inculcated by the force of discipline, it is better withheld.

In teaching Geography, slight touches of history may be given, and in teaching History, geographical facts may be impressed; due regard being had to the precaution of not pursuing the digressions too far.

How to teach History proper, at the age when it can be taught, resolves itself into the method of explaining the elementary facts and workings of Government and Society, or what is called Sociology. This might have to be considered at the same time with the question of introducing the laws of Political Economy, which form a part of Sociology, in some respects simpler than the laws of Politics at large, although in the end mixed up with these. As repeatedly remarked, the stream of stirring narrative carries with it a number of fragments of a scheme of Sociology; and a time comes when they may be pieced together and the scheme completed.

As History will always be brought into early teaching long before the age when Sociology can be taught as a science following on the Science of Mind, there must be an empirical sociology involved or implied. This would suit the middle period of a complete education, say between thirteen and sixteen, when by the present arrangements classical teaching is in the ascendant. At that time the elements of Social Science might be introduced, and might receive their illustration in the historical field; but historical reading, apart from some definite social conceptions, must still remain in the lower stage of sensation narrative; or at most can but add to the more ordinary facts of human nature.

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The only remaining topic of Sequence is the order of the leading sciences-Mathematics, Physics, &c. If we take the five fundamental sciences-Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, the order now stated is what would be generally allowed. The Natural History Sciences-Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, walk by the side of these; Mineralogy, following on Physics and Chemistry, and Botany and Zoology being one aspect of Biology. Psychology, properly taught, would succeed Biology; but it is also the subject of an empirical teaching that dispenses with the knowledge and training of the preceding sciences. On Psychology would hang Scientific Sociology, fed by the earlier studies in Geography and History, but still demanding a rigorous scientific treatment in its place in the roll of the sciences. This would be the stage of Political Economy, and of the highest Ethical teaching; but both of these are supposed to be previously given in the empirical shape.

CHAPTER VIII.

METHODS.

THE foregoing chapter is intended to relieve the present one by a separate handling of one leading topic of Method. A full consideration of order or sequence lightens the task now to be undertaken--namely, to set forth the methods of teaching in detail.

The Teaching Method is arrived at in various ways. One principal mode is experience of the work; this is the inductive or practical source. Another mode is deduction from the laws of the human mind; this is the deductive or theoretical source. The third and best mode is to combine the two; to rectify empirical teaching by principles, and to qualify deductions from principles by practical experience.

As Morals, Religion, and Art are not included in this chapter, the discussion will revolve on the one great topic of communicating knowledge, and will follow the various aspects that knowledge assumes—as particular or general, and as relating to one or other of the many departments of the knowable; for example, the various sciences, in so far as they differ in their methods of teaching.

The arts and devices for communicating knowledge are comprised in the practical science of Rhetoric, and

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ought to be exhaustively viewed in that science. Rhetoric, however, has not yet been so completely shaped as to supply everything that belongs to the various emergencies of teaching. Nevertheless, the study of that subject, so far as it has been matured, is in the direct line of the teacher's work. The practice of the school not being confined to the means of assisting the understanding, but involving also appeals to the feelings, all the parts of Rhetorical method may come into operation.

Still, Rhetoric, as usually given, leaves out many points relative to the work of the school. The Rhetorical arts of good exposition, by Example, by Contrast, by Illustration, by Proof, must be known to every successful teacher; but the ordering of lessons, the conducting of viva voce interrogations, the proportioning of oral instruction to book work, the managing of object lessons,—demand an amount of consideration that they have never yet received from any writer on Rhetoric.

The outline formerly given of the great functions making up Intellect, supplies the leading points of method, as regards knowledge generally. We have seen what arrangements favour Discrimination as such; and Discrimination is not only the beginning of all knowledge, but, under the more expressive form of the sense of Contrast, bears a part in every new acquirement. The coordinate power of discerning Agreement has also its conditions, and these were previously stated, and again repeated in the last preceding chapter. The great function of Retentiveness was likewise briefly unfolded, as to its manner of working, and the conditions assigned; these being remarkably precise, as well as all-important.

In reviewing the various branches of school instruc

tion, we can discern several common characteristics admitting of general treatment. In the commencement of Speaking, in Singing, in Writing, and in Drawing, we have mechanical constructiveness, and this has a still more extended application in the manual arts. The mode of working here is simple and uniform; its conditions have been already assigned [p. 40], and will now be more fully exemplified. In learning to Read, constructiveness is joined with the associating operation of uniting articulate sounds with visible symbols. There is also called into play the discriminating sensibility of the eye, on which depends the retentiveness or memory for visible forms.

Constructiveness, as distinct from literal memory, enters into all the higher education, and is described under various names, the most apt being Conception or the Conceptive power or faculty. The first foundation of this may be called memory, provided we understand that it is memory of the concrete, or the full sensible image of the things that have impressed the senses. Having been inside a great building, we carry away with us a more or less exact recollection of its form, dimensions, surface, and contents, in their order; this is memory, but it is also conception. The oftener we have been inside the building, and the more attentive we have been, the fuller and firmer is our mental image. To hold such recollections in our mind, is to conceive more or less perfectly what we have seen. This is a power and an education in itself; and it is the ground-work of the farther education of conceiving what we may not have seen, but merely hear or read about.