THE SEVEN LAWS OF TEACHING
by John Milton Gregory

1. Our fourth law takes us at once to the core of teaching. The first three laws dealt with the teacher, the learner, and the language, the medium of communication between them. We come now to the lesson, the process to be mastered, the problem to be solved. This is where the teacher must pass on to the pupils the recorded experience of the race; the method of transmission of this crystallized race experience must be such as to inspire these pupils with principles that shall be active forces in their lives, and at the same time furnish them with an instrument of research and further study -- this is the very heart of the work of the teacher, the condition and instrument, as well as the culmination and the fruit, of all the rest.

2. It is the Law of the Lesson that we are next to seek. Passing, as remote from this discussion, the steps by which the mind of an infant obtains its first notions of the world about it, we may go at once to the obvious fact that our pupils learn the new by the aid of the old and familiar. The new [68] and unknown can be explained only by the familiar and the known. This, then, is the Law of the Lesson: THE TRUTH TO BE TAUGHT MUST BE LEARNED THROUGH TRUTH ALREADY KNOWN.

3. This law is neither so simple nor so obvious as those that have preceded it; but it is no less certain than they, while its scope is even wider and its relations are perhaps even more important.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE LAW

4. The Law of the Lesson has its reason in the nature of mind and in the nature of human knowledge.

5. All teaching must begin at some point of the subject or lesson. If the subject is wholly new, then a known point must be sought by showing some likeness of the new to something known and familiar. Even among grown persons, the skillful narrator struggles to find some comparison with familiar experiences, seeking some likeness of the unknown to something known before proceeding with his story. Until this starting point is found, he knows that it will be useless to go on. To do so would be like telling someone to follow you over a winding path in the darkness without first letting him know where you are or starting him on the path. Naturally, if adults must have this aid, children can scarcely be expected to do without it. Often pupils in the schools explain their inability to understand the lesson by the simple statement: [69] "I did not know what the teacher was talking about." The fault lies distinctly with the teacher in such a case.

6. All teaching must advance in some direction. Its proper direction of march should be toward the acquisition of new experiences. To teach over again what is already acquired and understood is to check the desire of the pupils for obtaining further knowledge and to deaden their power of attention by compelling them to walk in a treadmill, instead of leading them forward to the inspiration of new scenes and the conquest of new fields. It is a serious error to keep the studies of pupils too long on familiar ground under the assumed necessity for thoroughness. Old mines may be reworked if you can find ore at deeper levels, and old lessons may be worked over if new uses may be made of them. At this point it should be borne in mind that this does not contradict the Law of Review, to be discussed later.

7. Learning must proceed by graded steps. These steps must be those which link one fact or concept to another, as simple and concrete things lead naturally to general and abstract things, as premises lead to conclusions, and as an understanding of natural phenomena leads to laws. Each new idea mastered becomes a part of the knowledge of the child, a part of his equipment of race experience, and serves as a starting point for a fresh advance. It adds its own light to the [70] knowledge that preceded it, and throws increased illumination forward for the next discovery. But each step must be fully mastered before the next is taken, or the pupils may find themselves proceeding into unknown fields without the proper preparation. It is here that the demand for thoroughness arises; everything in the lesson which is within the range of the child's comprehension, should be fully understood. Thoroughness of this sort is the essential condition of true teaching. Imperfect understanding at any point clouds the whole process. The pupil who has mastered one lesson, half knows the next; therefore the well-taught class is always eager for the next step. One of the sayings of Pestalozzi was: "It is easy to add to what is already discovered."

8. But the philosophy of this law goes deeper still. It must be remembered that knowledge is not a mass of simple, independent facts; it is made up of the experience of the race crystallized and ORGANIZED in the form of facts together with their laws and relations. Facts are linked together in systems, associated by resemblances of one sort or another. Each fact leads to, and explains, another. The old reveals the new; the new confirms and corrects the old.

9. All this pertains equally to the limited knowledge and experience of children as well as to riper and maturer knowledge. New elements of knowledge must be brought into relation with [71] other facts and truths already known before they themselves can be fully revealed and take their place in the widening circle of the experience of the learner. Thus the very nature of knowledge compels us to seek the new through the aid of the old.

10. The act of KNOWING is in part an act of comparing and judging --of finding something in past experience that will explain and make meaningful the new experience. If a friend tells us of an experience or an adventure, we interpret his story by a running comparison with whatever has been most like it in our own experience; and if he states something utterly without likeness to anything that we have known, we ask him for explanations or illustrations which may bring the strange facts into relation with our point of view. If children are told something novel and entirely unfamiliar, they will probably struggle in vain to understand, and then ask for further information or light, if they do not at once abandon the attempt to connect the new idea with their own experience. Figures of speech, such as similes, metaphors, and allegories, have spring out of the need for relating new truths to old and are familiar scenes and objects and experiences. They are but so many attempts to reach the unknown through the known -- they try to flash light from the old upon the new.

11. Explanation, then, means usually the citation [72] and use of fact and principles already understood to make clear the nature of new material. Therefore the unknown cannot explain the unknown. The knowledge already in the equipment of the child must furnish the explanation of now facts and laws, or these must remain unexplained. The difficulty so often met in answering the questions of little children, lies not so much in the difficulty of the questions themselves, as in the lack upon the part of the child of knowledge required in the explanation. To answer fully a boy's questions about the stars, you must first teach him some astronomy. The lad who has seen a large city can perhaps understand fairly well a description of London or New York, but one whose experience has been confined entirely to his country home, cannot properly understand the network of streets, walled in by buildings, and the shifting panorama of city life.

12. The very language with which new knowledge must be expressed takes its meanings from what is already known and familiar. The child without knowledge would be also without words, for words are the signs of things known. An American traveler in Europe might perhaps fancy that he could make people understand by speaking in a loud, clear voice, and with slow, careful enunciation; but his success would be measured only by the degree to which his hearers had a knowledge of the native tongue of the American; if they were [73] familiar only with their own different language, his words would be without meaning.

13. A blunder analogous to this is that of the teacher who hopes by the mere urgency of his manner, and by his carefully chosen words, familiar to himself, to convey his ideas to the understanding of his pupils, with no reference to the pupils' previous knowledge of the subject.

14. Persons use by preference only the clearest and most familiar things in their interpretation of new facts or principles. Each man is prone to borrow his illustrations from his calling: the soldier from the camps and trenches, the sailor from the ships and the sea, the merchant from the conditions of the market, and the artisans and mechanics from their crafts. Likewise in study, each pupil is attracted to the qualities which relate to his own experience. To the chemist, common salt is sodium chloride, a binary compound; to the cook it is something to use in the seasoning of foods and in the preservation of meats. Each thinks of it in the aspect most familiar to him, and in this aspect would use it to illustrate something else in which salt was concerned. Finding a new plant, the botanist would consider it in the light of known plants, to discover its "classification"; the former would be interested in its use, and the artist in its beauty. This bent of preference, while one of the elements of prejudice which may shut the eyes to some now truths and open them to [74] others, is at the same time one of the elements of strength in intellectual work.

15. A fact or principle only vaguely understood is used only rarely and reluctantly -- and even then sometimes most erroneously -- in interpreting now experiences; and if used, it carries only vagueness and imperfection into the new concepts or judgments. A cloud left upon the lesson of yesterday casts its shadow over the lesson of today. On the other hand, the thoroughly mastered lesson throws great light on the succeeding ones. Hence the value of that practice of some able teachers who make the elementary portions of a subject as familiar as household words -- a conquered territory from which the pupil may go on to new conquests as from an established base, with confidence and power.

16. But it must be carefully noted that so complete a mastery, like all thoroughness in study, is really relative. No human knowledge or power is perfect, and the capacities of childhood are necessarily much further from completeness than those of adults. And there are wide individual differences which must be recognized in the school. What to some children is as clear as day, is to others only vaguely suggestive. If the teacher makes the pupils talk about the lesson, as was suggested in the discussion of the law of language, some of these differences will be revealed, and the proper means of meeting them and of [75] adjusting the instruction to them, may be discovered.

17. Our discussion of the lesson would be incomplete without some mention of the nature of the thinking process as applied to the solution of problems. The word "problem" is a familiar one to the teacher; the problems and tasks of everyday life in the schoolroom are very close to him. But let us now think of the problem in a rather different sense. We have been speaking of the "lesson" and its "law." Let us think of the process of learning lessons as akin to the solution of problems, as a process in which the learner faces a real situation, the mastery of which will involve the application of his power of thought. How is he to think?

18. The older notion that because the pupils in our schools are young and immature they are incapable of real thinking is a fallacy. Too often teachers believe that their pupils think only in a symbolic way -- that they react only to artificial situations in which their task is to do what the teacher wishes, rather than to do real independent thinking for themselves. This is not necessarily true, and if true in some instances, the fault very likely lies with the teacher himself. The fact is that the power to think is part and parcel of the original mental equipment of the child, and develops gradually, as other capacities do. The situations [76] that call out this power in children are simple, but they are none the less real. The difference in thinking between the child and the adult is a difference in degree.

19. If we are to set the learner at the task of real thinking in the solution of real problems, we must define this process of thinking. There are three stages in the process. First, there must be a stage of doubt or uncertainty; certain things are known, and something is to be done to them. For example, the loss of a cherished toy presents just this situation to a child: he sees what has happened, and wonders what he can do in its absence -- how he can replace it, perhaps. Second, there is an organizing stage in which the individual considers the means at his disposal to reach the ends desired. Lastly, there is a critical attitude involving selection and rejection of the schemes which have suggested themselves. This problematic situation arises very frequently in daily life, with children as well as with adults. The setting of school tasks should always be done with this process of thinking in mind; teachers in the day schools and in the Sunday schools should remember that if the training which they give is to bear fruit, it must present real situations which will call forth this reflective attitude, and they should abjure the sort of tasks which can be met by trial and error, by blindly following the lead [77] of another, or by doing what one has already done in a similar situation merely because one recognizes the new situation as like the other.

RULES FOR TEACHERS

20. In a very important sense, what we call knowledge is a record of solved problems. Facts and laws have been collected and tested and organized into systems, but at basis they represent the results of facing situations and finding things out at first hand. In passing knowledge on to others the more closely we can approximate real, vital situations, the better will be our teaching. There are some who go so far as to say that no attempt should be made to impart knowledge unless the child feels a distinct need for it -- unless he sees that it is essential to solve some problem that is real and vital to his life. This is doubtless an extreme view, but it is none the less incumbent upon the teacher to know what the problems of child life are and to utilize them in making his instruction just as rich and meaningful as possible.

21. This law of knowledge, thus explained, affords to the thoughtful teacher rules of the highest practical value. It offers clear guidance to those who are teachers of children and anxious that their task shall be well done.

(1) Find out what your pupils know of the subject you wish to teach to them; this is your starting point. This refers not only to textbook [78] knowledge but to all information that they may possess, however acquired.

(2) Make the most of the pupils' knowledge and experience. Let them feel its extent and value, as a means to further knowledge.

(3) Encourage your pupils to clear up and freshen their knowledge by a clear statement of it.

(4) Begin with facts or ideas that lie near your pupils, and that can be reached by a single step from what is already familiar; thus, geography naturally begins with the home town, history with the pupils' own memories, morals with their own conscience.

(5) Relate every lesson as much as possible to former lessons, and with the pupils' knowledge and experience.

(6) Arrange your presentation so that each step of the lesson shall lead easily and naturally to the next.

(7) Proportion the steps of the lesson to the ages and attainments of your pupils. Do not discourage your children with lessons or exercises that are too long, or fail to rise to the expectations of older pupils by giving them lessons that are too easy.

(8) Find illustrations in the commonest and most familiar objects suitable for the purpose.

(9) Lead the pupils themselves to find illustrations from their own experience.

(10) Make every new fact or principle familiar [79] to your pupils; try to establish and entrench it firmly, so that it will be available for use in explaining new material to come.

(11) Urge the pupils to make use of their own knowledge and attainments in every way that is practicable, to find or explain other knowledge. Teach them that knowledge is power by showing how knowledge really helps to solve problems.

(12) Make every advance clear and familiar, so that the progress to the next succeeding step shall in every case be on known ground.

(13) As far as possible, choose the problems which you give to your pupils from their own activities, and thus increase the chances that they will be real and not artificial problems.

(14) Remember that your pupils are learning to think, and that to think properly they must learn to face intelligently and reflectively the problems that arise in connection with their school work, and in connection with their life outside of school.

MISTAKES AND VIOLATIONS

22. The wide scope of this Law of the Lesson affords opportunity for many mistakes and violations. Among the more common are the following:

(1) It is not unusual for teachers to set their pupils to studying new lessons, or even new subjects, for which they are inadequately prepared or not prepared at all, either by previous study or by experience.

(2) Many teachers neglect entirely to ascertain carefully the pupils' equipment with which to begin the subject.

(3) A common error is the failure to connect the new lessons with those that have gone before in such a way that the pupils can carry over what they know or have learned into the new field. Many individual lessons and recitations are treated as if each were independent of all the others.

(4) Oftentimes past acquisitions are considered goods stored away, instead of instruments for further use.

(5) Too often elementary facts and definitions are not made thoroughly familiar.

(6) Every step is not always thoroughly understood before the next is attempted.

(7) Some teachers err in assigning lessons or exercises that are too long for the powers of the pupils, or for their time, making impossible an adequate mastery of principles that may be needful for future progress in the subject.

(8) Teachers frequently fail to place their pupils in the attitude of discoverers. Children should learn to use what they have already keen taught in the discovery of new problems.

(9) A common fault is the failure to show the connections between parts of the subject that have been taught and those that are yet to come.

23. As a consequence of these and other violations of the law, much teaching is poor, and its benefits, if any, are fleeting. People are found to have inadequate knowledge and to lack the power of studying for themselves. This is as true of Biblical knowledge as of any other. Instead of a related whole, a concept with one purpose, the Bible is viewed as scattering parts, like bits of broken glass, and its effect is many times only to puzzle and confuse; it is never seen as a connected whole, as it should be.

1. Our survey of the teaching art has thus far involved these four considerations: the teacher, the learner, the language, and the lesson. We are now to study these in action, and to observe the conduct of the teacher and his pupil. The previous discussions have already brought these partly into view, but as each of them has its own law, each demands more careful consideration than has yet been given it. In the laws of the teacher and the learner, we found necessarily reflected the actions of both; but an actor and his part are easily separated in thought, and each possesses aspects and characteristics of its own. Following the natural order, the teaching function comes first before us, and we are now to seek its law. The law of the teacher was essentially a law of qualification; the law of teaching is a law of function.

2. Thus far we have considered teaching as the communication of knowledge or experience; more properly, we should say that this is a RESULT of teaching. Whether by telling, demonstrating, or leading pupils to discover for themselves, the [84] teacher is transmitting experience to his pupils; that is his aim and purpose, and his teaching is conditioned by that aim. But the explanation of the work of the teacher in terms of function is to be distinguished from the definition in terms of purpose. The actual work of the teacher consists of the awakening and setting in action the mind of the pupil, the arousing of his self-activities. As already shown, knowledge cannot be passed from mind to mind like objects from one receptacle to another, but must in every case be recognized and rethought and relived by the receiving mind. All explanation and exposition are useless except as they serve to excite and direct the pupil in his own thinking. If the pupil himself does not think, there are no results of the teaching; the words of the teacher are falling upon deaf ears.

THE LAW OF TEACHING

3. We are now ready to state the law of teaching: EXCITE AND DIRECT THE SELF-ACTIVITIES OF THE PUPIL, AND AS A RULE TELL HIM NOTHING THAT HE CAN LEARN HIMSELF.

4. The second clause in this law is of sufficient importance to justify its position in the formulation of the law, although it is negatively stated. There are cases in which it may be necessary to disregard this caution in order to save time, or in the case of a very weak or discouraged pupil, or sometimes when intense interest has been [85] aroused and there is a keen demand for information that the teacher can give quickly and effectively, but its violation is almost always a loss which should be compensated by a definite gain. Considered affirmatively, this caution would read: "Make your pupil a discoverer of truth -- make him find out for himself." The great value of this law has been so often and so strongly stated as to demand no further proof. No great writer on education has failed to consider it in some form or another; if we were seeking the educational maxim most widely received among good teachers, and the most extensive in its applications and results, we should fix upon this law. It is the same fundamental truth as the one found in such rules as the following: "Wake up your pupils' minds"; "Set the pupils to thinking"; "Arouse the spirit of inquiry"; "Get your pupils to work." All these familiar maxims are different expressions of this same law.

5. In discussing the principles of attention, language, and knowledge, we have considered to some extent the operations of the mind. We should now study these further.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE LAW

6. We can learn without a teacher. Children learn hundreds of facts before they ever see a school, sometimes with the aid of parents or others, often by their own unaided efforts. In the greater part [86] of our acquisitions we are self-taught, and it is quite generally conceded that knowledge is most permanent and best which is dug out by unaided research. Everything, at the outset, must be learned by the discoverer without an instructor, since no instructor knows it. If, then, we can learn without being taught, it follows that the true function of the teacher is to create the most favorable conditions for self-learning. Essentially the acquisition of knowledge must be brought about by the same agencies and through the use of the same methods, whether with or without a teacher.

7. What, then, is the use of schools, and what is the necessity of a teacher? The question is pertinent, but the answer is plain. Knowledge in its natural state lies scattered and confused; it is connected, to be sure, in great systems, but these connections are laws and relations unknown to the beginner, and they are to be learned only through ages of observation and careful study. The school selects for its curriculum what it regards as the most useful of the experiences of the race, organizes these, and offers them to the pupils along with its facilities for learning. It offers to these pupils leisure and quiet for study, and through its books and other materials of education the results of other people's labors, which may serve as charts of the territories to be explored, and as beaten paths through the fields of [87] knowledge. True teaching, then, is not that which GIVES knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to GAIN it. One might say that he teaches BEST who teaches LEAST; or that he teaches best whose pupils learn most without being taught directly. But we should bear in mind that in these epigrammatic statements two meanings of the word TEACHING are involved: one, simply telling, the other creating the conditions of real learning.

8. That teacher is a sympathizing guide whose knowledge of the subjects to be studied enables him properly to direct the efforts of the pupil, to save him from a waste of time and strength, from needless difficulties. But no aid of school or teacher can change the operations of the mind, or take from the pupil his need of knowing for himself. The eye must do its own seeing, the ear its own hearing, and the mind its own thinking, however much may be done to furnish objects of sights, sounds for the ear and stimuli for the intelligence. The innate capacities of the child produce the growth of body or mind. "If childhood is educated according to the measure of its powers," said Saint Augustine, "they will continually grow and increase; while if forced beyond their strength, they decrease instead of increasing." The sooner the teacher abandons the notion that he can make his pupils intelligent by hard work upon their passive receptivity, the sooner he [88] will become a good teacher and obtain the art, as Socrates said, of assisting the mind to shape and put forth its own conceptions. It was to his skill in this that the great Athenian owed his power and greatness among his contemporaries, and it was this that gave him his place as one of the foremost of the great teachers of mankind. It is the "forcing process" in teaching which separates parrotlike and perfunctory LEARNING from KNOWING. A boy, having expressed surprise at the shape of the earth when he was shown a globe, was asked: "Did you not learn that in school?" He replied: "Yes. I learned it, but I never knew it."

9. The great aims of education are to acquire knowledge and ideals, and to develop abilities and skills. Our law derives its significance from both of these aims. The pupil must know for himself, or his knowledge will be knowledge in name only. The very effort required in the act of thus learning and knowing may do much to increase the capacity to learn. The pupil who is taught without doing any studying for himself will be like one who is fed without being given any exercise: he will lose both his appetite and his strength.

10. Confidence in our own powers is an essential condition of their successful use. This confidence can be gained only by self-prompted, voluntary, and independent use of these capacities. We [89] learn to walk, not by seeing others walk, but by walking. The same is true of mental abilities.

11. The self-activities or mental powers do not set themselves at work without some motive or stimulus to put them in action. In early life external stimuli are stronger, and in riper years the internal excitants are the ones to which we respond more readily. To the young child the objects of sense -- bright colors, live animals, and things in motion -- are most attractive and exciting. Later in life, the inner facts of thought and feeling are more engaging. The child's mental life has in it an excess of sensation; the mental life of the adult has more reflection.

12. But whatever the stimulus, the processes of cognition are largely the same. There is the comparison of the new with the old, the alternating analysis and synthesis of parts, wholes, classes, causes, and effects; the action of memory and imagination, the use of judgment and reason, and the effects upon thought of tastes and prejudices as they have been concerned with the previous knowledge and experience of the learner. If thinking does not take place, the teacher has applied the stimuli in vain. He perhaps will wonder that his pupils do not understand, and will very likely consider them stupid and incompetent, or at least lazy. Unfortunately the stupidity is sometimes on the other side, and its sins against this [90] law of teaching in assuming that the teacher can MAKE the pupil learn by dint of vigorous telling, or teaching as he calls it, whereas true teaching only brings to bear on the pupil's mind certain natural stimuli or excitants. If some of these fail, he must find others, and not rest until he attains the desired result and sees the activity of the child at work upon the lesson.

13. Comenius -1- said, over two hundred years ago, "Most teachers sow plants instead of seeds; instead of proceeding form the simplest principles they introduce the pupil at once into a chaos of books and miscellaneous studies." The figure of the seed is a good one, and is much older than Comenius. The greatest of teachers said: "The seed is the word." The true teacher stirs the ground and sows the seed. It is the work of the soil, through its own forces, to develop the growth and ripen the grain. [-1- Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1671) was a Moravian clergyman, whose efforts to reform school practices have given him an enduring place in the history of education.]

14. The difference between the pupil who works for himself and the one who works only when he is driven is too obvious to need explanation. The one is a free agent, the other is a machine. The former is attracted by his work, and, prompted by his interest, he works on until he meets some overwhelming difficulty or reaches the end of his [91] task. The latter moves only when he is urged. He sees what is shown him, he hears what he is told, advances when his teacher leads, and stops just where and when the teacher stops. The one moves by his own activities, and the other by borrowed impulse. The former is a mountain stream fed by living springs, the latter a ditch filled from a pump worked by another's hand.

KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO THOUGHT

15. The action of the mind is limited practically to the field of its acquired knowledge. The individual who knows nothing cannot think, for he has nothing to think about. In comparing, imagining, judging, and reasoning, and in applying knowledge to plan, criticize, or execute one's own thoughts, the mind must necessarily work upon the material in its possession. Hence the power of any object or fact as a mental stimulus depends in each case upon the number of related objects or facts which the individual already knows. A botanist will be aroused to the keenest interest by the discovery of a hitherto unknown plant, but will perhaps care little or nothing for a new stone or a new star. The physician eagerly studies new diseases, the lawyer recent decisions, the farmer new crops, and the mechanic new machines.

16. The infant knows little, and his interest is brief and slight; the adult knows many things, and his interests are deeper, wider, and more [92] persistent. Thoughtfulness deepens and grows more intense with the increase of knowledge. The student of mathematics who has worked long and diligently in his field never finds it dry or tiresome; the wisest student of the Bible finds in its pages the greatest delight. All these illustrations show the principles which underlie our law and prove its value.

17. The two chief springs of interest through which the mind can be aroused are the love of knowledge for its own sake, that is, its cultural value, and the desire for knowledge to be used as a tool in solving problems or obtaining other knowledge. In the former are mingled the satisfaction of the native curiosity which craves to know the real nature and causes of the phenomena around us, the solution of the questionings which often trouble the mind, the relief from apprehensions which ignorance feels in the presence of nature's mysteries, the sense of power and liberty which knowledge often brings, the feeling of elevation which each new increment of knowledge gives, and the "rejoicing in the truth" because of its own beauty and sublimity, or its moral charm and sweetness, its appeals to our taste for wit and humor, and for the wonderful. All these enter separately or together into the intellectual appetite to which the various forms of knowledge appeal, and which give to reading and study their greatest attraction. Each affords [93] an avenue through which the mind can be reached and roused by the skillful teacher.

18. It is evident that this manifold mental appetite must vary in character and intensity with the tastes and attainments of the pupils. Some love nature and her sciences of observation and experiment; others love mathematics and delight in its problems; still others prefer the languages and literature, and others history and the sciences which deal with the powers, deeds, and destinies of man. Each special preference grows by being fostered, and becomes absorbing as its acquisitions become great. The great masteries and achievements in arts, literature, and science have come from these innate tastes, and in all these "the child is father of the man."

In each pupil lies the germ of such tastes -- the springs of such powers -- awaiting the art of the teacher to water the germs and set the springs in motion.

19. The respect for knowledge because of its value as a tool includes the desire for education as a means of livelihood or as a source of better social standing; the felt or anticipated need of some special skill or ability as an artist, lawyer, writer, or some other brain worker; as well as study for the purpose of winning rewards or avoiding punishments. This indirect desire for learning varies with the character and aims of the pupils, [94] but does not increase with attainment unless it ripens, as it may, into the true love of knowledge above described. Its strength depends upon the nature and magnitude of the need which impels the study. The activities aroused for such study go to a self-imposed task and are not very likely to continue their work after the task is done. The rewards and punishments used in school to promote the studying of lessons have just this force and no more. They inspire no generous activity which works for the love of the work and which does not pause when the assigned lesson has been covered. Witness the spirit that pervades every school so taught and so managed. On the other hand, if the true uses of knowledge are constantly pointed out by the teacher and recognized by the child, the time may well come when respect for knowledge because it is useful becomes a real love of knowledge for its own sake.

KNOWLEDGE AND THE FEELINGS

20. Our discussion thus far has taken for granted the intimate and indissoluble connection between the intellect and the feelings, the inseparable union of thought and feeling. To think without feeling would be thinking with a total indifference to the object of thought, which would be absurd; and to feel without thinking would be almost impossible. As most of the objects of thought are objects also of desire or dislike, and therefore objects of choice, it follows that all important action of the intellect has a moral side. This, again, [95] is an assumption that we have made throughout our discussion. The love of knowledge for itself or for its uses is in reality moral, as it implies moral affections and purposes of good or evil. All motives of study have a moral character or connection, in their early steps; hence no education or teaching can be absolutely divorced from morals. The affections come to school with the intellect.

21. This moral consciousness finds its fuller sphere in the recognized domain of duty -- the higher realm of the affections and the other moral qualities. From these come the highest and strongest incentives to study and also the clearest understanding. The teacher should constantly address the moral nature and stimulate moral sentiments, if he wishes to achieve the greatest measure of success.

22. This moral teaching was the chief merit of the work of Pestalozzi, and it is the leading characteristic of the work of all great teachers. Love of country, love of one's fellows, aspirations for a noble and useful life, love for truth -- these are all motives to which appeal should be made. If these motives are lacking in pupils, the teacher must build them up.

THE SELF-ACTIVE MIND

23. It follows from all this that only when the mental powers work freely and in their own way can the product be sure or permanent. No one [96] can know exactly what any mind contains, or how it performs, save as that mind imperfectly reveals it by words or acts, or as we conceive it by reflecting upon our own conscious experience. Just as the digestive organs must do their own work, masticating and digesting whatever food they receive, selecting, secreting, assimilating, and so building bone, muscle, nerve, and all the various tissues and organs of the body, so, too, in the last resort, the mind must perform its function, without external aid, building, as it can, concepts, faith, purposes, and all forms of intelligence and character. As Milton expressed it: The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

24. If the fact of the mind's autocracy is thus emphasized, it is not for the purpose of belittling the work of the teacher, but only to show more clearly the law which gives to that work all its force and dignity. It is the teacher's mission to stand at the spiritual gateways of his pupil's mind, serving as a herald of science, a guide through nature, to summon the minds to their work, to place before them the facts to be observed and studied, and to guide them into the right paths to be followed. It is his by sympathy, by example, and by every means of influence -- by objects for the senses, by facts for the intelligence -- to excite the mind of the pupils, to stimulate their thoughts.

25. The cautionary clause of our law which forbids giving too much help to pupils will be needless [97] to the teacher who clearly sees his proper work. Like a skillful engineer who knows the power of his engine, he chooses to stand and watch the play of the splendid machine and marvel at the ease and vigor of its movements. It is only the unskilled teacher who prefers to hear his own voice in endless talk rather than to watch and direct the course of the thoughts of his pupils.

26. There is no disagreement between this law and the first and third, which so strongly insist upon the teacher's knowledge of the subject. Without full and accurate knowledge of the subject that the pupil is to learn through his self-active efforts, the teacher certainly cannot guide, direct, and test the process of learning. One may as well say that a general need know nothing of a battlefield because he is not to do the actual fighting, as that a teacher may get on with inadequate knowledge because the pupils must do the studying. As we have said, there are exceptions to the rule that the pupil should be told nothing that he can discover for himself. There are some occasions when the teacher may, for a few moments, become a lecturer and, from his own more extensive experience, give his pupils broader, richer, and clearer views of the field of their work. But in such cases he must take care not to substitute mere telling for true teaching, and thus encourage passive listening where he needs to call for earnest work.

27. The most important stimuli used by nature to stir the minds of men have already been noted. They might all be described as the silent but ceaseless questions which the world and the universe are always addressing to man. The eternal questions of childhood are really the echoes of these greater questions. The object or the event that excites no question will provoke no thought. Questioning is not, therefore, merely one of the devices of teaching, it is really the whole of teaching. It is the excitation of the self-activities to their work of discovering truth. Nature always teaches thus. But it does not follow that every question should be in the interrogative form. The strongest and clearest affirmation may have all the effect of the interrogation, if the mind so receives it. An explanation may be so given as to raise now questions while it answers old ones.

28. The explanation that settles everything and ends all questions, usually ends all thinking also. After a truth is clearly understood, or a fact or principle established, there still remain its consequences, applications, and uses. Each fact and truth thoroughly studied leads to other facts which renew the questioning and demand fresh investigation. The alert and scientific mind is one that never ceases to ask questions and seek answers. The scientific spirit is the spirit of tireless inquiry and research. The present time, so far excelling [99] the past in the development of its arts and sciences, is the time of great questions.

29. As with the world, so with the child. His education begins as soon as he begins to ask questions. It is only when the questioning spirit has been fully awakened, and the habit of raising questions has been largely developed, that the teaching process may embody the lecture plan. The truth asks its own questions as soon as the mind is sufficiently awake. The falling apple had the question of gravitation in it for the mind of Newton; and the boiling teakettle propounded to Watt the problem of a steam engine.

RULES FOR TEACHERS

30. Like our other laws, this one also suggests some practical rules for teaching.

(1) Adapt lessons and assignments to the ages and attainments of the pupils. Very young children will be interested more in whatever appeals to the senses, and especially in activities; the more mature will be attracted to reasoning and to reflective problems.

(2) Select lessons which relate to the environment and needs of the pupils.

(3) Consider carefully the subject and the lesson to be taught, and find its point of contact with the lives of your pupils.

(4) Excite the pupil's interest in the lesson when it is assigned, by some question or by some statement which will awaken inquiry. Hint that [100] something worth knowing is to be found out if the lesson is thoroughly studied, and then be sure later to ask for the truth to be discovered.

(5) Place yourself frequently in the position of a pupil among your pupils, and join in the search for some fact or principle.

(6) Repress your impatience which cannot wait for the pupil to explain himself, and which tends to take his words out of his mouth. He will resent it, and will feel that he could have answered had you given him time.

(7) In all class exercises aim to excite constantly fresh interest and activity. Stare questions for the pupils to investigate out of class. The lesson that does not culminate in fresh questions ends wrong.

(8) Observe each pupil to see that his mind is not wandering so as to forbid its activities being bent to the lesson in hand.

(9) Count it your chief duty to awaken the minds of your pupils, and do not rest until each child shows his mental activity by asking questions.

(10) Repress the desire to tell all you know or think about the lesson or subject; if you tell something by way of illustration or explanation, let it start a fresh question.

(11) Give the pupil time to think, after you are sure that his mind is actively at work, and encourage him to ask questions when puzzled.

(12) Do not answer too promptly the questions asked, but restate them, to give them greater force and breadth, and often answer with new questions to secure deeper thought.

(13) Teach pupils to ask What? Why? and How? -- the nature, cause, and method of every fact or principle taught them; also Where? When? By Whom? and What of it? -- the place, time, actors, and consequences of events

(14) Recitations should not exhaust a subject, but leave additional work to stimulate the thought and the efforts of the pupils.

VIOLATIONS AND MISTAKES

31. Many a teacher neglecting these rules kills all interest in his class, and wonders how he did it.

(1) The chief and almost constant violation of this law of teaching is the attempt to force lessons by simply telling. "I have told you ten times, and yet you don't know!" exclaims a teacher of this sort, who is unable to remember that knowing comes by thinking, not by being told.

(2) It is another mistake to complain of memory for not keeping what it never held. If facts or principles are to be remembered, the attention must be concentrated upon them at the time, and there must be a conscious effort to remember.

(3) A third violation of the law comes from the haste with which teachers require prompt and rapid recitations in the very words of the book; and, if a question is asked in class, to refuse the pupils time to think. If the pupil hesitates and stops [102] for lack of thought, or in apparent lack of memory, the fault lies in yesterday's teaching which shows its fruit today; but if it comes from the slowness of the pupil's thinking, or from the real difficulty of the subject, then time should be given for additional thought; and, if the recitation period will not permit it, let the answer hold over until the next time.

32. It is to this hurried and unthinking lesson-saying that we owe the superficial and impractical character of so much of our teaching. Instead of learning thoroughly the material of our lessons, we endeavor to learn them only so as to recite them promptly. If faults of this character are prevalent in our day schools, how much more serious are they in the Sunday schools? If the lessons of the Sunday schools are to carry over into the lives of the pupils by purifying and exalting their thoughts and making them wise in the religious beliefs taught them, the instruction must not be mere telling, but must be accompanied by the better methods used in the regular schools.

33. How different are the results when this great law of teaching is properly followed! The stimulated self-activities operate in the correct manner, and the classroom is transformed under their power into a busy laboratory. The pupils become thinkers -- discoverers. They master great truths, and apply them to the great questions of life. They [103] invade new fields of knowledge. The teacher merely leads the march. Their reconnaissance becomes a conquest. Skill and power grow with their exercise. Through this process, the students find out what their minds are for, and become students of life.