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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



should be stimulated until the need for 

 language to express it is felt, and lan- 

 guage should never be presented for use 

 or imitation beyond the limits of such 

 consciousness of need. The more the 

 different lessons which the child re- 

 ceives can be brought into relation with 

 each other, the better it will be : arith- 

 metic and grammar, for example, may 

 be made to support each other in the 

 following manner. A child reports : "A 

 big dog barked at me as I was com- 

 ing to school this morning." Now this 

 sentence may be continued in either of 

 two ways: " And frightened me a good 

 deal," or, "But did not frighten me a 

 bit." In the first case we have what, 

 by analogy, may be called addition, and 

 in the second what, by analogy, may be 

 called subtraction : on the one hand, the 

 fright superadded to the barking height- 

 ens the significance or seriousness of the 

 occurrence; on the other, the indiffer- 

 ence of the child to the barking makes 

 little of the occurrence. The first phrase, 

 which has the effect of addition, is intro- 

 duced by " and " ; the second, which 

 has the effect of subtraction, is intro- 

 duced by "but," and a key is thus af- 

 forded to the proper use and practical 

 effect of these two prepositions. 



President Eliot makes a very true 

 remark when he says that correct rea- 

 soning can best be taught by the study 

 of the best classical examples of sound, 

 forcible, and well-sustained argument. 

 " The actual arguments," he says, " used 

 by the participants in great debates 

 should be studied, and not the argu- 

 ments attributed to or invented for the 

 actors long after the event. . . . As ex- 

 amples of instructive arguments I may 

 cite Burke's argument on conciliation 

 with the American colonies, and Web- 

 ster's on the nature and value of the 

 Federal Union ; the debate between 

 Lincoln and Douglas on the extension 

 of slavery into the Territories ; the 

 demonstration by Sir Charles Lyell that 

 the ancient and the present systems 

 of terrestrial change are identical ; the 



proofs contrived and set forth by Sir 

 John Lubbock that the ant exhibits 

 memory, affection, morality, and co-op- 

 erative power ; the prophetic argument 

 of Mill that industries conducted on a 

 great scale will ultimately make liberty 

 of competition illusory ; and that well- 

 reasoned prophecy of disturbance and 

 disaster in the trade of the United States 

 written by Cairnes in September, 1873, 

 and so dramatically fulfilled in the com- 

 mercial crisis of that month." Of course, 

 for younger pupils simpler examples of 

 reasoning would have to be found, or pos- 

 sibly their own daily experience might 

 suggest a sufficient number of questions 

 upon which to employ and exercise their 

 reasoning faculties. 



Here, however, we are compelled to 

 pause, and suggest a difficulty. President 

 Eliot tells us what ought to be done, but 

 he does not satisfy us as to what persons 

 are going to do it. Why have not all 

 these things been done before? Why 

 are they not being done in all our schools 

 now ? Is it because no one has perceived 

 or made clear to others how intellectual 

 life may best be awakened and strength- 

 ened? By no means. The world is 

 well supplied to-day with sound and 

 valuable works on every branch of the 

 science of education. The trouble is, 

 that to awaken thought we require 

 thinkers ; and the public-school teachers 

 as a body are not thinkers. As a body 

 they are, in this respect, nowise superior 

 to any other class of ordinarily educated 

 persons. How, then, can we expect any 

 early or general improvement in the 

 present routine methods, the general re- 

 sults of which, so far as the production 

 of intelligence is concerned, are acknowl- 

 edged to be so unsatisfactory ? The 

 State has taken up the business of edu- 

 cation and made it almost a monopoly, 

 and the State-appointed teachers are 

 such as the State can get. But how 

 many persons with a decided vocation 

 for education take service in the public 

 schools? Not many, we imagine, for the 

 simple reason that the consciousness of 



