SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 231 



we arrive at the law that the simpler the operations (especially in 

 widely disparate senses), the more time is gained in performing 

 them simultaneously, there being a loss of time in doing complex 

 acts at the same moment. 



To multiply on paper 7,897,654,987,896,687,786 by 7 took 

 M. Paulhan 62 seconds; to recite 25 lines of 12 feet each, 38 sec- 

 onds ; the sum of which is 100 seconds. To do both together re- 

 quired 98 seconds, so that this is about the complexity at which 

 there is neither gain nor loss. Here is a simpler pair of processes : 

 to write out the product of 1.321,242,131,221,241,211 by 2 re- 

 quired but II seconds ; to recite a certain couplet, 7 seconds; to do 

 both at once, only 12 seconds, — a saving of 6 seconds in 18. The 

 maximum of saving occurs when it takes no longer to do two acts 

 than one ; then certainly the two are done at once. This occurred 

 when 421,312,217 was multiplied by 2 while 4 lines of 12 feet each 

 were spoken ; each of the processes consuming 6 seconds sepa- 

 rately, and no more when performed together. 



If the two processes are closely similar, and probably calling 

 into action intimately connected brain-centres, there is a more de- 

 cided loss. To write out the product of 33,213,442,124,343 by 2 

 with the left hand while the right does the same for 12,321,443,- 

 432,123 by 2, showed a loss of 15 seconds in 38. The right did 

 the multiplication almost twice as rapidly as the left hand. 



The following times illustrate the same principle : to write four 

 verses of ' Alholie ' required 22 seconds ; to recite eleven verses 

 from de Musset required 31 seconds; to do both at once, only 40 

 seconds. 



The sum of the times necessary to read a selection aloud and to 

 mentally repeat another selection was 33 seconds, while to do both 

 simultaneously required as much as 38 seconds. 



An attempt was made to have three series of mental operations 

 go on side by side ; to have the left hand writing the numbers i, 2, 

 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, while the right wrote a verse, and the vocal ap- 

 paratus recited some lines of poetry. This is a very difficult 

 matter : the two hands tended to work intermittently, and there 

 was much evident hesitation, friction, and loss of time. 



We see, then, that the brain-centres, though closely co-ordi- 

 nated, can so thoroughly acquire the habit of doing their more 

 simple functions that it requires but a small portion of the attention 

 to guide their action, while the rest can be given to the activities of 

 another centre. The more unlike in function the other centre, the 

 better can this subdivision take place. But when the act is com- 

 plex, it soon requires the total amount of attention at command ; 

 and to attempt to do any thing else is a loss of energy. That in- 

 dividuals differ largely in their powers to perform such ' double 

 acts ' goes almost without saying. 



Articulated and Sign Language. — When we wonder at 

 the rapidity with which deaf-mutes spell out their words on their 

 lingers, we are apt to feel that this invention has really diminished 

 the disadvantages of this class of persons almost to a minimum. 

 That such is not the case is vividly suggested by the statistics 

 which a teacher of the deaf-mute has had the patience to gather. 

 He has counted the average number of words which a pupil in his 

 school wrote or spelled on the fingers per day, and finds it to be 

 1,118: the teacher similarly employs 216, but uses signs equiva- 

 lent to 861 words daily. It has been estimated that a mother 

 talks 27,000 words to her child in a day. Making due allowance for 

 the habit of forming only parts of sentences which the deaf-mutes 

 cultivate, and also for the suggestiveness of the sign-language 

 (which hearing people really also use in the form_of an expressional 

 accompaniment), the comparative meagreness of the deaf-mute's 

 conversation, and slowness with which his mental food can be 

 brought to him, are plainly evident. 



BOOK -REVIEWS. 



The Rilling Principle of Method applied to Education. By 

 Antonio Rosmini Serbati. Tr. by Mrs. William Grey. 

 Boston, Heath. 8°. 



Our English educational literature has had no richer contribu- 

 tion than this translation of Rosmini by Mrs. Grey. It is at once 

 philosophical, scientific, and practical. Rosmini himself is too little 



known in this country ; and it was our intention, in noticing this 

 book, to give some slight idea of his life and thought in so far as 

 they moulded educational doctrine. But in this we have been 

 anticipated by Mr. H. C. Bowen, late principal of Finsbury Training- 

 CoUege. As Mr. Bowen's sketch is inaccessible to American readers, 

 we feel that we are doing them a service in reproducing most of it. 

 Mr. Bowen calls Rosmini ' the Italian Froebel.' 

 . Antonio Rosmini Serbati was born at Rovereto, in the Italian 

 Tyrol, in 1797. He died at Stresa in 1855. When it is added that 

 he keenly felt and took an active part in the events of his time, 

 these dates above will suffice to show us that his life is worthy of 

 attention, and was not without its trials and exciting episodes. 



It was towards the close of 1839 that Rosmini, who had already 

 more than once published the results of his study of psychology, 

 undertook his work on pedagogy. It appears that a pious and 

 generous lady of Stresa, Anna Maria Bolongaro, had offered to in- 

 trust to the Institute of the Brethren of Charity (the order founded 

 by Rosmini) the management of an elementary school which her 

 grandfather had founded in that place. The offer was accepted, 

 and Rosmini set to work to compose a complete treatise on peda- 

 gogy. ' The Ruling Principle of Method applied to Education ' is 

 that part of it which he accomplished, and it carries us verj" nearly 

 to the end of the kindergarten age. To quote from Francesco 

 Paoli's preface to the original edition, " Rosmini based his treatise 

 directly upon anthropology and psychology, which gi\-e us the 

 knowledge of the human faculties which we are to educate, and 

 their modes of action ; on idealogy and ethics, which point out the 

 objects, both proximate and ideal, by which the human faculties 

 must be stimulated in order to be properly educated ; and on on- 

 tology and theology, which provide the knowledge of the ends 

 towards which the human faculties should harmoniously develop, to 

 find in them rest and full satisfaction, which is the ultimate goal of 

 human education." Rosmini divides life, not into periods of years, 

 but into stages or degrees of cognition, — the successive acts of the 

 understanding (intellezioni) through which the human mind ad- 

 vances in the development of its powers. The first period extends 

 up to the first smile (roughly, a period of about six weeks), and pos- 

 sesses no definite cognitions, except the primary and fundamental 

 cognition or intuition of being (the innate assurance that something 

 is). It possesses also what Rosmini calls the 'fundamental feel- 

 ing,' or that generally diffused feeling of our own bodies which, 

 though it is not as yet attended to, constitutes us sentient beings. 

 The cognitions of the second period, which extends up to the first 

 articulate word (roughly, till the end of the first year), consist of the 

 simple perception of things as subsisting, with corresponding voli- 

 tions, termed by Rosmini ' affective ' or ' instinctive,' which have 

 these things for their object. Speech is the sign that the child has 

 entered upon the third period of life, or the second order of cogni- 

 tions, this order being formed by the child's analyzing the cognitions 

 of the first order, and by his abstracting the more interesting, sensi- 

 ble qualities of things from the ideas of these things in his mind 

 (imaginal ideas); and to these correspond the affective volitions, 

 which have for their object these more interesting qualities ab- 

 stracted from the actual things, and marked off from the things' 

 other qualities, to which the appetitive faculty is at present indif- 

 ferent. The third order of cognitions shows itself when the child 

 begins to learn to read, say, at the end of the third year. We have 

 now the exercise of the judging faculty, which has become able to 

 connect by synthesis the elements of the previous analysis, and to 

 affirm the existence in a subject of the qualities before abstracted. 

 The corresponding volitions are the estimative or prizing voli- 

 tions, by which the mind recognizes in a thing its interesting quali- 

 ties, and thus estimates them. This is soon followed by the 

 cognitions of the fourth order, which introduce analysis once 

 more, as far as is necessary for forming comparisons between 

 two objects judged of, and giving the preference to one over the 

 other. The volitions belonging to this order are the apprecia- 

 tive, or the volitions of choice. The moral sense, which existed in 

 germ in the preceding periods, now takes a larger development. 

 The cognitions of the fifth order consist in a synthesis by 

 which are determined the relations existing between two things 

 combined into one, and concei\'ed as one, of which conceptions the 

 most important is that of the ' I ' and of self-identity. About this 



