In Brook And Bayou; Or, Life In The Still Waters
Clara Kern Bayliss
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Jan. 31, 2008)
IN BROOK AND BAYOU OR, LIFE IN THE STILL WATERS - 1897 - INTRODUCTION TO THE HOME READING BOOK SERIES BY TI3CE EDITOR. THE new education takes two important directions-one of these is toward original observation, requiring the pupil to test and verify what is taught him at school by his own experiments. The information that he learns from books or hears from his teachers lips must be assimilated by incorporating it with his own experience. The other direction pointed out by the new Bducation is systematic home reading. It forms a part of school extension of all kinds. The so-called University Extension that originated at Cambridge and Ox ford has as its chief feature the aid of home reading by lectures and round-table discussions, led or conducted by experts who also lay out the course of reading. The Chautauquan movement in this country prescribes a series of excellent books and furnishes for a goodly 4-number of its readers annual courses of lectures. The teachers reading circles that exist in many States prescribe the books to be read, and publish some analysis, commentary, or catechism to aid the members. Home reading, it seems, furnishes the essential basis of thir, great movement to extend education beyond the school and to make self-culture a habit of life. Looking more carefully at the difference between the two directions of the new education we can see what each accomplishes. There is fbst an effort to train the original powers of the . individual and make him self-active, quick at observation, and free in his thinking. Next, the new education endeavors, by the reading of books and the study of the wisdom of the race, to make the child or youth a participator in the results of experience of all mankind. - These two movements may be made antagonistic by poor teaching. The book knowledge, containing as it does the precious lesson of human experience, may be so taught as to bring with it only dead rules of conduct, only dead scraps of information, and no stimulant to original thinking. Its contents may be memorized without being understood. On the other hand, the self-activity of the child may be stimulated at the expense of his social well-being-his originality may be cultivated at the expense of his rationality. If he is taught persistently to have his own way, to trust only his own senses, to cling to his own opinions heedless of the experience of his fellows, he is preparing for an unsuccessful, misanthropic career, and is likely enough to end his life in a madhouse. It is admitted that a too exclusive study of the knowledge found in books, the knowledge which is aggregated from the experience and thought of other people, may result in loading the mind of the pupil with material which he can not use to advantage. Some minds are so full of lumber that there is no space left to set up a workshop. The necessity of uniting both of these directions of intellectual activity in the schools is therefore obvious, but we must not, in this place, fall into the error of supposing that it is the oral instruction in school and the personal influence of the teacher alone that excites the pupil to activity. Book instruction is not always dry and theoretical...