udicious
plans. Let us consider the course which Psychology dictates.

The earliest impressions which the mind can assimilate are the
undecomposable sensations produced by resistance, light, sound, etc.
Manifestly, decomposable states of consciousness cannot exist before the
states of consciousness out of which they are composed. There can be no
idea of form until some familiarity with light in its gradations and
qualities, or resistance in its different intensities, has been
acquired; for, as has been long known, we recognise visible form by
means of varieties of light, and tangible form by means of varieties of
resistance. Similarly, no articulate sound is cognisable until the
inarticulate sounds which go to make it up have been learned. And thus
must it be in every other case. Following, therefore, the necessary law
of progression from the simple to the complex, we should provide for the
infant a sufficiency of objects presenting different degrees and kinds
of resistance, a sufficiency of objects reflecting different amounts and
qualities of light, and a sufficiency of sounds contrasted in their
loudness, their pitch and their _timbre_. How fully this _a priori_
conclusion is confirmed by infantile instincts, all will see on being
reminded of the delight which every young child has in biting its toys,
in feeling its brother's bright jacket-buttons, and pulling papa's
whiskers--how absorbed it becomes in gazing at any gaudily-painted
object, to which it applies the word "pretty," when it can pronounce it,
wholly because of the bright colours--and how its face broadens into a
laugh at the tattlings of its nurse, the snapping of a visitor's
fingers, or any sound which it has not before heard. Fortunately, the
ordinary practices of the nursery fulfil these early requirements of
education to a considerable degree. Much, however, remains to be done;
and it is of more importance that it should be done than at first
appears. Every faculty during that spontaneous activity which
accompanies its evolution is capable of receiving more vivid impressions
than at any other period. Moreover, as these simplest elements have to
be mastered, and as the mastery of them whenever achieved must take
time, it becomes an economy of time to occupy this first stage of
childhood, during which no other intellectual action is possible, in
gaining a complete familiarity with them in all their modifications. Nor
let us omit the fact, that both temp