tion is the attempt to give it useful directions; but the readiest way is not to force it, but to take it at the moment when it has fallen into a good course. Second, as to the SENSES. These being fresh, and everything being new, sensation as such is delightful and coveted; hence, the employment of the senses, and the fruition of the effects, are intense in infancy. But, at first, the emotional side preponderates, and the intellectual side, which is nourished by nice distinctions, does not attain an early development. The emotional force partly paves the way for, but partly obstructs, the intellectual. Third, the EMOTIONS, strictly so called, as distinguished from the sense enjoyments. These are mainly the strong social feelings-Love and Affection; the strong anti-social feelings-Anger, Egotism, Domination; together with the workings of Fear. All are powerful from the dawn of life; education, while connecting them with special objects, may do something to intensify or to enfeeble their total force. Fourth, the INTELLECT. The fundamental tendencies or functions-Discrimination, Discovery of Agreements, Retentiveness or Memory, are at work from the first; but the active emotional development keeps them all down at the outset, although doing something to provide materials that will be used on a future day. The operation of intellect is requisite to such complex growths as curiosity, imagination, dramatizing, imitation, and fancy. The higher workings of intellect become necessary even to the observation of facts in any form that deserves the name. The management of the Activities, the Sense Pleasures, and the Emotions, makes up the branch of education called Moral Education. As essential forces and adjuncts they are all taken into account in intellectual education, for which department, however, the principal thread must follow the growth or sequence of the intellectual powers. The beginnings of knowledge are in activity and in pleasure, but the culminating point is in the power of attending to things in themselves indifferent. The successive stages of the process may be conceived as follows:— ACTIVITY AND THE SENSES. 179 By common consent, the first start in knowledge is made through spontaneous and overflowing activity and the interest of the impressions of the senses; all which, in the pristine freshness, afford an abounding enjoyment. At this stage, many things are discriminated, and from discrimination all knowledge begins. But then to discriminate is not aprimary vocation of the infant mind; enjoyment-immediate and incessant-has the precedence of all other objects. In the presence of the more enjoyable, the less enjoyable is disregarded. Observation, attention, concentration, lasts so long as enjoyment lasts and no longer. When the interest in anything flags, something else is sought after. If the pain of attention is greater than the pleasurable excitement, the attention is withdrawn. This state of things is so far favourable to knowledge; a good many objects of sense are surveyed under the pressure of pleasing attraction; restless activity leads to many changes of view, and the search for excitement induces a repeated survey of the outward scene. Moreover, intensity of sensation, whether pleasing or not, is a power; this does not win by seductive charm; it takes the attention by storm. Things indifferent, and even things unpleasing, leave their impress by the severity of the shock they give. There is an old saying, that wonder is the beginning of philosophy. Various things may be meant by wonder, but one thing is the shock of mere surprise or astonishment, irrespective of pleasure imparted. If the shock is painful, the mind no doubt rebels; it perhaps goes off in search of some sweet oblivious antidote; but an impression has been made an element of knowledge is secured. Before discussing the transition from the experiences that impress on the mind what is pleasurable, painful, and intense, to the impressing of those things that in themselves are indifferent and insipid, which make the larger part of our knowledge in the long run, I must bring up the side of activity to the same point as the side of passive receptivity. The active energies in the first instance follow the same course of adhering to what gives attraction or charm; at all events they do not lend themselves to tasteless effects. The moving organs, as repeatedly observed, begin by being exercised under the pressure of the active centres, their exertion being determined and limited by the central energy. When the steam is expended, the action ceases. A certain pleasure goes along with the active expenditure, but the action and the pleasure cease together, when the nervous and muscular discharges are no longer maintained. Under this prompting, the movements do nothing that is useful, except by accident; they do not of their own accord fall into any of those combinations that serve some productive end. No doubt they are preparing for such combinations. We cannot suppose that the child moves all its limbs profusely and variously without both strengthening them individually, and enlarging their compass or sweep; in short, bringing them up to the point when they can enter into groupings for useful ends. I am not here inquiring into the precise limits of the instinctive and the acquired actions of childhood. It is enough to recognize the fact that the first useful combinations are accidental; the discovery of their use is the cause of their being maintained, continued, and ultimately fixed into habits and active capabilities. In a word, pleasure and abatement of pain are the first motives to acquirements in the bodily organs. The power of the hands to supply wants, cater for pleasures, and rebut pains, is the earliest manual aptitude. The motions of head, trunk, eyes, mouth, tongue, all come into the like service, and this is their earliest stage of culture. Of all our muscular aptitudes, the most illustrative is Articulate Language. At first purely spontaneous and emotional, it lends itself very speedily to our desires and purposes, and in that service receives the commencement of its cultivation. The tones that demand assistance, that express satisfaction, or the opposite, become detached from mere instinctive promptings, and pass into useful instruments of the various moods and wishes of the infant. Then comes the child's pleasure from hearing the sound of its own voice; in which case it will cling by pre ATTENTION TO THE INDIFFERENT. 181 ference to the more agreeable tones (according to its standard at the time). But most illustrative for our purpose is the early stage of imitation-the stage when it is a pleasure to reproduce the sounds made by others. The motive here is somewhat advanced and complex, and does not put forth all its power till a later period; but it exemplifies that primary stage when nothing is done without some immediate gratification. The social instincts are undoubtedly very early in their appearance; and one of their manifestations is the interest felt in personality as such, and beyond the mere utility of being fed and attended to. The infant soon shows a degree of engrossment with persons that transcends the supply of its primary wants, although involving these; and this interest makes the charm of imitation. Having given voice to an articulate sound heard from others, the child experiences a throb of delight from the coincidence; and such pleasure is the early support and stimulus of imitation. It adheres to us all through, and is one of the teacher's best aids. Disgusted, as he often is, to have to cram things down the throats of unwilling subjects, his work is now and then lightened by the operation of this motive to imitate and reproduce with alacrity his own special aptitude and skill. To come now to the second stage of culture—the acquisition of the INDIFFERENT, both as passive impressions and as active power. We cannot be too thorough in our study of this critical transition; it is equalled in importance, but not surpassed, by one other transition, namely, from the Concrete to the Abstract. To escape from the influence of pleasure and pain as motives is impossible. To fall in love with and pursue the indifferent and insipid is a contradiction in terms. It is as means to ends that things indifferent in themselves can command attention. We may have the capability of distinguishing minute differences in the lengths of two rods, in the weights of two balls, in the curvatures of two bent bows, in the shades of two reds, in the pitches of two notes-but if the act gives no pleasure, removes no pain, excites no astonishment or violent sensation, we decline the exercise. By the first law, the prime condition, of all consciousness, a considerable difference has an awakening power, something of the nature of a surprise, and it leaves an impression which becomes an item of knowledge. A sharp change in the light of a room, a sudden rise or fall in the intensity of a sound, awakens the consciousness; and the more delicate the sense, the smaller are the changes that impart an arousing shock. This is the length that we can go in impressing mental differences. But I apprehend that the agency of difference, as an awakening or a shock, is very far short of our capability, as well as our needs, in the way of discrimination. Passing from one room to another ten degrees hotter or colder, we are aroused to the difference whether we will or not: perhaps five degrees might give the awakening; but it needs the pressure of some special motives to attention to make us discriminate (as we are able to do) a transition of one degree. One of the first indications of growing intelligence, of the contracting of fixed impressions of things around, is the discovery of circumstances attendant on what gives pleasure; events and objects that precede or accompany things that are delightful in themselves. The stimulus to attention derived from what is agreeable operates towards these accompaniments, which are thereby discriminated, marked, and impressed on the memory. The child comes to know, not merely its food and its agreeables, but all that goes along with them, and all the prognostics of their arrival. An object of strong intrinsic interest irradiates its surrounding sphere, and the more so as the impressions of outward things harden and become coherent. In this way great additions are made to the stock of discriminated and remembered objects; the motive being still an interested one-the access of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The motives continue the same, but they are intellectually extended. The wider the view of the collaterals of our pleasures, the wider is the influence of the stimulus to attention and discrimination. A very faint sound, which as pleasure is nothing, as a shock is unheeded, may yet betoken the arrival |