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are weak, and that we must be modest in regard to our accomplishments. In this connection, a child should be prepared to recite verbatim that great English poem, Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional," of which we copy the second stanza:

"The shouting and the tumult dies,
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of hosts,

Lord God of hosts,
Be with us yet,

Lest we forget, Lest we forget."

This song can be found in the Ladies' Home Journal, May, 1898.

Another excellent way of giving pupils an appreciation of their fatherland is to read to them by way of contrast, after Washington has been discussed as outlined above, Edward Everett Hale's The Man Without a Country. This story appeals strongly to pupils from the fourth grade through the eighth, if sympathetically read (and one can scarcely fail to read it thus); and if sufficient pauses are made in the reading for comments to be made by teacher and pupils, the interest will be doubled.

THE REAL PROVINCE OF METHOD.

By HOWARD SANDISON.

[This paper, with revisions by the author, is reprinted in response to numerous requests It first appeared in the opening number of the EDUCATOR August, 1895.-ED.]

INDISTINCTNESS AS TO THE PROVINCE.

N this case the mere title is itself signifiIN cant. It implies that the boundary line between the realm of method and that of something else is indistinct. That something else may be scholarship; it may be the realm of means, of external appliances, of devices. In the title there is the implication that method is, or has been occupying an unreal, fictitious province. This fictitiousness may arise from the fact that scholarship is wanting, and that the attempt to determine a set of principles to control in that given realm, in which scholarship is wanting, results in an unreal province for method. Outer doing, devices, external means, with little or no attention to the truths that underlie them, may be pressed to the front as method. This would constitute a fictitious province for method. Scholarship alone, may be exalted as if it were all in all. In that case method would not possess its real province. It means that an indistinctness prevails as to the true realm of method. To remove this indistinctness is the problem of this discussion.

THE GROUND OF INDISTINCTNESS.

It is but natural that a certain indefiniteness, that a given degree of indistinctness should prevail as to the real province of method, in distinction from that of both

scholarship and external means. The reason for this is that activity is the one thing to be found in the universe. Sometimes one speaks of a thing and of activity upon it. But what is the thing itself other than activity? A block of compact steel seems perfectly motionless, yet every atom in it has a space of its own, and exists in a continual dance. Thus it is with every atom in the hardest granite. It seems from such examples that only activity is. This activity rises from its most passive form in space, until it becomes an activity that can become aware of itself, as in consciousness. Scholarship, then, of necessity, concerns itself with activity, and with activity only. Method, too, must deal with activity, and with that alone. The realm of device, of external means, is also one of doing, of activity. In this fact that device is activity, that method deals with activity, that the subject-matter of scholarship is activity-rests the source of the indistinctness as to their respective provinces.

GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TERM METHOD.

The activity that scholarship investigates appears in ever-recurring types. This activity may, therefore, appropriately take unto itself the term method. Every branch of study investigates activity as type or law; and law is method, and method is

law. The past makes us its debtor by handing over to us this thought in the very term method itself. The word method signifies according to a way. But what is it that is according to a way? And what is meant by a way? If the thought above presented, viz., that there is nothing in the universe other than activity, then it must be activity that is according to a way. And, moreover, the way itself is necessarily an activity. Then it becomes clear that the past transfers to us this thought which it had garnered from the fields of experience-a method is an activity according to, or in harmony with, an activity. The first activity mentioned must be the real one, the one actually occuring; the one exhibiting itself in some product. The second activity referred to must be the ideal one; the typical activity; the norm; it is both the end and the criterion of the real activity; of the one that is actually occurring. A method, then, is a real activity according to, and in harmony with an ideal activity. It now becomes somewhat more clear that close thought only, will render distinct the provinces of scholarship, method and devices, and likewise their unity.

THE OBJECTIVE METHOD.

Every branch of study has for its subjectmatter certain particulars, certain phenomena that are essentially its own. These phenomena may appear in other branches of study as well as in this one, but they do not appear in those other branches in the same aspect that they do in this. The cotton plant appears as a fact in geography. It is also present as one of the phenomena considered in botany. As a geographical fact, however, it is not identical with itself as a botanical fact. If in this sense each branch of study has its own set of particulars, the activity that produces any one of these particulars must be typical. Why does one in looking at a piece of sandstone say, This is not a good specimen? It is because the activity that produced it was not according to the type; to the ideal. The activity that produces the fact in history or in geology, must be an activity according to the type; according to the ideal. Hence, in this sense, activity is a method. The activity that produces a grammatical fact, the activity that produces a geographical fact, the activity that produces an historical fact, is a method, because it is an activity which has as its end and criterion an ideal. Identity with this

ideal must be the end of the activity, and the ideal is its criterion. It is with such a thought in mind that one says, this is not truly a geographical fact; that it is not really a grammatical fact: that ought not to be termed a historical fact. There is, then, a method in the subject, and this method is the activity that produces the individuals.composing the subject-matter. Such activity is in the realm of scholarship.

The problem in a given branch of study is to investigate the nature of the activity that produces its facts; to determine the various phases thereof and their relations to one another. For example, the noun is a fact in grammar. The activity that produces it is different from the activity that produces the lily of the valley. Grammar must investigate the first activity, botany the second. Each branch of study is, however, an inves tigation of the method that creates the individuals in its subject-matter. This activity may be termed the objective method.

Every branch of study, therefore, has its objective method. By this is meant the method, the activity, the force, the energy that produces the different individuals composing the subject-matter. For example. the subject of reading has what may be termed its objective method. This is the energy, the force, the activity required to produce the various individuals in the subjectmatter; such as "Thanatopsis," "Evange line," "The Burial of Sir John Moore," "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," etc. Grammar has its objective method. This is the activity, the energy, the force that creates the various individuals included in the subject-matter of grammar; as the noun, the adverb, the preposition, etc. History as a branch of study has its objective method. This is the activity, the energy, the force that created the various individuals in the subject-matter, as, the battle of Bunker Hill, the Hartford Convention, the Secession Ordinance, etc. The investigation of such activities and their products, is within the realm of scholarship.

THE PROVINCE OF SCHOLARSHIP.

When scholarship has revealed the essential nature of this activity-this objective method of the subject-it has grasped the true basis from which may be inferred two important things. One of these is the scope of the subject-matter. It is the function of scholarship to determine this

to decide what facts belong within the range of the subject, and what ones are excluded. The other important thing that may be inferred is the divisions within this subjectmatter. Scholarship takes upon itself the determination of these. In any branch of study, therefore, scholarship is to seek out and make clear the essential nature of the creative activity that produces the individuals of the subject. It is then to infer from the nature of this activity the scope, the extent of the subject-matter, the boundary lines of the subject.

Its third great line of work is to determine from the nature of this activity, the divisions and sub-divisions belonging to the subject matter, carrying such down to the particulars. It is then in the fourth place to investigate these particulars, marking their unities and distinction. Such in any branch of study seems to be scholarship's province.

THE SUBJECTIVE METHOD.

In such investigation the subject-matter is assumed to be a fact distinct from the examining mind; but there constantly arises a peculiar set of questions, such as: What is the relative value of this division compared with that? Of this sub-division compared with that? Of this particular compared with that? Then it at once becomes evident that there is a factor to be considered over against all this with which scholarship has seemed to concern itself, and this factor is the mind which is to do the investigating. When one says, What is the relative value of this fact as compared with that?, he evidently means the relative value to him, the investigator, arising from making subjective, from making an element of his consciousness, this fact, as compared with doing the same with that fact. When this inquiry arises, one begins to pass from the realm of scholarship over into the the real province of method. For in such inquiry what is hinted? A second activity, a new activity. The activity that produces any fact in the subject of botany may be termed the objective method in botany. But here is another activity-the activity which renders this fact of botany subjective to the inquiring mind; the activity which transmutes the external fact of botany into self; into consciousness. This activity is distinctive; that is, the act of consciousness which transmutes a fact of botany into self has distinguishing marks that set it off from the activity which renders a fact

of geology an element of consciousness. The activity that produces a fact, an individual, in the subject of physics, is the objective method in physics; but the activity of the inquiring mind necessary to make this fact of physics subjective, necessary to make it an element of self, of consciousness, is the subjective method in physics.

THE PROVINCE OF METHOD.

Every branch of study, therefore, has both its objective method and its subjective method. The objective method is the activity, the energy, the force that produces the various individuals that constitute its subjectmatter. The subjective method is the activity of mind necessary to transmute into the self any one of these facts of the subjectmatter. The investigation of this subjective method, this activity of the self, necessary to make its own any one of the facts of the subject, is within the real province of method. The activity that produces the various facts in the subject of botany is the objective method in botany, and is within the realm of scholarship. The scope of the facts determined, is also in the realm of scholarship; as are likewise the divisions, the sub-divisions and the distinctions and unities of the particulars. But the nature of the activity that the mind performs in mastering any one of these facts, and the relative value of the divisions and sub-divisions and facts, because of the nature of this mental activity, -these things are in the real province of method.

THE MENTAL EFFECTS.

When the mind working in the real province of method has determined the essential nature of this conscious activity put forth by the inquiring mind in mastering a fact of the subject, it is able to make two important inferences. These inferences belong also to the real province of method, and the examination of the things inferred falls likewise within that province. What are the things to be inferred from the nature of the mind's activity in mastering a fact of a given subject?

Intellectual.

The first is the effect produced upon the mind by thinking this fact; by identifying itself with it. This effect appears first as a definite mental swing-a certain habitude of mind which the given sub

ject alone is fitted to establish. For example, in language the definite mental swing begins with the conceiving of an object. The mind may first seize the object in sense-perception, memory, imagination, but it ends by conceiving it; by generalizing it. The next movement in this definite mental swing is the forming of a purpose to express the object to another. Thereupon, the mind conceives or images the expression and then contemplates the harmony, the correspondence between the object to be expressed, and the expression. No subject other than language is fitted to establish just this habitude; just this mental process. This may be termed the language act. There is also the historical act. In such an act the mind first conceives the disposition, the mental condition of the people. This is succeeded by the consideration of the event or object produced by this condition of the minds of the people. In the third place the mind becomes aware of the new dispensation, of the new mental state belonging to the peeple as produced by this event. In the historical act, then, any event, as for example, the Civil War, appears as the result of a certain state of mind in the people; and as an active cause producing a succeeding result in their minds. To conceive a certain state of the public mind, to apprehend this taking shape in some event or statute; to seize the new state of the public mind as an effect of this event or statute, is the peculiar mental swing in the subject of history. This central effect, this essential process belonging to every subject, is one of the effects to be studied. The determination of the exact nature of this effect in relation to any given subject, belongs to the real province of method.

Emotional.

In addition to this under the head of effect is to be noted the emotional response. In history there arises an interest in the state of the public mind, in the event to be produced thereby, and in the reflex influence of this event. Just the nature of this, the various opportunities that life affords for its play and its value, compared with the knowledge of specific gravity and other ideas and emotions-the discussion of all such things belongs under the real province of method. It would pertain to the real province of method to determine the main and the subordinate emotions to be awakened by the study of Dickens' "Hard Times;"

by the study of "Evangeline;" by the perusal in Dante's "Divine Comedy," of the lines setting forth the condition of the angry and sullen. The occasions in life affording opportunity for the exercise of these feelings and the relative value of such mental states compared with a knowledge of the cube root, with a knowledge of the surface of the United States, &c., would belong under the realm of method.

Volitional.

A third thing to be noted under effect is the volitional development-the tendency to a prompt and decisive choice, and to persistence in that choice. It would belong to the real province of method to determine just what tendencies toward choice and toward perseverance in a given course would be awakened and stimulated by a study of the condition of the inhabitants in the vestibule to the Inferno-by a study of Tito, shown in George Eliot's "Romola," as an example of fixation of character-by a study of Taylor's persistence in the Mexican War, and Grant's in the Civil War. The real province of method would claim. as its own the determination of the various occasions in life that would call for prompt choosing and persistence, and the weighing of the value of such mental traits along with those arising from the study of bookkeeping, compound numbers, &c.

Method, then, takes unto itself the examination and valuation of the entire realm of effects produced upon the self in its mastery of the facts in any subject. Herein is seen the value to the teacher arising from a study of such subjects as Aesthetics, Ethics, Logic, Psychology and Philosophy.

RELATIVE EDUCATIONAL VALUE.

A second thing to be inferred from the subjective method in any subject, that is, from the main mental process in mastering a subject, is the relative educational value as a subject-its value as a subject compared with other subjects, the relative value of the different individuals of the subject. The consideration of all these things pertains to the real province of method.

Means or Devices.

There is a third thing to be inferred from the main mental process employed in mastering a given subject. This is the means

the devices, the instrumentalities appropriate to the direction and stimulation of this mental process-appropriate to the awakening and fixing of the mental effects naturally belonging to the subject. This includes a consideration of the teacher himself; of the range of his scholarship; of his disposition; of the trend of his sympathies; of the harmony of his character; of his industry; of his quickness of insight; of his ability as a questioner; of his spirit as an enquirer, and of the relation of all these qualities to the stimulating and directing of the mental process in the learner. Under this third head would be included not only the determining of the devices, but also the deciding of the order of their employment and the grounds therefor. The real province of method would seem to include all these things.

SUMMARY.

It appears, therefore, that to every branch. of study belongs an objective method, or the activity which creates the individuals of the subject-matter; a scope or range of the subject-matter determined therefrom; and various divisions, subdivisions, and attributes of distinction and unity in the particulars likewise determined therefrom; and a subjective method, viz., the mental activity involved in mastering any fact of the subject-matter; together with the effects, relative value and instrumentalities to be inferred therefrom.

The real province of scholarship includes all that pertains to the objective method and its inferences; and the real province of method includes all found in the subjective method and the inferences essentially involved therein

IF

I.

FAMILIAR TALKS ON READING. By CHARLES M. CURRY.

F we could all agree upon the sense in which we use terms of expression most of our controversial discussions about proper methods in the study of literary selections would disappear. Most of our quarrels are simply quibbles about words. If you are unwary enough to admit that you are studying In Memoriam to get at the poet's "philosophy of life" you are apt to be met by the emphatic dictum that a poet has no "phi. losophy of life," that he writes simply to express the beautiful, etc. We are continu

If,

ally told that the poet is not a philosopher, that he has no "theory of life." All this depends. If by "philosophy of life" is meant a carefully articulated system of thought, an abstract view of the subject, then no doubt the objector is correct. If, however, the expression is used merely to include whatever the poet has to offer in the way of ideas about life, pictures of life distinguished by beauty or significance, then it is certainly a proper term. No person can write a novel or a poem without putting into it some view of life, and no one can understand the novel or poem without clearly seeing this view of life. Again, if one should

speak of the "moral" of a poem he is likely to see the orthodox lift their hands in horror and proclaim in a loud voice that a poet is not a teacher of morals and that he has written simply to express what was second nature to him and without any reference to its moral effect. If by "moral" you have meant simply the central idea or theme of the poem, it appears at once that you are not so heterodox as supposed. F. Marion Crawford, in his essay on The Novel, labors to show that fiction may be written without "a purpose,' in fact, that to be fine art it must be written without a purpose. And yet the total result of his argument is simply to suggest that "didactic purpose" is not likely to lead to the highest art. But it purpose is used to express "that which a thing does" there can be no real objection to its use, and need be no misunderstanding about its meaning. There is no virtue simply in the use of these terms. If used at all they must be used as a means. Students have sometimes bothered their heads to such an extent about the difference between "theme" and "purpose" that the more important questionthe poem-has escaped them. Whether these terms are synonymous or not depends

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