Chapter I: =The Relation of Instruction to Government and Training=

56. Instruction furnishes a part of those occupations which lie at the basis of government; how large a part depends on circumstances.

Children must be kept employed at all events, because idleness leads to misbehavior and lawlessness. Now if the employment consists of useful labor, say in the workshop or on the farm, so much the better. Better still, if the work teaches the child something that will contribute to his further education. But not all employment is instruction; and in cases where the mere government of children is a difficult matter, lessons are not always the most adequate employment. Many a growing boy will be taught orderly conduct much sooner when placed with a mechanic or merchant or farmer than in school. The scope of government is wider than that of instruction.

Teachers of manual training everywhere testify to the quieting effect
of directed physical labor upon stormy spirits. Even a truant school
or a school for incorrigibles becomes an attractive place to the
inmates when adequate provision is made for the exercise of the motor
powers. Most children can be controlled through mental occupation,
but there are some to whom motor activity is indispensable. That a
judicious apportionment of sensory and motor activity would favorably
affect the development of all children is not to be questioned.

57. Instruction and training have this in common, that each makes for education and hence for the future, while government provides for the present. A distinction should, however, be made here. Instruction is far from being always educative or pedagogical. Where acquisition of wealth and external success or strong personal preference supply the motives for study, no heed is paid to the question: What will be the gain or loss to character? One actuated by such motives sets out, such as he is, to learn one thing or another, no matter whether for good or bad or for indifferent ends; to him the best teacher is he who imparts _tuto, cito, jucunde_, the proficiency desired. Instruction of this kind is excluded from our discussion; we are concerned here only with instruction that educates in the moral sense of the term.

58. Man’s worth does not, it is true, lie in his knowing, but in his willing. But there is no such thing as an independent faculty of will. Volition has its roots in thought; not, indeed, in the details one knows, but certainly in the combinations and total effect of the acquired ideas. The same reason, therefore, which in psychology accounts for considering the formation of ideas first, and then desire and volition, necessitates a corresponding order in pedagogics: first the theory of instruction, then that of training.

=Note.=--Formerly, strange to say, no distinction was made between
government and training, although it is obvious that the immediate
present demands attention more urgently than does the future.
Still less was instruction given its true place. The greater or
smaller amount of knowledge, regarded as a matter of secondary
importance in comparison with personal culture, was taken up last.
The treatment of education as the development of character preceded
that of instruction, just as though the former could be realized
without the latter. During the last decades, however, a demand
has arisen for greater activity on the part of schools, primarily
the higher schools. Humanistic studies are to bestow humanity, or
culture. It has come to be understood that the human being is more
easily approached from the side of knowledge than from the side of
moral sentiments and disposition. Furthermore, examinations might
be set on the former, but not on the latter. Now the time for
instruction was found to be too limited--a want that the old Latin
schools had felt but little. This led to discussions as to the
relative amount due each branch of study. We shall treat chiefly
of the correlation of studies, for whatever remains isolated is of
little significance.

59. In educative teaching, the mental activity incited by it is all important. This activity instruction is to increase, not to lessen; to ennoble, not to debase.

=Note.=--A diminution of mental activity ensues, when, because
of much study and of sitting--especially at all sorts of written
work, often useless--physical growth is interfered with in a way
sooner or later to the injury of health. Hence the encouragement
given in recent years to gymnastic exercises, which may, however,
become too violent. Deterioration sets in when knowledge is
made subservient to ostentation and external advantages--the
objectionable feature of many public examinations. Schools ought
not to be called upon to display all they accomplish. By such
methods instruction not only works against its own true end, but
also conflicts with training, whose aim for the whole future of the
pupil is--_mens sana in corpore sano_.

60. If all mental activity were of only one kind, the subject-matter of instruction would be of no consequence. But we need not go beyond experience to see that the opposite is true, that there is a great diversity of intellectual endowment. Yet while instruction must thus be differentiated, it should not be made so special as to cultivate only the more prominent gifts; otherwise the pupil’s less vigorous mental functions would be wholly neglected and perhaps suppressed. Instruction must rather be manifold, and its manifoldness being the same for many pupils in so far as it may help to correct inequalities in mental tendencies.

Not only is subject-matter to be varied on account of mental
diversity, but also for social reasons as well. For an enlargement of
this theme, see the annotation to paragraph 65.

61. What is to be taught and learned is, accordingly, not left for caprice and conventionality to decide. In this respect instruction differs in a striking manner from government, for which, if only idleness is prevented, it hardly matters what work children are given to do.

=Note.=--Children are sent to school from many homes simply because
they are in the way and their parents do not wish them to be idle.
The school is regarded as an institution whose chief function is to
govern, but which incidentally also imparts useful knowledge. Here
there is a lack of insight into the nature of true mental culture;
teachers, on the contrary, sometimes forget that they are giving
pupils work, and that work should not exceed reasonable limits.