the greatest need of the primary school to-day is some positive content or subject matter of instruction. the popular conception of such a school is that its main function is to teach the young child to read, write, and cipher. that is, that it has to do mainly with the formal aspects of language and numbers. so long as a certain amount of facility is gained in these formal arts, there is little disposition to demand anything more.
even so great an authority as the committee of fifteen has championed this view, and has given as its deliberate judgment that the first four years of school life should be devoted to the mastery of the formal phases of instruction. while it may be contended that it is not meant to exclude the giving of a positive subject matter, still it is interpreted as sanctioning the present obvious over-emphasis of the formal side of language in our primary schools.
a strict conformity to this formal program would mean that the first four years of school life, the most impressionable[6] period in the pupil’s school career, are to be empty of any real subject matter. the mastery of written and printed forms is to be set up as an end in itself, losing sight of the fact that they are but means for conveying the thought, feelings, experiences, and aspirations of the race from one generation to another.
when we consider what the child at the age of six or seven really is; when we consider his love of story, his hunger for the concrete material of knowledge, his deep interest in the widening of his experience,—it is evident that such a course is out of all harmony with his real nature. it is the giving of stones when the cry is for bread. it is even worse than the proverbial making of bricks without straw. it is attempting to make bricks with straw alone.
the mastery of a vocabulary not the material of instruction.
it will be granted that the mastery of a printed and a written vocabulary is of the utmost importance. as a subordinate end, the ability to interpret the printed page and to express thought in correct form is the most imperative demand upon the school. but these acquirements are not a content in themselves. they are not the material of instruction. in themselves, they do not enlarge the understanding or furnish the food which the young mind hungers for—and must[7] have if it is maintained in a condition of health. they are mere forms, and the dwelling upon them during the impressionable years of childhood results in a deadening of his interest and dwarfing of his powers, so that the over-emphasis of this phase of education to the exclusion of content defeats its own ends.
laying the foundation for a future character edifice, keeping active the developing interests, the widening of his experience, the formation of interpretative concepts,—these are of greater value from the point of view of language mastery, even of its spoken and written forms, than the persistent drill in its formal elements.
language teaching must be approached from the content side if we are to get any genuine interest in the overcoming of difficulties on the part of the child. there is no interest for the child in the language forms themselves when presented in abstraction and emphasized as such. he may be drilled into proficiency, but the interest does not come from the relation of these formal elements to his own needs or activity. the interest has been external and it flags as soon as the external excitement is withdrawn. a genuine interest, an intrinsic one growing out of his own needs and nature, can be fostered only by supplying a subject matter adapted to the various levels of thought through which his development leads him. if this is furnished, it is no partial, intermittent[8] attention that the pupil gives. while dealing with such a content he is not forming the habit of mind-wandering and inattention so frequently seen when children are kept closely to word drill and to reading for elocutionary purposes.
a wider circle and purpose, growing out of the child’s life and needs.
the possession of a wide acquaintance with the standard subject matter of child literature before serious attempts at learning to read are made, will subordinate the acquisition of a reading vocabulary as means to an end desired on the part of the child. there will be purpose in it for him. the learning to read will be seen as a step necessary to a fuller expression of activities already going on, and difficulties will be overcome because their mastery is a means in a wider circle of purpose growing out of the child’s own life and needs. if, in early years, the emphasis is removed from the form to the content side of instruction, if his native hunger for folklore and nature-material is satisfied, the learning to read will be lifted out of drudgery and will be accomplished with self-effort, and with a rapidity truly surprising.
the early forcing of technique is not a real gain in the child’s education, however much may be apparently accomplished. immediate results are not a safe guide for instruction in the primary grades. they are, many times, a positive loss[9] in time, and are gained at the expense of dwarfing the mental and physical powers. there is no real need of forcing the process of learning to read if the teacher is ready with a subject matter which the child is already going out to meet.
the time of the first year of school life would conduce far more to the child’s progress if spent with learning to read and write as a secondary consideration, and the giving of a real body of culture, ethical, and nature material as a main purpose. subsequent progress would be all the more rapid and instruction be all the more educative because a wider range of interest would call forth self-active participation of all the powers. the widening of experience and the formation of interpretative concepts would allow further instruction to be grasped with sufficient avidity to carry it over into actual assimilation into the self.
language teaching.
what has been said with regard to the relation of reading to a content is equally true with regard to what is known as language teaching. it is a hopeless task to endeavor to give skill in the use of language independent of a content which is not in accord with the pupil’s own stage of development. the interest, to be genuine, and productive of self-effort, must always be in the content. an enrichment of his vocabulary, a proper use of words, correct form of oral and written speech[10] must come, not for themselves, but as results of an effort to the adequate expression of something which the pupil is interested to communicate.
the widespread criticism directed against the results of language teaching in our schools no doubt has something of justification. this defect does not come from lack of attention to the matter, or from indifference on the part of the teachers, but largely from the over-emphasis of the purely formal aspects of language. the matter is approached from the wrong side. in early years, to get form we must emphasize content. in the primary grades, formal insistence on correct technique should be at the minimum, while richness and variety of subject matter should be at the maximum.
nor is this without application to the remaining forms of language expression,—drawing and music. skill in aesthetic forms can come only from an interest in something to be expressed in these forms.
when we consider that the child, up to the eighth or ninth year of his life, has not a sufficient mastery of a reading vocabulary to enable him to get for himself out of books material for which he has deepest need, and which is his natural and proper nourishment, the imparting to him orally such material assumes an aspect of gravest importance. shall his early years of school life be barren and empty? surely the teacher has a duty in this respect beyond giving merely formal[11] instruction. she should not allow the pressure for immediate technical results to deprive the child of his inheritance in the folklore and the epic treasures of the race.
it has been shown by experiment that, with young children, instruction is taken more readily through the ear than through the eye. their pre-school education has been acquired largely through auditory impressions and exists in the mind in the form of auditory images. to throw the emphasis at once on visual impression and imagery is too violent a break in their mental habits.
