as a train will move when the engineer turns on the

steam.

Answer of Pestalozzi.

Do you know who Pestalozzi was? It was he who said that if pupils are inattentive the teacher should first look to himself for the reason. He also was undoubtedly right. As certainly as a blade of corn will grow and mature if it is treated right—if the proper conditions are supplied so certainly will our pupils attend, and think as the result of attending, and develop as the result of thinking, if we supply the proper conditions.

Can Conditions of Learning Always be Supplied ? — "If we supply the proper conditions." It is but truth to say that that sometimes is beyond our power under the circumstances in which we are obliged to work. Some pupils have so little capacity for a subject that to supply the proper conditions would require an amount of attention which the teacher can not possibly give them. It is doubtful also if there are not cases in which there is so little capacity for a subject as to make it a waste of time for the pupil to attempt to study it. A case came under my own observation of a boy who would spend five hours on a spelling lesson, and still miss nine words out of ten. I am strongly inclined to the opinion that spelling was an accomplishment which he could not afford to acquire. (See Appendix A.)

QUESTIONS.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

15

1. What three things are essential to success in a difficult undertaking?

2. What can the study of Psychology do to make a teacher interested in his work?

3. What did Fitch say about teaching, and what did he mean by it?

4. How will the study of Psychology help a teacher to see at what he should aim?

5. How do men accomplish anything in nature?

6. Illustrate your statement.

7. Show that the same thing is true in our dealings with mind. 8. Do you believe that teachers could accomplish as wonderful results in dealing with the minds of their pupils as inventors have accomplished in dealing with nature, if they knew as much about mind?

9. Why do so many pupils dislike the work of school?

10. What did Comenius say is the reason our pupils do not learn? II. Is there anything in our system of classification which increases the difficulty of adapting our work to individual pupils so as to make it pleasant to them?

12. What can be done to obviate this?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.

1. Who is Fitch?

2. What book on education has he written?

3. Who was Comenius? When did he live?
4. Who was Pestalozzi, and when was he born?

5. What reform did he work in education?

LESSON III.

BODY AND MIND.

Connection between Body and Mind. We all know that there is an intimate connection between body and mind. We know that when our eyes are open we see, and when they are closed, we do not see; that when our hands, or other parts of the body, are in contact with an object we have a sensation of touch, and when they are not, we do not. We know that when we deprive our bodies of proper nourishment, as in fasting, we have a headache, and the longer we fast, the more incapable we become of any kind of mental exertion. We know that any derangement of the bodily functions produces an immediate effect upon the mind. We know that tea and coffee stimulate, and that alcoholic liquors intoxicate. Many a student has brought upon himself a feeling of bodily exhaustion through purely mental labor; or, by a long tramp or some other form of prolonged physical exertion, he has produced a feeling of mental exhaustion. In other words, prolonged mental labor not only fatigues the mind but the body; prolonged physical labor not only fatigues the body but the mind. Those are a few of the familiar facts which have made it impossible for any one to doubt that there is a very close relation between the body and the mind.

THE BRAIN AND THE MIND.

17

Opinion of the Greeks as to the Connection of the Brain and the Mind. - But it is by no means so evident that the brain is the part of the body which is in some sort of direct relation with the mind, and that the rest of the body influences the mind only through its relation to the brain. We shall realize this if we remember that though the Greek physician Alcmæon regarded the brain as the common meeting-place of the senses, and this opinion was accepted by Plato, yet Aristotle, himself the son of a doctor, and one of the greatest of the Greek philosophers, rejected it. He said that the brain was a lump of cold substance, useful as the source of the fluid. which lubricates the eyes, but quite unfit to be the organ of mind. What is the evidence which has led physiologists to conclude that he was mistaken?

Effect on Consciousness of a Blow on the Head. It is a matter of direct experience that the connection between consciousness and the brain is closer than that between consciousness and any other part of the body. A blow on the head may deprive us of consciousness; a blow on any other part of the body, as a rule, only inflicts pain. It is indeed true that a blow on the heart may cause unconsciousness. But that is because the blow may prevent the heart from sending to the brain its proper supply of blood.

The Nerves Compared with Telegraph Wires.-Moreover, the pain that we feel from a blow on any other part of the body depends upon the brain. Cut the nerve that connects one of the fingers with the brain, and an injury inflicted upon it makes no impression on consciousness.

The relation between the body and the brain may be roughly compared to the relation between a telegraph wire and the receiving office. The telegraph wire is important because it is the medium through which the messages are transmitted to the receiving office. But it is the machinery at the receiving office which makes the receipt of messages possible. And precisely as no message can be received if the telegraph wire is cut or injured, so no effect is produced upon the brain, and therefore none on consciousness, if the nerves connecting an injured part of the body with the brain are injured.

There is a rough resemblance between the relation of consciousness to the brain, and that of the ringing of a bell to the striking of its sides by its clapper. Cause the bell by any means to swing to and fro so that the clapper strikes its sides, and you cause it to ring. Affect the brain in any way, either by a blow on the head, or by increasing or decreasing the quantity of blood that supplies it, or by changing its quality, and you affect consciousness. Pulling the bell-rope only causes the bell to ring because it causes the clapper to strike the sides of the bell. When we see how closely pain follows upon an injury inflicted on any part of the body, we might suppose that the bodily injury is the direct cause of the consciousness of pain. But when we remember that the bodily injury affects consciousness only as the effect of the injury is communicated to the brain, we see that it is the effect upon the brain that influences consciousness.

The Supply of Blood to the Brain. This conclusion, which facts familiar to all of us render highly probable, may be regarded as demonstrated by the conclusions of