Herbartianism Made Fun and Easy, Part Five: Don't teach bad things.

Part Four is here.

"There is a prevailing impression amongst teachers, and particularly amongst those who are connected with what is sometimes called a liberal education, that it really does not matter very much what one learns. The culture comes all the same. It is not the what, it is the how." ~~ John Adams, The Herbartian Psychology

There's a shocker for you. Adams is not agreeing with this or saying that it represents Herbartian education; he's refuting it.

Yes, CMers, you may well shake your heads over that one. Isn't that exactly what we have said that Herbartianism is? Does Adams perhaps have it wrong? Did the so-called "Herbartian" teachers miss out on something in their courses?

"In the present war of competing subjects, the main point of discussion is: Which gives the best result in culture,--which is best fitted to cultivate the mind? Classics, Science, Mathematics--each claims pre-eminence. It is left for the Herbartian to sweep aside all claims alike, and raise the preliminary question: Do any of them train the mind at all; can the mind be trained? The question resolves itself into the problem of the possibility of what is called formal education; that is, the possibility of training a mind irrespective of the materials upon which it is exercised."

Adams gives the example of three educated men who have specialized in different areas. He asks how they would respond to particular common questions and problems, for instance in finding a lost will (certainly something we come up against every day, no?). How would each one approach the task? Who would be the most successful? Adams, amusingly, backs the classically-educated man "because his studies have brought to him greater acquaintance with human nature," so therefore "he has a bigger and better-arranged lost-will apperception mass." For the Herbartians, those apperception masses are the key to educational success.

And then Adams' chapter on "Formal Education" takes an unexpectedly funny turn, as the question of potentially useful subject matter moves from a formal education based on, say, cricket, to Mr. Fagin's School for Young Criminals. Fagin, according to Adams, should get the teacher-of-the-year award. He's hands-on, he's concrete, he knows just how to get a lesson across, he can deal with reluctant students; and Bill Sikes knows how to present a good object-lesson too (involving a pistol). So does it really matter what the subject is, as long as the student develops his mind? Herbart, via Adams, says yes, it certainly does.

"Given the same first-class mind, we may turn out an Artful Dodger or a James Watt; given the same third-rate mind, and we may develop it into a Bill Sikes or a more than respectable artisan."

 Check this out, towards the end of the chapter:

"It is enough if it has been shown that the choice of subjects is important; that a subject must be chosen for its own sake, not for the sake of its general effect in training the mind. This is no base utilitarian conclusion...So far from opposing culture, the Herbartian theory is the strongest supporter of the fine arts and belles-lettres. The increase in intension and extension of interest is the gauge of the development of a soul. We must lose ourselves in our subjects, not seek to keep them outside of us."

So what about that idea that an education in the finer points of crime would at least serve to sharpen a child's wits, to develop perhaps an interest in chemistry or electronics, perhaps even to give him a sense of professional pride? To bring this into the current century, is it admirable to become a genius computer hacker, or to be a teacher of such?

"Crime as an educational organon is condemned, not because it fails to develop intelligence, but because it develops it in a wrong direction. We cancel Fagin's [teaching] certificate not because he is a bad teacher, but because he teaches bad things."

Even rude comedians sometimes get it right

Grandpa Squirrel shared his copy of last weekend's Globe and Mail with us, and one interesting piece was this column about comedian Louis C.K. (Warning: adult language and content.) Louis C.K. is probably not someone I would enjoy watching or listening to, not my cuppa at all, and I totally don't agree with the last quote in the column, but I liked this part:

"Louis C.K. is a moralist, with a knack for simplifying concepts mistaken for complex. I started watching him around my final year as a philosophy undergrad, and it was like discovering a hole at the base of a tall fence. Here is Kant:
'Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.'
And here is Louis:
'You should act in a way that, if everyone acted that way, things would work out.'” ~~ Alexandra Molotkow, "Louis C.K. Knows How to Pack an Ethical Punchline"

Quote for the day: the danger of an educated imagination

Quoted in a post of September 2010.

"Because we remain human beings, despite the best efforts of our enemies to get past that fact, we can also visualize the pain and the suffering and the horror that are the essential parts of the bomber's objectifying obliteration. This intellectual leap, sadly, is the great strength of what Northrop Frye called the educated imagination. If we've learned to share the strong feelings of characters in War and Peace and Madame Bovary, how can we not also identify with the sufferings in our own time and place?" ~~ John Allemang, "Can the liberal arts cure jihadists?", Globe and Mail, September 3, 2010

To do my duty (Charlotte Mason and Moral Training)

(Photo of Canadian Girl Guides ca. 1924 found here.) 

A very long time ago I belonged to the Girl Guides of Canada.  I was a Brownie,  then a Guide, then a Pathfinder.  In those days we did a lot of singing and marching (Charlotte Mason would have called it drill).

We also did a lot of vowing and promising.

The Brownies promised "to do my best, to do my duty to God, the Queen and my country, to help other people every day, especially those at home." Guides jacked it up to "help other people at all times and obey the Guide Law," which started "A Guide's honour is to be trusted."

A Brownie was expected to be "cheerful and obedient" and to "think of other people before herself."  Kind of the Proverbs 31 Lady of Browniedom. Which didn't mean that we weren't awfully silly at times, but still we were given an ideal. We tried to get along with each other, we folded the flag properly, we helped wash the dishes, and we didn't litter.

(Yeah, that's me in the knee socks.)

Duty, obedience, patriotism, respect for others' rights and property: right out of the Common Law, as Uncle Eric would say; or right out of Charlotte Mason's writings on topics like Duty and Moral Training.

"High Ideals.––It is time we set ourselves seriously to this work of moral education which is to be done, most of all, by presenting the children with high ideals. 'Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime,' and the study of the lives of great men and of the great moments in the lives of smaller men is most wonderfully inspiring to children, especially when they perceive the strenuousness of the childhood out of which a noble manhood has evolved itself. As one grows older no truth strikes one more than that 'the child is father to the man.' It is amazing how many people of one's own acquaintance have fulfilled the dreams of their childhood and early youth, and have had their days indeed bound each to each in natural piety." 

"Virtues in which Children should be Trained.––One more point: parents should take pains to have their own thoughts clear as to the manner of virtues they want their children to develop. Candour, fortitude, temperance, patience, meekness, courage, generosity, indeed the whole role of the virtues, would be stimulating subjects for thought and teaching, offering ample illustrations."

"We know what is required of us, and that the requirements are never arbitrary, but necessary in the nature of things, both for the moral government of the world and to gratify the unquenchable desire of every human soul to rise into a higher state of being." ~~ Charlotte Mason

The Bird in the Tree, by Elizabeth Goudge (Book review)

The Bird in the Tree, by Elizabeth Goudge

I'm reading the Damerosehay trilogy out of sequence; my review of the second book, The Herb of Grace (Pilgrim's Inn)  is here.

It's a slow-moving novel, full of descriptions and decisions, but without much action.  My guess after reading the second book was that you could more or less skip the first one, and I still think the first one might turn you off from reading the second, which would be too bad.  But it does have its own strong points.

This is the storyline: twenty years ago, in 1918, Lucilla Eliot bought a house by the sea, and began raising her orphaned grandson David.  For the past two years she has also cared for the three children of her son George, because George’s wife Nadine left him in India and went into the antiques business. (Lucilla can't figure out how selling Chippendale chairs means "living one's own life" more than, say, taking care of one's own house and children.) Now David confesses to his grandmother that he loves Nadine (she is only a few years older than David) and that they plan to marry.  Nadine arrives, supposedly to visit the children but really to face the music with Lucilla, and the three of them sit down for a “Talking To.”

Of course Grandmother is bossy and moralistic. Of course she should stay out of their business; technically, David and Nadine aren't doing anything wrong (Nadine and George are already divorced).  The trouble is, Lucilla's right. This relationship is going to mess not only with the already-messed-up kids, but with the whole extended family and even the ownership of the house. She also knows this from experience: she had the chance to run off with somebody years ago too, but realized at the last minute how that would affect her husband and children.

The way you can tell that this is a 1940 Elizabeth Goudge book and not a 2013 anybody-else book is that David and Nadine actually listen to the sermon, and end the story by trying to straighten things out. (Some issues aren't really resolved until the next book.)  David goes off to Europe for awhile (that doesn't sound too safe in 1938, but whatever).  Nadine takes a boat to India to make up with George. Grandmother is still stuck with the kids.

It's not big news to say that self-denial is not a popular concept in 2013. "Sticking things out" comes way behind "what I want right now" and "love is something you can't fight."  It's too bad that this book, flowery and dated as it is, isn't likely to have a lot of attraction for those young enough to get the most out of its message...but I guess we middle-aged ones can use a reminder now and then too.