The Elements of General Method
C >> Charles A. McMurry >> The Elements of General MethodThere is a growing conviction among teachers that we need a closer
_articulation_ of studies with one another. The expansion of the
school course over new fields of knowledge and the multiplication of
studies already discussed compels us to seek for a simplification of
the course. A hundred years ago, yes, even fifty years ago, it was
thought that the extension of our territory and government to the
present limits would be impossible. It was plainly stated that one
government could never hold together people so widely separated. Mr.
Fiske says: (The Critical Period of Am. Hist., p. 60) "Even with all
other conditions favorable, it is doubtful if the American Union could
have been preserved to the present time without the railroad.
Railroads and telegraphs have made our vast country, both for political
and for social purposes, more snug and compact than little Switzerland
was in the middle ages or New England a century ago." The analogy
between the realm of government and of knowledge is not at all complete
but it suggests at least the change which is imperatively called for in
education. In education as well as in commerce there must be trunk
lines of thought which bring the will as monarch of the mind into close
communication with all the resources of knowledge and experience.
Indeed in the mind of a child or of an adult there is much stronger
necessity for centralization than in the government and commerce of a
country. The will should be an undisputed monarch of the whole mental
life. It is the one center where all lines of communication meet.
London is not so perfect a center for the commerce and finance of
England as is the conscious _ego_ (smaller than a needle's point) for
all its forms of experience.
Besides the central trunk lines of knowledge in history and natural
science there are branches of study which are _tributary_ to them,
which serve also as connecting chains between more important subjects.
Reading, for instance, is largely a relative study. Not only is the
art of reading merely a preparation for a better appreciation of
history, geography, arithmetic, etc., but even the subject-matter of
reading lessons is now made largely tributary to other studies. The
supplementary readers consist exclusively of interesting matter bearing
upon geography, history, and natural science. It is a fact that
reading is becoming more and more a relative study, and selections are
regularly made to bear on other school work. Geography especially
serves to establish a network of connections between other kinds of
knowledge. It is a very important supplement to history. In fact
history cannot dispense with its help. Geography lessons are full of
natural science, as with plants, animals, rocks, climate, inventions,
machines, and races. Indeed there are few if any school studies which
should not be brought into close and important relations to geography.
Again the more important historical and scientific branches not only
receive valuable aid from the tributary studies but they abundantly
supply such aid in return. Language lessons should receive all their
subject-matter from history and natural science. While the language
lessons are working up such rich and interesting materials for purposes
of oral and written language, the more important branches are also
illustrated and enriched by the new historical and scientific subjects
thus incidentally treated.
An examination of these mutual relations and courtesies between studies
may discover to us the fact that we are now unconsciously or
thoughtlessly _duplicating_ the work of education to a surprising
extent. For example, by isolating language lessons and cutting them
off from communication with history, geography, and natural science, we
make a double or triple series of lessons necessary where a single
series would answer the purpose. Moreover, by excluding an interesting
subject-matter derived from other studies, the interest and mental life
awakened by language lessons are reduced to a minimum. Interest is not
only awakened by well selected matter taken from other branches but the
relationships themselves between studies, whether of cause and effect
as between history and geography, or of resemblance as between the
classifications in botany and grammar--the relations themselves are
matters of unusual interest to children.
Many teachers have begun to realize in some degree the value of these
relations, their effect in enlivening studies, and the better
articulation of all kinds of knowledge in the mind. But as yet all
attempts among us to properly relate studies are but weak and
ineffective approaches toward the solution of the great problem of
concentration. The links that now bind studies together in our work
are largely accidental and no great stress has been laid upon their
value, but if concentration is grappled with in earnest it involves
_relations at every step_. Not only are the principal and tributary
branches of knowledge brought into proper conjunction, but there is
constant forethought and afterthought to bring each new topic into the
company of its kindred, near and remote. The mastery of any topic or
subject is not clear and satisfactory till the grappling hooks that
bind it to the other kinds of knowledge are securely fastened.
Concentration on a large scale and with consistent thoroughness has
been attempted in recent years by the scholars and teachers of the
_Herbart school_. It is based upon moral character as the highest aim,
and upon a correlation of studies which attributes a high moral value
to historical knowledge and consequently places a series of historical
materials in the center of the school course. The ability of the
school to affect moral character is not limited to the personal
influence of the teacher and to the discipline and daily conduct of the
children; but instruction itself, by illustrating and implanting moral
ideas, and by closely relating all other kinds of knowledge to the
historical series, can powerfully affect moral tendency and strength.
If historical matter of the most interesting and valuable kind be
selected for the central series, and the natural sciences and formal
studies be closely associated with it, there will be harmony and union
between the culture elements of the school course.
THE CULTURE EPOCHS.
The problem that confronts us at the outset, when preparing a plan of
concentration, is _how to select_ the best historical (moral educative)
materials, which are to serve as the central series of the course. The
_culture epochs_ (cultur-historische Stufen) are, according to the
Herbartians, the key to the situation. (This subject was briefly
discussed under _Interest_.)
According to the theory of the _culture epochs_, the child, in its
growth from infancy to maturity, is an epitome of the world's history
and growth in a profoundly significant sense for the purpose of
education. From the earliest history of society and of arts, from the
first simple family and tribal relations, and from the time of the
primitive industries, there has been a series of upward steps toward
our present state of culture (social, political, and economic life).
Some of the periods of progress have been typical for different nations
or for the whole race; for example, the stone age, the age of
barbarism, the age of primitive industries, the age of nomads, the
heroic age, the age of chivalry, the age of despotism, the age of
conquest, wars of freedom, the age of revolution, the commercial age,
the age of democracy, the age of discovery, etc. What relation the
leading epochs of progress in the race bear to the steps of change and
growth in children, has become a matter of great interest in education.
The assumption of the _culture epochs_ is that the growth of moral and
secular ideas in the race, represented at its best, is similar to their
growth in children, and that children may find in the representative
historical periods select materials for moral and intellectual nurture
and a natural access to an understanding of our present condition of
society. The culture epochs are those representative periods in
history which are supposed to embody the elements of culture suited to
train the young upon in their successive periods of growth. Goethe
says, "Childhood must always begin again at the first and pass through
the epochs of the world's culture." Herbart says, "The whole of the
past survives in each of us," and again, "The receptivity (of the
child) changes continually with progress in years. It is the function
of the teacher to see to it that these modifications advance steadily
in agreement with these changes (in the world's history)." Ziller has
attempted more fully to "justify this culture-historical course of
instruction on the ground of a certain _predisposition_ of the child's
mental growth for this course." Again, "We are to let children pass
through the culture development of mankind with accelerated speed."
Herbart says, "The treasure of advice and warning, of precept and
principle, of transmitted laws and institutions, which earlier
generations have prepared and handed down to the latter, belongs to the
strongest of psychological forces." That is, choice historical
illustrations produce a weighty effect upon the minds of children, if
selected from those epochs which correspond to a child's own periods of
growth.
The culture epochs imply _an intimate union between history and natural
science_, the two main branches of knowledge, at every step. The
isolation between these studies, which has often appeared and is still
strong, is unnatural and does violence to the unity of education
historically considered. Men at all times have had physical nature in
and around them. Every child is an intimate blending of historical and
physical (natural science) elements. The culture epochs illustrate a
_constant change and expansion of history and natural science_ together
and in harmony (despite the conflict between them). As men have
progressed historically and socially from age to age their
interpretation of nature has been modified with growing discovery,
insight, invention, and utilization of her resources. Children also
pass through a series of metamorphoses which are both physical and
psychological, changing temper and mental tendency as the body
increases in vigor and strength.
The culture epochs, by beginning well back in history, with those early
epochs which correspond to a child's early years and tracing up the
steps of progress in their origin and growth, pave the way for a clear
insight into our present state of culture, which is a complex of
historical and natural science elements. It is comparatively easy for
us to see that to understand the present political, economic, and
social conditions of the United States we are compelled to go back to
the early settlements with their simple surroundings and slowly trace
up the growth and increasing complexity of government, religion,
commerce, manufactures, and social life. The theory of the culture
epochs implies that the child began where primitive man began, feels as
he felt, and advances as he advanced, only with more rapid strides;
that as his physique is the hereditary outcome of thousands of years of
history, and his physical growth the epitome of that development, so
his mental progress is related to the mind progress of his ancestry.
They go still further and assume that the subject-matter of the leading
epochs is so well adapted to the changing phases and impulses of child
life that there is a strong predisposition in children in favor of this
course, and that the series of historical object lessons stirs the
strongest intellectual and moral interests into life.
As a _theory_ the culture epochs may seem too loose and unsubstantial
to serve as the basis for such a serious undertaking as the education
of children to moral character. There is probably no exact agreement
as to what the leading epochs of the world's history are, nor of the
true order of succession even of those epochs which can be clearly
seen. The value of this theory is rather in its suggestiveness to
teachers in their efforts to select suitable historical materials for
children not in any exact order but approximately. So far as we are
informed no one has yet tried to prove, in logical form, the necessary
correspondence between the epochs of history and the periods of growth
in children. It is rather an instinct which has been felt and
expressed by many great writers. The real test of the value of this
theory is not so much in a positive argument as in a general survey of
the educational materials furnished by the historical epochs, and an
experimental use of them in schools to see whether they are suited to
the periods of child growth.
There are, however, certain _limits_ to the theory of race progress
that need to be drawn at once. It is easy to perceive that not all
races have left such epochs behind them, because some are still in
barbarism; others have advanced to a considerable height and then
retrograded. Of those which have advanced with more or less steadiness
for two thousand years, like England, France, and Germany, not every
period of their history contains valuable culture elements. The great
epochs are not clearly distinguishable in their origin and ending.
Again, only those periods whose deeds, spirit, and tendency have been
well preserved by history or, still better, have found expression in
the work of some great poet or literary artist, can supply for children
the best educative material.
The culture epochs of history can be of no service to us in schools
except as they have been suitably _described_ by able writers. In
history and literature, as handed down to us by the great literary
artists, many of the culture epochs have been portrayed by a master
hand. In the Iliad, Homer gives us vivid and delightfully attractive
scenes from life in the heroic age. The historical parts of the Old
Testament furnish clear and classic expression to great typical
historical scenes as illustrated in the lives of Abraham, Joseph,
Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon. The chief poets have expended a
full measure of their art in presenting to posterity attractive events
from striking epochs of the world's history. Homer, Virgil, Dante,
Tennyson, and Longfellow have left for us such historical paintings as
the Iliad, Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, Idyls of a King,
Miles Standish, etc. Some of the best historians also have described
such epochs of history in scarcely less attractive form. Xenophon's
Anabasis, Livy's Punic Wars, Plutarch's Lives, Caesar's Gallic Wars,
the best biographies of Charlemagne, Columbus, Luther, Cromwell,
Washington, are designed to give us a clear view of some of the great
typical characters and events of history. Some of the leading
novelists and imaginative writers in prose have performed a like
service. Hypatia, Ivanhoe, Last Days of Pompeii, Romola, Uarda, and
Robinson Crusoe are examples. The story of Siegfried, of King Arthur,
of Bayard, of Tell, of Bruce, of Alfred, and the heroic myths of
Greece, all bring out representative figures of the mythical age.
The typical epochs of the world's struggle and progress are reflected,
therefore, in the _literary masterpieces_ of great writers, whether
poets, historians, biographers, or novelists. The simplest and
choicest of these literary and historical materials, selected,
arranged, and adapted for children, have been regarded by some thinkers
as the strongest and best meat that can be supplied to children during
their periods of growth. The history of each nation that has had a
progressive civilization contains some such elements and masterpieces.
It would be fortunate for each nation if it could find first in its own
history all such leading epochs and corresponding materials. Then it
could draw upon the historical and literary resources of other
countries to complete and round out the horizon of thought.
Since the best materials selected from history are calculated to build
a strong foundation of moral ideas and sentiments, this carefully
selected _historical series_ of studies has been chosen as the basis
for a concentration of all the studies of the school course. Ziller,
as a disciple of Herbart, was the first to lay out a course of study
for the common school with history materials as a central series, based
upon the idea of the culture epochs. Since religious instruction drawn
from the Old and New Testament has always been an important study in
German schools, he established a double historical series. The first
was scriptural, representing the chief epochs of Jewish and Christian
history from the time of Abraham to the Reformation; the second was
national German history from the early traditional stories of Thuringia
and the Saxon kings down to the Napoleonic wars and the entry of
Emperor William into Paris in 1871. It should be remarked that in the
first and second grade religious instruction does not appear in regular
form, but in devotional exercises, Christmas stories, etc. Fairy
stories and Robinson Crusoe are the chief materials used in the first
and second grades, so that the regular historical series begin in the
third.
The two lines of religious and secular history are designed to
illustrate for each grade corresponding epochs of national history,
both Jewish and German. The parallel series stand as follows:
Religious. Secular.
1st Grade. Fairytales.
2nd Grade. Robinson Crusoe.
3d Grade. The patriarchs, Stories of Thuringia.
Abraham, Joseph, Moses.
4th Grade. Judges and Kings. The Nibelungen Song,
Samuel, Saul, David, Siegfried.
Solomon.
5th Grade. Life of Christ. Henry I., Charlemagne,
Boniface, Armenius.
6th Grade. Life of Christ. Teutonic migrations,
Crusades, Attila, Barbarossa,
Rudolph.
7th Grade. Life of Paul. Discovery of America,
Reformation, Thirty Years'
War.
8th Grade. Life of Luther. Frederick the Great, Wars
against Napoleon, William I.
The above outline is Ziller's plan, modified by Professor Rein.
In each grade is selected a body of classical or choice historical
materials, representing a great period of German as well as of Jewish
or Christian life, and especially suited to interest and instruct
children, while illustrating moral ideas and deepening moral
convictions. The body of historical narrative selected for any one
grade is calculated to form a _center_ or nucleus for concentrating all
the studies of that year. Reading, language, geography, drawing,
music, and arithmetic largely spring out of and depend upon this
historical center, while they are also bound to each other by many
links of connection. A full course for the eight grades of the common
school, with this double historical series as a nucleus, has been
carefully worked out and applied by Professor Rein and his associates.
It has been applied also with considerable success in a number of
German schools.
This great undertaking has had to run the gauntlet of a severe
_criticism_. Its fundamental principles, as well as its details of
execution, have been sharply questioned. But a long-continued effort,
extending through many years, by able and thoroughly-equipped teachers,
to solve one of the greatest problems of education, deserves careful
attention. The general theory of concentration, the selection and
value of the materials, the previous history of method, and the best
present method of treating each subject, with detailed illustrations,
are all worked out with great care and ability.
The Jewish and German historical materials, which are made the
moral-educative basis of the common school course by the Herbartians,
can be of no service to us except by way of example. Neither sacred
nor German history can form any important part of an American course of
study. Religious instruction has been relegated to the church, and
German history touches us indirectly if at all. The epochs of history
from which American schools must draw are chiefly those of the United
States and Great Britain. France, Germany, Italy, and Greece may
furnish some collateral matter, as the story of Tell, of Siegfried, of
Alaric, and of Ulysses; but some of the leading epochs must be those of
our own national history.
Has the _English-speaking race_ in North America passed through a
series of historical epochs which, on account of their moral-educative
worth, deserve to stand in the center of a common school course? Is
this history adapted to cultivate the highest moral and intellectual
qualities of children as they advance from year to year? There are
few, if any, single nations whose history could furnish a favorable
answer to this question. The English in America began their career so
late in the world's history and with such advantages of previous
European culture that several of the earlier historical epochs are not
represented in our country. But perhaps Great Britain and Europe will
furnish the earlier links of a chain whose later links were firmly
welded in America.
The _history of our country_ since the first settlements less than
three hundred years ago is by far the best epitome of the world's
progress in its later phases that the life of any nation presents. On
reaching the new world the settlers began a hand-to-hand,
tooth-and-nail conflict with hard conditions of climate, soil, and
savage. The simple basis of physical existence had to be fought for on
the hardest terms. The fact that everything had to be built up anew
from small beginnings on a virgin soil gave an opportunity to trace the
rise of institutions from their infancy in a Puritan dwelling or in a
town meeting till they spread and consolidated over a continent. In
this short time the people have grown from little scattered settlements
to a nation, have experienced an undreamed-of material expansion; have
passed through a rapid succession of great political struggles, and
have had an unrivaled evolution of agriculture, commerce, manufactures,
inventions, education, and social life. All the elements of society,
material, religious, political, and social have started with the day of
small things and have grown up together.
There is little in our history to appeal to children below the fourth
grade, that is, below ten years; but from the beginning of the fourth
grade on, American history is rich in moral-educative materials of the
best quality and suited to children. We are able to distinguish _four
principal epochs_: 1. The age of pioneers, the ocean navigators, like
Columbus, Drake, and Magellan, and the explorers of the continent like
Smith, Champlain, LaSalle, and Fremont. 2. The period of settlements,
of colonial history, and of French and Indian wars. 3. The Revolution
and life under the Articles of Confederation till the adoption of the
Constitution. 4. Self-government under the Union and the growth and
strengthening of the federal idea. While drawing largely upon general
history for a full and detailed treatment of a few important topics in
each of these epochs, we should make a still more abundant use of the
_biographical_ and _literary_ materials furnished by each. The
concentration of school studies, with a historical series suggested by
the culture epochs as a basis, would utilize our American history,
biography, and literature in a manner scarcely dreamed of heretofore.
We shall attempt to illustrate briefly this concentration of studies
about materials selected from one of the culture epochs. Take, for
example, _the age of pioneers_ from which to select historical
subject-matter for children of the fourth and fifth grades. It
comprehends the biographies of eminent navigators and explorers,
pioneers on land and sea. It describes the important undertakings of
Columbus, Magellan, Cabot, Raleigh, Drake, and others, who were daring
leaders at the great period of maritime discovery. The pioneer
explorers of New England and the other colonies bring out strongly
marked characters in the preparatory stage of our earliest history.
Smith, Champlain, Winthrop, Penn, Oglethorpe, Stuyvesant, and
Washington are examples. In the Mississippi valley De Soto, La Salle,
Boone, Lincoln, and Robertson, are types. Still farther west Lewis and
Clarke, and the pioneers of California complete this historical epoch
in a series of great enterprises. Most of them are pioneers into new
regions beset with dangers of wild beasts, savages, and sickness. A
few are settlers, the first to build cabins and take possession of land
that was still claimed by red men and still covered with forests. The
men named were leaders of small bands sent out to explore rivers and
forests or to drive out hostile claimants at the point of the sword.