A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education

by James Gall

Another method for producing the same end, consists in the parent or teacher repeating a sentence to the child, and requiring him to remember it, and to spell the several words in their order. Here the child has to remember the whole sentence, to observe the order of the several words, to chuse them one after another as he advances, and to remember and rehearse the letters of which each is composed. The mental exercise here is exceedingly useful, besides the advantages of training children to correct spelling. At the commencement of this exercise with a child, the sentence must be short, and he may be permitted to repeat each word after he has spelled it, which will help him to remember the word that follows;—but as he advances, he may be made to spell the whole without pronouncing the words; and the length of the sentence may be made to correspond with his ability. Great care however should be taken by the teacher that this exercise be correctly performed.

Many other methods for exercising the child's mind and oral powers at the same moment, will be suggested by the ingenuity of teachers, and by experience; and wherever a teacher hits upon one which he finds efficient, and which works well with his children, it is to be hoped that he will not deprive others of its benefit. Such communications in education, like mercy, are twice blessed. But the exercise which, for its simplicity and power, as well as for the extent of its application to the business and arrangements of the school, appears to answer the purpose best, and which embodies most extensively the stipulations required for the successful imitation of Nature in this part of her process, is that which has been termed the "Paraphrastic Exercise." The exercise here alluded to has this important recommendation in its practical working, that while it can be employed with the child who can read no more than a sentence, it may be so modified and extended, as to exercise the mental and oral powers of the best and cleverest of the scholars to their full extent. It consists in making a child read a sentence or passage aloud; and, while he is doing so, in requiring him at the same moment, to be actively employed in detecting and throwing out certain specified words in the passage, and in selecting, arranging, and substituting others in their place; the child still keeping to the precise meaning of the author, and studying and practising, as far as possible, simplicity, brevity, elegance, and grammatical accuracy. It may be asked, "What child will ever be able to do this?" We answer with confidence, that every sane pupil, by using the proper means, may attain it. This is no hypothesis, but a fact, of which the experiment in Leith gives good collateral proof, and of which long and uniform experience has afforded direct and ample evidence. Any teacher, or parent indeed, may by a single experiment upon the very dullest of his pupils who can read, be satisfied on the point. Such a child, by leaving out and paraphrasing first one word in a sentence, then two, three, or more, as he acquires ability, will derive all the advantages above described; and, by advancing in the exercise, he may have his talents taxed during the whole progress of his education to the full extent of their powers. It is in this that one great recommendation lies to this exercise,—it being adapted to every grade of intellect, from the child who can only paraphrase a single word at a time, to the student who, while glancing his eye over the passage, can give the scope of the whole in a perfectly new form, and in a language and style entirely his own. Of the nature and versatility of this exercise we shall give a single example.

Let us for this purpose suppose that a child sees in the first answer of the First Initiatory Catechism the words, "God at first created all things to shew his greatness," and that the teacher wishes to exercise his mind in the way, and upon the principle of which we are here speaking, by making him paraphrase it. He begins by ascertaining that the child knows the exact meaning of one or more of the several terms used in the sentence, and can give the meaning in other words. As for example, he should be able to explain that the first word means, "the Almighty;"—that the words at "first," here signifies, at "the beginning of time;"—that "created" means, "brought into existence;"—that the term "all things," as here used, indicates, "all the worlds in Nature, with their inhabitants;"—that the phrase to "shew," means to "exhibit to his rational creatures;"—and that his "greatness," at the close implies, his "infinite majesty and perfections."

Now it must be obvious, that any one of these explanations may be made familiar to the dullest child that can read; and if this can be done, the principle may immediately be brought into exercise. For example, when the child knows that the first word means "the Almighty," and that "first" is another way of expressing "the beginning of time," he is required to read the whole sentence, and in doing so, to throw out these two words, and to substitute their meanings. He will then at once read the sentence thus: "[The Almighty,] at [the beginning of time,] created all things to shew his greatness." The same thing may be done with any one or more of the others; and if the child at first feels any difficulty with two, the teacher has only, upon the principle of individuation, to make one of them familiar, before he be required to attend to a second; and to have two rendered easy before he goes forward to the third. Each explanation can be mastered in its turn, and may then be employed in forming the paraphrase; by which means the child's mind is called to the performance of double duty,—reading from his book,—throwing out the required words,—remembering their explanations,—inserting them regularly and grammatically,—and perhaps transposing, and re-constructing the whole sentence,—at the moment that he is giving utterance to that which the mind had previously arranged.

The same thing may be done with a sentence from any book, although not so systematically prepared for the purpose as the Initiatory Catechisms have been. The explanations of any of the words which may be pointed out, or under-scored by the teacher, can easily be mastered in the usual way by any of the children capable of reading them; and if he shall be gradually and regularly trained to do this frequently, his command of words, in expressing his own ideas, and his ability to use them correctly, will very soon become extensive and fluent. The importance of this to the young is much more valuable and necessary than is generally supposed. Nature evidently intends that childhood and youth should be the seed-time of language; and the exercise here recommended, when persevered in, is well calculated to produce an abundant harvest of words, suited for all kinds of oral communications.—Its importance in this respect, as well as its efficiency in fulfilling all the stipulations necessary for imitating Nature in the exercise of the principle which we are here illustrating, will be obvious to any reader by a very simple experiment.

For this purpose the sentence which we have already employed may, for the sake of illustration, be represented in the following form.—"[God] at [first] [created] all [things] to [shew] his [greatness.]"—Here each of the words, which we formerly supposed to be explained by the child, is inclosed in brackets. Now if the reader will be at the pains of trying the experiment upon himself, and shall endeavour to observe the various operations of his own mind during it, he will at once perceive the correctness of the above remarks. That he may have the full benefit of this experiment, he has only to fix upon any one—but only one—of the inclosed words in the above sentence, and having ascertained its precise meaning as before given, he must read the sentence aloud from the beginning, following the words with his eye in the ordinary way, till he arrives at the word he has fixed on. This he leaves out, and in its stead inserts the explanation, and then goes on to read the remainder of the sentence.—At the first trial he will perhaps be able to detect in his own mind some of the difficulties, which the less matured intellect of the young pupil has to encounter in his early attempts to succeed in the exercise; but he will also see, that it is a difficulty easily overcome when it is presented singly, and when the pupil is permitted to grapple with the paraphrasing of each word by itself. The reader will also be able to trace the operation of the young mind while engaged with the explanations, which differ entirely from the words which he is at the moment looking upon and reading. He will observe, that when the eye of the child arrives at the word fixed upon, he has to pause in his utterance for a moment, till the mind goes in search of what it requires; in the same way, and upon precisely the same principle, that an infant who has managed to speak one word, has to stop, and go in search of the next, and then to concentrate the powers of its mind upon it, before he can give it expression. But if the reader will repeat the operation to himself upon the same word, till he can read its explanation in the sentence without difficulty and without a pause; and then do the same with two, then with three, and so on, till he has completed the whole; he will be able to appreciate in some measure the importance of this exercise in training the young to such a command of language, as will enable them, on all known subjects, to deliver fluently, and in any variety of form, the precise shade of meaning which they wish to express.

This of itself will be a great attainment by the pupil; but it is not all. The reader will also perceive what must be the necessary result of persevering in this exercise, during the time of a child's attendance at school, in training him to that calm self-possession,—that perfect command of the mind and the thoughts,—while engaged in speaking, which the frequent and gradually extended use of this exercise is so well calculated to afford. All the children of a school, without exception, may be exercised by its means, and upon the same paragraph; for while, by the paraphrasing of but one word in a clause, it is within the reach of the humblest intellect; yet, by the changes and transpositions necessary in more difficult passages, either to smooth asperities, or to avoid grammatical errors, it provides an extemporaneous exercise suited to the talents of the highest grade in any seminary.

The collateral advantages also of this exercise, are both valuable and extensive. The operation of the principle which supposes double duty by the mind, enters into the nature of numerous acts in ordinary life, besides that of thinking and speaking, and which a perfect command of the thoughts in paraphrasing will tend greatly to facilitate.—For example, it will greatly assist the pupil in making observations during conversation, in attending to the weak and strong points of an argument, and in preparing his materials for a reply, while he is all the time hearing and storing up the ideas of a speaker.—It will enable him more extensively, and more deliberately to employ his mind on useful subjects while engaged with his work, even in those cases where a considerable degree of thought is required;—and it will greatly aid him in acquiring the art of "a ready writer," and will be available, both when he himself writes his own thoughts, or when he requires to dictate them to others. Many persons who can express their ideas well enough by speech, find themselves greatly at a loss when they sit down to write them;—and this arises entirely from the want of that command of the mind which is necessary whenever it is called on to do double duty. The person cannot think of that which he wishes to write, and at the same moment guide the hand in writing; in the same way, and for the same reason, that a child cannot answer a question and yet continue his play. By the use of the paraphrastic exercise, however, the pupil will soon be enabled not only to concoct in his own mind what he intends to write, during the time he is writing; but the faculty may, by the same means, be cultivated to such an extent, that he may at last be able to dictate to two clerks at a time, and sometimes perhaps, (as it has been affirmed some have done) even to three.

A similar collateral advantage, which will arise from the persevering use of the paraphrastic exercise, deserves a separate consideration.—It will gradually create a capacity to take written notes of a subject, either in the church, the senate, or the lecture room, during the time that the speaker is engaged in delivering it. It is in the ability to hear and concoct in the mind one set of ideas, while writing down an entirely different set, that the whole art of accurate "reporting" consists. The writing part of the process is purely mechanical; the perfection of the art consists chiefly in the command which the reporter acquires over the powers of his mind. The person while so employed has to hear and reiterate the ideas of the speaker as he proceeds; these he must remember and arrange, selecting, abridging, condensing, or abandoning, according to the extent of his manual dexterity in writing. But it is worthy of remark, that if the person be able to think,—to exercise his mind,—and to continue to write without stopping while he does so, the amount of what he writes is a mere accident, and depends, not upon the state of the mind, but upon the mechanical part of the operation, which is aided by the arts of stenography and abbreviation. This mental capacity is most likely to be acquired by the regular and persevering use of the paraphrastic exercise. It will train the pupil to that command over his thoughts, which, with a little practice in this particular mode of applying it, will soon enable him, with perfect self-possession, to hear and to keep up with a speaker, while he continues without a pause, to write down as much of what has been said, as his command of the pen will allow. Without this mental ability, he could not while listening write at all; but when it has been sufficiently acquired, there is no limit to his taking down all that is spoken, except what arises from the imperfection of the mechanical part of the process,—his manual dexterity. All these collateral advantages will accrue to the pupils by the use of this exercise; and this latter one will be greatly promoted in a school by a piece of history, an anecdote, or a paragraph of any kind, which none of the pupils know, being read slowly for only a few minutes, while the whole of the pupils who can write are required to take notes at the time, and to stop and give them in, as soon as the reading is finished.[28]

It is also here worthy of remark,—and it is perhaps another proof of the efficiency of the several exercises before enumerated as imitations of Nature,—that they all, more or less, embody a portion of this principle of double duty performed by the mind. In each of them, when properly conducted, the pupil is compelled to speak, and to think at the same moment. Not a little of their efficiency and value indeed, may be attributed to this circumstance. In the catechetical exercise, for example, it is not difficult to trace its operation. For in the attempt of the child to answer a question previously put to him, the teacher will be at no loss to perceive the mind gradually acquiring an ability to think of the original question and of the ideas contained in the subject from which he has selected his answer, at the very moment he is giving it utterance. And a knowledge of the fact should excite teachers in general, so to employ this exercise as to produce this effect.—The analytical exercise also, in its whole extent, calls into operation the working of this principle, whether employed synthetically or analytically. When children are employed with the analytical exercise proper,—as in tracing a practical lesson backwards to the subject or circumstance from which it has been drawn, and in attaching that circumstance to the story or class of truths to which it belongs; or when, as in the "Analysis of Prayer," a text of Scripture has to be classified according to its nature, among the several parts into which prayer is divided;—in all these cases, there is this same double operation of the mind, searching and comparing one set of ideas, while the pupil is employed in giving expression to others.