438 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



dours of achievement which old routinists regard with in- 

 credulity. When Nature becomes the- subject of study, 

 the love of Nature its stimulus, and the order of Nature 

 its guide, then will results in education rival the achieve- 

 ments of Science in the fields of its noblest triumphs. 



What now is the basis of relative valuations among 

 subjects of thought ? These subjects fall into three cate- 

 gories — I St, the objects of Nature; 2d, their mental rep- 

 resentations ; 3d, the devices for marking and distinguish- 

 ing them ; and the various terms employed to express these 

 relations may be thus exhibited: 



The External World Mind Language. 



Things Ideas Words. 



Presentation Re-presentation Re-representation. 



Physics Metaphysics Philology. 



Objective Realities Subjective Symbols Artificial Symbols. 



Objects and Relations ) Nature's Instruments ) Man's Instruments 

 to be known ' for the work ) for the work. 



In this scheme we build upon the solid foundation of 

 objective nature, and place first that which we find first 

 in the order of the world — the fabric of being into which 

 we are introduced at birth — which was here before we came 

 and will remain when we are gone. Man's first and his 

 lifelong concern is with his environment, the objective 

 universe of God, the theatre of his activit}^, ownership, am- 

 bition, enjoyment, and the multifarious instrumentality of 

 his experience and education. It is a realm of law, and 

 therefore he can understand and control it : a scene of irre- 

 sistible forces which crush him if he is ignorant, and serve 

 him if he is wise. But in what manner are created intelli- 

 gences to deal with the organism of nature in which they 

 have such varied and vital interests ? By its ideal recrea- 

 tion for the individual. The brain duplicates the universe 

 in miniature ; hence, the passage from things to thoughts ; 



