B. Aids Impression.—Apart from the fact that it satisfies a demand of our being, expression is most important in that it tests the clearness of the applied knowledge. We often think that our impression is clear, only to discover its vagueness when we attempt to express it in some form. People often say that they understand a fact thoroughly, but they cannot exactly express it. Such a statement is usually incorrect. If the impression were clear, the expression under ordinary circumstances would also be clear. In this connection a danger should be pointed out. Pupils sometimes express themselves in language with apparent clearness, when in reality they are merely repeating words that they have memorized and that are quite meaningless to them. The alert teacher can, however, by judicious questioning, avoid being deceived in this regard.
C. Adds to Clearness of Knowledge.—Not only does expression test the clearness of the apperceived new knowledge, but at the same time it gives the knowledge greater clearness. We learn to know by doing. A pupil realizes a story more fully when he has reproduced it for somebody else. He images a scene described in a poem more clearly when he has drawn it. He has a clearer idea of the volume of a cord when he has actually measured out a cord of wood. He has a more accurate conception of the difficulties attending the discoveries of La Salle when he has drawn a map and traced the routes of his various expeditions. There is much truth in the statement that one never fully knows some things until he has taught them to somebody else. The teacher in grammar and geography will often have occasion to realize this. Greater clearness of impression means, of course, greater permanence. We remember best those facts of which our impression was most vivid.
DANGERS OF OMITTING EXPRESSION
A. Knowledge not Practical.—It is apparent, then, that if the pupil is not given opportunity for expression, his ideas are vague and evanescent. Further than this, his capacities for knowing will be developed but his capacities for doing ignored. His intellectual powers will be exercised and his volitional powers neglected. The pupil is thus likely to develop into a mere theorist; and as the tendencies of childhood are accentuated in later life, he becomes an impractical man. There are many men in the world who apparently know a great deal, but who, through inability to make practical application of their knowledge, are unsuccessful in life. It is, however, seriously to be doubted whether knowledge is ever real until it has been worked out in practice and conduct. To avoid the danger of becoming impractical, a pupil should have every opportunity for expression.
B. Feelings Weakened.—A second serious danger of neglecting expression lies in the field of the emotions. To have generous emotions continually aroused and never to act upon them, to have one's sympathies frequently stirred and never to perform a kindly act, to experience feelings of love and never to express them in acts of service, is to cultivate a weakness of character. A classic instance of this is that of the lady who wept bitterly over the imaginary sorrows of the heroine in the play while her coachman was freezing to death outside the theatre. If worthy emotions are ever to be of the slightest moral value to us, they must be expressed in action. The pupil frequently has his emotions stirred in the lessons in literature, history, and nature study, and there are situations constantly arising in the school room, on the playground, on the street, and in the home, that afford opportunity for expression. To give a single instance, there is a story in the Ontario Third Reader by Elizabeth Phelps Ward, called "Mary Elizabeth." No pupil could read that story without being stirred with a deep pity and yet profound admiration for the pathetic figure of poor little Mary Elizabeth. The natural expression for such emotions would be a more kindly and sympathetic attitude towards some unfortunate child in the school.
RELATION OF EXPRESSION TO IMPRESSION
Knowledge Tends Toward Expression.—On account of the evident connection between knowledge and action, the law of expression has formulated itself into a well-known pedagogical law of method—no impression without expression. Like many other educational maxims, however, this law may be interpreted in too wide a sense. The law of expression in education claims only that valuable experiences, or valuable forms of new knowledge, should not be built up in the child's mind without adequate accompanying expression. In the first case, as already seen, many impressions come to us which are never seized upon sufficiently by our consciousness to become intelligent rules for conduct, or action. It is true, of course that, so far as such impressions stimulate us, they tend toward expression, and to that extent the maxim is true. For instance, when a child is impressed, say, by a sudden strange sound, he has a tendency to express himself by straining his attention, and when the man imagines an enemy is before him, he finds his arms and fists assuming the fighting attitude.
Expression at Times Inhibited.—It is to be noted that the child should early learn to form intelligent plans of action and postpone or even condemn them as forms of expression. In other words, a child should early learn to select and co-ordinate ideas into an orderly system independently of their actual expression in physical action. Without this power to suppress, or inhibit, expression, the child would be unable adequately to weigh and compare alternative courses of action and suppress such as seem undesirable. Such indeed is the weakness of the man who possesses an impulsive nature. Although, therefore, it is true that all knowledge is intended to serve in meeting actual needs, or to function in the control of expression, it is equally true that not every organized experience should find expression in action. Part at least of man's efficiency must consist in his ability to organize a new experience in an indirect way and condemn it as a rule of action. While, therefore, we emphasize the importance, under ordinary conditions, of having the child's knowledge function as directly as possible in some form of actual expression, it is equally important to recognize that in actual life many organized plans should not find expression in outer physical action. This being the case, the divorce between organized experience, or knowledge, and practical expression, which at times takes place in school work, is not necessarily unsound, since it tends to make the child proficient in separating the mental organizing of experience from its immediate expression, and must, therefore, tend to make him more capable of weighing plans before putting them into execution. This will in turn habituate the child to taking the necessary time for reflection between "the acting of a thing and the first purpose." This question will be considered more fully in [Chapter XXX], which treats of the development of voluntary control.
It should be noted in conclusion that the law of expression as a fourth stage of the learning process differs in purpose from the use of physical action as a means of creating interest in the problem, as referred to on page [62]. When, for instance, we set a pupil who has no knowledge of long measure to use the inch in interpreting the yard stick, expressive action is merely a means of putting the problem before the child in an interesting form on account of his liking for physical action. When, on the other hand, the child later uses the foot or yard as a unit to measure the perimeter of the school-room, he is applying his knowledge of long measure, which has been acquired previously to this expressive act.