The child : his nature and nurture / by W.B. Drummond.

  • Drummond, W. B. (William Blackley), 1868-1937
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The child : his nature and nurture / by W.B. Drummond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    The Practical Results of Child Study.—In the following pages we shall frequently make use of the results, both theoretical and practical, which have been reached by the various methods which have just been briefly sketched. Some of the educational results which have been arrived at are not, strictly speaking, new, but it is not the smallest of the claims of the Child Study movement that it has succeeded in bringing home to large numbers of teachers thoughts and methods which had for long been the theories, and even the fads of a few. The systematic observations which have been published on the development of individual babies have aroused the interest of many parents, have stimulated them to observe their own infants carefully, and have helped them to understand them in a way they could not have done without such assistance. They have also impressed upon them the fact that the child's education begins in the cradle, and that the years before the child goes to school are at least as important to both the mental and the bodily nurture as are all the years of school life. A similar service has been rendered to Innumerable teachers by bringing, before them the fact that child study is a daily problem ]3resented by every child in their class. Teachers who have undertaken special observations on their children have been rewarded by finding a fresh interest in their work, and by gaining an insight into the individuality of their pupils such as they had never before acquired. Such observations may also indicate faults in the method of teaching. For example, in an American school an inquiry was made as tc which subjects of study the children liked, and which they disliked. It was found that 76 per cent, of the boys who were studying geometry expressed dislike to it. The teacher's attention was called to this and he was greatly surprised. On re- flection it occurred to him that the reason must be that he undertook to do more than the class were able to stand. Consequently, he reversed his methods and determined that he would cover the ground only as fast as his pupils could do