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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tainly contains a great deal that we have 

 not before seen in the literature of school- 

 reform. Candid readers, familiar with cur- 

 rent school ideals and practices, will see, 

 we think, that Colonel Parker is working 

 from a stand-point of his own, and that his 

 view of the situation is not the generally 

 recognized one. 



The fashion of modern educational re- 

 formers has been to exalt " method " above 

 all other things. Normal pupils have been 

 trained early and late in methods of teach- 

 ing. To the acquirement of method they 

 have given long practice, under sharp criti- 

 cism. And the practical issue of all this 

 drill has too often been a kind of teach- 

 ing which has at once fallen to the level 

 of dead routine. The method, mechani- 

 cally acquired, has been mechanically ap- 

 plied. Colonel Parker evidently sees this. 

 With him methods are nothing without com- 

 petent teachers ; and competent teachers 

 evolve their own methods. The " talks " in 

 this volume are mostly of the underlying 

 psychological principles that should shape 

 methods, and rarely of special practices. 

 He reiterates his warning to teachers against 

 imitation. Teaching, with him, is a vital 

 intercourse between the mind of the teacher 

 and the mind of the scholar. It is in his 

 greater reliance upon the guidance of prin- 

 ciples, and the personal activity of the teach- 

 er, working on his own hook independently 

 of anybody's method, that Colonel Parker's 

 claim seems to us to consist. 



He has unusual insight into mental phe- 

 nomena, lie is a student of psychology, 

 with an intuitive tendency to seek the causes 

 of things. Further than this, he has strong 

 sympathy with childhood, and these com- 

 bined traits give originality to his work as a 

 teacher. They make him a reformer of the 

 reformers. He sees through the barren 

 formulas and absurdities that have fre- 

 quently replaced the old-fashioned school 

 routine. 



nis sense of the inanity of prevailing 

 practices is often seen in these pages. For 

 instance, in speaking of so-called analytical 

 teaching, he gives the following familiar 

 example of recitation in arithmetic: 



Teacher. "If one apple costs three 

 cents, what will four apples cost ? " 



Child. "If one apple costs three cents, 



four apples will cost four times as many 

 cents as one apple will cost. Therefore, 

 four apples will cost four times three cents. 

 Four times three cents are twelve cents. 

 Therefore, if one apple costs three cents, 

 four apples will cost twelve cents." 



Colonel Parker adds : " I think I have 

 not put in all the words that can be put into 

 this complex and useless explanation. If 

 the previous work has been correct, all the 

 child needs to say is, ' twelve cents,' and go 

 on performing a dozen examples, instead of 

 agonizing over this one." 



By " previous work " Colonel Parker 

 means the early study of numbers, which 

 should be " by bringing the mind to bear 

 directly upon the relations of things. ... As 

 well might we try to teach the facts in bot- 

 any without plants, in zoology without ani- 

 mals, form without form, and color without 

 colors, as to teach number without numbers 

 of objects. All primary ideas of numbers 

 and their relations must be obtained imme- 

 diately through the senses, and by their 

 repeated limitations as numbers of things, 

 as to how many. . . . From repeated tests, 

 given by myself and by teachers under my 

 supervision, the average child of five or six 

 years of age does not know three when he 

 enters the school-room. . . . Ability to count," 

 says Colonel Parker, " must not be con- 

 founded with the knowledge of numbers. 

 Knowing a number is, first, knowing the 

 equal numbers that make it up ; second, 

 the equal parts of a number ; and, third, 

 any two unequal numbers in a number and 

 any two unequal numbers that make it up. 

 This applies to numbers from one to twenty, 

 and is learned by experiments with things. 

 I have tried during the last eleven years to 

 teach numbers to little folks, and I have 

 never succeeded in teaching, nor have I seen 

 ten really taught, during the first year. By 

 using language without regard to what it 

 expresses, fifty or one hundred may be 

 taught ; i. e., the child, by unceasing drill, 

 may repeat gibberish that seems to be 

 knowledge to the casual observer. Ask him 

 to verify his statement by showing the real 

 relations among things, and you find he has 

 been repeating an unknown language." 



Colonel Parker's criticisms upon much 

 that goes as object-teaching are equally 

 trenchant and thorough-going. With him, 



