AN EXPERIMENT IN EDUCATION. 523 



no addition to his knowledge save the written and printed sym- 

 bols, gets no increase to his vocabulary, and little facility in using 

 it. For these slight gains he gives the freshest, best years of life, 

 and exhausts in weariness of spirit the fountains of intellectual 

 interest and enthusiasm. 



In the experiment an effort was made to bring the child at 

 once into contact with the real substance of education. It is this 

 concentration of attention upon the subject-matter, not upon the 

 method of teaching it ; on the kind of ideas, not upon the symbols 

 of ideas, that chiefly differentiates this experiment from ordinary 

 primary work, and makes the use of the word experiment legiti- 

 mate. The value of method is heartily conceded, but what shall 

 be taught was thought to be of more importance. Is it not a law 

 of Nature that new and valuable ideas only can arouse interest and 

 lead to worthy thoughts ? When such thoughts exercise the mind, 

 do they not exclude the transient and trivial, lead to culture and 

 right conduct, and so further the true end of existence— the per- 

 fectionment of the soul ? 



Do not the showy, the superficial, the transient, the seeming, 

 rule the hour ? Where do we find the heroic dignity that should 

 inhere in man and woman ? Few pursue truth and righteousness 

 for their own sakes regardless of consequences ; in few does the 

 love of humanity overcome the shrinking from poverty and cal- 

 umny. Are we becoming a nation of cowards and infidels, that 

 we can fear nothing but material and intellectual discomforts in 

 this one short life ? 



To awaken love for great literature, to arouse interest in local 

 history, to develop a habit of observing Nature's phenomena — to 

 do these before the mind has sunk itself in materialism and the 

 love of sensual delights— to do these while the child is still so 

 young that mind and heart are plastic and responsive, is indeli- 

 bly to impress the idea that these are the legitimate objects of 

 study whose pursuit leads, not to learning only, but to nobility of 

 mind, and to real, satisfying pleasures. One can not know and 

 love the great in the world's literature and not be ashamed of 

 mean thoughts ; one can not be a student of history without bring- 

 ing to bear upon the affairs of our own time a greater intelligence 

 than the majority of our politicians exhibit ; one can not habit- 

 ually observe Nature's phenomena without extending that habit 

 to the highest and most interesting of her creatures — man ; and 

 one can not observe man, with any depth of insight, without being 

 profoundly impressed, not alone by the miseries of the very poor 

 and the never-ending drudgery of the laboring classes, but by the 

 lack of unselfish zeal, heroism, dignity, truth, gentleness, gener- 

 osity, and purity among the well-to-do ; one can hardly view the 

 course of Nature and history from remote ages to the present 



