27 6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



first trial, and what by perseverance and con- 

 trivance. The child is naturally always out- 

 growing his playthings, always exhausting 

 the possibilities of a given object to symbol- 

 ize occupations and deeds of grown-up human- 

 ity about him. Were the child to arrest his 

 development and linger contented over a doll 

 or hobbyhorse, the result would be lament- 

 able. Hence unmaking is as important as 

 making, destructive energy is as essential to 

 him as power of construction a point often 

 missed by kindergartners who have not pene- 

 trated Froebel's inner connection. This ideal 

 of play material is realized in his gifts. 

 Play must be purified by rational insight. 

 From insight into the deep meaning that lies 

 hid in childish play, there is but a step to its 

 use in education. The manifold errors of 

 kindergartners can be avoided only by clear 

 insight into Froebel's aim development of 

 creative activity and his kindergarten gifts 

 are the practical response to the cravings of 

 childhood. Rousseau's idea of atomism is 

 criticised in contradistinction to Gliedganzes 

 " member whole " man as a self-determined 

 individual yet a constituent of a social whole. 

 This, Dr. Harris says, "is undoubtedly the 

 deepest and most fruitful idea in the phi- 

 losophy of education, and the key to the 

 practical work of Froebel the source of 

 that symbolism which is his most original 

 contribution to educational science. . . . 

 Rousseau's significance in education lay in 

 opposing established institutions. He failed 

 to see the revelation of human nature in so- 

 cial combination and thus missed education's 

 chief aim. His Emile (Appletons') made 

 educators recognize the sacredness of child- 

 hood. Its study is necessary to explain 

 Pestalozzi, Froebel, etc." 



Important considerations are offered in 

 opposition to Rousseau's suggestions con- 

 cerning exercising the senses and restraining 

 the mind's activity. To develop quick per- 

 ception, it is necessary not only to exercise 

 the senses but to increase the pupil's stock 

 of general ideas, and thus illuminate the 

 mind that uses the senses. Environment 

 and absorption of ideas from harmonious 

 surroundings follow as important in child- 

 education. 



Pestalozzi is quoted as having struck the 

 keynote of educational reform : " Nature de- 

 velops all the powers of humanity by exer- 



cising them ; they increase with use." Mis- 

 use is not use not all exercising is develop- 

 ing. "The child that walks too soon de- 

 forms its legs." Exercise must be propor- 

 tioned to strength to increase strength. Re- 

 marks upon education dealing with powers 

 only as they become explicit are exception- 

 ally strong. " Notwithstanding all that has 

 been said and written, we still make knowl- 

 edge our idol, and continue to fill the child's 

 mind with foreign material, under the gratui- 

 tous assumption that at a later age he will 

 be able, through some magic transubstan- 

 tiation, to make it a vital part of his own 

 thought. This is like loading his stomach 

 with food which he can not digest under the 

 delusive hope that he may be able to digest 

 it when he is a man. . . . But glaring as are 

 our sins of commission they pale before our 

 sins of omission, for, while we are forcing 

 upon the child's mind knowledge which has 

 no roots in his experience, or calling on him 

 to exercise still dormant powers, we refuse 

 any aid to his spontaneous struggle to do and 

 learn and be that which his stage of devel- 

 opment demands." 



This book is emphatically one for mothers, 

 as it presents the subject of early child-train- 

 ing in a thoroughly practical manner. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW. Edited by J. 

 McKEEN CATTELL and J. MARK BALDWIN, 

 with the Co-operation of Alfred Binet, 

 John Dewey, H. H. Donaldson, G. S. Ful- 

 lerton, William James, G. T. Ladd, Hugo 

 Munsterberg, M. Allen Starr, Carl Stump, 

 and James Sully. Published bimonthly 

 by Macmillan & Co., New York. Pp. 112. 

 Price, 76 cents ; $4 a year. 



THE leading and principal article in the 

 first number of this periodical, January, 

 1894, is the presidential address of Prof. 

 George T. Ladd before the New York meet- 

 ing of the American Psychological Associa- 

 tion, in which, while the science of psychol- 

 ogy is confessed to be embryonic in its pres- 

 ent stage, it is claimed that more opportunity 

 is afforded on that account for students and 

 investigators to contribute something impor- 

 tant to its more stable and higher evolution. 

 Three classes of inquiries are suggested, em- 

 bracing the relation in which the statistical 

 and experimental investigations stand to the 

 total science of psychology, the relation in 

 which the science stands to what we call 



