is the archetype of all methods," says M.
Marcel. "The vital principle in the pursuit is to enable the pupil
rightly to instruct himself," writes Mr. Wyse. The more science
familiarises us with the constitution of things, the more do we see in
them an inherent self-sufficingness. A higher knowledge tends
continually to limit our interference with the processes of life. As in
medicine the old "heroic treatment" has given place to mild treatment,
and often no treatment save a normal regimen--as we have found that it
is not needful to mould the bodies of babes by bandaging them in
papoose-fashion or otherwise--as in gaols it is being discovered that no
cunningly-devised discipline of ours is so efficient in producing
reformation as the natural discipline of self-maintenance by productive
labour; so in education, we are finding that success is to be achieved
only by making our measures subservient to that spontaneous unfolding
which all minds go through in their progress to maturity.

Of course, this fundamental principle of tuition, that the arrangement
of matter and method must correspond with the order of evolution and
mode of activity of the faculties--a principle so obviously true, that
once stated it seems almost self-evident--has never been wholly
disregarded. Teachers have unavoidably made their school-courses
coincide with it in some degree, for the simple reason that education is
possible only on that condition. Boys were never taught the
rule-of-three until after they had learnt addition. They were not set to
write exercises before they had got into their copybooks. Conic sections
have always been preceded by Euclid. But the error of the old methods
consists in this, that they do not recognise in detail what they are
obliged to recognise in general. Yet the principle applies throughout.
If from the time when a child is able to conceive two things as related
in position, years must elapse before it can form a true concept of the
Earth, as a sphere made up of land and sea, covered with mountains,
forests, rivers, and cities, revolving on its axis, and sweeping round
the Sun--if it gets from the one concept to the other by degrees--if the
intermediate concepts which it forms are consecutively larger and more
complicated; is it not manifest that there is a general succession
through which alone it can pass; that each larger concept is made by the
combination of smaller ones, and presupposes them; and that to present