OUTLINES FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 217 



grass so that you shall think it is grass, and go to put your hand upon 

 it. Here is one who will paint you no grass, but hring a green field 

 with soft breezes playing over it, sweet odors rising from it, life dwell- 

 ing in it ; and this one is the artist. His language is no illustration, 

 no picture, but something far higher, even an actual creation. The 

 fundamental command of Pestalozzi, proceed vision-wise, is suscep- 

 tible of exaggeration. Too literally obeyed, this command is harmful 

 in all departments of human activity. This thought has wide applica- 

 tion. It lies against all exclusively physical training, all training de- 

 pending solely upon material objects. There is great danger lest such 

 training keep the student from clearness of vision in the eye of the mind. 

 He sees things, but, unless things lead to independent thoughts, they 

 are nothing more than pictures upon the retina of flesh. Our thought 

 is applicable to classical education, in so far as words become the ob- 

 jects and are studied as mere things. Latin and Greek, taught as vital 

 parts of language, are, even in their minutest particles, so many expres- 

 sions of the mysterious and indestructible power of thought. Pesta- 

 lozzi's teaching that the clear idea is the result to be secured by educa- 

 tion is unquestionably true. Man proceeds from sense-perception to 

 concept when he proceeds normally. The end, however, is often lost 

 sight of in the means ; the idea is not realized because the object, 

 the matter, the substance, is too prominent, too permanent, too over- 

 bearing. 



The writer hopes that not the least result of this historical survey 

 has been to set forth Pestalozzi's fundamental principle as a controlling 

 power in the educational development of the past. Man not only 

 should give law to his education, he has done so. The education of 

 China was the Chinese interpretation of man ; the education of India 

 was the Indian interpretation of man ; the education of Greece the 

 Grecian interpretation of man ; and the new education of to-day is our 

 interpretation of man. Has man's nature been taken at its entirety 

 by any educational scheme of the past ? Is man's nature taken at its 

 entirety by the educational system which to-day claims precedence and 

 finality ? 



We have seen man, the grown man, as a child: this was and is China. 

 We have seen man as member of a caste, belonging body, soul, and 

 estate to his order : this was and is India. We have seen man a Gre- 

 cian or a Roman, self-conscious as a Grecian or Roman, not self-con- 

 scious as man. We have seen man a contra-natural member of a con- 

 tra-natural church : this was the monk type of the perfect man. 

 We have seen man, not satisfied with such interpretation of his nature, 

 go back to Greece and Rome, finding in Demosthenes and Cicero 

 the ideal being. To-day we see man as the producer, the builder, the 

 one who brings things to pass. 



In these " outlines " very much of importance has been omitted. 

 This concluding paper does not make place for the things that were 



