The Teacher's Manual of the Science and Art of Teaching - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1879 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN TO USE THEIR WORDS. The natural order traced in the preceding chapters by which children conceive the full meaning of words, combine them into short statements, and compare wider and narrower statements for the purpose of reasoning, should be the teacher's guide. Younger infants may be expected to give answers in single words, expressing either the members of a class or the name of a class when the attributes are given, or the names of the qualities when the class is given. Older infants may form short simple statements. The lower classes of the upper school may attempt continuous but broken narrative in a series of short simple sentences, and may deduce a conclusion when the premises are given, or vice versa; the upper classes may attempt connected narrative, and may be required to give an argument in full, both premises and conclusion. Bearing in mind these four steps of the growth of a child's reasoning powers, we proceed to consider how they are influenced by (a) Your own example in speaking. (b) Your writing before the class. (c) The questions you ask. (d) The exercises you set in composition. The teacher's stock of words.--All eager teachers complain, that most of the work done at school is undone at home, and especially that children employ different styles of speaking and different sets of words to their teachers and to their home companions. We do not allude to mere local provincialisms affecting purity of vowel sounds, or racy local words handed down through many generations. A cultivated Yorkshireman knows that there is nothing vulgar in a child's question, 'Whas ta barn?' The child is asking in the language and grammar of its forefathers, Where are you bound for? or Where are you going? No Scotchman would call t...