We are accustomed to take refuge behind the so-called "mental discipline" that results from studies, whether or not anything is remembered that bears upon the relations of life. There are doubtless certain formal habits of mind that result from study even though, like Latin, it is cast aside as an old garment at the end of school days. Transferring our argument then to this ground, is there any "habit of thinking" more valuable than that bent of mind which is not satisfied with the mere memorizing of a fact but seeks to interpret its value by judging of its influence upon other facts and their influence upon it? No subject is understood by itself nor even by its relation to other facts in the same science, but by its relation to the whole field of knowledge and experience. Unless it can be proven that the study of relations is above the schoolboy capacity, it is doubtful if there is any mental habit so valuable at the close of school studies as the disposition to think and ponder, to trace relations. The relations which are of interest and vital importance are those which in daily life bind all the realms of science into a network of causally connected parts.
The multiplication of studies in the common school in recent years will soon compel us to pay more attention to concentration or the mutual relation of knowledges. There is a resistless tendency to convert the course of studies into an encyclopedia of knowledge. To perceive this it is only necessary to note the new studies incorporated into the public school within a generation. Drawing, natural science, gymnastics, and manual training are entirely new, while language lessons, history, and music have been expanded to include much that is new for lower grades. Still other studies are even now seeking admission, as modern languages, geometry, and sewing. In spite of all that has been said by educational reformers against making the acquisition of knowledge the basis of education, the range and variety of studies has been greatly extended and chiefly through the influence of the reformers. This expansive movement appears in schools of all grades. The secondary and fitting schools and the universities have spread their branches likewise over a much wider area of studies. We are in the full sweep of this movement along the whole line and it has not yet reached its flood.
The simplicity of the old course both in the common school and in higher institutions is in marked contrast to the present multiplicity. It was a narrow current in which education used to run, but it was deep and strong. In higher institutions the mastery of Latin and of Latin authors was the sine qua non. In the common school arithmetic was held in almost equal honor. Strong characters have often been developed by a narrow and rigid training along a single line of duty as is shown in the case of the Jesuits, the Humanists, and the more recent devotees of natural science.
As contrasted with this, the most striking feature of our public schools now is their shallow and superficial work. It is probable that the teaching in lower grades is better than ever before, but as the tasks accumulate in the higher grades there is a great amount of smattering. The prospect is, however, that this disease will grow worse before a remedy can be applied. The first attempt to cultivate broader and more varied fields of knowledge in the common school must necessarily exhibit a shallow result. Teachers are not familiar with the new subjects, methods are not developed, and the proper adjustments of the studies to each other are neglected. No one who is at all familiar with our present status will claim that drawing, natural science, geography, and language are yet properly adjusted to each other. The task is a difficult one, but it is being grappled with by many earnest teachers.
It is obvious that the first serious effort to remedy this shallowness will be made by deepening and intensifying the culture of the new fields. The knowledge of each subject must be made as complete and detailed as possible. Well-qualified teachers and specialists will of course accomplish the most. They will zealously try to teach all the important things in each branch of study. But where is the limit? The capacity of children! And it will not be long before philanthropists, physicians, reformers, and all the friends of mankind will call a decisive halt. Children were not born simply to be stuffed with knowledge, like turkeys for a Christmas dinner.
It appears, therefore, that we must steer between Scylla and Charybdis, or that we are in a first-class educational dilemma. This conviction is strengthened by the reflection that there is no escape from fairly facing the situation. Having once put our hand to the plow we can not look back. The common school course has greatly expanded in recent years and there is no probability that it will ever contract. It has expanded in response to proper universal educational demands. For we may fairly believe that most of the studies recently incorporated into the school course are essential elements in the education of every child that is to grow up and take a due share in our society. It is too late to sound the retreat. The educational reformers have battled stoutly for three hundred years for just the course of study that we are now beginning to accept. The edict can not be revoked, that every child is entitled to an harmonious and equable development of all its human powers, or as Herbart calls it, a harmonious culture of many-sided interests. The nature of every child imperatively demands such broad and liberal culture, and the varied duties and responsibilities of the citizen make it a practical necessity. No narrow, one-sided culture will ever equip a child to act a just part in the complex social, political, and industrial society of our time. But the demand for depth of knowledge is just as imperative as that for comprehensiveness.
It is clear that two serious dangers threaten the quality of our education: First, loose and shallow knowledge; second, overloading with encyclopedic knowledge. What can concentration do to remedy the one and check the other? The cure for these two evils will be found in so adjusting the studies to each other, in so building them into each other, as to secure a mutual support. The study of a topic not only as it is affected by others in the same subject, but also by facts and principles in other studies, as an antidote against superficial learning. In tracing these causal relations, in observing the resemblances and analogies, the interdependence of studies, as geography, history, and natural science, a thoughtfulness and clearness of insight are engendered quite contrary to loose and shallow study.
Secondly, concentration at once discards the idea of encyclopedic knowledge as an aim of school education. It puts a higher estimate upon related ideas and a lower one upon that of complete or encyclopedic information. All the cardinal branches of education indeed shall be taught in the school, but only the essential, the typical, will be selected and an exhaustive knowledge of any subject is out of the question. Concentration will put a constant check upon over-accumulation of facts, and will rather seek to strengthen an idea by association with familiar things than to add a new fact to it. No matter how thorough and enthusiastic a specialist one may be, he is called upon to curtail the quantity of his subject and bring it into proper dependence upon other studies.
Historically considered the principle of concentration has been advocated and emphasized by many writers and teachers. The most striking and decided attempt to apply it was made by Jacotot in the first quarter of this century and had great success in France. Mr. Joseph Payne, in interpreting Jacotot (Lectures on the Science and Art of Ed. p. 339), lays down as his main precept, "Learn something thoroughly and refer everything else to it." He emphasized above everything else clearness of insight and connection between the parts of knowledge. It was principally applied to the study of languages and called for perfect memorizing by incessant repetition and rigid questioning by the teacher to insure perfect understanding, in the first instance, of new facts acquired; and secondly, firm association with all previous knowledge. Jacotot and his disciples reached notable results by an heroic and consistent application of this principle and some of our present methods in language are based upon it. But on the whole the principle was only partially and mechanically applied. Its aim was primarily intellectual, even linguistic, not moral. There was no philosophical effort made to determine the relative value of studies and thus find out what study or series of studies best deserved to take the leading place in the school course. The importance of interest, as a means of rousing mental vigor and as a criterion for selecting concentrating materials suited to children at different ages, was overlooked.
A kind of concentration has long been practiced in Germany and to a considerable extent in our own schools which is known as the concentric circles.