physical, physiological, or even psychological. It is not of course meant that such scientific theories will not enable us to understand more fully the facts which they explain, or to see more clearly the bearing of these facts upon our methods of education. It is meant merely that educational science must not wait for the settlement of disputed theories about volition and habit, it must be founded upon undisputed facts.

This is peculiarly the case with the primary fact-voluntary action. Volition, it is well known, forms the subject of the most intractable problem-the problem which involves all other problems-in the range of human speculation. It is not to be denied that the solution of this problem is of infinite speculative interest in its bearing upon the origin and destiny of man; nor can it be denied that it may be of infinite value in educational practice to know whether a volition is simply a natural event absolutely determined, like any other, by its antecedents in time, or whether, in the act of willing, man comes into touch with an order transcending the order of time, and draws his inspiration from that higher source.

But the educationist cannot shut his eyes to the fact that this problem has not as yet met with any solution which is near being universally accepted; and therefore he must still base educational methods only on such assumptions as will be accepted equally by the champions and by the assailants of Free Will. Now, what is universally admitted with regard to the nature of volition? All are agreed that it is an action done with a view to some end; and this conception will be sufficient for our purposes at present. Before proceeding to an analysis of the conception, it is necessary only to observe further, that the end to which a volition points is generally, or rather always, complicated. The agent not only aims at a simple end which he desires to attain, but he seeks a nearer end or, more commonly, a series of nearer ends, which form intermediate steps, that is, as we call them, means, toward the attainment of his ultimate end. This conception of volition indicates the main steps in the process of educating the will. I. Obviously the first step is an education of intelligence;

that is to say, the agent must form a clear cognition of the end he has in view, as well as of the means by which the end is to be attained.

1. In very early life end and means alike must be almost exclusively in the region of muscular activity; and an appreci able amount of subsequent educational labor might be saved, if those who have charge of infancy were taught to begin training the child to control his muscles voluntarily almost from the very first. Of course little can be done during the first few weeks of life; almost nothing, in fact, till the power of visual perception has been acquired, because the most valuable movements must be directed by visual images. Even the culture of visual perception, however, might itself be considerably quickened by early training of the eye; for it must be remembered that the complex cognition which we call vision draws an important factor from muscular sensation, and the first step toward distinct vision is the power of voluntarily co-ordinating the movements of the eyes so as to fix them steadily on one point. Something might be done to cultivate this power very soon after birth by holding and moving slowly before the eyes any brilliant object of simple outline, trying to attract the eyes toward it, and to make them. follow its movements. There is no reason why training of this nature might not bring on at an earlier date the important achievement of nursery life, by which the child first begins to "notice things."

But muscular control is not guided solely by the eye. Such guidance, indeed, is of the highest value; but underlying all direction from extrinsic sources is that which the muscles receive from the form of sensibility now commonly known as the muscular sense. The educationist may at present overlook the conflicting physiological theories, which profess to explain this sensibility. For him it is enough that we can feel, even when we do not or cannot see, muscular movement. In this sensibility there are vast differences between individuals; and these differences are often congenital, often hereditary. But education can only make the best use of such

natural organization as forms the inheritance of each indi vidual; and it will be found in the long run that the greatest differences are due to the use which each individual makes of this inheritance. The tortoise may at any time outstrip the hare.

It is therefore extremely important to begin the voluntary direction of muscle as early as possible, and an early beginning is all the more important, as without direction a child is sure to strike into ways that are opened up by natural, unthinking impulse. The newborn infant's actions are all purely reflex, and for a long time the activity of a child continues to be mainly of this non-voluntary character. That is to say, the impressions made upon afferent nerves complete their circuit by diffusing their influence along motor nerves, sometimes with a sensation of the afferent stimulus, or (as some hold) of the efferent discharge, but quite as often with no sensation at all. The result is, that stimuli find an outlet in all sorts of unintelligent, aimless directions. This is observable, not only in the meaningless wrigglings of an infant's limbs, but in useless muscular disturbances all through life. You may see it in the comical twisting of features as well as in other needless gestures, with which a boy or even a man often sets himself to a novel task, like the handling of a pen; it startles you at times in the violent and widespread explosions of passionate anger or of uproarious mirth.

The consequence of this tendency is, that a child may easily fall into the wrong way of doing anything, unless he be taught the right way from the first; and therefore in many cases the task of learning is doubled by the initiatory process of unlearning. Accordingly, at this early stage education must help the child to pick out, by his own quickened sensibility, those muscular movements which are adapted to attain each particular end, and to stop at once any current of muscular stimulation that runs in the wrong direction. It is this that makes it so important, on beginning any part of education, such as writing, drawing, singing, playing on a musical instrument, to insist on the right muscular adjustment from the very first lesson; and it is exceedingly injudicious to allow any awkward maladjust

ment to become fixed by repetition, as is often done in perpetuating, for our own amusement, the pretty mistakes into. which a child may fall, for example, in learning to speak.

2. The primary manifestation of will-power in the control of muscle has been described at this length because it illustrates in a simple form the more complicated applications to larger ends, for in these also will implies intelligence for its direction to the ends of human life and the means by which these are to be attained. Here, therefore, lies the value of a general culture of intelligence for the education of the will, because a disciplined intelligence can of course discover more clearly the rational ends of life, and can master more rapidly the most effective methods by which they may be achieved. But power of will implies not only that a man is generally expert in applying intelligence to any object; it requires, for its highest achievements, that he should be specially an expert in the particular sphere in which his will is to be exercised. He must, in the fullest sense, know what he is about; and the language of men testifies to their general experience, that “to know how to do a thing" is identical with "being able to do it." Can has kinship with ken, können with kennen; savoir faire is pouvoir, and long before the time of Bacon it was a familiar fact, that "knowledge is power."

II. But knowledge in itself is not action. There may be a calm contemplation of an end as well as of the means for its attainment, without any appreciable stirring toward activity. "Axioms are not axioms till they have been felt upon our pulses," said Keats; and the saying embodies an important psychological truth, at least when it is referred, as was evidently intended, to axioms of conduct. Such axioms are not really grasped in their essential nature as practical truths till they have sent a thrill through the emotional life; only then do they become motives of action. It is true, there is a certain class of actions-so-called ideo-motor actions-which are sometimes described as if they followed immediately from a mere intellectual representation without the impulse of any emotion. We need not, however, interrupt our exposition in

order to take account of such actions; for the education of the will would become impossible if they were taken as the type of activity in general. In order to make any action easy and ultimately habitual, it is extremely important to enlist a strong emotional interest by helping the learner to find pleasure in the object sought as well as in the means by which it is to be reached.

The

The value of this fact is, indeed, at times over-estimated, at least in the training of intelligence and will. All sorts of royal roads to learning, short and easy methods of mastering a science or a language are proposed, as if the pleasurable interest of the process were more essential than the result to be attained. It is often forgotten that the highest excellence, intellectual as well as moral, may be reached only by forcing ourselves to like a subject, forcing ourselves to adopt a course that is naturally uninviting. The wise teacher will, therefore, call the emotional impulses to his aid; but he will be perpetually on his guard against the danger of allowing them to get beyond his control. For, though a useful servant, emotion is a tyrannical master; or, to change the figure, though it may be a kindly breeze to waft the will to its haven, it may become an irresistible storm in which all intelligent volition is wrecked. undue development of the emotional side of human nature lands in two sorts of faults. (1) It renders men liable to emotional disturbances which may be too violent to be controlled by reason, and may sometimes find vent in directions extremely disastrous to the power of will. (2) But there is an effect which is still more enervating to the will, and that is the degeneration of healthy sentiment into an unhealthy sentimentality. This effect is peculiarly apt to be produced in minds of sufficient refinement to enjoy literature or art, and thus to experience the generous emotions of intellectual and moral life. The mind is then apt to dally with its own pleasurable feelings; an idle dilettantism takes the place of earnest study, and a passive indulgence in the luxury of moral sentiment incapacitates for the active luxury of doing good.

III. These dangers can be avoided only by the culture of