[Footnote 25: In the School-Room; Chapters in the Philosophy of Education. John S. Hart, LL.D., Principal of the New Jersey State Normal School. Eldredge & Brother: Philadelphia.
The Scientific Basis of Education, demonstrated by an analysis of the temperaments and of phrenological facts, in a series of letters to the Department of Public Instruction in the city of New York. By John Hecker. Published by the Author, 56 Rutgers Street, New York.]
The author of this volume has evidently spent much time in the school-room, and has not spent it in vain. He writes like a practical man, in a clear, vigorous style. As he says in his preface, he takes "a pretty free range over the whole practical field of inquiry among professional teachers, and presents to us thoughts suggested in the school-room itself in short, detached chapters." The work is not a philosophy of education, but rather a laudable attempt to contribute something toward it.
In the first chapter, on "What is Teaching?" he brings out forcibly the truth that teaching is not simply telling, nor is talking to a class necessarily teaching, as experience shows that a class may be told a thing twenty times over, and talked to in the most fluent manner, and still make little advancement in knowledge.
This truth deserves more attention from those engaged in teaching. The work of universal education which is required in our country is so vast, that necessity has forced many to assume the office of teachers who have very little knowledge of what teaching is. "Teaching," as the author well says, "is causing one to know. Now, no one can be made to know a thing but by the act of his own powers. His own senses, his own memory, his own powers of reason, perception, and judgment must be exercised. The function of the teacher is to bring about this exercise of the pupil's faculties."
The second chapter, on "The Art of Questioning," states that a "most important and difficult part" of the teacher's art is to know how to ask a question, but he gives none of the principles that underlie the art. The earnest reader will say: If so much depends on skilful questioning, why does he not tell us how to do it? The little work of J. G. Filch, M.A., on The Art of Questioning appears to us much more philosophical and satisfactory. According to him, questions as employed by teachers may be divided into three classes, according to the purposes which they may be intended to serve. There is, first, the preliminary or experimental question, by which an instructor feels his way, sounds the depths of his pupil's knowledge, and prepares him for the reception of what it is designed to teach.
There is, secondly, the question employed in actual instruction, by means of which the thoughts of the learner are exercised, and he is compelled, so to speak, to take a share in giving himself the lesson.
Thirdly, there is the question of examination, by which a teacher tests his own work, after he has given a lesson, and ascertains whether it has been soundly and thoroughly learned. By this method, as an eminent teacher has said, one first questions the knowledge into the minds of the children, and then questions it out of them again.
The following chapters on the order of development of the mental faculties are very good. We think, however, he lays too much stress on the necessity of knowledge before memory. The memory, being strongest and most retentive in youth, should then be stored with those germinating formulas which will bear fruit in after life. When the reasoning powers are developed at a later period, they then have something upon which to act.