How We Think Part 16

[Sidenote: The value of technical terms]

Terms used with intentional exactness so as to express a meaning, the whole meaning, and only the meaning, are called _technical_. For educational purposes, a technical term indicates something relative, not absolute; for a term is technical not because of its verbal form or its unusualness, but because it is employed to fix a meaning precisely.

Ordinary words get a technical quality when used intentionally for this end. Whenever thought becomes more accurate, a (relatively) technical vocabulary grows up. Teachers are apt to oscillate between extremes in regard to technical terms. On the one hand, these are multiplied in every direction, seemingly on the a.s.sumption that learning a new piece of terminology, accompanied by verbal description or definition, is equivalent to grasping a new idea. When it is seen how largely the net outcome is the acc.u.mulation of an isolated set of words, a jargon or scholastic cant, and to what extent the natural power of judgment is clogged by this acc.u.mulation, there is a reaction to the opposite extreme. Technical terms are banished: "name words" exist but not nouns; "action words" but not verbs; pupils may "take away," but not subtract; they may tell what four fives are, but not what four times five are, and so on. A sound instinct underlies this reaction--aversion to words that give the pretense, but not the reality, of meaning. Yet the fundamental difficulty is not with the word, but with the idea. If the idea is not grasped, nothing is gained by using a more familiar word; if the idea is perceived, the use of the term that exactly names it may a.s.sist in fixing the idea. Terms denoting highly exact meanings should be introduced only sparingly, that is, a few at a time; they should be led up to gradually, and great pains should be taken to secure the circ.u.mstances that render precision of meaning significant.

[Sidenote: Importance of consecutive discourse]

(_iii_) Consecutive discourse. As we saw, language connects and organizes meanings as well as selects and fixes them. As every meaning is set in the context of some situation, so every word in concrete use belongs to some sentence (it may itself represent a condensed sentence), and the sentence, in turn, belongs to some larger story, description, or reasoning process. It is unnecessary to repeat what has been said about the importance of continuity and ordering of meanings. We may, however, note some ways in which school practices tend to interrupt consecutiveness of language and thereby interfere harmfully with systematic reflection. (_a_) Teachers have a habit of monopolizing continued discourse. Many, if not most, instructors would be surprised if informed at the end of the day of the amount of time they have talked as compared with any pupil. Children's conversation is often confined to answering questions in brief phrases, or in single disconnected sentences. Expatiation and explanation are reserved for the teacher, who often admits any hint at an answer on the part of the pupil, and then amplifies what he supposes the child must have meant. The habits of sporadic and fragmentary discourse thus promoted have inevitably a disintegrating intellectual influence.

[Sidenote: Too minute questioning]

(_b_) a.s.signment of too short lessons when accompanied (as it usually is in order to pa.s.s the time of the recitation period) by minute "a.n.a.lytic"

questioning has the same effect. This evil is usually at its height in such subjects as history and literature, where not infrequently the material is so minutely subdivided as to break up the unity of meaning belonging to a given portion of the matter, to destroy perspective, and in effect to reduce the whole topic to an acc.u.mulation of disconnected details all upon the same level. More often than the teacher is aware, _his_ mind carries and supplies the background of unity of meaning against which pupils project isolated sc.r.a.ps.

[Sidenote: Making avoidance of error the aim]

(_c_) Insistence upon avoiding error instead of attaining power tends also to interruption of continuous discourse and thought. Children who begin with something to say and with intellectual eagerness to say it are sometimes made so conscious of minor errors in substance and form that the energy that should go into constructive thinking is diverted into anxiety not to make mistakes, and even, in extreme cases, into pa.s.sive quiescence as the best method of minimizing error. This tendency is especially marked in connection with the writing of compositions, essays, and themes. It has even been gravely recommended that little children should always write on trivial subjects and in short sentences because in that way they are less likely to make mistakes, while the teaching of writing to high school and college students occasionally reduces itself to a technique for detecting and designating mistakes.

The resulting self-consciousness and constraint are only part of the evil that comes from a negative ideal.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

OBSERVATION AND INFORMATION IN THE TRAINING OF MIND

[Sidenote: No thinking without acquaintance with facts]

Thinking is an ordering of subject-matter with reference to discovering what it signifies or indicates. Thinking no more exists apart from this arranging of subject-matter than digestion occurs apart from the a.s.similating of food. The way in which the subject-matter is furnished marks, therefore, a fundamental point. If the subject-matter is provided in too scanty or too profuse fas.h.i.+on, if it comes in disordered array or in isolated sc.r.a.ps, the effect upon habits of thought is detrimental. If personal observation and communication of information by others (whether in books or speech) are rightly conducted, half the logical battle is won, for they are the channels of obtaining subject-matter.

-- 1. _The Nature and Value of Observation_

[Sidenote: Fallacy of making "facts" an end in themselves]

The protest, mentioned in the last chapter, of educational reformers against the exaggerated and false use of language, insisted upon personal and direct observation as the proper alternative course. The reformers felt that the current emphasis upon the linguistic factor eliminated all opportunity for first-hand acquaintance with real things; hence they appealed to sense-perception to fill the gap. It is not surprising that this enthusiastic zeal failed frequently to ask how and why observation is educative, and hence fell into the error of making observation an end in itself and was satisfied with any kind of material under any kind of conditions. Such isolation of observation is still manifested in the statement that this faculty develops first, then that of memory and imagination, and finally the faculty of thought. From this point of view, observation is regarded as furnis.h.i.+ng crude ma.s.ses of raw material, to which, later on, reflective processes may be applied. Our previous pages should have made obvious the fallacy of this point of view by bringing out the fact that simple concrete thinking attends all our intercourse with things which is not on a purely physical level.

[Sidenote: The sympathetic motive in extending acquaintance]

I. All persons have a natural desire--akin to curiosity--for a widening of their range of acquaintance with persons and things. The sign in art galleries that forbids the carrying of canes and umbrellas is obvious testimony to the fact that simply to see is not enough for many people; there is a feeling of lack of acquaintance until some direct contact is made. This demand for fuller and closer knowledge is quite different from any conscious interest in observation for its own sake. Desire for expansion, for "self-realization," is its motive. The interest is sympathetic, socially and aesthetically sympathetic, rather than cognitive. While the interest is especially keen in children (because their actual experience is so small and their possible experience so large), it still characterizes adults when routine has not blunted its edge. This sympathetic interest provides the medium for carrying and binding together what would otherwise be a mult.i.tude of items, diverse, disconnected, and of no intellectual use. These systems are indeed social and aesthetic rather than consciously intellectual; but they provide the natural medium for more conscious intellectual explorations.

Some educators have recommended that nature study in the elementary schools be conducted with a love of nature and a cultivation of aesthetic appreciation in view rather than in a purely a.n.a.lytic spirit. Others have urged making much of the care of animals and plants. Both of these important recommendations have grown out of experience, not out of theory, but they afford excellent exemplifications of the theoretic point just made.

[Sidenote: a.n.a.lytic inspection for the sake of doing]

[Sidenote: Direct and indirect sense training]

II. In normal development, specific a.n.a.lytic observations are originally connected almost exclusively with the imperative need for noting means and ends in carrying on activities. When one is _doing_ something, one is compelled, if the work is to succeed (unless it is purely routine), to use eyes, ears, and sense of touch as guides to action. Without a constant and alert exercise of the senses, not even plays and games can go on; in any form of work, materials, obstacles, appliances, failures, and successes, must be intently watched. Sense-perception does not occur for its own sake or for purposes of training, but because it is an indispensable factor of success in doing what one is interested in doing. Although not designed for sense-training, this method effects sense-training in the most economical and thoroughgoing way. Various schemes have been designed by teachers for cultivating sharp and prompt observation of forms, as by writing words,--even in an unknown language,--making arrangements of figures and geometrical forms, and having pupils reproduce them after a momentary glance. Children often attain great skill in quick seeing and full reproducing of even complicated meaningless combinations. But such methods of training--however valuable as occasional games and diversions--compare very unfavorably with the training of eye and hand that comes as an incident of work with tools in wood or metals, or of gardening, cooking, or the care of animals. Training by isolated exercises leaves no deposit, leads nowhere; and even the technical skill acquired has little radiating power, or transferable value. Criticisms made upon the training of observation on the ground that many persons cannot correctly reproduce the forms and arrangement of the figures on the face of their watches misses the point because persons do not look at a watch to find out whether four o'clock is indicated by IIII or by IV, but to find out what time it is, and, if observation decides this matter, noting other details is irrelevant and a waste of time. In the training of observation the question of end and motive is all-important.

[Sidenote: Scientific observations are linked to problems]

[Sidenote: "Object-lessons" rarely supply problems]

III. The further, more intellectual or scientific, development of observation follows the line of the growth of practical into theoretical reflection already traced (_ante_, Chapter Ten). As problems emerge and are dwelt upon, observation is directed less to the facts that bear upon a practical aim and more upon what bears upon a problem as such. What makes observations in schools often intellectually ineffective is (more than anything else) that they are carried on independently of a sense of a problem that they serve to define or help to solve. The evil of this isolation is seen through the entire educational system, from the kindergarten, through the elementary and high schools, to the college.

Almost everywhere may be found, at some time, recourse to observations as if they were of complete and final value in themselves, instead of the means of getting material that bears upon some difficulty and its solution. In the kindergarten are heaped up observations regarding geometrical forms, lines, surfaces, cubes, colors, and so on. In the elementary school, under the name of "object-lessons," the form and properties of objects,--apple, orange, chalk,--selected almost at random, are minutely noted, while under the name of "nature study"

similar observations are directed upon leaves, stones, insects, selected in almost equally arbitrary fas.h.i.+on. In high school and college, laboratory and microscopic observations are carried on as if the acc.u.mulation of observed facts and the acquisition of skill in manipulation were educational ends in themselves.

Compare with these methods of isolated observations the statement of Jevons that observation as conducted by scientific men is effective "only when excited and guided by hope of verifying a theory"; and again, "the number of things which can be observed and experimented upon are infinite, and if we merely set to work to record facts without any distinct purpose, our records will have no value." Strictly speaking, the first statement of Jevons is too narrow. Scientific men inst.i.tute observations not merely to test an idea (or suggested explanatory meaning), but also to locate the nature of a problem and thereby guide the formation of a hypothesis. But the principle of his remark, namely, that scientific men never make the acc.u.mulation of observations an end in itself, but always a means to a general intellectual conclusion, is absolutely sound. Until the force of this principle is adequately recognized in education, observation will be largely a matter of uninteresting dead work or of acquiring forms of technical skill that are not available as intellectual resources.

-- 2. _Methods and Materials of Observation in the Schools_ The best methods in use in our schools furnish many suggestions for giving observation its right place in mental training.

[Sidenote: Observation should involve discovery]

I. They rest upon the sound a.s.sumption that observation is an _active_ process. Observation is exploration, inquiry for the sake of discovering something previously hidden and unknown, this something being needed in order to reach some end, practical or theoretical. Observation is to be discriminated from recognition, or perception of what is familiar. The identification of something already understood is, indeed, an indispensable function of further investigation (_ante_, p. 119); but it is relatively automatic and pa.s.sive, while observation proper is searching and deliberate. Recognition refers to the already mastered; observation is concerned with mastering the unknown. The common notions that perception is like writing on a blank piece of paper, or like impressing an image on the mind as a seal is imprinted on wax or as a picture is formed on a photographic plate (notions that have played a disastrous role in educational methods), arise from a failure to distinguish between automatic recognition and the searching att.i.tude of genuine observation.

[Sidenote: and suspense during an unfolding change]

II. Much a.s.sistance in the selection of appropriate material for observation may be derived from considering the eagerness and closeness of observation that attend the following of a story or drama. Alertness of observation is at its height wherever there is "plot interest." Why?

Because of the balanced combination of the old and the new, of the familiar and the unexpected. We hang on the lips of the story-teller because of the element of mental suspense. Alternatives are suggested, but are left ambiguous, so that our whole being questions: What befell next? Which way did things turn out? Contrast the ease and fullness with which a child notes all the salient traits of a story, with the labor and inadequacy of his observation of some dead and static thing where nothing raises a question or suggests alternative outcomes.

[Sidenote: This "plot interest" manifested in activity,]

When an individual is engaged in doing or making something (the activity not being of such a mechanical and habitual character that its outcome is a.s.sured), there is an a.n.a.logous situation. Something is going to come of what is present to the sense, but just what is doubtful. The plot is unfolding toward success or failure, but just when or how is uncertain.

Hence the keen and tense observation of conditions and results that attends constructive manual operations. Where the subject-matter is of a more impersonal sort, the same principle of movement toward a denouement may apply. It is a commonplace that what is moving attracts notice when that which is at rest escapes it. Yet too often it would almost seem as if pains had been taken to deprive the material of school observations of all life and dramatic quality, to reduce it to a dead and inert form.

Mere change is not enough, however. Vicissitude, alteration, motion, excite observation; but if they merely excite it, there is no thought.

The changes must (like the incidents of a well-arranged story or plot) take place in a certain c.u.mulative order; each successive change must at once remind us of its predecessor and arouse interest in its successor if observations of change are to be logically fruitful.

[Sidenote: and in cycles of growth]

Living beings, plants, and animals, fulfill the twofold requirement to an extraordinary degree. Where there is growth, there is motion, change, process; and there is also arrangement of the changes in a cycle. The first arouses, the second organizes, observation. Much of the extraordinary interest that children take in planting seeds and watching the stages of their growth is due to the fact that a drama is enacting before their eyes; there is something doing, each step of which is important in the destiny of the plant. The great practical improvements that have occurred of late years in the teaching of botany and zoology will be found, upon inspection, to involve treating plants and animals as beings that act, that do something, instead of as mere inert specimens having static properties to be inventoried, named, and registered. Treated in the latter fas.h.i.+on, observation is inevitably reduced to the falsely "a.n.a.lytic" (_ante_, p. 112),--to mere dissection and enumeration.

[Sidenote: Observation of structure grows out of noting function]

There is, of course, a place, and an important place, for observation of the mere static qualities of objects. When, however, the primary interest is in _function_, in what the object does, there is a motive for more minute a.n.a.lytic study, for the observation of _structure_.

Interest in noting an activity pa.s.ses insensibly into noting how the activity is carried on; the interest in what is accomplished pa.s.ses over into an interest in the organs of its accomplis.h.i.+ng. But when the beginning is made with the morphological, the anatomical, the noting of peculiarities of form, size, color, and distribution of parts, the material is so cut off from significance as to be dead and dull. It is as natural for children to look intently for the _stomata_ of a plant after they have become interested in its function of breathing, as it is repulsive to attend minutely to them when they are considered as isolated peculiarities of structure.

[Sidenote: Scientific observation]

III. As the center of interest of observations becomes less personal, less a matter of means for effecting one's own ends, and less aesthetic, less a matter of contribution of parts to a total emotional effect, observation becomes more consciously intellectual in quality. Pupils learn to observe for the sake (_i_) of finding out what sort of perplexity confronts them; (_ii_) of inferring hypothetical explanations for the puzzling features that observation reveals; and (_iii_) of testing the ideas thus suggested.

[Sidenote: should be extensive]

[Sidenote: and intensive]

In short, observation becomes scientific in nature. Of such observations it may be said that they should follow a rhythm between the extensive and the intensive. Problems become definite, and suggested explanations significant by a certain alternation between a wide and somewhat loose soaking in of relevant facts and a minutely accurate study of a few selected facts. The wider, less exact observation is necessary to give the student a feeling for the reality of the field of inquiry, a sense of its bearings and possibilities, and to store his mind with materials that imagination may transform into suggestions. The intensive study is necessary for limiting the problem, and for securing the conditions of experimental testing. As the latter by itself is too specialized and technical to arouse intellectual growth, the former by itself is too superficial and scattering for control of intellectual development. In the sciences of life, field study, excursions, acquaintance with living things in their natural habitats, may alternate with microscopic and laboratory observation. In the physical sciences, phenomena of light, of heat, of electricity, of moisture, of gravity, in their broad setting in nature--their physiographic setting--should prepare for an exact study of selected facts under conditions of laboratory control. In this way, the student gets the benefit of technical scientific methods of discovery and testing, while he retains his sense of the ident.i.ty of the laboratory modes of energy with large out-of-door realities, thereby avoiding the impression (that so often accrues) that the facts studied are peculiar to the laboratory.

-- 3. _Communication of Information_