The Children: Some Educational Problems | Page 9

bond of connection between one part of knowledge and the other is extrinsic, and whenever facts are connected and remembered by bonds of a more or less accidental or factitious nature. And since such knowledge can further no direct interest or end in life, its acquisition must, as a rule, be motived by some strong indirect interest. As a consequence, whenever the indirect interest, whatever its nature may be,--the fear of punishment, or the passing of an examination,--ceases to operate, then the desire for further acquisition also ceases. Hence it follows that the establishment of any such system is of comparatively little value. It may pave the way at a later period for the formation of a system of intrinsically connected knowledge, but as a general rule such systems, because they cannot be used, tend soon to drop out of mind, and to be of no further consequence in the determination of conduct. But further, this misuse of reason, this inciting of the mind to memorise facts unrelated except by their mere accidental time or space relations, will if persisted in tend to render the individual dull, stupid, and unimaginative.
The systems of knowledge, then, of most value are those which establish intrinsic connections between part and part; for it is only by means of systems of this character that action can be determined and knowledge extended. In this sense we may agree with Herbert Spencer[5] that science or systematised knowledge is of chiefest value both for the guidance of conduct and for the discipline of mind. At the same time we must not fall into the Spencerian error of identifying science "with the study of surrounding phenomena," and in making the antithesis between science and linguistic studies one between dealing with real things on the one hand, and mere words on the other.
Further, since the establishment of a system of means is always through the self-finding and the self-forming of the system, this furnishes the key to the only sound method of education--viz., that the child must be trained in the self-discovering and the self-connecting of knowledge. This does not mean that the method should be heuristic in Rousseau's sense, that the child should be told nothing, but be left to rediscover all knowledge for himself. But it does mean that in the imparting of the garnered experience of the race the child must be trained in the methods by which the race has slowly and gradually built up a knowledge of the means necessary for the realisation of the many and complex ends of civilised life.
Before passing on to consider the ends at which we should aim in the education of the child, it may be well briefly to summarise the conclusions reached.
1. Man is distinguished from the rest of creation by the possession of reason: the animal life is mainly or wholly guided by instinct.
2. Man like the animals possesses instincts or instinctive tendencies, but for their realisation he must seek out and establish systems of means for their attainment. Bereft of these instinctive tendencies of his nature, man would have no incentive to acquire experiences for the more efficient guidance of his future conduct.
3. In the course of the development and extension of experience there gradually becomes grafted upon these innate instincts, interests or ends of an acquired nature, and one of the main functions of education is to create, foster, and establish on a permanent and stable basis, interests of ethical and social worth.
4. The power of reason is no occult power: it is simply the capacity for finding and establishing systems of means for the attainment of ends; or it may be defined as the power of acquiring experience and of self-applying this experience in the future guidance of conduct.
5. The evolution of intelligence in man is the evolution of this reason-activity to the attainment of new and more complex theoretical and practical ends or interests. At an early stage the systems of knowledge established are for the attainment of the relatively simple needs of life, and are composed of perceptual and imagined elements. At a later stage the systems formed may be of the most complex nature, and are composed of conceptual elements.
6. Man is the only being capable of education in the strict usage of the term. He alone must acquire the means for the realisation of the various desired ends of life.
7. The process of education is a process which, utilising as motives to acquirement the instinctive tendencies of the child's nature, seeks to establish systems of means for their realisation, and upon these innate or inborn instincts to graft acquired ends or interests which shall hereafter function in the attainment of ends of economic, ethical, and social worth.
8. The only truly educative method is the method which trains the pupil to