472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as when he arranges building-blocks into definite forms. 2. The 

 outlines of the object itself may be magnified, and at the same time 

 roughened, by being copied with sticks, as may be done in the first 

 attempts at map-drawing. The copy substitutes a schematic outline 

 for the real one, but by the very fact blends a mental conception with 

 the simple visual image. This necessity for amplification is very im- 

 portant, and, as it seems to me, very often overlooked. It is strictly 

 in accordance with the physiological law in neuro-dynamics, that a 

 stimulating impression must vary in intensity inversely to the suscepti- 

 bility of the nerve-element to be impressed. The more developed and 

 vigorous the mind, the slighter the object that is perceived and re- 

 membered ; and, as Mr. Froude remarks, men of genius always have 

 tenacious memories. Conversely, the relatively feeble mind of the 

 young child requires a large object to awaken its prehensile faculties. 

 If the memory of children for what has once impressed them is often 

 remarkable, it is because the infantile period of mental development 

 bears much analogy with the character of genius. 



It seems to me that for several years no abstract statements should 

 be made to a child, except such as may be, at least schematically, rep- 

 resented by tangible objects, and at every new point of even advanced 

 studies recurrence to such schemas may be usefully made. 



Perception and memory should be indissolubly associated. There 

 are two prevalent errors of method w T hich I have noticed : to expect 

 a child to remember what it has never perceived ; and to allow it 

 to perceive without any systematic representation of the object in 

 memory. In the earliest training, contemplation of an object is insuf- 

 ficient to fix its outlines on the mind : it must be handled as well as 

 seen. In my own experiment with a child of four, Froebel's building- 

 blocks were used to construct definite models ; but these, once framed, 

 were repeated from memory. Sometimes the details of an exciting 

 story, as that of " Blue-Beard," were associated with the different de- 

 tails of the model, so that these were more vividly remembered. 



By building in succession the different rooms in which the various 

 acts of the tragedy were supposed to have occurred, the child learned, 

 on the one hand, mathematical outlines ; on the other hand, to remem- 

 ber history by, in a degree, acting history herself. The principle of 

 this method is applicable to much more advanced studies. 



President Hill, in his eloquent little book on the " True Order of 

 Studies," emphatically insists on the necessity for a selection of studies 

 which differ widely from the conventional programme. " We awake 

 to consciousness," he observes, "through the fact of motion which re- 

 veals to us an outer world, and a universe of space and time in which 

 that world of matter moves. These space and time relations are the 

 earliest objects of distinctly conscious intellection ; the first objects 

 concerning which our knowledge takes a scientific form. This was 

 true of the race, and it is true of the individual. Before the child has 



