouraging him to make little gifts or surprises as daily events. Courtesy, kindly criticism, loyalty to friends, freedom from gossip, he will learn by imitation of those about him. For training in generosity, he needs two or three other children about his own age, from the time he is three years old. Quarreling, which is an effort toward social adjustment, is to be expected throughout childhood, and many quarrels should be ignored, left to the children’s sense of fairness and generosity to adjust. Tattling, bullying, and resentful criticism should be shown in their own ugly light and thus discouraged. Group games, which the children naturally begin to play at six years, are a good schooling in the practice of justice, fairness, and social coöperation. Civic responsibility should be cultivated from early childhood by the practice of things that the children can do, such as keeping the sidewalks clear of litter instead of scattering that about. Patriotism should be taught chiefly as a responsibility, rather than a form of excitement or vanity. International sympathy can be cultivated through sympathetic acquaintance with children of other countries, through pictures and stories, dramatizing of their ways, through personal acquaintance, either directly or by correspondence. The roots of international peace, or of strife and militarism, are planted in the nursery.
Learning Self-Reliance and Regularity.
At the School of Mothercraft Summer Camp.
Emotions need training in expression, control, depth, and genuineness. Submission and easy contentment are not a virtue in childhood but a weakness. In a strong character, emotions are strong, and their expression strong, but needing guidance and poise. Any emotion,—for instance, love of country, of friends or parents,—should not be permitted to stop merely with the pleasurable sensation of excitement and emotional glow, but the child’s attention should be called directly and also by stories to the necessity for putting a generous emotion into active expression, by doing some helpful deed, or by carrying responsibility. This is the completion of the reflex arc. Tantrums and temper should be prevented whenever possible by forewarning the child, for instance, that play must end when the next block house has been finished. The new adjustment of emotions and expectations is slower in the child than in the adult, and needs forewarning. Some children develop an unpleasant forwardness or gushing, the former an overdeveloped individualism, the latter a childish sensualism, both superficial. Meeting these with indifference and inattention will usually reduce them automatically. The child of very intense or poorly controlled emotions needs careful attention in a regular, outdoor physical régime, the daily nap, rhythmic exercises and games which train in relaxation, and constant examples of even-tempered, well-poised character. The fear that commonly develops in the third or fourth year may be somewhat forestalled by teaching confidence through walking in the dark, acquaintance with living creatures, trust in a kindly Providence. Many stories of bravery should be told in the fearsome period, and poetry or verses taught that inspire courage and confidence. Fearsome stories are a crime against childhood, although later childhood and youth may thrive upon them. Control of emotions is gained in part through determination of will, in part through change of attention; the latter is the more natural and pedagogical method. Sense of humor should be cultivated for its moral value in relieving tension and carrying the individual through emotional stress, as well as for giving a clearer view of comparative values.
Will-training includes exercise of free choice in matters not of mere taste or whim but of reasoning and moral choice; and of continued effort against the call of inclination. Stubbornness is a refusal to yield, notwithstanding the evident reasonableness or the greater moral value, and is evidence of a weak will. It is now recognized as immoral to attempt to “break a child’s will”, compelling him to yield without attempting to show him the reasonableness. The burden of reasoning and moral choices in daily life should be placed upon the child as rapidly as he is able to exercise this wisely and with firmness, and he should be praised for his good will and shown the weakness of failure. Confidence expressed in his good will, especially when he is on his own honor, will strengthen this ability. Training in control of appetite for food, by regularity of meals, no eating between meals (especially of sweetmeats when on pleasure trips), the waiting at meals for the saying of grace and the serving of others, all strengthen the will for greater demands upon it in later years. Development of concentration in play and games is a training of will-power. Special exercises in motor balance and equilibrium, in endurance, in self-denial, can be devised as further will-training.
Eugenics and Sex Education. This is an education in social ideals and relations. Consideration for the child’s own future children is an instinctive ideal that can be naturally fostered in early childhood, and thereafter accepted as matter of course. Modesty, self-respect, respect for his or her own person, needs to be cultivated from infancy, in all the details of physical care and régime. As childhood develops into youth, the expression of affection needs to be increasingly circuited into thoughtful deeds of service, and away from mere direct sense pleasure and expression. Social relations between boys and girls at all ages should be treated sensibly, without silliness, emphasis of class distinctions, or morbidness. In both boys and girls should be cultivated a spirit of reserve, of chivalry and helpfulness. With youth, this may naturally be based on the ideal (which needs the merest suggestion) of worthy preparation for the future home, and the treating of other boys and girls as the child would have his or her future mate meantime treated by others. The significance of real monogamic marriage should be made clear, in its greater confidence and happiness between parents, and especially in the better care and training of the children. The child needs to be provided with inhibiting and controlling ideals before the stress of adolescence.
The child’s natural biological questions, which begin about three years, should be answered naturally, both poetically and scientifically. Through the study of plants, gardening, the care of birds and pets, enough of the principles of heredity, anatomy, and physiology should be given the child before seven years to satisfy his curiosity, to give him a scientific attitude toward reproduction before the development of sex-consciousness, and to enable him to classify the development of a new generation among the natural processes of nature, instead of overemphasizing and distorting its perspective. Emphasis should be placed upon the care of the young and forethought for their protection, rather than upon organs and processes. Scientific knowledge of biology gives necessary clearness of thought, but only training of emotions and will are effective for assuring conduct.
Economics. Thrift is taught by the toy bank, by the orderly care and repair of toys and clothing, the orderly saving of possibly useful odds and ends; in early childhood by a weekly allowance, even of a few pennies, with freedom in use, and with occasional discussions of what might be obtained with a stated sum. Promptness, accuracy, and thoroughness in obeying or in performing the tasks assigned in childhood, are preparation for industrial efficiency. In early childhood action is necessarily slower and movement awkward because of incomplete motor development. In later childhood a vision of engineering efficiency, a habit of working for reduction of time and energy cost, can be developed through competitions, direct reduction games or problems, discussions of the value of time and energy and of simple, fundamental ways for economizing. Through tracing the source of his own food and clothing, as well as through his own manual efforts, can be fostered respect for all labor and the ambition to work efficiently. Respect and appreciation for workers, especially those who serve his needs in the household, are developed chiefly through example of his elders.
Obedience. Commands and prohibitions should be the fewest necessary and chosen carefully. Given as a request or suggestion rather than a direct command, the form carries a sense of courtesy that develops sympathy, self-respect and more ready, whole-hearted compliance. Commands, when necessity requires, then have greater force. Any request or command should be given distinctly, definitely, kindly, firmly, with the requirement of the full attention of the child and complete, prompt obedience. Repetition of a command fosters inattention and disrespect for authority. Indifference to disobedience, yielding to teasing, permitting petty arguing, all foster evasion, falsehood, carelessness, disrespect for authority. Unnecessary, unreasonable, or inconsiderate commands develop contrariness, stubbornness, contempt, and weaken the child’s sympathy and comradeship. Inconsistency in commands, discipline, or punishment, or dogmatic stubbornness that will not consider the possibility of a change in the command or allow any discussion, brings contempt. Use positive, affirmative suggestions, telling the child what to do. Studiously avoid negative discipline, prohibitions, don’ts.
Discipline. The purpose of discipline should not be revenge or a cultivation of humiliation, or breaking the will of the child. It should be devised to lead the child to prefer the right; to think before he acts instead of acting merely upon impulse; to exercise his will-power and courage in obeying his conscience instead of following the line of least resistance by yielding to his whim, his appetites, or even to his instincts out of due season. Therefore a rational, consistent discipline must be well thought out for different typical situations before these arise, that it may be administered wisely, not impetuously or in anger. It must be just, firm, kindly, foresighted. As nearly as circumstances will permit, the child should learn through his personal experience and observation the consequences of action; and punishment should be, as far as practicable, a natural consequence of the act. Artificial rewards, especially in the form of material things as money, toys, candy, are demoralizing, developing a spirit of graft and discontent, dulling the moral and spiritual sense, and having the effects common to any artificial stimulants. Nagging, scolding, threats of punishment without its execution, cultivate a disrespect for all law and authority, as well as for the person thus weakly failing to exercise poise and authority. There is also a type of sentiment that easily becomes sentimentality, which is no less repugnant to the child. Cultivate the child’s self-respect, self-confidence and ambition. Avoid calling him bad or naughty.
Discipline should be adapted to the child’s temperament, to his stage of development, and to the particular offense. A sensitive, high-strung, imaginative child must be dealt with gently though firmly, with special care that his self-respect, his confiding, his expressiveness are not weakened. A sturdy, matter-of-fact, phlegmatic realist usually needs more concrete, vigorous, physical form of punishment to make him perceive the significance of events. The stubborn child may be benefited most by being given opportunity to prescribe his own punishment.
Some Natural Consequences as Punishments. Quarreling, disagreeableness, selfishness: being removed from play with other children. Temper: put quietly to bed, or left alone, or placed in bed with a cold cloth on the head; with some children, spanking, calmly administered. Biting, slapping or other personal injury: doing same to the offender, to demonstrate how it hurts. Impudence, vulgar words: mouth washed with soap and clean cloth. Lack of promptness: loss of consequent pleasure. Neglect in care of toys: temporary deprivation of toys. Careless work: repetition until satisfactory. Wanton injury of property: work, or giving of some valued personal property to pay for loss. Disobedience: putting to bed; deprivation of consequent pleasure.
Reprehensible and unnatural forms of punishment include putting child into dark closet; striking on head or hands; punishing in presence of others; social humiliation or other needless mental suffering; depriving of a meal (although bread and water may be substituted). Punishing without definite cause, or if the justice is not clear to the child, is immoral. Punishment should never be administered in anger but calmly, firmly, with a spirit of regret but inevitableness.
To be effective, punishment should follow promptly on the misdeed. Bedtime should not be a time for scolding or discussion of faults but of happiness and inculcating of ideals. To maintain due respect and sympathy for father, as well as for the mother’s own self and authority, there should be no threats of telling father of misdeeds, or leaving punishment for him to administer.
The problem of discipline is reduced to a minimum when children have a regular, healthful physical régime and diet, freedom from unnatural excitement, abundant play space and material, consistent moral training from infancy. Many little pranks and minor misdemeanors should be overlooked. When, however, the child has committed a serious wrong, or when one form of misdemeanor (as lack of promptness) is becoming frequent, or when the child has evidently done something which he knows to be wrong, discipline should be prompt and definite.
Habits. Habits are formed by repetition of the same action, in the same way. The first time the response is made it makes a deep impression on the nervous system, and change from the first doing is most difficult. Every exception allowed or permitted causes a hesitation or doubt that delays complete formation of the habit. To prevent the formation of a habit, prevent the first doing. The first time not only establishes a path in the nervous system; it establishes a mental attitude of familiarity and ease with the action and its environment. To break a habit, break it off abruptly and completely. Every time the action is done, it is harder not to repeat it; if it is a moral problem the moral fiber is weakened by each yielding against conscience. A complete change of environment, calling for a new adjustment of action, is the greatest help in breaking an old habit. Some constructive outlet for the energy should be provided. The child’s sense of humor or disgust are moral avenues of appeal in the formation of habits.
Habits of mental activity, of method of work, of attitude toward life and people, of moral action, as well as of motor action, are being formed from birth. Life is conserved by training in good habits from the start.
Religious. No phase of education is more important. Religion is a matter primarily of emotions and conduct, rather than of philosophical thought. Little children are religious, but their religion is naturally very different from that of the adult; they have much religious feeling and thought, but little respect for ecclesiasticism, creeds, rites, which mean nothing to them. The child’s ideas of God are concrete, personal, related to himself, as is all his thinking. He naturally thinks of every object as being like himself, having power to think, feel, and do; therefore he is easily a nature-worshipper. Training of the religious feelings can begin in infancy, in the development of sympathy between parents and child, in confidence and trust in his parents (who represent Providence to him), in gratitude for their care, in obedience and respect for their authority, and in wonder and awe for natural phenomena. The child from four to nine years of age responds readily to examples and suggestion of reverence.
Training in the performance of religious rites, such as the saying of grace before meals, prayers, attendance at religious services, participating in religious worship, are motor habits readily acquired at about the same age, which then remain as lifelong tendencies. If neglected in this period, they are less likely to be formed later. Even the motor attitudes of worship bring some feeling of reverence and worship. Religious worship, however, is not to be forced. To compel a child to say a prayer or participate in any form of religious worship against his inclination will foster a revolt against all religion. When religious worship is a natural and sincere part of the family life, the child will naturally ask for a prayer to say, or for the privilege of attending a service, when this interest is ready for exercise. To allow a child to rattle off a prayer, or say it inattentively, flippantly, or to show off, or to permit him to treat any sacred place, objects, or rites flippantly, is to foster irreverence and weaken the religious sense. Service to God, to an ideal, to people, as an integral part of religion, is an association that is not instinctive, but one that the child needs to be taught by example, precept, and training.
The child’s natural questions about the cause of natural phenomena, the purposes and meaning of life, the possibility and nature of death and immortality, the nature of God, provide opportunity in due season for the parent to answer these according to his own conscience. The child demands definite, positive answers, and has absolute confidence in the omniscience of the person who answers his questions. How to answer these so as to give the child a constructive basis for thought and action, and yet not to be so dogmatic that he will revolt when the questioning years of adolescence arrive, is a problem requiring tact and careful preparation.
Stories from Bible history, acquaintance with the geography, customs, individuals of the Bible, are of religious value because they develop centers of interest and a personal acquaintance with the Bible, the textbook of western religion, thus making it a living book which he will naturally read for its moral and religious content. Many Bible verses and hymns should be taught during childhood and youth. These should be very carefully selected to have some interest and content of meaning for the child at his given stage of development, although the depths of their meaning he can only appreciate after more life experience. There may be real danger of giving too early such significant quotations as The Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, so that the words are memorized but the child never receives the impress of their full significance. Somewhere between six and twelve years they are probably most appreciated. Doctor Hall considers that to teach the child that there is a power which makes for righteousness at the helm of the universe, and that therefore right and wrong eventually have their own deserts, is one of the most valuable factors in moral training. Certainly the stimulus of religious inspiration, the inhibiting power of religious commandments, motives, and ideals, the fortifying of will-power by religious discipline and sources of strength, are foundations for strong, efficient, well-poised living.
Education, like Christianity, is a spiritual process with physical forms of expression. Just as church rites, ceremonies, and equipment are meaningless and wooden without the inner life, so are educational “systems”, rules, and apparatus, without the spiritual vision and understanding of education. There is no virtue, for instance, in Froebel’s gifts or Montessori’s didactic material, or any other mechanical devices, merely as apparatus. The mechanical bringing together of the child and the apparatus, without skill or knowledge in their interpretation, is not educational; and such irrational though well-intentioned effort is unfair both to the child and to the inventor. No less unfair and superficial is the seizing upon some one principle and emphasizing it out of proportion to other principles; or misinterpreting, through lack of careful study, the significance of some principle, or the author’s intent, as is so often done, for example, with Froebel’s statement of play, Dewey’s statement of interest, or Montessori’s statement of liberty.
The preparation of the child’s educators must begin many years before his birth, that they may be ready to meet this responsibility as soon as it comes. An adequate preparation should include: (1) careful study of the principles and purposes of education, that these may be discerned clearly and applied with consistency and discretion; (2) long schooling in habits which will fit them to be worthy examples in character, in social and mental traits, in tastes and languages; (3) some experience with little children in daily life, in order to learn to interpret and sympathize with child nature, to acquire some facility in their education and discipline, and to collect some fund of nursery lore.