The Place of Emulation in the School. If this be true, it seems evident that it is the business of the school to utilize these impulses in the education of the child. If the child can be put in a position where his surroundings will make him desire to do what he would not otherwise want to do; if he can be brought into contact with certain standards of excellence and, by having his emulative impulse stimulated, prompted to equal if not surpass them; if, by appeals to his love of approbation, he can be moved to do what he would not otherwise care to do, the teacher would seem to be making wise investment of the child's capital—an investment that cannot but redound to his highest good. Those who refuse to make an appeal to such impulses say in effect that a part of the child's nature is evil and evil only, so evil that to make a wise use of it in his education is impossible. At the risk of wearisome repetition, I wish to point out that those who would rely entirely on interest in the subject studied believe that such impulses as emulation, the love of approbation, the fear of punishment, should not be stimulated in the school. So general is this view that to oppose it requires some little courage in one who would fain be regarded as a progressive thinker. This book maintains that the spirit of emulation may properly be aroused, on the ground that (1) the interest growing directly out of the work will not be strong enough in many cases to induce the child to do it; (2) the idea that by a proper course of training emulation can be suppressed is absurd; (3) it is a question, then, not of the suppression of emulation, but of a wise use of it. Utilize judiciously the spirit of emulation and you get work better done by means of it than you could without it; refuse to make use of it, and you have only left it to express itself in ways

that have no value for education. To educate emulation out of a human being is neither possible nor desirable. It is not possible because education can neither make nor suppress any impulse. It is not desirable. Deal with the whole child in such a way that he will not wish to emulate unworthy examples. The result will be that his disposition to emulate will powerfully coöperate with his better nature to promote his own best interests and those of society.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What is meant by the art impulse, and how may it be utilized in the school?

2. Show by illustrations what the social impulse is, and explain the uses to which it may be put in the school.

3. What is the relation between the social impulse and the moral nature?

4. "The state is prior to the individual." Explain.

5. What did Locke regard as the most precious wisdom in life? 6. What is the most important feature in elementary education? 7. How did Rousseau and Pestalozzi differ as tò moral training? 8. What did Moseley mean by "the armor of old experience"? 9. What is the place of emulation in the school?

10. Why is it impossible to suppress emulation?

I

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.

What is the relation between the cultivation of the art impulse and the end of education?

2. Write an essay setting forth the difference between yourself as you are, and as you would have been if you had been brought up among a tribe of savages, cut off from the sciences, art, and literature of the race.

3. Froebel said that a human being is a member-whole: that is, that from one point of view he is a member and from another he is a whole. What do you suppose he meant?

4. In what way has the telegraph helped the people of the world to realize that each individual is a part of a great whole?

5. Can you state the difference between Rousseau's conception of human nature and Froebel's? Between Froebel's and Aristotle's? 6. Write an essay on the uses and abuses of emulation.

CHAPTER XV.

THE COURSE OF STUDY IN THE PRIMARY GRADES.

We

The Foundation on Which the School Must Build. have seen that when the child begins his school life he has already gained considerable knowledge of his fellows and of the world about him. Evidently one of the things which the school must do is to enlarge and deepen this knowledge. The thought, reflection, and contemplation in which with Aristotle we find a supreme end of life must relate either to men or to nature; the beauty in the appreciation of which we find another supreme end exists either in the world of society or of nature; the duty in the perfect devotion to which we find the highest end of all is learned through a knowledge of one's fellows and his relations to them. And all the subordinate ends of life-health, the intelligent performance of the duties of citizenship, the earning of a livelihood, the wise training of children are to be reached only through obedience to laws resulting from a knowledge of these two worlds.

The knowledge, then, of men and things which the child of six has when he first goes to school furnishes the foundation upon which we must build. This foundation, as Comenius long ago pointed out, includes some knowledge, vague and rudimentary as it of course is, of nearly all the sciences. Shall we, as seems to be recommended by high authorities, take no account of this knowledge and of the methods by which he acquired it when the child first

becomes a pupil? Surely the methods by which he has made his acquisitions should not be ignored. The chief difference between the child's life in school and his life previous to the school age (supposing that it was wholesome) should be that the school should have him do consciously and systematically what before he did blindly and unsystematically. Armed with all the resources of child psychology, the school should surround the child with such influences that those original investigations by which he has gained a large part of his acquisitions may not only continue but bear the richest fruit possible, and this fruit not only in the form of immediate results, but of a growing love of study. The child's curiosity, let it be repeated, is his intellectual capital. Wisely invested it will yield compound interest; it will grow and grow so as, under favorable circumstances, to make him an inquirer all his life. Not only so: the knowledge implanted by the school should be most carefully adapted to his state of development. It should as far as possible bear on his original investigations. These should whet his appetite for secondhand knowledge; this in turn should stimulate his curiosity: it should both broaden his vision of the world and intensify his desire to know more of it. The school itself, however, cannot do much to help the child acquire a first-hand knowledge of men. His schoolmates and playmates, his parents, brothers, and sisters, the teacher herself, will constantly furnish material for this kind of knowledge. Perhaps the chief thing the school can do in this direction is to determine to some extent the kind of material presented to him. By its discipline the school can exert a great influence, and it can also do something towards determining the character of his associations out of school