292 PART V. WORKING STAGE. 



simplest matters, and proceeding, with growing age, to the most 

 complex. And what were the simplest ? Of course, those gene- 

 rally required of the very young. And what form were the 

 experiments to assume? Those actually assumed with the young- 

 first as games, then as interesting matter, and subsequently as 

 love of the subject. 



Beyond this, systematic procedure on the part of the ex- 

 perimenter, including regular times for regular periods, and 

 systematic teaching as in schools, could be assumed forthwith 

 as a matter of course. 



Postulating much intimate experience with children and con- 

 siderable reading in pedagogy, with methodological rules to aid, 

 little difficulty would be experienced in drawing up a curri- 

 culum. Still, it would have been out of the question to have 

 formulated a working scheme at once. He would have appealed to 

 his memory for the simplest and most interesting actions to be ac- 

 quired by children, following the day-to-day rule (Conclusion 19) 

 in the effort to recollect, and these would have been only inter- 

 mittently obtained. Discontinuity of the concrete thought process 

 would have thus set in at this point, and he would have periodi- 

 cally returned to his task, alertly watching in the intervals for 

 suggestive experiences and ideas, besides deliberately studying 

 children, according to the day-to-day rule, and consulting books. 



As he reflected over his task, it would have dawned on him 

 in fact, this is a methodological demand (Conclusion 20) that 

 he would be much helped by a simple and comprehensive rule 

 of life. He would directly endeavour to recollect, methodologi- 

 cally, known rules of life, and presumably not find them satis- 

 factory for his purpose. He would, for methodological reasons, 

 desiderate a rule which would embody in a simple form the 

 principal demands of the moral ideal. Again, we shall assume 

 here that the subject was far from being a novelty to him. He 

 would, accordingly, seek to remember such features. He had 

 been charmed and impressed by the geniality of kindergartners, 

 and had discovered the same virtue very widely in modern educa- 

 tional and institutional life. The kindergartners, too, triumphed 

 by being intelligent, instead of being obsessed by routine solutions 

 of difficulties or by authoritarianism. Automatically resorting to 

 generalisation, he would extend intelligence to feeling and will, 

 and thence to the utilisation of the whole of the mind. Here 

 was a great step forward. However, methodologically, this 

 would have led directly to the examination in a standard work 

 on psychology of the lists of the constituents of the human mind. 

 Acceptance and rejection of terms would have alternated, in 

 accordance with the needs of the case and of the experience 

 possessed. Other works on psychology would have been con- 

 sulted with the same object in view, as well as books on ethics. 

 Everything having to be carefully weighed, decision would have 

 been repeatedly postponed. Satisfied at last with the elements 



