394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



to include invention or discovery ; tlie culture of the creative faculty 

 is not comprised in the present discussion. 



Tlie psychology of constructiveness is remarkably simple. There 

 are certain primary conditions that run through all the cases ; and it 

 is by paying due respect to these conditions that we can, as teachers, 

 render every possible assistance to the struggling pupils. 



1. The constructive process supposes sotmething to construct from ^ 

 some powers already possessed that can be exerci^<ed, directed, and 

 combined, in a new manner. We must walk before beginning to 

 dance ; we must articulate simple sounds before we can articulate 

 words ; we must draw straight strokes and pot-hooks before we can 

 form letters ; we must conceive trees and shrubs, flowers and grassy 

 plots, before we can conceive a garden. 



The practical inference is no less obvious and iri-esistible ; it is 

 one that covers the whole field of education, and could never be en- 

 tirely neglected, although it has certainly never been fully carried 

 out. Before entering on a new exercise, we must first be led up to it 

 by mastering the preliminary or preparatory exercises. Teachers are 

 compelled by tljeir failures to attend to this fact in the more palpable 

 exercises, as speaking and writing. They lose sight of it, when the 

 succession of stages is too subtile for their apprehension, as in the un- 

 derstanding of scientific doctiines. 



2. In aiming at a new construction, v)e must clearly conceive what 

 is aimed at ; we must have the means of judging whether or not our 

 tentatives are successful. The child in writing has the copy-lines 

 before it ; the man in the ranks sees the fugleman, or hears the ap- 

 proving or disapproving voice of the drill-sergeant. Where we have 

 a very distinct and intelligible model before us, we are in a fair way 

 to succeed; in proportion as the ideal is dim and wavering, we stag- 

 ger and miscarry. When we depend upon a teacher's expressed ap- 

 proval of our efibrt, it behooves him to be very consistent, as well as 

 veiy sound, in his judgment; should he be one thing to-day, and 

 another thing to-morrow, we are unhinged and undone. 



It is a defect pertaining to all models that they contain individual 

 pecviliarities mixed up with the ideal intention. We carry away with 

 us from every instructor touches of mannerism, and tlie worst of it is 

 that some learners catch nothing but the mannerism; this being gen- 

 erally easier to fall into than the essential merits of the teaching. 

 There is no remedy here except the comparison of several good mod- 

 els; as the ship-captain carries with him a number of chronometers. 



In following an unapproachable original, as in learning to write 

 from copperplate lines, we need a second judgment to inform us 

 whether our deviations are serious and fundamental, or are venial and 

 unavoidable. The good tact of our instructor is here put to tlie test ; 

 he may make our path like the shining light that shineth more and 

 more, or he may leave us in hopeless perplexity. To point out to us 



