The Philosophy of Teaching / The Teacher, The Pupil, The School

by Nathaniel Sands

Some portion of the teaching which goes on in school should be performed by the pupils, under the supervision of the teacher. No adult can so thoroughly enter into a child’s mind as can another child; nor is this the only reason.

That is not fully known which can not be thoroughly used and applied, and knowledge can not be applied which its possessor can not himself impart. A perfect illustration of this truth is furnished us in the training of the soldier.

Upon nothing, perhaps, have the knowledge and skill of the most powerful intellects been more concentrated than upon the science and art of mutual slaughter; and in establishing the soldiers’ drill, an exhaustive analysis of the means by which the desired object was to be attained has been pursued. The men whose intellects have developed that drill, have not been content to treat the soldier as a pupil only. Each recruit has in turn to teach, as well as to learn to practise what he has learned, by drilling others whom he is made temporarily to command, as well as to practise his drill under the command of his officer; for only by such means could the highest degree of efficiency be secured. The reasons which led to the adoption of this principle in the barrack apply equally to the school.

This principle of giving and receiving we also see exemplified in Nature. Animals inhale oxygen from the air and return carbonic acid, which serves to build up the structure of the plant, and the latter in its turn gives out oxygen to supply the consumption of animals.

Every day—in the middle of the day, in winter, in the summer, early in the morning, or in the evening—gymnastic training on the system of the Swedish anatomist Ling or of the German Turners would form a portion of the curriculum, for which convenient apparatus would be provided.

Biography should form an important feature in the course of reading, its subjects being arranged in groups; and the true glory of a Washington, a Bentham, a Stevenson, a Morse, and a Cobden distinguished from the false glare and tinsel of a Louis XIV. and a Marlborough.

Music, both vocal and instrumental, would be taught to all, but only those more gifted by nature would be educated to perform solo. Nearly all persons can be trained to sing part-music pleasantly and intelligently, and to perform moderately on some instrument. The cultivation of the musical faculties harmonizes the mind, and affords a never-failing source of solace and recreation. The attempt to convert all persons into solo performers, and the hypocritical applause with which their discordant notes are indiscriminately greeted, deprives society of the pleasures which part-music well performed would afford, by encouraging all to attempt what they are pretty sure to do badly, to the exclusion of what they would be equally likely to do well.

We have reserved for the last, to enumerate what is, perhaps, the most important of all the subjects of instruction.

To all children, so soon as they can be promoted from the kinder garten—perhaps even to the higher grades therein—instruction in the conditions of human well-being, and in the phenomena and arrangements of social life should be given, and should be continued throughout their school career.

What! teach political economy to children? Even so. It will be conceded, that to teach the future laborers the laws by which the wages of their labor will be regulated, how high wages may be secured and low wages prevented—to teach the future capitalists the laws by which their profits will be determined, how large profits may be secured, and loss, failure, crises, and panics avoided—must be a desirable, if it be a practicable thing. Is it practicable? The experience of twenty years has proved that it is. The experiment has been tried by Mr. Wm. Ellis, the wise and noble founder of the Birkbeck schools of London, England, who not only devoted his surplus means to the endowment of true schools, but gave also his time to instruct in the principles of the science of human well-being—alike the poor children by whom his schools were attended and the children of the Queen of England. He also instructed and trained a corps of teachers, professional and volunteer, and by one of the latter a class was conducted in the winter of 1867, ’68 at the Normal School of this city of some 35 to 40 teachers engaged in the practical work of teaching in our common schools, who, under his guidance, became, after a short course of some twenty or more lessons, enthusiastic advocates for the introduction of this study into the schools; for not only does it teach the conditions of industrial success, but it is also a science of morals and of ethics far more worthy of the attention it has never yet received in this or, indeed, in any country, than that which is given to what goes under the name of moral teaching and training. It is by gradual steps—by the employment of the Socratic method of instruction—with a rare use of text-books, that the most intricate problems of this science can be unfolded to pupils with such effect that a child of fourteen or fifteen years of age, who shall have passed through a course of four or five years’ instruction, would put to the blush, with few exceptions, alike the members of both houses of the United States Congress and of the British Parliament.