Children’s Empty and Erroneous Concepts of the Commonplace

Abstract

Peggoty of David Copperfield thought hides a kind of tropi cal fruit. Do children and adults have similarly erroneous notions? Plenty of Peggotys, are to be found perhaps among every class of pupils, in respect to many a concept which is usually taken for granted. Undoubtedly, too, there are some school-teacher Peggotys. Almost any adult can testify to his chagrin at finding suddenly that he has long been thinking of this or that with a meaning entirely wrong. Although we may be shocked to hear a high-school graduate use Irish brew when he is really talking of home rule, almost any one may suffer such confusions long before he is aware of them. We usually take much for granted, so do our friends and asso ciates. But unless we get a few surprises we go on with our assumptions. Do facts warrant us in taking so much for granted? Do they warrant those who hear our speech and read our writing in assuming that we know whereof we speak and write? One of the authors, while teaching history to a class of sixty rural teachers having from four to ten years' teaching experi ence, found during an oral class exercise that some of them were thinking of the United States foreign minister to Japan as a Presbyterian clergyman, some as a Methodist, some as a Catholic priest, and so on, in accordance with their apparent prejudices. Practically all these teachers, however, had dem onstrated their familiarity with certain verbal statements such as appear in history tests. Of course, they were influenced by the force of verbal suggestion. This incident led to an investi gation of the interpretations given to common terms in history and geography by younger pupils. A list of twenty tasks in 327