CHILDREN LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE. 389 



and other finger work still practiced in some kindergartens and pri- 

 mary schools. 



"We have thus seen that there are certain branches of instruction 

 for which the mind of the child from five to ten has ripened, and 

 which may therefore be taught most economically and safely during 

 this period. Concerning the teaching of language I shall speak 

 presently, but thus far we have found that from the psychological 

 standpoint there are at any rate three subjects which are strikingly 

 adapted to this period, namely, natural science, history, and morals, 

 using these terms with the latitude and restriction already explained. 

 Certain branches of Nature study and one branch of what we have 

 called morals — namely, manual training — have in recent years been 

 introduced into our best elementary city schools, and in a few schools 

 history is taught systematically in the lower grades by means of 

 stories. They have not, however, crowded out reading, writing, and 

 arithmetic so much as crowded into them. But if we consider the 

 great mass of schools in city, town, and country throughout the land, 

 the subjects which practically complete the elementary school cur- 

 riculum — reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography — are, with the 

 exception of the latter, found to be subjects which do not naturally 

 belong to this period at all. Mathematics in every form is a subject 

 conspicuously ill fitted to the child mind. It deals not with real 

 things, but with abstractions. When referred to concrete objects, 

 it concerns not the objects themselves, but their relations to each 

 other. It involves comparison, analysis, abstraction. It calls for 

 a fuller development of the association tracts and fibers of the cere- 

 bral hemispheres. The grotesque " number forms " which so many 

 children have, and which originate in this period, are evidence of 

 the necessity which the child feels of giving some kind of bodily 

 shape to these abstractions which he is compelled to study. Under 

 mathematics I do not of course include the mere mentioning or 

 learning a number series, such as in the process called " counting," 

 or the committing to memory of a multiplication table. Further- 

 more, in this and in all discussions of this kind it must be remem- 

 bered that there are exceptional children in whom the mathematical 

 faculty, or musical faculty, or literary faculty, develops much earlier 

 than with the average child. If possible, they should have instruction 

 suited to their peculiarities. But it is evident that, so long as chil- 

 dren are educated in " schools," there must be a general plan of edu- 

 cation, and that it can not be based upon exceptional children. 



What we learn from physiology and psychology about the ripen- 

 ing of the child's mind is confirmed by the theory of the " culture 

 epochs." I can not discuss here the doctrine of " recapitulation," 

 with its great truths and its minor exceptions, but it is well known 



