irst
lessons in arithmetic exemplifies this. It is well illustrated, too, in
Professor De Morgan's mode of explaining the decimal notation. M.
Marcel, rightly repudiating the old system of tables, teaches weights
and measures by referring to the actual yard and foot, pound and ounce,
gallon and quart; and lets the discovery of their relationships be
experimental. The use of geographical models and models of the regular
bodies, etc., as introductory to geography and geometry respectively,
are facts of the same class. Manifestly, a common trait of these methods
is, that they carry each child's mind through a process like that which
the mind of humanity at large has gone through. The truths of number, of
form, of relationship in position, were all originally drawn from
objects; and to present these truths to the child in the concrete is to
let him learn them as the race learnt them. By and by, perhaps, it will
be seen that he cannot possibly learn them in any other way; for that if
he is made to repeat them as abstractions, the abstractions can have no
meaning for him, until he finds that they are simply statements of what
he intuitively discerns.

But of all the changes taking place, the most significant is the growing
desire to make the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than
painful--a desire based on the more or less distinct perception, that at
each age the intellectual action which a child likes is a healthful one
for it; and conversely. There is a spreading opinion that the rise of an
appetite for any kind of information implies that the unfolding mind has
become fit to assimilate it, and needs it for purposes of growth; and
that, on the other hand, the disgust felt towards such information is a
sign either that it is prematurely presented, or that it is presented in
an indigestible form. Hence the efforts to make early education amusing,
and all education interesting. Hence the lectures on the value of play.
Hence the defence of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Daily we more and
more conform our plans to juvenile opinion. Does the child like this or
that kind of teaching?--does he take to it? we constantly ask. "His
natural desire of variety should be indulged," says M. Marcel; "and the
gratification of his curiosity should be combined with his improvement."
"Lessons," he again remarks, "should cease before the child evinces
symptoms of weariness." And so with later education. Short breaks during
school-hou