[ CHAPTER VII
The Process of Instruction]
[105.] Whether or not instruction will begin well and go on properly depends on a combination of three factors,—the teacher, the pupil, and the subject taught. Failure of the subject-matter to excite the pupil’s interest is followed by evil consequences moving in a circle. The pupil seeks to avoid the task set for him; he remains silent or returns wrong answers; the teacher insists on getting a correct answer; the lesson is at a standstill; the pupil’s dislike grows more intense. To conquer dislike and indolence, the teacher now refuses altogether the assistance he could give; as best he may, he compels the pupil to collect his thoughts, to work by himself, to prepare his lesson, to memorize, even to apply in written exercises what he knows but imperfectly, etc. The presentation proper has come to an end; at all events it has ceased to be consecutive. Now the right kind of an example is wanting, which the teacher should set—one of reading, thinking, writing, that implies complete absorption in the subject. And yet it is this example concretely illustrating how to take hold of the subject, how to present it, and how to associate it with related subjects, which effects the best results in good instruction. The teacher must set such an example, the pupil must imitate it as well as he can; the teacher must render him active assistance.
[106.] Instruction is either synthetic or analytic. In general, the term synthetic may be applied wherever the teacher himself determines directly the sequence and grouping of the parts of the lesson; the term analytic, wherever the pupil’s own thoughts are expressed first, and these thoughts, such as they chance to be, are then, with the teacher’s help, analyzed, corrected, and supplemented. But there are many things under this head that need to be defined and discriminated more sharply. There are analyses of experience, of facts learned in school, and of opinions. There is one kind of synthesis which imitates experience; there is another kind which consists in constructing designedly a whole whose component parts have been presented one by one previously.
Here, again, many differences arise, owing to diversities inherent in the subject-matter.
[107.] Since instruction builds on the pupil’s experience, we shall deal first with that form of synthesis which imitates, or copies experience. We may name it purely presentative instruction. The term synthetic, on the other hand, will henceforth be reserved for that form of instruction which reveals clearly the process of building up a whole out of parts presented singly beforehand.
The purely presentative method of instruction, although practicable only to a limited extent, is nevertheless so effectual as to entitle it to separate treatment, so effectual that the teacher—and this is the main thing—will do well to train himself carefully in its use. Skill in this direction is the surest means of securing interest.
It is customary to demand that the pupil acquire facility in narration and description, but we ought not to forget that here above all the teacher must lead the way by setting a good example. To be sure, there is an abundance of printed narrative and description, but reading does not produce the effect that hearing does. Viva vox docet. As a rule, we cannot take for granted that a boy has even the skill and patience required for reading; and if perfect facility has been attained, the reading is done too rapidly. There is too much hurry to get to the end, or too much delay over the wrong passages, so that the connection is lost. At the most, we may let the pupils that read exceptionally well read aloud to the class. By far the surer means to the end in view is the oral presentation by the teacher. But in order that such presentation may produce its effect undisturbed, it needs to be perfectly free and untrammelled.
[108.] The first requisite for free oral presentation is a cultivated style of speaking. Many teachers need to be warned against the use of set phrases, against mere expletives, faulty enunciation, pauses filled in with inarticulate sounds, against fragments of sentences, clumsy parentheses, etc.