THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND EDUCATION. 535 



nomena by leading from simple experiences to those that are 

 more complex. But the great beauty of such teaching is that the 

 child itself feels an interest in its work. It is learning as a pleas- 

 ure and not as a drudgery. 



People in general know what is meant by a natural or rational 

 method of doing a certain task or carrying on to completion a 

 given work. It is astonishing that the very opposite of a natural 

 system should have prevailed so long in the important matter of 

 the education of children throughout the schools of all countries. 

 There have not been wanting some who, at different periods, have 

 called attention to the wrong methods in vogue ; but until recent 

 years no very decided advance has been made. Too much im- 

 portance can not be attached to the fact that in all well-regulated 

 schools such subjects as botany, chemistry, and zoology should 

 be taught by means of the objects under study. How much more 

 natural it is to take a rose flower and carefully explain all its 

 parts by pulling it to pieces than to attempt to give a class of 

 young children a knowledge of the same flower by talking about 

 it, without the object being in the hands of the teacher and class ! 

 By means of the objects the analogies and differences between 

 the root, stem, and branch, or between the leaf, flower, and seed, 

 can be shown and demonstrated to the class. Lessons conducted 

 properly in this manner become a delight to children, and they 

 come to regard their teacher as a true friend. 



Let us examine how we come by a general idea, concept, or 

 notion. Here we must call in the aid of language in naming ab- 

 stractions. Under this there are ideas of complex character that 

 exist in the mind without the need of language. Still more fun- 

 damental than these are simple conceptions carried to the per- 

 ceptive centers by the ingoing nerve currents. Take the example 

 of an ordinary cube. The child looks at it, and there is a visual 

 impression formed of its color, of the length of each side, of the 

 area of a surface, of the combination of the surfaces so as to give 

 rise to the idea of solidity. The simple ideas are combined into 

 the more complex idea the visual one of a cube. But by the aid 

 of touch other qualities can be ascertained. The hardness, 

 weight, sharpness of edges and angles, smoothness or roughness 

 of surfaces, form the tactual idea of a cube. But the visual and 

 tactual ideas are still further combined into a general idea or 

 concept to which the name cube is given. In this general idea 

 or concept other qualities may enter, as, for example, the taste of 

 the cube, if it is a sapient object. When the word cube is spoken, 

 it recalls some, or all, of these qualities, according to the knowl- 

 edge and observation of the person to whom the word is ad- 

 dressed. In the case of a child, the word cube may convey no 

 definite recollection of the object mentioned. The child may not 



