THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND EDUCATION. 537 



sensuous impressions. These senses must be made the special 

 object of study and care on the part of the teacher. His great 

 duty is, not so much to tell his pupils what to do or how things 

 happen, as to instruct them how to find out for themselves. 

 There are a number of avenues through which he can reach the 

 child's internal mind. These avenues must be made use of, and 

 the child must be taught how to use them for its own advance- 

 ment. The ears can be educated, but only practically, to recog- 

 nize what is meant by pitch, volume, quality, loudness, intensity, 

 harmony, etc., in musical notes. Only by practice can the child 

 be brought to recognize the many shades of color, the divergence 

 of angles, the approximate lengths of objects, or the rapidity of 

 motion in a passing object. The method of Zadig could be made 

 use of in endless variety. A horse's footprints are seen in the 

 sand. The child could be tested on its powers of observation as 

 to whether the horse had been walking, trotting, or galloping ; 

 whether he was a large animal or not ; whether shod or not, and 

 if the shoes were new ; or whether the horse was lame, as might 

 be indicated by one of the footprints. In like manner the tactile 

 and muscular senses may be developed and rendered extremely 

 acute in their power of fine distinctions as to quality, weight, firm- 

 ness, shape, composition, and such like of the objects that are 

 made the subjects of study. See, for example, what a blind per- 

 son can do, guided by the sense of touch and the muscular sense. 



What has been said by no means exhausts the important rela- 

 tionships of the nervous system to the many problems of educa- 

 tion. It is now time that a knowledge of physiological psychol- 

 ogy should form a part of the qualifications of every person who 

 becomes a public teacher. It is to be feared that there are many 

 teachers at the present moment who know literally nothing of the 

 wonderful organisms under their charge. We do not so act in 

 business affairs. We do not permit a man to take charge of a 

 locomotive until he has acquired a knowledge of the engine. But 

 we allow men to become the educational engineers of our children 

 without exacting from them the slightest knowledge of the beings 

 they are going to take charge of. I need not state the case more 

 strongly than that this should cease. 



One word more. The time has come when strong opinions 

 ought to be expressed against the too prevalent custom of crowd- 

 ing the child with studies and cramming its mind with discon- 

 nected facts. Away with the idea that such is education ! It is 

 not. Such a system is only a means of injuring the child's 

 health and interfering with its proper mental development. The 

 child's brain and nervous system must be developed along judi- 

 cious lines, and through this development the mind is enlarged. 

 Nothing is education that does not foster and bring about this 



VOL. XLV1I. 44 



