This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ... them. Halve the apple, and let the children examine it again. They know the core as being useless for eating, the main purpose for which apples exist. The seeds they may know by the name of pips, but they may not know that those pips are seeds, and they may not even know what a seed is. The parts of the seeds are ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ... them. Halve the apple, and let the children examine it again. They know the core as being useless for eating, the main purpose for which apples exist. The seeds they may know by the name of pips, but they may not know that those pips are seeds, and they may not even know what a seed is. The parts of the seeds are still less known, and children quite familiar with apple pips may have failed to notice that each is composed of several parts. "Looking." It is hard for a teacher'who knows all about apples--if any one does--to realize how many of those qualities which are so clearly visible to her are really invisible to her pupils, even after prolonged "looking." The fact is that we must often tell a child what to look for, or at least put him on its track, before he can see it. It is there, plain enough to those eyes which can see it; but seeing is not a matter of eyes alone. When the fact has once been seen, it is not only visible afterwards, but the seeing of it is a help for the same eyes to see other features of a kindred character. Knowledge grows by the attraction of similar ideas, as Herbart has put it, and the more we already know the more can we learn from anything which is before us--or the more of what is potentially visible becomes actually visible to us. To the young child most things are only potentially visible; he has not the antecedent knowledge required to call them into actual sight. The things which we at first help him to see will then help him to see other similar things for himself. The differences we show him between similar things will help him to see other differences between things apparently similar. To this extent we may say that we are training the observation; but we are doing so by the increase of knowledge, ...
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