the activity of which he wishes to supply the conditions, the better he can supply them.

Three Processes not Usually Required. Moreover, a careful study of the conclusions we have reached makes it evident that in most of the cases examined there are really not three processes to which the terms presentation, generalization, and application can be applied. The teaching of grammar is indeed intended to enable the pupil to take three steps to which those names can be given. But in history and arithmetic there is but one, and in literature there are but two such processes. For explanation in history, and the solution of a problem in arithmetic, as we have seen, consist of the application of what the student already knows. As grammatical analysis corresponds to one only of the Herbartian steps application So also does reasoning in history and arithmetic; while in literature the mental activities involved are imagination and the perception of the beautiful.

How Psychology may Help the Teacher. A study of the history of education makes one more than doubt whether there is not a large measure of truth in Professor Münsterberg's contention that we are disposed nowadays to lay undue stress on the relation between psychology as a science, and education. When we remember the profound conception which Plato and Comenius had of the philosophy of education, each of them living ages before there was anything that deserved to be called a science of psychology, it is difficult not to believe that the most important knowledge of the mind which the teacher can acquire is that which a thoughtful observer of his own

mental states can obtain. However this may be, surely nothing but confusion can result from an analysis which, in the supposed interest of simplicity, tends to blur the peculiar features of individual activities. In all teaching there is some material upon which we wish the mind of the pupil to act, and, conversely, some kind of action which we wish the apprehension of that material to occasion. That study of psychology is helpful which enables the teacher to determine most clearly just what mental activities are to be aroused in the pupil and how this is to be accomplished.

Without doubt the doctrine of General Method has done some service in emphasizing the fact that unless the acquisitions of the pupil are worked over, unless they occasion some sort of mental activity, they are without value. But even this service has not been without its drawbacks; for it has helped to intensify the wide-spread belief that education is an affair of the intellect alone.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What is meant by General Method?

2. State and illustrate what is meant by preparation, presentation, generalization, and application.

3. Define method-whole.

4. Upon what does the validity of methods depend?

5. State clearly what the mind does when a sentence in grammar is analyzed.

6. To which of the Herbartian steps does it correspond, and why?

7. What are the acts of the mind of the pupil who is studying history?

8. In what does historical explanation consist?

9. To which of the Herbartian steps does historical explanation correspond?

10. Point out the difference between the activities of the student in connection with grammar, and those in connection with history.

11. Describe the mental processes involved in the solution of a problem in arithmetic.

12. What is the difference between the source of your belief in the proposition, All crows are black; and that of your belief that two and two make four?

13. How does a teacher help his pupil to see that he has made a mistake in solving a problem in arithmetic?

14. Describe the action of the mind in connection with the study of arithmetic.

15. Sum up the conclusions reached relating to the action of the mind in connection with grammar, history, arithmetic, and literature. 16. How may the Herbartian theory be defended?

17. Is the defence valueless? If so, why?

18. What sort of psychology is helpful to the teacher?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.

1. May a given lesson say in history contain one methodwhole for pupils of a given grade, and more for those farther advanced?

2. What law of the mind makes preparation helpful?

3. How can you learn through observation what motives influence people?

4. Do you always know what motives influence your own actions? 5. What is an hypothesis? How does it differ from a theory? 6. Give examples to show that all inductive reasoning consists of a process of finding hypotheses to explain facts.

7. What else do you know in the same way in which you know the axioms of mathematics?

8. Are these axioms examples of necessary truths or necessary beliefs?

9. Study carefully the whole of Gray's Elegy, and describe in detail what your mind does as you study it.

10. What effect will this attempt at analysis have upon your enjoyment of the poem?

II. What habit is cultivated by applying the same term, for example, generalization, to widely different things?

CHAPTER XIX.

THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL CURRICULUM.

Difficulty of Mapping Out the Work Through the Grades. In one of the preceding chapters we undertook to lay out the work of the child in the primary grades. That attempt ought logically to be followed by an effort to map out his work through all the grades. But the science of the growing mind is too much in its infancy to permit anything beyond more or less happy conjectures as to the amount of work that can be wisely undertaken by the average child during the various periods of his school life, and as to the time when various kinds of work can be most economically done by him. And we are certainly as much in the dark as to the maximum of work which we may exact of the very bright pupil, and the minimum that we ought to require of the very dull one. For every human being in pursuit of education must traverse the course in his own way. We teach our pupils in classes. But no two pupils think the same thoughts, experience the same emotions, or put forth the same effort in studying a lesson. Some master it with ease, others comprehend most of it after a good deal of labor, while to others still it is a puzzle which they are quite incapable of solving. Suppose that prior to the invention of the steam-engine a hundred men had started from the Atlantic to the Pacific, each one bent on reaching his destination as soon as might be. It goes without saying that only the hardiest and most per

sistent among them would have arrived there at all; that those who succeeded would have made the journey with varying rates of speed, and that those who failed would have given up at different points along the way. Nowadays mechanical means enable the puniest infant to cross the continent as readily as the strongest man. But there is no royal road to education. The mind must depend upon its own powers. And though the teacher may tell his pupil where the ascents are easiest and the waters most shallow, the mountains must be climbed and the rivers forded by the pupil himself: there is no other way.

Kind of Work to be Done. But because we cannot say how much work should be required of the average pupil, or what particular work he is best fitted to do at a given age, it does not follow that we may not reach sound conclusions as to the kind of work we ought to have him undertake. He must, of course, learn the three R's with more or less thoroughness. But experience has shown that the best way to give a child facility in reading is to have him read something that he cares about for its own sake; and it has shown with equal clearness that the time spent in teaching writing and arithmetic may be very much shortened. We may, then, fairly assume that the work upon which the school formerly concentrated its entire attention may be as well or better done incidentally; that instead of keeping or rather trying to keep the child employed with the wearisome tasks of learning to read, write, and "reckon," apart from anything he has any interest in, we can teach him these arts quite as rapidly by teaching them in connection with things which it is important for him to learn. What are these things?