pletely? And this being the great thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which education has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge; and the only rational mode of judging of any educational course is to judge in what degree it discharges such function."

LEADING ACTIVITIES.-Looking at life we discover leading classes or departments of activity. There are physical, mental, and social needs, all of which must be provided for in a rational system of education according to their relative importance. Herbert Spencer classifies the leading kinds of activity as follows: " (1) those activities which directly minister to self-preservation; (2) those activities which, by securing the necessaries of life, indirectly minister to self-preservation; (3) those activities which have for their end the rearing and discipline of offspring; (4) those activities which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and political relations; (5) those miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings."

These different classes of activity, which broadly make up the sum of life, naturally demand such studies as physiology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and social science. In short, in opposition to the humanists, Spencer would make natural science the basis of education. Thus

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to the question," he says, "with which we set out, What knowledge is of most worth? the uniform reply is—science. This is the verdict in all the counts. For direct self-preservation or the maintenance of life and health the allimportant knowledge is-science. For that indirect selfpreservation which we call gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of greatest value is-science. For the due discharge

of parental functions the proper guidance is to be found only in-science. For that interpretation of national life, past and present, without which the citizen can not rightly regulate his conduct, the indispensable key is—science. Alike for the most perfect production and highest enjoyment of art in all its forms, the needful preparation is still-science. And for purposes of discipline-intellectual, moral, religious-the most efficient study is, once more-science."

CRITICISM OF CURRENT SYSTEM.-The current system of education, as Herbert Spencer thought, was devoted almost exclusively to that part of life which is concerned chiefly with elegant leisure and esthetic tastes. It did not aim at the utilitarian side of life as involved in the leading kinds of activity. It neglected the plant for the sake of the flower; in anxiety for elegance it forgot substance. "However fully we may admit," he says, "that extensive acquaintance with modern languages is a valuable accomplishment, which through reading, conversation, and travel, aids in giving a certain finish, it by no means follows that this result is rightly purchased at the cost of that vitally important knowledge sacrificed to it. Supposing it true that classical education conduces to elegance and correctness of style, it can not be said that elegance and correctness of style are comparable in importance to a familiarity with the principles that should guide the rearing of children. Grant that the taste may be greatly improved by reading all the poetry in extinct languages, yet it is not to be inferred that such improvement of taste is equivalent in value to an acquaintance with the laws of health. Accomplishments, the fine arts, belles-lettres, and all those things which, as we say, constitute the efflorescence of civilization should be wholly sub

ordinate to that knowledge and discipline in which civilization rests. As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should they occupy the leisure part of education."

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.-The second chapter of Spencer's work is devoted to intellectual education. He agrees with Herbart that educational practise should be based on a sound psychology. From this standpoint he lays down and ably defends the following principles with which we have been made familiar in the writings of other educational reformers: (1) in giving instruction we should proceed from the simple to the complex; (2) the concrete should precede the abstract; (3) the education of the child should accord with the educational development of the race; (4) the empirical should go before the rational or philosophical; (5) the true process of education is selfdevelopment; and (6) pleasurable excitement on the part of the student must be the criterion of any educational method. With Comenius and Rousseau, Spencer holds that nature must be our guide. In reference to the principles of self-activity and of pleasure in learning, "the most important and the least attended to," he says, "if progression from simple to complex, and from concrete to abstract, be considered the essential requirements as dictated by abstract psychology, then do these requirements that knowledge shall be self-mastered, and pleasurably mastered, become the tests by which we may judge whether the dictates of abstract psychology are being fulfilled. If the first embody the leading generalizations of the science of mental growth, the last are the chief canons of the art of fostering mental growth. For manifestly if the steps in our curriculum are so arranged that they can be successively ascended by the pupil himself with little or no help, they must correspond with the stages of evolution in his facul

ties; and manifestly if the successive achievement of these steps is intrinsically gratifying to him, it follows that they require no more than a normal exercise of his powers."

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HARSH METHODS.-The methods of instruction and of discipline should not be unduly exacting and harsh. When the acquisition of knowledge is made repugnant to the student, he will be likely to develop a distaste for it, and to give up his education as soon as the coercion of parents and teachers is withdrawn. "These results," Spencer says, are inevitable. While the laws of mental association remain true while men dislike the things and places that suggest painful recollections, and delight in those which call to mind bygone pleasures-painful lessons will make knowledge repulsive, and pleasurable lessons will make it attractive. The men to whom in boyhood information came in dreary tasks along with threats of punishment, and who were never led into habits of independent inquiry, are unlikely to be students in after years; while those to whom it came in the natural forms, at the proper times, and who remember its facts as not only interesting in themselves, but as the occasions of a long series of gratifying successes, are likely to continue through life that self-instruction commenced in youth."

MORAL EDUCATION.-The third chapter of the work under consideration treats of moral education. It is less comprehensive and satisfactory than the chapters we have already considered. Morality is not associated either with religion or with general ethical principles. It is made chiefly a matter of training. Spencer believes neither in the absolute goodness nor the total depravity of children. Consequently he is less sanguine than Horace Mann about the immediate regeneration of society by means of popular education. "We are not among those," he says, "who

believe in Lord Palmerston's dogma that all children are born good.' On the whole, the opposite dogma, untenable as it is, seems to us less wide of the truth. Nor do we agree with those who think that, by skilful discipline, children may be made altogether what they should be. Contrariwise, we are satisfied that though imperfections of nature may be diminished by wise management, they can not be removed by it. The notion that an ideal humanity might be forthwith produced by a perfect system of education is near akin to that shadowed forth in the poems of Shelley, that would mankind give up their old institutions, prejudices, and errors, all the evils in the world. would at once disappear; neither notion being acceptable to such as have dispassionately studied human affairs."

MORAL DISCIPLINE.-Herbert Spencer argues with great force against arbitrary punishments. He would have the punishment for any fault or transgression to come in the form of a natural consequence or retribution. He advocates what he calls "natural penalties." "Is it not manifest," he asks, "that, as ministers and interpreters of nature,' it is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct the natural reactions; neither warding them off, nor intensifying them, nor putting artificial consequences in place of them?" No unprejudiced reader will hesitate in his assent. For example, if a child litters a room, it should be required to put it in order again; or if it neglects to get ready in time for a walk, it should be left at home. This " measure would be more effective," he thinks, “than that perpetual scolding which ends only in producing callousness."

SELF-GOVERNMENT.-Inasmuch as like begets like, harshness naturally produces harshness; on the other hand,