The Hawaiian gazette., 1896-05-22

some branch of knowledge in which
even his advanced pupils have done lit
tie more than make a beginning; and as
the minds operations are not marked
off from each other by mechanical
boundaries, it will sometimes be proper
to use the inductive method in the early
part of a lesson and the deductiye in
the latter part.
Take, for example, Swinton's Ian
guage Primer, which proceeds on the
inductive method, the deductivee being
very sparingly used.
First the child by observation-that
is, by means of the senses-is taught
what an object is; then he is led on to
the word which names the object, and
then by illustration and questioning
he learns that noun is name-word (;
by a similar process of induction he is
led to the new fact that verb is an
action-word.
| Having learned these two general
truths, he is next required by pro-
cess of deduction to apply this knowl-
| edge to new particular cases: in a
series of short sentences he is called
upon to point out which words are
nouns and which are verbs, and give
the reason. The inductive method is
then again resorted to for the purpose
of drawing out from the child that an
adjective is a quality word. This is
the plan adopted throughout the book
advancing from the concrete to the abb
stract so that general statements are
dfawn out by inductive methods, and
these made the basis of further instruc-
ton by deductive methods. =.
| In the preface to Swinton's Elemen-
tary Grammar and Composition he ad-
mits that in pressing the Inductive
Method, proper attention must be
made to grammatical forms that is the
inductive method must be used in such
way as to bull up the subject.
| He says in the actual test in the
school room during the past four years
it has been found that the vitaliZing
elements of the language lessons are
first, the inductive method of unfold
ing the theory of language and sec
ondE, the affluence of constructive
work Accordingly, in the present
book these approved features have
been retained, but wherever the book
was thought to be weak, as for in
stance in the too great neglect of
grammatical form, it has been toned
| up" Grubes' method OF teaching
arithmetic proceeds on the inductive
method and recognizes the psychology
cal fact that nearly all the knowledge
obtained by the child in its earlier
years is by means of the senses; so it
calls for the use things, balls, marbles,
cubes, blocks. 1t uses objects sepa
rately until the child is thorough mas
ter of the number and can make the
number abstractly. After time the
| simple remembrance of the objects
used will always be sufficient to recall
to the consciousness the number until
no object is longer necessary and the
pure relations number are found. Then
the child needs no object or intermedi-
ate process to help him to know the
number for he knows it instantly as he
passes from the object to the symbol.
AS the pupil advances in arithmetic
every principle or formula should be
elucidated from the pupil by the in
ductiye process; then the general rule
applied by a process of deduction to
| the solution of other problems Take
for example when one wishes to teach
fractions; we may take an actual or
ange or apple, or more conveniently a
representation of an apple in wood, di-
vided into halves, quarters, eighths,
ETC., which the children can actually
see and handle, and by suitable ques-
| tioning the principle can be ELECTED
| from them that the value of one of the
equal parts into which whole thing
is divided depends upon their number;
and also that the less the number of
parts the greater their value, and the
greater the number of parts the less
their value (This is the plan adopted
| in Fecklin's arithmetic) Every new
rule can be drawn on by series of
inductive exercises, chiefly oral, and
then the rule thus obtained by induc-
ton is applied to work out written ex-
amples by deduction.
But / must not pursue this subject
| further, as / must remember that the
subject of my paper is the induct1ve
and deductive methods of teaching,
and l have only brought forward the
special subjects, grammar and arithme-
tic, to illustrate the two methods, but
what has been pointed out with regard
to grammar and arithmetic will also
apply to geography, etc. The grand
maxim of the teacher should be to pro-
coed from the known to the unknown,
or in other words, to arrange his mat
ter in such way that the instruction
should proceed from what the pupil
knows of the subject to what he does
not know.
Yror,f for KobaIa