530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been so bad that the child is started on its journey with an 

 organism full of twists and irregularities. Mirabeau was once 

 asked when he would commence the education of a child. 

 " Twenty years before it is born " was the philosophic answer. 

 The prenatal influences of heredity can not be overestimated. 

 An unhealthy, depraved, immoral, and vicious parentage tells its 

 sad tale through the offspring. Tennyson is as correct to science 

 as he was poetical when he said : 



" 'Tis the blot xipon the brain 

 That will show itself without." 



It matters nothing whether the views of Darwin shall stand 

 the test of future investigation, that acquired characteristics can 

 be inherited ; or the views of Weissman, that they can not. The 

 fact remains that a weak and diseased nervous organism is much 

 more liable to take on a perverted growth and development than 

 one that is ushered into the world free from such blemishes. One 

 of the prime objects in every system of education ought there- 

 fore to be the studious care given to the health of the scholars, so 

 as to avoid damaging those who are as yet sound, and in order to 

 remove as far as possible the blots that have already been made 

 upon the nervous mechanism of others, and that must show them- 

 selves without. 



" Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu (There 

 is nothing in the intellect that has not first come through the 

 senses)." Philosophy and experience alike confirm the truth of 

 the above. When the child is born, its mind is like a sheet of 

 white paper, as Locke expresses it; but soon there begin to be 

 impressions made upon it, as characters may be inscribed upon 

 the paper. It is now some two hundred and seventy-five years 

 since Comenius recognized that children gain their knowledge 

 through the senses, and that these should be properly educated on 

 suitable objects. He strongly urged that matter, and not form, 

 should be presented to children. We should " cease to persuade, 

 and begin to demonstrate ; cease to dispute, and begin to look." 

 An old Latin writer puts it thus : "Iter Jon gum est per precepta ; 

 breve et efficax per exempla (The way is long by precept; short 

 and effective by example)." 



With Kant and Green I agree that there are certain a priori 

 intuitions, such as those of time and space. But I also agree with 

 Kant, Locke, Reid, Spencer, and others, that our knowledge comes 

 through experience. It is of the utmost importance that the ex- 

 periences ' to which a child is subjected should be of a proper 

 kind ; that they should be of such a kind as to develop the mind 

 in wise directions, and store it with ideas of a useful and enno- 

 bling nature. The teachers under whom a child is placed, the 



