only will the moral effect be
intensified, but the close dependence of each study upon the others
will be perceptibly felt as valuable and stimulating to the children.

If now we can conceive of the eight grades of the common school as
eight stages passing naturally from one to another, each a unit
composed of a net-work of well related facts, but the epochs closely
related to each other in a rising series, from childhood almost to
maturity, or from the beginning of history up to the present state of
culture, we shall be able also to think of education as a succession of
powerful culture influences, that will bring the child to our present
standpoint fully conscious of his duties and surroundings.

NOTE.--A careful criticism of the theory of the culture epochs is found
in Lange's Apperception translated by the Herbart club, published by D.
C. Heath, p. 110, etc.

CHAPTER V.

INDUCTION.

We are now prepared to inquire into the mind's method of approach to
any and all subjects. We have considered the aim of education, the
value of different subjects as helping toward that aim, the natural
interests which give zest to studies, and finally the general plan of
combining and relating topics so as to bring about unity of purpose and
unity of matter in the mind. As a child enters upon the work of
acquisition are there any regulatives to guide the process of learning?

_Induction_, or the _concept-bearing process_, shows the tendency of
our minds to advance from the inspection of particular objects and
actions to the understanding of general notions or concepts. The study
and analysis of this process casts us forthwith into the midst of
psychology, and calls for a knowledge of that succession and net-work
of mental activities discussed in all the psychologies; sensation,
discrimination, perception, analysis and synthesis, comparison,
judgment, generalization or concept, reasoning. An inquiry into these
mental activities, which are among the most important in psychology, is
necessary as a basis of induction and of general method.

But even the more profound study of psychology does not necessarily
give insight into correct methods of teaching. Many great
psychologists have had little or no interest in teaching. Even eminent
specialists in electricity and chemistry have not often been those to
draw the immediate practical benefit from their studies. The
application of psychology to the work of instruction c