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teacher who is worthy of the name, must necessarily possess a knowledge of the material on which he works. It would be well, were this knowledge always profound and philosophical; and, among the happy anticipations suggested by the establishment of normal schools, none is more cheering than the hope that, ere long, society will be furnished with a numerous class of teachers, competent to understand and guide the young mind through all its stages of growth and development, and furnished with all the requisite means of securing the noblest results of human culture.

Meanwhile, the laborers who are already in the field, and who have not enjoyed, perhaps, extensive opportunities of acquiring a scientific knowledge of the chemistry of mental culture, must be content with such aids as their own observation, reading, reflection, or experience, may furnish.

As a slight contribution to the common stock of professional facilities, the author of the present article would submit the following outline to the consideration of his fellow teachers, as an intended aid to the systematizing of their efforts for the mental advancement of their pupils.

The analysis which follows, extends, it will be perceived, no farther than to the limits of intellectual education. The physical and the moral departments of culture, may be discussed at another opportunity, and must be dismissed for the present, with the single remark, that the natural unity of the human being, demands a ceaseless attention to these, in strict conjunction with that more immediately under consideration.

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS.-Contemplating man's intellectual constitution as subjected to the processes of education, we may conveniently group his mental powers and faculties under the following denominations:-perceptive, reflective, and expressive. In expression, as a function of man at the period of his maturity, the order, in the preceding classification, may be termed the normal or usual one. Man perceives, reflects, speaks. But in education, whether regarded as a natural process or an artificial one, the order of classification suggested by the experience and the history of the human being, in his early and comparatively immature condition, would present the expressive powers as in exercise long before the reflective, and, subsequently, as the appointed means of developing these, through the medium of language.

OUTLINE OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.-An outline map, or plan of intellectual culture, as aided by the processes of education, may be carried into practical detail, as suggested by the following prominent points of analysis.

1. Classification of the intellectual faculties, by the different modes, or forms of mental action.

2. Statement of the actuating principle, or impelling power of each class or group of faculties.

3. The tendency, or habit of action in each class.

4. The result, or issue of such action.

5. The educational processes adapted to each class of faculties with a view to aid its natural tendency, and secure its results.

From the imperfection of our language, in relation to topics strictly mental, or purely philosophical, the word faculties is unavoidably employed to represent the diversities in modes of action of the mind, which, in itself, is, properly speaking, one and indivisible. But if we keep fully before us the etymological signification of the term faculties, (resources, means, powers,) we shall regard it but as a figurative expression, suggestive of the indefinitely diversified states, acts, operations, processes, powers, or modes of action, attributable to the mind, -itself a unit.

Adopting the general classification before referred to, we may commence the partial filling up of our outline with

1. THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES.

1. Their modes or forms of action:

a, sensation; b, perception; c, attention: d, observation.

2. Actuating principle, or impelling force, curiosity, or the desire of knowledge.

3. Tendency, or habit of action,―observation.

4. Result, or issue of action,-knowledge.

5. Educational process, forms of exercise, or modes of culture, development, and discipline suggested by the four preceding considerations,-examination, analysis, inspection, interrogation, direction, information, comparison, classification, induction. In other words, the appropriate presentation of objects to the senses, accompanied by mutual question and answer by teacher and pupil;-with a view to quicken sensation, awaken perception, give power of prompt and sustained attention, confirm the habit of careful observation, stimulate curiosity, and insure the extensive acquisition of knowledge.

(1.) CLASSIFICATION

OF THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES, BY THEIR
MODES OF ACTION.

(a) Sensation, the organic action by which objects, facts, and relations are presented to the mind, through the media of the senses, and which form the conditions of perception.

(b) Perception, or cognition,-the intellectual action by which the

mind perceives, (takes notice, or cognizance of.) data presented by the

senses.

(c) Attention, the mental action by which, under the incitation of desire or volition, the percipient intellect tends, for the purposes of distinct cognizance, towards the object, fact, or relation presented.

to it.

(d.) Observation,-the voluntary, sustained, or continuous exercise of attention, with which the mind directs itself toward the object of its contemplation, for the purpose of complete intuition and perfect recognition.

All the terms now defined, are but different designations for the various forms in which the intuitive action of the intellectual principle is solicited by objects external to itself. The English language, as the product of mind working chiefly in practical directions, possesses little of the clearness and distinctness in nomenclature which the topics of intellectual analysis so peculiarly require. But the four terms used above are sufficient to comprise the prominent forms of perceptive action, in the various processes of intellection. They all refer significantly enough, to the first efforts of intelligence, when, previous to any introversive or reflective act, of comparatively subtile or intricate character, it obeys the instinct of its appetite, and finds its sustentation by feeding on the aliment tendered to it by its Author, in the objects which environ it. To watch and guide, and coöperate with this instructive principle, is the true office of education, as a process of nurture and development, working not in arbitrary or artificial, but in salutary and successful forms,-forms not devised by the fallible ingenuity of man, but by the unerring wisdom of Supreme intelligence.

Prevalent error in the order of cultivation.-Contrary, however, to the obvious suggestions of fact, education is still too generally regarded as consisting, during its earlier stages, in arbitrary exercises of memory on combinations of printed characters, abstract numbers, or even the metaphysical relations involved in the science of grammar. The excuse offered for a blind following of precedent in this direction. usually is the peculiar susceptibility of memory, during the period of childhood, and the comparative difficulty experienced in attempts to cultivate it at a later stage. Were the educational cultivation of memory directed to the retaining and treasuring up of those stores of knowledge which are naturally accessible to the mind of childhood. within the range of its daily observation, the plea would be justifiable; man's endeavors would be in harmony with the obvious instincts and endowments of the mind, and would tend to its natural exvan

sion and development. But directed to the mechanical and arbitrary results at which these endeavors so generally aim, their influence is detrimental. Their immediate effect is to quench the natural thirst for knowledge, to create a distaste for intellectual activity, and thus to defeat the best purposes of education.

The law of true culture lies in the primary craving of the young mind for material on which the understanding may operate; digesting it, in due season, into the regular form of knowledge which memory loves to retain, and which judgment ultimately builds up into the systematic arrangements of science.

(2.) CURIOSITY, THE ACTUATING PRINCIPLE OF THE PERCEPTIVE

FACULTIES.

The Teacher's proper place.-The teacher who enters intelligently upon his work of cultivating the minds entrusted to his care, knows that his chief duty is to cherish the spontaneous action of their powers, and to make them intelligent and voluntary co-workers in their own development. He observes, therefore, with careful attention, the natural tendencies and action of the intellectual system, as the physiologist does those of the corporeal, so as to become competent to trace the law of development, and adapt his measures to its requirements. He thus becomes qualified to take his proper place, as an humble but efficient co-worker with the Author of the mind, recognizing and following His plan, in modes suggested by a wisdom higher than human.

The attentive study and observation of the natural workings of the mind, in the successive stages of its progress, from incipient intelligence to maturity of reason, imply, however, not merely a careful analysis of the facts and modes of mental action, but a watchful observation, with a view to detect, in all cases, the moving power or impelling principle of action, to aid and regulate which is the educator's chief work. The ceaseless intellectual activity of childhood, maintained through the various media of perception, furnished by the organs of sense, is obviously stimulated by the constitutional principle of curiosity, an eager desire to know and understand, and therefore, to observe and examine. Hence the irrepressible and searching questions with which children, in the instinct of faith, appeal to whomsoever they think can satisfy their craving for information.

To feed this mental appetite, to select and prepare its proper nutriment, to keep it in healthy and healthful activity, to quicken and strengthen it, to direct and guide it, as a divine instinct, leading to the noblest ends, should be the teacher's constant endeavor. To awaken curiosity is to secure a penetrating and fixed attention,-the

prime condition of human knowledge; and even when it leads no further than to wonder, it is preparing the advancing mind for the awe and the reverence with which, in later stages of its progress, it looks up to the knowledge which is "too high for it."

The emotion of wonder analogous to the instinct of curiosity.-Curiosity, like the kindred element of wonder, finds its sustenance in whatever is new to sensation or perception; wonder, in turn, leads the mind to dwell on whatever is strange, intricate, or remote; astonishment, arrests it by whatever is sudden and powerful; awe commands it by whatever is vast; and amazement overwhelms it by whatever is incomprehensible or inscrutable. Yet all of these effects,even those which, for the moment, act on the perceptive intellect with a repulsive force that makes it recoil in conscious weakness from the object of contemplation,-are but various forms of stimulating, impelling, or attracting force, acting on the irrepressible vitality of the mind; and no incitements are ultimately more powerful in maintaining the most resolute and persevering activity of its powers.

Mental effects of novelty and variety. In the great primary school of nature, as established and furnished by the Author of all, we observe, accordingly, that in the multiform variety of objects with which the young human being is surrounded, at the first dawning of intelligence within him, the novelty of the whole scene around him, and of every class of objects which it presents, is forever tempting his susceptible spirit to observe and examine, and explore, by the conscious delight which every new step affords him.

Evils of monotony, and advantages of variety.-Nor is the obvious design of the great Instructor less conspicuous in the feeling of satiety and weariness which is always superinduced by continued sameness of mental action, whether prolonged in the same mode of exercise, or on the same class of objects. The observant teacher thus learns his own lesson of duty, to avoid undue limitation in the objects and forms of intellectual action, to shun sameness and monotony of routine, and protracted exertions of attention, as all tending to exhaust and enfeeble the mental powers. His endeavors, on the contrary, are all directed to a due diversity in the presentation of objects, and in the mode of mental activity which they call forth; and, in whatever instances frequent repetition is indispensable to exact perception, he is particularly careful to exert his ingenuity to the utmost, in devising new modes of presentation, so as to secure fresh and earnest attention to the same objects or facts, by the renovating effect of the new lights and new aspects in which he causes them to be viewed.

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