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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
on one of those occasions , and what I then witnessed , far exceeded all my conceptions of manufacture-teaching . What struck my mind most forcibly in the whole display , was a sort of co-operative plan in the solution of an arithmetical question . This was done , like all the rest , in rotation , the first boy beginning , for instance , 6 times 3 are 18 ; second boy : put 8 and carry 1 ; third boy : 6 times 2 are 12 ; fourth boy :
12 and 1 are 13 ; Jiflh boy : put three and carry 1 ; sixth boy : 6 times 7 are 42 ; seventh boy : 42 and 1 are 43 ; eighth boy : put 3 and carry 4 : and so all round and round , again and again , till the whole of it was gone through . Now , although unquestionably all the children could , with a moderate degree of attention , get the ciphers correctly on their slates , it is evident that , with all this , there might , perhaps , not have been more than two in the whole number , who could have solved
the same problem for themselves . But what is far more important is , that such a plan of instruction is the direct way of preventing them from ever thinking about what they are doing , and tnus cutting off every chance of their understanding it . With their memory-knowledge of the multiplication , addition , and other tables , they are put into this machinery , which , like the wheel of a treadmill , although put in motion by the joint exertions of those in it , overpowers the individual , and forces
him to go on at any rate , whether he be disposed to do so or not . Not to mention the absolute ignorance in which the children in those schools always remain concerning number , their attention being only directed to ciphers * I question whether the above plan is calculated to make even good cipherers . For if there be no knowledge of numbers , there should be some understanding , at least as far as it can be had without the other , of the ciphering system , that the pupil may not be the blind instrument
of rules , blindly learned by rote . Nevertheless the solution of the question , as I have described it to you , gave general satisfaction to a number of the bishops , and a large public , assembled on the occasion ; and so did the reading of a long list of alma—or reward—givings , at the end of the examination , decreeing to one girl an apron , to another girl a pair of shoes , to such a boy half a crown , to such another boy a pair of trowsers , &c . ; that both the givers and receivers might be seen
and known of men ! The observations 1 made at that examination , I found confirmed by private visits to the schools ; and , among the rest , to one which I may , with the more propriety , instance in support of the charges I have brought against the system , as I can , from personal acquaintance , bear the highest testimony to the zeal , as well as the generally enlightened views , of the clergyman who presides over it , and in whose company I visited it . . I asked the children to read the parable of
the Prodigal Son , and among other questions which I put to them was this : ' What is meant by riotous living ? " ' * Dissipated living . " " And what does dissipated living mean ? " •* Wasteful living . " " And what is the meaning of wasteful living V To this question , as their collection of synonymes was exhausted , I received no answer , and therefore , to
get upon intelligible ground I asked then what things were necessary far subsistence , and what not ; when some of the girls contended that beer , and cheese , and cakes , and patties , were indispensably necessary for life . And as id this case , so I found it invariably , whenever and wherever I travelled out of the road of those questions , which have for their object to direct the children ' * attention to mere words ; on the mo » t
Untitled Article
Reform in Education . 507
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 507, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/47/
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