On Teaching Author:Henry Calderwood 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: CHAPTER III. INSTRUCTION. I DO not here touch the question concerning the relative value of the several subjects of study. My purpose does not lead mo to t... more »reat of a subject which has given occasion for quite enough controversy, I wish rather to direct thought on the best modes of giving instruction in any subject. I am here concerned only with the essential conditions of successful teaching. Whatever the age and attainment of the pupil under charge, the first requisite for communicating instruction is to gain and keep their attention. Teaching, to be successful, must therefore be adapted to win attention. At the earlier stages of school life this is the one pressing requirement. Somehow, attention must be made possible even to the most restless little ones, to whom the first restraints of school life are irksome. Accustomed to have every new object attract their interest just as long as they recognised anything attractive in it — permitted to change from one engagement to another as caprice dictated —they must be made familiar with restriction. They must begin to be regulated by the will of another. Taking this as self-evident, we are prone to say that they must do so, whether they will or not. This is one of our superficial current phrases which cover over many points needing careful consideration. Attention is not to be secured by mere exercise of authority. Authority has a great deal to do through the whole course of school life, 'but we cannot " command " attention, as we say, by merely demanding that it be given. A radical mistake is made if a teacher lean on his authority in the school as the guarantee for attention by the scholars. He must consider the requirements of the undisciplined mind, and adapt himself to them. Children attend to what interests them. This...« less