What have books got to do with education, anyway?
Not half as much as most people think! If education is learning to be a civilized2 human being, books have their place in it. But civilized life is composed of a number of things besides books—it contains machinery3, art, political organization, handicraft, flowers and birds, and other things too numerous to mention, all of which are notoriously capable of being learned about in the great world outside without the use of books. If in the great world outside the school, then why not in the little world inside the school?
Not that the use of books should be ever[Pg 37] avoided anywhere for the sake of the avoidance. Books are a convenience—or an inconvenience, as the case may be. Like other valuable human utilities, they are frequently a nuisance if obtruded4 in the place of better things. Every intelligent person has the same attitude toward books that he has toward his sweetheart’s photograph: if she is out of reach, if the picture furnishes him his only way of seeing her, he values it profoundly; but if she is in the next room, he does not linger with the image. True, he may fall in love with the picture first—the picture may reveal to him the girl whom otherwise he might never have appreciated; and books do make us appreciate aspects of reality which we have neglected. But in education books are not an adequate substitute for direct contact with the realities with which they deal, precisely5 because they do not give the sense of power which only comes from direct contact with reality. It is the function of books to assist in that educational contact—not to take the place of it.
There is, indeed, a sense in which books are the most egregious6 fraud ever perpetrated upon a world hungry for the knowledge which is power. I am reminded of the scene in “The Wild Duck,” when the father returns home from a grand dinner[Pg 38] party. He has promised to bring his little daughter some sweetmeats or cake—and he has forgotten to do so. But—he grandly draws from his pocket a piece of printed matter—“Here, my child, is the menu: you can sit down and read about the whole dinner!” Poor little Hedvig knew that she wasn’t getting anything to eat; but some of us don’t realize that for years and years; we dutifully masticate7 the innutritious contents of text-books while we are starving for a taste of reality.
Take geography, for instance. I know quite well that it was not the intention of the author of the text-book which I studied that I should conceive the state of Illinois as yellow and the neighbouring state of Indiana as pale green: but I do to this day. They were not realities to me, but pictures in a book; and they were not realities because they had no relation whatever to real experience. If I had been asked to draw a map of the school grounds, with the boys’ side distinguished8 by one colour and the girls’ by another, that convention would thereafter have seemed only what it was. If I had drawn9 a map of the town I lived in, I would have been thenceforth unable, I am sure, to see a map without feeling the realities of stream and wood and hill and[Pg 39] house and farm of which it is a conventional abstraction. I would, in short, have learned something about geography. The very word would have acquired a fascinating significance—the depiction10 of the surface of the earth! whereas all the word geography actually means to me now is—a large flat book. And if an aviator11 should stop me and ask which is the way to Illinois, I couldn’t for my life tell him: but if you brought me that old geography book and opened it to the map of the United States, I could put my finger on Illinois in the dark! You see, Illinois is for me not a part of the real world—it is a yellow picture in a large flat book.
In the same way, I have the impression that the American Revolution happened in a certain thick book bound in red cloth—not by any chance in the New York and New England whose streets I have walked in. (And, for that matter, as I have later discovered, much of the American Revolution of the school histories—such as the Boston Tea-Party as described—did not happen anywhere except in the pages of such text-books). The only thing I know about the crossing of the Delaware, for example, is that it is a Leading Fact of American History, and occurred on the right hand page, a little below and to the left of[Pg 40] a picture. And this conception of historical events as a series of sentences occurring in a certain order on a certain page, seems to me the inevitable12 consequence of learning history from a text-book.
There are other objections to the use of text-books. One is their frequent perversion13 or suppression of truth for moral, patriotic14 or sentimental15 reasons: in this respect they are like practically all books intended for children. They are generally pot-boilers written by men of no standing16 in the intellectual or even in the scholastic17 world. But even when a text-book is written by a man of real learning, the absence of a critical audience of his equals seems often to deprive him of a stimulus18 necessary to good writing, and leave him free to indulge in long-repressed childishnesses of his own which he would never dare exhibit to a mature public. And even when text-books are neither grossly incompetent19 nor palpably dishonest, there is nevertheless almost invariably something cheap and trashy about their composition which repels20 the student who can choose his own books. Why should they be inflicted21 upon helpless children?
Even if all text-books were miracles of accuracy and order, even if they all showed literary[Pg 41] talent of a high degree, their usefulness would still be in question. If children are to be given a sense of the reality of the events which they study, they must get some feeling of contact with the facts. And to this project the use of a text-book is fatal. Let us turn to history once more. I take it that a text-book of history, as intended and as used, is a book which tells everything which it is believed necessary for the pupil to know. Right there it divorces itself, completely and irrevocably, from the historical category. History is not a statement of what people ought to know. History is an inquiry22 into the nature and relationship and significance of past events. Not a pronouncement upon these things, but a searching into them. Now the outstanding fact about past events is that they happened some time ago. The historian does not, to begin with, know what happened, let alone how and why it happened. He is dependent upon other people’s reports. His chief task is often to determine the comparative accuracy of these various reports. And when we read the writings of a real historian, the sense of contact we have with the events under discussion comes from our feeling that we have listened to a crowd of contrary witnesses, and, with our author’s assistance, got at the truth behind their[Pg 42] words. More than that, the historian himself is addressing you, not as if he thought you had never read anything on the subject before and never would again, but with implicit23 or explicit24 reference to the opinions of other historians. He is himself only one of a crowd of witnesses, from all of whose testimony25 he expects you to form your own opinion of those past events which none of you will ever meet face to face.
Compare this with the school text-book. It was evidently written by Omniscience26 Itself, for it does not talk as if the facts were in the slightest doubt, as if there were any two opinions about them, as if it were necessary to inquire into the past to find out something about it. It does not condescend27 to offer an opinion in agreement or in controversy28 with the views of others. It does not confess any difficulty in arriving at a just conclusion. No—it says This happened and That happened. Perhaps it is all true as gospel. But facts so presented are abstractions, devoid29 of the warmth and colour of reality. Even the schools have learned how uninteresting dates are. But they do not realize that dates are uninteresting because, since nobody can possibly doubt them, it does no good whatever to believe in them. It is only those truths which need the assistance of[Pg 43] our belief that engage our interest. It is only then that they concern us. We are interested in politics because it is the process of making up our minds about the future; and we are interested in history, when we are interested, because it is the process of making up our minds about the past.
By eliminating the text-book, or by using it simply as a convenient syllabus30 and chronological31 guide to an inquiry into the significance and relationship of the events of the past, with the aid of every good historical work available for reference, the study of history would become a matter of concern to the pupil; and the past, looked at from several angles, and down a felt perspective of time, would become real.
I am aware that this is done in the higher flights of the educational system. But why is it that the easy and profitable methods of learning are put off so long and the hardest and most profitless forced upon children? Is it that easier learning means harder teaching? I am not sure of that; the only difficulty about such a method as I have described would be in the mere32 change from the old to the new. No, I think the real trouble lies in the superstition33 of the Book.
This may be seen in the teaching of mathematics. Before they come to school, children[Pg 44] have usually learned to count, and learned easily because they were counting real objects. The objective aspect of mathematics is almost immediately lost sight of in school. Even the blackboard affords no release from the book, for who ever saw a blackboard outside a schoolroom? Mathematics comes to seem something horribly useless. The child simply does not believe that people ever go through these tortures when they grow up. Even the suggestive fables34 into which the “examples” are sometimes cast, fail to convince him. “If a carpenter—” “A salesman has—” But he is neither a carpenter nor a salesman. He is a weary child, and he is not going to pretend to be a carpenter or a salesman unless he gets some fun out of it. The thing about a carpenter or a salesman which appeals to the child’s imagination is something other than mathematics. No, the printed word does not suffice. But let him be a carpenter or salesman for the nonce, let him with saw or sugar-scoop in hand find it to be necessary to add, subtract, multiply, divide and deal in fractions, and he will rise undaunted to the occasion. And, having found in actual practice just what his difficulties are, he will cheerfully use book and blackboard. Where there’s a will there’s a way, and mathematics has only to[Pg 45] come to seem a desirable acquisition to become an easily mastered one. I should say that the ideal way of teaching a boy of eight mathematics—including, if necessary, trigonometry—is as a part of the delightful35 task of constructing a motorcycle. I remember that I gained in twenty-four hours an insight into the mysteries of English grammar which I had failed to get in the 1200 odd lessons previously36 inflicted on me in school—and I gained that insight in writing my first short story. When an effect that you yourself want to achieve depends on a preposition or a fraction, then, and only then, are such things humanly worth knowing.
If you want to see the most terrific and damning criticism of text-books, open one of them which has been used by a child, and see it written there on the margins37 in fretful and meandering38 curleques, which say as plainly as the handwriting on Belshazzar’s wall, “I have weighed this book in the balance and found it wanting. It does not interest me. It leaves my spirit vexed39 and impatient.” I have estimated that the scrawl-work in a single average schoolbook, if unwound and placed end to end, would extend along the Lincoln Highway from Weehawken, N. J., to Davenport, Ia.; while the total energy which goes into the[Pg 46] making of these scrawls40 each day in the public schools of New York City alone, would be sufficient to hoist41 a grand piano to the top of the Woolworth building. The grand total for the United States of the soul-power that dribbles42 out into these ugly pencilings, amounts to a huge Niagara of wasted energy.
The Book, as the centre of our educational process, must be demoted. It is a good servant, but a bad master. And only as a servant can it be tolerated—as an adjunct to the gardens and workshops and laboratories and kitchens and studios and playgrounds of the school-world.
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1
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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2
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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obtruded
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| v.强行向前，强行，强迫( obtrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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egregious
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| adj.非常的，过分的 | |
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masticate
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| v.咀嚼 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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depiction
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| n.描述 | |
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aviator
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| n.飞行家，飞行员 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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13
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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14
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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17
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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18
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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20
repels
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| v.击退( repel的第三人称单数 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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21
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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23
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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24
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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25
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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26
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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29
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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30
syllabus
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| n.教学大纲，课程大纲 | |
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31
chronological
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| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
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32
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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33
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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34
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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35
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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meandering
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| 蜿蜒的河流，漫步，聊天 | |
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39
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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40
scrawls
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| 潦草的笔迹( scrawl的名词复数 ) | |
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41
hoist
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| n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起 | |
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42
dribbles
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| n.涓滴( dribble的名词复数 )；细滴；少量（液体）v.流口水( dribble的第三人称单数 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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