But special care is necessary to complete success here.
7. Other things shown by the experiment. While the main object should
be kept in most prominent view in all experimental work, the fullest
educational value will come only when all that can be learned by the use
of an experiment is carefully considered.
In selecting just the work to be taken up with a given class of
children, attention must be paid to the selection of the appropriate
matter to be presented and the well adapted method of presenting it. The
following points should be carefully considered:
1. The matter must be adapted to the capacity of the child. This must be
true both as regards the quality and the quantity. The tendency will be
to teach too much when the matter presented is entirely new, but too
little in many cases where the pupil already knows the subject in a
general way. Matter is valuable only when given slowly enough to permit
of its being fully understood and memorized, while on the other hand
method is valuable only when it secures the development of attention and
the various faculties of the child's mind by presenting a sufficient
amount of the new.
2. The work must be based on what is already known. This, one of the
best known of the principles of teaching, is of at least as great
importance in physical science as in any other department of knowledge.
It seems to me in many cases to be more important here than elsewhere.
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