new directions. Play, spontaneous play, is the education of little children; but it is not the whole of their education. Their life is not to be made up of play. Can I not then even now gradually transform their play into work, but work which shall look like play ?-work which shall originate in the same or similar impulses, and exercise the same energies as I see employed in their own amusements and occupations? Play, however, is a random, desultory education. It lays the essential basis; but it does not raise the superstructure. It requires to be organized for this purpose, but so organized that the superstructure shall be strictly related and conformed to the original lines of the foundation.

"I see that these children delight in movement;-they are always walking, or running, jumping, hopping, tossing their limbs about, and, moreover, they are pleased with rythmical movement. I can contrive motives and means for the same exercise of the limbs, which shall result in increased physical power, and consequently in health-shall train the children to a conscious and measured command of their bodily functions, and at the same time be accompanied by the attraction of rythmical sound through song or instrument.

"I see that they use their senses; but merely at the accidental solicitation of surrounding circumstances, and therefore imperfectly. I can contrive means for a definite education of the senses, which shall result in increased quickness of vision, hearing, touch, etc. I can train the purblind eye to take note of delicate shades of color, the dull car to appreciate the minute differences of sound.

"I see that they observe; but their observations are for the most part transitory and indefinite, and often, therefore, comparatively unfruitful. I can contrive means for concentrating their attention by exciting curiosity and interest, and educate them in the art of observing. They will thus gain clear and definite perceptions, bright images in the place of blurred ones,-will learn to recognize the difference between complete and incomplete knowledge, and gradually advance from the stage of merely knowing to that of knowing that they know. "I see that they invent and construct; but often awkwardly and aimlessly. I can avail myself of this instinct, and open to it a definite field of action. I shall prompt them to invention, and train them in the art of construction. The materials I shall use for this end, will be simple; but in combining them together for a purpose, they will enjoy not only their knowledge of form, but their imagination of the capabilities of form. In various ways I shall prompt them to invent, construct, contrive, imitate, and in doing so develop their nascent taste for symmetry and beauty.

"And so in respect to other domains of that child-action which we call play, I see that I can make these domains also my own. I can convert children's activities, energies, amusements, occupations, all that goes by the name of play, into instruments for my purpose, and, therefore, transform play into work. This work will be education in the true sense of the term. The conception of it as such I have gained from the children themselves. They have taught me how I am to teach them.

FREEBEL'S THEORY IN PRACTICE.

I must endeavor to give some notion of the manner in which Froebel reduced his theory to practice. In doing this, the instances I bring forward must be considered as typical. If you admit-and you can hardly do otherwise—the reasonableness of the theory, as founded on the nature of things, you can hardly doubt that there is some method of carrying it out. Now, a method of education involves many processes, all of which must represent more or less the principles which form the basis of the method. It is quite out of my power, for want of time, to describe the various processes which exhibit to us the little child pursuing his education by walking to rhythmic measure, by gymnastic exercises generally, learning songs by heart and singing them, practising his senses with a definite purpose, observing the properties of objects, counting, getting notions of color and form, drawing, building with cubical blocks, modeling in wax or clay, braiding slips of various colored paper after a pattern, pricking or cutting forms in paper, curving wire into different shapes, folding a sheet of paper and gaining

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elementary notions of geometry, learning the resources of the mother-tongue by hearing and relating stories, fables, etc., dramatizing, guessing riddles, working in the garden, etc., etc. These are only some of the activities naturally exhibited by young children, and these the teacher of young children is to employ for his purpose. As, however, they are so numerous, I may well be excused for not even attempting to enter minutely into them. But there is one series of objects and exercises therewith connected, expressly devised by Fræbel to teach the art of observing, to which, as being typical, I will now direct your attention. He calls these objects, which are gradually and in orderly succession introduced to the child's notice, Gifts,-a pleasant name, which is, however, a mere accident of the system: they might equally well be called by any other name.

GIFTS FOR THE CULTURE OF OBSERVATION.

As introductory to the series, a ball made of wool, of say a scarlet color, is placed before the baby. It is rolled along before him on the table, thrown along the floor, tossed into the air, suspended from a string, and used as a pendulum, or spun around on its axis, or made to describe a circle in space, etc. It is then given into his hand; he attempts to grasp it, fails; tries again, succeeds; rolls it along the floor himself, tries to throw it, and, in short, exercises every power he has upon it, always pleased, never wearied in doing something or other with it. This is play, but it is play which resolves itself into education. He is gaining notions of color, form, motion, action and re-action, as well as of muscular sensibility. And all the while the teacher associates words with things and actions, and, by constantly employing words in their proper sense and in the immediate presence of facts, initiates the child in the use of his mother-tongue. Thus, in a thousand ways, the scarlet ball furnishes sensations and perceptions for the substratum of the mind, and suggests fitting language to express them; and even the baby appears before us as an observer, learning the properties of things by personal experience.

Then comes the first Gift. It consists of six soft woolen balls of six different colors, three primary and three secondary. One of these is recognized as like, the others as unlike, the ball first known. The laws of similarity and discrimination are called into action; sensation and perception grow clearer and stronger. I cannot particularize the numberless exercises that are to be got out of the various combinations of these six balls.

The second Gift consists of a sphere, cube, and cylinder, made of hard wood. What was a ball before, is now called a sphere. The different material gives rise to new experiences; a sensation, that of hardness, for instance, takes the place of softness; while varieties of form suggest resemblance and contrast. Similar experiences of likeness and unlikeness are suggested by the behavior of these different objects. The easy rolling of the sphere, the sliding of the cube, the rolling as well as sliding of the cylinder, illustrate this point. Then the examination of the cube, especially its surfaces, edges, and angles, which any child can observe for himself, suggest new sensations and their resulting perceptions. At the same time, notions of space, time, form, motion, relativity in general, take their place in the mind, as the unshaped blocks which, when fitly compacted together, will lay the firm foundation of the understanding. These elementary notions, as the very groundwork of mathematics, will be seen to have their use as time goes on.

The third Gift is a large cube, making a whole, which is divisible into eight

small ones. The form is recognized as that of the cube before seen; the size is different. But the new experiences consist in notions of relativity-of the whole in its relation to the parts, of the parts in their relation to the whole; and thus the child acquires the notion and the names, and both in immediate connection with the sensible objects, of halves, quarters, eighths, and of how many of the small divisions make one of the larger. But in connection with the third Gift a new faculty is called forth-imagination, and with it the instinct of construction is awakened. The cubes are mentally transformed into blocks; and with them building commences. The constructive faculty suggests imitation, but rests not in imitation. It invents, it creates. Those eight cubes, placed in a certain relation to each other, make a long seat, or a seat with a back, or a throne for the Queen; or again, a cross, a doorway, etc. Thus does even play exhibit the characteristics of art, and "conforms (to use Bacon's words) the outward show of things to the desires of the mind"; and thus the child, as I said before, not merely imitates, but creates. And here, I may remark, that the mind of the child is far less interested in that which another mind has embodied in ready prepared forms, than in the forms which he conceives, and gives outward expression to, himself. He wants to employ his own mind, and his whole mind, upon the object, and does not thank you for attempting to deprive him of his rights.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth Gifts consist of the cube variously divided into solid parallelopipeds, or brick-shaped forms, and into smaller cubes and prisms. Observation is called on with increasing strictness, relativity appreciated, and the opportunity afforded for endless manifestations of constructiveness. And all the while impressions are forming in the mind, which, in due time, will bear geometrical fruits, and fruits, too, of æsthetic culture. The dawning sense of the beautiful, as well as of the true, is beginning to gain consistency and power. I cannot further dwell on the numberless modes of manipulation of which these objects are capable, nor enter further into the groundwork of principles on which their efficiency depends.

OBJECTIONS TO THE SYSTEM CONSIDERED.

It is said, for instance, without proof, that we demand too much from little children, and, with the best intentions, take them out of their depth. This might be true, no doubt, if the system of means adopted had any other basis than the nature of the children; if we attempted theoretically, and without regard to that nature, to determine ourselves what they can and what they cannot do; but when we constitute spontaneity as the spring of action, and call on them to do that, and that only, which they can do, which they do of their own accord when they are educating themselves, it is clear that the objection falls to the ground. The child who teaches himself never can go out of his depth; the work he actually does is that which he has strength to do; the load he carries cannot but be fitted to the shoulders that bear it, for he has gradually accumulated its contents by his own repeated exertions. This increasing burden is, in short, the index and result of his increasing powers, and commensurate with them. The objector in this case, in order to gain even a plausible foothold for his objection, must first overthrow the radical principle, that the activities, amusements, and occupations of the child, left to himself, do indeed constitute his earliest education, and that it is an education which he virtually gives himself. Another side of this objection, which is not unfrequently presented to us, derives its plausibility from the assumed incapacity of children. The objector points to this child or that, and denounces him as stupid and incapable. Can

the objector, however, take upon himself to declare that this or that child has not been made stupid even by the very means employed to teach him? The test, however, is a practical one: Can the child play? If he can play, in the sense which I have given to the word, he cannot be stupid. In his play he employs the very faculties which are required for his formal education. "But he is stupid at his books." If this is so, then the logical conclusion is, that the books have made him stupid, and you, the objector, who have misconceived his nature, and acted in direct contradiction to it, are yourself responsible for this. "But he has no memory. He cannot learn what I tell him to learn." No memory! Cannot learn! Let us put that to the test. Ask him about the pleasant holiday a month ago, when he went nutting in the woods. Does he remember nothing about the fresh feel of the morning air, the joyous walk to the wood, the sunshine which streamed about his path, the agreeable companions with whom he chatted on the way, the incidents of the expedition, the climb up the trees, the bagging of the plunder? Are all these matters clean gone out of his mind? " 'Oh, no, he remembers things like these." Then he has a memory, and a remarkably good one. He remembers because he was interested; and if you wish him to remember your lessons, you must make them interesting. He will certainly learn what he takes an interest in.

I need not deal with other objections. They all resolve themselves into the category of ignorance of the nature of the child. When public opinion shall demand such knowledge from teachers as the essential condition of their taking in hand so delicate and even profound an art as that of training children, all these objections will cease to have any meaning.

My close acquaintance with Fræbel's theory, and especially with his root-idea, is comparatively recent. But when I had studied it as a theory, and witnessed something of its practice, I could not but see at once that I had been throughout an unconscious disciple, as it were, of the eminent teacher. The plan of my own course of lectures on the Science and Art of Education was, in fact, constructed in thought before I had at all grasped the Fröbelian idea; and was, in that sense, independent of it.

The Kindergarten is gradually making its way in England, without the achievement as yet of any eminent success; but in Switzerland, Holland, Itály, and the United States, as well as in Germany, it is rapidly advancing. Wherever the principles of education, as distinguished from its practice, are a matter of study and thought, there it prospers. Wherever, as in England for the most part, the practical alone is considered, and where teaching is thought to be "as easy as lying," any system of education founded on psychological laws must be tardy in its progress.

"The Kindergarten has not only to supply the proper materials and opportunities for the innate mental powers, which, like leaves and blossoms in the bud, press forward and impel the children to activity, with so much the more energy the better they are supplied. It has also to preserve children from the harm of civilization, which furnishes poison as well as food, temptations as well as salvation; and children must be kept from this trial till their mental powers have grown equal to its dangers. Much of the success of the Kindergarten (invisible at the time) is negative, and consists in preventing harm. Its positive success, again, is so simple, that it cannot be expected to attract more notice than, for instance, docs fresh air, pure water, or the merit of a physician who keeps a family in health."-Karl Froebel.

TRUE FOUNDATION OF SCIENCE-TEACHING.

It is almost a truism to say, that the foundation of a building is its most important feature. If the foundation be either insecure in itself, or laid without regard to the plan of the superstructure, the building as a whole, will be found wanting both in unity and strength. A building is in fact the embodiment and realization of an idea conceived in the mind of the architect, and if he is competent for his post, and can secure the needful coöperation, the practical expression will symmetrically correspond to the conception. But unless the foundation is solidly laid, and all the parts of the building are constructed with relation to it, his æsthetic and theoretic skill will go for little or nothing. His work is doomed to failure from the beginning, and the extent of the failure will be proportionate to the ambition of the design. These remarks are applicable to the art of building generally, whether shown in large and imposing structures, or in the meanest cottages. In no case can the essential elements of unity and strength be dispensed with. In these preliminary observations I have foreshadowed the subject with which I have to deal that of Scienceteaching-whether carried on under the direction of a Science and Art Department, or in the smallest class of a private school.

WHAT IS SCIENCE?

The first question for consideration is, "What is meant by Science ?" The shortest answer that can be given is, that "Science is organized knowledge." This is, however, too general for our present purpose, which is, to deal with Physical Science. In a somewhat developed form, then, Physical Science is an organized knowledge of material, concrete, objective facts or phenomena. The term "organized," it will be seen, is the essence of the definition, inasmuch as it connotes or implies that certain objective relations subsisting in the nature of things, between facts or phenomena, are subjectively appreciated by the mind —that is, that Science differs from mere knowledge by being a knowledge both of facts, and of their relations to each other. The mere random, haphazard accumulation of facts, then, is not Science; but the perception and conception of their natural relations to each other, the comprehension of these relations under general laws and the organization of facts and laws into one body, the parts of which are seen to be subservient to each other, is Science.

Returning to the other factor of the definition, "Knowledge,” we observe that there are two kinds of knowledge-what we know through our own experience, and what we know through the experience of others. Thus, I know by my own knowledge that I have an audience before me, and I know through the knowledge of others that the earth is 25,000 miles in circumference. This latter fact, however, I know in a sense different from that in which I know the former. The one is a part of my experience, of my very being. The other I can only be strictly said to know when I have, by an effort of the mind, passed through the connected chain of facts and reasonings on which the demonstration is founded. Thus only can it become my knowledge in the true sense of the term.

Strictly speaking, then, organized knowledge, or Science, is originally based on unorganized knowledge, and is the outcome of the learner's own observation of facts through the exercise of his own senses, and his own reflection upon what he has observed. This knowledge, ultimately organized into Science through the operation of his mind, he may with just right call his own; and as