VALUES OF NATURE STUDY 23 



contact, relation, or association it is best to form. Upon 

 these two things depend largely the quality of knowledge 

 and texture of mind that education yields to the child. 

 Space does not permit a full statement of the argument, 

 which I have given at length elsewhere,^ but its two 

 important conclusions must be clearly borne in mind. 

 These are, first, that quality of knowledge depends upon 

 the ideas with which it is associated in the mind ; and, 

 second, that the strongest associations are related to the 

 spontaneous activities of the individual. That is, for 

 elementary study we must select those things that stand 

 in fundamental associations with life and about which the 

 children can find something worth while to do. In line 

 with Herbart's doctrine of apperception and Froebel's of 

 self-activity, it is the active as distinguished from the pas- 

 sive method of instruction, of which Professor Burnham 

 says : 



The great maxim of modern reform in education is the activity 

 of the pupil instead of the didactics of the teacher. There are but 

 two methods of instruction : as regards the pupil, the active and the 

 passive ; as regards the teacher, the method of demonstration and 

 the method of suggestion. The active Diethod of the kindergarten 

 and the university should be adopted in all the grades. [Italics 

 mine.] 



In connection with it we must lay special stress upon the 

 fact that the highest type of spontaneous, whole-souled 

 activity cannot be developed about trifling or worthless 

 things. "■ Give children large interests and give them 

 young." This motto of Alice Freeman Palmer may 

 well be used in deciding whether a topic should be 



1 Pedagogical Seminary, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 208. 



