The History of Education Part 76

Then the problem I have to solve is this:--How to bring the elements of every art into harmony with the very nature of mind, by following the psychological mechanical laws by which mind rises from physical sense-impressions to clear ideas.

Largely out of these ideas and the new direction he gave to instruction the modern normal school for training teachers for the elementary schools arose.

ORAL AND OBJECTIVE TEACHING DEVELOPED. Up to the time of Pestalozzi, and for years after he had done his work, in many lands and places the instruction of children continued to be of the memorization of textbook matter and of the recitation type. The children learned what was down in the book, and recited the answers to the teacher. Many of the early textbooks were constructed on the plan of the older Catechism--that is, on a question and answer plan (R. 351 a). There was nothing for children to do but to memorize such textbook material, or for the teacher but to see that the pupils knew the answers to the questions. It was school-keeping, not teaching, that teachers were engaged in.

The form of instruction worked out by Pestalozzi, based on sense- perception, reasoning, and individual judgment, called for a complete change in cla.s.sroom procedure. What Pestalozzi tried most of all to do was to get children to use their senses and their minds, to look carefully, to count, to observe forms, to get, by means of their five important senses, clear impressions and ideas as to objects and life in the world about them, and then to think over what they had seen and be able to answer his questions, because they had observed carefully and reasoned clearly.

Pestalozzi thus clearly subordinated the printed book to the use of the child's senses, and the repet.i.tion of mere words to clear ideas about things. Pestalozzi thus became one of the first real teachers.

This was an entirely new process, and for the first time in history a real "technique of instruction" was now called for. Dependence on the words of the text could no longer be relied upon. The oral instruction of a cla.s.s group, using real objects, called for teaching skill. The cla.s.s must be kept naturally interested and under control; the essential elements to be taught must be kept clearly in the mind of the teacher; the teacher must raise the right kind of questions, in the right order, to carry the cla.s.s thinking along to the right conclusions; and, since so much of this type of instruction was not down in books, it called for a much more extended knowledge of the subject on the part of the teacher than the old type of school-keeping had done. The teacher must now both know and be able to organize and direct. Cla.s.s lessons must be thought out in advance, and teacher-preparation in itself meant a great change in teaching procedure.

Emanc.i.p.ated from dependence on the words of a text, and able to stand before a cla.s.s full of a subject and able to question freely, teachers became conscious of a new strength and a professional skill unknown in the days of textbook reciting. Out of such teaching came oral language lessons, drill in speech usage, elementary science instruction, observational geography, mental arithmetic, music, and drawing, to add to the old instruction in the Catechism, reading, writing, and ciphering, and all these new subjects, taught according to Pestalozzian ideas as to purpose, called for an individual technique of instruction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 224. THE FIRST MODERN NORMAL SCHOOL The old castle at Yverdon, where Pestalozzi's Inst.i.tute was conducted and his greatest success achieved.]

THE NORMAL SCHOOL FINDS ITS PLACE. These new ideas of Pestalozzi proved so important that during the first five or six decades of the nineteenth century the elementary school was made over. The new conception of the child as a slowly developing personality, demanding subject-matter and method suited to his stage of development, and the new conception of teaching as that of directing mental development instead of hearing recitations and "keeping school," now replaced the earlier knowledge- conception of school work. Where before the ability to organize and discipline a school had const.i.tuted the chief art of instruction, now the ability to teach scientifically took its place as the prime professional requisite. A "science and art" of teaching now arose; methodology soon became a great subject; the new subject of pedagogy began to take form and secure recognition; and psychology became the guiding science of the school.

As these changes took place, the normal school began to come into favor in the leading countries of Europe and in the United States, and in time has established itself everywhere as an important educational inst.i.tution.

Pestalozzi had himself conducted the first really modern teacher-training school, and his work was soon copied in a number of the Swiss cantons.

Other cantons, on the contrary, for a time would have nothing to do with the new idea.

1. _The German States._ The first nation, though, to take up the teacher- training idea and establish it as an important part of its state school system was Prussia. Beginning in 1809 with the work of Zeller (p. 569), by 1840 there were thirty-eight Teachers' Seminaries, as the normal schools in German lands have been called, in Prussia alone. The idea was also quickly taken up by the other German States, and from the first decade of the nineteenth century on no nation has done more with the normal school, or used it, ends desired considered, to better advantage than have the Germans. One of the features of the Prussian schools which most impressed Professor Bache, when he visited the schools of the German States in 1838, was the excellence of the Seminaries for Teachers (R. 344), and these he described (R. 345) in some detail in his Report. Horace Mann, similarly, on his visit to Europe, in 1843, was impressed with the thoroughness of the training given prospective teachers in the Teachers' Seminaries of the German States (R. 278). University pedagogical seminars were also established early (c. 1810) [3] in the universities, for the training of secondary teachers, and this training was continued with increasing thoroughness up to 1914. Every teacher in the German States, elementary or secondary, before that date, was a carefully-trained teacher. This was a feature of the German state school systems of the pre-War period of which no other nation could boast.

2. _France._ After the German States, France probably comes next as the nation in which the normal school has been most used for training teachers. The Superior Normal School had been recreated in 1808 (R. 283), and after the downfall of Napoleon the creation of normal schools for elementary-school teachers was begun. Twelve had been established by 1830, and between 1830 and 1833 thirty additional schools for training these teachers were begun (R. 285). These rendered a service for France (R. 346) quite similar to that rendered by the Teachers' Seminaries in German lands. During the period of reaction, from 1848 to 1870, the normal school did not prosper in France, but since 1870 a normal school to train elementary teachers has been established for men and one for women in each of the eighty-seven departments into which France, for administrative purposes, has been divided. Satisfactory provision has also been made for the training of teachers for the secondary schools.

3. _The United States._ The United States has also been prominent, especially since about 1870, in the development of normal schools for the training of elementary teachers. The Lancastrian schools had trained monitors for their work, but the first teacher-training school in the United States to give training to individual teachers was opened privately, [4] in 1823, and the second in a similar manner, [5] in 1827.

These were almost entirely academic inst.i.tutions, being in the nature of tuition high schools, with a little practice teaching and some lectures on the "Art of Teaching" added in the last year of the course. In 1826 Governor Clinton recommended to the legislature of New York the establishment by the State of "a seminary for the education of teachers in the monitorial system of instruction." Nothing coming of this, in 1827 he recommended the creation of "a central school in each county for the education of teachers" (R. 349). That year (1827) the New York legislature appropriated money to aid the academies "to promote the education of teachers"--the first state aid in the United States for teacher-training.

The publication of an English edition of Cousin's _Report_ (p. 597; R.

284) in New York, in 1835; Calvin E. Stowe's _Report on Elementary Education in Europe_, [6] in 1837; and Alexander D. Bache's _Report on Education in Europe_ (Rs. 344, 345), in 1838, with their strong commendations of the German teacher-training system, awakened new interest in the United States, in the matter of teacher-training. Finally, in 1839, the legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts duplicated a gift of $10,000, and placed the money in the hands of the newly created State Board of Education (p.

689) to be used "in qualifying teachers for the common schools of Ma.s.sachusetts" (R. 350 a). After careful consideration it was decided to create special state inst.i.tutions, after the German and French plans, in which to give the desired training, and the French term of Normal School was adopted and has since become general in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEACHER-TRAINING IN THE UNITED STATES BY 1860.

A few private training-schools also existed, though less than half a dozen in all.]

On July 3, 1839, the first state normal school in the United States opened in the town hall at Lexington, Ma.s.sachusetts, with one teacher and three students. Later that same year a second state normal school was opened at Barre, and early the next year a third at Bridgewater, both in Ma.s.sachusetts. For these the State Board of Education adopted a statement as to entrance requirements and a course of instruction (R. 350 b) which shows well the academic character of these early teaching inst.i.tutions.

Their success was largely due to the enthusiastic support given the new idea by Horace Mann. In an address at the dedication of the first building erected in America for normal-school purposes, in 1846, he expressed his deep belief as to the fundamental importance of such inst.i.tutions (R. 350 c). By 1860 eleven state normal schools had been established in eight of the States of the American Union, and six private schools were also rendering similar services. Closely related was the Teachers' Inst.i.tute, first definitely organized by Henry Barnard in Connecticut, in 1839, to offer four- to six-weeks summer courses for teachers in service, and these had been organized in fifteen of the American States by 1860. Since 1870 the establishment of state normal schools has been rapid in the United States, two hundred having been established by 1910, and many since. The United States, though, is as yet far from having a trained body of teachers for its elementary schools. For the high schools, it is only since about 1890 that the professional training of teachers for such service has really been begun.

4. _England._ In England the beginnings of teacher-training came with the introduction of monitorial instruction, both the Bell and the Lancaster Societies (p. 625) finding it necessary to train pupils for positions as monitors, and to designate certain schools as model and training schools.

In 1833, it will be remembered (p. 638), Parliament made its first grant of money in aid of education. Up to 1840 this was distributed through the two National Societies, and in 1839 a portion of this aid was definitely set aside to enable these Societies to establish model schools (R. 347).

From this beginning, the model training-schools for the different religious Societies were developed. In these model schools prospective teachers were educated, being trained in religious instruction and in the art of teaching. In 1836, with the founding of the "Home and Colonial Infant Society," a Pestalozzian Training College was founded by it.

In a further effort to secure trained teachers the government, in 1846, adopted a plan then in use in Holland, and inst.i.tuted what became known as the "pupil-teacher system" (R. 348). This was an improvement on the waning monitorial training system previously in use. Under this, a favorite old English method, used somewhat for the same purpose a century earlier (R.

243), was adapted to meet the new need.' Under it promising pupils were apprenticed to a head teacher for five years (usually from thirteen to eighteen), he agreeing to give them instruction in both secondary-school subjects and in the art of teaching in return for their help in the schoolroom. Beginning in 1846, there were, by 1848, 200 pupil teachers; by 1861, 13,871; and by 1870, 14,612. This system formed the great dependence of England before the days of national education. In 1874 the pupil- teacher-center system was begun, and between 1878 and 1896 the age for entering as a pupil-teacher was raised from thirteen to sixteen, and the years of apprentices.h.i.+p reduced from five to two. In most cases now the academic preparation continues to seventeen or eighteen, and is followed by one year of practice teaching in an elementary school, under supervision. After that the teacher may, or may not, enter what is there known as a Training-College. [7] So far the training of teachers has not made such headway in England and Wales as has been the case in the German States, France, the United States, or Scotland, but important progress may be expected in the near future as an outcome of new educational impulses arising as a result of the World War.

SPREAD OF THE NORMAL-SCHOOL IDEA. The movement for the creation of normal schools to train teachers for the elementary schools has in time spread to many nations. As nation after nation has awakened to the desirability of establis.h.i.+ng a system of modern-type state schools, a normal school to train leaders has often been among the first of the inst.i.tutions created.

The normal school, in consequence, is found to-day in all the continental European States; in all the English self-governing dominions; in nearly all the South American States; and in China, [8] j.a.pan, Siam, the Philippines, Cuba, Algiers, India, and other less important nations. In all these there is an attempt, often reaching as yet to but a small percentage of the teachers, to extend to them some of that training in the theory and art of instruction which has for long been so important a feature of the education of the elementary teacher in the German States, France, and the United States. Since about 1890 other nations have also begun to provide, as the German States and France have done for so long, some form of professional training for the teachers intended for their secondary schools [9] as well.

PSYCHOLOGY BECOMES THE MASTER SCIENCE. Everywhere the establishment of normal schools has meant the acceptance of the newer conceptions as to child development and the nature of the educational process. These are that the child is a slowly developing personality, needing careful study, and demanding subject-matter and method suited to his different stages of development. The new conception of teaching as that of directing and guiding the education of a child, instead of hearing recitations and "keeping school," in time replaced the earlier knowledge-conception of school work. Psychology accordingly became the guiding science of the school, and the imparting to prospective teachers proper ideas as to psychological procedure, and the proper methodology of instruction in each of the different elementary-school subjects, became the great work of the normal school. Teachers thus trained carried into the schools a new conception as to the nature of childhood; a new and a minute methodology of instruction; and a new enthusiasm for teaching;--all of which were important additions to school work.

A new methodology was soon worked out for all the subjects of instruction, both old and new. The centuries-old alphabet method of teaching reading was superseded by the word and sound methods; the new oral language instruction was raised to a position of first importance in developing pupil-thinking; spelling, word-a.n.a.lysis, and sentence-a.n.a.lysis were given much emphasis in the work of the school; the Pestalozzian mental arithmetic came as an important addition to the old ciphering of sums; the old writing from copies was changed into a drill subject, requiring careful teaching for its mastery; the "back to nature" ideas of Rousseau and Pestalozzi proved specially fruitful in the new study of geography, which called for observation out of doors, the study of type forms, and the subst.i.tution of the physical and human aspects of geography for the older political and statistical; object lessons on natural objects, and later science and nature study, were used to introduce children to a knowledge of nature and to train them in thinking and observation; while the new subjects of music and drawing came in, each with an elaborate technique of instruction.

By 1875 the normal school in all lands was finding plenty to do, and teaching, by the new methods and according to the new psychological procedure, seemed to many one of the most wonderful and most important occupations in the world. How great a change in the scope, as well as in the nature of elementary-school instruction had been effected in a century, the above diagram of American elementary-school development will reveal. History and literature, it will be noticed, had also come in as additional new subjects, but these were relatively unimportant in either the elementary school or the normal school until after the coming of Herbartian ideas, to which we shall refer a little further on.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 226. EVOLUTION OF THE ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL CURRICULUM AND OF METHODS OF TEACHING]

Accompanying the organization of professional instruction for teachers, another important change in the nature of the elementary school was effected.

THE GRADING OF SCHOOLROOM INSTRUCTION. For some time after elementary schools began it was common to teach all the children of the different ages together in one room, or at most in two rooms. In the latter case the subjects of instruction were divided between the teachers, rather than the children. [10] Many of the pictures of early elementary schools show such mixed-type schools. In these the children were advanced individually and by subjects as their progress warranted, [11] until they had progressed as far as the instruction went or the teacher could teach (R. 352). From this point on the division of the elementary school into cla.s.ses and a graded organization has proceeded by certain rather well-defined steps.

The first step (Rs. 353, 354) was the division of the school into two schools, one more advanced than the other, such as lower and higher, or primary and grammar. Another division was introduced when the Infant School was added, beneath. The next step was the division of each school into cla.s.ses. This began by the employment of a.s.sistant teachers, in England and America known as "ushers," to help the "master," and the provision of small recitation rooms, off the main large schoolroom, to which the usher could take his cla.s.s to hear recitations. The third and final step came with the erection of a new type of school building, with smaller and individual cla.s.srooms, or the subdivision of the larger schoolrooms. It was then possible to a.s.sign a teacher to each cla.s.sroom, sort and grade the pupils by ages and advancement, outline the instruction by years, and the modern graded elementary school was at hand.

The transition to the graded elementary school came easily and naturally.

For half a century the course of instruction in the evolving elementary state school had been in process of expansion. Pestalozzi paved the way for its creation by changing the purpose and direction, and greatly enlarging (p. 543) the field of instruction of the vernacular school.

After him other new subjects of study were added (see diagram, Figure 226), new and better and longer textbooks were prepared (R. 351), and the school term was gradually lengthened. The way in time became clear, earliest in the German lands and in a few American cities, but by about 1850 in most leading nations, for that simple reorganization of school work which would divide the school into a number of cla.s.ses, or forms, or grades, and give one to each teacher to handle. When this point had been reached, which came about 1850 to 1860 in most nations, but earlier in a few, the modern type of town or city graded elementary school was at hand.

Teaching had by this time become an organized and a psychological process; graded courses of study began to appear; professional school superintendents began to be given the direction and supervision of instruction; and the modern science of school organization and administration began to take shape. From this point on the further development of the graded elementary public school has come through the addition of new materials of instruction, and by changing the direction of the school to adapt it better to meeting the new needs of society brought about by the scientific, industrial, social, and political revolutions which we, in previous chapters, have described. A few of the more important of these additions and changes in direction we shall now briefly describe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 227. AN "USHER" AND HIS CLa.s.s.

The usher, or a.s.sistant teacher, is here shown with a cla.s.s in one of the small recitation-rooms, off the large schoolroom.]

II. NEW IDEAS FROM HERBARTIAN SOURCES

THE WORK OF HERBART. Taking up the problem as Pestalozzi left it, a German by the name of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) carried it forward by organizing a truer psychology for the whole educational process, by erecting a new social aim for instruction, by formulating new steps in method, and by showing the place and the importance of properly organized instruction in history and literature in the education of the child.

Though the two men were entirely different in type, and worked along entirely different lines, the connection between Herbart and Pestalozzi was, nevertheless, close. [12]

The two men, however, approached the educational problem from entirely different angles. Pestalozzi gave nearly all his long life to teaching and human service, while Herbart taught only as a traveling private tutor for three years, and later a cla.s.s of twenty children in his university practice school. Pestalozzi was a social reformer, a visionary, and an impractical enthusiast, but was possessed of a remarkable intuitive insight into child nature. Herbart, on the other hand, was a well-trained scholarly thinker, who spent the most of his life in the peaceful occupation of a professor of philosophy in a German university. [13] It was while at Konigsberg, between 1810 and 1832, and as an appendix to his work as professor of philosophy, that he organized a small practice school, conducted a Pedagogical Seminar, and worked out his educational theory and method. His work was a careful, scholarly attempt at the organization of education as a science, carried out amid the peace and quiet which a university atmosphere almost alone affords. He addressed himself chiefly to three things: (1) the aim, (2) the content, and (3) the method of instruction.

THE AIM AND THE CONTENT OF EDUCATION. Locke had set up as the aim of education the ideal of a physically sound gentleman. Rousseau had declared his aim to be to prepare his boy for life by developing naturally his inborn capacities. Pestalozzi had sought to regenerate society by means of education, and to prepare children for society by a "harmonious training"

of their "faculties." Herbart rejected alike the conventional-social education of Locke, the natural and unsocial education of Rousseau, and the "faculty-psychology" conception of education of Pestalozzi. Instead he conceived of the mind as a unity, instead of being divided into "faculties," and the aim of education as broadly social rather than personal. The purpose of education, he said, was to prepare men to live properly in organized society, and hence the chief aim in education was not conventional fitness, natural development, mere knowledge, nor personal mental power, but personal character and social morality. This being the case, the educator should a.n.a.lyze the interests and occupations and social responsibilities of men as they are grouped in organized society, and, from such a.n.a.lyses, deduce the means and the method of instruction. Man's interests, he said, come from two main sources--his contact with the things in his environment (real things, sense- impressions), and from his relations with human beings (social intercourse). His social responsibilities and duties are determined by the nature of the social organization of which he forms a part.

Pestalozzi had provided fairly well for the first group of contacts, through his instruction in objects, home geography, numbers, and geometric form. For the second group of contacts Pestalozzi had developed only oral language, and to this Herbart now added the two important studies of literature and history, and history with the emphasis on the social rather than the political side. Two new elementary-school subjects were thus developed, each important in revealing to man his place in the social whole. History in particular Herbart conceived to be a study of the first importance for revealing proper human relations.h.i.+ps, and leading men to social and national "good-will."

The chief purpose of education Herbart held to be to develop personal character and to prepare for social usefulness (R. 355). These virtues, he held, proceeded from enough of the right kind of knowledge, properly interpreted to the pupil so that clear ideas as to relations.h.i.+ps might be formed. To impart this knowledge interest must be awakened, and to arouse interest in the many kinds of knowledge needed, a "many-sided" development must take place. From full knowledge, and with proper instruction by the teacher, clear ideas or concepts might be formed, and clear ideas ought to lead to right action, and right action to personal character--the aim of all instruction. Herbart was the first writer on education to place the great emphasis on proper instruction, and to exalt teaching and proper teaching-procedure instead of mere knowledge or intellectual discipline.

He thus conceived of the educational process as a science in itself, having a definite content and method, and worthy of special study by those who desire to teach.

HERBARTIAN METHOD. With these ideas as to the aim and content of instruction, Herbart worked out a theory of the instructional process and a method of instruction (R. 356). Interest he held to be of first importance as a prerequisite to good instruction. If given spontaneously, well and good; but, if necessary, forced interest must be resorted to.

Skill in instruction is in part to be determined by the ability of the teacher to secure interest without resorting to force on the one hand or sugar-coating of the subject on the other. Taking Pestalozzi's idea that the purpose of the teacher was to give pupils new experiences through contacts with real things, without a.s.suming that the pupils already had such, Herbart elaborated the process by which new knowledge is a.s.similated in terms of what one already knows, and from his elaboration of this principle the doctrine of apperception--that is, the apperceiving or comprehending of new knowledge in terms of the old--has been fixed as an important principle in educational psychology. Good instruction, then, involves first putting the child into a proper frame of mind to apperceive the new knowledge, and hence this becomes a corner-stone of all good teaching method.

Herbart did not always rely on such methods, holding that the "committing to memory" of certain necessary facts often was necessary, but he held that the mere memorizing of isolated facts, which had characterized school instruction for ages, had little value for either educational or moral ends. The teaching of mere facts often was very necessary, but such instruction called for a methodical organization of the facts by the teacher, so as to make their learning contribute to some definite purpose.

This called for a purpose in instruction; the organization of the facts necessary to be taught so as to select the most useful ones; the connection of these so as to establish the principle which was the purpose of the instruction; and training in systematic thinking by applying the principle to new problems of the type being studied. The carrying-out of such ideas meant the careful organization of the teaching process and teaching method, to secure certain predetermined ends in child development, instead of mere miscellaneous memorizing and school-keeping.

THE HERBARTIAN MOVEMENT IN GERMANY. Herbart died in 1841, without having awakened any general interest in his ideas, and they remained virtually unnoticed until 1865. In that year a professor at Leipzig, Tuiskon Ziller (1817-1883), published a book setting forth Herbart's idea of instruction as a moral force. This attracted much attention, and led to the formation (1868) of a scientific society for the study of Herbart's ideas. Ziller and his followers now elaborated Herbart's ideas, advanced the theory of culture-epochs in child development, the theory of concentration in studies, and elaborated the four steps in the process of instruction, as described by Herbart, into the five formal steps of the modern Herbartian school.

In 1874 a pedagogical seminary and practice school was organized at the University of Jena, and in 1885 this came under the direction of Professor William Rein, a pupil of Ziller's, who developed the practice school according to the ideas of Ziller. A detailed course of study for this school, filling two large volumes, was worked out, and the practice lessons given were thoroughly planned beforehand and the methods employed were subjected to a searching a.n.a.lysis after the lesson had been given.

HERBARTIAN IDEAS IN THE UNITED STATES. For a time, under the inspiration of Ziller and Rein, Jena became an educational center to which students went from many lands. From the work at Jena Herbartian ideas have spread which have modified elementary educational procedure generally. In particular did the work at Jena make a deep impression in the United States. Between 1885 and 1890 a number of Americans studied at Jena and, returning, brought back to the United States this Ziller-Rein-Jena brand of Herbartian ideas and practices. [14] From the first the new ideas met with enthusiastic approval.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 18. TWO LEADERS IN THE REORGANIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY