The Hawaiian gazette., 1896-08-21


: will contribute to its vigor of mint
] and body"
f We have the usual cautions agains
g forcing. Early fruit is useful for tn
: day, but will not keep; whereas lat,
= fruit may be kept all the year. Al
| some natural capacities would fly, as i
were, before the sixth, the fifth, o.
even the fourth year; yet it will bt
, beneficial rather to restrain than per
nit this; but very much more to en-.
force it" 1T is safer that the brain bt
rightly consolidated before it begins tc
sustain labors; in little child the
whole bregma is scarcely closed and the
brain consolidated within the fifth OF
sixth year. 1t is sufficient, therefore
for this age to comprehend spontane-
ously, imperceptibly as it were in play
so much as is employed in the domestic
circle"
One disastrous tendency has always
shown itself in the school room-the
tendency to sever all connection be-
tween studies in the school room and
life outside. The young pack away their
knowledge, as it were, in water tight
compartments, where it may lie con-
venlently till the scholastic voyage is
over and it can be again unshipped.
Against this tendency many great tea
chers have striven and nome more Wig
orously than Comenius Like Pestaloz-
ri, he sought to resolve everything into
its simplest elements, and he finds the
commencement before the school age.
In the School of Infancy he says (speak-
| ing of rhetoric): MY aim is to show,
although this is not generally attended
to, that the roots of all sciences and
arts in every instance arise as early
as in the tender age, and that on these
| foundations it is neither impossible nor
difficult for the whole superstructure
to be laid; provided always that we act
reasonably with a reasonable creature
This principle he applies in his chapter
How Children Ought to Be Accustom-
ed TO an Active Life and Perpetual EN-
ployment. In the fourth and fifth years
their powers are to be drawn out. but
IN mechanical or architectural efforts.
in drawing and writing, in music. in
arithmetic, in geometry and dialectics
For arithmetic in the fourth, fifth or
sixth year it will be sufficient if they
count up to twenty; and they may be
taught to play at "odd and even.' In
geometry they may learn in the fourth
year what are lines, what are squares.
what are circles; also the usual meas
ures-foot, pint, quart, etc., and soon
they should try to measure and weigh
for themselves. Similar beginnings are
found for other sciences, such as phys
les, astronomy, geography, history, eco
nomics and politics. "The elements of |
geography will be during the course of
the first year, and thence forward, when |
children begin to distinguish between |
their cradle and their mothers bosom. -
As this geographical knowledge ex-
tends they discover what a field is
what a mountain, forest, meadow and |
river The beginning of history will |
be to be able to remember what was
done yesterday, what recently, what
year ago."
In this book Comenius is careful to
provide children with occupation for
mind and hand" "It matters not"
says Comenius, whether the objects
be correctly drawn of otherwise, pro
vided that they afford delight to the
mind"
Thus for Quick Could Froebel, or
or Felix Adler ask more
than that the theory involved in this
argument be worked out in detail and
reduced to practice? In it we see all
that is most characteristic in the vaunt-
ed new education"
The Vernacular or Mother Tongue
School lilo
was to be the school of the
people, beyond which most boys and
girls would not go. AS its name i'm
plies it was to be conducted in the Ian
guage of the people This was point
at Comenius took issue with the edu-
tempt and injury of the people at large,
and the popular tongues. Let all things
be delivered to each nation in it's own
speech" All this seems to us so evil
dent as to be commonplace. Yet it is
only within our own century that it has
come to be considered proper to use
the vulgar tongue in the Universities
of Europe or even America. And as
late as 1880 to my knowledge it was
declared in one university to be i'm
possible to conduct certain studies in
any other language than Latin: and |
suppose that such is the theory yet. 1t
was deep in the present century that
DR.. Wayland, of Brown University, ad-
dressed his class in Moral Science in
Latin. Yet this is one of the very
studies designated by Comenius to be
pursued in the mother tongue. This
leads to consider the course of study
for his proposed Mother Tongue School.
1t included reading, writing, compost
ton, arithmetic, singing, psalms and
hymns, catechism, Bible History and
texts, moral rules with examples, eco
nomics and politics, general history of
the world, astronomy, physics, geog-
raphy, and general knowledge of arts
and handicrafts. Thus we see that he
was not only the ancestor of the Kin
dergarten, but the lineal predecessor
of the very modern advocates of the
study of the mother tongue, of singing,
of civics, and of realities in the schools.
as well as the grandfather of manual
training. What more could be asked
of one seventeenth century man?
But something more should be said
of his realism. He accepted Bacon's
doctrine, that the way to learn about
nature is to go at once to nature and
study her through experiment, observa-