108 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
sure there is opportunity for research that will yield rich returns to an industrious 
explorer. 
To return again to the intellect; an illustration: The eye falls upon a fruit- 
dish, and observations are made. After a lapse of a few minutes the word, 
‘‘fruit-dish,” suggests its peculiar form, its leaf designs, its fruit reliefs, its soft 
color, its position, its majolica material, its use, its grace and beauty and its slight 
defect. A week hence, its name suggests distinctly its form, its color less dis- 
tinctly, and the details of its ornamentation with increasing faintness. A year 
hence, these scanty details have lapsed into no little obscurity, the name ‘‘ fruit- 
dish”’ being as powerless to awaken original conceptions, in the fullness of their 
details, as Xenocrates’ definition of soul: ‘‘A number moving itself.” But what 
must be the significance of this term to a child who has even never observed one 
especially designed for the double purpose of ornament and for holding fruit ? 
To strengthen this position, let me quote from an eminent educator, (Dr. Porter,) 
since teachers as well as other people rely more upon authority than upon their 
own common sense: ‘‘The impressions received from words, by one who has 
never witnessed the reality, are but as thin and pallid shadows, when contrasted 
with full and glowing intuitions.” It must be admitted, then, that while the 
teacher’s work remains among symbols, he handles a currency whose value is as 
shifting or changeable as the diversity of minds to which he appeals. These sym- 
bols form a redeemable currency, but not a currency that is oft redeemed. There 
‘is but one way for our educational systems to act in this matter, and that is to ~ 
insist upon the evident necessity of the pupils first knowing the thing itself, then 
learning its name, followed up by a frequent reference of the symbol to the real 
object which that symbol represents. Only by this method can the increasing 
faintness of symbols be counteracted. Again, we teach by the use of symbols. 
Symbols of what? Symbols of former perceptions. Where have those experi- 
ences taken place? At the indulgent and perhaps wrangling home and upon the 
noisy, distracting street. Under what circumstances? By the merest accident 
and without careful examination; occurring among scenes of confusion or in 
moments of excitement; in hours of despond@fcy, when emotion silenced the 
intellect; in a hap-hazard manner, when experiences are neither analyzed nor 
respectably put together and were forborne because unavoidable. Now, the 
question arises, ‘‘If the original experiences have been so imperfectly mastered, 
how can their symbols possess a high value? And if these symbols are the com- 
mon currency of teacher and pupil who can longer wonder that the child’s prog- 
gress is not only plodding but very discouraging? In view of these unrefuted 
facts, I fearlessly assert that no attempt at instruction is entitled to the name of 
system, or, is even tolerable, which does not provide for the systematizing and 
perfecting of experiences throughout the course of instruction. ‘The corollary is 
sufficiently obvious; our schools must be provided with apparatus and specimens 
with which to reinforce the symbols, and, primarily, to furnish new experiences. 
Until those almost meaningless symbols, the sole possession of the average child 
