easily acquire again if the pretension of our nation to inflict its own inner ideals and institutions vi et armis upon Orientals should meet with a resistance as obdurate as so far it has been gallant and spirited. Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now seem to imagine it to possess.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., March, 1899.

CONTENTS.

TALKS TO TEACHERS.

--

I. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE TEACHING ART.

The American educational organization, 3-

What teachers may expect from psychology, 5

Teaching methods must agree with psychology,

but cannot be immediately deduced therefrom, 7–

The science of teaching and the science of war,

9-The educational uses of psychology defined,

10-The teacher's duty toward child-study, 12.

II. THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

conscious

Our mental life is a succession of

'fields,' 15-They have a focus and a margin,

18-This description contrasted with the theory

of 'ideas,' 20-Wundt's conclusions, 20, note.

III. THE CHILD AS A BEHAVING ORGANISM

Mind as pure reason and mind as practical

guide, 22-The latter view the more fashionable

one to-day, 23-It will be adopted in this work,

24-Why so? 25-The teacher's function is to

train pupils to behavior, 28.

IV. EDUCATION AND BEHAVIOR

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15

22

Education defined, 29-Conduct is always its
outcome, 30-Different national ideals: Germany
and England, 31.

V. THE NECESSITY OF REACTIONS

No impression without expression, 33-Verbal

reproduction, 34- Manual training, 35-Pupils

should know their 'marks,' 37.

VI. NATIVE AND ACQUIRED REACTIONS

The acquired reactions must be preceded by

native ones, 38-Illustration: teaching child to

ask instead of snatching, 39-Man has more in-

stincts than other mammals, 43.

VII. WHAT THE NATIVE REACTIONS ARE

Fear and love, 45-Curiosity, 45-Imitation,

48-Emulation, 49-Forbidden by Rousseau, 51

- His error, 52-Ambition, pugnacity, and pride.

Soft pedagogics and the fighting impulse, 54—

Ownership, 55-Its educational uses, 56-Con-

structiveness, 58-Manual teaching, 59-Transi-

toriness in instincts, 60-Their order of succes-

sion, 61.

VIII. THE LAWS OF HABIT

Good and bad habits, 64-Habit due to plasti-

city of organic tissues, 65-The aim of education

is to make useful habits automatic, 66- Maxims

relative to habit-forming: 1. Strong initiative, 67

-2. No exception, 68-3. Seize first opportunity

to act, 69-4. Don't preach, 71- Darwin and

poetry: without exercise our capacities decay, 71

-The habit of mental and muscular relaxation,

74-Fifth maxim, keep the faculty of effort

trained, 75-Sudden conversions compatible with

laws of habit, 76-Momentous influence of habits

on character, 77.

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38

45

64

A case of habit, 79-The two laws, contiguity

and similarity, 80-The teacher has to build up

useful systems of association, 83-Habitual asso-

ciations determine character, 84-Indeterminate-

ness of our trains of association, 85-We can

trace them backward, but not foretell them, 86-

Interest deflects, 87— Prepotent parts of the field,

88-In teaching, multiply cues, 89.

X. INTEREST

-

The child's native interests, 91- How uninterest-

ing things acquire an interest, 94-Rules for the

teacher, 95-'Preparation' of the mind for the

lesson: the pupil must have something to attend

with, 97-All later interests are borrowed from

original ones, 99.

XI. ATTENTION

Interest and attention are two aspects of one

fact, 100- Voluntary attention comes in beats,

101-Genius and attention, 102-The subject

must change to win attention, 103—Mechanical

aids, 104-The physiological process, 106- The

new in the old is what excites interest, 108-In-

terest and effort are compatible, 110-Mind-wan-

dering, 112-Not fatal to mental efficiency, 114.

XII. MEMORY

Due to association, 116-No recall without a

cue, 118-Memory is due to brain-plasticity, 119

- Native retentiveness, 120-Number of associa-

tions may practically be its equivalent, 122-Re-

tentiveness is a fixed property of the individual,

123-Memory versus memories, 124 Scientific

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91

100

116

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system as help to memory, 126-Technical mem-

ories, 127.

Cramming, 129-Elementary memory

unimprovable, 130-Utility of verbal memorizing,

131-Measurements of immediate memory, 133-

They throw little light, 134-Passion is the im-

portant factor in human efficiency, 137-Eye-

memory, ear-memory, etc., 137-The rate of

forgetting, Ebbinghaus's results, 139-Influence

of the unreproducible, 142-To remember, one

must think and connect, 143.

Education gives a stock of conceptions, 144-

The order of their acquisition, 146-Value of

verbal material, 149- Abstractions of different

orders: when are they assimilable, 151 - False

conceptions of children, 152.

Often a mystifying idea, 155-The process de-

fined, 157- The law of economy, 159 — Old-

fogyism, 160- How many types of apperception ?

161- New heads of classification must continually

be invented, 163 - Alteration of the apperceiving

mass, 165-Class names are what we work by,

166- Few new fundamental conceptions acquired

after twenty-five, 167.

XV. THE WILL

'The word defined, 169-All consciousness tends

to action, 170- Ideo-motor action, 171- Inhibi-

tion, 172- The process of deliberation, 174-

Why so few of our ideas result in acts, 176

The associationist account of the will, 177 — A

balance of impulses and inhibitions, 178-The

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169