658 STUDY AND RESEARCH. 



the organs. Various differences in their actions crop out early, con- 

 ditioned, as they are, by natural endowment and inherited peculiarities. 



Is it presumable that this quality is peculiar to children'? Surely 

 not. It is distinctive of man in hoary age as well, so long as his organs 

 are not in an abnormal condition, or external circumstances have not 

 caused a disturbance or interruption. Eecall the joy of the scholar, 

 bowed down under the weight of years, when a new outlook upon the 

 domain of science is vouchsafed him. How his delight in study is 

 stimulated when he succeeds in grasping a new series of phenomena, 

 be it of nature or of the human mind, hitherto unintelligible or inac- 

 cessible! How, then, were it possible to explain the absence of this 

 common human quality in young men of culture about to join the ranks 

 of academic citizenship 1 They certainly possess it, but not infrequently 

 it has been stunted by injudicious treatment. Hence it is necessary 

 not to create, but to reanimate it. 



Under careful training, delight in learning soon develops into desire 

 for knowledge, which refuses to stop at mere acquaintance with a fact, 

 and urges the student to seek its explanation. It casts about for the 

 connection between phenomena and occurrences, for their causes and 

 history, and rests satisfied only when it has discovered their genetic 

 and causal relations. This is the characteristic sign of a genuine desire 

 for knowledge, and it involves the beginning of research. Proneness 

 to investigation is also manifested by children. They are in the habit 

 of taking to pieces objects that fall under their observation, and they 

 imitate movements to find out what must be done to i)roduce them. 

 Education, then, finds all its elements ready at hand in child nature; 

 it is merely necessary to bring them into play, and cultivate them along 

 the right lines by concentrating the mind upon facts, keeping the 

 interest actively engaged, confining work to the main xioint, and 

 diverting the attention from objects of subordinate importance. 



We are justified now in i)ropounding the question: Is this done in 

 our schools? In our very primary classes the child's delight in study 

 is so materially curtailed that a considerable proportion of our people 

 develops not legitimate curiosity, but its i^erverted form, inquisitive- 

 ness, i. e., the inclination to rest satisfied with an external, therefore 

 an incomplete, understanding of a subject, and to pass quickly from one 

 subject to another. Thus a natural quality beneficent in its character 

 is distorted and forced into forms of expression which, not rarely 

 harmful, at best are useless. 



If the legitimate desire for knowledge is to be aroused in the child 

 mind, that is, if it is to be trained up to a consideration of genetic and 

 causal relations, its attention must be fixed upon historic facts. Even 

 religious instruction, of all branches the one which depends upon 

 almost verbal transmission of doctrines, does not confine itself to 

 dogmatic precept, but uses sacred history as a means of illustration. 

 Nothing, however, is so well adapted for that sort of instruction as 



