431 



country only at the time and place of meeting of the A. A. A. Si, 

 to say nothing of the other very great advantages of meeting in 

 connection with that prominent organization. 



NOTES. 



The Boston Daily Advertiser, in a recent criticism on the 

 " Statement of the Theory of Education in the United States of 

 America," a pamphlet issued by the Bureau of Education in 

 Washington, offers the following forcible remarks, which illustrate 

 very fairly how favorably the educational ideas of our best scien- 

 tific men are received by the intelligent part of the community : 



" Another point hinted at by the pamphlet is the excessive regard 

 paid to the text-book. The general system of instruction lays 

 special emphasis on the use of text-book's, and the prevalent ten- 

 dency is toward i; into the method of 

 using the printed page in the form of books and periodicals for 

 the purpose of obtaining information from the recorded experience 

 of his fellow-men. but "in many schools and systems of schools, 

 equal or greater stress is laid upon the practical method of con- 

 ducting investigations for tip »t ion and of origi- 

 nal discovery. We presume that the last clause, though rather 

 obscure, points at object lessons, field study and the use of the 

 laboratory, but the words employed elsewhere, "the prevailing 

 custom in American schools is to place a book in the hands of the 

 child when he first enters school, and to begin his instruction with 

 teaching him how to read," sufficiently express the fundamental 

 notion of practical education as it prevails in America. The omis- 

 sion, on the one hand, of a public Kindergarten as initiatory, and 

 the close succession of text-books in every department of study, 

 expose one evil in our system which is not likely to be eradicated 

 by any formal enactment or introduction of new systems, but only 

 by the gradual emancipation of the human mind from its present 

 subjection to the printing-press. The extent to which the present 

 system is carried is appalling when we consider it fairly. The 

 teacher is -in danger of being buried under the accumulation of 

 text-books; not only the whole field of experimental science is 

 still largely in bondage to the printed page, but the whole field of 

 scientific observation is in danger of being cultivated through the 

 medium of text-books which do not tend to lead the young student 

 to nature, but offer themselves as a substitute for nature. We 

 look indeed to natural science and natural history as the appointed 

 means for freeing the human mind in this direction. The teacher 

 who learns to instruct his classes by direct observation of nature 

 Will begin to apply the same principle in other departments of 

 study. English literature, for example, will be taught less by 



