The application of this principle to the elements of general knowledge is equally necessary, as its application to written language. The difficulty of remembering the many thousands of unconnected characters in Chinese literature, is an exact emblem of what will always be the case with children in respect to their general knowledge, when this principle of association, or grouping, is neglected. Adults acquire and retain a large portion of their knowledge, as we shall afterwards see, by the principle of classification and analysis; but children are not as yet capable of this; and they must receive their knowledge by the grouping of a few simple elements previously known, or they will not be able to receive and retain knowledge at all. The amount of this knowledge also, it should be kept in mind, is not at all in proportion to the number or the variety of the elements of which that knowledge is composed. We have formerly alluded to this, and it may be farther illustrated by a circumstance of daily occurrence. A seaman when he observes a vessel at a distance knows her class and character in an instant, whether she be a sloop or a brig, a schooner or a ship, and he forms an instantaneous idea of all her parts grouped into a whole. His memory, instead of being harassed in remembering the shape, and place, and position of each of its several parts, is relieved of the whole by the operation of this principle of association. The whole rigging, about which his mind is occupied, is composed of only three elements,—ropes, and spars, and sails,—with each of which he has long ago made himself familiar. All the remaining parts of this kind of knowledge are a mere matter of grouping. By previously observing the varied arrangement of the spars, and ropes, and sails, on the several masts of the different kinds of vessels, he has already grouped them into one whole, and each is remembered by itself without effort, and without mistake. They are retained, as it were, painted by the imagination upon the memory, and may at any after period be recalled and reviewed at pleasure. Hence the sight of a vessel in the distance calls up the former pictures to the mind, and enables the practised eye of the mariner to decide at once as to the kind and character of what he so imperfectly sees.—This helps also to explain the reason why children are so gratified with pictures when presented to the eye; and why they are best pleased when the figures are most simple and distinct, and particularly, when the objects grouped in the picture have previously been familiar. Pictures are indeed a pretty close imitation of Nature in this part of her work; and they are defective chiefly on account of their want of motion and continuity. These last are two great and inimitable characteristics in all the groupings painted upon the memory by the imagination.
From all this it is obvious, that there is an essential difference between a child's acquiring the knowledge of things individually, and acquiring a knowledge of their several associations. The two must never, if possible, be confounded with each other. When they are kept distinct in the education of a child, he has an evident pleasure in attending to either; but as soon as they are allowed to interfere, and more especially when they are systematically blended together in the same exercise, he experiences confusion, irritation, and fatigue. There is no necessity, however, for this ever being the case. All that is required is, that the few individual elements that are to be grouped or associated in a lesson, whether they be objects or ideas, shall previously be made familiar to the pupil. These, when once known, may be brought before the mind of the child in any variety of order or form, and will be received readily and pleasantly, and will be retained by the memory without confusion, and without effort. By attention to these two principles, keeping each in its proper place, and bringing each to aid and uphold the other in its proper order, it will be found, that a child may be taught more real knowledge in one week, than is often communicated in other circumstances in the course of a year.
CHAP. VII.
On the Acquisition of Knowledge by the Principle of Analysis, or Classification.
There is yet another principle brought into operation by Nature to enable her pupils to receive, to retain, and to make use of their knowledge. This is the principle of Classification, or Analysis.[6] The difference between this and the former principle described we think is sufficiently marked. The principle of Association, or Grouping, is carried on chiefly by means of the imagination, and begins to operate as soon as the mind is capable of imagining any thing; but the principle of Classification, or Analysis, is more intimately connected with the judgment. The consequence of this is, that it is but very partially called into action during the early stages of a child's education, and is never able to operate with vigour, till the reasoning powers of the pupil begin to develope themselves.
The characteristic differences between the two principles, and their respective uses in education, may be illustrated by a circumstance of every-day occurrence. For example, a child who from infancy has been brought up in a house of several apartments, gets acquainted with each of the rooms by means of its contents. He has been in the habit of seeing the heavy pieces of furniture in each apartment in a certain place and order, and the room and its furniture, therefore, are identified together, and remain painted upon his imagination exactly as he has been in the habit of seeing them. In this case, the articles of furniture in the room are grouped, and not classified; and are remembered together, not on account of their nature and uses, but purely on account of their position, and their relative arrangement in the room. Most of our readers perhaps, will remember the strange feelings produced in their minds during some period of their childhood, when in the house of their infancy, some material alteration of this kind was effected in one or more of the rooms. A change in the position of a bed, or the abstraction or introduction of a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, or other bulky piece of furniture, causes in the mind of the child an effect much deeper, and more extensive, than in the adult. The former picture of the place never having been observed or contemplated in any other aspect, is painted by the imagination, and fixed upon his memory, by long continued familiarity. But by this change it is suddenly defaced; and the new group, partaking as it will do of some of the elements of the old, produces feelings which are strange and unaccountable, and entirely different from those of his parents, who have been in the habit of contemplating the room and its furniture more by the exercise of the judgment, than of the imagination; that is, more by their uses, than by their appearance.
The cause of this strangeness of feeling in a child, arises from the predominance of the principle of grouping, over that of classification. He has as yet no knowledge of any of the apartments in the house, except what he has received by grouping their contents. When, therefore, their arrangement is materially altered, the reasoning powers not being as yet able to soften down the effect, the former apartment appears to the child as if it had ceased to exist. He can scarcely believe it to be the same. He never thinks of the uses of the articles in the apartment, but only of their appearance;—the first being an act of the judgment,—the latter of the imagination. In a similar manner he thinks of the kitchen and its furniture, not as a part of the household economy, but only in connection with the articles it contains. The dresser, the jack, and the tin covers, are never thought of in connection with their uses; but are identified with the kitchen, merely because they have always been seen there, and seen together. In like manner, the seats, the tables, and the ornaments of the drawing-room, are not connected in the child's mind because they are what are commonly called "drawing-room furniture," for that would imply a degree of reasoning of which he is as yet unacquainted; but they are remembered together, as they have always been observed in that particular place, and are now pictured on the mind, in the position in which they are usually beheld. Their particular locality in the room, and their relative position with respect to each other, are of far more importance in assisting the memory of the child, than any knowledge which he has as yet acquired of their respective uses.
Though a child had in this way gained an exact knowledge of every apartment in a house, it is obvious that there may not have been, during the whole process, a single act of the understanding. Many of the lower animals are capable of collecting all the knowledge he has received; and even infants are, to a certain extent, in the daily habit of acquiring it. But the classification of objects, according to their nature and uses, is an operation of a perfectly different kind. Hence it is, that a change in the arrangement of the furniture of a room acts so slightly on the feelings of the adult, and so powerfully on the young. In the former, the reasoning powers neutralize the effect produced; to the latter, the change appears a complete revolution.