a procedure is inadequate, even if, as is by no means always the case, some pains be taken to inquire if the child can define all the words and terms used in the statement. For while different verbal sentences resemble each other, the facts they imply may be widely different; so that their apprehension by the child's mind becomes a different process in each case. Το overlook this is to fall into a cardinal fallacy, only too often immanent in the teaching of children. Then the child, instead of coming under the discipline of several kinds of knowledge and mental work, is submitted to only one kind; the work, namely, of memorizing sentences. What has been just said will be rendered clearer by considering four different pieces of information which easily might, in ordinary school curricula, be presented to the child on the same day. Let these be, for instance: (1) The properties of a wooden cube; (2) the contour of the north shore of Long Island Sound; (3) the date of the landing of the Pilgrims; (4) the relation of the subjunctive mood to the indicative. Before the child could really know these things, he must have experienced four different kinds of thoughts or phases of consciousness. For the knowledge or idea of a cube depends on an immediate sense perception. The knowledge of the north shore of Long Island Sound involves a mediate sense perception, an idea of relations in space actually existing but not actually perceived, but only conceivable. The date of the landing of the Pilgrims is a knowledge of relations in time. Knowledge of the subjunctive mood is knowledge of relations between ideas. How are we to generate in the child's mind these four different kinds of ideas? How are we to introduce them among the ideas which already exist in his mind, and make up the content of his consciousness? What occurs when the child has a perception of an external object? What when he tries to conceive of an object which he will never be able to see? How does his idea of a time-relation differ from that of his idea of space? And how can such an idea be acquired about a time of which he can have no personal experience? Finally, how is it possible to make a child conceive of relations which are neither of space nor time, but which only exist between ideas; and these not ideas which have arisen in his own mind, but which belong to a mental experience widely remote and different from his own? The answer to these questions implies some theory of the nature of the mind and some doctrine of the generation of ideas. Is the mind a product of the brain, and can we excite ideas in the mind by direct action on the brain? Or is the brain the organ of the mind, and can we influence the processes in the brain by means of ideas? To what do our words appeal when we communicate with the child by means of language? Do external objects affect the senses irresistibly, and in a fixed proportion to the intensity of the stimulus they afford? Or does the mind select for its own purposes from among the mass of material soliciting its senses? Do ideas simply stream through mind in an endless succession? Or do they associate into groups according to some principle of organic cohesion? Upon these difficult questions I may touch just sufficiently to find some general background of thought which will be useful in the teacher's practical work. The first suggestion, that the mind is the product of the brain, is adopted, though unconsciously, by many persons who would not call themselves materialists. It is really held by all those who think any special care or strenuousness in mental education to be unimportant, and who believe that if the physical health of children be properly provided for, intellect and character will develop spontaneously in any desired direction. Obviously the persons holding such opinions are much more often parents than teachers. But, even when we have secured the most vigorous nutrition and circulation of the brain, we are entirely unable to foretell what kind of processes will take place in it. The healthiest brain may originate the feeblest thoughts, and conversely powerful mental processes may be sustained by brains of frail physical power. Apart from strength or feebleness, we are still less able to say what kind of thoughts or ideas will be manifested in connection with the brain processes (unknown to us) which do occur. We can make a muscle contract, and produce a given movement; we can so stimulate a gland as to secure a given secretion; but, even when we are able, as we occasionally are by drugs and other agencies, to stimulate the brain, we are as far as ever removed from producing a given thought or given train of thoughts. The only means at our command for exciting a thought, is that of appealing to thoughts previously existing. If it be true, that whenever thoughts arise in consciousness, some nerve process is simultaneously sustained in the brain, we must infer that we are able to excite this physical process in the brain by awakening an idea, though we are quite unable to awaken an idea by any direct excitation of a brain process. Thus, whatever may be its ability in other respects, the materialistic doctrine is quite useless for the purposes of education. Nevertheless, we are constantly compelled to remember the close connection and inter-action of psychical and physical activities. These may be merely double forms of one fundamental activity; or, really and fundamentally they may be different, but the fact of their ncessant mutual influence is obvious both to our consciousness and to our observation. A headache or an indigestion may blur our thought, or a quickened circulation stimulate it to activity and a groundless sense of pleasurable being. But there are also thoughts which can stop the pulse, and blanch the cheek, and make the very sun turn pale. FIG. 1. I have represented the formula which expresses our simple consciousness in this matter, in the diagram [Fig. I]. It consists of a series of wavy lines, of which the lower, darker part may be taken for the physical activities; the upper, lighter part for the psychic or mental activities. The arrows show that these waves are constantly passing both from below upward and from above downward; bodily conditions influencing the mind; mental conditions influencing the health and physical development. I have endeavored to illustrate several definitions of mind by FIG. 2. means of diagrams. Fig. 2 illustrates Hume's theory that "the mind is the sum of its thoughts." It shows a succession of waves endlessly following each other in a stream of thought,' and whose sum taken together makes up the totality of consciousness. Fig. 3 is borrowed from Professor James, being the diagram given by him to illustrate his definition. He observes that each thought represents a cross section in the stream: he calls it a pulse of thought, or consciousness. C B Ꭺ FIG. 3. B FIG. 4. Fig. 4 is intended to show Spencer's theory that "the mind is a circumscribed aggregate of activities; and the cohesion of these activities, one with another, throughout the aggregate, compels the postulation of something of which they are the activities." Here also is an aggregate or sum, as shown by 1 Professor James's expression accords perfectly with Hume's theory, though he adds to it various details. the cluster of dots. But these do not stand simply for phases of consciousness, or conscious thoughts and feelings, but include with these, forces and tendencies, of which many may be for a long time below the threshold of consciousness. The term activities includes, therefore, thoughts, feelings, volitions, tendencies, all that makes up the character of the mind, its behavior to external things, and its internal horizons and content. I have no diagram to illustrate the definition of Volkmann, namely, that ideas are successive states of an underlying substance, the mind. These diagrams show distinctly, I hope, that when we approach a child's mind for the purpose of conveying to it some information, we approach groups or clusters of ideas which at each moment are unified into consciousness. One way of stating the fundamental problem of education is the following: Education aims to enlarge the periphery of consciousness in proportion to the central nucleus; it aims to make disinterested ideas predominate over central egotisms. The peripheric rim of consciousness is enlarged by multiplying the number of thoughts in it, by increasing their recurrences, by suffusing them with feeling, and by quickening them with volition. Contrast the consciousness of the individual to whom the thought of the battle of Marathon, for instance, has become a felt experience, with another to whom the description of the battle, if heard, would remain only a form of words. In the first case, the peripheric rim of consciousness becomes enriched with a new element, and repeated recurrence of such elements or thoughts would give this part of the conscious cluster a density, and therefore a force, comparable with that of its organic nucleus. In the second case the intellectual periphery remains unaffected, and when it long remains so, it tends to atrophy and shrivel, to shrink to a mere membrane, thinly covering the primitive personality. The whole being becomes a mere self of instincts; no disinterested thoughts remain in it. Fig. 5 shows how the cluster which represents consciousness at any given moment, arises out of the moments which precede this. Fig. 5 is a cylinder, of |