AN EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION. 521 



the work because they believed in it ; and now every first and 

 second grade teacher in the district — thirty-five in number — are 

 in hearty sympathy, as are almost all of the third and fourth 

 grade teachers, about sixty in all. Not all, however, are at work. 

 " There has been no systematic arrangement of material, only 

 so far as individual teachers have made it in a small way. Our 

 aim has been to demonstrate the feasibility of doing the work 

 with large classes, and to prove the growth of children under the 

 training possible. These two things we have done ; and we are 

 now at work upon a related plan for the several grades. The 

 scheme must be a flexible one, and it can be so arranged ; but the 

 second grade work must grow out of and be an advance upon the 

 first, and so on. We have discussed motive first for several weeks. 

 Now we are on material ; then will come method. These I can not 

 write about now. We hope to see the subject in some kind of 

 shape before the end of the school year.'^ 



Do not the results of the trials at Boston and Englewood virtu- 

 ally constitute a plea to parents and teachers to investigate this 

 matter — not necessarily to follow, but possibly to get suggestions 

 about a better way ; for the contemplation of a new thing sincerely 

 conceived sometimes leads to the inspiration of a better ? 



Pupils in all sorts of schools seem, for the most part, unable to 

 distinguish between opinion and fact ; their reasoning processes 

 are easily overturned, imperfect, slovenly; their power to dis- 

 criminate values is slight ; and the whole working of their minds 

 lacks cohesion, totality, and gradation. Is not the human mind 

 naturally capable of trustworthy action, and is not the lack of such 

 action in the average adult duo to faulty education ? To see 

 clearly, judge fairly, and will strongly — are not these the great 

 ends of education ? Should not a man have as great a conscious- 

 ness of mind and of power to think as he has of hands and feet 

 and power to use them ; and should he not be as unerring in the 

 right use of the one as of the others ? Should not the schools 

 give this consciousness and power and mental skill ; and also fill 

 the mind with ideas worth the effort of getting and retaining ? 



The maxim, " Ideas before words," adopted by teachers like 

 Prof. Louis Agassiz, has produced great results in changing the 

 methods of study in the natural and physical sciences. This in- 

 fluence has extended to other departments in the older centers of 

 learning, but the majority of our higher schools are yet scarcely 

 touched by it. In these, study results in little more than filling 

 the mind with words ; and from them students pass into life with- 

 out the taste or ability to examine and estimate facts, and to form 

 independent judgments and volitions. 



In primary education the maxim " Ideas before words " is re- 



