It is not always advisable to put a stop to all bodily movements. Many memorize by way of speaking aloud, others through copying, some through drawing. Reciting in concert also may prove feasible at times.
Incorrect associations are very much to be feared; they are tenacious. A great deal, to be sure, may be accomplished through severity; but when interest in the subject-matter is wholly lacking, the pupil begins by memorizing incorrectly, then ceases to memorize at all, and simply wastes time.
The absolute failure of some pupils in memory work may perhaps be partly owing to unknown physical peculiarities. Very often, however, the cause of the evil lies in the state of false tension into which such pupils put themselves while attempting with reluctance what they regard as an almost impossible task. A teacher’s injudicious attitude during the first period, his remarks, for instance, about learning by heart as a thing of toil and trouble, may lead to this state of mind, for which perhaps awkward first steps in learning to read have prepared the way. It is foolish to look for means of lightening still more the exercises of children that retain and recite with facility; but, on the other hand, great caution is necessary because there are also others who may be rendered unfit for memorizing by the first attempt of the teacher to make them recite, or even only to repeat after him, a certain series of words. In attempting, by such early tests, to find out whether children retain and reproduce easily, it is essential that the teacher put them in good humor, that he select his matter with this end in view, and that he go on only so long as they feel they can do what is asked of them. The results of his observations must determine the further mode of procedure.
[82.] However carefully the process of memorizing may have been performed, the question remains: How long will the memorized matter be retained? On this point teachers deceive themselves time and again, in spite of universally common experiences.
Now, in the first place, not everything that is learned by heart needs to be retained. Many an exercise serves its purpose when it prepares the way for the next, and renders further development possible. In this way a short poem is sometimes learned as a temporary means for an exercise in declamation; or chapters from Latin authors are committed to memory in order to speed the writing and speaking of Latin. In many cases it is sufficient for later years if the pupil knows how to look for literary helps, and how to make use of them.
But if, secondly, that which has been memorized is to remain impressed on the memory for a long time, forever if possible, it is only a questionable expedient to reassign the same thing as often as it is forgotten. The feeling of weary disgust may more than offset the possible gain. There is only one efficient method—practice; practice consisting in the constant application of that which is to be retained to that which actually interests the pupils, in other words, that which continually engages the ideas rising spontaneously.
Here we find the principle that governs the choice of material for successful memorizing. And as to the amount—so much as is needed for the immediate future; for excessive quantity promotes an early forgetting. Besides, in instruction, as in experience, there is a great deal that may not be accurately remembered, but nevertheless renders abundant service by stimulating the mind and qualifying it for further work.
[ CHAPTER V
The Main Kinds of Interest]
[83.] Instruction is to be linked to the knowledge that experience provides, and to the ethical sentiments that arise from social intercourse ([36]). Empirical interest relates directly to experience; sympathetic interest to human association. Discursive reflection on the objects of experience involves the development of speculative interest, reflection on the wider relations of society that of social interest. With these we group, on the one hand æsthetic, on the other religious interest, both of which have their origin not so much in discursive thought as in a non-progressing contemplation of things and of human destiny.