LITERARY NOTICES. 



235 



There is a trutli in these last re- 

 marks which deserves from educators 

 a great deal more serious attention than 

 it has yet received. No one will deny 

 that our spelling is irrational ; and, if 

 so, just to that degree the art of spelling 

 is an irrational practice ; that is, it is a 

 practice which, in the first place, calls 

 for no exercise of the reasoning faculty ; 

 and, second, it is an exercise which 

 continually violates the dictates of rea- 

 son. The pupil who should spell a 

 word as reason dictates would be 

 flogged, or in some other way disgraced 

 before the school. On the other hand, 

 the pupil that can bring his mind into 

 the most perfect harmony with an ir- 

 rational system, can go on perpetrating 

 absurdities the longest without failing, 

 wins prizes and applause. This certain- 

 ly cannot conduce to good mental hab- 

 its. The child is born into a world of 

 real objects and relations, and the mind 

 grows through experience in acquiring 

 ideas of these actual things. Discrimi- 

 nation, comparison, inference, reason- 

 ing, judgment, are all elements of early 

 mental activity, and, in fact, consti- 

 tute the intellect. Mental growth con- 

 sists essentially in strengthening and 

 extending these operations on newly- 

 acquired and newly-combined ideas. 

 These rudimentary processes of the in- 

 fantine intellect are of exactly the same 

 nature as the perfected processes of 

 scientific and philosophic intellects ; and 

 it is the true office of education to 

 lead them out, or guide their unfolding 

 from lower to higher states. Written 

 language must be called in at an early 

 stage, as an indispensable help in this 

 upward progress. Yet, such is the im- 

 perfect character of this new instru- 

 ment, and such the bungling of many 

 who teach its use, that the child is quite 

 as apt to be hindered and stopped by 

 it, in its mental course, as helped on. 

 Nay, when we remember that this is 

 the most critical stage of mental un- 

 folding the taking of the child out of 

 Nature, as far as that can be done, and 



immersing it in the school where ir- 

 rational mental practices are arbitrarily 

 enforced it is no exaggeration to say 

 that more mind is extinguished than is 

 led out, and that the school-room is 

 as liable to become a mental slaughter- 

 house of the innocents as a place of 

 healthy education. When a child en- 

 ters school, there should be no break 

 in its earlier mental unfolding; but 

 this is just what generally occurs. In- 

 stead of going on with its normal 

 mental exercises, it is turned off into 

 artificial mental exercises. Instead 

 of still employing its thought mainly 

 upon the properties and relations of 

 things, symbols are substituted for 

 things, and the whole action of the 

 mind becomes a manipulation of sym- 

 bols. The memory is not only load- 

 ed with verbal signs, but these are 

 arbitrary and contradictory; and an 

 accuracy is exacted in retaining them 

 which consumes an immense propor- 

 tion of the time, and, after working 

 great mental mischief, generally ends 

 in faUure. Tolerable spelling is, of 

 course, an important thing, but we do 

 not believe in dwarfing or stupefying 

 the mind to gain it. Let it be taught 

 incidentally, and in subordination to 

 the regular exercise of the higher facul- 

 ties, and the end will be better served 

 than by trying to make it the prime 

 accomplishment of education. Per- 

 haps, in regard to so fundamental a re- 

 form, but little is to be expected from 

 the present generation of teachers ; but, 

 happily for the hopes of humanity, there 

 is an arrangement by which the present 

 generation of teachers is destined to 

 be taken out of the way. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



English Mex of Science ; their Nature and 

 Nurture. By Francis Galton, F. K. S., 

 etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 

 London : Macmillan & Co. 



The author of this book is quite widely 

 known by his former publication, " Heredi- 

 tary Genius," and by various statistical 



