CHAPTER III.
INSTRUCTION.
We come now to consider the subject of Instruction.
There are three kinds of human knowledge which stand strikingly distinct from all the rest. They lie at the foundation. They constitute the roots of the tree. In other words, they are the means by which all other knowledge is attained. I need not say that I mean Reading, Writing, and Calculation.
Teachers do not perhaps always consider how entirely and essentially distinct these three branches of learning are from all the rest. They are arts; the acquisition of them is not to be considered as knowledge, so much as the means by which knowledge may be obtained. A child who is studying Geography, or History, or Natural Science, is learning facts—gaining information; on the other hand, the one who is learning to write, or to read, or to calculate, may be adding little or nothing to his stock of knowledge. He is acquiring skill, which, at some future time, he may make the means of increasing his knowledge to any extent.
This distinction ought to be kept constantly in view, and the teacher should feel that these three fundamental branches stand by themselves, and stand first in importance. I do not mean to undervalue the others, but only to insist upon the superior value and importance of these. Teaching a pupil to read before he enters upon the active business of life is like giving a new settler an axe as he goes to seek his new home in the forest. Teaching him a lesson in history is, on the other hand, only cutting down a tree or two for him. A knowledge of natural history is like a few bushels of grain gratuitously placed in his barn; but the art of ready reckoning is the plow which will remain by him for years, and help him to draw out from the soil a new treasure every year of his life.
The great object, then, of the common schools in our country is to teach the whole population to read, to write, and to calculate. In fact, so essential is it that the accomplishment of these objects should be secured, that it is even a question whether common schools should not be confined to them. I say it is a question, for it is sometimes made so, though public opinion has decided that some portion of attention, at least, should be paid to the acquisition of additional knowledge. But, after all, the amount of knowledge which is actually acquired at schools is very small. It must be very small. The true policy is to aim at making all the pupils good readers, writers, and calculators, and to consider the other studies of the school important chiefly as practice in turning these arts to useful account. In other words, the scholars should be taught these arts thoroughly first of all, and in the other studies the main design should be to show them how to use, and interest them in using, the arts they have thus acquired.
A great many teachers feel a much stronger interest in the one or two scholars they may have in Surveying or in Latin than they do in the large classes in the elementary branches which fill the school. But a moment's reflection will show that such a preference is founded on a very mistaken view. Leading forward one or two minds from step to step in an advanced study is certainly far inferior in real dignity and importance to opening all the stores of written knowledge to fifty or a hundred. The man who neglects the interests of his school in these great branches to devote his time to two or three, or half a dozen older scholars, is unjust both to his employers and to himself.
It is the duty, therefore, of every teacher who commences a common district school for a single season to make, when he commences, an estimate of the state of his pupils in reference to these three branches. How do they all write? How do they all read? How do they calculate? It would be well if he would make a careful examination of the school in this respect. Let them all write a specimen. Let all read, and let him make a memorandum of the manner, noticing how many read fluently, how many with difficulty, how many know only their letters, and how many are to be taught these. Let him ascertain, also, what progress they have made in arithmetic—how many can readily perform the elementary processes, and what number need instruction in these. After thus surveying the ground, let him form his plan, and lay out his whole strength in carrying forward as rapidly as possible the whole school in these studies. By this means he is acting most directly and powerfully on the intelligence of the whole future community in that place. He is opening to fifty or a hundred minds stores of knowledge which they will go on exploring for years to come. What a descent now from such a work as this to the mere hearing of the recitation of two or three boys in Trigonometry!