812 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



painting of a picture. Every workman should have, to the largest 

 possible degree, the fine feeling of the artist, while every artist should 

 be recognized as a working-man. 



Over all this knowledge and these powers a conscience should pre- 

 side that can say " ought " and " ought not " so loudly and distinctly 

 that its commands can not go unheeded. This work is all to be done 

 in the schools, through the ordinary subjects, properly related and 

 taught. 



I do not believe in multiplying subjects in our school curriculum. 

 I believe most thoroughly in reducing them. Even among the old 

 Greeks the time came when complaint was made that the children 

 were pestered with a multitude of subjects, all thought necessary to a 

 proper education, and accordingly all imperfectly acquired. 



The territory and the time from which the Greek drew thought 

 were but the merest fragment of that from which thought and mate- 

 rial come pouring in upon the modern child. All ages and all climes 

 are pouring their accumulated treasure and filth upon him. Selfish- 

 ness and ignorance, backed by the hoarded wealth of generations, 

 combine to force into his unwilling and aching mental stomach the 

 products alike of malicious, shallow, and noble brains. The multipli- 

 cation of subjects of study in the schools of ancient Greece was accom- 

 panied by a decline of mental vigor and spontaneity. 



The only hope for our future lies in a wise choice of subjects for 

 our schools in a wise conservation and expenditure of the energies 

 of our children. This multiplication of subjects, it seems to us, has 

 grown out of a lack of proper appreciation of the essentials of the 

 great departments of knowledge and their proper relations. What 

 God has joined together, man, partly through ignorance and partly 

 through desire of gain, has violently put asunder. Closely connected 

 lines of study have been isolated. Great departments of thought 

 have been cut up into petty fields, and then each little quarter-lot so 

 covered by rubbish that teacher and pupil alike have been starved and 

 enslaved when they ought to have been made vigorous and free 

 through a knowledge of the truth. Industrial knowledge consists in 

 acquaintance with industrial materials, processes, and relations. 



Industrial materials are the various natural forces together with 

 certain substances from the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds. 

 Industrial processes are those operations by which crude materials are 

 converted into forms adapted to man's deeds. Industrial relations 

 imply the mechanism of exchange, and all those considerations dealt 

 with in political science. Let us consider briefly the possibilities of 

 arithmetical teaching as a means of imparting solid industrial knowl- 

 edge. 



It was, doubtless, a great gain in teaching the elements of arith- 

 metic when beans, corn, blocks, etc., were substituted for abstract 

 statement. The principles stated and illustrated by Grtibe, Horace 



