EDUCATIONAL BEARINGS OF THE DISCUSSION. 193 



nistorical development of the sciences must have an immense 

 effect upon education ; and, through education, upon civili- 

 zation. Greatly as we differ from him in other respects, 

 we agree with M. Comte in the belief that, rightly conduct- 

 ed, the education of the individual must have a certain cor- 

 respondence with the evolution of the race. 



No one can contemplate the facts we have cited in illus- 

 tration of the early stages of science, without recognising 

 the necessity of the processes through which those stages 

 were reached — a necessity which, in respect to the leading 

 truths, may likewise be traced in all after stages. This ne- 

 cessity, originating in the very nature of the phenomena to 

 be analyzed and the faculties to be emj^loyed, more or less 

 fully applies to the mind of the child as to that of the sav- 

 age. We say more or less fully, because the correspondence 

 is not special but general only. Were the environment the 

 same in both cases, the correspondence would be complete. 

 But though the surrounding material out of which science is 

 to be organized, is, in many cases, the same to the juvenile 

 mind and the aboriginal mind, it is not so throughout ; as, 

 for instance, in the case of chemistry, the phenomena of 

 which are accessible to the one, but were inaccessible to 

 the other. Hence, in proportion as the environment differs, 

 the course of evolution must differ. After admitting sun 

 dry exceptions, however, there remains a substantial par- 

 allelism ; and, if so, it becomes of great moment to ascer 

 tain what really has been the process of scientific evolution, 

 The establishment of an erroneous theory must be disas- 

 trous in its educational results ; while the establishment of 

 a true one must eventually be fertile in school-reforms and 

 consequent social benefits. 



9 



