of practical educators and psychologists, we can claim to possess a reasonable degree of certainty as to the best arrangement and sequence of studies and the best methods of stimulating the mind and imparting knowledge. Upon these important questions there is still considerable diversity of opinion. Some educators think we should be very sparing of abstractions in the instruction of younger pupils. Others are of a contrary opinion. Professor Baldwin, for example, in his little work on The Mind, says that "grammar is one of the very best of primary-school subjects." He also recommends mathematics. These are questions which, it seems to us, admit of being finally settled. Allowance must of course be made for the varying capacities of individual children, but this need not stand in the way of the establishment of some general doctrine as to the law of development of the human mind. We shall then further require a true theory of method in education, so that we may know by what means the best results in the imparting of knowledge and the development of the capacities of the individual mind may be obtained. Assuming that these vantage points have been gained, education should be for every mind an eminently healthful and invigorating process, which is more than can be said for the forms of education that have prevailed in the past. These, while developing certain faculties, have, to a great extent, stunted others—have indeed, in too many cases, fatally impaired the natural powers of the mind. A notable paper, which appeared in the first number of this magazine, was one by the late Dr. Carpenter on The Artificial Cultivation of Stupidity in Schools. Professor Baldwin, in the work already cited, seems to be of the opinion that the process of cultivating stupidity, or at least mental shiftlessness, is in full blast to-day in many of our secondary schools owing to the prominence given to language studies. The science of education must at least put an end to this, and insure that the youths who are committed to the public schools shall not be subjected to any mind-destroying exercises. We can hope, however, that it will do much more. The mind, like the body, grows by what it feeds upon; and it is hard to conceive that suitable kinds of knowledge could be imparted in a natural manner, so as to awaken interest and develop the perceptive and reasoning powers, without at least preparing the mind for the reception of right sentiments.
So much the science of education, when it is fairly established, may reasonably be expected to do. It will deal with the mind upon true hygienic principles. There remains the more serious question how such a moral atmosphere can be created as will incline the young to take a right view of knowledge and its uses. Knowledge, it is hardly necessary to say, is power, just as money is power; and it is quite as needful that the idea of social service should be associated with the one as with the other. The best social service which, perhaps, any man can render is to give to the world the example of high disinterestedness and general nobility of character; and knowledge should be valued not as conferring individual distinction, but according as it expands and liberalizes the mind. The poet Coleridge has said with some truth that
"Fancy is the power
That first unsensualizes the dark mind.
Giving it new delights; and bids it swell
With wild activity; and peopling air,
By obscure fears of beings invisible,
Emancipates it from the grosser thrall
Of the present impulse, teaching self-control,
Till Superstition with unconscious hand
Seat Reason on her throne."
The mind having been "unsensualized," the next step is to moralize
