542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and the child will easily excel the man. This is because ear, and the 

 memory derived from ear, are the means by which languages are ac- 

 quired. Reason enables us to predict what is probable, when we know 

 that which has previously occurred. If, then, we informed a reason- 

 ing individual that a chair, an article made of wood, with four legs, 

 was feminine in French, and then called his attention to a stool, an 

 article made of wood, with four legs, and inquired to what gender he 

 considered the stool belonged, he would naturally conclude that it also 

 was feminine ; but a stool {tabouret) is masculine in French. 



Then, again, the pronunciation of words is purely arbitrary. Take 

 our own language, for example, and such words as plough, enough, 

 cough, dough, bough, rough, etc. Where does reason enter into the 

 pronunciation of such words ? What power of intellect would enable 

 us to pronounce "cough" correctly, even though we knew how 

 " bough " was spoken ? Yet, in spite of these unreasonable laws, 

 classics and modern languages are not unusually referred to, not as 

 stored knowledge, but as tests of mental power. As a rule, it is not 

 the reasoner, or person gifted with great brain-power, who the most 

 quickly learns a language, but the superficial thinker, gifted with ear ; 

 and these superficial people are the first to quiz any error made when 

 a speaker attempts to converse in a foreign language. 



We may fairly divide the subjects employed in modern mental 

 training into those which store and those which strengthen the mind. 

 Languages ; a knowledge of history and geography ; the facts con- 

 nected with various sciences, such as chemistry, electricity, astronomy, 

 etc., are stores ; but not one of these does more than store the mind. 

 Men's minds were stored with a certain number of astronomical facts 

 when Galileo attempted to revive the olden belief that the earth ro- 

 tated ; but their minds had not been strengthened, as it was the lead- 

 ing astronomers who most offered opposition to him. Several men 

 with stored minds were the great opponents of Stephenson when he 

 talked about traveling twenty miles an hour on a railroad. So that it 

 appears that, no matter how well a mind may be stored, if it is inca- 

 pable of judging correctly on a novelty, it can not be called a strong 

 mind. 



Our competitive examinations tend almost entirely to bring to the 

 front those whose minds are the best stored, and many persons there- 

 fore have come to the conclusion that by such a course we have ob- 

 tained for our various services what are termed " the cleverest youths." 

 It does not, however, follow that this result has been obtained. The 

 greatest brain-power may actually be low down in the list of a com- 

 petitive examination in which stored knowledge alone has been requi- 

 site. There is a certain advantage to be gained by storing the mind 

 with facts, and some people imagine that a knowledge of these facts 

 indicates an educated and strong mind. It, however, merely proves 

 that the mind has been stored ; it does not prove it to have been 



