The Methodist Quarterly Review
October, 1863

ART. VII.-OBJECT TEACHING AS APPLIED TO PRIMARY EDUCATION.
Calkin's Object-Lessons. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Object Teaching and Methods for Primary Schools. Republished from Barnard's American Journal of Education.

WHO of us does not recall hours spent in the school-room, in acquiring the ability to repeat by rote words to which we vainly tried to attach a meaning? Who of us but remembers the tiresome spelling of words of three or four syllables, which were as strange and unfamiliar to our ears as could have been a selection from any foreign language? Happily for the rising generation, a new era is dawning upon us; the true principles of education are gaining ground and asserting their great importance. We are learning that books in the earlier stages 'of the mind's development are almost useless, and we now begin to inquire for the best method of assisting the little child 'in gaining a knowledge of surrounding objects.

Those of us who have watched an infant have seen that for the first few years of its life, if not too anxiously cared for, it is capable of amusing itself; a few blocks, or pebbles, will keep the little one contented for a very long time, and when it seeks a change, it is satisfied with something quite as simple. At this period we need give ourselves no uneasiness in regard to 'the mental development of our little charge; the old system of 'teaching its a, b, c's and b, a, ba's may well and happily be discarded. But watch the child a little longer, and you notice another phase of its development; it ceases to become so eminently self-amusing; the desire of occupation becomes more apparent, and the parent hears the frequent request for "something to co." We are apt to regard this desire as of little or no importance; but the leaving it ungratified is not simply a negative evil; now is the propitious time for implanting habits of industry which shall bear fruit during the whole subsequent life of the child. A child left to these feelings of listless inactivity becomes indolent, or, if too active in disposition for such a result, he verifies the old adage, that

"Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do."

We frequently meet such children, and wonder at their precocity in evil. Let it be firmly impressed upon the mind of every parent, that when Nature expresses the wish for "something to do," the happy moral and mental development of the child requires that such desire shall be gratified.

But how are we to keep it busy? "There’s the rub." The advocates of the object-method system would not place the child in school, and make those school-hours interesting; they are never to lose sight of the fact that the desire for employment is quite as strongly developed as the desire for knowledge, and both wants are to be indulged. Reading is' not the only or most important school-business; reading is looked upon as the recognition of the printed forms of words already familiar to the pupil, not in this early state as the vehicle for acquiring new word-acquaintances. Further familiarity with words the child acquires by well-directed conversational lessons with the teacher, by oral instructions from her, etc. In these instructions the teacher is not to be the only, nor always the principal talker. Her task is to lead the child to observe for himself; to draw out an expression of ideas already acquired; to give new words when they are needed.

These oral lessons on objects are not to be mere talks about common things; an object is selected for a lesson. This object, whenever practicable, is to be placed before the child; he is to look at ii, to handle it; he is to find out for himself its properties, the teacher acting only as his guide. Let me quote from Young’s Infant-School Manual, (one of the papers published in a work mentioned at the head of this article):

Always keep clearly in view the principle on which this kind of lesson rests; namely, that the children should discover for themselves the qualities of the objects under examination, the teacher merely supplying the words needed to express them; for to tell the pupil that such and such qualities exist in it will not develop his faculties. Hence it follows that attention should be called only to the more palpable and striking characteristics, and that, if possible, the same quality should be traced through several examples, and even contrasted with its opposite to render it more evident.

We give here a specimen lesson from "Calkins's Object-Lessons" for this kind of instruction. The subject is water:

What is in the tumbler? "Water." [The teacher pours a little of it on a newspaper or cloth.] What has the water done to the paper? "Made it wet." [Teacher pours it in drops.] Does the water run in a stream when I pour it out little by little? "No; it forms drops." Here is a little 'milk; see if it holds together in a stream. "It makes drops like water." I will now tell you a name for anything that will pour out to form drops like water. It is called a liquid. Now, what may you call water and milk? "Liquid." Mention some other liquids. "Cider, beer, the juice of oranges and lemons." Look into this cup of water; what do you see? "The bottom." Now what do you see? "A white button on the bottom." What did you learn about glass? "We call it transparent, because we can see through it." What, then, may we say of water? "It is transparent." Look at this flower; what color is it? "Yellow." Now I have put it under the water; what color is it now? "Still yellow." Then if water does not change the color of the flower, what color is water? "It is no color." I will now tell you a word which means that an object has no color; it is colorless. Now what have you learned of water? "It is liquid, transparent, colorless." [Then the teacher in the same manner draws out the idea that it is inodorous.] What use have you made of water to-day? "Washed our faces and hands." If the water was solid like a stone, could you wash with it? "No." Then what do we need in an object to be used for washing? "It must be liquid." Then milk or cider would do, would they not? "No; it must be colorless and inodorous." For what else do we use water? "For drinking." Now repeat what you have learned about water. "Liquid, transparent, inodorous, colorless, and useful for washing and drinking."

We are at last learning that each individual acquires knowledge by passing through the same routine by which that knowledge was gained by its first human possessor. Let us apply this to the infant's acquisition of words. We do not sup-pose that a single word in our language was first eoii~ed, and then an idea searched out which that newly-coined word should express. We know that the process must have been just the reverse: first the idea, then the effort to find the word which should mean just that idea; then the coining of the new word, if none already existing seemed to supply the want felt. If we apply this principle to the child's vocabulary, we shall never again give to him columns of words in Definers and Dictionaries to be "committed to memory;" but shall regard all such acquirements, if they remain in the child's memory at all, (which is very doubtful,) as so much useless lumber, never becoming a valuable part of the brain-furniture until the idea therein expressed shall have found a lodgment. Thus, take the word transparent. The child is furnished with some object possessing transparency, as glass; it is then asked to name its qualities; among others, it mentions that it can be seen through. Now it has the idea of transparency, and we give it the word: anything which can be seen through is transparent. The teachers of the object-method lay great stress upon this order; first, the idea, then the word, and it seems to us that the principle is a correct one.

Pestalozzi said children were to be taught ideas of form, number, and the use of language. These early oral lessons, such as we have been mentioning, are intended to teach the child to observe and furnish it with the correct words in which to express its observations, thus furnishing the means for teaching a familiar use of language. As the child grows older he is led to reason, compare, and deduce conclusions from what he has observed; but here great care is necessary in the teacher, lest she hurry her charge too rapidly forward, confound the stages of its development, and attempt to unfold the reasoning powers before nature herself indicates that they are ready for expansion. We give specimen notes of the more advanced object-lessons:

THE ELEPHANT.

First exhibit a picture, if the children cannot be taken to see one. Give an idea of its size, measure its height, length, etc., on the school-room wall. Then speak of the relative size of its body and legs. What kind of supports would we use for a bridge over which heavy locomotives were to pass ~ What kind for foot passengers ? Now, an elephant's body is very heavy; what kind of supports will it need? Then what will the size and strength of the legs depend upon? "On the size and weight of the body?" Then give its mode of life, describe the thick jungles of tropical forests, requiring it to move among the tangled masses of undergrowth with its huge unwieldly body, then draw from the class the skin that would best suit it, soft and easily pierced, or hard, almost impenetrable; then its eyes, should they be ~arge and prom. inent, or soft and sunken? Note the wisdom of the Creator in making a creature so admiraNy adapted to its mode of life. Note the head, with its weighty tusks, and show how a long tapering neck would not have suited; but its short thick neck prevents its reaching the ground for food and drink, then let them see from the picture how this is admirably compensated by the trunk.

Having thus seen how the system under discussion would supply the needed means for mental development and the use of language, let us note its adaptation for developing ideas of number and form. It allows the child to find out results for himself, still having only the teacher's guidance. He learns to count by means of common objects, beans, buttons, etc. No long tables are to be placed in his hands for him to commit to memory; he learns to add, subtract, etc., by actually performing the operations upon the objects themselves; he learns to multiply by the same method, thus: if asked to tell how many beans three times two beans would make, he arranges two and two more and two more, and of course readily gives the result. By degrees his methods grow more abstract; and he represents objects by marks and dots, instead of using the objects themselves, thus: ask for five fours and he dots thus:

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

* * * *

Of course the whole process is perfectly clear to him. He thus learns the properties of numbers long before he begins to study Arithmetic, or the science of numbers. He has thus constructed the multiplication table for himself; it will be only gradually and slowly, and by numerous repetitions, that he will commit to memory, but he will do it understandingly, nor will it be the task to him that it has been to many of us. Next in difficulty to the multiplication table, in our childhood recollections, come the tables of weights and measures, difficult only because they treated of that to which we attached no meaning. Their difficulty vanishes by a very obvious expedient, so simple we wonder that any other method should ever have been adopted. The child is to learn from the objects themselves. An inch measure, a foot measure, and a yard measure are indispensably necessary to the teacher who would give correct ideas of long measure. They are put into the pupil's hands, and he measures one upon the other till he tells you, without assistance, that twelve inches make one foot, and three feet one yard. He is now told the number of yards that make a rod; or, better still, a rod is measured and marked off in the play-ground, and he, with his yard measure, finds out how many yards are contained in a rod: he is thus encouraged to measure rods in the playground and in the neighborhood. His ideas of longer measures must be gradually acquired in his walks. etc.

Liquid measures are taught in the same way. Water is plentiful and tin measures not very costly. The teacher fills a gill measure, or allows the child to do it, and then empties it into the pint measure, repeating the operation till the latter vessel is full. Of course any child after this operation could tell how many gills are in a pint. It is useless for me to particularize more; certainly there are few persons who will deny this to be the proper method of teaching these tables, though 'of course it may be necessary to repeat these operations at different times, until they are fully impressed upon the mind.

So much for the ideas .Qf number: how does this system proceed with the ideas of form? We shall find some very interesting lessons of form in the text-book by Calkins. Let us quote a few:

TO DEVELOP THE IDEA OF AN ANGLE.

[The teacher draws two straight lines on the blackboard.] ----- ----- What have I done? "Drawn two straight lines." [Draws two more meeting in a point.] < What have I done? "Drawn two more straight lines." What difference between the first two lines and these? "The last meet in a point; they come together; the first did not." [Teacher holding up a pair of scissors.] What is this? "A pair of scissors. What are these parts called? "The blades." What did you say of the last two lines I made? "They meet together." What do you say of these blades? "They meet too." Do you see any lines in the windows that meet? " Yes, the wood in the frames, at the corners of the glass." [Opening the scissors.] What am I doing? "Opening the scissors." Now what do you call the space between the blades ? "The opening." [Opens the blades to the full extent, then nearly closes them.] Is each opening alike? "Sometimes it is large and sometimes small." I will draw some lines on the blackboard to represent these blades when open. One of you may come and show me the opening between these lines. Now show me the place where these lines meet.

I will now give you a name for an opening between two lines that meet in a point. For what am I to give you a name? "For an opening between two lines that meet in a point." We call such an opening an angle. Now show me some angles in the room. Come and show me the largest angle on the board. Now show me the smallest. How many lines do I use to form an angle? "Two." What must they do to form an angle? "Meet in a point."

TO DEVELOP IDEAS OF A TRIANGLE.

Take these two sticks, and one of you try to make a pen round the ink-stand with them. You can't do it. How many must you have to make a pen? "Three." Now draw a figure on the black-board to represent your pen. How many angles has it? "Three." A figure with three angles and three sides is a triangle."

The intervals between the recitations are filled up with exercises in drawing, etc. The pupils draw the figures they have learned. They are furnished with drawing cards containing simple figures that they learn to imitate. Pestalozzi says, "Drawing should come before writing." Calkins says:

The ability to use the pen or pencil, so that with a few strokes either one can represent to the eye that which he cannot describe, is an acquisition, the value of which is too well known to need any commendation here; but that children may be trained to acquire this ability at school is not generally understood.

It is believed by the ablest educators that children will learn to write in less time, if taught writing and drawing together, than when taught writing alone.

The use of the slate and pencil should not be postponed for a single day after the child enters the primary school; indeed its use should be learned long before the child enters school at all.

Let it be distinctly understood that this elementary drawing is begun with reference to future utility, not that it may give the ability to copy off landscapes and figures from one picture to another, that these pictures may be displayed and give an idea of "fashionable accomplishments" in the possessor.

We have space only for the geographical object lessons. In our ordinary school system, as soon as a child is able to read, (frequently while reading is still a slow, painful task, interspersed with spelling of every difficult word,) a book called a Primary Geography is placed in his hands to be committed to memory. This Primary Geography is an abridgment of the larger School Geography, and is abridged by leaving out all the more interesting and simple portions and presenting to the little ones the grim skeleton of geography, such as the definitions of latitude and longitude, the circles of the earth, and questions on the maps. Now we contend that Mathematical Geography is quite beyond the range of infant comprehension; that maps, until the principle of their construction has been wrought out for the child, are equally unintelligible, and that the only geography that will interest and instruct him is that which we now recognize as Physical Geography. We would, moreover, enter our earnest protest against placing any text book into a child's hands until he shall have so far advanced in the ability to read as to grow interested in reading and lose sight of the mental effort it requires.

It follows, then, that the child's first lessons in geography are to be oral lessons, beginning first with surrounding objects and gradually extending themselves over the earth's surface. I cannot better explain my meaning than by giving rather a lengthy extract from one of the papers contained in the republication I have previously mentioned:

Let the subject be rivers. What a variety of instructive matter is presented by it: their source in the little springs welling forth amid the hills from the bosom of the earth; the descent of these small rills from the mountain side to the valley; the length, depth, and gradual increase of the main stream; how they are influenced by the season of the year-the smooth, clear, low water in summer, and the dark, swollen,- angry torrent in winter; the character for fertility of the lands through which they flow; the uses to man of rivulets and rivers, the one a source of power for industrial purposes, the other the highways of commerce and traveling, both adding to the riches and civilization of a people. All these ideas are involved in the idea of a "river;" and there are few of them that could not be illustrated by reference to the brook that may pass the school, or the river that may flow through the city.

Let the subject be mountains. There may be some hill near the school which the children have beguiled many summer days in climbing. They are to observe its shape, whether it be broad and flat, or steep, and in some parts precipitous; whether it be a single hill or one of a range; the matter composing its surface, whether earth, or rock in any of its forms; the covering of its surface, whether grass, or heather, or shrubs; the animals that may be browsing on its slopes, the streams that may leap down its sides; the climate, varying with the height till we reach the cool of its summit; the cornfields at the base, ex ding more or less up its base; the woods and the grass, the toilsomeness of the ascent, and the time required for it.

Let the lessons be upon the phenomena of climate. On a winter's day call their attention to the thick flakes of falling snow, whitening the face of nature, or the hardening influence of the clear frost, covering our lakes, ponds, and roads with ice; the rapid motion and thick covering necessary for our comfort; the fires we need in our houses, the care needed by our animals; the unproductiveness of nature at that time, the long day and the short night. From this "winter's day" at home he may realize the dreary desolation of the Arctic zone, with its freezing temperature, its wilderness of ice, its stunted vegetation, its dearth of animal life, its short cheerless days, and its humble fur-clad dwellers. On a summer's day, again, the mild air, the blue sky, the moderate motion and thin clothing; the face of nature beaming with animal life and clothed with rich vegetable green: the treasures in field and garden; the long day and short night: all these may lead him to fancy himself amid the scorching blue sky of the tropics, with the want of rain, the rapid and abundant growth of plants and animals, the overpowering heat of day, and the dews of night, the jungle and the desert.

He can expand the idea of the river at home till it reaches the Rhine, the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Amazon; the mountain or hills at home till he shall see the Alps with their fertile valleys and lower slopes, and the woods above reaching to the everlasting snows; or Etna, with its teeming sides and magnificent prospects and smoking volcano top.

A map of a country should not be given a child till he has learned to construct maps of the school-room, play-ground, and surrounding streets; he thus understands the principles of their construction. He should be taught to draw these home maps on a correct scale, being allowed to measure the school-room and represent each foot by an inch; or in drawing the playground he may draw a yard to the inch. We shall find specimen lessons in "Calkins's Object-Lessons." First the children are taught

THE NECESSITY OF FIXED POINTS.

[They have been previously taught the names and positions of these points.] Now look at me and observe how I stand; tell me which way to walk to find the door. "To the right." [Teacher turns half round.] Must I go to the right now ? "No, it is behind you." [Turning half round again.] How must I go now? "To the left." Then these points right and left change; but there are points which do not change; they are North, South, East and West. If a man, inquiring for the post-office, were told by you, ~' Go north on this street till you come to a white building and that is the post-office," would you need to know in which direction he was standing when you directed him? Then do these points change as we change? "No." You now see why they are called fixed points. The child, already knowing the names and positions of these points, and being taught that on the slate or map the North is put at the top and South at the bottom, can readily follow the teacher as he constructs his home maps and can soon draw them without assistance, and he is thus prepared to understand maps of more remote localities, and of large countries, when they are given him to study.

We have said little about reading, though we acknowledge it to be the most important acquisition which the child can make, because it puts him in communication with the world of books and allows him to increase his store of knowledge at his own pleasure. The most approved method of teaching foreign languages is this: The child learns a few words and the manner of using them; he immediately puts in practice what he has learned; the words are made up into a variety of sentences which he is obliged to translate from English into Latin, (if that should be the language he is learning,) and again Latin sentences containing the same words are to be translated into English. He thus makes daily use of every additional word added to his vocabulary. We acknowledge this to be the proper method, but we have been slow to apply it in teaching the reading of one's native language. A child learns to spell a few words; do we combine these words into sentences and put him at once to reading? Not often. We first require that he shall go through with the spelling book, learning word after word, which he could not form into sentences, because he does not know their use. Certainly we are cumbering him with useless lumber. I once knew an industrious, solitary student who committed to memory an entire Latin Dictionary before he commenced to translate. Is not the old method of teaching the spelling book something nearly analogous?

An excellent little work, Wilson's primer, published by the Harpers, is constructed something on this principle. A few simple words, perhaps a dozen, are given for the child to learn; these are immediately combined into reading lessons, illustrated by interesting pictures, and one cannot but wonder that these few simple words are capable of so many combinations, all into meaning sentences which interest the child.

Much praise has been bestowed upon Wilson's Series of School Books; but we would love to call attention to the Primer as having been overlooked by those interested In the higher branches of education. Toward the end of the Primer, and in the First Reader, Mr. Wilson loses sight of the principles upon which the first part of the primer is arranged, and introduces lessons which contain a great number of words which the child has not yet learned to recognize. We think his elementary series could have been better had he adhered to the first plan, and introduced only a few new words into each lesson. The progress of the pupil must have been less rapid, but it would have been more certain and less embarrassing; and permit us here to say, that "it is not at all necessary that the child's progress should be rapid, but it is necessary for him to love his employment."

"Learning to read is unquestionably a task for the child. It should be the object of the teacher to make him feel it to he a task as little as possible." We cannot lay too much stress upon this point; namely, the teaching a child to love reading. A child may be taught to read who regards his lesson only as a drudgery; many a child is thus taught, but is he likely to make a reading man? When he can choose for himself, will he not lay aside the occupation he has never loved? These little hooks, Wilson's, which we have previously mentioned, contain just such reading lessons as a child will he apt to love; talks about familiar things, and just such thoughts and feelings as are natural to the child.

But about spelling. Simply, let us give ourselves no uneasiness about it; put the child to reading, every new word he will be obliged to spell, (if it is at all irregular in sound he must be assisted in pronouncing it.) These words he learns to spell by seeing them so frequently repeated in his reading lessons; their forms are impressed upon his mind, for spelling is much more a habit of the eye than the ear; occasionally he is exercised in spelling orally the words he so frequently reads, and thus he becomes capable of spelling every word which he can read. What more, as regards spelling, shall we require, when he is an adult, than to be able to spell correctly every word which he can read?

We have thus sketched what we consider some of the excellences of the "object-method." We believe that for those infants who are to be sent to school it is the best method yet devised, though, doubtless, capable of much improvement, which time and experience will point out. Those who prefer a home education for their little ones will find many hints in the works we have mentioned which shall benefit them, though, of course, at home these lessons may be conducted with far less formality; and there are many in "Calkins's" course which may be entirely omitted, as any intelligent, home-bred chi]d will acquire in ordinary conversation, and without effort, the ideas he has so systematically drawn out.

Edited by Aaron Bynum, June 16, 1999.
Proofreading, HTML conversion, and other modifications by Brandon Boyd.

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