5 6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ratiocination and of volition. Hence a great deal which passes for edu- 

 cation is really a degradation of the human brain to efforts below its 

 natural capacities. This applies especially to book-work, in which the 

 memory of sounds in given sequences is often the sole demand of the 

 teacher, and in which the pupil, instead of knowing the meaning of the 

 sounds, often does not know what " meaning" means. As soon as the 

 sequence of the sounds is forgotten nothing remains, and we are then 

 confronted by a question which was once proposed in an inspectorial 

 report : " To what purpose in after-life is a boy taught if the interven- 

 tion of a school vacation is to be a sufficient excuse for entirely forget- 

 ting his instruction ? " 



In order to avoid such faulty teaching, few agencies are more valu- 

 able than what are technically called " object " lessons, in which the 

 faculties of the pupils are exercised about things instead of about words; 

 and the suggestion of Sir John Lubbock would lead to object lessons of 

 a very useful character. To be taught something about gravitation, 

 about atmospheric pressure, about the effects of temperature, and other 

 simple matters of like kind, which would admit of experimental illus- 

 tration, and which would call upon the learner to make statements in 

 his own words instead of in those of somebody else, would be so many 

 steps toward real mental development. At the end of a vacation, even 

 if the facts of any particular occurrence had become somewhat mixed, 

 the pupils would nevertheless preserve an increased capacity for acquir- 

 ing new facts, and would probably retain these for a longer period ; 

 and such are precisely the changes which it should be the province of 

 education to bring about. We would even go further than Sir John 

 Lubbock, and in elementary schools would give an important place to 

 the art of drawing, which teaches accurate observation of the forms of 

 things. The efforts of a wise teacher should always be guided with 

 reference to the position and surroundings of a child at home, and 

 should seek to supplement the deficiencies of home training and exam- 

 ple. Among the wealthier classes the floating information of the family 

 circle often, though by no means always, both excites and gratifies a 

 curiosity about natui'al phenomena; but among the poor this stimulus 

 to mental growth is almost, if not entirely, wanting. An explanation 

 of the physical causes of common events, such, for instance, as the rising 

 of water in a pump, would usually be a revelation to the pupils of a 

 board school, and would start them upon a track which could hardly 

 fail to render them more skillful workers in any department of industry, 

 and which misrht even lead some of them to fortune. A wise and be- 

 nevolent squire set on foot many years ago a school for the children of 

 his laborers, in which drawing and the elements of natural science were 

 carefully taught ; and the result was, that the children educated there, in- 

 stead of remaining at the plough's tail, passed, in an astonishingly large 

 number of cases, into positions of responsibility and profit. On every 

 ground, therefore, we hope that Sir John Lubbock's proposal will at no 



