52 THE NEW METHOD 



illuminated with infinite skill, to allure us to the 

 study of the perfect wisdom of the great Author 

 of all. 



The deep defects of the predominant culture are 

 everywhere apparent. Reversing the order of Nature, 

 it violates the laws of development in almost all its 

 processes. Vicious alike in its methods and its ten- 

 dencies, it crushes out the natural love of knowledge, 

 produces intellectual stagnation, petrifies the heart, 

 and signally fails to accomplish the high purposes 

 which a true culture must accomplish. 



Possessed of faculties susceptible of endless expan- 

 sion, and fitted by Nature to study her works and learn 

 her mysteries with wonder and delight, the child of 

 five years enters school with faculties all alive to the 

 marvels that surround him. He has already learned 

 intuitively the most obvious properties and simple re- 

 lations of every familiar object ; and through his con- 

 stant voluntary efforts to express the ideas which 

 have entered his mind through these objects and 

 their attendant phenomena, he has, since the age of 

 about two years, learned the mystery of language. 

 Moreover, the ability to talk is the least of the child's 

 acquisitions before entering school. The knowledge 

 of things around him — the things with which he is 

 to deal as long as he lives, is the great acquisition. 



The first five years of school life are the all-impor- 



