CHAPTER VI.

SEQUENCE OF SUBJECTS-PSYCHOLOGICAL.

THE long chapter on the Psychological basis of Education leaves one point untouched-the Sequence or Succession of the Powers and Faculties of the Mind. It is important for us to grasp, if we can, not merely the leading components of our intellectual structure, but also the order of their unfolding.

If we could suppose the brain, at birth, to possess all the physical capabilities of our brain at twenty-one, but a tabula rasa in respect of impressions of every sort, the order of acquisition would be the strict order of dependence of one thing upon another. Simple elementary impressions would come first, and would be followed up by those of a more complex kind; the concrete would precede the abstract, and so on. Priority of study would follow a very plain rule; Analytical or Logical sequence would be the one principle of Order. The actual case, however, is very different.'

1 Anatomists tell us that the brain grows with great rapidity up to seven years of age; it then attains an average weight of forty ounces (in the male). The increase is much slower between seven and fourteen, when it attains forty-five ounces; still slower from fourteen to twenty, when it is very near its greatest size. Consequently, of the more difficult intellectual exercises, some that would be impossible at five or six are easy at eight, through the fact of brain-growth alone. This is consistent with all

The fact that the educator works upon a growing brain, and not upon a completed one, does not invalidate the law of logical order; it only imposes another set of

our experience, and is of value as confirming that experience. It often happens that you try a pupil with a peculiar subject at a certain age, and you entirely fail; wait a year or two, and you succeed, and that without seemingly having done anything expressly to lead up to the point; although there will inevitably be, in the meantime, some sort of experience that helps to pave the way. In regard to the symbolical and abstract subjects, as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and grammar, I think the observation holds. A difference of two or three years will do everything for those subjects.

This, however, is but one aspect, although a very important one, of the varying rate of brain-growth. If we follow the analogy of the muscular system, we shall conclude that the times of rapid growth are times of more special susceptibility to the bents imparted during those times. If the brain is still unable to grapple with the higher elements, it is making great progress with the lower; whatever it can take a hold of, it can fix and engrain with an intensity proportionate to its rate of growth. That is a good reason for looking well to the sort of impressions made upon the child during the first seven years.

It would be a great contribution to our subject, if we could fix with any degree of definiteness the variation of the plastic adhesiveness of the brain through life; beginning in those years of infancy when it is greatest, and going on to its extreme deficiency in old age; the decrease being, I should presume, steady after some year between six and ten. But the determination is full of difficulty, owing to the number of collateral circumstances that obscure the main fact.

The growth of the brain is no doubt accompanied by the perfecting of a number of innate powers, without which our education would be something totally different from what it is. That many of our notions of the outer world have the way prepared for them by hereditary impressions, or instincts, is a received doctrine of the present day. How far this is so, we cannot precisely estimate. For practical purposes, we must observe the total appearances presented us in the growth of the infant mind; we cannot disentangle what depends on brain-growth, with hereditary transmission, from what is due to contact with the actual world. We must be content with noticing, as a matter of fact, the age when abstract notions can be taken in, without deciding whether the growth of the brain, or the accumulation of concrete impressions, is the principal antecedent.

conditions.

THE GROWING MIND.

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I will make a few imaginary suppositions

by way of illustrating the real state of the case.

As one alternative, the immaturity of early years might amount to positive defect in an important sense organ, say sight or hearing. In that case there would be a blank in certain impressions that are indispensable as an ingredient in some department of knowledge. Imperfect discrimination of colours would arrest the knowledge of the object world; while a want of the sense of form would be still more fatal. A very large part of our education would thus be in total abeyance.

Again, the sense capabilities might exist, but in such an imperfect degree for the first few years, that it would be bad economy to attempt to found upon them. The natural course of growth might be such, that by waiting a year or two, acquisitions that are attended with difficulty at an early stage, could then be accomplished with ease.

Thirdly, there might be intellectual susceptibility as regards all the essential properties of natural things, but a want of the vigour of intellectual attention. To strain the powers at this stage would then be sheer waste, in consequence of interfering with the physical growth.

Or, lastly, there might be susceptibility and even a certain amount of power of attention, but an immaturity of the requisite motives and interests. The feelings and dispositions might be for a time alien to everything intellectual, being engrossed in sense pleasures and excitements, whose results as regards knowledge could only be accidental, random, and desultory-Imagination would be preferred to fact.

These four suppositions all correspond in some de

gree to the reality. We do actually postpone the commencement of many studies because the mind at an early stage cannot entertain even their most elementary conceptions, and still more because we cannot procure the requisite attention, from want of routine and persistence. We do not in this, however, exclude all reference to the analytic or logical priority; inasmuch as there may be wanted a certain spontaneous absorption and fixity of sense impressions before any training operations could be commenced.

The first approximation to defining the order of the faculties is given in the commonplace remark that observation precedes reflection; or, in another form, that the concrete comes before the abstract; which is good so far, but not very precise. Another maxim is, that the Imagination is an earlier faculty than the Reason; this too needs qualifying.

As an example of the questions to be settled by the present enquiry, I may refer to what is a suitable age for commencing study, as typified by learning to read. The practice and the opinion on this head show a wide disparity; the range is from three years old to seven. Further questions arise with respect to the proper times of commencing Languages and Sciences respectively. On this head, there have been differences of view. Language, being chiefly dependent on Memory, would seem to come early, as Memory is strong, while Reason or Judgment is still weak. The commencement of Science needs not merely a preparation of concrete facts, but an advanced form of interest or emotion, and a great control over the mental attention, which is a late acquirement.

EARLIEST STEPS IN KNOWLEDGE.

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There is an additional point of nicety, and yet of importance, namely, to assign the commencement of self-conscious or subjective knowledge-the facts of the incorporeal world; many of which have to be taken for granted in the earliest species of composition addressed to the young.

Let us first survey the peculiarities of the infant mind; and, in so doing, we shall sketch the earliest steps in knowledge, as depending on those peculiarities:

Every one of us has watched, with more or less attention, the mental phases of human beings at their different stages of growth; and the result has been a certain vague estimate of the changes that advancing years produce upon the faculties. But, in proceeding to render an account of the actual sequence, we are met at once with the difficulty of finding terms suitable to describe our observations. There are a few set phrases that are regularly brought into the service. The child, it is said, has a great love of activity, a desire to be occupied somehow ; dislikes continuous application or attention to any one thing; is joyous, mirthsome, fond of fun and frolic; delights in the exercise of the senses, and in sensation generally; is curious and inquisitive, even to destructiveness; is strongly given to imitation; is remarkably credulous; is imaginative and fond of dramatizing; is sociable and sympathetic. On the more exclusively intellectual side, the child is prone to observation, and averse to abstraction; is strong in memory, and weak in judgment.

To reduce these observations into order, we must bring them under the usual classification of mental elements-Activities, Senses, Emotions, and Intellectual Powers. First, then, as to ACTIVITY. This is spontaneous and abundant, but fluctuating, uncertain, and indirect, being the outpouring and overflow of natural energy. Among the first efforts at educa