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iatroduction of large structures of this character within the limits 
of a public park, but rather to show that they ought in some 
way to be provided for in season. The suggestion we have to 
make in this case is that the stretch of ground abutting on Flat- 
bush avenue, marked R.R., and now in the possession of the Com- 
missioners, should be deennctty set apart for such purposes as 
we have indicated. If this suggestion is accepted, the lots front- 
ing towards the park on this part of Flatbush avenue will prob- 
ably, in course of time, be occupied by handsome buildings (Tig. 
8), the objects of which will in some way be connected with the 
educational system of the city, but which will not be erected or 
owned by it, the terms on which the different sites would be given 
being such as to secure a share of control in the management of 
each institution, sufficient to ensure to the city an adequate return 
for the value of the land it parts with.” 
An idea of the condition of these lands at about this date (1860) 
may be obtained from figure 5 
Two items in the above quotation are especially noteworthy: 
first the clear discernment of a direct relation between the ex- 
penditure of public money for educational purposes and “a re- 
duction of taxes for courts, police, prisons, and poor-houses ” 
second, recognition of the fact that “book learning and es 
tion” are not correlative terms, but that, in addition to the sub- 
jects generally taught in the common schools in 1866 (subjects 
taught wholly from books), “ample opportunity . . . for the di- 
rect exercise by every student of his perceptive faculties,” that is, 
training in observation, is absolutely essential, unless the school 
provisions are to remain incomplete and inadequate, even though 
the development of the reflective faculties be regarded as the ul- 
timate goal of education. All this before nature study had been 
heard of, and even before the value of its forerunner, “object 
lessons,” was generally acknowledged. 
It is interesting, in this connection to note that French philoso- 
phers, described by Bergson as the great imitators, are specially 
characterized by a tendency “to keep their ideas in close contact 
with the concrete problems of experience which suggested them.” 
To this may doubtless be attributed, in large measure, the fact 
that “in no country as in France have the current philosophical 

