404 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:9— Dec, 1915 



the street. Assured of safety, he drops to the ground and now 

 every sense is absorbed in his search for food. His hunger 

 appeased, he secures food and carries it to the nest. A note of 

 distress from a neighboring garden, and off he flies with loud cackle 

 to render what assistance he can to his kind. With peace restored, 

 he perches on the topmost spray of the elm and his being overflows 

 in his song of good cheer. 



Here, in epitome, we have the fundamental psychology of life, 

 and with it, an equally basal philosophy of education. 



Herbert Spencer has classified the ideas fundamental to educa- 

 tion as follows: i. Ideas centering about direct preservation of 

 self. 2. Ideas connected with self-preservation indirectly, i. e., 

 food and external necessaries of life. 3 . Ideas relating to preser- 

 vation of the family. 4. Ideas pertaining to the state. 5. Ideas 

 associated with one's pleasures or the gratifications of his tastes- 

 art, science, recreation, play and the like. If any are inclined to 

 take exception to Spencer on the grounds of utilitarianism, surely 

 this objection cannot be lodged against Ruskin, and he says: 

 "And sure good is first in feeding people, then in dressing people, 

 then in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with 

 arts or sciences, or any other subject of thought." 



"Making a subject interesting" too often carries the taint of 

 insincerity. And, in such cases, the child may simply be enthused 

 by the lively pumping antics of the teacher and not touched by the 

 subject matter at all. It might be conceivable that an old duck 

 should try to "enthuse" her flock of little chickens into learning 

 to swim by dragging them into the water but fatalities would be 

 in proportion to her success. 



Human interests are "discoveries" not fanciful or ingenius 

 machinations. It is the difference between finding a pure spring 

 by the wayside and trying to work a pump, possibly, in a well 

 gone dry. 



A subject is interesting or it is not interesting according to the 

 consistent order of nature and the constitution of the human body 

 and mind. All human beings, with "the will to live" in them, 

 who are not actual or potential suicides, mental or physical, all 

 who have not been " spoiled" must find universally and perennially 

 interesting the things that stand related to these ideas basal to 

 life — safety from attack, when in danger; water, when thirsty; food, 

 when hungry; shelter and clothing, when cold; religion, when 

 afraid; arts and sciences, when hungry for beauty and truth. 



