He who carries out an examination, or supposes himself to be

performing a "psychical measurement" by dwelling on psychical results,

is in reality measuring a mixture of two unknown quantities, one of

which, being external to the individual, nullifies the results of

research.

Hence, to study individual differences in isolated activities, such as

the perception of colors, musical sounds, the letters of the alphabet;

or the capacity for observation of surroundings and the detection of

errors; or coordination of movements, language, etc., it is essential

to have first determined a _constant_ element: the means of

development offered by environment.

Here a simple and clearly defined difference between pedagogy and

psychology manifests itself: pedagogy determines experimentally the

means of development and the method of applying them while respecting

the internal or personal liberty of the individual; psychology studies

average reactions or individual reactions in the species or the

individual. But the two things are two aspects of a single fact, which

is the development of man; the individual and the environment are the

two factors X and E of the same product: the psychical entity.

Isolated psychical researches of a moral order must also, if they are

to be of any real value, be based upon prolonged observation, _after

the internal activities have become orderly_; because it is easy to

make errors of judgment in a chaos. In clinical psychiatry or in

criminal pathology, when we speak of "keeping a subject under

observation" for purposes of diagnosis, we mean placing him in

special surroundings, under hygienic and disciplinary conditions,

etc., and observing him for some time in such an environment. Such a

process has a value still more extensive and profound in the case of

normal individuals in process of evolution. In such a case it is

necessary not only to offer orderly external surroundings, but to

reduce the chaotic internal world of the child to order, and, after

this, to observe him for a considerable time.

We may offer as an illustration the following observations made upon

two of the most interesting children who attended our schools. They

were admitted into the training school for teachers during my last

International Course in Rome.

ASPECTS OF THE TWO CHILDREN

_During the period they were retained as subjects for anthropological

observation in the class-room for teachers_

There was a considerable clamor among the students; some were talking,

some laughing. In the center of the room stood a pedometer. The

behavior of the two children was almost identical. They were sitting

apart quietly, working at the lacing frames which they had gone

spontaneously to fetch from a neighboring room; they did not look up

at the noise, nor join in the laughter. Their attitude was that of

persons at work and anxious not to lose any time. When invited by a

single gesture to come and be measured, they obeyed in a wonderful

manner, leaving off work at once, and moving with smiles, as if

fascinated; they evidently felt pleasure in obeying, and an internal

delight which came from the consciousness of being able to work, and

of being ready to leave something that they liked doing, at a summons

to something of a higher order. They arranged themselves very

carefully on the pedometer to be measured; when any modification was

necessary in the position of the body, it sufficed to murmur a word in

their ears and the almost imperceptible movement required was made

with the utmost exactitude; they could control their voluntary

movements and direct them; they were able to translate the words they

heard into actions: _this enabled them_ to obey, and this constituted

for them a fascinating internal conquest. When the measuring was over,

nothing was said; they waited expectantly for a moment, then gave an

intelligent glance and a smile, which was, as it were, their greeting;

they had understood, and they returned voluntarily to their corner to

take up their frames and resume their work. Presently they were wanted

again, and the same actions were repeated.

When we think that children of their age (about four and a half), when

left to themselves, will roam about, upsetting objects almost

unconsciously, and requiring either some one to submit to their

caprices, or to call them roughly to order, we shall recognize the

internal perfection achieved in these two little ones, who have

arrived at that stage of development in which work has become a

_habit_, and obedience a fascinating acquisition.

The anthropometric measurements had shown that one of the children,

_O_, was normal in measurement (weight, stature, length of torso) and

the other, _A_, below the normal measurements.

Here are some notes made by the teacher on the conduct of these two

children when they were in the state of disorder, or undisciplined:

_O_: violent, turbulent, spiteful to his companions, never applies to

anything, but looks on at what the others are doing and then

interrupts them; or listens to the individual lessons given by the

teacher with a scornful and cynical expression. The father of the

child says that at home he is violent, overbearing, and intractable.

_A_: is quiet. But he has almost a mania for spying on his companions,

and pointing out to the teacher every little action that might be

considered wrong or incorrect.

Both of the children are very poor. _O_ is almost entirely neglected

by his family.

* * * * *

_Later judgment_ the teacher was enabled to form of these two children

after they had reduced themselves to order by means of work:

_O_: all the turbulence shown by _O_ in his home resolved itself into

a struggle for bread; the father, who was very poor, but also

neglectful, denied the child bread; the child did not resign himself,

did not cry, but struggled constantly, with all the means at his

disposal, in order to obtain his portion of bread. When the teacher

asked the father why he denied the child bread, he replied: "Because,

when he has eaten it, he asks for more."

In school, this child ran from group to group, from lesson to lesson,

disturbing the others and passing over everything, because he was

struggling to win his spiritual food after the same fashion.

He is a child who has an overpowering will to live: self-preservation

seems to be his most strongly developed tendency.

When his life was assured, the child became not only gentle, but

remarkable for his sweetness and delicacy of feeling. He was the child

who, in his joy when he had learned or completed some task, looked

round lovingly at his companions, and blew little kisses to them from

his fingers. Whereas for the other children who had entered into the

phase of order or discipline, the teacher's note is: "work," for _O_

the note is: "work and kindness."

Before the daily hot meal was instituted, the children used to bring

their own luncheons, which varied very much; two or three of the

children were very generously provided, and had meat, fruit, etc. _O_

was seated next to one of these. The table was set, and _O_ had

nothing to put upon his plate but the piece of bread he had so

strenuously acquired; he glanced at his neighbor as if to regulate

himself by the time the latter would take over his meal, but with no

trace of envy; on the contrary, with great dignity he tried to eat his

piece of bread very slowly, in order that he might not finish before

the other, and thus make it evident that he had nothing more to eat

while the other was still busy. He nibbled his bread slowly and

seriously.

What a sense of his own dignity--subduing the desires of an appetite

exposed to temptation--existed in this child, together with his sense

of the fundamental needs of his own life, by which he was impelled to

struggle and to conquer what was "necessary." And there was further

that exquisite sensibility, which manifested itself in the

affectionate expression of his mobile face, and in the effusion of a

general tenderness which looked for no return.

A very remarkable thing was that this child, whom we might have

expected to find ill-nourished, gave normal anthropological

measurements and weight for his age. Born in poverty and neglect, he

had defended himself; the normality of his body was due to an heroic

effort.

_A_: this child was always calm and quiet; he very soon entered upon

the phase of active, ordered, willing and thorough work. He applied

himself with intense earnestness and perseverance. He would be the

type of the clever, well-behaved child of the ordinary school. Very

often he came to school without any food. His _goodness_ had a

_positive_ character which became a mortal danger to himself; he

accepted mal-nutrition without revolt; he profited greatly by the

means of psychical life that were offered him, but he would never have

been able to conquer them for himself. His goodness continued to be of

the same type after as before the period of order; he showed neither

agitation nor expansion. His anthropological measurements, which were

below the normal, already indicated that he had started on life's

pilgrimage with the gait of the victim; he belonged to the company of

those "who must be saved by others."

The characteristic moral trait was "espionage." The teacher, when

observing him, noticed that the child did not work simply like the

others, but came to her very frequently to know if what he was doing

was well or ill done. And this not only during his work with the

materials, but also in reference to every act of a moral nature he

accomplished; his great preoccupation seemed to be to know whether he

was doing right or wrong. Then he endeavored to do right with the most

scrupulous exactitude. With regard to his spying tendencies, the

teacher noted the child never showed any animosity towards his

companions; he watched them attentively, and then proceeded to say of

them as he would say of himself: So and so did this; was it right or

wrong? The child was then careful to avoid what had been pronounced

"wrong" in others.

What appeared to be his spying proclivities were, in fact, a

manifestation of the problem that dominated his childish conscience:

the problem of right and wrong. The limited experience of his own life

did not suffice him; he wanted to benefit by the experience of all the

others in order to learn what things were right and what were wrong;

almost as if the one feeling that absorbed him was the desire to do

right and avoid wrong, and as if this were his sole aspiration. The

case of this child recalls a popular superstition expressed in such

terms as "too good to live." The child _A_ seemed destined for the

fate thus suggested. The needs of the body did not greatly concern

him, and he seemed equally indifferent to those of the mind; goodness

was the mainspring of his being. If society does not note such

dispositions, and assume the special protection of such frail lives,

children of this type go forward to premature death like angels gazing

heavenwards.

These two accounts, due to Signorina Maccheroni's observation, correct

a superficial judgment which, in an ordinary school, would have become

a permanent record of character: the one child would have been branded

as _violent_, the other as a _spy_.

If we call that science which led to the translation of these words

into _hero_ and _angel_, and touched so many hearts in the vicinity of

these two children, when they had been interpreted by their wonderful

instructress, we shall be able to assert that "the judgment of love is

the judgment of knowledge." The mercy of Christ in judging is here

illustrated.

* * * * *

"Psychical action," then, starts from a principle which may be

translated thus: "that the child lives." All the rest comes as a

consequence.

This action of fundamental life manifests itself as a _polarization_

of the internal personality: almost at a point of crystallization,

around which, provided there be homogeneous material and an

undisturbed environment, _the definitive form composes itself_.

This initial action is a task _repeated_ with a special intensity of

attention.

In my "biographical chart," therefore, I do not give a long formula of

analytical studies, but I give a "guide to psychological

observations," founded upon the synthetical conception which I have

sought to illustrate. Those who have not been _initiated_ into this

method of observation will gain no light from such a guide, which lies

entirely outside the conceptions of psychological study now obtaining

in connection with the observation of pupils. But those who have been

initiated will understand it without the aid of illustration.

Our teachers have also a terminology by means of which they understand

each other, without having recourse to the ordinary expressions, which

do not convey an exact idea of the action they see in process of

development. Thus they never say: The child is developing, or

progressing, the child is good or naughty, etc. The only phraseology

they use is: The child _is becoming disciplined_ or _is not becoming

disciplined_. It is internal order that they await; and on this

principle of being or not being, all or nothing depends.

This evokes a much deeper conception than that of "growth." To say

that a living creature _grows_ is to make a very superficial

statement, seeing that he grows indeed, _but in virtue of the fact_

that, within, an orderly and regular disposition of substances is in

progress.

When, for instance, the embryo of an animal is formed, it grows; but

any one who has observed it internally must have been struck by a fact

much more marvelous than that of the visible external "growth." A

wonderful internal grouping of the cells takes place; some form, as it

were, a leaf which folds over and makes the intestines, others

separate to form the nervous system, one group isolates and

specializes itself to make the liver, and thus an organization of

parts, more and more pronounced, together with a minute

differentiation of each individual arrangement of the cells, is

carried on. The future functions of the body all depend upon the

possibility of the cells so establishing themselves.

The important point is, not that the embryo _grows_, but that it

_coordinates_. "Growth" comes through and by order, which also makes

life possible. An embryo which grows without coordinating its internal

organs is not vital. Here we have not only the impulse, but the

mystery of life. The evolution of internal order is the essential

condition for the realization of vital existence in a life which

possesses the impulse to exist.

Now the sum of the phenomena indicated in the "guide to psychological

observation" actually represents the evolution of spiritual _order_ in

the child.

* * * * *

=Guide to psychological observation=. WORK.--Note when a

child begins to occupy himself for any length of time upon a task.

What the task is and how long he continues working at it (slowness in

completing it and repetition of the same exercise).

His individual peculiarities in applying himself to particular tasks.

To what tasks he applies himself during the same day, and with how

much perseverance.

If he has periods of spontaneous industry, and for how many days these

periods continue.

How he manifests a desire to progress.

What tasks he chooses in their sequence, working at them steadily.

Persistence in a task in spite of stimuli in his environment which

would tend to distract his attention.

If after deliberate interruption he resumes the task from which his

attention was distracted.

CONDUCT.--Note the state of order or disorder in the acts of the

child.

His disorderly actions.

Note if changes of behavior take place during the development of the

phenomena of work.

Note whether during the establishment of ordered actions there are:

crises of joy;

intervals of serenity;

manifestations of affection.

The part the child takes in the development of his companions.

OBEDIENCE.--Note if the child responds to the summons when he is

called.

Note if and when the child begins to take part in the work of others

with an intelligent effort.

Note when obedience to a summons becomes regular.

Note when obedience to orders becomes established.

Note when the child obeys eagerly and joyously.

Note the relation of the various phenomena of obedience in their

degrees

(_a_) to the development of work;

(_b_) to changes of conduct.

IV

THE PREPARATION OF THE TEACHER

The possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of

the child as natural phenomena and experimental reactions transforms

the _school itself in action_ into a kind of scientific laboratory for

the psycho-genetic study of man. It will become--perhaps in the near

future--the experimental field _par excellence_ of the psychologist.

To prepare such a school as perfectly as possible, is therefore not

only to prepare "a better method for the education of children," but

also to prepare the materials for a renovated science. Every one now

knows that students of natural science require in their laboratories

an organization directed to the _preparation_ of the material to be

observed. To observe a simple cell in movement, it is necessary to

have a hollow glass slide with cavity for the hanging drop; to have

ready "fresh solutions" in which the living cells may be immersed, to

ensure their continued vitality; to have ready soils for cultures,

etc. For all these ends there are special avocations, those of the

so-called "preparers," who are not the assistants or helpers of the

professor, but _employés_ who were at one time upper servants, and

then become superior workmen. At the present day they are, however,

nearly always themselves scientific graduates. For, indeed, their task

is a most delicate one; they must possess biological, physical, and

chemical knowledge, and the more thoroughly they are "prepared" by a

culture analogous to that of the masters of research themselves, the

more rapid and secure is the march of science.

It is strange to think that among all these laboratories of natural

science, only that of "experimental psychology" has judged it possible

to dispense with an organization for the preparation of the subjects

to be observed. If to-day a psychologist were told to arrange the work

of his preparer, he would take this to mean the preparation of his

"instruments," thus adopting more or less the standard of laboratories

of _physics_.

But the idea of preparing the living being which produces the

phenomenon would not enter his mind; and yet, if merely to observe a

cell, a living microbe, the scientist needs a "preparer," how much

greater must be the necessity for such an assistant when the subject

to be observed is man!

Psychologists consider that they can prepare their "subjects" by

arresting their attention with a word, and explaining to them how they

are to proceed in order to respond to the experiment; any unknown

person met by chance in the laboratory will serve their purpose. In

short, the psychologist of to-day behaves somewhat like the child who

catches a butterfly in flight, observes it for a second and then lets

it fly away again; not like the biologist who takes care that his

preparations are properly carried out in a scientific laboratory.

On the other hand, the picture of psychological development, even

though it be incomplete, which is shown to us in our experiments,

demonstrates the subtlety with which it is necessary to present to the

child the means of his development and, above all, to respect his

liberty; conditions which are essential to ensure that psychical

phenomena be revealed and may constitute a true "material for

observation"; all this demands a special environment, and the

preparation of a practical staff, forming a whole infinitely superior

in complexity and in organization to the ordinary natural science

laboratories. Such a laboratory can only be the most perfect school,

organized according to scientific methods, where the teacher is a

person answering to the "preparer" graduate.

True, all schools would not achieve this lofty scientific ideal. But

it is indisputable that schools and teachers should all be directing

their efforts towards the domain of the experimental sciences. The

psychical salvation of children is based upon the means and the

liberty to live, and these should become another of the "natural

rights" accorded to the new generations; established as a social and

philosophic conception, it should supersede the present "obligation to

provide instruction," which is a burden not only on State economy but

also on the vigor of posterity. If the psychical phenomena of the

children in the national schools do not tend to enrich psychology,

they become ends in themselves, just as the beauty of Nature is an end

in itself.

The new school, indeed, must not be created for the service of a

science, but for the service of living humanity; and teachers will be

able to rejoice in the contemplation of lives unfolding under their

eyes, without sharing the spectacle with science, wrapped in a holy

egoism which will exalt their spirits as does every intimate contact

with living souls.

It is unquestionable that with this method of education the

preparation of the teacher must be made _ex novo_, and that the

personality and social importance of the instructress will be

transformed thereby.

Even after the first desultory experiments hitherto made, a new type

of mistress has been evolved; instead of facility in speech, she has

to acquire the power of silence; instead of teaching, she has to

observe; instead of the proud dignity of one who claims to be

infallible, she assumes the vesture of humility.

* * * * *

This transformation has a parallel in that undergone by the university

professor, when the positive sciences began to play their part in the

world. What a difference between the dignified old-world professor,

draped in a robe often ermine-trimmed, seated on his high chair as on

a throne, and speaking so authoritatively that students were not only

bound to believe all he said, but to swear _in verbo magistri_, and

the professor of to-day, who leaves the high places to the students

that they may be able to see, reserving for himself the lowest

station, on the bare floor; while the students are all seated, he

alone stands, often clad in a gray linen blouse like a workman.

The students know that they will be on the way to the highest degree

of progress when they are capable of "verifying" the theses of the

professor--nay, more, of giving a further impetus to science, and

inscribing their own names among those quoted as having contributed to

its wealth or having discovered new truths.

Dignity and hierarchy in these schools have been superseded by

interest in the chemical or physical or natural phenomena to be

produced; and in presence of this all the rest disappears. The whole

arrangement of the laboratory is subject to the same purpose; if the

phenomenon requires light, all the walls are of glass; if darkness be

necessary, the laboratory is so constructed that it may be transformed

into a _camera obscura_. The one thing of importance is the

production of the phenomenon, be this a bad smell or a perfume, an

electric spark or the colors of Geissler's tubes, a resonance with

Helmholtz's reverberators, or the geometrical arrangement of fine dust

on a metallic plate in vibration; the shape of a leaf or the

contraction of a frog's muscle; the study of the blind spot in the eye

or the rhythm of cardiac pulsation; all is equal and all is included;

the eager and absorbing quest is the quest of truth. It is this which

the new generation demands from science, not the oratorical art of the

professor, the noble gesture, the quip that lightens the weight of the

discourse, the lively peroration of the carefully elaborated harangue,

and all those expedients which were once developed by a special art

for the express purpose of capturing the attention. It is passion for

knowledge rather than attention which now animates our young people,

who often come out of university halls remembering neither the voice

nor the appearance of their professor.

But this does not connote the absence of love and respect for the

master. Only, the veneration a modern student feels in the depths of

his heart for the great scientist and benefactor of humanity, who

stands before him unassumingly dressed in a linen blouse, differs

essentially from the fear tempered by ridicule which the gown and wig

once inspired.

The transformation of schools and teachers must now proceed on the

same lines.

When in a school everything revolves around a fundamental fact, and

this fact is a natural phenomenon, the school will have entered the

orbit of science. Then the teacher must assume those "characteristics"

which are necessary in the presence of science.

Among its devotees we find "characteristics" independent of the

content of thought; in short, physicists, chemists, astronomers,

botanists, and zoologists, though their content of knowledge is

entirely different, are nevertheless all students of the positive

sciences, and have characteristics which differentiate them from the

metaphysicians of the past. These characteristics are related, not to

the content, but to the method of the sciences. If, therefore,

pedagogy is to take its place among the sciences, it must be

characterized by its method; and the teacher must prepare herself, not

by means of the content, but by means of the method.

In short, she should be distinguished by _quality_ even more than by

_culture_.

The fundamental quality is the capacity for "observation"; a quality

so important that the positive sciences were also called "sciences of

observation," a term which was changed into "experimental sciences"

for those in which observation is combined with experiment. Now it is

obvious that the possession of senses and of knowledge is not

sufficient to enable a person to observe; it is a habit which must be

developed by _practise_. When an attempt is made to show untrained

persons stellar phenomena by means of the telescope, or the details of

a cell under the microscope, however much the demonstrator may try to

explain by word of mouth what ought to be seen, the layman cannot see

it. When persons who are convinced of the great discovery made by De

Vries go to his laboratory to observe the mutations in the varied

minute plants of the Aenothera, he often explains in vain the

infinitesimal yet essential differences, denoting, indeed, a new

species, among seedlings which have hardly germinated. It is well

known that when a new discovery is to be explained to the public, it

is necessary to set forth the coarser details; the uninitiated cannot

take in those minute details which constituted the real essence of the

discovery. And this, because they are unable to observe.

To observe it is necessary to be "trained," and this is the true way

of approach to science. For if phenomena cannot be _seen_ it is as if

they did not exist, while, on the other hand, the _soul of the

scientist_ is entirely possessed by a passionate interest in what he

sees. He who has been "trained" to see, begins to feel interest, and

such interest is the motive-power which creates the spirit of the

scientist. As in the little child internal _coordination_ is the point

of crystallization round which the entire psychical form will

coalesce, so in the teacher interest in the phenomenon observed will

be the center round which her complete new personality will form

spontaneously.

The quality of observation comprises various minor qualities, such as

_patience_. In comparison with the scientist, the untrained person not

only appears to be a blind man who can see neither with the naked eye

nor with the help of lenses; he appears as an "impatient" person.

If the astronomer has not already got his telescope in focus, the

layman cannot wait until he has done so; while the scientist would be

performing this task without even perceiving that he was carrying out

a long and patient process, the layman would be fuming, and thinking,

in great perturbation: "What am I doing here? I cannot waste time like

this." When microscopists expect visits from a lay public, they

prepare a long row of microscopes already in focus, because they know

that their visitors will wish to see "at once" and "quickly," and that

they will wish to see "a great deal."

We can easily imagine a scientist whose contributions to the work of

the laboratory are of the highest order, who holds chairs and

possesses civil dignities and honors of every sort, amiably consenting

to show a lady a cellular tissue under the microscope. As if it were

the most natural thing in the world, he would proceed as follows, with

solemn and serene gravity. He would cut off a minute portion of a

piece of tissue preserved in spirit, and would carefully clean the

slide on which the subject was to be placed and the slide that was to

cover it; he would clean again the lenses of the microscope, focus the

preparation, and make ready to explain. But undoubtedly the lady all

this time will have been on the point of saying a hundred times:

"Excuse me, Professor, but really ... I have an engagement ... I have

a great deal to do...." When she has looked without seeing anything,

her lamentations are bitter: "What a lot of time I have wasted!" And

yet she has nothing to do, and fritters away all her time! What she

lacks is not time but patience. He who is impatient cannot appraise

things properly; he can only appreciate his own impulses and his own

satisfactions. He reckons time solely by his own activity. That which

satisfies him may be absolutely empty, valueless, nugatory; no matter,

its value lies in the satisfaction it gives him; and if it gives him

satisfaction, it cannot be said to be a waste of time. But what he

cannot endure, and what impresses him as a loss of time is a tension

of the nerves, a moment of self-control, an interval of waiting

without an immediate result There is, indeed, a popular Italian

proverb: _aspettare e non venire è una cosa da morire_ (to wait for

what does not come is a killing business). These impatient persons

are like those busybodies who always make off when there is really

work to be done.

A thorough _education_ is indeed necessary to overcome this attitude;

we must master and control our own wills, if we would bring ourselves

into relation with the external world and appreciate its values.

Without this preparation we cannot give due weight to the minute

things from which science draws its conclusions.

The capacity for sustained and accurate application to a task the

object of which is apparently of very small importance, is indeed a

most valuable asset to him who hopes to advance in science. Let us

call to mind what a physicist does to place an instrument absolutely

level; how patiently he turns first one screw and then another, tries

again and again, slowly and carefully: and to what end? to procure an

absolutely horizontal direction for a surface. When this measure of

comparison is established in hard metal, how carefully it must be

preserved to ensure that the oscillations of temperature shall not

modify the length even in the most infinitesimal degree; for this

would be fatal to the scientific use of the instrument in measuring

horizontals. And yet how slight a thing in itself is involved! the

preservation of a measure! When the great chemist wishes to find out

whether _traces_ of a substance can give a reaction he seems to be

playing with his phials like a little boy; he takes a retort and fills

it with the substance he wishes to study, and then empties it;

afterwards he fills it with water, and watches for the reaction; the

reaction takes place; then again he empties the retort, fills it anew

with water, and sees whether there is a further reaction. Thus he

establishes the degree of dilution in which the substance will leave

traces. In this case the minimum is the important thing; it was to

find this imperceptible, negligible minimum that the great man acted

like a child.

This attitude of _humility_ is an element of patience. In all things

the scientist is humble: from the external action of descending from

his professional throne to work standing at a little table, from the

taking off of his robes to don the workman's blouse, from having laid

aside the dignity of one who states an authoritative and indisputable

truth to assume the position of one who is seeking the truth together

with his pupils, and inviting them to verify it, to the end not that

they should learn a doctrine but that they should be spurred to

activity by the truth--from all this, down to the tasks he carries out

in his laboratory. He considers nothing too small to absorb all his

powers, to claim his entire attention, to occupy all his time. Even

when social honors are heaped upon him, he maintains the same

attitude, which is to him the only true honor, the real source of his

greatness. A microbe, an excretion, anything, may interest the man of

science, even though he be a senator or a Minister of State. The

example of Cincinnatus is not to be compared with that of the modern

scientist, for these workers surpass Cincinnatus immeasurably, in

their power of bringing glory and salvation to humanity.

But the highest form of humility in men of science is their ready

self-abnegation, not only in externals, but even in spiritual things,

such as a cherished ideal, convictions that have germinated in their

minds. Confronted with truth, the man of science has no

pre-conceptions; he is ready to renounce all those cherished ideas of

his own that may diverge therefrom. Thus, gradually, he purifies

himself from error, and keeps his mind always fresh, always clear,

naked as the Truth with which he desires to blend in a sublime union.

Is not this, perhaps, the reason why the specialist in infantile

diseases has at present a social dignity and authority far superior to

those of a schoolmaster? Yet the specialist merely seeks for truth

among the excretions of the child's diseased body; but the master

veils its soul with errors.

But how would it be if the master should seek the truth in the soul of

the child? What an incomparable dignity would be his! To raise himself

to this height, however, he would have to be initiated into the ways

of humility, of self-abnegation, of patience; and to destroy the pride

which is built on the void of vanity. After this he, too, might put on

the spiritual vesture of the scientist, saying to the people: What did

you see in the other true sciences? Reeds shaken by the wind? Men

clothed in soft raiment? No, you saw prophets; but I am more than a

prophet; I am he who crieth in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of

the Lord, make His paths straight.

* * * * *

More, indeed, than the other men of science; for they must always

remain extraneous to the object of their study: electric energy,

chemical energy, the life of microbes, the stars, are all things

diverse and remote from the scientist. But the object of the

schoolmaster is man himself; the psychical manifestations of children

evoke something more in him than _interest in the phenomenon_; he

obtains from them the revelation of himself, and his emotions vibrate

at the contact of other souls like his own. All life may be his

portion, not merely a part of life. Then those _virtues_, such as

_humility_ and _patience_, which spring up in the man of science

within the limitations of the external aims he has fixed for himself,

may here enfold the entire soul. Then it will no longer be a question

of the "patience of the man of science," or the "humility of the man

of science," but of the virtues of man in all their plenitude.

That spiritual expansion of the man of science which is, as it were,

compressed into a tube, like rays of light passing through the

cylinders of the telescope, may here be diffused on the horizon like

the dazzling splendor of the sun. The so-called virtues are the

_necessary means, the methods of existence_ by which we attain to

truth; but the delight of the scientist in his work must vary in

proportion as this truth is manifested in a physical force, a

protozoan, or the soul of man. The one name seems scarcely suitable

for the two forms. We understand at once that, in comparison with the

_schoolmaster_, the scientist must be to some extent a limited and

arid being. The nobility of his spirit is lofty as man, but its

dimensions are those of a brute force or an inferior life.

The spiritual life of man may blend with the virtues of the man of

science only when the student and the subject of study can be fused

together. Then science may become a wellspring of wisdom, and true

positive science may become one with the true knowledge of the saints.

There is a real mechanism of correspondence between the virtues of the

man of science and the virtues of the saints; it is by means of

humility and patience that the scientist puts himself in contact with

material nature; and it is by means of humility and patience that the

saint puts himself in contact with the spiritual nature of things, and

as a consequence, mainly with man. The scientist is virtuous only

within the limits of his material contacts; the saint is "all

compact" of such virtue; his sacrifices and his enjoyments are alike

illimitable. The scientist is a seer within the limits of his field of

observation; the saint is a spiritual seer, but he also _sees_

material things and their laws more clearly than other men, and

invests them with spirit.

The modern scientist knows that every living thing is marvelous, and

that the simplest and most primitive most readily reveal natural laws

which help us to interpret the most complicated beings. St. Francis

indeed knew this: "Come closer, O my sister," he said to the

grasshopper chirping beneath the fig-tree near the window of his cell;

"the smaller the creature the more perfectly does it reveal the power

and goodness of the Creator."

Each tiny thing is worthy of the scientist's minute attention; he

counts the articulations which make up the claws of an insect, and

knows the veinings of its most delicate wings; he finds interesting

details where the ordinary eye would not linger for a moment. St.

Francis also observed these things, but they awoke in him a feeling of

spiritual joy and called forth a hymn of praise: "Who, who gave me

these little fairy feet, furnished with healthy and flexible little

bones, to enable me to spring swiftly from branch to branch, from twig

to twig? Who further gave me eyes, _crystal globes that revolve_ and

see before and behind, to spy out all my enemies, the predatory kite,

the black crow, the greedy goose? And he gave me wings, _delicate

tissues of gold and green and blue_, which reflect the color of the

skies and of my trees."

The vision of the teacher should be at once precise like that of the

scientist, and spiritual like that of the saint. The preparation for

science and the preparation for sanctity should form a new soul, for

the attitude of the teacher should be at once positive, scientific,

and spiritual.

Positive and scientific, because she has an _exact_ task to perform,

and it is necessary that she should put herself into immediate

relation with the truth, by means of rigorous observation, that she

should strip off all illusions, all the idle creations of the fancy,

that she should distinguish truth from falsehood unerringly, that, in

fact, she should follow the example of the scientist, who takes

account of every minute particle of matter, every elementary and

embryonic form of life, but eliminates all optical delusions, all the

confusion which impurities and foreign substances might introduce into

the search for truth. To achieve such an attitude _long practise is

necessary, and a wide observation of life_ under the guidance of the

biological sciences.

Spiritual, because it is to man that his powers of observation are to

be applied, and because the characteristics of the creature who is to

be his particular subject of observation are spiritual.

I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the most

simple forms of living things, with all those aids which science

gives; I would make them microscopists; I would give them a knowledge

of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their

physiology; I would direct their observation to insects, and would

make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them

concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work

independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature.

This complex program of observation must not exclude the physical

aspects of the child. Thus the direct and immediate preparation for a

higher task should be the knowledge of the physical needs of the

child, from birth to the age when psychical life is beginning to

develop in his organization and becomes susceptible to treatment. By

this I do not mean merely a theoretical course of anatomy, physiology,

and hygiene; but a "practise" among little children, which aims at

following their development closely, and foresees all their physical

needs. The teacher, in other words, should prepare herself according

to the methods of the biological sciences, entering with simplicity

and objectivity into the very domain in which students of the natural

sciences and of medicine are initiated, when they make their first

experiments in the laboratory, before penetrating into the more

profound problems of life related to their special study. In like

manner those young men, who in our universities are destined to study

vast and complex sciences, must in the beginning undertake the quiet

and restful work of preparing an infusion, or the section of a

rose-stalk, and thus experience, as they observe through the

microscope, that emotion born of wonder, which awakens the

consciousness and attracts it to the mysteries of life with a

passionate enthusiasm. It was thus that we, accustomed hitherto to

read in school only ponderous and arid printed books, felt that the

book of Nature was opening before our spirit, infinite in its

possibilities of creation and of miracle, and responding to all our

latent and uncomprehended aspirations.

This should also be the book of the new teacher, the primer that

should mold her for her mission of directing infant life. Such a

preparation should generate in her consciousness a conception of life

capable of transforming her, of calling forth in her a special

"activity," an "aptitude" which shall make her efficient for her

task. She should become a providential "force," a maternal "force."

But all this is but a part of the "preparation." The teacher must not

remain thus on the threshold of life, like those scientists who are

destined to observe plants and animals, and who are accordingly

satisfied with what morphology and physiology can offer. Nor is it her

mission to remain intent upon "derangements in the functions of the

body," like the medical specialist in infantile disease, who is

content with pathology. She must recognize that the methods of those

sciences are limited. When she chants her introit and sets foot upon

those steps which in the temple of life ascend to the spiritual

tabernacle, she should look upwards, and feel that among the adoring

host in the vast temple of science, she is a priestess.

Her sphere is to be vaster and more splendid; she is about to observe

"the inner life of man." The arid field which is limited to the

marvels of organic matter will not suffice for her; all the spiritual

fruits of the history of humanity and of religion will be necessary

for her nourishment. The lofty manifestations of art, of love, of

holiness, are the characteristic manifestations of that life which she

is not only about to observe but to serve, and which is her "own

life"; not a thing strange to her, and therefore cold and arid; but

the intimate life she has in common with all men, the true and only

real life of Man.

The scientific laboratory, the field of Nature where the teacher will

be initiated into "the observation of the phenomena of the inner life"

should be the school in which free children develop with the help of

material designed to bring about development. When she feels herself,

aflame with interest, "seeing" the spiritual phenomena of the child,

and experiences a serene joy and an insatiable eagerness in observing

them, then she will know that she is "initiated."

Then she will begin to become a "teacher."

V

ENVIRONMENT

Not only must the teacher be transformed, but the school environment

must be changed. The introduction of the "material of development"

into an ordinary school cannot constitute the entire external

renovation. The school should become the place where the child may

live in freedom, and this freedom must not be solely the intimate,

spiritual liberty of internal growth. The entire organism of the

child, from his physiological, vegetative part to his motor activity,

ought to find in school "the best conditions for development." This

includes all that physical hygiene has already put forward as aids to

the life of the child. No place would be better adapted than these

schools to establish and popularize reform in the clothing of

children, which should meet the requirements of cleanliness and of a

simplicity facilitating freedom of movement, while it should be so

made as to enable children to dress themselves. No better place could

be found to carry out and popularize infant hygiene in its relation to

nutrition. It would be a work of social regeneration to convince the

public of the economy they might effect by such practises, to show

them that elegance and propriety in themselves cost nothing--nay,

more, that they demand simplicity and moderation, and therefore

exclude all that superfluity which is so expensive.

The above applies more especially to schools which, like the original

"Children's Houses," might be instituted in the very buildings

inhabited by the parents of the pupils.

Certain special requirements must be recognized in the rooms of a free

school: psychical hygiene must play its part here as physical hygiene

has already done. The great increase in the dimensions of modern

class-rooms was dictated by physical hygiene; the ambient air space is

measured by "cubature" in relation to the physical needs of

respiration; and for the same reason, lavatories were multiplied, and

bathrooms were installed; physical hygiene further decreed the

introduction of concrete floors and washable dadoes, of central

heating, and in many cases of meals, while gardens or broad terraces

are already looked upon as essentials for the physical well-being of

the child. Wide windows already admit the light freely, and gymnasia

with spacious halls and a variety of complex and costly apparatus were

established. Finally, the most complicated desks, sometimes veritable

machines of wood and iron, with foot-rests, seats, and desks revolving

automatically, in order to preclude alike the movements of the child

and the distortions arising from immobility, are the economically

disastrous contribution of a false principle of "school-hygiene." In

the modern school, the uniform whiteness and the washable quality of

every object denote the triumph of an epoch in which the campaign

against microbes would seem to be the sole key to human life.

Psychical hygiene now presents itself on the threshold of the school

with its new precepts, precepts which economically are certainly no

more onerous than those entailed by the first triumphant entry of

physical hygiene.

They require, however, that schoolrooms be enlarged, not in deference

to the laws of respiration, for central heating, which makes it

possible to keep windows open, renders calculations based on cubic

measure negligible; but because space is necessary for the liberty of

movement which should be allowed to the child. However, as the child's

walking exercise will not be taken indoors, this increase of space

will be sufficient if it permits free movement among the furniture.

Still, if an ideal perfection is to be achieved, we may say that the

"psychical" class-room should be twice as large as the "physical"

class-room. We all know the sense of comfort of which we are conscious

when a good half of the floor space in a room is unencumbered; this

seems to offer us the agreeable possibility of _moving_ about freely.

This sensation of well-being is more intimate than the possibility of

breathing offered to us in a room of medium size crowded with

furniture.

Scantiness of furniture is certainly a powerful factor in hygiene;

here physical and psychical hygiene are at one. In our schools we

recommend the use of "light" furniture, which is correspondingly

simple, and economical in the extreme. If it be washable, so much the

better, especially as the children will then "learn to wash it," thus

performing a pleasing and very instructive exercise. But what is above

all essential is, that it should be "artistically beautiful." In this

case beauty is not produced by superfluity or luxury, but by grace and

harmony of line and color, combined with that absolute simplicity

necessitated by the lightness of the furniture. Just as the modern

dress of children is more elegant than that of the past, and at the

same time infinitely simpler and more economical, so is this

furniture.

In a "Children's House" in the country, at Palidano, built to

commemorate the Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, we initiated the

study of "artistic" furnishing. It is well known that every little

corner of Italy is a storehouse of local art, and there is no province

which in bygone times did not contain graceful and convenient objects,

due to a combination of practical sense and artistic instinct. Nearly

all these treasures are now being dispersed, and the very memory of

them is dying out, under the tyranny of the stupid and uniform

"hygienic" fashions of our day. It was therefore a delightful

undertaking on the part of Maria Maraini to make careful inquiries

into the rustic local art of the past, and to give it new life by

reproducing, in the furniture of the "Children's Houses," the forms

and colors of tables, chairs, sideboards, and pottery, the designs of

textiles and the characteristic decorative motives to be met with in

old country-houses. This revival of rustic art will bring back into

use objects used by the poor in ages less wealthy than ours, and

meanwhile may be a revelation in "economy." If, instead of school

benches, such simple and graceful objects were manufactured, even this

school furniture would show how beauty may be evolved from ugliness by

eliminating superfluous material; for beauty is a question, not of

material, but of inspiration. Hence we must not look to richness of

material, but to refinement of spirit for these practical reforms.

If similar studies should be made some day upon the rustic art of all

the Italian provinces, each of which has its special artistic

traditions, "types of furniture" might arise which would in themselves

do much to elevate the taste and refine the habits. They would bring

to the enlightenment of the world an "educational mode," because the

time-honored artistic feeling of a people with a very ancient

civilization would breathe new life into those moderns who seemed to

be suffocating under the obsession of physical hygiene, and to be

actuated solely by a despairing effort to combat disease.

We should witness the humanization of art, rising amidst the ugliness

and darkness of those who have accustomed themselves to think only of

death. Indeed, the "hygienic houses" of to-day, with their bare walls,

and white washable furniture, look like hospitals; while the schools

seem veritable tombs, with their desks ranged in rows like black

catafalques--black, merely because they have to be of the same color

as ink to hide the stains which are looked upon as a necessity, just

as certain sins and certain crimes are still considered to be

inevitable in the world; the alternative of avoiding them has never

occurred to any one. Class-rooms have black desks, and bare, gray

walls, more devoid of ornament than those of a mortuary chamber; this

is to the end that the starved and famishing spirit of the child may

"accept" the indigestible intellectual food which the teacher bestows

upon it. In other words, every distracting element has to be removed

from the environment, so that the teacher, by his oratorical art, and

with the help of his laborious expedients, may succeed in fixing the

rebellious attention of his pupils on himself. On the other hand, the

spiritual school puts no limits to the beauty of its environment, save

economical limits. No ornament can distract a child really absorbed in

his task; on the contrary, beauty both promotes concentration of

thought and offers refreshment to the tired spirit. Indeed, the

churches, which are _par excellence_ places of meditation and of

repose for the life of the soul, have called upon the highest

inspirations of genius to gather every beauty within their precincts.

Such words may seem strange; but if we wish to keep in touch with the

principles of science, we may say that the place best adapted to the

life of man is an artistic environment; and that, therefore, if we

want the school to become "a laboratory for the observation of human

life," we must gather within it things of _beauty_, just as the

laboratory of the bacteriologist must be furnished with stoves and

soils for the culture of bacilli.

Furniture for children, their tables and chairs, should be light, not

only that they may be easily carried about by childish arms, but

because their very fragility is of educational value. The same

consideration leads us to give children china plates and glass

drinking-vessels, for these objects become the _denouncers_ of rough,

disorderly, and undisciplined movements. Thus the child is led to

correct himself, and he accordingly trains himself not to knock

against, overturn, and break things; softening his movements more and

more, he gradually becomes their perfectly free and self-possessed

director. In the same way the child will accustom himself to do his

utmost _not to soil_ the gay and pretty things which enliven his

surroundings. Thus he makes progress in his own perfection, or, in

other words, it is thus he achieves the perfect coordination of his

voluntary movements. It is the same process by which, having enjoyed

silence and music, he will do all in his power to avoid discordant

noises, which have become unpleasant to his educated ear.

On the other hand, when a child comes into collision a hundred times

with an enormously heavy iron-bound desk, which a porter would have

difficulty in moving; when he makes thousands of invisible ink-stains

on a black bench; when he lets a metal plate fall to the ground a

hundred times without breaking it, he remains immersed in his sea of

defects without perceiving them; his environment meanwhile is so

constructed as to hide and therefore to encourage his errors, with

Mephistophelean hypocrisy.

* * * * *

=Free movement=.--It is now a hygienic principle universally accepted

that children require movement. Thus, when we speak of "free

children," we generally imply that they are free to move, that is, to

run and jump. No mother nowadays fails to agree with the children's

doctor that her child should go into parks and meadows, and move about

freely in the open air.

When we talk of liberty for children in school, some such conception

of physical liberty as this rises at once in the mind. We imagine the

free child making perilous leaps over the desks, or dashing madly

against the walls; his "liberty of movement" seems necessarily to

imply the idea of "a wide space," and accordingly we suppose that, if

confined to the narrow limits of a room, it would inevitably become a

conflict between violence and obstacles, a disorder incompatible with

discipline and work.

But in the laws of "psychical hygiene," "liberty of movement" is not

limited to a conception so primitive as that of merely "animated

bodily liberty." We might, indeed, say of a puppy or a kitten what we

say of children: that they should be free to run and jump, and that

they should be able to do so, as in fact they often do, in a park or a

field, with and like the children. If, however, we wish to apply the

same conception of motor liberty to our treatment of a bird, we should

make certain arrangements for it; we should place within its reach the

branch of a tree, or crossed sticks which would afford foothold for

its claws, since these are not designed to be spread out on the

ground like the feet of creeping things, but are adapted to gripping a

stick. We know that a bird "left free to move" over a vast,

illimitable plain would be miserable.

How then is it that we never think thus: if it be necessary to prepare

different environments for a bird and a reptile in order to ensure

their liberty of movement, must it not be a mistake to provide the

same form of liberty for our children as that proper to cats and dogs?

Children, indeed, when left to themselves to take exercise, show

impatience, and are prone to quarrel and cry; older children feel it

necessary to invent something whereby they may conceal from themselves

the intolerable boredom and humiliation of walking for walking's sake,

and running for running's sake. They try to find some object for their

exertions; the younger children play pranks. The activity of children

thus left to themselves has rarely a good result; it does not aid

development, save as regards the physical advantage of general

nutrition, that is, of the vegetative life. Their movements become

ungraceful; they invent unseemly capers, walk with a staggering gait,

fall easily, and break things. They are evidently quite unlike the

free kitten, so full of grace, so fascinating in its movements,

tending to perfect its action by the light jumping and running which

are natural to it. In the motor instinct of the child there appears to

be no grace, no natural impulse towards perfection. Hence we must

conclude that the movement which suffices for the cat does not suffice

for the child, and that if the nature of the child is different, his

path of liberty must also be different.

If the child has no "intelligent aim" in his movements, he is without

internal guidance, thus movement tires him. Many men feel the

dreadful emptiness of being compelled to "move without an object." One

of the cruel punishments invented for the chastisement of slaves was

to make them dig deep holes in the earth and fill them up again

repeatedly, in other words, to make them work without an object.

Experiments on fatigue have shown that work with an intelligent object

is far less fatiguing than an equal quantity of aimless work. So much

so, that the psychiatrists of to-day recommend, not "exercise in the

open air," but "work in the open air," to restore the individuality of

the neurasthenic.

"Reconstructive" work--work, that is to say, which is not the product

of a "mental effort," but tends to the coordination of the

psycho-muscular organism. Such are the activities which are not

directed to the _production_ of objects, but to their _preservation_,

as, for instance, dusting or washing a little table, sweeping the

floor, laying or clearing the table, cleaning shoes, spreading out a

carpet. These are the tasks performed by a servant to _preserve_ the

objects belonging to his master, work of a very different order to

that of the artificer, who, on the other hand, _produced_ those

objects by an intelligent effort. The two classes of work are

profoundly different. The one is simple; it is a coordinated activity

scarcely higher in degree than the activity required for walking or

jumping; for it merely gives purpose to those simple movements,

whereas _productive_ work entails a preliminary intellectual work of

preparation, and comprises a series of very complicated motor

movements, together with an application of sensory exercises.

The first is the work suitable for little children, who must

"exercise themselves in order to learn to coordinate their movements."

It consists of the so-called exercises of practical life which

correspond to the psychical principle of "liberty of movement." For

this it will be sufficient to prepare "a suitable environment," just

as we should place the branch of a tree in an aviary, and then to

leave the children to follow their instincts of activity and

imitation. The surrounding objects should be proportioned to the size

and strength of the child: light furniture that he can carry about;

low dressers within reach of his arms; locks that he can easily

manipulate; chests that run on castors; light doors that he can open

and shut readily; clothes-pegs fixed on the walls at a height

convenient for him; brushes his little hand can grasp; pieces of soap

that can lie in the hollow of such a hand; basins so small that the

child is strong enough to empty them; brooms with short, smooth, light

handles; clothes he can easily put on and take off himself; these are

surroundings which invite activity, and among which the child will

gradually perfect his movements without fatigue, acquiring human grace

and dexterity, just as the little kitten acquires its graceful

movement and feline dexterity solely under the guidance of instinct.

The field thus opened to the free activity of the child will enable

him to exercise himself and to form himself as a man. It is not

movement for its own sake that he will derive from these exercises,

but a powerful co-efficient in the complex formation of his

personality. His social sentiments in the relations he forms with

other free and active children, his collaborators in a kind of

household designed to protect and aid their development; the sense of

dignity acquired by the child who learns to satisfy himself in

surroundings he himself preserves and dominates--these are the

co-efficients of humanity which accompany "liberty of movement." From

his consciousness of this development of his personality the child

derives the impulse to persist in these tasks, the industry to perform

them, the intelligent joy he shows in their completion. In such an

environment he undoubtedly _works himself_ and fortifies his spiritual

being, just as when his body is bathed in fresh air and his limbs move

freely in the meadows, he works at the growth of his physical organism

and strengthens it.

VI

ATTENTION

The phenomenon to be expected from the little child, when he is placed

in an environment favorable to his spiritual growth, is this: that

suddenly the child will fix his attention upon an object, will use it

for the purpose for which it was constructed, and will _continue_ to

repeat the same exercise indefinitely. One will repeat an exercise

twenty times, another forty times, and yet another two hundred times;

but this is the first phenomenon to be expected, as initiatory to

those acts with which spiritual growth is bound up.

That which moves the child to this manifestation of activity is

evidently a primitive internal impulse, almost a vague sense of

spiritual hunger; and it is the impulse to satisfy this hunger which

then actually directs the consciousness of the child to the determined

object and leads it gradually to a primordial, but complex and

repeated exercise of the intelligence in comparing, judging, deciding

upon an act, and correcting an error. When the child, occupied with

the solid insets, places and displaces the ten little cylinders in

their respective places thirty or forty times consecutively; and,

having made a mistake, sets himself a problem and solves it, he

becomes more and more interested, and tries the experiment again and

again; he prolongs a complex exercise of his psychical activities

which makes way for an internal development.

It is probably the internal perception of this development which

makes the exercise pleasing, and induces prolonged application to the

same task. To quench thirst, it is not sufficient to see or to sip

water; the thirsty man must drink his fill: that is to say, must take

in the quantity his organism requires; so, to satisfy this kind of

psychical hunger and thirst, it is not sufficient to see things

cursorily, much less "to hear them described"; it is necessary to

possess them and to use them to the full for the satisfaction of the

needs of the inner life.

This fact stands revealed as the basis of all psychical construction,

and the sole secret of education. The external object is the gymnasium

on which the spirit exercises itself, and such "internal" exercises

are primarily "in themselves" the end and aim of action. Hence the

solid insets are not intended to give the child a knowledge of

dimensions, nor are the plane insets designed to give him a conception

of forms; the purpose of these, as of all the other objects, is to

make the child exercise his activities. The fact that the child really

acquires by these means definite knowledge, the recollection of which

is vivid in proportion to the fixity and intensity of his attention,

is a necessary result; and, indeed, it is precisely the sensory

knowledge of dimensions, forms and colors, etc., thus acquired, which

makes the continuation of such internal exercises in fields

progressively vaster and higher, a possible achievement.

Hitherto, all psychologists have agreed that instability of attention

is the characteristic of little children of three or four years old;

attracted by everything they see, they pass from object to object,

unable to concentrate on any; and generally the difficulty of fixing

the attention of children is the stumbling-block of their education,

William James speaks of "that extreme mobility of the attention with

which we are all familiar in children, and which makes their first

lessons such rough affairs.... The reflex and passive character of the

attention ... which makes the child seem to belong less to himself

than to every object which happens to catch his notice, is the first

thing which the teacher must overcome.... The faculty of voluntarily

bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again is the very

root of judgment, character and will.... An education which should

improve this faculty would be _the_ education _par excellence_."

Thus man, acting by himself alone, never successfully arrests and

fixes that _inquiring_ attention which wanders from object to object.

In fact, in our experiment the attention of the little child was not

artificially maintained by a teacher; it was an object which fixed

that attention, as if it corresponded to some internal impulse; an

impulse which evidently was directed solely to the things "necessary"

for its development. In the same manner, those complex coordinated

movements achieved by a new-born infant in the act of sucking, are

limited to the first and unconscious need of nutrition; they are not a

conscious acquisition directed to a purpose.

Indeed, the conscious acquisition directed to a definite purpose would

be impossible in the movements of a new-born infant's mouth, as also

in the first movements of the child's spirit.

Therefore it is essential that the external stimulus which first

presents itself should be verily the breast and the milk of the

spirit, and then only shall we behold that surprising phenomenon of a

little face concentrated in an intensity of attention.

Behold a child of three years old capable of repeating the same

exercise fifty times in succession; many persons are moving about

beside him; some one is playing the piano; children are singing in

chorus; but nothing distracts the little child from his profound

concentration. Just so does the suckling keep hold of the mother's

breast, uninterrupted by external incidents, and desists only when he

is satisfied.

Only Nature accomplishes such miracles.

If, then, psychical manifestations have their root in Nature, it was

necessary, in order to understand and help Nature, to study it in its

initial periods, those which are the simplest, and the only ones

capable of revealing truths which would serve as guides for the

interpretation of later and more complex manifestations. This, indeed,

many psychologists have done; but, applying the analytical methods of

experimental psychology, they did not start from that point whence the

biological sciences derive their knowledge of life: that is, the

_liberty_ of the living creatures they desire to observe. If Fabre had

not made use of insects, while leaving them free to carry out their

natural manifestations, and observing them without allowing his

presence to interfere in any way with their functions; if he had

caught insects, had taken them into his study, and subjected them to

experiment, he would not have been able to reveal the marvels of

insect life.

If bacteriologists had not instituted, as a method of research, an

environment similar to that which is natural to microbes, both as

regards nutritive substances and conditions of temperature, etc., to

the end that they "might live freely" and thus manifest their

characteristics; if they had confined themselves to fixing the germs

of a disease under the microscope, the science which to-day saves the

lives of innumerable men and protects whole nations from epidemics

would not exist.

Freedom to live is the true basis for every method of observation

applied to living creatures.

_Liberty_ is the experimental condition for studying the phenomena of

the child's attention. It will be enough to remember that the stimuli

of infant attention, being mainly sensory, have a powerful

physiological concomitant of "accommodation" in the organs of sense;

an accommodation, physiologically incomplete in the young child, which

requires to develop itself according to Nature. An object not adapted

to become a useful stimulus to the powers of accommodation in process

of development would not only be incapable of sustaining attention as

a psychical fact, but would also, as a physiological fact, weary or

actually injure the organs of accommodation such as the eye and ear.

But the child who _chooses_ the objects, and perseveres in their use

with the utmost intensity of attention, as shown in the muscular

contractions which give mimetic expression to his face, evidently

experiences _pleasure_, and pleasure is an indication of healthy

functional activity; it always accompanies exercises which are useful

to the organs of the body.

Attention also requires a _preparation_ of the ideative centers in

relation to the external object for which it is to be demanded: in

other words, an internal, psychical "adaptation." The cerebral centers

should be excited in their turn by an internal process, when an

external stimulus acts. Thus, for instance, any one who is expecting a

person, sees him arriving from a considerable distance; not only

because the person presents himself to the senses, but because he was

"expected." The distant figure claimed attention because the cerebral

centers were already excited to that end. By means of similar

activities a hunter is conscious of the slightest sound made by game

in woods. In short, two forces act upon the cerebral cell, as upon a

closed door: the external sensory force which knocks, and the internal

force which says: Open. If the internal force does not open, it is in

vain that the external stimulus knocks at the door. And then the

strongest stimuli may pass unheeded. The absent-minded man may step

into a chasm. The man who is absorbed in a task may be deaf to a band

playing in the street.

The central action that constitutes attention is the factor of the

greatest psychological and philosophic value, and the one which has

always represented the maximum among the practical values in pedagogy.

The whole art of teachers has consisted, in substance, in preparing

the attention of the child to make it _expectant_ of their

instruction, and in securing the cooperation of those internal forces

which should "open the door" when they "knock." And as the thing which

is quite unknown, or that which is inaccessible to the understanding,

can awaken no interest, the fundamentals of the art of teaching were

to go gradually from the known to the unknown, from the easy to the

difficult. It is the preexistent "known" which excites expectation and

_opens the door_ to the novel "unknown"; and it is the already present

"easy work" which opens new ways for penetration, and puts the

attention into a state of expectation.

Thus, according to the conceptions of pedagogy, it should be possible

to "prepare good offices for oneself," the cooperation of the

psychical concomitants of the attention. Everything would depend on

skilful manipulation between the known and the unknown and similar

things: the clever teacher would be like the great military

strategist, who prepares the plan of a battle upon a table; and man

would be able to _direct man_, leading him wheresoever he pleases.

This, moreover, has long been the materialistic principle which

governs psychology. According to Herbert Spencer, the mind is at

first, as it were, an indifferent day, on which external impressions

"rain," leaving traces more or less profound. "Experiences" are,

according to him and the English empiricists, the constructive factors

of the mind even in its highest activities. Man is what experience has

made him; hence, in education, by preparing a suitable structure of

experiences, it is possible to _build up the man_. A conception not

less materialistic than that which presented itself for a moment

before the marvelous progress of organic chemistry, when the series of

syntheses succeeded that of analyses. It was then believed that a

species of albumen might be manufactured synthetically, and as albumen

is the organic basis of the cells, and as the human ovum is nothing

but a cell, man himself might one day be manufactured on the chemist's

table. The conception of man as the creator of man was quickly

discredited in the material domain; but the psychical _homunculus_

still persists among the practical conceptions of pedagogy.

No chemical synthesis could put into the cell, apparently nothing more

than a simple clot of nucleated protoplasm, that _activity sine

matter_, that potential vital force, that mysterious factor which

causes a cell to develop into man.

And the elusive attention of children would seem to tell us that the

psychical man is subject to analogous laws of auto-creation.

The most modern school of spiritualistic psychologists, to which

William James belonged, recognized, in the concomitant of attention, a

fact bound up with the nature of the subject, a "spiritual force," one

of the "mysterious factors of life."

"... From whence his intellect

Deduced its primal notices of thought,

Man therefore knows not; or his appetites

Their first affection; such In you as zeal

In bees to gather honey."

(Carey's translation, Dante's _Purgatorio_, Canto XVIII.)

There is in man a special attitude to external things, which forms

part of his nature, and determines its character. The internal

activities act as cause; they do not react and exist as the _effect_

of external factors. Our attention is not arrested by all things

indifferently, but by those which are congenial to our tastes. The

things which are useful to our inner life are those which arouse our

interest. Our internal world is created upon a selection from the

external world, acquired for and in harmony with our internal

activities. The painter will see a preponderance of colors in the

world, the musician will be attracted by sounds. It is the quality of

our attention which reveals ourselves, and we manifest ourselves

externally by our aptitudes; it is not our attention which creates us.

The individual character, the internal form, the difference between

one man and another, are also obvious among men who have lived in the

same environment, but who from that environment have taken only what

was necessary for each. The "experiences" with which each constructs

his _ego_ in relation to the external world do not form a _chaos_, but

are _directed_ by his intimate individual aptitudes.

If there were any doubt as to the natural force which directs

psychical formation, our experiences with little children would

furnish a decisive proof. No teacher could procure such phenomena of

attention by any artifices; they have evidently an internal origin.

The power of concentration shown by little children from three to four

years old have no counterpart save in the annals of genius. These

little ones seem to reproduce the infancy of men possessing an

extraordinary power of attention, such as Archimedes, who was slain

while bending over his circles, from which rumors of the taking of

Syracuse had failed to distract him; or Newton, who, absorbed in his

studies, forgot to eat; or Vittorio Alfieri, who, when writing a poem,

heard nothing of the noisy wedding procession which was passing with

shouts and clamor before his windows.

Now, these characteristics of the attention of genius could not be

evoked by an "interesting" teacher, however subtle his art; nor could

any accumulation of passive experiences become such an accumulator of

psychical energies.

If there be a spiritual force working within the child, by which he

may open the door of his attention, the problem which necessarily

presents itself is a problem of _liberty_, rather than a problem of

pedagogic art effecting the construction of his mind. The bestowal of

the nourishment suitable to psychical needs, by means of the external

objects, and readiness to respect liberty of development in the most

perfect manner possible, are the foundations which, from a logical

point of view, should be laid down for the construction of a new

pedagogy.

It is no longer a question of attempting to create the homunculus,

like the chemists of the nineteenth century; but rather of taking the

lantern of Diogenes and going in search of the man. A science should

establish _by means of experiments_ what is necessary to the

primordial psychical requirements of the child; and then we shall

witness the development of complex vital phenomena, in which the

intelligence, the will, and the character develop together, just as

the brain, the stomach, and the muscles of the rationally nourished

child develop together.

Together with the first psychical exercises, the first coordinated

cognitions will be fixed in the child's mind, and the _known_ will

begin to exist in him, providing the first germs of an intellectual

interest, supplementing his instinctive interest. When this takes

place, a state of things begins to establish itself which has some

analogy with that mechanism of attention which the pedagogists of

to-day take as the basis of the art of teaching. The transition from

the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, from the

easy to the difficult, is reproduced, from a certain point of view;

but with special characteristics.

The progression _from the known to the unknown_ does not proceed from

object to object, as would be assumed by the master who does not bring

about the development of ideas from a center, but merely unites them

in a chain, without any definite object, allowing the mind to wander

aimlessly, though bound to himself. Here, on the other hand, the known

establishes itself in the child as a _complex system_ of ideas, which

system was actively constructed by the child himself during a series

of psychical processes, representing in themselves an internal

_formation_, a psychical growth.

To bring about such a progress we must offer the child a systematic,

complex material, corresponding to his natural instincts. Thus, for

instance, by means of our sensory apparatus we offer the child a

series of objects capable of drawing his instinctive attention to

colors, forms, and sounds, to tactile and baric qualities, etc., and

the child, by means of the characteristically prolonged exercises with

each object, begins to organize his psychical personality, but at the

same time acquires a clear and orderly knowledge of things.

Thenceforth all external objects, for the reason that they have forms,

dimensions, colors, qualities of smoothness, weight, hardness, etc.,

are no longer foreign to the mind. There is something in the

consciousness of the child which prepares him to _expect_ these

things, and invites him to receive them with interest.

When the child has added a cognition to the primitive impulse which

directs his attention to external things, he has acquired other

relations with the world, other forms of interest; these are no longer

merely those primitive ones which are bound up with a species of

primordial instinct, but have become a discerning interest, based upon

the conquests of the intelligence.

It is true that all these new conquests are fundamentally and

profoundly based upon the _psychical needs_ of the individual; but the

intellectual element has now been added, transforming an impulse into

a conscious and voluntary quest.

The old pedagogic conception, which assumed that to call the attention

of the child to the unknown it is necessary to connect it with the

known, because it is thus that his interest may be won for the new

knowledge to be imparted, grasped but a single detail of the complex

phenomenon we now witness after our experiments.

If the _known_ is to represent a new source of interest directed

towards the unknown, it is essential that it should itself have been

acquired in accordance with the tendency of nature; then preceding

knowledge will lend interest to objects of ever-increasing complexity

and of lofty significance. The culture thus created ensures the

possibility of an indefinite _continuation_ in the successive

evolution of such formative phenomena.

Moreover, this culture itself creates _order_ in the mind: when the

teacher, giving her plain and simple lesson, says: This is long, this

is short, this is red, this is yellow, etc., she fixes with a single

word the clearly marked order of the sensations, classifies, and

"catalogues" them. And each impression is perfectly distinct from the

other, and has its own determined place in the mind, which may be

recalled by a word; thenceforth, new acquisitions will not be thrown

aside or mixed together chaotically, but will be duly deposited in

their proper places, side by side with previous acquisitions of the

same kind, like books in a well-arranged library.

Thus the mind not only has within itself the propulsive force required

to increase its knowledge, but also an established order, which will

be steadily maintained throughout its successive and illimitable

enrichment by new material; and as it grows and gains strength, it

retains its "equilibrium." These continual exercises in _comparison_,

_judgment_, and _choice_ carried out among the objects, further tend

to place the internal acquisitions so logically into relation one with

another, that the results are a singular _facility_ and _accuracy_ of

reasoning power, and a remarkable _quickness_ of comprehension: the

law of "the minimum of effort" is truly carried out as it is

everywhere where order and activity reign.

The internal coordination, like physiological adaptation, establishes

itself as a result of the spontaneity of the exercises; the free

development of a personality which grows and organizes itself is that

which determines such an internal condition, just as in the body of

the embryo the heart, in process of development, makes a place for

itself in the space of the diastinum between the lungs, and the

diaphragm assumes its arched form as a result of pulmonary dilation.

The teacher directs these phenomena; but, in so doing, she is careful

to avoid calling the child's attention to herself, since the whole

future depends upon his concentration. Her art consists in

understanding and in avoiding interference with natural phenomena.

That which has been clearly demonstrated as regards the nutrition of

the new-born infant and the first coordinated activities of the spirit

will be repeated at every period of life, with the necessary

modifications induced by the increased complexity of the phenomena.

Continuing the parallel with physical nutrition, let us consider the

growing infant which has cut its teeth, developed its gastric juice,

and so gradually requires a more complicated diet, until we come to

the adult man, nourishing himself by means of all the complications of

modern kitchen and table; to keep himself in health, he should eat

_only_ the things which correspond to the intimate needs of his

organism; and if he introduces over-rich or unusual, unsuitable or

poisonous substances, the result will be impoverishment,

self-poisoning, a "malady." Now it was the study of the child's

nutrition during the period of suckling and during the first years of

life which created alimentary hygiene, not only for the child but for

the adult, and pointed out the perils to which all were alike exposed

during the epoch when infantile hygiene was unknown.

There is a singular parallel in psychical life: the man will have an

infinitely more complex life than the child; but for him, too, there

should always be a correspondence between the needs of his nature and

the manner in which his spirit is nourished. A _rule_ of internal life

will always promote the health of the man.

Turning to attention, the primitive fact of correspondence between

nature and stimulus which is the fundamental of life should prevail,

however modified, when dealing with older children, and should remain

the basis of education.

I am prepared for the objections of "experts." Children must be

accustomed to pay attention to everything, even to things which are

distasteful to them, because practical life demands such efforts.

The objection is based on a prejudice analogous to that which at one

time made good fathers of families say: "Children should be accustomed

to eat everything." In just the same way, moral training is put

outside its rightful sphere--a fatal confusion. When ideas of this

order, now happily obsolete, obtained, fathers would allow their

children to fast all day, if they refused a dish they disliked at the

mid-day meal, forbidding them anything but the rejected portion, which

became ever colder and more disgusting, until at last hunger weakened

the child's will and destroyed his caprice, and the plateful of cold

food was swallowed. Thus, argued such a father, in the various

circumstances in which he may be placed throughout his life, my son

will be ready to eat whatever comes to hand, and will not be greedy

and capricious. In those days also, sweets were forbidden to children

(whose organisms require sugar, because the muscles consume a great

deal of this during growth), in order to teach them to overcome

greediness, and an easy and convenient method of correcting naughty

children was to "send them to bed without any supper."

Very similar methods are now adopted by those who insist that children

should pay attention to things they dislike, in order to accustom them

to the necessities of life. But as in the case of psychical

nourishment hunger is never brought to bear upon the "cold and

distasteful viands," the indigestible and heavy food weakens and

poisons the unwilling recipient.

Not thus shall we prepare the robust spirit, ready for all the

difficult eventualities of life. The boy who swallowed the cold soup

and went fasting to bed was the one whose body developed badly, who

was too weak to resist infection when he encountered it, and fell ill;

and morally it was he who, having a store of unsatisfied appetites

within him, looked upon it as the greatest joy of his liberty, when he

became an adult, to eat and drink to excess. How unlike was he to the

boy of to-day, who, rationally fed and made robust of body, becomes

the _abstemious_ man, who eats to live in health, and combats

alcoholism and excessive and injurious feeding; the modern man, who

can defend himself by so many means against infectious diseases, and

who is so ready for effort that, without any compulsion, he braves the

arduous exertion of sport, and attempts and carries out great

enterprises, such as the discovery of the Poles and the ascent of

lofty mountains.

So, too, the man capable of braving the icy wastes of moral conflict,

of undertaking spiritual ascents, will be he whose will is strong,

whose spirit is well balanced, whose decisions are prompt and

stedfast.

And the more a man's inner life shall have grown _normally_,

organizing itself in accordance with the provident laws of nature, and

forming an individuality, the more richly will he be endowed with a

strong will and a well-balanced mind. To be ready for a struggle, it

is not necessary to have struggled from one's birth, but it is

necessary to be strong. He who is strong is ready; no hero was a hero

before he had performed his heroic deed. The trials life has in store

for us are unforeseen, unexpected; no one can prepare us directly to

meet them; it is only a vigorous soul that can be prepared for

everything.

When a living being is in process of evolution, it is essential to

provide for the special requirements of the moment, in order to ensure

its normal development. The foetus must be nourished with blood; the

new-born infant with milk. If during its intra-uterine life the

foetus should lack blood rich in albuminous substances and oxygen,

or if poisonous substances should be introduced into its tissues, the

living being will not develop normally, and no after-care will

strengthen the man evolved from this impoverished source. Should the

infant lack sufficient milk, the mal-nutrition of the initial stage of

life condemns him to a permanent state of inferiority. The suckling

"prepares himself to walk" by lying stretched out, and spending long,

quiet hours in sleep. It is by sucking that the babe begins his

teething. So, too, the fledgling in the nest does not prepare for

flight by flying, but remains motionless in the little warm shell

where its food is provided. The preparations for life are indirect.

The prelude to such phenomena of Nature as the majestic flight of

birds, the ferocity of wild beasts, the song of the nightingale, the

variegated beauty of the butterfly's wings, is the preparation in the

secret places of a nest or a den, or in the motionless intimacy of the

cocoon. Omnipotent Nature asks only peace for the creature in process

of formation. All the rest she gives herself.

Then the childish spirit should also find a warm nest where its

nutrition is secure, and after this we should await the revelations of

its development.

It is essential, therefore, to offer objects which correspond to its

formative tendencies, in order to obtain the result which education

makes its goal: the development of the latent forces in man with the

minimum of strain and all possible fulness.

VII

WILL

When the child chooses from among a considerable number of objects the

one he prefers, when he moves to go and take it from the sideboard,

and then replaces it, or consents to give it up to a companion; when

he waits until one of the pieces of the apparatus he wishes to use is

laid aside by the child who has it in his hand at the moment; when he

persists for a long time and with earnest attention in the same

exercise, correcting the mistakes which the didactic material reveals

to him; when, in the silence-exercise, he retains all his impulses,

all his movements, and then, rising when his name is called, controls

these movements carefully to avoid making a noise with his feet or

knocking against the furniture, he performs so many acts of the

"will." It may be said that in him the exercise of the will is

continuous; nay, that the factor which really acts and persists among

his aptitudes is the will, which is built up on the internal

fundamental fact of a prolonged attention.

Let us analyze some of the co-efficients of will.

The whole external expression of the will is contained in _movement_:

whatever action man performs, whether he walks, works, speaks or

writes, opens his eyes to look, or closes them to shut out a scene, he

acts by "motion." An act of the will may also be directed to the

restriction of movement: to restrain the disorderly movements of

anger; not to give way to the impulse which urges us to snatch a

desirable object from the hand of another, are voluntary actions.

Therefore the will is not a simple impulse towards movement, but the

intelligent direction of movements.

There can be no manifestation of the will without completed action; he

who thinks of performing a good action, but leaves it undone; he who

desires to atone for an offense, but takes no step to do so; he who

proposes to go out, to pay a call, or to write a letter, but goes no

farther in the matter, does not accomplish an exercise of the will. To

think and to wish is not enough. It is action which counts. "The way

to Hell is paved with good intentions."

The life of volition is the life of action. Now all our actions

represent a resultant of the forces of impulse and inhibition, and by

constant repetition of actions this resultant may become almost

habitual and unconscious. Such is the case, for instance, with regard

to all those customary actions, the sum of which constitute "the

behavior of a well-bred person." Our impulse might be to pay a certain

visit, but we know that we might disturb our friend, that it is not

her day for receiving, and we refrain; we may be comfortably seated in

a corner of the drawing-room, but a venerable person enters, and we

rise to our feet; we are not much attracted by this lady, but

nevertheless we also bow or shake her hand; the sweetmeat to which our

neighbor helps herself is just the one we desired, but we are careful

to give no sign of this. All the movements of our body are not merely

those dictated by impulse or weariness; they are the correct

expression of what we consider decorous. Without impulses we could

take no part in social life; on the other hand, without inhibitions we

could not correct, direct, and utilize our impulses.

This reciprocal equilibrium between opposite motor forces is the

result of prolonged exercises, of _ancient habits_ within us; we no

longer have any sense of effort in performing these, we no longer

require the support of reason and knowledge to accomplish them; these

acts have almost become reflex. And yet the acts in question are by no

means reflex actions; it is not Nature but habit which produces all

this. We know well how the person who has not been brought up to

observe certain rules, but has been hastily instructed in the

knowledge of them, will too often be guilty of blunders and lapses,

because he is obliged to "perform" there and then all the necessary

coordination of voluntary acts, and there and then direct them under

the vigilant and immediate control of the consciousness; and such a

perpetual effort cannot certainly compete with the "habit" of

distinguished manners. The will stores up its prolonged efforts

outside the consciousness, or at its extreme margin, and leaves the

consciousness itself unencumbered to make new acquisitions and further

efforts. Thus we cease to consider as _evidences of will_ those habits

in which we nevertheless see the consciousness, as it were, hanging

over and watchful of each act, that it may accord with the perfect

rule of an external code of manners. An educated man who acts thus is

merely a man _in himself_, merely a man of "healthy mind."

It is, in fact, only disease which can disintegrate the personality

organized upon its adaptations, and induce a man of society to cease

to act in a becoming manner; it is well known that a neurasthenic

subject who begins to show the first symptoms of paranoia, may at

first seem to be merely one who fails in good breeding.

But he, on the other hand, who remains within the limits of good

breeding, is nothing more than a _normal man_. We will not venture to

call him "a man of will"; the consciousness of such a man is always

being put to the test, and the mechanisms stored up in the margin of

consciousness no longer possess a "volitive value."

But the child is making his first trial of arms, and his personality

is a very different thing from that just described. In comparison with

the adult, he is an unbalanced creature, almost invariably the prey of

his own impulses and sometimes subject to the most obstinate

inhibitions. The two opposite activities of the will have not yet

combined to form the new personality. The psychical embryo has still

the two elements separate. The great essential is that this

"combination," this "adaptation," should take place and establish

itself as a supporting girdle at the margin of consciousness. Hence it

is necessary to induce active exercise as soon as possible, since this

is essential to such a degree of development. The aim in view is not

to make the child a little precocious "gentleman," but to induce him

to exercise his powers of volition, and to bring about as soon as

possible the reciprocal contact of impulses with inhibitions. It is

this "construction" itself which is necessary, not the result which

may be achieved externally by means of this construction.

It is, in fact, merely a means to an end: and the end is that the

child should act together with other children, and practise the

gymnastics of the will in the daily habits of life. The child who is

absorbed in some task, inhibits all movements which do not conduce to

the accomplishment of this work; he makes a selection among the

muscular coordinations of which he is capable, persists in them, and

thus begins to make such coordinations permanent. This is a very

different matter to the disorderly movements of a child giving way to

uncoordinated impulses. When he begins to respect the work of others;

when he waits patiently for the object he desires instead of snatching

it from the hand of another; when he can walk about without knocking

against his companions, without stamping on their feet, without

overturning the table--then he is organizing his powers of volition,

and bringing impulses and inhibitions into equilibrium. Such an

attitude prepares the way for the habits of social life. It would be

impossible to bring about such a result by keeping children

motionless, seated side by side; under such conditions "relations

between children" cannot be established, and infantile social life

does not develop.

It is by means of free intercourse, of real practise which obliges

each one to adapt his own limits to the limits of others, that social

"habits" may be established. Dissertations on what ought to be done

will never bring about the construction of the will; to make a child

acquire graceful movements, it will not suffice to inculcate "ideas of

politeness" and of "rights and duties." If this were so, it would

suffice to give a minute description of the movements of the hand

necessary in playing the piano, to enable an attentive pupil to

execute a sonata by Beethoven. In all such matters the "formation" is

the essential factor; the powers of will are established by exercise.

In education, it is of very great value to organize all the mechanism

useful in the production of personality at an early stage. Just as

_movement_, the _gymnastics_ of children, is necessary, because, as is

well known, muscles which are not exercised become incapable of

performing the variety of movements of which the muscular system is

capable, so an analogous system of gymnastics is necessary to maintain

the activity of the psychical life.

The uneducated organism may be easily directed towards subsequent

deficiencies; he who is weak of muscle is inclined to remain

motionless, and so to perish, when an action is necessary to overcome

danger. Thus the child who is weak of will, who is "hypobulic" or

"abulic," will readily adapt himself to a school where all the

children are kept seated and motionless, listening, or pretending to

listen. Many children of this kind, however, end in the hospital for

nervous disorders and have the following notes on their school

reports: "Conduct excellent; no progress in studies." Of such children

some teachers confine themselves to such a remark as: "They are so

good," and by this they tend to protect them from any intervention,

and leave them to sink undisturbed into the weakness which threatens

to engulf them like a quicksand. Other children, whose natural

impulses are strong, are noted merely as creators of disorder, and are

set down as "naughty." If we enquire into the nature of their

naughtiness, we shall be told almost invariably that "they will never

keep still." These turbulent spirits are further stigmatized as

"aggressive to their companions," and their aggressions are nearly

always of this kind: they try by every possible means to rouse their

companions from their quiescence, and draw them into an association.

There are also children in whom the inhibitory powers are dominant;

their timidity is extreme: they sometimes seem as if they cannot make

up their minds to answer a question; they will do so after some

external stimulus, but in a very low voice, and will then burst into

tears.

The necessary gymnastic in all these three cases is free action. The

constant and interesting movement of others is the best of incitements

to the abulic; motion directed into the channel of orderly exercise

develops the inhibitory powers of the too impulsive child, and the

child who is too much in subjection to his inhibitory powers, when

liberated from the bondage of surveillance, and free to act privately

on his own initiative--in other words, when he is removed from all

external inducements to exercise inhibition, is able to find an

equilibrium between the two opposite volitional forces. This is indeed

the way of salvation for all men: that wherein the weak gain strength

that wherein the strong attain perfection.

The want of balance as between impulse and inhibition is not only a

familiar and interesting fact in pathology; it is further met with,

though in a minor degree, among _normal_ persons, just as frequently

as deficiencies of education are to be met with in the external social

sphere.