[161] In 1872, a Congress in which more than 10,000 German elementary teachers were represented, petitioned the Prussian Government for “the organization of training schools in accordance with the pedagogic principles of Pestalozzi, which formerly enjoyed so much favour in Prussia and so visibly contributed to the regeneration of the country.”
[162] Did Pestalozzi make due allowance for the system of thought which every child inherits? Croom Robertson in “How we came by our Knowledge” (Nineteenth Century, No. 1, March, 1877), without mentioning Pestalozzi, seems to differ from him. Croom Robertson says that “Children being born into the world are born into society, and are acted on by overpowering social influences before they have any chance of being their proper selves.... The words and sentences that fall upon a child’s ear and are soon upon his lips, express not so much his subjective experience as the common experience of his kind, which becomes as it were an objective rule or measure to which his shall conform.... He does, he must, accept what he is told; and in general he is only too glad to find his own experience in accordance with it.... We use our incidental, by which I mean our natural subjective experience, mainly to decipher and verify the ready-made scheme of knowledge that is given us en bloc with the words of our mother-tongue” (pp. 117, 118).
[163] One of the most interesting and most difficult problems in teaching is this:—How long should the beginner be kept to the rudiments? With young children, to whom ideas come fast, the main thing is no doubt to take care that these ideas become distinct and are made “the intellectual property” of the learners. But after a year or two children will be impatient to “get on,” and if they seem “marking time” will be bored and discouraged. Then again in some subjects the elementary parts seem clear only to those who have a conception of the whole. As Diderot says in a passage I have seen quoted from Le Neveu de Rameau, “Il faut être profond dans l’art ou dans la science pour en bien posséder les éléments.” “C’est le milieu et la fin qui éclaircissent les ténèbres du commencement.” The greatest “coach” in Cambridge used to “rush” his men through their subjects and then go back again for thorough learning. To be sure, the “scientific method” suitable for young men differs greatly from the “heuristic” or “method of investigation,” which is best for children. (See Joseph Payne’s Lecture on Pestalozzi.) But even with children we should bear in mind Niemeyer’s caution, “Thoroughness itself may become superficial by exaggeration; for it may keep too long to a part and in this way fail to complete and give any notion of the whole” (Quoted by O. Fischer, Wichtigste Päd. 213).
[164] Nearly 20 years ago (1871) appeared a paper on “Elementary National Education” in which “John Parkin, M.D.,” advocated making all our elementary schools industrial, not only for practical purposes, but still more for the sake of physical education. The paper attracted no notice at the time, but now we are beginning to see that the body is concerned in education as well as the mind, and that the mind learns through it “without book.” The application of this truth will bring about many changes.
[165] Herbart, when he visited Pestalozzi at Burgdorf, observed that though Pestalozzi’s kindness was apparent to all, he took no pains in his teaching to mix the dulce with the utile. He never talked to the children, or joked, or gave them an anecdote. This, however, did not surprise Herbart, whose own experience had taught him that when the subject requires earnest attention the children do not like it the better for the teacher’s “fun.” “The feeling of clear apprehension,” says he, “I held to be the only genuine condiment of instruction” (Herbart’s Päd. Schriften, ed. by O. Willmann, j. 89).
[166] First look to himself, but there may be other causes of failure as well. The great thing is never to put up contentedly, or even discontentedly, with failure. In teaching classes of lads from ten to sixteen years old, when I have found the lessons in any subject were not going well, I have sometimes taken the class into my confidence, told them that they no doubt felt as I did that this lesson was a dull one, and asked them each to put on paper what he considered to be the reasons, and also to make any suggestions that occurred to him. In this way I have got some very good hints, and I have always been helped in my effort to understand how the work seemed to the pupils. Every teacher should make this effort. As Pestalozzi says, “Could we conceive the indescribable tedium which must oppress the young mind while the weary hours are slowly passing away one after another in occupations which it can neither relish nor understand ... we should no longer be surprised at the remissness of the schoolboy creeping like snail unwillingly to school” (To G., xxx, 150).
[167] With Morf’s summing-up it is interesting to compare Joseph Payne’s, given at the end of his lecture on Pestalozzi:
I. The principles of education are not to be devised ab extra; they are to be sought for in human nature.
II. This nature is an organic nature—a plexus of bodily, intellectual and moral capabilities, ready for development, and struggling to develop themselves.
III. The education conducted by the formal educator has both a negative and a positive side. The negative function of the educator consists in removing impediments, so as to afford free scope for the learner’s self-development. His positive function is to stimulate the learner to the exercise of his powers, to furnish materials and occasion for the exercise, and to superintend and maintain the action of the machinery.