SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF INSTRUCTION. 159 
ill-defined and whimsical notions which too often find vent from superheated im- 
aginations? A single illustration: A teacher writes me concerning these views: 
*¢ How can a child get an idea of an isthmus and such things without learning 
the definition first and then applying them?” Evidently this teacher can not 
understand how knowledge can be gained without beginning with a definition, 
mastering it, then producing an example Suppose a pail of water be carefully 
poured out upon the school yard. Let the pupil see the little handful of dirt 
surrounded by water, then give ita name. All the other geographical facts may 
thus be beautifully experienced and made known to the pupil, after which the 
separate parts may receive their several names. ‘Thus do we advance from per- 
ceptions to abstract ideas. Then follows the question, ‘‘ How can children get 
an idea of the extent of land and water without learning the definition first?” 
After what has been said, this question is evidently an absurd one. Still, the 
question is a natural one, since the most of our school text-books, beginning as 
they do with definitions followed by illustrations (which are occasional), thus to- 
tally reversing the order of mental growth, are but splendid examples of human 
folly, which the next century will not tolerate. 
The character of so-called knowledge depends largely upon the condition of 
mind—whether active or passive—in its acquisition. The passive state receives 
information from the teacher or text-book carefully cut out and clearly sepa- 
rated from the many things with which it was in irregular and mixed contact. 
The child’s mental faculties, in committing this formulated knowledge to memory 
have been inactive save the effort to refer the several symbols back to former ex- 
periences. For a moment think of the obscurities, the opposing facts, the thread- 
like hints, the vague confirmations, the tentative efforts, the sudden checks, and 
the great discouragements, out of which have grown the finished educational 
products he so listlessly receives. The pupil knows nothing of those uniting, 
conflicting and jostling facts, but these very facts are the first things with which 
he will meet when he finally passes the threshhold of the school room, and in 
manhood’s prime, he sees and feels that the school has wholly failed in teaching 
him the process of knowing and the methods used, by which the finished forms 
of knowledge became known. 
In the active state of mind the pupil takes hold of the object, be it material 
or spiritual, and personally examines it, 7 ¢. he determines (if the object be for- 
mulated knowledge) whether the relations among his experiences are like those 
relations asserted in the text. If material objects are under examination he feels 
the spring of their substance then names it ‘ elasticity”; he breaks it then calls 
it brittle; his hand passes over it and he calls it rough; he lifts it, then calls it 
light ; and generally, he first experiences, then names those experiences. Names 
appear after experiences, numerous illustrations after the names, and definition 
after those illustrations—the definition being the finished product, the sign of 
previous investigation. In primary instruction, at least, knowing should ante- 
date the naming. In the active state the mind is not only discovering, but it is 
