GjyrigtaN?. COPYRIGHT DEPCSIR hlE CONTENTS or QuM/ff/W V IfllYVcLv ON 30 Sleet, 2493 Moss, 2484 Hare 2466 Stralau 2453 Harvest, 2368 Dew, 2364 Wilhelm's Platz, . . 2158 On Entering School. 63. Luke, .... . 2078 70. Birch 1318 64. Arsenal, . . . . 1957 71. Rummelsberg. . . 1242 65. Scotch fir, . . . 1828 72. Park for Invalids, 1135 66. Lark, .... . 1796 73. River, 1122 67. Reed . 1702 74. Hazel shrub, . . 907 68. Willow, . . . . 1667 75. Botanical Garden, 527 69. Whortleberry, . . . 1640 Thus, e.g., out of 10,000 children, 9026 head the idea of dwellings, while but 527 had any idea of the Botanical Garden. The same returns otherwise presented are as f ollows : Classification of above with Reference to Sex and Origin. Children Children Children Children Boya. Girls. from from from alto- Families. Kinderg'n. Refuges. gether. 1. Two, . . . . 7478 7380 7436 8223 7113 7435 2. Three, . . . 7478 7298 7418 7355 7344 7399 3. Four, . . . . 7279 7247 7224 8258 7067 7265 4. Triangle, . 4274 4036 4078 5484 4111 4182 5. Square, . . . 5424 5537 5230 7484 5681 5474 6. Area of circle, . 4750 5312 4818 6645 5081 4991 7. Sphere, . . . 7684 7544 7576 8516 7483 7623 8. Cube, . . . . 6971 6970 6800 8064 7159 6957 9. Moon, . . . 6043 6438 6067 8000 6144 6215 10. Sunrise, . . . 3410 2590 3194 2710 2633 3052 11. Sunset, . . . 4925 4237 4739 4516 4226 4635 12. Firmament, . . 8382 7840 8012 8645 8476 8145 13. Tempest (day), .7613 8209 7776 9226 7760 7873 14. Tempest(night), 3188 3509 3224 4194 3510 3347 15. Dew, . . . . 2331 2395 2455 2323 2032 2364 16. Clouds, . . . 6090 5711 5727 6581 6443 5925 17. Hail, . . . . 6G06 7544 7055 7677 6628 7015 18. Sleet, . . . . 2847 2037 2382 2194 3025 2493 19. Rainbow, . 7708 7851 7667 9355 7598 7770 20. Evening sky . 5567 5148 5303 6065 5450 5384 21. Morning sky , . 3497 3715 3545 4128 3580 3592 22. Hare, . . . . 2482 2446 2473 3097 2217 2466 23. Squirrel, . . . 3878 3193 3170 4903 4665 3579 24. Stork, . . . 3212 2467 2897 3290 2702 2887 25. Swan, . . . 6757 5425 5976 7032 6628 6175 26. Cuckoo, . . 3545 2610 3048 4129 3118 3137 27. Lark, . . . . 2220 1249 1739 2258 1848 1796 Children Children Children Children Girls. from from from alto- Families. Kiiiderg'n , Refuges. gether. 4482 4879 6323 5427 5085 4565 5691 6968 6074 5853 4608 5503 8258 7229 6028 4585 4612 5484 5012 4750 1044 1339 1355 1229 1318 1341 1770 2065 1963 1828 2661 2776 2451 2194 2641 1034 1703 1742 1501 1667 706 927 1032 762 907 1443 1564 2645 1570 1640 1525 1655 2581 1570 1702 2405 2539 3419 2610 2855 2221 2867 3355 1963 2484 The Contents of Children's Minds Boys. 28. Frog 5551 29. Fish, .... 6852 30. Butterfly, . . 7128 31. Snail, .... 4877 32. Birch, . . . 1531 33. Scotch fir, . . 2205 34. Oak 2625 35. Willow, . . . 2157 36. Hazel shrub, . 1055 37. Whortleberry, . 1792 38. Sedge (reed), . 1840 39. Mushroom, . . 3204 40. Moss 2688 41. Pleasure Gar- den, . . 4021 3654 3800 5032 3672 3861 42. Uuter den Lin- den, . . . 6122 4993 5436 6129 5982 5590 43. Wil helm's Platz, . . . 2696 1464 2345 1935 1524 2158 44. Alexander Platz, . . . 4084 4729 4515 3935 3946 4366 45. Geusdaruien- markt, . . . 3450 2221 2915 3032 2841 2909 46. Brandenburg Gate, . . . 3885 47. Castle, . . . 3465 48. King's Palace, . 3180 49. Museum, . . 3450 50. Arsenal, . . . 2165 51. City Hall, . . 3703 52. Frederick's Grove, . . . 3600 53. Menagerie, . . 5964 54. Zoological G., . 4346 55. Bptanical G., . 452 56. Kreuzberg, . . 4179 57. Hasenheide, . 5780 58. Park, .... 1301 59. Treptow, . .3196 60. Stralau, . . . 2840 61. Rummelsberg, . 1459 62. Drove of sheep, 4005 63. Corn-field, . . 4322 64. Potato-field, . 6265 65. Village, . . . 3672 2968 3388 4774 3303 3467 3367 3333 4192 3510 3423 2508 2788 3613 3002 2886 2927 2982 3935 3880 3222 1689 1855 2839 2032 1957 3501 3412 5935 3557 3615 4258 3915 2710 4203 3887 4893 5261 6516 6028 5496 3685 3727 6323 4503 4057 624 497 1161 416 527 2518 3479 4065 3141 3454 4258 5121 6194 4734 5121 922 964 1355 1709 1135 2897 3127 4065 2469 3065 1955 2515 2387 2240 2453 963 1248 903 133C 1242 3695 3739 4323 4203 3870 3726 4012 4194 4203 4062 6397 6303 6323 6397 6323 2989 33G4 3419 3395 3374 On Entering School, Boys. Girls. Children from Children from Children from Children alto- Families. Kinderg'n, , Refuges. gether. 66. Plough, . . . 3283 1801 2570 3290 2656 2636 67. Harvests, . . 2744 1883 2315 2323 2587 2368 08. Dwelling, . . 9120 8905 9103 9355 8612 9026 69. Name of father, 8136 9007 8830 8065 7483 8517 70. Position " 8652 9324 9194 8968 7991 8945 71. Mountain, . . 3402 3050 3067 4645 3441 3248 72. Forest, . . . 4036 3142 3555 4194 3418 3646 73. Meadow, . . 5004 4096 4467 4645 5127 4607 74. Lake, . . . 2451 1586 2055 2000 2171 2078 75. River, . . . 1126 1115 1194 968 901 1122 Comparison of Concepts of Boys and Girls. — This table shows that out of 10,000 boys 7478 on entering the Berlin schools have an idea of the number two; out of 10,000 girls 7380 have it; out of 10,000 children of both sexes, indiscriminately, 7436 have it, etc. Here the con- cepts are arranged in systematic order. Mathematics, 1-8; astronomical, 9-13 ; meteorological, 13-21; ani- mals, 22-31; plants, 32-40; local geography, 41-61; and miscellaneous. Of three fourths of these concepts as objects more girls are ignorant than boys, and those who had not been in the kindergarten were more igno- rant than those who had. Some of these objects were doubtless known, but had not acquired a name for the child; others they had seen, but had not had their at- tention called to. It is often said that girls are more likely to excel boys in learning concepts the more general these concepts are. Perhaps we may also as- sume that the most common concepts are acquired be- fore those possessed by a few individuals only. The greater the number of concepts in the test-lists the more boys seemed to excel girls. The easy and widely diffused concepts are commonest among girls; the harder and more special or exceptional ones are commonest among boys. The girls clearly excelled only in the fol- lowing concepts: name and calling of the father, io The Contents of Children's Minds thunder-shower, rainbow, hail, potato - field, moon, square, circle, Alexander Square, Frederick's Woods, morning-red, oak, dew, and Botanical Garden. Of all the children the sphere was known to 7C per cent, the cube to 69 per cent, the square to 54 per cent, the circle to 49 per cent, the triangle to 41 per cent. The girls excel in space concepts and boys in numbers. Girls excel in ideas of family, house, and thunder- storms; children from houses of refuge had more con- cepts than children from families, and those from kin- dergartens excelled both. The child's characteristic question, "What is that?" is so poorly answered at home that he comes to school so poor in concepts that instruction must either operate with words, or use pictures, or go back to nature. Thus text-books and other means of instruction assume a knowledge which the child does not possess, and it is hard to find those well adapted to a given population. Thus object-les- sons, excursions, etc., are suggested as first steps to fill the gaps in the child's knowledge. Comparison between Knowledge of Bible and of Fairy Stories.— The following table shows the relative number of children who knew four Bible stories and four of Grimm's favorite fairy tales. Boys. Girls. From Families. Kinder- garten. Refuges, , All. Per Cent. Boys. Girls. God, , . . . 7827 5067 6927 5935 5704 6633 60.7 39.3 Christ,'. . . . 6757 4217 5818 5355 5104 5648 61.6 38.4 Bible stories, . 3743 1453 2727 2258 2979 2744 72 28 Prayers aud Songs. . . . 5400 4647 5078 5613 4850 5041 53.7 46.6 Schneewittchen, 2173 3009 2436 4387 2263 2538 41.9 58.1 liothkappchen, . 2427 3664 2800 4581 3025 2967 39.8 60.2 Dornroscheu, . 563 1044 661 1871 808 773 35 65 Aschenbrodel, . 1784 2897 2182 3871 2032 2270 38 61.9 Average. Religious, . . . 5852 3846 5138 4790 4659 5021 60.3 39.7 Fairy tales, . . 1734 2654 2020 3677 2032 2137 39.5 60.5 On Entering School, 1 1 Thus girls excel in fairy tales and boys in religious concepts. As the opportunities to learn both would not probably differ much, there seems here a difference of disposition. God and Christ were better learned at home and the tales best in the kindergarten. Koth- kiippchen was better known than God, and Schneewitt- chen than Christ. Other Comparisons. — More boys could repeat sentences said to them, or sing musical phrases sung to them, or sing a song, than girls. Kindergarten children came from the richer, refuge children from the poorer class, while parents between these extremes occupy themselves most with their children. The better off the parents the stiller and less imitative the child, is a law suggested by the statistics of abilities. Not only method, but choice and arrangement of the material of instruction, depend on the knowledge the child has. Further in- vestigations on narrower and more closely related sub- jects should be chosen. Six to twelve closely related points is suggested as the best method, and every teacher could occasionally complete such inventories in his oi- lier room. How the Locality of a School in Germany Affects the Instruction. — In Germany it is more common than in our country to connect songs, poetry, reading and object- lessons, instruction in history, geography, botany, geol- ogy, and other elementary branches with the immediate locality. A school geography of Leipzig, e.g., begins with the schoolhouse and yard, the street, with cross- sections of it to show drainage, gas, etc., and then widens out into the world by concentric circles. Stated holiday walks conducted by teachers for educational purposes and for making collections for the school-rooms are more common. The psychic peculiarities of different 1 2 The Contents of Children's Minds . school districts of Berlin seemed to be influenced sur- prisingly by locality. Lange's Conclusions from Similar Experiments. — In 1879 Dr. K. Lange urged that a six-years child has learned already far more than a student learns in his entire university course. " These six years have been full of advancement like the six days of creation." Concrete conceptions have been accumulated in vast numbers and the teacher must not assume that a tabula rasa is before him. Both this and the presumption of too much knowledge would be to build upon sand. Children have experienced and learned far more than they can put into words; hence again the need of cross- questioning.* Lange's table below was based on 500 children entering the city schools of Plauen, and 300 entering 21 country schools in outlying districts, and the figures represent the per cents of those having the concept. Questions or Concept. Children. Children. 1. Seen the sun rise, 18 42 2. Seen the sun set, 23 58 3. Seen the moon aud stars, 84 82 4. Seen and heard lark 20 70 5. Fish swimming wild, 72 83 6. Been to a pond, 51 86 7. Been to a brook or river, 71 82 8. Been on high hill or mountain, ... 48 74 9. Been in a forest, 63 86 n>. Knows an oak, 18 57 11. Seen a corn or wheat field 64 92 12. Knows how bread comes from grain, . 28 63 13. Seen a shoemaker at work, 79 80 14. Seen a carpenter at work, 55 62 15. Seen a mason at work, 86 92 16. Been in a church, 50 49 17. Knows aught of the dear God, .... 51 66 * See Der Vorstellungskreis unserer sechsjahrigen Kleiuen. Allg. Schul-Zeitung. Jena, 1879, p. 327 et seq. On Entering School, 13 Only 43 per cent of the city children had ever been to any other town or village, only 18 per cent had seen the castle near by, and knowledge of colors was as fol- lows, beginning with those best known and ending with the least known: black, white, red, green, blue, yellow. The ignorance of city children shows the utility of school excursions. Girls had seen, heard, and experienced less than boys of all the seventeen subjects of inquiry save the " dear God," of whom they knew more than the boys. Little is told of Lange's methods, or whether or how far they led to a modification of the elementary curriculum. Conditions of the Experiment in Boston.— It was with the advantages of many suggestions and not a few warnings from these attempts that the writer under- took, soon after the opening of the Boston schools in September, 1880, to make out a list of questions suitable for obtaining an inventory of the contents of the minds of children of average intelligence on entering the primary schools of that city. This was made possible by the liberality of Mrs. Quincy Shaw, who detailed four excellent teachers from her comprehensive system of kindergartens to act as special questioners under the writer's direction, and by the co-operation of Miss L. B. Pingree, their superintendent. All the local and many other of the German questions were not suitable to children here; and the task of selecting those that should be so, though perhaps not involving quite so many perplexing considerations as choosing an equally long list of "normal words," was by no means easy. They must not be too familiar nor too hard and remote, but must give free and easy play to thought and memory. But especially, to yield most practical results, they 14 The Contents of Children's Minds should lie within the range of what children are com- monly supposed or at least desired or expected, by teachers and by those who write primary text-books and prescribe courses of instruction, to know. Many prelim- inary half-days of questioning small groups of children and receiving suggestions from many sources, and the use of many primers, object-lesson courses, etc., now in use in this country, were necessary before the first pro- visional list of one hundred and thirty-four questions was printed. The problem first had in mind was strictly practical; viz., what may Boston children be, by their teachers, assumed to know and have seen when they enter school; although other purposes more psycho- logical shaped other questions used later. What the Sources of Errors are in such Tests. — The difficulties and sources of possible error in the use of such questions are many. Not only are children prone to imitate others in their answers without stopping to think and give an independent answer of their own, but they often love to seem wise, and, to make themselves interesting, state what seems to interest us without reference to truth, divining the lines of our interest with a subtlety we do not suspect : if absurdities are doubted by the questioner, they are sometimes only the more protested by the children; the faculties of some are 'benumbed and perhaps their tongues tied by bash- fulness, while others are careless, listless, inattentive, and answer at random. Again, many questioners are brusque, lacking in sympathy or tact, or real interest or patience in the work, or perhaps regard it as trivial or fruitless. These and many other difficulties seemed best minimized by the following method, which was finally settled upon, and, with the co-operation of Mr. E. On Entering School. 15 P. Seaver, superintendent of the Boston schools, put into operation. Means taken to Obtain the Exact Facts concerning Children's Ideas. — The four trained and experienced kindergarten teachers were employed by the hour to question three children at a time in the dressing-room of the school by themselves alone, so as not to interrupt the school-work. No constraint was used, and, as sev- eral hours were necessary to finish each set, changes and rests were often needful, while by frequent correspond- ence and by meetings with the writer to discuss details and compare results uniformity of method was sought. The most honest and unembarrassed child's first answer to a direct question, e.g., whether it has seen a cow, sheep, etc., must rarely or never be taken without care- ful cross-questioning — a stated method of which was developed respecting many objects. If the child says it has seen a cow, but when asked its size points to its own finger-nail or hand and says, so dig, as not unfrequently occurs, the inference is that it has at most only seen a picture of a cow, and thinks its size reproduced therein, and accordingly he is set down as deficient on that question. If, however, he is correct in size, but calls the color blue, does not know it as the source of milk, or that it has horns or hoofs, — several errors of the latter order were allowed. A worm may be said to sivim on the ground, butchers to kill only the bad ani- mals, etc.; but when hams are said to grow on trees or in the ground, or a hill is described as a lump of dirt or wool as growing on hens, as sometimes occurs, de- ficiency is obvious. Thus many other visual and other notions that seem to adults so simple that they must be 1 6 The Contents of Children's Minds present to the mind with some completeness or not at all, are in a process of gradual acquisition, element by element, in the mind of a child, so that there must sometimes be confessedly a certain degree of arbitrari- ness in saying, as, except in cases of peculiar uncertainty, the questioners attempted to do, that the child has the concept or does not have it. Men's first names seemed to have designated single striking qualities; but, once applied, they become general or specific names ac- cording to circumstances. Again, very few children knew that a tree has bark, leaves, trunk, and roots; but very few indeed had not noticed a tree enough for our "pass." Without specifying further details, it may suffice here to say that the child was given the benefit of every doubt and credited with knowl- edge wherever its ignorance was not so radical as to make a chaos of what instruction and most primary text-books are wont to assume. It is important also to add that the questioners were requested to report manifest gaps in the child's knowledge in its own words, reproducing its syntax, pronunciation, etc. 200 Average Children the Basis of the Following Tables. — About sixty teachers besides the four examiners made returns from three or more children each. Many of their returns, however, are incomplete, careless, or show * internal contradictions, and can be used only indirectly to control results from the other sources. From more than twice that number two hundred of the Boston children were selected as the basis of the follow- ing table. For certain questions and for many statisti- cal purposes this number is much too small to yield very valuable results; but where, as in the majority of cases, On Entering School. 1 7 the averages of these children taken by fifties have varied less than ten per cent, it is safe to infer that the figures have considerable representative worth and far more than they could have if the percentage was small. The precautions that were taken to avoid schools where the children come from homes representing extremes of either culture or ignorance, or to balance deviations from a preliminary conjecture averaged in one direction by like deviations in the other, and also to select from each school-room with the teacher's aid only children of average capacity and to dismiss each child found un- responsive or not acquainted with the English language, give to the percentages, it is believed, a worth which without these and other precautions to this end only far larger numbers could yield. Percentage of Ignorance Given. — The following table shows the general results for a number of those questions which admit of categorical answers, only negative results being recorded; the italicized questions in the "mis- cellaneous" class being based on only from forty to seventy-five children, the rest on two hundred, or, in a few cases, on two hundred and fifty. Tests Made upon 678 Children in Kansas City. — In 1883, shortly after my own tables, as below, were pub- lished, Superintendent I. M. Greenwood, of Kansas City, tested 678 children of the lowest primary class in that city, of whom 47 were colored, with some of my ques- tions. I here print his percentages in the last two columns. In his State children are admitted to school at six; but his tests were made in March, April, May, or after some seven months more of school life, and prob- ably at greater age. 1 8 The Contents of Children' s Minds Comparison of Boston and Kansas City Results. Name of the Object Per Cent of Children of Conception. Ignorant of it. In Boston. In Kansas City. White. Colored. Beehive, 80 59.4 66 Crow, 77 47.3 59 Bluebird, 72.5 Ant, 65.5 21.5 19.1 Squirrel, 63 15 4.2 Snail, 62 Robin, 60.5 30.6 10.6 Sparrow, 57.5 Sheep, 54 3.5 Bee, ...... . .... 52 7.27 4.2 Frog, 50 2.7 Pig, 47.5 1.7 Chicken, 83.5 .5 Worm 22 .5 Butterfly, 20.5 .5 Hen 19 .1 Cow, 18.5 5.2 Growing wheat 92.5 23.4 66 Elm-tree, 91.5 52.4 89.8 Poplar- tree, 89 Willow, 89 Growing oats, 87.5 Oak-tree 87 62.2 58.6 Pine, 87 65.6 87.2 Maple 83 31.2 80.8 Growing moss, 81.5 30.7 42.5 '• strawberries 78.5 26.5 1.1 " clover, 74 " beans, 71.5 " blueberries 67.5 blackberries, 66 " corn, 65.5 Chestuut-tree, 64 Planted a seed, 63 Peaches on a tree, 61 Growing potatoes, 61 *' buttercup, 55.5 " rose, 54 " grapes 53 " dandelion 52 On Entering School. *9 Name of the Object of Conception. Per Cent of Children Ignorant of it. In Boston. In Kansas City. White. Colored. Growing cherries, 46 pears 32 Knows rii apples, 21 Where are the child's ribs, . . .90.5 " lungs, ... 81 " heart, ... 80 " wrist, . . .70.5 ankles, 65.5 waist, 52.5 hips, 45 knuckles, .... 36 elbows, 25 ;ht and left hand, . . .21.5 cheek, 18.5 " forehead, 15 " throat, 13.5 44 knee 7 " stomach, 6 Dew, 78 What season it is, 75 5 Seen hail 73 44 rainbow, 65 44 sunrise, 56.5 " sunset 53.5 44 clouds, 35 4< stars, 14 " moon, 7 13.6 26 18.5 3 14.1 14 14 2.9 1.5 1 .5 .5 1.1 1.6 27.2 39.1 31.8 13.6 10.3 16.6 19.5 7.3 3 26 6.4 44.6 18.1 4.2 4.2 8.5 10.2 45.9 70.2 56.1 18.1 2.1 53 Conception of an island, 44 a beach, 87.5 55. " woods, . . . .53.5 44 river, 48 pond, .... 40 hill 28 44 brook, .... 15 44 triangle, .... 92 44 square, .... 56 circle, .... 35 The number five, 28.5 four, 17 44 " three, 8 20 The Contents of Children's Minds Name of the Object Per Cent of Children of Conception. Ignorant of it. In Boston. In Kansas City. White. Colored. Seen watchmaker at work, . . . 68 30.1 49.7 " file, 65 20.8 36.1 " plough, 64.5 13.9 8.5 " spade, 62 7.3 15 " hoe, 61 5 10.6 " bricklayer at work, . . . .44.5 10.1 2.1 " shoemaker at work, .... 25 8.7 " axe, 12 18.4 53 Knows green by name 15 " blue by name, 14 " yellow by name, . . . .13.5 " red by name, ..... 9 That leathern things come from animals, 93.4 50.8 72.3 Maxim or proverb, 91 . 5 Origin of cotton things, . . . . 90 35.7 15 What flour is made of, 89 34.7 57.4 Ability to knit 88 What bricks are made of 81.1 33.1 53 Shape of the world 70.3 46 47 Origin of woollen things, .... 61) 55 44 Never attended kindergarten, . .67.5 Never been in bathing, 64.5 13.4 Can tell no rudiment of a story, . .58 23.6 12.7 Not know wooden things are from trees, 55 19.3 6.4 Origin of butter 50.5 6.7 Origin of meat (from animals), . . 48 8.3 12.7 Canuotsew 47.5 23.4 Cannot strike a given musical tone, 40 Cannot beat time regularly, ... 39 Have never saved cents at home, .36 8.2 12.7 Never been in the country, . . . 35.5 13.1 19 Can repeat no verse, 28 20 42.5 Source of milk, 20.5 4 On Entering School. 21 Classification with Reference to Sex and Nationality. Per Cent Name of the Object t,™^™,^ of Concept. Ignorance 150 Girls. Beehive, 81 Ant, 59 Squirrel, 69 Snail, 69 Robin, 69 Sheep, 67 Bee, 46 Frog, 53 Pig, 45 Chicken, 35 Worm, 21 Butterfly, 14 Hen 15 Cow, 18 Per Cent of Ignorance in 160 Boys. 75 60 50 73 44 47 32 38 27 21 17 16 14 12 Per Cent of Ignorance in 50 Irish Children. 86 74 66 92 64 62 52 54 38 32 26 26 18 20 Per Cent Per Cent of of Ignorance Ignorance in 50 in 04 kin- American derprarten Children. Children. 70 38 42 72 36 40 32 35 26 16 16 8 61 26 43 62 29 40 26 35 22 22 9 9 14 10 Growing clover, " corn, potatoes, , buttercup, rose, . , dandelion, apples, 59 58 55 50 48 44 16 50 54 51 48 42 16 84 60 62 66 60 62 18 42 68 44 40 42 34 12 29 32 34 31 33 31 5 Ribs 88 92 98 82 68 Ankles, 58 52 62 40 38 Waist, 53 52 64 32 36 Hips, 50 47 72 31 24 Knuckles, 27 27 34 12 23 Elbow, 19 32 36 16 12 Right from left hand, .20 8 14 20 4 Wrist, 21 34 44 9 19 Cheek, 10 12 14 14 4 Forehead, 10 11 12 10 7 Throat, 10 18 14 16 14 Knee, 4 5 2 10 2 Dew, 64 63 92 52 57 What season it is, . . 59 50 68 48 41 Hail, 75 61 84 52 53 Rainbow, 59 61 70 38 38 22 The Contents of Children's Minds Percent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent of of of of of Name of the Object Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance Ignorance of Concept. in in in in 50 in 61 kln- 150 Girls. 150 Boys. 50 Irish American dergai ten Children. Children. Children. Sunrise, 71 53 70 36 53 Sunset, 47 49 52 32 29 Star, 15 10 12 4 7 Island, 74 78 84 64 55 Beach 82 49 60 34 32 Woods 46 36 46 32 27 River, 38 44 62 12 13 Pond, 31 34 42 24 28 Hill, 23 22 30 12 19 The number five, . . 26 16 22 24 12 four, . . 15 10 16 14 7 three, .7 6 12 8 Y/hat Children were Examined in Boston. — The first Boston table is based upon about equal numbers of boya and girls, and children of Irish and American parentage greatly predominate. There are 21 Germans, and 19 are divided between 8 other nationalities; 14 per cent of all examined did not know their age; 6 per cent were four, 37 per cent were five, 25 per cent were six, 12 per cent were seven, and 2 per cent were eight years old. The returns were carefully tabulated to determine the influ- ence of age, which seems surprisingly unpronounced, indicating, so far as the small numbers go, a slight value of age per se as an index of ripeness for school. the Returns Indicate Little Difference between the Sexes. — In the second table which is based on Boston children, only columns 2 and 3 are based upon larger numbers, and upon less carefully restricted selections from the aggregate returns. In 34 representative ques- tions out of 49 the boys surpass the girls, as the German boys did in 75 per cent of the Berlin questions. The girls excel in knowledge of the parts of the body, home On Entering School, 23 and family life, thunder, rainbows, in knowledge of square, circle, and triangle, but not in that of cube, sphere, and pyramid, which is harder and later. Their stories are more imaginative, while their knowledge of things outward and remote, their power to sing and ar- ticulate correctly from dictation, their acquaintance with number and animals, is distinctly less than that of the boys. The Berlin report infers that the more common, near, or easy a notion is the more likely are the girls to excel the boys, and vice versa. Save possibly in the knowledge of the parts of the body, our returns do not in- dicate difference between the sexes. Boys do seem, how- ever, more likely than girls to be ignorant of common things right about them; where knowledge is wont to be assumed. Column 5 shows that the Irish children tested were behind others on nearly all topics. The Irish girls decidely outrank the Irish boys, the advan- tage to the sex being outweighed by the wider knowl- edge of the boys of other nationalities. Whether, how- ever, the five and six-year old Irish boys are not after all so constituted as to surpass their precocious American playmates later in school or adult life, as since Sigis- mund many think " slow " children generally do, is one of the most serious questions for the philosophical edu- cator. The Advantage of the Kindergarten Shown. — Column G shows in a striking way the advantage of the kinder- garten children, without regard to nationality, over all others. Most of the latter tested were from the charity kindergartens, so that superior intelligence of home sur- roundings can hardly be assumed. Many of them had attended kindergarten but a short time, and the ques- tions were so ordered that the questioners who had a 24 The Contents of Children's Minds special interest in the kindergarten should not know till near the end of their tests whether or not they had ever attended it. On the other hand, a somewhat larger pro- portion of the children from the kindergarten had been in the country. Yet on the whole we seem to have here an illustration of the law that we really see not what is near or impresses the retina, but what the attention is called and held to, and what interests are awakened and words found for. Of nearly thirty primary teachers questioned as to the difference between children from kindergartens and others, four saw no difference, and all the rest thought them better fitted for school-work, in- stancing superior use of language, skill with the hand and slate, quickness, power of observation, singing, num- ber, love of work, neatness, politeness, freedom from the benumbing school-bashfulness, or power to draw from dictation. Many thought them at first more restless and talkative. Important Educational Conclusions may be Derived. — There are many other details and more or less probable inferences, but the above are the chief. The work was laborious, involving about fifty thousand items in all. These results are, it is believed, to be in some degree the first opening of a field which should be specialized, and in which single concept-groups should be subjected to more detailed study with larger numbers of children. One difficulty is to get essential points to test for. If these are not characteristic and typical, all such work is worthless. We believe that not only practical educa- tional conclusions of great scope and importance may be based on or illustrated by such results, but, though many sources of inaccuracy may limit their value, that they are of great importance for anthropology and psychology. On Entering School. 25 It is characteristic of an educated man, says Aristotle in substance, not to require a degree of scientific exactness on any subject greater than that which the subject ad- mits. As scientific methods advance, not only are in- creasingly complex matters subjected to them, but prob- abilities (which guide nearly all our acts) more and more remote from mathematical certainty are valued. Knowledge of Children's Ideas Essential as Basis of Right Instruction. — Steinthal tells an opposite story of six German gentlemen riding socially in a coupe all day, and as they approached the station where they were to separate, one proposed to tell the vocation of each of the others, who were strangers to him, if they would write without hesitation an answer to the question, " What destroys its own offspring ? " One wrote, Vital force. " You," said the questioner, " are a biologist." Another wrote, War. " You," he said, " are a soldier." Another wrote, Kronos, and was correctly pronounced a philolo- gist; while the publicist revealed himself by writing, Revolution, and the farmer by writing, She-bear. This fable teaches the law of apperception. As Don Quixote saw an army in a flock of sheep and a giant in a wind- mill, as some see all things in the light of politics, others in that of religion, education, etc., so the Aryan races apperceived the clouds as cows and the rain as their milk, the sun as a horse, the lightning as an arrow; and so the children apperceive rain as God pouring down water; thunder as barrels, boards falling, or cannon; heaven as a well-appointed nursery, etc. They bring more or less developed apperceiving organs with them into school, each older and more familiar concept gain- ing more apperceptive power over the newer concepts and percepts by use. The older impressions are on the 26 The Contents of Children's Minds lurch, as it were, for the new ones, and mental freedom and all-sideness depend on the number and strength of these appropriating concepts. If there are very few, as with children, teaching is like pouring water from a big tub into a small narrow-necked bottle. A teacher who acts upon the now everywhere admitted fallacy that knowledge of the subject is all that is needed in teach- ing children pours at random onto more than into the children, talking to rather than with them, and gauging what he gives rather than what they receive. All now agree that the mind can learn only what is related to other things learned before, and that we must start from the knowledge that the children really have and develop this as germs, otherwise we are showing objects that re- quire close scrutiny only to indirect vision, or talking to the blind about color, i Alas for the teacher who does not learn more from his children than he can ever hope to teach them ! Just in proportion as teachers do this do they cease to be merely mechanical, and acquire in- terest, perhaps enthusiasm, and surely an all-compensat- ing sense of growth, in their work and life. Four Inferences from above Tables. — From the above tables it seems not too much also to infer — I. That there is next to nothing of pedagogic value the knowledge of which it is safe to assume at the outset of school-life. Hence the need of objects and the danger of books and word-cram. Hence many of the best primary teachers in Germany spend from two to four or even six months in talking of objects and drawing them before any be- ginning of what we till lately have regarded as primary- school work. II. The best preparation parents can give their children for good school-training is to make them acquainted with natural objects, especially with the On Entering School. 27 sights and sounds of the country, and to send them to good and hygienic, as distinct from the most fashionable, kindergartens. III. Every teacher on starting with a new class or in a new locality, to make sure that his efforts along some lines are not utterly lost, should un- dertake to explore carefully section by section children's minds with all the tact and ingenuity he can command and acquire, to determine exactly what is already shown ; and every normal-school pupil should undertake work of the same kind as an essential part of his training. IV. The concepts that are most common in the chil- dren of a given locality are the earliest to be acquired, while the rarer ones are later. This order may in teach- ing generally be assumed as a natural one, e.g., apples first and wheat last (cf. the first Boston table above). This order, however, varies very greatly with every change of environment, so that the results of explora- tions of children's minds in one place cannot be as- sumed to be valid for those of another save within com- paratively few concept-spheres. The Common Notion of what Children Know Erro- neous. — The high rate of ignorance indicated in the table may surprise most persons who will be likely to read this report, because the childhood they know will be much above the average of intelligence here sought, and because the few memories of childhood which sur- vive in adult life necessarily bear but slight traces of imperfections, and are from many causes illusory. Skeins and spools of thread were said to grow on the sheep's back or on bushes, stockings on trees, butter to come from buttercups, flour to be made of beans, oats to grow on oaks, bread to be swelled yeast, trees to be stuck in the ground by God and to be rootless, meat to 28 The Contents of Children's Minds be dug from the ground, and potatoes to be picked from the trees. Cheese is squeezed butter, the cow says " bow-wow," the pig purrs or burrows, worms are not distinguished from snakes, moss from the "toad's umbrella/' bricks from stones, etc. An oak may be known only as an acorn-tree or a button-tree, a pine only as a needle-tree, a bird's nest only as its bed, etc. So that while no one child has all these misconceptions, none are free from them, and thus the liabilities are great that, in this chaos of half-assimilated impressions, half -right, half-wrong, some lost link may make utter nonsense or mere verbal cram of the most careful in- struction, as in the cases of children referred to above who knew much by rote about a cow, its milk, horns, leather, meat, etc., but yet were sure from the picture- book that it was no bigger than a small mouse. City Life is Unnatural. — For 8G per cent of the above questions the average intelligence of thirty-six country children who were tested ranks higher than that of the city children of the table, and in many items very greatly. The subject-matter of primers for the latter is in great part still traditionally of country life ; hence the danger of unwarranted presupposition is con- siderable. As our methods of teaching grow natural we realize that city life is unnatural, and that those who grow,up without knowing the country are defrauded of that without which childhood can never be complete or normal. On the whole, the material of the city is no doubt inferior in pedagogic value to country experience. A few days in the country at this age has raised the level of many a city child's intelligence more than a term or two of school-training could do without it. It On Entering School. 29 is there, too, that t >f a love of natural science are best lai' Country Life ar lave aC - 1 Value. — "We cannot ^ fications the evolutionary diciu.. development should repeat that of the primitive man, the child has a feeble body, anu it influenced by a higher culture about him. Yet from the primeval intimacy with the qualities and habits of plants, with the instincts of animals — so like those of children — with which hawking and trapping, the riding on instead of some distance behind horses, etc., made men familiar ; from primitive industries and tools as first freshly suggested, if we believe Geiger, from the normal activities of the human organism, especially of the tool of tools, the hand ; from primitive shelter, cooking and clothing, with which anthropological re- searches make us familiar, it is certain that not a few educational elements of great value can be selected and systematized for children — an increasing number of them in fact being already in use for juvenile games and recreations and for the vacation pastimes of adults. A country-barn, a forest with its gloom and awe, its vague fears and indefinite sounds, is a great school at this age. The making of butter, of which some teachers, after . hearing so often that it grew inside eggs, or on ice, or was made from buttermilk, think it worth while to make a thimbleful in a toy churn at school as an object- lesson ; more acquaintance with birds, which, as having the most perfect senses, most constant motion in several elements, even Leopardi could panegyrize as the only real things of joy in the universe, and which the strange power of flight makes ideal beings with children, and 30 The Contents of Children's Minds whose nests were sometimes said to groiv on trees ; more knowledge of kitchen-chemistry, of foods, their preparation and origin ; wide prospects for the eyes — these elements constitute a more pedagogic industrial training for young children, because more free and play- like, than sewing, or cooking, or whittling, or special trade-schools can, and are besides more hygienic. What Advantages the City Child Has, and what He Lacks. — Many children locate all that is good and im- perfectly known in the country, and nearly a dozen volunteered the statement that good people when they die go to the country — even from Boston. It is things that live, and, as it were, detach themselves from their background by moving that catch the eye and with it the attention, and the subjects which occupy and in- terest the city child are mainly in motion and there- fore transient, while the country child comes to know objects at rest better. The country child has more solitude, is likely to develop more independence, and is less likely to be prematurely caught up into the absorb- ing activities and throbbing passions of manhood, and becomes more familiar with the experiences of primi- tive man. The city child knows a little of many more things, and so is more liable to superficiality, and has a wider field of error. At the same time it has two great advantages over the country child, in knowing more of human nature and in entering school with a much better developed sense of rhythm, and all its important implications. On the whole, however, additional force seems thus given to the argument for excursions, by rail or otherwise, regularly provided for the poorer chil- dren who are causing the race to degenerate in the On Entering School. 31 great centres of population, unfavorable enough for those with good homes or even for adults. Words often Produce Distorted Ideas through Re- semblance in Sound. — Words, in connection with rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, cadence, etc., or even without these, simply as sound-pictures, often absorb the atten- tion of children, and yield them a really aesthetic pleasure either quite independently of their meaning or to the utter bewilderment of it. They hear fancied words in noises and sounds of nature and animals, and are persistent punners. As butterflies make butter or eat it or give it by squeezing, so grasshoppers give grass, bees give beads and beans, kittens grow on the pussy-willow, and all honey is from honeysuckles, and even a poplin dress is made of poplar-trees. When the cow lows it somehow blows its own horn ; crows and scarecrows are confounded ; ant has some subtle rela- tionship to aunt ; angle-worm suggests angle, or tri- angle, or ankle ; Martie eats " tomarties ; " a holiday is a day to " holler " on ; Harry O'Neil is nicknamed Harry ' Oatmeal ; isosceles is somehow related to sau- sages; October suggests knocked over ; " I never saw a hawk, but I can hawk and spit too ; " "I will not siug do re mi, but do re you ; " " Miss Eaton will eat us " — these and many more from the questioners' notes ; the story of the child who, puzzled by the unfamiliar re- flexive use of the verb, came to associate " Now I lay me," etc., with a lama ; of the child who wondered what kind of a bear was the consecrated cross-eyed bear as he understood the hymn " The consecrated cross I'd bear ; " or of another who was for years stultified as against a dead blank wall whenever the phrase " answer sought " occurred, suggest to us how, more or less con- 32 The Contents of Children s Minds sciously and more or less seriously, a child may be led, in the absence of corrective experience, to the most fantastic and otherwise unaccountable distortions of facts by shadowy word-spectres or husks. Danger that Knowledge May be Verbal Rather than Real. — In many of the expressions quoted the child seems playing with relations once seriously held, and its " fun " to be joy over but lately broken mental fetters. Some at least of the not infrequently quite un- intelligible statements or answers may perhaps be thus accounted for. Again, the child more than the adult thinks in pictures, gestures, and inarticulate sounds. The distinction between real and verbal knowledge has been carefully and constantly kept in mind by the ques- tioners. Yet of the objects in the above table, except a very few, like triangle and sparrow, a child may be said to know almost nothing, at least for school pur- poses, if he has no generally recognized name for them. The far greater danger is the converse, that only the name and not the thing itself will be known. To test for this danger was, with the exceptions presently to be noted, our constant aim, as it is that of true education to obviate it. The danger, however, is after all quite limited here; for the linguistic imperfections of children are far more often shown in combining words than in naming the concrete things they know or do not know. To name an object is a passion with them, for it is to put their own mark upon it, to appropriate it. From the talk which most children hear and use to book lan- guage is again an immense step. Words live only in the ear and mouth, and are pale and corpse-like when addressed to the eye. What we want, and indeed are likely soon to have, are carefully arranged child vocabu- On Entering School. 33 laries and dictionaries of both verbal forms and mean- ings, to show teachers just the phonic elements and vocal combinations children have most trouble with, — the words they most readily and surely acquire, their number and order in each thought-sphere, — and the attributes and connotations most liable to confuse them. To that work it is believed the method here employed has already furnished valuable material in protocol, soon to be augmented and digested. The Color Test Designed to Determine Power of Using Color-names. — To specify a few items more fully, the four color-questions were designed to test, not color- blindness, but the power to use color-names. The Holmgren worsteds were used, from which the child was asked to pick out, not colors like others to which its attention is directed without naming them, but the color named, to which he has no clue but the name. It did not seem safe to complicate the objects of the latter educational test with the former, so that some of those marked defective in the table may or may not have been color-blind. Excluding colored and Jewish children, both of whom seem to show exceptional percentages, and averaging the sexes, both Magnus and Jeffries found a little over two per cent of many thousand children color-blind. The children they tested, how- ever, were much older than these; and two or three hundred is far too small a number to warrant us, were it otherwise allowable, in simply subtracting two per cent and inferring that the remainder were deficient only in knowledge of the color-word. Our figures, then, do not bear upon the question whether the color- sense itself is fully developed before the age of five or six or not. 34 The Contents of Children's Minds Also in Number Tests, the Number-name was Sought. — Again, number cannot be developed to any practical extent without knowledge of the number-name. More- over, as Wundt's careful experiments show, the eye can apprehend but three of the smallest and simplest objects, unless they are arranged in some geometrical order, without taking additional time to count. As the chro- matic scale grades musical intervals, or the names wc count by graduate the vague sense of more or less, and later, as visible notes change all musical ideas and possi- bilities, so figures or number-signs almost create arith- metic. A child who seriously says a cat has three or five legs will pick out its own, e.g., the fourth seat in the fifth row in an empty school-room almost every time by happy guessing, and hold up "so many" fingers or blocks, when, if the number-name five or six were called for and noth- ing shown, it would be quite confused. In our tests the number-name was sought, because it is that which is mainly serviceable for educational purposes. Physical Self-consciousness and Knowledge of the Earth Small. — As to the physiological and geographical ques- tions little need be said. Joint, flesh, and vein are often unknown terms, or joint is where the bone is broken, and there are stones in the knees. Within the skin is blood and something hard, perhaps wood. Physical self- con- sciousness, which is in little danger of becoming morbid at' this age, begins with recognition of the hand, then of the foot, because these are the most mobile parts, but has not often reached the face at this age, and blushing is rare; while psychic self-consciousness is commonly only of pain, either internal, as of stomach-ache, or peripheral, of cuts, bruises, etc. The world is square, straight, or flat, and if the other side has been thought of it is all On Entering School. 35 woods or water or ice, or where saved people or Protes- tants, or anything much heard of but little seen, are; if we go to the edge of the world we come to water or may fall off, or it may be like a house and we live on top. The first notion of a hill may be of some particular pile of sand, perhaps on the moulding-board, three inches high, or a rubbish-heap in the back-yard, or a slant where a sled will run alone ; but a comprehensive idea of hill with opposite sides, though simpler and easier than most geo- graphical categories, is by no means to be assumed. There is a Region of Fancy in Children's Minds Hard to be Reached. — If children are pressed to answer ques- tions somewhat beyond their ken, they often reply con- fusedly and at random, while if others beside them are questioned they can answer well ; some are bolder and invent things on the spot if they seem to interest the questioner, while others catch quick subtle suggestions from the form of the question, accent, gesture, feature, etc., so that what seems originality is really mind-reading, giving back our very thought, and is sometimes only a direct reproduction, with but little distortion, because little apprehension, of what parents or teachers have lately told them. But there are certain elements which every tactful and experienced friend of children learns to distinguish from each of these with considerable accuracy —elements which, from whatever source, spring from deep roots in the childish heart, as distinct form all these as are Grimm's tales from those of some of our weakly juve- nile weeklies. These are generally not easily accessible. I could not persuade an old nurse to repeat to me a nonsen- sical song I half-overheard that delighted a two-year-old child, and the brothers Grimm experienced a similar dif- ficulty in making their collections. As many workingmen $6 The Contents of Children's Minds nail a horseshoe over their door for luck, and many people really prefer to begin nothing important on Friday, who will not confess to a trace of superstition in either case, so children cling to their "old credulities to nature dear," refusing every attempt to gain their full confidence or explore secret tracts in their minds, as a well-developed system of insane illusions may escape the scrutiny of the most skilful alienist. As a reasoning electric light might honestly doubt the existence of such things as shadows, because, however near or numerous, they are always hid- den from it, so the most intelligent adults quite com- monly fail to recognize sides of their own children's souls which can be seen only by strategy. A boy and girl often play under my window as I write, and when either is quite alone unconscious words often reveal what is passing in their own minds, and it is often very absurd or else mean- ingless, but they run away with shame and even blushes if they chance to look up suddenly and catch me listen- ing. Yet who of us has not secret regions of soul to which no friend is ever admitted, and which we ourselves shrink from full consciousness of? Many children half- believe the doll feels cold or blows, that it pains flowers to tear or burn them, or that in summer when the tree is alive it makes it ache to pound or chop it. Of 48 chil- dren questioned 20 believed sun, moon, or stars to live, 15 thought a doll, and 16 thought flowers would suffer pain if burned. Children who are accounted dull in school- work are more apt to be imaginative and animistic. Children's Fancies — The Sky. — The chief field for such fond and often secret childish fancies is the sky. About three fourths of all questioned thought the world a plain, and many described it as round like a dollar, while the sky is like a flattened bowl turned over it. The sky is On Entering School. 37 often thin, one might easily break through; half the moon may be seen through it, while the other half is tins side; it may be made of snow, but is so large that there is much floor-sweeping to be done in heaven. The Sun.— Some thought the sun went down at night into the ground or just behind certain houses, and went across, on or under the ground to go up, out of, or off the waterm the morning; but 48 per cent of all thought that at night it goes or rolls or flies, is Mown or walks, or God pulls it up higher out of sight. He takes it into heaven, and perhaps puts it to bed, and even takes off its clothes and puts them on in the morning, or again it lies under the trees, where the angels mind it, or goes through and shines on the upper side of the sky, or goes into or behind the moon, as the moon is behind it in the day. It may stay where it is, only we cannot see it; for it is dark, or the dark rams down so, and it comes out when it nets light so it can see. More than half the children ques- tioned conceived the sun as never more than 40 decrees from the zenith, and, naturally enough, city children knew little of the horizon. The Moon.-So the moon (still italicizing where the' exact words of the children are given) conies around when it is a bright night and people want to walk, or forget to hght some lamps; it follows us about and has nose and eyes while it calls the stars into, under, or behind it at night, and they may be made of bits of it. Sometimes the moon is round a month or hoo; then it is a rim, or a piece is cutoff, or it is half stuck or half-buttoned into wie sky. The stars may be sparks from fire-engines or houses or with higher intelligence, they are silver, or God tights them with matches and blows them out or opens the door and calls them in in the morning. Only in a single 38 The Contents of Children s Minds case were any of the heavenly bodies conceived as open- ings in the sky to let light or glory through, or as eyes of supernatural beings — a fancy so often ascribed to chil- dren and so often found in juvenile literature. Thunder and Lightning. — Thunder, which, anthro- pologists tell us, is or represents the highest God to most savage races, was apperceived as God groaning or kick- ing, or rolling barrels about, or turning a big handle, or grinding snow, walking loud, breaking something, throwing logs, having coal run in, pounding about with a big hammer, rattling houses, hitting the clouds, or clouds bumping or clapping together or bursting, or else it was merely ice sliding off lots of houses, or cannon in the city or sky, hard rain down the chimney, or big rocks pounding, or piles of boards falling down, or very hard rain, hail or wind. Lightning is God pulling out His finger or opening a door, or turning a gas quick, or (very common) striking many matches at once, throwing stones and iron for sparks, setting paper afire, or it is light going outside and inside the sky, or stars falling. Clouds and Rain. — God keeps rain in heaven in a big sink, rotes of buckets, a big tub or barrels, and they run over or he lets it down with a water-hose, through a sieve, a dipper with holes, or sprinkles or tips it down or turns a faucet. God makes it in heaven out of nothing or out of water, or gets it up by splashing up, or he dips it up off the roof, or it rains up off the ground lehen we don't see it. The clouds are close to the sky; they move be- cause the earth moves and makes them. They are dirty, muddy things, or blankets, or doors of heaven, and are made of fog, of steam that makes the sun go, of smoke, of white wool or feathers and birds, or lace or cloth. In their changing forms very many children, whose very life On Entering School. 39 is fancy, think they see veritable men, or more commonly, because they have so many more forms, animals' faces, and very often God, Santa Clans, angels, etc., are also seen. Closely connected with the above are the religious concepts so common with children. God and Heaven. — God is a big, perhaps blue man, very often seen in the sky, on or in the clouds, in the church, or even street. He came in our gate, comes to see us sometimes. He lives in a big palace, or a big brick or stone house on the sky. He makes lamps, babies, dogs, trees, money, etc., and the angels ivorkfor Mm. He looks like the priest, Frobel, papa, etc., and they like to look at him, and a few would like to be God. He lights the stars so he can see to go on the sideivalk or into the church. Birds, children, Santa Claus, live with him, and most but not all like him better than they do the latter. When people die they just go, or are put in a hole, or a box or a black wagon that goes to heaven, or they fly up or are drawn or slung up into the sky where God catches them. They never can get out of the hole, and yet all good people somehow get where God is. He lifts them up, they go up on a ladder or rope, or they carry them up, but keep their eyes shut so they do not know the way, or they are shoved up through a hole. When children get there they have candy, rocking-horses, guns, and everything in the toy-shop or picture-book, play marbles, top, ball, cards, hookey, hear brass bands, have nice clothes, gold watches, and pets, ice-cream and soda-water, and no school. There are men who died in the war made into angels, and dolls with broken heads go there. Some think they must go through the church to get there; a few thought the horse- cars run there, and one said that the birds that grow on apple-trees are drawn up there by the moon. The bad 40 The Contents of Children' s Minds place is like an oven or a police-station, where it burns yet is all dark, and folks want to get back, and God hills people or teats them with a cane. God makes babies in heaven, though the holy mother and even Santa Claus make some. He lets them doivn or drops them, and the women or doctors catch them, or he leaves them on the sidewalk, or brings them down a ivooden ladder back- ivards and pulls it up again, or mamma or the doctor or the nurse go up and fetch them sometimes in a balloon, or they fly down and lose off their wings in some place or other and forget it, or jump doion to Jesus, who gives them around. They were also often said to be found in flour-barrels, and the flour sticlcs ever so long you know, or they grow in cabbages, or God puts them in water, perhaps in the sewer, and the doctor gets them out and takes them to sick folks that ivant them, or the milkman brings them early in the morning, they are dug out of the ground, or bought at the baby-store. Sometimes God puts on afeio things or else sends them along if he don't forget it; this shows that no one since Basedow believes in telling children the truth in all things. Such Fancies Dim, Timid, and Changing. — Not many children have or can be made to disclose many such ideas as the above, and indeed they seem to be generally already on the ebb of this age, and are sometimes tim- idly introduced by, as if, some say, it is like, or / used to think. Clear and confident notions on the above topics are the exception and not the rule, yet most have some of them, while some are common to many, indeed to most, children. They represent a drift of consentient infantile philosophy about the universe not without systematic coherence, although intimidated and broken through at every point by fragmentary truths, often On Entering School. 41 only verbal indeed, without insight or realization of a higher order, so that the most diametrical contradictions often subsist peacefully side by side, and yet they are ever forming again at lower levels of age and intelligence. In all that is remote the real and ideal fade into each other like clouds and mountains in the horizon, or as poetry, which keeps alive the standpoints of an earlier culture, coexists with science. Children are often hardly conscious of them at all, and the very questions that bring them to mind and invite them to words at the same time often abash the child to the first disquieting self-consciousness of the absurdity of his fond fancies that have felt not only life but character in natural objects. Between the products of childish spontaneity, where the unmistakable child's mark is seen, and those of really liappij suggestion by parents, etc., the distinc- tion is as hard as anywhere along the line between heredity and tradition. It is enough that these fancies are like Galton's composite portraits, resultants in form and shading of the manifold deepest impressions which what is within and what is without have together made upon the child's soul in these spheres of ideas. They Represent Ever-changing Grades of Culture. — Those indicated above represent many strata of intelli- gence up through which the mind is passing very rapidly and with quite radical transformations. Each stratum was once, with but a little elaboration, or is now some- where, the highest culture, relegated to and arrested in an earlier stage as civilization and educational methods advance. Belief in the false is as necessary as it is inevitable in children for the proper balance of head and heart, and happy the child who has believed or loved only healthy, unaffected, platonic lies like the 42 The Contents of Children s Minds above, which will be shed with its milk-teeth when more solid mental pabulum can be digested. It is possible that the present shall be so attractive and preoccupying that the child never once sends his thoughts to the remote in time and place, and these baby-fancies — ever ready to form at a touch, which make the im- partation of truth, however carefully put, on these themes impossible before its time; which, when long forgotten, yet often reverberate, if their old chords be struck in adults, to the intensity of fanaticism or even delusion — shall be quite repressed. If so, one of the best elements of education which comes from long ex- perience in laying aside a lower for a higher phase of culture by doubting opportunely, judiciously, and tem- perately, is lost. Childish Thought Largely in Terms of Sight. — De Quincey's pseudopia is thought by Dr. E. H. Clarke (Visions, p. 212) to be common with children; but although about 40 were asked to describe what they saw with their eyes shut, it is impossible to judge whether they visualize in any such distinctive sense as Mr. Galton lias described, or only imagine and remember, often with Homeric circumstance, but with less pictu- resque vividness. Childish thought is very largely in visual terms; hence the need of object (Anschauungs) lessons, and hence, too, it comes that most of the above questions address the eye without any such intent. If phonic symbols could be made pictorial, as they were originally, and as illustrated primers made them in a third and still remoter sense, the irrational elements in learning to read would be largely obviated. Sensations of Sound Referred to Color. — Again, out of 53 children 21 described the tones of certain instruments On Entering School. 43 as colored." The colors, or " photisms," thus suggested, though so far as tested constant from week to week in the same child, had no agreement for different instru- ments, a drum, e.g., suggesting yellow (the favorite color of children) to one child and black or red to another, and the tone of a fife being described as pale or bright, light or dark colored, intensity and saturation varying greatly with different children. For this and other forms of association or analogies of sensations of a large and not yet explored class so common in children, many data for future study were gathered. This was also the case with their powers of time and tone reproduction, and their common errors in articulation, which have suggested other and more detailed researches, some of which are already in progress. Ideas of Right and Wrong — The Latter much more Distinct. — Each child was asked to name three things right and three things wrong to do, and nearly half could do so. In no case were the two confused, indicat- ing not necessarily intuitive perception, but a general consensus in what is allowed and forbidden children at home, and how much better and more surely they learn to do than to know. Wrong things were speci- fied much more readily and by more children than right things, and also in much greater variety. In about 450 answers 53 wrong acts are specified, while in over 350 answers only M different good acts are named. The more frequent answers are to mind and be good, or to dis- obey, be naughty, lie, and say bad words; but the answers 1 In the sense of Blenlcr and Lehmann. See their treatise " Zwangmiissige Liehtempfinduug dureh Schall," Leipzig, 1881. Also, Lazarus' "Leben der Seele," II., p. 131. 44 The Contents of Children s Minds of the girls differ from the boys in two marked ways; they more often name specific acts and nearly twice as often conventional ones, the former difference being most common in naming right, the latter in naming wrong things. Boys say it is wrong to steal, fight, kick, break windows, get drank, stick pins into others, or to "sass," " cuss," shoot them, while girls are more apt to say it is wrong not to comb the hair, to get butter on the dress, climb trees, unfold the hands, cry, catch flies, etc. The right things seem, it must be confessed, comparatively very tame and unattractive, and while the genius of an Aristotle could hardly extract categories or infer in- tuitions by classifications from either list, it is very manifest that the lower strata of conscience are dislike of dirt and fear. Pure intuitionalists may like to know that over a dozen children were found who convinced their questioners that they thought they ought not to say bad words if no one heard them, or lie if not found out, etc., or who felt sick at the stomach when they had been bad, but the soap and water or sand with which their mouths are sometimes washed after bad words in kindergartens, or the red pepper administered at home after lies, may possibly have something to do with the latter phenomenon. Drawings Illustrating Development of Observation and of Sense of Form. — From several hundred drawings, with the name given them by the child written by the teacher, the chief difference inferred is in concentration. Some make faint, hasty lines representing all the furniture of a room, or sky and stars, or all the objects they can think of, while others concentrate upon a single object. It is a girl with buttons, a house with a keyhole or steps, a man with a pi$e or heels or ring grotesquely promi- On Entering School. . 45 nent. The development of observation and sense of form is best seen in the pictures of men. The earliest and simplest representation is a round head, two eyes and legs. Later comes mouth, then nose, then hair, then ears. Arms like legs first grow directly from the head, rarely from the legs, and are seldom fingerless, though sometimes it is doubtful whether several arms or fingers from head and legs without arms are meant. Of 44 human heads only 9 are in profile. This is one of the many analogies with the rock and cave drawings of primitive man, and suggests how Catlin came to nearly lose his life by " leaving out the other half " in drawing a profile portrait of an Indian chief. Last, as least mobile and thus attracting least attention, comes the body; first round like the head, then elongated, some- times prodigiously, and sometimes articulated into sev- eral compartments, and in three cases divided, the upper part of the figure being in one place and the lower in another. The mind, and not the eye alone, is addressed, for the body is drawn and then the clothes are drawn on it (as the child dresses), diaphanous and only in outline. Most draw living objects except the kindergarten chil- dren, who draw their patterns. More than two thirds of all objects are decidedly in action, and under 18 per cent are added word-pictures or scribbles called the name of the objects and made to imitate writing or letters, as children who cannot talk often make gibbering, sputtering sounds to imitate talking. The very earliest pencillings, commonly of three-year-old children, are mere marks to and fro, often nearly in the same line. Of 13 of these most were nearly in the angle described by Javal as corresponding to the earliest combination of 46 The Contents of Children's Minds finger and fore-arm movements and not far from the regulation slant of 52° taught in school penmanship. Reproduction of Stories, Showing Considerable Power of Abstraction. — Each child was asked to tell a verse or story to be recorded verbatim, and nearly half could do so. Children of this age are no longer interested in mere animal noises or rhymes or nonsense-words of the "Mother Goose" order, but everything to interest them deeply must have a cat, dog, bird, baby, another child, or possibly parent or teacher in it; must be dramatic and full of action, appeal to the eye as a " chalk-talk " or an object-lesson, and be copious of details, which need be varied but slightly to make the story as good as new for the twentieth time. A long gradation of abstractions culminates here. First, it is a great lesson for the child to eliminate touch and recognize objects by the eye alone. The first good pictures mentally seen are felt of, turned over with much confusion to find the surface smooth. To abstract from visual terms to words is still harder. Eyes and tongue must work together a long time before the former can be eliminated and stories told of objects first absent, then remote, then before un- known. Children must be far beyond this before they can be interested, e. g., in fairly tales, and stories told in- terest them far more than if read to them, no matter how apt the language. They are reproduced about as imperfectly as objects are drawn, only a few salient and disconnected points being seized at first, and sentence and sequence coming very slowly after many repetitions. Their own little faults may be woven in or ascribed to animals or even plants in a remote way which they them- selves will feel at each stage, and the selfish birdie or the On Entering School. 47 runaway squirrel or flowers as kind words may be re- ferred to in case of need as a reserve moral capital. Why do we never teach maxims and proverbs which, when carefully selected, are found so effective at this age and teach the best morality embodied in the briefest and most impressive way? Ideas of Money. — Of the 36 per cent or 72 children of the table who never saved their pennies, 52 spend them for candy, which growing children need, but the adulter- ations of which are often noxious. Of toys, big things please them best. A recent writer in Austria fears that school savings-banks tend to call attention too early to money matters, and to cause its value to be dangerously overrated ; but to pass the candy by and drop the cents where they are beyond their control for years is much less pedagogic than to save them till a larger and more costly toy can be bought. Tests to Find Basis of First School Instruction — Devel- opment, not Acquisition. — The next experimental in- quiry i in the field was also made in quest of a natural basis of the first school instruction. If we look at the develop- ing effect upon the person of the pupil, progress in the upper gymnasial classes is perhaps less than in the first year of school, although, if we regard the quantity of acquisition or its importance, it is much greater. That the matter of instruction is preferred to the develop- ment of the person of the pupil is the cause of the mem- ory-cram and neglect of pedagogy, which often makes school-keeping, as Grimm called it, lower than the work of the day laborer. Herbart, Ziller, and Stoy, however, 1 Die Analyse des Kindlichen Gedankeiikreises, Dr. B. Hart- uianu. Auuaberg, 1890, p. 116. 48 The Contents of Children's Minds plead for " educating instruction," and showed will to be rooted in the sphere of thought, which should first be moral and religious. Many-sided interest is the root and key of all. Interest may be of knowledge or of perception, and statistical inquiry might seek to deter- mine which class of interests predominate, and whether reproduction was slow, confused, partial, or the reverse. The Berlin tables showed what ideas were lacking, but Lange sought the ideas that were not lacking as a basis of school knowledge. The child's soul is no tabula rasa, and very suggestive are papers on the best methods of excursions for city schools, on the educational value and use of home and its environment and apperception. Tests in Annaberg Schools to Determine Natural Basis of Two First Years' Course. — Hartmann's tests were made solely, he says, in the interests of the Annaberg schools, to determine the natural basis of the course of study there for the first year or two of school. The 14 plainer questions were not enough, and he had not heard of the Boston tests, and so those of Berlin were largely his model. His tests were better than all others in one re- spect, viz., they were repeated five years, 1880-84, on as many groups of children entering school, and they have given rise to analogous tests in other cities, best perhaps in Dobeln. For Hartmanir's purpose a large number of questions were needed, and interests of knowledge must be regarded more than those of sympathy or participa- tion. To an Herbartian the former seems earlier and richer, but the ideal of normalizing a sphere of thought is evident. Concepts likely to be wanting in children of that town were excluded in favor of those easily ac- cessible to every child, yet those chosen were not model On Entering School, 49 or normal in the sense that often others as good might not have been chosen. The flying, singing lark may be seen every day in spring at Annaberg, and if it has not been noticed, the child may be inert and indifferent, or its senses dull or defective, and this would also be the inference had the swallow been chosen. By this method each locality will find objects especially prominent and peculiar to it. A book by E. Piltz, entitled " School- children's Observation of Nature," and Sigismund's "The Family as a School of Nature," contain good lists of topics (the former 700 of them) and reports from similar tests. As a manufacturing centre of passemen- terie, and a shire town and retail centre, Annaberg has rich and poor, and its prosperity depends on changes in fashions, so that the 265 children entering its schools yearly differ greatly. Some children were very bashful on first entering school, used to only the local dialect, which most teachers did not speak, but by beginning with the easiest questions and talking of parents and toys, these difficulties were minimized. Thus answers were often enigmatical, and much cross and indirect questioning was required before the dash which signi- fied knowledge on the point, or the plus sign which signified its absence, could be made. In all 1312 chil- dren, 660 boys and 652 girls, were tested, all between 6f and 5| years old, the tests being made before and after regular school-hours, by the teacher, who worked with small groups and made them answer individually when possible. The table below reads as follows : out of 660 boys en- tering schools in Annaberg, 1881-4, 126, or 19 per cent, had seen a wild hare, etc. 50 The Contents of Children's Minds Percentage of Knowledge of 100 Familiar Objects Arranged in Groups. xr^ r.,,™™ 660 652 1312 Percentages. No. Object. Boys Girls in all Boys GMa gum 1. Hare, 126 81 207 19 12 1G 2. Squirrel, 99 69 168 15 10 13 3. Flock of sheep, . . 235 198 433 36 30 33 4. Starling, 85 68 153 13 10 12 5. Goose, 272 250 522 41 38 40 6. Hen 195 178 373 30 27 28 7. Cuckoo, 69 88 157 10 13 12 8. Lark, 76 83 159 12 13 12 9. Frog, 188 126 314 29 19 24 10. Fish,, 141 122 263 21 19 20 11. Bee 75 46 121 11 7 9 12. Butterfly, .... 287 302 649 44 55 49 13. Snail 210 201 411 32 31 31 14. Birch, 33 10 43 5 2 3 15. Pine, 145 148 293 22 23 22 16. Acorn 17 11 28 ' 3 2 2 17. Cherry-tree, .... 83 138 221 13 21 17 18. Apple-tree, .... 208 219 427 31 34 33 19. Hazel-nut 78 42 120 12 6 9 20. Flowers, 322 317 639 49 49 49 21. Whortleberry, . . .158 193 351 24 29 27 22. Moss, 130 107 237 20 16 18 23. Mushroom, .... 113 165 278 17 25 21 24. Sandpit, 58 37 95 9 6 7 25. Quarry, 121 105 226 18 16 17 26. Mine, 41 33 74 6 5 6 27. Tempest, 363 424 787 55 65 59 28. Fog, 186 246 432 28 38 33 29. Clouds, 266 293 559 40 45 42 30. Hailstones, .... 307 315 622 46 48 47 31. Rainbow 226 264 490 34 40 37 32. 'Evening sky, ... 119 166 285 18 25 22 33. Sunset, 82 77 159 12 12 12 34. Phases of moon, . .148 223 371 22 34 28 35. Starry sky 349 466 815 53 71 62 86. Clock (time), ... 27 18 45 4 3 3 37. Days of week, . . . 54 92 146 8 14 11 38. Seasons, 37 64 101 6 10 8 39. Constellations, ... 4 1 5 1 1 40. Dwelling, .... 543 503 1046 82 77 80 41. ZurckerSq., . . .346 328 674 52 50 51 42. Chief market, ... 471 452 923 71 69 70 On Entering School. Si No. Object. 43. Buchholzer St., 44. Real Gymnasium, 45. Berg church, . 46. Catholic church, 47. Town Hall, . . 48. Post-office, . . 49. R. R. station, . 50 Bahls Restaurant, 51. Nursery- tree, . 53. Markus-Rohling old mine), 53. Promenade, . . 54. Grove, . . . 55. Church-yard, . 56. Pohlberg, . . 57. Galgenberg, . . 58. Schreckeuberg, 59. Buchheltz, . . 60. Frohuau, . . 61. Wiesenbad, . . 63. Geyersdorf, . . 63. Valley, . . . 64. River 65. Bridge, . . . 66. Water-mills, . 67. Pond, .... 68. Meadow, . . . 69. Corn-field, . . 70. Potato-field, . . 71. Snow landscape, 73. Village, . . . 73. Soldiers' monument 74. Fountain, . . 75. Caniage driving, 76. Road, .... 77. Field-works, . 78. Garden-works, . 79. Acute-angled Irian 80. Square, . . . 81. Cube, .... 83. Circle, . . . 83. Sphere or globe, 84. Counting from 1 to 85. God, . . . 8o. Jesus, . . . (an H), 660 652 1312 Percentaors. Boys. GUIs. in all. Boys. Girls. Sum. . 378 381 559 43 43 43 . 133 164 397 20 35 23 . 310 330 430 33 34 33 . 331 337 468 35 36 36 . 430 403 833 65 63 63 . 397 344 641 45 53 49 . 418 433 851 63 66 65 . 167 189 356 25 29 27 . 163 180 343 25 27 26 i . 193 267 460 29 41 35 . 338 293 530 35 45 40 . 173 253 435 26 39 33 . 394 469 863 60 72 66 . 317 244 461 33 37 35 89 89 178 13 13 13 117 112 339 18 17 17 383 329 611 43 50 47 164 336 390 25 35 30 131 159 380 18 34 31 139 300 339 21 31 26 51 59 110 8 9 8 150 157 307 23 24 23 383 358 540 43 39 41 153 151 303 23 23 23 434 490 934 66 75 70 350 318 468 38 33 36 183 111 394 28 17 22 345 358 703 52 55 54 389 363 551 44 40 42 158 175 333 24 27 25 136 316 27 21 24 397 394 791 60 60 60 3:53 363 694 50 55 53 300 346 646 45 53 49 350 181 431 38 28 33 313 311 434 32 32 33 63 66 138 9 10 10 101 90 191 15 14 15 314 393 507 32 45 39 380 384 564 43 43 43 546 510 1056 83 78 80 456 405 861 69 63 66 370 401 771 56 61 59 68 143 310 10 22 16 52 The Contents of Children's Minds Kn Onwr 660 652 1312 PERCENTAGES. JNO. OBJECT. BoySi Girlg hl alL Boys# Girlg gula 87. Bible history, ... 7 14 21 1 2 2 88. Prayers and Son^s, .122 184 306 28 28 23 89. Divine service, . . . 192 223 415 19 34 32 90. Baptism, 118 228 346 18 35 26 91. Wedding, .... 70 227 297 11 35 23 92. Father's name and sta- tion, 425 370 795 64 57 61 93. King 52 42 94 8 6 7 94. Coins, 450 398 848 68 61 65 96. Sickness 356 406 762 54 62 58 96. Fairytales, .... 32 39 71 5 6 5 97. Repetition in speakiug, 480 426 906 73 65 69 98. Recitation 68 62 130 10 9 10 99. Repetition in singing, 226 243 469 34 37 36 100. To sing songs, . . 102 161 263 15 25 20 By Inspection of Results, the Mental Ability of Each Child can be Predicted. — The objects, it will be observed, are here arranged in groups as follows: Animals 1-13, plants 14-23, mineral 24-26, events in nature 27-35, time 36-39, localities 40-51, the home landscape 52-78, mathematical 79-84, religious 85-91, social 94-94, mis- cellaneous 95-100. Of the children tested the first year the individual record of a few was followed and given with detail. A boy who passed on 75 out of the 100 showed an excellent record each year. He had a large vocabulary, yet would repeat a story with fidelity to the words it was told in that was almost servile. He Avas better in sharp thought than in fantasy. A girl was deficient in all groups and almost zero in some, having only 41 per cent of the questions, and a boy had but 12 of the 100 usable concepts. The school marks and the carefully kept individuality-books in these and other cases corresponded very nearly to the efficiency shown in the preliminary tests. Not only do the latter harmonize with following school-years, but Hartmann thinks that from a careful inspection of the results of On Entering School. 53 each group into which the 100 questions fall the mental ability if not the future career of the child can be pre- dicted. What shall be said, he adds, of the waste of the general public school in which all three of these children are taught side by side in the same class ? Proofs of the Value of these Tests to Determine In- dividuality. — In this inventory great stress was laid upon the natural setting of each object. The ques- tioners were told that it was not sufficient to have seen, but they must have ridden on the cars, the apple-tree must have had apples on it, the butterfly must have been on the flower, the sheep grazing, the frog spring- ing, etc. One of these concepts was known to but five, and one to 1056 of the 1312 children, and the others were between these extremes. In animals, minerals, and the social group only did boys excel. Girls excelled in 56 and boys in 38 objects. Girls excelled the boys in their marks also in the first, second, and third school- year, but less and less, till in the sixth year the boys were distinctly ahead. Again, on entering the usual elementary school, each boy had on the average 30.7 of the 100 concepts, and each girl 36.7. At the end of the first school-year the boys had an average mark of prog- ress of 3.03, and each girl 2.53. Thus we can form the proportion, 36.7 : 30.7 = 30.3 : x, which gives, as the value of its fourth term, 2.535, which varies only 0.005 from the actual mark of the girls. For each of the next three years the deviation is hardly greater. The product of the number of concepts multiplied by the chief school- mark in Germany which designates progress comes out about the same in girls' as in boys' classes. Out of the 100 usable concepts the average girl had 32.9, the aver- age boy 30.8. The average Annaberg number, 31.9, is 54 The Contents of Children's Minds thus small. So valuable were these tests for determin- ing the individuality of the child, for the program and for the teachers that at Easter either the entire hundred, or at least the best 30 questions, are tested each year. These are the following: hare, hen, frog, butterfly, fir- tree, flower, thunderstorm, rainbow, moon-phases, days of the week, child's home, city-hall, railway station, potato-field, snow landscape, cube, numbers, work in the field, baptism, coins, sickness, God, Jesus, and local- ities. In the practice school of the Pedagogical Semi- nary at Jena, each school-year begins with this analysis of the children's sphere of thought. The Use of Stories to Develop Apperception. — The complete course of study for the first and second school- year based upon his inquest the author reserves for a later pamphlet, and gives here only an outline of his ideas. Nothing fulfils all the conditions of Herbartian interest at first better than Bible stories; but only 25 per cent of the children have usable Bible concepts, and their apperceptive organs are hardly developed enough to make this fruitful. Genuine child stories, according to Willmann, must have five marks, viz., they must be really child-like or simple and full of fancy, they must excite and educate the mental judgment, must be in- structive and of permanent worth, they must make a deep unitary impression which shall be a centre of future interest. It must thus be popular and classical. Hartmann thanks God that this demand can be met by the Grimm Mdrclien. Since Ziller's first plea for Miir- chen in school nearly a quarter of a century ago, the battle about them has raged. Hartmann disagrees with Ziller and Rein in thinking that four of these are enough for the first school-year, and feed all the Herbartiaii in- On Entering School. 55 terests. The Star Dollars, which teaches that although, all desert the child there is One that does not, comes last. Eein is charged with selecting his twelve tales arbitrarily, without the justification which only such a preliminary inquest can give, or else for external reasons, as basis for instruction in natural history, etc. Hartmann's limited use of Mcirchen should not only educate religious and other sentiments, but it should teach to apprehend and to tell again. Bible Stories Best. — After this practice for half a year Bible stories should come. The New Testament should precede the Old, and all should centre about the Jesus child. To fail of insuring close intimacy with Bible tales in early childhood is, we are told, one of the gravest of all pedagogical errors. The topic of this half-year should be the nativity, the visit of the three wise men, Jesus in the temple, the wedding at Cana, the boy at Nain, the entrance to Jerusalem, the arrest of Jesus, his condemnation, death, and burial. This plan has been followed in close connection with the church- year in Annaberg, and with the best results. Even for narrative and educational values this has excelled all other material. This matter must be so treated as to evoke the greatest interest and participation, and never at the same part of the year as the Marclien. Keligious instruction should thus be the chief and central. It should select the matter and all it requires without reference to other branches, and in this sense only they should all be subordinate to it. The last sixteen pages are given to an outline or program for each of the 40 full school-weeks of the German school-year. This is divided as narrative matter and object-lesson matter. The first begins with a brief prayer and song, the first 56 The Contents of Children's Minds Marchen in the third week, and new and longer songs, prayers and tales, then proverbs and poems with Bible tales the last half-year. The second begins with name, place in school, time, school-days, movements, with use of slate, sponge and pencil in the second week, each child's home, street, parents' name, home-life, fence, hedge, flowers, animals and birds seen on the way, garden tools, planting and sowing, riddles, drawing, then writing and reckoning, etc. Every object in the table is gone over with detail and many more. They draw dog-houses, bird-cages, mouse-trap, spider's web, hat, lamp, stove, moon, star, cat, dish, sled, church, altar, Christmas-tree, knife and fork, wine-bottle and glass, bed, tea-cup and pot, hat, cap, gravestone, street- lamp, city-hall, book-case, slate, etc. The Best Educational Periodicals. The School Journal is published weekly at $2.50 a year and is in its 23rd year. It is the oldest, best known and widest circulated educational weekly in the U. S. The Journal is filled with ideas that will surely advance the teachers' conception of education. The best brain work on the work of professional teaching is found in it — not theoretical essays, nor pieces scissored out of other journals — The School Journal has its own special writers — - the ablest in the world. The Primary School Journal is published monthly from September to June at $1.00 a year. It is the ideal paper for primary teachers, being devoted almost exclusively to original primary methods and devices. Several entirely new features this year of great value. The Teachers' Institute is published monthly, at $1.00 a year. It is edited in the same spirit and from the same standpoint as The Journal, and has ever since it was started in 1878 been the most popular educa- tional monthly published, circulating in every state. Every line is to the point. It is finely printed and crowded with illustra- tions made specially for it. Every study taught by the teacher is covered in each issue. EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS. This is not a paper, but a series of small monthly volumes that bear on Professional Teaching. It is useful for those who want to study the foundations of education ; for Normal Schools, Training Classes, Teachers' Institutes and individual teachers. If you desire to teach professionally you will want it. Hand- some paper covers, 64pp. each month. The History, Science, Methods, and Civics of education are discussed each month, and it also contains all of the N. Y. State Examination Ques- tions and Answers. OUR TIMES gives a resume of the important news of the month— not the murders, the scandals, etc., but the news that bears upon the progress of the world and specially written for the school room. It is the brightest and best edited paper of current events pub- lished, and so cheap that it can be afforded by every pupil. Club rates, 25 cents. *** Select the paper suited to your needs and send for a free sample. Samples of all the papers 25 cents. E. L. KELLOGG & CO. , New York and Chicago. 8est Books for Teachers, CLASSIFIED LIST UNDER SUBJECTS. To aid teachers to procure the books best suited to their purpose, we fc i ve below a list of our publications classified UDder subjects. The division is sometimes a difficult one to make, so that we Have in many cases placed the same book under several titles; for instance, Currie's Early Education appears under Principles and Practice of Education, and also Primary Education. Recent books are starred, thus * HISTORY OF EDUCATION, GREAT EDU- _, . , our By n» T A-D« -pmA Retail. Price to Mail CAXOits, Jilt,. Teachers Extra ♦Allen's Historic Outlines of Education, - - paper .15 pd. Autobiography of Proebel, - cl. .50 .40 ,05 'Browning's Aspects of Education Best edition. cloth .#> .20 .03 44 Educational Theories. Best edition. cl. .50 .40 .05 •Kell ljrg's Life of Pestalozzi, - paper .15 pd. ♦Lang's Comenius, ______ paper .15 pd. * 44 Basedow, _--_--_ paper .15 pd. * 41 Rousseau and his 44 Emile" - paper .15 pd. * " Horace Mann, ------ paper .15 pd. * " Great Teachers of Four Centuries, - cl. .25 .20 .03 ♦Phelps' Lite of David P. Page, - paper .15 pd. Quick's Educational Reformers, Best edition. - cl. 1.00 .80 .08 ♦Ueinhart's History of Education, - cl. .35 .*0 .03 PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION Allen's Mind Studies for Young Teachers, - cl. .50 .40 .05 Allen's Temperament in Education, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 Perez's First Three Years of Childhood. Best edition, cl. 1.50 1.20 .10 Hooper's Apperception, Best edition. - - cl. .25 .20 .03 Welch's Teachers' Psychology, - cl. 1.25 1.00 .10 44 Talks on Psychology, - - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION Carter's Artificial Stupidity in School, - - paper .15 pd. Huntington's Unconscious Tuition, - - - paper .15 pd. Payne's Lectures on Science and Art of Education, cl. 1.00 .80 .08 ♦Ueinhart's Principles of Education, - - - cl. .25 .20 .03 ♦Spencer's Education. Best edition. - - - cl. 1.00 .80 .10 ♦Hall (G. S.) Contents of Children's Minds, - cl. .25 .20 3 Tat e's Philosophy of Education. Best edition. - cl. 1.50 1.20 ,10 ♦Teachers' Manual Series. 22 nos. ready, each, paper .15 pd. PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION Currie's Early Education, ----- cl. 1.25 1.00 .08 Fitch's Art of Questioning, ----- paper .15 pd 44 Art of Securing Attention - paper .15 pd. 44 Lectures on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 pd. Hughes' Mistakes in Teaching. Best edition. - cl. .50 .40 .05 44 Securing and Retaining Attention, Bested, cl. .50 .40 .05 ♦Parker's Talks on Pedagogy. Beady Nov. '93. cl. 1.50 1.20 .12 44 ' Talks on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 .09 44 Practical Teacher, ----- cl. 1.50 1.20 .14 Quick's How to Train the Memory, - paper .15 pd. ♦Reinhart's Principles of Education, - - cl. .15 pd. * " Civics m Education, - cl. .25 .20 .03 Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching, - - cl. .75 .«0 .05 Yonge's Practical Work in School, - paper .15 pd. METHODS AND SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. ♦Augsburg's Easy Drawings for Geog. diss, - paper .50 .40 .05 44 Easy Things to Draw, - - - paper .30 .24 .03 Calkins' Ear and Voice Training, - cl. .50 .40 .05 Dewey's How to Teach Manners, - cl. .50 .40 .05 Gladstone's Object Teaching, - paper .15 pd. Hughes' How to Keep Order, - paper .15 pd. Johnson's Education by Doing, - cl. .50 .40 .05 ♦Kellogg's How to Write Compositions - - paper 15 pd. 44 Geography by Map Drawing. - - cl. .HO .40 .05 44 School Management. - cl. .75 .go .05 McMnrry's How to Conduct the Recitation, - paper .ir> pd. Patridge's Quincy Methods, Illustrated. - - cl. 1.75 1.40 .13 i-eeley's Grube Method Teaching Arithmetic, cl. 1.00 .80 .07 " G rube Idea in Teaching Arithmetic - cl. .30 .24 .03 Sidgwick's .stimulus in School, - - paper .15 pd. Shaw and Donnell's School Devices, - - cl. 1.25 1.00 .10 Smith's Rapid Practice Cards, - - - 32 sets, each .50 WoodhulPs Easy Experiments in Science, - cl. .50 .40 .05 " Home Made Apparatus, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 PRIMARY AND KINDERGARTEN Calkins' Ear and Voice Training, - cl. .50 .40 ,05 Currie's Early Education, ----- e l. 1.25 1.00 .08 Gladstone's Object Teaching, - paper .15 pd. Autobiography of Froebel, - cl. .50 .40 .05 Hoffman's Kindergarten Gifts, - - - - paper .15 pd. Johnson'd Education by Doing, - cl. .50 .40 .05 Parker's Talks on Teaching, - cl. 1.25 1.00 .09 Patridge's Quincy Methods, - cl. 1.75 1.40 .13 Seeley's Grube Method of Teaching Arithmetic, d. 1.00 .80 .07 Grube Idea in Primr.ry Arithmetic, - cl. .30 .24 .03 MANUAL TRAINING Cutler's Argument for Manual Training, - - paper .15 pd. Love's Industrial Education, - cl. 1.50 1.20 .12 ♦Upham's Fifty Lessons in Woodworking, - cl. .50 .40 .05 QUESTION BOOKS FOR TEACHERS Analytical Question Series. Geography, - - cl. .50 .40 .05 U. S. History, - cl. .50 .40 .05 " Grammar, - - cl. .50 .40 .05 N. T. State Examination Questions, - cl. 1.00 .80 .08 Shaw's National Question Book, - 1.75 pd. Southwick's Handy Helps, ----- cl. 1.00 .80 .08 Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching. Best edition, cl. .75 .60 .05 PHYSICAL EDUCATION and SCHOOL HYGIENE Groff's School Hygiene, - paper .15 pd. MISCELLANEOUS ♦Blaikie On Self Culture, ----- cl. .25 .20 .03 Fitch's Improvement in Education, - - - paper .15 pd. Gardner's Town and Country School Buildings, cl. 2.50 2.00 .12 Lubbock's Best 100 Books, ----- paper .*0 pd. Pooler's N. Y. School Law, ----- cl. .30 .24 .03 *Walsh's Great Rulers of the World, - cl. .50 .40 .05 Wilhelm's Student's Calendar, - paper .30 .24 .03 SINGING AND DIALOGUE BOOKS Reception Day Series, 6 Nos. (Set SI. 40 postpaid.) Each. .30 .24 .03 Song Treasures. _______ paper .15 pd. *Best Primary Songs, new ------- .15 pd. SCHOOL APPARATUS Smith's Rapid Practice Arithmetic Cards, (32 sets). Each, .50 pd. "Standard " Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) Price on application. "Man Wonderlui" Manikin, - 5.00 pd. Standard Blackboard Stencils, 500 different nos., from 5 to 50 cents each. Send for special catalogue. " Unique" Pencil Sharpener, - 1.50 .10 Standard Physician's Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) JJ5?~ 100 page classified, illustrated, descriptive Catalogue of the above and many other Method Books, Teachers' Helps, sent free. 100 puge Cat- lot?uo of books for teachers, of all publishers, light school apparatus, etc. also free. Each of these contain our special teachers' prices. E. L. KELLOGG & CO., New York & Chicago. Bi SEND ALL ORDEUS TO E. L. KELLOGG <& CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. WHAT EACH NUMBER CONTAINS. No. 1 Is a specially fine number. One dia- logue in it, called " Work Conquers," for 11 girls and 6 boys, has been given hundreds of times, and is alone worth the price of the book. Then there are 21 other dialogues. 29 Recitations. 14 Declamations. 17 Pieces for the Primary Class. No. 2 Contains 29 Recitations. 12 Declamations. 17 Dialogues. 24 Pieces for the Primary Class. And for Class Exercise as follows: The Bird's Party. Indian Names. Valedictory. Washington's Birthday. Garfield Memorial Day. Grant " " Whittier " Sigourney " " No. 3 Contains Fewer of the longer pieces and more of the shorter, as follows : 18 Declamations. 21 Recitations. 22 Dialogues. 24 Pieces for the Primary Class. A Christmas Exercise. Opening Ptece, and An Historical Celebration. No. 4 Contains Campbell Memorial Day. Longfellow " " Michael Angelo " " Shakespeare " " Washington " " Christmas Exercise. Arbor Day " New Planting " Thanksgiving k * Value of Knowledge Exercise. Also 8 other Dialogues. 21 Recitations. 23 Declamations. No. 5 Contains Browning Memorial Day. Autumn Exercise. Bryant Memorial Day. New Planting Exercise. Christmas Exercise. A Concert Exercise. 24 Other Dialogues. 16 Declamations, and 36 Recitations. No. 6 Contains Spring; a flower exercise for very young pupils. Emerson Memorial Day. New Year's Day Exercise. Holmes' Memorial Day. Fourth of July Exercise. Shakespeare Memorial Day. Washington's Birthday Exercise. Also 6 other Dialogues. G Declamations. 41 Recitations. 15 Recitations for the Primary Class. And 4 Songs. Our Reception Day Series is not sold largely by booksellers, who, if they do not keep it, try to have you buy something else similar, but not so good. Therefore send direct to the publishers, by mail, the price as above, in stamps or postal notes, and your order will be filled at once. Discount for quantities. SPECIAL OFFER. If ordered at one time, we will send postpaid the entire 6 Nos. for $1.40. Kote the reduction. SEND ALL ORDERS TO E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 29 Reception Day. 6 &( os. A collection of fresh and original dialogues, recitations, declamations, and short pieces for practical use in Public and Private Schools. Bound in handsome, new paper cover, 160 pages each, printed on laid paper. Price 30 cents each ; to teachers, 24 cents ; by mail, 3 cents extra. The exercises in these books bear upon education ; have a relation to the school-room. 1. The dialogues, recitations, and declamations, gathered is» *. J :5M tllis volume being fresh, short, ^r^St^WM eas y to be comprehended and are well fitted for the average scholars of our schools. 2. They have mainly been used by teachers for actual school exercises. 3. They cover a different ground from the speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero — which are unfitted for boys of twelve to sixteen years of age. 4. They have some practical interest for those who use them. 5. There is not a vicious sentence uttered. In some dialogue books profanity is found, or disobedience to new cover. parents encouraged, or lying laughed at. Let teachers look out for this. 6. There is something for the youngest pupils. 7. " Memorial Day Exercises " for Bryant, Garfield, Lincoln, etc., will be found. 8. Several Tree Planting exercises are included. 9. The exercises have relation to the school-room and bear upon education. 10. An important point is the freshness of these pieces. Most of them were written expressly for this collection, and can be found nowhere else. Boston Journal of Education.— "Is of practical value." Detroit Free Press.—" Suitable for public and private schools." Western Ed. Journal.— " A serie s of very good selections." SEND ALL ORDERS TO K L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. Analytical Questions Series. No. 1. GEOGRAPHY. 126 pp. No. 2. HISTORY OP THE UNITED STATES. 108 pp. No. 3. GRAMMAR. 104 pp. Price 50c. each; to teachers, 40c; by mail, 5c. extra. The three for $1.20, postpaid. Each complete icith answers. This new series of question-books is prepared for teachers by a teacher of high standing and wide experi- ence. Every possible advantage in arrangement of other books was adopted in these, and several very important new ones added. The most important is the GRADING OF QUESTIONS into three grades, thus enabling the teacher to advance in her knowledge by easy steps. THE ANALYTICAL FEATURE is also prominent — the questions being divided into paragraphs of ten each, under its appropriate heading. TYPOGRAPHY AND BINDING. Type is clear and large, and printing and paper the very best, while the binding is in our usual tasteful and durable style, in cloth. The books are well adapted for use in schools where a compact general review of the whole subject is de- sired. The answers have been written out in full and complete statements, and have been separated from the body of the questions with a view of enforcing and fa- cilitating the most profitable study of the subject. The author has asked every conceivable question that would be likely to come up in the most rigid examination. There are other question-books published, but even the largest is not so complete on a single branch as these. Bear in mind that these question-books are absolutely without a rival FOR PREPARING FOR EXAMINATION, FOR REVIEWING PUPILS IN SCHOOL, FOR USE AS REFERENCE BOOKS. The slightest examination of this series will decide you in its favor over any other similar books. SEND ALL ORDERS TO E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. — — ^— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — ■ Augsburg s Easy Things to Draw. By D. R. Augsbukg, Supt. Drawing at Salt Lake City, Utah. Quarto, durable and elegant cardboard cover, 80 pp., with 31 pages of plates, containing over 200 different figures. Price, 30 cents; to teachers, 24 cents; by mail, 4 cents extra. This book is not designed to present a system of drawing. It is a collection of drawings made in the simplest possible way, and so constructed that any one may reproduce them. Its design is to furnish a hand-book containing drawings as would be needed for the school-room for object lessons, drawing lessons, busy work. This collection may be used in connection with any sys- tem of drawing, as it contains examples suitable for practice. It may also be used alone, as a means of learning the art of draw- ing. As will be seen from the above the idea of this book is new and novel. Those who have seen it are delighted with it as it so exactly fills a want. An index enables the teacher to refer in- stantly to a simple drawing of a cat, dog, lion, coffee-berry, etc. Our list of Blackboard Stencils is in the same line. Augsburg s Easy Drawings for the Geo- graphy Class. By D. R. Augsburg, B. P., author of "Easy Things to Draw." Contains 40 large plates, each containing from 4 to 60 separate drawings. 96 pp., quarto cardboard cover. Price 50 cents; to teachers, 40 cents; by mail 5 cents extra. In this volume is the same excellent work that was noted in Mr. Augsburg's "Easy Things to Draw." He does not here seek to present a system of drawing, but to give a collection of drawings made in the simplest possible way, and so constructed that any one may reproduce them. Leading educators believe that draw- ing has not occupied the position in the school course hereto- fore that it ought to have occupied: that it is the most effectual means of presenting facts, especially in the sciences. The author has used it in this book to illustrate geography, giving draw- ings of plants, animals, and natural features, and calling at- tention to steps in drawing. The idea is a novel one, and it is believed that the practical manner in which the subject is treated will make the book a popular one in the school-room. Each plate is placed opposite a lesson that may be used in connection. An index brings the plates instantly to the eye. SEND ALL ORDEBS TO E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 41 Song Treasures < THE PKICE HAS BEEN GHEATLY REDUCED. Compiled by Amos M. Kellogg, editor of the School Joui^ nal. Beautiful and durable postal-card rnanilla coven printed in two colors, G4 pp. Price, 15 cents each; to teachers, 12- cents; by mail, 2 cents extra. 30th thousand. Write for oar special terms to schools for quantities. Special krmsfor use at Teachers' Institutes. Thisisamost|jjj|jj valuable col lection of mu- {I sic for all ' schools and in- stitutes. 1. Most of the pieces have been selected by the teachers as favorites in t h e schools. They are the ones the pupils iove to sing. It contains nearly 100 pieces. 2. All the pieces " have a ring to them ;" they are easily learned, and will not be forgotten. 3. The themes and words are appropriate for young people. In these respects the work will be found to possess unusual merit. Nature, the Flowers, the Seasons, the Home, our Duties, our Creator, are entuned with beautiful music. 4. Great ideas may find an entrance into the mind through music. Aspirations for the good, the beautiful, and the true are presented here in a musical form. 5. Many of the words have been written especially for the book. One piece, " The Voice Within Us," p. 57, is worth the price of the book. 6. The titles here given show the teacher what we mean : Ask the Children, Beauty Everywhere, Be in Time, Cheerfulness, Christmas Bells, Days of Summer Glory, The Dearest Spot. Evening Song, Gentle Words, Going to School, Hold up the Right Hand, I Love the Merry, Merry Sunshine, Kind Deeds, Over in the Meadows, Our Happy School, Scatter the Germs of the Beautiful, Time to Walk, The Jolly Workers, Tha Teacher's Life, Tribute to Whittier, etc., etc.