Theories of Development 241 



nourishment and exercise, so does the mind. This 

 development is a continuous one, though the rate of 

 development may proceed more or less rapidly at dif- 

 ferent times. 



The equal development of mind and body is normal. 

 The unusual development of either, especially a pre- 

 cocious development of the mind, is now looked upon 

 as abnormal and as unfavorable to the attainment of 

 the highest results. A healthy mind presupposes a 

 healthy body; and, just as the body is strengthened 

 by being exercised in moving external objects and 

 taking in food, so the mind is strengthened by that 

 activity which the response to a varied external world 

 involves. 



Manifestly, this view of the mind, as being the 

 result of slow growth from those primitive begin- 

 nings of simple reactions to sense stimuli, is a repudia- 

 tion of the fundamental assumptions of the old psy- 

 chology. But the old psychology was a part of the 

 humanistic system. The new psychology reverses, 

 therefore, the conclusions on which humanism as an 

 educational influence was based. It assumes: (i) 

 Man develops according to natural law; (2) society 

 cannot be wholly a purely human invention; (3) art 

 must have its origin and foundation in nature; (4) 

 social knowledge cannot be transmitted directly by 

 means of language; (5) the child is totally depraved 

 only in the sense that it is devoid of artifice, or is 

 natural; it can be regenerated, acquire this art, only 

 by a process of slow growth, in which, by a laborious 

 process of self -activity, it attains to that freedom by 

 which spiritual forces become operative; (6) ethical 

 ideas can be effective only when they have been opera- 

 tive in shaping his being according to high ideals; 

 when, in other words, ethics has become constitutional, 

 so to speak; (7) the greatest generalizations, such, for 

 instance, as the idea of evolution, cannot be transmitted 



