xxxii • Appendix. 



of learning, etc., and so work that will prove a healthy stimulus to one, will 

 exhaust and over-tax the other. If a child has had his intellect carefully 

 and slowly unfolded, he will be in a very different position at six or seven 

 years of age to one whose mental faculties have been uncultivated up to 

 that time ; the memory may be exercized with safety, and the gift of imita- 

 tion, so strong in childhood, made use of from an early age. The mind, 

 Uke the body, is amenable to proper management, and when this is gradual, 

 and not premature or forced, the power of learning will be made easy in 

 proportion. The process of pressure must be carried on with a full appre- 

 ciation of what the child can do with pleasure, and must not cause weariness, 

 our object being to make the acquirement of knowledge pleasureable rather 

 than painful. "We may generally take it for granted that the rise of an 

 appetite for any kind of information implies that the unfolding mind has 

 become fit to assimilate it, and needs it for purposes of growth ; and that, 

 on the other hand, the disgust felt towards such information is a sign either 

 that it is prematurely presented, or that it is presented in an unwholesome 

 form. 



In this, as in all systems, the more we can find out and follow nature's 

 plan of working the more likely are we to be successful. We should endea- 

 vour to conform education to the natural process of mental evolution, for 

 there is undoubtedly a certain sequence in which the faculties spontaneously 

 develope, and a certain kind of knowledge which each requires diuiug its 

 development ; and it should be our constant endeavour to ascertain this 

 sequence, and supply the knowledge necessary for each period. It has been 

 truly said, ' ' The method of nature is the archetype of aU methods :" and if this 

 be studied and carried mto practice in putting pressure upon children, we 

 may before long find that subjects which a short time ago were distasteful 

 are now becoming pleasant, or, if not actually pleasant, yet undertaken with 

 much more cheerfulness than they would have been had we pressed them 

 upon a child, at a time when nature seemed to cry out against them. A 

 time, of com'se, comes when uninteresting work must be faced and done, 

 and by no means can we make it otherwise than uninteresting. Now it is 

 that great care is necessary. "We must try and measure carefuUy the child's 

 power to support the strain of forced attention ; the time spent in this unin- 

 teresting work should not be long without allowing either a certain amount 

 of rest or change of occupation ; for if it is continued after the child gets 

 weary of it, no more will be learned, and, if this continues for any length of 

 time, the health of the child will suffer and his mental powers become 

 impahed. 



Dr. Eichardson, in speaking of education at this period, says : — 

 •' Another error consists in failing to allow for difference of mental 



