登陆注册
15365500000058

第58章 VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN(4)

Listen to President Wilson's opinion:"To be carried along by somebody's suggestions from the time you begin until the time when you are thrust groping and helpless into the world,is the very negation of education.By the nursing process,by the coddling process you are sapping a race;and only loss can possibly result except upon the part of individuals here and there who are so intrinsically strong that you cannot spoil them."Hugo Munsterberg is a keen observer of the product of American schools,and contrasting their methods with those of his boyhood he says:"My school work was not adjusted to botany at nine years because I played with an herbarium,and at twelve to physics because I indulged in noises with home-made electric bells,and at fifteen to Arabic,an elective which I miss still in several high schools,even in Brookline and Roxbury.The more my friends and I wandered afield with our little superficial interests and talents and passions,the more was the straight-forward earnestness of the school our blessing;and all that beautified and enriched our youth,and gave to it freshness and liveliness,would have turned out to be our ruin,if our elders had taken it seriously,and had formed a life's program out of petty caprices and boyish inclinations."And Prof.Munsterberg thrusts his finger into what I believe to be the weakest joint in our educational armor when he says,"As there is indeed a difference whether I ask what may best suit the taste and liking of Peter,the darling,or whether I ask what Peter,the man,will need for the battle of life in which nobody asks what he likes,but where the question is how he is liked,and how he suits the taste of his neighbors."What would become of our civilization if we were to follow merely the instincts and natural desires?Yet is there not in America a tremendous tendency to the notion,that except in matters of physical welfare,the child's lead is to be followed to extreme limits?Don't we librarians feel it in the pressure brought to bear upon us by those who fail to find certain stories,wanted by the children,on our shelves?"Why,that's a good book,"the parent will say,"The hero is honest and kind,the book won't hurt him any--in fact it will give the child some good ideas.""Ideas."Yes,perhaps.There is another educator I should like to quote,J.H.Baker in his "Education and life.""Whatever you would wish the child to do and become,that let him practice.We learn to do,not by knowing,but by knowing and then doing.

Ethical teaching,tales of heroic deeds,soul-stirring fiction that awakens sympathetic emotions may accomplish but little unless in the child's early life the ideas and feelings find expression in action and so become a part of the child's power and tendency..."Now we believe with G.Stanley Hall that,"The chief enemy of active virtue in the world is not vice but laziness,languor and apathy of will;"that "mind work is infinitely harder than physical toil;"that (as another says)"all that does not rouse,does not set him to work,rusts and taints him the disease of laziness destroys the whole man."And when children of good heritage,good homes,sound bodies,bright minds,spend hours every week curled up among cushions,allowing a stream of cambric-tea literature gently to trickle over their brain surfaces,we know that though the heroes and heroines of these stories be represented as prodigies of industry and vigor,our young swallowers of the same are being reduced to a pulp of brain and will laziness that will not only make them incapable of struggling with a page of Quentin Durward,for example,but will affect their moral stamina,since fighting fiber is the price of virtue.

Ours is,as I have said,a public education,a republic's problem.To quote President Wilson again:"Our present plans for teaching everybody involve certain unpleasant things quite inevitably.It is obvious that you cannot have universal education without restricting your teaching to such things as can be universally understood.It is plain that you cannot impart 'university methods'to thousands,or create 'investigators'by the score,unless you confine your university education to matters which dull men can investigate,your laboratory training to tasks which mere plodding diligence and submissive patience can compass.Yet,if you do so limit and constrain what you teach,you thrust taste and insight and delicacy of perception out of the schools,exalt the obvious and merely useful things above the things which are only imaginatively or spiritually conceived,make education an affair of tasting and handling and smelling,and so create Philistia,that country in which they speak of 'mere literature.'"In our zeal to serve the little alien,descendant of generations of poverty and ignorance,let us not lose sight of the importance to our country of the child more fortunate in birth and brains.

So strong is my feeling on the value of leaders that I hold we should give at least as much study to the training of the accelerate child as we give to that of the defective.Though Iboast the land of Abraham Lincoln and Booker Washington I do not give up one iota of my belief that the child who is born into a happy environment,of parents strong in body and mind,holds the best possibilities of making a valuable citizen;and so I am concerned that this child be not spoiled in the making by a training or lack of training that fails to recognize his possibilities.

同类推荐
  • 太上洞玄灵宝智慧观身经

    太上洞玄灵宝智慧观身经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 湘雨楼词钞

    湘雨楼词钞

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 依楞严究竟事忏

    依楞严究竟事忏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 法华传记

    法华传记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 邺侯外传

    邺侯外传

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 半倾浮华

    半倾浮华

    她身边不乏男子,却依旧寂寞,一生所追求的不过是至情至性的真意,在最终繁华散尽之时,她不禁感叹,自己竟孤独了这些年。
  • 再无岁月可倾诉

    再无岁月可倾诉

    你说过要好好照顾我,要带我去很多地方。你说过很多次你爱我,没有我你不知道怎样生活。后来,我的岁月再不见你,你的故事我也再没听说过。我知道,再无岁月可倾诉。
  • 都市虚拟人生

    都市虚拟人生

    我叫道非,一个普通的大学毕业生,因为找不到工作而加入同学的游戏工作室。在那里我结识了一群个性鲜明的怪人,并且发生了很多光怪陆离的脱轨事件。没有办法复活的灵魂,游戏里的杀人事件,隐藏在黑暗中的黑客组织,大公司中的权力斗争……我都想不到我的人很能够如此精彩。
  • 君临天下:混血双生太妖孽

    君临天下:混血双生太妖孽

    她是21世纪的金牌杀手与绝世神偷,在任务中死亡,来至这名为云落大陆的地方,这一次,她沦为废柴,被世人遗忘,被家人唾弃,而他,是白绝王朝的二皇子,集万千宠爱于一身,却偏偏为了她一次次的铤而走险,她的天赋被他所发现,她们走过世界的脚印勾勒出她们身后的离奇身世,这是不凡,亦或者是阴谋?
  • 星梦守护

    星梦守护

    一位神界的巅峰神王,在一次席卷神魔两界的阴谋中,意外的陷入一个死亡之地。从而被困了几千年。哪知脱险的时候却发现当年无比强盛的宗派却早已覆灭。大怒之后的他连斩神魔两界巅峰人物。可是仇可以报,但是失去的却再也找不回来了。为了找回自己自己心中的“家”,他义无反顾的投身轮回,想要借助轮回重修之力达到更巅峰,从而掌控生死,逆转轮回。修炼一途,乃至巅峰。终只为守护二字,守护自己心中的一切。哪怕是踏尽轮回,也无怨无悔!!!新书上传,求收藏,求推荐!!!
  • 古古惑惑之今生唯你

    古古惑惑之今生唯你

    人生就是一场冒险,只有足够强大,才能有的选择。强大的代价会是什么,没人能够预测得到。有的人提前退场,有的人执着前行。提前退场的未必就是不幸,执着前行的也未必一定会赢。也许这条路走到最后的最后,依旧是两手空空。最初想要的,早已经流逝在褪色的光阴中。
  • 腹黑爹妈:娃纸你们逆天了吗

    腹黑爹妈:娃纸你们逆天了吗

    八年前,她偶遇到她。一夜激情,次日她却丢下一枚耳钻溜之大吉。八年后,她带着一对腹黑宝宝回国。再次偶遇,她无比震惊。“凌先生,好久不见。”她笑着和他打招呼。“白初雪,你还敢回来!”“为何不敢?你走你的阳关道,我过我的独木桥,我们井水不犯河水。”殊不知,两人的羁绊永不分离。
  • 强势王者

    强势王者

    低调回归,却掀起一场血雨腥风,爱恨情仇接踵而来。妖娆妩媚的女总裁,清纯靓丽的未婚妻,英姿飒爽的女警花,性感痴情的女杀手。这是温柔陷阱还是死亡陷阱?且看他如何逃脱情人和情敌精心设计的包围圈……
  • 金匮要略心典

    金匮要略心典

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 仗剑青衣

    仗剑青衣

    抛洒热血染头颅,今昔踏存何方土。无边落木萧萧下,新叶更生仗剑徒。青衣猎猎,行者无疆。一柄剑,一壶酒。且看他,踏天而歌。