1869

xxx. Circulaire. S.l., s.n., [1869?] 1 p.

"On vient de faire, à 6 000 exemplaires, la quatrième édition du précieux petit volume ayant pour titre: «QUELQUES LEÇONS SUR L’ART EPISTOLAIRE, LA POLITESSE ET LA TENUE DES LIVRES, etc». Les trois premières éditions de cet ouvrage si utile, tirées à 12,000 exemplaires, ont été vendues dans quelques années, ce qui prouve sa popularité et le prix qu’on y attache. Il se distingue surtout par la pureté et la simplicité du style. Les règles sur l’Art Epistolaire et la Politesse y sont données avec la plus grande précision et la plus grande clarté.

Dans l’introduction de ce petit ouvrage, l’auteur signale une lacune, qui existe dans l’enseignement d’un grand nombre d’écoles et qu’il serait temps de combler.

«Tous les jours, dit-il, on peut être obligé d’écrire des lettres, de tenir des comptes, de recevoir des visites; et combien ne voit-on pas de personnes, qui ont fréquenté les écoles, pendant plusieurs années, qui ont appris toute la géographie et l’arithmétique, qui sont capables de résoudre les problêmes [sic] les plus difficiles, mais qui se trouvent en peine pour écrire une lettre ou pour tenir le compte le plus simple, et qui ne connaissent point les premières règles de la politesse? Ne serait-il pas préférable de faire apprendre moins de géographie et d’arithmétique, dont une partie ne servira peut-être jamais, et d’enseigner ce qui est avantageux à chacun de savoir, et ce qui sert journellement dans le commerce de la vie?»

Le petit ouvrage, ayant pour titre: «QUELQUES LEÇONS SUR L’ART EPISTOLAIRE, LA POLITESSE» &c. &c., se trouve en vente chez les principaux libraires de la Province de Québec, et à l’imprimerie de M. Elzéard Vincent, No 34, rue et Faubourg St. Jean, Québec.

On fera une grande déduction sur le prix, à la douzaine, en faveur de ceux qui achèteront 250 à 500 exemplaires." [Retranscription de l’exemplaire conservé dans le fonds J.A. Langlais, Archives nationales du Québec, P406/1, chemise 13].

xxx. "The Teacher is the Book, The Journal of education, 13, 6(June 1869):97-98.

"That the Teacher is the school, we find to be true in more than one sense; of course not in the full sense of the word, there being besides the teacher, some more constituents necessary for the full reality of a school - as, for instance, the pupils, the building, the school system, and, its administration. But that the teacher ought to be the text book , is true in the proper sense of the word. The best school is that which makes the least use of text-books, the teacher filling their place.

The term text-book does not here apply to reading books of whatever kind; no school can do away with these. But it applies to all other kinds of books which are commonly used in schools.Of these we hold that they ought to be replaced by oral teaching, and recitations by oral repetitions. It is no new theory which we here proclaim; it is the Pestalozzian system, as spread all over Germany and Switzerland, and tried and proved in half a century's practice of the reformed schools there.

On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon system of teaching as practiced in Great Britain and the United States, is book-teaching. Whenever any of the Sciences is to be taught in school, the teacher singles out a chapter of the text book introduced for learning by heart. The better class of teachers will, on this occasion, explain the contents of the chapter, or they will do the same thing after recitation - which is worse yet. The pupil has to recite his task, and a new chapter is committed to memory; and so on till the book is gone through. If there are practical example given in the book, as for instance in all books of arithmetic, the pupil has to solve them, as well as he can, with, or without, the aid of the teacher - in a few cases in school, but on the whole at home. It strikes us that the teacher plays here a very subordinate part, and a machine might be invented to supplant him, in most cases; for hearing a recitation, and pronouncing a judgment on its perfection or imperfections, might generally be just as well performed by the better pupils of the class. The text-book here is almost everything, the teacher almost nothing or nobody. The pupil is passive and merely receptive; he is not guided to reproducing the matter to be mastered out of himself, to becoming active and independent. The matter is not developed in mind, nor his mind developed through, and with the matter. It is only the best talent, a very small percentage of boys and girls, who will in this way become tolerably proficient in the science to be acquired; because only a very few have the mental capacity which is self-instructive, which digests mental food in whatsoever sauce served up. The balance of the pupils (p. 97) will, after the lapse of a few months, have forgotten every particle of the truths receved, but not assimilated. At least this is our experience.

In that system which makes a text-book of the teacher, the latter is, of course, required to be master of the science to be taught, to have it at his fingers' ends, thoroughly understood, anr ready for communion. When he begins his instruction, it must be well prepared, and all he says on the subject must be calculated to inspire the learners with love for the science to be mastered, and its objects. Wherever it is possible to illustrate the subject by presenting it to ocular inspection, he will do it; each of his lessons is more or less an object-lesson. Whatever he can forego teaching himself, by eliciting it from the class through adroit questions, and by rendering thus the pupil self-active, he will make them see, and in general examine with their own senses, what is to be seen or examined in the objects presented, and lead them to express their observations, when correct and complete, in proper language. The less he speaks himself, making the pupils speak instead, the better.

If he succeeds, in this way, in making them discover for themselves the principles and laws underlying the phoenomena, he may depend on their never forgetting the chapter of science thus presentded and illustrated. Thus he sharpens their perceptive powers, quickens their withs, their reflection, presence of mind, and attention, - he interests them in the objects presented to such a degree, that they acquire knowldedge almost imperceptibly and without severe efforts. Learning becomes pleasure, and is accompanied with the same intense satisfaction which accompanies every kind of growh and perfect assimilation. Such a teacher is sure to attract and adavance every single pupil of his class; and although learning in such a thorough manner must needs be slow and gradual from the outset, a great deal of time is gained in the end by the rapid mental growth of the pupils, and by their self-activity. Beginning slowly, he may make rapid strides in the end, because his pupils meet him alhf-way with keen mental appetites and ready assimilating powers. There is, of course, in every science a number of facts which are mastered by simple reflection, but must, at the same time, be impressed upon the memory for immediate practical use. The teacher will further this work of memory either by dictating, at the end of the lesson, a short paragraph containing those facts, and by repeating the same with the class properly; or he will set the pupils themselves, when far enough advanced, to commit these facts to writing, and have the contents properly repeated; or he will, if a reading-book is at hand containing the facts, refer the class to their book, and repeat them from it. Thus the pupils will, in time, become living text-books, like the teacher, and what they have acquired will be their imperishable property, ready for any application in practical life. The science appropriated in this way will be alive in the scholars, and shed light on all cognate subjects. This is the Pestalozzian system of instruction, as compared with the Anglo-Saxon.

Now it will be easily seen that the system in which the teacher is the text-book, has great advantages over the other system, in which the teacher has a text-book, and the text-book is the real teacher. How superior soever be the text-book you may devise, they are dead teachers, and cannot engender life in the majority of the pupils. Besides, the pupils, if they advance materially by the aid of their books, will be grateful for this result, not to their teacher, but to their books. And if they do not advance, they will blame for this result not the book but the teacher. Thus the Anglo-Saxon system loosens, if it does not indeed destroy, the moral connexion between the teacher and his pupils. The Pestalozzian teacher, on the contrary is very potent for good; there is a boundless confidence in his pupils, in him, and his office. They feel that they owe their rapid mental growth to him exclusively, and he is implicity believed and obeyed. He sways their whole being as with a magic wand; he exerts over them an enormous moral influence for all educational purposes. He is to them the impersonation of truth, dignity, and moral worth; and he must have very little moral character if he does not feel exalted by their appreciation of mind, and stimulated to work out his own moral bearing into a model for them.

Now it may be pleaded in excuse for the Anglo-Sacon system, that there is in a country with a a rapidly increasing population a great lack of competent teachers, and that, therefore, good text-books are to make up for this want, at least to some degree. Grant this is so, it is an evil to be overcome. Incompetent teachers lessen the respect due to science and education, thus doing almost more harm than good. The sooner you ged rid of them the better.The radical reform is also, in this respect, the cheapest and most practicable of all. Besides the text-books are, with scanty exceptions, faulty enough, and it is infinitely more difficult to prepare perfect text-books (nay, it is impossible, because the understanding and the wants of every individual learners are different) than to raise a generation of true and good teachers, who know how to accommodate themselves to the individual wants of every pupil. Finally, the text-books, need revision almost from year to year, science is now progressing in such a way as to revolutionize many old established truths, and it is opening new views in an unprecedented manner. But a live teacher may always control his science according to the latest discoveries, and conform his teachings to the modern improvements in knowledge and philosophy. He will be to the times, text-books never are. Am. Ed. Monthly."

1869.07

xxx. "Un vice dans nos Écoles", Journal de l'instruction publique, 13, 7(juill. 1869):89.

"Un fait dont nous avons été à même de constater le côté désavantageux dans nos écoles de la campagne, et que nous aimons à signaler entre plusieurs, c'est l'usage de programmes tracés à l'avance, sur les questions qui doivent être posées aux élèves à l'examen. Rien de plus vicieux et de plus trompeur sur les prétendus progrès des élèves, que ce mode de les questionner sur des choses dont on les croit instruits et dont ils n'ont que la routine.

Il nous est arrivé d'assister à plusieurs examens qui ont eu lieu récemment dans certaines écoles élémentaires. On nous a prié de questionner les élèves sur la grammaire, l'arithmétique et autres branches de l'enseignement primaire. Tant que les questions étaient posées d'après le programme, les élèves répondaient à merveille, mais il ne fallait pas dévier beaucoup la construction du problême [sic] pour les mettre dans l'impossibilité de répondre. Il était facile de voir qu'ils ne possédaient que la routine des choses, et non pas l'instruction qu'on aurait pu leur supposer d'après l'ordre et la disposition des programmes.

Un des examinateurs demanda même à un jeune élève s'il pourrait lire aussi bien sur toutes les pages du livre qu'il lisait sur la page mentionnée au programme. Le petit garçon répondit ingénument: non. Depuis un mois et plus, il n'avait lu que cette page du livre et il la lisait si bien qu'il aurait pu la réciter par coeur.

Eh! bien, voilà comment on s'abuse sur les véritables progrès des élèves dans nos écoles. Et l'on est tout surpris de voir un élève sorti de l'école en syntaxe depuis un an à peine devenir incapable d'écrire un seul mot de français.

Il faut remédier à ce vice de notre enseignement. Les élèves devraient apprendre moins de choses à la fois, et les apprendre mieux. Ils s'attendraient à être questionnés aux examens sur des points imprévus et se mettraient, par les soins du maître et beaucoup d'application de leur part, en lieu de répondre à tout sur un sujet donné. Par exemple, ils apprendraient les principes d'une règle d'arithmétique et se mettraient capables de faire toute règle de même nature. En grammaire la même chose. Les élèves sauraient qu'ils doivent apprendre pour répondre à des problèmes difficiles, et il ne leur en coûterait pas d'aller au fond des choses. Le maître pour sa part, prendrait plus de soin à les instruire, parcequ'il [sic] saurait que le vrai progrès de son école sera révélé au jour de l'examen et qu'il sera impossible pour lui de faire paraître plus de science chez ses élèves qu'il y en a réellement. Mais tant que nous aurons des programmes d'examen comme aujourd'hui il n'y a pas de progrès possibles.

Cette question a déjà été agitée par un habile instituteur dans l'organe officiel du ministère de l'instruction publique, et si nous y attirons l'attention, c'est afin que les autorités prennent des mesures pour empêcher ces abus nuisibles à un haut degré à l'instruction des enfants du peuple. - L'Union des Cantons de l'Est."