ture." In
the same way we say of one who can recognize a painter by the manner
in which he lays his colors on the canvas, or fix the period of a
sculptor from the fragment of a bas-relief, that he is "versed
(_intelligente_) in art." The scientist is of the same type. He is
able to observe things, and to give due value even to their minutest
details; hence the differences between the characteristics of things
are clearly perceived and classified. The scientist distinguishes
objects in accordance with the orderly content of his mind. A
seedling, a microbe, an animal or the remains of an animal, are not
enigmas to him, though in themselves they may be strange to him. We
may say the same of the chemist, the physicist, the geologist, the
archaeologist.

It is not the accumulation of a direct knowledge of things which forms
the man of letters, the scientist, and the connoisseur; it is the
prepared order established in the mind which is to receive such
knowledge. On the other hand, the uncultivated person has only the
direct knowledge of objects; such a person may be a lady who spends a
great part of the night reading books, or a gardener who spends his
life making material distinctions between the plants in his garden.
The knowledge of such uncultured minds is not only disorderly, but it
is confined to the objects with which it comes into direct contact,
whereas the knowledge of the scientist is infinite, because,
possessing the power of classifying the attributes of things, he can
recognize them all, and determine now the class, now the
relationships, now the origins of each; facts much more profound than
the actual things could of themselves reveal.

Now our children, after the manner of the connoisseur of art and the
man of science, recognize objects in the external world by means of
their attributes and classify them; hence they are sensitive to all
objects; everything possesses a value for them. Uncultured children,
on the other hand, pass blind and deaf close to things, just as an
ignorant man passes by a work of art or listens to a performance of
classical music without recognition or enjoyment.

The educational methods now in use proceed on lines exactly the
reverse of ours; having first abolished spontaneous activity, they
present objects with their accumulation of attributes directly to the
child, calling attention to each attribute, and hoping that from all
this mass the mind of the child will be able to abstr