OBSERVATION.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3166, 8 June 1931, Page 7

OBSERVATION.

A Great Help in Education. The most successful teachers of youth are those who teach a child the least. That is, they do not cram the child with a mass of facts. They train him to observe and gather interesting facts for himself. They are not everlastingly "telling" a child things. They encourage him to think. But they stand by ready to correct mistakes. John, at two and a half, is being guided into this habit of accurate observation. He thinks it a jolly game. He knows just what shops sell apples, which shops sell meat and groceries, and where there is likely to be some kind of magical new toy on view. It is more difficult to distinguish the right house at which to call in a district where all houses look more or less alike, but John is learning how it is done. When he pays a visit to Grannie, who lives in a quiet, tree-shaded road, mother sets him off at the top of the hill with instructions to keep to the pavement. "Now see if you can be clever and find Grannie's house all by yourself." It is as good as a game of hide-and-seek. John loves to trot up to every gate and tease. "This is Grannie's house. NO, this is not Grannie's house. Which can be Grannie's house?" He gurgles with glee when mother pretends to be deceived, for he knows quite well which is the right one. When the right gate is reached he becomes important and marches in with the triumphant announcement, "This is where Grannie lives!" A trifling matter, but John has received a bit of real training in learning to note the little differences in curtains, garden paths, and flowers. Similarly, from a very early age a child may be trained to cultivate a general sense of direction. David, another two-year-old, whose home Is in the country, can tell Daddy the names of the villages they pass when going home from town in the car. He recognises the landmarks —a bridge, a ferryboat, or farmer Brown's big haystack. He never wears the vacant stare of the bored, for he is always alert and Interested. ',' ' * • j