other hand, in relation to the infinity of the problems of his art or science, he is by no means complete; to himself he must always appear as one who begins ever anew, one who is ever striving, one to whom a new problem ever rises from every achieved result. He cannot discharge himself from work, he must never desire to rest on his laurels. He is the truest master whose finished performances only force him on to never-resting progress.

§ 111. The real possibility of culture is found in general, it is true, in every human being; nevertheless, empirically, there are distinguished: (1) Incapacity, as the want of all gifts; (2) Mediocrity; (3) Talent and Genius. It is the part of Psychology to give an account of all these. Mediocrity characterizes the great mass of mechanical intelligences, those who wait for external impulse as to what direction their endeavors shall take. Not without truth, perhaps, may we say, that hypothetically a special talent is given to each individual, but this special talent in many men never makes its appearance, because under the circumstances in which it finds itself placed it fails to find the exciting occasion which shall give him the knowledge of its existence. The majority of mankind are contented with the mechanical impulse which makes them into something and impresses upon them certain determinations.-Talent shows itself by means of the confidence in its own especial productive possibility, which manifests itself as an inclination, as a strong impulse, to occupy itself with the special object which constitutes its content. Pedagogics has no difficulty in dealing with mechanical natures, because their passivity is only too ready to follow prescribed patterns. It is more difficult to manage talent, because it lies between mediocrity and genius, and is therefore uncertain, and not only unequal to itself, but also is tossed now too low, now too high, is by turns despondent and over-excited. The general maxim for dealing with it is to remove no difficulty from the subject to which its efforts are directed.-Genius must be treated much in the same way as Talent. The difference con

sists only in this, that Genius. with a foreknowledge of its creative power, usually manifests its confidence with less doubt in a special vocation, and, with a more intense thirst

for culture, subjects itself more willingly to the demands of instruction. Genius is in its nature the purest self-determination, in that it lives, in its own inner existence, the necessity which exists in the thing. But it can assign to the New, which is in it already immediately and subjectively, no value if this has not united itself to the already existing culture as its objective presupposition, and on this ground it thankfully receives instruction.

§ 112. But Talent and Genius offer a special difficulty to education in the precocity which often accompanies them. But by precocity we do not mean that they early render themselves perceptible, since the early manifestation of gifts by talent and genius, through their intense confidence, is to be looked at as perfectly legitimate. But precocity is rather the hastening forward of the human being in feeling and moral sense, so that where in the ordinary course of nature we should have a child, we have a youth, and a man in the place of a youth. We may find precocity among those who belong to the class of mediocrity, but it is developed most readily among those possessed of talent and genius, because with them the early appearance of superior gifts may very easily bring in its train a perversion of the feelings and the moral nature. Education must deal with it in so far as it is inharmonious, so that it shall be stronger than the demands made on it from without, so that it shall not minister to vanity; and must take care, in order to accomplish this, that social naturalness and lack of affectation be preserved in the pupil.

-Our age has to combat this precocity much more than others. We find e.g. authors who, at the age of thirty years, in which they publish their collected works or write their biography, are chilly with the feelings of old age. Music has been the sphere in which the earliest development of talent has shown itself, and here we find the absurdity that the cupidity of parents has so forced precocious talents that children of four or five years of age have been made to appear in public.—

§ 113. Every sphere of culture contains a certain quantity of knowledge and ready skill which may be looked at, as it were, as the created result of the culture. It is to be wished

that every one who turns his attention to a certain line of culture could take up into himself the gathered learning which controls it. In so far as he does this, he is professional. The consciousness that one has in the usual way gone through a school of art or science, and has, with the general inheritance of acquisition, been handed over to a special department, creates externally a beneficial composure which is very favorable to internal progress. We must distinguish from the professional the amateur and the self-taught man. The amateur busies himself with an art, a science, or a trade, without having gone through any strict training in it. As a rule, he dispenses with elementary thoroughness, and hastens towards the pleasure which the joy of production gives. The conscious amateur confesses this himself, makes no pretension to mastership, and calls himself-in distinction from the professional, who subjects himself to rules--an unlearned person. But sometimes the amateur, on the contrary, covers over his weakness, cherishes in himself the self-conceit that he is equal to the heroes of his art or science, constitutes himself the first admirer of his own performances, seeks for their want of recognition in external motives, never in their own want of excellence; and, if he has money, or edits a paper, is intoxicated with being the patron of talent which produces such works as he would willingly produce or pretends to produce. The self-taught man has often true talent, or even genius, to whose development nevertheless the inherited culture has been denied, and who by good fortune has through his own strength worked his way into a field of effort. The selftaught man is distinguished from the amateur by the thoroughness and the industry with which he acts; he is not only equally unfortunate with him in the absence of school-training, but is much less endowed. Even if the self-taught man has for years studied and practised much, he is still haunted by a feeling of uncertainty as to whether he has yet reached the stand-point at which a science, an art, or a trade, will receive him publicly-of so very great consequence is it that man should be comprehended and recognized by man. The self-taught man therefore remains embarrassed, and does not free himself from the apprehension that he may expose some weak point to a professional, or he falls into the other ex

treme-he becomes presumptuous, steps forth as a reformer, and, if he accomplishes nothing, or earns only ridicule, he sets himself down as an unrecognized martyr by an unappreciative and unjust world.

-It is possible that the amateur may transcend the stage of superficiality and subject himself to a thorough training; then he ceases to be an amateur. It is also possible that the self-taught man may be on the right track, and may accomplish as much or even more than one trained in the usual way. In general, however, it is very desirable that every one should go through the regular course of the inherited means of education, partly that he may be thorough in the elements, partly to free him from the anxiety which he may feel lest he in his solitary efforts spend labor on some superfluous work-superfluous because done long before, and of which he, through the accident of his want of culture, had not heard. We must all learn by ourselves, but we cannot teach ourselves. Only Genius can do this, for it must be its own leader in the new paths which it opens. Genius alone passes beyond where inherited culture ceases. It bears this in itself as of the past, and which it uses as material for its new creation; but the self-taught man, who would very willingly be a genius, puts himself in an attitude of opposition to things already accomplished, or sinks into oddity, into secret arts and sciences, &c.

§ 114. These ideas of the general steps of culture, of special gifts, and of the ways of culture appropriate to each, which we have above distinguished, have a manifold connection among themselves which cannot be established à priori. We can however remark that Apprenticeship, the Mechanical Intelligence, and the Professional life; secondly, Journeymanship, Talent, and Amateurship; and, finally, Mastership, Genius, and Self-Education, have a relationship to each other.

II. The Act of Learning.

§ 115. In the process of education the interaction between pupil and teacher must be so managed that the exposition by the teacher shall excite in the pupil the impulse to reproduction. The teacher must not treat his exposition as if it were a work of art which is its own end and aim, but he must al

ways bear in mind the need of the pupil. The artistic exposition, as such, will, by its completeness, produce admiration; but the didactic, on the contrary, will, through its perfect adaptation, call out the imitative instinct, the power of new creation.

-From this consideration we may justify the frequent statement that is made, that teachers who have really an elegant diction do not really accomplish so much as others who resemble in their statements not so much a canal flowing smoothly between straight banks, as a river which works its foaming way over rocks and between ever-winding banks. The pupil perceives that the first is considering himself when he speaks so finely, perhaps not without some selfappreciation; and that the second, in the repetitions and the sentences which are never finished, is concerning himself solely with him. The pupil feels that not want of facility or awkwardness, but the earnest eagerness of the teacher, is the principal thing, and that this latter uses rhetoric only as a

§ 116. In the act of learning there appears (1) a mechanical element, (2) a dynamic element, and (3) one in which the dynamic again mechanically strengthens itself.

§ 117. As to the mechanical element, the right time must be chosen for each lesson, an exact arrangement observed, and the suitable apparatus, which is necessary, procured. It is in the arrangement that especially consists the educational power of the lesson. The spirit of scrupulousness, of accuracy, of neatness, is developed by the external technique, which is carefully arranged in its subordinate parts according to its content. The teacher must therefore insist upon it that work shall cease at the exact time, that the work be well done, &c., for on these little things many greater things ethically depend.

-To choose one's time for any work is often difficult because of the pressure of a multitude of demands, but in general it should be determined that the strongest and keenest energy of the thinking activity and of memory—this being demanded by the work-should have appropriated to it the first half of the day.

§ 118. The dynamical element consists of the previously