476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for a somewhat wicle reach of fancy : for pictures were shown ex- 

 hibiting pyramids in the Egyptian Desert, to imitate which the table 

 was strewed with sand. Then the different triangles were outlined 

 with sticks, representing successive beds of flowers breaking the 

 desolation of the desert thus, roses and pinks, then marigolds, then 

 yellow snap-dragons, jonquils, and laburnums, then a bed of green 

 leaves, another of periwinkles and blue bells, a sixth of hyacinths and 

 a seventh of violets. Thus the entire exercise embraced conceptions 

 of form, and of the relations of plane to 6olid geometric figures, con- 

 ceptions of color, discovery of the origin of these in a grand cosmic 

 phenomenon, utilization of colors as one means of classification in a 

 new science, that of botany, impressions of beauty from the actual 

 color combinations, and from reference, partly actual, partly from 

 memory, to the lovely flowers suggested ; finally, a large imagination 

 of a distant land more or less distinctly suggested by the picture. 

 The exercise was thus both orderly and complex ; it required a pro- 

 longed effort of sustained attention, and implied the association of 

 quite a number of different ideas into a single massive conception. 

 Finally, none of these ideas were represented by a verbal formula, but 

 each as the scarcely removed abstraction from a tangible object, that 

 the child could freely handle. The exercise was thus a typical illus- 

 tration of the methods which I have defined as suited to develop a 

 higher order of intellectual capacity. 



The second step in the study of cosmic phenomena, which had 

 been begun by observation of the rainbow, consisted in study of the 

 points of the compass. The child was first taught to construct, from 

 Kindergarten tablets, figures which might serve to indicate the points 

 of the compass ; afterward she was obliged to recognize these points 

 out-of-doors by reference to the rising and setting sun. Every morn- 

 ing she ascertained the direction of the winds and w r aves. She was 

 then taught the points on a real compass, and how to direct her coun- 

 try walks by means of this instrument. This was her first initiation 

 into the use of instruments of precision. It w T as gradually extended 

 during the year by means of practical experiments with the mathe- 

 matical compass, ruler, spirit-level, pulley, wedge, and balance. The 

 use of the last instrument, together with that of measures, greatly 

 simplified and abridged the labor ordinarily devoted in arithmetic to 

 learning about weights and measures. The child was taught the met- 

 ric system first, because it was logical, because it assimilated readily 

 with American decimal currency, and because the mutual interconver- 

 sion of weight and capacity practically demonstrated e. g., by show- 

 ing that a cubic centimetre of water weighed a gramme prepared the 

 way for the great idea, to come later, of scientific correlations. The 

 English weights and measures were learned afterward, as historical 

 accidents, not logical, but of some practical convenience, as purely con- 

 tingent knowledge to be learned practically as the occasion presented 



