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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



an analysis that the cost can be calculated ; and, by means of this, we 

 can best observe whether contradictory demands are made upon the 

 educator. 



What we have been drifting to, in our search for an aim, is the 

 work of the school. This may want a little more paring and rounding 

 to give it scientific form, but it is the thing most calculated to fix and 

 steady our vision at the outset. 



Now, in the success of the schoolmaster's work, the first and 

 central fact is the plastic property of the mind itself. On this de- 

 pends the acquisition not simply of knowledge but of everything that 

 can be called an acquisition. The most patent display of the power 

 consists in memory for knowledge imparted. In this view the leading 

 inquiry in the art of education is how to strengthen memory. We 

 are, therefore, led to take account of the several mental aptitudes that 

 either directly or indirectly enter into the retentive function. In other 

 words, we must draw upon the science of the human mind for what- 

 ever that science contains respecting the conditions of memory. 



Although memory, acquisition, retentiveness, depends mainly 

 upon one unique property of the intellect, which accordingly demands 

 to be scrutinized with the utmost care, there ai*e various other prop- 

 erties, intellectual and emotional, that aid in the general result, and 

 to each of these regard must be had, in a science of education. 



We have thus obtained the clew to one prime division of the sub- 

 ject the purely psychological part. Of no less consequence is an- 

 other department, at present without a name an inquiry into the 

 proper or natural order of the different subjects, grounded on their 

 relative simplicity or complexity, and their mutual dependence. It is 

 necessary to success in education that a subject should not be pre- 

 sented to the pupil until all the preparatory subjects have been mas- 

 tered. This is obvious enough in certain cases : arithmetic is taken 

 before algebra, geometry before trigonometry, inorganic chemistry 

 before organic ; but in many cases the proper order is obscured by 

 circumstances, and is an affair of very delicate consideration. I may 

 call this the analytic, or logical, department of the theory of edu- 

 cation. 



It is a part of scientific method to take strict account of leading 

 terms, by a thorough and exhaustive inquiry into the meanings of 

 all such. The settlement of many questions relating to education is 

 embarrassed by th,e vagueness of the single term " discipline." 



Further, it ought to be pointed out, as specially applicable to our 

 present subject, that the best attainable knowledge on anything is 

 due to a combination of general principles obtained from the sciences, 

 with well-conducted observations and experiments made in actual 

 practice. On every great question there should be a convergence of 

 both lights. The technical expression for this is the union of the 

 deductive and inductive methods. The deductions are to be obtained 



