28 THE NEW METHOD 



the basis of all intelligent culture, must be the first 

 necessity of the teacher. Education is an art, which 

 may be pursued empirically or rationally, as a blind 

 habit, or under intelligent guidance ; and the rela- 

 tions of science to it are precisely the same as to all 

 the other arts — to ascertain their conditions, and give 

 law to their processes. What it has done for naviga- 

 tion, telegraphy, and war, it will also do for culture. 

 The true method of proceeding may be regarded as 

 established, and many important results are already 

 reached, though its systematic application is hardly 

 entered upon. 



" Our teachers mostly belong to the old dispensa- 

 tion. Their preparation is chiefly literary ; if they 

 obtain a little scientific knowledge, it is for the pur- 

 pose of communicating it, and not as a means of 

 tutorial guidance. Their art is a mechanical routine, 

 and hence, very naturally, while admitting the im- 

 portance of advancing views, they really cannot see 

 what is to be done about it. When we say that edu- 

 tion is an affair of the laws of our being, involving a 

 wide range of considerations, that it involves that 

 complete acquaintance with corporeal conditions 

 which science alone can give, we seem to be talking 

 in an unknown tongue, or if intelligible, then very 

 irrelevant and unpractical. The imminent question 

 is, how may the child and youth be developed health- 

 fully and vigorously, bodily, mentally, morally ; and 

 science can alone answer it by a statement of the laws 

 upon which that development depends. Ignorance of 

 these laws must inevitably involve mismanagement.' 

 — Prof. E. L. Yoni)ia)is. 



