562 



NA TURE 



\Apr2L' 



12, I 



depicted are apparently the head of an animal, probably 

 some kind of goat or ibex, parts of the animal's carcass, 

 and a trident essentially similar to those on the Yuz- 

 gat seal. Mr. Ready is unable to tell me in what 



Fig. L — Seal with figures (enlarged). 



collection this curious seal, which is very small, is to be 

 found. So far as I am aware, it is not in the British 

 Museum. 



PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 



PLAINLY speaking, it must be admitted that to an 

 impartial observer the great problem of anthropo- 

 logy is this: Is the mind, or soul, a mysterious and 

 supernatural, yet at the same time a definite limited 

 quantity., with certain set " spiritual " functions, or is it, 

 being of material growth, capable of infinite develop- 

 ment ? The former is the metaphysical view of the sub- 

 ject, the latter that of the evolutionary physiologist. 

 Without deciding which is -the true school, it may be 

 remarked that the metaphysicians have long ceased to 

 teach anything new, while physiology gives us, almost 

 daily, facts of an astonishing nature. Here and there in 

 the works of Darwin, Carpenter, Haeckel, Huxley, Bain, 

 Maudsley, Spencer, and David Kay, we find what would 

 have been " conclusions most forbidden," even to a 

 Rosicrucian or Cabalist, in days of yore. And these are 

 that man may develop his memory and other faculties in 

 the simplest and most practical manner, as a bee builds 

 its combs, grain by grain, until he shall far surpass what 

 he has ever been. These discoveries as to man are in 

 exact step with the stupendous revelations of the 

 spectrum analysis, and the scientific reduction of the 

 elements. 



I recently published a work, the result of many years' 

 labour, entitled " Practical Education," in which I en- 

 deavoured to give the results of experiments with nearly 

 two thousand pupils, combined with the suggestions in 

 the works of the writers above alluded to.^ Having long 

 been occupied with investigating the problem of technical 

 education, I offered to the School Board of Philadelphia, 

 in 1880, to devote myself entirely to the experiment of 

 ascertaining exactly what children could do. That boys 

 and girls from eight to fourteen years of age could not 

 set type, make shoes, execute heavy carpenters' work, &c., 

 had already been ascertained in Pennsylvania at a cost 

 of about ^200,000. I had, however, learned in Egypt, 

 South Germany, and other places, that the very young 

 can execute the decorative work which is known as that 

 of the minor arts, and that so well that it had Ja market 

 value. 



Walter Smith, now of Bradford, had published a system 

 by which design was taught at the same time with draw- 

 ing. I had, two years before I met with Smith's system, 

 which is now much employed in America, set forth the 

 same idea in a work entitled " The Minor Arts." It soon 

 became apparent that, by beginning with design, the 

 youngest child developed — with invention — interest, atten- 

 tion, and intelligence. The results went far beyond my 

 anticipation. It was found by the most careful inquiry 

 that the pupils who attended the art classes had the 

 highest "averages" in other studies, such as arithmetic, 



'f' "Practical Education" (London: Whittaker and Co., Paternoster 

 Square). 



geography, and composition. This fact is the more 

 striking from this — that the School Board, having made in- 

 quiries unknown to me, found that among 110,000 pupils 

 the 200 who attended the Industrial Art School were 

 among the first in everything. 



An immediate inference from this fact is that visual 

 perception or eye-memory (as set forth by Francis Galton) 

 and attention or interest (as explained by Dr. Maudsley) 

 are also factors which enter into the training of the 

 constructive faculty. These, as is clearly explained and 

 very fully illustrated by David Kay in his admirable 

 work on " Memory," lead us to the conclusion that 

 memory, by a simple process of accretion and repeti- 

 tion, may be developed to an incredible extent even in 

 children. Practically, this was nothing new. Before the 

 invention of printing, men by millions, among Druids and 

 Brahmins and Northmen, Red Indians and medicCval 

 scholars, Chinese and Japanese, had shown that an 

 individual could remember perfectly what is now repre- 

 sented by a library. Max Miiller has proved this. I 

 myself have known a graduate of Pekin who fully 

 illustrated it. 



Memory is not "mind" or intelligence. Yet the 

 works of Homer, the " Mahabharata," and the great 

 scientific grammar of Panini, were taken down and 

 preserved for centuries by memory alone. The great 

 history of Japan, by Hirata Atsune, was composed with- 

 out the author's taking a note, and written from recollec- 

 tion, without reference to an original work. What man 

 has done man may do. The deduction from all this is as 

 follows : — 



Firstly, that memory may be trained in mere children, 

 by an easy process of committing by heart and constant 

 reviewing, to such an extent that, guided by attention or 

 determination, anything once read or seen may be accu- 

 rately recalled. A great collection of illustrations of this 

 may be found in Kay's " Memory," and in my own work 

 on " Practical Education." 



Secondly, that to counterbalance mere memory the 

 mind must be trained by exercises in quickness of per- 

 ception. These, in the beginning, may be merely 

 mechanical. There are steps from inducing an infant to 

 notice an orange on the floor up to simple games, from 

 games to mental arithmetic or mental geography and 

 grammar, to problems requiring the highest intelligence. 

 The process is like that in developing memory — little by 

 little with constant reviewing. And, as is the case with 

 memory, all this has been established by innumerable 

 practical examples. But with the one, as with the other^ 

 there should be no endeavour to cultivate thought or 

 intellect or imagination until both are fairly mastered. 



Thirdly, memory and quickness of perception blend 

 and are developed in the awakening of the constructive 

 faculty or in design, and its application to modelling, 

 embroidery, wood-carving, and similar easy arts. And to 

 those who object that all this does not awaken the higher 

 faculty of intelligence or thought, it may be replied that 

 experience or experiment have demonstrated the con- 

 trary. It is true beyond denial that a boy or girl who 

 remembers readily and perceives quickly, and who has. 

 been trained to invention by designing, does think. Call 

 them, if we will, only the tools of the great trade of 

 thought, and a training to their use, is there no difference 

 between two children of equal capacity, brought into a 

 shop, when one knows what everything around is meant 

 for, and how to handle it, when the other is yet to be 

 taught ? But the fact is beyond all dispute that children, 

 even if trained to design alone, begin to think in every 

 way. The experience of the Philadelphia school, and 

 more or less that of every well-conducted Kindergarten,, 

 prove it. The trouble is, according to the requirements 

 of a late review, that people ask for genius at once from 

 an infant. "Teaching children to remember is not 

 training them to think." But it is the foundation-stone. 



