Visual Education

VISUAL EDUCATION, a term used in the United States to designate those forms of instruction in which use is made of prepared visual aids, such as models, maps and charts, mounted pictures, lantern slides, films for the projection of still pictures, stereographs and motion picture films. Visual education is a method of instruction which may be used at all ages or levels of schooling and is equally appropriate in teaching geography, history, nature study, physics, physiology, agriculture, astronomy and several other subjects. The most important of the visual aids are lantern slides, stereographs, films for the projection of still pictures and motion picture films.

Motion pictures have been tried in schools ever since they came into wide use for entertainment, but their full possibilities have not been realized. Efforts are being made to facilitate their use by producing narrow width and hence cheaper films, printed on non-inflammable stock, and by manufacturing simpler and more easily handled machines. Efforts are also being made to supply, on a larger scale, informational films, made to fit into the courses of study of the schools.

Organizations for the Promotion of Visual Education.— The first national organization for the promotion of visual edu cation was the National Academy of Visual Instruction. This society consisted chiefly of members of extension divisions of I State universities. The second was the Visual Instruction Asso ciation of America, organized not only to hold meetings and disseminate information but also to produce motion picture films. In 1923, the department of visual instruction of the National Education Association was formed.

Psychology of Visual Education.

The spread of visual education, as is often the case with new movements, has been accompanied by extravagant claims on the part of some of its advocates and by a certain amount of loose thinking concerning the psychological basis for the use of visual methods. Visual education is frequently advocated on the supposed ground that the sense of sight is a better avenue for the acquirement of experi ence than are the other senses, particularly hearing. Psychologi

cal studies consisting of careful experimental comparisons have led to sounder theory and a more moderate estimate of the essen tial place and value of the visual method.

The essential contrast is not between the senses of vision and hearing. It is rather between the direct experience, which consists of the perception of material objects on the one hand, and the indirect experience, which consists of abstract or generalized thought on the other hand. Direct perception is carried on by means of the various senses—not vision alone—while thought is carried on largely by means of language. The contrast, then, is between sense perception and language. But, properly regarded, the two are not opposed to one another. They rather supplement one another. Sense perception or concrete experience alone has little meaning or significance, while an over-emphasis on verbalism without sufficient concrete experience leads to error and confusion of thought. Doubtless education has tended too much to ver balism and needs from time to time to be brought back to a closer contact with the world of physical objects.

The sense of vision is a particularly valuable source of educa tive experience. First, besides furnishing distinctive qualities of its own it serves to represent or suggest many qualities which are given directly by other senses, such as hardness, smooth ness and weight. Second, it is especially adapted to exhibit rela tionships of a very definite and exact nature. The chief of these is space. On the other hand, hearing yields the sensations which are peculiarly adapted to serve as the means to the development of language. A well rounded education employs each for its proper purpose.