Search -
Introductory Text-book to School Education, Method, and School Management (1880)
Introductory Textbook to School Education Method and School Management - 1880 Author:John Gill Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PAET III METHOD. CHAPTER I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. I. Its Nature And Sphere. " Method is the following of one thing through another." It is the way or p... more »ath by which we proceed to the attainment of some end. In education it embodies the principles and prescribes the means by which intellectual culture is to proceed. It does this for a single lesson ; for an entire subject of instruction, as geography ; and for the whole discipline of the intellect during school life. The spirit of a method—itself a spirit rather than a form—is determined by the end proposed. The ends in school instruction are, the acquisition of reading, writing, and arithmetic ; the communication of a certain amount of knowledge; and that kind of discipline which will give the ways, the ability, and the desire of intellectual pursuits. According as one or other of these is prominent, will be the method of the teacher. But he who makes the last his great aim, using the others as his means, will obtain better results, and more quickly, than if the former are held exclusively in view For everything done for the pupil, and by him, from his first entrance into school, being part of a comprehensive scheme embracing the whole school life, will give a spirit and a life which could not be otherwise supplied. Under conditions like these, there would be greater activity of mind on the part of the teacher, a casting about for expedients, a wiser adaptation of means to ends, an interest in watching the development of the pupils, and the influence of the plans in operation, and an earnestness of effort in enlisting theactivity of the pupil, which, besides relieving the work of its tedium and drudgery, would go far to insure its success. Such an end, distinctly conceived in relation to all the means by which it is to be...« less