LECTURES ON PEDAGOGY 
 
 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL, 
 
 GABRIEL COMPAYRE, 
 
 AUTHOB OF "HlSTOIRE DE LA PEDAGOGIE," PROFESSOR IN THE NORMAL 
 
 SCHOOLS OF FONTENAY-AUX-ROSES AND SAINT CLOUD, AND 
 
 MEMBER OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 
 
 TRANSLATED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, 
 AND AN APPENDIX, 
 
 W. H. PAYNE, A.M., 
 
 CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE AND PRESIDENT OF THE 
 
 PEABODY NORMAL COLLEGE ; AUTHOR OF " CHAPTERS ON SCHOOL 
 
 SUPERVISION," " OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE," AND 
 
 " CONTRTBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION" 
 
 EDITOR OF "PAGE'S THEORY AND PRACTICE 
 
 OF TEACHING " ; AND TRANSLATOR OF 
 
 COMPAYRE'S "HISTOIRE DE 
 
 LA PEDAGOGIE." 
 
 BOSTON:^ > A. 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1889. 
 
 U. C. L A. 
 EOUC. DEPT.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1887, 
 Br W. H. PAYNE. 
 
 PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH, BOSTON, MASS.
 
 U. C. L. A. 
 EDUC. DEPT. 
 
 -7 p. LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF r T TFORNIA 
 .~f SANTA BARBARA 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IN recent years the literature of education has been enriched by 
 no contributions superior to Compayre's " Histoire de la Pedagogic " 
 and " Cours de Pedagogic, Theorique et Pratique." The qualities 
 that are so conspicuous in the first, wise selection of material, 
 absolute clearness of statement, judicial fairness in the treatment 
 of open questions, critical insight, width of intellectual perspective, 
 elegance of diction, also characterize the second ; and these two 
 volumes may be accepted as the best resume yet made of the his- 
 tory, the theory, and the practice of education. 
 
 M. Compayre is too wise, too catholic, and too honest to be an 
 extremist, and his familiarity with the history of education has 
 preserved his respect for the thinkers and teachers of the past, and 
 has saved him from the illusion that a revolution in doctrines and 
 methods is imminent. As the reader proceeds from chapter to 
 chapter he is affected by the words of a judge whose sole preoccu- 
 pation is the truth, and not of an attorney who is addressing a jury- 
 box. In the wide and wise economy of things, partisans and ex- 
 tremists doubtless have their uses ; but the habit of mind that is 
 most worthy of cultivation is temperance, candor, and judicial fair- 
 ness in dealing with a question so complex and difficult as that of 
 education. This is the prevailing spirit of every volume which 
 has proceeded from the pen of M. Compayre'. 
 
 These lectures will commend themselves to that class of teachers, 
 now happily growing in numbers, who are looking to psychology 
 as the rational basis of their art. They will discover, perchance 
 to their surprise and delight, that psychology is not an occult sci- 
 ence, but that the main laws and essential facts of the intellectual 
 life can be expressed in intelligible terms. This subject, like every 
 
 ill
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 other upon which man makes a trial of his thought, finally shades 
 off into transcendental vagueness and uncertainty; but happily 
 the portions that have a real value for guidance lie quite within 
 the compass of the common understanding. For the purposes of 
 disinterested science the mind may be analyzed as though it were 
 an inert thing, just as a dead body may be dissected, and most 
 psychologies seem to have been written from this point of view ; 
 but for the teacher's use the mind should be studied in its cardinal 
 movements when engaged in the process of learning. Such in the 
 main is M. Compayre's treatment of the subject in Part First of 
 these Lectures. 
 
 The thoughtful reader can hardly fail to experience the charm 
 of the author's ardent patriotism. In this volume the teacher is 
 considered as enlisted in the service of the state, working for her 
 preservation, her prosperity, her glory ; and the common school is 
 a mould out of which shall issue the highest type of republican 
 citizenship. The teacher who surveys his work from this vantage- 
 ground must be made of poor stuff if he does not feel a conscious 
 pride in his calling, and does not attain a higher success by keep- 
 ing steadily and clearly in view this goal of his efforts. 
 
 In America, as in France, the state by deliberate intent as well 
 as by a necessary evolution has become an educator. The public 
 school is a civil institution, but on this account it is neither god- 
 less, unchristian, nor immoral. Between the church and the state 
 there has come about a division of functions, and there is no good 
 reason why they may not cooperate as honorable and helpful allies. 
 This thought has never been more tersely and beautifully expressed 
 than in these words by our author : 
 
 " We shall continue to build on our solid bases of justice, charity, and 
 tolerance the human city, while leaving to the ministers of religion 
 the task of building beside it what Saint Augustine called the city of 
 God." 
 
 The teacher's happiness and professional improvement both re- 
 quire that he should have an educational creed as an intellectual 
 and moral support. In education, as in politics and religion, a 
 firm belief in certain first principles is necessary in order to give 
 stability to character and to make continuous growth possible.
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 For the ends here pointed out, it is not required that educational 
 creeds should be uniform, the essential thing being merely that 
 each teacher hold fast to some system of probable truth ; but it is 
 necessary that each one's creed be elastic enough to accommodate 
 new truths or modifications of old truths. We may well take 
 alarm when we are no longer conscious of such internal modifica- 
 tions of ur educational beliefs. The best service a book can ren- 
 der a teacher is to assist him in the formation of his opinions, and 
 for this purpose it must be dispassionate in tone and must carry 
 critical insight into all its discussions. This volume is pervaded 
 by this spirit, so wholesome and helpful, and I experience no little 
 happiness from the thought that by means of this translation I may 
 help American teachers in the formation of a rational educational 
 creed. 
 
 The catholic spirit everywhere manifested by M. Compayre jus- 
 tifies me in expressing mild and cautious dissent on a few mani- 
 festly open questions ; and I have ventured to express my thought 
 in a few brief articles in the Appendix. 
 
 If this volume shall meet the hearty approval that was given the 
 " History of Pedagogy," I shall feel anew my obligations to tha 
 teaching profession. 
 
 W. H. PAYNE. 
 
 NASHVILLE, April 1, 1888.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 I DO not presume to offer to the public, in this volume, a com- 
 plete treatise on education : my purpose is simpler and more mod- 
 est. In bringing together the lectures given in the higher normal 
 schools of Fontenay-aux-Roses and Saint Cloud, I have simply 
 intended to compose an elementary manual of teaching. In the 
 vast field of the principles and the practice of education, I have 
 selected only the indispensable ideas, those of which no one who 
 educates and instructs children can afford to be ignorant. 
 
 In the composition of this volume I have made free use of the 
 works of my predecessors. The best praise that can be given them 
 is to do what I have done, quote them on almost every page. 
 However, I have endeavored not to imitate them, in at least two 
 respects, their dryness and their prolixity. 
 
 Too many manuals of teaching, in fact, are but dry nomencla- 
 tures, in which the spirit of pure form reigns supreme and multiplies 
 divisions, definitions, and distinctions of every sort, with a pedan- 
 tic display which seems borrowed from the ancient logic. 
 
 On the other hand, taking advantage of the intimate relations 
 between pedagogy and the philosophical sciences, other writers on 
 education have given undue extension to the sphere of their art, 
 having included in it, in fact, the whole of psychology, the whole 
 of ethics, and the whole of philosophy. 
 
 I have sought a just medium between these extremes, and have 
 attempted to make my treatment of the subject at once simple and 
 of living interest. 
 
 I do not think it enough to enumerate a certain number of 
 abstract rules and scholastic formulas : my treatment ascends to 
 principles, but with as much discretion as possible. From the 
 
 Til
 
 V1U PREFACE. 
 
 medley of modern lucubrations it lops off everything superfluous, in 
 order to reserve for use what is really essential ; it restricts itself 
 to the clearest and the most practical conceptions. 
 
 I divide my treatise into two very distinct parts. I first study 
 the child in himself, in his natural development, and in the formal 
 culture of his faculties ; and then, abandoning the subject of edu- 
 cation, I examine the object of it, that is to say, instruction and 
 discipline, the methods of the one and the principles and rules 
 of the other. 
 
 In the first part, I call to my aid all who have studied child- 
 hood, correcting and completing their observations by my own 
 studies. 
 
 In the second part, I have expressly consulted those who have 
 professional competence, who have in their own practice put to 
 the test methods of instruction and principles of discipline. For 
 example, in order to extract the practical suggestions that are, 
 as it were, buried in them, I have perused the voluminous and 
 interesting Rapports of the Inspectors-General upon the condition 
 of primary instruction. 1 
 
 Without doubt, the best system of teaching, like the best logic, 
 is still that which we make for ourselves through study, experi- 
 ence, and personal reflection. Certainly, it is not required to 
 have learned by heart and recited, as some authors of teachers' 
 manuals still demand, a catechism of method; but in order to 
 aid the reflection and guide the experience of each novice in 
 instruction, the book is very far from being useless, though it do 
 nothing more than stimulate personal reflection. It is just in 
 this spirit, less for imposing doctrines than for suggesting reflec- 
 tions, that this modest volume has been written. I trust that it 
 may receive the same welcome as my "History of Pedagogy," 
 of which it is the sequel. 
 
 1 Paris, Imprimerie nationale, 1879-1880, 1881-1882.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE iii 
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE vii 
 
 PART I. THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY 1-261 
 
 CHAPTER I. Education in General 3-27 
 
 CHAPTER II. Physical Education 28-51 
 
 CHAPTER III. Intellectual Education 52-72 
 
 CHAPTER IV. The Education of the Senses 73-93 
 
 CHAPTER V. Culture of the Attention 94-113 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Culture of the Memory 114-137 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Culture of the Imagination 138-158 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. The Faculties of Keflection, Judgment, 
 
 Abstraction, Reasoning 159-184 
 
 CHAPTER IX. Culture of the Feelings 185-202 
 
 CHAPTER X. Moral Education 203-226 
 
 CHAPTER XI. Will, Liberty, and Habit 227-244 
 
 CHAPTER XII. The Higher Sentiments: ^Esthetic Educa- 
 tion ; Religious Education 245-261 
 
 PART IL PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY 263-476 
 
 CHAPTER I. Methods in General 265-289 
 
 CHAPTER IL Reading and Writing 290-309 
 
 CHAPTER III. Object-lessons 810-324 
 
 CHAPTER IV. The Study of the Mother Tongue . . . . 825-342 
 
 CHAPTER V. The Teaching of History 343-361 
 
 ix
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. The Teaching of Geography 362-378 
 
 CHAPTER VII. The Teaching of the Sciences 379-396 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. Morals and Civic Instruction 397-416 
 
 CHAPTER IX. Drawing. Music. Singing 417-432 
 
 CHAPTER X. The Other Exercises of the School . . . 433-446 
 
 CHAPTER XI. Rewards and Punishments 447-462 
 
 CHAPTER XII. Discipline in General 463-476 
 
 APPENDIX 477-481 
 
 A. The Doctrine of Memory 477 
 
 B. Analysis and Synthesis 478 
 
 C. The Problem of Primary Reading 479 
 
 D. The Value of Subjects 480 
 
 INDEX . 483-491
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY.
 
 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EDUCATION IN GENEKAL. 
 
 1. ORIGIN OF THE WORD EDUCATION. " Education " is 
 a word relatively new in the French language. Montaigne 
 employs it only once, in a sentence often quoted : "I pro- 
 test against all violence in the education of a tender soul, 
 which is being trained for honor and liberty." 1 With this 
 exception, he always employs the expression institution des 
 enfants, from which we have the word instituteur. The 
 writers of the sixteenth century were accustomed to use 
 the word nournture in the same sense, as in the well- 
 known proverb, Nourriture passe nature (Nurture is more 
 than Nature). But in the seventeenth century, ' educa- 
 tion " comes into current use to designate the art of train- 
 ing men. 
 
 2. EDUCATION is THE PREROGATIVE OF MAN. To man 
 must be reserved the noble term education. Training 
 suffices for animals, and cultivation for plants. Man alone 
 is susceptible of education, because he alone is capable of 
 governing himself, and of becoming a moral being. An 
 animal, through its instincts, is all that it can be, or at 
 least all that it has need of being. But man, in order to 
 
 1 Montaigne, Essais, I., II., Chap. VIII.
 
 4 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 perfect himself, has need of reason and reflection ; and as 
 at birth he does not himself possess these qualities, he must 
 be brought up by other men. 
 
 3. Is THERE A SCIENCE OP EDUCATION? No one doubts, 
 to-day, the possibility of a science of education. Education 
 is itself an art, skill embodied in practice ; and this art 
 certainly supposes something besides the knowledge of a 
 few rules learned from books. It requires experience, 
 moral qualities, a certain warmth of heart, and a real in- 
 spiration of intelligence. There can be no education with- 
 out an educator, any more than poetry without a poet, that 
 is, without some one who by his personal qualities vivifies 
 and applies the abstract and lifeless laws of treatises on 
 education. But, just as eloquence has its rules derived 
 from rhetoric, and poetry its rules derived from poetics ; 
 just as, in another order of ideas, medicine, which is an 
 art, is based upon the theories of medical science ; so 
 education, before being ' an art in the hands of the 
 masters who practise it, who enrich it by their versatility 
 and their devotion, who put upon it the impress of their 
 mind and heart, education is a science which philoso- 
 phy deduces from the general laws of human nature, and 
 which the teacher perfects by inductions from his own 
 experience. 
 
 There is, therefore, a science of education, a practical 
 and applied science, which now has its principles and laws, 
 which gives proof of its vitality by a great number of pub- 
 lications, both in France and abroad, and which has also 
 its peculiar designation, Pedagogy, although there is still 
 hesitation in adopting it. 
 
 4. PEDAGOGY AND EDUCATION. It is to be regretted that 
 so many writers still confound pedagogy with education.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 5 
 
 There is more than a shade of difference between these two 
 terms. Pedagogy, so to speak, is the theory of education, 
 and education the practice of pedagogy. Just as one may 
 be a rhetorician without being an orator, so one may be 
 a pedagogue that is, may have a thorough knowledge of 
 the rules of education without being an educator, without 
 having practical skill in the training of children. 1 
 
 "To form a man," says Marion, eloquently, "is a fine art, a 
 perilous undertaking. In this art do not venture the infallibility 
 of a systematic geometry, and do not expect from it the supreme 
 tranquillity of finely wrought demonstrations. In the prosecution 
 of this art there will be contest, the unforeseen, brusque transi- 
 tions, whims, failures, recoveries, inertia, the miracles of free and 
 active nature. There will be all the tumultuous ebb and flow, the 
 bursting into harmony and the degenerating into chaos, which 
 are in man as well as in the sea." 2 
 
 But from these difficulties in practice we must not con- 
 clude either that the rules of education do not exist, or that 
 it is useless to know them. In medicine also how much 
 
 1 M. Compayre's use of the terms pedagogy and pedagogue may be 
 illustrated as follows : A writer who discusses educational questions 
 from the theoretical point of view is a pedagogue, and his treatise is 
 a work on pedagogy; while a man who directs educational affairs 
 without actually teaching, as a superintendent of public instruction 
 or of schools, is an educator. A history of pedagogy is an account 
 of the rise, progress, and present state of educational theories or ideas ; 
 while a history of education is an account of the rise, progress, and 
 present state of educational systems and establishments. In other 
 words, education in its theoretical or scientific aspect is pedagogy ; 
 while in its practical aspect, or in its art-phase, it is education. But 
 if distinctive terms are needed to designate these two phases, why 
 not call education in the first sense Pedagogics, and in the second 
 Pedagogy? We might thus escape the tautology of theoretical peda- 
 gogy and the inconsistency of practical pedagogy. (P.) 
 
 2 Marion's Lectures on the Science of Education, Manuel general 
 de Pinstruction primaire, Paris, 1884, p. 13.
 
 6 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 that is unforeseen, what freaks of nature, how many sur /) 
 prises that baffle our fears or deceive our hopes ! A 
 yet what we demand above all else of a physician is to 
 have a thorough knowledge of the principles and rules of 
 his art. 
 
 Let it not be said, then, that for educating men there is 
 required neither precision of analysis nor science. Let it 
 be said, rather, that all this is not enough, because living 
 nature, by its sudden upheavals and unexpected falls, 
 by its mobility and its diversity, can hold in check the 
 best-established calculations. But recollect, however, that 
 there are rules and principles, if not infallible, at least 
 generally efficacious. Recollect, also, that these rules are 
 becoming more exact day by day, and that with the progress 
 of science this approximation becomes greater and greater. 
 
 The further we go, the better we know childhood, and the 
 more deeply we fathom the laws of human nature ; the more 
 perfect, also, educational methods become, and the more 
 nearly they approach the truth. It is said that experience 
 is everything and science nothing ; but what, pray, is 
 science itself, if not the experience of the ancients and of 
 all those who have preceded us? Then let us not allow 
 ourselves to think, with Diesterweg, that the study of peda- 
 gogy is of no account, and that one is born an educator 
 just as one is born a poet. 1 Let us not fall into the pre- 
 judice of thinking that a professor or a teacher has no more 
 need of knowing the theoretical laws of education and 
 instruction than we have of learning the functions of diges- 
 tion from a book on physiology, in order that our food may 
 be properly digested. In the matter of education, that 
 which is worth still more than inspiration is inspiration 
 enlightened and regulated by science. 
 
 1 (Euvres Choisies de Diesterweg. Hachette, 1884, p. 272.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 7 
 
 5. PEDAGOGY, AND ITS SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES. Can it 
 be said that pedagogy has now become an organized 
 science, and that recent progress has liberated it from those 
 gropings and uncertainties which every science traverses in 
 its earlier stages? We do not go so far in our assumptions. 
 Notwithstanding the great feats already accomplished, it is 
 still necessary to repeat to-day what Diesterweg said in 
 1830. The scientific coordination of the precepts and 
 experiments of pedagogy is still rather an aspiration or a 
 hope than an accomplished fact. 
 
 "Would to God," he wrote, "that we had made enough 
 progress so that, I do not say all men, but merely men of culture, 
 were agreed as to the best mode of education ; that we could not 
 only determine with certainty what is good and what is bad, and 
 what the results are of such or such a method, but also give a 
 reason for our conclusions." 1 
 
 But if we still have need of seeking the solution of certain 
 problems, we at least know where these solutions can be 
 found, and from what sources we must draw in order to 
 give more and more exactness to our conceptions of educa- 
 tion. Like all the practical sciences, pedagogy rests upon 
 certain theoretical data, or upon a scientific basis. 
 
 6. THE RELATION OF PEDAGOGY TO PSYCHOLOGY. Just 
 as the physician ought to know the organs and the func- 
 tions of the body which he treats, the farmer the nature of 
 the soil which he cultivates, and the sculptor the qualities 
 of the marble which he chisels and of the clay which he 
 kneads, so the teacher cannot do witho.it the knowledge of 
 the laws of the mental organization, that is, the study 
 of psychology. 
 
 In truth, the rules for teaching are but the laws of psy- 
 
 1 Diesterweg, op. cit., p. 64.
 
 8 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 chology applied, transformed into practical maxims, and 
 tested by experience. 
 
 Psychology is the basis of all the practical sciences which 
 have to do with the moral faculties of man ; but the other 
 sciences which are derived from psychology treat of but 
 certain energies of the human soul, logic, of thought; 
 aesthetics, of the sentiment of the beautiful ; ethics, of the 
 will. Pedagogy alone embraces .all faculties of the soul, 
 and should put under contribution the whole of psychology. 
 
 7. Is THERE AN INFANT PSYCHOLOGY? It is not, how- 
 
 ever, general psychology, the psychology of the grown man, 
 which alone ought to inspire the teacher. Whatever may 
 have been said about it, there is a psychology of the child, 
 because there is a childhood of the soul. The idealists, like 
 Malebranche, should be the only ones to assert that the 
 human spirit has no age, that from the hour of birth it is 
 all that it can become, and that it is already capable of 
 comprehending the loftiest abstractions. 1 To an impartial 
 observer it is evident that the mind is developed and 
 formed in accordance with certain laws of growth which 
 definitely constitute the psychology of the child. Psychol- 
 ogy, in a word, is not an invariable geometry, establishing 
 immutable theorems, but a history, at least for the first 
 years of life, which relates the gradual evolution of the 
 different faculties. 
 
 It has been truly said that if we wish to train a man, we 
 must know the psychology of men ; but we would add that 
 if we would educate a child, we must study the psychology 
 of the child. 2 
 
 1 See Compayre, History of Pedagogy (Boston : 1886), p. 193. 
 
 2 It is safer, with Pestalozzi, to look for the man in the child, than 
 to regard the child as being sui generis. The progress from childhood 
 to manhood is an insensible transition ; there is no brusque passage
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 9 
 
 8. THE RELATIONS OF PEDAGOGY WITH OTHER SCIENCES. 
 Of course, since pedagogy embraces the whole human 
 being, it does not derive its inspiration from psychology 
 alone. In order to give a competent treatment of physical 
 education, and even of certain parts of intellectual and 
 moral education, biology in general, and more particularly 
 the anatomy and physiology of man, are summoned to 
 render important services. 
 
 In the same way it would be easy to prove that pedagogy 
 cannot dispense with the aid of ethics and logic. Educa- 
 tion tends to lead man to his proper destination, and it is 
 ethics which determines the real end of human actions, 
 the essential nature of all that we call good and desirable. 
 On the other hand, education is the culture of thought 
 and reason, and it is logic which makes known the best 
 methods of weighing knowledges in order to discover the 
 truth. 
 
 Pedagogy, or the science of education, then, has its 
 method, which consists in observing all the facts of the 
 physical and moral life of man, or rather in making use of 
 the general laws which inductive reflection has constructed 
 from these facts. Let us now define with greater precision 
 its object and the principles which ought to guide it. 
 
 9. DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS OF EDUCATION. The educa- 
 tors are rare who, like Locke, have written formal treatises 
 on education without defining it, without collecting into one 
 single formula the elements of their system. 1 In general, 
 
 from one to the other, such as seems to be implied in the term " infant 
 psychology." However, this distinction will be serviceable if it shall 
 emphasize the need of adapting instruction to the powers and the 
 mental needs of the child. Dr. White's discussion of this subject 
 (Elements of Pedagogy) is valuable. (P.) 
 1 See the opening paragraphs of Thoughts on Education.
 
 10 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 each writer on education has his own definition, and this 
 diversity is chiefly due to the fact that the greater number 
 have wrongly included in their definitions the indication 
 of the particular methods and different means which educa- 
 tion calls to its aid. 
 
 It will not be without interest to mention in this place the 
 principal definitions that are of note, either on account of 
 the names of their authors or of the relative exactness of 
 their connotations. 
 
 One of the most ancient, and also one of the best, is that 
 of Plato: 
 
 " The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the 
 soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are 
 capable." 
 
 The perfection of human nature, such indeed is the ideal 
 purpose of education. 
 
 It is in the same sense that Kant, Madame Necker de 
 Saussure, and Stuart Mill have given the following defini- 
 tions : 
 
 "Education is the development in man of all the perfection 
 which his nature permits." 
 
 " To educate a child is to put him in a condition to fulfil as 
 perfectly as possible the purpose of his life." 
 
 " Education includes whatever we do for ourselves and whatever 
 is done for us by others, for the express purpose of bringing us 
 nearer to the perfection of our nature." 
 
 Here it is the general purpose of education which is prin- 
 cipally in view. But the term perfection is somewhat 
 vague and requires some explanation. Herbert Spencer's 
 definition responds in part to this need : 
 
 " Education is the preparation for complete living." 
 
 But in what does complete living itself consist? The 
 definitions of German educators give us the reply :
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 11 
 
 " Education is at once the art and the science of guiding the 
 young and of putting them in a condition, by the aid of instruc- 
 tion, through the power of emulation and good example, to 
 attain the triple end assigned to man by his religious, social, and 
 national destination." (Niemeyer.) 
 
 "Education is the harmonious and equable evolution of the 
 human faculties by a method founded upon the nature of the 
 mind for developing all the faculties of the soul, for stirring up 
 and nourishing all the principles of life, while shunning all one- 
 sided culture and taking account of the sentiments on which 
 the strength and worth of men depend." (Stein.) 
 
 " Education is the harmonious development of the physical, 
 intellectual, and moral faculties." (Denzel.) 
 
 These definitions have the common fault of not throwing 
 into sharper relief the essential character of education 
 properly so called, which is the premeditated, intentional 
 action which the will of a man exercises over the child 
 to instruct and train him. They might be applied equally 
 well to the natural, instinctive, and predetermined develop- 
 ment of the human faculties. In this respect we prefer the 
 following formulas : 
 
 " Education is the process by which one mind forms another 
 mind, and one heart another heart." (Jules Simon.) 
 
 " Education is the sum of the intentional actions by means 
 of which man attempts to raise his fellows to perfection." 
 (Marion.) 
 
 " Education is the sum of the efforts whose purpose is to give 
 to man the complete possession and correct use of his different 
 faculties." (Henry Joly.) 
 
 Kant rightly demanded that the purpose of education 
 should be to train children, not with reference to their 
 success in the present state of human society, but with 
 reference to a better state possible in the future, in accord- 
 ance with an ideal conception of humanity. We must 
 surely assent to these high and noble aspirations, without
 
 12 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 forgetting, however, the practised aims of educational 
 effort. It is in this sense that James Mill wrote : 
 
 " The end of education is to render the individual as much as 
 possible an instrument of happiness, first to himself, and next to 
 other beings." 
 
 Doubtless this definition is incomplete, but it has the 
 merit of leading us back to the practical realities and 
 the real conditions of existence. The word happiness is 
 the utilitarian translation of the word perfection. A lofty 
 idealism should not make us forget that the human being 
 aspires to be happy, and that happiness is also a part 
 of his destination. Moreover, without losing sight of 
 the fact that education is above all else the disinterested 
 development of the individual, of one's personality, it 
 is well that the definition of education should remind us 
 that we do not live solely for ourselves, for our own 
 single and selfish perfection, but that we also live for 
 others, and that our existence is subordinate to that of 
 others. 
 
 What are we to conclude from this review of so many 
 different definitions? First, that their authors have often 
 complicated them by the introduction of various elements 
 foreign to the exact notion of the word education, and that 
 it would perhaps be better to be satisfied to say, with 
 Rousseau, for the sake of uniting simply on the sense of 
 the word, " Education is the art of bringing up children and 
 of forming men." But if we are determined to include in 
 the definition of education the determination of the subject 
 upon which it acts and the object which it pursues, we shall 
 find the elements of such a conception here and there in the 
 different formulas which we have quoted. It would suffice 
 to bring them together and to say : 
 
 " Education is the sum of the reflective efforts by which we aid
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 13 
 
 nature in the development of the physical, 1 intellectual, and moral 
 faculties of man, ih view of his perfection, his happiness, and his 
 social destination." 
 
 10. DIVISION OF EDUCATION. Education comprises dif- 
 ferent divisions, which correspond to a similar division of 
 the faculties of human nature. 
 
 Whatever theory may be held as to the nature of the 
 soul, whether it be considered as a distinct and independent 
 substance or as related to the body as effect to its cause, 
 the duality of the physical and the moral is no less real on 
 this account. Hence there is a prime distinction to be 
 made between the education of the body and the education 
 of the mind. 
 
 But the mind itself is subdivided into a certain number 
 of faculties. Thus it has long been the custom to distin- 
 guish intellectual education from moral education, the first 
 cultivating the intellectual faculties and communicating 
 knowledges, the other developing the heart and the will, 
 and forming the sentiments, the habits, the conscience, and 
 the moral powers. 
 
 In truth, it were preferable, having once started in this 
 line of thought, to follow to the end the psychological 
 division of the faculties, and to distinguish the education 
 
 1 In a definition of education we cannot omit the development of 
 the physical faculties. Yet many educators pass them by in silence. 
 This is easily accounted for in the case of theologians, like Dupan- 
 loup, who define education as "the art of preparing for the life 
 eternal by exalting the present life." But it is not so easy to 
 explain what Mr. Bain says : " Physical education, however important 
 it may be, may be kept quite separate." (Education as a Science, p. 3.) 
 So an English writer, James Sully, defines education in too narrow 
 a sense when he says that it is " the practical science which aims at 
 cultivating the mind on the side of Knowing, Feeling, and Willing 
 alike." (Outlines of Psychology, p. 15.)
 
 14 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 of the intelligence, the education of the sentiments, and the 
 education of the will. 
 
 Horace Mann, the American educator, distinguished the 
 three essential parts of education in the following eloquent 
 extract : 
 
 "By the word education I mean much more than the ability to 
 read, write, and keep common accounts. I comprehend, under 
 this noble word, such a training of the body as shall build it up 
 with robustness and vigor, at once protecting it from disease and 
 enabling it to act formatively upon the crude substances of 
 nature, to turn a wilderness into cultivated fields, forests into 
 ships, or quarries and clay-pits into villages and cities. I mean 
 also to include such a cultivation of the intellect as shall enable 
 it to discover those permanent and mighty laws which pervade all 
 parts of the created universe, whether material or spiritual. This 
 is necessary, because, if we act in obedience to these laws, all the 
 resistless forces of Nature become our auxiliaries and cheer us on 
 to certain prosperity and triumph ; but if we act in contravention 
 or defiance of these laws, then Nature resists, thwarts, baffles us, 
 and in the end it is just as certain that she will overwhelm us with 
 ruin, as it is that God is stronger than man. And, finally, by the 
 term Education I mean such a culture of our moral affections 
 and religious susceptibilities as, in the course of Nature and 
 Providence, shall lead to a subjection or conformity of all our 
 appetites, propensities, and sentiments to the will of Heaven." l 
 
 11. ANOTHER DIVISION OF EDUCATION. The preceding 
 division is founded on the consideration of the subject, 
 that is, of the faculties of man ; but if we regard the object, 
 or the end of education, other divisions are made necessary. 
 
 In fact, a general or liberal education, which is meet for 
 all, is one thing, and a professional or technical education, 
 which prepares only for a given vocation, is quite another. 
 At the normal school, for example, it is not the purpose 
 
 1 Lectures on Education. Boston, 1855, pp. 117, 118.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 15 
 
 merely to educate men, but to train teachers ; to a general 
 education there is added a special education, an education 
 in pedagogy. 
 
 " These two species of education," says Dupanloup, " a general 
 and liberal education, and a special and professional education, 
 are equally important to man. Moreover, they are not opposed to 
 one another. Directly to the contrary, they strengthen and 
 perfect one another ; each is accomplished through the other. To 
 neglect one to the advantage of the other would be to weaken 
 them, and often to ruin both at once." 1 
 
 12. LIBERAL EDUCATION. The true term which should 
 be applied to the education which is general and essential is 
 "liberal education," although this term has till now been 
 expressly reserved for the studies which prepare for the 
 liberal professions. 
 
 If all men are free, morally free in the determination 
 of their actions, and politically free through their participa- 
 tion in the government of the society of which they form 
 a part, is it not evident that they all have the right, what- 
 ever may be their condition, to a liberal education which 
 enlightens and emancipates their mind and their will ? For- 
 merly the classical humanities, the dead languages, were 
 regarded as the sole instrument of a liberal education ; but 
 to-day historical and scientific studies, even reduced to 
 their simplest elements, appear to us to be studies truly 
 liberalizing, and constitute what might be called the primary 
 humanities. Even the physical exercises which give agility 
 to the body and prepare it to become at a later period the 
 docile instrument of professional education, constitute in 
 one sense a part of a liberal education. 
 
 " That man has received a liberal education," says Mr. Huxley, 
 " who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready 
 
 1 Dupanloup, De I' Education, tome I., p. 312.
 
 16 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work 
 that, as a mechanism, it is capable of ; whose intellect is a clear, 
 cold, logical engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in 
 smooth working order, ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to 
 any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the 
 anchors of the mind ; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of 
 the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her 
 operations ; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but 
 whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the 
 servant of a tender conscience ; who has learned to love all beauty, 
 whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, to respect others 
 as himself." 1 
 
 It is not necessary, then, in order to receive a liberal 
 education, to aim at a high intellectual instruction. It 
 suffices that the elementary instruction has been directed in 
 such a way as to prepare for the free development of the 
 reason. It may be said, in one sense, that the old educa- 
 tion of the Jesuits was not a liberal education, since it did 
 not tend in a sufficient degree towards the emancipation of 
 the will and the mind. On the contrary, a poor workman 
 gives his children a liberal education if he strives to open 
 their intelligence and to fortify their moral energy, even 
 though it is within his power to teach them nothing else 
 than the elements of the sciences. 
 
 13. THE PRINCIPLE OF NATURE. Especially since 
 Rousseau's time, educational writers are fond of repeating 
 that the grand principle of education is conformity to the 
 laws of nature. We do not intend to oppose this notion. 
 The nearer we come to the natural needs of the child, the 
 more fully we take into account his aptitudes, the more 
 perfectly shall we adapt the objects and the methods of 
 instruction to the progressive development of his faculties, 
 
 1 Lay Sermons, pp. 34, 36.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 17 
 
 and to the greater degree shall we make of education a 
 useful and truly efficacious work, particularly if we take 
 account, not only of the general nature of man, but of the 
 particular nature of each child. 
 
 "Man," says Diesterweg, "ought to become what nature has 
 destined him to be, and it is from his aptitudes that we are to 
 infer his destination. You will vainly attempt to train him for 
 things to which he is not adapted. You will never make an angel 
 of him, for he was not born for that. He neither can be nor 
 ought to be any other thing than a man, and each individual, in 
 his turn, becomes what his aptitudes demand and make possible. 
 Attempt, then, to make a Mozart of a deaf mute or of a man who 
 has no ears." 
 
 We are not called upon, then, as was formerly done, to 
 contend against nature, to treat her as an enemy, and to 
 resist her as a deadly influence. On the contrary, we must 
 have confidence in her, without, however, going so far as to 
 abandon ourselves entirely to her. We must treat her as 
 we would a friend to whom we listen and whom we follow, 
 but to whom it is sometimes necessary to refuse certain 
 concessions. 
 
 14. WHAT ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND BY NATURE? But 
 if the principle of nature is excellent, we cannot conceal 
 the fact that this term is vague and that it admits of equiv- 
 ocation. In reality, what is called nature is after all an 
 ideal which each educator conceives in his own way. 1 
 
 " What," says Diesterweg in another place, " is conformity to 
 nature? Where shall we find her? How shall we know her? 
 What men have remained faithful to her ? Must we look for them 
 in the virgin forests of America, or in the various tribes of the 
 South Sea, or rather in the civilized nations of Europe ? Where 
 
 1 In Contributions to the Science of Education I liave discussed the 
 terra " Nature." (P.)
 
 18 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 are the privileged beings who have been so fortunate as never to 
 have withdrawn from the watch-care of nature ? " 
 
 To find an answer to this question, there is no other 
 way than to observe the child with impartiality at the age 
 when the conventionalities, the fashions, and the arti- 
 fices of society have not yet spoiled his native simplic- 
 ity. As Rousseau said, " Let us study the man in the 
 child." 
 
 15. RESTRICTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLE OF NATURE. But 
 however good our opinion may be of human nature, we 
 should not think of humoring it in everything. Mr. Bain 
 admits that there are evil instincts, such as anger, hatred, 
 antipathy, jealousy, and scorn. Educators should repress 
 and correct them, instead of encouraging and developing 
 them. 
 
 Moreover, we are not to forget that, when abandoned to 
 herself, nature makes only savages. It is education alone 
 that can rescue us from the animal state and make men of 
 us. As Kant has said, it is education that rids us of our 
 natural savagery. 
 
 "Man cannot become man, save through education. He is 
 only what education makes him. He who has not been disciplined 
 is a savage." 
 
 In other terms, it is not enough that education should be 
 inspired by nature and draw her rules from nature. Educa- 
 tion is no less an art on this account ; that is, a body of 
 maxims founded on the experiences of successive genera- 
 tions of men, a body of processes brought into conformity 
 with the new elements which progress and civilization have 
 gradually introduced into the primitive nature of man. It 
 is not a question of educating man in general, but the man
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 19 
 
 of the nineteenth century, the man of a certain country, a 
 citizen, a Frenchman. 1 
 
 It is with nature in education as with universal suffrage in 
 politics. Doubtless we must obey the majority, the law of 
 numbers, in our social affairs, just as we must follow nature 
 in education. But the majority itself should be inspired by 
 reason and justice, and so natural education ought to be 
 but the development of the reason which is in man. 2 
 
 16. EDUCATION THE WORK OF LIBERTY. Education, 
 then, is not the training of an inert and passive being, but 
 the development of a being that is free and active, whose 
 instruction we are to provoke, and whose spontaneity we 
 are to excite. 
 
 Education has often been likened to sculpture, its purpose 
 being, so to speak, to chisel human souls according to a 
 highly wrought model. The error in this comparison is 
 forgetting that spirit is not inert matter that can be fash- 
 ioned as we will, that passively submits to whatever we 
 impose on it, as marble or wood to the chisel of the artist. 
 
 1 There has been no greater mistake in educational theory than to 
 assume that the education of to-day must be adjusted in accordance 
 with the needs of primitive man or of primitive society. For 
 example, as, historically, the family came before the state, it is 
 assumed that now, when the state has been definitely organized, 
 family duties antedate duties to civil society. But tempora mutantur, 
 d nos cum illis mutamur. Primitively, parenthood preceded citizen- 
 ship; but now citizenship precedes parenthood. The child must be 
 educated, not for the primeval world of barbarism into which the 
 parents of the race were born, but for the world re-created by human 
 art, into which he himself was born. (P.) 
 
 2 Emerson somewhere uses provocation to denote the spiritual act 
 of teaching. Professor Jowett makes Plato (Meno) use the term dicit 
 to express the same fact The term induce perhaps expresses still 
 more correctly the real nature of instruction as it was conceived by 
 Socrates. (P.)
 
 20 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Far different is the mind of the child, which ceaselessly 
 reacts upon that of the educator, and mingles its own 
 activity with his. Education is a work in which pupil and 
 teacher co-operate. Often the young co-worker resists by 
 his caprices, by a sort of open hostility ; and oftener by his 
 inertia he disconcerts the plans of his teacher and takes no 
 active part in them. But in an education well administered, 
 the pupil ought to be associated with the teacher. On his 
 part he should strive to reach the end towards which he is 
 being conducted. By his personal efforts he should partici- 
 pate in the education which he receives. 
 
 " Teacher," said Pestalozzi, 1 eloquently, " be assured of the ex- 
 cellence of liberty, and do not allow yourself to be induced, 
 through vanity, to devote yourself to the production of immature 
 fruits. Let your pupil be as free as he can be. Carefully provide 
 everything which allows you to grant him liberty, tranquillity, and 
 unruffled humor. Everything, absolutely everything that you can 
 teach him through the natural consequences of things, do not 
 teach him through language. Allow him in his own person to 
 see, hear, find, fall, get up, and be deceived. No words when the 
 act, the thing itself, is possible. Whatever he can do himself, 
 let him do. Let him always be busy, always active ; and let the 
 time during which you do not disturb him in the least be the 
 greatest part of his childhood. You will find out that nature 
 teaches him much better than men can." 
 
 17. EDUCATION A WORK OF AUTHORITY. It was a wise 
 saying of Kant that one of the greatest problems of educa- 
 tion is to reconcile the liberty of the child with the necessity 
 of constraint. 
 
 It is the same thought which troubled Pestalozzi when 
 he wrote : 
 
 "I often find myself embarrassed for having suppressed, in 
 1 Histoire de Pestalozzi, par Roger de Guimps, p. 57.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 21 
 
 the education of my children, the tone of the master's authority. 
 Where shall I find the line between liberty and obedience? 
 
 " There are crises in which the liberty of the child would work 
 harm to him, and even under the most favorable circumstances it 
 is often necessary to oppose the child's will." 
 
 Education does not abandon nature to herself, but over- 
 sees and directs her, and, if necessary, constrains her. In 
 a general way, education is the work of authority as much 
 as of liberty, and the authority acquired by a master who 
 knows how to make himself loved and obeyed will permit 
 him to employ persuasion oftener than constraint. The 
 more authority he has, the less need he will have to use it. 
 
 One of the masters of contemporary pedagogy, M. Buisson, 
 has deftly analyzed the conditions of this authority. 
 
 " The justification of the special authority which is delegated 
 to the teacher in education is that it is the only means of assuring 
 the development of the pupil. In attaining this result, it is 
 evidently necessary, on the one hand, that the teacher really have 
 the power to contribute to this development, and, on the other, 
 that he have the will. 
 
 " First, he must have the power, and to this end it is above 
 all else necessary that he know what he ought to transmit, and 
 that he have over the pupil the advantage of experience and of 
 a full and serene possession of the knowledge whose elements he 
 is to communicate. 
 
 " Nor is this all. Even what he thoroughly knows he must still 
 learn to communicate. To teach, to educate, is certainly an art 
 
 which has its rules and its secrets There are necessary 
 
 mental conditions, that is, aptitudes and habits, which allow the 
 teacher, for example, if he is giving instruction, to present his 
 subject with system, and yet with variety ; to make for himself 
 a plan, and to follow it without falling into dogmatic exactness ; 
 to know how to make a truth luminous in the minds of children, 
 to insist on the important, and to sacrifice or postpone the acces- 
 sory. If the teacher is giving moral training, his skill should 
 permit him to notice delicately, and to correct still more delicately,
 
 22 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 faults of mind and character ; to persuade and to command, as 
 occasion requires ; to encourage, when necessary, and just enough 
 not to develop pride ; finally, to govern according to well-estab- 
 lished principles, and yet with very fine shades of treatment, those 
 little people, so much the more difficult to manage because they 
 are so frail and so powerless to govern themselves. There are 
 also necessary conditions of character, the absence of which would 
 suffice to make the effort to instruct a failure : an even temper, 
 the gift of patience, a bearing which is not exactly that of 
 ordinary life, but as it were a- mingling of gravity and cheerfulness 
 in manner which at once captures the hearts of children ; extreme 
 precaution in shunning the very things which in society and in 
 the world are the most acceptable and the most sought after. 
 There should never be irony, never contradictions and paradoxes, 
 never anything which exalts the teacher at the expense of the 
 pupil, much indulgence, and no trace of weakness ; nothing ex- 
 citing or brusque ; an inflexible firmness and a paternal gentleness ; 
 inexhaustible simplicity in all things; finally, a constant effort, 
 which becomes insensible in the course of time, to come down to 
 his plane, to understand him, to sustain him, to love him. 
 
 " This last word causes us to pass to the second order of condi- 
 tions. The teacher must have the will to labor for the develop- 
 ment of the child. In fact, it is not so much a question of 
 knowledge as of will. If his heart is really fixed on enriching the 
 patrimony of the young soul which is confided to him, the teacher 
 will infallibly succeed, even though his knowledge is limited. If 
 he loves his pupils, he will resolve, as it were, intuitively, a mass 
 of those practical problems of which his art is composed ; for it 
 cannot be too often repeated that education is an art which is 
 administered rather through experience than through formulas. 
 The teacher will hold a just medium between authority and 
 liberty; he will respect the initiative of the child without demand- 
 ing too much of him or abandoning him too much to himself ; he 
 will gain ascendency in proportion as he is preoccupied the less 
 with himself and the more with his pupil ; he will perfect himself 
 in order to perfect his pupil." x 
 
 1 Dictionnaire de Pedagogic, art. " Eduoation."
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 23 
 
 18. POWER AND LIMITS OF EDUCATION. Fontenelle was 
 certainly wrong when he said: "A good education does 
 not make a good character, nor does a bad education 
 destroy character." On the contrary, we believe that edu- 
 cation plays an important part even in the formation of 
 the higher virtues and the superior qualities of the mind. 
 It contributes towards making or unmaking characters. 
 But we shall not go so far as to believe, with Locke and 
 Helvetius, that education is omnipotent. Doubtless it may 
 be held that the power of education is ideally infinite ; * but 
 as a matter of fact it is limited in its action, either through 
 the natural aptitudes and qualities of the individuals upon 
 whom it acts, or through the time which it has at its dis- 
 posal. 
 
 We shall not say, then, with Helvetius, that "all men are 
 born equal and with equal aptitudes, and that the differences 
 among men are due to education alone." We must take 
 a just account both of natural qualities and of the acquired 
 qualities which education grafts upon the natural stock. 
 
 A contemporary writer is also mistaken when he writes 
 that " education has no effect, save upon natures of medi- 
 ocre mould." 2 It is not true that birth is the only struggle 
 endured by great men, and we freely assert that the in- 
 fluence of education reaches its maximum when nature 
 subjects to its beneficent action her richest contingent of 
 powers and faculties. Education can do nothing if it does 
 not come in contact with germs to develop ; and education 
 reaches its highest perfection in souls when these germs are 
 the most numerous and the best nourished by native aliment. 
 If one were disposed to exaggerate the power of education 
 to the point of believing that it can transform everything, 
 
 1 Marion, Cours sur la Science de I' Education. 
 
 2 Ribot, De Vlle'rtditt, p. 480.
 
 24 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 it would suffice to remind him of the famous example of 
 the education of the Dauphin by Bossuet, the excellence 
 of the teacher and the positive mediocrity of the pupil. But 
 if, on the other hand, he were tempted to doubt the efficacy 
 of education, we would cite in proof of it the education 
 of the Duke of Bourgogne, which, directed by Fenelon, 
 developed almost all the virtues in a soul where nature 
 seemed to have sown the seeds of all the vices. 1 
 
 To deny the power of education, it would be necessary to 
 begin by denying the influence of the habits which play so 
 great a part in life, and almost all of which depend on the 
 manner in which we have been brought up. Our mind, 
 like our character, depends in great part on the manner 
 of our education. 
 
 " Education," says Guizot, " fortifies the weak or inert faculties 
 of childhood. No one is ignorant of the power that exercise and 
 habit have of making the memory more facile and the attention 
 more sustained. Our faculties, instead of deteriorating, grow 
 stronger by use. Examples of the successful application of the 
 will to the perfecting of a given quality are innumerable." 2 
 
 19. EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. It is true that in order 
 to justify the power which we ascribe to education, we must 
 transcend the limits of the school and interpret education 
 in its widest and broadest sense. In fact, there is not only 
 the education properly so called, that which proceeds from 
 the direct action of teachers ; but there is the education 
 of the family, and also that of the social environment in 
 which we live. There are what have shrewdly been called 
 the occult coadjutors of education, climate, race, manners, 
 political institutions, religious beliefs. There is also a 
 
 1 See Compayre, op. cit., Chap. VIII. 
 
 2 Guizot, Conseils d'un pere sur I'&ducation, in Meditations et 
 Etudes.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 25 
 
 personal education, that which one gives himself, and which 
 continues all one's life. 
 
 But the agency of the school is none the less important 
 on this account, nor the responsibility of the teacher less 
 fearful. Self-education is scarcely more than the continua- 
 tion of the good habits learned at school. As to exterior 
 iufluences, they are but auxiliaries which can accomplish 
 nothing without the cooperation of a regular education, or 
 enemies against whom we must react through a good train- 
 ing in the schools. "What Leibnitz said becomes more and 
 more true, that " the masters of education hold in their 
 hands the future of the world." 
 
 20. EDUCATION IN A REPUBLIC. Under a republican 
 regime, in a great democracy education acquires a new im- 
 portance, because there must then be demanded of the 
 virtue, the wisdom, and the liberty of each citizen, the 
 order and the peace which despotism had before imposed 
 on ignorance and passive obedience. 
 
 "Republican institutions," says Horace Mann, "furnish as 
 great facilities for wicked men in all departments of wickedness, 
 as phosphorus and lucifer matches furnish to the incendiary." 1 
 
 But these dangers do not discourage the great American 
 philanthropist, for, in the first place, it is impossible to 
 take a backward step. "The sun can as easily be turned 
 backwards in its course, as one particle of that power which 
 has been conferred upon the millions can be again monopo- 
 lized by the few." 
 
 But it is also in the name of human dignity and of its 
 rights that it is meet to demand the free development of 
 natural energies, and protest against every system which 
 would assume to stifle them. 
 
 1 Horace Mann, op. cit., p. 148.
 
 26 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 "In despotisms the divinely formed soul, created to admire 
 through intelligence this glorious universe ; to go forth through 
 knowledge, through sympathy with all human fortunes ; to know 
 its Maker and its immortal destiny, is driven back at every door 
 of egress, or darkened at every window where light could enter, 
 and is chained to the vassal spot which gave it birth, where the 
 very earth, as well as its inhabitant, is blasted by the common 
 curse of bondage. In Oriental and African despotisms, the mind 
 of the millions grows only as the trees of a noble forest could grow 
 in the rocky depths of a cavern, without strength or beauty or 
 healing balm, in impurity and darkness, fed by poisonous exhala- 
 tions from stagnant pools, all upward and outward expansion 
 introverted by solid barriers, and forced back into unsightly forms. 
 Thus it has always fared with the faculties of the human soul 
 when concerned in despotism. They have dwelt in intellectual, 
 denser than subterranean, darkness. Their most tender, sweet, 
 and hallowed emotions have been choked and blighted. The 
 pure and sacred effusions of the heart have been converted into 
 hatred of the good and idolatry of the base, for want of the light 
 and the air of true freedom and instruction ; the world can suffer 
 no loss equal to that spiritual loss which is occasioned by attempt- 
 ing to destroy, instead of regulating the energies of the mind." 1 
 
 21. CONCLUSION. Education, theii, ought to be at once 
 an excitation and a restraint. Let us not fear to affran- 
 chise, to emancipate minds, if we are wise enough at the 
 same time to discover the secret of teaching them modera- 
 tion and self-government, if through sufficient culture we 
 help them to find within themselves the restraint necessary 
 to reform their passions and evil instincts. 
 
 This is why character building is the supreme end of 
 education. After all, it is according to our character that 
 we act, and it is of much more consequence that we act 
 well than that we think well. It is true that our character 
 depends preeminently upon our sentiments and our thoughts ; 
 
 1 Horace Mann, op. cit, pp. 144, 145.
 
 EDUCATION IN GENERAL. 27 
 
 or, in other terms, that moral education depends in part 
 upon intellectual education. But moral education is none 
 the less the final term of our efforts. 
 
 And to attain this end it is evidently not sufficient to 
 possess wisdom, instruction ; there must be joined to these 
 moral qualities the virtues of the heart and the will. It 
 has been said that the effort of education is to form men. 
 To this end let teachers begin by being men themselves. 
 
 " Whoever undertakes the education of another should begin 
 by completing his own. Emile Souvestre has exemplified this 
 truth as follows : A young father, in anticipation of the birth of 
 a child, surrounds himself with books on education. But the read- 
 ing of these works only increases his uncertainties. Finally, he 
 begins to reflect, and, considering the boundless influence of the 
 father and mother, upon the tablet which he had prepared for 
 taking notes, below the title, Educational Precepts, he wrote merely 
 these words : to become better." 1 
 
 1 Chauvet, L'Education, Paris, 1868, p. 73.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 22. A SOUND MIND IN A SOUND BODY. "A sound 
 mind in a sound body, this," says Locke, "is the short 
 but complete definition of happiness in this world." Such, 
 therefore, ought to be the double purpose of education. 
 Physical education should not be separated from intellectual 
 and moral education. And this for two reasons : first, be- 
 cause bodily health and strength are desirable and good in 
 themselves, because they make a part of that complete and 
 perfect life which is the will of nature and the dream of 
 education ; and then because the development of the body 
 is one of the conditions, one of the means, of the develop- 
 ment of the soul, because the higher life of the spirit is 
 not possible, except it have for a support a robust and 
 healthy physical life. 
 
 23. PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR THE GOOD OF THE BODY. 
 There have been times when men could believe that the 
 ideal was to despise the body, and even to humiliate it and 
 mortify it, that this lower element of our being was entitled 
 to no respect, to no care, and that human perfection was 
 in proportion to the diminution and the decay of the material 
 forces. Mysticism proposed, as the unique purpose of life, 
 spiritual perfection ; and asceticism, the practical applica- 
 tion of the principles of mysticism, took up arms against 
 the body, to reduce it to terms by fasting, by tortures, by 
 
 28
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 29 
 
 privations of every description, if possible, to annihilate 
 it, as the source of all sin and of all evil. 
 
 We of to-day have recovered from these chimeras. We 
 regard man as a whole which is not to be mutilated in any 
 of its parts. Simply because they are inferior in dignity 
 to the spiritual forces, the energies of the physical organism 
 none the less deserve to be respected and developed. 
 
 " As remarks a suggestive writer," says Herbert Spencer, " the 
 first requisite to success in life is 'to be a good animal ' ; and to 
 be a nation of good animals is the first condition of national 
 prosperity. Not only is it that the event of a war often turns on 
 the strength and hardiness of soldiers ; but it is that the contests 
 of commerce are in part determined by the bodily endurance of 
 producers." l 
 
 Moreover, it is not simply a question of positive and 
 practical interest ; the preservation of health is one of our 
 duties. Every conscious infraction of the laws of hygiene 
 is a culpable act, and, as Herbert Spencer has justly 
 observed, every prejudice voluntarily done to health is a 
 physical sin. 
 
 24. PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR THE SAKE OF THE MIND. 
 A thing not less positive is that there is a solidarity of 
 interest between mind and body. As the physical and the 
 moral are, so to speak, the under and the upper textures 
 of the same fabric, it would be folly to suppose that we 
 could with impunity derange the under without by the same 
 act compromising the upper. 
 
 The Greeks understood this, and they associated the 
 body and the mind in one harmonious education, in order 
 to make man at once " beautiful and good." It was by 
 them that Montaigne was inspired when he wrote his 
 admirable chapter on the "Training of Children." 
 
 1 Spencer, Education, p. 222.
 
 30 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " It is not enough to toughen the mind of the child ; his muscles 
 must be toughened also. The mind is too hard driven if it is not 
 assisted ; it has too much to do to fill two offices alone. I know 
 how much mine, so prone to be preoccupied with itself, suffers 
 from being tied to a body so delicate and sensitive ; and in my 
 reading I often notice that in their accounts my authors adduce as 
 examples of magnanimity and courage, what ought the rather 
 to be attributed to thickness of skin and hardness of bone." 
 
 And further on : 
 
 " It is not a soul, nor yet a body, which we are educating, but 
 a man, and we must not divide him. And, as Plato says, we must 
 not train one of them without the other, but we must drive them 
 abreast like a span of horses harnessed to the same shaft." 
 
 The moral faculties do not freely expand, except when 
 the body is in full health ; and besides, when they have 
 once been developed, they do not come into free exercise 
 unless they can avail themselves of firm and agile members. 
 A good bodily constitution ' ' renders the operations of the 
 mind easy and sure ; " and at the same time that it con- 
 tributes towards forming the mind, it is a necessary condi- 
 tion for the outward manifestation of spirit, and prevents 
 the mind from falling back upon itself, lost in futile con- 
 templations. 
 
 I well know that we sometimes meet with intelligences 
 of the first order, and with strong and courageous wills, 
 united to weak and sickly bodies. A man whose physical 
 life is but a perpetual discomfort may be distinguished 
 from all others by the energy of his mind and the eleva- 
 tion of his heart. The example of Pascal, the invalid and 
 the man of genius, occurs to the mind of every one. It may 
 really happen in certain cases, by a mysterious reaction, 
 that bodily sufferings may refine and stimulate the moral 
 faculties. In such cases, pain is the principal agent in this 
 unusual progress of the intelligence. But these exceptions
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 31 
 
 prove nothing as against the general law. With good 
 health, Pascal might have lived longer, and probably would 
 have lost nothing of his genius. According to the expres- 
 sion which he himself used, it will not do to despise the 
 bete, for sooner or later it will have its revenge. It had 
 its vengeance on Pascal by killing him. 
 
 " Physical perfection serves to assure moral perfection. There 
 is nothing more tyrannical than an enfeebled organism. Nothing 
 sooner paralyzes the free activity of the reason, the flight of the 
 imagination, and the exercise of reflection; nothing sooner dries 
 up all the sources of thought than a sickly body whose functions 
 languish, and for which every effort is a cause of suffering. Then 
 have no scruples ; and if you would form a soul which is to have 
 ample development, a man of generous and intrepid will, a work- 
 man capable of great undertakings and arduous labors, first, and 
 above all, secure a vigorous organism, of powerful resistance and 
 muscles of steel." 1 
 
 25. PHYSICAL EDUCATION AS A PREPARATION FOR PRO- 
 FESSIONAL EDUCATION. Physical education^ like intellec- 
 tual and moral education, does not consist merely in a 
 disinterested culture of natural powers, but tends towards 
 a practical end ; it ought to be a preparation for life, and, 
 by reason of its very nature, a preparation for professional 
 education, or at least for bodily skill. 
 
 It is hardly possible to introduce into the education of all 
 men what Locke and Rousseau desired, the apprenticeship 
 to a trade ; but, nevertheless, under all circumstances it is 
 well to know how to use one's hands and one's limbs. 
 
 "One of the highest compliments we can pay a man," says 
 Saint-Marc Girardin, "is to say that he knows how to surmount 
 difficulties, not through artful discourse or through ingenious con- 
 versation, but, if necessary, through manual dexterity also; to 
 
 1 F. Marion, Cours sur la Science de V Education.
 
 32 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 come off conqueror, not merely in great things, but in small ; not 
 to be continually in need of using the arms of others in order to 
 lengthen his own, and to be embarrassed neither by his own body 
 nor by what it has to carry ; but that he is versatile and active, 
 that he is neither awkward nor effeminate, in a word, that he 
 can live without having a bell within reach, and a servant within 
 sound of the bell." 1 
 
 It is especially in the common school, by reason of the 
 special destination of those who attend it, that physical 
 education ought to take a practical direction, and thus pre- 
 pare boys for the future occupations of the laborer and the 
 soldier, and girls for the duties of the household and for 
 the occupations peculiar to women. 
 
 On this point, the official programme of French instruc- 
 tion expresses itself as follows : 
 
 " The purpose of physical education is not merely to fortify the 
 body and strengthen the constitution of the child, by placing him 
 in the most favorable hygienic conditions ; but it should also give 
 him, at an early hour, qualities of deftness and agility, that manual 
 dexterity and th#t promptness and certainty of movement which, 
 valuable for every one, are more particularly necessary for pupils 
 in the common school, the most of whom are destined for manual 
 occupations." 2 
 
 26. PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION. It is in the 
 education of the body that the greatest credit seems to have 
 been given the notion that nature should have her own way, 
 that she should be intrusted exclusively with the care of 
 developing the organs and regulating their functions. It 
 were a grave error thus to hand over the health and life of 
 the child to accidents and hazards of every species. Here, 
 as everywhere, we must aid nature, and to aid her we must 
 know her. 
 
 1 Saint^Marc Girardin, J. J. ROUSSEAU, Tome II. p. 112. 
 
 9 Programmes annexed to the official order of July 27, 1882.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 33 
 
 To be wholly rational, physical education should be based 
 on a profound knowledge of the different sciences which 
 treat of the human body. Hygiene bases its practical rules 
 upon the theories of physiology ; gymnastics is founded 
 upon the elementary principles of anatomy ; and, in general, 
 physical education applies the great laws of the science of 
 the body, just as intellectual and moral education applies 
 the great laws of the science to the soul. 
 
 27. PHYSIOLOGY OF THE CHILD. Let us add that for 
 the body, as well as for the soul, there is an infancy that 
 is to say, a peculiar state of growth which precedes 
 maturity. It is not, then, merely the general physiology 
 and anatomy of man that the educator is bound to consult, 
 but, in order to be really fit to fulfil his task, he should 
 himself construct, as a rule for his procedure, a real physi- 
 ology of the child. 
 
 Like the psychology of the child, his physiology is a 
 history which accompanies little by little the evolution of 
 the body, the successive formation of its organs, and the 
 organization of the different parts of the nervous system. 
 Let us not forget that the child is not a ready-made 
 being, a finished product, but a weak and fragile creature, 
 " whose muscles, nerves, and organs are in the milk, so 
 to speak," and develop but gradually, owing to a slow but 
 incessant growth. 
 
 28. IMPORTANCE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS. It is 
 doubtless to parents in particular that falls the obligation 
 to know enough of the laws of life not to abandon the edu- 
 cation of their children to the quackery of nurses and to 
 blind and irrational modes of treatment. In one of his 
 eloquent pages Mr. Herbert Spencer has reminded them of 
 their duties on this point.
 
 34 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " To tens of thousands who are killed, add hundreds of thou- 
 sands that survive with feeble constitutions and millions that 
 grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be, and 
 you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring 
 by parents ignorant of the laws of life. Do but consider for a 
 moment that the regimen to which children are subject is hourly 
 telling upon them to their life-long injury or benefit, and that 
 there are twenty ways of going wrong to one way of going right, 
 and you will get some idea of the enormous mischief that is almost 
 everywhere inflicted by the thoughtless, haphazard system in com- 
 mon use. Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed in some flimsy 
 short dress, and be allowed to go playing about with his limbs 
 reddened by cold? The decision will tell on his whole future 
 existence, either in illness or in stunted growth, or in deficient 
 energy, or in maturity less vigorous than it ought to have been, 
 and consequent hindrances to success and happiness. Are children 
 doomed to a monotonous dietary, or a dietary deficient in nutri- 
 tiveness? Their ultimate physical power, and their efficiency as 
 men and women, will inevitably be more or less diminished by it. 
 Are they forbidden vociferous play, or (being too ill-clothed to 
 bear exposure) are they left indoors in cold weather ? They are 
 certain to fall below that measure of health and strength to which 
 they would else have attained." 1 
 
 But though the responsibility in this matter rests chiefly 
 upon parents, teachers also, if they have neglected to in- 
 form themselves of the laws of the physical life, if they 
 set them at defiance by unreasonable commands or by 
 ill-timed prohibitions, teachers also may exercise a fatal 
 influence upon the health and vitality of children. Then 
 let them take a serious view of their responsibilities, and 
 study with care anatomy and physiology as presented in 
 the normal schools. Let them supplement these studies 
 by their personal observations upon the children of their 
 schools ; let them take account of their physical aptitudes, 
 
 1 Spencer, Education, pp. 56, 67.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 35 
 
 of their differences in temperament, and of the natural 
 weakness or strength of their constitution. Thus prepared 
 in the lessons which they give in gymnastics, in their pre- 
 cautions and advice in matters of hygiene, they will not be 
 the mere routine adherents to a programme, but will the 
 better execute the orders whose meaning and application 
 they comprehend. They will put a liberal interpretation 
 upon the dead letter of the law ; through their personal 
 experience, and through then- enlightened interest in the 
 particular temperament of each child, they will make this 
 letter a living thing. 
 
 29. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EDUCATION OF THE BODY. 
 Granting everything that can be claimed for the natural 
 vigor of the child's constitution and of his spontaneous 
 development, there still remains a vast field of activity open 
 to the previsions of the educator. 
 
 On the one hand, the life of the child must be shielded 
 from everything which may be the cause of disturbance, 
 dissipation, and debility, of whatever would have a ten- 
 dency to impair bodily health, such as excessive brain labor. 
 Here, properly speaking, is the domain of negative physical 
 education, that which consists in conserving and protecting 
 the natural forces, and which is almost all summed up in 
 prohibitions, in the warnings pronounced by hygiene. 
 
 On the other hand, it is necessary to supplement and 
 stimulate the work of nature, to develop and fortify the 
 physical powers ; and this deliberate intervention becomes 
 more and more necessary, in proportion as the intensive 
 culture of the intellect is carried to excess, and to the 
 abuses of intemperate study and overcrowded programmes. 
 This will be the purpose of a positive physical education, 
 of an education which will comprise all the exercises and 
 all the sports of childhood, all the practices recommended
 
 36 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 by hygiene, and all the movements which constitute gym- 
 nastics. 
 
 Hygiene and gymnastics, these are the two elements of 
 physical education, and both are equally necessary. The 
 first is, in some sort, a good method of conduct, a kind of 
 ethics for the body ; the other is to physical activity what 
 study is to intellectual activity, a wholesome and strength- 
 ening exercise. Both conspire to endow the body with 
 health and vigor ; but hygiene has especial reference to 
 health, and gymnastics to vigor. 
 
 30. SCHOOL HYGIENE. Volumes have been written upon 
 hygiene, and we do not propose to recite even the essential 
 things which might be said on such a subject, either from 
 the point of view of school hygiene or of the hygiene of 
 children and pupils. On this point we refer our readers 
 to special treatises. 1 
 
 Hygiene, according to Rousseau, is not so much "a 
 science as a virtue ; " that is, it consists above all in abstain- 
 ing from whatever is bad, in shunning all excesses, and in 
 being temperate in all things. Temperance is the half of 
 hygiene. The child whose diet is plain, whose life is 
 simple, who is spared every occasion for overtaxing his 
 powers, who knows nothing of indigestion, of violent pleas- 
 ures and excessive fatigues, such a child has already 
 accomplished much in the way of healthful living. 
 
 1 See particularly Lemons e'le'mentaires d'hygiene, by Dr. George 
 (Paris : Delalain) ; I' Hygiene et V Education dans les internals, by 
 Riaut ; L' Instruction of July 28, 1882 ; the article Hygiene, of Dr. E. 
 Pecaut, in the Dictionnaire de pe'dagogie; lastly, the Rapports of the 
 Commission on School Hygiene, Paris, 1884. 
 
 The English reader is referred to the following books : Charles 
 Kingsley, Health and Education; Archibald Maclaren, A System of 
 Physical Education; D. F. Lincoln, School and Industrial Hygiene.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 37 
 
 However, hygiene permits a certain number of positive 
 injunctions which relate either to the general cleanliness 
 of the body, to diet, or to clothing. The common principle 
 of all these injunctions ought to be not -to yield too much 
 to the inclinations of nature, nor yet to interfere with her 
 too much. 
 
 31. THE PRINCIPLE OF PHYSICAL HARDENING. Such, 
 however, is not the opinion of a certain number of educators 
 who, like Locke for example, give a much greater extension 
 to the principle of physical hardening, and who, under the 
 pretext of not spoiling nature by an excess of mildness and 
 complacency, end by refusing her the most legitimate grati- 
 fications. It is doubtless well to inure children to hard- 
 ships, not to enervate them, but to bring them up in country 
 fashion. However, we should always take into account the 
 diversity of temperaments. 
 
 " If your son is very robust," said Madame de Sevigne shrewdly, 
 " a rude education is good ; but if he is delicate, I think that in 
 your attempts to make him robust you would kill him." 
 
 And even the most robust constitutions cannot be sub- 
 jected to all trials. Locke is wrong when he forbids warm 
 clothing in winter. Herbert Spencer is wiser on this point, 
 when, in the clothing of children, he would take account of 
 the natural sensations of heat and cold. 
 
 " The common notion about ' hardening,' " he says, " is a griev- 
 ous delusion. Children are not unfrequently 'hardened' out of 
 the world." 
 
 It is chimerical to suppose that by forced modes of pro- 
 cedure and by habits early acquired, we can accomplish 
 everything through the plasticity of the physical organs. 
 There are things contrary to our physical constitution, to 
 which the organism cannot become accustomed. This is
 
 38 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 what Goldsmith tried to illustrate when he related this 
 anecdote : 
 
 " One day Peter the Great took it into his head that it would 
 be best for all sailors to form the habit of drinking salt water. 
 He immediately promulgated an order that all naval cadets should 
 henceforth drink only sea-water. The boys all died, and there 
 the experiment stopped." 
 
 Then let us be wise enough to give sufficient place to 
 the requirements of nature, and not revert to the old ascetic 
 tendencies which led to dangerous deprivations and hard- 
 ships ; but let us be equally on our guard against paying 
 homage to the optimism, as unwise as it is seductive, of 
 those who, like Herbert Spencer, assert that it is necessary 
 in everything to revere the sacred order of nature and 
 satisfy all the desires of the child, as for example his 
 immoderate appetite for sweetmeats. 
 
 32. CLEANLINESS. Cleanliness is a virtue, according to 
 Volney ; a half virtue, according to others. What admits 
 of no doubt is that the opposite of cleanliness is a great 
 fault, since it compromises the dignity of the human person 
 by giving an offensive appearance to the body. " There 
 is a closer relation than we think," said Madame Pape- 
 Carpantier, " between physical cleanliness and moral 
 purity." 
 
 But cleanliness is valuable in itself, as a hygienic rule, 
 as an element of health, and as a preventive of contagions 
 which give rise to diseases, light or severe. 
 
 Hence the importance of giving attention to cleanliness. 
 It rests chiefly with the family to insist on its observance ; 
 but by his advice, by his example, and also by the attention 
 which he gives to the subject, the teacher can do much to- 
 wards giving the child habits of cleanliness.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 39 
 
 33. FOOD AND CLOTHING. Without saying, with Feuer- 
 bach, that "man is what he eats," and without accepting 
 the absolute assertion of Herbert Spencer, that "the well- 
 fed races have been the energetic and dominant races," we 
 cannot accord too much importance to alimentation, to the 
 quality and the quantity of food. 
 
 Mr. Spencer declares that there are too many rules in 
 the nursery, just as there are too many in the state, and 
 that one of the greatest evils resulting from this state of 
 things is that children are too much restricted in their diet. 
 "The food of children," he says, "should be highly nutri- 
 tive ; it should be varied at each meal ; and it should be 
 abundant." 1 
 
 The child, then, should eat till his hunger is satisfied. 
 Eating to excess is the vice of adults rather than of children. 
 Indigestion, with children, is almost always brought on by 
 a reaction against privations, against a prolonged fast. 
 
 As to garments, they should be full and loose, so that 
 the body shall feel at ease in them, and that nothing shall 
 interfere with the functions of the organism. " Hygienists 
 condemn the premature use of the corset for girls, and at 
 all times the tunic for boys." 2 
 
 Locke, with his usual austerity, required the child to 
 play bareheaded, and never to wear warm clothing ; he even 
 favored the idea of requiring him to wear the same garments 
 winter and summer. Mr. Spencer, on the contrary, finds 
 that it is folly to clothe children in thin garments. The 
 French criticise the English custom of allowing children 
 to go bare-legged and thinly dressed ; while the English 
 blame the French for the silly things invented by the 
 Petit Courrier des dames, which recommends garments that 
 
 1 Education, p. 224. 
 
 a See Fonssagrives, Education physique des gar$ons, p. 57.
 
 40 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 are either inconvenient or insufficient. 1 Mr. Spencer con- 
 cludes that if clothing should not be so heavy as to produce 
 an uncomfortable warmth, it ought always to be warm 
 enough to prevent all feeling of cold. 
 
 34. OTHER HYGIENIC REQUIREMENTS. We are far from 
 having enumerated all the precepts of hygiene ; there are 
 others bearing on sleep, on work, on recreations, and upon 
 punishments. Hygiene particularly recommends physical 
 activity as a means of counterbalancing cerebral toil and 
 intellectual fatigue. Activity is one of the conditions of 
 health. We are nourished, not by what we eat, but by what 
 we digest, as a physician has told us ; and Trousseau adds, 
 " We digest with our limbs as well as with our stomach." 
 
 But at this point hygiene is almost confounded with gym- 
 nastics, of which we now proceed to speak. 
 
 35. GYMNASTICS. Generally too much neglected in 
 France, but holding a prominent place in Switzerland and 
 Germany, gymnastics begins to affect the habits of our 
 schools. 2 French legislation has ordained it, and official 
 manuals have codified its requirements. 8 
 
 1 See Spencer, Education, p. 250. 
 
 2 The law of March 15, 1850, placed the teaching of gymnastics among 
 the optional studies of primary instruction. The decree of March 24, 
 1851, included it among the obligatory studies of the normal schools. 
 The decree of March 13, 1854, introduced it into the lycees. A decree 
 of 1869 (Feb. 3) organized it in the lycees and colleges, in the normal 
 schools, and in the primary schools. Numerous circulars published 
 since that period have given precise instructions and detailed precepts. 
 Finally, the law of January 27, 1880, makes obligatory the teaching of 
 gymnastics " in all the institutions of public instruction for boys ; " 
 and the decree of July 27, 1881, says expressly that ".each day, or at 
 least every other day, gymnastics shall occupy a recitation hour dur- 
 ing the course of the afternoon." 
 
 8 See the Manual of Captain Vergnes.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 41 
 
 This system is being gradually organized, and if it does not 
 always command competent instructors, it at least responds 
 everywhere to the wishes of pupils. 
 
 But let us be on our guard lest this taste become an 
 infatuation. When the educator has made many efforts 
 to introduce a new subject into education, and has at last 
 been successful, his part changes ; most often he has to 
 repress excesses of zeal, and to maintain within just limits 
 that very branch of instruction which he had the greatest 
 difficulty in introducing. All the sciences, all the arts, 
 whatever they may be, are in their very nature encroaching, 
 once the doors of the school have been opened to them. 
 They are but means, but they are disposed to make them- 
 selves accepted as ends. In the French colleges the study 
 of Latin, which should be but one of the modes of intel- 
 lectual culture through the use of a foreign language, has 
 become the supreme end of education, and there is no longer 
 any other thought than to make latinists. 1 Let it not be 
 so with gymnastics, whose purpose is not to make gymnasts, 
 prodigies of strength and agility, but simply to give power 
 and suppleness to the muscles ; to govern and facilitate the 
 play of tfce bodily movements ; to assure to laborers vigor- 
 ous limbs, good corporeal tools ; to prepare for all men 
 
 1 It is worthy of note, in passing, that teachers often misconceive 
 the destination of their pupils. In particular this mistake is made by 
 specialists, as in the classics and the sciences, who proceed on the 
 hypothesis that all their pupils are to become specialists, philolo- 
 gists or naturalists. In such cases the presumption is set up that 
 the sciences must be rediscovered. The story of Agassiz and the 
 student with the fish, so often quoted to illustrate the true method 
 of teaching science, does not represent the average pupil, who needs 
 to learn science chiefly for the same reason that he learns history, 
 for the sake of general information. This subject is discussed at 
 some length in Contributions to the Science of Education, Chap. III.
 
 42 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the elements of a robust health and a long life ; and, finally, 
 to develope the physical energies, just as study developes 
 the moral energies. 
 
 Doubtless gymnastics has need of apparatus and rigging, 
 and for the moment this is one of the difficulties which 
 retard its introduction into village schools ; but let it be 
 as far as possible independent of these aids, or at least 
 let it not abuse them. Let there be no machines that are 
 too complicated, no contrivances that are too scientific. 
 The report of the special commission appointed in 1868 
 had the prudence to condemn ' ' exercises which demand 
 too great an expenditure of strength, and which might be 
 the cause of accidents." So let us proscribe all the nice- 
 ties, all the refinements, which would end in transforming 
 the lesson in gymnastics into a training of jugglers or of 
 adepts in feats of strength, in a word, all the exercises 
 which do not have the single purpose of giving the child 
 a body fit for action and able to resist fatigue. 
 
 36. OTHER RESULTS OF GYMNASTICS. But gymnastics 
 has not physical development solely in view. 
 
 A, shrewd observer of children, Mademoiselle Chalamet, 
 has remarked that gymnastics also proposes, " (1) to disci- 
 pline the child ; and (2) to afford him repose from intellec- 
 tual labor, and, by this very means, to make the resumption 
 of it more easy and more profitable." 1 
 
 Gymnastics, in fact, by regulating the movements of 
 the body, by imposing regular and rhythmical evolutions, 
 by requiring exact movements, executed with precision and 
 promptness, gymnastics communicates habits of order and 
 decision, whose effect survives the exercises which have 
 produced them, and which, by a sort of inner contagion, 
 are even transmitted to the soul. This result would cer- 
 
 1 Mademoiselle Chalamet, L'Ecole materndle, p. 276.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 43 
 
 tainly be attained if the evolutions of pupils were to be 
 accompanied by songs, as recommended by Amoras, who 
 introduced gymnastics into France. 1 
 
 On the other hand, gymnastics does not labor merely for 
 the future by enlarging and strengthening the chest, by 
 giving suppleness to the limbs, and by contributing to 
 the health of the child. It also acts immediately upon the 
 state of the body, whose forces it renews, and upon the 
 nervous system, which it tempers ; it has a happy effect 
 upon studies, because it re-establishes the equilibrium in 
 the organism, and at the same time gives the mind more 
 vigor and elasticity. Gymnastics, like play, takes the child 
 weary, enervated by study and cerebral effort, and restores 
 him to intellectual labor refreshed and active. But it will 
 do this on one condition, that we never pass the limit 
 beyond which fatigue would begin. An excessive exercise 
 of the body makes the mind inert, while moderate exercise 
 reanimates and refreshes it. Especially in our day, when 
 an over-crowded programme subjects the child to severe 
 intellectual efforts, when " a system of high-pressure educa- 
 tion," as Mr. Spencer says, requires excessive application, 
 an alternation of physical and mental exercises becomes 
 more and more necessary in order to re-establish and renew 
 without cessation the forces which the abuse of mental 
 labor is not slow to exhaust. 
 
 37. MILITARY GYMNASTICS. It is not only in our day, 
 as one might suppose, that men have thought of exercising 
 children in the handling of arms. 
 
 1 In the Rapport of Dr. Javal, Sur I'Hygiene des tcoles primaires 
 (Paris: 1884), we find the following precept: Children must be pre- 
 vented from singing during violent gymnastic exercises and while 
 running. But evidently this prohibition does not apply to elementary 
 exercises, to rounds, and to evolutions.
 
 44 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " I saw yesterday," wrote Madame de Sevigne, " a little boy 
 whom I found to be a fine fellow. He is seven years old, and his 
 father has taught him to handle the musket and the pike. It is 
 the finest thing in the world. You would love that little child. 
 This exercise limbers his body and makes him deliberate, dex- 
 terous, and resolute. To my mind, this is better than a dancingr 
 master." 
 
 It is needless to insist on the utility of military gymnas- 
 tics, which is a preparation for the duties of citizenship 
 and an apprenticeship in the habits of a soldier, at the 
 same time that it offers most of the advantages which can 
 be obtained from the practice of ordinary gymnastics. It 
 is sufficient to call to mind the place which military drill 
 has long held in the schools of Germany. 
 
 38. GYMNASTICS FOR GIRLS. We must not conclude from 
 the fact that the law of 1880 is content with imposing upon 
 boys the obligation to receive instruction in gymnastics, 
 that such instruction is not adapted to girls. 
 
 "Women," said Monsieur Laisne, "have need of gymnastics 
 even more than men ; for in their case the obstacles which civilized 
 life opposes to physical development are much more numerous 
 and even much more fatal." 1 
 
 Herbert Spencer vigorously combats the prejudice which 
 excludes girls from physical exercises. He conceives for 
 them an education as boisterous and as active as that of 
 their brothers. He even urges them to violent sports and 
 to long walks, to whatever can produce. in them a robust 
 physical development. He would have them run like mad- 
 caps and grow up amid gambols and rude sports. There 
 is no fear, he adds, that this will afterwards affect the 
 delicacy and grace of their manners. 
 
 1 Laisne, Gymnastique pratique, Preface, p. 13.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 45 
 
 " If the sportive activity allowed to boys does not prevent them 
 from growing up into gentlemen, why should a like sportive 
 activity allowed to girls prevent them from growing up into 
 ladies? Rough as may have been their accustomed playground 
 frolics, youths who have left school do not indulge in leap-frog in 
 the street or marbles in the drawing-room." 1 
 
 Doubtless it is unnecessary to subject the two sexes to 
 the same regime. Plato and some utopists of the French 
 Revolution are the only ones who could dream, in their 
 passion for equality, of an education absolutely the same, 
 in which girls should be dressed like boys, and, like them, 
 should mount horse and bear arms. No ; nature requires 
 that we take into account the difference which she has 
 established in physical constitution as in social destination. 
 There should be special programmes and distinct manuals 
 of gymnastics for the two sexes. Certainly there should 
 not be required of women the prolonged running, the violent 
 leaps, and the feats of strength, any of those exercises, in 
 a word, which are befitting only to the muscular strength 
 of men. "We must ever keep in mind with what a delicate 
 and frail being we have to do. 
 
 But with these reservations, it is safe to say that, at 
 least in towns, young women need to be subjected to 
 gymnastic discipline. 
 
 " The boy always finds a means of escaping somewhat from the 
 influence of bad lodging and an unwholesome mode of life. He 
 is out of doors, walks the streets, idles about town, lives much in 
 the open air. But the girl, on the contrary, is sedentary, remains 
 within doors, escapes no restraint. The direct consequence of 
 this is a greater debility, which can be repaired only by more 
 energetic and more assiduous care. What physician in the poorer 
 quarters of cities has not been painfully struck by that muscular 
 feebleness, by that nervous debility, and by that impoverishment 
 
 1 Education, p. 226.
 
 46 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 of the blood which characterize the young women of the lower 
 classes, and make of them, at a late period, the victims of grave 
 nervous disorders, or at least women rarely capable of sustaining 
 with impunity the fatigues of maternity ? " 1 
 
 39. OFFICIAL PROGRAMMES. It has not been thought 
 sufficient to recommend gymnastic exercises, or even to 
 impose them by law ; the programme of this new instruction 
 has recently been prepared. Already, in 1872, in the 
 schools of Paris, instruction in gymnastics had been organ- 
 ized according to a regular plan. 
 
 " The lessons, based on the elementary principles of general 
 anatomy, comprise exercises in walking, simple movements, move- 
 ments combined with the xylofer, 2 the handling of dumb-bells, 
 jumping, and, for the oldest pupils, parallel bars and the 
 ladder. All the movements are accompanied by an easy and 
 pleasing song, which helps to strengthen the muscles of the 
 respiratory organs." 8 
 
 We now present the text of the official programme estab- 
 lished in 1882:- 
 
 INFANT CLASS. Plays, rounds, evolutions, rhythmic move- 
 ments, the little games of Madame Pape-Carpantier. Graduated 
 exercises. 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE. Preparatory exercises, movements and 
 flexions of the arms and legs. Use of the dumb-bells and bar. 
 Cadenced running. Evolutions. 
 
 INTERMEDIATE COURSE. Continuation of the exercises in the 
 flexion and extension of the arms and legs. Practice with dumb- 
 bells. Exercises with the bar, rings, ladder, knotted cord, sus- 
 pended bars, fixed horizontal beam, the pole, the trapeze. Evolu- 
 tions. 
 
 1 Revue pfdagogique, Nov. 25, 1882, article by M. E. Pecaut. 
 
 2 An instrument recommended by Dr. Tissot in 1870, constructed 
 by Laisne in 1873, whose purpose is to expand and develop the chests 
 of children. 
 
 8 M. Greard, L'Enseignement primaire a Paris, p. 113.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 47 
 
 HIGHER COURSE. Continuation of the same exercises. Ex- 
 ercises in equilibrium upon one foot. Arm movements, combined 
 with walking. Exercises two and two with the bar. Races, 
 jumping. Cane exercise (for boys). 
 
 40. PLAT AND GYMNASTICS. As it has been justly said, 
 gymnastics, understood as a science of movements, as a 
 systematic and exact art of physical exercises, gymnas- 
 tics, when introduced into the school, is but an additional 
 lesson there. Now it is particularly of physical activity 
 that it is true to say that, in order to attain its purpose, 
 it ought to be agreeable, to please the child, to conform to 
 his tastes. If pleasure does not attend them, physical 
 exercises will not have the salutary effect that is expected 
 of them. From this point of view, the monotonous, artifi- 
 cial, and unnatural movements of gymnastics are certainly 
 not worth the free and joyous effort that comes from 
 activity in play. 
 
 " The truth is," says Mr. Spencer, " that happiness is the most 
 powerful of tonics. By accelerating the circulation of the blood, 
 it facilitates the performance of every function, and so tends 
 alike to increase health when it exists, and to restore It when it 
 has been lost. Hence the essential superiority of play to 
 gymnastics." l 
 
 In pursuing his formal strictures against gymnastics, 
 which " must be radically defective as not supplying these 
 agreeable mental stimuli," the English educator remarks 
 that it has still another fault ; the prescribed movements 
 which it imposes, necessarily less diversified than the move- 
 ments which result from free exercises, develop but a part 
 of the muscular system, exercise only particular organs, and 
 consequently do not produce an equal distribution of activity 
 among all parts of the body. 
 
 1 Education, pp. 257, 268.
 
 48 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 The legitimate preference which Mr. Spencer accords to 
 play, to the spontaneous activity of the child, almost neces- 
 sarily leads him to the extreme and false conclusion that 
 gymnastics is a bad thing, and that it can be accepted at 
 best only as a make-shift, " formal exercises of the limbs 
 are better than nothing." 
 
 "We are far from sharing this opinion, and it seems to 
 us that Laisne was more just in his appreciation when he 
 wrote : 
 
 "Ordinary sports, with their inconveniences, disordered and 
 unsystematic, cannot replace gymnastics ; but, conversely, gym- 
 nastics, regular and systematic as it is, ought not to supersede 
 play where all children abandon themselves to the frolics of their 
 age." 
 
 41. NECESSITY OF PLAY. This is not the place to dis- 
 cuss exhaustively the question of sports. In fact, sports 
 do not affect physical education alone ; they have intimate 
 relations with the culture of the imagination and with 
 aesthetic education, and we shall have occasion to return 
 to the subject. 
 
 But it is well to state before going further how important 
 it is, from a sanitary point of view, that the child should 
 play, and how much it were to be regretted should the 
 habit of playing disappear from our schools, as it tends, 
 alas ! to disappear from social life. 
 
 " Play in the open air, which invites to jump, to run without 
 interruption, to shout at the top of the voice, which causes the 
 blood to circulate vigorously, and gives color to the cheeks, this 
 is the agent of all others for physical development. The English 
 and the Americans well know this, and with them play is a 
 national institution." 
 
 The French, on the contrary, play less and less, and the 
 fault is due in part to the habits contracted in the colleges,
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 49 
 
 and also in part to the teachers, who, in general, have 
 disparaged sports too much, ' ' those nothings which are 
 everything in the life of a child." Froebel is almost the 
 only one who has given that attention to the subject which 
 it merits. 
 
 " We should not consider play," he says, " as a frivolous thing ; 
 
 on the contrary, it is a thing of profound significance By 
 
 means of play the child expands in joy as the flower expands when 
 it proceeds from the bud ; for joy is the soul of all the actions of 
 that age." 
 
 42. PHYSICAL EXERCISES IN ENGLAND. Physical educa- 
 tion still counts so many adverse critics among the French 
 that it is not useless to invoke the example of foreign 
 nations. No one will deny that the Anglo-Saxon race 
 stands in the front rank among the human races, and it 
 owes its superiority in part to its taste for physical exer- 
 cises. 
 
 On this point let us quote the testimony of an acute 
 observer, M. Taine. 1 
 
 "There are gentlemen in England," he says, "whose ambition 
 and training are those of a Greek athlete. They restrict them- 
 selves to a particular diet, abstaining from every excess in food 
 and drink. They develop their muscles and subject themselves 
 
 to a rational system of training 
 
 " Sports hold the first place, said an Eton master, and books the 
 second. A boy stakes his reputation on being a good athlete. 
 He spends three, four, five hours a day in boisterous and violent 
 exercise. He will splash about for hours in ploughed fields and 
 miry meadows, falling into the mud, losing his shoes, and pulling 
 
 himself out as best he can The university continues the 
 
 school, and in it there reigns an active, popular, almost universal 
 taste for athletic exercises. Playing at cricket, rowing, sailing, 
 
 1 M. Taine, Notes aur I'Engleterre, Paris, 1872, Chap. IV., L'Educ*- 
 tion.
 
 50 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 training dogs to hunt rats, fishing, hunting, riding on horseback, 
 coaching, swimming, boxing, fencing, and recently amateur sol- 
 diering, these are the most interesting occupations for the 
 
 young men Doubtless muscular training carried to such 
 
 an extent entails some rudeness in manners ; but, by way of com- 
 pensation, this athletic and gymnastic discipline has this double 
 advantage, that it chills the senses and calms the imagination. 
 Moreover, when the moral and mental life is afterwards developed, 
 the soul finds, to support it, a more healthy and a more substan- 
 tial body." 
 
 We do not desire, any more than M. Taine does, to 
 disguise the faults which this extreme attention to the 
 physical life, this mania for muscularity, is likely to en- 
 gender. Plato, two thousand years ago, drew the portrait, 
 but little flattering, of the man who trains only his body, 
 "who lives in ignorance and awkwardness, with no sym- 
 metry and no grace." 1 English education must often end 
 in producing coarse natures, dolts ; but, on the other hand, 
 it hardens the body and tempers character. 
 
 43. CONCLUSION. It is only till lately that the theory 
 and the practice of education have given to physical exer- 
 cises their proper place ; and already, in presence of the 
 progress, still uncertain, of gymnastics, some minds have 
 taken the alarm. It is to be feared, some say, that the 
 new generations may be ' ' trained to passive obedience 
 through the development of physical exercises." It is even 
 said that education, thus conducted, lowers man towards 
 the level of the beast. 2 This is surely misplaced zeal to 
 hurl anathemas against a thing the most innocent and the 
 most legitimate in the world, the development of physical 
 power. If it were necessary to choose between mind and 
 
 1 Republic, 411. 
 
 2 See the Lent Sermon of the Bishop of Versailles, 1885.
 
 PHYSICAL EDUCATION. 51 
 
 gymnastics, we would freely exclaim, Long live mind ! 
 Down with gymnastics ! But surely there is no need of 
 such a choice. The mind can derive only good from a 
 moderate exercise of the body. As to saying that the habit 
 of passive obedience will be the result of this new taste 
 for physical discipline, it is to forget that well-worn truth 
 that a man is so much the more free, so much the more 
 independent, as he has more power at his disposal. "We 
 have never observed that in the religious orders, where 
 passive obedience is most strongly recommended, and where 
 the maxim perinde ac cadaver has reigned, much attention 
 has been given to physical development. In such cases 
 asceticism has flourished, not gymnastics.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 44. Is THERE AN INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION? It IS Still 
 
 the general usage to reserve the word education to designate 
 the formation of morals and character. The precise object 
 of education proper, in distinction from instruction, is the 
 culture of the will and the heart, as opposed to that of the 
 intelligence. 1 There is, however, an intellectual education, 
 but it is something more than instruction, though it includes 
 it and depends in great part upon it. 
 
 "The mind," said Locke, "is the principal part of 
 human nature, and education ought to bear chiefly upon 
 what is within man." It cannot be doubted, in fact, that 
 the intelligence and the interior faculties are, still more than 
 the physical faculties, the object of education, either by rea- 
 son of the dignity of thought, ' ' for it is from this source 
 that we must gain the power to rise," or because, nature 
 and instinct playing a less important part in mental develop- 
 ment, the intervention of the educator is here particularly 
 necessary. 
 
 45. RELATION OF INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION TO PHYSICAL 
 AND MORAL EDUCATION. Intellectual education is by no 
 
 1 H. Marion, Lemons de psychologic, p. 49. The meaning of this 
 term is not so restricted by English writers, who apply it in the same 
 sense to body, mind, and character ; though the essential idea in each 
 case is that of discipline or formation, rather than of instruction or 
 information. (P.)
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 53 
 
 means an isolated thing, separated from all the rest. On 
 the contrary, it is but a fragment of the general education 
 of man, having intimate relations with physical education, 
 and also with moral education. 
 
 When science shall have succeeded in solving the ques- 
 tion, still obscure, of the relations between the physical and 
 the moral, between brain and thought, the influence of the 
 education of the body upon the education of the mind will 
 become generally apparent. But even now, it is sufficient to 
 have observed children to be convinced that their intellectual 
 evolution corresponds to their state of health, to the nature 
 of their temperament, to then: strength, or to their weakness 
 of body. 
 
 And, on the other hand, notwithstanding the clamorous 
 assertions of Herbert Spencer, with respect to the impotency 
 of instruction and its moral sterility, it is evident that the 
 education -of the mind is a preparation for that of the heart 
 and the character, and that there is an element of truth 
 in the old Socratic maxim, ' ' Knowledge and virtue are 
 one." l 
 
 46. DEFINITION OP INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. Every- 
 thing which contributes to making the mind active, to 
 developing, strengthening, and training it, and also to en- 
 lightening and ornamenting it, forms a part of intellec- 
 tual education. But there is an important distinction to 
 be made : it is one thing to build a house, and another 
 thing to furnish it. 2 And so, with respect to the intelli- 
 gence, it is one thing to cultivate it for itself, by developing 
 
 1 See Compayre, History of Pedagogy, p. 380. 
 
 2 A very true statement of the case will be made, if we say that 
 the purpose of intellectual education is to train or discipline the mind 
 and to furnish it, and that this furnishing is to serve two purposes, 
 use and enjoyment. (P.)
 
 54 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 its faculties, and another thing to furnish it with the knowl- 
 edges which constitute either the elements of wisdom or real 
 science. 
 
 Then we shall not confound instruction proper, the study 
 of whatever must be learned and known, with the general 
 culture of the intelligence, the educative effort by virtue of 
 which the child leaves school not only instructed, but ca- 
 pable of carrying forward his own instruction ; teachable, 
 furnished with strong and pliant faculties, with an agile 
 and firm memory, with accurate judgment, and with the 
 power of exact reasoning. 
 
 " Education," says Dupanloup, " consists essentially in the de- 
 velopment of the human faculties. 
 
 " If the care of the master and the efforts of the pupil do not 
 result in developing, extending, elevating, and strengthening the 
 faculties ; if they are limited, for example, to providing the mind 
 with certain knowledges, and, if I dare say it, to stpring them 
 away there without adding to its breadth, its power, and its nat- 
 ural activity, education will not have taken place ; there will be 
 nothing but instruction. I would no longer recognize in this proc- 
 ess that grand and beautiful creative work which is called educa- 
 tion, educare. The child might be, strictly speaking, instructed, 
 but he would not be educated. Even the education of the intel- 
 lect would be imperfect. 
 
 "In this there would be at most only an instruction of low 
 quality, and in some sort passive, such as a weak and incom- 
 plete being might receive." l 
 
 In other terms, education has not only to present knowl- 
 edges to a mind already formed, but its very first duty is 
 to form that mind. 
 
 47. THE INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATION OP THE MIND. 
 Intellectual education is, then, something besides instruc- 
 
 1 Dupanloup, De I'Education, liv. ler, chap. ii.
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 55 
 
 tion : it is the end and aim, instruction is but the means 
 of attaining it. But instruction is not only valuable in 
 itself : it is the essential means, the most powerful instru- 
 ment, of intellectual education. 
 
 Instruction, in fact, brings to the mind the aliment it 
 needs for nourishment, for adding to its growth and 
 stature. 
 
 On this point American educators are fond of compar- 
 ing the mind with the body, and try to show that knowl- 
 edge is the aliment of the spirit. 
 
 " The appetite," says Mr. Baldwin, " craves food, and in the 
 presence of suitable food the entire digestive apparatus acts; 
 food is converted into muscles ; muscles are used ; the result is 
 physical power. The soul longs for knowledge ; in the presence 
 of suitable knowledge every faculty of the soul is roused to ac- 
 tion ; the child knows, feels, chooses, acts ; the result is increased 
 mental power." 1 
 
 No doubt the mind, if not fed, would become impover- 
 ished and enfeebled. Even in mature age the intelligence, 
 if it does not renew its provision of ideas by study, lan- 
 guishes and grows weak, just as the body becomes ema- 
 ciated under the influence of privations and of prolonged 
 fasting. For a still better reason, at the period of its 
 early development the intellect cannot grow strong if it 
 is not nourished ; and it is instruction which is the aliment 
 of the spirit 
 
 I add that if the aliment is well chosen, if the knowl- 
 edges are presented with order, with discernment ; if the 
 studies are systematic and well conducted ; not only will 
 the mind become strengthened by them, but it will also 
 
 1 Baldwin, The Art of School Management, New York, 1881, p. 313. 
 See the same principles developed in The Principles and Practice <tf 
 Teaching, by James Johonnot, p. 15.
 
 56 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 be trained. The natural fruit of instruction, wisely admin- 
 istered, is not only wisdom but precision in the play of 
 the faculties, in a word, intellectual education. 
 
 It is true, on the other hand, that instruction, if poorly 
 administered, might still transmit knowledge, but it would 
 be valueless for the general culture of the mind. Incom- 
 plete studies leave dangerous flaws in the intelligence ; 
 they develop only one or two faculties at the expense of 
 all the others. Studies that are too hasty weary the 
 mind, and may enervate it for life ; pushed too far, they 
 encumber and weigh it down ; irregular and disconnected, 
 they becloud and deform it. 
 
 48. METHODS OF CULTURE AND METHODS OF INSTRUC- 
 TION. Instruction and intellectual education, then, are 
 things which are inseparable. All the faults and all the 
 excellences of instruction will be re-echoed in the develop- 
 ment of the faculties, and will contribute, for good or ill, 
 to the culture of the mind. 
 
 There is no other means of cultivating and forming 
 the intellectual faculties, than exercise, exercise which is 
 judicious and prudent ; and there is no other intellectual 
 exercise than instruction under its different forms. 
 
 Does it follow that the educator ought immediately to 
 undertake the examination of the different branches of 
 instruction in order to study their methods, and that he 
 has no other course to follow, in order to direct intel- 
 lectual education and to determine its laws? 
 
 By no means. There are two different points of de- 
 parture in pedagogy, either the thinking subject who 
 is to be educated, or the objects which are to be taught. 
 In the first case we start from the nature of man, con- 
 sider the laws of the formation of the faculties, and pro- 
 pose general methods of culture in conformity with these
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 57 
 
 laws. In the second case we start from each one of the 
 several branches of instruction, determine their nature 
 and characteristics, and then determine the methods of 
 instruction which are in conformity with these charac- 
 teristics. 
 
 In other terms, there are methods of culture inferred from 
 the laws of psychology, and methods of instruction which, 
 while striving to accord with psychology, are based chiefly 
 on the nature of the knowledges which are to be taught. 
 
 We shall first study the methods of culture, by examining 
 the different faculties one after another ; but before en- 
 tering upon this detailed examination, it is necessary to 
 reply to some general questions which govern the whole 
 subject, and to recall certain principles which apply with- 
 out distinction to all the parts of intellectual education. 
 Moreover, it is not best to make too much of these consid- 
 erations, which, simply because they are very general, offer 
 no great practical interest. An American educator enu- 
 merates no less than fourteen general principles of intellec- 
 tual education. 1 "We shall not imitate his example, for 
 to do this it would be necessary to enter upon the task 
 of transcribing in this place all the results of psychological 
 study. We shall assume that these results are known for 
 the most part, and shall limit ourselves to a few obser- 
 vations on the order of development of the faculties, on 
 their necessary harmony, on the essential characteristics 
 of intellectual education, and on the applications to edu- 
 cation which result from them. 
 
 49. ORDER OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACULTIES. 
 Is it true that all the intellectual faculties expand at once, 
 just as at nightfall all the stars glow in the heavens? Or, 
 
 1 J. P. Wickersham, Methods of Instruction, pp. 37-61.
 
 58 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 on the contrary, do they develop only successively, as the 
 flowers unfold one after another on the stalk which supports 
 them? 
 
 Educators have resolved the question differently. If we 
 are to believe Rousseau, the mind is formed, so to speak, 
 of successive layers-; there are stages, steps, in the evolution 
 of the intellect. To the faculties of sense, which manifest 
 themselves from the earliest years, there succeed very much 
 later the faculties of abstraction and of reasoning. 
 
 Other writers, who approach nearer the truth, incline 
 towards the contrary exaggeration, and for the principle 
 of succession substitute that of simultaneity. 
 
 " We would bring all the faculties under the view of the educa- 
 tor," says E. Joly, " for the purpose of studying them in the light 
 of a useful and practical principle. This principle we would 
 formulate as follows : The intellect is an aggregate of faculties 
 which are developed simultaneously, and lend one another mutual 
 assistance." l 
 
 The truth is that all the mental faculties, if we consider 
 them in their germs, appear in the child at the same time ; 
 but they acquire their full power, attain their maturity, only 
 one after another, and in an invariable order determined by 
 the progress in age. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, in well-known pages of his "Educa- 
 tion," has determined the laws of intellectual evolution. 
 He proves that the mind proceeds from the simple to the 
 complex, from the concrete to the abstract, from the par- 
 ticular to the general, from the indefinite to the definite, 
 from the empirical to the rational. 2 
 
 From these he concludes that we should first present to 
 
 1 E. Joly, Notions de pedagogic, p. 32. 
 
 2 For Joly's criticism on the laws laid down by Mr. Spencer, see 
 Notions de pedagogic, pp. 46 et suii).
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 59 
 
 children only simple subjects for study, sensible objects, 
 particular things, in order to lead them forward step by 
 step to complex truths, to abstract generalities, to con- 
 ceptions of the reason ; and he draws the further inference 
 from them that we can require of the infant intelligence 
 only incomplete and vague notions, which the travail of the 
 spirit will gradually elaborate and classify. 
 
 50. THE INTELLECTUAL STATE OF THE CHILD. Closely 
 examine the child, and you will see that his faculties resem- 
 ble those of the grown man more closely than is generally 
 supposed. 
 
 "The child of five years," says Madame Necker de Saussure, 
 "is in possession of all the intellectual faculties accorded to 
 humanity. Some of these faculties, weak and but little used, and 
 often called into play by the most frivolous motives, express them- 
 selves as yet only by insignificant acts ; but nevertheless we see 
 them manifest themselves." l 
 
 In the simple fact of drawing back his hand from the 
 fire because he has once been burned by it, the child exhibits 
 memory, judgment, and inductive reasoning. It is none the 
 less true that, in general, he feels more than he reasons, 
 and that when he reasons he does so in his own way. 
 
 " The perceptive powers," says Mr. Wickersham, " are' stronger 
 and more active in youth than the other intellectual faculties." a 
 
 And the American educator adds : 
 
 "A child is merely an animal until there is awakened in him 
 the power of self-consciousness. After this I can find no time 
 when all his faculties are not active in some degree ; but his 
 perceptive powers are the strongest and most active during the 
 whole period of childhood and youth." 
 
 1 L' Education progressive, Tome I., Preface. 
 
 2 J. P. Wickersham, Methods of Instruction, pp. 40, 41.
 
 60 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " We nowhere find nature beginning anything," says Madame 
 Necker de Saussure ; " we never surprise her at creating ; she 
 always seems to be developing." 
 
 In other terms, if the child is already, from the intellectual 
 point of view, a little man, if we find in him the germ and 
 almost the equivalent of all the faculties of mature age, at 
 least these faculties do not affect the same aspects in his 
 case, are not .all presented with the same degree of power 
 and precision. Just as all articles of food do not agree 
 with the stomach of the babe, which as yet digests only 
 milk, so all reasons are not fit for the reasoning of the child. 
 He already feels the need of finding an explanation for 
 things, of seeking their cause and purpose ; but he will 
 accept for such explanations reasons which are trivial and 
 puerile. The progress accomplished by man from his early 
 years up to maturity introduces into the mind no powers 
 which are really new ; but it modifies their character, 
 increases their vigor, and extends their compass. All the 
 faculties are awakened at the same time in the human 
 intelligence, just as upon a race-course all the runners start 
 at the same instant ; but they do not advance at the same 
 pace, some take the lead, while others fall behind, and 
 they reach the goal only one after another. 
 
 51. PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION. Intellectual education will 
 take account of this successive development of the faculties. 
 It will be progressive ; it will not forget that in its slow 
 evolution the mind changes its identity from moment to 
 moment ; that there are ages for the intelligence as for the 
 body ; that little by little the primitive dispositions are 
 renewed and transformed ; and that the moral nature is 
 insensibly created. Consequently, in the aid which it will 
 bring the child, either for exciting or for moderating his 
 faculties, education will adapt itself exactly to the conditions
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 61 
 
 of nature and to the changes which occur in the soul with 
 the march of time ; it will accompany the mind in all the 
 stages of its progress, and will adapt itself to all its move- 
 ments ; it will be, as Mr. Spencer has said, " the objective 
 counterpart of the subjective development of the mind." 
 
 52. EQUILIBRIUM AND HARMONY OF THE FACULTIES. 
 From having recognized the differences which nature has 
 established, with respect to the degree of development, 
 among the faculties of the child, we shall not on that 
 account come to forget the unity of the human soul. Edu- 
 cation should be progressive, and not successive, as Rous- 
 seau wished. The author of the Emile, so to speak, cut 
 the existence of the child into distinct sections, as the period 
 of sense-perception, the period of judgment. No ! the 
 mind of the child is already an organized and complete 
 whole, which contains in germ all the faculties ; and if it 
 is not possible to put them all upon the same footing, to 
 make them all march abreast, at least there is not a single 
 instant in life when we should not try to cultivate and 
 develop them all, though in different degrees. 
 
 The independent culture of each faculty should not make 
 us lose sight of the final aim, which is the harmony and 
 the equilibrium of all the faculties. 
 
 " The equilibrium of the faculties, in the human intelligence, 
 is what the equilibrium of forces is in the physical world, it 
 maintains order without hindering movement. Every faculty 
 strong enough to suspend or cripple the action of other facul- 
 ties is a despot; and in order to be sound the mind needs to 
 be free." 1 
 
 Let us be on our guard against minds in which certain 
 intellectual dispositions dominate exclusively and smother 
 
 1 Guizot, Conseils d'un pere sur I' 'education.
 
 62 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the others. "When certain faculties destroy the equilibrium, 
 genius, it is true, sometimes appears ; but the more often 
 that which results from this unequal education is incohe- 
 rence, disorder, and impotence. 
 
 The ideal of a good intellectual education is a mind 
 in which all the faculties occupy a place proportionate 
 to their value and importance, just as the ideal of a physi- 
 cal education is a complete body in which all the organs 
 are harmoniously developed and all the functions regu- 
 larly co-operate in the maintenance of life. 
 
 "The principal rule," says Kant, "is to cultivate no faculty 
 solely for itself, but to cultivate each in view of the others; for 
 example, the imagination for the sake of the intelligence." 
 
 Just as in the soul, as a whole, the sensibility and the 
 will ought to be neither sacrificed nor preferred to the 
 intelligence, so in the intelligence itself no aptitude ought 
 to be neglected, no one ought to be the object of a privi- 
 leged culture. 
 
 53. THE FACULTIES SHOULD LEND ONE ANOTHER MUTUAL 
 SUPPORT. The harmony of the faculties so nicely con- 
 forms to the intent of nature, and so to the purpose of 
 education, that these different faculties are mutually helpful, 
 and it is almost impossible to develop one without at the 
 same time preparing for the development of the others. 
 Nicole had called attention to this fact. 
 
 "Instruction," he said, "gives neither memory, imagination, 
 nor intelligence, but it cultivates all these elements by strength- 
 ening one through another. We aid the judgment by memory, 
 and we relieve the memory by imagination and judgment." l 
 
 It is only in minds badly trained that the different 
 1 De I'Education d'un prince, p. 35.
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 63 
 
 faculties come into collision and manifest, so to speak, 
 anarchical tendencies. A sound mind is a real organism, 
 in which everything has its own place, but in which all 
 things work together towards the same end. 
 
 54. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INTELLECTUAL EVOLU- 
 TION. From all that has preceded it follows that the 
 point of departure in intellectual education is the unequal 
 march, the progressive" evolution, of the different faculties, 
 and that the term, the aim, is the development I do 
 not say equal, but proportionate and normal of these 
 same faculties. We now see where we are. going and 
 whence we set out. 
 
 But by what routes shall we go? According to what 
 general principles ought the educator to govern his con' 
 duct? It is not sufficient to say that education as a 
 whole will conform to the order of nature. Nature, in fact, 
 is a grand and vague word, which educators and moral- 
 ists interpret just as it pleases them, and under cover of 
 which they give currency to the most various and often 
 to the most singular conceptions. 
 
 Without entering into the details of method, which shall 
 be the purpose of the chapters composing the second 
 part of this work, it is proper to determine at this point 
 some of the laws of intellectual evolution and the educa- 
 tional results which flow from them. 
 
 55. THE MIND is NOT A VASE TO BE FILLED, BUT A FIRE 
 THAT is TO BE MADE TO GLOW. The mind is not a tabula 
 rasa, a blank page, on which we have but to write, a 
 simple receptacle which it suffices to fill just as we fill a 
 measure with grain ; but it is an aggregate of germs which 
 aspire to develop themselves. 
 
 How manv times have teachers transgressed this psy-
 
 64 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 chological law ! Do we not violate it every day when our 
 chief concern is to cram the mind of the child, to accu- 
 mulate a mass of knowledge, at the risk of smothering 
 the intelligence, which we should only arouse and excite? 
 The overcrowding of modern programmes is increasing from 
 day to day, to the great detriment of intellectual liberty. 
 Even supposing that the mind is at birth a vase ready 
 made, it would still be an insoluble problem to propose 
 to have contained in a vase of invariable dimensions ten, 
 twenty, or a hundred times as much matter. But besides, 
 it is not the purpose of education to produce prodigies 
 of memory, erudites capable of discussing whatever is 
 knowable. 
 
 "The purpose of study," says Greard, "is above all else to 
 create the instrument of intellectual labor, to make the judg- 
 ment surer ; and for this purpose it is not necessary to teach all 
 that it is possible to know, but that of which it is not permis- 
 sible to be ignorant." 1 
 
 Then let us renounce the pretensions of those who would 
 have the human intelligence the resume of universal knowl- 
 edge. Let us no longer admire feats of strength like those 
 mentioned by Dupanloup. 
 
 "One pupil recited the whole of the Telemaque, another re- 
 cited a grammatical analysis which contained more than sixty 
 thousand Greek and French words." 
 
 Let us return to the old maxim, Non multa, sed multum. 
 It is better to know a few things thoroughly than to know 
 all things superficially. 
 
 56. RESPECT FOR THE LIBERTY AND THE VOLUNTARY EF- 
 FORT OF THE CHILD. The teachers who still believe that 
 
 1 Memoir e sur la question des programmes dans I'enseignement se- 
 condaire, 1884.
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 65 
 
 the mind is an inert, passive capacity, of course have no 
 regard for the liberty of the child; there is no occasion 
 for respecting powers whose existence is not admitted. But 
 all those who believe that nature has planted in the in- 
 telligence vital principles, which await only a favorable 
 occasion and a proper stimulus to awaken and expand, 
 feel on the contrary the need of not hampering and not 
 opposing the natural evolution of the mind. 
 
 Allow the child who is beginning to think the largest 
 liberty possible. Do not bend his intelligence to artificial 
 forms ; do not compel him to endure by force too many 
 didactic lessons ; do not impose on him a diet which he is 
 not capable of digesting. 
 
 " When men," says Mr. Spencer, " received their creed and its 
 interpretations from an infallible authority deigning no expla- 
 nations, it was natural that the teaching of children should be 
 dogmatic. While 'believe and ask no questions' was the inaxim 
 of the church, it was fitly the maxim of the school. Conversely 
 now that Protestantism [Mr. Spencer should add, ' and philoso- 
 phy'] has gained for adults a right of private judgment, and 
 established the practice of appealing to reason, there is harmony 
 in the change that has made juvenile instruction a process of 
 exposition addressed to the understanding." 1 
 
 57. WE MUST KNOW HOW NOT TO BE IN HASTE. "The 
 
 most useful rule of all education," said Rousseau, " is not 
 to gain time, but to lose it." Under the form of a paradox, 
 this was saying that it is not wise to make haste, and 
 that education ought to act upon the frail and delicate 
 intelligence of the child with a slowness copied from nature. 
 
 " Let us protect ourselves," says Madame Pape-Carpantier to the 
 same effect, " against that unthinking zeal, or that culpable vanity, 
 which would exact from the child all that his elastic intelligence 
 
 1 Education, p. 97.
 
 66 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 can produce, at the risk of exhausting it, at the risk of destroying 
 the fruit in the flower." 
 
 58. ATTRACTIVE LABOR. It is a truth now generally 
 admitted that there are no studies really profitable, save 
 those which respond to the needs of the intelligence, and 
 there provoke an agreeable excitation. Herbert Spencer ear- 
 nestly recommends that the tastes of the child shall be taken 
 into account. ""Work," says G-reard, " being but the devel- 
 opment of natural activity, the exercise of that activity 
 ought certainly to make the child happy." 
 
 The pleasure which the child feels is in fact the sign 
 that his mind is developing with ease, that he is assimilating 
 the knowledge which has been presented to him. On the 
 other hand, his repugnances, his indolence, and his inertia 
 prove that the instruction which displeases him has been 
 presented at too early a period, or has been presented in a 
 bad way. 1 
 
 1 Following Mr. Spencer, M. Compayre assigns two reasons why 
 studies may be disagreeable to a child : (1) They may be unseasonable 
 or (2) they may be badly presented. There is still another reason : 
 they may involve a mode of mental activity which has not yet been 
 developed so fully as to proceed with facility, and hence with pleasure. 
 Under the most favorable circumstances, the beginning of a new 
 subject will often be unpleasant, because the mind has not yet become 
 accustomed to this new mode of exercise. If we regard symmetry 
 and harmony of development as one aim of education, a pupil's dislike 
 of a study may indicate that he ought to pursue it. 
 
 It should be added also that a study will grow tedious when the 
 mental activity it involves reaches the fatigue-point. In a word, the 
 same rules may be applied to mental as to physical activity. In 
 both cases free and spontaneous activity is agreeable; activity that 
 is constrained, or that reaches the fatigue-point, is tedious or disa- 
 greeable. But these last conditions are often inevitable, and are even 
 desirable, for robustness, power, and manliness can be attained in 
 no other way. In a larger sense, there is no discipline like a noble 
 sorrow. (P.)
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 67 
 
 Pleasure, then, is not a thing to be despised in instruc* 
 tion ; it will give to the faculties an unusual animation. 
 And it is not necessary, in order to make the child happy in 
 his work, to attempt to enliven instruction by amusements 
 which impair its character. It is sufficient to follow a 
 proper order, one adapted to the powers of the child. 
 Mental activity is agreeable in itself. 
 
 "Where young people are taught as they ought to be, they 
 are quite as happy in school as at play, seldom less delighted 
 nay, often more with the well-directed exercise of their mental 
 energies, than with that of their physical powers." 1 
 
 59. NECESSITY OF EFFORT. But the legitimate desire to 
 make study agreeable, to sweeten the toil of the child, 
 ought not to make us forget the necessity of effort. Let us 
 not yield to the temptation of saying, with Fenelon, " every- 
 thing should be done with pleasure." According to the 
 amiable author of the Education desfilles, everything should 
 be learned while playing. This is neither possible nor desir- 
 able. Let us avoid whatever is repulsive, but let us not go 
 so far as to proscribe what is laborious. 
 
 " School is a forced culture," says Kant. " We should accustom 
 
 the child to work It is to render him a very poor service 
 
 to accustom him to regard everything as play 
 
 "Whatever is done to make study agreeable," says Rousseau, 
 " will prevent children from profiting by it And so Ma- 
 dame de Stae'l says : ' The education that takes place by amusing 
 one's self dissipates thought. Pain of every kind is one of the 
 greatest secrets of nature, and the mind of the child ought to 
 accustom itself to studious efforts, just as our soul should be 
 accustomed to suffering.' " 
 
 " Asceticism is disappearing out of education, as out of 
 life," Mr. Spencer has said, in his brilliant way. Yes ; but 
 
 1 Professor Pillans, quoted by Herbert Spencer, Education, p. 159.
 
 68 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 for the old-time asceticism there must not be substituted a 
 sort of pedagogic epicureanism, distinguished by instruction 
 which is amusing as well as by discipline which is lax. 
 
 Pain ought not to be purposely proscribed in education. 
 It awakens new ideas in the soul ; it stirs the mind to 
 depths scarcely suspected before the suffering came. No 
 stimulus is equal to that of pain, for liberating the human 
 personality from the disguises which envelop it. 
 
 "Man is an apprentice; pain is his master!" 
 
 60. THE INNER DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIND. The idea 
 of an inner and spontaneous development of the mind is 
 not a new thing in pedagogy. 
 
 "Properly speaking," says Nicole, "it is not the teacher nor 
 outside instruction, which causes things to be comprehended ; 
 they do nothing more than expose them to the interior light of 
 the mind, by which alone they are comprehended ; so that when 
 there is not the concurrence of this light, instruction is to no 
 more purpose than as though one were to exhibit pictures in 
 the night." 
 
 In fact, in an education properly administered, it is of 
 less importance to assure the superficial instruction, the 
 exterior culture and adornment of the mind, than to 
 secure its inner and profound development. "To instruct 
 a child," said Madame Necker de Saussure, pithily, "is 
 to construct him from within." 
 
 Let us, then, reject all methods of instruction which, like 
 those of the Jesuits, leave inactive the inner forces of the 
 soul. To find for the mind occupations which absorb it, 
 which lull it like a dream, without wholly awakening it ; to 
 call attention to words, to niceties of speech, to the trivial 
 facts of history, so as to reduce by so much the opportunity 
 for thinking ; to provoke a certain degree of intellectual 
 activity, prudently arrested at the point where reflective
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 69 
 
 reason succeeds a garnished memory; in a word, to stir 
 the mind from without just enough to rescue it from its 
 natural ignorance, but not enough to make it really act 
 for itself by a manly display of all its faculties, such was 
 the method of the Jesuits. It is good for nothing but to 
 make grown-up children, not men. 
 
 61. MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED. It is not our purpose in 
 this place to enter upon details of method ; this is a subject 
 which we shall resume further on (see Part Second). Let 
 us merely illustrate, by a few quotations, the extent to which 
 modern educators, particularly American educators, are pre- 
 occupied with the inner activity of the mind. 
 
 " The teacher should never do for the child what it can do for 
 itself. It is the child's own activity that will give strength to its 
 powers and increase the capacity of the mind. The teacher must 
 avoid telling too much or aiding the child too frequently. A mere 
 hint or suggestive question, to lead the mind in the proper direc- 
 tion, is worth much more than direct assistance, for it not only 
 gives activity and consequently mental development, but culti- 
 vates the power of original investigation." 1 
 
 Mr. Wickersham, another American educator, proceeds in 
 the same vein : 
 
 " The condition of the learner should not be one of passive 
 reception, but of earnest self-exertion. One trial of strength 
 should induce other trials; one difficulty overcome should ex- 
 cite an ambition to triumph over other difficulties. The teacher 
 should create interest in study, incite curiosity, promote inquiry, 
 prompt investigation, inspire self-confidence, give hints, make 
 suggestions, tempt pupils on to try their strength and test 
 their skill." 2 
 
 Mr. Wickersham continues by citing the example of a bird 
 teaching her young ones to fly. 
 
 1 Edward Brooks, Normal Methods of Teaching, pp. 21, 22. 
 
 2 Wickersham, op. cU.. pp. 23, 24.
 
 70 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 "One of my best lessons in teaching was taught me by a 
 robin. It was in my garden, and the mother-robin was teaching 
 her young brood to fly. A little robin sat upon the nest and 
 seemed afraid to move. The mother-bird came and stood by its 
 side, stroked it with her bill, and then hopped to a neighboring 
 twig and stood awhile, as if to induce the little bird to follow. 
 Again and again she repeated her caresses, and then hopped 
 nimbly to the same twig. At length the little bird gained 
 courage, and to the great joy of its mother shook its weak 
 wings, started, and stood by her side. Another more distant 
 twig was now selected, and further effort brought the little bird 
 to it also. And so the process was repeated many times, until 
 the timid fledgling, now grown quite bold, could sail away with 
 its mother over woodlands, fields, and meadows." 
 
 Under a pleasing form the above is a paraphrase of this 
 
 thought of Froebel : "Let teachers not lose sight of this 
 
 truth : Always and at the same time they must give and 
 take, precede and follow, act and let act." 
 
 62. INTELLECTUAL INEQUALITIES. In spite of Jacotot's 
 paradox, "All intelligences are equal," it is certain that pro- 
 found differences separate minds in their native constitution, 
 and that these intellectual inequalities do not all come from 
 the fact that we do not all have the same tastes and the 
 same will. The teacher should know how to take into ac- 
 count this diversity of faculties, and should recall the max-im 
 of Locke, "There are perhaps no two children who can be 
 brought up by exactly the same methods." 
 
 However, do not let us push the significance of these 
 observations too far. Do not let us diversify intellectual 
 education without limit. While paying regard to natural 
 inequalities for the purpose of correcting them, and to 
 special aptitudes for the purpose of favoring them, let us 
 not forget that we must propose to all pupils the same aim, 
 and that, in general, it is possible to lead them to it. As
 
 INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION. 71 
 
 Madame Guizot said, " Save in some special and rare cases, 
 we are all made for everything. . . . We must not so de- 
 vote our faculties to one special line of action as to become 
 unfitted for every other." 1 
 
 63. SPECIAL APTITUDES. It is not best, then, to follow 
 the current of nature with absolute compliance, and when a 
 child gives evidence of particular dispositions, to fall in, so 
 to speak, with his predilections, and to devote him by prefer- 
 ence to the things for which he has a marked aptitude. On 
 this point it seems to us that Nicole is lacking in wisdom 
 and moderation. 
 
 "There are children," he said, "who should be busied with 
 scarcely anything except what depends on the memory, because 
 they have a prompt memory and a weak judgment; and there 
 are others who should devote themselves to the things that de- 
 pend on the judgment, because they have more judgment than 
 memory." 2 
 
 No; without asserting that education ought to cast all 
 minds in the same mould, nor that we should try to bring all 
 intelligences up to the same level, let us not renounce the 
 purpose to have them pursue a common ideal. For guarding 
 the personality of each pupil, and for assuring sufficient 
 liberty to his particular dispositions, we have done enough 
 when, for the old tyrannical and oppressive methods, we 
 have substituted the new methods, which appeal to the 
 spontaneity and the voluntary effort of the child. 
 
 64. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION ITSELF SHOULD HAVE A 
 PRACTICAL AIM. Even in our day we too often forget the 
 old Latin adage, Vitas, non scholce, discitur (It is for life, 
 
 1 Lettres de famille sur I'tducation, p. 77. 
 
 2 Nicole, De I' Education d'un prince, p. 36.
 
 72 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 not for school, that instruction is given). Preparation for 
 life, such is the true definition of instruction, especially of 
 common-school instruction. It is not a grammarian, it is 
 not a logician, as Montaigne says, 1 but a man that is to be 
 trained. Then let us not demand that intellectual education 
 should develop the brilliant faculties whose purpose is mental 
 adornment, the faculties which serve for display, serviceable 
 to men of leisure, but not adapted to the humble and labori- 
 ous condition of the common people. What is needed is a 
 manly training of the useful faculties, those of which it may 
 be said that they are arms for the battle of life. Doubtless 
 the common school is not a technical or professional school, 
 but it ought to be a practical school. " The end of educa- 
 tion," justly remarks an American writer, "is not to teach 
 pupils to know and use books, but to know and make right 
 use of themselves." 2 
 
 1 See Compayrt's History of Pedagogy, p. 103. 
 
 2 Baldwin, op. cit., p. 313.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 
 
 65. THE BEGINNING OF INTELLIGENCE. He who would 
 know in its completeness the nature of the intelligence 
 should study the child beside his cradle. 
 
 At first he is but a little, inert mass, that awakens only to 
 cling to his mother's breast or to weep ; and yet in that 
 body still so frail there slumber the germs of a complete 
 moral personality. Upon contact with the exterior world 
 all these germs will expand, all that latent life will awake, 
 all that is potential will become active. It seems as though 
 an invisible hand were pouring, drop by drop, into that deli- 
 cate and fragile vase, soul and intelligence. 
 
 In a few days a smile will come to animate the lips of the 
 infant ; movements more and more characteristic will give 
 evidence of his vitality ; they will express either his instincts 
 or simply his general need of activity. Finally, at the end of 
 a few months, a sort of prattling feeble cries indefinitely 
 repeated shows that this feeble child already has some 
 glimmers of intelligence, and that he wishes to communicate 
 them. 
 
 We have often heard of the slowness with which nature 
 proceeds in organizing the faculties of the child. I confess 
 that it is rather the contrary that impresses me. When we 
 think of the origin of the child, that only a few months ago 
 he had no formal existence, how can we fail to be astonished 
 at that prodigy which is renewed every day, and which gives 
 
 73
 
 74 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 rise in so brief a time to a new being, nearly similar in 
 everything, except stature, to the authors of his life? Espe- 
 cially how can we fail to admire the intellectual progress 
 which, through the acquisitions of the senses, is accom- 
 plished within a few years? "The period in which the 
 child has no teacher," says Egger, "is perhaps that in 
 which he learns most and most rapidly. Let one compare 
 the number of ideas acquired between birth and the age of 
 five or six, with those which he acquires in the years follow- 
 ing, and he will be astonished at this great precocity." 1 
 
 66. SENSATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS. We assume to be 
 known whatever psychology and physiology teach of the 
 organs and the functions of the five senses, seeing, 
 hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. Let us dwell only 
 on what it is important for the educator to know, if he 
 would proceed successfully in the education of the senses. 
 
 The sensations peculiar to the five senses are not merely 
 affective perceptions, that is, sources of pleasure or of 
 pain, but they are also representative perceptions, that 
 is, the sources of images, of ideas, and of knowledges. 2 
 While the interior sensations, those which accompany the 
 play of the organic functions, teach us nothing of the 
 nature of the organs where they are developed, the exterior 
 sensations inform us of the qualities of the objects which 
 produce them, and those objects themselves. 
 
 From the earliest years of life perception is quite readily 
 disengaged from sensation, and the perception is already 
 knowledge, it consists essentially in distinguishing the 
 difference between objects. 
 
 "Mind," says Mr. Bain, "starts from discrimination. The con- 
 
 1 Egger, Observations sur le developpment de I'lntelligence, 1879. 
 
 2 Rousseau was wrong in saying, " The first sensations of children 
 are purely affective: they perceive only pleasure and pain."
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 75 
 
 sciousuess of difference is the beginning of every intellectual exer- 
 cise." 1 
 
 And at the same time that the mind, through successive 
 perceptions, discriminates objects from one another, it soon 
 comes to discriminate itself from these objects. Self- 
 consciousness, the inner sense, is inseparable from the 
 development of the external senses. 
 
 67. IMPORTANCE OF SENSE-INTUITIONS. The notions fur- 
 nished by the senses are one of the essential elements of 
 the human intelligence. It were an error to think that the 
 senses do not give us ideas. " Before the age of reason," 
 said Rousseau wrongly, " the child does not receive ideas, 
 but images." From the fact of being sensible, the represen- 
 tations of sight and of hearing are none the less ideas. 
 
 Doubtless the consciousness, applied to the interior modi- 
 "fications of the self, is a fruitful source of knowledge ; but 
 how much richer and vaster is the domain of exterior per- 
 ception ! 
 
 Our abstract and general ideas themselves are but the 
 derivatives of a mental effort which compares, separates, 
 and unites the concrete data of the senses. 
 
 Doubtless it is no longer necessary to make of the senses 
 the only source of intellect, as Locke, Condillac, and Come- 
 nius also taught. 2 
 
 The mind has its own constitution and its necessary laws ; 
 natural or acquired, innate or hereditary, reason exists prior 
 to the senses and governs their exercise ; as, for example, 
 when it obliges us to admit an external reality, the cause 
 and basis of sensible representations. 
 
 1 Alexander Bain, Education as a Science, p. 15. 
 
 a " It is certain," says Comenius, in the preface to the Orbis Pictus, 
 " that there is nothing in the understanding which had not before been 
 in the senses."
 
 76 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 But, nevertheless, the senses are the origin of the most of 
 our knowledge ; they enrich the mind with a multitude of 
 notions. It suffices, to judge of their importance, to see to 
 what a wretched condition is reduced the intelligence of the 
 unfortunates who have been deprived of several, or even of 
 a single one, of their senses. The mind is not, as certain 
 philosophers have supposed, a force which is self-sufficing ; 
 it has need of nourishing itself from without, through an 
 incessant communication with nature ; in a word, it is, in 
 large measure, but the conscious echo of an external 
 world. 
 
 68. GENERAL CULTURE OF THE SENSES. The senses are 
 in great part organized and formed by nature. A natural 
 evolution carries forward each of them to its point of normal 
 perfection. There is, however, for the faculties of sense- 
 perception, as for all the others, an education proper, a real 
 culture, which alone can secure to the senses all the pre- 
 cision, all the delicacy, of which they are susceptible. 
 
 The starting-point in this education of the senses depends 
 upon physiology and hygiene. The integrity and the health 
 of the organs must be protected. In the education of the 
 vision, for example, the first duty belongs to the oculist. 
 The senses are the instruments, the material tools, which 
 must be kept clean, strong, and in a normal condition. But 
 nature presents, in the case of a great number of individuals, 
 grave imperfections which ought to be corrected so far as 
 this is possible, and corrected at first by physical means. 
 Some are near-sighted, some have imperfect vision, some 
 are color-blind ; some are hard of hearing, and some almost 
 deaf. For these difficulties medicine and hygiene offer rem- 
 edies, or at least palliatives. 
 
 Sometimes an infirmity of the senses is caused, not by 
 a defect in the special construction of the organ, but by a
 
 THE EDUCATION OP THE SENSES. 77 
 
 general weakness of the constitution. By fortifying the 
 whole body and the genefal health, we assure the health 
 and vigor of the organs of sense-perception. Finally, edu- 
 cation, from this first point of view, ought carefully to avoid 
 all the material causes of the enfeebling of the senses, 
 bad conditions of lighting, for example, which might in- 
 jure the natural and normal sensibility of vision. 
 
 But all has not been done when we have provided, through 
 hygiene, for the health of the organs of sense. It is much 
 to have good tools at our disposal, but this is not enough ; 
 we must know how to use them. Like all the faculties, the 
 senses are perfectible. Between what they are naturally, 
 and what they can become by a methodic and regular cul- 
 ture, there is a considerable margin. Exercise is the great 
 secret of this education of the senses. It is by practice that 
 the painter and the musician, the artisan and the artist, 
 learn to see and to hear with a degree of accuracy and power 
 to which the untaught do not attain. We know what mar- 
 vellous power is attained by the hearing of savages and 
 huntsmen, the touch of the blind, and the sight of sailors. 
 Laura Bridgman, deaf, dumb, and blind, has succeeded 
 through touch alone in distinguishing the colors of the dif- 
 ferent balls of yarn or of silk which she employs in her 
 sewing and embroidery. 
 
 Finally, we must recollect that the senses are mutually 
 complementary. Touch corrects the illusions of sight and 
 extends its sphere. Sight illumines and guides the hearing. 
 Besides these individual and special perceptions, natural 
 perceptions, as the psychologists say, each sense has its 
 acquired perceptions, which it owes in part to the co-opera- 
 tion of the other senses. Hence, again, the educator has a 
 new occasion for intervention, for the purpose of aiding the 
 senses in mutually controlling and correcting themselves, 
 and in becoming by their accord the admirable and infallible 
 instrument for acquiring a knowledge of the material world.
 
 78 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 69. OPINION OF ROUSSEAU. Rousseau is the first who 
 understood the importance of the education of the senses. 
 
 " A child," he says, " is not so tall as a man ; he has neither 
 his strength nor his reason, but he sees and hears as well as he, 
 or nearly as well. . . . The first faculties which are formed and 
 perfected in us are the senses. These are the first that should 
 be cultivated; they are the only ones that are forgotten, or that 
 are most neglected. 
 
 " To exercise the senses is not merely to make use of them, 
 but it is to learn to judge correctly by them ; it is to learn, so 
 to speak, to feel, for we can neither touch, nor see, nor hear, 
 except as we have been taught." 
 
 "What pleases us particularly in Rousseau's thought is that 
 he does not consider the senses simply as instruments for 
 perfecting the mind ; but he studies them in themselves and 
 seeks the means of training them. It is not merely the ed- 
 ucation of the mind through the senses which concerns him, 
 but above all the education of the senses themselves. 
 
 70. METHODS OF PESTALOZZI AND FROEBEL. To Rousseau 
 belongs the merit of having recommended theoretically the 
 education of the senses, but to Pestalozzi and to Froebel be- 
 longs the honor of having put it in practice, of having intro- 
 duced it into the domain of school work. 
 
 According to Pestalozzi, the point of departure in all 
 intellectual education is to be found in the sensations. It 
 was through things themselves that he wished to develop the 
 intelligence of his pupils. It was not enough for him to 
 have the objects seen, but they must be touched also ; the 
 child turned them about in all directions, until he had 
 perfectly caught their form and observed their qualities. 
 Pestalozzi went still further ; he obliged the child to weigh, 
 measure, and analyze the material things which he had taken 
 into his hands, and at the same time he drilled the pupil in
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 79 
 
 naming, in designating by the proper word, the qualities, 
 the relations, the dimensions which his sight or his hand 
 had distinguished in the objects. "See and name," was 
 the principle of his elementary method of instruction. 
 
 It is in the same spirit that Froebel successively developed 
 before the eyes of the child the marvels of the six gifts ; that 
 he first exhibited to the sight concrete objects, such as balls 
 of colored wool and geometrical solids ; and that he taught 
 him to distinguish their contents, form, and material, "in 
 such a way," says Greard, "as to accustom him to see, 
 that is, to seize the appearance, form, resemblances, differ- 
 ences, and relations of things." 
 
 71. THE SPECIAL EDUCATION OF EACH SENSE. Madame 
 Necker de Saussure is not wholly right when she requires 
 that the child shall carry forward the training of the five 
 senses simultaneously. In fact, some of the senses are 
 more precocious, and others more tardy, in their develop- 
 ment ; and, besides, the senses are of unequal importance, 
 and, not rendering the same services, do not deserve the 
 same attention. Finally, each of them has its own condi- 
 tions and its own laws. Hence the educator needs to study 
 them one after another and to cultivate them separately, 
 without, however, losing sight of their mutual relations. 
 
 72. SMELL AND TASTE. Smell is perhaps the one of all 
 the senses that is developed latest. Rousseau is right in 
 claiming that children remain for a long time insensible to 
 good and bad odors. Moreover, we can scarcely understand 
 why smell is called "the sense of the imagination," on the 
 pretext that odors and perfumes often recall memories 
 which have long been slumbering. 
 
 Taste, on the contrary, just because it responds to the 
 essential need of infant life, alimentation, taste is very
 
 80 THEOEETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 early developed. Sensations of taste would be the first, 
 were they not preceded by vague tactile sensations. The 
 infant at once recognizes the sweetish taste of milk. If 
 he is offered water, or milk but slightly sweetened, he 
 rejects it. He refers everything to the sense of taste, and 
 carries all objects to his mouth. 
 
 Smell and taste are both inferior senses which have 
 scarcely any connection with the intellectual life. They 
 furnish us sensations rather than perceptions. They are the 
 agents of the physical life and of the digestive functions. 
 They put us on guard against certain dangers. They in- 
 struct us concerning aliments and liquors. They are the 
 sources of pleasures and pains, rather than of knowledges 
 and ideas. By their tendency towards excesses, by their 
 unhealthy stimulus, they may contribute towards developing 
 and nourishing evil appetites, such as gluttony and drunk- 
 enness ; but the part they play in the life of the spirit is 
 mediocre, if not wholly null. 
 
 They fall, then, chiefly under the cognizance of moral 
 education, which must undertake to restrain them, to mod- 
 erate their excesses, and to repress their caprices, their 
 daintiness, their excessive and violent preferences. 
 
 " Let the diet of the child," says Rousseau, " be plain and simple ; 
 let his palate be made familiar only with moderate savors, and 
 let him contract no exclusive taste." " The abuse of odors and 
 perfumes," says Bernard Perez, "enervates the body and enfeebles 
 the will. I would not have a bouquet in the infant's chamber, 
 or perfumes in his baths, on his hair, or upon his garments. 
 However, I would have him very sensitive to the sweet odors of 
 flowers." * 
 
 Taste and smell may, however, render some services to 
 the intelligence. The chemist recognizes a body by its 
 
 1 Bernard Perez, L'tfducation des le berceau, p. 49.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 81 
 
 characteristic odor ; he distinguishes substances as sapid 
 and insipid. The taster recognizes the vintage and the age 
 of wines simply from the impression which they produce 
 on his palate. There is, then, some interest, from the intel- 
 lectual point of view, in training even the senses of smell 
 and taste, in rendering them more clever in discerning 
 shades of sensible impressions. 
 
 73. EDUCATION OF THE SENSE OF HEARING. The per- 
 ceptions of hearing have a wholly different importance. 
 Hearing makes us acquainted with sound and the different 
 qualities of sound, acuteness, gravity, intensity, volume, 
 timbre. In this way hearing brings us into relation with a 
 multitude of objects. But what is especially to be noted is 
 that hearing is particularly the social sense, since by means 
 of it we hear the voice of our fellows and know their 
 thoughts. Hearing is also an artistic sense, since it makes 
 possible music, the most popular, the most insinuating of 
 all the arts. 
 
 The hearing is often defective. " The number of children 
 who have imperfect hearing is much greater than is com- 
 monly supposed." 1 
 
 In many cases the only cause of this weakness is the 
 uncleanliness of the ears, and can easily be corrected ; but 
 in other cases there is a natural and organic infirmity, the 
 child confounds certain syllables and certain words with 
 words and syllables of similar assonance. With pupils thus 
 poorly endowed the teacher ought to be particularly indul- 
 gent. He ought to bring them as near to himself as possible 
 in the class-room, and should oblige himself and all their 
 companions always to speak very distinctly. 
 
 The natural education of the hearing is relatively rapid. 
 
 See the Rapport of Jacoulet, already mentioned.
 
 82 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 The infant hears from the first day of its life. " On the 
 thirty-sixth day," says M. Cuignet, "the child that I am 
 observing as yet recognizes no one with his eyes, no matter 
 who takes him or who walks with him ; but he recognizes 
 his mother by her voice." 1 The. slightest sound makes the 
 babe tremble in its cradle. 
 
 But what is slower and more delicate is the musical edu- 
 cation of the hearing. At first all noises please the child. 
 He loves noise for the sake of noise. In the matter of 
 music he is no harder to please than animals, apes, and 
 bees. It seems that his acoustic sense finds pleasure simply 
 in being excited, in whatever way it may be. The more 
 he is stunned, and the more he stuns others, the happier he 
 seems. The culture of the musical sense is then a necessity, 
 particularly to-day when singing has become a part of edu- 
 cation, and because inaptitude in singing is the result of a 
 defective culture of the hearing. 
 
 In general, in the education of the hearing, we should be 
 guided by the following rules : 
 
 " For the hearing, as for all the other senses, moderation is 
 indispensable if we would preserve its integrity and its sensibil- 
 ity. We become accustomed to noise, it is true; but its effect 
 is none the less pernicious. On the other hand, the complete ab- 
 sence of noise gives to the hearing an unhealthy sensibility, like 
 that contracted by the sight of persons who have long been de- 
 prived of light." 2 
 
 74. EDUCATION OP THE TOUCH. The general sensations 
 of touch are very early developed, because the entire body is 
 its organ. At a very early period the infant shows that it is 
 sensible to hard and rough contacts, to slight pressures, and 
 that it suffers from them. A sensation of contact which 
 
 1 M. Cuignet, Annales d'oculistique, Tome LX VI., p. 117. 
 
 2 Dr. Safiray, Dictionnaire de pedagogic, art Ouie.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 83 
 
 would be indifferent to an adult makes it scowl or cry, and 
 the touch of a warm and caressing hand causes it a very 
 lively pleasure. 
 
 But we must distinguish the primitive sensation, wholly 
 passive, of touch in general, from the active sensation 
 whose essential organ is the hand. The infant first feels 
 with the lips. As to the hand, it learns rather slowly to 
 make use of it. For many months it notices objects without 
 making an attempt to grasp them. 
 
 "It is easy," says Madame de Saussure, "to observe the 
 gropings of experience in the manner in which the infant learns 
 to make use of touch. This sense is slow in obeying the orders 
 of the will. It is obliged, in some sort, to receive the stimulus 
 of the sense of sight, whose education it in turn perfects." 
 
 75. THE CHILD'S POWER OF SIGHT. At the age of 
 three or four years the child already astonishes us by the 
 admirable precision of his sight, by the ease and deftness of 
 his vision. It seems that he has looked at nothing, and yet 
 he has seen everything. 
 
 The mature man, and even the young man, preoccupied 
 with thought or with inner emotion, often looks only with 
 distraction upon things without; but the child, free from 
 after-thoughts, eager and curious, in the freshness and 
 power of his nascent faculties lets nothing escape him of all 
 that is presented by the shifting scenes of reality ; we might 
 say that his whole soul is in his eyes. A clever observer of 
 children, M. Legouve, has called attention to this in a 
 humorous vein: 
 
 "The child is all eyes. He has an incomparable power of 
 vision. Compared with him, we are blind. Take your son with 
 you into a chamber, a workshop, or a palace, and on coming 
 out interrogate him. You will be amazed at all he has seen. 
 At a single glance he has made an inventory of the furniture,
 
 84 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the walls, the objects useful and ornamental. A professional 
 could not have done this so quickly. All children are born 
 appraisers." 1 
 
 76. NATURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSE OP SIGHT. 
 But the child does not acquire this marvellous perspicacity of 
 vision all at once. The sense of sight does not escape the 
 law of natural education and of progressive development 
 which presides over the organization of all the faculties. 
 The eye learns to see, just as the tongue learns to speak and 
 the legs to walk. 
 
 It would doubtless be an exaggeration to say that the 
 infant at the moment of birth is but a little blind creature ; 
 but the truth is that if he sees enough at the first to be hurt 
 by the light, he does not see enough to distinguish objects. 
 
 During the first days of his life the child is afraid of the 
 light. He is attacked by a sort of natural photophobia, 2 which 
 is explained by the delicacy and imperfection of his visual 
 organs, and is analogous to the cases of morbid photophobia 
 caused by inflammation of the eye or other diseases. Bring a 
 candle near a new-born child, and it will close its eyes, or at 
 least will squint badly. The eye will conceal itself, so to 
 speak, and will shut itself up in the obscure corner of the 
 orbit in order to escape the light. But after a little time all 
 is changed ; the infant manifests a marked taste, a sort of 
 appetite, for the light. It will sometimes suffice, to cure his 
 crying, to place a candle near his cradle. Let it be noted, 
 however, that for the babe a few weeks old the light ought 
 not to be too intense. That it may be endurable, it should 
 be soft and should not dazzle. 
 
 But for some time the child enjoys the light, rather than 
 perceives it ; he does not know immediately how to determine 
 
 i Nos Filles et nos Fils, p. 171. 
 * That is, " fear of light."
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 85 
 
 objects. "When he is finally in a state to determine them, 
 the first stage of progress will be his ability to follow them 
 with his sight by a movement of the ball of the eye. A 
 second stage of progress is his ability to turn his head, and 
 so to prolong his attention. 
 
 But when he has gone so far, the child is not yet in full 
 possession of the faculty of sight. Adult vision has a cer- 
 tain sweep in breadth ; that is, it embraces a certain field of 
 vision to the right and left. Besides, it has a certain range 
 in depth ; it grasps objects placed before it at a greater or 
 less distance. Now, it is easy to prove that if we observe 
 little children their vision has not at once its normal width 
 and depth. Little children quickly lose from view the 
 objects placed before them ; and, on the other hand, if we 
 suddenly change to the right or left the object which they 
 are observing, that object escapes their notice. 
 
 In other terms, their field of vision is still very limited, 
 both in depth and in breadth. Nature, in this case as in all 
 others, proceeds with perfect art, by little increments of 
 progress, by insensible developments ; she grants to the 
 babe only limited perceptions in harmony with its condition ; 
 she does not unfold to it, all at once, the spectacle of the 
 visible universe ; she discloses this to him little by little, with 
 caution and discretion ; she does not create the senses and 
 the faculties at a single stroke, but organizes them little by 
 little. 
 
 77. IMPORTANCE OP THE PERCEPTIONS OF SIGHT. The 
 perceptions of sight are still more rich, still more important, 
 than those of hearing and touch. Sight is particularly the 
 scientific sense ; it is this which reveals to us the color, 
 form, and size of objects. What more admirable than this 
 "touch at a distance," which permits us to grasp the con- 
 tour of the things in the midst of which we live, and which
 
 86 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 makes it possible for us to penetrate even the immensity of 
 the starry heavens ? While we may discuss at great length 
 the comparative misfortunes of blindness and deafness, it 
 seems undeniable that the blind man is still more unfortunate 
 than the one who is deaf, for he is deprived of the sight of 
 the innumerable beauties of the universe ; though the deaf 
 man is the more sad, because less isolated than the blind 
 man, he is the more conscious of his misfortune, feels more 
 keenly what he has lost. 
 
 Let us not forget that sight, like hearing, is an aesthetic 
 sense, without which we could enjoy neither painting, sculp- 
 ture, nor architecture. There are beautiful colors and beau- 
 tiful forms, as there are beautiful sounds' ; but there are 
 neither beautiful odors nor beautiful flavors. In a word, 
 beauty seems to be connected only with the senses of sight 
 and hearing. 
 
 78. EDUCATION OF THE SIGHT. A complete pedagogical 
 study of the sense of sight would comprise a considerable 
 number of precepts, some relating to what might be called 
 the education of the sight, and others more directly con- 
 nected with its instruction. 
 
 The education of the sight consists in whatever gives 
 deftness and power to the faculty of seeing. To this end 
 the first thing to be done is to treat it carefully. 
 
 " For the first months," says M. Perez, " the chief care should 
 be to protect the sight of the child, to surround with safeguards 
 that weak and delicate sense, to shield the eye from impressions 
 that are too intense, from glaring light and colors, and to sur- 
 round the child and bring him into relations with objects whicb, 
 so far as possible, have a color that is soothing. . . . Neither 
 upon the child nor about him should there be anything that is 
 gaudy." 
 
 And it is no less necessary to protect the sight from all
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 87 
 
 the circumstances and all the habits which might injure it, 
 in order to preserve that power of adaptation and of accom- 
 modation which permits the eye to see distinctly objects 
 placed at very different distances. On this point heed 
 should be paid to all the hygienic recommendations relative 
 to the faults in the lighting of school-rooms, to the vicious 
 arrangement of seats and desks, to methods of writing in- 
 compatible with the proper position of the one who writes, 
 to the premature teaching of writing, and to the use of 
 books too finely printed. "The sight is wantonly abused," 
 says M. Fonssagrives. 1 M. Hermann Kohn shows that 
 myopia is five times more frequent with the children in 
 towns than with those in the country, because the sight of 
 the first, restricted to small rooms, cannot acquire the habit 
 of extending itself to a distance. 
 
 The Commission on School Hygiene, appointed by decree 
 of January 24, 1882, whose reports were published in 1884, 
 concludes that myopia in children should be regarded as the 
 consequence of a bad posture. 2 "How many cases of ac- 
 quired myopia there are," says Madame Pape-Carpantier, 
 "and of so-called color-blindness, which are merely the re- 
 sult of a confirmed habit of improper seeing in the early 
 years of life, and of the absence of all examination with 
 respect to colors ! For one real organic defect, there are 
 perhaps ten that might have been avoided by the normal use 
 of the sense that is to-day perverted." 
 
 79. INSTRUCTION OF THE SIGHT. What we call instruc- 
 tion of the sight has reference to everything which it can 
 be habituated to discern in order to fulfil its office, first 
 
 1 L'fducation physique des gar$ons, p. 183. We shall return to 
 these questions of the hygiene of vision in our remarks on the 
 teaching of reading and writing. 
 
 a See the Rapports just referred to.
 
 88 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 colors, then forms, and finally distances. Contemporary 
 educators attach a great importance, perhaps an exaggerated 
 importance, to school discipline in the distinction of colors ; 
 but what is certainly useful is the rapid and accurate per- 
 ception of the form and the position of objects ; that is, 
 accuracy of sight. 
 
 In order to acquire this endowment, the child ought to be 
 habituated to notice a great number of objects, and to notice 
 them in different situations. A graduated series of little 
 plays, of little experiments, of excursions directed by the 
 teacher, where the pupil's attention shall be called to distant 
 objects which are to be reached by gradual approaches ; an 
 incessant correction of the sense of sight by the sense of 
 touch ; the objects which were first presented to the sight 
 being finally placed within the hands of the child, so that he 
 may feel and measure them and compare appearances with 
 reality, the illusions of sight with the realities of touch, 
 these are some of the precautions recommended by expe- 
 rience. 
 
 80. THE REFLECTIVE EXERCISE OP THE SENSES. The 
 essential psychological condition for the normal development 
 of perception is attention. It is one thing to see, to hear, 
 to touch, and another to observe, to listen, to feel. 
 
 Care will then be taken that the child does not use his 
 senses in a heedless manner. For this purpose it is best not 
 to present to him too many objects at one time, or at least 
 not to bring before his vision too rapidly too great a succes- 
 sion and variety of objects. His mind must be fixed on a 
 small number of things, and he must be made to examine 
 them under all their aspects ; in a word, his faculty of 
 observation must be called into play. 
 
 81. PEDAGOGICAL INSTRUMENTS. No one has better
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 89 
 
 enforced the worth of the education of the senses than 
 Madame Pape-Carpantier : 1 
 
 " It is," she says, " the most valuable and the most attractive 
 of all the teacher's duties, and some day it will have a place in 
 the official programmes." 
 
 And in her enthusiasm she goes so far as to dream of the 
 invention of artificial instruments which would be for the edu- 
 cation of the senses what books are for the culture of the 
 mind. For setting an example she proposes certain pieces 
 of apparatus designed to aid pupils in their sensible percep- 
 tions, as the movable color-bearer or spectral top, the poly- 
 phone, etc. 
 
 For ourselves, we have little confidence in the utility of 
 these instruments and machines. On the pretext of serving 
 nature we must not supplant her and substitute ourselves for 
 her. The real instrument for the development of the senses 
 is attentive exercise, observation. 
 
 82. PERCEPTION AND OBSERVATION. Observation might 
 be defined as methodical perception, that prolonged percep- 
 tion which the attention directs towards a determined object. 
 Seeing (voir) is instinctive and natural vision ; marking 
 with the sight (regarder) is attentive and reflective vision ; 
 observing is regulated and consecutive vision. 
 
 " A useful book was written with the title, ' How to Observe.' 
 These three words might serve as a motto to guide us in the 
 most important part of our early education, a part, unfor- 
 tunately, only too much neglected. All the natural sciences are 
 particularly valuable, not only as supplying the mind with the 
 most rich, various, and beautiful furniture, but as teaching peo- 
 ple that most useful of all arts, how to use their eyes. It is 
 astonishing how much we all go about with our eyes open, and 
 yet seeing nothing. This is because the organ of vision, like 
 
 1 Notice aur I'tducation des sens. Paris, 1878.
 
 90 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 other organs, requires training; and by lack of training and the 
 slavish dependence on books becomes dull and slow, and ulti- 
 mately incapable of exercising its natural function. Let those 
 studies, therefore, both in school and college, be i-egarded as 
 primary, that teach young persons to know what they are see- 
 ing, and to see what they would otherwise fail to see. Among 
 the most useful are Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, Geology, Chem- 
 istry, Architecture, Drawing, and the Fine Arts. How many a 
 Highland excursion and Continental tour have been rendered 
 comparatively useless to young persons well drilled in their 
 books, merely from want of a little elementary knowledge in 
 these sciences of observation ! " 1 
 
 Doubtless the sciences of observation, as their name indi- 
 cates, are the best discipline for teaching the art of observa- 
 tion ; but long before the child can be initiated into any 
 science whatsoever, it is already possible, with respect to 
 everything that presents itself to his notice, to habituate 
 him to observe, and to cultivate his natural curiosity. 
 
 "The child is born with the desire to observe and to know. 
 The interior life being not yet awakened in him, he belongs 
 entirely to the phenomena of the exterior world. All his senses 
 are on the alert ; all the objects that his sight or his hand en- 
 counters attract him, interest him, delight him." 2 
 
 83. OBSERVATION IN THE CHILD. Before being voluntary, 
 the observation of the child is, so to speak, unconscious. 
 I mean that he observes without willing it, without reflec- 
 tion, stimulated by an instinctive curiosity. 
 
 "It is not through caprice that the child is ever reaching his 
 hands out towards the objects which are beyond his grasp, and 
 weeps when his desires for them are refused. At the age when 
 he needs to amass a fund of knowledge, the eyes as yet scarcely 
 suffice to inform him of the angles or the contours of these ob- 
 
 1 John Stuart Blackie, On Self-Cutture, pp. 2, 3. 
 8 M. Greard, op. cit., p. 77.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 91 
 
 jects; he must feel them. . . . The breaking of toys is due to 
 the same system of observation. The child has a thirst to know 
 by means of what mysterious springs the eyelids of a doll 
 close the eyes, how the sheep bleats, how the horse moves. 
 This is why, from the dawn of humanity, the child has always 
 broken his toys." 1 
 
 But this natural curiosity, which is exercised upon every- 
 thing, may be deliberately managed by a skilful teacher, 
 and directed to objects which he deems the most useful 
 to be known ; so that, while exercising his powers of per- 
 ception and observation, the child acquires a stock of neces- 
 sary knowledge. 
 
 84. MR. SPENCER'S PARADOX. With the habitual temer- 
 ity which he carries into his assertions, Mr. Herbert Spen- 
 cer declares that success in everything depends upon the 
 power of observation ; and he invokes the testimony of 
 the naturalist, the physician, the engineer, and the scien- 
 tist. Let this be granted ; but in pursuing his line of ar- 
 gument he does not stop till he falls into ambiguities. 
 "The philosopher," he says, "observes the relations of 
 things." It is only through the effort of reflection and 
 reason that the philosopher can seize the relations of ob- 
 jects and the laws of nature ; and to confound these acts 
 with observation is to play upon words. 
 
 Observation is doubtless the starting-point in a great 
 number of scientific discoveries, but on the condition that 
 it is made fruitful through reflection. It is from within, 
 not less than from without, that the formation of mind 
 must take place. 
 
 85. DANGERS FROM AN ABUSE OF SENSE-TRAINING. The 
 
 1 Champfleury, Les Enfant*, p. 227.
 
 92 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 importance of the education of the senses must not make us 
 blind to the dangers which the mind would incur from an 
 exclusive culture of sense-perception. 
 
 " The sight of scientific phenomena," says M. Greard, " amuses 
 children. They would willingly sacrifice everything else to it, 
 arithmetic, history, grammar. This is a clear proof of the val- 
 uable aid which can be derived from these demonstrations in 
 giving expansion to .their opening faculties. Perhaps we may 
 also see in this a warning. If it is undoubtedly useful that 
 children should find pleasure in examining the forms and ex- 
 terior arrangements of objects, in following the decomposition 
 and the recomposition of a body, and in observing in its natural 
 manifestation, or its pictorial representation, the play of some 
 great law; it must be confessed that, after a little time, when 
 their senses have been corrected, sharpened, amused, and trained, 
 this kind of study is for them less a labor than a distraction ; 
 it occupies them rather than gives them exercise. We have 
 banished ennui l from our primary schools. Let us consider 
 whether we have not gone a little too far in dismissing effort 
 from them." 
 
 Let us not forget that the mind ought to be something 
 else than the /aithful mirror of exterior reality. 
 
 86. CONSEQUENCES OF A PROPER EDUCATION OF THE 
 SENSES. It must not be inferred that in devoting itself to 
 the education of the senses education has in view only the 
 formation of an animal of penetrating sight and acute 
 hearing, simply capable, like Emile at the age of twelve, 
 of judging of distances, of handling objects, in a word, of 
 recognizing himself in the midst of the obstacles of the 
 material world. No ; the education of the senses is the 
 necessary preface to the education of the mind. Confusion 
 too often glides into the intelligence under cover of incom- 
 
 1 "Ennui, the disease of unfurnished minds." BENTHAM.
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 93 
 
 plete and defective perceptions. On the contrary, clear and 
 distinct perceptions are solid supports for the higher facul- 
 ties of the intelligence ; and the clearness of sense-intuitions, 
 which are the elements and the materials of all the ultimate 
 constructions of the intelligence, illuminates the mind as a 
 whole. Without an exact and precise knowledge of the 
 visible and tangible properties of objects, our conceptions 
 would run the risk of being false, our deductions defective, 
 our whole mental effort sterile. The culture of the senses is 
 not, then, as Madame Pape-Carpantier has justly observed, 
 "a useless pastime, a sort of interlude in serious lessons ;" 
 but it is a serious lesson in itself, the success of which in- 
 terests all the faculties of the mind.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 
 
 87. INNER SENSE OR CONSCIOUSNESS. We call inner 
 sense or consciousness the knowledge which the mind takes 
 of itself and of whatever takes place within itself. Con- 
 sciousness, like an inward light, illumines and accompanies 
 all psychological states, all mental acts. It is thus less a 
 distinct faculty than a quality common to all the faculties 
 of the mind, whose characteristic is inability to act with- 
 out knowing that it acts. In the last analysis it is nothing 
 else than the intelligence knowing itself and knowing all 
 that takes place in the exercise of the different mental 
 faculties. 
 
 88. DIFFERENT DEGREES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. In the 
 child the intelligence or consciousness does not attain 
 its full clearness at a single stroke. It passes through 
 different stages. Obscure and confused in the mere 
 infant, it informs him vaguely of whatever takes place 
 within him. Little by little it becomes more clear and 
 more distinct ; it connects with the me the phenomena 
 that take place within. Finally, it acquires its full power 
 when, governed by the will, it manifests itself under its 
 reflective form. 
 
 It then takes the name of reflection when it applies itself 
 to the mind itself, and the name attention when it is directed 
 to what is outside of us. "The term reflection," says M. 
 94
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 95 
 
 Janet, "expresses the return of the mind upon itself and 
 upon its thought; it is inward attention." 1 And so atten- 
 tion is outward reflection. 
 
 89. EDUCATION OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS. The education 
 of the consciousness is involved in the education of all the 
 faculties. The more we develop the different powers of the 
 soul, the more we assure the clearness and the strength of 
 the perceptions of consciousness. 2 Under its first form, 
 consciousness almost wholly escapes the action of educa- 
 tion. It is of itself and through the natural increment of 
 its powers that the soul clarifies itself, so to speak, and 
 comes to render to itself an account of its acts. The edu- 
 cator need not interfere to hasten this natural progress, 
 which is due to growth and to age. 
 
 And, once developed, the consciousness does not even 
 then permit a special culture. Its power is always measured 
 by the degree of force which the different faculties attain. 
 
 However, in that which concerns that part of the con- 
 sciousness whose immediate object is the we, and which is 
 the basis of the feeling of personality, education has a part 
 to play in fortifying psychological reflection and in assuring 
 to the human personality the complete possession of itself. 
 But, considered in general, consciousness, as we have said, 
 is confounded with the intelligence, and the first care of 
 the teacher should be to assure the progress of the intel- 
 
 1 M. Janet, Cours de Morale. Paris, 1881, p. 66. 
 
 2 In the early development of the spirit we know the part played 
 by what contemporary philosophers call unconscious impressions, or 
 what Leibnitz has called unobserved perceptions. Care should then 
 be taken that the child's surroundings be wholesome and pure, and 
 that nothing evil glide unnoticed, so to speak, into his soul. Even 
 before the awakening of consciousness, there is a negative educa- 
 tion which consists in shielding the child from all unwholesome in- 
 fluences.
 
 96 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 ligence by subjecting it to the direction of the will, or, in 
 other terms, by rendering it attentive. 
 
 90. ATTENTION AND EDUCATION. "The important point," 
 said Condillac, "is to make the child comprehend what 
 attention is." No ; the important point is to teach him to 
 be attentive, and the way to succeed in this is, not to explain 
 to him the theoretical conditions of attention, but it is to 
 know them himself, so as actually to place the pupil in those 
 conditions by presenting him objects which are within the 
 compass of his ability, and which will excite his interest. 
 
 Nothing can be expected of those languid or too mobile 
 spirits whom no study interests, no lesson captivates. On 
 the contrary, everything is to be hoped for from an attentive 
 intelligence, which can fix itself upon the subjects which it 
 studies. The teacher is sure of success, and instruction 
 really begins only on that day when he has held the atten- 
 tion of his pupils for a certain number of minutes. If he 
 has to do only with inattentive auditors, he renews the toil 
 of Sisyphus and pours his knowledge into a barrel without a 
 bottom. 
 
 91. DEFINITION OF ATTENTION. Perfect attention, in its 
 final form, is the characteristic of an intelligence that is 
 self-possessed, self -governed, and that applies itself to 
 whatever it will. In a word, it is the liberty of the spirit. 
 The attentive intelligence is not at all at the mercy of ex- 
 ternal impressions or of the capricious and involuntary 
 suggestions of the memory and the imagination. It volun- 
 tarily devotes itself to the objects which it has chosen ; it 
 is its own master. 
 
 Attention is not a special faculty ; it is a general mode 
 of all our intellectual operations. It associates itself with 
 all of them ; with exterior perception, with consciousness,
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 97 
 
 with imagination, with reasoning, and assures to them their 
 maximum of power. Everybody knows the difference be- 
 tween seeing and noticing, hearing and understanding, 
 touching and feeling. Attentive consciousness is reflection, 
 which penetrates with a profounder gaze into the recesses 
 of the inner world of sentiments and thoughts. Progressive 
 degrees of memory are directly related to progressive degrees 
 of the attention ; and the reason is not really firm and strong, 
 except when it is reflective, that is to say, attentive. 
 
 92. GENERAL IMPORTANCE OP ATTENTION. It is sufficient 
 to have defined attention, in order to judge of its influence 
 and its effects. The histoiy of brilliant scientific discoveries 
 and of the great works of human art is for the most part but 
 the recital of the efforts of the attention. Newton said that 
 he had discovered the laws of universal attraction, "by 
 always thinking on the subject." Buff on defined genius as 
 "a long patience." In more modest degrees, all the results 
 of the toil of thinking are direct proofs of the importance of 
 attention. 
 
 But there is in some sort a counter-proof ; the infirmities 
 of the mind are connected with weakness of the attention. 
 The idiot and the imbecile are incapable of fixing their mind 
 upon any given object. The monomaniac is the slave of a 
 fixed idea, which wholly absorbs him. The maniac, on the 
 contrary, in a single instant pursues a thousand different 
 thoughts, powerless to fix his attention upon any one of 
 them. In all its degrees, madness is especially an in- 
 capacity of being attentive, of controlling one's mind ; the 
 intelligence is no longer its own master, as we say, it 
 is alienated. 
 
 Attention, then, is the characteristic of a normal state of 
 the intelligence, and, so to speak, the health of the spirit. 
 So we need not be astonished that certain philosophers
 
 98 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Laromiguiere, for example have considered attention as 
 the basis of all the intellectual faculties. 
 
 93. ATTENTION IN THE CHILD. If this is so, if attention 
 is the perfect form of the intelligence, the conscious act par 
 excellence, that which implicates the participation of the will 
 and the entire personality, it is evident that it cannot mani- 
 fest itself all of a sudden in the child, at the age when the 
 faculties are in a state of development. 
 
 The child is naturally distracted, and distraction is the 
 very opposite of attention. At first the child is the sport 
 of the sensations, which come in succession and draw him 
 hither and thither. A little further advanced in age, he is 
 at every moment turned aside by his imagination, by his 
 recollections, by the incoherent ideas which spring forth, 
 we do not know how, from his consciousness. His intel- 
 ligence is almost as mobile as his body. It is dominated 
 by other forces ; it is, so to speak, in tow of the involuntary 
 impressions which are ever coming to throw themselves 
 across his toil and his studies. To call it back and fix it is 
 a serious business. 
 
 So do not let us expect or demand of the child real, abso- 
 lute attention. We might as well command immobility of 
 a bird ; and yet it is necessary as soon as possible to make 
 the child attentive, for even the most elementary instruction 
 requires this. We must at any cost secure from him that 
 effort of attention which is so painful to him, which seems 
 so contrary to his nature, that concentration, as the English 
 psychologists say, so little consonant with the natural scat- 
 tering of his ideas and with the volatile mobility of his 
 imagination. 
 
 At first the problem seems insoluble, and if it is not so 
 it is because there are certain intermediate degrees which 
 nature has provided for, between the state of ordinary inat-
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 99 
 
 tention, which is the point of departure, and the habit of 
 attention, which is the final term of the series. 
 
 94. INTERMEDIATE STATES. The powers of the mind are 
 not on the start what they will one day be. Sometimes 
 even they are totally different in their early stages from 
 what they will become later on, and present characteristics 
 almost opposite to those which they will manifest in their 
 mature and final form. " This is the case with attention, 
 which may be defined as the voluntary mode of the intel- 
 ligence, but which at first is involuntary and irreflective. 
 
 Let one read the chapter which M. Perez, an ingenious 
 observer of children, has devoted to the early develop- 
 ments of the attention, and he will be convinced that the 
 attention of the child is but the shadow and the phan- 
 tom of real attention. 1 In the examples which M. Perez 
 has collected, attention is now confounded with an impe- 
 rious need, like that of the babe who fixes its gaze upon 
 the breast of its nurse ; now with a vivid sensation, like 
 that of the infant a month old, who is able to follow for 
 three or four minutes the reflected light thrown on a table 
 placed near the window ; and even with mobility of im- 
 pressions, as in the case of that little girl of three months 
 who is represented to us as " attentive to everything that 
 was going on about her, to all sorts of sounds, to the 
 noise of footsteps in the room." In these different circum- 
 stances in which the infant gives proof of attention, " the 
 observing subject," M. Perez admits, " seems less to be- 
 long to himself than to belong to the object observed." 
 Now this is exactly the opposite of attention. Far from 
 being exclusively a sensation, or a condescendence of the 
 mind to the multiplied impressions of the senses, atten- 
 
 1 M. Perez, Lea trois premieres anntes de I'enfant.
 
 100 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 tion consists especially in dominating the sensations, in 
 order to follow voluntarily a thought preferred to all others. 
 It is not the rebound or the result of an excitation from with- 
 out, but it proceeds from an inward effort. As to " that 
 habit of attention, prompt, capriciously distributed, that, 
 is, indifferently accorded to everything," it is indeed the 
 very characteristic of infancy, but it is the very negation 
 of attention proper. 
 
 95. THE BEGINNING OF ATTENTION. And yet it is in 
 this way, and in this way alone, that attention makes a 
 start. There is no other means of cultivating it, in early 
 years, than to habituate the child to those vivid, dominat- 
 ing impressions which hold and captivate his mind, and 
 which are the shadows or images of attention. 
 
 When he has several times fixed his sight on bright col- 
 ors and brilliant forms which fascinate him, when he has 
 turned his ear to the loud voice that controls him and the 
 harmonious sounds that charm him, he may be gently in- 
 duced to turn his thoughts of his own accord to these ordi- 
 nary objects of his contemplation. To the usual excitation 
 from without there will gradually respond a voluntary 
 movement from within. To involuntary attention there 
 will succeed attention resulting from his free will. There 
 is no other secret for calling the mind to liberty than at 
 first to imprison it in continuous and peremptory sensations. 
 It is curious to see how, by a natural evolution, by the 
 mind's native power, the interior energy will manifest itself ; 
 how the will by degrees will insinuate itself into the habit 
 of imposed labor and of thought held by constraint upon 
 the same point. 
 
 96. IMPOSED ATTENTION. There is, then, no other ad- 
 vice to give the educator, for this early culture of the
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 101 
 
 attention, than to impose on the child the prolonged 
 examination of a given object. From that state which 
 simulates attention there will insensibly issue real attention. 
 The best plan will be to place the child in such conditions 
 that nothing will excite distractions. 1 Put a child who is 
 learning to read in a garden with his primer, and there 
 amid the sensations which eddy about him it will be al- 
 most impossible to fix his mind. He will be continually 
 interrupting his spelling with all sorts of exclamations : 
 "There goes a butterfly! There flies a bird ! " On the 
 other hand, place the same child in a room scantily fur- 
 nished and somewhat gloomy, where the solicitations of 
 sense are rare, proceed in such a way that he sees only 
 his book, and you will find that he will repeat his 
 lesson with but little resistance. Without doubt you 
 have not to do, in this case, with a mind truly attentive, 
 making a voluntary effort to follow a given direction ; 
 but you have before you only a passive being, whom you 
 hold by artificial means, subject to a single sensation, 
 that of the syllable which you are causing him to spell, 
 and who will escape from you on the first occasion, to 
 become the slave of a new sensation. But in that species 
 of subjection in which he is held by a single impression 
 to the exclusion of all others, the mind is gradually strength- 
 ened. He will lose the habit of dissipation and mobility ; 
 he will devote himself more and more, and with an ever- 
 growing alacrity, to the objects of study which you pro- 
 pose to him. After having allowed himself to be con- 
 strained, he will finally consent to it ; he will give his 
 attention until at last he will of his own accord attach 
 himself to the objects of study towards which his own 
 
 1 " Cause a calm to reign around the infant, so that the impres- 
 sions he receives through the senses may be distinct." (Madame 
 Necker de Saussure, T. II., p. 125.) 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNTVF.RSTTV OP
 
 102 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 choice draws him. And even in the attention of the 
 mature man there will always remain something of the in- 
 voluntary and the enforced, the irresistible attraction of a 
 favorite thought, of a study of predilection, of a domi- 
 nant taste. 
 
 97. OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHILD'S ATTEN- 
 TION. When the child has grown and has reached the 
 school age, we may demand of him some degree of vol- 
 untary attention and count on some effort on his part ; 
 but how many expedients we must still employ, not to weary 
 his nascent attention, but to stimulate it and hold it ! Here 
 again we must consult the nature of the child and take 
 into account the special characteristics of his mind. To 
 each one of these characteristics there will correspond a 
 series of pedagogical precepts. 
 
 At first the limit of the child's attention is short ; it 
 is soon exhausted. Moreover, he voluntarily applies it 
 only to sensible objects. Its power is still limited, and 
 to fixedness of mind there does not always correspond 
 immobility of body. Finally, in a general way, the atten- 
 tion is weak, and there must be a resort to all sorts of 
 stimulants in order to arouse it and keep it at its work. 
 
 98. SHORT DURATION OF ATTENTION. We say nothing 
 new in remarking that children are not capable of a long 
 intensity of thought. 
 
 " Horace Grant has shown that, beyond from five to ten min- 
 utes for young children, and from thirty to forty-five for older 
 pupils, the attention is wearied and intellectual effort comes to 
 an end." 1 
 
 Generally the child displays his whole power at the be- 
 1 M. Fonssagrives, L'Education physique des garfons. Paris, 1870,
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 103 
 
 ginning of his task ; but he is soon at the limit of his 
 strength, and needs to be occupied with something else, or 
 even to have no task on hand, but to refresh himself with 
 play or with absolute repose. Be careful, then, to proceed 
 gradually. Let the lessons be short at first ; they will grow 
 longer in proportion as the pupil's power of attention is 
 developed. Also introduce variety into the exercises. 
 Change is a rest. As much as possible alternate school 
 work with recreation, which, as the etymology of the term 
 indicates, truly remakes or creates anew (re-creates) the 
 exhausted forces. 
 
 99. EXERCISE OF THE ATTENTION THROUGH THE SENSES. 
 The inability of the child to follow abstract ideas is another 
 platitude. A sure means of making him inattentive, of 
 weakening perhaps for life his power of attention, is to 
 teach him too early general truths, rules, formulae, any- 
 thing which repels him because he does not comprehend it 
 easily. General ideas have no value for children. In their 
 view the only realities are facts. 
 
 M. Egger cites a striking instance of this inability of the 
 child to comprehend the abstract : 
 
 "At the age of three and a half years, Emile, who was 
 being taught to read the figure 3, the number of a house, re- 
 fused to do it ' because there was only one figure there.' 
 He could not understand how a single symbol could indicate 
 plurality." 
 
 It cannot be too often repeated that at first the child 
 can assimilate only knowledge coming through the senses. 
 Appeal, then, to the senses, and so far as possible save 
 beginners from abstractions. One of the reasons which 
 best justify the use of object lessons is that they are 
 based directly on this fundamental principle, that it is 
 best to exercise the attention on concrete and sensible 
 objects before applying it to abstractions.
 
 104 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 100. EXTERIOR SIGNS OF ATTENTION. Another charac- 
 teristic of the child's attention is that it is rarely accom- 
 panied by the exterior signs which announce it in the mature 
 man. The thinker who reflects remains motionless, with 
 fixed eyes and bowed head. But observe the child who is 
 repeating his lesson. It is impossible for him to stand still ; 
 his eyes wander to the ceiling, to the right, to the left ; his 
 legs, his arms, his whole body, is in motion. I knew a little 
 girl who could not learn to read, save on the condition of 
 sewing at the same time ; and it was a pleasure to see her 
 mechanically drawing her needle with her little fingers, while 
 she was at the same time spelling out the words of her 
 primer placed on the knees of her mother. In a word, the 
 child has need of movement, even when he is studying. In- 
 tellectual activity does not suspend his physical activity. 
 The attention of which he is capable does not wholly ab- 
 sorb him. 
 
 101. NEED OF MOVEMENT. This being true, it will be 
 best to make provision for this need of movement, and not 
 to require of the child an absolute immobility. Let us not 
 demand of him what is impossible at his age, that during 
 the time he spends in school he shall be a thinking statue. 
 Let us not require of him the exterior signs of attention, 
 provided he be really attentive. 
 
 Let us the rather seek for methods which, while furnishing 
 occasion for gratifying his need of physical movement, at 
 the same time aid the effort of thinking. The child learns 
 to write more easily than to read, because the task of 
 writing calls his hand into use, and consequently gives 
 him greater pleasure. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of them, the phonomimic proc- 
 esses have the advantage of introducing gestures and move- 
 ments into the study of the alphabet, and so of breaking
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 105 
 
 up the immobility which is so unendurable to children. 
 One of the merits of FroebeFs system is that it calls into 
 exercise at the same time the senses and the instinct to 
 movement. 
 
 It would be dangerous, however, to yield too much to the 
 physical petulance of the child. The order of the school 
 could not easily accommodate pupils ever on the move, 
 whose notion would be to learn to read while skipping about 
 the room. Moreover, if the child were not guarded in this 
 respect, he would be allowed to contract uncomely habits, 
 disagreeable tricks. And Miss Edgeworth, who seems, 
 however, to have overestimated the extent of this danger, 
 writes not without reason, 
 
 "If a boy could not read without swinging his head like a 
 pendulum, we should rather prohibit him from reading for some 
 time, than suffer him to grow up with this ridiculous habit." 1 
 
 1 02. STIMULANTS OF ATTENTION. ' ' The interest inspired 
 by the subject itself," an educator has said, "is a unique 
 talisman for developing the attention." How to create 
 interest, such, consequently, ought to be the principal 
 anxiety of the teacher. 
 
 Real attention, like affection, does not permit constraint. 
 It bestows itself on those who know how to gain it. Hence 
 nothing is more important than the choice of the subjects to 
 be taught, and particularly the manner of teaching them. 
 
 Without doubt we must guard against the dangers of an 
 education that is too compliant, too easy, which makes an 
 abuse of what is diverting, and which excludes effort. We 
 should not forget, however, that pleasure is the most pow- 
 erful stimulant to effort. So far as possible, let us remove 
 the obstacles that are upon the route of this attention still 
 
 1 Practical Education, Vol. I., p. 106.
 
 106 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 wavering, which will not keep its track unless it finds what 
 is agreeable there. 
 
 Nothing is indifferent to what can contribute towards 
 making instruction attractive. The talent of teachers will 
 always be the surest pledge of the pupil's attention. But in 
 default of talent, simplicity, clearness, cleanness of exposi- 
 tion, will have a happy effect on the dispositions of those 
 who hear. Even the tone of voice and the attitude of a 
 teacher who, as has been said, knows his business, who 
 gives proof of the interest which he takes in those whom he 
 instructs, these things will contribute towards exciting the 
 interest of those who learn and listen. 
 
 It is not required to make everything agreeable and 
 attractive ; but it is to be recollected that only that which 
 affects the sensibility, that which is agreeable or painful, 
 can with certainty arouse the attention, and that only that 
 which is agreeable can hold it. 
 
 103. CURIOSITY. In this search for the attractive and 
 the interesting the educator is aided by the very nature of 
 the child. In fact, the mind of the child is far from being 
 repugnant to attention. 
 
 Curiosity, that grand mobile of the intelligence, which 
 Fenelon has admirably defined to be a propensity of nature 
 which goes in advance of instruction, curiosity, if skilfully 
 excited and duly satisfied, will be the natural source of 
 attention. 
 
 A bishop of the nineteenth century, less liberal than 
 Fenelon Dupanloup has only harsh words for the curi- 
 osity of the child. 
 
 " The soul, trivial, dissipated, curious, open on all sides, lets 
 everything slip away and keeps nothing. No serious work is 
 possible with it or in it." l 
 
 1 Duranloup. De I'Education, Tom. III., p. 465.
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 107 
 
 Curiosity, which is in fact the characteristic of a mina 
 open on all sides, impatient to know, ardent for research, is, 
 on the contrary, whatever Dupanloup says of it, a precious 
 inclination, a happy aptitude, which it is only needful to 
 know how to employ with skill and discretion. It is a sort 
 of intellectual appetite, which should be furnished only 
 with wholesome aliment. 
 
 Happy the teachers who have to do with intelligences 
 naturally curious ! But especially happy are those who 
 know how to excite curiosity and to keep it active. For 
 this purpose we must skilfully appeal to the tastes of the 
 child and favor them, yet without overtaxing them. 
 "Eagerness to derive advantage from a taste," says 
 Madame Necker de Saussure, "is often the cause of our 
 killing it." 
 
 "The manner in which the child is instructed," says M. La- 
 combe in the same vein, " necessarily has the disadvantage of 
 preceding curiosity, of preventing its rise, or at least of sud- 
 denly arresting its movements. In fact, what do we do? We 
 take a child, set him on a bench, and teach him off-hand a 
 multitude of things of which he has never observed the exist- 
 ence, which he did not anticipate, and which consequently he 
 could not desire to know. We extinguish his curiosity before it 
 had a chance to be aroused. As to the things of which he has 
 been able to catch some glimpse, and which perhaps have puz- 
 zled him, we bring them before him all at once, thoroughly, 
 and with greater detail than he desires. We overwhelm his 
 curiosity almost before it is born. We teach him so many 
 things by compulsion which he no longer has the least desire 
 to know." 
 
 Then let us manage the curiosity of the child. Let us 
 not smother it by satiating it too soon. Let us reply to 
 his questions, as Locke recommends ; but let us also allow 
 hitn the privilege of seeking for himself, by personal obser- 
 vation, the satisfaction which he desires. Curiosity cannot
 
 108 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 truly become the germ of attention, unless it is in part 
 handed over to itself, unless it is not too quickly satisfied, 
 unless we give it time to put forth an effort after the truth. 
 
 104. EFFECTS OF NOVELTY UPON ATTENTION. One of 
 the best means of exciting the curiosity, and hence the 
 attention, is to present to the child objects which are new. 
 Contrast wakes up the mind, but on one condition, that 
 it be not too violent, and that the new study do not in- 
 troduce the child into a world absolutely strange to his 
 previous experiences. In subjects entirely new, says Miss 
 Edgeworth, we make superabundant efforts of attention, 
 and so weary ourselves without profit. 
 
 "Who does not know by experience that the beginning 
 of a science, notwithstanding the attraction of novelty, 
 is particularly painful? In order to reach the truth we 
 must reconcile and unite into one the two proverbs, 
 "Wholly new, wholly beautiful!" and, "It is only the 
 first step which costs ! " 
 
 105. EFFECTS OF VAKIETY. It is less the novelty than 
 the variety which is of importance in the education of the 
 attention. 
 
 An alternation of occupations and exercises animates a 
 class. It is necessary to know how to pass from expo- 
 sition to interrogation, from one kind of labor to another. 
 The reason of this is that these different exercises are 
 addressed to faculties somewhat different. When one fac- 
 ulty is wearied it is necessary to grant it some respite 
 and to make an appeal to a neighboring faculty. The 
 mind of the child, moreover, is eager for change. Often 
 a simple change in tone, a different intonation in the 
 voice of the teacher, suffices to revive the attention which 
 was beginning to drowse. Nothing is so difficult to follow,
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 109 
 
 to listen to with attention, as a monotonous discourse de- 
 livered without inflections. 
 
 106. FEW THINGS AT ONCE. Our anxiety to vary, to 
 diversify instruction, need not cause us to fall into con- 
 fusion. A multiplicity of subjects disconcerts the atten- 
 tion, rather than aids it. 
 
 "He would be a foolish teacher," says Mr. Sully, "who gave 
 a child a number of disconnected things to do at a time, or 
 who insisted on keeping his mind bent on the same subject for 
 an indefinite period." 1 
 
 We do not hold the attention, or at least we weary 
 and overdrive it in a way to make its efforts useless, 
 when we present to it too many subjects at once. We 
 distrust verbose teachers whose thought overflows its limits 
 and whose words succeed one another with an extreme 
 volubility. No durable effect nor profound impression is 
 to be expected from their lectures. The pupil, like the 
 teacher, reaches the end of such an oratorical race, out 
 of breath. The state of mind into which the erudition and 
 precipitate delivery of the teacher plunge the pupil recalls 
 the consternation of those Esquimaux whose history is 
 given by Miss Edge worth. 
 
 Newly arrived in London, they had visited in one day 
 all the monuments of the capital, under the conduct of a 
 guide who was in too much of a hurry. On their return, 
 when they were asked what they had seen, they did not 
 know what to say. It was with difficulty that one of 
 them, repeatedly urged to speak, and finally rousing him- 
 self from his torpor, could say while shaking his head, 
 "Too much smoke, too much noise, too much houses, 
 too much men, too much everything!" 3 
 
 1 Elements of Psychology, p. 104. 
 
 Practical Education, Vol. I., pp. 98, 99.
 
 110 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 107. EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF ATTENTION. It is dan- 
 gerous, says Miss Edgeworth, to employ stimulants foreign 
 to the subject studied. So far as possible, the interest 
 should certainly be made to come from the study itself, and 
 set in motion the inner springs of the attention. This, 
 however, is not a reason for disdaining the aid which can 
 come from without, nor for disregarding the importance 
 of the material conditions in which the child may be placed. 
 
 The following, according to M. Breal, are some of these 
 conditions : 
 
 "So far as possible the teacher should keep his position, 
 holding the class under his eyes and requiring that all eyes 
 should be turned towards him. The instruction is not to begin 
 till all the children have taken an erect and composed attitude. 
 A rap on the table or a word agreed upon is the signal that 
 the recitation is to begin. The questions should be addressed 
 to th'e class as a whole; and so the teacher will always first ask 
 the question, and then will allow the pause necessary for find- 
 ing the reply; and only then will he name the pupil who is to 
 reply. If the pupil begins by trying to find the reply after he 
 has been called on, it is a proof of inattention. If the response 
 made by a pupil is correct, it may be demanded again of a 
 fellow-pupil. If it is faulty, it should be corrected by him. 
 The important parts of the lesson are repeated in concert by 
 the whole class. As soon as inattention appears, the teacher 
 stops. A means of reanimating the class, but a means which 
 should not be abused, is to call up the class and reseat it at a 
 word of command. The pupils should always respond -in a very 
 loud voice; but the teacher may speak in a moderate tone. The 
 pupil's ear soon becomes accustomed to explosions of voice, and 
 then they are good for nothing." 1 
 
 To these precautions there must be added others which 
 experience suggests. Attention varies with the hours of 
 the day, with the days of the week, and with the inter- 
 
 1 Dictionnaire de pedagogic, art. "Attention."
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. Ill 
 
 val which separates work and the taking of food. Atten- 
 tion is stronger in the morning class than in the afternoon 
 class, and stronger during the first hours of the session 
 than during the last. A wise teacher will take account 
 of all these differences, in order to regulate the order of 
 studies. He will begin with the exercises that are the most 
 difficult, and will postpone to the end of the session those 
 which require the least effort. 
 
 108. DISTRACTIONS NOT TO BE TOLERATED. The play of 
 an intellectual faculty can be truly assured only by re- 
 pressing the faults which are opposed to it. We must 
 then make war against distraction at all hazards ; and 
 after having done everything to correct it Jby mild means, 
 we must resort even to punishments in order to suppress it. 
 
 " Distractions," says Ka^nt, " ought never to be tolerated, at 
 least in school, for they end by degenerating into habits. 
 
 "The finest talents are lost in a man who is subject to dis- 
 tractions Inattentive children only half hear, reply 
 
 wholly at random, and do not know what they read." 
 
 109. CASES WHERE ATTENTION is IN REVOLT. Defec- 
 tive attention comes either accidentally from passing cir- 
 cumstances, which it is relatively easy to modify, or from 
 the general indifference of a mind at all times incapable 
 of becoming fixed. 
 
 In the first case the remedies to be employed will be 
 but the application of the recommendations already given, 
 which corisist in placing the mind in the conditions most 
 favorable for the development of the attention. 
 
 These rules, moreover, ought to "be applied with care, 
 while taking into account the exceptions to which they are 
 subject. Thus, it is a general law that the pupil's attention 
 is particularly strong at the beginning of the lesson, when
 
 112 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 it has not yet been wearied. And yet who has not noticed 
 that the child has some difficulty in making a start? Gen- 
 erally, when a child begins his lesson, he is embarrassed, 
 and it requires several minutes to recover himself, to re- 
 arrange the dispersed forces of his mind. At first he is 
 restive, like a horse which must be whipped to a start. 
 
 The situation is more serious when we have to do with 
 natures wholly sterile, and when inattention is the sign of a 
 general indifference of the mind. Locke says this indif- 
 ference of disposition is the worst fault that can manifest 
 itself in a child, and the most difficult to correct, because it 
 has its source in the constitution. 
 
 But in truth this incurable inattention is very rare. The 
 more often the child, even the most inattentive in class, 
 because the lessons which he receives there have no attrac- 
 tion for him, recovers all his ardor and all his energy, either 
 in his play or in a favorite occupation. It is necessary, then, 
 to observe his character with care. If he is indifferent in all 
 his actions, there is little hope in the case ; but if there are 
 things, whatever they may be, which attract his preference, 
 and which he does with pleasure, take care to cultivate this 
 particular taste ; make use of it to exercise his activity and 
 to secure his attention. Once fixed and developed on one 
 point, the attention will radiate upon others, and gradually 
 extend itself to the studies which had at first repelled 
 him. 
 
 110. MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF DEFECTIVE ATTENTION. 
 It is not only in study, in intellectual labor, that attention is 
 profitable. The conduct of life and the virtues of character 
 have no less need of it than excellences of the intelligence 
 have. Defective attention in practical life is the synonym of 
 thoughtlessness and heedlessness. To be habitually atten- 
 tive is not only the best means of learning and progressing
 
 CULTURE OF THE ATTENTION. 113 
 
 in the sciences, and the most effective prayer which we 
 can address to the truth in order that it may bestow 
 itself upon us ; but it is also one of the most precious 
 means of moral perfection, the surest means of shunning 
 mistakes and faults, and one of the most necessary elements 
 of virtue.
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 CULTUKE OF THE MEMORY. 
 
 111. IMPORTANCE OF THE MEMORY. There is no occa- 
 sion to speak at length on the utility of memory. Because 
 an abuse was once made of it, because the other faculties of 
 the mind were wrongly sacrificed to it in systems of educa- 
 tion in which the instruction was exclusively confided to it, 
 educators have presumed to decry it, to hold it in suspicion, 
 and to treat it almost as an enemy. Have they thought 
 what education would become without memory ? Have they 
 reflected that there is not a moment, so to speak, when 
 instruction can do without its aid? It envelops and ac- 
 companies the other faculties, and supplies them all with 
 aliment. 
 
 "Memory," said Pascal, "is necessary to all the opera- 
 tions of spirit." 
 
 "Without memory," wrote Guizot, "the noblest faculties 
 remain useless." The moral life itself, as well as the intel- 
 lectual life, reposes upon memory, and, as Chateaubriand 
 says, "the most affectionate heart would lose its tenderness 
 if it no longer recollected." 
 
 Surely to-day no one any longer allows the memory to 
 exercise over the mind a domination that belongs only to the 
 judgment and to personal reflection. For the memory, as 
 for the other powers of the soul, an exclusive culture is 
 dangerous ; but it would be as absurd to abjure memory, 
 because an abuse has been made of memoriter recitations, as 
 114
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 115 
 
 to exclude reasoning because an unwarranted use has been 
 made of the syllogism. Infinitely useful for all the purposes 
 of practical life, memory is at the same time the most val- 
 uable of pedagogical instruments. There is not a faculty 
 whose services the educator has more frequent occasion to 
 call to his aid ; not one which he ought more earnestly to 
 seek to develop and train, in view of a preparation for life. 
 It is the direct source of much of our knowledge, and the 
 guardian of it all. Mr. Bain does not hesitate to say that it 
 is "the faculty that most of all concerns us in education." 1 
 
 112. MEMORY IN THE CHILD. It is precisely at the age 
 when everything is to be learned, that the memory is the most 
 naturally strong. Educators grant with one accord that 
 childhood is the privileged period of memory. Mr. Bain 
 estimates that the period in which the "plasticity of the 
 brain" and the power of mental acquisition are at their 
 maximum, extends from the sixth to the tenth year. In 
 general, the child is so happily endowed in respect of memory 
 that he retains words and phrases which have no meaning 
 for him, or even which have no meaning whatever. 
 
 Memory is dependent in great part on the vital forces and 
 the nervous system. In the child, whose brain is increasing 
 in size from day to day, whose nerves vibrate with an energy 
 which belongs only to forces still young and plastic-, whose 
 sensibility has lost nothing of its freshness and primitive 
 vivacity, the memory ought necessarily to develop with a 
 marvelous facility. Later, in the adult, in the mature man, 
 the reflective powers of the mind will come to aid the 
 memory ; but they will never succeed in equaling that spon- 
 taneous memory of early years, open to all impressions, the 
 natural and easy product of the young and still unemployed 
 organs. 
 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 20.
 
 116 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Moreover, the power of the child's memory derives ad- 
 vantage from the weakness and inactivity of the other 
 faculties. The mind is still unoccupied ; consequently it fills 
 itself without effort. Later preoccupations, cares, and per- 
 sonal reflections will more or less obstruct the road to im- 
 pressions from without. New memories will have difficulty 
 in finding a place in the intelligence already encumbered 
 with old memories. They will be jumbled and confounded 
 in the mind, like new characters which we would engrave on 
 paper already covered with writing. The memory of the 
 child is a white page on which everything is easily impressed, 
 a clean mirror in which everything is reflected. 
 
 113. OPINIONS OF ROUSSEAU AND MADAME CAMPAN. 
 What shal] we think, then, of the opinion of certain educa- 
 tors, according to whom the child, at least the young child, 
 has no real memory ? 
 
 "Although memory and reason are two different faculties," 
 wrote Rousseau, " the one is never really developed without the 
 other. . . . Children, incapable of judging, really have no mem- 
 ory." ! 
 
 And on her part Madame Campan declares that "the 
 memory is not developed till the age of three years." 2 
 
 It suffices to study the opinion of Rousseau closely, to be 
 convinced that the disaccord with him is simply apparent, 
 that it comes from a misunderstanding of terms. The 
 memory which Rousseau denies to the child is that of abstract 
 ideas ; he is the first to accord to the child a memory of 
 sounds, forms, and, in general, of all the sensible notions. 
 
 As to the assertion of Madame Campan, it has reference 
 to this fact of general observation, that the mature man 
 
 1 Emile (Boston, 1885), pp. 78, 79. 
 
 2 De I'Education, I., III., Ch. I.
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 117 
 
 does not recall the events of the first two or three years of 
 his life. These first years are to us as though they had not 
 been ; a black night covers them over in our consciousness, 
 and the darkness is unbroken save by a few gleams, as by 
 the remembrance of some grave accident or of some catas- 
 trophe. Leibnitz cites the case of a child who became blind 
 at the age of two or three, and after that recalled none of 
 his visual perceptions. 1 
 
 Does this mean that even during those years at the begin- 
 ning of life when the consciousness is still obscure, the 
 child's memory does not act, does not acquire? It would 
 suffice, to refute Madame Campan, to recall the fact that at 
 the age of three years the child generally knows how to 
 speak, and that the knowledge of words and the mother 
 tongue supposes a considerable display of memory. Only, 
 the first acquisitions of the memory are weak and fragile ; 
 they need to be fixed and fortified by a renewal of the same 
 impressions, like delicate sketches over which the brush 
 should pass several times, in order to hold the fugitive colors, 
 always ready to be effaced. 
 
 114. CHARACTERISTICS OF INFANT MEMORY. The child's 
 memory has its own good qualities, and also some defects. 
 
 The first of the good qualities, in children well endowed, 
 is a rare power of acquisition. While the tired memory of 
 the old man takes delight in languidly calling up the im- 
 ages of past times, that of the child is always in move- 
 ment, always in quest of new knowledge, just as easily 
 acquired as eagerly sought, for the child sees everything, 
 hears everything. Nothing escapes his young and active 
 senses. He distinguishes objects and persons. He has a 
 marvelous aptitude for retaining words and learning lan- 
 
 1 Leibnitz, Nouveaux, Essais sur I'entendement, Liv. I., Ch. III.
 
 118 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 guages. In certain conditions he will learn two or three 
 at once. What the adult and the mature man will accom- 
 plish only at the cost of painful labor, at the time 
 when the jaded memory has come to rebel against the 
 registration of new ideas, the child will do with ease, 
 and without giving a thought to the work. 
 
 Another characteristic of the child's memory is the lit- 
 eral precision, the vigorous exactness of his recollection. 
 M. Legouve justly compares the child to an appraiser who 
 notes everything, who omits no detail. With a punctil- 
 iousness worthy of being quoted as a model for an histo- 
 rian, the child recalls the least particularities of things. 
 When we relate to him a fable or a story which he knows, 
 do not imagine that you can change a single particular, a 
 single word, without hearing his cries and protestations : 
 "That is not it! " 
 
 On the other hand, the memory of the child has weak- 
 nesses which only progress in age can correct. It fails 
 especially in this, that it is but little qualified to give an 
 exact location in time of the recollections which he has 
 acquired. The complete memory supposes an appreciation 
 of duration of which the child is incapable, because this 
 appreciation requires the co-ordination of recollections. 
 Who has not heard children of two or three years of age 
 relate as an event of yesterday a transaction which they 
 witnessed several months before ? Too often recollections 
 float in the mind of the child like disconnected pictures or 
 pictures detached from their frame. 
 
 115. CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. Montaigne made the 
 just remark that we are most often engaged in furnishing 
 the memory, but that we forget to form it. The essen- 
 tial thing, in fact, is not merely that the child should 
 leave school with his mind well garnished with recollec-
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 119 
 
 tions and facts ; it is also important that he have at his 
 disposal a flexible and strong memory, in a condition to 
 be still more enriched, to appropriate to itself new ideas, 
 and to adapt itself to the requirements of life. 
 
 There are, then, two distinct aims in the culture of the 
 memory. First, it must be made to acquire the most 
 knowledge possible, which is the object of the whole 
 course of instruction. In the second place, it must be 
 strengthened and developed in so far as it is a faculty 
 of the mind. This no doubt results in part from the 
 instruction itself, but it also requires some special pre- 
 cautions, the sum of which constitutes what may be 
 called the education proper of the memory. 
 
 116. Is THIS NECESSARY? But is this special culture 
 of the memory necessary ? And, if it is proved that it is 
 necessary, is it possible? 
 
 We do not hesitate to reply in the affirmative, not- 
 withstanding the contrary opinion of Locke. 
 
 Locke's special argument for calling in question the util- 
 ity of trailing the memory in school, is the constant use 
 which we make of it in the world and in life. He says 
 that memory is so necessary in all the transactions of 
 life, there are so few things in which we can do without 
 it, that there would be no occasion for fearing that it 
 will become enfeebled and blunted for lack of exercise, 
 if exercise were really the condition of its power. 
 
 Without doubt life will be a good training for the 
 memory, but on one condition, which is, that the mem- 
 ory has already been made pliant and broken to labor 
 by the studies of youth, and that the man receive it 
 from the hands of the scholar as an instrument already 
 fashioned. There is no teacher who is not authorized 
 to contradict the opinion of Locke, for all know by ex-
 
 120 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 perience that the best memories have need of long ef- 
 forts in order to attain their maximum of power ; that 
 mediocre memories would soon grow rusty if they were 
 not constantly exercised ; and that finally the memories nat- 
 urally poor would always remain sterile, if they were not 
 early cultivated. 
 
 117. Is SUCH A CULTURE POSSIBLE? But Locke goes 
 still further. His ultimate thought is, not that the cul- 
 ture of the memory is useless, but that it is impossi- 
 ble. Exercising the memory on such or such an object 
 ' ' no more fits the memory for the retention of anything 
 else, than the graving of one sentence in lead makes 
 it the more capable of retaining firmly any other char- 
 acters." 1 Here again the English educator is in contra- 
 diction with facts. 
 
 Whatever notion we form theoretically of the nature 
 of the memory ; whether we connect it entirely with or- 
 ganic conditions, as Luys and Ribot do, or whether we 
 consider it an independent power of the soul, with all 
 spiritualist philosophers, it is practically certain that memory 
 makes progress through skilful attention and intelligent 
 exercise, and that it is not true to say that it depends 
 entirely on a "happy constitution." 
 
 Another paradox would be to hold, with Jacotot, by 
 a contrary exaggeration, that education can do everything ; 
 that at birth memories are equal in all children, and 
 that inequalities come exclusively from negligence, from 
 lack of care, from inattention, and from lack of culture. 
 Without speaking of extraordinary and exceptional memo- 
 ries, which make light of all difficulties, like that of a 
 Villemain, repeating a discourse after having heard it, of a 
 
 1 See Compayre's History of Pedagogy, pp. 207, 208.
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 121 
 
 Mozart writing the "Miserere" of the Sistine Chapel 
 after hearing it twice, of a Horace Vernet, or of a Gus- 
 tave Dore, painting portraits from memory, without in- 
 voking the testimony of these prodigious memories, which 
 attest by their brilliancy the potency of nature, there is 
 no humble school where upon the pupils' benches the 
 teacher does not distinguish notable differences in natu- 
 ral aptitudes for learning and remembering. 
 
 The inequality of different minds, says Mr. Bain, with 
 respect to the assimilation of knowledge, in circumstances 
 absolutely the same, is a well-known fact; and this is 
 one of the obstacles presented by simultaneous instruc- 
 tion given to a certain number of pupils arranged in 
 the same class. 
 
 118. EXERCISE OF THE MEMORY. We shall assume, 
 then, as settled, that it is necessary and possible to cultivate 
 the memory. Now, there is no other means of cultivating it 
 than to exercise it. But to exercise it profitably, and to 
 reach conclusions that are really practical, it is not sufficient 
 to study the memory in general or as a whole, but we must 
 make an analysis of its elements. 
 
 119. DIFFERENT QUALITIES OF THE MEMORY. "A good 
 memory," says Rollin, "should have two qualities, two 
 virtues, first, that of receiving promptly and without diffi- 
 culty what is intrusted to it, and then that of guarding it 
 faithfully." To these qualities a third should be added, that 
 of easily restoring what has been quickly learned and exactly 
 retained. My memory is poor, if it does not allow me to 
 dispose of all I know with facility and promptness ; if, as 
 Montaigne says, "It serves me when it pleases, rather than 
 when 7 please." 
 
 These different qualities of memory are not always found
 
 122 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 united. 1 It happens that one who learns quickly also for- 
 gets quickly. The memories that are the quickest are often 
 the most treacherous. Their acquisitions resemble fortunes 
 too rapidly made ; they lack solidity. Often that which 
 comes easily also goes easily. 
 
 But these qualities, however, do not exclude one another ; 
 there is usually a solidarity among them. The ideal is to 
 have them all at once, and the education of the memory 
 ought to have in view the perfecting of each of them, by 
 particular attention and by a special culture. 
 
 120. PROMPTNESS IN APPREHENDING. It is particularly 
 in this quality that the memory is dependent on nature, upon 
 innate tendencies. Art is powerless to establish equality 
 between those docile, malleable intelligences, of vivid im- 
 pressions, which impregnate themselves, so to speak, with 
 everything that they perceive, and those slow, indolent, 
 unyielding spirits, which learn only with great difficulty the 
 little that they do learn. Let us not conclude from this, 
 however, that we must despair of correcting, at least in 
 part, these natural defects. 
 
 " We must not be easily discouraged," Rollin very justly says, 
 "nor yield to that first resistance of the memory which we have 
 often seen conquered and broken by patience and perseverance. 
 At first, only a few lines should be given such a child to learn, 
 but he should be required to learn them with exactness. We 
 may try to mollify the disagreeableness of this work by present- 
 ing to him only things which are agreeable, such, for example, 
 as the fables of La Fontaine and thrilling stories. An indus- 
 trious and earnest teacher may work with his pupil, sometimes 
 allowing him to beat and get the start, and thus making him 
 feel that by his own power he can do much more than he 
 
 1 It appears to me wholly exaggerated to say, with M. Marion, 
 "The three qualities of memory are almost never united."
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 123 
 
 thought he could. 1 In proportion as we see progress making 
 we may gradually and insensibly increase the daily task." 
 
 In other terms, carefully manage the weak memories by 
 requiring of them only moderate and graduated exercises ; 
 do not discourage them on the start, but rather stimulate 
 them by skilfully preparing little successes for them and by 
 inspiring them with some confidence in themselves ; such is 
 the spirit of the practical counsels of Rollin. 
 
 Let us add that weakness of memory not being an ultimate 
 fact of mental life, since it proceeds from and depends upon 
 the absence of certain conditions, such as the lack of vivid 
 impressions and unsteadiness of attention, we shall have 
 done much towards limbering up dull memories if we have 
 known how to awaken the sensibility and give stability to 
 the mind of the child. 
 
 In particular, whatever will fortify the attention will aid 
 the memory. Now, there is no better way to make a pupil 
 attentive than to explain to him clearly and make him per- 
 fectly comprehend whatever is taught him. The Conduite 
 des Ecoles chretiennes (edition of 1860) declares that 
 "pupils learn only with great difficulty what they do not 
 comprehend." 2 Pascal said of himself that he never forgot 
 what he had once comprehended. Whatever may be said to 
 the contrary, there is no disaccord between the memory and 
 the judgment. In making all his instruction exact, in multi- 
 plying his explanations, the teacher is not working alone for 
 the judgment, but also for the memory. 
 
 1 " We have often had learned before us, with us, father, in ten 
 minutes, by a whole class and perfectly, a half page of text, a short 
 fable of La Fontaine. Try this plan of teaching to all your pupils 
 some given lesson, which you explain and cause to be comprehended, 
 and you will see produced astonishing results of infant memory." 
 E. RENDU, Manuel, p. 202. 
 
 2 Conduite a I'usaye des Kcolcs chrrtiennes, p. 16.
 
 124 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 That which will also contribute to promptness in learning 
 is order, the logical connection of the facts which are pre- 
 sented to the child ; in a word, it is the association of ideas. 
 
 "It is indubitable," says the Port Royal logic, "that one 
 learns with a facility incomparably greater, and that he retains 
 much better, what is taught in the true order ; because the ideas 
 which have a natural sequence arrange themselves much better 
 in our memory and revive one another much more easily." 1 
 
 121. TENACITY OF RECOLLECTIONS. Recollections me- 
 thodically acquired, the possession of which is pledged by 
 the attention that has fixed them in the mind, and by 
 the intelligence that has comprehended their meaning, 
 generally speaking defy forgetfulness. In other terms, all 
 the efforts which are made to facilitate the acquisition of 
 recollections also assure their conservation. 
 
 There are, however, some particular rules to be observed 
 relative to the second quality of memory. The first of these 
 is repetition, which is one of the necessary means of training 
 the power of recollection. 
 
 It is an old pedagogical maxim that repetition is the soul 
 of instruction : Repetitio mater studiorum. We must often 
 recur to the same things, and not fear the tedium of a fre- 
 quent return to the same ideas. " "We retain," said Jacotot, 
 "only what we repeat." He concludes from this, in ac- 
 cordance with the adage, Multum, non multa, that it is suf- 
 ficient to learn one thing, and to know that well. The con- 
 tinued repetition of one single book would be the ideal of 
 instruction. . Strange exaggeration, which, on the pretext of 
 strengthening the memory, would result in impoverishing it ! 
 Extent of knowledge is not less desirable than solidity. 
 But it remains none the less true that, freed from the narrow 
 bounds in which Jacotot inclosed it, and employed under all 
 
 1 Logic de Port-Royal, 4e partie, Ch. X.
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 125 
 
 its forms (recall, pure and simple, of what has been said, 
 summaries, general review), repetition is one of the essential 
 conditions for the development of the memory. 
 
 " It is not often," says Mr. Bain, " that one single occurrence 
 leaves a permanent and recoverable idea ; usually, we need several 
 repetitions for the purpose. The process of fixing the impression 
 occupies a certain length of time ; either we must prolong the 
 first shock, or renew it in several successive occasions. This is 
 the first law of memory." 1 
 
 Another important condition of the fidelity of recollection 
 is the rigorous and exact precision of the ideas which are 
 intrusted to the mind. We must not be satisfied with half- 
 way work, and this is why in certain cases a literal repeti- 
 tion, and in all cases a detailed and minute knowledge of 
 what has been learned, should be required of the child. In 
 the interesting chapter in which she takes those to task who 
 have proposed to replace the study of words by the study of 
 things, Madame Necker de Saussure rightly observes that 
 these two studies are inseparably connected. 
 
 "The pupil is told to give his effort only to the sense of the 
 words employed in his lessons, without giving his attention to the 
 words, and that when he recites his lesson, if it is seen that he 
 comprehends the sense of it, we should be satisfied, whatever 
 expressions he may use to render an account of it. Nevertheless 
 these expressions are almost always very vague, very inexact, 
 for children are not very skillful redacteurs. This boasted com- 
 prehension remains confused and soon disappears, because it has 
 not been fastened to fixed and positive words." 2 
 
 122. PROMPTNESS IN RECALLING. The precious and rare 
 quality called presence of mind depends in great part on 
 this third form of the memory. The best means of de- 
 
 i 
 
 Education as a Science, p. 20. 
 2 L'Education progressive, Tom. II., p. 280.
 
 126 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 veloping it will be, in the first. place, frequent interrogations. 
 By unexpected questions the child must be made to exert 
 himself, and, so to speak, to jog his memory. He must be 
 accustomed to recover himself promptly, and from among so 
 many others to seize the recollection demanded of him. In 
 this way we shall awaken slumbering memories which have 
 treasures, but do not know how to make use of them. 
 
 Another important recommendation is to oppose routine, 
 and whatever there is of the mechanical in the use of the 
 memory. The child who is quick to learn is too often in- 
 clined to repeat mechanically what is taught him, in the 
 order and form in which he has been taught. He will re- 
 peat without perturbation a chronological series of the kings 
 of France, and will recite without the change of a word a 
 theorem of geometry ; but if he is slightly disturbed in this 
 purely mechanical process, he comes to a standstill. There 
 is no other means of correcting this fault, or of preventing 
 .it, than frequently to take the child at unawares by questions 
 in which the natural order is inverted, and then to compel 
 him to repeat under another form, or with some change of 
 expression, what he has committed to memory. 
 
 123. MEMORY AND JUDGMENT. One dominant thought 
 ought to govern all the efforts of the educator in this careful 
 search for the means of cultivating the memory ; and this is 
 not to develop it to the injury of the judgment. 1 
 
 A prejudice somewhat widely current is to the effect that 
 ' ' the memory is the almost irreconcilable enemy of the 
 judgment." (Fontenelle.) Through cultivating their mem- 
 ory certain people come to leave their judgment fallow. 
 We then have to do with insupportable pedants who do not 
 
 1 The following is the epitaph of the Pere Hardouin, a Jesuit of the 
 seventeenth century, the author of learned works : " Hie jacet vir 
 bonse memoriae expectans judicium."
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 127 
 
 think for themselves, or who risk their own thought only 
 under cover of a quotation ; who know only what others 
 have thought and said. Said Kant, "What is a man who 
 has a great memory, but no judgment? He is but a 
 living lexicon." 
 
 Surely we must be on our guard, even at school, against 
 an excess of memory work. To this faculty is applicable in 
 particular the rule proposed by Kant : ' ' Cultivate separately 
 no faculty for itself; cultivate each in view of the others." 
 Unduly cultivated, the memory annuls, so to speak, the 
 other faculties, and, according to the saying of Vauve- 
 nargues, "we must have memory only in proportion to 
 our intelligence." 
 
 But there is nothing to fear of the memory, provided we 
 hold it to its place 'and consider it only as an auxiliary fac- 
 ulty, "as a marvelous instrument," to use Montaigue's 
 phrase, "without which the judgment can hardly perform 
 its office." When intrusted to a living, active mind, which 
 preserves the liberty of its judgments, things committed to 
 the memory, however numerous they may be, animate and 
 vivify the intelligence, far from benumbing and stifling it ; 
 they furnish it without encumbering it. Moreover, they are 
 here the starting-point of a whole harvest of new ideas. As 
 Mile. Marchef-Girard has said, with some exaggeration, 
 " the memory is not a tomb, but a cradle in which ideas 
 grow." 1 
 
 124. MEMORY AND VERBAL REPETITION. The discredit 
 into which memory has sometimes fallen, is chiefly due to 
 the confusion made between memory proper and repetition, 
 that is, a particular form of the use of the memory. 
 Even were we to proscribe verbal repetition, and renounce 
 
 1 Des Facudte's humaines, p. 275.
 
 128 THEOEETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 learning by heart, it would be none the less necessary to 
 develop the memory. 
 
 But verbal repetition itself is far from deserving all the 
 criticism which it has received. 
 
 125. OPINION OF HERBERT SPENCER. Herbert Spen- 
 cer is one of those who have the most vigorously con- 
 demned the method of memoriter recitations. 
 
 " The once universal practice of learning by rote is daily falling 
 more into discredit. All modern authorities condemn the old 
 mechanical way of learning the alphabet. The multiplication- 
 table is now frequently taught experimentally. 
 
 "In the acquirement of languages, the Grammar-school plan is 
 being superseded by plans based on the spontaneous process fol- 
 lowed by the child in gaining its mother tonge The rote- 
 system, like other systems of its age, made more of the forms and 
 symbols than of the thing symbolized. To repeat the words 
 correctly was everything ; to understand their meaning, nothing : 
 and thus the spirit was sacrificed to the letter. It is at length 
 perceived that, in this case as in others, such a result is not acci- 
 dental but necessary, that in proportion as there is attention 
 to the signs, there must be inattention to the thing signified." l 
 
 In this quotation we again observe Mr. Spencer's habit- 
 ual faults, his lofty, absolute assertions, devoid of measure 
 and so of justness. That abuse was once made, and is 
 still made, of memory lessons, no one denies ; we still re- 
 call what painful and dreary hours of study we spent at 
 college in repeating in a low voice long texts of Greek, 
 Latin, and French. But because too much was formerly 
 learned by heart, at college and even at school, is it any 
 reason why nothing at all should now be learned by heart? 
 
 126. ARGUMENTS PRO AND CON. The adversaries of 
 
 1 Education, pp. 103, 104.
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 129 
 
 verbal repetition defend their position on various grounds. 
 American educators are distinguished for the ardor of 
 their attacks. Thus James Johonuot asserts that the sys- 
 tem of instruction which consists in making pupils learn by 
 heart has no longer any justification in modern societies, 
 where it is of less consequence to maintain blind tradi- 
 tions and inconsiderate respect for the past, than to for- 
 tify the reason and to promote personal reflection. 1 
 
 Evidently the argument is valid only against a system 
 of memorizing carried to an extreme in which is required 
 a literal repetition, word for word, in all branches of 
 instruction, even in those where it is least appropriate, 
 as in the sciences and in ethics. 
 
 Other educators allege that the result of memoriter tasks 
 is not worth the trouble that is taken to attain it. What 
 does it profit a pupil to repeat ready-made phrases and 
 to acquire a knowledge that is purely verbal? "To know 
 by heart is not to know," Montaigne has said. More- 
 over, literal repetition requires an intense effort and a 
 great sacrifice of time. The mind is wearied and ex- 
 hausted in this effort ; and while the pupil is tormented 
 and burdened by his lessons, the time passes, precious 
 time, which might be better employed. 
 
 We reply that, at least in certain cases, the idea can- 
 not be separated from the only words which adequately 
 express it, and that it is necessary, consequently, to retain 
 them exactly. We are not really masters of our own 
 thoughts until we have found the words which are fit to 
 express them. In quite a large number of cases, to know 
 by heart is the only means of knowing. 
 
 From another point of view, effort is necessary in ed- 
 ucation. It is not well to treat the child too tenderly, 
 
 1 Principles and Practice of Tearliituj, New York, 1881, p. 171.
 
 130 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 and to absolve him from all labor in verbal memorizing, 
 on the ground that he will have understood and vaguely 
 retained the meaning of what is taught him. The ob- 
 jections which we have just examined bear against the 
 abuse of verbal repetition employed indiscreetly and to 
 excess, rather than against the discreet and moderate use 
 of literal repetition, in subjects where it is indispensable. 
 
 127. WHERE LITERAL REPETITION is NECESSARY. An 
 English educator, Mr. Fitch, has concisely stated the rule 
 that determines the cases in which literal repetition is 
 necessary : 
 
 " When the object is to have thoughts, facts, reasonings repro- 
 duced, seek to" have them reproduced in the pupil's own words. 
 Do not set the faculty of mere verbal memory to work. But 
 when the words themselves in which a fact is embodied have 
 some special fitness or beauty of their own, when they repre- 
 sent some scientific datum or central truth, which could not 
 otherwise be so well expressed, then see that the form as 
 well as the substance of the expression is learned by heart." 1 
 
 According to this, it is easy to fix the limit which 
 verbal repetition should not pass. In grammar, the prin- 
 cipal rules ; in arithmetic, the definitions ; in geometry, 
 the theorems ; in the sciences in general, the formulae ; 
 in history, a few summaries ; in geography, the expla- 
 nation of certain technical terms ; in ethics, a few max- 
 ims ; these are things which the child ought to know 
 word for word, verbatim, on the condition, of course, 
 that he perfectly understands the meaning of what he 
 recites, and that his attention is called to the thought 
 not less than to the form of expression. Nothing should 
 be intrusted to memory except that which the intelli- 
 
 1 Fitch, op. cit, p. 135.
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 131 
 
 gence has perfectly comprehended. Everything else must 
 be referred to the liberal memory of thoughts, not to the 
 strict memory of words ; and it is as mischievous as it 
 is useless, and as dangerous -as it is difficult, to require 
 long pages of history, of grammar, and of physics, to 
 be learned by heart. 
 
 128. EXERCISES IN MEMORIZING. There is, however, 
 another important use of verbal repetition, the literal 
 study of choice extracts, selections in prose and verse 
 suitable for enriching and adorning the memory of children. 
 "Exercises in exact memorizing are not sufficiently em- 
 ployed in our schools." 1 There is no better means of 
 forming the taste of pupils, of teaching them to feel and 
 enjoy eloquence and poetry, the power of beautiful thoughts 
 and the charm of fine language. Even a careful reading 
 does not always suffice ; it must be accompanied from 
 time to time by verbal recitation. By this means you 
 constrain the memory to an effort of marked intensity, 
 to a real concentration of the attention. You also oblige 
 the child to speak. Finally, by this means the child 
 penetrates more deeply into the processes and the art 
 of the great writers ; he appropriates their style and forms 
 within himself a treasury of beautiful models which the 
 mind of the pupil unconsciously recalls when he himself 
 comes to write. 
 
 The recitation of authors is not only an exercise in 
 memory, but also in language and pronunciation ; and 
 finally, it is an excellent preparation for writing, for origi- 
 nal composition. But we do not forget the difficulty there 
 is in choosing selections for recitations. In fact, in the 
 pages which are to be learned by heart there must be 
 
 E. Rendu, Manuel de I'enseignement primaire, p. 201.
 
 132 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 found united the talent of the writer and the simplicity of 
 a thought which is just, pure, in a sense popular, and 
 within the range of the young hearers whom we are 
 instructing. 
 
 129. ABUSE OF VERBAL MEMORIZING. We should be 
 careful, however, not to go to extremes. On this point 
 we recall the saying of Dr. Johnson. One day, as he was 
 visiting a school where the custom of learning fables was 
 in fashion, a lad stepped forward to declaim a selection 
 for the Doctor, while at his side his younger brother was 
 preparing to recite another selection for him. " My little 
 fellows," said Johnson, interrupting the one who was speak- 
 ing, "could you not recite for me your verses both at 
 once ? " But it is not merely because they are insupportable 
 to others that we condemn those who are too much given 
 to recitation, but because they render no sort of service to 
 themselves and waste their own time. We have not the 
 least admiration for those wonderful feats of memory which 
 consist, for example, as Rabelais has said, in making 
 sport of them, in reciting a book from beginning to end, 
 backwards and forwards. 
 
 " I would prefer," said Madame de Maintenon, in speaking 
 of her pupils of Saint Cyr, " that they retain only ten lines 
 which they perfectly understand, rather than learn a whole 
 volume without knowing what they are repeating." 
 
 130. CHOICE OF EXERCISES. Little and well, such, 
 then, will be the rule in the matter of memorizing. In 
 making selections, preference will be given to extracts 
 which are interesting and varied, now in verse and now 
 in prose, and especially in verse for little children. Care 
 will be taken to read them aloud to the class before 
 causing them to be learned, so that the exercise in reci-
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 133 
 
 tation shall at first be a reading lesson. Then these ex- 
 ercises will be carefully explained. We are not of those 
 who think that the memory should ever anticipate the 
 intelligence, 1 and that it is well to begin with a sort 
 of mechanical culture of the memory by requiring things 
 to be learned which are not understood. The child, doubt- 
 less, with his marvelous facility at memorizing, will sub- 
 mit to this mechanical labor ; but in doing so he will 
 contract a dangerous habit from which he will suffer all 
 his life, that of repeating like a parrot phrases of 
 which he can give no account. 
 
 131. SUMMARY OF THE CONDITIONS FOB THE DEVELOP- 
 MENT OF THE MEMORY. An English educator, Mr. Blackie, 
 has happily summed up the principal conditions to be ful- 
 filled for assuring strength of memory, or for re-enforcing 
 its weakness. 2 These conditions are the following : 
 
 1. The clearness, vivacity, and intensity of the original 
 impression. 
 
 2. The order and classification of the facts. 
 
 3. Repetition. " If the nail does not go in at one stroke, 
 let it have another and another." 
 
 4. The power of logical sequence. " The man who is slow 
 to remember without a reason, searches after the causal 
 connection of the facts, and, when he has found it, binds to- 
 gether by the bonds of rational sequences what the constitu- 
 tion of his mind disinclined him to receive as an arbitrary 
 and unexplained succession." 
 
 5. The artificial relations established between the things 
 remembered. 
 
 6. The use of written notes. "The lack of a memory nat- 
 urally good," said Montaigne, "caused me to make one of 
 paper." 
 
 1 See Appendix A. 
 
 8 Blackie, op. cit., p. 19 et seq.
 
 134 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 To these conditions, which are all of the psychologi- 
 cal order, there must be added, for the sake of com- 
 pleteness, the physical conditions. 
 
 " The first general circumstance favoring retentiveness," says 
 
 Mr. Bain, "is the physical condition of the individual 
 
 It includes general health, vigor, and freshness at the moment, 
 together with the further indispensable proviso that the nutri- 
 tion, instead of being drafted off to strengthen the mere 
 physical functions, is allowed to run in good measure to the 
 brain." J 
 
 Everybody knows by experience that the power of the 
 memory is greater after a meal than before it, after 
 sleep than before it. 
 
 132. MNEMONIC DEVICES. Educational writers have often 
 recommended the use of artificial methods, which, by 
 establishing an artificial bond between recollections, insure 
 their durability and facilitate their recall. 
 
 But, in the first place, mnemonic devices have the dis- 
 advantage of accustoming the mind to arbitrary and su- 
 perficial associations of ideas. Had they, with respect 
 to the development of the memory, all the efficacy which 
 is ascribed to them, it would still be necessary to con- 
 demn them, by reason of the mischievous influence which 
 they might exert upon the judgment and the reason. 
 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 22. However much disposed we 
 may be to take into account the physical conditions, we believe 
 that in pedagogy we must be cautious of considerations of this 
 nature. We do not see what education can gain from observa- 
 tions like these: "The words which we make use of in our 
 thoughts do not appear in consciousness, except through the ac- 
 tivity of the special cells which are situated, in general, in the 
 third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere." (From an article 
 on the Recitation classique, by M. Douliot, in the Revue de I'enseigne- 
 ment secondaire, mai, 1885.)
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 135 
 
 But still further, what must we think of these devices 
 as they affect the memory itself? 
 
 "Artificial bonds of association," says Mr. Blackie, "may 
 also sometimes be found useful, as when a school-boy remem- 
 bers that Abydos is on the Asiatic coast of the Hellespont, 
 because both Asia and Abydos commence with the letter A ; 
 but such tricks suit rather the necessities of an ill-trained 
 governess than the uses of a manly mind. I have no faith 
 in the systematic use of what are called artificial mnemonic 
 systems; they fill the fancy with a set of arbitrary and 
 ridiculous symbols, which interfere with the natural play of 
 the faculties. Dates in history, to which this sort of machin- 
 ery has been generally applied, are better recollected by the casual 
 dependence, and even the accidental contiguity, of great names." 1 
 
 The true mnemonics is that which is founded on the 
 real relations, the natural association of ideas, and upon 
 the method and logical order which should be introduced 
 into instruction. On the contrary, the mnemonics which 
 is based on artificial resemblances and conventional re- 
 lations may be useful for preserving a particular remem- 
 brance ; but it is injurious to the general culture of the 
 memory. Everything that aids the memory does not, in 
 fact, strengthen it ; and it contracts bad habits by being 
 furnished with exterior supports and artificial aids, which 
 disqualify it for relying upon itself and upon the nature 
 of things. 
 
 133. THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. The association of 
 ideas is one of the essential laws of the development of the 
 memory, in the sense that our recollections are connected 
 with one another, that their connection fixes them in the 
 mind, and that, once associated by any bond whatever, the 
 appearance of one suffices to evoke the other. This is why 
 
 1 Blackie, op. tit., pp. 20, 21.
 
 136 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 new studies, which by the attraction of their very novelty 
 excite the attention, fatigue and disconcert the memory, 
 because the ideas which they suggest to the mind do not find 
 these points of support, that is, other analogous ideas to 
 which they can be attached. 
 
 In the culture of the memory the teacher will then take 
 advantage of the association of ideas and of its different 
 principles, some of them accidental and exterior, like con- 
 tiguity in time and space ; others intriusical and logical, like 
 the relation of cause to effect. The more relations that are 
 established among the items of knowledge, the greater will 
 be the association of ideas, and the more active and tena- 
 cious the memory. Saint Fra^ois de Sales said, in a 
 pointed way : "A good way to learn is to study ; a better 
 is to listen ; the very best is to teach ! " 
 
 If the best way to learn is really to teach, it is precisely 
 because the teacher is obliged to classify and co-ordinate the 
 knowledges which he teaches, and to subject them to a rig- 
 orous and methodical order. 
 
 134. DIFFERENT FORMS OF THE MEMORY. "We speak 
 of the memory," says M. Legouve ; "we should say memo- 
 ries." In truth, there is a memory of facts, a memory of 
 words, a memory of ideas, a memory of dates, of places, 
 and still others ; and these different memories, while not 
 excluding one another, are rarely found united in the same 
 person. One who retains imperturbably a series of figures 
 and computations will be incapable of recalling the forms of 
 objects and the appearance of persons. It is habit, it is 
 frequent and repeated exercise, which contributes more than 
 nature to the development of these different dispositions. 
 Each profession, each trade, tends to favor the one or the 
 other. At school, the duty of the teacher should be to 
 oppose these specializations of the memory and not permit
 
 CULTURE OF THE MEMORY. 137 
 
 it to be devoted exclusively to the acquisition of a single 
 kind of knowledge. 
 
 In a word, the memory ought to be developed in all direc- 
 tions, in behalf of abstract ideas as in behalf of sensible 
 images and notions. It should be a flexible and general 
 power of acquisition, which lends itself to all the labors of 
 thought and to all the occupations of life. If it is but the 
 guardian of a privileged class of recollections, it will still 
 render important services, but services which are restricted 
 and particular; it will no longer be the universal faculty 
 which it should be, the servant of the intelligence, a servant, 
 moreover, with which we cannot dispense.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CULTUKE OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 135. OFFICE OF THE IMAGINATION. The imagination is 
 not one of those essential faculties which, like the memory, 
 take part in all the mental operations, or, like the judgment, 
 are constantly making manifest the activity of the spirit. 
 It is impossible to imagine an intelligence which cannot 
 recollect, which cannot judge ; but it is possible for us to 
 conceive of a man without imagination. 
 
 The judgment is the normal act of the intellectual life ; 
 the memory is one of its necessary conditions. The imagi- 
 nation is but an auxiliary, accessory faculty ; it merely inter- 
 venes on occasion to aid, and sometimes to impede in their 
 development, the other powers of the soul. 
 
 136. BENEFITS OF THE IMAGINATION. We by no means 
 deny the great and real services which the imagination is 
 called to render, either in practical life, in literature and the 
 arts, or even in science. We do not forget that it em- 
 bellishes existence by the golden dreams with which it lulls 
 us, that it nourishes our hopes, and that it fills by its sweet 
 contemplations the chasms and intervals of active, reflective 
 life. Nor do we forget that it is the inspirer of poetry and 
 the handmaid of art, and that without it literature would be 
 but a cold and insipid photograph of reality. The scientist 
 himself has need of imagination, for it suggests to him 
 fruitful hypotheses and bold inventions, which often put him 
 
 138
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 139 
 
 on the route toward the truth ; and a philosopher has said 
 that a chapter on logic might be written with this title : 
 Errors committed through default of imagination. 1 
 
 137. DANGERS OF THE IMAGINATION. But if it is easy to 
 extol the imagination and its benefits, it is none the less so 
 to decry it and point out its dangers. Of how many errors 
 and illusions is it not the. source ! Pascal harshly character- 
 ized it as "the enemy of reason," "the mistress of error 
 and falsehood." Malebranche called it " the madcap of the 
 house," to express the error and the disorder which it can 
 excite in the soul. 
 
 The education of the imagination will not, then, be merely 
 a work of excitation and development. 
 
 Like the sensibility, like all the disturbed and disturbing 
 faculties, susceptible of good and of evil, the imagination 
 must be supervised, restrained, and directed. 
 
 "Other faculties," says Madame de Saussure, "furnish no 
 occasion for constraint. Every innocent exercise which tends 
 to strengthen the attention, the reason, and the memory 
 forms a part of our plan, and we can employ it without hesi- 
 tation in the work of development; but the moment the im- 
 agination becomes the subject of our attention, all becomes 
 more delicate and dangerous. To restrain, to regulate, to 
 moderate, is often more necessary than to develop; and yet 
 who would extinguish the imagination?" 
 
 138. ITS POWER IN CHILDHOOD. All the philosophers 
 save Rousseau, who, continuing to isolate himself in his par- 
 adoxes, denies imagination to the child, after having denied 
 him memory, all the observers of childhood are in accord 
 in recognizing in this period of life the precocious develop- 
 ment of the imagination. Madame de Saussure, who has 
 
 1 Paul Janet, Philosophic du bonheur, p. 01.
 
 140 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 written upon this subject one of the finest chapters of her 
 excellent book, declares that at the beginning of life the 
 imagination is "all-powerful." 1 
 
 It is Kant's opinion that the infant imagination is ex- 
 tremely vivid, and that it needs to be governed, not to be 
 enlarged. 
 
 139. ITS DIFFERENT FORMS. But before going further, 
 in order to introduce greater clearness into a question of 
 such delicacy, it is important at this point to distinguish the 
 two principal forms of the imagination, one which is 
 ordinarily called the representative imagination, which is 
 hardly more than vivid memory, the faculty of recalling with 
 the eyes closed what we have seen with the eyes open ; the 
 other, which is in truth the imagination proper, that which 
 invents and combines under new forms the images borrowed 
 from the memory. The representative imagination, more- 
 over, is the starting-point of the other, the humble cradle of 
 a faculty summoned to the most brilliant destinies. 
 
 "The imagination," says Madame Pape-Carpantier, "that 
 precious endowment, has been given to the child in order to 
 permit him, when he has imitated what he has seen, to 
 construct for himself, in his turn, things that are new. Thus 
 this faculty is endowed with an incessant activity, which 
 is ever urging the child to action. It is only rarely, then, 
 that we have to stimulate the imagination ; but we have to 
 offer it wholesome aliment and open to it straight and be- 
 coming paths." 2 
 
 140. THE REPRESENTATIVE IMAGINATION. We might be 
 tempted to think that the representative imagination, 
 manifestly useful to the artist and the painter, who need 
 
 1 Education progressive, Tom. II., p. 297, Ch. VIII. 
 
 2 Madame Pape-Carpantier, Cours complet d'tfducation, 1874.
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 141 
 
 to form vivid representations of objects, renders no ser- 
 vice to the child and plays no part in the earliest educa- 
 tion ; but a little reflection suffices to prove the contrary. 
 
 A vivid representation of the letters of the alphabet 
 will be of great service in teaching to read and write 
 quickly and well. Further on, in the tracing of maps, 
 in the study of geometry, and still more in the exer- 
 cises in drawing, children well endowed with respect to 
 the imagination, and accustomed to conceive with clear- 
 ness the material forms of objects, will have no difficulty 
 in surpassing their comrades. 
 
 Even in the study of orthography, the representative 
 imagination has its importance. How shall we explain 
 the fact that one child, as intelligent as another, who 
 has even read much more, is nevertheless much slower 
 in learning to spell? The cause of this is probably in 
 the weakness of the representative imagination. Certain 
 children, who read readily, in some way do not follow 
 the text except by the thought; their eyes are not suf- 
 ficiently fixed upon the words themselves and upon the 
 elements which compose them. So that, when asked to 
 write from memory a word which they have read for the 
 tenth time, they bungle and disfigure it, they do not re- 
 produce all its letters ; like unskillful draftsmen, who 
 through defective imagination cannot represent with exact- 
 ness the object which they have seen and which they 
 wish to draw from memory. 
 
 141. CULTURE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE IMAGINATION. 
 Though the representative imagination, like the memory, 
 is instinctively very powerful, it may nevertheless be 
 the object of a special culture. Exercises in intuition, 
 like those employed by Pestalozzi, are especially adapted 
 to this education. Mr. Bain states that almost the only
 
 142 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 means of strengthening this faculty is by making addi- 
 tions to our knowledge ; but on this condition, however, 
 that we have due regard to the precision of the knowl- 
 edge communicated, and to the clearness and vividness 
 of the perceptions we acquire. A multitude of ideas, 
 confusedly and vaguely conceived, would tend only to 
 befog and obscure the imagination. In order to imagine 
 well, we must begin by seeing well. 
 
 Accustomed to conceive clearly and distinctly whatever 
 the senses perceive, the imagination will become a good 
 instrument of intuition, invaluable not only for recalling 
 objects that we have seen, but also for representing 
 objects that we have not seen. In fact, the imaginative 
 faculty, in its higher manifestations, is something more 
 than the mere photographic reproduction of what has 
 been really perceived ; it allows us to conceive with 
 clearness any object whatever from a simple verbal de- 
 scription of it. It is a great help in the study of 
 history and geography, because it places the child in a 
 position to see, with the eyes of the mind, the places, 
 the events, and the men that are the subjects of the 
 lesson. It animates instruction, gives vividness to ideas 
 and coloring to events, and so inspires an interest in 
 the subject in hand. 
 
 Care must be taken, however, that the child does not 
 make a misuse of the conceptive faculty. Very much 
 disposed to think by images, he has not at his dispo- 
 sition, in the early years of his life, that algebra of 
 thought called language. Back of each word that he 
 pronounces, he sees with its details of form and color, 
 the object designated by that word. If pushed too far, 
 this is a dangerous habit, because it obstructs the clearness 
 and the celerity of thought, and causes the pupil to 
 loiter amid useless imaginings. The image should not
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 143 
 
 stifle the idea and obstruct the work of abstract thought, 
 by mingling with them a train of sensible representations. 
 
 Let us add that the representative imagination should 
 not be considered merely an instrument which is to be 
 made deft and strong. It is a direct source of acqui- 
 sitions ; it peoples our consciousness and heart with a 
 world of images and recollections. 
 
 Hence the need of careful oversight and of choice 
 in the first impressions of the. imagination. The child 
 must be shielded from whatever is ugly, repulsive, and 
 immoral. Madame de Sevigne was fond of repeating 
 the saying, "To the pure all things are pure." In 
 other terms, in a soul healthy and pure unwholesome 
 impressions leave no trace of evil. Perhaps this is true 
 of consciences already formed and of characters already 
 established, whose inclinations are strong enough, whose 
 habits are sufficiently fixed to reject every impure alloy, 
 and which can encounter the most pernicious impressions 
 with impunity ; but this saying is not applicable to the 
 child whose mind, in the process of formation, is im- 
 pregnated with everything that touches it and opposes 
 resistance to no impression. 1 
 
 That which is best adapted to the early culture of 
 the imagination is the spectacle presented by nature. 
 Before he is capable of becoming interested in the works 
 of man, the child is already disposed to admire " the 
 grand poem which the finger of God has written on the 
 surface of the earth." 
 
 " Often take children," says Gauthey, " to the bosom of nature, 
 that they may there revel at will in colors, forms, and perfumes." 2 
 
 1 " New vases preserve the taste of the first liquor that is put 
 into them ; and wool, once colored, never regains its primitive 
 whiteness." QITINTILIAN. 
 
 2 Gauthey, De I' 'Education, Paris, 1854, Tom. I., p. 464.
 
 144 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 142. PICTURES PROPERLY so CALLED. It is no longer 
 necessary to call the attention to the importance of 
 pictures and to the part which they may play in in- 
 struction. On every hand the art of picture-making is 
 being developed, and the representations of real objects 
 are scattered everywhere, upon the walls of our school- 
 rooms, in works of standard literature, upon the covers 
 of pupils' note-books. 
 
 " Could we show objects to children and have them touched 
 and handled, it would doubtless be best; but if objects are 
 out of reach, or are of such a nature as to make direct pres- 
 entation impossible, the teacher who can draw calls to his 
 aid books of engravings, maps, or pictures. 1 
 
 The picture, then, has gained for itself a place ; and 
 since the day of Comenius, who in his Orbis Pictus was 
 the first to employ it as a means of instruction, it has 
 become popularized and at the same time perfected. 
 Children love them ; there is no doubt on that point. 
 Some teachers assert that girls are even more fond of 
 them than boys are. At any rate, pictures are the 
 first poesy of childhood, and are to be commended in 
 the first place because they furnish amusement and rec- 
 reation. But they are also a means of developing the 
 representative imagination, of fixing the attention, and 
 of making study attractive. Finally, they are a school 
 of positive instruction, and at the same time a prepa- 
 ration for an education in art. 
 
 143. THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION. The expression crea- 
 tive imagination has the sanction of usage, but it is certainly 
 inexact. The imagination acts, invents, arranges according 
 
 1 Du Mesnil, Lettre a M. Jules Ferry, 1880, p. 21.
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 145 
 
 to its fancy, magnifies, contracts, modifies in a thousand 
 ways the elements it borrows from reality, and groups the 
 images furnished by the observation and the memory in 
 accordance with an ideal which it conceives ; but in no true 
 sense does it create. 
 
 144. DOES IT EXIST IN THE CHILD? Whatever name we 
 give it, 1 and we prefer to call it the active or inventive 
 imagination, it is developed at a quite early period. 
 There comes a moment in the life of the child when the 
 spu-it is no longer merely a faithful memory and a passive 
 reproduction of what the senses have perceived ; when from 
 the shock of multiplied representations and from the clash 
 of various images, there burst forth, under the stimulus of 
 the sentiments, a certain number of new and original con- 
 ceptions which attest the native fecundity of the spirit. Of 
 course all infant intelligences are not alike in this respect. 
 Perhaps to a greater degree than any other, the inventive 
 faculty supposes a strength of intelligence and a power of 
 sensibility which are very unevenly distributed by nature ; 
 but it may be affirmed that, with equal intelligence, the child 
 will have the most imagination who has read most, traveled 
 most, observed most things, witnessed most spectacles, 
 who, in a word, has at his disposal most material which can 
 be utilized in new combinations and constructions. 
 
 Nothing is more varied, however, than the play of the 
 childish imagination in the thousand pastures where it strays 
 in pursuit of artless fictions and innocent falsehoods. 
 
 145. MYTHOLOGICAL TENDENCY. At first, the child has 
 a marked tendency to personify all the objects which sur- 
 
 1 English psychologists call it the constructive imagination, in dis- 
 tinction from the imagination that is simply reproductive.
 
 146 THEOEETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 round him, to represent them to himself after his own image, 
 to enter into conversation with animals, and even with inan- 
 imate things. His mental state is very like that of primitive 
 people, who attribute life and feeling to material objects, 
 and invest all things with human or divine qualities. " The 
 sun has risen," a child was told. " "Who then is its maid?" 
 he asked. The Greeks believed that Apollo drove the 
 chariot of the sun through the heavens. The little child 
 imagines that the sun should be taken out for a walk by an 
 attendant, just as he is himself. 
 
 There is no great good to be expected from a tendency 
 which renews for each child the ridiculous crudities and 
 dangerous superstitions of the infancy of the race. How- 
 ever, we may take advantage of this tendency in creating an 
 interest in the reading of fables. 1 The child, in order to 
 enjoy La Fontaine, needs really to believe that the animals 
 and plants speak, and that they are really the authors of 
 the acts which the poet attributes to them. 2 
 
 Notwithstanding Rousseau, who would have us show 
 children only what is true, let us allow the little learner to 
 wander off into fairy-land. The full day of reason will 
 come soon enough to dissipate the shadows and phantoms 
 of the imagination. 
 
 146. POETICAL TENDENCY. The difference between the 
 mythologist and the poet is that the former has an artless 
 belief in the fictions of his imagination, while the later en- 
 joys them without believing in them. The poet yields to a 
 
 1 See the judicious article of M. Antoine (Fables) in the Diction- 
 naire de Pedagogic. 
 
 2 Gauthey gives an account of a little girl who, visiting a 
 museum of natural history, asked to see some crickets, and two 
 were shown her. " Which of these two crickets," she said, " is 
 the one that had that talk with the ant ? "
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 147 
 
 semi-illusion like that which we experience at the theatre. 
 Without being wholly the dupes of the events which take 
 place in the drama played before our eyes, we are partially 
 deceived. We become interested in the characters of the 
 play just as though they were real, and yet we know that 
 they are not. 
 
 " Children are born poets," says an observer of infancy ; 
 " and this is why we must entertain them with poetical ideas." 
 
 The childish imagination easily invents for itself fictions 
 which charm it, and dramas where it assigns parts to im- 
 aginary characters. The son of Tiedemann imagined con- 
 versations between cabbage-stalks. "Children," says M. 
 Egger, "contrive for themselves the instruments needed in 
 their little dramas." 
 
 "We give them playthings for the purpose, but there are 
 not enough of these for all the scenes which they imagine, 
 and the same toy will often answer for several parts, and 
 sometimes for very different ones." 1 
 
 Madame Necker de Saussure mentions a great number of 
 instances which exhibit this poetical tendency of the child 
 to represent to himself something besides what he has seen ; 
 and she concludes thus : 
 
 " The entire existence of little children is dramatic. Their 
 life is a pleasing dream, purposely prolonged and sustained. 
 Always inventing scenes, scene-painters, and actors, their days 
 glide away in fictions, and in their childish fancies they are 
 almost poets." 2 
 
 Far from discouraging this poetic instinct of the child, 
 our only thought should be to give it free play. Thus, 
 when he is weary of inventing fictions for himself, let us 
 
 1 M. Egger, op. tit., p. 13. 
 
 a Madame de Saussure, I., III., Chap. V.
 
 148 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 purposely furnish him with them. Let us tell him those 
 fabulous stories for which he is so hungry. Let us control 
 his taste for imaginary things so as to direct it in our own 
 way, and in this way let us superadd to the spontaneous 
 development of the childish imagination the new excitation 
 which comes from the imagination of another. 
 
 147. TALES. The austere Kant excludes tales from 
 education. It is impossible to assent to his opinion. Tales 
 bring joy to the spirit of the child, and joy forms a part of 
 intellectual hygiene. Moreover, they arouse the intelligence, 
 and, as Mr. Sully observes, the child who at home takes 
 most delight in listening to stories will, other things being 
 equal, do the best at school. Have no fear, then, of tales, 
 real tales, even of those which have no moral pretension and 
 conceal no serious lesson under their pleasing fictions. 
 
 " When stories are told children," says Mile. Chalamet, " why 
 not do it simply for the purpose of amusing them ? Why not 
 be satisfied with telling a story for the story's sake, to satisfy 
 the craving of the imagination for food?" 1 
 
 It is not claiming enough, however, to recommend tales 
 simply as amusements. If they are carefully chosen and 
 are simple, delicate, and chaste, if there is nothing in them 
 that is gross or in bad taste, stories will have a higher effect ; 
 they will be for the teacher a sure means of fixing the atten- 
 tion by interesting it ; they will be an allurement to future 
 studies, and also a preparation for the understanding of real 
 poetry, to which it is important that no man should be a 
 stranger. 2 
 
 1 L'Ecole maternelle, p. 234. 
 
 2 " What is the origin of the singular taste that men have for 
 fairy stories 1 Is it because falsehood is pleasanter than truth ? 
 No ; fairy stories are not falsehoods, and the child who is amused 
 or frightened by them is not deceived by them for an instant.
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 149 
 
 148. NARRATIVES. But it would be an error to think 
 that the childish imagination can be exercised only by nour- 
 ishing it on fictions, by alluring it into fairy-land. The 
 imagination may be as well applied, and even with greater 
 profit, to what is actually real. 
 
 "By far the most useful exercise of this faculty is when it 
 buckles itself to realities ; and this I advise the student 
 chiefly to cultivate. There is no need of going to romances 
 for pictures of human character and fortune calculated to 
 please the fancy and elevate the imagination. The life of 
 Alexander the Great, of Martin Luther, of Gustavus Adolphus, 
 or any of those notable characters on the great stage of the 
 world who incarnate the history which they create, is for this 
 purpose of more educational value than the best novel that 
 ever was written, or even the best poetry." 1 
 
 In truth, history would be unintelligible without imagina- 
 tion. In order that it may instruct the child, it must be 
 like a series of pictures passing before his eyes, and his 
 mind must dwell upon them as in a museum, where the 
 attention is fixed now upon the portraits of great men and 
 now upon the countries where the historical events have 
 occurred. 
 
 As soon as possible, therefore, we should pass from purely 
 fictitious stories to narratives which are truthfully exact ; 
 but in these narratives let us speak to the child in the 
 language of the imagination, that language in which, as it 
 is said, the words have color. Let us expect no good result 
 from instruction that is always dry and abstract, where the 
 brilliant picture and vivid painting never come to animate 
 and embellish facts. 
 
 Stories are the ideal, something truer than the actual truth, the 
 triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true." (Laboulaye, 
 Introduction to the Contes bleus.) 
 1 Black ie, op. tit., p. 13.
 
 150 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 149. NECESSITY OF POETRY. Rousseau, as we have said, 
 would have us present to the child only the naked truth. 
 This would be to exclude him forever from the enjoyment of 
 poetry, which is made of fictions, and where the truth is 
 always veiled. Certain positive spirits of our day might 
 perhaps put up with this impoverishment of the imagination, 
 but for ourselves we could not submit to such a sacrifice. 
 There never will be enough poetry in the world, I do not 
 say simply to embellish and cheer existence, but to elevate 
 and ennoble it. Popular education cannot dispense with it, 
 and it is especially in the common schools that we must open 
 wide the doors to the poets. 
 
 " It is in common school instruction more than in any other 
 that fiction is beneficent, indispensable, and should have a 
 large place. There, where the culture is perforce limited to what 
 is strictly necessary, aims only at the useful, the practical, and 
 ends early to give place to the positive needs of life, it is 
 there especially that it is important to throw a pure ray of 
 poesy that may glitter, if possible, forever. For the child of 
 the higher classes life, with its natural revelations, books, 
 travel, the theatre, works of art, intellectual associations, will 
 perhaps end in repairing the errors or supplying the deficiencies 
 of early education ; but for the pupil of the common school, life 
 the most often holds in reserve only a long lesson of hard ex- 
 perience, of dreary economy, and of prosy calculation. If light 
 is to cheer such an one, it must come from you. This is why 
 it must be given him, and it must be as brilliant as possible. 
 Verily the human soul is so constituted that it cannot dispense 
 with fiction, or, even if you prefer it, with an ideal world. Save 
 it from the stupid and dangerous marvels of superstition, 
 nothing is wiser ; but do your very best' to supply its place. If 
 you do not, one of two things will happen. You will either 
 succeed in shriveling the soul and in drying up the source of 
 inner poesy, or, what happens much more frequently, you will 
 snatch it from one dream only to plunge it into another, but 
 perchance a still more dangerous one. Whoever has reflected on
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 151 
 
 the prodigious credulity of the socialistic utopist will easily 
 comprehend our thought." l 
 
 150. ROMANCES. Romances are the fairy tales of mature 
 age, and grown persons find as much delight in them as a 
 child does in the story of Cinderella or of the ass's hide. 
 But without withholding them entirely from children, the 
 reading of them must be carefully guarded. In every case, 
 those that are put into the hands of children must be selected 
 with scrupulous care. Moral stories, like most English 
 romances ; scientific stories, like those of Jules Verne ; and 
 even romances of pure imagination, may be read without 
 danger, and even with profit. 
 
 151. PERSONAL CREATIONS OF THE CHILDISH IMAGINA- 
 TION. The imagination of the child is not merely a con- 
 templative faculty which is delighted with the pretty stories 
 and inventions of others ; but it is also an active faculty 
 which needs to create on its own account, which manifests 
 itself by real productions, by personal constructions, at first 
 in play and later in exercises in literary composition and in 
 drawing. 
 
 Before Froebel, Comenius had noticed that " children love 
 to build houses out of clay, chips, or stones." 
 The Pere Girard writes : 
 
 "The creative imagination, under the form of a mania for 
 constructing or for destroying, is already apparent in tender 
 years; for if the little child wishes to give proof of his power 
 to destroy, he loves also to produce, in his way, what is new 
 and beautiful. Notice how he arranges his little soldiers, his 
 houses, his sheep, and how he delights in his new combinations. 
 He calls his mother that she too may enjoy them." 8 
 
 1 Article Fiction, by Dr. Elie Pccaut, in the Dictionnaire de Peda- 
 gogic. 
 
 2 The Pere Girard, Ik I'Enseignement rcgulier de la langue mater- 
 neUe, I., III., p. 88.
 
 '152 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 152. THE IMAGINATION IN PLAY. It is in play that the 
 child first gives proof of his nascent imagination. There 
 he invents, combines at leisure, and freely abandons himself 
 to the caprices of his fancy. 
 
 It is to be noted that the playthings which most captivate 
 the child are not those elaborate toys which, by their very 
 perfection, leave his talent for invention nothing to do, but 
 rather those which the best lend themselves to the develop- 
 ment of his personal activity. 
 
 " The child is ever intent on creating. A hole in the ground 
 is a creation. Out of that dirt which comes from the hole, and 
 which he heaps with his hands, the child raises mountains that 
 appear to him of an incalculable height. A heap of dust rep- 
 resents the architecture of fairies. 
 
 " The penny doll which the child fancies to be so beautiful 
 produces the same mirage. 
 
 " The other, the rich doll arrayed in silk, needs nothing, and 
 the child, conscious of this, disdains it. But that little creature 
 whose only dower is its blue eyes, its placid face, its red cheeks, 
 and the eternal smile on its cherry lips, what a power of imagi- 
 nation is required to dress it in a rag of calico which shall be 
 its robe, and a bit of tulle which shall be its neckerchief 1 
 
 " The penny doll develops the imagination of the child, just 
 as of yore the poet developed that of the people." 1 
 
 To the same effect Madame de Saussure calls attention to 
 the fact that "the playthings which the child invents are 
 those which please him the most ;" and M. Egger says : 
 " It is very true that instead of the toy so elaborate in form, 
 the child often prefers something rude which his imagina- 
 tion can transform according to his fancy." 2 
 
 Let us be slow to check -the child in the free and frank 
 expansion of his imagination. After having been called 
 
 1 M. Champfleury, Les Enfants, p. 154. 
 
 2 M. Egger, op. cit., p. 42.
 
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 153 
 
 into play by the amusements of early life, it will be found 
 ready for serious service in work and in study. 
 
 153. EXERCISES IN LITERARY COMPOSITION. The work 
 of literary composition no doubt calls into play all the facul- 
 ties of the mind, memory, judgment, etc. ; but the imagina- 
 tion also plays an important part, especially if a narrative or 
 a description is to be written. At first it will be best to 
 make an appeal simply to the representative imagination. 
 The little story-teller, with reference to such or such an in- 
 cident of his life, will tell what he has seen, and will have 
 simply to show that he has made a good use of his eyes. 
 But gradually he will be accustomed to do more than this, 
 to invent, of his own accord to combine imaginary events. 
 Provided we adapt the subjects to the age of the child, draw 
 them from his own experience, and put him in a condition 
 to find in his own recollections the materials of his composi- 
 tion, he will joyfully devote himself to this personal labor. 
 
 154. DRAWING AND THE ARTS. Let us also mention, 
 among the most natural exercises of the imagination, draw- 
 ing, singing, and the fine arts in general. 
 
 "With Pestalozzi," says Gauthey, " drawing was particularly 
 an art of the imagination. Provided with a few data, his pu- 
 pils invented all sorts of figures and combinations of figures, and 
 they often reached very remarkable results in respect of origi- 
 nality and elegance. 
 
 " Such an exercise forms the taste and the inventive spirit of 
 children destined for very diverse occupations. The gardener, 
 the locksmith, the cabinet-maker, the upholsterer, the mason, 
 all have need of the inventive faculty as well as of taste. To 
 develop their powers in these directions is to prepare them for 
 the greatest success in their several employments." 1 
 
 1 Gauthey, op. cit., I., p. 47.
 
 154 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 155. DISCIPLINE OF THE IMAGINATION. From what has 
 preceded it follows that there is a true scholastic culture of 
 the imagination. 1 We have shown in particular how we 
 may develop this faculty ; how by following nature we may 
 succeed in exciting it. Let us not forget that the imagina- 
 tion must also be disciplined, tempered, and controlled. 
 
 " Nothing is more dangerous," said David Hume, " than 
 the ardor of the imagination. Men of a powerful imagination 
 may be compared to those angels whom the Scripture repre- 
 sents as covering their eyes with their wings." 
 
 In fact, the ardent conceptions of the imagination obscure 
 the mind and conceal from us the truth. They exalt the 
 emotions and precipitate us into the madness of the pas- 
 sions. They benumb activity and throw us into an ener- 
 vating revery. As a tempered imagination is useful and 
 necessary for equipoise of spirit, by just so much is an excess 
 of imagination fatal to good sense, to energy of character, 
 and to rectitude of conduct. 
 
 What means, then, may education employ for keeping the 
 imagination within proper limits ? The best is to invoke the 
 aid of counter forces. To repress it directly, to make a 
 straightforward attack upon it, is a difficult thing. It is 
 wiser and surer to find a counterpoise for it in the develop- 
 ment of the reason and of the faculties that depend upon the 
 reason. If you have to do with a child of exalted and 
 inflamed imagination, call into its highest activity his power 
 of observation and give ceaseless extension to his positive 
 knowledge. You will never temper that ardent imagination, 
 always prone to escape into the land of chimeras, save on 
 
 1 M. Rousselot is wrong in saying that " such is the nature 
 of the imagination that it is not, to the same degree as the 
 other intellectual faculties, susceptihle of a special education, I 
 mean of a scholastic training." (Pedagogic, p. 125.)
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 155 
 
 the condition of putting it in charge of a vigorous reason 
 and a judicious reflection, and of giving it, so to speak, good 
 and reliable neighbors, by surrounding it with strong and 
 disciplined faculties which guard it, which leave their im- 
 press upon it, and which, while developing themselves, con- 
 strain it to become one of them. 
 
 Another means of governing the imagination and keeping 
 it within bounds is to give it occupation, to furnish it with 
 wholesome and nourishing aliment, so that it may not go in 
 search of questionable food. 
 
 "To exercise the imagination," says Madame Necker, "is as 
 necessary as to hold it in check ; and perhaps we hold it in check 
 only when we exercise it." 
 
 Whatever we may do, we cannot destroy the imagination ; 
 it is not possible to have it die of inanition. It would, more- 
 over, be a great evil to dry up in man the fruitful source of 
 so many beautiml and noble things. But, however we may 
 regard it, the imagination is certainly an indestructible force 
 of the soul. It is better, then, to have it for us than against 
 us ; better to trace for it its channel than to run the risk, in 
 abandoning it to itself, of seeing it pass its bounds in reck- 
 less disorder. 
 
 "Madame de Saussure has shown that the imagination, that 
 irresistible power, even when we think we have brought it un- 
 der subjection, takes the most diverse forms; that it dissembles 
 its real proportions, and with a secret fire animates the most 
 wretched passions. If you refuse it air and liberty, it slinks 
 off into the depths of selfishness, and, under coarse features, it 
 becomes avarice, pusillanimity, or vanity. 
 
 "We also need to see with what benign earnestness Madame 
 Necker spies its first movements in the soul of the child; with 
 what intelligent care she seeks to make of it, from the very mo- 
 ment of its birth, the companion of the truth ; how she surrounds 
 it with whatever can establish it within the circle of the good. 
 The studies which extend our intellectual horizon, the spectacle
 
 156 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 of nature with its numberless marvels, the emotions of the fine 
 arts, nothing seems to her either superfluous or dangerous 
 for directing the imagination in the good way. She fears to see 
 it escape, through lack of pleasures sufficiently enticing, into 
 other routes." 1 
 
 156. SOME SPECIAL DANGERS TO SHUN. Besides the 
 great dangers to which a giddy or impetuous imagination 
 subjects the mind and the heart, there are, even in the ordi- 
 nary development of a mediocre imagination, certain rocks 
 to shun. 
 
 Thus it is important to prevent the child from confounding 
 fiction with reality. It sometimes happens to us, when in 
 our sleep we have been fiercely haunted by an impassioned 
 dream, that we are obliged on awakening to make an effort 
 to chase away the phantoms that beset our rnind and to con- 
 vince ourselves of our mistake. The child who as yet has 
 no exact notions on the real and the possible, who is almost 
 absolutely ignorant of the laws of nature, may easily be the 
 victim of an analogous dupery of his imagination. Take 
 care that he does not introduce pure fictions into the woof 
 of his thoughts as so many notions that are true. Let us 
 warn him, when we are relating a fable to him, not to give 
 credence to our account. As M. Egger says, "Much time 
 is necessary for the notion of the probable to be formed and 
 fixed in his mind." Let us not allow ourselves to think that 
 the very strangeness of our inventions is a sufficient guar- 
 anty, and that it foils the credulity of the child. 
 
 The excessive credulity of the child is a sufficient reason 
 why we should proscribe all terrifying stories, such as those 
 of the black man, which unskilful and unwise teachers use 
 in order to govern the child. 
 
 "One of the things we most often forget is the effect of en- 
 
 1 Preface to the 8th edition of the Education progressive.
 
 CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. 157 
 
 tire ignorance. We call natural what we have already seen, 
 and we do not perceive that for the child who has seen nothing, 
 everything is equally natural. For him the possible is without 
 limits." l 
 
 157. REVERT. Another vicious tendency of the imagi- 
 nation is to lose itself in vague contemplations, and to 
 resign itself to indolent and listless reveries. How often are 
 we turned aside from serious attention, and from definite 
 and determined action, by the uncertain phantoms which are 
 floating in our mind? 
 
 Revery may become a disease of the intelligence. Of 
 course it is not to be supposed that there can be completely 
 eliminated, even from the most studious and thoughtful con- 
 sciousness, those parasitic conceptions of the imagination, 
 any more than we can entirely extirpate noxious weeds from 
 the best cultivated field. But for all that we must prevent 
 revery from degenerating into a habit, and for this purpose 
 we must as much as possible occupy the mind with the labor 
 of consecutive and sustained reflection ; we must furnish the 
 imagination with substantial aliment, such as beautiful verses 
 which have been learned by heart, and grand deeds which 
 occur to the memory the instant the mind has a moment's 
 leisure. It is especially the unoccupied imagination that is 
 disposed to revery. Give the imagination and the other 
 faculties work to do, and you will cure the child of revery, 
 that indolence of the intelligence. 
 
 158. IMPORTANCE OF THE IMAGINATION. One will per- 
 haps be astonished at the importance which we have ascribed 
 to the culture of the imagination. No doubt this faculty 
 cannot be compared, for the services it renders, to the 
 memory or the judgment. It is not to the same degree a ped- 
 
 1 Madame de Saussurp, op. cit , I., III., Chap. V.
 
 158 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 agogic faculty ; but we shall never concede to positive and 
 exclusively scientific thinkers that there can be a possibilit} 7 
 of sacrificing it. In all ages an important place has justly 
 been given to it in instruction. In fact, the literary compo- 
 sitions in use in colleges are in part but exercises of the im- 
 agination. Let these be restricted in order to extend by so 
 much the domain of real and exact knowledge, of facts and 
 practical instruction. We are quite willing that this should 
 be done, but pray do not presume to suppress them. 
 
 " I much fear," says Mr. Blackie, " neither teachers nor schol- 
 ars are sufficiently impressed with the importance of a proper 
 training of the imagination. . . It is the enemy of science 
 only when it acts without reason, that is, arbitrarily and whim- 
 sically; with reason it is often the best and the most indis- 
 pensable of allies." 1 
 
 With certain children whose minds are languid and inac- 
 tive, who are "born old," it is not enough to exercise the 
 imagination. It must be stimulated, not merely to awaken 
 them to the poetic life, but also in the more modest interest 
 of their success in practical affairs. In all cases the imagi- 
 nation is one of the stimulants of activity, the inspirer of 
 happy inventions, or at least the cause of useful expedients. 
 
 1 Blackie, op. cit., pp. 12, 18.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION, JUDGMENT, ABSTRAC- 
 TION, REASONING. 
 
 159. JUDGMENT AND REASONING. To judge and to reason 
 are distinct operations of the mind, irreducible to any other. 
 In the activity of the intelligence there are three degrees, 
 three essential moments : conceiving or having ideas, judg- 
 ing or associating conceptions, reasoning or combining judg- 
 ments. Just as judgment is the coupling of two ideas united 
 by an act of affirmation expressed by the verb to be, so rea- 
 soning is a sequence or a series of judgments united one with 
 another in such a way that the last seems to be the legiti- 
 mate conclusion and necessary consequence of those that 
 precede. 
 
 160. DEFINITION OF JUDGMENT. Judgment, in its psy- 
 chological acceptation, is the essential act of thought, the 
 life, so to speak, of the mind. It is in the judgment that 
 ideas are united and made alive ; it is in the proposition, the 
 verbal expression of the judgment, that words, the signs of 
 ideas, are brought together and take bodily form. 
 
 The judgment, moreover, dominates and embraces the 
 other operations of the mind. In fact, judgments are the 
 source of our ideas, and they also serve as conclusions to 
 our reasonings. 
 
 The perceptions of the senses and of the consciousness 
 supply us with ready-made judgments, primitive judg- 
 
 159
 
 160 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 ments, so to speak, from which the mind detaches, either 
 immediately particular ideas, or, by a slow process of ab- 
 straction, general ideas. 
 
 But there are also reflective judgments, which suppose an 
 attentive comparison of ideas previously acquired, and in 
 which there is always mingled a beginning of reasoning, if 
 not a complete and formal reasoning. 
 
 161. DIFFERENT SENSES OF THE WORD JUDGMENT. It is, 
 then, in seizing the relations of ideas that consists the essen- 
 tial function of what Rousseau called the "judicial faculty." 
 But in ordinary usage the word judgment is often diverted 
 from its psychological meaning. 
 
 Thus Madame Necker de Saussure uses the term judgment 
 to signify nothing more than practical sense, good sense 
 applied to the affairs of real life. 
 
 "What it is very essential to develop," she says, "is that 
 particular branch of the faculty of reasoning which is appli- 
 cable to the conduct of life, that which we are accustomed 
 to call judgment." l 
 
 This is to forget that the judgment is also employed in the 
 sciences and in speculative research, and that the observer, 
 the scientist, and the philosopher judge no less than the man 
 of action. 
 
 Another more common use of the word judgment consists 
 in construing it in a still more restricted sense, as the syn- 
 onym of good judgment. Language is easily optimistic, 
 and often gives to words their most favorable meaning. To 
 say of some one that he has good judgment is to affirm that 
 he has an accurate mind ; that he is deceived less often 
 than others ; that he has, as it were, a natural affinity for 
 the truth ; that he weighs things surely and well. And 
 
 1 De I' Education progressive, I., VI., Ch. VI.
 
 THE FACULTIES OP REFLECTION. 161 
 
 this, of course, when it is a question of judgments that 
 demand penetration and discernment. We do not say that 
 a man has judgment because he is capable of affirming that 
 snow is white or that fire burns. 
 
 162. IMPORTANCE OF THE JUDGMENT. It is in this sense 
 that the Port Royal logic commends the judgment as the 
 master quality of the mind. 
 
 " There is nothing more estimable than good sense and ac- 
 curacy of mind in the discernment of the true and the false. All 
 the other qualities of the mind have limited applications, but 
 exactness of reason is universally useful in all stations and in 
 all the employments of life. ... So the principal endeavor should 
 be to form one's judgment and make it as accurate as it can be ; 
 and to this end should tend the greatest part of our studies. 
 We use the reason as an instrument for acquiring the sciences, 
 and, vice versa, we should make use of the sciences as instru- 
 ments for perfecting the reason, accuracy of mind being in- 
 finitely more valuable than all the speculative knowledge to 
 which we can attain by means of the most accurate and well- 
 established sciences." 
 
 Port Royal certainly puts too low an estimate on the 
 sciences and their positive results, the knowledge which they 
 transmit ; but nevertheless there is no exaggeration in de- 
 claring that the purpose of all study is the formation of the 
 judgment, and that all the other faculties should be held 
 subordinate to the judgment. Though having a great mem- 
 ory, we may be incapable of getting on in life, and having 
 a vivid imagination, there is ever danger of going astray ; 
 but endowed with great judgment we move squarely forward, 
 and there is no difficulty we cannot surmount. 
 
 103. CULTURE OF THE JUDGMENT. So, since the days of 
 Montaigne and Port Royal, the culture of the judgment has 
 become, so to speak, the watchword of French pedagogy.
 
 162 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Even the most refractory have come to comprehend the im- 
 portance of the judgment. In the preface to the new edition 
 of the Conduite des Ecoles chretiennes (1860), the Frere 
 Phillip expresses himself thus : 
 
 " Of late years elementary instruction has assumed a particu- 
 lar feature which we must take into account. Proposing as its 
 chief end the formation of the pupil's judgment, it gives less 
 importance than heretofore to the culture of the memory ; it 
 makes especial use of methods which call into play the intelli- 
 gence and lead the child to reflect, to take account of facts, and 
 to release him from the domain of words in order to introduce 
 him into that of ideas." 
 
 164. JUDGMENT IN THE CHILD. Judgment being insepa- 
 rable from thought, the infant judges at a very early period 
 of its life. Its first perceptions are already judgments, the 
 affirmation of what it sees and what it hears. It is not yet 
 capable of reflective judgments, but it is of those spon- 
 taneous judgments which are but the immediate adhesion of 
 the mind to a perceived truth. Long before it is able to 
 speak, perception determines for it little beliefs manifested 
 by its gestures, its smiles, its movements. It judges that 
 the candle burns when it has once been burned, and it draws 
 back to avoid it. It judges that an object is within its 
 reach, when it reaches out its hand to seize it. Doubtless 
 it is often deceived in this appreciation of distance, but this 
 error is also a judgment. 
 
 "We may see by the various methods which young children 
 employ to reach what is above them, to drag, to hurt, to lift 
 different bodies, that they reason, that is to say, that they adapt 
 means to an end, before they can explain their own designs in 
 words." * 
 
 We know, however, that the child, in his first attempts at 
 1 Miss Edgeworth, Practical Education (London : 1811), II., p. 332.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 163 
 
 speaking, does not at once succeed in giving an exact and 
 complete expression to bis judgments. Do not demand of 
 him propositions in regular form. He usually suppresses 
 the verb to be, that logical copula of ideas in a sentence. 
 The verb to be is, in some sort, an abstract verb. The 
 child prefers attributive verbs, which are concrete. In de- 
 fault of an actual verb, he invents one, as by transforming 
 an adjective into a verb. He will say, Paul bads, instead 
 of Paul is bad. The most often his judgment, when ex- 
 pressed, will be but a simple juxtaposition of subject and 
 attribute, as Paul wise, Paul bad. His repugnance at em- 
 ploying the verb to be is equaled only by his awkwardness 
 in making use of it ; and the same defect has been observed 
 in the case of deaf-mutes, who when learning to write usually 
 employ expressions like these : / am eat bread, for, / eat 
 bread. But it must not be inferred from this insufficiency of 
 language that judgment is incomplete in the child. It is 
 only the verbal expression that is at fault. The child men- 
 tioned by M. Taine, who instead of saying, Le soleil se 
 couche, said, fa brule, coucou (fa brule, something brilliant, 
 like fire ; coucou, the act of setting) might have employed 
 strange expressions, but he nevertheless formulated a very 
 definite judgment. 
 
 165. REFLECTIVE JUDGMENTS. It is more difficult to say 
 at what period in the life of the child the faculty of reflective 
 judgment is developed. In order to attain this end it is 
 necessary that the mind shall have ceased to be at the mercy 
 of sensible perceptions, that it shall have gained possession 
 of itself, that it shall have become capable of attention, and 
 finally, that it shall have at its disposal not merely a large 
 number of particular observations which are the materials of 
 its reflections, but also of general ideas which supply it with 
 terms of. comparison.
 
 164 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 The child is very prompt to seize resemblances, and his 
 first personal judgments are founded- on analogies, and most 
 often these are superficial. M. Egger cites some interesting 
 examples of these. 
 
 "The son of a learned grammarian, of the age of five 
 and a half years, said to his father, 'Are there feminine verbs? 
 Why so ? Pondre is a feminine verb, for we always say elle (she) 
 pond, never il (he) pond.' " 
 
 "At the age of four years and two months Emile sees that 
 the window of a smoking-room is closed. He asks how the 
 smoke will escape, and replies by pointing out the cracks left 
 even when the window is closed. . . ' For,' says he, ' the smoke 
 is very small ; it is like water ; when I put water in my hands 
 it goes through there ' ; and he points out the interstices between 
 his fingers." 
 
 166. EARLIEST EDUCATION. There is hardly any oppor- 
 tunity for the intervention of the teacher in the elementary 
 development of the child's judgment. That negative edu- 
 cation which Rousseau preached, but which he was wrong in 
 prolonging too far, that which consists in letting nature 
 have her way, and in simply preventing any evil influence 
 from altering the normal course, negative education is 
 admirably adapted to the first years of childhood. The im- 
 portant thing at this age is not so much to act upon the 
 judgment by a special training, as to protect it from the 
 gross errors and prejudices which, under cover of the igno- 
 rance and credulity of the child, install themselves too easily 
 in the mind, and there gain an indestructible hold. 
 
 In what concerns primitive judgments, there is no other 
 advice to give than that which relates to the education of the 
 senses, whose purpose is to assure the clearness, exactness, 
 and strength of the perceptions. As to the judgments of 
 comparison, which indicate that real mental activity has 
 already begun, it is best to show them indulgence, and not
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 165 
 
 to be incensed because they are simple and even ridiculous, 
 but rather to encourage them, because, however childish 
 they may appear, they are the prelude of an infinitely pre- 
 cious quality, the liberty of the spirit. 
 
 167. SCHOOL TRAINING OF THE JUDGMENT. It might be 
 said, not without reason, that the influence of the family is 
 greater than that of the school upon the formation of the 
 judgment. In fact, in the relative freedom of domestic life, 
 the child, left a little more to himself, finds some occasions 
 to observe and to exercise his mind. But it is none the less 
 true that the child's studies, if wisely conducted, are ex- 
 cellent exercises in personal reflection, and that in them 
 there is a school training of the judgment. 
 
 168. GENERAL METHOD. In many German schools it is 
 thought well to devote certain hours each week to the train- 
 ing of the judgment. We do not quite understand what 
 those classes in judgment can be, which remind us of the 
 classes in virtue imagined by the Abbe de Saint Pierre. 
 Can we conceive of a teacher saying to his pupils, "Now, 
 boys, we are going to exercise ourselves in judging?" 
 
 No, the education of the judgment ought not to be sought 
 in special lessons ; it will result from all the exercises of the 
 school. In fact, there is no instruction which cannot be 
 employed, in the hands of a good teacher, in provoking the 
 initiative of the pupil, in calling into play his reflection, and 
 in exciting the powers of the mind. If you resolutely avoid 
 the processes of a mechanical instruction and of a passive 
 education ; if you know how to appeal to the natural activity 
 of the child ; if you encourage him by your questions to 
 think for himself; if you "let trot" the young spirit before 
 you ; the judgment of your pupil will be developed naturally, 
 spontaneously, just as all the powers are developed when
 
 166 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 they are relieved from the bonds which hamper them, and 
 they are left to pursue an unobstructed course. The more 
 of liberty and life you introduce into studies, the more the 
 pupil will exercise his judgment, and the more, consequently, 
 he will develop his faculty of judging. 
 
 169. SPECIAL METHODS. There are, however, some 
 special precautions to be observed in forming the judgment, 
 especially in the case of the youngest children, and by 
 reason also of the diversity of natures. 
 
 The judgment of the child is often timid, and it must be 
 fortified. It is sometimes rash', and it must be checked and 
 taught discretion. It is easy for it to be inaccurate, and it 
 must be disciplined. 
 
 170. LIBERTY OF JUDGMENT. At first the child seems 
 more disposed to accept with docility all that is taught him, 
 than to manifest judgments of his own. Just as he has 
 learned to speak by accurately repeating the words which he 
 has gathered from the lips of his mother, he at first learns 
 to think by repeating the thoughts of others. To remedy 
 this inactivity of the mind, much dependence must be placed 
 on nature and on progress in age. When he has passively 
 acquired a certain amount of knowledge, the child will of 
 himself come to compare his ideas and to grasp new relations 
 between them. The duty of the teacher will consist chiefly 
 in promoting in the child this natural tendency, in aiding 
 him by presenting subjects for reflection adapted to his 
 tastes, and in suggesting to him easy thoughts, through the 
 comparison of similar objects or through the contrast of 
 different objects. 
 
 But if it is desirable that the teacher know how to stimu- 
 late minds, it is above all necessary that he shun whatever 
 may oppose and restrain their natural expansion. We are.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 167 
 
 but too often responsible for the servility of mind which we 
 condemn in our children. Hardly have they ventured an 
 inaccurate judgment when we protest, grow angry, and 
 humiliate them by remonstrances too harsh and too strong ; 
 in a word, we discourage them, and for not having been 
 indulgent enough to their first attempts, we disqualify them 
 for thinking, or at least rob them of the desire to express 
 their thoughts. Coldly greeted when they have attempted 
 to make themselves understood, they will no longer dare to 
 open their mouths ; ever after they will remain shy ; they 
 will be inert and passive, like children who no longer ven- 
 ture to walk, if scolded too severely when they make their 
 first false step. 
 
 It is necessary, then, to fortify by constant stimulation the 
 child's liberty of judgment, and to be careful not to dis- 
 courage it when it goes astray, by ridicule or reprimands. 
 
 171. DISCRETION IN JUDGMENT. But no sooner have we 
 succeeded in training the personal judgment of the child 
 than we must be on our guard against striking another 
 rock, the misuse of judgment, or rashness in judgment. 
 It is always thus in education ; the most precious qualities 
 are no sooner developed than they are liable, if not watched, 
 to engender grave faults. When a child has once been taught 
 with great difficulty to speak, a new anxiety is imposed on 
 the instructor, that of teaching him to keep silent. And 
 BO, when we have attained the important end of sharpening 
 the intelligence of the child, we must be on our guard lest it 
 take too many liberties, lest it venture upon rash judgments, 
 lest it become quizzing and loquacious. And then there 
 must be a change in method ; we must pursue a course 
 almost the reverse of the one we have just recommended, 
 and mildly check the free movement which we had provoked. 
 The educating art, like military tactics, consists of marches
 
 168 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 and countermarches, vigorous forward movements followed 
 by prudent retreats. 
 
 " A perplexing problem in the training of children," says Mr. 
 Sully, "is to draw the line between excessive individual inde- 
 pendence and undue deference to authority." J 
 
 The difficult thing is not to cut short the rashness of the 
 child's judgment ; we can without difficulty make him blush 
 at his presumption. The difficulty is in convincing him of 
 his error, without throwing him into a confusion which would 
 paralyze his courage. 
 
 Even when he deceives himself the most grossly, let him 
 develop his little thought, and try to comprehend it. And 
 then do not be content with barely telling him that he is 
 mistaken, but show him by apt and clear explanations in 
 what respect and in what way he has been deceived ; lay 
 before him the causes of his error ; make him understand 
 that there are things which transcend his judgment, and 
 that even in those of which he can judge he ought not to 
 do so until after having carefully reflected. Finally, while 
 leading him back to the truth upon the particular point of 
 his mistake, guard him against falling into similar errors 
 upon other points, through the fact of his thoughtlessness 
 and lack of reflection. 
 
 172. ACCURACY OF JUDGMENT. In putting the child on 
 his guard against his disposition to form judgments on 
 matters of which he is ignorant, or of forming hasty judg- 
 ments on things which he knows, much has already been 
 done to assure the accuracy of his judgment. In fact, the 
 cause of inaccurate judgments is most often either igno- 
 rance, or thoughtlessness and precipitation. Hold the judg- 
 ment of the child upon the things he knows well, and he will 
 
 1 Sully, op. cit., p. 443.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 169 
 
 hardly ever be deceived. Be sure that he is attentive, and 
 you will thus diminish the chances of error. 
 
 " The true rule for forming correct judgments," said Bossuet, 
 " is to judge only when we see clearly ; and the means of doing 
 this is to judge with great attention." 
 
 Another way of forming the personal judgment of the 
 child is to begin by giving him a good comprehension of the 
 judgments of others ; but only good models should be set 
 before him. 
 
 But here, as everywhere, we must rely upon the power of 
 example. Present to the pupil only judgments which are 
 trustworthy, and which have been rigorously tested. The 
 terms in which they are expressed should be clearly ex- 
 plained to him ; he should be obliged to consider the mean- 
 ing of whatever he studies ; and in this way he will come 
 insensibly to give exactness to his own personal judgments. 
 
 173. JUDGMENT AND ABSTRACTION. A judgment is a 
 mental construction, and, like every construction, it presup- 
 poses materials. The materials of judgments are ideas, 
 either particular ideas which simple perception accumulates, 
 or abstract and general ideas which the mind elaborates. 
 Just as the perfection of a construction depends in part on 
 the quality of the materials which are employed in it, so 
 the accuracy of a judgment is determined by the clearness 
 and precision of the ideas which serve to form it. 
 
 Let us, then, examine by what means the educator may 
 assure the normal and rapid development of the faculties of 
 abstraction and generalization. 
 
 174. ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION. We do not 
 separate abstraction and generalization. An abstract idea 
 is in fact at the same time a general idea, the idea of 
 a quality common to several individuals, or the idea of a
 
 170 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 group of individuals which resemble one another by one or 
 several common qualities, for example, the idea of reason, 
 or the idea of man. "We do not generalize save as we 
 abstract, and vice versa. The child considers apart a quality 
 which in reality is united to other qualities. This abstrac- 
 tion results either from an unconscious analysis or from an 
 attentive and reflective analysis. He then finds this same 
 quality in other objects ; and hence he is led to grasp in one 
 comprehensive mental glance, either that general quality in 
 itself, or the persons or the things which possess it. But 
 this, is an incomplete description of the mental operations of 
 the child ; it is necessary to give a nearer and more precise 
 view of what takes place. 
 
 175. FORMATION OF GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS. 
 Language certainly plays .an important part in the formation 
 of general ideas. This is not saying that it is necessary to 
 coincide entirely with the absolute opinion of philosophers 
 who assert that without the aid of words the child would be 
 unable to grasp the .relations of things ; but to say the least, 
 words are necessary for fixing and defining abstract ideas, 
 and for permitting the facile and rapid use of them. 
 
 The child first learns a word which has been pronounced 
 in his hearing and which designates an individual and deter- 
 minate object, the word papa, for example. Thereafter he 
 will apply this term to his father, and also to other persons. 
 
 Let a gentleman of about the same height, with a strong 
 voice and with similar clothes, present himself to him, and 
 he will also address him by the name papa. The word was 
 individual, but he makes it general ; he employs it not to 
 designate a person, but to express a class. 1 There is, then, 
 
 1 M. Janet justly remarks that the child generalizes the word 
 papa more readily than the word mamma.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 171 
 
 in the child an instinctive tendency to generalize, to seize 
 the resemblances of things. 
 
 Of course, if the child generalizes the individual words 
 that we suggest to him, he also generalizes, and for a better 
 reason, general terms. If he hears the term white applied 
 to the paper which he sees, he will perhaps individualize this 
 abstract term for a while, and in his mind whiteness will be 
 applied at first only to paper, it will be exclusively the 
 whiteness of paper ; but the child will soon come to employ 
 the same word to express the whiteness of all other white 
 objects. 
 
 176. GENERAL IDEAS BEFORE LANGUAGE. Words are 
 thus the essential agents in the work of generalization, 
 which takes place very early in the mind of the child ; but 
 careful observation proves that the child is capable of 
 generalizing even before he has learned to speak. 
 
 It could not be otherwise, since animals themselves have 
 the rudiments of general ideas. Dogs, for example, clearly 
 distinguish beggars, at whom they must bark, from all those 
 who are not beggars, and who must be allowed to enter. So 
 the infant exhibits a preference for young and pretty faces, 
 and thus outlines a process of generalization. M. Perez 
 mentions the case of a child eight months old, that had for 
 a favorite toy a tin box provided with an opening into which 
 he stuffed whatever would enter it. The moment any object 
 whatever was given this child, he would turn it over in all 
 directions to find an opening in it ; " he thus had the general 
 idea of that property of opening and capacity which he had 
 perceived in several objects, and which he sought for 
 in all." 1 
 
 177. THE CHILD'S TENDENCY TO GENERALIZE. How- 
 1 M. Perez, Psychologic de 1'enfant, 2d ed., p. 234.
 
 172 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 ever, it is when the child has learned to speak that his instinct 
 to generalize becomes particularly manifest. As we have said, 
 he has a marked tendency, by reason of the vivacity of his 
 memory, to seize resemblances, and even, by the aid of his 
 imagination, to invent them. He generalizes in defiance of 
 every rule, of every established classification. He con- 
 structs new classifications, sometimes very original, based on 
 superficial analogies and far-fetched, vague resemblances. 
 
 On this point the observers of children cite a great number 
 of examples. An English child who had learned the mean- 
 ing of the word quack (duck), employed the word indifferently 
 to designate water, all sorts of birds, insects, and liquids, 
 and even coins, because on a French piece of money he had 
 noticed an eagle. These indiscriminating and misleading 
 generalizations are no doubt due, in the first place, to the 
 poverty of the child's vocabulary. The child is like a man 
 who, not having many dishes, eats all parts of his repast 
 from the same plate ; likewise he forces several meanings 
 into one single word. It is thus that the Romans called 
 elephants oxen of Lucania. But they are not merely reasons 
 of economy that govern the child. If he transfers words 
 from one meaning to another, it is because he has a marvel- 
 ous aptitude for discovering among things resemblances 
 which escape even the perspicacity of the mature man. 
 
 " A little girl two and a half years old had on her neck a 
 consecrated medal. She had been told, ' It is the good God.' One 
 day, seated on her uncle's knee, she took his eye-glass and said, ' It 
 is my uncle's good God.' A little boy a year old had traveled 
 several times on a railroad. The engine with its whistling 
 and smoke had struck his attention. The first word he had 
 pronounced was fafer (chemin de fer) ; and after that a 
 steamboat, a coffee-pot, all objects that hiss, make a racket, 
 throw out smoke, were for him fafers." l 
 
 1 M. Taine, De I' Intelligence, Tom. II.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 173 
 
 178. WHAT ARE WE TO THINK OF THE CHILD'S REPUG- 
 NANCE FOR ABSTRACTION ? The first pedagogical conclusion 
 that can properly be drawn from these facts is that the repug- 
 nance of the child for generalization and abstraction is only 
 apparent. What he does not like is abstractions which he 
 cannot resolve, which are presented to him too early or 
 imposed on him without preparation, abstractions which 
 he does not comprehend, because he has not conceived them 
 himself by a spontaneous effort of his own mind. Put him 
 in the presence of things, bring together before him objects 
 of the same kind, and his instinct to generalize will readily 
 find free scope. In order to teach him general terms, wait 
 till he has collected experiences enough, and has had under 
 his eyes concrete examples enough to comprehend with 
 exactness their meaning. Particularly do not require him 
 all at once to make abstractions and generalizations in the 
 domain of moral ideas. Direct this reflection towards sen- 
 sible things, the only ones which are as yet accessible to 
 his intelligence. 
 
 179. ABUSE OF ABSTRACTION IN TEACHING. For a long 
 time there has been an abuse of abstraction in teaching ; 
 for example, in grammar, when definitions and rules have 
 been made to precede examples, and when in general the 
 child was harassed by a multitude of general terms which he 
 does not comprehend, or which he only partially compre- 
 hends. The following is a logical order, perhaps ; but it 
 was going counter to the order of nature. This vicious 
 method is now discountenanced. Mr. Bain remarks that it 
 is now a rule universally recognized, that in order to reach 
 a general or abstract idea, the essential preparation is a 
 knowledge of the particular facts. 
 
 180. IMPORTANCE OF GENERAL OR ABSTRACT IDEAS. In
 
 174 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 order to react against the abuse of abstraction, it is not 
 necessary to banish it from the school, or even to postpone 
 it. If abstract ideas are the most difficult of all to acquire, 
 they are at the same time the most important. Particular 
 intuitions have no value save on one condition, that they 
 gradually lead the mind up to the general ideas which govern 
 and include them. Do not let us tarry too long in the edu- 
 cation of the senses, which should really be but an intro- 
 duction to abstract thought. It would amount to nothing to 
 make a multitude of particular objects pass before the eyes 
 of the child, if at the same time he were not made to form 
 the habit of generalization. 
 
 181 . DIFFICULTIES OF ABSTRACTION. That which makes 
 the process of abstraction complicated and difficult for the 
 child is that generalization admits of different degrees. If 
 it were a question merely of the first general notions, those 
 which issue spontaneously, so to speak, from the comparison 
 of objects which are sensible and familiar to the child, his 
 instinct, as we have said, would suffice of itself to lead him 
 there. But these generalizations, compared one with an- 
 other, give rise to new generalizations, higher and more 
 abstract. As a rule, we are not careful enough to make the 
 mind ascend these different steps one after another ; we 
 neglect the intermediate steps, and plunge the child too 
 quickly into the highest abstractions. 
 
 The difficulty is aggravated by reason of the impossibility, 
 in respect of a great number of abstract ideas, of presenting 
 to the eyes of the child the particular objects whose relations 
 they express. How many general ideas there are which can 
 be communicated to the child only through words ! And he 
 has great difficulty in understanding these words, because 
 they surpass the range of his imagination. Now, there is no 
 lesson, however elementary it may be, either in grammar,
 
 THE FACULTIES OF KEFLECTION. 175 
 
 in geography, in history, or in arithmetic, that does not 
 require the use of a great number of those abstract terms, 
 for which the child has made no corresponding intuitive 
 preparation. 
 
 In a word, if the first steps in the field of generalization 
 and abstraction are easy ; if the child takes pleasure in classi- 
 fying and grouping in the domain of material objects ; prog- 
 ress is difficult, and there is required a real intellectual 
 effort to rise to higher conceptions, to succeed in handling 
 abstractions themselves, and to detach them from every 
 association with particular objects and sensible realities. 
 
 182. PEDAGOGICAL RULES. 1. The first rule, as we have 
 said, is that abstraction should always be preceded by cor- 
 responding intuitions. It is necessary to follow the methods 
 which English teachers ^ recommend under the title of 
 methods of juxtaposition and of the accumulation of 
 examples, methods which consist in collecting objects ; in 
 placing them in symmetrical juxtaposition, in order the 
 better to bring out the resemblances ; in multiplying ex- 
 amples, and in choosing them in such a way that the interest 
 is not directed to their particular characteristics and that 
 the attention is made to bear upon their relations. 
 
 Mr. Bain dwells on the choice of examples in these 
 terms : 
 
 " The number and the character of objects," he says, " must 
 also be taken into account. They may be too few, or they may 
 be too many ; they may even have the effect of obstructing the 
 growth of the general idea. 
 
 " The selection must be such as to show all the extreme varie- 
 ties. Identical instances are not to be accumulated ; they 
 merely burden the mind. Varying instances are necessary to 
 show the quality under every combination. To bring home the 
 abstract property of roundness, or the circle, we must present 
 concrete examples in varying size, color, material, situation,
 
 176 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 and circumstances. To explain a building we must cite in- 
 stances of buildings for all kinds of uses." l 
 
 Mr. Bain is wrong in giving the first place to extreme 
 varieties. It is better to present to the child, for each class 
 of objects, average specimens in which the characteristics 
 common to the whole class appear in some relief, and are 
 not obscured by particulars that are too striking. In other 
 words, it is necessary to aid the child's effort at generaliza- 
 tion, by assisting his mind in making an easy transition 
 from one object to another. Extreme varieties, separated 
 by too wide an interval, would certainly hinder the percep- 
 tion of resemblances ; they should be the last presentations 
 made. 
 
 As to the number of examples, it varies in different cases. 
 Mr. Bain remarks that for certain notions, as that of a 
 simple quality, weight, for example, one or two ex- 
 amples are sufficient, while it is necessary to collect a large 
 number to give an exact idea of large classes of objects, 
 such as houses, plants, etc. 
 
 2. A second rule consists in graduating the generali- 
 zations. 2 It is necessary that the child, when presented with 
 an abstract idea of the first grade, should be able to indicate 
 the individuals which compose it ; but it is also necessary, 
 when he rises to a generalization of a higher degree, that he 
 should be able to decompose it by giving an account of the 
 simpler, more elementary ideas which serve to support it. 
 An aggregate of abstract ideas is like a vast machine whose 
 parts work into each other. In order that the machine work, 
 it is of the first importance that no part be wanting, and that 
 all the intermediate parts be in their place. 
 
 3. Finally, it is necessary to guard the use of words, to 
 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 193. 
 
 2 See the article Abstraction, by M. Buisson, in the Dictionnaire 
 de Pe'dagogfe.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 177 
 
 define with exactness all the terms which we employ in the 
 instruction of the child. The pupil is only too much in- 
 clined to be content with a vague and confused notion of 
 general terms. This natural indolence should be corrected ; 
 the pupil should be enlightened by exact definitions ; and he 
 should be required to give proof of his understanding, either 
 by employing synonymous expressions or by giving par- 
 ticular examples included under the abstraction which has 
 been defined. 
 
 183. REASONING. The process of abstraction, of gener- 
 alization proper, which has to do with ideas and concep- 
 tions, is one thing ; and reasoning, which associates and 
 combines judgments, is quite another. It is not required to 
 recall in this place what the psychologists teach us of the 
 nature of this operation and of its two different forms, in- 
 duction and deduction. 1 Nor have we to dwell on the rules 
 which logic prescribes for reasoning. Our object is simply 
 to show how education develops and cultivates the child's 
 power of reasoning. 
 
 184. IMPORTANCE OF REASONING. It is easy to compre- 
 hend the importance of this intellectual operation. Without 
 reasoning, knowledge would be restricted to the narrow 
 circle of the immediate intuitions of the reason and of the 
 direct perceptions of experience ; the human intelligence 
 would be prohibited from passing beyond the limited horizon 
 of the senses and of consciousness, and of conceiving the 
 general laws which constitute science, and by means of which 
 the mind embraces the entire universe. 
 
 On the other hand, we must not forget that reasoning 
 may be abused ; that too much logic misleads and deceives 
 
 1 See our article Iliiijmnnement in the Dictionnaire dc Pedagogic.
 
 178 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 us ; and finally, that what Moliere said of the house of 
 the Femmes Savantes may as truly be said of the mind : 
 
 " How reasoning banishes reason from it ! " 
 
 185. REASONING IN THE CHILD. Locke is of the opinion 
 that the child is capable of reasoning, and that he listens to 
 reason as soon as he can speak. 
 
 Condillac, a disciple of Locke in philosophy, is inspired by 
 the same pedagogical doctrine. 
 
 "It has been proved," he says, "that the faculty of reason- 
 ing begins as soon as our senses begin to develop, and that we 
 have an early use of our senses only because we have an early 
 use of our reason. . . . The faculties of the understanding are 
 the same in a child as in a grown man. . . . We see that 
 children begin early to grasp the analogies of language. If they 
 are sometimes deceived in this, it is none the less true that 
 they have reasoned." 
 
 And Condillac goes so far as to compare this instinctive 
 initiation of the child into his native language with the 
 reasoning of Newton, discovering by a series of inductions 
 and deductions the system of the world ! 
 
 Our reply to Condillac and Locke is that they have both 
 failed to recognize the general and abstract element in 
 reasoning, and that they confound the highest forms of the 
 highest intellectual operation with its lower forms, with 
 the thoughtless inferences which may be observed even in 
 animals. 
 
 Doubtless there is a sense in which the child reasons ; but 
 he does this almost without knowing it, almost uncon- 
 sciously. Moreover, his reasoning bears only on the par- 
 ticular and sensible objects which he perceives every day. 
 Do not require him to reason on abstract ideas. When he 
 grasps the analogies of language he obeys an instinctive 
 logic. The child of three or four years will persist in say-
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 179 
 
 ing a le cheval, a le jardin, because he has heard people say 
 a la vache, a la promenade; he will reduce the number of 
 conjugations and say batter instead of battre, because he has 
 learned that most verbs are conjugated like aimer. 
 
 Gradually, however, the child becomes capable of real 
 reasoning, that which implies attention, mental effort, and 
 the conscious concatenation of judgment and ideas ; and this 
 process of reasoning appears rather early in children well 
 endowed. 
 
 186. EDUCATION OF THE REASON. For the reason, as 
 for the judgment, there is not, properly speaking, any 
 special training ; but in whatever he teaches the child, 
 grammar, history, the sciences, etc., the teacher may 
 habituate the child to reason, and ought to do so. 
 
 " There is no subject of study which may not in the hands 
 of an intelligent and efficient teacher be made helpful to this 
 result. Thus the study of physical geography should be made 
 the occasion for exercising the child in reasoning as to the 
 causes of natural phenomena. History, again, when well taught 
 may be made to bring out the learner's powers of tracing an^ 
 alogies, finding reasons for events (e. g., motives for actions), 
 and balancing considerations so as to decide what is probable, 
 wise, or just in given circumstances." * 
 
 However, the teaching of the sciences remains the grand 
 instrument for the education of the reason. In fact, the 
 sciences are but aggregates of general knowledges, rigor- 
 ously based on exact deductions and orderly inductions, 
 presented in a methodical and logical order, and expressed 
 with precision. There could not be a better school for the 
 faculties of reflection. In studying the physical sciences the 
 student accustoms himself to generalize and to make in- 
 ductions with caution, and in striving to comprehend the 
 
 1 Sully, op. cit., p. 445.
 
 180 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 demonstrations of the mathematical sciences he learns to 
 make rigorous deductions. 
 
 187. PARTICULAR TENDENCY TOWARDS INDUCTION. The 
 child is more inclined to induction than to deduction ; just 
 as, when he alters the meaning of words, he generalizes 
 them in their signification, rather than specializes them. It 
 is easy to understand, in fact, that the mind at the first 
 prefers to rise from the particular to the general, rather than 
 to descend from the general to the particular. The thoughts 
 of the child are almost all individual ; he has at his command 
 only a small stock of general knowledge. Now all deduc- 
 tion supposes general principles, universal truths. From 
 this fact there follows this pedagogical conclusion, that the 
 inductive sciences are best adapted to the first years of 
 instruction. Educators are in error who, like Diderot, would 
 begin with mathematics. 
 
 188. MODERATION RECOMMENDED. "Reasoning with 
 children," says Rousseau, " was the great maxim of Locke, 
 and it is the one chiefly in vogue to-day For my- 
 self, I see nothing more silly than those children with whom 
 one has reasoned so much." Rousseau would have a child 
 remain a child. 
 
 No doubt we should distrust precocious reasoners ; but 
 this should not make us fall into the opposite error, which 
 Rousseau was wrong in recommending, through his desire to 
 retard beyond measure the development of the reasoning 
 faculties. Locke was wiser when he wrote : 
 
 " I think I may say there is not so much pleasure to have 
 a Child prattle agreeably as to reason well. Encourage, there- 
 fore, his inquisitiveness all you can, by satisfying his demands 
 and informing his judgment, as far as it is capable. When 
 his reasons are anyway tolerable, let him find the credit and 
 commendation of it. And when they are quite out of the way,
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 181 
 
 let him, without being laughed at for his mistake, be gently 
 put into the right ; and if he shows a forwardness to be 
 reasoning about things that come his way, take care, as much 
 as possible, that nobody check this inclination in him, or mislead 
 it by captious or fallacious ways of talking with him. For 
 when all is done, this, as the highest and most important 
 faculty of our minds, deserves the greatest care and attention 
 in cultivating it, the right improvement and exercise of our 
 reason being the highest perfection that a man can attain to 
 in this life." 1 
 
 189. SPECIAL EXERCISES IN REASONING : DEDUCTION AND 
 THE SYLLOGISM. Though the training of the reason is for 
 the most part the natural result of the studies pursued and 
 of the manner in which they are taught, it is not without use 
 to propose to the child some special exercises in reasoning. 
 
 In ordinary discourse the reasonings are rarely expressed 
 under the perfect form of a syllogistic argument. Conse- 
 quently it is very useful to drill pupils in discovering, in 
 carefully chosen examples, the different elements of the 
 syllogism, as the conclusion, when only the premises are 
 stated, or that one of the premises which, in the rapidity 
 of the argument, has been left understood. By this means 
 the pupil will acquire the habit of disentangling the error 
 in the reasonings, often uncertain and ambiguous, of which 
 the discourses of men are composed. Without needing to 
 resort to the learned rules for deduction, but simply from 
 having reconstructed the syllogism in its three propositions, 
 an attentive mind will easily discover whatever of the false 
 or the equivocal has slipped into the reasoning. 
 
 First, here are examples of arguments in which .the pupil 
 will have to supply one of the fundamental propositions 
 which are necessary to assure their validity. 
 
 1 Locke, op. tit., 122.
 
 182 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 190. To FIND THE PREMISE WHICH is LACKING IN THE 
 FOLLOWING REASONINGS : There is anger that is not blame- 
 worthy. What other premise do you need to infer that 
 certain passions are not blameworthy? 
 
 Suppose a man says, " I detest foreigners." Find an- 
 other premise, which joined with this assertion authorizes 
 the conclusion, " No foreigner deserves to be loved." 
 
 Solon ought to be considered a wise legislator, because he 
 adapted his laws to the character of the Athenians. 
 
 A slave is a man : he ought not, then, to be a slave. 
 
 Rousseau was a man too ardent not to commit many 
 errors. 
 
 The eruptions of volcanoes and earthquakes cannot be 
 considered as warnings sent by God to the wicked, since 
 these scourges overtake both the innocent and the guilty. 
 
 191. To FIND THE CONCLUSION INVOLVED IN THE 
 FOLLOWING ASSERTIONS: I know that A, B, and C are 
 blockheads, and at the same time educated men : have I 
 the right to draw any conclusion from this? 
 
 No science can be absolutely perfect, and yet all the 
 sciences deserve to be cultivated. 
 
 Prejudices indicate a weak mind, and we sometimes meet 
 with prejudices in men who are very well educated. 
 
 
 
 192. To REDUCE THE FOLLOWING ARGUMENTS TO THE 
 
 SYLLOGISTIC FORM : Poetry is not a science. The essen- 
 tial characteristics of a science are truth and generality ; 
 and poetry has neither. 
 
 No war is for a long time popular, because war always 
 brings an increase of taxes, and whatever is prejudicial to 
 our interests enjoys but a passing popularity. 
 
 Of two evils we must choose the least : so a temporary 
 revolution being a smaller evil than a permanent despotism, 
 should be preferred to it.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF REFLECTION. 183 
 
 In the examples which we have just proposed, the effort 
 of the pupil should be directed to three points : 1 . To set 
 forth the conclusion with clearness, that is, the thing to 
 be proved, in such a way as to distinguish in a proposition 
 the major term from the minor term; 2. To discover the 
 middle term of the argument, of which there should be only 
 one in every conclusive syllogism ; 3. To determine with 
 exactness the two premises, one of which connects the 
 major term with the middle term, and the other the minor 
 term with the middle term. 
 
 The syllogism once reconstructed, natural good sense 
 usually suffices to determine the value and legitimacy of the 
 argument. If there remains any doubt, it would become 
 necessary to apply the rules of logic to the suspected 
 syllogism ; and if it violates none of these rules, it is 
 legitimate and conclusive. 
 
 193. INDUCTIVE REASONING. In order to make pupils 
 clearly understand the mechanism of inductive reasoning, 
 their attention must be called to the three essential points 
 in every induction: 1. The conclusion, which ought to be a 
 proposition, an affirmation proving that two facts agree or 
 do not agree ; 2. The character of generality in this prop- 
 osition, which should be applicable to all the cases of a 
 given order ; 3. The method employed in order to arrive at 
 this general proposition, a method which is an appeal to 
 observation and to facts. 
 
 An exact idea of the general propositions which are the 
 result of every legitimate induction will be gained by taking 
 examples in the different sciences. 
 
 The magnet attracts iron (physics). 
 
 Bodies fall in a vacuum (physics). 
 
 Bodies expand under the influence of heat (physics) . 
 
 The simplest substances are those which manifest the 
 strongest affinities (chemistry).
 
 184 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Compounds are more fusible than elements (chemistry), 
 
 The temperature of boiling water destroys animal life 
 (physiology) . 
 
 The red corpuscles of the blood are charged with 
 carrying oxygen to the tissues (physiology). 
 
 Feeling is always united to the will and to the intelli- 
 gence (psychology). 
 
 Fear enfeebles the faculties (psychology) . 
 
 The more vivid the consciousness, the more tenacious 
 the memory (psychology). 
 
 The development of the brain corresponds to the de- 
 velopment of the muscles, and in general of all the organs 
 (zoology).
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 
 
 194. MORAL EDUCATION. Intellectual education is 
 surely the best of preparations for moral education. What- 
 ever is done for developing the intelligence is far from 
 being lost, so far as the culture of the sentiments, of the 
 moral consciousness, and of the will is concerned. In a 
 well-organized intelligence, all whose faculties have received 
 the education appropriate to their destination, the moral 
 qualities of the character germinate spontaneously. The 
 man merely instructed is sometimes a bad man; but we 
 doubt whether the same thing is true of a man well 
 educated intellectually. A tempered imagination, a power- 
 ful attention, and a sound judgment, are reliable barriers 
 which vouch for the ardor of the passions and prevent 
 the errors of conduct. 
 
 It is none the less true that intellectual education is not 
 sufficient, but that the other faculties also demand a special 
 culture. The man of feeling has no less value than the 
 man of intellect. We are not destined merely to know and 
 comprehend, but are also made to feel and love. Moral 
 education is, then, to be distinguished from intellectual 
 education, and its first purpose ought to be the culture 
 of the feelings. 
 
 195. COMPLEX NATURE OF THE FEELINGS. Nothing so 
 various, nothing so complex, as the psychological facts 
 
 186
 
 186 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 which philosophers connect with the feelings. It is spe- 
 cially here, in the presence of these phenomena so diverse, 
 which are the elements of all the virtues and all the vices 
 of humanity, in the presence of the manifestations of 
 what is humblest, grossest, and also most elevated and 
 ideal in the human soul, it is here that it is meet to 
 summon before us, in order to reconcile them, the extreme 
 opinions of those who say with Rousseau that everything 
 is good in man, and with Hegel that everything is bad. 
 
 The feelings are the common source whence the most 
 degrading passions and the most elevated sentiments borrow 
 their aliment. It is to them that are beholden at the 
 same time, the sensualist who forgets himself in bodily 
 pleasures, the selfish man who is absorbed in the pursuit 
 of personal good, the bad man who sacrifices everything 
 to his vindictive spirit, the man devoted and good, who has 
 no pleasure but in making others happy, the friend, the 
 patriot, the philanthropist, who deny themselves in order 
 to serve the objects of their pious affection. 
 
 From this very diversity of the phenomena of the feel- 
 ings, it follows that the function of education is twofold. 
 On the one hand it must temper or even repress dangerous 
 inclinations and bad passions, and on the other stimulate 
 and develop the beautiful and noble elements in our 
 emotional nature. 
 
 196. DIVISION OF THE INCLINATIONS. The most of 
 psychologists agree in distributing the inclinations or 
 emotions into three classes : 
 
 1. The personal or individual inclinations, which have 
 for their object the me and whatever is directly connected 
 with it : such are the pleasures of self-love and of ambition. 
 They are all included under one term. selfishness. 
 
 2. The sympathetic or benevolent inclinations which
 
 CULTURE OP THE FEELINGS. 187 
 
 attach us to others, and for which the positivist school 
 has invented the barbarous term altruism: such are the 
 affections in general, as patriotism and love of humanity. 
 
 3. The higher inclinations, whose object is abstract 
 ideas, as the love of the true, the beautiful, and the good. 
 
 Among these different manifestations of the feelings, 
 the last form a class wholly distinct, they pertain to 
 what is highest in human nature, to ethics, to science, to 
 art. We shall study them by themselves. At present we 
 shall examine in their natural development and pedagogical 
 treatment only the selfish and the benevolent inclinations. 
 And at the first we shall throw into strong relief the 
 inclinations which properly constitute the benevolent 
 feelings, love for others, in one word, the heart, through 
 which, as the Pere Girard has said, " man is all that 
 he is." 
 
 197. THE EDUCATION OF THE HEART TOO OFTEN NEG- 
 LECTED. For a long time the psychologists have given 
 the feelings their proper rank in the list of the human 
 faculties ; but it seems that they have found it difficult 
 to make themselves understood by teachers. In fact, 
 open most of the works on pedagogy, and you will find 
 that the chapter on the heart is generally omitted. And 
 on this point the practice conforms only too closely to the 
 theory. How many schools there are in which no effort 
 is made to cultivate the emotions, the sympathetic senti- 
 ments, all which makes men good, sociable, loving, 
 and devoted ! 
 
 Even more, it has occurred to certain writers to mention 
 this omission as a merit in educators who should deem 
 such a compliment a reproach. This quotation from M. 
 Guizot is an example : 
 
 " The almost absolute silence which Montaigne has main-
 
 188 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 tained on that part of education which pertains to forming the 
 heart of the pupil, seems to me a new proof of his good 
 judgment." 1 
 
 198. NECESSITY OF THIS EDUCATION. "We cannot 
 assent to such an assertion ; and it seems to us that the 
 heart has as good a right as the mind to a special 
 training. 
 
 And first, do we need to prove that the heart is worth 
 at least as much as the mind, and that the feelings deserve 
 the care of the educator? Is it not evident that duty 
 itself ought the most often to be placed under the keep- 
 ing of emotion? There is no virtue really secure, save 
 that which is founded on the love of virtue. "He alone 
 is virtuous," said Aristotle, "who finds pleasure in being 
 so." No doubt we should distrust men who, like Rous- 
 seau, look only in their hearts for the principles of their 
 conduct. The heart should be governed by reason, and 
 an ardent sensibility may be allied with the strangest 
 freaks of judgment and conduct. But let us also distrust 
 characters that are unfeeling, too rational, which are 
 moved only by cold reflection. They will make more 
 mistakes than we think, unless sentiment comes to their 
 relief. 
 
 Moreover, there are several of our affections which form 
 an integral part of our duties. To love one's family, 
 one's friends, one's country, is not only the source of 
 the most delicate pleasures and the sweetest joys of life, 
 but is also the first duty of a virtuous man. 
 
 199. PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES IN THE EDUCATION OF 
 THE SENTIMENTS. One of the reasons why educators are 
 generally silent upon the nature of the heart, is probably 
 the particular difficulty of this part of education. 
 
 1 Meditations et Etudes morales, p. 404.
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 189 
 
 We cannot give lessons in sensibility as we give lessons 
 in reading or arithmetic. " Affection," says Miss Edge- 
 worth, u is not learned by heart." The teacher holds in 
 his hands the means of exciting the intellectual powers 
 of the child ; he places objects before his eyes, com- 
 municates knowledge to him through language, and in 
 a manner acts directly upon the faculties of the soul ; 
 but he has not the same power over the sentiments. We 
 cannot command a child to be moved, as we require 
 him to be attentive. 
 
 Besides, the great diversity which nature puts into 
 human feelings complicates the problem still more. The 
 heart, much more than the mind, is a natural endowment. 
 Common opinion, and it is not wholly false, declares that 
 we are born tender or unfeeling, affectionate or cold. 
 Education seems powerless to warm up certain souls, to 
 endow them with the life of the affections. 
 
 Notwithstanding these difficulties, there is an art of 
 cultivating the feelings ; and this art consists chiefly in 
 placing the soul of the child in circumstances that are 
 the most favorable for the complete development of 
 his natural disposition. 
 
 200. DEVELOPMENT OP SYMPATHY IN THE CHILD. 
 Originally, the child is but a bundle of selfishness ; and 
 it is from this selfishness that there is gradually disen- 
 gaged sympathy, the faculty of loving. 
 
 Very early the child evinces sympathy or antipathy, 
 not only in respect of persons and animals, but also of 
 inanimate things. 
 
 His toys, his wooden horses, his rubber cats, inspire 
 him with the tenderest affection ; and, on the other hand, 
 he sincerely hates whatever hurts him or wearies him. 
 "The switch and the wash-rag," says M. Perez, " are 
 to him personal enemios."
 
 190 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 It is easy to prove that the earliest sympathies of 
 the child are bestowed only on the persons who have 
 given him a personal pleasure. A babe of six months 
 will as yet bestow a smile only on its nurse and its 
 attendant, on its nurse, because she recalls to it the 
 pleasing impressions of nourishment ; and on its attend- 
 ant, because she soothes and caresses it. 
 
 Habit and familiarity also play an important part in 
 the development of the nascent affections, in the edu- 
 cation of a sensibility that takes fright at whatever is 
 new and unknown. 
 
 Later, when to the pleasures of taste and touch there 
 are added those of sight and hearing, the sympathy 
 provoked by these new sensations, agreeable or disagree- 
 able, is extended to sonorous or colored objects, to 
 animals, for example, which, by the grace of their move- 
 ments or the vivacity of their cries, give to the sight or 
 the hearing of the child the occasion of agreeable ex- 
 citement. 
 
 In a word, sympathy follows step by step the suc- 
 cessive manifestations of the pleasures of sense. 
 
 201. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INFANT SENSI- 
 BILITY. The sensibility of the child has the same limits 
 as his intelligence. The child bestows his thought only 
 on actual things ; his memory goes back hardly beyond 
 the moment that has just passed ; he cannot extend his 
 inductions into the future. And so his pleasures and his 
 pains are restricted, so to speak, to the present hour. 
 
 Hence at once the vivacity and the fugitive brevity of 
 the child's emotions. His sensuous life is made up of 
 momentary passions, sudden tears and smiles, violent 
 pains, unexpected caresses, in a word, of emotions that 
 are as ardent as they are transient. We can see, in fact,
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 191 
 
 that, being determined solely by the presence of objects, 
 the feelings of the child are quickly excited, but, on the 
 other hand, they extend no deep roots, they remain on 
 the surface, and are not fixed in the soul. The child is in 
 ecstasies over a trifle ; with the spring of his young and 
 supple powers he gives himself up to his joys and his 
 sorrows. He bursts out in laughter, or he sheds floods 
 of tears. He stamps with impatience and anger. But 
 all this fire is quenched as soon as lighted. The moment 
 the object is withdrawn or disappears, there is hardly a 
 trace of the feeling left in him. As yet there is not 
 enough power of thought in the mind of the child to re- 
 tain and perpetuate the emotion. "As soon as new 
 objects and new impressions present themselves to him," 
 says Mr. Sully, " the current of passion subsides." 
 
 202. ABUSE OF THE FEELINGS IN EDUCATION. There 
 are educators whose favorite maxim is. " Always reason 
 with children ; " but there are others who are not less 
 deceived when they say, "Always appeal to their 
 feelings." 
 
 Education does not admit of any exclusive mobile, 1 and 
 the emotions less than any other. 
 
 1 The distinction between motives and mobiles, first made by 
 Jouffroy, is worth preserving. The state of mind that precedes an 
 act always contains two elements, an intellectual and an emotional; 
 and usually these elements are inversely proportional. Now when 
 the stimulus to action is mainly intellectual, it is called by Jouffroy 
 a motive ; but when it is mainly emotional, he calls it a mobile. 
 In the conduct of men of the highest type, motives predominate ; 
 but brutes are governed wholly, and savages mainly, by mobiles. 
 
 " Motives are the intellectual reasons which cause us to act in 
 such or such a manner, such as thoughts and considerations of 
 the mind. Mobiles, on the contrary, are the movements of the 
 heart, the affections, the passions. For example, maternal love is 
 a mobile, but the calculations of interest and the considerations of 
 dignity are motives." MARION, Lemons <le Psychologic, p. 127. (P.)
 
 192 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Were sensibility perfectly developed in the child, there 
 would be danger in confiding in it exclusively. But the 
 child's sensibility is small and limited, and when we count 
 on its inspiration to govern his conduct, we often place 
 our reliance upon a nothing. 
 
 203. FALSE APPEARANCES OF INFANT SENSIBILITY. In 
 reality, the child is less sensitive than he seems. Deceived 
 by appearances, we often attribute to him emotions which 
 he does not feel. 
 
 " The actions of children continually deceive us by their ex- 
 terior resemblance to ours, and we as often go astray in trying 
 to find in them, in order to govern them, mobiles similar to those 
 of wiiich we ourselves are conscious. Louise, in some passing 
 transport, leaves her play, throws her arms about my 'neck, and 
 cannot leave off embracing me ; it seems that all my mother's 
 heart could not suffice to respond to the warmth of her caresses ; 
 but she leaves me, and with the same playful movement goes 
 to kiss her doll or the arm of the chair that she meets on her 
 way." 1 
 
 There is an evident disproportion between the exterior 
 manifestations of the child, his gestures, his motions, 
 which attest the superabundance of life in his young 
 body, and the real measure of the emotions which he 
 experiences. Because the child is prone to cry, do not 
 let us proceed, on false appearances, to ascribe to him a 
 strength of emotion similar to our own. It is ridiculous 
 to correct a child by saying to him, as Rousseau would 
 after a fault has been committed, "My child, you have 
 done me a wrong ! " Either the child will not compre- 
 hend you, and your admonition will leave him indifferent, 
 or he will appear affected, but will be so only upon the 
 
 1 Madame Guizot, Lettres defamille sur V education, I., p. 6.
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 193 
 
 surface ; and in trying to excite a premature emotion 
 you will have obtained only an affectation, a pretence 
 of affection. 
 
 "When the Duchess of Orleans was ill," says Miss Edge- 
 worth, " the children were instructed to write ' charming notes ' 
 from day to day, from hour to hour, to inquire how she did. 
 Once, when a servant was going from Saint Leu to Paris, Ma- 
 dame de Silleri asked her pupils if they had any commissions. 
 The little Due de Chartres said, ' Yes ' ; and he gave a mes- 
 sage about a bird-cage, but he did not recollect to write to 
 his mother, till somebody whispered to him that he had for- 
 gotten it." l 
 
 Then let us take children for what they are, selfish 
 little creatures, in whom the affectionate emotions grow 
 but slowly, and without ever effacing the inclinations 
 of personal interest. 
 
 204. GENERAL RULES FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE 
 FEELINGS. The attentive study of the slow and con- 
 tinuous progress of the feelings, rising little by little 
 from the grossest pleasures of the senses to the moat 
 delicate emotions of the heart, is the best refutation that 
 can be made of the error of educators who, like Rous- 
 seau, would wait till the fifteenth year for developing 
 the moral sentiments. We cannot too early cultivate the 
 sensibility of the child and call into exercise, in chil- 
 dren's friendships, in the affections of the family, a 
 sensibility destined later to become enamored of still 
 greater objects. On this point it is necessary to conform 
 to nature, to instinct, and from an early age to give free 
 course to the first emotions, to the first aspirations of 
 the heart. The education of the feelings will at first be 
 
 1 Miss Edgeworth, op. cit., I., p. 3(58.
 
 194 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 negative ; it will be content with avoiding whatever 
 might wound or repress the nascent feelings. But little 
 by little it will become positive; that is to say, it will 
 seek every occasion to excite, and at the same time to 
 regulate, the sentiments, and to associate the child's 
 pleasures with things that are good and beautiful. 
 
 205. RELATIONS OF EMOTION TO IDEA. The simplest 
 psychological analysis suffices to prove that the emotions 
 have direct relations with ideas. The feelings are 
 exercised only upon the objects made known by the in- 
 telligence. It is an error to suppose that the heart is 
 impoverished in proportion as the mind is enriched. 
 "Would you have a child love his country? First teach 
 him what his country is ; relate to him the history of his 
 ancestors ; describe to him the extent of his native land. 
 When the idea has once taken form in his mind, the 
 emotion will follow and will spontaneously attach itself 
 to the known object. It is not enough, however, to 
 enlighten the intelligence ; we must interest the imagi- 
 nation. An English philosopher has remarked that cold- 
 ness of heart is frequently caused by a defective im- 
 agination. 
 
 " The story of the same accident, of the same tragical event, 
 if told in a heartless and uninteresting manner, will leave us un- 
 moved ; but related in a manner which speaks to our imagination, 
 it will move us to the very depths of the soul. This also explains 
 how an accident which has happened in a city that we know, in 
 our quarter, in our neighborhood, moves us infinitely more than 
 if it had happened at a distance, in a foreign city, or in an un- 
 known country." 1 
 
 The development of the feelings is thus intimately con- 
 nected with the progress of the intelligence. We have no 
 
 1 M. Marion, Lemons de Psychologic, p. 182.
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 195 
 
 direct hold on the emotions ; we cannot evoke them at 
 the word of command ; but by indirect means, by appeal- 
 ing to reflection, by presenting to the child, either in 
 narratives or in real examples, situations adapted to move 
 him, we shall be able, by enlightening his mind, to find 
 the road to his heart. 
 
 The author of the JEcole maternelle relates an excellent 
 lesson in filial affection . A little child in a salle d'asile 
 had lost his mother. On coming back from the cemetery 
 he had returned to school, where with the thoughtless- 
 ness of his age he talked and laughed with his com- 
 panions. When the time for opening school had come, 
 the mistress spoke as follows : 
 
 " My children, we will not sing to-day, for to sing we must be 
 happy and content. Now we cannot be content because here is 
 a little child who is not happy. He has had the greatest misfor- 
 tune that can befall a child ; he has lost his mother, who loved him 
 so much. To-night when he goes home he will not find his dear 
 mother there to kiss him. You, my children, who find your mother 
 at home, think while kissing her how happy you are in not hav- 
 ing lost her. Love your mother ; and to show that you love her, 
 never cause her any sorrow." And the mistress added, "Be 
 very good to Charles, who no longer has a mother to love him." l 
 
 206. COMMUNICATION OF FEELING. If feeling cannot 
 be taught directly, there is a compensation in the fact 
 that it can be communicated. Sensibility is contagious. 
 Surround the child with affection and love, and he will 
 respond to this appeal. His heart will be moved if 
 he feels the beating of other hearts. All the faculties of 
 the soul have a tendency to radiate, to expand ; but this 
 is especially true of the emotions. If you discover cold- 
 ness and insensibility in a mature man, do not condemn 
 
 1 Mademoiselle Chalamet, L'ficole maternelle, p. 87.
 
 196 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 him hastily ; for the fault is probably due to his parents, 
 his first teachers, or to his surroundings, rather than to 
 himself. Madame de Maintenon was reason itself, but 
 her Solidite, as Louis XIV. called her, was somewhat 
 lacking in sensibility and benignity. This fault was 
 certainly due in part to her education ; her mother had 
 kissed her but twice in her whole life, and then after 
 a long absence. 
 
 The best means of making a child affectionate is to 
 treat him with affection. Love is born of love. The soul 
 opens and yields itself to the affection which is bestowed 
 upon it. Surrounded by persons of gentle passions and 
 benevolent dispositions, habituated to be an object of 
 indulgence and affection, the child will naturally become 
 gentle and affectionate. He will learn to feel the goodness 
 whose effects he has experienced. 
 
 " Let the teacher love his pupils, and their hearts will respond 
 to his own. Love is naturally communicative ; it invites a gra- 
 cious and sympathetic return. The child very well knows when 
 lie is loved ; he sees it in the glances, in the words of his 
 teacher, and when he recognizes in his teacher a patience full 
 of affection, his heart grows tender and inevitably becomes at- 
 tached to one who consecrates himself to him with such devotion. 
 Then he runs to him with joy ; in his teacher he has found a 
 friend and a father. " It is here that I take my stand," said Pes- 
 talozzi ; " I would have my children able at each moment, from 
 morning till evening, to read on my face and to divine upon my 
 lips that my heart is devoted to them ; that their happiness and 
 their joys are my happiness and my joys." 1 
 
 ' 
 
 207. RELATIONS OF EMOTION TO ACTION. An ex- 
 
 1 Gauthey, De I'Education, II., p. 8. It is not useless to note, with 
 Madame Pape-Carpantier, that this' affection of the teacher for his 
 pupils ought to be particular, individual. " That children may love, 
 love them. Love them, not from the heights of a lofty philan-
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 197 
 
 cellent means of cultivating the feelings is to provide 
 occasions and procure the means for calling them into 
 exercise. The Abbe de Saint Pierre required as school 
 exercises acts of benevolence and justice. At least we 
 may require of children, in their own family, acts of 
 tenderness towards their brothers, respect for their 
 parents, and at school, acts of good-will towards their 
 schoolmates. By the very fact that he has been accus- 
 tomed to practice a virtue, the child will acquire the feeling 
 which ordinarily accompanies and inspires that virtue. 
 By giving alms he will learn to love the poor; by doing 
 others a service he will come to love humanity. But on 
 one condition, however, that the acts suggested to the 
 child are suited to his nature, that they already accord 
 with his tastes, and that they are not constrained and 
 forced. Only then will the child find in the act accom- 
 plished a new source of pleasure, and this pleasure, once 
 tasted, will stimulate him to repeat the act. It is a truth 
 which deserves recognition, that we love only because 
 we find pleasure in loving. 
 
 But care must be taken not to be satisfied with appear- 
 ances. In sentiment, as in religion, it is the reality which 
 is important, not the exterior formalities. The rich child, 
 for example, gives money freely to the poor, when he has 
 it ; but he who lives in abundance does not know the 
 value of money, he feels no privation from what he has 
 done. Then accustom the child only to acts adapted to 
 his age, whose significance he can comprehend. 
 
 In this exercise of the child's sensibility, care should be 
 taken to have him understand the effects which his acts 
 
 thropy, you will then be too far away from them; love all the 
 children on the globe, if your soul is large enough ; but love above 
 everything else, and in particular, rarh one of those who are 
 intrusted to your care. No abstract affection, but much affection in 
 the concrete. "
 
 198 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 produce on the feelings of others. Defective sympathy 
 often comes from the inattention of the child, who does 
 not take into account the feelings of others. He would 
 be more affectionate, more loving, if he knew just how 
 much his disobedience and his faults grieved those who 
 love him. Then make him reflect, either on the pain he 
 caused his parents by his bad conduct or on the pleasure 
 he has given them by his good conduct. The day the 
 child has formed a just idea of the consequences of his 
 conduct he will really experience the delights of sympathy 
 and affection ; he will seek his pleasure in the pleasure 
 of others ; he will have passed the narrow circle of 
 selfishness. 
 
 208. THE GENERATION OF FEELINGS ONE BY ANOTHER. 
 If it is true that feelings are communicated from one 
 heart to another, it is not less true that by a sort of interior 
 generation a feeling once excited in the soul gives birth to 
 other feelings. The different affections form as it were a 
 chain. If the child seizes one end of it, he will easily go 
 from one link to another, and the entire chain will pass 
 through his hands. At first let us appeal to the simplest 
 feelings, those which are most familiar ; let us kindle some 
 flame in the child's heart ; we shall see this flame gradually 
 gaining ground ; and little by little it will extend to the 
 whole soul. 
 
 " Children who see their father and mother love each other will 
 also love one another. In a home where affection reigns, they are 
 bathed in it and perspire it at every pore. Before they have 
 learned to speak, children read affection in the eyes of father and 
 mother ; and this affection children transmit to everything that 
 surrounds them." l 
 
 1 Ckampfleury, Les Enfants, p. 138.
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 199 
 
 If he has begun by loving his family, be assured that the 
 child will also love, when the time comes, his friends, his 
 fellow-citizens, and the whole human race. 
 
 The affectionate son, the kind companion, will also be by 
 a sort of happy fatality an ardent citizen, a patriot, a good 
 and generous man. It is not filial affection, but family 
 selfishness, that sometimes turns aside the citizen from 
 loving his own country as he ought. 
 
 209. THE FEELING OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. Pleasure is 
 the basis of all sensibility. It is by the vivacity of the pleas- 
 ure which the child is capable of feeling that his degree of 
 sensibility will be measured. We think we love others for 
 their own sake ; but in reality we love them for the pleasure 
 we find in loving them. When personal, selfish interests are 
 concerned, it is still more true that the pleasure we experi- 
 ence is the basis and the purpose of the feeling. 
 
 In one sense, it might be asserted that the education of 
 the feelings wholly consists either in developing or in regu- 
 lating the child's feeling of pleasure. 
 
 But there is pleasure and pleasure. By the side of the 
 gross enjoyments of the senses there are the pure emotions 
 of the heart. Through the development of- the intelligence, 
 education will at last succeed in making the higher pleas- 
 ures more and more predominate over the attractions of 
 material enjoyment. To put the book in place of the wine- 
 cup, to replace sensation by idea, such, according to Con- 
 dorcet, is the fundamental problem of popular education ; or 
 if not by idea, at least by sentiment. Between the life of 
 sensation and the intellectual life there is an intermediary 
 more accessible to the multitude ; this is the life of the senti- 
 ments, of the emotions of the heart, of family and social 
 affections, of the sacred joys of patriotism. 
 
 It is, however, a question whether education should have
 
 200 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 a tendency to increase the child's aptitude to feel pleasure 
 and pain vividly, of whatever nature they may be. 
 
 According to Kant, the culture of the feelings of pleas- 
 ure or of pain should be purely negative. The case of a child 
 who takes pleasure in nothing is wholly exceptional. The 
 feeling of pleasure is too much in conformity with nature to 
 make it necessary to excite it. There should be only precau- 
 tions to be taken against a tendency naturally so powerful. 
 
 " There is no need," says the German philosopher, " to mollify 
 the feelings. The propensity for pleasure is more vexatious to 
 men than all the evils of life." 1 
 
 Surely there is nothing good to be expected from soft 
 and effeminate natures which can act only under the impulse 
 of pleasure. We do not believe, with Fenelon, that every- 
 thing is to be done in education with an eye to pleasure-giving, 
 and that the teacher's ideal is to have "a cheerful face" 
 and to provide "cheerful conversation." Without believing 
 that pain is inseparable from effort, for there are efforts 
 that are joyous, in which the display of activity redoubles 
 pleasure, we grant that effort is sometimes painful, afflic- 
 tive. Now effort is the condition of progress, the instru- 
 ment of education. 
 
 "Let us fight against soft impressibleness in children; but let 
 us not forget, on the other hand, that insensibility is the worst of 
 all faults. What can be expected of those dullish children whom 
 nothing moves, who can neither laugh, nor even smile, whom 
 pleasure does not excite ? On the contrary, everything is to be 
 expected of children who are inclined to joyousness, and whom 
 pleasure inspires, but on the condition that we know how to 
 direct, little by little, towards the good, towards the objects 
 worthy of being loved, this need of enjoyment and this ardor for 
 pleasure." 
 
 1 Kant, op. cit., p. 226.
 
 CULTURE OF THE FEELINGS. 201 
 
 210. EXCITATION OF PERSONAL FEELINGS. " Sentiment 
 will develop itself unaided," says Gauthey, " when it is con- 
 cerned with self-love." In fact, it seems at first sight that 
 the selfish feelings need only a negative, repressive discipline 
 which merely tempers their exaggeration ; and yet all who 
 have had the management of children know that in certain 
 cases education should assume, even with the personal feel- 
 ings, its normal function, which consists in spurring, in stim- 
 ulating. In fact, there are natures so languid and sleepy that 
 education should intervene to animate them, to excite them 
 to self-love and to ambition. 
 
 "The egoistic impulses," says Mr. Sully, "may even be deficient 
 and require positive stimulation. There are listless and lethargic 
 children whom it is well to try and arouse to self-assertion. In 
 their case it may be desirable to seek to quicken the feelings of 
 pride, ambition, and (in extreme cases) even the distinctly anti- 
 social feeling of antagonism and delight in beating others. . . . 
 Even when there is no natural deficiency in these feelings, the 
 educator has not so much to repress them as to direct them to 
 higher objects or aspects of objects. He seeks to transform them 
 by refining them. Thus he aims at leading the child up from the 
 fear of physical evil to the fear of moral evil ; from the enjoy- 
 ments of bodily conquest to that of mental competition ; from 
 pride in the possession of material objects to pride in the posses- 
 sion of intellectual qualities. " J 
 
 211. THE PASSIONS. To tell the truth, the study of 
 the passions is not a pedagogical subject. In fact, the pas- 
 sions, which are exalted, exclusive inclinations, and which 
 have been defined as "habits of the sensibility," imperious 
 and violent habits, are developed only in the progress of 
 life. His young age and his very inexperience shelter the 
 child from those profound disturbances, those diseases of the 
 
 1 Sully, op. cit., p. 606.
 
 202 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 soul. It is in ethics, not in pedagogy, that we must look 
 for the means to cure them ; just as it pertains to logic to 
 correct the sophisms that are rooted in conventional thought. 
 
 However, if education is not directly concerned with the 
 passions, since in general they do not exist at the school 
 age, it ought to anticipate their appearance. From child- 
 hood, care should be taken lest the soul become a soil 
 already prepared for the unfolding of the passions by a 
 preference accorded to certain emotions and by the exclu- 
 sive development of certain tastes. The best guaranty, for 
 this purpose, is to develop the sensibility in all directions. It 
 is hardly to be feared that passion will ever gain the ascen- 
 dency over a soul open to all noble sentiments, which has 
 learned to share its faculty of loving among the different 
 objects worthy of its love. 
 
 However, there are other precautions to be taken, which 
 M. Marion has happily summed up in these terms : 
 
 "Vigilance is better than repression and advice. The little 
 child must be carefully guarded, and everything done that he may 
 grow up in perfect moral health. This dispenses with untimely 
 recriminations and useless reproaches. Sparing children the 
 occasions for falling, watching over their conduct without allow- 
 ing them to suspect our oversight, keeping from their sight 
 bad books and bad sights, choosing the companions with whom 
 they associate, allowing them to hear only decorous conversation, 
 giving them only good examples, inspiring them as much as 
 possible with a feeling of their responsibility, in a word, 
 fashioning and directing their moral growth in such a way that 
 they will be healthy and strong when the hour of the passions 
 comes, this is the work of a well-conducted education." 1 
 
 1 M. Marion, op. cit., p. 249.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 
 
 212. MORAL EDUCATION PROPER. "We shall not fol- 
 low the example of those educators who, with respect to 
 moral education, include in their treatises the whole theory 
 of duty, the whole of ethics, just as they have introduced 
 the whole of psychology into their treatment of intellectual 
 education. Our subject is limited ; it is concerned simply 
 with the inquiry how nature of herself develops the moral 
 faculties, and how education intervenes in its turn to train 
 them, to hasten their unfolding, and to perfect their develop- 
 ment. It is not the purpose here to set forth the different 
 applications of moral power, but we have simply to inquire 
 by what means this power is called into being and grad- 
 ually created. 
 
 213. THE MORAL FACULTIES. The moral faculties are 
 distinguished from the intellectual faculties in that they tend 
 to action, and not to knowledge. These are active, not spec- 
 ulative faculties. The moral faculties form the character ; 
 the intellectual faculties form the mind. The former lead 
 us to virtue ; the latter to knowledge. 
 
 Moreover, there are to be distinguished in that aggregate 
 of moral faculties commonly called the conscience three 
 different series of facts : 
 
 1 . The facts of the sensibility, not of that general sensibility 
 of which we have already spoken, which is diffused in the 
 
 203
 
 204 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 affections of every sort, but of that which attaches us to 
 the good, which makes us love duty, which affects us in 
 the presence of what is good. 
 
 2. The facts of the intelligence, the practical reason, which 
 suggests to us the ideas of good and evil, of merit and 
 demerit, in a word, moral ideas. 
 
 3. The fact of the will, the energy which determines us 
 to the action which we know to be good, the good- will which 
 inclines us to virtue. 
 
 In other terms, we must at the same time love, know, 
 and will the good. It is not enough that our enlightened 
 intelligence permits us to distinguish what is good from 
 what is bad. Beyond this, and above all, it is necessary 
 that a strong will give us the means of executing the decis- 
 ions of our moral judgment ; and it is also necessary, in order 
 that the moral effort may be less painful, that feeling come 
 to our aid, that the imperious orders of the reason become, 
 as often as possible, the gracious solicitations of the heart. 
 
 214. MORAL EDUCATION AND THE TEACHING OF MOR- 
 ALS. Moral education is one thing, and the teaching of 
 morals quite another. 1 A course in morals, a body of pre- 
 cepts, is certainly of great service in training a man to be 
 good. We do not think the ancient philosophy was wholly 
 wrong when it affirmed that virtue can be taught. It can 
 not be useless to call the attention of the child, in a didac- 
 tic way, to the grand truths of conscience, to the distribu- 
 tion of duties, the diverse obligations of life ; but neverthe- 
 less the teaching of morals is but a small part of moral edu- 
 cation. 
 
 This education is really going on at every stage and mo- 
 ment of life. It begins at birth, through the examples which 
 
 1 See Part Second of this work.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 205 
 
 parents transmit to their children ; it is continued at school, 
 through the habits that are formed there, through the senti- 
 ments which are there developed, and especially through the 
 discipline that is in vogue there ; finally, it is prolonged 
 during the whole of life, through the effort of the will and of 
 personal education. 
 
 This education, moreover, is a complex work, in which 
 there co-operate even more than in intellectual education, not 
 only the child's own nature, his native dispositions and 
 particular tastes, but the different characters of all the 
 persons who surround him, his parents, his friends, his 
 teachers, and in general the influences, perhaps as profound, 
 though more unnoticed, of the social environment in which 
 he lives. 
 
 It cannot, then, be seriously proposed to confine moral 
 education to the narrow circle of a school course, of a series 
 of lessons, whatever science may be introduced into them. 
 
 " The purpose of moral education is not to add to a pupil's 
 knowledge, but to affect his will ; it moves more than it demon- 
 strates ; before acting on the emotional nature, it proceeds rather 
 from the heart than from the reason ; it does not undertake to 
 analyze all the reasons of the moral act, but tries above all else 
 to produce it, to have it repeated, to make of it a habit which 
 shall govern the life. Especially in the primary school, it is not 
 a science, but an art, the art of inclining the free will towards 
 the good. " l 
 
 215. IMPORTANCE OF MOUAL EDUCATION. Is there need 
 at this time of insisting on the especial importance of moral 
 education ? Necessary at all times, it is still more so in a 
 society like ours, where morality ought to be developed in 
 proportion to the development of liberty itself. 
 
 " The establishment of the republican regime," says the author 
 1 See the Act establishing common schools.
 
 .206 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 of a recent book, " by reducing the part of arbitrary authority 
 which is made imperative, demands in return a proportional 
 increase of that moral authority which is accepted in its stead. 
 " Being less governed by an external will, it is necessary that 
 men know better how to govern themselves ; what they once did 
 through force and through fear, they must learn to do by free 
 will and through duty. " l 
 
 216. SUPERIORITY OF MORAL GRANDEUR. We have said 
 in another place that instruction or intellectual power plays 
 an important part in the development of moral power. It 
 sometimes happens, however, that morality does not accom- 
 pany learning, nor even genius. 
 
 "As a moral man," says Mr. Blackie, "the first Napoleon lived 
 and died very poor and very small. ... It was an easy thing for 
 Lord Byron to be a great poet ; it was merely indulging his 
 nature; he was an eagle, and must fly; but to have curbed his 
 wilful humor, soothed his fretful discontent, and learned to 
 behave like a reasonable being and a gentleman, that was a 
 difficult matter, which he does not seem ever seriously to have 
 attempted. His life, therefore, with all his genius and fits of 
 occasional sublimity, was on the whole a terrible failure." 2 
 
 The same might be said of Rousseau, capable on occasion 
 of heroic devotion, but powerless to apply himself to the 
 ordinary duties of life ; a man of incomparable genius, but 
 scarcely an honorable man. 
 
 Then let us put morality in the first rank of our solici- 
 tudes, because it is the first need of society. "We may 
 even conceive a society composed of honorable men without 
 instruction ; but we cannot conceive a society formed of edu- 
 cated men without honor." 8 
 
 1 M. Vessiot, De l'Educatj,on a I'tcole. 
 
 2 Blackie, op. cit., p. 57, 58. 
 * M. Vessiot, op. cit., p. 13.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 207 
 
 217. Is THE CHILD GOOD OR BAD ? The ideal is to 
 make of the child a moral being who carries within himself 
 his own rule of conduct, who governs himself by his own 
 will, and who knows no other rule than the law of right, and 
 who has no will except for the good. 
 
 But before nature and education have succeeded in com- 
 pletely developing the germs of the moral consciousness, 
 before the child comes to be virtuous, many years elapse ; 
 and during this time all we can demand of the child is to be 
 innocent. Our only thought is to prevent him from doing 
 evil, or at most to cultivate the instinctive dispositions which 
 urge him to praiseworthy actions. We can impose on him 
 only an exterior morality, so to speak, while waiting for the 
 reason and the will to become, in his mature soul, the solid 
 principles of an interior morality, freely desired and 
 realized. 
 
 Up to what point does the nature of the child adapt itself 
 to this first education? Do we find in him only instinctive 
 tendencies towards the good ? Or, on the contrary, must we 
 expect a stubborn resistance on the part of a nature deeply 
 corrupt and vicious? 
 
 In other terms, is the child good or bad ? 
 
 The general direction of education varies according to the 
 reply given to this question. We are either constrained to 
 look with favor on a nature assumed to be good, or our only 
 thought is to repress a nature originally bad. 
 
 " Education, " says Madame Guizot, " has long been a system 
 of hostility against human nature. It was merely a question of 
 correcting and punishing. It seemed that the only question was 
 to take from children the nature which God had given them, in 
 order to give them another fashioned by the teacher." * 
 
 On the other hand, especially since Rousseau and the 
 1 Madame Guizot, op. cit., Lettre XIL
 
 208 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 paradoxes of the Emile upon the absolute innocence and the 
 perfect goodness of the child, education tends to replace 
 punishments by encouragements, and the "sycophants of 
 infancy," according to the expression of Madame Necker de 
 Saussure, think only of avoiding everything that restricts and 
 constrains, in order to leave to nature her full and free 
 expansion. 
 
 218. OPPOSING OPINIONS. For our part, we shall avoid 
 the absolute opinions of both the optimists and the pessi- 
 mists, who in turn present to us infant nature under colors 
 the most cheerful or the most sombre. 
 
 " Everything is good," cries Rousseau, " as it comes from the 
 hands of the Author of nature. The first movements of nature 
 are always right." 
 
 On the other hand, " we are born the children of wrath," 
 says St. Paul. "All are born for damnation," proclaims 
 sSaint Augustine. And the Jansenists zealously echo the 
 sentiment. 
 
 "You ought to consider your children," wrote Varet, "as all 
 inclined and borne on toward evil. Their inclinations are all 
 corrupt ; and not being governed by reason, they will cause them 
 to find pleasure and enjoyment only in the things which lead 
 them to vice." 
 
 It is between these two extremes, between these two theses 
 equally false, of the radical perversity and of the absolute 
 goodness of man, that we must look for the truth. 
 
 219. THE CHILD is NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD. Correctly 
 speaking, the child has not yet a moral character, and we 
 might think the question settled by this observation of 
 Kant: 
 
 "It is a question," he says, "whether man is by his nature
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 209 
 
 morally good or bad. I reply that he is neither, for naturally he 
 is not a moral being ; he becomes such only when he elevates his 
 reason to the ideas of duty and of law. He could not become 
 morally good save by means of virtue, that is to say, a con- 
 straint exercisted over himself, although he may be innocent as 
 long as his passions are slumbering." 
 
 But Kant somewhat mistakes the question, which is, not 
 whether the acts of the child are inspired by a moral inten- 
 tion, good or bad, which no one would dare to assert, 
 but whether, without willing it, and by an unconscious 
 inclination of his nature, the child is led to what is good or 
 to what is bad. The truth is that he is led to both, and that 
 in his composite nature vicious dispositions are associated 
 with legitimate and praiseworthy instincts. 
 
 We grant, however, that the inclinations of the child are 
 not, for the most part, evil in themselves. " What is evil in 
 them," wrote Madame Guizot, "is not the inclination, but 
 its inordinate manifestation." And Kant had said to the 
 same effect: "The sole cause of evil is that nature is not 
 subjected to rules." 
 
 220. THE ASSUMED EVIL INSTINCTS OF CHILDHOOD. Let 
 us now examine some of the accusations brought against the 
 child. 
 
 He has been greatly traduced. "The child," said La 
 Bruyere, "is haughty, disdainful, irascible, envious, inquisi- 
 tive, selfish, lazy, fickle, etc." It is a pleasure to know that 
 this litany of slanders emanates from a bachelor. With- 
 out intending to flatter the child, we may assert that his 
 faults come, some from the bad education which he receives, 
 others from his ignorance, and only a very few from an 
 innate tendency to evil. 
 
 It is said, for example, that the child is cruel. " That age 
 is without pity," said La Fontaine, who was less affectionate
 
 210 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 to children than to animals. This saying is true, but the 
 most often this harshness is the result of a lack of intelli- 
 gence. Children are without pity, because they do not under- 
 stand the evil which they do. They torture a bird, because, 
 like little Cartesians, they do not know that the bird suffers. 
 
 Another instinct of the child, it is said, is theft. The 
 child resembles the savage, who has only a confused notion 
 of property. "He has not exactly the instinct of theft," 
 remarks M. Legouve, " but he has not the instinct of other's 
 property. In his case, the distinction between mine and 
 thine often consists in taking the thine in order to make of it 
 the mine. But is it to be wondered at that the child, who 
 has not studied the code, who has not, like Rousseau's Emile, 
 encountered a gardener Robert to explain to him the origin 
 of property, readily consents to take for his own use what 
 pleases him, but does not belong to him? 
 
 In other cases it is the grown man who, by his lack of 
 sense or by his example, inculcates on the child his own 
 faults. 
 
 Is it childish vanity that we hear mentioned ? Must not 
 parents be blamed for this? This is stimulated by parents 
 who on improper occasions excite the self-esteem of their 
 children by exaggerating their merits. There is a well-known 
 story of a little girl who, having been praised by her mother 
 for a childish repartee, said in the presence of a lady visitor, 
 ''Mamma, you have not told Madame what I said this morn- 
 ing!" 
 
 Children are charged with gluttony ! I firmly believe that 
 Rousseau was right on this point, and that it is society, in 
 this case, which corrupts nature. In fact, does the greedy 
 child do more than desire his share of the dainties which load 
 the table of his parents ? If the example of intemperance 
 were not set before him, he would be more temperate than 
 we think.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 211 
 
 So falsehood is too often but the result of our bad man- 
 agement. " Now who has broken this piece of furniture?" 
 we cry in a rage. Thoroughly frightened, the little culprit 
 replies, " /did not do it ! " The child who is treated mildly 
 becomes confiding, but, terrified by our severity, he seeks a 
 refuge in falsehood. 
 
 Moreover, it is not sufficient, in order to judge the child 
 justly, to seek in his ignorance or in his bad education the 
 explanation and the excuse for the most of his faults. We 
 must go further, and show what good qualities, what senti- 
 ments of justice, liberality, pity, and goodness he sometimes 
 exhibits. But we have said enough to justify those who, in 
 judging the child, would avoid on the one hand extravagant 
 praise and on the other passionate condemnation. 
 
 221. THE EVIL INSTINCTS OF THE CHILD. Let us ac- 
 knowledge the fact, however, that certain instincts of child- 
 hood are real tendencies to evil. It is inaccurate to say 
 that there are in nature germs only of the good. Envy and 
 anger are natural, but they are essentially bad. Here the 
 evil is in the inclination, not in the inordinate manifestation 
 of the inclination. 
 
 Madame Necker de Saussure dwells, not without regret, 
 she says, upon the vices inherent in the nature of the child. 
 
 "I speak of that momentary demoralization of the will which 
 finds a pleasure, a particular savor, in the idea of violating a 
 rule. . . . We observe in children something besides weakness, 
 something besides inability to submit to the sacrifices required 
 by duty ; we see delight in throwing off the yoke of duty." l 
 
 To the same effect Mr. Bain devotes a special article to 
 the " anti-social and malign emotions." 
 
 To those who would deny the existence of evil instincts, 
 
 1 Madame Necker de Saussure, I., p. 304.
 
 212 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 and would explain what is evil by the intemperance of in- 
 clinations good in themselves, it suffices to observe that the 
 very intemperance is a principle of evil ; that this tendency 
 to run riot is in nature, and consequently that human nature 
 is not wholly good. 
 
 222. REPRESSION OF Vicious TENDENCIES. Moral edu- 
 cation, then, will not be merely a work of excitation and of 
 culture ; it will also have to oppose and to repress. At first, 
 the evil will be opposed by favoring the good. There is no 
 better way of correcting evil inclinations than by cultivating 
 those which are good ; nor of fighting indolence than by 
 exciting to labor; nor of preventing malevolence than by 
 teaching to be good. It is to the same effect that Madame 
 Guizot wrote : 
 
 " I have always been persuaded that education had no power 
 against evil, except the taste for the good. 
 
 " We do not repress an evil inclination, but we fortify a good 
 one ; and I know of no means of extirpating a fault except to 
 make a virtue grow in its place." 1 
 
 " In certain cases, however, we must resort to direct repression. 
 The method of substitution does not always suffice. Special 
 remedies are required for definitely marked diseases. It is here 
 that discipline intervenes, with its retinue of punishments and its 
 necessary means of coercion." 2 
 
 Patient with trivial faults which would be aggravated by 
 calling the child's attention to them and by punishing them 
 prematurely, discipline will be severe in the case of grave 
 faults. It will prevent their return, and it will chastise them 
 sharply if it cannot prevent them, if an obstinate resistance 
 makes exhortations and reprimands useless. 
 
 223. THE CONSCIENCE OR PRACTICAL REASON. There 
 
 1 Madame Guizot, op. cit., I., p. 105. 
 
 2 See Part Second of this work.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 213 
 
 comes a moment in the life of the child when it does not 
 suffice to correct his evil inclinations and to awaken his 
 beneficent instincts ; but when we must excite his moral 
 consciousness and create in him the idea of a general rule 
 of conduct, the idea of duty. 
 
 Nature has planted the germ of this idea in the intelli- 
 gence, and it is to the reason, that is, to the highest of the 
 intellectual faculties, that psychology ascribes the origin 
 of moral conceptions. 
 
 Reason is the faculty of intellectual ideas, necessary and 
 absolute ; it is the natural light which enlightens every man 
 coming into this world. 
 
 From the first dawn of his intelligence, the child is already 
 under the direction of the reason ; but this reason is almost 
 unconscious. The child would be incapable of formulating 
 the rational laws of which his judgments are the application. 
 Thus a little boy of seven or eight years looks with his 
 father for a lost object, and not finding it, he cries, "But 
 yet it must certainly be that something is always some- 
 where ! " 
 
 Is not this already to express, in an artless way and with- 
 out succeeding in rendering a complete account of it, the 
 necessary existence of an infinite space in which are con- 
 tained all material things? And so, when a child on whom 
 we have tried to impress the idea of the creation of the 
 world and the idea of the Creator, replies obstinately, " But 
 before God what was there ? " is it not evident that without 
 knowing it his young mind obeys the principle of causality, 
 which requires that every existence should be connected with 
 an antecedent cause? 
 
 The examples which we have just cited are connected with 
 what Kant called the pure reason, that is, the theoretical 
 and speculative reason, that which guides us in scientific 
 research.
 
 214 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 But there are other manifestations of the reason, those 
 which relate to practical life and to moral conduct. In this 
 sense the reason is nothing but the moral consciousness, the 
 belief in an obligatory law which all ought to obey. Since 
 Kant, philosophers usually give to this the name of practical 
 reason. Let us see if under this form the reason also mani- 
 fests itself in the actions of the child. 
 
 224. THE MORAL SENSE IN THE CHILD. At what mo- 
 ment may it be said that there appears in the child the 
 essential moral idea, that is, the distinction between good 
 and evil, detached from every foreign element? 
 
 Certain observers of childhood seem to us to have ascribed 
 too much upon this point to the childish intelligence. M. 
 Perez believes that the objective notion of good and evil can 
 be verified at the age of six or seven months. Darwin 
 declares that he observed the moral sense in children at the 
 age of thirteen months. 
 
 For ourselves, we are convinced that neither at thirteen 
 months nor at two years, nor even much later, is the child in 
 a condition actually to discriminate good from evil. In order 
 to believe him capable of morality in the strict sense of the 
 word, it would first be necessary to accept a loose definition 
 of the moral consciousness, a definition which invalidates 
 and attenuates its import ; it would then be necessary to 
 resort to an illusory interpretation of certain acts in 
 child-life. 
 
 Here are the facts reported by Darwin 1 and by Perez. 2 
 Doddy, aged thirteen months, seemed to notice the reproaches 
 of his father, who called him a bad boy. At the age of two 
 years and five months, Doddy, who had been left alone, 
 helped himself to sugar, a thing which he knew was for- 
 
 1 See in the Revue Scientifique the account by Darwin. 
 
 2 M. P^rez, op. cit.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 215 
 
 bidden. His father met him at the moment when he came 
 from the dining-room, and noticed something strange in his 
 conduct. " I think," adds Darwin, "that this appearance 
 was to be attributed to the struggle between the pleasure 
 of eating the sugar and the beginning of remorse." The 
 examples given by Perez are of the same character. A child 
 of eleven months obeyed when his father said, in a loud voice, 
 " Keep still ! " This child had not yet walked alone, but hia 
 father caused him to take a few steps toward him by offering 
 him a half of a peach. 
 
 It requires much good will to decorate with the epithet 
 moral, actions in which are manifested merely the desire to 
 gratify some sense, the fear of suffering associated by the 
 memory with certain actions, or at most the distinction be- 
 tween paternal caresses and threats. The association of ideas 
 and the memory, concurring in a conscious feeling of pleasure 
 and pain, abundantly suffices to explain the relative obedience 
 yielded by the child, and we decline to believe that a baby is 
 in possession of the moral sense from the moment he obeys 
 through habit or fear. 
 
 225. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 Not that it is necessary to deny the importance of these early 
 sensible and utilitarian distinctions in the future acquisition 
 of moral distinctions. Nature proceeds by successive rough 
 drafts. For the moral consciousness, as for the attention, 
 we must be content at first with appearances, with a fore- 
 shadowing of the real state which will be attained only long 
 afterwards. 
 
 At first, the good is what pleases and the bad what dis- 
 pleases the child. Let it be so managed that he shall be 
 pleased with only what is good. Later on, the good is what 
 father and mother order, and the evil what they forbid. 
 Manage in such a way that the child loves or fears hi
 
 216 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 parents enough to yield with docility to their will. Still 
 later, when the intelligence is capable of reflection, the good 
 is what is useful, the evil what is hurtful. As far as possi- 
 ble make the child's duty accord with his interest. Finally, 
 at a still higher stage, the good is what men approve, what 
 the civil law requires ; the evil, what is universally con- 
 demned. Make the child sensitive to public opinion. 
 Teach him to blush, and to feel shame for every act which 
 incurs general reproach. 
 
 It is not till the final term of its evolution that the 
 conscience comes to grasp the idea of a moral good existing 
 by itself, conformed to the dignity of man, which must be 
 practiced for the sole reason that it is good. But before the 
 moral idea is detached from every foreign element, from the 
 seductions of pleasure, from the fear or the love inspired by 
 parents, from the solicitations of interest, from the respect 
 inspired by public opinion, how many halting-places there 
 are to pass through ! What painful and slow elaboration to 
 attain the ideal of a conscience saluting a sovereign law, 
 bowing before it and voluntarily conforming to its require- 
 ments ! 
 
 226. THE FIRST MANIFESTATIONS OF MORALITY. Moral- 
 ity, in the strict sense of the word, is not the act of a being 
 whose conduct is simply in accord with the moral law ; but 
 it is the characteristic of a person who intentionally and 
 because he wills it, submits to that law, and knowingly 
 accomplishes actions which he judges good. 
 
 Must we think that the 'child is absolutely a stranger to 
 morality, thus understood? Some facts seem to prove the 
 contrary. 
 
 "All the niceties of the moral sentiments," says M. Egger, 
 "are not the product of education and the privilege of a more 
 advanced age. For example, the instinct of remorse and of
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 217 
 
 reparation is usually exhibited by children after little revolts of 
 the will. The child is never in better spirits than after these 
 storms ; and it is credible that he shows the intention of having 
 us forget the sorrow caused by his disobedience." x 
 
 M. Perez cites, from the Italian philosopher L. Ferri, the 
 case of a child five years old, who, having been praised by 
 his mother, said to her, " Mamma, I wish I could make you 
 still happier ; I wish I could always -be good ; tell me, why 
 can't I always be good? " 2 
 
 A still more probable case is that of a child noticed also 
 by M. Perez, who thought he was not sufficiently punished 
 for a fault he had committed, and by a sort of spontaneous 
 feeling of justice demanded additional correction. 
 
 227. EDUCATION OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS. There 
 are, then, in nature herself, the germs of morality. It 
 would be impossible, in fact, to suggest the idea of the good, 
 if the reason did not contain the principle of it. 
 
 "The child carries within himself the moral law, at first 
 unconsciously, in the latent state ; then little by little it dis- 
 engages itself, rises from the mysterious depths of consciousness, 
 and makes its presence felt by mute agitations; then it finds a 
 voice, it speaks, it commands, it signifies its will by injunctions 
 more and more clear, more and more emphatic ; and finally, when 
 it is misunderstood, by that indefinable suffering, now dull, now 
 sharp and piercing, which is called remorse." 8 
 
 Surely the natural evolution of the individual tends of 
 itself to produce moral conceptions ; but the educator can aid 
 this development. For this purpose it is necessary that he 
 exercise the child in judging of the actions of others ; that in 
 accurate and striking narratives he show him men who have 
 
 1 M. Egger, op. cit., p. 68. 
 
 3 M. P<<rez, La Psychologic de I 'enfant, p. 343. 
 
 8 M. Vessiot, op. cit., p. 33.
 
 218 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 done good or evil ; that he be required to express his opin- 
 ion on the virtues and vices of others, and invited to give 
 his reasons why such an action seems to him good and 
 another bad. The child should also be allowed to accomplish 
 at his own risk and peril the actions suggested to him by 
 his own initiative ; he should be accustomed at an early hour 
 to make decisions, and thus acquire the feeling of his own 
 responsibility ; and should be furnished with frequent occa- 
 sions for overcoming his inclinations and for conquering his 
 evil instincts. 1 
 
 In other terms, we must appeal as early as possible to the 
 experience of the child. Moral conceptions cannot be trans- 
 mitted from without like geometrical truths ; they ought to 
 spring spontaneously from personal reflection and internal 
 emotions. Conscience will be slow to appear in children 
 who have not been accustomed to act for themselves or to 
 judge of the actions of others. 
 
 " It is within himself," continues the author whom we have 
 just quoted, " that the child carries his rule of conduct ; it is 
 within himself that he must be taught to look for it ; and when 
 the teacher commands, he should try to make it understood that 
 it is not in his own name that he speaks, but in the name of the 
 moral law which is inscribed in the heart of the child, and of 
 which he, the teacher, is but the echo and the interpreter. To 
 lead the child to behave in the absence of his teacher, and of all 
 those who have the authority to make him do right and punish 
 him for having done wrong, just as he would behave in their 
 presence ; within himself to establish a point of support against 
 
 1 This was the method followed by Pestalozzi. " Instead of giving 
 his children direct lessons in morals, he shrewdly took advantage of 
 all the events which occurred in the house. They were so numerous 
 that each day presented many occasions for making felt the difference 
 between good and evil, between what is just and what is unjust. 
 (Pompee, Etudes sur Pestalozzi, p. 250.)
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 219 
 
 himself ; to make him see that he can succeed in governing him- 
 self without the help of others, and to lead him insensibly to 
 do without that exterior direction ; this is the true method of 
 education. " * 
 
 In other terms, it is necessary that every moral virtue 
 taught to children should be intimately connected, as 
 Pestalozzi said, " with an intuitive and sensible experience 
 which is their own." 2 
 
 228. DIFFICULTIES OF THIS EDUCATION. There is such 
 a distance between the natural state of the child, cariug 
 simply for his pleasures and his interest, and the normal 
 state of an enlightened conscience, that at first thought we 
 might be tempted to despair of success and to believe impos- 
 sible the evolution which leads the mind to the conception of 
 the good. 
 
 But in this delicate work nature has provided us with 
 powerful auxiliaries ; and if it is difficult to suggest to the 
 child the abstract idea of duty, it is very much easier to 
 accustom him practically to fulfil certain duties. 
 
 Especially when it is a question of duties towards other 
 men, the child will be aided by his natural feelings of 
 sympathy and benevolence ; and from the practice of these 
 duties there will gradually be evolved the idea of duty in 
 itself. 
 
 1 M. Vessiot, op. cit., p. 35. 
 
 2 " Elementary moral education," said Pestalozzi, " comprises three 
 distinct parts : it is first necessary to give children a moral conscious- 
 ness by awakening in them pure feelings; it is next necessary to 
 accustom them by practice to conquer themselves in order to devote 
 themselves to whatever is just and good ; and finally, they must be 
 led to make, by reflection and comparison, a just idea of law and of 
 the moral duties which are incumbent on them from their position 
 and their surroundings." (Roger de Guimps, Histoire de Pestalozzi, 
 p. 206.)
 
 220 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " It is from the first movements of the heart," exclaims Rous- 
 seau, " that arise the first voices of the conscience ; from the 
 feelings of love and hate are born the first notions of good and 
 evil; justice and goodness are not mere abstract terms conceived 
 by the understanding, but real affections of the soul enlightened 
 by reason." 
 
 The virtues relative to personal duties will be acquired 
 with more difficulty ; but here again the natural emotions, 
 such as self-love and the sentiment of the useful, will come 
 in aid of moral education. We are in no wise forbidden to 
 show the child that his interest and his duty are in accord in 
 imposing on him moderation in his desires and resistance to 
 his evil inclinations. 
 
 But, above all and in all periods of the moral life, example 
 will be the great teacher. Before imposing a moral law on 
 the obedience of the child as a rule of command, it must be 
 proposed to his imitation as an insinuating example. A 
 child is above all else an imitator, and the great secret of 
 moral education is to know how to take advantage of this 
 instinct. Let us not forget that perhaps the most beautiful 
 book of religious ethics is entitled, " Imitation of Jesus 
 Christ. " 
 
 229. POWER OF THE IMITATIVE INSTINCT IN THE CHILD. 
 The power of the imitative instinct in the child is due to 
 several causes ; and first of all to his ignorance. Having as 
 yet at his disposal but a small amount of knowledge and a 
 very slender stock of ideas, the child is at the mercy of the 
 perceptions which incite him on all sides. His supple 
 thought, free from prepossessions, responds to the call of 
 exterior images, and follows without resistance the current 
 into which it is urged by the impressions which strike it. 
 On the other hand, the child is weak ; he is lacking in per- 
 sonality. He needs to act, but his will does not yet exist.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 221 
 
 Powerless to act from his own initiative, he acts in accord- 
 ance with what he sees others do. His weakness is the 
 principal cause of his imitative disposition. 
 
 Sympathy is still another source of the imitative instinct. 
 We all have a secret tendency to put ourselves in agreement, 
 in our sentiments and actions, with the men who surround us, 
 and particularly with those whom we love. To love any one 
 is to desire to resemble him. The child who feels an ardent 
 affection for his companions is naturally inclined to imitate 
 them. The more causes of sympathy there are, such as 
 resemblances in condition or age, the more powerfully will 
 the imitative instinct manifest itself. 
 
 Finally, let us add that in imitation, however slavish it 
 may appear, there is sometimes, as it were, a first soaring of 
 the child's liberty, of his aspiration after the ideal. The 
 child wishes to rise superior to himself ; and this is why he 
 will imitate by preference, after his companions, his supe- 
 riors and his teachers. 
 
 " All men have a tendency towards imitation, but this is par- 
 ticularly noticeable in the child. Not yet having a pronounced 
 individuality and a strong character, he does not suffice for him- 
 self. He easily yields to an impulsion from without. The per- 
 sons who surround him act upon him more than he acts upon 
 them, and he is readily moulded after the pattern which they 
 set before him, especially if they are older, stronger, more 
 capable, and more experienced than he is." l 
 
 230. HISTORICAL EXAMPLES. If it is true that none of 
 our actions are lost to us, that each of our deeds, good or 
 bad, has its effect upon our future conduct, and aids in 
 directing the current of our life towards the good or 
 towards the bad, it is also certain that the actions of 
 other men, of those who have preceded us on this earth, 
 
 i Gauthey, op. tit., II., p. 388.
 
 222 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 as well as of those who are living around us, exercise 
 upon our character, however little they may be present to 
 our imagination, a profound influence. The past sheds 
 light upon the present. Souls that have disappeared live 
 again in the souls of the new generation. The examples of 
 the ancients mould the minds of those who have just come 
 upon the theatre of life, and, as some one has said, "the 
 dead govern the living." 
 
 Present to the child, then, all the beautiful and noble 
 lessons which history teaches. By narratives and por- 
 traitures infuse into him the virtues which have made his 
 ancestors illustrious. 
 
 "Towards the achievement of a noble life," says an English 
 teacher, " there is nothing more important than an imagination 
 well decorated with heroic pictures; in other words, there is no 
 surer method of becoming good, and, it may be, great also, than an 
 early familiarity with the lives of great and good men. . . . There 
 is no kind of sermon so effective as the example of a great man. 
 . . . Let us, therefore, turn our youthful imaginations into great 
 picture-galleries and Walhallas of the heroic souls of all times 
 and of all places ; and we shall be incited to follow after good 
 and be ashamed to commit any sort of baseness in the direct 
 view of such a 'cloud of witnesses.' " 1 
 
 Of course it is not proposed to make of our pupils so 
 many heroes, the occasions for heroism are rare ; but still 
 we must not fear to present to children a very elevated 
 moral ideal. He who has been made capable of being heroic 
 on one solemn occasion, will be more surely virtuous at 
 every hour of his life. Then familiarize the mind which is 
 to be made moral ' ' with the real blood and bone of human 
 heroism which the select pages of biography present." 
 From this high moral excitation something will be reflected 
 
 1 Blackie, op. cit, pp. 81, 82.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 223 
 
 even on the most common and the most humble social 
 conditions. 
 
 But history holds in reserve, in order to offer them to 
 the imitation of those who study it, very many examples 
 of familiar and simple virtues accessible to all. The Lives 
 of Plutarch, to cite but this author, contain a treasure of 
 beautiful models by which the whole world may profit, and 
 which are, as has been said, " the very matter out of which 
 every moral force will always be made." 
 
 231. LIVING EXAMPLES. But there is something which 
 is worth even more than the example of the dead ; this 
 is intercourse with the living. The child prefers to imitate 
 those whom he sees, those whom h meets. The finest 
 historical narratives are cold, compareu with the real and 
 present example of a virtuous life. A good man not only 
 assures his own virtues, but contributes to the virtue of 
 others by the magnetic influence which he diffuses about him 
 wherever he goes, and by the beneficent radiance of his 
 moral qualities. There is a contagion of good, as well as a 
 contagion of evil and of disease. 
 
 Some of the best souls in this world have acquired their 
 moral superiority less by an effort of their will than by a 
 natural imitation of the good people who surround them. 
 How many families there are in which virtue is a tradition, 
 an inheritance, which is transmitted from parents to children 
 as surely and as directly as a patrimony ! Marcus Aurelius, 
 the wise Roman Emperor, relates in his Thoughts that he 
 was indebted to several members of his family for some 
 of his best qualities. 
 
 " My uncle," he says, " taught me patience ; from my father I 
 inherit modesty ; to my mother I owe my piety." 
 
 Happy the men who, like Marcus Aurelius, breathe from 
 the day of their birth an atmosphere of virtue, and to
 
 224 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 acquire good morals have only to submit to the gracious and 
 natural incitements of example. 
 
 "Of all the ways whereby Children are to be instructed and 
 their manners formed, the plainest, easiest, and most efficacious 
 is to set before their Eyes the Examples of those things you 
 would have them do or avoid. . . . Virtues and Vices can by 
 no Words be so plainly set before their understandings as the 
 Actions of other men will show them, when you direct their 
 observation, and bid them view this or that good or bad Quality 
 in their Practice. . . . Nothing sinks so gently and so deep into 
 Men's minds as Example" 1 
 
 232. EXAMPLES AND PRECEPTS. It must not be imag- 
 ined, however, that example, which is precept in action, 
 absolves us absolutely from abstract precept, which appeals 
 to the mind. It is well to present to the child, in a clear 
 and expressive form, the principal maxims of duty, and to 
 nourish his memory with beautiful moral sentences. Always 
 present to the imagination, these formulas will lend us 
 support against the temptations of pleasure and the 
 sophisms of passion ; they will preserve us on many occa- 
 sions of weakness. 
 
 " It is well," says an author whom we have often quoted, " to 
 carry about with us the purifying influence of a high ideal of 
 human conduct, fervidly and powerfully expressed. Superstitious 
 persons carry amulets externally on their breasts; carry you a 
 select store of holy texts within, and you will be much more 
 effectively armed against the powers of evil than any most 
 absolute monarch behind a bristling body-guard. Such texts you 
 may find occurring in many places, from the Kalidasas and 
 Sakyatnunis of the East, to Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and 
 Epictetus in the West ; but if you are wise, and above the seduc- 
 tion of showy and pretentious novelties, you will store your mem- 
 ory early in youth with the golden texts of the Old and New 
 Testaments." 2 
 
 1 John Locke, op. cit., p. 81. 2 Blackie, op. cit., p. 79.
 
 MORAL EDUCATION. 225 
 
 We do not believe in the magic power of words ; but who 
 does not know by experience what power there is in a 
 moment of moral crisis, in an idea suddenly evoked from a 
 maxim or from a rule of conduct, especially if this precept is 
 associated with the recollection of the one who has transmit- 
 ted it to us, the image of a mother, a father, a venerated 
 teacher ? 
 
 But to be efficacious the precept must deeply penetrate the 
 soul ; it must not remain merely on the lips or in the memory, 
 but must become, so to speak, a living part of the conscience. 
 We must not be content with a borrowed morality, founded 
 on maxims learned out of books. 
 
 "What would be thought," said the wise Plutarch, "of a man 
 who, going to his neighbor in search of fire, and finding the 
 hearth all aglow, should stay there to warm himself and no 
 longer think of returning to his own home ? " 
 
 This is the picture of a man who is content to recite well- 
 conned moral discourses ; who to be sure of conducting him- 
 self properly has always to consult a book, as a sort of 
 gospel ; and who has not been able to kindle in his own 
 heart an inner fire of noble inspirations. 
 
 233. THE LOVE OF THE GOOD. Exercised and instructed 
 by his own experience, accustomed to take account of his 
 own actions, to judge the actions of others, and to weigh the 
 consequences of them, initiated by his acts into the joy of 
 duty accomplished, encouraged by the examples which have 
 been set before him, sustained by the exhortations and 
 precepts of his teachers, the child will rise little by little to 
 the moral life. In this complex work, of which Mr. Bain has 
 said that ' ' the conditions to be fulfilled are so numerous that 
 it is hardly possible to indicate with precision the best 
 method to be adopted," the principal part belongs, not to 
 books, not to lessons, but to the character of parents
 
 226 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 and teachers. The moral law cannot be for the child 
 a cold, impersonal abstraction ; it must be made incarnate 
 in a living being. The father, the mother, and the 
 teacher represent to the eyes of the child the moral law ; 
 and they should represent it, not as impassive, unfeeling 
 beings, but as living personalities who are touched at the 
 sight of evil, who are full of affection and tenderness. If 
 religion has such a profound influence upon the develop- 
 ment of morality, it is because it presents to the minds 
 of men the idea of a supreme father, the benefactor of 
 humanity, who by his sovereign will requires virtue of his 
 children. The knowledge of what is good does not suffice ; 
 there must be joined to this the love of what is good. And 
 it is by loving virtuous men set before him for examples, and 
 by loving a divine model of every virtue, that the child will 
 come to love the good itself.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 
 
 234. KNOWLEDGE AND WILL. The more we enlighten 
 the intelligence the more we develop the moral conscious- 
 ness. It suffices to throw a glance over the morals of the 
 ancients and over the morals of the moderns, to judge of 
 the progress which men have gradually made in the knowl- 
 edge of their duties. Men often do wrong through igno- 
 rance of what is right. Moreover, the knowledge of what is 
 right implies in itself a certain power of determination 
 towards the right. To know exactly where one's duty lies 
 is of itself one excellent condition for doing one's duty. 
 Let us admit, however, that knowledge does not suffice, that 
 there must be added to it will or moral energy. How many 
 men are capable of making marvelous dissertations on all 
 the shades of duty, and yet are incapable of becoming virtu- 
 ous men! They cannot will the good which they know. 
 It is the reason that judges what must be done, but it is 
 the will alone which determines us to do it. The education 
 of the will, then, is one essential part of moral education. 
 
 235. DEFINITION OF THE WILL. In the eighteenth cen- 
 tury the term will was sometimes employed to designate 
 all the powers of the soul except the intelligence, the 
 inclinations, the tendencies, the desires ; and Condillac said 
 of the will, " that it comprehends all the operations which 
 are born of need." In contemporary psychology the signifi- 
 
 227
 
 228 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 cation of the term " will " is better defined, more fixed ; and 
 the will, or power to do what we wish, properly designates 
 the power which the soul has of self-determination, con- 
 sciously and with reflection, spontaneously and freely, 
 towards an act of its own choice. 
 
 236. THE WILL IN THE CHILD. The will thus under- 
 stood is, like the reason, a prerogative of man. Man alone, 
 in the full exercise of all his faculties, is capable of willing. 
 Doubtless the animal and the child are capable of self-de- 
 termination ; they act, and by an abuse of terms the princi- 
 ple of these determinations and actions is called will. But 
 this irreflective power of determination and action is but a 
 semblance of will. The child is obstinate, but he has no 
 will. In him, as in the animal, action, however spontane- 
 ous it may be, is not master of itself. Provoked by blind 
 desire, by irresistible need, by disorderly caprice, it is not 
 in possession of itself ; it is but the pale image of the real 
 human will, which reflects, calculates, knows where it goes, 
 and consequently masters itself and governs itself. 
 
 237. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WILL AND DESIRE. The 
 will is surely something else than desire. It is not possible 
 to admit, with certain philosophers, that the will is but an 
 ardent and strong desire, just as the attention is but a domi- 
 nant sensation. The will thus understood would not affran- 
 chise us from our inclinations and our passions ; it would 
 be but the consummation of desire. It would be included 
 in the category of passive, fatal dispositions ; it would not 
 be the principle of liberty. 
 
 Desire is but the solicitation of an agreeable object which 
 procures us pleasure, and thus invites us, and sometimes de- 
 termines us, to go in search of it. The will, on the con- 
 trary, is the resolution which we take of ourselves to 
 accomplish an act, agreeable or disagreeable, as the case 
 may be.
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 229 
 
 There are cases where desire and will are in accord, 
 where we will what we desire ; but even then our conscious- 
 ness sharply distinguishes the attraction which the thing 
 desired exercises on the feelings, from the power which we 
 have of yielding to that attraction. 
 
 In other cases the will is in opposition to desire ; and it is 
 then especially that the distinction between the two facts is 
 clear and striking. For example, indolence attracts me and 
 pleases me ; all the pleasures of the far niente haunt my 
 imagination ; all my bodily inclinations incline me to indo- 
 lence ; and yet, sustained by the idea of my interest or of 
 my duty, I resist these impulses ; I will to work, and I set 
 myself to work. How, in this case, and in all analogous 
 " cases, can we confound desire and will, the current and the 
 power which ascends the current? 
 
 Finally, in other cases, the desire is the only thing ; by its 
 violence it carries away the soul, which has neither the time 
 to reflect nor the power to will ; but the act is then no more 
 voluntary than the mind is truly attentive when it is domi- 
 nated and absorbed by a sensation. The fixity of thought 
 which allows itself to be captivated and made immobile, so 
 to speak, by a powerful impression, is no more attention 
 than the impulse of desire is will. Just as the attention 
 disengages and transports the thought, attaches it to the 
 object which it has chosen, or detaches it from it when it 
 pleases, so the will withholds, arrests, or pursues the act 
 which it has resolved on. 
 
 238. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WILL AND IDEA. But some 
 one will say, if the will is distinguished from desire and 
 from sensibility, it is precisely because it is confounded with 
 idea and with intelligence. In fact, motives borrowed from 
 our prevision, from our reason, are the only ones which can 
 counterbalance the attraction of desire and assure the tri-
 
 230 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 umph of the will ; but because the will grafts itself, so to 
 speak, upon an idea, it is no reason for thinking that it is 
 the same thing as the idea. Does it not happen to us every 
 moment to have a very definite idea of a thing to be done, 
 and yet not to do it, because we do not will to do it? 
 
 239. RELATION OF THE WILL TO THE SENSIBILITIES. 
 But after having' shown that the will is something distinct 
 and irreducible, . after having proved that it is an inde- 
 pendent power, we must hasten to add that this inde- 
 pendence is not absolute ; that in order to will it is not 
 useless to desire, and that it is necessary to think. 
 
 Let us not imagine, then, that to prepare in man for the 
 reign of the will, we must destroy in the child the empire 
 of the desires. Children of little sensibility are very likely 
 to become men of little energy. On the contrary, lively, 
 ardent inclinations will be the cradle of a strong will, 
 provided reflection co-operates with them. 1 
 
 Let us excite the desires of the child, while giving them 
 direction ; let us teach him to love more and more what 
 he ought to love ; and, enlightened by intelligence, his 
 desires will be transformed into wills. 
 
 But the will, however energetic we may suppose it to be, 
 is almost always too weak to carry on a constant struggle 
 with the inclinations. In this contest, it would very soon 
 exhaust its forces. 
 
 Doubtless the will manifests all its power only in 
 effort and in contest ; but, happily, the contest is not 
 always necessary ; and if there are toiling, heroic wills 
 which triumph over the passions which they resist, there 
 are also compliant, easy-going wills, which are but the 
 
 1 Mr. Sully justly remarks that the exercise of physical activity is 
 itself a rudimentary education of the will.
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 231 
 
 adhesion of a well-endowed soul to legitimate desires. In 
 fact, most wills are of this sort ; and in the ordinary course 
 of a well-regulated life, that which is willed is at the 
 same time that which is felt and loved. 
 
 The end of education ought, then, to be to associate and 
 to unite desire and will, to bring into accord pleasure and 
 duty. Whatever can be done to give the inclinations 
 wisdom, will also profit the will and will make its exercise 
 easier. 
 
 240. RELATION OF THE WILL TO THE INTELLIGENCE. 
 The philosophers of the seventeenth century, especially 
 Bossuet, included the will among the intellectual opera- 
 tions. Every act of the will certainly implies an act of 
 thought. The will might be defined a thought in action. 
 There is no will, a philosopher has said, where there is no 
 reason for willing. In proportion as we are more enlightened, 
 and ' especially as we are more reflective ; as we conceive 
 more clearly what we have to do, and the better under- 
 stand why we ought to do it, the more are we our own 
 masters, the more do we belong to ourselves ; in a word, 
 the more will we have. 
 
 Let us, then, train the child to reflect, not to form hasty 
 resolutions, not to yield at the first blow to the calls of 
 his desires, but to weigh the pros and the cons before 
 adopting a determination ; and in this way we shall 
 increase the strength of the will, whose power varies and 
 is modified in proportion as our intellectual energy 
 diminishes or augments. 
 
 241. THE WILL AND LIBERTY. In showing the con- 
 trasts and the agreements, between the will on the one 
 hand and the sensibilities and the intelligence on the 
 other, we have defined the essential characteristics of 
 the will, which are reflection and liberty.
 
 232 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 There are no acts truly voluntary, save those which 
 are deliberate, which suppose that a resolution has been 
 taken after reflection, and the voluntary act is free, 
 precisely because it issues, not from an inconsiderate 
 and fatal instinct, but from a studied decision and from 
 choice. Real liberty is nothing but the faculty of choosing 
 with reflection and with a thorough knowledge of the 
 matter, among several possible actions, the one which we 
 prefer, the one which we think the best. Doubtless this 
 liberty does not give us the power to break abruptly 
 with our past, to loose ourselves from all solidarity with 
 what we have already done, with our inclinations and our 
 habits of mind ; it does not create acts absolutely inde- 
 terminate, independent of all condition, in a word, it 
 does not perform miracles. But it does enfranchise us so 
 far as this is possible ; it rescues us from the impulse 
 of the moment, from the absolute empire of habit, from 
 the yoke of passion, from the tyranny of fashion and 
 of example ; it permits us to .govern ourselves by our- 
 selves and by our reason, and it is in this that we 
 are free. 
 
 242. CULTURE OF THE WILL. The culture of the 
 will is one of the most delicate problems of education. 
 To develop and strengthen the will, it is first necessary 
 to respect the spontaneity of the child, which is the germ 
 of his independence and liberty. Parents who are too 
 anxious to k ' break the wills of their children " are pre- 
 paring weak and flabby characters that will be incapable 
 of self-control. 
 
 Says Kant : " We must not break the wills of children, but only 
 direct them in such a way that they will know how to yield to 
 natural obstacles." 1 
 
 1 Kant, Pedagogic, p. 226.
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 233 
 
 The same thought inspired Rousseau, when, in the 
 first twelve years of Emile's education, he subjected the 
 conduct of the child to the sole rule of necessity. 
 
 " Let the child early feel upon his proud head the hard yoke 
 which nature imposes on man, the heavy yoke of necessity, 
 under which every finite being must bend ; let him see that this 
 necessity lies in things, not in the caprice of men." l 
 
 It is going too far, however, to suppress in early 
 education the commands of parents and teachers. It is 
 well, on the contrary, that the will of the child feel other 
 wills in contact with his own ; but on one condition, 
 that these wills shall themselves be well adjusted, and 
 that the orders through which they manifest themselves 
 shall not be followed by counter-orders, that they shall 
 be clear and inflexible. The caprices of a wavering 
 authority which contradicts itself, can have only disas- 
 trous effects. Pulled in different directions, the will of 
 the child will itself become capricious and mobile. 
 
 The child should be neither a slave nor a despot. 
 He should neither be constrained blindly to obey 
 unreasonable orders, nor crossed in all his inclinations. 
 On the other hand, he should not be gratified in all 
 that he wishes. 
 
 " Parents," says Kant, " often make a mistake in refusing their 
 children everything they demand. It is absurd to refuse without 
 reason what they naturally expect from the goodness of their par- 
 ents. 
 
 " On the other hand, children are spoiled by gratifying all their 
 wishes. Doubtless they are prevented by this means from show- 
 ing their bad humor, but they become all the more headstrong." 
 
 * Smile, L, II.
 
 234 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 "We must at the same time know how to yield and to 
 resist, and especially to resist. By always gratifying the 
 caprices of the child, by flattering his instincts, we doubt- 
 less emancipate his will, but we also make it disorderly, 
 and in a sense weaken it. In fact, will supposes effort, 
 domination over one's self. By resisting the child, we 
 teach him to resist himself. It is only through the 
 acquired habit of obeying others, that he will later become 
 capable of obeying his own reason. 
 
 243. PRACTICAL FEELING OF LIBERTY. There is a 
 great practical interest in often pausing to reflect as 
 follows, with reference to a finished course of action : 
 "Such a fault might have been avoided. Such a quality 
 might have been acquired more quickly. Finally, some- 
 thing different and better might have been done." This 
 is a certain means of increasing our faith in the efficacy 
 of our acts, of fortifying in our souls the most precious 
 thing in this world, I mean the actual feeling of our 
 liberty, by ridding ourselves of that harassing notion of ne- 
 cessity, of which Stuart Mill said, "The idea of necessity 
 weighed upon my existence like an evil genius." 
 
 Consequently, let us accustom the child to make 
 frequent returns upon himself, to practice in a certain 
 measure those examinations of conscience recommended 
 by the philosophers of antiquity. The moral calendar of 
 Franklin, who each day recorded the infractions which 
 he had committed on the different precepts of duty, 
 is an ingenious application of the same thought. 1 
 
 1 In other terms, we must do for the mind what Colonel Amoras 
 did for the body : he gave each pupil what he called a physiological 
 chart, in which were noted the condition of each organ at the begin- 
 ning of the course in gymnastics and the progress made after each 
 month of exercise.
 
 WILL, LIBEKTY, AND HABIT. 235 
 
 244. EDUCATION IN LIBERTY. Man is really man only 
 when he unites a firm and ever-ready will to vivid and 
 elevated emotions, and to an enlightened intelligence. But 
 this quality is rarer than we think. Doubtless if we con- 
 sider only that inferior will which, while saying " I will," 
 does nothing in reality but follow inclination or habit, in 
 this sense we use our will each moment of our life ; but if 
 we must restrict the term will to a deliberate act, deter- 
 mined on with reflection, who does not see that the human 
 conscience rarely rises to this effort? The most often we 
 act, I do not say without motive, which is impossible, but 
 without reflective motive, and our actions are not really 
 willed. There are men who are almost absolutely lacking 
 in will, who in some sort do not belong to themselves, but 
 who live a passive, mechanical life, the slaves of their own 
 passions and the toys of exterior influences. Even those 
 who reflect the most do not reflect as much as they might. 
 There are within us treasures of energy which we do not 
 know how to take advantage of, and we certainly have more 
 reserve power than we have will. 
 
 245. No ACT is INDIFFERENT. For real training in 
 liberty, and for assuring to it all its power, it must be borne 
 in mind that no one of our acts is indifferent. If we yield 
 for a single time to an evil inclination, while promising our- 
 selves to resist it to-morrow, we are guilty of a grave impru- 
 dence ; for to-morrow we will not have the same power of 
 resistance. Every act performed is a beginning of habit, 
 and habit fetters the will. For the very reason that we 
 have even once acted in a certain way, we shall be a little 
 more inclined to act again in the same way. 
 
 Then let us keep watch over all the acts of the child. 
 Let us not excuse him from any fault on the pretext that 
 this will be the only instance of it, and that it will be time
 
 236 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 to correct it when it occurs again. In every desire, however 
 feeble, there is a will in germ, in every action there is the 
 beginning of habit. 
 
 246. THE WILL AND HABITS. The activity of the man 
 and of the child manifests itself, as we know, under three 
 forms : instinct, will, and habit. So far as possible, we must 
 substitute will for instinct, that is, reflective resolutions 
 for blind impulses ; but must we oppose habits, as we 
 oppose instincts ? No ; for it depends on us to make 
 habit an easy way of doing without effort what we had 
 previously done with reflection, with will ; habit consolidates 
 the work of liberty. 
 
 It has been said, not without truth, that " two obstacles, 
 almost invincible, prevent us from being the masters of 
 our wills, inclination and habit." It would, however, 
 be a grave and dangerous error to attribute to these two 
 enemies of the will a power that cannot be over- 
 come. Inclination can always be controlled, confronted 
 with our interests and duty, and repressed by an ener- 
 getic act of the will. As to habit, particularly at first, it 
 is entirely dependent on the will, since it depends on us 
 to prevent the repetition of the act which engenders habit. 
 Even when it has become inveterate, we may succeed in 
 conquering it, if not at once and by a simple effort of 
 the will, at least by a prolonged resistance and by skillful 
 tactics. 
 
 247. NECESSITY OF HABITS. To a great extent, educa- 
 tion is but the art of forming good habits. So we do not 
 comprehend what Rousseau has said with more wit than 
 sense: "Emile must be allowed to learn no habit, save 
 that of having none at all." 
 
 Even Kant condemns habits, for the reason that " the
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 237 
 
 more habits a man has, the less free and independent 
 is he." 
 
 The ideal of Kant and Rousseau would be a liberty al- 
 ways active, which nothing would thwart ; a liberty always 
 alert, always in movement, which would determine itself 
 anew in every circumstance of life. But habit is an " obe- 
 dience," since it enchains us to the past. 1 But the ideal of 
 Rousseau and Kant cannot be realized. It is impossible 
 to demand, at each moment of existence, that display of 
 energy which is involved in each new exercise of liberty. 
 Happily, human weakness may repose on good habits, 
 which exempt it from efforts ceaselessly renewed, and 
 which render the accomplishment of duty natural, easy, 
 almost instinctive. The body cannot always be awake and 
 erect ; it must sleep and recline ; and in the same way 
 activity should not remain incessantly on the alert, it 
 must seek repose and must sleep, so to speak, in the easy 
 and pleasant paths of habit. When the will has once 
 purged the inclinations and regulated the habits, it can 
 discharge itself in part upon the emotions and upon the 
 routine government of the soul ; like a general who, hav- 
 ing pacified' a country, sheaths his sword, but does not 
 completely disarm, because unforeseen circumstances and 
 changes in life may at any moment require new efforts 
 of the will. 
 
 Does some one object that habit diminishes effort, and 
 consequently merit? We reply, with M. Marion, " Merit 
 and effort are not the whole of morality. I am surer that 
 a man will do right, when the right will cost him no 
 trouble." 2 
 
 1 See Vinet, U Education la Famille et la Societe. 
 
 2 M. Marion, in La Science de I' Education, contained in the Reforme 
 universitaire, April 1, 1885.
 
 238 THEOKETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Then let us not demand of the will a continuous series 
 of feats of strength. Moreover, the habits, however 
 numerous they may be, never suppress liberty, especially 
 if we make of liberty itself, that is, of reflective delib- 
 eration, a higher habit, which dominates all the others. 
 
 248. How THE HABITS ARE FORMED. There is great 
 need, then, that education should form good habits, 
 habits of mind, habits of feeling, habits of action. How 
 shall it form them? How shall it succeed in creating 
 that second nature which will constitute the final char- 
 acter of the man? 
 
 In truth, the habits are formed of themselves by the 
 repetition of the same act. Some are derived from the 
 inclinations and instincts ; others from reflective acts in 
 which the will has co-operated. The part of the educator 
 is, then, to keep watch, both over the instincts and the 
 first manifestations of the will. On the start he will cut 
 short evil tendencies, and nip in the bud vicious inclina- 
 tions. Evil must be cut away to the very root. 
 
 " Habit," says Montaigne, " begins in a mild and humble fash- 
 ion; it establishes in us little by little, and as it were by stealth, 
 the foot of its authority ; but it soon reveals to us a furious and 
 tyrannical face, and we shall hardly be able to rescue ourselves 
 again from its hold." 
 
 The teacher will prevent the rise of bad habits by 
 opposing bad acts by all the means in his power, by 
 punishments if need be. To promote the formation of 
 good habits, he will have only to encourage the child in 
 acting, and with the aid of time the habit will be 
 formed. It is hardly possible to impose, in a trice, 
 new habits which will be in contradiction with the nature 
 of the child. If the act which you command is repugnant
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 239 
 
 to him, that act, performed contrary to his will, will not 
 leave behind it a certain tendency to reproduce itself, 
 which is the essential condition of the formation of habits. 
 If, then, it is a question of habits that are somewhat dif- 
 ficult, to which the child does not tend of himself, try to 
 manage the transitions ; try to find the favorable moment 
 when the action which we wish to transform into a habit 
 will cost the child the least trouble. Let us be content, 
 at first, if he performs the act with indifference ; he will 
 next repeat it with pleasure, and the habit will be 
 formed. In a word, let us insinuate habits, not impose 
 them. " A new idea," said Fontenelle, " is like a 
 wedge, it must not be driven in by the blunt end." 
 
 249. How BAD HABITS ARE TO BE CORRECTED. But 
 whatever may be the supervision of the teacher, it is not 
 claimed that under the influence of external circumstances 
 a bad habit will not make its appearance in the child. 
 Moreover, when he enters school the child has already 
 contracted certain dispositions, certain bents of mind and 
 of heart. Is it possible to correct the vicious element 
 which custom has once introduced into the activity of 
 the child? 
 
 Certainly this is not an easy thing ; and we might al- 
 most always despair of success, if we had no other 
 means for attaining this end than to make a direct attack 
 on the evil inclination which has become a habit, espe- 
 cially if we wish to succeed in this all at once. Time has 
 presided over the formation of habit, and time is also 
 necessary to assure its disappearance. Let us be patient, 
 therefore ; let us be satisfied if we succeed at first in de- 
 laying the reappearance of the evil act. Little by little 
 the empire of the will will be established, and the child 
 will gradually rid himself of his propensity, especially if
 
 240 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 we have had skill enough to establish different habits, 
 which draw him in another direction. 
 
 250. THE WILL AND EDUCATION, PUBLIC OR PRIVATE. 
 At first sight one would be tempted to believe that pri- 
 vate education is more favorable than public education, for 
 the culture of the will. At school, of course, everything 
 is regulated in advance ; everything is uniform ; there is 
 no initiative ; there is a common level ; the child is never 
 abandoned to himself ; the shortest periods of the day 
 have their definite occupation. At home, on the con- 
 trary, the child belongs more to himself ; he is not sub- 
 jected to a rule so inflexible ; he has the disposition of 
 his own time and occupation ; he has more initiative. 
 
 And yet, looking at things more closely, we come to 
 be convinced that the school is worth more than the 
 home for an apprenticeship in effort. Left with his par- 
 ents, the child grows effeminate ; under their direction, 
 often uncertain and variable, his acts lack continuity ; 
 he wavers at random between their contradictory orders 
 and his own caprices ; he does not learn to obey a fixed 
 and immutable law. Real will is obedience freely given 
 to the moral law ; and to train the child to this obedi- 
 ence, obedience to an exact rule is the best of prepara- 
 tions. "Obedience to law," says an unknown author 
 quoted by Madame Necker de Saussure, " subjugates the 
 will without enfeebling it, while obedience to men in- 
 jures and enervates it." 
 
 Madame Necker does not hesitate to acknowledge that 
 " public education has the decided advantage, so far as 
 the strengthening of character and the development of 
 manly virtues and energy are concerned." 
 
 " In the family the child escapes slackness with difficulty. In a 
 quiet household there is no energy to display. All the weak are
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 241 
 
 protected; no one needs to defend himself or to defend others. 
 This is a happy condition, doubtless, but power of soul is not ac- 
 quired in this way. At college things do not go in this way. The 
 young man learns to know his own rights, as well as those of 
 others. He becomes accustomed to resist solicitations as he does 
 threats, when he believes that equity is on his side. He learns the 
 secret of good conduct, the art of putting himself on good terms 
 with his equals, of knowing how far he may impose on them by 
 his firmness, or of making himself loved by his condescension." l 
 
 There are still other reasons that might be given. In 
 the family the child does not easily have opinions of his 
 own. He lives with persons who are "his superiors in 
 experience, whom he ought to respect, and whom for the 
 most part he loves too much to annoy by differing with 
 them in opinion. At school and college he lives with 
 equals, and he has the right of free speech. In the 
 family the instruction is generally too easy ; the lesson, so 
 to speak, is all chewed; the child has not efforts enough 
 to make to assimilate it. At college he needs to work 
 more for himself, and to seek in personal reflection the 
 means of comprehending a lesson uniformly given to all. 
 
 251. SELF-EDUCATION. It is not, however, at school 
 that the education of the will is completed. It is only in 
 society, in contact with the difficulties of life, that the 
 human personality is really formed. And this is doubt- 
 less why Comenius reserved to the university, that is, 
 to the free life of the student, the task of developing 
 the will. Experience is the true school of the will. 
 
 " At college we smooth the path for the steps of the child ; but 
 difficulty is precisely the education of the will. We teach, but 
 one really knows only what he discovers. We are guides of 
 whom? Of those who ought to guide themselves." 
 
 1 See Considerations sur I' 'education publique et I'education privte.
 
 242 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 This opposition which exists between the development 
 of the personal will and school life, even the mildest and 
 freest, disappears the day when the child is handed over 
 to himself. It is especially then that his voluntary ac- 
 tivity will find occasion for exercise and growth ; but it 
 is then also that his will will incur the greatest dangers. 
 We shall have taught him in vain to will in the narrow 
 circle of childish activity ; he will be likely to unlearn 
 this in the vast field of manly activity. 
 
 " With the will," as it has been justly remarked, " the work of 
 education is never* finished. The child who has learned to read 
 has not to go back to it ; it is finished. With the will it is never 
 finished ; we are always going back to it." 1 
 
 252. DIFFICULTY OF THE EDUCATION OF THE WILL. 
 With the aid of the will already formed, the success of 
 intellectual education, as of moral education, is assured. 
 But for the education of the will itself, where is the ful- 
 crum, the lever upon which we shall press? 
 
 Must there not already be a little will, in order that 
 more of it may be acquired? What shall be done with 
 the weak natures, which have no spring in them? Is it 
 possible to give them will, if they have none? "It is the 
 will which we have to right," says Gauthey, "and we 
 would have it right itself. Let weakness produce 
 strength, and evil engender the good." 2 
 
 La Rochefoucauld said to the same effect, "Weakness 
 is the only defect which cannot be corrected." Happily, 
 nature does not often propose to us this insoluble 
 problem. It is rare, if ever, that a child is absolutely 
 deprived of the germs of will. If he has not enough will 
 to oppose his defects, he will always have enough of it 
 
 1 Rousselot, Pedagogic, p. 263. 
 
 8 Gauthey, De I'Education, II., p. 266.
 
 WILL, LIBERTY, AND HABIT. 243 
 
 to acquire certain virtues ; for, according to the remark 
 of Bourdaloue, "it costs less to enrich one's self with 
 a thousand virtues, than to cure one's self of a single 
 fault." 
 
 253. GOOD WILL. It would be of no account to train 
 the will if there is not given it as a companion a love 
 for what is good. In itself, in fact, the will may be an 
 instrument of vice as well as an instrument of virtue. 
 In their way, great criminals give proof of will-power. 
 We may will the evil as earnestly as the good. 
 
 It is, then, a good will that it is especially important to 
 train and strengthen, that good will of which Kant said 
 in a page which cannot be too often quoted : 
 
 " Of all that it is possible to conceive in this world, and even 
 beyond this world, there is but one thing that can be regarded as 
 good without restriction, and this is a good will. Intelligence, pen- 
 etration, judgment, and all the qualities of mind ; courage, resolu- 
 tion, and perseverance, or qualities of temperament, are doubtless 
 good and desirable qualities in many respects ; but these gifts of 
 nature may be extremely bad and pernicious, when the will which 
 makes use of them and which constitutes essentially what is called 
 character, is not itself good. 
 
 " A good will does not derive its goodness from its effects, from 
 its results, nor from its aptitude to attain such or such a proposed 
 end ; but simply from willing, that is, from itself ; and, consid- 
 ered in itself, it should be esteemed incomparably superior to 
 everything that can be done by it to the advantage of a few 
 inclinations, or even of all the inclinations combined. Were 
 adverse fate or the avarice of a hard-hearted nature to deprive 
 this good will of all the means for executing its designs ; were 
 its greatest efforts to end in nothing, and were it to remain 
 nothing besides good will, it would still shine with its own lus- 
 tre like a precious stone, for it derives from itself all its own 
 worth."
 
 244 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 254. IMPORTANCE OF THE WILL IN LIFE. Goodwill, 
 energy in well-doing, is the only thing which gives to life 
 its value and its dignity. 
 
 "If you imagine," says Mr. Blackie, "that you are to be much 
 helped by books and reasons, speculations and learned disputa- 
 tions, in this matter you are altogether mistaken. Books and 
 discourses may indeed awaken and arouse you, and perhaps hold 
 up the sign of a wise finger-post, to prevent you from going astray 
 at the first start, but they cannot move you a single step on the 
 road. It is your own legs only that can perform the journey; it 
 
 is altogether a matter of doing You must have a compass 
 
 of sure direction in your own soul." 1 
 
 In other terms, man must find in himself his own rule 
 of conduct and the powers necessary .to bring him into 
 conformity with it. The will is the essential agent of 
 virtue. Moreover, it is not important merely for moral- 
 ity of life ; it is necessary for happiness and success. 
 Without it we would not succeed in the world, triumph 
 over difficulties, and turn circumstances to our advantage. 
 In affairs great or small, we have always need of the 
 will. It is even an element in genius, which Buffon de- 
 fined as "a long patience." The inventors and benefac- 
 tors of humanity have accomplished their work only at the 
 price of noble efforts and sturdy perseverance. Finally, 
 at all steps of the social ladder, the will is the basis of 
 the essential quality of man, character. Character, in 
 fact, is less the sum of our habits and tastes than the 
 possession of a will that is strong, enlightened, just, and 
 good, capable of coping with events; and a character 
 thus constituted is the ideal of moral education. 
 
 1 Blackie, op. cit., p. 78.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS; AESTHETIC EDUCATION; 
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 255. THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. Moral education would 
 not be complete if it contemplated only the culture of 
 the affectionate and benevolent emotions, the development 
 of the conscience , and the progress of the will and the 
 moral energy. It should also keep in view the culture of 
 the higher emotions which depend equally on the intelli- 
 gence and the sensibilities, and in which are mingled both 
 the highest conceptions of the reason and the noblest emo- 
 tions of the heart. These emotions are the love of the 
 true, a taste for the beautiful, the love of the good, of 
 which we have already spoken, and the religious senti- 
 ment. 
 
 256. THE LOVE OF THE TRUE. VERACITY. Under 
 its humblest form, the love of the true is the horror of 
 falsehood ; under its highest form, it is the search for the 
 truth, the scientific instinct. 
 
 Educators have often studied the means of promoting 
 in the child the tendency to veracity, which Mr. Bain in- 
 cludes, with justice and benevolence, among the three 
 fundamental virtues. 
 
 The first and the best thing to do is to give the example 
 of the most scrupulous veracity. 
 
 Miss Edgeworth justly condemns the ingenious false- 
 
 246
 
 246 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 hoods which Rousseau recommends to the teachers of 
 children. " Sooner or later," she says, "children discover 
 that they are deceived, and then their distrust becomes in- 
 curable. ' Honesty is the best policy,' must be the maxim 
 in education as well as in all the other affairs of life." 1 
 
 But example is not sufficient ; other precautions should 
 be added. Rousseau has justly said that we should never 
 tempt the veracity of the child, and question him on what 
 he has an interest in concealing or misrepresenting. " It 
 is better," says Miss Edgeworth, "to suffer the loss of a 
 broken glass than to put the "child's sincerity to a test." 
 If through misplaced severity we provoke a child to dis- 
 semble his little faults, we may fear that, once having 
 entered upon this course, he will persevere in it, and con- 
 tract the habit of falsehood. 
 
 On the other hand, when the child has freely acknowl- 
 edged his remissness and blundering, let us show him 
 that we are satisfied with his sincerity, rather than pro- 
 voked by his faults. "The pleasure of being esteemed 
 and of deserving compliments," says Miss Edgeworth, " is 
 delicious to children." 
 
 If, on the contrary, the child is disposed to lie, show 
 him, without scolding him too much, that the result of 
 his dissimulation is the loss of our confidence. 
 
 " A good means of correction," says M. Marion, " is to make 
 it appear that we have less faith in the words of a child who has 
 been caught in a falsehood, and to corroborate what he alleges 
 by the testimony of his companions. He should be told, iu a tone 
 of severity and sadness, that we feel under the painful necessity 
 of not believing what he says, and on the contrary should impose 
 implicit confidence in those of his companions who have never 
 told a falsehood. 
 
 1 Practical Education, Chap. VIII.
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. 247 
 
 "The habit of falsehood must be very inveterate, if it resist a 
 treatment of this sort judiciously employed." l 
 
 In other terms, education in veracity will employ as in- 
 struments the other emotions of the child : first, his vivid 
 desire to be loved and esteemed by his parents and teach- 
 ers, and to possess their confidence ; later, the feeling of 
 personal dignity which lying abases. 
 
 257. THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH. But this speaking the 
 truth which we know is not all ; it is also necessary to 
 search for truth which we do not know. Education has no 
 more serious mission than to inculcate love of truth and 
 to wage war on credulity and error. It will be assisted 
 in this task by the child's natural curiosity, which, once 
 excited, aspires to know everything and to comprehend 
 everything. It is certainly not proposed to satisfy this 
 curiosity in all respects, especially in the primary school ; 
 but if the child cannot know all that is true, at least he 
 should be taught nothing which is false. 
 
 Education ought more and more to indoctrinate Children 
 with the scientific spirit, and should offer to their belief , 
 not illusions which please them, but truths which instruct 
 them. Then let us habituate the child to accept only 
 opinions which lie within the compass of his thought, and 
 which he can verify for himself. Without wishing to exer- 
 cise his critical spirit prematurely, let us require him to 
 express an opinion only in earnest and after reflection. 
 Doubtless it is not proposed to make of him a little Car- 
 tesian, who believes nothing which he cannot prove ; but 
 so far as possible let us appeal to his reason. The 
 pleasure which naturally accompanies the attainment of 
 truth will gradually turn him aside from blind and irra- 
 
 1 M. Marion, Lemons de psychologic, p. 196.
 
 248 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 tional opinions. He will come to love the truth for troth's 
 sake ; will acquire a taste for knowledge ; will feel the 
 need of personal research, and will taste the pleasure of 
 discovery. 
 
 258. LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. We need not stop 
 here to give an exact and rigorous definition of the beauti- 
 ful. We leave this task to the teachers of aesthetics. For 
 our present purpose beauty is defined chiefly by the feel- 
 ings which it excites in the mind, by the charm thrown 
 about us by the productions of nature and the works of 
 art, by the admiration with which they fill us. 
 
 That the little child is sensible of the beautiful is a 
 fact which cannot be disputed. Certain animals even seem 
 to have some vague feeling of beauty. M. Perez proves 
 by numerous examples that even before the third year the 
 musical instinct and the instinct of visual beauty are de- 
 veloped and manifested. In his affection for animals, in 
 his preferences for certain persons, and in his taste for 
 pictures, the child already proves that he distinguishes 
 confusedly between what is beautiful and what is ugly. 
 A pretty toy, an agreeable face, a brilliant flower, attract 
 him and please him. 
 
 259. ^ESTHETIC EDUCATION. A complete education can- 
 not leave these natural dispositions uncultivated. It 
 should develop them for their own sake, simply because 
 they form a part of our nature, which would be mutilated 
 if they were allowed to perish ; and it should develop and 
 cultivate them for the further reason that, if well-directed, 
 they may have a happy influence upon moral education. 
 
 A place must then be made for what might be called 
 aesthetic education. In its widest extent this education 
 would comprise an appreciation of all the beauties of na-
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. 249 
 
 ture and art, literary taste, the enjoyment of music, a 
 knowledge of the plastic arts, and also the various talents 
 which permit us not only to feel the beauty there is in 
 the works of others, but to realize it in works of our 
 own. We are not concerned here with that special culture 
 which makes critics, artists, and poets ; but, considered simply 
 as an element in general education, in view of assuring 
 the happiness and relative perfection of the human being, 
 aesthetic education is still important ; and it is to be regretted 
 that in modern society it has not yet obtained the credit 
 which it enjoyed among the ancients. 
 
 260. ./ESTHETIC EDUCATION AMONG THE ANCIENTS. For 
 making men moral, the ancients, particularly the Greeks, 
 counted upon art even more than religion. At Athens, 
 moral education was above all an aesthetic education. 
 Plato thought that the soul ascends to the good through 
 the beautiful. "Beautiful and good" are two words con- 
 stantly associated by the Greeks. 
 
 " We ought," says Plato, " to seek artists who by the power of 
 genius can trace out the nature of the fair and the graceful, that 
 our young men, dwelling as it were in a healthful region, may 
 drink in good from every quarter, whence any emanation from 
 noble works may strike upon their eye or ear, like a gale wafting 
 health from salubrious lands, and win them imperceptibly from 
 their earliest years into resemblance, love, and harmony with the 
 true beauty of reason. 
 
 " Is it not, then, on these accounts that we attach such supreme 
 importance to a musical education, because rhythm and harmony 
 sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul, bringing graceful- 
 ness in their train, and making a man graceful if he be rightly 
 nurtured, but if not, the reverse, and also because he that has 
 been duly nurtured therein will have the keenest eye for defects, 
 whether in the failures of art or in the misgrowths of nature, and, 
 feeling a most just disdain for them, will commend beautiful
 
 250 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 objects, gladly receive them into his soul, feed upon them, and 
 grow to be noble and good ; whereas he will rightly censure and 
 hate all repulsive objects, even in his childhood, before he is able 
 to be reasoned with ; and when reason comes, he will welcome her 
 most cordially who can recognize her by instinct of relationship 
 and because he has been thus nurtured ? " 1 
 
 What Plato designates music would be called to-day art 
 in general ; and in his view art is, so to speak, a ladder of 
 virtue, a preparation for the life of the reason. 
 
 The ancients were always inclined not to isolate moral- 
 ity, but to confound it, now with the search for the true, 
 and now with the love of the good. While Socrates af- 
 firmed that the good and the true are the same thing, 
 the Stoics proclaimed the identity of beauty and virtue. 
 
 261. THE ARTS AND MORALS. In fact, there are inti- 
 mate relations between the arts and morals. 
 
 " Art should be taught a child," says M. Marion, " because it 
 has an incomparable educating power. The beautiful is essentially 
 order and harmony. From the imagination and the mind, that 
 order and harmony pass into the heart and soon manifest them- 
 selves outwardly by elegance and grace ; a just proportion is ob- 
 served in the movements, and finally it reappears in the acts. 
 Good taste easily takes the form of self-respect. Is it not a com- 
 monplace to say that art softens public and private manners ? 
 There are faults and moral tendencies, the idea of which a mind 
 accustomed to live in companionship with the beautiful can 
 neither conceive nor abide." 2 
 
 Evil, in fact, is an ugly thing ; and the delicacy of a 
 soul sensitive to beauty is offended at it and spurns it. 
 And if we make a minute study of the different beauties 
 
 1 Republic, pp. 401, 402. 
 
 2 M. Marion, Le$ ons de psychologic, p. 200.
 
 THE HIGHEE SENTIMENTS. 251 
 
 which art and nature have contrived for charming and 
 ennobling life, the moral influence of the beautiful appears 
 still more striking. The spectacles of nature allay the 
 passions and envelop us in their purity and innocence. 
 The plastic arts at the very least reveal and communicate 
 to us the grace and elegance of the bodily movements. 
 Music, the most impressive of the arts, to which the ancients 
 attributed a preponderant part in moral education, trans- 
 mits to the soul a certain contagion of order and har- 
 mony. Finally, poetry exalts and enchants us by its 
 more formal inspirations ; it moves us with admiration for 
 all the beautiful deeds which it celebrates, and which it 
 proposes as models to the enthusiasm that it excites 
 within us. 
 
 262. THE ARTS AS A SOURCE OF PLEASURE. The arts 
 are not merely an element of moral culture, but deserve 
 to be recommended also as the source of some of the 
 sweetest, keenest, and also the most elevated emotions 
 which human nature can enjoy. It is not possible to cut 
 off man from pleasure ; so let us try to have him seek it 
 and find it in the pure enjoyments of art. 
 
 "We should recognize in the art emotions," says Mr. Bain, "a 
 means of pleasure as such, a pure hedonic factor; in which 
 capacity they are a final end. Their function in intellectual 
 education is the function of all pleasure when not too great; 
 namely, to cheer, refresh, and encourage us in our work." l 
 
 The artistic pleasures, in fact, have no disturbing or 
 corrupting effect ; they calm and pacify the soul. Far 
 from turning it aside from serious studies, they incline it 
 towards them ; they compromise neither the delicacy of 
 the emotions nor the strength of the reason. They oc- 
 
 1 Education as a Science, pp. 90, 97.
 
 252 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 cupy, better than any other diversion can, our hours of 
 leisure, the intervals of active life ; and when we leave 
 them, we resume without effort and without disturbance 
 the labors and obligations of our profession or trade. To 
 those who might be tempted to deny the moral influence 
 of art, and who might not comprehend what power it has 
 to purify and ennoble the soul, we would reply further 
 that the aesthetic sentiments are good in themselves ; that 
 they bring us exquisite, salutary, and wholesome joys ; 
 and that they are also good because they replace other 
 emotions, and are substitutes for inferior pleasures of a 
 purely material order, where morals are destroyed and 
 the heart debased. "If we regard education as a means 
 of making men happy," says Mr. Bain, "it ought cer- 
 tainly to comprise a knowledge of the arts." 
 
 263. TESTIMONY OF STUART MILL. In general, the 
 most scientific minds, those most enamored of the truth, 
 do not remain insensible to the charm of the arts. Thus, 
 in his Memoirs, Stuart Mill relates that his early educa- 
 tion, under the direction of an austere father, had been 
 entirely devoted to abstract reflection, to logic, and to 
 science. At three years of age he knew Greek ; at 
 twelve, he was a logician ; at thirteen, he learned the in- 
 tegral calculus. What resulted from this exclusively intel- 
 lectual education, from this inordinate instruction? During 
 his years of adolescence he was seized with a profound 
 sadness, a real disgust for life. At the age of twenty 
 he was beset each day for a winter by a wish to drown 
 himself. But a book of poems fell into his hands ; he 
 formed a taste for music ; and he was saved, consoled by 
 emotion. He then comprehended the importance of the 
 first emotions and sentiments which attach us to life, by 
 embellishing it with their charms.
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. * 253 
 
 264. THE ARTS IN THE COMMON SCHOOL. As yet the 
 arts have had too little influence upon popular education. 
 The child has so little time to devote to his instruction ; 
 he must in five or six years learn so many things for im- 
 mediate use, must acquire so much practical knowledge, 
 that we hesitate to impose on him this new burden which 
 comes from even an elementary study of the arts. 
 
 And yet it is very desirable that popular education 
 should not be exclusively subordinate to the pursuit of 
 material interests, and that there should be reserved a 
 place, the widest possible, for the disinterested culture of 
 taste and the sentiment of the beautiful. 
 
 " Would not the laboring man," says M. Ravaisson eloquently, 
 " upon whom hard necessity imposes so heavy a weight, find the 
 best alleviation for his hard condition, if his eyes were opened to 
 what Leonardo da Vinci calls la bellezza del mondo; if he also 
 were thus called to enjoy the sight of those graces which we see 
 scattered over this vast world, and which, made sensible to the 
 heart, according to Pascal's expression, soothe more than anything 
 else his sadness, and more than anything else give him the pre- 
 sentiment and the foretaste of a better destiny?" 
 
 265. LOVE FOR THE BEAUTIFUL, HOW CULTIVATED. 
 From the child's earliest years he should be accustomed 
 to inhale, so to speak, the beauties which surround him. 
 Even in the country, where works of art are lacking, the 
 pretty, beautiful, or sublime things presented by the spec- 
 tacle of nature will suffice for this primary education in 
 aesthetics. Later, the field-laborer will feel sustained in 
 his rude toil by the love with which he has been inspired 
 for rural beauty. 
 
 " Very early the child should be made sensible to the beauties 
 of trees, flowers, birds, insects, and all those marvels which lit; 
 might perhaps pass by without seeing; he must be led to
 
 254 * THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the pure source of the disinterested enjoyments of admira- 
 tion." * 
 
 " For the language of the imagination," said Madame Necker 
 de Saussure to the same effect, " the first vocabulary is to be found 
 in nature." 
 
 Says Herder also, " It is a proof of the profound barbarism in 
 which we bring up our children, that we neglect to give them, 
 from their earliest years, a profound impression of the beauty, 
 harmony, and variety which our earth presents." 8 
 
 266. INDIRECT MEANS. At school even the decoration 
 of the class-room, the simple ornaments with which it is 
 embellished, the pictures which adorn its walls, and the 
 illustrations in the text-books, will be so many indirect 
 means for preparing the child to enjoy whatever is beauti- 
 ful. It is not possible to expect that the child in our 
 school shall live, like the little Athenian, among the 
 masterpieces of art, and, so to speak, in the midst of a 
 world of statues. At least, so" far as possible, he should 
 be surrounded by objects which do not shock his taste ; 
 and even in his toys everything that is ugly or repulsive, 
 everything that is of a nature to produce bad habits of 
 hearing and seeing, should be avoided. 3 The treasures of 
 art should also be opened to him by visits to museums 
 and libraries. 
 
 1 Mile. Chalamet, VEcole maternelle, p. 150. 
 
 2 Herder, Idees, II., Chap. IV. 
 
 8 An elegant and. judicious writer, M. Rigault, strongly insists 
 on the disadvantages presented by the first playthings if they chance 
 to be ugly. 
 
 "Why is it that almost always there is made of the rattle, of 
 that old man in metal which is the first plaything of the child, a 
 deformed creature, hump-backed, with inordinate mouth and a hooked 
 nose reaching to the chin 1 ? The first imitation of nature which 
 strikes the eyes of the child is the figure of a monster. He is intro-
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. - 255 
 
 267. SPECIAL EXERCISES. But to these indirect means 
 there must be added special exercises. These studies, 
 however, should remain very elementary. 
 
 " The school," says M. Rendu, " ought to make neither mechan- 
 ists, agriculturists, surveyors, nor gymnasts ; and no more should 
 it make musicians. The school initiates the child into the sciences 
 he will need when he becomes a man ; it makes a rough draft, but 
 does not complete the picture." * 
 
 M. Ravaisson, in the remarkable article to which we 
 have already referred, gives his preference to drawing, 
 and to the drawing of the human figure. But perhaps for 
 the pupils of the common school, for the workmen of the 
 future, ornamental and geometrical drawing may be more 
 useful, and may prepare them better for the vocations 
 which will occupy their lives. 
 
 268. CULTURE OF THE TASTE. An elementary educa- 
 tion in aesthetics ought to develop the taste, rather than 
 talent for execution ; .not that refined and purely critical 
 taste, which simply spies out defects in works of art, and 
 which is of advantage only to specialists ; but that cath- 
 olic and beneficent taste which borders on enthusiasm, 
 which is interested in all forms of beauty, which is dis- 
 played not merely in the appreciation of literary qualities, 
 but in the enjoyment of all the arts. 
 
 duced to art through the medium of the ugly. But this is not all ; 
 the body of this knock-kneed, hump-backed fellow is provided with 
 a shrill whistle, the sound of which tortures the nascent hearing of 
 the child. This is intended, it is said, to divert him. Here is the 
 first idea given to him of music, his entrance on life is greeted by 
 a false note. I am persuaded that each year in our country the 
 education of the child by this wretched toy destroys in germ a host 
 of painters and musicians." (CEuvres completes, IV. p. 276.) 
 1 Manuel de I'enseignement primaire.
 
 256 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " Only a few are artists," says Mr. Bain, " and the rest enjoy the 
 
 works produced by these Without being able to perform, 
 
 one may acquire a taste for music by listening to performances. 
 .... The group of arts addressed to the eye, painting, design, 
 sculpture, architecture, are the enjoyment of many; but their 
 production is confined to a few. . . . Every literary teacher con- 
 tributes to the poetic taste, both as enjoyment and as discrimina- 
 tion." 1 
 
 Without doubt it is literary and poetic taste that it is 
 easiest to develop, because, first, the masterpieces in this 
 line are more numerous than in any other, and then for 
 the reason that models of literary art are within the 
 reach of all, and it is not necessary, in order to enjoy 
 them, to force the doors of a museum. 
 
 269. ART AS A MORALIZER. We cannot repeat too 
 often that aesthetic culture concerns us less as a disinter- 
 ested education of the artistic faculties than as an ally in 
 moral education. It is this function of art which a con- 
 temporary moralist has placed in sharp relief in the fol- 
 lowing extract : 
 
 " We know the system of those fathers, mothers, and teachers 
 who imagine that in education scoldings alone are efficacious, 
 and that we form and mould the soul only by the use of maxims. 
 In this sort of instruction, or rather regime, if the maxims are of 
 a nature not to be easily swallowed, it is thought best to resort 
 to a wholesome deception ; the remedy is diluted in a fable, so 
 that the patient may take it without suspecting what it is, in 
 imitation of that physician of antiquity, who, not able to make 
 his patient take a bitter herb, bethought himself to have a goat 
 fed on it, so that the milk, thus impregnated with the medicinal 
 virtue, might restore the deceived invalid to health. In this way 
 a thousand sly and insidious ways are taken to infuse the precepts 
 
 1 Education as a Science, Chap. XIII.
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. 257 
 
 of morality. Is not this to say in effect that honesty is a frightful 
 and disagreeable thing, which must be persistently sweetened and 
 adulterated in order to make it palatable ? Even supposing this 
 education to be good, is it the only one? Is it not likely that 
 children will be more profited by living with an honorable man 
 who lives nobly, who expresses only noble sentiments, who by his 
 discourse and his example spreads around him a beneficent in- 
 fluence, without ever resorting to the language of the moralities? 
 It may be said that in society art resembles a noble man. If it 
 is what it ought to be, if it is grand and pure and delicate, it 
 instructs and purifies by its very delicacy, it teaches by its very 
 presence." l 
 
 27 Q. EXCESSES TO BE AVOIDED. But whatever may 
 be said of the educative virtue of art, we must neverthe- 
 less be on our guard against exaggeration, and oppose 
 those who say that beauty is the secret of education, just 
 as beauty is the secret of the universe. No ; unfortu- 
 nately, the real education of man cannot be content with 
 the gracious and vague inspirations of art ; the child can- 
 not thrive on hymns and sonnets, in hymnis et canticis; 
 we might just as well say that he ought to be brought 
 up in games and a perpetual recreation. ./Esthetic pleas- 
 ures may indeed be pure and elevated pleasures, but 
 after all they are but pleasures ; they share the nature of 
 emotions, and the emotions cannot be the rule of life. 
 
 The abuse of the aesthetic emotions enervates and en- 
 feebles the soul, and makes minds so extremely delicate 
 as to be unable to confront with courage the unpleasant 
 things of real life. "The delicate are unhappy," said La 
 Fontaine ; and he meant by this that the delicate have 
 not force enough to resist the trials of life, to surmount 
 its difficulties and obstacles. Let us plant in the heart a 
 
 1 M. Martha, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, April 15, 1870.
 
 258 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 noble aspiration after the ideal ; but let us not forget 
 that life is made up of realities, that existence does not at 
 all resemble a pleasing poem, interspersed with songs, in 
 which we have but to follow the seducing lead of the 
 pleasures of taste. There are efforts to make, struggles 
 to sustain, miseries to fight ; and to prepare man for the 
 combats of life there must be a virile apprenticeship ; we 
 must develop the reason still more than the imagination, 
 and must cultivate science more than art and poetry. 
 
 271. THE RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. Whatever may be 
 the importance of the religious sentiment in life, we shall 
 make but brief mention of it here, since this sentiment is 
 especially connected with doctrines and confessional be- 
 liefs, with which the philosophy of education cannot 
 concern itself. 
 
 While in England and elsewhere, " the schoolmaster of 
 the primary school is expected to be an instructor in re- 
 ligion, both in its own proper character and as a support 
 of the highest morality," we have in France preferred to 
 separate the school from the church, and to leave to the 
 ministers of the different sects the duty of catechizing 
 children. 
 
 Is this saying that everything relating to religious edu- 
 cation ought to be discarded from instruction proper? 
 Certainly not. Apart from forms and rites and particu- 
 lar dogmas, there is a natural aspiration of man towards 
 religion, that is, according to the definition which M. 
 Marion gives of it, ' ' towards a body of beliefs which 
 surpass positive knowledge, and which relate to man's 
 place in nature, as well as to his destiny." 1 
 
 In our opinion the part of the educator will be mainly 
 
 1 La Reform universitaire,
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. 259 
 
 negative in such cases ; I mean that he ought scrupulously 
 to respect all the beliefs of the child, and to say noth- 
 ing and do nothing which may wound the religious 
 feelings which have been inculcated in him by his parents 
 or his ecclesiastical teachers. But must anything beyond 
 this be done ? Must the instructor depart from this atti- 
 tude of deference and respect, to intervene directly and 
 actively in the culture of the religious sentiment? 
 Many great and good men do not hesitate to reply in 
 the affirmative. 
 
 272. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS. 
 M. Paul Janet has clearly defined the proper sphere of relig- 
 ious education in moral instruction. He speaks as follows : 
 
 " The natural coronation of moral instruction in the common 
 school will be the knowledge of God. Children will be taught 
 that life has a serious purpose, that men are not the product of 
 chance, that a wise thought watches over the universe, and that 
 a vigilant eye penetrates all hearts. 
 
 It will pertain to the particular sects to teach and prescribe 
 regular exercises in traditional form. Special effort will be made 
 to awaken in souls the religious sentiment ; they will be made to 
 comprehend that the feeling and thought of God may be asso- 
 ciated with all the acts of life, and that every action may be at 
 the same time moral and religious, so far as it is the accomplish- 
 ment of the will of Providence. Qui travaille prie, says the proverb. 
 A life which strives to preserve itself pure and virtuous is a con- 
 tinual prayer. As to stated prayer in a particular form, it is 
 within the domain of positive religion. It seems to us that this 
 way of interpreting one's duties towards God can offend no one, 
 for the state does not undertake to assert that a purely subjective 
 piety is sufficient, and* it leaves the different sects to show that 
 it is not. Those who think in this way will feel only the more 
 authorized to require parents to complete the religious education 
 of their children by the instruction of the church." l 
 
 1 Rapport, U la section permanent du Conseil Sup^rieur, 20 juin, 1882.
 
 260 THEORETICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 273. MORALS AND RELIGION. In speaking thus, M. 
 Janet is inspired by some of the greatest masters of 
 modern pedagogy, especially by Eousseau and Kant. 
 
 For Kant, morals and religion are inseparable ; and 
 between them are intimate relations. But the German 
 philosopher understands these relations as follows : "In his 
 view, morals is the base and source of religion ; it is re- 
 ligion which is the consequence of morals. It is because 
 one first believes in duty imperiously revealed by con- 
 science, that he afterwards rises to the conception of 
 God and to the hope of an immortal destiny." l 
 
 " Religion," he says, " is the law which resides within us, so far 
 as it derives its authority from a supreme legislator and judge ; it 
 is morals applied to the knowledge of God. When religion is not 
 united to morality, it is no more than a manner of soliciting the 
 favor of heaven. Songs, prayer, attendance at church, ought to 
 serve only to give man new strength and new courage to work for 
 his amelioration ; they should be but the expression of a heart 
 animated by the idea of duty. They are but preparations for good 
 works, but not themselves good works, and one cannot please God 
 except by becoming better. . . . The beginning must not be made 
 in theology. Religion which is founded solely on theology has no 
 moral element. It will embody no feelings save the fear of 
 punishment on the one hand and on the other the hope of reward, 
 that which will produce only a superstitious creed. Morality must 
 then precede and theology follow; and this is what is called 
 religion." 
 
 In other terms, God ought to appear in the conscious- 
 ness only behind duty. From the idea of law we rise to 
 the idea of the lawgiver. The reproaches of the con- 
 science are as the ambassadors of God in our soul. 
 
 However difficult the course we have just indicated may 
 be for the intelligence of the child, we are convinced that 
 
 1 Kant, Pfdagogie, p. 243.
 
 THE HIGHER SENTIMENTS. 261 
 
 it is the only one which is admissible in lay teaching, in 
 universal instruction. Let us not introduce the child into 
 religious controversies ; let us be temperate on all those 
 questions which divide men, and in which absolute clear- 
 ness has not been attained. Religion is nothing if it is but 
 a series of formulas learned by heart and imposed by force. 
 Let us respect the liberty of the child, let us in no re- 
 spect restrain his soaring towards the ideal, towards the 
 infinite ; but let us not constrain him by obliging him to 
 believe what he does not comprehend. Let us aim chiefly 
 at morals ; let us build moral principles on such solid 
 foundations that in a crisis which might carry away re- 
 ligious beliefs, the belief in duty would not disappear 
 with them.
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 
 
 274. PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. Practical pedagogy is but 
 the application of the general rules established in theo- 
 retical pedagogy. After having studied the different facul- 
 ties by themselves, both in their natural development and in 
 their school training, it is proposed to examine by the light 
 of these established principles the different parts of the 
 course of study and the principal questions of discipline. 
 In other terms, from the subject of education, the child, 
 we now pass to the object of education ; that is, to the 
 methods of teaching and to the rules of school adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 275. METHOD IN GENERAL. Method in general is the 
 order which we voluntarily introduce into our thoughts, 
 our acts, and our undertakings. 1 To act methodically 
 is the contrary of acting thoughtlessly, inconsiderately, 
 without continuity and without plan. Port Royal justly 
 defined method as "the art of rightly arranging a series 
 of several thoughts." 
 
 Understood in this liberal sense, method is applicable to 
 
 1 M. Rousselot defines method as the straightest and surest route 
 for the discovery of truth, or for the communication of it when it 
 has been discovered. This definition is not satisfactory, because 
 it omits the element which is absolutely essential to the meaning 
 of the word. Method implies calculation, reflection, will. 
 
 265
 
 266 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 all the parts of education as to all the undertakings of 
 man. The first duty of a teacher is, not to proceed at 
 random, not to count upon the inspiration of the moment 
 and upon the good fortune of improvised effort, but 
 always to be guided by principles deliberately chosen, ac- 
 cording to fixed rules and in a premeditated order. The 
 lack of method is the ruin of education. There is noth- 
 ing to be expected from a discipline which is hesitating 
 and groping ; from instruction which remains incoherent 
 and disorderly, which fluctuates at the mercy of circum- 
 stances and occasions, and which, being wholly unpre- 
 meditated,' allows itself to be taken at unawares. 
 
 276. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION. In a more precise 
 and particular sense, method designates a whole body of 
 rational processes, of rules, of means which are practiced 
 and followed in the accomplishment of any undertaking. 
 Just as for the discovery of truth there are methods 
 which logic prescribes, there will also be, for the communi- 
 cation and teaching of truth, other methods, the study 
 of which constitutes practical pedagogy. 
 
 Methods will vary with the nature of the subjects to be 
 taught. Geography will be taught differently from gram- 
 mar, and mathematics differently from physics. They 
 will also vary with the age of the child. It is not possi- 
 ble to present history to the pupils of a primary school 
 in the same form as to the pupils of a high school. Con- 
 sequently methods will vary with the different grades of 
 instruction. They will be one thing in a primary school 
 and another in a normal school ; one thing in general 
 primary instruction, and another thing in secondary in- 
 struction. 
 
 In other terms, methods of instruction should always 
 conform to these three general principles: 1, the special
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 267 
 
 characteristics of the branches of knowledge communi- 
 cated to the child ; 2, the laws of mental evolution at 
 different periods of life ; 3, the particular purpose and the 
 scope of each grade of instruction. 
 
 277. METHODOLOGY, so CALLED. The study of meth- 
 ods of instruction constitutes one of the most important 
 divisions of educational science. To give it a name, 
 foreign educators have borrowed from philosophy the 
 stately term methodology. Others have called it didactics, 
 or the art of teaching. M. Daguet ventures the desig- 
 nation methodics. 1 
 
 Special works have been devoted to methodology, which 
 itself is subdivided, and comprises several parts. In 
 Belgium and in Switzerland the professors of pedagogy 
 distinguish general methodology, which treats of the 
 principles common to all method, from special methodol- 
 ogy, which examines in succession the different branches 
 of instruction, and searches for the best means to be em- 
 ployed in each science and in each study. It is a distinc- 
 tion analogous to that which is found in treatises on 
 Logic, where we study general method, applicable to all 
 the sciences, before devoting special chapters to the 
 method peculiar to each science. 
 
 278. UTILITY OF METHODS. Educators are very far 
 from having come to an understanding as to the utility 
 of methods and the necessity of studying them. Some 
 are disposed to accord everything to methods, and others 
 nothing or almost nothing. 
 
 Methods, according to Talleyrand, are the masters' 
 masters. " The true instruments of the sciences, they 
 
 1 M. Daguet, Manuel de Ptfdagogie, Neuchatel, 1881, p. 120.
 
 268 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 are to teachers themselves what teachers are to their 
 pupils." * 
 
 Pestalozzi, who however lacked method, and assures us 
 that ' ' he proceeded in his instruction without knowing 
 what he did, guided only by very obscure but very vivid 
 feeling,"- Pestalozzi put a very high estimate on those 
 systematic rules which he had not sufficient reflective 
 power to impose upon himself. At certain moments he 
 pushes to fanaticism, even to superstition, his enthusi- 
 asm for methods, precisely because he was most lacking 
 in them. He disowned himself, his own qualities of 
 inspiration and feeling, and his ever-active and ever- 
 vivifying personality when he pronounced these strange 
 words : 
 
 " I believe that we must not think of making, in general, the 
 least progress in the instruction of the people, as long as we have 
 not found modes of teaching which make of the instructor, at 
 least so far as the elementary studies are concerned, the simple 
 mechanical instrument of a method which owes its results to the 
 nature of its processes, and not to the skill of him who employs it, 
 I affirm that a school-book has no value, except so far as it can 
 be employed by a teacher without instruction, as well as by one 
 who is instructed." 2 
 
 It is not proposed to make of the instructor an autom- 
 aton, and of method a mechanism which is a substitute 
 for the intelligence and the personal qualities of the 
 teacher. If we recommend the study of methods, it is 
 
 1 " The purpose of methods is to conduct teachers in the true 
 paths, to simplify and abridge for them the difficult road of instruc- 
 tion. They are not necessary alone to common minds ; the most 
 creative genius itself receives incalculable aid from them." (Rapport 
 a I' Assemble constituante.) 
 
 2 How Gertrude teaches her Children.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 269 
 
 for the especial purpose of driving from instruction 
 routine and questionable tradition, and not of introducing 
 into it, under another form, a sort of learned mechanism. 
 Methods are instruments ; but instruments, however per- 
 fect they may be, owe their whole value to the skill of 
 the hand that employs them. To the paradox of Pesta- 
 lozzi we oppose the wisdom of the ages, and the proverb 
 which says, "As is the master so is the method." Let 
 us also bear in mind -that methods are not unchangeable 
 regulations, despotic and irrevocable laws ; it rests with 
 the initiative of the teacher to modify them according to 
 the results of his own experience and the suggestions' of 
 his own mind. " Methods," as Madame Necker de Saussure 
 says, "ought to be in a state of perpetual improvement." 
 Thus understood, not as laws slavishly accepted with 
 a superstitious respect, but as instruments which are to 
 be handled with freedom, methods, no one will deny, 
 may render important services. 
 
 " Method," says M. Marion, " is a necessary condition of success, 
 and, with respect to efficiency of service, it puts, as it were, an 
 abyss between men of equal good intent. Descartes went so far 
 as to say that, apparently equally as to intellectual endowments, 
 men differ not so much by the power they have in searching for 
 truth, as in the method which they employ. The truth is that in 
 every kind of practical work, other things being equal, he who 
 proceeds rationally has at least three great advantages over him 
 who lives on expedients, from hand to mouth. Starting with a 
 fixed purpose, he runs less risk of losing sight of it and of missing 
 his way. Having reflected on the means at his command, he has 
 more chances of omitting none of them and of always choosing 
 the best. Finally, sure both of the end in view and of the means 
 of attaining it, it depends only on himself to reach it as soon as 
 possible. ' A lame man on a straight road,' said Bacon, ' reaches 
 his destination sooner than a courier who misses his way.' " * 
 
 1 M. Marion, article M&hode, in the Dictionnaire de Ptdagogie.
 
 270 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 279. ABUSE OP THE STUDY OF METHODS. But, con- 
 vinced as we are of the utility of- methods, we do not 
 think that it is necessary to pause to study the abstract 
 generalities which dominate them. If this point is not 
 guarded, the educators of our day will proceed to con- 
 struct a sort of new scholastic, all bristling with learned 
 formulas , subtile divisions, and pedantic terms. They 
 will succeed in making of a very simple study, one wholly 
 practical, a logic of a new kind and of a truly frightful 
 aspect, in which fine words succeed fine words, and in 
 which the real things are forgotten. Let us distrust the 
 formalism which is always ready to set up its claims, 
 because it is easier to inscribe words on paper than to 
 awaken emotions in the heart or to enrich the mind with 
 positive notions. 
 
 Open one of those manuals of pedagogy which are so 
 very popular in Belgium and Germany. You will there 
 find interminable pages devoted to the distinction between 
 principles, modes, forms, processes, and methods of instruc- 
 tion. 1 You will there see crowded tables which contain 
 no less than eight forms of instruction : the acromatic 
 form, or that of uninterrupted exposition, the erotematic, 
 or that of interrupted exposition, which contains no less 
 than seven other distinct forms, as the catechetic, socratic, 
 heuristic, repetitive, examinative, analytic and synthetic, 
 and the paralogic. As if this were not enough, there fol- 
 lows a subdivision of processes, as the intuitive, com- 
 parative, by opposition, etymological, by reasoning, descrip- 
 tive, by internal observation, repetitive, synoptic, by repro- 
 duction, and eleven processes besides ! 
 
 1 To note but one, see the Cours de pfdagogie et de m&hodologi, by 
 M. H. Braun, inspector of the normal schools of Belgium, Brussels, 
 1885, p. 954.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 271 
 
 What good can come from this tedious analysis, from 
 this complicated enumeration, from this purely verbal 
 science, in which hundreds of words are employed, and 
 yet teach nothing of the things themselves? Teaching 
 would become a very laborious art, were it necessary, in 
 order to be a good instructor, to have lodged in the mem- 
 ory all these definitions of pure form, all these insipid 
 abstractions. It is said that modern education tends to 
 approach nature. Alas ! we are far from nature with 
 these distillers of pedagogic quintessence, who split hairs, 
 who distinguish and analyze the simplest things, and in- 
 vent several barbarous terms to designate identical opera- 
 tions. For a long time it was thought that it was im- 
 possible to reason well without knowing the categories 
 and the rules of the syllogism. Let us not imagine, by a 
 similar illusion, that in order to teach well one's memory 
 must be stuffed with this pedagogic nonsense, with these 
 nomenclatures as vain as pretentious. 
 
 It is not only their inutility that alarms us. "We also fear 
 that they may divert the mind from more serious interests, 
 and that this unsubstantial food may destroy the taste for 
 more solid and substantial aliment. We fear that that 
 which gives instruction its real power, life, inner emo- 
 tion, free and original inspiration, may succumb under 
 this maze of abstractions which fetter the mind and make 
 it bend under the weight of these dangerous puerilities. 
 
 Hence let us shun all those sterile discussions which con- 
 sist in knowing, for example, which are the general prin- 
 ciples, the special principles, the positive principles, the 
 negative principles of teaching; 1 or, still further, "whether 
 analysis is a method or a form." 2 Let us be satisfied with 
 a few definite notions, and as summary as possible. 
 
 1 M. Braun, op. cU., p. 200. 
 a Ibid., p. 236.
 
 272 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY.. 
 
 280. METHODS, MODES, AND PROCESSES OF INSTRUC- 
 TION. Without wishing to multiply distinctions, it is nev- 
 ertheless impossible to confound with methods, properly 
 so-called, what it has been agreed to call modes of 
 teaching. 
 
 Modes of teaching depend neither on the order which 
 is followed nor upon the means which are employed for 
 instructing children ; they have reference simply to the 
 different groups of pupils and to different ways in which 
 the instruction is distributed. 
 
 There is the individual mode, as when the teacher ad- 
 dresses himself to a single pupil ; or the simultaneous 
 mode, as when he addresses himself to several pupils, as 
 to a whole class ; or the mutual mode, when the teacher 
 stands aside and requires the children to instruct one 
 another. 
 
 The individual mode is really appropriate only in private 
 education, where a preceptor is face to face with a 
 single pupil. At school there is no propriety in proceed- 
 ing in this way, and it is difficult to imagine a class 
 where the teacher repeats forty times to forty pupils what 
 it suffices to say once to all. 
 
 It was this system, however, or something very like it, 
 that was formerly employed in the early history of the 
 school. In the seventeenth century, for example, the 
 Ecole paroissiale, a school manual of the times, says in 
 literal terms : ' ' Those who go to the master to read 
 
 shall present themselves but two at once The 
 
 teacher shall call the writers to his desk, two by two, to 
 correct their exercises." 1 
 
 All that remains, all that can remain of individual in- 
 struction, in a class regularly organized, is the interroga- 
 
 1 L' Ecole paroissiale, 1654, 3 e partie, Chap. IV
 
 METHODS IN GENEEAL. 273 
 
 tion which the teacher addresses to a single pupil. Such 
 interrogations should be made with a loud voice, in order 
 that all the pupils may participate in the exercise. 
 
 As to the mutual mode, it was but an expedient sug- 
 gested by necessity at the time when teachers were scarce 
 and resources were limited, and it was necessary at slight 
 expense to instruct well or ill a very large number of 
 pupils. 1 Almost universally abandoned to-day, and virtu- 
 ally condemned, the mutual system never had a claim in 
 theory to be regarded as a rational mode of school 
 organization. 
 
 There remains the simultaneous mode, 2 which is the only 
 one possible in classes more or less numerous, if it is 
 desired that without loss of time the sound instruction 
 of an experienced teacher, not that of a monitor without 
 authority, should be directly transmitted to all the pupils. 
 
 It is true that the simultaneous mode, though it is the 
 general rule and the prevailing form of instruction, ought 
 not to proscribe absolutely the incidental and exceptional 
 use of other systems. So far as possible, the teacher 
 ought, while addressing himself to all, to speak to each ; 
 he ought to take account of the vivacity of some and the 
 slowness of others ; he should vary his language, so as to 
 accommodate himself to the different aptitudes of his 
 pupils ; finally, he should not forget that, though his 
 instruction is simultaneous, his attention and his efforts 
 ought to remain individual. 
 
 On the other hand, in very large schools and in those 
 where a single teacher has three divisions to manage, the 
 
 1 Swiss teachers distinguish a mode of instruction as the magistral, 
 " that which is entirely given by the master, without co-operation on 
 the part of pupils." 
 
 2 See Compayre's History of Pedagogy, pp. 513, 619 ; also Gill's 
 Systems of Education, Chap. IV.
 
 274 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 master sometimes needs to appeal to the good-will of his 
 best pupils, and thus to employ something like mutual 
 instruction. This is what is called the mixed mode. 1 
 
 281. METHODS AND PROCESSES. There might also be 
 retained, although it is of less importance, the classical 
 distinction between methods and processes, methods being 
 the sum of the principles which preside over instruc- 
 tion, assign to it its end, regulate its order, and deter- 
 mine its course ; while processes signify the particular 
 means which are employed in the application of methods. 
 Thus to demonstrate geometrical truths is a method ; to 
 exhibit them on a board, and then cause them to be re- 
 peated by the pupils, is a process. To give a didactic 
 exposition of historical facts is a method ; to require re- 
 statements from pupils is a process. 
 
 282. GENERAL METHOD. The further pedagogy enters 
 into the detail of methods and into the minute examina- 
 tion of processes, the nearer it will approach its end, 
 which is not to construct beautiful theories, but to render 
 practical services. However, before entering upon the 
 different varieties of studies, before searching for the 
 rules which are especially adapted to each of them, it is 
 not without use to throw a glance over the general methods 
 of instruction and the rules applicable to all the parts 
 of the programme. Besides being interesting in itself to 
 reduce apparent diversities to unity, and to look for essen- 
 tial principles in the multitude of particular applications, 
 educators have so extended the list of methods, they 
 
 1 By addressing himself to each of his pupils individually, the 
 master learns to know his pupils better, to treat them according to 
 their particular characters, and can better follow the development of 
 their minds. ( Wilm, Essai sur I'tducation du peuple.)
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 275 
 
 offer us so great a luxuriance and so stately a display 
 of pedagogical instruments, that it is necessary to sim- 
 plify their classifications and to try to introduce some 
 clearness into a subject which it seems so easy to make 
 obscure. 
 
 283. CLASSIFICATION OF METHODS. It is no longer 
 two or three methods which the classical treatises on 
 pedagogy distinguish ; but if we are to trust these authori- 
 ties, there are more than a dozen different methods. In 
 the presence of this endless catalogue we may well imag- 
 ine that the teacher experiences a sort of dismay. Are 
 there, in fact, so many ways of correct procedure? Does 
 good instruction admit of so many refinements and com- 
 plications ? No ; and it needs only a little attention to be 
 convinced that these classifications and tabular state- 
 ments can be easily reduced without any detriment to 
 facts, and simply by pruning away a vain display of 
 words. 
 
 We shall then place no reliance on the synoptical table 
 of M. Daguet, who distinguishes methods as the educative, 
 the rational, the practical, the progressive, the synthetic, 
 the analytic, the intensive, the inventive, and the intuitive, 
 to which must be added, according to other authorities, the 
 experimental, the socratic, the inductive, the deductive, the 
 demonstrative, and the expositive, without counting the com- 
 posite methods which result from the coupling of two simple 
 methods, such as the analytic-synthetic, the demonstrative- 
 expositive, the demonstrative-interrogative, etc., etc. 1 We 
 shall attempt to show that at bottom, behind this verbiage, 
 there are concealed at most two or three real distinctions ; 
 that methods might be reduced to two, if we regard merely 
 
 1 We may still distinguish as methods the systems followed by 
 different educators, as the methods of Jacotot, Pestalozzi, Froebel, etc.
 
 276 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the order which is followed in the distribution and in the 
 connection of the truths or facts taught ; and that at most 
 there are four, if we take into account, not merely the in- 
 terior nexus which connects the different propositions of 
 which a given study is composed, but also the form which 
 the teacher gives to his instruction. 
 
 284. INTERIOR ORDER OP TRUTHS WHICH ARE TO BE 
 EXPOUNDED ; INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. Let us begin by 
 considering the first element, the first factor of method, 
 the logical order which presides over the sequence of propo- 
 sitions. 
 
 From this point of view, the teacher who communicates 
 truth, like the scholar who discovers it, has at his com- 
 mand only two methods, induction and deduction. He 
 either takes facts for his point of departure, and having 
 made his pupils observe and test them, he classifies them 
 according to their resemblances, and leads the pupil to 
 the law which includes them ; and this is the pedagogical 
 application of the inductive method. Or he starts with 
 general truths and definitions which he explains and 
 causes to be comprehended, and by deduction he passes 
 from these principles and rules to the applications and to 
 the particular cases which naturally flow from them ; and 
 then the method is deductive. 
 
 Let us take examples. If in the teaching of grammar 
 we first present the rule and then seek to find its appli- 
 cations, we proceed by deduction ; but if, on the contrary, 
 we begin by presenting to the child examples or particu- 
 lar cases, in order that we may then suggest the idea of 
 the rule, the process is inductive. The teacher of geom- 
 etry who at the outset lays down axioms and definitions, 
 and then proves that such or such a theorem is the 
 necessary consequence of them, gives a demonstration,
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 277 
 
 or, what amounts to the same thing, a series of deduc- 
 tions. The professor of physics who appeals to the ob- 
 servation of his pupils, who performs experiments before 
 them, who shows them the bodies which are the subjects 
 of study and makes an analysis of their elements, em- 
 ploys in succession the different processes of induction. 
 In history also we proceed by deduction or induction, 
 according as we set out with a definition, as of the feudal 
 system, for example, or with the different facts which 
 constitute the feudal system. 
 
 285. EXTERIOR FORM OF INSTRUCTION ; CONSECUTIVE 
 EXPOSITION OR INTERROGATION. But instruction does 
 not differ merely by the inductive or the deductive course 
 which is impressed on the series of propositions ; there 
 must also be taken into account the exterior form which 
 is given to instruction while transmitting it to pupils. In 
 fact, we can proceed in two ways : we may state the 
 object of the lesson, and, speaking authoritatively, may 
 teach by uninterrupted discourse ; or, by interrogating 
 pupils and making suggestions to them, we may make 
 them discover for themselves what we wish them to 
 learn. 1 Hence a new distinction and two different meth- 
 ods : the method of exposition and the method of interro- 
 gation, or socratic method. 
 
 1 Suppose we have to give a lesson on the distinctive characters of 
 the three kingdoms of nature. I will either start with the division 
 of the three categories of bodies, and then pass to the distinctive char- 
 acters of minerals, vegetables, and animals, and end with examples ; or, 
 following the same course, will proceed by interrogations, such as 
 " What is meant by natural history ? What is its triple object ? Ot 
 what does Geology treat? Botany? Zoology? What are the essential 
 differences between minerals, vegetables, and animals ? Give examples, 
 etc." (M. Horner, Guide pratique de I'instituteur, Paris, 1882, p. 9.)
 
 278 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. ' 
 
 286. EXAMINATION OF THE FOUR ESSENTIAL METHODS. 
 But let us hasten to remark that the two elements of 
 method, order and form, are not separated in fact : on the 
 contrary, they are united. In other terms, whether we pro- 
 ceed by induction or by deduction, we must either expound 
 or interrogate. Consequently there are four general 
 methods, to which all the others are to be referred : 
 
 1. The method of induction, in the form of exposition. 
 
 2. The method of induction, in the form of interrogation. 
 
 3. The method of deduction or demonstration, in the form of 
 exposition. 
 
 4. The method of deduction, in the form of interrogation. 
 
 Each of these methods has its characteristics and its 
 peculiar advantages. In a general way it may be said 
 that the choice between deduction and induction is deter- 
 mined mainly by the nature of the science which is to be 
 taught. The mathematics hardly allow the use of any 
 method but the deductive, while the physical sciences are 
 to be treated inductively. On the other hand, whether 
 preference shall be given to continuous exposition or to 
 the system of interrogation depends in great part on the 
 age and the intelligence of the children to whom we address 
 ourselves. When Fenelon said, though with some exag- 
 geration, "Employ formal lessons as little as possible," 
 he was thinking particularly of little children, to whose 
 weakness a long, uninterrupted discourse is badly adapted. 
 Continuous exposition is, however, necessary in a great 
 number of cases, were it only to obviate the slowness of 
 the instruction. On the other hand, the interrogative 
 method has the advantage of more directly calling into 
 play the activity of the pupil ; it is the method of all 
 others for promoting the discovery of the truth, for 
 suggesting it without imposing it.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 279 
 
 287. REDUCTION OF THE DIFFERENT METHODS TO THESE 
 FOUR TYPES. With this explanation, it is easy to prove 
 that the most of the methods wrongly distinguished by edu- 
 cators may be reduced to the four types which we have just 
 established and are blended with them.* 
 
 For example, what is the method called the inventive 
 except the method of induction and interrogation, that 
 which, avoiding didactic lessons, demands of the pupil a 
 personal effort, and makes him discover for himself what 
 we wish to teach him? 
 
 It is useless to speak of the heuristic method, which 
 differs in no respect from the inventive, save that inventive 
 comes from a Latin word, and heuristic from a Greek word. 
 Diversity of expressions should not make us think that 
 there is a real diversity in methods. 
 
 The demonstrative method is simply synonymous with 
 deductive method, a demonstration being but a body of 
 deductions. 
 
 The catechetic* method, which consists in stating ques- 
 tions and demanding replies, does not differ essentially from 
 the interrogative method, nor from the Socratic method, 
 which requires the teacher, in imitation of the celebrated 
 Greek philosopher, to stimulate the good sense and reason 
 of his pupils by his interrogations. 
 
 1 We cannot subscribe to the opinion of M. Buisson, who, doubtless 
 through a reaction against the abuse of multiplying methods, falls 
 into the opposite extreme and declares that, properly speaking, there is 
 but one method of pedagogy, a universal method which embraces the 
 whole of education. This is the intuitive method. See his Rapport 
 sur {'instruction primaire a I'Exposition universelle de Vienne en 1875, 
 Chap. IV. 
 
 2 This word is very fashionable in Belgium, where it is the root of 
 a whole family of words. M. Braun defines catechesis, which is the 
 lesson given in the form of questions and answers ; cntechist, every 
 man who teaches in this way ; and catechumen, the pupil instructed by 
 this method.
 
 280 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 It is by an abuse of words that M. Daguet decorates with 
 the name of methods what he calls the educative, rational, 
 practical, and progressive methods. These are the general 
 characteristics of instruction, the essential tendencies of 
 modern pedagogy ; they are expressions for the ends to be 
 pursued ; truly speaking, they are not methods, that is, 
 co-ordinated systems of means and processes. 1 
 
 There remain the so-called analytic, synthetic, intuitive, 
 and experimental methods, upon which much fuller explana- 
 tions are necessary. 2 
 
 288. ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS. I know of no terms 
 more badly defined, or whose meaning has been more ob- 
 scured by the misuse made of them, than the words analysis 
 and synthesis. So it would cost me no regret to see them 
 disappear from the vocabulary of pedagogy, where, with 
 their pretentious and pompous airs, they bring nothing but 
 great confusion and obscurity, without any positive advan- 
 tage. 
 
 Analysis and synthesis have in reality no precise meaning, 
 save in chemistry, where they designate two inverse opera- 
 tions which consist either in decomposing or in recomposing 
 bodies, in separating or in uniting the elements which com- 
 pose them. Everywhere else, in grammar, in mathematics, 
 the words analysis and synthesis are employed only by an- 
 alogy to express operations which have vague resemblances 
 to the analysis and synthesis of chemistry. 
 
 1 It has been justly observed that it is wholly improper to employ 
 the word method to designate such or such a school process, as method 
 of reading, of writing, of arithmetic, or of drawing. " It would seem," 
 says M. Buisson, " that there are as many methods as branches of 
 study or school manuals." 
 
 2 We are far from having enumerated all the methods which it has 
 pleased educators to distinguish and christen. There are still to be 
 noted the natural, moral, historical, and universal methods.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 281 
 
 289. CONFUSED USE OF THESE WORDS. The clearest and 
 most accurate thinkers fail in their efforts to define the sig- 
 nification of analysis and synthesis. For example, Littre 
 tells us : 
 
 " The analytic method, or method of decomposition, starts from 
 actual facts and attempts to liberate their elements. It is also 
 called the method of discovery. The synthetic method, on the con- 
 trary, is that which, after having recognized a great number of 
 truths, reunites them all under a general principle, and thus forms 
 a synthesis of them. It is also called the method of doctrine, be- 
 cause when we teach a science we ordinarily start from general princi- 
 ples in order to deduce from them their consequences" l 
 
 With due deference to Littre, the last part of this defini- 
 tion is contradictory. To deduce consequences from a gen- 
 eral principle is not at all the same thing as to include a 
 great number of truths under a general principle. In the 
 first case the process is one of real deduction ; in the second, 
 it is rather inductive. 
 
 290. THE SO-CALLED ANALYTIC AND SYNTHETIC METHODS. 
 A sufficient proof that it has been wrong to introduce the 
 words analysis and synthesis into pedagogy, is the fact 
 that different authors have not come to an understanding as 
 to the use of these expressions. What some call synthesis 
 others call analysis, and vice versa. 
 
 Thus, for the greater number of educators, analysis is the 
 equivalent of induction, of invention, of experimental re- 
 search ; synthesis, on the contrary, is almost the same thing 
 as deduction, demonstration, didactic exposition. 
 
 But this sense, which is the true one, is not universally 
 admitted. Swiss educators, for example, go contrary to the 
 general usage. 
 
 1 Dictionnaire de la langue fran^aise, au mot Analyse.
 
 282 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " The form which is best adapted to an elementary book," says 
 M. Daguet, "is the synthetic or progressive form, that is, that 
 which proceeds from the particular to the general. The analytic 
 form, which proceeds from the general to the particular and be- 
 gins with the definition, may be followed in works which are used 
 in the higher course." 1 
 
 So also M. Horner asserts that "the synonym of dem- 
 onstration is deduction and analysis ; that the inventive 
 process is often confounded with induction, synthesis, and 
 heuristic." 2 This is exactly opposed to the opinion of 
 M. Charbonneau, according to which "the demonstrative 
 method is also named synthetic, while the inventive is called 
 analytic." 8 
 
 We believe that the most general usage conforms to this 
 last opinion. But from all these hesitations and contradic- 
 tions it seems to us to follow that it is best to leave analysis 
 and synthesis to the language of scientists, and to eliminate 
 them from the vocabulary of pedagogy, where they serve 
 only to obscure a subject which of itself is quite simple. 
 In all cases it is easy to recollect from what we have said, 
 that the analytic method is but another term to designate 
 the inductive method, and the synthetic method but a syn- 
 onym for the method of deduction and demonstration. 4 
 
 291. Is THERE AN INTUITIVE METHOD? There could be 
 no doubt of it, if we listen to the enthusiastic cries which 
 from all directions salute the advent of this royal method, 
 destined it seems to replace all others and to regenerate 
 instruction. And yet, if we consider things attentively, we 
 shall be convinced that the so-called intuitive method is 
 
 1 Daguet, op. cit., p. 148. 
 
 2 Horner, op. cit., p. 12. 
 
 3 Charbonneau, Cours de pe'flagogie, p. 261. 
 
 4 See Appendix B.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 283 
 
 either but a special process which can and should be con- 
 nected with the essential methods which we have distin- 
 guished, or, if we understand it in its most extended sense, 
 that it is confounded with the general spirit which ought to 
 animate and vivify all the parts of instruction. 
 
 292. DIFFERENT SENSES OF THE WORD INTUITION. 
 Usage and fashion sometimes subject words to strange 
 adventures. 
 
 Here is the word intuition, which in the seventeenth 
 century signified, in theological language, the immediate 
 and mystical vision of God, and which, in philosophical 
 language, signified the evidence of immaterial truths and 
 of the knowledge of the principles of the reason ; and 
 to-day, by some sort of confusion, this same word, de- 
 scended from the heights of metaphysics, is employed by 
 educators as the synonym of sensible and material percep- 
 tion. 
 
 In Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany, the intuitive 
 method is almost always confounded with instruction through 
 the senses, and especially with instruction through the sense 
 of sight. 
 
 " The intuitive method consists in submitting things to the 
 direct examination of the organs of sense, and especially of sight. 
 
 " Intuitive instruction is that which is addressed to the mind and 
 heart through the medium of the senses, and particularly of the 
 sight." 1 
 
 293. SENSIBLE INTUITION AND INTELLECTUAL INTUITION. 
 But in France the meaning of the word "intuition" has 
 been generalized, and the intuitive method, from what our 
 authorities in pedagogy say, comprehends something very 
 
 1 Traitt thtorique et pratique de mtthodologie, par Acbille V. A. 
 Namur, 1880, p. 153.
 
 284 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 different from lessons addressed to the senses and teaching 
 through the eye. There is intellectual intuition, and even 
 moral intuition. 
 
 Intellectual intuition, according to M. Buisson, is the 
 clear and definite consciousness of all the operations of our 
 mind. 
 
 " I am conscious of my existence, of my desires, of my feelings, of 
 my volitions ; I see them and feel them within myself, so to speak, 
 more clearly and more distinctly than the eye sees colors or the 
 ear hears sounds." l 
 
 The same thing would be true of the reason also, and 
 thus intuition returns to its primitive signification, the 
 immediate adhesion of the mind to the great speculative 
 truths. 
 
 As to moral intuition, M. Buisson defines it as follows : 
 
 " It is taking possession at once, by the mind, the heart, and the 
 conscience, of those axioms of the moral order and of those in- 
 demonstrable and indubitable truths which are the regulating 
 principles of our conduct. There is an intuition of the good and 
 the beautiful, as there is an intuition of the true ; only it is still 
 more delicate, more irreducible to demonstrative processes, resists 
 analysis to a greater degree, is more fugitive and more inexpli- 
 cable, because it is complicated with elements foreign to the 
 intelligence proper, and because it is commingled with the emo- 
 tions, the feelings, the influences of the imagination, and the 
 movements of the heart." 
 
 294. INTUITION IN ITS MOST RESTRICTED SENSE. From 
 these explanations it follows, first, that intuition, and con- 
 sequently the intuitive method, designate things that are 
 really very different. 
 
 In its most restricted sense, and taken as the synonym of 
 
 1 See Dictionnaire de pedagogic, article Intuition.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 285 
 
 sense-perception, intuition has given rise to object lessons, 
 or the substitution of concrete realities for abstractions and 
 words, as the first exercise of the intelligence. 1 We will- 
 ingly accept the principle laid down by Pestalozzi, that 
 " intuition is the source of all our knowledge ; " on condition, 
 however, that by the word source we understand only the 
 initial origin of our ideas which, borrowed first from percep- 
 tion and observation, have then need of being elaborated by 
 our faculties of reflection. But it is very evident that 
 in this sense, intuition, if it is the point of departure of 
 a method, of the inductive method, does not constitute a 
 method by itself. 
 
 Let us multiply intuitions for the child to our heart's con- 
 tent, that is, clear and vivid perceptions; let us even 
 admit that intuition has something peculiar and character- 
 istic, and that it cannot be confounded with simple percep- 
 tion ; let us grant that it does not suffice to present an 
 object to the sight of the child in order that there may be a 
 real intuition, but that in order to produce this particular 
 state of mind special conditions are required, because the 
 eye does not always see when it looks, because the senses 
 grow tired, and that to excite a vivid and exact impression 
 in the mind there is a moment to be seized which is not 
 lasting. But for all this, it remains no less true that intui- 
 tion, from this point of view, is at most but a more pene- 
 trating observation, a more intense perception of sensible 
 realities ; and that, consequently, it may properly be an 
 important element of the method whose object is to give us 
 an exact knowledge of things, but not this entire method, 
 which cannot dispense with reflection, comparison, and 
 reason. 
 
 So also with respect to intellectual intuition, to that 
 
 1 See chapter third, Part Second.
 
 286 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 which seizes axioms at a glance, the intuitive method is 
 still but the point of departure, the rational foundation of 
 the deductive method, which ought doubtless to be based on 
 well-understood principles, on evident propositions, but 
 which constructs on these principles, by means of reasoning, 
 a whole superstructure of science. 
 
 295. INTUITION IN ITS WIDEST SENSE. But, understood 
 in its wide sense, is intuition even then the principle of a 
 distinct method of instruction? In what does it consist, 
 outside of its application to object lessons ? M. Buisson 
 replies : 
 
 " It consists in a certain march of the instruction which reserves 
 to the child the pleasure and the profit, if not of discovery and 
 surprise, which would perhaps be promising too much, at least of 
 initiative and intellectual activity." x 
 
 The intuitive method, then, would be that which, accord- 
 ing to the saying of Fenelon, ' ' moves the springs of the 
 child's soul." The purpose would be to make him judge by 
 intuition, after having taught him to perceive by intuition. 
 " To make the child think," says M. Buisson again, " would 
 be the essence of the intuitive method." But is not this to 
 force the sense of the word, still to call ' ' intuition " the 
 personal thought, the clear and exact intelligence, which 
 results from the efforts of attention, the active participation 
 of the pupil in the instruction he receives? Moreover, if 
 this is the true meaning, the real pedagogical application of 
 intuition, is it not evident that there is here no method, 
 properly speaking, a method always supposing a series of 
 processes and of means, while intuition thus understood is 
 but the general character which pertains to all instruction ? 
 
 1 Dictionnaire de pedagogic, article already cited.
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 287 
 
 Intuition ought to accompany all parts of a course of 
 study, just as consciousness envelops all the phenomena of 
 the external world. It is, so to speak, the soul of every 
 method and inspires all teaching which would not merely 
 drily transmit the commonplaces of the soul, as the light 
 illumines all births, but provokes the light and warmth of 
 the spirit, and through instruction assures education ; but 
 when all has been said, it is not a method. To say with M. 
 Buisson that it consists not in the application of such or 
 such a process, but in the intention and general habit of 
 making and permitting the child's mind to act in conformity 
 with his intellectual instincts, is precisely to acknowledge 
 that it is to pedagogy what the search for truth is to science, 
 and the pursuit of the beautiful to poetry, an ideal, a 
 supreme end, but in no wise a body of practical means, or- 
 ganized into a method. 
 
 296. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD. We know what services 
 have been rendered science by the substitution of the ex- 
 perimental method for the method of pure reasoning and 
 abstract hypothesis. The natural sciences did not really 
 exist till the day when the experimental logic of Bacon 
 broke with the old traditions of the syllogism, and perpet- 
 uated a revolution which the scholars of the sixteenth 
 century had already provided for ; till the day when thinkers 
 had decided to observe, to experiment, and from observed 
 facts to make a patient induction of the laws which gov- 
 erned them. 
 
 Henceforth sovereign in the domain of the concrete 
 sciences, when the discovery of truth is at stake, cannot 
 the experimental method be transported into pedagogy and 
 applied to the teaching of the truths which it has served to 
 discover? In other terms, in order to form and to instruct 
 the intelligence of the child, ought not the art of education
 
 288 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 to employ the processes of observation and experiment 
 analogous to those which science has utilized for organizing 
 itself? 
 
 The reply cannot be doubtful, and it is easy to show that 
 the methods brought into prominence by the educators of 
 the last century are but different forms of the experimental 
 method. 
 
 What, for example, is the so-called intuitive method, but 
 a constant appeal to experiment and observation? So the 
 method which, under different names, is called in succession 
 the intuitive, the heuristic, the analytic, or the inductive 
 method, and which always consists in making the pupil dis- 
 cover the truth which we would teach him, is but a detached 
 fragment of the great experimental method. 
 
 In a word, the experimental method is after all but 
 another and more pretentious name for designating the 
 whole or a part of the inductive method. 
 
 297. GENERAL SPIRIT OP A GOOD METHOD. All the 
 considerations which precede have no other practical utility 
 than that of obliging the teacher to reflect upon the princi- 
 ples of instruction themselves, and upon the necessity of 
 taking into account both the nature of the children to whom 
 he addresses himself, and the nature of the knowledge which 
 he communicates. 
 
 Let no one imagine that it is sufficient, in order to teach 
 well, to know the abstract distinctions of pedagogy. The 
 first condition for being a good teacher is always to possess 
 a thorough knowledge of the subject which he has to teach. 
 An English educator, M. Laurie, justly observes, "A 
 teacher himself possessed of a disciplined intelligence and 
 of a will fortified by religion, reason, and experience, may 
 be working wisely towards the production in others of that 
 which is in himself, and be unconsciously adapting his proc-
 
 METHODS IN GENERAL. 289 
 
 esses to a sound method." 1 But however well endowed 
 he may be in respect of instruction or intelligence, he will 
 always be inferior to a teacher who to the same personal 
 qualities adds that which gives power, assurance, and deci- 
 sion, the reflective knowledge of the natural laws for the 
 development of the intelligence, of the characteristics of each 
 school study, and consequently of the methods which most 
 easily find the route to the mind and are best adapted to 
 each topic of instruction. 
 
 1 S. S. Laurie, Primary Instruction in Relation to Education, 1883, 
 pp. 15, 16.
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 READING AND WRITING. 
 
 298. SUBORDINATION OF THE DIFFERENT STUDIES. 
 While causing the different branches of the programme 
 to be pursued one after another, and each by itself, the 
 teacher will not lose sight of this general principle, that 
 if each part ought to be studied in itself, it ought to be 
 studied also in view of the whole ; that is, it should 
 contribute to the general education of the mind, awaken 
 the intelligence, and furnish it with good habits of order, 
 application, and consecutive thinking. This remark is 
 applicable to reading and writing, which constitute the 
 elementary basis of all instruction. 
 
 299. READING AND WRITING. For a long time read- 
 ing and writing, along with number, constituted the 
 entire programme of the primary schools. To-day these 
 elementary branches are no more than the conditions of 
 more complete studies, which respond more fully to the 
 social necessities and needs of human nature. According 
 to a very just expression, these are instrumental knowledges ; 
 that is to say, necessary instruments for acquiring other 
 knowledge'. But reading and writing, while they are but 
 the preliminary means of instruction, have for this very 
 reason a special importance. 
 
 300. THEIR PLACE IN THE COURSES OF STUDY. " Read- 
 ing and writing are necessarily the foundation of the 
 
 290
 
 READING AND WRITING. 291 
 
 instruction given in the elementary courses," says M. 
 Greard. "First of all, it is necessary to make this 
 primary basis secure." But reading and writing remain 
 till the end of the primary course one of the principal 
 objects of the teacher's efforts. 
 
 Even at the beginning and in the elementary course, 
 reading and writing ought not of themselves to occupy 
 the attention of the child to the exclusion of every 
 other study. Different exercises in language, Simple 
 and familiar object-lessons, the elements of drawing, and 
 notions of arithmetic and geography, may and should 
 accompany them. 
 
 "If it is possible," says M. Greard, " to begin the study of 
 numbers almost at the same time, it is because spelling and nu- 
 meration, and the tracing of letters and figures, are exercises of 
 the same grade and almost of the same nature." 
 
 Dreary schools are those where the pupil has no choice 
 except between his primer and his copy-book ! Were it 
 only for introducing variety into this monotonous work, 
 the teacher ought to furnish the child with other occu- 
 pations. 
 
 Especially should we recollect that he is not merely to 
 make of his pupils reading and writing machines, but that 
 his ever-present thought should be to open and stimulate 
 the mind by positive knowledge and by moral lessons. 
 
 301. DIFFERENT GRADES OF READING. Reading, which 
 has been denned as " the translation of written language 
 into spoken language," seems a very simple thing to 
 those who know how to read ; but for the child who is 
 learning to read, nothing is more complicated or more 
 difficult. 1 "The extent and complicacy of this accom- 
 
 1 Mr. Bain defines it as " the art of pronouncing words at sight of 
 their visible characters."
 
 292 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 plishment," says Mr. Bain, "make it the work of years, 
 even when not commenced very early." When the child 
 knows his letters, over-confident parents often shout 
 victory and think that the whole is done. The real 
 difficulty, however, the reading of words, begins only at 
 that point. Months are often required for the pupil to 
 pass from saying his letters to fluent reading. 
 
 We ought then to distinguish different grades of read- 
 ing : The first grade, where the pupil learns to distinguish 
 letters and to know their names, and where he laboriously 
 groups them in order to pronounce syllables and words ; 
 the second grade, where the pupil reads fluently, without 
 hesitation, without feeling his way ; the third grade, cor- 
 responding to what is called expressive reading. 
 
 302. CAUTION AS TO THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTICULAR 
 METHODS. In the teaching of elementary reading, as 
 in all parts of instruction, we must be on our guard 
 against the superstition of method. In truth, the spirit 
 which animates the teacher, and the intellectual and 
 moral qualities which distinguish him, will always be 
 worth more than the best processes. Lakanal, speaking 
 of a commission which the Council of the Five Hundred 
 had called for the composition of elementary books, ex- 
 pressed the opinion that there was not in France a single 
 good book on the art of teaching to read and write. " Up 
 to this time," he said, "it is the patience of teachers and 
 pupils that has done all." But notwithstanding the 
 progress that has been accomplished, and though we are 
 to-day provided with a great number of good methods, it 
 is still upon the patience and skill of the teacher that we 
 must mainly count. The teacher ought to know how to 
 give animation to the reading lesson, to interest the pupil 
 in it, and if possible to make attractive an exercise which
 
 BEADING AND WRITING. 293 
 
 in itself is drear y and monotonous. He will already 
 have done much, if he has been able to inspire his pupils 
 with the desire of learning to read. 
 
 This is what Rousseau said, though with his usual 
 exaggeration : 
 
 " A great ado has been made," he says, " over finding the best 
 methods of teaching to read. Cabinets and charts have been 
 invented, and the child's room turned into a printing-office. Locke 
 would have him learn to read with dice. Was not this a happy 
 invention? What a pity! A surer means than all this, but one 
 which is always forgotten, is the desire to learn. Give the child 
 this desire, and then put aside your cabinets and your dice ; every 
 method will then succeed well with him." 
 
 To the same effect it has often been remarked that 
 methods of reading, even the best contrived, produce 
 results only through .the manner in which they are 
 applied. 
 
 " In this part of instruction, as in all the others, the value of 
 the process is determined by the teacher who applies it. A given 
 instructor has obtained in his school, through the use of means 
 which he has devised, the most satisfactory results. 
 
 " Under his direction generations of pupils have been instructed 
 with less effort, no doubt, than would have been required elsewhere ; 
 and he yields to the temptation, certainly very natural, to embody 
 in a little book the method which he had invented for himself, 
 and by this means he hopes to render to the pupils whose masters 
 shall adopt it the same service which he has rendered his own. 
 Unhappily the result does not always meet his expectations." l 
 
 303. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL WATS OF TEACH- 
 ING TO READ. On first glancing at the innumerable proc- 
 esses which tUe fertile ingenuity of educators has succes- 
 
 1 Mile. Chalamet, op. tit., p. 156.
 
 294 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 sively brought into use for teaching to read, which fashion 
 has patronized by turns, we might be tempted to think 
 that it is impossible to reduce to unity this chaos of spell- 
 ing-books and charts of every description. 1 After a little 
 more reflection, however, we become convinced that this 
 diversity, apparently infinite, is due rather to modifications 
 of detail, and to accessory and superficial combinations, 
 than to essential and profound differences. 
 
 The first obvious distinction is that between systems 
 where the teaching of reading is kept separate from every- 
 thing else and administered wholly by itself, and methods 
 that have been very popular for a few years past, especially 
 in Germany, which combine the teaching of writing with 
 that of reading. 
 
 Let us first consider the processes in which reading is not 
 connected with writing. By leaving out of account the ac- 
 cessory aids which introduce complications into them, these 
 may be reduced to two, the method by spelling and the 
 method by direct syllabication without spelling. 
 
 304. THE METHOD BY SPELLING (ALPHABETIC METHOD) . 
 The method most generally employed in France, notwith- 
 standing the criticisms that have been made of it, is the 
 old way of teaching to read, which consists first in having 
 the letters named instead of having them pronounced, and 
 then in having them grouped in order to form syllables of 
 them. 
 
 " When we reflect on all the difficulties which this method pre- 
 sents, on the effort of abstraction it requires of children, on the 
 labor which the decomposition and the recomposition of syllables 
 
 1 On the history of the different systems of readfhg, see the excel- 
 lent article Lecture, by M. Guillaume, in the Dictionnaire de ptdagogie ; 
 also, Hall's How to teach Heading, Boston, 1887.
 
 READING AND WRITING. 295 
 
 supposes, on the impossibility for the pupil to grasp the correspond- 
 ence between the letters told one after another and the composite 
 sound which results from them; we are astonished that with 
 processes so defective children ever learn to read. 'Whoever 
 knows how to read,' says Duclos, ' knows the most difficult art, if 
 he has learned it by the common method.' " * 
 
 305. THE OLD AND THE NEW SPELLING. Each letter 
 has received a name, but this name does not correspond to 
 the relative value which it has as a sound in the composi- 
 tion of words. Hence the defect, pointed out two centuries 
 ago by the grammarians of Port Royal, in the old method of 
 spelling. 
 
 " By pronouncing the consonants separately and making children 
 name them," says Guyot, " there is always joined to them a vowel, 
 namely e, which is neither a part of the syllable nor of the word, 
 and it thus happens that the sound of the letters as they are pro- 
 nounced is entirely different from that of the letters combined. 
 For example, the child is made to spell the word bon, that is com- 
 posed of three letters, b, o, n, which he pronounces one after the 
 other. Now b, pronounced alone, is be ; o pronounced alone is still o, 
 for it is a vowel ; but n pronounced alone is ene. How, then, is 
 the child to understand that all these sounds, which he has been 
 made to pronounce separately by naming these three letters one 
 after the other, make but the single word bon ? He has been made 
 to pronounce three sounds, which have been distinctly impressed 
 on his ear, and he is then told to unite these three sounds and 
 make one of them, namely, bon. And Guyot proposed, in order 
 to remedy this difficulty, that the consonants should be called 
 only by their natural sounds, by merely adding the silent e, which 
 is necessary for pronouncing them." 2 
 
 The new system of spelling, then, gives to the letters a 
 
 1 M. Buisson, Rapport sur I' instruction primaire a I'exposition uni- 
 versdle de Vienne, 1875. 
 
 2 Grammaire gtnfrale de Port Royal, Chap. VL
 
 296 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 sound which more nearly approaches their relative value. 
 Besides, it decomposes the syllable into but two parts, the 
 sound and the articulation, without taking account of the 
 number of letters which enter into the composition of either. 
 The advantage of the method by spelling [alphabetic 
 method] is that it is a good preparation for the study of 
 orthography. But, on the other hand, as a method of reading 
 properly so called, it is evidently longer and more difficult. 
 But nothing prevents us from returning to spelling a little 
 later, when it becomes indispensable for the study of or- 
 thography, and the first difficulties have been overcome. 
 Mr. Bain has justly remarked : 
 
 " Much stress is now laid by teachers on the point of beginning 
 to pronounce short words at sight, without spelling them, and a 
 strong condemnation is uttered against the old spelling method. 
 The difference between the methods is not very apparent to me ; 
 after a few preliminary steps, the two must come to the same 
 thing." 1 
 
 306. PHONETIC METHODS. But there has become popu- 
 lar, particularly in Germany, in opposition to the alphabetic 
 method, a system which consists in making the pupil grasp 
 and reproduce the sound of each letter, without naming the 
 written sign which represents it. From this principle has 
 sprung a great number of different methods, all of which are 
 connected with the idea of statilegie, or immediate reading 
 without previous spelling. 2 These are also called methods 
 by syllabication, because they present to the pupil, not iso- 
 lated letters, but syllables. 
 
 Thus, by the old system of spelling, the word infant has 
 six elements, i-n-f-a-n-t; by the new system of spelling it 
 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 240. 
 
 2 For statilegie, see the Dictionnaire de pedagogic, article Lafforte.
 
 READING AND WRITING. 297 
 
 has three elements, in-f-ant ; while by the method without 
 spelling, the word has but two elements, in-fant. 1 
 
 307. SYNTHETIC AND ANALYTIC METHODS. Educators 
 who freely use and abuse the words analysis and synthesis, 
 have shown no anxiety to omit these favorite expressions in 
 the names which they have applied to the different systems 
 of reading ; and, to tell the truth, the nature of the subject 
 would here justify, more than anywhere else, the use of 
 these terms. 
 
 A word, in fact, is a compound, like the bodies which 
 chemistry analyzes. It is formed of elements, which are 
 letters ; so that by analogy with methods in chemistry it is 
 allowable to call analytical the method which consists in 
 presenting at first the whole, the entire word, in order to 
 decompose it into its elements ; and to call synthetic the re- 
 verse process, which first requires the letters to be leafned, 
 in order to form syllables of them, and afterwards to con- 
 struct words. 
 
 It is in this sense that most teachers define the analytic 
 and synthetic methods of reading. 
 
 "The analytic method," says M. Homer, "starts from the 
 whole in order to reach the parts ; it drills pupils in first reading 
 the word rose as a whole, then by syllables, rose, whence it de- 
 scends to the ultimate elements of this word ; that is, to the letters. 
 
 " The synthetic method consists in starting from the ultimate 
 elements of words, in order to reach the syllables ; from syllables 
 the pupil passes to words, and from words to sentences." a 
 
 From this distinction it follows that the so-called synthetic 
 method corresponds to the old methods. "The analytic 
 
 1 Jacotot, instead of starting with the letter and the syllable, starts 
 with the word as a whole. See J. Jacotot et sa Methode, par Perez, p. 94. 
 
 2 Mr. Homer, op. cit., p. Ill, et seg.
 
 298 PEACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 method, on the contrary," says M. Horner, " almost un- 
 known in French schools, is universally practised, or at 
 least recommended, in Germany and in French Switzer- 
 land." 1 
 
 But the words analysis and synthesis are so very ob- 
 scure, and so difficult to handle, that a French educational 
 authority, M. Brouard, asserts, to the contrary effect, that 
 in the analytical methods we decompose the syllable into all 
 its elements; and he thus confounds them with the "old 
 methods." 2 According to the same author, the synthetic 
 method, whose essential characteristic, if we may trust the 
 declarations of Swiss and Belgian educators, is to start 
 from the simplest element, the letter, in order to rise to the 
 different groups which constitute syllables and words, the 
 synthetic method "should not decompose, or should decom- 
 pose as little as possible." 
 
 . Perhaps this example of confusion and absolute contradic- 
 tion in the use of the same terms will finally convince our 
 readers that it would be best to renounce forever, in the 
 language of pedagogy, those fine terms analysis and syn- 
 thesis. If, however, any one feels bound to preserve them, 
 in order to distinguish the different procedures followed in 
 the study of reading, we do not hesitate to say that the only 
 logical signification which can be given to them is the one 
 from Swiss pedagogy which we have noted. 
 
 308. SIMULTANEOUS TEACHING OF READING AND WRITING. 
 It must not be supposed that the system which associates 
 and combines the teaching of reading with that of writing, 
 
 1 This is also a prevailing method in American schools of the better 
 class. See Appendix C. (P.) 
 
 2 Mr. Brouard, Inspection des e'coles primaires, p. 232. M. Guillaume 
 in the Dictionnaire de pedagogic says to the contrary and with reason, 
 " The most ancient method proceeded by synthesis."
 
 READING AND WRITING. 299 
 
 and attempts to facilitate and animate each by the other, is 
 anything entirely new. In his Alphabet pour les enfants 
 (1750), Delaunay recommends parents "to put the pen in 
 the child's hand the moment he begins to read." Montaigne 
 relates that he was taught to read and write at the same 
 time ; and Jacotot also associated the teaching of reading 
 with writing. 
 
 But it is chiefly within the last few years that this method 
 has gained credit and reputation, at least in theory. 
 
 "For forty years past," says a German educator, " there 
 has been produced but one review article in favor of the 
 old systems by spelling ; but notwithstanding this, the alpha- 
 betic method is still taught in perhaps half the schools of 
 Germany, at least of the rural schools." 1 
 
 M. Buisson describes this process as follows: 
 
 " In the new system of instruction, a pretty little illustrated book 
 is given the child. This is his first book, and yet it does not begin 
 with the alphabet, but with pictures, as of a wheel, a nest, or a bat. 
 Above the object neatly drawn is the name, written in large letters ; 
 it is always a short and easy word, such as Vogel calls a normal 2 
 word. The teacher speaks to his pupils of the object which they see 
 before them, both drawn and written ; and he then shows them 
 the characters used to write the name of that object. He next 
 writes the entire word on the board, in order to decompose it be- 
 fore their eyes, and make them pronounce each vowel by itself, so 
 as to show them how the consonants modify it ; then by a sort of 
 guess-work he sets them to hunting up a few common words in 
 which are found the same sounds and consequently the same 
 letters ; and finally he sets them to looking in their books, here 
 and there, for characters like those which they have just learned. 
 This is the use that is made of the ear and the eye ; that of the 
 hand is its immediate complement, and very often the beginning is 
 
 1 Quoted by M. Buisson, Rapport, p. 156. 
 
 2 Buisson, Ibid., p. 154.
 
 300 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 made with this. The teacher traces upon the blackboard a few 
 horizontal and vertical lines, and teaches the children a small 
 number of conventional terms which he will have need to use, such 
 as above, below, to the right, to tie left, short, long, etc. ; and then, 
 when all have taken the pen in hand, he dictates to the whole 
 class the movements to be made, that is, the lines to be traced. 
 The pupils thus write in unison, and, as it were, under military 
 orders. This curious exercise is much easier for them than for 
 us ; first, because the characters of the German running-hand are 
 almost exclusively rectilinear, and then because the child has gen- 
 erally been prepared in the Kindergarten by the little patterns of 
 Froebel, so that for him writing is but a new application of the 
 same exercises. He thus learns to read and write simultaneously, 
 while continuing the pattern work of the Kindergarten." l 
 
 We admire the ingenious art which presides over the 
 organization of such a scheme of instruction, in which the 
 work of the hands is associated with the exercise of hearing 
 and seeing ; in which the effort of the representative imagi- 
 nation, which reading involves, is aided by the physical ac- 
 tivity which is required by the practice of writing ; in which 
 writing itself is facilitated by the preparatory exercises in 
 drawing, and in which, finally, there are skillfully connected 
 with the study of language signs little object-lessons, 
 which give the pupil some variety and some attraction. 
 One might be very glad to prefer this living and animated 
 method to the ordinary processes which impose on the child 
 ' ' an endless repetition of sounds and unions of sounds which 
 signify nothing to the mind, and a pitiless repetition of 
 those monotonous spelling exercises which are followed by 
 the no less tedious exercises in writing on slate or paper." 
 Perhaps the day will come when this ideal method will be 
 generally practiced in our schools ; but we see what efforts 
 it requires on the part of the teacher. As a matter of fact, 
 
 1 M. Buisson, Eapport, p. 154.
 
 READING AND WRITING. 301 
 
 the general characteristic of the reforms which have been 
 suggested to the art of teaching by the modern spirit of 
 innovation and progress is to put upon the teacher all the 
 labor from which the pupil has been relieved. It is not then 
 to be expected for a long time yet, that the method which 
 we have just described can be made general in our public 
 schools. Let it be added that whatever effort we make, 
 whatever ingenious invention we employ, to relieve the child, 
 we shall never succeed in suppressing in the teaching of 
 reading all of the artificial and the mechanical that is in- 
 volved in it. There can never be a method of reading per- 
 fectly natural and rational, for the excellent reason that 
 letters are conventional signs, and that there is no natural 
 correspondence between these signs and the ideas which 
 they express. 
 
 309. DIFFERENT APPLICATIONS OF THIS METHOD. But 
 theory always anticipates practice, at least customary prac- 
 tice, and foreign teachers already distinguish two different 
 ways of applying the simultaneous teaching of reading and 
 writing, according as the analytic mode or the synthetic 
 mode of procedure is followed. "We shall not here speak of 
 what are called the synthetic method and the analytico- synthetic 
 method of script reading. 1 Let us simply preserve from all 
 these tentatives the general idea which dominates them ; 
 namely, that writing being relatively easier and more attrac- 
 tive than reading, it is well to carry on these two exercises 
 simultaneously. Let no one object that script letters are 
 different from printed letters. All who have taught by this 
 method are unanimous in declaring that the transition from 
 script to print presents no difficulty for the child ; but let us 
 
 1 On this subject see interesting details in the Rapport of M. 
 Buisson, already noted.
 
 302 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 not expect that the child will learn to read by putting into 
 his hands the pencil or the pen. 
 
 "The fixing of the visible impressions of the alphabet is has- 
 tened if the pupil is sufficiently advanced in the power of the hand 
 to draw the letters with chalk or with slate pencil." 1 
 
 310. ACCESSORY PROCESSES. What adds to the apparent 
 multiplicity of methods for reading is the accessory pro- 
 cesses which have been added to them, to fix and sustain 
 the child's attention. Such are the Gervais system, where 
 sliding cards serve to group the letters into syllables ; the 
 Cheron apparatus, which replaces the tapes and cards by 
 standards ; the Neel charts, which simplify the use of 
 standards ; the Lambert method, where of two concentric 
 wheels one presents the articulations and the other the sound ; 
 the Maltre, where two tapes unroll to serve the same pur- 
 pose ; the Mignon method, which employs a mural chart 
 with movable characters ; the Thollois method, which is a 
 reproduction of the typographic cabinet of Dumas ; 2 the 
 picture methods of Regimbeau, of Larousse, and others. 
 Such again is the Phonomimic process. 
 
 311. PHONOMIMIC PROCESS. The principle of this proc- 
 ess is not new. Coinenius had already placed at the 
 beginning of his Orbis Pictus a picture-alphabet, in which 
 to each letter there corresponded the cry of an animal, or 
 rather a sound familiar to the child. This is the same idea 
 which inspires the phonomimic process of M. Grosselin, 
 applied by Madame Pape-Carpantier in her spelling-book 
 for the use of kindergartens. Letters of the alphabet are 
 there associated with phonornrmic gestures. 
 
 1 Bain, op. tit., p. 238. 
 
 2 See Compayre's History of Pedagogy, p. 239.
 
 READING AND WRITING. 303 
 
 312. GENERAL ADVICE. Whatever may be the method 
 employed, the teacher should be anxious above all else to 
 introduce intelligence and life into the reading lesson. Let 
 him not call into play merely the mechanical memory of the 
 child, but let him interest his other faculties, as his judg- 
 ment and his imagination. The lesson should be short, 1 
 interrupted if need be by questions to animate it and by 
 diversions to make it pleasant. Let us not forget that read- 
 ing is the child's first introduction to study, to school work. 
 Let us take care that this first effort be not too difficult for 
 him, and that he be not forever disgusted with study by his 
 disagreeable apprenticeship to reading. 
 
 313. FLUENT AND EXPRESSIVE READING. Fluent read- 
 ing is one of the most important exercises of the primary 
 school. By this means, in fact, the child not only becomes 
 accustomed to overcome the difficulties of reading proper, 
 but he is learning his native language, acquiring useful 
 knowledge, and taking account of the meaning of words. 
 
 The choice of a good book for fluent reading is of capital 
 importance, it is the "walking-beam of the school." In 
 making use of the books, let the teacher explain in advance 
 the subject which is about to be read, and carefully illustrate 
 all the terms employed. 
 
 " The reading lesson, with explanations," says an Inspector- 
 General, "is one of the most encouraging signs of the progress 
 that is being made in our primary instruction. Doubtless this 
 explanation is often dry, confused*, purely grammatical, lexicologi- 
 cal; but it is a germ which will develop itself. . . . This will 
 be the most living and vivifying part of the programme, when all 
 teachers have comprehended the necessity of making a daily and 
 painstaking preparation for it." 2 
 
 1 M. Rendu admits that the reading lesson may be without incon- 
 venience from twenty to thirty minutes. 
 
 2 Buisson, Rapport, page 71.
 
 304 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 314. EXPRESSIVE READING. "Expressive reading," 
 says M. Rousselot, " is natural reading, whose tone is 
 adapted to the ideas and sentiments expressed in the selec- 
 tion read." Without wishing to transform our schools into 
 conservatories of declamation, there is ground for complaint 
 that teachers generally give so little attention to the art of 
 reading. American teachers give this subject much more 
 attention when they require "that the child read with feel- 
 ing, intelligence, and grace ; that he understand what the 
 author intended to express ; that he enter into the spirit of 
 the piece ; and that he have the command of his voice." 
 
 " Every teacher should be a good reader. Not more than one in 
 every hundred among teachers can now be called a good reader." 1 
 
 315. CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEACHING OF READ- 
 ING. We borrow from the Rapports of the Inspectors-Gen- 
 eral a certain number of critical observations gathered from 
 actual practice, which mark with precision some of the most 
 common faults in the teaching of reading : 
 
 " The reading exercise is not made intelligent enough ; the 
 explanations with which it ought to be accompanied are fre- 
 quently lacking. The reading is heavy and monotonous. The 
 delivery is inarticulate, dull, and confused. The teacher does not 
 always feel himself obliged to take the lead in reading or to give 
 a model for imitation. The reading lesson is but a mechanical 
 exercise which leads to no useful results. The children read 
 poorly, because they do not understand what they read. In but 
 few schools is the reading expressive and well explained. Chil- 
 dren seem to read as though they were running a race ; they read 
 for the sake of reading, and read too rapidly, as though the only 
 purpose were to limber the tongue and the throat of the pupil. 
 Many teachers imagine that the child ought to write only when he 
 knows how to read." 
 
 1 Page, Theory and Practice of Teaching, 1885, p. 74.
 
 READING AND WRITING. 305 
 
 316. PROOFS OF PROGRESS. By the side of the faults 
 just pointed out let us place the commendations given to 
 certain schools and the proofs of the progress that has 
 been made in many places : 
 
 " The new method of spelling is alone in use. The method in 
 use is becoming more rational, and the process less mechanical. 
 Writing and reading taught simultaneously lend each other 
 mutual aid. The teaching of reading and writing takes place at 
 the blackboard, to the great joy of the children. Mechanical 
 reading has been succeeded by reading that is more intelligent, 
 better understood, explained by the teacher, and often summa- 
 rized by the pupil. Teachers begin to understand that good read- 
 ing should be the basis of all other work ; some make a careful 
 preparation for each lesson." 
 
 317. THE TEACHING OF WRITING. All educators are 
 now agreed that the child ought to be drilled in writing from 
 the moment he enters school, and that he should not wait 
 for this until he has learned to read fluently. More and 
 more the truth of this pedagogical axiom will be recognized, 
 that drawing, writing, and reading need one another and are 
 mutually helpful. 
 
 On the other hand, it is not useless to recollect that the 
 writing lesson itself, however mechanical it may be, may 
 become for the teacher an occasion for calling the attention 
 of his pupils to the meaning of the words which he copies, 
 and to the moral significance of the sentences which he 
 writes. From this point of view, the choice of copies pre- 
 sented to the child is of some importance. 1 
 
 1 We are disposed to think that all instruction may have a disci- 
 plinary aim, and it is for this reason that the choice of copies is not 
 an indifferent matter. But it seems to us an exaggeration to admit, 
 with certain teachers, that the study of writing can develop the aes- 
 thetic sense, and consequently can exercise a salutary influence on 
 the moral nature and train the judgment.
 
 306 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 318. DIFFERENT PROCESSES. Properly speaking, there 
 are no distinct methods for teaching writing ; there are only 
 different processes. The principal are the use of tracing- 
 copies, the imitation of models, and prepared copy-books. 
 It is astonishing that certain teachers still recommend trac- 
 ing-copies and the use of black lines. This is the case with 
 M. Rendu, who is very willing to acknowledge, however, 
 that the practice should be at once abandoned the moment 
 the child has become somewhat accustomed to write. 
 
 The imitation of models leaves the child to his own 
 powers, and at first constitutes, perhaps, an exercise that is 
 too difficult. As soon as possible, however, there must be 
 a resort to this process, either by presenting the pupil with 
 copies upon paper or by tracing letters and words upon the 
 blackboard, a practice which has this advantage, among 
 others, of facilitating collective teaching. 
 
 Prepared copy-books, where the child at first has but to 
 make traces, but where the guiding lines become more and 
 more rare in proportion as the pupil advances, are the 
 method which is best adapted to the inexperience of begin- 
 ners. This system is a combination of tracing and imita- 
 tion, the one which is recommended by the Conduite des 
 ecoles chretiennes. This may at once be admitted, on con- 
 dition .that we do not prolong too far this over-agreeable 
 exercise. "The pupil," says M. Berger, "ought as soon 
 as possible to be drilled in freely imitating the copies and 
 in accustoming himself somewhat to walk without leading- 
 strings." 
 
 In the teaching of writing another difference comes from 
 the use of slate and pencil, or of paper and pen. Pestalozzi, 
 who made writing subordinate to drawing, strongly recom- 
 mended the use of the slate, because the child handles the 
 pencil more easily than the pen, and because upon the slate 
 he more easily effaces his mistakes. On the other hand,
 
 READING AND WRITING. 307 
 
 M. Brouard remarks that the slate, "the paper of the poor," 
 is never more than an expedient, and that its use makes the 
 hand awkward and stiffens the fingers. 
 
 319. CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR LEARNING TO WRITE 
 WELL. Power of representative imagination, a clear, 
 exact, and complete conception of the forms to be traced, 
 is one of the conditions necessary for learning to write. 
 Another condition is that deftness of the hand which 
 is in part natural, but which is also acquired by sufficient 
 exercise, and precautions that may be taken to secure a cor- 
 rect position of the body and a proper holding of the pen. 
 
 According to the Manuel of M. Rendu, the elements of a 
 correct position for writing are the following : 
 
 " The body straight, perpendicular, upon the bench as one sits at 
 table ; 
 
 " The limbs advanced, not crossed nor bent backward ; 
 
 "The left arm oblique upon the table, supporting the body, the 
 hand flat-wise, the fingers upon the copy-book to adjust it prop- 
 erly; 
 
 " The copy-book a little inclined to the left ; 
 
 "The right arm free in its movements, about two-thirds upon 
 the table, separated from the body by a hand-breadth ; 
 
 "The pen between the first three fingers, extended without 
 being rigid ; 
 
 " The right hand bent neither upward nor downward, supported 
 only by the extremities of the third and fourth fingers, bent 
 inward in such a way that the pen points toward the shoulder ; 
 
 " Finally, the head bent a little forward, but only enough for 
 seeing clearly." 
 
 320. GENERAL ADVICE. The teaching of writing should 
 not be considered as a mechanical exercise for which it 
 suffices that the pupil should have a copy-book. The 
 teacher ought constantly to supervise this work, and the 
 following are some of the rules to which he should conform :
 
 308 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 The penmanship of the teacher should not only be good, 
 but he should also have the ability to write upon the black- 
 board. 
 
 Preparation should be made for the writing lesson as for 
 other lessons. 
 
 Abuse must not be made of caligraphic exercises and of 
 mechanical copying. 
 
 All the exercises in arithmetic, composition, and espe- 
 cially in dictation, ought to be exercises in flowing and 
 legible penmanship. 
 
 The teacher ought not to take part in the writing exercises 
 while seated at his desk ; after having given his lesson on 
 the blackboard, he ought to pass from seat to seat to direct 
 his pupils, to observe the position of body, hand, and pen, 
 to correct faults and to re-form letters that are badly made. 
 
 "In teaching writing, teachers should not attempt to train 
 skilful professors of caligraphy, but to prepare children for writing 
 rapidly and legibly." 
 
 We cannot too carefully proscribe all vain caligraphic 
 refinements, puerile masterpieces of penmanship, pen-draw- 
 ings which are designed only for ornament. 
 
 321. PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEACHING OF 
 WRITING. The following are some observations contained 
 in the Rapports of the Inspectors-General, touching the 
 teaching of writing : 
 
 " The slate, that simple means of giving children occupation, is 
 rarely utilized. The teacher, instead of placing the copy upon the 
 blackboard for the whole class, prefers to give a ready-made copy. 
 Penmanship is rarely made a specialty. The teacher does not 
 take the trouble to examine -and correct the books. There will 
 never be visible progress in writing while the teacher does not 
 take upon himself the task of passing from seat to seat during the
 
 READING AND WRITING. 309 
 
 lesson, to go from pupil to pupil, to observe the position of the 
 body and the holding of the pen, in a word, to see how 
 the children follow their copies, and to correct before their eyes 
 letters which seem defective." 
 
 322. CONCLUSION. From what has preceded, it follows 
 that in the teaching of reading and writing, those two 
 fundamental branches of all elementary instruction, proc- 
 esses that are intelligent and attractive are more and more 
 replacing routine and mechanical processes. Writing and 
 reading ought not to be abandoned to the hazards of a 
 monotonous spelling or of an insipid exercise in copying ; 
 they ought to be professionally taught, as essential elements 
 in the study of the mother-tongue.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 
 
 323. ORIGIN OP OBJECT-LESSONS. To-day everybody 
 talks about object-lessons, and all teachers pretend to give 
 them ; but thirty years ago the term was unknown, at least 
 in France, and the repute of this mode of teaching is due 
 to an entirely new phase of opinion. 
 
 The object-lesson is the application of the principle which 
 Rousseau and Pestalozzi have popularized ; namely, that in 
 instruction things must come before words, and that the 
 senses, particularly the sense of sight, are the faculties 
 which are first developed, and that it is to them that we 
 must make the first appeal. 
 
 From another point of view, the introduction of object- 
 lessons into the programme of school studies is the result 
 of that modern tendency which more and more impels 
 teachers to develop the educative character of instruction. 
 In fact, the object-lesson is worth less for the knowledge 
 which it communicates than for the manner in which it is 
 communicated, for the effect it produces on the faculties of 
 observation and attention, for the interest which it seeks to 
 create by presenting to the pupil familiar notions accessible 
 to his intelligence, and by keeping his mind on things which 
 he already knows in part, and which we wish to have him 
 know still better. 
 
 Let us first attempt to define with exactness the meaning 
 which it is proper to attach to the expression object-lessons; 
 310
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 311 
 
 and we shall then inquire how that instruction ought to be 
 administered, and on what conditions it can bear all its fruit. 
 
 324. MISUNDERSTANDINGS AS TO THE MEANING OF THE 
 TERM. The object-lesson has had the same fate as the 
 so-called intuitive method ; these expressions have been 
 used at random to designate scholastic processes which 
 have only a remote relation to them. Like all novelties, 
 "object-lesson" has become a beautifully vague term, which 
 each one interprets in his own way. 
 
 " A long observation of school affairs," says Mile. Chalamet, 
 " has convinced us that if one does not wish to be understood, he 
 has no surer means than to speak of object-lessons. There are 
 certainly but few questions in teaching of the practical sort, which 
 give occasion for such strange misconceptions. Not very long ago, 
 while speaking with one of the professors in a large school, we 
 asked him if many object-lessons were given in his class. ' We 
 make use of them constantly,' he replied; ' we give our pupils 
 explanations on all subjects.' In fact, while industriously observ- 
 ing the work of this professor for a considerable time, we became 
 convinced that for him object-lessons consisted in pouring forth 
 floods of verbal explanations." l 
 
 It is in part to Madame Pape-Carpantier that must be 
 attributed the responsibility for this misleading extension 
 of the meaning of object-lessons. The models she has left 
 us give proof of ingenious invention and exquisite tact ; but 
 they also prove that the object-lesson was for her a sort 
 of encyclopaedic process, and that she applied it to every 
 branch of instruction as a sort of common mould into which 
 everything was to be forced. 2 
 
 " The object-lesson," she said, " teaches of realities themselves, 
 and from every reality it produces useful knowledge and noble 
 sentiment." 
 
 1 Mile. Chalamet, op. cit., p. 90. 
 
 2 Madame Pape-Carpantier, Conferences faites a to Sorbonne en 1867.
 
 312 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 325. DEFINITION OF OBJECT-LESSON. One of the best 
 definitions which have been given of object-lessons is the 
 one that we borrow from Mr. Bain, who has written on this 
 subject one of the most remarkable chapters of his Educa- 
 tion as a Science. 
 
 " The object-lesson is made to range over all the utilities of 
 life and all the processes of nature. It begins upon things famil- 
 iar to the pupils, and enlarges the conceptions of these by filling 
 in unnoticed qualities. It proceeds to things that have to be 
 learnt, even in their primary aspect, by description or diagram ; 
 and ends with the more abstruse operations of natural forces." * 
 
 In its last part, Mr. Bain's definition is itself a little too 
 broad, since it tends to embrace the highest departments of 
 the physical sciences. We are firm in the belief that the 
 object-lesson ought to be merely a beginning instrument, 
 and that it should not be continued to the last stage of in- 
 struction. On this point we do not share the opinion of Mr. 
 Spencer, who would have the object-lesson so conducted in 
 the earlier stages of instruction that it could merge insen- 
 sibly into the investigation of the naturalist and the man of 
 science. 2 
 
 Here a few other definitions that may serve to enlighten 
 us on the nature and purpose of object-lessons : 
 
 " The professed purpose of object-lessons," says Mr. Spencer, 
 " is to give the child the habit of thorough observation. . . . The 
 object-lesson is a process of instruction, one of the applications of 
 the intuitive method." 3 
 
 " Object-lessons may be defined as lessons designed to teach the 
 elements of knowledge by the use of objects." 4 
 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 247. 
 
 2 Education, p. 136. 
 
 8 M. Platrkr, Lecons de choses in the Dictionnaire de pdagogie. 
 * Wickersham, Methods of Instruction, p. 141.
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 313 
 
 Johonnot, an American teacher, sharply contrasts object 
 lessons with formal memory exercises. 
 
 " The decided superiority of the new method over the old, in 
 arousing attention and in exciting interest, is manifest. The new 
 instruction appeals to experience and excites the observing powers 
 to intense activity. It feeds the mind upon real knowledge, and 
 raises it out of the slough of inattention and listless inactivity 
 produced by the old process of mere routine." 1 
 
 In fact, the object-lesson is directly opposed to text-book 
 instruction. It results from the reaction, excessive it must 
 be admitted, which modern education has directed against 
 instruction purely livresque, as Montaigne called it. 
 
 326. ABUSE OF OBJECT-LESSONS. It may be said in a 
 sense that object-lessons have been too successful, that 
 people have been carried away by them, and that they have 
 come near being brought into disrepute by the abuse which 
 has been made of them. Besides being cried up with exces- 
 sive enthusiasm, they have been indiscriminately applied to 
 all branches of instruction. There have been object-lessons 
 in morals and in history ; and they have been confounded 
 with the experiments and demonstrations of science. 
 
 It is in this sense that Madame Pape-Carpantier said : 
 
 " The man of science in his amphitheatre gives an object-lesson 
 when he performs before the very eyes of his pupils the delicate 
 and brilliant operations with which he entertains them." 
 
 The object-lesson, as its name indicates, ought to be kept 
 within the domain of knowledge where we have actually to 
 deal with things which can be shown, with sensible objects 
 which strike the eyes of the child. 
 
 But at most it is and can be but an elementary initiation 
 
 r ~~ 
 
 1 Jobonuot, Principles and Practice of Teaching, p. 84,
 
 314 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 into knowledge of this sort ; it ought never to take the form 
 of a didactic lesson. 
 
 327. THE NEW FORMALISM. The object-lesson is noth- 
 ing if not a living method of teaching, in which the teacher 
 gives proof of sagacity and invention ; in which he arranges, 
 always with freedom, and if possible with originality, the 
 common information which he wishes to communicate to 
 his pupils ; in which he intersperses his exposition with 
 interrogations, and in which he makes a constant appeal to 
 the child's initiative by taking advantage of circumstances, 
 such as the replies which are made to his questions. 
 
 But the formal and scholastic spirit always asserts itself, 
 and object-lessons, imperfectly understood, very soon be- 
 come a new piece of school mechanism. 
 
 It is thus that many school-books, through a curious mis- 
 conception, are entitled "Object-lessons." It has become 
 the custom, in some primary schools, to dictate object- 
 lessons ; and the degeneration has gone even further than 
 this. 1 
 
 " To read an object-lesson is bad enough, but there is something 
 worse, and we have seen one played. It was at a health-resort, 
 and the watering-place had a school. One Sunday the directors 
 invited the guests to witness the distribution of prizes. There 
 was a programme for the occasion, and this programme promised, 
 among other things, the representation of an object-lesson ! In 
 fact, two little girls appeared on the platform, one of whom was 
 the mistress and the other her pupil ; and they proceeded to recite 
 with volubility an object-lesson in the form of a dialogue." 2 
 
 1 " No object-lesson," said Johonnot, " should be given from a book. 
 The very name of the exercise would seem to be sufficient to render 
 this rule unnecessary; but there have been teachers so profoundly 
 stupid as to oblige pupils to commit to memory the model lessons 
 given in manuals of teaching." (Op. cit., pp. 91, 92.) 
 
 2 Mile. Chalamet, op. cit.
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 315 
 
 328. DIFFERENT FORMS OF OBJECT-LESSONS. After hav- 
 ing attempted to define the essential characteristics of every 
 object-lesson, we must hasten to note the fact "that there are 
 different ways of applying this educational process. 
 
 Mr. Bain distinguishes three principal forms of the 
 object-lesson. 
 
 1. The object-lesson may consist in placing a concrete 
 object before the eyes of the pupil as a type, in order to 
 have him grasp an abstract idea. For example, four apples, 
 or four nuts, are presented to the pupil in order to develop 
 in him the concept of the number four. 
 
 2. The object-lesson may consist in calling into play the 
 five senses, as by making the pupil see, touch, and observe 
 the qualities of certain objects. In this form, the object- 
 lesson is but the education of the senses. 
 
 3. Finally, the object-lesson may be employed to increase 
 the number of conceptions, to make the pupil acquire a 
 knowledge of objects, facts, and realities, formed by nature 
 or by human art. It is this feature which is commonly 
 expressed by saying that the object-lesson cultivates or 
 develops the faculty of conception and imagination. 
 
 "Basing upon what the child already knows and conceives, 
 unknown objects may be pictured forth, and so laid hold of, as 
 permanent imagery for after uses. It is thus that children may 
 be made to conceive in a dim form the camel of the desert, the 
 palm-tree, the Pyramids of Egypt." 1 
 
 329. THE PROPER DOMAIN OF OBJECT-LESSONS. If we are 
 to believe American teachers, object-lessons have an unlimited 
 field of application, as unlimited as nature itself. They 
 may be extended even to history, 2 and applied to ideal 
 
 1 Bain, op. cit., p. 256. 
 
 2 Wickersbam, op. cit., p. 144.
 
 316 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 things as well as to material objects. "In its enlarged 
 sense," says Wickersham, " the term object means anything 
 to which thought is or may be directed." There might, 
 then, be object-lessons even in psychology. 
 
 Mr. Bain more wisely limits the domain of object-lessons 
 to sensible objects alone. 
 
 " The object-lesson introduces the pupil to three great fields, 
 Natural History, Physical Science, and the useful arts, or common 
 utilities of every-day life." 1 
 
 We agree with the English educator, that the domain of 
 object-lessons is necessarily restricted to the sciences, or 
 rather to the familiar and ordinary subjects of knowledge, 
 which relate directly to things that can be seen and touched. 
 History, grammar, the abstract sciences, such as arithmetic 
 and the moral sciences, must be strictly excluded. 
 
 330. THEIR TRUE CHARACTER. That which finally dis- 
 tinguishes the object-lesson is not merely the nature of the 
 objects to which it is applied, but the manner in which it is 
 given. It ought not to have the didactic character of con- 
 secutive exposition, but it ought to be given always in the 
 conversational form. 
 
 Mr. Spencer justly complains that in the manuals of 
 object-lessons there is given a long list of the things which 
 are to be told to the child. According to him, the child 
 must be merely provoked to discover these things by his own 
 observation. In the object-lesson it is chiefly the child that 
 ought to speak. 
 
 " We must listen to all the child has to tell us about each ob- 
 ject, must induce it to say everything it can think of about such 
 object, must occasionally draw its attention to facts it has not yet 
 
 1 Bain, op. cit., p. 249.
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 31 7 
 
 observed, with the view of leading it to notice them itself when- 
 ever they recur, and must go on by and by to indicate or supply 
 new series of things for a like exhaustive examination." 1 
 
 The object-lesson ought to be a transition from maternal 
 instruction to school instruction proper, an initiation into 
 certain studies, and not a general method. 
 
 The teacher is here less a professor who sets forth what 
 he knows, than one who stimulates the intelligence. This is 
 why we do not think, Mr. Spencer to the contrary notwith- 
 standing, that the object-lesson should be continued beyond 
 the first years of school instruction. The object-lesson 
 greatly promotes a knowledge of material things, and 
 chiefly develops the faculty of sensible observation. Now, 
 in the work of instruction it is necessary as soon as pos- 
 sible to dispense with concrete and material things in order 
 resolutely to throw the child into the domain of abstract 
 and general ideas. Of course, in the teaching of history and 
 number, and in the higher instruction in the physical and 
 natural sciences, the teacher is not forbidden to appeal to 
 the child's imagination and to sensible representations ; it is 
 even necessary to do this on occasion. But this will be only 
 an accident, an exception, at most a special element in the 
 lesson. This appeal to experience will no longer constitute 
 an object-lesson properly so-called. 
 
 331. RULES FOR OBJECT-LESSONS. From the fact that 
 the object-lesson is above all else a free and familiar con- 
 versation of the teacher with his pupils, it must not be 
 inferred that it has no rules and principles. 
 
 "On the contrary," says Madame Pape-Carpantier, " it has fixed 
 rules which are independent of the fancy of teachers. ... Its 
 principles and rules are the same as those which govern the oper- 
 ations of the human understanding." 
 
 1 Spencer, op. dt., pp. 133, 134.
 
 318 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 The first of these rules is that each lesson should have a 
 definite purpose, its determined scope. 
 
 " The teacher," adds Mr. Bain, " should consider what is to be 
 the drift of the lesson. That at the outset lessons are more or less 
 desultory, perhaps cannot be helped ; but they should gradually be 
 brought under some of the ' Unities.' " 
 
 332. THE NECESSITY OF A SYSTEMATIC PLAN. It is not 
 only necessary that each lesson should have its definite 
 purpose, but also that the successive object-lessons should 
 be connected and, so to speak, brought into proper subor- 
 dination. Object-lessons would be a chaos of sterile con- 
 versations and profitless talk, if they were disconnected and 
 were to proceed at random in the vast field which is open to 
 them. 
 
 " Object-lessons should be given in a systematic course, each one 
 conveying its own teaching and bearing some palpable relation to 
 the one that has preceded and the one that follows, thus leading 
 the pupil to the discovery of the relations, and enabling him to 
 associate them in memory. Desultory object-lessons are of little 
 worth." 1 
 
 333. PREPARATION OP OBJECT-LESSONS. A thing not 
 less necessary is that each lesson should be carefully pre- 
 pared. Nothing should be left to chance in these familial- 
 conversations, and the teacher should be all the more pre- 
 pared on all tne parts of his subject, as an unexpected 
 question asked by his pupils might surprise and disconcert 
 him. 
 
 " Object-lessons demand such a studied preparation, such a pro- 
 found knowledge of the subject, so much tact and intelligence, and 
 finally such a judiciously arranged collection of objects, that this 
 kind of instruction has not yet gained a foothold in the schools. 
 
 1 Johonnot, op. cit., p. 92.
 
 OBJECT-LESSORS. 319 
 
 Much has been said about them in scholastic circles, and some 
 teachers even pride themselves that they have been successful in 
 their use ; but up to the present time they can be credited only 
 with good intentions." 1 
 
 334. ORDER TO BE FOLLOWED IN STUDYING THE QUALITIES 
 OF OBJECTS. Madame Pape-Carpantier thought it very 
 important that in observing the qualities of objects we 
 should restrict ourselves to an invariable order, derived, as 
 she claimed, from the natural course which the mind fol- 
 lows in its perceptions. It would be necessary, on this hy- 
 pothesis, to proceed always in the same manner and to call 
 the child's attention successively to the color, the form, the 
 use,. and the matter or constituent elements of the object 
 studied. Mr. Bain is not of this opinion. 
 
 " The most useful direction for conducting it is, first, to point 
 out the appearance or sensible qualities of an object, and next to 
 specify its uses. A better rule would be, to give the uses first 
 (after the most obvious aspects) ; use is quality in act, and our 
 interest in things is first excited by their active agency." 2 
 
 And taking glass as an example, Mr. Bain remarks that it 
 is useless to say to pupils that it is hard, smooth, and trans- 
 parent, things which they already very well know. That 
 which will interest them, on the contrary, and that which 
 will instruct them, will be to lead them to reflect on the 
 different uses of glass, and perhaps also on the various 
 circumstances of its discovery or on its history. 
 
 335. SCHOOL MUSEUM. Object-lessons require the or- 
 ganization in the school of little school museums, where the 
 teacher may find within his reach the objects which are to 
 serve as a text for his lesson. 
 
 1 Rapports et inspection generate, 1870-1880, p. 210. 
 8 Bain, Education as a Science, p. 249.
 
 320 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 These museums ought in great part to be constructed by 
 the pupils themselves. 
 
 " Children are asked, for example, to bring on the morrow 
 leaves of two trees which they have, perhaps, never thought of dis- 
 tinguishing, as the pear and the apple, the pine and the fir, or cer- 
 tain species of the poplar ; or such a stone or mineral, or specimen 
 of wood, or such a manufactured product as is found in the coun- 
 try, but which is lacking in the little school museum. Something 
 ought always to be wanting in a school museum, and it would not 
 displease me to be told that each generation of scholars is obliged 
 to reconstruct it, so to speak, anew by its own researches. The 
 great profit {o be derived from these little museums of object- 
 lessons does not consist in having them, but in making them." 
 
 " The school museum," says M. Cocheris, to the same effect^ " is 
 the work of time, and ought to contain samples of the local indus- 
 try and specimens of the natural products which contribute to the 
 wealth of the country." 
 
 Complaint is sometimes made, and not without reason, 
 that in certain schools the school museums assume exagger- 
 ated proportions. It is not the purpose, in fact, to bring 
 together a collection of curiosities, or to establish a showy 
 museum filled with useless articles designed to strike the 
 imagination of visitors to the school ; but to collect, in order 
 to make use of them, the objects which may really con- 
 tribute to the instruction of the child. The best museum is 
 not that where the most specimens are pressed into elegant 
 show-cases, but that of which the most use is made. 
 
 But, generally speaking, such museums do not exist in 
 our schools, or exist only in an embryonic state. 
 
 " School museums develop but slowly. What is easier, however, 
 than to collect from the grocer, the apothecary, the seedsman, the 
 druggist, from field and garden, the elements of a useful collec- 
 tion? 
 
 "When they exist, people do not know how to make use of them. 
 The specimens generally disappear under a thick coating of dust."
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 321 
 
 336. PRINCIPAL MISTAKES TO BE AVOIDED. But what 
 is still much more important than the material conditions of 
 the object-lesson, conditions supplied by the school museum, 
 is the manner in which the teacher interprets this exercise. 
 
 By reason of the very liberty which characterizes this 
 mode of teaching, the object-lesson is a delicate thing to 
 administer; and a great number of faults and of possible 
 inconveniences ought to be noted and shunned. 
 
 337. SUPERFLUITY OF OBJECT-LESSONS. Object-lessons 
 like those which are sometimes given are certainly super- 
 fluous. They squander precious time, as Mr. Bain observes, 
 on things children already know or which they might learn 
 of themselves, either by their personal observation or by 
 conversations with their parents or their companions. 
 
 We recall the tiresome exercises which Pestalozzi im- 
 posed on his pupils before the old paper-hangings of the 
 school-room : There is a hole in the hangings. The hole in 
 the hangings is round, etc. "How many object-lessons which 
 are thus but a sterile verbiage, in which children are taught 
 by many repetitions that snow is white, that ink is black, 
 that glass is transparent, that a bird has two claws and one 
 head, that a horse has two eyes, two ears, and four legs, 
 etc. ! " 
 
 338. WORDS WITHOUT THINGS. The object-lesson, im- 
 perfectly understood, has sometimes become a purely verbal 
 exercise. Pestalozzi, one of the first who made use of it, 
 employed it as a means of teaching the exact meanings of 
 words. His exercises in intuition were chiefly exercises in 
 language. It is certainly a good and useful thing to asso- 
 ciate with exercises in observation a drill in language. But 
 with respect to the object which is shown the child, and 
 under a pretext of analyzing its qualities, we must be strictly
 
 322 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 on our guard against making use of technical and scientific 
 terms whose meaning he is incapable of comprehending. 
 As some one has said, one single recommendation compre- 
 hends all the others : Let the object-lesson never degenerate 
 into a lesson of words. 
 
 339. ABUSE OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. Mr. Wickersham, 
 an American teacher, justly remarks that " the object-lesson 
 system is apt to continue instruction in the concrete after 
 pupils can appreciate the abstract." 
 
 " The elements of all kinds of knowledge must be taught in con- 
 nection with objects, but an acquaintance with material things is 
 far from being the highest end of study; and object-teaching 
 pushed too far tends to degrade education. Back of all, there are 
 principles, ideas, controlling things, which are the soul's most 
 nourishing pabulum. Soon after a child has learned to count 
 with objects, he may begin to count without them ; soon after he 
 has become acquainted with real forms, he may begin to deal with 
 ideal ones." l 
 
 The object-lesson is evidently but a means for rising 
 higher ; it is, in some sort, a passage which must be 
 traversed in order to go farther, but where it would be 
 unwise to tarry too long. 
 
 340. OBJECT-LESSONS NOT TO FORM A REGULAR COURSE. 
 The mistake of a great number of teachers has been to con- 
 sider object-lessons as a special item in the programme, and 
 consequently to carry into them the ordinary habits of in- 
 struction and the regularity of a systematic course. The 
 object-lesson, to be in real conformity with the principles 
 which have inspired it, ought to remain free, flexible, ver- 
 satile, and animated, just like the young minds to which it is 
 
 1 Wickersham, op. cit., pp. 158, 159.
 
 OBJECT-LESSONS. 323 
 
 addressed. Too often it has degenerated into monotonous 
 interrogations, and into dry and formal nomenclatures. 
 
 " It is not desirable," says M. Buisson, " to have the object- 
 lesson begin and end at a fixed hour. Let it be given on the occa- 
 sion of a reading or writing lesson, or in connection with the dic- 
 tation exercise, with the lesson in history, geography, or grammar. 
 If it occupies two minutes instead of twenty, it will be only the 
 better for that. Often it will consist, not in a series of consecutive 
 questions, but in one spirited, precise, and pointed question, which 
 will provoke a reply of the same sort ; it will often be but a sketch 
 upon the blackboard which will be worth more than a complete 
 description. One day the object-lesson will be a visit to an indus- 
 trial establishment or to an historic monument ; on another, it 
 will be a tour of observation, or a ramble in the woods, or a hunt 
 for insects or plants." 
 
 Like most educators, M. Buisson perhaps gives too great 
 an extension to the meaning of the object-lesson, and 
 wrongly confounds it with the general spirit of intelligent 
 and attractive instruction ; but with this reservation we 
 must accept his opinion and consider the object-lesson, not 
 as a systematic course of instruction which is to be confined 
 within immutable limits, but as a form of instruction infi- 
 nitely variable and always adapting itself to circumstances. 
 
 341. ACTUAL PROGRAMMES. The French official pro- 
 gramme hardly speaks of object-lessons save for the 
 maternal schools, by connecting with them a knowledge of 
 common objects and the first notions of natural history. 
 
 The programme of the primary schools proper is silent 
 upon object-lessons ; but yet it is evident that it recom- 
 mends them implicitly, since, in the statement of reasons 
 which precede the enumeration of the different topics of 
 instruction, the true method is defined in these terms : 
 
 " In every branch of instruction, the teacher at the outset uses
 
 324 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 sensible objects, causes things to be seen and touched, and places 
 children in the presence of concrete realities. 
 
 " Primary instruction is essentially intuitive ; that is, counts 
 chiefly on natural good sense, on the strength of proof, on that 
 innate power which the human mind has to seize at first glance 
 and without demonstration not all the truths, but the truths that 
 are simplest and most fundamental." 
 
 342. THE METHOD OF OBJECT-LESSONS. In one sense 
 the method of object-lessons may be considered as synony- 
 mous with the art which ought to animate all varieties of 
 instruction, and endeavor to make them living and practical. 
 
 "With what enthusiasm did Madame Pape-Carpantier in 
 1868 speak of the new method ! 
 
 " But what, then, constitutes the value of object-lessons ? On 
 what ground are they so popular, so highly recommended, and in 
 fact so profitable ? 
 
 " Ah ! this is due to a great law terribly misunderstood, which 
 ordains that there shall be no patient in education ; which requires 
 that the pupil be an active agent in it, as active as the teacher ; 
 that he be an intelligent co-laborer in the lessons which he receives 
 from him, and that, according to the expression of the catechism, 
 he co-operate in the work of grace. 
 
 " That which constitutes the value of object-lessons, that which 
 makes them agreeable and effective, is that they are in conformity 
 with this law ; that they make an appeal to the personal powers of 
 the child ; that they call into play, into movement, his physical 
 and intellectual faculties ; and that they satisfy his natural need 
 of thinking, speaking, moving, and changing from one object to 
 another. It is that they appeal to his mind through the medium 
 of his senses, and that they make use of what he knows and loves, 
 to interest him in what he does not know or does not yet love, 
 and because, in a word, they are for him the concrete, and not the 
 abstract" l 
 
 1 Madame Pape-Carpantier, Conferences, etc., 2 partie, p. 73.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 
 
 343. IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY. Is it really necessary 
 to-day to insist on the capital importance of the study of the 
 vernacular in the common school? Everybody agrees that 
 it should be assigned the first place. " It forms," says 
 M. Breal, " the beginning and the center of studies, and it 
 is for pupils the principal instrument of progress." 
 
 First, the study of the vernacular is valuable on its own 
 account. Who can deny its immediate practical utility? 
 One becomes truly a man only through the power to express 
 his thought correctly and clearly. One is a citizen only on 
 the condition of speaking the national tongue, the language 
 of his fellow-citizen. Then, again, the knowledge of lan- 
 guage is the key to all other knowledges. The common 
 tongue puts us in communication with our fellows and satis- 
 fies the needs of life ; the language of literature opens to us 
 the treasures of human thought, and technology those of 
 formulated science. 
 
 But the study of language is valuable also through its 
 influence on intellectual education. To know one's lan- 
 guage is to know how to think. The extent of the vocabu- 
 lary w.hich you have at your disposal corresponds to the 
 abundance of the ideas which you possess. The new words 
 added to those you already know are so many conquests of 
 your mind over the unknown. On the other hand, the pro- 
 priety of the expression is equivalent to the accuracy of the 
 
 826
 
 326 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 thought. Finally, the grammatical correctness which you 
 know how to put into the construction of your sentences is 
 directly related to the logic which governs your judgments 
 and reasonings. To acquire the mother tongue is not, then, 
 merely to acquire verbal material, but, through the mechan- 
 ism of language, to develop and train the thought, of which 
 language is but the instrument. 
 
 344. DIFFICULTY OF THIS INSTRUCTION. For children in 
 easy circumstances, whose parents speak the tongue purely, 
 the study of language offers special facilities. For them, 
 and for them alone, the national language is the mother 
 tongue ; they have learned it without effort and by use at 
 their mother's knee. But how many children there are who 
 have not this good fortune ! At home and in their neigh- 
 borhood they hear the language spoken only incorrectly. 
 For them the national language is truly a foreign tongue, 
 which they must painfully study on the benches of the 
 school. 1 
 
 But even for children who have been brought up, so to 
 speak, on correct speech, this instinctive apprenticeship in 
 the mother tongue is not sufficient. There always remains 
 for them the need at least of extending their vocabulary, 
 necessarily restricted ; of taking account of the meaning of 
 words which they have vaguely retained, and which they 
 understand only confusedly, of learning orthography, and 
 finally of reflecting on the rules of grammar, without which 
 the correctness of their style or of their language would 
 always be poorly assured. It is nature which unties the 
 child's tongue, and with the aid of parents teaches him to 
 speak ; but it is study alone, with the aid of teachers, which 
 teaches him to speak well. 
 
 1 What is here said of French is in a considerable degree true of 
 English, though our speech is less corrupted by patois. ( P.)
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 327 
 
 345. THE PURPOSE. For a long time the study of lan- 
 guage in our schools has been synonymous with the study of 
 grammar. When the distinction between the parts of a dis- 
 course, conjugation, and syntax had been taught, it was 
 thought that all had been done ; to-day we have a totally 
 different idea of the teaching of the mother tongue, of its 
 extent and scope. This instruction comprises three essen- 
 tial things, and all three are of inestimable value. 
 
 It is proposed: 1. To comprehend the vernacular; 2. 
 To know how to speak it ; 3. To know how to write it. 
 
 The least that can be demanded is that the pupils in our 
 schools comprehend their native tongue. It is certainly not 
 proposed to teach them the twenty thousand words of which 
 the language is composed, 1 and to make of their minds a 
 living dictionary. What is necessary is that they know 
 with all possible exactness the few hundreds of expressions 
 which constitute the basis of the language. The possession 
 of a clear and exact vocabulary is the necessary preparation 
 for the reading of good authors. Too many children leave 
 our schools without ever having formed a taste for personal 
 reading, partly because they find in books too many words 
 whose meaning they do not comprehend. 
 
 Another essential purpose of language study is to learn 
 to speak. With many people, occasions for writing may be 
 comparatively rare, but occasions for talking occur every 
 day and every hour. Who, then, does not need, however 
 humble his condition, to express himself with facility 
 and correctness, if not with elegance ? Doubtless it is not 
 required to make praters and speechmakers, but it is neces- 
 sary to put the future citizen in a condition to communicate 
 his thoughts, to converse with his fellows, to manage his 
 affairs, and to discuss his interests. 
 
 1 The latest edition of an unabridged English (American) dictionary 
 enumerates 118,000 words as belonging to the English speech. (I 1 .)
 
 328 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Finally, written language must not be neglected, though 
 it is of less importance than spoken language. Though 
 comparatively new and of recent introduction into our 
 schools, exercises in composition and dictation are not the 
 less interesting nor the less useful. The teaching of lan- 
 guage would be a derision if it did nothing more than cause 
 the rules of grammar to be learned, and laboriously incul- 
 cate the science of orthography on children who would 
 never be called on to apply these rules or to use that 
 knowledge in compositions of their own. Grammar and 
 orthography are excellent things, but on one condition, 
 however, and this is that they are used, that they are 
 not for children as arms in the hands of soldiers who do 
 not know how to handle them. 
 
 346. PRINCIPLES. Thus understood, the teaching of 
 language is an interesting and practical study, which is 
 extending in all directions beyond the old, narrow scheme of 
 grammatical memory-lessons and exercises in orthography. 
 In order to attain its true purpose, this instruction must 
 conform to the natural method, which proceeds from the 
 example to the rule, from the experiment to the law, from 
 common use, from the. concrete instance to the general and 
 abstract precept. Grammar must be learned through lan- 
 guage, and not language through grammar, as Herder said ; 
 and Mr. Spencer declares that " as grammar was made after 
 language, so it ought to be taught after it." "For a long 
 time," as the Pere Girard said, " a healthy didactics has 
 told us, 'Few rules, many exercises.' " 
 
 The child enters the school having hardly any use of the 
 mother tongue. Let what is lacking be supplied by graded 
 selections from easy authors. In default of conversations 
 which he has not heard, let the book envelop him, so to 
 speak, in its precise terms, in its correct constructions, in 

 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 329 
 
 an atmosphere of pure and clear speech. Let hiin be drilled 
 in speaking, in constructing sentences, at first orally, and 
 later by writing. Let the teacher give the example of 
 exact pronunciation and of idiomatic expression. Let the 
 blackboard present to the pupil models of simple state- 
 ment; and the child, familiarized little by little with the 
 expressions and idioms of his native tongue, will be pre- 
 pared for the didactic lessons which, without this prepara- 
 tion, would infallibly have repelled him and wearied him 
 without profit. 
 
 347. PROPOSED REFORMS. From ministerial circulars 
 we quote a few passages which clearly indicate the direc- 
 tion which should be given to instruction in the mother 
 tongue. 
 
 " In the course in French, many teachers make a misuse of the 
 grammar, aud think that all has been done when they have put 
 into the memory of their pupils a great number of rules, distinc- 
 tions, and technical terms. Insist that in this study abstractions 
 and subtleties shall be avoided ; that the attention shall be given 
 to applications and examples, especially to examples furnished by 
 the reading and the explication of great writers. It is in this way 
 . that the language with its principal rules, its refinements, and its 
 idioms, is learned much better than in the grammar." 
 
 " The old instruction ought to be replaced by living lessons. 
 The grammar should be reduced to a few simple and short defini- 
 tions, and to a few fundamental rules which are illustrated by 
 examples ; and in proportion as the intelligence of the children is 
 developed, they must be supplied with the finest specimens of our 
 literature. Here they must first be made acquainted with the sig- 
 nification of words, even to their nice shades of meaning, and the 
 succession and connection of ideas ; and later, the inversions and 
 even the bold strokes of genius. In this exercise more depend- 
 ence must be placed on that natural logic and grammar which 
 children carry about with them, than upon the old mass of ab- 
 stractions and formulas with which the memory is harassed \\ it h-
 
 330 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 out profit to the intelligence. Lhomond said a hundred years ago, 
 " Metaphysics is not fit for children, and the best elementary book 
 is the voice of the teacher who varies his lessons and the manner 
 of presenting them according to the needs of those to whom he 
 speaks." 
 
 " The teaching of grammar will henceforth be no longer lim- 
 ited to the purely mechanical study of rules, but these rules will 
 become matter for explanations by the teacher." 
 
 348. THE NECESSITY OF GRAMMAR. It was not left 
 until the nineteenth century to dream of the absolute sup- 
 pression of the grammar in the course of instruction in lan- 
 guage. Nicole, in his book, the Education d'un prince, 
 replied in these terms to the partisans of that illusion : 
 
 " The thought of those who desire no grammar at all is but a 
 thought of indolent persons who wish to spare themselves the 
 labor of teaching it ; and, very far from relieving children, this 
 plan infinitely burdens them, since it takes from them a light 
 which would facilitate the understanding of their lessons and 
 obliges them to learn a hundred times that which it would suffice 
 to learn but once." 1 
 
 Let us pass by the question of indolence, for it would be 
 quite as just to say that the system which consists in putting 
 a grammar into the hands of pupils, and leaving them there 
 to clear up the subject all alone, is a thought of indolent 
 people ; but Nicole is right in holding that grammatical 
 rules, preceded by explanations and illustrated by examples, 
 relieve the mind of the child and economize precious time. 
 Though the intelligence is repelled by abstract principles 
 prematurely imposed upon it, it is disposed of itself to 
 anticipate general rules which sum up its experience and 
 flow naturally from the examples on which it has been 
 
 1 To the same effect Mr. Bain says, " The grammar abridges the 
 labor by generalizing everything that can be generalized."
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 331 
 
 nourished. Here it reposes with pleasure, just as a victo- 
 rious army installs itself in fortresses where it makes sure 
 of its conquest, and whence it dominates the successive 
 advances it has made. 
 
 However elementary the study of language may be, it 
 permits, in our opinion, the knowledge of grammatical 
 rules, which are but the resume of usage, the code of a 
 language definitely fixed. Progress in teaching here con- 
 sists, not in suppressing rules, but in simplifying them, and 
 in reforming the manner in which they are taught. 
 
 349. THE TRUE GRAMMATICAL METHOD. The true 
 grammatical method, according to all that has just' been 
 said, consists in placing the main reliance upon the use of 
 language, and in making the rules flow from examples which 
 the pupil invents for himself, which he finds in books, or 
 which the teacher suggests to him. 
 
 This was the method of the Pere Greard, who made the 
 basis of grammatical instruction the use of the language 
 which the child brings from home ; this use to be completed 
 and corrected at school by the exercises which have taught 
 him to read and write. 
 
 " Let us recollect," he said, " that a multitude of examples re- 
 peated and analyzed is the best code of language, since it intro- 
 duces into rational practice the rules which by another method it 
 would have to prescribe by arbitrary authority." * 
 
 It is^useless to give a name to that method which is the 
 method of reason and good sense ; we do not think that 
 the least progress in the study of language has been made 
 by saying, with certain educators, that it ought to be taught 
 by the " analytico-synthetic method." 
 
 1 Mr. Bain is wrong when he asserts that pupils in general cannot 
 study grammar with profit before the age of ten. " Grammar," he 
 adds, " is more difficult than arithmetic."
 
 332 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 350. THE QUESTION OF TEXT-BOOKS. " If it is possible, 
 no grammar in the hands of pupils," so says the Minis- 
 terial Circular of 1857. We do not think it is proper to go 
 so far, and deprive ourselves of the aid of a book in instruc- 
 tion as important as that of the mother tongue. A book 
 is necessary at least for the pupils of the intermediate and 
 higher courses, a book that is well constructed, which the 
 teacher is to use with discretion and intelligence. 
 
 " Till lately," says M. Breal, " the book was the principal char- 
 acter in the school-room, and the teacher was but the commen- 
 tator on the book. On the contrary, it is through the mouth of 
 the teacher that the children ought at first to know the rules. 
 The book will be consulted as a memento" 
 
 But however disposed we may be to magnify the office of 
 oral explanations, the book is necessary. This is the ad- 
 vice of Mr. Bain, who gives strong reasons to justify his 
 opinion : 
 
 " What is printed is only what is proper to be said by word of 
 mouth ; and if the teacher can express himself more clearly than 
 the best existing book, his words should be written down and 
 take the place of the book. No matter what may be the peculiar 
 felicity of the teacher's method, it may be given in print to be 
 imitated by others, and so introduce a better class of books ; the 
 reform that proposes to do away with books entirely, thus ending 
 
 in the preparation of another book Again, it may be said 
 
 that the children are not of an age to imbibe the doctrines from a 
 printed book, but can understand them when conveyed with the 
 living voice. There is much truth in this, but it does not go the 
 length of superseding the book, which will still have value as a 
 means of recalling what the teacher has said, and as the basis 
 of preparation to answer questions thereon. If a class is to be 
 taught purely viva voce, its progress must needs be very slow." l 
 
 1 Bain, Education as a Science, pp. 344, 345.
 
 THE STUDY OF 1 THE MOTHER TONGUE. 333 
 
 351. QUALITIES OF A GOOD GRAMMAR. Fenelon had 
 indicated with precision the characteristics of a good 
 grammar. 
 
 " A professional grammarian," he said, " runs the risk of com- 
 posing a grammar that is too technical, too full of observations 
 and exceptions. It seems to me that one should limit himself to 
 a short and simple method. At first, give only the most general 
 rules ; the exceptions will come as they are needed. The impor- 
 tant point is to introduce a person as soon as possible into the 
 actual application of rules by frequent use ; afterwards this per- 
 son will take pleasure in noting the special rules which he at" first 
 followed without paying any careful attention to them." l 
 
 After three hundred years, the criticisms and observations 
 of Fenelon are still opportune, and the most competent edu- 
 cators of our day do no more than repeat them. 
 
 "In general," says M. Berger, "the grammars published for 
 pupils are too full of details, and they are not yet affranchised 
 from the plan of the Latin grammars. . . Our grammarians are 
 too fond of classifications and distinctions which have no substan- 
 tial basis. We believe that it would be possible greatly to dimin- 
 ish the extent of our classical grammars, without doing harm to 
 solidity of knowledge in the matter of language. Simplicity, 
 then, is the first quality of a good grammar; and this simplicity 
 should manifest itself by the small number of rules. Too many 
 grammarians still recommend simplicity in form, without con- 
 forming to it in fact ; it is not necessary to distinguish proposi- 
 tions as subjective, completive-direct, completive-indirect, circum- 
 stantial, attributive, etc." 2 
 
 352. HISTORICAL GRAMMAR. We know what a com- 
 plete revolution has been accomplished in grammatical 
 studies by the introduction of the historical method. " The 
 
 1 Lettre aur les occupations de I' Academic fran$aise, II. 
 
 2 See article Grammaire, Die. de Pedagogic.
 
 334 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 traditional grammar," says Michael Breal, " formulated its 
 prescriptions as though they were the decrees of a will as 
 inscrutable as sovereign ; historical grammar casts a ray of 
 good sense into the gloom." It substitutes explanations 
 for simple affirmations ; it explains present usage by ancient 
 usage. 
 
 "What can be more natural," says M. Brachet, "than to make 
 the history of language contribute to the explanation of grammat- 
 ical rules by going back from actual usage to the very moment 
 when they sprang into being ? Besides the advantage of being 
 rational, the historical method has another ; the memory always 
 retains more clearly that of which our mind has taken an account ; 
 and the pupil will recollect the rules of g-ammar so much the 
 better if they have a point of support in his intelligence. This is 
 the method which the Germans, always solicitous to stimulate the 
 judgment of the child, have for a long time employed in their 
 schools for the teaching of the national language." l 
 
 Notwithstanding its interest, it is evident that historical 
 grammar can be introduced only with difficulty into the 
 common school. 
 
 First, the historical grammar of a derivative language, 
 like the French, goes back to the languages from which it 
 has sprung, to the Latin and the Greek; and these lan- 
 guages really are, and ought to remain, dead languages for 
 primary instruction. 2 
 
 On the other hand, the purely national origin of the ver- 
 nacular, the curiosities of the ancient tongue, would involve 
 both teachers and pupils in learned researches which are 
 beyond their sphere. 
 
 So Mr. Bain is right in saying : 
 
 " There is great interest, and some utility, in tracing the course 
 
 1 Brachet, Nouvelle Grammaire fran$aise, preface. 
 
 2 Notwithstanding what has recently been said about it we do not 
 think that the introduction of Latin into the normal schools should 
 be hoped for.
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 335 
 
 of our language from the more ancient dialects ; but this subject 
 may easily run to a disproportionate length in the first stages of 
 English teaching. Present meanings and use are the only guid- 
 ance to the employment of the language ; the reference to archaic 
 forms can sometimes account for a usage, but cannot control 
 it." 1 
 
 353. DICTATION EXERCISES. The dictation exercise is 
 the essential process, the proper use of orthography, which 
 is learned not less by habit and memory than by the study 
 of rules and reasoning. 2 But if dictation exercises are 
 useful, it is on the condition that they are not abused and 
 that they are wisely selected. 
 
 " Too many dictation exercises are required in our schools, and 
 there is too great a disposition to seek out difficult exercises. 
 There are schools where, on the approach of examinations, there 
 is nothing but dictation." 8 
 
 These exercises must not be too long 4 nor too fre- 
 quent, nor should unnecessary difficulties be introduced 
 into them. 
 
 Another important rule is, not to impose on the child dic- 
 tation exercises abounding in words which he has never 
 seen, and which he is obliged to spell at hazard. So, many 
 educators rightly recommend teachers to spell or write on 
 
 1 Education as a Science, pp. 349, 360. 
 
 8 We cannot subscribe to the opinion of teachers who assert that it 
 is useless to require exercises in orthography proper, but that it is suf- 
 ficient to rely upon reading, writing, composition, and grammatical 
 exercises to teach spelling. Especially in the primary schools, where 
 the child is not aided in the study of orthography by a knowledge of 
 Latin and Greek, spelling exercises are required. 
 
 8 Article Orthographic, Dictionnaire de Pedagogic. 
 
 4 In American schools consecutive texts are not generally dictated, 
 but long lists of isolated words, as in the French collection, the 
 Pautex.
 
 336 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the blackboard all the terms in the exercise which the pupil 
 does not know. Orthography is learned mainly through the 
 sense of sight, through the memory of the eyes. 1 
 
 Again, these exercises should correspond to the rules 
 already learned, and should be but the application of them. 
 
 On the other hand, they should not be selected at random, 
 without taking account of the age and the intelligence of 
 children. They ought, like all other exercises, to contribute 
 to the general education of the child. 
 
 Is it necessary to add that they ought always to be cor- 
 rected with care, and that the faults should always be 
 pointed out in connection with the rules which have been 
 violated? It is not necessary to spell all the words in the 
 exercise, but only those which are really difficult. 
 
 354. GRAMMATICAL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS. In the 
 teaching of language the thought of suppressing grammati- 
 cal and logical analysis should not be entertained. An 
 abuse has certainly been made of them, as when a teacher 
 jequires them as routine, mechanical work, devised to get 
 ,id of pupils and to avoid the need of giving attention to 
 ,hem. But analysis is necessary, because for the child lan- 
 guage is but a confused whole, whose various elements he 
 does not distinguish and whose construction he does noft 
 clearly grasp. 
 
 Exercises in analysis may be employed in the form of 
 oral exercises at the blackboard. Analysis made viva voce, 
 
 1 The plan of teaching orthography by writing words seems to be 
 based on the assumption that when we spell a word we reproduce 
 the mental picture of it. On the contrary, it seems to me much 
 more probable that for purposes of spelling our knowledge of words 
 is nothing more than a recollection of the names and order of the 
 letters which compose them. That any mind really carries the 
 mental pictures of the words in an ordinary vocabulary seems to 
 me incredible. (P.)
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 337 
 
 especially at first, is preferable to written analysis. But 
 the thing of chief importance is the choice of tests for 
 analysis. 
 
 The monotonous and interminable analyses which impose 
 on the child the toil of writing more than the toil of reflec- 
 tion, are justly condemned. Their most obvious result is to 
 disgust the pupil with the study. 
 
 " I would have our teachers," says M. Greard, " without depriv- 
 ing themselves entirely of the resources offered by special collec- 
 tions, become moi-e and more accustomed to look for the tests they 
 need in^their dictations in classical works, and to construct their 
 examples, or make their pupils construct them, out of the material 
 furnished by the class instruction. What pages of transparent 
 language, of exquisite thought, and of every variety, moral es- 
 says, descriptions, narratives, letters, does our language contain ! 
 The national history is so rich in striking statements, ready-made, 
 so to speak, to serve as examples in grammar ! Let it be at least 
 on these texts, and on these well-selected examples, that the child 
 be drilled in analysis. That which has contributed to the disfavor 
 into which analysis has fallen, is doubtless, first, the abuse which 
 has been made of it ; but it is also the whimsical and tedious char- 
 acter of the texts to which it has generally been applied, and of 
 the performances to which it has given rise. The use of analysis 
 is necessary if we wish the child to come to a good understanding 
 of the relations of the different terms of a proposition or of a sen- 
 tence. We need oppose only the excess, or the false direction, into 
 which it has fallen, and for this purpose it suffices to make the 
 analysis, for the most pant, at the board, orally, in sparing terms 
 on clear and interesting sentences." 
 
 355. ORDER TO BE FOLLOWED. Educators are not 
 agreed as to the place which should be assigned to gram- 
 matical and logical analysis. The official programme of 
 1882 gives the preference to grammatical analysis ; but 
 many writers, on the contrary, would begin with logical 
 analysis.
 
 338 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " In order to make the analysis of a sentence," says Madame 
 Pape-Carpantier, "we must first make an analysis of the thought 
 which it expresses ; in other terms, a logical analysis, or the study 
 of the ideas and their relations, ought to precede grammatical 
 analysis proper, or the study of words as they are formed into 
 sentences." 
 
 " In the progressive development of the reason," says C. Marcel, 
 " the perception of an object always precedes the consideration of 
 its parts ; and we reach an understanding of our language by pass- 
 ing from the sentence to the words." l 
 
 Among Swiss teachers, on the contrary, there is a ten- 
 dency towards the reverse order, or rather towards sacri- 
 ficing logical analysis completely. 
 
 " In the higher schools," says M. Horner, " if one has time to 
 squander, he might afford the luxury of a few excursions into the 
 desert of logical analysis." 
 
 "We are firm in the belief that logical analysis is useful 
 and necessary, but on the condition that we do not indulge 
 in a terminology too complicated aud too technical, and that 
 in the classification and naming of propositions we choose 
 the simplest and clearest method. 
 
 356. EXERCISES IN INVENTION AND COMPOSITION. The 
 child in the primary school ought to be discreetly drilled in 
 composition, or at least in the elements of composition. 
 
 " Where is the child that would dare flatter himself that he will 
 never have a letter to write, a memorandum to dictate, or a report 
 to draw up?" 
 
 Surely there are such intimate relations between spoken 
 language and written language, that much will already have 
 been done to habituate the child to the work of composition, 
 
 1 L' Etude des langues ramenfe a leur veritable principe, II., p. 26.
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 339 
 
 if, from his entrance into school, he has been made to con- 
 verse, and if, in his recitations and in the object-lessons, he 
 has been steadily required to express himself with correct- 
 ness. But these oral exercises cannot take the place of 
 written exercises. 
 
 Some teachers seem to put exercises in invention and 
 exercises in composition upon the same plane. 
 
 " Ideas," says M. Greard, " do not come of themselves into the 
 child's mind ; he must be taught to find them. Still less do they 
 of themselves take the order and form which they ought to as- 
 sume ; and so he must be taught to compose." 
 
 To tell the truth, we do not think that invention ought to 
 play an important part in school, and the importance which 
 has been given to it seems to us but a reminiscence of 
 secondary instruction. At college it may be proper to train 
 future writers, and in general men who will need to draw 
 original ideas from their own resources ; but at school we 
 must think only of putting future workmen in a condition to 
 express correctly and clearly the ideus which spring naturally 
 and without reflection from the needs and circumstances of 
 life. 
 
 This is why we must not run the risk, with children of the 
 primary school, when we propose to them a subject for com- 
 position, to receive this reply, which often comes to their 
 lips: " I do not know what to say"! Furnish them with 
 the ideas they need, by conversations, by lectures, or at 
 least by the choice of a subject borrowed from their own 
 experience. 
 
 " The first exercises in composition," says Horner, " will consist 
 in reproducing, partly by writing or in recapitulating, the object- 
 lessons. . . . There will next be undertaken a written description 
 of common objects, but this description will always be preceded by
 
 340 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 an oral lesson and followed by a methodical recapitulation upon 
 the blackboard. 
 
 "The first idea of developing a few sentences, four or five at 
 most, on the start, will be furnished by the teacher. Even the 
 scheme of the development will be prepared, and the pupil will 
 be left to fill it in, by pointing out the causes, effects, and acces- 
 sory circumstances of time, place, etc. This sort of theme might 
 also sometimes serve as a text for an exercise in orthography. In 
 whatever way the task is accomplished, if the corrections are 
 made in the class, at the blackboard, and if each pupil furnishes 
 the quota of ideas more or less just, more or less happy, which he 
 has found, the teacher will have an opportunity to compare the 
 contributions one with another, and to call into exercise the judg- 
 ment of all." 
 
 And M. Greard concludes that it is less important to 
 teach children to write than to develop their judgment and 
 their moral sense. We shall not deny this ; but it must 
 not be forgotten that the habit of composing easily, cor- 
 rectly, and if need be elegantly, has also its value, and that 
 it is expedient for everybody. ' ' The first quality of lan- 
 guage," says M. Breal, " is propriety of expression, and it 
 may as properly be required of the workman and the 
 peasant as of the man of letters and the philosopher." 
 Now, it is not merely by making him speak, but also by 
 making him write, that the child is taught to form a correct 
 notion of the meaning of words. 
 
 357. COMPOSITIONS FROM PICTURES. There is now such 
 a desire to facilitate the child's work that resort is often 
 made to refinements, to processes which may have their 
 utility, provided they are not abused. Such is the use of 
 compositions from pictures, an American importation, and an 
 application of intuitive instruction to exercises in composi- 
 tion. In this case the child has but to see and to tell what 
 he sees in the pictures placed before his eyes. But this
 
 THE STUDY OF THE MOTHER TONGUE. 341 
 
 recreative exercise should not be made general, and it will 
 always be much better to describe to children the things 
 themselves, the concrete and living realities. 
 
 A refinement of the same sort is the exercise which con- 
 sists in translating a selection of verse into prose. 
 
 " This exercise," says Cadet, " may at least render the service of 
 marking the distinction between poetical language and ordinary 
 language, in the use of words and the construction of sentences." 1 
 
 As for ourselves, we do not believe that there is any great 
 value in practicing this kind of transposition or of transmu- 
 tation, as Belgian teachers say. It is much better to use 
 simplicity, and require the child to describe a walk which 
 he has taken or an event which he has witnessed. 
 
 358. EXERCISES IN ELOCUTION. Elocution is no less 
 important than composition ; to know how to speak is even 
 more necessary than to know how to write. Hence the 
 importance accorded by Swiss and Belgian teachers to oral 
 exercises. In France, our official programme requires the 
 oral reproduction of short sentences read or explained, then 
 of narratives recited by the teacher, the resume of selections 
 read in the class, the report of lectures, of lessons, of walks, 
 of experiments, and recitals of literary and historical selec- 
 tions. 
 
 359. LITERARY EXERCISES. Without presuming too 
 much, we may assert that the primary school itself will 
 tend more and more to initiate the child into the study of 
 literature, and will inspire him with a desire to continue for 
 life, by personal reading, a pursuit full of attractions. 
 
 It is mainly in the form of lectures given by the teacher, 
 and of recitations given by the pupil, that this instruction 
 
 1 Article Langue Materiielle, in the Dictionnaire de Ptfdagogie.
 
 342 PKAGTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 will be given. To these there might be added literary criti- 
 cisms, which will have the advantage of accustoming the 
 pupil to write, at the same time that they will exercise his 
 taste and bring him into more intimate relation with the 
 beauties of literature. Of course all these exercises should 
 be conducted with discretion. It is especially in the teach- 
 ing of literature that the instructor ought to recollect this 
 reflection of M. Greard : " The object of primary instruc- 
 tion is not to embrace, under the different subjects which 
 it touches, all that it is possible to know, but to learn 
 thoroughly in each of them what no one should be igno- 
 rant of."
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTOKY. 
 
 360. HISTORY IN THE COMMON SCHOOL. Twenty years 
 ago history had not yet gained an entrance into the common 
 schools of France. 
 
 Even in the day of grand projects and at the heroic 
 epoch, I mean under the Revolution, the boldest organizers 
 of the national schools, Talleyrand and Condorcet, had not 
 included history in their programmes. This was because, 
 in the ardor of their struggle against the old regime, and in 
 their enthusiasm, sometimes fanatical, for the new order of 
 things, the early revolutionists had come almost to believe 
 that the history of France dated only from May 5, 1789. 
 Why recall memories of a past forever abolished? Of 
 what use to relate the long history of the French monarchy ? 
 That history had disappeared in the night of August 4, with 
 the abuses and the privileges of the time ! 
 
 But these prejudices have happily disappeared. In 1833 
 M. Guizot introduced history, and particularly the history 
 of France, into the higher common schools; and in 1867 
 another historian, M. Duruy, accomplished the same reform 
 for the benefit of the primary schools. 
 
 361. PURPOSE OF HISTORICAL INSTRUCTION. When the 
 history of France is taught to little Frenchmen, the purpose 
 is surely to develop their patriotic emotions and to train 
 them up in civic virtues. In fact, history is an admirable 
 school of patriotism. By means of it one's country ceases 
 
 343 *
 
 344 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 to be a cold abstraction ; it becomes a real, living being, 
 whose destiny the pupil follows through the centuries, glad- 
 dened, elated by its successes, moved and affected by its 
 reverses. Instructed by the principal events of the national 
 history, familiarized with the names of its illustrious men, 
 the child will believe himself a member of a great family, 
 which he will love the more because he will know it the 
 better. He will feel himself pledged to defend the heritage 
 of his fathers, when he knows at what a costly sacrifice it 
 has been acquired and preserved. He will be ready to 
 imitate the beautiful and noble examples of his ancestors, 
 when a faithful narrative has nourished his imagination 
 with them. 
 
 362. INFLUENCE OF HISTORY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
 MIND. But history offers still other advantages. Even 
 reduced to its simplest elements, and brought within the 
 comprehension of children, it contributes to emancipate the 
 reason and to train the judgment. Between the man igno- 
 rant and narrow, whose thought does not pass beyond the 
 horizon of present events, and him who, moderately in- 
 structed in the history of his country, has some idea of the 
 progress of the ages and of the painful crisis out of which 
 modern France has issued, what a distance, what an abyss ! 
 There are studies of which it may be said that they are the 
 liberators of the spirit ; history, with the sciences, ranks 
 among the first of these. How many belated souls would be 
 relieved of their prejudices if history 5 intelligently studied, 
 presented to them the spectacle of the changes that have 
 been accomplished and of the marvelous transformations 
 that have renewed the face of the world ! How many 
 adventurers and sectaries would be cured of their folly, if 
 they could be sent to the common school for a few months, 
 and in history made to touch with the finger the necessary
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 345 
 
 slowness of social progress ! History teaches patience to 
 those who lack it, and hope to those who grow discouraged. 
 On the one hand, it gives wings to the imagination ; on the 
 other, historical knowledge is as ballast which gives equilib- 
 rium to the spirit and moderation to the judgment. 
 
 363. CHARACTERISTICS AND LIMITS OF THIS INSTRUCTION. 
 It cannot be proposed in the common school to undertake 
 the study of universal history. Here the national history 
 ought to be the single object of instruction. The facts of 
 ancient history or of general history should be introduced 
 only by reason of their intimate relations with the nation's 
 history, and in the same proportion as they explain its desti- 
 nies. It is important, moreover, that the national history 
 be taken up at its beginning in order that it may be con- 
 tinued and carried forward to the end. In American schools 
 the middle age is almost completely ignored. This is well 
 enough for a nation hardly a century old, but it should not 
 be the same with us. Our history is a whole which cannot 
 be divided. In order properly to comprehend the Revolu- 
 tion, we must know the feudal system and the absolute 
 monarchy. We can be indifferent to nothing which our 
 ancestors have done, to nothing which they have suffered. 
 Moreover, the old history of the Middle Age is particularly 
 interesting to the child ; here the picturesque predominates 
 and dramatic incidents abound. 
 
 It is not merely by fragments and detached narratives, 
 but in a regular and consecutive course, that the history of 
 their country in its vast compass should be presented to 
 children. Doubtless with beginners it is well and perhaps 
 necessary to resort at first to anecdotes and biographies ; 
 but as soon as possible we must require the child to follow 
 the inarch of time and teach him the succession of facts in 
 their chronological order.
 
 346 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " Do not proceed at random," says M. Lavisse. " Weave firmly 
 the woof on -which you are to delineate the grand facts and the 
 grand figures of history." 
 
 Complete and regular, the teaching of history ought at 
 the same time to be temperate without ceasing to interest 
 and to please. Especially in the common school it is neces- 
 sary to avoid the dryness of a simple chronological nomen- 
 clature and the diffusiveness of an over-rich erudition. In 
 order to escape fatigue and confusion, the attention must be 
 held to the great facts. 
 
 " Our better teachers," says M. Greard, " know that in history 
 it is the solid framework of great events and of generative ideas 
 that they are to engrave in the intelligence of children, without 
 losing themselves in the details of accessory facts and secondary 
 ideas." 
 
 Finally, without omitting anything essential, the intelligent 
 teacher will know how to choose the facts which deserve more 
 than others to retain the attention and to be more fully 
 related and explained. In his choice he will be guided by 
 the definition given by Voltaire: "Real history is that of 
 the manners, the laws, the arts, and the progress of the 
 human spirit." He will not lose his way, like the historians 
 of former times, in tedious details and descriptions which 
 have no practical value. 
 
 " Supposing even that you had diligently read," says Mr. 
 Spencer, " not only ' The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,' 
 but accounts of all other battles that history mentions ; how much 
 more judicious would your vote be at the next election ? " 
 
 364. FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS OF HISTORY. English 
 teachers are troubled, and not without reason, with the 
 difficulty the child experiences in entering into the world of 
 history, in comprehending its fundamental notions, or what
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 347 
 
 Mr. Bain calls the elements of history. From an early hour 
 the child sees about him hills, valleys, watercourses, plains, 
 villages, and cities ; it will be easy then to initiate him into 
 geographical studies ; but society, the state, public offices, 
 even the idea of the past, these are things which surpass 
 the mind of the child, reduced as he is to his sensations 
 and confined within the narrow circle of the family or of the 
 school. 
 
 Thus English teachers are of the opinion that the teacher 
 of history should first give a short series of lessons, either 
 oral or, better, borrowed from a good book, by means of 
 which he should attempt to make intelligible some of the 
 simple and fundamental ideas of history, as a state, a 
 nation, a dynasty, a monarch, a parliament, legislation, 
 justice, taxes, etc. 1 We cannot too strongly condemn a 
 method like this, which, at the beginning of the study of 
 history, would re-establish the abstractions which have 
 been discarded with such difficulty from the beginning of 
 other studies. Those so-called historical elements are but 
 general notions, of which the child has no need for the 
 understanding of particular facts and for acquiring an 
 interest in a moving narrative. History is pre-eminently a 
 science of facts, and it is especially with children that it 
 must preserve this character. Little by little, and with the 
 child's progress in study, these notions, supported upon 
 facts, will classify themselves. 
 
 365. Two SYSTEMS FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF SUBJECT- 
 MATTER. It is a difficult question to know which is better : 
 the ancient programme, which presented the whole of our 
 national history to the children of the common school three 
 times, proportioning the breadth of the treatment and 
 
 1 Fitch, op. tit., p. 370.
 
 348 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 adjusting the nature of the questions to the child's progress 
 in age and in intelligence ; or the order followed in sec- 
 ondary instruction, which consists in dividing the history of 
 France into several periods, in making several portions of 
 it, each of them being allotted to a different class. 
 
 366. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE ANCIENT 
 SYSTEM. According to the ancient method, the teacher 
 passed over the same road three times, but each time the 
 subject was enlarged ; and it is impossible to deny the 
 advantages of a system which it was wrong to abandon com- 
 pletely. Through the effect of repetition, the facts were 
 better engraved in the memory of the children ; and besides, 
 on this plan, from the elementary course the pupil has 
 an idea, however incomplete it may be, of the general 
 course of the national history. Finally, as they bear three 
 times on the same subjects, the lessons may be skillfully 
 graded and adapted to the age of the pupils. 
 
 But the disadvantages of a triple repetition are not less 
 evident. First, ennui is to be feared ; for in the last two 
 courses there is no longer any surprise; there is nothing 
 absolutely new for the pupil. 
 
 Besides, it is to be feared that the teacher, obliged to 
 exhibit the whole history of France at one view, may not 
 be able to make a leisurely survey of the most important 
 epochs. Now, with children particularly, history is valu- 
 able only through its details. Hence it would seem to be 
 necessary to divide the course into several parts, so as not 
 to oppress the minds of beginners under the weight of a 
 chronology too extended and too complicated. 
 
 367. ACTUAL PROGRAMME. These reflections seem to 
 have inspired the authors of the programme of 1882, who 
 organized the study of history upon a new plan.
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 349 
 
 Below is the text of the actual programmes. It will be 
 noticed that they are very short, that they do not enter into 
 detail, and that they simply fix the distribution of the 
 topics, rightly leaving to the teacher the liberty of moving 
 at his ease within the limits that have been traced for him. 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE : Narratives and familiar conversations 
 upon the most important characters and the principal facts of the 
 national history, up to the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. 
 
 INTERMEDIATE COURSE : Elementary course in the history of 
 France, insisting exclusively on the essential facts since the Hun- 
 dred Years' War. 
 
 HIGHER COURSE : Very summary notions of general history ; 
 for antiquity, Egypt, the Jews, Greece, Rome ; for the middle age 
 and" modern times, great events, studied especially in their rela- 
 tions to the history of France. 
 
 Systematic review of the history of France ; a more thorough 
 study of modern history. 
 
 Presented at first in the form of narratives and anec- 
 dotes, but always in a chronological order, down to the 
 Hundred Years' War, the history of France does not con- 
 stitute a regular exposition, consecutive and didactic, except 
 in the Intermediate Course. It is completed in this form 
 during the two years of the Intermediate Course ; but in 
 the Higher Course it is systematically reviewed from begin- 
 ning to end, and in its most recent periods it is exhaustively 
 studied. 
 
 The actual system is a just medium between the two 
 methods which we have indicated. On the one hand, in 
 the first two courses the history is divided into two parts, 
 from the beginning down to 1328, and from 1328 to the 
 present day. On the other hand the third course, save the 
 addition of some notions on general history, is devoted to a 
 systematic review, and on certain points is exhaustive. 
 
 This mixed system escapes the faults and embodies the
 
 350 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 advantages of the two exclusive systems. As it seems to 
 us, however, it has one great disadvantage, that of keep- 
 ing the youngest children of the school for too long a period 
 on the remotest epochs of our history. 
 
 Is it not to be feared that, expatriated to their ninth year 
 in remote centuries where nothing recalls to them the 
 present, the beginners may not bring to the study of 
 history an interest that is vivid enough? 
 
 368. THE SO-CALLED REGRESSIVE METHOD. This dis- 
 advantage is so real that certain teachers have had the idea 
 of recommending a strange method which in Germany is 
 called the regressive method, and which consists in teaching 
 history backwards, by beginning at the end and ascending 
 the course of the ages. 
 
 "In England, in the primary school," says M. Greard, "the 
 study of history is begun with the contemporary period, for the 
 purpose of giving the intelligence of the child a good grounding 
 in the ideas of the time in which he is called to live." 
 
 This system has had but few imitators in France. I very 
 well know that in geography we start from the village 
 school to radiate little by little over the whole world ; but 
 in history it is impossible to follow the same course. We 
 must resign ourselves to the necessary conditions of each 
 study, and it would be absurd to attempt to invert the 
 chronological order. 
 
 However, let us retain one just and practical idea from 
 this whimsical scheme ; in the teaching of history it will be 
 best as often as possible to compare the past with the 
 present, and to illustrate ancient events by comparisons with 
 contemporaneous events. As some one has said, " In 
 primary instruction every lesson in history should begin 
 with the word formerly, and continue with the word to-day."
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. , 351 
 
 369. GENERAL METHOD TO BE FOLLOWED. The order 
 to be followed is not debatable, it is the order of time; 
 but the method, what shall it be? 
 
 First, let us say that it should not be the same for the 
 different courses. That which is possible and desirable 
 with the most advanced pupils is not always so with the 
 beginners. 
 
 Let us add that the teaching of history, more perhaps 
 than any other, admits a great variety, a great liberty in 
 means. We shall not, however, go so far as to say, with 
 Mr. Bain, "that the teaching of history almost appears to 
 defy method." 
 
 No, there are general rules to be followed, there are 
 accessory processes to be employed ; and the best proof of 
 this is that the men charged with the inspection of schools 
 always find much to censure in what is done in them with 
 respect to the teaching of history. 
 
 370. ORDINARY FAULTS IN HISTORICAL TEACHING. In 
 the Rapports of the Inspectors-General of primary instruc- 
 tion we notice a number of observations relative to the 
 most ordinary defects in the teaching of history. 
 
 "The history is recited, but not understood. Almost every- 
 where history is but a simple repetition. The lesson is explained 
 when it is too late. Pupils recite without comprehending; the 
 explanations are generally insufficient. The teacher is lost in 
 the gloom of the first centuries ; there is absolute silence as to 
 modern times. Hardly anywhere is history brought down to the 
 period when it begins to become the most interesting. The 
 attention is usually restricted to the study of dynasties and the 
 chronology of battles. The teacher seems afraid to take up the 
 history of the Revolution. Questions are much too rare. The 
 lesson is rarely prepared by the teacher. History is generally 
 the subject that is most neglected. Most frequently history is 
 taught only in the higher divisions." (Rapports of 1879, 1880.)
 
 352 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " Too much time is still given to the accounts of battles. 
 Teachers are satisfied with the pure and simple repetition of the 
 text without any development of the subject. History is too 
 much isolated from geography. The course is begun, but is 
 rarely finished. Written review is most often wanting. The 
 study of history, conducted exclusively from the book, remains 
 profitless." (Rapports of 1880, 1881.) 
 
 In a word, history is still too often an exercise of pure 
 repetition, in which the book plays an exclusive part. The 
 teacher does not participate in it sufficiently by oral 
 expositions, by explanations, and by comments. Besides, 
 he lingers too long on the ancient period, and, either from 
 having a poor knowledge of his own times or as a conse- 
 quence of certain scruples, he abridges or even omits the 
 history of the Revolution and of the contemporary period. 
 The accounts of battles weigh more with him than the more 
 useful analysis of institutions and manners. Finally, the 
 processes which are wholly indispensable for good instruc- 
 tion, interrogations and written reviews, are totally 
 neglected. 
 
 371. RECOMMENDATIONS MADE BY TEACHERS. After the 
 complaints of the Inspectors, let us hear the recommenda- 
 tions made by the teaching body itself. All of them are 
 not faultless, but most of them confirm the criticisms of the 
 Inspectors-General, and prove that at least the best of the 
 teaching profession are in accord with the wishes of their 
 superiors. Let us say, in addition, that the following recom- 
 mendations relate only to the elementary division or lowest 
 class : 
 
 " Teaching through sight by means of engravings. Instruction 
 through the explanation of pictures. Pass rapidly over the early 
 periods. Costumes, employments ; comparison by means of draw- 
 ings and pictures of the industries of our ancestors with those of
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTOEY. 353 
 
 to-day. Let history, made as vivid as possible, be taught to chil- 
 dren in the form of biographies or narratives. Instruction in 
 history consists in amusing and instructive anecdotes related by 
 the teacher and repeated by the pupils. Instruction given in the 
 form of object-lessons may and should comprehend only the great 
 facts, the great epochs of our history ; and yet it ought to be 
 integral. Ascend the course of the ages by making history. The 
 teaching of history should be wholly oral. Charts representing 
 the great facts of our national history. A collection of twenty 
 engravings, representing in a very clear and salient manner the 
 principal characters of French history, is a necessity. Instruction 
 in history will be given by means of short narratives, which 
 children will be called upon to reproduce by means of questions 
 prepared in advance. It will serve to develop in children, not only 
 the memory but the judgment, and especially the principal civic 
 virtues." 
 
 372. WHAT MAY BE CALLED INTUITION IN HISTORY. We 
 must have been struck, on reading the preceding extracts, 
 with the importance which competent judges attach to the 
 methods and processes which render the instruction in 
 history interesting and animating. It is not necessary to 
 address the memory alone, although memory is the chief 
 resort in history ; but we must also address the reasoning 
 faculties, and cause events to be comprehended and judged. 
 "It is not of so much importance to know where Mar- 
 cellus died," said Montaigne, " as why it was unworthy 
 of his duty that he died there." Above all, we must speak 
 to the imagination, and, so to speak, resuscitate the past 
 before. the eyes of the child. Let the narrative of the book 
 and the lesson of the teacher have enough relief and color, 
 so that the child may see in some sort the things and the 
 men that are spoken of. 
 
 " Animate your narratives by lively and familiar tones," said 
 Fenelon. "Make all your characters speak ; and children who
 
 354 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 have a vivid imagination will believe they see them and hear 
 them." And to the same effect Guizot wrote : " Historical 
 characters must seem to children real living beings whom they 
 love or hate, whom they esteem or despise." 
 
 To this intuition of the mind, which is the consequence 
 of a well-told narrative, it is not useless to join, when it is 
 possible, a real intuition of the eyes, by showing to the child 
 vignettes and engravings which represent the principal 
 characters and the great scenes of history. 
 
 " Eight or ten well-made engravings," says M. Buisson, " with 
 or without color, teach the children more about the ancient civil- 
 izations than many pages of descriptions. A view of the pyra- 
 mids or of the hypogea of Upper Egypt, an exact reproduction 
 of the monuments, vessels, arms, and costumes of Rome or of 
 Greece, gives a singular animation and support to the narratives 
 of the teacher. It is an object-lesson transported into the most 
 remote past." 1 
 
 However, pictures are but an accessory, and it pertains 
 mainly to the art of the teacher or of the writer to animate 
 the instruction in history and to give the child an interest 
 in it. 
 
 " During the first years," says Madame Pape-Carpantier, " his- 
 tory ought to be presented to children in the form of anecdotes. 
 The facts related ought not only to be chosen from the moral 
 point of view, but presented in an animated and picturesque 
 manner. Let the teacher put into them a little of that action 
 which is recommended to the orator, to the end that his recital 
 may produce a picture in the imagination of his little pupils. 
 In a narrative children love what is dramatic. We should give 
 movement to our characters, make them speak, act, and, in a 
 word, live. ... So far as possible, each detached feature should 
 be accompanied by a sketch of the manners contemporary with 
 the facts related ; for example, the mysterious life of the Druids 
 in the forests which formerly covered the soil of our country." 
 
 1 M. Buisson, L 'Instruction primaire a Vienne, p. 181.
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 355 
 
 373. A LESSON UPON THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. To show 
 how a skillful teacher may succeed in animating a lesson iu 
 history, even on a difficult subject ; in interesting an entire 
 class in it by striking descriptions and by drawings upon 
 the board, and in rendering the past clear and vivid by an 
 incessant appeal to the experience or to the reason of the 
 child, the best course will be to give an example, which we 
 shall borrow from M. Lavisse. 
 
 The following lesson was given at Paris, in the Faubourg 
 Saint Antoine, to a class of children eight years of age : 
 
 "I arrived at the moment when a young teacher began a 
 lesson on the Feudal System. He did not understand his busi- 
 ness, for he spoke of hereditary services and privileges in a way 
 which left the children whom he addressed absolutely indifferent. 
 At that moment M. Berthereau, the director of the school, enters. 
 He interrupts the lesson and appeals to the whole class : " Who 
 is there here who has ever seen a castle of the. Feudal times?" 
 No one replies. The master then speaks to one of these young- 
 inhabitants of the Faubourg Saint Antoine : " Have you never 
 been at Vincennes ? " " Yes, sir." " Very well ; you have seen a 
 castle of Feudal times." A starting-point has now been found 
 in the present. " What sort of a building is this castle ? " Sev- 
 eral children reply in concert. The master selects one of them, 
 leads him to the board and obtains a rough drawing, which he 
 corrects. He marks indentures in the wall. " What is that ? " 
 No one knew. He denned an ^embrasure. "What was the 
 purpose of this ?" Some one finally guessed that this served 
 for defence. " With what did they fight, with guns ? " The 
 greater number, " No, sir." " With what, then ? " A young 
 scholar from the foot of the class cries out, "With bows." 
 " What is a bow ? " Ten reply, " It is an arbalist, sir." The 
 teacher smiles, and explains the difference. He then tells how 
 difficult it was with bows, and even with the military engines of 
 the time, to take a castle whose walls were high and broad ; and 
 continues : " When you are good workmen, and travel on business 
 or for pleasure, you will meet with the ruins of castles." He
 
 356 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 mentions Montlhdry and other ruins in the vicinity of Paris. 
 " In each of them there was a feudal lord. What did all these 
 lords do ? " The whole class replies, " They fought." Then 
 in the presence of these children, no one of whom lost a single 
 word, the master describes a feudal lord, placing the knights in 
 the saddle and covering them with their armor. " But a castle 
 is not taken with cuirasses and lances, and so the war was not 
 finished. And who would suffer most from the war ? Those 
 who had no castles, the peasants who in those times worked for 
 the lord. Then the cabins, belonging to the peasants of the 
 neighboring lord, were burned. ' Ah ! you burn my cabins,' 
 said the lord who was attacked ; ' I will burn yours.' He did 
 so, and burned not only the cabins, but even the harvests. "And 
 what happens when the harvests are burned ? There is a famine. 
 Can people live without eating ? " The whole class : " No, sir." 
 " Then is war very necessary to find a remedy ? " He then speaks 
 of the Truce of God, and adds : " This is truly a singular law. 
 Why, it was said to the brigands, remain quiet from Saturday 
 evening till Wednesday morning, but for the rest of the time 
 do not trouble yourselves, fight, burn, pillage, kill ! Were 
 these people madmen then ? " A voice : " Most certainly." 
 "No; they were not madmen. Pray listen to me. Here are 
 indolent people. I do the best I can to have them work the 
 whole week ; but I would be half-satisfied to have them work 
 till Wednesday. The church would much prefer not to have 
 them fight at all ; but as she could not help it, she attempted to 
 make the lords keep quiet half of the week. Something is always 
 gained in this way. But the church was not successful. There 
 must be force against force, and it was the king who brought all 
 these people to terms."- Then the master explains that the lords 
 were not all of equal rank, and that below the master of such a 
 castle there was a more powerful lord, and one of higher rank 
 living in another castle. He gives a fairly correct idea of the 
 gradations in rank, and at the top places the king. " When 
 people are fighting with each other, who stops them ?" Reply, 
 "The policeman.' 1 "Very well; the king was a policeman. 
 What was done with those who fought and killed somebody ? " 
 Reply : " They are brought to trial." " Very well ; the king
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 357 
 
 was a judge. Can we do without policemen and judges ? " " No, 
 sir." ' " Very well ; the ancient kings were as useful to France as 
 policemen and judges. In the end they did evil, but they began 
 by doing good. What did I say, as useful ? Much more so ; 
 for there were more brigands then than now. These lords were 
 ferocious fellows, were they not ? " The class : " Yes, sir." 
 " And the people, my children, were they any better?" Unani- 
 mous reply, in a tone of conviction : " Yes, sir." " No, no, my 
 children. When they were cowards, the common people were 
 terrible people. They also pillaged, burned, and killed ; they 
 killed women and children. Reflect that they .did not know 
 what was good or what was bad. They had not been taught to 
 read." l 
 
 374. THE BOOK. There is a great distance between 
 this varied and attractive instruction and the method too 
 often in use, which consists in making the pupil read a 
 book, and sometimes making him learn it mechanically by 
 heart. 
 
 As soon as possible the teacher ought to intervene, by 
 familiar conversations in the lower classes, and by a con- 
 secutive exposition with the older pupils. 
 
 However, we do not think of proscribing the book, which, 
 especially in history, is necessary for accuracy in dates and 
 the memory of facts. It would be unwise to abandon the 
 child to the hazards of memory and the possible errors of 
 note-books. 
 
 In default of a special book, as in Germany, it is at least 
 necessary that the reading-book, that " encyclopedia of the 
 common school," should contain among other things the 
 historical notions the knowledge of which is thought to be 
 indispensable. 
 
 Better still are the elementary historical books, com- 
 posed with exclusive reference to the common schools, and 
 
 1 Recite des Deux Mondes.
 
 358 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 similar to those which have been published for several years 
 in France, which avoid dryness, long nomenclatures, gene- 
 alogies, and superfluous details, which give children general 
 impressions, clear views, and a taste for history. 
 
 375. SUMMARIES AND NARRATIVES. An elementary 
 book en history should comprise at least two essential 
 parts, summaries and narratives. 
 
 The summaries should be as complete and at the same 
 time as brief as possible. 
 
 The pupil will learn these by heart , for even in history 
 there is a part for literal recitation to play. The special 
 purpose of these summaries is to assure precision of ideas. 
 They will fix in the child's mind the rigorous succession and 
 order of events. By this means we shall escape the method 
 of scattered anecdotes or of disconnected biographies, which 
 is proper only for little children. 
 
 There should not be too many narratives in an elementary 
 book on history. They ought not to be learned by heart, 
 and should receive only an attentive reading, enlivened 
 by oral explanations, by the interrogations of the teacher, 
 and by the responses of the pupil. It is especially by these 
 narratives that the child will be interested in the study of 
 history ; he will find in them the portraits of great men, 
 sketches of manners, beautiful examples, everything which 
 characterizes the different epochs. 
 
 Of course, besides the summaries and narratives, the book 
 is also composed of a text, more or less complete, in which 
 the events are presented in their order and with the reflec- 
 tions which they suggest. In a less elementary book this 
 text will of itself constitute the whole work. 
 
 376. THE DUTY OF THE TEACHER. It cannot be too 
 often repeated that the teacher plays the principal part in 
 the teaching of history.
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 359 
 
 " It was long ago that Lhamond said that the best book is the 
 living voice of the teacher. For this purpose we do not demand 
 that he profess; for this word suggests the idea of pedantry, 
 and the teacher who listens to his own voice has few chances of 
 making himself heard. Simple and modest explanations, pre- 
 ceded or followed by questions to illustrate them, this is what 
 Lhomond recommended." l 
 
 The teacher ought to explain the book, and comment on 
 it ; but he ought also to do without the book and venture 
 himself to sketch the narrative of an event or of an histor- 
 ical period. Especially in the higher course he will substi- 
 tute the living voice for the dead book, too often not 
 comprehended. If he will prepare himself for this in ad- 
 vance, and know just what he is going to say, and in what 
 order, his oral exposition will be worth much more than the 
 best of books. 
 
 377. THE DUTY OF THE PUPIL. In the study of history, 
 the pupil ought not to be merely a reader or an attentive 
 listener ; he must be made to speak and relate what he has 
 learned from his book or from his teacher. No subject is 
 better adapted to interrogations and to drill in speaking 
 than history. Besides, as Greard recommends, the pupil 
 should be invited to make a summary of the oral lesson. 
 Short written themes and reproductions might also be re- 
 quired of him on the subject which has been studied in the 
 class, so that his own labor may be added to that of the 
 teacher, and the history may not be for him, as it is too 
 often the case, simply the occasion for easy reading, accom- 
 plished with distraction and without real profit. 
 
 378. INCIDENTAL AIDS. The imagination of teachers, 
 and especially that of authors, has multiplied inventions of 
 
 1 M. Greard, L' Knseignement priniaire a Paris. Notwithstanding 
 M. Grdard, it is necessary that the teacher profess, that he be a pro- 
 fessor.
 
 360 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 every sort to facilitate the study of history. In general we 
 count but little on these auxiliary aids, such as synoptical 
 and genealogical tables. Nevertheless, competent educators 
 recommend the use of mural charts. 
 
 Nor are pictures in all their forms to be despised. " It is 
 to be hoped," says M. Buisson, " that popular art, escaping 
 finally from its trivial uses, may become with us, as it 
 already has in other countries, a means of diffusing useful 
 knowledge, and above all that of the national history." 
 
 379. HISTORY AND Civic INSTRUCTION. History is the 
 natural preface to civic instruction, that is, to notions 
 relating to the actual constitution of the society in which the 
 child is called to live. 
 
 " The Americans," says M. Buisson, " teach history in view of 
 political education. Their reading-books contain quite numerous 
 selections relative to the ancient republics. In modern times 
 they dwell particularly on social and political institutions. . . . 
 Themes like the following are assigned to the pupils : A parallel 
 between Pitt and Washington." 
 
 "Certain educators," says M. Braun, "think that his- 
 tory and civic instruction ought to be united, and taught 
 one with the other, one by the other." 
 
 Without going so far as to blend these two subjects, we 
 ought not to forget the relations between them. Instruc- 
 tion in civics can be but the coronation of historical studies ; 
 and while relating with impartiality the history of his 
 country, the teacher will be right in shaping his instruction 
 in view of the political education which is proper to be given 
 to children. 
 
 380. HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY. History has still more 
 intimate relations with geography, and the recital of histori- 
 cal events should not be separated from a description of 
 the country where the events took place. Geography and
 
 THE TEACHING OF HISTORY. 361 
 
 chronology, says an old adage, are the two eyes of history ; 
 and in fact, if we do not know the theatre where men have 
 acted, it is difficult to form a just idea of their activity. 
 
 381. CONCLUSION. Thus understood, history is a truly 
 profitable study and a branch of instruction adapted to 
 children. Let us give ear neither to Jacotot, who denies 
 its utility absolutely, nor to Mr. Bain, who asserts that 
 of all the studies of youth there is none so beset with diffi- 
 culties as history. In order to interest children, it suffices 
 that it is at once " clear and living," according to Guizot's 
 expression, that it appeal at once to their imagination and 
 to their memory. In order that it may be useful to them, 
 it is sufficient that it be regarded above all as a school of 
 morals and of patriotism. Doubtless, it would be assuming 
 too much to demand that the child of the primary school 
 should know, like a philosopher, the causes and connections 
 of events, and that he discern the principles that lie back 
 of facts. It is however necessary, in a certain measure, 
 that for the ordinary child historical instruction should be 
 something besides a simple narration of facts, and that he 
 should be trained to judge of the good and the evil in 
 human actions. " History is not really history," says M. 
 Guizot, " except as we grasp the connection of events which 
 succeed one another, and except it appear in its complete- 
 ness as the evolution of a people." By reflection, then, let 
 us connect the detached narratives with the great facts, and 
 with the great personages which are as the mountain-tops of 
 history ; let us require of the child that the chronological 
 succession of events be clearly fixed in his mind ; let us 
 distinguish the important periods, all this without ceasing 
 to be as simple, as elementary as possible, and while recol- 
 lecting that in history, as in other things, we must know 
 much in order to be capable of teaching a little.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGKAPHY. 
 
 382. PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHICAL STUDIES. Geograph- 
 ical studies are surely making progress in France. We have 
 been so often told that we were the most ignorant people in 
 the world in geography, that our sense of honor has at last 
 been touched, and we have made serious efforts to overtake 
 our neighbors, the Germans. Even in the common school, 
 the teaching of geography is on a quite respectable footing. 
 The reports of the inspectors-general show that there is 
 progress everywhere, that geography is carefully taught, and 
 that this study is perhaps the one that pleases pupils the 
 most. 
 
 This progress is due doubtless, above all else, to the moral 
 effect which recent disasters have produced on our minds. 
 Since the day when our soil was invaded and our territory 
 mutilated by foreigners, who by means of their maps seemed 
 to be at home, we have better understood the importance 
 and the value of geographical studies. 
 
 But this progress is also due to the happy change which, 
 in late years, has profoundly modified the conditions of 
 geographical teaching. For a dry and barren nomenclature 
 of proper names and the repetition of an unintelligible 
 vocabulary, modern pedagogy has substituted a living study, 
 full of attraction, which addresses itself to the senses and to 
 the intelligence ; which brings before the child by vivid and 
 clear descriptions the nook of earth where he was born, the
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 363 
 
 country for which he ought to feel willing to die if need be, 
 and finally the entire earth, where in default of real travel 
 he is happy to be able to make at least imaginary journeys. 
 And at the same time that the general spirit of geographical 
 teaching has been changed, art has placed at its service and 
 introduced into the school new instruments of study, such as 
 globes, maps in relief, wall maps, maps of all sorts, in a 
 word, a complete outfit, which facilitates the task of the 
 teacher and enlivens the work of the pupil. 
 
 383. NEW METHODS : ROUSSEAU AND PESTALOZZI. Of all 
 subjects geography is the one which seems best adapted to 
 the processes of the new pedagogy, to the method which 
 ordains that things shall precede words. Rousseau went so 
 far in this direction that he admitted no other means but 
 travel for learning geography. But here, as always, he goes 
 astray through the exaggeration of a just idea. But he at 
 least defines with wisdom the starting-point of all geograph- 
 ical instruction. 
 
 " For Emile the two first points in geography shall be the 
 city where he lives and the country residence of his father; 
 then the intermediate places, next the rivers in the vicinity. . . . 
 Let him make a map of all this for himself." l 
 
 Pestalozzi, like Rousseau, demanded that the teaching of 
 geography should be connected with the first sensations of 
 infancy. At Burgdorf he made the pupils observe the 
 little tract of country where they lived, not upon a map, but 
 upon the very soil. 
 
 Through the sight of actual things he gave them an idea 
 of hills, mountains, rivers, and of the various geographical 
 features. Then, when the child, through direct intuition, 
 or at least by analogy, by proceeding from the small to the 
 
 1 Emile, Book III.
 
 364 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 great, from the puddle of water to the sea, from a ditch to a 
 river, has acquired a knowledge of the terms in physical 
 geography, Pestalozzi initiated him into political geography 
 by analogous methods. Taking as a starting-point the 
 family residence, he thence directed the children's attention 
 to the village, the church, the school-house, the mayor's 
 office, the route which led to the city, the city itself, and to 
 the magistrates who resided there. Finally, proceeding to 
 mathematical geography, he placed the pupil in presence of 
 astronomical phenomena and made him observe the rising 
 and setting of the sun, the Great Bear and the Pole-star ; 
 thus he drilled him in finding the points of the compass, and 
 determining the position of one place through its relation to 
 another. 
 
 384. DEFINITION OF GEOGRAPHY. It would not be exact 
 to say, with an American author, that " Geography is not so 
 much a science in itself, as it is a collection of matter 
 belonging to a number of sciences." 1 
 
 On the contrary, the object of geography is perfectly 
 definite, it is the description of the surface of the earth; 
 it studies everything that relates to the form of our globe, 
 and to the exterior and superficial phenomena of the earth ; 
 though it must be admitted that certain geographers, taking 
 advantage of the fact that their science has some sort of 
 relation to everything, extend their domain perhaps beyond 
 all proper bounds. Geography has such intimate relations 
 with several other sciences that a natural tendency impels 
 the geographer to pass the frontier which separates it from 
 them. 
 
 On the pretext that watercourses are fed by the rain, 
 geography ought not to permit itself to become a course in 
 physics and in meteorology. Because the description of the 
 
 1 Wickersham. Methods of Instruction, p. 367.
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 365 
 
 soil affords an indication of the nature of the rocks, geog- 
 raphy must not be confounded with geology. And so with 
 botany, zoology, and political economy ; we must not take 
 advantage of their relations with geographical studies, to 
 trespass upon their peculiar domain. 
 
 This caution has not always been observed. Thus Mr. 
 Bain takes as a starting-point in the study of geography 
 a series of lessons upon tools and instruments, minerals, 
 plants, and animals. In our opinion, geography must not be 
 encumbered with these parasitic notions which have only an 
 indirect relation to its proper object. 
 
 But we would not forbid the teacher of geography to make 
 any incursion on the subjects that border on the study of 
 geography itself. It is both profitable and interesting to 
 enrich this subject in every way possible, as by giving an 
 explanation of the facts which it relates, or by giving ani- 
 mation to the instruction by interesting and fruitful com- 
 parisons. 
 
 385. THE UTILITY OF GEOGRAPHY. First, geography 
 pursues the same end as history. If, so to speak, the his- 
 tory of France is the soul of the country, the national 
 geography is its body. In its way it teaches patriotism by 
 making known the territory of the country, and the frontiers 
 that have been lost and those that have been saved ; and by 
 making the child love the beautiful soil of France, its agree- 
 able and temperate climate, and the natural riches that make 
 it a privileged country. 
 
 The Pere Girard, in his Explication du plan de Fribourg, 
 exhibited, though with some exaggeration, the moral bear- 
 ings of geography. 
 
 " Geography," he said, " is marvelously adapted to this sublime 
 purpose. . . Let the reader judge of this from the following 
 essay. As an harmonious whole, it is an introduction to social
 
 366 ' PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 life, which speaks to the sense and to the mind, and which surely 
 ought to say something to the heart. It is calculated to inspire 
 love of country and the emotions which are associated with it." 
 
 However, let us not overstate the case and say that the 
 principal aim of geographical instruction is to develop the 
 intelligence and the heart, ' ' to stimulate the religious senti- 
 ment." No ; geography is chiefly valuable on the score of 
 its practical utility. It furnishes the future artisan with the 
 necessary knowledge, the positive notions, which he will need 
 in his trade or industry. Besides, it has the merit of intro- 
 ducing the mind to the world of science proper, and of reveal- 
 ing to it some of the laws of nature. 1 
 
 386. DIVISION OF GEOGRAPHY. Everybody understands 
 the distinction between physical geography and political 
 geography. 
 
 Physical geography, says the Dictionnaire of Littre, is the 
 description of the earth with respect to the division of its 
 surface into continents, oceans, valleys, mountains, etc. 
 
 Political geography is the description of the earth with 
 respect to societies and states. 
 
 In other terms, physical geography studies the natural 
 features of the earth, while political geography adds to these 
 the consideration of the work of man, the description of the 
 inhabitants, of their industries, and of their social life. 
 
 It is evident that the study of physical geography should 
 precede that of political geography, but it may be profitable, 
 even in an elementary course, to unite the two subjects, were 
 it only to create an interest. 
 
 " Ordinarily, physical geography is sharply distinguished from 
 political geography. This separation is a mistake, and hardly 
 
 1 For a somewhat different yiew of the value of geography, see 
 Appendix D.
 
 IHE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 367 
 
 facilitates the process of learning quickly and well. On the 
 contrary, the practice of teaching proves that physical and polit- 
 ical details are mutually complementary and helpful, and that 
 the former aids in retaining the latter, and vice versa." * 
 
 There is still to be distinguished astronomical geography, 
 which is a description of the earth with reference to the 
 heavens, the climates, and the seasons ; and economic geog- 
 raphy, which treats of the industrial productions of each 
 country, of agriculture and commerce. But the first may, 
 in a sense, be connected with physical geography, and the 
 second with political geography. 
 
 Mr. Bain gives a very high significance to physical geog- 
 raphy, which holds an intermediate place, he says, between 
 the ordinary geography and the higher sciences, physics, 
 chemistry, meteorology, botany, zoology, and geology. It 
 introduces considerations of cause and effect into geographi- 
 cal facts, by selecting and stating in empirical form the prin- 
 ciples methodically taught in the regular and fundamental 
 sciences. 
 
 "A course of physical geography is subsequent and sup- 
 plementary to proper geography," - which Mr. Bain calls 
 descriptive geography, " while reacting upon it in a way 
 that causation operates upon the knowledge of facts." 2 
 
 M. Buisson has eloquently characterized the scope of an 
 advanced instruction in physical and political geography. 
 
 "Through the progress accomplished in their respective domains 
 by the physical and natural sciences, and also by the historical 
 and political sciences, geography neither is nor can be any longer 
 an isolated and restricted science. It does not merely describe, 
 but it explains. The sight of actual phenomena suggests both 
 for the past and for the future the most fruitful inductions : irreg- 
 ularities of surface, which were formerly regarded as so many 
 
 1 M. Foncin, Le Deuxiemc A nnc'e dc geographic. 
 
 2 Education as a Science, p. 279.
 
 368 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 freaks of nature, have found their laws, their causes, their place, 
 in one universal harmony. The whole surface of the earth be- 
 comes a living and moving world, and the monotony or the 
 disorder which ignorance saw in them gives place to lofty gen- 
 eral conceptions, as important for their practical applications as 
 for their scientific import. It is no longer required to retain 
 names, but to grasp grand phenomena, both in their aggregate 
 and in their details. It is the physiognomy of a whole oro- 
 graphic relief, of a whole hydrographic system, which must be 
 considered; it is the structure and the configuration of each 
 region which must be grasped in order to connect with them the 
 innumerable phenomena which depend upon them, and no one 
 of which is a thing of chance, from the peculiarities of soil and 
 climate to those of the fauna and the flora which are there de- 
 veloped. 
 
 When we come to know in this way the physical theatre where 
 human activity is to be displayed, is there anything richer in the 
 way of instruction than historical, political, and statistical geog- 
 raphy? The moment we enter upon this science, the study con- 
 stantly presents a double movement, that which is exercised on 
 man by the situation, climate, form, and nature of the country 
 where he lives, and in return that which man displays for modi- 
 fying all these circumstances, for opposing them, or for making 
 use of them for deriving profit from the earth and the soil, the 
 air and the sea, according to the degree of intelligence and energy 
 with which he is endowed. Thus the study of geography is not 
 divorced from that of civilization ; it is a sort of universal mon- 
 ument, on which is engraved in all its striking episodes, from the 
 age of caverns and lake-dwellings to the hour in which we now 
 live, the history of the influences of nature on man, and of the 
 conquests of man over nature. It is of this science, thus under- 
 stood, that Herder was able to say with exultation, ' Charge 
 geography with aridity 1 We might as well charge the ocean with 
 dryness.' " l 
 
 387. WHY THIS STUDY SHOULD BEGIN EARLY. As Nicole 
 1 L'Instruction primaire a Vienne, p. 185.
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 369 
 
 had already remarked, "Geography is a study very proper 
 for children ; " first, because it depends greatly upon the 
 senses ; then, because it is really entertaining ; finally, be- 
 cause it requires no reasoning, which is well-nigh lacking 
 at that age. 
 
 Let us add that other studies cannot dispense with geog- 
 raphy. History and geography should go hand in hand. 
 
 On the contrary, it is Mr. Bain's opinion that the study of 
 geography should be delayed, on the ground that geographi- 
 cal notions involve the faculty of pure conception, that is, 
 of the representative imagination, without any appeal to 
 emotion and sentiment. But, in opposition to Mr. Bain, we 
 think that the faculty of concrete conception is highly devel- 
 oped in the child, and besides, that it is possible to give a 
 living interest to the study of geography. 
 
 388. Two METHODS POSSIBLE. In history we raised the 
 question whether it was best on the start to give the child 
 a general view of the course of the centuries, or to proceed 
 by partial studies and by periods. Likewise in geography it 
 is a question whether it is better at first to give a general 
 idea of the whole world, or to concentrate the beginner's 
 attention exclusively on the geography of his own country, 
 and not undertake the geography of Europe and the globe 
 till a later period. 
 
 The reply cannot be doubtful. The point of departure in 
 geographical instruction is certainly in the study of local 
 geography. Between the ancient system, which first studied 
 the globe, which began where we ought to finish, as Pere 
 Greard said, and the new method, which starts from the vil- 
 lage or the city where the pupil lives, and extends from 
 place to place till it finally embraces the entire earth, there 
 can be no hesitation in our choice. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the child must not be kept too long
 
 370 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 on these preparatory studies. The teaching of geography, 
 that is, a science whose object is the description of the 
 earth, would not respond to its definition nor to its purpose, 
 if the child were not placed as soon as possible in the pres- 
 ence of the earth. General geography ought to be united 
 and combined with local geography. All portions of geog- 
 raphy are in some sort co-ordinate, while the periods of 
 history, to a certain extent, are independent one of another. 
 Hence a profound difference in the methods to be followed. 
 
 " After the preliminary notions drawn from the child's knowl- 
 edge of the department, and before he enters upon a detailed 
 study of France, I would have the teacher," says M. Levasseur, an 
 authority on this subject, " with globe in hand, give in a few 
 hours a general idea of the form of the earth and of its oceans 
 and continents. It is important that the child should clearly 
 know what place France occupies in Europe, the situation of 
 Europe upon the globe, and what the form of the earth is." 1 
 
 389. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY. The centre of geographical 
 instruction in the common school ought to be our own coun- 
 try. In French schools, France is the point of departure 
 and the goal of the geographical excursion which is pro- 
 posed to the child ; but there are rightly added to this 
 general notions of the geography of Europe and of other 
 parts of the world, just as in history the national history is 
 completed by some notions of general history. 
 
 And as in history it is necessary for real mental enlighten- 
 ment to compare the present with the past, so in geography 
 it is well to institute frequent comparisons between one's own 
 country and foreign countries. 
 
 " Tell the pupil that France produces seventeen million tons 
 of coal a year, and he yawns and at once forgets the number ; 
 but tell him that France produces only one-eighth as much coal 
 
 1 As to sequence in the study of geography, see Appendix A.
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 371 
 
 as England, and he understands you, and, as a Frenchman, is 
 touched to the quick." 
 
 390. THE CORRECT METHOD. Then let us follow the 
 method which consists in starting from the village school, 
 but on the condition that we do not forget to go farther. A 
 teacher may halt so long in giving details on the commune 
 and the canton that at the end of several months he has not 
 gone beyond them. As soon as possible the instruction in 
 geography should open vast horizons to the child, and ex- 
 tend his vision over the entire world. 
 
 " Certainly," says M. Elisee Reclus, " we must always take as a 
 starting-point what the child sees ; but does he see nothing more 
 than the school and his village? That is the tip of his abode; 
 he also sees the infinite heaven, the sun, stars, and moon. He 
 sees the storms, the clouds, the rain, the distant horizon, the 
 mountains, the hills, the downs or simple undulations, and trees 
 and shrubs. Let him attentively notice all these things, and let 
 them be described to him. This is the real geography, and to 
 learn it the child has not to go beyond the things which surround 
 him, and which are exhibited to him in their infinite variety." 
 
 To-day the method of geographical teaching seems to be 
 everywhere established in accordance with this spirit. Mr. 
 Bain says "that geography, after arithmetic, is the study 
 that is most advanced in respect of method." This method 
 may be defined as follows : 
 
 " The teacher will speak to the children principally of the 
 things they have seen. After a rain he will show them the 
 ravines which the water has worn in the sand of the yard, the 
 manner in which this water forms lakes, surrounds islands, de- 
 scends slopes in thin streams which finally unite to form large 
 brooks farther down, and explain to them how they have before 
 their eyes a picture in miniature of rivers and of their affluents. 
 
 " He will make them notice that the sun illumines the school iu
 
 372 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 a different way morning and evening, and will teach them to 
 know ths points of the compass and to find their bearings. 
 
 " He will trace for them the plan of the school on the board, and 
 accustom them to distinguish what is at the right from what is 
 at the left, what is in front from what is in the rear. He will 
 not fear to insist on this process, to measure if need be, in the 
 presence of the children and with their aid, the length of the 
 walls, the width of the court and the garden, and to record these 
 measurements on the board. He will also trace a plan of the 
 neighborhood of the school, or even of the village, and will have 
 attained his purpose in this respect when his pupils are capable 
 of showing upon this plan, with the pointer, the road which must 
 be followed to go from the church to their homes." 
 
 391. THE FUNCTION OF MEMORY. Formerly geography 
 was recited ; to-day it is at the same time told and shown. 
 It is told, that is, the teacher gives an exposition of the 
 subject : he gives a lesson in geography as he does in his- 
 tory. It is shown, that is, an incessant appeal is made, 
 either to the very reality or to a picture of it reproduced by 
 maps. 
 
 "With very young children," says M. Levasseur, "the teacher 
 will scarcely indicate the relations of cause and effect, which or- 
 dinarily surpass the ability of a nascent intelligence ; he will 
 rely on descriptions, and he will cause the different conceptions of 
 geography to be understood, as much as possible by pictures, by 
 sensible forms, and whenever possible by the sight of the objects 
 themselves and by familiar examples." 
 
 However, there is a part for memory to play ; in all grades 
 of geographical study there are things which the child ought 
 to be capable of reciting. As the multiplication-table is 
 not learned without a mechanical and habitual use of the 
 memory, so we cannot dispense with learning by heart the 
 names of geographical positions.
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGKAPHY. 373 
 
 " The teaching of the geographical nomenclature seems to us to 
 be one of the three principal points in the study of geography, and 
 this nomenclature ought to be learned by heart. We first cause 
 the word to be learned, without which the precision of the idea 
 would be lost; but let us illustrate this nomenclature by such 
 notions as will give to each word a fit idea." 1 
 
 Of course these words, at the same time that they are 
 intrusted to the memory, ought to be localized on the map 
 by the imagination of the child. 
 
 392. MAPS IN GENERAL. Geography has always been 
 learned by the aid of maps ; but it is particularly in our 
 time that the process of map-making has been perfected and 
 really adapted to the needs of the child. 
 
 " Means of expression in geography," says M. Buisson, " are be- 
 coming perfected so rapidly that before long the entire ancient 
 system of cartography will be no more than a dead language." 2 
 
 Without entering into details which would be appropriate 
 in a complete study of the subject, and which will be found 
 in special works, let us indicate at least a few essential 
 points. 
 
 We must first distinguish ready-made maps which are 
 shown to the pupil from those which he is required to pre- 
 pare for himself. 
 
 Ready-made maps are either maps in atlas form or wall- 
 maps. 
 
 393. MAPS IN ATLAS FORM. These maps are made to 
 be seen near at hand and to give detailed information ; but 
 there is danger, however, of placing too much upon them, 
 and of multiplying the signs so as to prevent a clear and 
 
 1 Article Geographic, in the THctionnairc de P<fdfigogie. 
 
 2 IS Instruction primaire a Vienne, p. 186.
 
 374 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 definite view. The best will be the simplest and the clear- 
 est. The most scientific and the most beautiful are not 
 always the most useful from an educational point of view. 
 
 The custom has now been introduced of no longer separat- 
 ing the map from the text ; but separate atlases should not 
 be discarded. 
 
 394. WALL-MAPS. Wall-maps are not less necessary 
 than maps in atlas form. They are made to be seen at a 
 distance, to give contours, broad lines, and general views. 
 They are especially designed to call into play the faculties 
 of the child, his memory and his reason. It is on the 
 smaller maps that he first learns geography ; but it is on 
 the wall-map that the pupil is interrogated, and this is why 
 certain geographers think that this study-map ought by pref- 
 erence to be unlettered. It is with the same intent that on 
 German wall-maps the names of rivers and mountains are 
 written in very small characters, so that pupils cannot read 
 them mechanically and are obliged to recognize them by 
 their form and position. 
 
 "Wall-maps," says M. Buisson, "are the most important geo- 
 graphical apparatus of the primary school. The Germans have 
 seen sooner than we have all the importance which is to be as- 
 cribed to them. The great physical maps of the five divisions of 
 the world, by Von Sydow, have made an epoch in geographical 
 teaching; they have proved that we can place within the range 
 of the schools a graphic representation, at once compendious 
 enough to be very striking and scientific enough to give of each 
 important division an exact, if not complete, idea." 1 
 
 395. RELIEF MAPS. The services which can be rendered 
 by relief maps are universally recognized. " What is done 
 on ordinary maps may be done at least with as much advan- 
 
 1 L' Instruction primaire a Vienne, p. 196.
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 375 
 
 tage on relief maps representing the different geographical 
 features, or merely those of such or such a country." * 
 
 Of course we must be on our guard against exaggeration 
 in such matters. Ingenuity has taken hold of relief maps, 
 and has often made of them a fancy article, purely conven- 
 tional, a plaything rather than an instrument of study. 2 
 
 But, with these reservations, it is undeniable that relief 
 maps are the best of all for giving the child an exact idea of 
 the country, for raising him to the conception of the reality 
 of which the map is but a picture. 8 
 
 396. MAPS DRAWN BY THE PUPIL. The first thing to do, 
 and it is not without difficulty, is to teach pupils to read the 
 map and to find their own place upon it. The official pro- 
 gramme recommends that in the elementary course there 
 be simply given an idea of the mode of representation by 
 maps and that the child be drilled in the reading of plans 
 and maps ; but for the intermediate and higher courses, it 
 demands exercises in map-drawing on the blackboard and 
 on paper, without tracing, and also exercises in map- 
 drawing from memory. 
 
 These exercises need no justification. They train the 
 pupil's hand, they are a preparation for drawing, and are 
 the most direct means of fixing geographical facts in the 
 mind. 
 
 " The drawing of maps," says Mr. Bain, " impresses a 
 country, just as copying a passage in a book impresses the 
 author's language and meaning." 
 
 But care must be taken not to make a misuse of exercises 
 in map-drawing, the first defect of which, when indiscreetly 
 
 1 Conduite des fcoles chrrtiennes, p. 69. 
 
 2 The most valuable helps to geography are models, and if these 
 could be multiplied in schools the conceptions of the general form of 
 countries would be vastly enhanced. (Bain, op. cit., p. 276.)
 
 376 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 employed, is to take altogether too much time. Specialists 
 recommend that there be required only map-drawings but 
 slightly complicated and comprised within natural limits ; 
 this last recommendation excludes maps which represent 
 only an isolated department. 
 
 397. THE GLOBE. The inventive art of our contempo- 
 raries has devised even globes in relief ; but these attempts 
 " seem destined," says M. Buisson, " to give intuitions that 
 are grossly false," without any advantage to compensate for 
 this greater disadvantage. 
 
 It is otherwise with ordinary globes, which render impor- 
 tant services to instruction. 
 
 " Besides cosmographic notions, the indispensable complement 
 of geography, there is a mass of large comparisons between seas, 
 continents, divisions, and configurations of the earth's surface, 
 which are almost impossible without the frequent use of the 
 sphere." l 
 
 398. TEXT-BOOKS. " Formerly," says M. Buisson, 
 " these were the principal means of instruction. Geogra- 
 phy was taught from a compendium of a few pages bristling 
 with proper names, and calculated to repel the mind the 
 most thirsty for knowledge." However, the text-book must 
 not be absolutely proscribed ; it is sufficient to reduce the 
 importance which it had in the old methods. It is especially 
 necessary that it be well written, that the text always be 
 illustrated by a map placed on the opposite page, and if 
 need be by illustrations. The Americans have brought into 
 fashion, and the French have copied from them, these ele- 
 mentary books in which the child finds, along with the defini- 
 tion of geographical terms, a gulf, an island, a cape, a 
 mountain, at the same time delineated in a picture and rep- 
 resented on a small map. 
 
 1 Sclirader.
 
 THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY. 377 
 
 399. THE FUNCTION OF THE TEACHER. In geography, as 
 in other subjects, the voice of the teacher is the great teach- 
 ing instrument. It impresses on the intelligence of the 
 pupil the first decisive impetus ; it illustrates the points 
 that are obscure, and gives animation to the instruction. 
 But the oral exposition of geographical notions has special 
 need of being sustained by a collection of school apparatus, 
 by the geographical aids of which we have attempted to give 
 an idea. 
 
 400. CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS. Let us here collect for 
 the teaching of geography, as we have done for the other 
 branches of instruction, some of the critical observations of 
 the inspectors-general. 
 
 " Geography is made an exercise of the memory. Instruction 
 is given from the book, and not from the map. Geography is 
 regarded as hardly more than a knowledge of names. Enough 
 geographical sketches are not made on the blackboard. The 
 study of geography generally begins too late. Sufficient use is 
 not made of the globes which adorn the teacher's room or remain 
 covered with dust. Pupils do not know what latitude and longi- 
 tude are. Too much stress is put on geographical terms, which, 
 instead of being presented to the child in succession, and to meet 
 the wants of each lesson, are taught in a mass before going to 
 anything else." 
 
 Finally, geography ought to become more and more a 
 knowledge of things, and not, as it formerly was, a knowl- 
 edge of words. It ought to be a prolific mine of positive 
 knowledge, which gives the child information, not only on 
 the natural features and physical phenomena of his country, 
 but also on its industrial resources and its economic phe- 
 nomena. Moreover, it will not limit its instruction to the 
 sentimental frontiers of France. In a time when the coun- 
 try is making great efforts to develop its colonial power and
 
 378 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 its territories beyond sea, it is right and it is necessary that 
 geography should make known to the sons of our working- 
 men and peasants the physical and economical resources of 
 distant countries. By this means there will be developed 
 among some of them a taste for travel and colonial enter- 
 prises, and our possessions will not remain colonies without 
 colonists.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 
 
 401. THE TEACHING OP THE SCIENCES IN THE COMMON 
 SCHOOL. Instruction in the sciences has been noticeably 
 enlarged and developed in the programme of our common 
 schools. At all times arithmetic has been taught in them, 
 and constituted, with reading and writing, the three elements 
 of the old instruction; but to-day the programme comprises, 
 besides arithmetic, geometry, and also the ordinary elements 
 of the physical and natural sciences. 
 
 402. IMPORTANCE OF ARITHMETIC. Belgian teachers 
 count no less than twelve distinct results from the teaching 
 of arithmetic. Without desiring to adopt an enumeration so 
 complicated and so pedantic, we call attention to the fact 
 that arithmetic, of all the subjects taught in the school, is 
 the one that contributes most to the training and develop- 
 ment of the faculties of reflection, and particularly the 
 reason. Doubtless grammar, history, and geography, when 
 well taught, may co-operate in this education ; but while 
 they call into exercise the reason only occasionally and acci- 
 dentally, we may affirm that arithmetic gives it constant 
 exercise. 
 
 The abstract sciences in general, proceeding by trains of 
 reasoning and rigorous demonstrations, have the farther 
 advantage of compelling the mind not to be satisfied with 
 mere words. They accustom it to demand perfect clearness, 
 
 absolute precision, logical and concise sequence. 
 
 379
 
 380 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 " Mathematics . . . has a marked and peculiar method or char- 
 acter ; it is by pre-eminence deductive or demonstrative, and exhib- 
 its in a nearly perfect form all the machinery belonging to this 
 mode of obtaining truth. Laying down a very small number of 
 first principles, either self-evident or requiring very little effort to 
 prove them, it evolves a vast number of deductive truths and 
 applications, by a procedure in the highest degree mathematical 
 and systematic. Now, although it is chiefly in the one domain of 
 Quantity that this machinery has its fullest scope, yet, as in every 
 subject that the mind has to discuss there is a frequent resort to 
 the deductive, demonstrative, or downward procedure, as con- 
 trasted with the direct appeal to observation, fact, or induction, 
 a mathematical training is a fitting equipment for the exercises of 
 this function. The rigid definition of all leading terms and no- 
 tions ; the explicit statement of all the first principles ; the onward 
 march by successive deductions, each one reposing on ground 
 already secured ; no begging of either premises or conclusions ; no 
 surreptitious admissions ; no shifting of ground ; no vacillation in 
 the meanings of terms ; all this is implied in the perfect type 
 of a deductive science. The pupil should be made to feel that he 
 has accepted nothing without a clear and demonstrative reason, 
 to the entire exclusion of authority, tradition, prejudice, or self- 
 interest." 1 
 
 Of course it is principally an advanced course in mathe- 
 matics which admits of these characteristics and assures 
 these advantages to the general training of the mind ; but 
 even in its elementary stage the study of the mathematics 
 will result on the start in imposing on the pupil a great con- 
 centration of attention ; for in mathematical truths there 
 is complete interdependence and connection, and a single 
 moment of inattention causes the whole fruit of previous toil 
 to b6 lost. Besides, the rigorous character of mathematical 
 demonstration accustoms the" pupil not to take up with 
 words, not to yield except on proof. There is no better 
 
 1 Bain, Education as a Science, pp. 148, 149.
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 381 
 
 school for teaching order, precision, and at the same time 
 continuity aud rigor in thinking. 1 
 
 403. PRACTICAL UTILITY OF ARITHMETIC. But without 
 speaking longer of the advantages of arithmetical study con- 
 sidered as a mental discipline, it is evident that this instruc- 
 tion is indispensable by reason of its practical utility. To 
 know how to compute is but little less necessary than to 
 know how to read and write. Even ignorant peasants who 
 can do without reading to no great disadvantage, cannot do 
 without making simple calculations as to their expenses, the 
 wages they ought to receive, the sacks of wheat which they 
 have to sell, and the animals which they tend. Computation 
 is of daily and universal use. 
 
 404. THE CHILD'S TASTE FOR NUMBERS. We might 
 think that on account of their general character of abstrac- 
 tion, exercises in number would not suit the taste of the 
 child, fond above all else of sense perceptions. But this is 
 not so. 
 
 " In the large number of classes of very different grades which 
 it has been our privilege either to inspect or to visit, we have often 
 observed that arithmetic was one of the things with reference to 
 which the child manifested the most vividly that joy in learning 
 which comes to him so naturally, when we do not carefully spoil it 
 by throwing around him things that are difficult and incoherent." 2 
 
 1 " Numbers," says M. Frieh, " is a positive science, and there are 
 no two different ways of conceiving its primal elements. In it every- 
 thing is fixed and invariable, so that the wisest mathematician and the 
 youngest pupil of a primary school find the same result by employing 
 exactly the same process. What is particularly remarkable in the 
 science of numbers is that everything is related and connected with 
 a precision that is perfect ; one notion prepares for another, and one 
 principle gives rise to another." 
 
 2 Mademoiselle Chalamet, op. cit., p. 106.
 
 382 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 405. THREE COURSES IN ARITHMETIC. In all the grades 
 of the common school the programme requires exercises in 
 mental and written arithmetic ; but it distributes the matter 
 of instruction progressively, reserving theory mainly for the 
 higher course. 
 
 In the elementary course the four rules may be applied 
 intuitively to numbers that do not exceed 100. So much for 
 mental arithmetic. The tables of addition and multiplica- 
 tion are studied. For written work pupils are drilled on the 
 first three rules by the use of whole numbers. Division is 
 limited to divisors which contain no more than two figures. 
 Simple problems, oral or written, complete the instruction. 
 
 In the intermediate course, after a review, which is par- 
 ticularly necessary in arithmetic, in a science where sequence 
 is so important, the division of whole numbers is learned ; 
 the study of fractions is begun ; the four rules are applied 
 to decimal numbers ; and the legal system of weights and 
 measures is studied. It is more and more required that the 
 problems give rise to rational solutions. 
 
 In the higher course, a new review with more marked 
 attention to theories and to the reasoning process, the metric 
 system is thoroughly learned. The most difficult parts of the 
 arithmetic are taken up, such as prime numbers, the divisi- 
 bility of numbers, prime factors, and the greatest common 
 divisor. The methods of reduction to unity, applied to 
 the solution of problems in interest, discount, etc., are also 
 studied. 
 
 406. GENERAL METHOD. Intuitive in its early stages, 
 and practical at every step in its development, such ought 
 to be the instruction in arithmetic in the common school. 
 The method of study in this science is henceforth fixed, and 
 Mr. Bain could say that " the method of teaching arithmetic 
 is, perhaps, the best understood of any of the methods con- 
 cerned with elementary studies."
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 383 
 
 Let us add, that without ceasing to be practical the method 
 in arithmetic should tend to give children a rational knowl- 
 edge of the science of computation. It is not enough for 
 the child to be mechanically drilled in the operations of 
 arithmetic ; it is necessary that he comprehend them, that 
 he render to himself an account of them. By this means he 
 will not only compute better and more surely, but his mind 
 will at the same time be strengthened and refined. " Par- 
 ticularly in arithmetic, to comprehend is to apprehend." 
 
 The first requirement is that the child gain an exact idea of 
 number, an idea which is complete only when it contains 
 the ideas of augmentation and diminution, of addition and 
 subtraction. 
 
 407. MATERIAL AIDS. As a means of making a begin- 
 ning in numeration, educators recommend the use of small 
 pieces of wood. As a matter of fact, all concrete objects 
 are adapted to this purpose, and the choice is unimportant. 
 The essential thing is, not to plunge the child all at once into 
 the study of abstract numbers, but to resort at first to in- 
 tuition, to intuitive computation ; and for this purpose real 
 objects should be employed, placed in the hands of the 
 child, or points and lines drawn on the blackboard and pre- 
 sented to the pupil's eye. 
 
 " Much is involved in the first attempts to work upon number. 
 The distinction between one number and another is shown to the 
 eye by concrete groups of various things, the identity cf mini tar 
 appearing under disparity of materials and of grouping. Ideas 
 are thus acquired o unity, of two, three, etc., up to ten in a row. 
 . . . At the outset small tangible objects are used, balls, pebbles, 
 coins, apples ; then larger objects, as chairs and pictures on a wall. 
 Finally dots or short lines, or some other plain marks, are the 
 representative examples to be deposited in the mind as the near- 
 est approach to the abstract idea." l 
 
 1 Bain, op. cit., p. 288.
 
 384 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 408. TRANSITION FROM THE CONCRETE TO THE ABSTRACT. 
 M. Horner very clearly states the process to be followed 
 for gradually withdrawing the mind from the consideration 
 of concrete objects and leading it to the abstract notion. It 
 is first necessary, he says, to show the child material objects, 
 or at least strokes drawn on the board, representing numbers 
 and their combinations. Then, when the child has gained 
 sufficient skill to work with objects, we must conceal these 
 objects from his sight and employ concrete numbers, as 8 
 nuts, 6 tables, 8 chairs, etc. A new step has now been 
 taken, and after these concrete numbers have been used for 
 some time, the final step in the series must be taken, we 
 must divest the number of its sensible garment and employ 
 abstract numbers. 
 
 409. NUMERAL FRAMES. Instead of employing the first 
 objects at hand, we may- resort to apparatus, especially to 
 numeral frames, which are machines designed to facilitate 
 the early steps in numeration. 
 
 This device is no doubt serviceable #t the beginning of 
 instruction in number ; but we must guard against the abuse 
 of these material means of numerical intuition, lest they go 
 counter to the end we are pursuing. 
 
 The numeral frame has been severely criticised. 
 
 "This instrument," says M. Eugene Rambert, "corrupts instruc- 
 tion in arithmetic. The principal utility of this instruction is to 
 call into early exercise the child's faculties of abstraction, to 
 teach him to see with the head, through the eyes of the mind. 
 To place things before the bodily eyes is to go directly counter to 
 the spirit of this instruction. Nature has given children their ten 
 fingers for a numeral frame ; and instead of giving them another, 
 they should be taught to do without the first as soon as possible. 
 It is said that this device makes the teacher's explanations much 
 easier. I have no doubt of this. By means of the numeral frame 
 the child soon makes out that 10 and 10 are 20; but the child who
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 385 
 
 counts only in this way loses his time, while the one who has 
 counted in his head has engaged in the most useful of exercises. 
 There is needed a complement and corrective for instruction 
 through the sense of sight, and it is most readily found in com- 
 putation." l 
 
 There is some exaggeration in this sentiment, and it would 
 apply more justly to counting-machines. Most teachers 
 recommend the numeral frame for the maternal school, and 
 express the wish that it may be introduced into the common 
 school, at least for the elementary course. It must be intel- 
 ligently used, however, so as to facilitate the pupil's labor 
 without suppressing it. 2 
 
 410. COUNTING-MACHINES. The things to be condemned 
 without hesitation are arithmometers, or counting-machines, 
 very complicated pieces of mechanism, real mills, which fur- 
 nish the result of proposed operations and relieve the pupil 
 of labor. 
 
 The use of apparatus, whatever it may be, ought not to 
 make us forget the necessity of mental calculation. 
 
 411. MENTAL ARITHMETIC. Educational opinion is defi- 
 nitely settled as to the value and necessity of mental arith- 
 metic, that is, of computation made in the mind, without 
 resorting to written numbers. 
 
 First, mental arithmetic is an excellent mental gymnastic, 
 because it compels the attention to fall back upon itself, to 
 occupy itself with what is within, without the aid of any 
 material instrument. 
 
 Moreover, mental arithmetic responds to the necessities of 
 
 1 Quoted by M. Buisson, L' Instruction primaire a Yienne, p. 212. 
 a The numeral frame has been in use since 1812. It is said that it 
 came from Russia, and that Russia herself borrowed it from China.
 
 386 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 daily life. How many times do we need to solve with rapid- 
 ity little problems of domestic economy which demand but a 
 moment's reflection ! The merchant and the housewife have 
 not the time to resort to written calculation ; they have not 
 always at hand pen, paper, and ink. They need to find an 
 immediate solution. 
 
 Finally, mental arithmetic is a preparation for written 
 arithmetic. At first mental computation will be required, 
 especially of beginners ; but during the whole length of the 
 course in arithmetic, mental work will accompany written 
 work. 
 
 " Mental computation," says M. Rendu, " is to the mind what 
 gymnastic exercises are to the body. ... It has its processes, its 
 methodical and progressive procedure, its great variety of exer- 
 cises, its numerous applications. Like all other lessons, it de- 
 mands a thorough preparation." 
 
 Certain English teachers are accustomed to use the term 
 economic arithmetic to describe the arithmetic proper for 
 the primary school. 
 
 " The purpose of teaching arithmetic in elementary schools, 
 apart from its influence as a discipline, is attained when such a 
 command has been given over numbers as enables a young man 
 or woman to calculate with facility all those questions which 
 arise in the ordinary course of life. This may be called economic 
 arithmetic." l 
 
 412. CHOICE OP PROBLEMS. The subject of the prob- 
 lems ought to be borrowed from the ordinary circumstances 
 of life, from the facts of rural or industrial economy. The 
 choice ought to vary with the conditions of the child's life ; 
 it will be one thing in the city and another in the country. 
 
 1 Laurie, Primary Instruction, p. 107.
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 387 
 
 "There fe an important principle of economy in education," 
 says Mr. Bain, "that applies to arithmetic, but not to it alone; 
 that is, the utilizing of the questions or exercises, by making them 
 the medium of useful information. Instead of giving unmeaning 
 numbers to add, subtract, multiply, and so on, we might, after the 
 more preliminary instances, make every question contain some 
 important numerical data relating to the facts of nature or the 
 conventional usages of life, anticipating, as far as may be, the 
 future exigencies of the pupils in their station in life. . . . For 
 example, the leading dates in chronology might be embodied in a 
 variety of questions." J 
 
 413. THE FUNCTION OP MEMORY. Mr. Spencer some- 
 where says that the multiplication table is now often learned 
 by the experimental method. We confess that we do not 
 quite understand the thought of the English educator. Mr. 
 Bain is very much nearer the truth when he says : 
 
 " The memory has to receive with firmness and precision all that 
 is included in the addition and multiplication tables ; and the test 
 of aptitude for the subject is the readiness to come under this 
 discipline. It is a kind of memory that in all probability depends 
 on a certain maturity or advancement of the brain ; so that no 
 amount of concrete illustration will force it on before its time. 
 .... The multiplication table is a grand effort of the special 
 memory for symbols and their combinations, and the labor is not 
 to be extenuated in any way. The associations must be formed 
 so as to operate automatically, that is, without thinking, inquir- 
 ing, or reasoning; and for this we must trust to the unaided 
 adhesiveness due to mechanical iteration." a 
 
 414. THE METRIC SYSTEM. The study of the metric sys- 
 tem is connected with that of arithmetic proper. Here again 
 it is important to show to children the objects themselves, 
 the metre, the litre, etc. It would amount to nothing to 
 
 1 Bain, op. cU., p. 292. 
 
 3 Bain, op. cit. t pp. 289, 290.
 
 388 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 learn by heart the abstract words whose meaning has not 
 been clearly fixed in the inind by the concrete realities. 
 
 " Do you speak of the metre ? Cause the pupil to measure the 
 leugth of the school-room, of the benches, the board, the pupil's 
 desk. The decimetres, the centimetres, the millimetres will 
 naturally present themselves ; and if the children carry a stick of 
 the length of a metre, they will ask to have the subdivisions 
 marked upon it." 
 
 "Instruction through the sense of sight," says M. Buisson, 
 " is applied naturally and without any difficulty to the metric 
 system." 
 
 It has been justly observed that the tables of the metric 
 system will not suffice. Each school should have in addi- 
 tion a collection of real weights and measures, which the 
 child can see and handle. 
 
 415. RESULTS OF INSTRUCTION IN ARITHMETIC. Here are 
 some of the faults reported by the inspectors in the lessons 
 in number : 
 
 " A more frequent use of mental calculation should be required. 
 There are too many theoretical demonstrations. The pupils 
 who have the best knowledge of the metric system are greatly 
 embarrassed when they handle the metre or the balance. Most 
 teachers forget that primary instruction ought to be eminently 
 practical. The work is too abstract and too mechanical. Memory 
 plays the principal part, and the reasoning process is wanting. 
 The pupil counts tolerably well, but he is usually unable to explain 
 what he has done, for the very simple reason that he has not been 
 accustomed to reason. The intuitive method is mainly followed 
 with the youngest children ; but the moment the pupils know how 
 to apply the four fundamental processes, all trace of the method 
 disappears. Theoretical questions are put aside, and books of 
 problems replace the teacher's instruction. Mental calculation is 
 taught without method, and when we interrogate the pupil he
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 389 
 
 seems to employ the same processes as though he had a pen or 
 pencil at his disposal. The study of number is too often reduced 
 to an exercise of memory, and children do not acquire the art of 
 reckoning in the mind, so useful as a mental gymnastic, and so in- 
 dispensable to those who must do without pen and paper for 
 making their computations. The elements of arithmetic are not 
 made sensible enough. The mechanism of the operations is 
 learned; but pupils do not comprehend clearly enough what they 
 do and why they do it. Too many teachers are still fond of 
 abstractions. They cannot make up their minds to teach number 
 by means of the numeral frame, pebbles, and sticks; but they 
 always begin by having the numbers written before the children 
 have an exact idea of quantity. The metric system is taught, but 
 no one has seen a metre." 
 
 The same reports state some instances of progress in the 
 teaching of arithmetic. 
 
 " Arithmetic is of all the subjects the one which gives the best 
 results. In most schools the computation is done well enough 
 and quickly enough with the pen or pencil in hand ; but pupils are 
 not sufficiently accustomed to mental work. Calculation is taught 
 from the first entrance at school, at first mentally and orally, then 
 with written numbers. Teachers are rarely found who limit 
 themselves to mechanical operations upon abstract numbers. The 
 problems are practical and well chosen. The instruction in 
 arithmetic is rational ; the demonstration is always made at the 
 blackboard, and the definitions serve only to sum up and fix the 
 reasoning processes." 
 
 416. GEOMETRY IN THE COMMON SCHOOL. In the pro- 
 gramme of 1882 geometry appeared for the first time as a 
 topic of obligatory instruction in the common school. It 
 surely cannot be intended to push very far the study of a sci- 
 ence which comprises parts of such superiority and difficulty. 
 It is intended simply to borrow from it some notions which 
 are the natural complement and sometimes the auxiliaries of 
 arithmetic.
 
 390 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 Moreover, it is not without protest that the innovation has 
 been sanctioned by our school legislation. Swiss teachers 
 formally declare that " geometry proper should not have a 
 place in the programme of a common school." 
 
 But geometry proper is not under discussion ; only the 
 elements and applications of this science. 
 
 417. PURPOSE OF INSTRUCTION IN GEOMETRY. In the 
 common school, in the three courses, the purpose of instruc- 
 tion in geometry should be exclusively practical. The aim 
 is to make the following items of knowledge available : 1 . A 
 comprehension of the metric system ; 2. The measurement 
 of surfaces and volumes required by the needs of life ; 3. A 
 knowledge of the simplest operations of surveying and lev- 
 eling. 
 
 418. METHOD TO BE PURSUED. For geometry, as for 
 the other sciences, there is a necessary initiation, an intuitive 
 preparation. It is especially in the infant school that it is 
 expedient to communicate the primary notions of geometry 
 in a concrete form. The official programme recommends, 
 for the infant class, a selection from Froebel's "occupa- 
 tions," shunning technical terms, definitions, and excess of 
 detail in the analysis of geometrical forms. 
 
 What must be avoided above all things, at the beginning, 
 is the abuse of technical terms and abstract definitions, 
 which the child repeats like a parrot, without understanding 
 them. M. Leyssenne advises that with little children we 
 wholly renounce the use of the terms sphere, circle, etc., and 
 that we speak to them only of balls and round bodies. 
 Without going to this extreme, for it seems to us necessary 
 to accustom the child as soon as possible to the special 
 vocabulary of each science, we think that at least the tech- 
 nical term should be used only in the presence of a material 
 object which may furnish the mind with a sensible represeu-
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 391 
 
 tation of it. Do not begin by showing to the child ideal 
 forms drawn on the blackboard. Show him real things, 
 figures and solids, whose parts and properties he must be 
 made to observe. 
 
 Says M. Leyssenne : " We should take solids in wood, clay, or 
 card-board, and place them in the children's hands ; then, when 
 they have thoroughly seen them, touched them, and turned them 
 in all directions, they should be told that this is a line, this an 
 angle, this a square, this a circle, etc. ; and finally, they must draw 
 that line, angle, square, and circle, upon the board. " 
 
 419. ELEMENTARY COURSE. In the elementary course 
 hardly more will be done than to continue these exercises 
 which are the alphabet of geometry, and teach the child to 
 unravel that science. To these there will be added exer- 
 cises in the measurement and comparison of magnitudes by 
 simple judgments of the eye ; the child will be taught to 
 estimate distances approximately ; and these will be ex- 
 pressed in terms of the metric system. The difficulty in 
 making these estimates will be seen when they depend on 
 the senses alone. 
 
 "A stock of geometrical conceptions having been obtained," 
 says Mr. Spencer, " a further step may in course of time be taken 
 by introducing the practice of testing the correctness of all figures 
 drawn by the eye. . . There can be little doubt that geometry 
 had its origin in the methods discovered by artisans and others, of 
 making accurate measurement for the foundations of buildings, 
 areas of inclosures, and the like. . . Geometrical truths should 
 be introduced to the pupil under analogous circumstances. In the 
 cutting out of pieces for his card-houses, in the drawing of orna- 
 mental diagrams for coloring, and in those various instructive oc- 
 cupations which an' inventive teacher will lead him into, he may 
 be for a length of time advantageously left, like the primitive 
 builder, to tentative processes ; and he will so gain an abundant
 
 392 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 experience of the difficulty of achieving his aims by the unaided 
 senses. 1 
 
 In the intermediate and higher course the instruction in 
 geometry ought to be more exact, more didactic. Intuitive 
 methods should give place to processes purely abstract, in 
 which reasoning should play the important part. 
 
 420. INTUITIVE GEOMETRY. There is now such a craze 
 for intuitive processes that the attempt has been made to 
 apply them, not only to the elements of geometry, when they 
 are in place, but to the whole subject. This is the system 
 known as tachymetry^ or rapid measurement, a sort of intui- 
 tive geometry. 
 
 This system may be illustrated as follows : By means of 
 contrivances made of card-board or of wood, there is made 
 an actual decomposition of the different volumes which are to 
 be estimated ; then the parts so decomposed are grouped in 
 different ways, so that the theorem, which would otherwise 
 be demonstrated in abstracto by a long train of reasoning, is 
 made intuitive and tangible. This method of physical and 
 concrete demonstration is applied even to the measurement 
 of the circle and the sphere, even to the properties of the 
 square of the hypothenuse and of similar triangles. In a 
 word, tachymetry is materialized geometry. 
 
 " The aim of tachymetry, " says one writer, " is eminently prac- 
 tical, to teach the farmer to compute how many hectolitres of 
 wheat there are in a pile of wheat in his barn ; the road-master how 
 many cubic metres, decimetres, and centimetres in a heap of 
 stones ; the civil engineer how to proceed in forming an estimate 
 of the work he is to perform." 2 
 
 1 Spencer, op. cit., p. 148. 
 
 3 This empirical geometry is all very well for such cases as those 
 mentioned above ; but it should be recollected that no system of mere 
 measurements can ever provfe that the sum of the three angles of a 
 triangle is equal to two right angles. (P.)
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 393 
 
 421. ARE THERE OBJECT-LESSONS IK ARITHMETIC AND GE- 
 OMETRY? We do not think that there can be real object- 
 lessons either in arithmetic or in geometry. We should note 
 the fact that when we give the child sticks in order to teach 
 him to count or solids in order to teach him to estimate 
 dimensions, it is not the things themselves, the sticks or the 
 solids, that we wish him to study ; but we place these 
 objects before his eyes or in his hands, in order that he may 
 as soon as possible disengage, from these concrete realities 
 the abstract idea of numbers, the abstract idea of geomet- 
 rical forma. 
 
 422. THE PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES. In intro- 
 ducing the physical and the natural sciences into the common 
 school, the purpose has been both to give the child a certain 
 amount of positive knowledge, of an infinite value for practi- 
 cal life, and to teach him the habit of observation. While 
 the mathematical sciences are especially valuable for devel- 
 oping inward attention and power of reasoning, the natural 
 and the physical sciences call the senses into play and teach 
 the habit of seeing, and of seeing completely. Now, as 
 some one has said. " the spirit of observation is the best of 
 professors." The child who is endowed with it learns for 
 himself a multitude of things which forever escape minds 
 that are indifferent and incapable of observing. 
 
 Every specialist is disposed to exaggerate the importance 
 of the specialty which he teaches. We are not astonished, 
 then, that Paul Bert attributes to the physical and natural 
 sciences a part absolutely preponderant in primary instruc- 
 tion. But we must allow that no study is better adapted 
 for teaching to see accurately, to take nothing on authority, 
 and to divest the mind of superstitious and prejudices. 
 
 423. PROGRAMMES AND METHODS. The French official 
 programme purposely insists on the very elementary char-
 
 394 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 acter of the instruction given in the physical and natural 
 sciences in the common school. 
 
 It recommends object-lessons for the first course, les- 
 sons, moreover, graduated according to a regular plan, 
 bearing on man, animals, vegetables, minerals. These 
 objects will be shown to children, and the teacher will add 
 to these some simple and familiar explanations. 
 
 Physics appears only with the intermediate courses, and 
 provides for only summary notions on the three states of 
 matter, upon air, water, and combustion. Simple experi- 
 mental demonstration will complete the lesson. On the 
 other hand, in the intermediate course, didactic lessons will 
 be given on man, animals, and vegetables. It is evident 
 that this course ought to be as descriptive as possible. 
 
 Chemistry is introduced in the higher course under this 
 description : The notion of simple bodies, compound bodies, 
 metals, and common salts. 
 
 Physics is studied in its essential laws, weight, heat, 
 light, electricity, etc. Instruments are described and ex- 
 plained. 
 
 Finally, in this same course, mineralogy is in turn added 
 to the two other natural sciences, botany and zoology, the 
 study of which is continued. At the same time that human 
 physiology is taught, the principal functions of the human 
 body are explained. 
 
 424. NECESSITY OF A BOOK. The physical and natural 
 sciences cannot be taught without apparatus, instruments, 
 and museums. 
 
 Now it must not be forgotten that for the most part the 
 common schools are destitute of scientific instruments and 
 natural history collections. The book is then indispensable, 
 a book that is well written, which requires but inexpensive 
 experiments, an elementary book, and not merely an 
 abridgment.
 
 THE TEACHING OF THE SCIENCES. 395 
 
 " To select in each science, " says Paul Bert, " the dominant, 
 fundamental facts ; to set them forth with sufficient details to 
 make them clearly apparent to the child's mind and to fix them 
 firmly in his memory ; to neglect facts of secondary importance ; 
 such are the general rules that should be followed. " 
 
 425. PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF THIS INSTRUCTION. In 
 the teaching of the physical and natural sciences, particular 
 care should be taken to avoid all fine-spun theories, and 
 everything which cannot be made really intelligible to the 
 child. Special attention will also be given to the practical 
 application which may be made of the different parts of 
 these sciences. The official programme enjoins this course 
 upon teachers when it requires them to dwell upon "the 
 transformation of crude material into the manufactured 
 articles of every-day use," and again when it offers prac- 
 tical suggestions on hygiene and upon the effects of tobacco 
 and alcohol. 
 
 Doubtless the first result of scientific instruction is mental 
 development. These studies open the intelligence, extend 
 the intellectual horizon, and train men. 
 
 " A training in the natural sciences must be raised to the dignity 
 of a regular educational appliance ; and for this purpose the quan- 
 tity must be reduced; but what is learned must be perfectly assim- 
 ilated, and must be used, not to increase the volume of what is 
 known, but to establish habits of attentive observation, of exact 
 analysis, and of a fruitful and well-regulated curiosity. " 
 
 But the material results of this instruction are no less 
 valuable. The sciences of nature appear to us particularly 
 useful and commendable, because they are a necessary intro- 
 duction to professional instruction, and are a preparation 
 for the arts and the trades. 
 
 426. SCIENTIFIC EXCURSIONS. Nothing is more helpful
 
 396 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 to the teaching of the physical and natural sciences than 
 scientific excursions, whether they be directed to the fields, 
 woods, and farms, or to some shop or manufactory. But it 
 must not be forgotten that these excursions ought to preserve 
 their character of recreation and diversion. The instruction 
 that is given in them should take place in the presence of 
 pupils in the form of familiar conversations, and the in- 
 structor should not carry outside of the class-room the 
 habits and the didactic method of the school.
 
 . CHAPTER VTII. 
 
 MOKALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 
 
 427. MORAL EDUCATION AND THE TEACHING OF MORALS. 
 In 1881 some of the inspectors-general complained that 
 " at present moral education is not included in the pro- 
 gramme of common-school instruction." It will never be 
 included in it ; for though it is the principal and the essen- 
 tial purpose of instruction, it is not a part of the programme. 
 Moral education is a general and delicate subject which can- 
 not be imprisoned within the limits of a regular course of 
 technical instruction. It is otherwise with morals itself, 
 which ought to be separately taught as a science, and the 
 highest of all the sciences. Doubtless a course in morals, 
 however well it may be taught, will not suffice to make a 
 good man ; but it will aid in doing this, and it is with reason 
 that the legislation of 1882, in imitation of what was done 
 abroad, gave to morals a place in the programme of the 
 common schools. 
 
 428. MORALS MAY BE TAUGHT IN EVERY SCHOOL EXER- 
 CISE. Instead of being the definite object of a regular 
 course, taught at certain hours, the teaching of morals ought 
 to be the constant care of the teacher and the natural result 
 of all the exercises of the school. 
 
 Says M. Janet : " There is a capital mode of moral instruction 
 which pervades the whole course of teaching, all the studies of the 
 child, and even all the acts of his life. We may teach morals 
 through reading, writing, grammar, history, and even through the 
 
 397
 
 398 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 sciences. Children will be taught to read in good books contain- 
 ing short moral lessons; they will be made to write, as models, 
 maxims and sentences which will remain in their memory ; 
 dictation exercises may be given them borrowed from the records 
 of the moralists ; and history at each step is a school of morals. 
 Even arithmetic may be used for this purpose ; for from the rule 
 of interest, for example, this practical inference may be drawn, 
 that no debts should be contracted, or if they are they must be 
 paid. There is a lesson in morals in the acts of the child at all 
 hours of the day, even in his sports and recreations. At each 
 moment the instructor is obliged to teach neatness, politeness, 
 obedience, industry, and the spirit of peace and concord. From 
 this first point of view the school as a whole is in itself a school of 
 moral instruction." 
 
 429. THE SPECIAL TEACHING OF MORALS. But outside 
 of this diffused and almost unconscious teaching of morals, 
 which results from all the exercises of the school, there 
 ought to be a regular course of instruction in morals, very 
 simple, of course, and very modest, but distinct from all 
 the others. Morals is a science which may and should be 
 taught on its own account, in the common school as every- 
 where else. It is only by this means that there will be a 
 cure for what is irregular, indefinite, and insufficient in 
 moral education, when it is supported merely on indirect 
 lessons and a disconnected instruction. 
 
 On this question there may be differences of opinion 
 among men of good judgment. M. Buisson, in his Rapport 
 sur Vexposition de Philadelphie, declared that morals differs 
 from the other topics of the programme in the fact that it 
 cannot have a fixed time in the scheme of daily exercises. 
 The official programmes of 1881 have, as it seems to us, 
 rightly come to a different conclusion, for they say ex- 
 pressly : 
 
 " There shall be each day, in the two lower grades, at least one 
 lesson which, in the form of a familar conversation or by means of
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 399 
 
 appropriate reading lessons, shall be devoted to moral instruction ; 
 in the higher grade this lesson shall be, as far as possible, the 
 methodical development of a systematic course in morals." 
 
 430. TOPICS OF MORAL INSTRUCTION. The object of 
 instruction in morals in the common school is the practical 
 knowledge of duties much more than the theoretical expres- 
 sion of moral principles. It is of less importance to have 
 the child reason as a philosopher on the nature of his 
 actions, than to prepare him to fulfil as an upright man all 
 the obligations of life. 
 
 " It should be the duty of all teachers," says M. Janet, " to in- 
 struct their pupils during the whole school course in their duties 
 towards their family, their country, their fellows, themselves, and 
 God." 
 
 Learned discussions on good and evil, on the character of 
 the moral law, on the principle of moral obligation, ought to 
 be nearly proscribed in elementary instruction in morals. 
 These things are proper in a college course, but it would be 
 useless to require them of children in the common school, 
 whose minds are insufficiently prepared for such studies. 
 
 431. SCOPE AND LIMITS OF THIS INSTRUCTION. The 
 teaching of morals in the common school ought not to be 
 connected with any religious doctrine. Universal and com- 
 mon to all children, to whatever confession they may belong, 
 it speaks but the language of reason and common sense ; it 
 remains human, and does not encroach on the peculiar 
 beliefs of any religious body. 
 
 " Lay instruction in morals is distinguished from religious in- 
 struction without contradicting it. The instructor substitutes 
 himself neither for the priest nor for the head of the family; he 
 unites his efforts with theirs in order to make of each child an 
 honest man. He ought to insist on the duties which bring men
 
 400 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 together, and not on the dogmas which divide them. Every theo- 
 logical and philosophical discussion is manifestly forbidden him 
 by the very character of his functions, by the age of his pupils, 
 and by the confidence of families and of the state ; he concen- 
 trates all his energies on a problem of another nature, but not 
 less arduous, for the very reason that it is exclusively practical ; 
 and this is to make all children serve an actual apprenticeship in 
 right-living. 
 
 " Later, when they have become citizens, they will perhaps be 
 separated by dogmatic opinions, but at least they will be in prac- 
 tical accord in placing the aim of life as high as possible ; in 
 having the same horror of whatever is low and vile, the same 
 admiration for whatever is noble and generous, the same delicacy 
 in the appreciation of duties ; in aspiring after moral perfection, 
 whatever efforts it may cost ; and in feeling themselves united in 
 the general homage of the true, the beautiful, and the good, which 
 is also a form, and none the less pure, of the religious feeling." * 
 
 432. DIVISION OF THE COURSES. In the teaching of 
 morals, more perhaps than in any other subject, it is neces- 
 sary to follow a progressive plan, to proceed at first by ex- 
 amples, by familiar talks, to rise little by little to abstract 
 laws and to general rules. 
 
 It is in accordance with these principles that the official 
 programme has organized the different courses in the com- 
 mon school. 
 
 In the infant class the instruction comprises only simple 
 talks mingled with the various exercises of the school, short 
 poems learned by heart, and stories told by the teachers. 
 
 In the three grades of the common school, the programme 
 regulates the succession of topics as follows : 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE. Familiar conversations; readings with 
 explanations, narratives, examples, precepts ; learning by heart. 
 INTERMEDIATE COURSE. Readings with explanations as before 
 
 1 Programme of 1882, Education morale.
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 401 
 
 (narratives, examples, precepts), but co-ordinated and graduated 
 according to a methodical plan. 
 
 HIGHER COURSE. Short graduated lessons in moral instruc- 
 tion, illustrated by examples in accordance with the programme. 
 
 It is then only in the higher course that the instruction 
 will assume a didactic, doctrinal form, and that the teacher 
 will give formal lessons. 
 
 433. THE INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE METHOD. In 
 whatever way we may teach morals, the method followed is 
 always either inductive or deductive. 
 
 We may start from an example, from a fact furnished by 
 history, from a fiction invented by the teacher's imagination, 
 from an experience of the child, from an incident which has 
 occurred in the class^ in the school, or in the village, and 
 then lead the pupil to discover the moral truth concealed 
 behind this particular event. This is to proceed induc- 
 tively. 
 
 Or we may lay down a moral rule, the definition of a virtue 
 or a precept of conduct, and after having explained it 
 in itself, we may help the pupil to find practical applications 
 of this general rule. In other terms, we may proceed de- 
 ductively. 
 
 " At one time," says M. Janet, " maxims will be regarded as the 
 consequence of a story or a fable ; and at another tbey will be pre- 
 sented as principles, and the story or the fable will become the 
 proof or the application of the maxim." 
 
 434. PROPER CHARACTERISTICS OF INSTRUCTION IN MORALS. 
 The clearness, logic, and intellectual qualities which may 
 assure the efficiency of every other topic, will not suffice in 
 the teaching of morals. In this case the teacher is an edu- 
 cator rather than a professor. He floos not address himself 
 alone to the mind, he must touch the heart, penetrate the
 
 402 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 conscience, and insinuate himself into the depths of the soul. 
 He has need of gravity, and also of fervor and communi- 
 cative emotion ; he himself ought to feel vividly the moral 
 truths which he communicates to others. 
 
 " In order that moral culture may be possible and effective, it is 
 an indispensable condition that this instruction touch the soul 
 to the quick ; that it shall be conf9unded with an ordinary lesson 
 neither in tone, character, nor form. It is not sufficient to give 
 the pupil correct notions and store his memory with wise maxims ; 
 but we must succeed in developing within him emotions so true 
 and so strong as to aid him in the day of trial in triumphing over 
 passions and vices. It is required of the teacher, not to adorn the 
 memory of the child, but to touch his heart and to make him feel, 
 by a direct experience, the majesty of the moral law. This is 
 equivalent to saying that the means to be employed cannot be like 
 those which are proper in a lesson in science or grammar. They 
 ought to be not only more versatile and varied, but more intimate, 
 more affecting, more practical, of a character less didactic on the 
 whole, but more serious." 
 
 435. TEACHING THROUGH THE HEART. We have been 
 sharply criticised for having said, in our Elements d 'instruc- 
 tion civique et morale, that " the practice of morals is based 
 on the sensibilities." But yet this is the simple truth. Feel- 
 ing, whether it be the feeling of affection for one's family, 
 one's companion, one's fellow-citizen, or even religious sen- 
 timent, that noble emotion of the soul for the good, these 
 are the most fruitful sources of virtue. On this point edu- 
 cators are unanimous. 
 
 " With the child," says M. Marion, " the heart anticipates the 
 head, and it is rather through the heart than through the reason 
 that we have our hold on him. It is then to the heart that we 
 must first address ourselves. The sensibilities of the child are 
 already very active at a time when his intelligence is yet scarcely 
 awakened. It would then be a waste of time to teach him general
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 403 
 
 precepts, but to the same degree it would be a useful undertaking 
 to devote our energies to touching his heart, to giving him a love 
 and, so to speak, an agitation for the good, a longing for what 
 is better." 
 
 " From the hearthstone of the tender and generous emotions," 
 says Madame de Saussure, " there radiates over the intelligence a 
 kind of animation, that gentle ardor with which it is intimately 
 penetrated. . . . The feelings are not only necessary to the mind 
 as a complement to its knowledge, but they decide its very char- 
 acter, its nature, and the mode of its action." * 
 
 436. EDUCATION THROUGH REFLECTION. Convinced as 
 we are of the prerogatives of the heart and the emotions in 
 the matter of moral culture, we have not the least thought 
 of depreciating the influence of the intelligence itself in 
 moral education. Virtue is an affair of judgment as well as 
 of feeling. We must first know where duty lies. To know 
 accurately in what it consists, what reasons constrain us to 
 follow it, what consequences will result from it, is not with- 
 out use in deciding us to fulfil it. 
 
 The teacher will then appeal to the child's judgment and 
 reflection. "In the intermediate course," says M.Janet, 
 " we ought to address ourselves to the reflection, if not 
 more, at least as much, as to the feelings." 
 
 " The instructor," says M. Marion, " ought to give the child 
 general modes of thinking, general rules for forming sound judg- 
 ments, and a larger sense of his own responsibility. If we would 
 have the child accustom himself to do nothing without asking 
 himself what is good or bad in the given case, we must evidently 
 furnish him with general precepts as to good and evil, and give 
 him true moral instruction." 2 
 
 437. EDUCATION THROUGH PRACTICE. "When we have 
 assigned the mind and the heart their respective parts in the 
 
 1 L'Education progressive, I , p. 277. 
 
 2 Marion, op. cit., p. 392.
 
 404 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 teaching of morals, we must hasten to recognize the function 
 of habit and will. It is of pre-eminent importance that by 
 his vigilant endeavor the teacher assure to every moment of 
 school life the accomplishment of acts in conformity with 
 the moral law. The intelligent application of school disci- 
 pline will furnish him the means for doing this. He will 
 allow liberty of thought and action, but will indicate to his 
 pupils their errors or their mistakes. He will teach them a 
 horror for tale-bearing, dissimulation, and hypocrisy. He 
 will place above everything else frankness and uprightness, 
 and for this purpose he will never discourage the frank 
 speech of children, their objections or their questions. 
 
 " The teacher ought to give the child habits. ... At the age 
 of seven the child has not yet all the good habits which he ought 
 to have, and even those which he. has are not as strong as they 
 ought to become. We must continue to train him to what is good 
 by inspiring him without his knowledge, so to speak, with correct 
 modes of acting and feeling. General precepts would be useless 
 at that age ; they are repulsive and dry because they are abstract 
 and remain without effect. Let us recall the remark of Herbert 
 Spencer, " that it is not only with children, but with all inatten- 
 tive and slightly cultured minds, that admonitions fail of their 
 purpose." 
 
 " We do not teach a child morals in order that he may know, 
 but in order that he may do. In the ordinary sense of the term, 
 it is not a question of teaching but of inculcating, which is an en- 
 tirely different thing. In introducing morals into the programme 
 of the common schools, it was not intended to introduce a new 
 branch of instruction analogous to the others, new lessons parallel 
 with the other lessons ; but it is the education of the heart and of 
 the character that it is proposed to assure and direct in the best 
 manner possible." 
 
 438. PRACTICAL EXERCISES. This necessity of appealing 
 to the moral habits is so evident that the authors of the 
 official programme have taken special pains to recommend
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 405 
 
 practical exercises which tend to embody moral principles in 
 action, both within the school and outside the school. An 
 attentive supervision is thus imposed on teachers. 1 
 
 These practical exercises ought first to take account of 
 individual characteristics. The teacher ought to know the 
 peculiar disposition of each pupil for the purpose of inter- 
 vening to correct their faults and to call into play their good 
 qualities. To a far higher degree than intellectual educa- 
 tion, moral education requires the particular, personal care 
 which aims at each natural bent of the child. 
 
 The teacher must also endeavor to correct the bad habits, 
 the prejudices, and the superstitions which the child brings 
 from the family into the school, upon which he has been 
 nourished from infancy, and which the influences of the 
 environment in which he lives continue to perpetuate in him. 
 
 " The child does not reach the age of seven absolutely inexperi- 
 enced and morally unaffected. A sort of moral perversion has 
 already begun in him through default of proper care, and the 
 teacher who receives him into school ought not only to do what 
 has not been done, but more often to undo what alone has been 
 done." 
 
 439. THE EXAMPLE OF A TEACHER. But it is not alone 
 the child with his habits already formed, with his prejudices 
 contracted from birth, that must be supervised in his acts 
 and trained to think better and to do better ; but, above all, 
 the teacher ought to supervise himself. 
 
 "In order that the pupil may be penetrated with that respect 
 for the moral law which is a complete education in itself, the first 
 
 1 "In some schools the children are polite and respectful to every- 
 body, and they are early inspired with the sentiment of duty ; but this 
 is far from being true in most schools. Teachers do not supervise 
 their pupils enough outside of school ; they do not apply themselves 
 sufficiently to training the hearts of children, and too often forget that 
 instruction is nothing without educatio7."
 
 406 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 thing necessary is that by his character, his conduct, and his 
 language, the teacher himself should be the most persuasive of 
 examples. In this order of instruction, what does not come from 
 the heart does not go to the heart. The teacher who recites 
 precepts and speaks of duty without conviction and emotion, does 
 much worse than lose his effort ; he is guilty of a fault." 
 
 It is not only when he speaks of morals, it is always and 
 everywhere that the teacher ought to present himself to the 
 child as a living example of uprightness and honesty. A 
 real model acting before the eyes of the child will always 
 be more efficient than the models borrowed from history 
 or fiction. 
 
 440. INCIDENTAL MARKS. It is doubtless necessary in 
 the teaching of morals not so much to preach as to do ; but 
 yet exhortations made with gravity are not without their 
 value. 
 
 M. Pecaut wisely recommends the managers of schools to 
 call together, at least each week, the pupils of the lower 
 classes for the purpose of conversing with them for half an 
 hour. 
 
 "Let them then enter into more direct communication with 
 them ; let them pass in review the history of the past week, doing 
 justice to all ; and let them point out, along with the faults and 
 shortcomings, the honest efforts and good results. Let them re- 
 serve for this conference some interesting article, adapted to raise 
 the children above the ordinary level of their studies, and to inspire 
 them with a taste to read for themselves some good books from 
 the school library. For this purpose let them give their pupils 
 discreet advice as to their ordinary life, their family duties, and 
 books that are to be avoided. Such conversations well prepared, 
 serious without stiffness, in which a skillful manager would never 
 fail to associate his subordinates, might be made the principal 
 educative lesson, a cordial, interesting, arid undogmatic moral 
 lesson. The child would leave the school better prepared to profit
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 407 
 
 by the good influences of the family, and better armed against the 
 bad examples and the unwholesome excitements of the street." 
 
 441. READING. It is particularly by reading that good 
 moral inspirations are to be insinuated into the head and 
 into the heart of the child. This reading is either done in 
 class, with commentaries which throw into relief the impor- 
 tant parts of the text, or is done personally by the pupil. 
 
 "School libraries," say the Rapports of the inspectors-general, 
 " when they are well maintained, will furnish the teacher powerful 
 aids in education and moral instruction. The influence of good 
 books is very important, and so their influence should be extended 
 everywhere in order to develop, by this means, a high state of 
 moral sentiment." 
 
 442. POETRY. We have noted in another place the rela- 
 tions between the beautiful and the good, between art and 
 morals. In our schools we have not yet learned to draw 
 from literary studies all the advantage which education is 
 entitled to expect from them. 
 
 " If the moral and religious sense consists above all in respect- 
 ful homage and submission rendered to what is better than one's 
 self, to the ideal, to the good, and finally to the perfect Being, 
 what is more proper for awakening it than to make an appeal to 
 the sense of admiration for what is beautiful, beautiful in 
 thought, sentiment, form, and order ; for everything which, by 
 surpassing our low level, solicits us to step out of ourselves and to 
 mount higher ? Let us recognize a great want here, which I will 
 only indicate. The official, dogmatic religion has retired from 
 our schools, and nothing has yet come to take its place; moral 
 instruction has no more than appeared on the threshold ; and art 
 in its various forms, but particularly in the eminently educative 
 form of poetry, does not fulfill in any degree its office of high 
 culture. Even choral singing, which has always been the chosen 
 instrument of religious, moral, and patriotic education, nowhere 
 exists, so to speak, in our schools."
 
 408 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 443. THEORETICAL MORALS. While the teaching of 
 morals in the common school has mainly a practical aim, 
 the instructor need not neglect to give to his lessons an ele- 
 vated general character. It does not suffice to teach pupils 
 their individual duties, and put them in a condition to prac- 
 tice them ; but it is necessary that the course in morals be 
 also an occasion to awaken the reflection of the child on the 
 nature of man and on his destination in the world. 
 
 " The last course," says M. Janet, " will not be finished without 
 having given the children some notions of what we call theoretical 
 morals, that is, the explanation of the principles of morals, the 
 distinction between good and evil, duty as distinct from personal 
 interest, conscience and the moral sense, merit and demerit, moral 
 sanction and the future life founded on the justice of God." 
 
 In other terms, the teacher has not only to favor the par- 
 ticular dispositions which will prepare the child for the 
 accomplishment of such or such a duty ; but he ought to aim 
 higher and by all possible means, by the strict application of 
 rules, by the judicious use of rewards and punishments, by 
 exhortations and reprimands, and on occasion by theoretical 
 explanations, he will do his best to develop in the soul of his 
 pupil that which is the basis of all morals, the feeling of 
 personal responsibility. 
 
 * 
 
 444. Civic INSTRUCTION. Recently introduced into the 
 programmes of primary instruction, civic instruction might 
 in a sense be confounded with morals, of which it is but the 
 complement. It is impossible, in fact, to become a citizen 
 if one does not begin by being a man. The firmest basis of 
 the civic virtues will always be the practice of the individual 
 and social virtues. 
 
 It is with reason, however, that a special place has been 
 given to civic instruction, were it only to bring into clearer
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 409 
 
 view its importance and utility. But it is not proposed to 
 give merely indirect instruction in civics, such as might 
 result from history, geography, etc. ; but there is oppor- 
 tunity to give direct instruction in all the topics included 
 in this expression by connecting them with the courses in 
 history and geography. 
 
 445. NECESSITY OF Civic INSTRUCTION. It is not enough 
 to say that instruction in civics is useful ; the truth is that it 
 is necessary. It is especially so since political liberty, that 
 conquest of the Republic of 1848, has been added to civil 
 liberty, that conquest of the Revolution. 
 
 In a country which governs itself, where each individual 
 through his vote participates freely in the direction of public 
 affairs, why permit the majority of citizens, those who 
 attend only the common school, to remain in ignorance of 
 their political and social obligations ? 
 
 You require them to respect and love the Constitution, and 
 they do not know the Constitution ! 
 
 You require them to exercise their rights and perform 
 their duties, and they are ignorant of the meaning and the 
 scope of these rights and duties ! 
 
 Citizens who boast of this glorious name without knowing 
 what obligation it imposes on them ; electors who vote with- 
 out knowing the importance of their vote ; tax-payers who 
 pay taxes without comprehending the use made of them ; 
 inhabitants of a country who have not been taught to love 
 her ; such are necessarily the members of. a people who 
 have lacked instruction in civics. 
 
 Doubtless the newspapers repair this ignorance in part, 
 but there is no regularity and system in the teaching of the 
 press ; it is subject to a thousand hazards. Moreover, all 
 the newspapers are not what they should be ; and, finally, the 
 newspaper often comes too late to heal the political preju-
 
 410 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 dices which have been left to take root in the soul of the 
 child and the young man. 
 
 A distinguished writer, Vitet, said a few years ago, "Love 
 of country is not taught in France." If this assertion is 
 true, it is important that it cease to be so, and that the chil- 
 dren of France learn to love not only their country, but also 
 the institutions of their country. 
 
 " Without civic and political education," wrote Pestalozzi, " the 
 sovereign people is a child playing with fire at the risk each 
 moment of burning down the house." 
 
 In 1877 M. Greard demanded the introduction into French 
 schools of what abroad has long been called civic instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 " What good sense demands," he said, " is that to the respect 
 for the national traditions which is the basis of enlightened patri- 
 otism, there be joined in the minds of children who have reached 
 the age of reason, a knowledge of the general laws in common use 
 in their country. What our pupils know the least, is that which 
 for themselves and for everybody they should have the most in- 
 terest in knowing. It is surely not without use for them to have 
 an idea of the capitularies of Charlemagne ; but how much more 
 important it is that they shall not be left in ignorance of the prin- 
 ciples of the social organization in the midst of which they are 
 called to fulfill their duties as citizens! Doubtless the child 
 should not be an absolute stranger to the regime of our ancient 
 provinces ; but is it not still more indispensable that he have an 
 exact notion of all that actually constitutes the organic life of a 
 commune, of a department, of the state ? How many pupils there 
 are who might explain in a fashion what in their day the Mayors 
 of the Palace were, who would be greatly embarrassed to define 
 the function and the prerogatives of the mayor of their arrondisse- 
 ment or of their village! And if these notions are not taught 
 them at school, as they might be, and as they are in all the coun- 
 tries about us, where and how shall they be learned ? " 1 
 
 1 M. Greard, L'Eiiseignement primaire a Paris de 1867 a 1877, p. 281.
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 411 
 
 446. METHOD TO BE PURSUED. There is nothing drier 
 or more monotonous than a course of instruction in civics, 
 if the teacher does nothing more than enumerate to the 
 child the administrative and political notions of which it is 
 composed. But it is easy, if one takes the trouble, to ani- 
 mate and vivify this instruction by citing examples, by 
 availing one's self of history, and above all by aiming to 
 excite without cessation national ideas and to enkindle the 
 flame of patriotism. 
 
 The purpose of civic instruction, in fact, is not only to 
 introduce into the mind of the child a certain amount of 
 positive knowledge ; but it is, above all, to cultivate in his 
 soul at an early hour his natural inclination to love his 
 country and to respect her laws. 
 
 The official programme indicates the course to be pur- 
 sued, which consists, as in geography, in taking the com- 
 mune as the starting-point, and thence passing progres- 
 sively to the study of the department and the state. Famil- 
 iarized at first with the institutions which are, so to speak, 
 within his reach, and which he sees in operation in his vil- 
 lage, the child will have no difficulty in rising higher, and 
 will be wholly prepared to conceive the more complicated 
 play of the government itself. But all this on the condition 
 that the teacher knows how to avoid dry ness, that he does 
 not multiply useless details, that he excites the child's curi- 
 osity, that he appeals to his patriotic feelings, that he 
 always shows him what advantage he will derive in life 
 from the knowledge which he acquires at school, and how 
 much he needs to know all that can be taught him on this 
 point, in order to fulfill later his duties as a citizen and to 
 exercise a citizen's rights. 
 
 447. Civic INSTRUCTION AND HISTORY. History, which 
 teaches us the past of our country, is one thing, and civic
 
 412 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 instruction, which makes known to us its present state, its 
 actual organization, is quite another. However, we must 
 never separate ' ' to-day " and " formerly " ; and civic in- 
 struction will not be fruitful unless it is ever stimulating a 
 comparison between contemporary institutions and ancient 
 institutions. 
 
 Of course a large spirit of toleration, and even of respect, 
 should animate the instructor in the comparisons which he 
 will have to make between the past and the present. In 
 praising the actual state of affairs, he should have a fear 
 lest he unduly undervalue and misrepresent what now is no 
 more. This has been eloquently said by Jules Ferry : 
 
 " I do not like to have it said to children, ' There is nothing but 
 contemporary history.' Ah ! it was doubtless" a happy thought 
 and a real step in advance to introduce contemporary history into 
 the programmes of our elementary instruction ; but let us be on 
 our guard against an opposite extreme. Do not think it wise to 
 say to youth, ' Back of 1789, back of that brilliant and renovating 
 date, there is nothing, nothing but sadness, nothing but misery, 
 nothing but shame.' In the first place this is not true, and then 
 such talk is not wholesome for youth." 1 
 
 448. Civic INSTRUCTION AND POLITICS. By reason of its 
 relations with politics, civic instruction falls upon rocks 
 where it is easy to make shipwreck. The instructor should 
 be on his guard against making of his pupils little journal- 
 ists and embryo politicians, without forgetting, however, 
 what he owes his country and the respect which is due to 
 the established government. 
 
 As some one has said, we ought not to carry politics into 
 the school, "if we mean by politics what occurs day after 
 day in the Chambers, who is the Minister to-day, and who 
 will be the Minister to-morrow." 
 
 1 Discours au Se'nat, du 10 Juin, 1882.
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 413 
 
 But if we understand by politics a knowledge of the great 
 principles of liberty, of equality, and of fraternal solidarity, 
 which are the foundation of modern societies, and which the 
 sons of the Revolution had to defend against the laggards 
 and against the impatient ; if we understand by politics 
 love of country and attachment to the Republic, we say yes, 
 and believe that it is never too soon to inculcate the idea of 
 it, and that this sort of politics is fit for all periods of life. 
 
 The law of March 22, 1882, put moral and civic instruc- 
 tion among the obligatory topics of instruction in the pri- 
 mary schools for boys and girls. Hereafter moral and civic 
 instruction will take among the required studies, between 
 grammar and arithmetic, the place which it has the right to 
 claim as a valuable instrument for popular education and as 
 a branch of instruction particularly necessary in a land of 
 universal suffrage, in a great democracy which it would be 
 of no use to emancipate if it were not at the same time 
 enlightened as to its rights and its duties. 
 
 449. LAY RIGHTS IN THE MATTER OF MORAL EDUCATION. 
 The work of the teacher is not done when he has culti- 
 vated and adorned the minds of his pupils, and has fur- 
 nished them with technical knowledge for the combats of 
 life. He derives from his title as teacher, he has received 
 from the confidence of families, a still higher office. By 
 virtue of his office and according to his position, he is the 
 educator of the rising generation. 
 
 It would certainly be easier, supposing this were possible, 
 to confine himself strictly to his professional duties, to be 
 simply a teacher of French, history, or mathematics ; to go 
 no deeper than the surface of the mind ; not to touch the 
 living and inner reality of beliefs, and in a word, as some 
 one has said, "to be nothing but a sort of dancing-master 
 of the intelligence."
 
 414 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 But whether he will or not, by the very nature of his 
 duties, by his ceaseless influence on the souls of the chil- 
 dren confided to his care, the teacher necessarily assumes 
 a higher responsibility. He intervenes not only through 
 direct moral lessons, but through the spirit which pro- 
 ceeds from all his instruction, and still more through his 
 example, in the moral training of his pupils ; and I do not 
 hesitate to say that this is his duty and his right. 
 
 Yes, we boldly claim for lay teachers the title of educa- 
 tors and moralists. In order to perform this august part, it 
 is not necessary to wear the robes of a priest. It is suffi- 
 cient to be a man, an upright man. 
 
 By what right, some one will say, do you teach morals ? 
 By the right which every good man has, who is at the same 
 time a teacher, to communicate to his pupils that which is 
 his most precious treasure, moral truth, the most essential 
 and most important of all. Do I need to say that this task, 
 if it is the most noble, is also the most delicate'? It is espe- 
 cially on this point that the intentions of the University are 
 misunderstood and its work suspected. We are treated as 
 usurpers and as the enemies of religion ; and, in the lan- 
 guage of certain political partisans, " the common school 
 became a godless school on the day when the teaching of 
 morals was officially introduced into it." 
 
 We should have deserved these reproaches if we had for 
 a single moment forgotten what respect and regard we owe 
 to the religious consciousness and the confessional belief of 
 our pupils ; but it must be evident to every candid man that 
 in undertaking to teach human morals, the eternal moral law, 
 we do not purpose in any way to trespass on the rights of 
 parents or of the ministers of religion. Though we are the 
 sincere and ardent defenders of the rights of modern so- 
 ciety, we are none the less conscious of the respect which a 
 government worthy of the name owes to the consciences of
 
 MORALS AND CIVIC INSTRUCTION. 415 
 
 religious men. What is more worthy of our respect than 
 the conscience of a child, a nascent and as yet undeveloped 
 conscience, an easy prey to all doctrines, which offers itself 
 to our instruction with the ingenuous docility of early years, 
 and which would so easily allow itself to be fashioned in the 
 mould where it might please us to put it? But this con- 
 science, God forbids us to touch it and to take it in hand, 
 not only because this child's conscience is the whole future 
 of the man and has its individual rights, but also because 
 back of it, if we were guilty enough to wish to turn it aside 
 from its natural aspirations, we should perceive the will of 
 the parents, the rights of the family, and the whole inherit- 
 ance of traditional beliefs. 
 
 If there is still any one who imagines that in giving moral 
 and civic instruction to all grades of public education, we 
 have desired to raise altar against altar, to oppose the 
 teacher to the priest or to the pastor, to establish some com~ 
 petition between the manual and the catechism, that we have 
 desired by the side of each temple or each church to estab- 
 lish a school of irreligiou and impiety, so that the child on 
 leaving the primary school passes before the doors of the 
 church or the temple with the spirit of indifference or of 
 scoffing, he is mistaken ; and we protest against these impu- 
 tations with all the power of our conscience as a man, a 
 patriot, and a republican. 
 
 Our only thought has been that, at a time when we are 
 concerned with what is of vital interest to a great nation, 
 I mean the moralization of the people, it is not expecting 
 too much of the good-will and devotion of all, that moral 
 lessons should not lose all their efficacy for not being 
 clothed with an ecclesiastical character ; but that lay teach- 
 ers may participate in this instruction. And when we have 
 thus assumed our part of the common task, instead of curs- 
 ing us as adversaries, perhaps it may be more just to give tic 
 thanks as co-laborers-
 
 416 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 We shall not lose heart. We shall continue to invite all 
 the pupils of our colleges and schools to the neutral ground 
 of instruction in morals, where we attack no religion, where 
 we preach justice, charity, and tolerance, which is charity 
 towards ideas. We shall continue to build upon these solid 
 foundations the human city, while leaving to the ministers 
 of religion the task of building by the side of it what St. 
 Augustine called the City of God. 1 
 
 1 The public school system of France, taken collectively, and 
 including all the grades of instruction, is known as the " University of 
 Prance," and is under the direction of the Minister of Public Instruc- 
 tion. The significance of paragraph 449 lies in the fact that the 
 schools of France have been secularized, that is, taken wholly from 
 the hands of ecclesiastics and administered by laymen. The church 
 is naturally aggrieved at this, claims the teaching of morals as one of 
 its prerogatives, and pronounces the state schools godless. (P.)
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 
 
 450. DRAWING IN THE COMMON SCHOOL. Drawing has 
 long been considered as an accomplishment, as a fancy 
 study reserved to people of leisure or to professional artists. 
 It has resulted from this that drawing has for a long time 
 been omitted from the programme of common school in- 
 struction. But it has now gained the day. For several 
 years past the teaching of drawing has been obligatory in 
 most of the schools of Europe. As some one has said, 
 " there is an advent of drawing, as well as of science, in edu- 
 cation." It is acknowledged on all sides that drawing is 
 not only an elevated recreation and a preparation for an 
 appreciation of the beautiful, but it is also the prime con- 
 dition of all progress in the different branches of artistic 
 industry. 
 
 " Without drawing, no skillful workmen, no good superintend- 
 ents of manufactories, no progress and excellence in the highest 
 industries, those which give proof of civilization." l 
 
 " The advantages which can be derived from drawing, through 
 its happy applications to the mechanic arts, are infinitely valuable. 
 It is the soul of several branches of commerce ; it is drawing 
 which gives the preference to the industries of a nation ; it in- 
 creases the value of crude material a hundred-fold. Cloths, 
 jewelry, trinkets, porcelain, carpets, all the trades relating to 
 the arts cannot be carried on, except through the principles of 
 drawing." a 
 
 1 See the article PESSIX in the Dir/ionnaire de pedagogic. 
 
 2 Bachelier, Discows sur VntilUe'des e'coles tfe'mentaires. 
 
 417
 
 418 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 451. HISTORICAL: ROUSSEAU. Rousseau was the first in 
 France to recommend the study of drawing, drawing 
 from nature, moreover, with the intention of making skillful 
 workmen rather than elegant artists. 
 
 " We could not learn to judge correctly of the width and height 
 of objects except by learning to know also their shapes, and even 
 to copy them ; for at bottom this copying is absolutely dependent 
 on the laws of perspective ; and we cannot estimate the size from 
 these appearances except we have some perception of these laws. 
 Children, who are great imitators, all try their hand at drawing. 
 I would have my child cultivate this art, not especially for the art 
 itself, but in order to make his eye true and his hand dextrous ; 
 and in general it is of very little consequence that he understand 
 such or such an exercise, provided he acquire the perspicacity of 
 sense and the correct habit of body that are generally acquired 
 through that exercise. I would be very loth, therefore, to give 
 him a drawing-master who should give him only imitations to imitate, 
 and who should make him draw only after drawings ; I would have 
 him have no teacher but nature, and no other models but objects. 
 I would have before his eyes the very original, and not the paper 
 which represents it ; and I would have him sketch a house from a 
 house, a tree from a tree, a man from a man, in order that he may 
 accustom himself to observe bodies and their appearances cor- 
 rectly, and not to accept false and conventional imitations for real 
 imitations. I would even discourage him from tracing anything 
 from memory, in the absence of objects, until by frequent obser- 
 vations their exact shapes are firmly impressed on his imagina- 
 tion ; for fear that by substituting odd and fantastic figures for 
 the actual things, he lose all knowledge of proportion and a taste 
 for the beauties of nature. 
 
 "I very well know that in this way he will scrawl for a long 
 time without making anything that is recognizable, and that he 
 will be late in acquiring elegance of contour and the light touch 
 of draftsmen, and perhaps never the appreciation of picturesque 
 effects and fine taste in drawing ; but on the other hand he will 
 certainly acquire a truer vision, a steadier hand, a knowledge of 
 the real similarities of size and shape among animals, plants, and
 
 DEAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 41 9 
 
 natural bodies, and a more ready acquaintance with the shifting 
 of perspective." l 
 
 Rousseau is wrong in absolutely proscribing the imitation 
 of artificial models. Another error is that he very sharply 
 separates drawing from geometry. " Geometry," he says, 
 " is for our pupils but the art of making a good use of the 
 rule and compass ; and it must not be confounded with 
 drawing, which will employ neither of these instruments." 
 
 452. PESTALOZZI AND FROEBEL. After Rousseau, Pesta- 
 lozzi and Froebel are the ones who have done the most to 
 popularize elementary instruction in drawing. 
 
 For Pestalozzi, geometrical forms constitute the very 
 essence of drawing. The pupil will first draw straight 
 lines, squares, triangles, and arcs of the circle. Later, 
 when the aesthetic element of form is separated from the 
 purely mathematical element, and the pupil has gained a 
 clear consciousness of it, exercises in linear drawing will be 
 followed by lessons in perspective and in artistic drawing. 
 
 The drawing of lines is but a preparation for the drawing 
 of objects. 
 
 " It is not lines," he says, " that nature gives the child ; she 
 gives him only objects ; and we should give him lines only to aid 
 him in seeing objects correctly, and we should guard against 
 removing the objects from him and making him see only lines." 
 
 Pestalozzi did hardly more than lay down principles ; 
 Froebel has applied them. Like Pestalozzi, he takes geo- 
 metrical figures as the starting-point. 
 
 " From the start the child has before him a table divided into 
 squares, and then a slate divided into squares. Balls, cubes, thin 
 strips of wood, taken in turn, familiarize him with geometrical 
 
 i Emite, I, IL
 
 420 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 forms; yarns and strips of paper drill him in distinguishing 
 colors. What he has seen he will naturally reproduce. For 
 guiding his first attempts it suffices to make him begin with 
 elementary forms. He commences by seeing concrete and tan- 
 gible lines, so to speak, represented by sticks ; at first he has only 
 to lay down and arrange in different ways the laths or the cubes 
 in order to obtain regular figures. Very soon, by weaving the 
 strips of paper, he himself produces mosaics in little squares of 
 several colors. Finally, when he takes the pencil in hand, it is 
 easy for him to represent on the slate or on paper the combina- 
 tions which he has produced with these sticks, cubes, and strips 
 of paper, and by means of the incitements of analogy and the 
 help of the squares which guide him without restraining him, and 
 by means of the growing instinct of harmony and symmetry 
 which kindergarten training marvelously develops, he cannot 
 restrict himself to imitating, but he invents almost at once new 
 combinations of lines whose regular arrangement delights him and 
 gives him ceaseless encouragement to new efforts." 1 
 
 453. DEFINITION OF TERMS. Usage has sanctioned cer- 
 tain expressions, according to which drawing would com- 
 prise different varieties which are wholly distinct, such as 
 linear, geometrical, ornamental, artistic, or imitative draw- 
 ing. Linear drawing is in truth nothing but geometrical 
 drawing, that is, drawing which is more specially applied 
 to the representation of objects geometrically defined. Or- 
 namental drawing is but a development of geometrical draw- 
 ing. Finally, artistic or imitative drawing is generally 
 applied to the representation of the human figure. 
 
 454. ACTUAL PROGRAMMES. The teaching of drawing 
 was not made obligatory in the common schools of France 
 till 1882. The decree of July 27, 1882, requires that the 
 teaching of drawing, begun with very short lessons in the 
 elementary course, " shall occupy in the two other courses 
 two or three lessons each week." 
 
 1 T 
 
 1 M. Buisson, Rapport sur I'exposUion d$ Vienne, p. 247.
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 42 1 
 
 The programme indicates, as matter for the elementary 
 course, the tracing of lines and the first principles of orna- 
 mental drawing. 
 
 For the intermediate course, free-hand drawing, ordinary 
 geometrical curves, and curves borrowed from the vegetable 
 world ; copying from casts representing ornaments, and the 
 first notion of geometrical drawing as related to the dimen- 
 sions, form, and position of the parts of an object ; finally, 
 geometrical drawing with the use of the rule, the compass, 
 the square, and the protractor. In this part of the course 
 the effort will be limited to making pupils understand the 
 use of those instruments which they are to handle in the 
 higher course. 
 
 For the higher course, elementary notions on the orders 
 of architecture and the drawing of the human head are 
 added to the free-hand drawing. As to geometrical draw- 
 ing, the traces hitherto executed on the board will now be 
 made on paper with the aid of instruments. The principles 
 of tinting are given, and decorative drawings are executed 
 in china ink and color. 
 
 455. Ax WHAT AGE SHOULD INSTRUCTION IN DRAWING 
 BEGIN? When the child writes rapidly and well, said 
 Locke, I think that it is proper, not only to continue to 
 exercise his hands by writing, but even to give extension 
 to his skill by teaching him to draw. In fact, there are 
 striking similarities between writing and drawing, and 
 these two exercises may and should lend one another 
 mufual support. So in imitation of Froebel we cannot 
 too much encourage the teaching of drawing even in the 
 infant school. 
 
 " Nothing could be better adapted to a little child than drawing, 
 which occupies his eyes and his hand, and compels him, by th 
 very nature of the exercise and without the necessity of inviting
 
 422 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 him to it, to observe attentively, to compare, and to combine. We 
 intentionally underscore this last word, because it correctly indi- 
 cates the superiority of drawing over the other exercises in obser- 
 vation, where the child looks without having to reproduce what 
 he sees. In the most modest attempts at drawing, there is an 
 element of creation, an active personal part which constitutes one 
 of the greatest attractions of this kind of work. With the pencil 
 in hand, the child invents even more than he copies." l 
 
 456. CHILDREN'S TASTE FOR DRAWING. All the ob- 
 servers of human nature, and notably Mr. Spencer, -have 
 observed the child's taste for drawing. 
 
 "The spreading recognition of drawing as an element of 
 education is one amongst many signs of the more rational 
 views on mental culture now beginning to prevail. Once more 
 it may be remarked that teachers are at length adopting the 
 course which nature has for ages been pressing upon their 
 notice. The spontaneous efforts made by children to represent 
 men, houses, trees, and animals around them, on a slate, if 
 they can get nothing better, or with lead-pencil or paper, if 
 they can beg them, are familiar to all. To be shown 
 through a picture-book is one of their highest gratifications; 
 and as usual their strong imitative tendency presently generates 
 in them the ambition to make pictures themselves also. This 
 attempt to depict the striking things they see is a farther 
 instinctive exercise of the perceptions, a means whereby still 
 greater accuracy and completeness of observation is induced. 
 And, alike by seeking to interest us in their discoveries of 
 the sensible properties of things, and by their endeavors to 
 draw, they solicit from us just that kind of culture which 
 they most need." 2 
 
 457. TASTE FOR COLORING. Mr. Spencer has also ob- 
 served that the process of representation which most charms 
 and attracts the child is coloring. 
 
 1 Mile. Chalamet, L'Ecole maternelle, p. 135. 
 
 2 Spencer, op. cit., p. 140.
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 423 
 
 " Paper and pencil are good, in default of something better ; 
 but a box of paints and a brush, these are the treasures. The 
 drawing of outlines immediately becomes secondary to coloring." 
 
 But is it possible to introduce the use of colors into the 
 common school? The programme admits of it in a certain 
 measure, since it is prescribed for the infant classes in the 
 following terms : 
 
 " Combination of lines. Representation of these combinations 
 on slate and paper with an ordinary pencil, or by tracing in color." 
 
 Also in the higher course of the common school, the pro- 
 gramme, as we have seen, recommends exercises in tinting 
 with china ink and in color. 
 
 458. Two DIFFERENT METHODS. It is none the less true 
 that the most important thing in drawing is the line and its 
 combinations, and not color and its shades. 
 
 What method shall be followed to familiarize the child, as 
 surely and as rapidly as possible, with the study of lines ? 
 Two systems are before us, on the one hand, that which 
 would not have geometry made the basis of instruction in 
 drawing, which asserts that the human form, as being that 
 which is most perfect and most harmonious in its propor- 
 tions, should serve as the point of departure in drawing ; 
 on the other hand the classical method, which proceeds log- 
 ically, analytically so to speak, and which, before presenting 
 wholes for the imitation of the child, drills him in reproduc- 
 ing the elements of every figure and of every form, that 
 is, the lines in their different combinations. 
 
 459. MR. SPENCER'S OPINION. Mr. Spencer vigorously 
 condemns the method which consists " in making straight 
 lines and curved lines and compound lines, with which it is 
 the fashion of some teachers to begin." This is, he says, 
 to renew in the teaching of drawing the exercises which
 
 424 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 have been abandoned in the teaching of languages ; it is 
 again placing the abstract before the concrete. 
 
 It is difficult to prove, however, that lines, even though 
 they are but the elements of real forms, constitute anything 
 abstract. This is as though, in the teaching of reading, we 
 should forbid the child to learn the letters which are the 
 elements of words. It seems to us that it is best to place 
 at the beginning of the studies in drawing the tracing of 
 lines, their division into equal parts, and the estimation of 
 the relation of lines to one another. This, according to Mr. 
 Spencer's expression, is a "grammar," or rather an alpha- 
 bet, of forms, which must necessarily be learned before 
 going farther. 
 
 Mr. Spencer's opinion is also that which is advocated in 
 France by M. Ravaisson. 
 
 "In its most elementary processes," he says, "to which all 
 others may be reduced, drawing reposes on a judgment 
 of a special nature, entirely different from that judgment 
 which is employed in mathematics. . . . The best means of 
 drawing any object whatever will then be to study the objects 
 in which are found in the highest degree those qualities which 
 constitute their harmony and beauty, in such a way as to 
 appropriate, at least as much as one is capable of doing and as 
 his time will permit, the spirit which characterizes them. This 
 will be to study the complete types of the highest perfection 
 which nature presents to us. Even for him who will have, in 
 the practice of the trade to which he devotes himself, only to 
 execute the more modest task of imitation, the best method for 
 succeeding as promptly as possible in fulfilling his duties properly 
 will then be the one which all teachers have always prescribed, 
 and which consists in studying for a long time, and as long as 
 one is able, the types in which is exhibited the unity which 
 impresses on forms their character, and especially the higher 
 unity in which beauty resides." 1 
 
 1 See article Art in the Diet, de pedagogic.
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 425 
 
 The method proposed by M. Ravaisson is undoubtedly 
 the most favorable for the development of the aesthetic fac- 
 ulties and of the sentiment of the beautiful. It is the one 
 perhaps which we would recommend if it were proposed in a 
 common school to train, artists ; but in the humble sphere in 
 which the destinies of elementary instruction are placed, it 
 seems to us more rational to follow the other method, that 
 which is based on the solid elements borrowed from geomet- 
 rical representations. 
 
 460. CLASSICAL OPINION. This method has been bril- 
 liantly defended by M. E. Guillaume, 1 and it is impossible 
 more strongly to enforce the reasons which justify the 
 preference which we have given it. M. Guillaume observes 
 that it is not so much a question of sentiment as of 
 practical habits, and that drawing ought not to remain in 
 the domain of uncertainties, but that it must have a rational 
 basis. 
 
 "From the fact that drawing serves as a mode of expression 
 in the fine arts, it is inferred that art is its principal, if not its 
 unique object, and that in the teaching of drawing it is art 
 that should be principally kept in view. The general and use- 
 ful phase, the means of precision which it borrows from science 
 and which serve as a necessary support even to the concep- 
 tions of the artist, are despised ; and before knowing how to 
 draw a line or recognize its direction, moral expression becomes 
 the theme. In a trice accuracy is sacrificed to sentiment. Taste 
 is exalted as the supreme rule, and the fundamental principles 
 and exercises, without which, farther on, neither inspiration nor 
 actual works can be produced with certainty, are treated with 
 disdain. The ideal is exalted and pupils are enamored of 
 aesthetic theories, l>efore being inured to practice and becoming 
 masters of the laws which control it. Finally, the attention is 
 
 1 See article DESSIN in the Dictionnaire de pedagogic.
 
 426 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 fixed on the artistic vocations which are the exception, while an 
 appeal should be made to the mass, where it is a question of 
 children whose intelligence is developed progressively, and most 
 of whom are destined to be workmen. Is there not a danger 
 in appealing to the initiative and independence of sentiment 
 when the only proper course is to give direction and discipline 
 to minds ? However little a child may follow a course in drawing, 
 he should carry away from it definite ideas and practical hab- 
 its which will be of use to him during his entire life." 
 
 M. Guillaume concludes that in practice, as in theory, it 
 .is geometry that is the basis of the science of drawing, and 
 that we have to do with industrial drawing or with artistic 
 drawing. If any other course is taken, it is very difficult 
 to arrive at exactness, and the draftsman will run a great 
 risk of always remaining in indecision and vagueness. 
 
 But this rigorous and scientific method does not exclude 
 the pursuits of the beautiful and the education of the aes- 
 thetic sense ; only, instead of being the point of departure, 
 the human figure will be the coronation of the studies in 
 drawing. In the higher course, the copying of figures after 
 the antique will exercise the taste. 
 
 " From these admirable specimens of an art which has never 
 been surpassed, the pupil will develop the artistic faculties 
 which may exist within him. Trained from the first to draw- 
 ing with exactness and precision, he will never remain power- 
 less to translate the delicate or strong works which have been 
 transmitted to us by the most brilliant epochs of art." 
 
 461. PARTICULAR ADVICE. It would require too much 
 time to enter into a detail of the school usages which are 
 best adapted to the teaching of drawing. Let us note 
 merely a few essential points. 
 
 I. So far as possible, the first models ought to be real 
 objects. The programme of the maternal schools rightly
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 42 7 
 
 places by the side of the drawings made by the mistress, 
 which the pupil reproduces, " the representation of the 
 most simple objects of daily use." In other terms, the 
 pupil ought not to be exclusively restricted to the study 
 of pure geometrical forms. It is well that he be early 
 exercised in reading and translating the forms of natural 
 objects. 
 
 II. At first only figures of two dimensions that is, 
 planes must be drawn. Figures in relief ought to be re- 
 served for a later period. 
 
 III. Ornamental drawing ought to follow geometrical 
 drawing. 
 
 IV. Elementary instruction in drawing, even when we 
 have in view only industrial drawing, ought not to neglect 
 the human form. 
 
 V. The principles of industrial drawing ought to be 
 taught pan' passu with exercises in drawing. tk The ac- 
 quisition of technical skill by the hand is hastened, rather 
 than retarded, by the study of these principles." 
 
 462. SINGING IN THE COMMON SCHOOL. The teaching of 
 the arts proper in the common school is reduced to singing 
 and drawing. But drawing is especially a useful art, the 
 study of which prepares the ordinary child for his future 
 vocation as a laborer or an artisan ; it is only incidentally an 
 element of aesthetic education. It tends rather to develop 
 manual skill than to cultivate the sentiment of the beautiful. 
 On the contrary, music and singing have not the same prac- 
 tical utility. They have been introduced into the common 
 school chiefly as measures of gratifying the feelings, of touch- 
 ing the heart, and of exciting the noblest emotions of the 
 soul. Hence the particular importance of singing, which 
 seems to involve all that can be demanded of a'sthetic edu- 
 cation in the common school.
 
 428 PEACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 463. SINGING IN THE MATERNAL SCHOOL. On this sub- 
 ject we cannot do better than reproduce the very judicious 
 observations of Mile. Chalamet. 
 
 "Singing has always had a place in our infant schools, and 
 with justice. It may render important service in the education 
 of little children. It brings a valuable contribution to physical 
 development by fortifying the lungs and giving suppleness to 
 all the vocal organs. These organs are less liable to the many 
 and grave maladies which might affect them, especially in early 
 years, if they have been subjected to regular exercise. By this 
 means we provide for the education of the ear ; we cultivate 
 and refine a sense which plays along with vision a pre-eminent 
 part in the intellectual existence of the child. Finally, singing 
 exercises over the mental condition of children an influence 
 which makes of it a potent instrument of education, and one 
 of the surest and most salutary means of discipline which can 
 be employed. Who does not know the effect produced by a song 
 introduced at the right moment into a sleepy, languid class, or 
 it may be into one agitated and disturbed? Music has the gift 
 of calming children, and at the same time of urging them to 
 activity by an agreeable excitation. The child loves music. 
 Singing makes him happy, and is for him a natural need, 
 like running and jumping. Can we conceive an assembly of 
 little children where there is no singing? This would be as 
 little normal and as funereal as a garden whose plants never 
 saw the sun." * 
 
 Since 1882 singing has been one of the obligatory topics 
 of common-school instruction. 
 
 " Lessons in singing," says the regulation, " shall occupy 
 from one to two hours a week, independently of the exercises 
 in singing which will take place every day, either in the in- 
 tervals between classes or at the opening or close of school." 
 
 464. MORAL INFLUENCE OF Music. The ancients as- 
 
 1 Mile. Chalamet, L'Ecole maternelle, p. 255.
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 429 
 
 scribed to music a sovereign influence in moral education. 
 A well-educated Athenian must know how to sing, and the 
 education of Themistocles, who had not this accomplish- 
 ment, was thought to have been neglected. Music was 
 regarded as the best means of habituating citizens to order 
 and social harmony. " A rule of music cannot be touched," 
 said Plato, "without disturbing the foundations of the 
 state." It is to the same effect that Napoleon the First 
 said, "A piece of moral music, executed by the hand of a 
 master, infallibly touches the feelings, and has much more 
 influence than a good book, which convinces the reason 
 without influencing our habits." 
 
 "From the intellectual point of view," says a contemporary 
 author, M. Dupaigne, " the result of music is to elevate the 
 mind, to give it a taste for the beautiful, of which it is 
 perhaps the most sensible example, and to lead from a taste 
 for the beautiful to a love of study which will give in sev- 
 eral other ways satisfaction to this taste. In this respect 
 music is one of the most powerful auxiliaries, which gains 
 time instead of losing it, because it prepares the way for the 
 things of the spirit, for things delicate and exalted. In pri- 
 mary instruction it is music which first represents the aesthetic 
 phase of education, so necessary to be mingled with the 
 commonplaces of the first elements. It is music which, bet- 
 ter understood and more easily grasped than literary beauty, 
 more easily permits children to feel the charm and emotion 
 produced by what they have known to be well said, and the 
 delicious satisfaction of having had their part in the pro- 
 duction of something beautiful. The importance of such im- 
 pressions for the progress of a child's intelligence is not 
 necessary to be demonstrated to earnest teachers ; but we 
 know that they require in him who would produce them at 
 least that profound sentiment of art which is called taste, 
 and that they necessarily exclude pretence and charlatanism. 
 
 " From the moral point of view, the effects of music are 
 not less valuable. It may become for young people the most
 
 430 PEACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 powerful preservative against the dangers of other pleasures, 
 but on the conditions of a careful choice in selections, and 
 of admitting within the school only the works of a pure 
 and exalted sentiment, and of not fearing to appeal, as much 
 as possible, to the great masters." 
 
 465. Music AND DISCIPLINE. It is useless to dwell on 
 the part that music may play in school discipline. Music not 
 only makes the school attractive, but is an excellent means 
 for regulating the movements of pupils as they enter and 
 leave the school-room, and of introducing order and harmony 
 into it ; it is, moreover, an excellent recreation, which gives 
 repose from serious studies, and which ma}^ during the prog- 
 ress of the classes, reanimate the activity and the spirits of 
 the pupils. 
 
 466. CHOICE OF PIECES. It is a matter of complaint 
 that there is not yet a good selection of pieces for use in the 
 common schools ; and yet this selection is a matter of capital 
 importance. These pieces ought to be simple, entertaining, 
 with words adapted to the age of the child, old melodies, 
 patriotic songs, hymns to great men. 
 
 " Success in the teaching of singing depends, in great part, 
 on the selection of pieces which are given children to sing. 
 Their first exercises in language had been but the expression 
 of their own ideas, of their own impressions. ... It should 
 be the same with their first exercises in singing. A collec- 
 tio*i of pieces, simple and well graded, is of extreme impor- 
 tance The words ought also to be as similar as pos- 
 sible to the very language of children, so as to be perfectly 
 clear to them ; but this condition does not exclude real 
 poetry. The subjects chosen will be of various characters; 
 they will vary from serious to gay." 1 
 
 1 Eoger de Guimps, Philosophic de V Education.
 
 DRAWING. MUSIC. SINGING. 431 
 
 467. METHODS AND PROCESSES. The first thing to do is 
 to train the ear and the voice. The ear will be trained by 
 hearing and the voice by singing. 
 
 In the elementary course, as in the intermediate and higher 
 courses, the songs will be learned by audition. 
 
 As at first musical theory will be purposely avoided, it is 
 merely the practical which is of importance. 
 
 " Singing, like speech, is a matter of imitation. . . . The 
 song must be grasped simply by the ear, by singing it to 
 children, as many times as it may be necessary in order 
 that the better endowed among them may retain it in a 
 manner well-nigh correct." 
 
 Obvious infirmities in the sense "of hearing are due in 
 general merely to the lack of exercise. 
 
 " There is no incurable infirmity," says M. Dupaigne. " It 
 is never the ear unless one is deaf, but it is exercise which 
 is lacking." 
 
 The beginning will be made, then, by requiring much 
 practice of the children. When they have succeeded in sing- 
 ing in unison, that is, in exactly reproducing the sounds 
 which they hear, the half of the work has been done. 
 
 An excellent piece of advice given by M. Dupaigne is to 
 select from the children those who have an agreeable and 
 reliable voice, and make them sing alone as an example for 
 the others. 
 
 468. INTUITION IN SINGING. Pestalozzi was right in 
 thinking that as the child learns to speak before knowing 
 how to read, he ought to learn to sing before knowing the 
 conventional signs which serve for writing music. The 
 child speaks because he has heard speaking ; so he will 
 sing from having heard singing.
 
 432 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 469. MUSICAL THEORY. In the elementary course, musi- 
 cal theory will be limited to the reading of notes. In the 
 intermediate and higher courses, on the contrary, the study 
 of theory proper should be added to the practical exercises. 
 
 But care should be taken not to extend the study of theory 
 too far. Teachers should spare their children theoretical 
 difficulties, but train them to utter sounds distinctly, to control 
 their voice, to notice shades of sound, and to have a clear and 
 correct enunciation. 
 
 The important thing is that the child, on leaving the com- 
 mon school, shall have a taste for singing, and that his musi- 
 cal aptitudes shall be so developed that he may be able, when 
 he has become a young man, to become a member of a choral 
 society, which is one of the most commendable and useful 
 forms of popular association. By this means the study of 
 singing will have co-operated in general education ; it will 
 have contributed to turn aside souls from gross pleasures 
 and material enjoyments, to direct them towards innocent 
 and elevated pleasures.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL. 
 
 470. MANUAL LABOR IN THE COMMON SCHOOL. All the 
 studies, all the school exercises, which we have so far exam- 
 ined are connected with intellectual and moral education, 
 although some of them may receive an immediate practical 
 application. But physical education, considered either as the 
 development of the powers of the body or as an apprentice- 
 ship in the qualities of expertness, agility, manual dexterity, 
 promptness and sureness in the movements which are par- 
 ticularly important to future workmen, physical education 
 also demands its place in the programme of the common 
 schools. 
 
 Hence the importance accorded to gymnastics on the one 
 hand, and to manual labor proper on the other. 
 
 " Gymnastics," says the order of July 27, 1882, " will occupy 
 each day, or at least every other day, one recitation hour dur- 
 ing the course of the afternoon." 
 
 " For the boys, as well as the girls, two or three hours a 
 week will be devoted to manual industries." 
 
 What we have said in the first part of this work (Chapter 
 II.) makes it unnecessary for us to dwell on the utility and 
 the nature of a normal course of instruction in gymnastics. 
 
 471. IMPORTANCE OF MANUAL LABOR. "The national 
 school, in a democracy of laborers like ours, ought to be 
 essentially a school of labor." 1 It is a question, not only of 
 
 1 Jules Ferry. 433
 
 434 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 developing the intellectual and moral faculties and of giving 
 a general education which no one in any occupation can 
 dispense with, but of preparing workmen for the shop and of 
 training the manual aptitudes. Without losing anything of 
 its proper character, the common school ought to be in part 
 a preparation for the professional school. 
 
 The time is no more when manual labor was considered a 
 low occupation. The programme of moral and civic in- 
 struction, ordered by the higher council of public instruction, 
 contains an article with this title : " Nobility of Manual 
 Labor." For three centuries educators like Locke and 
 Rousseau have demanded that the apprenticeship to a 
 manual industry should be introduced even into the in- 
 struction of the middle classes, and in general into the edu- 
 cation of all men. If we have not yet reached this point, 
 we have at least placed manual labor in the programme 
 of the common school ; and this is surely a considerable 
 step in advance. 
 
 "Be assured," says Jules Ferry, "that when the plane and 
 the file shall have taken, by the side of the compass, the map 
 and the history, the same place, the place of honor, and shall 
 have been the object of a rational and systematic instruction, 
 many prejudices will have disappeared, many caste distinctions 
 will have vanished. Social peace will appear on the benches 
 of the common school, and concord will illumine with its 
 radiant day the future of French society." 
 
 M. Greard has pithily expressed the same thought. 
 
 " In our opinion it is not without some foundation that our 
 common school studies are charged with being too classical, in 
 the sense which tradition attaches to this word. With respect 
 to history, geography, or language, we are pleased with the 
 methods which befit an education of leisure. Everything draws 
 the higher classes of society to the great questions of history
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL. 435 
 
 and philosophy which constitute the development of human 
 civilization, and they have the time to devote themselves to 
 them. But such is not the condition of those who. live by the 
 labor of their hands, and it seems that we do not sufficiently 
 consider the special conditions of the aid which it is the 
 object of the common school to assure to them, and which 
 ought to be as the intellectual and moral viaticum of their 
 whole existence." 
 
 Finally, the author of the law of 1881 on primary instruc- 
 tion, Paul Bert, said to the same effect : 
 
 " There is no need that any one should misunderstand our 
 real thought. We do not demand that the common school 
 become a professional school ; we do not believe that one 
 ought to come from it either a locksmith or a vine-dresser. 
 This is the business of trade-schools or shops, which ought 
 to train artisans, while the school, accomplishing a much 
 more general work, trains men and citizens. But we believe 
 that scientific instruction ought not to rest in the domain of 
 pure theory, but that practical applications to the different 
 industries ought to hold a large place in it. Now it seems 
 to us necessary, in order that this practical instruction may 
 bear all its fruits, that the child should learn to handle the 
 principal tools by the aid of which man is made the master 
 of the materials which are furnished him by nature and 
 the fundamental industries, wood, the metals, leather, etc. 
 In this innovation we think we see a triple advantage : a 
 physical advantage, for in learning to use the plane, the saw, 
 the hammer, the child will complete his gymnastic education, 
 and will acquire a manual dexterity which will always be 
 useful to him, whatever he may afterwards do, and will hold 
 him in readiness, now and always, for all apprenticeships; an 
 intellectual advantage, for the thousand little difficulties which 
 he will meet with will accustom him to observation and re- 
 flection ; a social advantage, it may be said, for after having 
 appreciated by his own experience the qualities necessary for 
 success in professional duties and for becoming a skillful
 
 436 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 workman, there is not the least fear that if fortune favors 
 him, to whatever position, he may afterwards come, he will 
 despise those of his companions who always work with their 
 hands." 
 
 472. MANUAL INDUSTRIES IN SCHOOLS FOR BOYS. The 
 orders and the programme of 1882 have organized manual 
 labor in the common schools for boys, as follows : 
 
 "For the manual labor of boys the exercises are divided 
 into two groups : One comprises the different exercises in- 
 tended in a general way to limber the fingers and give dex- 
 terity, suppleness, rapidity, and accuracy of movement; the 
 other group comprises graduated exercises in moulding, 
 which serve as a complement to the corresponding study of 
 drawing, and particularly of industrial drawing." 
 
 ELEMENTARY COURSE. Manual exercises intended to give 
 manual dexterity. Cutting of card-board in the forms of 
 geometrical solids. Basket-work : Union of splints of dif- 
 ferent colors. Moulding: Reproduction of geometrical solids 
 and of very simple objects." 
 
 INTERMEDIATE COURSE. Construction of objects of card- 
 board covered with colored drawings and with colored paper. 
 Trinkets of wire : lattice-work. Combinations of wire 
 and wood : Cages. Moulding : Simple architectural orna- 
 ments. Notions on the most common tools. 
 
 HIGHER COURSE. Combined exercises of drawing and 
 moulding ; rough drafts of objects to be executed, and con- 
 struction of these objects according to the sketches, or vice 
 versa. Study of the principal tools employed in wood-work. 
 Practical graduated exercises. Planing and sawing wood, 
 simple unions. Boxes nailed or put together without nails. 
 Wood-turning, the turning of very simple objects. Study of 
 the principal tools used in iron-work, the use of the file, 
 paring or finishing of rough objects from the forge or foundry." 
 
 473. BY WHOM THE LESSONS IN MANUAL INDUSTRY OUGHT 
 TO BE GIVEN. In the actual state of affairs, the elemeu-
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL. 437 
 
 tary lessons in manual labor in the common school are 
 given by the teacher. In the higher common schools resort 
 is most often made to outside workmen who bring to the 
 school the co-operation of a thorough experience in the 
 trade which they have practiced all their life. The ideal 
 would be, however, that in the higher common school the 
 manual labor, like the school exercises, should be intrusted 
 to the teachers themselves ; and this is why a recent order 
 has required that the examination for a higher certificate 
 should include an obligatory test in manual labor. 
 
 474. ORDER TO BE FOLLOWED. During the first years 
 of the common school, the child, who is ignorant of every- 
 thing, has so many things to learn that it is only with dis- 
 cretion that we must impose on him exercises, in manual 
 labor, but in the higher courses we should become more 
 exacting. 
 
 During the period from seven to ten years we must not 
 require a great display of physical force ; the child must 
 be exercised only in slight tasks which develop his manual 
 dexterity. Drawing, cutting, making boxes of card-board, 
 which permit him to obtain objects of various forms and 
 colors, will call into play at the same time his intelligence, 
 his attention, and his versatility. To these tasks will be 
 added the making of little pieces of basket-work and the 
 construction of metallic lattice-work, making necessary the 
 use of light tools. At this stage the purpose should be to 
 make children really produce objects which they can take 
 home and exhibit as their own work. Some specimens 
 marked with the name of each child will be left at school 
 and will form parts of the school museum. 
 
 During the period from ten to twelve years the children 
 should be familiarized with most of the tools used in wood- 
 work, and trained to use the lathe and initiated to the hand- 
 ling of the file.
 
 438 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 During the whole period of school life the practice of 
 moulding will serve to promote the skill and the deftness 
 of the hand. 
 
 Of course this professional education ought to be kept 
 within wise limits, so as not to do prejudice to the ordinary 
 studies. The school ought not to become a workshop ; it 
 ought merely to prepare for the different manual industries 
 by inspiring the taste and by beginning to train the apti- 
 tudes which they require. 
 
 475. THE TEACHING OP AGRICULTURE. The most of 
 our common schools are rural schools. The majority of 
 the children who attend them are to become field-laborers ; 
 hence the particular importance of lessons in agriculture. 
 
 It is in the garden of the school that these lessons ought 
 at first to be given ; later they will be continued in excur- 
 sions. They will not constitute, at least during the first 
 years, a consecutive and didactic course. They will bear 
 on the nature of the soil, upon fertilizers, upon the ordi- 
 nary farm tools, and upon the different varieties of field- 
 labor. 
 
 In the higher course, the purpose will be to give to these 
 subjects a more methodical character ; and an extension 
 will be given to them by calling the attention of children 
 to domestic animals and even to the keeping of farm 
 accounts. 
 
 There will be added to these general notions exact in- 
 formation on arboriculture and horticulture ; upon the 
 principal processes for the multiplication of vegetables, 
 and on the most important methods of grafting. Outside 
 of the special lessons, it will be easy for an attentive 
 teacher to give to his instruction a rural coloring through 
 the choice of dictation exercises, problems, and reading 
 lessons. The teaching of the physical and the natural
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL. 439 
 
 sciences is particularly adapted to this purpose, and as 
 often as possible there should be drawn from them practical 
 conclusions which pertain to rural industry. 
 
 476. MILITARY DRILL. A child of our common schools 
 is not only a future workman, but a future soldier. The 
 school would fall short of its mission, which is to prepare 
 for life, for complete living, if it did not devote a few hours 
 to military drill. 
 
 " The most of our country conscripts reach the regiment 
 awkward, ungainly, heavy in body and sometimes in mind, 
 without carriage, without ever having had a sword in hand, 
 and too often without ever having fired a gun. For two 
 years they must with great difficulty be taught what they 
 might have learned with so much pleasure while they were 
 children ; and it is very fortunate if the drudgery, the pun- 
 ishments, and the dry theory do not give them a hatred for 
 the military vocation." 1 
 
 Through the military exercises of the school the legislator 
 will be permitted to shorten the period of actual service in 
 the regiment without compromising the national strength. 
 From the moment of joining the regiment we shall have, 
 not ungainly conscripts, but young men already broken to 
 military tactics, and capable of handling a gun and of using 
 it. By this means also we shall repair in part the military 
 reputation of the French nation, which precisely, because it 
 loves peace, and wishes to preserve it, ought to prepare itself 
 to be, in the day of danger, a people of citizen-soldiers. 
 
 The evolutions of these school battalions, which are be- 
 coming more and more customary, are not, then, a vain 
 parade. The children, who take great pleasure in them, are 
 not playing soldier, but are seriously doing a serious thing, 
 
 * Paul Bert, De I' Education civique.
 
 440 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 a useful and patriotic thing. They are preparing to be the 
 defenders of the country and of the Republic. 
 
 477. DRILL IN SHOOTING. The official programme is 
 right in requiring not only drill in marching, counter- 
 marching, alignment, etc., but also in imposing preparatory 
 drill in shooting and a practical study of the mechanism of 
 the gun. 
 
 On leaving school, and during the interval between the 
 thirteenth and twenty-first year, the child should become 
 a member of the shooting societies which are established 
 almost everywhere in the country, and which are called to 
 render important services. But this cannot be unless in the 
 school itself he has received an adequate preparation. But 
 the military drill should not encroach on the hours devoted 
 to study ; and the order of 1882 wisely directs that the 
 battalion drill shall take place only on Thursday and Sunday, 
 the time to be devoted to the purpose to be determined by 
 the military instructor in concert with the director of the 
 school. 
 
 478. OTHER PRACTICAL EXERCISES. It is not only the 
 natural and physical sciences which lead to practical appli- 
 cations. Geometry also leads the pupils of the common 
 school to the simpler operation of surveying and leveling ; 
 and arithmetic conducts them to an apprenticeship in book- 
 keeping. 
 
 In general, a practical turn must be given to each branch 
 of study, and it must never be forgotten that instruction is 
 an apprenticeship in real life. 
 
 479. MANUAL INDUSTRIES IN SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS. It is 
 especially in the manual industries that the distinction of the 
 sexes ought to occasion noticeable differences in procedure. 
 On this subject the programme of 1882 speaks as follows :
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL- 441 
 
 " The manual labor for girls, besides the work in cutting and 
 sewing, allows a certain number of lessons, conferences, and 
 exercises, by means of which the mistress will attempt, not to 
 give a regular course in domestic economy, but to inspire 
 young women, through a great number of practical examples, 
 with a love of order; to make them acquire the substantial 
 qualities of the housewife ; and to put them on guard against 
 frivolous and dangerous inclinations." 
 
 480. NEEDLE-WORK. Even in the maternal school, after 
 having been initiated into the little kindergarten exercises 
 (weaving, folding, plaiting), the little girl will be trained 
 in little tasks of knitting. 
 
 The weaving consists in doing wit)h a warp and woof of 
 paper a work analogous to that of a weaver. 
 
 The folding consists in giving different forms to a square 
 piece of paper. 
 
 481. DOMESTIC SEWING. Doubtless we must not over- 
 look the exercises in embroidery, tapestry, lace-making, fine 
 sewing, and fancy work, which are carried on in a great 
 number of schools ; but what is even more important, and 
 what should be encouraged above all else, is work of current 
 use, simple, ordinary work, which gives proof of a wholly 
 practical purpose, and which does not aim at passing beyond 
 the requirements of ordinary domestic needs. A single word 
 is sufficient to characterize what the sewing in the common 
 school ought to be: "Domestic Sewing." Official instruc- 
 tions have often been given that no work in sewing shall be 
 done in the school which is not required for household use 
 in particular. 
 
 Let us add that it is less important to have the child pro- 
 duce fine pieces of work at once, than to put her in a 
 condition to use her fingers with agility and skill in her
 
 442 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 future work. M. Greard thinks that some entertaining 
 reading ought to take place while the pupils are devoting 
 themselves to manual labor. He demands besides that we 
 distinguish the labor of the workshop, which employs 
 children rather than trains them, the "workshop" de- 
 riving advantage from its products, and the products being 
 as much more valuable as the same operations are always 
 intrusted to the same hands which have here acquired a 
 marvelous dexterity, from the teaching of the school, 
 which requires all its pupils to pass through the progressive 
 series of all the useful exercises. 
 
 482. ABUSES OF MANUAL LABOR. For our part we 
 cannot consent to quote as models to be followed the 
 schools where the teacher has her pupils do work in sewing 
 which she sells at the ordinary price, and then divides the 
 proceeds among the children. 1 This spirit of gain and 
 these commercial habits are not in keeping in a school. 
 
 From this point of view, Madame Pape-Carpantier has 
 vigorously denounced the abuse of manual labor in the case 
 of children. 
 
 " No ; the child cannot fairly become a producer, that is to 
 say, have something to dispose of, except after having previ- 
 ously acquired all that he needs within himself and for him- 
 self. Does the silk-worm spin before having been nourished 
 on the leaves whence she draws her precious web? Must not 
 the child, like the earth, be cultivated before producing? And 
 what can a child produce at an age when everything in him 
 is frail, tender, and still filled with maternal milk? I have 
 been told what he produces : ' A few cents a day.' A few 
 cents ! Is such a revenue indispensable ? And how is the 
 child made to produce such a wretched pittance? By making 
 him perform the function of a low-priced instrument ; by con- 
 
 1 See M. Vincent, Cours de pedagogic, p. 270.
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL. 443 
 
 straining his young turbulence to exercise only certain muscles; 
 to execute only such movements as he will have to repeat every 
 day of his life; by developing to excess in him the force 
 which is needed by his trade, to the detriment of those which 
 he has no occasion for ; and finally, by breaking without scruple, 
 in those young organizations, that equilibrium, that balance of 
 forces, which is the very power and the most admirable mani- 
 festation of God in the universe." 
 
 483. DOMESTIC ECONOMY. Sewing is not the only occu- 
 pation of the household now, consequently not the only item 
 in the school apprenticeship of girls, with respect to manual 
 labor. Ideas on domestic economy in general, with the 
 practical exercise connected with them, ought also to form 
 a part of their elementary instruction. 
 
 " Why is not the common school which receives the daughter 
 of the laborer practical enough to descend to the teaching, appar- 
 ently so undignified, but so fruitful in hygienic and even in moral 
 results, of the cost of alimentation or of cooking, if we must 
 call it by its proper name ? " 
 
 By way of illustration, here is the programme followed in 
 the schools of Belgium, for instruction in domestic economy : 
 
 1. Conditions necessary for a healthy home. Ventilation. 
 Cleanliness. 
 
 2. Furniture and its care. 
 
 3. Warming and lighting. 
 
 4. Washing. The use of soap and of liquid chlorides. Re- 
 moval of grease. 
 
 5. Care of linen, bed-clothing, and garments. 
 
 6. Practical suggestions as to alimentation, quality of foods, 
 and their preservation. 
 
 7. General instruction as to culinary preparation. 
 
 8. Drinks. 
 
 i F. Cadet.
 
 444 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 9. Kitchen closets. 
 
 10. Toilet of young people. 
 
 11. Family receipts and expenses. 
 
 In a programme so extended there are doubtless some 
 unnecessary items ; but in a general way, instruction in 
 domestic economy ought to bear on these different subjects. 
 
 484. CONCLUSION. We have now reached the limit of 
 our studies on the different parts of the programme for the 
 common schools. In order to sum up their general spirit we 
 cannot do better than reproduce in this place one or two 
 pages from M. Greard. 
 
 " If such is the aim of common-school instruction, it is evi- 
 dent that its value depends mainly upon its method, and the 
 method which is best adapted to it may be described in a few 
 words. 
 
 "Shun all written tasks which give a false direction to in- 
 struction on the pretense of raising its character, such as com- 
 plicated and curious specimens of penmanship, inordinate 
 transcripts of lectures, written tables of analyses and conjuga- 
 tions, definitions that are not understood ; be sparing in pre- 
 cepts, but multiply examples ; never forget that the best book 
 for the child is the speaking voice of the teacher; use his 
 memory, so supple and sure, only as a point of support, and 
 proceed in such a way that your instruction penetrate to his 
 intelligence, which can alone preserve its fruitful impress ; lead 
 the pupil from the simple to the complex, from the easy to 
 the difficult, from the application to the principle ; conduct 
 him by well-connected questions to discover what you wish to 
 show him ; habituate him to reason, make him discover, make 
 him see ; in a word, keep his reason incessantly in motion, 
 his intelligence on the alert. For this purpose leave nothing 
 obscure which deserves explanation, push demonstrations even 
 
 1 M. Greard, L' Instruction primaire a Paris de 1872.
 
 THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE SCHOOL. 445 
 
 to the material representation of things whenever it is pos- 
 sible; in each subject disengage from the confused facts 
 which encumber the intelligence the characteristic facts and 
 the simple rules which illumine it; in every subject wind 
 up with judicious applications, useful or moral ; in reading, 
 for example, draw from the selection read all the instructive 
 explanations, and all the advice bearing on conduct which 
 it permits ; in grammar, start from the example in order to 
 reach the rule divested of the subtilties of grammatical 
 scholastics ; choose the texts for written dictation exercises 
 from among the simplest and purest selections in classical 
 works; draw the subjects of oral exercises, not from col- 
 lections constructed at pleasure to complicate the difficulties 
 of language, but from matters of current interest, from an 
 incident in the school, from the lessons of the day, from 
 passages in sacred history, in the history of France, or in 
 a recent lesson in geography ; invent examples before the 
 eyes of the pupil to sharpen his attention ; let him invent 
 them himself and always record them on the blackboard ; 
 reduce all arithmetical operations to practical exercises bor- 
 rowed from the usages of life ; teach geography only from 
 the map by gradually extending the child's horizon from the 
 street to the quarter, from the quarter to the commune, to 
 the canton, to the department, to France, to the world ; ani- 
 mate the topographical description of places by picturing the 
 peculiarities of configuration which they present, by explain- 
 ing the natural and industrial productions which are peculiar 
 to them, and by recalling the events which remind us of 
 them ; in history give to the different epochs an attention cor- 
 responding with their relative importance, and traverse the 
 first centuries more rapidly in order to dwell on those which 
 are more directly related to us ; sacrifice without scruple 
 details of pure erudition in order to throw into relief the 
 broad lines of national development ; look for the sequel of 
 this development, less in the succession of wars than in the 
 rational concatenation of institutions, in the progress of social 
 ideas, in the conquests of the mind which are the true con- 
 quests of Christian civilization ; place before the child's eyes
 
 446 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 men and things through paintings which enlarge his imagi- 
 nation and elevate his soul; make of France what Pascal 
 said of humanity, a grand being who subsists perpetually, and 
 by this means give the child an idea of his country, of the 
 duties which she imposes, of the sacrifices which she requires. 
 Such ought to be the spirit of the lessons of the school."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 485. SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. Discipline is that part of 
 education which, on the one hand, immediately assures the 
 industry of pupils by maintaining good order in the school 
 and exciting their zeal, and which, on the other hand, 
 working for a more remote and higher purpose, prevents or 
 represses irregularities of conduct aud tends to train resolute 
 wills and energetic characters capable of self-control. It 
 has the double purpose of establishing the actual government 
 of the school and of teaching pupils to govern themselves 
 when they shall have left the school and escaped the tutelage 
 of their masters. 
 
 486. MEANS OF DISCIPLINE. The means of discipline are 
 as various as the instincts of human nature. Children may 
 be led by very different mobiles, which are connected with 
 three or four principal groups: 1. The personal feelings, 
 as fear, pleasure, and self-love ; 2. The affectionate senti- 
 ments, as the love of parents and affection for the teacher ; 
 3. Reflective interest, such as the fear of punishment and 
 the hope of reward ; 4. The idea of duty. 
 
 To tell the truth, none of these principles ought to be ex- 
 cluded from the internal government of schools. It would 
 be unwise to forego the precious resources which each of 
 these mobiles furnishes the teacher for securing silence, 
 order, and attention, for encouraging ardor in toil, for cor- 
 
 447
 
 448 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 recting the faults and developing the good qualities of his 
 pupils. Doubtless the ideal would be that the child, con- 
 scious of his interest and comprehending his duty, should 
 work and obey through a disinterested act of his own will ; 
 but the nature of the child does not yield to this pure 
 regime of a liberty enlightened and truly mistress of itself. 
 Even the mature man is not always capable of self -direction 
 through the idea of right alone ; he needs the stimulants of 
 emulation, the solicitation of pleasures, and the salutary 
 fear of the laws. Then do not require of the child an effort 
 which surpasses his powers, but in order to discipline him, 
 appeal in turn to the different inclinations of his soul. 
 
 Means of discipline consist precisely in acting on these in- 
 clinations ; they call into play the springs of activity. The 
 best are those which interest the greatest number of feelings 
 at the same time, and which are supported by the greatest 
 number of ideas. There could be nothing worse than a 
 system of exclusive discipline which tended to develop but 
 a single emotion, as fear, or self-love, or affection itself. 
 
 487. EMULATION. Of all the principles of action which 
 make scholars studious and classes orderly, there is none 
 more powerful than emulation. It is to emulation that is due 
 the efficacy of rewards, and it is emulation above all which 
 animates the school and gives it the spirit of industry. As 
 a disciplinary motive, emulation owes its superiority mainly 
 to its complex character and to the multiplicity of the feel- 
 ings which it puts in train. 
 
 488. DEFINITION OF EMULATION. Emulation, like all 
 the feelings of the soul, is a thing difficult to define . There 
 enter into it different elements which disturb its simplicity, 
 the analysis of which is difficult. Emulation is above all a 
 personal feeling based on self-love. It might be defined
 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 449 
 
 self-love in act, which is not satisfied with the advantages it 
 already has, but wishes to acquire new ones. By its nature it 
 resembles ambition or the desire for glory ; but it is an ambi- 
 tion which has reference to others, which is a rival with 
 concurrent ambitions, which aspires to success, not for the 
 success itself, but for the purpose of surpassing others. 
 
 489. THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS OF EMULATION. 
 Certain educators are wrong in confounding emulation with 
 the instinct of imitation. Doubtless the emulous man the more 
 often imitates his rivals ; but often he also wishes to do 
 differently from them for the purpose of doing better. We 
 do not deny that imitation plays an important part in 
 emulation ; but it does not constitute the basis of it, and is 
 but one of the means which emulation employs to reach its 
 ends. 
 
 Although composed chiefly of self-love, emulation is still 
 not a desire exclusively personal and selfish. When it is what 
 it ought to be, a noble and spirited sentiment, there is always 
 mingled with it a secret aspiration towards what is good, 
 something of a pure love of perfection. Of course the 
 emulous man wishes above all else to equal or surpass his 
 competitors, but he also pursues an ideal. In every case the 
 duty of the teacher ought to be to develop emulation in this 
 direction, by diverting it from its selfish tendencies, in order 
 to direct it towards the pursuit of the good. 
 
 Diderot clearly defined the double nature of emulation, 
 without neglecting to throw into relief the predominance of 
 self-love, when he said : 1 
 
 "Emulation is not exactly the desire to do the best that is 
 possible, that would be a pure virtue; but it is the desire 
 to do better than others, which approaches vanity. Notwith- 
 
 1 See especially the article Emulation, in the Dictionnaire dc pe'dayogie.
 
 450 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 standing this defective side, it is none the less the source of 
 the most beautiful things in society. Superiority is a general 
 inclination. The most active pleasure is that of glory; the 
 thing is to present to it estimable objects; and self-love will 
 always be the greatest resource in a civilized land." 
 
 490. EMULATION IN THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY. In 
 all times emulation has been known and commended as one 
 of the essential means of discipline. At Sparta it may be 
 said that emulation was pushed even to fanaticism ; prefer- 
 ence was given to him who was the most courageous, the 
 most temperate, the most insensible to pain. At Athens 
 how emulous was Themistocles, whose sleep was troubled 
 by the laurels of Miltiades ! Rabelais said of his model 
 preceptor, that he introduced Gargantua to a company of 
 learned men, " to emulate whom inspired him with the spirit 
 and the desire to do valiantly." It is well known that 
 Bossuet, in order to counteract the indolence of the Dau- 
 phin, made him compete with the children of his own 
 age. "Emulation," says Fenelon, "is a spur to virtue." 
 According to Locke, all is done, everything is gained, 
 when we have stirred the pupil's spirit of emulation ! 
 Rousseau, who isolates Emile and allows him no compan- 
 ions, wishes at least that his pupil should find a rival in 
 himself, and so invents a sort of personal emulation. And 
 in an article in the Encyclopaedia he wrote as follows : 
 "Emulation is a disposition dangerous to the truth, but 
 education can transform it into a sublime virtue." Rollin 
 would have us appeal to the reason of children, stimulate 
 the sense of honor, and make use of praise, rewards, 
 and caresses. 
 
 1 " There is," says M. Feuillet, " in solitary education a species of 
 emulation, or rather an image of emulation, which is the result of 
 the comparison which one is led to make of himself with himself ; 
 and hence arises the desire to surpass one's self."
 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 451 
 
 " Children," he says, " are sensible to praise. We must take 
 advantage of this weakness, and try to make a virtue of it. 
 We should run the risk of discouraging them, if we never 
 praised them when they did well. Though praise is to be feared 
 on the score of vanity, we must try to make use of it to ani- 
 mate children without enervating them. For of all the motives 
 adapted to touch a reasonable soul, there are none more pow- 
 erful than honor and shame; and when children have been 
 made sensible to them, all has been gained.'' 
 
 Madame Campan declared that "emulation constituted 
 the strength of public education." It there reigns over 
 young minds, directs them toward the good, and does no 
 harm to the generous sentiments of the heart and soul. 
 
 491. EMULATION IN A DEMOCRACY. It is useless to pro- 
 long this historical review, for it would almost always lead 
 to the same result, a more or less complete approval of the 
 use of emulation in discipline. Let us merely add, that 
 in a democratic society like our own, at a time when it is 
 necessary to summon millions of children to exertion, 
 emulation becomes more and more important. This has 
 been forcibly expressed by M. Feuillet. 
 
 " Emulation was formerly but the worst species of ambition ; 
 its purpose was to reach the highest places to which only a 
 small number of subjects could have access. In this way em- 
 ulation was concentrated instead of being extended. ... It 
 ought to be otherwise in a republic. ... It is felt that the 
 main purpose of education can no longer be to obtain a 
 small number of exceptional but superior men, but that its 
 essential purpose is to train that immense majority of good, 
 wise, and useful citizens who, in all the places where circum- 
 stances have carried them, unite to form what is called the 
 state. The methods of education then necessarily change 
 with its purpose. Emulation is diffused, so to speak, so as 
 to embrace all ranks and to bring all individuals under its 
 influence."
 
 452 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 And Feuillec concludes as follows : 
 
 "Equality, and by a necessary consequence reciprocal depend- 
 ence and general emulation, are the conditions to which the 
 happiness of men is invariably attached in all the circum- 
 stances composing the state of society; and consequently 
 these are the conditions which ought to be provided for by 
 the education that is alone good and true, that which trains 
 citizens." 1 
 
 492. ERROR OF THOSE WHO CONDEMN EMULATION. The 
 educators who condemn emulation deceive themselves on 
 two points. On the one hand they have too great a dis- 
 trust of human nature ; in their eyes the feeling of self- 
 love is like a poisonous stock which can bear only evil fruit ; 
 they think that to favor emulation is by a necessary con- 
 sequence surely to engender envy, jealous rivalry, and 
 malevolence. 
 
 We must reply to them, with La Bruyere, " that, whatever 
 connection there may seem to be between jealousy and 
 emulation, there is between them the same distance that is 
 found between vice and virtue. Emulation is an energetic, 
 courageous sentiment, which renders the soul fruitful, makes 
 it profit by great examples, and often carries it above that 
 which it admires." 
 
 On the other hand, by a contrary illusion to forego the 
 aid of emulation is to count too much on the powers of the 
 human soul, and to believe that the child can be excited to 
 exertion by purely disinterested motives, by the simple idea 
 of the duty to be performed, without the need of calling into 
 play his personal instincts. This is to forget what Pascal 
 said : 
 
 " The children of Port Royal are falling into indifference 
 through default of ambition." 
 
 1 M. Feuillet, Mcmoire sur I'emulation, crowned by the Institute in 
 1801.
 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 453 
 
 493. ROCKS TO SHUN. The educators who exclude emu- 
 lation have pointed out the rocks on which we are liable 
 accidentally to fall when we make a bad use of it, but have 
 not been so successful in discovering the irremediable dangers 
 to which all those who employ it are inevitably exposed. 
 
 The charges they bring against emulation are the follow- 
 ing : " 1. The attention of children is turned aside from the 
 thought of duty and is fixed on the reward. 2. Children 
 are made to honor success rather than merit. 3. The vanity 
 of some is unduly excited, while the others are forever 
 humiliated and discouraged. 4. Hatred and jealousy among 
 companions is provoked. 5. There is contracted for life the 
 detestable habit of seeking for distinction, of striving for the 
 highest place, of seeking honors, and of not being contented 
 with a modest position and an obscure tranquillity." 
 
 As a fact, these disadvantages may result from emulation, 
 badly conceived and directed ; but they will be shunned with- 
 out much difficulty by a skillful teacher, who will take care 
 not to materialize emulation, not to take account merely of 
 the material qualities of his pupils, who will not make a 
 misuse of artificial rewards, who will know how to reassure 
 the conquered and prevent them from feeling too keenly the 
 bitterness of their defeat, at the same time that he will recall 
 the conquerors to a sense of modesty ; who, in a word, will 
 not give too great attention to the spring of emulation, and 
 will not allow it to fall into the dangerous over-excitement of 
 ambition. 
 
 494. REWARDS. When we admit emulation as a principle 
 of discipline we at the same time admit rewards. In fact, 
 rewards are the best means of vivifying and animating the 
 feeling of emulation. However desirous we may be that the 
 child shall actually find the best of rewards in the feeling of 
 a duty done or in the consciousness of his progress, it would
 
 454 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 be folly to deprive ourselves of the aid which might come to 
 discipline from rewards skillfully chosen and discreetly dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 495. DIFFERENT SPECIES OF REWARDS. But there are 
 rewards and rewards. They vary especially according to 
 the nature of the feelings which they aim at and which they 
 affect in the child. For example, they are sometimes ad- 
 dressed only to the affectionate sentiments, as endearments ; 
 or they flatter self-love and the desire of approbation, like 
 praise ; or they respond only to the lower tastes of the sensi- 
 bility, like dainties ; or, finally, they awaken the selfish in- 
 stincts, like prizes. Let us add that these different elements 
 may be confounded in the rewards that are given, and that in 
 order to estimate their educative value it is necessary to take 
 a strict account of the character of the different feelings 
 which they excite. 
 
 496. SENSIBLE REWARDS. "We must absolutely proscribe 
 purely material rewards, which are not permissible save with 
 very young children, who may be influenced by the allure- 
 ment of sweetmeats. As soon as possible the child ought 
 to be accustomed to seek the reward of his toil and his 
 efforts in the satisfaction of his higher inclinations. 
 
 497. PRAISE AND COMMENDATION. " The best rewards," 
 says M. Rendu, " are those which, divested of material value, 
 call into play the delicate sentiments without exciting any 
 idea of personal interest." Of this sort are the words of 
 approbation and the commendation of the teacher. They 
 excite the feeling of honor. They are, moreover, as much the 
 more efficacious as the teacher has been able to make himself 
 loved and respected by his pupils. In a school where the 
 teacher's authority is firmly established, aad where the pupils
 
 REWAKDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 455 
 
 have self-love, the rewards may be reduced to commen- 
 dations. But care must be taken to employ this means only 
 with caution, for fear of exciting pride and vanity. 
 
 " The schoolmaster's means of reward is chiefly confined 
 to approbation or praise, a great and flexible instrument, yet 
 needing delicate manipulation. Some kinds of merit are so 
 palpable as to be described by numerical marks. Equal, in 
 point of distinctness, is the fact that a thing is right or wrong, 
 in part or in whole ; it is sufficient approbation to pronounce 
 that a question is correctly answered, a passage properly ex- 
 plained. This is the praise that envy cannot assail. Most 
 unsafe are phrases of commendation ; much care is required to 
 make them both discriminating and just. They need to have 
 a palpable basis in facts. Distinguished merit should not al- 
 ways be attended with paeans; silent recognition is the rule, 
 the exceptions must be such as to extort admiration from the 
 most jealous. The controlling circumstance is the presence of 
 the collective body ; the teacher is not speaking for himself 
 alone, but directing the sentiments of a multitude, with which 
 he should never be at variance; his strictly private judgments 
 should be privately conveyed." 1 
 
 498. OTHER REWARDS. In general, rewards ought to 
 be but the exterior signs of the teacher's approbation. 
 
 Of this description are good marks, place in class ac- 
 cording to records of recitations, certificates of approval, 
 inscription on the roll of honor, prizes. Some teachers also 
 recommend medals and decorations. 
 
 499. THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES. We cannot too much 
 encourage the custom, recently introduced into the common 
 schools, of formal distribution of prizes. 
 
 " Many common schools," said the ministerial circular of 
 1864, "have no celebration at the end of the year, where 
 
 1 Bain, Education as a Science, pp. 113. 114.
 
 456 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 good conduct and industry are publicly rewarded. The result 
 is that we find in these schools but little emulation, and 
 that a part of the pupils desert them for a portion of the 
 year. It were well, however, that each village should have 
 its annual celebration for children and their work. The ex- 
 pense involved would be small, and if this could not be met 
 by public tax, individuals, I am sure, would think it an honor 
 to bear it. It will not be difficult for you to persuade the 
 proper officers of each department that the money spent on 
 children is, from every point of view, money invested at a high 
 rate of interest." 
 
 " I am firm in the belief," says another circular, " that 
 this custom would be excellent, on the express condition that 
 the prizes shall be distributed with discretion, so as to be 
 given only to the most deserving pupils." 
 
 500. PUNISHMENTS. Punishments are based on almost 
 the same principles as rewards. Rewards appeal mainly to 
 the feeling of honor or to self-love. Punishments sometimes 
 have the same character, they tend to humiliate the pupil, 
 to make him ashamed of his faults publicly denounced. 
 But in general their purpose is to wound the sensibilities of 
 the child by depriving him of things which he loves, just as 
 rewards excite him by giving him what pleases him. 
 
 501. REPRIMANDS. Just as praise and words of appro- 
 bation are the best and the most convenient of rewards, 
 so reprimands, censure, and tokens of disapproval are the 
 promptest and the surest of punishments ; on condition, of 
 course, that the children have previously been made sensitive 
 to shame, and that they love and esteem their teacher. 
 
 The very fact of revealing before companions a fault that 
 has been committed, and that the culprit cannot deny, is in 
 itself an effective punishment. There will be added to this, 
 when the nature of the offence requires it, words of censure 
 which will make the pupil blush.
 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 457 
 
 The thing of most importance in the use of reprimands 
 and censure is, first, not to make an over-use of them. 
 Teachers who are always scolding finally cease to be heeded. 
 If the reprimand becomes stale, if it is resorted to too 
 frequently, it loses all its effect. In the second place, it 
 must be exactly proportioned to the fault which it points out 
 and which it proposes to correct. The teacher will no 
 longer be respected if he does not exhibit the strictest spirit 
 of justice in his words. Besides, the tone of the repri- 
 mand ought always to be moderate, calm, and dignified. If 
 the teacher loses his temper, his anger, as Mr. Bain remarks, 
 is a real victory for the bad pupils, even when it has inspired 
 them with a momentary fear. 
 
 "Never correct a child," says Fdnelon, "either in the 
 first flush of his anger or of your own. If in yours, he 
 sees that you are acting from passion or from impulse, and 
 not from reason and affection, and you lose your authority 
 without recall. If in his, he has not enough liberty of 
 thought to acknowledge his fault, to conquer his passion, and 
 to feel the importance of your advice ; it is even exposing 
 the child to the risk of losing the respect lie owes you. 
 Always show him that you are your own master ; and 
 nothing will better make him see this than your patience." 
 
 502. THREATS. Before proceeding to actual punishment 
 it is wise to warn the child of the consequences that will fol- 
 low a repetition of his fault. He must not be summarily 
 punished, but must first be warned. But threats ought always 
 to be followed by acts. The pupil laughs at a teacher 
 who never goes further than words, who never executes his 
 threat 
 
 503. ACTUAL PUNISHMENTS. The penal code of the 
 school contains many articles, especially if we study it in 
 the ancient systems of education ; but with the progress in 
 manners it has been gradually moderated.
 
 458 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 In the maternal schools the only punishments allowed are 
 the following : " Interdiction, for a very short time, of study 
 and play in common ; withdrawal of good marks." 
 
 In the common schools the teacher ought to make use of 
 the same punishments, partial loss of recreation, keeping 
 the pupil after school, suspension, or expulsion. 
 
 Privation of recreation ought never to be of long duration. 
 On the pretext of punishing the child, he should not be 
 denied the rest and play which are as necessary for his 
 physical health as for his intelligence. 
 
 " Detention from play," says Mr. Bain, " or keeping in 
 after hours, is very galling to the young ; and it ought to 
 suffice for even serious offences, especially for riotous and 
 unruly tendencies, for which it has all the merits of ' char- 
 acteristicalness.' The excess of activity and aggressiveness is 
 met by withholding the ordinary legitimate outlets." l 
 
 The expulsion of the pupil is evidently an extreme remedy 
 and a sort of confession of the weakness of the school dis- 
 cipline ; but the fear of this punishment, if it has overtaken 
 incorrigible pupils in one or two cases, is a very effective 
 example for all the others. 
 
 504. TASKS OR IMPOSITIONS. A great abuse was for- 
 merly made of pensums, or supplementary tasks ; perhaps it 
 has been a mistake to proscribe them absolutely. 
 
 "Tasks or impositions," says Mr. Bain, "are the usual 
 punishment of neglect of lessons, and are also employed for 
 rebelliousness: the pain lies in the intellectual ennui, which 
 is severe to those that have no liking for books in any 
 shape. They also possess the irksomeness of confinement 
 and fatigue-drill. They may be superadded to shame, and 
 the combination is a formidable penalty." 2 
 
 1 Bain, Education as a Science, pp. 115, 116. 
 
 2 Bain, Education as a Science, p. 116.
 
 REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 459 
 
 505. CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. In France the regula- 
 tions, as well as the manners, absolutely condemn the 
 corporal chastisements which for so many centuries were 
 comprised among the legitima pcenarum genera. Even 
 Pestalozzi, the good and mild Pestalozzi, used and abused 
 this mode of punishment, and had their use sanctioned by 
 the unanimous consent of his pupils. In England public 
 opinion is still generally favorable to corporal punishment, 
 and it is sanctioned by Mr. Bain. 
 
 " Where corporal punishment is kept up, it should be at 
 the far end of the list of penalties; its slightest application 
 should be accounted the worst disgrace, and should be ac- 
 companied with stigmatizing forms. It should be regarded 
 as a deep injury to the person that inflicts it, and to those 
 that have to witness it, as the height of shame and infamy. 
 It ought not to be repeated with the same pupil ; if two 
 or three applications are not enough, removal is the proper 
 course." * 
 
 We shall not enter upon this casuistry of corporal chastise- 
 ments. They must be absolutely forbidden, and in every 
 case, because, as Locke says, they constitute a servile dis- 
 cipline which renders souls servile. 
 
 506. GENERAL RULES. Whatever may be the punish- 
 ment employed, it will always be necessary to follow some 
 general principles. 
 
 First, let the punishment always be accommodated to the 
 fault committed, and also to the sensibility of the culprit. 
 A given pupil may be profoundly affected by a light punish- 
 ment which will leave less sensitive pupils absolutely 
 unaffected. 
 
 Punishment should not be employed lavishly ; repetition 
 
 1 Bain, Education as a Science, pp. 116, 117.
 
 460 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 soon destroys its efficacy, and there is nothing good to be 
 expected of a child hardened by punishment. " Carefully 
 avoid punishing all the faults of your girls," said Madame de 
 Maintenon ; ' ' the punishments would become common, and 
 would no longer produce an impression." 
 
 Penalties should be carefully graduated. " It is a rule in 
 punishment," says Mr. Bain, "to try slight penalties at 
 first. With the better natures the mere idea of punishment 
 is enough ; severity is entirely unnecessary." 
 
 Special efforts should be made to establish in the child's 
 mind an intimate relation between the penalty and the wrong 
 that has been done. For this purpose the punishment should, 
 so far as possible, be connected with the fault. If a child 
 has told a falsehood he should be humiliated by no longer 
 believing his word ; if another is indiscreet, confidence is 
 no longer placed in him ; if another is always quarreling, 
 let him be shunned by his companions. In this way the 
 punishment is better understood and is more effective, be- 
 cause it seems to the child the natural consequence of his 
 fault. 
 
 507. THE DISCIPLINE OF CONSEQUENCES. In our day 
 Herbert Spencer has popularized the system which consists 
 in suppressing the whole machinery of artificial punishments, 
 in order to leave a free field for the action of nature. The 
 purpose is to make the child feel the consequences of the 
 acts which he commits. "What more striking punishment 
 than these very consequences ! 
 
 "All the punishments of human invention are powerless. 
 The only chastisements truly salutary are those which nature 
 creates on the, spot and applies. No threats, but a silent and 
 rigorous execution. The hot coal burns him who touches it 
 the first time ; it burns him the second, a third time ; it 
 burns him every time. There is nothing like this immediate,
 
 REWARDS AND 1UMSHMENTS. 461 
 
 direct, inevitable correction. Observe also that the penalty is 
 always in proportion to the violation of the order of things, 
 the reaction being in correspondence with the action ; and that 
 it introduces along with it in the mind of the child the idea 
 of justice, the chastisement being but an effect; and finally, 
 that there is no effect more certain. Universal language testi- 
 fies to this. Experience dearly bought, bitter experience, is the 
 great lesson, and the only one by which we profit." 1 
 
 508. CRITICISM OF THIS SYSTEM. However seductive 
 this doctrine of natural reactions may at first appear, it is 
 evident, after reflection, that it could not suffice to consti- 
 tute with respect to the correction and repression of faults, 
 a system of school discipline. For a certain number of 
 cases to which it may be usefully applied, how many others 
 there are where it would be absolutely inefficient ! Let us 
 admit, although it is not true, that every fault, every viola- 
 tion of the order of nature, entails by a natural necessity 
 a painful result In most cases this will be but a remote 
 consequence on long credit ; and the culprit will be able to 
 repeat his faults thousands of times before the punishment 
 flashes upon him. School delinquencies are for the most 
 part of such a nature that the child has not to suffer imme- 
 diately for being allowed to have his own way. Lack of 
 application and indolence will compromise the entire life of 
 a negligent scholar. Having become a man, he will repent 
 at the age of thirty in an idle existence which he will be 
 unable to employ to any good purpose, for having been an 
 inattentive and an irregular pupil. But when he perceives 
 the consequences of his indolence, it will be too late, the 
 evil will have been done. The punishment will doubtless be 
 striking, pitiless, justly deserved. The culprit will be obliged 
 
 1 We borrow this analysis of Mr. Spencer's opinion from M. Grc 
 ard's Memoir sur I' Esprit de discipline dans I' education.
 
 462 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 to bow before it, as before an inexorable but just fate. But 
 the purpose of punishments is even more to prevent wrong 
 and to correct it in time, than to cause expiation for it in 
 an exemplary way. 
 
 509. OTHER CRITICISMS. It would be easy to show that, 
 from still other points of view, Mr. Spencer's theory is not in 
 accord with the ideal punishment. 
 
 " The pain produced by natural consequences," says M. Gre- 
 ard, "is most often enormous with respect to the fault which 
 has produced them ; and man himself claims for 'his conduct 
 other penalties than those of a hard reality. He would have us 
 judge the intention as well as the fact; he would have us give 
 him credit for his efforts; and would have us punish him, if 
 need be, but without destroying him, and while reaching out a 
 hand to lift him up." 
 
 In a word, there is nothing more brutal, more inhuman, 
 ohan the system which, suppressing all human intervention 
 of the teacher in the correction of the child, leaves to nature 
 alone the task of chastising him. Slow in certain cases, the 
 justice of nature is often violent and murderous. Let us add, 
 finally, that the system of natural consequences suppresses 
 moral ideas, the idea of obligation and duty. It con- 
 fronts the child only with the blind and unconscious forces of 
 necessity. And so Mr. Spencer does not hold to his theory 
 to the end, but to the reactions of nature he adds the re- 
 actions of the feelings which manifest themselves through 
 the esteem and the affection, or through the censure and the 
 coolness of those who surround the child, and whom he 
 loves. The discipline of nature can be but a preparation 
 for the discipline of sentiments and ideas.
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 
 
 510. PREVENTIVE DISCIPLINE. Discipline does not de- 
 pend merely on a system of rewards and punishments ex post 
 facto, as so many sanctions to incite to the good or to divert 
 from the evil. True discipline foresees and prevents, even 
 more than it represses and rewards. In a well-organized 
 school which satisfies certain material conditions, and in 
 which the teacher fulfills certain moral conditions which as- 
 sure his authority, it will hardly ever be necessary to resort 
 to punishment, and rewards will appear rather as a disinter- 
 ested act of justice than as a means of discipline. 
 
 511. MATERIAL CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLINE. All 
 teachers know how much the regularity and system which 
 they introduce into the exercises of the school facilitate their 
 task and contribute to the good order of their class. Pesta- 
 lozzi, who had so many moral qualifications, who possessed 
 to such a high degree the art of making himself loved by 
 children-, who employed such devotion and zeal in the service 
 of his pupils, was never able to establish an exact discipline, 
 because he was lacking in method and taught in a disorderly 
 manner, without subjecting himself to fixed rules for the 
 length of his lessons and for the order of exercises ; in a 
 word, for the distribution of his time. 
 
 512. DISTRIBUTION OF TIME. "The distribution of 
 time," says Rendu, " is the principal means of establishing 
 
 468
 
 464 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 discipline. . . . The question of discipline is in great part 
 a question of instruction and method." 
 
 Through the indications of the programme, which deter- 
 mines at once the topics of instruction and the number of 
 hours which it is advisable to give to each study in the three 
 grades of the common school, the teacher is now guided in 
 the distribution of his time, and no longer runs the risk of 
 falling into mistakes. Let us add, however, that circum- 
 stances, such as the requirements of time and place, the 
 number and relative proficiency of pupils, ought, as between 
 one school and another, to justify considerable differences. 
 We are not of those who dream of an absolute uniformity, 
 and wish that at a given moment the millions of children who 
 attend the schools of France should be engaged in the same 
 exercise. 
 
 " The ingenuity of an intelligent teacher ought not to be 
 paralyzed by the rigid inflexibility of a schedule. We do not 
 assume to impose a time-table upon teachers, as a vise which 
 binds them; we offer it to them as a rule to guide them. 
 Doubtless, in the domain of common-school instruction more 
 than in any other sphere of teaching, there must be required 
 regularity, exactness, and the spirit of system; but here as 
 everywhere else it is best to leave something to spontaneity, 
 to personal reflection, and to free choice. We dread the 
 absence of method, which leads to school anarchy ; but we 
 detest the circumstantial tyranny which, sinking the man in 
 the master, gives to mechanical education the place due to 
 intelligence." 1 
 
 513. GENERAL PRINCIPLES FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OP 
 TIME. The distribution of time ought not merely to be 
 regulated in advance by the teacher, but it ought to be 
 brought to the knowledge of the pupils by schedules posted 
 in each class-room. 
 
 1 E. Rendu, Manuel, p. 32.
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 465 
 
 Without describing in detail the distribution of study hours 
 and of the different topics of instruction, we will state the 
 general principles which result from all that we have said in 
 the preceding chapters. 
 
 1. Each section ought to be engaged in several differ- 
 ent exercises. With the pupils of the common school, in 
 particular, we must renounce prolonged lessons upon the 
 same subject. Such lessons are not possible, save in the 
 higher classes of the colleges or in the courses of higher 
 instruction. 
 
 2. Each session ought to be interrupted, either by the 
 ordinary recess or by marching and singing. 
 
 3. In schools taught by one master, the teacher will each 
 day come into direct communication with all his pupils, and 
 consequently with each one of the three grades. Hence the 
 necessity of collective lessons, which may bear on certain 
 parts of history, of morals, etc. 
 
 4. Each item in the programme ought each day to have 
 its share in the exercises of the school. None of them ought 
 to be sacrificed, even if but a few minutes can be devoted to 
 some of them. 
 
 5. The most difficult exercises, those which require the 
 most attention, ought by preference to come in the early 
 part of the day. 
 
 6. The length of each lesson and of each exercise should 
 not as a rule exceed twenty or thirty minutes. 
 
 7. Every lesson, every lecture, should be accompanied by 
 oral explanations and interrogations. 
 
 8. The correction of tasks and the repetition of lessons 
 take place during the periods assigned to these tasks and 
 lessons. According to the rule the tasks are corrected at 
 the blackboard at the same time that the note-l>ooks 
 are inspected. The compositions are corrected by the 
 teacher out of school hours.
 
 466 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 514. CLASSIFICATION OF PUPILS. That which hinders 
 the maintenance of discipline as well as the progress of 
 pupils, is that by the very necessity of things there are 
 united in the same class pupils very unequal in age, in 
 degree of instruction, and in intellectual development. 
 Disorder is almost the necessary result of this disproportion 
 and of these inequalities. Nothing is more important, con- 
 sequently, than the classification of pupils. 
 
 "Each year, at the opening of school," says the official 
 order of 1882, "the pupils, according to the degree of their in- 
 struction, shall be distributed by the director in the different 
 classes of the three grades under the supervision of the 
 primary inspector." 
 
 This rule is applicable not only to large schools having 
 several teachers, but also to schools with one teacher. And 
 even in the latter the classification ought to be even more 
 exact if it be possible, because the one teacher, obliged to 
 distribute his time among the three grades, ought to be able 
 to depend a little more either upon the initiative of pupils or 
 upon the aid of some intelligent monitors. 
 
 515. CONSEQUENCES FROM THE DISCIPLINARY POINT OF 
 VIEW. Who does not see that discipline will gain from a 
 school organization regulated in this spirit? Invited to an 
 instruction which responds exactly to his powers and to his 
 needs, sustained by the variety of the exercises, reanimated 
 by frequent recreations, always subjected to an invariable 
 rule which he knows, never remaining unemployed, instructed 
 in advance with reference to what he ought to do at the dif- 
 ferent hours of the day, the pupil will find himself in the best 
 conditions for working with order and profit. 
 
 516. NECESSITY ov VIGOROUS SUPERVISION. Formal 
 rules, however, are not sufficient. The pupil is not yet
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 467 
 
 sufficiently master of himself, sufficiently energetic and well- 
 disposed, to follow spontaneously the course that has been 
 traced for him by a carefully arranged programme. There 
 must be taken into account the weaknesses of will and the 
 thoughtlessness of early age, and the dissipation, indolence, 
 and ill-will common to masses of children. The execu- 
 tion of the laws of the school is dependent on the vigilant eye 
 of the master. How much easier the discipline becomes with 
 an active teacher who observes all the movements of his 
 pupils, who watches their dispositions, who stops by a word 
 or a look the beginning of a conversation, who reanimates the 
 attention at the moment when it begins to flag, who, in a 
 word, always present in the four corners of the class-room, 
 is, so to speak, the living soul of the school. 
 
 517. THE TEACHER'S DUTIES our OF SCHOOL. But 
 the vigilance and solicitude of a good teacher do not cease 
 at the threshold of the school ; they ought to follow the pupil 
 even into the family, and accompany him in a certain 
 measure on the road which leads him from the school to the 
 home. He may discreetly inform himself of what children 
 do when they have reached home, and how they conduct 
 themselves in the streets or on the roads. Through the 
 influence which he will discreetly exert upon the conduct of 
 his pupils outside of the school, he will assure their correct 
 deportment and the silence and order of the school-room 
 itself. Children who are too wild at home, or who have been 
 too disorderly on the streets, have great difficulty when the 
 bell rings to become by an instantaneous transformation 
 attentive and quiet pupils. 
 
 By the personal labor which he will impose upon himself, 
 the teacher will also contribute to the maintenance of good 
 discipline in the school. A well-prepared lesson is worth 
 much more than punishments for gaining the attention of
 
 468 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 the scholars. "When the teacher reaches his desk, well 
 knowing what he ought to do and what he ought to say ; 
 when wholly pervaded by his subject he can pursue his 
 thought without effort, he will first have that assurance that 
 he will more easily interest his auditors and that he will more 
 surely conduct them to the desired end ; and at the same time, 
 relieved from the anxiety of hunting up his ideas and his 
 words, and of organizing his class on the spur of the moment 
 and by a sort of improvisation, he will the more easily be 
 able to survey his little auditor} 7 , to be all things to all, and 
 to let nothing escape that is incorrect or abnormal in the 
 conduct of his pupils. 
 
 Let us add that in order to assure the discipline so far as 
 the pupils' diligence and exactness of work are concerned, 
 the industry of the teacher is particularly necessary. The 
 child of the best intentions is discouraged if the written 
 exercises which he has prepared with the greatest care are 
 never corrected. It is not merely because the faults which 
 he has allowed to pass are proofs of his ignorance, that the 
 lack of correction is mischievous, but mainly because the 
 negligence of the teacher emboldens and partly excuses 
 the negligence of the pupil. 
 
 518. CO-OPERATION OF TEACHERS WITH PARENTS. The 
 best of teachers can do nothing in the matter of discipline 
 without the co-operation of parents. "There is no system 
 of education so poor," says Greard, " as not to improve in 
 quality by the intervention of the family, and none so good 
 that it cannot gain by it." Rollin regarded the participa- 
 tion of parents in all that concerns moral development as 
 one of the essential factors in the internal government of 
 colleges. What is true of secondary instruction is also 
 true of primary instruction. It is necessary, then, that the 
 teacher should be in constant communication with the
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 469 
 
 families, that he keep them regularly informed as to the work 
 and progress of their children, and that he bring .their faults 
 to their notice. Hence the utility of reports to parents. 
 Happy the teachers who can co-operate with parents and in- 
 duce them to second their efforts and to supervise the lessons 
 which are to be learned and the tasks that are to be written. 
 From this point of view, the lessons assigned for home study, 
 besides compelling the pupil to work more than the thirty 
 hours required in the school, have this advantage, that they 
 oblige parents to interest themselves in the studies of their 
 children. But home lessons ought to be easy, and should not 
 require the formal machinery which cannot be reak'zed in 
 most families. 
 
 "Home duties," savs M. Greard, "ought to be adapted, as 
 the others are, not only to the very limited time which pupils 
 have at their disposal after school, but also and above all to 
 the intensity of the effective efforts which the pupil can make. 
 I am not ignorant of the fact that in assigning these lessons 
 our teachers sometimes do no more than respond to the de- 
 mands of parents who fear the lack of occupation in the 
 evening, and who estimate work by the quantity of paper that 
 is used. But we ought not to yield to unintelligent desires. 
 It is doubtless well that the pupils of the higher grade 'should 
 be occupied at home in the evening. Let them engage in the 
 reading of history and geography, in reproducing the explana- 
 tion of words taken from a lesson in grammar, or in solving 
 some problems in arithmetic. This is all well, but on the ex- 
 press condition that these exercises offer no difficulty which 
 repels the child left to himself, and that they be connected 
 with a lesson on which his memory is fresh, and particularly 
 that they be short." 
 
 519. MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE FAMILY. That which 
 the teacher ought particularly to demand of the family is 
 that it should not dissipate his own efforts, that it should
 
 470 PKACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 not contravene his instructions, but that it should add its own 
 more secre,t, more intimate, more personal action to that 
 which he exerts himself. 
 
 "We have the right to expect much from the active co- 
 operation of parents, however little they may desire it. We 
 are not ignorant of the difficulties and obstacles which their 
 perspicacity may encounter. We make allowance for illusions 
 and weaknesses. By reason of their very affection, they are 
 in danger of entertaining too high hopes and of despairing too 
 quickly. The cool and disinterested judgment of a teacher is 
 often necessary to re-establish moderation. And who is nearer 
 the heart of the child than father and mother ? Who can 
 better take into account his instinctive propensities and his 
 nascent passions ; separate his good qualities from his bad ; 
 in his departures from duty distinguish the swooning or 
 transient revolt of radical weakness from obstinate resistance ? 
 Who better knows his sensibility, and how to excite it when 
 necessary; to subject him, according to circumstances, to the 
 necessities which arise, and to make him triumph over the 
 difficulties which pertain only to himself ? Who can better 
 follow the crises which arrest or hasten his development? In 
 a word, who is better fitted to treat him in all his trans- 
 formations according to his temperament, and give him the 
 moral regime that is best for him?" 1 
 
 520. MORAL CONDITIONS OF DISCIPLINE. The co-oper- 
 ation of teachers and parents proceeding in concert, hand in 
 hand, to correct the faults of children and to develop their 
 virtues, is in itself one of the moral conditions of discipline. 
 
 Another condition is the character of the teacher, his 
 authority, his moral power. What is true of programmes 
 and methods in instruction is also true of rules in discipline, 
 their value is given to them by those who apply them. It 
 is at this point that we must always start, whether we have 
 
 1 M. Greard, Memoir sur I'esprit de discipline.
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 471 
 
 
 
 to do with the internal government of schools or with that 
 of other human institutions. Begin by having men, and all 
 the rest will be given to you to boot. 
 
 521. QUALITIES OP A GOOD TEACHER. Treatises on 
 pedagogy draw up long catalogues of the qualities of a good 
 teacher. We do not propose in this place to present one of 
 these catalogues in which the pedagogic virtues are num- 
 bered, and which require the teachers to have ten or a dozen 
 of them, more or less. The moral education of a teacher 
 has nothing to gain from these fastidious nomenclatures. 
 We shall simply say that the best teacher is he who has to 
 the highest degree the disposal of intellectual and moral 
 qualities ; he who on the one hand has the most knowledge, 
 method, clearness, and vivacity of exposition, and on the 
 other is the most energetic, the most devoted to his task, the 
 most attached to his duties, and at the same time has most 
 affection for his pupils. 
 
 It would be easy to show that each of these qualities or 
 virtues is an element of discipline. 
 
 A teacher whose knowledge is not questioned, who is 
 never obscure in his lessons, who speaks with exactness, will 
 always be listened to with respect. 
 
 A teacher whose every act is known to be inspired by love 
 for his pupils, has only to speak to be obeyed. He will 
 govern by persuasion. 
 
 Especially a firm teacher, who possesses the serenity of 
 conscious power, will inspire his pupils with a salutary re- 
 spect which will make it impossible for them to fail in their 
 tasks. 
 
 In discussing the law of 1833, Guizot stated the principal 
 qualities which he expected of a teacher in the new schools, 
 as follows : 
 
 "All our efforts and all our sacrifices will be useless, if
 
 472 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 we do not succeed in finding for the reconstructed public 
 school a competent teacher worthy of the noble mission of 
 instructing the people. It cannot be too often repeated that 
 as is the teacher so is the school. And what a happy union 
 of qualities is necessary to make a good school-master ! A 
 good school-master is a man who ought to know much more 
 than he teaches, in order to teach with intelligence and zeal; 
 who ought to live in an humble sphere, and who nevertheless 
 ought to have an elevated soul in order to preserve that dig- 
 nity of feeling and even of manner without which he will 
 never gain the respect and confidence of families; who ought 
 to possess a rare union of mildness and firmness, for he is 
 the inferior of many people in a commune. But he ought 
 to be the degraded servant of no one ; not ignorant of his 
 rights, but thinking much more of his duties; giving an ex- 
 ample to all, serving all as an adviser ; above all, not 
 desiring to withdraw from his occupation, content with his 
 situation because of the good he is doing in it, resolved to 
 live and die in the bosom of the school, in the service of 
 common-school instruction, which is for him the service of 
 God and of men. To train teachers who approach such a 
 model is a difficult task ; and yet we must succeed in it, 
 or we have done nothing for common-school instruction. A 
 bad school-master, like a bad cure or a bad mayor, is a 
 scourge to a commune. We are certainly very often com- 
 pelled to content ourselves with ordinary teachers, but we 
 must try to train better ones, and for this purpose primary 
 normal schools are indispensable." 
 
 522. IMPORTANCE OF PHYSICAL QUALIFICATIONS. The 
 physical qualities of the teacher are not themselves to be 
 despised as an instrument of discipline. Form, physiognomy, 
 and voice play their part in well-conducted schools. It is 
 useless to insist on those qualities which depend wholly on 
 nature ; but what an earnest purpose can control are the 
 general bearing of the body, the appearance of the face, and 
 gestures.
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 473 
 
 "Never assume without an extreme necessity," said Fe"nelon, 
 "an austere and imperious air, which makes children trem- 
 ble. Often it is affectation and pedantry in those who 
 govern." 
 
 Without requiring, as Fenelon wished, that the teacher 
 should always have a smiling and jovial face, it is especially 
 important that he be generally amiable and affectionate, and 
 that he shun pedantry and despotic ways. 
 
 523. MORAL AUTHORITY OF THE TEACHER. But phy- 
 sical qualities are of little account compared with moral 
 qualities, which are the principal element of authority. By 
 dint of patience, energy, and activity, a teacher, even 
 physically uncomely, may acquire a real ascendancy over his 
 pupils. The teacher is not truly worthy of his name of 
 master, except when he masters his school by the ascendancy 
 of his moral authority. External and in some sort mechan- 
 ical means of discipline are worth nothing, unless they are 
 seconded by the moral force which only good teachers 
 possess, and in schools where this moral authority is well 
 established they become almost useless. 
 
 " To control the wills of children, to root in their minds 
 the conviction that it is not possible not to follow the 
 orders and suggestions of the teacher, to inspire them with 
 an absolute confidence in his judgment, these are the 
 essential conditions for the good government of the school." 1 
 
 To begin with, the teacher ought to make himself loved. 
 Affection is one of the mainsprings of human activity. 
 What will not one do for those whom he loves ? How easily 
 he obeys them ! And the best means to make himself loved 
 is himself to love. But the teacher ought also to make him- 
 self respected and feared. The true discipline is the 
 mingling of mildness and severity. 
 
 i E. Rendu, Manuel, p. 91.
 
 474 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 524. CONTINUITY IN DISCIPLINE. One of the reasons 
 which the most often weaken the authority of the teacher is 
 the disorder, the looseness, and the contradictions which he 
 introduces into the discipline that he imposes. A govern- 
 ment which passes from extreme rigor to extreme weakness, 
 which at one time tolerates an excess of liberty and at 
 another treats the lightest faults with severity, is the worst 
 of governments in education as in politics. A rule once 
 established should never be departed from. I well know 
 that this unvarying tension, this uniformity which never 
 wavers, is a difficult thing ; but it is a thing that is neces- 
 sary. The actual education, said Richter wittily, resembles 
 the harlequin of the Italian comedy, who comes on the stage 
 with a bundle of papers under each arm. "What do you 
 carry under your right arm? " " Orders," he replies. "And 
 under your left arm? " " Counter orders." Thus pulled in 
 different directions, disconcerted by contradictor} 7 orders, 
 always thinking to escape a rule which is not imperiously 
 followed, the pupil loses all control of himself and goes 
 adrift. 
 
 525. VERSATILITY IN THE USE OF MEANS. If it is true, 
 on the one hand, that discipline ought to be inflexible in 
 the rules which it imposes, it is none the less necessary, on 
 the other, that it be supple and variable in the means which 
 it employs. All pupils have not the same character, the 
 same disposition. What is relative mildness with some 
 would be extreme severity with others. Just as the pro- 
 fessor studies the diversity of intelligences in order to find 
 access to them, and adapts his instruction to the degree of 
 aptness of each mind, so the educator ought to take account 
 of differences of character, and estimate the degree of power 
 and of weakness in each temperament, so as to adjust aid 
 to need and to distribute equitably as the case requires 
 reward or punishment.
 
 DISCIPLINE IN GENERAL. 475 
 
 "His object," says M. Greard again, "is to follow the child 
 across the different phases of his moral life, and in the 
 common life whose rules he follows to assure to him the 
 development of his individual life." 
 
 With some the teacher must ever be affectionate and good ; 
 with others he must use severity. At one time he must 
 multiply excitations to arouse a sluggish nature ; at another 
 he must use moderation and constraint. 
 
 With one he must always talk reason ; with another he will 
 make a constant appeal to feeling. 
 
 526. THE HIGHER PURPOSE OF DISCIPLINE. Discipline 
 does not tend merely to establish silence and good order in 
 classes, assiduous and exact labor; but it thinks of the 
 future and^ aims at training men. Its purpose in some 
 sort is to make itself useless. School authority ought to be 
 exercised only with the intention of making the child inde- 
 pendent of the yoke of all external authority. Not that an 
 absolute enfranchisement of the human person is to be 
 dreamed of ; at every age and in all conditions man will 
 always have to obey, his superiors under the flag and in 
 the workshop, the law and its representatives in society. 
 But this necessary subjection does not prevent liberty, which 
 is the discipline that one imposes on himself ; and the object 
 of education of all grades is to make men free. 
 
 Hence the characteristics of the discipline truly liberal, 
 which does not attempt to establish obedience by fear and 
 passive habits, but which ever addresses itself to the personal 
 activity and the will, which respects the dignity of the child, 
 which exalts rather than humiliates, which does not stifle the 
 natural powers, but which trains them to govern them- 
 selves. 
 
 " This reflective enfranchisement, which is the purpose of 
 education," says M. Greard, " requires in the child two in-
 
 476 PRACTICAL PEDAGOGY. 
 
 dispensable conditions of inward toil, reflection and activ- 
 ity; reflection, which renders account to one's self, and 
 activity, which comes to a decision. No one attains to self- 
 direction except at this price. 
 
 " To put to use the moral aptitudes which lie concealed 
 in the consciousness of the child and to make him know 
 their tendencies, the evil as well as the good; to accustom 
 him to look clearly into his mind and heart, to be sincere 
 and true, to make him put in practice in his conduct, little 
 by little, the resolutions he forms; insensibly to substitute 
 for the rules which have been given him those which he 
 gives himself, and for the discipline from without that which 
 is from within; to enfranchise him, not by beat of drum 
 after the ancient manner, but day by day, by striking off 
 at each step of progress one link of the chain which at- 
 taches his reason to the reason of another ; after having 
 thus aided him in establishing himself as his owli master, to 
 teach him to come out of himself and to judge and govern 
 himself as he would judge and govern others ; finally, to 
 show him above himself the grand ideas of duty, public and 
 private, which are imposed on him as a human and social 
 being ; such are the principles of the education which can 
 make the pupil pass from the discipline of the school under 
 the discipline of his own reason, and which creates his moral 
 personality by calling it into exercise."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A. PAGE 133. 
 THE DOCTRINE OF MEMORY. 
 
 IN stating the doctrine that the memory should not anticipate 
 the intelligence, M. Compayre" is doubtless in accord with most 
 modern writers on education ; yet it seems to me that this ground 
 is taken rather as a recoil from an old error than from a due 
 consideration of the relation which the memory bears to the other 
 intellectual faculties. It must be plain that the exercise of the 
 intelligence presupposes the presence of some material on which 
 the mind can react in the way of elaboration, and that this 
 material must be held within the range of the mind's elaborative 
 power. Retention and representation must therefore precede the 
 process of thought. To say that we should memorize only what 
 -we understand is very much like saying that we should commit 
 nothing to the stomach until it has been digested. We eat to 
 the end that we may digest; and we must confide material 
 to the retentive power of the mind in order that the intelli- 
 gence may have something to work upon. The only question 
 in the case seems to me to be this : Shall this material be held 
 loosely, by what the author calls the " liberal memory of ideas," 
 or exactly, by what he calls the " strict memory of words " ? 
 
 This last is doubtless what is usually called " memorizing," or 
 " learning by heart." In many cases informal, or loose, memoriz- 
 ing will suffice; but in other cases exact or verbal memorizing 
 is best. But in either case the memory must anticipate the 
 intelligence. 
 
 477
 
 478 APPENDIX. 
 
 Material that has been transformed by the elaborative power 
 of the mind (the understanding) must then be held for the per- 
 manent use or adornment of the spirit by a sort of organic regis- 
 tration ; and it is doubtless this final and perfect form of the 
 retentive process which writers have in view when they say that 
 nothing must be memorized which is not understood. If it is 
 recollected that there is also a form of retention which precedes 
 the act of thought proper, all the real difficulties of this subject 
 will disappear, and there will be no antagonism between psycho- 
 logical theory and the universal practice of mankind. (P.) 
 
 B. PAGE 282. 
 ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS. 
 
 THAT writers on education use the terms analysis and synthesis 
 in directly contrary senses, and that great confusion has thereby 
 been introduced into the discussion of method, is a fact which 
 must be admitted and one which is greatly to be deplored ; but 
 the important question still remains, Is there a real and an 
 intelligible sense in which these terms are descriptive of mental 
 phenomena ? Is there a mode of mental activity in which aggre- 
 gates are resolved into constituent parts, and another mode in 
 which parts are reconstructed into aggregates ? If there is, then 
 the term analysis" may be intelligently applied to the first and 
 the term synthesis to the second. 
 
 As to the psychological fact there can be no doubt. Perhaps 
 the clearest statement of this law of mental activity has been 
 made by Sir William Hamilton in these terms : 
 
 " The first procedure of the mind in the elaboration of its 
 knowledge is always analytical. It descends from the whole 
 to the parts, from the vague to the definite." 
 
 " This is the fundamental procedure of philosophy, and is called 
 by a Greek term Analysis."" 
 
 " But though analysis be the fundamental procedure, it is still
 
 APPENDIX. 479 
 
 only a means towards an end. We analyze only that we may 
 comprehend ; and we' comprehend only inasmuch as \ve are able 
 to reconstruct in thought the complex effects which we have 
 analyzed into their elements. This mental reconstruction is, 
 therefore, the final, the consummative procedure of philosophy, 
 and is familiarly known by the Greek term Synthesis." 
 
 It thus appears that the terms analysis and synthesis, employed 
 in the very same sense as in chemistry, are necessary in order 
 to formulate a fundamental law of mental activity ; and this law 
 is the safest clew we have in the discussion of method, as it evi- 
 dently underlies the whole art of presentation. (P.) 
 
 C. PAGE 298. 
 THE PROBLEM OF PRIMARY READING. 
 
 THIS problem admits of what might be called a psychological 
 solution, and furnishes a typical illustration of the deduction of 
 a method from a general principle. This problem may be stated 
 comprehensively as follows : 
 
 To assist the child in making the most direct transition from spoken 
 to written language. 
 
 Or, the problem may be stated analytically in these terms : 
 
 (1) To teach the child a small and select vocabulary of printed words; 
 and (2) to give him power to name new words for himself. 
 
 1. The principal methods that have been employed for intro- 
 ducing the child to the art of reading are the following : (1.) 
 The Alphabetic; (2.) The Phonic; (3.) The Phonetic ; (4.) The 
 Word; (5.) The Sentence. The first three methods proceed 
 from elements (letters) to aggregates (words), and are therefore 
 analytic ; while the last two proceed from aggregates (words or 
 sentences) to elements (syllables and letters), and are therefore 
 synthetic. The question now at issue is this : Which procedure 
 conforms to the organic mode of mental activity, the analytic 
 or the synthetic .' From the psychological law stated under B,
 
 480 APPENDIX. 
 
 the inference is irresistible that preference must be given to 
 methods which are analytical; so that our choice is now between 
 the WORD and the SENTENCE methods. Both are correct in 
 principle ; but as the smaller aggregate seems to me the more 
 convenient and manageable, I give my preferences to the WORD 
 METHOD. 
 
 2. In order to name (pronounce) new words for himself, a child 
 must know three things: (1.) The letters of the alphabet; (2.) 
 The elementary sounds of the language ; and (3.) The association 
 of letter and sound. It must be plain that in order to pronounce 
 a new word of his own accord, the pupil must be able to infer its 
 name from its form, and reading aloud might be called translating 
 form into sound; and this power of inference, though never 
 infallible, can be gained from a ready knowledge of these three 
 elements. 
 
 The question now presented is this : How can these three 
 things be taught the most expeditiously ? Without entering into 
 any explanation or discussion the following summary answer may 
 be given : (1.) The easiest way to teach the elements of words is 
 by requiring the pupil to print or draw them on slate, board, 
 or paper; (2.) The best way to teach the elementary sounds of 
 the language is by phonic analysis or slow pronunciation; (3.) 
 The association of letter and sound is best taught by oral spelling. 
 
 According to this analysis the successive steps in teaching a 
 child to read are as follow : 
 
 1. Teaching the names of familiar words (say two hundred), at 
 sight upon the authority of the teacher; 
 
 2. Teaching the names of the letters by printing words ; 
 
 3. Teaching the elementary sounds by the analysis of spoken 
 words ; 
 
 4. Teaching the powers of the letters by oral spelling. (P.) 
 
 D. PAGE 366. 
 THE VALUE OF SUBJECTS. 
 
 THREE ideas should be embodied in a course of study : (1.) The 
 idea of training or discipline ; (2.) The idea of practical utility ;
 
 APPENDIX. 481 
 
 (3.) The idea of culture, one chief mark of which is contem- 
 plative delight. Under another form this thought may be 
 expressed as follows : Education should form or train the mind, 
 and furnish it with knowledge for two purposes, practical use 
 and enjoyment. The three values involved in studies may be 
 called the disciplinary, the practical, and the culture values respect- 
 ively. Every subject doubtless has these three values, though in 
 different degrees, but each subject is characterized by what may 
 be called its 'major value. In other terms, there are three lines 
 of defence for the various studies included in a curriculum, and 
 a subject which is known to have a high value of either sort is 
 entitled to a place in a course of study. 
 
 A disciplinary study communicates power; a practical study 
 furnishes knowledge for use ; and a culture study communicates 
 organic power and furnishes knowledge for enjoyment. With 
 this distinction, and with major values in view, the studies of 
 the common school course may be grouped as follow: 
 
 1. PRACTICAL STUDIES : Reading, writing, spelling, the fundamental 
 processes of arithmetic, language lessons, hygiene, civics. 
 
 2. DISCIPLINARY STUDIES: Arithmetic and grammar. 
 
 8. CULTURE STUDIES: Geography, history, and literature. 
 
 Geography has the same kind of value as travel, and it might 
 be called traveling by proxy. The direct practical value of 
 Geography, that is, its value as estimated by the actual use which 
 each individual makes of it, is very small ; while its indirect 
 value, that is, the value which comes to us through the knowledge 
 which other persons have of it, is very large. One may be igno- 
 rant of an art or science, and yet may enjoy all the practical 
 benefits flowing from it. In all such cases its value is of the 
 indirect order. In constructing a course of study for a common 
 school, only direct practical values must be taken into account. 
 In Chapter III. of my "Contributions to the Science of Educa- 
 tion " I have discussed this subject at some length. (P.)
 
 INDEX. 
 
 [THB NUMBERS REFER TO PAGES.] 
 
 Abstraction, 169 ; child's repug- 
 nance to, 173 ; difficulties of, 174. 
 
 Action, relation of feeling to, 196. 
 
 Adolphus, Gustavus, 149. 
 
 Esthetic education, 245. 
 
 Agriculture, teaching of, 438. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 149. 
 
 Amoras, 43, 234. 
 
 Analysis, 280, 478 ; grammatical 
 and logical, 336. 
 
 Ancients, aesthetic education 
 among, 249. 
 
 Antoine, M., 146. 
 
 Aptitudes, special, 71. 
 
 Apollo, 146. 
 
 Aristotle, 187. 
 
 Arithmetic, 440, 445 ; importance 
 of, 379 ; utility of, 381 ; child's 
 taste for, 381 ; general method 
 of, 382; material aids, 384; 
 numeral frames, counting-ma- 
 chines, 385 ; mental, 385 ; prob- 
 lems, 386 ; metric system, 387 ; 
 faults, 388. 
 
 Arts, 249 ; and morals, 260 ; a 
 source of pleasure, 261 ; in com- 
 mon schools, 253 ; as moralizers, 
 266. 
 
 Association of ideas, 135. 
 Attention, culture of, 94. 
 
 Bachelier, 417. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 269, 287. 
 
 Bain, Professor, 13n, 18, 74, 116, 
 120, 125, 134, 141, 173, 175, 176, 
 211, 225, 245, 251, 252, 256, 291n, 
 295, 312, 315, 316, 318, 319, 321, 
 330n,331n, 332,334, 361, 361, 365, 
 366, 367, 369, 371, 376, 380, 382, 
 383, 387, 455, 457, 458, 469, 460. 
 
 Baldwin, James, 65, 72. 
 
 Beautiful, love of the, 248 ; how 
 cultivated, 253. 
 
 Belgium, schools of, 443, methods 
 in, 298, 341. 
 
 Bentham, 92. 
 
 Berger, 306, 333. 
 
 Bert, Paul, 393, 395, 435, 439. 
 
 Bible, in moral education, 224. 
 
 Bishop of Versailles, 60u. 
 
 Blackie, J. S.,90, 133, 136, 149, 158, 
 206, 222, 224, 244. 
 
 Bossuet, 24, 169, 231, 460. 
 
 Botany, 394. 
 
 Bourdaloue, 243. 
 
 Bracket, 334. 
 
 483
 
 484 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Braun, M. H., 270n, 360. 
 
 Breal, 110, 325, 332, 334, 340. 
 
 Bridgman, Laura, 77. 
 
 Brooks, Edw., 69. 
 
 Brouard, 298, 307. 
 
 Buffon, 97. 
 
 Buisson, 21, 176n, 280n, 284, 286, 
 287, 295, 299, 301, 303, 323, 354, 
 360, 367, 373, 374, 376, 385n, 388, 
 398, 420. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 206. 
 
 Cadet, F., 341, 443. 
 
 Campan, Mme., 116, 117, 451. 
 
 Cartesians, the, 210, 247. 
 
 Chalamet, Mile., 42, 66, 148, 195, 
 254, 293, 311, 313, 381, 422, 428. 
 
 Champfleury, 152, 198. 
 
 Character, 244. 
 
 Charbonneau, 282. 
 
 Chateaubriand, 114. 
 
 Chauvet, 27. 
 
 Chemistry, 394. 
 
 Child, physiology of, 33 ; intellect^ 
 ual state of, 59 ; respect for, 64 ; 
 in the cradle, 73 ; memory in 
 the, 115 ; has it creative imagin- 
 ation ? 145 ; judgment in the, 
 162 ; tendency to generalize, 171 ; 
 repugnance to abstraction, 173 ; 
 reasoning in the, 178 ; develop- 
 ment of sympathy in the, 189; 
 marks of sensibility, 190 ; neither 
 good nor bad, 208 ; evil instincts 
 of, 209 ; moral sense in the, 214 ; 
 imitative instinct in the, 220 ; 
 will in the, 228; taste for num- 
 bers, 381. 
 
 Cinderella, 151. 
 
 Civic instruction, history and, 360, 
 
 411 ; teaching, 397, 408 ; necessity 
 
 of, 409 ; methods in, 411 ; and 
 
 politics, 412. 
 
 Classification, of pupils, 466. 
 Cleanliness, 38. 
 Clothing, 29. 
 Cocheris, 320. 
 Color-blindness, 87. 
 Comenius, 75, 144, 151, 241, 302. 
 Composition, 153 ; exercises in, 
 
 338 ; from pictures, 340. 
 Condillac, 75, 96, 178, 227. 
 Condorcet, 199. 
 Conscience, 203, 212. 
 Consciousness, 94; education of, 
 
 95. 
 
 Counting-machines, 385. 
 Cuignet, 82. 
 Culture, methods of, 56 ; of the 
 
 senses, 76 ; of the attention, 94. 
 Curiosity, 106. 
 
 Daguet, 267, 275, 280, 282. 
 
 Darwin, 214. 
 
 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 263. 
 
 Deduction, 180, 181, 276. 
 
 De Guimps, Koger, 219n, 430. 
 
 Delaunay, 299. 
 
 Denzel, 11. 
 
 De Maintenon, Mme., 132, 195, 460. 
 
 De St. Pierre, Abbe, 165, 197. 
 
 De Sales, 136. 
 
 De Saussure, 10, 59, 60, 68, 79, 83, 
 
 101, 107, 125, 139, 147, 152, 155, 
 
 157, 160, 208, 211, 240, 254, 269, 
 
 403. 
 
 De Se'vigne, Mme., 37, 143. 
 Desire, difference between will 
 
 and, 228. 
 De Stael, Mme., 67.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 485 
 
 Dictation exercises, 445. 
 
 Didactics, 267. 
 
 Diderot, 180, 449. 
 
 Diesterweg, 6, 7, 17. 
 
 Difficulties, in education of the 
 feelings, 188; in moral educa- 
 tion, 219. 
 
 Discipline, music and, 430; school, 
 447 ; means of, 447 ; of conse- 
 quences, 460 ; in general, 463 ; 
 moral conditions of, 470 ; impor- 
 tance of physical qualifications, 
 472 ; versatility in the use of 
 means, 474 ; continuity in, 474 ; 
 higher purpose of, 475. 
 
 Dor, G., 121. 
 
 Douliot, 134n. 
 
 Drawing, in the common school, 
 417 ; historical, 418 ; definitions, 
 420 ; programme, 420 ; at what 
 age should instruction in it 
 begin ? 421 ; children's taste 
 for, 422 ; taste for coloring, 
 422 ; two methods, 423 ; partic- 
 ular advice, 426. 
 
 Duclos, 295. 
 
 Dupange, M., 429, 431. 
 
 Dupanloup, 13n, 15, 54, 64, 106. 
 
 Duruy, 343. 
 
 Duties, the teacher's, out of school, 
 467. 
 
 Economy, domestic, 443. 
 
 Edgeworth, Miss, 89, 105, 108, 109, 
 110, 162, 193, 246. 
 
 Education, origin of the word, 3 ; 
 the prerogative of man, 3 ; is 
 there a science of ? 4 ; pedagogy 
 and, 4 ; definitions, 9 ; divisions, 
 13, 14; liberal, 16; the work of 
 
 liberty, 19; of authority, 20; 
 power and limits of, 23 ; and the 
 school, 24; in a republic, 26; 
 character-building the supreme 
 end, 26; physical, 28; intel- 
 lectual, 62 ; progressive, 60 ; pain 
 in, 68 ; practical, 71 ; of the 
 senses, 73 ; of conciousness, 95 ; 
 of the memory, 114 ; of the imag- 
 ination, 138 ; of the judgment, 
 159; of the reason, 179; of the 
 feelings, 185 ; abuse of the feel- 
 ings in, 191 ; moral, 203, 397 ; in 
 liberty, 233 ; the will and, 240 ; 
 religious, 245 ; aesthetic, 245 ; 
 self, 241; of the heart, 402; 
 through reflection, through prac- 
 tice, 403. 
 
 Effort, necessity of, 67. 
 
 Egger, 74, 103, 147, 152, 166, 164, 
 216. 
 
 Elocution, 341. 
 
 Emerson, 19n. 
 
 Emotions, division of, 186 ; relation 
 to ideas, 194 ; to action, 196. 
 
 Emulation, in school discipline, 
 448. 
 
 English methods, 175, 258, 347, 350. 
 
 Esquimaux, anecdote of, 109. 
 
 Faculties, equilibrium and har- 
 mony of, 61 ; mutual support 
 of, 62 ; moral, 203. 
 
 Family, moral influence of the, 
 469. 
 
 Feelings, culture of the, 485 ; rela- 
 tion of the will to the, 230 ; the 
 higher, 246. 
 
 FcTnelon, 24, 67, 100, 200, 286, 333, 
 450, 473.
 
 486 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ferri, L., 217. 
 
 Ferry, Jules, 412, 433, 434. 
 
 Feudal system, lesson on the, 355. 
 
 Feuerbach, 39. 
 
 Feuillet, M., 450, 452. 
 
 Fitch, 130, 347. 
 
 France, public school system of, 
 
 416 ; methods in, 258 ; University 
 
 of, 416. 
 
 Franklin, Dr., 234. 
 Frieh, 381. 
 Froebel, 49, 70, 78, 79, 105, 151, 
 
 275n, 300, 390, 419, 421. 
 Foncin, 367, 
 Fontenelle, 23, 126, 239. 
 Food, 39. 
 
 Foussagrives, 39, 87, 102. 
 Forms, geometrical, 419. 
 
 Gauthey, 143, 146, 153, 196, 201, 
 221, 242. 
 
 Generalization, 169, 174, 176, 481. 
 
 Geography, 362, 445; progress in 
 studies, 362 : new methods, 363 ; 
 definitions, 364 ; utility of, 365 ; 
 divisions, 366 ; begin early, 368 ; 
 methods, 369 ; national, 370 ; 
 correct methods in, 371 ; maps, 
 373 ; globe, 376 ; text-books, 376 ; 
 physical, in the education of the 
 reason, 179. 
 
 Geometry, 419, 440 ; in common 
 schools, 389 ; purpose and meth- 
 od of, 390; elementary course, 
 391 ; intuitive, 392 ; tachyinetry, 
 392. 
 
 George, Dr., 36. 
 
 German schools, 165 ; methods in, 
 294, 296, 350. 
 
 Gill, 273n. 
 
 Girard, Pere, 151, 187, 328, 365. 
 
 Girardin, 31. 
 
 Globe, in geography, 376. 
 
 Goldsmith, 38. 
 
 Good, love of the, 225. 
 
 Grammar, 327-9, 445 ; necessity of, 
 330; true method, 331; text- 
 books, 332 ; qualities of a good 
 text-book, 333 ; historical, 333. 
 
 Grant, Horace, 102. 
 
 Greard, Pere, 46n, 64, 79, 90, 92, 291, 
 331, 337, 339, 340, 342, 346, 350, 
 359, 369, 410, 434, 442, 444, 462, 
 468-70, 475. 
 
 Greeks, the, 29, 249, 254 ; their lan- 
 guage, 334 ; their education, 429, 
 450. 
 
 Guizot, M., 24, 61, 114, 186, 295, 
 471. 
 
 Guizot, Mme., 71, 192, 207, 209, 212. 
 
 Guillaume, M. E., 294, 298n, 425. 
 
 Gymnastics, 36, 40, 234n, 433 ; mili- 
 tary, 43 ; for girls, 44 ; pro- 
 grammes for, 46 ; play and, 47. 
 
 Habit, 227 ; habits, 236. 
 
 Hall, 294. 
 
 Hardouin, Pere, 126n. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir Wm., 478. 
 
 Hearing, education of the, 81. 
 
 Hegel, 186. 
 
 Helvetius, 23. 
 
 Herder, 254, 328, 368. 
 
 History, 445 ; education of the 
 reason by, 179 ; exciting patriot- 
 ism, 194, 343 ; in moral educa- 
 tion, 221 ; in common schools, 
 343; purpsse of, 343; influence 
 on the development of the mind, 
 344; character and limits of in-
 
 INDEX. 
 
 487 
 
 struction, 345 ; fundamental no- 
 tions, 346 ; two systems, 347 ; old 
 system, school programme, 348 ; 
 regressive method, 350 ; general 
 method, ordinary faults, 351 ; 
 suggestions, 352 ; intuition in, 
 353 ; lesson on the feudal system, 
 355; text-books, 357; summaries, 
 and narratives, 358 ; incidental 
 aids, 359 ; civic instruction, 360, 
 411 ; and geography, 360. 
 
 Horner, 282, 297-8, 338-9, 384. 
 
 Humanities, the, 15. 
 
 Hume, 154. 
 
 Huxley, 15. 
 
 Hygiene, school, 36 ; of the senses, 
 76 ; myopia, 87. 
 
 Ideas, general and abstract, 170, 
 173; general before language, 
 171 ; relation of emotions to, 
 194 ; difference between will 
 and, 229. 
 
 Imagination, education of the, 138. 
 
 " Imitation of Jesus Christ," 220. 
 
 Induction, 180, 276; essential 
 points and examples, 183. 
 
 Inequalities, intellectual, 70. 
 
 Instruction, methods of, 56 ; pleas- 
 ure in, 67. 
 
 Intellectual education, 52. 
 
 Intelligence, beginning of, 73. 
 
 Intuition, 283 ; in history, 353 ; in- 
 tuitions, 174-6. 
 
 Jacotot, 70, 120, 124, 276n, 297, 299, 
 
 361. 
 
 Jacoulet, 81. 
 Janet, Paul, 95, 139, 170, 269, 397, 
 
 399, 401, 403, 408. 
 
 Jansenists, the, 208. 
 
 Javal, Dr., 43n. 
 
 Jesuits, the, 16, 68. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., 132. 
 
 Johonnot, James, 55, 129, 313-4, 
 
 318. 
 
 Joly, 11, 68. 
 Jouffroy, 191. 
 Jowett, 19n. 
 Judgment, the, 126, 159; culture 
 
 of the, 161 ; in the child, 162. 
 
 Kant, 10, 11, 18, 20, 62, 67, 111, 127, 
 140, 147, 200, 208-9, 213-4, 232-3, 
 236, 243, 260. 
 
 Kindergarten, the, 300. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, 36. 
 
 Knowledge, and will, 227. 
 
 Kohn, M., 87. 
 
 Laboulaye, 168. 
 La Bruyere, 209, 452. 
 Lacoinbe, 107. 
 Laisnd, 44, 46n, 48. 
 La Fontaine, 122-3n, 146, 209, 257. 
 Lakanal, 292. 
 
 Language, the study of, 326; les- 
 sons, 328. 
 
 La Rochefoucauld, 242. 
 Larominguiere, 98. 
 Latin, the study of, 41, 334n. 
 Laurie, S. S., 288, 386. 
 Lavisse, 346, 356. 
 Legouve', 83, 118, 136, 210. 
 Leibnitz, 25, 95n, 117. 
 Levasseur, 370, 372. 
 Leyssenne, 390-1. 
 Lhomond, 330, 361. 
 Liberty, 231 ; education in, 233. 
 Life, importance of the will in, 244.
 
 488 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lincoln, D. F., 36. 
 
 Literature, teaching, 341. 
 
 Littre, 281, 366. 
 
 Locke, 9, 28, 31, 37, 39, 52, 70, 76, 
 
 107, 112, 119-20, 178, 180, 224, 
 
 293, 421, 434, 450, 459. 
 Luther, 149. 
 Luys, 120. 
 
 Maclaren, A., 36. 
 
 Malebranche, 139. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 14, 25, 26. 
 
 Manual labor, in common schools, 
 433 ; importance of, 433 ; indus- 
 tries in schools for boys, 435 ; 
 who should give lessons, 436 ; 
 order of lessons, 437; agricul- 
 ture, 438; military drill, 439; 
 industries in schools for girls, 
 440 ; needle-work, 441 ; abuses 
 of, 442 ; domestic economy, 443. 
 
 Maps, in general, 373 ; in atlas, 
 373 ; wall, 374 ; relief, 374. 
 
 Marcel, 338. 
 
 Marcellus, 353. 
 
 Marche-Girard, Mile., 127. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 223. 
 
 Marion, 5, 11, 23, 31, 51, 122n, 191, 
 199, 202, 237, 246, 250, 258, 269, 
 402. 
 
 Martha, M., 257. 
 
 Mathematics, 180, 380. 
 
 Military drill, 439. 
 
 Mill, James, 12. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 10, 234, 252. 
 
 Mind, instruction and education 
 of, 54 ; not a vase, but a fire, 63 ; 
 inner development of, 68. 
 
 Memory, the doctrine of, 133, 477 ; 
 education of the, 114; function 
 
 in geography, 372 ; in arithmetic, 
 387. 
 
 Mental arithmetic, 385. 
 
 Methodology, 267. 
 
 Methods, 56, 69, 265-6, 272. 
 
 Metric system, 382, 388. 
 
 Mineralogy, 394. 
 
 Mnemonics, 134. 
 
 Mobiles, 191. 
 
 Moliere, 178. 
 
 Montaigne, 3, 29, 72, 118, 120, 127, 
 129, 133, 161, 186, 238, 299, 313. 
 
 Morality, 216. 
 
 Morals, consequence of defective 
 attention in, 113 ; and educa- 
 tion, 185, 203, 260 ; teaching, 397; 
 topics, 399; scope and limits, 
 399; courses, 400; methods, 401 ; 
 characteristics of instruction, 
 401 ; teaching through the heart, 
 402; through reflection, 403"; 
 through practice, 403 ; exercises, 
 404 ; example of the teacher, 
 405 ; incidental marks, 406 ; 
 reading, 407 ; poetry, 407 ; theo- 
 retical, 408 ; lay rights, 413 ; in- 
 fluence of music, 428 ; influence 
 of family on, 469. 
 
 Mother-tongue, study of the, 325. 
 
 Motives, 191. 
 
 Movement, need of, 104. 
 
 Mozart, 121. 
 
 Museums, school, 313. 
 
 Music, moral influence of, 429 , 
 and discipline, 430; theory of, 
 432. 
 
 Myopia, in children, 87. 
 
 Namur, 283. 
 
 Napoleon I., 206, 429. 
 
 Narratives, 149.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 489 
 
 Nature, principles of, 16 ; -what are 
 we to understand by ? 17 ; re- 
 strictions, 18. 
 
 Newton, 97, 178. 
 
 Nicole, 62, 68, 71, 97, 178, 330, 368. 
 
 Niemeyer, 11. 
 
 Non mutta, sed multum, 64. 
 
 Novelty, effects upon attention, 
 108. 
 
 Numeral frames, 384. 
 
 Observation, 89 ; in the child, 90. 
 
 Object-lessons, 175, 285, 310 ; rules 
 for, 317; method of, 324; in 
 arithmetic and geometry, 393; 
 in science, 394. 
 
 Oral exercises, 445. 
 
 Orthography, 328, 335. See " Spell- 
 ing." 
 
 Page, David P., 304. 
 
 Pain, 199 ; in education, 68. 
 
 Pape-Carpantier, Mme., 38, 46, 65, 
 87, 89, 93, 140, 196n, 302, 311, 
 313, 319, 324, 338, 354, 442. 
 
 Parents, co-operation with teach- 
 ers, 468. 
 
 Pascal, 30, 114, 123, 139, 253, 446, 
 452. 
 
 Passions, the, 201. 
 
 Payne, W. H., notes by, 5, 8, 17-8, 
 41, 52-3, 66, 191, 298, 326-7, 336, 
 392 ; the doctrine of memory, 
 477 ; analysis and synthesis, 
 478; the problem of primary 
 reading, 479 ; value of subjects, 
 480. 
 
 IMcaut, Dr., 36, 46n, 151, 406. 
 
 Pedagogics, 5. 
 
 Pedagogy, its scientific principles, 
 
 7 ; relation to psychology, 7 ; to 
 
 other sciences, 9 ; practical, 265. 
 Perception, 89. 
 
 Perceptions, 14 ; acquired, 77. 
 Pe'rez, Bernard, 80, 86, 99, 171, 189, 
 
 214, 217, 248. 
 Pestalozzi, 8, 20, 78, 141, 153, 218n, 
 
 219, 268, 275n, 285, 306, 310, 321, 
 
 363, 410, 419, 431, 459, 463. 
 Peter the Great, 38. 
 Phillip, Frere, 162. 
 Physical education, 28; in Eng- 
 land, 49. 
 Physics, 394. 
 
 Physiology, of the child, 33. 
 Pictures, 144. 
 Pillans, Professor, 67. 
 Plato, 10, 19n, 23, 30, 45, 60, 249, 
 
 429. 
 
 Platrier, 312. 
 Play, 152 ; and gymnastics, 47 ; 
 
 necessity of, 48 ; imagination in, 
 
 152. 
 
 Pleasure, 199 ; in instruction, 67. 
 Plutarch, 223, 225. 
 Poetry, 150 ; in moral instruction, 
 
 407. 
 
 Politics, and civic instruction, 412. 
 Pompe'e, 218n. 
 Port Royal, 265, 295 ; logic, 124, 
 
 161. 
 
 Practical, aim of education the, 71. 
 Practice, education through, 403. 
 Precepts, in moral education, 244. 
 Prizes, 455. 
 
 Problems, in arithmetic, 386. 
 Psychology, relation of pedagogy 
 
 to, 7 ; is there an infant I 8 ; 
 
 methods based on, 67. 
 Punishments, 456 ; reprimands,
 
 490 
 
 INDFA'. 
 
 456 ; actual, 457 ; threats, 457 ; 
 tasks or impositions, 458 ; cor- 
 poral, 459 ; general rules, 459. 
 
 Quintilian, 143n. 
 
 Rabelais, 132, 450. 
 
 Rambert, 384. 
 
 Ravaisson, M., 253, 255, 424. 
 
 Reading, 290, 445 ; teaching, 292 ; 
 alphabetic method, 294 ; pho- 
 netic, 296; analytic and syn- 
 thetic, 297 ; taught with writing, 
 298 ; accessory processes, 302 ; 
 expressive, 304 ; in moral in- 
 struction, 407 ; primary, 479 ; 
 word method, 480. 
 
 Reasoning, 159, 177 ; education in, 
 179 ; exercises in, 181. 
 
 Reclus, Elise'e, 371. 
 
 Recitation, selections for, 131. 
 
 Reflection, the faculties of, 59 ; ed- 
 ucation through, 403. 
 
 Religious education, 245 ; senti- 
 ment, 258; in common schools, 
 259 ; morals and, 260. 
 
 Rendu, E., 123n, 131, 255, 303n, 
 306-7, 386, 454, 463-4, 473. 
 
 Rewards, 447 ; kinds of, 454 ; praise 
 and commendation, 454; other, 
 455. 
 
 Riant, 36. 
 
 Ribot, 23, 120. 
 
 Richter, 474. 
 
 Rigault, 254n. 
 
 Rollin, 121-3, 450, 468. 
 
 Romans, the, 172. 
 
 Romances, 151. 
 
 Rousseau, 6, 12, 16, 18, 31, 36, 68, 
 61, 66, 67, 74n, 75, 78, 79, 80, 116, 
 
 139, 146, 150, 160, 164, 180, 186-7, 
 192-3, 207-8, 210, 219, 233, 236, 
 246, 260, 293, 310, 363, 418, 434, 
 450. 
 
 Rousselot, 154n, 242, 265n, 304. 
 
 Rules, pedagogical, 175; for the 
 education of the feelings, 193. 
 
 Saffray, Dr., 82. 
 
 St. Augustine, 208, 416. 
 
 St. Paul, 208. 
 
 Schrader, 367. 
 
 Science, education of the reason 
 by, 179; of education, is there 
 a? 4. 
 
 Sciences, in common schools, 379, 
 393; programmes and methods, 
 394 ; practical character, 395 ; 
 scientific excursions, 395 ; text- 
 books, 395. 
 
 Sensations, 75. 
 
 Sense-intuitions, 70. 
 
 Sense-perception, abuse of, 322. 
 
 Senses, education of the, 73; at- 
 tention through the, 103. 
 
 Sewing, domestic, 441. 
 
 Sight, education of the, 83. 
 
 Simon, Jules, 11. 
 
 Singing, in the common schools, 
 427 ; in maternal schools ; moral 
 influence of, 428 ; and discipline, 
 430 ; choice of pieces, 430 ; meth- 
 ods and processes, 431 ; intuition 
 in, 431 ; theory of, 432. 
 
 Sisyphus, 96. 
 
 Smell, education of the, 79. 
 
 Socrates, 19n, 53. 
 
 Souvestre, 27. 
 
 Spelling, the old and the new, 295. 
 See " Orthography."
 
 INDEX. 
 
 491 
 
 Spencer, H., 10, 29, 34, 37-40, 44, 
 47-8, 63, 58, 65-7, 91, 128, 312, 
 316, 328, 346, 387, 391, 404, 422-3, 
 460-2. 
 
 Stein, 11. 
 
 Studies, 66 ; value of subjects, 480. 
 
 Sully, 13n, 109, 148, 168, 191, 201, 
 230. 
 
 Supervision, necessity of vigorous, 
 466. 
 
 Swiss methods, 273, 281, 298, 338. 
 
 Syllogism, the, 181. 
 
 Synthesis, 280, 478. 
 
 Tachymetry, 392. 
 
 Taine, H., 49, 163, 172. 
 
 Tales, 148. 
 
 Talleyrand, 267. 
 
 Taste, culture of the, 79, 265. 
 
 Teacher, example of the, 405 ; co- 
 operation with parents, 468 ; 
 qualities of a good, 471 ; moral 
 authority of the, 473. 
 
 Teaching, abuse of abstraction in, 
 173 ; morals, 204. 
 
 Text-books, in grammar, 332 ; in 
 science, 395. 
 
 Tiedemann, 147. 
 
 Time, distribution of, 463 ; general 
 principles for, 464. 
 
 Tissot, Dr., 46n. 
 Truth, 245. 
 
 Vaiet, 208. 
 
 Variety, effects of, 108. 
 
 Vauvenargues, 127. 
 
 Vergnes, Capt., 40. 
 
 Verne, Jules, 151. 
 
 Vernet, H., 121. 
 
 Vessiot, 206, 217, 219. 
 
 Villemain, 120. 
 
 Vincent, M., 442. 
 
 Vinet, 237. 
 
 Vitae, non scholce, discitur, 71. 
 
 Vitet, 410. 
 
 Voice, the teacher's, 330. 
 
 Volney, 38. 
 
 Voltaire, 346. 
 
 Von Sydow, 374. 
 
 White, E. E., 9n. 
 
 Wickersham, J. P., 69, 312, 316 
 
 322, 364. 
 
 Words, without things, 321. 
 Writing, 290 ; taught with reading; 
 
 298 ; teaching, 306 
 
 Zoology, 394.
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 Monographs on Education. 
 
 MANY contributions to the theory or the practice of teaching are 
 yearly lost to the profession, because they are embodied in arti- 
 cles which are too long, or too profound, or too limited as to number 
 of interested readers, for popular magazine articles, and yet not suffi- 
 cient in volume for books. We propose to publish from time to time, 
 under the title of Monographs on Education, just such essays, prepared 
 by specialists, choice in matter, practical in treatment, and of unques- 
 tionable value to teachers. Our plan is to furnish the monographs in 
 paper covers, and at low prices. We shall continue the series as long 
 as teachers boy freely enough to allow the publishers to recover merely 
 the money invested. 
 
 For the plan of publication, and for the series so far as issued, we 
 have many good "words, such as the following: 
 
 Science, New York : Every teacher 
 should welcome such contributions to 
 pedagogics when presented in so at- 
 tractive a form. 
 
 School Education : Heath & Co. 
 are doing the profession a service in pub- 
 lishing these monographs. (Jan., 1887.) 
 
 Ann Arbor Chronicle : They are 
 the best things of the kind in the country, 
 and are worth the careful attention of all 
 our students of pedagogy. (Dec. 18, 1886.) 
 
 N. B. Journal: A series that will be 
 gladly welcomed by teachers. This is a 
 capital plan, worthy of hearty encourage- 
 ment. (Feb. 24, 1887.) 
 
 University Quarterly : These are 
 valuable contributions to the theory and 
 practice of teaching. (April, 1887.) 
 
 8. W. Journal of Education : 
 A valuable series, and teachers would do 
 well to subscribe for them. (Dec., 1886.) 
 
 The Hartford Post : These mono- 
 Vaphs are of the utmost importance, 
 
 and mark an epoch in educational 
 matters. (Nov. 22, 1886.) 
 
 Educational Gazette, Rochester, 
 N. Y. : All admirable little works on their 
 respective subjects. (January, 1887.) 
 
 Wisconsin Journal of Educa- 
 tion : The series deserves the patron- 
 age of teachers. (November, 1886.) 
 
 The Critic, N.Y.: This series has 
 already shown that it has a place. 
 
 Buffalo Express : They are exceed- 
 ingly interesting and suggestive. Every 
 teacher of these times ought to freshen 
 up his thoughts by the perusal of such 
 essays as these ; and their value will be 
 found to lie not only in the suggestions 
 they make, and the errors they point 
 out, but in the stimulus they impart to a 
 teacher's own powers of investigation 
 and invention. (March 13, 1887.) 
 
 E. 8. Cox, Supt. of Schools, Ports- 
 mouth, Ohio : I cannot commend too 
 highly your Monographs on Education. 
 (Jan. 13. 1887.)
 
 NEW BOOKS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 I do not think that you have ever printed a book on education that is not worthy to go on an) 
 "Teacher's Reading List," and the best list. DR. WILLIAM T. HARRIS. 
 
 CompayrV s History of Pedagogy. 
 
 Translated by Professor W. H. PAYNE, University of Michigan. Price by mail $1.75. 
 The best and most comprehensive history of education in English. Dr. G. S. HALL. 
 
 Compayre ' s Lectures on Teaching. 
 
 Just Issued. Translated by Professor W. H. PAYNE. Price by mail, $1.60. 
 The best book in existence on the theory and practice of education. Supt. MACALISTKR, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 De Garmo's Essentials of Method. 
 
 A practical exposition of methods with illustrative outlines of common school studies. 
 
 Gill's Systems of Education. 
 
 An account cf the systems advocated by eminent educationists. Price by mail, $1.10. 
 
 I can say truly that I think it eminently worthy of a place on the Chautauqua Reading 
 List, because it treats ably of the Lancaster and Bell movement in Education a very im- 
 portant phase. Dr. WILLIAM T. HARRIS. 
 
 Radestoctis Habit in Education. 
 
 With an Introduction by Dr. G. STANLEY HALL. Price by mail, 65 cents. 
 It will prove a rare "find" to teachers who are seeking to ground themselves in the 
 philosophy of their art. E. H. RUSSELL, Principal of Normal School, Worcester. Mass. 
 
 Rousseau s Entile. 
 
 Price by mail, 85 cents. 
 
 There are fifty pages of " Emile " that should be bov.rj<J in velvet and gold. VOLTAIRE. 
 
 Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the subject of education. R. H. QUICK. 
 
 Pestalozzis Leonard and Gertrude. 
 
 With an Introduction by Dr. G. STANLEY HALL. Price by mail 85 cents. 
 If we except Rousseau's " Emile " only, no more important educational book has appeared 
 for a century and half than Pestalozzi' " Leonard and Gertrude." The Nation. 
 
 Rosminis Method in Education. 
 
 Price by mail, $1.75. 
 
 The best of the Italian books on education. Editor London Journal of Education 
 
 Hair s Methods of Teaching History. 
 
 A symposium of eminent teachers of histoiy. Price by mail, $1.40. 
 
 Its excellence and helpfulness ought to secure it many readers. The Nation. 
 
 Bibliography of Pedagogical Literature. 
 
 Carefully selected and annotated by Dr. G. STANLEY HALL. Price by mail, $1.75. 
 
 Lectures to Kinder gar tners. 
 
 3y ELIZABETO P. P..ABODY. Price by mail, $1.10. 
 
 Monographs on Education. (25 cents each.) 
 D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK, and CHICAGO. 
 , E. SMITH, General Western Agent, - - 185 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which It was borrowed. 
 
 , 
 
 A ^
 
 1205 00931 9524