CHAPTER XVII
SCIENCE AND HISTORY
“True human wisdom has for its bedrock an intimate knowledge of the immediate environment and trained capacity for dealing with it. The quality of mind thus engendered is simple and clear-sighted, formed by having to do with uncompromising realities and hence adapted to future situations. It is firm, sensitive and sure of itself.”
—John Dewey.
“No book or map is a substitute for personal experience; they cannot take the place of the actual journey.”
—Ibid.
“The destiny of nations lies far more in the hands of women—the mothers—than in the hands of rulers.”
—F. Froebel.
Cultivating a Scientific Mind. Science is concerned with causes and effects, laws and principles of action, systematic classification of facts, exact knowledge of facts. A scientific habit of mind is developed in the little child by encouraging curiosity, exploration, experimenting, collecting, questioning; by consistent parental action and discipline, honesty and sincerity in statements, the answering of questions so as to provoke further thought.
Usually a child needs little stimulus to interest in natural science. Everything in the world is new to him. The baby is interested in every object he can touch, in shining or moving objects. The toddler is interested in moving things, especially animals, trains, clocks; in sticks, stones, and leaves because he can use them. The little child from three to six is interested in sun, moon, and stars, in day and darkness, in rain, snow, wind, in flowers and trees, as well as in animals and birds. Natural, spontaneous questions regarding the biological origin and development of life are asked between three and eight, and this is the period especially recommended for teaching the child of the mother’s part in his prenatal care, and the value of the father’s share, and thereby fostering his wholesome attitude of gratitude, and his respect for all motherhood and fatherhood. At four or five, rivers, lakes, hills, valleys, the time of day, attract his attention. Processes of mechanics, filling and emptying, pouring, pulleys, wheels, are matters of keen interest from early in his second year.
There is an early stage when he asks “What?” meaning what is its name. Later comes the “Why?” which is a search for physical causes and reasons, and also for philosophical reasons.