676 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



room. So there are taking place in the educational arena warm 

 contests between the champions of conservatism and those of 

 radicalism ; between those who cling to the things of the past as 

 adequate for the exigencies of the present, and those who feel that 

 the complexity of our modern life demands somewhat different 

 training in the schools, and who realize that contributions from 

 recent scientific investigation along various lines have given us 

 many valuable ways and means for improving and extending the 

 work of the schoolroom that could not have been known or ap- 

 preciated a century ago. Perhaps in no matter of public interest, 

 all things considered, is there such ferment of ideas as in elemen- 

 tary education ; and one potent cause of this disturbance is our 

 changing standards of educational values. 



Whatever things are contributing to alter the opinions of peo- 

 ple as to the comparative values of various materials of instruc- 

 tion, there are at least two or three agencies whose influence may 

 be clearly and easily traced. In the first place, modern psycho- 

 logical inquiry is leading toward a very different view of the mind 

 and the mode of its development from that which has been held 

 in previous times. This is not so much to be wondered at, 

 though, for psychology, while a very old subject is a very new 

 science, at least in its applications to the choosing of educational 

 materials and the determination of educational processes ; and 

 some of the theories advocated a hundred years ago by eminent 

 teachers show that the knowledge of mental activities in those 

 days was extremely meager and formal, as perhaps those who fol- 

 low us a century hence will be able to say of our present notions. 

 One view commonly held at that time, and which seems to have 

 determined school work ever since, maintained that the mind is 

 composed of parts, each of which may accumulate general power 

 by exercise in any special direction, in some such manner as we 

 believe the muscles of the body grow and develop for future use 

 in all sorts of ways by being disciplined in the gymnasium in 

 youth. Now, it seems evident that, referring to physical things, 

 the employment of the muscular system upon any kind of work 

 develops a capacity which may be of service, at least in a meas- 

 ure, in all kinds of work. A young man, for example, who has 

 passed his youth upon a farm engaged in manual labor is gener- 

 ally a more promising candidate for the football eleven or the 

 crew when he enters college than is an individual whose early life 

 has been spent in intellectual pursuits, or amid the idlenesses 

 and luxuries of the city. A crew in preparation for a race, to 

 illustrate further, spend a portion of the training period in run- 

 ning, believing that the strength and endurance accumulated in 

 this way may be advantageously used in the final great effort, 

 which will require activity of a different kind from that necessi- 



