ON STUDIES MOST SUITABLE FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 439 



most essential in primary education. Gradually, however, the curriculum 

 of elementary schools has been enlarged, and the problem of primary 

 education has been complicated by the multiplication of subjects and by 

 the introduction of many of the faulty methods of teaching which were 

 for many years, and are still to some extent, prevalent in secondary 

 schools. If practical studies, whether experimental or observational, or 

 both, are to dominate the teaching, a fundamental alteration must be 

 made in the methods of instruction, and certain subjects must be omitted 

 from the curriculum, which is already overcrowded. There can be no 

 doubt that, owing largely to the requirements of the Code and to the 

 effect which the receding shadow of ' payment by results ' has cast upon 

 our schools, the teaching has become too academic and mechanical, and it 

 is felt that greater attention to practical work, to the encouragement of 

 ' learning by doing,' can alone lift the teaching out of the grooves into 

 which it has fallen. 



It is desirable that children from the earliest age should be taught to 

 think. It may be said that thinking is a mental process that can be 

 cultivated only at a later stage in the child's training. But this is not so. 

 No one can have watched a child at play without recognising that, in the 

 adjustment of the end in view to the means at the child's disposal, he is 

 exercising the reasoning faculty. It would seem that it is only in school 

 that the thinking process is allowed to remain unexercised and dormant. 

 In order however that a child may think, he must be actively occupied 

 with the consideration of concrete things. This, as is the case when the 

 child is at play, is essential, and the contrast is very striking between the 

 directed attention of the child when actively engaged in some work that 

 interests him and his listless attitude in the school class-room. During 

 the greater part of the school hours the ' doing ' faculty of the child 

 is almost entirely ignored, and the training which he receives fails in 

 consequence to develop along serviceable lines his natural spontaneous 

 activity, and to encourage his ability to initiate and construct. These 

 faults, inherent in our present system of elementary education, would be, 

 it is believed, to a great extent removed if practical studies, involving 

 hand- work and simple experimental methods of acquiring knowledge, were 

 made an essential part of the teaching in every elementary school. At 

 present no obligation exists to provide such practical teaching. 



Exercises involving progressive handwork, experimental methods, and 

 subjects of instruction requiring accurate observation may not produce 

 the same manifest and reproducible results as those which occupy so large 

 a part of the present curriculum. But the results would be more lasting 

 and would afford an intellectual training exceeding any that may be 

 obtained from literary studies alone. It is generally acknowledged that 

 much of what is learned in the elementary school is forgotten soon after 

 the child has left school, and a great part of the heavy cost of his educa- 

 tion is thus practically wasted. The studies commonly pursued, owing 

 to some extent to faulty methods, fail to fix in the mind the knowledge 

 hastily acquired, and fail also as instruments of sound mental discipline, 

 or as the means of forming permanently useful habits of thought. Much 

 of what is now taught as arithmetic and English is open to this criticism. 

 Time might be found for more practical methods of teaching by throwing 

 overboard a large amount of the instruction given under these heads, and 

 by co-ordinating to a great extent the teaching with the practical exercises 

 which should form the basis of elementary training. 



