Lack of concentration.
A missionary educator from Turkey says that one of the greatest difficulties in school work arises from the fact that the children have no power of concentration, no idea of how to think and study on one line for any length of time. It often takes five or six years for a child really to learn how to study. Obviously, the earlier these preparatory years occur in a child’s life, the more benefit may he hope to derive from his education.
Evils of the memorizing method.
Then again, if children learn their first lessons in the native schools of Turkey, Persia, Korea, and various other countries, they will become fixed in the habit of memorizing without giving any intelligent thought to what they learn. Dr. S. M. Zwemer says:
“A Moslem lad is not supposed to know what the words and sentences mean which he must recite every day; to ask a question regarding the thought of the Koran would only result in a rebuke or something more painful. Even grammar, logic, history, and theology are taught by rote in the higher Mohammedan schools.... Thousands of Moslem lads, who know the whole Koran nearly by heart, cannot explain the meaning of the first chapter in every-day language. Tens of thousands can ‘read’ the Koran at random in the Moslem sense of reading, who cannot read an Arabic newspaper intelligently.”[64]
How utterly this differs from the theory and practice of Dr. Montessori, who “calls a child disciplined who is master of himself, and therefore able to dispose of or control himself whenever he needs to follow a rule of life. The liberty of the child must have as its limit only the collective interest. To interfere with this spontaneity is, in Dr. Montessori’s view, perhaps to repress the very essential of life itself.”[65] How can a child be master of himself who is not even allowed to inquire into the meaning of what he reads and studies?
Old methods hard to discard.
It is not always easy for the missionary suddenly to introduce changes of method and practice, and many a missionary school which is infinitely superior to the native institution might shock an American school superintendent beyond recovery. A missionary from China wrote,—“I found I must still keep many old methods or the Chinese would not send their children. I have found it necessary to let them learn portions of Scripture and classics and shout them at the tops of their voices, then gradually work in music, geography, and arithmetic.” Another argument for beginning as early as possible with the children who can so easily adapt themselves to ideas of a quiet, orderly school if they have never enjoyed exercising their lungs in one of the other kind!
Education of girls in Persia.
In speaking of primitive education among backward nations, mention was made of the scant attention given to girls as compared to boys. The London Times not long ago stated in commenting on the women of Persia, “As a matter of fact, probably not one girl in a thousand twenty years ago ever received any education. When the parents were rich enough, tuition of a sort was given at home, but in the case of poorer persons it was enough if their sons were taught to read and write.”