respects the new-born babe is hardly the peer of the new-born beast; but as the years pass, ever and ever he exhibits his superiority in all of the great classes of activities, until the distance by which he is separated from the brute is so great that his realm of existence is in another kingdom of nature."

1

Russell has said: "The human infant is, in truth, much more on a par with the lowly marsupials, the kangaroo and opossum, and requires for a longer period even than they the maternal contact, the warmth and shelter of the mother's arms. And not only does man thus begin life at the very bottom of the ladder, but he 'crawls to maturity' at a slower pace by far than any of the animal species. Long before he reaches manhood most of the brute contemporaries and playmates of his infant years will have had their day, and declined into decrepitude or died of old age."

The Child Not a Miniature Adult.-Though human, the child possesses at birth and for a long period subsequent many traits, physical and psychical, that are so different from those he will possess when mature that they might equally well be possessed by the lower animals. It was previously noted that during prenatal life for a long time it is difficult to distinguish the embryo from those of the lower animals. Even at birth the bodily proportions are very different from what they will be in adult life. The body and arms are ong, the legs are short, the head vastly larger in proportion to the rest of the body than it will be later. Although the head is very large, the frontal portion is relatively undeveloped, resembling the lower races or even the simians. If the body possessed the same proportions at maturity as in infancy, it would look like a monstrosity. The nervous system is very immature at birth. The frontal lobe is not only small, but the medullation of the cells is very incomplete and the association fibres necessary for relational thinking are almost entirely wanting. Not for a month after birth do the association areas of the brain begin to be medullated, and even at three months they are relatively unmedullated.

1 Introduction to Haskell's Child Observations, p. xix.

Psychically the child is not a miniature adult either. Intellectually and morally he lives in a realm long ago passed over by his parents and teachers. Furthermore they have so completely moulted their childhood traits that they would not recognize themselves if an exact reproduction of their child life could be furnished them. The adult is prone to judge the child mind from his own adult plane of thought and action. Consequently every action of the child is judged by such motives as govern the adult. The child, however, lives, moves, and has his being in a realm quite apart from that of the adult. If the child is to be wisely guided it can only be through a sympathetic understanding of the given stage of development and its relation to what precedes and what follows.

General Order of Unfoldment.-In a general way, the individual traverses mentally a road similar to that passed over by the race. The earliest manifestations of mental life in the human infant seem to be mere sensory pleasure-pain reactions to stimuli such as are exhibited by low forms of animal life. They gradually develop into higher, more discriminative stages, the senses become more accurate, the child becomes imitative, but still is not strongly reflective, is selfish, uncontrolled, etc. Gradually it becomes more imaginative, reflective, volitional, social, and ethical. This briefest possible sketch represents in a general way the course of racial development as well as individual unfoldment. The order of functioning of the various senses in the individual is essentially the same as we find in viewing the ascending zoological scale.

The senses first to awaken in both cases are the tactile and chemical senses, i. e., touch, taste, smell, and hunger. These are most fundamental in self-preservation. Sight and hearing in the phylogenetic series were long in developing and slow in attaining perfection. The new-born babe is deaf and blind. for some time, and these senses are slow in maturing. The development of touch as compared with sight and hearing is suggestive for education. The child must have abundant opportunity to touch, "feel," and handle things and gain "first

hand" knowledge if he is to awaken normally. Note what the blind and deaf can do by touch, if only given an opportunity.

Ear before Eye in Language. In race evolution the ear became an instrument for language acquisition long before the eye. Until long past the Homeric age all language was transmitted by word of mouth and the ear was the receiving organ. Writing and reading are decidedly modern accomplishments. Man has only recently found it necessary to view things minutely and by artificial light. Consequently the eye is still ill-adjusted to the new order of life. A study of the child's eye shows that here ontogeny retraces phylogeny. How poorly the babe controls the finer adjustments and co-ordinations may be seen by watching any helpless babe of a few hours or days old. The two eyes do not move together and they are very unco-ordinated. The child on entering school at six still has difficulty in focusing his eyes upon minute objects like fine print. Unfortunately we have thought that book study was the very best means of mental development. We are learning better and have also learned to free the immature eye from over-exertion and to protect it against almost certain disability consequent upon its premature use. That the ear should be the means of early language acquisition, however, we have been very tardy to appreciate. Teachers must understand that little children to be taught economically and effectively must be taught orally. The child begins to read after six or more years of hearing language. For five or six years more he cannot and should not read to learn very much, but should master the art of learning to read. His period of learning to hear is comparatively short, and the time of hearing to learn appears very early. These facts should be very significant to every teacher of children.

Utility as an Incentive to Development.-Psychologists assert that the purpose of sensation is to stimulate action; that every sensation tends to awaken its appropriate response. A study of lower forms of life and of primitive man reveals the close correspondence between sensation and muscular response and the meagre power of inhibition. The child is similarly endowed to

a marked degree. Primitive man did not acquire perceptions merely for the sake of hoarding them; neither were they for his improvement in the abstract. He acquired knowledge that he might reproduce it in action-in making something or in doing something. Note the identical tendency in the child. How eager he is to learn provided he expects to use that knowledge. Moreover, he must foresee immediate use. Only as the race grew older did man become provident against the rainy day and acquire for the sake of possible contingencies. Only as the child approaches manhood's estate does he begin to take pleasure in acquiring for more remote use. It might be added here incidentally that the race never acquires or learns without seeing the utility of so doing. Only pedantic school-masters argue for acquiring knowledge for knowledge's sake, or for an abstract discipline. These deeply implanted race instincts should be respected. Ideally we should never require a child to learn an atom of knowledge unless it can be made to appeal to him as worth while. Otherwise we are proceeding entirely counter to a most fundamental law of nature.

Order of Motor and Mental Activities.-The relative order of the development of manual and mental activities corroborates in a striking way the law of recapitulation. The race was for a vast length of time engaged in manual labor. In fact, the great majority of mankind still toil with the hands. The life interests

of humanity demand these activities. Success as a result of headwork in an office or in the invention of machinery is of recent origin. Anthropology and history show that primitive man enjoyed bodily activity-not necessarily the drudgery of work, but the chase, warfare, and bodily contests. Mankind in general would prefer bodily activity to mental if it well.

only paid as

In the child we see the racial order retraced. What normal child prefers a stuffy school-room and books to work on the farm with tools, or the most menial kinds of manual service? Children's spontaneous plays (which are their work) are always chosen from among manual activities. My children saw, plane,

fashion all sorts of implements, vehicles, circuses and shows; sew, make doll clothes, etc.; but they plan little intellectual work which does not have manual activity as a basis. Ask children under ten what they would like to be and they almost invariably answer, a drayman, a carpenter, a farmer, a wood-sawyer, a bricklayer, a paper-carrier, a dressmaker, a cook, a gardener, etc. Even children of professional men choose such vocations. The occupations in their environment have made little impression upon them, and that of a negative sort.

When shall we learn that the child is right in these things? Give a child a few tools, an opportunity to work in the garden (with you, of course), allow him to split and pile wood, wash dishes, cook, dust the floors, mow the lawn, or help on the farm, and you find a responsive chord at once. Properly directed, given under conditions not to make it repugnant, and allowed to be apparently spontaneous, manual work will appeal to any healthy boy or girl. Even in the high schools and colleges, students have not ceased to prefer manual activities to mental. Compare their enthusiasm over foot-ball with that for mathematics! And the foot-ball is not play either. No body of students is quite so enthusiastic over prescribed tasks as are engineering students. Without doubt, much of their enthusiasm is created through the element of manual work which always leads to the making of something. A better recognition of the place of the manual arts and crafts in all grades of school work is much needed. To afford them a proper place in the lower grades, especially, is imperative. Unfortunately we study how to keep children out of the very things they are just spoiling to do.

Spencer's Views on Recapitulation and Education.-Spencer was thoroughly committed to the idea that "the education of the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with the education of mankind as considered historically; or in other words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race." Again, he wrote that "education should be a repetition of civilization in little. It is alike probable that the historical sequence was,