son and induction reach
the general principles and concepts at the close. It inevitably leads
to a dull and mechanical repetition instead of cultivating an
interesting comparison of new and old and a thoughtful retrospect. It
is a clumsy and distorted application of the principle of apperception,
of going from the known to the unknown. Instead of marching forward
into new fields of knowledge with a proper basis of supplies in
conquered fields, it gleans again and again in fields already
harvested. For this reason it destroys a proper interest by hashing up
the same old ideas year after year. Finally the concentric circles are
not even designed to bring the different school studies into relation
to each other. At best they contribute to a more thorough mastery of
each study. They leave the separate branches of the course isolated
and unconnected, an aggregation of unrelated thought complexes. True
concentration should leave them an organic whole of intimate
knowledge-relations, conducing to strength and unity of character.

There is a growing conviction among teachers that we need a closer
_articulation_ of studies with one another. The expansion of the
school course over new fields of knowledge and the multiplication of
studies already discussed compels us to seek for a simplification of
the course. A hundred years ago, yes, even fifty years ago, it was
thought that the extension of our territory and government to the
present limits would be impossible. It was plainly stated that one
government could never hold together people so widely separated. Mr.
Fiske says: (The Critical Period of Am. Hist., p. 60) "Even with all
other conditions favorable, it is doubtful if the American Union could
have been preserved to the present time without the railroad.
Railroads and telegraphs have made our vast country, both for political
and for social purposes, more snug and compact than little Switzerland
was in the middle ages or New England a century ago." The analogy
between the realm of government and of knowledge is not at all complete
but it suggests at least the change which is imperatively called for in
education. In education as well as in commerce there must be trunk
lines of thought which bring the will as monarch of the mind into close
communication with all the resources of knowledge and experience.
Indeed in the mind of a child or of an adult there is much stronger
necessity for centralization than in the go