ing of ox, or ass, or manservant. This brings up an important distinction between a word not understood, and a word misunderstood. If the pupil does not understand an expression, no great harm is done." How to Graft the Unknown to the Known. In technical language this is the Apperception, already reIt is not always easy for the teacher, knowing so little of what the child's mind really has experienced, to find the point of contact at once. One needs quick thought, keen observation, rapid adaptability to sudden unfoldings of contact-points in order to adjust knowledge to the child's capacities. The story Du Bois gives from Miss Harrison's experience strikes at the right method. Practically, it is putting yourself as far as may be on the child's plane, and endeavoring to picture to your own mind what he knows, what he likes, where his interest and curiosity will lie. We may often "miss the point, and even fall below the child's level," but we shall soon find that out. We can take it for granted that besides certain facts and words, as mentioned above, there are various fields and phases altogether out of the small child's vision. History as such, that is, chronology, he kens not, because he has had too few years of experience to grasp it. So also time and space relations. So also naturally all abstract reasoning, for he lives as yet mentally in the concrete. His notions of God and Heaven will be wholly anthropomorphic (i.e., he will think of God as a man, etc.); and he will deify his toys, dolls, even stones, etc., as fetishes, for his young mind is symbolic. And so all our abstract teaching at an early age entirely misses the point, and too often far worse, for it does positive mischief. What do hymns of heavenly longing mean to a child who knows naught of death, and who is brimming over with life? Arguments and proofs are dangerous to a child-mind that has not yet reached the period of doubting. All Bible Stories for the early years are a point of contact, for the child is interested in stories, the concrete. It does not make one whit of difference whether they come in chronological order. of mosaic, cut and carved, ready to be place in the great pattern of history. Each story is a piece lifted into the proper The aim is to fit the unknown to the known without gaps, by easy, gliding steps as it were. Pain and suffering, agony, killings, and horrors, too, are foreign to the child-mind. He may delight in them, because he loves actions, such are they full of; and we grant that he never appreciates the horror and enormity of them, but neither does he comprehend them. Also details of things, too minute and multiplied, are not point of contact methods. Wholes are better, for discrimination and reflection have not proceeded far enough to grasp details to any profound extent. Put yourself in your pupil's place. The danger lies in the material rather than in the words we select, for we are apt to be cautious on this line. The same lesson for all these grades is the fruitful cause of this error. Give subjects suited to the age you teach. It is said that of every thousand children, two hundred die before they reach nine years of age. Is it not important that the best and most truly comprehended truths be imparted before that age arrives? The child was not made for lessons, but lessons for the child. Rules to Find the Point of Contact. (From Du Bois.) 1. Study constantly and carefully the pupils' language to learn what words he uses and the meanings he gives them. 2. Secure from him as full a statement as possible of his knowledge of the subject, to learn both his ideas and his mode of expressing them, and to help him to correct his language. 3. Express your thoughts as far as possible in the pupil's words, carefully correcting any defect in the meaning he gives them. 4. Use the simplest and fewest words that will express the idea. Unnecessary words add to the child's work and increase the danger of misunderstanding. 5. Use short sentences, and of the simplest construction. Long sentences tire the attention, while short ones both stimulate and rest the mind. At each step the foot rests firmly on the ground. 6. If the pupil evidently fails to understand the thought, repeat it in other language, and if possible, with greater simplicity. 7. Help out the meaning of the words by all available illustrations; preferring pictures and natural objects for young children. 8. When it is necessary to teach a new word, give the idea before the word. This is the order of nature. 9. Seek to increase the pupil's stock of words both in number and in the clearness and extent of meaning. All true enlargement of a child's language is increase of his knowledge and of his capacity for knowing. 10. As the acquisition of language is one of the most important objects of education, be not content to have the pupils listen in silence, however attentive they may seem. That teacher is succeeding best whose pupils talk most freely upon the les sons. 11. Here, as everywhere in teaching the young, make haste slowly. Let each word be brought into use before it is displaced by too many others. 12. Test frequently the pupil's sense of the words he uses, to make sure that he attaches no false meaning, and that he vividly conceives the true meaning. Burbank's Protest. "I want to lay stress upon the absurdity, not to call it by a harsher term, of running children through the same mill in a lot, with absolutely no real reference to their individuality. No two children are alike. You cannot expect them to develop alike. They are different in temperament, in tastes, in disposition, in capabilities." QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 1. Mention a number of things that cannot possibly enter the young child's world at first. 2. Give many illustrations of your own to show that "that which is first in cause may be last in discovery"-and try to discover the principles you are illustrating. 3. What must you know about a child's mind to hit the point of contact? How are you to gain this necessary knowledge? 4. Distinguish carefully and clearly between "concrete" and "abstract" in language. Did Jesus use the concrete where we should have been tempted to use the abstract? 5. Name twenty-five words that you know your children could not possibly comprehend, and yet are familiar names of common objects to you. |