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THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 APPLIED TO EDUGATION 
 
 BEING A SERIES OF 
 
 ESSAYS APPLYING THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 
 JOHANN FBIEDBICH. HERBABT 
 
 JOHN ADAMS, M.A., B.Sc. 
 
 I'ELLOW OF THE COLLEGE Or PeECEPTOBB, LonDOH ; PeeSIDENT or THE 
 BdOCATIONAL iNSTITUtE OP ^OTLASD ; EbOTOE OF THE FeEE 
 
 Church' Training College, Abkedeen, Scotland 
 
 " I say nothing against Mr. 's theory ; if we are 
 
 to have one regimen for all minds, his seems to me as 
 good as any other" geokge bliot 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A. 1 
 
 D. C. HEATH & GO., PUBLISHEES 
 1898 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 By D. C. heath & CO. 
 
 Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Norwood, Mass. 
 Fresswork by C. H, Heintzemann, Boston, Mass. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PiGE 
 
 Idola Scholaritm 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 RevAw of Psychologies .16 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 The Herbartian Psychology .45 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Theory or Initial Equality 81 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Formal Education 107 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Meaning of Observation 135 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 The Logical Concept and the Psychological . . . 163 
 
 iii 
 
It contents 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Neglected Educatiokal Organon 188 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Graphic Hypotheses 216 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Doctrine of Interest 247 
 
 Ikdex 281 
 
THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IDOLA SCHOLAEUM 
 
 When Scott wishes to give a reason for Reuben But- 
 ler's occasional errors of judgment, he uses the pallia- 
 tive parenthesis : " for the man was mortal, and had been 
 a schoolpiaster." 
 
 When Bacon seeks to discover why men in general 
 are so liable to those errors, he classifies under four 
 heads the causes which predispose men to go astray: 
 these are the four familiar idola. Since this word is 
 used in a philosophical connection^ it goes without say- 
 ing that there has been a controversy as to its exact 
 meaning. Those who are wrong take the view that it 
 means the ordinary thing set up to be worshipped, a 
 meaning that has exposed Bacon to severe censure 
 from foreign criticsTr' Hallam sensibly maintains that 
 the word retains the meaning it had among the Greeks, 
 and stands for an image as opposed to the reality, a 
 •false appearance as contrasted with the true nature of a 
 thing. 
 
 Sir Walter's apology for Reuben makes an uncon- 
 scious but very satisfactory classification of the four 
 idols : the idols of the tribe, of the den, of the market- 
 
2 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 place, of the theatre. The idols of the tribe correspond 
 to the causes that led. Reuben to err as a mortal ; the 
 remaining three may be held responsible for his blunders 
 as schoolmaster. 
 
 For the idols of the tribe are those to which all human 
 beings as human beings are subject, such as the tendency 
 to too easy generalizations, and to neglect contrary in- 
 stances. Against those idols the schoolmaster must fight 
 like an ordinary human being, a mere mortal. 
 
 When we come to the den, we begin to have a profes- 
 sional interest. " The idols of the den derive their ori- 
 gin from the peculiar nature of each individual's mind 
 and body, and also from education, habit, and accident." ^ 
 
 The " mind and body " Reuben shares with other mor- 
 tals ; the rest applies to special walks in life, and to none 
 more pointedly than to that of the schoolmaster. Most 
 of our school-rooms are veritable dens into which the 
 master is led by idols born of his peculiar circumstances. 
 " Heraclitus said well that men search for knowledge in 
 lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world." ^ 
 True of all men, this is particularly true of the school- 
 master, who is apt to arrange all his conceptions to suit 
 the limits of the lesser world of school, instead of fit- 
 ting them to the greater world of life. If he be a High- 
 School Master, a false quantity acquires a ridiculous 
 importance in his ear ; while if he be a Primary-School 
 Master, parsing and analysis become the chief end of 
 man. Things which in the greater world are only 
 means, become in the school-room ends. 
 
 It is almost certain that Bacon founded this class of 
 1 Novum Organum, Bk. I. 53. 2 jjj^^.^ 42. 
 
IDOLA SCHOLABTJM 3 
 
 idols upon the figure of the den in the Republic. As 
 so many teachers live in the den, it is well to consider 
 Plato's description : — 
 
 " Behold human beings living in an underground den, 
 which has a mouth open towards the light, and reach- 
 ing all along the den : . here they have been from their 
 childhood, and have their le^s and necks chained so 
 that they cannot move, and can only see before them, 
 being prevented by the chains from turning round their 
 heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a 
 distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there 
 is a raised wajj ; and you will see, if you look, a low wall 
 built along 'me way, like the screen which marionette 
 players have in front of them, over which they show the 
 puppets. 
 
 " I see. 
 
 " And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall 
 carrying all sorts of vessels and statues, and figures 
 of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, 
 which appear over the wall ? Some of them are talking, 
 others silent. 
 
 " You have shown me a strange image, and they are 
 strange prisoners. 
 
 " Like ourselves, I replied ; and they see only their 
 own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the 
 fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave ? 
 
 "True, he said; how could they see anything but 
 the shadows if they were never allowed to move their 
 heads?" ^ 
 
 One main aim of this book is to induce the cave- 
 1 Republic, VII. 514 (Jowett's Translation). 
 
4 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 dwellers to move their heads. For they can move them 
 if only they will. The chains around their necks and 
 legs are only the chains of habit and indifference. So 
 soon as the prisoners are convinced that there is any- 
 thing worth seeing behind them, there will be little 
 difficulty in turning round. The chains are self-im- 
 posed. 
 
 It is this unwillingness to turn round and look about 
 them that marks the true cave-dweller^. Many teachers 
 are content to play with the little black puppets of their 
 school world, and sturdily refuse to .look beyond the 
 school walls, or even to admit that there is a beyond. 
 
 It is reported that, in one of his rare lapses from 
 massive common sense. Dr. Johnson said that every- 
 thing that can be known about education has been 
 known long ago. To the teachers who to-day take a 
 pride in repeating the. saying, a qualified assent must be 
 yielded. Certainly all that they know about education 
 has been known long ago. 
 
 Truth to tell, teachers trouble themselves very little 
 about theories. So far as practical work is concerned, 
 there is no trade or profession that stands less in need 
 of exhortation under the text : " Not slothful in busi- 
 ness ; " yet no occupation, claiming the rank of a pro- 
 fession, shows less interest in the theoretical aspects of 
 its work. 
 
 At first sight there is an air of modesty about the 
 man who disclaims all pretensions to be an " education- 
 ist," who proudly proclaims that he is quite content to 
 be a plain schoolmaster, whose business is to teach and 
 not to talk about teaching. " Give me a class," says he, 
 
IDOL A SCHOLAEUM 5 
 
 " and I shall teach it. Do not trouble me about the 
 science of education. There is no such science. Edu- 
 cation is purely empirical." 
 
 In the dictionary, empirical begins with the meaning 
 " depending upon experience, or one's own observation," 
 but it soon works its way down to " quack." 
 
 Closer examination shows up this modest school- 
 master as an arrogant and intolerant empiric — empiric 
 is prettier than the other word. ( His position is summed 
 up in whatever conclusion you may see your way to 
 supply to the premises : " A true schoolmaster is born, 
 not made. I do not require making.') 
 
 There is a small and diminishing number of very 
 superior teaching persons who sniff at normal colleges, 
 and do not respect even university professors of edu- 
 cation. Such teachers do not require the practical work 
 of the colleges, and despise the theories of the universi- 
 ties. Innate ideas have in their day been regard^ as 
 something very wonderful, and innate faculties 'have 
 aroused even more awe. Both must sink into com- 
 parative insignificance compared with this marvel of 
 innate professions. The knowledge of education pos- 
 sessed by the superior ones, reached their soul by no 
 earthly inlet. They* must have brought it, after the 
 Platonic fashion, from a former and a better world. 
 Professor Laurie earned the gratitude of all hard-work- 
 ing and modest teachers on the day that he entitled 
 those others : " Teachers by the Geace of God." 
 
 Yet to abuse those divinely certificated men here is 
 to do a mean thing : to talk evil of them behind their 
 backs ; for none of them can be expected so far to for- 
 
6 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 get himself as to read these pages. Such teachers are 
 content to practise an art the principles of which they 
 do not understand, and tl;iey haughtily resent any at- 
 tempt to enlighten them. They are poor prisoners in 
 the cave. 
 
 Leaving those few willing dwellers in darkness, let 
 us look at the case of the many honest and earnest 
 teachers who really do desire to get light upon their 
 subjects and methods. At first sight there seems little 
 to encourage such inquirers to prosecute their studies 
 in the literature of their profession. Roughly speaking, 
 that literature falls into two great sections. The first 
 deals with what is usually known as school manage- 
 ment, and is very valuable and indeed essential to 
 young and raw teachers. But those of some experience 
 and practical skill cannot be expected to content them- 
 selves with mere directions how to teach this subject or 
 that. They therefore turn to the second great section, 
 in wllich the books profess to deal with education as a 
 science, and to lay down the principles on which the 
 mere methods of school management are founded. 
 
 It is here that discontent arises. In the region of 
 educational theory there is an intolerable lack of una- 
 nimity. Each new school brings its new theory, which 
 contradicts all other theories. If one takes up an ele- 
 mentary historical sketch like Oscar Browning's Edu- 
 cational Theories, one finds the change from theory to 
 theory so sudden as to recall nothing so much as the 
 bewildering change of subject in reading the dictionary. 
 
 Nor is any very serious effort made to reconcile con- 
 flicting opinions. On page 312 of Quick's Educational 
 
IDOLA SCHOLAKUM 7 
 
 Reformers, we find in a foot-note two fables, one by 
 Pestalozzi about two colts, the other by Rousseau about 
 two dogs. The first fable proves that the colts, origi- 
 nally "as like as two eggs," became widely different 
 through nothing but education. The second fable 
 shows that the vast differences that ultimately mark the 
 two dogs of the same lit'ter who have been "treated 
 precisely alike " are the direct results of nothing but a 
 difference of temperament. No comment whatever is 
 made upon the contradiction involved, except that 
 Pestalozzi's fable is " a fit companion " to Rousseau's. 
 Like a nineteenth-century Herodotus Mr. Quick tells 
 the tale as 'twas told to him, and passes on to some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Almost every characteristic utterance of a great edu-. 
 cationist can be matched by its contradiction in the 
 works of some other great educationist. Nor does this 
 state of affairs mark the dark ages of our subject. At 
 the present moment our professional organs teem with 
 quarrels about the merits of conflicting systems of 
 teaching various subjects, while the two most powerful 
 general systems of education — the Froebelian and the 
 Herbartian — are built upon opposing philosophical 
 principles. 
 
 Little wonder, then, that the teacher, tired of endless 
 quarrels with no helpful outcome, should become dis- 
 gusted with theories and turn his face to the wall of the 
 cave, and be content to be called names. He thinks that 
 there are either no general truths, no science of educa- 
 tion, or that such general truths are not yet available. 
 
 This ignorance is not to be overcome by supplying 
 
8 THK HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 yet bigger and more formidable treatises on the Science 
 of Education. For literary schoolmasters, more than 
 any other class, have learnt the art of being dull by 
 saying all that can be said on a given subject. It is 
 because we live so much in the den that Littr^ with 
 the fine calm that nothing short of dictionary-making 
 can give, dares to write : 
 
 " Pedant, a term of contempt, one who teaches chil- 
 dren." / 
 
 Pedantry is indeed our besetting sin, and nowhere 
 does it receive a better illustration than in our love 
 of completeness. A former Professor of Theology at 
 St. Andrews was asked how he treated his subject. 
 The true spirit of the complete ppdagogue is crystallized 
 in the answer : 
 
 " I just begin wi' infeenity, and go right on." 
 
 Our present lust for a professional literature is aggra- 
 vating our naturally evil tendency. Education has not 
 as yet a very secure place among the learned profes- 
 sions, and writers on the subject are tempted to justify 
 their claims by the questionable method of making 
 their books as formal and technical as possible. One 
 result is that ordinary practical teachers are repelled 
 by the unnecessary difficulty and dulness of books 
 which it would be greatly to their advantage to read.' 
 
 ^ This seems as good a place as any to apologize to American read- 
 ers for my use of illustrations drawn from my experience of Scottish 
 and English education. To use any other illustrations would be to 
 stultify myself. It would be a sorry commentary on the theory of 
 apperception in teaching to quit the masses with which I am familiar 
 in order to dabble in others over which I have no control. A Soots- 
 man's masses in respect of American affairs, however wide his inter- 
 
IDOLA SCHOLARUM 9 
 
 In the following pages an attempt is made to treat the 
 Herbartian Psychology in an interesting way, and to 
 make some practical applications to the work of teaching. 
 No doubt it will not be possible to make ev.erything 
 simple and easy, but it is hoped that no unnecessary 
 difficulty will be added to the text in the interests of 
 a pfedantic completeness, or of an appearance of pro- 
 fundity. Philosophy has no longer any need to be 
 brought from the clouds to the market-place. That 
 work has been already well done. The humbler task 
 remains to introduce it to the den. 
 
 The third class of idols, those of the market-place, 
 arise from the associations of words and ideas. Bacon 
 ranks them as the most troublesome of all. " For," 
 says he, " men imagine that their reason governs words, 
 whilst, in fact, words react upon the understanding." ^ 
 Nowhere is this better seen than in works upon Educa- 
 tion. It seems almost impossible in works of this class 
 to speak perfectly plainly. The discourse has hardly 
 begun when we find that we have introduced a meta- 
 phor. After that we are lost. Of a surety this meta- 
 phor will "react upon the understanding." There is 
 no more tyrannical idol in the whole market-place than 
 a metaphor that has taken the bit between its teeth. 
 A metaphor shows up a system as a deed shows up a 
 man. By their metaphors shall ye know them. 
 
 ests and extensive his reading, can never compete with masses native 
 to the western shores of the Atlantic. American readers will there- 
 fore, I trust, pardon me, and translate, as only they can, my masses 
 in terms of their own. 
 1 JVou. Org., Bk. I. 59. 
 
10 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Mr. Stelling, in The Mill on the Floss,^ " concluded 
 that Tom's brain, being peculiarly impervious to etymol- 
 ogy and demonstration, was peculiarly in need of being 
 ploughed and harrowed by these patent implements. It 
 was his favourite metaphor, that the classics and geom- 
 etry constituted that culture of the mind which pre- 
 pared it for the reception of any subsequent crop." 
 
 In criticising this view, George Eliot proceeds to say : 
 " I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom 
 TuUiver as if he had been plied with cheese in order 
 to remedy a gastric weakness which prevented him from 
 digesting it. It is astonishing what a different result 
 one gets by changing the metaphor ! Once call the 
 brain an intellectual stomach, and one's ingenious con- 
 ception of the classics and geometry as ploughs and 
 harrows seems to settle nothing. But then it is open 
 to someone else to follow great authorities, and call the 
 mind a sheet of white paper or a mirror, in which case 
 one's knowledge of the digestive process becomes quite 
 irrelevant. It was doubtless an ingenious idea to call 
 the camel the ship of the desert, but it would hardly 
 lead one far in training that useful beast. O Aristotle ! 
 If you had had the advantage of being 'the freshest 
 modern,' instead of the greatest ancient, would you not 
 have mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a 
 sign of high intelligence, with a lamentation that intel- 
 ligence so rarely shows itself in speech without meta- 
 phor — that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, 
 except by saying it is something^else ? " 
 
 When the above was written, the greatest metaphor 
 1 Page 125, Stereotyped Edition. 
 
IDOLA SCHOLARUM 11 
 
 of all, the truest and the best, but still a metaphor, had 
 been long ago made, but was only as yet working its 
 way slowly towards the conquest of the English mind. 
 The plant metaphor is generally regarded as beginning 
 with Pestalozzi,! and holding an after course through 
 Froebel and his followers till now it holds the vast 
 majority of our profession in its relentless grip. Before 
 Pestalozzi was heard of, wiseacres told each other that 
 " As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined," but with 
 him the simile passed into a metaphor, and embodied 
 a way of regarding childhood that has become so wide- 
 spread that its very opponents in attacking it are com- 
 pelled to use its vocabulary. 
 
 Under all the popular words in our school-manage- 
 ment books, words dear to the heart of every ambitious 
 young teacher, there lurks the inevitable metaphor with 
 its underlying theory. jMany of those words imply 
 totally different systems, yet they are all used in the 
 most friendly way on the same page. It is only because 
 of the power of the idols of the market-place that this 
 happy family arrangement can be maintained. Faculty 
 and capacity are used as interchangeable terms, though 
 they represent psychological views that are poles asun- 
 der. Elicit and instruct, teach and educate, train and 
 inform, all hide different and indeed contradictory views 
 of the function of the teacher. 
 
 So much for the market-place idols in their relation 
 to the teacher's views on his profession. Their baneful 
 influence is felt even more powerfully in the communi- 
 cation between master and pupil. But as the following 
 1 But gee Comenius, The Great Didactic, V. 5. 
 
12 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 chapters are largely taken up with the effects of those 
 idols, we may in the meantime pass on to the fourth 
 class. 
 
 "The idols of the theatre are not innate, nor do they 
 introduce themselves secretly into the understanding, 
 but they are manifestly instilled and cherished by the 
 fiction of theories and depraved rules of demonstra- 
 tion." ^ Here again the schoolmaster is liable to fall 
 an easy prey to the idols. Even the cave-dweller who 
 has rejected the popular guides to the theoretical parts 
 of his profession is not without his theories, and he is 
 more than human if he keeps them from affecting his 
 work, by modifying all the facts of school life and ex- 
 perience to fit into them. According as he is a Calvin- 
 ist or a naturalist will he find his pupils little demons 
 or little angels. If he be an idealist, all the phenomena 
 of the school-room will be made to fit into the formulae 
 of Kant and Hegel ; if a sensationalist (a much more 
 likely supposition), the children become so many recep- 
 tacles for containing the knowledge which may be 
 poured into them through the senses. 
 
 Consider the hard lot of the teacher. If he declines 
 to meddle with theory at all, he is condemned to the 
 den. If he seeks relief in figurative language, he is 
 threatened with the idols of the market-place. If he 
 accepts a definite theory, he is charged with yielding to 
 the charms of the theatrical idols, f The only hope of 
 escape lies in common sense.) A man must know all the 
 theories in order to choose among them. He must be 
 clear in his use of terms lest he mislead himself, not to 
 ^Nov- Org.,B\i..l. 61, 
 
IDOLA SCHOLAEUM 13 
 
 speak of others. Finally, he must make such use of the 
 theory he chooses as his experience and intelligence 
 direct. What follows, for example, is based on the 
 general principles that are associated with the name of 
 Herbart. It does not follow that the writer is a Her- 
 bartian. It is enough that he finds this system fits 
 most readily into his own experience, and seems to 
 him best suited to explain educational facts to others. 
 Perhaps the best way to put it is to say that the follow- 
 ing essays are written with a Herbartian bias, the sub- 
 stantive being used in its purely mechanical sense, and 
 without that moral taint that usually accompanies it. 
 
 It may be objected that such a plan is a clear tempt- 
 ing of providence. To set out with a definite theory, 
 and seek to apply it to a profession, seems very like a 
 deliberate surrender to the idols of the theatre. One 
 is at least forewarned, and on turning to Bacon for 
 further information, one finds that the -theatrical idols 
 lead to error in three different directions. We are 
 offered our choice of wandering into sophisti-c errors 
 with Aristotle, empirical errors with Gilbert, or super- 
 stitious errors with people in general. On the whole, I 
 lean towards the evil ways of Aristotle. If we must go 
 wrong, let us at least err in good company. 
 
 Yet I am not without hope that I may not err beyond 
 measure. To begin with, there is little fear of the 
 rabies biographica. I am a Herbartian only to the 
 extent that I cannot help it. The metaphysical basis 
 of the Psychology that these pages seek to apply is no 
 concern of mine, and is only introduced into the text so 
 far as to make the system a consistent and intelligible 
 
14 THE HBKBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGy 
 
 whole. Herbartianism has weaknesses, and some of its 
 rivals have points of superiority of which I shall not 
 fail to avail myself, yet as it seems to me the best 
 system for application to education, I prefer to adopt it 
 as a whole, rather than to form a patchwork of the best 
 of several incongruous systems. While thus avoiding 
 the dangers of eclecticism, I no doubt increase the risk of 
 serious error in the direction of Aristotelian sophism. 
 Against that error I must struggle as best I can. It 
 may be impossible to escape altogether, but if I contrive 
 to keep the average of error low, and to confine it pretty 
 much to one groove, I shall be well content. 
 
 It is no part of the purpose of these pages to give an 
 exhaustive analysis of the various kinds of idols. Such 
 an attempt would but supply a brilliant illustration of 
 - one of them. To the intelligence of the reader must be 
 left the classification of the idols as they are called up 
 for examination in succeeding chapters, or as they come 
 up in the text uncalled for and unsuspected. For one 
 result of considering those terrible idols is the firm con- 
 viction that absolute philosophic truth is as unattaina- 
 ble as absolute moral rectitude. In treating of the idols 
 of the schools, then, I cannot hope to confine myself to 
 a mere attack, as the manner of educational reformers 
 is. In unmasking the idols of others, I am constrained 
 to yield to my own. In extenuation I need only say 
 that my idols are not nearly so ugly or dangerous as 
 those others. 
 
 It is to be hoped that this concluding remark will 
 draw out the mild opposition it challenges. For so 
 soon as we have reached the point of comparing idols, 
 
IDOLA SCHOLAEUM It) 
 
 we are in hopeful case. We cannot compare things till 
 we have at least stood outside of them, if not risen 
 above them. Your only really hopeless man is he who 
 denies that there are idols, or at any rate that he has 
 idols. He sits in his den enjoying his shadows, and is 
 terrible in his scorn of all who pretend that there is 
 something in the universe more real than those darling 
 black puppets. Almost any means is justifiable that 
 shall rouse this modern cave-dweller to a sense of his 
 deplorable state. If he can be roused to defend his 
 idols, there is every probability that in the clash of 
 arms those idols may show themselves to be what they 
 are. 
 
 ( As for the Grace-of-God teachers, they are beyond 
 hope. J 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 
 
 "Verbs of teaching govern two accusatives, one of 
 the person, another of the thing ; as, Magister Johannem 
 Latinam docuit — the master taught John Latin." 
 
 Thus far the Latin rudiments. When the master 
 seeks to apply the principle in real life, he finds that he 
 can manage his double accusative only by the posses- 
 sion of a double knowledge : he must know Latin ; and 
 he must know John. Not so long ago it was considered 
 enough to know Latin. Nobody denies that the master 
 must know his subject — -nobody but Jacotot, that is, 
 for he maintains that the master need not know even 
 that.i But while all the world agrees to treat the 
 French educationist as a crack-brained theorist for his 
 gallant attempt to free the master from the drudgery of 
 learning what he has afterwards to teach, no outcry was 
 raised at the neglect of John. To know Latin was re- 
 garded as all-sufficient. John was either taken for 
 granted or held to be not worth knowing. 
 
 1 Enseignement Universel : De V ArithmHique, p. 212, in all the 
 glory of emphatic capitals: "Je vous ai d^j^i dit qu'on enseigne ce 
 qu'on ne sait point quand on le veut." Then on p. 178, De la Ge- 
 ographie, he haughtily proclaims: " Je puis enseigner le hollandais, 
 que j'ignore, plus rapidement que tous les grammairiens du monde 
 r^unis." 
 
 16 
 
KEVIBW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 17 
 
 The outcry has at last come. Popular belief and 
 practice are changing, and John is entering upon a 
 period in which he is likely to have a somewhat un- 
 comfortable share of the master's attention. The person 
 is for the first time coming to his proper place before his 
 fellow-accusative, the thing. 
 
 Unfortunately, the science that looks after John 
 labours under a formidable name and a bad reputation. 
 The very look of the word Psychology, with its super- 
 fluous P, has done something to render it unpopular. 
 Used as an adjective, it is now enough of itself to con- 
 demn any novel. It suggests everything that is dull 
 and unreadable. Behind it all, too, there is an under- 
 lying idea of a pompous assumption of special knowledge. 
 To begin with, there is a difficulty in knowing exactly 
 what it is. The very definition of the science is a battle- 
 ground for opposing schools, with whose pretensions the 
 teacher has little concern. He is a man of peace : it is 
 not his place to fight. It is true that he is said to have won 
 Gravelotte, but he did it by proxy. B}'- proxy, too, he 
 prefers to do his fighting about Psychology. It is not of 
 vital importance to him to know the exact meaning of 
 the study. His aim as a professional man is not to know 
 Psychology, but to know John. From the teacher's point 
 of view. Psychology is the study of John. 
 
 One has not to go far in this study till one discovers 
 that John has a double personality : he is a soul and 
 he is a body. Those two are combined in the most 
 intimate, yet most exasperatingly complicated way. 
 No analysis, however subtle, can accurately mark off the 
 precise limits of John's body and soul. Yet in the 
 
18 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 broad common-sense -way in which the words are used 
 in every-day speech there is little danger of any mis- 
 understanding. A man who cannot clearly distinguish 
 right away the different meanings of soul and body, is 
 not likely to profit much by the subtleties of Psychol- 
 ogy. To make matters perfectly clear, let it be once 
 for all granted that this word soul is not here used in 
 its narrow theological meaning, but is held to include 
 all the higher parts of John's nature, — his knowings, 
 feelings, wishings, and willings. So far as the body is 
 treated as a machine, we are working with Physiology; 
 as soon as the element of consciousness comes in, we 
 have passed into Psychology. Naturally the next ques- 
 tion is : What is consciousness ? This is a question to 
 be given up. No man can tell another what conscious- 
 ness is, which is the less to be regretted that everybody 
 knows without asking. Most people treat conscious- 
 ness as a rather important thing, but in Psychology one 
 is prepared for differences of opinion, and so is not sur- 
 prised when Huxley in his own airy way tells us that 
 consciousness is a mere by-product, a sort of accident, 
 something that has no more to do with the working of 
 the brain than a steam whistle has with the working of 
 the locomotive.^ Wherever Psychology differs from 
 common sense, in the popular meaning of that term, 
 the teacher naturally abides by common sense. He 
 therefore has no difficulty in retaining consciousness in 
 its high place, and making it the fundamental element 
 in John. Every fact in John's life of which John is 
 
 1 Epiphenomenon is the name that philosophers of this school hurl 
 at consciousness. 
 
REVIEW OP PSYCHOLOGIES 19 
 
 conscious may be regarded as belonging to his soul, and 
 is a psychological fact. But while every fact of con- 
 scious life is thus psychological, it must not be inferred 
 that Psychology has nothing to do with what takes 
 place out of consciousness. By and by we shall see 
 that there is a whole class of facts out of consciousness 
 that have a distinct bearing upon what takes place 
 within consciousness. These are regarded as psycho- 
 logical facts in virtue of their influence upon the con- 
 tent of consciousness. In the meantime, to come to a 
 working definition of Psychology, we may say that it is 
 the study of the soul of John. 
 
 It is not perhaps of vital importance that we should 
 define Psycliology : it is different with John. Who or 
 what is he ? Is he the actual boy planted there, rudi- 
 ments in hand, to learn a certain bit of Latin ; or is he 
 a vague abstraction, a sort of generalized boy who an- 
 swers to the "male child" of the dictionary? Is he 
 the result of subtraction or of division? Do we get 
 him by simply subtracting him from the seventy in his 
 class; or do we pound the whole seventy in our psy- 
 chological mortar till they form a uniform mass of boy- 
 hood, and then divide by seventy ? Is John a boy, or a 
 quotient ? 
 
 / Is there an average John ? In Physiology there can 
 be no doubt that much good work has been done by 
 averages.\ A physiologist can give a very full account 
 of the average boy of twelve. His account must not be 
 tested by applying it only to one boy, say our John, 
 but to a series of boys. Thus treated it comes out all 
 right, and is of practical use.j Can Psychology do the 
 
20 THE HERBAETtAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 same ? If it cannot, it is an exposed fraud. It is im- 
 possible. No doubt children differ enormously in their 
 dispositions, but they differ no less in their bodies. The 
 thumbs of a hundred Johns look so like each other that 
 one might think them interchangeable, yet so unlike 
 are they in reality that an ingenious person has sug- 
 gested the general abolition of seals in favour of 
 thumbs, and that not because thumbs are always more 
 within reach than seals, but because their imprint on 
 wax is always unique. All the same. Physiology has 
 much useful information to give about the average 
 thumb.^ 
 
 Psychology cannot help us to know this individual 
 John who is at present conning his rudiments. It can 
 only lay down the general principles on which John's 
 soul is constructed, and must leave his peculiarities to 
 John's particular master. So far from grumbling at 
 this limitation to the power of Psychology, the master 
 should rejoice in it; for therein lies the dignity of his 
 calling. There can never be a teaching machine — 
 at any rate, none but a two-legged one. 
 
 To combine the knowledge of John as an average 
 with the knowledge of him as a boy is no doubt a little 
 difficult. Most teachers know how it is to be done, for" 
 most teachers have had occasion, in the course of their 
 work, to make use of a certain irritating little story 
 entitled : " With Brains, sir." 
 
 Before calling in the aid of formal Psychology, which 
 after all only treats John as a quotient, let us see what 
 we can make of John as a boy. How are we to study 
 1 Cf. Fr. Galton's little book, Finger Prints, Lopd. 1892. 
 
REVIEW OP PSYCHOLOGIES 21 
 
 him ? At the very threshold of our subject it is well to 
 give up all hope of help in this study from John him- 
 self. John is of ^Muodest and retiring disposition, hav- 
 ing no pleasure in the process of being interviewed. 
 Even an infusorian is not quite his natural self under 
 the fierce light that beats upon the stage of a micro- 
 scope. It is not to be wondered at, then, that as soon 
 as he knows himself to be under observation, John 
 ceases to be himself. He becomes a new boy : he plays 
 his part as bravely as his seniors. 
 
 Yet the method of direct observation is too valuable 
 to be thrown aside, and as the microscopist seeks to 
 modify light, temperatui-e, fluidity, and what not, to 
 induce the trifling specks of protoplasm on his stage 
 to feel at home and act accordingly, so must the teacher 
 seek to put the pupil at his ease, and examine him when 
 off his guard. Many teachers thus study their pupils, 
 and are content to go no further. To this class, too, 
 belong such observers as Perez, Preyer, Darwin, and 
 the " father " in Sully's Studies of Ohildhood, who have 
 all made elaborate observations of children at the very 
 earliest stages. The general value of those observa- 
 tions has yet to be established,^ but the special value to 
 the parents and teachers of the children in question is 
 immediate and unquestionable. Educationists who are 
 keenly alive to the danger of generalizing on such nar- 
 row basis seek to attain to greater accuracy by widen- 
 ing their observations so as to include whole classes of 
 subjects. 
 
 1 Maudsley has no patience with any other psychological method 
 Vide Body and Will, p. 89, note. 
 
22 THE HBEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 They adopt the method of what is called Anthropo- 
 metric Registration, in which all the essential measure- 
 ments of each child's body are accurately and regularly 
 recorded. In addition to the mere size, all manner of 
 interesting particulars may be noted. Tests of all kinds 
 may be applied. Sight tests, ear tests, weight tests, are 
 quite common, and new instruments are being added to 
 the paidological departments of the colleges to carry 
 the testing still farther. In the laboratory of the 
 school of Pedagogy of New York, for example, we are 
 told in the New York Times that two new instruments 
 have been introduced. The algometer is an instrument 
 for measuring a child's ability to stand pain, and his 
 general sensitiveness. Then there is a beautiful machine 
 for testing nervousness and emotional sensibility in 
 children, called the plethismograph. 
 
 By and by John will have some chance of attending 
 to Pittacus' recommendation " Know thyself " ; for he 
 will come home from school with all the necessary ma- 
 terial neatly set down in black and white decimals in 
 his annual report card. Yet, after all, the result of this 
 direct observation is only the beginning of knowledge. 
 It is no doubt essential as a foundation, but upon it 
 must be built by different methods the true John that 
 we seek to know. Practical teachers, like practical men 
 of other professions, are very fond of praising the result 
 of direct observation, and depreciating in a correspond- 
 ing degree the information derived from reflection or 
 from books. But in this case at least there is little 
 ground for that absolute certainty which is assumed to 
 be the characteristic of sense observation. We cannot 
 
REVIEW OP PSYCHOLOGIES 23 
 
 observe John's soul; we can only observe his body and 
 interpret his motions in terms of what goes on within 
 ourselves. We feel thus and thus, and accordingly act t 
 in a certain way ; John acts in this certain way, there-/ 
 fore he feels thus and thus. There we have the typical 
 argument on which sense observation depends for what^ 
 ever authority it may possess in Psychology. 
 
 To this process of interpretation little objection need 
 be raised, so long as it is only applied to persons whose 
 circumstances are identical with those of the interpreter, 
 or nearly so ; but the farther we go from this condition, 
 the less reliable does the process become. The circum- 
 stances of John and his master are notoriously unlike, 
 with the result that the master's interpretations of John's 
 actions are not always quite accurate. Huxley tells us 
 that the only way to know how a crayfish feels is to be 
 a crayfish.^ It may be said that the master's case is not 
 quite so desperate as the biologist's, for the master has 
 been a boy, and he can remember how he felt and acted 
 then. No doubt the master can to some extent repro- 
 duce his boyish experiences, and if proper means are 
 taken by supplying concrete aids, such as books he used 
 to read and instruments he used to handle, he may attain 
 to a really valuable revivifying of past times. Let the 
 master make as full a biography of himself as his mem- 
 ory will supplj' materials for ; then let him make as full 
 a collection of books, toys, and other childish properties 
 as time and the bump behind his own ear have spared. 
 Finally, let him consult some aged female relative and 
 by her aid construct a chronological table to accompany 
 1 International Scientific Series : The Crayfish, p. 89. 
 
24 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 his biography, and he will be somewhat astonished at 
 the result. Generally speaking, he will find that he had 
 thoughts at five and six that he never credits his infants 
 with. No teacher who has not tried this method can 
 guess what a revelation it will prove. Yet, after all, 
 the enormous difference thus shown between our present 
 and our former thoughts only makes clearer the diffi- 
 culty in ever really bridging over the gulf that sepa- 
 rates the man from the child. At his best the man 
 cannot recall the past without reading into it a great 
 deal that belongs to a period subsequent to that supposed 
 to be recalled. It is as impossible for' us mentally as 
 it is physically to become boys again. In spite of our 
 most vigorous abstraction, we read some, at least, of our 
 present into our past. 
 
 If students in training for the profession of teaching 
 could by any chance win an answer to Elizabeth Akers 
 Allen's prayer — 
 
 " Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight ; 
 Make me a child again, just for to-night ! " 
 
 they might well dispense with the hours that wise coun- 
 cils insist upon .their spending in the practising schools 
 connected with their college. But even the poetess her- 
 self had little hope in her prayer. The teacher must 
 look elsewhere for help. 
 
 There is a cheerful little story, resting upon doubtful 
 authority, which tells how a progressive and enterprising 
 power in the far East sent certain high officials to Eng- 
 land to pick up various bits of civilization that those 
 Orientals thought would be highly desirable at their end 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 25 
 
 of the world. In particular, those officials were enjoined 
 to discover the most civilized thing in religions. As 
 they wanted a genuinely high-class article, a religion 
 that would really work, they were recommended to 
 , apply to a certain professor at Oxford who had made 
 religions a specialty, but who was greatly scandalized 
 at this too practical application of the principle of Com- 
 parative Religion. 
 
 Practical teachers look upon Psychology in pretty 
 much the same light as the Japanese representatives 
 looked upon religion. What they want is a Psychology 
 that will work. As human beings, such teachers may be 
 interested in Psychology as a branch of general cult- 
 ure ; as teachers, they treat it as a means towards an end, 
 and if the truth must be told, they regard it as on the 
 whole a very ineffectual means, towards that end. There 
 is no more common criticism of a work on Psychology 
 for Teachers or Mental Science as Applied to Education 
 than that Psychology and education are like oil and 
 water — they will not mix. To be sure, in most school- 
 management books they do not get the chance. All the 
 Psychology, such as it is, is gathered into a few prelimi- 
 nary pages, and is carefully kept to its place there under 
 the disparaging name of Theory, while the rest of the 
 book swells out into a totally unwarrantable size under 
 the respect-commanding title of Practice. Teachers 
 are treated haughtily by philosophers to statements 
 which may or may not be true, but which are certainly 
 not adapted to practical application to teaching. We 
 have worked too long on the beggarly principle that 
 teachers must not be choosers. There is a sort of feel- 
 
26 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ing abroad that education is utterly dependent on Psy- 
 chology for any social standing it may possess. John 
 is John, and Psychology is his only exponent. To inter- 
 fere with Psychology is therefore to lay sacrilegious 
 hands upon the very ark of the nature of things, to kick 
 against the pricks of the eternal verities. We cannot 
 change John by quarrelling with Psychology; let us 
 therefore thank the psychologist for the crumbs of infor- 
 mation he may throw to us, and spend all our efforts in 
 seeking to make the most of them in our practical work. 
 
 But there are Psychologies and Psychologies, and 
 some of them are better suited to our purpose than 
 others. There may be a one true and living Psychology 
 before which all the rest must bow, but in the meantime 
 it has not made good its claims. The pursuit of this 
 true Psychology .is no doubt a very important work, 
 but it is not the work of the teacher. As practical 
 teachers, we do not ask from Psychology a statement 
 of metaphysical truth ; we want rather a system which 
 can explain all the known mental facts in such a way 
 as to render them available in education. In short, we 
 propose to treat the various schools of Psychology as 
 so many hypotheses — which, after all, is probably not 
 far from the truth — and to select that school which 
 promises to be most useful in meeting our needs. We 
 shall then pass in review before us the various systems 
 with the deliberate purpose of selecting that which suits 
 our purpose. 
 
 To begin with the most rudimentary, we have Count 
 Tolstoi's experiment at Yasnaya Polyana, his estate near 
 Tula. Here we have a sort of ab ovo Psychology. The 
 
KEVIEW OP PSYCHOLOGIES 27 
 
 Count begins at the very beginning, without bias or 
 theory — just as so many teachers take a pride in doing; 
 and, like them, learns with great labour and pain what 
 any educational psychologist could have told him in 
 five minutes. Tolstoi's main principle is practically an 
 application of Spencer's doctrine that all true study 
 must be pleasant. At Yasnaya Polyana no child is to 
 be compelled to do anything. Tolstoi depends on the in- 
 herent goodness of humanit)'. Each child is a law unto 
 "himself. This is hO"w.it works. Tolstoi himself speaks.^ 
 
 " The teacher goes inta the room and finds the chil- 
 dren rolling and scuffling on the floor, and crying at 
 the top of their voices : ' You're choking me ! You 
 stop pulling my hair ! ' or ' Let up : that'll do ! ' 
 
 "'Piotr Mikhailovitch,' cries a voice. from under the 
 heap, as the teacher comes in, ' make him stop.' 
 
 "'Good evening, Piotr Mikhailovitch,' shout the 
 others, adding their share to the tumult. 
 
 " The teacher takes the books and distributes them to 
 those who have come to the bureau. First those on 
 top of the heap on the floor, then those lying under- 
 neath, want a book. 
 
 "Tlje pile gradually diminishes. As soon as the 
 majority have their books, all the rest run to the 
 bureau, and cry ' Me one. Me one ! ' 
 
 " ' Give me the one I had last evening ! ' 
 
 " ' Give me the Koltsof book ! ' and so on. 
 
 "If there happen to be any two scufflers left struggling 
 on the floor, those w^ho have taken their places with 
 their books shout : ' "What are you so slow for ? You 
 
 1 The Long Exile, etc., p. 264 (Dole's Translation, Walter Scott). 
 
28 THE HEBBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 make so much noise that we can't hear anything. 
 Hush!' The enthusiastic fellows come to order; and, 
 breathing hard, run after their books, and only for the 
 first moment or two does the cooling agitation betray 
 itself in an occasional motion of a leg. 
 
 " The spirit of war takes its flight, and the spirit of 
 learning holds sway in the room. With the same en- 
 thusiasm with which the lad had been pulling Mitka's 
 hair, he now reads his Koltsof book — thus the works 
 of Koltsof are known among us — with teeth almost 
 shut together, with shining eyes, and total oblivion to 
 all around him except his book. To tear him from his 
 reading requires fully as much strength as it required 
 before to get him away from his wrestling. 
 
 "The pupils sit wherever they please — on benches, 
 chairs, on the window-svU, on the floor, or in the arm- 
 chair." 
 
 But to what end continue with the struggle for the 
 arm-chair, the deliberate departure of the whole school 
 during school hours, and the hundred other experiences 
 that produce the ridiculous mouse of conclusion — for 
 the Count gains from his experiment the net result (1) 
 that children like stories much better than lessons, and 
 (2) that peasant children may tell better stories tha-n 
 Tolstoi himself. Yasnaya Polyana is not likely to affect 
 seriously the future of the new education. 
 
 If Tolstoi's methods show Psychology in its crudest 
 forms, we have only to turn to the psychophysical school 
 to find a corrective. To Fechner belongs the honour of 
 founding this school, which professes to reduce Psy- 
 chology to an exact science. It is true that Herbart 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 29 
 
 anticipated his pretensions by founding a Psychology 
 upon Mathematics, but for practical purposes Fechner's 
 was the first real attempt to introduce exact methods 
 into Psychology. That the subject treated in Fechner's 
 book (published in 1860) is a science no one will deny; 
 that his methods are exact is beyond question. The 
 only trouble is that his subject is not Psychology. Had 
 lttt& Psychophysik contained a preliminary erratum note 
 " In this^olume, for Psychology read Physiology," 
 there would have been nothing to object to in his 
 system. He has taught us a great deal about the 
 nature and speed of nervous reaction ; his only mistake 
 is in thinking that his experiments on matter can be 
 simply interpreted in terms of mind. 
 
 While this pseudo-psychology with its tape-lines and 
 chronographs, its algometers and plethismographs, can 
 do little for us in the way of rational explanation of 
 educational principles, it is of great value to the 
 teacher. Physiology is almost as essential to the Art of 
 education as Psychology is to the Science, so we need 
 not be surprised- that many practical hints maj' be got 
 from a study of Weber's Law, and the other generali- 
 zations to which psychophysics have attained. 
 
 Bain and Spencer write on Education with a psycho- 
 physical bias, but both are too clear-headed to be 
 blinded by the glamour of a perfectly symmetrical 
 system. After reading Fechner and his disciples for a 
 little, one is tempted to think that all one needs is a 
 painless way of trepanning the children so as to get at 
 their brains with our reagents and instruments. A 
 little pressure here, a gentle stimulus there, and the 
 
30 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 work of seven years is done in a few minutes. It 
 would be so much pleasanter for all parties than the 
 present deplorable guessing and experimenting from 
 the outside.^ 
 
 While no one has yet suggested this coarse inter- 
 ference with the physical basis of mind, a daring young 
 French psychologist has taken a step in this direction. 
 Guyau, in his Education and Heredity, has practically 
 taken up the position that one of the most striking dis- 
 coveries of the psychophysicists should be applied to 
 the actual work of teaching. Hypnotism can no longer 
 be regarded as the mere material of an eighteen-penny 
 show. It is now treated seriously by our best psycho- 
 logical writers, and now that a respectable authority 
 has seen fit to introduce it into educational discussion, 
 the time has come to speak of it without the preliminary 
 smile or sneer to which it is accustomed. 
 
 1 There is something grewsome in reading, for instance, of " the 
 psychic action of coffee." Cannot we even have breakfast in peace, 
 without elegantly expressed but terribly depressing remarks on cofEee 
 as "an intellectual poison" ? To be sure, we have the comfort of 
 learning that while itself a poison, this part of our breakfast is an 
 antidote to another poison — opium. A recommendation that counts 
 for more in the mind of a Scotsman is that this beverage is " uh ali- 
 ment d'^pargne." It appears that it decreases the development of 
 carbonic acid in the system, and thus plays the part of damper. But, 
 on the other hand, this has the effect of stimulating the will, without 
 in the same degree stimulating the imagination or the general power 
 to work, which is certainly a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. We 
 would at once forswear coffee forever were it not that, a couple of 
 pages further on, we are told that nearly the same things apply to tea 
 and cocoa. We close the book hurriedly, and rejoice that psycho- 
 physics is as yet in its infancy. See Richet, V Homme et I'lntellir 
 gence : Les poisons de I'intelligenoe, p. 144. 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 31 
 
 You are not to suppose that Guyau proposes to set 
 off the whole school into a hypnotic trance, and then 
 mould the passive minds into knowledge. Scientific 
 psychophysicists have now made up their minds that 
 hypnotic suggestion may act without the formality of 
 the trance, and what Guyau wants us to do is to apply 
 this principle in dealing with our pupils. If he is to be 
 believed, 
 
 " They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk ; 
 
 They'll tell the clock to any business that 
 
 We say befits the hour." 
 
 The whole subject is yet too much in the clouds for 
 us to form very definite conclusions ; but it is surely of 
 the utmost importance that we as teachers should know 
 that such matters are being discussed. There are timid 
 spirits among us who are inclined to think that the less 
 said on such subjects the better. ( But it is well to re- 
 member that in all probability every teacher to-day, in 
 this practical land of ours, does make use of hypnotism. 
 What is the meaning of that mysterious power that 
 every good teacher exerts over his pupils ? Above all, 
 what is the meaning of that Sympathy of Numbers that 
 we hear so much of in our school-management books, 
 and to so little purpose? There certainly is more in 
 our every-day work in sch6ol than is dreamt of in the 
 philosophical introductions to our school-management 
 bpoks.) But .while it is well to keep our minds open to 
 all sources from which truth may come, it is evident 
 that the Suggestion school is not yet in a position to 
 make practical recommendations, much less to set up a 
 Psychology that shall enable us to arrive at a true know- 
 
32 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ledge of John — of John, at any rate, in the usual robust 
 health in which we are accustomed to see him at school. 
 In an article on " Artificial Modifications of the Character 
 in Somnambulism," 1 Guyau seeks to point out the useful- 
 ness of such processes in education, but he is driven to 
 make the honest reservation " at least in the morbid state." 
 It is time now to come to the Psychology that actiially 
 holds the field among us. There is a popular belief 
 that Locke is dead, that his system has had its day, 
 that it did capital work in its time, and that it has now 
 given place to better things. Philosophical writers are 
 not unfair to Locke. They admit that we are higher 
 than he only because we stand upon his shoulders ; but 
 they regard him as none the less dead for that. We do 
 not at all question the accuracy of the biographer who 
 tells us that " The tomb of Locke may be seen on the 
 south side of the parish church of High Laver, bearing 
 a Latin inscription prepared by his own hand." We 
 would only add that the Latin inscription might well 
 have quoted the threadbare "Non omnis moriar," for 
 Locke was never so much alive as he is to-day. Almost" 
 every philosopher who writes a book feels compelled to 
 dispose of Locke first : he seems unable to get to his own 
 theory save over the prostrate form that lies on the 
 south side of that parish chlirch. Though they spend 
 all their introductory chapters in showing how Locke 
 went wrong, philosophers do not seem able to get along 
 without him.2 They go farther: thej even seem to 
 
 1 Hevue Philosophique, Avril, 1883, p. 433. 
 
 2 Herbart himself seems to be no exception. Ribot, speaking of 
 Herbart's ideas being so much in advance of those prevalent in the 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 33 
 
 like him. It is no small matter to draw from a psychol- 
 ogist a sentence so nearly tender as " Locke says in a 
 memorable page of his dear old book." i 
 
 Powerful as he is amongst professional philosophers, 
 it is among the great mass of the non-professional 
 philosophers that Locke is most influential — among 
 teachers in particular. Teachers suck in Locke from 
 the introductions to their earliest school-managrement 
 books ; they pore over him and his critics from the time 
 that they enter college till the fatal day on which they 
 chalk up the pathetic word IcJiabod on the college 
 doors, and make their way out into the world, there to 
 carry into practice the Locke they have learned — and 
 all this, in many cases, without having more than heard 
 the name of Locke. 
 
 For Locke's influence far exceeds his fame. Most of 
 his followers do not know their master. His point of 
 view coincides so completely with that of the ordinary 
 intelligent man in the street, that his following in all 
 English-speaking countries is infinitely greater than 
 any other philosophical writer can command. It has 
 been said that every child is born into the world either 
 a little Platonist or a little Aristotelian.- This maybe 
 true of the rest of the world, but wherever the verb 
 cogitare is translated by the' words to think, there every 
 child is born a little Lockian. 
 
 metaphysic-ridden Germany of his time, says: "J'inoline ^ croire, 
 pourtant, qu'elles avaient 61,6 sugg^rfes k Herbart moins par ses 
 propres reflexions que par la lecture de Locke." — La Psychologie 
 Allemande Contemporaine, p. 4. 
 
 1 James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., p. 679. 
 i> 
 
34 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Locke then fairly claims our attention with every 
 chance of winning our final approval, though the reader 
 well knows that Locke will after all turn out to be 
 only a goodly Eliab brought in to give place by and by 
 to some stripling of a German David. This process has 
 become habit and repute in writing of this class ; for 
 Locke shares with Mr. Herbert Spencer the unenviable 
 rSle of the Aunt Sally of Philosophy. No work on 
 Philosophy is complete without a preliminary refutation 
 of Locke, and an up-to-date sneer at Mr. Spencer. The 
 living philosopher is particularly able to defend himself, 
 and the dead one needs no defence ; he only requires to 
 be understood. He may be wrong, in fact he must be 
 wrong, since the whole world who writes is unanimous 
 on the point ; but he is honest and fair above most men, 
 and, for a philosopher, eminently clear. 
 
 His method commends itself to us by its practical 
 common sense, its lack of any assumption of superior 
 private knowledge, its determination to take nothing for 
 granted. There is a useful little book called Inquire 
 Within upon Everything. This title might with great 
 appropriateness have been adopted by Locke as the motto 
 of his great work The Essay on the Human Understand- 
 ing. " I can no more know anj'thing by another man's 
 understanding, than I can see by another man's eyes," 
 says Locke. Therefore he maintains that the only way 
 to get at the meaning of knowledge is to inquire within 
 his own mind. Introspection, looking within, turning 
 the mind inwards upon itself, — these are the names of 
 a process that has always commanded the fullest confi- 
 dence of English and Scottish and even American phi- 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 35 
 
 losophers. "Seeing is believing" is as satisfactory to 
 introspective philosophers as it could be to Martin Tup- 
 per himself. If I look into my mind and find certain 
 things there, I know them to be there. And whatever 
 I cannot find there, I do not know to be there. Observe 
 that the introspectionists do not say that because they 
 cannot observe a certain phenomenon in the mind, that 
 phenomenon is not there. All they maintain is that 
 they do not know it to be there. Whatever may be the 
 faults of this school, unfairness is not one of them. It 
 claims not an inch beyond what the sternest logic will 
 allow. The radical defect of the school is very obvious, 
 very simple, and quite irremediable. When the mind i9- 
 turned back upon itself, it can never see the whole of it- 
 self. There must always remain the part seeing and the 
 part seen, yet to know the mind as the introspectionists 
 seek to know it demands that it should be all seen at once. 
 Introspection cannot fulfil its own conditions ; it ob- 
 viously requires to be helped to attain its end. So far 
 as it goes, it is admirable, and it goes a great way. Yet 
 it breaks down at a very important place. By looking 
 into our minds we may see pretty clearly what they con- 
 tain ; we may note from time to time the rapid passage 
 of ideas causing a complete change in the content of the 
 mind. What we cannot well observe is the mechanism 
 by which such changes are effected. The introspection- 
 ists, so far from explaining this mechanism, hardly seem 
 to realize very clearly the distinction between the con- 
 tents of the mind and the laws according to which these 
 contents are developed and modified. No doubt philoso- 
 phers are ready to step in here and point out that Hume 
 
36 ' THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 at least recognized the distinction, and to give an abstruse 
 disquisition in which Hume's "natural relations" are 
 proved to correspond to the content, while his "philosoph- 
 ical relations " stand for the mechanical elements.^ But 
 a Philosophy that requires so much explanation is of little 
 use to us ; we want one that says plainly what it means 
 in matters in which we are professionally interested. 
 
 By the time John comes to school he has what are 
 known as ideas. It may be supposed that he has not 
 many, and that what he has are not of much conse- 
 quence. As a matter of fact, he has acquired more 
 first-hand ideas before he comes to school than he 
 acquires during all the remainder of his life. In any 
 case he has ideas, and these must be reckoned with. 
 
 At this point I cannot do better than in the worda of 
 Locke : " Beg pardon of my reader for the frequent use 
 of the word idea which he will find in the following 
 treatise. It being the term which, I think, serves best 
 to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understand- 
 ing when a man thinks, I have used it to express what- 
 ever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever 
 it is which the mind can be employed about in think- 
 ing; and I could not avoid frequently using it. 
 
 "I presume that it will be easily granted me that 
 there are such ideas in men's minds. Everyone is con- 
 scious of them in himself; and men's words and actions 
 will satisfy him that they are in others. 
 
 " Our first inquiry, then, shall be how they came into 
 the mind. "2 
 
 1 G. F. Stout, Mind, 1889. 
 
 2 Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. I., Chap. I. 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 37 
 
 This last sentence lets slip the hounds, and starts the 
 grand tally-ho for ideas. Where did John get those 
 ideas that Locke says we cannot deny that John 
 possesses ? Were they waiting for him when he came 
 into the world, or did he bring them with him from the 
 shores of that great unknown whence he came ? Did 
 they grow in him as the cells of his brain grew, or 
 are they stuffed into him like his rusks and arrowroot ? 
 On the whole, the stuffing theory is most popular with 
 people in general, and with teachers in particular. 
 Descartes' theory that ideas are born along with John 
 has never recovered from Locke's attack. Plato's 
 theory of reminiscence, that maintained that John's 
 ideas were only the memories of a previous existence, 
 was never more than a poetical myth. Scientific men 
 cannot satisfy even themselves with the theory that 
 ideas are a sort of morbid secretion of specially modi- 
 fied protoplasm. 1 
 
 Locke, on the other hand, exactly met the wants of 
 his practical fellow-countrymen, with his theory that 
 the mind is a sort of idea-box, into which the senses 
 admit as many ideas as are good for us. His theory is 
 not in its elements new, since it coiisists in the applica- 
 tion of a principle widely recognized among the School- 
 men: "Nihil in intellectu quod non fuerit prius in 
 sensu." The mind gets all the ideas through the 
 senses. It is a sort of blank sheet of note paper on 
 which the senses write. The mind, however, is not 
 quite passive; it has the duty of combining and ar- 
 
 1 Cf . Cabanls' famous statement that the brain secretes thought as 
 the liver secretes bile. 
 
38 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ranging the ideas supplied by sense It is here that 
 the critics begin to enjoy themselves. They point out 
 that Locke's mind is sometimes active, sometimes pas- 
 sive, as the needs of his theory vary, and, further, that 
 a whole class of ideas are in a sort smuggled into the 
 mind. They freely admit that John can get the idea 
 of red in no other way than through the sense of sight. 
 But how the mind passes from this idea of red to that 
 of colour is what the critics are anxious to know, and 
 what Locke fails to explain. In other words, Locke is 
 quite clear about the mere content of the mind, and 
 knows that there is a mechanism ; but he makes no 
 serious attempt to discover how this mechanism works. 
 He knows the idea red, and the idea colour, and he 
 knows that somehow or other the one arises out of the 
 other ; but beyond endowing the mind with a faculty 
 for this sort of work, he leaves the change unexplained. 
 This is not to be wondered at when we remember 
 that Locke and all his school regarded the action of the 
 mind as limited to a series of successive states. Fot 
 him, and for the whole associationist school, the mind 
 was a sort of hour-glass.^ The upper bulb was filled 
 with ideas that were out of consciousness, but were on 
 their way into it ; the lower bulb was filled with ideas 
 that had just passed out of consciousness. No idea 
 was in consciousness save when it was passing through 
 the narrow neck from the one bulb into the other. 
 This conception of the mind leads to endless difficulties, 
 which are seen with greater or less clearness by all the 
 
 1 The associationists, of course, do not use this figure ; but I do not 
 think I am unfair to them in making it. 
 
EEVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 39 
 
 * 
 
 school, and which are met by more or less ingenious 
 devices. In Dr. Thomas Brown,^ for example, the 
 difficulty is so keenly felt that he practically admits 
 the coexistence of several states in the mind, but is 
 very careful to maintain his consistency by asserting 
 that this coexistence is only "seeming." 
 
 We are not at all concerned to defend the associa- 
 tionists, or to help them out of the difficulty into which 
 their principles have led them. We leave Locke with 
 regret, thanking him for what help he has been able to 
 give us, and turn elsewhere to see what other systems 
 can offer. If our aim were to find out John's true 
 place in nature, and to explain him as a phenomenon 
 viewed from the standpoint of eternity, we could not 
 do better than throw in our lot with the school of 
 idealism, as it is called. This, however, offers more a 
 system of Metaphysics than a Psychology, and a Psy- 
 chology is good enough for us as teachers. 
 
 Education has not been able to escape the all-pervad- 
 ing force of this idealism, and two of the greatest men 
 on our roll of educators owe much of their inspiration 
 to its influence. Of the two founders of the Froebelian 
 school, Pestalozzi was probably the greater man, while 
 Froebel was the greater philosopher. This is not, per- 
 haps, very high praise ; for, truth to tell, neither was 
 very distinguished in this direction. Yet obscure and 
 confused as are Froebel's philosophic utterances, they 
 undoubtedly embody the spirit of German idealism. 
 
 1 Philosophy of Human Mind, Lecture 45, p. 290 : " In itself every 
 notion, however seemingly complex, is and must be truly simple, being 
 one state or affection of one simple substance, mind." 
 
40 THE HBKBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The doctrine of the organic unity of the universe 
 underlies all his theories, and cannot be neglected in 
 considering his principles unless we are prepared for 
 meaningless confusion. 
 
 The usual criticism of this idealism as a system is that 
 it deals with such wide and universal principles that 
 there is a danger that universality is gained at the ex- 
 pense of content ; that the principles become empty for- 
 mulae which lose hold of the facts they profess to explain, 
 and present a specious harmony by the simple expedient 
 of omitting inconvenient facts. The idealist's difficulty, 
 like the clergyman's, is usually in the application. 
 
 Froebel is no exception to the rule. In the Education 
 of Man we have beautiful, if obscurely expressed, truths 
 about education. In the kindergarten we have clear, 
 cut-and-dry, consistent principles. But the kinder- 
 garten cannot be evolved from the Education of Man. 
 Between the two there is a great gulf fixed, a gulf that 
 Froebel has not bridged. 
 
 The universe is an organic whole, in which all things 
 must work together for good. Every animal, person, 
 place, or thing has its allotted position and work in this 
 rational universe, and can only fulfil its function by 
 being true to itself, consistent with its own nature. 
 John must develop, and that according to fixed laws. 
 What those laws are can be discovered only by learn- 
 ing the course of nature. Find what nature wills, says 
 the Froebelian, and do that. John must develop accord- 
 ing to the laws of his own nature ; his development must 
 be self-development, development from within. Before, 
 therefore, we can educate John, we must know him. 
 
REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGIES 41 
 
 Here we have stumbled upon the radical difference 
 between the old education and the new. No doubt the 
 change from Latin to John was at least suggested by- 
 Rousseau in Emile, but to the Froebelian school belongs 
 the glory of the advance. Pestalozzi began, and Froebel 
 developed, the study of child-nature as a key to educa- 
 tion. The words on Froebel's tomb " Lasst uns unsern 
 Kindern leben " are usually translated " Let us live for 
 our children. " But they have been rendered, and some 
 prefer the reading, "Let us live with our children." 
 The first embodies the spirit of the law of child-study ; 
 the second expresses its very letter. 
 
 Unfortunately, the way to know John is not sug- 
 gested. Since the whole universe is a rational organism, 
 it follows that if we know how that organism works, 
 we know exactly how to educate John. But to exhaust 
 the universe seems a somewhat tedious way to get at 
 the information we want. The Froebelians do not face 
 this rational outcome of their principles ; they content 
 themselves with a metaphor. The child is a plant. 
 Once the Froebelian has said this, he has uttered the 
 shibboleth of his school. Thereafter he is content to 
 take his place as a humble under-gardener, and watch 
 with interest and admiration the development of John. 
 Education becomes, in the very words of the master, " a 
 passivity, a following." The natural outcome of those 
 principles is a general paralysis. Education becomes 
 a great mystery. 
 
 Froebel is at once worse and better than his prihci- 
 ples : worse, inasmuch as he has failed to correlate 
 theory and practice ; better, inasmuch as his practice 
 
42 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 is not the paralysis to which his principles would lead 
 him. He does not carry his philosophy far enough to 
 demonstrate the possibility of what is called education 
 in an organic universe. If John must develop accord- 
 ing to fixed laws, if John must be self-determined, what 
 work is left for the teacher ? Yet this enforced " pas- 
 sivity" is not allowed to degenerate into inactivity. 
 The master's work is reduced to a " benevolent super- 
 intendence," no doubt, but it is wonderful how much 
 can be read into such a phrase. /Even the plant meta- 
 phor is not quite such a restriction as at first sight 
 appears. It leaves the teacher all the rights of prun- 
 ing, and grafting, and even transplanting. At a pinch, 
 corporal punishment itself might be smuggled into the 
 kindergarten, and be justified by the case of the walnut 
 tree in the old Warwickshire couplet : — 
 
 "A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, , 
 
 The more they are beaten, the better they be.'/ 
 
 It is to be noted that Froebel's failure to correlate 
 his theory and his practice by no means proves that 
 either theory or practice is wrong. To me, each in its 
 own place seems eminently satisfactory : the Hegelian 
 doctrine as a philosophical explanation of the universe, 
 and the kindergarten practice as a school method. 
 The objection is that there is no Psychology in the 
 system at all, other than mere external observation of 
 John. To call him a plant does not advance matters 
 much, and manifestly does not account for the use of 
 cubes, spheres, cylinders, and bricks in the very precise 
 way the kindergarten demands.\ In truth, Froebel's 
 
EEVIEW OP PSYCHOLOGIES 43 
 
 system as a practical school method is purely empirical. 
 The fanciful, quasi-philosophical way in which he seeks 
 to explain the relation of angles and sides, of forms of 
 knowledge, of beauty and of life, and of the moral 
 meanings of certain physical phenomena, is charming, 
 but amounts to nothing more than a pretty mysticism. 
 
 Not Philosophy, but common sense, experience, and 
 loving observation have led Froebel and his followers 
 to adopt certain apparatus and certain methods which 
 are excellent in themselves, and which in capable hands 
 produce admirable results. For this he deserves all the 
 honour that has been heaped upon him — but he has not 
 explained John. 
 
 The mere fact that Froebelianism has obtained such 
 a hold upon our educational system proves that it pos- 
 sesses elements of first-rate importance to the teacher. 
 But as a Psychology it is simply non-existent. It sug- 
 gests the immense importance of knowing John ; which 
 is much. It leaves to others the task of supplying this 
 knowledge. 
 
 Once more on our travels in search of information 
 about John, we turn quite naturally towards Germany ; 
 for, like_ go much else that_is well worth havings. joost 
 gfouTjdj^ati£ny,jheOTi£S_are made in Ge_;ffiany. 
 
 It is true that the disgrace supposed to attach to this 
 brand is somewhat modified in the case of education by 
 the fact that we have at least the skill to apply the 
 theories to our own conditions ; in applying them in a 
 new environment we make them our own. In some 
 respects we make a better use of imported theories than 
 did the founders of those theories. Herbartianism is 
 
44 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGr 
 
 at least as vital a force in the United States at this 
 moment as it is in the Fatherland. There is a Herbart 
 Club of altogether abnormal activity. Herbartian lit- 
 erature is springing up in almost alarming luxuriance. 
 Even in conservative England teachers are becoming 
 alive to the importance of this new light, — a sixty-year- 
 old torch is still a new light in educational matters, — 
 and as this is the light in which we hope to make 
 John known, we must introduce Herbart in a new 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 JOHANN Feiedrich Hekbaet was born in 1776, and 
 died in 1841. He has no history. Philosophers seldom 
 have. It is a compensation. 
 
 Many teachers seem to have the vague notion that 
 Herbart is a sort of continuation school edition of 
 Froebel. Kindergarten for the lower classes, Her- 
 bartianism for the higher. Even professed Froebelians 
 do not seem to be quite aware that Herbart, so far from 
 supporting their position, is directly opposed to it. No 
 doubt many of the practical recommendations of the 
 two systems are the same, as is natural. We shall see 
 later, too, that from the broad platform of Hegelian 
 optimism we may ultimately reconcile the antagonism. 
 But as matters stand,( Froebelian and Herbartian prin- 
 ciples, as understood in a plain, common-sense way, 
 are diametrically opposed to each other. ) 
 
 So absolute is the opposition that it cannot be more 
 fitly described than by adopting the comparison by 
 which Kant emphasizfed the gulf that separated his 
 system from those that preceded it. The change he 
 compared to the advance from the Ptolemaic to the 
 Copernican conception of the solar system. The stand- 
 point is not only different, it is exactly the contrary of 
 what it was before. From the earliest times philoso- 
 
 45 
 
46 THE HBKBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 phers -have been racking their brains to expll^in how 
 the mind manages to mahe ideas, ox find ideas, ov, contain 
 ideas, or combine ideas. In the problem the mind was 
 always " given." It was the one thing in the universe of 
 which the philosophers were sure. " Cogito ergo sum " 
 is but one of a series of ways in which this truth has 
 been expressed. The trouble always began about ideas. 
 To all this Herbart supplies us with a pleasant variety. 
 He starts with the ideas, and the hunt is now for the 
 mind. We have failed to explain ideas by the mind ; 
 how about explaining the mind by ideas ? 
 
 You are not to suppose that this is exactly how Her- 
 bart puts it. Herbart is a philosopher — a German 
 philosopher. The change of standpoint is none the less 
 real for that.^ 
 
 It is true that he starts with a mind, or, as he pre- 
 
 - fers to call it, a soul. But do not fear that the sport 
 
 of the hunt is to be spoiled for that. This " given " 
 
 soul is no more a real soul than it is a real crater of a 
 
 volcano. It has absolutely no content. It is not even 
 
 an idea trap : ideas can slip in and out of it as they 
 
 please, or, rather, as other ideas please ; for the soul has 
 
 no power either to call, make, keep, or recall an idea. 
 
 The ideas arrange all those matters among themselves. 
 
 The mind can make no objection. 
 
 "~"" The soul has no capacity nor faculty whatever, 
 
 ^^ither to receive or to produce anything. 
 
 1 Th. Eibot, in his La Psychologie Allemande Contemporaine, says 
 that with Herbart the moi ou la conscience, in plain English the Her- 
 bartian soul, " n'est que la somme des representations actuelles. Bref, 
 elle est uu effet et non une cause, un rfeultat et r(on un fait primitif." 
 — p. 24. 
 
THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 47 
 
 " It is therefore no tabula rasa in tlie sense that im- 
 pressions foreign to its nature may be made on it ; 
 also,, it is no substance in Leibnitz' sense which in- 
 cludes original self-activity. It has originally neither 
 ideas, nor feelings, nor desires; it knows nothing of 
 itself and nothing of other things ; further, within it 
 lie no forms of intuition and thought, no laws of will- 
 ing and acting ; nor any sort of predisposition, how- 
 ever remote, to all these. 
 
 " The simple nature of the soul is totally unknown, 
 and forever remains so ; it is as little a subject for 
 speculative as for empirical psychology." ^ ~ 
 
 It is here that Herbart has the advantage of Locke. 
 The English philosopher got rid of innate ideas, but 
 he could not free himself from innate faculties. What 
 Locke did for innate ideas Herbart did for innate facul- 
 ties.^ Burdened by his assumption of successive states, 
 Locke could not get his ideas to work upon each other 
 in order to produce complex actions and reactions. He 
 was therefore driven to invent or assume certain, powers 
 of the mind which he called faculties, and which were 
 credited with all the work that went on within the 
 mind. When a certain process was discovered, by the 
 act- of introspection, to take place in the mind, Locke 
 
 ^ Herbart's Psychology is set forth in two worts, — a large and not 
 very difficult treatise, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, and a smaller and 
 more difficult, because more condensed, Lehrbuch zur- Psychologie. 
 Our references are always to the latter, as being more convenient. 
 The above passage is to be found in Part III., §§ 152, 153. 
 
 2 It is true that Leibnitz was by implication first in the field, but 
 wiiat he implies by his "a naked possibility is nothing" is clearly 
 stated and worked out by Herbart. 
 
48 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and his followers gave this process a name, and then 
 assumed a faculty corresponding to that name. A 
 certain process called abstraction is discovered to go 
 on within the mind. This gives the introspectionist 
 no trouble. It is only a matter of baptizing another 
 faculty, and we have the "faculty of abstraction." 
 Against this short and easy method Herbart made a 
 vigorous protest, and^sw^ptawayforever from his 
 Philos ophy the whole br ood of facu lties. 
 
 Thus suddenly deprived of our faculties, we are 
 naturally somewhat anxious to see how we are to get 
 along without J;hem. Herbart does not leave us long 
 in suspense. (What he has taken from the soul he has 
 transferred to the ideas.} These are no longer the mere 
 passive material on which the faculties act ; they have 
 a vitality Etll their own,i indeed, apart from them there 
 is no vitality in the soul at all. With Herbart the soul 
 is assumed to be perfectly simple and homogeneous, 
 its only power being a vigorous vis inertice.^ Left to 
 itself, the soul would never change at all. This is an 
 obvious assumption for which most of Herbart's fol- 
 lowers are inclined to apologize. Educational writers 
 who base their ideas on his usually pass very lightly 
 over this part of his Philosophy, if indeed they mention 
 it at all. But as the use of hypotheses is one of the 
 essential points in which he differs from the introspec- 
 tionists, it ought rather to be insisted upon. No doubt 
 this particular hypothesis is of no great moment. Her- 
 bartianism could still be a force in education without 
 it. Yet for a complete understanding of the mechan- 
 1 Fsychologie, Part I. 10. 2 Ibid., Part III. 152. 
 
THE HEKBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 49 
 
 ism by which Herbart makes Psychology consistent 
 with itself, we must consider ft. 
 
 This simple^ and homogeneous soul is not left to 
 itself, as it would like to be. It is attacked by the 
 one set of 'forces that can have any effect upon it. 
 Nothing but ideas ^ can affect the soul, and even when 
 attacked by them it does not rouse itself up to inde- 
 pendent action ; it only reacts upon the presented 
 ideas. ^Once the soul has reacted upon an idea, it can 
 no longer be the same soul that it was before.J It 
 resists change backwards as vigorously as it resists 
 change forwards. It reacts differently upon the next 
 idea that presents i^tself , because of its previous reaction 
 upon the first. It is obvious that, on this view, the 
 soul sinks into comparative insignificance compared 
 with the ideas. The -ideas really make up the mind. 
 
 1 This familiar word seems best suited to represent the Herbartian 
 Voratellung. "State of consciousness" (Eibot) is accurate, but 
 cumbersome. "Concept" implies a theory that Herbart does not 
 hold. " Presentation " (Stout) is perfectly accurate so far as it goes, 
 but it has the same defect as idea itself, — it limits the meaning too 
 much to the merely cognitive side. No doubt this is an error in the 
 right direction, for while Qemuth is distinguished from Geist {Psy., 
 Part I. 33), we are told "Das Oemuth aber hat seinen Sitz im Oeiste, 
 Oder, Fflhlen und Begehren sind Zunachst Zustande der Vorstellungen, 
 und zwar grosserntheils wandelhare Zustande der letzteren." We 
 may, therefore, safely retain the ordinary English word, especially as 
 we have the authority of Dr. W. T. Harris for the following : " Vor- 
 stellung means image, or cojicept, or representation, or presentation — 
 in short, any and all mental products included under the English word 
 {idea in its widest application." 
 
 In' the light of the above note the distinction of the terms soul and 
 mind as used in the text will be clear : mind is used where the cogni- 
 tive aspect is predominant, soul when the whole Wesen is implied. 
 
50 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The soul is regarded as little else than the battle- 
 ground of contending ideas. 
 
 For, according to Herbart, the ideas are always com- 
 peting with each other for a place in the soul. But all 
 places in the soul are not of equal value in the eyes of 
 an idea. To use a somewhat gross comparison, the 
 soul may be regarded under the figure of a dome, the 
 summit of which is the goal of the ambition of every 
 self-respecting idea.^ The summit is certainly the best 
 place, but anywhere within the dome is good, and the 
 nearer the summit of the dome the better. When an 
 idea gets low down in the dome near the base, it be- 
 comes dim and languid, and the nearer the base the 
 more languid, till on the base it gasps for a while, and 
 then either rises to higher and happier levels, or sinks 
 beyond the base altogether into the limbo of uncon- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The base of the dome which separates the realms of 
 light and life from the nether regions, where the ideas 
 gnash their teeth, is called the threshold. Naturally 
 we want to know on what principle some ideas main- 
 tain their place within the dome, while others sink be- 
 low the threshold. 
 
 The first time an idea passes the threshold into the 
 dome, his chief care is to make acquaintances — useful 
 
 1 Herbart must not be held responsible for the figure of the dome. 
 He generally contents himself with plain unfigurative language on this 
 point; an idea is simply in the soul or in consciousness. I have 
 adopted the dome merely as a kind of shorthand expression, and not 
 as implying any sort of theory. It is particularly to be noted that it 
 
 has nothing whatever to do with the Vaulting and Tapering Wol- 
 
 bung und Zuspitzung — referred to in Psychology, 26, d. 
 
THE HBEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 51 
 
 acquaintances. For his only chance of gaining a foot- 
 ing within the dome is by making suitable connections. 
 
 His conduct therefore is strikingly like that of an 
 ambitious young man on his introduction into society. 
 He finds there ideas akin to himself, with whom he 
 easily forms fast friendships ; but on the other hand he 
 encounters certain ideas utterly opposed to his style, and 
 these do all in their power to expel him. An idea's first 
 visit to the dome seldom lasts very long. He has few 
 friends and many enemies ; he soon sinks to the thresh- 
 old, and passes out into a longer or shorter exile. 
 
 While there is thus among those ideas as much in- 
 triguing for introductions, as much clique-making and 
 log-rolling as in any drawing-room or newspaper 
 office, there is this very important difPerence. Those 
 ideas are loyal to each other. As soon as one of them 
 has crossed the threshold into the sunny land, his first 
 thought is naturally to make for the summit ; but his 
 sfecond is invariably to drag with him those with whom 
 he is more intimately connected. He never seeks to 
 push on towards the centre alone. He drags forward 
 all his allies with him step by step up the steep sides of 
 the dome. Among the ideas, as among cavalrymen, it 
 is the slowest horse that gives pace to the charge C A 
 clique of ideas sinks or swims together. ^ -*• 
 
 Each such clique of ideas is known by the alarming 
 name of an (^apperception mass, )and. the Herbartians 
 maintain that our whole intellectual life is spent in 
 forming new apperception masses and in expanding 
 old ones. Some ideas, from the very nature of thing.^ 
 are much more frequently in the soul than others. 
 
62 T^HE flERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Being frequently within the dome, they naturally make 
 a larger number of alliances than others less favoured, 
 with the result that they have a much greater chance 
 of being recalled. Any idea that necessarily enters 
 into our daily life must form the nucleus of a very 
 powerful apperception mass. An idea, however trivial, 
 that may have the good fortune to belong to one of 
 those dominant groups, has the power of recalling the 
 whole group the moment it gets a footing within the 
 dome. 
 
 This may all seem very like that barren set of 
 theories we used to learn at college under the name of 
 the Laws of Association. And if the above were the 
 whole of the Herbartian theory, the resemblance might 
 be maintained. But there is a difference between ex- 
 plaining why a certain idea has arisen in the mind, and 
 why that idea rather than another has arisen in the 
 mind. I utter the word Carlisle : up to the very sum- 
 mit of the dome of consciousness of as many as hear 
 me, there springs an idea carrying with it a more or less 
 (numerous companj'^ of correlated ideas?) One finds his 
 mind filled with geographical ideas. " Exactly," says 
 the associationist ; "the law of contiguity holds here." 
 Another thinks of Sartor Remrtus. " Precisely," says 
 the associationist, rubbing his hands ; " law of similar- 
 ity—two sounds alike, the town and the man." A 
 third thinks of the church at home, which does not 
 happen to be at Carlisle. " Thought you had me that 
 time," chuckles the associationist. "Why, there's 
 nothing easier. Carlisle, name of Psalm tune, village 
 choir, village church. Any more difiiculties ? " 
 
THE HEEBAETIAK PSYCHOLOGY 53 
 
 Well, yes, there is a trifling little difficulty. The 
 associationist has explain-ed very clearly why each of 
 those ideas has come into the dome of consciousness 
 in which it is found ; but he neglects to explain why 
 the same idea did not follow the same word in each 
 case. Why does one man think of a map, another of 
 a book, a third of a church ? It is not a matter of 
 mere knowledge. Most people know what a map is 
 and a church ; and the least literary among us knows 
 at any rate the name of Sartor Besartus. Why does 
 the word Carlisle call up different ideas in different 
 minds ? 
 
 This problem Dr. Thomas Brown i tackled in his 
 theory of the Secondary Laws of Association, not 
 entirely successfully, it is true, but as successfully as 
 his system will admit of. For the fundamental weak- 
 ness of his school becomes manifest in a problem of 
 this kind. If ideas merely succeed each other, we can 
 never understand how they act upon each other, if, 
 indeed, we admit that they can act upon each other at 
 all. The idea of the word Carlisle is in the neck of 
 the hour-glass. The ideas of a map, Sartor Mesartus, 
 and the church at home are swarming about among 
 thousands of others in the upper bulb of unconscious- 
 
 1 Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. 37. Led by the demands 
 of his subject and by his own clear intellect, Brown has anticipated to 
 some extent the apperceptionist position in his sixth law, and also in 
 his ninth : " Copious reading and a retentive memory may give to an 
 individual of very bumble talent a greater profusion of splendid images 
 than existed in any of the individual minds on whose sublime concep- 
 tions he has dwelt till they have become in one sense of the word his 
 own." — p. 238, thirteenth edition. 
 
54 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ness. It is hopeless to try to discover which will come 
 out, and why. 
 
 By his system of grouping, Herbart establishes at 
 least a plausible theory as to the mutual action of ideas 
 in recalling each other. Utter the word spot to a 
 child, and he naturally looks to his pinafore to note, 
 and if possible explain. At the same sound a medical 
 student's soul is filled with ideas about his microscopic 
 examination. The picture of a dog of that name is the 
 only answer to the sound in the soul of some young 
 lady, while a billiard-player's soul does not rise above 
 a certain marked ball. The reason is obvious. The 
 idea of spot is connected in each case with a totally 
 different apperception mass. There is here a complete 
 absence of that sense of vague uncertainty that always 
 accompanies the associative explanation of such cases 
 of recall. We are sure of our ground in exact pro- 
 portion to our knowledge of the content of the soul 
 in question. Not only is the explanation true as it 
 stands. It goes farther; for it maintains that not only 
 will the word spot suggest the microscope to the medi- 
 cal student, but it will do so even though it be origi- 
 nally used in connection with some other idea. The 
 young lady may have her attention aroused by the 
 marked billiard ball, but her soul at once dismisses 
 the ball and welcomes the idea of her dog. All this 
 will become clearer, however, after we have a fuller 
 knowledge of the mechanism of those apperception 
 masses. 
 
 To begin with, we want to know how apperception 
 masses can begin to be formed at all. The ideas which 
 
THE HERBABTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 55 
 
 make up those masses may be divided, according to 
 Herbart, into three great classes, as similar, disparate, 
 or contrary ideas. The idea of the taste of mustard to- 
 day is practically identical with the idea of the taste of 
 mustard yesterday. Those two ideas are similar. The 
 taste of mustard is represented by an idea which is dif- 
 ferent from the idea corresponding to the taste of sugar, 
 yet both are tastes. Those two ideas are contrary. 
 The idea of the taste of mustard cannot be at all com- 
 pared with the idea of the time of day. Those two 
 ideas are therefore called disparate.^ 
 
 The only way in which ideas can become related to 
 each other is by being co-presented in consciousness. 
 In this co-presentation, ideas act differently according 
 as they are similar, contrary, or disparate. When simi- 
 lar ideas find themselves together in consciousness, they 
 combine into a homogeneous whole, and by this com- 
 bination become more powerful in resisting attempts 
 to drive them out of consciousness. Under the same 
 conditions disparate ideas also combine, but in a very 
 different way. They do not form a unity in which each 
 of the parts becomes indistinguishable, but they form 
 a complex in which each part is fitted into the 'other 
 so as to form a more or less complicated whole. Thus 
 the idea of mustard that I have to-day, at once com- 
 
 1 For several of the English equivalents for Herbart's technical 
 terms used in this chapter, I am indebted to Mr. G. F. Stout, whose 
 luminous articles in Mind, 1888, 1889, 1891, give the best account in 
 English, so far as my knowledge goes, of the Herbartian Psychology, 
 pure and simple, apart from educational applications. It is, indeed, 
 pleasant to find for once a commentator whose work is really clearer 
 than the text he expounds. 
 
56 THE HERBAETIAN PSTCHOLOGY 
 
 bines with the idea of mustard that I had yesterday. 
 The result is not a new idea, but a strengthening of the 
 old one. This is called fusion.^ On the other hand, 
 a patient who is ordered to suffer under a mustard ap- 
 plication at certain regular intervals has a complicated 
 idea, in which the ideas of mustard and the time of day 
 are combined without being commingled. This is not 
 fusion, but x^omplieation.^ ) 
 
 Contrary ideas introduce a totally different form of 
 action. In their case there is neither fusion nor com- 
 plication, but actual opposition. The idea of the taste 
 of mustard cannot coexist with the idea of the taste of 
 sugar. Each wishes to drive the other over the thresh- 
 old altogether, in order to enjoy the dome alone. It 
 is true that we can think of pungent and sweet at the 
 same moment, and thus we may imagine that we are 
 combining the ideas of the two tastes. But what 
 really happens in this case is that we are confounding 
 the common element in the two tastes, with the essen- 
 tial element. When we think of sweet and pungent 
 at the same moment, we are not dealing with the ideas 
 of sweet or pungent at all, but only with the fact that 
 there are two tastes which differ from one another, but 
 which are still tastes. Suppose you try to realize in 
 your mind the taste of mustard, in other words to raise 
 the idea of mustard to the summit of the dome, you 
 will find that in proportion as this idea becomes clear, 
 the idea of the taste of sugar becomes obscured. If 
 the idea connected with mustard is perfectly vivid, the 
 other idea has disappeared, altogether. 
 
 1 Verschmelzung. 2 Complication. 
 
THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 57 
 
 We can now understand how rudimentary appercep- 
 tion masses are formed. .We know that disparate ideas 
 can form complex ideas. Now suppose that two differ- 
 ent complex ideas claim admission at the same time to 
 the dome ; note what happens. Whatever is similar 
 in both, at once combines ; whatever is disparate forms 
 a new complex ; while the contrary elements oppose 
 each other, and the fusion of the two complex ideas 
 is said to be arrested at this point. This combination 
 of fusion and arrest is the source of all the activity of 
 the soul. 
 
 To illustrate. Suppose a countryman for the first 
 time sees, in a railway station, one of those two-wheeled 
 barrows that porters use for conveying luggage. • The 
 idea of this barrow is a complex that seeks to hold the 
 summit of the consciousness. No sooner does it rise 
 above the threshold, however, than it calls up another 
 complex, — the wheelbarrow with which the countryman 
 is familiar at home. There is at once fusion of the 
 ideas of carrying, pushing before, two-handledness, 
 woodenness, and whatever other resemblances there 
 may be. Some of the new circumstances are simple 
 disparate ideas. The uniform of the porter, the nature 
 of the load, the speed at which the barrow is pushed, 
 are all different from those found in the familiar idea, 
 but may be all easily combined with it, forming a new 
 and wider idea of a barrow. On the other hand, the 
 two-wheeledness of the barrow before him struggles 
 with the one-wheeledness of the barrow at home. The 
 two cannot be thought together. The countryman can 
 readily combine the ideas of his barrow and this uni- 
 
68 THE HEKBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 formed porter. He cannot combine his idea of his 
 one-wheeled barrow with this two-wheeled one. One 
 or other he can think of, but not both at once. The 
 two complex ideas arrest one another at this point; 
 Fusion and complication stop, and either the one or 
 the two-wheeled idea wins, or the idea of the barrow 
 stops short at the wheels. The same process takes 
 place when the closed bottom of the country barrow 
 is compared with the open bottom of the station 
 barrow. 
 
 Hitherto we have assumed that ideas do get, in some 
 way or other, into the soul. We must now see more 
 exactly how this comes about. (^ Since there are no 
 innate ideas, the ideas we find in the soul must have 
 got in there from without. ]) Herbart has no back door 
 into the soul. Ideas come with him, as they do with 
 other philosophers, from without through the senses. 
 But since all the senses are open to influences from 
 without, it is obvious that very many more ideas want 
 to get into the soul than there is room for. Upon 
 what principle, then, is admission to the dome regu- 
 lated? It is here that one of Herbart's most useful 
 distinctions comes into' play. Each idea may be re- 
 garded from' two points of»"Yiew; It may be treated 
 as something presented to the soul for its examination. 
 In this sense it may be regarded as a part of the fur- 
 niture of the soul. This is the aspect that is usually 
 present in the mind when the word idea is used by 
 ordinary unreflective people. The idea of horse is 
 something in the soul which yte can think and talk 
 about, and that is all, so far as the soul itself is con- 
 
THE HBRBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 59 
 
 cerned. To be sure, there is a whole world of ques- 
 tions that may be raised about the relation between 
 the horse in our soul and the horse in the street ; 
 but these questions do not in this connection concern 
 us. From this point of view thdj_dea is regarded as 
 
 (presented content in the soul. It is something pre- 
 sented, something to be considered, something passive. 
 It is the idea viewed from the standpoint of the 
 soul. 
 
 But the idea has another aspect. It may be regarded 
 as an active force, fighting its way as well as may be 
 to the coveted place at the top of the dome. We no 
 longer speak of the idea as presented content, but as a 
 
 I'presektative activity.'^ [^ As presented content the idea is 
 subject to change, but only slowly and as the result of 
 fusion and complication with other ideas.7 Our idea of 
 horse gradually changes according to our widened expe- 
 rience. ^\A.s presentative activity, however, the idea is 
 liable to rapid and violent changej For example, there 
 is an idea in my mind at this moment, where it has suf- 
 ficient presentative activity to occupy a place very near 
 the dome-top, and yet in the soul of the reader it has 
 not presentative activity enough to raise it over the 
 threshold. When I write the word Koh-i-noor, the idea 
 of that diamond at once acquires enough presentative 
 activity to spring, for a moment at least, to the very 
 summit of the dome of his consciousness. 
 
 You are not to suppose that this idea, which a 
 moment ago was entirely without the dome, had no 
 
 1 Psy., II. : " Das wirkllche Vorstellen verwandelt sich in ein Streben 
 vorzustellen. " 
 
60 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 presentatiye activity even in the shades of adversity. 
 Every idea that has once risen above the threshold has 
 some presentative activity, j Tlie amount of this activity 
 is what differentiates ideas. 7 As presented content all 
 ideas have an equal claim to the summit of the dome. 
 In itself the idea of the Cosmos as an organic Unity has 
 no more right to the highest place than has the idea of 
 the tip of a lobster's pincers. Experience shows us, 
 however, that certain ideas are much more frequently 
 in the soul than others, a«nd every time that an idea is 
 recalled to the soul it strengthens its chance of being 
 called in again. In other Avords, its presentative activ- 
 ity is increased every time it rises above the threshold. 
 To the philosopher the idea of Cosmos has acquired 
 quite a commanding presentative activity, so that the 
 slightest suggestion is suificient to reinstate it at the 
 very summit. Certain other ideas have also strong pre- 
 sentative activity, though perhaps not so strong as 
 Cosmos. (The nature of the ideas naturally varies with 
 the school to which our philosopher belongs.) And so 
 on we may go throughout the whole list of ideas that 
 have ever entered the dome of the philosopher's con- 
 sciousness. They all fall into a sort of hierarchy, ac- 
 cording to their varying presentative activities. If this 
 were all, the activity of the soul would -disappear. For 
 the most powerful idea would seize the uppermost place, 
 and all the other ideas, in their varying order, would 
 seize a place as high as their might entitled them to, 
 till the threshold was reached, and all the weaker ideas 
 were thrust forever beneath. 
 
 This obviously does not represent the actual state of 
 
THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 61 
 
 affairs. No one idea holds for long the summit of the 
 dome, just as no idea is forever excluded from the 
 dome altogether. In some morbid states, indeed, an 
 idea does take permanent possession of the dome of 
 consciousness, with the result that all the ideas must 
 take subordinate rank to it, and must bring themselves, 
 by some means or other, into harmony with a state of 
 affairs in which this idSe fixe is the dominating prin- 
 ciple. In ordinary healthy mental life, however, at 
 any moment something may happen which increases the 
 presentative activity of some insignificant idea, and 
 sends it spinning up to the very summit. Let but our 
 philosopher be a little incautious in a fishmonger's shop, 
 and the idea of the tip of a lobster's nippers may most 
 thoroughly unseat Cosmos from its place on high. 
 
 It is clear, all the same, that /in every soul th^re is a 
 sort of order-of-merit arrangement of the ideas,) — an 
 order often disturbed, but to which there is a'itrong 
 tendency to revert as soon as any unusual influence has 
 been withdrawn. The ideas are, indeed, in a state of 
 unstable equilibrium, which is easily disturbed and as 
 easily recovered. 
 
 As soon as a new idea claims admittance, there arises 
 a struggle. All the ideas within the dome that are 
 friendly to the new idea do their best to raise it. All 
 the contrary ideas oppose it, and try to arrest it. After 
 the struggle, a temporary equilibrium is gained, and the 
 new idea is kept on, above, or below the threshold. 
 If an idea at any moment occupy the one of those three 
 positions to which it is really entitled in a state of 
 equilibrium, the threshold in relation to that idea is 
 
62 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 called the (statical threshold,^ while if the condition of 
 equilibrium demand that the idea should occupy a posi- 
 tion other than it holds at any given moment, the thresh- 
 old in relation to it is called the dynamical threshold ^ 
 
 Thus an idea below the statical threshold is in its 
 proper permanent place, and is exactly as if it did not 
 exist, so far as the present content of consciousness is 
 concerned. An idea below the dynamical threshold, 
 on the other hand, is unduly depressed by the tem- 
 porary activity of another idea or ideas ; it is there- 
 fore of necessity rising, and will, in the state of 
 equilibrium, be above the statical threshold. 
 
 Each idea, too, at any moment, has what is called its 
 statical point,^ — that is its degree of obscuration in 
 equilibrium, — which Herbart believes can be accurately 
 determined by "an easy calculation in the rule of 
 three." 
 
 The working of the whole mechanism may be well 
 illustrated by the fortunes of the ideas of the different 
 pieces during a game of chess. At the beginning of 
 the game, the ideas will rank in something like the 
 following order : king, queen, rooks, bishops, knights, 
 and pawns, those last ranking in a definite order 
 according to the particular form of opening favoured 
 by the player. No sooner is the game begun than one 
 of the pawns takes a higher rank than some of the 
 pieces, and according to the fortunes of the game, now 
 a pawn, now a rook, has its presentative activity so 
 
 1 Die statische Schwelle. 
 
 '^ Die mechanische Schwelle. Psy., 1-19. 
 
 s Der statische Pvuikt. Psy., 1-14. 
 
THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 63 
 
 quickened as to send it right up to the summit of the 
 . dome. 
 
 The king himself must on occasion fall below the 
 dynamical threshold, when some pawn or piece has 
 got into serious trouble. But his presentative activity 
 is so great that the moment the trouble has disappeared 
 he agains springs up into consciousness. ) This rising 
 again into the dome through the mere disappearance of 
 contrary or opposing influences is called immediate 
 recall. When, on the other .hand, one idea recalls 
 another with which it has on a previous occasion been 
 either fused or complicated, we have mediate recall. 
 
 The question of recall suggests the important problem 
 of the state of ideas that are out of consciousness. 
 With ideas, does out of soul mean out of existence ? 
 Are they like the electric light that springs in and out 
 of existence on the turning of a button? They cer- 
 tainly do not perish, as the possibility of their return 
 shows. Do they then, in their outer darkness, make 
 coalitions with each other in order to make more cer- 
 tain their return to the sunny realms of day, on the 
 model of the " out" party in politics? (Herbart's view 
 is that no idea below the statical threshold can exer- 
 cise any influence whatever. 1 Ideas, however, that find 
 themselves below the dynanucal threshold may exercise 
 an influence upon their more favoured brethren within 
 the dome^y This agrees with the experience most of 
 us have had of awakening in the morning with a clear 
 knowledge of our surroundings, which were pleasant 
 enough, and yet rendered dull by a miserable feeling 
 that there was something wrong. Our present sur- 
 
64 THE HEBBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 roundings are the only ideas that as yet occupy the 
 dome ; but the unremembered care, still below the 
 dynamical threshold, influences all the ideas above it. 
 The idea of the care is rising all the time, and it sends 
 on its influence before. The same sort of thing occurs 
 when certain words come to our minds, and we know 
 that those words must be treated with respect. We 
 do not, at the time, know why, but soon the idea of the 
 person who uttered them (and whose opinion we re- 
 spect) makes its appearance above the threshold. It 
 was on the way all the time, and influenced our 
 thoughts ; but it is not till the idea is actually there, 
 that we recognize why we respected the words. 
 
 Approaching the subject from a new side) let us take 
 the case of an idea presented to the soul for the first 
 time. The action of the soul upon this new idea is 
 influenced, indeed practically determined, by the masses 
 of ideas the soul already contains. This action is known 
 by the name oiC apperception^ There is no merit in the 
 name, and xissimilation might, as James suggests, do as 
 well. .^It is necessary, however, to be very clear as to the 
 exact meaning of whichever term we adopt. Steinthal 
 defines it as "the union of two mental groups, in so far 
 as it gives rise to a cognition." With this, Mr. Stout 
 so far agrees, but he seeks to add something. His defi- 
 nition runs " the process by which a mental system ap- 
 propriates a new element, or otherwise receives a fresh 
 determination." ^ 
 
 The final clause is introduced to indicate this author's 
 distinction between what he calls anoetic consciousness, 
 1 Analytic Psychology, Vol. II. 
 
THE HEKBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 65 
 
 and noetic synthesis. i He complains that Herbart 
 speaks of ideas apperceiving each other, which implies 
 the paradox that ideas " observe dr take cognizance of 
 each other." While admitting the justice of the criti- 
 cism, we cannot do more here than notice it. For us 
 the important thing is, that in thefHerbartian Psychol- 
 ogy, -fiinxifi- apperception means the acting upon a new 
 idea by all the ideas at present in the soul, and since 
 the number and arrangement of ideas in no two souls 
 are exactly alike, it follows that no two persons can/ 
 have precisely the same idea of anythingj ^ 
 
 If Herbartianism did nothing more tftan emphasize 
 the fact that no two people ever have exactly the same 
 idea, and particularly that no master and pupil can 
 ever have the same idea, it would justify its existence. 
 Teachers are quite well aware that children do not 
 understand big or unusual words; but teachers too 
 often fail to consider that in the case of words with 
 which children are perfectly familiar, there may, there/ 
 must, be a different idea in the child's mind from tha^ 
 in the master's. ) 
 
 No doubt it may be objected that this is admitted in 
 the prevailing Froebelian principles. Nothing is com- 
 moner among kindergartners than the cry for things, 
 not words. As a matter of fact, this cry would only 
 substitute one fallacy for another, but in the meantime 
 let that pass. What interests us here is, that things 
 
 1 With this distinction compare Wundt's definition : " Der Eintritt 
 einer Vorstellung in das innere Blickfeld wollen wir die Perception, 
 ihren Eintritt in den Bliclcpunkt die Apperception nennen." — Grund- 
 ziige der Fhysiologischen Psychologie (1880), Vol. II., p. 206. 
 
66 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 are not a whit better than words, in ensuring that the 
 same idea shall be called up in two minds. Almost 
 every teacher thinks*that when he has shown a thing to 
 his class, he has done the highest, the best, the ultimate, 
 in teaching. Yet listen to Jacotot. " What is a mas- 
 ter ? " he asks scornfully. " Isn't he a man who asks 
 another — Don't you see what I am showing you?"i 
 
 Being in an oratorical mood, Jacotot does not pause 
 for a reply. The schoolmaster in his work is not in such 
 a hurry, and insists upon an answer to this question, 
 " Don't you see what I am showing you ? " Naturally 
 the boy says "yes," and equally naturally his answer is 
 fake. 
 
 "Triie average child does not see what the master is 
 showing him.] Froebelianism drives the teacher from 
 words to pictures, from pictures to models, from models 
 to actual objects, and, after all, Herbartianism comes 
 along, and points out that the living sheep that an en- 
 terprising schoolmistress has set scampering about the 
 floor of her infant room, does not ensure that teacher 
 and pupil shall speak of the same idea, when they talk 
 of a sheep A 
 
 ;^The popular notion is that knowledge has to be 
 carefully prepared beforehand by the teacher, and then 
 judiciously stuffed into a suitable place in the pupil's 
 mind, a sort of mental left-luggage office, there to be 
 left till called for. If the mind is not regarded as 
 entirely passive in the process of acquiring knowledge, 
 it is supposed to be active in nothing beyond the steve- 
 dore work of lumping the cargo aboard. The mind is 
 1 Enseignement Universel, seventh editloA, p. 56. 
 
THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 67 
 
 assumed to have as little power to change a fact that 
 it is acquiring, as a quay labourer to change a granite 
 block he is manipulating. 
 
 The Herbartian, on the other hand, has none of that 
 reverence for hard facts, so characteristic of the " plain 
 man. " Each soul moulds its own facts : — 
 
 " If it be not fact for me, 
 What care I how fact it be ? " 
 
 fEvery man is his own fact-maker, whether he will 
 or no.h 
 
 It is impossible to escape from the thrall of the irri- 
 tating crew included under the general term "the 
 ancients." The modern who is wise does not make 
 the attempt, and is always prepared to have his theories 
 traced back |to their primary bacillus in Plato or his 
 predecessors. 
 
 A very rudimentary knowledge of Greek Philosophy 
 is enough to prevent us from regarding this fact-making 
 theory as any new thing. It has been said before in 
 somewhat different words, and the echo of the original 
 saying has kept rolling down through all the ages to 
 the present day. 
 
 Through the philosophic quagmire that corresponds 
 to the phrase " relativity of knowledge," I am reluctantly 
 compelled to invite my reader to pass in the hope of 
 reaching firm ground beyond. 
 
 The trouble appears to have begun when Protagoras 
 felt called upon to maintain that " Man is the measure 
 of all things, of things that are that they are, of things 
 that are not that they are not." Those who wish to 
 
68 THE HBKBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 throw the blame farther back still, have only to call in 
 Heraclitus with his "eternal flux of all things," but 
 Protagoras will probably serve our purpose sufficiently 
 well. In his criticism Plato admits that Protagoras is 
 right so far as sense impressions are concerned, but 
 denies any wider application of the "measure." 
 
 Common sense and modern science agree with Plato. 
 It is true that in Reid's comfortable dogmatism we are 
 assured that we perceive the outer world exactly as it 
 is, and therefore we all perceive it alike. But Locke 
 admits that the outer world may be modified in certain 
 aspects, — colour, smell, sound, taste, — but in other 
 more fundamental respects remain unchanged. Ac- 
 cording to this view, man is the measure of colours, 
 smells, sounds, and tastes, but not of sizes and shapes. 
 As to the negative part of this proposition there is 
 difference of opinion ; but the truth of the positive part 
 is universally acknowledged. 
 
 Though man is thus admitted to be the measure of 
 all things of sense impression, he is only a measure for 
 himself. As a standard of measurement, he is there- 
 fore a failure, and ingenious people have been driven 
 to attempt to reduce human measures to a com- 
 mon denominator. Certain forms of sense impression 
 lend themselves readily to arithmetical calculation. 
 Colours and sounds vary according to the number of 
 vibrations within a given time, and it has been found 
 possible to fix a maximum and a minimum of vibrations 
 for each individual within which the sense operates, 
 while above and below those limits the vibrations pro- 
 duce no effect. The difference between individuals as 
 
THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 69 
 
 thus tested is sometimes very great, amounting to 
 thousands of vibrations per second. Instruments are 
 being invented and perfected for still more accurately- 
 determining such differences. To this class belong the 
 algometer and the plethismograph mentioned in last 
 chapter. 
 
 Every one is familiar with the fact that observers in 
 astronomical stations have to be examined in order to 
 get what is called their "personal equation." This 
 indicates the rate of speed at which a disturbance 
 passes along the nerves to and from the brain, and the 
 relative slowness or quickness has to be allowed for in 
 all calculations based on the observations of the person 
 whose " personal equation " is in question. ^ 
 
 The familiar use of this convenient phrase as trans- 
 ferred to all sorts of circumstances, is a kind of philo- 
 logical argument in favour of Protagoras' doctrine as 
 applied beyond the sphere of mere sense impression. 
 This supports the Herbartian doctrine which applies 
 Protagoras' principle even in cases in which the sense 
 impressions do not differ. Assuming the • impossible 
 case of two men who have their whole physical organi- 
 zation absolutely alike, we cannot assume that they will 
 &,pperceive the same idea in absolutely the same way. 
 The way in which an idea is apperceived depends upon 
 the ideas already in the apperceiving soul, and the man- 
 ner in which they are arranged in that soul. As this 
 can never be exactly the same in any two souls, it 
 follows that no two persons can ever have precisely 
 the same idea of anything. No doubt in certain cases 
 the difference may be very slight, yet identity is im- 
 
70 THE HEKBAETIAN PSTCH0L06Y 
 
 possible; while wide differences are the rule, not the 
 exception. 
 
 It may be objected that if this be so, the work of the 
 world could not be carried on ; we would always be at 
 cross-purposes with each other. Language would be- 
 come an inipossibility if we did not attach the same 
 meaning to the terms we use. 
 
 When we wish to express the extreme of contentious 
 contradiction on the part of any one, we say that he 
 would maintain that black was white. Yet this classic 
 case of absolute difference might, for all we know to 
 the contrary, represent" merely a difference of apper- 
 ception masses. What is black to me may appear 
 white to you, and yet neither of us know that he has a 
 conception different from the other. When I utter the 
 word black, the impression white may always arise in 
 your soul ; when I say white, the opposite. One is apt 
 to suppose at first sight that the ordinary intercourse 
 of life could not be carried on without at once bringing 
 to light the difference between our impressions. 
 
 But consider. You ask me to black your boots, and 
 expect me to bring the whiting pail to do it with. But 
 you forget that your black boots appear to me to be 
 white, so I get my whiting bottle, which is your black- 
 ing bottle, and no trouble arises. In other words, I 
 call all white things black, and all black things white; 
 and so long as I do this consistently, no confusion can 
 arise : — 
 
 " We called the chess-board black, we call it white. " 
 
 Further illustration of this point will be given later. 
 In the meantime it is important to observe that(apper- 
 
THE HBEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 71 
 
 ception is not mere perception. It is perception in tlw' 
 light of the whole present content of the soul J The whole 
 available apperception masses of the soul fall upon the 
 new material, and work it up into a new compound. ' 
 
 Each new idea that enters the soul either encounters 
 friends there or straightway falls under the threshold. 
 When I write the word hiro, the idea that rises in re- 
 sponse, in the soul of the reader, probably meets no 
 welcoming idea, and if no more be said, the idea of hiro 
 wanders slowly down and down till it disappears below 
 the threshold, in all probability never to return. But 
 if I teU you that it is the only Red Indian verb I know, 
 you at once find it a place in the apperception mass 
 which is gathered round the idea Med Indian; the 
 apperception mass connected with verb also hurries up 
 to welcome the new idea. When you are told further 
 that the meaning of the word is " I have spoken," a 
 fresh set of apperception masses begins to take an 
 interest in the new idea. One of those masses has to 
 do with grammatical constructions and with vocal 
 sounds ; another, and in this case the more important, 
 deals with Fenimore Cooper and his braves, who always 
 conclude their speeches, as every well-educated school- 
 boy knows, with the classic words, the sort of Red 
 Indian Amen — I have spoken. When the further in- 
 formation is supplied that this word was used by the 
 Mohawks, and that the Frenchmen who first came in 
 contact with this troublesome tribe, misled by the fre- 
 quency with which the word was used, thought it had 
 something to do with the name of the people, and 
 called them Iroquois, the chances are that the word 
 
72 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Mro will represent an idea that has a firm hold in the 
 mind, and that thereafter it will have sufficient present- 
 ative activity to spring into the dome as soon as any 
 of its newly formed acquaintances make their appear- 
 ance there. 
 
 We see that the same idea holds a place in very 
 different apperception masses. It may belong to sev- 
 eral powerful masses, and to many feeble masses. But 
 in those masses it may occupy a very different place. 
 Take, for example, the idea Herhart, which we will 
 assume to have been just now apperceived; that is, it is 
 taken into your mind and has had its place fixed among 
 the ideas there assembled. Take the case of a young and 
 not very well-read teacher. In his mind Serbart takes 
 its place in the apperception mass that clusters round 
 the idea of school management. In that mass the idea 
 holds rather a high rank, and as often as school man- 
 agement holds the dome of consciousness the idea of 
 Serhart has an exceedingly good chance to reach the 
 summit. But the idea also has a place in other ap- 
 perception masses where its rank is of the humblest. 
 It holds a very subordinate place in the mass that in- 
 cludes lectures of all sorts ; it hovers over the surface 
 of the mass that centres in biography ; it has a very 
 slight claim on the mass gathered round the idea of 
 man in general ; it holds an average place among the 
 dense masses that represent the dimly known and none 
 too pleasant. 
 
 In the mind of the well-informed teacher the idea of 
 Herhdrt has a much better chance. It ranks in the 
 apperception masses corresponding to Germany, phi- 
 
THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 73 
 
 losophers, educationists, theorists, faddists, training, 
 American Review, De Garmo, Froebel, Socrates, and an 
 etcetera that would require a volume to fill out. 
 / On this view the function of the teacher becomes 
 ' clear ; for, unlike most Psychologies, Herbart's has an 
 obvious and immediate bearing upon education. | The^ 
 soul is in the teacher's hands, inasmuch as the apper- 
 ception masses can be made and modified by the 
 teacher. ; The mind is no doubt active, very active, but 
 this activity can be regulated by what has gone before 
 in the experience of the soul in question. 
 
 This word activity has been used by writers on this 
 subject in a very loose way, so loose, indeed, that Bradley 
 calls it "scandalous." To keep our position clear, we 
 cannot do better than adopt the definition of G. F. 
 Stout in his Analytic Psychology : ;" Mental activity 
 exists when and so far as process in consciousness is 
 the direct outcome of previous process in conscious- 
 ness."^' If the mind is active in this sense, it is hard 
 to find room for any interference on the part of the 
 teacher. But Stout a few pages farther on goes on to 
 say " It is impossible to find any bit of mental process 
 which is determined purely from within." ^ 
 
 Given a certain idea, the soul must act upon it in a 
 certain way, and with this the teacher cannot interfere. 
 The present process of consciousness is determined by 
 previous processes. The child who comes to school at, 
 say, five years of age brings with him an enormous 
 number of limitations of the teacher's power. Every 
 idea in that little head is a force with which the teacher 
 1 Op. cit., p. 148, Vol. I. 2 Page 155. 
 
74 THE HEUBARTIAif PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 must reckon. His first duty is obviously to discover 
 as much as possible about the contents of John's soul. 
 Only so far as he succeeds in this is he able to under- 
 stand the reaction of John's soul upon any given idea. 
 The very inevitableness of the soul's reaction is the 
 teacher's chief aid. Here he finds the fulcrum for his 
 lever. The rest of his work is actual building up, 
 edification. ^ 
 
 Herbart's view of the comparatively greater activity 
 of the ideas than of the soul on which they react is 
 quite in keeping with the statements of writers of op- 
 posing schools. The associationists always admit that 
 the soul is far from being the master of, its ideas. 
 Then, in his Principles of Psychology,'^ W. James quotes 
 with approval from Hodgson and Bain. Says Hodg- 
 son : " Volition has no power of calling up images, but 
 only of rejecting and selecting from those offered by 
 spontaneous redintegration." ^ Bain's statement is: 
 "The outgoings of the mind are necessarily random. 
 The end alone is clear to the view, and with that there 
 is a perception of the fitness of every passing sugges- 
 tion. The volitional energy keeps up the attention on 
 the active search, and the moment that anything in 
 point rises before the mind, it springs upon that like 
 a wild beast upon its prey." 
 
 It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this 
 view from the teacher's standpoint. If the mind must 
 wait till the right idea comes along, what an enormous 
 importance must be attached to the theory of appercep- 
 
 1 Page 589, Vol. I. 
 
 2 Hodgson uses the term in the Hamiltonian sense. 
 
THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 75 
 
 tion masses. If the idea that the soul ought to choose 
 is not there to choose, what can the soul do but choose 
 amiss?/ Here Herbartianism appears to great advan- 
 tage. [(During the process of education when the soul 
 happens to be on the lookout for a certain idea, the 
 teacher, knowing what is going on in the soul, and the 
 laws according to which its mechanism works, can 
 readily increase the presentative activity of the idea in 
 question, and send it right up to the dome, where, as 
 Bain would say, it is seized as by a wild beast, and 
 assimilated." ^ 
 
 In the other and more important case, the case of the > 
 pupil who has finished what is known as his education, 
 the results of the Herbartian method are seen to even 
 greater advantage. ^TXhe best-educated human being is 
 he who has the biggest and best-arranged apperception^ 
 masses dealing with the life he is likely to lead. yfTa^ 
 the case of a young doctor before a sudden " accident " 
 case. If he cannot at will call up the idea that is 
 likely to be of most service to him, but can recognize 
 it when it appears, it obviously follows that he is 
 utterly dependent on his masses. If the right idea 
 does not form part of one of his important masses, it 
 may never reach the threshold at all, or only too late to 
 be of any practical use. A doctor's usefulness, then, 
 depends not merely upon the number of ideas he has in 
 his soul, but also and even more upon the way in which 
 they have been grouped so as to suggest each other at 
 the proper moment. So with what is usually known as 
 conduct, in the moral sense. What do we mean when 
 we say that a man is under temptation ? Is it not simply 
 
76 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 a name for the state of a man within whose soul passes 
 a series of ideas each seeking realization, yet each, re- 
 garded from a certain point of view, evil ? If powerful, 
 compact, well-organized masses of moral ideas are present 
 in the mind, the isolated, though intrinsically powerful, 
 ideas of evil are rapidly dismissed. The momentary 
 presentative activity of the evil idea sends it momen- 
 tarily over its dynamical threshold up to the very sum- 
 mit, but equilibrium is soon restored by the contrary 
 ideas of good arresting the evil idea, and. allowing the 
 idea of good to rise into the dome by immediate recall. 
 The state of a soul that is ill-supplied with good ideas 
 calls for little comment. Such a soul can hardly be 
 said to be tempted. The soul must be continually 
 choosing among the ideas presented to it, and if the 
 supply of good ideas is inadequate, it must of necessity 
 choose the evil. 
 
 Dr. Paulhan has, by quite a different route, arrived 
 at pretty much the same conclusions as Herbart in the 
 matter of the systematization of ideas. Starting from 
 the English association position, with which he was once 
 in full accord, he worked his way to his two great laws. 
 First, the law of systematic association: " Every psychi- 
 cal fact tends to associate to itself, and cause to develop, 
 the psychical facts which may harmonize with it, which 
 may strive with it towards a common goal or for 
 complementary ends, which, along with it, may be able 
 to form a system." ^ 
 
 The second law deals with inhibition or arrest: 
 "Every psychical phenomenon tends to prevent the 
 1 L'Activite Mentale, p. 88. 
 
THE HEBBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 77 
 
 production or development, or to cause the disappear- 
 ance of psychical phenomena which cannot be united to 
 itself according to the law of systematic association, 
 that is to say, which cannot be united with it for a 
 common end."i 
 
 Those two laws, with the principle of finality to bind 
 them together, give Paulhan a system that practically 
 coincides with Herbartianisra, and which, while thus 
 strengthening the Herbartian conclusions, should also 
 diminish the Herbartian pretensions. 
 
 On yet another point recent Psychology is quite in 
 accord with the Herbartian. The mind is no longer 
 regarded as a mere succession of states. The word 
 continuum, as found in Ward and elsewhere, has become 
 popular. We do not now treat each thought as it 
 arises as the whole content of the soul at that moment. 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes makes a marvel of our having 
 three distinct trains of thought going on at the same 
 time. /''There is the surface thought as represented by 
 the not too interesting conversation that we are carry- 
 ing on; underneath is the series of reflections in which 
 we criticise the man who is boring us with his talk and 
 pity ourselves for having to make talk to him; at the 
 very depths of our being is the growling refrain of 
 duty neglected, warning us that all this upper talking 
 is very well in its way, but if we do not mind we shall 
 be "Late at Lecture, Late at Lecture.'*] 
 
 What Holmes treats as very wonderful is now the 
 commonplace of Psychology. We, indeed, push the 
 thing farther, and ask why stop at three trains of 
 1 L'Activite Mentale, p. 221. 
 
78 THE HBBBARTIAN PSyCHOLOGY 
 
 thought? Why should we limit the number at all? 
 We used to smile incredulously when we read of 
 Csesar doing four things at once, but Psychology has 
 got far beyond that stage, and tells us weird tales 
 of consciousness being divided up into perfectly inde- 
 pendent sections, which can be switched off and on 
 after the fashion of the electric light. 
 
 Interesting as this ill-understood pathological hypno- 
 tism may be, it does not as yet concern us. The nor- 
 mal consciousness, with which alone the teacher has to 
 do, may remain an organic whole, and yet admit of the 
 coexistence within it of ideas in very different stages 
 of clearness. Writers whose general principles are 
 quite opposed to those of Herbart have adopted a clas- 
 sification of ideas thoroughly in keeping with his theo- 
 ries. Professor James figures consciousness under the 
 form of a wave, and Professor Lloyd Morgan, iii his 
 admirable Introduction to Comparative Psychology, works 
 out this figure in all its details, and even goes the 
 length of giving a plan, elevation, and cross-section of 
 the wave .of consciousness.-' All ideas that are on the 
 pointed crest of this wave are said to hQ focal; all ideas 
 in the body of the wave are classed as marginal or sub- 
 conscious. At a certain depth the wave is crossed by 
 a line, named in Herbartian language the Threshold 
 of Consciousness. Below the threshold the wave is 
 still continued, but the ideas in this portion are labelled 
 infrorconscious or extra-marginal. " This infra-conscious- 
 ness," he says,^ "is, in my view, not merely negar 
 tive but something positive and existent — what, for 
 1 Op. cit., pp. 13 and 14. " Ibid., p. 34. 
 
THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 79 
 
 want of better terms, we may call the not-yet or not- 
 quite conscious, and yet of the same order of existence 
 as that which lies above the threshold." All this is 
 quite in the lines of the Herbartian system, even to 
 the infra-conscious elements which clearly correspond 
 to ideas below the dynamical threshold as opposed to 
 those under the statical.' 
 
 It must be remembered that Professor Morgan ex- 
 plains his phenomena on quite other principles than 
 those found in Herbart. But those principles, impor- 
 tant and interesting as they undoubtedly are, do not 
 concern us here, any more than do the mathematical 
 parts of Herbart's Psychology, which we have up till 
 now shamefully neglected. Herbart believed that the 
 whole of the mental action and reaction could be set 
 forth in mathematical equations. This, indeed, is a 
 fundamental part of his system, as set forth in the title 
 of his Psychology as a Science founded for the First Time 
 on Experience, Metaphysics, and Mathematics. Even if 
 Kant were wrong in his demonstration of the impossi- 
 bility of ever reducing Psychology to the rank of an 
 exact natural science, Herbart was premature in his 
 attempt. Thirty-six years more were to elapse before 
 
 1 The community between the two systems is further shown by the 
 ease with which both may be applied to the needs of education. In 
 his practical and, despite the subject and title, most interesting Psy- 
 chology for Teachers, Professor Morgan has laid down a body of 
 educational principles which might have veiy well been built upon 
 Herbartian foundations. The book is of great value in itself, but 
 from our point of view it has the additional advantage of establishing 
 our positions by the indirect evidence of a writer who has come to his 
 conclusions by an entirely different line of argument. 
 
80 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Fechner succeeded in failing in the same enterprise ; 
 and even yet there are those who are not quite sure 
 that Psychology has attained to the accuracy of the 
 unanimous science of Numbers. In any case, we find 
 it convenient to omit this part of Herbart's work alto- 
 gether. His involution and evolution of thought by 
 numbers, and his arrangement of ideas in series, have a 
 terribly convincing air to the non-mathematical mind. 
 But my readers will be happier without this side of 
 Herbart, though no doubt the old philosopher would 
 turn in his grave did he know that we were dropping 
 what he considered the most essential part of his work. 
 It is not givei;! even to mathematical philosophers to 
 understand fully the Perspective of Life. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 
 
 " All babies are born good," says Lord Palmerston,^ 
 echoing the sentiment that with Rousseaii passed for 
 philosophy, and that Wordsworth worked up into 
 standard poetry. It is true that the Chinese, with 
 that exasperating way of theirs, have anticipated this 
 thought, and embodied it in their first reading-book. 
 What we regard as a rather smart remark they have 
 reduced to the lowest level of the commonplace ; for 
 the very first sentence a little Chinaman reads in his 
 Standard I. Celestial Reader is : — 
 
 " Men at their birth are by nature radically good." 
 
 Long before this opinion gained ground in the West,^ 
 at an early period in the world's history, when wisdom 
 must have been much more uncommon than now (out- 
 side of China, be it always understood), a certain Bias 
 of Priene earned his place among the Seven Wise Men 
 of Greece by proclaiming the depressing truth : Moat 
 men are had. 
 
 Any teacher who ventures to place those two state- 
 ments side by side, and draw the natural inference, 
 must feel called upon to take his place in the dock and 
 plead. For the period between babyhood and manhood 
 
 > Vide Spencer, Education, p. 96. 
 
 ' F. V. N. Painter, History of Education, p. 12. 
 
 o 81 
 
82 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 is precisely the period for which the teacher is responsi- 
 ble. If we spend our lives in turning good babies into 
 bad men, then is our craft, indeed, in danger. 
 
 Before putting in the necessary plea of " Not guilty," 
 we would question. the validity of the charge. Before 
 trying a man for murder, it is well to see that the 
 corpse is really dead. As a provisional plea, we admit 
 that we are responsible for the school life of the afore- 
 said baby who has turned out a bad man — quoad ultra, 
 denied. In other words, all babies are not born good, 
 and most men are not bad. Certainly the M^es who 
 come to our schools have left far behind them the 
 clouds of glory they are credited with trailing after 
 them from the higher realm from, which they have 
 come. As a counter plea, if we were ill-natured, we 
 might carry the war into the enemies' country, and 
 bring up the artillery of the good old-fashioned doc- 
 trine of Original Sin. In the light of Total Depravity, 
 we can not only throw off the responsibility for the 
 most men who are bad, but we may actually claim 
 some, at least, of the credit for the minority who are 
 good.i 
 
 All this we feel to be mere skirmishing ; but there 
 are those who take the matter more seriously. The 
 Jesuits are said to have proclaimed that if they were 
 entrusted with the first seven years of a child's life, 
 they cared not who attended to the remainder of his 
 education. He would be a Jesuit to the end of his 
 
 1 Cf. Comenius, Great Didactic, Chap. V., where he quotes Seneca : 
 " Man is, not good, but becomes so, as, mindful of his origin, he strives 
 toward equality with God." 
 
THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 83 
 
 days. Comenius, too, expressed the opinion of a large 
 section of the teachers of his time, when he said that 
 the main work of a school is man-making. " I call a 
 school that fulfils its function perfectly, one which is a 
 true officina hominum"^ a man manufactory. 
 
 Uncomfortable tales, also, come floating up from 
 antiquity to show that old world opinion was strongly 
 on Comenius' side. We have all heard, not without 
 indignation, of the "whipping boy," whose unhallowed 
 hide paid the penalty every time his young master, the 
 Lord's Anointed, strayed from the paths of virtue. 
 But there are darker tales still, and of more evil omen 
 for us, which tell of masters being punished for the 
 sins of their pupils — a most objectionable form of pay- 
 ment by results. In China, where we have seen that 
 men are " by nature radically good," the master seems 
 to be held personally responsible for any change in this 
 highly desirable state of affairs. With a fine devotion 
 to logical consistency, those Chinamen, in cases of parri- 
 cide, execute, we are told, not only the parricide himself, 
 but also his teacher. 
 
 On Froebelian principles it is certainly very irra- 
 tional to hang a master because his pupil has committed 
 a murder ; but if Herbart is to be followed, the case for 
 the master is not so clear. This matter decidedly needs 
 looking into, and must be settled before we commit 
 ourselves irrevocably to Herbartianism. We must run 
 no risks in choosing our Psychology. 
 
 Since the soul of the pupil has originally, according 
 to Herbart, " no capacity nor faculty whatever, either 
 1 The Great Didactic, Chap. XI., sec. 1. 
 
84 THE HEBBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 to receive or to produce anything," since all changes iv 
 this soul result from its reaction upon ideas presented 
 to it, and since the master can choose the ideas to be 
 presented, and can modify and arrange them, there 
 seems to be a primd facie case, for those who wish to 
 hang the teachers of bad men. 
 
 We may, indeed» — as most educators do, — decline, 
 to accept Herbart's metaphysical conception of the 
 soul, while firmly holding to his psychological posi- 
 tions. Yet even with this limitation, the Herbartian 
 theory brings with it an enormous responsibility for 
 the master. 
 
 Rousseau shirks this responsibility by allowing the 
 child to grow up without any interference. The main 
 duty of the teacher during the early years of the 
 pupil's life is — as our school-management books take a 
 special pride in repeating — to learn how wisely to lose 
 time. The teacher is not to educate the child; he is 
 merely to answer questions and give such explanations 
 as are asked. A French cynic tells us that a cat does 
 not caress us.; it only caresses itself against us. In 
 Rousseau's system of education, the master exists to be 
 rubbed against. Such a master should run no danger 
 of hanging, even in China. One does not whip the 
 teething coral when the baby breaks the milk bottle. 
 
 The Froebelian is equally safe. If the teacher is but 
 a benevolent superintendent of the process of develop- 
 ment which he allows to follow its own course, he can- 
 not with any show of justice be hanged. We must on 
 Froebelian principles go back many generations before 
 we find a fit subject for the hangman. 
 
THE THEORY OP INITIAL EQUALITY 85 
 
 The Herbartian cannot adopt either of those safe 
 plans. He must do positive work. [_To do nothing 
 may be as harmful as to do something positively evil> 
 To refrain from regulating the supply and organization 
 of ideas, results as certainly in a bad soul as to supply 
 useless ideas badly arranged. He who is not for the 
 child is against him. Nor are there any innate facul- 
 ties behind which the teacher may shelter himself and 
 hide his bungled work. There must be no complaints 
 against the quality of the material supplied. In so far 
 as the master is the sole educator of the child, in so 
 far is he directly responsible for the kind of child 
 turned out. If a teacher really wishes to magnify his 
 office, and is not afraid to pay the price, he cannot do 
 better than turn Herbartian. 
 
 It is not enough to smile at this man-making theory. 
 Even a sneer is not quite satisfactory. It is to be 
 remembered — and this argument ought to soothe the 
 votary of common sense — that the experiment has 
 never been made. " Psychology may not experiment 
 with men,"^ says Herbart, and though exception may 
 be taken on certain grounds to the general application 
 of the restriction, there will be unanimous consent that 
 certain direct experiments will not be tolerated. The 
 beginnings of language, the nature of sense perception, 
 the relation between perception and conception, would 
 all be much better understood if we were but allowed ' 
 to make a few direct experiments, which might involve 
 some sacrifice of natural human development. But 
 the times that Herodotus so simply describes are past, 
 1 Pay., Intro., 4. 
 
86 THE HEKBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and such experiments are no longer possible. But 
 there are other causes why the experiment of man- 
 making has not yet been tried. The experiment would 
 probably not be to the advantage of the subject, but it 
 certainly could only be performed at an enormous out- 
 lay of time and labour on the part of the experimenter. 
 Not till we are ready to act upon the hard saying of 
 Froebel, " Let us live for our children," can the experi- 
 ment be tried. It is literally a case of a life for a life. 
 The teacher would require to devote absolutely every 
 moment of twenty-one years to the pupil, in order that 
 when the pupil came of age he might be exactly the 
 sort of man the master wished to make of him. Besides 
 the terrible demand in the matter of time, the experi- 
 ment could not be successful unless the master had 
 the complete control of the pupil's environment. Obvi- 
 ously the experiment is out of the question. 
 
 This is the less to be regretted that, even if success- 
 ful, the experiment could have none but the most 
 ghastly results. What happened to Frankenstein 
 from the physiological side would happen to the Her- 
 bartian from the psychological. The "man" thus 
 made would be a monster — if not of badness, then of 
 goodness, but none the less a monster. We could not 
 deny the creature a soul, since the soul is given in the 
 recipe for man-making, but the monster could have no 
 ■power of spontaneous action ; it would be nothing but 
 ' a good-going virtue machine. 
 
 Even the very limited claims put forward in this di- 
 rection at once draw down upon the teacher the most 
 severe judgments. The critics want to know, since the 
 
THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 87 
 
 Herbartians can make men, why they do not make a 
 better job of them. Why are not all men honest, true, 
 happy, and clever, if it is only a matter of supplying 
 the proper ideas at the proper times ? 
 
 The very obvious reply is that even granting that 
 man-making were possible, tjwe knew the proper ideas 
 and the proper times to apply them, it does not follow 
 that we know either the suitable ideas or the fitting 
 times. A man may surely claim to be a Herbartian 
 without setting up to be omniscient. 
 
 More moderate and sympathetic critics may not be in- 
 clined to push the Herbartian principles to such extreme 
 issues, yet are inclined to ask whether the position of 
 soul-making does not imply a fundamental equality of 
 the souls operated upon. " Are all men equal at birth ? " 
 such critics are wont to ask in a tone that suggests only 
 one possible answer. One would think that nowhere 
 outside of the Declaration of Independence could the 
 assertion be found that all men are equal, and particu- 
 larly no teacher could be expected to support such a 
 paradox. 
 
 Before going into the general question, it is worth 
 while to note that Herbart has guarded himself against 
 this criticism. The soul with which he starts has, no 
 doubt, no capacity whatever, and therefore it may fairly 
 be maintained that all souls are equal, at the start. This 
 admission does not at all inconvenience the Herbartian. 
 \FoT the soul can only be roused to activity by its reac- 
 tion upon ideas presented to it. yThese ideas must, in 
 the first instance, be presented through the senses ; the 
 senses depend upon the body, and Herbart did not 
 
88 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 maintain that the body has no capacity nor faculty 
 whatever — and the rest. There is thus plenty of 
 room for the Herbartian to turn about in, without 
 getting caught in the paradox. 
 
 But, after all, is there anything so very heinous in 
 the assumption that all men are born intellectually 
 equal? Does it amount to a reductio ad absurdum, 
 when a system can be shown to involve the assertion 
 that all men are born equal in intelligence ? 
 
 The apparently absurd thesis of the initial equality 
 of men is at least not left without its supporters. A 
 witty German called Schweitzer, who had risen to a po- 
 sition of some importance in France under the Latinized 
 version of his name, Helvetius, published in 1758 a book 
 entitled Be V Esprit. In it he explicitly states and fully 
 works out the thesis that all men are born intellectually 
 equal. With him all intellectual life, when reduced to 
 its simplest elements, can be resolved into the interac- 
 tion of sense impressions. All our higher functions of 
 thought, feeling, desire, or will, are evolved out of, and 
 may be expressed in terms of those sense impressions, 
 which are indeed the ultimate elements, the final surds, 
 of the Helvetian Psychology. Ignorant of the modern 
 psychometric methods, unfamiliar even with the obvious 
 application to Psychology of the physiology of the nerve 
 centres, it is not so very wonderful that Helvetius fell 
 into the glaring non-sequitur that since sense impres- 
 sions are the foundation of all knowledge, and since 
 we are all capable of receiving sense impressions, there- 
 fore we are all at birth intellectually equal. 
 
 Even a philosopher cannot afford altogether to disre- 
 
THE THEOEY OP INITIAL EQUALITY 89 
 
 gard the actual state of affairs, that state with which 
 our experience makes us familiar. (In real life men 
 differ so notoriously that Helvetius found it necessary 
 to discover some explanation of the change from initial 
 equality, to ultimate difference. For us his answer is 
 momentous. It is all a matter of education and environ- 
 ment.^^ Men are born intellectually equal, no doubt. 
 But they soon begin to differ because of their varying 
 desire for instruction. To stop with this explanation 
 is obviously impossible. Whence comes this difference 
 in desire, if all the souls are the same ? Helvetius 
 is clea.rly reasoning in a circle, but he has the grace 
 to see that his circle has an indecently small radius. ' 
 Accordingly he proceeds to add an elongator to 
 his compasses. This desire for instruction originates 
 he tells us, in the impelling force of passions, of which 
 all men commonly well-organized are susceptible in the 
 same degree. Maintaining a kindly blindness to the 
 almost impudent begging of the question implied in 
 the italicized words, we are still unable to see that any 
 advance has been made. We are precisely where we 
 started from. We want next to know how it comes 
 
 1 "... la difference d'esprit qu'on remarque entr'eux depend des 
 
 diverses circonstances dans lesquelles ils se trouvent places, et I'^duca- 
 
 tion diff^rente qu'ils resolvent. Cette conclusion fait sentir toute 
 
 I'importance de 1' Education." — Disoours III. 
 
 His explanation of tlie scarcity of geniuses is clever, if not very conclusive : "Lea 
 talents compagoards sont toujours condamn^s h la mMiocrit6." This at once rids him 
 of all the population of France except the 800,000 who then made up the population of 
 Paris. His next limitation explains why this note is printed in such small type. Of the 
 800,000 "Ton en supprime la moitiS, c'est ^ dire, les femmes, dont Teducation et la vie 
 s'opposent, au progr^s qu'elies pourraient faire dans les sciences et lea arts." When 
 Helvetius has further subtracted old men, children, workmen, soldiers, monks, and 
 others who have no time, or who have other desires than esprit^ he concludes that the 
 remainder will not be too large for the number of geniuses then existing in France. 
 
90 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 about that those passions to which we are all equally 
 susceptible arouse in some of us a desire for instruction, 
 and in others do not. 
 
 The fact is that the book De V Esprit should never 
 have been taken seriously. It was far from being a 
 failure. Written to cause a sensation, from this point 
 of view it was a brilliant success. For a few months 
 it set all Europe by the ears, and roused a storm of in- 
 dignation that wrung three separate recantations from 
 the frightened author. Its short but merry life came 
 to an untimely end at the hands of the common hang- 
 man. 
 
 What Helvetius maintained for the sake of effect, 
 Jacotot, a teacher and a good one, adopted in dead 
 earnest as a rational explanation of phenomena he had 
 observed. [ Even the sober-minded Dr. Thomas Arnold, 
 of Rugby, makes the remark that he finds boys differ 
 not so much in intellectual power as in energy.) The 
 same observation in the experience of the enthusiastic 
 Frenchman at once led him to make the absolute state- 
 ment: " Tous les hommes ont une intelligence 6gale." ^ 
 Like Helvetius, Jacotot held that the great differences 
 we observe among men in mature life are the direct 
 result of education; but with him education really 
 meant self-education. We can all become Racines and 
 Moli^res if we only have the desire. ^ It is aU a matter 
 of will. The schoolmaster has very little to do with it. 
 
 1 Preface to first edition of Enseignement Universel. The refer- 
 ences to the Enseignement Universel are indicated by the pages of the 
 seventh edition, dated Paris, 1852. 
 
 2 Page 104. 
 
THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 91 
 
 The " seven years' system," as he is never tired of nam- 
 ing the course of school instruction common in his time 
 (he died in 1840), does harm instead of good to the in- 
 tellect subjected to it. In his letter to Lafayette he 
 asserts: "Every one who is taught [by another] is 
 only half a man." -^ 
 
 On the other hand, he is bitterly opposed to the doc- 
 trine that recognizes inherent powers that show them- 
 selves independently of all education. "Away with 
 Genius" is his continual cry. " Be it understood that 
 the pupil is always to point out the fact that has iur 
 spired this reflection ; otherwise he has wandered from 
 the Universal Method of instruction. He works by 
 Genius, that is to say, by groping and blindly : he is 
 sure of nothing. "1 
 
 While the ordinary forms of education are tedious 
 and hurtful, the pupils must not presume to do with- 
 out education altogether. They will get along all 
 right without our help.^ But while "a master is never 
 necessary to man," he is " infinitely useful " ^ to him. 
 Jacotot takes up pretty much the same stand-by atti- 
 tude as the Froebelians, but he has not their justifica- 
 tion. He has no good reason why pupils should not 
 educate themselves, yet he cannot let thefn alone. His 
 attitude towards them amounts to this : " I cannot 
 teach you, nor can any other one. You must, in the 
 last resort, teach yourselves, but see that you do it 
 according to the method I have laid down." This 
 
 1 Page 131. 
 
 2 " Je dis que l'616ve ira bien sans vous." — p. 120. 
 « Page 304. 
 
92 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 reminds one of Sganarelle's injunction to his patient 
 to take care not to die without the doctor's orders. 
 
 Leaving theory for a little, what does our actual 
 experience tell us of the equality of intelligence in the 
 ordinary school ? Dr. Stewart, one of Her Majesty's 
 Chief Inspectors of Schools for Scotland, who is deeply 
 interested in this matter and has had exceptional oppor- 
 tunities of judging, gives it as his opinion that five per 
 cent of clever boys and five per cent of dunces is an 
 ample allowance. The remaining ninety per cent are 
 average. If this be true of children after several years 
 of education at school, to say nothing of the first five 
 years of home life (by far the most important in the 
 formation of the child's mind and heart), there seems 
 no primd facie objection to the theory of equality at 
 birth. 
 
 Further, the estimated percentage of blockheads and 
 clever pupils is determined according to a very narrow 
 standard. The test is a purely literary one. If swim- 
 ming were a test as in ancient Athens, or archery as 
 in the knightly training, there might still be the five 
 per cent of dunces and geniuses, but they would cer- 
 tainly not be the same five per cent that our present 
 test gives. It has become a commonplace that the dux 
 at school is by no means the most likely to do well in 
 after life.^ School calls out altogether different quali- 
 ties from those demanded in what is known as real 
 life. Every teacher can call up scores of cases in 
 which the dull John has completely outshone the clever 
 one. Simply to give point to an argument that no 
 1 Cf. Jaootot's sarcasm, p. 206. 
 
THE THEOKY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 93 
 
 teacher will oppose, think of young Walter Scott, the 
 dunce of his class, the boy "who could never thoroughly 
 master the Greek alphabet. So widespread was the 
 tale of his early stupidity that poor Sir Walter in later 
 years was forced with humorous pathos to maintain in 
 his diary that he was not such a blockhead after all. 
 No teacher, at least, will be unwilling to admit his plea. 
 We know too well, that everything depends upon what 
 the inspector takes John on. Had young Walter been 
 tested on Scottish history instead of Greek characters. 
 Biography would have had a different tale to tell. 
 
 Reverting to our five per cent of clever and dull 
 children, we have to remark that the proposition is 
 generally taken for granted " once a blockhead always 
 a blockhead." In other words, the time element is 
 usually left out in considerations of this kind. But 
 £cases are frequent in which a really dull boy suddenly 
 brightens up, and others in which the genius seems to 
 have burnt itself out in a boyj Physiology has a good 
 deal to say on this subject. It may not be absolutely 
 true that mental development advances in inverse ratio 
 to the rate of growth of the body, but there is enough 
 truth in it to modify the " always a blockhead " theory. 
 How often do we see a sudden arrest of mental devel- 
 opment accompanying a sudden spurt of bodily growth. 
 Other things being equal, I would be prepared to back 
 the undersized boy of a given age against his average- 
 siz^d rival, and of course still more against the boy 
 over the average. 
 
 Passing from this point (which must be recognized 
 as only one of innumerable physiological considerations), 
 
94 THE HBRBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 we come to a purely mental phenomenon, which may 
 be called, for want of a better name, mental conversion. 
 In learning, as in religion, there are gradual conver- 
 sions and sudden. A pupil may learn steadily, show- 
 ing clear progress from day to day. But sometimes - 
 this happens : A boy may appear to be a perfect dunce 
 at some particular subject. He seems to learn hard, 
 but all to no purpose. He puffs and groans over his 
 work, but makes no progress. The teacher sets him 
 down as a hopeless case. Suddenly some morning 
 John wakens up to a belief that he knows his subject 
 at last ; and he does. He may be unable to parse, for 
 example, and yet know the whole of his grammar by 
 rote in a dull, unintelligent way. One nfie inorning 
 the thing dawns upon him. He sees how the affair 
 works. He can parse./ 
 
 Nursery psychologists tell us that something of the 
 same kind may be observed among children in their 
 youngest years. It usually happens that a child learns 
 to speak gradually and by well-defined stages. But 
 occasional cases occur in which the child remains 
 practically mute for an inordinately long time, and 
 then suddenly bursts out into loquacity. 
 
 This mental conversion fits in very comfortably to 
 the Herbartian Psychology. The necessary ideas in 
 any subject are supposed to be duly introduced into 
 the mind, but they have not been united in the proper 
 way to produce the kind of knowledge we desire. The 
 material is all gathered there, and only requires to be 
 brought into the proper relation to produce the effect 
 the master desires. Most people who have travelled 
 
THE THEORY OP INITIAL EQUALITY 95 
 
 6y rail any distance on a rainy day have had a tangible 
 demonstration of the mechanism of mental conversion. 
 We have all beguiled the tedium of the journey by ob- 
 serving the behaviour of the drops of rain that gather 
 on the window-panes of the carriage. Two or three 
 biggish drops start from the top, and make a more or 
 less devious way for themselves down the pane. But 
 most of them do not reach the bottom alone. Sooner 
 or later they coalesce with some other drop or drops, 
 and thus precipitate their descent. Not otherwise do 
 the isolated ideas act. Half a dozen little apperception 
 masses may try to make headway, but ignominiously 
 fail. I Suddenly some unexpected jolt of the mental 
 machinery may do what an unusual jolt of the carriage 
 does for the drops, and a new and powerful group is 
 formed which straightway modifies the teacher's views 
 on the nature of the intellect in which this phenomenon 
 has occurred. 
 
 The teacher cannot afford to be so dogmatic as he 
 usually is on the question of the inherent natural 
 ability of his pupils. Even the least dogmatic teacher, 
 however, may be excused for shrugging his shoulders 
 when Jacotot improves upon his original paradox and 
 maintains^ that not only are all men equal in intelli- 
 gence at the beginning of life, but they remain equal 
 all along. Development of thought, in the usual sense, 
 thus becomes impossible. " I believe that Caesar as a 
 child thought like Caesar on the banks of the Rubicon. 
 I do not believe that thought grows little by little. 
 Little Csesar thought of sweetmeats, and the adult 
 1 Page 208. 
 
96 THE HEEBAETtAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Caesar of crowns, but thought did not vary with its 
 object. There are many things to be learnt — which 
 nothing can make us guess — before knowing what 
 a crown is. May it not be that the cause of the 
 common error arises from our confounding thought, 
 which is natural to us, with its expression, which is an 
 acquisition, and a habit which nothing but exercise 
 can give ? " 
 
 This view is put still more strongly when Jacotot 
 compares not Csesar the child with Caesar the consul, 
 but any child with any man. "We have not all the 
 same tastes, the same dispositions, that is to say, the 
 same will, but the smallest child has the same intellect 
 as the adult Archimedes." ^ In other words, the differ- 
 ence between Newton and an ordinary undergraduate 
 who is ploughed in his mathematics is a moral differ- 
 ence — a difference in will.^ 
 
 While the will is regarded as sufficient to account 
 for all the differences we observe among men, Jacotot 
 does not forget that correlative condition of all devel- 
 opment, — the condition that answers to the big and 
 popular word environment. Listen to another of his 
 paradoxes : " It is precisely because we are all equal 
 by nature, that we become all unequal by circum- 
 stances."^ 
 
 Tastes, dispositions, and will being eliminated, it is 
 
 1 Page 198. 
 
 2 Cf. Helvetius : " C'est done, uniquement dans le moral qu'on doit 
 chercher la veritable cause de I'in^galit^ des esprits." — De V Esprit, 
 Discours III. 
 
 » Page 109. 
 
THE THEORY OP INITIAL EQUALITY 97 
 
 clear that what is left may be called, in a popular sense 
 at least, pure intellect. That this intellect, considered 
 apart from all the other elements of the soul, is equal 
 among all men can hardly be denied, is hardly worth 
 ienying. When the process of elimination has been 
 completed, we find that the intellect we have left does 
 not amount to very much ; to no more, indeed, than 
 the simple undifferentiated being which represents the 
 soul of the Herbartian Psychology. 
 
 This intellect, too, must be considered apart from all 
 ideas or matter of any kind; for as soon as ideas ap- 
 pear, they necessarily bring in their train at least feel- 
 ings, which at once introduce an element of difference. 
 Jacotot has, in a word, emptied the soul of content, and 
 has reduced it to a mere mechanism. That this intel- 
 lect, if s>uch an intellect can be said to exist isolated 
 from all else, is equal " chez tons les hommes," one need 
 not trouble oneself to deny. Such an intellect, though 
 of great interest in educational theory, as we are about 
 to see, is of no consequence in a discussion regarding 
 the equality of souls. If men are born with different 
 wills, they are not born equal in any important sense 
 of the term, whatever may be said about a certain ab- 
 straction called the intelligence. 
 
 It is this • abstract and comparatively unimportant 
 meaning of intellect that underlies all the theories that 
 seem to imply the mental equality of men. Jacotot 
 claims that his views have the support of men like Soc- 
 rates, Newton, Locke, Descartes, Rabelais, Rousseau, 
 and Buffon. He goes further, indeed, and maintains 
 that "Everybody applauds my theory in his inmost 
 
98 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 heart, so long as he thinks of himself. It is the appli- 
 cation of my system to other folks that annoys and 
 worries people." Then he slyly adds : "I have never 
 seen one man who opposed himself in person to the 
 theory, or cited himself as an example of an idiot ; it 
 is always a certain friend, a certain person of their 
 acquaintance, whom they present to me as a proof of 
 the falsehood of my principles." ^ 
 
 To the extent stated above this claim of intellectual 
 equality may be admitted. "When thinking has been 
 reduced to its lowest terms, there is a point at which it 
 may be said to be equal among all men. 
 
 In plying his maigutic art, Socrates tacitly assumed 
 the intellectual equality of all those whose thoughts 
 he brought to the birth. . The slave boy in the Meno 
 ' reasoned out his problem as well as Euclid himself 
 ' could have done, had Euclid been limited to the same 
 scant knowledge as the slave boy possessed. Socrates 
 asked his questions in the firm and justifiable belief 
 that they would be answered in but one way.^ To a 
 mathematical question, the terms of which are under- 
 stood, there is but one answer possible. Thus we do 
 not pause to get the assent of our pupils to the axioms 
 that guard the entrance to Euclid. If John does not 
 see his way to admit that things which are equal to the 
 
 ^ Snseignement Universel, p. 73 (Dijon, 1823). 
 
 2 " Thus Pythagoras used to say that it was so natural for a man to 
 he possessed of all knowledge that a boy of seven years old, if pru- 
 dently questioned on all the problems of philosophy, ought to be able 
 to give a correct answer to each interrogation, since the light of reason 
 is a sufficient standard and measure of all things." — CoMENins, Great 
 Didactic, V. 5. 
 
THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 99 
 
 same thing are equal to one another, we do not try to 
 persuade him. We send him home with a note which, 
 as gently as possible, breaks the news to his father. 
 
 When Locke declared that he could not understand 
 how honest, earnest men who understood the terms 
 could disagree about any proposition, he assumed that, 
 given a clearly expressed statement, no two honest men 
 could disagree about it, since its effect upon the intelli- 
 gence in both cases is the same.^ When Luther laid 
 upon us all the burden implied in the right of private 
 judgment, he really proclaimed the intellectual equal- 
 ity of man, in the sense to which we have narrowed it 
 down. 
 
 Luther leads us upon the thin ice of theological con- 
 troversy, so we hasten to skim over to safer quarters. 
 We cannot work out Luther's principle without intro- 
 ducing disturbing elements with which we have no 
 concern. / Against the argument founded upon the 
 system of trial by jury, no such objection can be raised. 
 Every jury that is empanelled is a confession of our 
 belief in the equality, in some sort, of all men. On 
 what grounds do we regard the ignorant greengrocer 
 and the learned biologist as intellectual equals the 
 moment they find themselves, with other ten men, — 
 or thirteen, as the case may be, — in the jury-box ?) 
 
 Even Jacotot would not maintain that in common 
 
 1 "Being fully persuaded that there are very few things of pure 
 speculation wherein two thinking men who impartially seek truth can 
 differ, if they give themselves the leisure to examine their hypotheses 
 and understand one another."— Letter to W. M., 26 Dec, 1692. 
 Quoted by Quick. 
 
100 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 life, and in common terms, those two men were equal, 
 What difference, then, can the jury-box make ? It 
 makes the important difference of reducing reasoning 
 to a series of judgments. The juryman is not called 
 upon to think, he is only required to judge. Thinking 
 means, or ought to mean, more than a series of judg- 
 ments. All that it means we dare not stop to inquire, 
 but this at least it means, that the mind must arrange 
 the matter presented to it, select the important, and 
 reject the irrelevant. The mind must prepare its own 
 syllogisms, instead of merely tagging on conclusions to 
 other men's premises. The most popular speaker is he 
 who keeps on supplying premises to which the audience 
 keep on adding conclusions in the belief that they are 
 thinking. This mechanical formulation of implied con- 
 clusions is capitally illustrated by that exasperating per- 
 son against whom Thackeray inveiglis, — the man who 
 explains your joke. You have made your dainty point, 
 you have deftly suggested your delicate idea, your cult- 
 ured friends have given the appropriately restrained 
 smile that indicates success. Five minutes afterwards 
 your lumbering joke-expounder comes out with a bald 
 statement of your joke which he regards as something 
 entirely his own. He is simply suppljdng the inevitable 
 conclusion to the premises on which even a joke must 
 be built. 
 
 There are few people who can truly think.^ Take an 
 ordinary intelligent ploughman, who reads his Bible 
 and his People's Journtd, and set him down to think on 
 
 1 Cf. the sympathetic motto of Steinthal's Einleitung : " Denken 1st 
 schwer." 
 
THE THEORY OP INITIAL EQUALITY 101 
 
 a given subject out of his usual run of ideas, say on Con- 
 scription ; and one of two things happens. His mind 
 either wanders from the subject in hopeless reverie, or 
 he falls asleep. He cannot think on Conscription. 
 
 Placed in the jury-box, how does our ploughman 
 fare ? Here he is not asked to think about the case in 
 hand. The judge and the lawyers do all the thinking 
 for him. The facts for the prosecution and the defence 
 are clearly stated by the opposing lawyers, and are 
 supplemented by the evidence of the witnesses. The 
 judge is careful to explain any strange or technical 
 term that may occur, and the juryman is permitted to 
 ask any reasonable question. At the close, the judge 
 sums up the whole case, and reduces it to a simple issue 
 of which all the terms are understood by the jury. 
 Trial by jury is based on the principle that under such 
 circumstances the jury can give but one decision. As- 
 suming, as the law does, that the twelve (or fifteen) men 
 are honest and true, it has a right to expect that their 
 decision will be just. The fact that honest jurymen 
 sometimes err is to be explained, not by denying J,heir 
 ability to decide on an issue clearly placed before them, 
 but by laying bare some disturbing element in the way 
 of interest or emotion. I A judgment entirely free from 
 the influence of feeling is almost an impossibility, but 
 so far as such disturbing elements can be eliminated, 
 all men under identical circumstances will decide alike. ) 
 
 If the judge can be perfectly sure that he is able to' 
 reduce each of his points to an issue that presents 
 precisely the same elements to each juryman, he may 
 with perfect confidence close each of his paragraphs 
 
102 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 with a decision, adding the words the minister uses at 
 baptisms : " That is your belief, is it not ? " And every 
 juryman's head would bow with the characteristic sud- 
 denness that marks a first father. 
 
 Unfortunately, this absolute uniformity of conceiving 
 an issue is practically unattainable. Even a juryman 
 brings to his work a certain amount of organized know- 
 ledge, and must interpret all the presented facts in the 
 light of this knowledge. ^If most people cannot think 
 well, few people can avoid thinking at all.^ If the 
 jury could either think well, or abstain from thinking 
 altogether, and restrict themselves to judging, trial by 
 jury would not be so unpopular with honest lawyers 
 as it undoubtedly is. 
 
 (This distinction between thinking and judging is of 
 the utmost importance , in teaching. '/ Most teachers 
 regard the simplification of a subject as one of their 
 main functions, and will be surprised to hear it main- 
 tained that it is possible to make a subject too clear J 
 Yet if a subject is presented to a pupil in the form, of 
 a series of judgments to which his assent is demanded, 
 there may be clearness, there may be intelligent appre- 
 hension of each fact presented, there may be great 
 interest in the lesson, and yet there may be little real 
 thinking done. ( Mere assent to a series of propositions 
 is not thinking. ) If the teacher has the skill to reduce 
 all his facts to a well-ordered chain of logical issues, 
 he may rely absolutely upon getting a true bill from 
 his young jury every time. But a teacher is not a 
 mere judge, his class not a mere jury. An ingenious 
 mechanician has invented a logic machine into which 
 
THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 103 
 
 you feed premises, and from which, by turning a handle, 
 you duly grind out the corresponding conclusions. 
 How long must the patient experimenter turn the 
 handle before he can educate the machine to think ? 
 
 The modern teacher, like the modern shepherd, must 
 advance with the times. In the Sunday-school, and in 
 the East generally, the shepherd goes before his flock, 
 who patiently and intelligently follow him. [ The shep- 
 herd with whom common life makes us acquainted 
 goes behind, and by the help of a stick and a dog 
 makes the sheep find the way he wishes them to follow.) 
 The older-fashioned teacher, like the older-fashioned 
 shepherd, goes before, and shows the way. The pupils 
 certainly follow, but what they gain by following is 
 not so clear. Even in morals it is not enough that 
 pupils should follow the teacher's example. Most 
 teachers who possess a copy of Chaucer have the page 
 turned down at the description of the "pore persoun 
 of a toun" of whom it is said in words for whose 
 threadbare appearance I feel inclined to apologize : — 
 
 " But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, 
 He taught, and ferst he folwed it himselve." 
 
 To follow the good parson is well, but to follow the 
 lore is better. With regard to the vexed question of 
 example and precept, the higher criticism from the 
 teacher's standpoint is summed up in the apparently 
 indifferent but really modest statement " Don't do as 
 I do ; do as I tell you." It is good to act like Gold- 
 smith's parson, who 
 
 " Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way ; " 
 
104 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 but it is better to see that the flock go in the way. 
 We surely do not want to get to heaven merely to 
 keep the parson company. We must put higher ideals 
 before our youngster^, and, above all, we must see that 
 they apply them. (The newer style of teacher keeps 
 behind, and acts as a vig a tergo to impel the pupils to 
 push on for themselves) As soon as they wander from 
 the path, the teacher is ready with his crook to pull them 
 up sharply, and make them start fair again. By this 
 method he hopes that the pupils will acquire the power 
 of acting for themselves, making many mistakes no 
 doubt, but learning more from their mistakes than from 
 the most faultless imitation. ^ j 
 
 A very general criticism of the schoolmaster's point 
 of view is that it sets up the power of reproducing 
 knowledge as the true test of learning. What the 
 pupil can reproduce, that the schoolmaster admits he 
 has learnt. While this power of mere reproduction if 
 not in itself a suflicient guarantee that real knowledge 
 has been acquired, it cannot on the other hand be main- 
 tained that what the pupil cannot, in some way or 
 other, reproduce is really acquired. The value of for- 
 gotten knowledge is not the point at present at issue. 
 I The question is, can a pupil be said really to know 
 what he cannot reproduce so as to apply it to a new 
 case ? A pupil may by skilful questioning be made to 
 assent, with full comprehension, to all the detailed state- 
 ments in a complicated problem in perspective. He 
 understands not only each step in the process, but he 
 
 1 This does not raise the question of teaching from had examples, 
 which opens up a subject with which we have at present no concern. 
 
THE THEORY OF INITIAL EQUALITY 105 
 
 understands the bearing of each part on the whole. 
 Yet he may be quite unable to attack a new problem 
 of the same kind, or even to work anew from the begin- 
 ning the problem already studied. 
 
 In such 'a case the failure to reproduce a given prob- 
 lem is a clear proof that the problem has not been 
 really mastered. The teacher here has shown the way, 
 but with very poor results. Cxhe test of teaching is 
 not how the master teaches, but how the pupil learns.") 
 
 The true method is to break up each complicated | 
 problem into a series not of propositions but of little \ 
 problems, not judgments to be made but ends to be ( 
 attained. In each case the important point for the 
 teacher to attend to is the relation to be established 
 between the ideas already in the mind and the idea 
 now to be presented to it. Not ideas in general, but 
 ideas arranged in the most suitable way is the teacher's 
 aim. This principle is already widely acted upon in 
 our newer methods. Formerly the multiplication table 
 was the only table learnt in school. Now we have the 
 addition table, the subtraction table, the division table. 
 It is felt to be not enough that the numbers should 
 be within the mind, they must be grouped there in the 
 best possible form. Seven and nine, for example, are 
 to be so intimately connected with 16 that they cannot 
 appear together above the threshold without at once 
 increasing the presentative activity of the idea of 16 to 
 such an extent as at once to raise it to the summit of 
 the dome. A well-constructed addition table is an ad- 
 mirable diagrammatic representation of a satisfactory 
 apperception mass. 
 
106 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is that we do 
 not know whether all souls are equal at birth, and that 
 after all it does not matter; for by the time the pupil 
 makes his appearance in school, his soul is different 
 from the other souls in his class. On the other hand, 
 there is a sort of common lowest level of thinking. So 
 far as we can reduce thinking to what is described in 
 the old-fashioned Formal Logic Books, our minds may 
 be regarded as equal.^ Whatever goes on in the mind 
 seems to be the same in all cases, though the rate of 
 speed is very different. We must all pass over the 
 pons asinorum, though our pace may be very different. 
 The boy who has gone over the first book of Euclid in 
 six weeks has learned quicker, but not necessarily bet- 
 ter than or even differently from the boy who takes 
 six months to it. Yet there is obviously a difference 
 in the two cases. What this difference is it will be the 
 business of the next chapter to discuss. 
 
 ^ That this, after all, is what Jacotot means may he inferred from 
 his otherwise iintenable statement : "Tout le monde salt la logique.'' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FORMAL EDUCATION 
 
 There is a prevailing impression &,mong teachers, 
 and particularly among those who are connected with 
 what is sometimes called a liberal education, that it 
 really does not matter very much what one learns. 
 The culture comes all the same. Cit is not the what; 
 it is the how. The base utilitarian may study Euclid 
 in order that by and by he may be able to estimate 
 the cubical content of dung heaps ; ^ the embryo man 
 of culture studies Geometry in order to train his mind. 
 The Classics have, no doubt, some commercial and 
 social value ; but they are said to owe their command- 
 ing place in our educational system to their power as 
 a mental discipline. The graduate may forget his 
 Latin and his Greek, it is said, but he can never lose 
 the culture they have left in his mind. 
 
 In the present war of competing subjects, the main 
 ■ point of discussion is : Which gives the best result in 
 culture, — which is best fitted to cultivate the mind? 
 Classics, Science, Mathematics — - each claims pre-emi- 
 nence. It is left for the Herbartian to sweep aside 
 all claims alike, and raise the preliminary question : 
 Do any of them train the mind at all ; can the mind 
 be trained ? 
 
 1 Inspectors of schools in Scotland tell me.that this is a very popu- 
 lar application of Mathematics in rural Continuation Classes. 
 
 107 
 
108 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The question resolves itself into the problem of the 
 possibility of what is called formal education ; that is, 
 jlthe possibility of training a mind irrespective of the 
 {materials upon which it is exercised. This meaning 
 must be clearly marked off from that attached to formal 
 education by Professor Donaldson in his The Growth of 
 the Brain. There it is used to signify systematic or 
 scholastic education as opposed to the never-ceasing 
 education of experience, and as such is rather lightly 
 spoken of as a force modifying brain development : — 
 
 " It appears probable that the education of the schools 
 is but one, and that, too, rather an insignificant one, of 
 many surrounding conditions influencing growth." ^ 
 
 Accepting for the moment the popular view that the 
 mind can be trained by any subject whatever, with the 
 limitation that certain subjects are better for training 
 purposes than others, let us see how the thing works 
 out. Take three men, one trained as exclusively as 
 is possible on the Classics, another on Science (say 
 Biology), and the third on Mathematics. To test the 
 effect of the training, a problem is set to all three, — 
 the same problem. Let it be to decipher a certain 
 hieroglyphic inscription. There is a feeling in your 
 mind, is there not, that somehow this is not quite fair. 
 The mathematician and the biologist would probably 
 at once object that this test gave the classic an undue 
 advantage, and when it is pointed out that the inscrip- 
 tion is in neither Latin nor Greek, the ready reply is 
 that it is at least in the line of language, and therefore 
 easier for the scholar than for the others. When the 
 iQp. c«.,p. 342, 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 109 
 
 problem of determining the age of a given stratum of 
 rock is substituted, it is the classic's turn to object, 
 and even the mathematician is not pleased. It is not 
 a question in Biology exactly, but it is more in the 
 biologist's line. Tossing about for a perfectly neutral 
 test, our eyes fall upon a chess-board, and we set our 
 three examinees to discover how, in the minimum num- 
 ber of moves, to place the knight upon every square 
 of the board. Even here there is dissatisfaction. It 
 comes out that the classic and the biologist consider 
 this problem to be of a mathematical character. It 
 calls into play the same faculties as Mathematics. 
 
 The result of our experiment appears to be that each 
 of the subjects in question cultivates not the mind in 
 general, but in certain special directions. In other 
 words, formal education is not quite so formal as it is 
 supposed to be ; it is not quite dissociated f rorri ; #v, 
 special subject. For when we talk about a matltfj -h- 
 cal mind, we surely do not mean exactly what*v»e '*'^'- 
 It cannot be seriously maintained that the minti-acts 
 in one way in Mathematics and in another in Classics. 
 If, then, each .subject develops a special form of mind, 
 as indicated by the terms mathematical mind, philo- 
 sophical mind, scientific mind', this special form must 
 be connected with the matter, — the content of the 
 mind. 
 
 To illustrate : suppose the problem set to our three 
 men is to find a lost will, which of the three would 
 have the best chance to succeed? The question is diffi- 
 cult, and not in itself important. We may be wrong 
 in our answer ; the important point is upon what prin- 
 
110 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ciple do we proceed to our conclusion. The mathe- 
 matician we have at once dismissed. The idea of a 
 mathematician, as mathematician, finding anything that 
 is lost is more than improbable ; it is amusing. Some 
 may be inclined to back the biologist, from the well- 
 known methods of patient study that his science de- 
 mands. But on the whole the classic will be the most 
 likely to succeed, and that not because he has a better- 
 trained mind, but because his studies have brought to 
 him greater acquaintance with human nature (part of 
 his subject haughtily calls itself Humanity'), and there 
 is usually a good deal of human nature about the losing 
 of a will. 
 
 Thus, if it is of importance to discover the most 
 likely searcher, we consider the content of the minds 
 submitted ; if it is important to find the will, we send 
 for an experienced lawyer. 
 
 It is not maintained that this lawyer has a better- 
 trained mind than our three friends, but he has a big- 
 ger and better-arranged lost-will apperception mass. 
 
 If it be true that this formal education is possible, if 
 the matter of study is only of consequence as a sort of ■ 
 whetstone of the mind,i why do not teachers choose 
 pleasanter subjects than at present? We can readily 
 see the force of an argument that condemns cricket as a 
 complete instrument of education. It may be a capital 
 hand-and-eye training, but a certain number of " facul- 
 ties" are left idle. There must be indoor as well as 
 outdoor education. But when the boy comes in from 
 
 1 Cf. The Whetstone of Witte, which turns out to be a book on 
 Algebra published by Reoorde in 1557. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 111 
 
 cricket, why call him away from his chess, to study Eu- 
 clid? This game is said to exercise pretty much the 
 same faculties as Mathematics. Many boys like chess 
 and hate Mathematics ; why not give them what they 
 want ? The usual answer is that chess does not offer 
 a wid^Ttoough field. The real answer is that, after all, 
 chess-training is only training in chess. 
 
 Is it too much to say that the same remark applies to 
 other studies ? Is it very unusual to find a man bril- 
 liant at, say, Mathematics, and a dolt at all else ? Is an 
 intimate acquaintance with the Classics any guarantee of 
 intellectual power in other departments ? 
 
 But perhaps the most effective argument against 
 formal education is to be found in the way in which 
 sin, vice, and crime are treated as educational agencies. 
 
 What could call into play more of a boy's faculties 
 than orchard-robbing ? Almost all the virtues are 
 trained in the exercise of this vice. The necessary 
 planning demands prudence, forethought, caution. The 
 choosing of the right moment implies careful obser- 
 vation, judicious estimate of character, and intelligent 
 calculation of probabilities. The actual expedition 
 demands the greatest courage, firmness, self-control. 
 Climbing the tree and seizing the fruit are only possi- 
 ble as the result of the most accurate adjustment of 
 means to end. All the results aimed at in the most 
 liberal intellectual education are here secured ; no 
 teacher is required ; and the boy enjoys it. Why 
 does not apple-stealing rank with Latin and Mathe- 
 matics as a mental gymnastic ? 
 
 Why do we hear so little of education in crime ? 
 
112 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 We have myriads of tracts on education and crime, in 
 which the former is generally treated as a more or less 
 effective antidote to the latter, yet I do not chance to 
 know any treatise on the technical training of thieves 
 and cut-throats. 
 
 It is true that one turns with a flicker of hope to 
 ancient Spartan education. Who has not at Sunday- 
 school or church been called upon to admire the heroism 
 of the Lacedaemonian boy who allowed the fox con- 
 cealed below his cloak, to eat out his entrails, rather 
 than complain ? Who has not as a youngster wondered 
 why this heroic boy let the fox injure him? And who 
 has not been shocked when in maturer life he found that 
 the boy let the fox feed upon him rather than confess 
 that he had stolen it ? The moral seems to vanish from 
 the pretty tale, till a new one is supplied when we read 
 some such sentence as this : " The formal education of 
 Spartan boys consisted mainly of Gymnastics, Music, 
 Choric Dancing, and Larceny." ^ 
 
 At first sight this seems to drive the moral farther 
 off than ever ; but by and by we remember that it was 
 held honourable among the Spartan folk for a boy to 
 steal without being detected, while to steal and be 
 found out was regarded as the lowest depth of degrada- 
 tion. The noble Spartan boy in the tale preferred his 
 honour to his entrails. 
 
 Here we seem to have a distinct recognition of the 
 
 value of crime as an educational organon. Thieving 
 
 ranked with Music and Gymnastics as an essential part 
 
 of a liberal education. The training power of crime 
 
 1 Qreat Educators, "Aristotle," p. 47. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 113 
 
 appears to be fully recognized. It is not till we have 
 looked into the matter closely that we find the Spartans 
 unworthy of the praise we had prepared for their broad- 
 minded views on the subjects of the educational curricu- 
 lum. Larceny was taught, not as a branch of culture ; 
 it was studied as a base utilitarian craft for practical 
 application. It was a mere case of setting a thief to 
 catch a thief. The Helots caused continual uneasiness 
 at Sparta ; they had to be kept under in some way, 
 and as they were tricky and cunning, the young Spar- 
 tans had to be trained in thieving in order that the 
 cunning of the slaves should be met by the cunning of 
 the masters. Archbishop Potter says simply : "Steal- 
 ing was encouraged to make them adroit " ; ^ but 
 'Dr. Davidson discredits this culture explanation by 
 his statement : " The purpose of this curious discipline 
 was to enable its subjects to act, on occasion, as detec- 
 tives and assassins among the ever-discontented and 
 rebellious Helots."^ Even on this view there seems to 
 be a certain element of general training introduced. 
 At first sight thieving seems, with Spartan practice, to 
 be generalized into murdering. But further examina- 
 tion shows that thieving only taught something which 
 was common to thieving and murdering. The boys 
 were trained to steal not in order that they might be 
 able to steal, but in order to be able to sneak and mur- 
 der. In order to steal one must sneak ; in order to 
 murder one must sneak. Therefore the boy who can 
 steal has learned at least part of the art of murder. 
 
 1 Grecian Antiquities, p. 665, note. 
 ^ Great Educators, "Aristotle," p. 48. 
 
114 THE HBRBAKTIAiT PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Thieving has consequently, after all, an exceedingly 
 limited field in education. 
 
 Yet if formal education is possible, then instruction 
 in crime ought to be educationally as important and 
 profitable as instruction in Science and Classics. Indeed 
 crime has a very special advantage as an educational 
 organon, since it is entirely free from professional 
 prejudices. So much has been written of late on " edu- 
 cational values," that no one can treat of Classics or 
 Science or Mathematics, or Modern Languages, or 
 History, without being at once thrust into a class, and 
 regarded as a partisan. 
 
 From this taint, at least, crime is quite free. Fagin's 
 school, as an intellectual training-ground, is virgin soil 
 for the educationist, who can there test theories with- 
 out fear of his results being complicated by the accu- 
 mulated prejudices of scores of predecessors. It is, no 
 doubt, humiliating to have to turn to a mere novel 
 instead of to a large, closely printed, and respect- 
 ably dull treatise. But education in crime is as yet 
 only in the natural-history stage of development. 
 Dickens merely describes, he does not explain. To a 
 later stage belong the theories — and the dulness. 
 
 If you examine your mind at this moment, you will 
 robably find it in a state of somewhat indignant con- 
 'fusion. Two ideas have been called into the field of 
 consciousness at the same time, two ideas that have 
 always regarded themselves as natural enemies to each 
 other ; and those two ideas have been asked to join in 
 the friendly relation of cause and effect. As two boys 
 caught by the master in the very throes of war, and 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 115 
 
 I ordered by him to shake hands, hang back scowling at 
 each other, not otherwise stand in your minds at this 
 moment the two ideas of Crime and Education. 
 
 A little analysis of your thoughts will probably show 
 you that the underlying belief that caused this disturb- 
 ance is really that crime needs no teaching. There is 
 a prevailing opinion that crime is easily attained ; that 
 anybody can be a criminal. If some speakers and 
 writers are to be believed, the difficulty is all the other 
 way, and the great trouble of an ordinary man's life 
 is to keep from becoming a criminal. Now while it is 
 quite easy for any of us to stumble clumsily into crime, 
 it does not at all follow that we have any claim to rank 
 among criminals — real criminals, professional crimi- 
 nals. We all occasionally blunder into a syllogism, but 
 we are not on that account arrogant enough to call our- 
 selves logicians. To be a successful criminal requires 
 as careful training as to be a successful judge, and if 
 we wish to investigate the educational value of crime, 
 we must study it under the most favourable circum- 
 stances, in one of the best schools. 
 
 We cannot more fitly introduce Fagin's school than 
 by a report supposed to be written by an emancipated 
 inspector of schools who has enlightened views on the 
 relation between education and crime. Such a man, re- 
 garding skilful crime as the immediate object of the 
 school, with mental training as a secondary and inevita- 
 ble result, might well produce some such report as the 
 following : — 
 
 " I have again to call attention to the unsuitability 
 of the school-premises. Only a low view of crime can 
 
116 THE HBKBAfeTlAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 be formed in a cellar. If this matter is not attended 
 to, it will be necessary next year to recommend a sub- 
 stantial reduction under Art. Onety-one. The organ- 
 ization and discipline are, on the whole, excellent, and 
 the higher grant is recommended, though the teachers 
 should be informed that toasting-forks and frying-pans 
 are not suitable instruments for maintaining order. 
 The tone of the school is excellent, and reflects great 
 credit on the head-master, Mr. Fagin, whose enthusi- 
 asm cannot fail to have an excellent effect in stimulat- 
 ing his pupils. The general character of the instruction 
 in the ordinary subjects is creditable. The text-books 
 used, however, are of a low order and are now out of 
 date ; they must be changed if the higher grant is to be 
 recommended next year. There is a lack, too, of suitable 
 occupation for the new pupils while the old ones are at 
 their usual work. This must be at once attended to. 
 The physical exercises were gone through with pre- 
 cision and heartiness. Object lessons are well attended 
 to ; one of the senior pupil-teachers, William Sikes, 
 deserving special praise for his effective lesson on the 
 loading of a pistol, and the connection between a loaded 
 pistol and holding one's tongue." 
 
 Have you imagination enough to picture Mr. Fagin 
 sitting by his fire-side, a saveloy in one hand and this 
 report in the other, reading with the palpitating interest 
 that the works of school inspectors and superintendents 
 always command ? 
 
 " Premises" he mutters, " same old story. Good 
 thing that isn't my lay. Excellent — Ha ! — on the 
 whole — as usual. Forks and frying-pans — what eyes 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 117 
 
 those inspectors have got ! Must keep them out of 
 sight next time he comes round. Great credit — come, 
 that's something like — enthusiasm — stimvlating . Now 
 that's what I call — hillo! What's this about text- 
 books? /didn't make the text-books : that's the pub- 
 lisher's look-out. They're the easiest I can find." 
 
 Here we may be permitted to interrupt Fagin, first 
 of all to quote from Dickens the passage referring to 
 the text-books, and then to show that, as is not seldom 
 the case, the teacher and not the publisher was to 
 blame for whatever was wrong. 
 
 Oliver is described as turning over the leaves of a 
 book that has been left to enliven his solitude on the 
 eve of a crime into whicli he is to be dragged. " He 
 turned over the leaves, carelessly at first ; but lighting 
 on a passage which attracted his attention, he soon 
 became intent upon the volume. It was a history of 
 the lives and trials of great criminals ; and the pages 
 were soiled and thumbed with use. Here he read of 
 dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold ; of secret 
 murders that had been committed by the lonely way- 
 side ; of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits 
 and wells, which would not keep them down, deep as 
 they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many 
 years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight, 
 that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and 
 yelled for the gibbet to end their agony. Here, too, 
 he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of 
 night, had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by 
 their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as 
 it made the flesh creep and the limbs quail to think of. 
 
118 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid that the 
 sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore, and the words 
 upon them to be sounded in his ears, as if they were 
 whispered in hollow murmurs by the spirits of the dead."^ 
 
 This is obviously not the sort of literature to en- 
 courage enterprise in crime. Had Fagin been able to 
 spare time from his other professional work to edit this 
 manual, you may be sure the blue pencil would have 
 been unflinchingly used. Those totally uncalled-for 
 confessions would cease to mar the charm of the nar- 
 rative ; the gibbet would be carefully excised ; those 
 pits and wells would have been seen to, and made 
 decently corpse-tight. We are sure of this, for Fagin 
 is clearly better than his books. Listen to his own 
 method of story -telling : — r 
 
 " At other times the old man would tell them stories 
 of robberies he had committed in his younger days; 
 mixed up with so much that was droll and curious that 
 Oliver could not help laughing heartily, and showing 
 that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings."^ 
 
 There speaks the true teacher. There is a good 
 chance of a boy coming to something in crime with 
 lessons like that. Yet Fagin is not, the only genuine 
 teacher in the school. The object lesson commended 
 by the inspector is well worth reproducing in full. 
 Not every lesson given by certificated teachers in this 
 country has the point and finish of Mr. Sikes' effort. 
 Addressing the trembling Oliver, who is to be forced 
 to accompany the burglar on professional business. Bill 
 begins : — 
 
 1 Oliver Twist, Chap. XX. 2 Ibid., Chap. XVIII. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 119 
 
 " ' Come here, young un; and let me read you a 
 lectur', whioh is as well got over at once.' " 
 
 But Bill is better than his word. Most teachers 
 begin by telling the class that they are going to give a 
 lesson, and then proceed to give a lecture. Bill does 
 precisely the opposite : his lecture at once develops into 
 a genuine object lesson: — 
 
 "Thus addressing his new pupil, Mr. Sikes pulled 
 off Oliver's cap and threw it into a corner ; and then, 
 taking him by the shoulder, sat himself down by the 
 table, and stood the boy in front of him. 
 
 " ' Now, first : do you know wot this is ? ' inquired 
 Sikes, taking up a pocket pistol which lay on the table. 
 
 " Oliver replied in the affirmative. 
 
 " ' Well then, look here,' continued Sikes. ' This is 
 powder; that 'ere's a bullet; and this is a little bit of 
 a old hat for waddin'.' 
 
 " Oliver murmured his comprehension of the different 
 bodies referred to; and Mr. Sikes proceeded to load 
 the pistol, with great nicety and deliberation. 
 
 " ' Now it's loaded,' said Mr. Sikes, when he had 
 finished. 
 
 " ' Yes, I see it is, sir,' replied Oliver. 
 
 " ' Well,' said the robber, grasping Oliver's wrist 
 tightly, and putting the barrel so close to his temple 
 that they touched ; at which moment the boy could not 
 repress a start ; ' if you speak a word when you're out 
 o' doors with me, except when I speak to you, that 
 loading will be in your head without notice. So, if you 
 do make up your mind to speak without leave, say your 
 prayers fii'st.' 
 
120 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 " Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this 
 warning, to increase its effect, Mr. Sikes continued. 
 
 " ' As near as I know, there isn't anybody as would 
 be asking very parti ckler arter you, if you was dis- 
 posed of ; so I needn't take this devil-and-all of trouble 
 to explain matters to you, if it warn't for your own 
 good. D'ye hear me ? ' " i 
 
 Matter apart, this lesson would probably knock an 
 excellent out of any inspector. 
 
 So far we have found no important difference between 
 Fagin's method and those recommended in the ordinary 
 school-management books meant for less interesting if 
 more legitimate teachers. Indeed, the more carefully 
 we examine Fagin's proceedings, the more orthodox do 
 his methods appear. He relies upon the same motives 
 of emulation with which we are familiar. 
 
 " ' Ah ! She's a clever girl, my dears,' said the Jew, 
 turning round to his young friends, and shaking his 
 head gravely, as if in mute admonition to them to fol- 
 low the bright example they had just beheld." 
 
 And pupil-teacher Sikes loyally chimes in, as is fitting. 
 
 " ' She's a honour to her sex,' said Mr. Sikes filling 
 his glass, and smiting the table with his enormous fist. 
 ' Here's her health, and wishing they was all like her.' " ^ 
 
 Precept is joined to example in the game of picking 
 pockets in which Oliver at first joined, and even when 
 the new pupil's dislike of and unfitness for, this trick 
 became plain, the wily master was not discouraged. 
 He knew the value of mere mechanical imitation, as 
 well as the most experienced among us. 
 
 1 Oliver Twist, Chap. XX. 2 Ibid., Chap. XIII. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 121 
 
 " From this day, Oliver was seldom left alone ; but 
 was placed in almost constant communication with the 
 two boys, who played at the old game with the Jew 
 every day : whether for their improvement or Oliver's, 
 Mr. Fagin best knew."^ 
 
 In short, Mr. Fagin acts precisely as a better-trained 
 and more skilful McChoakumchild 2 might. The only 
 difference is that McChoakumchild teaches virtue, Fa- 
 gin vice. This being so, what are the intellectual results 
 in the two cases ? Apart from the matter studied', 
 whose pupil shows to more advantage, McChoakum- 
 child's or Fagin's ? 
 
 Oliver Twist and John Dawkins, otherwise known as 
 the Artful Dodger, are expressly stated to be of the 
 same age. Oliver had been brought up on virtue — 
 that is, in the workhouse. Dawkins had been reared 
 on vice. Which had the better-trained mind ? Dick- 
 ens certainly did not intend his readers to regard 
 Oliver as a fool — Oliver is supposed to be the hero of 
 the story. Why, then, does the reader close the book 
 with the more or less contemptuous belief that Oliver 
 is a noodle,' — a good little boy who by all the rules of 
 the game ought to have died under Giles' blunderbuss ? 
 Dickens means us to think of his hero as a pale-faced, 
 intelligent, indeed spirituel boy, and only fails because 
 the Artful Dodger completely outshines his virtuous 
 rival in the favour of the reader. No doubt it is hardly 
 fair to compare a workhouse pupil with the brightest 
 ornament of Fagin's Academy. But take a wider 
 range, and the result is the same. It is a matter of the 
 1 Oliver Twist, Chap. XVIII. ^ yi^g Dickens, Hard Times. 
 
122 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOI^OGT 
 
 most trite remark that the street Arab, brought up 
 among vice and squalor, is intellectually much brighter 
 than his hettsxzied, and supposed-to-be better-taught 
 rival of respectable parentage. Such a widespread 
 impression must have some sort of foundation, and it is 
 obviously of the first importance to us as teachers to 
 find out how much truth there is underlying it. ' For 
 if the popular notion implies exactly what appears on 
 the surface, our profession has to face a very grave 
 charge. If the gutter produces better intellectual re- 
 sults than the primary school, then shall the discon- 
 tented ratepayer have a genuine grievance at last. 
 
 To begin with, the method of the gutter has the 
 great advantage of the compulsion of necessity. What 
 can the most zealous compulsory officer do, what can 
 the most supple cane accomplish, in comparison with 
 the persuasive voice of the Mother of Invention? We 
 in school teach our pupils certain things in order that 
 " by and by " they may know how to do certain other 
 things. Fagin and his pupils seek to attain an obvious 
 and immediate end. It may reasonably be interposed 
 here : if Fagin's method of direct teaching produces 
 better results than our indirect methods, why not fol- 
 low his lead ? It must be admitted that there is some- 
 thing in the complaint. In some respects our school 
 methods are too indirect. Sufficient care is not taken 
 to let a child see the " sense " of what he is learning. 
 We are too fond of telling him to wait tiU he is big, 
 and then he will understand all that. But while so 
 much is admitted, it must be remarked that direct 
 teaching is not always desirable outside of the gutter — 
 
FORMAL BDTJCATION 123 
 
 nor indeed always possible. In the third place and 
 chiefly, it is at least very questionable whether Fagin's 
 methods do produce better results. • 
 
 In the first place, the comparison between the street 
 urchin and the primary-school boy is unfair, because 
 of the greater struggle for existence among the street 
 urchins. A certain principle, known as the Survival of 
 the fittest, has much more scope in the gutter than in a 
 primary school. In Fagin's Academy the physically 
 weak go rapidly to the wall, the intellectually weak to 
 the lock-up. What a waste of gutter children goes to 
 the making of one Artful Dodger ! Hunger and cold, 
 whiskey and prison, do their work; a few brilliant ex- 
 ceptions are left, and the ordinary schoolboy is com- 
 pared with a Charley Bates, or an Artful Dodger. 
 
 But from our present point of view, the most impor- 
 tant consideration remains. What is made the test of 
 intelligence in the two cases ? A little exercise of the 
 memory will make it clear that almost in every case 
 where the street Arab has shown great intelligence it 
 has been a matter of what is called " the main chance," 
 looking after number one. This remark must not be 
 misconstrued. There is no attempt here to deny the 
 good qualities of the Arab. We have all heard won- 
 derful tales of the kindness of the poor to the poor, 
 which we are but too glad to believe. Only, it is well to 
 note that even in his generosity the Arab is concerned 
 with the main ch&nce — his skill is still in how he can 
 make ends meet. His intellect is tested by his power 
 to keep himself and others alive. 
 
 This is, indeed, generally admitted, but the natural 
 
124 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 inference is not drawn. Instead of telling in favour of 
 the primary-school boy, it is usually turned against him 
 in some such sneer as this : ' ' Your schoolboy is all 
 very well with his vulgar fractions, and his parsing — 
 throw him into the street and see how he and his edu- 
 cation will compete with the illiterate gamins." As 
 well might one argue " Your monkey is all very well 
 with his cerebral convolutions and all that ; but throw 
 him from the top of the Eiffel Tower, and see how he 
 will compete with the swallow that you say is intel- 
 lectually so much his inferior." 
 
 The apperception masses in the schoolboy's mind 
 are quite different from those in the gamin's, and if we 
 always make our comparisons in terms of gamin masses, 
 naturally the schoolboy will always appear at a disad- 
 vantage. It is a difference not of mental power, but of 
 mental content. 
 
 The same sort of comparison is being made every 
 day between townspeople and country-people. Phi- 
 lology is eloquent with abuse of the countryman, the 
 rustic, the clown, the lout, the boor, the yokel, the clod- 
 hopper. Naturally those fancy pictures are drawn by 
 townspeople, who take care that the picture gets in 
 every case a city background. A countryman implores 
 a policeman to pilot him across the Strand ; does this 
 prove that the policeman can judge better of speeds 
 and distances than the countryman? Change the 
 scene to the country, and the roles are exactly re- 
 versed. The policeman makes the wildest guesses at 
 distances, and can form no estimate of the speed of 
 hares and crows. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 125 
 
 We can all judge, we can all reason, not so much ac- 
 cording to our " natural powers," as they are called, as 
 according to our familiarity with the subject under dis- 
 cussion. We should not say that So-and-so is a very 
 clever fellow, but that he is very clever in this or that 
 direction. A man may be a distinguished microscopist I 
 who can observe to the most uncomfortably small part 
 of a millimetre, and yet be quite unaware that his stu- 
 dents are copying under his very nose at examination ; 
 and are we not inclined to doubt the philosophic powers 
 of any thinker who has enough society observation to 
 recognize his friends in the street ? 
 
 De Morgan's ideal of education — " to know every- 
 thing about something, and something about every- 
 thing " — represents approximately every man's actual 
 state of knowledge. We may not quite know every- 
 thing about something in the sense of the German phi- 
 losophers, but we all know practically all that is worth 
 knowing about something — if it be only the best way 
 of filling a pipe, or twisting a curl paper ; and the far-^ 
 ther afield we go from our favourite piece of knowledge, 
 the more uncomfortable do we feel, and the slower does 
 the mind act. 
 
 For each individual, the contents of the universe fall 
 into a Cosmos special to himself, and in the centre of 
 which he stands. The matters in which he is most in- 
 terested crowd close up to the centre, and among those 
 his mind acts freely and rapidly. The farther any 
 matter is from the centre, the less freely does his mind 
 work in it, till at last, at the outer edge of this Cosmos, 
 the mind reaches an endless fringe of what is practically 
 
126 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 unknown. The range of a man's intellectual activity 
 may be not inaptly represented diagrammatically by 
 one of those ancient charts of the world, in which the 
 Mediterranean is marked very boldly, if not too accu- 
 rately, in the centre, and the rest of the world is repre- 
 sented in ever vaguer and more hesitating outline as it 
 recedes from the known centre till it loses itself' in a 
 vague beyond pictured by clouds, and labelled " Cim- 
 merian darkness. " 
 
 An accomplished oculist talks easily, and with a not 
 unpleasant touch of dogmatism, about the eye — the 
 eye is his Mediterranean. Of the ear he talks still 
 easily, if a little contemptuously, but the touch of 
 dogmatism has gone. Of the heart he talks with a 
 familiarity tempered with respect. With ever-waning 
 confidence and waxing respect, he speaks of general 
 physiological problems, wide biological questions, Greek, 
 the steam engine, bimetallism, and a vast etcetera of 
 thp almost totally unknown. 
 
 /in short, the soul is not a mere knife that may be 
 sharpened on any whetstone, and when sharpened may 
 1 be applied to any purpose, — to cut cheese or to excise 
 1 a cancer] iThe knife takes character from the whet- 
 stone.! The Chancellor of the Exchequer preparing his 
 Budget has not a better-trained mind than the illit- 
 erate washerwoman with her hand in the stocking foot 
 near rent day^ — -he only deals with higher things. No 
 doubt the Chancellor would feel as helpless in the art 
 of stocking-foot economy as the old woman would if 
 called upon to deal with imperial finance. 
 
 Think of Laplace, the great Laplace, the man who 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 127 
 
 made the theory, dismissed by Napoleon for incapacity, 
 and say whether the greatest mind may be truly called 
 great, when tested apart from the apperception masses 
 with which it is familiar. Had Laplace's mind been 
 the highly trained instrument formal educationists 
 would have us believe, he ought to have been as good 
 a minister as mathematician. 
 
 / One of the leading ideas in Carlyle's book " On 
 /Heroes " is that the great man is intrinsically great ; 
 that a great poet might have been equally well a great 
 warrior or a great mathematician. Observe, the state- 
 ment is " might have been." That a great poet at ma- 
 turity may become a great warrior or mathematician, 
 the Herbartian would emphatically deny. Had Napo- 
 leon caught Laplace young, and given him political work 
 to do, there seems no reason to doubt that the dismissal 
 would not have occurred — the man who is now known 
 as the great mathematician and physicist would have 
 been known as a great minister and diplomat. But 
 if, in the circumstances that actually arose, Napoleon- 
 had been more patient, and had given the great mathe- 
 matician a longer trial than the few weeks that history 
 records, it is quite probable that Laplace would have 
 made a good average second-rate minister. 
 
 A combination of the Carlylean doctrine of the con- 
 vertibility of genius, and the Herbartian doctrine of 
 mind or soul building, makes the best philosophical 
 blend for the use of the practical teacher. With the 
 whole range of Philosophy before him where to choose, 
 the teacher, who is anxious to magnify his office, will 
 not stir a foot farther afield. '' 
 
128 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 We have seen that, whether interest or will be the 
 determining influence, our daily experience in school 
 drives us to the conclusion that by the time pupils 
 come to school their minds have all the appearance of 
 differing in original quality ; but it does not at all 
 follow that by appropriate training and exercise we can 
 raise a lower quality of mind to a higher. All that we 
 can do is to make the best of the given mind — and 
 this is very much. The difference between the best 
 an4 the worst use of the same mind is enormous. 
 Given the same first-class mind, we may turn out an 
 Artful Dodger or a James Watt ; given the same 
 third-rate mind, and we may develop it into a Bill 
 Sikes or a more than respectable artisan. 
 
 Do not for a moment let it be supposed that a Her- 
 bartian regards an artisan as necessarily of the third 
 class. Certain haughty philosophers are pleased now 
 and then to be greatly surprised at the intelligence 
 occasionally displayed by "common people." The 
 Herbartian is not astonished either by the occasional 
 brilliancy or the average gloom. Speaking generally, 
 the artisan is not in a very favourable position for in- 
 creasing his apperception masses ; therefore he is seldom 
 strikingly different from his fellows. On the other 
 hand, his intellect may, if circumstances favour, turn 
 out as good work as comes from any other social 
 grade. 
 
 Why, for example, are pupil-teacher candidates for 
 admission to the British training colleges supposed to 
 be inferior in intelligence to the students of the same 
 age at the universities ? The answer is not far to seek. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 129 
 
 For three or four years of their best formative time the 
 pupil-teachers have to work in a groove where their 
 apperception masses have no chance of growing in 
 width, though they certainly do grow in strength. 
 Teaching aU day, and parsing and analyzing all night, 
 they develop abnormally large apperception masses in 
 certain directions, with the result that the ideas form- 
 ing part of those masses enter into so powerful coalitions 
 among themselves, that they offer an almost insuperable 
 barrier to the entrance of any new ideas. The differ- 
 ence between the mistress and the maid, between the 
 master and the workman, and between the country 
 blacksmith and the city one, can all be explained in 
 pretty much the same way. One of the two is limited] 
 to monotonous work, to the eternal repetition of the/ 
 same thoughts or reflex actions. No new apperception! 
 masses can be formed, or, at any rate, fewer such masses! 
 can appear in the one case than in the other ; hence thel 
 apparent difference in intelligence. It is, after all, not' 
 a matter of minds, but of masses. 
 
 It is clear, then, that we cannot separate the mind 
 from its content. There is no such thing as pure, mind 
 in the actual practice of life, whatever there may be in 
 the ultimate analysis of Metaphysics. Above all, it is 
 certain that we cannot exercise the mind in vacuo. Yet 
 the mind is admitted to work in the same way, what- 
 ever the material upon which it acts. The mere ex- 
 istence of the science of Formal Logic is sufficient proof 
 that the laws of thought may be considered quite apart 
 from the subject upon which thought may be exercised. 
 It is generally admitted that the man who thinks rapidly 
 
130 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and effectively upon a given subject obeys exactly the 
 same logical laws as the slow and feeble thinker. How, 
 then, can the well-known fact be explained that a course 
 of study does quicken the thinking powers ? 
 
 Herbert Spencer has a pregnant idea, " fact organized 
 into faculty," ^ which may help us to answer. A fact, 
 so long as it remains outside the experience of an indi- 
 vidual, is absolutely non-existent for that individual. 
 But even when it is brought into his experience, it may 
 be quite unintelligible to him, may be incapable of any 
 practical application. ( It is only when the fact has been I 
 apperceived by the soul, and has had its place among I 
 the ideas fixed, that it becomes a power in that soul. ^ A 
 fact thus treated ceases to be a dead, inert thing;" it 
 acquires a force of its own, and in its turn acts upon 
 new facts presented to the soul. It changes its posi- 
 tion from that of a mere bit of the external material 
 upon which the soul acts, to that of an integral part of 
 the soul which acts upon presented material. It passes 
 from the objective to the subjective, from the non-ego 
 to the ego. 
 
 To this extent Spencer himself may be cited as a sup- 
 porter of the doctrine of apperception. 
 
 Most people think they can separate themselves from 
 their knowledge ; that they can put the knowing soul 
 on one side, and the known content on the other. As 
 a matter of fact, we know any one part of what we know 
 only by the help of another part. As soon as we have ^ 
 separated all we know from the knowing ego, the ego 
 
 1 " Knowledge is turned iato faculty as soon as it is taken in, and 
 forthwith aids in the general function of thinking." — Sducation, p. 90. 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 131 
 
 itself disappears. Cogito ergo sum is the ultimate of 
 mental analysis, but we cannot cogitate upon nothing. 
 Since, then, we cannot have the knowing ego by itself, 
 and since each new fact is acted upon by the facts which 
 then form part of the apperceiving soul, it follows that 
 the more facts that have been organized into faculty, 
 the more readily will the nrind act, and the greater will 
 be the range of facts upon which it will act easily. 
 
 There are here two different qualities, — readiness 
 and range. The former is acquired by practice in 
 apperceiving the same or closely allied facts ; the latter 
 by apperceiving a large number of facts of different 
 character. A chemist acquires from his work great 
 readiness in using the metric system, but this readiness 
 does not extend far into other and different matters. 
 If the chemist desires a wide range of mental suscepti- 
 bility, he must read and observe widely. 
 ) Within certain narrow limits, it must in fairness 
 /be admitted, any mental exercise whatever does ^de- 
 Velop the whole soul.^ Take the analogy of the body; 
 a certain amount of exercise of any kind will maintain 
 it- in health. Yet even here if special kinds of skill are 
 required, special forms of training must be adopted. 
 Since the body is an organism, we cannot exercise any 
 one part of it without affecting every other part at 
 least in some degree. The lop-sided blacksmith whose 
 right arm is more fully developed than his left has still 
 trained the whole body to some extent through his work. 
 
 1 But of. some very remarkable statements on the teaching of read- 
 ing quoted from Mr. Moseley by Sir John Lubbock : Addresses (Mac- 
 millan & Co.), p. 72. 
 
132 THE HEEBAETIAN i^SYCHOLOGY 
 
 As it is manifestly unwise to develop a boy's muscles 
 in this abnormal way, so with the soul it would be a 
 mistake to develop it entirely by reaction upon matters 
 belonging only to the technique of a profession. Cer- 
 tain subjects must be studied as correctives. The 
 school curriculum mast be thorough enough to produce 
 readiness in all the subjects studied; and at the same 
 time wide enough to produce a fairly uniform all-round 
 development. , 
 
 All that is usually included under the term troMoSng 
 as opposed to teaching, seems to be in favour of the 
 argument for formal education. A boy who is punct- 
 ual, respectful, and obedient at school, it is said, will 
 not lose those good qualities when he goes to an office. 
 Obedience may be learnt at school, at home, in prison, 
 in the street, in the workshop, in the army. Here, at 
 least, the material upon which the soul acts appears to 
 be in itself of no consequence. Yet even habits bear 
 the trace of their origin. A man may be an accurate 
 sorcerer, and yet a very inaccurate arithmetician, A 
 nimble-witted demonologist may be a slow-thinking 
 botanist. Is it so very unusual to find a boy obedient 
 at school and unruly at home, respectful in the office 
 and impertinent in the street ? To come to a later, 
 and therefore more telling stage, is a soldier's obedi- 
 ence quite the same thing as an artisan's or a con- 
 vict's ? Do we not all become subdued to that we 
 work in ? 
 
 The question therefore inevitably emerges, which sort 
 of subjects ought we to adopt, in other words, which 
 are the preferable apperception masses? Herbert 
 
FORMAL EDUCATION 133 
 
 Spencer has a theory with regard to the relative value 
 of school subjects which he has evolved out of his sup- 
 positions with regard to the principles on which the 
 universe is managed. First he recognizes the two 
 functions of a school subject, — the value of the 
 matter studied, and the value of the training de- 
 rived from the study. ( Economy is one of Nature's 
 first laws, he maintains, and therefore she could not 
 permit the intolerable waste that must be involved in 
 the theory that we have to learn one set of things for 
 their own sake, and another for the sake of the train- 
 ing derived from their study. We are therefore com- 
 pelled, he argues, to regard whichever subjects are 
 most useful in giving necessary knowledge as also the 
 best fitted for training the mind, j 
 
 Without at all subscribing t6 Spencer's principles, 
 we are led to something very like his conclusions. It 
 is no part of our purpose to determine which subjects 
 shall be taught in school, or out of it. It is enough if 
 it has been shown that the choice of subjects is impor- 
 tant ; that a subject must be chosen for its own sake, not 
 for the sake of its general effect in training the mind. 
 This is ko base utilitarian conclusion, no truckling to 
 what the Germans call the Brod Wissensohaften, the 
 -Bread-and-butter Sciences. The rather are we en- 
 couraged, nay required, by our principles, to read more 
 widely than before. Only, we are to read and study 
 for ij^e sake of the subject itself. So far from oppos- 
 ing culture, the Herbartian theory is the strongest 
 supporter of the fine arts and belles-lettres. The 
 increase in intension and extension of interest is the 
 
134 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 gauge of the development of a soul. We must lose 
 ourselves in our subjects, not seek to keep them outside 
 of us. 
 
 Art for Arfs sake acquires a new and a healthier 
 meaning from the Herbartian standpoint. 
 
 Teachers used to have, and ignorant people still have, 
 a pretty theory that we ought to learn pieces of poetry in 
 order to cultivate the memory. This venerable, this ludi- 
 crous fallacy has been long exploded, yet our teachera 
 continue to make their pupils learn poetry, and codes 
 and programmes wisely require a certain amount of 
 repetition every year from each child who studies 
 English. There is this important difference. The 
 point of view is entirely changed. Pupils learn poetry 
 now not for the sake of the memory, but for the sake 
 of the poetry. Would it not be well if the same' 
 change of the point of view took place with regard to 
 certain other subjects which need not at this moment 
 be specified? It is something that the principle has 
 been recognized and acted upon, even in the elementary 
 school. Herbartianism ig, after all, not entirely in the 
 clouds. ^ 
 
 Coming back for a moment to our illustral^on, how 
 does our conclusion apply? Crime as an educational 
 organon is condemned, not because it fails to develop 
 intelligence, but because it develops it in a wrong 
 direction. We cancel Fagin's certificate not because 
 he is a bad teacher, but because he teaches bad th^gs. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MEANING OF OBSERVATION 
 
 It is difficult to believe that Bishop Berkeley wrote 
 far an English-speaking audience. To the plain man 
 subjective idealism is something that should have come 
 from Germany, or rather that should have stayed there. 
 To the ordinary consciousness there is the mind within, 
 and the great world of facts outside. ( The mind and 
 the world are, in the very nature of things, opposed to 
 each other, and what God has separated let not man 
 !make one. "> 
 
 Yet the two must be brought into relation to each 
 other : the teacher's work is regarded as the shovelling 
 in of as many of those outside facts as the mind can 
 contain. The great shovel for this purpose is known 
 as Observation, a word dear to the hearts of ' ' Teachers, 
 Inspectors, School SujJerintendents, School Boards, Par- , 
 ents,' an(LOthers interested." 
 
 The lack of observation is coming to be regarded as 
 the great evil of modern education. We are continu- 
 ally being told that we do not observe enough, and 
 certainly, when put to the usual tests, we do not make 
 a very distinguished appearance. If every Englishman 
 were asked to state, under pain of immediate death in 
 case of error, the exact number of steps in the stair 
 leading up to his bedroom, there would be a slaughter 
 
 135 
 
136 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 throughout the world unequalled since the days of 
 Noah. And if the mortality would be slightly dimin- 
 ished by giving the unfortunate victims the choice of 
 stating which arm they first thrust into the sleeve when 
 putting on coat or jacket, it would not be because of 
 greater observation, but from the fact that, there being 
 but two possibilities in this case, the chances of life 
 and death would be equal, 
 
 A whole class of students of Psychology has hem 
 reduced to the most shamefaced confusion, when sud- 
 denly asked to write down, without time for investi- 
 gation, the answer to the question : " How many 
 buttons have you on your waistcoat ? " This state 
 of matters is greatly to be deplored, and a certain 
 section of practical educationists give us many oppor- 
 tunities to grieve over it. I When a class in school has 
 been floored by some such simple question as : " With 
 which foot do you usually begin to walk ? " or " At 
 which end does a recumbent cow begin to rise ? " those 
 practical educationists turn to the teacher, and, with 
 a deprecatory smile, ask if it would not be better to 
 pay a little more attention to the " observing faculties " 
 of the pupils. \ , 
 
 Being a wise man, the teacher smiles in return, and 
 holds his peace ; but this does not prevent him from 
 afterwards explaining to the pupil-teacher who saw the 
 experiment and heard the criticism, that it is no great 
 disadvantage to the children that they do not know 
 which end of a cow gets up first, while it is positively 
 to their advantage that they do not know with which 
 foot they start to walk. To the ordinary child or man 
 
THE MEANING OP OBSEliVATION 137 
 
 it is of no importance how the cow distributes the 
 labour of getting up, while the introduction of con- 
 scious knowledge into the act of walking really inter- 
 feres with that act. 
 
 If any one question this, let him start to reflect upon 
 what he is doing as he rapidly runs downstairs. So 
 long as he does not think about the matter, all goes 
 well ; but as soon as the attention is directed to the 
 motion, everything gets into confusion, and the experi- 
 menter is lucky if he escape without a tumble. Even 
 the pupil-teacher should know that the upper brain, as 
 soon as it has become perfectly familiar with the regu- 
 lation of a certain act, hands it over to the lower brain, 
 where it is attended to in future, being allowed access 
 to the upper region, the region of consciousness, only 
 under very exceptional circumstances. The greater i 
 the number of acts that have thus been thrust o-ut of 
 consciousness so as to become reflex acts, the greater 
 the development of the soul in question. The greater 
 the painter, the less able he is to describe the mechani- 
 cal methods by which his results are produced. If a 
 man has to consider with which foot he shall start to 
 walk, his attention is by that very fact taken away 
 from other and more important work. 
 
 Little opposition need be feared to what has been 
 said against observi^ how we perform reflex acts, but 
 with regard to th^ other set of facts, the uprising-cow 
 sort of fact, there exists a very widespread fallacy. 
 Common sense and school-management books here form 
 an unwonted alliance in favour of more attention to the 
 training of what is called observation. It is admitted 
 
138 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 that the number of steps, the number of buttons, and 
 the end of the cow are not in themselves of very much 
 importance. The hut that naturally follows this con- 
 cession may introduce, according to the bent of the 
 speaker, either or both of two different lines of argu- 
 ment. It may be maintained that while the mere facts ' 
 in question are insignificant, the habit of observation 
 acquired in noting them is valuable ; or it may be ; 
 argued that though the facts are at present of no con- 
 sequence, one never knows at what moment they may I 
 become of vital importance. ' 
 
 Dealing with the former, the training theory, first, 
 it must be acknowledged that it is possible to train ! 
 the mind to note unimportant and unconnected facts, j 
 You are familiar with the account of how Robert 
 Houdin trained himself and his son by walking rapidly 
 past some shop on the Boulevards, and then comparing 
 notes as to the number of objects each had been able to 
 fix on his mind in the momentary glimpse at the win- 
 dow. It is said that'they got the length of accurately 
 noting as many as five hundred different objects. I 
 myself have trained a class by constant practice to dis- 
 cover more from a five seconds' exposure of a picture 
 than an untrained adult could accomplish in a couple of 
 minutes. 
 
 This is hardly the kind of training that the observa- 
 tionist educationist clamours for. He wants the pupil 
 to observe everything. He' writes books like that tire- 
 some "Eyes and No Eyes." He tells us of one-eyed 
 dervishes who see more with their one eye than most of 
 the rest of the world do with two. He cites men like 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSERVATION 139 
 
 Zadig, who earns the distinction of imprisonment and 
 a heavy fine for telling all about a spaniel and a horse 
 that he has never seen. In those days he points to the 
 marvellous deeds of Sherlock Holmes. After reading 
 one of this gentleman's wonderful cases,.the educational , 
 reformer is apt to remark : " How simple it all is when 
 once the method is explained ; if our children were 
 taught to observe as they should, they could attain to 
 something in the same direction." 
 
 Now the famous detective is a very unfortunate il- 
 lustration for the "observationists." His observation 
 is not theirs. What they call observation, I fear he 
 would call gaping. A "countrv walk"' is the idealj 
 occasion fo r the reformer's obse ryailaoii. The pupil is 
 supposed to go along with all his senses on the alert. 
 He is to observe the note of the skylark, the spent of 
 the violets, the form of the clouds, the colour of the 
 primroses, the smoothness of the grass, the springiness of 
 the turf. He is to amble along with all the Five Gate- 
 ways of knowledge wide ppep, and we know that the 
 mouth is one of them, j^-flie ^.) "Xo; o-S^Hi^ ^ 
 
 This diffused Sai»d£6rd-and-Merton gaping is not 
 observation as Holmes understood it. No doubt your 
 typical detective of romance is always described as be- 
 ing specially observant, and this is sometimes illus- 
 trated by his marvellous powers of noticing all sorts of 
 irrelevant things. For example, we have, in a detec- 
 tive story of the Holmes class, an amusing description 
 of the education of a detective, and a specimen of his 
 powers when mature. He gives an inventory of what 
 he has observed ia a certain drawing-room : " Carpet, 
 
140 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Brussels, whitish ground sprinkled with largish roses. 
 Wall paper same shade as carpet, diamond pattern, 
 in dull gold. Facing door, water colour ; girl cross- 
 ing stream on stepping-stone, making signs to little 
 chap on bank. Over door, water colour; old gentle- 
 man, knee breeches, reading book in a wood. Twelve 
 chairs, various — four easy, three spider-legged, in gold. 
 Little round-topped table near window, microscope on 
 it, and a bracket full o' books; Tennyson's poems, 
 green and gold, seven voUums ; Imitation of Christ, 
 white vellum, gold letters ; foreign book in a yellow 
 cover, don't know the name ; 'Leaders from the Times,' 
 two voUums, name of Phillips. Little cabinet in the 
 corner, seven drawers, key in the middle drawer, basket 
 of flowers and lady's photo on top. Chimley ornaments 
 Dresden china, stag with antlers caught in a tree, left 
 antler broke." ^ 
 
 Mr. Prickett's observations might have been of value in 
 view of a possible public auction, but they do not seem 
 to help him much in his actual business. He would do 
 well to remember his own pregnant words : " The major 
 part of people ruins LlioA memoriMwith reading novels 
 and songs and trash." With liolmes all this is differ- 
 ent. The irrelevant catallogue observation is replaced by 
 a carefully grouped selection of facts to note. He only 
 looks for certain things. Indeed, he is careful not to let 
 mere observation bulk too largely in his methods. It 
 is only one of three essentials to success in his profes- 
 sion. To the mind of the ordinary educational reformer 
 
 1 A Dangerous Catspaw, by D. C. Murray and Henry Murray 
 (Longmans, 1890), pp. 129-132. 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSERVATION 141 
 
 observation includes the whole three, though each is 
 really independent. 
 
 It is Holmes' biographer, Dr. Watson, who speaks 
 in The Sign of Four ; ^ — 
 
 " 'But you spoke just now of observation and deduc- 
 tion. Surely the one to some extent implies the other. ' 
 
 " ' Why, hardly,' he answered, leaning back luxuri- 
 ously in his arm-chair, and sending up thick blue 
 wreaths from his pipe. 'For example, observation 
 shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street 
 post-office this morning, but deduction lets me know 
 that when there you despatched a telegram.' 
 
 "'Right!' said I. 'Right on both points. But I 
 confess that I don't see how you arrived at it. It was 
 a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have mentioned 
 it to no one.' 
 
 " ' It is simplicity itself,' he remarked, chuckling at 
 my surprise — ' so absurdly simple that an explanation 
 is superfluous : and yet it may serve to define the limits 
 of observation and of deduction. Observation tells me 
 that you have a little reddish mould adhering to your 
 instep. Just opposite the Wigmore Street office they 
 have taken up the pavement and thrown up some earth, 
 which lies in such a way that it is difficult to avoid 
 treading in it in entering. The earth is of this peculiar 
 reddish tinge which is found, as far as I know, nowhere 
 else in the neighbourhood. So much is observation. 
 The rest is deduction.' 
 
 " ' How, then, did you deduce the telegram ? ' 
 
 " ' Why, of course I knew that you had not written a 
 1 Page 11. 
 
142 THE HEKBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 letter, since I sat opposite to you all morning. I see 
 also in your open desk there that you have a sheet of 
 stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards. What could 
 you go into the post-office for, then, but to send a wire ? 
 Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains 
 must be the truth.' " 
 
 In the above we have a typical example of the class 
 of blunders commonly made with regard to observation. 
 "Observation shows me that you have been to the 
 Wigmore Street post-office," says Holmes. From his 
 own implied definition of the term, this is not so. 
 What he ought to have said is what he says a little 
 farther on: "Observation shows me that you have a 
 little reddish mould adhering to your instep." He 
 puts the deduction in the wrong place. It begins 
 sooner in the process than Holmes admits. He did not 
 observe Watson going into the post-office; he deduced 
 this action from the red mould that he did observe. 
 This mistake as to the precise limits of observation and 
 ' deduction is continually being made, and is 'the cause of 
 much of the confusion that marks writing on-this sub- 
 ject. Nor is this to be wondered al;. when it is remem- 
 bered that the limits of the two processes vary with the 
 individual. For example. Holmes in a sense may be 
 said not to have observed the red mould, but to have 
 inferred it. What he did observe was a reddish stuff. 
 From his previous experience of the stuff usually to be 
 found on boots, he inferred that this stuff was mould. 
 In the ultimate resort all that any one can observe with 
 the eyes are certain more or less irregular patches of 
 colour. It is not necessary to go all the length with 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSEEVATION 143 
 
 Binet, who maintains that all our interpretations of the 
 ultimate elements of sense impression are rapid, Tin- 
 conscious, logical inferences. It is enough to recognize 
 that the point where conscious inference begins varies 
 with the individual. 
 
 The third essential to Holmes' wonder-working 
 method may be gathered from the following concise 
 criticism he passes upon a French colleague: "He 
 possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for 
 the ideal detective. He has the power of observation 
 and that of deduction. He is only wanting in know- 
 ledge, and that may come in time."^ 
 
 Knowledge comes last in order, but it is first in im-' 
 portance. It is knowledge that directs observation,) 
 and gives it meaning. The story is told among the 
 students of Professor Bell of Edinburgh, who, as every- 
 body knows, is the original of Sherlock Holmes, that 
 he one day astonished his students by declaring that a 
 patient who had just come to the' infirmary and whom 
 none of the students, nor the professor himself, had 
 ever seen before,, was a non-commissioned officer lately 
 pensioned off, after, serving for some time in a certain 
 island in the West Indies. The age of the man^ his 
 bearing, the angle at which he wore his hat, certain 
 peculiarities of his civilian dress, accounted for the pro- 
 fession and rank of the patient; the West Indies and 
 the certain island were indicated' by the marks of the 
 bite of a certain insect which is found only in that 
 island. It is obvious that however much the students 
 had observed those marks, they could never have 
 1 The Sign of Four, p. 9. 
 
144 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 guessed the island apart from this very special bit of 
 knowledge. 
 
 " Precisely," says the observationist, " and that is 
 why people should be trained to more general obser- 
 vation. Had the professor not observed that fact, the 
 deduction would never have been made." We are thus 
 brought face to face with the argument in favour of 
 getting up facts for the use that may some time be made 
 of them. Housewives have a foolish argument in 
 favour of accumulating rubbish ; it runs " Keep a thing 
 for seven years and you will find a use for it." But if 
 the observationist appeals to Holmes for justification in 
 applying this principle to education, he will find him- 
 self hoist with his own petard. Holtnes makes short 
 work of this system of accumulation. He is not a very 
 profound psychologist, and we shall attack his position 
 directly; but the following statement^ effectually dis- 
 poses of the omnium gatherma theory of observation so 
 far as he is concerned. 
 
 '"You see,' he explained, 'I consider that a man's 
 brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you 
 have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A 
 fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes 
 across, so that the knowledge which might be useful 
 to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with 
 a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in lay- 
 ing his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is 
 very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain- 
 attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may \ 
 help him in doing his work ; but of these he has a large 
 1 A Study in Scarlet, p. 20, 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSEKVATION 145 
 
 assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a 
 mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls 
 and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it, there 
 comes a time when for every addition of knowledge 
 you forget something that you knew before. (^It is of 
 the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless 
 facts elbowing out the useful ones.' " ^ J 
 
 It would be hard to find a better example of the 
 practical application of the Lockian principle than this 
 eminently materialistic statement. Whether we regard 
 it as the view of the clever detective or of the talented 
 author, it is equally instructive as representing the 
 view of Psychol(5gy held by intelligent but unphilo- 
 sophic Englishmen. The mind is a mere knowledge-box 
 of limited capacity. As soon as it is filled to a certain 
 point, it begins to leak, and all further attempts' to 
 acquire knowledge canomy result in the losing of 
 knowledge already acquired. It cannot be denied- that 
 knowledge does decay, that facts do slip out of our 
 reach, but it is not true that the mind is the poorer for 
 that. 
 
 "Leaving out of account the loss o| knowledge which 
 results from the physical decay of the system when 
 maturity is past, it may be maintained without an un- 
 due appearance of paradox that this leakage of which 
 Holmes complains is a positive advantage. It implies 
 a losing of details, details which are a hindrance, 
 not a help. Intellectual progress is a progress towards 
 abstraction. A young mind or an untrained mind 
 
 1 There is a curious parallelism between the above and certain re- 
 marks of Mr. Prickett on p. 129 of A Dangerous Catspaw. 
 
146 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 is full of pictured ideas, what are usually known as 
 images. When a word is used, a picture arises in the • 
 mind. Somewhat more cultured minds generalize those 
 pictures into what Romanes calls recepts. It is. only in 
 fairly well-trained minds that we reach what may be 
 properly termed concepts. Now this process is one of 
 decay. The ideas that perish are exactly the kind that 
 Holmes laments, and they must die if the concept is to 
 he free. 
 
 Another aspect of the same truth is to be found in 
 the argument of the New Education in favour of the 
 importance of forgotten knowledge. ( It is g- huge mis- 
 take to suppose that the man who has forgotten some- 
 thing he once learned is in exactly the game position as 
 if he had never known that somethins^ftlpwever iti 
 may be with love, it is bette^tajiave I^arnea and for^ 
 gotten thflin never tO/have learnecl'at all. / True learning"" 
 is really judicious forgetting. The great scientist, is 
 the man who has wisely dropped out of knowledge all 
 the myriad facts he had to examine in order to come to 
 his valuable conclusions. The master of style is all the 
 better that he has forgotten the authors on whose style 
 his own was formed. The mind is an organism, and be- ' 
 tween it and its contents there is continual reciprocal 
 action and reaction. To Holmes it is a mere idea trap. 
 
 We are not, therefore, surprised to find Holmes as 
 notable for his ignorance as he is for his knowledge. 
 He knew nothing about the solar system, and had 
 never heard of Carlyle.^ His biographer has drawn up 
 
 ' Though, if my memory does not deceive me, he afterwards quotes 
 Goethe. 
 
THE MEANING OE OBSERVATION 147 
 
 a tabular statement of Sherlock Holmes — his limi- 
 tations.i In this statement we find the word Nil 
 placed opposite Literature, Philosophy, and Astron- 
 omy. Politics is feeble. Botany variable. Anatomy 
 accurate but unsystematic, while Chemistry is marked 
 profound, and credit is given for almost unlimited 
 "knowledge of the history of crime. A good practical 
 acquaintance with British Law is added, and boxing, 
 swordsmanship, and violin-playing are thrown in as 
 extras. 
 
 What does all this amount to but a statement that 
 Holmes had acquired an exceptionally well-developed 
 apperception mass of things pertaining to the detection 
 of crime? But such a mass, regarded as a mere col- 
 lection of knowledge, seems inadequate to explain the 
 wonderful things that Holmes does. If it did, it is 
 objected, brilliant detectives could be manufactured 
 at our schools and colleges as easily as we at present 
 manufacture government officials ; for in this respect 
 Holmes is merely an exaggerated sample of the pop- 
 ular process of specialized education. Holmes seems to 
 ^eel this himself, and tries to explain his success as the 
 result of his method. 
 
 " ' In solving^ a problem of this sort,' says Holmes,^ 
 'the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. 
 That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy 
 one ; but people do not practise it much. In the every- 
 day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, 
 and so the other comes to be neglected. There are 
 
 1 A Study in Scarlet, p. 21. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 215. 
 
148 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can 
 reason analytically.' 
 
 " ' I confess,' said I, 'that I do not quite follow you.' 
 " ' I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I 
 can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a 
 train of events to them, will tell you what the result 
 would be. They can put those etents together in their 
 minds, and argue from them that something will come 
 to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you 
 told them a result, would be able to evolve from their 
 own inner consciousness what the steps were which led 
 up to that result. This power is what I mean when 
 I talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.'" 
 
 From our point of view this passage is the most im- 
 portant in the Holmes Memoirs. If it be true, our 
 educational system is at fault. If the power of syn- 
 thetic reasoning is fifty times better trained than that 
 of analytic * reasoning, there is something radically 
 wrong. But can it be fairly charged to our training 
 that we are weaker in analytical than in synthetical 
 reasoning ? Is reasoning backwards really " a very 
 easy" thing? Is there nothing in the conditions of 
 the two cases that makes reasoijing backwards more 
 difficult than reasoning forwards? He is, indeed, a dull 
 novel-reader who cannot ring the marriage bells for 
 himself without finishing the final chapter of the third 
 volume of an old-fashioned novel ; but even Sherlock 
 Holmes would, find it difficult to accurately reconstruct 
 the troublous scenes of the second and first volumes 
 from the given result that they " lived happy ever 
 after." ' )< 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSEEVATTON 149 
 
 To pass from a " train of events " to a result is easier 
 than to reverse the process, if for no other reason than 
 that more data are given. If we know that a vessel 
 came into Aberdeen in an nnseaworthy state, that half 
 of her crew deserted her there, that she was laden with 
 cargo till she dipped below the PlimsoU line, that her 
 captain in a drunken fit insisted upon at once setting 
 out to sea, and that immediately thereafter a wild gale 
 had arisen, none of us would have any difficulty in 
 coming to a fairly accurate conclusion as to the result 
 of the affair. On the other hand, the general reader, say 
 in Glasgow, who is told in his Herald that the Morning 
 Star has been lost, with all hands, would have little 
 chance of filling in the drunken captain and the rest. 
 
 Even when a chain of facts is made up. of links joined i 
 to one another in the most rigid logical relations, it is i 
 easier to begin with the elements and build up. No 
 doubt we could teach the first book of Euclid by be- 
 ginning with the forty-eighth proposition and working 
 backwards ; but we can hardly hope that teachers will 
 adopt this method till at least its advantages can be 
 made more evident than at present. 
 
 It was not because Holmes could reason backwards 
 that he beat the ordinary Scotland Yard detectives. 
 When one of them, Lestrade, saw the letters R-A-C-H-E 
 traced in blood upon the wall, the only idea that rose 
 above the threshold of ' his consciousness was 'the word 
 Rachel, and he at once came to the conclusion that a« 
 woman of that namie had som.ething to do with the 
 crime, and proceeded to make a hypothesis that would 
 fit into this fact. He reasoned backwards as easily and 
 
150 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 as accurately as Holmes himself, the only difference 
 being that Holmes' apperception mass contained the 
 German word Rache, which means revenge. Holmes 
 was right, Lestrade \^^as wrong ; but it was not a matter 
 of reasoning backwards or forwards ; it was a matter of 
 knowledge. Like Bain's wild beast, Lestrade sprang 
 upon Rachel, because Rache did not present itself. 
 
 Holmes' method, indeed, is that of every scientific 
 man in face of an unexplained fact. He gathers all 
 the available information bearing upon the point at 
 issue,' and allows all his apperception masses to act 
 upon it. As soon as all the relevant ideas have pre- 
 sented themselves, the soul proceeds to arrange them 
 in such a way as to produce the most harmonious com- 
 bination. The process is, therefore, not purely analytic, 
 as Holmes would have us believe, since its first step is 
 the construction of a hypothesis which is a synthetic 
 process. To make anhypothesis is really to discover a 
 system of ideas in which all the given ideas will find a 
 natural place. Holmes does not really analyse the 
 whole of the material submitted to him, and pass by a 
 regular series of deductions from the poisoned man to 
 the poisoner. He gathers all the materials that mere 
 observation can give, then casts about in his soul for a 
 system M ideas that is, in itself, consistent with the 
 nature or things as known to Holmes, and is not con- 
 tradicted by any of the facts of the case in question. 
 The analysis begins at the point when the hypothetical 
 
 1 The store-room in which' the facts are" gathered corresponds to 
 Galton's "Antechamber of Consciousness." See Human Faculty, 
 pp. 203 ff., particularly p. 206. 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSERVATION 151 
 
 system has been constructed, and is being broken up 
 into its details in order that these mg.y be compared, so 
 as to show up any inconsistency. 
 
 What gives an appearance of mystery to the whole 
 process, is the suppression of the guiding hypothesis, 
 till such time as the author sees fit to divulge it. The 
 reader is led on from point to point, in admiring amaze- 
 ment at the acumen of the guide, who, all the time, has- 
 the enormous advantage of this enlightening hypothesis. 
 No doubt the making of this hypothesis is in itself very 
 creditable to the intelligent detective ; but it is not at 
 all wonderful or mysterious, when the content of his 
 soul is taken into account.. 
 
 Every soul, when working in a fan^liar line, habitu- 
 ally jumps over-«mny steps in its reasoning ; while a 
 soul unfamiliar with that special matter has painfully 
 to develop and examine each step. How often do we 
 find the mathematician thrust in a therefore at a ridicu- 
 lously early stage in the demonstration"? with the result 
 that the novice requires a couple of foolscap pages of 
 explanation. To take a more concrete case : — 
 
 "When Captain Head was travelling across the 
 Pampas of South America, his guide one day suddenly 
 stopped him, and, pointing high into the air, cried out, 
 'A lion! ' Surprised at such an exclamation, accom- 
 panied with such an act, he turned up his eyes, and 
 with diffictilty perceived, at an immeasurable height, a 
 flight of condors soaring in pircles in a particular spot. 
 Beneath this spot, far out of sight of himself or guide, 
 lay the carcass of a horse, and over that carcass stood, 
 as the guide well knew, a lion, whom the condors were 
 
152 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 eying with envy from their airy height. The signal 
 of the birds was to him what the sight of the lion 
 would have been to the traveller, of full assurance of 
 its existence." ^ 
 
 Here it was not a case of reasoning backwards or for- 
 wards. , The guide was familiar with the phenomenon. 
 Fact and explanation are so closely connected that they 
 cannot be kept separate. Once we know the full mean- 
 ing of the little black speck in the sky, all our wonder 
 at the guide's cleverness vanishes. Holmes, you will 
 remember, is always complaining that as soon as he ex- 
 plains how he comes to his conclusions, the wonder of 
 his hearers disappears. 
 
 Any one can follow the facts once they are placed in 
 their true relations. The point of interest for us is how 
 Holmes manages to find out those relations. 
 
 We are apt to imagine from the narrative that the 
 facts are known to all alike, to Scotland Yard and to 
 the (somewhat dull Dr. Watson^ as well as to the brill- 
 iant Holmes. Under this assumption lies the fallacy 
 that the " facts " are a fixed quantity independent of 
 the minds apperceiving them. But the mind, in acting 
 upon a fact, modifies it. • There may be a world of brute 
 facts, a residual world that exists apart from and 
 independent of any knowing mind; but with such a 
 world we have, very obviously nothing to ^o. The 
 only facts we can deal with are those A^hich have 
 been acted upon by our own minds. Ob§ejvation, as 
 popularly understood, professes to bring us rinto con- 
 nection with this world of brute facts, and is sup- 
 * Quoted by Max Mtiller, Science of Thought, p. 8. 
 
tSe meaning of observation 153 
 
 posed to have nothing to do with individual pecu- 
 liarities. 
 
 Now here, in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 1), is 
 a brute fact. What does observation tell us about it ? 
 What this, brute fact means to my readers, I cannot 
 pretend to say. To a class^of young boys, experiment 
 has taught me, it means a boat. To me, when I drew 
 it, it was a square in a certain position. Even when 
 the brute fact is given that" it is a square,- do all my 
 readers apperceive it in the same way? A man igno- 
 rant of perspective. will simply_§mile, and wonder if I 
 expect him to believe my word against the evidence of 
 
 -l: /h 
 
 Fis. 1. Fig. 2. 
 
 his own eyes. Those who know a little perspective 
 will admit that it may be a square. Those who know 
 more perspective will at once recognize that it is a 
 square, in a plane parallel to the ground plane, placed 
 a little above the level of the *eye ; that the eye lies 
 between the two lines A C, BD, but nearer A O than BD 
 ■and that AB is nearer the spectator's e^ye than is OD. 
 
 Is this difference in estimating the brute fact a, re- 
 sult of observation? How long would a man who 
 knew no perspective require to observe this brute fact 
 in order to extract all this information from it ? The 
 difference lies in the mind, not in the brute fact. 
 
154 THE HEBBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGfY 
 
 Some of my readers, doubtless, have an uneasy feel- 
 ing that all this is something very like quibbling, and 
 may even feel inclined to say : " We are not talking 
 of what the figure represents, but of what it is, as a 
 matter of fact"; and mathematicians, with the assur- 
 ance of their science, will settle the matter summarily 
 by proclaiming that the figure is a "trapezoid, that and 
 nothing else." From /he voice of the mathematician 
 there is no appeal ; I cannot expect any one to take my 
 word against his. The figure is not then a square, as 
 I had supposed, but a trapezoid. , 
 
 Let us try another brute fact. This time it is famil- 
 iar to one section of my readers at any rate, so that I 
 have some confidence in venturing upon a dispute with 
 Mathematics. When I say that this diagram (Fig. 2) 
 represents a certain kind of mending, known as a " cross- 
 cut darn," I am sure that the public feeling among m}' 
 readers will not allow Mathematics to bully me into 
 saying that it is anything else. But somehow Mathe- 
 matics herself is not so eager this time to interfere 
 in the case, and when appealed to she answers with a 
 very uncertain sound. She says it may be a square 
 with four right-angled triangles ; or it may be two 
 large right-angled triangles partly coinciding with 
 each other ; or it may be two rhbmboids also partly 
 coinciding ; or it may be one such rhomboid plus two 
 right-angled triangles ; or it may be an irregular hexa- 
 gon with two re-entrant angles and* an inscribed square. 
 When pressed into a corner, this time she declines to 
 decide which of those possible things it really is ; it 
 may be any of them, and we have to appeal from 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSEEVATION 155 
 
 Euclid to the sewing mistress to discover that the two 
 rhomboids give the true state of reality. 
 
 But at this point our friend, the man in the street, 
 strikes in and says that after all the reality of the 
 diagram may be reduced to six equal black lines on 
 a white surface with an odd line in the middle. But 
 being a fair-minded man, this objector admits that the 
 six lines must be arranged in a particular order to pro- 
 duce this particular kind of brute fact, and that the 
 interpretation of those six lines must be left for the 
 apperceiving mind. The geometrician's interpretation 
 and that of the sewing mistress are both facts. They 
 are entirely different, but they are both true. 
 
 It is worth while noting that the odd line in the 
 middle, which the mathematician ignored and the man 
 in the street disparaged, is the key of the whole posi- 
 tion, the cajjse of the whole construction. It is the 
 tear in the cloth that the sewing mistress wishes to 
 repair. It is no doubt highly creditable to her that 
 she so readily sees that the drawing represents a tear 
 and two rhomboids of darning to mend it, but her 
 knowledge is hardly wonderful or mysterious. 
 
 The little diamond panes that disturb us in church 
 can fall at the word of comifaand into groups of equi- 
 lateral triangles, rhombuses, or hexagons, according to 
 what we look for and expect to find. If I figure them 
 as triangles, have I any right to say that my neighbour in 
 the next pew is wrong in regarding them as hexagons ? 
 
 Mere observation tells us that there are so many 
 straight lines cutting each other at certain angles at 
 certain places. How much of even this rudimentary 
 
166 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 knowledge is contributed by the mind itself is a ques- 
 tion that the b^pt-informed psychologists answer with 
 the utmost diffidence ; but given this residuum of brute j 
 fact, there is no doubt at all that the mind does the \ 
 rest. Says Hamlet : — 
 
 " Do you see that cloud that's ahnost in shape like a camel ? 
 Polonius. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel,' indeed. 
 Hamlet. Methinks it is like a weasel. 
 Polonius. It is backed like a weasel. 
 Hamlet. Or like a whale ? 
 Polonius. Very like a whale >" 
 
 The groundlings laugh, and it is left for a German 
 philosopher to discover that there may have been more 
 Psychology than sycophantic agreement in the scene. 
 
 It is often said with a sneer by half -educated people 
 that certain pictures are so good that common folks 
 cannot see the good points about them tftl the artist, 
 or a superior critic, comes along and indicates them. 
 The sneer expresses a literal truth. A trained eye 
 does see in a picture things that are quite invisible to 
 the lay spectator. It need not be that the critic sees 
 more in the way of mere lines and colours ; it is merely 
 that he understands what to look for, what to direct 
 his attention to, how to combine what his senses pre- 
 sent to him.i 
 
 Every time that a hearer in church is charmed with 
 
 1 This seems a better explanation than that supplied by Jacotot, 
 Enseignement Ifniversel, De I'lmprovisation, p. 283. Of the artist he 
 there says: "7? remarquait quHl avait remarque: voil^ sa superi- 
 ority." This corresponds to the Hegelian "bringing to self-con- 
 sciousness," and represents at least a part of the truth. 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSERVATION 157 
 
 a new and unexpected rendering of a familiar text, he 
 is having a lesson in the activity of the mind in the 
 making of knowledge. Browning is reported to have 
 said that his obscure poem " Childe Roland to the Dark 
 Tower came " meant to every man exactly as much as 
 he could take out of it. This poem has nearly as many 
 interpretations as readers. 
 
 A certain clever inspector of schools, complaining 
 of the exclusively bookish training given in our schools, 
 made the remark — " Our children are treated like 
 pointers : they are trained to bark at print." The edu- 
 cation of actual experience is open to the same condem- 
 nation. We are all trained t o bark at s omething ; and, 
 each in our own field, we can do wonderful things — 
 not because our senses are keener, but because our" 
 knowledge is fuller and better arranged in our own. 
 special directions. 
 
 The doctor who calls on a patient for the first time 
 sees no more than do' the anxious friends who have 
 sent for him ; the only difference is that the brute facts 
 of tl^case .are no longer brute facts to him ; he fits 
 them into their places in a little cosmos that he carries 
 about with him. Thoughtless people are apt to ex- 
 press this by saying that his powers of observation 
 have been trained ; but the obvious limit to this is that 
 the resulting power is strictly confined to a certain 
 class of facts. Outside of his own department a doctor 
 is no more observant than other folks. Indeed, a doc- 
 tor who gains distinction in other (not cognate) fields 
 than Medicine, is apt to lose his patients and his 
 practice. 
 
158 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSyCHOLOGY 
 
 It is related of Coleridge and two friends that, being 
 anxious to leave a busy inn in a hurry, they tried to 
 harness their horse for themselves. Everything went 
 well with the three philosophers till they came to the 
 horse's collar. This fairly brought them to a stand- 
 still. It seemed to be made on the most unphilosophi- 
 cal principles, and in spite of all their efforts could not 
 be forced over the animal's head. It was not till the 
 press of business had so far slackened as to allow the 
 maid-servant to make her appearance, that they came 
 to some understanding of the teleology of horse collars. 
 She simply reversed the collar, slipped it thus over 
 the horse's head, and then re-reversed it. 
 
 It would be silly to compare the maid-servant's brain 
 with Coleridge's : the whole point lies in the fact that 
 her apperception mass presented the problem in quite 
 a different light from that in which it had struck him. 
 
 So constant is the relation between a given appercep- 
 tion mass, and the resulting reaction upon a given brute 
 fact, that not only can we to some extent predict how a 
 given mind will treat a given fact, but from ^^ re^ 
 action upon a given fact we may make a fair guess at the 
 apperception mass in question* Professor H. Steinthal, 
 in his Mnleitung in diePsycJiologieu.Sprachwusenschaft^ 
 gives the following story : — 
 
 " In a railway carriage compartment sit in lively con- 
 versation half a dozen persons totally unacquainted 
 with each other. It is a matter of regret that one of 
 the company must get out at the next station. An- 
 other remarks that he particularly likes such a meeting 
 1 Page 167. 
 
THE MEANING OF 0B3EE,VATI0N 159 
 
 with totally unknown folks, and that he never either 
 asks who or what his travelling companions may be, or 
 tells on such an occasion who or what he himself is. 
 Thereupon one of the company says that if the others 
 will not say what they are, he will pledge himself to 
 find out, if only every one will answer him a quite irrel- 
 evant question. This was agreed to. Taking five 
 leaves from his note-book, he wrote on each a question, 
 and handed one to each of his companions, with the 
 request to write the answer upon it. After they had 
 given him back the sheets, he said, as soon as he had 
 read an answer, and without reflection, to one, ' You 
 are a scientist ' ; to another, ' You are a soldier ' ; to the 
 third, ' You are a philologist ' ; to the fourth, ' You a 
 political writer'; to the fifth, 'You a farmer.' All 
 admitted that he was right. Then he got out and left 
 the five behind. Each wanted to know what question 
 the others had got, and behold one and the same ques- 
 tion had been proposed to all. It ran — 
 
 " ' What being itself destroys what it has brought 
 forth?' 
 
 " To this the scientist had answered, Vital Force ; the 
 soldier, War ; the philologist, Kronos ; the writer. Revo- 
 lution,; the farmer, A hoar. 
 
 " That is the tale, of which I say that if it is not true 
 it is remarkably well made up. The narrator further 
 puts these words into the mouth of the political writer : 
 'Just there comes in the joke. Each answers what 
 first occurs to him, and that is what is most nearly 
 related to his calling. Every question is a hole-boring 
 experiment, and the answer is a hole through which 
 
160 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 one may peep into our inner nature.' So the Hcbo 
 fabula docet is expressed in the form of practical know- 
 ledge of human nature. So we are all wont to do. It 
 is easy for any one to know the clergyman, the soldier, 
 the savant, the man of business, not only by the out- 
 ward signs of clothing, bearing, etc., but also by what 
 they say, and how they express it. 1 We guess a man's 
 position in life by what interests him, and how he 
 shows his interest, by the objects of which he speaks, 
 by his way of regarding, judging, and conceiving 
 things, that is to say, b y his way of apperceiving. " 
 
 Perhaps we need not have gone so far afield for our 
 illustration. Not long ago, in the Infant Department 
 of one of our Aberdeen schools, a little boy was sent 
 by the mistress to post a letter. So long did he remain 
 away that anxiety began to arise as to the cause of his 
 delay. With that free and easy interchange of opinion 
 that unfortunately does not survive promotion from 
 the infant room, the little ones began to console the 
 mistress by suggesting various reasons for their com- 
 panion's absence. Each suggestion was very obviously 
 drawn from the personal experience of the little com- 
 forter who .offered it, and each gave some indication of 
 the mode of life of the speaker. But the typical case 
 was that of the little fellow who suggested that the 
 absentee was delayed by the difficulty of " licking -the 
 stamp off, clean." You will not be surprised to learn 
 that this pessimist was the son of a wandering tinker 
 who had taken up a very temporary abode near the 
 school. 
 
 All teachers are aware that every answer a pupil 
 
THE MEANING OF OBSERVATION 161 
 
 gives is an indication of what goes on in his mind.| 
 The fundamental mistake we are apt to make is to*' 
 neglect this aspect of the matter, and to act as if each 
 answer had only an absolute value in itself, in relation to 
 an absolute outside fact^^ The question of questions fori 
 a teacher must be " How does this strike my pupil ?Y 
 
 In his recently published Studies of Childhood, Pro- 
 fessor Sully 1 lays stress on the folly of parents who take 
 young children to see landscapes from favourable points 
 of view. He shows that the child cannot see the view 
 as a whole ; he has not that sense of freedom that dis- 
 tance and wide expanse always bring to an adult. 
 The child merely picks out some prominent feature, 
 usually close at hand, and almost invariably of no inter- 
 est to grown-up folks, and pins all his attention on that. 
 The whole progress in knowledge is from a vague un- 
 seen to a clearly seen whole. The educator who seeks 
 to cultivate observation by supplying materials to gape 
 at, does not know the rudiments of his art. True 
 observation is the offspring of interest and knowledge. 
 
 We observe easily what we are interested in or what 
 we already know something about, so the teacher in 
 seeking to train observation must give up attending 
 to the keenness of an eagle's sight and the delicacy 
 of a dog's sense of smell, and turn to consider interest 
 and knowledge. 
 
 A professor who is a passenger on a sailing vessel 
 
 has been admiring the keenness of observation of the 
 
 sailor on the lookout. But when he and the sailor are 
 
 r"ea3ing the most recent available newspapers in the 
 
 I < 1 Op. cit., p. 306. 
 
162 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 twilight, the surprising phenomenon occurs that the 
 eagle-eyed sailor is the first who has to give up on 
 account of the failing light. A few questions and a 
 little thought explain the whole matter. In the dusk 
 the sailor could still more than hold his own in the 
 way of distinguishing objects in the ship~x)r even in 
 determining the number of dots in certain spaced-out 
 advertisements, but in the actual reading the professor 
 was clearly ahead. The sailor's sense impression was 
 keener, but the professor, so far as reading went, was 
 the better observer. 
 
 Interest and knowledge are too important to be 
 treated satisfactorily at the end of a chapter; in the 
 meantime it is enough to remark that they mutually 
 determine and react upon each other. 'jIn view of 
 this, the teacher's first duty is to ascertain uhe contents 
 of the mind of his pupils, and then to bring within 
 their reach materials specially prepared for those minds 
 to react upo%- Children can observe only what their 
 apperception masses are prepared to act upon; to all 
 else they are ^terally blind, deaf, callous. | 
 
 To cultivate observation, then, is not to train the 
 eye, the ear, the hand, to extreme sensitiveness, but 
 rather to work up well-organized knowledge within the 
 mind itself. If we desire minute observation in a defi- 
 nite direction, we must cultivate special knowledge to 
 correspond. If we wish to encourage general observa- 
 tion, we can only succeed by cultivating wide interests. 
 
 The reciprocal interaction of interest and knowledge 
 in relation to external facts, is what ought truly to be 
 called observation. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 
 One need not be greatly ashamed at not knowing 
 Isaac Habrecht. He is not .exactly what might be 
 called a famous man. Indeed, the only positive in- 
 formation that I can give about him at this moment is 
 that he lived at Strasburg in the early sixteen hun- 
 dreds ; and was not like Charles the Second. For 
 Isaac once said a foolish thing. Professor Laurie 
 makes him responsible for the following : " One would 
 learn to know all the animals of the world more quickly 
 by visiting Noah's Ark than by traversing the world, 
 and picking up knowledge as we went." ^ 
 
 Without professing too intimate an acquaintance 
 with honest Isaac, we may on the ground of this asser- 
 tion fairly charge him' with intellectual greed. In 
 learning as in commerce, there are those who go wrong * 
 by hasting to be rich, and in both cases the results are 
 often disastrous. If Isaac merely meant that it is 
 easier to arrive at the names of animals via the Ark, 
 his remark might be readily passed ; but from the school 
 to which he belonged we know that he aimed at more 
 than that, and by reaching at too much he would cer- 
 tainly have lost all, had he been favoured with a free 
 pass to the Ark. For of all places in the world a wild- 
 
 1 Comenius, p. 32. 
 163 
 
164 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 beast show is the last to which a reasonable man would 
 go to acquire a true knowledge of animals. A lion in 
 a menagerie labours under nearly as great a disadvan- 
 tage as does a fine picture in a picture gallery. 
 
 No respectable boy who has made his first acquaint- 
 ance with the king of beasts in the stirring pictures 
 of his Standard II. Reader, will recognize him in the 
 mangy overgrown dog that growls over its shreds of 
 putrid flesh behind the bars of the sordid caravan cage. 
 The boy is right. Of the two, the paper lion is truer 
 to life. No doubt the caged animal does convey some 
 real knowledge of details, — form, size, colour, and the 
 like ; for degrade him as you will, he is a lion for all 
 that. But we have emancipated ourselves from the 
 dominion of mere brute fact. What we see behind 
 the bars there is only a part, and by no means the 
 most important part, of what holds a place in our 
 minds as a lion. Had Isaac had an opportunity of 
 visiting the Ark, he would have had to bring with him 
 a great deal more lion than he found there. 
 
 This Noah's Ark teaching represents a noble idol of 
 the school. The pupil is taught to play the part of a 
 little Adam, and all the animals are brought before him 
 to see what he will call them. If he can give them 
 the names that the master is accustomed to, all is well. 
 Good educational work is supposed to have been done. 
 A child who has seen a camel, and who can recognize 
 a camel when he sees one, is regarded as knowing the 
 camel. In a certain aspect this view is right. It is 
 the opposite of that which insists with wearisome itera- 
 tion of having " things, not| words." Neither things nor 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 165 
 
 names must be raised, to a place of absolute importance. 
 Neither by itself is useful to man as a rational educa- 
 ble being. Suppose a boy to know all the animals in 
 the Ark by head-mark without knowing the names of 
 any, is he much better off than the boy who knows all 
 the names of the animals, but cannot distribute his 
 names properly ? The truth is that name and thing are 
 of precisely equal value in education : each by itself is 
 naught ; each owes its importance to the other. The 
 lowest step in knowledge is the unifying in one idea 
 the name and the thing. Till this has been done, no 
 progress can be made. In the Ark there must be 
 no lack of old-fashioned courtesy. We must not ad- 
 dress ourselves to the animals without being properly 
 introduced. 
 
 Once this formality has been gone through, and we 
 know to whom we are speaking, the acquaintanceship 
 may be cultivated in two totally different ways. When 
 we are thrown into a new circle of acquaintances, we 
 strfdy them after two distinct fashions. We may con- 
 sider each man by himself, note all his mental aud 
 physical qualities, and strive to understand his charac- 
 ter. On the other hand, we may pay little attention to 
 the man himself, but may carefully look up some book 
 when we get home — Dehrett if he is a really fine speci- 
 men, Whitaker if he is only respectable, and the City 
 Directory in other cases. 
 
 Now, who shall say that a public dinner or ball is 
 the best place to arrive at a speedy knowledge of those 
 human beings we are thus studying? No one can fail 
 to note that men and women in such surroundings are 
 
166 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 not their natural selves, yet Isaac calmly assumes that 
 the animals in the Ark were at their ease. What could 
 be more unnatural than the sight that " Juveniles under 
 twelve" are privileged to see for sixpence ? Wrenched 
 from their true environment, and thrust into another, 
 full of incongruities, none of the animals appears at its 
 usual, not to say its best. The elephant alone, and 
 perhaps the camel, retains some degree of naturalness, 
 maybe because he is big enough to supply a sort of 
 environment for himself. 
 
 For the former of the two kinds of knowledge 
 referred to above, the Ark certainly offers distinct 
 facilities. We can examine each animal in great 
 detail, we can compare one • animal with another, w« 
 can classify them, and, crowning glory, we can be 
 prepared to be examined upon them. So far as the 
 minute study of each individual animal goes. Ark edu- 
 cation is perfectly sound ; for each fact in Anatomy or 
 Physiology is not an isolated fact, but' a f^ct which finds 
 a place and an explanation in the organism in which it 
 is found. The hard leathery, pads on the camel's legs, 
 for example, and its humps, -can be to some extent at 
 least explained by discovering their relation to the 
 other parts of the animal's frame. The finger at the 
 end of the elephant's trunk readily demonstrates its 
 own place and usefulness in the elephant's organism. 
 
 Can the same be said of the animal as a whole? 
 Itself an organism, and therefore a harmony of parts 
 and forces, it can explain any part of its being by the 
 simple expedient of merely living. Any question 
 regarding the members or functions of the elephant's 
 
• LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 167 
 
 body is readily answered by a good-natured solvitur 
 ambulando. But while the organism can explain its 
 parts, can it explain itself? The elephant which can 
 combine into an organic system all the forces which 
 its life implies, is itself but part of a higher organism 
 which the elephant cannot explain, but which must 
 rather explain the elephant. To know the elephant 
 as part of this higher organism, we must see it acting 
 as a member of that organism. We must, in other 
 words, study the elephant in its natural state, and 
 amid its natural surroundings. 
 
 This, then, is the great defect of Ark education. It 
 tears away objects from their natural surroundings, 
 and thus renders them meaningless ; then it tries to 
 make up for this loss of meaning by studying with 
 great elaboration the details of the objects thus un- 
 naturally isolated. The ever-ready objection is here 
 at once brought forward : it is said that it is impos- 
 sible to include such a wide sweep as a full explana- 
 tion of anything would demand. The teacher may 
 naturally hesitate to enter on his requisition sheet to 
 his board, under the head Apparatus : " Two elephants 
 with jungle, complete." But while the absurdity of 
 this demand in practical education is cheerfully ad- 
 mitted, its reasonableness from the theoretical stand- 
 point may be sturdily maintained. If the elephant is 
 to be truly understood, the jungle with all its acces- 
 sories must be supplied. The only other way, and a 
 much better one, is to apply the lesson of the story of 
 Mahomet and the Mountain. If the teacher cannot 
 supply a real jungle as well as a real elephant, then 
 
168 THE HBRBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the pupils must seek out the elephant in his native 
 wilds. This "traversing the world" is not so expedi- 
 tious a plan as visiting the Ark, but it is the only way 
 in which true knowledge may be " picked up." 
 
 To be sure, a child may fare exceedingly well in this 
 world without visiting either the Ark or the jungle. 
 But the comparative insignificance of the elephant as 
 an object of knowledge in no way diminishes the impor- 
 tance of the educational principle involved. For this 
 Ark education is by no means limited to the study of 
 the beasts that went in by their twos and their sevens. 
 Museum teaching of all kinds comes under the same 
 condemnation. Most of us have laughed all the fresh- 
 ness out of the story of the man who carried about a 
 brick as a specimen of the house he had for sale. Yet 
 the same old joke, from that serious side that every 
 joke has, is being played every day upon our helpless 
 pupils. Half of the contents of most museums are 
 veritable bricks from houses that none of the visitor's 
 ever has seen or is likely to sep. 
 
 The present outcry for school museums may be re- 
 garded as a latter-day tribute to old Isaac's theory of 
 Ark education. The heaped-up curiosities in the spare 
 room of a school may be supposed to save the pupil 
 the labour of wandering about to pick up knowledge 
 for himself. If this be the view adopted, it ought 
 to be a matter of rejoicing rather than regret that 
 distinguished advertisers are beginning to find the 
 demands of teachers too' costly to be met. It is to be 
 remembered that a museum is a place for instruction 
 of one kind only, and that not the most important. Its 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 169 
 
 place is not at the beginning of a study, but at the end- 
 Can any one imagine a more dreary way of beginning 
 the study of Botany than to pore over a book of dried 
 specimens ? To the boy who has collected plants, who 
 has seen them in their natural state, the book may be 
 both interesting and instructive. But to introduce a 
 boy to Botany in this way is as irrational as to com- 
 mence a student of Psychology with an examination of 
 the Mummy Room in the British Museum. The study ' 
 of detail which a museum favours can only be profit- l 
 ably carried on when the place in nature of the object 
 studied has been clearly grasped. 
 
 If school museums and schoolboy collections alone 
 were involved, no great harm would be done. But 
 Isaac's Ark teaching is by no means confined to Zool- 
 ogy. It permeates the whole school system. The 
 teacher is forever preparing his little list of specific 
 gravities, or genders, or constitutional changes, or words 
 sounding the same but spelled differently. These are 
 all little arks, each with its more or less choice selection 
 of animals which can be thus more quickly known than 
 they could be had the pupil to find them out for himself 
 in their natural place. Yet, after all, those collections 
 are only little arks, mere local branches of the great 
 Noah's Ark that dominates all schools. , For Isaac has 
 not been left without successors who have marched 
 with the times. The short cut to knowledge is not the 
 menagerie or the museum. The Ark of Arks in edu- 
 cation is the dictionary. There they lie, those queer 
 verbal beasts, arranged, like their prototypes in the real 
 Ark, not according to their true nature, but according 
 
170 THE HEKBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 to an arbitrary system that happens to suit the conven- 
 ience of dictionary makers. There they lie, the haughty 
 Hagiolatry beside the humble Hag, the awe-inspiring 
 Abracadabra cheek by jowl with the artlesfe Abroad, just 
 as in the genuine Ark the lion mg^iave occupied the 
 next berth to the lamb. 
 
 We have reason to know that Isaac strongly approved 
 of the dictionary system, as a means of saving time. 
 The plan is not a good one. I have special reasons for 
 knowing this. A boy with whom I am particularly 
 well acquainted tried ;t. In the youth of the individ- 
 ual, as in the youth of the race, there is a strong liking 
 for heroic methods. Some hunger for dragons to slay, 
 others would be content with Boers. The dictionary 
 was good enough for John. 
 
 With that keen eye for short cuts that characterizes 
 every respectable schoolboy, John observed that he 
 had to waste a great deal of time in looking up the same 
 word again and again in the dictionary. The annoy- 
 ance of having to turn up a word only to recognize it 
 as an old friend the moment he had got the place in 
 the dictionary, was so great and so frequently repeated 
 that he cast about in his mind for a remedy. Then an 
 unfortunate remark of his teacher occurred to him. It 
 was not a strikingly original remark, but John was not 
 overcritical at that stage. It was something to the 
 effect that the quickest way, in the long run, was to 
 learn each thing perfectly when one was about it at 
 any rate. There were more remarks about an invading 
 army in a hostile country, and fortresses that could not 
 be left untaken in the rear ; but John instinctively knew 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 171 
 
 that this was not of any consequence. He was quite 
 clear on one point, — that if once he, had conquered the 
 dictionary, he would be saved an intolerable amount of 
 turning of leaves during Latin preparation. So he faced 
 his gigantic task, and tackled his dictionary. It was 
 Smith's ; not, of course, the bigger one, but the one 
 you get for seven-and-six. When John started, he 
 felt almost sorry it was not the larger one. When one 
 is doing a thing thoroughly at any rate, it seems a pity 
 not to do the biggest as well as the best. The regret 
 did not last long. Nor did .the experiment. John 
 never seemed to have much to say on the subject dur- 
 ing the remainder of his school-days. Of one thing he 
 was quite convinced, — that all the interest of his experi- 
 ment fell to the lot of those who stood by and looked 
 on. It was from that date that John began to attach a 
 meaning of his own to the popular paradox, — the long- 
 est way round is the shortest way home. 
 
 What John ignorantly but gallantly attempted, is set 
 as a sober task to our pupils at school. I do not refer to 
 the inhuman proposal of Comenius that pupils should 
 be made to learn by rote, before beginning Latin, a 
 lexicon of one hundred folio pages. We have got 
 beyond absolute barbarism. It is admitted now that 
 the whole Ark is too heavy a burden ; so various sub- 
 sections are marked off to be conquered in turn. To 
 learn lists of "meanings" is only a new, a Napoleonic, 
 way of mastering the dictionary. But words, like ani- 
 mals, refuse to be understood when examined through 
 bars or under glass cases. From the dictionary we 
 may learn all about their size, their form, their spell- 
 
172 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 ing ; we may wallow in derivation ; but the dictionary 
 can only give a few vague equivalents from which we 
 may draw a sort of average meaning ; or it may give a 
 long list of special technical meanings. In no way can 
 we attain to a command of the word, save by using it 
 and hearing it used by others. 
 
 It is a natural criticism that interposes here with the 
 question : surely the master cannot be blamed for see- 
 ing that his pupil understands the meaning of the words 
 he uses. It may be asked " Can a pupil be supposed 
 to know, in the sense of understand, a word of which 
 he cannot give the meaning ? " The answer is an em- 
 phatic Yes. Most people in the world use freely and 
 intelligently words that they cannot in any way define. 
 Take a Junior class, and ask the meaning of No. After 
 the first pitying smile at such an easy question has passed 
 away from the faces of the youngsters, it will be suc- 
 ceeded by a sheepish expression which gradually gives 
 place to a distinct uneasiness when it is found that the 
 wretched little word has more fight in it than they had 
 bargained for. I shall be surprised to learn that a single 
 child in the class is able to give a correct answer. Are 
 we, then, to assume that the class does not understand the 
 meaning of No ? The question cannot be taken seriously. 
 
 By examining the " meanings " offered by the chil- 
 dren in their vain attempt to define the word, we may 
 get a clearer idea of how a word may. be understood 
 while defying all the attempts of the user to reduce 
 it to a clear isolated expression. Some of the mean- 
 ings offered during an actual experiment were : " Not 
 to do it " ; " None of it " ; " Not to go " ; " You won't 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 173 
 
 give me leave " ; " Less than one." All these expres- 
 sions (except perhaps the last, the work of a clever 
 arithmetician) imply a previous expression which they 
 negative. Every chUd obviously knows when to say 
 No. In other words, the pupils can use the word, and 
 can understand it when used. What they cannot do 
 is to separate it from its context and place it in a 
 museum of words, in a dictionary. 
 
 This definition test, practically the only one in many 
 schools, does very serious harm. After using a word 
 easily and naturally, a child may pass to an intelligent 
 definition of it; but to pass from the definition of a 
 word to the intelligent use of it is by no means so easy. 
 No doubt one gets to the definition meaning of a word 
 more rapidly through the dictionary than through using 
 the word, but the definition meaning is practically use- 
 less to the child. It is an empty generalization useful 
 only to those who have already at their disposal a large 
 stock of experience bearing upon the word. It is an 
 unwise haste that loads a child's mind with meanings 
 that his experience cannot make real. We cannot 
 hasten a child's development by saving him some of 
 the trouble and labotir of arriving at generalizations. 
 Each child must work for his own generalizations, just 
 as each child must eat for his own nourishment. Fes- 
 tina lente, say some educationists, should be printed in 
 letters of gold over the door-posts of every school-room. 
 School-board menlbers will be glad to learn that the 
 ratepayers need never be called upon for this enormous 
 outlay. The teacher has no need of the golden sign- 
 board. Its advice is no doubt of the best. But nature 
 
174 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 takes care that her best advice is attended to without 
 the formality of a sign-board. We cannot do other 
 than hasten slowly. Rousseau put the same truth in 
 a slightly different way when he told teachers that the 
 most important lesson for the teacher of young children 
 was how wisely to lose time. So far from hurrying his 
 pupils off to the Ark, Rousseau would deliberately set 
 them off on their travels to traverse the world, if by 
 any chance they might pick up a first-hand acquaintance 
 with the animals in their natural states. He who would 
 save his time, must lose it. 
 
 At the bottom of this foolish hasting is the miscon- 
 ception of the place of childhood in human experience. 
 Besides being a stage towards a fuller development, 
 childhood is an end in itself ; it has its place and func- 
 tion in nature apart from the manhood to which it forms 
 an introduction. " What is a boy ? " is the question 
 with which the philosopher in the story staggered the 
 nurse who had come to proclaim the joyful news : " It's 
 a boy, sir." She was unprepared with an answer, and 
 too many teachers share her embarrassment. Under- 
 lying all our notions about boys lurks the misleading 
 definition : " A little man." Now this is precisely what 
 a boy is not. He is no more a little man than a tadpole 
 is a little frog, or a grub a little butterfly. It is only 
 in some of the old masters that we find a boy drawn as 
 if he were merely a man set out on a smaller scale. 
 
 The evil effects of this little-man theory are seen in 
 the practical view of education. Your practical man 
 Icfoks with regretful respect at the little chick that pro- 
 ceeds straight from its egg to its first lunch, then he 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 175 
 
 turns bitterly to compute the long years that must be 
 wasted before his own offspring can, as he says, " come 
 to anything." It is only after years of earnest en- 
 deavour that he gives up in despair the attempt to put 
 old heads on young shoulders. 
 
 The fallacy of saving the time of the pupil is 
 matched by a not less dangerous fallacy which has of 
 late been coming into greater prominence since the first 
 fallacy has been more or less completely exploded. This 
 second fallacy lies in the desire to save the children 
 trouble. If the poor little beggars must spend such an 
 unconscionable time before they can begin the real busi- 
 ness of life, let them at least have as much pleasure at 
 school as possible. To this every well-conditioned 
 teacher will utter a loud Amen. It is in the foolish' 
 way in which this happiness is sought that the danger 
 lies. Labour-saving appliances are so common, and so 
 eagerly sought after in ordinary life, that it is little to 
 be wondered at that the same craving should arise in 
 connection with school work. (■ It seems eminently 
 sensible, not to say humane, to save children as much 
 labour as possible. But it is necessary for parents and 
 teachers alike to remember that children are not sent to 
 school to be saved trouble, but to be taught how to take 
 trouble. Taking pains is one of the main things to be 
 learnt at school. ) 
 
 The circumstances of the school-room are not those 
 of ordinary life. In the farm and the workshop the 
 thing to be done is the important matter, — the corn to 
 be produced or the plough to be made. So long as the 
 corn is good and abundant, and the plough well-made 
 
176. THE HBRBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 and serviceable, the less labour spent in their produc- 
 tion the better. In education the conditions are re- 
 versed. The process is everything, the material result 
 nothing. A blotted and blurred copy-book is not, in 
 itself, of any value. Yet it' may be a record of very 
 successful teaching. There is a danger of this distinc- 
 tion being overlooked in the most unexpected quarter. 
 Every one who knows anything of the principles upon 
 which the kindergarten system is founded must be 
 surprised at the pernicious practice — fostered, if not 
 created, by school-shows — of regarding the work of 
 children as in itself valuable. It is not to be forgotten 
 that psychological principles demand that the hideous 
 erection of matches and soft peas must be regarded by 
 the little architect as an end in itself. If this were not 
 so, the work towards that end would be in vain. To 
 work for the mere sake of work is unintelligent, mean- 
 ingless. (The child only does his best when he earnestly 
 desires to attain an end, even though that end be but 
 an amorphous mass of whitish clay that a complaisant 
 teacher is willing to recognize as a pear./ It is one 
 thing, however, to recognize this ceramic fruit as an 
 educational end, and quite another to admit that it has 
 any value in itself. It is true that some of the kinder- 
 garten paper work and drawings are in themselves pretty 
 enough, in their childish way, to deserve attention on 
 their own merits. But with regard to such objects two 
 things must be observed. First, that the beauty of the 
 result has no relation whatever to the value of the work 
 which produces it. Secondly and chiefly, that a con- 
 sideration of the results in themselves gives rise to a 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 177 
 
 Strong temptation to neglect the most profitable ways 
 of attaining results, and to adopt easy methods of pro- 
 ducing striking but uneducative results. 
 
 ■ This has been the case in dictionary work. The aim 
 has been to get up as many words as possible. The 
 dictionary is obviously the most convenient place to 
 find words. Lists, vocabularies, thesauruses, and sylvas 
 have been prepared and gobbled. Time and trouble 
 are both saved, and it is only those who have looked 
 carefully into the matter who have been convinced that 
 the results of the Noah's Ark method are rotten at the 
 core. 
 
 It goes without saying that the dictionary has a place 
 in education, — a place in which it can do admirable 
 work. If Noah's Ark were at this moment available 
 for school purposes, he would be, indeed, a foolish 
 teacher who did not avail himself of the opportunity; 
 but he would not take his pupils there in order merely 
 to save time and trouble. We must work up to the Ark, 
 not down from it. We must go to the dictionary to 
 find the meaning of words we have actually met; we 
 must not go to it as to an armoury of words where we 
 may choose what i^ best suited to our purpose. 
 
 Most people do not recognize Hans Sachs as a poet 
 of the first rank. But if any are in doubt about the 
 matter, they will no "longer hesitate after seeing the 
 picture at Nuremberg, in which he is represented as 
 marking off with his fingers the feet of the verses. 
 This is not the way true poetry is made. Fingering is 
 as fatal in poetry as in the infant room. Your genuine 
 Noah's Ark poet goes a step higher. In his case the 
 
178 THE HBRBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 numbers, indeed, come; it is the rhymes that trouble 
 him. There is a question that must have arisen at 
 some time or other in every thinking mind — who buys 
 the rhyming dictionaries? We hear of such books, 
 and we see them advertised. Has any of my readers 
 ever seen one of them in actual use? Can the Poet's 
 Corner in local newspapers, the Young Ladies' Album 
 of verses, the literature of St. Valentine's day and 
 Christmas time, and the needs of the desperate adver- 
 tiser account for the consumpt? Or must we include 
 a certain number of copies as belonging to the regular 
 army of Parnassus, the genuine poets? The biogra- 
 phers of those men are strangely silent on this point; but 
 in the absence of positive evidence to the contrary, we 
 may safely follow our natural impression, and repudiate 
 any such aid in the making of In Memoriam, or even 
 The Lady of the Lake. The rhymes, like the numbers, 
 must " come," if there is to be genuine poetry. 
 
 The rhyming dictionary is an excellent illustration 
 for our purpose, since it can only be used in the way 
 we object to. No one consults it save to get words to 
 use, and when found, the words are not the servants of 
 the word-hunter, but his masters. . You cannot dig 
 poetry out of a dictionary. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
 makes merry over the algebraic lines: — 
 
 ----- youth. 
 
 ------ morning. 
 
 - - - - truth. 
 
 - - _ - _ _ warning. 
 
 Yet the bald rhymes and the threadbare thoughts 
 represented by the dashes, indicate as a rule better 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 179 
 
 sense than your schoolboy can produce when let loose 
 upon a dictionary. The legitimate and the illegitimate 
 use of the dictionary may be very clearly illustrated by 
 the English-Latin and the Latin-English sections of 
 school lexicons. The former goes from the known to 
 the unknown, it is true, but it does not show the way. 
 The boy knows all the words in a given Latin sentence 
 except the word genus. He looks up the word and 
 finds a crowd of meanings, among which he sees that 
 hind is the one that fits into his sentence. If, on the 
 other hand, he is driven to look up the word for hind in 
 an English sentence dealing with a hind father, etc., he 
 gets a variety of unknown words all equally meaning- 
 les's, and the chances are strongly in favour of his pass- 
 ing over the clumsy lenignus in preference for the 
 simple genua pater. He is a fortunate teacher who has 
 never in his manuscript reading come across this pleas- 
 ant old gentleman. 
 
 * We may not go quite the length of Professor Ramsay 
 of Glasgow, who used to invite a bonfire of English- 
 Latin dictionaries after the pattern of the magic-books 
 of the Ephesians; but all wise teachers will make a rale 
 that no boy should ever be led into the temptation of 
 using a word he has not had occasion to see in actual use. 
 As a matter of fact, the dictionary meaning of a 
 word is only one out of many meanings. The word 
 man, in its dictionary sense, means a rational animal. 
 When the young scout who has been left to keep 
 guard while his fellows do a deed of daring, calls 
 out, "There's the man," does he mean "There's the 
 rational animal " ? Does he not rather mean " There's 
 
180 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the animal that can hurt " ? Yet you will search the best 
 dictionaries in vain for any hint of this meaning of man, 
 A reasonably stout dictionary will give a great list 
 of the different meanings of man, but the number of 
 meanings given is as nothing compared with the number 
 of meanings not given. The word varies in meaning 
 with almost every sentence we use. This truth may 
 be expressed by saying that the unit of meaning is not 
 the word, but the sentence. Those fond of reasoning 
 by metaphor will be pleased with the statement that 
 the sentence is not a mechanical mixture of a certain 
 number of independent words, but is rather a chemical 
 compound in which the elements (in this case words) 
 acquire an entirely new character, through their rela- 
 tion to the whole. Substituting a plain statement for 
 the metaphor, we may say that the sentence is the 
 organism in which the individual words find their true 
 meaning because they find their true place. In the 
 dictionary the word is wrenched away from this com- 
 bining and explaining whole, and accordingly becomies 
 to a large extent' meaningless. Even when we happen 
 to discover the meaning of a word from the dictionary, 
 we find that we are really supplying, more or less un- 
 consciously, a context. To treat a word apart from any 
 context is to reduce it to nothing. 
 
 " As when we dwell upon a word we know, 
 Repeating till the word we know so well 
 Becomes a wonder, and we know not why.'' 
 
 The poet does not know why, and does not want to 
 know. To him the luxury of ignorance is possible; 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 181 
 
 to the teacher it is denied. There is, indeed, little 
 mystery about the matter after all. By constantly 
 thinking about one word, we tend to make it an object 
 of our undivided attention. It is separated from its 
 context, it loses its relations, it becomes a thing in 
 itself, and as such disappears from our intelligence 
 altogether. Determination is negation ; absolute de- 
 termination is absolute negation. 
 
 Obviously there must be in this rational world of 
 ours a place and function for the dictionary. To deny 
 this were to fly in the face of common sense itself. Did 
 not Johnson write a dictionary ? Nor is it so difficult, 
 after all, to mark off the sphere of such books. The 
 word as found in the dictionary represents one aspect 
 of the truth ; as found in actual use, another. The 
 concept that the word represents may be regarded 
 from two totally different points of view. We have 
 the logical and the psychological concept. The word 
 crab, as I use it in ordinary conversation, represents 
 a psychological concept ; as found in the dictionary 
 under the letter C, it stands for a logical concept. 
 
 Are there, then, two different concepts corresponding 
 to the word crab ? Certainly not ; there are not two 
 different concepts, but a million, a score of millions, 
 as many concepts, indeed, as there are conceiving minds. 
 What, then, becomes of the dictionary in which only 
 one or two meanings are given, or, in aggravated cases, 
 perhaps a score? The reply is that while there are 
 myriads of psychological concepts of crab, there is only 
 one logical concept. Psychologically considered, the 
 word crab represents a concept peculiar to the person 
 
182 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 using it. This concept must be more or less like the 
 concepts of crah formed in other minds, and is probably 
 very like the concepts to be found in the minds of 
 those with whom the person in question comes most in 
 contact. On the other hand, the concepts may vary 
 enormously, if we take the cases of minds whose apper- 
 ception masses have little in common. A Worcester- 
 shire peasant, a Yarmouth fisherman, a London police- 
 man, a West-end gourmet, a member of the Fishery 
 Board, an evolutionist philosopher, and a primary school 
 boy have all concepts of crah ; but could all those con- 
 cepts be actualized, the results would be startlingly un- 
 like. The very crabs would not acknowledge each other. 
 How, then, are we to know what a crab is, how decide 
 which of those queer concepts is legitimately entitled 
 to the name it claims ? Is there a standard crab ? 
 
 There is a general impression that there is a standard, 
 but where to find this standard is a question that 
 annoys even philosophers. This is no end-of-the-cen- 
 tury, up-to-date problem. It has worried philosophers 
 as far back as Plato at least. His answer, while in 
 many respects beyond reproach, lacks that element of 
 practical applicability that modern solutions must have. 
 He may be right when he says that the perfect pattern 
 of the crab is laid up in hea,ven ; ^ but pending fuller 
 investigations there, we find it easier to fall back upon 
 the dictionary. The pattern we there find may not be 
 perfect ; but it is usually clear, definite, and open to 
 inspection. 
 
 1 Cf. Bepvlb., X. 597. Plato's illustration is a bed, but this (Joes 
 not affect the argument. 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 183 
 
 You remember how Cuvier treated the puzzled dic- 
 tionary makers when they brought for his criticism 
 their meaning of crab, — "A red fish that walks back- 
 wards." Like the courteous gentleman he was, he 
 told them that theirs was an excellent definition, only 
 the crab " was not red, was not a fish, and did not walk 
 backwards." 
 
 Why was the laugh on Cuvier's side? What was 
 the standard by which he so ruthlessly demolished the 
 suggested definition ? No one seems to question his 
 right to speak with crushing authority on such a sub- 
 ject, yet, it may be asked, had the dictionary men noth- 
 ing to say for themselves ? Suppose Cuvier had given 
 his hrachywroui, decapod, podophthalmatous Crustacean, 
 and the dictionary men had adhered to their red fish 
 that walks backwards, who is to decide between them ? 
 Were a world-wide poll to be taken on the sub- 
 ject, which of the two definitions would enlist more 
 sympathy ? 
 
 ■ The fact of the matter is that all such definitions are, 
 to some extent at least, arbitrary. There is no special 
 reason why an insect should have just six legs, as the 
 definition insists upon its having ; yet if I can bring 
 forward a ringed animal with a body divided into three 
 distinct parts, with antennae, wings, tracheae, and all 
 the rest of it, down to the part that demands three pairs 
 of legs springing from the thorax, and at this point 
 fail to satisfy the requirements, my otherwise satisfac- 
 tory animal will be firmly refused a place among the 
 insects. The taxonomist can never go wrong, for the 
 patent reason that he is by hypothesis always right. 
 
184 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 If he decrees that all insects have six legs, and an 
 insect comes along with eight legs, he very properly 
 rules it out of court with the unanswerable argument : 
 "All insects have only six legs. This pretender has 
 eight legs. Therefore this pretender is not an insect." 
 
 If we ask what authority the definer has for his 
 major premise, he need only reply that this is the hy- 
 pothesis on which he works, and no more can be said. 
 Cuvier's friends might have adopted the same plan and 
 adhered to their red fish that walks backwards, and if 
 they could produce any animal that fulfilled the terms 
 of their definition, no objection could be taken to it. 
 But when it is applied to an animal that can be brought 
 into evidence, the definition falls to the ground on 
 being contradicted by facts. Yet even here the dic- 
 tionary makers may attempt a last defence. Something 
 is wrong, they are prepared to admit ; but which is in 
 fault, the crab or the definition ? In actual practice it 
 is the animal that is always put upon its defence, the 
 definition taking the place of judge. But the defini- 
 tion, in its turn, is supposed to have owed its birth to 
 the comparison of a great series of crabs and similar 
 crustaceans. Before the definition was made, every 
 crab examined had a voice in the determination ; once 
 the definition has been made, each new crab must ful- 
 fil the conditions or forfeit its name. But while the 
 original definition-forming crabs influenced the deci- 
 sion, it was only passively ; the definition was actually 
 made by the thinking mind. God made the crab of the 
 sea-shore ; man made the crab of the dictionary. 
 
 Generally speaking, the crabs of the sea-shore are 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 185 
 
 good-natured enough to agree very closely with the 
 dictionary crabs (though there is far more individu- 
 ality within the carapace of ■ a crab than any one who 
 has not dissected a few would imagine); but there are 
 many other words in the dictionary that cannot be put 
 to the test of external comparison, and which are there- 
 fore regarded as absolutely fixed, while there is the 
 greatest possible elasticity in their meaning as actually 
 applied. Words, as found in actual use, may ba divided 
 into two great psychological classes, as transitive and 
 substantive. The latter we can pause upon and con- 
 sider ; the former are always upon the wing. The dis- 
 tinction does not correspond to the parts of speech, and 
 has little to do with grammar. ^ Every one knows that 
 in a sentence there are natural pausing places, not for 
 the voice merely, but for the thought. The subtle 
 power of emphasis gives force to this distinction, and 
 indicates possibilities of meaning that no dictionary can 
 ever hope to convey. The words of the dictionary are 
 indeed symbols of thought, but of thought reduced to 
 its least common denominator, so as to be more easily 
 compared with other thoughts. 
 
 The dictionary meaning may be compared to the 
 skeleton of the full meaning : something fixed and 
 definite, to which each person who uses it adds his own 
 special flesh and blood. At the end of each dictionary 
 
 1 Being a purely psychological distinction, this aspect of the mean- 
 ing of words cannot appear in a dictionary. A given word may in one 
 sentence represent the transitive part of thought, in another the sub- 
 stantive. Cf. some extremely interesting observations on the subject 
 in W. James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. 243 ft. 
 
186 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 I 
 
 definition may be added the words "At least." A man 
 is a rational animal, at least. An island is at least a 
 piece of land wholly surrounded by water. The diction- 
 ary maker hopes, by thus limiting his meanings, to 
 establish uniformity. But such an absolute agreement 
 as the dictionary hopes to establish is impossible. All 
 men agree that man is a .rational animal, but immedi- 
 ately arises the question what is rational, and what is 
 animal. These words convey a different meaning to 
 every one who uses them. The very words, therefore, 
 that seek to bring A's idea of a man into strict conform- 
 ity with B's are in themselves instruments to differ- 
 entiate the two meanings. 
 
 Science has been defined as nothing but a well-made 
 language. May we not, without putting an undue 
 strain upon the words, say that education consists in 
 the making of dictionaries ? For each of us makes his 
 own little dictionary, which agrees more or less with 
 those of others. Pupils in the same school and belong- 
 ing to the same class of society ny^rally have dictiona- 
 ries that correspond pretty closely to each other. The 
 farther people are removed from each other in the 
 circumstances of their life, the greater the difference 
 between their internal dictionaries. To such an extent 
 does this go that people speaking the same language, 
 and using the same words and constructions, may be 
 at a loss to understand each other. Mark Twain gives 
 an excellent example of this in the interview between 
 a rough miner and a clergyman whom the miner wishes 
 to conduct the funeral service of a fellow-miner. 
 "Are you the duck that runs the gospel mill next 
 
LOGICAL CONCEPT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL 187 
 
 door ? " begins the miner. This is clearly English — 
 the words are all Saxon, and the construction is per- 
 fectly straightforward. Yet the clergyman can make 
 no sense out of it. When the clergyman replies, it is 
 the miner's turn to shake his head. The religious dic- 
 tionary is as hard for the miner as the mining one is 
 for the minister. Slang and dialect are only exagger- 
 ated forms of this universal system of private dic- 
 tionaries. Every household has its own list of special 
 meanings. 
 
 In the case of households and communities^ it can be 
 demonstrated that words are used in special senses. 
 In the case of the individual there can be no proof 
 either way by direct demonstration, but the wise teacher 
 will not be hard to convince, though he may be slow to 
 apply his conviction. The standard dictionary, then, 
 must be i^reated as the terminus ad quern, not as the 
 starting-point in education. The pupil must first learn 
 to use his own private internal dictionary, and then 
 learn to compare an^^orrect it with the standard dic- 
 tionary. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 
 
 The well-known headmaster of one of the most im- 
 portant schools in London, speaking of the training of 
 teachers one day, made the startling remark : " All that 
 a teacher requires is a knowledge of his subject, and a 
 sense of humour." 
 
 Every epigram has enough truth in it to justify its 
 apparent impertinence. The truth here lies in the 
 second requirement. We are not so easily satisfied as 
 this headmaster ; we want more than a knowledge of 
 the subject and a sense of humour. But we cannot 
 rest satisfied till those two conditions are fulfilled. 
 The epigram owes its point to its insistence upon a 
 very unusual requirement. For of all men in the world 
 a schoolmaster is the last to whom popular opinion will 
 concede any degree of genuine humour. It takes the 
 sublime charity of Wordsworth to describe an old 
 schoolmaster as 
 
 " The gray-haired man of glee." ^ 
 Even Goldsmith, the genial, cannot help rhyming : 
 
 " Full oft they laughed with counterfeited glee 
 At all his jokes, for many a joke had he," 
 
 1 Poems of Sentiment and Seflection : " The Fountain." 
 188 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 189 
 
 and an appreciative world hails the picture as true to 
 life. The philomath of Sweet Auburn stands con- 
 demned at the bar of public opinion, and it is only 
 schoolmasters who care to ask why the glee was coun- 
 terfeited. Were the jokes poor in themselves, or were 
 they too old to command genuine glee ? Probably 
 both ; for " many a " is strangely suggestive of a fairly 
 large, but distinctly definite, number, while the " had 
 he," implying possession, hints at a cistern rather than 
 a fountain. 
 
 The question of quality is readily settled by a refer- 
 ence to Lamb, who has given an authoritative decision, 
 telling us in cold blood : " The jests of a schoolmaster 
 are coarse or thin. They do not tell out of school." i 
 
 To the charge of age we may find it convenient to 
 plead guilty. Most of us have our " Grouse in the 
 Gun-Room." But Lamb's criticism demands different 
 treatment. To begin with, Lamb, while an unimpeach- 
 able authority on joking, is a distinctly biassed judge. 
 Looking all through the range of literature, I do not 
 think I can find a man who has less sympathy with the 
 pedagogic spirit. 
 
 Why should a schoolmaster's jokes be coarser or 
 thinner than those of other men? As we are plead- 
 ing our cause only to ourselves, we may as well be 
 honest and admit that our jokes are not commonly 
 of the best, and do sometimes, under special provoca- 
 tion, become a little coarse, from an artistic — not a 
 moral — point of view. The cause of all this lies on 
 the surface. We have an audience ready made, who 
 ^ The OH Schoolmaster and the Newl 
 
190 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 must listen, and who generally feel it their duty to 
 laugh. It is, indeed, more than their duty ; it is their 
 interest and pleasure. It is better to laugh at a bad 
 joke than to cry over a good multiplication table. So 
 long as the master is making jokes, he is not doing any- 
 thing else, and there are so many disagreeable things 
 he might be doing. It is well to counterfeit glee. 
 ><. Thus do a schoolmaster's jokes become thin. Any- 
 thing will do, the glee comes all the same. Why they 
 should become coarse opens up other and more dis- 
 agreeable aspects of the question. Just as the glee 
 is always present, so is honest criticism always absent. 
 When the master opens up his mind, and tells John 
 what he thinks of him, John finds it convenient to 
 reserve his opinion for open-air use. This style of 
 pedagogic wit is obsolescent, if not obsolete. If any 
 schoolmaster recognizes his face in the mirror we have 
 here held up to ill-nature, let him take a thought 
 and mend his jokes. The thin ones are better than 
 these. 
 
 All this forms, doubtless, an explanation to Elia why 
 schoolmasters' jokes do not tell out of school. But 
 there is more than this in it. Answer, all ye who have 
 suffered under the hoary joke repeated to the wth time 
 by wealthy uncle or prospective father-in-law, has this 
 thing never happened to you? Have you never, in 
 desperate straits to entertain an unresponsive guest, or 
 under sore pressure of rivalry at another man's table, 
 fallen back upon one of those venerable jokes, and 
 produced it with all the studied abandon of a body- 
 snatcher, only to be bewildered and charmed to find 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 191 
 
 it go ofp brilliantly? Obviously, family jokes do tell 
 out of their original circle. 
 
 The real explanation of the truth Lamb has hit upon 
 is very simple. Schoolmasters' jokes do not tell out 
 of school because they are school jokes. Jokes only 
 tell where they meet with suitable apperception masses. 
 Punch has a picture of two young gentlemen, and the 
 young lady for whose affections they are rivals. " Do 
 you like Botticelli?" she asks A, who innocently re- 
 plies, "N-no, I think I prefer Chianti." Thereupon, 
 rival B whispers with malicious triumph into A's ear : 
 "Now you've done it. Botticelli isn't a wine, you 
 idiot, it^s a cheese." One can picture stratum after 
 stratum of human society where this joke would not 
 tell, though all critics of jokes (who are not too ad- 
 vanced to laugh at anything in Punch') will admit that 
 it is neither coarse nor thin. With equal justice Elia 
 might have said here, " Artists' jokes do not tell out of 
 the studio." 
 
 This is a gentle chapter and makes for peace. Accord- 
 ingly, there is no attempt made to define a joke. It is 
 surely vague enough to avoid controversy to say that 
 all jokes imply a taking of the whole for the part or 
 the part for the. whole, the joker knowing all the while 
 the true relation of whole to part. To give point to the 
 description (the very word definition is rejected as strife- 
 producing), we might almost write the words Ax. 9 
 after each joke, as we used to do in our problems in 
 Euclid, where Axiom 9 reads " the whole is greater than 
 its part." For on this law, and its breaches, hang all 
 the jokes in school and out. 
 
192 THE HBRBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 The whole to which all the parts of our experience 
 must be referred for their true explanation is the self- 
 consciousness of the individual. The permanent con- 
 tent of John's soul, we have seen, is made up of a great 
 series of ideas which are grouped into masses which 
 intersect and cross and oppose each other in a some- 
 what bewildering way. But those masses do not react 
 upon each other in any haphazard fashion. As ideas 
 form alliances among themselves resulting in larger or 
 smaller apperception masses, so do those masses com- 
 bine to form systems. It follows that in a well-organ- 
 ized soul all the ideas fall into definite relations ol 
 subordination and superiority, so as to form a regular 
 hierarchy of ideas, masses, and systems. 
 
 A man's ideas naturally fall into systems, each gath- 
 ering around some common centre, in relation to which 
 each idea falls into its appropriate place. Such centres 
 are a man's home, his club, his church, his business, his 
 political party. Each such system is to a certain extent 
 an independent organism, in which all the component 
 parts fall into natural and reasonable relations with 
 each other. At any moment in our conscious life we 
 must regard all our ideas as forming a rational system; 
 but certain systems become in a sense permanent in 
 certain connections, from the frequency with which 
 they occur, and from the vividness resulting from cer- 
 tain external stimuli. The moment a man enters his 
 office, all his surroundings react upon his ideas in the 
 same way as they have done for the past score of years, 
 with the result that all his ideas fall into a definite 
 relation to each other, so as to make up what we may 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OK6ANON 193 
 
 call his office system. At home quite a new set of 
 ideas are called into prominence, and in church still 
 another, the permanent relation of the ideas to each 
 other being determined, as before, by the reaction of 
 the external environment. Certain ideas belong to only 
 one system, and can therefore cause no confusion. 
 The idea of a chasuble has no standing outside of the 
 church system, nor the idea of Cydippe outside of the 
 biological system. On the other hand, the great 
 majority of ideas belong to several of the systems; 
 indeed, if this were not so, our identity would be lost 
 among our many systems. I know that the / of my 
 church system is the same as the / of my home system, 
 because I find a certain number of ideas common to 
 both. 
 
 Certain systems may have remarkably little in com- 
 mon. The system that centres round an entomologist's 
 work-table has almost nothing in common with the 
 system gathered round his political creed. Sometimes 
 there is so little in common between two systems that 
 we give ourselves up to banal reflections, and ask, 
 " Can I, sunburnt and tweed-knickerbockered, lying 
 on xay back on the grass, be the same I that, pale-faced 
 and cap-and-gowned, lately went with more or less 
 regularity to eight-o'clock lecture ? " Yet there must 
 be enough in common to make up the ultimate system 
 which goes to form the inseparable environment of the 
 ego. In the last resort the ego must be present in all 
 systems, just as the president of a so.ciety is ex officio a 
 member of all committees. 
 
 But the ego is not an isolated idea ; it is the meeting- 
 
194 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 point of all the apperception masses. In a certain 
 sense it may be said- to have no mass of its own, since 
 it is the common property of all the masses. But the 
 mere fact of this presence in all the masses and systems 
 gives it a character sui generis; besides, the ego is so 
 closely connected with certain of the more permanent 
 ideas in the various systems, that it can hardly free 
 itself from them, but drags them into all systems. 
 There thus comes to be practically an ego mass,^ which 
 is common to all systems, and which, according to its 
 influence, determines what is known as the character 
 of the soul in question. 
 
 In a certain sense, John is as many boys as he has 
 systems. Or, if you prefer it, he has as many systems 
 as he is boys.^ The most superficial observer knows 
 that John is a diflierent boy in school and in the play- 
 ground, at home and at church. Yet he is a fairly 
 consistent boy in each system. The human soul is so 
 constituted that it cannot take .in ideas huddled to- 
 gether in any way. Its hea;lthy existence depends 
 upon its arranging them into a reasonable whole, in 
 which they maintain fixed relations to each other. 
 Since the ideas presented in school usually maintain a 
 fairly well-established order among' themselves, while 
 such of those ideas as are common to school and play- 
 ground naturally hold a different rank in each ease, it 
 
 1 Cf. Maudsley, Body and Will, p. 80 : " The ego is not a constant, 
 but a variable." And Paulhan, VActivite Mentale, p. 211 : "Le moi 
 est une co-oi'dination. " 
 
 2 " L'homme se compose, pour ainsi dire, de plusieurs moi, qui ont 
 un fonds commun et se oonf ondent jusqu'd, un certain point, mais non 
 pas complfetement." — Paulhan, VActivite Mentale, p. 200. 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 195 
 
 is to be expected that the soul should have a certain 
 school place for a given idea, and quite a different 
 place for it in the playground system. In school, for 
 example, apperception masses are formed dealing with 
 grammatical points that never enter into the system 
 that holds in the playground. In the ordinary element- 
 ary school the school system is very sharply marked 
 off from the home system, each having actually a lan- 
 guage of its own. John at school is clean and tidy, 
 speaks respectfully to his teachers and quietly to his 
 neighbours, and at least endeavours to keep the peace 
 among his nouns and verbs. At home he talks loudly 
 and roughly, and lets his parts of speech fight it out 
 among themselves. A discord that would put him to 
 the blush in his class is not so much as noticed in the 
 privacy of the home circle. Indeed, the accuracy of the 
 school is as much a solecism at home as the familiar 
 speech of the fireside is at school. If the master would 
 hold up his hands at the expression "it's me," the 
 father would be no less disgusted with the priggish 
 school form "it is I." 
 
 The difference between the school system and the 
 playground system cannot be better illustrated than by 
 the not unfrequent occasions on which John is invited 
 to show up the contents of his pockets. With flushed 
 face and downcast eyes he produces object after object 
 of which in the playground he is justly proud, but 
 which, under the cold glare of the master's eje, seem 
 to develop qualities for which even John feels called 
 upon to blush. The horsehair that in the playground 
 is warranted to split the stoutest cane the master's 
 
196 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 money can buy, under that master's frown becomes a 
 contemptible trifle to be explained and apologized for. 
 
 No sooner is the playground reached, after this de- 
 plorable interview, than all is changed ; a new system 
 becomes dominant. Persons as well as things take 
 new rank. The dux boy in school often plays a very 
 subordinate part outside. The master himself falls to 
 a pitiable level in the new system, being only proxime 
 accessit to the gamekeeper, a bad second to the drum- 
 mer in the volunteer band, and not to be mentioned 
 in the same breath with the lion-tamer at the penny 
 show. 
 
 At home John enters still another world, where 
 things have to be all rearranged. The John of the 
 home may be fairly regarded as the standard John. 
 He is more natural there ; much of the pretence that 
 he puts on for outside use is here dropped as un- 
 necessary and unworkable. To be sure, there are 
 certain airs (increasing directly as the number of his I 
 sisters, and inversely as the number of his brothers) | 
 special to home, by which John seeks to make up for 
 the loss of the grander make-believe of the outside 
 world ; but these are insignificant by comparison. 
 
 At church, at Sunday-school, in the country during 
 vacation, John enters a new world, where new ideas 
 find a place, and old ideas find a new place and a new 
 meaning. For each world has a tone of «its own, and 
 the same idea varies with the world in which it finds 
 itself. In school the idea of pigeon has to hobnob 
 with disagreeable ideas of object lessons and the num- 
 ber oi vertebrse in birds. In Sunday-school it takes up 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL ORGANON 197 
 
 with Noah's Ark ; at home it may deal with the delights 
 of the backyard dove-cote or the charms of a certain 
 class of pie ; in the country it may form the centre of a 
 -system of snares. 
 
 In actual life the common man — our friend in the 
 street — keeps all his systems separate. It is not to 
 point a moral, but to illustrate our position by a 
 generally admitted case, that we refer to the very 
 common practice among men of keeping their religious 
 and their secular systems apart. " Six days shalt thou 
 labour and do all thy work, but — " quotes the adult 
 John, and feels that he has by this antithesis justified 
 his separation of the two worlds. If driven into a 
 corner, he settles the matter with his ultimatum : Busi- 
 ness is business, which is manifestly only an explicit 
 statement that the system of business ideas must stand 
 apart from all other systems. The flijity banker of 
 the city is the indulgent father of the suburban villa. 
 Shylock had his Jessica system as well as his Antonio 
 one. 
 
 To some extent this is as it should be for practical 
 purposes. A man's power of effective work would be 
 greatly diminished were he to mix his systems. In 
 pne sense it is right to remember that business is busi- 
 ness. It is as unwise to mingle the religious system, as 
 such, with the business system, as to mingle the business 
 system with the pleasure system. Each system must 
 be kept apart, but they must be all correlated in the 
 higher unity of the ego that makes them. We must 
 have the same ego in different systems, not a different 
 ego in each system. When we have the systems entirely 
 
198 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 separate, the ego is the servant, the system the master ; 
 the system makes the ego. In a true organism this is 
 reversed. The ego remains unchanged, is true to itself 
 in all the different systems, and thus preserves an es- 
 sential harmony between apparently conflicting systems. 
 During business hours the ego attends strictly to busi- 
 ness ; but if a question of morality arises, the ego does 
 not take its decision from the system in which it finds 
 itself for the moment. Being itself a part of the sys- 
 tem, it can to a certain extent modify that system. The 
 ego brings its own morality. -~ 
 
 Our main concern at present is not morality. What 
 is true of the moral element is true of all the elements 
 which enter largely into systems of ideas, and which 
 must therefore share in regulating those systems. The 
 really well-organized soul is not content with having 
 systems; it must also understand them. Each system, 
 while itself an organism including and explaining 
 smaller organisms, must itself be included under and 
 explained by a still wider system. This ultimate system 
 for each individual consists of ideas inseparable from 
 the ego itself, and which must therefore form part of all 
 the subordinate systems. 
 
 While few have this unifying system in anything 
 like good working order, most people have sufficient 
 command over their systems to know at once when an 
 idea gets into the wrong system. Every such mis- 
 placed idea produces a peculiar reaction on the mind, a 
 sort of shock which is not unpleasant, and is the psy- 
 chological basis of a joke. An idea in its own mass 
 and system produces no shock, calls for no remark, 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL ORGANON 199 
 
 rouses no desire to laugh-. A lamb in a field is an 
 innocent and pretty object at which we look with 
 pleasure, and pass on ; it is exactly what we expect to 
 find there. Yet we have the most unimpeachable 
 authority for believing that under certain circumstances 
 the lamb becomes very funny. In one of our school 
 classics we are told that 
 
 " It made the children laugh and play, 
 To see a lamb at school." 
 
 The laugh does not depend upon the lamb ; any idea 
 not legitimately connected with school work will pro- 
 duce as much fun as Mary's pet. An organ-grinder in 
 the school-room, or even a postman, will do as well. 
 A policeman at the master's desk would be intensely 
 funny, were it not for the tragic consequences that 
 usually attend the transference of the idea of a police- 
 man from the street system to the school system. For 
 here we have stumbled upon the Aristotelian limitation 
 in the definition of the ridiculous, "What is out of 
 time and place, without danger.'''' 
 
 For " without danger " it may be well to read " with- 
 out an excessive shock." The sudden appearance in 
 my study of my aunt, whom I suppose to be in India, is 
 not exactly dangerous, and yet, out of time and place 
 as she undoubtedly is, I feel no desire to laugh. An 
 idea may be thrust out of the playground system into 
 the church system without producing any comical 
 impression. The shock is too great. A vulgar idea 
 brought into contact with some of the holiest ideas of 
 our church system is indeed incongruous, but the shock 
 
200 THE HBEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 is unpleasant, rousing indignation rather than laughter. 
 With this limitation, then, that incongruities must not 
 produce too great a shock, or threaten serious conse- 
 quences, it is true that'the appearance of an idea in a 
 system to which it is alien results in a jokey 
 
 This is clearly seen in the more rudimentary form of 
 jokes popular with young children and barbarous adults. 
 All forms of the practical joke consist in transporting 
 bodily an object from one system of things to another 
 in which its appearance leads to unusual consequences. 
 Closely allied to this is the humour of simple exaggera- 
 tion, the humour of the hideous caricature kind that 
 is so fascinating to children at a certain stage. The 
 primordial form of verbal wit, the pitiful quibble known 
 as a pun, is a very obvious case of dragging an idea out 
 of its natural system and forcing it into an alien one. 
 
 There is one class of school joke that does tell out of 
 school. It has enlivened the pages of many a Blue 
 Book, and has shed an occasional glimmer of humour 
 over the prevailing gloom of St. Stephens itself. But 
 " howlers," as this class are technically termed, are 
 claimed to be not schoolmasters' jokes, but children's. 
 Now no child who makes a howler means a joke. If 
 he does, it ceases to be a howler, and becomes a piece 
 of impertinence. The child makes the remark ; the 
 teacher or the inspector makes the joke. In that moth- 
 eaten favourite of the scrap columns of educational 
 magazines, the tale of the child who began to distin- 
 guish between a widow and a window with the words : 
 " You can see through a window, but — ," we find the 
 child interrupted in the middle of a commonplace ex- 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OBGANON 201 
 
 planation. The joke is the teacher's own. The pupil 
 who explained the phrase " funeral note " as found in 
 The Burial of Sir John Moore, as " the letter inviting 
 somebody to the funeral," was stating what he believed 
 to be a commonplace though no doubt a solemn fact, 
 and must have been greatly shocked at the unexpected 
 laughter of the inspector, who indeed, by all the rules 
 of the game of etiquette, was the last man who should 
 have laughed, seeing that the joke was his own. The 
 child sees nothing to laugh at in his plain statement ; 
 if he does, he does not make it, for one does not jest 
 with one's inspector. 
 
 Here we seem to have strayed very far from the 
 theory, not to say the practice, of education. Nothing 
 seems farther removed from the work of an ordinary 
 school than joke-making and joke-understanding. Yet 
 when one comes to think of it, is not one of the main 
 requirements in Standard V.^ the understanding of 
 jokes ? In that fatal Standard the pupils must be 
 able to reproduce in their own words a story which has 
 been twice read to them. The inspectors are further 
 required to select a story with a definite point in it. 
 In actual practice this point comes to be a joke. The 
 result is that a large part of the time of children in this 
 Standard is taken up in learning how to catch rapidly 
 the point of a joke. 
 
 The training is capital, and would be much better if 
 
 it were not hampered, as it is, by a mass of grammatical 
 
 minutiae of trifling importance. The exercise consists 
 
 really in apperceiving a given presented content by 
 
 1 See Scotch and English Codes. 
 
202 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGy 
 
 means of the appropriate apperception masses. The 
 apperception mass called into play must include the 
 whole, of which the matter presented shows only 
 the part or parts. 
 
 The story is told, for example, of some j^oung men 
 who wished to score off a supposed-to-be-stupid old 
 grocer and provision dealer. They ask him the price 
 of a yard of pork, and on the prompt reply " fifteen 
 shillings," invite him to supply a yard. Insisting upon 
 having money down before the transaction begins, he 
 does a capital stroke of business by selling three pig's 
 feet as a yard of pig. In apperceiving this tale, it is 
 obvious that the apperceiver must find the word feet 
 belonging to two quite different masses. Both of 
 those masses must be -called into play before the point 
 can be caught. In this case the teacher has perfect 
 confidence that there is a mass corresponding to the 
 feet that make up yards, and another to the feet that 
 make up pigs. Every Standard V. child has seen a pig 
 or its picture, and every Standard V. child is certified 
 by the Education Department to have an apperception 
 mass in which lineal feet are quite at home. The 
 teacher is therefore certain that those two masses will 
 compete for the dome, and that in the conflict the dis- 
 parity of the two kinds of feet will be noted with the 
 pleasant shock of surprise which characterizes this 
 sudden recognition of contradiction where harmony 
 is loudly proclaimed. 
 
 The incongruity here, indeed, appears to be double. 
 There are the lineal feet in the pig mass, and the pig 
 feet in the lineal mass. Both incongruities no doubt 
 
A NEGLECTED EDTJCATIONAL OKGANON 203 
 
 exert an influence, but the prominent incongruity arises 
 in the pig system, which, from its concrete setting, natu- 
 rally holds the more important place in the childish 
 mind. 
 
 In the " funeral note " case, only one apperception 
 mass can be calculated upon at the start, and this 
 marks off the "howler" from the genuine joke. The 
 child who sees a joke must have the two masses at his 
 command. It is true that he can be taught to under- 
 stand his own joke, if we supply the lacking mass. The 
 word funeral is dropped for a moment, and the atten- 
 tion concentrated on "note." This idea is seen to fit 
 into two different masses, — the letter mass and the musi- 
 cal mass. Next, the word funeral is added, and it. is seen 
 that this makes no difference; for the idea oi funeral can 
 be made comfortable in both masses. To begin with, 
 the funeral idea is only connected with the paper note 
 in the boy's mind. By calling up all the circumstances 
 of the battle-field, it is made plain that letter-writing is 
 not largely carried on in the midst of battle, while there 
 is a kind of note that is often heard immediately before, 
 and sometimes during a battle. So soon as John com- 
 pares the two masses, he has no difficulty in deciding in 
 which the idea of note as music is more at home. He 
 decides from knowledge. When he does perceive the 
 foolishness of his first answer, he sees the joke enough 
 to smile, hardly to laugh. His lack of enthusiasm must 
 not be set down to imperfect knowledge now, nor even 
 to wounded self-respect. It is simply that the process 
 of explanation has taken away that shock of surprise 
 which is essential to the true joke. Those who have 
 
204 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 leard a Professor of Humanity lecture for half an hour 
 3n what is believed to be a Ciceronian pun, will un- 
 ierstand John's mirthless acquiescence in the musical 
 solution. 
 
 Some jokes, however, do not admit of treatment in 
 bhis way; the necessary second mass may be an impos- 
 sibility at the stage at which the experiment is made. 
 Punch's weary little arithmetician who wished she was 
 1 rabbit because she had heard her father say that 
 ihey "multiplied so quickly," would require to wait 
 for a year or two before she could laugh at her own 
 joke. The widow-window joke is another case in point. 
 There are many stages in the understanding of this joke. 
 ' He said widow for window," the youngsters will say 
 svith a laugh ; for the mere confusion of the two sounds 
 IS amusing to young children. By and by the meta- 
 phorical meaning of " seeing through " a person may 
 become clear enough to give a new point to the con- 
 brast. The full force of the joke can never be appre- 
 3iated by a boy. There is no apperception mass of widow 
 in his soul at all equal to the demands of the joke, nor 
 3an there be, till long after he has ceased to be a boy. 
 
 The power to understand a joke thus comes to be a 
 sriterion of intellectual progress. At the earliest stages, 
 shildren both accept and make the most contradictory 
 statements without at all seeing the humorous aspect of 
 the propositions they place side by side. Whilst the 
 apperception masses are still unorganized, each fact 
 stands in its own system, where, being quite consistent 
 with its surroundings, it arouses no comment. It is 
 only when its position in another system is compared 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 205 
 
 with its position in this that trouble can arise. The free 
 and easy ways of royal personages in fairy tales seem 
 perfectly satisfactory to children who have only one 
 system in which to observe those exalted beings. No 
 fault can be found with this nursery lopsidedness. It 
 is inevitable. It is different at a later stage, where 
 errors are allowed to remain through not comparing two 
 systems actually within the permanent content of the 
 soul. An exasperatingly familiar illustration of this 
 is to be found in rule of thumb applications of arith- 
 metic. John gets his problem " stated " as best he can, 
 and loyally multiplies the second and third terms and 
 divides by the first. But while the teacher is anxious 
 to know how many yards it would require to make 
 sixteen suits, John is perfectly content to reply 
 £3272 : 10 : 6^-||-. A few words are usually all that are 
 necessary to turn this answer into something for John 
 to laugh at. But apart from such external aid, he sees 
 only the serious side of the matter. His figures seem 
 all consistent with each other, and there is nothing 
 intrinsically funny in a large sum of money like that. 
 To John £3272 : 10 : 61ff seems eminently in its 
 place 'and time on his slate and during school hours. 
 Besides, under a vigilant teacher, there is always an 
 element of danger in having a wrong answer. 
 
 The moment John can laugh at his answer, he under- 
 stands at least what is wanted. That this power of 
 appreciating jokes is a sort of gauge of intellectual 
 readiness and general intelligence has never been mathe- 
 matically demonstrated. Yet it has not remained quite 
 a pious opinion. More or less consciously, inspectors 
 
206 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of schools employ this test in estimating that vague 
 quantity known in their reports as "intelligence." 
 Children who listen to a funny remark with the same 
 respectful attention that they give to the dictation les- 
 son on examination day, can hardly claim a high degree 
 of intelligence. 
 
 The same principle may be, and is, applied to gauge 
 the intelligence of an adult audience, and if due allow- 
 ance be made for the kind of joke, as well as for the 
 rapidity with which it is apperceived, the principle is 
 scientifically valid. For you have only to go low 
 enough to find a joke that will fit the meanest intelli- 
 gence. A highly organized mind often sees no joke in 
 what seems intensely funny to a mind of less scope. 
 Witness the unexpected laughter of children at inci- 
 dents in which we see nothing but the veriest common- 
 place. The explanation is not far to seek. The 
 narrower mind has apperceived a certain idea only in 
 one system. Its appearance in another rouses the 
 usual amusement that accompanies such an innovation. 
 The wider mind, which has been accustomed to find the 
 idea in both systems, receives no shock in finding it in 
 either. The office boy who has never seen his master 
 save in the regulation frock coat and silk hat, meets 
 him by chance in the country, dressed in knickerbock-. 
 ers and a peaked cap and finds something desperately 
 funny in what he sees. His master's family, accustomed 
 to both styles, find no joke in the matter. 
 
 Jokes must not be judged by their power to raise a 
 laugh. There are jokes that insist upon our laughing ; 
 others are content with a chuckle ; some are satisfied 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL ORGANON 207 
 
 with a mere gleam of intelligence. This last class in- 
 cludes those cases in which an idea does not belong to 
 a system in which it is found, but which might belong 
 to that system. There is nothing incongruous bet\iveen 
 the idea and its new environment, except the fact that 
 this is its first appearance there. 
 
 The editor of a comic journal would draw the line 
 at this last class, and would deny their right to be 
 called jokes at all. Yet from the teacher's point of 
 view they rank exactly on the same level as the more 
 laughable sort. They owe their point to the same 
 mechanism, and are indeed of more common applica- 
 tion in school than the others. Getting a child to 
 see the point is precisely the same process, whether we 
 wish him to laugh when he sees it, or merely to feel a 
 thrill of intellectual pleasure. If it were worth the 
 trouble, an unbroken line of ascent, or descent, could 
 be made, out from the broadest jokes, through the 
 euphuistic conceits, to the finest poetical figures. All 
 our most delicate poetical fancies are psychologically 
 only refined forms of joking. When Burns compares 
 our transient pleasures to poppies, to snowflakes, to 
 the borealis, to the rainbow, he introduces the idea of 
 pleasures- into a mass in which it has not before ap- 
 peared. It is not, however, out of time and place in 
 those new masses ; rather the main beauty of the figure 
 lies in its being based upon the fitness of the old idea 
 in a new setting. The reader's mind receives a shock, 
 a pleasant shock, at each new intrusion into a fresh 
 mass ; but the point of resemblance is kept so clearly 
 before the mind that no difficulty is felt in justifying 
 
208 THE HEBBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the new environment, and a thrill of more or less in- 
 tense satisfaction rewards the mind which has discov- 
 ered this justification. 
 
 But this satisfaction may be earned in quite a differ- 
 ent way. Instead of being supplied with the primary 
 idea, and enjoying the satisfaction of following the 
 poetic fancy into each new mass, the mind may have 
 the masses given, and be set to discover the idea which 
 will connect those masses. What used to be so popu- 
 lar in the old jest books under the name of riddles gives 
 us an illustration. It seems a great fall from Burns to 
 riddles, but from the teacher's point of view it is a 
 stooping to conquer. Very frequently a teacher's ques- 
 tions are riddles in the most accurate sense of the word. 
 No doubt it sounds grander to talk of "a rider to 
 Euclid" than of the riddles that charmed our pre- 
 preparatory years, yet many of our grandest riders are 
 merely rechristened riddles. In the riddle, you get 
 the second part of the simile and have to discover the 
 first part, or you get the metaphor and are required to 
 discover the literal truth. 
 
 " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the 
 strong came forth sweetness," ran the riddle that Sam- 
 son put to the thirty young Philistines. No doubt they 
 carefully examined each of the apperception masses at 
 their disposal, to find actual cases of meat coming forth 
 from eaters, and sweetness coming from strong persons 
 or things. Naturally they failed at first, since Samson 
 had taken the precaution to tell no one, not even his 
 own parents, about the lion that the bees had turned 
 into a hive. 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OKGANON 209 
 
 In the equally famous riddle : — 
 
 " What goes on four feet, on two feet and three, 
 Bat the more feet it goes on the weaker it be?" 
 
 there is more hope for the guesser, as of course there 
 ought to be in view of the higher stake. Taking a 
 general look at the lines, we infer that an animal of 
 some kind is meant ; for the mystery not only has feet 
 as a table or a stool may have, but it goes, and becomes 
 weaker. To be sure, OEdipus would have been unwise 
 to risk his life on such an assumption ; for in riddles the 
 metaphor is allowed an altogether dangerous license. 
 Still, following the line of least resistance, he would 
 probably turn to the apperception masses that dealt 
 with animals. Here, being an experienced reader of 
 riddles, he would at once select the less common class 
 of animals suggested. There are more quadrupeds 
 than bipeds, more bipeds than tripeds. His hopes 
 would, without doubt, rise when he came to tripeds ; for, 
 in truth, the class does not exist. If the mystery be an 
 animal at all, then, it is in the triped part of the prob- 
 lem that one must look for the metaphorical part that 
 causes the trouble in all riddles. Now the kangaroo 
 has a pretty trick, it appears, of sitting upon its tail and 
 its two hind legs, when fighting. Some idea of this 
 kind might have set (Edipus on entirely false lines; 
 but, fortunately, he had not even heard of a kangaroo, 
 and was limited in his metaphorical applications. From 
 the swarm of ideas of animals that claimed admission 
 into the dome of his consciousness, it would be strange 
 if the most important animal of all were absent. So 
 
210 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 soon as the problem came to be, which animal can be 
 most readily represented metaphorically as three-legged, 
 it would at once occur to him that it is more natural to 
 add one leg to a man, than to cut off one from a quad- 
 ruped. The additional leg is easily supplied in the 
 form of the staff of old age. The reference to the 
 weakness of quadruped infancy, as compared with 
 sturdy biped manhood, would at once suggest itself, 
 and CEdipus would give out his answer with little fear 
 of a sudden termination of his days. 
 
 In the poetical figure, you are supplied with the 
 proper system or mass ; all you have to do is to apply 
 properly the materials given, the development comes 
 from within. In the riddle you get the development, 
 and are required to discover the appropriate system or 
 mass. In reading a good poem we are apt to remark 
 how true the comparisons are. As a matter of fact, 
 many of the most appropriate comparisons would be 
 quite unintelligible, were the key not supplied in the 
 title of the poem. Many people object to Browning's ■ 
 poetry, and say they do not understand it. What they 
 really want is an intimation, at the head of each poem, 
 of the system or mass under which the poem is to be 
 apperceived. Frequently one fails to appreciate a 
 poem because one does not understand the tone in 
 which it is written. We need hardly go to Dickens' 
 
 " Upon the log 
 Lay the expiring frog," 
 
 or to Mascarille's 
 
 " Au voleur, au voleur, au voleur, au voleur," 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 211 
 
 for examples. We come across milder cases of the same 
 thing every day. 
 
 The complaint is sometimes made that in poetry we 
 do not want a problem ; we want beautiful thoughts in 
 clear language. Now no one will accuse Wordsworth 
 of being difficult or obscure, yet even in his poetry a 
 verse taken by itself, and without the aid of the title, 
 resolves itself into a riddle. Take the verse : — 
 
 " A little Cyclops, with one eye 
 Staring to threaten and defy, 
 That thought comes next — and instantly 
 
 The freak is over. 
 The shape will vanish — ■ and behold 
 A silver shield with boss of gold, 
 That spreads itself, some faery bold 
 In fight to cover." 
 
 Experiment has shown me that to a class of intelli- 
 gent students who did not happen to know the lines 
 before, this passage was an insoluble riddle. A clever 
 Senior class in school naturally gave the same result. 
 Explaining all the difficult words had no effect. Yet 
 the mere hint that the subject was a flower, at once led to 
 sixty-seven per cent of the class writing down correctly 
 the word daisy. Among those who were still wrong, 
 eight per cent scored an outer with sunflower, which, but 
 for the " silver," fits the description as well as the daisy. 
 The word flower gave the system. The rest follows 
 naturally. 
 
 The great importance of this preliminary knowledge 
 of the system to be called into play has been frequently 
 demonstrated by practical experiment among the psy- 
 
212 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 chopliysicists, the previous knowledge of the system to 
 be called into play being shown to materially diminish 
 the time required for nervous reaction. Von Kries, 
 indeed, has a theory of connective cerebral arrange- 
 ments by which the brain is assumed to switch the 
 stream of thought in this direction or that. His illus- 
 tration is the clef in Music determining the meaning 
 of all the notes that follow it. An equally good illus- 
 tration might be the stop of an organ, which gives a 
 new character to the whole harmony so long as it is in 
 action. When we take up a French book, for example, 
 out comes the French stop, and the whole mental appa- 
 ratus adopts the French style of vocabulary and con- 
 struction. So long as this stop is out, we shall never 
 mistake pour for a verb, or main for an adjective. It 
 was because the English stop was out, that a clever 
 schoolboy thought Jugurtha was a horse, because he 
 had read about Jugurtha's manes. 
 
 Nowhere does this connective cerebral arrangement 
 for calling up appropriate systems receive a better prac- 
 tical illustration than in the questions set by teachers 
 to their pupils. Each such question, ought, as one of its 
 essential qualities, to indicate the system to which it 
 belongs. Yet there is no more common mistake in 
 teaching than to ask a question out of a certain system 
 in the teacher's mind, without in any way giving the 
 pupil a clue as to which system it is. The teacher, for 
 example, has out the dull stop of chronology, and asks : 
 " When did Charles the First die? " Out of the highly 
 coloured picture system that forms so large a part of 
 the average child's soul, comes the unexpected reply : 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL OEGANON 213 
 
 "On a raw and frosty winter morning." From the 
 system of historical incidents the teacher asks : " How 
 did David the Second die?" With the grammatical 
 stop full out, the child answers, innocent of guile, 
 " Childless." With his mind full of the discussion on 
 the purification of the Clyde, the teacher puts the prob- 
 lem : " Bruce in his old age lived at Roseneath. While 
 living there he may have fished in the river Clyde. 
 Why could he not fish there now? " Pulling out to its 
 full extent the stop of common sense, the child replies : 
 " Because he's dead." 
 
 This class of blunder must not be confounded with 
 the ordinary howler. There is, indeed, no blunder at 
 all. Teacher and pupil are both right, the misunder- 
 standing lies in the different backgrounds supplied in 
 the two cases. When such a mistake occurs, the wise 
 teacher will take the blame to himself. Had he, by a 
 few words of explanation or warning, made sure that he 
 and John were working in the same system, the mis- 
 take could not have arisen. In the riddle method of 
 teaching, the case is different. The quotation from 
 Wordsworth may be used as a school exercise in two 
 ways. Starting from what the children know about 
 this little flower, the various comparisons in the text 
 may be worked out to the profit and pleasure of the 
 class. This is the usual way. 
 
 But the riddle method may be adopted, and, as many 
 are inclined to think, with much better results. Cer- 
 tainly it demands more effort, more ingenuity ; and is 
 more in keeping with the doctrine of finality in teach- 
 ing. It is not a following, but a feeling of one's way. 
 
214 THE HEBBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 a seeking of an end, a finding of means. Obviously 
 it is a case of Holmes' reasoning backwards. Certain 
 facts are given. These must be apperceived, and 
 arranged in such a way as to involve no contradic- 
 tion. So soon as this has been accomplished, the riddle 
 is solved. If the answer is not what the propounder 
 expected, it proves, not that the answer is false, but 
 that the riddle is bad. If Wordsworth's description 
 could apply equally well to something other than 
 the daisy, the poem would, to that extent, lose the 
 charm of truth. 
 
 Whatever good can be derived from paraphrasing 
 and translation is due to this system-seeking. Every 
 paraphrase or translation worthy of the name is based 
 upon a hypothesis as to the system of ideas involved. 
 The word-by-word boy is hopeless. Examiners are 
 never tired of complaining that candidates do not take 
 a passage as a whole and seek to draw from it some 
 connected and rational meaning. This amounts to 
 nothing else than a complaint that candidates do not, 
 in their own slang, " make more shots " at the meaning. 
 What the examiner reaUy wants is more scientific and 
 intelligent guesswork. With a stiff piece of Latin 
 prose to translate into English, the candidate goes 
 through three processes. First he reads it over, pick- 
 ing out an the words or idioms that he knows. Each 
 known word or phrase or reference is a centre round 
 which ideas gather. The second step is to make some 
 sort of hypothesis as to the general meaning of the 
 whole passage — a description, a speech, an argument, 
 or what-not. This hypothesis must be such as to fit 
 
A NEGLECTED EDUCATIONAL ORGANON 215 
 
 into all the known words, and must fix the tone of the 
 whole. , The third process consists in working back- 
 wards from this hypothesis, and constraining each 
 unknown word and idiom to take a meaning in con- 
 formity with the hypothesis. In the case of prepara- 
 tion by means of a dictionary, this third stage takes 
 the form of verification, just as Holmes' proceedings 
 after a case is once started are merely a hunt for verifi- 
 cations. Naturally the greater the number of known 
 words, the better the hypothesis, and the more cer- 
 tain the "shots" at the unknown words, till at last 
 a point is reached at which the circle of induction is 
 practically complete, and the initial hypothesis coincides 
 with the final result of analysis and verification. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 
 
 The Schoolmen made great case of the distinction 
 between the primary qualities of an object, and the 
 secondary qualities. We have seen in Chapter III. 
 that man is generally admitted to be the measure of the 
 secondary qualities, such as colour and taste, but not 
 of the primary, which include such essential qualities 
 as extension. With this agrees the prevailing impres- 
 sion among teachers of the extreme efficacy of draw- 
 ings as a means of illustration. The secondary quali- 
 ties may be ■ modified by their passage through our 
 senses, but it is supposed that such a primary quality 
 as extension cannot be in any way modified by the 
 senses of the observer. 
 
 In Chapter VI. we have seen cause to reject this 
 view. Even a simple straight line may mean some- 
 thing slightly different to each new observer, and the 
 greater the nuniber of lines in a drawing, the greater 
 the range within which its interpretation by different 
 observers may vary. 
 
 There is, no doubt, a sense in which a drawing does 
 aid in establishing a common understanding between 
 two observers. We may be quite unable to understand 
 a certain drawing, or we may make quite a different 
 interpretation of it from that intended by the draughts- 
 
 216 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 217 
 
 man ; but when two persons are talking about the draw- 
 ing that lies before them, there is at least something to 
 go upon, there is a sort of least common denominator 
 of thought, to which all the ideas of each party must 
 be reduced before agreement can be expected. 
 
 Many teachers make an occasional use of this method 
 to test the accuracy with which their pupils are taking 
 in the information that is being supplied, m,nd very fre- 
 quently peculiar misunderstandings are thus brought 
 to light.. For example, a class of training-college 
 students was set to make a drawing of Robinson 
 Crusoe's tent from the description given in the story. 
 Two or three drew a Union Jack lying fiat upon the 
 roof of the tent, and when the accuracy of this particu- 
 lar was called in question, they justified themselves by 
 referring to the text in which we find the statement 
 that the roof was loaded " with flags and large leaves 
 of trees, like a thatch. " ^J It is obvious that there was 
 here a double blunder, for on November 23, 1659, 
 there were no Union Jacks of the pattern represented. 
 Yet, apart from the drawing, neither blunder would 
 have been suspected. 
 
 Mr. Henry J. Barker tells of an inspector of schools 
 who used to ask candidates to illustrate their answers 
 by sketches, but who "obtained from time to time 
 such ludicrous embodiments from the lads, that he 
 decided to abandon his new method, and to remain sat- 
 isfied with verbal responses, without troubling himself 
 whether they were actual expressions of knowledge 
 or not." As an 'inspector, he was right to give up 
 1 Bobinson Crusoe, Chap. V. 
 
218 THE HBEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 his plan. Had he been a teacher, he ought to have 
 persevered. A specimen case of his method gives just 
 that knowledge of the contents of John's mind that 
 every good teacher should seek. 
 
 " On one occasion, for instance, during the course of 
 an examination in Geography, he requested a boy to 
 delineate on the blackboard his conception of a 'vol- 
 cano.' The pupil readily did so ; and produced a 
 rough chalk-drawing, the chief features of which ap- 
 peared to be a truncated cone, a rainbow of lava and 
 fire, and a sort of extinguisher. 
 
 " ' Yes,' said the inspector, ' that is fairly good. But 
 that object on the right, my boy, — what is it ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh,' answered the lad, looking fondly at the object 
 indicated, ' that, sir, be the parish church of Pompeii! ' " ^ 
 
 This mingling of the concrete with the abstract, the 
 general with the particular, is a fruitful source of mis- 
 understanding. A diagram should be a diagram, and 
 not a picture. So soon as the picture element is intro- 
 
 1 Our Boys and Girls at School (Arrowsmith's Bristol Library), 
 p. 82. 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 219 
 
 duced, it carries with it a sort of side interest that 
 interferes with the main point to be illustrated. Mr. 
 W. H. Mallock, for example, wishing to illustrate va-- 
 rious facts in social economics, uses picture-diagrams, — 
 houses, men, suits of clothes, loaves, and so forth, — 
 which certainly attract too much attention to them- 
 selves as drawings, to their hurt as illustrations. In 
 some cases, indeed, they convey an impression contrary 
 to that intended. Thus we have two men,^ one very 
 fat, and one very lean, the first to represent the income 
 accruing from the cultivation of soil of the best qual- 
 ity, the second to represent the other extreme. So far 
 as I am personally concerned, the picture would em- 
 phatically lead me to prefer the worse soil, for the poor 
 fat fellow seems in a very bad way indeed. The best 
 soil seems dear at the price of such an unwieldy body, 
 and such a fatuous expression. Yet it does not appear 
 that this is quite the impression Mr. Mallock means to 
 convey. A plain pair of columns of different heights 
 would serve his purpose far better. 
 
 /.Diagrams ought to be as abstract as possible, unless/ 
 the picture itself forms a part of the idea intended to j 
 be conveyed. / A newspaper does well, for instance, in 
 publishing a shooting competition score, to reproduce a 
 picture of the target opposite each marksman's name, 
 with the actual hits represented on it ; since here the 
 target is itself an integral part of the idea it illustrates. 
 Into such bad odour has the unfortunate word ab- 
 stract fallen in its educational connections, that it 
 requires some courage to fight its battle. Teachers 
 1 ClassM ana Masses, p. 51. A. and C. Black, 1896. 
 
220 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGy 
 
 are too apt to forget that thp progress of education is 
 from concrete to abstract. /Like everything else, ab- 
 stractness is only an evil when out of its proper place. 
 It must be the goal, not the beginning.^ Since the 
 Orbis Pictus, an unillustrated school-book is a thing to 
 be apologized for. In books for very young children, 
 we print T-O-P in the text, and add a picture of the 
 toy in the margin, so that word and thing may become 
 indissolubly connected. Whenever the word top occurs 
 thereafter, we hope that the picture will immediately 
 spring up in the child's mind. At a later stage this 
 pictorial association, so far from being a help, becomes 
 a positive hindrance. We want the child to use the 
 word as a symbol ; we do not wish each word to be 
 hampered in its flight by the necessity of carrying 
 about with it a picture which demands to be brought 
 to light every time the word is used. We want our 
 words to be " winged," and a picture is a sad limitation 
 to this Homeric freedom. 
 
 There are other cases in which a picture hampers 
 instead of aiding thought. Certain ideas are better left 
 in words, inasmuch as they do not lend themselves to 
 representation in terms of extension. Some of Blake's 
 drawings belong to this class. The soul is not suited 
 for pictorial representation. It is true that Fisher 
 Unwin has published a set of four beautifully executed 
 plates, with accompanying letterpress, which represent 
 diagrammatically the qualities of various kinds of souls. 
 It is impossible to say whether the book is a costly 
 satire upon Mr. Galton, or the honest endeavour of 
 some well-to-do amateur psychologist to set forth his 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 221 
 
 peculiar fancies. For us the important thing is that, 
 except as representing the individual impression of the 
 author's mind with regard to souls, the drawings are 
 absolutely worthless. 
 
 In a little book published by the London Sunday- 
 school Union, entitled The Blackboard in the Sunday- 
 school, there are many illustrations that from their 
 very nature must be regarded as failures. The follow- 
 ing, for instance,^ is a remarkable way of demonstrating 
 the process of conversion. The blackboard is divided 
 by a horizontal line into two parts. Above the line, 
 on the left, is a graphic representation of the sun ; this, 
 we are told, stands for the Sun of Righteousness. On 
 the lower side of the board is an inverted man who 
 appears to be walking upside down along the line and 
 away from the sun. This represents the sinner going 
 "into deeper darkness and further from God." The 
 pose is justified by the apt quotation, "The way of 
 the wicked he turneth upside down" (Ps. cxlvi.). The 
 teacher asks, " How shall he be saved? " Prov. xxviii. 
 18 gives the clue to the answer : " Whoso walketh 
 uprightly shall be saved." The transaction is con- 
 cluded by an application of Jer. xxxi. 18 : " Turn thou 
 me, and I shall be turned." The second picture shows 
 the sinner duly inverted, walking cheerily along the 
 line towards the sun. 
 
 Is any comment needed ? Is the process of conver- 
 sion made any clearer, not to say more sacred, by seeing 
 a chalk man turn a somersault? There are certain 
 things that are better left undrawn. 
 
 1 Page 63, 
 
222 THE HEEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Do the illustrations to works of imagination reall}' 
 help the reader to a better comprehension of the mean- 
 ing of the author? It depends entirely upon the class 
 of literature. Gustave Dore, for example, has adopted 
 a class of subjects for illustration that had much better 
 have been left alone. Many of his pictures are such 
 as to ruin the text he seeks to illustrate, in the eyes of 
 all who have any sense of humour. Milton has been 
 often praised for his reticence in not fully describing 
 Satan. Can we say as much for the illustrators of 
 The Pilgrim'' s Progress f Besides, it is the rarest thing 
 in literature to find a work that is really illustrated. 
 The illustrator is merely a man who comes between the 
 author and the reader, and imposes his meaning on the 
 words of the book. In the Life of Dickens ^ by Forster, 
 you will find a double sheet of Dombeys to illustrate 
 the tale of Dombey and Son. The whole twenty-nine 
 faces seem to the ordinary reader typical of the sort of 
 man Dombey is represented to be ; but none of them 
 pleased Dickens, who hankered after a certain gentle- 
 man in the city, whom he was anxious for the artist to see, 
 as being "the very Dombey." The only case in which 
 a work of this class can be truly said to be illustrated 
 is when the author and artist are one, as in Trilby. 
 
 In addition to this almost insuperable difficulty iil 
 representing the exact picture in the author's mind, 
 there is the more common dangCT of purely illiterate 
 misconception of the plain meaning. What could be 
 clearer than 
 
 1 Vol. II. , p. 317, shows seventeen Dombeys — the remaining twelve 
 appear on p. 318. 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 223 
 
 " Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood"? 
 
 Yet in an illustrated edition ^ I find that the word little 
 has misled the artist into representing the village 
 Hampden as a boy who defends a little girl and a lamb 
 from the attacks of two bigger ruffianly boys. 
 
 Still, when information of a primary kind is to be \ 
 given, there can be no doubt but that drawings are of ,' 
 the utmost service in the way of expressing the author's ' 
 meaning. ) In Robinson Crusoe there are several points 
 in which a few lines by way of a diagram would save a 
 great deal of writing, and prevent much confusion, both 
 to writer and reader. I am convinced that De Foe used 
 a more or less elaborate chart in the preparation of his 
 story, but he occasionally used it carelessly. It is little to 
 the credit of the various editors of this wonderful romance 
 that so many errors should have remained unnoticed. 
 The explanation is probably to be found in the fact that 
 no map (so far as I have been able to discover) has been 
 published of the Island of Despair. Had it been other- 
 wise, it could not have failed to be noticed that in Chap- 
 ter X. he uses the phrase " against the shore at the east" 
 where the whole context, viewed in connection with a 
 map, demands west. This whole passage is so confus- 
 ing, when not illustrated by a map, that some editors 
 have calmly omitted it altogether. Again, at the end 
 of Chapter XXII., we are told that the savages " always 
 landed on the east parts of the island," though we know 
 from the whole story that their usual landing-place was 
 the southwest corner of the island, and we are explicitly 
 ^ Sampson Low, Son & Co., 1858. 
 
224 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 told, at the beginning of Chapter XIV,, that they never 
 came to the " east part of the island." 
 
 Further, about the middle of Chapter XXV., we are 
 told that the white men wished to drive the savages 
 into " the farther part of the island southwest, that if 
 any more came on shore they might not find one 
 another." Here southeast is evidently what De Foe 
 meant, and southeast is actually used in the third para- 
 graph following. 
 
 As an illustration of a false impression conveyed by 
 a verbal description, where a sketch map would have 
 been absolutely unambiguous, take the following : 
 Robinson, in giving an account of his survey of the 
 island,^ tells us that he walked "still due north, 
 with a ridge of hills on the south and north side of 
 me." 
 
 This apparently means that there was a ridge of hills 
 extending from east to west, and lying to the north o/ 
 Crusoe's path, and a simUar parallel ridge to the south 
 But the context lets us know that he was following the 
 course of a stream, and it is highly improbable that the 
 stream would cut its way through two hills that lay 
 directly in its course. By and by the state of affairs 
 becomes clear when we are told that he comes to a place 
 where he finds " an opening where the country seemed 
 to descend to the west." He speaks, too, of getting, at 
 this point, a clear view to the west : all implying that 
 up to that point he had had a nort'i and south ridge 
 running along the left of his course. After considering 
 all this, it struck me that it wou)--! be an interesting 
 1 Chap. VII. 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 225 
 
 thing to find out how far Crusoe's Island was clearly- 
 apprehended by the readers of De Foe's narrative, par- 
 ticularly as I thus saw my way to obtain a sort of 
 tangible example of the method of reasoning by hy- 
 pothesis referred to in last chapter. The editor of the 
 JBoy'B Own Paper agreed to arrange for a competition, 
 and offered five guineas in the way of prize-money. 
 The following were the instructions issued to intending 
 competitors : — 
 
 " What is wanted is a map of Robinson Crusoe's Island, 
 such as he might have showed to his friends after he came 
 home. It should indicate the size and position of the 
 island, and the position of all the important places, 
 such as the creek, the castle, the arbour, the grotto, 
 the spot where the footprint was found, where the 
 shipwreck took place, where the savages used to land. 
 The general nature of the surface of the island should 
 also be indicated, — the hiUs, valleys, rocks, and currents. 
 It goes without saying that we do not really know 
 the shape of the island, — though a well-known island 
 has been named Robinson Crusoe's, — so each competi- 
 tor must choose a shape for himself, the only limit 
 being that the shape chosen must suit all the events of 
 the story. 
 
 " As this is rather a new kind of competition, it may 
 not be amiss to give some hints how to go about draw- 
 ing the map. Get a copy of the story Robinson Crusoe 
 and read it over with a pencil in your hand. As 
 often as you come across any remark bearing upon the 
 position of the island, note carefully what is said, and 
 make at the same time a pencil mark at the margin. 
 
226 THE HEKBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 In doing this you will be greatly helped by keeping 
 clearly before your mind the questions you \vish the 
 book to answer. For example, you want to know 
 whether the island was longer from east to west or from 
 north to south ; what the greatest length of it was ; on 
 which side Robinson was wrecked ; which side was 
 nearest the mainland. Some of those questions are not 
 answered directly, but a little common sense, and the 
 putting of two and two together, wiU answer them 
 and many more. After you have read over the whole 
 story, look up -all the marked parts, and make up your 
 mind as to the general bearing of all the facts ; then put 
 your map on paper in the way you usually draw your 
 maps. You may draw your map on any size and kind 
 of paper you please, <and either colour it or not as you 
 think best. The one thing of importance is to make 
 your map agree 'with thfe stdl-y. Above all, don't be 
 afraid to send in your map once you have begun it. 
 It may not look well, and may even have some mistakes 
 in it, and yet be a capital map for all that." 
 
 Over one hundred and fifty maps in all were sub- 
 mitted. They came from all parts of the world, and 
 represented all ages from nine to thirty-two. Girls 
 as well as boys competed, and there was every trace of 
 all sorts of social differences among the competitors. 
 
 The first thing that strikes one in examining those 
 maps is the unlikeness that exists among them. They 
 are all carefully lahelled Hohinson Crusoe's Island, and yet 
 no two of the one hundred and fifty are alike. In view 
 of this deplorable difference of opinion, our thoughts 
 may take one of two directions. On the one hand, we 
 
GKAPHIG HYPOTHESES 227 
 
 may ask contemptuously, what does it matter ? Hoiin- 
 son Grusoe was not written to provide material for a 
 map-drawing competition. Very probably some of the 
 worst maps are the work of boys who have the keenest 
 interest in and appreciation of the story. With this 
 criticism we must all have a good deal of sympathy. 
 Every genuine lover of pure literature shudders when 
 he sees a play of Shakespeare or a sonnet of Milton de- 
 graded to be material for examinations. The other 
 day in London a literary man, while wondering how 
 he and his fellows could hope to have their works 
 bought and read in open competition with Shakespeare, 
 Milton, and Scott, drew comfort from the fact that the 
 examiner is on the side of the new men. • So long as 
 the great ones of our literature are prescribed in school 
 and examined upon, so long will our new men have a 
 chance. 
 
 There is more than after-dinner logic in this argu- 
 ment, and if Robinson Crusoe were pure literature, the 
 what-does-it-matter criticism would certainly apply to 
 those maps. But Robinson Crusoe is not pure literature. 
 Its unique attraction for boys, and its extraordinary 
 charm for all, have little to do with its literary merit 
 or style. Its fascination lies in the situation, and the 
 wonderfully accurate, detailed, and — to use a bit of 
 the slang of the new reviewer — " convincing " work- 
 ing out. My readers are aware that De Foe is credited 
 with over two hundred and fifty works. Is it to be 
 supposed that he confined all the charm of his style to 
 one book out of this enormous total ? Yet how many 
 of the others live ? How many of us know even three 
 
228 THE HEKBAETFAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of them by name ? How many have read even one 
 other than Robinson ? Then take Rohinson itself. The 
 second part is notoriously inferior to the first, and this 
 surely will not be set down to style. As for the third 
 part, its very existence comes with a shock of surprise 
 upon the great majority of Crusoe's admirers. 
 
 Rohinson Orusoe stands at one pole ; a fairy tale at 
 the other. Between those two poles extends a regular 
 series of more or less practical stories. Take up a 
 fairy tale, — let it be in Perrault's dainty pages, — and 
 your interest is of a very different kind from that aroused 
 by De Foe's story. Here you are interested in every 
 delicate turn of expression, every shade of character, 
 every whimsical incident. The play is everything ; the 
 setting is nothing. Time and space are annihilated. 
 It was " once upon a time " that the prince was born ; it 
 was in " a certain city " that the princess lived. To 
 ask for a tracing of the route followed by Hop-o'-my- 
 thumb through the forest is no less ludicrous than to 
 ask for a plan and elevation (with a transverse section) 
 of Cinderella's slipper. But in the Island of Despair 
 all this is changed. We find ourselves in the very 
 heart of stubborn fact. The island has latitude and 
 longitude, tides and currents, accurately marked-out 
 distances. It has its history as carefully looked to as 
 its position. Had you landed a little to the west of 
 south, you would have found a " large post " on which 
 were cut "in capital letters" the words "I came on 
 shore here on the 30th of September 1659." 
 
 We are therefore not entitled to belittle plans, 
 sketches, maps, as elucidating De Foe's meaning. As 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 229 
 
 a matter of fact, it has to be remembered that interest 
 is of different kinds as well as of different degrees. 
 The old butler, Gabriel Betteredge, in Wilkie Collins' 
 novel, The Moonstone, found his main interest in the 
 g'Masi-philosophical religious reflections that De Foe 
 found it expedient to insert into his tale in order to 
 conciliate the Puritans. Some boys revel in the fighting 
 with the savages, others in the coasting voyages ; but 
 most readers are charmed by the ingenuity displayed 
 in the adaptation of means to ends. Ethics, Meta- 
 physics, Education, Theology herself, have shown their 
 interest in the Island of Despair, by quoting Robinson 
 as illustrating some of their principles. But boys are 
 interested in a real island and a real man, and the 
 points in which they are interested can be made plainer 
 by the use of a map. While admitting that this point 
 of view is at least as important as that of the purely 
 literary critic, we must be careful not to carry our 
 claims too far. There are things of consequence, and 
 things absolutely indifferent to the reader. For exam- 
 ple, neither the text of the story nor any illustration 
 of it that I have chanced upon makes it clear whether 
 the footprint on the sand was a right foot impression 
 or a left. It is true that every picture of the foot- 
 print must represent one or other ; but different artists 
 are so inconsistent, even with themselves, that the 
 truth remains to me a perfect mystery. But obviously 
 this ignorance can be of no importance whatever. 
 Nothing in the tale is affected by it. The place of the 
 footprint on the map, however, is a very different 
 matter. If we are to understand the impression the 
 
280 THE HBEBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 sight produced upon poor Robinson, we must consider 
 that it was found in a part of the island that he had up 
 till that moment regarded as entirely free from intru- 
 sion by the savages. One finds considerable difference 
 of opinion among the map-drawers on this point. The 
 footprint wanders pretty much all over the island. 
 But those who have not placed it between the bower 
 and the boat have obviously misplaced it. One or two, 
 with an excess of exactness, have fallen into another 
 blunder. They have carefully indicated the high and 
 the low water mark, and have placed the footprint 
 exactly between them. As a matter of fact, the foot- 
 print must have been nrade somewhere above high- 
 water mark ; for the impression remained several days 
 after Robinson had first observed it, which would not 
 have been the case had it been subjected to the influ- 
 ence of the waves.i 
 
 The maps, indeed, furnish an excellent example of 
 that thinking in block which is much more character- 
 istic of immature intelligence than teachers in par- 
 ticular are apt to believe. My own experience is 
 borne out by that of others who have had greater 
 opportunities of observing the peculiar phenomenon 
 that I wish to speak of. Boys of the half-time stamp 
 who are forced to learn reading, in at least a mechani- 
 cal way, before they are set free for the more congenial 
 work of the factory, very readily forget the art they 
 have acquired. But the power of reading does not 
 altogether die. Boys- of this class who afterwards 
 
 1 A curious misconception is betrayed in several cases by naming 
 the marlc on tlie map Friday'' s footprint. 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 231 
 
 find it of interest to discover which side has won this 
 or that cup, can usually make out the general sense 
 of a passage which they could not read in detail, though 
 their lives "depended on the success of their attempt. 
 What is clearly demonstrable among those wholly 
 unlettered young men prevails to some extent among 
 people of a much higher intellectual range. Our first 
 perusal of a stiff philosophical treatise leaves us with 
 a general impression of what the author is driving at, 
 but it takes many readings before we can follow his 
 meaning in detail. So in learning a new language we 
 sometimes read a story, as we say, for the sake of the 
 story. In such a case we miss point after point in the 
 narrative from not knowing this word or that, yet we 
 carry away a general idea of the plot and the leading 
 incidents of the story. This is what happens to those 
 who read Robinson Crusoe without the aid of a map. 
 
 To those who still maintain that they would rather 
 read the book comfortably in this incomplete way than 
 understand it more fully and become prigs in the 
 process, it may be comforting to know that recent 
 writers on Animal Psychology are convinced that/the 
 essential difference between the thoughts of a tnan 
 and a brute is that the brute thinks in pictures, while 
 the man analyzes the pictures into their elements. y 
 
 This creation of an island that never existed is 
 particularly useful in illustrating the creation of our 
 ideas in general of the outer world. Millions of people 
 have an idea of Broadway, yet no two of those ideas are 
 
 1 Cf. Lloyd Morgan, Comparative Psychology, Chaps. XIV. and 
 XVI. 
 
232 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 exactly alike. Still they are all like Broadway, and 
 if one could photograph the impression in any mind, all 
 the other minds would recognize the picture as that of 
 Broadway. The fact is that while our mental im- 
 pressions of a given object are continually changing, 
 they always correspond with each other, and to the 
 given reality. Now all the best of those maps corre- 
 spond to each other in certain respects ; why, then, do 
 they differ so widely from each other ? The answer is 
 that the iixed points, the points of correspondence, are 
 fewer in this case than when a real object is dealt with. 
 From the text we fix the relative positions of certain 
 points in the coast-line of the island, but the coast-line 
 itself may be filled in with perfect independence so 
 long as certain conditions are attended to. Even in 
 filling up the outline of the map of the United States, a 
 schoolboy allows himself a large amount of freedom 
 in the greater or smaller number of undiilations he 
 supplies. But in this case he may throw out a whole 
 peninsula or carve out a whole gulf as the fancy takes 
 him, and yet no one can object. All the critic is 
 entitled to ask is : " Does this map contradict any 
 of the statements made in the text ? " A hundred 
 maps characteristically different from each other may 
 yet give a completely satisfactory answer to this 
 question. 
 
 With such a variety of interpretations, can it be 
 maintained that De Foe has succeeded in expressing 
 his idea of the island? Leaving out of account the 
 large number of maps that differ from the truth as 
 found in the text merely on account of the inability of 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 233 
 
 the competitors to understand it, and considering only 
 those maps which fulfil all De Foe's conditions so far 
 as this has been attempted, we still find one idea of the 
 island in De Foe's mind, and another in that of the author 
 of each of those fairly successful maps. This raises the 
 further question : Is it possible to write a story like 
 this without a clear concrete background? In other 
 words, had De Foe a clear and so far complete picture 
 before his mind as he wrote? The answer must be 
 that he had. No doubt a story of this kind may be 
 written as a series of character sketches on a nebulous 
 background.' The thing is done every day. Probably 
 a good half of the six novels that every week-day now 
 brings forth in England, owe their early death to their 
 failure to express what has never been brought to clear 
 consciousness in the minds of the writers-. 
 
 This question must not be obscured by any confusion 
 between a clear and an accurate mental picture. We 
 have already seen that De Foe makes several blunders, 
 which the careful use of a chart would have rendered 
 impossible. We have further proof that his conception 
 of the island was very imperfect in its details. In that 
 djeary third part which labours under the depressing 
 name of "The Serious Reflections, during the Life 
 and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe : with 
 his Vision of the Angelick World," and which was 
 " Printed for W. Taylor at the Ship and Black Swan in 
 Paternoster Row, 1720," De Foe seems to feel the want 
 of a graphic representation of the island. In this 
 work, accordingly, we find a remarkable combination 
 of a picture and a map. We, of course, do not know 
 
234 THE HBEBAETIAN PSyCHOLOGY 
 
 how far De Foe is personally responsible for the execu- 
 tion of this map ; but it was no doubt produced under 
 his direction, and with the benefit of his criticism. It 
 consists of a sort of bird's-eye view of the island, indi- 
 cating the various natural features, and the surrounding 
 sea. There are houses and huts scattered about the 
 place, rivalling, and in many cases even exceeding, the 
 hills in magnitude. Wherever there is a space free 
 from hills, huts, and trees, the artist has thrown in a 
 group of dancing or fighting savages. In the fore- 
 ground Crusoe and some companions tower majestically 
 as high as a corrupt perspective will permit, above the 
 masts of a vessel at anchor in the offing. A touch of 
 pathos is cunningly introduced by a representation, in 
 the centre of the island, of the bower, in the midst of 
 which is seen a clumsy bird of about the size of a tree 
 with a pitiful legend coming out of its mouth : " Poor 
 Robin Cruso." 
 
 Such a picture, inaccurate if you please, but concrete 
 and clear, must have figured itself in De Foe's 'mind. 
 His description may only bring out parts of it — a not 
 uncommon phenomenon in reproducing mental im- 
 agery. ^ It is none the less complete. Had Mr. Galton 
 given the details of the occupations of the " 100 adult 
 men, of whom 19 are fellows of the Royal Society, 
 mostly of high repute, and at least twice, and I think 
 I may say three times, as many more persons of dis- 
 tinction in various kinds of intellectual work,"^ it is 
 almost certain that the novelists would be found to 
 
 _ 1 Prancis Galton, Human Faculty and its Development, pp. 94, 96. 
 2 Ibid., p. 88. 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 235 
 
 hold a commanding position among those whose power 
 of mental imagery is very high. De Foe would em- 
 phatically have held a place not very far from the top. 
 George Meredith, and writers of his class, may make 
 up their conversations between mere minds without any 
 mental imagery at all j De Foe always wrote his tales 
 as if he were sitting m the pit of a theatre, and de- 
 scribing what he saw passing on the stage. ) 
 . We have seen that it is fashionable just'now in Psy- 
 chology to speak of mental states as forming a continuum 
 in which all our ideas find a rational place, according 
 to their relations to each other and to the whole. Pro- 
 fessor Ward ^ contrasts the place an impression holds 
 in this continuum with that held by a mere idea. His 
 illustration is peculiarly apt. The impression remains 
 permanently fixed for our examination ; if we examine 
 one part now, and then return to it, we find that it has 
 not changed materially in the interval. Each part 
 exists independently of its relation to the whole. A 
 mental image, on the other hand, he compares to one 
 of those designs worked out in gas that we see at some 
 of our illuminations. As the wind sweeps over them, 
 now one part and now another disappears altogether, 
 and the darker the one part becomes, the brighter the 
 others. Such an image of the island we may suppose 
 to have hovered before the eyes of De Foe. As he 
 wrote of the castle, a bright picture of that stronghold 
 arose in his mind, and enabled him to write of it as if 
 he were actually looking at it. By and by it, was the 
 turn of the bower, or the little harbour for his boat. 
 ■1 Art. "Psychology," Enc. Brit. 
 
236 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 But while each had its turn of greater prominence, the 
 whole notion of the island remained a continuum. 
 Each part was always to some extent correlated to 
 the rest. The cause of whatever errors may appear in 
 the description is to be found in the comparative 
 feebleness of this supervising and correlating general 
 conception of the island. What was the source of De 
 Foe's charm was also the source of the danger he un- 
 doubtedly ran of sacrificing the whole to the part. 
 
 Assuming that De Foe has a very vivid picture in 
 his mind of each of the scenes he describes, how far 
 has he been successful in expressing this picture in 
 words ? If we are to judge by the interpretation sup- 
 plied by the various artists who have illustrated the 
 book, his success must be regarded as very moderate. 
 Crusoe omits to state what sort of dog it was that he 
 somewhat unkindly included among his list of " things 
 of less value." The result is that artists revel in dogs 
 of all species. But, for one inaccuracy for which De 
 Foe is responsible, there are a score to be charged 
 entirely to the artist. In an edition published in 1853, 
 for example, we have the description of Crusoe's mak- 
 ing spatterdashes to himself illustrated by a picture of 
 Robinson in his bare feet. In an edition by T. Cadell 
 and W. Davies (Strand, 1820), which proudly proclaims 
 itself to be "embellished by engravings by Thomas 
 Stothard, Esq., R.A.," we find Crusoe's rough-and- 
 ready tent represented as a regular marquee that might 
 have kept company with lawn-tennis. Generally 
 speaking, Crusoe is drawn as a very refined man who 
 has come down in the world, rather than the rough 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 237 
 
 jroung fellow he is in the story represented to be. Even 
 George Cruikshank cannot be trusted to reproduce 
 exactly what his author describes. On page 78 of the 
 original edition we find the following passage, referring 
 to Crusoe's excavations in his cave : " I worked side- 
 ways to the Right Hand into the Rock, then turning to 
 the right again worked quite out, and made me a Door 
 to come out on the Outside of my pale or fortification." 
 Cruikshank's illustration of this represents the door in 
 question on the left hand of the pale or fortification. 
 For this, manifestly, and for Mrs. Grundy's influence 
 on the attire of the man Friday, De Foe cannot be held 
 responsible. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that the process of commu- 
 nicating an idea from one mind to another is not a 
 single process, but a double one. The idea must be 
 dissolved, as it were, in words, and then again crystal- 
 lized out in the new mind.^ To put it otherwise, the 
 concrete of one mind must be reduced to its abstract 
 terms, and then rebuilt into the concrete of the new 
 mind. The differences in the interpretation of De 
 i''oe's words are due to the greater or less degree of 
 abstractness to which these words have attained in the 
 minds of different readers. If the words have reached 
 a high degree of abstraction, there is every chance that 
 
 1 The process, in fact, is a simple example of the -way in which 
 Paulhan conceives man to react on his environment. "A mon point 
 de vue, I'homme est un appareil de syst^matisation qui revolt les im- 
 pressions du monde ext&ieur, les decompose, fait avec les 616ments de 
 nouvelles synthases et flnalement reagit de manifere k augmenter la 
 finality en lui-mgme, dans la soci^t^, et mgme dans le monde ext6- 
 rieur." — L'Activite Mentale, p. 88. 
 
238 
 
 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 they will reproduce the ideas in, the mind of the author 
 with the minimum of distortion of the author's funda- 
 
 POBINSON CfiUSOfiS 
 ISLAHB 
 
 
 Map 1. 
 
 mental meaning. If each word is burdened with a 
 series of associations, there is a strong probability that 
 the resulting idea will be unduly coloured by the 
 
7 ' 'i 
 
 ^J 1,1, : 
 
 ;l,t^^ 
 
 ^^ -'-'-' I !■" -^'^ .*L.s.^^l^i. ^ 1 ^ 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 239 
 
 individuality of the reader's mind. This brings us to 
 the hypotheses on which those maps have been con- 
 structed. To begin with, it is evident that many of 
 them were begun on a preconceived hypothesis which 
 owed nothing to a careful examination of the facts to 
 be found in the text. These facts had to find a place 
 on the map no doubt, but a place had to be found for 
 them in a system of things previously determined. 
 They had no share in fixing that system. 
 
 The face map (No. 1) is very obviously a deliberate 
 attempt to fit in all the facts into a fanciful order of 
 things which symbolizeSj without representing, the true 
 state of affairs. The map may fairly be regarded as an 
 unconscious satire on much of the hypothesis-making 
 in higher philosophical circles. It is a useful diagram 
 of one of the idols of the theiatre. 
 
 Map No. 2 is drawn on a peculiarly streaked and 
 coloured paper which makes not a bad imitation of 
 bark. The drawing and printing are of the roughest 
 possible description. The whole production conveys 
 the impression that there is a deliberate desire to repre- 
 sent such a rough draught as Robinson himself might 
 have made with the limited apparatus at his disposal 
 after his return, or more probably on shipboard on his 
 way home. For the draughtsman is evidently working 
 under the influence of the directions, where he was told 
 to make such a map as Crusoe " might have showed to 
 his friends after he came home." Dominated by this 
 idea, the boy has modified all the rest to suit, and who 
 shall say that he has not attained a considerable degree 
 of success ? 
 
240 THE HBEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 Still another form of preconception arises from the 
 prominence in the minds of the competitors of some 
 familiar island as represented on the school map. 
 Many minds in conceiving an island do not get beyond 
 the pictorial stage ; do not, indeed, reach even to the 
 receptual stage ; but actually think all islands under 
 some standard concrete form. The Isle of Wight and 
 the Isle of Man appear to be the two most powerful in 
 determining the shape of such maps as do not give 
 
 KEEK 
 
 Map 3. 
 
 traces of careful preparation from the text. Two maps 
 are of special interest as being obviously modelled on 
 Trinidad. If this is done deliberately, it indicates a 
 very creditable insight into the meaning of the method 
 of analogy. Crusoe's Island itself has, in some minds, 
 a shape of its own, entirely independent of the facts to 
 be elicited from the text. The accompanying curious 
 sketch (Map No. 3) was drawn for me with the utmost 
 readiness by a clever and remarkably well-read friend, 
 who assured me that this exactly represented what he 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 241 
 
 had always regarded as the Robinson Crusoe Island. 
 He had no grounds whatever for his choice of shape, 
 yet he felt sorry that anything should be done to de- 
 prive him of the belief he had in his own island. 
 
 Among the more general groimds that determined 
 the preconception on which a map was founded, are the 
 desire to make a pretty map, and the influence of the 
 kind of map to which the competitor has been accus- 
 tomed. The use of colours, borders, compass-dials, are 
 the result of the former influence ; the special form 
 of contour maps, charts, and bird's-eye-view pictorial 
 maps are due to the latter. 
 
 Limiting ourselves to the effects of the information 
 supplied by the text of the story, we may easily divide 
 all of the maps into two classes : those which have a 
 peninsula in the southeast corner, and those which have 
 not. The latter, a sufficiently large class, represent 
 the work of those who did not read the second part, 
 where the description of this peninsula occurs. Of the 
 former class there are, again, two divisions, according as 
 the first or second part of the story has had the greater 
 influence. In' most cases the first part has been the 
 dominant one, which for obvious reasons is natural. 
 The competitors who lay more stress on the second 
 part indicate this by the division of the whole island 
 into provinces after the manner of a regular political 
 map (No. 4), and by labelling them as belonging to 
 the Spaniards, the Indians, and the Villainous English- 
 men respectively. 
 
 Of the three processes, — collecting the facts, collat- 
 ing them and forming an explanatory hypothesis, re- 
 
242 THE HEKBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 producing the facts according to this hypothesis, — it is 
 naturally the middle one that gives most trouble. The 
 hypothesis is often wildly made ; but once having made 
 a hypothesis, the competitors spare no pains in trying 
 to tit in their facts. For example, many maps show 
 the following peculiarity. Every measurement that is 
 positively given in the text is reproduced exactly, but 
 any measurement or relation that can only be inferred 
 from a comparison of two separate passages is neg- 
 lected. In other words, the island is represented in 
 the competitor's mind by a series of what Mr. Stout 
 would call " floating " systems of ideas, each perfectly 
 consistent within itself, but which must be modified by 
 fighting its way into the general system to which it 
 belongs. 
 
 The " first-prize " map (No. 5)- is fortunately good 
 enough to illustrate the result of the successful struggle 
 of those floating systems to find their true place in the 
 containing system. Almost without exception, every 
 measurement given in the text is accurately reproduced 
 on this map. Compare, for example, the distances of the 
 various ships from the shore, the distance from the castle 
 to the watch-hill, the length of the tongue of land and 
 its breadth, the bower half-way between the castle and 
 the boat, the distance to the various rocks that deflected 
 the currents. The only point where there is a notice- 
 able discrepancy is in the distance of the north current, 
 which is greater than the league that Robinson gives 
 it, and the distance between the north and south track 
 of the boat. This distance the book states to be two 
 leagues. In the map it is more. This latter discrep- 
 
GRAPHIC HYPOTHESES 245 
 
 ancy would probably be avoided by placing the tongue 
 of land given to the savages somewhat farther south. 
 This is desirable on other grounds, as in its present 
 position it can hardly be said to be " on the southeast 
 corner of the island." 
 
 With these trifling exceptions, the map co-ordinates 
 all the systems, and produces a whole which has the 
 additional advantage of eliminating the draughtsman 
 altogether. The map is purely abstract. Everything 
 is represented merely in terms of extension. De Foe's 
 ideas have received the minimum amount of altera- 
 tion in passing through the mind of the map-drawer. 
 Where those ideas are self -contradictory, the draughts- 
 man chooses the alternative that causes least disar- 
 rangement of the general plan of the island. 
 
 So far we have been regarding this island under only 
 one aspect, — its extension. Suppose the wider prob- 
 lem were set, to write a full account of the island in all 
 respects, we might at first sight think that very little 
 could be added beyond a few general remarks, such as 
 one finds about the beginning of a certain class of 
 novel. But, as a matter of fact, enough data are given 
 to determine very minutely every detail. To begin 
 with, poor De Foe would very soon have to yield his 
 authority to better men. No doubt he lays down the 
 conditions to the problem, but it does not follow that 
 he understands all that each condition implies. The 
 mere longitude and latitude of the island establish a 
 great crowd of circumstances unknown to De Foe. 
 The fact that there was an earthquake opens up lines 
 of limitations that only geological specialists can work 
 
246 THE HERBARTIAlsr PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 out, even imperfectly. The plants that Robinson grew, 
 the animals that he shot, all bring their limitations. It 
 is the old story. To do anything well enough to please 
 a German philosopher, one must exhaust the universe. 
 One must sit with Lotze in the spider-web of phenom- 
 ena supplied by De Foe, and seek if haply by some 
 means or other one may reach the centre, whence all 
 things can be seen in their true relations. There is no 
 royal road to the centre. Each must find a way for 
 himself, some fairly direct, most very crooked indeed, 
 everything depending on the number and nature of the 
 apperception masses. In this search for fragments of 
 truth, temporary resting-places for general views, the 
 schoolmaster has to play the part of spider. A benevo- 
 lent spider, be it understood, whose business is not to 
 make plain the already geometrically clear lines of the 
 web, but to see that guiding apperception masses are 
 so arranged that they shall lead ultimately to the 
 centre, by the way, however crooked it may seem, that 
 is best for each seeker. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE DOCTKINE OF INTEREST 
 
 " A MAN wlio trains monkeys to act in plays, used to 
 purchase common kinds from the Zoological Society, at 
 the price of £5 for each ; but he offered to give double 
 the price, if he might keep three or four of them for 
 a few days in order to select one. When asked how 
 he could possibly learn so soon whether a particular 
 monkey would turn out a good actor, he answered that 
 it all depended on their power of attention. If when 
 he was talking and explaining anything to a monkey 
 its attention was easily distracted, as by a fly on the 
 wall, or other trifling object, the case was hopeless. If 
 he tried by punishment to make an inattentive monkey 
 act, it turned sulky. On the other hand, a monkey 
 which carefully attended to him could always be 
 trained."^ 
 
 This incident is full of instruction for teachers. 
 There is a great deal of human nature in monkeys. 
 Unfortunately, we are not in a position to apply the 
 surface moral. We cannot return the three or four 
 inattentive monkeys, and keep the good little one who 
 pays no attention to the passing flies. We must keep 
 them all and by some means or other make them atten- 
 tive. The method that made the monkeys sulky is 
 1 Darwin, Descent of Man, second edition, p. 73. 
 '247 
 
248 THE HEEBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 the popular one with teachers ; but the monkey trainer 
 was right in discarding it. 
 
 Attention has been described as an act of mental 
 prehension. As an animal seizes its food with bill or 
 claw and holds it in a convenient position till the ex- 
 ternal organs of the alimentary system have worked 
 their will upon it, so the mind in the act of attention 
 seizes some idea and brings it within the reach of the 
 apperception masses, and holds it there till these have 
 had a chance of either assimilating or rejecting it. 
 Dropping all figures, the function of attention is to 
 single out some part of the presented content for 
 special treatment by the soul. 
 
 It is obviously of the first importance for the teacher 
 to understand how attention works. But when he 
 turns to his text-books, he gets not an explanation of 
 the mechanism of attention, but a classification. He is 
 tdld that attention is either voluntary or involuntary, 
 but it is only in recent books that any consideration is 
 given to involuntary attention. Hitherto it has been 
 regarded as of trifling importance, as something be- 
 longing to man's lower nature. Its position has greatly 
 improved of late. 
 
 The classification has done this at least : it has in- 
 troduced a new element into the problem. We have 
 now the' soul, the object of attention, the act of atten- 
 tion, and the will that in some cases, at least, seems to 
 direct the attention. At this moment, I can, if I 
 choose, withdraw all my mental force from almost 
 everything else and centre it on, say, the Carboniferous 
 Period. This is what is known as yoliiiitary,a±teii.tioiu 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 249 
 
 But suppose that while I am in the act of withdraw- 
 ing all my mental force from my paper, my pen, my 
 lamp, in order to fix it upon what I can remember of 
 Lyell and Dana and Geikie, a knock comes to my study 
 door, my mental force seems to dissipate itself sud- 
 denly only to concentrate once more, this time on the 
 annoyance of the interruption. This is what usually 
 passes for invo luntary attention. 
 
 Observe, it is not the door that I attend to in the 
 first place, it is the annoyance, and in all cases of invol- 
 untary attention this is true : we do not attend for the 
 sake of the object itself, but because of some emot ional 
 aficompaniment.i This emotional element rouses our, 
 interest in the object with which it is connected. ( It 
 may be pleasant, as in the case of a child interested in 
 the piece of candy in a shop window, or it may be pain- 
 ful, as in the case of the same child at a later stage at 
 the dentist's. In both cases attention naturally fol- 
 lows interest : I the child eagerly attends to the candy " 
 in the window^ but no less eagerly to the forceps in the 
 dentist's hand. Interest may be said to hold the same 
 relation to involuntary attention, that the will holds to 
 
 1 " The assumption that attention depends on pleasure-pain seems 
 to have no sufficient basis. The relation is not one of cause and effect. 
 The coincidence of interest and attention is simply due to the fact 
 that interest as actually felt at any moment is nothing but attention 
 itself considered in its hedonic aspect. . . Stumpf, indeed, goes too 
 far when he says ' attention is identical with interest,' but the distinc- 
 tion between them is simply that the word interest carries with it a ref- 
 erence to something else as well as to attention as a mode of mental 
 activity ; this something else is the pleasure-pain tone of the attention 
 process." — G. F. Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I., pp. 224, 225. 
 
250 THE HBRBABTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 voluntary. In involuntary attention the object plays 
 the leading part ; in voluntary attention the soul. Yet 
 this distinction must not be pushed too far. 
 
 The same forces are at work in both cases, though in 
 different proportions. In writing the paragraph on vol- 
 untary attention, I paused for a moment after setting 
 down the words "centre it on, say," and reflected — 
 " well, — which out-of-the-way idea shall I select for 
 special attention ? " and out of nowhere in particular 
 floated the Carboniferous Period. At first sight it ap- 
 pears that the idea came at the call of my will out of 
 that great unconscious world with which we are all 
 surrounded. In point of fact, it came out of the coal- 
 box. For no sooner did I set myself to discover why I 
 had thought of the Carboniferous Period in preference 
 to anything else, than I remembered that a few minutes 
 before I had replenished the study fire. This circum- 
 stance had so increased the presentative activity of the 
 idea of the Carboniferous Period, as to give it a great 
 advantage in the competition for admission into con- 
 sciousness. The will is obviously not alone responsi- 
 ble for the attention in this case. 
 
 Return now to the knock at the door. Here the will 
 seems to be completely overridden. It wished to at- 
 tend to the Carboniferous Period, and a beggarly 
 knock at the door transferred the attention from the 
 time of the first beetles to the time of house-maids and 
 the penny-post. Yet, after all, the house-maid is no 
 better than the coal-box. Something has for the time 
 given her a greater power of attracting the attention 
 than the other objects of my surroundings have. That 
 
THE DOCTRINE OP INTEREST 251 
 
 is all. If I had really made up my mind to attend to 
 the Carboniferous Period, I could have disregarded her 
 knock, or even not have heard it at all. If I drop the 
 Carboniferous Period because the maid enters with a 
 letter, it is because I am more interested in my letter 
 than in Geology. 
 
 Thus, while there is a sufficiently clear "working" 
 distinction between voluntary and involuntary atten- 
 tion, they cannot be absolutely marked off one from 
 the other. There is a regular series from the almost 
 purely will-less attention which a young child gives to 
 a bright light, up to the intense attention that a con- 
 scientious poet gives to an uninteresting arithmetical 
 calculation by sheer will-power, a series in any one of 
 the terms of which will and interest are to be found in 
 inverse ratio. In any given state of attention the less 
 the interest, the greater the amount of will-power neces- 
 sary to maintain it. (One of the main aims of education 
 is to enable the pupil to pass from the purely involun- 
 tary to the purely voluntary forms of attention.\ Yet 
 so peculiarly close and intricate are the relations of 
 those two forms of attention that, in a certain sense, 
 the converse is true, and the function of education may 
 be regarded as the creation of' involuntary attention 
 through voluntary attention. By deliberately concen- 
 trating our attention upon a certain class of subjects,, 
 we may build up such a powerful apperception mass^ 
 that any fact connected with that mass will at once at-| 
 tract our attention quite irrespective of our will. This 
 produces an alertness to certain classes of facts that 
 may be of the utmost service in our experience, and 
 
252 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 therefore may be legitimately held up as one of the 
 aims of education. 
 
 Accepting the classification into voluntary and in- 
 voluntary, we have still to face the problem of what 
 attention really is. Speaking broadly, it may be de- 
 scribed as the concentration of mental energy on a 
 I given object.; The total available amount of such 
 energy at any moment may be diffused throughout the 
 whole mind, or may be brought to a focus on a special 
 point. Some psychologists maintain that we are always 
 either attending to something, or passing from attend- 
 ing to one thing in order to begin attending to another. 
 We are always in a state of attention. Others main- 
 tain that attention is not a natural but an acquired 
 habit, like living in houses or using the tooth-brush. 
 Ribot,^ for example, holds that we exist in a sort of 
 rhythmic series of states of attention and non-atten- 
 tion, even when we think that we are attending all the 
 time. To a large extent those discussions are limited 
 to voluntary attention, and only so far as they are thus 
 limited do they concern us. The rhythm of involun- 
 tary attention is really a matter for the physiologist. 
 
 Professor Morgan's wave figure may help us to 
 understand this vexed question of attention. A map 
 off on a holiday, with a good conscience and a fat purse, 
 lies on his back in the sun with his hat over his eyes. 
 Is he in a state of attention ? The answer must be that 
 he is ; for so long as he is not asleep, the waves of his 
 consciousness must roll on, and every wave must have 
 a crest of some sort. That crest indicates the focal 
 1 Ribot, Psychology of Attention, Chap. II. 1. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 253 
 
 elements of the consciousness at that moment ; in other 
 ■words, the elements to which the attention is directed. 
 But in figuring his waves, Professor Morgan has not 
 in any way committed himself as to their shape. The 
 waves of consciousness may vary as greatly as those of 
 the sea. Our holiday man's wave is a long, rolling 
 wave with a broad, unbroken crest. It indicates a 
 great mass of focal elements, none of which, however, 
 are very clearly marked out. By and by the sun sinks, 
 and our friend has to go on ; lazily enough, no doubt, 
 but still on. His waves still roll long, broad, and 
 glassy, till he has reached his hotel, when he "finds that 
 his fat purse has disappeared. Instantly the waves 
 change their character : they beconre high and rapid, 
 crest succeeding crest with wonderful speed. Every 
 possible spot where that purse could h4ve rolled out of 
 the pocket has a wave crest to itself in a lightning-like 
 succession. Suddenly a flash of memory suggests that 
 he has placed the money at the bottom of his knapsack, 
 when at once a fearsome billow rears itself to a knife- 
 edge, and keeps itself in that difficult position all the 
 time that he is feverishly tearing out the contents of 
 his kit, till the discovery of the missing money sends 
 down the wave. All the time the man has been attend- 
 ing to something or other ; but it is only to the latter 
 part of that day's experiences that we are inclined to 
 apply the terva joMention. 
 
 While voluntary and involuntary attention differ, as 
 we have seen, the mechanism which they call into play 
 is exactly the same. In both cases we have the con- 
 centration of mental force upon a limited area. This, 
 
254 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of course, means that force must be drawn from cer- 
 tain parts. Attention, as the psychophysicists have it, 
 is inhibition. We do not really direct our attention 
 to this or that object. We simply call it off from all 
 other objects. We are told that the phenomena attend- 
 ing attention are of three kinds, — vasomotor, respira- 
 tory, and motory (or motions of expression). We 
 cannot here do more than touch the fringe of an in- 
 tensely interesting discussion at present going on as to 
 the relation between emotion and the expression of the 
 emotion. As far back as Plato, we find complaints 
 that the playing of the parts of bad men has a tendency 
 to make the actors become bad men.^ What we might 
 be inclined to smile at as a playful fancy in the Repub- 
 lic, we must look upon with other eyes when we find 
 it in the pages ' of a psychologist of the standing of 
 Mr. W. James. 
 
 This writer is inclined to reverse the usual view of 
 the causal relation between emotion and its expression. 
 His thesis is that " the bodily changes follow directly the 
 perception of the exciting f Wot, and that our feeling of the 
 same changes as they occur IS the emotion. Common sense 
 says : 'We lose our fortune, are sorry, and Aveep.'"^ 
 But Mr. James would say, we lose our fortune, we weep, 
 and then are sorry. I am insulted, I clench my fists and 
 contract my brows, and then I proceed to get angry. 
 
 " Stated in this crude way," says Mr. James, " the 
 hypothesis is pretty sure to meet with immediate dis- 
 
 1 Sepublic, III. 395. 
 
 2 Principles of Psychology, Vol. II. , p. 449. Every teacher should 
 read the whole of Chap. XXV. -« 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 265 
 
 belief." Accordingly, he proceeds to give a series of 
 very cogent arguments in favour of his position. 
 What he considers the vital point of his theory is 
 expressed thus : '■'■ If we fancy some strong emotion, and 
 then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the 
 feelings <sf its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing 
 left behind, no mind-stuff- out of which the emotions 
 can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state 
 of intellectual perception is all that remains." 
 
 It is beyond the province of this book even to attempt 
 a decision on this matter. Indeed, it may be asked 
 what such physiologico-psychological theories have to 
 do with Herbartianism. Our only reply is that if they 
 have little to do with Herbart, they have a great deal 
 to do with the real work of teaching, and that no writer 
 need apologize for introducing a theory the establish- 
 ment of which would gladden the heart of every one of 
 his readers. 
 
 For, if Mr. James is right, then shall the practical 
 teacher at last get those definite rules after which his 
 soul longs ; at last there will be something definite 
 for^ieteacher to do. ■ To a certain extent the theory 
 is already acted upon. Every prosy lecturer to the 
 young who urges his dear young friends to count ten 
 before they reply to an angry speech, every clodhopper 
 who whistles and waves his stick as he passes by the 
 churchyard at midnight, every faith-healed cripple who 
 hangs up his crutch by some holy well, is a practical 
 supporter of Mr. James. It has, however, received a 
 more direct illustration in the actual work of teaching. 
 Mr. Thring in his pungent remarks on the potency of 
 
256 THE HBEBAETIAN PSrCHOLOGY 
 
 attitude^ acts upon the theory, and roundly blames 
 teachers for most of the inattention found in their 
 classes. If a boy is allowed to maintain the attitude 
 of inattention, nothing can prevent him from becoming 
 inattentive. 
 
 Every act of attention has at least its hedonic aspect, 
 and to that extent comes under the laws that regulate 
 emotions and their expression. In so far, then, as one 
 can control the physical expression of attention, one 
 can control attention. Of the three classes of phenom- 
 ena marking attention, we cannot directly regulate our 
 vasomotor activities, but we have some control over 
 our respiratory functions, and can and do modify them 
 when we seek to attend very closely to anything. Our 
 phenomena of expression are well within our control, 
 so that we have the means of regulating two out of the 
 three classes of phenomena which accompany, and may 
 cause, attention. 
 
 Even those writers who deny any causal connection 
 between muscular action and attention, admit that there 
 is some connection between them by which the one aids 
 the other. Mr. Stout, for example, says "muscular ad- 
 justment is the support of attention, but not, strictly 
 speaking, an integral part of it."^ From our point of 
 view, this scarcely lessens the enormous importance to 
 be attached in education to the muscular concomitants 
 of attention. 
 
 Passing now from the conditions of attention to the 
 actual mechanism as stated by the psychophysical 
 
 ^ Theory and Practice of Education, pp. 177 ft. 
 ' Analytical Psychology, Vol. I., p. 224. 
 
THE DOCTKINE OP INTEREST 257 
 
 school, we find the following description by Maudsley 
 of what happens when we voluntarily direct our atten- 
 tion towards a given object. " What is accomplished 
 in such cases is the excitation of certain nervous cur- 
 rents of ideas, and their maintenance in action until 
 they have called into consciousness, by radiation of 
 energy, all their related ideas, or as many of them as 
 it may be possible, in the then condition of the brain, 
 to stimulate into action. It would appear, then, that 
 the force that we mean by attention is rather a vis a 
 fronte attracting consciousness, than a vis a tergo driv- 
 ing it. Consciousness is the result, not the cause of 
 the excitation. The psychological mode of expression 
 puts the cart before the horse ; the problem in reflec- 
 tion is not, as it is said, to direct consciousness or to 
 direct the attention to an idea, but to arouse con- 
 sciousness of it by stirring it up to a certain pitch of 
 activity." ^ 
 
 Without at all committing ourselves to the material- 
 istic basis of this argument, we may fairly claim that 
 Maudsley's conclusions are in full harmony with the 
 Herbartian theory. 
 
 Attention consists in giving ideas a chance to rise 
 above the threshold. This chance is given them by 
 keeping back or inhibiting all other ideas, and particu- 
 larly those which are hostile to the ideas we wish to 
 bring into prominence. It is this work of inhibition \ 
 that causes the peculiar feeling of effort that marks all I 
 voluntary attention as opposed to involuntary. " Either 
 we must abandon all explanation, or admit an action 
 1 Physiology of Mind, pp. 317 ff. Quoted by Ribot. 
 
258 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 of inhibition exerted upon the motor elements of the 
 states of consciousness involved. In such cases we 
 have a very distinct feeling of sustained effort. And 
 whence could that feeling come, if not from the energy 
 Bxpended to accomplish the acts of inhibition? For, 
 indeed, the ordinary course of thought, left to itself, 
 is exempt from any such sensation."^ 
 
 Accepting inhibition as a working hypothesis to ex- 
 plain the mechanism, we have now to find what force 
 directs attention or determines the point upon which 
 it shall be applied. [ In every case attention owes its 
 direction to the emotional states that accompany mental 
 iction ; in othat words, attentionJoUows interest. ) Sup- 
 pose that the letter brought by the maid in our former 
 3xample comes from a friend with whom I am anxious 
 bo enter into communication. I turn with what is 
 called interest to the map. The letter is dated from 
 Foggia, and the portrait of King Umberto on the stamp 
 shows me that Foggia is in Italy. My eye, in running, 
 rapidly down the peninsula, passes with indifference 
 some of the most interesting towns in the world with-" 
 3ut any attention resulting. Venice, Florence, Rome, 
 md Naples all have to give place to this comparatively 
 unknown town of Foggia. Once Foggia has been 
 found, the interest (and the attention) passes from it 
 to Brindisi, which is to be my friend's next stopping- 
 place. The distance between those towns suddenly ac- 
 q^uires an interest, which soon gives way to that of the 
 postal arrangements, which I find in a convenient little 
 book on my desk. In all this attention follows interest. 
 1 Ribot, The Psychology of Attention, p. 64. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 259 
 
 At first sight it may seem that the converse may be 
 maintained with equal truth, for in very many cases 
 interest certainly does follow attention. If we take up 
 some particularly commonplace object, say an old key, 
 and direct all our attention to it, the result is that a 
 certain amount of interest is at once developed. But 
 while it is true that the greater the interest in an 
 object the greater the attention we naturally give it, 
 the converse does not hold. It is not true that the 
 greater the attention the greater the interest. Interest 
 depends upon the apperception masses that can be 
 brought into relation with the given object. Attention 
 cannot create masses, it can only give masses a chance 
 to rise into consciousness. I attend with maddening 
 concentration to a black spot on my sheet of note paper, 
 and the more I attend the less interesting the blot be- 
 comes. If I want interest, I must let my mind wander 
 around the blot, and seek to find a place for it in some 
 respectable apperception mass. Intense attention to aj 
 very limited area- does not conduce to interest, but to' 
 sleep. The hypnotic patient can hardly be said to show 
 a high degree of interest. 
 
 (. Teachers are fond of talking about creating an 
 interest; but this labour at least is spared them. 
 They have not to create but only to direct interest^ 
 The most careless and inattentive boy at school is not 
 without interest, not even without attention. The 
 trouble is that he is interested in wrong things, and 
 naturally attends to what he is interested in. It is 
 no doubt humiliating for the schoolmaster to accept 
 a place in the scale of interest much lower than that 
 
60 THE HEBBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 eld by a healthy bluebottle ; but there is comfort in the 
 bought that at the expense of a slight sacrifice of dig- 
 ity the tables may be turned upon the droning dipter. 
 ^et but the master appear in a night-cap of sufficient 
 rilliancy, and the bluebuzzer will buzz in vain. 
 
 This night-cap teaching must characterize the earli- 
 st stages of infant training. The child's attention is 
 early involuntary, which is fortunate for the teacher, 
 rho can thus to a large extent direct the infantile at- 
 sntion in any way he pleases, so long as he takes the 
 rouble to understand how the thing works. He can 
 arrange his object that the child cannot choose but 
 ttend. So soon as the master introduces the ideas of 
 eward and punishment, the child enters upon a new 
 tage. The child who attends to the name of a ginger- 
 read letter in order that having once learned the name 
 e may afterwards eat the letter, has entered upon the 
 econd stage of attention, — the stage with which the 
 irocess of education is specially concerned. In the_^r«i 
 tage the attention follows whatever attracts it ; interest 
 3 paramount. In the third, or final stage, the con- 
 ents of the mind are so arranged and organized that 
 ttention can be maintained in certain directions with 
 he minimum of interest. It would seem, then, that 
 he process of education consists in the systematic 
 limination of interest. This view is true to the ex- 
 ent that interest is continually being eliminated from 
 ertain mental processes, and transfet'red to others. 
 ?he child first loses interest in how to hold the pen, 
 hen in how to form the simple letters, next in the 
 roper joining of the letters, and so on. But each loss 
 
THE DOCTRINE OP INTEREST 261 
 
 of interest is accompanied by the development of a new 
 -interest. (^ Interest is, and has long been recognized as, 
 the gravitation of education. ) 
 
 We are here brought face to face Avith the unpleasant 
 aspect of interest that is usually denoted by the term 
 self-interest, and teachers are found w^ho object to the 
 use of interest on the ground that it leads to selfish- 
 ness. The objection is trifling, and almost unworthy 
 of consideration. 
 
 It is to the interest of a granite merchant to learn a 
 little Swedish and Norwegian in order to be able to 
 correspond wath Scandinavians with whom his business 
 brings him into contact. In this case the interest is 
 not in Swedish but in granite, or probably merely in 
 the profits that the granite may bring. Yet the inter- 
 est in money or granite causes the attention to be 
 turned to Swedish. 
 
 Sometimes a clergyman enlivens a sermon, or a poli- 
 tician an address, by introducing a story. If the story 
 is worked into the fibre of the address so that it could 
 not be withdrawn without affecting the whole bearing 
 of the argument, the interest aroused by the story is 
 legitimate. But if the stories are introduced into a 
 discourse, as raisins are into a pudding, merely to 
 enrich it, the interest they arouse is illegitimate. The 
 audience prick up their ears till the story is past. 
 Their interest dies with the story. This is a case of 
 substituting one interest for another, and so far from 
 aiding the speaker actually hinders him. Instead of 
 arousing an interest in the rest of the address, it raises 
 up a rival interest. 
 
262 THE HEBBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 In the case of the granite merchant we have a more 
 hopeful example. The man may be led through money 
 to granite, and through granite to Swedish, and yet 
 by and by take an honest interest in Swedish, without 
 in any way diminishing his interests in other directions. 
 
 This seems the most natural place to take up another 
 objection to the use of interest in education. ( There 
 are those who fear that by making everything in 
 school interesting and pleasant, there will be lost one 
 of the main advantages of our school training. J A boy 
 brought up on the interest principle, it is argued, when 
 he is thrown out into the world, where everything is 
 not arranged so as to interest him, will find himself 
 unable to cope with the new and unexpected circum- 
 stances. Critics who reason thus tell us that John 
 will live to curse the training that gave him a false 
 view of life, and left him unprepared to face the grim 
 reality. They complain bitterly about our playing at 
 education, and assert with vehemence the need of hon- 
 est effort if anything is to be attained either in acquir- 
 ing knowledge or gaining self-command. They despise 
 as effeminate all efforts to add to the charm of work to 
 be done, and quote with grim approval Bain's words : — 
 
 " Then comes the stern conclusion that the uninter- 
 esting must be faced at last ; that by no palliation or 
 device are we able to make agreeable ever3'thing that 
 has to be mastered. The age of drudgery must com- 
 mence : every motive that can avert it is in the end 
 exhausted." 1 
 
 f The theory of interest does not propose to banish 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 184. 
 
THE DOCTETNE OF INTEREST 263 
 
 I drudgery, but only to make drudgery tolerable by giv- 
 ling it a meaning. ) We have seen that what is inter- 
 esting is by no means necessarily pleasant ; but it is 
 something that impels us to exertion. If pleasure be 
 the sole object the teacher has in view in cultivating 
 interest, he will fail miserably. The pleasure attend- 
 ing interest only comes when the interest has no direct 
 thought of pleasure. George Eliot well expresses Her- 
 bart's many-sided interest in the epilogue to Bomola, 
 where Romola is teaching Lillo. "It is only a poor 
 sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very 
 much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only 
 have the highest happiness, such as goes along with 
 being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much 
 feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves ; 
 and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain 
 with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being 
 what we would choose before everything else, because 
 our souls see it is good." 
 
 Coming down from this high level to the common 
 motives of school life, we find that, (so far from ener- 
 vating the pupil, the principle of interest braces him 
 up to endure all manner of drudgery and hard work.| 
 The medical student who shirks the drudgery of mount- 
 ing microscopic slides will spend hours in acquiring by 
 monotonous work a useful stroke at billiards ; the law 
 student who is bored to death by the supposititious dis- 
 putes of those quarrelsome persons A and B in his text- 
 books, will eagerly con all the specimen "hands" 
 worked out at the end of "Cavendish." To come 
 nearer home, the boy who yawns over the pretty free- 
 
IM THE HERBABTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 land drawing copy will eagerly work for hours on his 
 ilate, or on the unprinted pages of his Reader, to get 
 ip a peculiarly roguish expression on his " man's " face, 
 )r a specially satisfactory way of turning a foot, or 
 ■epresenting the smoke of a steamer or the billows of 
 I choppy sea. If a teacher has once observed a boy 
 earning to read with the book upside down, he will no 
 onger doubt that interest helps boys to face drudgery, 
 lot to shun it. A boy who despises the ordinary read- 
 ng lessons as the veriest " tommyrot " will devote 
 ivery moment of his spare time to acquire this fasci- 
 lating art of inversion. The case is not unknown in 
 vhich John, in his ill-considered zeal to acquire the 
 !oveted art, has so far forgotten himself as to give him- 
 lelf seriously to the legitimate form of reading in order 
 ihe better to master the illegitimate. 
 
 It must not be supposed that this is a mere matter 
 )f the difference between work and play, as in the 
 ilassical case of Tom Sawyer and the fence. It is true 
 ;hat John resents problems in his arithmetic book, re- 
 garding it (not without some show of reason) as a 
 vaste of time to find how many pecks of corn a certain 
 lumber of horses will eat under distressingly compli- 
 iated circumstances ; while he will cheerfully sacrifice 
 I whole afternoon, to puzzle his way through some 
 irithmetical quibble at the end of his Youth's Com- 
 lanion or of his Boy's Own Paper. Yet if by any 
 neans the teacher can rouse interest in those unfortu- 
 late animals, the arithmetical beasts at once get John's 
 uUest voluntary attention. 
 
 A case in point. John was a perfectly normal type — 
 
THE DOCTRINE OE INTEREST 265 
 
 clever and very careless. Suddenly the mathematical 
 master reported an amazing improvement in John's 
 marks. On investigation the improvement was found 
 to limit itself to mensuration. Still further inquiry 
 narrowed down -the prodigy to areas of segments of 
 circles ; but as those could not be understood without 
 previous work, John asked and obtained permission 
 to work from the beginning. In three weeks he had 
 bored his way honestly through half of Todhunter's 
 Mensuration, and was very eager to be promoted to 
 the volumes of spheres. John was now the talk of the 
 masters' room, where nobody had a good word to say 
 for him except the science master, who reported that 
 John had developed a violent interest in Chemistry, 
 and was showing leanings towards volumetric analysis. 
 The whole trouble was afterwards traced to its primary 
 [bacillus in a gigantic balloon that John was projecting. 
 How to cut the gores drove him to Todhunter ; how to 
 calculate how much zinc and sulphuric acid were neces- 
 sary to float his baUoon with hydrogen had urged him 
 to Chemistry. Balloon-making did not make either 
 mensuration or Chemistry easy ; it made them inter- 
 esting. ) 
 
 A feeble objection to the use of interest as an essen- 
 tial part of all education is that it leaves no room for 
 training the sense of duty. Under this lurks the 
 humiliating assumption that duty is necessarily unin- 
 teresting. This fallacy, that duty is in its very nature 
 uninteresting and unpleasant, is deeply rooted in many 
 minds, and requires very vigorous efforts to dislodge 
 it. Most men find that all their acts fall easily and 
 
266 THE HBKBABTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 laturally into two great classes, — those that they do 
 )ecause they like to do them, and those that they do 
 )ecause they must. The great mistake lies in assum- 
 ng that those two classes are mutually exclusive, and 
 n identifying duty with the second class alone. If a 
 choolmaster plays golf or studies Chinese, it is because 
 le likes to ; but when he teaches in school, it is because 
 le must. Does it follow because a man has to teach 
 or his living that he must therefore dislike teaching, 
 md find it dull and uninteresting? No doubt the 
 uere fact that he is compelled to work at teaching 
 fives the man a strong bias against it ; a bias that some- 
 imes gets the better of him, but which, in many cases 
 it least, is resisted. 
 
 Spurgeon used to advise young men who consulted 
 lim on the subject, not to become clergymen unless 
 hey could not help it. There are at least some 
 eachers who have applied this principle in choosing 
 heir profession ; they teach because they cannot help 
 t; That such teachers are rare cannot be denied, but 
 his surely does not go to prove the injudiciousness of 
 imploying interest ; rather it shows the need for culti- 
 vating it. It has to be admitted that there are some 
 hings in life dull and dreary in themselves ; that there 
 s such a thing as drudgery. But drudgery can be 
 aced and overcome not by a long course of drudgery 
 Lrill at school, but by stirring up an interest in the 
 )roeess, or at any rate in the result, of the drudgery 
 tself. A long course of drudgery in school wiU no 
 Loubt so break a boy's spirit as to make him unfit to 
 )e anything in the world but a drudge. So long as a 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 267 
 
 boy's spirit remains, a course of drudgery leads only to 
 a wild desire to get free from it. This educational 
 homoeopathy stands self-condemned. On the other 
 hand, (give a boy sufficient interest in anything, and 
 we have seen that all the attendant drudgery is cheer- 
 fully faced. ) ;' 
 
 But all boys are not interested in the same things. 
 We must then discover wherein interest in general 
 consists. Why is a novel, for example, more interest- 
 ing than a book on some scientific subject ? To this it 
 is a perfectly legitimate reply : a novel is not more 
 interesting than a book on science. We all know that 
 Darwin at the end of his life could not read either 
 poetry or fiction, though in his youth he had been fond 
 of both ; and many who have no claim to be mentioned 
 in the same breath with Darwin share in this peculiar- 
 ity. It cannot be denied, however, that the scientific 
 book cannot compete with the novel in the open market. 
 Public librarians blush as they annually proclaim their 
 thousands of novel readers, and their beggarly hun- 
 dreds of readers of scientific and other solid books. 
 
 Yet even here we must discriminate. It is not a 
 question merely of novels versus solid books ; it is one 
 kind of novel against another. Huxley's Crayfish and 
 Professor Judd's Volcanoes would score an easy first if 
 their only rivals were novels of the style of, say, Ras- 
 selas and the Shaving of Shagpat. There are hard 
 novels and easy novels ; most people find their interest 
 in easy novels. Why is The Gates of Eden easier to 
 read than Bomola? The answer is: it is not easier; 
 it is different. It all depends on the reader. There 
 
!68 THE HERBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGy 
 
 ire those who have no interest in The Crates of Eden 
 )ecause their apperception masses cannot supply the 
 deas necessary to apperceive the idyllic sweetness of 
 he tale. Give them a good-going Police News para- 
 graph, or a spicy divorce case, and their masses do not 
 ail them ; interest is no longer lacking. There are 
 hose again who cannot get up an interest in The Crates 
 1/ Eden for quite another reason. Those minds have 
 ived through and passed beyond the stage at which 
 he Grates are of interest. Such minds find their inter- 
 !st in books like Romola. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, it is all a matter of apperception 
 nasses. Cheap easy novels have the widest circulation 
 )ecause most people's apperception masses are meagre 
 md badly arranged. The masses connected with the 
 enses are naturally well-developed in most minds, and 
 he very word sensational, as applied to novels, is an 
 mconscious argument in favour of the truth of our 
 hesis. 
 
 Yet books of the same class, and dealing with pre- 
 isely the same stage of the same subject, differ consid- 
 irably in the interest that they call forth. Here we 
 lave' a much more promising field of inquiry for our 
 )urpose. Obviously it cannot be a difference in matter 
 his time, for the matter is identical in the two cases ; 
 ,nd behind this consideration is the uneasy feeling that 
 ,s a consequence interest cannot depend on the apper- 
 ;eption masses after all. The masses can explain why 
 v^e prefer Byron's Waterloo to a useful little text-book 
 in ambulance work; but how are we to explain our 
 rreater interest in one ambulance book than in another 
 
THE DOCTKINE OF INTEREST 269 
 
 which covers exactly the same ground ? The difference 
 must obviously lie in the form in which the matCer is 
 presented. To those matter-of-fact people who main- 
 tain that when a fact has to be communicated it does 
 not at all matter how it is done, it is pleasant to be 
 able to supply an illustration after their own heart. 
 The chief waste of our bodies is in carbon,, of which we 
 require to make up about 4500 grains per day, if we 
 happen to be the average healthy man that the Physiol- 
 ogy text-books love. Accordingly we want a large 
 and steady supply of carbon. Now we find in wood a 
 delightfully abundant source of carbon. Why, then, is 
 there no run upon shavings during a time of famine ? 
 Why does sawdust not keep down the price of porridge ? 
 
 Were we not dealing with matter-of-fact people, we 
 might have some shame in baldly stating the answer. 
 The body is rather particular as to the form in which 
 it will take its carbon. Some men take their whiskey 
 neat, some with water. It is only the teetotaller who 
 makes the contemptuous mistake of supposing that it is 
 a matter of small consequence which way is adopted. 
 The body cannot take its carbon neat — to the great 
 disappointment of chemists and the commissariat de- 
 partment of war offices — nor can it take it in wood. 
 It insists upon having it in decent oatmeal, and other 
 legitimate forms. So with ideas. ^ If an idea is pre- 
 sented to a mind unprepared for it, there is no genuine 
 assimilation) At this point it may be convenient to 
 drop the physiological figure. Its further development 
 would no doubt be effective, but inartistic. 
 
 Take the concrete case of a boy learning Latin. He 
 
270 THE HBKBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 may begin with the Rudiments, or he may begin with 
 some such book as Henry's First Latin Book. Both 
 books convey the same information in the long run, but 
 the severe Rudiments arouses no interest, while the 
 other book with its immediate application of every rule, 
 and its actual translation from and into Latin, at once 
 arouses and maintains an interest in what is going on. 
 
 Most of us remember the queer sensations we had 
 when as boys we were galloped through the axioms of 
 Euclid. There was no difficulty in understanding 
 them. The difficulty was rather to understand what in 
 the world was the good of saying over all those pike- 
 staff platitudes. " The whole is greater than its part." 
 Of course ! Who said it wasn't? What an ass Euclid 
 must have been, would certainly have been our thought 
 had we happeiaed to know — which most of us did not 
 — that Euclid had been a man. To us Euclid was an 
 exercise book that no more demanded a living man be- 
 hind it than did the multiplication table. Euclid was 
 a part of the nature of things, like schoolmasters, and 
 it did not enter into our minds to go into the teleol- 
 ogy of either. That a man called Ovid once sat down 
 and wrote, for his own satisfaction and other people's 
 pleasure, certain scannable lines, seems to a schoolboy 
 a prodigy to be sarcastically spoken of. An Ovid with- 
 out a scansion table at the beginning, and a vocabulary 
 at the end, seems to many of our newer boys something 
 very like a contradiction in terms. The boy's attitude 
 towards Latin as taught on the old plan cannot be bet- 
 ter put than by George Eliot in The Mill on the Floss} 
 1 Page 126. 
 
THE DOCTKINE OF INTEREST 271 
 
 " It is doubtless almost incredible to instructed minds 
 of tbe present day that a boy of twelve, not belonging 
 strictly to 'the masses,' who are now understood to 
 have the monopoly of mental darkness, should have had 
 no distinct idea how there came to be such a thing as 
 Latin on this earth ; yet so it was with Tom. It would 
 have taken a long while to make conceivable to him 
 that there ever existed a people who bought and sold 
 sheep and oxen, and transacted the every-day affairs of 
 life, through the medium of this language, and still 
 longer to make him understand why he should be 
 called upon to learn it, when its connection with those 
 affairs had 'become entirely latent. So far as Tom had 
 gained any acquaintance with the Romans at Mr. 
 Jacob's Academy, his knowledge was strictly correct, 
 but it went no further than the fact that they were 
 ' in the New Testament,' and Mr. Stelling was not the 
 man to enfeeble and emasculate his pupil's mind by 
 simplifying and explaining, or to reduce the tonic effect 
 of etymology by mixing it with smattering extraneous 
 information, such as is given to girls." 
 
 It is the Noah's Ark fallacy under a new form. The 
 Rudiments and the Delectus certainly contain in the 
 smallest possible compass all that the schoolmaster 
 thinks it necessary to know about Latin. It is there- 
 fore assumed that it is the best form in which Latin 
 can be presented to the pupil. We have found, how- 
 ever, that in order truly to understand anything, we 
 must see it in its proper surroundings. It is not abso- 
 lutely necessary to go to Rome in or.der to learn Latin, 
 though it would undoubtedly be learnt there with 
 
272 THE HBKBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 an added interest, — but it is necessary that it should 
 be learnt as something having a meaning in itself, 
 not as a mere exercise. A schoolmaster's estimate of 
 Caesar has been sarcastically given as "a man who 
 wrote a very good school-book, which would have been 
 excellent if only it had been better graduated." 
 
 To be interesting, a thing must find a natural place 
 for itself in the cosmos of the child's mind. An en- 
 tirely unknown thing can have no interest whatever for 
 a child, or indeed for an adult. Teaching consists in 
 finding or forming suitable places among the appercep- 
 tion masses for new ideas. Interest then depends on 
 two things, — the activity of the particular apperception 
 mass in question, and the intensity of the stimulus 
 which arouses it. An apperception mass that has had 
 long and complete possession of the dome of conscious- 
 ness is easily roused to action, and frequently modifies 
 the inost unpromising subjects into stimuli. The case 
 of Camper, the physiologist, is only a specially striking 
 example of what is continually happening in the experi- 
 ence of all. "I have been employed," he says, "six 
 months on the Oetacea; I understand the osteology of 
 the head of these monsters, and have made the combi- 
 nation with the human head so well, that everybody 
 now appears to me narwhale, porpoise, or marsouin. 
 Women the prettiest in society, and those whom I find 
 less comely, they are all either narwhales or porpoises 
 to my eyes."^ 
 
 From the boy who gets up an interest in Farmer 
 Giles' pet meadow by calculating its merits as a cricket 
 ^ Quoted by Emerson, Essay on the Comic. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 273 
 
 pitch, up to the Prussian General Bliicher riding along 
 Regent Street, London, muttering " What plunder ! " 
 we all determine our interest according to the dominat- / 
 ing apperception masses in our minds. 
 
 But the external exciting cause of interest is not 
 without its special function and influence. A particu- 
 larly nar whale -headed person would certainly prove 
 more interesting to Camper than would an ordinary one. 
 Some fields in themselves are more interesting to school- 
 boys than are others, and if no street in the world could 
 be quite so interesting to a Prussian general as Regent 
 Street, there are very many streets that are less so.'' 
 
 But it must not be forgotten that in the last resort 
 all interest comes from within. Chr. Ufer, in a pas- 
 sage the humour of which does not seem to have suffi- 
 ciently^ impressed him, tells us that the child who 
 flattens his nose against the candy-shop window is not 
 really interested in the candy, but in an idea that he 
 wishes to realize. " The child desires the candy, in 
 order to bring the concept in his mind to coipplete 
 clearness. The real effect of the desire is, therefore, 
 not the candy, but the taste concept in question. The 
 
 1 This is quite consistent with Wundt's statement in the Orundzilge, 
 Vol. II., p. 208 : "Der Grad der Apperception nicht nach der Starke 
 des ausseren Eindrucks, sondern nur nach der subjectiven Thatigkeit 
 zu bemessen ist, durch welche sich das Bewusstsein einem bestimaiten 
 Sinnesreiz zuwendet." Por the particularly narwhale-headed person 
 derives his special importance in this case as a Sinnesreiz from the 
 content of Camper's mind. After all, a certain object is attractive 
 because the mind makes it so. ^ 
 
 2 Introduction to the Pedagogy of Herhart, (Zinser's Translation), 
 p. 30. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE HEEBARTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 candy is desired only as a means to the end, as an ex- 
 ternal means to an internal condition." 
 
 At first sight we seem here to have little better than 
 a juvenile prose version of the casket philosophy dealt 
 out to the luckless Prince of Aragon : — 
 
 " Some there be that shadows kiss, 
 Such have but a shadow's bliss." 
 
 But in sober truth the soul can have nothing to do 
 with candy. From the soul's point of view the shadow 
 of the candy, the idea of it, is what is really desired. 
 It is easy to point out that the soul has already the idea 
 of the candy, since the child is staring at it through 
 the shop window. The reply is prompt and crushing : 
 the child has not the idea as be wishes to have it. 
 The sight of the actual candy has quickened the corre- 
 sponding idea as a sight concept ; what the child wants 
 is to have it quickened into a taste concept, and that 
 nothing short of the candy in the mouth can satisfac- 
 torily effect.^ 
 
 The mental state of this child before the candy-shop 
 window is the ideal state to which the teacher wishes 
 to be able to reduce his pupils in reference to things 
 other than candy. He can succeed only in so far as he 
 knows the content of the mind upon which he seeks to 
 act, and the laws according to which mind reacts upon 
 stimulus. Assuming those two conditions fulfilled, it 
 appears that the child becomes clay in the hands of the 
 
 1 See some very important observations from the psychophysical 
 standpoint by Professor Donaldson' in his Growth of the Srain, pp. 
 339, 340. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 275 
 
 potter. Given certain stimuli which the teacher may 
 apply, the pupil must respond to them in a definite way. 
 "What becomes of the child's will ? This question is at 
 present causing a considerable amount of uneasiness 
 among Herbartians, who in all other respects are 
 thoroughly satisfied with their theory. In his Psy- 
 chology Herbart makes it clear that what is called the 
 transcendental will does not commend itself to his 
 favour 1 and his critics have not failed to point out that 
 " transcendental freedom of will, in Kant's sense, is an 
 impossibility "^ in his system. 
 
 It seems to be only of late, however, that practical 
 teachers have come to a knowledge of the bearing of 
 this fact upon their work. If interest inevitably rouses 
 desires, and desires lead to determinations resulting in" 
 actions, there can be no room for this transcendental 
 will which is defined as "a will which can originate 
 modifications in its environment, and therefore set aside, 
 to a greater or less extent, the stream of causation in 
 which it finds itself."^ It is maintained by critics of 
 the Herbartian doctrine of interest, that its stream 
 of causation leaves no room for the working of the 
 will as thus defined. In answer Professor McMurry 
 cheerily writes : " So far as replies to this charge have 
 been given, they indicate that the Herbartians, while 
 greatly interested in the discussion of the transcenden- 
 tal will, regard the problem as belonging rather to 
 metaphysics than to pedagogy. In their opinion daily ^ 
 experience teaches that interest affects volition ; and 
 
 1 Psychology, p. 118. ^ J- Ward, Art. "Herbart," Em. Brit. 
 
 3 Dr. W. T. Harris. 
 
276 THE HERBAKTIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 that is enough for the teacher, for he sees in these facts 
 an important approach to conduct. However, in reply 
 to this sound of alarm, it may be said that if a trans- 
 cendental will is one that is absolutely free, or one that 
 is entirely lifted above the influence of desire in mak- 
 ing choice, then education is comparatively valueless, 
 for it can find no purchase upon such a will. But if 
 the transcendental- will is one that is influenced by de- 
 sire in making choice, one can believe in it heartily and 
 still accept the above-mentioned Herbartian doctrine, 
 for it is known that desire has its origin in interest." ^ 
 
 From our standpoint this seems eminently straight- 
 forward and satisfactory. It does not please Mr. 
 A. F. Ames, however, who replies ^ to it, pointing out 
 that it is possible to accept the Herbartian theory of 
 interest without giving up the transcendental will. In 
 fact, if we neglect interest, he maintains that we are 
 unfair to this transcendental will. " Place a child," he 
 says, " whose parents have been vicious and immoral in 
 a pure environment and under wholesome influences, 
 and his will may be strong enough to originate such 
 modifications in his hereditary tendencies as will save 
 him." But on the other hand : "Place a child in the 
 midst of surroundings which are grossly immoral, and 
 his will is powerless to originate modifications in his 
 environment that shall set aside the streams of causa- 
 tion in which he finds himself." 
 
 Does this differ in any important way from the sun- 
 nier statement of Professor McMurry ? Neither main- 
 tains the absolute freedom of the will, for even with 
 1 Am. Educ. Beview, Feb., 1896. ^ Ibid., April, 1896. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OE INTEREST 277 
 
 Mr. Ames it can only "set aside, to a greater or less 
 extent, the stream of causation." 
 - By considering the actual standing of interest among 
 the Herbartians, we may come . to a resolution of this 
 antagonism. So far are the Herbartian educationists ' 
 from fearing interest that they have actually raised it I 
 from a means to an end. 
 
 The result of a course of education is no longer to 
 be tested by the amount of knowledge acquired, but by 
 the strength and variety of the interests aroused. This 
 looks like turning our educational world upside down. 
 But a little probing will show that the paradox is not 
 so absurd after all. Knowledge is not displaced from 
 her high estate as an educational organon, since inter- 
 est, being a matter of apperception masses in any direc- 
 tion, really depends on the content of the mind. No 
 doubt the knowledge implied is not of the catalogue 
 kind that teachers love. A man may be greatly inter- 
 ested in pictures, without being able to rattle off names 
 of painters, and dates of exhibitions, to say nothing of 
 prices. Such a man has seen and appreciated many 
 pictures, and each new picture he sees he apperceives 
 through all his gathered experience. We do not say 
 that he has the picture faculty well developed ; we are 
 content to say that he has a large and well-developed 
 apperception mass dealing with pictures. His training 
 has made him a cultured man in this direction. As 
 the French idiom neatly puts it : he knows himself in 
 pictures. 
 
 It is sometimes said that a man is as much a man 
 again for every language he knows. As strong a 
 
278 THE HERBAETIAN PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 statement maj' be made about every important interest 
 a man possesses. Your ideally educated man must have 
 a many-sided interest. Your man of one idea, of one 
 subject, is, as a rule, a very useful man in society, or 
 rather to society ; but he is not in himself a complete 
 man. He is an invaluable instrument, but he is only 
 a means, he is not an end iii himself. Now certain 
 philosophers of a happy turn of mind — a rare turn that 
 deserves every encouragement — believe that it is pos- 
 sible to make the most of one's own life, and yet do the 
 best for society ; indeed, that only by doing the best 
 for oneself can one do the best for the society in which 
 one lives. 
 
 Naturally the selfishness referred to is not the ordi- 
 nary vice of the natural man. It is true selfishness, 
 cosmic selfishness. Only in so far as a man makes the 
 most of his nature does he fulfil his function in the 
 organism of which he forms a part. 
 
 To this Hegelian conception the Herbartian educa- 
 tional system is tending. Obviously it underlies Mr. 
 Ames' view of the function of the transcendental will, 
 and Dr. Harris in an appreciative notice ^ of Professor 
 Dewey's essay in the Second Supplement to the Meriar- 
 tian Year Book for 1895 practically applies the doc- 
 trine of self-realization. To be sure. Professor Dewey 
 adopts the term self-expression, but it comes to pretty 
 much the same thing. According to his critic. Pro- 
 fessor Dewey's technical term self-expression combines 
 all that is implied in Plato's 'Avdfi.vrjcri';, Aristotle's 
 Oewpeiv, and Kant and Hegel's pure thinking. 
 1 Am. Educ. Seview, May, 1896. 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST 279 
 
 It is probably too much to say that the Herbartians 
 as a body agree with Dr. Harris and Professor Dewey, 
 but in the meantime it cannot be denied that the latest 
 word of the Herbartians deposes interest from its place 
 as the first principle of education, and makes it rank 
 second to the principle of self-realization. Interests 
 must be tested by their effect on the child's develop- \ 
 ment, viewed in connection with its place in the organic 
 unity of the world in which it has to live. " Interest 
 must be acknowledged as subordinate to the higher 
 question of the choice of a course of study that will 
 correlate the child with the civilization into which he 
 is born." 
 
 This outcome of his work would no doubt have 
 greatly surprised Johann Friedrich Herbart. But if 
 we have drifted somewhat from Herbart, we have 
 drawn nearer to Froebel. That the two opposing sys- 
 tems should tend to meet on common ground is no 
 more than one acquainted with the movement of the 
 Hegelian dialectic would expect. It might be in- 
 teresting, and it would not be excessively difficult, to 
 resolve the antagonism of the two systems ; but from 
 such a discussion the practical teacher has every right 
 to claim exemption. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abstract, 219. 
 
 Abstraction, 48. 
 
 Activity, 73. 
 
 Activity, presentative, 59, 75. 
 
 Ames, A. F., 27H, 278. 
 
 Apperception, 64, 71. 
 
 Apperception mass, 51, 54, 75, 105, 
 124, 132, 194, 259; meclianism of, 
 95. 
 
 Aristotle, 13, 199, 278. 
 
 Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 90. 
 
 Arrest, 57, 76. 
 
 Assimilation, 64. 
 
 Association, laws of, 52 ; secondary 
 laws of, 53. 
 
 Associationist school, 38. 
 
 Attention, description of, 248; 
 limited meaning of, 253 ; phenom- 
 ena attending, 254 ; three stages 
 of, 260; voluntary and involun- 
 tary, 250, 251. 
 
 Bacon, 1, 2, 9, 13. 
 
 Bain, Professor, 29, 74, 150, 262. 
 
 Barker, Henry J., 217. 
 
 Bell, Professor, 143. 
 
 Benevolent superintendence, 42. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 135. 
 
 Bias of Priene, 81. 
 
 Binet, 143. 
 
 Blake, 220. 
 
 Boy's Own Paper, map competition, 
 
 225 ft. 
 Brown, Dr. Thomas, 39, 53. 
 Browning, Oscar, 6. 
 Browning, Robert, 157. 
 
 Cabanis, 37. 
 
 Camper, 272. 
 
 Carlyle, 127. 
 
 Chaucer, 103. 
 
 Chess-training, 111. 
 
 Club, Herbart, 44. 
 
 Coleridge, 157. 
 
 Collins, Wilkie, 229. 
 
 Comenius, 82 n., 83, 98 n., 171. 
 
 Complication, 56. 
 
 Concept, 49 n. ; kinds of, 274 ; psy- 
 chological and logical, 181 . 
 
 Consciousness, 18; bulb figure of, 
 38; divided, 78; infra-conscious- 
 ness, 78 ; wave-figure of, 78, 252. 
 
 Content presented, 59. 
 
 Continuum, 77, 235. 
 
 Correspondence of mental impres- 
 sions, 231. 
 
 Crab, definition of, 183 ff. 
 
 Crime, text-books in, 117. 
 
 Cruikshank, George, 237. 
 
 Cuvier, 183. 
 
 Darwin, C, 21, 247, 267. 
 Davidson, Dr., 113. 
 Deduction and observation, 141 ft. 
 Defining and understanding, 172. 
 Definition, principle of, 183 ff. 
 De Foe, 227, 233, 235, 246. 
 De Morgan, 125. 
 Depravity, total, 82. 
 Detective, education, 139 ff. 
 Dewey, Professor, 278. 
 Dickens, Charles, 114, 117. 
 Dictionary teaching, 169. 
 
 281 
 
282 
 
 THE HERBARTIAN PSrCHOLOGY 
 
 Dictionary, true place in education, 
 187. 
 
 Dictionaries, rhyming, 178. 
 
 Dome, figure of, 50. 
 
 Donaldson, Professor, 108, 274 n. 
 
 Dore', Gustave, 222. 
 
 Drawings, in education, 216 ; iu re- 
 ligion, 220. 
 
 Dunces, 92. 
 
 Education, conflicting systems of, 7 ; 
 
 empirical, 5 ; formal, 108 ; idealism 
 
 in, 39 ; a mystery, 41. 
 Ego, as idea, 193. 
 Eliot, George, 10, 263, 270. 
 Emotion and its expression, 254 ff. 
 Environment, 96. 
 Equality of men, 87. 
 Euclid, 106, 154, 270. 
 
 Facts, 67 ; brute facts, 152, 164 ; or- 
 ganized into faculty, 130; subjec- 
 tive element of, 152 ff. 
 
 Faculties, innate, 47 ; observing, 136. 
 
 Fagin, certificate, 134; educational 
 methods of, 118 ; school report of, 
 115. 
 
 Fairy tales v. realism, 228. 
 
 Fechner, 28, 80. 
 
 Finality in education, 176. 
 
 Forster, 222. 
 
 Frankenstein, 86. 
 
 Froebel, 11, 39 ff., 86, 279. 
 
 Fusion, 56. 
 
 Galton, Fr., 20 n., 150 n., 220, 234. 
 Gamins v. schoolboys, 121 ff. 
 Gaping, 139. 
 Genius, 91. 
 Goldsmith, 103, 188. 
 Guyau, 30 ff. 
 
 Habrecht, Isaac, 163, 170. 
 Hallam, 1. 
 
 Harris, W. T., 49 n., 275, 278. 
 Hegel, 12, 45, 278. 
 
 Helvetius, 88 ff., 96 n. 
 
 Heraclitus, 2, 68. 
 
 Herbart, J. F., 28, 45, 72, 79, 80, 275, 
 279 ; relation to Froebel, 45 ; rela- 
 tion to Locke, 47. 
 
 Herbartianism, a practical applica- 
 tion of, 134. 
 
 Herodotus, 7, 85. 
 
 Hodgson, 74. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 77, 178. 
 
 Holmes, Sherlock, 139; limitations 
 and method, 147 ft., 214. 
 
 Houdin, Robert, 138. 
 
 Hume, 35. 
 
 Huxley, 18, 23. 
 
 Hypnotism, 30, 78. 
 
 Hypotheses, place of, in Herbart's 
 philosophy, 48. 
 
 Hypothesis, guiding, 149, 151, 214, 
 239. 
 
 Idealism, 39. 
 
 Ideas, 36 ft., 46; admission of, 58; 
 complex, 57 ; contrary, disparate, 
 and similar, 55; differences in 
 different minds, 65 ff. ; floating 
 systems of, 242; focal, marginal, 
 and infra-marginal, 78 ; mechanism 
 of, 49 ff. ; out of consciousness, 63; 
 process of communicating, 237; 
 systems of, 192. 
 
 Iddefixe, 61. 
 
 Idols, 1 ; of the den, 2 ; of the mar- 
 ket-place, 9 ; of the theatre, 12 ; of 
 the tribe, 2. 
 
 Illustrations, value of, 221. 
 
 Images, 146. 
 
 Imitation, educational application 
 of, 103, 121. 
 
 Inhibition,76, 254, 257. 
 
 Interest, 162, 249; and attention, 
 258 ff . ; and drudgery, 262 ; obiec- 
 tions to, 261 ff. ; present position 
 iu Herbartianism, 279; raised 
 from means to end, 277. 
 
 Introspection, method of, 34 ; failure 
 of, 35. 
 
INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 Jacotot, 16, m, 90 ff., 97, 106 n., 156 n. 
 James, Professor W., 33, 64, 74, 78, 
 
 185 n., 264. 
 Jesuits, 82. 
 Johnson, Dr., 4, 181. 
 Joke, psychological basis of, 198 ft: 
 Jury, trial by, 99. 
 
 Kant, 12, 79, 275. 
 Knowledge, relativity of, 67. 
 
 Labour-saving fallacy, 175. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 189. 
 
 Laplace, 126. 
 
 Larceny at Sparta, 112. 
 
 Laurie, Professor, 5, 163. 
 
 Leibnitz, 47 n. 
 
 Literature of education, 6. 
 
 "Little man" theory of boyhood, 
 
 174. 
 Littre, 8. 
 
 Locke, 32 ff., 47, 68, 99. 
 Logic, formal, 106, 129. 
 Lotze, 246. 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, 131 n. 
 Luther, 99. 
 
 Mallock, W. H., 219. 
 
 Man as measure, 67 ff. 
 
 Man-making, 83. 
 
 Maudsley, 21 n., 194 n., 257. 
 
 McMurry, Professor, 275. 
 
 Meredith, George, 235, 
 
 Metaphysics, 39. 
 
 Milton, 221. 
 
 Mind, kinds of, 109. 
 
 Morgan, Lloyd, Professor, 78, 79 n., 
 
 231 n., 253. 
 Miiller, Max, 152 n. 
 Museum teaching, 168. 
 
 Napoleon, 127. 
 Night-cap teaching, 260. 
 Noah's Ark teaching, 164, 271. 
 Nursery psychologists, 94. 
 
 Observation, 135, 141 ; method of, in 
 psychology, 21; omnium gathe- 
 
 rum, theory of, 144 ; true meaning 
 
 of, 162. 
 Officina hominum, 83. 
 Orbis Pictus, 220. 
 Orchard-robbing, 111. 
 
 Palmerston, I^ord, 81. 
 
 Paulhan, Dr., 76, 77, 194 n., 237. 
 
 Pedantry, 8. 
 
 Perrault, 228. 
 
 Personal equation, 69. 
 
 Pestalozzi, 7, 11, 39, 41. 
 
 Plant metaphor, 11, 41. 
 
 Plato, 3, 67, 182, 254, 278. 
 
 Point, statical, 62. 
 
 Potter, Archbishop, 113. 
 
 Precept v. example, 103. 
 
 Protagoras, 67. 
 
 Psychology, 17; averages in,. 19 
 choiee of, 26; experimental, 85 
 Froebelian, 43; mathematical, 79 
 teachers' view of, 22. 
 
 Pupil-teachers, 128. 
 
 Qualities, primary and secondary, 
 
 68, 216. 
 Quick, R. H., 6. 
 
 Ramsay, Professor G. G., 179. 
 
 Reasoning backwards, 147 ff., 214. 
 
 Recall, mediate and immediate, 63. 
 
 Recepts, 146. 
 
 Registration, anthropometric, 22. 
 
 Reid, 146. 
 
 Ribot, Th.,.32 n., 46 n., 252, 258. 
 
 Richet, 30 n. 
 
 Riddles, 208. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe, errors in, 223; 
 
 old picture map, 233. 
 Romanes, 146. 
 Rousseau, 7, 81, 84, 174. 
 
 Sachs, Hans, 177. 
 Scott, Sir W., 1, 93. 
 Self-expression, 278. 
 Sikes, model lesson by, 119. 
 Socrates, 98. 
 
284 
 
 THE HBEBARTIAN PSYCH01.0GY 
 
 Soul diagrams, 220. 
 
 Soul, Herbart's definition of, 46, 84. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 27, 29, 34, 81 u., 
 
 130, 133. 
 Spurgeon, 266. 
 
 Steinthal, Professor H., 64, 158. 
 Stewart, Dr., 92. 
 Stout, G. F., 36, 55 n., 64, 73, 244, 
 
 249, 256. 
 Suggestion, 31. 
 Sully, Professor, 21, 161. 
 Sympathy of numbers, 31. 
 
 Temptation, 75. 
 Thackeray, 100. 
 Things V. words, 164. ' 
 Thinking, 100 ff. ; in block, 230. 
 Threshold, 50; dynamical and stati- 
 cal, 62, 79. 
 Thring, 255. 
 
 Tolstoi, Count, 26. 
 Translation, 214. 
 Tupper, Martin, 35. 
 Twain, Mark, 186. 
 
 Ufer, Chr., 273. 
 
 Verification, 215. 
 Von Kries, 212. 
 Yorstellung, 49 n. 
 
 Ward, Professor, 77, 2X5, 275. 
 Whipping boy, 83. 
 Will, the transcendental, 275. 
 Words, transitive and substantive, 
 
 185. 
 Wordsworth, 81, 188, 211. 
 Wundt, 65 n., 273 n. 
 
 Zadig, 139.