NATURAL OR SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN EDUCATION 19 



I complain because it was worse. It was a fearful injustice to 

 that noble organization with which, we are endowed. The case 

 has improved in a fair proportion of our schools, but we are far, 

 far from the true way still. We are also deluded by the spirit of 

 our age, that aims too much at quantity and too little at quality. 

 In elementary schools especially the culture and the method are, 

 beyond all comparison, of more importance than the facts learned. 



Given a youth developing aright, and we find him continuing 

 that natural and happy life he began as an infant. He exercises 

 his senses on the world around him, and is learning under guid- 

 ance to group his facts — that is, his sensations — and to deduce 

 general laws. This is science, and should be pleasant to every 

 normally constituted human being, and experience proves that 

 such is the case. 



The students at our colleges are beginning themselves, after 

 having had a taste of real knowledge, to cry out for more practi- 

 cal work and fewer formal lectures. 



You will perceive that the conclusions drawn apply more or 

 less to all studies, even purely literary ones. Literature abounds 

 in descriptions of Nature. These must mean more to him who 

 has actually observed than to the closet student. Much of all 

 poetry, notably such as Scott's, for example, is but feebly realized 

 by those unfamiliar with Nature ; to put it otherwise, by those 

 who have not had the sensory impressions essential to realization. 



It must now appear that in the true sense education is simply 

 furnishing an environment which is favorable to the develop- 

 ment or unfolding the organization of the child. I use the term 

 organization rather than mind because it seems to me that as a 

 human being is a complex, we can never in actual practice con- 

 sider one part of a child's nature absolutely apart from another. 

 There is no such thing as mental development apart from moral 

 and physical effects ; and all experience goes to show that, when 

 any part of the organization of a human being is ignored, the 

 very ends aimed at in any one direction are but imperfectly 

 attained. It has been shown that the infant develops through 

 movements. The boy develops through rambles in the fields or 

 through his games, and the methods are after Nature, though not 

 as perfect when the subject is not under' guidance, as he always 

 should be — to an extent not sufficient, however, to interfere with 

 spontaneity. The sooner we get rid of the idea that education is 

 imparting instruction, and that teachers exist to hear lessons, the 

 sooner will we be prepared to enter on the right path. 



It has of late years dawned on a few minds that this natural 

 development, which is in a hap-hazard way accomplished by 

 the child in its sports, might be carried out in a systematic way 

 by what is termed manual training, and I allude to the subject in 



