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THE ELEMENTS 
 
 
 GENERAL METHOD 
 
 BASED OX THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 HEEBAKT 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES A. McMURRY, Ph.D. 
 
 Ml 
 
 [IN< 
 
 4^ 
 
 BLOOMINGTON, ILL. : 
 
 Public-School Publishing Company. 
 1893. 
 
Copyright, 1893. 
 By C. a. MfMuRRY, Normal, 111. 
 
 TRESS OF 
 
 PANTAGRAPH PKINTING AND STATIONERY CO. 
 
 BLOOMINGTON, ILL. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Herbart school of Pedagogy has created much 
 stir in Germany in the last thirty years. It has 
 developed a large number of vigorous writers on 
 all phases of education and psychology, and numbers a 
 thousand or more positive disciples among the energetic 
 teachers of Germany. 
 
 Those American teachers and students who have come 
 in contact with the ideas of this school have been greatly 
 stimulated. 
 
 In such a miscellaneous and many-sided thing as prac- 
 tical education it is deeply gratifying to find a clear and 
 definite leading purpose that prevails throughout and a 
 set of mutually related and supporting principles, which 
 in practice contribute to the realization of this purpose. 
 
 The following chapters can not be regarded as a full, 
 exact and painfully scientific account of Herbartian ideas, 
 but as a simple explanation of their leading principles in 
 their relations to each other and in their application to 
 our own school problems. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to acknowledge the friendly en- 
 couragement of Dr. Wilhelm Rein, Professor of Pedagogy 
 at the University of Jena. It is the author's judgment 
 that his lectures, practice-school, and Seminar furnish the 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 best opportunity for the study of common-school work 
 both theoretically and practically. 
 
 "Die acht Schuljahren," of Dr. Rein, an extensive 
 work covering the eight grades of the public school, are 
 a rich fund of materials from which I have freely drawn. 
 
 In the last chapter extensive extracts from Rein's 
 "Das erste Schuljahr" and Wiget's "Die formalen Stu- 
 phen des Unterrichts" have been incorporated. 
 
 Not-mal, Ulinois, July 11, 1892. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHIEF AIM OF EDUCATION. 
 
 What is the central purpose of education? If we 
 include under this term all the things commonly assigned 
 to it, its many phases as represented by the great variety 
 of teachers and pupils, the many branches of knowledge 
 and the various and even conflicting methods in bringing 
 up children, it is difficult to find a definition sufficiently 
 broad and definite to compass its meaning. In fact we 
 shall not attempt in the beginning to make a definition. 
 We are in search not so much of a comprehensive defini- 
 tion as of a central truth, a key to the situation, an aim 
 that will simplify and brighten all the work of teachers. 
 Keeping in view the end from the beginning, we need a 
 central organizing principle which shall dictate for teacher 
 and pupil the highway over which they shall travel to- 
 gether. 
 
 We will assume at least that education means the 
 whole bringing up of a child from infancy to maturity, 
 not simply his school training. The reason for this 
 assumption is that home, school, companions, environment 
 and natural endowment, working through a series of 
 years, produce a character which is a unit as the result- 
 ant of these different influences and growths. Again we 
 are compelled to assume that this aim, whatever it is, 
 is the same for all. 
 
 Now what will the average man, picked up at random, 
 say to our question? What is the chief end in the edu- 
 cation of your son? A farmer wishes his boy to read, 
 
6 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 write and cipher so as to meet successfully the needs of 
 a farmer's life. The merchant in town desires that his 
 boy get a wider reach of knowledge and experience so as 
 to succeed in a livelier sort of business competition. A 
 university professor would lay out a liberal course of 
 training for his son so as to prepare him for intellectual 
 pursuits among scholars and people of culture. This 
 utilitarian view, which points to success in life in the ordi- 
 nary sense, is the prevailing one. We could probably 
 sum up the wishes of a great majority of the common 
 people by saying, "They desire to give their children 
 through education a better chance in life than they them- 
 selves have had. " Yet even these people, if pressed to 
 give reasons, would admit that the purely utilitarian 
 view is a low one and that there is something better for 
 every boy and girl than the mere ability to make a suc- 
 cessful living. 
 
 Turn for a moment to the great systems of education 
 which have held their own for centuries and examine 
 their aims. The Jesuits, the Humanists and the Natural 
 Scientists. They all claimed to be liberal, cultivating 
 and preparatory to great things, yet we only need to 
 quote from the histories of education to show their nar- 
 rowness and incompleteness. The training of the Jesuits 
 was linguistic and rhetorical, and almost entirely apart 
 from our present notion of human development. The 
 Humanists or Classicists, who for so many centuries con- 
 stituted the educational elite, belonged to the past with 
 its glories. Though standing in the present they were 
 almost blind to the great problems and opportunities it 
 offered. They stood in bold contrast to the growth of 
 the modern spirit in history, literature arid natural sci- 
 ence. But in spite of their predominating influence over 
 
THE CHIEF AIM. 7 
 
 education for centuries there has never been the shadow 
 of a chance for making the classics of antiquity the 
 basis of common, popular education. The modern school 
 of Natural Scientists is just as one-sided as the Human- 
 ists in supposing that human nature is narrow enough to 
 be compressed within the bonds of natural science 
 studies. 
 
 But the systems of education in vogue have always 
 lagged behind the clear views of educational reformers. 
 Two hundred fifty years ago Comenius projected a plan 
 of education for every boy and girl of the common peo- 
 ple. His aim was to teach all men all things from the 
 highest truths of religion to the commonest things of 
 daily experience. Being a man of simple and profound 
 religious faith, religion and morality were at the founda- 
 tion of his system. But even the principles of intellec- 
 tual training so clearly advocated by Comenius have not 
 yet found a ready hearing among teachers, to say noth- 
 ing of his great moral-religious purpose. ^ Among later 
 writers Locke, Rousseau and Pestalozzi have set up ideals 
 of education that have had much influence. But Locke's 
 "gentleman" can never be the ideal of all because it is 
 intrinsically aristocratic and education has become with 
 us broadly democratic. After all, Locke's "gentleman" 
 is a noble ideal and should powerfully impress teachers. 
 The perfect human animal that Rousseau dreamed of in 
 the Emile, is best illustrated in the noble savage, but we 
 are not in danger of adopting this ideal. In spite of his 
 merits the noblest savage falls short in a hundred ways. 
 Yet it is important in education to perfect the animal 
 development in every child. Pestalozzi touched the 
 hearts of even the weakest and morally frailest children, 
 and tried to make intellectual culture contribute to heart 
 
8 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 culture, or rather to combine the two in strong moral 
 characters. He came close upon the highest aim of edu- 
 cation and was able to illustrate his doctrine in practice. 
 The educational reformers have gone far ahead of the 
 schoolmasters in setting up a high aim in education. 
 
 Let us examine a few well-known definitions of edu- 
 cation by great thinkers, and try to discover a central 
 idea. 
 
 "The purpose of education is to give to the body and 
 to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which 
 they are capable." — Plato. 
 
 "Education includes whatever we do for ourselves 
 and whatever is done for us by others for the express 
 purpose of bringing us nearer to the perfection of our 
 nature." — John Stuart Mill 
 
 "Education is the preparation for complete living." — 
 Herbert Spencer. 
 
 "Education is the harmonious and equable evolution 
 of the human faculties by a method based upon the 
 nature of the mind for developing all the faculties of the 
 soul, for stirring up and nourishing all the principles of 
 life, while shunning all one-sided culture and taking 
 account of the sentiments upon which the strength and 
 worth of men depend." — Stein. 
 
 "Education is the sum of the reflective efforts by 
 which we aid nature in the development of the physical, 
 intellectual and moral faculties of man in view of his per- 
 fection, his happiness, and his social destination." — Corn- 
 pay re. 
 
 These attempts to bring the task of education into a 
 comprehensive scientific formula are of interest and are 
 yet disappointing. They agree in giving great breadth 
 to education. But in the attempt to be comprehensive. 
 
THE CHIEF AIM. 9 
 
 to omit nothing, they fail to specify that wherein the 
 true worth of man consists; they fail to bring out into 
 relief the highest aim as an organizing idea in its compli- 
 cated work. 
 
 We desire therefore to approach nearer to this prob- 
 lem. What is the highest aim of education? 
 
 We will do so by an inquiry into the aims and tenden- 
 cies of our public schools. To an outward observer the 
 schools of to-day confine their attention almost exclu- 
 sively to intellectual training, to the mental discipline 
 and power that come from a varied and vigorous exercise 
 of the faculties. The great majority of good school- 
 masters stand squarely upon this platform. But they 
 are none the less deeply conscious that this is not the 
 highest aim of education. We scarcely need to be told 
 that a person may be fully equipped with the best that 
 this style of education can give, and still remain a crimi- 
 nal. A good and wise parent will inevitably seek for a 
 better result in his child than mere intellectual ability 
 and power. All good schoolmasters know that behind 
 school studies and cares is the still greater task of devel- 
 oping manly and womanly character. Perhaps, how- 
 ever, this is too high and sacred a thing to formulate. 
 Perhaps in the attempt to reduce it to a scientific form 
 we^ should lose its spirit. Admitting that strong moral 
 character is the noblest result of right training, is it not 
 still incidental to the regular school work? Perhaps it 
 lies in the teacher and in his manner of treating subjects 
 and not in the subject-matter itself. 
 
 This is exactly the point at which we wish to apply 
 the lever and to lift into prominence' the moral character- 
 building aim a§ the central one in education. This aim 
 should be like a loadstone, attracting and subordinating 
 
to GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 all other purposes to itself. It should dominate in the 
 choice, arrangement and method of studies. Let us 
 examine more carefully the convictions upon which the 
 moral aim rests. Every wise and benevolent parent 
 knows that the first and last question to ask and answer 
 regarding a child is "What are his moral quality and 
 strength? " Now, who is better able to judge of the true 
 aim than thoughtful and solicitous parents? In the sec- 
 ond place, it is inconceivable that a conscientious teacher 
 should close his eyes to all except the intellectual train- 
 ing of his pupils. It is as natural for him to touch and 
 awaken the moral qualities as it is for birds to sing. 
 Again, the state is more concerned to see the growth of 
 just and virtuous citizens than in seeing the prosperity 
 of scholars, inventors and merchants. It is also con- 
 cerned with the success of the latter, but chiefly when 
 their knowledge, skill and wealth are equaled by their 
 virtues. Our country may have vast resources and great 
 opportunities, but everything in the end depends upon 
 the moral quality of its men and women. Undermine 
 and corrupt this and we all know that there is nothing 
 to hope for. The perpetual enticement and blandishment 
 of worldly success so universal in our time can not move 
 us if we found one theory and practice upon the central 
 doctrine of moral education. Education, therefore, in 
 its popular, untrammeled, moral sense is the greatest 
 concern of society. 
 
 In projecting a general plan of popular education we 
 are beholden to the prejudices of no man nor class of 
 men. Not even the traditional prejudices of the great 
 body of teachers should stand in the way of setting up 
 the noblest ideal of education. Educational thinkers are 
 in duty bound to free themselves from utilitarian notions 
 
THE CHIEF ATM. 11 
 
 and narrowness, and to. adopt the best platform that 
 children by natural birthright can stand upon. They are 
 called upon to find the best and to apply it to as many as 
 possible. Let it be remembered that each child has a 
 complete growth before him. His own possibilities and 
 not the attainments of his parents and elders are the 
 things to consider. 
 
 Shall we seek to avoid responsibility for the moral 
 aim by throwing it upon the family and the church? 
 But the more we probe into educational problems the 
 more we shall find the essential unity of all educational 
 forces. If asked to define the relation of the school to 
 the home we shall quickly see that they are one in spirit 
 and leading purpose, that instead of being separated 
 they should be brought closer together. They are the 
 two sides of the shield. 
 
 In conclusion, therefore, shall we make moral charac-'^ 
 ter the clear and conscious aim of school education, and 
 then subordinate school studies and discipline, mental 
 training and conduct to this aim? It will be a great 
 stimulus to thousands of teachers to discover that this is 
 the real purpose of school work, and that there are 
 abundant means not yet utilized of realizing it. Having 
 once firmly grasped this idea, they will find that there is 
 no other having half its potency. It will put a substan- 
 tial foundation under educational labors, both theoretical 
 and practical, which will make them the noblest of enter- 
 prises. 
 
 Is it reasonable to suppose that the rank and file of 
 our teachers will realize the importance of this aim in 
 teaching so long as it has no recognition in our public 
 system of instruction? The moral element is largely 
 present among educators as an instinct^ but it ought to 
 
12 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 be evolved into a clear 2->'^(^rpose with definite means of 
 accomplishment. It is an open secret in fact, that while 
 our public instruction is ostensibly secular, having noth- 
 ing to do directly with religion or morals, there is noth- 
 ing about which good teachers are more thoughtful and 
 anxious than about the means of moral influence. Occa- 
 sionally some one from the outside attacks our public 
 schools as without morals and godless, but there is no 
 lack of stauncti defenders on moral grounds. Theoreti- 
 cally and even practically, to a considerable extent, we 
 are all agreed upon the great value of moral education. 
 But there is a striking inconsistency in our whole posi- 
 tion on the school problem. While the supreme value of 
 the moral aim will be generally admitted, it has no open 
 recognition in our school course, either as a principal or 
 as a subordinate aim of instruction. Moral education is 
 not germane to the avowed purposes of the public school. 
 If it gets in at all it is by the back door. It is inci- 
 dental, not primary. 
 
 How to establish the moral aim in the center of the 
 school course, how to subordinate and realize the other 
 educational aims while keeping this chiefly in view, how 
 to make instruction and school discipline contribute 
 unitedly to the formation of vigorous moral character, 
 and how to unite home, school and other life experiences 
 of a child in perfecting the one great aim of education, 
 are some of the problems whose solution will be sought 
 in the following chapters. 
 
 It will be especially our purpose to show how school 
 instruction can be brought into the direct service of char- 
 acter-building. This is the point upon which most teach- 
 ers are skeptical. In one whole set of school studies, 
 and that the most important (reading, literature and his- 
 
THE CHIEF AIM. 13 
 
 tory), there is opportunity through all the grades for a 
 vivid and direct cultivation of moral ideas and convic- 
 tions. The second great series of studies, the natural 
 sciences, come in to support the moral aims, while the 
 personal example and influence of the teacher, and the 
 common experiences and incidents of school life and con- 
 duct give abundant occasion to apply and enforce moral 
 ideas. 
 
 That the other justifiable aims of education, such as 
 physical training, mental discipline, orderly habits, gen- 
 tlemanly conduct, practical utility of knowledge, liberal 
 culture, and the free development of individuality will 
 not be weakened by placing the moral aim in th^ fore- 
 front of educational motives, we are convinced. To 
 some extent these questions will be discussed in the fol- 
 lowing pages. 
 
 The importance of making the leading aim of educa- 
 tion clear to teachers, is great. If their conviction on 
 this point is not clear they will certainly not concentrate 
 their attention and efforts upon its realization. Again, 
 in a business like education, where there are so many 
 important and necessary results to be reached, it is very 
 easy and common to put forward a subordinate aim, and 
 to lift it into undue prominence, even allowing it to 
 swallow up all the energies of teacher and pupils. 
 Owing to this diversity of opinions among teachers as to 
 the results to be reached, our public schools exhibit a 
 chaos of conflicting theory and practice, and a number- 
 less brood of hobby-riders. 
 
14 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RELATIVE VALUE OF STUDIES. 
 
 Having established the leading aim of education, it 
 remains to inquire into the relative value of different 
 studies and their adaptability to accomplish this aim. 
 As measured upon this cardinal purpose what is the 
 intrinsic value of each of the school studies and what 
 the amount of time that should be consumed by each? 
 These questions are not new. Since the time of Comenius, 
 to say the least, they have seriously disturbed educators. 
 But few have had the courage, industry and breadth of 
 mind of a Comenius, to sound the educational waters and 
 to lay out a profitable chart. In spite of Comenius' 
 labors, however, and those of other educational reform- 
 ers, be they never so energetic, practical progress 
 toward a final answer, as registered in school courses, 
 has been extremely slow. 
 
 Herbert Spencer says: "If there needs any further 
 evidence of the rude, undeveloped character of our edu- 
 cation, we have it in the fact that the comparative 
 worths of the different kinds of knowledge have been 
 as yet scarcely even discussed, much less discussed in a 
 methodic way with definite results. Not only is it that 
 no standard of relative values has yet been agreed upon, 
 but the existence of any such staiidard has not been con- 
 ceived in any clear manner. And not only is it that the 
 existence of such a standard has not been clearly con- 
 ceived, but the need of it seems to have been scarcely 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 15 
 
 even felt. Men read books on this topic and attend lect- 
 ures upon that, decide that their children shall be in- 
 structed in these branches and not in those; and all 
 under guidance of mere custom, or liking, or prejudice, 
 without ever considering the enormous importance of 
 determining in some rational way what things are really 
 most worth learning. * * ^ * * Men dress their 
 children's minds as they do their bodies, in the prevail- 
 ing fashion." 
 
 Spencer certainly does not solve the problem. It can 
 scarcely be said that any Englishman or American has 
 seriously grappled with it. G-reat changes and reforms 
 indeed have been started, especially within the last fifty 
 years, but they have been undertaken under the pressure 
 of general popular demands and have resulted in compro- 
 m-ises between traditional forces and urgent popular 
 needs. A fair philosophical inquiry into the relative 
 merit of studies and their adaptability to nurture mental 
 and moral qualities has not been made. 
 
 The Germans have worked to a better purpose. Quite 
 a number of able thinkers among them have given their 
 best years to the study of this problem of relative edu- 
 cational values and to a working out of its results. Her- 
 bart, Ziller, Stoy and Rein have been deeply interested 
 in philosophy and psychology as life long teachers of 
 these subjects at the University, but in their practice 
 schools in the same place they also stood daily face to 
 face with the primary difficulties of ordinary teaching. 
 At the outset, and before laying out a course of study, 
 they were compelled to meet and settle the aim of educa- 
 tion and the problem of relative values. Having an- 
 swered these questions to their own satisfaction, they 
 proceeded to work out in detail a common school course. 
 
16 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 The Herbart school of teachers has presumed to call its 
 interpretation of educational ideas "scientific pedagogy," 
 a somewhat pretentious name in view of the fact that 
 many leading educators in Germany, England and else- 
 where deny the existence of such a science. The exposi- 
 tion of principles that follows is chiefly derived from 
 them. 
 
 With us the present time is favorable ' to a rational 
 inquiry into relative educational values and to a thor- 
 ough-going application of the results to school courses 
 and methods. 
 
 In the first place the old classical monopoly is finally 
 and completely broken, at least so far as the common 
 school is concerned. It ruled education for several centu- 
 ries, but now even its methods of discipline are losing 
 their antique hold. The natural sciences, modern his- 
 tory and literature have assumed an equal place with 
 the old classical studies in college courses. Freed from 
 old traditions and prejudice our common school is now 
 grounded in the vernacular, in the national history and 
 literature, and in home geography and natural science. 
 Its roots go deep into native soil. Secondly^ the door of 
 the common school has been thrown open to the new 
 studies and they have entered in a troop. History, 
 drawing, natural science, modern literature, and physical 
 culture have been added to the old reading, writing and 
 arithmetic. The common school was never so untram- 
 meled. It is free to absorb into its course the select 
 materials of the best studies. Teachers really enjoy 
 more freedom in selecting and arranging subjects and in 
 introducing new thiugs, than they know how to make 
 use of. There is no one in high authority to check the 
 reform spirit and even local boards are often among the 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 17 
 
 advocates of change. In the third place^ by multiplying 
 studies, the common school course has grown more com- 
 plex and heterogeneous. The old reading, writing, arith- 
 metic and grammar could not be shelved for the sake of 
 the new studies and the same amount of time must be 
 divided now among many branches. It is not to be won- 
 dered at if all the studies are treated in a shallow and 
 fragmentary way. Some of the new studies, especially, 
 are not well taught. There is less of unity in higher 
 education now than there was before the classical studies 
 lost their supremacy. Our common school course has 
 become a batch of miscellanies.' We are iu danger of 
 overloading pupils, as well as of making a superficial 
 hodge-podge of all branches. There is imperative need 
 for sifting the studies according to their value, as well as 
 for bringing them into right connexion and dependence 
 upon one another. Fourthly, since we are in the midst 
 of such a breaking-up period, we need to take our bear- 
 ings. In order to avoid mistakes and excesses there is a 
 call for deep, impartial and many-sided thinking on edu- 
 cational problems. Supposing that we know what the 
 controlling aim of education is, we are next led to inquire 
 about and to determine the relative value of studies as 
 tributary to this aim. 
 
 It is not however our purpose to give an original 
 solution to this problem and to those which follow it. 
 We must decline to attempt a philosophical inquiry into 
 fundamental principles and their origin. Ours is the 
 humbler task of explaining and applying principles al- 
 ready worked out by others, that is, to give the results 
 of Herbartian pedagogy as applied to our schools. 
 
 Instead of discussing the many branches of study 
 one after another, it will be well to make a broad divi- 
 
18 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 sion of them into three classes and observe the marked 
 features and value of each. First, history^ including the 
 subject matter of reading, history'', story and other parts 
 of literature. Second, the natural sciences. Third, the 
 
 formal studies, grammar, writing, much of arithmetic 
 and the symbols used in reading. 
 
 The first two open up the great fields of real knowl- 
 edge and experience, the world of man and of external 
 nature, the two great reservoirs of interesting facts. 
 We will first examine these two fields and consider their 
 value as constituent parts of the school course. 
 
 "^^ History, in our present sense, includes what we usu- 
 ally understand by it, as U. S. history, modern and an- 
 cient history, also biography, tradition, fiction as express- 
 ing human life in the novel or romance, and historical 
 and literary masterpieces of all sorts so far as they 
 delineate man's experience and character. In a still 
 broader sense history includes language as the expression 
 of men's thoughts and feelings. But this is the formal 
 side of history with which we are not at present con- 
 cerned. History deals with men's motives and actions 
 as individuals or in society, with their dispositions, hab- 
 its and institutions, and with the monuments and litera- 
 ture they have left. 
 
 The relations of men to each other and to society give 
 rise to morals. Whether in the life of David or of Shy- 
 lock, or of the people whom they represent, the study 
 of men is primarily a study of morals. It is in the hard- 
 ships, struggles and mutual contact of men that motives 
 and moral impulses are observed and judged. We are 
 chiefly interested to know what qualities of mind and 
 heart, for example, were shown by such men as Bunyan, 
 William the Silent, or John Qiiincy Adams. Although 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 19 
 
 history has many uses, its best influence is in illustrating 
 and inculcating moral ideas. It will strike most teach- 
 ers as a surprise to say that the chief use of history 
 study is to form moral notions in children. We have not 
 so regarded nor used history. It has been generally 
 looked upon as a body of useful information that any 
 intelligent person must possess. But there is no doubt 
 that moral and religious dispositions are the best fruit- 
 age and test of value in men. Important economic, 
 political and social questions also rest in the end upon 
 moral principles. Some of the best historical materials 
 (from biography, tradition and fiction) should be absorbed 
 by children in each grade as an essential part of the sub- 
 stratum of moral ideas. This implies more than a collec- 
 tion of historical stories in a supplementary reader for 
 intermediate grades. It means that history in the broad 
 sense is to be an important study in ev^ry grade and 
 that it shall become a center and reservoir from which 
 reading books and language lessons draw their supplies. 
 These biographies, stories and historical episodes must 
 be the best which cur history and classic literature can 
 furnish and whatever is of like virtue in the life of other 
 kindred peoples, of England, Germany, Greece, etc. 
 
 If history in this sense can be made a strong auxil- 
 iary to moral education in common schools, the whole 
 body of earnest teachers will be gratified. For there is 
 no theme among them of such perennial interest and 
 depth of meaning as moral culture in schools. The ever- 
 recurring, emphatic refrain from them is ^'■the example 
 of the teacher;'' and surely there is no such means of 
 instilling moral ideas as the presence and inspiration of 
 a high-toned teacher. But after all he is only a guide. 
 "He lures to brighter worlds and leads the way." No 
 
30 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 teacher can feel that he embodies in himself, except in a 
 very imperfect way, the strong moral ideas that have 
 made the history of good men worth reading. No mat- 
 ter what resources he may have in his own character, the 
 teacher needs to employ forces which lie outside of him- 
 self, ideals toward which he struggles and toward which 
 he inspires and leads others. In this sense it is a mis- 
 take to center all attention upon the conduct of the 
 teacher. It is better for pupil and teacher to enter into 
 the companionship of common aims and ideals. When 
 these inspirations and aims have gradually changed into 
 tendencies and habits, a child is morally full-fledged. It 
 is, indeed, high ground upon which to land a youth, or 
 aid in landing him, but it is clearly in view. 
 
 The common school age is the formative period. At 
 six a child is morally immature, at fifteen the die has 
 been stamped. This youthful wilderness must be crossed. 
 We can't turn back. There is no other way of reaching 
 the promised land. But there are rebellions and bait- 
 ings and disorderly scenes. 
 
 Isn't there a quicker and easier way? The most 
 speedily constructed road across this region is a short 
 treatise on morals for teacher and pupils. In this way 
 it is possible to have all the virtues and faults tabulated, 
 and labeled and transferred in brief space to the minds 
 of the children. But no such paved road is worth any- 
 thing. We have tried it a dozen times in much less 
 important fields of knowledge than morals. It has been 
 demonstrated, for example, in our high schools during a 
 series of years that botany, chemistry, physics and 
 geology cannot be properly taught by such brief scien- 
 tific compendia of rules and principles. "Words, words, 
 words," as Hamlet said. We cannot learn geography 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 31 
 
 from definitions and map questions, nor morals from 
 catechisms. And just as in the fields of natural science 
 we are resorting perforce to plants, animals and natural 
 phenomena, so in morals we turn to the deeds and lives 
 of men. We must get at moral ideas without moralizing, 
 and drink in moral convictions without resorting to moral 
 platitudes. Educators are losing faith in words, defini- 
 tions and classifications. It is getting to be a truism 
 that one can't learn chemistry and zoology from books 
 alone or chiefly. 
 
 A little reflection will show that we are only demanding 
 object lessons in the field of moral education, extensive, 
 systematic, all-pervading object lessons, choice exper- 
 iences and episodes from human life, painted in natural 
 colors as shown by our best history and literature. To 
 appreciate the virtues and vices, to sympathize with 
 better impulses, we must travel beyond words and defi- 
 nitions till we come in contact with the personal deeds 
 that first give rise to them. To get the impress of kind- 
 ness we must see an act of kindness and feel the glow it 
 produces. When Sir Philip Sidney, wounded on the 
 battle field and suffering with thirst, reached out his 
 hand for the cup of water that was brought, his glance 
 fell upon a dying soldier who viewed the cup with great 
 desire, Sidney handed him the water with the words, 
 "Thy necessity is greater than mine." No one can re- 
 fuse his approval for this act. After telling the story of 
 the man who went down to Jericho, and fell among 
 thieves, and then of the priest, the Levite and the Samar- 
 itan who passed that way, Jesus put the question to 
 his critic, "Who was neighbor to him that fell among 
 thieves ? " And the answer came even from unwilling 
 lips, "He that showed mercy." Such moral judgments 
 —2 
 
22 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 as these spring up naturally and surely when we under- 
 stand clearly the circumstances under which an act was 
 performed. On the other hand it is natural to condemn 
 wro7ig deeds when presented clearly and objectively in 
 the action of another. Nero caused Christians to be 
 falsely accused and then to be condemned to the claws 
 of wild beasts in the arena. When cruelty is practiced 
 against the innocent and helpless we condemn the act. 
 But later the judgment must react upon our own con- 
 duct. When Columbus was thrown into chains instead 
 of being rewarded, we condemn the Spaniards. In such 
 cases it is possible to observe how moral judgments orig- 
 incite and by repetition grow into convictions. In the 
 same way the real world of persons about us, the acts of 
 parents, companions and teachers are powerful in giving 
 a good or bad tone to our sentiments, because, as living 
 object lessons, their impress is directly and constantly 
 upon us. 
 
 But a good share of the influences that are thrown 
 around an ordinary child need to be counteracted. It 
 can be done to a considerable extent by mstruction. 
 Many of the interesting characters of history are better 
 company for us and for children than our neighbors and 
 contemporaries. For the purposes of moral example and 
 inspiration we may select as companions the best 
 persons in history, provided we know how to select for 
 ourselves and others. Their acts are personal, biograph- 
 ical and interesting and appeal at once to children as 
 well as to their elders. The fitting way then to cultivate 
 moral judgments, that is, to form just ideas of right and 
 wrong, of virtues and vices, is by a regular and sys- 
 tematic presentation of persons illustrating noble and 
 ignoble acts. Habits of judgment and of conduct may 
 be thus formed and strong moral convictions established. 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 23 
 
 If this is the proper origin and culture of moral ideas 
 we desire to know how to utilize it in the common school 
 course. It can only be done by an extensive use of his- 
 torical and literary materials in all grades with the con- 
 scious purpose of shaping moral ideas and character. 
 That the school has such influence at its disposal can not 
 be reasonably denied by any one who believes that the 
 family or the church can affect the moral character of 
 their children. It may be objected that the school thus 
 takes up the proper work of the home, when it ought to 
 be occupied with other things. Would that the homes 
 were all good! But even if they were the teacher could 
 not fold his arms over a responsibility removed. As soon 
 as a boy enters school, if not sooner, he begins, in some 
 sense, to outgrow the home. New influences and inter- 
 ests find a lodgment in his affections. Companions, the 
 wider range of his acquaintances, studies and ambitions 
 share now with the home. John Locke objected radi- 
 cally to English Public Schools on this account. But 
 even if we desired, we could not resort to private tutors 
 as Locke did. The child is growing and changing. Who 
 shall organize unity out of this maze of thoughts, inter- 
 ests and influences, casting out the useless and bad, com- 
 bining and strengthening the good? The more service the 
 home renders the better. The child's range of thought 
 and ambition is expanding, who has the best survey of 
 the field? In many cases at least, the teacher, especially 
 where parents lack the culture and the children need a 
 guide. Who spends six hours a day directing these cur- 
 rents of thought and interest ? We are not disposed to 
 underestimate the magnitude of the task here laid upon 
 the teacher. The rights and duties of the home are not 
 put in question. Indeed the spirit of this kind of teach- 
 
24 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 ing is best illustrated in a good home. A teacher who 
 has a father's anxiety in the real welfare of children will 
 not forget his duty in watching their moral growth. 
 The moral atmosphere of a good home will remain the 
 ideal for the school. In fact Herbart's plan of education 
 originated not in a school room, but in an excellent home 
 in Switzerland, where he spent three years in the private 
 instruction of three boys. The conscientious zeal with 
 which he devoted himself to the moral and mental growth 
 of these children is a model for teachers. The shaping 
 of three characters was, according to his view, en- 
 trusted to him. The common notion of intellectual growth 
 and strength which rules in such cases was at once sub- 
 ordinated to character development in the moral sense. 
 Not that the two ideas are at all antagonistic but one is 
 more important than the other. The selection of reading 
 matter, of studies and of employments was adapted to 
 each boy with a view to influencing conduct and moral 
 action. 
 
 The Herbart school adheres to this view of education, 
 and has transferred its S2nrit and 7nethod to the schools. 
 The Herbartians have the hardihood, in this age of moral 
 skeptics, to believe not only in moral example but also in 
 moral teaching. (By moral skeptics we mean those who 
 believe in morals but not in moral instruction.) They 
 seek first of all historical materials of the richest moral 
 content, in vivid personification, upon which to nourish 
 the moral spirit of children. If properly treated this 
 subject matter will soon win the children by its power 
 over feeling and judgment. With Crusoe the child goes 
 through every hardship and success; with Abraham he 
 lives in tents, seeks pastures for his flocks, and gener- 
 ously marches out to the rescue of his kinsmen. He 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 35 
 
 should not read Csesar with a slow and toilsome drag 
 (parsing and construing) that w^ould render a bright boy 
 stupid. If he goes with Caesar at all, he must build an 
 agger^ fight battles, construct bridges and approve or 
 condemn Caesar's acts. But we doubt the moral value of 
 Caesar's Gallic wars. By reading Plutarch we may see 
 that the Latins and Greeks, before the days of their 
 degeneracy, nourished their rising youth upon the tra- 
 ditions of their ancestry. This education produced a 
 tough and sinewy brood of moral qualities. Their great 
 men were great characters, largely because of the mother- 
 milk of national tradition and family training. In Scotch, 
 English and German history we are familiar with Alfred, 
 Bruce, Siegfried and many other heroes of similar value 
 in the training of youth. 
 
 It will be well for us to look into our own history and 
 see what sort of a moral heritage of educative materials 
 it has left us. What notable examples does it furnish of 
 right thought and action? Have we any home-bred food 
 like this for the nourishment of our growing youth? Our 
 native American history is indeed nobler in tone and more 
 abundant. For moral educative purposes in the training 
 of the young the history of America, from the early ex- 
 plorations and settlements along the Atlantic coast, to 
 the present, has scarcely a parallel in history. It was a 
 race of moral heroes that led the first colonies to many of 
 the early settlements. Winthrop, Penn, Williams, Ogle- 
 thorpe, Raleigh and Columbus were great and simple 
 characters, deeply moral and practical. For culture pur- 
 poses, where can their equals be found? And where was 
 given a better opportunity for the display of personal 
 virtues than by the leaders of these little danger-encir- 
 cled communities? The leaven of purity, piety and manly 
 
36 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 independence which they brought with them and illus- 
 trated has never ceased to work powerfully among our 
 people. Why not bring the children into direct contact 
 with these characters in the intermediate grades, not by 
 short and sketchy stories, but by full life pictures of these 
 men and their surroundings? We have not been wholly 
 lacking in literary artists who have worked up a part of 
 these materials into a more durable and acceptable form 
 for our schools. We need to make an abundant use of 
 this and other history for our boys and girls, not by 
 devoting a year in the upper grades to a barren outline 
 of American annals, but by a proper distribution of these 
 and other similar rich treasures throughout the grades of 
 the common school. 
 
 Tradition and fiction are scarcely less valuable than 
 biography and history because of their vivid portrayal of 
 strong and typical characters. Our own literature and 
 the world's literature at large are a store-house well- 
 stocked with moral educative materials, properly suited 
 to children at different ages, if only sorted, selected and 
 arranged. But this requires broad knowledge of our best 
 literature and clear insight into child character at dif- 
 ferent ages. This problem will not be solved in a day, 
 nor in a life-time. 
 
 In making a progressive series of our best historical 
 and literary products, it is necessary to select those 
 materials which are better adapted than anything else to 
 interest, influence and mould the character of children at 
 each time of life. It is now generally agreed by the best 
 teachers that these selections shall be classical master- 
 pieces, not in fragments but as wholes. They should be 
 those classical materials that bear the stamp of genuine 
 nobility. Goethe says " The best is good eriough for chil- 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 27 
 
 dren.'' For some years past in our grammar grades we 
 have been using some of the best selections of Whittier, 
 Longfellow, Bryant, and others, and we are not even 
 frightened by the length of such productions as Evan- 
 geline, The Lady of the Lake or Julius Caesar. A simple, 
 adapted version of Robinson Crusoe is used in some 
 schools as a second reader. From time immemorial choice 
 selections of prose and verse have formed the staple of 
 our readers above the third. But generally these selec- 
 tions are scrappy or fragmentary. Few of the great 
 masterpieces have been used because most of them are 
 supposed to be too long. Broken fragments of our choice 
 literary products have been served up, but the best liter- 
 ary works as wholes have never been given to the chil- 
 dren in the schools. The G-reek youth were better served 
 with the Iliad and Odyssea, and some of our grandfathers 
 with the tales of the Old Testament. We now go still 
 farther back in the child-life and make use of fairy tales 
 in the first grade. But many are not yet able to realize 
 that select fairy stories are genuinely classical, that they 
 are as well adapted to stimulate the minds of children as 
 Hamlet the minds of adults. 
 
 The chief aim of our schools all along has not been 
 an appreciation of literary masterpieces either in their 
 moral or art value, but to acquire skill in reading, flu- 
 ency and naturalness of expression. Our schools have 
 been almost completely absorbed in the purely formal 
 use of our literary materials, learning to read in the ear- 
 lier grades, and learning to read with rhetopical expres- 
 sion and confidence in the later ones. In the present 
 argument our chief concern is not with the formal use of 
 literary materials for practice in reading, but with the 
 moral culture, conviction and habit of life they may fos- 
 
28 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 ter. Nor have we chiefly in view the art side of our best 
 literary pieces. Appreciation of beauty in poetry and 
 of strength in prose, admirable as they may be, are quite 
 secondary to the main purpose. Coming in direct and 
 vivid contact with manly deeds or with unselfish acts as 
 personified in choice biography, history, fiction and real 
 life will inspire children with thoughts that make life 
 worth living. Neither formal skill in reading nor appre- 
 ciation of literary art can atone for the lack of direct 
 moral incentive which historical studies should give. All 
 three ends should be reached. 
 
 Many teachers are now calling for a change in the 
 spirit with which the best biography and literature are 
 used. They call for an improvement in the quality and 
 an increase in the quantity of complete historical epi- 
 sodes and of literary masterpieces. An appreciative 
 reading of Ivanhoe revives the spirit of that age. The 
 life of Samuel Adams is an epic that gives the youth a 
 chance to live amid the stirring scenes of Boston in a 
 notable time. Children are to live in thought and inter- 
 est the lives of many men of other generations, as of 
 Tell, Columbus, Livingstone, Lincoln, Penn, Franklin, 
 Fulton. They are to partake of the experiences of the best 
 typical men in the story of our own and of other countries. 
 
 The use of the best historical and literary works as a 
 means of strengthening moral motives and principles 
 with children, whose minds and characters are develop- 
 ing, is a high aim in itself. And it will add interest and 
 life to the formal studies, such as reading, spelling, 
 grammar and composition which spring out of this valu- 
 able subject-matter. 
 
 History, in the broad sense, should be the chief con- 
 stituent of a child's education. That subject-matter 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 29 
 
 which contains the essence of moral culture in generative 
 form deserves to constitute the chief mental food of 
 young people. The conviction of the high moral value 
 of historic subjects and of their peculiar adaptability to 
 children at different ages, brings us to a positive judg- 
 ment as to their relative value among studies. The first 
 question, preliminary to all others in the common school 
 course, "What is the most important study?" is an- 
 swered by putting history at the head of the list. 
 
 Natural science takes the second place. In many 
 respects it is co-ordinate with history. The object-world, 
 which is so interesting, so informing, and so intimately 
 interwoven with the needs, labors and progress of men, 
 furnishes the second great constituent of education for 
 all children. Botany, zoology and the other natural sci- 
 ences, taken as a unit, constitute the field of nature 
 apart from man. They furnish us an understanding of 
 the varied objects and complex phenomena of nature. It 
 is one of the imperative needs of all human minds, that 
 have retained their childlike thoughtfulness and spirit of 
 inquiry, to desire to understand nature, to classify the 
 variety of objects and appearances, to trace the chain of 
 causes and to search out the simple laws of nature's 
 operations. The command early came to men to subdue 
 the earth, and we understand better than primitive man 
 that it is subdued through investigation and study. All 
 the forces and bounties of nature are to be made service- 
 able to us and it can only be done by understanding her 
 facts and laws. The road to mastery leads through 
 patient observation, experiment and study. 
 
 But we are concerned with the educational value of 
 the natural sciences. Waitz says : ' 'A correct philosophy 
 of the world and of life is possible to a person only on 
 
30 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 the basis of a knowledge of one's self and of one's rela- 
 tion to surrounding nature." Diesterweg says: "No 
 one can afford to neglect a knowledge of nature who 
 desires to get a comprehension of the world and of God 
 according to human possibility, or who desires to find his 
 proper relation to Him and to real things. He who 
 knows nothing of human history is an ignoramus, like- 
 wise he who knows nothing of natural science. To know 
 nothing of either is a pure shame. Ignorance of nature 
 is an unpardonable perversion." Kraepelin speaks as 
 follows: "Instruction should open up to a pupil an under- 
 standing of the present, and thereby furnish a basis for 
 a frank and many-sided philosophy of life, resting upon 
 reality. But to the present belongs the world outside of 
 us. Of this present there can be no such thing as an 
 understanding unless it relates not only to inter-human 
 relations but also to relations of man to animal, of ani- 
 mal to plant, and of organic life to inorganic life. The 
 necessity of assuming a relation to our environment is 
 unavoidable and this can only be done by acquainting 
 ourselves with the surrounding world in every direction. 
 This requirement would remain in force though man, 
 like a god, were set above nature and her laws. But 
 man lives, acts and dies not outside of, but within the 
 circle of nature's laws. This maxim is axiomatic and 
 contains the final judgment against those who claim that 
 a comprehensive but unified philosophy of life is possible 
 without a knowledge of nature. " Herbart says: "Here 
 (in nature) lies the abode of real truth, which does not 
 retreat before tests into an inaccessible past (as does his- 
 tory). This genuinely empirical character distinguishes 
 the natural sciences and makes their loss irretrievable. 
 It is here (iti nature) that the object disentangles itself 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 31 
 
 from all fancies aud opinions and constantly stimulates 
 the spirit of observation. Here then is found an obstruc- 
 tion to extravagant thinking such as the sciences them- 
 selves could not better devise." Ziller says: "The 
 natural sciences are necessary in education because from 
 the province of nature (as well as from history) are 
 derived those means and resources which are necessary 
 to accomplish the purposes of the will in action. Means 
 and forces are the natural conditions for the realization 
 of aims. Without knowledge of and an intelligent 
 power over nature it is difficult to realize that certain 
 aims are possible; action cannot be successful; will effort 
 based upon the firm conviction of ability, that is, judi- 
 cious exercise of will, is impossible." We quote also 
 from Professor Rein: "Let us observe in passing that in 
 the great industrial contest between civilized nations, 
 that people will suffer defeat which falls behind in the 
 culture of natural science, and for this reason the motive 
 of self-protection would demand natural science instruc- 
 tion. In favor of this teaching the claim is further made 
 that no science is so well adapted to train the mind to 
 inductive thought processes as that which rests entirely 
 upon induction, and that natural science study is in a 
 position to resist more easily and successfully than all 
 other studies, the deeply-rooted tendency in all branches 
 to substitute words for ideas." Rein (das vierte Schul- 
 jahr) explains further the leading ideas and standpoints 
 as they have appeared historically among teachers of sci- 
 ence in the common school. 
 
 1. Natural history stories for entertainment. 
 
 2. Utility, or the study of the things in nature that 
 are directly useful or hurtful to man. 
 
 3. Description of natural objects, training of sense- 
 perception, etc. 
 
32 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 4, Analysis and determination of natural science 
 specimens. 
 
 5. System-making, or the reduction of all things in 
 nature to a systematic whole, with a place for every- 
 thing. 
 
 All these are considered as valuable subsidiary aims, 
 leading up to the central purpose of the study of natural 
 sciences which is, ''An understanding of life and of the 
 powers and of the unity which express themselves in 
 nature," or as Kraepelin says: "Nature should not 
 appear to man as an inextricable chaos but as a well- 
 ordered mechanism, the parts fitting exactly to each 
 other, controlled by unchanging laws and in perpetual 
 action and production." Humboldt is further quoted: 
 "Nature to the mature mind is unity in variety, unity of 
 the manifold in form and combination, the content or 
 sum total of natural things and natural forces as a living 
 whole. The weightiest result, therefore, of deep physi- 
 cal study is, by beginning with the individual, to grasp 
 all that the discoveries of recent times reveal to us, to 
 separate single things critically and yet not be overcome 
 by the mass of details, mindful of the high destiny of 
 man, to comprehend the mind of nature, which lies con- 
 cealed under the mantle of phenomena." This sounds 
 visionary and impracticable for children of the common 
 school, especially when we know that much lower aims 
 have not been successfully reached. In fact it cannot be 
 said that the natural sciences have any recognized stand- 
 ing in the common school course. But it is worth the 
 while to inquire whether natural sciences will ever be 
 taught as they should be until the best attainable aims 
 become the dominant principles for guiding teachers. 
 Stripped of its rhetoric the above mentioned aim, "an 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 33 
 
 understanding of life and the unity in nature" may prove 
 a practical and inspiring guide to the teacher. It may 
 also bring into relation to this higher purpose all the 
 other aims of science teaching. It certainly can not dis- 
 pense with any of the five historically developed aims 
 above described. They are in the main essential elements 
 of a complete natural science course for children. 
 
 But in addition to these the purpose of discovering 
 the life and unity in nature has other equally important 
 means of self-realization at its disposal. The causal rela- 
 tions in nature are wonderfully stimulating to one who has 
 begun to trace them out. The study of plants and ani- 
 mals in their adaptation to environment, of the relation 
 between organ and function, between organs, mode of 
 life and environment, leads up to a general law which 
 applies to all plants and animals. The law of adaptation 
 is similarly developed. Also the law of growth and 
 development from the simple germ to the mature life 
 form. These laws and others in biology, if developed on 
 concrete specimens, give much insight into the whole 
 realm of nature, more stimulating by far than that based 
 on scientific classifications, as orders, families and species. 
 The great and simple outlines of nature's work begin to 
 appear out of such laws. 
 
 Again the study of the whole life historij of a plant or 
 animal, in its relations to the inorganic world and to 
 other plants and animals, is always a cross-section in the 
 sciences and shows how all the natural sciences are knit 
 together into a causal unity. Take the life history of a 
 hickory tree. As it germinates and grows from the seed 
 how it draws from the earth and air; the effect of storms, 
 seasons and lightning upon it, how it later furnishes 
 nuts to the squirrels and boys; its branches may be the 
 
34 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 nesting place for birds and its bark for insects. Finally 
 the uses of its tough wood for man are seen. The life of 
 a squirrel or of a honey-bee furnishes also a cross-section 
 through all the sciences from the inorganic world up to 
 man. 
 
 In nature as it shows itself in the woods or in the 
 pond, there is such a mingling and interdependence of 
 the natural sciences upon each other that the book of 
 nature seems totally different from books of botany, 
 physics and zoology as made by men. In the forest we 
 find close together trees of many kinds, shrubs, flower- 
 ing plants, vines, mosses and ferns, grasses, beetles, 
 worms and birds, squirrels, owls and sunshine, rocks, 
 soil and springs, summer and winter, storms, frost and 
 drouth. Plants depend upon the soil and upon each 
 other. The birds and squirrels find their home and food 
 among the trees and plants. The trees seem to grow 
 together as if they needed each other's companionship. 
 All the plants and animals depend upon the soil, air and 
 climate, and the whole wood changes its garb and partly 
 its guests with the seasons. A forest is a life society^ 
 consisting of mutually dependent parts. How nature dis- 
 regards our conventional distinctions between the natural 
 sciences! We need no better proof than this that they 
 should not be taught chiefly from books. A child might 
 learn a myriad of things in the woods and gain much 
 insight into nature's ways without making any clear dis- 
 tinction between botany, zoology and geology. Herein 
 is also the proof that text-books are needed as a guide in 
 nature's labyrinth. If the frequency and intimacy of 
 mutual relations are any proof of unity, the natural sci- 
 ences are a unit and have a right to be called by one 
 name, nature study. 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 35 
 
 It is plain therefore that the lines tending toward 
 unity in nature study are numerous and strong ; such as 
 the scientific classifications of our text-books, the work- 
 ing out of general laws whether in biology or physics, 
 the study of life histories in vegetable and animal, and 
 the observation of life societies in the close mutual rela- 
 tions of the different parts or individuals. 
 
 If a course of nature studies is begun in the first grade 
 and carried systematically through all the years up to the 
 eighth grade, it is not unreasonable to suppose that real 
 insight into nature, based on observation taken at first 
 hand, may be reached. It will involve a study of living 
 plants and animals, minerals, physical apparatus and 
 devices, chemical experiments, the making of collections, 
 regular excursions for the observation of the neighboring 
 fields, forests and streams, and the working over of these 
 and other concrete experiences from all sources through 
 skillful class teaching. 
 
 The first great result to a child of such a series of 
 studies is an intelligent and rational understanding of his 
 home, the world, his natural environment. He will have 
 a seeing eye and an appreciative mind for the thousand 
 things surrounding his daily life where the ignorant toiler 
 sees and understands nothing. 
 
 A second advantage which we can only hint at, while 
 incidental, is almost equally important. We have been 
 considering nature chiefly as a realm by itself, apart 
 from man. But the utilities of natural science in indi- 
 vidual life and in society are so manifold that we accept 
 many of the finest products of skill and art as if they 
 were natural products — as if gold coins, silk dresses and 
 fine pictures grew on the bushes and only waited to be 
 picked. The thousandfold applications of natural science 
 
36 , GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 to human industry and comfort deserve to be perceived 
 as the result of labor and inventwe skill. Our much- 
 lauded steam engines, telegraph, microscopes, sewing 
 machines, reapers, iron ships and printing presses, are 
 not examples of a few, but of myriads of things that 
 natural science has secured. But how many children on 
 leaving the common school understand the principle in- 
 volved in any one of the machines mentioned, subjects of 
 common talk as they are? As children leave the schools at 
 fourteen or fifteen they should know and appreciate many 
 such things, wherein man, by his wit and ingenious use 
 of nature's forces, has triumphed over difficulties. How 
 are glass and soap made? What has a knowledge of 
 natural science to do with the construction of stoves, 
 furnaces and lamps? How are iron, silver and copper 
 ore mined and reduced? How is sugar obtained from 
 maple trees, cane and beet root? How does a suction 
 pump work and why? Without a knowledge of such 
 applications of natural science we should be thrown back 
 into barbarism. These things also, since they form such 
 an important part of every child's environment, should 
 be understood, but not for direct utility. 
 
 Our knowledge of these principles and appliances con- 
 stitutes in fact a good share of the foundation upon which 
 our whole culture status rests. Without natural science 
 we should understand neither nature nor society. 
 
 Historically considered, the study of natural science 
 is the study of man's long-continued struggle with nature 
 and of his gradual triumph. It ends in insight into 
 nature and into those contrivances of men by which her 
 laws and forces are utilized. The whole subject of nature, 
 her laws and powers, must not remain a sealed book to 
 the masses of the people. Scientists, inventors and 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 37 
 
 scholars may lead the way but they are only pioneers. 
 The thousands of the children of the people are treading 
 at their heels and must be initiated into the mysteries. 
 But the question that confronts us at every turn is, 
 What is the disciplinary value of nature study? We 
 know, say the opponents, what a vigorous training in 
 ancient languages and mathematics can do for a student. 
 What results in this direction can the natural sciences 
 tabulate? The champions of natural science point with 
 pride to the great men who have been trained and devel- 
 oped in such studies. For inductive thinking the natural 
 sciences offer the best materials. To cultivate self-reli- 
 ance there is nothing like turning a student loose in 
 nature under a skilled instructor. The spirit of investi- 
 gation and of accurate thinking is claimed as a peculiar 
 product of nature study. It is called, par excellence, 
 "the scientific spirit." The undue reverence for au- 
 thority produced by literary studies is not a weakness of 
 natural science pursuits. But intense interest and devo- 
 tion are combined with scientific accuracy and fidelity to 
 nature and her laws. 
 
 We do not feel called upon to attempt a settlement of 
 this dispute. We have already assumed that history in 
 the broad sense (including languages) and natural science 
 (or nature study) are the two great staples of the com- 
 mon school course, and that so far as discipline is con- 
 cerned one is as important as the other. But we believe 
 that those educators whose first, middle and last question 
 in education is, "What is the disciplinary value of a 
 study?" have mistaken the primary problem of educa- 
 tion. Just as in the proper training of the body, the 
 strength and skill of a professional athlete are, in no sense, 
 the true aim, but physical soundness, health and vigor; so 
 
 —3 
 
38 (GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 in mind culture, not extraordinary skill in mental gymnas- 
 tics of the severest sort, is the essential aim, but mental 
 soundness, integrity and motive. The underlying ques- 
 tion in education is not, How strong or incisive is his 
 mind? (This depends largely upon heredity and native 
 endowment) but, What is its quality and its temper? 
 If might is right, then mental strength is to be gained 
 at all hazards. But if right is higher than might, then 
 mental skill and power are only secondary aims. So 
 long as we are dealing with fundamental aims in such a 
 serious business as education, why stop short of that 
 ideal which is manifestly the best? We have no contro- 
 versy with the highest mental discipline and strength 
 that are consistent with all-round mental soundness. 
 Our better teachers are not lacking in appreciation for 
 the value of what is called formal mental discipline^ but 
 they do generally lack faith in the innate power of the 
 best studies to arouse interest and mental life. They 
 emphasize the drill more than the content and the inspira- 
 tion of the author. Both in theory and in practice they 
 are greatly lacking in the intellectual sympathy and 
 moral power which result from bringing the minds of 
 students into direct contact with the noblest products of 
 God's work in history and in the object world. Here we 
 can put our finger on the radical weakness of our school 
 work. 
 
 The really soul-inspiring teachers have not been 
 formalists nor drill masters alone. Friedrich August 
 Wolf, for example, the great German philologist, was 
 probably the most inspiring teacher of classical lan- 
 guages that Germany has had. But to what was his 
 remarkable influence as a teacher of young men due? 
 We usually think of a philologist as one who digs among 
 
THE RELATIVE VATATE. 39 
 
 the roots of dead languages, who worships the forms of 
 speech and the laws of grammar. Doubtless he and his 
 pupils were much taken up with these things, but they 
 were not the primary source of his and their interest. 
 Wolf defined philology as "the knowledge of human 
 nature as exhibited in antiquity." He studied with great 
 avidity everything that could throw light upon the lives, 
 character and language of the ancients. Their biogra- 
 phies, histories, geography, climate, dress, implements, 
 their sculpture, monuments, buildings, tombs. Ap- 
 proaching the literature and language of the G-reeks with 
 this abundant knowledge of their real surroundings and 
 conditions of life, he saw the deeper, fuller significance 
 of every classical author and the great literary master- 
 pieces we perceived as the expression of the national life. 
 He appreciated language as the wonderful medium 
 through which the more wonderful life of the versatile 
 Greek expressed itself. The reason he was such a great 
 philologist was because he was so great a realist, a man 
 who was intensely interested in the Greek people, their 
 history and life. Words alone had little charm for him. 
 No great teacher has been simply a word-monger. 
 
 For the present we leave the question of discipline 
 unanswered, though we are disposed to think that those 
 studies which introduce children to the two great fields 
 of real knowledge and which arouse a strong desire to 
 solve the problems found there will also furnish the most 
 valuable discipline. 
 
 Not only the specialists in natural science, whose 
 interest and enthusiasm are largely absorbed in these 
 studies, but many other energetic teachers are persuaded 
 that the culture value of nature studies is on a par with 
 that of historical studies. But on account of the present 
 
40 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 lack of system and of clear purpose in natural science 
 teachers the first great problem in this field of common 
 school effort is to select the material and perfect the 
 method of studying nature with children. 
 
 Our estimate of the value of natural science for cult- 
 ure and for discipline is confirmed by the opinion of edu- 
 cational reformers and by the changes and progress in 
 schools. An inquiry into the history of education in 
 Europe and in America since the Reformation will show 
 that the movement toward nature study has been accumu- 
 lating momentum for more than three hundred years. In 
 spite of the failure of such men as Comenius, Ratich, 
 Basedow and Rousseau to secure the introduction of 
 these studies in a liberal degree, in spite of the enor- 
 mous influence of custom and prejudice in favor of Latin 
 and other traditional studies, the natural sciences have 
 made recently such surprising advances and have so pene- 
 trated and transformed our modern life that we are 
 simply compelled, even in the common school, to take 
 heed of these great, living educational forces already at 
 work. 
 
 The universities of England and of the United States 
 have been largely transformed within the last forty years 
 by the introduction, on a grand scale, of modern studies, 
 particularly of the natural sciences. The fitting schools, 
 academies and high schools have had no choice but to fol- 
 low this lead. Since the forces that produced this result 
 in higher education sprang up largely outside' of our 
 institutions of learning, the movement is not likely to 
 cease till the common school has been changed in the 
 same way. The educational question of the future is not 
 whether historical or natural science or formal studies 
 are to monopolize the school course, but rather how these 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 41 
 
 three indispensable elements of every child's education 
 may be best harmonized and wrought into a unit. 
 
 "We are now in a position to give a concluding esti- 
 mate upon the relative value of these three elements in 
 school education. History contributes the materials 
 from which motives and moral impulses spring. It cul- 
 tivates and strengthens moral convictions by the use of 
 inspiring examples. The character of each child should 
 be drawn into harmony with the highest impulses that 
 men have felt. A desire to be the author of good to 
 others should be developed into a practical ruling motive. 
 Natural science on the other hand supplies a knowledge 
 of the ordinary means and appliances by which the pur- 
 poses of life are realized. It gives us proper insight 
 into the conditions of life and puts us into intelligent 
 relation to our environment. Not only must a child be 
 supplied with the necessaries of life but he must appreci- 
 ate the needs of health and understand the economies of 
 society, such as the necessity of mental and manual 
 labor, the right use of the products and forces of nature, 
 and the advantage of men's inventions and devices. In 
 a plan of popular education these two culture elements 
 should mingle (history and natural science). In the 
 case of all sorts of people in society the ability to exe- 
 cute high moral purposes depends largely upon a ready, 
 practical insight into natural conditions. We are not 
 thinking of the bread-and-butter phase of life and of the 
 aid afforded by the sciences in making a living, but of 
 the all-round, practical utility of natural science as a 
 necessary supplement to moral training. 
 
 One of the best tests of a system of education is the 
 preparation it gives for life in a liberal sense. When a 
 child, leaving school behind, developes into a citizen, 
 
42 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 what tests are applied to him? The questions submitted 
 to his judgment in his relations to the family and to 
 society call for a quick and varied knowledge of men, 
 insight into character, and for a large amount of prac- 
 tical information of natural science. He is asked to vote 
 intelligently on social, political, sanitary and economic 
 questions, to judge of men's motives, opinions and char- 
 acter, to vote upon or perhaps to direct the management 
 of poor-houses, asylums and penitentiaries, in towns to 
 decide questions of drainage, police, water supply, public 
 health and school administration, to make contracts for 
 public buildings, and bridges, to grant licenses, and fran- 
 chises, to serve on juries or as representatives of the 
 people. These are not professional matters alone, they 
 are the common duties of all citizens of a sound mind. 
 These things each person should know how to judge, 
 whether he be a blacksmith, a merchant or a house- 
 keeper. In all such matters he must be not only a 
 judge of others but an actor under the guidance of right 
 motives and information. Again, in the bringing up of 
 children, in the domestic arrangements of every home 
 and in a proper care for the minds and bodies of both 
 parents and children a multitude of practical problems 
 from each of the great fields of real knowledge must be 
 met and solved. 
 
 A medical missionary illustrates this combination of 
 historical and natural science elements. His life purpose 
 is drawn from history, from the life of Christ and from 
 the traditional incentives of the church. The means by 
 which he is to make himself practically felt are obtained 
 from his study of medicine and from the sciences upon 
 which it depends. These elements form the basis of his 
 influence. This illustration however savors of profes- 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 43 
 
 sional rather than of general education, and we are con- 
 cerned only with the latter. But the education of every 
 child is analogous to that of the medical missionary in its 
 two constituent elements. 
 
 As a matter of fact neither history nor natural science 
 occupies any such prominence in the school course as we 
 have judged fitting. Much thoughtful study, experience 
 in teaching and pioneer labor in partially new fields will 
 be necessary in order to bring into existence such a course 
 of study based upon the best materials. Many teachers 
 already recognize the necessity for it and see before them 
 a land of plenty as compared with the half-desert barren- 
 ness revealed in our present school course. 
 
 Two powerful convictions in the minds of those re- 
 sponsible for education have contributed to produce this 
 desert-like condition in children's school employments, 
 and this brings us to a discussion of the over-estimation 
 in which purely formal studies are held. The first article 
 of faith rests upon the unshaken belief in the practical 
 studies^ reading, writing and arithmetic. They are still 
 looked upon as a barrier that must be scaled before the 
 real work of education can begin. Learn to read, write 
 and figure and then the world of knowledge as well as of 
 business is at your command. But many children find 
 the barrier so difficult to scale that they really never get 
 into the fields of knowledge. Many of our most thorough 
 going educators still firmly believe that a child can not 
 learn anything worth mentioning till he has first learned 
 to read. But however deeply rooted this confidence in 
 the purely formal work of the early school years may be, 
 it must break down as soon as means are devised for 
 putting the realities of interesting knowledge before and 
 underneath all the forms of expression. Let the neces- 
 
44 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 sity for expression spring from the real objects of study. 
 Those children to whom the memorizing and drill upon 
 forms of expression becomes tedious deserve our sym- 
 pathy. There is a kind of knowledge adapted to arouse 
 these dull ones to their full capacity of interest. "Or 
 what man is there of you whom if his son ask bread will 
 he give him a stone?" With many a child the first reader, 
 the arithmetic or the grammar becomes a veritable stone. 
 There is no good reason why the sole burden of work in 
 early school grades should rest upon the learning of the 
 pure formalities of knowledge. Children's minds are not 
 adapted to an exclusive diet of this kind. The fact that 
 children have good memories is no reason why their 
 minds should be gorged with the dryest memory mater- 
 ials. They have a healthy interest in people, whether in 
 life or in story, and in the objects in nature around them. 
 What is thus pre-eminently true of the primary grades is 
 true to a large extent throughout all the grades of the 
 common school. It seems almost curious that the more 
 tender the plants the more barren and inhospitable the 
 soil upon which they are expected to grow. Fortunately 
 these little ones have such an exuberance of life that it is 
 not easily quenched. Formal knowledge stands first in 
 our common school course and real studies are allowed to 
 pick up such crumbs of comfort as may chance to fall. 
 We believe in formal studies and in their complete mastery 
 in the common school, but they should stand in the place 
 of service to real studies. How powerful the tendency 
 has been and still is toward pure formal drill and word 
 memory is apparent from the fact that even geography 
 and history, which are not at all formal studies, but full 
 to overflowing with interesting facts and laws, have been 
 reduced to a dry memorizing of words, phrases and stereo- 
 typed sentences. 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 45 
 
 It is not difficult to understand why the numerous body 
 of teachers, who easily drift into mechanical methods, has 
 a preference for formal studies. They are comparatively 
 easy and humdrum and keeps pupils busy. Real studies, 
 if taught with any sort of fitness, require energy, interest 
 and versatility, besides much outside work in preparing 
 materials. 
 
 The second article of faith is a still stronger one. The 
 better class of energetic teachers would never have been 
 won over to formal studies on purely utilitarian grounds. 
 A second conviction weighs heavily in their minds. " The 
 discipline of the mental faculties'' is a talisman of unusual 
 potency with them. They prize arithmetic and grammar 
 more for this than for any direct practical value. The 
 idea of mental discipline, of training the faculties, is so 
 ingrained into all our educational thinking that it crops 
 out in a hundred ways and holds our courses of study in 
 the beaten track of formal training with a steadiness that 
 is astonishing. These friends believe that we are taking 
 the back-bone out of education by making it interesting. 
 The culmination of this educational doctrine is reached 
 when it is said that the most valuable thing learned in 
 school or out of it is to do and to do vigorously that which 
 is most disagreeable. The training of the will to meet 
 difficulties unffinchingly is their aim, and we can not gain- 
 say it. These stalwart apostles of educational hardship 
 and difficulty are in constant fear lest we shall make 
 studies interesting and attractive and thus undermine 
 the energy of the will. But the question at once arises: 
 Does not the will always act from motives of some sort? 
 And is there any motive or incentive so stimulating to 
 the will as a steady and constantly increasing interest in 
 studies? It is able to surmount great difficulties. 
 
46 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 We wish to assure our stalwart friends that we still 
 adhere to the good old doctrine that "there is no royal 
 road to learning." There is no way of putting aside the 
 real difficulties that are found in every study, no way of 
 grading up the valleys and tunneling through the hills so 
 as to get the even monotony of a railroad track through 
 the rough or mountainous parts of education. Every 
 child must meet and master the difficulties of learning 
 for himself. There are no palace cars with reclining chairs 
 to carry him to the summit of real difficulties. The char- 
 acter-developing power that lies in the mastery of hard 
 tasks constitutes one of their chief merits. Accepting 
 this as a fundamental truth in education, the problem 
 for our solution is, how to stimulate children to encounter 
 difficulties. Many children have little inclination to sac- 
 rifice their ease to the cause of learning, and our dull 
 methods of teaching confirm them in their indifference 
 to educational incentives. Any child, who, like Hugh 
 Miller or Abraham Lincoln, already possesses an insati- 
 able thirst for knowledge, will allow no difficulties or 
 hardships to stand in the way of progress. This original 
 appetite and thirst for knowledge which the select few 
 have often manifested in childhood is more valuable than 
 anything the schools can give. With the majority of 
 children we can certainly do nothing better than to nur- 
 ture such a taste for knowledge into vigorous life. It 
 will not do to assume that the average of children have 
 any such original energy or momentum to lead them to 
 scale the heights of even ordinary knowledge. Nor will 
 it do to rely too much upon a forcing process^ that is, by 
 means of threats, severity and discipline, to carry chil- 
 dren against their will toward the educational goal. 
 
THE RELATIVE VALUE. 47 
 
 "Be not like dumb driven cattle, 
 Be a hero in the strife " 
 
 is sound educational doctrine. 
 
 The tiling for teachers to do is to cultivate in children 
 all healthy appetites for knowledge, to set up interesting 
 aims and desires at every step, to lead the approach to 
 different fields of knowledge in the spirit of conquest. 
 
 In the business world and in professional life men and 
 womien work with abundant energy and will because they 
 have desirable ends in view. The hireling knows no such 
 o;enerous stimulus. Business life is full of irksome and 
 difficult tasks but the aim in view^ carries people through 
 them. We shall not eliminate the disagreeable and irk- 
 some from school tasks but try to create in children such 
 a spirit and ambition as will lead to greater exertions. 
 To implant vigorous aims and incentives in children is the 
 great privilege of the teacher. We shall some day learn 
 that when a boy cracks a nut he does so because there may 
 be a kernel in it, not because the shell is hard. 
 
 In concluding the discussion of relative values we will 
 summarize the results. 
 
 History in- the liberal sense surveys the field of human 
 life in its typical forms and furnishes the best illustrative 
 moral materials. Nature study opens the door to the real 
 world in all its beauty, variety and law. The formal 
 studies constitute an indispensable part of useful and dis- 
 ciplinary knowledge, but they should occupy a secondary 
 place in courses of study because they deal with the /brm 
 rather than with the content of the sciences. It is a 
 fundamental error to place formal studies in the centre 
 of the school course and to subordinate everything to 
 their mastery. History and natural science, on the con- 
 trary, having the richest knowledge content, constitute 
 
48 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 a natural centre for all educative efforts. They make I 
 
 possible a strong development of will-energy because i 
 their interesting materials furnish strong and legitimate 
 
 incentives to mental activity and an enlarged field and i 
 
 opportunity to voluntary effort in pursuit of clear and j 
 
 attractive aims. ! 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 49 
 
 CHAPTER 111 
 
 NATURE OF INTEREST. 
 
 By interest we mean the natural bent or inclination 
 of the mind to find satisfaction in a subject when it is 
 properly presented. It is the natural attractiveness of 
 the subject that draws and holds the attention. Inter- 
 est belongs to the feelings but differs from the other feel- 
 ings, such as desire or longing for an object, since it is 
 satisfied with the simple contemplation without asking 
 for possession. The degree of interest with which differ- 
 ent kinds of knowledge are received, varies greatly. 
 Indeed, it is possible to acquire knowledge in such a man- 
 ner as to produce dislike and disgust. A proper interest 
 in a subject leads to a quiet, steady absorption of the 
 mind with it, but does not imply an impetuous, passion- 
 ate and one-sided devotion to one thing. Interest keeps 
 the mind active and alert without undue excitement or 
 partiality. 
 
 It would be well if every study and every lesson could 
 be sustained by such an interest as this. Knowledge 
 would then consist not merely in a mastery of certain 
 facts and formulae, coldly turned over to the memory 
 machine. At every step the life experience and sympa- 
 thy of a child would be interwoven with the facts 
 acquired, and eventually there would be no distinction 
 between home knowledge and school knowledge. All 
 would be woven together and permeated by feeling. 
 
50 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 The interest we have in mind is intrinsic, native to 
 the subject, and springs up naturally when the mind is 
 brought face to face with something attractive. The 
 things of sense in nature and the people whom we see 
 and read about, have a perennial and inexhaustible attrac- 
 tion for us all. It is among these objects that poets and 
 artists find their materials and their inspiration. We 
 just spoke of interest, not as fluctuating and variable, 
 but steady and persistent. It contains also the elements 
 of ease, pleasure and needed employment, that is, in 
 learning something that has a proper interest, there is 
 greater ease and pleasure in the acquisition, and occupa- 
 tion with the object satisfies an inner need. "When 
 interest has been fully developed, it must always 
 combine pleasure, facility and the satisfaction of 
 a need. We see again that in all exertions, power and 
 pleasure are secured to interest. It does not feel the 
 burden of difficulties, but often seems to sport with 
 them." — Ziller. A natural interest is also awakened by 
 what is strange, mysterious and even frightful, but these 
 kinds of interest concern us from a speculative rather 
 than pedagogical point of view. 
 
 Severe effort and exertion are a necessary part of 
 instruction, but a proper interest in the subject will help 
 over many difficulties. It is not at all desirable to con- 
 ceal difficulties under the guise of amusement. But by 
 means of a natural interest it is possible to bring the 
 mind into the most favorable state of action. In opposi- 
 tion to a lively and humane treatment of subjects, a dry 
 and dull routine has often been praised as the proper dis- 
 cipline of the mind and will. "It was a mistake," says 
 Ziller, "to find in the simple pressure of difficulties a 
 source of culture, for it is the opposite of culture. It 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 51 
 
 was a mistake to call the pressure of effort, the feeling 
 of burden and pain a source of proper training, simply 
 because will power and firmness of character are thus 
 secured and preserved to youth. Pedagogical efforts 
 looking towards a lightening and enlivening of instruc- 
 tion should not have been answered by an appeal to 
 severe methods, to strict, dry and dull learning, that 
 made no attempt to adapt itself to the natural movement 
 of the child's mind." (Ziller, Lehre vom E. U. , p. 355.) 
 A proper interest aims, finally, at the highest form of 
 quiet, sustained will exertion. The succession of steps, 
 leading up to will energy, is interest, desire and will. 
 Before attempting to realize the higher forms of will 
 effort we must look to the fountains and sources out of 
 which it springs. If a young man has laid up abundant 
 and interesting stores of knowledge of architecture, he 
 only needs an opportunity, and there is likely to be great 
 will-energy in the work of planning and constructing 
 buildings. But without this interest and knowledge 
 there will be no effort along this line. In like manner 
 children cannot be expected to show their best effort 
 unless the subject is made strongly interesting from the 
 start, or unless interest-awakening knowledge has already 
 been stored in the mind. To make great demands upon 
 the will power in early school years, is like asking for 
 ripe fruits before they have had time to mature. Knowl- 
 edge, feelings and will-incentives of every sort must be 
 first planted in the mind, before a proper will-energy can 
 be expected. In teaching we should aim to develop will 
 power, not to take it for granted as a ready product. 
 As the will should ultimately control all the mental pow- 
 ers, its proper maturity is a later outcome of education. 
 Even supposing that the will has considerable original 
 
52 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 native power, it is a power that is likely to lie dormant 
 or be used in some ill-direction, unless proper incentives 
 are brought to bear upon it. The will is so constituted 
 that it is open to appeal and in all the affairs of school 
 and of life, incentives of all sorts are constantly brought 
 to bear upon it. Why not make an effort to bring to 
 bear the incentives that spring out of interest, that 
 steady force, which is able to give abiding tendency and 
 direction to the efforts? Why not cultivate those nobler 
 incentives that spring out of culture-bringing knowl- 
 edge? There are, therefore, important preliminaries to 
 full will energy, which are secured by the cultivation of 
 knowledge, the sensibilities and desires. 
 
 There is a common belief that any subject can be made 
 interesting if only the teacher knows the secret of the 
 how ; if only he has proper skill. But it is hard even for 
 a skillful workman "to make bricks without straw." It 
 is often claimed that if there is dullness and disgust with 
 a study it is the fault of the teacher. As Mr. Quick 
 says, "T would go so far as to lay it down as a rule, that 
 whenever children are inattentive and apparently take 
 no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always look 
 first to himself for the reason. There are perhaps no 
 circumstances in which a lack of interest does not origi- 
 nate in the mode of instruction adopted by the teacher. " 
 This statement assumes that all knowledge is about 
 equally interesting to pupils, and everything depends 
 upon the manner in which the teacher deals with it. But 
 different kinds of knowledge differ widely in their power 
 to awaken interest in children. The true idea of interest 
 demands that the subject matter be in itself interesting, 
 adapted to appeal to a child, and to secure his partici- 
 pation. If the interest awakened by bringing the mind 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 53 
 
 in contact with the subject is not spontaneous, it is not 
 genuine and helpful in the best sense. One of the first 
 and greatest evils of all school courses has been a failure 
 to select those subjects, which in themselves are adapted 
 to excite the interest of children at each age of progress. 
 If we could assume that lessons had been so arranged, we 
 might then with Mr. Quick justly demand of a teacher a 
 manner of teaching that must make the subjects interest- 
 ing, or in other words a manner of treatment that would 
 be appropriate to an interesting subject. 
 
 2. There are two kinds of interest that need to be 
 clearly distinguished, direct interest, which is felt for the 
 thing itself, for its own sake, and indirect interest which 
 points to something else as the real source. A miser 
 loves gold coins for their own sake, but most people love 
 them only because of the things for which they may be 
 exchanged. The poet loves the beauty and fragrance of 
 flowers, the florist adds to this a mercenary interest. A 
 snow-shovel may have no interest for us ordinarily, but 
 just when it is needed, on a winter morning, it is an 
 object of considerable interest. It is simply a means to 
 an end. The kind of interest which we think is so valu- 
 able for instruction is direct and intrinsic. The life of 
 Benjamin Franklin calls out a strong direct interest in 
 the man and his fortunes. A humming bird attracts 
 and appeals to us for its own sake. Indirect interest, 
 so called, has more of the character of desire. A desire 
 to restore one's health will produce great interest in a 
 certain health resort, like the Hot Springs, or in some 
 method of treatment as the use of Koch's lymph. The 
 desire for wealth and business success will lead a mer- 
 chant in the fur trade to take interest in seals and seal- 
 fishing, and in beavers, trapping, etc. The wish to gain 
 
 —4 
 
54 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 a prize will cause a child to take deep interest in a lesson. 
 But in all these cases desire precedes interest. Interest, 
 indeed, in the thing itself for its own sake is frequently 
 not present. It is true in many cases that indirect in- 
 terest is not interest at all. It is a dangerous thing in 
 education to substitute indirect for direct or true interest. 
 The former often means the cultivation, primarily, of 
 certain inordinate desires or feelings, such as rivalry, 
 pride, jealousy, ambition, reputation, love of self. The 
 cultivation of direct interest in all valuable kinds of 
 knowledge, on the other hand, leads also to the culti- 
 vation of desires, but the desires thus generated are 
 pure and generous, the desire for further knowledge of 
 botany or history, the desire to imitate what is admir- 
 able in human actions and to shun what is mean. The 
 desires which spring out of direct interest are elevating, 
 while the desires which are associated with indirect in- 
 terest are in many cases egotistic and selfish. 
 
 We often say that it is necessary to make a subject 
 interesting so that it may be more palatable, more easily 
 learned. This is the commonly accepted idea. It is a 
 means of helping us to swallow a distasteful medicine. 
 This sort of interest is often necessary and may be a sign 
 of tact in teaching. But it is negative and weak in after 
 results. So far as it produces motives at all they may be 
 dangerous. It cannot build up and strengthen character 
 but threatens to undermine it by cultivating wrong 
 motives. There is no assurance that knowledge thus 
 acquired can affect the will and bear fruit in action, even 
 though it be the right kind of knowledge, because it is 
 not the knowledge in this case that furnishes the incen- 
 tives. The interest that is awakened in a subject be- 
 cause of its innate attractiveness, leaves incentives which 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 55 
 
 may ripen sooner or later into action. The higher kind 
 of interest is direct, intrinsic, not simply receptive, but 
 active and progressive. In the knowledge acquired it 
 finds only incentives to further acquisition. It is life 
 giving and is prompted by the objects themselves, just 
 as the interest of boys is awakened by deeds of adventure 
 and daring or by a journey into the woods. The interest 
 in an object that springs from some other source than 
 the thing itself, is indirect, as the desire to master a 
 lesson so as to excel others, or gain a prize, or make a 
 money profit out of it. In speaking of interest in school 
 studies, teachers quite commonly have only the indirect 
 in mind, i. e. the kind that leads children to take hold of 
 and master their lessons more readily. Interest is thus 
 chiefly a means of overcoming distasteful tasks. It is the 
 merit of a direct or genuine interest that it aids in mas- 
 tering difficulties and in addition to this gives a perma- 
 nent pleasure in studies. One of the high aims of instruction 
 is to implant a strong permanent interest in studies that 
 will last after school days are over. 
 
 3. A live interest springs most easily out of knowl- 
 edge subjects like history and natural science. Formal 
 studies like grammar and arithmetic awaken it less 
 easily. Herbart has classified the chief kinds and sources 
 of interest as follows: Interest in nature apart from 
 man, and interest in man, society, etc. In nature and 
 natural objects as illustrated in the natural sciences there 
 are three chief kinds of interest. Empirical, which is 
 stirred by the variety and novelty of things seen. There 
 is an attractiveness in the many faces and moods of na- 
 ture. . Between the years of childhood and old age there 
 is scarcely a person who does not enjoy a walk or a ride 
 in the open air, where the variety of plant, bird, animal 
 
56 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 and landscape makes a pleasing panorama. Speculative 
 interest goes deeper and inquires into the relations and 
 causal connections of phenomena. It traces out similar- 
 ities and sequences, and detects law and unity in nature. 
 It is not satisfied with the simple play of variety, but 
 seeks for the cause and genesis of things. Even a child 
 is anxious to know how a squirrel climbs a tree or cracks 
 a nut; where it stores its winter food, its nest and man- 
 ner of life in winter. Why is it that a mole can burrow 
 and live under ground ? How is it possible for a fish to 
 breathe in water? Esthetic interest is awakened by what 
 is beautiful, grand and harmonious in nature or art. The 
 first glance at great overhanging masses of rock, op- 
 presses us with a feeling of awe. The wings of an insect, 
 with their delicate tracery and bright hues, are attract- 
 ive, and stir us with pleasure. The graceful ferns beside 
 the brooks and moss stained rocks suggest fairy-land. 
 
 But stronger even than these interests which attach 
 us to the things of nature, are the interests of humanity. 
 The concern felt for others in joy or sorrow is based upon 
 our interest in them individually, and is syinpathetic. In 
 this lies the charm of biography and the novel. Take 
 away the personal interest we have in Ivanhoe, Quenten 
 Durward, etc., and Scott's glory would quickly depart. 
 What empty and spiritless annals would the life of Fred- 
 eric the G-reat and Patrick Henry furnish? Social inter- 
 est is the regard for the good or evil fortune of societies 
 and nations. Upon this depends our concern for the pro- 
 gress of liberty and the struggle for free institutions in 
 England and other countries. On a smaller scale clubs, 
 fraternities and local societies of all kinds are based on 
 the social interest. Religious interest finally reveals our 
 consciousness of man's littleness and weakness, and of 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 57 
 
 God's providence. As Pestalozzi says, "God is the near- 
 est resource of humanity." As individuals or nations 
 pass away their fate lies in His hand. 
 
 The sources of interest therefore are varied and pro- 
 ductive. Any one of the six is unlimited in extent and 
 variety. Together they constitute a boundless field for a 
 proper cultivation of the emotional as well as intellectual 
 nature of man. A study of these sources of genuine in- 
 terest and a partial view of their breadth and depth, 
 reveals to teachers what our present school courses tend 
 strongly to make them forget. The dull drill upon gram- 
 mar, arithmetic, reading, spelling and writing, which 
 are regarded as so important as to exclude almost every- 
 thing else, has convinced many a child that school is 
 veritably a dull place. And many a teacher is just as 
 strongly convinced that keeping school is a dull and 
 sleepy business. And yet the sources of interest are 
 abundant to overflowing for him who has eyes to see. 
 That these sources and materials of knowledge, arousing 
 deep and lasting interests, are above other things adapted 
 to children and to the school room, is a truth worthy of 
 all emphasis. 
 
 4. Interest is a good test of the adaptability of knowl- 
 edge. When any subject is brought to the attention at 
 the right age and in the proper manner, it awakens in 
 children a natural and lively feeling. It is evident that 
 certain kinds of knowledge are not adapted to a boy at 
 the age of ten. He cares nothing about political science 
 or medicine or statesmanship or the history of literature. 
 These things may be profoundly interesting to a person 
 two or three times as old, but not to him. Other things, 
 however, the story of Ulysses,, travel, animals, geogra- 
 phy and history, even arithmetic, may be very attractive 
 
58 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 to a boy of ten. It becomes a matter of importance to 
 select those studies and parts of studies for children at 
 their changing periods of growth, which are adapted to 
 awaken and stimulate their minds. We shall be saved 
 then from doing what the best of educators have so fre- 
 quently condemned, namely, when the child asks for 
 bread give him a stone, or when he asks for fish give him 
 a serpent. 
 
 The neglect to take proper cognizance of this princi- 
 ple of interest in laying out courses of study and in the 
 manner of presenting subjects is certainly one of the 
 gravest charges that ever can be brought against the 
 schools. It is a sure sign that teachers do not know 
 what it means ''to put yourself in his place" to sympa- 
 thize with children and feel their needs. The educational 
 reformers who have had deepest insight into child-life, 
 have given us clear and profound warnings. Rousseau 
 says: "Study children, for be sure you do not under- 
 stand them. Let childhood ripen in children. The 
 wisest apply themselves to what it is important to men 
 to know, without considering what children are in a con- 
 dition to learn. They are always seeking the man in the 
 child, without reflecting what he is before he can be a 
 man." It is well for us to take these words home and 
 act upon them. 
 
 It is worth the trouble to inquire whether it is possi- 
 ble to select subjects for school study which will prove 
 essentially attractive and interesting from the age of six 
 on. Are there materials for school study which are 
 adapted fully to interest first grade children? We know 
 that fairy stories appeal directly to them, and they love 
 to reproduce them. Reading and spelling in connection 
 with these tales are also stirring studies. Reading a 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 59 
 
 familiar story is certainly a much more interesting 
 employment than working at the almost meaningless sen- 
 tences of a chart or first reader. Number work when 
 based upon objects can be made to hold the attention of 
 little ones, at least in the last half of the first grade. 
 They love also to see and describe flowers, rocks, plants 
 and pictures. It probably requires more skillful teach- 
 ing to awaken and hold the interest in the first grade 
 than in the second or any higher grade unless older chil- 
 dren have been dulled by bad instruction. On what prin- 
 ciple is it possible to select both interesting and valuable 
 materials for the successive grades? We will venture to 
 answer this difficult question. "\X 
 
 The main interest of children must be attracted by 
 what we may call real knowledge subjects, that is, those 
 treating of people (history stories, etc.,) and those treat- 
 ing of plants, animals and other natural objects (natural 
 science topics). Grammar, arithmetic and spelling are 
 chiefly form studies and have less native attraction for 
 children. Secondly, it may be laid down as a fact of 
 experience that children will be more touched and stimu- 
 lated by particular persons and objects in nature than by 
 any general propositions, or laws, or classifications. 
 They prefer seeing a particular palm tree to hearing a 
 general description of palms. A narrative of some 
 special deed of kindness moves them more than a dis- 
 course on kindness. They feel a natural drawing toward 
 real, definite persons and things, and an indifference or 
 repulsion toward generalities. They prefer the story to 
 the moral. Children are little materialists. They dwell 
 in the sense world, or in the world of imagination with 
 very clear and definite pictures. But while dealing with 
 things of sense and with particulars, it is necessary in 
 
60 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 teaching children, to keep an eye directed toward general 
 classes and toward those laws and principles that will be 
 fully appreciated later. 
 
 In every branch of study there are certain underly- 
 ing principles and forms of thought whose thorough mas- 
 tery in the lower grades is necessary to successful pro- 
 gress. It was a marked quality of Pestalozzi to sift out 
 these simple elements and to master them. It is for us 
 to make these simple elements intelligible and interest- 
 ing by the use of concrete types and illustrations drawn 
 from nature and from human life. If we speak of history 
 and nature as the two chief subjects of study, the simple, 
 fundamental relations of persons to each other in society, 
 and the simple, typical objects, forces and laws of nature 
 constitute the basis of all knowledge. These elements 
 we desire to master. But to make them attractive to 
 children, they should not be presented in bald and sterile 
 outlines, but in typical forms. All actions and human 
 relations must appear in attractive personification. 
 
 Persons speak and aot and virtues shine forth in 
 them. We do not study nature's laws at first, but the 
 beautiful, typical life forms in nature, the lily, the oak, 
 Cinderella and William Tell. For children then, the 
 underlying ideas and principles of every study, in order 
 to start the interest, must be revealed in the most beau- 
 tiful illustrative forms which can be furnished by nature, 
 poetry and art. The story of William Tell, although it 
 comes all the way from the Alps and from the distant 
 traditional history of the Swiss, is one of the best things 
 with which to illustrate and impress manliness and patri- 
 otism. The fairy stories for still younger children, are 
 the best means for teaching kindness or unselfishness, 
 because they are so chaste, and beautiful, and graceful. 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 61 
 
 even to the child's thought. The most attractive type- 
 forms and life-personifications of fundamental ideas in 
 history and nature are the really interesting subjects of 
 study for children. To put it in a simple, practical form 
 — objects and human actions, if well selected, are the 
 best means in the world to excite curiosity and the strong 
 spirit ol inquiry. While dwelling upon this thought of 
 the attractiveness of type-forms as personified in things 
 or persons, we catch a glimpse of a far-reaching truth in 
 education. 
 
 The idea of culture epochs^ as typical of the steps of 
 progress in the race and also of the periods of growth in 
 the child, offers a deep perspective into educational prob- 
 lems. In the progress of mankind from a primitive state 
 of barbarism to the present state of culture in Europe 
 and in the United States, there has been a succession of 
 not very clearly defined stages. In point of government, 
 for example, there has been the savage, nomad, patri- 
 arch, kingdom, constitutional monarchy, democracy, re- 
 public, federal republic. There have been great epochs 
 of political convulsion in the conflicts with external 
 powers and in civil struggles and revolutions. In the 
 growth of handicrafts, arts, manufactures and inven- 
 tions, there has been a series of advances from the time 
 when men first began to cultivate the ground, to reduce 
 the metals and to bring the forces of nature into service. 
 In the development of human society, therefore, and in 
 the progress of arts and human knowledge, there are 
 certain typical stages whose proper use may help us to 
 solve some of the difficult problems in educating the 
 young. All nations have passed through some of these 
 important epochs. The United States, for example, since 
 the first settlements upon the east coast, have gone rap- 
 
62 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 idly through many of the characteristic epochs of the 
 world's history, in politics, commerce and industry, in 
 social life, education and religion. 
 
 The importance of the culture epochs for schools lies 
 in the fact, accepted by many great writers, that chil- 
 dren in their growth from infancy to maturity, pass 
 through a series of steps which correspond broadly to 
 the historical epochs of mankind. A child's life up to 
 the age of twenty, is a sort of epitome of the world's 
 history. Our present state of culture is a result of 
 growth, and if a child is to appreciate society as it now 
 is, he must grow into it out of the past, by having trav- 
 eled through the same stages it has traced. But this is 
 only a very superficial way of viewing the relation be- 
 tween child and world history. The periods of child life 
 are so similar to the epochs of history, that a child finds 
 its proper mental food in the study of the materials fur- 
 nished by these epochs. Let us test this. A child -eight 
 years old cares nothing about reciprocity or free silver, 
 or university extension. Robinson Crusoe, however, 
 who typifies mankind's early struggle with the forces 
 of nature, claims his undivided attention. A boy of ten 
 will take more delight in the story of King Alfred or 
 William Tell than in twenty Gladstones or Bismarks. 
 Not that Gladstone's work is less important or interest- 
 ing to the right person, but the boy does not live and 
 have his being in the Gladstonian age. Not all parts 
 of history, indeed, are adapted to please and instruct 
 some period of youth. Whole ages have been destitute 
 of such materials, barren as deserts for educational pur- 
 poses. But those epochs which have been typical of 
 great experiences, landmarks of progress, have also 
 found poets and historians to describe them. The great 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 63 
 
 works of poets and historians contain also the great 
 object lessons upon which to cultivate the minds of chil- 
 dren. Some of the leading characters of fiction and his- 
 tory are the best personifications of the steps of progress 
 in the history of the race. Crusoe, Abraham, Ulysses, 
 Alfred, Tell, David, Charlemagne, Moses, Columbus, 
 Washington. These men, cast in a large and heroic 
 mold, represent great human strivings and are adapted 
 to teach the chief lessons of history, if properly selected 
 and arranged. These typical individual characters, illus- 
 trate the fundamental ideas that will give insight and 
 appreciation for later social forms. They contain, hid- 
 den as it were, the essential part of great historical and 
 social truths of far-reaching importance. The culture 
 epochs will be seen later to be important in solving the 
 problem of the concentration of instruction along certain 
 lines, but in the present discussion, their value is chiefly 
 seen in their adaptability to arouse the interest of chil- 
 dren, by supplying peculiarly congenial materials of 
 instruction in the changing phases of child progress. 
 
 5. The cultivation of a many-sided interest is desira- 
 ble in order to avoid narrowness, and to open up the 
 various sources of mental activity, i. e. , to stimulate 
 mental vigor along many lines. But this very variety of 
 interests may lead to scattering and superficial knowledge. 
 And in its results many-sided interest would seem to 
 point naturally to many-sided activity, that is, to multi- 
 plicity of employments, to that character which in Yankee 
 phrase is designated as "Jack of all trades and master of 
 none. " If instead of being allowed to spread out so much 
 the educational stream is confined between narrow banks, 
 it will show a deep and full current. If allowed to spread 
 over the marshes and plains, it becomes^ sluggish and 
 
64 GENEEAL METHOD. 
 
 brackish. Our course of study for the common schools 
 in recent years, has been largely added to and has been 
 extending over the whole field of knowledge. History, 
 geography, natural science lessons, and drawing have 
 been added to the old reading, writing, arithmetic and 
 grammar. There may appear to be more variety, but 
 less strength. When in addition to this greater variety 
 of studies, enthusiastic teachers desire to increase the 
 quantity of knowledge in each branch and to present as 
 many interesting facts as possible, at every point, Ve 
 have the overloading of the school course. This effect 
 will be noticed in a later chapter in its bearing upon con- 
 centration. Children have too much to learn. They be- 
 come pack-horses, instead of free spirits walking in the 
 fields of knowledge. Mental vigor after all is worth more 
 than a mind grown corpulent and lazy with an excess of 
 pabulum, overfed. The cultivation therefore of a many- 
 sided interest ceases to be a blessing as soon as encyclo- 
 pedic knowledge becomes its aim. In fact the desire on 
 the part of teachers to make the knowledge of any sub- 
 ject complete and encyclopedic destroys all true interest. 
 
 The solution of this great problem does not consist 
 in identifying many-sided interest with encyclopedic 
 knowledge, but in such a detailed study of typical forms 
 in each case as will give insight into that branch without 
 any pretension to exhaustive knowledge. Certainly a 
 true interest in plants does not require that we become 
 acquainted with all the species of all the genera. But a 
 proper study of a few typical forms in a few of the fami- 
 lies and genera might produce a much deeper interest in 
 nature and in her laws. 
 
 The culture of a many-sided interest is essential to a 
 full development and perfection of the mental activities. 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 65 
 
 It is easy to see that interest in any subject gives all 
 thought upon it a greater vigor and intensity. Mental 
 action in all directions is strengthened and vivified by a 
 direct interest. On the other hand mental life diminishes 
 with the loss of interest, and even in fields of knowledge 
 in which a man has displayed unusual mastery, a loss of 
 interest is followed by a loss of energy. Excluding in- 
 terest is like cutting off the circulation from a limb. 
 
 Perfect vigor of thought which we aim at in educa- 
 tion, is marked by strength along three lines, the vigor 
 of the individual ideas, the extent and variety of ideas 
 under control, and the connectioil and harmony of ideas. 
 It is the highest general aim of intellectual education to 
 strengthen mental vigor in these three directions. Many- 
 sided interest is conducive to all three. Every thought 
 that finds lodgment in the mind is toned up and strength- 
 ened by interest. It is also easier to retain and repro- 
 duce some idea that has once been grasped with full 
 feeling of interest. An interest that has been developed 
 along all leading lines of study has a proper breadth and 
 comprehensiveness and cannot be hampered and clogged 
 by narrow restraints and prejudice. We admire a per- 
 son not simply because he has a few clear ideas, but also 
 for the extent and variety of this sort of information. 
 Our admiration ceases when he shows ignorance or prej- 
 udice or lack of sympathy with important branches of 
 study. 
 
 Finally, the unity and harmony of the varied kinds of 
 knowledge are a great source of interest. The tracing of 
 connections between different studies and the insight 
 that comes from proper associations, are among the high- 
 est delights of learning. The connexion and harmony of 
 ideas will be discussed under concentration. 
 
66 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 The six interests above mentioned are to be devel- 
 oped along parallel lines. They are to be kept in proper 
 equipoise. It is not designed that any one shall be devel- 
 oped to the overshadowing of the others. They are like 
 six pillars upon which the structure of a liberal educa- 
 tion is rested. A cultivation of any one, exclusively, 
 may be in place when the work of general education is 
 complete and a profession or life labor has been chosen. 
 
 7. It is also true that a proper interest is a protec- 
 tion against the desires, disorderly impulses and passions. 
 One of the chief ends of education is to bring the inclina- 
 tions and importunate desires under mastery, to estab- 
 lish a counterpoise to them by the steady and persistent 
 forces of education. A many-sided interest cultivated 
 along the chief paths of knowledge, implies such mental 
 vigor and such preoccupation with worthy subjects as 
 naturally to discourage unworthy desires. 
 
 Locke says, self-restraint, the mastery over one's 
 inclinations, is the foundation of virtue. "He that has 
 found a way how to keep a child's spirit easy, active and 
 free, and yet at the same time, to restrain him from 
 many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things 
 that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to 
 reconcile these seeming contradictions, has, in my opin- 
 ion, got the true secret of education." But it is a secret 
 still, the central question remains unanswered. How is 
 the teacher to approach and influence the will of the 
 child? Is it by supposing that the child has a will al- 
 ready developed and strong enough to be relied upon? 
 On the contrary, must not the teacher put incentives in 
 the path of the pupil, ideas and feelings that guide him 
 to self denial? 
 
 Interest as a source of will-stimulus has peculiar ad- 
 
NATURE OF INTEREST. 67 
 
 vantages. It is not desired that the inclinations and 
 feelings shall get the mastery of the mind, certainly not 
 the disorderly and momentary desires. Higher desires, 
 indeed, should properly influence the will, as the desire 
 of the approval of conscience, the desire to attain excel- 
 lence, to gain strength and mastery, to serve others, etc. 
 But the importance of awakening interest as a basis of 
 will cultivation is found in the favorable mental state in- 
 duced by interest as a preliminary to will action along 
 the best lines. Interest is not an impetuous force like 
 the desires, prompting to instant action, but a quiet, per- 
 manent undertone, which brings everything into readi- 
 ness for action, clears the deck and begins the attack. 
 It would be a vast help to many boys and girls if the 
 irksomeness of study in arithmetic or grammar, which is 
 so fatal to will energy, could give way to the spur of in- 
 terest, and when the wheels are once set in motion, pro- 
 gress would not only begin but be sustained by interest. 
 8. It is pretty generally agreed to by thoughtful edu- 
 cators, that in giving a child the broad foundations of 
 education, we should aim not so much at knowledge as at 
 capacity and appreciation for it. A universal recep- 
 tivity, such as Rousseau requires of Emile, is a desidera- 
 tum. Scarcely a better dowry can be bestowed upon a 
 child by education, than a desire for knowledge and an 
 intelligent interest in all important branches of study. 
 Herbart's many-sided interest is to strengthen and branch 
 out from year to year during school life and become a 
 permanent tendency or force in later years. No school 
 can give even an approach to full and encyclopedic knowl- 
 edge, but no school is so humble that it may not throw 
 open the doors and present many a pleasing prospect 
 into the fields of learning. 
 
68 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 With Herbart, therefore, a many-sided, harmonious 
 interest promotes will-energy through all the efforts of 
 learning from childhood up, and when the work of gen- 
 eral education has been completed, the youth is ready to 
 launch out into the world with a strong, healthy appetite 
 for information in many directions. The best fruitage 
 of such a course will follow in the years that succeed 
 school life. 
 
CONCENTRATION. 69 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 CONCENTRATION. 
 
 By concentration is meant such a connexion between 
 the parts of each study and such a spinning of relations 
 and connecting links between different sciences that 
 unity may spring out of the variety of knowledge. His- 
 tory, for example, is a series and collocation of facts 
 explainable on the 'basis of cause and effect, a develop- 
 ment. On the other hand, history is intimately related 
 to geography, language, natural science, literature and 
 mathematics. It would be impossible to draw real his- 
 tory out by the roots without drawing all other studies 
 out bodily with it. Is there then any reason why school 
 history should ignore its blood relationships to other 
 branches of knowledge? 
 
 Concentration is so bound up with the idea of char- 
 acter forming that it includes more than school studies. 
 It lays hold of home influences and all the experiences of 
 life outside of school and brings them into the daily ser- 
 vice of school studies. It is just as important to bind up 
 home experience with arithmetic, language and other 
 studies as it is to see the connexion between geography 
 and history. In the end, all the knowledge and expe- 
 rience gained by a person at home, at school and else- 
 where should be classified and related, each part brought 
 into its right associations with other parts. 
 
 Nor is it simply a question of throwing the varied 
 sorts of knowledge into a network of crossing and inter- 
 
 —5 
 
70 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 woven series so that the person may have ready access 
 along various lines to all his knowledge stores. Concen- 
 tration draws the feelings and the will equally into its 
 circle of operations. To imagine a character without 
 feeling and will would be like thinking a watch without a 
 mainspring. All knowledge properly taught generates 
 feeling. The will is steadily laying out, during the form- 
 ative period of education, the highways of its future 
 ambitions and activities. Habits of willing are formed 
 along the lines of associated thought and feeling. The 
 more feeling and will are enlisted through all the avenues 
 of study and experience, the more permanent will be their 
 influence upon character. 
 
 In attempting to solve the problem of concentration 
 the question has been raised whether a single study, the 
 most important, of course, should constitute a concen- 
 trating nucleus, like the hub in a wheel, or whether all 
 studies and experience are to be brought into an organic 
 whole of related parts. It is evident that history and 
 natural science at least hold a leading place among 
 studies and determine to some extent the selection of 
 materials in reading and language lessons. 
 
 Concentration evidently involves a solution of the 
 question as to the relative value of studies. All the 
 light that the discussion of relative values can furnish 
 will be needed in selecting the different lines of appro- 
 priate study and in properly adjusting them to one 
 another. The theory of hiterest will also aid us in this 
 field of investigation. 
 
 Accepting therefore the results of the two preceding 
 chapters that history (in the broad sense) is the study 
 which best cultivates moral dispositions; secondly, that 
 natural science furnishes the indispensable insight into 
 
CONCENTRATION. 71 
 
 the external world, man's physical environment, and, 
 thirdly, that language, mathematics and drawing are but 
 the formal side and expression of the two realms of real 
 knowledge, we have the broad outlines of any true course 
 of education. In more definitely laying out the parts of 
 this course the natural mterests and capacities of children 
 in their successive periods of growth must be taken into 
 the reckoning. When a course of study has been laid out 
 on this basis, bringing the three great threads or cables 
 of human knowledge into proper juxtaposition at the va- 
 rious points, we shall be ready to speak of the manner of 
 really executing the plan of concentration. Even after 
 the general plan is complete and the studies arranged the 
 real work of concentration consists in fixing the relations 
 as the facts are learned. 
 
 Concentration takes for granted that the facts of 
 knowledge will be acquired. It is but half the problem 
 to learn the facts. The other half consists in under- 
 standing and fixing the relations. Most teachers will 
 admit that each lesson should be a collection of connected 
 facts and that every science should consist of a series of 
 derivative lessons. And yet the study and mastery of 
 arithmetic as a connection of closely related principles is 
 not generally appreciated. With proper reflection it is 
 not difficult to see that the facts of a single study like 
 grammar or botany should stand in close serial or causal 
 relation. If they are seen and fixed with a clear insight 
 into these connections, by touching the chain of associa- 
 tions at any point one may easily bring the whole matter 
 to remembrance. 
 
 Concentration however is chiefly concerned with the 
 relation of different studies to each other. In this larger 
 sense of an intimate binding together of all studies and 
 
72 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 experience into a close network of interwoven parts, con- 
 centration is now geneT-ally ignored by the schools. In 
 fact it would almost seem as if the purpose of teachers 
 were to make a clear separation of the different studies 
 from one another and to seal up each one in a separate bot- 
 tle, as it were. The problem appears in two phases. 1. Tak- 
 ing the school studies as they now are, is it desirable to 
 pay more attention to the natural connections between 
 such studies as reading, geography, history and lan- 
 guage, to open up frequent communicating avenues be- 
 tween the various branches of educational work? 2. Or 
 if concentration is regarded as still more important, shall 
 the subject matter of school studies be rearranged and 
 the lessons in different branches so adjusted to each other 
 that the number of close relations between them will be 
 greatly increased ? Then with the intentional increase 
 of such connecting links would follow a more particular 
 care in fixing them. 
 
 We have assumed the latter position, and claim that 
 the whole construction of the school course and the whole 
 method of teaching should contribute powerfully to the 
 unification of all the knowledge and experience in each 
 child's mind. Without laying any undue stress upon 
 simple knowledge, we believe that a small amount of well 
 articulated knowledge is more valuable than a large 
 amount of loose and fragmentary information. A' small, 
 disciplined police force is able to cope with a large, unor- 
 ganized mob. "The very important principle here in- 
 volved is that the value of knowledge depends not only 
 upon the distinctness and ciGcuracy of the ideas, but also 
 upon the closeness and extent of the relations into which 
 they enter. This is a fundamental principle of educa- 
 tion. It was Herbart who said, 'Only those thoughts 
 
CONCENTRATION. 73 
 
 come easily and frequently to the mind which have at 
 some time made a strong impression and which possess 
 numerous connexions with other thoughts.' And psy- 
 chology teaches that those ideas which take an isolated 
 station in the mind are usually weak in the impression 
 they make and are easily forgotten. A fact, however 
 important in itself, if learned without reference to other 
 facts, is quite likely to fade quickly from the memory. 
 It is for this reason that the witticisms, sayings and 
 scattered pieces of information, which we pick up here 
 and there, are so soon forgotten. There is no way of 
 bringing about their frequent reproduction when they 
 are so disconnected. For the reproduction of ideas is 
 largely governed by the law of association. One idea 
 reminds us of another closely related to it; this of 
 another, etc., till a long series is reproduced. They are 
 bound together like the links of a chain, and one draws 
 another along with it just as one link of a chain drags an- 
 other after it. A mental image that is not one of such a 
 series cannot hope to come often to consciousness; it 
 must as a rule sink into oblivion, because the usual means 
 of calling it forth are wanting." (F. McMurry, "Relation 
 of natural science to other studies.") 
 
 We are not conscious of the constant dependence of 
 our thinking and conversation upon the law of associa- 
 tion. It may be frequently observed in the familiar con- 
 versation of several persons in a company. The simple 
 mention of a topic will often suggest half a dozen things 
 that different ones are prompted to say about it, and 
 may even give direction to the conversation for a whole 
 evening. 
 
 Now if it is true that ideas are more easily remem- 
 bered and used if associated let us increase the associa- 
 
74 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 tions. Why not bind all the studies and ideas of a child 
 as closely together as possible by natural lines of asso- 
 ciation ? Why not select for reading lessons those ma- 
 terials which will throw added light upon contempo- 
 raneous lessons in history, botany and geography? Then 
 if the reading lesson presents in detail the battle of 
 King's Mountain^ take the pains to refer to this part 
 of the history and put this lesson into connexion with 
 historical facts elsewhere learned. If a reading lesson 
 give a full description of the pahn tree, its growth and 
 use, what better setting could this knowledge find than 
 in the geography of Northern Africa and the West 
 Indies? 
 
 The numerous associations into which ideas enter, 
 without producing confusion make them more service- 
 able for every kind of use. "It is only by associating 
 thoughts closely that a person comes to possess them 
 securely and have command over them. One's repro- 
 duction of ideas is then rapid enough to enable him to 
 comprehend a situation quickly, and form a judgment 
 with some safety; his knowledge is all present and ready 
 for use; while on the other hand, one whose related 
 thoughts have never been firmly welded together repro- 
 duces slowly and in consequence is wavering and unde- 
 cided. His knowledge is not at his command and he is 
 therefore weak." (P. McMurry.) 
 
 The greater then the number of clear mental relations 
 of a fact to other facts in the same and in other studies 
 the more likely it is to render instant obedience to the 
 will when it is needed. Such ready mastery of one's past 
 experiences and accumulations promotes confidence and 
 power in action. Concentration is manifestly designed 
 to give strength and decision to character. But a care- 
 
CONCENTRATION. 75 
 
 less education by neglecting this principle, by scattering 
 the mind's forces over broad fields and by neglecting the 
 connecting roads and paths that should bind together 
 the separate fields, can actually undermine force and 
 decision of character. 
 
 The centre for concentrating efforts in education is 
 not so much the knowledge given in any school course as 
 the child's mind itself. We do not desire to find in the 
 school studies a new centre for a child's life so much as 
 the means for fortifying that original stronghold of char- 
 acter which rests upon native mental characteristics and 
 early home influences. We have in mind not the objec- 
 tive unity of different studies considered as complete and 
 related sciences, nor any general model to which each 
 mind is to be conformed but the practical union of all the 
 experiences and knowledge that find entrance into a par- 
 ticular mind. 
 
 The unity of the personality as gradually developed in 
 a child by wise education is essential to strength of char- 
 acter. Ackerman says on this point, (" Ueber Concentra- 
 tion," p. 20.) "In behalf of character development, which 
 is the ultimate aim of all educative effort, pedagogy re- 
 quires of instruction that it aid in forming the unity of 
 the personality^ the most primitive basis of character. 
 In requiring that the unity of the personality be formed 
 it is presupposed that this unity is not some original 
 quality, but something to be first developed. It remains 
 for psychology to prove this and to indicate in what man- 
 ner the unity of the personality originates. Now psy- 
 chology teaches that the personality, the ego, is not 
 something original, but something that must be first de- 
 veloped and is also changeable and variable. The ego is 
 nothing else than a psychological phenomenon, namely, 
 
76 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 the consciousness of an interchange between the parts of 
 an extensive complex of ideas, or the reference of all our 
 ideas and of the other psychical states springing out of 
 them to each other. Experience teaches this. In infancy 
 the ego, the personality, is consciously realized in one 
 person sooner, in another later. In the different ages of 
 life also the personality possesses a different content. 
 The deeper cause for the mutual reference of all our man- 
 ifold ideas to each other and for their union in a single 
 point, as it were, may be found in the simplicity of the 
 soul^ which constrains into unity all things that are not 
 dissociated by hindrance or contradiction. The soul, 
 therefore, in the face of the varied influences produced 
 by contact with nature and society, is active in concen- 
 trating its ideas, so that with mental soundness as a 
 basis, the ego, once formed, in spite of all the transitions 
 through which it may pass, still remains the same." 
 
 There is then a natural tendency of the mind to unify 
 all its ideas, feelings, incentives. On the other hand the 
 knowledge and experience of life are so varied and seem- 
 ingly contradictory that a young person, if left to him- 
 self or if subjected to a wrong schooling, will seldom 
 work his way to harmony and unity. In spite of the fact 
 that the soul is a simple unit and tends naturally to unify 
 all its contents, the common experience of life discovers 
 in it unconnected and even antagonistic thought — and 
 knowledge centers. People are sometimes painfully sur- 
 prised to see how the same mind may be lifted by exalted 
 sentiments and depressed by the opposite. The frequent 
 examples that come to notice of men of superiority and 
 vitue along certain lines, who give way to weakness and 
 wrong in other directions, are sufficient evidence that 
 good and evil may be systematically cultivated in the 
 
CONCENTRATION. 77 
 
 same character, and that instead of unity and harmony 
 education may collect in the soul heterogeneous and war- 
 ing elements which make it a battle ground for life. All 
 such disharmony and contradiction lend inconsistency 
 and weakness to character. 
 
 Among other things tending toward consistency of 
 character there must be harmony between the school and 
 home life of a child. At home or among companions, 
 perhaps unknown to the teacher, a boy or girl may be 
 forming an habitual tendency and desire, more powerful 
 than any other force in its life, and yet at variance to 
 the best influence of the school. If possible the teacher 
 should draw the home and school into a closer bond so as 
 to get a better grasp of the situation and its remedy. 
 The school will fail to leave an effective impress upon such 
 a child unless it can get a closer hold upon the sympa- 
 thies and thus neutralize an evil tendency. It must 
 league itself with better home influences so as to implant 
 its own impulses in home life. How to unify home and 
 school influences is one of those true and abiding prob- 
 lems of education that appeals strongly and sympathetic- 
 ally to parents and teachers. 
 
 Not only can incompatible lines of thought and of 
 moral action become established in the same person, but 
 even those studies which could be properly harmonized 
 and unified by education may lie in the mind so disjointed 
 and unrelated as to render the person awkward and help- 
 less in spite of much knowledge. In unifying the vari- 
 ous parts of school education and in bringing them into 
 close connexion with children's other experiences, the 
 school life fulfills one of its chief duties. 
 
 In later years when we consider the results of school 
 methods upon our own character we can see the weakness 
 
78 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 of a system of education which lacks concentration, a 
 weakness which shows itself in a lack of retentiveness of 
 acquired knowledge and lack of proper habits of thinking. 
 We are only too frequently reminded of the loose and 
 scrappy state of our acquired knowledge by the ease with 
 which it eludes the memory when it is needed. To 
 escape from this disagreeable consciousness in after 
 years, we begin to spy out a few of the mountain peaks 
 of memory which still give evidence of submerged conti- 
 nents. Around these islands we begin to collect the 
 wreckage of the past and the accretions of later study 
 and experience. A thoughtful person naturally falls into 
 the habit of collecting ideas around a few centres, and of 
 holding them in place by links of association. In Ameri- 
 can history for instance, it is inevitable that our knowl- 
 edge becomes congested in certain important epochs, or' 
 around the character and life of a few typical persons. 
 The same seems to be true also of other studies, as geog- 
 raphy and even geometry. 
 
 Another reason why knowledge is so poorly under- 
 stood and remembered is because its application to other 
 branches of knowledge, a little apart from the main line, 
 are so little observed and fixed. Looking back upon our 
 school studies we often wonder what botany, geometry 
 and drawing have to do with our present needs. Each 
 subject was so compactly stowed away on a shelf by 
 itself that it is always thought of in that isolation, like 
 Hammerfest or the Falkland Islands in geography, — -out 
 of the way places. 
 
 Are the various sciences so distinct and so widely sep- 
 arated in nature and in real life as they were in school ? 
 An observant boy in the woods will notice important re- 
 lations between animals and plants, between plants, soil 
 
CONCENTRATION. 79 
 
 and seasons that are not referred to in the text books. 
 In a carpenter shop he will observe the relation of differ- 
 ent kinds of wood, metals, and tools to each other that 
 will surprise and instruct him. In the real life of the 
 country or town the objects and materials of knowledge, 
 representing the sciences of nature and the arts of life, 
 are closely jumbled together and intimately dependent 
 upon each other. The very closeness of connexions and 
 the lack of orderly arrangement shown by things in life 
 make it necessary in schools to classify and arrange into 
 sciences. But it is a vital mistake to suppose that knowl- 
 edge is complete when classified and learned in this scien- 
 tific form. Classifications and books are but a faulty 
 means of getting a clear insight into nature and human 
 life or society. Knowledge should not only be mastered 
 in its scientific classifications but also constantly referred 
 back to things as seen in practical life and closely traced 
 out and fixed in those connexions. The vital connexions 
 of different studies with each other are best known and 
 realized by the study of nature and society. 
 
 In later life we are convinced at every turn of the 
 need of being able to recognize and use knowledge out- 
 side of its scientific connexions. A lawyer finds many 
 subjects closely mingled in his daily business which were 
 never mentioned together in text books. The ordinary 
 run of cases will lead him through a kaleidoscope of nat- 
 ural science, human life, commerce, history, mathematics, 
 literature and law, not to speak of less agreeable things. 
 But the same is true of a physician, merchant or farmer 
 in different ways. 
 
 Shall we answer to all this that schools were never 
 designed to teach such things? They belong to the school 
 of life, etc. ? We are accustomed to take refuge behind 
 
80 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 the so-called "mental discipline" that results from studies 
 whether anything is remembered of them or not. There 
 are doubtless certain formal habits of mind that result 
 from study even though, like Latin, they are cast aside 
 as an old garment at the end of school daj s. Transfer- 
 ring our argument then to this ground, is there any 
 "habit of thinking" more valuable than that bent of mind 
 which is not satisfied with the mere memorizing of a fact 
 but seeks to interpret its value by judging of its influence 
 upon other facts and their influence upon it? No subject 
 is understood by itself nor even by its relation to other 
 facts in the same science, but by its relation to the whole 
 field of knowledge. Unless it can be proven that the 
 study of relations is above the school-boy capacity it is 
 doubtful if there is any mental habit so valuable at the 
 close of school studies as the disposition to think and pon- 
 der^ to trace relations. 
 
 The multiplication of studies in the common school in 
 recent years will soon compel us to pay more attention 
 to concentration or the mutual relation of knowledges. 
 There is a resistless tendency to convert the course of 
 studies into an encyclopedia of knowledge. To perceive 
 this it is only necessary to note the new studies incorpo- 
 rated into the public school within a generation. Draw- 
 ing, natural science, gymnastics and manual training are 
 entirely new, while language lessons, history and music 
 have been expanded to include much that is new for lower 
 grades. Still other studies are even now seeking admis- 
 sion as modern languages, geometry and sewing. In 
 spite of all that has been said by educatioDal reformers 
 against making the acquisition of knowledge the basis of 
 education, the range and variety of studies has been 
 greatly extended and chiefly through the influence of the 
 
CONCENTRATION. 81 
 
 reformers. This expansive movement appears in schools 
 of all grades. The secondary and fitting schools and the 
 universities have spread their branches likewise over a 
 much wider area of studies. We are in the full sweep of 
 this movement along the whole line and it has not yet 
 reached its flood. 
 
 The simplicity of the old course both in the common 
 school and in higher institutions is in marked contrast to 
 the present multiplicity. It was a narrow current in 
 which education used to run but it was deep and strong. 
 In higher institutions the mastery of Latin and of Latin 
 authors was the sine qua non. In the common school 
 arithmetic was held in almost equal honor. Strong char- 
 acters have often been developed by a narrow and rigid 
 training along a single line of duty as is shown in the 
 case of the Jesuits, the Humanists and the more recent 
 devotees of natural science. 
 
 As contrasted with this the most striking feature of 
 our public schools now is their shallow and superficial 
 work. It is probable that the teaching in lower grades 
 is better than ever before, but as the tasks accumulate in 
 the higher grades there is a great amount of smattering. 
 The prospect is however that this disease will grow worse 
 before a remedy can be applied. The first attempt to 
 cultivate broader and more varied fields of knowledge in 
 the common school must necessarily exhibit a shallow re- 
 sult. Teachers are not familiar with the new subjects, 
 methods are not developed and the proper adjustments of 
 the studies to each other are neglected. 
 
 No one who is at all familiar with our present status 
 will claim that drawing, natural science, geography and 
 language are yet properly adjusted to each other. The 
 task is a difficult one but is being grappled by many 
 earnest teachers. 
 
82 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 It is obvious tliat the first serious effort to remedy 
 this shallowness will be made by deepening and intensi- 
 fying the culture of the new fields. The knowledge of 
 each subject must be made as complete and detailed as 
 possible. Well qualified teachers and specialists will of 
 course accomplish the most. They will zealously try to 
 teach all the important things in each branch of study. 
 But where is the limit? The capacity of children! And 
 it will not be long before philanthropists, physicians, 
 reformers and all the friends of mankind will call a 
 decisive halt. Children were not born simply to be 
 stuffed with knowledge, like turkeys for a Christmas din- 
 ner. 
 
 It appears therefore that we must steer between 
 Scylla and Charybdis, or that we are in a first-class edu. 
 cational dilemma. This conviction is strengthened by 
 the reflection that there is no escape from fairly facing 
 the situation. Having once put our hand to the plow we 
 can not look back. The common school course has greatly 
 expanded in recent years and there is no probability that 
 it will ever contract. It has expanded in response to 
 proper universal educational demands. For we may 
 fairly believe that most of the studies recently incorpo- 
 rated into the school course are essential elements in the 
 education of every child that is to grow up and take a 
 due share in our society. It is too late to sound the 
 retreat. The educational reformers have battled stoutly 
 for three hundred years for just the course of study that 
 we are now beginning to accept. The edict can not be 
 revoked, that every child is entitled to an harmonious and 
 equable development of all its human powers, or as Her- 
 bart calls it, a harmonious culture of many-sided interest. 
 The nature of every child imperatively demands such broad 
 
CONCENTRATION. 83 
 
 and liberal culture, and the varied duties and responsi- 
 bilities of the citizen make it a practical necessity. No 
 narrow, one-sided culture will ever equip a child to act a 
 just part in the complex social, political and industrial 
 society of our time. But the demand for depth of knowl- 
 edge is just as imperative as that for comprehensiveness. 
 
 It is clear that two serious dangers threaten the 
 quality of our education: First, loose and shallow knowl- 
 edge; second, overloading with encyclopedic knowledge. 
 What can concentration do to remedy the one and check 
 the other? The cure for these J;wo evils will be found in 
 so adjusting the studies to e*ach other, in so building 
 them into each other, as to secure a mutual support. 
 
 The study of a topic not only as it is affected by oth- 
 ers in the same subject, but also by facts and principles 
 in other studies, is an antidote against superficial learn- 
 ing. In tracing these casual relations, in observing the 
 resemblances and analogies, the interdependence of 
 studies, as geography, history and natural science, a 
 thoughtfulness and clearness of insight are engendered 
 quite contrary to loose and shallow study. 
 
 Secondly. Concentration at once discards the idea of 
 encyclopedic knowledge as an aim of school education. 
 It puts a higher estimate upon related ideas and a lower 
 one upon that of complete or encyclopedic information. 
 All the cardinal branches of education indeed shall be 
 taught in the school, but only the essential^ the typical^ 
 will be selected and an exhaustive knowledge of any sub- 
 ject is out of the question. Concentration will put a con- 
 stant check upon over-accumulation of facts, and will 
 rather seek to strengthen an idea by association with 
 familiar things than to add a new fact to it. No matter 
 how thorough and enthusiastic a specialist one may be, 
 
84 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 he is called upon to curtail the quantity of his subject 
 and bring it into proper dependence upon other studies. 
 Historically considered the principle of concentration 
 has been advocated and emphasized by many writers and 
 teachers. The most striking and decided attempt to ap- 
 ply it was made by Jacotot in the first quarter of this 
 century and had great success in France. Mr. Joseph 
 Payne in interpreting Jacotot (Lectures on the Science 
 and Art of Ed. p. 339) lays down as his main precept, 
 "Learn something thoroughly and refer everything else 
 to it." He emphasized above everything else clearness of 
 insight and coinexion between the parts of knowledge. 
 It was principally applied to the study of languages and 
 called for perfect memorizing by incessant repetition and 
 rigid questioning by the teacher to insure perfect under- 
 standing, in the first instance, of new facts acquired, and 
 secondly firm association with all previous knowledge. 
 Jacotot and his disciples reached notable results by an 
 heroic and consistent application of this principle and 
 some of our present methods in language are based upon 
 it. But on the whole the principle was only partially 
 and mechanically applied. Its aim was primarily intel- 
 lectual, even linguistic, not moral. There was no philo- 
 sophical effort made to determine the relative value of 
 studies and thus find out what study or series of studies 
 best deserved to take the leading place in the school 
 course. The importance of interest, as a means of rous- 
 ing mental vigor and as a criterion for selecting concen- 
 trating materials suited to children at different ages, was 
 overlooked. 
 
 A kind of concentration has long been practiced in 
 Germany and to a considerable extent in our own schools 
 which is known as the concentric circles. 
 
CONCENTRATION. 85 
 
 In our schools it is illustrated by the treatment of 
 geography, grammar, and history. In beginning the 
 study of geography in the third or fourth grade it has 
 been customary to outline the whole science in the first 
 primary book. The earth as a whole and its daily and 
 yearly motion, the chief continents and oceans, the gen- 
 eral geographical notions, mountain, lake, river, etc., are 
 briefly treated by definition. Having completed this gen- 
 eral framework of geographical knowledge during the 
 first year, the second year, or at least the second book, 
 takes up the same round of topics again and enters into 
 a somewhat fuller treatment of continents, countries, 
 states, and political divisions. The last two years of the 
 common school may be spent upon a large, complete 
 geography, which, with larger, fuller maps and more 
 names, gives also a more detailed account of cities, pro- 
 ducts, climate, political divisions, and commerce. Finally 
 physical geography is permitted to spread over much the 
 same ground from a natural-science standpoint giving 
 many additional and interesting facts and laws concern- 
 ing zones, volcanoes, ocean beds and currents, atmos- 
 pheric phenomena, geologic history, etc. The same earth, 
 the same lands and oceans furnish the outline in each 
 case, and we travel over the same ground three or four 
 times successively, each time adding new facts to the 
 original nucleus. There is an old proverb that ' 'repeti- 
 tion is the mother of studies," and here we have a sys- 
 tematic plan for repetition extending through the school 
 course with the advantage of new and interesting facts 
 to add to the grist each time it is sent through the mill. 
 It is an attractive plan at first sight, but if we appeal 
 to experience are we not reminded rather that it was dull 
 repetition of names, boundaries, location of places, etc., 
 —6 
 
86 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 and after all not much detailed knowledge was gained 
 even in the higher grades? Again, is it not contrary to 
 reason to begin with definitions and general notions in 
 the lower grades and end up with the interesting and 
 concrete in the higher? 
 
 In language lessons and grammar it has been cus- 
 tomary to learn the kinds of sentence and the parts of 
 speech in a simple form in the third and fourth grades 
 and in each succeeding year to review these topics, grad- 
 ually enlarging and expanding the definitions, inflexions, 
 and constructions into a fuller etymology and syntax. 
 In United States history we are beginning to adopt a 
 similar plan of repetitions, and the frequent reviews in 
 arithmetic are designed to make good the lack of thor- 
 oughness and mastery which should characterize each 
 successive grade of work. The course of religious in- 
 struction given in European schools is based upon the 
 same reiteration year by year of essential religious ideas. 
 The whole plan, as illustrated by different studies, is 
 based upon a successive enlargement of a subject in con- 
 centric circles with the implied constant repetition and 
 strengthening of leading ideas. A framework of impor- 
 tant notions in each branch is kept before the mind year 
 after year, repeated, explained, enlarged with faith in a 
 constantly increasing depth of meaning. There is no 
 doubt that under good teaching the principle of the con- 
 centric circles produces some excellent fruits, a mastery 
 of the subject and a concentration of ideas within the 
 limits of a single study. 
 
 The disciples of Herbart, while admitting the merits 
 of the concentric circles, have subjected the plan to a 
 severe criticism. They say it begins with general and 
 abstract notions and puts off the interesting details to 
 
CONCENTRATION. ' 87 
 
 the later years, while any correct method with children 
 will take the interesting particulars first and by a gradual 
 process of comparison and induction reach the general 
 principles and concepts at the close. It inevitably leads 
 to a dull and mechanical repetition instead of cultivating 
 an interesting comparison of new and old and a thought" 
 ful retrospect. It is a clumsy and distorted application 
 of the principle of apperception, of going from the known 
 to the unknown. Instead of marching forward into new 
 fields of knowledge with a proper basis of supplies in con" 
 quered fields, it gleans again and again in fields already 
 harvested. For this reason it destroys a proper interest 
 by hashing up the same old ideas year after year. Finally 
 the concentric circles are not even designed to bring the 
 different school studies into relation to each other. At 
 best they contribute to a more thorough mastery of each 
 study. They leave the separate branches of the course 
 isolated and unconnected, an aggregation of unrelated 
 thought complexes. True concentration should leave 
 them an organic whole of intimate knowledge relations? 
 conducing to strength and unity of character. 
 
 There is a growing conviction among teachers that 
 we need a closer articulation of studies with one another. 
 The expansion of the school course over new fields of 
 knowledge and the multiplication of studies already dis- 
 cussed compels us to seek for a simplification of the 
 course, A hundred years ago, yes even fifty years ago, 
 it was thought that the extension of our territory and 
 government to the present limits would be impossible. 
 It was plainly stated that one government could never 
 hold together people so widely separated. Mr. Fiske says: 
 (The Critical Period of Am. Hist., p. 60) "Even with 
 all other conditions favorable, it is doubful if the Ameri- 
 
88 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 can Union could have been preserved to the present time 
 without the railroad. Railroads and telegraphs have made 
 our vast country, both for political and for social pur- 
 poses, more snug and compact than little Switzerland was 
 in the middle ages or New England a century ago." The 
 analogy between the realm of government and of knowl- 
 edge is not at all complete but it suggests at least the 
 change which is imperatively called for in education. In 
 education as well as in commerce there must be trunk 
 Hnes of thought which bring the will as monarch of the 
 mind into close communication with all the resources of 
 knowledge and experience. 
 
 Besides the central trunk lines of knowledge in his- 
 tory and natural science there are branches of study 
 which are tributary to them, which serve also as con- 
 necting chains between more important subjects. Read- 
 ing for instance is largely a relative study. Not only is 
 the art of reading merely a preparation for a better ap- 
 preciation of history, geography, arithmetic, etc., but 
 even the subject matter of reading lessons is now made 
 largely tributary to other studies. The supplementary 
 readers consist exclusively of interesting matter bearing 
 upon geography, history and natural science. It is a 
 fact that reading is becoming more and more a relative 
 study, and selections are regularly made to bear on other 
 school work. V Geography especially serves to establish a 
 network of connexions between other kinds of knowledge. 
 It is a very important supplement to history. In fact 
 history cannot dispense with its help. Geography lessons 
 are full of natural science, as with plants, animals, rocks, 
 climate, inventions, machines and races. Indeed there 
 are few if any school studies w^hich should not be brought 
 into close and important relations to geography. Again 
 
CONCENTRATION. 89 
 
 the more important historical and scientific branches not 
 only receive valuable aid from the tributary studies but 
 they abundantly supply such aid in return. Language 
 lessons should receive all their subject matter from his- 
 tory and natural science. While the language lessons are 
 working up such rich and interesting materials for pur- 
 poses of oral and written language, the more important 
 branches are also illustrated and enriched by the new 
 historical and scientific subjects thus incidentally treated. 
 
 An examination of these mutal relations and courte- 
 sies between studies may discover to us the fact that we 
 are now unconsciously or thoughtlessly duplicating the 
 work of education to a surprising extent. For example, 
 by isolating language lessons and cutting them off from 
 communication with history, geography and natural sci- 
 ence, we make a double or triple series of lessons necessary 
 where a single series would answer the purpose. More- 
 over by excluding an interesting subject matter derived 
 from other studies the interest and mental life awakened 
 by language lessons are reduced to a minimum. Interest 
 is not only awakened by well selected matter taken from 
 other branches but the relationships themselves between 
 studies, whether of cause and effect as between history 
 and geography, or of resemblance as between the classi- 
 fications in botany and grammar — the relations them- 
 selves are matters of unusual interest to children. 
 
 Many teachers have begun to realize in some degree 
 the value of these relations, their effect in enlivening 
 studies and the better articulation of all kinds of knowl- 
 edge in the mind. But as yet all attempts among us to 
 properly relate studies are but weak and ineffective ap- 
 proaches toward the solution of the great problem of con- 
 centration. The links that now bind studies together in 
 
90 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 our work are largely accidental and no great stress has 
 been laid upon their value, but if concentration is grap- 
 pled with in earnest it involves relations at every step. 
 Not only are the principal and tributary branches of 
 knowledge brought into proper conjunction but there is 
 constant forethought and afterthought to bring each new 
 topic into the company of its kindred near and remote. 
 The mastery of any topic or subject is not clear and sat- 
 isfactory till the grappling hooks that bind it to the other 
 kinds of knowledge are securely fastened. 
 
 Concentration on a large scale and with consistent 
 thoroughness has been attempted in recent years by the 
 scholars and teachers of the Herbart school. It is based 
 upon moral character as the highest aim, and upon a cor- 
 relation of studies which attributes a high moral value to 
 historical knowledge and consequently places a series of 
 historical materials in the centre of the school course. 
 The ability of the school to affect moral character is not 
 limited to the personal influence of the teacher and to 
 the discipline and daily conduct of the children, but 
 instruction itself by illustrating and implanting moral 
 ideas, and by closely relating all other kinds of knowl- 
 edge to the historical series, can powerfully affect moral 
 tendency and strength. If historical matter of the most 
 interesting and valuable kind be selected for the central 
 series, and the natural sciences and formal studies be 
 closely associated with it, there will be harmony and 
 union between the culture elements of the school course. 
 
 The Culture Epochs. 
 The problem that confronts us at the outset, when 
 preparing a plan of concentration, is how to select the 
 best historical (moral educative) materials, which are to 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 91 
 
 serve as the central series of the course. The cuUicre 
 epochs (cultur-historische Stufen) are, according to the 
 Herbartians, the key to the situation. (This subject was 
 briefly discussed under Interest.) 
 
 According to the theory of the culture epochs^ the 
 child, in its growth from infancy to maturity, is an epi- 
 tome of the world's history and growth in a profoundly 
 significant sense for the purpose of education. From the 
 earliest history of society and of arts, from the first 
 simple family and tribal relations and from the time of 
 the primitive industries, there has been a series of up- 
 ward steps toward our present state of culture (social, 
 political and economic life). What relation the leading 
 epochs of progress in the race bear to the steps of change 
 and growth in children has become a matter of great 
 interest in education. The assumption of the culture 
 ep>ochs is that the growth of moral and secular ideas in 
 the race, represented at its best, is similar to their 
 growth in children and that children may find in the 
 representative historical periods select materials for 
 moral and intellectual nurture and a natural access to 
 an understanding of our present condition of society. 
 The culture epochs are those representative periods in 
 history which are supposed to embody the elements of 
 culture suited to train the young upon. Goethe says, 
 "Childhood must always begin again at the first and 
 pass through the epochs of the world's culture." Her- 
 bart says, "The whole of the past survives in each of 
 us," and again, "The receptivity (of the child) changes 
 continually with progress in years. It is the function of 
 the teacher to see to it that these modifications advance 
 steadily in agreement with these changes (in the world's 
 history)." Ziller has attempted more fully to "justify 
 
93 GENERAL METHOH. 
 
 this culture-historical course of instruction on the ground 
 of a certain predisposition of the child's mental growth 
 for this course." Again, "We are to let children pass 
 through the culture development of mankind with accel- 
 erated speed." Herbart says, " The treasure of advice 
 and warning, of precept and principle, of transmitted 
 laws and institutions, which earlier generations have 
 prepared and handed down to the later, belongs to the 
 strongest of psychological forces." That is, choice his- 
 torical illustrations produce a weighty effect upon the 
 minds of children. 
 
 x^ The culture epochs imply an intimate union between 
 history and natural scievice, the two main branches of 
 knowledge, at every step. The isolation between these 
 studies, which has often appeared and is still strong, is 
 unnatural and does violence to the unity of education 
 historically considered. Men at all times have had phys- 
 ical nature in and around them. Every child is an inti- 
 mate blending of historical and physical (natural science) 
 elements. The culture epochs illustrate a constant change 
 and expansion of history and natural science together and 
 in harmony (despite the conflict between them). As men 
 have progressed historically and socially from age to age 
 their interpretation of nature has been modified with 
 growing discovery, insight, invention and utilization of 
 her resources. Children also pass through a series of 
 metamorphoses which are both physical and psycholog- 
 ical, changing temper and mental tendency as the body 
 increases in vigor and strength. 
 
 The culture epochs, by beginning well back in history 
 and tracing up the steps of progress in their origin and 
 growth pave the way for a clear insight into our present 
 state of culture, which is a complex of historial and nat- 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 93 
 
 ural science elements. It is comparatively easy for us 
 to see that to understand the present political, economic 
 and social conditions of the United States we are com- 
 pelled to go back to the early settlements with their sim- 
 ple surroundings and slowly trace up the growth and in- 
 creasing complexity of government, religion, commerce, 
 manufactures and social life. The theory of the culture 
 epochs implies that the child began where primitive man 
 began, feels as he felt and advances as he advanced, only 
 with more rapid strides, that as his physique is the heredi- 
 tary outcome of thousands of years of history and his 
 physical growth the epitome of that development, so his 
 mental progress is related to the mind progress of his 
 ancestry. They go still further and assume that the 
 subject matter of the leading epochs is so well adapted to 
 the changing phases and impulses of child life that there 
 is a strong predisposition in children in favor of this 
 course and that the series of historical object lessons stirs 
 the strongest intellectual and moral interests into life. 
 
 As a theory the culture epochs may seem too loose 
 and unsubstantial to serve as the basis for such a serious 
 undertakino' as the education of children to moral charac- 
 ter. The real test, fortunately, of the value of this theory 
 is not so much in a general argument as in the application 
 of the materials selected by it to school problems. 
 
 There are however certain limits to the theory of race 
 progress that need to be drawn at once. It is easy to 
 perceive that not all races have left such epochs behind 
 them, because some are still in barbarism, others have 
 advanced to a considerable height and then retrograded. 
 Of those which have advanced with more or less stead- 
 iness for two thousand years, like England, France and 
 Germany, not every period of their history contains val- 
 
94 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 uable culture elements. The gi^eat epochs are not clearly- 
 distinguishable in their origin and ending. Again, only 
 those periods whose deeds, spirit and tendency have been 
 well preserved by history or, still better, have found ex- 
 pression in the work of some great poet or literary artist, 
 can supply for children the best educative material. 
 
 The typical epochs of the world's struggle and pro- 
 gress, as reflected in the literary masterpieces of great 
 writers, are the educative centres for the school. The 
 history of each nation that has had a progressive civili- 
 zation contains such elements and masterpieces. It 
 would be fortunate for each nation if it could find first in 
 its own history all such leading epochs and the corre- 
 sponding materials. Then it could draw upon the his- 
 torical and literary resources of other countries to com- 
 plete and round out the horizon of thought. 
 
 Ziller, as a disciple of Herbart, was the first to lay 
 out a course of historical study for the common school 
 based upon the culture epochs. Since religious instruc- 
 tion has always been an important study in German 
 schools, he was able to establish a double historical series 
 throughout the eight grades of the common school; the 
 first scriptural, representing the chief epochs of Jewish 
 history from the time of Abraham to the end of Christ's 
 ministry, the second, national German history from the 
 early traditional stories of Saxony and Thuringia to the 
 Napoleonic wars and the entry of Emperor William into 
 Paris in 1871. It should be remarked that in the first 
 and second grades fairy stories and Robinson Crusoe are 
 used and the regular historical series does not begin till 
 the third grade. The two series of sacred and profane 
 history are designed to illustrate for each grade corre- 
 sponding epochs of national history, both Jewish and 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 95 
 
 German. In the fourth grade, for instance, the Bible 
 history from the time of Moses to Solomon corresponds 
 to the period represented by the Nibelmigen song in 
 German tradition. 
 
 For each grade is selected a body of classical, his- 
 torical materials representing a great period of German 
 as well as Jewish life, and especially suited to interest 
 the children and illustrate morals. A full course for the 
 eight grades of the common schools with this double his- 
 torical series as a nucleus, has been carefully worked out 
 and applied in a number of German schools. 
 
 The Jewish and German historical materials, which 
 are made the moral-educative basis of the common school 
 by the Herbartians, can be of no service to us except by 
 way of example. Neither sacred nor German history can 
 form any important part of an American course of study. 
 Religious instruction has been delegated to the church 
 and German history touches us indirectly if at all. The 
 epochs of history from which American schools must draw 
 are chiefly those of the United States and Great Britain. 
 France, Germany, Italy and Greece may furnish some 
 collateral matter, as the story of Tell, of Siegfried, of 
 Alaric and Ulysses, but the leading epochs must be those 
 of our own national history. 
 
 Has the English-speaking race in North America 
 passed through a series of historical epochs which, on ac- 
 count of their moral-educative worth, deserve to stand in 
 the centre of a common school course? Is this history 
 adapted to cultivate the highest moral and intellectual 
 qualities of children as they advance from year to year? 
 There are few if any single nations whose history could fur- 
 nish a favorable answer to this question. The English in 
 America began their career so late in the world's history 
 
96 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 and with such advantages of previous European culture 
 that several of the earlier historical epochs are not repre- 
 sented in our country. But perhaps G-reat Britain and 
 Europe will furnish the earlier links of a chain whose 
 later links were firmly welded in America. 
 
 The history of our country since the first settlements 
 less than three hundred years ago is by far the best epi- 
 tome of the world's progress in its later phases that the 
 life of any nation presents. On reaching the new world 
 the settlers began a hand-to-hand, tooth-and-nail conflict 
 with hard conditions of climate, soil and savage. The 
 simple basis of physical existence had to be fought for on 
 the hardest terms. The fact that everything had to be 
 built up anew from small beginnings on a virgin soil gave 
 an opportunity to trace the rise of institutions from their 
 infancy in a Puritan dwelling or in a town meeting till 
 they spread and consolidated over a continent. In this 
 short time the people have grown from little scattered 
 settlements to a nation, have experienced an undreamed- 
 of niaterial expansion, have passed through a rapid suc- 
 cession of great political struggles and have had an 
 unrivaled evolution of agriculture, commerce, manufac- 
 tures, inventions, education and social life. All the ele- 
 ments of society, material, religious, political and social 
 have started with the day of small things and have grown 
 up together. 
 
 There is little in our history to ap.peal to children be- 
 low the fourth grade, that is, below ten years; but from 
 the beginning of the fourth grade on American history 
 is rich in moral-educative materials of the best quality 
 and suited to children. We are able to distinguish four 
 principal epochs: 1. The age of pioneers, the ocean nav- 
 igators like Columbus, Drake and Magellan, and the ex- 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 97 
 
 plorers of the continent like Smith, Champlain, LaSalle 
 and Fremont. 2. The period of settlements, of colonial 
 history and of French and Indian wars. 3. The Revolu- 
 tion and life under the Articles of Confederation till the 
 adoption of the Constitution. 4. Self-government under 
 the Union and the growth and strengthening of the fed- 
 eral idea. While drawing largely upon general history 
 for a full and detailed treatment of a few important top- 
 ics in each of these epochs we should make a still more 
 abundant use of the biographical and literary materials 
 furnished by each. The concentration of school studies, 
 with a historical series suggested by the culture epochs 
 as a basis, would utilize our American history, biogra- 
 phy and literature in a manner scarcely dreamed of here- 
 tofore. 
 
 We shall attempt to illustrate briefly this concentra- 
 tion of studies about materials selected from one of the 
 culture epochs. Take, for example, the age of pioneers 
 from which to select historical subject-matter for chil- 
 dren of the fourth and fifth grades. It comprehends the 
 biographies of eminent navigators and explorers, pioneers 
 on land and sea. It describes the important undertak- 
 ings of Columbus, Magellan, Cabot, Raleigh, Drake and 
 others, who were daring leaders at the great period of 
 maritime discovery. The pioneer explorers of New Eng- 
 land and the other colonies bring out strongly marked 
 characters in the preparatory stage of our earliest his- 
 tory. Smith, Champlain, Winthrop, Penn, Oglethorpe, 
 Stuyvesant and Washington are examples. In the Mis- 
 sissippi valley De Soto, La Salle, Boone, Lincoln and 
 Robertson are types. Still farther west Lewis and 
 Clarke, and the pioneers of California complete this his- 
 torical epoch in a series of great enterprises. 
 
98 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 Most of them are pioneers into new regions beset with 
 dangers of wild beasts, savages and sickness. A few are 
 settlers, the first to build cabins and take possession of 
 land that was still claimed by red men and still covered 
 with forests. The men named were leaders of small 
 bands sent out to explore rivers and forests or to drive 
 out hostile claimants at the point of the sword. Any 
 one who has tried the effect of these stories upon children 
 of the fourth grade will grant that they touch a deep na- 
 tive interest. But this must be a genuine and permanent 
 interest to be of educative value. The moral quality in 
 this interest is its virtue. Standish, Boone, La Salle and 
 the rest were stalwart men, whose courage was keenly 
 and powerfully tempered. They were leaders of men by 
 virtue of moral strength and superiority. Their deeds 
 have the stamp of heroism and in approving them the 
 moral judgments of children are exercised upon noble 
 material. These men and stories constitute an epoch in 
 civilization because they represent that state which just 
 precedes the first form of settled society. In fact some 
 of the stories fall in the transition stage, where men 
 followed the plow and wielded tVie woodman's axe, or 
 turned to the warpath as occasion required. In every 
 part of the United States there has been such a period 
 and something corresponding to it in other countries. 
 We are prepared to assume therefore that these histor- 
 ical materials arouse a strong interest, implant moral 
 ideas and illustrate a typical epoch. They are also very 
 real. These men, especially the land pioneers, were our 
 own predecessors, traversing the same rivers, forests and 
 prairies where we now live and enjoy the fruits of their 
 hardihood and labor. 
 
 Let us suppose that such a historical series of stories 
 has its due share of time on the school program and that 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 99 
 
 the stories are properly presented by the teacher and 
 orally reproduced by the pupils, into what relations shall 
 the other studies of the school enter to these historical 
 materials ? How shall language, reading, geography, 
 natural science and arithmetic be brought into the close 
 relation to history required by the idea of concentration. 
 The oral reproduction of the stories by the children is 
 the best possible oral language drill, while their partial 
 written review is the basis of much of the regular com- 
 position work. Language lessons on isolated and uncon- 
 nected topics can be thus entirely omitted. The element 
 of interest will be added to oral and written language 
 lessons by the use of such lively stories. 
 \ Readiyig is chiefly tributary to the historical series. 
 Such selections should be made for reading lessons as will 
 throw additional light upon pioneer history and its re- 
 lated geopraphy. Descriptions of natural scenery and 
 choice selections from our best historians, as Irving and 
 Bancroft, describing events or men of this period, should 
 be used for reading lessons. Especially the best literary 
 selections are to be utilized, as The Landing of the Pil- 
 grims, Webster's and Everett's orations at Plymouth, 
 Evangeline and Hiawatha, Indian legends and life, Miles 
 Standish, The Knickerbocker history, and some of the 
 original papers and letters of the early settlers. What- 
 ever poems or prose selections from our best literature 
 are found to bear directly or indirectly upon pioneer 
 events will add much interest and beauty to the whole 
 subject. A second series of reading materials for these 
 grades would be those masterpieces and traditions of 
 European literature, which are drawn from a correspond- 
 ing pioneer epoch in those countries. For example, Sieg- 
 fried in Germany, Alaric in Italy, and Ulysses in Greece. 
 
100 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 A selection of reading material along these lines would 
 exhibit much variety of prose and poetry, history and 
 geography. Unity would be given to it by the spirit and 
 labors of a typical age and an intimate relation to history 
 at all points established. 
 
 Geography has an equally close relation to history 
 stories. For these grades geography and history cover 
 the same geographical regions. Instead of being totally 
 isolated from each other they should be purposely laid out 
 on parallel lines with interlacing topics. North America 
 and the Atlantic ocean are the field of action in both 
 cases. These maritime explorers opened up the geogra- 
 phy of this hemisphere at its most interesting stage. No 
 part of the Atlantic ocean or of its North American 
 coasts was overlooked by the navigators. The climate, 
 vegetation, and people upon its islands and coasts were 
 curious objects to European adventurers. The first 
 pioneers surveyed the eastern coast and adjacent interior 
 of a new continent with its bays, rivers, forests, and 
 mountains. The stories themselves are not intelligible 
 without full geographical explanations, and the personal 
 interest in the narratives throws a peculiar charm upon 
 the geography. 
 
 The Mississippi valley is a great field for both 
 history and geography. It is one of the striking phys- 
 ical features of North America and the best of stories 
 find their setting in this environment. Not a great 
 river of this region but is the scene of one of the stor- 
 ies. The lakes and streams were the natural highways 
 of the explorers and settlers. The mountains obstructed 
 their way, presenting obstacles but not limits to their 
 enterprise. The great forests housed their game, con- 
 cealed their enemies, and had to be cut down to make 
 space for their homes and cornfields. The prairies farther 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 101 
 
 west were a camping ground for them as well as for the 
 deer and buffalo. There are no important physical fea- 
 tures of the great valley that are not touched more or 
 less in detail by the stories. It is the work of the geog- 
 raphy of this year to enlarge and complete the pictures 
 suggested by the stories, to multiply details, to compare 
 and arrano-e and to associate with these the facts of our 
 present political and commercial geography. 
 \ The relation between history and geography is so 
 intimate that it requires some pedagogical skill to deter- 
 mine which of the two should take the lead. But we 
 have already adjudged the history to be by far the more 
 important of the two. Its subject matter is of greater 
 intrinsic interest to children, and as it already stands in 
 the commanding center of the school course, we are dis- 
 posed to bring the geography lessons into close depend- 
 ence upon it. 
 
 In these grades nat^iral science or nature study form 
 a necessary complement to the circle of historical and 
 geographical topics treated. Many interesting natural 
 science subjects suggested by history and geography can 
 not be dealt with satisfactorily in those studies, for 
 example, the palm-tree, the squirrel, the mariner's com- 
 pass. Natural science studies begin naturally with the 
 home neighborhood, with its plants, trees, animals, rocks, 
 inventions and products. But having surveyed and 
 learned many of these things at home in his earlier 
 years the child is prepared, when geography and history 
 begin, to extend his natural science information to the 
 larger geographical regions. 
 
 The history, stories and geography suggest a large 
 number of natural science topics so that there is abun- 
 dant choice of materials while remaining in close con- 
 
 —7 
 
102 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 nexion with those studies. The vegetable and animal 
 life and products of the sea are suggested by the voyages, 
 such as fishes, dolphins, whales, sea-birds, shells. Also 
 the construction of ships, the mariner's compass and 
 astronomical topics. 
 
 The stories of the land pioneers open up a still richer 
 field of natural science study for the common schools. 
 Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, 
 bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild 
 turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat fish, 
 sword-fish, turtle, alligator and many more. Among 
 native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, 
 beans, huckleberries, grapes, strawberries, cranberries, 
 tobacco, paw paw, mulberry, haw, plum, apple and per- 
 simmon. Of trees are the oak, hickory, walnut, cypress, 
 pine, birch, beech and others. Tools, instruments and 
 inventions are mentioned with their uses, as guns, Indian 
 weapons, compass, thermometer, barometer, boats, car- 
 penter's tools; also, the uses of iron, lead, leather and 
 many of the simple arts and economies of life, such as 
 weaving, tempering of metals, tanning and cooking. 
 The natural wonders of the country, such as falls, caves, 
 hot springs, canons, salt licks, plains, interior deserts 
 and salt lakes, kinds of rocks, soils, forests and other 
 vegetation, the phenomena of the weather and differences 
 in climate are referred to. All these and other topics 
 from the broad realm of nature are suggested, any of 
 which may serve as the starting point for a series of 
 science lessons. 
 
 How far the natural science lessons can heed the 
 suggestions of history and geography and still follow out 
 and develop important science principles is one of the 
 great problems for solution. It would seem that the 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 103 
 
 large number of natural science topics touched upon by 
 the history, when increased by the variety of home ob- 
 jects in nature and by still others called up by the geog- 
 raphy work of these years, would give sufficient variety to 
 the natural science work of the same period. By omitting 
 some of these topics and enlarging upon others, developing 
 the notions of classes and principles so far as is desirable, 
 the natural science lessons may be made sufficiently sci- 
 entific without losing the close relation to the central 
 subject matter for the year. There is no doubt but the 
 science lessons will add greatly to many topics suggested 
 by the stories and will bring the whole realm of nature 
 into close relation to history and geography. 
 
 The subjects thus far discussed, that may be brought 
 into close relation to the central stories, are oral and writ- 
 ten language, reading and literature, geography and the 
 natural sciences. The connexions between these branches 
 are numerous and strong at every step. 
 
 Arithmetic^ finally, seems to stand like an odd sheep 
 among the studies. It is certainly the least social of the 
 common school branches. While avoiding all forced con- 
 nexion between arithmetic and other studies, we shall 
 find some points where the relations are simple and clear. 
 Children in the first grade should see numbers in the 
 leaves, flowers, trees and animals they study. At the 
 beginning of the first grade this would be a good in- 
 formal way of beginning numbers. The value of objects 
 in first and second grade number is so great that it is 
 only a question as to how far the objects suggested by 
 other lessons may be used. 
 
 But we are speaking of concentration in the fourth 
 and fifth grades. In the stories and in geography we 
 deal with journeys up great 'rivers, with the height of 
 
104 GENERAL METHOD 
 
 mountains, with the extent of valleys and lakes, with 
 reo-ular forts, mounds and enclosures, with companies 
 and bodies of men, with railroads, cities and agricultural 
 products, and with many other topics which suggest 
 excellent practical problems in arithmetic for these 
 grades. All such careful arithmetical computations add 
 clearness and definiteness to historical and geographical 
 ideas. The natural sciences have been so little systemat- 
 ically taught in our common schools, that we are scarcely 
 able to realize what connexion may be made between 
 them and arithmetic. We know that in the advanced 
 study and applications of some of the natural sciences, 
 mathematics is an essential part. 
 
 A brief retrospect will make it appear that the history 
 stories, natural sciences, and geography, with the more 
 formal sudies, such as reading, language, and arithmetic, 
 may be brought into a close organic harmony. Each of 
 them depends upon and throws light upon the other, and 
 while the connexions are natural, not forced, there is a 
 concentration upon the central historical and literary 
 matter that makes moral character the highest aim of 
 teaching. Since real -concentration is practically a new 
 educational undertaking, it involves a number of unsolved 
 subordinate problems; for instance, how far shall science 
 lessons, grammar, and geography follow their own princi- 
 ples of selection, based on the nature and scientific ar- 
 rangement of their materials, while keeping up the de- 
 pendence upon and connexions with the central subject. 
 But if concentration is a true principle of education, it is 
 evident that none of these problems can be solved until 
 concentration has been agreed upon and made funda- 
 mental. In this case those teachers who are trying to 
 lay out courses of study in p-^^ography, natural science, 
 
CULTURE EPOCHS. 105 
 
 or history without regard to the relation of studies to 
 each other, will have most of their work to do over 
 again. 
 
 A little reflexion will convince us perhaps that a year's 
 work thus concentrated will produce a much more power- 
 ful and lasting impression upon children than the loose 
 aggregation of facts which is usually collected during a 
 year's work. Not only will the moral effect be intensified 
 but the close dependence of each study upon the others 
 will be perceptibly felt as valuable and stimulating to the 
 children. 
 
 If now we can conceive of the eight grades of the 
 common school as eight stages passing naturally from 
 one to another, each a unit composed of a net-work of 
 well related facts, but the epochs closely related to each 
 other in a rising series, from childhood almost to matur- 
 ity, or from the beginning of history up to the present 
 state of culture, we shall be able also to think of educa- 
 tion as a succession of powerful culture influences, that 
 will bring the child to our present standpoint fully con- 
 scious of his duties and surroundings. 
 
lOG GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 APPERCEPTION. 
 
 We have observed how interest aids concentration by 
 bringing all kinds of knowledge into close living relation 
 to the feelings. Interest incentives are put into every 
 kind of information to stimulate the will, which in turn 
 unifies all the mind activities and brings them under con- 
 trol. The culture epochs also contribute powerfully to 
 concentration by furnishing a principle for the selection 
 of a series of historical masterpieces which become the 
 rallying-points for all educative efforts. A still more 
 powerful and persistent means of concentration is found 
 in applying the principle of apperception. Every day and 
 hour of school labors illustrate its value and teachers 
 should find in it a constant antidote to faulty methods. 
 
 Apperception may be roughly defined at first as the 
 process of acquiring new ideas by the aid of old ideas al- 
 ready in the mind. It makes the acquisition of new 
 knowledge easier and quicker. Not that there is any 
 easy road to learning, but there is a natural process which 
 greatly accelerates the progress of acquisition, just as it is 
 better to follow a highway over a rough country than to 
 betake one's self to the stumps and brush. For example, 
 if one is familiar with peaches, apricots will be quickly 
 understood as a similar kind of fruit, even though a little 
 strange. A person who is familiar with electrical ma- 
 chinery will easily interpret the meaning and purpose of 
 every part of a new electrical plant. One may perceive 
 a new object without understanding it, but to apperceive 
 
APPERCEPTION. 107 
 
 it is to interpret its meaning by the aid of similar familiar 
 notions. 
 
 If one examines a type-vyrit'er for the first time, it will 
 take some pains and effort to miderstand its construction 
 and use, but after examining a Remington, another kind 
 will be more easily understood, because the principle of the 
 first interprets that of the second. Suppose the Steppes 
 of Russia are mentioned for the first time to a class. The 
 word has little or no meaning or perhaps suggests erro- 
 neously a succession of stairs. But we remark that the 
 steppes are like the prairies and plains to the west of the 
 Mississippi River, covered with grass and fed on by herds. 
 By awakening a familiar notion already in the mind and 
 bringing it distinctly to the front, the new thing is easily 
 understood. Again a boy goes to town and sees a 
 banana for the first time, and asks. "What is that? I 
 never saw anything like that. " He thinks he has no class 
 of things to which it belongs, no place to put it. His 
 father answers that it is to eat like an orange or a pear, 
 and its whole significance is at once plain by the reference 
 to something familiar. 
 
 Again, two men, the one a machinist and the other an 
 observer unskilled in machines, visit the machinery hall 
 of an exposition. The machinist observes a new inven- 
 tion and finds in it a new application of an old principle. 
 As he passes along from one machine to another he is 
 much interested in noting new devices and novel appli- 
 ances and at the end of an hour he leaves the hall with a 
 mind enriched. The other observer sees the same ma- 
 chines and their parts but does not detect the principle 
 of their construction. His previous knowledge of 
 machines is not sufficient to give him the clue to their ex- 
 planation. After an hour of uninterested observation 
 
108 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 he leaves the hall with a confused notion of shafts, wheels, 
 cogs, bands, etc., but with no greater insight into the 
 principles of machinery. Why has one man learned so 
 much and the other nothing ? Because the machinist's 
 previous experience served as an interpreter and ex- 
 plained these new contrivances, while the other had no 
 sufficient previous knowledge and so acquired nothing 
 new. <'To him that hath shall be given." In the act of 
 apperception the old ideas, dwelling in the mind, are not 
 to be regarded as dead treasures stored away and only 
 occasionally drawn out and used by a purposed effort of 
 the memory, but they are living forces which have the 
 active power of seizing and appropriating new ideas. 
 Lazarus says they stand "like well-armed men in the 
 inner stronghold of the mind ready to sally forth and 
 overcome or make serviceable whatever shows itself at 
 the portals of sense. " It is then through the active aid 
 of familiar ideas that new things find an introduction to 
 soul life. If old friends go out to meet the strangers and 
 welcome them, there will be an easy entrance and a quick 
 adoption into the new home. But frequently these old 
 friends who stand in the background of our thoughts 
 must be awakened and called to the front. They must 
 stand as it were on tip toe ready to welcome the stranger. 
 For if they lie asleep in the penetralia of the home the 
 new comers may approach and pass by for lack of a wel- 
 come. It is often necessary therefore for the teacher to re- 
 vive old impressions, to call up previously acquired knowl- 
 edge and to put it in readiness to receive and welcome the 
 new. The success with which this is done is often the 
 difference between good and poor teaching. 
 
 We are now prepared for a more accurate definition 
 of apperception. ' 'The transformation of a newer (weaker) 
 
APPERCEPTION. 109 
 
 concept by means of an older one surpassing the former 
 in power and inner organization bears the name of apper- 
 ception, in contrast to the unaltered reception of the 
 same perception." (Lttrdner's Psychol, p. 124, trans, by 
 De Gai^mo.) 
 
 Lindner remarks further, "Apperception is the re- 
 action of the old against the new — in it is revealed the 
 preponderance which the older, firmer, and more self- 
 contained concept groups have in contrast to the con- 
 cepts which have just entered consciousness." Again, 
 "It is a kind of process of condensation of thought and 
 brings into the mental life a certain stability and firm- 
 ness in that it subordinates new to older impressions, 
 puts everything in its right place and in its right relation 
 to the whole, and in this way works at that organic 
 formation of our consciousness which we call culture.''' 
 (Linder p. 126.) 
 
 "Apperception may be defined as that interaction 
 between two similar ideas or thought-complexes in 
 the course of which the weaker, unorganized, isolated 
 idea or thought-complex is incorporated into the richer, 
 better digested, and more firmly compacted one." (Lange, 
 Apperception p. 13.) 
 
 Sometimes older ideas or thought masses, being clear, 
 strong, and well-digested receive a new impression to 
 modify and appropriate it. This is especially true where 
 opinions have been carefully formed after thought and 
 deliberation. A well- trained political economist, for ex- 
 ample, when approaching a new theory or presentation 
 of it by a George or Bellamy, meets it with all the 
 resources of a well-stored, thoughtful mind and admits 
 it, if at all, in a modified form to his system of thought. 
 Sometimes however a new theory, which strikes the mind 
 
110 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 with great clearness and vigor, is able to make a powerful 
 assault upon previous opinions and perhaps modify or 
 overturn them. This is the more apt to be the case if 
 one's previous ideas have been weak and undecided. In 
 the interaction between the old and new the latter then 
 become the apperceiving forces. Upon the untrained 
 or poorly-equipped mind a strong argument has a more 
 decisive effect than it may justly deserve. New ideas, 
 especially those coming directly through the senses, are 
 often more vivid and attractive than similar old ones. 
 For this reason they usually occupy greater attention 
 and prominence at first than later when the old ideas 
 have begun to revive and reassert themselves. Old ideas 
 usually have the advantage over the new in being better 
 organized, more closely connected in series and groups, 
 and having been often repeated, they acquire a certain 
 permanent ascendency in the thoughts. In this inter- 
 action between similar notions, old and new, the differ- 
 ences at first arrest attention, then gradually sink into 
 the background, while the strong points of resemblance 
 begin to monopolize the thought and bind the notions 
 into a unity. 
 
 The use of familiar notions in acquiring an insight 
 into new things is a natural tendency or drift of the mind. 
 As soon as we see somethino; new and desire to under- 
 stand it, at once we involuntarily begin to ransack 
 our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previ- 
 ous experience which corresponds to this or is like it. 
 For whatever is like it or has an analogy to it, or serves 
 the same uses, will explain this new thing, though the 
 two objects be in other points essentially different. We 
 are, in short, constantly falling back upon our old expe- 
 riences and classifications for the explanation of new ob- 
 jects that appear to us. 
 
APPERCEPTION. Ill 
 
 So far is this true that the most ordinary things can 
 only be explained in the light of experience. When John 
 Smith wrote a note to his companions at Jamestown and 
 thus communicated his desires to them, it was unintelli- 
 gible to the Indians. They had no knowledge of writing 
 and looked on the marks as magical. When Columbus' 
 ships first appeared on the coast of the new world, the 
 natives looked upon them as great birds. They had 
 never seen large sailing vessels. To vary the illustra- 
 tion, the art of reading^ so easy to a student, is the ac- 
 cumulated result of a long collection of knowledge and 
 experience. There is an unconscious employment of ap- 
 perception in the practical affairs of life that is of interest. 
 We often see a person at a distance and by some slight 
 characteristic of motion form or dress, recognize him at 
 once. From this slight trace we picture to ourselves the 
 person in full and say we saw him in the street. Sitting 
 in my room at evening I hear the regular passenger train 
 come in. The noise alone suggests the engine, cars, con- 
 ductor, passengers and all the train complete. As a 
 matter of fact I saw nothing at all but have before my 
 mind the whole picture. On Sunday morning I see some 
 one enter a familiar church door, and going on my way 
 the whole picture of church, congregation, pastor, music 
 and sermon come distinctly to my mind. Only a passing 
 glance at one person entering suggests the whole scene. 
 In looking at a varied landscape we see many things 
 which the sensuous eye alone would not detect, distances, 
 perspective and relative size, position and nature of ob- 
 jects. This apperceptive power is of vast importance in 
 practical life as it leads to quick judgment and action, 
 when personal examination into details would be impos- 
 sible. 
 
112 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 The general plan of all studies is based upon this 
 notion of acquiring knowledge by the assistance of accu- 
 mulated funds. In AritJmietic it would be folly to begin 
 with long division before the multiplication table is 
 learned. In Geometry^ later propositions depend upon 
 earlier principles and demonstrations. In Latin^ vocab- 
 ularies and inflections and syntactical relations must be 
 mastered before readiness in the use of language is 
 reached. And so it is to a large degree in the general 
 plan of all studies. In spite of this no principle is more 
 commonly violated in daily recitations than that of ap- 
 perception. Its value is self-evident as a principle for 
 the arrangement of topics in any branch of study, but it 
 is overlooked in daily lessons. Instead of this new knowl- 
 edge is acquired by a thoughtless memory drill. 
 
 In apperception we never pass from the known to 
 things which are entirely new. Absolutely new knowl- 
 edge is gained by perception or intuition. When an older 
 person meets with something totally new, he either does 
 not notice it or it staggers him. Apperception does not 
 take place. In many cases we are disturbed or frightened, 
 as children by some new or sudden noise or object. But 
 most so-called new things bear sufficient resemblance to 
 things seen before to admit of explanation. Strange as 
 the sights of a Chinese city might appear, we should still 
 know that we were in a city. In most "new" objects of 
 observation or study, the familiar parts greatly prepon- 
 derate over the unfamiliar. In a new reading lesson, for 
 example, most of the words and ideas are well known, only 
 an occasional word requires explanation and that by using 
 familiar illustrations. The flood of our familiar and oft- 
 repeated ideas sweeps on like a great river, receiving here 
 and there from either side a tributary stream, that is 
 swallowed up in its waters without perceptible increase. 
 
APPERCEPTION. 113 
 
 So strong is the apperceiving force of familiar notions 
 that they drag far-distant scenes in geography and his- 
 tory into the home neighborhood and locate them there. 
 The imagination works in conjunction with the apper- 
 ceiving faculty and constructs real pictures. Children 
 are otherwise inclined to substitute one thing for another 
 by imagination. With boys and girls, geographical ob. 
 jects about home are often converted by fancy into rep- 
 resentatives of distant places. It is related of Byron 
 that while reading in childhood the story of the Trojan 
 war, he localized all the places in the region of his home. 
 An old hill and castle looking toward the plain and the 
 sea were his Troy. The stream flowing through the 
 plain was the Simois. The places of famous conflicts 
 between the Trojans and Greeks were located. So vivid 
 were the pictures which these home scenes gave to the 
 child that years later in visiting Asia Minor and the 
 sight of the real Troy he was not so deeply impressed as 
 in his boyhood. A German professor relates that he and 
 his companions, while reading the Indian stories of 
 Cooper, located the important scenes in the hills and val- 
 leys about Eisenach in the Thuringian mountains. Many 
 other illustrations of the same imaginative tendency to 
 substitute home objects for foreign ones are given. But 
 whether or not this experience is true of us all, it is cer- 
 tain that we can form no idea of foreign places and events 
 except as we construct the pictures out of the fragments 
 of things that we have known. What we have seen of 
 rivers, lands, and cities must form the materials for pic- 
 turing to ourselves distant places. 
 
 Important conclusions drawn from a study of apper- 
 ception : 
 
114 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 1. Value of previous knoioledge. If knowledge once 
 acquired is so valuable we are first of all urged to make 
 the acquisition permanent. Thorough mastery and fre- 
 quent reviews are necessary to make knowledge stick. 
 Careless and superficial study is injurious. It is some- 
 times carelessly remarked by those who are supposed to 
 be wise in educational matters that it makes no differ- 
 ence how much we forget if we only have proper drill 
 and training to study. That is, how we study is more 
 important than what we learn. But viewed in the light 
 of apperception, acquired knowledge should be retained 
 and used. For it unlocks the door to more knowledge. 
 Thorough mastery and retention of the elements of knowl- 
 edge in the different branches is the only solid road to 
 progress. In this connexion we can see the importance 
 of learning only what is worth remembering^ what will 
 prove a valuable treasure in future study. In the selec- 
 tion of material for school studies, therefore, we must 
 keep in mind knowledge which, as Comenius says, is of 
 solid utility. Having once selected and acquired such 
 materials we are next impelled to make constant use of 
 them. If the acquisition of new information depends so 
 much upon the right use of previous knowledge we are 
 called upon to build constantly upon this foundation. 
 This is true whether the child's knowledge has been 
 acquired at school or at home. In order to make things 
 clear and interesting to boys and girls we must refer 
 every day to what they have before learned in school and 
 out of school. 
 
 Again if we accept this doctrine that old ideas are the 
 materials out of which we constantly build bridges across 
 into new fields of knowledge we must knoio the children 
 better and what store of knowledge they have already 
 
APPERCEPTION. 115 
 
 acquired. Just as an army marching into a new country 
 must know well the country through which it has passed 
 and must keep open the line of communication and the 
 base of supplies, so the student must always have a safe 
 retreat into his past, and a base of supplies to sustain 
 him in his onward movements. The tendency is very 
 strong for a grade teacher to think that she needs to 
 know nothing except the facts to be acquired in her own 
 grade. But she should remember that her grade is only 
 a station on the highway to learning and life. In teach- 
 ing we caD not by any shift dispense with the ideas chil- 
 dren have gained at home, at play, in the school and out- 
 side of it. This, in connexion with what the child has 
 learned in the previous grades, constitutes a stock of 
 ideas, a capital, upon which the teacher should freely 
 draw in illustrating daily lessons. 
 
 2. The use of our acquired stock of ideas involves a 
 constant loorking over of old ideas, and this working-over 
 process not only reviews and strengthens past knowledge, 
 keeping it from forgetfulness, but it throws new light 
 upon it and exposes it to a many-sided criticism. In the 
 first place familiar ideas should not be allowed to rest in 
 the mind unused. Like tools for service they must be 
 kept bright and sharp. One reason why so many of the 
 valuable ideas we have acquired have gradually disap- 
 peared from the mind is because they remained so long 
 unused that they faded out of sight. The old saying 
 that "repetition is the mother of studies" needs to be re- 
 called and emphasized. By being put in contact with 
 new ideas, old notions are seen and appreciated in new 
 relations. Facts that have long lain unexplained in the 
 mind, suddenly receive a nevj interpretation, a vivid and 
 rational meaning. Or the old meaning is intensified and 
 vivified by putting a new fact in conjunction with it. 
 
116 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 Where the climate and products of the British Isles 
 have been studied in political geography, and later on in 
 physical geography, the gulf stream is explained in its 
 bearings on the climate of western Europe, the whole 
 subject of the climate of England is viewed from a new 
 and interesting standpoint. In arithmetic, where the 
 square of the sum of the two sides of a right angled tri- 
 angle is illustrated by an example and later on in geom- 
 etry the same proposition is taken up in a different way 
 and proved as a universal theorem, new and interesting 
 light is thrown upon an old problem of arithmetic. In 
 United States history, after the Revolution has been 
 studied, the biography of a man like Samuel Adams 
 throws much additional and vivid light upon the events 
 and actors in Boston and Massachusetts. The life of 
 John AdamxS would give a still different view of the same 
 great events, just as a city, as seen from different stand- 
 points, presents different aspects. 
 
 3. We have thus far shown that new ideas are more 
 easily understood and assimilated when they are brought 
 into close contact with what we already know; and sec- 
 ondly, that our old knowledge is often explained and 
 illuminated by new facts brought to bear upon them. 
 We may now observe the result of this double action — 
 the icelding of old and new into one piece, the close min- 
 gling and association of all our knowledge, i. e. , its 
 unity. Apperception, therefore, has the same final ten- 
 dency that will be observed in the inductive p7X)cess, the 
 unification of knowledge, the concentration of all experi- 
 ence by uniting its parts into groups and series. The 
 smith, in welding together two pieces of iron, heats both 
 and then hammers them together into one piece. The 
 teacher has something similar to do. He must revive 
 
APPERCEPTION. 117 
 
 old ideas in the child's mind, then present the new facts 
 and bring the two things together while they are still 
 fresh, so as to cause them to coalesce. To prove this 
 observe how long division may be best taught. Call up 
 and review the method of short division, then proceed to 
 work a problem in long division calling attention to the 
 similar steps and processes in the two, and finally to the 
 difference between them. 
 
 The defect of much teaching in children's classes is 
 that the teacher does not properly provide for the weld- 
 iug together of the new and old. The important prac- 
 tical question after all is, whether instructors see to it 
 that children recall their previous knowledge. It is nec- 
 essary to take special pains in this. Nothing is more 
 common than to find children forgetting the very thing 
 which, if remembered, would explain the difficult point 
 in the lesson. Teachers are often surprised that children 
 have forgotten things once learned. But, in an impor- 
 tant sense, we encourage children to forget by not calling 
 into use their acquisitions. Lessons are learned too 
 much, each by itself, without reference to what precedes 
 or what follows, or what effect this lesson of to-day may 
 have upon things learned a year ago. Putting it briefly, 
 children and teachers do not think enough, pondering 
 things over in their mind, relating facts with each other, 
 and bringing all knowledge into unity, and into a clear 
 comprehension. The habit of thougJttf illness engendered 
 by a proper combining of old and new, is one of the 
 valuable results of a good education. It gives the mind 
 a disposition to glance backward and forward, to judge 
 of all old ideas from a broader, more intelligent stand- 
 point. Thinking everything over in the light of the best 
 experience we can bring to bear upon it, prevents us 
 from jumping at conclusions. 
 
118 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 In this welding process we desire to determine how 
 far an actual concentration may take place between school 
 studies and the home and outside life of children. The 
 stock of ideas and feelings which a child from its infancy 
 has gathered from its peculiar history and home sur- 
 roundings is the primitive basis of its personality. Its 
 thought, feeling and individuality are deeply interwoven 
 with home experience. No other set of ideas, later ac- 
 quired, lies so close to its heart or is so abiding in its 
 memory. The memory of work and play at home, of the 
 house, yard, trees and garden, of parents, brothers and 
 sisters and in addition to this the experiences connected 
 with neighbors and friends, the town and surrounding 
 country, the church and its influence, the holidays, games 
 and celebrations, all these things lie deeper in the minds 
 of children than the facts learned about grammar, geog- 
 raphy or history in school. Any plan of education that 
 ignores these home-bred ideas, these events, memories and 
 sympathies of home and neighborhood life, will make a 
 vital mistake. A concentration that keeps in mind only 
 the school studies and disregards the rich fund of ideas 
 that every child brings from his home must be a failure, 
 because it only includes the weaker half of his experience. 
 Home knowledge itself does not need to be made a con- 
 centrating center, but all its best materials must be 
 drawn into the concentrating center of the school. But 
 children bring many faulty, mistaken and even vicious 
 ideas from their homes. It is well to know the actual 
 situation. It is the work of the school at every step, 
 while receiving to correct, enlarge or arrange the faulty or 
 disordered knowledge brought into the school by children. 
 We unconsciously use these materials and depend upon 
 them for explaining new lessons, more constantly than 
 
APPERCEPTION. 119 
 
 we are aware of. In fact if we were wise teachers we 
 would consciously make a more frequent use of them and 
 in order to render them more valuable take special pains 
 to review, correct and arrange them. We would teach 
 children to observe more closely and to remember better 
 the things they daily see. 
 
 We shall appeciate better the value of home knowl- 
 edge if we take note of the direct and constant depend- 
 ence of the most important studies upon it. We usually 
 think of history as something far away in New England, 
 or France, or Egypt. History is mainly a study of the 
 actions, customs, homes, and institutions of men in dif- 
 ferent countries. But what an abundance of similar facts 
 and observations a child has gathered about home before 
 he begins the study of history. From his infancy he has 
 seen people of all sorts and conditions, rich and poor, 
 ignorant and learned, honorable and mean. He has seen 
 all sorts of human actions, learned to know their mean- 
 ing and to pass judgment upon them. He has seen 
 houses, churches, public buildings, trade and commerce, 
 and a hundred human institutions. The child has been 
 studying human actions and institutions in the concrete 
 for a dozen years before he begins to read and recite his- 
 tory from books. Without the knowledge thus acquired 
 out of school, society, government, and institutions would 
 be worse than Greek. Geography as taught in the books 
 would be totally foreign and strange but for the abund- 
 ance of ideas the child has already picked up about hills, 
 streams, roads, travel, storms, trees, animals, and people. 
 
 Natural science lessons must be based on a more care- 
 ful study of things already seen about home, rocks and 
 streams, flowers and plants, animals wild and tame. 
 These with the forests, fields, brooks, seasons, tools and 
 
120 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 inventions are the necessary object lessons in natural 
 science which can serve daily to illustrate other lessons. 
 How near then do the natural science topics geography, 
 and history stand to the daily home life of a child! How 
 intimate should be the relations which the school should 
 establish between the parts of a child's experience! This 
 is concentration in the broadest sense. A proper appre- 
 ciation of this principle will save us from a number of 
 common errors. Besides constantly associating home and 
 school knowledge, we shall try to know the home and 
 parents better, and the disposition and surroundings of 
 each child. We shall be ready at any time to render 
 home knowledge more clear and accurate, to correct 
 faulty observation and opinion. While the children will 
 be encouraged to illustrate lessons from their own expe- 
 rience, we shall fall into the excellent habit of explaining 
 new and difficult points by a direct appeal to what the 
 pupils have seen and understood. In short there will be 
 a disposition to draw into the concentrating work of the 
 school all the deeper but outside life-experiences which 
 form so important an element in the character of every 
 person, which however, teachers so often overlook. No 
 other institution has such an opportunity or power to 
 concentrate knowledge and experience as the school. 
 
 4. Another valuable educative result of apperception, 
 cultivated in this manner, is a consciousness of power 
 which springs from the ability to make a good use of our 
 knowledge. The oftener children become aware that they 
 have made a good use of acquired knowledge, the more 
 they are encouraged. They see the treasure growing in 
 their hands and feel conscious of their ability to use it. 
 There is a mental exhilaration like that coming from 
 abundant physical strength and health. 
 
APPERCEPTION. 121 
 
 We may observe that it is one of the means for devel- 
 oping that interest which we have laid down as funda- 
 mental. It is always a joy to find old information useful 
 in explaining new facts. When the principle of appercep- 
 tion is fully applied in teaching, the progress from one 
 point to another is so gradual and clear that it gives 
 pleasure. The clearness and understanding with which 
 we receive knowledge adds greatly to our interest in it. 
 On the contrary, when the principle of apperception is 
 violated and new knowledge is only half understood and 
 assimilated, there can be but little feeling of satisfaction. 
 
 Having seen the powerful aid rendered by appercep- 
 tion to the steady assimilation and concentration of 
 knowledge we are prepared, in the next chapter, to dis- 
 cuss the inductive process as a natural trend of the mind 
 in acquiring and classifying ideas and thus still further 
 aiding concentration by a more scientific arrangement 
 and association of our knowledge stores. 
 
122 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 INDUCTION. 
 
 Induction, or the concept-bearing process^ shows the 
 tendency of our minds to advance from the inspection of 
 particular objects and actions to the understanding of 
 general notions or concepts. The study and analysis 
 of this process casts us forthwith into the midst of 
 psychology, and calls for a knowledge of that succes- 
 sion and network of mental activities discussed in all 
 the psychologies; sensation, discrimination, perception," 
 analysis and synthesis, comparison, judgment, general- 
 ization or concept, reasoning. An inquiry into these 
 mental activities, which are among the most important 
 in psychology, is necessary as a basis of induction and of 
 general method. 
 
 But even the more profound study of psychology does 
 not necessarily give insight into correct methods of 
 teaching. Many great psychologists have had little or 
 no interest in teaching. Even eminent specialists in 
 electricity and chemistry have not often been those to 
 draw the immediate practical benefit from their studies. 
 The application of psychology to the work of instruction 
 constitutes a distinct field of inquiry and experiment. 
 The output of the best experimental thinking in this 
 direction may be called pedagogy. The process of induc- 
 tion or concept-building leads the mind, as above indi- 
 cated, through a series of different acts. We may first 
 observe how far the mind is naturally inclined to follow 
 
INDUCTION. 133 
 
 this process, and whether it is ii mark of healthy mental 
 action in children and in adults. Later we may examine 
 more closely the successive stages in the process itself. 
 
 To get at the natural process it is well to observe first 
 the action of a child's mind. , By analyzing a simple case 
 of a farmer's child we may trace the mental steps in 
 forming a general notion. So long as it has seen no 
 barn except that on its father's farm, the word ham 
 means to it only that particular object. But when it 
 discovers that one of the neighbors has a similar build- 
 ing called a barn, it learns to put these different objects 
 under one head, and the general notion haryi as a build- 
 ing for horses, cattle and feed gradually rises in the 
 mind. Long before the child is six years old (school 
 age) it may have seen enough of such barns for the gen- 
 eral notion to be distinctly formed. By observing differ- 
 ent objects, by comparing and grouping similar things 
 together, it has formed a general notion in a regular pro- 
 cess of induction and that without any help from teach- 
 ers. 
 
 At two and three years of age or as soon as a child 
 begins to recognize and name new objects (because of 
 their resemblance to things previously seen) this ten. 
 dency to concept-building is manifest. Another illustra- 
 tion: The child has seen the family horse several times 
 till the word horse becomes associated with that animal. 
 While out walking it sees another horse and pointing its 
 finger says "horse." The memory of the first horse and 
 the similarity calls forth the natural conclusion that this 
 is a horse, though it may not be able to formulate the 
 sentence. More horses are seen and compared till the 
 word becomes the name of a whole class of animals. By 
 a gradual process of observation, comparison and judg- 
 
124 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 ment the word horse comes to stand for a large group of 
 objects in nature. 
 
 A child's mind is naturally very active in detecting 
 resemblances and in grouping similar objects together. 
 It notices that there are certain people called women, 
 others called men, that certain animals are called sheep, 
 others cattle. One class of objects receives the name 
 book, another stove, etc. The work of observing, com- 
 paring and classifying is a perpetual operation in the 
 child's active moods. In this way, what may appear at 
 first as an interminable confusion or blur of objects in 
 nature begins to fall into groups and classes. It is the 
 child's own way of bringing order out of the apparent 
 chaos of his surroundings. All this process of classifica- 
 tion is natural and nearly unconscious, and results in a 
 better understanding and interpretation of the things 
 around him. 
 
 Observe next the work of an educated adult, and how 
 he increases and arranges his knowledge. If he is an 
 incipient dry-goods merchant he learns by sight and 
 touch to detect the quality of goods. He compares and 
 classifies his experiences and becomes in time an expert 
 in judging textile fabrics. On the other hand he becomes 
 acquainted by personal contact with various customers 
 and learns how to classify and judge them both as buy- 
 ers and as debtors. 
 
 If a botanist finds a new plant he examines its stem, 
 leaves, root, flower, seed and environment. While enter- 
 ing into these details he is also comparing it with fa- 
 miliar classes of plants. Finally he is not satisfied till 
 he can definitely locate it in his previous system. With 
 every new plant that he discovers he travels over the 
 whole road from the individual particulars to the general 
 
INDUCTION. 125 
 
 classes of his whole system. The merchant and the sci- 
 entist follow out with painstaking care and industry the 
 same course which was involuntarily taken by the child, 
 namely, observation of particulars, comparing and group- 
 ing into classes. The same habit of mind may be ob- 
 served in all people who are growing knowledge wards and 
 who possess any thoughtful instincts. 
 
 In acquiring knowledge along the line of induction, we 
 are on the road to the solution of the puzzle that nature 
 puts to every child. To every infant indeed the world is 
 an enormous riddle or puzzle whose parts lie in fragments 
 about him waiting the operation of his curious and in- 
 ventive mind toward the reconstruction of the whole. 
 Endless variety and complexity confronts us all in the 
 beginning. There is indeed an order and classification of 
 things in nature but it does not appear on the surface 
 and for centuries men remained ignorant of the underly- 
 ing harmony. Nature is full of valuable secrets, but they 
 lie concealed from the careless eye. They are to be de- 
 tected by prying deeper into individual facts, by putting 
 a thing here and a thing there together, by ponder- 
 ing on the relationship of things to each other in their 
 nature, appearance and cause. It is a remarkable fact 
 that we not only increase knowledge best by analyz- 
 ing, comparing and classifying objects, experiences and 
 phenomena — even into old age — but that the deeper we 
 penetrate into the individual qualities and inner nature of 
 objects, the more we extend and classify our information, 
 the simpler all the operations of nature become to our 
 understanding. The surprising simplicity and unity of 
 nature in her varied phenomena is one of the mature pro- 
 ducts of scientific study. The most scientific thinker 
 then is only trying to reduce to a simple explanation the 
 
136 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 same puzzle which confronted the infant in its cradle. 
 The problem in the same and the method similar. 
 
 It is plain that the process of classifying objects and 
 phenomena in nature and society is the beginning of 
 scientific knowledge. A child begins to learn as soon as 
 it notices the resemblances in things and arranges them 
 into groups. The important thing for the teacher to de- 
 termine is whether this inductive or concept-building ten- 
 dency furnishes any solid ground upon which to base the 
 work of instruction. Admitting that it is a natural 
 process, common to both old and young in acquiring 
 knowledge, perhaps it can be neglected because it will 
 take care of itself. If it is self-active, needing no arti- 
 ficial stimulus, let it alone. On the contrary, if in a 
 healthy pursuit of knowledge, it brings the varied mental 
 powers into a natural sequence where they will strengthen 
 and support one another, it should be studied and used by 
 teachers. It would be very commonplace to say that 
 each of the faculties or activities involved in the induc- 
 tive process should be disciplined and strengthened by 
 school studies. There is but little difference of opinion 
 on this subject though some would lay more stress upon 
 sense training, some on memory, some on reasoning. 
 The ground for this general conviction is the notorious 
 fact that with children every one of these acts is per- 
 formed in a faulty and superficial manner. The observa- 
 tions of children are very careless and unreliable. Even 
 adults are extremely negligent and inaccurate in their 
 observations of natural objects, persons, and phenomena. 
 But the mental powers brought to bear in observation 
 are simple and elementary. The exercise of higher men- 
 tal powers such as analysis, comparison, judgment, and 
 reasoning is prone to be still more accidental and erro- 
 
INDUCTION. 127 
 
 neous. Acknowledging then the necessity for training all 
 these powers how can it best be done? Not by delegat- 
 ing to each study the cultivation of one kind or set of 
 mental activities but by observing that the same general 
 process underlies the acquisition of knowledge in each 
 subject and that all the kinds of mental life are brought 
 into action in nearly every study. In short the inductive 
 process is a natural highway of human thought in every 
 line of study bringing all the mental forces into an 
 orderly, successive, healthful activity. We may yet dis- 
 cover that the inductive process not only gives the key 
 to an interesting method of mastering different branches 
 of knowledge, but in developing mental activity it brings 
 the various mental powers into a strong natural sequence. 
 
 One of the great ends of intellectual culture is to 
 transform this careless, unconscious inductive tendency 
 in children into the painstaking and exact scrutiny of the 
 student and later of the specialist. 
 
 Although the inductive process is a common highway 
 of thought in all stages of intellectual growth from child- 
 hood to maturity, certain parts of the road are much 
 more frequently traveled in childhood and still others 
 in youth and maturity. It is the work of pedagogy to 
 adapt its materials to these changing phases of soul life 
 in children. In the analysis of the inductive and deduc- 
 tive processes we desire to come at the solution of this 
 problem. 
 
 Considered as a whole, there is a simple phase of the 
 inductive process which is best explained by the terms 
 absorption and reflection. It appears in the study of 
 simple as well as of complex objects and indicates clearly 
 the fundamental rhythm of the mind in acquiring and 
 elaborating its knowledge. This action of the mind is a 
 
128 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 shuttle-like movement, a constant running back and 
 forth between two extremes, absorption and reflection. 
 We will test this statement upon examples. When we 
 are in the mood for learning let some new object, a saw- 
 mill, attract the attention. A quick general glance at 
 the place and its surroundings tells us what it is. Now 
 trace the operation of the mill as it draws up the logs 
 singly from the rafts lying on the margin of the river 
 and converts them into lumber. You observe first how 
 the logs are carried up an inclined slide by means of an 
 endless chain with hooks, into the mill. You examine 
 this first piece of machinery and notice its mode of 
 action. As the logs enter the upper story of the mill, 
 they are thrown by heavy levers to either side and roll 
 down towards the saws. Here is another piece of ma- 
 chinery in its proper place. Having been stripped of the 
 loose pieces of bark, the logs are grasped by another set 
 of iron hands, lifted firmly to the carriage and passed to 
 the circular or band-saw which takes off the side slabs 
 and squares them for the gang-saw. The squared logs 
 are then carried along over rollers and collected before 
 the gang-saws. From two to four of them are clasped 
 firmly together and then forced up against the teeth of 
 the parallel group of saws, issuing from them as a batch 
 of lumber. The boards are then passed on to a set of 
 men at small circular saws by whom they are sorted and 
 the edges trimmed, while still others with trucks carry 
 them to the yard for stacking. 
 
 Take note of the operation of the mind as it passes 
 from one part of the machinery to another. Each part 
 is first examined by itself to get its construction and 
 method. Then its relation to what precedes and what 
 follows is noted. Finally in review you survey the whole 
 
INDUCTION. 129 
 
 process in its successive stages and understand each part 
 and its relation to the whole and to the purpose of the 
 mill. We might call this an analysis and synthesis of 
 the process of making lumber, or in other words absorp- 
 tion and reflection in an elementary form. In the obser- 
 vation of such a complex piece of machinery as a large 
 mill the mind swings back and forth many times between 
 absorption in the study of parts and reflection upon their 
 relation to each other. 
 
 Having examined the mill in detail and grasped its 
 parts as a connected whole, the next step is to observe 
 its relation to the river, to the rafts and rafting-boats, 
 and further back to the pineries and logging-camps up 
 the river. (Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.) The 
 occupations and sights along the Upper Mississippi and 
 its head-waters, the pineries, and even the spring floods 
 are intimately connected causally with the saw mills and 
 lumber yards lower down. 
 
 Or going in the opposite direction from the saw mill, 
 we follow the lumber till it is used in the various forms 
 of construction. Some of it enters the planing-mills and 
 is converted into moldings, finishing lumber, sashes, 
 blinds, etc. In all forms it is loaded upon the cars, and 
 shipped westward to be used in the construction of houses 
 and bridges. 
 
 Before we get through with the line of thought en- 
 gendered by observing the saw mill, we have canvassed 
 the whole lumber industry from the pineries to the plans 
 of architects and builders in the actual work of construc- 
 tion. Not only has there been this progress of the mind 
 from one object or machine to another of a smes con- 
 nected by cause and effect, but there has been also a con- 
 stant tendency to pass from the individual machines of 
 
130 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 which the series is composed to the classes of which these 
 objects are typical. A circular-saw or a gang-saw is 
 each typical of a class of saws. The same is true of 
 each part of the machinery as well as of the saw mill or 
 planing mill considered as a whole. Each of these objects 
 whether simple or complex suggests others similar which 
 we have observed or seen represented in pictures. Each 
 part of the machinery in turn becomes the center of a 
 set of comparisons leading from the concrete object in 
 question to the general notion of the class to which it 
 belongs. 
 
 ^-In all these cases we become absorbed in one thing for 
 a while only to recover ourselves and to reflect upon the 
 thing in its wider relations, either tracing out connexions 
 of cause and effect as in a series of machines or passing 
 from the single example to the class of which it is typical. 
 Absorption and reflection! The mind swings back and 
 forth like a pendulum between these two operations. 
 Herbart who closely defined this process, called it the 
 mental act of breatJmig, because of the constancy of its 
 movement. As regularly as the air is drawn into the 
 lungs and again expelled, so regularly does the mind lose 
 itself in its absorption with objects only to recover itself 
 and reflect upon them. 
 
 In the inspection of a large printing press in one of 
 our newspaper publishing houses we meet with a similar 
 experience. The attention becomes centered upon the 
 press for a close analysis and synthesis of its parts. The 
 cogs, wheels, rollers, inking-plate, the chases for the type, 
 the application of the power, the springs and levers, each 
 part receives a close inspection, and the secret of its con- 
 nection with other parts is sought for. There is a vigor- 
 ous effort not only to understand each part but also the 
 
INDUCTION. 131 
 
 connexion of the whole. The shuttle-like movement of 
 the mind back and forth between the parts, absorbed for 
 a moment, reflecting for a moment, continues until the 
 complex mechanism is understood. When this process 
 has been satisfactorily completed we are ready to turn 
 our minds again to the other objects and rooms of the 
 printing establishment. The work of the compositors, 
 setting up different kinds of type, the proof-reading, the 
 editorial work, the reporters all come in for a share of 
 attention. The reporters lead us to the great world out- 
 side whose happenings are brought here for publication. 
 On the other hand, following the distribution of papers 
 as they issue from the press, we think of news-boys, 
 news-stands, mail-service, railroads and post-offices. But 
 the inspection of a printing press also leads the thoughts 
 in other directions and suggests other presses, great and 
 small, in other times and places, other printing establish- 
 ments, until the whole business of printing and publish- 
 ing books and papers springs into the thought. 
 
 If we desire to understand clearly the business of pub- 
 lishing a newspaper, we must enter into an observation 
 of the parts of the process from the collection of its news 
 to its distribution by the mails and carriers. Besides 
 noting these parts we must observe their causal connex- 
 ion with each other and the role that each plays in the 
 economy of the whole. The causal series thus clearly 
 outlined produces insight into an occupation while every 
 typical machine or appliance is one of a cross series in- 
 tercepting the original series. The acquisition and assim- 
 ilation of knowledge in different subjects will be found 
 to exhibit the mental states of absorption and reflexion as 
 just illustrated. Observe the manner in which we study 
 a poem. It is first read and interpreted sentence by sen- 
 
133 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 tence, glancing from verse to verse to get the connec- 
 tions. When the whole piece has been read and under- 
 stood in its parts and connections, the suggested lines of 
 thought are taken up and followed out in their wider ap- 
 plications. Take for an example the "Burial of Moses" 
 and in the proper analysis and study of the poem such a 
 process of absorption and reflexion is observable. In 
 pursuing the biography of John Quincy Adams or of Alex- 
 ander Hamilton the facts of personal experience and 
 action first absorb the attention from step to step in the 
 study of his life. But reflexion on the bearings of these 
 personal events upon contemporaries and upon public 
 affairs is noticed all along. The same mental process is 
 observed in studying a battle in history, a sentence in 
 grammar, a squirrel in natural history, or a picture in art. 
 The effect of such mental absorption and reflexion is 
 to build up concepts. Series of causally related parts 
 are also formed but each series in the end becomes a more 
 complete complex concept, that is, a representative of 
 many similiar series. The inspection of one printing es- 
 tablishment suggests others which are brought into com- 
 parison till the general notion publishing house is more 
 clearly conceived. The same is true in the lumber trade. 
 The concept lumber business is not confined to Minneap- 
 olis or Chicago but is common to the great lake region, 
 Maine, Washington, Norway and other countries. Con- 
 cepts become more varied and complex with the advance 
 of studies and there is scarely anything we learn by ob- 
 servation or reflexion that does not ultimately illustrate 
 and build up our concepts. The observation of even the 
 miscellaneous objects in a large city leads to a variety of 
 concepts and in the end by comparison to the general 
 notion city. 
 
INDUCTION. 133 
 
 How strong the concept-creating tendency of all ex- 
 perience and thought is, can be seen in the words of lan- 
 guage. The processes of thought become petrified in 
 language. All progress in knowledge and acquisition of 
 new ideas is reflected in language by an increase of 
 words. But an examination of words in common use 
 will show that they are nearly all the names of concepts. 
 Proper names are the principal exception. Every com- 
 mon noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition is 
 the name of a concept. To understand these concepts 
 there must be somewhere a progress from the individual 
 to the abstract, an induction from particulars to a general 
 concept. Abstract or general notions cannot be acquired 
 at first hand without specific illustrations. Even where 
 the deductive process is supposedly employed a closer 
 examination will uncover the concrete or individual illus- 
 trations in the background and until these are reached 
 the concept has no clear meaning. The concrete ex- 
 amples whether introduced sooner or later by way of 
 explanation are the real basis of the understanding of 
 the concept. It is customary to invert the inductive 
 process and to drive it stern forwards through grammar, 
 geography, and other studies. Take for example the 
 word hoomerang as it comes up in a geography or read- 
 ing lesson. Webster's dictionary, which is recommended 
 to children as a first resort in such difficulties, calls it 
 "A remarkable missile weapon used by the natives of 
 Australia." This gives a faint notion by using the 
 familiar word ioeapo7i. The picture accompanying the 
 word in the dictionary gives a more accurate idea because 
 nearer the concrete. The best possible explanation would 
 be a real boomerang thrown by a native South-Sea 
 islander. In the absence of these a picture and a vivid 
 —9 
 
134 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 V 
 
 description are the best means at our disposal. The 
 
 common mistake is in learning and reciting the definition 
 
 while neglecting the concrete basis. By way of further 
 
 illustration, try to explain to children who have never 
 
 heard of them before the egg-plant, palm-tree, cactus, etc. 
 
 It would be of interest to inquire into the process of 
 concept-building in each of the school studies, where it 
 appears under quite varying forms. The natural sciences 
 are perhaps the best examples of concept-building from 
 concrete materials, advancing regularly through a series 
 of concepts from the individuals and species to the most 
 general classes of plants, animals, etc. In chemistry 
 and physics the laws and general principles are based on 
 experiments and processes observable by the senses. 
 Grammar and language, when studied as a science, ad- 
 vance from concept to concept through etymology and 
 syntax. In geography and history the concepts are less 
 definite and more difficult to formulate, and yet there are 
 certain great typical ideas which are to be developed and 
 illustrated in each of these studies, as, for example, the 
 law of cause and effect and the human virtues in history, 
 and the forms of relief, the kinds of climate and their 
 causes, the occupations of men and their relation to each 
 other, in geography. The fundamental truths and rela- 
 tions of arithmetic must be developed from objects. 
 Reading, spelling, and writing are arts not sciences, and 
 are more concerned with skill in execution than with the 
 acquisition of a body of scientific truths. And yet cer- 
 tain general truths are emphasized and applied in these 
 studies. 
 
 Having thus examined into the general nature of the 
 inductive process and the extent of its application to 
 school studies and to other forms of acquiring knowledge, 
 
INDUCTION. 135 
 
 we are led to a closer practical discussion of each of the 
 two chief stages of induction, first observation or intui- 
 tion^ that is, the direct perception through the senses or 
 through consciousness of the realities of the external 
 world and of the mind. Second, association of ideas with 
 a view to generalizing and forming concepts. Intuition 
 means object-lessons in a broad sense. Object lessons in 
 this liberal sense point to the direct exercise of the senses 
 and intuitions in the acquisition of experience of all sorts. 
 They include the objects, persons and events that we see 
 around us and our own experiences in ordinary life, the 
 grass, plants, trees and soils, the animals, wild and 
 tame, with their structure, habits and uses; the rocks, 
 woods, hills, streams, seasons, clouds, heat and cold. 
 There is also the observation of devices and inven- 
 tions ; tools, machinery and their workings, the dif- 
 ferent raw and manufactured products with their ways 
 of growth and transformation. Besides these are the 
 various kinds and dispositions of men, different classes 
 and races of people, with great variety of character, 
 occupation and education. Their actions, modes of dress 
 and customs are of much interest. But we have many 
 other primary and indispensable lessons to learn from the 
 playground, the street, from home and church, from city 
 and country, from travel and sight seeing, from holidays 
 and work days, from sickness and healthful excursions. 
 Even a child's own tempers, faults and successes are of 
 the greatest value to himself and to the teacher in a 
 proper self-understanding and mastery. By object les- 
 sons, therefore, we mean all that a child becomes conscious 
 of through the direct action of his senses and of his mind 
 upon external nature or inner experience. It is desired 
 that a child's knowledge in all direct experience be sim- 
 
136 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 pie, clear and according to the facts. All words that he 
 uses become only signs of the realities of his experience. 
 Every word stands for a potent thought in his own life 
 history. Of course object lessons in this rich and real 
 sense can not be confined to such few objects — birds, 
 leaves, models, and straws — as can be brought into a 
 school room. All the world, especially the outside world, 
 
 becomes 
 
 "A complex Chinese toy 
 Fashioned for a barefoot boy." 
 
 Many of the most interesting objects and phenomena 
 in nature and of man's construction can not be observed 
 in the school room at all. For instance, the river, the 
 bridge, the forest, the flight of birds, the sunrise, the 
 storm, the stars, etc. Still they must know these very 
 things and know how to use them better in construct- 
 ing the mind's treasures than they are wont to do. In 
 reading, grammar, geography, arithmetic and nature 
 study we desire to ground school discussions daily upon 
 the clear facts of experience, of personal observation. 
 We need to clear up all confused and faulty perceptions 
 and stimulate children to make their future observations 
 more reliable. 
 
 We have already seen the importance of object lessons 
 in this full and real sense to interest. Interest in every 
 study is awakened and constantly reinforced by an appeal, 
 not to books, but to life. Much of the dull work in 
 arithmetic, geography, and other studies is due to the 
 neglect of these real, illustrative materials. 
 
 Of the six great sources of interest (Her bar t) three, 
 the empirical, the esthetic, and the sympathetic, deal 
 entirely with concrete objects or with individuals, while 
 even the speculative and social interests are often based 
 
INDUCTION. 137 
 
 directly upon particular persons or phenomena. In ad- 
 dition to this it may be said that the interests of children 
 are overwhelmingly with the concrete and imaginative 
 phases of every subject and only secondarily with general 
 truths and laws. The latter are of greater concern to 
 older children and adults. Object lessons therefore con- 
 tain a life-giving element that should enter into every 
 subject of study. 
 
 Nor should these interesting illustrative object les- 
 sons be limited to the lower grades. They contain the 
 combustible material upon which an abiding interest in 
 any subject is to be kindled. There are indeed other 
 and perhaps higher sources of interest but they are 
 largely dependent upon these original springs that flow 
 from the concrete beginnings. 
 
 In the second place, object lessons supply a stock of 
 jjrimary ideas which form the foundation of all later pro- 
 gress in knowledge. This is not a question of interest 
 merely, but of understanding ^ of capacity to get at the 
 meaning of an idea. Concepts are not the raw materials 
 with which the mind works, but they are elaborated out 
 of the raw products furnished by the senses and other 
 forms of intuition. As cloth is manufa<^tured out of the 
 raw cotton and wool produced on the farm or in southern 
 fields, so concepts are a manufactured article, into whose 
 texture materials previously gathered enter. Concepts 
 do not grow up directly from the soil of the mind any 
 more than ready-made clothing grows on bushes or on the 
 backs of the wearers. Concepts must be made out of 
 stuff that is already in the mind, as woolen blankets are 
 spun and woven out of fleeces. Our present contention 
 is that the mind shall be filled up with the best quality of 
 raw stufi", otherwise there will be defect and deficiency 
 
138 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 in its later products. The stuff out of which concepts are 
 built is drawn from the varied experiences of life. On 
 account of this intimate relation between the realities of 
 life and school studies they cannot be separated. Every 
 branch, especially in elementary studies, must be treated 
 concretely and be built up out of sense materials. Every 
 study has its concrete side, its illustrative materials, its 
 colors of individual things taken from life. Every study 
 has likewise its more general scientific truths and classi- 
 fications. The prime mistake in nearly all teaching and 
 in the text-book method is in supposing that the great 
 truths are accessible in some other way than through the 
 concrete materials that lie properly at the entrance. The 
 text-books are full of the abstractions and general form- 
 ulae of the sciences, but they can, in the very nature of 
 the case, deal only in a meagre way with the individual 
 objects and facts upon which knowledge in different sub- 
 jects is based. This necessary defect in a text book 
 method must be made good by excursions, by personal 
 observation, by a constant reference of lessons to daily 
 experience outside of school, by more direct study of our 
 surroundings, by the teacher perfecting himself in this 
 kind of knowledge and in its skillful use. 
 
 The discussion of the concept and of the inductive pro- 
 cess has shown that concepts cannot be found at first hand. 
 There must be observation of different objects, compar- 
 ison and grouping into a class. A person who has never 
 seen an elephant nor a picture of one can form no ade- 
 quate notion of elephants in general. We can by no shift 
 dispense with the illustrations. The more the memory is 
 filled with vivid pictures of real things, the more easy and 
 rapid will be the progress to general truths. Not only 
 are general notions of classes of objects in nature or of 
 
INDUCTION. 139 
 
 personal actions built up out of particulars but the general 
 laws and principles of nature and of human society must 
 be observed in real life to be understood. We should 
 have no faith in electricity if it were simply a scientific 
 theory, if it had not demonstrated its power through ma 
 terial objects. The idea of cohesion would never have 
 been dreamed of, if it had not become necessary to explain 
 certain physical facts. The spherical form of the earth 
 was not accepted by many even learned men until sailors 
 with ships had gone around it. Political ideas of popular 
 government which a few centuries ago were regarded as 
 purely Utopian are now accepted as facts because they 
 have become matters of common observation. The circu- 
 Icition of tlie blood remained a secret for many centuries 
 because of the difficulties of bringing it home to the 
 knowledge of the senses. These examples will show how 
 difficult it is to go beyond the reach of sense experience. 
 Even those philosophers who have tried to construct 
 theories without the safe foundation of facts have labored 
 for naught. The more our thought is checked and guided 
 by nature's realities the less danger of inflation with pre- 
 tended knowledge. Bacon found that in this tendency 
 to theorize loosely upon a slender basis of facts was the 
 fundamental weakness of ancient philosophy. Nature if 
 observed will reiterate her truths till they become con- 
 vincing verities, while the study of words and books alone 
 produces a quasi-knowledge which often mistakes the 
 symbol for the thing. 
 
 Having this thought in mind, Comenius, more than two 
 and a half centuries ago, said, "It is certain that there is 
 nothing in the understanding which has not been previ- 
 ously in the senses, and consequently to exercise the 
 senses carefully in discriminatinor the differences of nat- 
 
140 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 ural objects is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, all 
 eloquence, and of all good and prudent action. The 
 right instruction of youth does not consist in cramming 
 them with a mass of words, phrases, sentences, and 
 opinions collected from authors. In this way the youth 
 are taught, like ^sop's crow in the fable, to adorn them- 
 selves with strange feathers. Why should we not, instead of 
 dead books, open the living book of nature? Not the 
 shadows of things, but the things themselves, which make 
 an impression upon the senses and imagination, are to be 
 brought before the youth." 
 
 There has always been a strong tendency in the schools 
 to teach words, definitions and rules without a sufficient 
 knowledge of the objects and experiences of life that put 
 meaning into these abstractions. The result is that all 
 the prominent educational reformers have pointedly con- 
 demned the practice of learning words, names, etc. , with- 
 out a knowledge of the things signified. The difference 
 is like that between learning the names of a list of per- 
 sons at a reception, and being present to enter into 
 acquaintance and conversation with the guests. The oft- 
 quoted dictum of Kant is a laconic summary of this 
 argument. "General notions (concepts) without sense- 
 percepts are empty." The general definition of com- 
 posite flowers means little or nothing to a child, but after 
 a familiar acquaintance with the sunflower, dandelion, 
 thistle, etc., such a general statement has a clear mean- 
 ing. Concepts without the content derived from objects 
 are like a frame without a picture, or a cistern without 
 water. The table is spread and the dishes placed but no 
 refreshments are supplied. 
 
 Having completed the discussion of intuition^ including 
 object lessons, that is, the preparatory step to the in- 
 
INDUCTION. 141 
 
 ductive process, we reach the second, reflection and 8%it- 
 vey. We are seeking for a general term that covers the 
 several steps, in the latter part of the inductive process. 
 It includes comparison, classification and abstraction. It 
 may be discussed from the standpoint of "association of 
 ideas," and contributes directly to concentration. 
 
 We have in mind chiefly that thoughtful habit which 
 is not satisfied with simply acquiring a new fact or set of 
 ideas, but is impelled to trace them out along their vari- 
 ous connexions. We have to do now not with the acqui- 
 sition but with the elaboration and assimilation of knowl- 
 edge. The acquisition of knowledge in the ordinary sense 
 is one thing, its elaboration in a full sense sets up a stan- 
 dard of progress which will put life into all school work 
 and reach far beyond it, and in fact is limited only by the 
 individual capacity for thought. 
 
 In school, in reading and study we have been largely 
 engaged in acquiring knowledge on the principle that 
 ''knowledge is power." But no practical man needs to 
 be told that much so-called school knowledge is not power. 
 Facts which have been simply stored in the memory are 
 often of little ready use. Like wheat in the bin, which must 
 first pass through the mill and change its entire form be- 
 fore it will perform its function. Facts, in order to 
 become the personal property of the owner, must be 
 worked over, sifted, sorted, classified aad connected. 
 The process of elaborating and assimilgiting knowledge is 
 so important that it requires more time and pains than 
 the first labor of acquisition. Philosophers will admit 
 this at once, but it is hard for us to break loose from the 
 traditions of the schoolmasters. The mind is not in all 
 respects like a lumber-yard. It is, to be sure, a place 
 for storing up knowledge, just as the yard is a deposit for 
 
142 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 lumber. But there the analogy ceases and the mind be- 
 gins to resemble more the contractor and builder. There 
 is planing, sawing and hammering, the materials collected 
 are prepared, fitted and mortised together, and a build- 
 ing fit for use begins to rise. Knowledge also is for use 
 and not primarily for storage. That simple acquisition 
 and quantity of knowledge are not enough is illustrated 
 by the analogy of an army. Numbers do not make an 
 army but a rabble. A general first enlists raw recruits, 
 drills and trains them through a long period and finally 
 combines them into an effective army. Many of our ideas 
 when first received are like disorderly raw recruits. They 
 need to be disciplined into proper action and to ready 
 obedience. 
 
 In connexion with assimilation the analogy between 
 the stomach and the mind is of still greater interest. 
 The food received into the stomach is taken up by the 
 organs of digestion, assimilated and converted into blood. 
 The process however takes its course without our con- 
 scious effort or co-operation. Knowledge likewise enters 
 the mind, but how far will assimilation go on without 
 conscious effort? If kept in a healthy state the organs 
 of digestion are self active. Not so the mind. Ideas 
 entering the mind are not so easily assimilated as the 
 food materials that enter the stomach. A cow chews her 
 cud once but the ideas that enter our minds may be 
 drawn from their receptacle in the memory and worked 
 over again and again. Ideas have to be put side by side, 
 separated, grouped, and arranged into connected series. 
 There is, no doubt, some tendency in the mind toward in- 
 voluntary assimilation, but it greatly needs culture and 
 training. Many people never reach the thinking stage, 
 never learn to survey and reflect. The tendency of the 
 
INDUCTION. 143 
 
 mind to work over and digest knowledge should receive 
 ample culture in the schools. There is a mental inertia 
 produced by pure memory exercise that is unfavorable to 
 reflection. It requires an extra exertion to arrange and 
 organize facts even after they are acquired. But when 
 the habit of reflection has been inaugurated it adds much 
 interest and value to all mental acquisitions. 
 
 There are also well-established principles which guide 
 the mind in elaborating its facts. The laws of the asso- 
 ciation of ideas indicate clearly the natural trends of 
 mental elaboration. The association of things because 
 of contiguity in time and place is the simplest mode. 
 The classification of objects or activities on the basis of 
 resemblance is the second form and that upon which the 
 inductive process is principally founded. In the third 
 case objects and series are easily retained in memory 
 when the relation of cause and effect is perceived be- 
 tween them. These natural highways of association, 
 especially the second and third, should be frequently 
 traveled in linking the facts of school study with each 
 other. Indeed the outcome of a rational survey of an 
 object or fact in its different relations is an association of 
 ideas which is one of the best results of study. Such 
 connexions of resemblance and difference or of cause and 
 effect are abundant and interesting in the natural sci- 
 ences and physical geography, also in history and lan- 
 guage. 
 
 The final stage of induction is the formulation of the 
 general truths, the concepts, principles and laws which 
 constitute the science of any branch of knowledge. These 
 truths should be well formulated in clear and expressive 
 language and mastered in this form. Moreover the re- 
 sults reached, when reduced to the strict scientific form 
 
144 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 are the same in the inductive methods as in the deductive 
 or common text-book method. Not that the effect on 
 the mind of the learner is the same but the body of truth 
 is unaltered. The general truths of every subject can be 
 easily found well arranged in text-books. But we are 
 more anxious to know how the youth may best approach 
 and appreciate these truths than simply to see them 
 stored in the mind in a well-classified form. 
 
 A rich man in leaving a fortune to his son would more 
 than double the value of the inheritance if he could teach 
 him properly to appreciate wealth and form in him the 
 disposition and ability to use it wisely. 
 
 The method of reaching scientific knowledge, through 
 the inductive process, that is, by the collection and com- 
 parison of data with a view to positive knowledge, will 
 give greater meaning to the results. Interest is awak- 
 ened and self-activity exercised at every step in the pro- 
 gress toward general truths. By the reflective habit 
 these truths will be seen in their origin and causal con- 
 nexion, and the line of similarity, contrast, causal rela- 
 tion, analogy and coincidence will be thoughtfully traced. 
 
 Possibly the progress toward formulated knowledge 
 will be less rapid by induction, but it will be real pi'o- 
 gress with no backward steps. It may well be doubted 
 whether, with average minds, real scientific knowledge is 
 attainable except b}'^ a strong admixture of inductive pro- 
 cesses. 
 
THE WILL. 145 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WILL. 
 
 We have now completed the discussion of the concept 
 bearing or inductive process in learning, and appercep- 
 tion, and find that they both tend to the unifying of 
 knowledge, and to the awakening of interest. 
 
 It remains to be seen how the will may be brought 
 into activity and placed in command of the resources of 
 the mind. 
 
 The icill is that power of the mind which chooses, de- 
 cides and controls action. 
 
 According to psychology there are three distinct 
 activities of the mind, hnowing^ feeling^ and willing. 
 These three powers are related to one another, and yet 
 the will should become the monarch of the mind. It is 
 expected that all the other activities of the mind will be 
 brought into subjection to the will. For strong character 
 resides in the will. Strength of character depends en- 
 tirely upon the mastery which the will has acquired over 
 the life, and the formation of character, as shown in a 
 strong moral will, is the highest aim of education. 
 
 The great prohlem for us to solve is: 1. How far can 
 teaching stimulate and develop such a will? 
 
 There is an apparant contradiction in saying that the 
 will is the monarch of the mind, the power which must 
 control and subject all the other powers, and yet that it 
 can be trained, educated, moulded, and chiefly too by a 
 proper cultivation of the other powers, feeling and know- 
 
146 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 ivig. Knowledge and feeling, while they are subject to 
 the will, still constitute its strength, just as the soldiers 
 and officers of an army are subject to a commander and 
 yet make him powerful. 
 
 We shall first notice the dependence of the will upon 
 the knowing faculty. It is an old saying "that knowl- 
 edge is power." But it is power only as a strong will is 
 able to convert knowledge into action. Before the will 
 can decide to do any given act it must see its way clearly. 
 It must at least believe in the possibility. I71 trying to 
 get across a stream^ for example, if one can not swim and 
 there is no bridge nor boat nor means of making one, the 
 will can not act. It is helpless. The will must be shown 
 the way to its aims or they are impossible. The more 
 clear and distinct our knowledge, the better we can lay 
 our plans and vnll to carry them out. It would be im- 
 possible for one of us to will to run a steam engine from 
 Chicago to St. Paul to-day. We don't know how, and 
 we should not be permitted to try. In every field of 
 action we must have knowledge, and clear knowledge 
 before the will can act to good advantage. It is only 
 knowledge, or at least faith in the possibility of accom- 
 plishing an undertaking, that opens the way to will. 
 Much successful experience in any line of work brings 
 increasing confidence and the will is greatly strength- 
 ened, because one knows that certain actions are possible. 
 The simple acquisition of facts therefore, the increase of 
 knowledge, so long as it is well digested, makes it pos- 
 sible for the will to act with greater energy in various 
 directions. The more clear this knowledge is, the more 
 thoroughly it is cemented together in its parts and sub- 
 ject to control, the greater and more effective can be the 
 will action. All the knowledge we may acquire can be 
 
THE WILL. 147 
 
 used by the will in planning and carrying out its pur- 
 poses. Knowledge therefore, derived from all sources, is 
 a means used by the will, and increases the possibilities 
 of its action. 
 
 But, secondly, there are found still more immediate 
 means of stimulating and strengthening the will, namely, 
 in the feelings. The feelings are more closely related to 
 will than knowledge, at least in the sense of cause and 
 effect. There is a gradual transition from the feelings 
 up to will, as follows: Interest in an object, inclination, 
 desire and purpose or will to secure it. We might say 
 that will is only the final link in the chain and the feel- 
 ings and desires lead up to and produce the act of willing. 
 Even will itself has been called a feeling by some psychol- 
 ogists and classed with the feelings. But the thing in 
 which we are now most concerned is how to reach and 
 strengthen the will through the feelings. Some of the 
 feelings which powerfully influence the will are desire of 
 approbation, ambition, love of knowledge, appreciation 
 of the beautiful and the good ; or on the other side, ri- 
 valry, envy, hate and ill-will. Now it is clear that a 
 cultivation of the feelings and emotions is possible which 
 may strongly influence the purposes and decisions of the 
 will, either in the right or wrong direction. It is just at 
 this point that education is capable of a vigorous influ- 
 ence in moulding the character of a child. The cultiva- 
 tion of the six interests already mentioned is little else 
 than a cultivation of the great classes of feeling, for in- 
 terest always contains a strong element of feeling. It 
 is certain in any case that a child's, and eventually a 
 man's will, is to be guided largely by his feelings. 
 Whether any care is taken in education or not, feeling, 
 good or bad, will guide the will. Most people, as we 
 
148 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 know, are too much influenced by their feelings. This is 
 apparent in the adage, "Think twice before you speak." 
 Feelings of malice and ill-will, of revenge and envy, of 
 dislike and jealousy, get the control in many lives, be- 
 cause they have been permitted to grow and nothing 
 better has been put in their place. The teacher by select- 
 ing the proper materials of study is able to cultivate and 
 strengthen such feelings as sympathy and kindliness to- 
 ward others, appreciation of brave unselfish acts in others, 
 the feeling of generosity, charity and a forgiving spirit, 
 a love for honesty and uprightness, a desire and ambition 
 for knowledge in many directions. On the other hand 
 the teacher may gently instill a dislike for cowardice, 
 meanness, selfishness, laziness and envy, and bring the 
 child to master and control these evil dispositions. Not 
 only is it possible to cultivate these feelings which we 
 may summarize as the love of the virtues and develop a 
 dislike and turning away from vices, but this work of 
 cultivating the feelings may be carried on so systematic- 
 ally that great habits of feeling are formed, and these 
 habits become the very strongholds of character. They 
 are the forces acting upon the will and guiding its choice. 
 It is freedom of the loill to chose the best, that we 
 are after. We desire to limit the choice of the will if 
 possible to good things. We desire to make the character 
 so strong and so noble and consistent in its desires that it 
 will not be strongly tempted by evil. The will in the end, 
 while it controls all the life and action, is itself under the 
 guidance of those habits of thought and feeling that have 
 been gradually formed. Sully says, "Thus it is feeling 
 that ultimately supplies the stimulus or force to volition 
 and intellect which guides or illumines it." 
 
THE WILL. 149 
 
 A study of the will in its relation to knowledge and 
 feeling reveals that the training and development of the 
 will depend upon exercise and upon instruction. There are 
 two ways of exercising will power, first, by requiring it 
 to obey authority promptly and control the body and the 
 mind at the direction of another. The discipline of a 
 school may exert a strong influence upon pupils in teach- 
 ing them concentration and will power under the direc- 
 tion of another. Especially is this true in lower grades. 
 Children in the first grade have but little power or habit 
 of concentrating the attention. The will of the teacher 
 combined with her tact must aid in developing the ener- 
 gies of the will in these little ones. The primary value 
 of quick obedience in school, of exact discipline in 
 marching, rising, etc. , is twofold. It secures the neces- 
 sary orderliness and it trains the will. Even in higher 
 and normal schools such a perfect discipline has a great 
 value in training to alertness and quickness of apprehen- 
 sion associated with action. 
 
 Secondly, by the training of the mind to freedom of 
 action, to self activity^ to independence. As soon as 
 children begin to develop the power of independent 
 action their self activity should be encouraged. Even 
 in the lowest grades the beginnings may be made. An 
 aim may be set before them which they are to reach by 
 their own efforts. For example, let a class in the first 
 reader be asked to make a list of all the words in the last 
 two lessons containing th^ or o^, or some other combi- 
 nation. Activity rather than repose is the nature of 
 children, and even in the kindergarten this activity is 
 directed to the attainment of definite ends. With 
 number work in the first grade the objects should be 
 handled by the children, the letters made, rude drawings 
 
150 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 sketched, so as to give play to their active powers as 
 well as to lead them on to confidence in doing, to an 
 increase of self activity. As children grow older, the 
 problems set before them, the aims held out, should be 
 more difficult. Of course they should be of interest to the 
 child so that it will have an impulse and desire of its own 
 to reach them. There is nothing so valuable as setting 
 up definite aims before children and then supplying them 
 with incentives to reach them through their own efforts. 
 It has been often supposed that the only way to do this 
 is to use reference hooks, to study up the lesson or some 
 topics of it outside of the regular order. But self activ- 
 ity is by no means limited to such outside work. A 
 child's self activity may be often aroused by the manner 
 of studying a simple lesson from a text book. When a 
 reading or geography lesson is so studied that the pupil 
 thoroughly sifts the piece, hunts down the thought till 
 he is certain of its meaning, when all the previous knowl- 
 edge the pupil can command is brought to bear upon 
 this, to throw light upon it, when the dictionary and any 
 other books familiar to the child are studied for the sake 
 of reference and explanation, self activity is developed. 
 Whenever the disposition can be stimulated to look at a 
 fact or statement from 7nore than one standpoint^ to criti- 
 cise it even, to see how true it is, or if there are excep- 
 tions, self activity is cultivated. 
 
 The pursuit of definite aiins always calls out the will 
 and their satisfactory attainment strengthens one's con- 
 fidence in his ability to succeed. Every step should be 
 toward a clearly seen aim. At least this is our ideal in 
 working with children. They should not be led on blindly 
 from one point to another, but try to reach definite results. 
 
THE WILL. 151 
 
 There is a gradual transition in the course of a child's 
 schooling from training of the will under guidance to its 
 independent exercise. Throughout the school course 
 there must be much obedience and will effort under the 
 guidance of one in authority. But there should be a 
 gradual increase of self-activity and self-determination. 
 When the pupil leaves school he should be prepared to 
 launch out and pursue his own aims with success. 
 
 Will effort, however, to be valuable must have its roots 
 in those moral convictions which it is the chief aim of the 
 school to foster and strengthen. We have attempted to 
 show in the preceding chapters how the central subject 
 matter of the school could be chosen and the other studies 
 concentrated about it with a view to accomplishing this 
 result. In concluding our discussion of general princi- 
 ples of education, and in summing up the results, basing 
 our reasoning upon psychology, we are always forced to 
 the conclusion that education aims at the loill, and more 
 particularly at the will as influenced and guided by moral 
 ideas. This is the same as saying that we have completed 
 the circle and come round to our starting point, that 
 moral character is the chief aim of edifcatio?i. 
 
 Teachers who are interested in this phase of pedagogy 
 will do well to study the scie7ice of ethics^ not that it will 
 much aid them directly in school work. It will at least 
 give them a more comprehensive and definite notion of 
 the field of morals and perhaps indicate more clearly 
 where the fnaterials of moral education are to be sought 
 and the leading ideas to be emphasized. 
 
 Herbart projected a system of ethics, based on psy- 
 chology, with the intention of classifying the chief moral 
 notions and of showing their relation to each other. He 
 also developed a theory of the origin of moral ideas and 
 
153 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 their best means of cultivation, and then based his system 
 of pedagogy upon it. 
 
 The chief classes of ethical ideas of Herbart are briefly 
 explained as follows: 
 
 1. Goodwill. It is manifested in the sympathy we 
 feel for the sorrow or joy of another person. It is illus- 
 trated by the example of Sidney and Howard already 
 cited. 
 
 2. Legal right. It serves to avoid strife bj some 
 agreement or established rule; e. g., the government of 
 the United States fixes the law for pre-empting land and 
 for homestead claims so that no two persons can lay claim 
 to the same piece of land. 
 
 3. Justice, as expressed by reward or punishment. 
 When a person purposely does an injury to another all 
 men unite in the judgment, ' 'He must be punished. " Like- 
 wise if a kind act is done to anyone we insist upon a re- 
 turn of gratitude at least. 
 
 4. Perfectio7i of will. This implies that the will is 
 strong enough to resist all opposition. David's will to 
 go out and met Goliath was perfect. A boy desires to 
 get his lesson but indolence and the love of play are too 
 strong for his will. 
 
 There is nothing which goes so far to make up the 
 character of the hero as strength of will which yields to 
 no difficulties. 
 
 5. Inner freedom. This is the obedience of the will 
 to its highest moral incentive. Ability to set the will 
 free from all selfish or wrong desires and yield implicit 
 obedience to moral ideas. This of course depends upon 
 the cultivation of the other ideas and their proper subor- 
 dination, one to another. 
 
THE WILL. 153 
 
 The five moral ideas just given indicate the lines 
 along which strength of moral character is shov^^n. They 
 are of some interest to the teacher as a systematic ar- 
 rangement of morals, but they are of no direct value in 
 teaching. They are the most abstract and general 
 classes of moral ideas and are of no interest whatever to 
 children. 
 
 In morals the only thing that interests children is 
 moral action. Whether it be in actual life or in a story or 
 history the child is aroused by a deed of kindness or 
 courage. But all talk of kindness or goodness in general, 
 disconnected from particular persons and actions is dry 
 and uninteresting. This gives us the hey to the child's 
 mind in morals. Not moralizing, not preaching, not 
 lecturing, not reproof, can ever be the original source of 
 moral ideas with the young, but the actions of people 
 they see and of those about whom they read or hear. 
 Moral judgments and feelings spring up originally only 
 in connexion with human action in the concrete. If we 
 propose then to adax>t moral teaching to youthful minds, 
 we must make use of concrete materials, observations of 
 people taken from what the children have seen, stories 
 and biographies of historical characters. A story of a 
 man's life is concrete because it brings out his particular 
 motives and actions. This is the field in which instruc- 
 tion has its conquests to make over youthful minds. 
 
 We will gather up the fruits of our discussion in the 
 preceding chapters. Having fixed the chief aim in the 
 effort to influence and strengthen moral character, we 
 find concentration to be the central principle in which all 
 others unite. It is the focusing of life and school expe- 
 riences in the unity of the personality. The worth and 
 choice of studies is determined by this. Interest unites 
 
154 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 knowledge, feeling and will. The culture epochs supply 
 the nucleus of materials for moral educative purposes. 
 Apperception assimilates new ideas by bringing each 
 into the bond of its kindred and friends, spiuning threads 
 of connexion in every direction. The inductive process 
 collects, classifies and organizes knowledge, everywhere 
 tending toward unity. 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 155 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 THE FORMAL STEPS. 
 
 Our closing chapter will be an attempt to show the 
 application of the principles thus far discussed to the 
 daily work of teaching, more particularly to the child's 
 work of study and recitation and the teacher's supervis- 
 ion of the processes of learning and thinking.^ 
 
 Lesson Unities. — It is evident that in this kind of 
 teaching no single recitation can be viewed apart from 
 the series of lessons to which it belongs. The subject- 
 matter of any study should be first selected so as to be 
 adapted to the age, spirit, and previous knowledge of 
 children, and then it should be arranged into a succes- 
 sion of topics or unities each of which may be treated first 
 separately, and then in its relation to the others. One 
 of these methodical unities may be completed in a single 
 recitation or it may spread over a series of lessons. 
 
 Steps in Teaohing a Lesson. — On the basis of the psy- 
 chological principles already treated, the process of teach- 
 ing a new topic leads through a series of steps. The 
 Herbartain school of pedagogy in Germany has devel- 
 oped a plan of recitation work based upon these steps, 
 and has applied them successfully to the teaching of com- 
 mon-school studies. The two main stages on the road to 
 acquisition of knowledge have been already indicated: 
 
 ♦Note. — The following pages were first published in a pamphlet, "How to 
 Conduct the Recitation," by the author. Published by E. L. Kellogg & Co., New 
 York. 
 
156 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 1. As observation and scrutiny of individual things; 2. 
 As the association and comparison of objects or ideas 
 with a view to arrangement into classes or for the pur- 
 pose of generalizing and formulating results. 
 
 First Stage: Presentation. — The first stage may be 
 broken into two smaller half-day journeys. Before set- 
 ting out on a journey it is well to survey the road and 
 glance at a guide-book. Before beginning a new subject 
 it is well to recall familiar ideas bearing upon it, to 
 refresh our minds. This is a preparatory study, a mak- 
 ing ready for the lesson. The second part is the actual 
 presentation of the new facts, the familiarizing the mind 
 with the new subject. 
 
 The subject-matter is now at hand, and the first stage 
 of teaching the lesson is complete. But this newly ac- 
 quired information has not yet settled to its proper place 
 in the mind; it is not properly associated with previous 
 knowledge. 
 
 Second Stage: Elaboration. — This elaboration of newly 
 presented ideas and facts leads us through a series of 
 three additional steps, which thus complete the process 
 of acquisition: 1. The new object is compared with 
 similar things already in the mind. In this way it finds 
 its fitting companionship. 2. Every new object pre- 
 sented to the mind and then compared with others gives 
 rise to new conclusions. The clear statement of this 
 general result or truth focuses the main idea of the les- 
 son. 3. This general truth may now be exemplified in 
 new cases and applied to new circumstances. 
 
 Briefly stated the steps are as follows: 1. Prepara- 
 tion; 2. Presentation; 3. Association and comparison; 
 4. Generalization; 5. Practical application. 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 157 
 
 It is to be remembered that a subject to be treated in 
 this manner must contain a unity of thought; that it 
 must centre in an object which is typical of a class, so as 
 to serve as a basis of comparison and generalization. 
 
 Analogy of the Farmer. — These steps may be fairly 
 illustrated in their general outlines by an analogy taken 
 from the work of a farmer. 1. The soil is ploughed, 
 harrowed, and made ready for the seed. 2. The grain is 
 sowed upon the ready soil and raked in. 3. The growing 
 grain is -cultivated and the weeds destroyed. 4. The 
 harvest is brought in. 5. The grain is used for practical 
 purposes of food. 
 
 The analogy is so complete that it scarcely calls for a 
 commentary. The preparation is the preparing of the 
 soil of the mind for the seed-corn of instruction. The 
 presentation is sowing the seed upon this prepared soil 
 of the mind. The third stage is the cultivation of the 
 growing crop, the working over of the knowledge just 
 acquired by means of comparison. The fourth step is 
 the harvest time, the drawing out of the general truth or 
 law involved in the lesson. Finally, the particular uses 
 to which the harvest grain is put, the application of 
 acquired knowledge to the practical uses of life. 
 
 No Royal Road iii Teaching. — The five steps just out- 
 lined are based, as we believe, on general principles 
 which make them applicable to almost every subject of 
 study. But the manner of applying them to different 
 studies varies greatly. The ability to apply them suc- 
 cessfully to geography would not qualify for equal suc- 
 cess in arithmetic or botany. The teacher must first be 
 a proficient in the study which he would desire to teach 
 in this way. Both the concrete facts and the general 
 truths of the subject should be familiar and logically 
 
158 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 arranged in his mind. To put it in a mild form, the 
 teacher must have a thorough knowledge of his subject, 
 and must have this knowledge well digested for teaching 
 purposes; For teaching purposes! That is, that we have 
 a knowledge of those psychological principles which we 
 first outlined as a basis of the five steps, viz., observa- 
 tion of concrete things, apperception, comparison and 
 association, generalization and the awakening of interest, 
 self-activity, and will power by these means. Now it is 
 evident that no plan based on these principles will fur- 
 nish a royal road to success in teaching. Success along 
 this line depends upon industry, adaptability, and con- 
 tinuous practice. It will be an up-hill road for some time, 
 and it is only gradually that one will acquire that mas- 
 tery of the subject and that tact in the manipulation of 
 a somewhat complex machinery that come only through 
 toil and pains. 
 
 Dull Machine Work. — It does not require a prophet 
 to see that the five steps in careless hands will degene- 
 rate into a mechanical routine. It might be even worse 
 than text-book lore, for a good text-book is always better 
 than a poor teacher. It is not intended that this plan 
 and these principles shall make a slave of the teacher, 
 but that by a hard-earned mastery of their details, and 
 by a successful application of them to the concrete ma- 
 terials of study, he gradually works his way out into 
 the clear daylight of conscious power. In this way the 
 teacher becomes a skilled architect, with clear ideas of 
 the strength and resistance of materials. 
 
 Examples op the Formal Steps. 
 
 Three simple illustrations of this succession of steps 
 in the treatment of a subject will now be given. 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 159 
 
 (1) Statement of the Aim. 
 We will examine and study the oak trees found in our 
 forests. 
 
 1. (Preparation.) Let the class recall what they have 
 seen of oak trees in the woods, size of trees, acorns. Do 
 they remember the shape and size of the leaves? What 
 is the appearance of the wood and what is it used for? 
 
 (The purpose of the teacher here is not to present any 
 new facts to the class, but simply to find out what they 
 remember from previous observation and to excite in- 
 terest. ) 
 
 2. (Presentation of facts.) The best plan is to visit 
 the woods or an oak grove, notice carefully the trunk and 
 bark, branches and leaves, acorns (food of squirrels.) 
 On returning to school, have an accurate description of 
 the oak tree from the class, according to definite points 
 (e. g., trunk and bark, branches, leaves, and acorns.) 
 Then follows a discussion of oak wood for chairs, desks, 
 doors and windows, bridges, walks, etc. (The teacher 
 adds such facts as the children cannot furnish.) 
 
 3. (Comparison. ) Name the different kinds of oak — • 
 white oak, red oak, burr oak. Notice the differences in 
 leaves and acorns, size of trees, wood and uses. 
 
 4. (Classification, generalization.) Definition of the 
 oak family. The oak is a native hard-wood tree. It has 
 acorns, and simple leaves of nearly uniform shape. The 
 wood is tough and strong, of varying colors, but always 
 useful for furniture, building or other purposes. (After 
 the previous observation and discussion, the pupils will 
 be able to give a definition similar to this, assisted by a 
 few questions from the teacher.) 
 
 5. (Application.) Children should be trained to rec- 
 ognize the different kinds of oak trees about home, and 
 
160 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 to distinguish them from other hard-wood trees. They 
 may also notice the oak panels and furniture, and be able 
 to tell oak finishing in public and private houses. 
 
 Note — If there is time enough for a separate study of two or more varieties 
 of oak, and the trees are close by so as to be seen, it is well to treat each variety 
 according to the first and second steps, and in the third compare as above, 
 
 (2) The Cotton-gin. 
 (Aim.) We will find out how a machine was invented 
 to remove the seed from cotton. 
 
 1. (Preparation.) Question the class on the cotton- 
 plant, raising and picking cotton, and the uses of cotton. 
 
 2. (Presentation). Tell or read the story of Whitney 
 and the invention of the cotton-gin. Notice the effect of 
 this invention on the production of cotton in the South, 
 and upon the growth of the South. 
 
 3. (Comparison). Name other important inventions 
 and their effects — sewing-machine, printing-press, steam- 
 engine, reaper, steam-boat, telegraph, etc. Which of these 
 had the most important results? 
 
 4. (Generalization or abstraction. ) Call upon the chil- 
 dren to state the general purpose of all these inventions, 
 j:o save labor, to make a better use of the forces of nature. 
 
 5. (Application.) Do any hardships result to any. 
 body in consequence of these useful inventions ? {e. g. , 
 men thrown out of employment by use of machinery.) 
 
 iS) Nouns. 
 
 Suppose that a class has had oral and written lan- 
 guage work, but no technical grammar. 
 
 (Aim.) In talking and writing you have been accus- 
 tomed to use words. We propose to talk now about a 
 class of words called 7iouns. 
 
 1. (Preparation.) Have you heard the word noims 
 before ? Give some words that you think are nouns. Try 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 161 
 
 to point out the nouns in this sentence. "The ship sailed 
 over the ocean." 
 
 (It may be that these questions cannot be answered 
 by the children for lack of knowledge. But even if they 
 show no knowledge of the subject, these qestions may in- 
 cite curiosity and awaken interest, and they require very 
 little time.) 
 
 2. (Presentation.) I will give you some words that 
 are called nouns. Stove, cherry, hat, court-house, carpet, 
 picture, whale, shoe, barn, mountain. Have you seen all 
 these things ? 
 
 3. (Comparison.) Notice these things and see if you 
 can tell what they all refer to. We will take two or 
 three words that are not nouns and see what they refer 
 to. Up^ and^ quickly. What is the difference between 
 these words and the nouns ? Look at the nouns again 
 and tell what they refer to. 
 
 4. (Definition.) Looking at our list of nouns again 
 you may tell what a noun is. So far as these words are 
 concerned every noun is the name of what ? (The con- 
 clusion that the children may reach by a little question- 
 ing is that all these nouns are the names of objects.) The 
 treatment of proper nouns and abstract nouns may be 
 according to a similar method in the following lessons, 
 and then the complete definition of a noun can be ob- 
 tained ? 
 
 5. (Application.) Each child may make a list of nouns 
 that we have not had. 
 
 Let easy sentences be given in which they may point 
 out the nouns. 
 
 Criticisms. 
 
 Anticipating Results. — One objection raised to the 
 clear statement of the aim of a lesson at the start is 
 
162 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 that in such a statement we tell the children what we 
 wish them to find out for themselves, that we anticipate 
 results which they should learn to discover and state. 
 This criticism is just if true. But it is a misconception 
 of the proposed manner of stating the aim. It is a fun- 
 damental principle that the statement of the aim should 
 not anticipate results. It should be definite and clear, 
 but it should state a problem for solution. It should 
 point in the direction of the result without giving the 
 clue. If the teacher proposes to develop and illustrate 
 the law of multiple proportions in physics, he would not 
 state the law as the aim, but put it in such form as this: 
 We have noticed that certain chemical elements unite to 
 form compounds; we will next investigate the question 
 as to whether they unite according to any definite law. 
 Experimint and investigation will reveal what the law is. 
 PupiVs Work. — Another serious criticism of this plan 
 of class-work is that it outlines well the work of the 
 teacher^ but what does the pupil have to do? 
 We will attempt to illustrate as follows: 
 (Preparation.) The pupil has to prepare his lesson 
 before coming to the class. This is done in all good 
 schools. Suppose that the subject treated is the early 
 discovery and exploration of the Ohio Valley previous to 
 the French and Indian War. The teacher proposes this 
 as the next topic for history study. If this subject is 
 treated according to the recitation plan, the first thing 
 is to determine how much or how little the children know 
 of the proposed subject. Who were the first explorers 
 of the Ohio Valley? Whence they came? Who owned 
 the land? The topics naturally brought out by this brief 
 questioning are. The French, the English, the Indians. 
 Having determined thus what the children know, and 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 163 
 
 having excited their curiosity, the next work for the 
 teacher (at this stage) is to indicate what pages of the 
 text-book and, if desirable, what pages in other histories 
 bear directly upon this topic. If the references are more 
 than one person will have time to look up, certain per- 
 sons or sections of the class may be asked to be prepared 
 on special points or books of reference. The work of 
 preparing the lesson by studying up these references is 
 similar to that of lessons as usually assigned. 
 
 (Presentation.) Now the pupil is required not only 
 to present the topic which he has studied, but to pay close 
 heed to the additional facts and topics presented by other 
 pupils, and to see if he can arrange the facts presented 
 by the whole class into systematic form. The proof of 
 this ability is the oral statement of the main points. It 
 is plain that the pupil must have his wits about him, pay 
 close attention to all that is said, and then exercise his 
 own powers of arrangement and expression. 
 
 With the completion of this part of the work we 
 should be done with the first two steps, namely, the 
 preparation and presentation of the facts. 
 
 The third step consists of a comparison of the facts 
 of this lesson with similar facts or topics in other lessons 
 previously learned. The self- activity of pupils is fully 
 awakened by asking them to reproduce similar cases in 
 American history where the English and French, the 
 English and Dutch, the English and Spanish have both 
 explored and laid claim to new territory, causing con- 
 flicting claims; e. </. , the claim of the English and 
 French to Nova Scotia; the claim of English and Dutch 
 to New York; the claim of English and Spanish to 
 Georgia and Carolina; etc. ' 
 
164 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 The clear statement of each of these cases and their 
 comparison will bring out a common conclusion from the 
 children regarding them all (fourth step). What did all 
 these claims rest upon, and how were they enforced ? 
 The pupil's own intelligence and moral judgment are 
 abundantly sufficient to answer these questions. The 
 conclusion thus reached will probably point to the man- 
 ner in which the claim to the Ohio Valley was setted (fifth 
 step). 
 
 After a topic has been thus fully treated before and 
 during the recitation, it will often prove an excellent ex- 
 ercise to call for a written composition giving a full dis- 
 cussion of this topic. The pupil is left free to treat the 
 main topics in his own way. The outline of the subject 
 has been already fully developed in the class, but the pu- 
 pil is free to discuss the points in his own language and 
 to form his own conclusions. 
 
 Translation From Prof. W. Rein's "Das Erste 
 schuljahr. " 
 
 The Formal Steps in their Outlines. — Proceeding now 
 to the act of instruction itself, we notice first of all that 
 the subject-matter of every study like Arithmetic or Ge- 
 ography is to be divided up into a large number of smaller 
 parts, units of instruction, each of which will occupy 
 from one to four, or even more, recitations. These di- 
 visions of a term's work in History or Geography are 
 what Ziller calls methodical unities^ and each one of them 
 is to be carried through the successive steps of a system- 
 atic recitation plan, namely, the formal steps. 
 
 For if the single topics which go to make up the great 
 variety of school studies are to be clearly understood and 
 thoroughly assimilated, each must be worked over by 
 itself. For this purpose sufficient time must be given so 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 165 
 
 that the details of each object can be absorbed, and this 
 absorption with the details must be succeeded by a period 
 of recollection, a brief survey of the situation, a glance 
 backwards and forwards, so as to fix the relations of this 
 object to others. Suppose that the instruction in a class 
 begins with one of these methodical unities. The first 
 thing to do is to make plain to the pupils the great object 
 or aim of the lesson. In a primary class, for instance, 
 the aim may be so expressed: "To-day we will hear the 
 story of a little girl that lost both father and mother." 
 For a more advanced class as follows: "We are acquainted 
 with the earth as a great ball hanging in space. We 
 will next see whether this ball is at rest or in motion." 
 
 Reasons for Stating the Aim at First. — There are sev- 
 eral important reasons in favor of the plain statement of 
 the purpose of a recitation at the beginning. 1. It pushes 
 aside and out of view those irrelevant thoughts which 
 chance to occupy the mind before the recitation, and it 
 accordingly makes room for those ideas which are about 
 to be developed. 2. It transplants the children into the 
 new circle of ideas which are to demand their attention, 
 and it encourages the rise in the child's mind of those 
 older and kindred thoughts which will be most welcome 
 supports to the new ideas about to be presented. 3. It 
 excites expectation, and this is the most favorable dispo- 
 sition of mind for the beginning of instruction. 4. It gives 
 the child a strong incentive to an exercise of the will, 
 and impels it to voluntary co-operation in solving the 
 difficulties of the proposed lesson. 
 
 The last point is of fundamental importance, and 
 worthy of a special consideration. The pupil should 
 know beforehand what is coming if he is to bring all his 
 powers to bear on the work of learning, and it is easier 
 
 —11 
 
166 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 to call out all his effort if he knows beforehand what 
 is to be gained. To conduct a child along an unknown 
 road toward an unknown object, by means of questions 
 and hints, the object of which he does not see, to lead 
 him on imperceptibly to an unknown goal, has the dis- 
 advantage that it develops neither a spontaneous mental 
 activity nor a clear insight into the subject. 
 
 Having reached the end of such a line of thought, the 
 pupil looks about himself bewildered. He cannot survey 
 the road that he has just gone over. He does not com- 
 prehend what has happened to him. He stands at the 
 goal, but does not see the relation in which the result 
 stands to the labor performed. He does not rise to that 
 satisfactory mental activity and favorable disposition of 
 mind which are stimulated by the pursuit of a clearly set 
 purpose. No aim, no will! Now since an instruction 
 that aims at moral character finds its highest purpose in 
 the development of will power, it follows that a lesson 
 should develop the will just as much as the understand, 
 ing. But to develop will-power, instruction must pursue 
 plainly set aims, and to reach them the pupil must be 
 called upon to throw all his mental powers into the effort. 
 
 The general purpose of a lesson having been made 
 plain, the real work of teaching then begins, and in every 
 methodical unity this work runs through a succession of 
 five steps. 
 
 First Step. — The first step in this process consists in 
 a preparation of the ground for the reception of the new 
 lesson. This is done by freshening up and calling clearly 
 to the mind such older ideas as bear upon the new, such 
 as by their similarity explain and assist the understanding 
 of the new. It is only when a troop of old familiar ideas 
 come forth to meet the strangers that they are received 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 167 
 
 easily into the mind. It is in this way alone that they 
 can make a lasting impression upon the thoughts and 
 feelings. If these forces which lie asleep in the back- 
 ground of one's thoughts are not called into activity, one 
 will remain dull and indifferent to the recitation, and the 
 instruction reminds us of a learned discourse which shoots 
 over the heads of the listeners. Instead of interested at- 
 tention and participation, it produces only weariness of 
 mind. 
 
 This result will always follow when that which is said 
 awakens no chords of sympathy in the minds of the 
 hearers. If nothing springs forth from within to greet 
 that coming from without, the lesson will be meaningless 
 and the pupil unreceptive. Things new and strange can 
 only be appropriated. by means of a wealth of old ideas, 
 and the plan of recitation must see to the preparation of 
 these old materials during the first step. 
 
 Second Step. — The second step begins with the pre- 
 sentation of the new lesson, which will vary in manner 
 according to the age of pupils and the nature of the study. 
 A story would be related to a primary class, or developed 
 according to the conversational method. A reading les- 
 son for older pupils would be read. A geography topic 
 would be presented by the teacher while talking and 
 drawing, and a subject in physics while experimenting 
 and speaking. If the preparation has been of the right 
 kind the lesson will be appropriated with ease and cer- 
 tainty, and the teacher will not be compelled to talk and 
 ask and explain all around the subject. Whenever this 
 is necessary the preparation, the first step, must be re- 
 garded as a failure. What has been learned is not only 
 to be momentarily understood, but permanently appro- 
 priated. It is necessary to close up this step with repe- 
 
168 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 tition and drill, and these must be continued under 
 varying forms till the lesson has been firmly fixed. In 
 this manner the first great act in the process of teaching 
 and learning has been completed, namely, the presenta- 
 tion and reception of the subject-matter, and it consists, 
 as we have seen, of two steps, preparation of the ground 
 and presentation of the lesson. The second act within 
 the limits of a methodical unity is the process of building 
 up and bringing into distinct form the general or abstract 
 ideas which are to be drawn from the concrete materials 
 already collected, and this second act is brought to a con- 
 elusion in the three following steps. 
 
 Third Step. — In the third step we are to bring to- 
 gether in the mind the newly won ideas, to compare them 
 among themselves and with older ideas, and when neces- 
 sary with additional new ones still to be presented ; in 
 short, to compare and to combine the new and the old. 
 Such a comparison and union of ideas is necessary for two 
 reasons : (1) in order that connection and harmony be 
 established in one's range of ideas, and (2) that what is 
 general and essential in the midst of special individual 
 things may be extracted from them. Nowhere should 
 heterogeneous heaps of knowledge, like piles of gravel, be 
 brought together. Always and everywhere there should 
 be an effort towards well associated and systematized 
 knowledge. " Our whole personality rests in the end 
 upon the unity of consciousness, and this is disturbed and 
 injured when the mind is driven through a confused con- 
 glomerate of knowledge in which unconnected ideas are 
 piled up togther. " 
 
 But every concrete individual thing which is treated 
 as a methodical unity contains or embodies a general 
 truth, an abstract notion, which may be separated from 
 
THE FORMAL vSTEPS. 169 
 
 the concrete thing in which it is embodied. But it can 
 only be brought to light by bringing this object into com- 
 parison with other well-known concrete objects which 
 contain the same essential idea or truth, by bringing to- 
 gether in the mind things similar but not identical. 
 That which is common and essential to all is strengthened 
 by repetition, while accidental features and differences 
 drop easily into the background. The common truth 
 which all the objects embody springs forth as a new idea 
 of higher potency, as a general notion, as a rule or law. 
 
 Fourth Step. — But the abstract idea is still bound up 
 with the concrete thing ; a complete separation of this 
 abstract or general notion from its clothing in particulars 
 has not yet taken place : and this is the purpose of the 
 fourth step. By means of a few well-directed questions 
 we call out into pure and simple relief the general truth 
 or rule, freed from its particular applications. We 
 reduce this idea to definite language expression, and 
 finally bring it into systematic connection with our pre- 
 viously acquired knowledge. It only remains to impress 
 the abstract ideas thus acquired upon the mind by repe- 
 tition, so as to convert them into a real mental possession. 
 With this the process of abstraction is complete, but 
 teaching cannot afford to end the matter here. A fifth 
 step is needed to convert the knowledge acquired into use. 
 
 Fifth Stej). — Knowledge and ability to know have of 
 themselves no value either for the individual or for soci- 
 ety. Knowledge must first step into the service of life. 
 One must know how to apply his knowledge. Knowledge 
 and power must be changed into use; they must be trans- 
 formed into conscious ability. But will not this take 
 care of itself? Not at all. Hundreds of children have 
 learned how to estimate the surface of a triangle, and 
 
170 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 many of them can give the proof of the rule with ease 
 and precision. But put the question to one of them: How 
 many acres does a triangular garden with sides of a given 
 length contain? He will stand helpless, unconscious of 
 the fact that he possesses in his own mind the necessary 
 elements for the solution of the problem. How is this 
 explained? He has not learned to employ his knowledge. 
 It is a dead possession. And are there not plenty of such 
 cases? The conclusion is that even the application, the 
 use of knowledge, has to be learned. ''Here also it is only 
 practice that makes the master. But drill which aims 
 only at mechanical habit is not sufficient. Even during 
 school life that which is learned should be applied as 
 often and in as many cases as the narrow limits of the 
 child's life permits. " 
 
 Since the value of knowledge culminates in use, 
 instruction should cultivate its use so far as possible in a 
 closing step called application. For this purpose the 
 child should be held to a diligent use of its stock of ideas 
 as rapidly as they are acquired, to go from the particular 
 to the general, and back again from the general to the 
 particular, to traverse his circle of ideas from a given 
 standpoint in all directions, and to make use of the 
 results reached for the solution of moral, theoretical and 
 practical questions. In this manner a child's acquired 
 ideas may be so developed, so welded together in firm, 
 systematic, comprehensive association, that all his knowl- 
 edge becomes a reliable, personal possession. It is clear 
 and systematic as well as practical. 
 
 And this ends the development of general notions 
 within the limits of the formal steps of instruction. 
 
 To recapitulate: In the work of instruction each 
 methodical unity should be carried through the following 
 steps: 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 171 
 
 1. It should introduce the new lesson by means of a 
 preparatory discussion. 
 
 2. Present the new lesson. 
 
 3. Compare the new in its parts and with older ideas 
 and their combination. 
 
 4. Draw out the general results of this comparison, 
 and arrange them in systematic form. 
 
 5. Convert the knowledge acquired into use. 
 
 Translation From Wiget. 
 
 The following pages are a translation from Wiget's 
 "Die formalen Stufen des Unterrichts, " with occasional 
 paragraphs from the author. They cover the same 
 ground as the preceding discussion. 
 
 It is necessary to distinguish clearly between a par- 
 ticular and a general notion. (Between a percept and a 
 concept.) For example, we desire to distingush between 
 the particular notion of a tree and the general notion of 
 a tree. There is here a difference to be noted in the usage 
 of language. We say the particular notion of ci tree, as 
 there are many, very many particular notions of trees. 
 But we do not say the general notion (concept) of a tree, 
 but the general notion tree^ as there is only one such 
 general notion. The particular notion (percept) is the 
 mental picture of a definite tree and one may possess as 
 many particular notions as one has seen trees. The gen- 
 eral notion bears the essential nature of all trees. While 
 the particular notion always relates to a single object, 
 the "extension" of the general notion is much greater; 
 it includes the family or genus. 
 
 Evidently, however, the particular notion of the lin- 
 den in front of my house has a much richer content than 
 the general notion tree. While in the definition of the 
 
172 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 latter I iDtroduce only those characteristics which are 
 found in every tree; in describing the former, besides 
 these, I notice a series of characteristics which are pe- 
 culiar to this tree alone. While the general notion ex- 
 ceeds the particular notion in extent^ in respect to content 
 the opposite is true. 
 
 Between the particular notion of a tree and the gen- 
 eral notion tree, there is a series of intermediate steps. 
 If I think the general notions, crab-apple, apple tree, fruit- 
 tree, foliage-tree, tree, the extent increases from one 
 general notion to another, while the number of char- 
 acteristics decreases in the same proportion, until the 
 general notion tree in its widest extent includes all trees, 
 but in regard to content it shrivels up to the bare char- 
 acteristics of root, stem, and top. 
 
 In what relation now do the particular and general 
 notion stand to the things of reality? The particular 
 notion of the linden-tree in the yard is a mental picture 
 of it (though not a photograph in the real sense of the 
 word). A definite object in the outer world corresponds 
 to this, if it is correct. If it is not a faithful picture, it 
 must be corrected through the activity of the senses, till 
 the object and the particular notion correspond. How 
 is it with the general notion? Is there any such a thing 
 in nature, which is simply tree^ not a foliage tree, not 
 evergreen, not apple, nor pear tree, neither larger nor 
 smaller, neither slender nor gnarled? In nature there 
 are only individuals; nothing can represent the pure 
 general notion; each thing contains besides the general 
 charactistics specific marks. An important conclusion is 
 drawn from this. A particular notion (percept) is a 
 product of sense perception^ the general notion (concept), 
 since it cannot spring directly from the senses, is a pro- 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 173 
 
 duct of thinking. It is a thought process, which, in the 
 throng of particular notions, separates the general from 
 particular and combines the abstracted characteristics to 
 a general notion. The more we extend a general notion 
 and the more we strip it of content, by so much more do 
 we rise from the concrete reality, which is mirrored in 
 the particular, into the sphere of the abstract, whose 
 expression is general notion (concept). 
 
 The word observation (Anschauung), that is, the gain- 
 ing of particular notions through the senses, has acquired 
 in pedagogical language a wider significance which we 
 must first determine. It means more than perception 
 through sight, for we use it in reference also to percep- 
 tion through the other senses. But it is not covered by 
 the term sense perception. Our reading books speak also 
 of narrative-observation-lessons. The sense perception in 
 this case can only refer to the letters seen and the sounds 
 heard. But these are not the perceptions that the nar- 
 rative-observation-lessons seek to develop. They refer 
 rather to the content of what has been heard or read. 
 The pupil is to gQt particular notions of the hero of the 
 narrative, of his deeds and character. In this sense Pes- 
 talozzi speaks of observations of the feelings and mental 
 states (intuitions), and even Comenius speaks of obser- 
 vations with the mental eye. 
 
 But these observations (particular notions) of a mental 
 kind, refer just as sense perception to something co/icre^6. 
 They are not something abstract like the general notion. 
 There is a great difference between repeating the verse, 
 "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
 dwell together in unity" and narrating some particular 
 act of peace-making character, between saying, "neigh- 
 borly kindness is admirable" and telling of the self-sacri- 
 
174 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 ficing death of William Tell or of Howard, between de- 
 scribing in general terms the age of chub-law and of rob- 
 ber-knights and painting the life of such an adventurer 
 with his individ lal traits. 
 
 Mental observation of particular deeds stands there- 
 fore in the same contrast to abstract general notions 
 (concepts) as sense perception does. 
 
 Whether I examine a plant with the eye, receive a 
 melody through the ear, examine a mineral through taste, 
 smell and touch, or even through the mediation of the 
 written or spoken word — if I represent to my mind the 
 activity of a great man, the death of a hero, the value or 
 worthlessness of an act or disposition; in all these cases, 
 I have to do with something concrete, with a single pic- 
 ture, a particular notion. 
 
 It is a usage of speech to represent the progress from 
 the narrower to the more general notions under the 
 sense picture of rising or climbing upwards. It repre- 
 sents the general notion as the superior and the corres- 
 ponding narrower notion as the subordinate. 
 
 We sometimes speak of the notions as built up into 
 a structure, as a sort of pyramidal tower, whose broad 
 foundation consists of the great variety of particular 
 notions (percept?) the first story somewhat narrower, is 
 formed of the lowest class notions as crab-tree, bell-flower, 
 etc., over these rise the broader general classes, apple- 
 tree, peach-tree, pine, birch, and above these the more 
 general classes still, as stone-fruit, winged-fruit, etc., 
 until the structure terminates in the highest general 
 notion (concept) tree. 
 
 Thus objects are classed under the general notion^ 
 (concept) examples under the rule^ and phenomena under 
 the law. General notion, rule, law — together they con- 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 175 
 
 stitute a principle of comprehension and orderly arrange- 
 ment. They give a birds-eye-view of the multitude of 
 things known. They facilitate a correct estimate and 
 grasp of single things. One knows "where to put a 
 thing." 
 
 In the process of learning at what point shall our 
 study begin, with particular or with general notions? 
 In guiding children on the road to knowledge, shall we 
 ask them at first to fix their attention on particular 
 objects and persons in action or shall we have them 
 begin with definitions, rules and laws? 
 
 Wiget says further, "The naive empirical method in 
 pedagogy imagined the matter to be very simple. The 
 general notions which a child is to acquaint himself with 
 are presented to him, the system to be acquired is trans- 
 mitted, cut and dried." 
 
 The botanist began with the most general notion of 
 his science, the conceipt plant, proceeded then to the next 
 subordinate groups, phanerogams and cryptogams, and 
 further to the definitions of the classes, subclasses, fam- 
 ilies, and lastly to a description of the concrete plants. 
 The geometer began with the definition of the most gen- 
 eral notions, point, line, surface, solid and advanced to 
 the real surfaces and solids. The music teacher started 
 out with a drill upon the scale and followed with real 
 songs, the teacher of literature described the character 
 of a literary period in esthetical and philosophical review, 
 without the students having read any of the literary pro- 
 ducts. 
 
 To-day this systematic procedure is generally regarded, 
 theoretically at least, as belonging to the dead past. Its 
 criticism therefore may be brief. 
 
176 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 What does a pupil think in connexion with a dictated 
 general notion or one learned from a book ? ' 'A triangle is 
 a surface bounded by three straight lines. " ' 'To the pulse 
 family belong woody or herbaceous plants with simple, 
 triple, or pinnate leaves, with mostly irregular flowers." 
 "In accented syllables a single consonant following 
 a single vowel, etc., is doubled." They are for him sim- 
 ple words. " Particular notions without general notions 
 are blind" says Kant, and he added, "general notions 
 without particulars are empty." But let it be supposed, 
 that the pupil is able to represent something to his mind 
 from these definitions, how shall he become conscious of 
 the fact that the rule or definition learned is really a com- 
 prehensive idea^ a clasping together in one thought of the 
 common characteristics of a class of individuals, unless he 
 has first tested it in a series of triangles, plants of the 
 pulse family, etc. ? It is therefore an illusion to suppose 
 that a general notion, for which particular ideas are 
 wanting, can be directly transferred to a pupil. People 
 have long known this or at least felt it, and have sub- 
 joined a few illustrations to the rule. After seeing the 
 examples the child understood the rule. But if the child 
 only understands the rule after the illustrations, why put 
 the rule first ? Ratich long ago called this a round-about 
 way. Rule — example— -rule. We can save ourselves the 
 trouble of setting up the rule at the beginning of the in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 The example, the particular notion, must be the 
 starting-point of knowledge. "Nothing is in the under- 
 standing which was not first in the senses." (Comenius.) 
 This is the course which the earliest men were compelled to 
 enter upon in appropriating general notions. Text-books, 
 outlines and tables did not grow on the trees, nothing 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 177 
 
 was given but the concrete things and phenomena. Con- 
 cept and rule were the work of the mind. 
 
 In contrast to a logical and systematic procedure, 
 which advances from the general to the particular, it is a 
 psychological process. It can be seen that a full de- 
 scription of this process must fall under the chief heads, 
 the acquisition of particular notions and the derivation 
 of general notions. 
 
 How ARE Individual Notions G-ained ? 
 
 By individual notion we understand a concrete single 
 picture. Such a single picture is not a simple idea but 
 under a close scrutiny it turns out to be something com,- 
 plex. The individual notion of a piece of chalk consists 
 of a series of elements, of the idea of bulk, of color, of 
 hardness, of structure, of taste. The individual notion 
 of a plant, of an animal, of a continent, consists of a 
 multitude of elementary ideas. So it is also with indi- 
 vidual historical notions, with the life-picture of Charle- 
 mange, with the idea of the Burgundian wars, or of a 
 single battle in them, with the mercy of the Good Sa- 
 maritan, and so with the esthetic ideas of a song, a pic- 
 ture or statue. The individual notion designates some- 
 thing concrete, something particular, but it is always a 
 complex thing. 
 
 How do we attain to individual notions? We shall 
 catch a hint by testing our newly acquired ideas as to 
 their clearness and definiteness. While upon an excur- 
 sion we observe a plant, and afterwards desire to describe 
 it to a botanist to ascertain its name. "How many petals 
 had the corolla? Were the stamens attached to the pet- 
 als?" We are unable to answer, and yet we saw the 
 parts named ; they stood before our eyes ; but these fea- 
 tures are lacking in our mental picture. If a number of 
 
178 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 plants were laid before us, iDcluding the one mentioned, 
 we should perhaps recognize it. ' 'It is this one, not that. " 
 We are able to distinguish it from others, but not to fully 
 characterize it from memory, "I entered the woods in a 
 dreamy whim, in search of naught, such was my aim." 
 The hasty sketch was due to lack of purpose; a purposed 
 attention would have produced a better result. A better 
 result? Certainly. But would it have been complete? 
 We examine many a plant, machine, building, relief, care- 
 fully and attentively, and we are still unable to give ex- 
 act account to ourselves or to others of the thing seen. 
 The perfect picture does not follow the first attempt. So 
 is it also with other ideas. We have listened eagerly to 
 a melody and then hum and whistle it, but one strain is 
 forgotten and no thinking can supply the defect. We 
 have read the history of the seven year's war and a mo- 
 ment later are not able to reproduce the battles in exact 
 order. In the life of Charlemagne we fail in an exact idea 
 of the succession of the Saxon wars, and if only a name 
 or a date is lacking the notion is not complete. 
 
 The first impression is as a rule somewhat incomplete. 
 But the outline may be completed. Each one does it 
 more or less consciously in the same way. One takes up 
 the plant, the book, or the picture the second time, he 
 has the melody sung again or glances at the notes and 
 directs the whole attention to the defective parts. If a 
 single return to the object is not sufficient a second fol- 
 lows till the result is satisfactory. After grasping the 
 rough outline of the whole we drop into absorption with 
 the details. The individual notion thus ripens. Some- 
 times it takes place involuntarily by accidental repetition 
 of the impression, sometimes through effort and perse- 
 verance, frequently in a few hours, often after years. 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 179 
 
 But the speed of movement makes no difference in the 
 articulation of the process. Outline vie^o of the whole — 
 absorption in details — recollection of the whole. These 
 are the steps. 
 
 How should individual notions be produced in chil- 
 dren? Should we attempt to avoid the defective, i^ude 
 outline of the whole? Or shall we imitate the natural 
 course and through imitation assist and accelerate it? 
 Comenius prefers the latter. He asks that the eye of the 
 pupil first take in the whole object, then master the 
 single parts and tarry long enough with each till it may 
 be clearly grasped. (Magna didactica, Chap. 20.) And 
 Pestalozzi is of the same opinion. Since this method of 
 procedure is based upon a psychical process the term 
 natural may be applied to it in a genuine sense of the 
 word. Let us take a concrete case. In natural science 
 lessons the potato is to be treated. The pupil already 
 knows much of its use as food for man and beast, for 
 instance, the time of planting and digging, and the 
 appearance of the vegetable. But he has probably only 
 a faulty notion of the plant; some essential marks of the 
 flower and fruit are not yet familiar to him, at least not 
 perfectly clear. What has the teacher to do if he wishes 
 to enter upon the psychological process before indicated? 
 He must begin with a rough outline view of the whole. 
 He must first determine what the pupil knows. He must 
 lead him to express himself concerning it. It is also 
 advisable to bring into definite order whatever the pupil 
 communicates, that touches on the nature of the subject. 
 Now comes the second part of the work — the absorp- 
 tion in the details. The bulbs were designated by the 
 pupils as the fruit of the plant, the notions of the flower 
 were indistinct. Specimens are distributed. "Now 
 
180 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 look at the flowers again." Thus the single parts are 
 examined so far as they are important, and afterwards 
 the whole outline is completed. G-rasp of the whole — 
 absorption — review of the whole. 
 
 In applying our principle to the above example will 
 the omitted characteristics in the picture of the potato 
 plant be grasped distinctly, if in accordance with a sys- 
 tematic description, they are mingled interchangeably 
 with what is well known — first something known, then 
 something not before noticed, and again a familiar part 
 being described — or is it better, after reviewing the fa- 
 miliar points sufficiently, to drop them for a while into the 
 background of thought and direct one's attention to the 
 lacking part, fix this firmly and associate it with the 
 whole ? 
 
 The second plan is the better both for the sake of at- 
 tention and of thoroughly impressing it. In fact we 
 shall not seek to cover up nor to render indistinct the 
 transition from old to new, but on the contrary make it 
 very distinct. The supplementary facts and explanations 
 are first fixed by themselves. ' ' Who can tell me again 
 what we have just learned ? " Thus each point is brought 
 into proper relation to the old. "Now we will repeat 
 the whole again but not forget to add also what we have 
 just learned." Thus the individual notion is developed. 
 
 When a child is first summoned to give as full an ac- 
 count as possible of an object from his own experience 
 and when new information is afterwards brought in to 
 supplement this, it is manifest that the self activity of 
 the pupil and his interest are aroused. 
 
 The imitation of the natural progress from the crude 
 grasp of the whole to absorption in particulars recom- 
 mends itself to us then for three reasons. 1. It insures 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 181 
 
 both to the old and the new the right quality and vigor 
 of attention. 2. It favors the self activity of the pupils. 
 3. On the basis of apperception, it reviews and vivi- 
 fies the old ideas so that they will be of more service 
 in acquiring the new. "For related old ideas condition 
 the reception of the new. From this law is derived first 
 of all, a direction for the selection of the subject matter. 
 It sJiould never be absolutely neio. It should always be so 
 selected and arranged that it may find related facts in the 
 child's knowledge." 
 
 In reading lessons a useful preparation (first step) may 
 sometimes consist in suggesting a similar line of thought 
 to that in the lesson, before the pupils read the lesson 
 itself. Southey's "Battle of Blenheim" may be pre- 
 pared for by calling ap the scenes of a battlefield and by 
 naming the relics that are found in such a place. By 
 reproducing from memory what the children may have 
 heard or read of such scenes, the appreciation of the 
 selection will be more rapid and vivid. To insert the 
 references and explanations from time to time during the 
 first reading of the piece tends to interrupt the strength 
 and unity of the impression. "The sphere of action 
 belonging to preparation is thus widened. Not simply 
 one but a whole complex of ideas is called to mind and 
 brushed up in order to insure a reception of the new into 
 a kindred family group." (Wiget. ) 
 
 Frequently a double sort ol preparatio)i is serviceable. 
 When studying the camel, it is fitting to call up not only 
 what the pupils may know of the camel, its use and man- 
 ner of life, but also the characteristics of similar animals 
 more familiar to the children, as of the ox and sheep. 
 Or if the battle of Yorktown is the new subject, not only 
 review what may be known of it but of other similar con- 
 
182 GEN"ERAL METHOD. 
 
 flicts during the Revolution, as Bunker Hill and the 
 Evacuation of Boston, or Lincoln's surrender at Charles- 
 town. 
 
 There is, to be sure, perpetual danger of overshooting 
 the mark by allowing too wide a range of recollection, 
 danger of calling to mind many irrelevant things and of 
 wasting time and losing sight of the main topic. But if 
 the teacher has an objective point clearly in view, he can 
 direct the discussion and hold it to its proper limits. 
 Some methodical unities are so complex and extensive 
 that we are called upon to alternate two or three times 
 between preparation and presentation. A reading les- 
 son should usually be divided into two distinct parts, 
 each of which should pass through the steps of prepara- 
 tion and presentation. First the study of the subject 
 matter, the meaning of the piece; second, the work for 
 attaining proficiency in reading. 
 
 Longfellow's "Village Blacksmith" recalls familiar 
 scenes to every child. After touching upon these the 
 piece may be read with sufficient questioning to bring 
 out clearly the meaning of each word, simile, and verse 
 and the thought as a whole. Thus the first preparation 
 and presentation are complete. Proficiency in clear and 
 expressive reading is the next aim. 
 
 The preparation may begin with a phonic drill upon 
 some of the more difficult words as chestnut^ bellows^ choir ^ 
 2^a7'adise. In advancing from verse to verse emphasis 
 must be laid upon clearness and expression until the dif- 
 ficulties of the piece are brought into a clear light. The 
 final drill, which aims at perfection in the art of reading, 
 is a step beyond presentation and belongs (if indeed at 
 all in the formal steps) to application. 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 1S3 
 
 From Particular to General Notions. 
 The general notion is the higher form of knowledge 
 into which the particular notions are to be transformed. 
 In the nature of general notions lies a suggestion of their 
 origin. He who has seen but one rose, one triangle, can 
 have 710 general notion of rose or triangle. He who knows 
 but one case of a plural ending in s, but one illustration 
 of a feminine in a, can have no knowledge of the rule, or 
 if he knows but one example of the power of attraction 
 he is not conscious of the km. General notions, rules 
 and laws can only be derived from a number of examples, 
 from particular cases. Since they are the expression of 
 what is general and universally accepted, it is a matter 
 of primary importance, by comparing the multitude of re- 
 lated facts and phenomena, to separate the general from 
 the individual. This process of abstraction is not always 
 executed under the direction of the will, but frequently, 
 as in the correction and amplification of our particular 
 notions, without purpose and by accident. We must 
 therefore call in question the above mentioned statement, 
 that general notions are a product of thinking, so far as 
 thinktng is looked upon as a voluntary act. For even a 
 child, before all instruction and without voluntary reflec- 
 tion, 'appropriates a great variety of general notions, or 
 what corresponds to these. When he sees the big dog or 
 the little poodle, the slender grey-hound or the short- 
 legged spaniel, he cries out ' 'See the dog. " He therefore 
 proved that the class dog is familiar to him and that he 
 knows how to fix each in its class. 
 
 The psychical process which mechanically produced 
 this general notion, may be plainly seen. With every 
 new dog seen the characteristic idea of dogs repeated 
 itself ; when he had seen ten the perception of the com- 
 
184 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 mon feature had repeated itself ten times while the pe- 
 culiarity of each dog had appeared but once. In looking 
 at an equilateral, an isosceles, and an irregular triangle, 
 the idea of three-sidedness was repeated each time, while 
 the facts of the equilateral, isosceles, or irregular form ap- 
 peared but once each. It is therefore easy to see that 
 the repeated perception of that which distinguishes a tri- 
 angle or a dog impressed itself in a deeper and livelier 
 manner than the particular features and that gradually 
 one forms the habit of overlooking the particular features 
 or of seeing them only hastily and imperfectly. 
 
 This ascendency of the general over the particular 
 manifests itself unmistakably in the fact that we desig- 
 nate all the different varieties by the word do<f^ or in the 
 other case by the word triangle. 
 
 Before school days begin a child attains the general 
 notions, man, wife, child, person, horse, bird, fish, worm, 
 animal, rose, flower, leaf, root, tree, grass, plant, and 
 many others. But when we begin to scrutinize the gen- 
 eral notions that spring up in accordance with the nat- 
 ural psychical mechanism of the mind, we discover, as in 
 testing the accidentally acquired particular notions, that 
 the psychical general notions are, as a rule — defective, 
 crude ; if one is not so it is accidental, since the psychical 
 concept is always a work of chance. 
 
 Some of them do not contain all the general characteris- 
 tics. 
 
 A child is not able to define the general notion dog as 
 zoology requires it. Besides the general form, he thinks 
 perhaps only of the barking and fighting, and would not 
 hesitate to call a wolf a doo; on meetincr it the first time. 
 The fish is that which swims, the bird is that which flies, 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 185 
 
 and accordingly he classifies the whale under the former 
 and the bat, fluttering in the twilight, under the latter. 
 
 Or the general notion is given characteristics that do 
 not belong to it. 
 
 With the general notion fruit we easily combine the 
 idea of use as a food product. Then comes the false idea 
 of the potato bulb. Grass is at first defined as that 
 which grows in pastures as food for cattle. In both cases 
 there attaches to the psychical general notion another 
 defect. The general is too much blended with the indi- 
 vidual. Instead of thinking of the characteristics, we 
 think of the individuals to which they belong. This is 
 natural, for in the above-mentioned process of forming 
 general notions by accident, some characteristics, to be 
 sure, have become more clear through repetition, but a 
 conscious detachment from others less distinct has never 
 taken place. 
 
 Therefore the psychical general notions, if designed 
 to furnish a reliable knowledge, must be revised and cor- 
 rected. In testing each single characteristic we ask, 
 <'Is it also peculiar to all the individuals to which the 
 other common marks apply ? " and, " Are all the marks 
 included which belong to the characteristic of the whole?" 
 Content and extent of the general notion are examined 
 and, according to the test, expressly altered or accepted. 
 The general notion dog is clearly defined ; from the 
 notion fruit the idea of use for food is excluded ; to the 
 general notion fish the particular kind of breathing and 
 reproduction is added ; the notion grass is extended to 
 include the botanical grasses. 
 
 During the process we come to the detachment, the 
 abstraction of the general notion. In raising the ques- 
 tion, what characteristics belong to the dog, to the tri- 
 —12 
 
186 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 angle, to the notion fish or plant, the class features are 
 isolated. The systematic effort to combine the common 
 features leads to the detachment of the general from the 
 particular. But this is successful only to a limited ex- 
 tent. We are unable to think a pure general notion, for 
 example the concept triangle, without imagining an 
 equilateral, isosceles or irregular one, or a right, acute 
 or obtuse triangle, represented by marks on paper or 
 with crayon on the blackboard. The concrete features 
 always intrude themselves. But we are able to perceive 
 our psychical incapacity and to say, "all these particular 
 forms are triangles, but none of them belongs to the gen- 
 eral notion. I ought to be able to think three-sidedness 
 without these particularities." 
 
 The verification of the psychical general notion accord 
 ing to extent and content, the detachment of the general 
 notion from the individual, all this is in truth no longer 
 the work of an unconscious psychical process, it is an effort 
 and oftentimes a severe effort, requiring purpose and en- 
 durance. 
 
 And now we return to the proposition whose truth 
 was put in question and give it more exact wording. 
 The verified logical general notions are the, products of 
 thinking. 
 
 But the road along which thinking produces logical 
 general notions, when closely surveyed, is not essentially 
 different from that which leads to psychical concepts 
 The psychical general notion presupposes a number of sim- 
 ilar particular notions, and so also the logical concept — 
 but while the psychical mechanism works up the acci- 
 dentally collected particular ideas, without criticism, 
 to a general notion, thinking first inquires whether the 
 individual notions present to the mind all belong to the 
 
1?HE FORMAL STEPS. 187 
 
 general notions and whether all the appropriate individ- 
 ual notions are at hand (thinking sifts the extent of the 
 general notion). 
 
 By repeating the idea, the psychical mechanism 
 strengthens the general characteristics; thinking does the 
 same, but it lifts them through conscious and voluntary 
 comparisons into notice and isolates them from the concrete, 
 while it collects them together by themselves. (It de- 
 fines the content of the general notion.) The work of 
 thinking is similar in kind to that of the psychical 
 mechanism, but it is more thorough. 
 
 Application to Method. 
 
 To teach a pupil to construct general notions is iden- 
 tical with teaching him to think. But is he capable of 
 thinking logical concepts, seeing that his teacher is 
 unable to do it? We relinquish the claim at once. In 
 elementary teaching the general notions will fall far 
 behind the requirements of logic in more than one 
 respect. Frequently it will be impossible to exhaust the 
 extent that is, to bring together all the particular notions 
 that belong to the concept. Then, of course, the content 
 also can not be exact. So long as nothing has been said 
 of the whale the pupil will assign to the general notion 
 mammal the attribute of possessing four legs. Secondly, 
 the child is much less able than the grown person to 
 think a general notion abstractly. His imagination con- 
 stantly rests upon concrete typical objects. 
 
 But within the limits of those observations that are 
 accessible to a child, instruction may follow the course of 
 logical thinking and, thereby strengthen and hasten the 
 mechanical process to which the child would otherwise 
 remain subject. It will lead the pupil on to compare kin- 
 dred things with purpose and attention, and to expressly 
 collect the general characteristics. 
 
188 CtENERAL method. 
 
 Comparison — gathering together the attributes of the 
 general notion. This is the articulation of the process of 
 abstraction in teaching. Perhaps it would be fitting to 
 begin teaching by verifying and remodeling the numer- 
 ous loose concepts which a child brings with him to 
 school, and after this range of experience has been logic- 
 ally reconstructed, to enrich his mind with new observa- 
 tions (particular notions). But it is evident that this 
 labor could not be accomplished in most cases without a 
 return to the individual notions, because the single pict- 
 ures, from which the general notion should have been 
 drawn, are defective (as noticed above). But even if the 
 quality of the individual notions permitted us to devote 
 a longer time to their systematic arrangement, it would 
 still not be permissible for another reason. The genera, 
 notion offers no new material, its elements are all familiar, 
 they are only to be differently grouped. But all instruc- 
 tion that furnishes no new facts will very soon dull the 
 interest and the desire to learn. Both considerations, 
 therefore, are favorable to an alternation between the 
 process of observing particulars and that of generaliza- 
 tion. When new observations (of particulars) have been 
 made, we see to their comparison among themselves and 
 with kindred ideas already present and thus bring both 
 the old and new into closer systematic order. With the 
 new perception of a particular dog are associated the 
 common points of agreement which the children have 
 noticed in other dogs. There is formed a common pict- 
 urCj^ composed of the attributes, qualities and habits 
 peculiar to all dogs, which is more complete than the psy- 
 chical. Subsequent instruction joins to this the study of 
 the fox and wolf. But it does not stop with simple 
 observation. There follows a comparison of the fox, 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 189 
 
 wolf and dog. The outcome is reached by joining the 
 points of similarity, namely of the canine family. If a 
 later methodical unity treats the group, marten, pole-cat, 
 weasel, sable, fish-otter, a comparison first gives the gen- 
 eral notion of the marten family. By contrast it also 
 emphasizes the two family notions — marten and canine. 
 
 But above the contrast, the comparison recognizes a 
 higher common attribute, the general notion of the flesh- 
 eating animals. The comprehension of this general notion 
 is expressed through a definition. The flesh-eaters have 
 certain common marks, so and so. The flesh-eaters are 
 the martins and the canines. They differ so and so from 
 each other. If the study of the cat family follows this, 
 the steps of preparation and presentation (analysis and 
 synthesis) produce the individual notions house-cat, lynx, 
 lion, tiger. The third step compares these species with 
 each other, the family marks with those of the martens 
 and canines and establishes the fact that the cat family 
 also possess the characteristics of the order carnivora. 
 
 The comparison of individual notions with respect to 
 their common marks and the grouping together of the 
 latter into a general notion pass imperceptibly from the 
 one process to the other. The third step proceeds from 
 the illustrations to the general notions (concept, rule, 
 law). It is the course of induction. The fourth step 
 proceeds in the opposite direction. The general idea 
 indeed is to be detached from the individuals and so 
 thrown into prominence, but it should not lose the con- 
 crete ground on which it stands and therefore illustra- 
 tions are subjoined — it is the systematic course of a 
 scientific text-book (^. e. , first rule, then examples). The 
 fourth step restores the relation between a school science 
 and a professional science, and receives justly the name 
 
190 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 system. It is itself a detached part of a text-book, and 
 where such is introduced (grammar, catechism, history- 
 table or outline) it is fitting to refer to that portion of a 
 scientific text-book which elaborates this topic, under- 
 line it, and supplement it by the examples just learned. 
 However insignificant this inversion may seem in a single 
 case, still it is the necessary transition to that other 
 mental movement of which the pupil shall be capable, 
 according to Lessing: "to descend from the general to 
 the particular after he has advanced from the particular 
 to the general." 
 
 Outwardly the fourth step is distinguished by enter- 
 ing the results of the comparison in a note book, so far 
 especially as one deems it important not to encourage 
 forgetfulness, but desires to secure reliable supports for 
 repetition. 
 
 The process of observation and abstraction (first 
 grasp of the whole, absorption, comparison and system) 
 are the steps that lead to concepts or at least to what 
 approximates abstract knowledge. But since observa- 
 tions (individual notions) constitute the basis of the en- 
 tire structure, since further a whole throng of particular 
 ideas may fall under a single general notion, and every 
 general notion be supported by at least several individual 
 notions, it is plain that a greater amount of time must 
 be expended upon the first two steps, which serve the 
 purposes of observation, to correspond with their im- 
 portance. When sufficient pains are taken in securing 
 the individual notions of a dog, wolf, fox, marten, pole- 
 cat, weasel, etc., the third and fourth steps will then 
 require but little time. The family characteristics of the 
 dog, marten, and cat may be soon grouped together and 
 their kinship as carnivora may be established by a few 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 191 
 
 statements relative to dentition and food. The process 
 of abstraction proceeds more easily when the way to 
 comparison has been paved during the process of observ- 
 ing individual things. 
 
 If similiarity and contrast promote the apperception 
 of the new, they are also advantageous to the third step 
 (comparison), which repeats again the general character- 
 istics and the sub-class variations for the purpose of sys- 
 tematic arrangement. Since the process of abstraction 
 brings out nothing new, it is an advantage when we do 
 not need to tarry long with the third and fourth steps. 
 
 The families and orders are not the only categories 
 that botanical instruction recognizes. Root, stem, leaf, 
 inflorescence, environment, use, are also general notions 
 which should be wrought out from the mass of concrete 
 materials. They furnish new points of comparison for 
 the third step, and in the fourth step (system) we sketch 
 under the heading Root the different forms as they appear 
 — as tap-root^ fihrous, tuberous, and near these sketches 
 we write the names of the plants in which we have seen 
 these forms illustrated. 
 
 In such manner we arrange and secure our possession. 
 To link thoughts together means to secure them against 
 forgetfulness. Association of ideas is the condition of 
 memory and the connexion according to inner kinship, 
 its best support. The comparisons of the third step have 
 no other aim. They are associations of individuals and 
 lower concepts according to logical and essential char- 
 acteristics. 
 
 In many cases the process of abstraction ends with the 
 association of individual notions and does not lead to the 
 detachment of the general notion. Association must first 
 collect the material for concept building. In getting at 
 
192 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 the rule for the doubling of consonants we lay in a cata- 
 logue of words in 11^ nn, ck^ etc. , by reserving a column 
 for each series. These associations develop the language 
 instinct, for it depends upon the psychical mechanism. 
 When the notion is at length ripe, we pluck it ; the 
 reason for doubling the consonant is recognized, ck is 
 seen to be equivalent to k k^ etc. Now the systematic 
 order is reversed; we need no longer notice the whole 
 extent; one illustration is enough. The general notion 
 relieves, unloads the mind. In the fourth step, on the 
 page devoted to spelling, we make a new entry. Douh. 
 ling the final consonant^ example, telling, running, ticking. 
 
 Whether we arrive at the logical concept or not, (and 
 in elementary stages the latter will often be the case) the 
 association that leads up to it should never be lacking in 
 teaching. Everywhere the command is to collect and to 
 collect according to logical categories. 
 
 The association is not narrowed of course within the 
 limits of a single study. For it is manifest that from the 
 sum total of instruction the least will be lost when each 
 study gathers up its own peculiar notions wherever they 
 appear in the broad field of instruction. 
 
 In instruction we desire to make the power expended 
 by teachers and pupils as fruitful as possible; for this 
 reason we are much concerned that the ideas be bound 
 together and the associations themselves or their results 
 (rule, concept) be fixed in writing. 
 
 Pupils should be required to keep note-books of uni- 
 form size in which the results of the lesson should be 
 daily entered. This need not interfere with the proper 
 use of text-books. ' ' We have some further remarks 
 concerning the form of such entries. We have called them 
 catch-words; they are not to give the whole matter but 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 193 
 
 only to suggest it. Consequently we did not enter the 
 rule for the doubling of the consonant, but only three 
 examples: hitting^ running^ ticking. Had we done the 
 opposite, there would be danger that the pupils would 
 retain the rule and forget the examples. Then it would 
 not be a rule but an empty formula. As soon as the 
 general truth has lost its connexion with the concrete, it 
 is a worthless shadow. 'Concepts without individual 
 notions are empty.' We cling therefore to concrete 
 types, to pattern-examples; but then we must also see 
 to it that the pattern-examples retain their reproductive 
 power, that is, we must associate example and rule. We 
 should require the pupil therefore while looking at the 
 example to construct and reproduce the rule, e. g.^ "A 
 final consonant, preceded by a single vowel, doubles the 
 consonant^ when — etc." 
 
 In one form or another the entries of the fourth step 
 contain the child's system of knowledge. Perhaps the 
 significance of the proposition has now grown clearer, we 
 are not obliged to offer a ready system, but to let one 
 spring up gradually. The text-book contains the whole 
 system, the note-book with its catch-words, the pupil's 
 arrangement of his concrete circle of observation. 
 
 In the scientific text-book stands the complete logical 
 concept; a psychological instruction allows it to ripen. 
 The first entries often lift themselves but little above the 
 loose psychical concept, they are only associations. The 
 number of associations is, at first, limited, consequently 
 the concept contains attributes that must later be ex- 
 cluded. (The idea that mammals are all quadrupeds.) 
 
 The systematic course is determined by the logical 
 relation of general notions ; it treats exhaustively the 
 forms of leaves, simple and compound ; it advances to the 
 
194 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 inflorescence, cluster, spike, umbel, head, then follow the 
 forms of flower, fruit, etc. It is similar to the catechet- 
 ical teaching of the clergy. According to the logical suc- 
 cession of topics in which the subject matter is arranged 
 in a system, it is treated from the beginning ; the sys- 
 tematic order is already contained in the course of instruc- 
 tion. A school science, on the other hand, is distinguished 
 from a professional science in this, that its course is de- 
 termined by other considerations. It is influenced by 
 psychological motives. It follows the zigzags and leaps 
 of a natural interest, which pursues phenomena within 
 the circle of experience, the seasons with their fauna and 
 flora, their field labor and games, or the impulses of 
 other contemporary studies. From domestic animals to 
 the plants that serve them as food, from cud-chewing 
 animals to milk and its products, from the cream on the 
 surface to specific gravity. With the explorers to India 
 and America, with the Crusaders into the Holy Land, 
 with Charlemagne from the Weser to the Ebro, and from 
 Lombardy to the valleys of the north. Religious teaching 
 finds to-day examples of philanthropy and patriotism, to- 
 morrow of peace-making, energy of will, fidelity, faith in 
 Grod, and again a reason for faith in the divine order of 
 the world. 
 
 But the associations and the entries (in the note book), 
 bring everything to its proper place, so that finally in 
 every study the structure stands complete, the catechism, 
 the system of geography, of natural history, etc. ; or at 
 least it has been developed and has been so rooted in the 
 concrete that the pupil can support the further burden of 
 systematic arrangement for the sake of supplementing 
 * and rounding out his knowledge (catechism river sys- 
 tem, the forms of the strong conjugation, local home his- 
 tory, history of literature, etc.)* 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 195 
 
 The system of professional science, at least an ap- 
 proximation to it in respect to both quality and quantity, 
 is the logical aim of teaching. A course of study, which, 
 although it constantly follows interest, still exhausts 
 gradually all the chief topics of the subject in a degree 
 suitable to an elementary school, is the psychological way 
 to the aim. But this road is not yet built. Its survey 
 and construction are labors which demand the services 
 alike of the student of method and of the scientific spec- 
 ialist. For the problem involves the double duty of being 
 just to the scientific subject matter and to the psycho- 
 logical spirit. 
 
 To recapitulate — The logical elaboration of the sub- 
 ject matter is accomplished in two steps. Association ties 
 together similar things for the sake of securing intellect- 
 ual centres, and particularly to pave the way for the 
 derivation of concepts. System {generalizatio?i) gives to 
 the results of association their scientific (systematic) form 
 and fixes them by corresponding entries in the note-book. 
 
 Application ; From Knowledge to Practical Power. 
 
 We do not wish for a dead knowledge. The meaning of 
 this expression is clear; knowledge with which you can 
 undertake nothing, which lies like an inorganic substance 
 in the mind, which sets up no objective aims, and presses 
 to no application. We desire a knowledge that produces 
 shoots like a plant, grows from within outward, gener- 
 ates interests, a productive, or as it has been fittingly 
 called, a living knowledge. According to its capacity to 
 increase the mental power and self-activity of the pupil 
 must the educative value of a method also be measured. 
 Instruction therefore must beget a logically well-ordered 
 and productive knowledge. 
 
196 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 This is perhaps only a new term for an old thougnt; 
 instruction should produce not simply knowledge but 
 power. But there may be a doubt as to the identy of the 
 two notions. If, as happens now and then, under potver 
 is understood skill in the arts of reading, writing, draw- 
 ing and singing, and to some branches is attributed the 
 cultivation of knowledge, to others the training of power, 
 we cannot subscribe to it. Pestalozzi requires that 
 knowledge and power shall stand related to each other as 
 fountain and stream. This points then to the unity of 
 the subject matter for knowledge and skill. If one will 
 formulate the statement as follows, that the aim of in- 
 struction is a knowledge in which power takes root, Pesta- 
 lozzi's idea may be correctly reproduced. 
 
 Under power we do not understand a physical or man- 
 ual skill. All knowledge must be translated into power, 
 this means nothing else than that knowledge must be 
 changed into skill, must stand ready for service where- 
 ever and whenever it is needed. A beginner on the vio- 
 lin may be able to play the scale correctly, but he does 
 not play it with smoothness and perfection. At every 
 trial he must give painful heed to the correct position of 
 the arm and hand and the use of the right finger and 
 string. The ready player thinks nothing about these 
 things. He scarcely has the purpose of strinking the 
 tone a, for the requisite muscular movements are per- 
 formed almost involuntarily. In time he comes to the 
 execution of a whole scale or piece of music in this man- 
 ner. The means that have brought him to this we call 
 practice. Practice transformes knowledge into power. 
 Repetition makes the mental movement so fluent and sure 
 and binds the links of the series so firmly, that they run 
 off without check and almost unconsciously whenever an 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 197 
 
 impulse of the will sets them in motion. This is strik- 
 ingly true in arithmetical operations. Drill secures to the 
 book-keeper the same skilled routine in the complicated 
 processes of reckoning interest, compound interest, etc. 
 But just as these operations in the earlier steps of fixing 
 the individual and general notions have stood with great 
 distinctiveness before the mind, with respect to the suc- 
 cession of their parts and the proofs in detail, so the 
 skilled reckoner can recall them to mind in the fifth step 
 (skill), if required to give an account of his action. His 
 skill rests upon insight. Through the intelligence to 
 skilled routine. This is the power which the fifth step 
 may not indeed bring to perfection but can pave the w^y 
 to. Thence the universally recognized necessity of drill 
 exercises in arithmetic and language. By combination 
 with previous knowledge these exercises become at once 
 incidental (immanent) repetitions. By these associations 
 drill receives a new element of increased incentive to in- 
 terest. Besides this, the full and facile use of what has 
 been learned is thereby promoted. Toward a free dis- 
 position and use of knowledge, association and systematic 
 arrangement have already contributed. But while it 
 was there only incidentally furthered, it is the chief aim 
 of the fifth step. Knowledge is not freely serviceable so 
 long as it remains constrained within the series in which 
 it was first learned. Themes must be appointed which 
 train the pupil to release the elements of his knowledge 
 from their old connexions and to combine them into new 
 forms. The order in which knowledge stands must be 
 changed. * 
 
 It is natural that these exercises are easily discharged 
 when the pupil commands only a narrow field. But in 
 the degree to which his knowledge expands, the demands 
 upon his original productive power are increased. 
 
198 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 Instruction in literature in higher schools leads to the 
 elaboration of such themes as "The wonderful in poetry," 
 "The estimation set on friendship by our great poets," 
 etc. 
 
 Instruction must also sharpen the pupil's power of 
 discernment and judgment. To bring this to a test and 
 to establish it is the function of the fifth step. For 
 instance, a new sound has been learned in a type word; 
 it is to be recognized by the pupil in a new word. 
 
 Finally we have a particular sort of application to 
 emphasize, namely, the preparation for the pupil's prac- 
 tical conduct. He should be gradually led to apply to 
 hi^ individual circumstances the maxims of morality and 
 practical wisdom which he has drawn from religious, his- 
 torical and poetical materials. From examples of neigh- 
 borly good-will, of generosity, of social temper and 
 patriotism we turn to the injunction, "Go, do thou like- 
 wise." 
 
 Through the fancy the child should put himself in 
 positions where he may exercise these maxims. In 
 thought he should often see himself acting according to 
 these principles. In every such case the fancy creates 
 associations between concrete situations and the maxims 
 applicable to them; the more firm and numerous these 
 associations, the greater is the surety that the principles 
 appropriated have been turned into flesh and blood, and 
 work unconsciously. Thus there is developed, analogous 
 to the skill in reckoning, a skill in conduct — tact. 
 
 To be sure the perfection of tact is only to be attained 
 in the stream of the world, but in the quiet of the school 
 and in the domestic circle this talent must be cultivated. 
 The principles of conduct must be as familiar to the pupil 
 as the four fundamental operations in arithmetic. What 
 
THE FORMAL STEPS. 199 
 
 was said there in favor of mathematical dexterity must 
 be repeated here in favor of tact. We are able at any 
 moment to think clearly only a limited number of ideas. 
 But in conduct, a person, at every turn, has a multitude 
 of things to consider. If one were compelled to think 
 each thing clearly and definitely, he would come to a halt 
 at every step or he would advance rashly to action and 
 overlook this or that. Drill must perform the same 
 function in this case as with the arithmetician ; the asso- 
 ciation must see to it that ideas which have become 
 unconscious shall still affect the determinations of the 
 will in the form of feeling (instinct). 
 
 The same is true of pedagogical tact. Who could 
 remain clearly conscious of methodical rules during every 
 moment of instruction ? What would be the outcome if 
 one were compelled at every step to make sure of his sci- 
 entific bearings ? Yet tact cannot be taught directly, 
 but only by indirect means. Pedagogical principles in 
 the first place must be brought clearly before the mind; 
 the preparation for the following lesson should keep in 
 view all possible contingencies and bring them under the 
 correct general notions ; the teacher, just beginning, 
 must see himself in thought working before his class. 
 After this he proceeds to action ; criticism supplements 
 the defects that appear and strengthens the associations, 
 and drill finally insures their effectiveness even when they 
 remain below the line of consciousness. 
 
 However different the fields of labor may be, all the 
 forms of rational tact have this feature in common with 
 the skill of the arithmetician ; they work unconsciously 
 but all their elements have taken the road through con- 
 sciousness and can be re-called to it at any moment. 
 
300 GENERAL METHOD. 
 
 From knowledge to power therefore means the same 
 as from knowledge to skill, to tact. Since our momen- 
 tary consciousness is so narrow, we must see to it that 
 the ideas, when once excluded from it, are not entirely 
 lost, but, as it were, stand on picket and remain acces- 
 sible to every hint. But even beyond our consciousness 
 their reflex influence upon our conduct must be percept- 
 ible. They must conduct themselves like troops, only a 
 part of whom are drawn under fire (consciousness); but 
 in spite of their covert position they constitute the basis 
 of operations for their comrades. 
 
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