instruction might be placed exactly under the same circumstances with the view of determining their relative efficiency. People generally are slow in adopting what are called improved methods; their prejudices are always in favour of what is old and English, and nothing but an experimentum crucis will alter their predilections. Many old systems are associated with certain extraneous circumstances which consecrate their errors and give them an apparent truth. Thus, for example, the individual system of teaching, which at present obtains in most of our middle class schools, is so interwoven with the system of home instruction that we cannot see all the evils of this system so fully as we should do if it were standing on its own merits. It should be stripped of this favourable association in order to exhibit it in its true aspect. And it may be here worthy of observation, that it would be well for us to ascertain, with some degree of exactness, how far this home instruction should be employed in connection with the system of collective teaching, which is at present in operation in our schools for the poor. The importance of experimental facts may be illustrated by the history of physical science. Before the time of Galileo it was believed that water rose in the common pump from nature's horror of a vacuum. An experimental fact was wanting to expose the fallacy of this hypothesis; that fact was supplied to Galileo by the workmen of Tuscany when they found that water would not rise in the barrel of a pump higher than 34 feet. In like manner, we may find that some fortunate experiment or fact of observation, may lead to a reversion of some of our existing dogmas in education. In conducting experiments, it may be useful to observe, the truth of a great general system of education may be confirmed in two ways, viz., by altering the conditions under which it is made to act, or by altering the intensity of the element which constitutes its distinguishing feature. When the pupil of Galileo substituted mercury for water, to test the presence of atmospheric pressure, he rightly considered, that if there was a constantly acting law of pressure, the column of the one fluid would be to that of the E other in the inverse ratio of their densities; it is well known, that the result of the experiment confirmed the truth of the theory. Not satisfied with this confirmation, Pascal proposed to try the experimentum crucis by varying the intensity of the operating principle, and he therefore had the Torricellian experiment performed upon the top of a mountain, where the atmospheric column was diminished; the result of this experiment, it is scarcely necessary to say, fully established the great principle of atmospheric pressure. In like manner, it may not be too presumptuous to suppose, the truth of many of our general theories and systems of instruction may be confirmed or overthrown. To estimate the Results of Method. Without undervaluing the communication of positive knowledge in the education of children, we should in general attach the greatest importance to that system which tends most to develop and improve their intellectual and moral powers. But it is possible, that, in our regard for this darling idea, we may overlook the fact that the study of those subjects which are the most useful is generally the most instructive. The school of the poor should never become an intellectual gymnasium, where the future destinies of the children are disregarded. Children, in the course of nature, become men and women, and their pursuits and studies in school should prepare them for playing their parts in the great world in which they must move and act. In the education of a young gentleman, it matters little whether his muscles are strengthened by digging in the garden, or by exercises with the parallel bars in the play ground; but with the child of poverty it is very different,- his lot is labour, and labour should form a part of his school training to an Eton scholar, it may be of little consequence whether he learns land-surveying, or whether his tutors teach him to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics or any other hieroglyphics, provided his intellectual powers are exercised and developed ; but with the son of the mechanic it is different, his period of school training being limited, he has no time to spare for learning things which have only a remote bearing on his future employment; to him, the school room should be, in a certain sense, the vestibule of the workshop. In estimating, therefore, the results of systems in primary schools, a due regard should be paid to this two-fold aspect of education. In the education of adults the matter is somewhat different, for in this case the chief end, if not the sole end, of class instruction should, obviously, be the communication of that knowledge which shall be immediately and directly beneficial to them in their respective avocations. The object of education should be to develop all the faculties of our nature physical, intellectual, and moral; and that too in harmony with one another. A system sometimes tends only to develop one set of faculties to the neglecting of all the others. When this is the case, the teacher should adopt some system which shall be supplemental to the other, so that the two systems, acting in conjunction, shall exercise all the faculties of the pupils. The same observations apply to the subject of study. For example, the study of arithmetic, or geometry, exercises the mind in only one kind of evidence mathematical evidence; therefore, in this case, the teacher would do well to give, side by side with arithmetic, some easy lessons on physical science, where the mind of the pupil is exercised in moral evidence. CHAP. III. TO ASCERTAIN THE NATURE OF THE BEING TO BE EDUCATED.AND PRINCIPLES. -PRIMITIVE INTELLIGENCE THE BASIS OF DEVELOPMENT. - CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. - ESSENTIAL POINTS CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO METHOD. TO ASCERTAIN THE NATURE OF THE BEING TO BE EDUCATED. As a knowledge of human nature is the true basis of the science of education, it is essential to the discovery of general principles of method, that we should have a complete record of general facts relative to the development of the intellectual and moral faculties, and that it should be fully ascertained, by actual observations and experiments, what subjects and methods of instruction are best calculated to aid the development of these faculties at the different stages of their growth: in order to complete the science of education, we require something more than a mere knowledge of the general principles of mental philosophy. Such a course of inquiry would not only contribute to advance the science of education, but it would also give us a more complete view of the natural history of the human mind. It has been said, that psychological analysis will lead us to a knowledge of the laws regulating the development of our faculties; but in the inquiry we may be very much aided by observing how humanity, or the mind of society, has developed itself in the different stages of its advancement; that is to say, how the mind of man has discovered truth after truth, and built up science upon science, in attaining our present elevated condition of civilisation and intelligence. It is obvious that the mind, considered HISTORICALLY, that is, OBJECTIVELY, must give us the broad features of the mind Those natural considered per se, that is, SUBJECTIVELY. instincts and impulses which evince themselves in the individual mind, must undoubtedly exhibit themselves on a grand scale in the development of the race itself, or the mind of man acting in society. We give the following as amongst the most important general facts or laws relating to the development of the faculties. GENERAL FACTS RELATING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 1. The faculties follow a law of progressive develop ment. 2. They are cultivated by being properly exercised on appropriate subjects. . 3. They are weakened by being over-tasked, or by being exercised on inappropriate subjects. They admit of a wrong development. 4. All our knowledge of the material world is derived through the senses. Material objects, and the various phenomena of the external world, are the subjects upon which the faculties first exercise themselves. Material aids promote the activity of all the faculties. 5. The natural force of the faculties differs in different individuals. 6. The voluntary faculties, such as attention, are influenced by motives. Children like to do things in company with one another. With children, the natural and most healthful incentive to attention is the association of pleasure with instruction: nature has connected a refined intellectual pleasure with the healthful exercise of the faculties; curiosity or the desire of knowledge, and the love of the beautiful and the wonderful, are the great actuating principles of early childhood, and their gratification is always accompanied by pleasurable emotions. Unnatural modes of instruction give rise to harsh and vitiating modes of discipline. 7. Habits are formed by the repetition of the same acts. |