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CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. PAYNE, A.M. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING IN TnE UNIVERSITY OF 
 MICHIGAN; AUTHOR OF "CHAPTERS ON SCHOOL SUPERVISION" AND "OUT- 
 LINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE;" EDITOR OF "PAGE'S THEORY 
 AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING;" AND TRANSLATOR OF COM- 
 PAYRE'S "HISTOIRE DE LA PEDAGOGIE" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1887 
 

 Copyright, 1886, by Hakper & Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Kf-o/p ] 
 
'•* 
 
 r 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of the three phases of educational study, the historical, 
 the practical, and the scientific, it is the last which I pro- 
 pose to discuss in the papers composing this volume. 
 The Question of method is of very high importance, but 
 the final test of method is doctrine. The history of edu- 
 cation, or of the manifold attempts that have been made 
 to solve the educational problem, is of supreme impor- 
 tance, but experiences and experiments can be interpreted 
 and estimated only by the light of science. The ques- 
 tion of educational doctrine is therefore fundamental. 
 
 It is a hopeful sign of progress in education that we 
 are now fairly entering upon the discussion of principles 
 and doctrines. Hitherto there has been a discussion of 
 methods, often without a criterion, and even when a 
 standard of values has been proposed, the final test has 
 been success or failure; but reflection shows that the 
 only absolute criterion is principle or law. And so we 
 observe that in the press and in the convention there is a 
 growing disposition to carry an appeal to the court of 
 last resort, educational science. 
 
 Every author who records his serious convictions and the 
 results of his deliberate thinking doubtless owes it to his 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 readers to forewarn them of the main ideas that inspire 
 his efforts. Such a clew is the more necessary in a vol- 
 nine of detached essays like those which follow, and I 
 bespeak the attention of the reader to the following state- 
 ments, both as an aid to himself and as an act of cour- 
 teous justice to me. 
 
 I am in nowise disposed to break with the past and to 
 dream of an approaching revolution in educational theory 
 and practice. A better future for the schools is doubt- 
 less foreordained, but this is to be a growth, slow and 
 halting, like all higher forms of growth, and a growth out 
 of past conditions and products. The institutions of a 
 people, to be serviceable and helpful, cannot be far in 
 advance of their actual condition ; and if the dream of 
 the educational utopist could be realized in form, it 
 would be inoperative with men and things as they are. 
 It is well that our previsions are only relative. We need 
 to aspire in order that we may grow ; but the roots of all 
 true growth in civilization reach far back into the soil of 
 the past. 
 
 Since the human mind has been studied by the acutest 
 thinkers of all ages and countries, and since the wisest 
 and the best of men have been working at the educational 
 problem under all conceivable conditions, ethnic, social, 
 civil, and religious, I find it impossible to believe that all 
 this mighty effort must go for naught, and that educa- 
 tional science must be constructed de novo. That the main 
 data for the establishment of a rational art of educating 
 are now to be found in the current systems of philosophy 
 and psychology seems to me the most probable of infer- 
 
INTRODUCTION. v ji 
 
 ences; and that there really exist a sufficient number of 
 such data to lay the foundations of a science of education 
 seems to me the most palpable of truths. For these 
 reasons may we not think that the present duty of the 
 educational thinker is to select and collate data already 
 established, and to draw from them the rules for practice ? 
 It is within this field that I have attempted to work, and 
 in the discussions that follow I have tried to do scarcely 
 more than to illustrate and enforce what appear to be 
 well-established and fundamental truths. 
 
 Perhaps the term tacking will best describe the current 
 mode of educational progress ; in his recoil from what 
 seems to be a serious error in schoolroom practice, the 
 reformer catches hold of some neglected truth, concen- 
 trates his whole soul on his new discoveiy, denounces the 
 whole existing order of things as irretrievably bad, and 
 by his declamation incites the unthinking and the mal- 
 content to a revolution in methods. Finally the grain of 
 wheat is winnowed from the bushel of chaff, and the 
 pendulum of opinion swings back towards the abandoned 
 truth. In the absence of well -settled principles these 
 epidemics will always be imminent; but with even a few 
 fundamental doctrines distinctly recognized, it would be 
 possible to make progress in an orderly and rational man- 
 ner. Any mode of reform that feels obliged to appeal to 
 popular prejudice rather than to the reflective reason is 
 open to suspicion and distrust. Nearly every one of the 
 so-called " basic principles " bears the ear-mark of some 
 infatuation. Each of them expresses the half of a truth, 
 but with such distortion and exaggeration as to be a vir- 
 
v jii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tual untruth. It is a safe rule to suspect every aphorism 
 that proceeds from the mouth of an over-ardent reformer. 
 
 Methodical teaching, even if it be mechanical, is much 
 superior to aimless teaching; and so there was an un- 
 deniable gain when exact method was made an essential 
 part of a teacher's professional preparation. But we in- 
 cur a grave danger when we impose on a teacher a specific 
 rule of action divorced from the principle that is its jus- 
 tification. Contrasted with a principle, a rule is undis- 
 criminating, narrowing, unfruitful ; and it must be con- 
 fessed that systematic training in method has a tendency 
 to rob the teacher of his freedom, his versatility, and his 
 personal power. Method has an incomparable value 
 when it directs capitalized energy, wisdom, and culture; 
 but method is taught at some sacrifice of scholarship and 
 culture when it accompanies a ceacher's instruction in 
 subjects and is made a characteristic element in his course 
 of study. 
 
 Freedom and power must come from a much higher 
 source. Teaching is a purely spiritual art, and the higher 
 manifestations of this power are as dependent on inspira- 
 tion as poetry, eloquence, and art are. I have seen teach- 
 ing that was artistic in the same sense that music and 
 painting are artistic. The sources of such power doubt- 
 less lie in large measure in a happy constitution of soul 
 that is quite independent of school training; in innate 
 benevolence and sympathy and quick intuitions; but 
 there are also the added elements of wide scholarship, ac- 
 curate mental training, and professional knowledge of the 
 scientific type, as distinguished from the formal rules of 
 
INTRODUCTION. j x 
 
 method. In writing these papers I have had in mind 
 such teaching as I have just tried to indicate. Perhaps, 
 under existing conditions, the most of the work done in 
 the schoolroom must be mechanical in order to utilize 
 slender teaching ability; but this only makes apparent 
 the supreme need of encouraging those who purpose to 
 teach to covet the best gifts. 
 
 The practice of medicine and law is attractive to men 
 of talent because there is so wide a field for the exercise 
 of their versatility and skill. The succession of new and 
 interesting problems awakens and sustains a noble passion 
 for triumphing over difficulties, which gives keen enjoy- 
 ment to professional life. These victories and delights 
 are due to the previsions of science ; the delicious sense 
 of power comes from fruitful knowledge. But perhaps 
 even a keener enjoyment comes from the consciousness 
 of growth, and of taking progressive steps in an honor- 
 able career. 
 
 All these avenues to enjoyment are open to the teacher 
 provided he has professional competence and skill — pro- 
 vided he has that kind of knowledge which can give him 
 power over the remote and the difficult — provided he has 
 that versatility and freedom which come from the com- 
 prehension of general truths. To the teacher who has 
 gained a real insight into educational principles there is 
 presented a field for the exercise of his highest intellec- 
 tual gifts, for there is a constant succession of varied and 
 interesting problems which hourly challenge his profes- 
 sional skill. And he may enjoy that grateful sense of 
 growth to which allusion has been made, and he may be 
 
x INTRODUCTION. 
 
 inspired by the hope of an honorable career. All these 
 things are possible, provided the teacher has formed a 
 love for thinking and has made himself capable of scien- 
 tific prevision. 
 
 If I interpret my own thoughts aright, my dominant 
 purpose in the composition of these essays has been to 
 encourage among teachers the habit of serious reflection 
 upon some of the greater problems in education, to the 
 end that they may find a new delight in an occupation 
 otherwise monotonous and uninspiring. The first need 
 of the teacher is to be reasonably happy in his work, and 
 I feel sure that the source of this happiness is in the di- 
 rection I have tried to indicate. I wish I might gain 
 the ear of young men who are ambitious to rise in the 
 world through the doing of good. To those who can 
 treat grave questions with judicial seriousness and fair- 
 ness there is no field of activity more inviting than that 
 of the educational thinker. 
 
 Need I remind the reader that the questions discussed 
 in these essays are "open questions"? On no one of 
 them has the last word been said; and any one whose 
 thinking has been patient, catholic, and candid has the 
 right to be heard. The most thoughtful and fruitful 
 book on education since the "Emile" is undoubtedly 
 Spencer's " Education," and by common consent it is the 
 most authoritative expression of the doctrine that is now 
 in the ascendant among educational reformers. It may 
 be doubted whether any thinker since Aristotle has been 
 endowed with such powers of analysis and comprehension 
 as are conspicuous in Mr. Spencer's philosophical writings; 
 
INTRODUCTION. x j 
 
 but tliis vast power of generalizing is the source of error 
 whenever, as in Mr. Spencer's case, studies are not 
 " bounded in by experience." Indeed, this is a very con- 
 spicuous case in which " studies do give forth directions 
 too much at large." It is a notable fact that the men 
 who, like Rousseau, Locke, and Spencer, have written 
 the most absolutely on education have been men of little 
 or no experience in actual teaching. I trust the reader 
 will not think it presumption, then, that I have ventured 
 to call in question some of Mr. Spencer's broadest gener- 
 alizations. For many years I have been compelled to 
 study educational questions on their purely practical side, 
 and the attempt to convert Mr. Spencer's formulas into 
 working rules first suggested to me the probability that 
 this love for generalizations had betrayed him into error. 
 In bringing these essays together into a volume I have 
 tried to cancel repetitions that almost involuntarily appear 
 in such a series of detached papers ; but after all my care 
 some such repetitions of thought, expression, and illustra- 
 tion remain to tax the indulgence of the reader. 
 
 W. II. Payne 
 University of Michigan. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 I. IS THERE A SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS ? 1 
 
 II. THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION, ITS NATURE, ITS 
 
 METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS 7 
 
 III. CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION 
 
 VALUES 31 
 
 IV. THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH AND SOME 
 
 APPLICATIONS OF THIS DOCTRINE TO TEACHING 69 
 
 V. THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE 8V 
 
 VI. THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 102 
 
 VII. OF THE TERMS "NATURE" AND "NATURAL" 138 
 
 VIII. THE POTENCY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS 157 
 
 IX. "PROCEED FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN" 168 
 
 X. TRIBUTE TO FETICH WORSHIP 175 
 
 XI. LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 180 
 
 XII. THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL 199 
 
 XIII. TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION .... 217 
 
 XIV. THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST 235 
 
 XV. EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY r 257 
 
 XVI. THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM 281 
 
 XVII. THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE 309 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICH-' 
 IGAN 335 
 
 INDEX. 349 
 
— 7-- ; 
 7 ; . "..-:. agical 
 
 mare Ten. — m Sbhhl 
 
 : 
 
SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 IS THERE A SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS? 
 
 This question is ambiguous, the two queries involved 
 in it being, (1) Is there a science of pedagogics in posse? 
 Or, (2) Is there such a science in esse f I shall attempt 
 to answer these queries in the order stated. 
 
 I. Is there, from the very constitution of things, a sci- 
 ence of human training as distinguished from the art of 
 human training? 
 
 1. Presumptively there is ; for the established use of 
 the terms science of education, science of pedagogics, and 
 science of teaching, by the leading thinkers of the age, 
 almost necessarily carries with it the implication that the 
 art of human training lias its correlated science. At 
 least, the current use of this term by men addicted to 
 habits of exact thinking establishes a very strong proba- 
 bility that such a science exists potentially, if not act- 
 ually. 
 
 2. The existence of such a science in posse is estab- 
 lished beyond question by the doctrine of two orders of 
 knowledge, a higher and a lower, each of which is the 
 complement of the other. 
 
 These two orders of knowledge may be called the 
 
 specidative and the practical; the speculative resulting 
 
 1 
 
2 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 from the examination of the established constitution or 
 nature of things, and held by the mind as matter for sim- 
 ple contemplation ; and the practical resulting from the 
 production of effects by the use of means. For example, 
 the attentive examination of a new substance may end in 
 the discovery of certain properties or sets of uniformi- 
 ties in relation or behavior; and as long as this knowl- 
 edge remains in the mind as matter for mere contempla- 
 tion, and is not employed in the way of producing re- 
 sults, it is speculative. But when the knowledge of these 
 uniformities is employed for direction in the working 
 out of results, it becomes practical. The knowledge of 
 astronomy is chiefly of the speculative order ; man has 
 but little opportunity to employ the observed uniformi- 
 ties in the production of results. The knowledge of ag- 
 riculture, on the other hand, is chiefly practical, consist- 
 ing in mere methods for the attainment of results. The 
 baker's knowledge of his own art is practical ; he can 
 perform all its processes, but can explain none of them. 
 On the other hand, the chemist's knowledge of the baker's 
 art is speculative; he can explain all its processes, but 
 can perform none of them. These contrasted phases of 
 knowledge are universal; and, by general consent, the 
 terms science and art have been used to mark this dis- 
 crimination. Every art thus implies a science; and, in 
 turn, every science implies an art, actual or possible. 
 
 A summary answer to the first query is this : By uni- 
 versal consent there is an art of pedagogics, said art con- 
 sisting in certain processes for the attainment of results. 
 But these processes necessarily imply certain uniformi- 
 ties, and these uniformities, when ascertained and put in 
 order, constitute a science of pedagogics. 
 
 II. Is there a science of pedagogics in esse f 
 
IS THERE A SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS? 3 
 
 The answer to this question depends somewhat on the 
 definition of science. If science be an orderly and ex- 
 haustive deduction of minor truths from a few first prin- 
 ciples that are axiomatic, then there is but one science — 
 mathematics ; but if the term science be construed in the 
 sense explained above, the number of possible sciences 
 is indeterminate, and the number of actual sciences very 
 large. This conception of science does not require that 
 the enumeration of its first principles shall be complete, 
 or that they be arranged in a strictly logical order, or 
 that the series of deductions shall be complete. Sciences 
 may be incomplete in matter and imperfect in form, and 
 still be sciences in the accepted and legitimate use of this 
 term. 
 
 The science of pedagogics stands in the case last de- 
 scribed ; it is still incomplete in its matter, all its first 
 principles not having been formulated ; and it is imper- 
 fect in form, its admitted principles not having been ar- 
 ranged, and deductions from them not having been made 
 with the required completeness and order. "Whoever 
 takes an established psychological law and draws from it 
 legitimate deductions that can be employed for guidance 
 in educational work, has made a contribution to the sci- 
 ence of pedagogics; and works like Bain's "Education 
 as a Science," and Rosenkranz's " Pedagogics as a Sys- 
 tem," that discuss, in a comprehensive way, the doctrines of 
 education, are actual treatises on the science of pedagogics. 
 
 The answer to the second query, then, briefly stated, is 
 this : A science of pedagogics exists as an actual fact, but 
 it is still incomplete in matter and imperfect in form. 
 The need of the hour is a systematic rearrangement of 
 the old material, and the addition of omitted principles 
 and their deductions. 
 
4 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Though not strictly belonging to the above inquiry, I 
 add a paragraph on the general nature of educational sci- 
 ence from my own point of view. 
 
 The material composing a science of pedagogics is logi- 
 cally distributed as follows : 
 
 1. The being to be educated is susceptible of three or- 
 ders of growth : first, physical ; second, mental ; third, 
 moral. A rational art of education must be based on the 
 laws that regulate these three orders of growth. The 
 science of pedagogics must therefore borrow principles 
 from physiology, psychology, and ethics. 
 
 2. All instruction presupposes a medium of communi- 
 cation. This medium is language ; and the laws of lan- 
 guage, as employed in the communication of knowledge, 
 are expounded in the science of logic. The science of 
 pedagogics will therefore borrow other principles from 
 logic. 
 
 3. Growth presupposes aliment ; and this aliment, in 
 the present case, is represented by the various subjects 
 of human knowledge. A necessary element in the sci- 
 ence of pedagogics is a determination of education val- 
 ues; but, as there is no independent science for deter- 
 mining these values, this is an inductive inquiry, fall- 
 ing within the domain of the science of pedagogics it- 
 self. 
 
 4. In passing from the single child to aggregates of 
 children, there arises the need of the organization of 
 schools and school-systems ; and so the science of peda- 
 gogics must borrow other material from history, sociol- 
 ogy, political science, and legislation. 
 
 5. It must be that much valid educational truth is em- 
 bodied in current methods. The analytical examination 
 of results is therefore a necessary part of the science of 
 
IS THERE A SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS? 5 
 
 pedagogics; and the truths thus elicited will serve to 
 verify the deductions drawn from assumed principles. 
 
 6. Education, in its ideal or formal aspect, aims at the 
 realization of the typical man, and comprises all the agen- 
 cies that can be brought under human control for the at- 
 tain men t of this end. The principles that are involved 
 in this whole complex process, when systematically ar- 
 ranged, constitute the science of pedagogics. This I be- 
 lieve to be the authorized use of the term by German, 
 French, and Italian writers on education. 
 
 7. The term pedagogy should be used to designate the 
 art of education, or, rather, so much of this art as falls 
 within the province of the school. This distinction is 
 made by the Italian educator, E. Latino,*" and seems to 
 me worthy of being accepted by educational writers. 
 
 8. The current use of the term pedagogics (Ft. peda- 
 gogic ; It. pedagogica, pedagogia ; Ger. piidagogik) in 
 French, Italian, and German literature, is a sufficient 
 warrant for the respectability of the term. To affect a 
 dislike for the word on etymological or historical grounds 
 is childish. f 
 
 * "Thus pedagogics (pedagogica), or the science of education, is 
 connected with pedagogy (pedagogia), or the art of education; for 
 science has need of art in order to be useful to life, and to direct 
 the conduct of human affairs; and art has need of science in order 
 to be enlightened and made conscious of its own scope and power." 
 — Emanuele Latino, " Delia Pedagogica" (Palermo, 187G), p. 114. 
 
 t " Pedagogy is the science of education. The word pedagogue is 
 of Greek origin, and signifies a conductor of children. A pedagogue 
 was a slave charged with the duty of conducting children to school. 
 From this wholly material sense the word has been raised to a nobler 
 sense. To-day a pedagogue is he who directs the young intellectual- 
 ly and morally. Can there be a grander mission?" — Marion, "Le- 
 90ns de Psychologic AppliquSe a l'fklucation" (Paris, 1884), p. 13. 
 
6 SCIENCE OF EDUCxVTION. 
 
 Iii his "Histoire de la Pedagogie," M. Compayre takes 
 pains to distinguish the term pedagogy from the term 
 education^ using the former in a limited or technical 
 sense, and the latter in a comprehensive or liberal sense.* 
 
 . * See the Introduction to Compayre^s " History of Pedagogy " 
 (Boston, 1886). 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. — ITS NATURE, ITS 
 METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 
 
 One of the curiosities of current educational history is 
 the fact that English teachers are still discussing the 
 question, whether there is a science of education. The 
 cause of this phenomenon is said to be the low state of 
 philosophical studies among the English. This conject- 
 ure is confirmed by the fact that in Germany and in 
 Scotland, where philosophy has long been in high repute, 
 this question is as far above discussion as an axiom in 
 mathematics. It is probable that, in this country, philo- 
 sophical culture has not yet attained a depth and a breadth 
 that will make the existence of a science of education a 
 postulate. It is much more probable that when this sub- 
 ject has become of sufficient importance to be talked 
 about, there will be sceptics and disbelievers here, as in 
 England. On this subject, our present intellectual state 
 is the unanimity of the ignorant. There are yet to come 
 the disagreements of the inquiring, to be followed, let us 
 hope, by the unanimity of the wise.* 
 
 In human societies there are advanced stages of opinion 
 that seem to come in the fulness of time. That is, they 
 do not seem to come as the results of deliberate think- 
 ing, but rather to be evolved out of unconscious or 
 spontaneous thought. In this state, these intellectual 
 advances are growths ; and, as such, they escape special 
 
 * Spencer, "Education" (New York, 1861), p. 101. 
 
8 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 notice on their first appearance, but by and by they be- 
 come the subject of critical analysis, and in the end they 
 are helped forward by deliberate effort. As examples of 
 this law we may observe the three progressive phases of 
 public opinion as to fitness for teaching : 
 
 1. The primitive phase of opinion identifies teaching 
 ability with general scholarship. It is assumed that a 
 good scholar will be a good teacher, if he chooses to adopt 
 this vocation. This mode of thought is still embodied in 
 the legal requirements for obtaining a license to teach. 
 The current modes of examining teachers are apparently 
 based on the assumption that mere scholarship is the test 
 of a candidate's fitness and worth. 
 
 2. Within the last one hundred years there have been 
 the outcroppings of an advanced opinion. After centuries 
 of experience, the fact had become impressed on some 
 minds that something besides scholarship was needed for 
 success in teaching. This something turned out to be 
 trained skill. To be a teacher, one must know not only 
 the subjects he is to teach, but 'as well the best ways by 
 which these subjects are to be taught. This discovery is, 
 by implication, at least twenty-two centuries old. The 
 w r orld had to wait for the genius of Socrates to formulate 
 this general truth : That ivhatever a man proposes to do, 
 that thing he should learn before the doing is attempted. 
 This incident from the "Memorabilia of Socrates," by Xen- 
 ophon, is worthy of repetition : Euthydemus, surnamed 
 the Handsome, was an ambitious and conceited young 
 man of Athens. He aspired to take part in the govern- 
 ment of the city ; and, to create the impression that lie 
 was wise above the young men of his time, he had made 
 a large collection of books, and on these he relied as an 
 evidence that he was qualified to become a ruler of Athens, 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEM3. 9 
 
 and to give counsel on public affairs. Now Socrates 
 thought it his duty to take the conceit out of this super- 
 ficial and ambitious young man. An opportunity was 
 soon found ; for he surprised Eutbydemus in a company 
 of admiring friends, in a bridle-maker's shop near tbe 
 Agora — a place to which the young man was accustomed to 
 resort when his political prospects were to be looked after. 
 This is what Socrates said : " I imagine that Eutbyde- 
 mus here has already framed an exordium for his public 
 oration * * * and that when lie begins to speak he will 
 make his opening thus : ' I, O men of Athens, have never 
 learned anything from any person, nor, though I have 
 heard of some that were skilled in speaking and acting, 
 have I sought to converse with them, nor have I been 
 anxious that any one of the learned should become my 
 master; but I have done the exact contrary; for I have 
 constantly avoided not only learning anything from any 
 one, but even the appearance of learning anything; never- 
 theless I will offer you such advice as may occur to me 
 without premeditation.' " Thereupon Socrates proceeds 
 to parody this supposed speech as follows : " I, O men of 
 Athens, have never learned the medical art from any one, 
 nor have been desirous that any physician should be my 
 instructor; for I have constantly been on my guard, not 
 only against learning anything of the art from any one, but 
 even against appearing to have learned anything; never- 
 theless confer on me this medical appointment ; for I 
 will endeavor to learn by making experiments upon you." 
 " At this mode of opening a speech," Xenophon slyly ob- 
 serves, "all who were present burst out into laughter."* 
 I was led into this digression by remarking that the 
 
 * "Memorabilia of Socrates" (Watson's translation. New York, 
 1869), IX., ii., 3-5. 
 
 1* 
 
10 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 doctrine is ancient, that men should learn their art be- 
 fore they venture to practise it. Euthydemus held the 
 very modern doctrine, that " we learn to do by doing ;" 
 and had he been an applicant for a position in a public 
 school, he would doubtless have urged his claims in this 
 wise : " I, O members of the board, have never learned 
 the art of teaching from any one, nor have I been desir- 
 ous that any teacher should be my instructor; for I have 
 constantly been on my guard, not only against learning 
 anything of the art of teaching from any one, but even 
 against appearing to have learned anything ; nevertheless 
 confer on me this scholastic appointment ; for I will en- 
 deavor to learn by making experiments on your children." 
 
 I think it a curious fact that this Socratic doctrine, so 
 fruitful in its suggestions, did not affect the teacher's 
 calling from this time forward. But the fact remains, 
 that it was not till within about a hundred years that a 
 knowledge of method began to be regarded as an essential 
 element in a teacher's qualification. This second phase of 
 opinion respecting fitness for teaching is embodied in the 
 Normal School, whose original intent was to give a sound 
 academic training in subjects, and at the same time to com- 
 municate the best-known methods of doing school work. 
 
 3. But the slow evolution of opinion has brought for- 
 ward a still higher ideal of fitness for teaching. Accord- 
 ing to this conception, the teacher should not only have 
 a broad knowledge of subjects, supplemented by a knowl- 
 edge of the best methods, but should know the general 
 principles and laws that underlie methods, and thus give 
 them their validity. In this progress of opinion, the 
 sequence has been this : (1) knowledge ; (2) knowledge 
 and method ; (3) knowledge, method, and doctrine. Or 
 the successive steps may be stated in another form, as 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 11 
 
 follows : At first, the teacher was not differentiated from 
 the scholar, there was no preparatory training; next, 
 the teacher was differentiated from the scholar by method, 
 the preparatory training was empirical; now, this pre- 
 paratory training is to be rational, — method must be the 
 outgrowth of known physiological, psychological, and 
 ethical laws ; the ideal teacher must be a man of science 
 in the same sense that the reputable physician is a man 
 of science ; teaching is no longer to be a trade, a mere 
 calling, or an empirical art, but a rational art, an art de- 
 riving its inspiration from science, and basing its practice 
 on established laws. All this amounts to saying that, in 
 the slow but sure evolution of human opinion, a science 
 of education is beginning to emerge from the art of ed- 
 ucation : and so the purpose of this chapter is to define, 
 in outline, the nature of this new science, the method of 
 its cultivation, and some of the problems that it must solve. 
 Throughout this chapter I use the term science as dis- 
 tinguished from art, science denoting a higher order of 
 knowledge, and art, a correlated, but lower order, of 
 knowledge. To make ray use of these contrasted terms 
 as clear as possible, I discriminate two orders of knowl- 
 edge as follows: We may suppose a farmer to know the 
 mere processes or rules of his art, but to be in absolute 
 ignorance of the physical and chemical laws that are in- 
 volved in the art ; he can do, but cannot explain what 
 he does. On the other hand, we may suppose a scholar 
 to know all the physical and chemical laws that are in- 
 volved in agriculture, but to be absolutely unable to suc- 
 ceed in a single branch of this art. He can explain all 
 its processes, but can perform none of them. In the first 
 case, there is art without science/ and in the second, 
 science without art. This contrast runs through all forms 
 
12 
 
 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 of human labor. There is no art that does not imply a 
 science, for there is no effect without a cause.* There 
 may be sciences, however, without correlative arts, because 
 there may be laws that human skill has not employed. 
 
 The contrast now pointed out has been expressed as 
 follows: "Science consists in knowing, art in doing;" 
 " the principles which art involves, science evolves." 
 The contrast is broadly expressed by the terms theory and 
 practice, as the theory and practice of teaching. Some 
 of the relations of science to art, or of theory to practice, 
 are the following : 1. The ideal knowledge comprehends 
 both doing and knowing — it is theory embodied in prac- 
 tice, or practice guided and inspired by theory, 2. The 
 largest element in trades is practical knowledge ; the 
 largest element in professions is theoretical knowledge. 
 
 3. The lower order of knowledge is the easier of attain- 
 ment ; it will, therefore, be the more common, and hence 
 the cheaper ; the labor of highest market value will be 
 that which involves the largest use of the intelligence. 
 
 4. The direct route to the perfecting of an art is through 
 a clear comprehension of the principles that are involved 
 in the art.f 
 
 * Plato speaksof the artandscienceqf making shoes. "Theaetetiis,"147. 
 t Perhaps a simple diagram like the following may add clearness 
 to this distinction : 
 
 Mental. 
 
 Occupations. - 
 
 Poetry. 
 
 Law. 
 
 Education. 
 
 Sculpture. 
 Architecture. 
 
 Medicine. 
 
 V 
 
 Telegraphy. 
 
 u_ 
 
 Masonry. 
 
 Carpentry. 
 
 Mining. 
 
 Manual. 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 13 
 
 What is meant by educational science must be ap- 
 parent — the doctrines, principles, or laws that are involved 
 in the art of education. This art has been practised from 
 time immemorial, but whatever progress has been made 
 in it has, for the most part, been instinctive, slow, and 
 wasteful. It is now proposed u to take stock of our prog- 
 ress," to discover the principles that underlie the processes 
 of human perfectibility, and to bring educational meth- 
 ods into conformity with law, thus making our progress 
 rational, continuous, and economical. 
 
 This third movement in educational thought, which 
 we may call the rational or the scientific, is attested by 
 (1) the fact, that in Germany, in Scotland, and even in 
 our own country, education, in its three aspects, as an art, 
 a science, and a history, has been made a subject of uni- 
 versity instruction ; (2) by the fact that books on the sci- 
 entific aspect of education are beginning to be written 
 and read ; (3) and also by the fact that normal schools 
 have begun to superadd to their instruction in subjects 
 and methods instruction in principles and doctrines. 
 
 This movement towards making education a rational 
 art has been a genesis or an evolution ; it has not been 
 forced into notice by resolutions and popular demonstra- 
 tions, but has been, the rather, instinctive and spontaneous. 
 It has come in the fulness of time, and it lias come as a 
 permanent factor in educational history. 
 
 The new thought will insist on its right of domicile, 
 and we must gradually adjust ourselves to the changes 
 that are imminent and inevitable. The newspaper, the 
 reaper, the sewing-machine, and the telephone are in- 
 stances of a similar evolution. They are births rather 
 than inventions. Civilization is a progress, and these 
 elements in our progress may possibly be superseded by 
 
14 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 something of a higher type ; but it is not conceivable 
 that the world will go back to the state of things that 
 preceded these inventions. The particular truth I wish 
 to emphasize is this : a new day has dawned on the edu- 
 cating art; henceforth teaching is to be allied with phi- 
 losophy, and to furnish a field for the exercise of the 
 highest gifts of mind and heart. Henceforth the teacher 
 may be inspired to his highest efforts by the hope of a 
 career', he may see in his profession an opportunity to 
 rise in public consideration by the exercise of his ability, 
 his versatility, or his genius. And, infinitely better than 
 all this, the succeeding generations of men will attain a 
 higher type of manhood, because from their training will 
 gradually be eliminated the elements of ignorance, em- 
 piricism, and waste. 
 
 The general nature of educational science may be 
 gathered from the following statements : Among every 
 people, and in every age of the world, there has been a 
 conception of what a human being ought to be ; and, in 
 every case, the purpose of education has been to cause 
 the young to grow into this ideal. This conception has 
 varied from age to age, and from place to place ; but, in 
 every case, the purpose has been to mould the rising gen- 
 eration into the likeness of some ideal. Animal cun- 
 ning, physical endurance, and a contempt for suffering, 
 were the elements of the Indian's conception of the per- 
 fect man ; and so the Indian boy was trained into habits 
 involving these qualities. The Jewish conception was 
 reverence, piety, and passive obedience to authority; 
 Jewish instruction was, therefore, religious and literary, 
 making the law of Moses and sacred history the chief 
 studies of the schools. The ideal Athenian was cultured 
 and aesthetic; the ideal Koman, patriotic, brave, and 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 15 
 
 practical ; and, in each case, education was directed to 
 the attainment of these ideals. In our own time, educa- 
 tion is moulded after two conceptions or two ideals. 
 First, there is the conception of the typical man, or of 
 man as the most perfect specimen of his kind, without 
 regard to any special use that is to be made of him ; and 
 to turn out this finished product is the purpose of what 
 we call a liberal education. Again, there is the con- 
 ception of man as a creature who must " get on in the 
 world," or earn a livelihood by being serviceable to his 
 fellows; and so, to turn out this product, we institute 
 what we call technical or practical education. "VVe may 
 now define liberal education as the complex process by 
 which a human being is helped to grow into the highest 
 ideal of his kind ; and technical or practical education as 
 the process by which a human being is to be fitted to 
 earn a livelihood by some form of industry. The sci- 
 ence of education must start with these two conceptions, 
 and, having made an analysis of them, must formulate 
 methods for attaining the ends in view. 
 
 These two conceptions, the higher and the lower, have 
 three elements in common : (1) There is the substratum, 
 or body ; (2) the mind, as the seat of intellectual activi- 
 ties ; and (3) the spirit, as the seat of moral activities. In 
 other words, man, the most perfect specimen of his kind, 
 and man, as an instrument or toiler, have passed through 
 three forms of training — physical, intellectual, and moral. 
 If this complex process of education is to be rational, 
 physical training must be based on the laws of physiol- 
 ogy ; mental training, on the laws of psychology ; and 
 moral training, on the laws of ethics. In other words, 
 the basis of the science of education must be general 
 laws derived or borrowed from the sciences of physiol- 
 ogy, psychology and ethics. 
 
16 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Again, education, both liberal and technical, will be 
 modified according to the genius of the people for whom 
 and by whom it is administered. Thus, English educa- 
 tion differs from German, German from French, French 
 from American — each from every other. The science of 
 education must provide for these variations, and so it 
 must borrow some of its principles from sociology, gen- 
 eral or special. 
 
 The medium of communication between teacher and 
 pupil is language ; all instruction involves the use of sym- 
 bols; speech is the instrument of the teacher's art. It 
 follows, then, that that part of education which has to do 
 with the communication of knowledge must be based on 
 principles of logic. 
 
 Thus far education is an applied or a derived science. 
 That is, it assumes the principles or laws that have al- 
 ready been established in other departments of thought, 
 and upon these it bases its modes of procedure. But, be- 
 sides this borrowed material, the science of education 
 must employ general truths of its own gathering. For 
 example, each of the studies upon which the pupil's mind 
 is employed serves a distinct purpose. As Bacon has it : 
 "Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathemat- 
 ics, subtile; natural philosophy, deepe; morale, grave; 
 logick and rhetorick, able to contend. ... So every de- 
 fect of the mind may have special receit."* Now, the 
 doctrine of education values is of the first importance in 
 education ; but, as there is no independent science for 
 determining these values, this becomes a function of 
 educational science. Other independent investigations 
 falling within the province of this science are the follow- 
 
 * " Of Studies." 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 17 
 
 ing: the action of examinations; education as affected 
 by sex ; modes of organization ; the supervision of 
 schools; the training and examination of teachers; 
 school economics ; and, in general, the testing and for- 
 mulating of results. So much as to the general nature of 
 educational science. 
 
 If the foregoing outline has been correctly drawn, it 
 is not difficult to state the general method of this sci- 
 ence. By far the larger and more important part of 
 this science is derivative, consisting of general laws 
 borrowed from physiology, psychology, ethics, sociology, 
 and logic. In the use of this material, the process must 
 therefore be deductive. Deduction is, then, the general 
 method of investigation in educational science. As- 
 sinning the truth of a given psychological principle, the 
 effort must be to exhibit its application in the practice 
 of teaching. In other words, within the compass now 
 under consideration, methods must be the direct deduc- 
 tions from principles. 
 
 Now, leaving out of account the principles borrowed 
 from other sciences, and directing our attention to the 
 investigations falling within the field of educational sci- 
 ence itself, we see that the initial process in several cases 
 must be inductive. Take, for example, the influence of 
 sex on education. Here the most direct method is the 
 analytical examination of results. If accurate statistics 
 have been kept in the case of mixed schools, the influ- 
 ence of sex upon scholarship, attendance, etc., if any, will 
 be readily detected. So far, the process is inductive; 
 but when these inductions have been merged in a law, 
 this law is deductively applied, as in the first case. But, 
 throughout the entire science, there is the need of this 
 analytical examination of results, both for the purpose of 
 
18 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 testing deduced methods, and as the means of confirm- 
 ing general laws. For a law may be true, while deduc- 
 tions drawn from it may be false. In respect of method, 
 therefore, the case may be stated in this way : the great- 
 er part of the material composing the science of educa- 
 tion is borrowed from other sciences; and these first 
 principles, thus taken on trust, must be applied to use by 
 the deductive method. There are other principles, how- 
 ever, that the science of education must find, and the 
 method of this finding must be inductive; but when 
 actually found, these laws, like those that are borrowed, 
 must be applied deductively. But a concurrent factor 
 throughout the whole science must be the verification of 
 laws and their applications by the analytical study of re- 
 sults; and this verification is an inductive process. 
 
 In opposition to this view, the opinion is held by some 
 that educational science, at least so far as it has to do 
 with children, must be constructed de novo, by the in- 
 ductive method. It is asserted that we know compara- 
 tively nothing of infant psychology, and that it must be 
 left to mothers, infant-teachers, and nurses to lay the 
 foundations of an educational psychology, by a patient 
 registration of the phenomena of infant life. To this 
 assumption it may be replied that we do know much 
 about the psychology of children, because w r e know much 
 about psychology in general. It would seem as reason- 
 able to assert that as yet we know nothing about infant 
 physiology — digestion, for example. But the fact is, that 
 there is neither infant physiology nor adult physiology, 
 but simply physiology in general. The bodily functions 
 preserve their continuity through infancy, childhood, and 
 maturity, and whatever differences there may be are 
 differences in degree but not in kind. If the stomach 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 19 
 
 performs its functions at all, its mode of digesting is the 
 same for infant and for adult. So the mind preserves its 
 continuity from one extreme of life to the other; in its 
 normal state, its general modes of activity are the same 
 for the child as for the man. There is but one psychol- 
 ogy, as there is but one physiology. 
 
 I am very far from denying that there are differences 
 between a child's mind and a man's mind ; but I insist 
 that these are differences in degree or power, and not in 
 constitution. It is freely admitted that these differences 
 in power should be observed and heeded, and that moth- 
 ers and nurses may do some real service by their registra- 
 tion of the phenomena of infant life. What I protest 
 against is the present tendency to exaggerate these dif- 
 ferences, and to assume that the child's education must 
 be considered quite apart, as though he were a being 
 mi generis. I venture to express the belief that one of 
 the most serious errors in primary teaching arises from 
 an exasperated notion of the differences between child 
 mind and mature mind. Some observed difference fur- 
 nishes the devoted enthusiast with a clew, and then this 
 clew is followed up so persistently, and so far, that one 
 section of the child's mind is aroused to preternatural 
 activity, while another section lies unused and torpid. 
 It is observed, for example, that the sense activities pre- 
 dominate in childhood. The teacher lays hold of this 
 clew, and there is such a persistent and copious feeding 
 of the senses that the physical section of the child's mind 
 becomes abnormally active, and the intellectual section 
 as abnormally inactive. It would seem to me a great 
 gain if there were to be a return towards the older con- 
 ception, that the child and the man are essentially one, 
 and that, for infancy, childhood, and youth, there should 
 be considerable sameness in instruction. 
 
20 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 From the time of Socrates to the present day, the acut- 
 est intellects of the race have been employed in the study 
 of mental phenomena ; and it is inconceivable that from 
 all this wealth of effort we inherit no first truths upon 
 which we may safely base a science of mental training. 
 Most assuredly we have such truths; and the first task of 
 the educational philosopher, as it seems to me, is to select 
 certain great psychological laws, and then to apply them 
 deductively to the processes of mental culture. I feel 
 sure that careful deductions from three well-established 
 laws,* would rationalize nearly every process of the 
 school-room. Instead of sighing for new lands to dis- 
 cover, the wiser part is at least to survey the patrimony 
 already ours. 
 
 So much for the general method of the science itself. 
 Let me next make a brief mention of two general prin- 
 ciples that should be observed while making our con- 
 tributions to educational science : 
 
 1. Whatever policy has received the long sanction of 
 the wise and good, is likely to have some elements of 
 truth in it.f 
 
 One of Rousseau's counsels was: "Take the road direct- 
 ly opposite to that which is in use, and you will almost 
 always do right." It was Pestalozzi's boast: "I have 
 turned the European car of progress quite round, and 
 set it going in a new direction." The educational re- 
 former is too prone to find that every part of the existing 
 order of things is wrong. Indeed, must he not think 
 
 * 1. The descent of the mind from aggregates to elements. 
 
 2. The mutual exclusion of thought and feeling. 
 
 3. Progress from the confused to the definite. 
 
 t For a discussion of this principle see Spencer, " First Principles," 
 ch. I. 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 21 
 
 this in order to be a reformer? If everything were not 
 in a very bad way, his vocation would be gone. This 
 state of mind is not due to perversity, but to blindness. 
 To be a reformer one must have intense feeling; but in- 
 tense feeling excludes clear thinking. Fervor and logic 
 are mutual exclusives.* 
 
 On a priori as well as on a posteriori grounds, we may 
 be sure that in Pestalozzi's time the European car of 
 progress was not going in a direction entirely wrong, for 
 it is inconceivable that a civilization into which the best 
 men of their times had put their wisest thoughts could 
 be wholly at variance with truth ; and in the fact that 
 Pestalozzi made no marked change in the direction of 
 European civilization, we have a second proof that the 
 original movement was, in the main, right. 
 
 The principle above quoted teaches a decent respect 
 for the old, and cautions us against the panaceas that will 
 be invented from time to time by ardent reformers. 
 
 2. Another precautionary truth is the following : "The 
 suppression of every error is com?no?ily followed by a 
 temptorary ascendency of the contrary one" \ This law 
 accounts for many phenomena in the history of educa- 
 tional thought. One phase of a complex truth, pushed 
 to an extreme, finally ends in a recoil to the other phase 
 
 # " In general, narrowness of view is one of the conditions of 
 vigor in action. If one Las a wide intelligence and considers the 
 pros and cons, reasons press forward, multiply, and mutually de- 
 stroy one another ; those who are given to meditation are naturally 
 inactive. They are ' spectators rather than doers,' as Descartes said 
 of himself. On the other hand, the more exact and definite one's 
 views are, the more energy he displays in action. 1 ' — Marion, op. eit., 
 p. 39. 
 
 t Spencer, "Education," p. 102. 
 
22 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 of the truth. The over-use of memory, in the olden 
 schools, has been succeeded by its disuse in the new; and 
 so we have gone from much grammar to no grammar ; 
 from instruction in the abstract to instruction in the 
 concrete ; from much classics and little science, to little 
 classics and much science ; from books without pictures, 
 to books with very little except pictures ; from unlimited 
 text-book instruction to unlimited oral instruction ; from 
 discipline by ferule to discipline by coaxing. 
 
 The two principles just stated are needed in order to 
 give steadiness and judicial fairness to our investigations. 
 Is wholesale condemnation decreed against some time- 
 honored subject or method ? Before joining in the noise 
 of the crusade, let us recollect that in all probability there 
 is something to be said in favor of the outcast. 
 
 Is some new all-in-all put forward with much-voiced 
 fervor, as a sure specific for the ills of the schools ? We 
 may not only discount the merits of the last favorite at 
 a heavy rate, but we may be sure that not far off is some 
 discarded truth in need of our protection. If one hither- 
 to unacquainted with educational affairs were to hear for 
 the first time the extravagant claims set up in favor of 
 oral instruction, he might reasonably make three infer- 
 ences: (1) That there had been some misuse of text-book 
 instruction ; (2) that the discarded system had a consider- 
 able element of truth in it ; and (3) that oral instruction 
 is not worth nearly all that is said of it. In order to 
 make sure and steady progress in educational science, the 
 one indispensable condition is " that we henceforth be no 
 more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with 
 every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning 
 craftiness." * 
 
 *Epl)esians iv., 14. 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 23 
 
 These two truths point unmistakably to a conservative 
 frame of mind. Such, I believe, should be the attitude 
 of the educational philosopher. He should mediate be- 
 tween the past and the future, and his highest achieve- 
 ment will be, with the least noise, to evolve the new out 
 of the old, a better future out of a good past. He will 
 be neither retrogressive nor stationary ; he will be a pro- 
 gressive conservative. His motto will be nihil per sal- 
 tum. He will not desire revolution, but evolution. It 
 is Emerson who says to the radical : " The past has baked 
 your loaf, and in the strength of its bread you would 
 break up the oven." The ideal position, could we ever 
 find it, is somewhat in advance of the timid conservative 
 and somewhat in the rear of the ardent radical. How- 
 ever it may be in other matters, I feel sure that whoever 
 becomes a careful student of the history and the philos- 
 ophy of education will soon come to occupy this middle 
 ground ; for history is retrospective and science prospec- 
 tive ; and the mind that is subject to their double influ- 
 ence is the resultant of two opposing forces. 
 
 I now come to the final part of my task, which is to 
 state some of the more important problems that await a 
 solution by educational science. In stating these prob- 
 lems I shall doubtless, through inadvertence or purpose, 
 indicate a probable solution ; and in this way there 
 may be seeming dogmatism, but it is only seeming. 
 I would abridge no one's liberty to form and express his 
 own sincere conclusions ; and some serious thinking on 
 these problems is my excuse for indicating the line of my 
 conclusions. As they seem to me, these are some of the 
 questions that demand an early solution : 
 
 1. In what relation does professional, technical, or 
 practical education stand to liberal education? What is 
 
24 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the ideal sequence? Is this sequence disturbed by the 
 exigencies of life, such as limited time or the need of 
 engaging in productive labor ? Should liberal education 
 and professional education be carried on simultaneously ? 
 The solution of this general problem will affect such 
 questions as the following : (1) The introduction of man- 
 ual training into the public schools; (2) The education 
 given in agricultural schools ; (3) Academic instruction 
 and professional instruction in normal schools. 
 
 2. Somewhat analogous to the preceding problem, but 
 depending on different principles for its solution, is this : 
 Should mental labor and manual labor be closely con- 
 joined. Is there not an organic antagonism that involves 
 a failure in one or both when pursued simultaneously. * 
 If it is decided that this conjunction is unwise, as a gen- 
 eral rule, there is still the question whether it may not 
 be necessary in certain cases, as in schools for dependent 
 children. In all problems of this sort, the ideal adjust- 
 ment must be distinguished from an adjustment required 
 by exigencies; and whenever two solutions, a general 
 and a special, are permitted, the special cases should be 
 defined with all possible exactness. 
 
 3. What is the nature of what is termed culture, and 
 what are the conditions essential for attaining it? Are 
 these its characteristic marks : On the moral side, kind- 
 ness, sympathy, sincerity, tact ; and on the mental, wide 
 discrimination, quick perceptions, and an extensive knowl- 
 
 * " It is impossible for the mind and body both to labor at the 
 same time, as each labor is productive of contrary evils ; the labor 
 of the body preventing the progress of the mind, and the mind of 
 the body." — Aristotle, " Politics " (Walford's translation, London, 
 1881), book viii., chap. iv. 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 25 
 
 edge of what is of the most universal human interest \ * 
 Is the study of the purely material conducive to culture ? 
 Or must culture, on the mental side, come mainly from 
 the contemplation and study of the supersensuous, i. e., 
 the mental, the moral, and the divine ? 
 
 The solution of this problem will affect the function 
 of the sciences and of the humanities in the higher edu- 
 cation. If the answer shall be found to lie in the direc- 
 tion I have indicated, a higher value must be given to 
 geography, history, language, literature, mental and mor- 
 al science. Here will be found one criterion for deter- 
 mining the education value of studies. 
 
 4. What is the meaning of the word " practical," in 
 such expressions as " practical education," " practical 
 studies " % Is it the correlative of " theoretical," implying 
 the outward manifestation of inward power ? If the term 
 merely means the quality of self-preservation, what degree 
 of practical value have the natural sciences to the ordinary 
 student ? For individual, and not professional, use, what 
 degree of practical value has physiology to the physi- 
 cian, chemistry to the chemist, or natural philosophy to 
 the machinist ? The purpose of these questions is to 
 point out two sources of misapprehension, (1) the am- 
 biguity of the term " practical," and (2) the assumption, 
 not warranted by evidence, that the so-called " practical 
 subjects" have a primary bearing on individual needs. 
 The secondary, or professional, value of physiological 
 knowledge is incalculable ; while its primary or individ- 
 ual value is comparatively small. It is only when we 
 give a larger content to the term that physiology and 
 kindred subjects can claim a high educational value. 
 
 5. In the body of this chapter I have mentioned the de- 
 
 * See Plato's conception of the cultured man, p. 288. 
 
 2 
 
26 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 termination of education values as an important aim of 
 educational science. With such values even approxi- 
 mately determined, the rationalizing of the teaching art 
 would at once begin. The thought of making such de- 
 terminations is a very old one. Plato attempts such an 
 inquiry in his "Republic," and recommends, among oth- 
 er things, that arithmetic should be made a compulsory 
 study, on account of its great disciplinary value; and 
 Aristotle devotes the greater part of the eighth book of 
 his " Politics " to a discussion of the education value of 
 music. Lord Bacon gives a summary statement in his 
 essay " On Studies;" and Dr. "Whewell discusses, at con- 
 siderable length, the values of mathematics, the classics, 
 and the sciences. Still, the whole subject needs to be 
 investigated anew, with all the lights and helps that our 
 better opportunities supply. ' This inquiry belongs to the 
 inductive branch of educational science, and will be dis- 
 cussed in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 6. The third term whose meaning should be rigorous- 
 ly determined is the word "nature" in its personified 
 use, as in the cant of educational literature, " the order 
 of nature," " nature's method," " follow nature." Next 
 to the flippant use of the phrase " new education," there 
 is nothing more indicative of the low state of thinking 
 among us than the reckless use of this term "nature." 
 What, contempt would be heaped on a modern scientist 
 who should explain a phenomenon by saying that " Nature 
 abhors a vacuum !" But Joseph Payne's "Nature teach- 
 es her children by object lessons," is just as indefensible. 
 If we must still use these phrases, let us know the exact 
 connotation of the word " nature." * 
 
 7. What is the relation of clear knowing to right do- 
 
 * For a fuller discussion of this term see Chapter VII. 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 27 
 
 ins:? Socrates identified knowledge with virtue, holding 
 that if a man did wrons: it was because he was ignorant. 
 The Jews held nearly the same doctrine, and the moral 
 instruction in the mediaeval schools was based on the 
 same assumption. This has been the current belief 
 wherever education has been administered by the Church, 
 but with the secularization of education has come the 
 opinion that there is no essential connection between 
 knowledge and morality. Probably there is error at both 
 extremes, the truth being that knowledge is helpful to 
 morality. State patronage of education is based on the 
 old notion of the moral quality in instruction. Wheth- 
 er this is a fiction or not is well worth the finding out. 
 
 8. An inquiry into the mental condition of savages 
 will show that, concurrent with the acutest sense-training, 
 there is intellectual ineptness amounting almost to stu- 
 pidity. This conjunction raises the query whether the 
 modern doctrine as to the effect of sense-training on in- 
 telligence is well founded. The fact just cited at least 
 permits a reasonable doubt on this point. The question 
 involves the formal objective teaching of the time, and 
 even the kindergarten. It is well to recollect that an- 
 cient teaching was almost purely subjective, and that the 
 greater educational reformers, Ratich, Comenius, and 
 Pestalozzi, employed objective instruction chiefly to teach 
 the meaning of words. A modern instance of this sub- 
 jective mode of instruction may be seen in the "Record " 
 of Mr. Alcott's school, by Miss Peabody. 
 
 There is psychological ground for thinking that the 
 savage exhibits the normal effect of an over-training of 
 the senses ; for " knowledge and feeling,* though always 
 co-existent, are always in the inverse ratio of each other." 
 
 * Hamilton, "Metaphysics" (Boston, 1868), \\ 336. 
 
28 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 9. The latest criterion for judging of the quality of 
 teaching is the amount of pleasure-giving that it fur- 
 nishes. While no one questions that good teaching will 
 inspire a general air of happiness, there are very many 
 who insist that work is not always pleasure-giving, but 
 that even such work must be done in every good school. 
 This is a psychological problem of no great difficulty, 
 and its solution would set at rest a disputed question of 
 great importance. It will probably be found that a study 
 may be disagreeable because it involves a mode of men- 
 tal activity that has never been developed, or that has 
 fallen into disuse ; and so the study may serve a far bet- 
 ter purpose than one that accords with the free working 
 of a well-developed power. The distribution of mental 
 aliment follows the same law as the distribution of phys- 
 ical aliment; the more vigorous faculty or organ will 
 take the lion's share, while the weaker faculty or organ 
 will be left to starve. We know that this is a law even 
 of the spiritual life : " For he that hath, to him shall be 
 given ; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken 
 even that which he hath." 
 
 10. But perhaps the largest problem of all is this: To 
 what extent is it true that education should be a process 
 of rediscovery, the pupil being placed as nearly as possi- 
 ble in the tracks of the first of his race? Mr. Spencer 
 has formulated the principle as follows : " The educa- 
 tion of the child must accord, both in mode and arrange- 
 ment, with the education of mankind as considered his- 
 torically; or, in other words, the genesis of knowledge 
 in the individual must follow the same course as the 
 genesis of knowledge in the race." The earliest appear- 
 ance of this doctrine is in the Introduction to Condillac's 
 " Grammaire," where it is stated and discussed with great 
 
ITS NATURE, ITS METHOD, AND SOME OF ITS PROBLEMS. 29 
 
 fulness. Condillac attempted to follow this historical 
 method in the education of the Duke of Parma; but, in 
 order to make it work successfully, he was obliged to give 
 his pupil a preliminary course of instruction in mental and 
 moral science ! I believe this seductive generalization to 
 be the largest assumption yet made in the line of educa- 
 tional thinking. The so-called " Pestalozzian Princi- 
 ples " are but the corollaries to this theorem that has 
 never been demonstrated. If we are permitted to think 
 that the dictum of Condillac and Spencer may not be 
 final, here is a most inviting and profitable field for 
 study.* 
 
 11. The last question that I venture to call attention 
 to is this: How are books instrumental in gaining knowl- 
 edge ? Is the transmission of knowledge possible, or 
 must each man gain knowledge by the independent ac- 
 tivity of his own mind ? When a wise man dies, does 
 his wisdom go with him, as we have recently been in- 
 formed ?f To state this general question in a concrete 
 form : What is the action of the mind when we read in 
 the almanac that "there will be a total eclipse of the 
 sun May 6th, 1883, visible in the Southern Pacific Ocean"? 
 In order that this statement may be converted into 
 knowledge, must the simple reader turn astronomer, and 
 by personal investigation verify the prediction? If the 
 domain of knowledge is to be limited to what we actual- 
 ly verify by our own experience, it is high time that we 
 be undeceived. Is it or is it not true that we know our 
 own names ? 
 
 * This question is discussed at length in Chapter V. 
 t John W. Dickinson, " Oral Teaching : its Proper Limits and 
 Methods. 1 ' A Prize Essay (P>oston, 1880), p. 17. 
 
30 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 The agency of language, or the mode in which we ac- 
 quire our second-hand knowledge, is not easy to explain; 
 but the difficulty is not insuperable, and, when overcome, 
 we shall be protected from such absurdities as the ones 
 I have indicated. That such loose thinking is possible 
 is of itself a sufficient justification for this appeal in be- 
 half of educational science. 
 
 In the chapters that follow I shall discuss at greater 
 length some of the questions that have here been stated 
 in outline. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION 
 
 VALUES. 
 
 The conception that knowledge is mental food, and 
 that study is a mental gymnastic, is a very ancient one. 
 The fact of mental and moral growth was as clear to 
 David* as it was to Pestalozzi. In the " Republic," 
 Plato discusses the value of music, gymnastics, arithme- 
 tic, poetry, geometry, astronomy, and dialectic (logic) as 
 means of mental discipline ; and, in the " Politics," Aris- 
 totle takes up the same line of inquiry, and leaves us an 
 unequalled dissertation on the educational claims of mu- 
 sic. In Greek thought there was not only the concep- 
 tion that knowledge is aliment, but, above all, that the 
 effort of the mind to master its knowledge is the main 
 condition of growth. The soul was not so much to be 
 furnished with instruments for use as to be beautified, 
 ennobled, and perfected, as itself the contemplated ego. 
 The Greek philosopher did not conceive of knowledge 
 as a utility, but rather as the means by which the soul 
 could rise to the contemplation of the true, the beautiful, 
 and the good. 
 
 The disciplinary, not the practical, value of knowledge 
 was uppermost in Greek thought.f 
 
 * Psalm i. 
 
 t " Therefore, Glaucon, it will be proper to enforce the study [of 
 arithmetic] by legislative enactment, and to persuade those who 
 arc destined to take part in the weightiest affairs of state to study 
 
32 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Coming down to later times, we find Lord Bacon dis- 
 cussing the education values of studies. His conception 
 seems to be that study is a medicine or a remedy, rather 
 than a food. Thus he says : " There is no stond or im- 
 pediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit stud- 
 ies ; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate 
 exercises."* Here, too, knowledge is rated chiefly for its 
 disciplinary value. The infirmities of the mind are weak- 
 nesses, and hence are to be cured by development through 
 exercise. For example, if the power of discriminating 
 is weak, it is to be raised by exercise — the pupil must 
 engage in hair-splitting with the schoolmen. 
 
 calculation and devote themselves to it, not like amateurs, but per- 
 severingly, until, by the aid of pure reason, they have attained- to 
 the contemplation of the nature of numbers ; not cultivating it 
 ■with a view to buying and selling, as merchants or shopkeepers, 
 but for purposes of war, and to facilitate the conversion of the 
 soul itself from the chaugeable to the true and the real " — "Repub- 
 lic," 525. 
 
 * The whole of this quotation is too instructive to be omitted: 
 " Histories make men Wise; Poets Witty; the Mathematicks Sub- 
 till ; Naturall Philosophy deepe ; Morall Grave ; Logick and Rhet- 
 orick Able to Contend. Abeunt studia in Mores. Nay, there is no 
 Stond or Impediment in the Wit, but may be wrought out by Fit 
 Studies. Like as Diseases of the Body may have Appropriate 
 Exercises. Bowling is good for the Stone and Reines; Shooting 
 for the Lungs and Breast; Gentle Walking for the Stomacke; 
 Riding for the Head ; And the like. So if a Man's Wit be Wander- 
 ing, let him Study the Mathematicks ; for, in Demonstrations, if his 
 Wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his 
 Wit be not Apt to distinguish, or find differences, let him Study the 
 School-men; For they are Cymini sector cs. If he be not Apt to beat 
 over Matters, and to call up one Thing, to Prove and Illustrate an- 
 other, let him Study the Lawyers Cases. So every Defect of the 
 Minde may have a Speciall Receit." — Bacon, " Of Studies." 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 33 
 
 Neither the Greek philosophers nor Lord Bacon at- 
 tempted any classification of subjects as a means of esti- 
 mating and marking their education values. Whatever 
 scientific prevision their discussion has, is qualitative and 
 not quantitative, and qualitative in only the most gen- 
 eral sense of the term. Music and gymnastic must be 
 studied as mutual correctives, the tendency of music 
 alone being to make the soul soft and yielding, and that 
 of gymnastic alone being to make it hard and rigid ; " or 
 if a man's wit (attention) be wandering, let him study 
 the mathematics." 
 
 In his "Cambridge Education" (London, 1850), Dr. 
 Whewell attempts a somewhat elaborate treatment of 
 the subject in a quasi-scientific way. He sets up a clas- 
 sification of subjects as a means of determining the rel- 
 ative values of the classics and the mathematics on the 
 one hand, and of the sciences and the modern languages 
 on the other. He distributes studies into two classes, 
 the permanent and the progressive. " To the former 
 class belong those portions of knowledge which have 
 long taken their permanent shape — ancient languages, 
 with their literature, and long-established demonstrated 
 sciences. To the latter class belong the results of the 
 mental activity of our own times — the literature of our 
 own age, and the sciences in which men are making 
 progress from day to day. The former class of subjects 
 connects us with the past, the latter with the present and 
 the future " (pp. 5, 6). From this classification Dr. Whe- 
 well draws two inferences : 1. That, as the learner must 
 become conscious both of a past and of a present human- 
 ity, he should study both classes of subjects. 2. That, as 
 a knowledge of the past is a necessary condition for un- 
 derstanding the present and forecasting the future, the 
 
 2* 
 
34 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 permanent studies should form the earlier and major 
 part of one's liberal education. Dr. Whe well's treat- 
 ment of the question has scarcely a greater degree of 
 prevision than Plato's or Bacon's. 
 
 The classification seems to have been invented to serve 
 a special purpose ; but, granting that it serves this pur- 
 pose well (which admits of doubt), the limit of its use- 
 fulness is reached. It reminds us of Aristotle's classifi- 
 cation of men as the naturally strong and the naturally 
 weak, as the basis of his argument in favor of human 
 slavery.* 
 
 In 1835 Dr. Whewoll published his celebrated pamph- 
 let, entitled " Thoughts on the Study of Mathematics as a 
 Part of a Liberal Education," and this provoked from Sir 
 William Hamilton one of the most vigorous pieces of edu- 
 cational polemics that has ever appeared. Dr. Whewell 
 put forward the claims of mathematics as an invalua- 
 ble factor in a liberal education, and contrasted this study 
 somewhat unfavorably with logic. Sir William Hamil- 
 ton felt challenged to defend jDhilosophy against what he 
 regarded as the unjust pretensions of mathematics, and 
 to this controversy we owe the most brilliant contribu- 
 tion ever made to the science of education values. The 
 character of the criticism as a whole may be quite fairly 
 estimated from this quotation : " From this general con- 
 trast it will easily be seen how an excessive study of the 
 mathematical sciences not only does not prepare but ab- 
 solutely incapacitates the mind for those intellectual en- 
 ergies which life and philosophy require. We are thus 
 disqualified for observation, either internal or external, 
 for abstraction and generalization, and for common rea- 
 
 * "Politics," booki., ch.vi. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 35 
 
 sonlng / nay, disposed to the alternative of blind credu- 
 lity or of irrational scejyticism" * 
 
 While the impartial reader cannot fail to admire the 
 cleverness and vigor of this masterly critique, he will 
 also be sensible that the conclusions are somewhat parti- 
 san and biassed. For us, this discussion of the education 
 value of mathematics has the obvious disadvantage of 
 being negative rather than positive. For the purpose of 
 this inquiry we need to know the plus values of mathe- 
 matics ; though we must allow that it is a substantial 
 crain to know what the studv cannot do. 
 
 The next notable attempt at the fixing of education 
 values is that of Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his essay enti- 
 tled, " What Knowledge is of most Worth?" The very 
 elaborate way in which Mr. Spencer sets about answering 
 this question is one of the seductive features of this much- 
 lauded essa} T . " There must be some striking and valid 
 outcome of a discussion that is heralded with such im- 
 posing formalities," the reader thinks, and so he listens 
 reverently and obediently to the deliverances of the ora- 
 cle. This is a characteristic part of the prelude : " If 
 there needs anv further evidence of the rude, undevel- 
 oped character of our education, we have it in the fact 
 that the comparative worths of the different kinds of 
 knowledge have been as yet scarcely even discussed — 
 much less discussed in a methodic way, with definite re- 
 sults. Not only is it that no standard of relative values 
 has been agreed upon, but the existence of any such 
 standard has not been conceived in any clear manner. 
 And not only is it that the existence of any such stand- 
 
 * "Discussions on Philosophy and Literature" (New York, 1868), 
 p. 275. 
 
36 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ard has not been clearly conceived, but the need for it 
 seems to have been scarcely felt." * 
 
 "In education, then, this is the question of questions, 
 which it is high time we discussed in some methodic 
 way. The first in importance, though last to be consid- 
 ered, is the problem how to decide among the conflict- 
 ing claims of various subjects on our attention. Before 
 there can be a rational curriculu?n, we must settle which 
 things it most concerns us to know ; or, to use a word of 
 Bacon's, now unfortunately obsolete, we must determine 
 the relative values of knowledges." f 
 
 I make these quotations to illustrate a way Mr. Spen- 
 cer has of capturing his reader's approval by means of a 
 cunning piece de resistance, and also because they are 
 statements of fact that require our discriminating atten- 
 tion. This writer's argument will be more conveniently 
 discussed further on. It suffices here to say that he car- 
 ries the reader to the irresistible and triumphant conclu- 
 sion that the knowledge that is of the most worth is 
 Science ; and that by Science Mr. Spencer means all the 
 branches of human knowledge save literature and his- 
 tory. \ It must be confessed that this is very far from 
 the result we were promised — " a determination of the 
 relative values of knowledges." It is very like this con- 
 clusion of an elaborate inquiry into the relative dietetical 
 
 * " Education," pp. 26, 27. f Ibid., p. 29. 
 
 \ In this essay Mr. Spencer gives no formal definition of science, 
 but Lis conception of it is to be gathered passim. The nearest ap- 
 proach to a definition is the following : " To the slowly growing 
 acquaintance with the uniform coexistences and sequences of phe- 
 nomena — to the establishment of invariable laws, we owe our 
 emancipation from the grossest superstitions." — "Education," p. 
 95. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 37 
 
 values of different foods — "they are all very, valuable 
 save two." Evidently what we need to know is not 
 merely that the sciences en masse have a supreme value, 
 but what special purpose is served by eacli of the sci- 
 ences ; whether physiology, for example, is to be esteemed 
 chiefly for its practical value, or for its disciplinary value ; 
 whether its practical value is of the primary or of the 
 secondary order — that is, whether each person must have 
 this knowledge, or whether he may avail himself of it at 
 second hand, as when he employs a physician in case of 
 need ; and finally, whether the acquirement of this knowl- 
 edge affects some special mode or modes of mental activ- 
 ity, or whether it raises the whole tone of the mental or- 
 ganism. I make this statement to show that Mr. Spen- 
 cer's conclusion is as ^discriminating and unscientific as 
 Dr. Whewell's. I think it will appear in the sequel that 
 it has neither the scientific accuracy nor the fruitful pre- 
 vision of Plato's implied distinction. In educational po- 
 lemics, Mr. Spencer's effort may be regarded as an offset 
 to Dr. Whewell's. 
 
 Mr. Bain devotes the fifth chapter of his " Education as 
 a Science" to the discussion of education values, and the 
 same subject is pursued, in an informal w T ay, in subse- 
 quent portions of his work. These discussions are char- 
 acterized by largeness of view, catholicity of spirit, and 
 eminent judicial fairness. The critical reader cannot 
 fail to be impressed with the conviction that his author 
 has emancipated himself from prejudice, and is in the 
 zealous pursuit of truth for truth's sake. In the main, 
 Mr. Bain's discussion of education values is the applica- 
 tion of common-sense to the solution of this complex 
 problem. He marks the distinction between studies that 
 end in useful information and studies that end in disci- 
 
38 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 pline, and holds that the practical sciences contribute but 
 little to mental training. Mr. Bain is wholly occupied 
 with the qualitative education values of subjects; he dis- 
 cusses the hind of effect produced by science and lan- 
 guage, but does not discuss the degree in which allied 
 subjects affect the mind, or the degree in which the so- 
 called practical subjects serve for guidance. The large- 
 ness of the author's thought seems to forbid precision of 
 statement, and this indeh'niteness often leaves the reader 
 in an unpleasant state of suspense. Even with these 
 qualifications, Mr. Bain's treatment of this theme has a 
 large, substantial value, and is, doubtless, the ablest con- 
 tribution that has been made to the discussion of this 
 historic problem. So far as I know, we are indebted to 
 this writer for the term "education values." At least, 
 it is from him that I have borrowed it. 
 
 The last contribution to the discussion of education 
 values that I shall notice is that made by Mr. Latham 
 in his work " On the Action of Examinations." * He ob- 
 
 * The bearing of the science of education values on the practice 
 of education is well exhibited in the following Quotation : " I be- 
 lieve that mental physiology will one day be recognized practically 
 in education. The time may come when certain peculiarities of 
 mind may be recognized as ' indicating,' or ' counter-indicating,' in 
 medical phraseology, the use of certain kinds of mental exertion. 
 A science of observation may be prescribed in one case, some study 
 which enforces concentration of attention in another, while one 
 which involves ' introspection ' may be strictly prohibited in a 
 third. , We may even have hereafter a medical branch of the edu- 
 cational profession ; we may have persons who shall make it their 
 business to understand mental constitutions, and to advise parents 
 as to the course to be followed with youths of peculiar or slightly 
 morbid turns of mind. I am aware that what I hint at would afford 
 a tempting field for quackery, but, at the same time, I feel sure that 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 39 
 
 serves : " There are studies which aim at endowing the 
 stndent with a power which he can be called on to put 
 in practice, and others which store and cultivate the 
 mind, but convey no new power that can be exercised" 
 (p. $6). We then have art subjects, such as mathemat- 
 ics, language, and grammar; and knowledge subjects, such 
 as history, geography, and literature. The first Lind of 
 knowledge may end in doing, the second ends in merely 
 knowing. An examination in subjects of the first kind 
 permits us to discover whether real assimilation has taken 
 place, whether mental power has been gained ; while an 
 examination in subjects of the second order is at best a 
 test of memory. This is a distinction that would read- 
 ily occur to the mind of a professional examiner like Mr. 
 Latham. By an examination in geometry he can test 
 a boy's power to do; while there is nothing in history or 
 geography that can be used to test the pupil's construct- 
 ive ability. While this distinction is obvious, it is super- 
 ficial, for it assumes that culture and power belong to 
 different categories. Mr. Latham misses a distinction 
 which I shall hereafter attempt to make plain — that be- 
 tween the specific effect of a study, and its tonic, consti- 
 tutional, or culture effect. The specific effect of a sub- 
 ject like arithmetic is obvious, because it is concentrated ; 
 while the tonic effect of a subject like history is obscure, 
 because it is diffused. The element of power is present 
 in both cases. In the first it is focused on one point, and 
 so can be tested and recorded — it is palpable, so to speak. 
 In the second this power is evenly diffused, and appears 
 
 immense good might be effected by a wise practitioner who should 
 unite a sound knowledge of mental physiology with a practical ac- 
 quaintance with the work of education" (pp. 327, 328). 
 
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 :i:-£ 
 
 : ::.;.i :: 
 
 ; 
 
 *H-.-zL : 'L Zllr - 
 
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 r - 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 41 
 
 an instrument which may be employed in war or in 
 trade. This is a distinction which is founded in the 
 very constitution of tilings, and may be illustrated as 
 follows: the mere swinging of an axe has a reflex effect 
 on the muscles involved in the act; but, in addition to 
 this, there may be an objective effect absolutely distinct 
 and different, as in the cutting or cleaving of wood. In 
 all such cases there must be the reflex effect, and there 
 may be the outward or objective effect. The learning 
 of a subject involves the mind in some mode or modes 
 of activity ; and this exercise is one of the essential con- 
 ditions of development or growth. A subject that calls 
 into exercise a large number of activities, or that brings 
 a single activity into vigorous use, has a high value of a 
 certain kind. But, quite independently of this reflex ef- 
 fect, a mental acquisition may itself become an instru- 
 ment for effecting objective results. In the case cited 
 from Plato, arithmetical knowledge may be used in mil- 
 itary art or in the traffic of merchants. By common 
 usage, the terms disciplinary and practical are employed 
 to designate the two values that have been illustrated. 
 A subject is said to be valuable either for discipline or 
 for use. Some subjects are allowed to have a high prac- 
 tical value, and, at the same time, a low disciplinary 
 value ; and vice versa. I do not insist on this distinc- 
 tion because it is new, but rather because it is old and 
 true. I believe it to be the only valid general distinc- 
 tion that has been or can be made. 
 
 At this point I will return to Mr. Spencers discussion 
 of " the relative values of knowledges," for the purpose 
 of making inquiry into the truth of one of his assump- 
 tions. One preliminary is stated as follows : " Acquire- 
 ment of every kind has two values — value as knowledge 
 
42 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 and value as discipline. Besides its use for guidance in 
 conduct, the acquisition of each order of facts has also 
 its use as mental exercise; and its effects as a preparative 
 for complete living have to be considered under both 
 these heads."* The candor of this statement encourages 
 the reader to anticipate a luminous and equally candid 
 discussion of one of the main elements of the great prob- 
 lem ; and but for the seductions of Mr. Spencer's style of 
 writing there could hardly fail to be some degree of sur- 
 prise and disappointment at the treatment the question 
 finally receives : " This division of our subject," he says, 
 "we are obliged to treat with comparative brevity; 
 and, happily, no very lengthy treatment of it is needed. 
 Having found what is best for the one end, we have, by 
 implication, found what is best for the other. We may 
 be quite sure that the acquirement of those classes of 
 facts which are most useful for regulating conduct in- 
 volves a mental exercise best fitted for strengthening 
 the faculties. It would be utterly contrary to the beau- 
 tiful economy of Nature, if one kind of culture were need- 
 ed for the gaining of information, and another kind were 
 needed as a mental gymnastic." f Then, by way of illus- 
 tration, we are told of the Red Indian who acquires swift- 
 ness and agility " by the actual pursuit of animals ;" of 
 the Bushman whose eye acquires " a quite telescopic 
 range " by " being habitually employed in identifying dis- 
 tant objects;" and, finally, of the accountant," whose daily 
 practice enables him to add up several columns of figures 
 simultaneously." 
 
 Let us now devote our serious attention to Mr. Spen- 
 cer's argument, to his illustrations, and to his general 
 
 * "Education," p. 37. t Ibid., p. 84. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 43 
 
 conclusion. What we have called, by courtesy, the argu- 
 ment runs as follows : " The education of most value for 
 guidance must at the same time be the education of 
 most value for discipline ;" for to suppose otherwise 
 " would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy of 
 Nature." The whole school of educational writers of 
 which Mr. Spencer is the representative are accustomed 
 to resort to the myth "Nature," whenever their favor- 
 ite theses cannot be supported by legitimate argument. 
 The existing order of things is personified under the 
 term "Nature," and then this "Nature "is assumed to 
 be a sort of goddess who administers all the affairs of 
 terrestrial existence with incomparable accuracy and wis- 
 dom ; and then the validity of any assumption is estab- 
 lished by showing that it conforms to a so-called " Order 
 of Nature." In the case under consideration the author- 
 ity of "Nature" is quoted as a sufficient ground for a 
 very large assumption — " the beautiful economy of Nat- 
 ure " constrains us to believe that studies that are most 
 valuable for use are also the most valuable for disci- 
 pline. 
 
 Naville, in his "Logique de l'Hypothese," finely ridi- 
 cules the easy resort to authority as follows : " Aristotle 
 teaches that the sun is incorruptible. At the time when 
 the discovery of spots on the sun began to circulate, a 
 student called the attention of his old professor to the 
 matter, and received the following reply : l My friend, I 
 have read Aristotle twice from beginning to end, and I 
 know there can be no spots on the sun. Wipe your lenses 
 better. If the spots are not in your telescope, they must 
 be in your eyes !' " Is it any more absurd to quote the 
 dictum of Aristotle in questions of physical science than 
 an assumed " Order of Nature " in questions of educa- 
 
44 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tional science ? It may fairly be counted a standing won- 
 der that a philosopher of this day still adheres to a mode 
 of philosophizing that has long since been abandoned by 
 all reputable scientists. It is only in educational science 
 that the mediaeval logic is still in full force. 
 
 " The beautiful economy of Nature !' ? that were finely 
 said by a satirist. To succeed in raising one plant from 
 the sowing of a thousand seeds; to choke the growth of 
 a wholesome plant by a wilderness of noxious weeds ; to 
 abandon a crop of promising fruit to a horde of ravenous 
 bugs ; to carry off a score of robust children by infection 
 from insidious disease-germs — such is" the beautiful econ- 
 omy of Nature !" * 
 
 Now a few words as to the Red Indian, the Bushman, 
 and the accountant. Whatever proof there is in these 
 illustrations is evidently of this sort : for his guidance, 
 the Indian needs agility and swiftness, and these endow- 
 ments are best secured by the actual pursuit of animals; 
 what the Bushman needs for his guidance is telescopic 
 vision, and this is best acquired by obeying the needs of 
 his daily life ; the accountant needs the ability of rapid 
 computation, and the stress of his daily life forces this 
 ability upon him. When generalized, the thought takes 
 
 * " Nature is so rich, and produces beings in such profusion, that 
 she is condemned to destroy ninety-nine out of every hundred of 
 them. There would not be standing-room, air, or food for a mill- 
 ionth part of the creatures she produces, if she were not limited by 
 necessity. Thus, a herring produces such a quantity of eggs that, 
 if all came to maturity, within a few generations all other species 
 of fish would be in danger from them. . . . But only one egg in 
 several thousand comes to maturity; yet this is is enough to multi- 
 ply the species in abundance. The other eggs are destroyed in 
 countless numbers." — Marion, op. cit, p. 81. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 43 
 
 this form : the stress of one's environment begets the 
 very power that is needed to support the conditions of 
 that environment. This takes us to the central thought 
 of the new philosophy. Cosmic forces, acting blindly, 
 but with the certainty and persistence of fate, in the ful- 
 ness of time evolved the solar system, one member of 
 which is the earth. In the further progress of time, the 
 blind play of physical forces evolved the various forms 
 of animal and vegetable life. One of the products of 
 this process is the fish. This creature has its predeter- 
 mined environment or habitat. This habitat not only 
 conditions the life of the fish, but entails a continuous 
 struggle for existence ; and this struggle, in turn, begets 
 the power to continue existence. In other words, this 
 creature is exactly adapted to its environment, and its en- 
 vironment, in turn, is as exactly adapted to it. For the 
 fish to transcend its environment would be to die, or to 
 become something other than a fish. Man, too, is the 
 product of his environment, and his struggle to maintain 
 existence begets the power needed to react against the 
 forces that would destroy life. Man lives to eat, and 
 eats to live. His needs are co-ordinate with his immedi- 
 ate resources. 
 
 Mr. Spencer's theory of education values is in perfect 
 accord with his philosophy. The Eed Indian, for exam- 
 ple, was evolved out of certain fixed conditions, and, if 
 he is to remain a Red Indian (as by the new philosophy 
 he ought), he must in no respect transcend his environ- 
 ment. He must support existence in the spot where 
 fate planted him, and just the guidance he needs for 
 this purpose is best gained in his predetermined struggle 
 for existence. Any greater power would be useless, and 
 any new endowment would unfit him for the place to 
 
4G SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 which "Nature" had assigned him. All the walks of 
 life furnish illustrations of Mr. Spencer's meaning. Each 
 man is predetermined to follow some craft ; and the en- 
 dowment he needs for this purpose is best acquired by 
 devoting himself to the duties of his craft. For exam- 
 ple, the comfort of the tailor requires him to be bow- 
 legged, and the practice of his art tends to make him 
 bow-legged. Under this conception, it must be granted 
 that " the education of most value for guidance must, at 
 the same time, be the education of most value for disci- 
 pline." 
 
 But there is a different conception of human destiny, 
 and this involves a different theory of education values. 
 The principal elements in this other conception are as 
 follows : (1) Man is not the passive victim of his environ- 
 ment, but has such power of modification and control as 
 either to transcend that environment or virtually to re- 
 create it. (2) Man is a member of the human race, rath- 
 er than of a caste, and he is predetermined to an upward 
 growth towards the highest type of his kind. (3) Edu- 
 cation is not fate, but is a process of growth, modified, 
 controlled, and perfected by human art. (4) The main 
 purpose of education is to permit the individual to par- 
 ticipate in the conscious life of the race. 
 
 On these grounds we object to Mr. Spencer's treatment 
 of the Red Indian, the Bushman, and the accountant. 
 The first need of the Indian and the Bushman in partic- 
 ular, is to become men ; and for this purpose there should 
 be considerably less activity in the lines of swiftness, 
 agility, and telescopic vision ; and considerably more in 
 the lines of ploughing, building, and thinking. Abilities 
 not given by " Nature " should be created by human art. 
 This "Nature" should not dominate over man, but should 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 47 
 
 be subjugated by man. Even the accountant deserves 
 better treatment than Mr. Spencer prescribes for him. 
 lie should aspire to something better than "to add up 
 several columns of figures simultaneously." He is a man 
 by better right than he is a machine, and, as such, lie 
 may even learn to philosophize ; but, for this purpose, he 
 has need of a discipline quite different from that which 
 will merely furnish him with the guidance required by 
 an accountant. When we consider the requirements of 
 a liberal education, or that course of training which will 
 raise a human being from the bondage of "Nature" up 
 towards the typical man, it is not true that the practical 
 value of a study is identical with its disciplinary value. 
 On the contrary, it is much nearer the truth to assert 
 that these two values are in an inverse ratio to each 
 other, or that a subject that is most valuable for main- 
 taining the struggle for existence is least valuable for 
 purposes of human culture. It is well known that in 
 business houses, interest, discount, etc., are computed 
 from printed tables, with no reference whatever to arith- 
 metical rules, and still less to mathematical principles. 
 The daily life of such an accountant requires him to be 
 expert in the use of an interest table, and Mr. Spencer 
 would say that the hourly use of such a table will give 
 this operative the very discipline he needs. Now, if we 
 allow that one purpose of school-life is to perfect the 
 mind as the instrument of thinking, what kind of teach- 
 ing will be best for this end — a training in the mere use 
 of an interest table, instruction in the application of 
 rules, or instruction in mathematical principles? Is it 
 not evident that if we regard the pupil as a human be- 
 ing, and not merely as an operative, the training that is 
 incomparably the best will come from the study of prin- 
 
48 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ciples, and that only a discipline of the lowest order will 
 result from instruction in the use of the table ? And is 
 it not quite as evident that the knowledge of most im- 
 mediate 'practical value to this accountant is of the very 
 least disciplinary value to him as a man ? I say again, 
 that if we put the Red Indian, the Bushman, and the ac- 
 countant in the same category, and conceive that each is 
 doomed by "Nature" to his respective habitat, we must 
 grant the identity of the practical and the disciplinary 
 values of subjects ; but if we conceive that our pupils 
 should become men before they are converted into oper- 
 atives, and that while they are operatives they still re- 
 main men, we must hold that the value of knowledge 
 for mere guidance is one thing, and the value of knowl- 
 edge for mental discipline is quite another thing. In- 
 deed, it cannot have escaped the notice of any observing 
 teacher that the acquirement of the knowledge most 
 needed to sustain the struggle for existence is almost 
 valueless for purposes of mental discipline. In support 
 of this view I quote from writers whose opinions are en- 
 titled to great weight : 
 
 " The reasoning that I oppose," says Renan, " starts 
 from a low and false assumption — that instruction serves 
 only for the practical use that is made of it ; for exam- 
 ple, that he who, by his social position, does not make 
 use of his intellectual culture has no need of that cult- 
 ure. Literature, from this point of view, is useful only 
 to the man of letters ; science only to the savant ; good 
 manners and fine bearing only to men of the world. 
 The poor man should be ignorant, for education and 
 knowledge are useless to him. Blasphemy, gentle- 
 men! The culture of the mind and the culture of 
 the soul are duties for every man. They are not 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 49 
 
 simply ornaments, they are things as sacred as relig- 
 ion." * 
 
 "If we wish to cultivate the mind to the extent of its 
 capacity," says Dugald Stewart, " we must not rest satis- 
 fied with the employment which its faculties receive from 
 our particular situation in life. It is not in the awk- 
 ward and professional form of the mechanic, who has 
 strengthened particular muscles of his body by the hab- 
 its of his trade, that we are to look for the perfection of 
 our animal nature ; neither is it among men of confined 
 pursuits, whether speculative or active, that we are to ex- 
 pect to find the human mind in its highest state of cul- 
 tivation. A variety of exercises is necessary to preserve 
 the animal frame in vigor and beauty ; and a variety of 
 those occupations which literature and science afford, 
 added to a promiscuous intercourse with the world, in 
 the habits of conversation and business, is no less neces- 
 sary for the improvement of the understanding." f 
 
 "All the usages of the language," says Alexander 
 Bain, " including the highest rules of correctness and 
 propriety, may be imparted merely as guidance in speak- 
 ing and writing with exactness ; there being no attempt 
 to cast them into methodical shape or to reduce them 
 under rational explanations. This would be pure infor- 
 mation ; the teaching of language, so conducted, would 
 be very useful, but would not be called a mental disci- 
 pline. Those persons that all their life have been associ- 
 ated with only such as speak correctly and elegantly, be- 
 come correct and good speakers without any training at 
 all. A foreign language might be imparted in the same 
 
 * "La Famille et r&at clans rlSducation " (Paris, 1869), p. 3. 
 t " The Philosophy of the Human Mind " (London, 1856), p. 12. 
 
 3 
 
50 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 way ; even dead languages could be taught without 
 grammar rules; that is to say, by mere habituation in 
 reading books." * 
 
 So far as I am able to discern the truth, the main facts 
 in the case under discussion may be summarized as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 1. Educational science must have first and chief refer- 
 ence to the pupil as a member of the human race, and 
 living under the law of ascent towards the type of his 
 kind ; and a subordinate reference to the pupil as an in- 
 dividual destined to move in a fixed habitat. 
 
 2. The type of education should be humane or liberal, 
 rather than professional or technical. 
 
 3. The type of instruction should be disciplinary, rath- 
 er than practical. 
 
 4. In the acquirement of disciplinary knowledge, the 
 mind must work under high tension ; a much lower 
 tension suffices for the acquisition of useful knowledge. 
 Even in this domain, action and reaction are equal. 
 
 5. Mr. Spencer's assumption that the knowledge that is 
 best for guidance is also best for discipline is false. On 
 the contrary, the immediate practical value of a subject 
 and its disciplinary value are usually in an inverse ratio 
 to each other. 
 
 Thus far my purpose has been to show that the broad- 
 est and most characteristic distinction in education values 
 is that which is expressed by the terms Practical and Dis- 
 ciplinary ; and that these values are not only not the 
 same, but that they are usually in the inverse ratio to 
 each other. I shall now attempt to show that the prac- 
 tical value of a subject is either direct (immediate) or in- 
 direct (mediate). 
 
 * " Education as a Science" (New York, 1879), p. 136, 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 51 
 
 If a miller were asked why he rents a seat in a rail- 
 way train instead of owning the railway and the train, 
 his reply would doubtless be that it is cheaper to rent 
 than to own. This is the proximate but not ultimate 
 explanation of this and analogous facts. If he were 
 asked why he buys a suit of ready-made clothing, instead 
 of raising the sheep, carding and spinning the wool, 
 weaving the fabric and making the garments with his 
 own hands, he would doubtless say that he has neither 
 the time nor the skill requisite for this series of proc- 
 esses ; that human power is so limited and human needs 
 so various that he must buy what he cannot produce. 
 If this miller were versed in political economy, he would 
 say that the ultimate fact in the case is the law of division 
 of labor. It is by reason of this law that, in the supply of 
 most of our wants, it is cheaper and more convenient for 
 us to rent or buy than to own or make. I now wish to 
 make plain the fact that, in the matter of useful knowl- 
 edge, the law of the division of labor operates in precise- 
 ly the same way, or that there is some knowledge of daily 
 use for guidance that we must have as a personal posses- 
 sion ; but that there is other knowledge that we need 
 only on occasions, and that we cannot afford to acquire, 
 but which we can hire. In case of illness, the lawyer 
 employs a physician; and, in case of an invasion of his 
 rights, the physician employs the lawyer. "Why has not 
 each acquired, as a personal possession, that peculiar (pro- 
 fessional) knowledge possessed by the other 1 Evidently 
 because it is cheaper and safer to hire this knowledge 
 than to own it ; and this cheapness and safety are due to 
 the division of labor. The educational principle that is 
 involved in these illustrations may be stated as follows : 
 Each human being needs for his daily guidance as a 
 
52 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 toiler, a citizen, and a man, certain kinds of knowledge, 
 and this knowledge he should acquire as a personal pos- 
 session; but there is other knowledge which he needs 
 for use or guidance only on occasion ; this knowledge 
 he need not own, provided he can more conveniently 
 hire it. 
 
 This principle may now be more articulately illus- 
 trated as follows : For his daily guidance, the miller 
 must know definite things relating to his trade; he must 
 also know his rights and duties as a citizen; and as a 
 man, or member of the race, he must know something of 
 history, geography, literature, and science, and so must 
 know how to read. All this knowledge he must possess, 
 and the practical value of this knowledge to the miller 
 is of the direct order. On occasions, however, as in ill- 
 ness, in trouble, in preparing for a journey, or in emer- 
 gency of any sort, he needs other knowledge that he can 
 avail himself of indirectly, or that he can readily find 
 in books. This is practical knowledge of the indirect 
 order. 
 
 To show the bearings of this distinction on education- 
 al science, I will return for a moment to Mr. Spencer's 
 discussion of " the relative values of knowledges." His 
 method of procedure is " to classify, in the order of their 
 importance, the leading kinds of activity which constitute 
 human life," and then to determine, in each case, the 
 kind of knowledge that is needed to support these five 
 classes of activities. It would be easy to criticise this 
 classification as to its sequence ; and the classification it- 
 self, though elaborated with such philosophic pretence, 
 seems to have but very little bearing on the foregone 
 conclusion. But we will accept, provisionally, Mr. Spen- 
 cer's triumphant answer {Science) to his main question, 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 53 
 
 "What knowledge is of most worth?" and endeavor to 
 show in what way his theory would affect educational 
 practice. Admitting the inestimable value of physio- 
 logical knowledge to the human race, does it follow 
 that every one should make a study of this science as a 
 means of guidance ? The answer is to be found in the 
 fact that only the simplest rudiments of this subject, 
 scarcely more than its empirical precepts, come within 
 the range of the average pupil's opportunities ; but that 
 the real science has been monopolized for professional 
 use by physicians. The fact in the case is that, with the 
 exception of the parts directly connected with hygiene, 
 physiological knowledge is as little available for individ- 
 ual guidance as astronomical knowledge. Under normal 
 and usual conditions, the human body is a machine that 
 will perform its functions without the need of assistance ; 
 and under abnormal conditions, nothing but the highest 
 knowledge and skill can be trusted in the way of inter- 
 vention. Daily experience show's that in this domain 
 nothing is more dangerous than half knowledge, or " a 
 little knowledge." Every man, for his own daily guid- 
 ance, should know the plain conditions of healthy living, 
 with respect to food, air, exercise, etc., and this easy 
 knowledge should be communicated to all ; but when a 
 man is sick, or bruised, or wounded, he should employ 
 a physician — he should hire the knowledge and skill that 
 his own preoccupations and predilections have forbidden 
 him to acquire. In the first case, physiology has a prac- 
 tical value of the direct order; in the second case, it is 
 of indirect or mediate practical value. The case just pre- 
 sented is a typical one. For example, all men have need 
 of hats ; shall all men, therefore, learn the hatter's trade ? 
 By no means. It suffices that each man knows enough 
 
0-i SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 of hats to judge of their quality when he buys, and to 
 take proper care of the one lie chances to own. Any 
 knowledge beyond this must be relegated to the craft of 
 hatters. 
 
 While on this special subject, I am tempted to indulge 
 in a quotation to show how an austere philosopher may 
 mistake a pretty bit of sentiment for argument : " When 
 a mother," says Mr. Spencer, "is mourning over a first- 
 born that has sunk under the sequelae of scarlet-fever — 
 when, perhaps, a candid medical man has confirmed her 
 suspicions that her child would have recovered had not 
 its system been enfeebled by over-study — when she is 
 prostrate under the pangs of combined grief and re- 
 morse, it is but a small consolation that she can read 
 Dante in the original." * 
 
 Small indeed ! But could any accomplishment afford 
 consolation in such a, case ? Must a young lady forbear 
 to learn Italian, but devote herself instead to the study 
 of medicine., because of the possibility that she may one 
 day suffer the loss of a child ? Must all mothers be phy- 
 sicians? 
 
 Mr. Spencer next discusses in succession the claims 
 of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, 
 and psychology, as they severally bear on the mainte- 
 nance of his Hwe categories of activities ; and the only 
 inference that can be legitimately drawn from his line of 
 argument is that these sciences should form constitu- 
 ent parts of the education of each human being, on the 
 
 •» — - 
 
 * " The perfection of philosophic style is to approach as nearly as 
 possible to that species of language we employ in algebra, and to 
 exclude every expression which has a tendency to divert the at- 
 tention by exciting the imagination, or to bias the judgment by 
 casual associations." — Dugald Stewart, op. cit, p. 265. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 55 
 
 ground of their direct practical value to the individual ; 
 or, as he prefers to say, on the ground of their value for 
 guidance.* It must be allowed that Mr. Spencer makes 
 very plain what no one has ever disputed — that the sci- 
 ences he names are of inestimable importance to the hu- 
 man race ; but when he infers from this evident fact that 
 each individual of the race, for the sake of his own guid- 
 ance, must have all this knowledge as a personal posses- 
 sion, he fails to note the manner in which the law of the 
 division of labor affects the distribution of knowledge. 
 The largest inference that can possibly be drawn by le- 
 gitimate means is that Science should be taught With 
 reference to the individual, the outcome of the whole 
 matter is this : For purposes of guidance, he need learn 
 only those sciences, or those parts of each science, which 
 furnish practical knowledge of the direct order; wdiile, 
 for knowledge that he needs on occasion, or in emergen- 
 cies, he must depend on specialists. In other words, we 
 must do in respect of knowledge just what we do in re- 
 spect of other things : some things we must acquire and 
 own ; some other things we had better buy or hire, and 
 of these latter things our knowledge may be general, 
 learned at second hand as literature. 
 
 In interpreting the matter contained in this section, it 
 must be kept constantly in mind that I am discussing the 
 claims of subjects on the ground of their practical value, 
 or their value for guidance. It does not follow that a 
 subject useless for individual guidance should not be 
 
 * " The general conclusion, then, from our review of Mr. Spen- 
 cer's theory is, that its due satisfaction involves the assumption 
 that every man is to be his own doctor, lawyer, architect, bailiff, 
 tailor, and, I suppose, clergyman." — Joseph Payne, " Lectures on 
 the Science and Art of Education " (London, 1880), p. 249. 
 
50 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 studied by him. The pursuit of such a study can be de- 
 fended on still higher and better grounds. 
 
 Up to this point the results of my inquiry may be tab- 
 ulated as follows : 
 
 ( 1. Direct (Immediate). 
 
 Education ( *■ Practical. ] 
 v , -s ( 3 - Indirect (Mediate). 
 
 Values. ^ 2. Disciplinary. 
 
 Something is gained when we have sharply distin- 
 guished the practical value of a subject from its disci- 
 plinary value. If the foregoing analysis is correct, a 
 given study may have a high value for guidance, and, at 
 the same time, a low value as a mental gymnastic ; and 
 vice versa. The whole subject would be simplified by 
 the identification of these two values, and, as the philo- 
 sophic mind is ever aspiring after unity, it is not singu- 
 lar that the synthetic instinct of Mr. Spencer, uninstruct- 
 ed by practical dealings with education values, should 
 lead him to unite two things that, in fact, are widely dif- 
 ferent ; but one of the requisites of applied science is 
 the making of exact discriminations, to the end that pro- 
 vision may be made for the specific cases with which art 
 always has to deal. There is great gain to practical 
 teaching by sharply marking the distinction just referred 
 to ; but a still higher degree of prevision is made possi- 
 ble by distinguishing direct practical values from indi- 
 rect practical values. If the distinction is well founded, 
 it exposes the specious fallacies of Mr. Spencer's first 
 chapter, and makes possible the construction of a curric- 
 ulum on a more rational basis than the one proposed 
 in "Education." I shall now attempt to give a further 
 extension to the previsions of educational science by 
 marking a distinction in the second order of education 
 values, the disciplinary. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 57 
 
 In medical science there are agents known as specifics, 
 from the circumstance that they affect a particular organ 
 or effect a particular result ; and there are other agents 
 known as tonics, from the circumstance that they lend a 
 general invigoration to the physical system. Specifics 
 appear to act in the way of concentration, and tonics in 
 the way of diffusion. Under the conception that the 
 mind grows by exercise and by the assimilation of ali- 
 ment, and that, to use Bacon's phrase, " every defect of 
 the mind may have special receit," it seems probable, on 
 a priori grounds, that disciplinary subjects may affect 
 the mind either as specifics or as tonics ; and all the ob- 
 served facts in school-life seem to confirm the truth of 
 this hypothesis. For example, it is a matter of common 
 observation that the effect of mathematical study seems 
 to be concentrated in that mode of mental activity 
 known as deductive reasoning. The effect of this study 
 is certainly limited, or, as we might say, local ; for, as 
 Mr. Bain observes, mathematics " does not teach us how 
 to observe, how to generalize, how to classify ;"* and 
 it is equally apparent that it leaves unaffected the whole 
 domain of feeling as distinguished from thinking. In- 
 deed, mathematics would not be the incomparable instru- 
 ment it is for the training of the deductive reason if it 
 brought into play the emotional activities. The disci- 
 plinary value of local geography is of the specific type, 
 for the study chiefly involves the effort of memory. The 
 tendency of botanical study is to teach the art of classi- 
 fying, and so it calls into play the power of observing 
 and discriminating. The experimental study of physi- 
 ology furnishes a training in inductive reasoning, and in 
 this sense is a specific. 
 
 * "Education as a Science," p. 153. 
 3* 
 
58 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Quite broadly distinguished from studies of the spe- 
 cific type are studies like history, geography, and litera- 
 ture, that affect the mind as a whole, involving both 
 thinking and feeling, calling into play several distinct 
 modes of intellectual activity, and so producing what is 
 known as culture. The disciplinary effect of studies of 
 this type I would call tonic. The distinction now point- 
 ed out, unlike the one previously noted, is one in degree 
 or sphere, rather than in kind; though in extreme cases, 
 like those of arithmetic on the one hand and history on 
 the other, I think the element of feeling rises to such a 
 height in the second instance that it produces a different 
 kind of effect. Still, a rigid analyst might insist that 
 some emotion is involved even in a discipline of the spe- 
 cific type. As my treatment of this subject is at best but 
 tentative, there are several points on which I shall not 
 speak very positively. Even the terms I have used to 
 mark the distinction mav not be the best. The terms 
 intensive and extensive may best describe the two effects ; 
 and in marking the highest form of the tonic or exten- 
 sive effect, I have often felt impelled to call the value of 
 a subject that produces it its culture value ; for, if I mis- 
 take not, the main elements in culture are catholicity or 
 comprehensiveness of mind, and emotion, tempered, re- 
 fined, and subservient to the intellect and the will.* It 
 would seem that a study, to have a high culture value, 
 must embody the following characteristics : it must be 
 concerned with a unit that is vast and imposing, capable 
 of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity; and, 
 involving the main activities of the whole mind, must 
 appeal strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity; and 
 must impress the mind with the sense of a comprehen- 
 *For Plato's conception of culture, see p. 288. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 59 
 
 sive, organic unity. All these marks are found in geog- 
 raphy, literature, and history, as will be seen from the 
 following statements: The unit of geographical study 
 is the earth, regarded as the dwelling-place of man ; the 
 unit of literature is the aggregate of the best things 
 thought by the human race; the unit of historical study 
 is the aggregate of the most notable things done by the 
 human race. In each case, the unit is imposing; em- 
 bodies a very large human element ; and, in the end, re- 
 mains a comprehensive, concrete aggregate. It is to be 
 observed that the conception of the final comprehensive 
 aggregate is attained, first, by a process of discrimination, 
 and then by a recombination of the proximate parts. 
 We first apprehend and then comprehend. Study that 
 ends in mere disintegration has no real culture value ; 
 for the conception of wholeness is essential to this end. 
 If the Greeks had been a race of anatomists, the praises 
 of Greek art had never been sung. In a minor degree, 
 physiology may be a culture subject, provided the stu- 
 dent does not proceed to dissection. Here is a typical 
 illustration of two education values absolutely different 
 in kind. For practical ends, the student should dissect ; 
 for purposes of culture, he should not. Here are also 
 indicated two different methods of study. For practical 
 ends, a subject like physiology should be studied experi- 
 mentally; for the purpose of culture, it should the rath- 
 er be studied as literature. In one respect, astronomy is a 
 culture sub ject par excellence — the unit of study has such 
 vastness and complexity. In another respect, the human 
 element, it is inferior to geography. Geology, as an in- 
 dependent study, has still less culture value than geog- 
 raphy — it has no independent unit that is imposing; 
 though, when superadded to geography, it raises the 
 
60 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 culture value of the latter. Chemistry has scarcely any 
 culture value as it lias been defined; it has neither of 
 the three marks required. The same may be said of 
 physics, botany, mineralogy, and zoology. If there be an 
 exception, it is in the case of botany and zoology, in 
 which there is the phenomenon of life.* 
 
 In what has preceded I have not attempted to form a 
 descriptive table of education values, but merely to illus- 
 trate some distinctions that I think are involved in the 
 construction of such a table. From the point of view 
 
 * " There is still another art with which the universities stand in 
 close relation, and which is the highest of all arts — the art, not of 
 gaining a livelihood in the service of society, but the art of living. 
 This is taught through philosophy, history, literature, and aesthet- 
 ics. This, the last and greatest of the arts — ars vivendl — requires 
 no special adaptation of university machinery; for it is taught 
 through knowledge, through thought, through habitual converse 
 with humane letters. This art of rational living is summed up in 
 the word ' culture,' to which the physical sciences may make con- 
 tributions, but which they can never of themselves effect. It rs by 
 thought on things human that the mind of man is cultured ; thought 
 on the things of sense, in the form of physical science, being never 
 more than subsidiary and contributory to true culture. . . . This 
 culture, or art of rational living, is the highest aim of university 
 life. It is promoted chiefly through the philosophical faculty, 
 within which are included philosophy in its widest acceptation, 
 economics, jurisprudence, history, literature, aesthetics, and, let me 
 add, the principles of education, which, is simply the exposition of 
 the way in which a human soul grows to the full fruition of its 
 powers." — Laurie, "The Training of Teachers," pp. 267, 2G8. 
 
 "While the study of the physical sciences tends to give power 
 over the material forces of the universe, it leaves untouched the 
 greater forces of the human heart ; it makes a botanist, a geologist, 
 an electrician, an architect, an engineer, but it does not make a 
 man." — Joseph Payne, op. cit., p. 263. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 
 
 Gl 
 
 now obtained it may bo profitable to review these con- 
 trasts. On what ground can we defend the general study 
 of the higher mathematics ? Chiefly for its disciplinary 
 value, and this discipline is of the specific type. This 
 is not a culture subject in any true sense of the term. 
 Only a partial (weak) defence of the higher mathematics 
 can be made on the ground of its practical value, for 
 this is mainly of the indirect order. It is not in one 
 case in a hundred that this knowledge is directly useful 
 to the individual for his own guidance. The formal 
 description of the higher mathematics as to its educa- 
 tion value may be thus (tentatively) stated : direct prac- 
 tical value, very low; indirect practical value, high ; spe- 
 cific disciplinary value, very high; tonic disciplinary value 
 (culture value), low. The description of literature would 
 run somewhat in this way : direct practical value, low ; 
 indirect practical value, low; specific disciplinary value, 
 low; tonic disciplinary value (culture value), very high. 
 To illustrate the fact that the education value of a sub- 
 ject depends, not alone on its own intrinsic nature, but as 
 well upon the manner in which it is pursued, I will give 
 three descriptions of physiology : (1) as it is pursued out 
 of an ordinary text-book in a high school; (2) as it is 
 studied experimentally or inductively ; and (3) as it is 
 learned by a mature scholar by the study of a book, 
 or as literature. I will tabulate my estimates as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Direct practical value . . . 
 Indirect practical value . . 
 Specific disciplinary value . . 
 Tonic disciplinary value (Cul- 
 ture value) 
 
 First. 
 
 Second. 
 
 Third. 
 
 Moderate. 
 
 Moderate. 
 
 Moderate. 
 
 Moderate. 
 
 Very high. 
 
 Moderate. 
 
 Low 
 
 High. 
 
 Low. 
 
 Low. 
 
 Low. 
 
 High. 
 
62 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 The statement has already been made that not only 
 are the practical value and the disciplinary value of a 
 subject not identical, as Mr. Spencer assumes, but that, 
 on the contrary, they are inversely proportional. I am 
 not warranted in affirming that this statement is true in 
 all cases, but that it is quite generally true I feel assured. 
 Arithmetic and history furnish examples of my state- 
 ment. To be intensely practical to the business man, 
 arithmetic should be taught as a system of rules, or, bet- 
 ter still, as a manipulation of tables, as in the case cited ; 
 the nearer an accountant approaches an arithmetical ma- 
 chine the more rapidly and the more surely can he do 
 his specific tasks. To be mindful of the rationale of 
 processes would sadly hamper Mr. Spencer's accountant. 
 
 " The centipede was happy quite, 
 Until the toad in fun 
 
 Asked, ' Pray, which leg comes after which V 
 Which worked her mind to such a pitch, 
 She lay distracted in a ditch, 
 Considering how to run." * 
 
 Now arithmetic, taught in this mechanical way, while 
 having a high value for guidance, has almost no value 
 whatever for discipline; while arithmetic, taught as a 
 science, has a very high value as a specific discipline, but 
 has a much lower practical value than in the previous 
 case. It is a fact of common observation that a pupil 
 well taught in the science of arithmetic cannot compete 
 with the merchant's or the grocer's clerk in rapid and ac- 
 curate computation. Piato was at least instinctively right 
 in declaring that, for purposes of a liberal education, arith- 
 
 * Quoted from " The Universities, in their Relation to the Train- 
 ing of Teachers,' 1 by Rev. R. H. Quick. 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 03 
 
 metic should not be cultivated "with a view to buying 
 and selling, as merchants or shopkeepers." 
 
 Mr. Spencer, as is very proper, considering his theory 
 of education values, has a small opinion of history. " That 
 kind of information which, in our schools, usurps the 
 name of history — the mere tissue of names and dates, 
 and dead, unmeaning events — has a conventional value 
 only ; it has not the remotest bearing upon any of our 
 actions, and is of use only for the avoidance of those un- 
 pleasant criticisms which current opinion passes upon its 
 absence."* History, according to this writer, lias a value 
 for guidance only when taught as a philosophy (pp. 65- 
 09). It is fair to say that, even in our highest institutions 
 of learning, historical teaching very seldom attains this 
 purpose ; and yet it is equally certain that the subject, as 
 taught in all our better schools, has an almost incompara- 
 ble culture value, second, I think, only to literature. The 
 special point I have in mind is this : for purposes of 
 daily guidance, history has but very little value; while, 
 for purposes of culture, it has a very high value. 
 
 Mainly for purposes of illustration, I add an analytical 
 table of education values. I do not presume that these 
 values are the true ones. They represent no small 
 amount of study, but doubtless further examination will 
 change more than one of them. I have a hope that 
 some who are cultivating educational science will give 
 me the benefit of their markings as the basis of a more 
 accurate table. I have attempted to determine only 
 three degrees of value, high, medium, and low. 
 
 * " Education," p. 3G. 
 
G4 
 
 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Subjects. 
 
 Reading . . 
 Grammar. 
 History. . . 
 Geography- 
 Arithmetic 
 Physiology, 
 
 Physics 
 
 Botany 
 
 Literature. , 
 
 Practical. 
 Direct. Indirect. 
 
 H. 
 M. 
 L. 
 L. 
 M. 
 L. 
 M. 
 L. 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 L. 
 
 M. 
 M. 
 L. 
 H. 
 H. 
 M. 
 M. 
 
 Disciplinary. 
 Specific. Tonic. 
 
 L. 
 H. 
 L. 
 L. 
 H. 
 L. 
 L. 
 L. 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 M. 
 H. 
 H. 
 L. 
 L. 
 M. 
 M. 
 H. 
 
 By making a distribution into three groups, this table 
 may take the following form: 
 
 Subjects. 
 
 Pea 
 
 Direct. 
 
 OTIOAL. 
 
 Indirect. 
 
 DiBOIPLI 
 
 Specific. 
 
 NAEY. 
 
 Tonic. 
 
 Reading. 
 
 a, W) 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 Physiology. 
 
 5 M 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 f II 
 
 M. 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 History. 
 
 *a 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 Literature. 
 
 s 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 Science. 
 
 Ino 
 
 M. 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 M. 
 
 Mathematics. J 
 
 O 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 Geography. "" 
 
 £ S 
 
 
 
 
 
 History. 
 
 iltu 
 iviu 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 L. 
 
 H. 
 
 Literature. j 
 
 v& 
 
 
 
 
 
 A systematic discussion of education values would 
 need to be directed by a set of rules, clearly stated and 
 resolutely followed. I venture to suggest a few guides 
 of this kind. 
 
 1. Some standards of marking should be selected, that 
 is, certain studies which exhibit maximum values of each 
 type. In my markings I have used the following stand- 
 ards : for direct practical values, Heading; for indirect 
 'practical values, Physiology; for specific disciplinary 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 
 
 C5 
 
 values, Arithmetic; for tonic disciplinary values, His- 
 tory. 
 
 2. The reflex or disciplinary effect of a study must be 
 sharply distinguished from its instrumental effect in the 
 way of guidance. On a priori grounds, I think there is 
 a reasonable presumption that a high value of one order 
 precludes a high value of the other order. 
 
 3. The direct instrumental value of a study must be as 
 sharply distinguished from its indirect instrumental value. 
 There are still stronger a 'priori grounds for thinking 
 that these values are inversely proportional. 
 
 In studying these values, it is necessary to take the 
 case of pupils whose future vocations have not yet been 
 determined. 
 
 4. It would seem that if the intensive (specific) effect of 
 a study be high, its extensive (tonic) effect must be low ; 
 and that, if its extensive effect be high, its intensive ef- 
 fect must be low. A subject cannot have a maximum 
 effect of both orders ; but it may have a low or medium 
 value of both orders. 
 
 I have sometimes employed a special analytical table 
 for the examination of disciplinary values. The follow- 
 ing is an example of what I mean : 
 
 Subject. 
 
 Mem- 
 ory. 
 
 Obser- 
 vation. 
 
 Keason. 
 
 Imag- 
 ination. 
 
 Feeling. 
 
 Compre- 
 hension. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 Botany. 
 
 Geography. 
 
 Histor} r . 
 
 Literature. 
 
 Physics. 
 
 Physiology. 
 
 Grammar. 
 
 M. 
 H. 
 H. 
 H. 
 H. 
 L. 
 M. 
 M. 
 
 H. 
 
 M. 
 M. 
 H. 
 
 H. 
 M. 
 
 M. 
 M. 
 
 H. 
 H. 
 M. 
 
 M. 
 
 H. 
 H. 
 
 M. 
 II. 
 II. 
 M. 
 
 L. 
 
 In this table I have tried to indicate, in each case, the 
 
6G SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 modes of mental activity that are chiefly involved, and 
 also the different degrees in which they are affected. A 
 blank does not indicate that no effect is produced. By 
 comprehension I mean the mental grasping of a definite 
 whole. A study that serves this purpose must be con- 
 cerned with a unit that is large and imposing. 
 
 I beg leave again to remind the reader that this pres- 
 entation is tentative. The greatest assurance I feel is 
 that the general line of my thinking is right. 
 
 A considerable time has now passed since the fore- 
 going was written, and I have repeatedly thought and 
 taught over the ground covered by this discussion. In 
 the main, I feel confirmed both in the distinctions in 
 values which I had noted, and in the practical utility of 
 these distinctions as sources of scientific prevision. On 
 one point of importance, however, my opinion has been 
 changed, and, in making this revision, I prefer to leave 
 the first statement in its original form. My purpose is 
 not so much to express the truth as to find it. 
 
 In the preceding analysis I have spoken of the highest 
 form of the disciplinary effect of a study as its culture 
 effect. It now seems to me that the cultnre value of a 
 subject is so distinct in kind from the merely practical 
 and disciplinary values, as to deserve to be set off by it- 
 self. The distinction drawn between the two discipli- 
 nary effects is valid, and the two terms specific and tonic 
 may still serve to note this difference; but culture is not 
 so much a state of potency as a possession ; or, rather, it is 
 a state of potency accompanied by the pleasing conscious- 
 ness of possession. Under this view knowledge may be 
 acquired for three distinct purposes: (1) for the practi- 
 cal use that can be made of it ; (2) for the mental power 
 
EDUCATION VALUES. 67 
 
 generated by the efforts at acquirement ; (3) for the men- 
 tal satisfaction coming from the conscious possession of 
 it. If I mistake not, that state of soul we call culture 
 implies serenity, poise, and contemplative delight. A 
 mind might be perfectly formed, trained, or disciplined, 
 yet, if it were not furnished as well, it could not be 
 called cultured. From this point of view the statement 
 concerning the culture value of mathematics, made in the 
 earlier part of this essay, needs to be qualified. Any sub- 
 ject pursued in such a way and to such an extent as to 
 lead to a great breadth of view, has an element of culture 
 in it; for the cultured man, as Plato says, "has magnifi- 
 cence of mind, and is the spectator of all time and all 
 existence." 
 
 The analysis of education values, then, which now 
 seems to me valid, is as follows : 
 
 Education Values. < 
 
 1. Practical. 
 
 2. Disciplinary. 
 , 3. Culture. 
 
 While the best disciplinary effect of study is secured 
 by requiring the mind to work under high tension, I 
 think it will be found that a much lower tension is fa- 
 vorable to the culture aim. To undertake to teach his- 
 tory, geography, and literature for the distinct purpose 
 of discipline would be a mistake, and would end in fail- 
 ure. These studies produce their best effect through a 
 process of slow infiltration. The matter is to be elabo- 
 rated and assimilated, and so time is a factor of first im- 
 portance. A method that is conversational and discur- 
 sive is best, something resembling the Greek dialectic. 
 
68 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Education is now suffering from the well-intended ef- 
 forts of narrow constructionists. With some, the prac- 
 tical or utilitarian ideal is set up as the almost exclusive 
 aim. Mr. Spencer is of this class. Others, with equal 
 partiality, affect the disciplinary ideal, and so put a low 
 value on subjects which do not directly and readily min- 
 ister to training. The thought of teachers should be 
 turned to the importance of contemplative knowledge. 
 Knowledge that has neither a practical nor a disciplinary 
 value may still minister in an essential manner to the 
 requirements of complete living. History, literature, 
 and geography certainly serve their highest purpose when 
 they minister to our intellectual pleasures; and I think 
 reflection will make it appear that the general study of 
 science is best defended on this ground. 
 
 This doctrine of the value of knowledge as a source 
 of intellectual pleasure has a most important bearing on 
 the question of moral education. Truer words than these 
 have not been spoken : " To cause gross natures to pass 
 from the life of the senses to the intellectual life; to 
 make study agreeable, to the end that the higher pleas- 
 ures of the spirit may struggle successfully against the 
 appetites for material pleasures ; to put the book in the 
 place of the wine-bottle ; to substitute the library for the 
 saloon ; in a word, to replace sensation by idea — such is 
 the fundamental problem of popular education." * 
 
 * Gabriel Compayrg, "History of Pedagogy" (Boston, 1886), p. 
 381, 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH, AND SOME 
 APPLICATIONS OF THIS DOCTRINE TO TEACHING. 
 
 There is the same reason why the professional teacher 
 should have an articulate knowledge of psychology as 
 there is that the professional physician should be well 
 versed in physiology. The physician needs to know the 
 structure of the human body and the mode of its organ- 
 ic activities, in order that he may adapt means to ends ; 
 for skill in an art consists in this deft adaptation. The 
 teacher's art is addressed primarily and principally to 
 the mind ; and, if this art is to be rational, the teacher 
 must know the structure of this organism, and the mode 
 of its organic activities. This knowledge of psychology 
 is professional knowledge, strictly so called ; i. <?., the 
 knowledge that chiefly differentiates the teacher from 
 the scholar. 
 
 The most instructive of the general characteristics of 
 mind is its self-activity in the line of growth. 
 
 This conception involves the following particulars : 
 
 1. There must be a supply of something in the nature 
 of aliment that can employ these activities and thus sus- 
 tain this growth. In other words, there must be some- 
 thing upon which the organism can react in such a way 
 that growth may take place through a process of elabora- 
 tion and assimilation. The most general name for this 
 aliment is knowledge.* 
 
 * This conception of knowledge is well authorized. The follow- 
 ing is a good statement of the thought : "Knowledge is the food 
 
70 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 2. The elaborating instrument is primarily automatic, 
 and has uniform and predetermined modes of activity ; 
 and in this functional activity there is absolute continu- 
 ity from infancy to maturity. In other words, the func- 
 tional activity of the mind is the same whether in the 
 child or the man ; just as the functional activity of the 
 stomach is the same in both cases. In both departments 
 of growth, the organism may react on one kind of ali- 
 ment and not on another; but if there is reaction at all, 
 it is uniform in its mode. 
 
 3. The kind of growth will depend chiefly on two 
 things : (1) The state of the elaborating organism, as 
 weak or strong ; and (2) the kind of aliment that is as- 
 similated. There are innate differences in mental con- 
 stitution that determine some differences in the results of 
 growth. That marked differences in mental regimen 
 will produce variations in growth is a fact too obvious 
 to require comment. 
 
 4. As the mind is constitutionally automatic, mental 
 growth is mainly unconscious ; the rule being that when 
 aliment is supplied at the right time, in the right form, 
 and in due quantity, its elaboration will proceed without 
 further assistance. 
 
 of the mind. In order that food may strengthen the body, it must 
 be duly digested and assimilated. And so knowledge must be 
 not merely grasped, in its rudiments, by the indiscriminating mem- 
 ory, but it must be comprehended and, so to speak, digested, in or- 
 der that it may nurture the mind." — Johnson's " Cyclopaedia," ar- 
 ticle " Education." 
 
 Bacon's conception of knowledge as mental food is expressed in 
 his quaint way as follows : " Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others 
 to be Swallowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested." — 
 " Of Studies." 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. 71 
 
 5. The automatic action of the mind, whereby it reacts 
 upon aliment, may be stimulated and directed by deliber- 
 ate purpose. Thus a pupil's mental growth may be pure- 
 ly spontaneous or fortuitous, or he may determine that 
 he will think on a given subject for a given purpose, or 
 his teacher may determine the purpose and the subject, 
 and then provoke the process of thought by some form 
 of stimulation. The normal stimulant for this specific 
 purpose is a question. Such a question is a demand on 
 the pupil's resources, and the effort to supply this de- 
 mand determines some mode of mental activity. 
 
 6. The elaboration of aliment implies some loss of 
 identity. The original presentations may disappear as 
 such, but will reappear in some higher form. The high- 
 est form of this reappearance is opinion, belief, charac- 
 ter, common-sense, faculty, power. A presentation has 
 served no high purpose if it has not suffered some degree 
 of transformation. In many cases, the presentation may 
 have served its high purpose and then have absolutely 
 disappeared. In this region we find the uses of forgot- 
 ten knowledge.* 
 
 7. Time is an all-essential element in mental growth. 
 
 * Montaigne illustrates this transformation of mental aliment as 
 follows : " 'Tis a sign of crudity and indigestion to vomit up what 
 we eat in the same condition it was swallowed, and the stomach 
 has not performed its office unless it have altered the form and con- 
 dition of what was committed to it to concoct." 
 
 Mr. Bain quotes the following Scripture to illustrate this doc- 
 trine : " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it 
 abideth alone ; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." — John 
 xii, 24. 
 
 A striking paragraph on " The Uses of Forgotten Knowledge " 
 may be found in Mr. Fitch's ''Lectures on Teaching" (Cambridge, 
 1883), p. 145. 
 
 / 
 
72 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 There may not only be a long interval between the re- 
 ception of a presentation and its elaboration into a high- 
 er form, but the progressive steps in this transformation 
 are indeterminate, and so involve indeterminate amounts 
 of time. 
 
 8. The distribution of aliment is subject to the follow- 
 ing law : the faculty that is strongest, or that needs the 
 least, will appropriate the most ; while the faculty that is 
 weakest, or that needs the most, will appropriate the 
 least. In other words, the strong faculties will grow 
 stronger, and the weak, weaker. If the purpose is to pro- 
 mote a symmetrical growth, aliment must, by some means, 
 be diverted into these unaccustomed channels. The only 
 mode of doing this is by calling the weak faculties into 
 use. Exercise will determine a flow of aliment ; nurture 
 will give new strength ; strength will permit facility ; 
 facility will make exercise agreeable; and so, by means 
 of reactions and interactions, there is a virtual recrea- 
 tion of faculty ; or, power in esse has been evolved out of 
 power in posse. 
 
 Along with this promotion of symmetry by excitation, 
 there should go some clipping of an exuberant faculty, 
 by holding it in abeyance. The partial disuse of such 
 a faculty will leave some energy unemployed, and this 
 can be transferred to the account of a weaker member. 
 
 Distaste for a study generally indicates a loss of tone 
 in some part of the mental organism; and instead of this 
 being a valid plea for neglecting a subject, it is rather to 
 be regarded as an argument for its pursuit. There is, 
 at least, this element of truth in the ascetic belief in dis- 
 agreeable studies. 
 
 On the contrary, with the purpose of symmetrical 
 culture still in mind, the fact that a pursuit is very easy, 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. 73 
 
 or very agreeable, may be a reason why it ought to be 
 discouraged. When the period of general training is 
 past, there is no doubt that pursuits should lie in the lines 
 of one's predilections. 
 
 9. The second condition of growth — aliment being the 
 first — is exercise. Two general modes of mental activity 
 should be distinguished. First, there is the mental act 
 whereby knowledge is gained, and then the subsequent 
 act by which it is applied to use. Absolutely speaking, 
 the mind is never passive, for activity is one of the essen- 
 tial marks of mind. States of suffering are states of in- 
 tensest activity.* Even when the process of learning is 
 most mechanical, there must be some kind and degree of 
 mental reaction, otherwise acquisition would be impossi- 
 ble. But, during all processes of instruction, the mind 
 must constantly react on the presentations made to it, and 
 this reaction is the first mode of mental exercise. So 
 far, we may say that the process of alimentation is itself 
 a disciplinary process; that the mind is formed while 
 being informed. So far as I am able to see, the precept, 
 "first form the mind, then furnish it," is an absurdity 
 and an impossibility. The true conception is, that the 
 mind is formed while being furnished. 
 
 The second mode of mental exercise consists in the 
 use of the knowledge that has been acquired, or in the 
 application of knowledge to the production of some de- 
 termined result. These two phases of exercise may be 
 distinguished in memory and recollection, in the repro- 
 
 * "Patience is no negation. It is a vigorous and sustained ac- 
 tion, amidst outward stillness, of some of the most powerful facul- 
 ties with which the human being is endowed, and primarily of its 
 powers of firmness and resistance." — Harriet Martineau, " House- 
 hold Education" (Boston), pp. 181, 182. 
 
 4 
 
74 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ductive and the constructive imagination, in the learn- 
 ing of a mathematical truth and its application to use, 
 
 10. We must distinguish accumulation from organiza- 
 tion ; that is, the acquisition of material from its elabora- 
 tion into structure, faculty, and power. It is customary 
 to state this distinction as that between growth and de- 
 velopment;* but I am unable to conceive of develop- 
 ment except as a mode or a high form of growth. The 
 facts in the case seem to be these : (1) The materials of 
 thought may be collected in advance of their actual trans- 
 formation into thought; and (2) this transformation is a 
 process of infinite gradations. But it may be described 
 as a progress from vagueness to definitude, or from a low 
 type of organization to progressively higher types of or- 
 ganization. " When I was a child," says Paul, " I thought 
 as a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child ; but 
 when I became a man, I put away childish things. For 
 now [in infancy and here] we see through a glass, darkly, 
 but then [in maturity and in the hereafter] face to face." 
 
 These facts should guard us against two false assump- 
 tions : (1) That accumulation and elaboration should pro- 
 ceed pari passu ; and (2) that a child's knowledge should 
 necessarily be clear and definite. On the contrary, the 
 indications are that accumulation may precede elabora- 
 tion by an indefinite period ; that the necessary gaining 
 of material is pro tanto antagonistic to transformation; 
 and that the normal state of a child's knowledge is that 
 of confusion, vagueness, and indefiniteness. The con- 
 ception of mind as a growth makes this a fundamental 
 
 * See Sully, "Outlines of Psychology" (London, 1884), pp. 40, 
 54 ; Spencer, " Education," p. 271. 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH, 75 
 
 principle of instruction: there should be a gradual evo- 
 lution of definitude out of confusion. 
 
 11. The fact that material must be collected somewhat 
 in advance of its transformation, clearty points out one 
 of the functions of memory, and settles a disputed ques- 
 tion in practical teaching, viz., whether one may memo- 
 rize what may not at the time be understood. From 
 the view of the mental processes that has been stated, it 
 follows that the crude material of thought should be 
 held, so to speak, in store; and this holding in store is 
 the primary function of memory. It follows further, 
 from this conception, that matter presented in proposi- 
 tions not only may, but must be memorized before it is 
 understood ; for the understanding of a thing is synony- 
 mous with its elaboration or its transformation, and elab- 
 oration is impossible unless the material is held within the 
 range of the mind's activities. For truth's sake, it is nec- 
 essary to distinguish memory before elaboration from 
 memory after elaboration. We must memorize in order 
 that we may understand, and then hold in memory what 
 we have understood. The only real question at issue is 
 whether memorizing should be formal or informal. As 
 formal memorizing favors clear representation, it is wor- 
 thy of much more respect than is now paid it.* 
 
 12. The normal mode of the mind's reaction upon its 
 material is, first, by resolution or disintegration, then by 
 reconstruction or reintegration. The normal mode of 
 
 * "Every rational curriculum of elementary study must be based 
 on tlie fact that the observing are called into action before the re- 
 flecting faculties ; in other words, that the food must be swallowed 
 before it is digested ; though I believe it to be an educational fal- 
 lacy to maintain that therefore no food should be swallowed that 
 cannot be instantly digested.' 1 — Joseph Payne, op. clt., p. 25G. 
 
76 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 progress is from apprehension to comprehension, from 
 confused aggregates to articulate wholes ; and the normal 
 process is analysis complemented by a reciprocal synthe- 
 sis. This doctrine is opposed to the current assumption 
 that a child's knowledge should, in the first instance, be 
 built up constructively out of elements supplied by the 
 teacher. The true conception is, that the mind is to find 
 elements by the disintegration of some aggregate, and 
 then is to reconstruct a new whole out of the parts of 
 this dismembered aggregate; and that this disintegra- 
 tion and reintegration constitutes thought proper. 
 
 13. The material that serves for the mind's reactions 
 may be presented to it immediately or mediately ; that 
 is, it may be intuitive or representative — presented with- 
 out the mediation of language or with such mediation. 
 All knowledge of the past is impossible save through the 
 mediation of symbols ; knowledge of the remote and the 
 inaccessible is impracticable save through such media- 
 tion ; and, through the limitation of time, very much 
 that is near must be made known by representation. As 
 a consequence of the division of labor, and as a condition 
 of progress, knowledge at first hand must stand to knowl- 
 edge at second hand as a part to a constantly and rapidly 
 increasing whole. 
 
 An intuitive presentation is concrete in the strict and 
 limited sense of that term; it is a congeries of many 
 parts or qualities, a complex thing, appealing directly to 
 the senses ; and, if the mind reacts upon it, it must be in 
 the way of discrimination or analysis ; it cannot be brought 
 into relation with other knowledge, cannot be assimi- 
 lated or organized, without a discovery of its marks or 
 qualities. Such discovery is always analytical. 
 
 Compared with an intuitive presentation, a representa- 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. 77 
 
 tive presentation, or one made by means of symbols, is 
 always abstract; for language always employs general 
 terms. Strictly speaking, therefore, purely concrete in- 
 struction is impossible; but, by general consent, state- 
 ments that refer to an individual thing, and that make a 
 direct appeal to sense, are called concrete ; while state- 
 ments referring to a class, and making no direct appeal 
 to sense, are called abstract. Strictly speaking, there is 
 no absolute line between concrete and abstract instruc- 
 tion ; but, in general, the degree of concreteness may be 
 estimated by nearness to sense, and the degree of abstract- 
 ness by remoteness from sense. From the psychologi- 
 cal point of view, the essential thing to note is that 
 whether the presentation be intuitive, whether the state- 
 ment be (relatively) concrete, or whether it be abstract, 
 the material thus offered the mind is some complex 
 whole; and, if the mind reacts upon it, the mode of re- 
 action must be analytical. In other words, all presenta- 
 tions, whether concrete or abstract, conform to the great 
 psychological law, that u the first procedure of the mind, 
 in the elaboration of its knowledge, is always analytical." 
 The following statements illustrate the almost insensi- 
 ble transition from the so-called concrete to the abstract. 
 The simple truth is, that both elements appear in each 
 statement ; but that the concrete predominates in the 
 first members of the series, and the abstract in the last : 
 
 1. This rose (exhibiting the object) is red. 
 
 2. That rose was red. 
 
 3. That rose was beautiful. 
 
 4. Roses are beautiful. 
 
 5. Rose is a beautiful color. 
 
 6. Beautiful colors are admired. 
 
 7. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." 
 
 It will be observed that, in passing down this series, 
 
78 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 there is a growing recession from sense, and an increas- 
 ing extension of classes. Each statement, whether con- 
 crete or abstract, is a complex whole, which the mind 
 must resolve before it can be understood ; and the so- 
 called concrete statements permit the easier resolution, 
 because the}' are the more likely to fall within the range 
 of the pupil's experiences, and because the classes which 
 they involve, being narrower, it is easier to detect an in- 
 dividual of the class referred to. 
 
 Suppose this question is asked: "Shall I make my in- 
 struction largely in the concrete, or may it be largely in 
 the abstract V The question stated in this general man- 
 ner cannot be answered. If this qualification be added, 
 " My pupils are young, and their power of thinking low," 
 the answer is obvious : " Your instruction should be large- 
 ly in the concrete." Or, if this be the qualification, " My 
 pupils are mature, and are good thinkers," the answer is 
 just as obvious : " Your statement may be in the ab- 
 stract." In other words, if this famous rule were changed 
 to read, " First the abstract, then the concrete," it would 
 coincide with the general and legitimate practice of all 
 schools above the primary grade. 
 
 Concrete statements and abstract statements are both 
 legitimate, because they all conform to one of the pri- 
 mary laws of the mind's activities : The first reaction of 
 the mind upon the presentations made to it is always 
 Analytical. 
 
 If the precept," First the concrete, then the abstract," 
 were thrown into this form, it would express a useful 
 truth : " Primary instruction should be largely of the 
 concrete type; advanced instruction should be largely of 
 the abstract type." This truth maybe illustrated graph- 
 ically as follows : 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. 
 
 70 
 
 o ^ 
 
 This is the interpretation : "In the instruction of chil- 
 dren, the concrete should predominate, and in the in- 
 struction of adults, the abstract; and, in passing from 
 childhood to maturity, instruction in the concrete should 
 be gradually superseded by instruction in the abstract." 
 The assumption that children are unable to resolve or 
 interpret abstract statements is one of the popular errors 
 of the day. In fact, they are as quick to comprehend a 
 truth presented to the mind's eye as to comprehend a 
 fact or an object presented to the bodily eye. In both 
 cases apprehension is easy, and comprehension relatively 
 difficult ; but this difficulty is no greater in the first of 
 the above cases than in the second.* 
 
 14. As the first stage in thought proper is the resolu- 
 tion of aggregates, small or great, it is important to note 
 the fact that the great instrument of mental analysis is 
 language. Let us suppose that a general truth has been 
 formulated in words; in what way is the statement to be 
 interpreted to the end that it may be comprehended or 
 understood? If the language is significant, each word 
 arrests the attention upon one element in the aggregate, 
 so that, when the series of words has been passed in re- 
 view, the complex whole has been broken up into a larger 
 
 * " If it should be asked, how early, or at what period of life, men 
 begin to form general conceptions ? I answer, as soon as a child can 
 say, with understanding, that he has two brothers or two sisters; 
 as soon as he can use the plural number he must have general con- 
 ceptions." — Thomas Reid, "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of 
 Man" (London, 1843), pp. 327, 328. 
 
80 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 or smaller number of parts. Counting is a ready illus- 
 tration of this general process. In passing regularly from 
 one upward, each number is a determinant; and when 
 the last number has been reached, what at first was an 
 indefinite aggregate has been resolved, say, into fifty parts. 
 Analysis by means of language is more difficult than this, 
 because the word must first be translated into. a notion, 
 and then the notion individualized ; but, as mere proc- 
 esses, reading and counting, are essentially the same, they 
 serve to call attention to marks, and the determination 
 of marks is a process of resolution. 
 
 The more general a term is, that is, the fewer its marks 
 and the greater the number of individuals that it con- 
 tains, the more difficult it is to interpret it — that is, to 
 translate it into an individual image. Hence the ob- 
 served fact that so-called concrete statements are more 
 easily understood, or resolved, than abstract statements. 
 At the same time, another important truth becomes obvi- 
 ous — that the pupil's ability to interpret a general state- 
 ment is determined by his knowledge of language. 
 
 15. Whether instruction shall be concrete or whether 
 it may be abstract, that is, whether the terms shall be 
 near to sense or whether they may be remote from it, is 
 thus a question which depends very largely on the child's 
 knowledge of words and his ability to interpret lan- 
 guage, and so does not admit of any absolute solution. 
 Only a general statement can be made, somewhat in this 
 form : The terms employed in the instruction of children 
 should be narrow in extent and near to sense ; while those 
 employed in the instruction of the more mature may be 
 of wide extent and remote from sense. All instruction 
 must employ general terms, and there is always the dan- 
 ger that these terms may not be individualized, or, rather, 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. 81 
 
 realized. The remedy is in a careful study of words, and 
 in the testing of the pupil's interpretation by requiring 
 him to express the meaning by the use of other symbols. 
 16. Sense-impressions are the original material out of 
 which the mind, by its elaborative processes, constructs 
 the whole fabric of thought. Out of a comparatively 
 few primary notions, by combination and permutation, 
 the mind is furnished with an almost infinite variety of 
 new constructions.* New knowledge is but a new com- 
 bination of old material, and the most of our thinking 
 consists in discovering or establishing relations between 
 part and part, and between parts and some containing 
 whole. When a sense-impression has once been estab- 
 lished there is no further need of the object that pro- 
 duced it. Forever after, the symbol of the thing is all 
 that the processes of thought require. The materials 
 for thinking are not objects, but ideas ; and, in general, 
 thought proper takes place with the greatest facility 
 and sureness in the absence of sense-stimulation. The 
 assumption that intense sense-activity is conducive to 
 thought proper is a vulgar error. The senses have 
 served their purpose when they have furnished the mind 
 
 * "The senses supply the pabulum or nutriment which the intel- 
 lect assimilates or elaborates according to its own proper laws. 
 The highest manifestations of intellect, abstract thought and rea- 
 soning, illustrate this dependence of intellectual activity on the 
 elements, materials, or "data 1 ' of sense. The growth of intellect 
 by repeated exercise thus implies a continual supply of sense-mate- 
 rials, a multiplication of sense-impressions, to be worked up into 
 intellectual products." — Sully, op. cit., p. 48. 
 
 "All knowledge takes its rise in the senses. No intellectual 
 work, such as imagining and reasoning, can be done till the senses 
 have supplied the necessary materials." — Ibid., p. 107. 
 
 4* 
 
82 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 with the crude materials of thought. A prolonged and 
 acute training of the senses is irrational in its tendency : 
 it magnifies the animal and minimizes the man. The 
 movement of the animal intelligence is invariably out- 
 ward; it makes no return upon itself. The movement 
 of the human intelligence is somewhat outward, but char- 
 acteristically inward. So far as it is rational, it returns 
 upon itself in the act of reflection. The proof of this 
 doctrine lies in the incompatibility of a confirmed out- 
 ward flow of activity with that inward flow which is the 
 necessary condition of thought proper; and also in the 
 actual state of the savage intellect, where we observe an 
 acute training of the senses, conjoined with almost ab- 
 solute torpor of the intellect. In fact, the savage is a 
 living example of persistent sense-training. 
 
 The inference to be drawn from this doctrine is, that 
 a training of the senses that more than suffices to furnish 
 the mind with the crude material of thought is down- 
 ward in its tendency.* 
 
 * "I really do not know what it is that remains to be desired, in 
 
 regard to the ordinary purposes of life, if the body be sound and 
 
 in high health, and the mind be alert. It is to the savage, or it is 
 
 to men exercising special callings of an inferior sort, that there can 
 
 be much benefit in having the senses sharpened to an extreme acute- 
 
 ness. 
 
 ******** 
 
 " In truth, it may be questioned whether a gentleman might not 
 really wish himself wanting in such legerdemain perfection of the 
 senses as would be likely to suggest to others the belief that he 
 had passed his childhood under the tuition of a gang of gypsies. 
 ******** 
 
 " For the rest, that is to say, whatever reaches its end in the bod- 
 ily perceptions, I think we can go but a very little way without so 
 giving the mind a bent toward the lower faculties, as must divert 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. b3 
 
 17. Feeling and thinking are mental states in sueh 
 broad contrast that, in their extreme manifestation, they 
 are mutually exclusive. That is, intense feeling is fatal 
 to thinking, and intense thinking deadens feeling. It 
 seems to be one of the ultimate facts of our mental con- 
 stitution, that the tendency of wholeness is to excite and 
 sustain feeling, and the tendency of analysis is to prevent 
 or destroy feeling. Conversely, feeling resists the de- 
 composition of aggregates, and so opposes thinking ; and 
 thinking, so far as it is analytical, destroys the emotional 
 element in an object. 
 
 Some of the more important inferences to be drawn 
 from this doctrine are the following: 
 
 (1.) Sense activity, per se, is unfavorable to thinking. 
 This has been noted in a general way, in the preceding 
 section. 
 
 (2.) The normal condition for thinking is, in Mr. Bain's 
 happy phrase, " the quiescence of the emotions." Inter- 
 est in the individuality of a thing, partisanship, preju- 
 dice, passion, affection, are each and all the enemies of 
 thought proper. They resist discrimination and insight, 
 and so becloud and betray the judgment. The common 
 saying that "love is blind" involves a whole philoso- 
 phy- 
 
 (3.) The direct tendency of mental culture is to weak- 
 en the empire of passions and emotion ; and, consequent- 
 ly, mental culture is at the same time moral culture. 
 
 it from the exercise of the higher. A man may be a proficient in 
 active sports and gentlemanly gymnastics, compatibly with ele- 
 gance and elevation of mind ; but it is another thing so to send the 
 soul outward toward its perceptive consciousness as to imbue it 
 with the organic sensitiveness of the lynx, the hare, or the spider." 
 —Isaac Taylor, " Home Education" (London, 18G7), pp. 10G, 107. 
 
84 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 (4.) As the purpose of art is to please, an analysis of a 
 work of art that just suffices to raise the quality of its 
 wholeness is conducive to its high purpose ; while any 
 analysis that tends to injure or to destroy this organic 
 unity defeats the supreme purpose of the artist. Prox- 
 imate analysis heightens the notion of organic unity, 
 while ultimate analysis, especially if it serves some tech- 
 nical end, as surely destroys such unity. Literary criti- 
 cism, as now administered in many secondary schools, 
 transgresses this law of aesthetic unity. 
 
 18. We state a well-known physiological fact when we 
 say that the feeling of hunger is the motive for eating; 
 and it is a truth of the same order, but of wider signifi- 
 cance, to state that the feeling of interest is the motive 
 that leads the mind first to apprehend and then to com- 
 prehend. I do not forget that the earliest movement of 
 the mind is automatic or instinctive, nor that automatism 
 always plays an important part in mental growth ; but I 
 here refer to another characteristic fact, that the larger 
 part of mental activity is volitional, and that the will is 
 stimulated by motive. Perhaps the clearest conception 
 of the mechanism of motives may be gained by regard- 
 ing them as forces that act, some by attraction, and oth- 
 ers by propulsion. In other words, we may do a thing 
 because there is some force ahead of us drawing us tow- 
 ard the object ; or because there is some force behind us 
 pushing us toward the object. Pleasurable motives af- 
 fect us in the first way, and painful ones in the second 
 way. Under the deft manipulation of motives, teaching 
 becomes a fine art ; and an adequate exposition of this 
 theme would constitute the most valuable chapter in ap- 
 plied psychology. I can do no more than state a few 
 practical observations : 
 
THE CONCEPTION OF MENTAL GROWTH. 85 
 
 (1.) The ultimate aim of the teacher should be to estab- 
 lish motives of the attractive sort, that will act continu- 
 ously and powerfully. Perhaps a love of knowledge for 
 its own sake, or a confirmed taste for intellectual im- 
 provement, is the highest and most comprehensive mo- 
 tive that the teacher can seek to establish. But this 
 motive must be regarded as the last term of an ascend- 
 ing series. 
 
 (2.) A less diffuse, but more intense, motive is what 
 Mr. Bain terms " intrinsic charm," a feeling developed 
 and sustained by the particular subject in hand. A ready 
 illustration of this motive is the feeling excited by a 
 work of fiction. It is possible that the sustaining mo- 
 tive in the study of geometry or of grammar may be of 
 this sort. 
 
 (3.) Before the motive of "intrinsic charm" can be 
 brought into service, it will often be necessary to arouse 
 the feeling of pleasure in prospect. Per se, a study 
 may be uninteresting; but if the pupil can be made to 
 see that some future good is involved in it, he will en- 
 dure some degree of present discomfort. But when the 
 study is once fairly under way, it is always possible to 
 awaken the feeling of interest in the subject itself. 
 
 (4.) Closely related to the preceding is what may be 
 called borrowed interest, from the circumstance that an 
 enthusiasm manifested by a teacher, by classmates, or by 
 a friend, will often induce a like feeling in the breast of 
 the learner. Inherited predilections and antipathies are 
 very common and very powerful motives. 
 
 (5.) At this point we probably cross the line separating 
 the attractive from the propelling motives. It is doubt- 
 less to be regretted that it should ever be necessary to re- 
 sort to these vis a tergo motives ; but, accepting things as 
 
86 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 we iind them, as we are very often bound to do, we are 
 obliged to employ stimulants of the painful sort. But 
 these modes of stimulation should be regarded as artifi- 
 cial and temporary, to be superseded, as soon as possible, 
 by the attractive motives first described. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 
 
 Doubtless the broadest generalization yet reached, in 
 educational science, is this : " The education of the child 
 must accord, both in mode and arrangement, with the 
 education of mankind as considered historically; or, in 
 other words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual 
 must follow the same course as the genesis of knowl- 
 edge in the race."* Mr. Spencer attributes the enuncia- 
 tion of this doctrine to Comte, though Condillac had 
 previously drawn up a scheme of education avowedly 
 based on this assumed principle. f 
 
 Mr. Spencer's proof of this doctrine is to this effect: 
 what is true of the aggregate must be true of each of 
 the units comprising the aggregate ; the race acquired its 
 knowledge in a certain way, and therefore each individ- 
 ual of the race must acquire his knowledge in the same 
 way. The word Must, in Mr. Spencer's thought, at once 
 involves us in a curious dilemma. Had he said Should, 
 or Ought, we might be forewarned against an error; but 
 if it be true that there is but one way in which the indi- 
 vidual can gain his knowledge, as Mr. Spencer declares,^: 
 
 * Spencer, "Education," p. 122. 
 
 f "CEuvres de Condillac" (Paris, 179S), tome v., pp. i.-xlix. 
 
 I " As the mind of humanity, placed in the midst of phenomena, 
 and striving to comprehend them, has, after endless comparisons, 
 speculations, experiments, and theories, reached its present knowl- 
 edge of each subject by a specific route, it may rationally be in- 
 
83 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 then error is impossible; the current mode of acquisition 
 is the normal mode, and to preach a reform in this partic- 
 ular is an inexcusable waste of breath. But, as a matter 
 of fact, Mr. Spencer prescribes a radical reform ; it fol- 
 lows, therefore, that the genesis of knowledge in the in- 
 dividual need not of necessity be the same as the gene- 
 sis of knowledge in the race. The only form in which 
 the question can be discussed is this : Should the indi- 
 vidual gain his knowledge in the same way in which the 
 race as a whole gained its knowledge \ The answer de- 
 pends on the manner in which we interpret the "gene- 
 sis of knowledge in the race." Two interpretations are 
 possible, one of which makes Mr. Spencer's assumption a 
 truth and the other an untruth. I will now state what 
 I conceive to be the "genesis of knowledge in the race." 
 It will be granted that in knowledge, as in wealth, the 
 race has made progress from age to age, and even from 
 generation to generation. Now progress is possible only 
 under this condition : inheritance supplemented by indi- 
 vidual acquisition* Without inheritance there can be 
 
 ferrecl that the relationship between mind and phenomena is such 
 as to prevent this knowledge from being reached by any other 
 route ; and that, as each child's mind stands in this same relation- 
 ship to phenomena, they can be accessible to it only through the 
 same route." — " Education," p. 123. 
 
 * " The science of humanity, like humanity, ought to be pro- 
 gressive ; and there is progress only on two conditions : first, to 
 represent all one's predecessors ; then, to be one's self, to sum up 
 all anterior labors, and to add to them." — Cousin, " History of 
 Modern Philosophy " (New York, 1869), i., p. 212. 
 
 "There is not a person in a civilized state who does not share in 
 the inheritance of institutions, knowledge, ideas, doctrines, etc., 
 which come down as fruits of civilization. We take these things 
 in by habit and routine, and suppose that they come of themselves, 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 89 
 
 no progress; for then, eacli generation must start where 
 the preceding generation started. And progress is quite 
 as impossible without individual acquisition ; for in this 
 case each generation would stop where the preceding gen- 
 eration stopped. If we conceive the race as consisting 
 of a succession of generations, the law of progress will 
 stand somewhat as follows : A ; I (A) -f A ; I (2 A) + A ; 
 I(3A) + A; I (4A) + A; I (5A)+A. I indicates what 
 each generation inherits, and A what it adds to its in- 
 heritance. To accept no part whatever of capitalized ex- 
 perience is an impossibility. In climate, in society, in 
 language, in means of communication, in heredity, in a 
 thousand ways that might be enumerated, we are the in- 
 voluntary heirs of all past ages; and to renounce this 
 inheritance, and to start even within a thousand years of 
 where the race started, is an absolute impossibility. The 
 law of inheritance is involved in the division of labor, 
 for in the lifetime of our benefactors we partake of the 
 results of their industry and skill. Can any man pro- 
 duce even a tenth of what he needs to support the con- 
 ditions of the life into which he is born ? As it is im- 
 possible to reproduce the environment even of the gen- 
 
 or are innate. . . . Every man in a civilized state inherits a status 
 of rights "which form the basis and stay of his civil existence. 
 These rights are often called 'natural.' In truth, they are the 
 product of the struggles of thousands of generations. Men, before 
 they were capable of reflection or had developed science, had but 
 one process for learning : that was by trial and failure. They paid 
 with their blood the penalty of all their mistakes, and the price of 
 all their experiments which failed. Our inheritance of established 
 rights is the harvested product of the few successful experiments 
 out of thousands which failed." — W. G. Sumner, North Amer. Mev., 
 June, 1884, p. 575. 
 
90 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 eration immediately preceding, much less of the early 
 generations, it is absurd to talk of beginning where the 
 race began, and of repeating its experiences. We could 
 not do this if we would, we should not if we could. 
 
 The law of progress in knowledge conforms to the 
 general law above formulated. If we distinguish second- 
 hand, or capitalized, knowledge, from knowledge that is 
 gained by original discovery, or by rediscovery, and des- 
 ignate the former by the symbol C, and the latter by the 
 symbol D, the general law of the " genesis of knowl- 
 edge in the race" will take this form: D; C (D)-{-D; 
 C (2D) + D ; C (3D) + D ; C (4D) + D. In the acquisition 
 of knowledge, is it possible for the individual to begin 
 where the race began and to proceed as the race proceed- 
 ed ? He cannot begin where the race began, for it is 
 not possible to reproduce the environment of the nascent 
 race ; but if we conceive the race composed of successive 
 generations, the individual may gain his knowledge ac- 
 cording to the same general mode by which the race ac- 
 quired its knowledge. No given generation can acquire 
 by original discovery, nor by rediscovery, all the knowl- 
 edge needed for its use ; but it must accept certain por- 
 tions of the knowledge accumulated by preceding gener- 
 ations at second-hand or on trust, and to this add such 
 knowledge as it may gain by its own independent activ- 
 ity. The individual must follow the same general course. 
 Much of the knowledge that he needs for his guidance 
 he cannot learn at all, so difficult of attainment is it, and 
 so engrossing are the special activities involved in the 
 support of daily life. Here, as before, the division of 
 labor involves one form of inheritance. If the food we 
 eat or the water we drink needs to be analyzed, we beg, 
 or borrow, or buy the knowledge and skill of an expert. 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 01 
 
 In other words, there is knowledge absolutely necessary 
 on occasion that we cannot afford to acquire at all. In 
 all such cases we submit to the guidance of others; we 
 walk by faith when we cannot walk by sight. 
 
 But leaving out of account this special and peculiar 
 knowledge, it is only a small part of what we need to 
 know that we can acquire by original discovery, or even 
 rediscovery. There is knowledge that must be gained at 
 second-hand, if gained at all. Mr. Spencer is very con- 
 sistent in discrediting the value of historical knowledge, 
 for, as he interprets the " genesis of knowledge in the 
 race," its acquisition would be impossible. All such 
 knowledge is absolutely inaccessible by direct means; 
 but there are other kinds of knowledge necessary for 
 guidance and culture that are relatively inaccessible by 
 direct means, such as geographical, scientific, theological, 
 etc. Must the individual construct his own almanac? 
 Must he forego his newspaper and gazetteer, and depend 
 for news on what he can discover by travel ? On what 
 principle may he read "Education," and " Social Statics," 
 and " Principles of Psychology," if Mr. Spencer's inter- 
 pretation of the " genesis of knowledge in the race " is 
 correct? But some one who is more anxious to defend 
 a theory than to acknowledge the force of plain facts 
 w T ill say: "This is not knowledge, but information; we 
 know only what has the sanction of our personal experi- 
 ence." Then there is no such thing as historical or the- 
 ological knowledge. We do not knoio that Moses and 
 Caesar and Napoleon and Washington once lived, or that 
 certain divine laws are binding on human conduct. And 
 so w r e who have not travelled do not know that there are 
 such cities as London and Paris and Koine. Do we 
 know our own names, and the names of our parents and 
 
92 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 intimate friends, and of the place where we live, and of 
 our country % In the last analysis our knowledge of these 
 things rests only on tradition ; our " firm belief of what 
 is true " in all such matters does not rest at all on the 
 ground of personal experience. Is this knowledge or 
 information ? 
 
 It is said, in defence of this distinction, that we are 
 liable to deception in whatever does not fall under our 
 personal observation ; and hence that, outside of the do- 
 main of our own experience, we cannot be said to know. 
 Shall we refuse to call the current coin of the day money 
 because we are now and then in possession of a counter- 
 feit piece, or because we did not actually make the coin 
 that passes through our hands ? Besides, we are liable to 
 deception even within the domain of our own proper ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The dogma that learning should be a process of dis- 
 covery, or of rediscovery, carries with it the assumption 
 that nothing is real knowledge unless it has the sanction 
 of the learner's personal experience. This theory denies 
 that there is such a thing as second-hand knowledge ; it 
 is only information or belief. For example, if I see a 
 house burn, I have acquired an item of real knowledge, 
 for my own senses have been impressed with an actual 
 occurrence ; but when I have related to a reporter what 
 I saw, what was knowledge to me has become only infor- 
 mation to him ; and when the reader, a thousand miles 
 away, has perused the reporter's account, he stands re- 
 lated to the transaction in the third degree, and is by so 
 much the less entitled to say that he knows a house 
 burned at a stated time ; the most that he can say is that 
 he believes such a thing occurred ; he has only informa- 
 tion on this point. 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 93 
 
 The reader will at once discover the bearing of this 
 distinction. Learning, it is agreed, should consist in the 
 acquisition of knowledge; but as knowledge is a mental 
 state, induced by acts of reflection or of observation, lan- 
 guage can by no possibility be the source of knowledge, 
 and books serve no other purpose in real learning than 
 to facilitate the gaining of actual experience. 
 
 For example, a book contains the statement that a 
 given volume of carbonic acid is composed of one vol- 
 ume of carbon vapor and two volumes of oxygen. 
 
 This statement is not knowledge, for it rests only on 
 authority; but it may be converted into knowledge by 
 being actually verified by the reader; he must actually 
 rediscover the composition of carbonic acid, in order that 
 he may attain real knowledge ; and the only value of 
 the book consists in pointing out the right track to fol- 
 low. This, in brief, is the theory of knowledge made 
 necessary by Mr. Spencer's theory of education. 
 
 "When generalized, this theory amounts to this: We 
 know only what we have observed. The term observed 
 is used in its widest sense, as including observation prop- 
 er and reflection ; we may know subjective as well as ob- 
 jective phenomena. By the light of this theory, let us 
 note what we know and what we do not know. Of 
 course we shall be obliged to transfer many items of sup- 
 posed knowledge to the category of beliefs. The first 
 consequence of the theory is that we can have no knowl- 
 edge of anything outside the sphere of our own observa- 
 tion. We know nothing that occurred prior to our birth ; 
 we do not even know that anything did occur prior to 
 that period. Worse still, we do not know that that par- 
 ticular event itself ever occurred, nor do we know that 
 we shall die. For the knowledge of this fact we must 
 
94 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 wait till we have had this experience, and then, of course, 
 it is too late to serve our purpose. We do not even 
 know our own names, nor the names of our friends. If 
 Ave impose names on our children, we might be supposed 
 to know their names, but only on the hypothesis that we 
 know that such and such beings are really our children — 
 a thing that is virtually impossible by the terms of the 
 new theory. This statement may need illustration. 
 
 J. S. Mill remarks: "What we are said to observe is 
 usually a component result, of which one tenth may be 
 observation and the remaining nine tenths inference." * 
 In illustration of this statement he says : " I affirm that 
 I saw my brother at a certain hour this morning. If 
 any proposition concerning a matter of fact could be 
 commonly said to be known by the direct testimony of 
 the senses, this surely would be so. The truth, however, 
 is far otherwise. I only saw a certain colored surface ; 
 or, rather, I had the kind of visual impressions which are 
 usually produced by a colored surface ; and, from these 
 as marks, known to be such by previous experience, I 
 concluded that I saw my brother. I might have had 
 sensations precisely similar, when my brother was not 
 there." Still further to eliminate the element of infer- 
 ence from supposed observation, let us take another sim- 
 ple case. We are told, or we read, that a certain object 
 weighs a thousand pounds. Our theory requires us to 
 reject this as knowledge, and so we verify the statement 
 by placing the object in the scales and adjusting the bal- 
 ance. Then our belief is converted into knowledge. Not 
 so fast. Our knowledge, we must recollect, is measured 
 by what we have observed. The only essential fact 
 we have observed in this case is that when the balance 
 
 * "Logic" (New York, 1867), p. 381 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 95 
 
 is struck the weight stands at the mark " 1000." Our 
 
 CD 
 
 hasty conclusion involves two very large assumptions: 
 (1) that the weight is accurate, and (2) that the levers of 
 the scales are accurately adjusted. We know neither of 
 these things by our own observation. We might meas- 
 ure the levers and test the weight, but both these proc- 
 esses would require a standard, and how can we vouch 
 for the accuracy of the standards? In this, as in thou- 
 sands of analogous cases, we are finally confronted with 
 mere authority, and beyond this we are powerless to go. 
 The reader will observe that by the terms of this the- 
 ory of knowledge we cannot affirm that we know the 
 name of any of the countless objects that surround us, 
 save, of course, those objects on which we may have im- 
 posed a name. It need not be said that there can be no 
 such thing as geographical knowledge, save within the 
 little sphere of one's own observations, and even within 
 this sphere we cannot affirm that we know the name of 
 a single object, for all name-giving in this realm tran- 
 scends our experience. In science, the situation is near- 
 ly as bad, for inference constitutes even more than nine 
 tenths of scientific procedure, and, in what is called ex- 
 perimental research, there is the implication of author- 
 ity at every step. On the hypothesis we are now discuss- 
 ing, astronomical and chemical knowledge would be near- 
 ly out of the question for the great mass of mankind. 
 Really to know that an eclipse will occur is a simple im- 
 possibility, for who can observe what is to be f The past 
 and the future are both unknowable: In fact, this as- 
 sumed theory of knowledge ends in an almost absolute 
 agnosticism, and reduces the field of learning to the nar- 
 row dimensions that fall within the sphere of the animal 
 intelligence. 
 
96 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 In what has preceded, I have merely noted some of the 
 more obvious implications of the new philosophy; I 
 have simply extended this latest theory of knowledge to 
 its logical consequences. Of course, these consequences 
 are repugnant to the common-sense of mankind, and 
 were certain theorists to be confronted with them in the 
 form here stated, they would doubtless attempt to save 
 their thesis by resorting to verbal legerdemain. 
 
 Let us now turn from these dreamy absurdities to a 
 conception of knowledge that is consonant with com- 
 mon-sense, and that makes possible a field of learning 
 worthy of human intelligence. 
 
 "Knowledge," says Whately, "implies three things: 
 (1) Firm Belief, (2) of what is true, (3) on sufficient 
 grounds" * Knowledge and belief, then, do not belong 
 to different categories, as the new theory assumes, but 
 knowledge is merely belief of a certain degree. " A low 
 degree (of belief) is termed presumption ; a higher de- 
 gree, probability ; and the highest possible degree is 
 termed certainty. When the mind is in that state de- 
 nominated certainty, we are generally said to know the 
 thing to which this very strong belief relates" (Upham). 
 The grounds of this belief are consciousness, the senses, 
 testimony, memory, inference. The new theory denies 
 that knowledge can result from testimony, oral or writ- 
 ten. " Without a general confidence in what men assert, 
 every one's knowledge of events and facts would be lim- 
 ited to those only to which he himself had been a per- 
 sonal witness. In this case no American, who had not 
 been a traveller, could believe that there was such a city 
 as London; . . . and no person whatever has any ground 
 for believing that such men as Hannibal and Csesar have 
 
 * "Logic," iv., 2. 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 97 
 
 ever existed. With the great mass of mankind the ex- 
 clusion of testimony as a ground of belief would be the 
 means of depriving them of the greater part of what they 
 now know " (Upham *). This conception of knowledge 
 is wholly at variance with the assumption that each in- 
 dividual, in the attainment of his knowledge, must lapse 
 into a state of modified barbarism. 
 
 There is historical, geographical, and astronomical 
 knowledge ; we do know our names, the fact of our birth, 
 and the certainty of death. Books are neither necessary 
 evils nor simple conveniences, but are the universal and 
 indispensable means whereby knowledge is gained on 
 the -'ground of human testimony. Books extend the 
 range of mental vision, just as the telescope is a virtual 
 extension of bodily vision. 
 
 The theory that knowledge cannot be capitalized has 
 been stated in this wise : 
 
 Knowledge is a mental state. 
 Mental states cannot he transmitted. 
 Knowledge cannot he transmitted. 
 
 We might offset this syllogism with another : 
 
 There has heen progress in knowledge from age to age. 
 Progress implies transmission. 
 Knowledge has heen transmitted. 
 
 A little reflection will show that the fallacy in the first 
 statement lurks in the term transmit. Substitute repro- 
 duce for transmit and the absurdity of the conclusion be- 
 comes apparent. Mental states cannot only be repro- 
 duced in successive generations of minds by the presence 
 of similar excitations, but these reproductions may occur 
 through the stimulus of symbols. The objects a, h, and 
 
 * " Elements of Mental Philosophy " (Boston, 1883), p. 126. 
 
 5 
 
98 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 c produce a certain mental state in A ; can a similar men- 
 tal state be induced in the mind of B without the pres- 
 ence of these objects? Certainly. Certain persons wit- 
 nessed the killing of Caesar by Brutus ; they therefore 
 knew the fact. But we also know this fact, not imme- 
 diately, as witnesses through sense-stimulation, but me- 
 diately, by the reproduction of a certain mental state 
 through symbol -stimulation. Any composite notion 
 may be reproduced through this secondary form of stim- 
 ulation, provided the ultimate elements of this notion 
 have once been in consciousness. A melody of Beetho- 
 ven may not only be reproduced upon an instrument 
 from the printed notes, but the mere perusal of these 
 notes will provoke a harmony in the mind of the musical 
 reader. A musical education that should proceed on the 
 theory held by Condillac and Spencer would be a very 
 curious affair. 
 
 The importance of reaching right conclusions on the 
 nature of knowledge and of the knowing process be- 
 comes evident when we consider the fact that attempts 
 are being made to conduct schools on the new hypothesis, 
 and at the same time there is a loud impeachment of the 
 education that is conducted on the older hypothesis. The 
 mistakes that are made in practice by thoughtful men 
 inevitably have their source in theoretical errors. 
 
 The latest educational' philosophy as to the office of 
 books is exhibited in the following quotation : " It is 
 sometimes said that books contain the treasured wisdom 
 of the past, and that there can be no progress among 
 men unless each generation in its turn builds on the 
 structures of those who have built before. Wisdom ex- 
 ists nowhere outside of some mind that is wise. It is 
 not a thing to l^e transmitted as material wealth is trans- 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 99 
 
 mitted. Every man who becomes wise must make him- 
 self wise by the activity of his own mental powers, and 
 when he dies his wisdom must go with him. It is true 
 that if he is fortunate enough he may leave some ex- 
 pressions of his wisdom behind, but these expressions are 
 to be interpreted, and they can be interpreted, by those 
 only who are able to think the same thoughts and to 
 know the same knowledge by an independent activity of 
 their own minds." * 
 
 The truth, as I understand it, is expressed in the fol- 
 lowing quotations from Dr. Reid and Dngald Stewart: 
 " General propositions in science may be compared to 
 the seed of a plant, which, according to some philoso- 
 phers, has not only the whole future plant involved 
 within it, but the seeds of that plant, and the plants 
 that shall spring from them through all future genera- 
 tions. 
 
 " But the similitude falls short in this respect, that time 
 and accidents, not in our power, must concur to disclose 
 the contents of the seed, and bring them into our view; 
 whereas the contents of a general proposition may be 
 brought forth, ripened, and exposed to view at our pleas- 
 ure, and in an instant. 
 
 " Thus the wisdom of ages, and the most sublime treas- 
 ures of science, may be laid up, like an Iliad, in a nutshell, 
 and transmitted to future generations. And this noble 
 purpose of language can only be accomplished by means 
 of general words annexed to the divisions and subdi- 
 visions of things." f 
 
 " The foundation of all human knowledge must be laid 
 in the examination of particular objects and particular 
 
 * John W. Dickinson, op. cit., p. 17. 
 t Thomas Reid, op. cit., p. 319. 
 
100 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 facts ; and it is only so far as our general principles are 
 resolvable into these primary elements that they possess 
 either truth or utility. It must not, however, be under- 
 stood to be implied in this conclusion that all our knowl- 
 edge must ultimately rest on our own proper experience. 
 If this were the case, the progress of science, and the 
 progress of human improvement, must have been won- 
 derfully retarded ; for, if it had been necessary for each 
 individual to form a classification of objects, in conse- 
 quence of observations and abstractions of his own, and 
 to infer from the actual examination of particular facts 
 the general truths on which his conduct proceeds, hu- 
 man affairs would at this day remain nearly in the same 
 state to which they were brought by the experience of 
 the first generation. 
 
 JUL .V. 3j> Ml ML. Aft, ML 
 
 W "TV W 7v VT VT TV 
 
 "In a cultivated society, one of the first acquisitions 
 which children make is the use of language ; by means 
 of which they are familiarized from their earliest years 
 to the consideration of classes of objects and of general 
 truths ; and, before the time of life at which the savage 
 is possessed of the knowledge necessary for his own pres- 
 ervation, are enabled to appropriate to themselves the 
 accumulated discoveries of ages. 
 
 * JUL JUL JUL JUL JUL JUL 
 
 7T 7T 7T TT W W 
 
 " Indeed, among those who enjoy the advantages of 
 early instruction, some of the most remote and wonder- 
 ful conclusions of the human intellect are, even in in- 
 fancy, as completely familiarized to the mind as the most 
 obvious phenomena which the material world exhibits to 
 their senses." * 
 
 * Dugald Stewart, op. clt., pp. 116, 117. 
 
THE GENESIS OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE RACE. 
 
 101 
 
 This thought has been more concisely expressed by 
 J. S. Mill : " Language is the depository of the accumu- 
 lated experience to which all former ages have contrib- 
 uted, and which is the inheritance of all yet to come." * 
 
 *" Logic," p. 413. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 
 
 Whatever special interest attaches itself to this theme 
 is doubtless due to the fact that men of equal honesty 
 and earnestness are divided in opinion as to the normal 
 mode of educational progress, and more particularly as 
 to the present status of the teaching art. On one side 
 the claim has been set up that the whole existing order 
 of things in education, at least on its practical side, is al- 
 most hopelessly bad ; and that the case is so desperate as 
 to justify an immediate revolution. When it is inquired 
 what the new order of things is to be, what its marks 
 are, what it is like, it is stated in reply that it is impossi- 
 ble to give any exact definition of the new era, but that 
 its coming is imminent, and that when it does come it 
 will be a very glorious thing. The conception seems to 
 be that there is to occur a rather sudden winding up of 
 the present order of things, and that the educational mil- 
 lennium is immediately to follow, with somewhat of the 
 suddenness of an earthquake shock. Some confusion at- 
 tends tliis conception, from the declaration that the "new 
 education " has had a real existence from very remote 
 times, and that all the great names in educational history 
 from Socrates downwards have been prophets of the new 
 gospel. This paradox will disappear, we may presume, 
 by assuming that the voices of these great men were un- 
 heeded, that their doctrines had no appreciable effect on 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 103 
 
 the current of educational thought, and that their inter- 
 preters have only just appeared.* 
 
 Opposed to this glowing assumption of an approach- 
 ing millennium in educational practice, there is the con- 
 viction on the part of very many that the dissolution of 
 the existing order of tilings is not imminent; that thus 
 far the history of education has shown only continuity 
 of growth ; that the future is doubtless to exhibit a con- 
 tinuous series of changes for the better ; but that this 
 better future is to be an evolution out of a good past. 
 These men believe that the main lines of educational 
 theory have been pretty firmly and correctly established, 
 and that the most hopeful and fruitful field of effort is 
 that of extending and co-ordinating these lines of think- 
 ing. It is believed to be unwise and unnecessary to 
 break with the past; that not only is substantial progress 
 
 * " No one can tell what the so-called New Education really is, 
 from the very fact that many if not most of its principles and re- 
 sulting methods have yet to be discovered. We stand on the bor- 
 der-land of discovery in education. 
 
 " If it is impossible to pivsent any adequate idea of the New Edu- 
 cation, the position of its disciples may be easily defined. They be- 
 lieve that there is an immense margin between the known and the un- 
 knotcn in education. The unbelievers, on the other hand, hold that, 
 with some possible exceptions, the march of progress in education 
 has closed with them. 
 
 " The followers of the New Education count in their ranks every 
 great thinker and w r riter upon education from Socrates to Horace 
 Mann. . . . 
 
 " The stationary followers of the Old Education have an ideal they 
 can easily reach, and, having done so, the smile of perfect pedantic 
 satisfaction freezes up on their faces, a striking manifestation of 
 the utter complacency to be found in limited ideals." — From 
 Francis W. Parker's preface to the American edition of Tate's 
 " Philosophy of Education," pp. v., vi. 
 
104 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 entirely compatible with the conservative tendency, but 
 that any other mode of progress is an illusion, full of 
 danger. 
 
 We thus have two schools of educational thinkers, so 
 sharply defined as to be in some sort antagonistic. It is 
 charged against the leaders of the so-called reform party 
 that they claim a proprietary right in the rubric " New 
 Education " as a sort of trade-mark, and that their enthu- 
 siasm has a certain commercial aspect that is not prepos- 
 sessing. Per contra, it is alleged that the representative 
 adherents of the status quo are blind leaders of the blind ; 
 that, conscious of their inability to endure the light of 
 the coming glory, they would protract the era of dark- 
 ness ; and that when they do not speak reverently of the 
 "New Education," they are moved by envy. 
 
 These rivalries, it must be confessed, are not altogether 
 pleasant ; but let us find some consolation and even en- 
 couragement in the fact that we are now fairly entering 
 upon the second of the three stages of opinion noted by 
 Mr. Spencer* as " the unanimity of the ignorant, the dis- 
 agreement of the inquiring, and the unanimity of the 
 wise." If we are ever to attain to this third state, " the 
 unanimity of the wise," we must needs pass through this 
 intermediate state of disagreement. " It is sometimes 
 necessary to fight," says Aristotle, " but all to the end 
 that we may have peace." It is the part of wisdom, 
 doubtless, to abridge as much as possible this necessary 
 period of dissent, and it is this thought that dictates the 
 matter and the method of this discussion. 
 
 As a constitutional aid towards harmonizing these two 
 conflicting phases of opinion that have been noted, let 
 
 * "Education," p. 101. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 105 
 
 us bear in mind that this divergence of opinion is due, 
 in part, at least, to differences in mental constitution. 
 There are but few minds in which the reflective and the 
 emotional elements are in a state of equipoise ; and a 
 marked preponderance of either element entails a weak- 
 ness of disproportion. An excess of feeling leads to great 
 energy of movement, but if is usually accompanied by a 
 marked defect in the power of clear insight ; there is 
 superabundant force, but it is ever prone to play antics 
 through lack of rational direction. On the other hand, 
 disproportion on the side of the reflective habit almost 
 inevitably entails some slowness of motion and an indis- 
 position to move out of beaten tracks.* Here we have 
 an instance of a very common form of the division of 
 labor. But few men, it seems, are constructed on so 
 catholic a plan that they embody at once great motive 
 power and superior ability in the line of clear thinking. 
 In my boyhood I recollect it was a question of serious 
 debate whether it was the ball or the powder that killed 
 the bird ; and we find men stoutly affirming, some, that 
 the world is moved and governed by ideas, and others, 
 that sentiment is the universal motor. I now incline to 
 the opinion that it requires the joint effect of powder 
 and ball to kill the bird. Lest I lose mvself in what 
 may prove to be a digression, let me make haste to say 
 that in educational reform the thinker and the enthusiast 
 both have their uses, and that neither should feel a con- 
 tempt for the endowment lie does not chance to have. 
 A man who does a good quality of thinking may count 
 
 * " Reflective men do not change ; they become transformed. 
 Ardent men, on the contrary, change ; they are not transformed." 
 — Renan, " Les Apotres, 1 ' p. 183. 
 
 5* 
 
100 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 himself a useful member of the profession, for his ideas, 
 sooner or later, will be put in motion by some one who 
 has a surplus endowment of sentiment. The great dan- 
 ger of the man overstocked with sentiment is that he is 
 often indiscriminatino- in the selection of ideas which he 
 is to convert into mobiles. Rousseau put some very fine 
 and hence very powerful sentiment back of some very 
 foolish and even very false ideas ; and though a century 
 has passed since his day, these false notions are still mov- 
 ing briskly on their errands of mischief. At this point, 
 loyalty to the law of the division of labor is the saving 
 clause. 
 
 I now turn to the main purpose of this chapter, which 
 is to discuss the normal mode of progress in education, 
 to trace the main lines of educational thought thus far, 
 and to determine, with some degree of probability, what 
 may be expected of the future. 
 
 The law of progress has already been stated in these 
 terms : inheritance supplemented by individual acquisi- 
 tion. We shall best conceive the mode of progress in 
 general if we think of the human race as composed of a 
 series or succession of generations, each of which re- 
 ceives from its predecessor the net results of its toils and 
 thought, adds to this inheritance the fruits of its own 
 industry and econom}^ and finally transmits the aggre- 
 gate to its successor. The labor of these successive gen- 
 erations is not the labor of Sisyphus, but each starts on 
 the upward march at the point where its predecessor 
 stopped, and thence lifts the weight to a still higher level. 
 
 Let it be noted that no individual can renounce the 
 inheritance into which he is born. That relapse to a 
 state of nature which Rousseau and his disciples so ar- 
 dently and so eloquently long for is a thing not only 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 107 
 
 impossible, but even inconceivable. "What are some of 
 the items of this inalienable inheritance? A purified at- 
 mosphere, protection to life and propert} T , a longer aver- 
 age term of life, the division of labor, means of rapid 
 communication, language, with its ready-made distinc- 
 tions and classifications, and, subtler still, enlarged ca- 
 pacities of mental insight and acquisition, and innate 
 predispositions amounting to inherited habits. Who 
 can refuse such legacies, if he would? Who is there 
 that would renounce them, if he could ? Who can abide 
 the philosophy that recommends a perennial relapse 
 towards barbarism ? 
 
 One element of this inheritance has such a direct and 
 important bearing on the main question in this discus- 
 sion that I must give it a moment's notice. Language, 
 with its ready-made abstractions, generalizations, and dis- 
 tinctions, is just as truly a part of the child's natural 
 environment as climate, atmosphere, soil, and landscape; 
 and the truths formulated in language are objects of 
 study just as natural and legitimate as plants and rocks 
 and animals ; and, still more, speaking generally, these 
 formulated truths are just as easy of apprehension as the 
 physical phenomena that constitute a part of the child's 
 environment. The apprehension of formulated truth 
 commences the moment the child begins to interpret lan- 
 guage, and proceeds, pari passu, with his apprehension 
 of physical phenomena. I know nothing more unfound- 
 ed in fact and philosophy than the current assumption that 
 it is easier for a child to apprehend thunder and rain, or 
 even flowers and butterflies, than the bits of household 
 wisdom that penetrate his mind through the medium of 
 language. If it is so easy and natural for the mind to 
 analyze and comprehend concrete presentations, how are 
 
108 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 we to account for the slow progress of physical science? 
 If it is so very difficult to comprehend abstract truths, 
 how are we to account for the early cultivation of gram- 
 mar, mathematics, and ethics? For the farmer, the per- 
 fected reaper and the formulated truths of agricultural 
 chemistry are all simple facts of inheritance ; and he may 
 as reasonably be required to reinvent the reaper as to re- 
 discover the science. In both cases the obligation is to 
 accept, to use, and, if possible, to improve. There is no 
 more obligation to repeat the experiences of the race in 
 alchemy and astrology than in the use of the sickle and 
 the cradle. 
 
 Of individual acquisitions, or the second element in 
 progress, four things are to be noted : (1) If the major 
 and mighty task of each generation is rediscovery, the 
 opportunity for discovery is made almost infinitely small ; 
 (2) the prerequisite to invention, improvement, and re- 
 forms is a knowledge of what has come to us in the wav 
 of inheritance ; (3) to only a few men in a century is it 
 granted to make absolute additions to the world's stock 
 of knowledge; (4) for the most part, the task of the 
 thinker is to extend old lines of thinking, to detect in 
 established general truths their more occult implications, 
 and to collate and co-ordinate the disjecta menibra of 
 possible systems of truth. 
 
 If one is to set up as an innovator, or even as a reform- 
 er, he has no claim to a moment's consideration unless he 
 has ascertained what has already been done in his pro- 
 posed line of improvement, and has also mastered the 
 general principles on which his invention rests. I shall 
 not soon forget the loss of time and patience entailed by 
 the persistence of an enthusiastic youth who had invent- 
 ed a machine that would surely run till it was worn out. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 109 
 
 He had all the positiveness and intolerance of ignorance. 
 A month's stndy of mechanics, or, perhaps, a day's visit 
 to one of the museums of the Patent Office, would have 
 saved him from the mortification of failure and from the 
 loss of his patrimony ; but his ignorance made him the 
 easy victim of his glowing enthusiasm. At the present 
 rate of acquaintance with the history and the science of 
 education, it is still possible, as the record shows, to in- 
 vent school supervision and the word-method of teaching 
 children to read. 
 
 " Great minds," says Richter, " speak to us from the 
 vantage-ground of centuries." The immortality of cer- 
 tain books lies in the fact that they anticipate the think- 
 ing of a remote future. They trace in faint outline the 
 course which human thought is to traverse through, the 
 coming centuries, and all subsequent thinking is but the 
 fulfilment of these ancient prophecies. I am sure I do 
 not overstate the fact when I say that the best thought 
 of the best thinkers, through all the past centuries, has 
 been devoted, directly or indirectly, to the problems of 
 education, and that there is not a single phase of this 
 problem which has not been subjected to the test of ex- 
 perience. The Bibles of all ancient peoples have been 
 text-books for ethical instruction, and contain, by impli- 
 cation, a body of educational doctrine. I believe it to 
 be a comparatively easy task, by a process of legitimate 
 interpretation, to construct a sound and sufficient body 
 of educational truth from the Christian Scriptures. Soc- 
 rates, Plato, and Aristotle, while writing on ethics and 
 politics, were compelled to discuss the question of edu- 
 cation, and their statements were so comprehensive that 
 they anticipated many of our modern theories and meth- 
 ods. In making these statements, the truth I am trying 
 
110 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 to impress is this : there is no probability whatever that 
 there is to be such a sudden and glorious dawn of discov- 
 ery as the " New Education " presumes to advertise. 
 
 M. Compayre* has, with rare critical insight, made a 
 masterly survey of the history of educational doctrines 
 and methods, and I borrow this quotation in confirma- 
 tion of the position just taken : " The desirable thing just 
 now is not so much to find new ideas as properly to com- 
 prehend those which are already current ; to choose from 
 among them, and, a choice once having been made, to 
 make a resolute effort to apply them to use. When we 
 consider with impartiality all that has been conceived or 
 practised previous to the nineteenth century, or when 
 we see clearly what our predecessors have left us to do 
 in the way of consequences to deduce, of incomplete or 
 obscure ideas to generalize or to illustrate, and, especially, 
 of opposing tendencies to reconcile, we may well inquire 
 what they have really left us to discover. ... In truth, 
 for him who has an exact knowledge of the educators of 
 past centuries, the work of constructing a system of edu- 
 cation is more than half done. It remains only to co- 
 ordinate the scattered truths which havte been collected 
 from their works, by assimilating them through personal 
 reflection, and by making them fruitful through psycho- 
 logical analysis and moral faith." * 
 
 One element in human nature is an upward tendency 
 in the line of growth ; and civilization is but the actual 
 outcome of this instinct on a vast scale. The growth of 
 an individual in stature and the growth of the race in 
 knowledge and refinement are analogous facts. In both 
 cases growth is predetermined ; it is a law binding on the 
 individual and on the race as a whole. Much light will 
 
 * Compayr6, op. cit., pp. xviii., xix. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. Ill 
 
 be thrown on these "great expectations" by observing 
 the actual modes of growth which constitute progress. 
 "Progress," says the "Dictionnaire de Pedagogic," "is 
 not a force that acts spasmodically, but is a logical and 
 graduated evolution, in which the idea of to-day is con- 
 nected with that of yesterday, as the latter is to a still 
 more remote past." * This is a fair statement of the 
 ideal mode of progress, but the historical or actual mode 
 is very different. Instead of continuity, symmetry, and 
 moderation, the outgrowths of reason and reflection, we 
 see the overwrought, the unsymmetrical, and the spas- 
 modic, the result of impulse and sentiment. A strong 
 feeling starts a movement, the rising fervor gives it a 
 growing momentum, and then it proceeds quite inde- 
 pendent of rhythm, rhyme, or reason. But, finally, a 
 counter sentiment is engendered, a recoil movement is 
 begun, and the old exaggeration gives place to a new 
 one.f A common characteristic of these impulsive move- 
 ments is that they are blind. Not only is the objective 
 point seen as through a sunset-mist, but this point is not 
 discerned in relation to others of co-ordinate rank, and 
 most often no others are seen at all. The mind of the 
 enthusiast is lacking both in clearness and perspective; 
 it seems that the very condition of feeling intensely is 
 to see obscurely, or, at least, confusedly. The mind that 
 does not discriminate cannot deliberate. It is usually 
 asserted that the normal stimulant to activity is a feel- 
 ing either of pleasure or of pain. It would be better to 
 call this the natural stimulant. The animal, so far as 
 
 * " I ere Partie." p. 1436. 
 
 t " The suppression of every error is commonly followed by a 
 temporary ascendency of the contrary one." — Spencer, " Education," 
 p. 102. 
 
112 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 we know, is moved to activity only by some strong feel- 
 ing, and the same thing is true of the savage and the in- 
 fant ; but the chief ingredient in the motive that governs 
 the sage is intellectual. With reference to civilized man, 
 motive is composed of two elements, thought and feel- 
 ing; and, in the ascent towards the highest type of de- 
 velopment, the thought element attains a rising domina- 
 tion, while the element of mere feeling loses its domina- 
 tion in the same ratio.* This statement refers to the 
 man as determining his own conduct. When his pur- 
 pose is to determine the conduct of others, he will appeal 
 to the element that is supposed to have the greater dom- 
 ination ; to feeling, if he is addressing a mob, but to the 
 intellect, if he is addressing men capable of deliberation. 
 Now the truth I wish to insist on is this : if progress is 
 to be continuous, symmetrical, and sure, it must be based 
 on motives of the reflective type.f The men who direct 
 
 * " Motives are the intellectual reasons which cause us to act in 
 such or such a manner, such as thoughts, considerations of the 
 mind. Mobiles, on the contrary, are movements of the heart, the 
 affections, the passions. For example, maternal love is a mobile, 
 but the calculations of interest and the considerations of dignity 
 are motives." — Marion, op. cit., p. 127. 
 
 t " We do not desire to create mere enthusiasts. Undirected and 
 uncontrolled enthusiasm burns out, and leaves only ashes behind. 
 The genuine enthusiast always subjects himself to law if his work 
 is to be effective and permanent. The fiery heat of the sun itself 
 attains its ends in the domain of nature by working according to 
 the law of each kind. Where it does not do this it destroys. So 
 with the fire of the educational enthusiast. We desire to see the 
 ardor of the youthful schoolmaster so founded on principle and 
 controlled by intellectual purpose that it will last a lifetime ; and 
 this is possible only by timely subjection to the order and law which 
 philosophy alone can give." — Laurie, "The Training of Teachers" 
 (London, 1882), p. G8. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 113 
 
 such progress must discern clearly, and must then appeal 
 to the discernment of others. While saying this, I am 
 distinctly conscious that, in dealing with men, we must 
 take them as they are ; that if we are to move them, we 
 must appeal to the motive that is in the ascendant, and 
 must use that form of power which we chance to possess. 
 My purpose is to point out the evil consequences of ad- 
 dressing the feelings rather than the reason, and to indi- 
 cate the desirableness of walking by the light of reason 
 rather than by the ignis fattens of feeling. Most reforms 
 are, doubtless, of emotional origin, but their final support 
 is reason ; they are saved by the potency of ideas. It 
 were better, it seems to me, if reforms were to have their 
 origin, continuance, and consummation in reason. As 
 we listen to the fervid exhortations of the reformer, we 
 may have almost absolute assurance of three things : (1) 
 He is leading us away from some substantial truth that 
 has been allowed to trespass on other and related truths ; 
 
 (2) he is leading us towards another truth which is great- 
 ly exaggerated because seen through the mists of feeling ; 
 
 (3) these promises must be subjected to the reductions 
 of reflection and cool common-sense before they can have 
 a substantial value. If any proof were needed of the 
 sheer extravagances of the educational reformer, it might 
 be found in such declarations as these : " I have turned 
 the European car of progress quite round," said Pesta- 
 lozzi, "and have set it going in a new direction." How 
 charming is such simplicity and assurance ! The course 
 of European civilization had been wholly wrong till Pes- 
 talozzi's day, and he, in his own might, had reversed the 
 march of that civilization ! The philosophers, moralists, 
 teachers, and statesmen, previous to his time, had been 
 
114 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 radically wrong. In the fulness of time he had come to 
 set the world right ! 
 
 Rousseau's favorite injunction was: "Take the road 
 directly opposite to that which is in use, and you will 
 almost always do right." Here the presumption is the 
 same as before; the world had fallen into a very bad 
 way. Rousseau was the first one to discover the fact, or, 
 at least, the first who had the wisdom to point out the 
 right way ! I maintain that the mind which can believe 
 that the whole existing order of things is wrong, and 
 would counsel a revolution in favor of his own ideas, is 
 essentially unsound and untrustworthy ; for it is not even 
 conceivable that a line of policy which has had the long 
 sanction of the wise and good is wholly or even mainly 
 wrong. It is only presumption and ignorance and un- 
 bridled sentiment that can go to such lengths. 
 
 A Greek proverb says that "a mob has no brains," 
 and we shall form no mean conception of education if 
 we define its purpose to be the disintegration of mobs ; 
 the thought being that each individual should have a 
 brain of his own, to the end that he may reason and re- 
 flect and so be in a condition to act for himself, instead 
 of moving with the herd at the dictation of a self-con- 
 stituted leader. It seems to me discreditable to the 
 teaching class that educational epidemics are so easy to 
 start, that they occur so often, and that their victims are 
 so numerous. In these phenomena there is something 
 of the regularity of law. We cannot, indeed, predict 
 what the next craze will be, but we may be sure that a 
 new one will follow the termination of the one now in 
 progress, that it will leave many remainders of debility 
 and some of strength, and that those who survive the dis- 
 temper will marvel at their credulousness. What I aim 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 115 
 
 at saying is that this prevalence of hobbies bespeaks un- 
 soundness in the body of the teaching profession, and 
 that the only radical cure for this intellectual distemper 
 is the habit of treating educational questions with judicial 
 calmness and fairness. 
 
 In the next place, the course of my argument leads me 
 to notice the main phases of the educational problem 
 that have been developed by the thinkers of the past, to 
 the end that we may form some reasonable conjecture 
 as to the probability of lighting on essentially new phases 
 of the problem. If but little has been discovered, the 
 field of exploration is large and full of promise; but if 
 the process of discovery has been long -continued and 
 thorough, if the discoverers themselves have been men 
 of pre-eminent ability, and if this exploration has been 
 in any sense complete, then the hope of a new era in 
 education is visionary. If a seafaring man were to at- 
 tempt to enlist adventurers for the discovery of a new 
 continent in the Pacific, no matter how fervid his elo- 
 quence, or how boisterous his appeals, he would find no 
 following among the well-informed. The continents 
 have been discovered ; it only remains to occupy them 
 and to improve them. 
 
 To make this inquiry eminently fair, let us consider 
 education in its most comprehensive sense, and define its 
 purpose to be to fit the human being for complete living. 
 For a man to live completely is to fulfill perfectly all 
 the functions that can reasonably be demanded of him. 
 A man owes duties to himself, to his family, to society, 
 to the state, to the race, and to his Creator ; and to fulfil 
 these duties he needs physical, intellectual, and moral 
 power, and instrumental knowledge adapted to the re- 
 quirements of each class of demands. We may simplify 
 
116 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 this statement by saying that the ideal education requires 
 the most complete development of the body and of the 
 mind, liberal supplies of knowledge for use, and, finally, 
 a concentration of these powers on specific lines of ac- 
 tivity. We now wish to know what phases of this com- 
 plex problem the education of the past has left untouched, 
 so that we may discover what remains for the " New Edu- 
 cation" to undertake. The problem of physical training 
 was solved in ancient Greece, and so perfectly that any 
 improvement on it is manifestly hopeless. All that 
 moderns can do is to imitate it. Specific physical train- 
 ing in the line of handicrafts and trades was a prominent 
 element in the education of the ancient Jews. Sparta 
 and Rome educated their citizens for military service. 
 The highest conceivable type of intellectual training, the 
 purpose of which was to make the mind the perfect in- 
 strument of thought, was methodically discussed by Plato, 
 and exemplified by Socrates. The commercial value of 
 knowledge was emphasized by the Phoenicians and the 
 Egyptians. Education for the civil service was and now 
 is the hobby of the Chinese. Education in view of the 
 future life was the preoccupation of the ancient Jews; 
 and ethical training was a characteristic of all ancient 
 systems of education. Education for culture was exem- 
 plified in Greece, and education for practical ends in 
 Rome ; and those two lines of thought are now running 
 side by side in every college and even in every high- 
 school. We see compulsory education in fact among 
 the Jews, and in theory in Plato's "Republic." The 
 duty of the state to administer education was emphatically 
 declared by Aristotle; it was to be public, and common 
 to all. Twenty-three centuries before the "New De- 
 parture in the Common Schools of Quincy," the appoint- 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 117 
 
 ment of a superintendent of schools was recommended 
 by Aristotle.* 
 
 Object-teaching is as old as the burning bush and 
 brazen serpent, and the highest type of it was exemplified 
 in the teaching of Christ. The instruction of children 
 by means of games was known and practised by the an- 
 cient Egyptians. Paul knew and stated the characteristic 
 difference between the child and man as to the compre- 
 hension of truth. The doctrine that true education is 
 a process of unfolding from within outwards, that science 
 cannot be taught, but only drawn out, was taught and 
 practised by Socrates. The conception of education as a 
 growth is embodied in David's First Psalm, and appears 
 and reappears throughout the New Testament. The 
 instrumental value of knowledge has never been more 
 forcibly expressed than by the author of Ecclesiastes.f 
 Oral instruction versus text-book instruction was a con- 
 troverted question in Plato's time; and in his decision, 
 Plato was as profoundly wrong as some moderns who 
 have decided the question.;): This statement falls far 
 short of a catalogue raisonne such as might be made 
 without great labor; but though it is restricted to the 
 ancient period, I submit that it establishes a very strong 
 improbability that any startling truth, such as the "New 
 Education" promises, remains to be discovered ; and this 
 improbability becomes almost absolute when we include 
 the developments of educational doctrine that have been 
 made during the last eighteen Christian centuries. In 
 general, I despise alliterations, and particularly when they 
 are invented to give currency to educational cant and 
 
 * " Politics," op. cit., p. 230. t Ecclesiastes x., 10. 
 
 t " Phaedrus," 274-278. See also Lewes, " Biog. Hist, of Philos- 
 ophy," pp. 197-199. 
 
118 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 error; but the truth, as I see it, may best be expressed in 
 these terms : educational truth of undoubted value is not 
 likely to be new; and what is brand new in education is 
 not likely to be true. Of course, I make this statement 
 with reference to doctrines and principles. But some 
 one will ask on what ground is it that the discovery of 
 new truth is not as probable in education as in physical 
 science. Two things may be said in reply : (1) The dis- 
 coveries in science do not consist for the most part in 
 principles and laws, but rather in applications and exten- 
 sions ; it is this line of discovery that is always imminent 
 in education. (2) Besides, the human mind, the great 
 constant in education, has been a subject of study, just as 
 accessible to the ancient as to the modern. Every man, 
 in fact, carries about with him in his consciousness the 
 material of educational study, and it is for this reason 
 that the improbability of essentially new discoveries is 
 so much greater in education than in physical science. 
 Other constants are the relation of man to man, and of 
 man to his Creator. Is it probable that these relations 
 are liable to any radical change? If not, the probability 
 of new discovery is cut off in this field. The relations 
 of man to the state have not been so constant, and, in 
 consequence, the conception of education has varied 
 through the centuries ; but what probability is there that 
 any new type of such variation is to be developed in the 
 future ? 
 
 What shall we say of man's duties to himself? Is 
 there any probability of a radical change in this direc- 
 tion ? Next to the relations of man to his Maker, the re- 
 lations of man to himself seem to me to form the chief 
 constant in education. Man is counted as a gregarious 
 animal ; but he might be most characteristically described 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 119 
 
 as the solitary being. Self-consciousness perforce makes 
 him such ; though living in society, man communes con- 
 stantly and chiefly with himself; and save one, educa- 
 tion has no higher or holier purpose than to fit man to 
 be his own companion. Our reformers need to be re- 
 minded that the young should be taught to be as well 
 as to do, which is now regarded as the principal thing. 
 My purpose in making reference to this phase of the 
 educational problem is to point out the fact that the 
 striving after the ideal man is virtually a constant in 
 education, and that there is no probability that there is 
 to be any abrupt change in this conception. What is to 
 follow is virtually what has been. 
 
 The types of education that have come down to us from 
 the ancient world may be designated as follows: the in- 
 tellectual, the ethical, the religious, the practical, the po- 
 litical, the contemplative, the liberal. The general style 
 of education has always responded to the dominant con- 
 ception of man's destiny. When this conception has 
 been partial, or narrow, education has likewise been nar- 
 row ; and when this conception has been broad, the edu- 
 cation has been liberal. The fact I wish to state is that 
 these types are exhaustive, or, at any rate, are so compre- 
 hensive that it is wholly improbable that there can ever 
 be an education into which several of these types do not 
 enter as factors. That there should be an essentially new 
 education, one of two things, speaking generally, would 
 be necessary : either a radical change in the constitution 
 of human nature, or a radical change in human destiny ; 
 or, what would amount to the same thing, a discovery 
 that the present conception of human nature is a mistake. 
 A mere modification of either of these conditions would 
 entail only a modification of the existing education ; but 
 
120 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 an essentially new education would require a substitute 
 for one of these existing sets of conditions. 
 
 I am aware that a pretence has latterly been set up 
 that such a change in conditions has actually taken place, 
 in the shape of a revised conception of what may be 
 called child-mind. The dominant conception has been 
 that the mind of the child and the mind of the adult are 
 essentially the same ; that from the one to the other there 
 is complete continuity of growth; that the one becomes 
 the other by a series of unconscious and indefinable 
 transitions ; that they are the very same in kind, differing 
 only in relative development and power ; in other words, 
 that the child is a little man. The new conception is to 
 the effect that the child-mind is a thing sui generis, pe- 
 culiar in kind, structure, ability, and laws of growth. If 
 this assumption be admitted, it follows that there may 
 be a "new education" for children, based on the consti- 
 tution of the being that up to this time has been wholly 
 misunderstood. In respect of this assumption I would 
 make the following observations : 
 
 1. There are no analogies to support it. In the vege- 
 table world there is unbroken continuity, from the tender 
 blade that has merely begun its growth up to the robust 
 tree that has reached the term of its development. The 
 mode of growth at any given instant is identical with the 
 mode of growth at the next instant. There is, from first 
 to last, a continuity of structure that is absolutely un- 
 broken. There is no moment at which the plant ceases 
 to be, and the tree begins to be ; the plant and the tree 
 are one. 
 
 In physical growth there is the same fact of absolute 
 continuity in structure, and nutrition is administered by 
 laws that act with absolute uniformity. There is not an 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 121 
 
 infant digestion as distinguished from adult digestion. 
 Different kinds of food may be required in the two cases, 
 but if digestion takes place at all, its mode is the same 
 in both cases. If the claim were to be set up by some 
 " new light " in physiology that we as yet know nothing 
 of infant digestion, it would be a sufficient reply to say 
 that, as we know much of adult digestion, we also know 
 much, by implication, of the digestive process in infants. 
 So far as the facts of nurture and growth are concerned, 
 the infant and the man are one. 
 
 2. The consensus of philosophic opinion supports the 
 notion that there is hut one psychology. The classical 
 writers on mental science, ancient and modern, discuss 
 the phenomena of the intellectual life as constituting an 
 organic unity; they make no attempt to classify these 
 phenomena on the basis of age. The dominant concep- 
 tion of to-day is, that the beginnings of the various modes 
 of mental activity are virtually simultaneous, but that 
 their rates of development are unequal ; that the organic 
 modes of mental activity are the same for the child as 
 for the man ; that the constitutional difference in the 
 two cases is one of relative power ; and that the differ- 
 ence in products in the two cases is one of relative per- 
 fection. In other words, so far as the nature of mind is 
 concerned, there is but one psychology and one logic. 
 So far as they both conceive, or imagine, or reason, the 
 child and the man are obedient to identical laws; and 
 whatever difference may appear in the products of these 
 several acts is due to unequal rates of work, or to differ- 
 ent degrees of perfection. 
 
 3. The supposed difference oetween child and man, as 
 to mental constitution, has led to serious errors in prac- 
 tice. In some instances instruction has been adminis- 
 
 6 
 
122 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tered on the hypothesis that the child's mind passes in 
 regular succession from sensation to perception, from 
 perception to conception, from conception to reasoning, 
 etc., etc. ; and that, while one of these modes of mental 
 activity is in progress there is to be an exemption from 
 all others. Such instruction is necessarily scrappy, dis- 
 continuous, and in the highest degree unnatural. The 
 true conception is, that even in the child all these modes 
 of mental activity are displayed simultaneously, and that 
 the nurture should be catholic and wholesome. Anoth- 
 er error consists in a systematic underrating of the child's 
 ability, whereby instruction becomes so childish as to be 
 trivial, trifling, and, to a bright pupil's mind, patroniz- 
 ing. To secure that degree of reaction which is neces- 
 sary for real discipline, instruction must be pitched to a 
 key somewhat above the plane of the child's spontaneous 
 mental state. " Speak to the child two years old," says 
 Bichter, "as though he were six."* The teacher who 
 regards her pupils as little men and little women, who 
 makes real demands on their intelligence, and perhaps 
 presumes somewhat on their ability, follows a truer psy- 
 chology than one who minces and subdivides more than 
 
 * "Always employ a language some years in advance of the 
 child (men of genius speak to us from the vantage-ground of cen- 
 turies) ; speak to the one-year-old child as though he were two, 
 and to him as though he w T ere six ; for the difference of progress 
 diminishes in the inverse proportion of years. Let the teacher, es- 
 pecially he who is too much in the habit of attributing all learning 
 to teaching, consider that the child already carries half his world, 
 that of mind — the objects, for instance, of moral and metaphysical 
 contemplation — already formed within him ; and hence that lan- 
 guage, being provided only with physical images, cannot give, but 
 merely illumines, his mental conceptions." — "Levana" (Boston, 
 1874), pp. 847, 348. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 123 
 
 is meet. In saying this, I do not forget the old error of 
 indiscriminate diet ; but I think the modern error is the 
 more to be deplored. Strangely enough, some who make 
 the most absolute distinction between children and men, 
 as to mental constitution, demand that a child's concep- 
 tions shall be as definite and adequate as those of a more 
 mature mind. The child, like the primitive race, lives 
 in an atmosphere of delicious vagueness that inspires the 
 poetic instinct. This is a clear instance of what we may 
 call the child's nature. The conceptive power is high, 
 and the discriminating power correspondingly low. Dur- 
 ing that period when a stick can be so easily transformed 
 into an angel with blue eyes and golden hair, let us not 
 demand a definition of geometrical figures, or even an 
 accurate distinction in the meaning of common words. 
 
 4. The main laws of mental life, for child as well as 
 for man, have doubtless been discovered and formxdatcd. 
 This probability rises almost to certainty, from the fact 
 that mental phenomena appear in the consciousness of 
 every thinking being, and that these phenomena have 
 been studied by the highest intelligences of all ages. 
 That there remains any real discovery yet to be made 
 seems to me the most improbable of assumptions. In 
 his recently published volume of essays, Mr. Bain ex- 
 presses this thought: " I deem it quite possible to frame 
 a practical science, applicable to the training of the in- 
 tellect, that shall be precise and definite in a very con- 
 siderable measure. The elements that make up our in- 
 tellectual growth or acquisition are almost the best gen- 
 eralities of the human mind ; even the most complicated 
 studies can be analyzed into their components, partly by 
 psychology, and partly by the higher logic. In a word, 
 if we cannot make a science of education, so far as in- 
 
124 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tellect is concerned, we may abandon metaphysical study 
 altogether." * 
 
 It will doubtless be said by some that there is hope for 
 a revolution in education in the " new psychology " which 
 is now promised. The old method of ps} T chological study 
 by introspection lias had its day, it is said ; and the new 
 method, which proceeds by examination of results, or by 
 the use of the scalpel and glass, is just making its appear- 
 ance. I feel compelled to summarize what I think on 
 this topic as follows : 
 
 1. Suppose that a curious piece of mechanism had 
 been discovered by the earliest race of thinkers, but of 
 such construction that its parts and mode of action could 
 only be observed. Suppose, further, that this piece of 
 mechanism had been passed from hand to hand, and had 
 been made the object of long-continued study by the 
 acutest thinkers of all ages down to the present, what de- 
 gree of probability is there that any important fact or 
 law of this piece of mechanism would escape this acute 
 and secular examination ? Is there even the possibility 
 that either the mode of study or the general results of 
 such an investigation can be discredited by any new 
 method ? This supposed case typifies, in all essential re- 
 spects, the history of psychological investigation. Men- 
 tal phenomena are just as real and just as obtrusive as 
 physical phenomena, and the method of observation and 
 induction has been applied as rigorously in the first case 
 as in the second. 
 
 2. The method of verification by the study of prod- 
 ucts or results is very ancient, as may be seen by con- 
 sulting Plato's " Republic," book ii., 368. It is also mod- 
 ern, as may be seen by consulting Cousin's "Lectures on 
 
 7* I 
 
 '• Practical Essays," p. 147. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 125 
 
 Modern Philosophy," vol. i., lecture ii. Let this exami- 
 nation of products be accepted for what it is really worth, 
 and that it is worth much I cheerfully admit; but it is 
 in no sense a substitute for the reflective study of mind 
 itself. We would learn but little of the structure of a 
 grist-mill by simply examining the feed and flour that 
 are found in the bags. 
 
 ■3. The microscope and the scalpel have told us much, 
 and will doubtless tell us much more, about the struct- 
 ure and functions of the brain, and some light is thus 
 thrown on the physical conditions of mental life; but 
 mental phenomena will forever escape the senses of sight 
 and touch — they must continue to be studied, as they 
 always have been studied, by the mind's own reflective 
 effort. 
 
 4. The fate of phrenology might teach us a whole- 
 some lesson respecting the value of the physical method 
 of studying the mind. On the basis of these pretended 
 discoveries a reform in education was advertised and 
 even attempted, but, beyond an increased interest in 
 physical education, the world still keeps on its accus- 
 tomed wa}\ 
 
 In what has preceded, I have attempted to assign my 
 reasons for the belief that no revolution in education is 
 imminent; that no new discovery is likely to be made in 
 the nature of the human mind, or in human destiny, that 
 will make necessary, or even possible, a " new educa- 
 tion." That virtual discoveries are still to be made in 
 both these fields, and that there is to be continuous and 
 indefinite progress in education, I most firmly believe ; 
 and on these two topics I would add the following ob- 
 servations : 
 
 1. In the sciences of psychology, logic, ethics, sociol- 
 
126 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ogy, and physiology we have the disjecta membra of a 
 science of human training ; and in the co-ordination and 
 harmonizing of these elements, and in the transformation 
 of these first truths into rules for practice, there is work 
 enough for several generations of clear-headed thinkers. 
 It is not a little amusing to note the fervid aspirations 
 of some for new and far-remote worlds to conquer, while 
 there are whole continents lying before their very doors, 
 waiting to be explored and appropriated. There is not 
 an elementary text-book on mental science that does not 
 embody doctrines which, if vigorously applied in the de- 
 ductive way, would expand into a volume of rational 
 method. The law of the descent of the mind from ag- 
 gregates to elements, and from the vague to the definite, 
 is just as well established as the law of gravitation, and 
 is just as comprehensive in the scope of its applications. 
 Almost the whole of method is involved in this funda- 
 mental law. Here is a world that has long since been 
 conquered by mental science, but it still waits to be ex- 
 plored and appropriated by educational science. I think 
 it must be counted one of the standing marvels of educa- 
 tional history that so open and so inviting a field has not 
 been cultivated. 
 
 Another field, quite as broad, perhaps even more in- 
 viting because of its difficulties, and as yet hardly touched 
 by the pioneers in educational science, is the doctrine of 
 motive. This doctrine underlies the wdiole subject of 
 school government, and, indeed, the whole art of giving 
 instruction. If we define teaching as the art of causing 
 pupils to learn, we may truly say that this entire art 
 hangs on the deft manipulation of motive. 
 
 Not much substantial progress can be made in educa- 
 tion, as it seems to me, till we have a pretty definite 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 127 
 
 scheme of education values. We need to know, with 
 considerable exactness, both the quality and the amount 
 of work that enn be done by the educational agents, 
 arithmetic, grammar, history, science, etc. This is a most 
 interesting and promising field for investigation. 
 
 I have now briefly indicated three important regions 
 of professional investigation ; and I submit that some of 
 the surplus zeal of our reformers might be most profita- 
 bly turned into these channels. 
 
 2. At this point some will doubtless interpose the ob- 
 jection that the mode of study I have commended will 
 induce a surfeit of educational theory ; and will demand 
 a course of study on the practical or experimental plan. 
 I am glad to respond that, if I have any hobby whatever, 
 I think it is the study of the experimental phase of the 
 educational problem. In all the past, the business of 
 education has been conducted almost wholly on the ex- 
 perimental plan ; and I firmly believe in the almost in- 
 comparable value of a careful study of these long-con- 
 tinued and varied experiments. I have already pointed 
 out the fact that all conceivable solutions of this complex 
 problem have been attempted ; that the Greek, the Ro- 
 man, the Jew, the Egyptian, the Hindoo, the Persian, 
 the Protestant, the Catholic, the Free-thinker, the Ger- 
 man, the Frenchman, the American, the Englishman, the 
 Monarchist, the Republican, the Absolutist — that every- 
 body, in fact — has been working at some phase of this 
 problem ever since the dawn of civilization; and now it 
 is to be observed that, through the foolishness of reading, 
 we may make a critical survey of all the notable instances 
 in which education has thus been put on trial. How arc 
 we to account for the curious fact that the teaching class, 
 as a whole, is profoundly ignorant of the history of edu- 
 
12S SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 cation ? Of this there can be but little doubt : the ef- 
 fect of such a study would be both conservative and con- 
 structive ; there would be a hearty respect, if not rever- 
 ence, for the present status of education, as it has been 
 the issue and outgrowth of the entire past ; and we would 
 witness an orderly and rational effort to determine the 
 future of education by legitimate processes of growth. 
 I may be too sanguine in my faith in the utility of edu- 
 cational history as a means of promoting continuous and 
 orderly growth ; but I can scarcely doubt that it would 
 be a virtual specific for educational spasms. 
 
 3. As I conceive the nature of real progress in educa- 
 tion, the philosophy of spirit is the light beaming from 
 afar that points us towards the harbor we hope finally 
 to enter; while the history of education is the light that 
 keeps us in constant remembrance of the port from which 
 we are sailing; and it is only by correcting our course 
 by means of these two lights that we shall make our 
 voyage safe and continuous. If I may still use this fig- 
 ure, our course hitherto has been too much like that of 
 drifting along unknown shores while on a purposeless 
 voyage, or like that of tacking before head-winds, or of 
 being fiercely driven, first by a gale blowing from one 
 point of the compass, and then from another. What wo. 
 need is to bring about a forward movement in a direct 
 line, by availing ourselves of the grand resultant of all 
 the forces we can press into our service. The chief work 
 of the present, as it seems to me, is, first, that of sum- 
 ming up the net results of our progress thus far, and then 
 of patiently co-ordinating, harmonizing, unifying, and 
 systematizing. It is in these regions that we are to court 
 the breezes of real progress. 
 
 I will now consider the claims of the "New Educa- 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 129 
 
 tion" on the intelligence and confidence of men, by rea- 
 son of what it lias actually accomplished. I wish, if it 
 be possible, to discover the general direction of this new 
 movement, whether it is towards the truth or away from 
 the truth. That there are some difficulties in the way 
 must be admitted. It is hard to analyze an ejaculation, 
 an aspiration, or a sigh ; and, while the wholesale de- 
 nunciation of whatever has been and is shows us pretty 
 plainly what our reformers propose to abandon, they 
 give us but little help in determining what w T ill be sub- 
 stituted for the chronic ills of the present. Fortunately, 
 however, this new educational gospel has apparently set- 
 tled one article of its creed, and so has put one item of 
 doctrine into a tangible shape. As I repeat this favor- 
 ite formula of the "New Education," please recall the 
 saying of Pestalozzi about reversing the European car 
 of progress, and the advice of Rousseau about taking the 
 roads directly contrary to the ones in use. Among the 
 noted educational reformers, exaggeration seems to be a 
 hereditary trait. The creed of the " New Education," so 
 far as it has been formulated, is embodied in this text: 
 We learn to do hy doing. My purpose is to discover 
 whether this new movement is in the line of historic 
 truth, or whether it is a departure from the truth. Twen- 
 ty-four centuries ago, Bias, one of the seven wise men 
 of Greece, left to the world this apothegm : Know and 
 then do. Twenty-one centuries later, Lord Bacon wrote : 
 " Studies perfect nature, and are perfected by experi- 
 ence." In both these cases the sequence is the same, the 
 antecedent to doing is knowing ; we learn to do by know- 
 ing. At the present moment, all professional and tech- 
 nical instruction is administered on the hypothesis that 
 knowing is the necessary preparation for doing ; and the 
 
 6* 
 
130 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 term* quackery lias been set apart to express the common 
 contempt for the practice of learning to do by doing. 
 Here are three landmarks appearing at intervals through 
 a long procession of centuries, and they are all in a direct 
 line. The thought of Bias is sanctioned by Bacon, and 
 embodied in the very civilization of the present moment. 
 If anything has been settled by the experience and com- 
 mon-sense of mankind, it is that action should be preceded 
 and guided by knowledge. Now what shall be our judg- 
 ment of a proposed revolution, the first and, so far as an- 
 nounced, the only principle of which is a bald denial of 
 a universal truth ? This seems like the culmination of 
 presumption. Pestalozzi would reverse the car of Euro- 
 pean progress, but the latest reformers have undertaken 
 the task of reversing the car of the world's progress. 
 But Pestalozzi failed in his modest undertaking. We 
 must distinguish the intellectual phase of this movement 
 from its emotional phase, and, in respect of the former, 
 it seems to me that the outlook is hopeless enough. 
 
 The main conclusions of this inquiry I now summarize 
 as follows: 
 
 The promise of a " new education," as something rad- 
 ically different in principle and method from the educa- 
 tion of the present, implies a gross misconception of the 
 nature of normal progress, as well as 4 an ignorance of 
 what has already been done in this field of human ef- 
 fort. 
 
 The possibility of a complete revolution in education 
 implies one of three things : (1) either that there is to be 
 a radical change in human nature ; or (2) a radical change 
 in human destiny ; or (3) that educational processes hith- 
 erto have not been adapted to human nature or to hu- 
 man needs. 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 131 
 
 As there is nut the least probability of any immi- 
 nent change in the constitution of the human mind, 
 or in the conception of man's destiny and needs, and 
 as it is inconceivable that the world thus far has been 
 radically wrong in the practice of education, it is in- 
 conceivable that there is to be a winding-up of the pres- 
 ent order of things in favor of an essentially new order 
 of things. 
 
 The fact that education has been studied and practised 
 from the earliest historic period to the present excludes 
 any probability that there remains any essentially new 
 phase of the problem to be presented. 
 
 Throughout the entire past education has been de- 
 fective through some violation of the laws of symmetry, 
 or proportion or harmony. While holding very strong- 
 ly to one phase of the problem, the mind has let slip 
 other phases of co-ordinate importance, so that, while 
 there has been progress on the whole, it has not been 
 steady and symmetrical, but intermittent and. dispropor- 
 tioned. 
 
 Improvement in the theory of education will consist, 
 for the most part, in extending, co-ordinating, and har- 
 monizing old lines of thinking, and in forming a catho- 
 lie view of the problem of education from the scientific 
 study of human nature. The history of education should 
 be made the counterpart and proof of the science of edu- 
 cation. 
 
 In whatever has life, there will be the appearance of 
 something new until the term of perfect development 
 has been reached. In a certain sense, the tree of to-day 
 is a new tree as compared with the tree of yesterday, 
 which might be called the old tree. In the same sense, 
 the education of next year will be new, as compared with 
 
132 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the education of this year. If, in the case of the tree, 
 we were to imagine it as it probably will be after a pe- 
 riod of a hundred years, supposing its life to be indefi- 
 nite, and were then to contrast that probable tree with 
 the actual one of to-day, we might, by cancelling the 
 additions of each day in the century, make it appear 
 that the two trees belong to different species, and might 
 even work ourselves into a state of contempt for the 
 thing that is before our eyes. 
 
 When we consider the characteristic marks of the cur- 
 rent education, and then the marks which characterized 
 the education in vogue just prior to the Reformation, 
 the contrast is so striking that there is a justification for 
 speaking of the two systems as the " old " and the " new," 
 so long as we are intent on the study of contrasts ; but 
 when we observe more closely and discover the large 
 element of sameness that runs through the two systems, 
 it becomes plain that there has been no break in continu- 
 ity, and that, after all, the fact of unity is the most sig- 
 nificant mark. 
 
 In the cant of the day, the term " New Education " is 
 the name for an aspiration ; it marks a contrast between 
 what is and what is to be. " No one can tell," we are 
 assured on authority, "what the so-called New Educa- 
 tion really is, from the very fact that many if not most 
 of its principles and resulting methods have yet to be 
 discovered. We stand on the border-land of discovery 
 in education. . . . There is an immense margin between 
 the known and the unknown in education." Let us make 
 an allowance for the distortion of sentiment, and call 
 this hypothetical margin wide instead of immense. What 
 point in the history of the last twenty-four centuries can 
 we select and say, with any degree of truthfulness, that 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCxlTIONAL PROGRESS. 133 
 
 the margin between what was then known on the sub- 
 ject of education and what is now known is even wide % 
 What ground is there for assuming that there will be a 
 wide margin between the present and the near future in 
 the matter of education ? I see no ground save in a dis- 
 tempered imagination. 
 
 That there is "an immense margin" between what is 
 really known on education and what might be known by 
 historical study, is discreditably true. The most fruit- 
 ful field for investigation is the past rather than the fut- 
 ure. There are some indications that we are indeed on 
 this " border-land of discovery." If this be true, there 
 are startling revelations in store for some. There is a 
 thought in this quotation from a recent sermon by Arch- 
 deacon Farrar, that is worth considering : 
 
 "We boast of our educational ideal. Is it nearly as 
 high in some essentials as that even of some ancient and 
 heathen nations long centuries before Christ came % The 
 ancient Persians were worshippers of lire and of the sun ; 
 most of their children would have been probably unable 
 to pass the most elementary examination in physiology, 
 but assuredly the Persian ideal might be worthy of our 
 study. At the age of fourteen — the age we turn our 
 children adrift from school, and do nothing for them — 
 the Persians gave their young nobles the four best mas- 
 ters whom they could find to teach their boys wisdom, 
 justice, temperance, and courage — wisdom including wor- 
 ship, justice including the duty of unswerving truth- 
 fulness through life, temperance including mastery over 
 sensual temptations, courage including a free mind op- 
 posed to all things coupled with guilt." * 
 
 From my point of view, the main features of the so- 
 
 * London Schoolmaster, June 13, 1883. 
 
134 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 called "New Education" may be stated as follows: It is 
 the name for something which has no existence, actual 
 or probable ; the movement had its origin in sentiment, 
 and its strength lies in the fact of its vagueness; wher- 
 ever this sentiment appears in any strength it tends to 
 destroy the school as it actually exists, but provides no 
 definite substitute for it; it counsels a violent revolution 
 instead of an equable evolution ; it employs the language 
 of exaggeration, and appeals to prejudices and narrow 
 views; it preaches absolute freedom and versatility, but 
 it is dogmatic in its utterances and authoritative in its 
 precepts ; it represents an impulse to abandon certain 
 errors in practice, but rushes blindly into errors of an 
 opposite sort, and so is in direct opposition to normal 
 progress; per contra, it summons public attention to 
 educational questions, excites thought and discussion, 
 stimulates the sluggish, forces the thoughtful to give a 
 reason for the faith that is in them, and so is perhaps the 
 cause of some actual progress, though in itself an indica- 
 tion of chronic unsoundness in the intellectual condition 
 of the teaching profession. It is better to move in this 
 way than not move at all ; but it falls almost infinitely 
 short of an ideal mode of progress. 
 
 New buds do not make a new tree. Each year adds 
 something new to our education either in doctrine or in 
 method, and each day brings to the thinker some revela- 
 tion of truth ; but these additions are all in the line of de- 
 velopment or growth, they are perennial buds and blos- 
 soms proceeding from the secular trunk and branches. 
 
 Mr. Bain speaks of the "difficulty of reconciling the 
 whole man with himself;" this I believe to be one of 
 the great problems of education which the future has to 
 solve. The dominant purpose of Greek education was 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 135 
 
 to form the man ; but the education of the present day 
 seems intent on the formation of the instrument. In 
 educational polemics, the real contest of to-day is between 
 the partisans of a liberal education and the partisans of 
 a technical education. How may an individual become 
 and continue to be an instrument, and at the same time 
 approach more and more nearly the typical man ? This 
 reconciliation we might honestly call the "Kew Educa- 
 tion."* 
 
 There are still other tendencies to reconcile. The 
 kindergarten embodies the conception of pleasurable, un- 
 forced activity, and of development from within out- 
 ward through "gifts" and "occupations;" spontaneity is 
 encouraged, and the child's instinct to play is turned to 
 account. The motive to exertion is of the attractive 
 type, and the purpose is discipline, development, forma- 
 tion, through a process of agreeable sense-training. 
 
 The public school, on the other hand, aims at infor- 
 
 * In these days of narrow views as to the scope of education, 
 when an imposing philosophy recommends that men should be 
 trained first of all for their limited functions as instruments, it is 
 refreshing to ponder doctrines like this : 
 
 "In the natural order of things, all men being equal, the voca- 
 tion common to all is the state of manhood ; and whoever is well- 
 trained for that cannot fulfil badly any vocation which depends 
 upon it. Whether my pupil be destined for the army, the church, 
 or the bar, matters little to me. Before he can think of adopting 
 the vocation of his parents, nature calls upon him to be a man. 
 How to live is the business I wish to teach him. In leaving my 
 hands, he will not, I admit, be a magistrate, a soldier, or a priest ; 
 first of all he will be a man. All that a man ought to be he can 
 be, at need, as well as any one else can. Fortune will in vain 
 alter his position, for he will always occupy his own." — Rousseau, 
 " ftmile," op. cit, pp. 13, 14. 
 
136 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 mation as well as discipline; it cultivates reflection even 
 more than observation ; when spontaneity fails to enlist 
 the pupils' efforts in prescribed lines, it resorts to en- 
 forced activity ; when attractive motives fail it employs 
 some form of painful stimulation ; it purposes to inform 
 or furnish the mind through the interpretation of books. 
 
 Now the pleasurable, disciplinary, formative aims of 
 the kindergarten are in themselves wholesome and com- 
 mendable; but to conduct a child's education exclusive- 
 ly, or even very largely, on this type is to exclude him 
 from his lawful heritage of intellectual wealth and to 
 unfit him for the serious duties of actual life, which often 
 demand the patient doing of unpleasant tasks. Work 
 and play belong to different categories of activities, and 
 education through play cannot be a preparation for a 
 life which must be devoted to work. 
 
 The average public school, no doubt, errs in an excess 
 of restraint, of mere book-study, and of enforced activity ; 
 and is lacking in spontaneity, joyfulness, and in produc- 
 tive effort, manual and mental. Too much is put into 
 the mind and too little drawn out of it ; the apprehen- 
 sion of truth is too often mediate and shadowy, rather 
 than immediate and vivid. 
 
 Cannot these extreme tendencies be reconciled? Can- 
 not the freedom and joy of the kindergarten be infused 
 into the serious work of the public school? 
 
 In what I have now said I have expressed a candid 
 opinion of the "New Education" as to its raison d'etre. 
 I do not know that any one will agree with me in my 
 judgment; but I claim the right to form and express an 
 opinion on a question that is now exciting so much pub- 
 lic attention. I may be wrong in the conclusions I have 
 reached, but I have tried to state them so clearly that my 
 
THE MODE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 137 
 
 errors will be promptly detected. "Next to being right 
 in this world," says Huxley, "the best of all things is to 
 be clearly and definitely wrong, because you wall come 
 out somewhere. If vou £0 buzzing about between right 
 and wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out no- 
 where ; but if you are absolutely and thoroughly and 
 persistently wrong, you must, some of these days, have 
 the extreme good-fortune of knocking your head against 
 a post, and that sets you all right again." * 
 
 After all, the common and solid ground, on which we 
 can all stand is the belief in continuous growth. For 
 the present, we differ in our conception of progress; but 
 finally, let us hope, we shall all attain to "the unanimity 
 of the wise." 
 
 * Educational Times, Dec, 1883, p. 330. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 OP THE TERMS "NATURE" AND "NATURAL." 
 
 The terms "nature," "natural," "order of nature/' 
 etc., have gained such a foothold in modern educational 
 literature that it is necessary to have some settled notions 
 as to their signification if we care to interpret current dis- 
 cussions of principles. We are doubtless beholden main- 
 ly to Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Mr. Spencer for the fre- 
 quent recurrence of these terms, and it is unfortunate 
 that they have not left us some definition that will make 
 their meaning clear. As it is, there is an element of 
 vagueness and uncertainty in their discussions that is 
 vexatious and misleading. In his life of Pestalozzi,* Dr. 
 Biber speaks as follows of the term " nature :" " We are 
 perfectly willing to admit that the term i nature,' as 
 used by the German writers, involves a good deal of 
 vagueness, that it is more the expression of a mysterious 
 something than of an idea, or of a being, clearly appre- 
 hended ; and that it has the disadvantage of leading the 
 mind to rest satisfied with an obscure notion which has 
 the appearance, rather than the reality, of knowledge. 
 Nay, we are prepared to go further in our admission, by 
 stating it as our belief that most of the German writers 
 who have employed the term, if they were pushed to a 
 point on the subject, w r ould find themselves involved in 
 
 * E. Biber, " Henry Pestalozzi and his Plan of Education " (Lon- 
 don, 1831), p. 178. 
 
OF THE TERMS "NATURE" AND " NATURAL." 130 
 
 some difficulties and inconsistencies arising out of the 
 
 CD 
 
 vague use of a word of so comprehensive a meaning, and 
 of such a variety of acceptations." 
 
 The vacme and misleading character of this term is 
 also noticed by Jeremy Bentham : " Of the aggregations 
 thus formed, some have been better made, others worse. 
 Those which he (Condillac) regards as having been bet- 
 ter made, were (he assures us) the work of Nature / those 
 which were worse made, the work of learned men : mean- 
 ing such whose labors in this line he saw reason to dis- 
 approve of. 
 
 "Nature being a sort of goddess — and that a favorite 
 one — by ascribing to this goddess whatsoever was re- 
 garded by him as good, he seems to have satisfied him- 
 self that lie had proved the goodness of it; and, by so 
 concise an expedient — an expedient, in the employment 
 of which he has found but too many successors, as well 
 as contemporaries and predecessors — he saved himself no 
 small quantity of trouble. 
 
 "Nature is a sort of fictitious personage, without whose 
 occasional assistance it is scarce possible (it must be con- 
 fessed) either to write or speak. But, when brought 
 upon the carpet, she should be brought on in her proper 
 costume — nakedness: not bedizened with attributes ; not 
 clothed in eulogistic, any more than in dyslogistic, moral 
 qualities. Making minerals, vegetables, and animals — 
 this is her proper work, and it is quite enough for her: 
 whenever you are bid to see her doing maris work, be 
 sure it is not Nature that is doing it, but the author, or 
 somebody or other whom lie patronizes, and whom he 
 has dressed up for the purpose in the goddess's robes."* 
 
 * Jeremy Bentham, " Chrestomathia " (London, 1817), pp. 333, 
 334. 
 
140 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 It is not a little singular that while the in 3-th "Nature," 
 has been discarded in physical science (" nature abhors a 
 vacuum "), it is a favorite term in the nomenclature of 
 educational science; and it is still more singular that a 
 severe logician like Mr. Spencer should admit an indeter- 
 minate symbol into the formulas of an austere philoso- 
 phy. Vagueness has its proper habitat in poetry and ro- 
 mance ; so let us grant to rhapsodists and novelists the 
 monopoly of " Nature." 
 
 In alluding to Mr. Spencer's habitual invocation of 
 this new deity, a writer in the Atlantic Monthly, for 
 February, 1883, Miss E. R. Sill, very justly observes that 
 "probably nine-tenths of the popular sophistries on the 
 subject of education would be cleared away by clarify- 
 ing the word Nature." 
 
 The following are examples of the mischievous use of 
 the term " Nature :" " How are we to teach and learn 
 surely, i. e., so as to be sure of our result ? This is to be 
 done by finding the modus operandi of Nature, and ac- 
 commodating ourselves to that as follows : Nature attends 
 to a fit time ; Nature prepares material for itself before 
 it gives it form ; Nature takes a fit subject for its opera- 
 tion, or, at least, takes care that it be made fit; Nature 
 does not confuse itself in its works, but advances distinct- 
 ly to one thing after another ; Nature begins all its op- 
 erations from within outwards ; Nature begins all its for- 
 mation from generals, and thence proceeds to specialize ; 
 Nature does not proceed per saltum, but step by step ; 
 Nature, when it once begins, does not stop till it lias com- 
 pleted its task " (Comenius). 
 
 " Watch nature carefully, and follow the paths she 
 traces out for you;" "the internal development of our 
 faculties and of our organs is the education nature gives 
 
OF THE TERMS ''NATURE" AND "NATURAL." 141 
 
 ns;" "let the over-strict teacher and the over-indulgent 
 parent both come with their empty cavils, and before 
 they boast of their own methods let them learn the 
 method of nature herself" (Rousseau). 
 
 "It is nature alone who does us good, it is she alone, 
 incorruptible and imperturbable, who conducts us to 
 truth and to wisdom ;" " there are not, there cannot be, 
 two good methods of instruction. There is but one, and 
 this reposes absolutely upon the eternal laws of nature ;" 
 " the first tutor is nature, and her tuition begins from the 
 moment when the child's senses are opened to the im- 
 pressions of the surrounding world " (Pestalozzi). 
 
 "The spirit of God rests, lives, and works in Nature, 
 expresses itself by Nature, imparts itself through Nature, 
 continues to shape itself in and by Nature ; but Nature 
 itself is not the body of God, God himself does not 
 dwell in Nature as in a house, but the spirit of God 
 dwells in Nature, to produce, protect, foster, and develop 
 Nature" (Froebel). 
 
 " By our various physical sensations and desires Nature 
 has insured a tolerable conformity to the chief require- 
 ments;" "... items which Nature in her strict account- 
 keeping never drops ;" " that increasing acquaintance 
 with the laws of phenomena which has through succes- 
 sive ages enabled us to subjugate Nature to our needs;" 
 "it would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy 
 of Nature, if one kind of culture were needed as a men- 
 tal gymnastic;" "Nature illustrates to us, in the simplest 
 way, the true theory and practice of moral discipline;" 
 " Nature is a strict accountant ; and if you demand of her 
 in one direction more than she is prepared to lay out, she 
 balances the account by making a deduction elsewhere ' : 
 (Spencer). 
 
142 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 " How, then, does nature teach ? She furnishes knowl- 
 edge by object lessons; . . . she makes her pupil learn to 
 do by doing, to live by living. She gives him no gram- 
 mar of seeing, hearing, etc.; . . . she adopts much repeti- 
 tion in her teaching; . . . she teaches quietly, she does not 
 continually interrupt her pupil; . . . she bides her time; . . . 
 she does not anxiously intervene to prevent the conse- 
 quences of his actions ; she allows him to experience 
 them, that he may learn prudence; sometimes even let- 
 ting him burn his fingers, that he may gain at once a 
 significant lesson in physics, and also the moral lesson 
 involved in the ministry of pain;" "nature's teaching is 
 desultory ;" " nature's teaching is often inaccurate ; not 
 however, from any defect in her method, but from in- 
 herited defects in her pupils ;" " nature's teaching often 
 appears to be overdone ;" " nature does not secure the 
 results of her lessons with a direct aim to mental and 
 moral improvement ;" " nature accustoms her pupils to 
 little, and that the simplest generalization ;" " nature is 
 relentless in her discipline;" "the educating influence, 
 or educator, is God, represented by nature, or natural cir- 
 cumstances" (Joseph Payne). 
 
 I think these are fair and sufficient examples of the 
 use of the term "Nature" in modern educational litera- 
 ture ; but to make this inquiry more comprehensive I 
 will add a few examples of the ancient use of this term : 
 " By nature some beings command, and others obey, for 
 the sake of mutual safety ; for a being endowed by dis- 
 cernment and forethought is by nature the superior and 
 governor ; whereas he who is merely able to execute by 
 bodily labor is the inferior and a natural slave; and 
 hence the interests of master and slave are identical;" 
 " every state is the work of nature, since the first social 
 
OF THE TERMS "NATURE" AND "NATURAL." 143 
 
 ties are such; for what every being is in its perfect 
 state, that certainly is the nature of that being, whether 
 it be a man, a horse, or a house ;" " in the order of nature, 
 the state is prior to the family or individual ;" " usury 
 is merely money born of money : so that, of all means 
 of money-making, this is the most contrary to nature" 
 (Aristotle). 
 
 "When Polus was speaking of the conventionally dis- 
 honorable, you assailed him from the point of view of 
 nature ; for, by the rule of nature, to suffer injustice is 
 the greater disgrace because the greater evil ; but conven- 
 tionalism to do evil is more disgraceful ;" " nature herself 
 intimates that it is just for the better to have more than 
 the worse ;" " on what principle did Xerxes invade Hellas, 
 or his father the Scvthians? These are the men who act 
 according to nature ; yes, by Heaven, and according to 
 the law of nature " (Plato). 
 
 I think these quotations may be regarded as typical, 
 and sufficiently comprehensive to furnish a basis for the 
 interpretation of this vague term. At least, one thing 
 is very evident even at this stage of inquiry, thinkers in 
 all ao-es of the world have been fond of falling back on 
 an assumed "order of nature" as a justification for cer- 
 tain opinions or doctrines. John Gillis, in his Introduc- 
 tion to the " Politics," speaks of Aristotle's method as 
 follows : " In this, as in all other inquiries, his first ques- 
 tion is, what are the phenomena ? His second, what is 
 the analogy of nature?" It is well known that by this 
 method Aristotle finds a sanction for human slavery and 
 condemns the taking of interest on money. In these 
 cases it is evident that Aristotle either misconceived the 
 "order of nature," or that he was wrong in following 
 the lead of this presupposition. 
 
144 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 A study of the examples just presented will show that 
 two constructions have been put on the term " Nature," 
 a narrow and a wide. At one time the reference is made 
 to an individual thing, as a man, a house, or a horse ; and 
 at others to the cosmos, the universe, or the earth, as an 
 organized aggregate animated by life and intelligence. 
 As it is the easier to comprehend, I will first discuss the 
 term in its narrower signification. A typical instance of 
 this use of the term " Nature " is this example from Aris- 
 totle : " The nature of a thing is judged by its tendency ; 
 for what every being is in its perfect state, that certainly 
 is the nature of that being, whether it be a man, a horse, 
 or a house." I interpret this to mean that in the germ of 
 every living thing, as a man or a horse, there is a prede- 
 termination to grow into the most perfect type of its 
 kind ; that from the acorn to the oak there is perfect 
 continuity of growth ; and that what persists through all 
 the vicissitudes of development is this immanent prede- 
 termination, and that this is most completely manifested 
 when the thing has attained its most complete form. 
 This immanent tendency to grow into the likeness of a 
 type is the nature of a thing, whatever it may be, as a 
 man, or a horse, or a tree. By an easy extension of 
 thought we may speak of the nature of a piece of 
 mechanism. Thus, in the manufacture of a watch, the 
 maker embodies in it a determination to execute move- 
 ments of a preconceived kind. Perhaps the tension of 
 the mainspring most nearly represents this immanent 
 predetermination ; but this motive power in connection 
 w T ith the correlated parts constitutes the nature of the 
 watch. And by a similar extension of thought we may 
 speak of the nature of inorganic matter, as the nature of 
 iron, or of oxygen, or of light, meaning, in these cases, 
 
OF THE TERMS "NATURE" AND "NATURAL." 143 
 
 some characteristic quality. Thus, it is the nature of 
 iron to conduct electricity ; of oxygen, to combine readily 
 with most other elements; of light, to move in straight 
 lines. From this point of view, perhaps, we may define 
 the nature of a thing as the law of its behavior or of its 
 growth. 
 
 Before leaving this narrower conception of "Nature," 
 it will conduce to clearness to determine what is meant 
 when we speak of "following the order of nature." In 
 the manufacture of a watch, the maker predetermines 
 the length of time during which the tension of the main- 
 spring will carry forward the movement of the hands, 
 and also the direction in which this spring will uncoil ; 
 and so in winding a watch we " follow the order of its 
 nature" when we turn the key in a certain direction, and 
 observe a certain interval between successive windings. 
 Thus, it is the nature of some clocks to run twenty-four 
 hours, but of others, eight days ; and in the management 
 of these clocks we must adapt our treatment to their sev- 
 eral natures. 
 
 And so we "follow the order of nature" when we 
 feed horses oats, and hyenas meat ; for by their original 
 constitution horses were predetermined to subsist on 
 vegetable food, and hyenas on animal food. It would be 
 "contrary to the order of nature" to feed horses with 
 meat, and hyenas with pastry. 
 
 A characteristic property of phosphorus is its ten- 
 dency to ignite on the occasion of slight friction ; and so 
 we "follow nature" when we tip matches with phos- 
 phorus. To tip them with graphite would be "con- 
 trary to nature." These illustrations are perhaps suffi- 
 cient to make clear the narrower use of the term 
 " Nature." 
 
 7 
 
146 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 When we are told to " watch nature carefully, and fol- 
 low the paths she traces out ;" that " the first tutor is 
 nature, and her tuition begins from the moment when 
 the child's senses are opened to the impressions of the 
 surrounding world ;" that " nature illustrates to us, in the 
 simplest way, the true theory and practice of moral dis- 
 cipline ;" and that " nature furnishes knowledge by ob- 
 ject-lessons," it is evident that we have to do with a 
 much wider, if not a very different, conception. 
 
 In these instances the reference is not to a quality or 
 a law, but to a living, intelligent, and deliberating person- 
 ality. As Bentham correctly observes, "Nature" is here 
 " a sort of goddess," " a sort of fictitious personage." This 
 goddess is an incomparable guide, a pattern of wisdom, 
 economy, and forethought, whose methods are the arche- 
 types of the teacher's methods. But this statement ex- 
 plains nothing, and puts the thoughtful teacher no fur- 
 ther on his way towards a rational Sj'stem of practice. 
 Such statements simply daze and bewilder the readers of 
 educational literature. 
 
 In order to render to ourselves an intelligible account 
 of this modern myth, we must try to master the concep- 
 tion of the universe which seems to underlie the newest 
 system of philosophy. The naive mind of the fertile and 
 imaginative Greek peopled mountain and vale, woodland 
 and stream, with presiding and protecting deities. Air, 
 earth, and water were peopled with a host of divinities, 
 whose joint action controlled all terrestrial phenomena, 
 organic and inorganic. But this host of gods and god- 
 desses, of satyrs and nymphs, has been dispersed, and no 
 one is now conscious of their presence ; but for this 
 old terrestrial polytheism there has been substituted the 
 modern terrestrial monotheism. The goddess "Nature" 
 
OF THE TERMS " NxVTURE " AND " NATURAL." 147 
 
 has replaced Vulcan and Ceres, and Juno and Hermes, 
 etc. The powers and functions that were once exercised 
 by an innumerable host of divinities are now ascribed to 
 the one supreme goddess, " Nature." 
 
 The conception of the earth as an animated organism 
 is not new, but the doctrine of evolution has served to 
 revive it and to give it a higher degree of definiteness. 
 Under this conception, earthquakes, volcanoes, cyclones, 
 tides, the birth, growth, and decay of animals and plants, 
 the formation of crystals, minerals, etc., the march of a 
 pestilence, the invasion of a cultivated district by a horde 
 of locusts or caterpillars, are all the effects of the voli- 
 tional acts of " Nature." All terrestrial phenomena are 
 exhibitions of power, and this earth-power, when personi- 
 fied and invested with the attributes of intelligence and 
 wisdom, is "Nature." A cave, or a bower of trees, is a 
 "natural" house; a tree that has fallen across a stream 
 is a "natural" bridge; beavers, bees, and birds are 
 "natural" architects; fruits that grow spontaneously are 
 "natural" fruits. From this point of view, "Nature" 
 may be called " the Law of Evolution." 
 
 Perhaps we can gain the clearest conception of " Nat- 
 ure" as here considered, by imagining the earth as it was 
 immediately prior to the advent of man. There were 
 forests, mountains, meadows, lakes, rivers; there were 
 beasts, great and small, bird and fowl, insect and reptile, 
 sea-monster and fish ; there were thunder and lightning, 
 rain, hail, and snow, hurricane and flood ; there were day 
 and night, winter and summer, heat and cold ; there were 
 birth, life, and death, creation, growth, and destruction ; 
 and all these were the works of "Nature." Man had 
 not come to mar and spoil. " Nature " reigned supreme. 
 There w T as nothing to oppose the " order of nature." 
 
148 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Now let a single creature of the human species be in- 
 troduced on the scene, and imagine that, while he stands 
 at the head of creation in point of brain power, he lives 
 a purely instinctive or animal life. When hungry, he 
 goes in quest of food, when weary, he rests and sleeps, 
 when warm, he seeks the shade, when cold, he retreats to 
 a thicket or a cave. He eats to live, and he lives to eat. 
 Finally he reaches the "natural" term of his existence, 
 and dies and returns to dust. This man was purely a 
 "natural" product, just as trees and squirrels and stones 
 are. He was just as loyal to "Nature" as the lamb or 
 the dove. He was acted on by his environment, and in 
 turn he reacted on his environment. Once menaced by 
 a ferocious beast, the experience was recorded in his 
 brain, and afterwards, for self-preservation, he either de- 
 fended himself or fled. His whole life was thus a course 
 in self-tuition. "Nature" taught her brightest pupil by 
 object-lessons. His education was purely "natural." 
 " The ways of nature are the easier ways," says Charles 
 Francis Adams. This supposed case then exemplifies 
 the ideal education, for it was conducted wholly by 
 " Nature." As a matter of fact, human art has interfered 
 so little in the education of savages that they might con- 
 veniently be taken as models of what "Nature" can do 
 when she is not hindered and thwarted in her benign 
 work. 
 
 During the lifetime of this man, countless experiences 
 must have left their impressions on his mind, and this 
 residuum must have constituted some kind and desrree 
 of wisdom; but when he died, "his wisdom went with 
 him," and his successors on the earth must have begun 
 where he did, and must have stopped where he stopped. 
 This supposed case exemplifies Mr. Spencer's statement, 
 
OF THE TERMS "NATURE' 1 AND "NATURAL. 149 
 
 that " humanity has progressed solely by self-instruction."* 
 Now let us suppose that several creatures of the human 
 species appear on the scene, and that they dispute and 
 resist the domination of "Nature." They select some 
 plant which yields them food, and favor its growth by 
 loosening the earth about its roots, and by destroying the 
 weeds that compete with it for light, moisture, and nutri- 
 ment. They enclose this cultivated space, and thus pro- 
 tect that on which they have bestowed their labor from 
 the " natural ' : incursions of beast and fowl. Not sat- 
 isfied with "natural" protection from rain, wind, and 
 snow, they build themselves houses and make themselves 
 garments. For mutual aid and comfort they devise a 
 S3 T stem of signs for communication by ear and eye, and 
 as an aid to memory they record their experiences in 
 written language. New members now join this primi- 
 tive community. They at once participate in the food, 
 the shelter, and the language which they found ready 
 prepared for them, and thus start on their forward march 
 somewhat at the point where the elders of the community 
 will stop. These elders finally succumb to "Nature," 
 but they leave behind them the records of their experi- 
 ences in doing and thinking. They die, but their wis- 
 dom does not go with them. Their successors interpret 
 these written legacies, and the time which is thus saved 
 from rediscovery they emplo} r in making new discoveries. 
 To require each new member of the human family to 
 repeat the experiences of his predecessors on the earth 
 would be to ordain a perennial relapse into savagery. A 
 necessary factor in progress is inheritance. There can 
 be no advance in wisdom without capitalization. 
 
 The changes wrought in the domain of "Nature" by 
 
 * "Education." p. 125. 
 
150 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the self-determining and creative power of man, we as- 
 cribe to Art. Man is the only creature that has the 
 power to react deliberately on his environment, to modify 
 it to suit his needs and fancies, and virtually to recreate 
 it. We shall now gain a clearer conception of " Nature " 
 by contrasting her works with those of Art. It is this 
 contrast, and the questions growing out of it, that form 
 the warp and woof of such discussions as those of Joseph 
 Payne and Herbert Spencer. These writers warn us 
 against the evils that have been brought into education 
 through man's device, and pathetically counsel us to imi- 
 tate " the methods of nature." 
 
 If, through the annihilation of the human race, the 
 earth were to be released from the dominating power of 
 man, there would follow a gradual relapse to the " state 
 of nature;" and all that would be lost by this relapse 
 represents the net achievements of human art. By this 
 gradual downward transformation the earth would doubt- 
 less be better adapted, first, to semi-civilized races, then to 
 barbarous people, then to savages, and, finally, to brutes 
 and reptiles; but if it were again to be prepared for the 
 uses of civilized man, the upward transformation must 
 be wrought by human art. In these discussions, our 
 point of departure must not be the brute, the savage, or 
 the barbarian, but the civilized man of modern society. 
 We must not even assume that the savage is to remain a 
 savage, but the rather that he is to be transformed into 
 the likeness of the highest type of his kind. Mere 
 "Nature," as contrasted -with Art, can never effect this 
 transformation. We are to recollect that the state into 
 which the children of modern society are born is not a 
 "state of nature," but a state in which Art is at least 
 a co-ordinate factor with "Nature." Accepted beliefs, 
 
OF THE TERMS "NATURE" AND "NATURAL." 151 
 
 social, political, and religions, formulated truths in sci- 
 ence, ready-made languages and literatures, are just as 
 truly a part of the child's environment as atmosphere, 
 soil, and climate. 
 
 The savage is a typical specimen of what " Nature " can 
 do in the line of educating, and I know no fairer concrete 
 tost of the good and bad qualities of "Nature's method" 
 than the actual mental and moral state of the savage. 
 The savage is truly "Nature's" own, for she has fash- 
 ioned him in her own way. lie has not been spoiled by 
 the arts of the priest, the politician, the tailor, or the 
 teacher; or, if "Nature's" methods have been modified 
 to some slight extent by heredity and tradition, this in- 
 terference is not sufficient to disguise the major and char- 
 acteristic part of the process. To one who would pass 
 from poetry to science, and would attain to clearness of 
 conception, I would seriously recommend that he substi- 
 tute for the vague formula " Follow Nature" the intelli- 
 gible precept " Imitate the method by which the savage is 
 educated." The essential facts in the case may be sum- 
 marized as follows : 
 
 1. To use Joseph Payne's phraseology, these chil- 
 dren of Nature are taught by object-lessons. They are 
 instructed through a process of sense-excitation. There 
 is an irregular stimulation of the sensibilities, and in cer- 
 tain directions the power of observation attains an animal 
 acuteness. 
 
 2. As the flow of mental activity is mainly outward, 
 the reflective effort is correspondingly weak, and all real 
 intellectual effort is made impossible through mental las- 
 situde. 
 
 3. It goes without saying that, in the total absence of 
 teachers, schools, and books, the instruction which "Nat- 
 
152 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ure" furnishes the savage is wholly concrete; it has ref- 
 erence to individual things, and is addressed directlv to 
 the senses. 
 
 4. As " Nature " proceeds by way of sense-stimulation, 
 and as wholeness or concreteness is essential to tins 
 end, the savage is not taught to discriminate; he never 
 makes a resolution of his sense -intuitions. In other 
 terms, "Nature" does not teach her pupils to think. 
 The savage lives in the hourly presence of the most 
 striking natural phenomena, but he never learns natural 
 science. In this respect "Nature" is the archetype and 
 original of all poor teachers. She constantly dictates 
 lessons to the memory, but she never stimulates the un- 
 derstanding. A surfeit of tilings is just as easy and just 
 as bad as a surfeit of words. 
 
 5. In the way of discipline, the savage is treated with 
 indiscriminating and heartless severity. In all her retri- 
 butions, "Nature" is pitiless and unforgiving; she has 
 no " bowels of compassion." The innocent babe has no 
 more consideration than the deliberate villain. "Nat- 
 ure" never excuses, never relents, never suspends sen- 
 tence. In this respect, too, she is the archetype and 
 original of all brutal teachers. 
 
 6. As the net result of the training which the savage 
 receives in the school of " Nature," he is the fit compan- 
 ion of stocks and stones and brutes. He is so purely a 
 "natural" product that, with reference to his environ- 
 ment, action and reaction are nearly equal. His power 
 of reaction is so feeble that he is the slave, and not the 
 master, of "Nature;" and no radical amendment, in his 
 case, is possible without a change of teachers. 
 
 7. As, by the terms of the new mythology, "Nature" 
 is a teacher, so, of course, she has a book, "the book of 
 
OF THE TERMS "NATURE" AND "NATURAL." 153 
 
 Nature," which the poet and the poetic scientist and the 
 glowing reformer bid the young to read. How does it 
 happen that, with this so-called book opened before him 
 from birth till death, for countless generations, the sav- 
 age, to this day, has not learned to spell out the first 
 word ? Here, again, " Nature " is the archetype and orig- 
 inal of inept teachers. Before the works of creation can 
 be interpreted and admired, there must be a long course 
 of training by humane teachers. The savage is a chained 
 prisoner in the cavern-house of " Nature," crippled and 
 blind and stupid ; from this bondage he must be released, 
 even by violence, if needs be ; and, after he has been 
 taught to discern the real forms of truth and beauty, he 
 may return to the cavern, and interpret the shadows that 
 flit across the prison wall. 
 
 To the question how far we should imitate the mode by 
 which the savage is educated, this is the only safe re- 
 sponse that can be given : Only so far as the child re- 
 sembles the savage , and so far as the child's world resem- 
 bles the savage state. 
 
 The savage is an animal, with the distant possibility of 
 becoming a man ; in civilized society the infant is an 
 animal, with the near certainty of becoming a man. The 
 initiatory development of this common animal element is 
 doubtless through a process of sense-stimulation. But, to 
 use Plato's imagery, the child must gradually be released 
 from the toils of sense by being taught to reflect, to 
 think, and to reason. "Nature" is as powerless to do 
 this work as she is to produce an edible potato or to con- 
 struct a telescope. 
 
 The child is born into a world that has been rescued, 
 in part, from the domination of "Nature," and trans- 
 formed by human art. He enters this reconstructed 
 
 7* 
 
154 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 world the very moment lie becomes distinctly self-con- 
 scious ; and from that moment " Nature's " indiscriminat- 
 ing and heartless tuition begins to wane, and man's dis- 
 criminating and humane tuition, to wax. 
 
 From the moment of birth, and through all his subse- 
 quent years, the child must profit from vicarious experi- 
 ences. He need not blister his little fingers in order to 
 learn that fire is dangerous, or swallow arsenic to prove 
 that it is poisonous, or travel to London to know that 
 there is such a city, or die to be certain that he is mor- 
 tal, or run a course of vice to prove that it is ruinous. 
 Neither need he be a physician in order to enjoy the ad- 
 vantages of medical science, nor a lawyer in order to pro- 
 tect his civil rights. The child is the heir of all the ages. 
 He may become a man without repeating the experi- 
 ences of the savage and the barbarian.* 
 
 I will now return for a moment to the narrower con- 
 
 * " Human beings alone, as Herder has said, enjoy the possibility 
 of capitalizing their discoveries and of adding new acquisitions to 
 their more ancient acquisitions, so that each one of us is the heir 
 of an immense stock of consecrations, of sacrifices, of experiences, 
 of reflections, which constitute our patrimony and connect us with 
 the past and with the future. There is no philosophy more super- 
 ficial than that which, taking man as a selfish being, and interested 
 only in what pertains to his own life, pretends to explain him, and 
 to trace for him his duties, while leaving out of account the society 
 of which he forms a part. As well consider the bee apart from the 
 hive, and say that by itself it constructs its cell. Humanity is an 
 aggregate, all of whose parts are essentially related to one another. 
 We all have an ancestry. That friend of truth who suffered for her 
 centuries ago conquered for us the right to freedom of thought. 
 It is to a long series of worthy and obscure generations that we are 
 indebted for a country and for civil freedom." — Rcnan, op. tit., 
 p. 6. 
 
OF THE TERMS " NATURE n AND "NATURAL." 155 
 
 ception of "Nature" and "natural," as when we speak 
 of the nature of water, of a tree, or of a mineral. The 
 mind has its own nature in the intelligible sense that it 
 is endowed with a predetermined and uniform mode of 
 activity. Thus, in the reaction on the material presented 
 to it, the first effort of the mind is towards resolution or 
 disintegration, and the succeeding or complementary ef- 
 fort is towards assimilation or integration ; and the teach- 
 er may be said to " follow nature" when he presents ma- 
 terial in the form of aggregates, and then stimulates the 
 mind to resolution and assimilation. Whether the pres- 
 entation be in the concrete or in the abstract, it is equal- 
 ly " natural," for it is an aggregate that permits the mind 
 to work in its normal way. In actual practice, this is 
 merely a question of ease or difficulty. Each moment of 
 his life the child is confronted with purely concrete pres- 
 entations, such as physical phenomena, which he is utter- 
 ly powerless to resolve, while at the same time he finds 
 it easy to resolve propositions that, to a considerable de- 
 gree, are general and abstract. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be that 
 the education of a human being is jointly natural and ar- 
 tificial, and that errors in practice come from an extreme 
 tendency in either direction. Education must respect 
 the laws of growth that are immanent in the child, and 
 must be guided by them. To this extent the teacher 
 should "follow nature." But, in the matter of vicarious 
 experience, in the selection of matter for the process of 
 mental elaboration, and in stimulating the effort at reso- 
 lution and assimilation, w T e find a wide and attractive 
 field for the display of the teacher's art. Education is 
 not a process of laisser-faire, but of faire-f aire. 
 
 The distinction between nature and art may be use- 
 
156 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 fill for purposes of discussion, but it has led to gross 
 errors in theory, and, in any comprehensive view which 
 we may take of life, it is unfounded. The instinct of 
 the bird to build its nest, or of the beaver to construct 
 its house, is natural / and the nest and house are, also, 
 natural. Is not man's instinct to build likewise natural f 
 and is not his house as much a " work of nature" as the 
 beaver's house? The chirp of a bird and the growl of a 
 beast are doubtless natural. "Why not the articulate 
 speech of man ? How did it come to pass that man fell 
 upon the art of WTi'ting, unless this were natural to him ? 
 The squirrel lays up a stock of nuts in store for winter, 
 and we call this prevision natural ; man capitalizes his 
 acquirements in knowledge, and why is not this previs- 
 ion, also, natural ? The only essential difference in the 
 two sets of cases just presented is that the prevision of 
 animals is instinctive, while in man this prevision is the 
 result of deliberate calculation. Is deliberation, there- 
 fore, unnatural? 
 
 If the view here taken is correct, it follows that, in a 
 philosophical sense, the most consummate human art is 
 still natural. Under this view we can subscribe to the 
 dogma, " Follow "Nature." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE POTENCY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 
 
 Without using the term ideas in the Platonic sense, as 
 the archetypes of created tilings, we may still say that 
 fruitful ideas are immortal ; that while the particular 
 forms in which they have been embodied may disappear, 
 the content persists, and will reappear in other forms, and 
 thus maintain a continuity of existence. Ideas, such as 
 I have in mind, not only have an inherent vitalit} T , but 
 also a native energy, whereby they are ever striving to 
 embody themselves in act. The artist must embody his 
 ideals on canvas or in marble; the inventor his in a ma- 
 chine; the political philosopher his in a model republic; 
 and so on to the artisan, who fashions his work according 
 to some pre-existing idea. 
 
 Our lives are unconsciously moulded by our ideas and 
 our ideals. We are ever tending to grow into certain 
 forms that have been impressed on our minds as ideas. 
 We spend our lives in constructing, and we construct ac- 
 cording to models and patterns. When we construct ill, 
 the fault is oftener in our models than in our fingers. 
 The cook who wxmld serve us a toothsome roast must, 
 first of all, have what Plato would call the idea of a 
 roast ; and not only this, but, once having a clear idea 
 of a roast, the novice will be able, on occasion, to make 
 his hands execute what his head prescribes. Whether 
 we are to paint a picture, build a hor.se, teach a school, 
 or bake a biscuit, the first condition of success is a clear 
 
158 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 idea of the thing we wish to do; and the other half of 
 this truth is that, once having such ideas, we are under a 
 virtual compulsion to embody them in act. The acquir- 
 ing of manual dexterity is a secondary consideration, 
 and, in the learning of an art, is wholly subordinate to 
 the formation of a model as a mental image. 
 
 The view opposed to this is the stronghold of empiri- 
 cism. "We must learn to swim by swimming," say the 
 practical philosophers whose voices are now loudest in the 
 land. " We must learn grammar by using language," is 
 another form of this popular doctrine. The mischief 
 done by such dogmatists lies in the fact that these dicta 
 embody one phase of a truth while concealing a comple- 
 mentary phase. We have the authority of a noted cler- 
 gyman for saying that "a half truth is a whole lie." 
 While, in all constructive efforts, a definite idea of what 
 is to be done is the first condition of success, a second 
 and secondary condition is the empirical effort. My 
 ground of dissent from the " practical" view is, that this 
 empirical effort is put forward as the prime and sufficient 
 condition of success in construction. One might, if he 
 were stupid or obstinate, learn the route to London by 
 going there ; but the prudent traveller would form a 
 mental trace of the route in advance as the only means 
 of co-ordinating and economizing his efforts. I believe 
 the first condition of success in the work of education is 
 the formation of distinct and adequate ideas of what it 
 is to educate, what it is to teach, what a school should 
 do, what it is to organize and to govern, etc. One's 
 own experience as a pupil, and the observation of excel- 
 lent educational work, will furnish the teacher with val- 
 uable ideas; but, as all human models are imperfect, 
 there must be formed in the mind of the teacher an ideal 
 
TflE FOTENXY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 159 
 
 type of excellence far superior to anything that offers it- 
 self to the observation, and even far beyond anything 
 that is actually attainable in practice. The ideal is al- 
 ways unattainable, but it is approachable; and no work 
 above mediocrity is possible save on the condition of 
 striving towards an ideal. 
 
 How shall the teacher form the ideals that are required 
 for work of the highest quality ? This I believe to be the 
 fundamental question in educational progress. If by any 
 means the teachers of the country could be helped to 
 a correct notion of what education ought to be, of what 
 mental growth really is, of what teaching should be, a 
 marked advance along the whole line would be assured. 
 
 History tells us what education has been ; observation 
 may show us what it now is ; and, by the comparison 
 which is thus made possible, we may discover the direc- 
 tion of progress, and thus, at least, adumbrate the educa- 
 tion of the future. AVe still need a third point towards 
 which we may project the lines roughly determined by 
 the two points furnished by history and observation ; we 
 still need an ideal — a conception of what education ought 
 to he. This ideal must be a mental creation. To the 
 notion of education given us by observation, the mind 
 must add something by its conceptive power, and thus 
 furnish us with our ideal. The constructive imagination 
 must employ materials furnished us by reflection. Re- 
 flection upon what ? For the formation of the ideal 
 intellectual education we must reflect on the facts of 
 mind and the laws of its activities. In this way we can 
 form a conception of what mind is and in what mental 
 growth consists ; and, by an easy transition, we attain our 
 ideal type of man as an intellectual being. By a similar 
 process we may conceive types of physical and moral per- 
 
160 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 fection ; and, finally, we attain our ideal of man as he 
 ought to be. !Now, that art by which man is helped to 
 grow into the type of his kind is education in its broad- 
 est sense, and the teacher's education that does not end 
 in the formation of such an ideal fails in its most impor- 
 tant purpose. 
 
 In the last analysis, all education is based on a belief 
 in the potency of ideas. "As a man thinketh, so is he," 
 is the truest of educational philosophy. All men are 
 governed by some belief. In business, in professional, 
 in literary, in political, in religious life, and equally in a 
 life of leisure, there is always the domination of ideas, 
 or the directive and plastic action of theory. In a re- 
 cent lecture Mr. Quick has said : " Englishmen in gener- 
 al, schoolmasters in particular, seem anxious to do with- 
 out theory. Does it never occur to them that, if they 
 are afraid of theory, they must do without science and 
 without religion ? All science is theory in one sense of 
 the word, all religion is theory in another sense." In 
 moral education, the first essential is the formation of a 
 vivid conception of the ideal life. Then we have some- 
 thing to aspire after, to hope for, to strive for. It would 
 be the saving of multitudes of the young if they had 
 some good or beautiful thing to look forward to. In 
 later life we will endure the horrors of the Trial de mer 
 if we may see London, or Paris, or Rome ; and many a 
 boy might go bravely through his declensions and con- 
 jugations if there had been implanted in his mind the 
 anticipated delight of reading the ^Eneid or the Iliad in 
 the original. An idea colored with emotion becomes a 
 motive. Motives either attract or propel, and the great 
 secret of education is to transform the animal into a man, 
 by implanting in him a proper motive of the attractive 
 
THE POTENCY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 1G1 
 
 sort, and, finally, by investing him with the power to de- 
 termine for himself an intellectual motive, as distin- 
 guished from the merely sensuous impulse that governs 
 the animal. 
 
 Or, from another point of view, the problem of edu- 
 cation may be stated in this way : To secure the ready 
 disintegration of mobs. 
 
 A Greek proverb says : "A mob has no brains;" the 
 meaning doubtless being either that the only brain con- 
 cerned is that of the leader, or that the units composing 
 the mob have only one brain in common. In either case, 
 disintegration will come the moment each of these units 
 can determine its own motive instead of berns: controlled 
 by a motive of another's imposition. For example, in 
 our politics there is a large mobile element, the purchasa- 
 ble factor, that has as little self-determining power as the 
 ballast of a sailing-vessel. Could each of these "elec- 
 tors" be given the power and the will to do his own 
 thinking, the problem of political education would be 
 solved. Which is better for the citizen, the practical 
 drill of the "primaries," or the serious reading of the 
 "Kepublic" and the "Law T s"? It is no paradox to say 
 that we should learn to swim, i. e., form an idea, pattern, 
 or theory of swimming, before we plunge into the water, 
 to the end that we may safely and thoroughly learn the 
 art of swimming. In other words, we should know, to 
 the end that we may do. First the head and then the 
 hand ; finally, the hand inspired and guided by the head. 
 In going from the old faith in the potency of ideas and 
 ideals we have degenerated. We are following false 
 gods. 
 
 Socrates identified knowledge and virtue, holding that, 
 if a man does wrong, it is because lie does not know the 
 
1G2 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 consequence of his proposed line of conduct. The latest 
 of modern ethical doctrines is to the effect that the mere 
 knowledge of what is right has but little effect on the 
 doing of right; that conduct is determined mainly by 
 habit ; that ethical precept or ethical theory is of but 
 little account; but that ethical practice confirmed into 
 habits of right living is the only valid moral training. 
 And, in matters other than ethical, it is now held that 
 theories or ideas are comparatively impotent, but that 
 experience or practice is the main essential. The differ- 
 ence between the ancient theory and the modern is al- 
 most world-wide, and in this instance we have a striking 
 exemplification of the fact that human opinion oscillates 
 from one extreme position to another, the periods of vi- 
 bration sometimes being centuries. No one, nowadays, 
 holds the extreme Socratic doctrine. It omitted to take 
 account of habit and heredity, as well as of that atrophy 
 of the will which is induced by intense emotion. The 
 modern doctrine is equally partial and misleading; it 
 obscures the potent influence of thought upon conduct, 
 and exaggerates the empirical element in human train- 
 ing. The ancient doctrine is the nobler and the safer ; 
 and, as a matter of fact, it underlies most of the modern 
 systems of ethical and professional instruction. In the 
 sermon, in the Sabbath-school lesson, in the law-school, 
 in the medical college, and even in schools of technology, 
 the Socratic doctrine, in its main elements, still holds the 
 right of eminent domain. In modern education it is a 
 dominant idea, and is itself a curious proof of the po- 
 tency of ideas. Our reformers insist that a theory of 
 what is to be done is of very little account ; but still they 
 feel impelled to tell us that the old theory is wrong, and 
 that their own theory is to be preferred. They in- 
 
THE POTENCY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 1G3 
 
 voke the potency of ideas to disprove the potency of 
 ideas ! 
 
 Men are sometimes said to be possessed of an idea, the 
 meaning doubtless being that a thought has been sharply 
 defined, and that this sharpness of definition lias excited 
 a strong emotion, so that the activities are now turned 
 towards a determined object. Religious or philosophi- 
 cal or political propagandism illustrates possession by a 
 dominant idea. And what is prejudice but the domi- 
 nant power of an idea ? And what truer account can we 
 give of the mechanism of envy, jealousy, malice, resent- 
 ment, etc., than to say that in each case a dominant idea 
 has excited a strong emotion, and that this emotion serves 
 as a stimulus to action ? And what is insanity or mono- 
 mania but an extreme case of possession by an idea? 
 Ascending now to the higher regions of thought and 
 emotion, what is the highest virtue but the highest con- 
 ception of duty, accompanied by the stimulus of an ex- 
 alted emotion ? The best man is he who has the highest 
 and clearest conception of what he ought to do and to 
 be, and then turns all his activities towards the attain- 
 ment of the ends discerned by the intellect. The clear 
 definition of an ideal is the most potent factor in moral 
 training.* The strength of Christianity lies in this fact. 
 No other religion presents such an exalted ideal of moral 
 excellence, and the Christian life is an illustration of the 
 potency of ideas. In art, the truth just alleged is so ob- 
 
 * " Every one of us has within him an ideal man, which he 
 strives, from his youth upward, to cherish or to subdue. . . . But 
 the ideal man comes upon the earth as an anthropolithc (a petri- 
 fied man) ; to break this stony covering away from so many limbs 
 that the rest can liberate themselves, this is, or should be, educa- 
 tion." — Richter, op. cit., p. 35. 
 
104 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 vions as to make formal mention of it almost unneces- 
 sary. The skill of the painter or sculptor is not so much 
 in the deft hand as in the vivid and trained imagination. 
 The true artist is possessed by his ideals. The necessary 
 antecedent to the production of what is beautiful is the 
 conception of the beautiful. 'Not only this, but a vivid 
 conception of the beautiful will, by a fundamental law 
 of nature, embody itself in artistic creation. Artistic 
 training is an affair of the head rather than of the hand. 
 It is the prerogative of spirit to impress its forms upon 
 matter; nay, more, it is the law of spirit — not may, but 
 must. 
 
 In some cases we can eliminate the manual element in 
 training from the mental element. In penmanship, for 
 example, the right hand may alone have been actually 
 trained in writing, but, on occasion, the left hand will 
 trace the letters without any previous empirical training. 
 Whence came this ability? Evidently from the formal 
 intelligence. The whole process might be briefly de- 
 scribed as follows : Through the sense of sight the forms 
 of letters are impressed on the mind ; these forms are 
 reproduced by the right hand ; this reproduction by the 
 hand reacts on the mind in the way of sharper defini- 
 tion ; and, finally, this sharpness of definition gives im- 
 mediate skill to the left hand. In the region of manual 
 training this case exhibits the potency of ideas. It also 
 exhibits whatever truth there is in the latest educational 
 cant, " We learn to do by doing." In all rational prac- 
 tice the antecedent to doing is knowing. No one but 
 the veriest quack will set about the doing of a task with- 
 out having previously formed a mental conception of 
 end and means. Every man who has a mind of normal 
 power holds a theory of life; he has formed a concep- 
 
THE POTENCY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 105 
 
 tion, more or less definite, of what human life ought to 
 be ; and then his main activities are co-ordinated, in some 
 degree, towards the attainment of his ideal. It has been 
 well said that every man must philosophize ; it should 
 also be said that every man is bound, by a dominant law 
 of his nature, to follow the precepts of his philosophy. 
 Wherever, in the conduct of life, there is an observed 
 discrepancy between theory and practice, it will be found 
 that the dominant theory is not the one that is pro- 
 fessed. 
 
 Historical illustrations of the potency of ideas may be 
 found on every hand. Perhaps the most striking is what 
 is known as the " Holy Roman Empire." It has been 
 described as "that idea, that belief, created by memory 
 and imagination, which acted as one of the great forces 
 to prevent Europe from splitting into fragments. By 
 persuading men that they all still belonged to one com- 
 mon whole, it served as an artificial bond of union at a 
 time when a bond of union of some sort was most vitally 
 necessary. It exercised as strong a control over the men 
 of those generations as the most stubborn facts could 
 have done." * What has preserved the essential integ- 
 rity of the Jewish nation through so many centuries of 
 dispersion and disaster? Evidently nothing but a domi- 
 nant idea. Catholicism, Jesuitism, Protestantism, are 
 illustrations of the same truth. 
 
 The educational bearings of this doctrine are readily 
 discerned. If ideas, ideals, beliefs, conceptions, hypoth- 
 eses, have the potency that is here claimed for them, it 
 follows that very much of the clamor now heard in be- 
 half of "practical" education is ill-advised and unneces- 
 sary. For all varieties of human labor, a sound mental 
 
 * G. B. Adams. 
 
166 SCIENCE OE EDUCATION. 
 
 training is a necessary prerequisite. With this general 
 preparation, an art that chiefly involves manual dexter- 
 ity is best learned by the practical imitation of good 
 models; but a liberal art, or one which chiefly involves 
 the exercise of judgment, discrimination, versatility, taste, 
 tact, ingenuity, etc., is best learned by mastering its the- 
 ory. In all such cases the schools should furnish pupils 
 with a science, and out of this science each one may be 
 left to evolve his special art. In other words, a law 
 school, a medical school, or a normal school is true to its 
 proper function when it communicates a body of doc- 
 trine. The sciences thus learned will be converted into 
 arts on the occasion of experience. In all instruction of 
 this kind the essential thing is accuracy, clearness, defi- 
 niteness. When this has been attained by a mind of 
 normal robustness and alertness, the conversion of poten- 
 tial into actual power is not attended with any serious 
 difficulty. This doctrine has a direct bearing on the 
 education of teachers. Some arts are purely mental, as 
 poetry; others are almost purely muscular, as mining; 
 and still others involve both mental and muscular dex- 
 terities, as music and sculpture. Preparation for arts of 
 the first class is purely mental ; for arts of the second 
 class, almost purely manual ; and for the third class, men- 
 tal and muscular jointly. Teaching proper is an art al- 
 most as purely mental as poetry. The training of teach- 
 ers has often been likened to the training of sculptors. 
 Nothing but persistent practice, it is said, can give the 
 sculptor the muscular deftness that his art requires. But 
 the analogy between these two arts does not lie in this 
 direction. The teaching art does not require manual or 
 muscular dexterity. The analogy is wholly on the men- 
 tal side, as the most necessary endowment of both teach- 
 
THE POTENCY OF IDEAS AND IDEALS. 167 
 
 er and artist is a vivid ideal of what is to be done. 
 Doubtless there will always be much teaching that is so 
 spiritless as to be in a certain sense mechanical, and I 
 fear that the method of training teachers that is most 
 approved has a direct tendency to mechanize this art; 
 but I write in behalf of teaching as a spiritual art, and 
 so I counsel a different mode of preparation. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 "PROCEED FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN.' 5 
 
 I have selected for examination one of the most 
 plausible of the so-called " Pestalozzian Principles." 
 Many teachers have accepted this as a simple axiom ; 
 such will think it absurd to attempt a critical examina- 
 tion of it. If this were an axiom, it would certainly be 
 absurd to discuss its truth ; and so I will begin by assert- 
 ing that this well-worn " principle" is a bit of educa- 
 tional cant that passes current to save the labor of think- 
 ing. Axioms that are not axiomatic arrest thought ; 
 they foster the delusion that a method has received its 
 final justification when it has been shown to*be consist- 
 ent with one of these assumed principles. The mischief 
 lies in the fact that these maxims are partly true and 
 partly false. In some cases they lead us to the truth, 
 and in others they betray us into error. 
 
 This maxim is often employed to justify the construct- 
 ive or synthetic method of teaching geography, accord- 
 ing to which the pupil proceeds from school-yard to town- 
 ship, from township to county, from county to state, 
 from state to nation, from nation to continent, from con- 
 tinent to hemisphere, and finally to the globe. But, if an 
 undoubted psychological law can be trusted, this specious 
 method is false, is absolutely without scientific justifica- 
 tion. My faith in a psychological law is much stronger 
 than my faith in this educational axiom ; therefore I 
 
*< 1>P 
 
 PROCEED FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN." 169 
 
 suspect that we have to do with an axiom that is not 
 wholly axiomatic. From my point of view, then, this 
 examination is not absurd. 
 
 The "genesis of knowledge in the race" lias been a 
 favorite starting-point w T ith the educational philosophers 
 who make a liberal use of this axiom. Now it must be 
 apparent that, with the race, the genesis of knowledge 
 must have been from the unknown to the known ; for 
 each individual of the race had nothing in the line of 
 knowledge to begin with, and so must have proceeded 
 from the unknown to the known. This primal experi- 
 ence is typical of the experiences that follow in the 
 life of the child; for a considerable time passes before 
 the old is recognized in the new to a degree sufficient to 
 fall within the compass of this rule. The child is ever 
 encountering new sensations; but as these are simple, he 
 derives no help from previous sensations. In his knowl- 
 edge of objects, the general process is still the same; each 
 new object is a new unknown. It may be composed of 
 parts that are really contained in objects previously 
 known ; but, as first impressions are always confused, 
 these parts are as yet not discriminated, and so cannot be 
 used to analyze the new unknown. 
 
 Again, in this course of unconscious tuition, the learn- 
 ing of elements or parts is alwa} 7 s subsequent to the 
 learning of aggregates or wholes. Definitude, as Hamil- 
 ton has observed, is not the first but the last term of our 
 cognitions.* It is only in a mature period of culture 
 that the knowledge of elements is sufficient to permit a 
 prompt resolution of the new into the old. Childhood 
 is well over before the resolution of the confused into 
 the definite is well begun. One half of thinking is men- 
 
 * " Metaphysics," p. 498. 
 S 
 
170 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tal disintegration — the reaction of the mind in the way 
 of analysis upon complex presentations ; so that if, before 
 the presentation is made, its elements are already in the 
 mind, the tension of thought is low. To think vigor- 
 ously, there must be some resistance ; but resistance be- 
 comes less as analysis becomes easier ; and analysis grows 
 easy in proportion as elements admit of quick discern- 
 ment. 
 
 If, then, the dogma, "Proceed from the known to the 
 unknown," means that the pupil should master the 
 elements of a complex notion before the notion itself 
 has been presented, it is unsound from two points of 
 view : 
 
 1. It is in direct conflict with a normal law of mental 
 growth, a law that is stated by Hamilton as follows : 
 " The first procedure of the mind in the elaboration of 
 its knowledge is always analytical. It descends from 
 the whole to its parts, from the vague to the definite." 
 
 2. In consequence of a violation of this law, this dog- 
 ma, interpreted as above, absolves from the necessity of 
 thinking. Indeed, when I think on the possible conse- 
 quences of such a doctrine, I feel glad that this dogma 
 can neither be interpreted nor applied. How happily 
 hopeless the case is, we may judge from Mr. Bain's fruit- 
 less struggle with this " favorite maxim of the teaching 
 art." * 
 
 So far as I am able to interpret the facts of mental 
 progression, the normal sequence is as follows : In in- 
 fancy, from the unknown to the imperfectly known ; in 
 childhood, from the imperfectly known to the better 
 known ; in maturity, from the better known to the well 
 known. With respect to the resolution of presentations, 
 
 * " Education as a Science," p. 128. 
 
"PROCEED FROM THE KNOWN TO TIIE UNKNOWN." 171 
 
 the case seems to stand thus : in mere infancy, this reso- 
 lution is impossible; in childhood, it is difficult; in ma- 
 turity, it is easy. In order to maintain a normal tension 
 of thinking, there should be this gradation in presenta- 
 tions : in childhood, they should be of easy resolution ; in 
 maturity, of difficult resolution. "With increase of power 
 there should be increase of difficulty. Milo, the weak- 
 ling, lifted the calf; Milo, the athlete, lifted the ox.* 
 If the maxim we are discussing means this, it expresses 
 a great truth that all can understand and apply. 
 
 In further illustration of my subject, let me refer to 
 what I think is the history of this maxim. In his at- 
 tempt to decipher the hieroglyphic inscription on the 
 Rosetta Stone, Champollion had the aid of neither dic- 
 tionary nor grammar. He was confronted with the ab- 
 solutely unknown ; but such was his acuteness that he 
 resolved this riddle, and so made it easy to read other in- 
 scriptions of this kind. Now I submit that, in a school 
 of Champollions, work of this type is not only proper, 
 but is the very best that can be devised ; on the hypoth- 
 esis, of course, that the first essential in education is dis- 
 cipline or training, rather than the gaining of knowledge 
 that can be readily converted into money or bread. But 
 as the pupils in our schools are not Champollions, I hasten 
 to say that the tasks we prescribe should not be Rosetta 
 Stones. Still, I think this may very well be taken as the 
 type of work that is best for the purposes of the highest 
 discipline ; and, by making successive additions of known 
 elements, this may be the type of work best suited to the 
 needs of pupils in a descending scale of ability. If we 
 
 * " Milo, having been accustomed to carry the same calf everj 
 day, ended by carrying a bull." — Quintilian, "Institutes," i., 9, 5. 
 
172 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 reflect on the two cases, we shall see that a page of the 
 primer is to the child about what a face of the Rosetta 
 Stone was to Champollion. In both cases, the vague un- 
 known must be resolved into the definite known ; and, in 
 both cases, the elements that come from the disintegra- 
 tion of a few aggregates become the keys to the inter- 
 pretation of other aggregates. Relatively considered, 
 the child's task is the greater; but, by supplementing 
 his weaker ability, he succeeds in doing Champollion's 
 work. 
 
 Now, let us imagine a case somewhat more difficult. 
 Suppose Champollion had been set to learn the sacred 
 language of Egypt from a grammar written in Demotic ; 
 that is, suppose an unknown language must be learned 
 by means of a book written in a language equally un- 
 known. It is still conceivable that the acuteness of a 
 Champollion might penetrate this double obscurity ; but 
 the difficulties of the case are too formidable to furnish 
 us with a type for school work. 
 
 In reality, this supposed case is very like the actual 
 case of learning Latin from a grammar written in Latin. 
 Up to the time of Comenius (1592-1671), this was the 
 current practice ; and one of the reforms attempted by 
 Comenius consisted in teaching Latin through the ver- 
 nacular ; that is, a known language should be the me- 
 dium for learning an unknown language. And so we 
 have this principle of teaching: u Nature proceeds from 
 the more easy to the more difficult. We find Latin rules 
 taught in Latin — the unknown by the equally unknown 
 and many other faults which will be amended if (1) the 
 teacher speak the same vernacular as the boy ; (2) if all 
 explanations of things be given in a known tongue; (3) 
 if every grammar and lexicon be adapted to that tongue 
 
"PROCEED FROM THE KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN. 1 ' 173 
 
 (i. e., the vernacular) by means of which the new is to 
 be learned." * 
 
 I believe that the fact just related, that an unknown 
 language was taught by means of a language equally un- 
 known, rather than through the vernacular, gave rise to 
 this famous maxim, " From the known to the unknown." 
 The maxim was made to govern special cases — the learn- 
 ing of new languages — and, when limited to these cases, 
 it was eminently wise and useful ; but when it was made 
 to cover the whole field of teaching, it became what we 
 see it to be to-day, nonsense and cant. The history of 
 this maxim is only one illustration of the vice of mere 
 enthusiasts — catching up a method that is good in special 
 cases, and then putting it on the market as a method of 
 universal application. A specific becomes a panacea. 
 Object-teaching and the monitorial system are other il- 
 lustrations of this vicious generalization. 
 
 The danger of thoughtlessly accepting a specious gen- 
 eralization has been admirably pointed out by Degerando 
 as follows: "Nothing comes nearer ignorance of a prin- 
 ciple than its excessive generalization. The imagination 
 receives it from the hands of the genius that discovered 
 it and carries it in triumph to the very summit of our 
 knowledge, thus giving it a jurisdiction without limits. 
 Then mental indolence and vanity conspire with the im- 
 agination to perpetuate this usurpation. It is so easy 
 and so beautiful to explain everything by a common so- 
 lution, and to need but one fact in order to know, or at 
 least to seem to know, everything ! There is a fashion 
 in opinions as well as in dress." f 
 
 * Laurie, "Life of Comenius " (London, 1881), p. 91. 
 t J. M. Degerando, "Des Signes et de l'Art de Penser" (Paris, 
 An. VIII.), vol. i., p. xx. 
 
174 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 I do not believe this dogma can be employed with any 
 certainty, save in cases where language is the medium of 
 instruction. Thought cannot be conveyed, but only in- 
 duced or provoked ; and so there can be no communica- 
 tion between one mind and another, unless the symbols 
 employed as the medium of communication are mutually 
 understood. The common ground on which pupil and 
 teacher stand is the vernacular, the known ; and starting 
 from this common ground, the pupil may compass suc- 
 cessive portions of the unknown. 
 
 The wide currency given to this dogma is, doubtless, 
 due to the prevailing assumption that the child's knowl- 
 edge should be built up synthetically, starting with known 
 elements and constructing them into aggregates. This 
 assumption is baseless, the normal sequence being from 
 aggregates to elements or parts. If this maxim can be 
 construed to mean that an aggregate of easy resolution 
 should be mastered as a means of resolving a higher ag- 
 gregate, then it is true ; but there is no reason to think 
 that it is thus construed. 
 
 In conclusion, my objections to this "favorite maxim 
 of the teaching art " are as follows : 
 
 1. It was framed for special cases, but has been gen- 
 eralized to cover all cases. It should be restricted to a 
 little more than its original compass. 
 
 2. In its present state it is ambiguous, vague, in many 
 cases of uncertain application, and in others, impossible 
 to apply (Bain, loo. cit.). 
 
 3. It is a warrant for the constructive or synthetic 
 method of instruction, as in geography. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 TRIBUTE TO FETICH WORSHIP. 
 
 Of late, countless changes have been rung on the 
 "college fetich," and the lamentations over the years 
 wasted in classical study have been very pathetic. From 
 the village schoolmaster, who decries that to which he 
 never can attain, to the college president, who would 
 place himself en rapport with the mobile and dissatisfied 
 public, we have had countless homilies on a reform in 
 the college curriculum which should exalt the living over 
 the dead, and thus train the better spirits of the age into 
 fitness for the real duties of this working -day world. 
 There is no field of discussion where it is so easy to en- 
 list the sympathies and excite the prejudices of the un- 
 lettered and uncritical public. Life two thousand years 
 ago, with its worship of heathen divinities, barbarous lan- 
 guages horrid with grammatical subtilties, all this is 
 brought into pitiable contrast with the robust freshness 
 of modern life, its elegant literatures, its exalted ethics, 
 its political freedom, and its thousand charms due to the 
 ameliorations of modern science. The only wonder is 
 that so little use has been made of these obvious con- 
 trasts. On this theme every debating society in the land 
 might be the nightly scene of fervid eloquence and tri- 
 umphant victory, if only the "college fetich" could find 
 a champion. 
 
 The surprising thing is that, while the arguments 
 
176 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 against the study of the classics are so readily marshalled, 
 and, in appearance at least, are so formidable, the colleges 
 continue in the old bad way with placid indifference, and 
 the students of the better mental endowment, and with, 
 the truer scholarly instincts, show a scarcely abated zeal 
 for the study of the Greek and Roman languages and 
 literatures. What I have particularly observed in one 
 institution of learning I believe to be true of similar in- 
 stitutions at home and abroad ; that the classical courses 
 are at least fairly holding their own, and that the shift- 
 ing that occurs from one course to another is generally 
 towards the Ph. B. and A. B. courses. As it seems to me, 
 classical teachers have been needlessly alarmed as to the 
 future status of classical learning. They have been de- 
 ceived by the noise and demonstration of the assault ; 
 but they have no just cause for alarm, provided they 
 make instruction in the classics consist not principally in 
 the niceties and details of the grammar, but in catching 
 the spirit and tasting the flavor of the classical litera- 
 tures. Literature is the end ; grammar chiefly the means. 
 The "Commentaries" are to be read not as the means 
 of teaching the nature of the gerundive, the ablative ab- 
 solute, and indirect discourse, but as the means of bring- 
 ing the mind of the student into intimate communion 
 with the thoughts and deeds of the ablest captain, thinker, 
 and writer of his age, or any age before or since. Classical 
 instruction, to hold its own, must have constant reference 
 to "those large utterances of the early gods," and con- 
 siderably less to the mysteries of the ethical dative and the 
 subscript iota. It is to be hoped that at least this lesson 
 has been taught by the disciples of a modern culture. 
 
 No one denies that the ancient college curriculum 
 should be considerably modified in order to adjust itself 
 
TRIBUTE TO FETICH WORSHIP. 177 
 
 to the present state of human learning. An education 
 exclusively classical and mathematical is not, for a scholar 
 of this generation, a liberal education; neither is a man 
 liberally educated whose training has been mainly in 
 mathematics, modern languages, and natural science. If 
 we adopt a distinction made by Doctor Whewell, the 
 basis of a liberal education should be the " permanent 
 studies," i. e., those that have received their final form, 
 such as the classical languages, certain parts of physics, 
 deductive logic, etc., but should also include selections 
 from the " progressive studies," i. e., those now in process 
 of formation, such as modern languages, the inductive 
 sciences, etc. The former studies connect us with the 
 past, while the latter interest us in the present and the 
 future; and by their joint influence the student is made 
 to participate in the conscious life of the race. 
 
 One of the most common, and, as it seems to me, one 
 of the most specious, objections to classical study is to 
 this effect: "After a student has been from college for 
 only a few years, what has he to show for his six years' 
 toil over his Latin and Greek? He will not venture to 
 translate an ' unseen,' and is ill at ease if confronted 
 with the well-thumbed^ texts of li is college days. Of 
 what use is it to learn at such great cost what is so soon 
 forgotten ?" The same things might be said of all studies 
 that are not kept bright by daily use. Who that has 
 mastered Euclid can, after five years' absence from col- 
 lege, give an impromptu demonstration of even a simple 
 proposition? Yet this fact does not in the least degree 
 impeach the worth of mathematical training. This is a 
 formal science, and, while the matter may have disap- 
 peared, the effect of the study accompanies each intel- 
 lectual act. In the region of taste, classical study is for- 
 
 8* 
 
178 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 mative in as true a sense and in as great a degree as in 
 the ease just cited ; and if we admit, as we think it must 
 be admitted, that the better half of culture is concerned 
 with taste, feeling, and emotion, it follows that the classics 
 are culture subjects in a pre-eminent degree. So far is 
 it from being true that the value of a subject for pur- 
 poses of culture can be tested by the residue held in the 
 memory, that it may the rather be affirmed that knowl- 
 edge can be transformed into faculty, power, taste, and 
 character, only on the condition that it shall lose its iden- 
 tity. 
 
 Of course, this line of thought brings us into that re- 
 gion where the examiner's direct methods will always 
 fail him. The scientific mind, that tests all things by 
 rule and balance, would also find some sensible test for 
 culture, and when he fails in this, as from the nature of 
 the case he always must fail, he at once concludes that 
 what he does not find is non-existent. There is no direct 
 examination test for culture. All that is possible in these 
 higher regions is to infer the fact of culture from certain 
 kinds of aliment that have been found to produce it. 
 An examiner can readily discern whether the student 
 can interpret the language of Homer and Yergil, and to 
 what degree he enters into the spirit of these poems — 
 these are the palpable results of the inquest; but whether 
 this knowledge has passed its final transformation into 
 taste and poetic insight is a matter of inference — the prod- 
 uct, though real and of superlative worth, is impalpable. 
 Richter has said, " Do not in the least degree support re- 
 ligion and morality by reasons; even the multitude of 
 pillars darken and contract churches." 
 
 It may be that the highest forms of intellectual cult- 
 ure are akin to religion and morality in respect of their 
 
TRIBUTE TO FETICH WORSHIP. 179 
 
 verification, and that this fact will explain the little that 
 has been gained in the classical controversy by mere ar- 
 gumentation. Sentiment is often surer in its aim and 
 swifter in its course than the cold logic of the reasoner ; 
 and it is almost a contradiction in terms to reason about 
 what can only be felt. This line of remark is applicable 
 to all forms of culture, scientific, artistic, historical, or 
 literary ; in no case does it admit of quantitative evalua- 
 tion. In educational history, the recoil of opinion tow- 
 ards realism seems to have reached its limit, and the 
 return movement towards humane culture of the clas- 
 sical t} r pe, to have begun. Men of scholarly instincts 
 will continue to find intellectual delight in classical 
 learning, and wherever the type of intellectual culture is 
 highest, there the appreciation of classical learning will 
 be highest. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 
 
 In tracing the history of normal schools in this coun- 
 try, I have been struck with the importance which their 
 founders attached to the study of the history of educa- 
 tion as an essential factor in a teacher's preparation. 
 These New England educators of a half-century ago had 
 a large conception of the qualifications of one whose voca- 
 tion was to teach. In these proposed professional schools 
 the subject of education was to be comprehensively stud- 
 ied in its three phases — as an art, as a philosophy, and as 
 a history. This catholic scheme of professional study 
 was worthy the men who conceived it; and though their 
 ideal has been only very imperfectly realized, it is still 
 an ideal for us and our successors. It is to one element 
 in this catholic scheme of study that I would invite at- 
 tention. 
 
 The importance of the study of the history of educa- 
 tion may be urged on several grounds. I will make brief 
 mention of some of them. 
 
 1. If we define the purpose of historical study in gen- 
 eral to be that of forming a vivid conception of the most 
 notable things done by the human race, we make it a 
 culture subject in the true sense of that term; for there 
 is a vast aggregate to enlist the comprehensive powers of 
 the mind, a complexity to tax the discriminating ability, 
 and a vast human interest to call into exercise the emo- 
 tional element in human nature. History, pursued in 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 181 
 
 the light of this conception, permits the student to par- 
 ticipate in the conscious life of the race. Any study 
 that serves this purpose in a considerable degree is a cult- 
 ure subject ; and any study that does not fulfil this pur- 
 pose in some appreciable degree has, to this extent, lost 
 its culture value. Now, what is true of history in gen- 
 eral is true, in some degree, of special phases of history. 
 It is the prerogative of educational history to exhibit the 
 conscious efforts of the wisest and the best of the human 
 race in behalf of their successors on the earth, the fate 
 of the systems which they devised, and the principles 
 which were involved in them. Here is a comprehensive 
 aggregate, a complexity of structure, and an involution 
 of human interests, that mark this subject as having a 
 culture value of high grade. Historical study in general 
 is an element of general culture ; the study of educational 
 history is an element of professional culture. My obser- 
 vations of teachers and schools seem to have taught me 
 that the thing needed above all others by the teaching 
 class is that indefinable, impalpable, but very real thing 
 which we call culture; and I feel sure that nothing will 
 contribute more directly or more powerfully to this end 
 than the historical study of educational systems, methods, 
 and doctrines. 
 
 2. What inheritance is comparable to that of an hon- 
 ored name derived from a long line of honorable and 
 honored ancestry? ISfcMesse oblige! How is each gen- 
 eration thus constrained to preserve the family traditions 
 and the family honor! Animated by this spirit, how 
 easy it is to kindle a zeal that will lighten all life's bur- 
 dens ! Almost as potent is pride in professional ancestry. 
 Yet how few teachers are able to avail themselves of this 
 stimulus to noble effort ! What profession can boast such 
 
182 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 a long line of illustrious ancestry ? Mark a few names 
 that occur almost at random — Moses, Ezra, Solomon, 
 Christ, Paul, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alcuin, Come- 
 nius, Pestalozzi, Arnold. Yet it is to be feared that, to 
 very many teachers, the most of these are unknown 
 names. I venture to express the opinion that, in the 
 case of the teachers who have the best opportunities for 
 a professional education, the substitution of educational 
 history for the highest of the higher mathematics, or for 
 entomology, or even for some of the practice work, would 
 be a most profitable innovation. 
 
 3. While the practical value of a subject, i. e., its value 
 for guidance, is by no means its highest claim to consid- 
 eration, it is one that should be taken into careful ac- 
 count. I am in doubt whether this subject has a prac- 
 tical value, according to the current use of the term. 
 "We need not expect to learn from it how to stop whis- 
 pering, or to prevent tardiness, or to teach subtraction, 
 or any one of the thousand things that a teacher must 
 know. This knowledge cannot be applied to such spe- 
 cific uses, but rather to uses which are general and com- 
 prehensive, such as the trend of thought on educational 
 questions through the centuries, judicial fairness in the 
 discussion of complex problems, wisdom in dealing with 
 systems and methods that have once been put on trial, 
 etc. These uses are so general that, even from this third 
 point of view, the subject seems to have a culture value 
 rather than a practical value. Still, out of deference to 
 usage, let us call these high uses I have indicated prac- 
 tical, and say that the study of educational history should 
 be encouraged on the score of its value for guidance. 
 The most specific advantage to be derived from this 
 study is the saving of time, efforts, and money in the 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 183 
 
 avoiding of experiments that experience lias once con- 
 demned. By the light of this knowledge we are able 
 to start on our own forward journey with the net re- 
 sults of all past educational effort as our own capital — 
 an advantage whose importance it is not possible to es- 
 timate. 
 
 In normal schools the history of education has never 
 occupied the important place that their projectors desired 
 and anticipated, and we have not to go far to find the 
 reasons for this failure. In some cases the scheme of 
 professional instruction has been so " practical " that this 
 unpractical subject has been eliminated from the curricu- 
 lum. As I was once told by a very prominent normal- 
 school principal, "We aim at purely practical results; 
 a man can teach a good school without knowing any- 
 thing of the history of education." 
 
 The history of education affords striking illustrations 
 of what seems to be a very general law of human 
 opinion — that recoil from one error is pretty sure to 
 land us in an error of an opposite sort. That one ex- 
 treme follows another is an observation almost as old 
 as reflection itself. This law seems to be involved in 
 the famous doctrine of The Mean, of which Aristotle 
 makes so much. According to this conception, truth, in 
 conduct or action, is the harmony of two opposing or 
 contrary movements; and such is the weakness or the 
 infirmity of the human mind that it can seize and com- 
 prehend only one of these two phases of truth at one and 
 the same time. For example, strict allegiance to truth 
 requires the constant union of the formal and the real, 
 or of the sign and the thing signified ; but there is al- 
 ways a tendency for the mind to be occupied with the 
 easier of these two elements, to the neglect of the one 
 
184 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 more difficult of comprehension. Thus, in religion, there 
 is always a tendency to formalism ; that is, to set up the 
 symbol as an object of reverence, and so to leave out of 
 account the verities of religion. In process of time this 
 movement goes to such an extreme that it excites remon- 
 strance, and then there sets in a movement back towards 
 the simple and the real. In the sixteenth century the 
 movement towards religious formalism reached its culmi- 
 nation, and then the recoil came in the name of Protestant- 
 ism, and then in the name of Puritanism, of Quakerism, 
 of Methodism, etc. The divorce of form from content, 
 the gradual culmination of the formal, and then a recoil 
 towards the real, is just as observable in the history of 
 science. Just prior to the period of Socrates, for example, 
 the current knowledge of the time had been formulated, 
 and the vocation of the scholar was to gain possession of 
 these specious formulas, often empty, always hollow and 
 deceptive. This movement had gone so far that, to be 
 counted wise, a man had need only to collect a library. 
 Under this artificial state of things the Socratic move- 
 ment began, which, in one of its main characteristics, 
 consisted in exposing the emptiness of what passed for 
 knowledge. During the centuries that have followed 
 the era of Socrates this oscillation from form to content, 
 and then from content back to form, has been a recur- 
 ring phenomenon. Truth, discovered, realized, and 
 formulated in one age, becomes the cant of the next; 
 and then a reform movement sets in, the purpose of 
 which is to restore to forms their historic and proper 
 content. In illustrating this general law of the oscilla- 
 tion of opinion from one extreme to another, I have in- 
 cidentally stated one important instance of this move- 
 ment — that from form to content, from sign to thing, 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 185 
 
 and then the reverse movement from the real to 
 the formal. An analogous case is next to be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 It appears to me that the truest statement jet made 
 of the purpose of education is the following, by Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold : " The ideal of a general, liberal train- 
 ing is to carry us to a knowledge of ourselves and the 
 world."* The two factors in this conception are the 
 world without and the world within ; the one discov- 
 ered by observation, the other by reflection. The his- 
 torical fact that I wish to call attention to is, that the 
 current of opinion has flowed first towards one of these 
 regions of knowledge, and then, by a recoil movement, 
 towards the other. Physical or cosmical research had 
 occupied the attention of the philosophers who preceded 
 Socrates. Their purpose was to account for the physical 
 universe and to explain physical phenomena. Socrates, 
 seeing the speciousness and inutility of these specula- 
 tions, and convinced of their untruthfulness by noting 
 the conflicting views held by those pretended wise men, 
 directed his attention from the world without to the 
 world within ; for observation he substituted reflection ; 
 for physics, ethics. This recoil movement in human 
 thought culminated in the age of Bacon ; the period of 
 oscillation was thus about twenty centuries. With Ba- 
 con there began a return movement towards realism, and 
 now the pendulum of opinion has gone far back towards 
 the pre-Socratic modes of thought. We of to-day are 
 either promoting this recoil towards realism or physical 
 philosophy, or are borne along in the current in spite of 
 our resistance. The indications of fact are not to be mis- 
 taken. Object-teaching, sense-training, the culture of the 
 * "Higher School and Universities in Germany," p. 191. 
 
186 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 observing powers, manual training, are positive marks; 
 while the warfare against the classics, the discredit thrown 
 upon metaphysics, and a relaxing of faith in ideals, and 
 in whatever cannot be w T eighed and measured, are nega- 
 tive indications of the same fact. A prevision that seems 
 to be warranted by this historic movement is this — the 
 mode of thought now in the ascendant exaggerates one 
 of the elements of a liberal training, and by so much be- 
 littles the other; a return movement may be anticipated, 
 and finally the oscillations will practically cease, and the 
 training in the schools will harmonize the elements that 
 are now at variance. An indication that we are even 
 now approaching this ideal adjustment is the fact that, 
 in our universities and in our secondary schools, the old 
 is granting domicile to the new, and they bid fair not 
 only to live together in harmony, but to be mutually 
 helpful. It is an auspicious sign of the times that a stu- 
 dent who is construing Homer this hour is to be found 
 in the physical laboratory the next hour. This course of 
 events will finally lead to the ideal curriculum, which will 
 combine in harmonious measure the formal sciences, such 
 as logic and mathematics, the real sciences, such as phys- 
 ics and chemistry, and the humane sciences, such as his- 
 tory and literature. The almost complete divorce of the 
 old from the new is seen in those distinct establishments 
 known as the German Gymnasium and Real School. So 
 far as this separation is maintained, it stands opposed to 
 that ideal adjustment which is predicted by the historic 
 movement of opinion. In the American high school of 
 the first class the classical course and the scientific course 
 are impartially administered under one management, and 
 often there is a third course, the Latin and scientific, 
 which is a compromise of the old and the new, and in 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 187 
 
 the end will, perhaps, serve as the basis of the final and 
 ideal adjustment commended by Mr. Arnold. In tin's 
 respect the American public-school policy is more nearly 
 in the line of historic development than the German. 
 In the meantime, the man of one idea will continue to 
 lift up his voice. On the one side there will be pre- 
 scribed and exclusive intellectual diet of Greek and Lat- 
 in and mathematical roots, and on the other of bugs, but- 
 terflies, and botanical roots. But for ourselves and our 
 children, we will order a mixed diet. Our sons shall be 
 able to read the Iliad and to analyze air, earth, and wa- 
 ter, and our daughters to read Dante and to make bread 
 and cook a beefsteak. Our educational creed shall em- 
 brace both the trained head and the trained hand, though 
 we w T ill train the head first, as the best means of training 
 the hand. 
 
 A survey of the whole historic course of human train- 
 ing shows that ancient education was dominated by the 
 spirit of authority, and that in modern education the 
 pupil has become, in theory at least, his own master. 
 Anciently the injunction was, "Accept this as true, be- 
 cause I assert that it is true ;" now the theory is, " Ac- 
 cept nothing as true unless you have verified it by your 
 own personal experience." Here the recoil has been 
 from t} T ranny to anarchy. As illustrations of these ex- 
 tremes, read the " Talmud" and the "fimile." The act- 
 ual Jewish child was rigidly kept within the narrow cir- 
 cle of authority ; the imaginary, though impossible, Emil- 
 ius is invested from very infancy with the liberty of the uni- 
 verse. If the self-consciousness of Kousseau were fully 
 awake while he was composing his educational romance, 
 he must have laughed in his sleeve when he thought of 
 the readers who would accept on simple trust a theory 
 
188 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 which expressly repudiated all trust. But then it requires 
 a dogmatist to condemn dogmatism. 
 
 Here, again, the truth lies at the mean. Authoritative 
 teaching is right, so is free inquiry and personal exami- 
 nation. Man is at once dependent and independent, but 
 the major factor in his constitution is dependence. So 
 far as he is dependent he must rely for guidance on au- 
 thority. The older conception, therefore, has the larger 
 amount of truth in it. The older practice of the two 
 is the wiser and the safer; but the ideal practice, free- 
 dom duly guided and tempered by authority, is better 
 than either. The great historic movements in opinion 
 will attain this ideal as a resultant. 
 
 Ancient education was concerned almost exclusively 
 with accumulated knowledge, that is, with knowledge 
 which could be acquired through the interpretation of 
 language. We may properly and conveniently call this 
 second-hand knowledge. The extreme modern theory is 
 that learning is a process of discovery or of rediscovery. 
 To employ the conceit of Rousseau, the pupil shall not 
 learn science, but shall discover it. Throw aside books, 
 take nothing for granted, assume that the world of 
 knowledge is unexplored, and then rise to the compre- 
 hension of the universe by repeating the experiences of 
 the race ! This, in brief, is the latest theory of learning 
 and teaching. Locke was unconsciously the author of 
 it ; Housseau gave it currency by putting a bit of senti- 
 ment behind it; Condillac actually attempted to put it 
 in practice; and Spencer has attempted, by specious 
 sophistry, to establish it on a basis of philosophy. Mr. 
 Bain has happily and truthfully characterized this I13-- 
 pothesis as a "bold fiction."* As to the disuse of 
 
 * " Education as a Science," p. 94. 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 185 
 
 l>ooks, let it be recollected that there is some knowledge, 
 as of history, the reproduction of which without the aid 
 of books is inconceivable. There is other knowledge, 
 the reproduction of which, without the aid of books, 
 though conceivable, is practically impossible in the life- 
 time of any one individual. Natural science and geog- 
 raphy are examples of this. The impossibility lies in 
 the fact that much of the material to be studied is inac- 
 cessible to any one mind. There is a third class of sub- 
 jects, distinguished by the fact that all the material is in 
 the personal possession of each mind, such as logic, met- 
 aphysics, mathematics, and ethics. Science, as Socrates 
 understood it, was ethics, and so he was right in his defi- 
 nition of the ideal teaching, that it consisted in leading 
 a pupil to formulate his own knowledge, or in assisting 
 him in the birth of ideas. A French writer has de- 
 scribed Socratic teaching as " L'accouchement d'une 
 Time." If we will recollect that what is practicable in 
 ethics is inconceivable in history, and barely possible in 
 science, we need have no difficulty in determining the 
 place of books in the work of instruction. I interpret 
 the outcry against the use of books as a recoil from the 
 old-time misuse of books. The crusade will do jrood if 
 it guards us against the old error, but is most likely to do 
 great harm, by leading us into a still more dangerous 
 error. Some earnest men have been betrayed into a con- 
 demnation of books through a misconception of Socratic 
 teaching. The true reformer will not stultify himself 
 by preaching the abolition of text-books, but will the 
 rather teach us the right use of books. The law of prog- 
 ress is inheritance supplemented by acquisition ; and 
 as the volume of capitalized knowledge swells in bulk 
 from age to age, the importance of books will increase 
 
190 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 from age to age. The most of our knowledge we must 
 receive at second-hand ; the most of the science that we 
 learn we must learn as literature and not experimental- 
 ly ; and it is questionable whether, for the ends of cult- 
 ure, second-hand knowledge is not better than first-hand 
 knowledge. For practical or professional uses, physiol- 
 ogy should, no doubt, be learned in the dissecting-room 
 and in the physiological laboratory ; but for the pur- 
 poses of general culture it should be learned from books. 
 Plato estimated the importance of studies chiefly on the 
 basis of their disciplinary or culture value. His repug- 
 nance to practical studies, or, rather, to studies pursued 
 for purely practical ends, may have been an instinct, but 
 his preference was well founded. Any study consciously 
 learned for practical ends has but slight culture value. 
 This is one of the main reasons why a man should be 
 liberally educated before he learns a profession, and also 
 why it is unwise to pursue a general and a technical 
 course of training simultaneously. 
 
 If w T e give the term "Church" its wider signification, 
 the statement in the " Dictionnaire de Pedagogie " (ar- 
 ticle " Confessionnelles ") is certainly true : " Historique- 
 ment l'ecole a 6t6 dans tous les pays la fille de l'eglise." 
 The first formal teaching was religious, and the first 
 schools were connected with places of religious worship. 
 The hieratic or priestly class was the first educated class, 
 and the early schools were necessarily confessional. The 
 historical union of Church and school dates back from 
 time immemorial, and the religious imprint left on edu- 
 cation has been well-nigh ineffaceable. It is neither my 
 duty nor my purpose, at this time, to discuss the effects, 
 good and bad, of this domination of education by the 
 Church ; but rather to point out certain historical facts, 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 191 
 
 and thus to discover the trend of human opinion. Hu- 
 man opinion, in the aggregate, is a resistless force; it is 
 slow to start, its motion can be discerned only from the 
 vantage-ground of centuries, but it crushes the luckless 
 system that presumes to arrest its progress. It is well 
 said of some things that they come in the fulness of 
 time. Their coming cannot be perceptibly hastened by 
 the set purposes of men ; but, when they do come, they 
 have come to stay till their destined mission is fulfilled. 
 And their exit is never sudden. Slow transition is the 
 law of progress. "He must increase, but I must de- 
 crease," is a typical description of all forms of progress, 
 The final sentence may have been made up against the 
 thing that is, but it will not vacate at once for the thing 
 that is to be. The old life wanes in the same degree 
 that the new life waxes. The ancient domination of the 
 school by the Church, and the modern domination of 
 the school by the State, is a large illustration of the his- 
 toric phenomenon I have tried to point out. During the 
 later Christian centuries church control of education has 
 been gradually waning, and, during the same period, 
 state control of education has been as gradually waxing. 
 The unmistakable progress of human opinion is irresisti- 
 bly towards what French educators call Laicite, or the 
 secularization of the school. In France, secularization 
 is complete and actual; in England it is partial; in the 
 United States it is established in theory, though the the- 
 ory is not wholly supported by practice. The concep- 
 tion of state control of education is very old ; it is only 
 its domination that is new. The first appearance of this 
 conception was in Persia — at least, prior to the time of 
 Cyrus; it was actually dominant in Sparta in the time 
 of Lycurgus. During the Middle Age the lesson seems 
 
192 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 to have been forgotten ; but the thought reappeared at 
 the Renaissance, and to-day, throughout the whole world, 
 save in the few countries where the State is dominated 
 by the Church, secularization is fairly in the ascendant. 
 
 The historical union of Church and school has led 
 to some consequences that are deserving of note. As 
 the primary concern of the Church is conduct and char- 
 acter, so the matter of instruction in the church-school 
 was religious, ethical, or prudential. All the ancient 
 systems of education agree in this respect. The In- 
 dian, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Jew, the Chinaman, 
 were taught, above all things, their duties to their su- 
 periors, celestial and terrestrial. The teaching of Socrates 
 was purely ethical, and that of Plato and Aristotle main- 
 ly so. The preoccupation of all these eminent teachers 
 was justice; the conduct of the young was to be brought 
 into the most perfect conformity with the law of right. 
 The kind of training next in importance was physical; 
 the body must be brought and kept under a systematic 
 regimen as the essential condition of mental soundness. 
 The kind of instruction lowest in esteem was what we 
 denominate practical. Plato, as previously observed, 
 would make the study of arithmetic compulsory, but al- 
 most solely on the ground of its disciplinary, or, as we 
 would say, its culture, value. In modern education this 
 sequence has been virtually reversed. The main preoc- 
 cupation of the modern school is intellectual training and 
 the gaining of useful knowledge; next come religious, 
 ethical, and prudential knowledge and training; and, 
 lastly, physical. The general causes that have operated 
 to change the great aims of education may be noted in 
 the sequel. 
 
 The general character of ancient education being re- 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 193 
 
 ligious or ethical, it is plain that all instruction was based 
 on authority. The truth to be taught was embodied in 
 revelations from heaven, or in the precepts of men. In 
 either case the knowledge was accessible only through 
 the interpretation of language. We may express this 
 general fact by saying that, as to its mode, ancient educa- 
 tion was almost purely literary. The art of the scholar 
 consisted in the interpretation of books. The degree to 
 which the book has now lost its ancient ascendency need 
 not be pointed out, though it is well to dwell for a mo- 
 ment on the general cause of this change. It lies in the 
 fact that the reign of authority has been broken, and 
 that learning is now conceived to be a process of discov- 
 ery or of rediscovery. What need is there of books when 
 it is assumed that each individual must be educated just 
 as the race was educated historically ? 
 
 As ancient education was mainly literary, instruction 
 must have been based on memory. The truth was 
 embodied in words, and it was very easy to form the 
 conception that the readiest way to lodge the truth in 
 the soul was to lodge the formal expression of it in the 
 memory. In addition to this, in all religious instruction, 
 the form of the expression was almost as sacred as the 
 truth expressed. Hence the very language of the text 
 must be learned.* From these two circumstances learn- 
 
 * " The Rabbins required of their pupils a faithful memory, 
 and that they should add nothing to the matter which had been 
 taught them. It was a saying among these teachers, that ' he 
 who forgets parts of what he has learned causes his own destruc- 
 tion.' ' It is the duty of each one to teach with the very words 
 used by his master;' and the highest praise that could be spoken 
 of a disciple was this : ' he is like a cistern plastered with cement, 
 that does not let a drop of water escape.' This extreme solicitude 
 enables us to understand how the disciples of Jesus could retain in 
 
 9 
 
194 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ing became nearly synonymous with memorizing. In 
 modern times, as knowledge has lost much of its sacred 
 character, and as education has become only in part lit- 
 erary, the office of memory has fallen into discredit. 
 The function of this faculty is certainly not so absolute 
 as in the ancient day, nor so limited as the modern ex- 
 tremist asserts. Its proper use is indicated by the com- 
 position of our education, made up, as it seems to me it 
 should be, of three parts of second-hand knowledge to 
 one part of first-hand knowledge. Those who would 
 mix the ingredients in a different proportion will, of 
 course, assign a correspondingly different value to the 
 memorizing process. In this connection there is one 
 thing that should be carefully noted. The history of 
 education has shown that memory is the conservative 
 faculty. By this expression I do not mean that knowl- 
 edge and intellectual progress are assured to the individ- 
 ual mind through the agency of this faculty, though this, 
 of course, is true; but that national stability has been 
 secured through systems of instruction based on the ex- 
 act memorizing of religious, ethical, prudential, and legal 
 precepts. The most conservative and the most stable 
 nation on earth is the Chinese, and it is not a mere co- 
 incidence that the education of this people from time 
 immemorial has been based on a rigid process of memo- 
 rizing. Under such a system of instruction, continued 
 through centuries, education becomes fate, the potency 
 of ideas becomes absolute. Of course, the bad side of 
 this system is very apparent. The conservatism is so 
 ingrained that it is an effectual bar to progress. There 
 
 memory his instructions, and report them to us with such aston- 
 ishing fidelity." — Edmond Stapfer, "La Palestine au Temps de 
 Jgsus-Christ " (Paris, 1885), pp. 293, 294. 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 195 
 
 is scarcely a doubt that if the modern laissez faire sys- 
 tem were to dominate in the schools of China, national 
 disintegration would set in after only a few generations. 
 For a time, hereditary conservatism would withstand tho 
 solvent of the "new education." A more striking illus- 
 tration, if possible, of national conservation through an 
 education based on memory, is the history of the Jewish 
 race, that nation without a country. The bond of liga- 
 tion is a powerful one — a rigid monotheistic faith ; but 
 this faith has been made a vital, universal bond of na- 
 tionality by the very incorporation of the Law into 
 the Jewish race through immemorial memorizing. The 
 most ancient education of the Roman consisted almost 
 exclusively in the verbal memorizing of the Twelve Ta- 
 bles, and there can scarcely be a doubt that the Roman 
 virtus was the direct consequence of this mode of educa- 
 tion. Much of the flippant disparagement of memory 
 would cease if the subject could be viewed in the light 
 of historic results. Who can doubt that the stability of 
 the Roman Church lies in the memorizing of a rigid 
 creed? Who can doubt that the weakness of many 
 Protestant churches lies in a lax memorizing of creed? 
 A universal weakness of Sabbath-school instruction is 
 well-intended talk about the Scriptures, instead of an 
 unfolding of Scripture that has first been memorized. 
 If we conceive that one chief function of the American 
 public school is to furnish the nation with successive 
 generations of men and women fit for the high duties 
 of American citizenship, ought not both the letter and 
 the spirit of the Constitution to be impressed on the 
 souls of our youth somewhat as the Twelve Tables were 
 impressed on the souls of Roman youths?* 
 
 * " That which contributes most to preserve the State is to edu- 
 
196 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Another general lesson taught by this historical sur- 
 vey is that education has always been moulded in ac- 
 cordance with political or religious needs ; that is, the 
 school, instead of dominating the State and the Church, 
 has been dominated by them. For example, Phoenicia 
 was devoted to traffic, and so the art of computation was 
 made a staple of instruction in her schools. The small 
 states of Greece, exposed to the ever-present dangers of 
 invasion, had need of a brave and hardy soldiery ; and 
 so gymnastic training of the military type was enjoined 
 on all Grecian youth. Egypt was pervaded by the spir- 
 it of caste, and so the purpose of instruction was to pre- 
 pare the son for following the occupation of his father. 
 The preoccupation of the Jew was the maintenance of 
 the sacred traditions, and so instruction became a care- 
 ful process of indoctrination. The Reformation, by 
 throwing on each human being the burden of his own 
 salvation, made it necessary that every child should know 
 how to read ; and, to meet this necessity, schools were 
 multiplied till all had an opportunity to learn to read. 
 In cases where state needs w r ere felt to be urgent, and 
 where there was not a prompt response to the public 
 call, there was a resort to compulsion, as in ancient 
 Sparta, and, in a measure, among the Jews, as well as in 
 most European states of the present day. We may gen- 
 eralize these facts and say that the prevailing type of 
 education during the whole historic period has been tech- 
 nical or professional, its purpose being to equip men 
 for service as agents or instruments. Side by side with 
 
 cate children with reference to the State ; for the most useful laws 
 . . . will be of no service if the citizens are not accustomed to and 
 brought up in the principles of the constitution. 1 ' — Aristotle, " Poli- 
 tics," v., 9. 
 
LESSONS FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 197 
 
 this narrow conception of education there has at times 
 appeared the wider conception of education as a process 
 by which a human being is to be wrought into the like- 
 ness of the highest type of his kind. I believe this con- 
 ception appeared for the first time in Greece in the fifth 
 century b.c. Plato had such an exalted conception of 
 the State, and of the qualifications needed for full citizen- 
 ship, that, in his scheme of training,"technical education 
 and liberal education became essentially one and the 
 same. To be a citizen of the Republic was to be a man 
 in the fullest sense of that term as then understood. 
 These two conceptions, the narrower and the wider, of 
 man as an instrument destined never to transcend his 
 environment, and of man free to transcend his environ- 
 ment, in obedience to his natural aspirations towards 
 the highest type of his kind, have descended to our day, 
 and their struggle for supremacy is involved in most 
 of the educational polemics of the times. On this sub- 
 ject three opinions are held : 1st. That education is to be 
 of the technical type, the school being a place for ac- 
 quiring a trade. 2d. That education is to be of the lib- 
 eral type, the purpose of the school being a general intel- 
 lectual training. 3d. That the ideal education is first 
 general or liberal, and then special or technical, or that 
 the best type of the human instrument is to be made out 
 of the best type of man. 
 
 From the vantage-ground we have now gained, it ap- 
 pears that the history of education exhibits a series of 
 contrasts; that, in the ancient period, certain factors in 
 the educating process were brought into such prominence 
 as to obscure other factors ; and that, in the modern pe- 
 riod, by a natural law of reaction, these neglected factors 
 assume the "first place, while the prominent factors of the 
 
193 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 older system suffer a greater or less degree of obscurity. 
 This period of oscillation, or the interval between these 
 culminating points, is measured by centuries. We can 
 say, with historical exactness, that the old system of edu- 
 cation culminated at about the time of the Reforma- 
 tion, and that the present order of things took its rise at 
 the same period. To these two contrasted systems, thus 
 defined, have been given the distinctive titles the Old and 
 the New Education. This description is significant and 
 just. The term " New Education " has sometimes been 
 given to scientific training as opposed to classical train- 
 ing. But scientific training is not even the half of an 
 education. In a still more limited sense, this term has 
 been applied to kindergarten training; but, at its very 
 best, this is scarcely more than the beginning of an edu- 
 cation. 
 
 To these statements I must add two observations : 1. 
 The comprehensive study of the history of education will 
 save us from the conceit of thinking that we are to look 
 for much that is new in principle. M. Compayre, after 
 his survey of this subject, speaks as follows : " The most 
 of the essential elements which compose the art of hu- 
 man education have long since been brought to light, 
 and the first duty of a modern teacher is to begin by 
 carefully collating the recorded results of the past centu- 
 ries of effort." 
 
 * " Histoire de la Pedagogie." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 
 
 The great French Dictionary of Pedagogy, now in 
 process of publication, makes this apology for the title of 
 one of its leading articles : " The word Laicite is new, and, 
 though correctly formed, is not yet in general use. How- 
 ever, the neologism is necessarv, because we have no other 
 term that can express, without paraphrase, the same idea 
 in its full signification." 
 
 In the discussion of this subject my purpose has been, 
 not to defend a favorite opinion, but to interpret the 
 spirit of modern legislation as it affects the status of the 
 public school. Indeed, the logic of facts has led to a 
 conclusion that is somewhat repugnant to my feelings, 
 and entirely in opposition to my practice while engaged 
 in the public-school service. 
 
 Education is every year becoming more and more a 
 political question ; and in what follows I shall attempt 
 to present, in a summary manner, the general drift of 
 national legislation as it affects the public school. For 
 much of the information contained in this chapter I am 
 indebted to Buisson's "Dictionnaire de Pedagogic" 
 
 By the secularization of the school, I mean its eman- 
 cipation from the Church, and its adoption and main- 
 tenance by the State; and my purpose is to show the 
 causes and the consequences of this historical movement. 
 The present status of the school is neither an accident 
 nor the result of deliberate forethought, but is one of 
 
200 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the products of the resistless march of civilization. The 
 movement I am to describe is but one, and that one 
 the latest, of a series of cognate movements, that are 
 also the concomitants of civilization. Progress, in one 
 of its most characteristic phases, is a differentiation and 
 specialization of functions. In a rude state of society, 
 many offices are conjoined in one person ; an artisan 
 practises several crafts, a tradesman sells many different 
 sorts of goods ; but an invariable and unmistakable char- 
 acteristic of progress is a division of labor, whereby each 
 hand and each mind is allowed to do that for which it 
 has the greatest aptitude. 
 
 ' In his " History of Rationalism in Europe," Mr. Lecky 
 devotes a chapter to the " Secularization of Politics," in 
 which he traces the gradual emancipation of politics from 
 ecclesiastical control. This account carries us back to 
 that period in our civilization when the Church and the 
 State were virtually one, when the legislative, executive, 
 and judicial functions were exercised in the name and 
 by the authority of the Church. We have not to go far 
 back in the world's history to find Pome the capital of 
 the world, and the nominal sovereigns of Europe the real 
 vassals of the Roman Pontiff. Kings ruled by divine 
 right, and ecclesiastics, simply because they were eccle- 
 siastics, held a place in legislative councils. How this 
 domination of the church in civil affairs has been weak- 
 ened and broken need not be pointed out in detail. We 
 are told* that, "in the reign of Henry III., in the thir- 
 teenth century, the spiritual peers formed one half of the 
 House of Lords ; at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, they were only one eighth ; and at the present 
 time are only one fourteenth ; while the propriety of 
 
 * Hinsdale, " Schools and Studies" (Boston, 1884), p. 233. 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 201 
 
 excluding them from the chamber altogether has been 
 seriously proposed, and probably is not far distant. In 
 tracing the decline of the power of the English clergy, 
 Mr. Buckle says: 'Since the seventeenth century there 
 has been no instance of any ecclesiastic being made Lord 
 Chancellor; and since the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century there has been no instance of one receiving any 
 diplomatic appointment, or, indeed, holding any important 
 office in the state.' * Nor has any clergyman, at least 
 of the Established Church, sat in the House of Commons 
 
 since 1801." f 
 
 Two things are to be noted in passing : 1. The secu- 
 larization of politics is the result of a growth, and is thus 
 an exponent of progress. It is Mackintosh, I think, who 
 is credited with the saying, that "constitutions are not 
 made, but growP In a similar manner, this differentia- 
 tion of functions has come in the fulness of time, and 
 not through accidejit or caprice. 
 
 2. In the second place, there is scarcely a possibility, 
 certainly not the least probability, that there will ever be 
 a return to ecclesiastical domination in politics. In the 
 past, it may have been best that civil rulers should be 
 subject to the authority of the Church ; but in the present, 
 it is undoubtedly best that ecclesiastics should not be al- 
 lowed to dominate in the affairs of State. But whether 
 best or not, the lay state is a fact beyond recall, and the 
 Church must adjust itself to the established order of things. 
 
 I use the term Church in a comprehensive sense, to 
 
 * " History of Civilization in England," vol. i., pp. 299, 300. 
 
 f From a late number of the Educational Times (London), it ap- 
 pears that " in the year 1861 the percentage of lay masters at Eton, 
 Harrow, and Rugby was respectively 24, 26, and 5, and at present 
 (April, 1884) the percentages are 65, 85, and 71." 
 
 9* 
 
202 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 designate " the organized aggregate of religious influ- 
 ences in a community;* and in this sense the Church 
 was once the dominant power in every line of human 
 activity — in science, in art, in war, in politics, in educa- 
 tion, in everything. " In a very primitive period of the 
 history of civilization," says Jardine,f "in Egypt, in 
 Babylon, and in India, the sculptor's art was employed 
 in the representation of the national ideas of the deity." 
 "Music, like the other fine arts, was originally enlisted 
 in the service of religion." " The art of architecture 
 originated in an attempt to beautify and adorn the tem- 
 ples of religion in the houses of the wealthy." 
 
 "Historically," says Bnisson,^: "the school has been 
 in all countries the daughter of the Church ; and so, at 
 first, every school was necessarily conducted under re- 
 ligious auspices." 
 
 We need not go far to account for this historical domi- 
 nation of the Church. The Church was dominant because 
 it was powerful, and it was powerful because it was wise. 
 Anciently, and as far down as the Middle Age, the sacer- 
 dotal class held the monopoly of learning, and, in conse- 
 quence of this, they held the monopoly of power and 
 privilege. 
 
 Let us now turn for a moment to consider the causes 
 of that partition of functions which is such a character- 
 istic fact of modern times. Principally they are the fol- 
 lowing: 1. The secularization of learning. This secu- 
 larization took place in two ways: learning gradually 
 lost its hieratic character, or was gradually extended to 
 what we term secular subjects, such as history, physics, 
 
 * Webster. 
 
 t Jardine, "Elements of Psychology " (London, 1874), pp. 176-178. 
 
 I " Dictionnaire de Pe"dagogie," article " Confessionnelles. 1 ' 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 203 
 
 and astronomy; and, in the second place, men outside of 
 the sacerdotal class applied themselves to learning 3 and 
 so broke down this monopoly. In other words, at this 
 remote period there was but one profession, but this was 
 all-comprehensive, that of scholar ; the scholar was priest, 
 legislator, physician, teacher, artist ; but when men not be- 
 longing to the priestly class became scholars, they set up 
 for themselves, some as physicians, others as politicians, 
 and so on. 
 
 2. A co-operating cause in this partition of functions 
 was the principle of the division of labor. The speciali- 
 zation of vocations that began in a diffusion of learning 
 was nurtured and fixed by the need of following those 
 restricted lines of activity that accord with individual 
 predilections. The observation already made with refer- 
 ence to the permanent separation of politics from religion 
 may now be extended to all the specialized functions — 
 in each case the separation is final ; it is not supposable 
 that there will ever be a return towards that primitive 
 state out of which these diversified industries have sprung. 
 On the contrary, the current of progress is steadily tow- 
 ards a specialization of growing minuteness, farther and 
 farther from the old-time simplicity. 
 
 Another general fact deserves mention because of its 
 bearing on an educational doctrine of great importance. 
 Before a marked division of labor has taken place, all 
 varieties of practical knowledge are of co-ordinate im- 
 portance ; that is, each man must learn the several arts 
 that in turn occupy his attention. When, however, a 
 man becomes restricted to one art instead of four, three 
 varieties of knowledge lose their primary value, for the 
 division of labor now permits him to participate in their 
 advantages at second hand. 
 
204 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Within the memory of this generation, the arts of 
 carding, spinning, weaving, and dyeing had a primary 
 value to the housewife; but now she does not need to 
 know these arts, for she participates in their benefits at 
 second hand. It is not possible to estimate the absolute 
 value of medical science; but it does not follow that all 
 scholars should study medicine. The ninety and nine 
 who are ignorant of medicine may still share in the full 
 value of this variety of knowledge. By permitting us 
 to be ignorant of four different arts, the division of labor 
 allows us to know four times as much about our own 
 art. 
 
 Returning now to the special subject under considera- 
 tion, it is to be noted that educating is the last important 
 prerogative that the Church has surrendered ; or, more 
 truly it might be said, that the last parley is now in prog- 
 ress that precedes this final surrender. To the two main 
 causes of the specialization of functions, viz., the seculari- 
 zation of knowledge and the division of labor, we must, 
 in this case, note a third, the diversity of sects or of re- 
 ligious creeds. If the mediaeval uniformity in religious 
 belief had descended to this day, it is probable that edu- 
 cation would still be administered by the Church. It is 
 still more probable that if this uniform belief were a 
 state religion, education would still be a function of the 
 Church. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the primitive system, or that which 
 holds the public school under formal religious supervision, 
 is still maintained in the following countries: Spain, 
 Portugal, Greece, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and 
 in some of the small German states. 
 
 In Spain, all the public schools are conducted under 
 the religious sanctions of the Roman Catholic Church; 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 205 
 
 though other denominations may be authorized to estab- 
 lish private schools. In Portugal, the public schools are 
 exclusively Roman Catholic, as in Spain. In Greece, the 
 public school is under the control of the Greek Church, 
 and the religious instruction is given by the teacher. In 
 the rare cases where parents belong to a different com- 
 munion, they may have religious instruction given to 
 their children separately, at their own expense. In Den- 
 mark, in a few localities, there are schools for dissenters, 
 maintained at their own expense. All the public schools 
 are subject to the state Church, the Lutheran Evangelical. 
 The children of dissenters who may attend the public 
 schools are excused from the religious instruction. In 
 Sweden and Norway, public instruction is supervised by 
 the state Church, and the clergy make frequent visits to 
 the schools in order to give teachers necessary instruction 
 and advice. 
 
 Passing now to what we may call the modern system, 
 or that which relieves the public school from all formal 
 religious sanctions, we find the neutral school in the fol- 
 lowing countries: Holland, France, Belgium, the United 
 States, and Canada. In Holland, the law of August 
 13, 1857 (article 23), prescribes as follows : " The teacher 
 shall refrain from teaching anything which may show a 
 lack of respect due to the religious opinions of others. 
 Religious instruction is left to the denominational bodies, 
 and schoolrooms shall be at their disposal for this pur- 
 pose, outside of school hours. Private schools assisted 
 by public funds must receive pupils without distinction 
 of sect." 
 
 In Switzerland it is declared by the federal constitu- 
 tion of 1874 (article 77), that attendance in the public 
 schools shall be open to pupils of all religious denomina- 
 
206 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tions without any infringement in rights of conscience; 
 and that the Confederation shall take the necessary meas- 
 ures against any canton which does not respect this regu- 
 lation. 
 
 In Austria, the law of 1869 declares that every pri- 
 mary school assisted by public funds is a public institu- 
 tion, and as such is open to children without distinction 
 of sect. 
 
 In Belgium,* the law of 1878 states that religious in- 
 struction is left to the care of families and ministers of 
 the various denominations ; but that a room in the school 
 may be used for instruction in religion, either before or 
 after school hours. 
 
 In England, parliamentary aid is refused to schools 
 connected with a religious denomination, and religious in- 
 struction is forbidden in schools receiving state aid. 
 
 In Scotland, every school, public or private, receiving 
 state aid, must admit pupils without distinction of sect. 
 
 The most decisive legislative movement yet made in 
 favor of the absolute secularization of the school was ac- 
 complished in France in 1882. By this act, not only is 
 public instruction absolutely relieved from church con- 
 trol, but even authorized religious congregations f are 
 
 * With the late triumph of the ecclesiastical party in Belgium, 
 the schools have again come under the control of the Church. 
 
 t " Religious congregations devoted to teaching are of two classes : 
 (1) those that are authorized, and have thus received from the gov- 
 ernment a legal existence ; and (2) those that are unauthorized, hav- 
 ing no legal existence. At the close of the year 1878 there were 
 24 authorized religious congregations of men devoted to teaching, 
 and they had charge of 3096 schools. There were 528 authorized 
 religious congregations of women, having charge of 16,478 schools. 
 There were at the same time 885 unauthorized congregations of 
 men, 85 of which were devoted to teaching; and 602 unauthorized 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 207 
 
 forbidden to teach, and all religions instruction is struck 
 from the school programme. 
 
 In his " Dictionnaire de Pedagogie" (l ere partie, p. 
 1469), M. Buisson speaks of this movement as follows : 
 "Laicity, or the neutrality of the school in all its grades, 
 is but the application to the school of a rule that has pre- 
 vailed in all our social institutions. Like most peoples, 
 we have advanced from a state of things which consisted 
 essentially in the confusion of all powers and of all do- 
 mains, in the subordination of all authorities to one sole 
 authority, that of religion. It is onlj r through the slow 
 labor of centuries that the several functions of public 
 life have been gradually distinguished, separated from 
 one another, and emancipated from the rigid tutelage of 
 the Church. 
 
 " The stress of affairs brought about the secularization 
 of the army at a very early date; then that of adminis- 
 trative and civil functions, and, finally, that of justice. 
 Every state that does not choose to remain purely theo- 
 cratic is soon obliged to constitute as forces distinct from 
 the Church, if not independent and sovereign, the three 
 powers, legislative, executive, and judicial. But seculari- 
 zation is not complete as long as over each of these pow- 
 ers or over the whole of life, public and private, the 
 clergy preserves a right of interference, of supervision, 
 of control, or of veto. Such was exactly the situation of 
 French society up to the declaration of the rights of 
 man. The French Revolution made appear for the first 
 time, in all its definiteness, the conception of the lay state, 
 of the state neutral among all creeds, independent of all 
 
 congregations of women, of which about 260 were devoted to teach- 
 ing." — "Dictionnaire de PSdagogie," article "Congregations." 
 
208 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ecclesiastical authorities, and free from all theological 
 bias. 
 
 * *• * * « « * 
 
 " Only one domain had as yet escaped this transforma- 
 tion ; this was public instruction, or, rather, primary in- 
 struction ; for the higher instruction had long been free 
 from church control, and only boarders in secondary 
 schools were held to religious instruction. But primary 
 instruction remained essentially confessional. Not only 
 must the school give formal dogmatic instruction in re- 
 ligion, but teachers, pupils, programmes, methods, books, 
 rules, everything, in fact, was placed under the inspection 
 or under the direction of religious authorities." 
 
 In the application of this French law of 1882 two seri- 
 ous questions have arisen : 1. While the unauthorized re- 
 ligious congregations in their collective capacity are en- 
 joined from teaching, may individual members of such 
 congregations be employed in the public-school service ? 
 The reply is, that if such teachers lay aside all their ec- 
 clesiastical functions while engaged in their school duties, 
 they may be employed in the service. The general 
 principle is this : " The teacher for the school, the priest 
 for the church, the mayor for the town." 
 
 2. In the second place, must the instruction become, 
 as the English say, " colorless" ? While abandoning dog- 
 matic religious instruction, must the schools eliminate 
 all moral teaching and thus become " godless " ? This 
 is the reply from the Minister of Instruction : " The 
 teacher's mission with respect to moral and religious in- 
 struction is very clearly defined. It consists in fortify- 
 ing and implanting in the souls of his pupils, for life, by 
 daily practice and habit, the essential notions of human 
 morality, common to all creeds and necessary to all civil- 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 209 
 
 ized men. The teacher can fulfil this mission without 
 making personal assent or objection to any of the differ- 
 ent religious beliefs with which his pupils associate and 
 mingle the general principles of morality. lie takes 
 these children just as they come to him, with their ideas 
 and their languages, with the beliefs which they derive 
 from the family, and lie has no duty but to teach them 
 to draw from these beliefs what they contain that is most 
 valuable from a social point of view, that is, the precepts 
 of a high morality." * 
 
 This case of France deserves our marked attention, be- 
 cause it is the clearest example now on record of the ab- 
 solute secularization of public instruction. Speaking of 
 this legislation the Iiejpitbllque Francaise of March 25, 
 1882, says: "The system of instruction just established 
 by vote of the senate is without exception the most lib- 
 eral that exists in the civilized world. It is the most 
 modern, the best adapted to the inspirations as well as 
 to the needs of a great nation emancipated from the 
 yoke of theology. Neither Switzerland, nor Holland, 
 nor Protestant Germany, nor Republican America has 
 anything to offer which can be compared with our pri- 
 mary national instruction. At a single bound, France, 
 which was behind the times, has just placed herself at 
 the head of nations." f 
 
 And Mundella, in an association of teachers at Shef- 
 field, is reported to have said : " I have just read the last 
 French law on instruction. It is the grandest act — I 
 was going to say, the most wonderful law — that there 
 has ever been in the history of education in the whole 
 world." f 
 
 The American public school is not neutral in the sense 
 
 * « Dictionnaire de Pedagogic," p. 1473. t Ibid., p. 1090. 
 
210 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 or to the degree that the French public school is neu- 
 tral. True, there is no direct church interference in 
 the matter of teachers, books, programmes, etc. ; nor is 
 any special religious doctrine obtruded upon the public 
 schools ; still, there is no doubt that in a majority of cases 
 these schools are conducted under some form of religious 
 sanction, such as the reading of the Bible, or the offering 
 of prayer. In most cases this matter lies in the discre- 
 tion of the teacher. Except in a few cases, there is no 
 positive legislation either for or against religious exer- 
 cises in connection with public schools. I note the fol- 
 lowing cases as reported by Francis xldaras in his "Free 
 School System of the United States :" * 
 
 In Massachusetts it is the duty of the school commit- 
 tee " to require the daily reading of some portion of the 
 Bible in the common English version." However, there 
 is a conscience clause for children whose parents object 
 to this reading from the Bible. 
 
 The law of New Jersey rules out " any religious ser- 
 vice, ceremony, or forms whatsoever, except reading the 
 Bible and repeating the Lord's Prayer." 
 
 The law of New York, while prohibiting sectarian re- 
 ligious instruction, expressly forbids boards of education 
 to exclude the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, 
 or any selections therefrom, from any of the schools pro- 
 vided for in this act. Nor shall boards determine what 
 version, if an} 7 , of the Holy Scriptures shall be used. 
 
 The law of Iowa "forbids the exclusion of the Bible 
 from the public schools," but has a conscience clause, as 
 in Massachusetts. 
 
 The law of Indiana says : " The Bible shall not be ex- 
 cluded from the public schools of the state." 
 
 * London, 1875. 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 211 
 
 The law of Illinois permits the use of the Bible in 
 the public schools. 
 
 So far as state legislation is concerned, I note but one 
 case, that of Massachusetts, in which the reading of the 
 Bible is commanded. In all other cases the use of the 
 Bible in public schools seems to be optional with boards 
 and teachers. For example, the law of Ohio makes no 
 provision respecting religious instruction ; and the Su- 
 preme Court of that state sustains the action of the board 
 of education in Cincinnati in excluding the Bible from 
 the public schools of that city. 
 
 Having now noted the two extreme modes of school 
 administration — the primitive system of religious domina- 
 tion, and the modern system of neutrality, more or less 
 perfect — I come to speak of what may be called the 
 mixed system, which really makes the transition from 
 the ancient to the modern. According to this system, 
 communities may establish neutral schools in which there 
 is neither religious instruction nor ceremonial; or, when 
 this is not done, the confessional school must be open to 
 all pupils without reference to sect. Thus, in Prussia, 
 the public elementary schools are open to all children 
 without distinction of sect. A public school may have 
 a confessional character, but it must still admit pupils of 
 other confessions. A minority cannot require the district 
 to establish a school to accommodate their own religious 
 preferences. In the main, the schools of Bavaria, Baden, 
 Italy, and Russia are to be included in this mixed system. 
 
 The three systems now named are not separated by 
 sharply drawn lines. The two extremes, as in the case 
 of Spain and France, are sharply defined ; but in several 
 cases it is difficult to say more than that a transition is 
 in progress towards secularization. 
 
212 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Some general conclusions, that seem to be justified by 
 the facts I have presented, will conclude this discussion. 
 
 1. Education has become, or is rapidly becoming, a 
 function of the State. This is another way of saying 
 that the Church has lost, or is rapidly losing, one of its 
 ancient and most highly prized prerogatives. And still 
 more, this prerogative, when once lost, is lost absolutely 
 without hope of recovery. Save in the few countries I 
 have named, the school has been virtually emancipated 
 from ecclesiastical control. Denominational schools may 
 still be maintained, but they are maintained on suffer- 
 ance; for the moment they should, through any misdi- 
 rection, menace the prosperity of the State, they would 
 doubtless be suppressed, as in France. 
 
 The State must be an educator as a measure of self- 
 protection. It has come to be a well-settled conviction 
 that there is some necessary connection between igno- 
 rance and vice, and between intelligence and good citizen- 
 ship ; and so the State administers education as it does 
 other interests of a general and public nature. 
 
 2. With the State as an educator, the school becomes 
 a civil institution, and, as such, it must abandon religious 
 instruction, which must be relegated to the family and 
 the Church. 
 
 The public school must teach morality, because moral- 
 ity is an element of good citizenship, and its cardinal 
 principles are universally accepted, so that to teach them 
 is no violation of religious liberty ; but it may not teach 
 religion, or, rather, may not require pupils to receive in- 
 struction in religion. This logical consequence of the 
 secularization of the school is distasteful to many sincere 
 religionists. It is felt that the education that is not 
 given under religious sanction is dangerous, perhaps 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 213 
 
 worse than ignorance. Or, as I once beard it expressed 
 by a fervent orator, "the school that does not teach its 
 pupils to remember God teaches them to forget God ;" 
 his meaning being that if a school does not aim at mak- 
 ing the young religious, it will make them irreligious ; or, 
 generally, that not doing a certain thing is equivalent to 
 doing the opposite thing. But while only a few will be 
 found to defend this ultra position, there are very many 
 who feel that education, unless administered under for- 
 mal religious sanctions, is full of peril. 
 
 Two considerations should reconcile us to the impend- 
 ing status of the public school : First, it is inevitable, and 
 we must adjust ourselves to an order of things that can- 
 not be successfully resisted. Secondly, the family and 
 the Church must magnify their office, and must more 
 faithfully administer a prerogative that they should nev- 
 er think of delegating. 
 
 3. In the United States there is a reason why the 
 public school has always retained something of a relig- 
 ious character, and, at the same time, a reason why the 
 public school should be simply a civil institution, con- 
 ducted without religious form or ceremony. Our public- 
 school system was founded by men of intense religious 
 convictions, who believed that religion was an essential 
 part of a citizen's education; and so, in New England, 
 we find the custom of opening the school with some re- 
 ligious services still generally observed. On the other 
 hand, the genius of our institutions seems to require that 
 our public school should be purely a lay institution. In 
 Cooley's " Constitutional Limitations," we find that the 
 " compulsory support, by taxation or otherwise, of relig- 
 ious instruction," is named as one of " those things which 
 are not lawful under any of the American constitutions." 
 
214 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 He says : "Not only is no one denomination to be fa- 
 vored at the expense of the rest, but all support of re- 
 ligious instruction must be entirely voluntary." And 
 again: "Whatever establishes a distinction against one 
 class or sect is, to the extent to which the distinction 
 operates unfavorably, a persecution ; and, if based on 
 religious grounds, is a religious persecution." * 
 
 If this general doctrine is correct, and the term " re- 
 ligious instruction " is construed in a comprehensive 
 sense, it follows that the American public school should 
 not only be unsectarian, but should be absolutely neu- 
 tral as to religious bias. This may be called the theo- 
 retical or strictly legal status of the school. Practically, 
 the public school has, and probably will long have, a 
 quasi-religious character. Where the school may be 
 opened with the reading of the Bible and the repetition 
 of the Lord's Prayer, without dissent or protest, it is 
 well ; but wherever this is done in defiance of protest on 
 the part of pupils or their parents, the school should be- 
 come neutral. The practice of giving religious instruc- 
 tion to pupils out of school hours, or on the school prem- 
 ises, would, on the doctrine quoted from Judge Cooley, 
 be unconstitutional. 
 
 In this connection, w T hat is known as " the religious 
 difficulty " deserves a passing notice. If the American 
 public school were to be made absolutely neutral, would 
 its position be satisfactory to the Roman Catholics ? On 
 the occasion of the exclusion of the Bible from the public 
 schools of Cincinnati, the New York Tablet used this lan- 
 guage : " The school board of Cincinnati have voted, we 
 see from the papers, to exclude the Bible and all relig- 
 
 * Quoted from the " Free-School System of the United States." 
 By F. Adams. 
 
THE SECULARIZATION OF THE SCHOOL. 215 
 
 ions instruction from the public schools of the city. If 
 this has been done with a view to reconciling the Cath- 
 olics to the common-school system, its purpose will not be 
 realized. It does not meet, or in any degree lessen, our 
 objection to the public-school system, and only proves 
 the impracticability of that system in a mixed commu- 
 nity of Catholics and Protestants ; for it proves that the 
 schools must, to be sustained, become thoroughly godless. 
 But, to us, godless schools are still less acceptable than 
 sectarian schools, and we object less to the reading of 
 King James's Bible, even in the schools, than we do to 
 the exclusion of all religious instruction. American Prot- 
 estantism of the orthodox stamp is far less evil than Ger- 
 man infidelity." 
 
 The perfect neutrality of the school is not to be urged 
 as a concession to the Roman Church, but solely on the 
 ground of judicial fairness and constitutional right. If 
 the Catholic will not accept the public school, either with 
 or without the Bible, he is at perfect liberty to patronize 
 the Church school. The thing he really wants will doubt- 
 less never be granted, a division of the school fund for 
 the benefit of his parish school. 
 
 Opposition to the State, or neutral, school does not 
 come from the Catholic alone. Some Protestant bodies 
 have been almost as vehement in their antagonism. Be- 
 tween these two cases, however, there is this curious dif- 
 ference : the Catholic will send his children to the higher 
 public schools, but will not allow them to receive their 
 early instruction in our primary schools; while Protes- 
 tants universally, so far as I know, patronize our lower 
 schools, but would conduct the higher education of their 
 children in their denominational colleges. There is, 
 doubtless, a sincere belief, on the part of some Protes- 
 
213 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tants, that the higher education, as administered by the 
 State, is dangerous ; but, in some cases, it is only too evi- 
 dent that a state institution is believed to be a danger- 
 ous rival. The Catholic wants a share of the public- 
 school fund for the relief of his Church school ; while 
 the Protestant wants to draw recruits into his denomi- 
 national college from institutions for the higher educa- 
 tion, supported by the State. 
 
 To conclude : the manifest tendency of the times is 
 towards the secularization of the school. The modern 
 State has become an educator, and relegates religious in- 
 struction to the family and the Church. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 
 
 The good and wise Martin Luther said : " If I were 
 not a preacher, I would be a teacher; indeed, I do not 
 know which is the better." The preacher is an ethical 
 teacher, an expositor of divine truth ; the teacher is an 
 expositor of worldly wisdom, a preacher of literary and 
 scientific truth. Both are illuminators and guides. In 
 the hand of each is a torch; each is a standard-bearer; 
 and both are leaders in that grand forward movement 
 we call civilization. In this connection there is another 
 saying of Luther's which will explain the one first quoted. 
 " It is hard," he says, " to make old dogs obedient, or old 
 scoundrels pious ; but young trees are more easily bent 
 and trained." And our own Horace Mann, who preached 
 on educational reform in New England a half-century 
 ago, expressed the same thought when he said : " They 
 (the clergy) are reformers, I admit; but, with reference 
 to anything that grows, one right former is worth a thou- 
 sand reformers." The thought, then, in the mind of 
 Luther and of Horace Mann, was this: the teacher is a 
 former, while the preacher is chiefly a reformer; it is 
 better to form rightly than to labor at reforming. A 
 perennial question for discussion is this: "How may the 
 teacher become a right former?" " Of what spirit shall 
 he be so that his work shall be the least likely to need 
 reforming ?" 
 
 " Teaching," says Mr. Fitch, " is the noblest of all 
 
 10 
 
218 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 professions, but it is the sorriest of trades." * My pur- 
 pose in this chapter is to illustrate this brief text, and to 
 bring into view the professional aspect of teaching, and 
 also the course that must be followed if we would secure 
 to the teaching art the privileges and the prerogatives 
 that are usually associated with the professions. 
 
 This discussion has special reference to the education 
 that is given in normal schools. The general purpose 
 that carries young men to schools of theology, medicine, 
 and law, calls others to normal schools. In purpose, 
 such students set themselves apart for a special vocation 
 of great difficulty and of the gravest importance. The 
 very fact that they patronize such schools is proof that, 
 in a very true sense, they contemplate becoming state 
 officials ; that they will by and by assume grave public 
 duties, and will be paid for their services, in part, from 
 the public treasury. By the founding and maintenance 
 of these normal schools the State purposes to give to a 
 select body of teachers a professional education ; and, on 
 their part, in accepting these proffered advantages, these 
 teachers virtually become parties to a contract, whereby 
 they agree to give to the State the benefits of a profes- 
 sional training. It is of the utmost importance, there- 
 fore, to themselves and to the commonwealth, that those 
 who are thus specially educated become professional 
 teachers in the highest and truest sense of this term. 
 In the quotation I have borrowed from Mr. Fitch, trade 
 and profession are contrasted terms. In all times and in 
 all countries, teaching has been, for the most part, a trade ; 
 but the spirit of this age is now calling the teacher to a 
 higher plane of thinking and acting. Each step in civ- 
 ilization requires that men should work with sharper 
 
 * Fitch, " Lectures on Teaching," p. 25. 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 219 
 
 tools. From age to age men must work more rapidly 
 and more surely. The sailing-vessel once answered very 
 w T ell for transatlantic communication, and the stage- 
 coach for trans-continental travel ; but this new age re- 
 quires an ocean steamer that will pass from continent 
 to continent within seven days, and a rail-car that will 
 take us across the continent almost at the rate at which 
 a bird can fly. In my boyhood I read, in the weekly 
 paper, " Three weeks later from Europe ;" but now we 
 may read in our daily, European news not three hours old. 
 Clumsy hand-work sufficed for the ancient world, and 
 for the lower stages of civilization; but now, head-work 
 has come to the front. Hand-work must still be done, 
 but the hand must be inspired and guided by the head. 
 Ponderous agents were first enlisted in man's service, 
 and were made to minister to his pleasures and his needs ; 
 but this new world in which we live, this world that has 
 been transformed by human art, is moved by impon- 
 derable agents, heat and electricity. Anciently, all men 
 were artisans ; they worked with their hands from imi- 
 tation and by rule. Now, the very elect of the world's 
 workers are artists ; they toil with their brains from in- 
 spiration and by principle. 
 
 Whereunto shall we liken a profession ? To an en- 
 closed and fortified camp, into which no one can gain 
 admittance without giving the countersign. What is the 
 condition for gaining admittance to the three typical 
 professions, law, medicine, and theology ? It is the pos- 
 session of a specific body of knowledge, difficult of at- 
 tainment, scientific in character, and necessary for ful- 
 filling the peculiar duties required of the professional 
 membership. Let us examine the marks of what I will 
 venture to call professional knowledge, that knowledge 
 
220 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 without which no one will he admitted to that close cor- 
 poration or guild known as a profession. First, it is 
 knowledge of a specific kind, such as people in general 
 do not possess. In the matter of general scholarship, 
 lawyers, doctors, and clergymen are simply on a par with 
 the well-educated of every class ; they belong to the 
 genus scholar, and are defined by adding a specific dif- 
 ference. This specific difference is the peculiar knowl- 
 edge I have mentioned. To make my meaning clearer, 
 let me illustrate: a square is a rectangle; and we define 
 a square by adding to the conception rectangle the spe- 
 cific difference equilateral, and say a square is an equi- 
 lateral rectangle. x\nd so a physician is a scholar and 
 something more; more, by that special body of knowl- 
 edge which is required for his specific duties. To see 
 how necessary this item is to the very existence of the 
 professions, let us imagine all men to have the knowl- 
 edge now required of the physician. Then, at a single 
 stroke, the line between professional and non -profes- 
 sional would disappear. That is, the specific difference 
 between genus and species would disappear; the species 
 would be absorbed in the genus. 
 
 In the second place, the knowledge constituting this 
 specific difference is obtainable with difficulty. In a cer- 
 tain sense the professions are monopolies — they have the 
 exclusive possession of certain kinds of invaluable knowl- 
 edge. Why do not men break down this monopoly by 
 getting possession of this distinctive knowledge ? Chiefly 
 because it is a very difficult thing to gain it. Why do 
 not men break down all class distinctions, and thus re- 
 duce society to a homogeneous condition ? Evidently, 
 because of the impossibility of gaining those things upon 
 which class distinctions are founded. To be a physician, 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 221 
 
 a lawyer, or a minister, requires the mastery of knowl- 
 edge so abstruse that men in general will not endure the 
 toil and sacrifice necessary to obtain it. 
 
 In the third place, professional knowledge is scientific 
 in character. Here we are confronted with a distinction 
 that deserves to be noted. The blacksmith must have 
 special knowledge in order to fit him for his special du- 
 ties, but this knowledge is restricted to mere processes, 
 or ways of doing work. He must master the How of his 
 art. But however expert he may be in his manipulations, 
 he cannot explain the principles or laws on which they 
 rest. In other words, while he is proficient in the How 
 of his art, he is ignorant of the Why. The smith can 
 perform a variety of processes, but can explain none of 
 them ; while the scholar can explain the several processes, 
 but can perform none of them. In the main, manual 
 dexterities are easy of attainment; they involve a low 
 order of knowledge, and constitute an art. On the other 
 hand, the principles that underlie processes and thus ex- 
 plain them are discovered with great difficulty; they in- 
 volve a much higher order of knowledge, and constitute 
 a science. Blacksmithing is a trade, and the smith an 
 artisan. Chemistry is a science, and the chemist is a 
 member of a profession. The knowledge required for 
 the practice of an art is empirical knowledge ; while the 
 knowledge needed in a profession is rational or scientific 
 knowledge, consisting of doctrines, principles, and laws. 
 My definition of professional knowledge will now be 
 clearer if I reverse the order of marks and say that this 
 knowledge must, first of all, be scientific; that because 
 it is scientific, it is attainable with difficulty ; and that be- 
 cause of its difficulty, it is restricted to a select few ; and, 
 lastly, that because a profession is a select body, it is 
 
222 
 
 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 also a privileged body, enjoying certain prerogatives that 
 are attractive to men of ambition and talent.* 
 
 Let us now inquire on what grounds these privileged 
 bodies are maintained. What good reasons are there 
 why law or custom prescribes difficult terms on which 
 admittance may be gained to the professions ? Perhaps 
 it might be better to make them higher and stronger. 
 Let us see. 
 
 1. Suppose we ask why there is free admittance to the 
 guild of blacksmiths, while admittance to the guild of 
 physicians can be obtained only on hard conditions of a 
 prescribed kind. We know that in most cases the law 
 determines who may practice medicine, but neither law 
 nor custom interferes with any man's wish to become a 
 blacksmith. Evidently there must be some reason for 
 this discrimination. We may say, in a word, that society 
 guards the entrance to the medical profession as a neces- 
 sary measure of self- protection. The knowledge and 
 skill needed for the successful practice of the black- 
 smith's art are within the easy reach of all. In other 
 words, it is reasonably certain that all who may choose 
 
 * The relation of the closed occupations (professions) to the open 
 occupations (trades) may be illustrated as follows : 
 
 Mental. 
 
 Lawyer. 
 
 Occupations. ■> 
 
 Doctor. Closed. 
 
 Minister, j (Professions.) 
 Teacher. J 
 
 , 1 
 
 Hatter. 
 
 Farmer. Open. 
 
 Carpenter, f (Trades.) 
 
 Mason. 
 
 Manual. 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 223 
 
 this vocation will become workmen who may be safely 
 trusted. But suppose a man turns out to be an incom- 
 petent blacksmith. In the first place, the consequences 
 of his incompetence are not likely to be serious, scarcely 
 more, in most cases, than a slight money loss ; and in the 
 second place, the difference between good and bad work 
 is so easily discovered that imposition is practically im- 
 possible. So society does not resort to any formal means 
 of self-protection. But how different the case is in the 
 practice of medicine ! The knowledge and skill needed 
 in this art are to be obtained only with great difficulty, 
 and consequently, out of the multitude who might wish 
 to turn physician o\\]y a very small number have the 
 talent and industry that suffice for the purpose. Be- 
 sides, men in general are not competent to decide between 
 fitness and unfitness in this line of activity, and so this 
 determination is left with specialists, with the faculties 
 of medical colleges, and their decisions are regarded by 
 the law as final ; and in the third place, the consequences 
 of malpractice are so fearful that society is justified in 
 taking extreme precautions to exclude incompetence from 
 the medical profession. Recalling the illustration I have 
 already used, why is the professional camp thus strongly 
 fortified ? The proximate answer is, to shut out pre- 
 tenders and the incompetent; and, if we demand the 
 cause of this formal exclusion, we find it in the right of 
 society to protect itself from grave peril. Should these 
 safeguards be more or less rigorous than they now are ? 
 Does society need more or less protection against pro- 
 fessional incompetence? With respect to medicine and 
 law, I think but one answer can be returned. There is 
 a most urgent need that society should be much better 
 protected against quacks and shysters. The standard of 
 
224 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 professional education should be much higher than it is. 
 The quality should be raised, even at the expense of 
 quantity. If necessary, let us have fewer doctors and 
 lawyers, but let those we have be gentlemanly, scholarly, 
 and skilful. I sympathize with a venerated and lamented 
 colleague * who was accustomed to characterize the cur- 
 rent practice of law as " the constitutional means of de- 
 feating the ends of justice." I am not competent to ex- 
 press an opinion on the great political issues of the day ; 
 but, in the matters I am now discussing, I feel sure that 
 the great need of the country is protection rather than 
 free-trade. 
 
 2. I have now shown that those corporations or guilds 
 known as professions owe their existence, in the first 
 place, to the need felt by society of protecting itself 
 against dangerous incompetence. It is now to be noted 
 that society needs to offer special inducements to men to 
 fit themselves for lives of activity that require an unu- 
 sual amount of time and labor in the way of preparation. 
 Everywhere men are disposed to support life on the easiest 
 terms, or to move in the line of least resistance. If a 
 man has to spend five years instead of two in acquiring 
 fitness for an occupation, it will be done only in the hope 
 of some prospective reward. The case, when stated very 
 plainly, is this : Will it pay me to spend several of the 
 best years of my life, and a considerable amount of money 
 to boot, in order to fit myself for the practice of a diffi- 
 cult art ? Now, whether this sacrifice will finally pay or 
 not depends on two things : on the rate of remuneration 
 and on the social position that will be accorded by society. 
 We will consider remuneration in money as the chief re- 
 ward that society gives for the long toil and great ex- 
 
 * Dr. B. F. Cocker. 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 225 
 
 pense in making a preparation for the practice of a pro- 
 fession. By what process does it come to pass that the 
 prospective physician or lawyer may confidently hope 
 to receive, let us say, §10 a day for his professional 
 services? Lav/ and custom effect this result in a very 
 simple and satisfactory manner by 'protecting professional 
 men from unjust competition. The mode of doing this 
 is equally simple. Through law and custom, society will 
 admit no one to the privileges of the professions without 
 exacting from him a certificate of competence. The in- 
 competent shall not compete with the competent for em- 
 ployment; and the necessary consequence is that there 
 is a rise in the rate of remuneration. This is the reward 
 offered by society for the attainment of high excellence 
 in a difficult art. It is curious to observe how society 
 protects itself by lending its protection to the professions. 
 To abolish this protection, by allowing all who will to 
 practice medicine, would be to reduce the physician's fee 
 to the stipend of a day laborer. This reduction in re- 
 muneration would abase the grade of competence, so that, 
 in the end, quackery would become rampant, and society 
 would become unprotected against gross incompetence. 
 By ceasing to protect the professions, society would aban- 
 don the means of self-protection. 
 
 This practice of offering rewards for special efforts and 
 special excellence is, in fact, very common. The great 
 purpose of the agricultural society is to stimulate farmers 
 to produce improved specimens of fruits, grains, vege- 
 tables, cattle, etc. What is the mode of stimulation ? 
 The offering of a premium in money, or a medal, or a 
 diploma. It is the interest of society to stimulate men 
 to make high achievements in difficult lines of activity; 
 and the only efficient means yet found is to offer some 
 
 10* 
 
226 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 adequate reward. In some cases tins reward is a sum of 
 money in band; in others it is the bestowal of special 
 privileges and prerogatives ; but in all cases the principle 
 is the same and is equally justifiable. 
 
 This discussion of the general nature of the profes- 
 sions may possibly seem like a digression, but I have 
 thought the digression necessary, as the means of deter- 
 mining whether teaching can be ranked as a profession, 
 and whether young men and women who are being 
 trained in normal schools may find in teaching a career, 
 an opportunity to rise to distinction by the exercise of 
 their best gifts of mind and heart. Shall teaching re- 
 main the sorry trade that it has been, or shall it be en- 
 nobled to the dignity of a profession ? These are ques- 
 tions worthy of grave consideration, alike by teachers 
 and by parents ; for in this matter there is a perfect sol- 
 idarity of interest. All the active years of my life thus 
 far have been spent in the public-school service, and in 
 this service I expect to remain till the period of my ac- 
 tivity shall close. So far as I have known how, I have 
 done my work in the professional spirit. I have chosen 
 teaching as a vocation for life. I have tried to bring the 
 scientific spirit to bear on all the details of my work ; 
 and this work, pursued in this spirit, has been a delight. 
 I yield to no one in according honor to the ministry. But, 
 for myself, I would rather be a teacher than a preacher, 
 a former than a reformer; and my purpose in this chapter 
 is to say something that may encourage young men and 
 women to adopt the public-school service as a profession. 
 I shall now adduce the several reasons that seem to me 
 conclusive why teaching should enjoy the dignities, the 
 rights, and the rewards of a profession. 
 
 1. Teaching is an intellectual art. It is addressed 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 227 
 
 to the spirit. It deals, primarily and principally, with 
 mind. It has been well said, " On earth there is nothing 
 great but man ; in man there is nothing great but mind." 
 What sublimer vocation, then, than to be the conscious 
 and skilful minister to the mind's needs and aspirations? 
 By its vastness and complexity, the earth is a sublime 
 mystery, and it is easy to comprehend the enthusiasm of 
 the scientist in his attempts to solve the problems of ma- 
 terial and animal existence ; but what is this earth when 
 compared with the vastness, the complexity, and the mys- 
 tery of spirit? Now, he who has to do with the laws of 
 spirit is an artist, and he who has in charge the mould- 
 ing of the plastic spirit may aspire to be the prince of 
 artists. To be called to defend the body against disease, 
 and to secure the citizen against any invasion of his rights 
 to liberty and property, are high vocations, and those 
 who charge themselves with such duties are properly in- 
 vested with professional prerogatives ; but higher than 
 these functions is that of forming and informing the 
 spirit, and society can scarcely offer a prospective reward 
 too high for artistic excellence in this line of activity. 
 Should not the men and the women who make them- 
 selves worthy of this high office be protected against un- 
 just competition ? 
 
 2. Moreover, society is as much in need of formal 
 and valid protection against incompetence in teaching 
 as against incompetence in legal and in medical prac- 
 tice. The reasons for the need of this formal protection 
 on the part of society are the extreme difficulty of dis- 
 criminating between competence and incompetence, and 
 the grave peril involved in a mistake in making this dis- 
 crimination. These reasons are in full force in the case 
 under consideration. I believe there is no art practised 
 
228 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 among men in which it is so difficult to distinguish be- 
 tween fitness and unfitness, between work of high qual- 
 ity and work of low quality. Let me illustrate and verify 
 this statement. Let us take what seems to be a simple 
 case, that of the inspection of a school. If this inspec- 
 tion is to serve any valuable purpose, it must be compe- 
 tent to do three things: (1) To determine whether the 
 school is in a good or bad condition. (2) If it is in a bad 
 condition, to locate the trouble, or to assign a cause for 
 the failure. (3) To provide an adequate remedy. Out 
 of ten inspectors of the average mould, not more than 
 five are competent for the first duty; and of these five, 
 not more than three can locate the difficulty ; and of 
 these three not more than one can prescribe a rational 
 course of treatment. In this illustration I have in mind 
 what Charles Francis Adams has called " scientific school 
 supervision." * Any other I hold to be worthless. What 
 proportion of mere scholars are able to determine, on any 
 rational ground, the studies that should form the com- 
 mon-school curriculum ? I hold that no one but a spe- 
 cialist can have this competence. Comparatively speak- 
 ing, it is much more difficult to prescribe a course of 
 study for a particular school than to write a prescription 
 for a fever patient. In both cases charlatanry should be 
 an indictable offence. 
 
 3. I have said that professional knowledge is scientific 
 in character; it is a knowledge of doctrines, principles, 
 and laws, as distinguished from a knowledge of mere 
 processes, methods, or modes of procedure. If we wish 
 to accord high praise to a physician, we speak of him as 
 a rnan of science, meaning by that expression that he 
 is able to trace the route over which cause must pass in 
 
 * See Harjyer's Monthly Magazine, Nov., 1880. 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 229 
 
 order to produce its effect. Sucli a man has a compre- 
 hensive knowledge of the human body as a complex, vi- 
 talized aggregate ; he knows the relation of each part to 
 every other part, and to the grand whole ; to every dis- 
 ordered function he can assign some definite cause or 
 antecedent, and so can employ a large intelligence in 
 adapting means to ends. 
 
 In the teaching art is there a state of things compara- 
 ble to this? Is there within the reach of the teacher a 
 body of knowledge so definitely scientific in character as to 
 make possible a good degree of prevision ? This is to ask 
 whether the evolution of mind is subject to law, or wheth- 
 er there is a science of mind. For the teacher's art, be- 
 ing addressed primarily to the mind, if there is a science 
 of mind, there must also be, of necessity, an applied sci- 
 ence of teaching. I know of no reputable thinker wdio 
 denies that there is a science of mind. I suppose the 
 simple fact to be that there are more well-established 
 principles in mental science than in medical science. 
 The astonishing fact is that, until within a recent period, 
 there has been no systematic attempt to found a rational 
 s} T stem of teaching on the known laws of mental science. 
 There is no general truth of which I feel surer than of 
 this — that the teacher of to-day, if he will, may adopt a 
 course of practice that, in its main features, is strictly 
 rational. Instead of blindly following tradition, prece- 
 dent, and mere authority, the teacher, if he will, may 
 employ his versatile powers with the same deliberate con- 
 fidence in law that sustains the physician in dealing with 
 the cases incident to his profession. 
 
 That this body of psychological knowledge is difficult of 
 attainment no one who is at all versed in the science will 
 deny. From this point of view, to be a teacher is no 
 
230 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 mean task, for it implies not only a mind predisposed to 
 reflection and gifted with some degree of philosophic in- 
 sight, but a patient persistence in study of which only 
 a comparatively few are capable. Students who are con- 
 scious of high gifts may find in the pursuit of educa- 
 tional science a field for the exercise of their best pow- 
 ers, and, in the practice of their art, the daily and hourly 
 opportunity to test their scientific versatility. 
 
 As further illustrating the nature of that special body 
 of knowledge that the teacher may rightly regard as pro- 
 fessional, I will follow a little further the analogy be- 
 tween the practice of medicine and of teaching. In 
 addition to his proficiency in physiological and anatom- 
 ical knowledge, the physician must know the therapeu- 
 tical value of each remedial agent, so that, in the treat- 
 ment of disease, he can make a wise discrimination in 
 the use of the resources at his command. This has its 
 almost exact parallel in the teaching art, where each study 
 has its peculiar nature, produces its own effect on the 
 growing mind, and serves a purpose that no other study 
 will serve. The education value of studies stands in the 
 same relation to the teaching profession that materia 
 medica does to the medical profession. Is this an ab- 
 struse branch of learning ? For a reply, look at the names 
 of the few who have attempted to fix these values.* Here 
 is a field of study as attractive as any known to physical 
 science. To formulate a comprehensive statement of 
 education values I believe to be the most important task 
 of the educational philosopher. 
 
 A third element of professional knowledge, of at least 
 co-ordinate rank with the two just described, is still to 
 be noted. The organon, or chief teaching instrument, 
 
 * See Chapter III. 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 231 
 
 is language, considered as the medium of communica- 
 tion between teacher and pupil. That accomplished 
 scholars are sometimes conspicuous failures in the art of 
 teaching has long been an observed fact. In many cases, 
 no doubt, this failure can be traced to an inability to gov- 
 ern, but in quite as many cases the fault lies in an awk- 
 ward use of the great teaching instrument, language. 
 "With a deft use of language, all the intellectual re- 
 sources of the teacher can be brought to bear upon the 
 task in hand ; but, deprived of the ready use of this in- 
 strument, the wisest teacher is as powerless as an infant. 
 What is the office of language in the communication of 
 knowledge? Under what circumstances is this commu- 
 nication impossible ? In w T hat sense is it true that books 
 embody knowledge, and so serve to transmit the net prod- 
 ucts of human thinking from generation to generation? 
 These plain-looking questions are not easy to answer. 
 The solution of these problems involves the very phi- 
 losophy of language ; and, to a mind predisposed to re- 
 flective thinking, here is a field of study of unsurpassed 
 interest. "What I wish particularly to say is that the pro- 
 fessional teacher has need to become acquainted with 
 this abstruse philosophy in order to become thoroughly 
 furnished for the deft practice of his art. 
 
 By way of recapitulation, let me now state the grounds 
 on which teaching should be included in the professions. 
 
 1. Teaching belongs to the higher category of intel- 
 lectual employments, involving broad scholarship, the 
 ability to make nice discriminations, and the use of the 
 highest gifts of mind and heart. 
 
 2. The professional knowledge required is abstruse, 
 difficult of attainment, demanding intellectual qualities 
 of a high order. 
 
232 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 3. Men in general are incompetent to distinguish be- 
 tween fitness and unfitness for the teaching office, and 
 the consequences of malpractice are so serious that soci- 
 ety needs to be formally protected against imposture. 
 
 4. To become fit for the practice of teaching, in the 
 high sense here intended, is such an arduous undertaking 
 that society should hold out some prospective reward to 
 induce men and women of talent to adopt this vocation. 
 
 On these grounds alone I do not hesitate to say that 
 teaching is as much entitled to professional sanctions as 
 medicine and law. 
 
 At this point in our discussion it is pertinent to in- 
 quire whether teaching can become a profession in the 
 exact sense in which medicine and law are professions. 
 To this question candor compels me to give a negative 
 reply ; and the reasons why teaching cannot become a 
 close corporation like the professions named are not dif- 
 ficult to state. 
 
 First of all, a teacher must be a scholar, and if he is to 
 be a teacher of real power, he must be a man of wide and 
 accurate scholarship ; then, to his general scholarship, 
 there must be added a knowledge of the best methods 
 of doing school work ; and, finally, the real teacher must 
 be a man of science, he must know the why of his art. 
 Now, as good scholarship is one element in fitness for 
 teaching, it follows that all good scholars are qualified, 
 in part, for teaching. On the side of scholarship, then, 
 there is free admittance to the teaching vocation ; so far, 
 there is no professional line. And in respect of method, 
 the case is not much better. A pupil cannot pass through 
 a course of study without imbibing its methods ; and 
 when he turns teacher, he will teach as he was taught ; so 
 that we may say here, as we said before, that all good 
 
TEACHING AS A TRADE AND AS A PROFESSION. 233 
 
 scholars have partial qualifications for teaching — they 
 know what to teach, and how subjects have been taught. 
 So far there has been no appearance of a body of pe- 
 culiar knowledge that differentiates the teacher from the 
 scholar; but in the third conception we have noted we 
 find this specific difference : that articulate psychological 
 knowledge on which I have insisted, the knowledge of 
 education values to which I have alluded, and the knowl- 
 edge of the philosophy of language as the teaching in- 
 strument, are items that do not enter into general scholar- 
 ship, but in their applied use are monopolized by the 
 teaching vocation. To recapitulate what I have now at- 
 tempted to say, teaching can never be a profession in 
 the exclusive sense that medicine and law are professions, 
 for the reason that all well-educated men and women 
 have partial qualifications for the vocation. The profes- 
 sional mark, properly so-called, is educational science ; 
 this is the specific difference that distinguishes the species 
 teacher from the genus scholar. 
 
 From this last statement some practical inferences of 
 great importance can be drawn. Suppose it is thought 
 desirable to intensify the professional aspect of teaching, 
 or to sharpen the distinction between the teacher and the 
 mere scholar. The one thing needful for this purpose is 
 to make a knowledge of educational science an essential 
 for obtaining a license to teach. If this test were to be 
 applied, the vast army of teachers would be more than 
 decimated. But it is to another inference that I wish to 
 call attention in this connection. If any are ambitious 
 to become professional teachers in the exact sense of the 
 term, they will acquire that special body of knowledge 
 to which I have called attention, and, by so doing, they 
 will rise from the " sorrv trade " of the mere schoolmas- 
 
234 SCIENCE OE EDUCATION. 
 
 ter to u the noblest of all the professions," that of educa- 
 tor. 
 
 To shield my treatment of this theme from being too 
 incomplete, I feel bound to answer another question that 
 may reasonably be asked. Is it ever to be expected that 
 all who teach will make of their employment a profes- 
 sion in the absolute sense that has been described? Will 
 the time ever come when every teacher will know the 
 what, the how, and the why? Probably not. For rea- 
 sons that need not be stated, many will practise this art 
 simply as an avocation, or temporary employment. Such 
 teachers will have neither the professional spirit, nor the 
 professional preparation. But, leaving these out of ac- 
 count, there will always be a large number of those who 
 make this art a vocation that will know little or nothing 
 of the science of teaching; but if such are well versed 
 in rational methods, they may properly be included in 
 the teaching profession. What we are entitled to ex- 
 pect, to pray for, and to work for, is that there shall be 
 a growing number of cultured men and women who shall 
 be versed in education both as an art and as a science. 
 Of these alone it may be said that they prof ess their art. 
 They are professional teachers in the exact sense of the 
 term. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 It is related of Rousseau that, on the occasion of one 
 of his foot-journeys through France and Italy, he sought 
 refreshment and rest in the cabin of a peasant ; and that 
 the wretchedness and misery of human existence, as he 
 there saw it, inspired him at the same time with a pro- 
 found sorrow for humanity and with a profound hatred 
 for the pride and the oppression of the powerful and the 
 rich. From that moment an unquenchable fire burned 
 in his veins, and it is doubtless to that shock to his over- 
 sensitive nature that we owe in great part the volume 
 that has moved the human heart more profoundly than 
 perhaps any other that has been produced by a merely 
 human pen. Like too many others, no doubt, I have 
 sometimes been offended at the overcharged sentiment 
 and the paradox that abound in Rousseau's masterpiece ; 
 but my heart is touched and I am won back to admi- 
 ration and gratitude when I read a sentence like this : 
 " O men, be humane ! it is your highest duty ; be hu- 
 mane to all conditions of men, to every age, to everything 
 not alien to mankind. What higher wisdom is there 
 for you than humanity ? Love childhood ; encourage its 
 sports, its pleasures, its lovable instincts. Who among 
 us has not at times looked back with regret to the age 
 when a smile was continually on our lips, when the soul 
 was always at peace ? Why should we rob these little 
 innocent creatures of the enjoyment of a time so brief, 
 
23C SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 so transient, of a boon so precious, which they cannot 
 misuse ?" * 
 
 It is Rousseau's ardent humanity that gives a degree 
 of unity, consistency, and even of beauty, to a life other- 
 wise disordered and full of wretched inconsistencies. He 
 looked upon the European society of his day as a whited 
 sepulchre. Outwardly there were the pomp of power, 
 the glitter of wealth, and the pageants of religion; but 
 within and below there were ignorance, degradation, and 
 squalor. Princes despised people, and, in their turn, the 
 people hated princes. Between the rulers and the ruled, 
 between the rich and the poor, between the learned and 
 the ignorant, there had come to be a social divorce ; be- 
 tween the few and the many there w r as a great gulf fixed, 
 and this gulf the few did not wish to pass, and the many 
 had despaired of passing. Rousseau was himself a man 
 of the people, and in him there seems to have been con- 
 centrated the conscious suffering of his class; but while 
 the peasantry were dumb, benumbed, perhaps, by their 
 secular oppression and sufferings, Rousseau had a voice 
 full of pathos and persuasive eloquence. It spoke through 
 the "Emile" and awoke the people to self -conscious- 
 ness. Authority, ecclesiastical and civil, was aroused and 
 alarmed, and, as is usual in such cases, it took refuge in 
 persecution ; but this Genevan watchmaker's son, this 
 inspired tramp, this sentimental philosopher, had fired 
 a train, and there followed the awful explosion of the 
 French Revolution. The social divorce was not healed, 
 but what was low T est was lifted upward, and what was 
 highest was abased. However, the growing divergence 
 ceased, and the new movement was towards unity, frater- 
 nity, and equality. The train that was lighted in Eu- 
 
 * " Smile," Miss Worthington's translation (Boston, 1885), p. 43. 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 237 
 
 rope had its first effect in the new world. The Ameri- 
 can Revolution was but the prelude to the French Re vo- 
 lution. Both events were triumphs of humanity over 
 oppression ; and in the earlier as in the later, no account 
 of causes can fail to mention the pen of Rousseau. The 
 man whose ruling passion was love for the people, was, in 
 the hands of Providence, an unconscious agent in mould- 
 ing the institutions of a new world. 
 
 Going back a century from Rousseau's time, we find 
 another man whose greatness was due to his ardent and 
 exalted humanity. This was Coinenius, the Moravian 
 pastor, whose fame reached even these shores, for he was 
 invited to become the president of Harvard College in 
 1654. Comenius had more balance than Rousseau. In 
 him sentiment was tempered, governed, and directed by 
 reason and religion. He not only felt, but he saw. He 
 was not a guide-post, but a guide. He was not only a 
 great educator, as Rousseau was, but he was what Rous- 
 seau was not and could not be, a great teacher. By first 
 intent he was a preacher, but he loved the people so well 
 that he became a teacher. Learning, which in his time 
 was the privilege of the few, was to be made, through his 
 proposed organization of schools, the common heritage 
 of the many. His scheme of popular enlightenment was 
 so comprehensive and so far-reaching, that every home 
 was to become a school. He did not write an educa- 
 tional romance, like the " Emile," which was to intoxi- 
 cate through sentiment ; but composed a school manual, 
 the " Orbis Pictus," which was translated into various 
 languages, and for two centuries was the universal text- 
 book for popular instruction, and is the parent of the 
 modern illustrated child's book. The greatness of Co- 
 menius was due to the fact that he was above all else a 
 
238 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 philanthropist. He knew the people, saw their wretch- 
 edness, and became a martyr to their cause. He believed 
 that the people were perishing for lack of knowledge, 
 and so he organized instruction as the means of their 
 salvation. 
 
 Coming back now to a period a little nearer our 
 own time, we find another Swiss youth whose soul was 
 wrought into almost preternatural activity by his love 
 for the poor, oppressed, degraded people. His first im- 
 pulse was to be a preacher, but his diffidence betrayed 
 him in his first sermon — he could not repeat the Lord's 
 Prayer. Then he thought of law, but some unpleasant 
 experiences cooled his political ardor. Next he turned 
 agriculturist, because he saw a chance for the regenera- 
 tion of the people through the organization of profitable 
 industries. But his madder-farming failed, he was re- 
 duced to poverty, and as a last resort he set up a school 
 for the outcast children of his neighborhood. This was 
 the great Pestalozzi, the story of whose life and labors 
 and sufferings is among the most pathetic ever written. 
 From his twentieth to his eightieth year he had but a 
 single purpose, to relieve the wretchedness of his poor 
 countrymen. He had discovered that political reforms 
 and industrial improvements could not reach the seat of 
 the social disease ; and so, laying the axe to the very root 
 of the tree, he gathered up vagrant children, became their 
 housekeeper, nurse, servant, and teacher, and gave them 
 lessons in cleanliness, good manners, morals, and in the 
 elements of an education. Here is a picture of Pesta- 
 lozzi's school, drawn by one of his biographers : * " There, 
 in the midst of his children, he forgot that there was any 
 world besides his asylum. And as their circle was an 
 
 * Biber, op. cit., p. 34. 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 239 
 
 universe to him, so was he to them all in all. From 
 morning to night he was the centre of their existence. 
 To him they owed every comfort and every enjoyment ; 
 and whatever hardships they had to endure, he was their 
 fellow -sufferer. He partook of their meals and slept 
 among them. In the evening he prayed with them be- 
 fore they went to bed ; and from his conversation they 
 dropped into the arms of slumber. At the first dawn of 
 light it was his voice that called them to the rising sun, 
 and to the praise of their heavenly Father. All day he 
 stood among them, teaching the ignorant, and assisting 
 the helpless ; encouraging the weak, and admonishing 
 the transgressor. His hand was daily with them, joined 
 in theirs; his eye, beaming with intelligence, rested on 
 theirs. He wept when they wept, and rejoiced when 
 they rejoiced. He was to them a father, and they were 
 to him as children." 
 
 At first thought this will doubtless appear to be an 
 extraordinary method of conducting a school ; but I have 
 little doubt that reflection will show that there is in it 
 an element of perennial value. What this element is I 
 can best illustrate by relating the following occurrence : 
 A young man was employed by wealthy parents to take in 
 charge the education of an imbecile son. This boy was 
 so low in the scale of mentality as to be unable to stand, 
 or even to sit, as rational beings do, but his usual posture 
 was lying at full length on the floor. After considerable 
 reflection the tutor decided to put himself on a plane 
 with his poor pupil, and so he took his place beside him 
 on the floor. Then presently he raised himself on one 
 arm, and finally his pupil, through imitation, raised him- 
 self to this extent. After many lessons of this sort the 
 tutor took the sitting posture ; and perseverance, encour- 
 
210 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 agement, and trial soon brought the pupil to the same 
 posture. In the end, it is said that this imbecile boy be- 
 came a man to the extent that he could both stand and 
 walk. 
 
 In both these cases the element of power is nearness 
 through sympathy, and the impulse to growth comes 
 through the effort of imitation. But what was the power 
 which brought the teacher down to a level with his pu- 
 pils ? It was the feeling of benevolence, of humanity, 
 of philanthropy. Pestalozzi was, above all else, a philan- 
 thropist. 
 
 But what could one such school do for the regenera- 
 tion of Switzerland ? It was but a drop on a parched 
 desert. Pestalozzi saw the hopelessness of realizing his 
 great purpose through any direct personal effort of his 
 own, and so he conceived a plan worthy of a statesman. 
 This was nothing less than to make of every mother a 
 teacher, and thus to convert every home into a school. 
 For this purpose he wrote a popular romance — " Leonard 
 and Gertrude " — designed at once to inspire mothers with 
 a philanthropic passion, and to present, under the attract- 
 ive guise of fiction, an example for imitation.* This 
 work had an extraordinary popularity. It was universal- 
 ly read, but, alas ! it was not understood. It pleased, but 
 it did not inspire. Its real spirit and purpose were whol- 
 ly missed. It was with no little chagrin that the good 
 Pestalozzi saw the failure of his plan ; but, such was the 
 
 * In the edition of 1800 he writes, " I desired nothing then, and 
 I desire nothing else now, as the object of my life, but the welfare 
 of the people, whom I love, and whom I feel to be miserable as few 
 feel them to be miserable, because I have with them borne their 
 sufferings as few have borne them." See Quick, "Essays on Edu- 
 cational Reformers," pp. 167, 108. 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 241 
 
 buoyancy, such the hopefulness, of his nature, that he 
 wrote a second book, to explain the meaning and the pur- 
 pose of the first. This was his " Christopher and Eliza." 
 This was doubtless more successful than the first, but its 
 immediate effect was disappointing. 
 
 I narrate these facts because they are typical of Pesta- 
 lozzi's career to the very day of his death. From the 
 organization of his madder-farm, in 1769, to his last 
 school at Yverdun, in 1824, there was not an instance in 
 which he took a resolution from selfish motives. He 
 literally sacrificed himself for the good of the poor, the 
 wretched, and the ignorant. He says of himself, " A 
 thousand times have I left my poor children seated about 
 a table at their meals while I devoured a crust by the 
 highway." 
 
 Tried by modern standards, Pestalozzi's schools were 
 failures. The disorder was pitiable, and the positive 
 instruction was slight. All his days he was groping his 
 uncertain way after a "method." He felt intensely, but 
 he saw obscurely. His benevolence, generosity, and good- 
 ness were boundless, and so was his credulity. He was 
 as simple, unaffected, and trustful as a child, and so was 
 the easy dupe of the jealous and the ambitious. What, 
 then, was the secret of Pestalozzi's power? How has 
 it happened that this Swiss peasant, this ignorant and 
 uncouth man, this itinerant teacher, has made a name 
 and secured an influence in the world which have insured 
 his immortality ? It was his absolute devotion to the 
 goo.d of his kind. It was his quenchless love for the 
 poor people. Without denying Pestalozzi the merit of 
 having made some contributions to method, it is perfect- 
 ly hopeless to account for his greatness on this score. It 
 is the spirit of the man, and not his method, which enti- 
 
 11 
 
242 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ties him to a pre-eminent place among the great names in 
 the history of education. 
 
 What I have said of Pestalozzi is true, though, per- 
 haps in a less degree, of Froebel. His inspiration was 
 his love for childhood. Children, in his conception, were 
 as tender plants, to be carefully and lovingly trained, and 
 the teacher was a workman in this human garden. The 
 school was, therefore, a Jci?idergarte?i. The only part of 
 the teaching service in this country that is dominated 
 distinctively by the philanthropic spirit is the kindergar- 
 ten service. What I mean is, that this is the only part 
 of the service to which women and men devote them- 
 selves from purely humanitarian motives. The spirit 
 that animates and actuates the kindergartener is the 
 very spirit that calls the missionary across the sea to the 
 dark continent. This is the spirit of Miss Peabody and 
 of Mrs. Mann, and of the whole army of women who are 
 now organizing the kindergarten in the great cities of the 
 country. Froebel's real "gift," infinitely more valuable 
 than the cylinder, the sphere, and the cube, is the love 
 for childhood that his ardent zeal has inspired in the 
 hearts of his disciples. The power of the kindergarten, 
 as it seems to me, lies in the fact that the teacher, so to 
 speak, now listens to the heart-beats of the little child. 
 
 Surely, in further illustration of the fact that the 
 world's greatest teachers have been inspired by a love 
 for ignorant and suffering humanity, I need not dwell at 
 length on the story of the Nazarene peasant, the carpen- 
 ter's son, who, by his sufferings and services, has become 
 exalted over every other name in the annals of time. 
 But have we sufficiently reflected on the fact that Jesus 
 owes his awful pre-eminence among reformers to his 
 perfect condescension to men of low estate, to his frank 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 243 
 
 companionship with publicans and sinners, to his holy 
 ministrations to the disinherited of this world? In all 
 that marvellous life there is nothing more significant or 
 more touching than the fact that ignorance, weakness, 
 and sin, instead of repelling Jesus from men, drew him 
 into closer sympathy with them. "We may almost say 
 that he loved men because they were sinful and vile. 
 The first quality in this ministration was an infinite 
 pity for the lowly sufferers of this world; and its pur- 
 pose was to plant in each human soul an inspiring 
 and protecting hope for a better and a happier here- 
 after. 
 
 All the great reforms in politics, in religion, and in 
 education have consisted, essentially, in securing to the 
 people some right of which they had been deprived. 
 Ileform thus implies the monopoly of certain things by 
 those who chance to be invested with authority and pow- 
 er; and it also implies that suffering is caused by the 
 withholding of these things from those who are entitled 
 to them. Thus, in France, prior to the revolution, there 
 was royalty, haughty and defiant, on the one hand, and 
 on the other the poor people, weary and heavy laden. 
 Could power always be arrogant and unpitying ? Would 
 the people always suffer in silence under their secular 
 burdens? Had Louis XVI. put his ear to the ground 
 he migrht have heard the rumbling that foretells the 
 earthquake. But he did not, and so the shock came, 
 his throne was overturned, and he perished in that 
 awful night of pitiless storm. George III. heard the 
 sounds of discontent from his American colonies, but he 
 did not interpret them aright, or, at least, he did not 
 heed them, and so our revolution came, and the people 
 gained by force what should have been given them as a 
 
244 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 right. For weary years England lias turned a deaf ear 
 to the pathetic story of Ireland's wrongs, and the pre- 
 monitory shocks of revolution have been felt in the Par- 
 liament House. But there is one man who hears and 
 heeds the groans of this brave and oppressed people ; 
 and this humane commoner, through the very power of 
 his humanity, is at this hour the great statesman of 
 Europe. As we think of the renewed ascendency of 
 Gladstone in British politics, we can but repeat Rous- 
 seau's eloquent period : " O men, be humane ! it is your 
 highest duty ; be humane to all conditions of men, to 
 every age, to everything not alien to mankind. What 
 higher wisdom is there for } 7 ou than humanity ?" 
 
 I need not attempt to show how revolutions and ref- 
 ormations are made necessary by power that has grown 
 haughty, cruel, and relentless, or by wealth that has be- 
 come selfish, proud, and heartless, or by religion that has 
 degenerated into a soulless formalism or an official cer- 
 emonial ; but I will dwell for a moment on an analo- 
 gous fact which is not so obvious, and which will bring 
 me nearer my present purpose. 
 
 Even learning is disposed to become aristocratic, and 
 to intrench itself behind its prerogatives. In all ages 
 of the world men have made a monopoly of wisdom. 
 Anciently the priestly class was powerful, because it was 
 the only instructed class, and it perpetuated its authority 
 by maintaining a strict monopoly of its inherited wis- 
 dom. Popular ignorance was the condition of priestly 
 supremacy. At this very moment the doctrine is held 
 in more than one quarter that knowledge predisposes 
 men to be dissatisfied with their ancestral condition, and 
 that the only way to keep men in a contented, docile, 
 and manageable condition is to keep them comparatively 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 245 
 
 ignorant. The educational problem in England is, at 
 this moment, complicated by a fear of what might hap- 
 pen if the lower classes were to be too highly in- 
 structed. 
 
 In some quarters there is a disposition, both in prac- 
 tice and in theory, to administer education on a princi- 
 ple wliich is a virtual recognition of caste distinctions. 
 In practice, this disposition is seen in attempts to convert 
 school instruction into an apprenticeship to a trade, as 
 though the prime purpose of education were to fit pu- 
 pils, some for carpentry, some for shoemaking, others 
 for farming, etc. I interpret the present agitation in 
 favor of industrial education partly in this sense. In 
 theory, this disposition is seen particularly in the first 
 chapter of Mr. Spencer's "Education," where the worth 
 of knowledge is tested solely by the practical use that 
 can be made of it ; a child must be taught that which 
 will soonest and most effectually convert him into an 
 instrument. In no part of this famous chapter do I dis- 
 cover a sentence that can be interpreted in favor of a 
 liberal education ; that is, of an education that is catho- 
 lic and humane, or that is to be administered on the hy- 
 pothesis that the child's humanity takes precedence of 
 his functions as an instrument. On this subject Kenan 
 speaks as follows : " The reasoning that I oppose starts 
 from the low and false doctrine that instruction serves 
 only for the practical use that is made of it. . . . The 
 poor man should be ignorant, for education and knowl- 
 edge are useless to him. Blasphem} 7 , gentlemen ! The 
 culture of the mind and the soul are duties for everv 
 man. They are not simply ornaments. They are things 
 as sacred as religion."* 
 
 * " La Famille et PlStat," p. 3. See, also, p. 48 of this volume. 
 
24G SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 I think there is some ground for fearing that the 
 schools may be drawn into false tendencies through the 
 administration of education by the literary or scholarly 
 class. Is it not at least possible that professional teach- 
 ers, who are, or should be, men and women of scholarly 
 tastes and habits, may administer education on the h} T - 
 pothesis that their pupils are destined for the scholarly 
 vocation % Is it not possible, in other words, that a teach- 
 er, in drawing up a course of study, may unconsciously 
 obey his own instincts and tastes, instead of putting 
 himself in the place of the boys and girls who are to be 
 farmers, artisans, tradesmen, housewives, etc.? It must 
 be held, I think, that the major effort of the school should 
 be directed to the training of men and women, and not 
 of laborers, artisans, etc. ; but, at the same time, the fact 
 that these men and women must become bread-winners 
 should not be lost sight of. The school must not be con- 
 ducted on the hypothesis that its pupils are to be profes- 
 sional scholars. I believe it to be a fact that, to some de- 
 gree — slight, perhaps — the schools have been allowed to 
 drift away from the people, to ignore their wishes and 
 wants, and so to encourage the formation of an intellect- 
 ual aristocracy. The higher we go in the scholastic or- 
 ganization, the greater this danger, and the more pro- 
 nounced this tendency. I think there must be some truth 
 in the widespread feeling that the high school does not 
 sufficiently respond to popular needs. I decline to be 
 quoted as sympathizing with the periodical attacks made 
 by demagogues on the high school. My only purpose is 
 to call attention to a source of danger in high-school ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 Might not our highest institutions of learning be 
 brought into closer sympathy and relations with the peo- 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 247 
 
 pie ? I wish that every boy who follows the plough with 
 a book in his pocket, and feels an hourly thirst for intel- 
 lectual improvement, might not be overawed by the 
 apprehension of a formidable entrance examination. I 
 wish that all such might feel that the college or the uni- 
 versity will gladly lend to them a sympathetic and a 
 helping hand ; will, at least, grant them an opportunity 
 to succeed. I am growing more and more convinced 
 that an earnest purpose is often more than an equivalent 
 for technical scholarship. But how many examiners take 
 note of these moral qualities? They have been trained 
 to discern a misplaced accent or a false quantity or an 
 incorrect date. There is no doubt that many a talented 
 boy has lost the opportunity for the higher intellectual 
 culture through the force of such technicalities. If, at 
 the first, such a boy can put only one foot on the college 
 campus, let him do it. 
 
 There are many gains, but there is also some loss, in 
 making an art like teaching a vocation or profession. The 
 loss consists in making the teacher's duties more or less 
 formal, divested of the halo of s} r mpathy and emotion. 
 Who has not listened to church services that were purely 
 formal, hollow, and heartless? The sermon was not ad- 
 dressed to dying men, who had immortal souls to save. 
 The minister was paid for preaching an hour, and he 
 preached an hour. The prayer was a necessary acces- 
 sory, and so it was uttered; but it echoed the aspiration 
 of no penitent soul. There is much teaching, as there 
 is some preaching and praying and singing, that is purely 
 perfunctory ; it has no quickening or vitalizing power, 
 because it is not inspired by sympathy and emotion. In 
 such teaching there is no sense of nearness to the pupil. 
 The philanthropic instinct is wanting. It is as though 
 
248 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the instruction were addressed to matter and not to 
 heart and spirit and life. 
 
 In what has preceded I have tried to show that to be 
 a teacher in deed and in truth is, first of all, to be pos- 
 sessed by the philanthropic spirit ; that the world's great 
 teachers have been inspired by philanthropic motives ; 
 and that the secret of individual power in teaching is a 
 profound sympathy for human weakness, ignorance, and 
 suffering. I have, also, stated some reasons for thinking 
 that modern tendencies are somewhat away from this 
 humanitarian ideal. In what follows, my purpose is to 
 suggest some correctives of these tendencies. 
 
 1. Some years ago a certain state agricultural college 
 was in great disfavor with the farmers in whose interest 
 it had been established. These sons of toil looked with 
 contempt upon "book farming," and spoke derisively of 
 kid-gloved college professors who raised hogs and tur- 
 nips by rule. But a happy inspiration came to this col- 
 lege faculty. For a few weeks in each year this agricult- 
 ural school was put on wheels, so to speak, and taken to 
 the very doors of farmers and dairymen. In other terms, 
 "farmers' institutes" were held in various sections of 
 the state, for the discussion of agricultural questions of 
 current interest. The theoretical farmer was thus brought 
 face to face with the practical farmer. The gain was 
 mutual. The farmer became interested in looking at 
 questions from their theoretical side, and learned to re- 
 spect men who were devoting earnest lives to the scien- 
 tific study of agricultural questions. On the other hand, 
 the college professor learned the practical limitations to 
 his theories ; was brought into hearty sympathy with the 
 earnest men who form the very basis of the nation's pros- 
 perity, and learned to respect the practical wisdom of men 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 249 
 
 who bad been taught in the school of experience. In a 
 word, misconception and prejudice disappeared, the gulf 
 between college and people was filled, and there came the 
 era of mutual confidence and respect. 
 
 2. In another case, a state university was languishing 
 from a lack of popular appreciation. The institution was 
 regarded as a literary aristocracy, proud in its preroga- 
 tives, and regardless of popular wants and wishes. By 
 concerted action, during the long vacation, the faculty 
 was distributed over the state, and, by popular addresses 
 and personal intercourse, came as near as possible to the 
 homes of the people. Again, there was a disappearance 
 of mutual misconception and prejudice; young men and 
 women of scholarly aspirations found sympathizing 
 and helpful friends, and, with the opening of the new 
 college year, their names were added to the students' roll. 
 " Science never ascends," it has been well said ; and it 
 cannot be too often repeated that, between the people 
 and the institutions of the country, there must be open 
 communication, and that the more highly privileged must 
 come down to the people as the condition of drawing 
 men to them. 
 
 3. Some years ago I knew a village which was a by- 
 word and an offence by reason of its unsavory reputation 
 on the score of morals. In the language of the country 
 around about, the name of this village was a paraphrase 
 for Sheol. The school partook of the common desola- 
 tion. Men who had a name to make or a name to 
 keep passed by on the other side. But, finally, a man 
 who had been graduated from a normal school, and was 
 full of energy, benevolence, and good sense, assumed the 
 principalship of this school, and, in an unpretending way, 
 began the process of regeneration within. He drew his 
 
 11* 
 
250 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 pupils to him by his sympathy and sheer good-hearted- 
 ness. Teacher and pupil moved on a common plane of 
 civility, respect, and helpfulness. The new spirit soon 
 extended to the home-circle, and teacher and parents were 
 brought into mutual sympathy and accord. Then the pa- 
 cific contagion spread over the whole town, and even in- 
 vaded the country. The teacher became a citizen. He 
 was not a stranger and an alien. He never forced him- 
 self upon public attention or into a public place; but in 
 whatever affected the public good he bore a personal part. 
 Were there sickness, suffering, and destitution in a family 
 represented in his school ? A mute messenger was sent 
 on errands of mercy. Scarcely a Christmas day passed 
 in which some destitute family did not enjoy an unex- 
 pected feast. Years have passed, approaching a score, I 
 think, since that humane movement began, but school 
 and village and teacher have all prospered, and all are 
 still engaged in these mutual benefactions. The name 
 of this village has lost its sinister connotation, and citi- 
 zen and neighbor alike speak of it with respect. The 
 name of this man might have been Gliilphi, and the 
 school had more than one Gertrude. The village is, 
 certainly, another Bonnal. 
 
 4. Still further back than the experiences just related 
 is the vivid recollection of a country school in its winter 
 session, taught by a young man of Quaker parentage, 
 who had received an academic education. The large 
 school and almost numberless classes left this teacher but 
 little opportunity, during school hours, for leaving a per- 
 sonal impress on his pupils; but the long winter even- 
 ings, spent in various conversation with the families of 
 the district, by their own firesides, left a profound and 
 wholesome effect upon the impressible minds of the 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 251 
 
 children. It was, at least, the beginning of a liberal ed- 
 ucation to listen to intelligent and thoughtful conversa- 
 tion on men and books and the current topics of the day. 
 The genial, hearty manner of the teacher had an insinu- 
 ating power quite difficult to describe. The general im- 
 pression on the younger minds was a somewhat vague, 
 though delicious, aspiration for better things. To some 
 there was revealed, in the dim distance, the apparition of 
 the academy, and, still beyond, that of the college, and, 
 beyond all, the vision of a literary life, blessed with the 
 companionship of books and cultured friends. One even- 
 ing, as this teacher was accompanying a lad belonging 
 to this school to his home, he said to his pupil, " Would 
 you not like to go to the academy next fall ?" The boy's 
 dearest secret, confessed to no one on earth save to his 
 mother, had now to be revealed. Such an anticipation 
 was almost too sacred to be talked about. Was not such 
 a thing too good to be possible? And, then, would a 
 boy with so little knowledge be received? The teacher 
 suggested algebra and geometry as studies for the pres- 
 ent winter, and pointed out the general requirements 
 that would be expected. In a word, the boy's destiny 
 was virtually settled during that winter evening's walk. 
 A human soul had found its interpreter and guide. A 
 beginning was made in the new life, and, one after an- 
 other, the boy's visions became realities. 
 
 5. In the course of my professional life I have seen 
 young people begin the work of teaching under almost 
 all circumstances, but one incident in this line has left a 
 peculiar impression on my mind. A young man who 
 had carried his preparation but a little way beyond the 
 common school felt an almost irresistible impulse to 
 teach. But could he obtain a license? Ay, that was 
 
252 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the rub ! The consciousness of his deficiencies made 
 him almost shudder at the thought of an examination. 
 Still, he resolved to make the trial. For prudential rea- 
 sons, he concealed his purpose from his family, and on a 
 Saturday made his way across the fields to the house of 
 the township examiner. The good man was found in 
 a field by the roadside. The trembling wretch made 
 known his errand, and, with a cheerful consent, the ex- 
 aminer left his plough, and led the way to the plain and 
 rather sombre sitting-room where the inquest was to be 
 held. The trial bore rather lightly on reading, spelling, 
 arithmetic, and geography ; and, though the procedure 
 of the inspector was kind and courteous, the candidate 
 was overwhelmed by the revelations of his ignorance. 
 Out of a full heart he would have pronounced himself 
 unfit to receive a single line of approval. But the ex- 
 aminer was less censorious than the candidate. He placed 
 before the sufferer a book of blank forms, and instructed 
 him to draw a copy of a license to teach. Hope then 
 revived a little, and the labor of writing began. The 
 hand, cramped and awkward at best, was now, through 
 the fever of nervous excitement, preternaturally bad. 
 But, as all things finally come to an end, this feat of 
 penmanship at last ended, and, when the examiner had 
 scanned it, with the pretence of having read it, he affixed 
 his signature, and from that moment there was another 
 teacher in the world. On his homeward road, that boy 
 walked as though on air. His predominant feeling was 
 that of gratitude. He was keenly conscious that he had 
 been licensed in spite of his deficiencies in scholarship, 
 and that he had been credited with ability in posse, per- 
 haps with good intent and steadfast purpose. However, 
 he formed a sacred resolution to justify the confidence of 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 253 
 
 his good friend, and to deserve by his work what he 
 would not claim on the ground of present attainment. 
 The lesson I am taught by this incident is this — benevo- 
 lent insight is often wiser than official wisdom. 
 
 An illustration of the same sort is found in the life of 
 Krtisi, one of Pestalozzi's most famous assistants. "He 
 was eighteen, and till then his only employment had been 
 that of a pedler for his father. One day, as he was go- 
 ing about his business with a heavy load of merchandise 
 on his shoulders, he met on the road a revenue officer of 
 the state, and they entered into conversation. ' Do you 
 know,' said the officer, ' that the teacher of Gais is about 
 to leave his school? Would you not like to succeed 
 him V ' It is not a question of what I would like ; a 
 schoolmaster should have knowledge, in which I am ab- 
 solutely lacking.' ' What a schoolmaster can and should 
 know, with us, you might easily learn at your age.' 
 "Krtisi reflected, went to work, and copied more than 
 a hundred times a specimen of writing which he had 
 procured ; and he declares that this was his only prepa- 
 ration. He registered for examination. The day for 
 the trial arrived. 
 
 " ' There were but two competitors of us,' he says. 
 ' The principal test consisted in writing the Lord's 
 Prayer, and to this I gave my closest attention. I had 
 observed that, in German, use was made of capital let- 
 ters, but I did not know the rule for their use, and took 
 them for ornaments. So I distributed mine in a sym- 
 metrical manner, so that some were found even in the 
 middle of words. In fact, neither of us knew anything. 
 
 "'When the examination had been estimated, I w T as 
 summoned, and Captain Schcepfer informed me that the 
 examiners had found us both deficient; that my compet- 
 
254 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 itor read the better, but that I excelled him in writing; 
 . . . that, besides, my apartment, being larger than that 
 of the other candidate, was better fitted for holding a 
 school, and, finally, that I was elected to the vacant 
 place.' " 
 
 And then the historian adds, " Is it not well to be in- 
 dulgent to teachers whom we meet on the highway, who 
 scarcely know how to write, and whom a captain com- 
 missions?"* 
 
 I do not wish these illustrations to be interpreted in 
 such a way as to sanction a superficial examination of 
 candidates for the teaching office. What I have partic- 
 ularly in mind is the need of making keener discrimina- 
 tions in forming an estimate of the elements of a teach- 
 er's qualifications. Almost any bungler can determine 
 whether the answers to examination questions are for- 
 mally right or wrong, and can sum up the marks and find 
 the general average ; but it requires exceptional talent to 
 gauge the manliness, the reserve power, and the scholarly 
 instincts which, after all, constitute the elements of fit- 
 ness for teaching. I would like to whisper in the exam- 
 iner's ear the need of searching for these high moral 
 qualities. When they are found, they should be cred- 
 ited far above mere technical scholarship, and, where 
 they are wanting, excellence in such scholarship should 
 not entitle the candidate to a license. Of late, examina- 
 tions have been the subject of much indiscriminating 
 and unjust criticism. I think the chief fault in them 
 lies in the direction I have indicated. The principle in- 
 volved in these illustrations is just as applicable to the 
 examination of pupils as of teachers. 
 
 6. In the treatment of subordinate teachers by super- 
 
 * Compayrd, op. cit., pp. 432, 433. 
 
THE TEACHER AS A PHILANTHROPIST. 255 
 
 intendents and principals there is frequent occasion to 
 employ the suggestions of the philanthropic spirit. The 
 following case is typical of many that might be men- 
 tioned. A young woman of good intellectual attain- 
 ments and sterling moral qualities was put in charge of 
 a somewhat difficult ward school. Her power of disci- 
 pline proved to be weak, and at the end of the first term 
 it seemed almost perfectly plain, so far as surface in- 
 struction went, that she should not be re-employed. But 
 the thought occurred, would it not be almost a crime to 
 execute summary judgment on so good a woman, who 
 was possessed of such an heroic determination to suc- 
 ceed? This humane suggestion was followed, some sim- 
 ple rules for governing were proposed, and another chance 
 was given. The second term showed a slight improve- 
 ment, but the old question came up for debate, and it 
 was again decided in the teacher's favor. For the third 
 term there was more help from the superior, and a more 
 determined effort by the subordinate ; and so these trials 
 were renewed for the space of two years. Success final- 
 ly came, and in large measure; and that superintendent 
 sometimes almost trembles at the thought of an injustice 
 that hasty conclusions might have done a noble woman. 
 
 7. It might sound harsh to inquire if some boards of 
 education are not inhuman in their treatment of teach- 
 ers, so let the inquiry be softened, and let us ask if teach- 
 ers are at all times treated as humanely as the Golden 
 Rule requires. One or two statements of fact will illus- 
 trate my meaning. 
 
 At the close of the year the preceptress of a certain 
 high-school was not formally re-engaged, but was given 
 to understand that she was expected to return. She 
 went to her home in the East to spend her vacation, leav. 
 
250 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ing behind her the greater part of her wardrobe, her 
 books, etc. Within a few days an official note reached 
 her, stating that her services in the school were no longer 
 required ! 
 
 In another city, as sometimes happens by a sudden 
 turn in the political tide, the school board was invaded 
 by demagogues. Contrary to a custom of long standing, 
 through some flimsy pretext the teachers were not re- 
 employed in June, but, as in the last case, all were given 
 to understand that they would be reappointed. Several 
 repaired to a distant and inaccessible summer resort to 
 spend their vacation, and had no sooner become settled in 
 their rustic home than the news came that their succes- 
 sors had been appointed ! 
 
 In both these cases the moral cowardice is too evident 
 to need special notice ; but the criminal injustice done 
 these teachers becomes more apparent when we consider 
 the fact that they were virtually debarred the opportuni- 
 ty to find other situations. 
 
 Many more such illustrations might be given, but I 
 trust these will suffice to enforce the thought I have tried 
 to express — that, in all departments of educational work, 
 there is a decided tendency towards formalism, and that 
 there should be a return towards an ardent philanthropy. 
 
 " O men, be humane ! it is your highest duty; be hu- 
 mane to all conditions of men, to every age, to every- 
 thing not alien to mankind." 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 
 
 What lias been said of constitutions may as truly be 
 said of universities, that they are not made, but grow. 
 
 The modern university is the lineal descendant of the 
 first solitary thinker who, inspired by a great thought of 
 his own moulding, provoked in another mind a love for 
 thinking. In process of time these solitary thinkers 
 drew around them little bands of affectionate disciples, 
 and so the circle of light became larger. Then, when 
 scholars had a past behind them, when there had come 
 to be accumulations of knowledge, there arose the im- 
 pulse of diffusion, and so instruction was organized, and 
 the inherited wisdom was communicated to those who 
 had just espoused the scholarly vocation. 
 
 This organized effort to distribute accumulated knowl- 
 edge was the beginning of that corporation now known 
 as the university. This institution, therefore, has come 
 to us, in the fulness of time, as an evolution or a growth. 
 Universities are like constitutions in another respect — 
 they not only grow, but they grow slowly. Systems of 
 education are the products of the times; they follow in 
 the wake of political and social changes, and, as civili- 
 zation itself is a thing of slow growth, universities ever 
 have been, and must continue to be, conservative. 
 
 But, nevertheless, university progress is a constant 
 phenomenon, and we may be sure that, when an inno- 
 vation has been made, it lias a justification somewhere 
 
258 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 in the nature of things ; it is either the development of 
 some historic factor that had fallen out of sight, or it 
 responds to some new need. In whatever case, the new 
 idea has a right to our respect, and the right of explaining 
 the cause and the purpose of its appearance. The great- 
 er part of the world's progress is instinctive. The for- 
 ward step is made by an unconscious effort, but we at 
 once pause in a reflective mood, adjust ourselves to the 
 new state of things, and thus involuntarily prepare for 
 another forward step. 
 
 I do not appear as an apologist for the university study 
 of education. I regard the new movement as an invol- 
 untary product of the times ; as something without which 
 a rational progress in education cannot profitably be 
 made, and also as a fulfilment of a primitive purpose of 
 university organization. There is no teacher in the land 
 who has not a personal interest in the educational move- 
 ment that I purpose to discuss. Nay, if it affects one 
 class of teachers more sensibly than another, it appears 
 to me to be the class doing the heroic, and often unre- 
 quited, work of the primary school. For university rec- 
 ognition of a teaching profession is a certificate of charac- 
 ter from the highest academic authority, and this honor- 
 able recognition is the greatest boon to those who need 
 it most. 
 
 When, in 1876, a chair of education was established 
 in the University of Edinburgh, there was not a teacher 
 in the United Kingdom who might not have felt a new 
 pride in his calling; and I know that more than one 
 teacher, even on this side the Atlantic, worked under a 
 new inspiration from that day forward. By the simple 
 fact of such recognition the entire teaching profession 
 has been ennobled ; and, now that there is a tendency in 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 259 
 
 the universities of this country to follow a precedent of 
 long standing in Germany, and of more recent date in 
 Scotland, it is surely worth our while to reflect on a top- 
 ic of common interest. 
 
 More than one college graduate has been puzzled to 
 understand why the day that crowns his four years' toil 
 is called commencement day. To him it seems more 
 like an ending than a beginning, and, in our present 
 mode of academic life, so it is. But it was not always 
 so. Commencement day is simply the survival of a feat- 
 ure of ancient university life that has been in disuse for 
 centuries. Anciently the terms " master," " doctor," and 
 "professor" had the same significance. A complete 
 graduate w,as a master of arts, because he had complete- 
 ly compassed the circle of knowledge offered for his 
 study ; he was a doctor, because his master's degree was 
 his license to teach ; and he was a professor because, in 
 his teaching, he professed a given subject ; that is, de- 
 voted himself to the teaching of a special topic, as phi- 
 losophy or logic. When, therefore, a student received 
 his master's or his doctor's degree, he was said to begin, 
 i?icipere; that is, to commence in earnest his vocation or 
 calling — that of teaching. 
 
 The bachelor, or imperfect graduate, could also use his 
 degree as a license to teach, but only on probation. 
 
 "In the original constitution of Oxford," says Sir 
 William Hamilton, "as in that of all the older universi- 
 ties of the Parisian model, the business of instruction was 
 not confined to a special body of privileged professors. 
 The university was governed, the university was taught, 
 by the graduates at large. Professor, master, and doc- 
 tor were originally synonymous. Every graduate had an 
 equal right of teaching publicly the subjects competent 
 
260 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 to Lis faculty; nay, every graduate incurred the obliga- 
 tion of teaching publicly, for a certain period, the sub- 
 jects of his faculty, for such was the condition involved 
 in the grant of the degree itself. The bachelor, or im- 
 perfect graduate — partly as an exercise towards the high- 
 er honor, and useful to himself; partly as a performance 
 due for the degree obtained, and of advantage to others 
 — was bound to read, under a master or doctor in his fac- 
 ulty, a course of lectures ; and the master, doctor, or per- 
 fect graduate was, in like manner, after his promotion, 
 obliged immediately to commence (inci/pere\ and to con- 
 tinue for a certain period publicly to teach (legere) some, 
 at least, of the subjects appertaining to his faculty.''* 
 
 I call attention to this historical fact to show that the 
 ancient universities were, by their very intent and con- 
 stitution, teachers' seminaries. 
 
 The thousands of pupils who flocked to Oxford and 
 Paris there received the highest literary culture that the 
 age afforded; and, on the completion of their studies, 
 they were returned to the world as its accredited teach- 
 ers. When, therefore, it is proposed to shelter the pro- 
 fession of teaching under university walls, it is, in fact, 
 but restoring to universities their ancient privilege, and, 
 at the same time, requiring of them the highest duty 
 they owe to the world, that of the diffusion of the best 
 results of human thinking. The universities have long 
 since ceased to impose on their graduates the obligation 
 to teach. It must have happened from an early date 
 that all the doctors or licensed teachers could not be em- 
 ployed in scholastic work ; so that, in process of time, 
 the obligation ceased, and the graduate was at liberty to 
 adopt whatever vocation he might prefer. But, while 
 
 * " Discussions," pp. 387, 388. 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 2G1 
 
 all who were graduated did not teach, all who taught 
 were graduates. This was literally true during the earlier 
 part of university history, and has remained substantially 
 true down to the present day. For, as Mr. Fitch says, 
 " The great function of a university is to teach, and to 
 supply the world with its teachers." * The universities 
 of this country are illustrations of this statement. The 
 men who are really moulding the education of the time 
 through the secondary schools are, doubtless, as a rule, 
 the bachelors, masters, and doctors who have been grad- 
 uated from these institutions. 
 
 The relation of a state university to the general edu- 
 cational system of the state has never been more accu- 
 rately defined than by Chancellor Tappan,f and I cannot 
 forbear to quote from one of his annual reports : " The 
 highest institutions are necessary to supply the proper 
 standard of education, to raise up instructors of the prop- 
 er qualifications, to define the principles and methods of 
 education, to furnish cultivated men to the professions, 
 to civil life, and to the private walks of society, and to 
 diffuse everywhere the educational spirit. The common 
 school can be perfected only through competent teach- 
 ers. These can be provided only by institutions like the 
 normal school, which belongs to the intermediate grade 
 of education. But the teachers of the normal schools, 
 again, require other and higher institutions to prepare 
 them ; such, at least, as the academy, gymnasium, or col- 
 lege; and these, the highest forms of the intermediate 
 grade, commonly look to the university for a supply of 
 instructors. 
 
 "He who has passed through the common school is 
 
 * " Lectures," p. 4. 
 
 t President of the University of Michigan from 1852 to 18G2. 
 
262 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 not fitted to teach a common school. He who has passed 
 through a normal school is not prepared to teach a nor- 
 mal school. He who has passed through a union school 
 or an academy is not prepared to teach it. The gradu- 
 ate of a college is not prepared to become a college pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 "But the direct object of a university is to prepare 
 men to teach in the university itself, or in any other in- 
 stitution. Hence, those who, in the universities, become 
 doctors, which simply means teachers, are, by that very 
 degree, admitted to the vocation of a university in- 
 structor." * 
 
 If we were to make a summary and concrete state- 
 ment of Dr. Tappan's thought, it would be as follows: 
 The great function of the universities of the United States 
 is, directly and indirectly r , to supply the country with its 
 teachers. Let it be noted that this is both the historic 
 function of the university and the function required of 
 it by the conditions of our present civilization. 
 
 It may now be asked whether our universities are not 
 fulfilling this duty, even without making a formal study 
 of education. 
 
 Was not the University of Edinburgh, for example, in 
 the full performance of its duty prior to the establish- 
 ment of the chair of education, in 1876? This is a per- 
 tinent question, and admits of a satisfactory answer. 
 Temjpora mutantur, et nos cum illis mutamur. Changed 
 times require a change in institutions. The ancient uni- 
 versity represented the primitive phase of opinion, that 
 teaching ability was identical with scholarship ; and so 
 its masters and doctors were licensed teachers. Since 
 that ancient date, however, the conception of a complete 
 
 * " Annual Report," 1856, pp. 9, 10. 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 203 
 
 fitness for teaching has been profoundly modified ; so 
 that the modern university no longer fulfils its duty to 
 the teaching profession if it affords its students only the 
 advantages that were offered by the ancient universit}^. 
 In other words, with respect to one of the most widely 
 practised of human arts, the thought of the world has 
 been radically changed, and the universities should ad- 
 just themselves to the new order of things. 
 
 Up to the time of Socrates the current of human 
 thought had been directed outward, in efforts to com- 
 prehend the external and the sensible. With Socrates 
 began the reflective movement in human thought. The 
 eye of the soul was turned back upon itself in the effort 
 to comprehend the immaterial and the invisible. Hith- 
 erto thought had been expended on subjects lying in the 
 world without. Now, thought took cognizance of itself ; 
 thought was employed in the effort to comprehend 
 thought. This arousing of the mind to an examination 
 of its own processes formed an era in the intellectual 
 history of the race. " The genius that spoke in the soul 
 of Socrates," says Renouvier, " was the genius of the 
 modern world." * 
 
 And so a crisis is reached in the history of an art when 
 it becomes self-conscious and reflective. Hitherto, its 
 processes had been empirical, now they tend to become 
 rational. Hitherto, the guide had been instinct and imi- 
 tation, now reason and reflection are to direct. Before, 
 it was the hand that toiled ; now the work of the hand 
 is inspired and guided by the subtile force that descends 
 upon it from the brain. The precious element in labor 
 is the indwelling thought which it involves. It is this 
 element which ennobles the workman and his work. 
 
 * " Manuel cle Philosophie Ancieune," i., p. 300. 
 
264 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 Teaching seems to be the last of the liberal arts to 
 reach the reflective or rational period. Why this is so, 
 it is beside my present purpose to inquire. But that this 
 period has at last come there can be no doubt, and when 
 it is proposed to make education a university study, it is 
 education as a rational, and not as an empirical, art, that 
 is to receive university recognition. 
 
 I have reason to think that the first query to arise in 
 the mind of the college professor, when it is proposed to 
 add the subject of education to the curriculum, is, What 
 can be found in such a topic to engage the serious atten- 
 tion of an instructor? Bear in mind that every faculty- 
 meeting is occupied with the discussion of difficult edu- 
 cational problems, practical, theoretical, or historical. 
 The rustic in Moliere's comedy discovered that he had 
 been talking prose all his life, but without knowing it ; 
 and so pedagogical problems are discussed and settled by 
 boards of trustees, teachers' associations, and institutes, 
 by newspapers, -by everybody, in fact; and still the won- 
 der is what a professor of education can find to do ! The 
 very naivete of this proceeding is charming. This is a 
 generic illustration of the unconscious in art, and enforces 
 what has been said as to the need of bringing the proc- 
 esses of the schoolroom out of the realm of the uncon- 
 scious into the field of reflective vision. 
 
 Shall we now dwell for a moment on the field of in- 
 quiry comprehended in the university study of educa- 
 tion ? The comprehensive study of education must be 
 made from three distinct points of view — the present, 
 the past, and the future. In other words, education 
 must be studied as an art, as a history, and as a philoso- 
 phy. The art phase involves the study of schools, 
 school systems, modes of organization and of instruction 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 265 
 
 — of everything, in fact, that pertains to the school econ- 
 omy of the present, at home and abroad. There is 
 enough, even in this field, to occupy a portion of one's 
 leisure. 
 
 The history of education, Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, 
 Hindoo, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Mediaeval, French, 
 German, English, Italian, presents a field of almost in- 
 finite extent, too formidable to be contemplated with 
 equanimity; and yet there is not, I venture to say, any 
 knowledge of a higher practical value to the educators 
 of the day than this. The great need of the hour, it 
 seems to me, is to ascertain what has been done in the 
 line of educational effort, what plans have succeeded, 
 and what have failed, and the conditions under which 
 success or failure has come. General history, that records 
 the instinctive or impulsive acts of men, has a high order 
 of value ; but of a still higher value must be educational 
 history, that records the deliberate plans of the wisest 
 and the best for the good of their kind. • 
 
 Vaster still, if possible, is the field of investigation pre- 
 sented by educational science. First note the sciences 
 that are tributary to this composite science. The teacher 
 deals directly and principally with mind ; then, if his proc- 
 esses are to be made rational, their basis must be sought 
 in psychology. But mental action involves physical con- 
 ditions, and so physiology must be brought under contri- 
 bution. The power developed by mental training must 
 be brought under the control of motive, and so the 
 science of ethics must be consulted. The organon, or 
 teaching instrument, is language, employed as the medi- 
 um of communication ; and logic becomes an element in 
 the new science. This is not all, but is enough to prove 
 that this one aspect of educational study, the scientific, 
 
 12 
 
266 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 furnishes all the material required for the most compe- 
 tent and the most diligent professorship. The real diffi- 
 culty in the case is not at all where many have supposed it 
 to be — in not finding enough to do ; but rather in being 
 so overwhelmed with the vastness of the field as not to 
 know what to do first. Should any one suspect that these 
 lines are too broadly drawn, he may consult the synopsis 
 of lectures given in the University of Edinburgh, by Pro- 
 fessor Laurie, and in the University of St. Andrews, by 
 Professor Meiklejohn. 
 
 The purposes of a university professorship of educa- 
 tion are foreshadowed in what has preceded ; but these 
 should now be more articulately defined : 
 
 1. The university may, with great propriety, be called 
 the brain of a complete system of public instruction. 
 Historically, the university preceded by centuries the 
 primary school.* 
 
 The very highest institutions of learning were organ- 
 ized first, then followed, in process of time, the secondary 
 schools, and finally, but only after a very long interval, 
 the primary schools. In England, the great universities 
 of Oxford and Cambridge date from the twelfth century : 
 the great public schools, like Harrow, Winchester, Eton, 
 and Rugby, from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; 
 while the English public elementary school was founded 
 in the lifetime of this generation. 
 
 In this country a tax was levied for the support of 
 Harvard University in 1636 ; but it was not till eleven 
 
 *"The highest schools of learning were chronologically first. 
 Schools for the people were not the elements out of which uni- 
 versities took their growth ; on the contrary, schools for the peo- 
 ple grew out of the universities.' 1 — Tappan, "University Educa- 
 tion," p. 19. 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 267 
 
 years afterwards, in 1647, that funds were appropriated 
 for the establishment of common schools. 
 
 It is a popular illusion to suppose that the primary 
 school must support the secondary, and the secondary 
 call into being the university. The first in time, the first 
 in rank, and the first in necessity, is the university. These 
 three grades of schools may be founded simultaneously, 
 as in our Western States; but the logical pre-eminence 
 of the university is still maintained. In other words, the 
 condition of having good secondary schools is to have a 
 good university ; and the condition of having good pri- 
 mary schools is to have a sufficient number of good sec- 
 ondary schools. On this point I quote again from Dr. 
 Tappan : " We are no more to wait for universities to 
 grow up as the last result of a ripe civilization, than we 
 are to wait for railroads, steamships, manufactories, com- 
 merce, and the perfect form of all the industrial arts, 
 as such a result. On the contrarv, we are to create all as 
 early as possible, to hasten on civilization."* 
 
 Now, the deduction I make from the organic position 
 of the university in a public-school system is this : the 
 invigoration and perfection of the school system, as a 
 whole, are dependent on the influences that descend from 
 the head and brain of the system. " Progress," says a 
 French author, " is propagated from above downwards, 
 and this even to the furthest limits ; for science never 
 ascends." 
 
 Would we have what is best in education incorporated 
 into the countless primary and secondary schools, the 
 most economically and the most surely ? Then whatever 
 is best in educational history, theory, and practice must 
 be organized and taught in the university. 
 
 *" Report," 1856, p. 13. 
 
268 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 2. Still further, the university is the only source from 
 which the State can be supplied with a sufficient num- 
 ber of highly educated teachers. With respect to the 
 supply of teachers, a good working rule is this : A teacher 
 for a school of a given grade should oe educated in a 
 school of a higher grade. 
 
 The reasons for this rule are so apparent that I need 
 not dwell on them at any length. Of these things there 
 can be no doubt : a teacher should know considerably 
 more than he expects to teach ; the influence of the 
 teacher should be an open invitation to the pupil to 
 higher walks in the intellectual life ; all true education is 
 an inspiration. Now, if the rule I liave stated is a just 
 one, it follows that the secondary or high schools of a 
 state require a considerable body of teachers who should 
 have a university training. And such teachers must be 
 far more than mere scholars. If really fitted for their 
 places, they should be masters of the educating art, and 
 to this end they should have been instructed in the 
 theory, the history, and the art of education. Such men 
 and women occupy places of great influence and respon- 
 sibilit}^, and their training should make it easy for them 
 to handle educational questions with philosophic insight 
 and with judicial fairness. Such culture requires high 
 scholarship, and the free and serene air of university 
 life. 
 
 3. Again, public schools have the right to be sheltered 
 from the errors and vagaries of empirics and mere en- 
 thusiasts. 
 
 The double misfortune of the present state of things 
 is, that very many of those who have the direction of 
 educational affairs are without any proper degree of 
 professional competence, and so are the easy victims of 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 2G9 
 
 what is novel, or of what is pressed on their attention 
 by the arts of declamation. 
 
 Educational hobbies are epidemic, and the evils that 
 come to the schools from this source it would not be 
 easy to exaggerate. My thought is this : if we would 
 grow into a mode of educational progress that has an 
 historic continuity, there must be a recognized source of 
 opinion that has been formed under the best possible 
 conditions. These conditions are supplied only by the 
 highest institutions of learnino-. 
 
 4. The educating art, when rightly conceived, has all 
 the essential marks of a profession ; it has in its keeping 
 human interests of the highest order; it requires the ex- 
 ercise of the highest intellectual gifts ; all its processes 
 have a basis in law, and hence its modes of procedure 
 may be scientific ; it requires knowledge of a special 
 kind, difficult to obtain, and, therefore, within the reach 
 of a comparatively few; the knowledge of the masses is 
 not sufficient to afford a due protection against malprac- 
 tice, and so there is a necessity for authoritative evi- 
 dences of fitness. 
 
 Teaching is, therefore, a possible, if not an actual, pro- 
 fession, and any measure that can bring forward this 
 consummation deserves the good -will of the general 
 public. Now, it is an historical fact that the main 
 strength of the recognized professions is their organic 
 connection with great seats of learning. Law, medicine, 
 and theology had never been professions, except on the 
 condition of university recognition and support ; nor 
 could their professional character be sustained, if this 
 support were to be withdrawn. The inference to be 
 drawn is obvious : if teaching is ever to have the rank 
 and the consideration of a profession, it must in some 
 
270 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 way gain university recognition ; and the easy and prop- 
 er mode of such recognition is to make education a 
 university study, on a par, at least, with entomology and 
 forestry. 
 
 5. Another purpose to be served by a professorship 
 of education is the development of educational science. 
 There is as good a reason for investigating and formulat- 
 ing the principles of education as for investigating and 
 formulating the principles of medicine and of law. In 
 either case, the art grows in value and in dignity, in 
 proportion as its co-ordinate science is perfected ; and, 
 in each case, the discovery of a new principle introduces 
 a wholesome change into current practice. At the pres- 
 ent time, education is chiefly an empirical art ; most of 
 its processes are derived from precedent and imitation, 
 and the greater part of school work is done in absolute 
 ignorance of conditioning principles, and a considerable 
 part of it in violation of such principles. We expect 
 even a grammar-school pupil to proceed scientifically in 
 the solution of an arithmetical problem ; we expect him 
 to use the clear light of a principle as his guide through 
 the mazes of his calculations, and we think it to his great 
 discredit if he is the slave to a mere rule. What shall 
 be our judgment of the mature men and women who 
 do the work of the schoolroom by mere rule, without 
 even suspecting that their rules, if good, have a sup- 
 port in some principle, psychological, physiological, or 
 ethical ? 
 
 But some one will say, a body of educational doctrine 
 has not yet been formulated ; as yet there is no science 
 of education. 
 
 This is only partially true. From what I know of 
 the present state of educational science, and from what 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 271 
 
 physicians have told me of the present state of medical 
 science, I am convinced that there is a larger body of 
 valid scientific truth within the reach of the teacher 
 than within the reach of the physician. That is, if 
 teachers would learn and use the principles within their 
 reach, there would be less empiricism in teaching than 
 in medicine. I think there cannot be a doubt that the 
 fundamental principles of psychology are as well set- 
 tled as the fundamental principles of medicine. 
 
 The strangest feature in the case, however, is still to 
 be noted : although certain laws of mental life have 
 been known since the days of Plato, and although suc- 
 ceeding centuries have confirmed them and added to 
 their number, it is only now that even a beginning has 
 been made in the deductive application of these laws 
 to mental training. In our profession this is the great 
 need of the hour; and the place in particular, and even 
 the only place, where this work can be systematically 
 prosecuted, is the university chair of education. This, it 
 seems to me, should be its characteristic function. 
 
 6. With my present opportunities, I have often asked 
 myself which would be the greater privilege, to address 
 ray instruction to professional teachers, or to the general 
 student. When I reflect on the direct purpose of my 
 chair, I conclude that the professional teacher should be 
 the elect object of my efforts ; but when I reflect on the 
 following words of Herbert Spencer, I am in grave 
 doubt. "No rational plea," says Mr. Spencer, "can be 
 put forward for leaving the art of education out of our 
 curriculum. Whether as bearing upon the happiness of 
 parents themselves, or whether as affecting the characters 
 and lives of their children and remote descendants, we 
 must admit that a knowledge of the right methods of 
 
272 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 juvenile culture, physical, intellectual, and moral, is a 
 knowledge second to none in importance. This topic 
 should occupy the highest and last place in the course of 
 instruction passed through by each man and woman. 
 
 "The subject which involves all other subjects, and 
 therefore the subject in which education of every one 
 should culminate, is the ' Theory and Practice of Edu- 
 cation? " * 
 
 This extract furnishes the occasion for a large amount 
 of serious thinking; and though there may be hesita- 
 tions between the two classes of auditors we might pre- 
 fer to address, one thing is beyond dispute: education, 
 as a branch of general university study, is of at least co- 
 ordinate importance with conic sections, Sanscrit, geol- 
 ogy, and many others that might be mentioned. If we 
 were to rank subjects on the basis of their direct bearing 
 on the individual interests of men and women in gen- 
 eral, there can hardly be a doubt that education would 
 fall but a little below the head of the list. That uni- 
 versity recognition has long been given, and is generally 
 given, to subjects of far less relative importance, is a 
 phenomenon in scholastic history. The exception is the 
 more singular, from the circumstance that this subject is 
 the basis of one of the most widely practised arts; and 
 even still more singular, from the circumstance that the 
 great body of professional teachers have been indifferent 
 to the university study of a subject in which they may 
 reasonably be supposed to feel a deep and peculiar inter- 
 est. From the standpoint of the general public, this 
 phenomenon admits of an easy explanation ; as people 
 in general have so little positive knowledge on this sub- 
 ject of education, they conclude that a professor of edu- 
 
 * "Education," pp. 162, 163. 
 
•70 
 
 EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 27 
 
 cation would be without substantial functions, without, 
 in fact, anything to profess. 
 
 Whether this mode of thinking may or may not ex- 
 tend to our profession, I will not stop to inquire. The 
 general conclusion to which I am brought by this train 
 of thought is, that education has a valid right to be made 
 a university study, quite independently of its profes- 
 sional bearing, but solely by virtue of its high general 
 utility as a branch of human culture. 
 
 I must now return to a theme that was suo^ested in 
 the earlier part of this discussion, the bearing of the uni- 
 versity study of education upon the status of normal 
 schools. ISTo belief is more firmly impressed on my 
 mind than that normal schools had their origin in the 
 necessities of our civilization, and that they will always 
 remain permanent factors in our educational history. 
 As already stated, they are the exponents of a marked 
 advance in public opinion as to fitness for teaching. 
 They not only supply a need that will always be felt, 
 but there will be a steady rise in their appreciation as 
 the subject of education becomes better understood. 
 
 The ground for this belief will become evident from 
 a slight examination. In the teaching force of the 
 country, the volunteers or irregulars very largely out- 
 number the standing or regular army. For ten who 
 teach from year to year as a regular vocation, there are a 
 hundred who intend to teach, and who actually do teach, 
 only two or three years on the average. So far as can 
 be seen, this state of things will continue indefinitely. 
 
 Now, some kind of professional preparation should be 
 required of this large class of teachers. What shall it 
 be ? Shall they be expected to pursue a liberal course 
 of study in college or university, and to become versed 
 
 12* 
 
274 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 in educational history and science? It is folly to dream 
 of such a consummation. The most that can be ex- 
 pected, with any show of reason, is that this preponder- 
 ant body of teachers receive a good secondary education, 
 and, in close connection with it, instruction in the most 
 approved methods of doing school work. This, I repeat, 
 is the utmost that can be expected of the transient mem- 
 bers of the teaching profession. Here lies, as it seems 
 to me, the function of the normal school. As yet, only 
 a small part of the teaching class has been affected by 
 the normal school ; but, with the growth of juster ideas 
 as to fitness for good teaching, there will surely come 
 a growing demand for normal instruction ; so that an 
 adequate appreciation of the normal school is yet to 
 come. 
 
 What can give extension and intensity to the convic- 
 tion that all who purpose to teach should have some for- 
 mal preparation for their duties ? 
 
 I can see no other means so effective as the declaration 
 by the highest academic authority, that something be- 
 sides general knowledge is essential for fitness for teach- 
 ing. Note the implication : if the highest attainable 
 scholarship is not of itself sufficient to constitute fitness 
 for teaching, then surely the lower scholarship must be 
 supplemented by some special form of professional train- 
 ing. It seems to me to follow inevitably, that the most 
 direct and most effective means of emphasizing the value 
 of normal schools, and of extending their field of useful- 
 ness, is the university recognition of the teaching pro- 
 fession. 
 
 In what way could a university course of instruction 
 in teaching affect a normal school injuriously ? In the 
 first place, there is no ground for competition. How 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY .STUDY. 275 
 
 can a university compete with a secondary school? It 
 is only after a pupil has completed the academic course 
 in a normal school that lie is prepared for admission to 
 a university. As there can be no competition there is 
 no ground for jealousy or ill-will, provided there is a 
 recognition of the fact that the public-school service of 
 the state requires of some of its teachers a higher grade 
 of scholarship than a normal school can afford. To em- 
 ploy Dr. Tappan's phraseology, " The graduate of a sec- 
 ondary school is not prepared to instruct a secondary 
 school." In other words, the high schools of a state re- 
 quire the services of men and women who have had a 
 college or a university training. And if certain schools 
 require a higher academic training than a normal school 
 can give, so they require a higher grade of professional 
 education — instruction in doctrines and principles, rather 
 than in methods. 
 
 Below the third year of the high-school course, normal- 
 school training may suffice ; but above the second year, 
 university training is requisite. 
 
 When normal schools are charged with the whole 
 burden of professional preparation, they naturally and 
 perhaps excusably fall into the error of attempting to 
 do what they are incapable of doing, and so of ne- 
 glecting to do, in part, what it is their natural function 
 to do — to supply the ungraded schools, and the first 
 ten grades of village and city schools, with trained 
 teachers. 
 
 The adjustment that is to come simply exemplifies 
 the law of the division of labor, the normal school doing 
 what its constitution permits it to do, and declining to 
 do what it is unable to do, and the university doing what 
 its higher organization charges it with doing. When the 
 
276 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 professional education of teachers has attained its proper 
 adjustment, it will be seen that teachers in normal schools 
 should have a university training. 
 
 Under no other condition can the work of these schools 
 be done with a breadth of view that is essential for high 
 excellence. The almost inevitable tendency of a lower 
 culture is, on the one hand, to subdivide and minimize 
 more than is meet, and, on the other, to exalt trifles to 
 unwarranted proportions. It is the remark of a recent 
 French writer that, " after all, nothing so much resem- 
 bles a man as' a child. In truth, he is already a man, if 
 not in fact, at least in possibility, and it is important at 
 an early hour to call into exercise, by degrees, it is true, 
 his innate powers of abstraction and generalization. In 
 these days we are too much inclined, perhaps, to forget 
 this point." * This, it seems to me, is a wholesome truth 
 often forgotten by those who t^ain teachers. The child 
 should not be educated in sections, but the whole com- 
 plex organization should share in a general forward move- 
 ment. Sense training, for example, is not the exclusive 
 prerogative of the child, but should be employed in due 
 measure in all grades of instruction ; and so reflection 
 is not the exclusive prerogative of the adult, but even 
 the child participates in its due exercise. I believe that 
 the source of these errors is a limited intellectual culture, 
 that misinterprets a part because it has never compre- 
 hended the whole. This minimizing tendency has cer- 
 tainly brought reproach upon systematic teaching ; and 
 the only remedy that I can see is a liberal training, both 
 general and professional, for those who are moulding the 
 lower education of the times. 
 
 In order that the professional study of education in 
 
 * "Dictionnaire cle P6dagogie," I ere Partie, p. 1425. 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 277 
 
 universities may be placed upon a proper footing, three 
 conditions seem to me to be absolutely required. 
 
 1. The professorship of education should be co-ordinate 
 in rank with other professorships. No other professor- 
 ship has a more extensive field, or a field more peculiar- 
 ly its own. 
 
 An inferior rank would carry with it an implied infe- 
 riority of worth that would compromise success from the 
 very beginning. The work of such a professorship is 
 too great, especially at this formative stage, to permit 
 the doing of any other professional work in conjunction 
 with it. A divided allegiance would seem to me very 
 unwise. 
 
 2. These courses in education should count towards a 
 degree, just as other courses do. This is too obvious to 
 deserve further remark. 
 
 3. A university degree, earned in part by work done 
 under this professorship, should be a life license to teach. 
 That a degree representing such an amount of academic 
 work in addition to the courses of professional instruc- 
 tion, should be of at least co-ordinate value with a nor- 
 mal-school diploma, seems to me too evident to per- 
 mit discussion. To this extent, certainly, young men 
 and women should be encouraged to attain the highest 
 grade of preparation for the public-school service of the 
 state.* 
 
 With respect to practice in connection with instruc- 
 tion in the principles of teaching, the current opinion is 
 so unanimous and so decided as against my own think- 
 ing, that it is to be presumed that I am wrong. How- 
 ever, I suppose I am not thereby debarred from express- 
 ing an opinion. 
 
 * This topic is discussed further in the Appendix. 
 
278 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 The fundamental idea of professional instruction is, 
 that the inexperienced are to be taught to do bj know- 
 ing. In medicine, it is only the quack who professes the 
 dogma that he should learn to do bj doing. 
 
 The true doctrine I suppose to be this : First know, 
 and then, on the occasion of experience, perfect your 
 knowledge by doing. 
 
 There is now a wide-spread denial of the vitality of 
 knowledge, if I may use this expression ; that is, the in- 
 herent tendency of belief to mould the conduct, to em- 
 body itself in act, or to evolve a method out of a theory, 
 is generally denied. How baseless this assumption is, 
 we may see from the natural history of prejudices, and 
 still more clearly, perhaps, from the weekly item relating 
 how the dime novel displays its effect in marauding ex- 
 peditions and midnight burnings. 
 
 The outcome of beneficent thoughts and purposes, 
 though not so obtrusive, is yet as constant a phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 Now I would base the higher professional education 
 of teachers on the assumption that a clear conception of 
 what is to be done constitutes the best attainable prepa- 
 ration for actual work. I am here speaking, let it be re- 
 membered, of practice schools for university students. 
 Schools of observation have an admitted value. They 
 serve the same purpose as clinics in medical education. 
 But in each case the aid comes from seeing good models, 
 not from doing. The instruction is still theoretical. My 
 objection to practice teaching in such a case as the one 
 now under consideration is, that it is unnecessary, and 
 that it is so unlike one's real work as to be misleading. 
 
 Let it be observed, again, that I am not discussing the 
 experimental teaching done in normal schools. Here 
 
EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY STUDY. 279 
 
 the conditions are changed in some important respects 
 that cannot now be noted ; but even here, I think it may 
 at least be questioned whether the value of this empirical 
 instruction has not been overestimated. 
 
 A university student going to his work with clear con- 
 ceptions of what he is to do, and a normal-school student 
 going to his with methods ready to his hand, will be 
 found to have different histories, as a general rule. 
 
 The first will be likely to stumble, will start rather 
 clumsily, but will soon recover and improve to the end 
 of the race ; while the second will start promptly and in 
 good order, but will then be slower in his progress, and 
 will finally be out-distanced by the teacher having the 
 greater reserved power. 
 
 And now, a very brief historical notice of the move- 
 ment I have discussed will conclude this discussion. 
 
 In English-speaking countries, distinct chairs of edu- 
 cation in universities have been established as follows: 
 In Edinburgh and in St. Andrews, Scotland ; in Acadia 
 College, Nova Scotia; in the Universities of Missouri, 
 Michigan, and Wisconsin, and in Cornell University. In 
 the Universities of Cambridge and of London there are 
 courses of lectures on education, but no professorship of 
 education ; in the University of Iowa the professor of men- 
 tal and moral philosophy lectures also upon education ; 
 and in various colleges there are normal departments. 
 
 This new movement is one that is destined to form a 
 turning-point in the history of the educating art ; and in 
 this movement there is a complete solidarity of interest. 
 The question chiefly at stake is the ennobling of the 
 teaching profession ; and in this question every teacher 
 of every grade has a living personal interest. Nay, more ; 
 the interests of eveiw citizen, irrespective of rank or call- 
 
280 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ing, are involved in this forward movement, for, as Hor- 
 ace Mann has said, " No subject is so comprehensive as 
 that of education. Its circumference reaches around and 
 outside of, and, therefore, embraces all other interests, 
 human and divine." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 
 
 The special question that I propose to discuss is this : 
 "Has the time come for a radical change in normal- 
 school courses of study ?" Any adequate treatment of 
 this theme makes necessary a discussion of the larger ques- 
 tion which I have ventured to call " the normal-school 
 problem." At the very outset, it will doubtless be 
 granted that the organization and management of this 
 class of schools is still a problem. If any one has reached 
 absolute assurance in this matter, it must be because his 
 information, or his range of thought, is very limited. 
 We will recollect that this question is relatively a new 
 one. The methodical discussion of the general educa- 
 tional problem was begun in earnest twenty-three cen- 
 turies ago ; while the germ of the normal school was 
 dropped in the soil of the seventeenth century. Even 
 now we have scarcely a firm grasp of the main elements 
 of the general problem of education. It is, therefore, lit- 
 tle less than presumption to think that this new problem 
 has reached anything more than a provisional solution. 
 
 We are now passing through the period of discussion, 
 and hence of disagreement. There is no longer that 
 unanimity which comes from ignorance and indifference ; 
 but beyond this period of dissent there will, doubtless, 
 come the era of substantial agreement, when the char- 
 acteristic phenomenon will be growth under pacific con- 
 ditions. 
 
283 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 To use Mr. Spencer's phrase, one of our highest duties 
 is " to take stock of our progress," to review our mode 
 of doing business up to date, to estimate the net results 
 of all our efforts, and, in view of what has been and of 
 what ought to be, to make those readjustments which the 
 situation demands. Wise revision requires both retro- 
 spection and prevision. That our progress may be safe, 
 the knowledge of what should be is quite as essential as 
 the knowledge of what has been ; and that we may ad- 
 vance with reasonable rapidity, this reflective taking of 
 stock should be made at not infrequent intervals. 
 
 In all humanitarian enterprises, these deliberate re- 
 visions are the more necessary from this circumstance, 
 that while, for the most part, they owe their origin to a 
 powerful sentiment, this motive will in time spend itself, 
 and must then be replaced by an impulsive force of the 
 logical type. Feeling will cause a great movement, but, 
 in the end, it must be defended and sustained by reason. 
 One of the most inspiring pages in American educational 
 history is that on which is told the story of the planting 
 of the first normal school in this country at Lexington, 
 Mass. If I interpret this history aright, the movement 
 which culminated in the establishment of this first 
 American normal school was due to the ardent zeal of 
 a few enthusiastic friends of popular education, rather 
 than to the logical deductions of the thinker. The san- 
 guine expectations of these noble spirits are most pathetic. 
 They seem to say, " The fate of the commonwealth de- 
 pends on the right education of the youth ; the quality 
 of the schools depends on the learning, virtue, and skill 
 of the teachers ; but good teachers cannot be improvised, 
 they must be men and women who have set themselves 
 apart for this higli service, and who have been especially 
 
THE NORMAL SCHOOL PROBLEM. 283 
 
 trained for its difficult duties." The all-important thing, 
 therefore, is the teachers' seminary. Give us this, and 
 our best wishes for the commonwealth will be fulfilled. 
 This, in brief, is the story of this movement as it comes 
 to us from the pages of a half-century ago, and it is typi- 
 cal of all similar movements. Western towns sometimes 
 spring up, as it were, in a single night ; and without es- 
 tablished industries, or even a fixed population, a heavy 
 tax is levied for the building and equipment of a high- 
 school. The enterprise owes its origin and completion 
 to popular zeal, and often to a zeal not at all according 
 to knowledge. Before the mortar has been well hardened, 
 the tax-gatherer destroys the illusion, and then the enter- 
 prise that was born of sentiment is saved, if indeed it be 
 saved, by argument. 
 
 I imagine that if the venerated men whose hearts were 
 gladdened by the final triumph of their hopes, could speak 
 to us, they would confess their disappointment at what 
 has been accomplished by the normal schools during 
 the half-century of their existence. The improvement 
 in the status of the teaching profession has not been 
 as marked as they anticipated. Instruction has not 
 improved in quality to the degree they dreamed; and 
 perhaps more than in all else, they would feel a disap- 
 pointment in the popular appreciation of teachers' semi- 
 naries. And if their voices could reach our ears, I doubt 
 not they would counsel us to revise our ways, to the end 
 that the normal school may be the better equipped for 
 its mission. 
 
 However good and earnest our intentions may be, it is 
 doubtless impossible for us to rid ourselves of the dis- 
 turbing influence of personal bias. Looking at the same 
 object from different points of view, our impressions and 
 
284 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 our conclusions can hardly fail to be different. So far 
 as the formation of an accurate judgment is concerned, 
 nearness to an object and remoteness from it are equal 
 misfortunes. In both cases we are the victims of false 
 perspective. We see either too much or too little. 
 
 An architect that should direct the building of a pile 
 wholly from within would incur the gravest risks of 
 miscalculation ; his safety would lie in receiving the im- 
 pressions of another who had studied the general effect 
 from a normal distance. " He who builds a house," says 
 Aristotle, " is not the only judge of it." Ownership not 
 only reconciles us to what we may chance to have, but 
 may even conceal from us the defects that are as open as 
 the day to others. On the other hand, it is easy to dis- 
 parage what is not our own, especially when there is the 
 least motive for such disparagement. The conclusion of 
 the whole matter is, that we shall gain rather than lose 
 by the comparison of presentations that have been 
 gained from different points of view. Provided our 
 studies have been patient and thorough, and we are obe- 
 dient to the laws of candor and courtesy, such compari- 
 sons of views cannot fail to be fruitful. 
 
 I feel bound by a sense of fairness to state that in the 
 actual administration of normal schools proper, I have 
 had no experience. As to the limitations that are due to 
 material, time, and the needs of the schools, I can judge 
 only by reflection on the facts coming to me at second 
 hand ; and much as I may wish to put myself in a nearer 
 position, I can do it only through imagination, and thus, 
 of course, imperfectly. Besides, partly from the necessi- 
 ties of my position, and, perhaps, even more from pre- 
 dilection, I feel most interest in the theoretical aspect 
 of normal instruction ; while those who are in actual 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 285 
 
 charge of normal schools feel impelled to study this 
 problem mainly from its practical side. But if we grant 
 that this theme has these two aspects, the theoretical and 
 the practical, that there must be a theory of teaching be- 
 cause there is an art of teaching, it is clear that we shall 
 gain by looking at the normal school from these two dis- 
 tinct points of view. 
 
 " Studies," says Bacon, " are perfected by experience." 
 Men of action, held responsible for results, are adequate- 
 ly protected against the dangers of theorizing. Many 
 minds are suspicious of ideals. I cannot think that we 
 have anything to fear from the steady contemplation of 
 the normal school as it ought to be. I know that the 
 ideal school, even if we could have it, would be impracti- 
 cable. Working schemes must be adapted to the imperfec- 
 tions of those who manage them, and of the material on 
 which they operate ; but we are all weighted in the race 
 we run ; our clumsy lingers can never execute the divine 
 pattern seen in our mind's eye; the utmost we can do 
 is to approach our ideals; we shall never reach them. 
 Whether in morals, in art, or in action, aspiration after 
 the ideal is the very condition of progress. 
 
 As a step somewhat nearer my final purpose, let me 
 state some propositions on which there is probably no 
 difference of opinion. 
 
 1. The normal school is not only an essential instru- 
 ment of educational progress, but is itself a product of 
 that resistless on-going which we term civilization. Il- 
 luminating gas, coal oil, the electric light, the printing 
 press, the telegraph, are not so much inventions and dis- 
 coveries as growths ; each of them echoes, as it were, the 
 voice of fate; their not coming is inconceivable. And 
 so the normal school was one of the products of the 
 
286 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 times; its coming could not have been considerably 
 hastened, nor could it have been prevented ; it came in 
 response to certain needs, and it has come to stay. Its 
 mission is as definite as that of the common school, the 
 college, or the university. As it was the product of a 
 growth, it will itself exhibit all the essential phenomena 
 of growth. The functions it first performed were re- 
 sponses to the scholastic needs that were then most press- 
 ing; but as there is continuous growth in the conception 
 of education, the needs of the schools will suffer pro- 
 gressive changes, and so the functions of the teachers' 
 seminary must necessarily pass through a series of up- 
 ward transformations. I think we must go further than 
 this, and say that the normal school should not merely 
 keep an even pace with the educational thought of the 
 times, but should be itself a leader in educational thought. 
 It should "allure to brighter worlds and lead the way." 
 In its doctrines and methods it should anticipate the needs 
 of the times, and should give conscious and even authori- 
 tative direction to both educational theory and practice. 
 Those who are charged with the administration of normal 
 instruction should occupy the very outposts and watch- 
 towers of educational progress. For these high func- 
 tions there is necessary not only a knowledge of all past 
 achievements in the line of educational thought and ac- 
 tion, but a rational cult of ideals that will permit some 
 degree of prophecy. The fact is, the era of normal in- 
 struction has only just begun. It remains for our suc- 
 cessors, near and remote, to possess and cultivate a land 
 in which we are pioneers and pilgrims. 
 
 2. From an early date it must have been observed that 
 there were teachers and teachers ; and as the contrast be- 
 tween the lettered and the unlettered became less and 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 287 
 
 less obvious, the contrast between good teaching and poor 
 teaching became more and more obvious; and as this ob- 
 served difference could not be ascribed to mere differences 
 in scholarship, it was attributed to good and bad methods. 
 Under this higher conception, the two main features in 
 a teacher's preparation were 'matter and method, and no 
 doubt greater emphasis was given to method, from the 
 circumstance that elementary instruction had now be- 
 come of pre-eminent importance. Mature minds can be 
 left largely to* self-direction ; but the young are depend- 
 ent on the art and skill of those who instruct them. The 
 preoccupation of the ancient teacher was the mature 
 mind, but of the modern teacher, the immature mind. 
 The exponent of the conception that method is an es- 
 sential element in preparation for teaching is the early 
 normal school. 
 
 The moment method becomes an object of deliberate 
 study, a comparison of methods becomes inevitable. In 
 teaching the instrumental art of reading, for example, the 
 phonic, the phonetic, the word, and the sentence methods 
 are brought into vigorous contrast and become rivals. 
 Out of this discussion there issues the necessity for a final 
 and absolute test or criterion ; and this criterion, of course, 
 turns out to be a psychological law. The problem of 
 primary reading thus permits a scientific solution, and it 
 is an easy step to the inference that a teacher should not 
 only be furnished with good methods, but should also 
 know the scientific basis of method. It is in this way 
 that the art of teaching is now passing from the old time 
 empirical stage into its future and permanent rational or 
 scientific stage. It cannot be said that we are now fair- 
 ly living in this new order of thought. The most that 
 can be affirmed is that some principles are recognized by 
 
288 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 some teachers, and that there is a growing disposition to 
 study fundamental doctrines. The ideal teacher is not 
 merely to be wise, as the primitive conception of fitness 
 required ; nor yet to be furnished with matter and method, 
 as the better current thought demands; but is to super- 
 add to these necessary acquirements a knowledge of the 
 principles, physiological, psychological, ethical, and so- 
 ciological, that underlie the educating art. It is refresh- 
 ing to observe that the pioneers in the normal-school 
 movement in this country proclaim with one accord the 
 importance of the study of the theory and history of 
 education ; but these utterances are to be regarded as 
 prophecies of what should ultimately be, rather than as 
 prescriptions for immediate adoption. It is certain, I 
 think, that, even in the aggregate, the normal schools of 
 the country have made only slender contributions to the 
 science of teaching. I intend this remark to be the 
 statement of an historical fact rather than a criticism. 
 My main purpose in this paragraph has been to show 
 that a new and final stage has been attained in the con- 
 ception of fitness for the teaching office, and to suggest 
 that the normal schools of the country should adjust 
 themselves to this ascendant order of thought. 
 
 3. Another proposition in which we shall doubtless all 
 agree, is that one essential characteristic of a real teacher 
 is that high quality of soul denominated culture. I im- 
 agine that this term escapes rigorous definitions, though 
 we instantly recognize the quality when once in its pres- 
 ence. I know of nothing that comes nearer a definition 
 of culture than Plato's conception of the philosophic 
 character. In Jowett's version it is as follows : " A lover, 
 not of a part of wisdom, but of the whole ; who has a 
 taste for every sort of knowledge, and is curious to learn, 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 289 
 
 and is never satisfied ; who has magnificence of mind 
 and is the spectator of all time and all existence ; who is 
 harmoniously constituted; of a well-proportioned and 
 gracious mind, whose own nature will move spontaneously 
 towards the true being of everything ; who has a good 
 memory, and is quick to learn, noble, gracious, the friend 
 of truth, justice, courage, temperance."* Perhaps we 
 might summarize this statement, and say that the essen- 
 tial qualities of culture are as follows : comprehensive- 
 ness and elevation of mind ; a quenchless zeal for knowl- 
 edge; grace and harmony in mental endowments; an 
 ardent love of whatever is true, beautiful, and good ; an 
 educated will that moves spontaneously towards the right. 
 Such an ideal as Plato has here drawn is the ripened 
 fruit of a whole lifetime of training. During the or- 
 dinary period of education, the process that leads to this 
 final result can be hardly more than well begun ; but 
 we will all agree that the tendency of the school from 
 first to last should be towards this Greek ideal of a per- 
 fectly matured soul. What I wish particularly to insist 
 on is that the nurture of the normal school should be 
 such as to bring the teacher himself well on his way tow- 
 ards these high accomplishments, to the end that he may 
 lend a kindred inspiration to those who may fall under 
 his influence. Or, if this is expecting too much, there 
 should at least be a kindling of that noble zeal which 
 makes possible the attainment of some kind and degree 
 of culture. I cannot conceive" that any man or woman 
 is fit for the teaching office unless he "has a taste for 
 various sorts of knowledge, and is curious to learn, and is 
 never satisfied." A primary school that does not create 
 something of this spirit, or a secondary school that does 
 
 * " Republic," 475-487. 
 13 
 
290 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 not create a marked degree of it, must be counted as es- 
 sentially a failure ; while in a normal school it seems to 
 me that it should be the dominating spirit. 
 
 4. It would doubtless be thought a great misfortune if 
 the professional life of physicians were, on the average, 
 no longer than three or four years. In such a case hu- 
 man life would be constantly exposed to the dangers of 
 empirical practice, for within this short period the phy- 
 sician's previous studies, however careful they might 
 have been, could be only very imperfectly perfected by 
 experience; the work done under such circumstances 
 would necessarily be crude. Still further, in anticipation 
 of this short period of service, the preparation would be 
 hasty and superficial, and very likely the average grade 
 of ability employed in this avocation would not be 
 high. But the culminating effect would be a slow and 
 halting progress in medical science, for there would be 
 no opportunity to capitalize the perfected fruits of ex- 
 perience. This hypothetical case describes the actual 
 condition of the teaching profession, and permits us to 
 see the need of encouraging, in every -possible way, a 
 lengthening of the teacher's term of office, so that this 
 employment shall become a vocation rather than an avo- 
 cation. That there will always be a considerable tran- 
 sient element in our profession seems certain, and this 
 fact shows the need of giving our serious attention to 
 three things: This transient membership should be 
 made relatively less than it now is; the work should 
 be directed by what Plato calls " true opinion," * or the 
 matured results of the best thinking; and the perma- 
 
 * " And the lawgiver, reviewing his work, will appoint guardians 
 to preside over these things, some who walk by intelligence, but 
 others by true opinion only." — " Laws," p. 637. 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEitt. 291 
 
 nent membership should be greatly increased by holding 
 out as an inspiring motive the hope of an honorable 
 career. This brings me to the special observation I wish 
 to make. As the normal school is a professional school, 
 its nurture should be such as to supply its pupils with mo- 
 tives sufficient in kind and intensity to make them zeal- 
 ously inclined towards teaching as a permanent calling. 
 For this purpose, the main essentials are four : There 
 must be a general intellectual quickening, so that there 
 shall be developed and established a love for the scholar- 
 ly vocation ; there must be a feeling of hearty respect 
 for the teaching service, awakened, as it seems to me, by 
 a knowledge of educational history; there must be an 
 outlook into the future which will disclose the possi- 
 bility of invention and discovery, a result to be reached 
 only through the study of educational science ; and 
 there must be a thorough infusion of the scientific 
 spirit as distinguished from the spirit of tradition and 
 routine. 
 
 The accomplished teacher should be a man of science, 
 in the sense that the accomplished physician is a man of 
 science. I am persuaded that the motive which most at- 
 tracts minds of the higher order into certain vocations 
 is the opportunity for the free exercise of tact, talent, 
 ingenuity, invention, discovery, and all the resources of 
 a well-stored and well-disciplined mind. Minds of the bet- 
 ter order love to take chances, to run risks, to anticipate 
 the new, and to compass by sagacity some victory over 
 danger and difficulty. To all such minds, the possibili- 
 ty of achievement is an inspiring motive of the highest 
 order. 
 
 I will now turn to another set of propositions, where, 
 possibly, there will be more or less dissent, arising, priu- 
 
292 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 cipally, from different points of view. I find no pleas- 
 ure whatever in disagreement, and whenever I express 
 dissent it is out of loyalty to what I think to be the 
 truth. Neither have I any over-confidence in my own 
 opinions, for I can heartily subscribe to this sentiment 
 of Helvetius: " J'ai trop souvent trouve mauvais le soir 
 se que j'avais cru bon le matin pour avoir une haute 
 opinion de mes lumieres." * Particularly in one of the 
 matters I shall mention, I cannot resist the feeling that 
 I must be wrong, because my opinion is opposed to the 
 one held by so very many who have better opportunities 
 for knowing. But even in this case I am sure I shall 
 be pardoned for trying to express what I seriously think, 
 especially as my single purpose has been to find the 
 truth. 
 
 1. I am conscious of the danger I incur of seeming to 
 say more than I mean, or to underrate the importance of 
 one factor in the elements of a teacher's preparation. I 
 believe the importance of empirical method has been 
 greatly overestimated, and that this over-esteem has ob- 
 scured the necessity of generous scholarship. Method 
 has been so detached from the tout ensemble of teaching, 
 and has received such stress of attention in the way of 
 study and practice, that, to some extent, it has played 
 the part of usurper. Of the conditions under which 
 method is best learned, I shall speak further on. What 
 I wish to say at this point is, that important as method 
 must be allowed to be, it cannot be accepted as an equiv- 
 alent for scholarship ; and that if, by the role now assigned 
 it, or by the manner in which it is taught, the value of high 
 literary culture has been obscured, the normal schools of 
 the country have fallen into a serious error. It is my. 
 
 * " De L 1 Esprit," preface, p, ii. 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 293 
 
 belief, founded on observations of the work done in 
 representative normal schools, as well as on the history 
 of teachers educated in such schools, that the imminent 
 danger is that of slender scholarship. Without saying 
 that less stress should be given to method, it seems to me 
 that much more stress should be placed on literary cult- 
 ure. If the Platonic conception of culture be kept in 
 mind, I think I shall not be misunderstood when I say 
 that a graduate of a New England seminary, or of a 
 New England college, with no other knowledge of 
 method than he may have imbibed from his own scholas- 
 tic training, is more likely to become a living power in 
 the schoolroom than one who has pursued a secondary 
 course of instruction while preoccupied with the study 
 of method. 
 
 2. The ground for the last remark is the following 
 proposition, the truth of which seems to me to admit of 
 but little doubt: A study pursued with direct reference 
 to practical ends loses a considerable portion of its cult- 
 ure value. That this doctrine is supported by authority 
 of such weight as Plato's is proof that there is some 
 ground for thinking it true. Plato's antipathy to what 
 we call practical studies is well known. Thus, he says of 
 arithmetic, "It will be proper to enforce the study by 
 legislative enactment, and to persuade those who are 
 destined to take part in the weightiest affairs of state, to 
 study calculation and devote themselves to it ; . . . not 
 cultivating it with a view to buying and -selling as mer- 
 chants and shopkeepers, but for purposes of war, and to 
 facilitate the conversion of the soul itself from the change- 
 able to the true and real." * Throughout his entire dis- 
 cussion of the educational question, Plato is concerned 
 
 *" Republic," 525. 
 
294 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 with the disciplinary or culture value of studies ; the 
 mind is to be made the perfected instrument of thinking, 
 and the soul is finally to be brought to the contempla- 
 tion of pure truth ; the attainments most to be desired are 
 self-poise and a sense of unity and completeness. This 
 upward movement of the soul, as Plato thought, is 
 checked and destroyed by descending to practical activi- 
 ties. Unity and wholeness are essential to culture, the 
 utilities disintegrate and destroy. The broad contrast is 
 here between the practical value of a subject and its value 
 for culture, and the thought seems to be that as inte- 
 gration is essential to culture, and disintegration equally 
 essential to art, the two processes are antagonistic. For 
 example, the culture value of a piece of literary art, as 
 the " Paradise Lost," will be destroyed by making the 
 poem a parsing exercise. 
 
 Now, from this general truth, which I have attempted 
 to illustrate rather than to discuss, it is but a step to the 
 inference that a general training and a technical training 
 are incompatible when conducted simultaneously ; or 
 that, if a pupil is preoccupied with the utilities which his 
 course of study may serve, he is thereby debarred from 
 the privileges of intellectual culture. In the matter of 
 normal-school instruction, the case, under the foregoing 
 hypothesis, will stand thus: in proportion as the tech- 
 nical element is brought into prominence, the course of 
 study will lose its culture value, and by so much will di- 
 minish the real teaching power of the pupil. Of course, 
 this conclusion is based on the assumption that no teach- 
 ing of high excellence is possible without a confirmed 
 love of letters and a considerable degree of literary cult- 
 ure. 
 
 This view, as to the effect of concurrent general and 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 295 
 
 technical training in normal schools, is by no means new. 
 Thus, in his " Training of Teachers," Mr. Laurie observes 
 that " the moment we substitute a distinct practical pur- 
 pose ... as the exclusive aim of education, and arrange 
 the whole machinery of an institution to attain any one 
 of these ends exclusively, the mental life of the student be- 
 comes at once narrowed, and education in the higher sense 
 disappears altogether" (p. 11). To the same effect is this 
 quotation from Mr. Fitch's " Lectures on Teaching :" " It 
 is not good that this science, or, indeed, any other science, 
 should be mainly pursued per se,m separate training in- 
 stitutions or professional colleges, where the horizon is 
 necessarily bounded, and where everything is learned with 
 a special view to the future necessities of the school or 
 the classroom " (p. 5). 
 
 3. In the next place, this many-sided problem requires 
 us to note the effect of habit on growth. I have been 
 impressed with this remark by Mr. Sully, in his late 
 work on Psychology : " Habit refers rather to the fix- 
 ing of mental operations in particular directions. Taken 
 in this narrow sense, habit is in a manner opposed to 
 growth. By following out a train of ideas again and 
 again, in a certain way, we lose the capability of varying 
 this order, of readapting the combination to new circum- 
 stances. Habit is thus the element of persistence, of cus- 
 tom, the conservative tendency, while growth implies 
 flexibility, modifiability, susceptibility to new impres- 
 sions, the progressive tendency " (p. 49). To this state- 
 ment I think the following observation should be added: 
 The bad effect of habit in checking growth and versatili- 
 ty is great in proportion as the range of intellectual vis- 
 ion is narrow and the degree of mental discipline low. 
 Meagre scholarship succumbs to routine, liberal scholar- 
 
296 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ship not only escapes its tyranny, but may dominate 
 habit. There can be no versatility without breadth, and, 
 at the best, breadth of scholarship is of difficult attain- 
 ment in secondary schools ; so that it seems to me a dan- 
 gerous procedure to train pupils of a normal school into 
 fixed methods of teaching, based on authority, at least 
 before they have been instructed in doctrine. The fear 
 is that through preoccupation with the study of method, 
 and through the illiberal effects of fixed habits, there 
 may not be that quickening into the intellectual life 
 which is, of all gifts, the most precious endowment of 
 the teacher. My observations have been confined chief- 
 ly to "Western normal schools and the teachers they have 
 educated, and I have been struck with the fact that only 
 a very few, comparatively, of those who have had their 
 training in these schools manifest a decided love of let- 
 ters ; in some way the greater number seem to have es- 
 caped this contagion of noble minds.* If this is general- 
 ly true, the phenomenon must have some general cause 
 for which there should be diligent search, and in these 
 two paragraphs I have attempted to give what appears 
 to me a probable explanation.f 
 
 It should be added that, according to one conception of 
 
 * " A training college where every student belongs to the same 
 social stratum, and pursues the same course, with the same profes- 
 sion in view, gives little room for free play of mind and character. 
 It may mould and moderate the average student, but it stunts, if it 
 does not warp, the choicer spirits." — Journal of Education (Lon- 
 don), July 1, 1885. 
 
 f Rousseau's love of paradox should not lead us to overlook the 
 essential truth that is contained in this declaration : " The only 
 habit a child should be allowed to form is to contract no habits 
 whatever." — " £mile," Miss Worthington's translation, p. 24. 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 297 
 
 the normal school, what I have ventured to speak of as a 
 fault would be esteemed as a peculiar excellence. I have 
 heard it maintained by two distinguished educators that 
 the most desirable endowment of a teacher is mechanical 
 exactness and expertness, and that freedom and versatili- 
 ty are dangerous. This, much must be conceded : if the 
 teacher is illiterate it is best that he should be a machine ; 
 but if it is allowed that the teacher should be scholarly, 
 he must be granted the largest play of tact, talent, and 
 invention. Only typical uniformities in method should 
 be insisted on ; in dealing with spirit, analogies drawn 
 from the manipulations of matter are full of danger. 
 Within what T have called typical uniformities, a teach- 
 er's method should have the characteristic stamp of his 
 own genius and personality. For example, following the 
 general law of presentation, the sequence will uniformly 
 be from a^resrates to elements, and then from elements 
 back to aggregates ; but, in the details of practice, there 
 may be within the sphere of this law the greatest diver- 
 sity of procedure. No two good teachers of the word 
 method or of the sentence method will conduct a recita- 
 tion in reading in the same fashion. 
 
 4. Another preliminary statement that seems to me 
 essential to a proper understanding of the normal-school 
 question is this : one should know considerably more than 
 he expects to teach / his grade of scholarship should be con- 
 siderably higher than that of his pupils. The reasons for 
 this rule are obvious : a teacher who is compelled to work 
 nearly up to the limits of his scholarship loses his self- 
 respect, and so misses the necessary support of moral 
 courage ; a clear perspective can be gained only from a 
 considerable eminence ; the parts of the educating process 
 
 that fall within the province of the individual teacher 
 
 13* 
 
298 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 should be seen as they are related to a comprehensive 
 whole ; and, perhaps more than all else, a teacher cannot 
 create among his pupils an inspiration after higher at- 
 tainments, unless his own example is an open invitation 
 to covet the highest gifts. If this general doctrine is 
 true, it seems to me to warrant the following rule: A 
 teacher for a school of a given grade should be educated 
 in a school of a higher grade. If the education of the 
 country could be administered under the spirit of this 
 rule, two or three generations would suffice to exhibit a 
 marked elevation in the intellectual condition of the peo- 
 ple. When the typical Scotch schoolmaster held a 
 diploma from Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, the type 
 of intellectual life, as a prevalent fact, was higher in 
 Scotland than in any other country in Europe, and de- 
 cadence in this intellectual superiority set in when the 
 university graduate was displaced by men who had 
 received their training in schools of secondary instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 5. The last of the debatable questions that the pur- 
 pose of this chapter requires me to discuss is this: Is 
 academic instruction a legitimate function of the normal 
 school, or should this school assume that its pupils have 
 a competent knowledge of subjects, and then concentrate 
 its efforts on purely professional work, — instruction in 
 method and doctrine ? This is a very clear case in which 
 a seeming, but perhaps mistaken, ideal is practically im- 
 possible. There is no doubt, I think, that, in general, 
 professional instruction should be something superadded 
 to a general or liberal education, and administered apart. 
 The complete man should be formed first, and then he 
 should be converted into an instrument. For example, 
 the physician should first receive the best intellectual 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 299 
 
 training that is attainable, and, when this has been com- 
 pleted, he should concentrate his whole attention on the 
 special studies that his profession requires. And so for 
 the lawyer and the clergyman. In all these cases, the 
 knowledge that is acquired during the course of liberal 
 education is not knowledge that is necessary for profes- 
 sional use ; but in the case of the teacher, the matter that 
 is learned primarily as literature or science is, at the 
 same time, an essential part of his professional equip- 
 ment. It thus happens that every good school, in a true 
 and very important sense, fulfils two of the essential 
 functions of a normal school : it communicates the knowl- 
 edge which the teacher must in turn communicate, and 
 it exhibits methods which he may adopt in his own prac- 
 tice. We shall be quite near the truth in stating that 
 the function of the superintendent is to reproduce the 
 school in which he was educated, and that the function 
 of the teacher is to reproduce a part of the school in 
 which he was educated. When we say that the school to 
 be reproduced, wholly, or in part, has first been trans- 
 formed into an attainable ideal, have we not stated the 
 whole truth ? Manifestly, if there is to be only an exact 
 reproduction of the actual school, there can be no prog- 
 ress in education. A new factor must be incorporated 
 into each reproduction, so that there shall be at least an 
 arithmetical cumulation of improvements. Whence is 
 this new factor of rising magnitude and value to be sup- 
 plied ? This, I imagine, is the peculiar function of the 
 normal school. We might here make a proximate defi- 
 nition of the normal school as follows: a model school of 
 secondary instruction, whose pupils purpose to become 
 teachers, and are fitted to do educational work of a 
 higher type through some mastership of the history and 
 
300 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 the science of education. Save in the last particular, this 
 is the historical conception of the normal school. This 
 term was evidently borrowed from the French, and in a 
 debate of the convention in 1794, Lakanal defined it as 
 follows : " Normal, from the Latin norma, rule. These 
 schools are to be, in fact, the type or the standard for all 
 the others." * 
 
 The main elements of this problem, as I have con- 
 ceived it, have now been brought forward ; and it re- 
 mains only to state my conclusions in the form of a 
 general summary, with such explanatory discussion as 
 may appear necessary for the sake of clearness. 
 
 1. The three distinctive aims of the normal school are 
 Scholarship, Method, and Doctrine. There is doubt- 
 less great unanimity in recognizing the fact that these 
 are the three elements of a teacher's professional educa- 
 tion which the normal school should give. The ques- 
 tions in dispute relate to their relative importance and 
 to the manner in which they should be pursued. The 
 following paragraphs will indicate the line of thought 
 into which I have been almost insensibly drawn. 
 
 2. Of the three elements I have named, I believe that 
 pre-eminent importance should be assigned to scholar- 
 ship. First of all, the teacher must be a scholar, and no 
 part of his professional education must be conducted at 
 the expense of scholarship. Under scholarship I would 
 include some sensible degree of literary culture, one in- 
 dication of which is a pronounced love of good books. 
 The course of academic study should be, in the truest 
 sense of the term, liberal. The specific discipline yielded 
 by such subjects as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, gram- 
 mar, and physics should be relieved by the three culture 
 
 * See " Dictionnaire cle Pe'dagogie," article " Normales." 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 301 
 
 subjects that fall within the range of secondary instruc- 
 tion — geography, history, and literature. Latin and one 
 modern language, say French, seem to me indispensable 
 for the purpose I have in view. I name French because 
 the fruit-bearing stage can be reached so much sooner in 
 this language than in German, and also because much of 
 the pedagogical literature that it is so desirable to read 
 is now to be found in this language. The ability to read 
 with ease a book in another tongue gives the student a 
 delicious sense of power which will foster the scholarly 
 spirit. While in pursuit of scholarship as here consid- 
 ered, I wonder if I am wrong in thinking that the pupil's 
 mind should not be kept intent on the technical uses 
 which each study is hereafter to serve. It seems to me 
 that I am not. At least, I would not have pupils pre- 
 occupied with hourly anxieties about the demands of the 
 classroom. It is not prevision that I am discouraging, 
 but a certain sort of prevision. A comprehensive scheme 
 of life that is most befitting a rational creature must ex- 
 clude anxious questioning as to what we shall eat, or 
 what we shall drink, or with what we shall be clothed. 
 These subordinate purposes are all included in a wider 
 and higher purpose, and they are best provided for by a 
 living allegiance to the needs of the higher life. I sus- 
 pect that this truth has a direct bearing on the intellec- 
 tual life of the teacher. 
 
 It may be added that normal schools have special need 
 to guard the conditions of intellectual culture. Their 
 pupils, for the most part, have missed the opportunities 
 for a careful elementary training. At the age of sixteen 
 or eighteen the boy at the country-side obeys an impulse 
 to fit himself for the public-school service, and so repairs 
 to the nearest normal school. In this he does well ; but, 
 
302 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 from the lack of systematic intellectual training, there 
 will be more or less ingrained resistance to the influences 
 of the new scholastic life. In the university with which 
 I am connected students over twenty-one years of age 
 are admitted to certain studies without passing the usual 
 entrance examinations; and, with reference to some of 
 these, the remark is not unfrequently made, " He began 
 too late !" I believe that this remark indicates the intel- 
 lectual condition of many students in normal schools, 
 and, if so, a somewhat extraordinary effort must be made 
 to stimulate such minds into an activity which shall be 
 self-sustaining.* 
 
 3. I now turn to the question of method. Let us be- 
 gin by saying that method is the way to an end', and 
 that the sum of a teacher's methods constitutes his art. 
 Let it be premised also that a clear and definite knowl- 
 edge of the ends to be attained by the study of the vari- 
 ous subjects constitutes a considerable part of the science 
 of method. For to know our destination is to know, by 
 implication, the route over which we must pass to reach 
 it. The other source of prevision is some law or princi- 
 ple, usually psychological. Knowing the end to be at- 
 tained, as in reading or arithmetic, ingenuity will sug- 
 gest certain means. Some of these will be rejected 
 because they contravene a psychological law, while others 
 are adopted because they are in accord with such law. 
 This method of learning method may be called the sci- 
 entific or rational, and will be further noticed in the next 
 paragraph. 
 
 Method may be taught by dictation, as when we read 
 
 * The membership of the New England normal schools is com- 
 posed very largely of high-school graduates. In all such cases the 
 danger I refer to is greatly diminished. 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 303 
 
 books on pedagogy, or listen to lectures on the art of 
 teaching; that is, we are advised or directed to follow 
 certain rules or processes on mere authority, the reason 
 being scarcely consulted in the case. This mode of pro- 
 cedure is exposed to all the objections that lie against 
 the use of mere rules. Rules, we know, are indiscrimi- 
 nating. They do not take into account quantity, quality, 
 time, or place. They leave little or no liberty for choice, 
 and so do not cultivate versatility. As mere knowledge, 
 rules are unfruitful, as their action is limited with almost 
 fatal precision, while their reaction, in the way of disci- 
 pline, is narrowing and hardening. 
 
 The better aspect of method taught empirically is this: 
 the aggregate of such instruction may result in the for- 
 mation of an ideal, more or less clear and adequate, of 
 the school and its mode of administration, and so may 
 serve a good purpose in the work of reproduction that has 
 been previously noted. Besides, if we must choose be- 
 tween a rule-taught teacher and one who knows neither 
 doctrine nor exact method, we should not hesitate to se- 
 lect the first. Mechanical positiveness and exactness are 
 incomparably better than ignorant uncertainty and vague- 
 ness. It has been said that this mechanism is all that 
 many teachers can attain to. If this be true, and if such 
 teachers cannot be spared from the public-school service, 
 then this way of learning method has considerable in its 
 favor. 
 
 In the third place, method may be learned from ob- 
 servation, as in a school conducted by a skilful teacher, 
 frequented on occasion by pupils in training ; or in the 
 informal, almost unconscious, way which makes of every 
 school a normal school, and of every pupil a possible 
 teacher. As before stated, I believe that this was the 
 
304 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 original conception of the teachers' seminary, that it 
 should be a model school which might be reproduced by 
 pupils who had learned the art of teaching from imita- 
 tion. This method has the obvious advantage over the 
 one last stated that it is a study of the concrete instead 
 of the abstract. An obvious disadvantage is that the 
 school studied may not be the type of the one that is to 
 be produced. This danger is sometimes avoided by hav- 
 ing a model school which represents all the grades of a 
 public school. 
 
 Strictly speaking, I know of no other ways of learning 
 method than those now discussed — the scientific, the em- 
 pirical, and the imitative. Practice-work will be sug- 
 gested as a fourth, but it is plain that the method must 
 be known before even an attempt can be made to put it 
 in practice. Practice, or, as it is more properly called, 
 experiment, merely serves to make a method more com- 
 pletely known. But practice-work, in connection with 
 normal-school instruction, has become so prominent that 
 it deserves our marked attention. 
 
 I think it is not extravagant to say that a practice 
 school is generally regarded as an indispensable adjunct 
 to a normal school ; and a trained teacher has come to 
 mean one who has served a longer or shorter appren- 
 ticeship in the experimental school. A school that, for 
 any reason, is not provided with this necessary adjunct 
 feels itself in an attitude of apology. From all I have 
 observed of the actual results of this kind of training, I 
 do not share the popular appreciation of these experi- 
 mental schools. In the main, the teachers thus educated, 
 as I have observed their work, embody and display the 
 very spirit of routine. What they do they do with me- 
 chanical exactness, and if their methods chance to be 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 305 
 
 bad, as sometimes happens, they are followed with fatal 
 persistence. At the same time, there is often a marked 
 absence of the scholarly spirit, and an indisposition to 
 strive for higher attainments. The effect of technic on 
 culture I have already attempted to illustrate, and so I 
 need not restate this ground of objection to practice- 
 work. I will only add that the conditions under which 
 this alleged training takes place are so peculiar and un- 
 like those under which real school work will be done 
 that harm is quite likely to result from it. The criticism 
 that follows this practice -teaching is quite likely to be 
 either superficial and worthless, or hypercritical and per- 
 nicious. If this experimental work is done, it seems to 
 me that it should be done subject to these conditions : 
 the academic training should be well advanced, and the 
 pupil should have gained a considerable mastery of edu- 
 cational doctrines, all to the end that he may preserve 
 his freedom and interpret the lessons of daily experience. 
 A school of observation seems to me indispensable. The 
 normal school itself will illustrate the high-school grade, 
 but some express provision should be made for repre- 
 senting the primary and grammar grades. 
 
 4. The strictly professional studies of a normal-school 
 course are psychology and the history of education. All 
 the reasons that enforce the study of physiology on phy- 
 sicians may enforce the study of psychology on profes- 
 sional teachers. In each case he is essentially an empiric 
 who has not a competent knowledge of his respective 
 science. A science, truly known, is an art in posse / on 
 the occasion of experience it is converted into rules for 
 practice. A liberal art — like medicine, law, or teaching — 
 is best learned implicitly through its correlative science. 
 Psychology can be taught in such a w r ay as to have al- 
 
306 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 most the concrete interest of geography. Studied in 
 this manner, it is a culture subject of almost co-ordinate 
 value with the three previously named. Under wise in- 
 struction, students in secondary schools can become psy- 
 chologists in the same sense that they can become geolo- 
 gists; in both, cases they can attain to an intellectual 
 comprehension of these sciences. In the case of teachers, 
 psychology has this marked advantage, that its general 
 truths can readily be converted into practical rules- on 
 the occasion of experience. To the teacher of awakened 
 intelligence it is an intensely practical subject. Psychol- 
 ogy exhibits the abstract or scientific phase of teaching, 
 while its concrete counterpart is exhibited, or should be 
 exhibited, in the school of observation. The bringing of 
 the really fruitful portions of psychology into greater 
 prominence would be a desirable, though, I trust, not 
 radical, change in the normal-school courses of study.* 
 Plato asserts (" Republic," 368) that historical anal- 
 
 * " There is, I freely grant, such a thing as teaching genius, which 
 is independent of training. There are teachers also who, though 
 destitute of this genius, are yet thoughtful men, in whose minds 
 the routine methods of the normal schools are vivified into living 
 principles ; but in the vast majority of cases these technical methods 
 of the school-workshop remain merely in the dead form of rules and 
 maxims, and leave the teacher precisely where the apt mechanic 
 now is. It is the insight into philosophical principles that gives 
 a true and never-failing supply of intellectual energy to the teach- 
 er; it is the apprehension of ideas that ennobles and inspires him; 
 it is contact with the history of past efforts to educate the race 
 that gives to him breadth and humanity. Without the sustaining 
 energy thus supplied, it seems to me that the teacher's vocation is 
 dreary enough; with it there is a daily renewal of spiritual life for 
 himself and his pupils." — Laurie, " The Training of Teachers," p. 
 305. 
 
THE NORMAL-SCHOOL PROBLEM. 307 
 
 ysis is the counterpart of psychological analysis, and in 
 this he is followed by Cousin (" History of Phil.," vol. i., 
 lect. ii.). The thought is that the essential elements of 
 human nature pass into the current of history, and are 
 there embodied in a concrete form, magnified by many 
 diameters; the page of history is the screen on which 
 are delineated the intellectual and the moral ideas of the 
 human soul. The thought that I wish to impress is that 
 educational history is the counterpart and proof of edu- 
 cational psychology ; and that these subjects are the es- 
 sential constituents of a teacher's professional study. 
 The nearest approach to a radical change that I feel as- 
 sured in recommending is the giving of a large place to 
 the study of the history of education. 
 
 By its historical and actual constitution the normal 
 school, in its scheme of academic study, is necessarily a 
 school of secondary instruction. In consequence of this 
 fact, so far as it recruits the teaching service of the coun- 
 try, the upper limit of its field must fall somewhat within 
 the high-school grade. I call attention to this fact to 
 show that, as at present constituted, the normal schools 
 are not fitted to dispense the professional education need- 
 ed by head masters, principals, superintendents, or even 
 first assistants in high schools. If studied preparation is 
 to be made for these branches of the service, it must be 
 made in the colleges and the universities of the country. 
 And when this is done, as it assuredly will be, its most 
 marked effect will be upon the normal school proper. 
 Enthrone the normal idea in the high places of the aca- 
 demic world, and, by a process of downward diifusion, it 
 will inspire the whole teaching service of the country. 
 
 The last thought I wish to express is that we ought 
 never to have need of any radical change in the adminis- 
 
808 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION, 
 
 tration of our educational affairs. If such changes are 
 ever necessary it is because there has been some marked 
 arrest of growth. The most that we can desire is con- 
 tinuity of growth, or gradual evolution — the almost in- 
 sensible transformation of the old into the new. The 
 highest office of the educator is, by wise retrospection 
 and prevision, to minister to this upward transformation. 
 Whoever preaches revolution is worthy of suspicion and 
 discredit 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 
 
 All schemes for the improvement of the teachers of 
 the country must recognize the fact that only a very 
 small percentage of them have had any preparatory 
 training of the professional or technical type. Even at 
 this day, when the normal idea has become so prevalent, 
 the assumption is broadly current that general scholar- 
 ship is the sole prerequisite to teaching. This assump- 
 tion is supported by the legal requirements for gaining 
 a license to teach ; for almost the only requirement is 
 decent proficiency in the elements of an education. In 
 other words, the law does not furnish a motive sufficient 
 to induce teachers to make an express preparation for 
 the practice of their art. 
 
 Another circumstance that goes to swell the number 
 of unprepared teachers is the obvious fact that teaching 
 is for the most part an avocation. It is not a voca- 
 tion, much less a profession. Numbers of young men 
 and multitudes of young women resort to teaching for 
 a brief season, with no intention of making it a serious 
 business, and, therefore, with no motive to make a stud- 
 ied preparation for schoolroom duties. 
 
 The fact is, I repeat, we must assume that our public- 
 school service is to be administered, in great part, by 
 young men and women who have made no previous 
 study of the teaching art ; and one of the great educa- 
 
310 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tional problems of the day is liow to promote the pro- 
 fessional education of teachers who have entered the 
 public-school service with but little or no preparatory 
 training. 
 
 I think we may say at the outset that the function of 
 the normal school is to take in hand the training of pro- 
 fessional teachers ; whereas, the distinctive function of 
 the institute is to provide some training for non-pro- 
 fessional teachers. Those who frequent our normal 
 schools, as a rule, do so with the deliberate intent of 
 making teaching a vocation for a shorter or a longer 
 period ; and, at the time when they actually enter 
 upon their duties, they have already learned more or less 
 of their art. The institute, on the other hand, assumes 
 that very many who are actually teaching, or who pro- 
 pose to teach, have never received a normal-school train- 
 ing ; and so its special function is to supplement the 
 normal school— to do a little of the work that it should 
 have done, but which it did not have the opportunity 
 of doing. 
 
 Military life furnishes an illustration of the distinctive 
 functions of the normal school and the institute. The 
 professional soldier is educated at West Point; but the 
 exigencies of the country sometimes require the services 
 of large numbers of non-professional soldiers. These 
 volunteers are usually trained for a few days before they 
 see actual service. In camps of instruction they are 
 taught the elements of military tactics, while their train- 
 ing is extended and perfected by active service in the field. 
 
 And so we may define an institute as a normal school 
 with a very short course of study ; and we may state its 
 general purpose to be, first, to instruct the prospective, 
 but non-professional, teacher in the elements of his art, 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 311 
 
 and thus to give some extension to his knowledge and 
 skill. In this statement I have sought to indicate the 
 primary and main purpose of the institute. I do not 
 forget that a secondary purpose should be to stimulate 
 and assist teachers who are further advanced in the the- 
 ory and practice of their art. 
 
 Now, for the sake of clearness, let ns inquire what 
 knowledge is needed in order to enter upon the work of 
 teaching with fair hopes of success ; what are the ele- 
 ments of professional knowledge, properly so called ; 
 and what part of this work the limitations of the in- 
 stitute will permit it to undertake. 
 
 1. It is plain that the very first requisite is a compe- 
 tent knowledge of subjects. The teacher must know 
 how to read, spell, and write, and must have some knowl- 
 edge of arithmetic, grammar, and geography, as the nec- 
 essary condition of assisting others in the attainment of 
 this knowledge. It is necessary to insist on this require- 
 ment, for two reasons : (1) The doctrine is beginning to 
 prevail that teacher and pupil should move on the same 
 plane, both should be tyros and learners, and that the 
 chief point of superiority on the part of the teacher is 
 his greater mental alertness and persistence. Of course, 
 absolutely speaking, the teacher should be a learner ; but, 
 relatively, he should be learned. In geography, for ex- 
 ample, his scholarship should not be simply a thing in 
 progress, but a fact accomplished. In the work of the 
 school, teacher and pupil are not co-ordinate elements. 
 And (2) in our day there is such insistence on method, 
 as distinguished from scholarship, that we are in danger 
 of underestimating the importance of high scholastic at- 
 tainments. In the earlier day scholarship was everything, 
 method almost nothing ; and the natural recoil from this 
 
312 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 error has induced an exaggerated belief in method as 
 some substitute for scholarship. I think it cannot be too 
 much insisted on that a school of a given grade should 
 have for its teacher one who has been educated in a school 
 of a higher grade. 
 
 After scholarship, the thing of next importance is 
 method. Two teachers of equal attainments may stand 
 to each other in real force as ten to one, the difference be- 
 ing due to high and low qualities of method. I use this 
 term to cover all the processes of the schoolroom — organ- 
 ization, government, and instruction. Many have not 
 observed the fact that improvement in methods of teach- 
 ing has been as real, and, perhaps, as rapid, as improve- 
 ment in the processes of agriculture or of manufacture. 
 There is scarcely a greater difference between gathering 
 grain with a cradle and with a reaper than between the 
 alphabetic and the word method. There is not a single 
 method in schoolroom practice that has not suffered 
 marked revision and improvement within the last twenty- 
 five years. Now, what the institute is to insist on is, 
 that all teachers under training shall be taught the very 
 best current method of doing the various work of the 
 school. 
 
 So far we have been dealing with the matter and the 
 method of the teacher's outfit; the body, so to speak, 
 of his professional self. But this body must be animat- 
 ed and inspired by a spirit. I am now speaking of some- 
 thing that cannot be articulately described, but of some- 
 thing of which we are all conscious when we think of a 
 real teacher and his work. Grant to the painter his pal- 
 ette, his brushes, his paints, and the formal rules of his 
 art, but, with only these things, he is merely a mechanic. 
 What will transform this mechanic into an artist ? Fair 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 313 
 
 ideals, a divine sense of beauty, and a conception of the 
 possibilities of art. It is only under the domination of 
 this spirit that the artist becomes a creator. Now, what 
 I wish to say is, that, by some means, a spirit akin to this 
 must be infused into a body of scholars, in order that 
 they may become teachers. There must be some ideal 
 to serve as the goal of one's effort ; some sense of the sa- 
 credness and grandeur of the teaching office, and a con- 
 ception of what is possible through the resources of the 
 teacher's art. This change of spirit and of purpose is so 
 marked that, sometimes, in speaking of it, I have vent- 
 ured to call it conversion. 
 
 On more than one occasion I have seen a change of 
 countenance pass over an assembly of teachers as the 
 speaker succeeded in causing his hearers to catch a 
 glimpse of the real nature and the possibilities of the 
 educating art. He who has once ascended a mountain, 
 and from thence has surveyed the landscape below, is 
 forever after a changed man. In some real way, but, of 
 course, in a way that cannot be described, so far as spir- 
 it is concerned, there has been a transformation, almost 
 a transfiguration. So teachers may be made to survey 
 their work from the summit of a lofty conception ; and 
 then, forever after, this work will be done in a new spir- 
 it, under a kind of inspiration. 
 
 Matter, method, and spirit, these are the three things 
 without which no work in teaching, even of tolerable ex- 
 cellence, can be done. They must accompany all true 
 teaching ; and while they form the minimum of one's 
 professional preparation, they are the permanent endow- 
 ments of the most accomplished teacher. Other elements 
 may be added, but these are constants. 
 
 2. General knowledge must be regarded b} 7 the teacher 
 
 14 
 
314 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 as instrumental or technical — it is necessary material that 
 he must employ in the practice of his art ; but with re- 
 spect to general scholarship, the teacher cannot be dis- 
 tinguished from the well-educated man or woman in 
 general; so that while a knowledge of subjects is to 
 the teacher instrumental knowledge, it is not, with 
 strict propriety, professional knowledge. Perhaps we 
 must call it quasi professional ; though, considering the 
 practical necessities of the case, instruction in subjects 
 must be regarded as a necessary function of the normal 
 school. What is that knowledge, then, which differenti- 
 ates the teacher from the scholar — which is, with strict 
 propriety, professional knowledge ? Method,'as described 
 in the last section, is certainly entitled to this designation, 
 but on the ground that it is peculiar knowledge that no 
 one but a teacher must necessarily have. On still higher 
 ground, select portions of psychology are entitled to. this 
 designation, for it is chiefly this knowledge that can serve 
 as the rational basis of method. As Mr. Bain says, the 
 largest chapter in the science of education is psychologi- 
 cal. Psychology, in fact, stands in the same relation to 
 teaching that anatomy does to medicine. The teacher's 
 art is addressed to mind, and if this art is to be rational, 
 if it is to be administered in the scientific or the profes- 
 sional spirit, for these are usually identical, the teacher 
 should know much of the philosophy of spirit. We must 
 hold, I think, that there is as good a reason why a pro- 
 fessional teacher should have an articulate knowledge of 
 psychology as there is why a physician should have such 
 
 a knowledge of physiology. That Professor H > for 
 
 example, should know the interdependence of sensation, 
 perception, imagination, memory, and judgment, is just 
 as essential as that Doctor Y should know the inter- 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 315 
 
 dependence of lungs, stomach, liver, and brain. There 
 is much of psychology that is merely curious or of gen- 
 eral interest, having but very remote and indirect bear- 
 ings upon the practice of the teacher's art; but there is 
 other matter, of much smaller volume, that is vitally and 
 constantly related to every process of instruction. Some 
 of this knowledge should certainly be communicated to 
 teachers through the agency of the institute. I hear it 
 said on all hands that the ordinaiy teacher is not capable 
 of these high attainments; but whoever will rightly ap- 
 portion this knowledge, and deftly present it, will dis- 
 cover a growing number of teachers addicted to seri- 
 ous thinking. All admit that teachers ought to possess 
 knowledge of this sort, but many are so sceptical of suc- 
 cess in trying to communicate it that they abandon the 
 project as hopeless. But, as the sage of the Tribune was 
 w T ont to say, " the only way to resume is to resume ;" to 
 create an appetite for this kind of knowledge we must 
 in due season and in right measure allow toothsome mor- 
 sels to fall in the way of those who have an awakened 
 intellectual appetite. 
 
 Another kind of knowledge, even more distinctly pro- 
 fessional, because falling much further out of the range 
 and the needs of the ordinary student, is what ]jlr. Bain 
 calls " education values." What is the practical value, 
 say, of arithmetic % Is this value of the primary order, 
 so that every one must study the subject ; or is- it of sec- 
 ondary value chiefly, so that the knowledge of a few can 
 be sold and so made to suffice for the needs of the many ? 
 As a discipline, is it specific in its effect, i. e., does it raise 
 the quality of some special mode of mental action ; or is 
 it tonic, i. e., does it minister to a general invigoration of 
 the intellectual system ? Such questions may be asked 
 
316 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 of every study ; and I hold that it is as reasonable that 
 professional teachers should know these things as that 
 physicians should know the therapeutical value of calo- 
 mel and quinine. At least one distinction should be 
 made clear to all who teach, that between the practical 
 value of a subject, and its value for discipline or culture. 
 The subordinate distinctions I have indicated are of very 
 great value, but it is scarcely reasonable to expect that 
 teachers unaccustomed to severe thinking shall under- 
 stand them sufficiently well to make a sure and safe use 
 of them. The general spirit of the truths I would im- 
 press in what has preceded may be expressed in brief, as 
 follows : 
 
 Teachers should be assisted in the work of perfecting 
 themselves for the duties of their office by being stimu- 
 lated to self-activity along three main lines of study : 
 
 (1) Their knowledge of subjects should be gradually 
 extended ; arithmetic should lead up to algebra and ge- 
 ometry ; geography to travels, history, and political econo- 
 my ; grammar to rhetoric and criticism ; Latin to French 
 and Italian, etc. 
 
 (2) There should be a steady advance in professional 
 knowledge, strictly so-called. In addition to the algebra, 
 the chemistry, and the French grammar, there should be 
 on the teacher's study table a representative educational 
 journal, and the best current books on the theory, the 
 history, and the art of teaching. 
 
 (3) To counteract the narrowing tendencies of profes- 
 sional study and duties, it is necessary that the teacher 
 should court the catholic influences of general literature ; 
 and, in addition to the books first suggested, his study 
 table should be graced with a representative literary 
 magazine like the Atlantic or Harper's, and with an oc- 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 317 
 
 casional volume of essays, poetry, or fiction. The aim 
 I have in view is to make the teacher a reader and a 
 thinker; to liberalize his mind with various knowledge; 
 and to secure to him some measure of genuine culture. 
 Taking the teaching class as a whole, I do not know 
 what greater good can be done to it than to inspire it 
 with a love of the scholarly vocation. 
 
 In what has now been said, I have tried to express my 
 conception of the aid that should be rendered the great 
 mass of those who are engaged in the public-school ser- 
 vice. The greater number of these have received no 
 preparatory training of the professional type; in many 
 cases there is great deficiency in general' scholarship; in 
 only a few cases, comparatively, is there a confirmed taste 
 for intellectual pursuits; and in still fewer cases is there 
 any degree of that real, though indefinable, thing we call 
 culture. This work, if done at all, or at least if done di- 
 rectly, surely, and methodically, must be done, in part, 
 through the agency of the institute; and we must now 
 study the limitations of this agency, the better to define 
 its special aim and method. 
 
 3. The most obvious of these limitations is that of 
 time. The course of instruction in a normal school cov- 
 ers a period of three or four years ; but the institute 
 must do its work within a period of one, two, three, or 
 four weeks. The customary period is one week, or five 
 working days. From this circumstance it becomes ap- 
 parent at once that a choice must be made between ex- 
 tension and depth. If much is undertaken it must be 
 done superficially ; or if thoroughness is the rule, the at- 
 tention must be limited to a few subjects. This limita- 
 tion of time affects the method of the institute with like 
 precision. If class-work be the rule, then the subjects 
 
818 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 taught will be few and the progress in each will be slow. 
 If -instruction be given by lecture, the range of topics 
 will be greater and progress apparently more rapid ; but 
 the intensive effect will be proportionately light. The 
 whole question of method is reduced in general terms to 
 this : Shall the instructor teach, or shall he lecture ? 
 That is, shall he cause his pupils to know, or shall he 
 merely permit them to know? I do not propose to an- 
 swer this question at this point. Indeed, it cannot be 
 answered till other conditions have been taken into ac- 
 count. 
 
 Another limitation to which the institute is subject is 
 the unequal proficiency' of its membership. I am usu- 
 ally forced to distinguish three classes of attendants : 
 The interested, well-informed, and appreciative few, 
 who can interpret and appropriate the best that can be 
 said ; the attentive and willing, but comparatively un- 
 instructed and incapable listener, who, at best, can ap- 
 propriate only imperfectly, and, in consequence, is al- 
 ways on the verge of weariness and inattention ; and, 
 the ignorant and the indifferent, who hang like a dead 
 weight on the spirit of the instructor. A skilful in- 
 structor might manage each of these three classes with 
 success if it could be isolated ; but to instruct them si- 
 multaneously, and with profit, is as difficult a task as can 
 be imagined. 
 
 Now, recalling the limitation of time, it must be evi- 
 dent, I think, that the institute cannot undertake the in- 
 struction of teachers in subjects — it cannot give them 
 the matter of instruction. A teacher who comes to the 
 institute ignorant of geography cannot possibly learn 
 enough of this subject within four weeks to satisfy the 
 requirements of an examiner; and the attempt to repair 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 319 
 
 ignorance in three or four subjects within this period is 
 a palpable absurdity. It must be assumed, I think, that 
 the members of an institute already have the matter of 
 instruction, and what they most need in this line is a 
 revival of their knowledge. A rapid review of the sali- 
 ent points of a subject, or even of several subjects, is 
 quite possible within the period of a week; but this re- 
 quires the sharp and accurate blows of an accomplished 
 workman. The faults I have most frequently observed 
 in the teaching of subjects are these: An aimless talk- 
 ing about a whole subject, vague and pointless, instead 
 of an incisive treatment of a few essential portions 
 of the subject. In arithmetic, for example, instead of 
 attempting to teach the whole subject of Fractions, it 
 would be better to dwell on one or two essential matters, 
 as the relation of numerator to denominator, or an an- 
 alysis of the process of dividing one fraction by another. 
 And in Percentage, if the teacher can be made to com- 
 prehend clearly the meaning of the term per cent, the 
 whole subject will become luminous. In this matter of 
 selection, the term typical knowledge will express what 
 I mean. Another error in institute instruction is to 
 dwell by preference on what is merely curious, as the 
 casting out of the 9's, the cause of the gulf stream, hair- 
 splitting in grammatical analysis, minute subdivisions in 
 elementary sounds, subtleties in pronunciation, and quib- 
 bles in general. An error of a more general nature, 
 an error that is almost a vice, is the complaisant in- 
 dulging in mere platitudes, in anecdotes, jests, and 
 pleasantries, chiefly as a convenient means of consuming 
 time and of making one's self popular. An anecdote 
 that is a pat illustration is wholly legitimate ; it en- 
 forces a point in the instruction, and it puts one's audi- 
 
320 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 tory in good-humor — two excellent things. If we keep 
 in mind the obvious fact that the purpose of the insti- 
 tute is to instruct rather than to please, but that we may 
 please in order the better to instruct, we shall not be 
 likely to fall into errors on this point. 
 
 To recapitulate: the utmost that an institute of a 
 week, or even of two weeks, can undertake to do in sub- 
 ject-matter, is a rapid review of the typical or more im- 
 portant topics. In a session of four or six weeks, this 
 review can be more extended and more minute. 
 
 Assuming, as I think we must, that those who attend 
 the institute have a considerable mastery of subject-mat- 
 ter, and that the most that can be done in this line is re- 
 view and revival, we find that the more distinctive and 
 characteristic purpose should be to impress upon teach- 
 ers the general nature of each subject, and the best 
 methods of instructing and governing. In other words, 
 the institute is true to its proper function in so far as it 
 is instrumental in communicating professional knowl- 
 edge, properly so-called. I will take a very simple case 
 to illustrate what I mean : Why should a child be 
 taught to read ? In teaching primary reading, what is 
 the problem the teacher has to solve ? How is the new 
 (printed) vocabulary related to the old (spoken) ? What 
 methods have been used to teach children this new vo- 
 cabulary ? Which method shall we select, and on what 
 ground shall we base our choice? What knowledge 
 does a child need in order to name new words for him- 
 self? 
 
 Systematic instruction in the line of these questions 
 seems to me typical of the best work that an institute 
 can do. In the best sense, it is professional work in 
 one of its phases. It gives teachers a knowledge of the 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 321 
 
 agencies at their command, and so makes possible the 
 facile and versatile use of these instruments. In giv- 
 ing instruction of this kind, I think the following order 
 should be observed : 
 
 The purpose for which the subject is taught ; its nat- 
 ure, as shown by a proximate analysis ; and a rational 
 method of presenting the subject. Instruction in geog- 
 raphy, for the purposes of an institute, might then take 
 this form : 
 
 (1) The purpose of geographical study is to produce 
 in the pupil's mind a vivid conception of the earth as the 
 dwelling-place of man. 
 
 (2) The unit of study is the earth, considered chiefly 
 with reference to its surface; this unit is so vast, and 
 the most of its surface so remote, that the greater part 
 of the knowledge required must be gained at second 
 hand, through books. 
 
 (3) In accordance with the general psychological law 
 that the mind works dowm wards from the whole to the 
 parts, and from the vague to the definite, the first pres- 
 entation should be the artificial globe as the representa- 
 tive of the earth ; and w T hen the grand outline has been 
 made somewhat articulate by subdivisions, the details 
 should be supplied from the text, and thus a definite 
 whole reconstructed, out of the original vague whole. 
 
 Of course this is only suggestive. A different phi- 
 losophy would involve a different method of proce- 
 dure. 
 
 Another branch of professional knowledge, of capital 
 importance to all who teach, is method as related to 
 school organization and government. In fact, in the or- 
 der of time, this knowledge is prior to that just dis- 
 cussed ; for before a school can be taught, it must be or- 
 
 14* 
 
322 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 ganized, and when organized, it must be governed to 
 save it from disintegration. While the final purpose of 
 the school is instruction, it is nevertheless true that the 
 real efficiency of the school is chiefly related to the 
 mode and degree of its organization and discipline. 
 Teachers should be taught to aspire to a high type of 
 school organization and government, and the principles 
 and rules of this art should be expounded with all possi- 
 ble clearness. In a thing so apparently simple as the 
 making of a programme, there is involved a large 
 amount of pedagogical knowledge. To do such a piece 
 of work intelligently and well is a high accomplish- 
 ment, of which only a comparatively few are capable. 
 To organize and grade a public school, and to provide it 
 with a suitable course of study, I believe to be one of 
 the highest feats of pedagogic skill. At least the ele- 
 ments of these arts should be taught in the institute; 
 and the work I have attempted to outline in this section 
 should be ranked as one main part of the scheme of in- 
 struction. When it can be done under proper condi- 
 tions, a most interesting and instructive item in the in- 
 stitute programme is the concrete illustration of method 
 by means of an actual class exercise, as in reading, spell- 
 ing, or number. Elementary exercises are the best for 
 this purpose, as children are least likely to suffer from 
 self-consciousness. It is unsafe, however, to improvise a 
 class for this purpose. A skilful teacher with her own 
 class can alone be reasonably sure of success. 
 
 What has been said thus far relates chiefly to subject- 
 matter and to method ; and the belief has been expressed 
 that the limitation of time restricts the instruction given 
 in the institute by preference to method. Assuming 
 that teachers have some competence in the branches to 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 323 
 
 be taught, our efforts should be directed mainly to lead- 
 ing them to know how to instruct, how to organize, and 
 how to govern. 
 
 At this point it is necessary to say a word with refer- 
 ence to what we may call the subjective element of pro- 
 fessional knowledge; that part of psychology which bears 
 on the presentation of knowledge and its elaboration into 
 faculty, habit, opinion, common-sense. He must be a 
 bold man who would dare defy public opinion, and at- 
 tempt to bring any considerable amount of this instruc- 
 tion into an institute. But I venture to say that much 
 of this grade of instruction ought to be given. In every 
 institute there will be at least a few minds of the better 
 order, that find delight in reflecting on the rationale of 
 methods ; and there are many more that might be easily 
 provoked to this kind of thinking. For these reasons, it 
 seems to me plain that, in every instance, something in 
 this line of instruction should be done ; just a little, 
 probably, but still something. I see no good reason 
 why the average teacher may not be interested in know- 
 ing the general mode of mental growth, and the parts 
 that are played in this process by sensation, memory, 
 imagination, and judgment. The office of language in 
 the process of instruction is, certainly, not easy to explain 
 or to comprehend-; but I see no reason why at least 
 the outlines of this subject might not be brought down 
 to the understanding of the average thinker. One valid 
 test of good teaching is the extent to which it induces in 
 pupils the ability to think and the habit of thinking; 
 and I see no reason why the instruction given in an in- 
 stitute should not be valued by the same standard. 
 
 In the progress of my discussion thus far, I have made 
 incidental mention of several topics that are of prime im- 
 
324 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 portanee in the actual management of institutes. These 
 topics will now be considered in moderate detail. 
 
 1. As between class instruction and instruction by 
 lecture, which is preferable for institute use ? 
 
 Where so much must be done in such a short space of 
 time, the question of method is all-important. The 
 broad distinction between lecturing and teaching must 
 be kept in mind. In mere lecturing the pupil is per- 
 mitted to know; he has an opportunity to learn; he 
 may learn if he will. On the part of the pupil, the lect- 
 ure presupposes a mind already alert, already bent on 
 serious acquisition ; or its purpose may be merely to 
 awaken and stimulate a desire to know, — to implant a 
 strong motive for acquisition. Class instruction, on the 
 contrary, causes a pupil to know. Here the teacher 
 comes into close relations with the pupil, and puts him 
 under obligations to know. The actual difference is 
 about the same as that between advising and command- 
 ing. As a general rule, the efficiency of instruction by 
 lecture rises in proportion to the growing ability and in- 
 terest of the learner ; its efficiency is greatest where there 
 is the greatest maturity of intellect and scholarship, and 
 least where the degree of intellectual awakening is low- 
 est.* 
 
 The chief circumstances that favor the adoption of 
 the lecture method are the following : The need of 
 awakening a strong interest in a subject ; the need of 
 teaching the outlines of a subject within a short space 
 of time ; and the need of teaching matter new in sub- 
 stance or in form, and therefore inaccessible by other 
 means. 
 
 * On this general subject see Porter's "The American College 
 and the American Public," p. 119. 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 325 
 
 If these distinctions are well-founded, I think it fol- 
 lows that, in a session of one week, the typical mode of 
 institute instruction is by lecture, and this for the fol- 
 lowing reasons : Not much instruction can be given in 
 subjects, but what is given must be select matter, and 
 must be presented by a process of rapid outlining; the 
 typical work of such an institute must be instruction in 
 methods and principles, and matter of this sort is inac- 
 cessible save through oral communication ; in all insti- 
 tute work, an object of first importance is the creation 
 of professional enthusiasm and a strong desire for higher 
 attainments. For these ends the lecture method is pre- 
 eminently serviceable. 
 
 It is not necessary to assume that, in this process of 
 instruction, the pupil is merely a passive recipient. lie 
 may be this, but he need not be. In general, lecturers 
 do not require their hearers to reproduce the substance 
 of what has been communicated, the retention and as- 
 similation of the subject-matter being left to voluntary 
 choice; but, in an institute, there is no good reason why 
 there may not be a recitation of what has been present- 
 ed in the lecture. As a means towards this end, I be- 
 lieve that systematic note-taking is essential. I know 
 that independent note-taking is a high accomplishment, 
 and that the ordinary attendants at an institute are inca- 
 pable of it; but it is practicable for the lecturer to dic- 
 tate the main points of the lesson, and to require the ac- 
 curate transference of these to the note-books. These 
 summaries will allow the pupil to recall the oral exposi- 
 tions, and will serve as the basis for the desired recita- 
 tions. With these qualifications, I believe the lecture 
 method is the one best suited to an institute of short du- 
 ration. 
 
326 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. • 
 
 In a session of two weeks considerable instruction in 
 subjects may be given in a modified form of class-work. 
 The preparation of assigned lessons will scarcely be prac- 
 ticable, but there may be more or less recitation work in 
 the sense that pupils can be examined on set topics, and 
 can be made to exhibit their proficiency by doing some 
 actual work, as parsing, solving examples, and demon- 
 strating principles. Where the institute can be broken 
 up into sections of, say, twenty members each, instruction 
 may be made individual to a considerable extent, instead 
 of being given to the institute in bulk. Where instruc- 
 tion is given to the collective body, there is such a divis- 
 ion of responsibility that inattention is always imminent. 
 In a small number the fear of consequences keeps each 
 mind on the alert. 
 
 The most satisfactory institute work I have seen done 
 was in a session of two weeks, where the conductor had 
 three assistants. The first hour in each session was de- 
 voted to a lecture on some professional subject by the 
 conductor, given to the whole body of teachers. The 
 institute was then broken up into three sections, and 
 these passed in succession from one assistant to another, 
 so that, besides the general lesson, each member, in every 
 session, had been instructed in three topics, as arithmetic, 
 grammar, and geography. It seems to me that this is 
 very near the ideal mode of conducting a two w T eeks' 
 institute, as it preserves the normal proportion between 
 the two methods of instruction. I do not know that any 
 essential modification would be needed for sessions of 
 three or four weeks. 
 
 I have already referred to the fact that a serious lim- 
 itation upon the work of an institute is the heterogeneous 
 character of its membership as to interest, intent, and 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 327 
 
 ability ; and every conductor must have debated the 
 question, whether a grading of the institute is practi- 
 cable. No one can doubt that substantial advantages 
 would come from a sorting of teachers on the basis of 
 ability, and from the opportunity thus given of making 
 the instruction more individual ; nor can any one doubt 
 that such a classification is theoretically possible. The 
 main difficulty lies in the cost of such an organization. 
 In general, a multiplication of grades multiplies the teach- 
 ing force, and hence the cost of instruction. With three 
 grades the work is trebled, and, if the work of the pres- 
 ent teaching force is not also to be trebled, there must be 
 three times the number of instructors. This difficulty 
 is greatly increased on the supposition that, at the second 
 session of the institute, three grades of new-comers are to 
 be added to the three already established. Taking into 
 account all the difficulties in the case, it seems to me that 
 a real grading of the institute is impracticable ; and that, 
 for the present at least, the skill of the conductor must 
 be taxed to interest and instruct a heterogeneous mem- 
 bership.* The greatest difficulty to overcome is the in- 
 difference of teachers ; and one of the best tests of the 
 ability of an institute instructor is his success in arousing 
 an early interest in the work in hand. In some cases 
 county examiners supply a motive for attending the in- 
 stitute, but, so far as I know, there is not as }'et a motive 
 sufficient to make teachers take an active interest in the 
 
 * When the teaching" force permits the dividing of the member- 
 ship into three sections there may be a modified grading, as fol- 
 lows : form one section out of the young and inexperienced ; an- 
 other out of those who have taught for a limited time; and place 
 the most competent in the third section. The instructors may thus 
 adapt themselves somewhat to the needs of these three classes. 
 
328 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 instruction that is offered. If, at the close of the 
 session, the members could be examined on certain 
 portions of the work done, and some tangible credit 
 could be awarded for their proficiency, one of the 
 greatest difficulties in institute management would be 
 overcome. 
 
 I have now presented the main elements of the insti- 
 tute problem as it lies in my own mind, and my discus- 
 sion of this question has been based on experience rather 
 than upon any assumed theory of what ought to be or 
 might be. It is very easy to describe the ideal institute, 
 where everybody shall be pleased and instructed ; but 
 whoever knows from actual experience the real difficul- 
 ties of this work will speak with great moderation and 
 with many reservations. There is no feat in teaching so 
 difficult as that of interesting and instructing the hetero- 
 geneous membership of an institute ; and he who does 
 not feel the need of revising his methods after each at- 
 tempt at the practical solution of this problem has not 
 yet learned its simplest elements. 
 
 All who are engaged in this variety of educational 
 work have yet much to learn by study, by experience 
 and conference ; but it is fair to remember that many of 
 the imperfections of this work are inherent in the mate- 
 rial with which we have to do. These inherent difficul- 
 ties will persist in spite of us; we must court fresh ac- 
 cessions of skill, to the end that we may overcome the 
 obstacles that beset our progress; but if, after all our 
 forethought and effort, the results are disappointing, we 
 must do ourselves the justice to remember that we are 
 not responsible for the limitations of time, for inequali- 
 ties of membership, or for original ignorance and indif- 
 ference. 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 329 
 
 The following recapitulation will close this part of the 
 discussion : 
 
 1. The institute should be regarded as the chief agency 
 now at our command for communicating some measure 
 of professional knowledge and some degree of the pro- 
 fessional spirit to the great mass of teachers who have 
 had no preparatory training. 
 
 2. The institute should supplement, not supersede, the 
 normal school. It should not claim to give even the 
 elements of academic education, or to communicate in 
 full the theory and the art of teaching; but should in- 
 spire its membership with a determination to gain the 
 helps that are offered by larger courses of instruction, 
 or, when this is impossible, to pursue a systematic course 
 of self-instruction by reading and study. 
 
 3. The aim of the institute should be rather to com- 
 municate the best methods of organizing, governing, and 
 instructing, than to teach subject-matter; and the in- 
 struction in subjects should be mainly in the line of re- 
 view and revival. 
 
 4. When practicable, instruction should be made in 
 some measure individual by an organization by sections, 
 and in this class instruction pupils should be made to 
 take some active part. 
 
 5. In short sessions, instruction bv lecture and note- 
 taking is preferable; but recitation should form a part 
 of every exercise. In longer sessions class- work should 
 be brought into greater prominence. 
 
 6. The best work of the institute should be regarded 
 as the creation of the scholarly and the professional 
 spirit, a desire to reach high scholastic attainments, and 
 an ambition to attain to artistic excellence in teaching. 
 
 An incidental purpose served by the institute is too 
 
330 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 important to be overlooked. I mean the wholesome ef- 
 fect which it may have on the communities in which it 
 is held, in the way of a better educational sentiment 
 among the people. In many cases a school of a high 
 type is impossible by reason of the backwardness and 
 inertia of public opinion. The people themselves must 
 be educated up to a certain point before an enlightened 
 and skilful teacher can do his best work. There are 
 numberless instances in which a new era in the history 
 of a school has dated from the time when a good insti- 
 tute excited an interest in better methods, and gave moral 
 support to teachers struggling against the inertia of pub- 
 lic opinion. 
 
 This tonic effect of the institute is produced in part 
 through the lectures and class-exercises of the day ses- 
 sions ; but chiefly, I think, through the evening lectures 
 delivered by persons who speak with some degree of au- 
 thority. Such lectures, to be of real service, should bear 
 on educational themes, and should be of a character to 
 interest a popular audience. These lectures may fail of 
 their purpose either by being too technical, or by bearing 
 on themes exclusively literary, scientific, or historical. 
 
 Even when administered under the most favorable cir- 
 cumstances the institute cannot be counted on to produce 
 on the teaching class what may be called a constitutional 
 effect. A few minds of the better order may be affected 
 permanently by it ; by the temporary stimulus they may 
 be enlisted in a systematic course of improvement ; but 
 it is to be feared that the greater number of those who 
 attend the institute speedily return to their former state 
 of indifference as to professional improvement. The 
 popular lecture is by no means a substitute for the libra- 
 ry or the school. It is invaluable as a stimulus to read- 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 331 
 
 ing and study, and if it does not lead to this result it is 
 to be counted only as a pastime. So the institute is a 
 stimulus which ought to be supplemented by some means 
 of continuous self-improvement. Only a very small num- 
 ber of those who attend the institute can attend the nor- 
 mal school, the college, or the university; but all who 
 will may pursue a systematic course of reading in the line 
 of self -improvement. This supplementary agency is 
 now in process of organization under the general name 
 of the reading circle. The purpose of this new organ- 
 ization is to support earnest and intelligent teachers in 
 their efforts towards self-improvement, and to stimulate 
 the careless and unprogressive to a diligent use of their 
 leisure moments. It is too early to describe the reading 
 circle as an actual fact, but it is permissible to discuss 
 the conditions which seem essential to its ultimate suc- 
 cess. 
 
 1. Teachers need to be told in definite terms, by some 
 authority considered competent, both the quality and the 
 quantity of work that can reasonably be undertaken. 
 Many teachers do not undertake the work of self-im- 
 provement because they do not know where to begin and 
 how to proceed, and this degree of support is all the ex- 
 ternal aid they need. 
 
 2. The purpose of the reading circle may be very 
 easily defeated by proposing to teachers too formidable 
 a task. It must be recollected that the spare time of the 
 average teacher is very limited, and that he has no con- 
 firmed intellectual habits that make study easy and 
 agreeable. 
 
 3. As intellectual breadth and literary culture are 
 among the most precious endowments of the teacher, it 
 would evidently be unwise to make the course of reading 
 
332 SCIENCE OF EDUCATION. 
 
 wholly, or even mainly, professional. If it were neces- 
 sary to make an absolute choice between a course of 
 reading in general literature and a course of technical 
 instruction, I think preference should be given to the 
 former. But it is not necessary to make such a choice, 
 and so the study of methods and doctrines should be re- 
 lieved and brightened by readings in literature and his- 
 tory. 
 
 4. What Mr. Bain has happily called * " intrinsic 
 charm " cannot be relied on, in most cases, as a sufficient 
 stimulus to sustained effort. For the most part, this is 
 an emotion which follows as the result of less worthy 
 modes of stimulation. In the beginning, the staple mo- 
 tives must be the hope of some tangible reward and the 
 fear of some impending loss. The reward hoped for 
 and labored for may very properly be a credit on the ex- 
 aminer's book for work done in the reading circle ; and 
 the propulsive motive may be a reasonable fear that un- 
 willingness to work for self-improvement may be con- 
 strued as a disqualification for the teaching service. 
 
 5. It is plain that the authorized examiners should be 
 officially associated with the administration of the read- 
 ing circle, since they alone can bring the two motives 
 noted above to bear on the teachers within their juris- 
 diction. It may safely be predicted that the reading 
 circle will prosper where examiners are thoroughly in- 
 terested in the progress of their schools; but that it will 
 languish where these officials are indifferent to the qual- 
 ity of the teaching service within their jurisdiction. 
 
 6. To make credits for the work done a reliable and 
 tangible factor in determining a teacher's right to a 
 license, some systematic and equitable mode of examina- 
 
 * " Education as a Science," p. 28. 
 
THE INSTITUTE AND THE READING CIRCLE. 333 
 
 tion must be devised. All examinations for a license 
 might very properly be made to bear on important por- 
 tions of the reading-circle course ; and if this were done, 
 the two motives already mentioned would at once be 
 brought into efficient play. 
 
/ 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE STUDY OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF MICHIGAN. 
 
 Requests for information, that are addressed to me from time 
 to time, induce me to make a somewhat detailed statement of 
 the work attempted to be done in the University of Michigan in 
 the study of education. As this kind of university work is 
 essentially new to this country, whatever may have been done or 
 attempted in it, in any one institution, becomes, to a certain ex- 
 tent, a matter of public interest. So far as I am concerned, my 
 work, both in plan and execution, has been tentative. Indeed, 
 in all new ventures, where precedent and tradition fail, the most 
 carefully devised plans must be held subject to correction and 
 revision by experience. The men who are engaged in this new 
 variety of university work doubtless owe it to the public to con- 
 tribute to the body of recorded experience, to the end that each 
 new attempt may be made from some established vantage- 
 ground. 
 
 The movement that resulted in the establishment of the chair 
 of the Science and the Art of Teaching in the University of 
 Michigan had been contemplated for several years by President 
 Angell, and public attention had been explicitly called to the 
 need of such instruction in several of his annual reports. The 
 introduction of such a subject into the university curriculum was 
 held to be justified by a state of facts of long standing. From 
 the earlier days of the University, the higher and more responsi- 
 ble places in the public-school service of the state had been held 
 by men who had received their training in this institution; and 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 with the progress of the University and with the growing impor- 
 tance of its relations to the high schools, this means of recruit- 
 ing the higher teaching service of the state has become an his- 
 torical fact of no little significance. The report of the Superin- 
 tendent of Public Instruction for 1883 shows that there were at 
 that time twenty-seven public schools, each employing fifteen or 
 more teachers. Of these twenty-seven schools, sixteen had superin- 
 tendents who were educated in the University, six w r ere in charge 
 of men who were educated in schools outside of the state, and five 
 were supervised by graduates of the State Normal School. This 
 statement is sufficiently significant, but it does not exhibit the 
 full extent to which the University has become the source from 
 which the higher teaching force of the state is recruited. For 
 example, in the Detroit high school there are seven assistants 
 who were educated in the University, and this case is typical of 
 the state of affairs in other first-class high schools. Under this 
 condition of educational affairs the logic of the case is very sim- 
 ple and very conclusive. " The function of the university," 
 says Mr. Fitch, " is to teach, and to supply the world with its 
 teachers." In fact, the University of Michigan had for years 
 been performing this function, but in an informal, unintentional 
 way. Why not give the undergraduate who purposes to teach 
 the opportunity to learn, at least, the theory of his art, in a more 
 or less articulate manner, as a preparation for the public-school 
 service ? Why not teach in the University the cardinal doctrines 
 of education, so that the entire public - school system of the 
 state may be affected through a process of downward diffusion ? 
 Graduates of the University are called to supervise the more im- 
 portant public schools of the state. Why should they not have 
 the opportunity to learn the theory of school supervision ? 
 
 From another point of view the importance of making edu- 
 cation a university study is, if possible, still more apparent. 
 When we consider that education is one of the most compre- 
 hensive of subjects, that the theme has been enriched by the re- 
 flections of the wisest and best of all times, and that to be a 
 
APPENDIX. 337 
 
 teacher or an educator in some degree is the common vocation 
 of all, it is plain that the study of education has a pre-eminent 
 claim on the attention of the general student, both on account 
 of its value for guidance and as a means of liberal training. To 
 the student who purposes to teach, this subject has a high 
 professional value, and to the student in pursuit of a liberal 
 education it is of, at least, co-ordinate importance with many 
 subjects that are thought requisite for the attainment of a 
 degree. 
 
 £uch considerations as those now recited appeared valid to 
 the Regents, and by a unanimous vote they established a pro- 
 fessorship of the Science and the Art of Teaching, and, at the 
 opening of the academic year 1879-80, I undertook the duties of 
 this new chair — new not only to this University, but, in its scope 
 and purpose, new to the universities of this country. There had 
 been a precedent of long standing in Germany, that " native 
 land of pedagogy," as a French author says, and in Scotch uni- 
 versities, those of Edinburgh and Glasgow.* In this country 
 there was the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy and Didac- 
 tics in the University of Iowa, and a normal department in the 
 University of Missouri. Since 1879-80 such chairs have been 
 established in Johns Hopkins University, in Cornell University, 
 in the universities of Wisconsin and Kansas, and in De Pauw 
 University. 
 
 In organizing the courses of instruction the general aim was 
 to offer opportunities for the study of education in its three 
 main phases, the practical, the scientific, and the historical. It 
 was seen from the start that one difficulty in the way was the 
 feeling that the subject was an uninteresting and a narrow one 
 — uninteresting, because it was hackneyed, every one thinking 
 that he had more or less competence in it ; and narrow, because 
 it was assumed to be confined to the routine of the schoolroom. 
 
 * The history of this new educational movement in Scotland may be read 
 in the very valuable and interesting essay by David Ross, " Education as a 
 University Subject," Glasgow, 1883. 
 
 15 
 
838 APPENDIX. 
 
 It was felt that it would be unwise, on the start, to dwell on the 
 scientific aspects of the educational problem, because of the feel- 
 ing that teaching was only an art, almost a handicraft, without 
 a basis in the philosophy of spirit. Even in university circles, 
 where teaching should be a fine art, drawing its highest inspira- 
 tion from the science of knowledge and the science of mind, 
 there is often a shallow scepticism as to the possibility and even 
 the desirability of making education a rational art. It was plain 
 to me and my advisers that the art phase of the subject should 
 be presented first ; but with such constant reference to princi{5tes 
 and doctrines that a taste might be gradually formed for the 
 more fruitful aspects of the study — the scientific and the his- 
 torical. 
 
 It was never the intent to duplicate, in any respect, the work 
 of the State Normal School ; for, from the first, its field of opera- 
 tions had been predetermined by the limits of its academic course 
 of study. It is a school of secondary instruction, and so the 
 scholarship of its graduates is simply on a par with the scholar- 
 ship that is attained in high schools of the first class. If there 
 is any well-established principle in school economy it is this : 
 the scholarship of the teacher should be considerably broader 
 than the scholarship of his most advanced pupils. This law at 
 once determines, on a priori grounds, that status of normal 
 schools with respect to the supply of teachers, and the histori- 
 cal confirmation of this law is seen in the facts above recited, 
 from which it appears that, after a prosperous career of more 
 than thirty years, there were but five schools in the state em- 
 ploying fifteen or more teachers that were under the supervision 
 of graduates from the State Normal School, while sixteen such 
 schools were supervised by men who had their training in this 
 University. It is thus seen that the upper limit of what we 
 may call the normal field, and the lower limit of the university 
 field, fall somewhat within the high-school grade of the public- 
 school system. In providing for the professional study of edu- 
 cation in the University, there was never a thought of making 
 
APPENDIX. 339 
 
 the slightest encroachment on the actual and historical territory 
 of the Normal School ; and during the last seven years there has 
 been no evidence that the line defining the two fields has been 
 sensibly disturbed. The simple outcome of the new movement 
 in the University has been this : the greater number of the men 
 and women who enter the public-school service from the Uni- 
 versity have made some degree of special preparation for their 
 duties ; if the professional instruction they have received had 
 not been given here, it would not have been gained at all. By 
 jifst so much there has been a net gain to the state. 
 
 If the establishment of a course in the study of education in 
 the universities shall lead to a clear definition of the prov- 
 ince of the normal school, great good will accrue to the pub- 
 lic-school service. It is scarcelv to be doubted that in time 
 past this school has attempted to do what, in the very nat- 
 ure of its organization, it cannot do, and by so much has neg- 
 lected to do what it might and should do. The impossible 
 thing it has presumed to undertake is to educate teachers for 
 the highest places in the public-school service, for positions 
 where the first need is a liberal education and a comprehensive 
 knowledge of the educational problem ; and the possible and 
 proper thing it has left in some neglect is the education of teach- 
 ers for the rural schools and for the subordinate places in graded 
 schools. 
 
 In the education of teachers, then, the university and the nor- 
 mal school have independent spheres of activity ; or, if there is any 
 common ground, it is a narrow tract within the high-school grade 
 that has always been common ground and is doubtless destined 
 always to remain so. So long as both schools remain true to 
 their constitutional functions, there can be no valid basis for 
 competition or rivalry. In their academic work the respective 
 graduates of these institutions are separated by four years of 
 scholarship. In what intelligible and respectable sense can a 
 university be said to compete with a secondary school, or a 
 secondary school with a university ? An apology might be de- 
 
340 APPENDIX. 
 
 manded for dwelling on such truisms, had not some recent events 
 shown that broad distinctions sometimes escape notice. 
 
 It was not expected that opportunities could be afforded for 
 experimental or practice work by the students who might elect 
 the courses in Teaching. It was not even desired. When I per- 
 mit myself to do my own thinking, I feel forced to regard the 
 popular appreciation of practice-schools as an illusion ; though, 
 when I reflect on the fact of this general appreciation, I conclude, 
 for the moment, that I must be in error. Considering the par- 
 ticular educational problem I have been set to solve, I could not 
 well have a practice school if I would ; and from all the light 
 that comes to me from observation and reflection I would not 
 have such an adjunct to my work if I could. My main reasons 
 for this conclusion have been given in a previous chapter,* 
 and need not be restated here. This popular illusion, as I 
 have ventured to call it, has been begotten of false analogies. 
 Of the two great categories of 'employments, the manual and 
 the mental, teaching falls clearly within the second; and the 
 art of teaching is distinguished from most employments of its 
 class by the circumstance that in it there is a maximum of the 
 mental and a minimum of the manual. In the learning of 
 every art, knowing precedes doing ; and in a mere manual art, 
 the major part of the learning process must consist in making 
 experiments on brute matter that will not resent clumsy manip- 
 ulation ; but in an art like teaching the major part of the learn- 
 ing process is mental, and almost the whole preparation consists 
 in forming clear conceptions of the processes that constitute the 
 art. The forming of these conceptions I hold to be the almost 
 exclusive aim of the strictly professional part of normal instruc- 
 tion, and for this purpose there is no need of a school of chil- 
 dren on whom experiments are to be wrought by apprentice 
 teachers. 
 
 Another preliminary must be added ; there is no " normal 
 department" in the University of Michigan, but instruction in 
 
 * " The Normal-School Problem," Chapter XVI. 
 
APPENDIX. 341 
 
 teaching is administered just as all other instruction is, save that 
 it is all elective, none being necessary for graduation, but all 
 counting towards the attainment of a degree. In fact, it is only 
 through the elective system that it seems possible to restore to 
 universities their historic function of supplying the world with 
 its teachers.* 
 
 The unorganized state of educational science should be noted 
 as a serious obstacle in the way of those who are charged with 
 this kind of university work. The professor of geology would 
 think his task a very serious and difficult one if his science were 
 still a rudis indigestaque moles, if he were obliged to draw his 
 materials in fragments from miscellaneous books and periodical 
 literature, and then tentatively to formulate his knowledge pari 
 passu with his teaching. This is a faint illustration of the 
 actual state of educational science and of the actual difficulties 
 in the way of those who are attempting to expound it. For a 
 long time to come the greater hibor of those who are giving uni- 
 versity instruction in education will consist in the work of col- 
 latinjr and formulating. That there is a science of education in 
 ])osse no thinker doubts, and that there is abundant material 
 ready to be organized by the educational thinker is quite as ap- 
 parent; but that there is such a compact body of educational 
 doctrine already formulated, as easy and pleasant teaching re- 
 quires, no one will assert. 
 
 With this statement of the general conditions under which 
 my work was undertaken, I turn to give an account of the 
 courses of instruction that have been offered, and of results in 
 the way of attendance. 
 
 For the years 1879-80 and 1880-81 two courses were offered, 
 as follows : 
 
 FIRST SEMESTER. 
 
 1. Practical. Embracing school supervision, grading, courses 
 of study, examinations, the art of instructing and governing, 
 school architecture, school hygiene, school law, etc. 
 
 * See " Education as a University Study," Chapter XV. 
 
342 APPENDIX. 
 
 SECOND SEMESTER. 
 
 2. Historical, Philosophical, and Critical. Embracing his- 
 tory of education, the comparison and criticism of the systems 
 in different countries, the outlines of educational science, the 
 science of teaching, and a critical discussion of theories and 
 methods. 
 
 In each of these courses there were two exercises per week 
 during the year 1879-80, and four exercises per week during 
 the year 1880-81. The basis of work in Course 1 was my 
 " Chapters on School Supervision," the text being supplemented 
 by lectures introducing the additional topics. As I had antici- 
 pated, I found that I had two quite distinct classes of students, 
 some who proposed to become superintendents and principals of 
 schools, and others who were chiefly interested in class work. 
 At the end of the second year the instruction in general school 
 management was set off by itself, constituting Course 3, with 
 the text just named. After this division, Course 1 was devo- 
 ted to instruction in ordinary schoolroom work, on the basis of 
 Fitch's "Lectures on Teaching." The number of students 
 electing Course 1 in 1879-80 was thirty-two, and the first trial 
 of the " new departure " was fairly successful. 
 
 Course 2, as described above, was given for the first time by 
 lecture, but owing to my unfamiliarity with this mode of in- 
 struction, to the unorganized state of the science I attempted to 
 teach, and somewhat to the assumed unreality and inutility of 
 the science of education, the result was unsatisfactory to myself, 
 and, I doubt not, to my pupils. In giving the course the second 
 time I sought to avoid these difficulties by using Bain's " Edu- 
 cation as a Science " as the basis of my instruction. I found a 
 great gain in using a printed text, and even more in finding a 
 sanction for my theme in the name of such an eminent writer. 
 There was a drawback, however, in the extreme abstruseness of 
 the treatment and in the limitation on the number and kind of 
 topics I wished to present. This text was used for two years, 
 
APPENDIX. 343 
 
 but in the fourth year it was superseded by my " Outlines of 
 Educational Doctrine," which I had written for this purpose. 
 
 With a view to giving a fuller opportunity for discussing 
 some of the larger questions in the science of education, Course 
 4 was organized in 1880-81. In this course for 1883-84, the 
 time was devoted to a critical study of Spencer's " Education ;" 
 a study of Rousseau's " Emile " was made in the course for 
 1884-85 ; and a study of Laurie's " Life of Comenius" is now 
 in progress. A little time was given to the history of education 
 in connection with Course 2 in 18S0-81, by means of a reprint 
 that I had caused to be made of the article " Education " in the 
 ninth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." In 1882-83, 
 Course 5 was organized for the study of the history of educa- 
 tion, and for three years instruction was given by lecture. Up 
 to the present time, Courses 3, 4, and 5 have required but two 
 hours per week of recitation work, but for the future they will 
 be three-hour courses. For the year 1885-86 a new course, G, 
 was offered, on the comparative study of educational systems, 
 and Course 5 was continued for the second semester. The 
 scheme of instruction, then, as now organized, stands as follows: 
 
 1. Practical. The art of teaching and governing; methods 
 of instruction and general schoolroom practice ; school hygiene ; 
 school law. Recitations and lectures. Text - book : Fitch's 
 " Lectures on Teaching." Four-fifths Course. 
 
 2. Theoretical and Critical. Recitations and lectures. 
 Text-book : " Outlines of Educational Doctrine." Four-fifths 
 Course. 
 
 3. School Supervision. Embracing general school manage- 
 ment ; the art of grading and arranging courses of study ; the 
 conduct of institutes, etc. Recitations and lectures. Text-book : 
 " Chapters on School Supervision." Three-fifths Course. 
 
 4. Seminary. For the study and discussion of special topics 
 in the history and philosophy of education. Three -fifths 
 Course. 
 
 5. The History of Education. (First Semester: Ancient 
 
344 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 and Middle Age.) Text-book : " Compayre's " History of Peda- 
 gogy." Three-fifths Course. 
 
 6. The Comparative Study of Educational Systems. 
 Lectures. Two-fifths Course. 
 
 7. The History of Education. (Second Semester: Mod- 
 ern.) Text-book : Compayre's " History of Pedagogy." Three- 
 fifths Course. 
 
 A prescribed course of reading is pursued in connection with 
 Courses 1 and 2. Either Course 1 or Course 2 is requisite to 
 obtain a Teacher's Diploma. 
 
 The extent to which these courses of study have been at- 
 tended may be seen from the following tabular statement : 
 
 Years 
 
 '79-807 
 
 : ' 80-81. 
 
 '81-82. 
 
 '82-83. 
 
 '83-84. 
 
 '84-85. 
 
 '85-86. 
 
 
 Students in Practical Courses. . 
 Students in Theoretical Courses 
 Students in Historical Course. . 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 32 
 65 
 
 41 
 
 52 
 
 50 
 21 
 
 48 
 
 61 
 
 4 
 
 44 
 
 59 
 9 
 
 40 
 59 
 15 
 
 74 
 
 70 
 36 
 
 Totals 
 
 97 
 
 72 
 
 93 
 71 
 
 71 
 51 
 
 113 
 71 
 
 112 
 
 78 
 
 114 
 81 
 
 180 
 117 
 
 Totals, less Duplicates. . . 
 
 As yet, no required sequence in the courses has been established. 
 In the case of students of the university grade, I do not think 
 it material whether Course 1 or Course 2 have precedence, pro- 
 vided both are finally taken ; but it seems to me altogether best 
 that Course 2 should precede Course 5, for I cannot see how the 
 facts of experience can be interpreted without some knowledge 
 of fundamental doctrines. 
 
 As a general rule this work is elected by students in the later 
 part of their course, and many who take up the study of educa- 
 tional doctrines have previously had a training in logic and 
 psychology. Of the two hundred students who received de- 
 grees in the literary department during the years 1883 and 
 1884, eighty -three had taken one or more of the courses above 
 described. 
 
 For several years the University has granted, to students who 
 
APPENDIX. 345 
 
 proposed to teach, a special certificate known as the "Teacher's 
 Diploma," on the following conditions: 
 
 The Teacher's Diploma will be given to resident graduates 
 and to the students of the University at the time of receiving a 
 bachelor's or a master's degree, provided the candidate has com- 
 pleted one of the courses of study offered by the Professor of 
 the Science and the Art of Teaching, and also, at least one of 
 the Teachers' Courses offered by other professors, and by special 
 examination has shown such marked proficiency in the course 
 chosen as qualifies him to give instruction. 
 
 The " Teachers' Courses," above referred to, are courses of- 
 fered by professors for the express purpose of teaching students 
 how their special subjects are best taught. During the year 
 1884-85 such Teachers' Courses were given in Greek, Latin, 
 French, and Physics. 
 
 For some years it has been felt that the Teacher's Diploma 
 granted by the University on such hard conditions should, on 
 the score of simple equity, be made the legal equivalent of the 
 Normal-School Diploma ; and a bill to this effect was presented 
 to the legislature of 1884-85. The following statements ex- 
 hibit the grounds on which this legislation was asked for : 
 
 1. The Normal-School Diploma is given to students who com- 
 plete a course of study sufficient to admit them to the University ; 
 who have received a stated amount of professional instruction 
 in the theory and art of teaching ; and have done certain prac- 
 tice work in the experimental school. This diploma entitles the 
 holder to a life license to teach. 
 
 2. The Teacher's Diploma from the University is given only to 
 students who have taken a bachelor's degree, i. e., have added four 
 years of scholarship to that which is required of a normal-school 
 graduate ; who have pursued at least one of the Teachers' Courses 
 offered by the University in which pupils do practice work ; and 
 have completed one or more courses of professional instruction 
 in the theory and art of teaching. At the present time this di- 
 ploma has no legal value whatever. 
 
34G APPENDIX. 
 
 3. As between the holder of a Normal-School Diploma and the 
 holder of a Teacher's Diploma from the University, with respect 
 to fitness for teaching, the case stands thus : The amount of 
 professional instruction in the theory and art of teaching is 
 essentially the same in both cases ; the teacher from the Uni- 
 versity has four years more of scholarship than the teacher from 
 the Normal School, but lacks a part of the practice work in the 
 experimental school. The professional instruction being the 
 same in both cases, are not four years of scholarship a fair 
 equivalent for a few weeks' practice work? Should not both 
 teachers stand on an equal footing before the law ? 
 
 4. By the offer of a life license to teach, the state aims to 
 draw into the public-school service young men and women who 
 have completed a course of secondary instruction. Should not 
 at least the same inducement be held out to young men and 
 women who have completed a university course of study ? 
 
 Through opposition coming from the Normal School this bill 
 was defeated. 
 
 The main points involved in the theme of this discussion may 
 be summarized as follows : 
 
 1. An historical function of the university is to educate teach- 
 ers; and the higher places in the teaching service must be re- 
 cruited from this source. 
 
 2. For the purposes of the general student the study of edu- 
 cation is of at least co-ordinate value with many subjects that 
 have long had a place in the university curriculum. 
 
 3. Teaching being almost purely a mental art, the technical 
 part of a teacher's education should consist of definite concep- 
 tions of the ends to be reached, of the means most fit to be em- 
 ployed, and of the principles involved in the use of these 
 means. 
 
 4. A comprehensive knowledge of education requires that it 
 should be studied in its three main phases, the practical, the 
 theoretical, and the historical. The phases that are the most 
 proper for university study are the theoretical and the historical. 
 
APPENDIX. 347 
 
 5. An important function of professorships of education in 
 universities is the investigation and formulation of principles 
 and doctrines, to the end that a science of education may be 
 finally constructed. 
 
 6. The other principal function of such professorships is 
 the dissemination of cardinal educational doctrines. The neces- 
 sary course of this dissemination is by a process of downward 
 diffusion from the university to the secondary schools, and from 
 these to the elementary schools* 
 
 7. In the form of a life license to teach, the state offers a 
 reward to young men and women to complete a course of sec- 
 ondary instruction ; much more ought the state to offer such a 
 reward to men and women to complete a university course of 
 training as a preparation to the public-school service. 
 
 * " Le progres se propage de haut en bas, et cela jusqu'aux derniers lini- 
 itcs, car la science ne remonte jamais" — Boussingault. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abstract, the, when the child can comprehend, 79; "why difficult to 
 
 interpret, 80. 
 Academic instruction, an element in normal-school work, 298. 
 Accumulation, distinguished from organization, 74. 
 Acquirement has two values, 41, 42. 
 Agricultural college, made popular, 248. 
 Analysis, effect on culture, 59, 84, 294; and synthesis, 76. 
 Apprehension and comprehension, 59. 
 Aristotle, quoted, 24; as authority on science, 43; on peace, 104; his 
 
 use of the term "Nature," 142; his sanction of slavery, 146; his 
 
 condemnation of usury, 143; his doctrine of the mean, 183; on 
 
 political education, 195. 
 Arithmetic, made compulsory by Plato, 31; its value, 62. 
 Arnold, Matthew, his definition of education, 185. 
 Ars Vivendi, 60. 
 
 Art, contrasted with " Nature," 150. 
 Astronomy, its value, 59. 
 Authority, dependence on, 43; in education, 187, 188. 
 
 " Bachelor," its meaning, 259. 
 
 Bacon, quoted, 128. 
 
 Bain, Alexander, his "Education as a Science," 3; on education 
 
 values, 37; on the culture value of subjects, 49; on the science of 
 
 education, 123. 
 Bentham, on the term " Nature," 139. 
 Bias, quoted, 128. 
 
 Biber, Dr., quoted on Pestalozzi's school, 238. 
 Bible, the, its use in school, 210, 211 ; in Cincinnati, 211, 214. 
 Bonnal, the type of villages redeemed by a wise teacher, 250. 
 Books, their office, 29, 98, 189. 
 Borrowed interest, as a motive, 85. 
 Bushman, 42, 44. 
 
 Capitalization, possible only to human beings, 154. 
 Caste, just and unjust, 225. 
 
350 INDEX. 
 
 Champollion, 171. 
 
 Chemistry, its value, 60. 
 
 Child mind, how it differs from the adult mind, 19; new conception 
 of, 120. 
 
 Chinese, conservatism of, 194. 
 
 Church, the, the mother of the school, 160; and school, 192, 199; an- 
 cient domination of, 202. 
 
 Citizenship, education for, 195. 
 
 Classics, easy to decry, 175; must be taught for their literature, 176. 
 
 Cocker, Dr. B. F., on law and lawyers, 224, 
 
 Comenius, his use of the term " Nature," 140; his love for the peo- 
 ple, 237. 
 
 " Commencement Bay," its signification, 259. 
 
 Compayre, G. , quoted on moral training, 68 ; on the improbability of 
 new discoveries in education, 110. 
 
 Competition, just and unjust, 225. 
 
 Concrete and abstract, doctrine of, 76-79, 80. 
 
 Condillac, on genesis of knowledge, 28, 87. 
 
 Congregations, religious, 206. 
 
 Conservation, in education, 23. 
 
 Contemplative knowledge, 68. 
 
 Conversion, intellectual, 313. 
 
 Cooley,T. M., on the neutrality of the American public school, 213, 214. 
 
 Counting, its nature, 80. 
 
 Cousin, V. , on the law of progress, 88. 
 
 Culture, nature of, 24, 58,67; subjects that yield, 68; test of, 178; essen- 
 tial to teaching power, 288, 289; Plato's conception of, 289; its 
 relation to the useful, 293, 294; effect of analysis on, 294. 
 
 Definitude, the final term of cognition, 169. 
 Degerando, quoted, on the danger of generalizing, 173. 
 Dickinson, J. "W., on the use of books, 99. 
 Disagreeable studies, 28. » 
 
 Disciplinary values, specific and tonic, 57, 58. 
 Dissection, effect on culture, 59. 
 Distaste for study, what it indicates, 72. 
 Division of labor, applied to learning, 51, 202, 203. 
 "Doctor," its meaning, 259. 
 Doing and knowing, 128, 164. 
 
 "Education," Mr. Spencer's, one fallacy in, 56. 
 
 Education, science of, 4, 7 et seq.; its nature, 14, 126; its material, 
 original and derived, 17; a culture subject, 60; Mr. Bain quoted, 
 123; problems in, 23, 126; different conceptions of, 14; profes- 
 sional and technical, 24; as a process of rediscovery, 28; new dis- 
 coveries not probable, 110, 118, 119, 198; purpose defined, 114; 
 
INDEX. 351 
 
 different phases of the problem. 116-118; different types, 119; 
 its purpose defined by M. Arnold, 185; the two currents in, 186; 
 the old dominated by authority, 187; ancient, 193; a function of 
 the state, 212; dangers in its management by the literary class, 246; 
 the higher should be brought nearer the people, 246, 247; university 
 study of, 257, 335; professorships of, 264-267, 337; conditions of 
 success in, 277; practice work, 277, 278. 
 
 Education values, 16, 26, 230, 315; discussed, 31-68; the broadest dis- 
 tinction, 40, 41; disciplinary and practical, the same, 41, 42; not 
 the same, 47-50, 62; practical values, direct and indirect, 51, 52; 
 disciplinary values, specific and tonic, 57; analytical table of, 64, 
 65; standards for marking, 64; rules for marking, 64, 65; further 
 views on culture values, 66; final classification, 67. 
 
 Educational hobbies, 269. 
 
 Educational progress, mode of, 102; conservative, 104. 
 
 Educational theory, not dangerous, 127. 
 
 Educators, two schools of, 103, 104; due to differences in mental con- 
 stitution, 105. 
 
 Elaboration, mental, 69; the instrument automatic, 70; first analysis, 
 then synthesis, 76. 
 
 fimile, the, 236. 
 
 English public schools, 266. 
 
 Enthusiasm, blind, 111, 112. 
 
 Enthusiasts, not safe guides, 112, 113. 
 
 Ephesians, quoted, 22. 
 
 Euthydemus, anecdote of, 8. 
 
 Examinations, fault in, 254. 
 
 Examiner, a considerate, 251, 253. 
 
 Experience, vicarious, 154. 
 
 Experiment, in education, 127. 
 
 Extremes, law of, 22, 183. 
 
 Extremists, how they are to be interpreted, 113. 
 
 Farrar, F. W., on Persian education, 133. 
 
 Feeling and thinking, 83. 
 
 Fetich worship, 175. 
 
 Fitch, on forgotten knowledge, 71; on teaching as a profession, 218; 
 
 function of universities, 261, 336; on practice teaching, 295. 
 Fitness for teaching, different conceptions of, 8, 252-254. 
 "Follow nature," in what sense intelligible, 155. 
 Forgotten knowledge, use of, 71, 177. 
 Formalism, in teaching, 247. 
 Formation and information, 134. 
 Froebel, his use of the term "Nature," 141. 
 
 Generalizations, not harder to interpret than concrete phenomena, 107. 
 
352 INDEX. 
 
 " Genesis of knowledge in the race," 169, 188. 
 
 Geography, its value, 59. 
 
 Geology, its value, 59. 
 
 Gillis, John, on Aristotle's method, 143. 
 
 Gladstone, his greatness, 244. 
 
 Growth, three orders of, 4; development, 74; doctrine of, 118. 
 
 Habit, opposed to growth, 295. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir Wm., quoted 27; his pamphlet on mathematics, 34; on 
 universities, 259, 260. 
 
 Hand and head, 219. 
 
 Helvetius, quoted on modest personal estimate, 292. 
 
 Herring, fecundity of, 44. 
 
 High schools, courses in, 186. 
 
 History, its value, 61; Mr. Spencer's estimate of, 63; of education, its 
 effect, 128. 
 
 History of education, its lessons, 180-198; included in the course of 
 the early normal school, 180; is a culture subject, 180, 181; re- 
 veals the teacher's professional ancestry, 181 ; its value for guid- 
 ance, 182; has never held its proper place in normal schools, 183. 
 
 "Holy Roman Empire," 165. 
 
 Human destiny, Mr. Spencer's conception of, 45; another, 46. 
 
 Human nature, upward tendency of, 110. 
 
 Huxley, on clearness of statement, 137. 
 
 Idea versus sensation, 68. 
 
 Ideals, not dangerous to practical men, 285. 
 
 Ideas and ideals, 157; plastic power of, 155; how teachers' ideals are 
 
 to be formed, 159; potency of, 160; Mr. Quick quoted, 160; as 
 
 motives, 160; possession by, 163; in art, 163. 
 Industrial education, 245. 
 Inheritance and acquisition, 88-91. 
 Inheritance, cannot be alienated, 106. 
 Intellectual training, the first condition of success, 166. 
 Intrinsic charm, as a motive, 85. 
 
 Jesus, his philanthrophy, 242, 243. 
 
 Johnson's Cyclopaedia, quoted on mental food, 69. 
 
 Kindergarten, its place, 135; conception of, 242. 
 
 Knowledge, two orders of, 1, 221; genesis of, 28, 87-101; Greek con- 
 ceptions of, 31; as food, 69; progress in, from apprehension to com- 
 prehension, 76 ; presentative and representative, 76 ; of past, how 
 possible, 76 ; first-hand and second-hand, 76 ; knowing and doing, 
 how related, 27, 278; law of progress in, 88-91; test of, 91-93; 
 versus information, 92; a form of belief, 96; two theories of, 97; 
 
INDEX. 353 
 
 reproduced without the aid of books, 189; chiefly second-hand, 
 190; vitality of, denied, 278. 
 Krusi, his examination, 253. 
 
 Labor, mental and manual antagonistic, 24. 
 
 Language, the teaching instrument, 4, 231 ; the instrument of analysis, 
 
 79; with its classifications, an inheritance, 107. 
 Latham, his classification of subjects, 38-40. 
 Latin grammar, once written in Latin, 172. 
 Latino, E., quoted, 5. 
 Laurie, S. S., quoted on culture value of science, 60; on enthusiasm, 
 
 112; on practical teaching, 295; on instruction in doctrine, 306. 
 Learning, conceived to be a process of rediscovery, 188. 
 Lecky, quoted on secularization in politics, 200. 
 "Leonard and Gertrude," the, 240. 
 Literature, its value, 59, 61. 
 Luther, on teaching, 217. 
 
 Man, a solitary being, 119; not the victim of environment, 40. 
 
 Mann, Horace, on the power of the teacher, 217. 
 
 Marion, quoted on pedagogy, 5; on narrowness, 21; on "Nature," 44; 
 on motives and mobiles, 112. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, quoted on patience, 73. 
 
 ' ' Master of Arts, " its meaning, 259. 
 
 Mathematics, education value of, 34, 57, 61. 
 
 Memorabilia, quoted, 9. 
 
 Memory, its office in mental elaboration, 75; domination in ancient 
 education, 193; its use in education, 194; is conservative, 194; 
 exact, 193. 
 
 Mental aliment, how distributed, 28, 69; to be accumulated in ad- 
 vance of its elaboration, 75; derived from the senses, 81. 
 
 Mental exercise, two modes of, 73. 
 
 Mental growth, 31, 69-86; what determines kind of, 70; automatic and 
 unconscious, 70, 71 ; loss of identity in, 71 ; the element of time, 
 71; how aliment is distributed; 72; exercise, 73; a progress from 
 confusion to definitude, 74; from apprehension to comprehension, 
 76 ; the supply of aliment, 80. 
 
 Mental progression, 170. 
 
 Mental reaction, first by resolution, then by integration, 75. 
 
 Method, not a substitute for scholarship, 312; in normal instruction, 
 292; uniformities in, should be merely typical, 297; defined, 301; a 
 means of teaching, 302-304. 
 
 Mill, J. S., on inference, 94; on the use of books, 101. 
 
 Milo and the calf, 171. 
 
 Mob, has no brains, 114. 
 
 Mobiles, 112. 
 
354 INDEX. 
 
 Mobs, disintegration of, the problem of education, 161. 
 
 Montaigne, quoted on mental digestion, 71. 
 
 Morals, how related to knowledge, 165. 
 
 Motives, propulsive and attractive, 84; intellectual element in, 111; 
 
 ideas colored by emotion, 160. 
 Mundella, on the secularization of the school in France, 209. 
 
 Narrow constructionists, 68. 
 
 "Nature," its meaning, 26; order of, 43; "beautiful economy of," 
 44; discussion of, 138-156; Dr. Biber on the meaning of the term, 
 138; Bentham, 139; E. R. Sill, 140; examples of the use of the 
 term, from Comenius, 140; from Rousseau, 141; from Pestalozzi, 
 141 ; from Froebel, 141 ; from Spencer, 141 ; from Joseph Payne, 
 142; from Aristotle, 143; from Plato, 143; wider use of the 
 term, 144; order of, 144; what it is to "Follow Nature," 145; a 
 substitute for the old pantheism, 146; conception of, illustrated, 
 147-149; contrasted with Art, 150; as a teacher, 152; in disci- 
 pline, brutal, 152. 
 
 Naville, quoted, 43. 
 
 Neutral school, the, 211. 
 
 "New Education," defined by F. W. Parker, 103, 132; its claims on 
 the confidence of men, 129; its works, 134. 
 
 Normal school, its purpose, 10; a professional school, 218; of per- 
 manent value, 273; not a competitor with the university, 275, 
 338; its field, 275; what it fails to do, 275; the tendency to sub- 
 divide, 275; narrow views, 275; problem of, 281; still in an ex- 
 perimental stage, 281 ; first one at Lexington, 282 ; a necessity, 285 ; 
 academic instruction in, 298, 299: three aims of, 300; definition 
 of, 299; professional work in, 305-307; of Michigan, 338, 339, 
 345, 346. 
 
 Observation and inference, 94. 
 
 Occupations, mental and manual, 12 ; open and closed, 222. 
 
 Opinion, principles for the formation of, 20; its oscillation, 184; and 
 
 intelligence, walking by, 290. 
 OrUs Pictus, 237. 
 
 Parker, F. W., quoted on the " New Education," 103. 
 
 Patience, not a negation, 73. 
 
 Paul, quoted on the difference between a child's knowledge and a 
 
 man's knowledge, 74, 118. 
 Payne, Joseph, on Spencer's pansophic scheme, 55; on the culture 
 
 value of science, 60; on the accumulations of mental food, 75; 
 
 his use of the term " Nature," 142. 
 Pedagogics, is there such a science? 1; its material, 4. 
 Pedagogue, definition of, 5. 
 
INDEX. 355 
 
 Pedagogy, as distinguished from Pedagogics, 5; as used by Coni- 
 
 payre, 5. 
 Penmanship, the mental element distinguished from the manual, 164. 
 Persian education, 133. 
 Personal bias, danger of, 283, 284. 
 Pestalozzi, quoted, 20; on the car of progress, 113, 128; his use of the 
 
 term "Nature," 141; his love for the people, 238; his "Leonard 
 
 and Gertrude," 240. 
 Phrenology, definition of, 5. 
 Physics, its value, 60. 
 
 Physical science, not a culture subject, 60; psychology in, 306. 
 Physiology, its value, 59, 61. 
 Plato, quoted, 31; his use of the term " Nature," 143; his repugnance 
 
 to practical studies, 190; an advocate of a liberal education, 197; 
 
 definition of culture, 288. 
 Pleasure in prospect, as a motive, 85. 
 Pleasure-giving, as a test of good teaching, 28. 
 " Practical," meaning of, 25. 
 Practice teaching, 278, 304-305, 338, 345, 346; its effect on culture, 
 
 295. 
 Preacher, the, and the teacher, 217. 
 "Proceed from the known to the unknown," general discussion of 
 
 the maxim, 168-174; objection to, 170; history of, 171-173; when 
 
 applicable, 174. 
 Profession, a, what it is, 219; and a trade, 222; a closed occupation, 222; 
 
 how it protects the people, 222-223; offers rewards to men of 
 
 talent, 224. 
 Professional instruction, its theory, 278, 337. 
 Professional knowledge, 219, 222, 314. 
 " Professor," its meaning, 259. 
 Professorships of education, 279, 337. 
 Progress, law of, 88-91, 106, 191, 267; three phases of, 104; defined, 
 
 111 ; should be based on intellectual motives, 112; a differentiation 
 
 of functions, 200. 
 Psychology, whether there is an infant, 18, 120-123: its laws discov- 
 ered, 123; a "new," not probable, 124, 125; basis of teaching, 
 
 229, 314, 315. 
 Public school, the, must teach morality, 212; must abandon religious 
 
 instruction, 213. 
 
 Question, how it affects the mind, 71. 
 
 Quick, R. H., quoted on the use of theory, 160. 
 
 Quintilian, quoted, 171. 
 
 Reading circle, the, 331-333. 
 Red Indian, 42, 44. 
 
356 INDEX. 
 
 Rediscovery, pronounced by Mr. Bain a "bold fiction," 188. 
 
 Reflection and emotion, 105; seldom combined, 105. 
 
 Reform, a restoration of rights, 243. 
 
 Reformation, the, led to popular education, 196. 
 
 Reformers, exaggerations of, 20, 21. 
 
 Reid, Thomas, quoted on the formation of general conceptions by 
 
 children, 79 ; on the use of books, 99. 
 Religion, in American schools, 210. 
 Renan, quoted on the culture value of studies, 48; on reflective 
 
 men, 105; on inheritance, 154. 
 Renouvier, on Socrates, 263. 
 Rewards, offered by society, 225. 
 Richter, J. P., on instruction that anticipates the child's age, 122 •. on 
 
 ideals, 163; on supporting religion by reasons, 178. 
 Roman Catholics, their attitude towards the public school, 214-216. 
 Rosenkranz, his "Pedagogics," 3. 
 Rosetta Stone, 171 ; its interpretation a type, 171, 172. 
 Rousseau, quoted, 20, 114, 128, 135; his use of the term "Nature,'' 
 
 141; his love of the people, 235; his Emile, 236; on habit, 296. 
 
 Savage, the, his education, 27; his mind, 82; a fair specimen of "Na- 
 ture's " plan of education, 151; his mode of education, 151-153. 
 
 Scholar, Jewish conception of a, 193. 
 
 Scholarship, determines a teacher's power, 297, 298, 300. 
 
 Science, definition of, 3; contrasted with art, 11. 
 
 Secularization of the school, 191, 199-216; in England, 201; of learn- 
 ing, causes of, 202; in France, 207-209. 
 
 Self-help, in three lines, 316. 
 
 Sense-training, its tendency, 27, 82. 
 
 Sentiment, something surer than logic,179 
 
 Sill, E. R., on the term " Nature," 140. 
 
 Socrates, quoted, 8 ; identified knowledge and virtue, 161 -, the move- 
 ment that he inaugurated, 184; his theory of teaching, 189. 
 
 Spencer, H., quoted 20, 21, 28; on "the relative values of knowledges," 
 34-37; his theory of human destiny, 45; his pansophic scheme, 
 55; on history, 63, his doctrine of the genesis of knowledge 
 discussed, 87-101; on the three phases of progress, 104; on ex- 
 tremes, 111; his use of the term "Nature," 141; narrow spirit 
 of his "Education," 245; on education as a university study, 
 271, 272. 
 
 Stapfer, E., quoted on Jewish schools, 193. 
 
 State, the, as an educator, 212; opposed by some Protestant bodies, 
 215; the patron of the normal school, 218. 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, on the culture value of subjects, 49: on style, 64; 
 on the use of books, 100. 
 
INDEX. 357 
 
 Subjects, classified as permanent and progressive, 33; art and knowl- 
 edge, 39. 
 
 Sully, quoted on supply of aliment, SI ; on habit, 295. 
 
 Supervision, school, the three things it should do, 228, preparation 
 for, 336, 337. 
 
 Sympathy, power of, illustrated, 239. 
 
 Tablet, the New York, on the Bible in the public-schools, 214. 
 
 Tappan, H. P., on the functions of universities, 261; on the priority 
 of their establishment, 266. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, quoted on sense-training, 82. 
 
 Teacher, how differentiated from the scholar, 11, 228-231; a philan- 
 thropist, 235. 
 
 Teachers, humane treatment of, 254, 255, 256; law for the employ- 
 ment of, 268, 336; short tenure of office, 290; should be men of 
 science, 291. 
 
 Teacher's diploma, 345, 346. 
 
 Teachers' institutes, the, 309-333; its purpose to supplement the nor- 
 mal school, 310; defined, 310; its limitations, 317; cannot give 
 competence in subjects, 318; faults in instruction, 319; type of 
 instruction, 320-322; should give some instruction in psychology, 
 323; instruction by lecture preferable, 324; need of recitation, 325, 
 note-taking, 325; class-work, 326; classification, 327; a difficult 
 problem, 328; summary of aim and method, 329; effect on com- 
 munities, 330; shortcomings, 330; to be supplemented by the read- 
 ing circle, 331. 
 
 Teaching, a purely mental art, 166; as a profession, 217-234; its pro- 
 fessional marks, 226-229, 269 ; why entitled to be regarded as a 
 profession, 231, 232; why a strictly closed occupation, 232, 233; 
 danger from making it a profession, 247; qualifications for, 311- 
 313; progressive conceptions of, 287; final test of, 287; transient 
 element in, 290, 291 ; recruitment for, 336, 337. 
 
 Tension of mind, for discipline and culture, 67. 
 
 Things, a surfeit of, 152. 
 
 University, made popular, 249; grows, 257; of Edinburgh, 258; an- 
 cient condition of graduation from, 259, 260; a teachers' seminary, 
 260; prior to common school, 266; influence upon the normal 
 school, 275. 
 
 University of Michigan, study of education in, 335-347; establish- 
 ment of chair of Education in, 335-337: courses of instruction, 
 337, 341-346 ; attendance upon courses, 344. 
 
 Upham, on the nature of knowiedge, 96. 
 
 Values, education, 4, 31-68. 
 Versatility, in teaching, 297. 
 
358 INDEX. 
 
 Whately, on the test of knowledge, 96. 
 Whewell, Dr., his classification of subjects, 83, 177. 
 Wholeness, essential to culture, 59, 84. 
 Wisdom, does it die with its possessor? 29. 
 
 Zoology, its value, 60. 
 
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