workers, and contemporaries, is due the merit of founding a rational school of psychology. With Herbart, the real work of introspection began. He established a psychology that could be applied to education; he established a psychology that moved straight into the realm of mind knowledge. His pupils have been and are continually modifying the early doctrines of Herbart. As Herbart judged Pestalozzi, so we can judge Herbart. His greatest merit was his movement towards something better. An indispensable sequence of Herbart's psychology was physiological psychology; a psychology that would explain the physical causes of mind action, that would everlastingly temper and modify the results of introspective psychology. The students of physiological psychology moved directly to the study of initial life, to the beginnings of mind development, to child study. Child study as a pure science must be fascinating in the extreme. It may be studied with profound enthusiasm without any appreciation of its function-education; but it only reaches its sublime height when this sole purpose is fully realized, and when all its discoveries reach the life of the child through the work of the teacher. The grandest product of Fræbel's life is the profound recognition of the dignity and the divinity of the child. The sin of the past has been the contempt for the individual. Personality has been sunken and buried in human organizations. Froebel lifted the child from this mass of ignorance and oppression and placed him before us as a type of the Babe of Bethlehem. He made paramount the study and exaltation of the individual; but Froebel, with all his glorious enthusiasm, his loving zeal and courageous persistence, could not and did not fully know the child. His deep intuitions could not fathom this greatest mystery and most profound problem beneath the throne of the Eternal.

Child study is a direct sequence and outcome of the doctrines of Fræbel and Herbart. A distinguished sociologist said the other day, that, if all the Christians of the world should start out upon a burning crusade to save mankind, they would utterly fail, because they lacked a requisite knowledge of sociological conditions. We can say the same of education. Pestalozzi moved along the line, fired by a burning zeal to help the child, but his methods are now called crude and unpractical. Fræbel followed him, gathering the products of Pestalozzi's great work, and moved on; but Fræbel's striving simply formed the initiation of a far higher work, the work that has now so fairly and promisingly begun under the name of child study.

I can speak for the teachers of the West when I say that no subject has ever claimed such close attention or aroused such enthusiasm as the present movement. It may be well here to suggest the dangers that come in the wake of any movement like this. The principal danger is to be found in generalizations without the most earnest and

prolonged research. This danger, however, can be guarded against by the presentation of the concensus of opinions of all scientists in this direction. The question of how the laboratory results of child study may be applied in the schoolroom is a very grave one, indeed. Movement in the right direction is generally so difficult that most persons prefer to stand still.

In regard to the application of child study in the schoolroom allow me to say, first, that those results which have been worked out by child-study scientists, and concerning which there is a general concensus of opinion, should receive our most profound and thoughtful attention. You will allow me to refer to one result concerning which I believe there is among scientists no dissenting voice, and that is the law of the diffusion of nervous energy. It has been decided, if I understand it, that the nervous energy of the child is diffused very slowly and gradually from the brain and spinal cord through the torso and limbs to the extremities; that this slow diffusion is marked by that which all persons may readily notice-broad, curved movements on the part of the child in walking, running, moving its arms and hands. If, say these scientists, the extremities are unduly exercised before this nervous energy is properly diffused, the undue action of the extremities-the fingers, for instance-causes a reaction against the flow of nervous energy, hemming it, and thus crippling the whole body. This is a conclusion of immense importance to teachers, and if it is applied in the schoolroom, finger writing, writing upon slates, drawing that requires minuteness and accuracy, the net-work of the kindergarten will be forever banished.

Second, child study will probably confirm many intuitions and discoveries from the side of close observation of children in the schoolroom by teachers unfettered by fixed habits of teaching. There are very few sympathetic teachers who have not groaned in spirit over the deformity in body induced by the prevailing manner of holding the pen in writing and the pencil in drawing. Now, the science of child study brings us a confirmation of that which many teachers have suspected from mere sympathetic observation. Dr. John Dewey says that an isolated study of forms of expression is disintegrating to the mind; that after a few years of such drudgery natural generalization and reasoning becomes impossible. Child study may throw new light upon this remarkable statement. It may be proven clearly from the child-study point of view that the saying of Horace Mann in regard to the spelling-book is a psychological truth. It may be proven beyond all doubt that there is an organic relation between thought and expression; that all attempt at art should spring directly from intrinsic thought. It may be shown that the brain fibers that lead from thought centers to motor centers should be exercised in order

to be developed. Some of these suspicions of truth that have been awakened in the minds of many teachers who have brought to bear a loving spirit upon their work may be shown to be true, while others may be corrected or shown to be false.

Third, the knowledge of the relation of the body to the mind will come out in the clear. Father Jahn's prophecies may receive complete confirmation, by demonstrating that mental action depends upon bodily health and bodily exercise. The place of rhythm in education may be scientifically exposed, and music take its true place in education upon a sounder, more scientific basis. It is true that most of these suspicions lack, as yet, confirmation; but that which the earnest, unprejudiced teacher finds in the schoolroom in the future may be referred to the test of the laboratory and the work of the scientist.

Fourth, a careful and thorough investigation of the laws of fatigue may lead teachers to more properly balance the work with play, or work with physical exercise.

Fifth, the laws of interest and of attention may be discovered and applied. It may be discovered that a child with a stiff immovable body in the class cannot exercise in the freest way the powers of the mind.

All education must, of necessity, take one direction,-must have one goal, and that is the close and careful study and appreciation of personality, and the consequent conditions for individual growth. The one duty of the teacher is to know the child and to supply the conditions for his highest growth and development into character. These words have been repeated often, but they never will be realized until the teacher has better means of interpreting certain physical manifestations of the child. It is undoubtedly true that thousands of children now in our schools are partially deaf, or partially blind; that they can only with great effort hear the teacher or see the printed line or written work upon the blackboard. The usual conclusion on the part of the teacher is that such a child is dull, stupid, inattentive, failing in obedience. Not long ago a mother brought her son, fifteen years of age, to me for advice and counsel. The boy had been in school for eight years and was still in the third grade. The mother said the boy was a good boy at home, willing and obedient; but in school he had never learned anything, while his twin brother was in the eighth grade. The mother was in despair in regard to her boy. When I spoke to the boy he turned his head and eye in a way that indicated that he was partially deaf. I said to mother, "Your son is deaf." She denied it vigorously; said she had never noticed it, and that the teacher in the school, an excellent one, had never said anything about it. The boy had been sitting in the rear of the room and

could hear very little of what his teacher said, and could see very little of what was on the board. He had been made to feel that he was dull and stupid, and he covered himself, like a pachyderm, with a skin of profound indifference. The case of this boy is simply a type of the cases of thousands. Their physical defects are misinterpreted, and called stupidity, or worse-viciousness. It is a well-known fact, that, after a severe case of scarlet fever, the child's brain is not in condition for attention; that it takes sometimes one or two years for the brain to resume its normal condition. The child leaves school with great ambition for promotion; he returns with the same ambition but with a physical inability to study. The teacher presses him on, and an unhealthful morbidness is the result. There are many children who have chorea-whose motor centers are partially disintegrated. One-half the cases of disobedience in schools are owing to over-nervousness-a pathological condition; and it may be truly said that most of the other half of the cases of disorder are due to animal spirits. This nervousness should have the cure of physical exercise; of manual training, if you please. These animal spirits are simply an exposition of the unexpended energy which should have its outlet in educative work. These are a few of the many instances that may be cited to show that a teacher may be full of sympathy for the children, and still totally misinterpret them and apply the wrong conditions, with the usual result of arrested growth. Child study should be the most helpful means for the study of personality. It is an open question as to what extent teachers may take part in the scientific study of children, but it is safe to affirm that conclusions should not be made without the most careful thought and investigation.

Child study has entered most of our universities and a few colleges, under the direction of eminent scientists. The day is not far distant when the example of the Worcester Normal School will be followed, and a scientist in physiological psychology and child study will have a prominent place in every normal school, so that trained graduates may come into the work armed and equipped in this direction.

In the report of the Fifteen upon the training of teachers, I read that the teachers should study personality in a common sense way, but into this study the weighing and measuring of children should not come. It may be answered that weighing and measuring of children is a very common sense way of studying personality. One thing teachers can all do, and should do with great pleasure and profit; and that is, to assist the scientists in their careful examination of the children. They can fill out blanks sent from laboratories; they can watch and report upon dispositions of pupils, upon fatigue, and many

other important items. I repeat, that this careful study raises the dignity of the child as nothing else can.

The effect upon the teachers of child study will undoubtedly be of great importance in the study of defects or symptoms of precocity. It will be readily granted that most teaching is simply and solely routine work, with little or no regard for personal needs and personal demands.

In another direction, child study may be exceedingly helpful; and that is, that it may lead parents to change their standard of education. The common standard of education on the part of the peoplethe products of the old education-is that of quantity, of learning pages, chapters, going over, finishing, being examined and marked, promoted, and if parents cannot watch by figures, personal reports, and promotions the progress of their children, they have no means of knowing that they move. The standard of character, of habits, of quality, has not entered the popular mind. There are many mothers who are becoming thoughtful in this direction; but most mothers are illustrating Rousseau's opening sentence in his great work upon education, "Émile," "The child comes perfect from the hand of God, but is degraded by education."

It may be of interest to you to know the plan of work of the first State Child Study Association ever formed. The Illinois State Society for Child Study was organized last spring at the Illinois University, under the successful leadership of Dr. W. O. Krohn. The scientific part of the work, the laboratory methods, are in the hands of a dozen or more eminent scientists, such as Dr. Wm. Bryan of Bloomington University, Dr. Donalson of the Chicago University, Dr. Holmes of the Surgeons' College and Dr. Meyer of the Insane Asylum of Kankakee. In the hands of these scientists is the general direction of the whole work, the publication of reports, hand-books, and other works upon child study. They are supposed to collect and promulgate all that is worthy of attention in this direction. The other officers of the society are teachers, and their special work is to assist the executive committee by investigation in the schoolroom, and to devise ways and means of applying in the schoolroom the principles and methods discovered, and to promulgate them in every possible way. The further aim of the society is to introduce the discussion of child study in all teachers' meetings and conventions and the formation of round tables by parents. A hand-book is now being made which will consist of a course of work, with full direction for the study of these round tables for one year.

The old Latin proverb, "Natura non facit saltum," cannot be too often recalled. No one should expect rapid strides and progress in nature study. We must expect many blunders and errors. The cour