[171] Having watched the “teaching” of pupil-teachers, I find that some of them (I may say many) never address more than one child at a time, and never attempt to gain the attention of more than a single child. So, by a very simple calculation, we can get at the maximum time each child is “under instruction.” If the pupil-teacher has but three-quarters of the pupils for whom the Department supposes him “sufficient,” each child cannot be under instruction more than two minutes in the hour. The rest of the time the children must sit quiet, or be cuffed if they do not. What is called “simultaneous” teaching in, say, reading, consists in the pupil-teacher reading from the book, and as he pronounces each word, the children shout it after him; but no one except the pupil-teacher knows the place in the book.
But perhaps the dangers from employing boys and girls to teach and govern children are greater morally than intellectually. Whether he report on it or not, the Inspector has less influence on the moral training than the youngest pupil-teacher. Channing has well said: “A child compelled for six hours each day to see the countenance and hear the voice of an unfeeling, petulant, passionate, unjust teacher is placed in a school of vice.” Those who have never taught day after day, week after week, month after month, little know what demands school-work makes on the temper and the sense of justice. The harshest tyrants are usually those who are raised but a little way above those whom they have to control; and when I think of the pupil-teacher with his forty pupils to keep in order, I heartily pity both him and them. Is there not too much reason to fear lest in many cases the school should prove for both what Channing has well described as “a school of vice”? (R. H. Q. in Spectator, 1st March, 1890.)
[172] Since the above was written, another “New Code” has appeared (March, 1890), in which the system of measuring by “passes,” a system maintained (in spite of the remonstrances of all interested in education) for nearly 30 years, is at length abandoned. We are certainly travelling, however slowly, away from Mr. Lowe. Far as we are still from Pestalozzi there seems reason to hope that the distance is diminishing.
[173] This short sketch of Froebel’s life is mainly taken, with Messrs. Black’s permission, from the Encyclopædia Britannica, for which I wrote it.
[174] This office was first filled by Langethal and afterwards by Ferdinand Froebel. I learned this at Burgdorf from Herr Pfarrer Heuer, whose father had himself been Waisenvater.
[175] For this quotation, and for much besides (as will appear later on), I am indebted to Mr. H. Courthope Bowen. See his paper Froebel’s Education of Man.
[176] The educator as teacher has his activity limited, according to DeGarmo, to these two things; “(1) The preparation of the child’s mind for a rapid and effective assimilation of new knowledge; (2) The presentation of the matter of instruction in such order and manner as will best conduce to the most effective assimilation” (Essentials of Method by Chas. DeGarmo, Boston, U.S., D. C. Heath, 1889). Besides this he must make his pupils use their knowledge both new and old, and reproduce it in fresh connexions.
[177] “Little children,” says Joseph Payne, “are scarcely ever contented with simply doing nothing; and their fidgetiness and unrest, which often give mothers and teachers so much anxiety, are merely the strugglings of the soul to get, through the body, some employment for its powers. Supply this want, give them an object to work upon, and you solve the problem. The divergence and distraction of the faculties cease as they converge upon the work, and the mind is at rest in its very occupation.” V. to German Schools.
[178] I entirely agree with Joseph Payne that where the language spoken is not German, it would be well to discard Kindergarten, Kindergärtner, and Kindergärtnerin. All who have to do with children should master some great principles taught by Froebel, but there is no need for them to learn German or to use German words. The French seem satisfied with Jardin d’Enfants, but we are not likely to be with Children-Garden. Playschool might do.
[179] Contrast this with what has been said by an eminent thinker of our time: “No art of equal importance to mankind has been so little investigated scientifically as the art of teaching.” Sir H. S. Maine, quoted in J. H. Hoose’s M. of Teaching.