58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



We must look upon the child as a unit. We must see in it an or- 

 ganism which includes both body and spirit, an integer. Then 

 we shall substitute true causation for false causation. To do this, 

 will be to follow in the footsteps of Newton, to write the Prin- 

 cipia for education. 



To make a good telescopic lens we must have glass of a cer- 

 tain quality, high refractive power, freedom from flaws, perfect 

 transparency. Then we must carefully fashion it into a certain 

 prescribed form. How utterly stupid it would be for us to spend 

 all our time and energy upon one half of the problem the fash- 

 ioning of the lens and neglect the quality of the material ! We 

 can imagine no one insane enough to do such a thing. Yet in 

 education we are guilty of this very insanity. It is no wonder 

 that the result so often fails to disclose heaven. 



Another illustration. Carbonic-acid gas, ammonia, and water 

 vapor constitute the chief food of plants. But you may surround 

 a plant with just such an atmosphere, and yet get little growth 

 if the soil be unsuitable, and the vivifying sunshine be not there 

 to transmute this food into vegetable fiber. I often stand in our 

 crowded schoolrooms with the feeling that we have provided an 

 atmosphere rich in the materials of knowledge possibly over- 

 rich but that we have not seen to the root of the matter in try- 

 ing to meliorate the life conditions of the child ; and particularly 

 that there is lacking the needed sunshine of a joyous, wholesome 

 spirit to assimilate this food, and turn it into healthful human 

 growth. 



If a boy be up late at night ; if he be routed out of bed early 

 on the following morning, before the strong sleep of youth has 

 spent itself ; if he be flurried with little household cares, and the 

 inconveniences of long transportation, is it a wonder that when at 

 last he reaches the school, out of breath, and just in time to hear 

 the morning lesson, we can do little with him ? The marvel is 

 that we should expect to. He had much better stay at home. 

 Fond parents tell it of their children, and priggish children tell it 

 of themselves, that they have not missed a single day at school in 

 eight or nine or some other weary waste of years. There is no 

 merit in this. The question is, What spirit did they take along, 

 and what did the school profit them after they got there ? 



The life of an organism consists of nutrition, of growth, and 

 of reproduction. 



How often do we remember these cardinal facts in handling 

 the human organism ? The food of school children is of the most 

 haphazard character ; their growth, an accidental factor, and the 

 holy mystery of fatherhood and motherhood too delicate a matter 

 to mention to them. We err very grievously against the help- 

 lessness of childhood and youth in thus willfully neglecting the 



