The two lines of religious and secular history are designed to illustrate for each grade corresponding epochs of national history, both Jewish and German. The parallel series stand as follows:

Religious. Secular.

1st Grade. Fairytales.

2nd Grade. Robinson Crusoe.

3d Grade. The patriarchs, Stories of Thuringia. Abraham, Joseph, Moses.

4th Grade. Judges and Kings. The Nibelungen Song, Samuel, Saul, David, Siegfried. Solomon.

5th Grade. Life of Christ. Henry I., Charlemagne, Boniface, Armenius.

6th Grade. Life of Christ. Teutonic migrations, Crusades, Attila, Barbarossa, Rudolph.

7th Grade. Life of Paul. Discovery of America, Reformation, Thirty Years' War.

8th Grade. Life of Luther. Frederick the Great, Wars against Napoleon, William I.

The above outline is Ziller's plan, modified by Professor Rein.

In each grade is selected a body of classical or choice historical materials, representing a great period of German as well as of Jewish or Christian life, and especially suited to interest and instruct children, while illustrating moral ideas and deepening moral convictions. The body of historical narrative selected for any one grade is calculated to form a center or nucleus for concentrating all the studies of that year. Reading, language, geography, drawing, music, and arithmetic largely spring out of and depend upon this historical center, while they are also bound to each other by many links of connection. A full course for the eight grades of the common school, with this double historical series as a nucleus, has been carefully worked out and applied by Professor Rein and his associates. It has been applied also with considerable success in a number of German schools.

This great undertaking has had to run the gauntlet of a severe criticism. Its fundamental principles, as well as its details of execution, have been sharply questioned. But a long-continued effort, extending through many years, by able and thoroughly-equipped teachers, to solve one of the greatest problems of education, deserves careful attention. The general theory of concentration, the selection and value of the materials, the previous history of method, and the best present method of treating each subject, with detailed illustrations, are all worked out with great care and ability.

The Jewish and German historical materials, which are made the moral-educative basis of the common school course by the Herbartians, can be of no service to us except by way of example. Neither sacred nor German history can form any important part of an American course of study. Religious instruction has been relegated to the church, and German history touches us indirectly if at all. The epochs of history from which American schools must draw are chiefly those of the United States and Great Britain. France, Germany, Italy, and Greece may furnish some collateral matter, as the story of Tell, of Siegfried, of Alaric, and of Ulysses; but some of the leading epochs must be those of our own national history.

Has the English-speaking race in North America passed through a series of historical epochs which, on account of their moral-educative worth, deserve to stand in the center of a common school course? Is this history adapted to cultivate the highest moral and intellectual qualities of children as they advance from year to year? There are few, if any, single nations whose history could furnish a favorable answer to this question. The English in America began their career so late in the world's history and with such advantages of previous European culture that several of the earlier historical epochs are not represented in our country. But perhaps Great Britain and Europe will furnish the earlier links of a chain whose later links were firmly welded in America.

The history of our country since the first settlements less than three hundred years ago is by far the best epitome of the world's progress in its later phases that the life of any nation presents. On reaching the new world the settlers began a hand-to-hand, tooth-and-nail conflict with hard conditions of climate, soil, and savage. The simple basis of physical existence had to be fought for on the hardest terms. The fact that everything had to be built up anew from small beginnings on a virgin soil gave an opportunity to trace the rise of institutions from their infancy in a Puritan dwelling or in a town meeting till they spread and consolidated over a continent. In this short time the people have grown from little scattered settlements to a nation, have experienced an undreamed-of material expansion; have passed through a rapid succession of great political struggles, and have had an unrivaled evolution of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, inventions, education, and social life. All the elements of society, material, religious, political, and social have started with the day of small things and have grown up together.

There is little in our history to appeal to children below the fourth grade, that is, below ten years; but from the beginning of the fourth grade on, American history is rich in moral-educative materials of the best quality and suited to children. We are able to distinguish four principal epochs: 1. The age of pioneers, the ocean navigators, like Columbus, Drake, and Magellan, and the explorers of the continent like Smith, Champlain, LaSalle, and Fremont. 2. The period of settlements, of colonial history, and of French and Indian wars. 3. The Revolution and life under the Articles of Confederation till the adoption of the Constitution. 4. Self-government under the Union and the growth and strengthening of the federal idea. While drawing largely upon general history for a full and detailed treatment of a few important topics in each of these epochs, we should make a still more abundant use of the biographical and literary materials furnished by each. The concentration of school studies, with a historical series suggested by the culture epochs as a basis, would utilize our American history, biography, and literature in a manner scarcely dreamed of heretofore.

We shall attempt to illustrate briefly this concentration of studies about materials selected from one of the culture epochs. Take, for example, the age of pioneers from which to select historical subject-matter for children of the fourth and fifth grades. It comprehends the biographies of eminent navigators and explorers, pioneers on land and sea. It describes the important undertakings of Columbus, Magellan, Cabot, Raleigh, Drake, and others, who were daring leaders at the great period of maritime discovery. The pioneer explorers of New England and the other colonies bring out strongly marked characters in the preparatory stage of our earliest history. Smith, Champlain, Winthrop, Penn, Oglethorpe, Stuyvesant, and Washington are examples. In the Mississippi valley De Soto, La Salle, Boone, Lincoln, and Robertson, are types. Still farther west Lewis and Clarke, and the pioneers of California complete this historical epoch in a series of great enterprises. Most of them are pioneers into new regions beset with dangers of wild beasts, savages, and sickness. A few are settlers, the first to build cabins and take possession of land that was still claimed by red men and still covered with forests. The men named were leaders of small bands sent out to explore rivers and forests or to drive out hostile claimants at the point of the sword.

Any one who has tried the effect of these stories upon children of the fourth grade will grant that they touch a deep native interest. But this must be a genuine and permanent interest to be of educative value. The moral quality in this interest is its virtue. Standish, Boone, La Salle, and the rest were stalwart men, whose courage was keenly and powerfully tempered. They were leaders of men by virtue of moral strength and superiority. Their deeds have the stamp of heroism and in approving them the moral judgments of children are exercised upon noble material. These men and stories constitute an epoch in civilization because they represent that stage which just precedes the first form of settled society. In fact some of the stories fall in the transition stage, where men followed the plow and wielded the woodman's axe, or turned to the war-path as occasion required. In every part of the United States there has been such a period, and something corresponding to it in other countries. We are prepared to assume, therefore, that these historical materials arouse a strong interest, implant moral ideas, and illustrate a typical epoch. They are also very real. These men, especially the land pioneers, were our own predecessors, traversing the same rivers, forests, and prairies where we now live and enjoy the fruits of their hardihood and labor.

Let us suppose that such a historical series of stories has its due share of time on the school program and that the stories are properly presented by the teacher and orally reproduced by the pupils. Into what relations shall the other studies of the school enter to these historical materials? How shall language, reading, geography, natural science, and arithmetic be brought into the close relation to history required by the idea of concentration.

The oral reproduction of the stories by the children is the best possible oral language drill, while their partial written review is the basis of much of the regular composition work. Language lessons on isolated and unconnected topics can thus be entirely omitted. The element of interest will be added to oral and written language lessons by the use of such lively stories.

Reading is chiefly tributary to the historical series. Such selections should be made for reading lessons as will throw additional light upon pioneer history and its related geography. Descriptions of natural scenery and choice selections from our best historians, as Irving and Bancroft, describing events or men of this period, should be used for reading lessons. Especially the best literary selections are to be utilized, as the Landing of the Pilgrims, Webster's and Everett's orations at Plymouth, Evangeline and Hiawatha, Indian legends and life, Miles Standish, The Knickerbocker History, and some of the original papers and letters of the early settlers. Whatever poems or prose selections from our best literature are found to bear directly or indirectly upon pioneer events, will add much interest and beauty to the whole subject. A second series of reading materials for these grades would be those masterpieces and traditions of European literature, which are drawn from a corresponding pioneer epoch in those countries; for example, Siegfried in Germany, Alaric in Italy, and Ulysses in Greece. A selection of reading material along these lines would exhibit much variety of prose and poetry, history, and geography. Unity would be given to it by the spirit and labors of a typical age and an intimate relation to history at all points established.

Geography has an equally close relation to history stories. For these grades geography and history cover the same geographical regions. Instead of being totally isolated from each other they should be purposely laid out on parallel lines with interlacing topics. North America and the Atlantic ocean are the field of action in both cases. These maritime explorers opened up the geography of this hemisphere at its most interesting stage. No part of the Atlantic ocean or of its North American coasts was overlooked by the navigators. The climate, vegetation and people upon its islands and coasts were curious objects to European adventurers. The first pioneers surveyed the eastern coast and the adjacent interior of a new continent, with its bays, rivers, forests, and mountains. The stories themselves are not intelligible without full geographical explanations, and the personal interest in the narratives throws a peculiar charm upon the geography.

The Mississippi valley is a great field for both history and geography. It is one of the striking physical features of North America and the best of stories find their setting in this environment. Not a great river of this region but is the scene of one of the stories. The lakes and streams were the natural highways of the explorers and settlers. The mountains obstructed their way, presenting obstacles but not limits to their enterprise. The great forests housed their game, concealed their enemies, and had to be cut down to make space for their homes and cornfields. The prairies farther west were a camping ground for them as well as for the deer and buffalo. There are no important physical features of the great valley that are not touched more or less in detail by the stories. It is the work of the geography of this year to enlarge and complete the pictures suggested by the stories, to multiply details, to compare and arrange and to associate with these the facts of our present political and commercial geography.

The relation between history and geography is so intimate that it requires some pedagogical skill to determine which of the two should take the lead. But we have already adjudged the history to be by far the more important of the two. Its subject-matter is of greater intrinsic interest to children, and as it already stands in the commanding center of the school course, we are disposed to bring the geography lessons into close dependence upon it.

In these grades natural science or nature study form a necessary complement to the circle of historical and geographical topics treated. Many interesting natural-science subjects, suggested by history and geography, can not be dealt with satisfactorily in those studies; for example, the tobacco plant, the cactus, the deer, the hot springs, the squirrel, the mariner's compass. Natural science studies begin naturally with the home neighborhood, with its plants, trees, animals, rocks, inventions, and products. But having surveyed and learned many of these things at home in his earlier years, the child is prepared, when geography and history begin, to extend his natural-science information to the larger geographical regions.

The history stories and geography suggest a large number of natural-science topics, so that there is abundant choice of materials while remaining in close connection with those studies. The vegetable and animal life and products of the sea, suggested by the voyages, are fishes, dolphins, whales, sea-birds, shells. Other topics are the construction of ships, the mariner's compass, and astronomy. The stories of the land pioneers open up a still richer field of natural science study for the common schools. Among animals are the beaver, otter, squirrel, coon, bear, fox, wildcat, deer, buffalo, domestic animals, wild turkeys, ducks, pigeons, eagle, hawk, wild bees, cat-fish, sword-fish, turtle, alligator, and many more. Among native products and fruits are mentioned corn, pumpkins, beans, huckleberries, grapes, strawberries, cranberries, tobacco, pawpaw, mulberry, haw, plum, apple, and persimmon. Of trees are oak, hickory, walnut, cypress, pine, birch, beech, and others. Tools, instruments, and inventions are mentioned, with their uses, as guns, Indian weapons, compass, thermometer, barometer, boats, carpenter's tools; also, the uses of iron, lead, leather, and many of the simple arts and economies of life, such as weaving, tempering of metals, tanning, and cooking. The natural wonders of the country, such as falls, caves, hot-springs, canons, salt licks, plains, interior deserts, and salt lakes, kinds of rocks, soils, forests and other vegetation, the phenomena of the weather and differences in climate, are referred to. All these and other topics from the broad realm of nature are suggested, any of which may serve as the starting point for a series of science lessons.

How far the natural science lessons can heed the suggestions of history and geography and still follow out and develop important science principles, is one of the great problems for solution. It would seem that the large number of natural-science topics touched upon by the history, when increased by the variety of home objects in nature and by still others called up by the geography work of these years, would give sufficient variety to the natural science work of the same period. By omitting some of these topics and enlarging upon others, developing the notions of classes and principles so far as is desirable, the natural-science lessons may be made sufficiently scientific without losing the close relation to the central subject-matter for the year. There is no doubt but the science-lessons will add greatly to many topics suggested by the stories and will bring the whole realm of nature into close relation to history and geography.

The subjects thus far discussed, that may be brought into close relation to the central stories, are oral and written language, reading and literature, geography, and the natural sciences. The connection between these branches are numerous and strong at every step. Drawing has a very intimate and important relation to the objects described in history, natural science, arithmetic, and geography; while the songs learned should express in those poetic and rhythmic forms which appeal so strongly to the feelings, many of the noblest ideas suggested by travel, scenery, history, and the experiences of home life.

Arithmetic, finally, seems to stand like an odd sheep among the studies. It is certainly the least social of the common school branches. While avoiding all forced connection between arithmetic and other studies, we shall find some points where the relations are simple and clear. Children in the first grade should see numbers in the leaves, flowers, trees, and animals they study. At the beginning of the first grade this would be a good informal way of beginning numbers. The value of objects in first and second grade number is so great that it is only a question as to how far the objects suggested by other lessons may be used.

But we are speaking of concentration in the fourth and fifth grades. In the stories and in geography we deal with journeys up great rivers, with the height of mountains, with the extent of valleys and lakes, with regular forts, mounds, and enclosures, with companies and bodies of men, with railroads, cities, and agricultural products, and with many other topics which suggest excellent practical problems in arithmetic for these grades. All such careful arithmetical computations add clearness and definiteness to historical and geographical ideas. The natural sciences have been so little systematically taught in our common schools, that we are scarcely able to realize what connection may be made between them and arithmetic. We know that in the advanced study and applications of some of the natural sciences, mathematics is an essential part.

A brief retrospect will make it appear that the history stories, natural sciences, and geography, with the more formal studies, such as reading, language, and arithmetic, may be brought into a close organic harmony. Each of them depends upon and throws light upon the other; and while the connections are natural, not forced, there is a concentration upon the central historical and literary matter that makes moral character the highest aim of teaching.

Since real concentration is practically a new educational undertaking, it involves a number of unsolved subordinate problems; for instance, how far shall science lessons, grammar, and geography follow their own principles of selection, based on the nature and scientific arrangement of their materials, while keeping up the dependence upon and connections with the central subject. But if concentration is a true principle of education, it is evident that none of these problems can be solved until concentration has been agreed upon and made fundamental. In this case those teachers who are trying to lay out courses of study in geography, natural science, or history, without regard to the relation of studies to each other, will have most of their work to do over again.

A little reflection will convince us, perhaps, that a year's work thus concentrated will produce a much more powerful and lasting impression upon children than the loose aggregation of facts which is usually collected during a year's work. Not only will the moral effect be intensified, but the close dependence of each study upon the others will be perceptibly felt as valuable and stimulating to the children.

If now we can conceive of the eight grades of the common school as eight stages passing naturally from one to another, each a unit composed of a net-work of well related facts, but the epochs closely related to each other in a rising series, from childhood almost to maturity, or from the beginning of history up to the present state of culture, we shall be able also to think of education as a succession of powerful culture influences, that will bring the child to our present standpoint fully conscious of his duties and surroundings.

NOTE.—A careful criticism of the theory of the culture epochs is found in Lange's Apperception translated by the Herbart club, published by D. C. Heath, p. 110, etc.



CHAPTER V.

INDUCTION.

We are now prepared to inquire into the mind's method of approach to any and all subjects. We have considered the aim of education, the value of different subjects as helping toward that aim, the natural interests which give zest to studies, and finally the general plan of combining and relating topics so as to bring about unity of purpose and unity of matter in the mind. As a child enters upon the work of acquisition are there any regulatives to guide the process of learning?

Induction, or the concept-bearing process, shows the tendency of our minds to advance from the inspection of particular objects and actions to the understanding of general notions or concepts. The study and analysis of this process casts us forthwith into the midst of psychology, and calls for a knowledge of that succession and net-work of mental activities discussed in all the psychologies; sensation, discrimination, perception, analysis and synthesis, comparison, judgment, generalization or concept, reasoning. An inquiry into these mental activities, which are among the most important in psychology, is necessary as a basis of induction and of general method.

But even the more profound study of psychology does not necessarily give insight into correct methods of teaching. Many great psychologists have had little or no interest in teaching. Even eminent specialists in electricity and chemistry have not often been those to draw the immediate practical benefit from their studies. The application of psychology to the work of instruction constitutes a distinct field of inquiry and experiment. The output of the best experimental thinking in this direction may be called pedagogy.

The process of induction or concept-building leads the mind, as above indicated, through a series of different acts. We may first observe how far the mind is unnaturally inclined to follow this process, and whether it is a mark of healthy mental action in children and in adults. Later we may examine more closely the successive stages in the process itself.

To get at the natural process it is well to observe first the action of a child's mind. By analyzing a simple case of a farmer's child we may trace the mental steps in forming a general notion. So long as it has seen no barn except that on its father's farm, the word barn means to it only that particular object. But when it discovers that one of the neighbors has a similar building called a barn, it learns to put these different objects under one head, and the general notion barn as a building for horses, cattle, and feed, gradually rises in the mind. Long before the child is six years old (school age) it may have seen enough of such barns for the general notion to be distinctly formed. By observing different objects, by comparing and grouping similar things together, it has formed a general notion in a regular process of induction, and that without any help from teachers.

At two and three years of age, or as soon as a child begins to recognize and name new objects (because of their resemblance to things previously seen) this tendency to concept-building is manifest. Another illustration: The child has seen the family horse several times till the word horse becomes associated with that animal. While out walking it sees another horse, and pointing its finger says "horse." The memory of the first horse and the similarity calls forth the natural conclusion that this is a horse, though it may not be able to formulate the sentence. More horses are seen and compared till the word becomes the name of a whole class of animals. By a gradual process of observation, comparison, and judgment the word horse comes to stand for a large group of objects in nature.

A child's mind is naturally very active in detecting resemblances and in grouping similar objects together. It notices that there are certain people called women, others called men; that certain animals are called sheep, others cattle. One class of objects receives the name book, another stove, etc. The work of observing, comparing, and classifying is a perpetual operation in the child's active moods. In this way, what may appear at first as an interminable confusion or blur of objects in nature begins to fall into groups and classes with appropriate names. It is the child's own way of bringing order out of the apparent chaos of his surroundings. All this process of classification is natural and nearly unconscious, and results in a better understanding and interpretation of the things around him.

Observe next the work of an educated adult, and how he increases and arranges his knowledge. If he is an incipient dry-goods merchant he learns by sight and touch to detect the quality of goods. He compares and classifies his experiences and becomes in time an expert in judging textile fabrics. On the other hand he becomes acquainted by personal contact with various customers and learns how to classify and judge them both as buyers and as debtors.

If a botanist finds a new plant he examines its stem, leaves, root, flower, seed, and environment. While entering into these details he is also comparing it with familiar classes of plants. Finally, he is not satisfied till he can definitely locate it in his previous system. With every new plant that he discovers he travels over the whole road from the individual particulars to the general classes of his whole system. The merchant and the scientist follow out with painstaking care and industry the same course which was involuntarily taken by the child; namely, observation of particulars, comparing and grouping into classes. The same habit of mind may be observed in all people who are growing knowledgewards and who possess any thoughtful instincts. In building up concepts, especially with the adult, induction is constantly mingled with deduction. As fast as general notions are formed they are used to interpret new objects. As the amount of this organized and classified knowledge increases, we reason more and more deductively.

In acquiring knowledge along the line of induction, we are on the road to the solution of the puzzle, that nature puts to every child. To every infant, indeed, the world is an enormous riddle or puzzle, whose parts lie in fragments about him, waiting the operation of his curious and inventive mind toward the reconstruction of the whole. Endless variety and complexity confront us all in the beginning. There is indeed an order and classification of things in nature, but it does not appear on the surface, and for centuries men remained ignorant of the underlying harmony. Nature is full of valuable secrets, but they lie concealed from the careless eye. They are to be detected by prying deeper into individual facts, by putting a thing here and a thing there together, by pondering on the relationship of things to each other in their nature, appearance, and cause. It is a remarkable fact that we not only increase knowledge best by analyzing, comparing, and classifying objects, experience, and phenomena—even into old age—but that the deeper we penetrate into the individual qualities and inner nature of objects, the more we extend and classify our information, the simpler all the operations of nature become to our understanding. The surprising simplicity and unity of nature in her varied phenomena is one of the mature products of scientific study. The most scientific thinker, then, is only trying to reduce to a simple explanation the same puzzle which confronted the infant in its cradle. The problem is the same and the method similar.

It is plain that the process of classifying objects and phenomena in nature and in society is the beginning of scientific knowledge. A child begins to learn as soon as it notices the resemblances in things and arranges them into groups. It will appear later that the mind does not follow a strictly logical method in gaining its groups, that it falls into natural errors and misconceptions; but in spite of these eccentric movements, the general trend is toward classifications and toward the language symbols that express them. In this power to associate, classify, and symbolize the products of experience in words is seen the marked difference between man and the animals. The latter have little power to compare and generalize, that is, to think. On a still higher plane, the difference between a careless, loose observer and a well-trained scientific thinker is largely a difference in accuracy, in inductive and deductive processes.

The important thing for the teacher to determine is whether this inductive or concept-building tendency furnishes any solid ground upon which to base the work of instruction. Admitting that it is a natural process, common to both old and young in acquiring knowledge, perhaps it can be neglected because it will take care of itself. If it is self-active, needing no artificial stimulus, let it alone. On the contrary, if in a healthy pursuit of knowledge it brings the varied mental powers into a natural sequence where they will strengthen and support one another, it should be studied and used by teachers. It would be very commonplace to say that each of the faculties or activities involved in the inductive process should be disciplined and strengthened by school studies. There is but little difference of opinion on this subject, though some would lay more stress upon sense training, some on memory, some on reasoning. The ground for this general conviction is the notorious fact that with children every one of these acts, is performed in a faulty and superficial manner. The observations of children are very careless and unreliable. Even adults are extremely negligent and inaccurate in their observations of natural objects, persons, and phenomena. But the mental powers brought to bear in observation are simple and elementary. The exercise of higher mental powers, such as analysis, comparison, judgment, and reasoning, is prone to be still more accidental and erroneous.

Acknowledging then the necessity for training all these powers, how can it best be done? Not by delegating to each study the cultivation of one kind or set of mental activities, but by observing that the same general process underlies the acquisition of knowledge in each subject, and that all the kinds of mental life are brought into action in nearly every study. In short, the inductive process is a natural highway of human thought in every line of study, bringing all the mental forces into an orderly, successive, healthful activity. We may yet discover that the inductive process not only gives the key to an interesting method of mastering different branches of knowledge, but in developing mental activity it brings the various mental powers into a strong natural sequence.

One of the great ends of intellectual culture is gradually to transform this careless, unconscious, inductive tendency in children into the painstaking and exact scrutiny of the student, and later of the specialist.

Although the inductive process is a common highway of thought in all stages of intellectual growth from childhood to maturity, certain parts of the road are much more frequently traveled in childhood, and still others in youth and maturity. It is the work of pedagogy to adapt its materials to these changing phases of soul life in children. In the analysis of the inductive and deductive processes we desire to come at the solution of this problem.

Considered as a whole, there is a simple phase of the inductive process which is best explained by the terms absorption and reflection. It appears in the study of simple as well as of complex objects, and indicates clearly the fundamental rhythm of the mind in acquiring and elaborating its knowledge. This action of the mind is a shuttle-like movement, a constant running back and forth between two extremes, absorption and reflection. We will test this statement upon examples. When we are in the mood for learning let some new object, a sawmill, attract the attention. A quick general glance at the place and its surroundings tells us what it is. Now trace the operation of the mill as it draws up the logs singly from the rafts lying on the margin of the river and converts them into lumber. You observe first how the logs are carried up an inclined slide by means of an endless chain with hooks, into the mill. You examine this first piece of machinery and notice its mode of action. As the logs enter the upper story of the mill, they are thrown by heavy levers to either side and roll down toward the saws. Here is another piece of machinery in its proper place. Having been stripped of the loose pieces of bark, the logs are grasped by another set of iron hands, lifted firmly to the carriage and passed to the circular or band-saw, which takes off the side slabs and squares them for the gang-saw. The squared logs are then carried along over rollers and collected before the gang-saws. From two to four of them are clasped firmly together and then forced up against the teeth of the parallel group of saws, issuing from them as a batch of lumber. The boards are then passed on to a set of men at small circular saws, by whom they are sorted and the edges trimmed, while still others with trucks carry them to the yard for stacking.

Take note of the operation of the mind as it passes from one part of the machinery to another. Each part is first examined by itself to get its construction and method. Then its relation to what precedes and what follows is noted. Finally, in review you survey the whole process in its successive stages and understand each part and its relation to the whole and to the purpose of the mill. We might call this an analysis and synthesis of the process of making lumber, or in other words absorption and reflection. In the observation of such a complex piece of machinery as a large mill the mind swings back and forth many times between absorption in the study of parts and reflection upon their relation to each other.

Having examined the mill in detail and grasped its parts as a connected whole, the next step is to observe its relation to the river, to the rafts and rafting-boats, and further back to the pineries and logging-camps up the river. (Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.) The occupations and sights along the Upper Mississippi and its head-waters, the pineries, and even the spring floods, are intimately connected, causally, with the saw-mills and lumber yards lower down. Or going in the opposite direction from the saw-mill, we follow the lumber till it is used in the various forms of construction. Some of it enters the planing-mills and is converted into moldings, finishing lumber, sashes, blinds, etc. In all forms it is loaded upon the cars, and shipped westward to be used in the construction of houses and bridges.

Before we get through with the line of thought engendered by observing the saw-mill, we have canvassed the whole lumber industry from the pineries to the plans of architects and builders in the actual work of construction. Not only has there been this progress of the mind from one object or machine to another of a series connected by cause and effect, but there has been also a constant tendency to pass from the individual machines of which the series is composed to the classes of which these objects are typical. A circular-saw or a gang-saw is each typical of a class of saws. The same is true of each part of the machinery, as well as of the saw-mill or planing-mill considered as a whole. Each of these objects, whether simple or complex, suggests others similar which we have observed or seen represented in pictures. Each part of the machinery in turn becomes the center of a set of comparisons leading from the concrete object in question to the general notion of the class to which it belongs. For example, the steam engine in a mill is typical of all stationary engines used for driving machinery. But the parts of the engine are also typical of similar parts in other engines and machines, as the drive-wheel, cylinder, boiler, etc.

In all these cases we become absorbed in one thing for a while, only to recover ourselves and to reflect upon the thing in its wider relations, either tracing out connections of cause and effect, as in a series of machines, or passing from the single example to the class of which it is typical. Absorption and reflection! The mind swings back and forth like a pendulum between these two operations. Herbart, who closely defined this process, called it the mental act of breathing, because of the constancy of its movement. As regularly as the air is drawn into the lungs and again expelled, so regularly does the mind lose itself in its absorption with objects only to recover itself and reflect upon them.

In the inspection of a large printing press in one of our newspaper publishing-houses we meet with a similar experience. The attention becomes centered upon the press for a close analysis and synthesis of its parts. The cogs, wheels, rollers, inking-plate, the chases for the type, the application of the power, the springs and levers, each part receives a close inspection, and the secret of its connection with other parts is sought for. There is a vigorous effort not only to understand each part but also the connection of the whole. The shuttle-like movement of the mind back and forth between the parts, absorbed for a moment, reflecting for a moment, continues until the complex mechanism is understood. When this process has been satisfactorily completed, we are ready to turn our minds again to the other objects and rooms of the printing establishment. The work of the compositors, setting up different kinds of type, the proof-reading, the editorial work, the reporters, all come in for a share of attention. The reporters lead us to the great world outside whose happenings are brought here for publication. On the other hand, following the distribution of papers as they issue from the press, we think of news-boys, news-stands, mail-service, railroads, and postoffices. But the inspection of a printing press also leads the thoughts in other directions and suggests other presses, great and small, in other times and places, other printing establishments, until the whole business of printing and publishing books and papers springs into the thought.

If we desire to understand clearly the business of publishing a newspaper, we must enter into an observation of the parts of the process from the collection of its news to its distribution by the mails and carriers. Besides noting these parts we must observe their causal connection with each other and the role that each plays in the economy of the whole. The causal series thus clearly outlined produces insight into an occupation, while every typical machine or appliance is one of a cross series intercepting the original series. The acquisition and assimilation of knowledge in different subjects will be found to exhibit the mental states of absorption and reflection as just illustrated. Observe the manner in which we study a poem. It is first read and interpreted sentence by sentence, glancing from verse to verse to get the connections. When the whole piece has been read and understood in its parts and connections, the suggested lines of thought are taken up and followed out in their wider applications. Take for example the "Burial of Moses," and in the proper analysis and study of the poem, such a process of absorption and reflection is observable. In tracing the biography of John Quincy Adams or of Alexander Hamilton, the facts of personal experience and action first absorb the attention from step to step in the study of his life. But reflection on the bearings of these personal events, upon contemporaries, and upon public affairs is noticed all along. The same mental process is observed in studying a battle in history, a sentence in grammar, a squirrel in natural history, or a picture in art.

The effect of such mental absorption and reflection is to build up concepts. Series of causally related parts are also formed, but each series in the end becomes a more complete complex concept; that is, a representative of many similar series. The inspection of one printing establishment suggests others which are brought into comparison till the general notion, publishing-house, is more clearly conceived. The same is true in the lumber trade. The concept lumber-business is not confined to Minneapolis or Chicago, but is common to the great lake region, Maine, Washington, Norway, and other countries. Concepts become more varied and complex with the advance of studies, and there is scarcely anything we learn by observation or reflection that does not ultimately illustrate and build up our concepts. The observation of even the miscellaneous objects in a large city leads to a variety of concepts, and in the end, by comparison, to the general notion, city.

How strong the concept-creating tendency of all experience and thought is, can be seen in the words of language. The processes of thought become petrified in language. All progress in knowledge and acquisition of new ideas is reflected in language by an increase of words. But an examination of words in common use will show that they are nearly all the names of concepts. Proper names are the principal exception. Every common noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition is the name of a concept; for example, horse, beauty, to steal, running, over, early, yellow, grape, ocean, etc. To understand these concepts there must be somewhere a progress from the individual to the abstract, an induction from particulars to a general concept.

Abstract or general notions cannot be acquired at first hand without specific illustrations. Even where the deductive process is supposedly employed, a closer examination will uncover the concrete or individual illustrations in the background, and until these are reached the concept has no clear meaning. The concrete examples, whether introduced sooner or later by way of explanation, are the real basis of the understanding of the concept. It is customary to invert the inductive process and to drive it stern forwards through grammar, geography, and other studies. Take, for example, the word boomerang as it comes up in a geography or reading lesson. Webster's dictionary, which is recommended to children as a first resort in such difficulties, calls it "A remarkable missile weapon used by the natives of Australia." This gives a faint notion by using the familiar word weapon. The picture accompanying the word in the dictionary gives a more accurate idea because nearer the concrete. The best possible explanation would be a real boomerang thrown by a native South-Sea Islander. In the absence of these, a picture and a vivid description are the best means at our disposal. The common mistake is in learning and reciting the definition while neglecting the concrete basis. By way of further illustration, try to explain to children, who have never heard of them before, the egg-plant, palm-tree, cactus, etc.

It would be of interest to inquire into the process of concept-building in each of the school studies, where it appears under quite varying forms. The natural sciences are perhaps the best examples of concept-building from concrete materials, advancing regularly through a series of concepts from the individuals and species to the most general classes of plants, animals, etc. In chemistry and physics the laws and general principles are based on substances, experiments, and processes observable by the senses. Grammar and language, when studied as a science, advance from concept to concept through etymology and syntax. In geography and history the concepts are less definite and more difficult to formulate, and yet there are many typical ideas which are to be developed and illustrated in each of these studies; in history, for example, colony, legislature, governor, general, revolution, institutions and customs, political party, laws of development, causal relations, inventions, etc.; in geography, continents, oceans, forms of relief, kinds of climate and causes, occupations, products, commerce, etc. The fundamental truths and relations and rules of arithmetic must be developed from objects and illustrations. Reading, spelling, and writing are arts, not sciences, and are more concerned with skill in execution than with the acquisition of a body of scientific truths. And yet certain general truths are emphasized and applied in these studies.

Much needless confusion has been caused by raising the question where to begin in learning. Do we proceed from the whole, to the parts, or from the parts to the whole? In making the acquaintance of sense objects it seems clear that we first perceive wholes (somewhat vaguely and indefinitely). The second impulse is to analyze this whole into its parts, then recombine them (synthesis) into a whole which is more definitely and fully grasped. A house, for example, is generally first perceived as a whole; and later it is examined more particularly as to its materials, rooms, stairways, conveniences, furnishings, etc. The same is true with a mountain, a butterfly, a man. Thus far we have proceeded from the whole to the parts and then back again; analysis and synthesis. The next movement is from this whole or object toward a group of similar objects, a class notion. By comparing one thing with others similar, a class notion is formed which includes them all. Each individual is a whole, but is also a type of the entire group. The general mental movement is successively in two directions from any particular object; first, from the whole to the parts, then grasping this whole in a richer, fuller sense, the mind seeks for relations which bind this object with others similar into a group, a more complex product, a concept. There may appear to be an exception to this rule in the case of a city, a continent, a railroad, or any concrete object so large and complex that it cannot be grasped by a single effort of sense perception. But even here it is usual with us first to represent the whole object to our thought by means of a sketch, map, or figure of speech, so as first to get a quick survey of the whole thing. In history, also, we first grasp at wholes, then enter into a detailed account of an event, a campaign, a voyage, a revolution, etc. There are many complex wholes in geography and history with which it is not wise to begin, because it requires a long and painful effort to get at the notion of the whole. The wholes we have in mind are those which can be almost instantly grasped. Not, for example, an outline of American history or of the world's history. The choice of suitable wholes with which to begin is based upon the child's interest and apperceptive powers.

Having thus examined into the general nature of the inductive process and the extent of its application to school studies and to other forms of acquiring knowledge, we are led to a closer practical discussion of each of the two chief stages of induction: First, observation or intuition; that is, the direct perception through the senses or through consciousness, of the realities of the external world and of the mind. Second, association of ideas with a view to generalizing and forming concepts.

Intuition[1] implies object lessons in a wide sense. By object lessons is usually meant things in nature perceived through the senses. But it is necessary to extend the idea of object lessons beyond the objects and phenomena of the physical world, to which it has been usually limited. It includes perception of our own mental states. These direct experiences of our own inner states are the primary basis of our understanding of other people's feelings, mental states, and actions. In short, an understanding of the phenomena of individual life, (the acts of persons) of society, and of history, is based upon a knowledge of our own feelings and mental acts, and upon the accuracy with which we have observed and interpreted similar things in other persons. We have already seen that a right appreciation of companions, biographies, social life, and history, is the strongest of psychological forces in its formative influence upon character. For this reason, also, history includes the first and most important body of school studies. But object lessons drawn from physical nature do not measurably qualify us for a better appreciation of individual and social life and action. The fundamental illustrative materials for history are drawn from another source, from the depth of the heart and inner experience of each person. Many words in our own school books can be illustrated and explained by objects and activities in physical nature, but a large part of the words in common use in our readers and school books can be explained by no external objects. They depend for their interpretation upon the child's own feelings, desires, joys, griefs, etc., and upon similar phenomena observed in others.

Object lessons in this liberal sense point to the direct exercise of the senses and intuitions in the acquisition of experience of all sorts. They include the objects, persons, and events that we see around us and our own experiences in ordinary life—the grass, plants, trees, and soils; the animals, wild and tame, with their structure, habits, and uses; the rocks, woods, hills, streams, seasons, clouds, heat, and cold. There is also the observation of devices and inventions; tools, machinery and their workings, the different raw and manufactured products, with their ways of growth and transformation. Besides these are the various kinds and dispositions of men, different classes and races of people, with great variety of character, occupation, and education. Their actions, modes of dress, and customs are included. But we have many other primary and indispensable lessons to learn from the playground, the street, from home and church, from city and country, from travel and sight seeing, from holidays and work days, from sickness, and healthful excursions. Even a child's own tempers, faults, and successes are of the greatest value to himself and to the teacher in a proper self-understanding and mastery. By object lessons, therefore, we mean all that a child becomes conscious of through the direct action of his senses and of his mind upon external nature or inner experience. It is desired that a child's knowledge in all direct experience be simple, clear, and according to the facts. All words that he uses become only signs of the realities of his experience. Every word stands for a potent thought in his own life history. Of course object lessons in this rich and real sense can not be confined to such few objects—birds, leaves, models, and straws—as can be brought into a school room. All the world, especially the outside world, becomes

"A complex Chinese toy Fashioned for a barefoot boy."

Many of the most interesting objects and phenomena in nature and of man's construction can not be observed in the school room at all, for instance, the river, the bridge, the forest, the flight of birds, the sunrise, the storm, the stars, etc. Still they must know these very things and know how to use them better in constructing the mind's treasures than they are wont to do. In reading, grammar, geography, arithmetic, and nature study, we desire to ground school discussions daily upon the clear facts of experience, of personal observation. We need to clear up all confused and faulty perceptions and to stimulate children to make their future observations more reliable.

We have already seen the importance of object lessons in this full and real sense to interest. Interest in every study is awakened and constantly reenforced by an appeal, not to books, but to life. Much of the dull work in arithmetic, geography, and other studies is due to the neglect of these real, illustrative materials.

Of the six great sources of interest, (Herbart's) three, the empirical, the esthetic, and the sympathetic, deal entirely with concrete objects or with individuals, while even the speculative and social interests are often based directly upon particular persons or phenomena. In addition to this it may be said that the interests of children are overwhelmingly with the concrete and imaginative phases of every subject, and only secondarily with general truths and laws. The latter are of greater concern to older children and adults. Object lessons therefore contain a life-giving element that should enter into every subject of study.

Nor should these interesting, illustrative object lessons be limited to the lower grades. They contain the combustible material upon which an abiding interest in any subject is to be kindled. There are indeed other and perhaps higher sources of interest, but they are largely dependent upon these original springs that flow from the concrete beginnings.

In the second place, object lessons supply a stock of primary ideas which form the foundation of all later progress in knowledge. This is not a question of interest merely, but of understanding, of capacity to get at the meaning of an idea. Concepts are not the raw materials with which the mind works, but they are elaborated out of the raw products furnished by the senses and other forms of intuition. As cloth is manufactured out of the raw cotton and wool produced on the farm or in southern fields, so concepts are a manufactured article, into whose texture materials previously gathered enter. Concepts do not grow up directly from the soil of the mind any more than ready-made clothing grows on bushes or on the backs of the wearers. Concepts must be made out of stuff that is already in the mind, as woolen blankets are spun and woven out of fleeces. Our present contention is that the mind shall be filled up with the best quality of raw stuff, otherwise there will be defect and deficiency in its later products. The stuff out of which concepts are built is drawn from the varied experiences of life. On account of this intimate relation between the realities of life and school studies they cannot be separated. Every branch, especially in elementary studies, must be treated concretely and be built up out of sense materials. Every study has its concrete side, its illustrative materials, its colors of individual things taken from life. Every study has likewise its more general scientific truths and classifications. The prime mistake in nearly all teaching and in the text-book method is in supposing that the great truths are accessible in some other way than through the concrete materials that lie properly at the entrance. The text-books are full of the abstractions and general formulae of the sciences; but they can, in the very nature of the case, deal only in a meager way with the individual objects and facts upon which knowledge in different subjects is based. This necessary defect in a text-book method must be made good by excursions, by personal observation, by a constant reference of lessons to daily experience outside of school, by more direct study of our surroundings, by the teacher perfecting himself in this kind of knowledge and in its skillful use.

There was a current belief at one time that object lessons should form a special study for a particular period of school life, namely, the first years. It was thought that sufficient sense-materials could be collected in two or three years to supply the whole school curriculum. But this thought is now abandoned. Children in the earlier grades may properly spend more time in object study than in later grades, but there is no time in school life when we can afford to cut loose from the real world. There is scarcely a lesson in any subject that can not be clarified and strengthened by calling in the fresh experiences of daily life.

The discussion of the concept and of the inductive process has shown that concepts cannot be found at first hand. There must be observation of different objects, comparison, and grouping into a class. A person who has never seen an elephant nor a picture of one, can form no adequate notion of elephants in general. We can by no shift dispense with the illustrations. The more the memory is filled with vivid pictures of real things, the more easy and rapid will be the progress to general truths. Not only are general notions of classes of objects in nature, or of personal actions built up out of particulars, but the general laws and principles of nature and of human society must be observed in real life to be understood. We should have no faith in electricity if it were simply a scientific theory, if it had not demonstrated its power through material objects. The idea of cohesion would never have been dreamed of, if it had not become necessary to explain certain physical facts. The spherical form of the earth was not accepted by many even learned men until sailors with ships had gone around it. Political ideas of popular government which a few centuries ago were regarded as purely utopian are now accepted as facts because they have become matters of common observation. The circulation of the blood remained a secret for many centuries because of the difficulties of bringing it home to the knowledge of the senses. These examples will show how difficult it is to go beyond the reach of sense experience. Even those philosophers who have tried to construct theories without the safe foundation of facts have labored for naught. The more our thought is checked and guided by nature's realities the less danger of inflation with pretended knowledge. Bacon found that in this tendency to theorize loosely upon a slender basis of facts was the fundamental weakness of ancient philosophy. Nature if observed will reiterate her truths till they become convincing verities, while the study of words and books alone produces a quasi-knowledge which often mistakes the symbol for the thing.

Having this thought in mind, Comenius, more than two and a half centuries ago, said, "It is certain that there is nothing in the understanding which has not been previously in the senses, and consequently to exercise the senses carefully in discriminating the differences of natural objects is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, all eloquence, and of all good and prudent action. The right instruction of youth does not consist in cramming them with a mass of words, phrases, sentences, and opinions collected from authors. In this way the youth are taught, like Aesop's crow in the fable, to adorn themselves with strange feathers. Why should we not, instead of dead books, open the living book of nature? Not the shadows of things, but the things themselves, which make an impression upon the senses and imagination, are to be brought before the youth."

There has always been a strong tendency in the schools to teach words, definitions, and rules without a sufficient knowledge of the objects and experiences of life that put meaning into these abstractions. The result is that all the prominent educational reformers have pointedly condemned the practice of learning words, names, etc., without a knowledge of the things signified. The difference is like that between learning the names of a list of persons at a reception, and being present to enter into acquaintance and conversation with the guests. The oft-quoted dictum of Kant is a laconic summary of this argument. "General notions (concepts) without sense-percepts are empty." The general definition of composite flowers means little or nothing to a child; but after a familiar acquaintance with the sunflower, dandelion, thistle, etc., such a general statement has a clear meaning. Concepts without the content derived from objects are like a frame without a picture, or a cistern without water. The table is spread and the dishes placed, but no refreshments are supplied.

Having completed the discussion of intuition, including object lessons, that is, the preparatory step to the inductive process, we reach the second, reflection and survey. We are seeking for a general term that covers the several steps in the latter part of the inductive process. It includes comparison, classification, and abstraction. It may be discussed from the standpoint of "association of ideas," and contributes directly to concentration.

We have in mind, chiefly, that thoughtful habit which is not satisfied with simply acquiring a new fact or set of ideas, but is impelled to trace them out along their various connections. We have to do now not with the acquisition but with the elaboration and assimilation of knowledge. The acquisition of knowledge in the ordinary sense is one thing; its elaboration in a full sense sets up a standard of progress which will put life into all school work and reach far beyond it, and in fact is limited only by the individual capacity for thought. In school, in reading and study, we have been largely engaged in acquiring knowledge on the principle that "knowledge is power." But no practical man needs to be told that much so-called school knowledge is not power. Facts which have been simply stored in the memory are often of little ready use. It is like wheat in the bin, which must first pass through the mill and change its entire form before it will perform its function. Facts, in order to become the personal property of the owner, must be worked over, sifted, sorted, classified, and connected. The process of elaborating and assimilating knowledge is so important that it requires more time and pains than the first labor of acquisition. Philosophers will admit this at once, but it is hard for us to break loose from the traditions of the schoolmasters. The mind is not in all respects like a lumber-yard. It is, to be sure, a place for storing up knowledge, just as the yard is a deposit for lumber. But there the analogy ceases and the mind begins to resemble more the contractor and builder. There is planing, sawing, and hammering; the materials collected are prepared, fitted, and mortised together, and a building fit for use begins to rise. Knowledge also is for use, and not primarily for storage. That simple acquisition and quantity of knowledge are not enough is illustrated by the analogy of an army. Numbers do not make an army, but a rabble. A general first enlists raw recruits, drills and trains them through a long period, and finally combines them into an effective army. Many of our ideas when first received are like disorderly raw recruits. They need to be disciplined into proper action and to ready obedience.

In connection with assimilation the analogy between the stomach and the mind is of still greater interest. The food received into the stomach is taken up by the organs of digestion, assimilated and converted into blood. The process, however, takes its course without our conscious effort or co-operation. Knowledge likewise enters the mind, but how far will assimilation go on without conscious effort? If kept in a healthy state the organs of digestion are self active. Not so the mind. Ideas entering the mind are not so easily assimilated as the food materials that enter the stomach. A cow chews her cud once, but the ideas that enter our minds may be drawn from their receptacle in the memory and worked over again and again. Ideas have to be put side by side, separated, grouped, and arranged into connected series. There is, no doubt, some tendency in the mind toward involuntary assimilation, but it greatly needs culture and training. Many people never reach the thinking stage, never learn to survey and reflect. The tendency of the mind to work over and digest knowledge should receive ample culture in the schools. There is a mental inertia produced by pure memory exercise that is unfavorable to reflection. It requires an extra exertion to arrange and organize facts even after they are acquired. But when the habit of reflection has been inaugurated it adds much interest and value to all mental acquisitions.

There are also well-established principles which guide the mind in elaborating its facts. The laws of the association of ideas indicate clearly the natural trend of mental elaboration. The association of things because of contiguity in time and place is the simplest mode. The classification of objects or activities on the basis of resemblance, is the second form and that upon which the inductive process is principally founded. In the third case objects and series are easily retained in memory when the relation of cause and effect is perceived between them. These natural highways of association, especially the second and third, should be frequently traveled in linking the facts of school study with each other. Indeed the outcome of a rational survey of an object or fact in its different relations is an association of ideas which is one of the best results of study. Such connections of resemblance and difference or of cause and effect are abundant and interesting in the natural sciences and physical geography, also in history and languages.

The Herbartians draw an important distinction between psychical and logical concepts or general notions. The psychical concept is worked out naturally by a child or an adult as a result of the chance experiences of life. It is usually a work of accident; is incomplete, faulty, and often misleading. The logical concept, on the other hand, is scientifically correct and complete. It includes all the common characteristics of the group and excludes all that are not essential. It is a product of accurate and mature thinking. We all possess an abundance of psychical concepts drawn from the miscellaneous experiences of life. It is a large share of the school work, as we have seen, to develop logical concepts out of these immature and faulty psychical concepts. A child is disposed to call tadpoles fishes; and later porpoises and whales are faultily classed with the fishes in the same way. Nearly all our psychical concepts are subject to such loose and faulty judgments. Even where one is accurate in his observations, the conclusions naturally drawn are often wrong. For example, a child that has seen none but red squirrels would naturally think all squirrels red, and include the quality red in his general notion. Most of our empirically derived general notions are spotted with such defects. What relation have these facts to induction? We claim that general notions should be experimentally formed; that is, by a gradual collection of concrete or illustrative materials, and that the logical concepts are the final outcome of comparison and reasoning toward conclusions. In other words, we must begin with psychical concepts with all their faults; we must make mistakes and correct them as our experience enlarges, and gradually work out of psychical into logical methods and results. Our text-books usually give us the logical concept first, the rule, definition, principle, in its most complete and accurate statement. This does violence to the child's natural mental movement.

The final stage of induction is the formulation of the general truths, the concepts, principles, and laws which constitute the science of any branch of knowledge. These truths should be well formulated in clear and expressive language and mastered in this form. Moreover, the results reached, when reduced to the strict scientific form, are the same in the inductive methods as in the deductive or common text-book method. Not that the effect on the mind of the learner is the same but the body of truth is unaltered. The general truths of every subject can be easily found well arranged in text-books. But we are more anxious to know how the youth may best approach and appreciate these truths than simply to see them stored in the mind in a well-classified form.

A rich man in leaving a fortune to his son would more than double the value of the inheritance if he could teach him properly to appreciate wealth and form in him the disposition and ability to use it wisely. In the same way the best part of knowledge is not simply its possession, but an appreciation of its value. The method of reaching scientific knowledge through the inductive process, that is by the collection and comparison of data with a view to positive insight, will give greater meaning to the results. Interest is awakened and self-activity exercised at every step in the progress toward general truths. By the reflective habit these truths will be seen in their origin and causal connection, and the line of similarity, contrast, causal relation, analogy and coincidence will be thoughtfully traced.

Possibly the progress toward formulated knowledge will be less rapid by induction, but it will be real progress with no backward steps. It may well be doubted whether, with average minds, real scientific knowledge is attainable except by a strong admixture of inductive processes. Perfection in the form and structure of our concepts is not to be attained by children nor by adults, but the ideal of scientific accuracy in general notions is to be kept constantly in view and approximated to the extent of our ability.

After all, deduction performs a much more important part in the work of building up concepts than the previous discussion would indicate. As fast as psychical concepts are formed we clamber upon them and try to get a better view of the field around us. Like captured guns, we turn them at once upon the enemy and make them perform service in new fields of conquest. If a new case or object appears we judge of it in the light of our acquired concepts, no matter whether they are complete and accurate or not. This is deduction. We are glad to gain any vantage ground in judging the objects and phenomena constantly presenting themselves. In fact, it is inevitable that inductive and deductive processes will be constantly dovetailed into each other. The faulty concepts arrived at are brought persistently into contact with new individual cases. They are thus corrected, enlarged, and more accurately grasped. This is the series of mental stepping-stones that leads up gradually to logical concepts. The inductive process is the fundamental one and deduction comes in at every step to brace it up. This is only another illustration that mental processes are intimately interwoven, and, except in thought, not to be separated. In the discussion of apperception in the following chapter we shall see that, in the process of gaining knowledge, our acquired ideas and concepts play a most important role. They are really the chief assimilating agencies. But in spite of all this we shall scarcely be led again to the standpoint that logical or scientific concepts should be the starting point in the study of any subject.



[1] Intuition is popularly used in a sense different from the above. We are in need of a word which has the same meaning as the German word, Anschauung, for which there is no popular equivalent in English. Intuition, as defined by Webster, is nearly the same: "direct apprehension, or cognition; immediate knowledge, as in perception or consciousness."

For a discussion of this term, see Quick's Educational Reformers, p. 361, Appleton's edition.



CHAPTER VI.

APPERCEPTION.

We have now to deal with a principle of pedagogy upon which all the leading ideas thus far discussed largely depend for their realization. Interest, concentration, and induction set up requirements relative to the matter, spirit and method of school studies. Apperception is a practical principle, obedience to which will contribute daily and hourly to making real in school exercises the ideas of interest, concentration and induction.

We observe in passing that the important principles already discussed stand in close mutual relation and dependence. Interest aids concentration by bringing all kinds of knowledge into close touch with the feelings. Interest puts incentives into every kind of information so as to arouse the will, which, in turn, unifies and controls the mental actions. But concentration has a reflex influence upon interest, because unity and conscious mastery give added pleasure to knowledge. The culture epochs are expected to contribute powerfully to both concentration and interest; to the former by supplying a series of rallying-points for educative effort, to the latter by furnishing matter suited to interest children. Induction is a natural method of acquiring and unifying knowledge in an interesting way. Apperception, in turn, is a principle of mental action which puts life and interest into inductive and concentrating processes. Every hour of school labor illustrates the value of apperception and teachers should find in it a constant antidote to faulty methods.

Apperception may be roughly defined at first as the process of acquiring new ideas by the aid of old ideas already in the mind. It makes the acquisition of new knowledge easier and quicker. Not that there is any easy road to learning, but there is a natural process which greatly accelerates the progress of acquisition, just as it is better to follow a highway over a rough country than to betake one's self to the stumps and brush. For example, if one is familiar with peaches, apricots will be quickly understood as a kindred kind of fruit, even though a little strange. A person who is familiar with electrical machinery will easily interpret the meaning and purpose of every part of a new electrical plant. One may perceive a new object without understanding it, but to apperceive it is to interpret its meaning by the aid of similar familiar notions.

If one examines a typewriter for the first time, it will take some pains and effort to understand its construction and use; but after examining a Remington, another kind will be more easily understood, because the principle of the first interprets that of the second. Suppose the Steppes of Russia are mentioned for the first time to a class. The word has little or no meaning or perhaps suggests erroneously a succession of stairs. But we remark that the steppes are like the prairies and plains to the west of the Mississippi river, covered with grass and fed on by herds. By awakening a familiar notion already in the mind and bringing it distinctly to the front, the new thing is easily understood. Again, a boy goes to town and sees a banana for the first time, and asks, "What is that? I never saw anything like that." He thinks he has no class of things to which it belongs, no place to put it. His father answers that it is to eat like an orange or a pear, and its significance is at once plain by the reference to something familiar.

Again, two men, the one a machinist and the other an observer unskilled in machines, visit the machinery hall of an exposition. The machinist observes a new invention and finds in it a new application of an old principle. As he passes along from one machine to another he is much interested in noting new devices and novel appliances and at the end of an hour he leaves the hall with a mind enriched. The other observer sees the same machines and their parts, but does not detect the principle of their construction. His previous knowledge of machines is not sufficient to give him the clue to their explanation. After an hour of uninterested observation he leaves the hall with a confused notion of shafts, wheels, cogs, bands, etc., but with no greater insight into the principles of machinery. Why has one man learned so much and the other nothing? Because the machinist's previous experience served as an interpreter and explained these new contrivances, while the other had no sufficient previous knowledge and so acquired nothing new. "To him that hath shall be given."

In the act of apperception the old ideas dwelling in the mind are not to be regarded as dead treasures stored away and only occasionally drawn out and used by a purposed effort of the memory, but they are living forces which have the active power of seizing and appropriating new ideas. Lazarus says they stand "like well-armed men in the inner stronghold of the mind ready to sally forth and overcome or make serviceable whatever shows itself at the portals of sense." It is then through the active aid of familiar ideas that new things find an introduction to soul life. If old friends go out to meet the strangers and welcome them, there will be an easy entrance and a quick adoption into the new home.

But frequently these old friends who stand in the background of our thoughts must be awakened and called to the front. They must stand as it were on tiptoe ready to welcome the stranger. For if they lie asleep in the penetralia of the home the new comers may approach and pass by for lack of a welcome. It is often necessary, therefore, for the teacher to revive old impressions, to call up previously acquired knowledge and to put it in readiness to receive and welcome the new. The success with which this is done is often the difference between good and poor teaching.

We might suppose that when two persons look at the same object they would get the same impression, but this is not true at all. Where one person faints with fright or emotion another sees nothing to be disturbed at. Two travelers come in sight of an old homestead. To one it is an object of absorbing interest as the home of his childhood; to the other it is much like any other old farm house. What is the cause of this difference? Not the house. It is the same in both cases. It is remarkable how much color is given to every idea that enters into the mind by the ideas already there. Some visitors at the World's Fair can tell almost at a glance to what states many of the buildings belong; other visitors must study this out on the maps and notices. One who is familiar with the history, architecture, and products of the different states is able to classify many of the buildings with ease. His previous knowledge of these states interprets their buildings. Mt. Vernon naturally belongs to Virginia, Independence Hall to Pennsylvania, John Hancock's house to Massachusetts. In a still more striking manner, a knowledge of foreign countries enables the observer to classify such buildings as the French, the German, the Swedish, the Japanese, etc. Again, in viewing any exhibit our enjoyment and appreciation depend almost entirely upon our previous knowledge, not upon our eye-sight or our physical endurance. Many objects of the greatest value we pass by with an indifferent glance because our previous knowledge is not sufficient to give us their meaning.

If a dry goods merchant, a horse jockey, and an architect pass down a city street together, what will each observe? The merchant notices all the dry goods stores, their displays, and their favorable or unfavorable location. The jockey sees every horse and equipage; he forms a quiet but quick judgment upon every passing animal. The architect sees the buildings and style of construction. If in the evening each is called upon to give his observations for the day, the jockey talks of horses and describes some of the best specimens in detail; the merchant speaks of store-fronts and merchandise; the architect is full of elevations of striking or curious buildings. The architect and merchant remember nothing, perhaps, about the horses; the jockey nothing of stores or buildings. Three people may occupy the same pew in a church; the one can tell you all about the music, the second the good points in the sermon, and the third the style and becomingness of the bonnets and dresses. Each one sees what he has in his own mind. A teacher describes Yosemite Valley to a geography class. Some of the children construct a mental picture of a gorge with steep mountain sides, but no two pictures are alike; some have mental pictures that resemble nothing in heaven above or earth below; some have constructed——nothing at all! only the echo of a few spoken words. If the teacher, at the close of her description, could have the mental state of each child photographed on the blackboard of her schoolroom she would be in mental distress. In presenting such topics to children, much depends upon the previous content of their minds, upon the colors out of which they paint the pictures.

We are now prepared for a more accurate definition of apperception. "The transformation of a newer (weaker) concept by means of an older one surpassing the former in power and inner organization bears the name of apperception, in contrast to the unaltered reception of the same perception." (Lindner's Psychol. p. 124, trans. by De Garmo.) Lindner remarks further, "Apperception is the reaction of the old against the new—in it is revealed the preponderance which the older, firmer, and more self-contained concept groups have in contrast to the concepts which have just entered consciousness." Again, "It is a kind of process of condensation of thought and brings into the mental life a certain stability and firmness, in that it subordinates new to older impressions, puts everything in its right place and in its right relation to the whole, and in this way works at that organic formation of our consciousness which we call culture." (Lindner p. 126.) "Apperception may be defined as that interaction between two similar ideas or thought-complexes in the course of which the weaker, unorganized, isolated idea or thought-complex is incorporated into the richer, better digested, and more firmly compacted one." (Lange, Apperception, p. 13.)

Oftentimes, therefore, older ideas or thought masses, being clear, strong, and well-digested receive a new impression to modify and appropriate it. This is especially true where opinions have been carefully formed after thought and deliberation. A well-trained political economist, for example, when approaching a new theory or presentation of it by a George or Bellamy, meets it with all the resources of a well-stored, thoughtful mind; and admits it, if at all, in a modified form to his system of thought. Sometimes, however, a new theory, which strikes the mind with great clearness and vigor, is able to make a powerful assault upon previous opinions, and perhaps modify or overturn them. This is the more apt to be the case if one's previous ideas have been weak and undecided. In the interaction between the old and new the latter then become the apperceiving forces. Upon the untrained or poorly-equipped mind a strong argument has a more decisive effect than it may justly deserve. As we noticed above, new ideas, especially those coming directly through the senses, are often more vivid and attractive than similar old ones. For this reason they usually occupy greater attention and prominence at first than later, when the old ideas have begun to revive and reassert themselves. Old ideas usually have the advantage over the new in being better organized, more closely connected in series and groups; and having been often repeated, they acquire a certain permanent ascendency in the thoughts. In this interaction between similar notions, old and new, the differences at first arrest attention, then gradually sink into the background, while the stronger points of resemblance begin to monopolize the thought and bind the notions into a unity.

The use of familiar notions in acquiring an insight into new things is a natural tendency or drift of the mind. As soon as we see something new and desire to understand it, at once we involuntarily begin to ransack our old stock of ideas to discover anything in our previous experience which corresponds to this or is like it. For whatever is like it or has an analogy to it, or serves the same uses, will explain this new thing, though the two objects be in other points essentially different. We are, in short, constantly falling back upon our old experiences and classifications for the explanation of new objects that appear to us.

So far is this true that the most ordinary things can only be explained in the light of experience. When John Smith wrote a note to his companions at Jamestown, and thus communicated his desires to them, it was unintelligible to the Indians. They had no knowledge of writing and looked on the marks as magical. When Columbus' ships first appeared on the cost of the new world, the natives looked upon them as great birds. They had never seen large sailing vessels. To vary the illustration, the art of reading, so easy to a student, is the accumulated result of a long collection of knowledge and experience. There is an unconscious employment of apperception in the practical affairs of life that is of interest. We often see a person at a distance and by some slight characteristic of motion, form, or dress, recognize him at once. From this slight trace we picture to ourselves the person in full and say we saw him in the street. Sitting in my room at evening I hear the regular passenger train come in. The noise alone suggests the engine, cars, conductor, passengers, and all the train complete. As a matter of fact I saw nothing at all but have before my mind the whole picture. On Sunday morning I see some one enter a familiar church door, and going on my way the whole picture of church, congregation, pastor, music and sermon come distinctly to my mind. Only a passing glance at one person entering suggests the whole scene. In looking at a varied landscape we see many things which the sensuous eye alone would not detect, distances, perspective and relative size, position and nature of objects. This apperceptive power is of vast importance in practical life as it leads to quick judgment and action, when personal examinations into details would be impossible.

In apperception we never pass from the known to things which are entirely new. Absolutely new knowledge is gained by perception or intuition. When an older person meets with something totally new, he either does not notice it or it staggers him. Apperception does not take place. In many cases we are disturbed or frightened, as children, by some new or sudden noise or object. But most so-called new things bear sufficient resemblance to things seen before to admit of explanation. Strange as the sights of a Chinese city might appear, we should still know that we were in a city. In most "new" objects of observation or study, the familiar parts greatly preponderate over the unfamiliar. In a new reading lesson, for example, most of the words and ideas are well known, only an occasional word requires explanation and that by using familiar illustrations. The flood of our familiar and oft-repeated ideas sweeps on like a great river, receiving here and there from either side a tributary stream, that is swallowed up in its waters without perceptible increase.

So strong is the apperceiving force of familiar notions that they drag far-distant scenes in geography and history into the home neighborhood and locate them there. The imagination works in conjunction with the apperceiving faculty and constructs real pictures. Children are otherwise inclined to substitute one thing for another by imagination. With boys and girls, geographical objects about home are often converted by fancy into representatives of distant places. It is related of Byron that while reading in childhood the story of the Trojan war, he localized all the places in the region of his home. An old hill and castle looking toward the plain and the sea were his Troy. The stream flowing through the plain was the Simois. The places of famous conflicts between the Trojans and Greeks were located. So vivid were the pictures which these home scenes gave to the child, that years later in visiting Asia Minor and the sight of the real Troy, he was not so deeply impressed as in his boyhood. A German professor relates that he and his companions, while reading the Indian stories of Cooper, located the important scenes in the hills and valleys about Eisenach in the Thuringian mountains. Many other illustrations of the same imaginative tendency to substitute home objects for foreign ones are given. But whether or not this experience is true of us all, it is certain that we can form no idea of foreign places and events except as we construct the pictures out of the fragments of things that we have known. What we have seen of rivers, lands, and cities must form the materials for picturing to ourselves distant places.

Since the old ideas have so much to do with the proper reception of the new, let us examine more closely the interaction of the two. If a new idea drops into the mind, like a stone upon the surface of the water, it produces a commotion. It acts as a stimulus or wakener to the old ideas sleeping beneath the surface. It draws them up above the surface-level; that is, into consciousness. But what ideas are thus disturbed? There are thousands of these latent ideas, embryonic thoughts, beneath the surface. Those which possess sufficient kinship to this new-comer to hear his call, respond. For in the mind "birds of a feather flock together." Ideas and thoughts which resemble the new one answer, the others sleep on undisturbed, except a few who are so intimately associated with these kinsmen as to be disturbed when they are disturbed. Or, to state it differently, certain thought-groups or complexes, which contain elements kindred to the new notion, are agitated and raised into conscious thought. They seem to respond to their names. The new idea may continue for some time to stimulate and agitate. There appears to be a sort of telegraphic inquiry through the regions of the mind to find out where the kindred dwell. The distant relatives and strangers (the unrelated or unserviceable ideas) soon discover that they have responded to the wrong call and drop back to sleep again. But the real kindred wake up more and more. They come forward to inspect the new-comer and to examine his credentials. Soon he finds that he is surrounded by inquisitive friends and relatives. They threaten even to take possession of him. Up to this point the new idea has taken the lead, he has been the aggressor. But now is the time for the awakened kindred ideas to assume control and lead the stranger captive, to bring him in among themselves and give him his appropriate place and importance. The old body of ideas, when once set in motion, is more powerful than any single-handed stranger who happens to fall into their company. The outcome is that the stranger, who at first seemed to be producing such a sensation, now discovers that strong arms are about him and he is carried captive by vigorous friends. New ideas when first entering the mind are very strong, and, if they come through the senses, are especially rich in the color and vigor of real life. They therefore absorb the attention at first and seem to monopolize the mental energies; but the older thought masses, when fully aroused, are better organized, more firmly rooted in habit, and possess much wider connections. They are almost certain, therefore, to apperceive the new idea; that is, to conquer and subdue it, to make it tributary to their power.

Let us examine more closely the effect of the process of apperception upon the new and old ideas that are brought in contact. First, observe the effect upon the new: Many an idea which is not strong enough in itself to make a lasting impression, upon the mind would quickly fade out and be forgotten were it not that in this process the old ideas throw it into a clear light, give it more meaning, associate it closely with themselves, and thus save it. Two persons look at the sword of Washington; one examines it with deep interest, the other scarcely gives it a second glance. The one remembers it for life, the other forgets it in an hour. The sense perception was the same in both persons at first, but the reception given to the idea by one converts it into a lasting treasure. A little lamp-black, rolled up between finger and thumb, suggested to Edison his carbon points for the electric light. A piece of lamp-black would produce no such effect in most peoples minds. The difference is in the reception accorded to an idea. The meaning and importance of an idea or event depend upon the interpretation put upon it by our previous experience. "Many a weak, obscure, and fleeting perception would pass almost unnoticed into obscurity, did not the additional activity of apperception hold it fast in consciousness. This sharpens the senses, i.e., it gives to the organs of sense a greater degree of energy, so that the watching eye now sees, and the listening ear now hears, that which ordinarily would pass unnoticed. The events of apperception give to the senses a peculiar keenness, which underlies the skill of the money-changer in detecting a counterfeit among a thousand bank-notes, notwithstanding its deceptive similarity; of the jeweler who marks the slightest, apparently imperceptible, flaw in an ornament; of the physicist who perceives distinctly the overtones of a vibrating string. According to this we see and hear not only with the eye and ear, but quite as much with the help of our present knowledge, with the apperceiving content of the mind." (Apperception, Lange, De Garmo, p. 21.)

Some even intelligent and sensible people can walk through Westminster Abbey and see nothing but a curious old church with a few graves and monuments. To a person well-versed in English history and literature it is a shrine of poets, a temple of heroes, the common resting-place of statesmen and kings.

Secondly, what is the effect on the old ideas? Every idea that newly enters the mind produces changes in the older groups and series of thought. Any one new idea may cause but slight changes, but the constant influx of new experiences works steadily at a modification and rearrangement of our previous stores of thought. Faulty and incomplete groups and concepts are corrected or enlarged; that is, changed from psychical into logical notions. Children are surprised to find little flowers on the oaks, maples, walnuts, and other large forest trees. On account of the small size of the blossoms, heretofore unnoticed, they had not thought of the great trees as belonging to the flowering plants. Their notion of flowering plants is, therefore, greatly enlarged by a few new observations. The bats flying about in the twilight have been regarded as birds; but a closer inspection shows that they belong to another class, and the notion bird must be limited. As already observed in the discussion of induction, most of our psychical notions are thus faulty and incomplete; e.g., the ideas fruit, fish, star, insect, mineral, ship, church, clock, dog, kitchen, library, lawyer, city, etc. Our notions of these and of hundreds of other such classes are at first both incomplete and faulty. The inflow of new ideas constantly modifies them, extending, limiting, explaining, and correcting our previous concepts.