If “concentration” means subordinating all other subjects of learning to a primary subject, as history or literature, which is to be used as a centre throughout the elementary period, we refuse to give it a place as an important method in education. Intrinsically there is no such thing as a primary centre except the child himself. He possesses native impulses that reach out toward the field of knowledge, and in every direction. It is difficult to imagine a child to be without varied interests. Did you ever see a boy who failed to enumerate his possessions, investigate the interior of his automatic toy, delight in imaginative tales, applaud mock-heroic deeds, and appreciate beautiful objects and right action? If the child lacks normal development and has not the apperceiving mind for the various departments of knowledge, create new centres of apperception and interest, cultivate the neglected and stunted powers. The various distinct aspects of the objective world suggest the selection of studies; the nature of the mind suggests the manner in which the elements of knowledge are to be organized. The parts of a subject must be distinctly known before they are correlated; subjects must be distinctly known before they are viewed in a system of philosophy. Knowledge is not organized by artificial associations, but by observing the well-known laws of classification and reasoning. Moreover, all laws of thought demand that a subject be developed in a definite and continuous way, and that side illustration be employed only for the purpose of clearness. In practice the method of concentration can but violate this principle.
We may ask whether apperception, correlation, coördination, and concentration are anything but a recognition of the laws of association. The laws of association in memory are nothing but the law of acquisition of knowledge, as all good psychology points out. These laws include relations of time, place, likeness, analogy, difference, and cause. Add to these laws logical sequence in the development of a subject, and you have all the principles of the methods named. Have these investigations an important value? Yes. They explain and emphasize pedagogical truths that have been neglected. Having performed their mission and having added to the progress of educational theory, they will give way to new investigations. This is the history of all progress.
The subject of interest deserves a further thought. It goes without saying that all a man thinks, feels, and does centres around his own personality, and, in that sense, is a self-interest. But we are not to infer that, therefore, interest must be pleasure. We are born with native impulses to action, impulses that reach out in benevolence and compassion for the good of others, impulses that reach out toward the truth and beauty and goodness of the world, without regard to pleasure or reward. These impulses tend toward the perfection of our being, and the reward lies in that perfection, the possession of a strong and noble intellectual, æsthetic, and ethical character. The work of the teacher is to invite these better tendencies by presenting to them the proper objects for their exercise in the world of truth, beauty, and right. Interest and action will follow, and, later, the satisfaction that attends right development. Whenever this spontaneous interest does not appear and cannot be invited, the child should face the fact that some things must be, because they are required, and are for his good. When a course of action is obviously the best, and inclination does not lead the way, duty must come to the rescue.
We are not touching this matter as an old ethical controversy, but because it is a vital practical problem of to-day in education, because the pleasure theory is bad philosophy, bad psychology, bad ethics, bad pedagogy, a caricature of man, contrary to our consciousness of the motives of even our ordinary useful acts, a theory that will make a generation of weaklings. Evolution does not claim to show that pleasure is always a criterion of useful action. Herbert Spencer in his “Ethics” says: “In many cases pleasures are not connected with actions which must be performed nor pains with actions which must be avoided, but contrariwise.” He postpones the complete coincidence of pleasure with ideal action to the era of perfect moralization. We await the evolutionist’s millennium. Much harm as well as much good has been done in the name of Spencer by well-meaning teachers, and much harm has been done in the name of physiological psychologists; we would avoid a misuse of their noble contributions to educational insight. Listen to a view of physiological psychology with reference to the law of habit: “Do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it. The man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things, will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.” The fact is, it is impossible to create character, energy, and success without effort that is often painful. This view is an essential part of our theory of educational values.
POWER AS RELATED TO KNOWLEDGE.
Try to imagine a material world without force—no cohesion, no resistance, no gravitation, no sound, no light, no sign from the outward world, no active mind to receive a sign. Now try to imagine knowledge without power, a mind that is but a photographic sheet—no active perception, no imagination, no reflection upon ideas, no impulses ending in action. On the other hand, mental power without knowledge is inconceivable. One without knowledge is in the condition of the newly born infant.
As difficult to understand as the relation between matter and force, between spirit and body, between thought and its sign, is the relation between knowledge and power. In a way we may attempt to separate and distinguish between them, by a process of emphasizing the one or the other. Knowledge, in the sense of information, means an acquaintance with nature in its infinite variety of kind, form, and color, and with man in history and literature; mental power is the ability to gain knowledge, and the motive to use it for growth and for valuable ends. Mere knowledge serenely contemplates nature and history as a panorama, without serious reflection or effort. Power is able to reflect upon knowledge, and to find motives for progress and useful action. Knowledge is the product of the information method; power, of the method of self-activity.
As we cannot divorce matter and force, so it appears we cannot clearly separate knowledge and mental power; the distinction is artificial and almost fanciful. The one cannot exist without the other; they are the opposite sides of the shield. Through knowledge comes power. Knowledge is the material for reflection and action. Knowledge, as it were, creates the mind, and is both the source of power and the occasion for its use.