lar lectures on philosophy comprised in this volume are characterized by the same open-mindedness. First introduced as a system of philosophy by Mr. Charles Peirce, in 1878, twenty years later (in 1898) Professor James first found the times ripe for the reception of pragmatism. The word is derived from the Greek word прayμа (pragma), action, from which our word practice comes. As a system, it means "the empiricist temper regnant and the rationalist temper sincerely given up. It means the open air and possibilities of nature, as against dogma, artificiality and the pretence of finality in truth." It does not stand for any special results, but is "a method only." And what is the pragmatic method? It is "to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences." It is nothing new. "Socrates was an adept at it. Aristotle used it methodically. Locke, Berkeley and Hume made momentous contributions to truth by its means." But they, and particularly John Stuart Mill, used the method in fragments. "Not until in our time has it generalized itself, become conscious of a universal mission, pretended to a conquering destiny." To men of scientific mind the book appeals strongly. It will interest most thoughtful readers. No one can read the book nodding. It is bright, popular in illustrations used, bristling with epigram, and distinctly entertaining. Longmans, Green & Co. Price, $1.25 net. Modern Language Text-Books: Munchausen's Reisen und Abenteuer; Sudermann's Teja; Hugo's Quatre-vingt-treize, Quelques Contes des Romanciers Naturalistes; Taboada's Cuentos Alegres; Blüthgen's Das Peterle von Nurnberg (Heath); La Bedollière's La Mere Michel et Son Chat (American Book Company); La Bruyère's Caracteres (Putnam). Each of these little books has an excellent introduction, discriminating notes and a specially prepared vocabulary. The following excellent editions of English Classics in well-known series have been received: As You Like It, edited by Isaac N. Demmon, A.M., in the Gateway Series. New York, American Book Company. Price, 35 cents. Selected Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited with introduction and notes by George Herbert Clarke, M.A.; and The Essays of Elia, by Charles Lamb, selected, with biographical sketch, bibliography and notes, in the Riverside Literature Series. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Company. Price in cloth, 50 cents and 40 cents respectively. Periodical Notes The American Magazine has a good name, and is not disappointing its readers. A series of articles by Ida M. Tarbell on " Abraham Lincoln," is promised for 1908.-" Why American Mar. riages Fail," is the title of an interesting article in The Atlantic Monthly for September.- The Arena for September contains a number of especially strong and interesting papers. "The Cable Telegraph Systems of the World," by the famous English statesman, J. Henniker Heaton, M.P., is probably the most exhaustive presentation of this question that has been made in any maga zine.-Everybody's for October has a striking cover in white and scarlet to advertise their leading article, "The Keystone Crime," by Owen Wister. This is the first comprehensive story of the scandalous cost of Pennsylvania's new capitol to appear." Record Mountain Climbing in the Himalayas," is the title of a fascinating article in Appleton's Magazine for October.-"The Child Without a Home," by Mabel Potter Daggett, in The Delineator for October, is full of a pathetic human interest.-In the October Century Magazine the director of the Cornell University College of Agriculture, Prof. L. H. Bailey, has another of his suggestive and valuable papers dealing with American youth and American farms, discussing this time "The Common Schools and the Farm Youth," a plea that the school accept all wholesome conditions in which it is placed, and that it begin with the sphere in which the child lives. Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature of Education VOL. XXVIII NOVEMBER, 1907 No. 3 The Function of Knowledge in Education CHARLES B. GILBERT, WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY, The term "knowledge" in this paper is used in the objective sense as covering what is commonly called the "body of knowledge," including both things known and things knowable. This is in contradistinction from the term used in its subjunctive sense, as the mental process of knowing. A IN American philosopher has said, "Even a proverb may be true." Probably a few are; more are half truths; many are individual facts which stated as general truths are fit only to mislead Sancho Panzas. "Knowledge is power" is even less, it is a mere trope-the conditioning for the thing conditioned. Knowledge is no more power than a steam engine is power. And yet the acquisition of knowledge is necessarily the great fact and the most manifest endeavor in organized education and whatever theories may be held, practically all the time in all schools is devoted to its acquisition. We have countless definitions of education made by teachers and educational philosophers, innumerable theories as to the purpose and end of the school. Yet none of them mention the acquisition of knowledge in this connection. We speak of the evolution of the individual, the calling out of his powers (false philology), all round training, symmetrical development, but none of us would venture to rise and say, "the acquisition of knowledge is the purpose of the school." But when we get beyond the definition and begin to write treatises upon educational methods, most of us fall back upon the acquisition of knowledge as the end aimed at, and particularly when we come to administer schools do we conduct them as if the imparting of fact were the only aim. Moreover, this is the popular notion. Ask any boy on the way to school what he goes to school for, and he will answer, "To learn." Ask his father why he sends his children to school, and, unless he be an educational theorist, he will answer, "To learn." The public draw their notions from our practice and from their sense of the children's need. Surely, then, a fact so conspicuous needs careful study. If, in spite of our educational theories and definitions, the acquisition of knowledge is both in popular notion and in pedagogical practice the substantial thing in education, it behooves us to consider what is its function. I am well aware that this discussion will seem to the philosopher as trite and unnecessary, to others as futile and unpractical, yet I am moved to start it, though with fear and trembling, particularly in view of some recent utterances upon educational topics with regard to isolation and analogy, and I am so moved in particular by this very lack of consistency between our definitions of education on the one side, and on the other our practical discussion of educational questions and, especially, our administration of school itself. When not merely is the imparting of fact commonly regarded as the end of school, but when the very lowest and most unpsychological view of the function of knowledge really prevails, it is time for a little stirring of ourselves by way of remembrance. It might have been better to use the plural in my title, as there are several recognized functions of knowledge in education. First is the popular and wholly obvious one of serving, as the working basis for all intelligent activity, and hence for all education. Such knowledge is called intelligence, and in the popular mind is confused with skilled learning, with learning how. This intelligence includes acquaintance with the more usual symbols employed in reading, writing and computing; is naturally essential to any considerable advance in education, and hence is recognized as a sort of substratum for all theories. A second function of knowledge is as a gymnastic; through the act of acquiring knowledge the mind is disciplined. This function when emphasized tends to the disregard of content, and to the consideration of disciplinary value alone. The educational theory based upon it is mediæval in origin, or perhaps theological. Its type of efficient reasoning is that acephalous amusement of the schoolmen, the syllogism, through which a man may sit upon a pedestal and learn the world with his eyes shut. A third function is an outgrowth and expansion of the first. As stated in the Report of the Committee of Fifteen, it is to acquaint the child with the civilization in which he is to live; that is, to give him a larger intelligence. This produces a nobler view of the end of education than either of the others, but one which manifestly defies and disregards any definition of education which its advocates would accept. It makes the acquisition of knowledge itself, and not the effect in the mind the norm. Both this and the first named accept unreservedly a physical as distinguished from a biological analogy for the educational process. The evident notion of the advocates of both these theories is that the mind is to be stored with useful knowledge, not to absorb and digest it. It is a receptacle, not an organism. There is a fourth function of knowledge in education recognized by some, many in theory, few in practice; namely, to furnish nutriment to the growing mind. It accepts frankly and consistently the biological analogy as distinguished from the physical. It has been wisely pointed out that there are dangers attending the use of the biological analogy as applied to education; wisely, because there is such danger. It is the danger attending the extreme use of any analogy. Analogy is not identity or even equivalence, and any analogy carried beyond its legitimate application runs into absurdity. Particularly is this the case if the analogy is of a lower to a higher object, as of a material fact to a spiritual truth. Yet in speaking or thinking metaphysical ideas we must use language borrowed by analogy from the material world, for there is no other language. This language is necessarily applicable either to things without life or to living things; it must be either physical or biological. As applied to mind and its laws and educacation, which shall it be? Dr. Harris has shown us that there is danger in the use of the biological; the danger in the use of the only alternative, the physical, is infinitely greater, because the analogy is not only imperfect and inadequate, it is positively misleading-inapt. To speak of the mind as an organism capable of growth and of education as a process of growth is surely nearer the truth than to speak of the mind as a receptacle to be filled, or a building to be constructed, and of education as filling or storing or building. Doubtless all will admit the truth of this as stated, but the educational methods and principles, both advocated and put into practice by the majority even of our leaders, are inconsistent with such admission. The ordinary school is totally opposed to it in evident aim, and treats the mind as a receptacle to be filled. As I have said, the first and third stated notions as to the proper function of knowledge in education rests plainly and almost avowedly upon the physical analogy, the receptacle theory, storing the mind with useful knowledge. The first would store it with knowledge for immediate and practical use; the third with wider and higher knowledge for remoter and more spiritual uses, but both treat the mind as a receptacle. The second, the disciplinary theory, is a singular mixture of the two figures. The mind is a tool to be sharpened and a something to be trained, as animals are trained according to a general extraneous law, not to be nourished with food convenient for it according to its own law. To make clear that my statement of the case is a fair one, let us consider the kind of school which is the product of each of these views. Two kinds of schools are the product of the first, or common intelligence notion, the school of the bare three r's, and the socalled commercial school, which in most cases is the school of |