Chapter IX: Imagination (3)

These experiments all psychologists agree should be carried out without interrupting the usual routine of the school. They are to be regarded as an addition, an _extra_, and may be summed up as a means of scientific research, throwing light upon the regular psychical conditions of school studies.

The principal results of such experiments have been: the multiplicity of mistakes made, and the difficulty of fixing attention; that is to say, they reveal the weariness, the degree of fatigue, in children.

This gave the alarm! Old-fashioned pedagogy was concerned solely with what children ought to do. The idea that their nervous energies might be impaired was first called into being by the warning note of science.

Researches into the causes of fatigue became more and more frequent, and coupled with such researches was the less immediate enquiry as to how fatigue could be "combated" or "alleviated." All the factors relating to the question were studied: age, sex, the degree of intelligence, the type of individual, the influence of the seasons, the influence of the various times of the day, of the various days of the week, of habit, intervals of relaxation, interest, variety of work, the position of the body, and, finally, position in reference to the cardinal points.

* * * * *

=Science is confronted by a mass of unsolved problems=.--The outcome of all these researches is a growing mass of unsolved problems. It has not been established whether males are more easily fatigued than females; whether the intelligent are more subject to fatigue than the unintelligent. With regard to the individual type, Tissié's conclusion seems to be the most noteworthy: "Each individual becomes fatigued or not according to his degree of will." In connection with the seasons it appears that fatigue increases from the first to the last day of school, but it is uncertain whether this is due to the influence of the seasons, or whether, as Schuyten affirms, the scholar's gradual exhaustion is due to the scholastic system. With regard to the time of day, "it is still a question whether the fatigue produced is less when the pupil works spontaneously, but this problem is a difficult one to solve." The days of the week when fatigue is least evident are Monday and Friday, but researches made in this connection are not definitive; as to habit, intervals of rest, interest: "in connection with these factors which are antagonistic to fatigue, it has been questioned whether they actually diminish fatigue, or merely cloak it, but no decision has been reached." A great variety of interesting researches have been made into the question of change of work with identical results--namely, that frequent change of work causes greater fatigue than continuous work of one kind, and that a sudden interruption is more fatiguing than persistence. The following experiment (quoted by Claparède) was made by Schultze: one day the girls were required to add up figures for twenty-five minutes, and then to copy out passages for another twenty-five minutes. Another day they performed the same work, but it was differently divided; they had to add for fifty minutes and to copy for another fifty minutes. Now these last tests gave results infinitely superior to the first. And yet it is well known that, in spite of such results, constant interruption and change of work are commonly practised in schools, as part of a scientific plan for combating fatigue.

One of the researches directly relating to schools is that of the ponogenic co-efficient of the various subjects of instruction, that is to say, of the degrees of fatigue induced by these. Wagner is of opinion _a priori_ that one hundred, the maximum co-efficient, must be assigned to mathematics; in this case, we should get the following ponogenic co-efficients in schools, for each subject:

Mathematics 100
Latin 91
Greek 90
Gymnastics 90
History and Geography 85
French and German 82
Natural History 80
Drawing, Religion 77

We may note the arbitrary and surprising manner in which such results are established; nevertheless, in the name of "experimental science" it is possible to make such deductions as the following:

"It would be interesting to enquire if the order of the
ponogenic co-efficients varies with the age of the children,
which would enable us to know on the one hand when the brain
is best fitted for the study of any particular subject and
when therefore it would be most judicious to make it
predominate in the program; on the other hand, it would help
us in the arrangement of the daily time-table; we should
take, if possible, the most fatiguing subjects at the
beginning of the day" (Claparède, _op. cit._).

Another order of recent researches is that made into the toxines produced by fatigue; Weichardt succeeded in isolating these toxines, and in fabricating anti-toxines with which he experimented successfully on rats. The experiments were also repeated in a clinic. With regard to the appearance of the toxines, it was found that they were abundantly produced during the performance of "wearisome" work, whereas there were only traces of them to be found when the work was "interesting."

Throughout this science so packed with researches which give as their result unsolved problems, we perceive that not one of the factors taken into consideration can alleviate fatigue; interruption and change of work merely aggravate it. The one means by which _surménage_ (exhaustion due to overwork) can be eliminated is to make work pleasant and interesting, to give joy in work rather than pain.

"The necessity of making education and instruction attractive
has been propounded by all pedagogists worthy of the name,
such as Fénelon, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Spencer,"
says Claparède, "but it is still unrecognized in the everyday
practise of the schools" (_op. cit._).

"By common consent, the first duty of the educator is that of
doing no harm: first do no harm, a precept also accepted in
the practise of medicine. To obey it to the letter is,
indeed, _impossible, because every method of scholastic
education is in some way prejudicial to the normal
development of the child_. But the educator will seek to
_alleviate the injury which instruction necessarily entails_"
(_op. cit._).

This is indeed cold comfort, after all these studies and researches! A confession that problems have arisen at every step, and that not a single one has been solved! Indeed, underlying all this is the _problem of problems_: how to make that place attractive and joyous where hitherto the body has been tortured and contorted, and the blood poisoned by weariness! It is impossible to educate without doing harm; but we must do harm that will give pleasure! This is truly an embarrassing position! And this is why an interminable string of notes of interrogation serves as the decorative motive of this new science, which might be more appropriately styled: _ignorabimus_.

And it is for this reason that the considerations indicated by hygiene and psychology now tend to do away altogether with the sum total of irreparable evils, "commuting the sentence," that is to say, abbreviating hours of study, cutting down the curriculum, avoiding written exercises. Thus a new specter, that of ignorance, and henceforth the abandonment of the child for the greater part of the day, present themselves as a substitute for the specter of destruction. Meanwhile our epoch demands an intensive care of the new generation, and the preparation of a culture ever vaster and more complex.

True, it would appear that to-day a way of escape may be offered by the discovery of the anti-toxine for fatigue. "Just think!" exclaims Claparède, "a serum against fatigue. How valuable this would be!" From this point of view, I should say that the ponogenic co-efficients might find a more practical and rational application than that of the revelation of "programs"; indeed these co-efficients indicating the production of toxines would appear destined to determine the dose of anti-toxine necessary to nullify the evil effects resulting from each different subject of instruction. In the not far distant future, when these auxiliary sciences of the school and pedagogy shall have made due progress, we shall perhaps see, side by side with the orthopaedic ward, a physio-chemical clinic, where every evening the pupils, as they leave the beneficent suspensory apparatus which counteracts injury to their skeletons, may enter with a kind of ponogenic prescription regulated by the teaching they have undergone, and receive an injection which will deliver them from the poisonous effects of fatigue!

This reads like an irony of the worst kind, perhaps; but this is not the case. Where the orthopaedic institution is already an accomplished fact, we may very soon see the chemical clinic established. If a problem of liberty is to be solved with machines, and if a problem of justice is to be regarded from the chemical point of view, similar consequences will be the logical end of sciences developed upon such errors.

It is obvious that a real experimental science, which shall guide education and deliver the child from slavery, is not yet born; when it appears, it will be to the so-called "sciences" that have sprung up in connection with the diseases of martyred childhood as chemistry to alchemy, and as positive medicine to the empirical medicine of bygone centuries.

I think it will be of interest here to record the impressions of a person who, leaving the field of mathematics, entered upon the study of biology and experimental psychology.

It is an account of a young English engineer, who had evidently mistaken his vocation, and who, after studying my method for two years, returned to the universities of his own great country as a student of biology.

This is his opinion of experimental psychology:

In psychology we are studying the most modern experimental
researches. At present we are engaged upon Thought and
Imagination. I must confess that I do not find this course
very illuminating, though I agree that it is necessary to
know something of these researches. In modern psychology
there is nothing at all adequate to the subject of our
method. These investigators seem to me like persons looking
at a tree, and noting the most obvious of its external forms:
the shape of a leaf, a stem, etc., doing all this with great
gravity and using very precise language (perhaps believing
that this constitutes science), but often confusing the
function of _definition_ with that of _description_.

In this manner descriptions of wonderful and fascinating
things are reduced to arid definitions, in order to be
clothed in their science, and thus are rendered powerless to
inspire thought. They never meditate; they read a great deal;
they think in mental images which no more represent facts
than a diagram on the blackboard represents a living organ;
and these images differ among different psychologists, but
their language is always the same. They do all this believing
they are making progress, and instead of training their
pupils to observe for themselves without prejudice, they
instil their own prejudices into the minds of the students,
cramming them with definitions and descriptions of the
strangest and most amorphous kind, which effectually prevent
them from thinking for themselves.

But within the tree there is the fundamental structure which
they have not begun to examine, though the revelation of this
would explain all the external data. The details would
diminish in importance; all these details issuing from a
single root might be classified in the simplest manner. This
"science" reminds me of that antiquated lore which dealt
with the constellations, when the laws of planetary motion
were not yet known, and the so-called science confined itself
to descriptions of the "Great Bear," the "Crab," the "Goat,"
etc.

I detest those dryasdusts who, unaware of their own
ignorance, write enormous arid tomes with an air of great
majesty, as if they were revealing absolute knowledge, books
that lie heavy on the minds of the students, making them dry
as their teachers. But the students seem to me to care only
about passing their examinations and to have no thought of
discovering new knowledge; and the professors "serve" them to
this end. Thus we are all in a state of servitude due to a
mistaken system of education, which calls loudly for reform.

III

MY CONTRIBUTION TO EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE

=The organization of psychical life begins with the characteristic phenomenon of attention=.--My experimental work with little children from three to six years old has been, in fact, a practical contribution to research which has for its aim the discovery of the treatment required by the soul of the child, a treatment analogous to that which hygiene prescribes for its body.

I think, therefore, that it is essential to record the fundamental fact which led me to define my method.

I was making my first essays in applying the principles and part of the material I had used for many years previously in the education of deficient children, to the normal children of the San Lorenzo quarter in Rome, when I happened to notice a little girl of about three years old deeply absorbed in a set of solid insets, removing the wooden cylinders from their respective holes and replacing them. The expression on the child's face was one of such concentrated attention that it seemed to me an extraordinary manifestation; up to this time none of the children had ever shown such fixity of interest in an object; and my belief in the characteristic instability of attention in young children, who flit incessantly from one thing to another, made me peculiarly alive to the phenomenon.

I watched the child intently without disturbing her at first, and began to count how many times she repeated the exercise; then, seeing that she was continuing for a long time, I picked up the little armchair in which she was seated, and placed chair and child upon the table; the little creature hastily caught up her case of insets, laid it across the arms of her chair, and gathering the cylinders into her lap, set to work again. Then I called upon all the children to sing; they sang, but the little girl continued undisturbed, repeating her exercise even after the short song had come to an end. I counted forty-four repetitions; when at last she ceased, it was quite independently of any surrounding stimuli which might have distracted her, and she looked round with a satisfied air, almost as if awaking from a refreshing nap.

I think my never-to-be-forgotten impression was that experienced by one who has made a discovery.

This phenomenon gradually became common among the children: it may therefore be recorded as a constant reaction occurring in connection with certain external conditions, which may be determined. And each time that such a polarisation of attention took place, the child began to be completely transformed, to become calmer, more intelligent, and more expansive; it showed extraordinary spiritual qualities, recalling the phenomena of a higher consciousness, such as those of conversion.

It was as if in a saturated solution, a point of crystallization had formed, round which the whole chaotic and fluctuating mass united, producing a crystal of wonderful forms. Thus, when the phenomenon of the polarisation of attention had taken place, all that was disorderly and fluctuating in the consciousness of the child seemed to be organizing itself into a spiritual creation, the surprising characteristics of which are reproduced in every individual.

It made one think of the _life of man_ which may remain diffused among a multiplicity of things, in an inferior state of chaos, until some special thing attracts it intensely and fixes it; and then man is revealed unto himself, he feels that he has begun to live.

This spiritual phenomenon which may co-involve the entire consciousness of the adult, is therefore only one of the constant elements of the phenomena of "internal formation." It occurs as the normal beginning of the inner life of children, and accompanies its development in such a manner as to become accessible to research, as an experimental fact.

It was thus that the soul of the child gave its revelations, and under their guidance a method exemplifying spiritual liberty was evolved.

The story of this initiatory episode soon spread throughout the world, and at first it seemed like the story of a miracle. Then by degrees, as experiments were made among the most diverse races, the simple and evident principles of this spiritual "treatment" were manifested.

* * * * *

=Psychical development is organized by the aid of external stimuli, which may be determined experimentally=.--The contribution I have made to the education of young children tends, in fact, to _specify_ by means of the revelations due to experiment, the form of liberty in internal development.

It would not be possible to conceive liberty of development, if by its very nature the child were not capable of a spontaneous organic development, if the tendency to develop his energies (expansion of latent powers), the conquest of the means necessary to a harmonious innate development, did not already exist. In order to expand, the child, left at liberty to exercise his activities, ought to find in his surroundings something _organized_ in direct relation to his internal organization which is developing itself by natural laws, just as the free insect finds in the form and qualities of flowers a direct correspondence between form and sustenance. The insect is undoubtedly free when, seeking the nectar which nourishes it, it is in reality helping the reproduction of the plant. There is nothing more marvelous in nature than the correspondence between the organs of these two orders of beings destined to such a providential cooperation.

The secret of the free development of the child consists, therefore, in organizing for him the means necessary for his internal nourishment, means corresponding to a primitive impulse of the child, comparable to that which makes the new-born infant capable of sucking milk from the breast, which by its external form and elaborated sustenance, corresponds perfectly to the requirements of the infant.

It is in the satisfaction of this primitive impulse, this internal hunger, that the child's personality begins to organize itself and reveal its characteristics; just as the new-born infant, in nourishing itself, organizes its body and its natural movements.

We must not therefore set ourselves the educational problem of seeking means whereby to organize the internal personality of the child and develop his characteristics; the sole problem is that of offering the child the necessary nourishment.

It is by this means that the child develops an organized and complex activity which, while it responds to a primitive impulse, exercises the intelligence and develops qualities we consider lofty, and which we supposed were foreign to the nature of the young child, such as patience and perseverance in work, and in the moral order, obedience, gentleness, affection, politeness, serenity; qualities we are accustomed to divide into different categories, and as to which, hitherto, we have cherished the illusion that it was our task to develop them gradually by our direct interposition, although in practise we have never known by what means to do so successfully.

In order that the phenomenon should come to pass it is _necessary_ that the spontaneous development of the child should be accorded _perfect liberty_; that is to say, that its calm and peaceful expansion should not be disturbed by the intervention of an untimely and disturbing influence; just as the body of the new-born infant should be left in peace to assimilate its nourishment and grow properly.

In such an attitude ought we to await the _miracles_ of the inner life, its expansions and also its unforeseen and surprising explosions; just as the intelligent mother, only giving her baby nourishment and rest, contemplates it, seeing it _grow_, and awaits the manifestations of nature: the first tooth, the first word, and finally the action by which the baby will one day rise to his feet and walk.

But to ensure the psychical phenomena of growth, we must prepare the "environment" in a definite manner, and from this environment offer the child the external means directly necessary for him.

This is the _positive_ fact which my experiment has rendered concrete. Hitherto the liberty of the child has been vaguely discussed; no clearly defined limit has been established between liberty and abandonment. We were told: "Liberty has its limits," "Liberty must be properly understood." But a special method indicating "how liberty should be interpreted, and what is the intuitive _quid_ which ought to co-exist with it," had not been determined.

The establishment of such a method should open up a new path to all education.

* * * * *

It is therefore necessary that the environment should contain the means of auto-education. These means cannot be "taken at random"; they represent the result of an experimental study which cannot be undertaken by all, because a scientific preparation is necessary for such delicate work; besides, like all experimental study, it is laborious, prolonged, and exact. Many years of research are required, before the means really _necessary_ for _psychical development_ can be set forth. Those educationalists who leave the great question of the liberty of the pupil to the good sense or to the preparation of the master are very far from solving the problem of liberty. The greatest scientist, or the person most fitted by nature to teach, could never of himself discover such, because, to preparation and natural gifts, the further factor of _time_ must be added--the long period of preparatory experiment. Therefore a _science_ which has already _provided the means_ for self-education must exist beforehand. To-day, he who speaks of liberty in the schools ought at the same time to exhibit objects--approximating to a scientific apparatus--which will make such liberty possible.

The scientific instrument must be constructed upon a basis of _exactitude_. Just as the lenses of the physicist are constructed in accordance with the laws of the refraction of light, so the pedagogic instrument should be based on the _psychical manifestations_ of the child.

Such an instrument may be compared to a systematized "mental test." It is not, however, established upon a basis of external measurement, for the purpose of estimating the amount of instantaneous psychical reaction which it produces; it is, on the contrary, a stimulus which is itself determined by the psychical reactions it is capable of producing and maintaining permanently. It is the psychical reaction, therefore, that in this case determines and establishes the systematic "mental test." The psychical reaction which constitutes the sole basis of comparison in the determination of the tests, is a _polarization of the attention_, and _the repetition of the actions_ related to it. When a stimulus corresponds in this manner to the "reflex personality," it serves, not to _measure_ but to _maintain_ a lively reaction; it is therefore a stimulus to the "internal formation." Indeed, upon such activity, awakened and maintained, the accompanying organism initiates its internal elaborations in relation to the stimuli.

This does not penetrate into the ancient ambit of pedagogy as a science that _measures_ the personality, as the experimental psychology introduced in schools has hitherto done, but as a science that _transforms_ the personality, and is therefore capable of taking its stand as a true and real pedagogy. Whereas the ancient pedagogy in all its various interpretations started from the conception of a "receptive personality"--one, that is to say, which was to receive instructions and to be passively formed, this scientific departure starts from the conception of an _active_ personality--reflex and associative--developing itself by a series of reactions induced by systematic stimuli which have been determined by experiment. This new pedagogy accordingly belongs to the series of modern sciences, and not to antique speculations, although it is not directly based on the purely metric studies of "positive psychology." But the "method," which informs it--namely, experiment, observation, evidence or proof, the recognition of new phenomena, their reproduction and utilization, undoubtedly place it among the experimental sciences.

* * * * *

=External stimuli may be determined in quality and quantity=.--Nothing can be more interesting than such experiments. By their means external stimuli may be determined with the greatest precision, both as regards quality and quantity. For instance, very small objects of various geometric forms will only attract the fugitive attention of a child of three years old; but by increasing the dimensions gradually, we arrive at the limit of size when these objects will fix the attention; then such objects excite an activity which becomes permanent, and the resulting exercise becomes a factor of development. The experiment is repeated with a number of children, and thus the dimensions of a series of objects are established.

It is the same with colors and with every kind of _quality_. In order that a quality should be felt to such a degree as to fix the attention, a certain extension and a certain intensity of the stimulus are necessary, which may be _determined_ by the degree of psychical reaction shown by the child; as, for instance, the minimum chromatic extension sufficient to attract the attention to the colored tablets, etc. Quality, therefore, is determined by a psychical experiment demonstrating the activity it produces in a child, who will continue the exercise with the same object for a long time, thus elaborating a phenomenon of internal development, of self-formation.

Among the characteristics of the objects, one must be pointed out, which demands the highest degree of activity in the intelligence: they contain in themselves _control of error_.

To make the process one of self-education, it is not enough that the stimulus should call forth activity, it must also direct it. The child should not only persist for a long time in an exercise; he must persist without making mistakes. All the physical or intrinsic qualities of the objects should be determined, not only by the immediate reaction of attention they provoke in the child, but also by their possession of this fundamental characteristic, the control of error, that is to say the power of evoking the effective collaboration of the highest activities (comparison, judgment). For instance, one of the first objects which attract the attention of the child of three years old, the solid insets (a series of cylinders of various dimensions to be placed in or taken out of a block with corresponding holes) contains the most mechanical control, because if a single mistake be made in placing the cylinders, one of these must be left out at the end of the exercise. Hence a mistake is an obstacle only to be overcome by correction, for without it the exercise cannot be completed. On the other hand, the correction is so easy that the child makes it himself. The little problem suddenly presenting itself to the child, almost like the unexpected object of a jack-in-the-box, has "interested" him.

It is, however, noteworthy that the "problem" thus presented is not in itself the stimulus to interest; it is not that which incites to the repetition of the act--to the progress of the child. What interests the child is the sensation, not only of placing the objects but of acquiring a new power of perception, enabling him to recognize the difference of dimension in the cylinders, a difference which he did not at first notice. The _problem_ presents itself solely in connection with the _error_, it does not accompany the normal process of development. An interest stimulated merely by _curiosity_, by a "problem," would not be that formative interest which wells up from the needs of life itself, and therefore directs the building up of the spiritual personality. If it were only the problem which should lead the soul to find itself, order might be dissipated by it, as by any other external cause which tends to _seduce_ life into false paths. I lay, perhaps, excessive stress upon this point, in answer to very important objections and observations that have been made to me.

Indeed in the second series of objects designed to educate the eye to appreciate dimensions, the control of error is not mechanical, but psychological; the child himself, whose eye has been educated to recognize differences of dimension, will see the error, provided the objects be of a certain size and attractively colored. It is for this reason that the next objects contain, so to say, the control of error in their own size and in their bright colors. A control of error of a totally different kind, and of a much higher order, is that offered by the material of the arithmetical frame, in which the control will consist in the comparison of the child's own work with that of a model, a comparison which denotes a remarkably intelligent effort of will on the part of the child, and places him thenceforth in the true conditions of conscious auto-education. But, however slight the control of error may be, and in spite of the fact that this diverges more and more from an external mechanism, to rely upon the internal activities which are gradually developing, it always depends, like all the qualities of the objects, upon the fundamental reaction of the child, who accords it prolonged attention, and repeats the exercises.

On the other hand, the experimental criterion is different, in determining the _quantity of the objects_. When the instruments have been constructed with great precision, they provoke a spontaneous exercise so coordinated and so harmonious with the facts of internal development, that at a certain point a new psychical picture, a species of higher plane in the complex development, is revealed.

The child turns away spontaneously from the material, not with any signs of fatigue, but rather as if impelled by fresh energies, and his mind is capable of abstractions. At this stage of development, the child turns his attention to the external world, and observes it with an order which is the order formed in his mind during the period of the preceding development; he begins spontaneously to make a series of careful and logical comparisons which represent a veritable spontaneous acquisition of "knowledge." This is the period henceforth to be known as the period of "discoveries," discoveries which evoke enthusiasm and joy in the child.

This more elevated level of development is extremely fruitful in its last ascent It is essential that the child's attention should not be directed to the objects when the delicate phenomenon of abstraction begins. For instance, the teacher who invites the child to continue his operations with the material at such a moment, will retard his spontaneous development and place an obstacle in his way. If the enthusiasm which leads the child to rise to greater heights and experience so many intellectual emotions be extinguished, a path of progress has been closed. Now the same error may be committed by an _excessive quantity_ of the educative material; this may dissipate the attention, render the exercises with the objects mechanical, and cause the child to pass by his psychological moment of ascent without perceiving it and seizing it. Moreover, such objects are then futile, and, by their futility, "the child may lose his soul."

The thing to be exactly determined is: what is _necessary_ and _sufficient_ as a response to the internal needs of a life in process of development, that is, of upward progression, of _ascent_? Now in determining the "quantity" we must be guided by the expression and at the same time by the active manifestations of the child. Those children who have long been occupied with these determined objects, showing every sign of absorbed attention, will, all of a sudden, begin to rise gradually and insensibly, like an aeroplane when it completes its short journey upon the ground. Their apparent indifference to the objects is revealed in its true essence by the intense and radiant expression of the face, which is animated by the liveliest joy. The child may seem to be doing nothing, but this will only be for a moment; very soon he will speak, and so will reveal what is happening within him, and then his ebullient activity will carry him along in a series of explorations and discoveries. He is saved.

Now take the case of other children in whom the same primitive phenomenon is taking place, but who are surrounded by too great a profusion of objects. At the moment of maturity they are seen to be caught, obstructed, almost palpably entangled in the toils that bind them to earth. A diminution of the absorbed attention bestowed upon the new objects, instability, and consequently fatigue, manifest themselves in an obvious extinction of internal activity. The child's bearing deteriorates, he indulges in loud, empty laughter, rude actions, and indolence. He demands "other objects," and then again other objects, because he has remained imprisoned "in the vicious circle of vanities," and is no longer sensible to anything but the desire to alleviate his weariness. Like the adult who during a chaotic life commits kindred errors, he becomes undisciplined, feeble, and "in peril of perdition." If some one does not help him by wresting from him the futile objects, and pointing out his heaven to him, he will hardly have the energy to save himself.

These two extreme types will give an idea of the criteria by which we experimentally determine the quantity of the material necessary for development.

Over-abundance debilitates and retards progress; this has been proved again and again by my collaborators.

If, on the other hand, the material be insufficient, and the primary auto-exercise incapable of leading the child on to that _maturity_ which causes him to ascend, there will be no explosion of that spontaneous phenomenon of abstraction which is the second stage of an auto-education advancing in infinite progression. The same fundamental phenomenon of absorbed and prolonged attention which leads to repetition of the acts, guides us in determining the stimuli suitable to the _age_ of the child. A stimulus which will cause a child of three years old to repeat an act forty times in succession, may only be repeated ten times by a child of six; the object which arouses the interest of a child of three no longer interests a child of six. Nevertheless the child of six is capable of fixing his attention for a much longer period than a child of three, when the stimulus is suited to his activities; if, indeed, a little child of three may achieve as his maximum the repetition of an act forty times in succession, the child of six is capable of repeating two hundred times an act which interests him. If the maximum period of continuous work on the same object may be half an hour for the child of three, it may be over two hours for the child of six.

Hence, to establish systematic tests for a certain purpose, such as that of preparing children to write, without taking their ages into account, is valueless. For example, my system of writing is based upon the direct preparation of the movements which physiologically concur to produce writing: _i.e._ manipulation of the instrument of writing and the tracing of the letters of the alphabet. The children, filling in the contours of the insets with innumerable parallel strokes in the one case, and touching the sand-paper letters in the other, fix the two muscular mechanisms so perfectly, that the final result is an "explosion" of "spontaneous writing" extraordinarily uniform in all the children--because, as if all molded to a common form, they have fixed the necessary movements by touching the same alphabet, and therefore reproduce its forms faithfully. To bring this about, to establish a real motor-mechanism, it is essential that the exercise should be repeated over and over again. Now the children who take most interest in filling in the figures with parallel strokes, and, above all, in touching the letters, are, at most, between four and five years old. If we offer the same material to a child of six he will not touch the letters often enough, and he will always write imperfectly, in comparison with the child who has begun the exercise at a suitable age. This applies also to all the other details of the system. It is therefore possible to determine experimentally, with, I believe, a precision not hitherto attained, what is the mental attitude of the child at various ages, and hence, if the fitting material for development be offered, what will be the average level of intellectual development according to age.

Here we have an indication of the possibility of _determining_ the means of development so exactly as to establish a true correspondence between internal needs and external stimuli, just as actual as the correspondence which exists between the insect and the flower.

He who has all this material ready to his hand has an easy task in bringing about the natural development of the psychic life of the child. With such objects at his disposal, every teacher may realize the ideal of _liberty in the school_.

This long, occult experiment--suggested to me, as I have already said, by Itard and Séguin--is, in fact, my initial contribution to education.

All this preparatory work has served for the determination of the method now well known, but it is also the key to its continuation.

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=The material of development is necessary only as a starting point=.--In the organization of the external means of development, there remains a material impress of the internal development, and of that which the soul needs in its progress, during its course, and in its flights. The material part does not contain the impress of the whole soul, any more than the impress of the foot is the impress of the whole body; the aviation-ground is not the sphere of action proper to the aeroplane, but it is the part of _terra-firma_ necessary for flight, and it is also the resting-place, the refuge, the _hangar_ to which the aeroplane must always return. Thus in psychical formation there is a necessary material part from which the spirit rises, and where it should find repose, refuge, and a point of support, Without this it could not grow and rise "freely."

In order that it may be a true support it ought "to reproduce its forms" and contain them in the part corresponding to the peculiar functions of the material aid. Thus, for instance, in the first period of the psychical life, the material corresponds to the primitive exercises of the senses--it is in quality and quantity determined by the sensory needs given by nature--and permits an exercise of the activities sufficient to _mature_ a superior psychical state of observation and abstraction. _Vice versa_, nothing corresponds in the material to the subsequent career which the childish spirit accomplishes with such delight and with so much acquisition of knowledge. But we then see the spirit eager for higher kinds of exercise--and now we witness the same primitive phenomenon of attention, which will exercise itself henceforth upon the alphabet and arithmetical material, repeating in a more complex form methodical exercises of the intelligence by linking auditory images with the visible and motor images of the spoken and written word; and in the positive study of quantities, proportions, and number. The same concomitant phenomena of "patience" and "perseverance" then manifest themselves, together with those of vivacity, activity, and joy, characteristic of the spirit when the internal energies have found their _keyboard_, the gymnasium in which they exercise themselves freely and tranquilly.

And the spirit, organized in this manner under the guidance of an order which corresponds to its natural order, becomes _fortified_, grows _vigorously_, and manifests itself in the _equilibrium_, the _serenity_, the self-control which produce the wonderful _discipline_ characteristic of the behavior of our children.

The external material, then, should present itself to the psychical requirements of the child as a staircase which helps him to ascend, step by step, and on the steps of this staircase there will of necessity be disposed the means of _culture_, and of the higher _formation_. Therefore the psychical exercises require new material, and this, if it is to fulfil its purpose, must contain new and more complex forms of objects capable of fixing the attention, of making the intelligence ripen in the continual exercise of its own energies, and of producing those phenomena of persistence in application and of patience to which will be added elasticity, psychical equilibrium, and the capacity for abstraction and spontaneous creation. Thus, in the subsequent development of the children, we see them applying themselves to those exercises of the memory which seem to us most arid, because a desire has been born in them, not only to retain the images they encounter in the world, but also to "acquire knowledge rapidly" by a determined effort. An example of this is seen in the surprising yet common phenomenon of committing the multiplication table to memory, whereas the memorizing of poems and prose extracts, although this is sometimes a passion, causes us no surprise.

Very interesting again, is the _detachment_ the child shows at a certain point from the aids to arithmetical calculation; at a certain stage of maturity he desires to "reason in the abstract" and make "abstract calculations with numbers," as if obeying an internal impulse which seeks to liberate the soul from every material bond and at the same time to effect an economy of time. Hereupon we see children of eight years old become eager and precocious calculators.

Children thus launched upon the enterprises of self-education acquire a remarkable "sensibility" as to their own internal needs. Just as the new-born infant whose food is rationally regulated, is silent and tranquil during the two hours of digestion and assimilation, and cries out the moment the hour for a fresh meal has struck, so do these children "ask for help," ask for "new materials," new "forms of work," as soon as they have accomplished their mysterious phenomena of internal maturation, and ask for them _determinately_, indicating _their most immediate need_, just as one in physical want would be able to state distinctly whether he were hungry, thirsty, or sleepy. A child, in like manner, asks for reading, or grammatical exercises, or means for observing Nature. His sensibility manifests itself in a lucid and intense desire, to which the teacher has only to respond.

It is evident that some _external_ basis is necessary in the progressive development of such phenomena, and that the teacher, who is to respond to the requests of the child in conscious evolution, cannot do so adequately by haphazard means; he must be guided by conditions previously determined by experience. In other words, those external means already alluded to several times, that _staircase_, the steps of which lead the soul upwards, must have been already _established by experience_, just as all the preceding means of the first development of the infant were established.

The construction of the ascending stairway, of the external means of support for the soul in process of evolution, is gradually amplified, like an inverted cone, the apex of which touches the very beginnings of psychical life, resting upon that primitive impulse which attracts the child of two and a half to the sensory stimuli, just as hunger leads the new-born infant to perform the wonderful complex action of sucking. And as these external means multiply, they are complicated more and more by the growing psychical needs of the child, and comprise within themselves the principles of culture.

The highest external organization is not based solely upon psychological necessities, but also upon those factors which take into account the cultural aspect itself. Each subject of study, as, for instance, arithmetic, grammar, geometry, natural science, music, literature, should be presented by means of external objects upon a well-defined systematic plan. The essentially psychological character of the preliminary work must now be supplemented by the collaboration of specialists in each subject, in order to ensure the establishment of that aggregate of means necessary and sufficient to incite to auto-education.

This is the experimental preparatory work, which establishes those means of development, those external _impressions_, necessary to unfold the inner life, and an _exact_ correspondence to the psychical needs of _formation_ is essential in their construction.

Up to a certain point, they might correspond with the so-called didactic or objective material of the old methods. Their significance, however, is profoundly different. The objective material of the old schools was an aid to the teacher, in making his explanations comprehensible to a collective class listening passively to him. The objects were related solely _to the things to be explained_, and these were chosen at random, that is to say, without any scientific criterion of their relation to the psychical needs of the child.

Here, on the other hand, _the means of development_ are experimentally determined with reference to the psychical evolution of the child; and their aim is not to give mere instruction; they represent the means which induce a spontaneous interpretation of the internal energies.

The external material is then offered, and _left freely_ to the natural individual energies of the children. They choose the objects they prefer; and such preference is dictated by the internal needs of "psychical growth." Each child occupies himself with each object chosen for as long as he wishes; and this desire corresponds to the needs of the intimate maturation of the spirit, a process which demands persevering and prolonged exercise. No guide, no teacher can divine the intimate need of each pupil, and the time of maturation necessary to each; but only leave the child _free_, and all this will be revealed to us under the guidance of nature.

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=Psychical truths=.--It is necessary to adopt a scientific point of view in order to interpret the facts that reveal themselves in children when they are developed upon this system, and to divest oneself completely of the old scholastic conception according to which the progress of the child is assessed according to his proficiency in the various subjects of study. Here, almost like the naturalist, it is essential to observe the development of certain phenomena of life. It is true that we prepare special "external conditions"; but the psychical effects are directly bound up with the spontaneous development of the internal activity of the child.

Hence there is no direct correspondence between teacher and child; instruction is certainly not a cause of the effects observed. It is the objects of the method which, as "re-agents," provoke special psychical reactions; these may be summed up as an awakening, as an organization of the personality. Discipline, as the first result of an order establishing itself within, is the principal phenomenon to be looked for as the "external sign" of an internal process that has been initiated.

During the first days when a new school is opened, we may consider a certain initial disorder as characteristic, especially if the teacher is making her first experiment, and consequently is handicapped by her over-sanguine expectations. The immediate response of the child to the material does not take place; the teacher is perhaps discomfited by the fact that the children do not throw themselves, as she had hoped, upon the objects, choosing them according to their individual taste. If, indeed, the pupils are very poor children, this phenomenon does nearly always happen at once; but if they are well-to-do children, already sated by the variety of their possessions, and by the most costly toys, they are very rarely attracted at first by the stimuli presented to them. This naturally leads to disorder when the mistress makes a kind of chain of that "liberty" she is to respect, and a dogma of the correlation existing between the stimulus and the childish soul. Experienced teachers, on the other hand, understand better that _liberty_ begins when the _life_ that must be developed in the child is initiated, and they possess a tact which greatly facilitates orientation in the initial period.

However, an experience under the most difficult conditions, as between a teacher making her first experiment, and a class of wealthy children, is more instructive, and gives us a clearer picture of the fundamental psychical phenomenon, which may be compared to the order which springs up out of chaos.

I quote, in this connection, various descriptions, some of which already have been published, among them that given by Miss George, of her first school in the United States, and that of Mlle. Dufresne in England.

The initial disorder is eloquently set forth by Miss George: "They (the children) at first snatched the objects out of each other's hands; if I tried to show an object to any particular pupil, the others dropped what they themselves were holding and gathered aimlessly and noisily round us. When I had finished explaining the nature of an object, all the children snatched at it and quarreled for its possession. The children showed no interest in the material: they passed from one object to another without persevering in the use of any.... One of the children was so incapable of keeping still that he could not remain seated long enough to run his fingers round one of the little circular objects we give the children. In many cases, the movements of the children were quite aimless, they ran round the room without any apparent object. During these movements, they made no attempt to respect the objects about them; indeed, they stumbled against the table, upset the chairs and stepped upon the material; sometimes they began an occupation at one spot, and then ran off in another direction; they took up the objects and cast them aside capriciously."

Miss Dufresne describes the initial disorder of her first attempt as follows: "I must confess that the first four weeks were disheartening; the children could not settle to a task for more than a few moments; they showed no perseverance, no initiative; at times they followed one another like a flock of lambs; when one child took up an object, all the others wanted to imitate him, sometimes they rolled on the floor and overturned the chairs."

From an experiment with rich children here in Rome, we get the following laconic description: "The greatest difficulty was the question of discipline. The children showed a complete lack of attraction to their work, and seemed disinclined to begin upon it."

These persons, who were all working independently, are all agreed later in their accounts of the initiation of order: the phenomenon is identical; at a given moment, a child begins to show an intense interest in one of the exercises. It is by no means necessary that it should be that exercise pertaining to the object determined as the first series; it may be any other object that fixes the attention of the child so deeply; the important factor is not the external object, but the internal action of the soul, responding to a stimulus, and arrested by it.

Now when a child once shows this deep interest in any one of the objects we present to him as something answering to his psychical needs, he goes on to show a like interest in all the objects, and begins to develop activities as by a natural phenomenon. When once the initiation has taken place, it leads to progression which goes on steadily, and develops of its own accord. Moreover, the phenomenon is not that of the slow and gradual progression that might be produced by a measured and systematic external action; rather it has the "explosive" character of unsuspected facts that establish themselves suddenly, and make us think of the crises of physiological life, so characteristic in the period of growth. Thus it is from one day to another that the baby cuts a tooth, from one day to another that he utters his first word, from one day to another that he takes his first step; and when the first tooth has been cut, the whole set of teeth will come; when the first word has been uttered, language will be developed; when the first step has been taken, the power of walking has been established once for all.

Similar crises occur in the first achievement of psychic order, which is the beginning of progressive evolution in the inner life.

I quote the following sentences from Miss George's description of the advent of discipline:

"In a few days that nebulous mass of whirling particles--the
disorderly children--began to take definite form. The
children seemed to begin to find their own way; in many of
the objects they had at first despised as silly playthings,
they began to discover a novel interest, and, as a result of
this new interest, they began to act as independent
individuals." Miss George's subsequent expression is: "They
became extremely individual." "Thus it came to pass that an
object of absorbing interest to one child had not the
slightest attraction for another; the children were strongly
differentiated in their manifestations of attention...." "The
battle is only definitively won, when the child discovers
some particular object which spontaneously excites great
interest in him. Sometimes this enthusiasm awakens
unexpectedly, or with curious rapidity."

"On one occasion I had tried a child with nearly all the
objects of the series without exciting the smallest spark of
interest; then I casually showed him the two tablets of red
and blue colors, and called his attention to the difference
of tint. He seized them at once with a kind of thirstiness,
and learned five different colors in a single lesson; during
the following days he took nearly all the objects of the
series which he had at first despised, and little by little
mastered them all.