Children And Their Books
CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS
The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best
use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them
many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the
power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to
formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this
law that President Eliot thinks that
"the temperament, physical constitution, mental
aptitudes, and moral quality of a boy are all well
determined by the time he is 18 years old."
Great waste of the child's time and mental energy in the precious
early years is caused by disregard of the way in which his mind
unfolds. Not only are children set at work for which they are not yet
fitted, but frequently they are kept at occupations which are far
below what they might profitably engage in. The child should be
guided, not driven; to force his mind is an educational crime. Long
continued attention and concentration are injurious, but by using tact
a great deal may be accomplished without strain.
At first the aim should be not so much to fill the mind with knowledge
as to develop the powers as they are ready for it, and to cultivate
the ability to use them. The plasticity of the child's mind is such
that a new impression may be erased quickly by a newer one; his
character receives a decided bent only through repeated impressions of
the same kind. The imaginative faculty is one of the earliest to
appear, and a weakness of our educational systems is the failure to
realize its importance and to pay sufficient attention to its
development. It is well known that imagination is the creative power
of the mind which gives life to all work, so that without it Newton
would never have found the law of gravitation, nor Columbus have
discovered America. The world of make-believe is filled with delight
for the small child. He loves stories of imaginary adventure that he
can act out in his play,
"Now with my little gun I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
I see the others far away,
As if in fire-lit camp they lay;
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about."
Cultivate his imagination by helping the child to image what he has
read. Let us play that we are sailing with Columbus in a little ship
over the great green ocean. When we look far off from the top of a
wave we see nothing but sky and white-capped water; all around us are
angry faces and angry waves.
It is easy to work on the emotions of a little child and thoughtless
persons may find it amusing but it is a serious matter, for it has an
injurious effect upon his nerves. Ghost stories and books which
inspire fear of the supernatural often do much harm to imaginative
children.
The boundless curiosity of the child may be aroused and stimulated so
that he gets to know himself and the world about him in a way that
furnishes him with constant and delightful employment. The growth of
his mind is rapid and healthful, because he is reaching out to
comprehend and verify and apply to his own purposes the knowledge that
he derives from books and that which he obtains from observation. It
is not easy to realize the ignorance of children. Dr. G. Stanley Hall
found by experiments with a large number of six-year-olds in Boston,
that 55 percent did not know that wooden things are made from trees.
The world is strange to them; they must grope their way, they are
attracted by the bright, the flashy, the sensational, and their tastes
will develop in these directions unless they are taught better.
Grown-ups estimate in terms of previous experience; the child has had
little previous experience to which to refer. Edward Thring says:
"The emptiness of a young boy's mind is often not taken into account,
at least emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of a
fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing complete. It may well
happen that an intelligent boy shall be unable to understand a
seemingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge which his
instructor takes it for granted he possesses, and probably thinks
instinctive, is wanting to fill up the whole."
1107875881
The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best
use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them
many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the
power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to
formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this
law that President Eliot thinks that
"the temperament, physical constitution, mental
aptitudes, and moral quality of a boy are all well
determined by the time he is 18 years old."
Great waste of the child's time and mental energy in the precious
early years is caused by disregard of the way in which his mind
unfolds. Not only are children set at work for which they are not yet
fitted, but frequently they are kept at occupations which are far
below what they might profitably engage in. The child should be
guided, not driven; to force his mind is an educational crime. Long
continued attention and concentration are injurious, but by using tact
a great deal may be accomplished without strain.
At first the aim should be not so much to fill the mind with knowledge
as to develop the powers as they are ready for it, and to cultivate
the ability to use them. The plasticity of the child's mind is such
that a new impression may be erased quickly by a newer one; his
character receives a decided bent only through repeated impressions of
the same kind. The imaginative faculty is one of the earliest to
appear, and a weakness of our educational systems is the failure to
realize its importance and to pay sufficient attention to its
development. It is well known that imagination is the creative power
of the mind which gives life to all work, so that without it Newton
would never have found the law of gravitation, nor Columbus have
discovered America. The world of make-believe is filled with delight
for the small child. He loves stories of imaginary adventure that he
can act out in his play,
"Now with my little gun I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
I see the others far away,
As if in fire-lit camp they lay;
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about."
Cultivate his imagination by helping the child to image what he has
read. Let us play that we are sailing with Columbus in a little ship
over the great green ocean. When we look far off from the top of a
wave we see nothing but sky and white-capped water; all around us are
angry faces and angry waves.
It is easy to work on the emotions of a little child and thoughtless
persons may find it amusing but it is a serious matter, for it has an
injurious effect upon his nerves. Ghost stories and books which
inspire fear of the supernatural often do much harm to imaginative
children.
The boundless curiosity of the child may be aroused and stimulated so
that he gets to know himself and the world about him in a way that
furnishes him with constant and delightful employment. The growth of
his mind is rapid and healthful, because he is reaching out to
comprehend and verify and apply to his own purposes the knowledge that
he derives from books and that which he obtains from observation. It
is not easy to realize the ignorance of children. Dr. G. Stanley Hall
found by experiments with a large number of six-year-olds in Boston,
that 55 percent did not know that wooden things are made from trees.
The world is strange to them; they must grope their way, they are
attracted by the bright, the flashy, the sensational, and their tastes
will develop in these directions unless they are taught better.
Grown-ups estimate in terms of previous experience; the child has had
little previous experience to which to refer. Edward Thring says:
"The emptiness of a young boy's mind is often not taken into account,
at least emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of a
fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing complete. It may well
happen that an intelligent boy shall be unable to understand a
seemingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge which his
instructor takes it for granted he possesses, and probably thinks
instinctive, is wanting to fill up the whole."
Children And Their Books
CHILDREN AND THEIR BOOKS
The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best
use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them
many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the
power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to
formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this
law that President Eliot thinks that
"the temperament, physical constitution, mental
aptitudes, and moral quality of a boy are all well
determined by the time he is 18 years old."
Great waste of the child's time and mental energy in the precious
early years is caused by disregard of the way in which his mind
unfolds. Not only are children set at work for which they are not yet
fitted, but frequently they are kept at occupations which are far
below what they might profitably engage in. The child should be
guided, not driven; to force his mind is an educational crime. Long
continued attention and concentration are injurious, but by using tact
a great deal may be accomplished without strain.
At first the aim should be not so much to fill the mind with knowledge
as to develop the powers as they are ready for it, and to cultivate
the ability to use them. The plasticity of the child's mind is such
that a new impression may be erased quickly by a newer one; his
character receives a decided bent only through repeated impressions of
the same kind. The imaginative faculty is one of the earliest to
appear, and a weakness of our educational systems is the failure to
realize its importance and to pay sufficient attention to its
development. It is well known that imagination is the creative power
of the mind which gives life to all work, so that without it Newton
would never have found the law of gravitation, nor Columbus have
discovered America. The world of make-believe is filled with delight
for the small child. He loves stories of imaginary adventure that he
can act out in his play,
"Now with my little gun I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
I see the others far away,
As if in fire-lit camp they lay;
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about."
Cultivate his imagination by helping the child to image what he has
read. Let us play that we are sailing with Columbus in a little ship
over the great green ocean. When we look far off from the top of a
wave we see nothing but sky and white-capped water; all around us are
angry faces and angry waves.
It is easy to work on the emotions of a little child and thoughtless
persons may find it amusing but it is a serious matter, for it has an
injurious effect upon his nerves. Ghost stories and books which
inspire fear of the supernatural often do much harm to imaginative
children.
The boundless curiosity of the child may be aroused and stimulated so
that he gets to know himself and the world about him in a way that
furnishes him with constant and delightful employment. The growth of
his mind is rapid and healthful, because he is reaching out to
comprehend and verify and apply to his own purposes the knowledge that
he derives from books and that which he obtains from observation. It
is not easy to realize the ignorance of children. Dr. G. Stanley Hall
found by experiments with a large number of six-year-olds in Boston,
that 55 percent did not know that wooden things are made from trees.
The world is strange to them; they must grope their way, they are
attracted by the bright, the flashy, the sensational, and their tastes
will develop in these directions unless they are taught better.
Grown-ups estimate in terms of previous experience; the child has had
little previous experience to which to refer. Edward Thring says:
"The emptiness of a young boy's mind is often not taken into account,
at least emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of a
fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing complete. It may well
happen that an intelligent boy shall be unable to understand a
seemingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge which his
instructor takes it for granted he possesses, and probably thinks
instinctive, is wanting to fill up the whole."
The most vital educational problem will always be how to make the best
use of the child's earlier years, not only for the reason that in them
many receive their entire school training, but also because, while the
power of the child to learn increases with age, his susceptibility to
formative influences diminishes, and so rapid is the working of this
law that President Eliot thinks that
"the temperament, physical constitution, mental
aptitudes, and moral quality of a boy are all well
determined by the time he is 18 years old."
Great waste of the child's time and mental energy in the precious
early years is caused by disregard of the way in which his mind
unfolds. Not only are children set at work for which they are not yet
fitted, but frequently they are kept at occupations which are far
below what they might profitably engage in. The child should be
guided, not driven; to force his mind is an educational crime. Long
continued attention and concentration are injurious, but by using tact
a great deal may be accomplished without strain.
At first the aim should be not so much to fill the mind with knowledge
as to develop the powers as they are ready for it, and to cultivate
the ability to use them. The plasticity of the child's mind is such
that a new impression may be erased quickly by a newer one; his
character receives a decided bent only through repeated impressions of
the same kind. The imaginative faculty is one of the earliest to
appear, and a weakness of our educational systems is the failure to
realize its importance and to pay sufficient attention to its
development. It is well known that imagination is the creative power
of the mind which gives life to all work, so that without it Newton
would never have found the law of gravitation, nor Columbus have
discovered America. The world of make-believe is filled with delight
for the small child. He loves stories of imaginary adventure that he
can act out in his play,
"Now with my little gun I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
I see the others far away,
As if in fire-lit camp they lay;
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about."
Cultivate his imagination by helping the child to image what he has
read. Let us play that we are sailing with Columbus in a little ship
over the great green ocean. When we look far off from the top of a
wave we see nothing but sky and white-capped water; all around us are
angry faces and angry waves.
It is easy to work on the emotions of a little child and thoughtless
persons may find it amusing but it is a serious matter, for it has an
injurious effect upon his nerves. Ghost stories and books which
inspire fear of the supernatural often do much harm to imaginative
children.
The boundless curiosity of the child may be aroused and stimulated so
that he gets to know himself and the world about him in a way that
furnishes him with constant and delightful employment. The growth of
his mind is rapid and healthful, because he is reaching out to
comprehend and verify and apply to his own purposes the knowledge that
he derives from books and that which he obtains from observation. It
is not easy to realize the ignorance of children. Dr. G. Stanley Hall
found by experiments with a large number of six-year-olds in Boston,
that 55 percent did not know that wooden things are made from trees.
The world is strange to them; they must grope their way, they are
attracted by the bright, the flashy, the sensational, and their tastes
will develop in these directions unless they are taught better.
Grown-ups estimate in terms of previous experience; the child has had
little previous experience to which to refer. Edward Thring says:
"The emptiness of a young boy's mind is often not taken into account,
at least emptiness so far as all knowledge in it being of a
fragmentary and piecemeal description, nothing complete. It may well
happen that an intelligent boy shall be unable to understand a
seemingly simple thing, because some bit of knowledge which his
instructor takes it for granted he possesses, and probably thinks
instinctive, is wanting to fill up the whole."
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013469242 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | SAP |
| Publication date: | 12/05/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 21 KB |
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