Chapter XVII: Science and History

“True human wisdom has for its bedrock an intimate knowledge
of the immediate environment and trained capacity for dealing
with it. The quality of mind thus engendered is simple and
clear-sighted, formed by having to do with uncompromising
realities and hence adapted to future situations. It is firm,
sensitive and sure of itself.”

—JOHN DEWEY.

“No book or map is a substitute for personal experience; they
cannot take the place of the actual journey.”

—_Ibid._

“The destiny of nations lies far more in the hands of women—the
mothers—than in the hands of rulers.”

—F. FROEBEL.

=Cultivating a Scientific Mind.= Science is concerned with
causes and effects, laws and principles of action, systematic
classification of facts, exact knowledge of facts. A scientific
habit of mind is developed in the little child by encouraging
curiosity, exploration, experimenting, collecting, questioning; by
consistent parental action and discipline, honesty and sincerity
in statements, the answering of questions so as to provoke further
thought.

Usually a child needs little stimulus to interest in natural
science. Everything in the world is new to him. The baby is
interested in every object he can touch, in shining or moving
objects. The toddler is interested in moving things, especially
animals, trains, clocks; in sticks, stones, and leaves because he
can use them. The little child from three to six is interested
in sun, moon, and stars, in day and darkness, in rain, snow,
wind, in flowers and trees, as well as in animals and birds.
Natural, spontaneous questions regarding the biological origin and
development of life are asked between three and eight, and this is
the period especially recommended for teaching the child of the
mother’s part in his prenatal care, and the value of the father’s
share, and thereby fostering his wholesome attitude of gratitude,
and his respect for all motherhood and fatherhood. At four or
five, rivers, lakes, hills, valleys, the time of day, attract his
attention. Processes of mechanics, filling and emptying, pouring,
pulleys, wheels, are matters of keen interest from early in his
second year.

There is an early stage when he asks “What?” meaning what is its
name. Later comes the “Why?” which is a search for physical causes
and reasons, and also for philosophical reasons.

=Learning the Fundamental Facts.= The teacher of the very little
child must first know what are the fundamental facts in science.
Too often the traditional school training has given an intensive
acquaintance with one or two sciences, so detailed that the
fundamental foundations are obscured. The teacher of the very
little child needs, instead, a comprehensive knowledge of many
sciences, in their broad basic outlines,—especially physics,
chemistry, nature-study, biology, physical geography, geology,
astronomy, industrial geography and industrial processes, the story
of primitive life and industries.

=Nature Study That is Worth While.= Moreover, her knowledge should
not be purely impersonal; it must be human, poetic, related to
industry and religion. The sense of wonder and of nurture is strong
in the little child. He is more interested in feeding and caring
for his rabbits or goldfish or flowers than in analyzing them, or
describing their form or color; the latter are merely incidental
in his interest, and they should be in his teaching. On the other
hand, his knowledge of form, color, and such abstract qualities may
well come quite naturally and incidentally through nature-study and
handwork rather than through special apparatus, separated from real
objects and life.

=Geography.= This comes naturally through his personal experiences.
Maps, diagrams, globes, are complex and abstract and symbolic;
they belong somewhere after six years, with most children not
before nine years. The child must have arrived at the stage when
he can think in terms of symbols, before he can really interpret
them. It will do no harm to have a globe where he may see it, but
it would be a fallacy to consider that he can really interpret
it, and a mistake to attempt using it until he has grasped the
idea of the bigness of the earth on which he lives. Maps will not
be interpretable until later. He may point to places on the map,
but without appreciation of their meaning. Somewhere between six
and ten years of age he may begin making a “map” of the imaginary
country he has built in the sand box, with rivers, lakes, cities;
or of the room, locating the articles of furniture; or of the
street, locating the houses, sidewalks, telegraph poles, first
drawing freehand, and when more advanced, drawing to scale. At
three or four years, with his sand pile, he can reproduce forms he
has seen—hills, valleys, rivers, lakes. He will want to use real
water for rivers. It is well to let him experiment with this until
he is dissatisfied because of its disappearance, and then look for
play substitutes,—gray, blue, or green yarn, paper or cloth, mica.
It is more important that it should be representative to _him_ than
to his elders.

Real geography comes through seeing places and people. The little
child under five or six belongs naturally in the country, where
he has the opportunity for acquaintance with physical geography
in many forms. Great variety of natural objects and experiences
should be provided. On the other hand, intensive acquaintance with
only a few people or nationalities is better. After four or five
years of age, he is able to stand the excitement of traveling, and
the risk of dust and crowds, and he is ready to profit by seeing
other people, cities, customs, ways of traveling, industries. The
least journey to a new environment is valuable, to enlarge his
perspective and his sympathies. Even at three or four he likes to
see pictures of other children in other countries, and how they
live,—their houses, clothes, food, toys, pets. Especially is he
attracted by stories of primitive, outdoor life. The story of
Hiawatha, in Longfellow’s original, is well adapted to the sixth
year, and some children love it and enjoy it earlier.

Dolls may be dressed to represent children of different lands. The
sand box may be used to represent tropical, arctic, mountainous,
agricultural, fishing, mining countries and scenes. Scrapbooks can
be made for each country, with pictures from magazines, railroad or
steamship folders, post cards. Foreign magazines may be obtained,
in the east, through Brentano’s (New York). Correspondence could
easily be arranged with a child in some foreign country if not
through personal acquaintances, at least through some foreign
school, mission, society, or consul. Early acquaintance with the
children of other countries cultivates a feeling of sympathy that
is the foundation of world fellowship and international peace.
If there is opportunity to learn a few colloquial sentences in
some of these languages, this will still further deepen the
child’s sympathy. After six years, when his interest in collecting
is strong, foreign stamps, flags, emblems, flowers, pictures,
will be as keenly interesting to him as cigar labels or other
inconsequential but glittering objects.

=Industries.= Let him see as many as possible of the forms of
industry, especially the primitive simple forms, such as gardening,
farming, care of animals, horse-shoeing, baking, sewing. He should
go often to the grocery store (not during the busy hours) to see
the different kinds of foods. Better yet, he should see some of
these vegetables and fruits growing, the wheat and corn standing
in the fields. He should see the ploughing, planting, weeding,
harvesting; the feeding and the milking of the cow; the hauling and
preparation of fuels. Little comment is necessary beyond remarking
how everything that we eat or wear has come to us because other
people have worked hard to make it grow, or to bring it or prepare
it for us, and therefore we owe our thanks to all who have worked
for our comfort. Thus from his own experience he may know and
appreciate the postman who brings the letters, the fireman who
hurries to put out the fire, the policeman who helps us across the
crowded street and watches night and day to keep us protected from
harm and danger, the street-sweeper and sprinkler who keep the
streets clean, the man who brings the coal or wood or groceries,
the street-car conductor and motorman, the engineer and fireman on
the train that takes us about the country or brings the freight.

Through gratitude for the hard work that others do for him he will
also learn to respect all labor, even though it does cause dirty
hands and faces and clothes, and he will naturally infer that it is
his duty to do his share and to work also for others.

=History.= Children, like savages, are historically nearsighted;
they have not yet the experience to appreciate historic time; every
event is located near the present, and their interest in history
is more or less fictitious and artificial. This is the period for
the great myths, for imagination now exceeds experience, and any
adventure is credible.

There comes a time, about six years of age, when children begin to
ask for a “true” story, meaning a realistic story, historically
true. Then is the opportunity to recount the experiences of mothers
and children, as well as of brothers and fathers, in other times.
Nor need these be limited to his own country or modern times.
“Once upon a time” or “A long, long time ago” is somewhere back
in a vague sometime; yesterday or a million years ago are not yet
spaced in his mind. This sense of time-duration may be developed by
calling attention to it in his experience, for the two-year-old,
day and night; in the fourth year, morning and afternoon,
yesterday, to-day and to-morrow, seasons; in the fifth year, the
days of the week and the months of the year will begin to have
significance and sequence; in the sixth year, “last Christmas”,
“next Fourth of July”, the date of this year, and the marking of
duration, under various circumstances, of a minute, an hour, a day.

Of course, the little child will not be able to distinguish between
different nations or races of the past; it is all one to him. This
fact is easily overlooked by the eager teacher, who has so long
since classified historic data in her own mind. This historical
appreciation does not develop until the early teens.

For these reasons, it is good pedagogy to let the first historical
stories be of the country in which the child lives. Historic
sequence in the telling of these anecdotes is of slight importance.

Since so much of written history has hitherto been military and
political, it is easy to fall into the error of telling stories
of military experiences, especially wars and battles. In the
light of modern developments, the superficialness and, for the
child, the misleading effect of the usual military story should be
clearly evident. It should not be made the ideal, nor a substitute
for the adventure, courage, heroism, which the child craves and
admires. The teacher’s responsibility is to find historic tales
of those who served their fellowmen by constructive bravery and
venture,—life-saving, exploring, inventing. Even a simple, homely
incident in the life of a noteworthy historical character will be
an introduction to deeper acquaintance later. In American history,
Columbus, the Pilgrims, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy
Ross, Eli Whitney, Edison, are a few examples. Stories from English
history easily relate themselves to the little child’s vision. The
childhood of noteworthy men and women furnishes many stories for
this age period.

The teacher needs to beware of the fallacy of reading to children
or telling to them things which they can learn through their own
experience, experimenting, or observation. Many informational
books of this kind are at hand, both in science and history. The
temptation often is strong, especially for the teacher who is
eager that the child shall learn much, and who has not clearly
distinguished between mere erudition, encyclopedic accumulation
of facts and, on the other hand, the vital, living experiences of
life, with the growing power to observe, interpret, and enjoy for
one’s self. The latter is dynamic, the way of wisdom.

Where museums or historical collections are available, there is a
great educational opportunity, although much of the material is
dead and unrelated to its natural situation.

=Mathematics.= The elements of arithmetic and geometry have but a
slight place in the life or interest of the little child. At five
or six he may begin to count objects, but his capacity is limited.
The mere memorizing of numbers, as a series of words, is of no more
mathematical significance than a nonsense jingle, and is not to be
encouraged until, through his interest in counting, the child has
an appreciation of the concrete meaning of numbers, at least to
the range of ten or twelve. Measuring, using the actual standard
measures of foot, yard, pound, pint, quart, gallon, dozen, is
usually of interest at six or seven years. Interest in geometric
forms is naturally slight, and even this is doubtless an æsthetic,
not a mathematical, interest. Teaching of geometric form is easily
overdone.

=Reading and Writing.= These have no place, biologically, before
six years, and some psychologists say they belong psychologically
after eight years, in the period of interest in symbols,
abstractions, and rote learning. It is known that normal children
who enter school at nine years usually finish the grades with those
of their own age who started three years earlier. It is evident
that with a natural outdoor environment, the child will acquire a
better physique, a larger acquaintance with realities, and a richer
development of invention, initiative, self-expression, than he does
in the schoolroom. The ancient Greeks taught only games, dancing,
and music to children under nine. Doctor G. Stanley Hall, Professor
Lightner Witmer, Professor Arthur Holmes, Professor Clifton E.
Hodge are among the authorities advising such late introduction
to the use of abstract symbols. What can be done educationally in
that period from six to nine years, without teaching the three R’s,
has been amply demonstrated by Mrs. Marietta Johnson in her school
at Fairhope, Alabama, and at The Little School in the Woods at
Greenwich, Connecticut.