Chapter I: Front Matter

School Education

_‘Home Education’ Series_

By CHARLOTTE M. MASON

_Each Volume 3s. 6d. net_

I. HOME EDUCATION.
II. PARENTS AND CHILDREN.
III. SCHOOL EDUCATION.
IV. ESSAYS IN PRACTICAL EDUCATION.
V. OURSELVES, OUR SOULS AND BODIES.

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., LTD.
DRYDEN HOUSE
43 GERRARD STREET, LONDON, W.

_‘Home Education’ Series_

VOLUME III.

School Education

By
Charlotte M. Mason

_SECOND EDITION_

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., LTD.
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1907

_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_

_TO_

Henrietta Franklin

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED, IN VERY GRATEFUL
RECOGNITION, NOT ONLY OF HER GENEROUS
LIFE’S LABOUR GIVEN TO THE SPREAD
OF CERTAIN EDUCATIONAL IDEAS,
BUT ALSO OF HER SINGULAR
APPREHENSION OF
THOSE IDEAS

“O maraviglia! che come altrui piacque
l’umile pianta, cotal si rinacque
Subitamente là onde la svelse.”

We read in the _Purgatorio_, Canto I., how Virgil was directed to prepare Dante for his difficult ascent:

“Va dunque, e fa che tu costui ricinghe
d’un giunco schietto, e che gli lavi il viso
si che ogni sucidume quindi stinghe:
...
Questa isoletta intorno ad imo ad imo,
laggiu, cola dove la batte l’onda,
porta de’ giunchi sopra il molle limo.
Null’ altra pianta, che facesse fronda
o indurasse, vi puote aver vita,
pero che alle percosse non seconda.
...
Venimmo poi in sul litro diserto,
...
Quivi mi cinse si come altrui piacque:
o maraviglia! che qual egli scelse
l’umile pianta, cotal si rinacque
Subitamente là onde la svelse.”

“Go, then, and see thou gird this one about
With a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face,
So that thou cleanse away all stain therefrom.
...
This little island round about its base,
Below there, yonder where the billow beats it,
Doth rushes bear upon its washy ooze;
No other plant that putteth forth the leaf,
Or that doth indurate, can there have life,
Because it yieldeth not unto the shocks.
...
Then came we down upon the desert shore.
...
There he begirt me as the other pleased;
O marvellous! for even as he culled
The humble plant, such it sprang up again
Suddenly there where he uprooted it.”

(LONGFELLOW’S TRANSLATION.)

Preface to the ‘Home Education’ Series

The educational outlook is rather misty and depressing both at home and abroad. That science should be a staple of education, that the teaching of Latin, of modern languages, of mathematics, must be reformed, that nature and handicrafts should be pressed into service for the training of the eye and hand, that boys and girls must learn to write English and therefore must know something of history and literature; and, on the other hand, that education must be made more technical and utilitarian—these, and such as these, are the cries of expedience with which we take the field. But we have no unifying principle, no definite aim; in fact, no philosophy of education. As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of thought which gives it birth; and perhaps this is the reason of all the ‘fallings from us, vanishings,’ failures, and disappointments which mark our educational records.

Those of us, who have spent many years in pursuing the benign and elusive vision of Education, perceive that her approaches are regulated by a law, and that this law has yet to be evoked. We can discern its outlines, but no more. We know that it is pervasive; there is no part of a child’s home-life or school-work which the law does not penetrate. It is illuminating, too, showing the value, or lack of value, of a thousand systems and expedients. It is not only a light, but a measure, providing a standard whereby all things, small and great, belonging to educational work must be tested. The law is liberal, taking in whatsoever things are true, honest, and of good report, and offering no limitation or hindrance save where excess should injure. And the path indicated by the law is continuous and progressive, with no transition stage from the cradle to the grave, except that maturity takes up the regular self-direction to which immaturity has been trained. We shall doubtless find, when we apprehend the law, that certain German thinkers—Kant, Herbart, Lotze, Froebel—are justified; that, as they say, it is ‘necessary’ to believe in God; that, therefore, the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and the chief end of education. By one more character shall we be able to recognise this perfect law of educational liberty when it shall be made evident. It has been said that ‘The best idea which we can form of absolute truth is that it is able to meet every condition by which it can be tested.’ This we shall expect of our law—that it shall meet every test of experiment and every test of rational investigation.

Not having received the tables of our law, we fall back upon Froebel or upon Herbart; or, if we belong to another School, upon Locke or Spencer; but we are not satisfied. A discontent is it a divine discontent? is upon us; and assuredly we should hail a workable, effectual philosophy of education as a deliverance from much perplexity. Before this great deliverance comes to us it is probable that many tentative efforts will be put forth, having more or less of the characters of a philosophy; notably, having a central idea, a body of thought with various members working in vital harmony.

Such a theory of education, which need not be careful to call itself a system of psychology, must be in harmony with the thought movements of the age; must regard education, not as a shut-off compartment, but as being as much a part of life as birth or growth, marriage or work; and it must leave the pupil attached to the world at many points of contact. It is true that educationalists are already eager to establish such contact in several directions, but their efforts rest upon an axiom here and an idea there, and there is no broad unifying basis of thought to support the whole.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread; and the hope that there may be many tentative efforts towards a philosophy of education, and that all of them will bring us nearer to the _magnum opus_, encourages me to launch one such attempt. The central thought, or rather body of thought, upon which I found, is the somewhat obvious fact that the child is a _person_ with all the possibilities and powers included in personality. Some of the members which develop from this nucleus have been exploited from time to time by educational thinkers, and exist vaguely in the general common sense, a notion here, another there. One thesis, which is, perhaps, new, that _Education is the Science of Relations_, appears to me to solve the question of curriculæ, as showing that the object of education is to put a child in living touch with as much as may be of the life of Nature and of thought. Add to this one or two keys to self-knowledge, and the educated youth goes forth with some idea of self-management, with some pursuits, and many vital interests. My excuse for venturing to offer a solution, however tentative and passing, to the problem of education is twofold. For between thirty and forty years I have laboured without pause to establish a working and philosophic theory of education; and in the next place, each article of the educational faith I offer has been arrived at by inductive processes; and has, I think, been verified by a long and wide series of experiments. It is, however, with sincere diffidence that I venture to offer the results of this long labour; because I know that in this field there are many labourers far more able and expert than I—the ‘angels’ who fear to tread, so precarious is the footing!

But, if only _pour encourager les autres_, I append a short synopsis of the educational theory advanced in the volumes of the ‘Home Education Series.’ The treatment is not methodic, but incidental; here a little, there a little, as seemed to me most likely to meet the occasions of parents and teachers. I should add that in the course of a number of years the various essays have been prepared for the use of the Parents’ Educational Union in the hope that that Society might witness for a more or less coherent body of educational thought.

“The consequence of truth is great; therefore the judgment of
it must not be negligent.”

1. Children are born _persons_.

2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and evil.

3. The principles of authority on the one hand and obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but—

4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon, whether by fear or love, suggestion or influence, or undue play upon any one natural desire.

5. Therefore we are limited to three educational instruments—the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.

6. By the saying, EDUCATION IS AN ATMOSPHERE, it is not meant that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child environment,’ especially adapted and prepared; but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the ‘child’s’ level.

7. By EDUCATION IS A DISCIPLINE, is meant the discipline of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structure to habitual lines of thought—_i.e._, to our habits.

8. In the saying that EDUCATION IS A LIFE, the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.

9. But the mind is not a receptacle into which ideas must be dropped, each idea adding to an ‘apperception mass’ of its like, the theory upon which the Herbartian doctrine of interest rests.

10. On the contrary, a child’s mind is no mere _sac_ to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual _organism_, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal, and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does food-stuffs.

11. This difference is not a verbal quibble. The Herbartian doctrine lays the stress of education—the preparation of knowledge in enticing morsels, presented in due order—upon the teacher. Children taught upon this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge; and the teacher’s axiom is, ‘What a child learns matters less than how he learns it.’

12. But, believing that the normal child has powers of mind that fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, we must give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care, only, that the knowledge offered to him is vital—that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes the principle that,—

13. EDUCATION IS THE SCIENCE OF RELATIONS; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon _many living_ books; for we know that our business is, not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of—

‘Those first-born affinities
That fit our new existence to existing things.’

14. There are also two secrets of moral and intellectual self-management which should be offered to children; these we may call the Way of the Will and the Way of the Reason.

15. _The Way of the Will._—Children should be taught—

(_a_) To distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’

(_b_) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts
from that which we desire but do not will.

(_c_) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or
do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.

(_d_) That, after a little rest in this way, the will returns
to its work with new vigour.

(This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as _diversion_,
whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort,
that we may ‘will’ again with added power. The use of
suggestion—even self-suggestion—as an aid to the will, is to be
deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It
would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and
that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of
success.)

16. _The Way of the Reason._—We should teach children, too, not to ‘lean’ (too confidently) ‘unto their own understanding,’ because the function of reason is, to give logical demonstration (_a_) of mathematical truth; and (_b_) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case reason is, perhaps, an infallible guide, but in the second it is not always a safe one; for whether that initial idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

17. Therefore children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of initial ideas. To help them in this choice we should give them principles of conduct and a wide range of the knowledge fitted for them.

These three principles (15, 16 and 17) should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.

18. We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

_The ‘Home Education’ Series is so called from the title of the
first volume, and not as dealing, wholly or principally, with
‘Home’ as opposed to ‘School’ education._

Preface

The intention of the following volume is to offer some suggestions towards a curriculum for boys and girls under twelve. A curriculum, however, is not an independent product, but is linked to much else by chains of cause and consequence; and the manner of curriculum I am anxious to indicate is the outcome of a scheme of educational thought, the adoption of which might, I believe, place educational work generally upon a sounder footing.

The fundamental principles of docility and authority have been considered in the first place because they _are_ fundamental; but, for that very reason, they should be present but not in evidence: we do not expose the foundations of our house. Not only so, but these principles must be conditioned by respect for the personality of children; and, in order to give the children room for free development on the lines proper to them, it is well that parents and teachers should adopt an attitude of ‘masterly inactivity.’

Having considered the relations of teachers and taught, I have touched upon those between education and current thought. Education should be in the flow, as it were, and not shut up in a watertight compartment. Perhaps, reverence for personality as such, a sense of the solidarity of the race, and a profound consciousness of evolutionary progress, are among the elements of current thought which should help us towards an educational ideal.

In considering the training of children under the convenient divisions of physical, mental, moral, and religious, I have not thought it necessary to enlarge upon matters of common knowledge and general acceptance, but have dwelt upon aspects of training under each heading which are likely to be overlooked. Under the phrase, ‘Education is a life,’ I have tried to show how necessary it is to sustain the intellectual life upon ideas, and, as a corollary, that a school-book should be a medium for ideas, and not merely a receptacle for facts. That normal children have a natural desire for, and a right of admission to, all fitting knowledge, appears to me to be suggested by the phrase, ‘Education is the science of relations.’

These considerations clear the ground towards that of a curriculum.

The sort of curriculum I have in view should educate children upon _Things_ and _Books_. Current thought upon the subject of education by _Things_ is so sound and practical, and so thoroughly carried into effect, that I have not thought it necessary to dwell much here upon this part of education. Our great failure seems to me to be caused by the fact that we do not form the _habit of reading books that are worth while_ in children while they are at school and are under twelve years of age. The free use of books implies correct spelling and easy and vigorous composition without direct teaching of these subjects.

The Appendices show, I think, that such use of books in education works out well in practice, and is a great saving of time and labour to both teacher and pupils, especially relieving both of the deadly dull labour wasted on ‘_corrections_.’

The much-diluted, or over-condensed, teaching of the oral lesson, or the lecture, gives place to the well thought out, consecutive treatment of the right book, a _living_ book in which facts are presented as the outcome of ideas.

Children taught in this way are remarkable for their keenness after knowledge, and do well afterwards in any examination for which they may have to prepare; and, what is of much more consequence, are prepared to take their full share of all that life offers of intellectual and practical interests.

AMBLESIDE, _November 1904_.

_Will the reader kindly substitute ‘teachers’ for ‘parents’ when the former title suits the case?_

Contents

PAGE

CHAPTER I

DOCILITY AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOME AND SCHOOL

Better relations between children and their elders—The
elder generation of parents, autocratic—Arbitrary rule not
always a failure—But truer educational thought results in
worthier character—Doctrine of the infallible reason—Leads
to the dethronement of authority—Authority not inherent,
but deputed—‘Quick as thought’—The notion of the finality
of human reason intolerable—Authority and docility,
fundamental principles—Work of rationalistic philosophers,
inevitable—Authority, vested in the office, 1

CHAPTER II

DOCILITY AND AUTHORITY IN THE HOME AND THE SCHOOL

_Part II.—How Authority Behaves_

Mistakes made on principle—Authority distinguished
from autocracy—Behaviour of ‘autocracy’—Behaviour of
‘authority’—Qualities proper to a ruler—Mechanical and
reasonable obedience—Response of docility to authority, a
natural function—The habit of prompt obedience—The effort
of decision—Authority avoids cause of offence—Authority is
alert—Who gave thee this authority? 13

CHAPTER III

‘MASTERLY INACTIVITY’

Increased sense of responsibility—A sign of moral
progress—Parental responsibility—Anxiety the note of a
transition stage—A fussy and restless habit—‘Masterly
inactivity’—The element of good humour—Self-confidence—The
fine, easy way of fathers—Confidence in the
children—Omniscience of parents and teachers—‘Fate’ and
‘free-will’—The component parts of masterly inactivity—Serenity
of a Madonna—Leisure—Faith, 25

CHAPTER IV

SOME OF THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN AS PERSONS

Children should be free in their play—Organised games are not
play—Personal initiative in work—Children must stand or fall by
their own efforts—Boys and girls are generally dutiful—Children
should choose their own friends—Should be free to spend their
own pocket-money—Should form their own opinions—Spontaneity, 36

CHAPTER V

PSYCHOLOGY IN RELATION TO CURRENT THOUGHT

Educational thought in the eighteenth century—General
dissatisfaction with education—Psychologies are many—Conditions
of an adequate system—Sacredness of the person—The evolution
of the individual—The solidarity of the race—The best thought
is common thought—Locke’s ‘states of consciousness’—Does not
provide for the evolution of the person—Modern physiological
psychology—‘Unjustifiable materialism’—Psychology ‘a
phrase of diffidence’—We become devitalised—This system
inadequate—Unnecessary—Inharmonious—Evolution is checked, 44

CHAPTER VI

SOME EDUCATIONAL THEORIES EXAMINED

Theories of Pestalozzi and Froebel—Lack the element
of personality—The struggle for existence a part of
life—Herbartian psychology—The person an effect and not a
cause—A tempting vista—Eliminates personality—Turns out
duplicates—Each system fails to meet our tests—A psychology
that meets the demands upon it—Educational truth a common
possession—We take children as persons—The person wills and
thinks and feels—An adequate doctrine—Education the science of
relations—Teaching must not be obtrusive—The art of standing
aside, 56

CHAPTER VII

AN ADEQUATE THEORY OF EDUCATION

A human being—_His capacities_—_His limitations_—_His
education_—The behaviour of ideas—No one can beget an idea by
himself—Certain persons attract certain ideas—The idea that
‘strikes’ us—Expansion and activity of the person—Story of
Kaspar Hauser—What Nature does for a child—The child has every
power that will serve him—Fulness of living depends on the
establishment of relations—The power of recognition—Æsthetic
appreciation—First-hand knowledge—Appreciative knowledge and
exact knowledge—How a child sets up a new relation, 68

CHAPTER VIII

CERTAIN RELATIONS PROPER TO A CHILD

Dynamic relations—Power over material—Intimacy with animals—The
great human relationships—The awakening idea—Human intelligence
limited by human interests—The full human life—Duty not within
the scope of present-day psychology—Casual ethical teaching—The
moral relation of person to person—The sense of what is due
from us does not come by Nature—Relations of oneself with
oneself—Intimacy with persons of all classes—Fitness as
citizens—Relations with each other as human beings—Relation to
Almighty God—Sentiment is not duty, 79

CHAPTER IX

A GREAT EDUCATIONALIST

_A Review_

We look to Germany for educational reform—Herbartian thought
the most advanced on the Continent—Comparison with P.N.E.U.
thought—The development of the ‘faculties’—We, like Herbart,
discard the ‘faculties’—Pervasiveness of dominant ideas—The
Zeitgeist—The child’s schoolmasters—A noble piety—A mediæval
conception of education—The family principle—Uncertainty as to
the purpose of education—Some attempts to fix—Herbart’s theory,
ethical—Obscurity of psychology—Two luminous principles, 91

CHAPTER X

SOME UNCONSIDERED ASPECTS OF PHYSICAL TRAINING

Does our physical culture make heroes?—A
serviceable body the end of physical culture—‘Ye
are not your own’—Use of habit in physical
training—Self-restraint—Self-control—Self-discipline—Local
habits—Alertness—Quick perception—Stimulating
ideas—Fortitude—Service—Courage—Prudence—Chastity, 101

CHAPTER XI

SOME UNCONSIDERED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL TRAINING

We are law-abiding in matters physical and moral—Not so
in matters intellectual—Three ultimate facts, not open to
question—Limitations of reason—Reason brings logical proof
of any idea we entertain—Another fallacy—intellect man’s
peculiar sphere, knowledge his proper discovery—Great
eras come from time to time—Nothing so practical as great
ideas—The formation of intellectual habits—We trust blindly to
disciplinary subjects—Some intellectual habits—Meditation—The
sustenance of living ideas—Children’s literature—Independent
intellectual development of children—Self-selection and
self-appropriation—Inherited parsimony in lesson-books—Plato’s
educational aim, 113

CHAPTER XII

SOME UNCONSIDERED ASPECTS OF MORAL TRAINING

Three foundation principles—Authority the basis of moral
teaching—Principles not rules—Limitations of authority—Duty
can exist only as that which we _owe_—Morals do not come
by nature—Children born neither moral nor immoral—Moral
teaching—Of the poets—Ethical teaching of the Middle
Ages—We have no authoritative teaching—High ideals—Value
of biography—Of patriotic poems—Mottoes—The habit of sweet
thoughts—Virtues in which children should be trained, 126

CHAPTER XIII

SOME UNCONSIDERED ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Authority in religious education—Questions in the air—How
authority works—The habits of the religious life—Habit of the
thought of God—Reverent attitudes—Regularity in devotions—The
habit of reading the Bible—Children formalists by nature—The
habit of praise—The habit of Sunday-keeping—Inspiring ideas
of the religious life—The fatherhood of God—The kingship of
Christ—Our Saviour—The indwelling of the Holy Ghost, 137

CHAPTER XIV

A MASTER-THOUGHT

A motto—Nineteenth-century formula, Education is an
atmosphere—Results in inanition—And _ennui_—Eighteenth-century
formula, Education is a life, results in intellectual
exhaustion—Education is the cultivation of faculties,
leads to abnormal developments—Education has three
faces—Education is a life, one of these—A creed which
unifies life—The diet of great ideas—Science, _the_ teaching
vouchsafed to men to-day—Evolution, the master-thought of
our age—The ages have sought for a unifying principle—But
personality remains—Attitude of parents and teachers towards
evolution—Education is a world business—A captain idea for us,
Education is the science of relations—A wide curriculum—We may
not choose or reject subjects arbitrarily, 148

CHAPTER XV

SCHOOL-BOOKS AND HOW THEY MAKE FOR EDUCATION

Line upon line—An incident of schoolgirl life—How did the girls
get their enthusiasm?—What manner of book sustains the life of
thought—The ‘school-books’ of the publishers—Reason for oral
teaching—Limitations of teachers—Our aim in education is to
give a full life—We undervalue children—Children of the last
generation—Children as they are—Our work, to give vitalising
ideas, 164

CHAPTER XVI

HOW TO USE SCHOOL-BOOKS

Disciplinary subjects of instruction—‘Open sesame’—The Bible,
the great storehouse of moral impressions—Effect of our liturgy
on a child—Principles on which to select school-books—Marks
of a fit book—How to use the right books—Children must
labour—Value of narration—A single careful reading—Other ways
of using books—The teacher’s part—Disciplinary devices must not
come between children and the soul of the book, 174

CHAPTER XVII

EDUCATION THE SCIENCE OF RELATIONS: WE ARE EDUCATED BY OUR
INTIMACIES: _THE PRELUDE_ AND _PRÆTERITA_

Only three educational instruments—Our limitations—We temper
life too much for the children—Fairy lore, a screen and
shelter—Spontaneous living—On what does fulness of living
depend?—The child, a person—An infant’s self-education—Our
part, to remove obstructions and to give stimulus—Our
error—‘Business and desire’—The setting up of dynamic
relations—Ruskin’s indictment of the limitations of his
condition—Wordsworth’s recognition of his opportunities, 182

CHAPTER XVIII

WE ARE EDUCATED BY OUR INTIMACIES

_Part II.—Further Affinities_

Affinity for material: Ruskin’s opportunities—Intimacy with
natural objects—Ruskin’s flower-studies—His pebble studies—A
life-shaping intimacy—Insatiate delight in books, Ruskin’s,
Wordsworth’s—‘_They must_ have their food’ of romance—Children
must range at will among books—Words, ‘a passion and a
power’—Ruskin’s _local_ historic sense—Living touch with
the past necessary—Wordsworth and Ruskin aloof from the
past—Knowledge learned in schools—Comradeship, 194

CHAPTER XIX

WE ARE EDUCATED BY OUR INTIMACIES

_Part III.—Vocation_

Turner’s ‘call’ to Ruskin—Sincere work—Initiation—Nature,
a passion—The calling of a poet—The education of the
little prig—Children have affinities and should have
relations—Education not desultory—Strenuous effort and
reverence—Comradeship has duties—The angel troubles the still
pool—The highest relationship, 204

AN EDUCATIONAL MANIFESTO, 216

CHAPTER XX

SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A CURRICULUM

(_For Children under Twelve_)

_Part I._

Summary of preceding chapters—Some preliminary
considerations—We take too much upon us—A definite
aim—Education objective, not subjective—Interests—Educational
unrest—A unifying principle—Education should give knowledge
touched with emotion—Education is the science of relations—Is
there such a thing as the ‘child-mind’?—Knowledge
_versus_ information—Children have a natural craving for
knowledge—Children must be educated on books, 215

CHAPTER XXI

SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A CURRICULUM

(_For Children under Twelve_)

_Part II.—School-books_

Books that supply the sustenance of ideas—Books and
oral teaching—The use of appliances—The co-ordination
of studies—Our aim in education—Education by
things—Education by books—The question of a
curriculum—Religion—History—Language—Mathematics—‘Practical
instruction’—Science—Drawing—Picture talks, 228

CHAPTER XXII

SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A CURRICULUM

_Part III.—The Love of Knowledge_

The use of books makes for short hours—‘Utilitarian’
education—Relations and interests—Causes of failure—Intelligent
education—Blind alleys—An educated child—Children delight
in school, but not for love of knowledge—An educational
revolution—The children’s Magna Carta, 240

APPENDICES

I. QUESTIONS FOR THE USE OF READERS, 248

II. SOME SPECIMENS OF EXAMINATION WORK DONE IN A SCHOOL IN
WHICH THE PUPILS ARE EDUCATED UPON BOOKS AND THINGS, 271

III. WHAT A CHILD SHOULD KNOW AT TWELVE, 300

IV. EXAMINATION OF A CHILD OF TWELVE ON THE WORK OF A TERM, 302

V. HOW ORAL LESSONS ARE USED, 329

INDEX, 360

School Education