Chapter IX: Imagination (2)

There is a method by which the child may be brought to achieve the results which the adult has laid down as desirable; it is a very simple method. The child must be made to do whatever the adult wishes; the adult will then be able to lead him to the heights of goodness, self-sacrifice and strength, and the moral child will be created. To dominate the child, to bring him into subjection, to make him obedient--this is the basis of education. If this can be done by any means whatever, even by violence, all the rest will follow; and remember, it is all for the good of the child. The child could not be molded by any other means. It is the first and principal step in what is called "educating the will of the child," one which will henceforth enable the adult to speak of himself as Virgil speaks of God.

After this first step the adult will examine himself to see what are the things he finds most difficult, and these he will exact from the child _in time_, that the child may accustom himself to the necessary difficulties of man's life. But very often the adult also imposes conditions which he himself _has not the fortitude to accept_ even partially ... as, for instance, the task of listening motionless for three or four hours every day, during a course of years, to a dull, wearisome lecturer.

* * * * *

=It is the teacher who forms the child's mind. How he teaches=.--The same conception governs the school: it is the teacher who must form the pupil; the development of the child's intelligence and culture are in his hands. He has a truly formidable task and a tremendous responsibility. The problems that present themselves to him are innumerable and acute; they form as it were a hedge of thorns separating him from his pupils. What must first of all be devised, to win the attention of his pupils, so that he may be able to introduce into their minds all that seems to him necessary? How is he to offer them an idea in such a manner that they will retain it in their memories? To this end, it is essential that he should have a knowledge of psychology, the precise manner in which physical phenomena are produced, the laws governing memory, the psychical mechanism by means of which ideas are formed, the laws governing the association of ideas, by means of which very gradually ideas proceed to the most sublime activities, impelling the child to reason. It is he who, knowing all these things, must build up and enrich the mind. And this is no easy matter, because, in addition to this difficult work, there is always the difficulty of difficulties, that of inducing the child to lend himself to all this endeavor, and to second the master, and not show himself recalcitrant to the efforts made on his behalf. For this reason the _moral_ education is the point of departure; before all things, it is necessary to _discipline_ the class. The pupils must be induced to _second_ the master's efforts, if not by love, then by force. Failing this point of departure, all education and instruction would be _impossible_, and the school _useless_.

Another difficulty is that of economizing the powers of the pupils, that is to say, utilizing them to the utmost without wasting them. How much rest is necessary? How long should any particular work be carried on? Perhaps ten minutes' rest may be necessary after the first three-quarters of an hour of occupation; but after another three-quarters of an hour, a pause of fifteen minutes may be required, and so on throughout the day; finally, a quarter of an hour's rest may be needed after ten minutes' occupation. But what instruction is best adapted to the powers of a child during the various hours of the day? Is it best to begin with mathematics or with dictation? At what hours will the child be most inclined to exercise his powers of imagination, at 9 in the morning or at 11?

Other anxieties must assail a perfect teacher! How should he write on the blackboard so that the children seated at a distance may see? for if they do not see his work is of no avail. And how much light shall fall upon the blackboard, in order that all may see clearly the white characters on the black surface? Of what size should be the script specially chosen by the master to suit distant vision? This is a serious matter, because if the child, obliged by discipline to look and learn from a distance, should put too great a strain upon his powers of visual accommodation, he may in time become short-sighted; then the teacher would have manufactured a blind person. A serious matter indeed!

* * * * *

What consideration has ever been given to the state of anxiety of such a teacher? To get some idea of his anxiety we may think of a young wife about to become a mother, who should set herself such problems as the following: how can I create an infant, if I know nothing of anatomy; how can I form its skeleton? I must study the structure of the bones carefully. I must then learn how the muscles are attached; but how will it be possible to put the brain into a closed box? And must the little heart go on beating continually until death? Is it possible that it will not weary?

In like fashion, she might ponder thus over her new-born babe: it is evident that he will not be able to walk if he does not first of all understand the laws of equilibrium; if he is left to himself, he will not be able to understand these till he is twenty; I must therefore prepare to teach him these laws prematurely in order that he may be able to walk as quickly as possible.

The schoolmaster is the person who builds up the intelligence of the pupil; the intelligence of the pupil increases in direct proportion to the efforts of the teacher; in other words, he knows just what the master has made him know and understands neither more nor less than the master has made him understand. When an inspector visits a school and questions the pupils he turns to the master, and if he is satisfied says: "Well done, teacher!" For the result is indubitably the work of the master; the discipline by which he has fixed the attention of his pupils, even to the psychical mechanism which has guided him in his teaching, all is due to him. God enters the school as a symbol in the crucifix, but the creator is the teacher.

A good deal of help is given to teachers in their superhuman task. There is a kind of division of labor, by virtue of which more advanced experts prepare the schemata of instruction; basing them upon psychology, if the teaching is on a scientific plan, or on the principles laid down by one of the great pedagogists such as Herbart, for example; moreover, the sciences, such as hygiene and experimental psychology, are further invoked to overcome many practical difficulties and to help in the arrangement of schoolrooms, the drawing up of the curriculum, time-tables, etc.

Here, for instance, are notes for lessons on a psychological basis, that is to say, lessons which take account of the proper _order of succession_ in which the psychical activities should develop in the mind of the child; by exercises of this kind, the pupil will not only learn, but will develop his intelligence in accordance with the laws governing its formation. [2]

[Footnote 2: These two examples are taken from the well-known review, _I Diritti della Scuola_, Year xiv.]

OBJECT LESSON

A Candle: _Education of the sensory and perceptive faculties_.

_Sight_.--White, solid.

_Touch_.--Greasy, smooth.

_Nomenclature_.--Parts of the candle: wick, surface, extremity, edges, upper part, lower part, middle part. The candles we use are made of _wax_ mixed with _stearine_. Stearine is made of the fat of oxen and sheep and pigs. Hence they are called stearine candles. There are also _wax_ candles. These are yellowish and less greasy. Wax is produced by bees. There are also tallow candles; these are very greasy and have a disgreeable smell when burning.

_Memory_.--Have you ever seen a candle-factory? Have you ever seen a bee-hive? Of what are the cells of the honeycomb made? When do you light a candle? Have you ever carried a lighted candle carelessly? Did not this cause a disaster?

_Imagination_.--Draw the outline of a candle on the blackboard.

_Comparison, association, abstraction_.--Similarity and difference in candles of stearine, wax, and tallow.

_Judgment and reasoning_.--Are candles useful? Were they more useful formerly, or now that we have gas and electric light?

_Sentiments_.--Children are greatly pleased by a visit to a candle-factory. It is indeed very agreeable to see how candles used by so many people are made. When we can satisfy our desire for instruction we feel pleasure and contentment.

_Volition_.--What should we do with the fat of pigs if we did not know how to make it into stearine? What should we do with wax if we did not know how to utilize it? Man is able to work and to transform many products into useful substances and objects. Work is our life. Blessed be the workers! Let us also love work and devote ourselves diligently thereto.

(N.B.--The children are all to listen without moving.) Any kind of lesson may be based on the same psychical plan, even a moral lesson. For instance:

_Moral education derived from the observation of actions_.

(N.B.--The actions are all invented and narrated.)

_Agreeable manners. Incident_.--"Is it true, Miss, that the village church is more than a kilometer from here? My mother has ordered me to go there. I thought I had arrived, and I was so pleased. I have come a long way, and I am so very, very tired." "Indeed," replied the girl, who was standing at the gate of her home, "you are still a kilometer and a half from the church. But come through my gate, and take the short cut I will show you through my fields. You will get to the church in five minutes." What an amiable girl!

_Successive relations of cause and effect_.--The village girl showed amenity to the little traveler. The latter reached the church quickly, was saved much fatigue, and felt great relief.

_Memory_.--Have you always been pleasant to your companions? Have you always been ready to lend a comrade anything he has asked for? Have you always thanked those who have done you favors in an agreeable manner?

_Comparison, association, abstraction_.--Comparison between an agreeable child and a boorish one.

_Judgment, reasoning_.--Why is it necessary to be courteous to all? Is it sufficient to give help solely to show oneself to be amiable?

_Sentiments_.--He who is amiable has a soul rich in sweetness and suavity. What sympathy he evokes in all! The disagreeable person is irritated by trifles. He excites disgust and fear in others. He who is affable shows love to his neighbor.

_Volition_.--Children, accustom yourselves to be pleasant to every one. You should be pleasant when you are conferring some favor, otherwise the favor will seem irksome. When you want something, do you ask for it arrogantly? If so, it will be easier to say no than yes to you. On the other hand, if you ask politely for something, will it not be difficult to refuse you?

It will perhaps be more interesting to follow a lesson actually given, and accepted as a model for teachers in general. I therefore reproduce one of the lessons which gained a prize at a competition of teachers held in Italy. [3] In this, according to the subject or theme, only one primary psychical activity was to be dealt with: viz. sensory perception. (The compositions were distinguished not by the names of the authors, but by mottoes.)

[Footnote 3: This was published in the review, _La Voce delle Maestre d'Asilo_, Year viii.]

_Motto_.--Things are the first and best teachers.

I set myself the following limits:

_To give an idea of icy cold in contrast to that of heat_. [This would be amply sufficient in itself, for these ideas are not grains to pick up one after the other, but sublime psychical facts of great complexity, and, consequently, very difficult to assimilate.]

_Combine with the idea to be imparted, the cultivation of a sense of compassion and pity for the very poor_, to whom winter brings such severe suffering; a feeling I have already tried many times to arouse.

The above is for my own guidance; what follows is for the children.

"Children, how comfortable we are here! Everything is clean; everything is in order; I am so fond of you; you are so fond of me. Isn't this true, children?

_Children_.--I am, I am. Me too (correct).

Tell me, Gino, are you cold? You said no at once. Well, no, you are right; we are really very cozy here. There, in that corner (I point) there is a thing which gives out much ...

_Children_.--Heat. It is the stove.

But outside, where there is no stove, over there, towards the horizon (the children are to a certain extent familiar with this word), there is no warmth.

_Children_.--It's cold there (an answer due to the clarity of the laws of contrast).

Last night ... while we were asleep, while your mother perhaps was mending your clothes ... dear mother, how kind she is!... well, last night, so many, many white flakes fell softly from the sky!...

Snow, snow! exclaim the children.

Children! let us say: so many snowflakes fell. How beautiful the snow is! Let us go and look at it closely.

_Children_.--Yes, yes, yes, yes.

It is so beautiful that I see you would all like to take a little. But perhaps this is not allowed. To whom does the snow belong? (No answer.) Who bought it? Who made it? You? No. I? No. Your mother? No. Then did your father buy it? (They look at me in astonishment; these are really very strange questions.) No, again. Well then, the snow belongs to every one. And if this is so, we may take a little handful of it. (Evident signs of joy.) I will hand round the boxes you made yesterday. (These children have not desks with lockers in which they may put their little works. Using the boxes will be a good way of demonstrating the utility of their work.) They will do very well to hold the beautiful snow. (I talk to them as I distribute the boxes, that their attention may not flag.) I will take mine too, the one I made with you. It is larger than yours; so which will hold more snow, mine or yours?

_Children_.--Yours.

Come then, children. Put a white handful into your boxes. How delightful!

(Going.) Just stop a moment; how comfortable we are here! Put one hand over your face. How warm your face is, and how warm your hand is too! We shall see whether your hands will still be so warm after you have touched the snow.

_Children_.--They will be cold.

Yes, indeed. (Going out.) How beautiful it is! It fell down from above. The sky has given the earth a beautiful dress, all ...

_Children_.--White.

At this juncture my children, accustomed to that principle of healthful, ordered liberty which is the main factor in the formation of character, touch and gather up the snow; some of them break the pure surface with little drawings. I let them. I wait a minute, then I make as it were a sudden assault upon their attention:

Children, I too will take a little snow, but together with all of you. Stop. Stand up. Look well at me. Let us take away a little strip of the great cloak. Let us put it in our boxes. That's right. (Re-entering the schoolroom.) Oh! how cold it is! The children who are not well wrapped up are the coldest. Poor little things! And those who haven't that thing full of burning coal in their houses!

_Children_.--The stove.

How cold they will be! Come now, quickly; all to your places. Put the boxes on the desk. How cold the snow is! Did you notice how cold it made your hands, which were quite warm?

_Children_.--My hand is cold! Mine too! Etc.

In the courtyard, I saw Caroline take a little snow, and then suddenly let it fall; she was not strong enough to bear such cold. But then she tried again, and the second time she did not drop it.

_Child_.--I didn't. I putted it (correct) quickly into my box.

Children, when the cold is as great as the cold of the snow, it is called _frost_. Say that, Guido. What is the word? Now you, Giannina. And the snow which is so cold is ... what? Who can guess?

_A child_.--Frozen.

Say: the snow is _frozen_.

We came indoors, because it is frosty outside, and inside it is ...

_Children_.--Warm.

But we brought with us a frozen thing which is called ...

_Children_.--Snow.

What is it the stove gives us? _Do you remember?_ [4]

_Children_.--Heat.

I want Maria to tell me. And now, Peppino.

[Footnote 4: The children are expected to know that the stove gives out heat, by an effort of _memory_.]

Do you know, our mouths also give out heat. Open yours. Not too much! Hold up one hand in front of it, the right hand. Breathe on it as I am doing. Let us breathe again; now let us send our breath outwards, as I am doing. Again ... again ... again. That's right. Now feel. You see your mouth too gives out a little ...

_Children_.--Heat.

Now let us try putting a little snow into it. A little piece like this. Oh! the heat of the mouth is escaping, it has already gone at the icy touch of the snow.

_Children_.--Our mouths are cold now.

Yes, that's right. They are very, very cold, so cold that they are what we call ...

_Children_.--Freezing.

Perhaps Giuseppe doesn't know. He didn't say it with the others. Say it again, that he may say it with you. Again. That will do. Bravo, Giuseppe. So our mouths were ...

_Children_.--Freezing.

Let us eat another little piece of snow. The snow turns to water in our mouths, because it is made of water only. Now bread is made of water too, but not _only_ of water. What does the baker want to make the dough for bread?...

_Children_.--Flour.

And what else?

_Children_.--Salt.

And what else?

_Children_.--Yeast.

I see Luigi is still eating snow, and Alfonso too, and Pierino. Do you like it?

_Children_.--Yes, Signora.

Do you like it?

_Children_.--Yes, Signora. Me too, me too (correct).

Well, eat a little more, but not much, it might make you ill. It is so freezing (I repeat this word very often, because it expresses the idea I am trying to convey).

When it snows it is so very cold, and just think that there are many children, many people, who are not warmly dressed and have no stoves; they are very poor. They suffer very much, and some of them die; poor people! How fortunate we are, on the other hand! We have so many garments (they have learned this word) to cover ourselves with; we have a stove at home and one at school, to warm us. How lucky we are!

_A child_.--I have no stove at home.

I know you have not, Emilio, and I am very sorry. Children, you must be kind to Emilio and Giuseppina, because they are very ...

_Children_.--Poor.

Have you eaten it all?

_Children_.--No, Signora.

Now let us go into the courtyard and throw away the rest of the snow. Then we will put the boxes on this table to dry. And to-morrow I will show you a pretty picture of country covered with snow. Come along; bring your boxes, and when you have emptied them put them back where I told you."

I intend to repeat this lesson in another form, combining others with it, and referring in it to other ideas, which bear a relation to that here set forth.

As everything in the physical and moral world is one and indivisible, bound together in closest union, human development is gravely impeded by the presentment of isolated educational facts in a desultory manner, because it is impossible to disconnect things united by a sacred and eternal law.

* * * * *

In the above "model" lesson, it is claimed that only two perceptions are dealt with, those of cold and heat, and that the child has been allowed a good deal of liberty, but of a judicious kind.

Now it would be exceedingly difficult to limit the perceptions strictly to two, especially when dealing with persons placed in an environment abounding in stimuli, who have already stored up a whole chaos of images. But such being the object in view, it is necessary to eliminate as far as possible all other perceptions, to arrest those two, and so to polarize attention on them that all other images shall be obscured in the field of consciousness. This would be the scientific method tending to isolate perceptions; and it is in fact the practical method adopted by us in our education of the senses. In the case of cold and heat, the child is "prepared" by the isolation of the particular sense in question; he is placed blindfolded in a silent place, to the end that thermic stimuli alone may reach him. In front of the child are placed two objects perfectly identical in all characteristics perceptible to the muscular tactile sense: of the same dimensions, the same shape, the same degree of smoothness, the same resistance to pressure; for instance, two india-rubber bags, filled with the same quantity of water, and perfectly dry on the outside. The sole difference is the temperature of the water in the two bags; in the hot one, the water would be at a temperature of sixty degrees centigrade; in the cold, at ten degrees centigrade. After directing the child's attention to the object, his hand is drawn over the hot bag, and then over the cold one; while his hand is on the hot bag the teacher says: It is hot! While he feels the cold one he is told: It is cold. And the lesson is finished. It has consisted merely of two words, and of a long preparation designed to ensure that as far as possible, the two sensations corresponding to these two words shall be the only ones that reach the child. The other senses, sight and hearing, were protected against stimuli; and there was no perceptible difference in the objects offered to the touch save that of temperature. Thus it becomes approximately probable that the child will achieve the perception of two sensations exclusively.

And what about the liberty of the child, we shall be asked?

Well, we admit that every lesson infringes the liberty of the child, and for this reason we allow it to last only for a few seconds: just the time to pronounce the two words: hot, cold; but this is effected under the influence of the preparation, which by first isolating the sense makes, as it were, a darkness in the consciousness, and then projects only two images into it. As if from the screen before a magic lantern, the child receives his psychical acquisitions, or rather they are like seeds falling on a fertile soil; and it is in the subsequent free choice, and the repetition of the exercise, as in the subsequent activity, spontaneous, associative, and reproductive, that the child will be left "free." He receives, rather than a lesson, a determinate impression of contact with the external world; it is the clear, scientific, pre-determined character of this contact which distinguishes it from the mass of indeterminate contacts which the child is continually receiving from his surroundings. The multiplicity of such indeterminate contacts will create chaos within the mind of the child; pre-determined contacts will, on the other hand, initiate order therein, because with the help of the technique of isolation, they will begin to make him distinguish one thing from another.

The technique of our lessons is governed by experimental psychology. And this trend, without doubt, is in contrast to that of the past, which was governed by speculative psychology, on which the whole of the educational methods commonly in use in schools has hitherto been based.

It was Herbart who used the philosophical psychology of his day as a guiding principle to reduce pedagogic rules to a system. From his individual experience he believed he could deduce a universal method of developing the mind, and be made this the psychological basis of methods of teaching. The German pedagogist, whose methods are now, thanks to Credaro, formerly Professor of Pedagogy at the University of Rome, and afterward Minister of Education, adopted for elementary education throughout Italy, gave a unique type of lesson on the four well-known periods (the formal steps): clarity, association, system, method. These may be explained approximately as follows: presentation of an object and its analytical examination (clarity); judgment and comparison with other surrounding objects or with mnemonic images (association); definition of the object deduced from preceding judgments (system); new principles derived from the idea which is thus deepened, and which will lead to practical application of a moral order (method).

The teacher must guide the child's mind on these lines in every kind of teaching; he must, however, never substitute his own intelligence for that of the child, but rather make the child himself think, and induce him to exercise his own activity. For instance, in the association period, the master must not say: "Look at such and such an object, and at such and such another; see how much alike they are, etc...." He should ask the pupil: "What do you see when you look around? Is there not something which is like, etc.?" Again, in the definition period, the master should not say: "A bird is a vertebrate animal covered with feathers; it has two limbs which have been transformed into wings," but by rapid questions, corrections, and analogies, he should induce the child to find the precise definition for himself. If the mental process of Herbart's four periods is to come naturally, it would be essential that great interest in the object should exist; it is interest which would keep the mind amused, or, as the famous pedagogist would say, plunged in the idea, and would maintain it in a system nevertheless embracing multilateral ideas; and hence it is necessary that "interest" should be awakened and should persist in all instruction. It is well known that a pupil of Herbart's must, to this end, supplement Herbart's four periods by a prior period, that of interest; linking all new knowledge to the old, "going from the known to the unknown," because what is absolutely new can awake no interest.

"To make oneself interesting artificially," that is, interesting to those who have no interest in us, is indeed a very difficult task; and to arrest the attention hour after hour, and year after year, not of one, but of a multitude of persons who have nothing in common with us, not even years, is indeed a superhuman undertaking. Yet this is the task of the teacher, or, as he would say, his "art": to make this assembly of children whom he has reduced to immobility by discipline follow him with their minds, understand what he says, and learn; an internal action, which he cannot govern, as he governs the position of their bodies, but which he must win by making himself interesting, and by maintaining this interest. "The art of tuition," says Ardigo, "consists mainly of this: to know up to what point and in what manner one can maintain the interest of pupils. The most skilful teachers are those who never fatigue one fraction of the pupil's brain, but act in such a manner that his attention, turning now here, now there, may rest itself and, gaining strength, return to the principal argument of the discourse with renewed vigor."

A much more laborious art is that which leads the child to find by means of its own mental processes, not what it would naturally find, but what the teacher desires, although he does not say what he desires; he urges on the child to associate his ideas "spontaneously"--as the teacher associates them--and even succeeds in making the child compose definitions with the exact words he himself has fixed upon, without having revealed them. Such a thing would seem the result of some occult science, a kind of conjuring trick. Nevertheless, such methods have been and still are in use, and in some cases they form the sole art of the teacher.

When in 1862 Tolstoy was making his tours of inspection in the schools of Germany, he was struck by this method of tuition, and among the pedagogic writings describing his school, Iasnaja Poliana, he reproduces a lesson which deserves to be recorded, although perhaps it would no longer be possible to find an example of such a lesson in any German school.

IASNAJA POLIANA, 1862.

Calm and confident, the professor is seated in the
class-room; the instruments are ready; little tables with the
letters, a book with the picture of a fish. The master looks
at his pupils; he knows beforehand all they are to
understand; he knows of what their souls consist, and various
other things he has learned in the seminary.

He opens the book and shows the fish. "Dear children, what is
this?" The poor children are delighted to see the fish,
unless indeed they already know from other pupils with what
sauce it is to be served up. In any case, they answer: "It is
a fish." "No," replies the professor (all this is not an
invention nor a satire, but an exact account of what I have
seen without exception in all the best schools in Germany,
and in those English schools which have adopted this method
of teaching). "No," says the professor. "Now what is it you
do see?" The children are silent. It must not be forgotten
that they are obliged to remain seated and quiet, each one in
his place, and that they are not to move. "Well, what do you
see?" "A book," says the most stupid child in the class.
Meanwhile, the more intelligent children have been asking
themselves over and over again what it is they do see; they
feel they cannot guess what the teacher wants, and that they
will have to answer that this fish is not a fish, but
something the name of which is unknown to them. "Yes, yes,"
says the master, eagerly, "very good indeed, a book. And what
else?" The intelligent ones guess, and say joyfully and
proudly: "Letters." "No, no, not at all!" says the teacher,
disappointed; "you must think before you speak." Again all
the intelligent ones lapse into mournful silence; they do not
even try to guess; they think of the teacher's spectacles,
and wonder why he does not take them off instead of looking
over the top of them: "Come then; what is there in the book?"
All are silent. "Well, what is this thing?" "A fish," says a
bold spirit "Yes, a fish. But is it a live fish?" "No, it is
not alive." "Quite right. Then is it dead?" "No." "Right.
Then what is this fish?" "A picture." "Just so. Very good!"
All the children repeat: "It is a picture," and they think
that is all. Not at all. They have to say that it is a
picture which represents a fish. By the same method the
master induces the children to say that it is a picture which
represents a fish. He imagines that he is exercising the
reasoning faculties of his pupils, and it never seems to
enter his head that if it is his duty to teach children to
say in these exact words, "it is a book with a picture of a
fish," it would be much simpler to repeat this strange
formula and make his pupils learn it by heart.

As a pendant to this old-fashioned lesson witnessed by Tolstoy in an elementary school in Germany, we may cite the following lesson recently set forth by a distinguished French pedagogist and philosopher, whose text-books are classics in the schools of his own country and in those of many foreign lands, and are also in use in the teachers' training colleges in Italy. As the sub-title on the title-page informs us, it is one of a series of "lessons designed to mold teachers and citizens who shall be conscious of their duties, and useful to families, to their fatherland, and to humanity." [5] We are therefore in the ambit of secondary schools. The lesson we cite is a practical application of the principle of giving lessons by means of interrogation (Socratic method), and deals with a moral theme: rights.

[Footnote 5: F. Alengry, _Education based upon Psychology and Morality_.]

"You boys have never mistaken your companion Paul for this
table or this tree?--Oh, no!--Why?--Because the table and the
tree are inanimate and insensible, whereas Paul lives and
feels.--Good. If you strike the table it will feel nothing
and you will not hurt it; but have you any right to destroy
it?--No, we should be destroying something belonging to
others.--Then what is it you respect in the table? the
inanimate and insensible wood, or the property of the person
to whom it belongs?--The property of the person to whom it
belongs.--Have you any right to strike Paul?--No, because we
should hurt him and he would suffer.--What is it you respect
in him? the property of another, or Paul himself?--Paul
himself.--Then you cannot strike him, nor shut him up, nor
deprive him of food?--No. The police would arrest us if we
did.--Ah! ah! you are afraid of the police. But is it only
this which prevents you from hurting Paul?--Oh! no, Sir. It
is because we love Paul and do not want to make him suffer,
and because we have no right to do so.--You think then that
you owe respect to Paul in his life and his feelings, because
life and feeling are things to respect?--Yes, sir.

Are these all you have to respect in Paul? Let us enquire;
think well.--His books, his clothes, his satchel, the
luncheon in it.--Well. What do you mean?--We must not tear
his books, soil his clothes or his satchel, or eat his
luncheon.--Why?--Because these things are his and we have no
right to take things belonging to others.--What is the act of
taking things that belong to others called?--Theft.--Why is
theft forbidden?--Because if we steal we shall go to
prison.--Fear of the police again! But is this the chief
reason why we must not steal?--No, Sir, but because we ought
to respect the property as well as the persons of
others.--Very good. Property is an extension of human
personality and must be respected as such.

And is this all? Is there nothing more to respect in Paul
than his body, his books and his copy-books? Do you not see
anything else? Can you not think of anything more? I will
give you a hint: Paul is an industrious pupil, an honest,
good-natured companion; you are all fond of him, and he
deserves your affection. What do we call the esteem we all
feel for him, the good opinion we have of him?--Honor ...
reputation.--Well, this honor, this reputation, Paul acquired
by good conduct and good manners. These are things which
belong to him.--Yes, Sir; we have no right to rob him of
them.--Very good; but what do we call this kind of theft,
that is, the theft of honor and reputation? And first of all,
how can we steal them? Can we take them and put them in our
pockets?--No, but we can speak evil of him.--How?--We could
say that he had done harm to one of his companions ... that
he had stolen apples from a neighboring orchard ... that he
had spoken ill of another.--That is so. But how could you rob
him of honor and reputation by speaking thus?--Sir, people
would no longer believe him if they had a bad opinion of him;
he would be beaten, scolded, and left to himself.--Then if
you speak evil of Paul, and what you say is false, do you
give him pleasure?--No, Sir, we should cause him pain, and do
him a wrong, which would be very odious and wicked of
us.--Yes, boys, this lying with intent to injure would be
odious and wicked, and it is called calumny. I will explain
later that evil speaking differs from calumny or slander in
that what is said is not untrue, and I will point out the
terrible consequences of evil speaking and slander.

Now let us sum up what we have said: Paul is a living and
sensitive creature. We ought not to cause him suffering, to
rob him, or to slander him; we ought to respect him. The
honorable things in Paul constitute rights, and make him a
moral person. The obligation laid upon us to respect these
rights is called _duty_. The obligation and the duty of
respecting the rights of others is also called _justice_.
_Justice_ is derived from two Latin words (_in jure stare_),
meaning: to keep oneself in the right.

The duties of justice enumerated by us are to be summed up
thus: Not to kill ... not to cause suffering ... not to steal
... not to slander. Always reflect upon the words you say in
which "Not" is followed by a verb in the imperative
infinitive. What does that mean?

An obligation, a command, a prohibition.--Go on, explain. The
obligation of respect ... the command to respect rights ...
the prohibition of stealing. How may all these things be
summed up? _In doing no evil_."

* * * * *

=Positive science makes its appearance in the schools=.--Positive science was invited to enter into schools as into a chaos where it was necessary to separate light from darkness, a place of disaster where prompt succor was essential.

* * * * *

=Discoveries of medicine: distortions and diseases=.--The first science, indeed, to penetrate into the school was medicine, which organized a special hygiene for the occasion, a kind of Red Cross service. The most interesting part of the hygiene that penetrates into schools was that which diagnosed and described the "diseases of school children," that is to say, the maladies contracted solely as a result of study in school. The most prevalent of these maladies are spinal curvature and myopia. The first is caused by excessive sitting, and by the injurious position of the shoulders in writing. The second arises from the fact that in the spot where the child has to remain seated, there is not sufficient light for him to see clearly; or this spot is too far from the blackboard, or from the places where the child has to read, and the prolonged effort of accommodation induces myopia. Other minor generalized maladies were also described: an organic debility so widely diffused that hygiene prescribed as an ideal treatment a gratuitous distribution of cod-liver oil or of reconstituent remedies in general to all pupils. Anemia, liver complaints, and neurasthenia were also studied as school diseases.

Thus a new field was opened to hygiene in connection with the most fertile source of professional disease, and reading and writing were carefully studied in relation to pedagogical methods, and in relation to spinal curvature and defective refraction of the eyes.

The figure of the child, that victim of unsuitable and disproportionate work, was not hereby brought into strong relief, as might have been expected, by the aid of medicine, but a new branch of "legal medicine" came into being. It was, indeed, medicine which drew attention to the diseases and deaths of the victims in orphan asylums, victims of artificial or irrational feeding, in conjunction with wet nursing; it was medicine which passed in review one by one all those individual cases which proclaim this legal fact: children have no civil rights. Medicine now entered into another sphere where the victims were not "cases," but the generality, the child-population in its entirety; and now it is the law itself which imposes duties upon them, and condemns them _en masse_ to labor for many years in a manner which entails physical torture. If a branch of legal medicine has arisen in connection with criminals, how is it that none should ever have arisen in connection with the innocent?

* * * * *

=Science has not fulfilled its mission in its dealings with children=.--Medicine has confined itself to the treatment of diseases artificially produced. It has diagnosed a cause of disease and left this cause undisturbed, content merely to alleviate the resultant evils befalling a multitude of victims. It has not taken up the attitude proper to its great and dignified rôle of "protector" of life; it has merely come forward, like the Red Cross Service during war, to heal the wounded and alleviate the condition of the suffering; it has not considered that the authority it enjoys as the guardian of health would enable it to utter the supreme cry of peace, putting an end to a war so dangerous, unjust, and inhuman.

As, in its struggle against microbes, it was the standard-bearer in the most glorious of victories over death, so, fighting directly against the causes of the impoverishment of generations, it might have aspired to bear the banner of protector of posterity. Instead of this, it confined itself to the elaboration of a branch of study that mimics science: school hygiene; thus making itself the accomplice of a social wrong.

Let us glance into a recent treatise of school hygiene, which merely sums up the ideas and the work of the world at large:

"We will briefly indicate the conditions favorable to the
development of spinal curvature. The age when the malady
usually appears is that of second infancy, hence its name of
spinal curvature of the adolescent; spinal curvature caused
by rickets, which appears in early childhood, is rarer, and
is of less direct interest to us here. The commonest cause,
and that on which our attention should be primarily
concentrated, is the vicious attitude adopted by the majority
of our pupils during their school work; this cause is so
universal that we may call spinal curvature the professional
disease of the pupil. Doctor Legendre, in a formula which may
be judged over-severe, though unhappily it is only too
well-founded, said of our schools that they are factories for
the production of the deformed and the myopic.

"The main cause of myopia is to be found in the very
conditions under which children are gathered together in
schools: insufficiency of light, the over-small type common
in school-books, the frequent use of the blackboard, on which
the teacher is not always careful to make the size of the
characters he traces proportionate to the distance at which
they have to be read, are so many causes of ocular fatigue.
The visual keenness of a given eye, says Doctor Leprince,
decreases rapidly when the intensity of the light falls below
a certain limit. The pupil, working with insufficient light,
repairs the defective keenness of which this is the cause, by
increasing the visual angle under which the details of the
object he is looking at appear to him; in other words, _he
brings that object inordinately close to him_.

"The time necessary to recognize a given letter increases
greatly, when the limit of visual acuteness has been reached.
Therefore, insufficient light would tend to make work slower,
unless the pupil increased acuteness by approaching the
object more closely. Thus myopia constitutes a positive
adaptation to the defective conditions of work, enabling the
pupil to work more rapidly." [6]

[Footnote 6: Bronardet and Mosny, _Hygiène Scolaire_. Boillière, Paris, 1914, pp. 142, 143, 430, 496.]

It would seem therefore natural to say: let the child find himself a better lighted place; if the blackboard is at some distance from him, let him come nearer to it; if the insufficient light retards his work, let him go more slowly; if the questions at issue are such harmless things as changing a place, advancing a step or two, taking a few minutes longer over a task--what tyrant on earth would deny such a small favor, and condemn the suppliant to blindness?

Such a tyrant is the teacher, who aspires to win the affection of his victims by means of moral exhortations.

It would be so simple to allow children, when tired of sitting, to rise, and when tired of writing, to desist, and then their bones would not be twisted. Who can look on unmoved at the spectacle of children whose vertebral column is being deformed by using desks, just as in the Middle Ages the instep was deformed by the torture of the boot. And on what grounds is this odious torture judged to be necessary?

Because a man has substituted himself for God, desiring to form the minds of children in his own image and likeness; and this cannot be done without subjecting a free creature to torture. This is the only reason.

We will now quote the remedies by means of which a so-called science proposes to counteract spinal curvature in school-children. It has determined the exact position in which a child may remain seated and at work for a long period of time without injury to the vertebrae.

"The child, seated at the table, should have his feet planted
flat upon the ground, or upon a foot-rest. The legs should be
at right-angles to the thighs, as should the thighs be to the
trunk, save for a slight inclination of the bench itself. The
trunk should be in such a position that there will be no
lateral inclination of the vertebral column, the arms should
be parallel with the sides of the body, the thorax should not
be interfered with by the front edge of the table, the pelvic
basin should be symmetrically supported, the head slightly
bent forward at a distance of thirty centimeters from the
level of the table; the axis of the eyes, remaining parallel
with the front edge of the table, should be horizontal; the
forearms, two-thirds of which should be laid on the table,
should rest on it, but without leaning upon it."

To realize all these conditions, it is necessary that the desk should be _exactly fitted_ to the proportions of the child; its constituent parts should agree with those of the body and limbs of the scholar.

The following are the measurements which Dufessel considered indispensable in the fashioning of a desk suitable for children:

1. Height.

2. The length of the leg, taken from below the knee, when the child is seated with the legs at right-angles to the thighs, and the feet flat on the ground. This measurement gives the required height of the seat from the foot-rest.

3. The diameter of the body from front to back, taken from the sternum; this, with five centimeters added to it, gives the proper distance from the reading-desk to the back of the seat.

4. The length of the femur, two-thirds of which represent the depth of the seat.

5. Finally, the height of the epigastric cavity above the seat, augmented by a few centimeters, indicates the height of the reading-desk.

We may add that in view of the rapid growth of the child, these measurements should be taken twice in the course of the school year, and children should be made to change places in accordance with these measurements.

There is a little crustacean which, coming naked into the world, chooses an empty shell and adapts itself thereto; when it grows larger and the shell becomes too tight, it sallies forth and takes up its abode in a larger one. This the creature does of its own accord, without a savant to measure it or a teacher to choose a new shell for it. But to us and to scientists, a child is inferior to this lowly invertebrate!

The difficulty of keeping forty or fifty children motionless for hours in the prescribed hygienic attitude, and of finding desks exactly adapted to these growing bodies, makes this remedy impracticable, so hunchbacks continue among us. The problem remains unsolved.

Hence it has been deemed more practical to establish a kind of orthopaedic institution within the building itself in certain model schools in Rome. It consists of a costly and elaborate apparatus, to which the pupils come in turn to be suspended by the head after the method adopted in medicine to combat spinal curvature in Pott's disease (tuberculosis of the vertebral column) and rickets.

Healthy children, as well as the unsound, suffer by these applications; but on the other hand, the results afford encouraging statistics. If this hanging treatment be initiated regularly at the age of six years it strikes a perfect balance with the injury caused by prolonged deterioration induced by school desks, and children are delivered from spinal disease.

* * * * *

=Discoveries of experimental psychology: overwork; nervous exhaustion=.--Hygiene, making its way into the school, discovered scholar's spinal curvature and scholar's myopia; experimental psychology discovered the exhaustion due to overwork, and studied the _fatigue_ of the scholar. It followed in the beaten track of medicine--that is to say, it sought to alleviate the ills it had diagnosed, and instituted a branch of science the title of which is not very clearly defined as yet, for some call it experimental psychology applied to the school, others Scientific Pedagogy.

It is necessary to remember that experimental psychology was established in 1860 by Fechner, who was a physicist accustomed to experiment on _things_, not on living creatures, and who merely adapted the methods employed in physics to psychical measurements, thus founding psycho-physics. The instruments specially invented for esthesiometric measurements were of extreme precision; but the results obtained showed such variations that by mathematical law they could not be attributed to "errors of measurement," but were obviously due to "errors of method." Indeed, for the measurement of liquids it is necessary to have an instrument different from that which we use in measuring solids, although we are still in the domain of physics; we cannot measure a stuff by the quart, nor wine by the yard; how much more then must the methods of measuring physical substances and spiritual energy differ?

After psycho-physics, psycho-physiology was introduced by Wundt. Wundt, being a physiologist, applied the methods of study proper to physiological functions to psychical study. He did not make the exact metrical instrument his aim; but he measured nervous reactions exactly in _time_. Fechner's primitive researches made it possible to produce instruments so exact that they can measure the sound made by a drop of water falling from the height of a meter, while Wundt's researches have resulted in chronometers which can measure the thousandth part of a second. But the spirit did not correspond to the exactness of research--the results showed by their oscillations that nothing was being measured--that the object to be measured escaped. It will suffice to mention that in measuring the nervous currents in rate of transmission of impulse along the nerves and also in the ganglion cells of the spinal marrow, Exner arrived at a rapidity of eight meters, and Bloch at a rapidity of 194 meters, in the same unit of time.

In spite of this startling contrast between the precision of the means of research and the huge variations in the results, which were shown by mathematical law to be absurd, experimental psychology carried on extensive studies, under the illusion that it rested upon a mathematical basis.

It is from this science that a branch has been detached with which to penetrate into the school, for the purpose of giving spiritual help to the scholar, and fresh vigor to pedagogy.

Methods of research are no longer merely those antiquated psycho-physical and psycho-physiological methods formerly in favor; experimental psychology, henceforth emancipated from its origins, has developed independently. It now relies on purely psychological tests for its researches, and although it does not exclude the methods adopted in the laboratory, and the use of such accurate and trustworthy instruments as the esthesiometer and the ergograph, the school itself has become the chief field of experiment.

For example: one of the most familiar tests of attention is to give a printed page to be read over, with directions to strike out every _a_ on the page; the time taken to complete this task is measured by chronometer.

Counting aloud from one to a hundred, and at the same time carrying on arithmetical operations in writing, is a measure of the distribution of the attention, provided the time taken be calculated by the chronometer, and all errors be noted. To make several persons perform similar exercises at the same time enables us to study comparative individual activities. In schools, exercises in dictation which have been previously determined, may be given to a group of scholars, care being taken to note the time occupied in performing the exercise and to compare the errors. This is also an easy and practical means of obtaining collective results.