EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 59 



ory ; whence it has been transferred from the proper themes of poetry 

 to very prosaic subjects by way of a mnemonic device. The subject- 

 matter of poetry comprises the stirring narrative, which is an enormous 

 power in human life, and the earliest intellectual stimulus in education. 



Plat of the Ethical Emotion's. — The feelings called ethical, or 

 moral, from their very meaning, are the support of all good and right 

 conduct. The other emotions may be made to point to this end, but 

 they may also work in the opposite direction. 



When the educator describes these in more precise and equivalent 

 phraseology, he generally singles out regard to pleasui'e and displeasure 

 of parents and superiors, together with habits or dispositions toward 

 obedience ; all of which is the result of culture and growth. 



Any primitive feelings conspiring toward good conduct must be of 

 the nature of the sympathies or social yearnings ; which are called into 

 exercise in definite ways, well known to all students of human nature. 

 By far the most powerful stimulus to acts of goodness toward others 

 is good conduct on their side ; whoever can resist this is a fit subject 

 for the government of fear and nothing else. The law says, " Do unto 

 others as ye would that they should do unto you." The lower ground 

 of practice is, " Do unto others as they do unto you." This is as far as 

 the veiy young can reach in moral virtue. 



It is too much to expect in early years generous and disinterested 

 impulses, unreciprocated. The young have little to call their own ; 

 they have no means. Their fortune is their free, unrestrained vivacity, 

 their elation, and their hopes. If they freely give up any part of this, 

 it is in consideration of equivalent benefits. They are susceptible of 

 being worked up to moments of self-renunciation, in which they may 

 commit their future irrevocably, without knowing what they are about. 

 But they cannot be counted on for daily, persistent self-restraint, will- 

 ingly encountered, unless there be some seen reward, present or in the 

 distance. It takes a good deal to bring any one even up to the point 

 of fair and full reciprocity of services in all things. 



The Feelings as appealed to ix Discipline, — The survey that 

 has now been made of the sensibilities of the human mind available as 

 motives, prepares for the consideration of discipline in teaching. The 

 instructor finds that, in school moments and for school purposes, he has 

 to restrain all the unruly impulses and to overbear the sluggishness of 

 the youthful nature. To succeed in this requirement, many arts are 

 employed, corresponding to the wide compass of sensations and emo- 

 tions that agitate the human breast. 



The question how to maintain discipline among masses of human 

 beings is of very wide application, and is therefore the subject of a 

 great variety of experiments. In the wide field of moral control, it in- 

 cludes a principal function of government, namely, the repression of 

 crime — a department that has lately received much attention. To col- 

 lect the lights furnished in each of the spheres where moral control has 



