>-% 
 
 W. N. HAILMANN 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 PRIZE ESSAY; 
 AWARD OF AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 APPLICATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 WORK OF TEACHING. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. N. HAILMANN, A. M., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "KINDERGARTEN CULTURE," "HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY," ETC. 
 
 bp ortier of tlje 33oarti of Directors, 
 
 BOSTON, 
 
 WILLARD SMALL, 
 
 1884.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1884, 
 
 BY 
 AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 Press of \V. F. Brown & Co., 218 Franklin St.
 
 i 
 
 Ed./Psych. 
 .Library 
 
 O -O 
 
 /OS/ 
 
 #/^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. EDUCATION: FACTORS AND IDEALS, ... 5 
 Ii. NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN, . 7 
 
 o 
 
 III. PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY, ... 8 
 
 CO 
 
 "" IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT: 
 
 5 (1). GENERAL FEATURES, .... 9 
 
 > 
 
 (2). LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE, ... 11 
 
 (3). INSTINCT, 13 
 
 f4). INFLUENCE OF ACTION, .... 14 
 
 EE? (5). LAWS, 1(> 
 
 V. LIMITATIONS OF SUBJECT, 17 
 
 VI. PERIODS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, . 20 
 
 2 VH. ILLUSTRATIONS : 
 
 IS 
 
 Z (1). COURSE OF STUDY, 23 
 
 at 
 
 (2). DISTRIBUTION OF TEACHERS, ETC., . . 31 
 
 I 
 i< (3). HEADING AND WRITING, .... 33 
 
 ac 
 
 (4). DIECII'LINE, 39 
 
 241837
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 AT no previous time in the history of education in this 
 country have teachers and School Superintendents manifested a 
 more earnest desire to understand the philosophy of their work. 
 Everything written upon the subject is read with interest. The 
 American Institute of Instruction, through the Trustees of the 
 Bicknell Fund, awarded the entire income of that Fund for the 
 year 1883, to the best essay upon the Application of the Prin- 
 ciples of Psychology to the work of Teaching. The committee 
 of award consisted of J. W. Dickinson, Mrs. E. N. L. Walton, and 
 George H. Martin. Within the limit of time allowed for present- 
 ing the essays, thirty were received. Among these were others 
 of considerable merit ; but to the essay by Prof. Hailmann, the 
 committee made the award with entire unanimity. 
 
 By the conditions of the award, the essay receiving the prize 
 becomes the exclusive property of the Institute. Electrotype 
 plates have been made, and an edition of this essay is published, 
 to facilitate a study which must be more and more pursued, as 
 progress is made 1n the art of teaching. The abstract read at 
 the Annual Meeting of the Institute, was received with much 
 favor, and it is believed the publication at the present time will 
 meet a general demand. 
 
 BOSTON, May, 1884.
 
 THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOL- 
 OGY TO THE WORK OF TEACHING. 
 
 EDUCATION" comprises all intentional and systematic 
 influences upon the development of the human being, par- 
 ticularly of the young human being or child. 
 
 This definition at once separates educational factors into 
 two groups, the conscious and the unconscious factors. 
 Among the former, the principal ones are the parents or 
 their substitutes, the teacher, and the child himself. Among 
 the unconscious factors, the leading ones are the nature of 
 the child (i. e., the inner growth of its powers), surround- 
 ings, and society, as long as it has no direct interest in the 
 child. 
 
 "We are here concerned only with the teacher. Yet the 
 principles involved apply with equal force to all educa- 
 tional work. Hence we take no cognizance of the narrower 
 aim in the statement of these principles. 
 
 The unconscious factors can exert an educational in- 
 fluence, only if one or several of the conscious factors aid 
 them. The richest surroundings produce no effect upon 
 the child, if he takes no interest in them ; hence it is one 
 of the chief tasks of the educator to arouse and direct this 
 interest, and to render it consciously self-educative. The 
 inner growth of the child's powers, his nature, may go 
 astray or stop progress wholly, if conscious educators do not
 
 6 EDUCATIONAL IDEALS. 
 
 guide and foster it, or if the child himself, after reaching a 
 certain maturity, does not consciously keep it in the right 
 direction. Natural development, surroundings, and all 
 other unconscious factors alone, can no more educate than 
 the hammer alone can forge, or the unguided stream drive 
 the mill wheel. They need, in order to become efficient, 
 the directing hand of the master. 
 
 This view of education imposes upon educators the 
 necessity of devising a fixed plan for their work hi aims 
 and means. The whole work should tend in every part 
 towards distinct ideals ; and the path followed should be 
 carefully adapted to these ideals, and to the nature and 
 destiny of the child. 
 
 The choice of the educational ideal is of primary impor- 
 tance, since upon it depends the value of the education to 
 the child and to society. Of course, the educators have no 
 right to choose ideals that deprive the human being of his 
 liberty, render him hostile to society, or give him only a 
 transient and relative value. The ideals they have a right 
 to choose, should give the human being freedom hi the 
 exercise of all his powers, with constant reference to the 
 welfare of society and the advancement of the race, and 
 should impart to him a lasting and absolute value. They 
 should lead his taste to the Beautiful, his insight to Truth, 
 his conduct to the Good. 
 
 Only wisdom whose essence is the striving for truth, and 
 virtue whose essence is the striving for goodness, can give 
 man a lasting and absolute value, a value which no 
 vicissitudes of life can diminish, which will enable him to 
 scatter love and to gather peace. All that fails to lead to 
 these, all that hinders development towards these, all that 
 refuses to heed the requirements of the Beautiful, the 
 True, and the Good, these highest criteria of feeling,
 
 NATURE OF MAN. 7 
 
 thought and conduct, is false education, and cannot be 
 considered here. 
 
 In his nature, the human being appears as a growing 
 organism. He develops from within outward, according to 
 certain organic laws which apply with equal force to all 
 the phases of his being. He appears as a distinct unity in 
 conscious opposition to all else ; a self-knowing within. 
 placed over against an all-embracing without ; a growing 
 microcosm, placed within a sustaining macrocosm ; a node, 
 where infinity outward and infinity inward enter into con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 For purposes of study, it has been customary to sub- 
 divide his nature in various ways ; but it should be remem- 
 bered that these subdivisions exist only in and for science, 
 not in man. Thus the phases of his being, which lie be- 
 tween the within and the without, and through which his 
 self is impressed by the external or impresses the latter, 
 constitute his physical nature. His psychical nature en- 
 ables him to comprehend the finite actualities in time and 
 space ; and his spiritual nature reveals to him the infinite 
 potentialities, which are the essence of all being. Thus, 
 too, the successive conditions of knowing, feeling, and 
 willing are but the three successive stages of one and 
 the same mental process of complete cerebration, in which 
 the conscious personality sees, becomes interested, and 
 reacts. v 
 
 The consideration of man's nature reveals to us also his 
 destiny. This appears to us as the conscious acknowledg- 
 ment, in all the phases of life, of the unity which is in him 
 and which, at the same time, makes him one with all, a 
 self-conscious utterance of the Infinite, fit appears as the 
 establishment in consciousness of full accord, between the 
 inner and the outer ; between the microcosm and the
 
 8 PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 macrocosm ; between seeing, feeling, and doing ; between A 
 experience and practice. 
 
 Practically, this implies mastership, or control. Ob- 
 jectively, it means control of surroundings, of the world ; 
 subjectively, it means obedience to the laws of being, or 
 control of self. The conditions of control are knowledge 
 of the object to be mastered, knowledge of one's own powers, 
 and skill in applying or wielding the latter, in establishing 
 the needed harmony between self and the object in ques- 
 tion. Knowledge comes from observation and experience, 
 skill comes from practice. It may, therefore, be said that, 
 proximately, the destiny of man is to establish harmony 
 between observation and experience on the one hand, and 
 practice on the other. 
 
 When we apply this to individual human beings it seems 
 quite trivial ; but not so when applied to man in his rela- 
 tions to mankind. Here we find him profiting by the 
 garnered knowledge of past ages, and adding to this the 
 increase gained by him ; here we see him appropriating the 
 observation and experience of his generation, and scattering 
 broadcast among his own contemporaries the yield of his 
 own life ; here he submits in his practice to the judgment 
 of men long dead, or lays down rules for the practice of his 
 children's children ; here he co-ordinates his will to that of 
 thousands, for the sake of a mastership which needs the 
 combined energy of many, or thousands become willing 
 tools of his determination in the service of a common ad- 
 vantage ; here we find man in relationships that free him 
 from the fetters of time and space, and open to him the 
 realms of the Infinite. 
 
 /er 
 
 Psychology is concerned with the study of the phenom- 
 ena 'of consciousness. The growth and development of
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 consciousness, the natural history of ideas, emotions, and 
 volitions, of knowing, feeling, and willing, constitute its 
 province. From the time when an influence from without 
 has produced a change within, directly though ever so 
 remotely connected with the subsequent arousal of con- 
 sciousness, this change becomes an object of interest to 
 psychology, and remains so, as long as it continues to exert 
 any influence through consciousness upon the conduct. 
 
 Strictly speaking, psychology has no interest in those 
 influences from without as such, nor with the actions them- 
 selves which in their aggregate constitute conduct, nor in- 
 deed, with the physical concomitants of cerebration in the 
 body of man. Nevertheless the entire nervous apparatus, 
 and particularly that of the senses, is so ultimately con- 
 nected with the origin and evolution of the facts of con- 
 sciousness ; and the reflex influence of action upon ideas, 
 feelings, and the will, is so great that their consideration is 
 of the utmost importance in applying psychological princi- 
 ples to education. 
 
 In its general features, the course of psychological de- 
 velopment is simple enough. Through the agency of the 
 senses, outer influences cause disturbances in inner equi* 
 librium, or sense-impressions. These in due time become 
 sufficiently numerous or intense to arouse attention, and 
 consciousness is born. So far the process has been mainly, 
 if not exclusively, inward ; but very soon a reaction sets in 
 by which the attention is directed outward, towards the 
 outer concomitants of the inner disturbances. These outer 
 concomitants are found, the mind perceives their unity with 
 corresponding inner forms of consciousness : it has gained 
 perceptions. 
 
 The inner disturbances of equilibrium, underlying these 
 formations, are more or less permanent in the memory.
 
 10 PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 They may be brought back to consciousness in various 
 ways, involuntarily by closely related disturbances from 
 without or within, or voluntarily for purposes of thought 
 or feeling, Avhen the mind remembers or recollects, fancies 
 or imagines. 
 
 The frequent re-arousing of perceptions, containing similar 
 and dissimilar features, gives to the similar or common 
 features in due tune a certain prominence over other 
 features ; these assume a <?wasa'-independent existence, ap- 
 proaching objectivity, in the outer regions of conscious- 
 ness. To these conceptions the mind constantly refers its 
 perceptions, and they become the inner concomitants of 
 language. 
 
 Subsequently this growing consciousness learns to dif-. 
 ferentiate itself from the external more and more clearly, 
 to recognize itself as subject, distinct from all else, as 
 object. Its concepts grow more and more distinct, as well 
 as more comprehensive ; it begins to understand relations, 
 in the actual more and more clearly : it has grown into an 
 intellect. 
 
 At last the intellect learns to look upon itself objectively, 
 as it were ; learns to see essential relations between the 
 inner and the outer, as well as among the inner and outer 
 respectively ; discovers the intimate relationship existing 
 between the inner microcosm whose soul is time, and the 
 outer macrocosm whose soul is space : it obtains an in- 
 sight into relations that partake of the Infinite, it has 
 acquired the power of reason, and has risen to the dignity 
 of spirit. 
 
 Thus the mind rises successively from the sensual, 
 through the intellectual, to the spiritual phase on the side 
 of thought. 
 
 A similar process accompanies this on the side of f eeling.
 
 GENERAL FEATURES. 11 
 
 In simple sensation, the common root of insight and emo- 
 tion, the sense impression is still so closely blended with the 
 corresponding feeling that it is quite difficult to distinguish 
 the two. Hence the same term sensation, designates 
 almost indiscriminately either or both. 
 
 As soon, however, as the mind has discovered the unity 
 between the inner and the outer in perception, it has also 
 learned to apprehend beneath the knowledge, and deeper 
 within itself, as even more fully its own, the attendant 
 feeling of pleasure or pain. This apprehension lives in 
 consciousness as desire to hold or relinquish the correspond- 
 ing form of thought. 
 
 Consciousness becomes more and more involved in this 
 desire, until the mind learns to connect it more and more 
 clearly with certain external conditions and their relation 
 to inner welfare. It then begins to take a lively and more 
 or less permanent interest in the study of these conditions, 
 an interest which is the mainspring of intellectual activity. 
 / When, at last, the intellect has become interested in itself 
 as an object of thought, the feelings aroused by the discovery 
 of self ha its inward and outward relations to the Infinite, 
 the consonances and dissonances of being thrill the mind 
 in its innermost depths, in emotions that fill it to the mo- 
 mentary exclusion of all else, and infuse it with an intense 
 yearning for fixing the harmonies or resolving the dishar- 
 monies in suitable action. 
 
 Of these yearnings there is born, in due time, a persistent 
 energy of action, which directs man towards certain objects 
 or purposes. It takes thought into its service, as counselor 
 or guide ; assumes control of man ; and, as will, is crowned 
 the sovereign on whose wisdom depends the value of life, 
 inwardly and outwardly. 
 
 These are some of the landmarks set up by science hi
 
 12 PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 her efforts to grasp mental growth. It should be remem- 
 bered, however, and more particularly when we would 
 apply these matters in education, that the transition from 
 one form to another is so gradual and so continuous that it 
 is impossible to find any form stopping, as it were, at the 
 landmarks of science. The forms are always on the move, 
 approaching the point of observation or passing beyond it. 
 
 Besides, the infinite mobility of mental being involves 
 such a complexity of co-existent mental forms, that the 
 mental condition at any given moment is the resultant of 
 an infinite variety of mental activities in all possible stages 
 of development. 
 
 Similar difficulties meet us when we approach the sub- 
 ject on the side of action, of the outward reactions or 
 utterances of mental states in the various forms of moving, 
 voicing, and doing. As soon as sense-impressions begin to 
 be formed, the mind reacts in a variety of such utterances, 
 more or less to the point. Similarly, perceptions and 
 desires, conceptions and interests, insight and emotion 
 react outwardly in a manner so direct and to the point, that 
 it is difficult to distinguish these actions, with reference to 
 their sources, not only from each other, but even from 
 those of the will. 
 
 In fact, all these actions and utterances are as complex 
 in their sources as the mind is in its conditions of con- 
 sciousness. Hence, practically, the first utterances of new- 
 born consciousness have somewhat of the will in them ; 
 while, on the other hand, the actions of the maturest will 
 are more or less influenced by lower forms of thought and 
 feeling. 
 
 However, some scheme like the one indicated above is 
 indispensable for systematic educational work. For more 
 convenient survey, therefore, the chief features of that
 
 INSTINCT. 
 
 13 
 
 scheme are presented below in condensed form, roughly 
 tabulated. 
 
 WILL. 
 
 li 
 
 Conduct. 
 
 Insight, 
 
 ! (Reason.) 
 
 Emotion. t 
 
 4. Artistic Rep- 
 
 \ 
 
 I! 
 
 Language. 
 
 Conception. Interest. t- ^ACTION. 
 
 .(.(Intellect.) 
 
 ?~ *~ \ I 
 
 I! 
 
 Manual Sense- : 
 
 Perception, Desire. 4 
 
 ^Intuition.) 
 
 " Reflex Action." i 
 
 Instinct 
 
 eq- 
 
 SENSATION - 4 
 
 IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 The only additional explanation that is needed concerns 
 the place of the instinct. This has been purposely placed 
 at one side of the main table, as a form of reaction in the 
 feelings, attending sensation, but playing a vanishingly sub- 
 ordinate part in the development of the human will, which
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 is the chief concern of education. Instinct appears as a 
 vigorous offshoot of inner reaction with much native 
 energy, sufficient in the lower forms of life to rise to a 
 wonderfully high degree of perfection in securing expe- 
 dience of action. 
 
 In the application of these principles to education, it is 
 further necessary to take into account the reflex influence 
 which in any given psychological process runs back from 
 action to its source. Action, in satisfying a desire, in 
 gratifying an interest, in expressing an emotion, by a reflex 
 influence strengthens, purifies, idealizes these forms of feel- 
 ing, and through them their corresponding forms in thought. 
 Hence, action is a most powerful instrument hi the hands 
 of the educator for quickening all forms of thought-growth 
 from perception to insight. 
 
 Through action, the internal becomes external ; the 
 inner assumes an outer existence in the terms of the outer. 
 Thus an opportunity is afforded for testing the correctness 
 of the inner conceptions, with reference to their outer con- 
 comitants, by ^ttasj'-direct comparison. The contrasts be- 
 tween the original outer concomitant and the outer repro- 
 duction of the conception appear as inaccuracies, deficiencies, 
 exaggerations, and other faults that call for correction. 
 Thus action pushes conception steadily and surely nearer 
 to objective truth. 
 
 It is for a similar reason that language plays so impor- 
 tant a part in mental growth. It is true, words are but 
 symbols of the inner thought-forms, incapable of the objec- 
 tive reality of plastic or graphic representation. They 
 merely arouse in the mind of the hearer the corresponding 
 thought-form in terms of his own subjective thought. Yet 
 they are capable of expressing relations of being with 
 almost specific precision and clearness. Hence, language
 
 INFLUENCE OF ACTION. 15 
 
 is the chief instrument of the mind in its analyses and 
 syntheses of observation or invention, of fancy or imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 If plastic and graphic sense-representations are of the 
 utmost value in establishing a substratum of reliable per- 
 ceptions, language is indispensable in the operations of the 
 intellect, while the needs of the creative spirit are supplied 
 by art. In their essence, however, all sense-representa- 
 tion, language, and art are but variations of action, and 
 owe their educational value to the reflex influence of action 
 upon mental development. 
 
 In the case of the will, action appears a conduct, which 
 as practice, exerts a powerful reflex influence in fixing the 
 will into habit, and establishing the character. 
 
 The primary conditions under which psychological de- 
 velopment takes place are, then, the following: First, an 
 active external, capable of making impressions ; second, 
 an active internal, capable of actively receiving these im- 
 pressions, of spontaneously placing itself in consciousness, 
 opposite all else, and of controlling the external for inner 
 needs. And, primarily, the business of education is to 
 adjust surroundings with reference to these inner needs, 
 and to supply ample opportunity for suitable activity on the 
 part of the pupil. 
 
 In practical work, this simple business of education is 
 beset with untold difficulties, arising from inadequacies of 
 actual condition and development on the part of teacher 
 and taught, as well as from perversions and interferences, 
 due to hosts of unforeseen and uncontrollable influences. 
 There is need for much guarding and correcting, bidding 
 and forbidding, preventing and compelling ; yet the aims 
 of all these labors look towards the adjustment of surround 
 ings or the supply of opportunities for activity.
 
 10 PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 The processes of psychological development follow, in 
 their essential features, the general laws of organic develop- 
 ment, manifested also on the physical side of being. There 
 is here, too, a more or less active apprehension and taking- 
 in of material for growth from without, a separation as in 
 digestion, of the serviceable from the unserviceable, an ab- 
 sorption of the serviceable into the mobile contents of the 
 circulatory system of the memory, an assimilation from this 
 in the various higher forms of the mental organism, and, 
 ultimately, full participation of the assimilated portions in 
 the conscious spontaneity of the mind. There are, too, 
 processes of substitution of new thought-material for old, 
 processes of waste, of wear and tear, of death and decay, 
 processes by which unsuitable, effete, injurious material is 
 expelled, and many similiar analogies that remind us of the 
 unity of law presiding over the diversity of phase even in 
 this most complex of facts, the human being. 
 
 These laws of development, however, are laws of organic 
 being, and have no bearing upon the fundamental char- 
 acter of the various phases as such. The psychological 
 cannot become physiological, nor the physical spiritual, 
 though the manifestations of these phases naturally cor- 
 respond with the development of the being of which they 
 are phases. 
 
 Thus physical development means more compact, stronger, 
 more active muscles, and a better adaptation of physical life 
 to material conditions. Mental development means more 
 vigorous, more intense, more vivid mind-power, and a 
 nearer approach to objective truth in subjective convictions ; 
 moral development means purer feelings, better regulated 
 appetites, stronger will, firmer character, higher aims in 
 life, a keener sense of responsibility, and a deeper apprecia- 
 tion of the relationship that binds all to all.
 
 LIMITATIONS OF SUBJECT. 17 
 
 Organic development, and, therefore, psychological de- 
 velopment requires time, i. e., it is, relatively speaking, 
 slow ; it is gradual, continuous, self-active, psychological 
 self-activity implying spontaneity of purpose and freedom 
 of action. 
 
 It seems unnecessary for the purpose of this essay to 
 carry the analysis any farther. The relative slowness, 
 gradualness, continuity, and self-activity of psychological 
 development, its primary conditions, and its course, furnish 
 satisfactory criteria for methods, courses of study, appliances, 
 and other matters that enter into the details of the work of 
 teaching. 
 
 The proximate end of teaching is the communication of 
 knowledge. Training, or the systematic guidance of con- 
 duct, is not teaching, but may be used for purposes of 
 teaching, as also teaching may be taken into the service of 
 training. Together they comprise the chief activities of 
 the educator in his direct intercourse with the pupil. Their 
 ultimate end is the same, and lies in education ; but teach- 
 ing approaches it on the side of knowledge, and is primarily 
 concerned with impressions, while training approaches it 
 on the side of condu_ct, and is primarily concerned with 
 actions. Without training, knowledge is barren ; without 
 teaching, conduct is blind. Teaching gives freedom to 
 conduct ; training gives mastership to knowledge. Teach- 
 ing leads in, training leads out. 
 
 In discussing the application of psychological principles 
 to the work of teaching, it will, then, be necessary to con- 
 sider training and leading-out processes in so far as they in- 
 fluence by reaction the leading-in processes, the accumula- 
 tion of knowledge, both in character and extent. 
 
 Another limitation of the subject is found in the fact that
 
 18 LIMITATIONS OF SUBJECT. 
 
 the teaching here contemplated is not teaching in its widest 
 sense, but comprises in the life of the pupil only that por- 
 tion of teaching which comes within the control of profes- 
 sional teachers. 
 
 In its widest sense, teaching is almost co-extensive with 
 education, which in the natural life of man stretches from 
 the cradle to the grave. Shortly after the birth of the 
 child and for a period of several years, the parents and 
 other home-folks busy themselves in purposely increasing 
 the child's knowledge and liberating its conduct. At the 
 age of five, six, or seven the child enters school, where it 
 passes a few hours during certain days of the week, chiefly 
 for purposes of instruction. Yet, even during this period, 
 which rarely extends beyond the eighteenth year of age, 
 the school does not control all the teaching. The home 
 continues its work ; and certain groups of persons (com- 
 panions, churches, associations) become interested in the 
 child, and add their teaching efforts, helping or hindering 
 the work of the school according to the character of their 
 purposes. After this period, the child, or young human 
 being, is left mainly to himself to choose more or less con- 
 sciously and freely, among the numberless sources of 
 knowledge, those that may aid him more or less effectually 
 in earnest efforts of self-education, or that gratify a more 
 or less egotistical pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 The consideration of other limitations that may present 
 themselves in the individuality of child or teacher, in 
 heredity, in surroundings, and other equally variable or un- 
 stable factors in life, must be left to a more detailed dis- 
 cussion than the limits of this essay will admit. 
 
 These limitations, however, do not affect the value of 
 the psychological principles indicated in the first part of 
 this essay as criteria of the work of professional teaching
 
 LIMITATIONS OF SUBJECT. 19 
 
 in all its phases. In matter and method, in the presenta- 
 tion and arrangement of subjects, it should constantly con- 
 sider the relative slowness, the gradualness and continuity 
 of psychological development ; it should respect and stim- 
 ulate self-activity ; it should regard primary conditions, 
 controlling the character of surroundings with reference to 
 inner needs and supplying at every step ample opportunity 
 for suitable activity. It should keep in view the course of 
 psychological development, the fact that all higher forms 
 of knowledge rest upon the lower ; that perception pre- 
 supposes sensations, and that these imply impressions; 
 that conception feeds upon perceptions, and that reason is 
 built upon the intellect ; that impressions can reach insight 
 only through all the intermediate phases, and that what- 
 ever blossoms in reason or bears fruit hi the will, has its 
 roots far down in the teeming soil of sense-perception. 
 It should keep hi view the fact that all that enters con- 
 sciousness is there irretrievably, that it must travel upward, 
 carrying with it the strength or weakness, the light or 
 darkness of which it is born. It should keep in view the 
 fact that all forms of knowledge are indissolubly bound 
 to corresponding forms of feeling feelings of attraction or 
 repulsion, of pleasure or pain, which determine in a great 
 measure to what extent the corresponding thought-forms 
 shall participate in the conscious spontaneity of the mind. 
 Lastly, it should keep hi view the indispensable need of 
 action for healthy and vigorous thought-growth. It is 
 through action that knowledge becomes aware of its power 
 and value, that it learns to love and appreciate itself, that 
 it learns to know itself, as it were. Action furnishes the 
 rounds of the ladder by which knowledge under the mighty 
 incentives of feeling climbs to ever greater heights, out of 
 darkness into light. It is action that makes the knowledge
 
 20 PSYCHOLOGICAL PERIODS. 
 
 at one the knowledge of all, that makes progress a distin- 
 guishing attribute of the race, raising generation after gen- 
 eration upon the shoulders of its predecessors, sounding the 
 cheering cry of excelsior ! even for mankind, and making 
 it through countless ages as one man in the conquest of the 
 Infinite. 
 
 It is not difficult to distinguish in the psychological 
 development of the individual human being successive 
 periods during which the successive phases of thought and 
 feeling manifest a decided predominance in the order of 
 their development. There is in earliest infancy a period 
 of sensation, during which consciousness has not yet learned 
 to look outward for factors in its dawn of feeling and know- 
 ing, a period characterized by a peculiar dreamy inward- 
 looking expression of the eyes, and by an equally charac- 
 teristic vagueness and indirectness of the weak muscular 
 movements attending the sensations. 
 
 This is soon followed, still in infancy but extending far 
 into childhood, by a period of perception, when the mind 
 turns outward, begins to recognize its central position, its 
 sovereign power, a period characterized by extraordinary 
 activity inward and outward. The first clear perception 
 bursts upon the mind like a sun after the short dawn of 
 the previous period, kindling life in all directions. Whither- 
 soever the mind turns, it sees the life without ; and its de- 
 sires, growing steadily in number and urgency, keep the 
 little hands and arms and feet constantly on the move in 
 efforts to bring this outer life into subjection. 
 
 For education as a whole, this is the most important 
 period of life on account of its fundamental character, and 
 on account of its persistence. During this period, which 
 extends its sway far into the growth of intellect, the mind
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL PERIODS. 21 
 
 gathers its materials from which its proudest conceptions, 
 its intensest thoughts and feelings are derived ; during this 
 period, it sets the rounds of the ladder that is to lead up to 
 whatever height it may climb. 
 
 The responsibility of adjusting the child's surroundings, 
 of providing opportunities and material for its activity, of 
 guarding, guiding and helping the child during this period, 
 rests chiefly on the parents and the kindergartner. The 
 materials and methods of the kindergarten, as proposed by 
 Froebel, are well adapted to the individual and social wants 
 of the child at this period. The material is so arranged 
 that with its help the child, even with very limited skill 
 and power of control, can reproduce in outward form the 
 essentials of its ideas of things, and thus, through repeated 
 reflected perceptions of its own thoughts, more surely 
 arrive at clear genuine conceptions. The method is such 
 that the child's spontaneity is always helped, and held 
 without compulsion in the direction of the Beautiful, the 
 True, and the Good. Without appreciable friction, the 
 nascent selfishness is deflected into a deep concern in a 
 common welfare, the love of power steers clear of the 
 shoals of despotism towards an open sea of rational free- 
 dom, all traces of vandalism vanish before the pleasures of 
 a healthy exercise of constructiveness, the instinct of play 
 is taught to serve distinct purposes and to become a spirit 
 of work. 
 
 The kindergarten, if conducted in accordance with Froe- 
 bel's suggestions, liberates the intellect, and thus hastens 
 the transition of the child to the third period of psychologi- 
 cal development, the period of conception, without danger 
 to the solidity, compactness, and harmony of mental growth. 
 During this period, with which this essay is more particu- 
 larly concerned, the mind turns towards itself as an object.
 
 22 PSYCHOLOGICAL PERIODS. 
 
 It compares its notions of .things with the things them- 
 selves, thus steadily correcting the former, rendering them 
 by slow degrees more and more accurate, more and more 
 "true." It compares its notions of things with each other, 
 and, in accordance with certain differences and resem- 
 blances, arranges them in groups and classes to which all 
 its subsequent mental gain is referred. In due time proxi- 
 mate groups are united on the basis of deeper similarities 
 in remoter groups; and this process is continued on suc- 
 cessively higher planes, until the mind learns to hold all 
 hi a few simple terms, such as space and time. 
 
 A deep and abiding interest rivets the mind to these 
 activities. In its efforts to bring ideas nearer to objective 
 truth, it patiently observes the external through long periods 
 of time, continually strengthening or modifying previous 
 notions in the light of new perceptions, with an honesty 
 and conscientiousness that partake of highest virtue ; for 
 the purpose of determining the true sequence of cause and 
 effect, it subjects the external hi painstaking and laborious 
 experiment to certain conditions, again and again. 
 
 Through such processes it gradually arrives in various 
 directions at systematically connected criteria of knowl- 
 edge, which it dignifies with the name of Science, whose 
 mastery demands the closest application and not unfre- 
 quently kindles an interest capable of filling a life. 
 
 The fields of science furnish the soil that yields to genius, 
 in all its forms and powers, however humble or exalted, 
 the harvest of inventions and discoveries, of creations and 
 revelations that lift him upward and teach him his origin 
 and his destiny. 
 
 The greater portion of this period falls within the limits 
 of the school, which is the chief concern of this essay. 
 During this period, the mind rises consciously from the
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 23 
 
 concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the general, 
 from the actual to the possible, from the outer to the inner, 
 from experience to principle, from facts to laws, from com- 
 plexity to simplicity, from the extensive to the intensive, 
 from space to time ; and the business of the teacher is to 
 adjust surroundings, and to guide and guard the pupil with 
 reference to these activities, so that in the period of insight, 
 reason may not fail him, and the will may become duly 
 liberated. 
 
 I propose to show by way of illustration, the application 
 of the psychological principles heretofore enunciated in 
 the following typical phases of the work of teaching: 1. 
 A general outline of a "course of study "within the limits 
 of Primary and Grammar Schools ; 2. school organization, 
 with reference to the distribution of teachers and pupils ; 
 3. method of elementary reading and writing ; 4, spirit of 
 disciplinary regulations. 
 
 In framing a course of study for Primary and Grammar 
 Schools it should be constantly borne in mind that the 
 period involved corresponds chiefly to the earlier portion of 
 the psychological period of conception. When the child 
 enters school it is still gathering perceptions, though upon 
 some things it has quite clear and comprehensive concep- 
 tions ; and when it leaves the grammar school, its intellect 
 should have grown into a fair supremacy, and the dawn of 
 insight into the deeper relations of being should be full up- 
 on its mind. During the first years of school-life, the sub- 
 jects of study should be of a character to facilitate the 
 formation of perceptions and their transition into compre- 
 hensive conceptions ; they should lie on the side of the 
 concrete, the actual, the outer ; they should deal with ex- 
 periences, with facts, with space, with objects. They
 
 24 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 should, then, gradually merge into forms that lie on the 
 side of the abstract, the possible, the inner ; that deal with 
 principles, with laws, with time, steadily leading the child 
 out of the complexity of things into the simplicity of 
 thought. 
 
 Xow, the school can afford neither the time nor the 
 labor that would be required to follow the child, explain- 
 ing, guiding, and warning through the maze of facts 
 and phenomena as they occur in nature, and the confusion 
 of practical experiences of an undisciplined life. It must 
 invent more or less artificial surroundings, a world of 
 objects and events more or less idealized, more or less 
 systematized, where the child may attain a fair understand- 
 ing of the essentials of life with as little friction as possi- 
 ble. This ideal world must be the child's and within the 
 child's control. The child must not, as in object-lessons, be 
 placed at respectful distances from certain sample-pieces 
 thereof, and taught to repeat certain phrases concerning 
 these ; but it must have objects and material placed within 
 its hands to be fully its own for purposes of observation, 
 experiment, analysis, or construction. Again, these objects 
 placed within the child's reach, and with the help of which 
 it is to attain the intellectual control of a world, should 
 present their essential characteristics in unmistakable dis- 
 tinctness, in striking and unavoidable contrasts ; and they 
 should be such that the child can handle them not only 
 without injury to itself and these objects, but with profit to 
 both. 
 
 Abundant hints in this direction have been given bv 
 Froebel in the construction of his gifts, each of which repre- 
 sents in a form readily controlled some simple essential fact 
 or relation, whose full apprehension throws a new flood of 
 light upon the child's world. Playing with the simple
 
 COURSE OF STUDY. 25 
 
 blocks, tablets, sticks, lentil seeds or dots, and working 
 with sheets of paper, paper strips, the weaving-sheet, paste- 
 board, the embroidery -needle, the drawing-slate, sand or 
 clay, the child obtains successively clear notions and full 
 control of various laws of position and shape, divisibility 
 and number, size and gravitation, symmetry and propor- 
 tionality of parts, and other relations and qualities which 
 constitute the essentials of things. 
 
 With the help of this simple material, the child is en- 
 abled to form concrete representations of the essentials of 
 things, in form, number, relations of position, etc., immeas- 
 urably nearer the conceptions of the things involved than 
 are the things themselves ; thus the formation of clear con- 
 ceptions and, consequently, the liberation of language and 
 of the intellect, are hastened without detriment to the solid- 
 ity and compactness of mental growth. 
 
 The essentials of the outer world that interest man most 
 nearly in his efforts to obtain intellectual control of his 
 surroundings are centered in space, which in its limits in- 
 volves form, position, size, direction, and number. Of 
 these, number and size have a special interest, inasmuch as 
 they constitute the chief bridges in the transition of the 
 mind from outer space to inner time. To these may be 
 added color as an important element, depending on certain 
 relations of material surfaces to light. Lying nearer the 
 emotional side of sensation, it has much power to arouse 
 interest in related elements of space, hence its educational 
 value is very great. The school will, then, find the first 
 subjects for instruction with reference to the pupil's in- 
 dividual development, in the provinces of Geometry, Draw- 
 ing, Coloring, and Arithmetic. 
 
 Almost simultaneously, however, the phenomena of mo- 
 tion and life to which the changes of position, direction,
 
 26 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 size, form and number among surrounding objects are 
 referred, and which intensely affect the child's comfort and 
 welfare, point to studies connected with the provinces of 
 Physics, Chemistry, Natural History, Geography, and 
 Uranography. 
 
 Long before the child's entrance in school, too, the help- 
 ful presence of others aroused in its heart feelings of grati- 
 tude, of affection, and good will. These may or may not 
 have been brought more clearly to the child's consciousness, 
 and more fully within its control in the social games and 
 group-work of the kindergarten. Howsoever this may be, 
 the school should afford constant opportunity for social 
 enterprises, involving common interests, common purposes, 
 and common efforts, leading to an interest in the occupa- 
 tions of men, and the relationships among men. This leads 
 to studies connected with Sociology and History, through 
 which man connects himself consciously with the Past. 
 
 In all that relates to motion and life and, consequently, to 
 the social phases of being, sound lying also nearer the 
 emotional side of sensation plays a part similar to that 
 of color in the realms of space. Connected with rhythm 
 in the harmonious combinations and melodious successions 
 of music, it has wonderful power in freeing the mind 
 from the material, and leading it to the spiritual, and is, 
 therefore, of incalculable value in lifting man to the highest 
 planes of mental life. 
 
 The chief medium of the work of teaching is language. 
 At the moment when the child is awakened to self-con- 
 sciousness, language appears as the chief outward reaction 
 of growing self-consciousness in the intercourse with 
 others. Language binds man to man, makes the Past an 
 ingredient of the Present, and holds this fast for a Future. 
 In the development of the intellect and of reason, it is
 
 COURSE OF STUDY. 27 
 
 the medium of thought, the indispensable condition of 
 their growth. Hence language, with all that pertains to 
 it, will furnish subjects of instruction during the entire 
 school-life. 
 
 Among the many considerations of method which it 
 would be necessary to discuss in an exhaustive treatise on 
 the subject involved, before deciding upon a "course of 
 study," I refer here only to two of the most important. 
 
 The first of these is the necessity of a concentric arrange- 
 ment of the subjects of study. This demands that, at each 
 successive stage, the subject come to the child as a whole, 
 that all the roots of the knowledge and skill involved be 
 represented within the limits of the child's capacity. This, 
 the child's capacity, and not the possibilities of the subject, 
 furnishes the criteria for decision. From itself as a center, 
 the mind penetrates in successive efforts, hi circles or 
 spheres constantly widening in all directions to ever greater 
 depths of insight, to ever greater powers of control. 
 
 Another equally important consideration is the constant 
 need of opportunities for adequate, all-sided expression on 
 the part of the pupil both in language and in manual 
 activity. This keeps alive the mightiest incentive for 
 advancement, the sensation of power, and prepares the ^ 
 pupil for the business of life, which means expression in 
 some form, of what is in him. 
 
 For the sake of showing the practical bearings of these 
 considerations in unmistakable distinctness, I present be- 
 low, without further comment, from a course framed in 
 accordance with these requirements, the outline of a first 
 circle or sphere. It comprises the first two years of school- 
 life in a system of graded schools, the child entering at the 
 average age of six years.
 
 28 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FIRST CIRCLE. (Two years.) 
 
 FIRST GROUP OF SUBJECTS: Form, Drawing, Coloring. 
 
 1. Form : Recognition and naming of the cube, cylinder, 
 sphere, pyramid, and cone; of the square, lozenge, trian- 
 gle, hexagon, octagon, pentagon, the circle, semicircle, 
 quadrant, and oval ; diagonal, diameter, radius, center ; 
 straight, curved, wavy, and spiral lines ; of parallel, diverg- 
 ing, oblique, and perpendicular, horizontal, vertical, and 
 slanting directions ; right, obtuse, and acute angles. 
 Materials used ; clay for modeling, tablets, splints, papers 
 for folding and cutting, paper-strips, etc. 
 
 2. Drawing: Automatic exercises by dictation or other- 
 wise, in simple, symmetrical arrangements, in networks, 
 embodying squares, half-squares, equilateral-triangles, with 
 circumscribed and inscribed circles, or arcs ; language- 
 drawing or conception-drawing (p. 25), in simple outline 
 representations of things, involving only essentials ; artistic 
 drawing in symmetrical combinations involving squares 
 and circles with their subdivisions, shading and hatching, 
 leaves, flowers, fruits, birds, and butterflies. The slate, 
 properly prepared paper, the folding-sheet, the sand-table, 
 and clay-tablet yield suitable drawing surfaces. The use 
 of the dividers is admissible, especially with the clay-tablet 
 and the folding-sheet. 
 
 3. Coloring: Classifying beads, dots, colored worsteds 
 by their colors ; " rainbow-games" with these and the 
 paint-brush or colored crayon ; coloring squares, triangles, 
 circles, etc., in symmetrical arrangements on white folding- 
 sheet, ruled paper, or clay-tablet ; coloring leaves, flowers, 
 fruits, birds, and butterflies. 
 
 SECOND GROUP OF SUBJECTS : Number and Size. 
 1. Number: Counting "forward and backward " by one's, 
 two's, three's, four's, and five's, addition, subtraction, mul-
 
 COURSE OF STUDY. 29 
 
 tiplication, measuring, and division within the limits (in 
 successive sub-circles), of 1 to 10, 1 to 20, 1 to 100, 1 to 
 1000; similar operations, at the same time, with fractions 
 within the limits, in corresponding sub-circles, of halves to 
 fifths, halves to tenths, halves to twentieths (excluding 
 llths, 13ths, 17ths, 19ths), and halves to hundredths (ex- 
 cluding all difficult denominations) ; games of exchange, of 
 buying and selling, involving at first only price, but subse- 
 quently also gain and loss ; games of "giving" and "guess- 
 ing." Material used: tablets, splints, paper-strips, beans, 
 buttons, etc. 
 
 2. Size. (Measurements): measuring and estimating 
 length, distances, areas in niches, feet, yards; liquid and 
 dry measures of capacity; lifting and weighing, within 
 reasonable limits ; games of manufacturing and jobbing. 
 
 THIRD GROUP OF SUBJECTS : Physical and Chemical 
 Properties, Natural History, Geography and Uranography. 
 
 1. Physical and Chemical Properties : Classifying sub- 
 stances by their weight, hardness, smoothness of surface, 
 solubility, fusibility, combustibility, and similar properties. 
 Suitable collections of substances may be placed in the 
 children's hands, or made by them. 
 
 2. Natural History : Observation of plant-growth, class- 
 ifying of leaves, flowers, fruits, roots, plants, and animals 
 by certain prominent characteristics. Collection and de- 
 scription of plants ; observation and description of animals. 
 
 3. Geography and Uranography : Names of days, months 
 and seasons, observation of Sun's position at stated times, 
 course of sun in different seasons ; changes of moon ; car- 
 dinal points of compass ; counting rainy days and days of 
 sunshine; localities of plants and animals; stories of re- 
 markable plants and animals living in distant countries ; 
 sketches of school-room, the school, the home, the way to
 
 30 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 school, certain prominent localities; bird's-eye views on 
 
 sand-table. 
 
 FOURTH GROUP OF SUBJECTS : Sociology and History. 
 
 1. Sociology: Social games, dramatizations of the occu- 
 pations of men ; construction of railroads, canals, bridges, 
 tunnels, etc., on the sand-tables ; discussion and dramatiz- 
 ation of home and school-relations. 
 
 2. History : Accounts of events in the child's life ; anec- 
 dotes from the lives of children. 
 
 FIFTH GROUP OF SUBJECTS : Language and Music. 
 
 1. Language: Conversation (not catechizing) is at 'the 
 very soul of all the exercises heretofore mentioned. In 
 addition, there are special exercises in the reading and 
 writing of simple sentences and words; in word-building 
 from sound-elements found with or by the children ; in 
 contrasting and combining classes of words in accordance 
 with a variety of criteria of form, sound, meaning, or con- 
 struction ; in labeling and taking notes in connection with 
 other subjects of study; in the writing of short orders, ac- 
 counts, letters and stories ; in reading for pleasure or profit 
 from books and periodicals within the scope of the child's 
 powers. 
 
 2. Music: appears incidentally in the social games and 
 dramatizations of the Fourth Group ; but there should be 
 special exercises in which the child is drilled in the recog- 
 nition and production of sounds in pitch, relative duration, 
 in melodious and harmonious arrangement. The inherent 
 emotional qualities of music are brought to the child's con- 
 sciousness with the help of marches led by thoughtful 
 improvisations on a musical instrument. 
 
 A course similar to this, satisfies the child's intellectual 
 wants in all directions ; it is well rounded, as a whole and 
 in all its parts ; it never leaves the child's knowledge in a
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF TEACHERS, ETC. 31 
 
 fragmentary condition. The child can and does constantly 
 make use of all it learns for the immediate purposes of its 
 life, and its school is indeed a preparation for life. Every 
 new circle does not so much complete the knowledge pre- 
 viously gained ; but, starting again from the same center, 
 the child, it extends this knowledge to wider fields and 
 greater depths ; and all the time, the development of tact 
 and skill, of taste and foresight in the application keeps 
 pace with the new acquisitions. Thus, in due time, science 
 may be reached on the side of knowledge, and art on the 
 side of skill. 
 
 In considering the distribution of teachers and pupils, it 
 is to be taken for granted that the teachers are well fitted 
 for their work in professional knowledge and skill, as well 
 as in all the qualities of head and heart, needed for the 
 work. The question then rests wholly with the individual 
 and social wants of the child, and these point unmistakably 
 to the desirability of grading. These wants will be best 
 satisfied among those who belong to the same circle of 
 development. Here the child will find the material best 
 adapted to its requirements ; hi these surroundings it will 
 feel the keenest interest, and find the readiest appreciation. 
 Where it is feasible, even the children of sub-circles should 
 be arranged in separate groups. By the union of con- 
 tiguous circles the attention of the pupil and the energies 
 of the teacher become scattered, and there is great loss of 
 interest on the one hand, and of power and efficiency, on 
 Ihe other. This is quite apparent in some country district 
 schools, where children of all grades are united. If these 
 schools ever attain an alleged superiority, it is due chiefly 
 to the fact tliat they do not hinder development, where- 
 as badly conducted graded schools, built on fragmentary
 
 32 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 courses of study, do positive harm by repressing, deflect- 
 ing, -or unsettling development in a variety of ways. 
 
 On the other hand, it is desirable that occasions be pro- 
 vided at more or less regular intervals, when the children 
 of contiguous circles are brought together for exercises 
 more or less festive in character. Here the younger are 
 encouraged by the joy and help they can give to the older 
 whom they esteem so highly ; and the higher achievements 
 of the latter of which they are witnesses, furnish whole- 
 some and fertilizing incentives to effort, while the older 
 pupils are taught to feel the joy of leadership and the re- 
 sponsibility of example. 
 
 In the transfers from one circle to another, the degree 
 and character of mental development should furnish the 
 chief criteria, the amount of knowledge and skill acquired 
 being indeed significant, but of secondary importance. The 
 practice of deciding wholly by the amount of positive knowl- 
 edge acquired, is pernicious. A certain degree of intellect- 
 ual maturity will be sure to reach in the various subjects of 
 study a bearable equality with agreeable and helpful com- 
 panions, under the leadership of a tactful teacher. On the 
 other hand, a pupil whose advanced intellectual powers are 
 condemned by lack of knowledge in certain directions or 
 details to confine themselves to inadequate material and 
 within a forcibly contracted scope, will lose interest and 
 waste life, and will exercise by contagion a baneful influ- 
 ence even upon otherwise well-conditioned companions. 
 
 The teacher should follow her pupils at least through 
 the phases of one circle and, if possible, through moite 
 circles than one. This avoids the friction of becoming 
 acquainted with each other, and the consequent loss of 
 energy and interest. Indeed, this is necessary in order 
 to secure on the part of the teacher that interest in the
 
 READING AND -WRITING. 33 
 
 child as such, and on the part of the pupil that faith in the 
 good will of the teacher, which are so essential to success. 
 
 In settling upon suitable methods of teaching the arts of 
 reading and writing, it should be kept in mind that reading 
 and writing do not constitute language, but only those 
 phases thereof, respectively, in which expressions in lan- 
 guage are fixed in symbols for an indefinite period, or in 
 which expressions so fixed are deciphered for purposes 
 of pleasure and profit. Reading and writing should at all 
 times be so managed that the child may make full use of 
 all it learns for the purposes of its life in and out of school. 
 The matter should be kept within the scope of the child's 
 powers of understanding and appreciation, and should be 
 presented in a shape that will provoke the child's self- 
 active efforts in the use and practice of these arts. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, the necessary simple cognitions 
 should be obtained from a concrete outer complexity, by 
 processes of analysis ; and all elements thus gained should 
 be successively verified and fixed by varied use in all-sided 
 synthesis. Strictly, therefore, the teacher should begin 
 with suitable sentences, from which the child obtains by 
 analysis certain words, which may be used in new combi- 
 nations for a variety of purposes. From these words it 
 descends by new analysis to more or less complex combina- 
 tions of sounds and, ultimately to simple sounds, and uses 
 these again in word-building. However, it is perfectly 
 safe, in most cases, to begin at once with the analysis of 
 words, inasmuch as the child usually reaches the word- 
 stage before entering school, even if it has not had the 
 benefit of the kindergarten. 
 
 The words for the first teaching should be selected from 
 the child's experience and conversational vocabulary, so 
 that they may be to the child genuine symbols of ideas of
 
 34 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 actual things, and not mere arbitrary combinations of 
 sounds. These words should be simple, too, in form and 
 sound, easily recognized and readily used in plain state- 
 ments by the child, conditions that are fulfilled by mono- 
 syllables that embody short vowel-sounds. The child may 
 be interested in a number of these by short stories, con- 
 versations and pictures, e. g., dog, rat, trap, cat,jish, net, 
 pot, pin, etc ; wet, fat, black, hot, thin, etc ; can, run, 
 swim, purr, etc. To these should be added in the first or 
 second exercise, a few such words as, the, is, in, my ; and 
 the child is ready for sentence-building to a limited extent. 
 It may form sentences such as, the dog can run, the cat 
 is fat, the rat can run, the rat is in the trap, the fish is in 
 the net, the pot is hot, my dog is thin, etc., in a variety of 
 speaking and writing games in which the teacher gives 
 some portion of a statement which the pupil completes, and 
 i>ice versa. 
 
 Experience shows that the child has little difficulty and 
 is much interested in writing these words and sentences in 
 legible script from the very outset. On the other hand, 
 the practice of printing involves a serious loss of time, in- 
 asmuch as it teaches something which under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances, the child must unlearn again. For similar 
 reasons capital letters should be correctly used from the 
 very beginning. 
 
 In a short time, the words thus used become in their 
 turn objects of interest and thought, and, consequently, of 
 analysis. This may be hastened by exercises in which 
 words of similar sound are arranged in sets, orally and in 
 writing, e. g. : 
 
 dog cat fish net pot can 
 
 hog hat dish wet hot man etc 
 
 log fat wish pet dot pan
 
 READING AND WRITING. 35 
 
 From such sets, by proper treatment, the child will 
 obtain, more or less complex sound-elements, like og, at, 
 ish, et, ot, etc.; and simple consonant elements like d, I, h, 
 etc. These consonant elements may be kept before the 
 child, on some convenient part of the blackboard, in suit- 
 able arrangement, b, c (k), d, f, g, h, etc. The child 
 will, then, enjoy games in word-building, by uniting the 
 complex sound-elements with the consonant elements and 
 making "words that have a meaning." Thus 0*7 will yield 
 bog, dog, fog, hog, log ; at will furnish bat, cat, fat, hat, 
 mat, pat, rat, sat, vat, that, chat ; an will lead to can, fan, 
 man, pan, ran, tan, van, than, etc. In all cases the child 
 should prove its findings by embodying the words in suit- 
 able sentences, in exercises involving both speaking and 
 writing. 
 
 By subsequent analytical processes the complex ele- 
 ments yield their simpler constituents : og, at, ish, an, etc., 
 reveal themselves respectively as o-g, a-t, i-sh, a-n, 
 etc.; and these furnish the material with which the child, 
 at the hand of properly arranged synthetical processes, 
 may rise to whatever complexity the language affords. 
 
 It might be shown now how the regular long vowel- 
 sounds are discovered, and how so-called irregular spellings 
 may be fixed in contrast games, involving sets of words 
 like the following : 
 
 mat - mate male - mail 
 
 hat - hate sale - sail 
 
 man mane tale - tail 
 
 can - cane see sea 
 
 pan - pane feet - feat 
 
 fin - fine meet - meat 
 
 phi - pine reed - read 
 
 etc. etc.
 
 36 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 It might be further shown, how in a different direction, 
 words may be contrasted or grouped according to their 
 meanings or their places in speech, involving a multitude 
 of exercises similar to the following : 
 
 1. good -bad 2. up -down 
 high low in out 
 
 light - dark above - below 
 
 straight - curved before - behind 
 
 3. good - goodness 4. slow -slowly 
 
 great - greatness 
 dark - darkness 
 quick quickness 
 
 5. snow-white 
 coal - black 
 fire - hot 
 
 7. bake -baker 
 read - reader 
 
 write - writer 
 
 animal } 
 9. faithful y dog 
 barks ) 
 
 great - greatly 
 quiet -quietly 
 sweet sweetly 
 
 6. dog barks 
 cat mews 
 horse - runs 
 
 8. tastes! sweet 
 ( sour 
 
 fast 
 slow 
 
 runs < 
 
 looks < 
 
 ( oiu 
 
 fruit 
 
 10. yellow 
 sour 
 
 lemon 
 
 It will be seen that these suggestions, collectively and 
 separately, satisfy in every particular the requirements 
 indicated on page 23. There is throughout the upward 
 tendency from the concrete to the abstract, from particu- 
 lars to the general, from the actual to the possible, from 
 the outer to the inner, from experience to principle, from 
 facts to law, from the complexity of things to the simplio
 
 READING AND WRITING. 37 
 
 ity of thought. They deal throughout with material which 
 the child is supposed to control fully ; and all it learns it 
 can at once apply to the purposes of its life, in arranging 
 and sifting whatever knowledge it has, as well as in com- 
 munication with others in written and spoken language. 
 
 Among the many exercises that may be invented in this 
 direction, I call attention to the use which the child may 
 make of its skill in reading and writing, in labeling the 
 collections it may be induced to make, collections of leaves, 
 of metals, of stones, of kinds of wood, of flower-names, of 
 names of animals, of simple conception-drawings, of observ- 
 ations on the weather, etc., as indicated on page 29, etc. 
 The details of all this, however, and of other applications 
 not mentioned here, must be left to the tact of the teacher 
 who has entered fully into the spirit of psychological laws, 
 and who has the courage to let the children grow. 
 
 As soon as the child has acquired a tolerable control 
 of the principal sounds and letters in script, certainly 
 as soon as it has accomplished the work indicated on 
 page 35, the child may be introduced to the printed let- 
 ters. These are sufficiently like the script letters to recall 
 them in the child's mind almost at first sight, more espec- 
 ially if they appear on suitable printed cards in combina- 
 tions or words with which the child is familiar. Loose 
 sheets, small hand charts, little books, containing very 
 short stories, incidents, anecdotes, riddles, concise descrip- 
 tive statements concerning plants, animals, and other ob- 
 jects of interest, and as soon as possible, suitable " story- 
 books," books of travel, and books of reference should be 
 provided, so that the child may learn to turn to the printed 
 page, from the very start, for legitimate purposes of pleas- 
 ure and instruction. 
 
 Henceforth, there should be a steady advance in all 
 
 241837
 
 38 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 directions. In gradual, continuous progress the pupil should 
 be led, though always in accordance with the principles 
 enounced at the outset, to a genuine, self-active apprecia- 
 tion of the science and art garnered in the printed page. 
 There should be exercises in which the pupil acquires 
 interest and skill in culling knowledge from books, and 
 others in which he may kindle his own enthusiasm for the 
 Beautiful, the True, and the Good, at the immortal fires 
 that burn in treasures of literature ; exercises in which he 
 records concisely and systematically the results of his own 
 observation and experience, and others in which he learns 
 to reproduce in beautiful, living speech, for the enjoyment 
 and edification of others, the words that glowed in the 
 innermost heart of a Past, as well as the emotions that 
 tremble in his own breast. 
 
 In the selection of material for these purposes it should 
 be remembered, however, that these exercises, like all 
 others in which the pupil engages, should take the key- 
 note, not from the possibilities of the subject, but from the 
 actualities and possibilities of the pupil's mental develop- 
 ment at the respective stage. To force or induce a pupil 
 to memorize formulas of knowledge beyond his ken, or to 
 reproduce in outer semblance, emotions he cannot appre- 
 ciate, breeds hopeless self-conceit and hypocrisy, blunts and 
 vitiates, or, even, destroys in his spirit all that is meant to 
 raise him to his destiny. On the other hand, if the mate- 
 rial is presented to the pupil, at successive stages, in forms 
 at which he can aim with reasonable hope of success, in 
 the exercise of his productive activity, he will in due time 
 attain an all-sided mastery of the arts involved, commensu- 
 rate with his powers, and adequate to the purposes and 
 aims of his life.
 
 DISCIPLINE. 39 
 
 The question of disciplinary regulations runs through 
 every phase of school-work, and is, consequently, of the 
 greatest importance. Discipline is concerned more or less 
 directly with the morals of the pupil. It begins when the 
 child begins to become more or less consciously a part of 
 some social organism, and its general aim is the intro- 
 ordination of the child into these organisms. It would 
 make the child an integral part of the organisms in quest- 
 ion, without impairing his individual interest and his per- 
 sonal liberty ; or, rather, it would direct the development 
 of the child's individual interests and personal aspirations, 
 in harmony with the welfare of the social organism. 
 
 In the family, the common interests center largely in 
 the growing individuality of the child, in whom the family 
 sees the promise of its perpetuation. Here the child is 
 introduced, as it were, to itself ; here it discovers and exer- 
 cises its powers with almost exclusive reference to the 
 pleasures of activity. During the first years of the child's 
 life, at least, the disciplinary activity of the family is chiefly 
 yielding, provident, protecting, mostly confined to the ad- 
 justment of surroundings with reference to the child's 
 needs and wants. This remains as the prevailing charac- 
 teristic of the ideal family throughout the child's life, and 
 the adult child returns to the bosom of his father's house 
 with a sense of trust and security which he can find in no 
 other place, not even in the house founded by himself. 
 
 In the kindergarten, the child is introduced to its equals ; 
 and, while the development of individual powers still re- 
 ceives a very large share of attention, the surroundings are 
 so adjusted that the child meets hi the exercise of its indi- 
 vidual powers, at every step, the need of help from its 
 play-fellows and the opportunity of giving help to them. 
 The activities and aspirations, suggested by the surround-
 
 40 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ings, constantly point to the value of common effort, of co- 
 operation. The successes and pleasures this society brings, 
 are so much greater and more intense than those to which 
 it can aspire single-handed, that there is born in the child's 
 heart a sense of gratitude which is none the less real be- 
 cause it is selfish, a love which is none the less intense 
 because it springs from self-love. In due time the child 
 overlooks the pleasurable reactions of giving pleasure and 
 of helping, and begins to find a genuine delight in helpful- 
 ness and sympathy for their own sake; and love whose 
 roots are far down in the dark soil of selfishness, begins to 
 put out beneficent leaves and blossoms hi the bright atmos- 
 phere of a generous good-will. 
 
 In the school, the chief aim of disciplinary regulations is 
 to raise this generous good-will into an abiding sense of 
 duty or obligation, and to bring the conduct under the con- 
 scious control of this sense. Here the child should learn 
 to submit cheerfully to unwelcome restraints and to engage 
 with alacrity in laborious pursuits for the sake of needed 
 results. In a measure the family and, more particularly, 
 the kindergarten have prepared the child for this important 
 discipline, in leading the child from play for immediate 
 gratification to work for the attainment of remote ends, 
 very much simplifying the work of the school, wherever 
 such ideal relations exist. Practically, however, very few 
 children pass through the kindergarten, and the school is 
 compelled to do, as well as it can, much of the work prop- 
 erly belonging to an earlier period, or to labor under the 
 many trying disadvantages that result from a neglect to 
 establish a solid foundation of good-will. 
 
 The proximate end of discipline is automatic good con- 
 duct, good habits ; its proudest outcome is a well-regulated 
 will. It appeals, particularly during the earlier periods of
 
 DISCIPLINE. 41 
 
 the child's life, much to the emotional side of mental life. 
 During the first period, it wins through pleasurable sensa- 
 tions, by means of which it leads and holds the child's at- 
 tention to whatever it deems proper. To these it adds, 
 at a later period, the skillful creation of desires, which by 
 equally skillful gratification, it raises to forms akin to an 
 intelligent interest. The school seeks to render this inter- 
 est abiding and conscious, by a prudent use of pleasurable 
 sensations and of the creation and gratification of desires in 
 connection with the special forms of thought and action 
 with which it is concerned, appealing, however, more and 
 more to the intellect and the reason, through which alone 
 the will can be reached, (p. 13.) 
 
 Generally speaking, the discipline of a school will be 
 good in proportion to the interest it may have called forth 
 on the part of the pupil, in its work. Without such inter- 
 est success is impossible. Stagnation, retrogression, dis- 
 integration will surely follow its abatement or loss. On 
 the other hand, this interest will render it a comparatively 
 easy matter to secure the neatness, accuracy, persistence, 
 consciousness, regard for fellow-students, and teachers, re- 
 spect for the school, and obedience to its minor regulations 
 that are so necessary to the success of the school. Indeed, 
 sweetness of temper, firmness of character, learning, skill, 
 enthusiasm, and other qualities of the teacher owe their 
 value chiefly to their power hi eliciting, satisfying, and 
 holding interest. 
 
 Whatever brings joy to the child's heart, a pleasing sen- 
 sation, the gratification of a harmless desire, the innocent 
 exercise of the sense of power ; whatever makes life brighter 
 and fuller, whatever makes existence worth more to the child, 
 will be sure to call forth this interest. Whatever the child 
 can use for the purposes of its life, will call forth this interest
 
 42 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 It is, then, in this respect, the business of the school to 
 adjust surroundings so that the child may have ample 
 opportunities to form and attain worthy purposes, so that 
 all it sees and does may strengthen these purposes and 
 raise them to higher planes, liberating the child more and 
 more from the need of guidance, and making it more and 
 more the conscious architect of its own fortune. 
 
 The details of this work should be arranged and man- 
 aged with constant reference to the criteria, indicated on 
 pp. 18-20. 
 
 However, the ideal conditions that would render possible 
 a school-discipline, based wholly on interest in the work of 
 the school and on a well-regulated activity of the pupils, 
 are, perhaps, unattainable in practice. The imperfections 
 of the teacher and of the school, the shortcomings of the 
 home and of the kindergarten, the evil effects of uncontrolled 
 associations, and, not unfrequently, of heredity, give rise 
 to a host of unforeseen and unavoidable evils which call for 
 more or less artificial treatment, for the introduction of 
 motives foreign to the work of the school, and for more or 
 less direct compulsion through fear of punishment, dread of 
 authority, or hope of reward. 
 
 If these compulsory means of discipline are used humbly, 
 for what they are worth, with the constant prayer for the 
 removal of the shortcomings that render them unavoidable, 
 they will frequently accomplish much good, but in the hands 
 of pride or self-conceit they do incalculable harm. 
 
 The most pernicious of these is censure mingled with 
 words of contempt or derision. In the first place, the child 
 deserves, even at the worst, compassion and helpful advice, 
 rather than scorn ; and then, these words sink deep into 
 the hearts of the children with meanings they were not 
 intended to have, embittering, ard warping the disposition
 
 DISCIPLINE. 43 
 
 more permanently than even unjust chastisement with the 
 rod. 
 
 Even gentler forms of censure have their dangers, inas- 
 much as they involve an arraignment of motives. The 
 child so often does wrong through ignorance or lack of judg- 
 ment, with the best of motives, and it needs in these cases 
 instruction and advice, but not blame. 
 
 However, under all circumstances, practical as well as 
 ideal, the strongest allies of good discipline are good habits, 
 and these can be secured only at the expense of con- 
 stant watchfulness. The child must be carefully guarded 
 against opportunities or temptations to do wrong, for every 
 such opportunity or temptation retards the formation of 
 a good habit, or weakens a good habit already formed. 
 During a long period, the child does indifferently right or 
 wrong, merely intent on doing something ; but what it does 
 plants a tendency in its mind, which requires only a few 
 similar opportunities to become an eager desire, and, ulti- 
 mately, to settle into a fixed habit. All that might give rise 
 to such tendencies should be carefully excluded from the 
 child's presence, while opportunities for harmless or benefi- 
 cent all-sided activity should be plentifully supplied. Thus, 
 in due time, good habits may ripen into firmness of charac- 
 ter which is proof against temptation from inherent vigor 
 for good.
 
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