PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION J. 165 
elaborate and intricate functioning in the cortex. This permits, 
in proportion to the organisation effected, a transition from the 
concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the general. 
As Bain writes: “For this novel effect there must be a distinct 
phase of brain development, and, thercfore, a certain age at- 
tained, irrespective of the amount of preparatory impressions. 
: This is the stage when we must be prepared to handle 
symbols, to pass from sense perceptions to abstract conceptions ; 
when we can manipulate numbers and forms having no apparent 
reference to particulars at all. . . The passage from the empirical 
to the scientific is really a mode of transition from the concrete to 
the abstract ; it marks with emphasis the arrival of the Age of 
Reason.” If education were to stop short of this lustrum, the re- 
sult might be possibly an intelligent and practical man, apt 
and clever at his work, but everything would be done by rule- 
of-thumb, and not by reason. The intelligence, although greater 
in degree, could not be different in kind to that of the highest 
animals. The disadvantages of this empirical knowledge are its 
limitations ; the advantages of knowing the why and the where- 
fore are its more generalised application. The student should 
now be capable of deriving benefit from such studies as mathe- 
matics, logic, and science generally, both physical and natural. 
The teacher should cease to be the schoolmaster, but assume 
the réle of guide, philosopher, and friend. The former dogma- 
{ism is now quite out of place, and requires to be superseded by 
an appeal to the various bearings of a proposition or generalisa- 
tion. With this there must be combined a sufficient energy in 
presenting the subject so as to produce an impression strong 
enough to leave an effect on the brain tissue, and cause it to 
push out fresh paths of association. The process is the same 
as before, only the possibilities of arrangements have become 
far more elaborate. Also here again “ activities’ must precede 
any attempts at education; that is to say, the pupil must feel 
the necessity for brain-functioning of some kind. The teacher 
then takes the tide of nervous impulses at the “ flow,” and the 
result will be proportionately satisfactory. Considering the 
many new psychic influences that are beginning to arise as the 
pupil approaches puberty, it is evident that only the most skil- 
ful management will succeed in inducing him still to submit 
to guidance, and consequently any authority must be veiled as 
much as possible. Athleticism will still be a valuable adjunct 
to the more scholastic duties, and afford a safe outlet to the 
new emotions characteristic of that period of life. A word in 
passing may be said on behalf of the “ pupil-teacher.” Is it 
likely to be conducive to his best mental development that he 
should be subjected to the weariness and monotony of long 
school hours and the correcting of exercises? After this ex- 
haustion of energies is he likely to resume his own studies feel- 
