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THE TEACHINE OF LITE HOWS
A SHORT LECTURE
BY
.*.*.* * go - 17°
J: M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, M.A. '''“
PROFESSOR OF THE THEoRY, History, AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND.
LONDON :
KERBY & ENDEAN 190 OXFORD STREET
I 87 9.
-**
Price Sixpence.
jºez

$10 mt. On : tº
PRINTED BY KERBY & ENDEAN, 190, Oxford STREET.
L. B
| 5 || |
, Nº 5 3.
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7.
THE TEACHING OF LITTLE BOYS.
THE teaching of little boys has up to the present
time been usually placed in the hands of persons who
were not always the most competent. It has generally
been considered that anybody could do it. But, in
the somewhat analogous case of practice in medicine,
the diseases of children require to be cared for by a
practitioner of not less skill and learning than others,
but rather of more; for very young children can
give no adequate account of their sufferings and
symptoms, and the physician needs a quicker eye
and a surer perception for the treatment of their
diseases than for the illnesses of adults. The
Jesuits have always been excellent teachers; and
their rule and custom have hitherto been to appoint
ayoung teacher to the conduct of the higher forms,
and to promote him gradually down to the lowest
form in the school. For many reasons, which it is
hardly necessary to give at present, I have come to
the conclusion that the beginnings of all instruction
require the greatest teaching skill and the most
patient study; while I have also found that the
results obtained in the study of their beginnings are, a
;
4
the richest and most fruitful for all future progress
of the pupil.
We employ the words mistake and difficulty, the
terms du// and stupid, with considerable frequency;
and generally without much further thought. A
lesson is difficult; and a boy is dull; and that is an
ultimatum—no more need be said about it. All
difficulties are difficulties; and all mistakes are
mistakes—and there is an end. But in the
course of several years' experience as Examiner
in English Literature to the Civil Service Com-
mission, I have had in the oral examinations
several thousands of young men before me, while
in the written examinations I have had many thou-
Sands of papers to read through. These young
men have been for the most part candidates for
Commissions in the army. I have for some years
been taking notes and keeping lists of their mistakes;
and I am gradually forming a museum of their
educational malformations. These mistakes fall
very naturally into classes; and if the teachers who
trained these young men had taken the trouble to
classify them, they would at once have got upon the
track of their mistakes—have been able to root out
the malformation, and have set and kept their pupils
in a quiet straight line towards clear-headedness and
accuracy. But they went on calling a mistake a
mistake, applying no remedy, but accusing fate and
hereditary weakness; and the consequence generally
was that their pupils, not knowing the sources of
their own weakness, never found out their true
5
strength, missed their goal, and failed even to pass
their examinations.
Again, when we say a lesson or a piece of work
is difficult, the question is very seldom asked : In
what respect, and in what circumstance or set of
circumstances, is it difficult P A little boy has a
Latin author—let us say Caesar—put into his hands;
and he finds it difficult. Well, it is the duty of the
teacher at once to set his mind to work and to inquire
in what respect, and why, it is difficult. There are
the words—they may be unusual to him, because
the boy's Latin vocabulary is too limited ; there are
the inflections, which are numerous in Latin—he
may know them, but not with sufficient promptness;
there are the relations between the words, which he
may not catch with that quick intuition which alone
we call understanding ; and last of all, there is the
relation of the different clauses, which he is not at
all familiar with, and which he has never formed
the habit of allowing his mind to run smoothly
in. By a little patient examination, the good
teacher can soon find out which of the four
contains the element of difficulty ; and when he has
ascertained that, the remedy is close at hand, and
very easy to apply. The teacher must analyse and
distinguish as a chemist analyses; otherwise, both
he and his pupil will go on wearying each other to
the end of their connection. It is difficult—it is in
fact impossible—for anyone to jump from here to
the Marble Arch, but it is perfectly easy by short
and well-considered steps for a child to go from here
6
to there in a short time. The processes of the mind
are not less simple than those of an ordinary watch ;
but to understand a watch, we must take it to pieces
and, bit by bit, slowly put it together again. The
same accuracy and patience must be shown in
examining the processes of a boy's mind. Learning is
just as natural as eating and drinking ; it is regulated
by laws very similar to the laws which rule over
these, and mental dyspepsia and feebleness are
diseases rather more common than the weakness
and dyspepsia of the body. The foundations of
these mental diseases are usually laid in early youth,
and it is my belief that they may be entirely avoided.
They are no more necessary than other children's
diseases are. Clear ideas promote the health of the
mind, as well-cooked food and exercise promote the
health of the body, and it is quite practicable to keep
all ideas, all knowledge, and all school-learning clear
and orderly from first to last. In other words, it is
quite possible to reduce the element of mistake to a
minimum, and so to engineer the road in each sub-
ject that the pupil shall have a sufficient supply of
mental gymnastics, and no more. Then, when
from finding his difficulties vanish he has grown
fond of the subject he is learning, he will apply as
much mental force as the subject may need, and
always with such an accompaniment of pleasure and
such a sense of power gratified, that nature will tell
him how much force to put out, and there will be
no strain, but always a free and harmonious develop-
ment of the internal power. But the outcome of a very
7
large part of our present teaching is muddle-headed-
ness and disgust. To put a young boy in possession
of his mental power is just as much a duty, and just
as practicable, as putting him in possession of his
powers of walking or riding.
Now the way to do this is very simple—very
simple, that is, after it has been shown. The way
to do this is simply to take the subject about to be
taught, and to divide it into the smallest pieces that
it can be divided into, and then to give each of these
pieces to the pupil as slowly or as rapidly as his
temperament and his powers allow him to take them.
“We must divide and subdivide a difficult process,
until the steps are so short that the pupil can easily
take them.” It is the work of the teacher to examine
the piece of work to be done, and to mark out at his
leisure into how many, and what, parts it can be
divided ; to arrange how, and in what order, these
parts Ought to be presented, and then to present
them. This is to be done, I hold, by appealing
always, if possible, to the mind through the eye; and
by an almost infinite series of questions. These
questions at first will relate to what he sees upon the
black-board or elsewhere — to what is perfectly
simple, then to a combination of two or three of
these simple elements; then to a rapid combina-
tion of more; then to a more rapid combination ;
and lastly to a rapid combination of more complex
elements. Thus, there is always careful step-
ping and walking, but never a long jump. That and
running may come later, but it will come from the
8
delight of the thing, and not from the compulsion of
the master. The mind is thus kept in constant
activity; there is always agreeable and pleasant
motion; the attention has intervals of work and of
rest, but it is always there when it is wanted ; and
children are eager to answer these little questions,
just as birds hop about with eagerness to pick up
crumbs. The attention is fixed upon each smallest
part in succession, then upon a part a little larger,
then upon one larger still, until the habit of putting
this and that quickly together becomes engrained in
the mind of the young boy.
Then, next day, follows repetition of what has
been said the day before; and the application of the
old matter and the old ideas to new instances. To
refer once more to the practice of the old Latin
schoolmasters, they had for their guidance the rule
and motto, “Repetition is the mother of studies.” And
this is an excellent rule; but it requires an addition.
And the addition I propose to make to it is that the
motto of all teachers should be “Repetition without
monotony : ” because, in addition to dividing a sub-
ject into all its smallest parts, it is the duty of the
teacher to place each of these parts in as many
different relations to every other part as he possibly
can ; and to ask about their relations all the ques-
tions that can be asked. Lord Bacon said that “a
well-put question was the half of knowledge; ” and
under the guidance of this and other similar direc-
tions, enormous results have accrued to science. I
have not any doubt that the application of the
9
same principle will do as much for and in educa-
tion.
This careful analysis, this constant questioning,
this perpetual weaving of the new into the old, are
the guiding clues for the teacher who honestly
attempts to teach the elements of anything.
There was, some years ago, an advertisement
which met the eye everywhere; and it asked the
question “Do you bruise your oats 2" This ques-
tion would correspond with the necessity I have
pointed out of breaking up everything into its
smallest parts. The weaving of the new into the old
can be forcibly illustrated by the old story of “The
House that Jack built,” which is in itself a model for
teaching in several subjects.
Let me apply what I have been saying to actual
instances; and I will take arithmetic—a subject in
which boys do not always succeed, but which always
yields results in exact proportion to the amount of
good teaching put into it. All the work to be done
in the teaching of arithmetic is early work; the
battle is lost or won in the beginnings of it; and it
is then that power and taste may be generated or
may be destroyed, as the teaching is clear, slow,
analytic, and distinctive, or confused, rapid, and care-
less of the need for separation. It is a subject,
moreover, in which Nature herself gives us the
clearest and most unmistakable directions; and it
may be taught to the youngest children with a per-
petual accompaniment of pleasure. The whole of
arithmetic consists fundamentally of two processes,
IO
and of two processes only—bringing to and taking
away, or, as we call them, addition and subtrac-
tion. All other processes are but modifications of
these ; and if the teacher sees how they are modifi-
cations, that insight of his points out the plain and
easy road he must take. But in the early beginnings
of arithmetic, it is plain that the boy must start with
(I) tangible arithmetic; go on (2) to visual arithmetic;
and then pass on (3) to paper and mental arithmetic.
The fingers, the eyes, and the mind—these are the
three steps. Following this road, the child need
never stumble at all, but feel his intellectual muscles
grow stronger and surer every day. The tangible
arithmetic is supplied by showing the child how to
handle cubes and pieces of wood; and this can be
very well done in the nursery—though a set of these
ought to be in the schoolroom for references and
for occasional practice. Then he will meet with
arithmetic for his eye; and let me take as an
example the number 9. There is a story of the
late Professor de Morgan, which has considerable
force and meaning in relation to this part of my
subject. He was examining a number of young
men orally in arithmetic ; and he asked them what
they meant by the number seven. They looked
puzzled and disconcerted ; none of them could
reply; and he sent them back to their school-
work again. Now I am going to show you
by the help of the eye what I mean by the
number 9.
I I
THE NUMBER NINE.
(a) º sie (b) O O (c) 69 @
•l"le 9 = 2 + 7 e * e 9 = 3+6 •
9= 1 +8 o e = 7–H 2 o o =6+3 o o
= 8-H I © O • To © ©
© 69
(d) • * * (e) .
3+4+5 ° ° 9–3+3+3 * * *
=5+4 o s = 3 X 3 69 || @
& © 69 || @
(9 || @
This diagram might have been made much
larger, but for my present purpose that would
have been inconvenient. But a certain amount of
analysis has been performed upon the number 9 in
these tables. It is plain that it consists of 4 and 5
and of 5 and 4; of I and 8 and of 8 and I ; of 2
and 7 and of 7 and 2 ; of 6 and 3 and of 3 and 6 ;
and also of 3 and 3 and 3. Now, an ordinary
teacher might be satisfied with saying that nine was
nine; or, if he went a step farther, he might show
its relations to other numbers outside itself; but he
would not see what a wealth of questioning lay
inside the number itself, and how readily it would
answer all these questions. He has, however, only
to break it up and to set it clearly forth upon the
black-board to make his pupils at once set to work
and use their eyes and minds—their adding and
their subtracting power. And the teacher who has
been rightly trained to his business will be able to
ask nearly a score of questions on the number 9;
while the thoughtless teacher can ask scarcely one.
The old name for interrogation was the question and
I 2
the torture; I apply the process to the subject, to
make it give up all that is in it, and not to the
living person.
Let me apply a similar method to the number 13.
'THE NUMBER THIRTEEN.
(a) 13 = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
© © Q Q O © Q O © (2) 6.9 © ©
(b) 13 = IO + 3
→ • * * * * * * * * * | * * *
I O = 7 + 3.
→ • • * * * * * • * *
7 = 4 + 3
3 • * * * © Q O
4 = I –H 3
3 |
*E*- O © 6 O
I
(c) 13 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + I
e e o e o e ] e o e ] e o e | *
13 + 3 = 4 lots and I remaining over.
(d) 13 = 4 + 4 + 4 + I
e e e o e e o e ] e o e o o
13 + 4 = 3 lots and I remaining over.
(e) 13 = ( 3 × 4 ) + I
e G G e o e C C C & © & ©
(f) 13 = ( 4 × 3 ) + I
© e o e e e o e 6 & © 6 @
Notr.—This diagram is borrowed from an excellent paper by Mr. C. H.
Iake.
This diagram looks a little confused; but upon a
large black-board it would look something quite
I 3
different. Besides, it would be placed gradually
upon the black-board; and no new part would be
added until the old had been learned and thoroughly
assimilated. The first line consists simply of 13
I + 1 + 1 &c., and of I 3 round dots. The line (3)
shows the gradual process of subtracting, and by it
we in time come to see that 3 may be taken away
from 13 four times and that I will remain. In line
(c) the same fact is put in a different way; that is,
I 3 is written in four sets of 3 dots, and there is one
over or left out. And this fact is stated in arith-
metic symbols when we write I 3 + 3 = 4 and I over.
From this instance, or rather from a large number
of such instances, which the trained ingenuity of
the teacher must discover and present to the pupil,
he finds out—it one day strikes him with force—
that division is only a short way of performing a
number of acts of subtraction. In line (a) we
have 3 sets of 4 and I over; in line (e) we gather
up the four sets of 3 and I over, and make an act
of multiplication out of it. By adding up all the
numbers in (6) we find out that I and 3 and 3 and
3 and 3 make 13; but the line (e) tells us this in a
much shorter and quicker way. And so here too
the boy will come in time to feel that multiplication
is only a rapid way of performing many acts of
addition. Again, in line (f) the three bundles of
four dots with an additional one are taken together
and are found to produce I 3. Thus line (e) is the
opposite of line (c), and line (/) of line (d). In
time, also, it will occur to the growing boy that
I4.
multiplication and division are processes the reverse
of each other; it will occur to him ; he will not have
to think it out, or to take in elaborate explanations
of it, and he will not feel confused by it.
Let me take another example. The notation we
employ in arithmetic is very simple, if taught gradu-
ally, slowly, and clearly ; and the form of it depends
on the fact that we have all of us ten fingers. But
the Arab who, in long meditation, discovered that
the basis of all notation was that the value of a
figure should depend upon its place or position, and
that it was requisite to invent “o's" to give place,
and therefore value, to other figures, in real fact
made arithmetic possible; and without this idea, no
science of arithmetic could have existed. But it is
just this function of the “o” which puzzles little
boys; and a large number of illustrations or ways of
putting the fact have to be employed. The diagram
POSITION OF O.
I O O I o o O I o
I O I 2 O O O O O 2
I I O 2 O 2 O O O O
I O O I 2 O O O O 2 O
I O I O 2 2 O O O O O
I I O O 2 O O O 2 O O
I O O I O 3 O O 3 o O 3
I I O O O 3 O 3 O o O 3
I O I O O 3 O 3 O 3 O O
I O O O I 3 3 o O O 3 O
I O O O O I 3 O o O 3 O O
I O I O O O 3 O O 3 O 3 O
I I O O O O 4 O O 4 O O 4
I O O I O O 4 O 4 O 4 O 4
before you is not in any sense a lesson, but only a
test, which would be led up to by a large number of
I 5
lessons, each using different figures and different
numbers, and varying the position of the “o” each
time. Several kinds of devices might be used. An
empty space marked off by a line ; a simple stroke ;
a cross ; these and many others would show that the
“O'” has no value in itself, but is simply a symbol
or pawn or common soldier to back up or to give
opportunity to the true figures to do their duty. In
a very short time, after copious and patient practice
on the black-board, any little boy could read off this
table with complete accuracy and promptness, or
could reproduce it upon paper if it were dictated to
him by the teacher.
I have already said that a good teacher will
appeal to the eye whenever he can. It is the most
accurate of our senses; its memory is strong and
clear. The ear is constantly deceiving—both as to
the knowledge we, think we receive, and as to the
quarter from which it comes. The eye rarely, in a
healthy person, deceives at all. Let us, then, get all
the help we can from the eye.
Allow me, if I have not tired your patience, to
take an example or two from the teaching of Latin.
This also is a subject which requires a great deal
of good teaching, and which most amply repays it.
For the boy who conquers Latin as it may and
ought to be conquered is almost sure to turn out
a clear-headed and ready-witted person, a good
speaker, and a man with all his facts and notions in
clear and lucid order; and he may be trusted to express
himself in English in a firm, compact, and adequate
16
style, the meaning and purpose of which go quick and
straight to the mind of the reader: that is, if Latin has
been rightly taught. For though the literature of the
Romans is not for a moment to be compared with
the rich and beautiful literature of Greece, the
amount of mental training—of training that endures
for a lifetime, and serves the literary man, the
lawyer, and the man of politics and affairs—to be
drawn from a thorough study of Latin, it would be
difficult to over-estimate.
Now the process of careful division, of thorough
analysis, of asking innumerable questions, of weaving
the new with the old, is capable of complete applica-
tion to the Latin language. The true teacher,
instead of asking his little pupil to sit down and
learn Felix puer (the lucky boy) by heart, will lead
him to the black-board, take his chalk in hand, build
it up before him, invite him to take it to pieces again,
and will then ask him between forty and fifty questions
on a set of forms that seem to give opportunity for
only twelve. In these questions he will go over every
point of similarity and of difference—for contrast and
for comparison; and the boy's attention will be
pleasantly and firmly fixed upon point after point in
due succession, so as to suggest to his mind a
method of examining and of learning a form like this
quite by himself.
A book it is generally convenient for the boy to
have ; but he ought to be trained to the right use of
the book. He ought not to be left to himself to
what is called “learn by heart” (a process in which
17
there is often little heart and less mind), numerous
strange and confused forms which his memory
perhaps retains in a certain order, but cannot deliver
them for use when the judgment wants them; but
he should be gently and firmly guided through these,
so that he may know what are the most important
parts on which to fix his attention, what are their
equivalents in English, and how he may learn by
heart, and learn to use, similar forms when he happens
to meet with them. Nothing seems easier than
learning a Latin adjective. But the little boy may
so learn it that it lies like an undigested lump in his
mind, an obstruction, and not a living aid; or he may
learn it so that every part of it is always at hand for
ready and quick use—a use in which the boy takes
as much pleasure as in the employment of his
muscles. In this diagram, which would be slowly
CONTRAST AND COMPARISON.
Singular.
bon-us bon-a
bon-e bon-a O !
bon-urn bon-ann (after a zerº)
bon-i bon-ae Of
bon-O bon-ae to
bon-O bon-à with
P/l/ra/.
bon-i bon-ae
bon-i bon-ae . O !
bon-Os bon-as (after a ſcrö)
bon-Orum bon-arum Of
bon-is bon-is to
bon-is bon-is with
built up upon the blackboard, the boy, by means of
clear questioning, would be shown when to use the
B
I 8
Latin word for a good man and a good woman, what
part of the word was always unchanged, what are the
s
Latin equivalents for the English prepositions, and
he would be gradually trained to give the Latin for
the English as easily and as quickly as the English
for the Latin. And scores of questions which he
will willingly and promptly answer, can be asked on
this small diagram. He should not be troubled at
first with the barbarous but necessary terms Nomi-
native, Vocative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, and
Aðlative. These would be very quickly and readily
picked up by degrees, as the time and occasion
called for them ; but it would be putting the cart
before the horse to introduce them at once.
I remember a curious instance of this blunder
in instruction. Three years ago a little boy, the
son of a member of the present Government,
was brought to me to be examined. I ques-
tioned him in Latin; and I found to my sur-
prise that he knew all his declensions, but that he
could not give the English words for the cases
he knew. Thus he knew that carðon is was the
genitive and carbon; the dative; but he did not
know that the one meant “of a coal,” and the other
“ to a coal.” He had learnt the names of the cases,
but was quite ignorant of their powers. He was
like a cook who should know the names of every
article in the whole batterie de cuisine, but had no
knowledge of the use to which each was put. Now
in teaching simple words like rosa, amóra, and penna,
about fifty questions can be put on the forms and
I 9
their meanings without bringing in the names of the
cases at all, names which can be learned as occasion
arises for them to be known. And if so learned,
when learned, they will be learned in such a way
that they can never be forgotten.
After the little boy has been provided with a
stock of Latin words, and a ready power of using
the inflections—in the course of which he can work
his way through a book like Dr. Smith's “Principia
Latina,”guided and helped over the ground by never-
ceasing questions, until his mental eye for details is
as sharp as a needle—he ought to have an easy
book for translation put into his hand. At this point,
it might be supposed that we had to bid adieu
to the black-board ; that the appeal was useless,
and that external sight could not help us any longer.
But the contrary is the case; the eye helps us as
much as ever, or more. For a Latin sentence is a
much more complex and troublesome machine than
an English sentence; it requires taking to pieces
more carefully and putting together again with more
skill. The little boy may very easily lose his way
among the clauses, and some of them are as difficult
to take as a five-barred gate ; and he has only a very
confused feeling of the meaning of the whole
sentence. But the black-board, which like a kind
fairy steps in to help him, comes to unravel the con-
fusion, and to make everything as plain, or plainer,
than an English sentence. On the black-board we
can draw a map of a sentence; every member falls
into its own place; and all becomes quite clear.
2O
We take a lesson from the art of war; we attack
every part in detail, easily force it to give up its
meaning, and then take full and triumphant posses-
sion of the whole sentence. Here is one from
Caesar, in which he explains that his base of opera-
tions, where he kept all his corn and provisions, was
the river Saône (Arar), that the Helvetii had struck
away from that river, that he was obliged to pursue
them, and that every day made it more and more
difficult for him to get up supplies. The first point
Poterat minus uti

eo frumento
- flumine navibus
Helvetii iter ab Arare averterant subvexerat
a.
discedere nolebat.
The dotted line represents a connection in thought; the single
line a conjunction (quod); and the double line a relative (in the
first case quod, in the second quibus). The mapping also shows
Why Caesar used minus, rather than mon; because the difficulty of
getting the corn increased every day with the increase of the
distance of the Helvetii from the river, which was his base of
Supplies. .
to which your attention may be called in this little
diagram is that every word in it, except the proper
names and the prepositions, is as much English
as it. is Latin; and that, if this set of facts is
judiciously handled, Latin can be learned all the
2 I
more easily and quickly. Now, in teaching this sen-
tence, we first of all get into the boy's head the
meaning of each of its parts, and he must be able to
give the Latin as promptly and as accurately as he
does the English, and then we bring the first two
parts together—repeat these ; then the first three and
repeat these ; then four; and lastly the whole sen-
tence. Now, if this is done patiently and judiciously,
the little boy gets an intimate, thorough, and work-
able notion of a Latin sentence; and he can easily
make more upon the model of it. Supposing a little
boy were to master only forty or sixty of them in
one year, so that he could use them, so that they
became part of his mental existence, what a gain
that would be | But he can do more—much more;
and without the smallest strain, without the usual
result of muddle and inaccuracy. Besides, he easily
learns the sentence by heart—by heart, that is with
heart and mind, and not with the mere empty
volitional memory.
But the careful teacher looks for, and is glad to
take, help from every quarter. If one device does
not succeed, he tries another. Like a patient
physician, he is not bigoted, he does not tie himself
to a nostrum ; but, honestly striving to do his best
for the case, he will not turn his back upon any
means. For example, he can find constant
help in increasing the boy's Latin vocabulary from
English and from French ; and it may sometimes
happen that light is thrown upon a Latin
habit or a Latin idiom by some turn or trick
22
of the French language. Latin gains much of
its emphasis by being entirely free to place its words
in any order it thinks best; and it also expresses
different shades of meaning by this change of order.
This comes out plainly enough in this diagram.
ORDER OF WORDS IN LATIN.
(1) Petrus monuit Paulum
Pierre a averti Paul
(2) Paulum Petrus Monuit
C'est Paul que Pierre a averti
(3) Monuit Petrus Paulum
Ce sont des - -
avertissements que Pierre a donnés à Paul.
Grammar, again, is usually thought a very difficult
and abstract subject. It is indeed worse; it is a
confusing, discouraging, and mind-destroying subject:
I mean, as it is usually taught. If, however, it is
taught at the right time and in the right way, it is a
great help to clear thinking, to accuracy, to sound
and reflective habits of mind; and it becomes a
ready key to the difficulties of foreign languages.
And it is wonderful how much the eye can help us
in making out the kinds of words (or, as they are
called, the parts of speech), and also in gaining a
practical notion of the build of a sentence. Here
isan example. It is plain from this that what is
called an adjective is simply a word that is always
found in the company of a noun; that a verb is a
telling word, which tells something about its noun;
and that prepositions are little joining words, which,
like nails and screws, join nouns to other nouns or
23
other words in the sentence. They have little or
no meaning of their own, but they are very useful
in tacking meaningful words together.
slowly
The walked
poor tº gº tº
old

I]]3. Ił
e e º º his youngest
SOIl
the banks
the river
To return to the main line of discussion, the best
teacher is the man who can break up a piece of
work into its smallest parts, ask the largest number
of questions about them, ask his pupils to take only
one step at a time, and increase the rapidity of these
steps by imperceptible and kindly degrees. Then
he gives time for frequent repetition, but for con-
stantly varied repetition, in which there is no mono-
tony for the pupil. He uses the largest number of
black-boards, and uses up a large amount of chalk.
He limits himself to a small area at one time, and
enables his pupils to gain thorough possession of
that ; then the area gradually grows; but, however
large it may grow, the pupil is always thoroughly at
home within it. He not only asks many questions,
but he asks every question that can be asked, until
the pupils have gained as firm, clear, accurate, and
rapid perception as he himself has. He does not
thrust the book on the little boy, but he prepares
him for the book and the book for him, so that he
24.
trains him how to learn, and inoculates him insen-
sibly with a method. He varies the matter which
the pupil has learnt to the uttermost, so that under
no possible angle is the pupil a stranger to it. If I
were to say that the good teacher used Znduction
and Classification, some people would be frightened ;
but when I say that Induction is merely hunting,
an appetite that is ingrained in every man, woman,
and child; and that Classification is merely putting
one's facts and notions in the best order, putting
like with like, every one will see at once that these
practices ought not to be kept out of the schoolroom,
but that the schoolroom is indeed the right place for
them. Then the good teacher makes his pupil use
his knowledge the moment he gets it, and use it in
as many ways as can possibly be invented; and this,
in fact, is almost equivalent to the production of
mind. Again, he makes a constant appeal to the
eye, and through it to the judgment. Tell me what
you see. Which of these are like 2 What is the
difference between this and that ? How many of
them are the same 2 What is the meaning of this 2
and of that 2 of the other 2 Then the good teacher
never tells his pupil anything, if he can avoid it;
but he trains him to look and to judge for himself.
The result of this is, that what a child observes for
himself he never forgets, provided he is set to use it
at once in different ways. It is perhaps not gene-
rally known that there are two kinds of memory—
the wil/-memory and the mind-memory. The wil/.
memory is a very weak instrument, but I am sorry
25
to say it is the instrument that is most trusted
in our present methods of instruction. The will-
memory simply takes a fact as a separate
fact, and says, “I will remember it;” and some-
times it does, and frequently it does not. The
mind - memory connects the fact or idea that it
wishes to remember with as many other facts as it
can ; and all of them help to support each other.
This connection we can easily think of as like a
spider's web, “which sends out threads in all direc-
tions, establishes connections with every part and
with the central point of the whole; and when the
mind has woven such a web around any object, it
can pass along any of the threads at pleasure, and
reach any given point in the whole system of facts
and notions.” Connection, comparison, contrast,
questioning—these are the good teacher's weapons.
But you may say, The teacher will in time become
bored by all this, he will suffer from a vast ennui
and gradually relax his efforts. But it is not so.
In the first place, it is his business, and a good
business man is just as fond of details as of the
whole. In the second place, it becomes an art; and
the teacher has as pure and intense a delight in
observing the dawn of mental power and interest
and eagerness in his pupils, as a painter has in dis-
covering the right colour for an effect he has to
produce. No true artist is ever tired, and both
painter and teacher can go on for ever adding touch
to touch, except that time and affairs must call them
away from the work they live in.
26
The good teacher, moreover, makes everything
grow before the eye of his pupil; he does not give
him a large mass to take in at one time, but makes
it gradually rise up before him, so that he is familiar
with every part and with the whole. He carefully
studies the night before all that is to be done with
his pupils next morning; he thinks out all the ques-
tions, he invents the different plans of presenting
the new matter, he settles how he is to join it on to
the old, he plans the campaign, he engineers the road
and makes it easy; and so his pupils do not fall over
stumbling-blocks or grow into habits of confusion
and inaccuracy. But it may be said, this will make
things too easy, and difficulty is a good mental
discipline. And so it is. But no one would present
a difficulty to a boy without suggesting to him a
method of overcoming it; and no one ever com-
plains of a dinner being too well-cooked, or of food
being too digestible. The difference is that the true
teacher does not make a thing easy for his pupil,
but he makes it easy with him.
The general aim of the good teacher is to put his
pupils into PERFECT POSSESSION of all they know or
attempt to do. . And if I am asked what I mean by
“perfect possession,” my reply is, “The power to use
upon the spot and to turn round in every possible way
the knowledge and the ideas that have been given.”
A soldier thoroughly drilled and trained does not
forget his knowledge upon the field of battle, rather
it comes into freer and intenser play; and so a pupil
who has been thoroughly taught and trained has had
27
his knowledge and his mental habitsslowly drilled into
his nervous system, and they have become a power
which is part of himself. The true question with
reference to all teaching is, does it add to the mental
strength of the boy P Now a clear idea given and
clearly perceived by the pupil always increases the
power of the mind (while it also adds to the health
of the body); and all unravelment of confusion, all
analysis of complex parts, helps us to clear ideas.
All large rocks are composed of the smallest shells,
and the greatest mental powers have been produced
by an infinite number of separate acts of attention.
It will have become plain to you by this time that
I am not advocating any new thing, but only that
best way which every thoughtful and sympathetic
teacher must take—must take, or find all his efforts
fail and come to nothing. I have simply been
writing in larger and plainer letters, and applying to
the case of little boys, what was said thirty years ago
about Dr. Arnold : “His whole method was founded
upon the principle of awakening the intellect of
every individual boy. Hence it was his practice to
teach by questioning. As a general rule, he never
gave information, except as a kind of reward for an
answer, and often withheld it altogether, or checked
himself in the very act of uttering it, from a sense
that those whom he was addressing had not sufficient
interest or sympathy to entitle them to receive it.
His explanations were as short as possible—enough
to dispose of the difficulty and no more ; and his
questions were of a kind to call the attention of the
28
boys to the real point of every subject, and to disclose
to them the exact boundaries of what he knew or did
not know.” Now the good teacher will give informa-
tion, but will always get his pupils' minds to play
upon it ; and if their interest flags, he will know how
to awaken it, unless, indeed, he sees that it arises
from physical fatigue. Yet Dr. Arnold's method was
thoroughly right in the main. With little boys, it
is of the greatest importance to have short lessons,
to vary the mental food, never to come near the
limits of fatigue or distaste—to give strength, and to
avoid strain—to have in the schoolroom an atmo-
sphere of perpetual intellectual cheerfulness and life.
That is like sunlight to plants.
Another point of the greatest importance is that
children should grow up with the habit of never
making a mistake. This habit can be cultivated like
any other habit; the sooner it is begun the better,
and it should be begun from the beginning. Lessons
for little boys should be so short at first that no mis-
takes need be made; and the repetition of the old
with the new, and the constant casting of both into
new forms, produces that intellectual sureness of foot
which is as valuable for the mind as simpleness and
integrity are for the soul. I believe that this habit
can be produced in every boy if it is begun in time.
And among the means for the production of it is to
be counted this mitrailleuse of questions to which I
have alluded. The play of questioning keeps off
inattention, fixes the mind on the right, keeps up
interest, and preserves the child's mind in a state of
29
bright polish and keen perception. And the reflex
moral action upon the feelings and general character
of the child who never makes a mistake it is difficult
to overvalue. -
I have had pupils who came to me with the habit
—the confirmed habit—of making numerous errors
on the smallest opportunity. In a few months they
were trained to notice the important points—the loop-
holes for blunder, and at last reached the triumphant
position of preparing their work or writing exercises
with no blunders in them whatever. But it would
have been very much better if they had begun so; it
would have been better, as it would have been easier,
to write fairly and plainly on a clean sheet of white
paper than to produce distinguishable marks on
a much bescribbled parchment palimpsest. The
simple school programme of Never one mistake is the
best intellectual position that a pupil can take up
This result of guiding straight and of keeping straight
is to be produced by my simple plans of constant
appeal to the eye by the black-board, and of constant
appeal to the mind by questioning. For thinking is
simply asking oneself a question ; and if the boy
cannot ask one for himself, he can have one asked
of him by the teacher, who thus really creates mind
within him. This of course does not shut out, but
merely precedes, the practice of making a connected
statement, which I always call on a boy to do after
he has all the facts and ideas in his head, and as a
final clinching process, he is set, if he is old enough,
to put it in writing.
3O
Infinite questioning, then, apt and varied question-
ing, questioning from every side, repetition, repeti-
tion without monotony, the constant use of the
black-board, the perpetual consumption of chalk—
these are the never-failing friends of the teacher and
his pupils. These gradually and slowly create a
method which can never die out of his mind, but is
his life-long companion.
It is necessary, with such pupils, to break up their
work into the smallest parts by careful analysis; to
question it into them and question it out of them;
to use their true memory very largely; to employ
unmonotonous repetition as an everyday instrument;
to appeal to the eye and hand as frequently as one
can; to excitethe pupil’s power of guessing andjudging
and thinking ; and to so use the best and most vital
parts of every good method that any power that
may be in him shall have a fair chance of develop-
ing itself and coming out into the light. Mental
muscle may be produced as physical muscle is
produced. Time is saved by the right method,
and there is clear gain; but there is this far greater
gain, that the boy has a method, can set to work with
it, and—when he really has it—generally sets to
work with a will.
It is the standing object of a good teacher to put
children in possession of their faculties, to give
them habits of clearness, accuracy, order, and neat-
ness; and in general to train them to do their best
—always their best—in whatever they put their
minds and hands to.
3 I
15, SAVILE ROW, LONDON,
3 uly 12th, 1879.
MY DEAR MR. BLAIR,
These methods and plans, which I have thus faintly
sketched out, will, I hope, be completely carried into practice
by you and Mr. Turner in your work in Orchard-street,
With your ability and experience, your hearts in your profes-
sion, and that union of great patience with vivacity and inventive-
ness which you possess, I look for a genuine success for your
pupils.
You tell me that you intend to work on my lines and to
carry out my methods, not in a slavish way, but in such a
manner as to secure the greatest good of the pupils that may be
entrusted to you ; and I cannot doubt that this helpful analysis,
this perpetual questioning, this pleasant incitement to think and
to observe—these and other things necessary to the spirit of the
method, will always enter largely into your practice. I, on my
part, will examine your pupils at the end of each term ; and in
this way there will, I think, be complete security that at every
point the best will be done that can be done for the kindly
training and clear-headed working of the little boys.
And I am, yours sincerely,
J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN.
To EDWARD BLAIR, Esq.