EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. 677 



fated by the training. But it is not needful to multiply ex- 

 amples ; the proposition will be granted to be true, in a general 

 way at any rate, although it has been pointed out by many * that 

 it does not hold absolutely, in the sense that the power developed 

 by one special line of work can be used as well to perform other 

 kinds as the particular kind by which the power is accumulated. 

 That is, to illustrate, a blacksmith can not use his strength so 

 advantageously in farming or carpentry as in making horseshoes, 

 or performing other kinds of labor common to the forge and 

 anvil. 



This reference to physical things is important for us here only 

 in illustration of certain theories that have been, and are still per- 

 haps, extensively held concerning the development of the mind, 

 and that have been largely influential in determining the material 

 and method of elementary education. Reasoning from analogy, 

 which seems to have been the principal method followed by early 

 psychologists, it would appear that exercising any part or faculty 

 of the mind in a given direction would create a power in the part 

 exercised that could be employed with equal advantage in all di- 

 rections. Thus if memory were employed in recalling and retain- 

 ing any kind of facts whether in language, in science, in mathe- 

 matics, or in history there would result a general power which 

 in later life could be profitably used to remember anything and 

 everything that was desired. It would follow, then, that if a 

 pupil should master the vocabulary of a language so that it could 

 be recalled readily, he would because of the power thus generated 

 more easily remember legal matters after he left the school if he 

 became a lawyer, medical matters if he became a physician, com- 

 mercial matters if he became a merchant, or theological matters 

 if he became a minister of the gospel. In the same way, and per- 

 haps in a more serious sense even, if a pupil should pass some 

 time in reasoning upon any kind of material in the schoolroom, 

 he would thereby be prepared to reason accurately and readily 

 upon all sorts of things after he left the school, just to the degree 

 that he reasoned accurately and keenly upon the special thing in 

 the school. The conclusion rushes upon us that if you wish men 

 and women to be reflective beings, judging wisely upon all mat- 

 ters with which they may be concerned in daily life, you should 

 require boys and girls to reason much in school ; and that kind of 

 material of instruction should be chosen that gives the greatest 

 opportunity for the exercise of the ratiocinative faculty. Until 

 recently perhaps we ought to include our own time this mate- 

 rial was supposed to have been most largely comprised in mathe- 

 matics ; and as reason has been regarded as the highest faculty 



* For example, by Prof. Hinsdale, in the Educational Review for September, 1894. 



