much the fundamental assumptions of some of the writers diverge.

The advantages of taking into account the standpoint of the new science of social psychology in normal school instruction are many. The unfinished condition of the science induces an experimental attitude in the student—a feeling that he, by his work, can help interpret and develop psychology; the subject matter and interpretation are in the making. The teacher, from this standpoint, is not the oracle and the final resort; he is a member of a co-operating community in which students and instructors are at the same time givers and takers. Authority and discipline are looked upon as coming from the school life because they are the essential conditions of carrying on its legitimate function, not as created by a more or less benevolent despot. Social psychology shifts the point of stress; starts with the group in relation to the individual and native capacities in relation to social necessities. It gives new meaning to the old truth that consciousness, intelligence, develops in response to crises, by suggesting the fact that problems are never merely individual, but are always collective. It adds to the impressiveness of the ancient platitude that the school is not a mere collection of individuals, but a world in little, by finding fresh psychological evidence of common social instincts responding to common problems. It corrects the one-sidedness of the discipline of powers and the unfoldment theories of the aim of education by showing the dependence of powers and unfoldment upon social stimulus. Finally, it re-enforces the modern contention that behind conscious organized educational procedure there are depths of subtle, subconscious influences which, appealing to instinctive reactions not merging into distinct awareness, determine our behavior. It extends our understanding of the reaches of the contents of consciousness, at the same time that it broadens our realization of the social nature of its function.

Milwaukee Normal School.

ERNEST L. TALBERT.

Esthetic Experience and Education

'HE object of this paper is to review the chief charateris

place in a system of education. According to the wellknown formula, the consciousness of esthetic value, or the appreciation of beauty, is disinterested, immediate, objective, and universal. It is disinterested in that it is free from the thought of any selfish or purely personal advantage. There is a kind of suspension of utilitarian interests, and the observer feels an interest in the object as such. Esthetic values are immediate in the sense that they are certified within the experience itself. They are not discursive; we do not, as in ethical or logical judgments, refer to some ground or proof of values outside the beautiful object itself. Esthetic feeling is objective. This means that we think of beauty as an attribute of the object, we feel as if it were a part of the object rather than an effect upon ourselves. Connected with the objectivity of beauty is its universality. We think of beauty as being not a matter of purely individual interest but as something which would normally appeal to others as well as ourselves, as something, too, which is sharable with others. Esthetic consciousness, furthermore, is marked by an absorption of the subject in the object, a state of sympathy and surrender, akin, it has been said, to the hypnotic state. Again, esthetic consciousness is perceptual and it is motor, Every work of art must make a sensuous appeal-make its idea manifest to sense-in order to be art. The motor tendencies, which are so striking a part of the esthetic experience, are more or less imitative of something in the work of art itself. Any mention of the motor aspect of esthetic consciousness leads to the subject of Einfuehlung, that phase of consciousness upon which some recent writers believe that all esthetic experience is based. Einfuehlung is the "feeling oneself into" the object,-a "sympathetic reproduction", or "inner imitation" of the object, by which one tends to identify oneself with the apparent activity of the

statue or picture or movement of the music.

In this fashion, then, the writers on esthetics have defined our feeling for a beautiful object. Now, if we look over this list of things that they say about esthetic feeling, I think we may see that some of them describe pretty well certain phases of our moral and social experiences also. Thus, disinterestedness belongs quite as much to the moral and social attitude as to the esthetic. Moral judgments also are objective and universal. And again, the emotion of sympathy, which is of so great importance in our social action, is obviously allied to the esthetic Einfuehlung where one seems to live in something outside oneself. On the other hand, moral values are not immediate, are not necessarily sensuous, nor do they involve the absorption of the subject in the object so much as they involve a definite exercise of choice. The esthetic attitude is contemplative, whereas the ethical attitude is selective and active.. These likenesses and differences between the esthetic and the ethical attitude may be explained, it seems to me, by saying that to every enterprise there is both an esthetic and an ethical aspect. To the ethical aspect belong the moments of deliberation, or of struggle and choice, and to the esthetic the moments of contemplation or absorption in the ideal. It is art which furnishes the effective imagery for conduct. For, unless the imagery, by which we present to ourselves a possible line of conduct, has something in it dramatic or picturesque, or orderly or harmonious, in short, something beautiful, I do not see how that line of conduct could ever get chosen. I cannot see how any one can appreciate non-sensuous values, except through the medium of sensuous values. The ethical struggle is essentially the struggle for a "vision", and, when one really "sees" what to do, one commonly does it. The study of primitive culture has shown very clearly that the different forms of art were worked out in connection with the various significant moments of tribal life and that art, in its early stage at least, offered the imagery and the stimulus for all sorts of activities and enterprises. This social origin of art should not be forgotten in the discussion of esthetic experience, for it gives additional meaning to the fact that when the observer contemplates the art-product, he is enter

ing into the thought and feeling of others.

The esthetic attitude is not a thing which has to be grafted on to a child's experience, nor does one have to wait long for it to appear. Children, however much we may diverge from their standard of taste, are certainly equal to estheic experience of some sort. It seems, indeed, specially characteristic of youth to be capable of a complete and selfforgetful absorption, particularly if it is a matter of sense perception. The esthetic sympathy or Einfuehlung, which in a sense, invests inanimate objects with life, has been compared with primitive anthropomorphism, and we may extend the comparison to include the anthropomorphism of the child's mind. One may argue, then, that the esthetic expression, which is to be regarded as an important moral and social asset, finds a congenial period of development in childhood and youth. What can be done, one may ask, in the way of cultivating or encouraging this experience?

It must be admitted at once that not very much can be done directly and independently toward cultivating any emotional state. In the case of esthetic emotion we could accomplish very little by merely placing beautiful objects before a child and hinting to him to like them. Training must take place through the activities which emotion presupposes, and esthetic feeling is no exception to this rule. It is conditioned by antecedent activities and particularly is it affected by exercise in the arts. Esthetic feeling is the result, we are told, rather than the cause of artistic activity, and the problem of esthetic education is, therefore, very much bound up with the problems of education in the arts.

Dividing the subjects in the school curriculum into the two general types, the arts and the sciences, the question I want to ask is, whether the arts (including in that term industrial and fine arts) should not precede the sciences and occupy practically all of the first half-dozen years of the child's school life. Among the questions, which come up in this connection, are the following: What is the psychology of artistic activity? What is the psychology of scientific activity? What is the relative importance of artistic and scientific activity, and does one call for greater maturity than the other?

Let us briefly compare the esthetic attitude with the scientific. One big point of likeness is the disinterestedness which is essential to each, and the self-forgetful absorption. In both the artistic and the scientific treatment of things there is the attempt to discover and to present truth. The method of procedure is different in the two cases, and so, too, is the final product. Indeed, the emphasis on form or the sensuous content is the striking characteristic which distinguishes the truth of art from the truth of science, and this is, perhaps, but another way of saying that the product of science is knowledge, and that the product of art is a thing. It is true that scientific observation deals with concrete material, and even that some kinds of experimental procedure can be undertaken by young children. But, is it not also true that the essentially scientific part of science-its methods and generalizations and interest in fact as fact-fits in more naturally with a later period of development? Does not the fact that the values of art are tangible and immediate make them the values with which the child may feel most at home?

The different art forms offer such a variety of activities. that there is no question of their keeping the child profitably busy. Dancing, music, drawing, modelling, language work, wood work, textiles, etc., are enough to give a varied curriculum, and the "lessons" which they are able to offer in sensory discrimination, motor facility and accuracy, the handling of imagery of various types, the giving of close attention, the subordination to a model, as in drawing, submission, leadership, and co-operation, as in group activities of dancing or singing or joint literary work, give, certainly, most of the essentials of early training.

It may, of course, be very justly said that there are no adult mental capacities which are not already pre-figured in the conscious processes of the child, but it does not follow that these capacities are present in the same proportions at every stage of the child's growth. The wonderful increase in the power of abstract thought, which comes at the period of adolescence, seems to mark that as an appropriate time. for the beginning of scientific training.

Art more obviously represents a complete activity,