214 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



of the school curriculum. Our younger pupil comes to us with a con- 

 siderable knowledge of his native language, but with a great store of natural 

 knowledge gained through his own observations and experience in the best 

 school of all. These two subjects stand apart, and in early years should 

 provide the natural foundation upon which the fabric of his education 

 is based. In this mass of unorganised knowledge there is abundant 

 material about which he can be led to think and in which he is already 

 interested. 



Too often this foundation of the known is completely ignored ; his 

 lessons deal exclusively with ideas foreign to his experience ; consequently 

 he is bored exceedingly and makes invidious comparisons between the 

 schoolroom and the world-school outside. 



The young pupil is immediately responsive to any lesson upon a subject 

 within the range of his experience ; he is keen to display his own know- 

 ledge and to bombard one with questions in order to extend it. The 

 lack-lustre eye of the grammar or arithmetic lesson sparkles into life and 

 interest when in the science or nature lesson he is allowed to air his own 

 views. Nothing is more astonishing than the power of logical thinking 

 young people display, if they are allowed to grow up intellectually and 

 their spontaneity is not curbed. Cannot we introduce into the class-room 

 something of the atmosphere of the intelligent home, where children show 

 knowledge and judgment years in advance of their school performances ? 



Concentration upon method and routine without reference to the end 

 in view leads to dogmatism and stereotypes teaching. We can detect 

 this blind obedience to traditional method in every subject of the school 

 curriculum. Once a teaching method loses its directing purpose it 

 becomes a dull-edged and inefficient tool. 



Didactic Method. — Among science teachers I find three schools of 

 thought : 



[a) Those who don't think and advocate nothing. 



[b) Those who advocate didactic method. 



[c) Those who advocate natural method. 



With group {a) I am not concerned, except to hope that their numbers 

 are few and that they realise that they have mistaken their vocation. 

 Group {b) is large but admittedly honest. The didactic teacher has an 

 end in view, and hence we must accept his procedure as a method. His 

 aim is to produce a pupil with a word knowledge of a subject that can be 

 put on paper by a certain date, and can, by constant practice, carry out 

 certain routine operations. He believes that these results are a true 

 measure of the mental if not the character growth of his pupils. I have 

 known many such for whom I have great respect ; they play the school 

 game — as they see it — efficiently, and believe that from hard work alone 

 will result all that education can achieve. Others advocate didactic 

 teaching from other considerations. Headmasters have their difficulties ; 

 some, with no great belief in studies other than literary, are forced un- 

 willingly to include science in the curriculum ; the time-table is upset 

 by the small size and long duration of practical classes ; the periods 

 demanded by the science master are badly needed for more Latin. Why 



