294: THE EDUCATIONAL CLAIMS OF BOTANT. 



Nature takes in hand the early training of the whole human 

 race, and secures that rudimentary knowledge of the proper- 

 ties of things which is alike indispensable to all. It is, how- 

 ever, only the obvious characters and simpler relations of 

 objects which are thrust conspicuously upon the attention 

 that are recognized in childhood. But the method of bringing 

 out mind has been established. Nature's early tuition has 

 given shape to the mental constitution, and determined the con- 

 ditions and order of its future development. The child is sent 

 to school the school of experience as soon as it is born, and 

 Nature's method of leading out the intelligence is that of 

 growth. She roots mental activity in organic processes, and 

 thus times the rate of acquisition to the march of organic 

 changes. She is never in haste, but always at work ; never 

 crams, but ever repeats, assimilates, and organizes. Her policy 

 of producing vast effects by simple means is not departed from 

 in the realm of mind ; indeed, it is more marvellous here than 

 anywhere else. While the organic world is made up almost en- 

 tirely of but four chemical elements, the intellectual world is 

 constituted wholly of but two ultimate elements, the percep- 

 tion of likeness and the perception of difference among ob- 

 jects of thought. These elements are wrought into the mental 

 constitution through the direct observation and experience of 

 things. Mind is called forth by the spontaneous interaction 

 of the growing organism and the agencies and objects of sur- 

 rounding Nature. 



The school-period at length arrives, and Art comes forward 

 to assume the direction of processes that Nature has thus 

 far conducted. But her course is plainly mapped out; 

 the work begun is to be continued. New helps and re- 

 sources may be needed, but the end and the essential means 

 should be the same. Mental growth is to be carried by cul- 

 tivation to still higher stages, but by the same processes 

 hitherto employed. The discriminations of likeness and dif- 

 ference by which all things are known, the comparison, classi- 

 fication, and association of ideas in which knowledge arises, 

 are to become more accurate, more extensive, and more sys- 

 tematic. To do this the mind is to be maintained in living 



