Our uncle, innocent of books, Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, Of nature's unhoused lyceum. The familiar quotation from Whittier's "Bare-Foot Boy," shows what a wonderfully rich field of knowledge the boy had Knowledge never learned of schools, For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks. . After his matchless description of the child's delight in the golden treasure of the "Dandelion," Lowell brings this beautiful poem to a fitting close with these words: And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On these living pages of God's book. Lowell-"The Pioneer." What man o'er one old thought would pore and pore, For every fool to leave his dog's-ears in, Lowell-"The Bobolink." As long, long years ago I wandered, The hours the idle schoolboy squandered, With you, among the trees and brooks, From learned books, or study-withered men. The introduction of the Song of Hiawatha answers the question, "whence these stories?" by saying that they came from the forests and prairies, the mountains, moors and fenlands, and that the wild-fowl sang them and the beasts of the field left them. Little Hiawatha learned of every bird and beast its language and its secrets. Fascinating as is this description of the influence of nature, Longfellow produced a better piece of workmanship in "The Fiftieth Birth day of Agassiz." And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Thy Father has written for thee." "Come wander with me," she said, And read what is still unread And he wandered away and away And wherever the way seemed long, Or his heart began to fail, She would sing a more wonderful song, These selections from the poets show how convincing and unreserved is their acclaim concerning the supremacy of the educative influences of nature versus books. What then, we question, is the place of the book in the educative process? Emerson in "The American Scholar" exalts the high function of books as the chronicles of the worthy past. "I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the 8. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The American Scholar, p. 26. book. We all know that, as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed on any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information than by the printed page." "I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within himself, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn." "Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not related to nature and the human constitution, but making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul." Man thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's manuscripts of their readings. But when intervals of darkness come, as come they must, --then the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining,we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. . . ." The educational implication of this problem was pointed out by Spencer half a century ago. "With that common limited idea of education which confines it to knowledge gained from books, parents thrust primers into the hands of their little ones too soon, to their great injury. Not recognizing the truth that the function of books is supplementary—that they form an indirect means to knowledge when direct means fail—a means of seeing through other men what you can see for yourself; they are eager to give second-hand facts in place of first-hand facts. Not perceiving the enormous value of that spontaneous education which goes on in 9. Spencer, Herbert. Education, p. 45-6. early years, not perceiving that child's restless observation, instead of being ignored or checked, should be diligently ministered to, and made as accurate and complete as possible, they insist on occupying its eyes and thought with things that are, for the time being, incomprehensible and repugnant. Possessed by a superstition which worships the symbols of knowledge instead of knowledge itself, they do not see that only when his acquaintance with the objects and processes of the household, the street, and the fields, is becoming tolerably exhaustive, only then should a child be introduced to the new sources of information which books supply, and this, not only because immediate cognition is of far greater value than mediate cognition, but also because the words contained in books can be rightly interpreted into ideas only in proportion to the antecedent experience of things." The study of President Hall of "The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School" revealed the appalling fact that the Boston school children were wofully ignorant of the commonest things of their environment. Greenwood found like conditions existing in Kansas City school children. Upon the basis of such data Halleck recommended that the teachers of children beginning school should take nothing for granted but should examine critically the meanings children attach to the words they use. With the child's limited experience, memorization of words is easier than the development of clear concepts of meanings. Clear concepts of meanings are developed only through the active participation in the doing of things. Instead of the customary educational devices of reading and writing for the first school work of the child, many educators are of the opinion that the child should have a wonderfully rich sensory experience in intimate contact with nature; that the child should have a rich play life with constructive activities which will give not only immediate satisfaction, but also an interpretation of the social and industrial activities appropriate to the several social situations. Life is full and vast in proportion to the fullness and vastness of the life experiencing it. So, too, the book is significant in proportion to the significance of the experience of the reader, for true reading is a creative or inventive process-the reader must form in his own mind images and concepts like those which the author experienced when writing the book. Hence the place of the book is to interpret, not to usurp; it is to make available the best that has been thought and said to explain experience, and is in no wise a substitute for this experience. On the River Swift rhythm of oars that move Oh, the race is a joy, and sweet Yield now, for my weakness I know; To work is well; but a Will O'errules, and is wiser than we. Oh, the force of the tide draws still So my hand the oar has resigned, And I move with the waves as they flow, But I trust that the current is kind, Now I am too tired to row! STOKELY S. FISHER. |