Principle 9 & 10: How We Make Use of Mind
“We hold that the child’s mind is no mere sac to hold ideas but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a ‘spiritual organism’ with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet with which it is prepared to deal and what it is able to digest and assimilate as the body does food-stuffs.
“Such a doctrine as the Herbartian, that the mind is a receptacle, lays the stress of education, the preparation of food in enticing morsels, duly ordered, upon the teacher. Children taught on this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching but little knowledge; the teacher’s axiom being ‘what a child learns matters less than how he learns it.’”
Reference: Volume 6, Chapter 7
Charlotte combines these two principles in one chapter and it’s pretty impressive that she felt so strongly against his approach that she calls out one particular educational guru of her day in her actual principles. So who was this guy?
Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841) is known today mainly as a founding figure of modern psychology and educational theory. Spoiler alert, Charlotte disagreed with a large part of what he had to say about education but if you look at the modern education system, his ideas are sadly much more present than hers. Here’s his Wiki page if you really want to know more about him.
But on with the principles.
Right out the gate we can see where the division lies: “Herbart’s psychology is extraordinarily gratifying and attractive to teachers who are, like other people, eager to magnify their office; and here is a scheme which shows how every child is a new creation as he comes forth from the hands of his teacher.” Charlotte has already built the argument that “children are born persons” and says that “we are limited to three educational instruments— the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.” The emphasis for learning should not be on the teacher, but the student, and Herbart’s recommendations are the complete opposite.
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