LEARN AND SEARCH. 445 



action of his organs. His pleasure increases with every advance 

 that he makes. This property is innate. How it is exercised is in 

 the first place dependent on the condition of his organs. Many 

 diversities of behavior appear among children early, according as 

 they are limited by inborn, and often inherited, differences in 

 their faculties. 



Is this property peculiar to children alone ? Surely not. It 

 abides in the man till his mature age, provided his organs are nor- 

 mal, and as long as no disturbance or interruption by outer influ- 

 ences intervenes. What pleasure does even the learned man ex- 

 perience when a new field of knowledge is unlocked to him ; even 

 in his old age, how enlivened is his thirst for learning when he 

 succeeds in getting a glance into new series of phenomena of Na- 

 ture or of the human mind which had been previously incompre- 

 hensible or inaccessible to him ! How does it happen that young, 

 cultivated men, under training to become academical freemen, 

 escape this general human property ? It is in them without 

 doubt, but has not rarely been repressed by some objectless treat- 

 ment. Then the thing to be done is not to call it out for the first 

 time, but to revivify it. 



From the desire to learn, when well directed, is developed the 

 desire for knowledge. Not satisfied with the knowledge of a fact, 

 with the perception of a phenomenon, the desire to learn urges 

 on to the understanding of it. It searches for the connection of 

 phenomena and processes, their history and causes, and is never 

 quite satisfied till it has grasped their genetic and causal rela- 

 tions. This is the mark of a real desire for knowledge. With it 

 comes the beginning of research. A disposition to investigate 

 can be recognized in the child to the extent that it divides the 

 object it has in hand into its parts and tries to put them together 

 again into a whole ; or it imitates a movement, to learn what it 

 must do to bring it about. Training thus finds all the elements 

 present ; it has only to use them and direct them in methodical 

 ways. This comes to pass when attention is fixed on the connec- 

 tions, interest is stimulated, the study is directed to the principal 

 fact and diverted from the subsidiary ones. 



We can now raise the question, Does this take place in our 

 schools ? Even in the lower schools the desire for learning is so 

 greatly perverted that with no small portion of our people, not 

 the love of knowledge, but only its lowest form, curiosity, is cul- 

 tivated — that disposition which is satisfied with a superficial and 

 therefore incomplete comprehension, following which attention is 

 directed to new objects. Thus, an innate and naturally worthy 

 property is misdirected and brought to a form of expression which 

 is at least purposeless and not rarely injurious. 



When the love of knowledge is awakened in the childish mind 



