isua-isnscatalog-1885-1886-013

Description:	12INDIANA STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.process. The teacher is in the presence of from thirty-five to fifty children, from five to six hours per day. It is his function, as teacher, to train and develop each of these individual minds  to strengthen them in every correct power and habit of thought  to purify and chasten their feelings, and to present such motives as will tend to the discarding of all bad habits of body and mind, and to the formation of good ones. To train a faculty or power of the mind it must be exercised upon its proper objects, and in accordance with the laws of its nature. Exercise is the condition of mental growth. But mental activity, without the guidance of a rational end and not in obedience to the proper laws of the fac¬ ulty exercised, may produce a distorted and abnormal growth. The human mind, in its natural and leading forms of activity, with their conditions, laws and products, bears a relation to the art of teaching similar to that of the bodily nature aud functions to the physicians art. For the teacher to attempt to pursue his art, with all its complicated and responsible duties, without a clear knowledge of the processes and laws of mind, is hardly less irrational than would be the practice of medicine without an ade¬ quate knowledge of the principal organs of the body and their laws and functions.Moreover, the teachers methods of instruction, if based upon reasons or principles, and not derived from mere authority and experiment, must spring largely from the study of mind. The mind is to be educated. The instruments of the process are the various subjects of study. These two, then—mind and matter of study—must be the main factors in a rational or scientific method of instruction. In this thought the study of mind in all its manifestations occupies a prominent place in the course of study in the Normal School. The effort is made to study mind itself, in its conditions, activities, laws and results. Too often the study of mental science is made the mere learning of text, without verification by appeal to individual and personal mental experience. The true method of pursuing this subject is by in¬ trospection, using the text mainly as a guide. For the teachers purpose, it must be chiefly a direct study of mind. It is only in this way that the study of mental science can become an efficient aid to the teacher.
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/32806
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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