books, she will at first be quite embarrassed, she will soon find the materials rapidly accumulating upon her hands, and will go on in her work with a cheerfulness and interest she never realized before. She will find that she is introducing herself as well as her scholars into a field of knowledge of surpassing interest and boundless extent, of which she knew but little before she made this effort.

As

-I have thus far spoken particularly of education as it should be pursued in early childhood. the mind grows stronger and advances to maturity, facts and phenomena should still make the substantial part of instruction. The only difference should be that, as they are collected, generalization should be more and more practised, as the powers of the mind become developed. The concrete must still be made more prominent, and be in more common use, than the abstract. So, too, the technicalities and classifications of every science must be kept in the background, in comparison with the phenomena which it offers to our observation.

But these plain principles are very commonly transgressed in the books that are used, and in the mode of teaching that is pursued. There is a prevalent disposition to give undue prominence to the technical, the general, and the abstract. This is seen even in the teaching of the natural sciences. One would suppose that here the facts, the phenomena, would command the chief attraction of the teacher and the student. But it is very commonly not so. The mere technicalities and the classification are made too prominent. Botany, really one.

of the most interesting of all branches of natural science, is thus ordinarily made one of the driest of of studies, even in spite of the variegated beauties that it brings to our view. To teach this aright, the phenomena of vegetation, so varied and so wonderful, should constitute the chief material of instruction, and the mere classification should be considered, although necessary, as wholly a secondary thing. So badly is it ordinarily taught, that while the memory is burdened with names, most of which are unfortunately far from being euphonious, very few among the multitudes that study it in our schools can give an intelligible account of the processes by which a plant or tree grows.

The same defect is seen in another form in the custom, almost universal in school-books, of stating a general proposition and then explaining and illustrating it. Let me not be understood to mean that this mode of teaching should never be used. I only say that its use should not be universal. Perhaps I may say it should not be common. The younger the scholar is, the less should it be used, and with quite young scholars it should not be used at all. Let me present the two modes in contrast by an example. Take the general proposition, that all the material world is divided into organized and unorganized substances. Unless the scholar understands it from previous instruction, it is an unmeaning collection of words, and it will have no meaning to him until it is explained. But in what does the explanation consist? In a statement of facts or phenomena. Why not, then, first give the

facts, and let the proposition which they develope come at the conclusion of the statement where it naturally belongs? This may be done after this

manner:

"1. The crystal and the plant are both wonderful growths. As you look at them, you think of the crystal as having been formed, and of the plant as having grown. But in one sense they have grown to be what they are. The crystal was once a minute nucleus, and the plant was once a little germ.

2. In one respect they are alike in their growth; both have increased from particles taken from things around them. But the processes by which this is done are different in the two cases. The crystal has increased or grown by layer after layer of particles. There are no spaces or passages by which particles of matter can be introduced inside of it. Any part of it, when once formed, is not altered. It can receive additions upon the outside alone. But it is not so with the plant. This enlarges by particles which are introduced into passages and interstices. It grows, as it is expressed, by absorption or by intussusception.

3. How, now, is this absorption effected? It is done by certain vessels or organs, constructed in the root of the plant for this purpose. These take up or absorb fluid matter from the earth. There are other organs which circulate this fluid through all the plant; and others still which use it for the purpose of growth or formation. There are no such organs in the crystal, for it has no inner growth. The plant is therefore said to be an organized sub

stance or being, and the crystal is an unorganized substance. And so we speak of the organic structure, or the organization of plants." *

This is an example of the natural inductive method of thinking and teaching. I say of thinking and teaching, for teaching should ordinarily follow the same order that thinking does. That is, the course of thought or the observation of facts that leads to a general truth, should ordinarily be essentially followed in introducing that truth into the mind of a learner.

It would be interesting here to go into a full discussion of the principles which should be observed in arranging facts and truths in books for teaching science, but it would lead me into too wide a field.

The same defect in teaching appears in still another form, in the undue prominence that is given, to grammar in teaching language. Grammar is an arranged compilation of the principles on which language is constructed. The same rule should apply to the teaching of these principles, as I have applied to the teaching of the principles of science generally. No attempt should be made to teach them early in education, for the obvious reason that the powers of generalization are not developed early in life. Before these are developed, the principles or rules, as they are termed, of grammar cannot be comprehended, and the learning of them will be only

* From an introductory chapter of a work on Human Physiology, published by the author since the delivery of his lecture.

a profitless learning of so many unmeaning sen

tences.

The experience of every intelligent teacher will bear me out in the assertion, that however assiduously grammar may be studied, it is, after all, of very little use; in most cases we may say of no use, in learning language in early life. The child learns language very much as he learns to walk, or as he learns to behave with propriety. It is done by precept and example mingled together. Indeed, grammar is no more needed in the learning of language, than a formal code of rules of propriety is, in learning to behave properly.

Let me not be understood to mean that the child is not to learn any of the principles of language. These are continually learned without the aid of grammar, as he becomes more and more skilled in generalization. A familiar example of this in early childhood, is very commonly observed in the child's disposition to apply to all verbs the general rule in regard to the formation of the past tense. Thus a child who, for the first time, uses the past tense of the verb strike, does not say struck, but striked. He conforms with the usual generalization which he has observed, in the ending of the word in ed, and some pains are requisite in teaching him this and similar exceptions. And the child goes on with his generalizations, extending them as he advances in the acquisition of language. Such, at length, is the amount of the generalizations that he accumulates, that when he comes at the proper time to the study of grammar, a large portion of it is but systematiz