XIII REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS WHE HEN I was a barefoot boy in the days that never lose their fragrant memories, I frequently accompanied my mother and other women of blessed memory to the near-by mountains to gather huckleberries. The long walks up the mountainside in the cool of the morning, the frequent rests by the mossy rocks, the refreshing drink from the clear spring under the trees, the chirp of birds, the flash of a squirrel leaping among the leafy branches, the luncheon at the noon hour, the tedious task of picking the blue globules that filled my bucket all too slowly, the Boyhood weary journey home,-all these incidents now flood my memory and moisten my eyes. The very commanded to write trembles to record what seems almost too sacred for the many to share. hand that is I recall now my mother's remark, "My son, you have some ripe berries, some green ones, some leaves, and some twigs. You must keep your eye on the ripe berries only if you would save me the task of going over your work again." The boy was anxious to fill his bucket. He was not at all concerned as to the quality of the contents. Is this not likewise a picture of our efforts to gather facts of knowledge? We snatch greedily any and all things that will "fill up " our quota of information. There is no order, no unity, no harmony, in the things we gather. If, however, we would gain at last a harmonious group of similar or related facts, we must fasten our mind's eye, attention, upon the kind of facts we most need. We must gather related facts of knowledge, or patient processes by teacher and parent alike will be required to sort our mental wares and fit them for organic relations. Accurate judgment presupposes wide experience with the facts involved. Avoid hasty generalizations. Do not speedily leap to conclusions. Basis of Accurate A teacher in a public school in an eastern city one afternoon found one of her pupils fast asleep. She wakened him rather roughly, and bade him attend to his lessons. The next day she found him asleep again. She gave him a sound shaking, and said, "If this happens again, you go to the principal for punishment." It did happen again and the boy was sent to the principal with a note from the teacher explaining his conduct, and declaring that the An Incident in boy was too stupid to remain in school. The principal, after reading the note, looked at the boy, and said, "My lad, tell me why you sleep in school." The boy hung his head and made no reply. The principal called the boy to his side and said, "I am sure there is a reason for this. Surely no boy would sleep in school unless he had good cause to do so, and I assure you that I will be glad to aid you if I can. Come, tell me all about it." Assured by this kindly treatment the boy said, "Well, if I must tell you, I will. I have no father. My mother washes every day to earn bread for us, and to pay the rent. My little sister is sick now, and mother can't go out to wash. So, to help her, I get up at four o'clock and carry the morning papers to the houses in our end of the city. I get home late in the morning, cold and hungry. haven't much to eat. Then I come to school, and along in the afternoon I get so sleepy I just can't keep awake. The teacher scolded me and sent me up here. That's all there is about it." The principal put his hand on the boy's head, and said, "You're a brave fellow. I do understand, my boy, and if I can I mean to help you. Help your mother, come to school, never mind what the teacher said. She didn't know." What the principal said to that teacher you may conjecture. We Be assured it was good pedagogy. If we knew the facts we would not so harshly and so hastily judge. When we discover truth-relations we announce a judgment. When we discover cause-relations we announce a reason. Reason is the product of a mental process in which we compare two judgments and set forth in a Reason Defined third judgment the cause-relation that may exist between them. Judgment uses the products of perception and of conception. Reason uses the products of judgment. The highest thought activity exercised by the soul is reason. Since relations are only mental phenomena it follows that reason is an abstract activity. Its materials and its products are alike removed from the realm of the concrete. The broader the generalization, the more comprehensive the law formulated by reason, the less easily may we verify its conclusions by referring the result to sense experiences. The things of reason are not the things of sense. The final development of the soul on the intellectual side is the development of reason. Reason, both as a power and as a product, is exclusively the activity of the human soul. No other animal reasons, no matter what other mental traits it may possess. To say that a man possesses good reason is to pay him the highest compliment possible in the domain of the intellect. It follows that the teacher must have in mind such a development of the pupil as will at last culminate in the exercise of this highest power of the soul on the intellectual side. Man Alone While it is necessary to keep in mind that reason is different from judgment and is a higher power, it is, perhaps, wise to remember that a complete analysis of these higher powers would show such a blending of judgment and of reason that we may with no violence of our purpose think of them jointly as the comparative or cognitive or thinking power of the soul. We have now discussed the perceptive powers, the representative powers, and the cognitive powers. There are no more to trace. We have concluded the cycle of the intellectual powers. There remains a consideration of the feelings. and of the will to cover the whole range of soul activity. All the laws of the soul, all the data of pure psychology fall within the outline here presented. Upon these laws of the soul, as a basis, rest the principles of pedagogy; upon the principles of pedagogy rest the general methods of teaching; and upon the general methods of teaching rest the special methods of Pedagogical Basis |