For these reasons, it is good pedagogy to let the first historical stories be of the country in which the child lives. Historic sequence in the telling of these anecdotes is of slight importance.
Since so much of written history has hitherto been military and political, it is easy to fall into the error of telling stories of military experiences, especially wars and battles. In the light of modern developments, the superficialness and, for the child, the misleading effect of the usual military story should be clearly evident. It should not be made the ideal, nor a substitute for the adventure, courage, heroism, which the child craves and admires. The teacher’s responsibility is to find historic tales of those who served their fellowmen by constructive bravery and venture,—life-saving, exploring, inventing. Even a simple, homely incident in the life of a noteworthy historical character will be an introduction to deeper acquaintance later. In American history, Columbus, the Pilgrims, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Eli Whitney, Edison, are a few examples. Stories from English history easily relate themselves to the little child’s vision. The childhood of noteworthy men and women furnishes many stories for this age period.
The teacher needs to beware of the fallacy of reading to children or telling to them things which they can learn through their own experience, experimenting, or observation. Many informational books of this kind are at hand, both in science and history. The temptation often is strong, especially for the teacher who is eager that the child shall learn much, and who has not clearly distinguished between mere erudition, encyclopedic accumulation of facts and, on the other hand, the vital, living experiences of life, with the growing power to observe, interpret, and enjoy for one’s self. The latter is dynamic, the way of wisdom.
Where museums or historical collections are available, there is a great educational opportunity, although much of the material is dead and unrelated to its natural situation.
Mathematics. The elements of arithmetic and geometry have but a slight place in the life or interest of the little child. At five or six he may begin to count objects, but his capacity is limited. The mere memorizing of numbers, as a series of words, is of no more mathematical significance than a nonsense jingle, and is not to be encouraged until, through his interest in counting, the child has an appreciation of the concrete meaning of numbers, at least to the range of ten or twelve. Measuring, using the actual standard measures of foot, yard, pound, pint, quart, gallon, dozen, is usually of interest at six or seven years. Interest in geometric forms is naturally slight, and even this is doubtless an æsthetic, not a mathematical, interest. Teaching of geometric form is easily overdone.
Reading and Writing. These have no place, biologically, before six years, and some psychologists say they belong psychologically after eight years, in the period of interest in symbols, abstractions, and rote learning. It is known that normal children who enter school at nine years usually finish the grades with those of their own age who started three years earlier. It is evident that with a natural outdoor environment, the child will acquire a better physique, a larger acquaintance with realities, and a richer development of invention, initiative, self-expression, than he does in the schoolroom. The ancient Greeks taught only games, dancing, and music to children under nine. Doctor G. Stanley Hall, Professor Lightner Witmer, Professor Arthur Holmes, Professor Clifton E. Hodge are among the authorities advising such late introduction to the use of abstract symbols. What can be done educationally in that period from six to nine years, without teaching the three R’s, has been amply demonstrated by Mrs. Marietta Johnson in her school at Fairhope, Alabama, and at The Little School in the Woods at Greenwich, Connecticut.
CHAPTER XVIII
HANDWORK
“No line of culture is complete until it issues in motor habits and makes a well-knit soul texture that admits concentration series in many directions and that can bring all its resources to bear on any point.
“Fully assimilated knowledge that becomes a part of life is strength—but that which is undigested and not transformed into carrying power, but is a burden to be carried in memory, is an added cause of tension and fatigue.”
—G. Stanley Hall.