POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



569 



note that the bellowing at once assumes, 

 Mr. Iludson supposes that " their inherited 

 memory associates the smell of blood with 

 the presence among them of some powerful 

 enemy," and that their attacks on each other 

 result from the lack of any visible foe. 

 This seems reasonable, and it might be 

 worth while for Mr. Hudson to consider 

 whether a better explanation of the excite- 

 ment caused by red objects could not be 

 found by connecting the impression pro- 

 duced by the sight of red — the color of blood 

 — with that produced by the smell of blood. 

 To the same blind terror and the same in- 

 visibility of cause is attributed the impulse 

 of cattle to gore or trample to death a dis- 

 abled companion — ability to discriminate 

 between distress and the cause of distress 

 being wanting. Of a very different origin is 

 the persecution of the weakly members of a 

 herd by the stronger. This comes from the 

 instinct of self-preservation that prompts 

 the individual animal to establish ascendency 

 over as many of the herd as it can. 



The Preparatory Stage in Education. — 



The young mind, with all its latent powers, 

 with all its individual characteristics, is lik- 

 ened by President J. M. Coulter to an un- 

 cultivated field that must be drained and 

 broken up and liarrowed, to be ready for the 

 seed ; and the seed is one's specialty, which 

 is to be planted when the ground is ready. 

 This popular cry for a "practical educa- 

 tion " asks us to omit the preparation of the 

 soil and plant the seed at once, that there 

 may be no loss of time. This figure seems 

 to express the proper relationship between 

 the general training or preparation which 

 we call " education " and the special training 

 or apprenticeship which looks directly to 

 one's life-work. It is these two stages which 

 are distinct in method and purpose that are 

 ignored in the popular reasoning. One pre- 

 pares the soil, the other sows the seed ; the 

 one reduces the metal, the other fashions it 

 to its special use ; the one develops the mus- 

 cle, the other turns this developed power to 

 some definite purpose ; the one weaves the 

 cloth, the other cuts and fits it. Think of 

 shaping an axe from unreduced ore ; of 

 wielding a sledge-hammer with weak and 

 flabby muscles ; of cutting clothes from an 

 unworked fleece, and you have the sort of 



reasoning used by " practical " men concern- 

 ing what is called " practical " education. 

 The author thinks it is apparent that mental 

 muscle may be developed without a single 

 item of information being obtained as such ; 

 and that it may often be cultivated in a 

 pleasanter, more even, and scientific way, if 

 the utilitarian idea of obtaining information 

 be not constantly present. Education, then, 

 being the development of mental muscle, the 

 period of preparation, we are confronted with 

 the question, " What is a practical educa- 

 tion ? " not in the popular meaning of the 

 term, but really. Plainly, it is that kind of 

 education which will bring about the devel- 

 opment of this mental muscle, this prepara- 

 tion which is to bring ability to grasp one's 

 specialty and the problems of life. Hence, 

 studies become tools, the agricultural imple- 

 ments, not the seed ; the means, not the end. 

 No study in our ordinary, unprofessional 

 schools has any right to be other than a 

 means ; the subject itself entirely lost sight 

 of in its appHcation ; the grindstone forgot- 

 ten in the sharpening of the tool. 



The Uses of Potlatch.— The Northwest- 

 ern Indian custom of potlatch, from Dr. Bo- 

 az's description of which in a report to the 

 British Association we gave a condensed ex- 

 tract in the May number of the Monthly, is 

 regarded by the Hon. Horatio Hale as some- 

 thing essentially different from the parade 

 of wasteful and ostentatious profusion which 

 it superficially appears to be. It is, he says, 

 " a method most ingeniously devised for dis- 

 playing merit, acquiring influence, and at 

 the same time laying up a provision for the 

 future. Among these Indians, as among all 

 communities in which genuine civilization 

 has made some progress, the qualities most 

 highly esteemed in a citizen are thrift, fore- 

 thought, and liberality. The thrift is ex- 

 hibited by the collection of the property 

 which is distributed at the gift-feast ; the 

 liberality is, of course, shown in its distri- 

 bution; and the forethought is displayed in 

 selecting as the special objects of this liber- 

 ality those who are most likely to be able 

 to return it. By a well-understood rule, 

 which among these punctilious natives had 

 all the force of a law of honor, every recip- 

 ient of a gift at a potlatch was bound to re- 

 turn its value, at some future day, twofold. 



