Heuristic Method in Hygiene 



John Dearness. 



Herbert Spencer's pungent arraignment of the educational 

 method of his day has exercised a marked effect on subsequent 

 pedagogical literature. It was doubtless true as he declared that 

 the matter and manner of education seventy years ago differed 

 so widely from what they should have been that the right class of 

 facts was withheld and the wrong class forcibly administered 

 in the wrong way and in the wrong order. 



His argument for such a revolution of the curriculum as 

 would give the subjects of study a position and prominence in 

 accordance with their respective values for complete living was 

 irrefutable. The knowledge of physiology needful for the coin- 

 prehension of its general truths and their bearings on early life 

 is all-essential and should rank first in time and importance in any 

 rational system of education. This dogma of Herbert Spencer's 

 which was strange and new when he advanced it is now seldom 

 disputed, but its acceptance is more obvious in the literature than 

 in the practice of school management. 



It is true that nearly every state and province that has an 

 educational system gives hygiene a place somewhere in its list of 

 studies. In this Province of Ontario it appears in the curriculum 

 of the common school grades, but it has never been tho't worthy 

 of study by the high school or "grammar" grades. For a few years 

 a minimum of one third of an easy examination paper was one 

 of the requirements for entrance to the high school grades. The 

 matter prescribed for study and examination was not exception- 

 able ; the reason for referring to the experience here is to show 

 that this "all-essential" knowledge if communicated by the book 

 and note (or the memoriter) method may be nearly valueless. 

 An eighth grade class that had just written on a review answers 

 to the effect that the liver secretes bile, weighs nearly 4 pounds, 

 is the largest organ in the body and is situated immediately below 

 the diaphragm were unable to locate it on being directed to lay 

 the hand over it. They had no concept of the gall-bladder and 

 bile was only a name to them. They knew the names and num- 

 bers of the different kinds of teeth, but only guessed when asked 

 to lay a finger tip on one of their bicuspids. They could all state 

 in writing the injurious effects of neglecting to clean the teeth, 

 but only looked around at each other and smiled as children do 

 sometimes on finding themselves caught when those were told to 

 raise their hands who had brushed their teeth that day. 



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