670 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Too many of our teachers in all grades of schools confine them- 

 selves too closely to the element of instruction, and many of them 

 fail to recognize the importance of education and training. This 

 is, perhaps, owing to the delicacy which the instructor's work 

 assumes in the educational stage. Here the teaching should be 

 full of suggestions and sympathetic guidance to develop the rea- 

 soning faculties and guard them against inaccurate and discur- 

 sive habits. In the technical school there is a certain amount 

 of preliminary instructional and educational work that must be 

 done, without which no real progress in thorough and systematic 

 training can be made. But this is a condition, I think, that is 

 not f uU}^ appreciated by some of our technical schools. While I 

 believe most thoroughly in elementary instruction and advanced 

 education, I fear that too many of our higher institutions of learn- 

 ing neglect the importance of scientific drill, discipline, and men- 

 tal gymnastics, on which the development and value of the mind 

 as an instrument for the acquisition of real knowledge so much 

 depend. Wrongly directed education, often so painfully acquired, 

 lies like rubbish in the mind ; it can not take root and quicken 

 into life and grow, for the means are mistaken for the end, the 

 working machinery is mistaken for the finished product. The 

 great difficulty lies in too many young men to-day being over- 

 taught in the hypotheses and under trained in the realities of life. 

 We need more practical education and training, and possibly less 

 speculative philosophy. This is demonstrated by the outcry that 

 comes to us from Germany against overeducation. But there 

 is certainly not too much practical education : generations will 

 come and pass away before there will be danger of that. Still, 

 this protest, coming as it does from one of the most intellectual 

 countries of the world, where speculative philosophy flourishes 

 most, will have its reaction in our leading institutions of learn- 

 ing, and will give us a deeper appreciation of practical education. 

 The present educational methods being inductive and reflect- 

 ive, pertain more to the realities of life and less to its graces 

 than the theories held half a century ago. The new education 

 teaches us that it is unwise to spend the best years of one's life 

 pursuing studies that are merely cultural, for most of us cer- 

 tainly have as much need of knowledge as of culture. We send 

 our children to school to seek for knowledge, for we know that 

 when they study for the love of knowledge culture will come as 

 an incident in the attainment of it. The thing formerly con- 

 sidered was only mental discipline, and the result was depression ; 

 while the object now is to keep the mind alert, expectant, and 

 enthusiastic by presenting the delights and rewards of learning. 

 We now teach our boys to realize the activities of their own senses, 

 to see that knowledge only comes to them through these avenues. 



