842 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 626. 



games. While I advocate rational athlet- 

 ics, I deeply deplore semi-gladiatorial ex- 

 hibitions which put the emphasis in the 

 wrong places, and which mislead and de- 

 moralize the entire student-body. There 

 has been a drift backward of late years 

 towards a species of barbarism, which we 

 had fancied we had outgrown. It becomes 

 scientific men to restore, or better, to estab- 

 lish, a condition of educational equilibrium. 



I can not even mention all the matters 

 of prime importance which would speedily 

 come before an educational section. The 

 organization and functions of boards of 

 education are matters of the greatest mo- 

 ment at the present time, and I suspect they 

 have a perennial interest. It is already on 

 the program of one of your sections. 



Some thirty years ago kindergartens 

 were incorporated into the course of in- 

 struction of the public schools of St. Louis, 

 and later into the schools of many other 

 cities. The constitution of the state of 

 Missouri— very unwisely, I think— does not 

 allow children under six years of age to 

 attend any form of a public school ; yet we 

 shall all agree that the best kindergarten 

 ages are the fifth and sixth years. Never- 

 theless, nearly every child in St. Louis for 

 the last thirty years has attended kinder- 

 garten during his entire seventh year, 

 taking up the primer for the first time 

 upon entering the 'first grade' when seven 

 years old. 



In spite of occasional protests and claims 

 that valuable time is thereby wasted, the 

 plan is fairly popular and there is no near 

 prospect of change. The later progress of 

 the relatively mature children in the first 

 grade is remarkable, and many observant 

 principals think that ultimately no time is 

 lost. As for myself, my judgment is in 

 suspense, and yet I have sent five children 

 to the kindergarten. It is always difficult 

 to compare what has been with what might 

 have been, and with what would have been, 



had things been different. Suppose I refer 

 this all-important matter to scientific edu- 

 cators, 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



Perhaps the most valuable contribution 

 to the science of education ha^ come 

 through a study of the laws which obtain 

 in the growth and development of the 

 brain, and the conditions under which that 

 growth and development is most healthy 

 and complete. There are times and sea- 

 sons for the development of the mental 

 and moral faculties as there are of the 

 physical faculties. AVhile such times and 

 seasons are not precisely the same for all 

 children, we find that all attempts at pre- 

 mature development are not only worthless, 

 but are permanently injurious. Precocity 

 is now regarded as a species of brain de- 

 formity. Plants and animals may be 

 forced, and unusual and interesting results 

 may be produced by forcing, but no one of 

 us wishes a son or a daughter to be a 

 prodigy in one direction at the cost of 

 normal development in other directions. 



The psychologists tell us that the brain 

 cells develop as do other physical organs, 

 not only through thought, but through 

 muscular activity and the exercise of our 

 senses. Accordingly, a healthy and timely 

 growth and development of the brain is to 

 be promoted by an education involving a 

 great variety of activities, skilfully adjust- 

 ed as to quality and quantity to the mental 

 and physical status of the child. I have 

 often thought, when candidates for admis- 

 sion to Washington University present 

 themselves, that, instead of asking them 

 several sets of questions on a variety of 

 somewhat conventional subjects, I would 

 like to take off their skulls and brain cov- 

 erings, and see how fully their primal brain 

 cells were developed, and the extent to 

 which the network of intercommunication 

 between cells had been established and was 



