tions. It is its peculiar effect, also, to develop and quicken the mental powers, to make both thought and expression precise and exact, to induce and confirm habits of attention and concentration of thought, and to lead to inquiry into and investigation of the causes and relations of things. Surely it is an important study. Why should it not be given a place in our high schools along with other sciences that reeceive attention there?

DISCUSSION.

SUPT. A. J. SWAIN, Owosso, said: I have taught mental philosophy but once or twice in my experience of 25 years.

The old Delphic maxim, “Know thyself,” certainly did not mean to know ourselves physically, but mentally. Hindrances to the study are a lack of trained and qualified teachers, of text-books, as well as of time. We should, however, find a place for it to aid in learning other branches. The Normal School cannot furnish teachers for the whole State. Our high school graduates constitute the bulk of our graded school teachers. Are they rightly fitted if they have not had a course in mind study?

Study it also as a means of self-control, for moral purposes, to induce habits of reflection.

DR. L. R. FISKE said: Mr. President, the teachers of the High Schools are best qualified to decide this question, and I have waited to get their views.

In youth the mind is occupied more in observation than in reflection; it turns its gaze outward rather than inward. In prescribing studies it is best always to regard the ten dencies which nature has established. Predominantly the young mind is engaged in forming first notions, and these first notions have the external world for their object Knowledge at first is largely empirical and relates to material things. This fact should decide the principle of selection of work.

The result of education should be the habit and trained power of reflection, developed philosophical tendencies. In true education there is a passing from the empirical to the rational, proceeding from the particular to the general, and from the general to the universal-finding fundamental principles which give us a reason for the facts and events of the phenomenal world, in which the multeity of observation and experience is brought into the unity of thought, and made to rest on universal principles. All education should look towards this. Relatively the empirical should become less and the rational more.

In school work we begin with the objective, and as we proceed there is a gradual training of the subjective, in which power is generated for reflective modes of mental operation. All study develops the mind in this direction, and as such development takes place the best conditions exist for the study of mind.

There are three classes of pupils in the High Schools. (1) Those who are preparing for college. (2) Those who are fitting themselves to become teachers and who do not expect to carry on their studies in schools of a higher grade. (3) Those who are preparing in these High Schools for business and the professions and who finish their school work in these schools. The first class will have an opportunity to study psychology thoroughly in College, much more thoroughly than they could possibly pursue it in any High School. If the third class ever enjoy the advantage of instruction in this important study it must be in the High School. For general intelligence should they not re. ceive instruction, at least, in the elementary principles of mental operations, a general analysis of mental powers, the relations of the faculties to each other, so as to be able to

understand the laws of cognition and the ground of the certitude of knowledge? Certainly at this stage of scholarship a considerable body of empirical knowledge of mind can be gained, but I doubt if there is time or fitness for profound philosophical study of the subject. This must be carried forward by introversion of powers, by introspection of thought. Nothing is to be taken on authority, dogmatic teaching is valueless; the pupil must test everything by an intelligent scrutiny of his own mental operations. This requires well trained powers of reflection.

The second class, who are to become teachers, need to possess a clear knowledge of the operations of mind, not only that they may be able to give instruction in the same, but that they may know how rationally to deal with mind in the school room and lead it forward in the pursuit of knowledge and culture according to the laws under which mental processes must be performed. Such knowledge can scarcely be gained in these schools.

The conclusion I reach is as follows: The order of mental culture is from the empirical to the rational. The objective most largely at first; the subjective gaining on the former as scholarship is acquired. Psychology cannot be made prominent in the High School. Either directly in an elementary form, or incidentally with other studies it may, and perhaps should be pursued. As philosophy, in which the energies of the reflective powers are employed, and need to be largely developed, the study belongs to a period of greater mental maturity. As a rule the study of nature first, as most readily apprehended and most easily engaging the attention, with gradual shading off towards philosophy, which requires the power of introspection in which a mental object may be clearly seen and sharply defined.

9

MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

BY HON. C. A. GOWER, LANSING.

Whether or not it be true that "The sun do move," as asserted by a distinguished colored preacher of Richmond, Va., it is generally recognized as a fact that the world does move, and I have been impressed with the idea that one onward movement of the world should be, and now is, along the line of greater appreciation of the value and need of systematic industrial training for the young. To consider the necessity of this movement, and the desirability of introducing manual training as a part of our common school work, is the aim of this paper.

It is said of Jonathan Edwards that, "owing partly to a peculiar combination of natural mental characteristics, and partly to a habit of solitariness, he was almost completely ignorant of the dominant tendencies of contemporary thought, and beyond the reach of any external influences fitted to aid him in freeing himself from the shackles of past systems." Michigan teachers have always shown a disinclination to be bound by the shackles of past educational systems. Let us carefully study the dominant tendencies of contemporary thought, and I am confident we shall decide that great improvement is possible in the work of our graded schools, especially in the way of the general introduction of manual training as a part of the course of study.

The terms industrial training and manual training are frequently used as if they were properly interchangeable. It is well however, to note that the term "industrial training" is much broader than the term "manual training," and includes the idea of special effort toward fitting the recipient for some particular useful occupation where skill of hand is required; while "manual training," strictly speaking, refers to such a training as will give skill to the hand, but without particular reference to making that skill directly and immediately productive in the way of useful work. While we shall use the term manual training in this paper, we do not wish to exclude from our consideration the industrial aspects of the question; but rather, would favor manual training in schools, primarily, in the interests of broad intelligence, and secondarily, on account of its great practical value in stimulating a taste for some form of handicraft, and making feasible the attainment of skill therein.

In seems desirable, in introducing this subject to consider, for a moment, the occasion for any public schools. Why does the state provide for popular education? Not certainly as an act of charity; for while the state properly exercises charity toward the unfortunate, it wisely refrains from wholesale benefaction, and aims always to encourage individual independence rather than general dependence. Primarily, we may say that the public educates that it may thereby enhance the safety of life and property." There is no security for either life or property in a community devoid of education and consequent intelligence. Intelligence confers upon each a sacred character." Secondly, we have grown to consider that the state is in duty bound to give to every child a small working capital in the way of an education, with which to start in active life-to set him up in business, as it were, with a small stock of intellectual goods, that he may thereby live a happier life and be of more value to the world. This secondary object of our schools may be more briefly stated as the generation of power in the individual for the especial benefit of society. The direct personal good received by the individual is purely accidental and incidental. Parenthetically, I wish to remark, that the duty of the state in education is confined strictly to such needs for intelligent citizenship as cannot be obtained by the average child except by public provision. For the state to go further than this is to do that which followed out to its logical results, would lead to that paternal type of government which has ever been the demagogue's promise, and the people's ruin.

Again the state should, as a matter of policy, undertake to furnish instruction in any useful trade or profession, so far as the needs of society will not be adequately met by agencies of a private character.

It follows, that the question of prime importance is, what is the best system of education? What system will most surely stimulate the exercise of those qualities of the child's nature which will lead him to respect the rights of others? What system will best prepare him to earn an honest living and bless the world by his life's work?

It would be interesting and most instructive, in this connection, could we study the history of civilization from the beginning and note the influence of the different systems of education which have prevailed in the great nations of antiquity, and learn wherein their strength and their weakness consisted. We should learn from such a study, that much of both the growth and the decay of nations was attributable to the systems of education which were dictated by the leading minds of each succeeding type of civilization. "The history of all ancient civilization," says Mr. Ham, "shows that a false system of education, a system which exalts abstract ideas and degrades things, promotes selfishness; that selfishness is the equivalent of savagery, and that savagery, however refined, wrecks society."

The development of broad intelligence, ambition to be somebody and ability to do something, being the object aimed at, let us inquire, is our present system of education giving us what we have a right to demand of a system supported by the public? The education which is given by the public and for the public should be the best possible. That this is not the case is seen in the fact that: First, It does not produce broad intelligence. The best results that can be claimed for the average common school course of study are, a very limited ability to use good English, fair penmanship, a little facility in performing arithmetical calculations and the acquisition of a large number of facts on various subjects. Original thought is discouraged, if not entirely

repressed, independent investigation is not allowed, the relation of facts learned in school to other known facts is not brought out, and the ability to reproduce thoughts of others in a manner valuable to the world is entirely neglected. The memory is cultivated and the reason allowed to slumber. In a statement of "The Theory of Education in the United States of America, " prepared with great care, and approved by nearly all the leading educators of the country, for distribution at the Centennial Exposition, we find this given as the conclusion of the whole subject: "The common school aims to give the pupils the great arts of receiving and communicating intelligence." This is certainly sad testimony as to the narrow views of accepted leaders in educational thought on the proper sphere of effort, and the culture to be aimed at in the "people's college.'

Second, It is unscientific. Herbert Spencer says on this point: "Intellectual progress is of necessity from the concrete to the abstract. But regardless of this, highly abstract subjects such as grammar, which should come quite late, are begun quite early. Political geography, dead and uninteresting to a child, and which should be an appendage of sociological studies, is commenced betimes, while physical geography, comprehensible and comparatively attractive to a child, is in great part passed over. Nearly every subject dealt with is arranged in abnormal order-definitions and rules and principles being put first, instead of being disclosed, as they are in the order of nature, through the study of cases, and then, pervading the whole, is the vicious system of rote learning-a system of sacrificing the spirit to the letter."

Third, It is impractical. The boy in our schools of to-day is taught many theories but is not required to put any of them into practice; hence he enters upon the serious duties of life unprepared to discharge any of them. He has been taught very little in school which has any direct bearing upon any trade or profession he may undertake.

Here Spencer again says: "That which our school courses have almost entirely left out, we find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. All our industries would cease were it not for that information which men begin to acquire, as best they may, after their education is said to be finished."

Fourth, It creates fallacious standards of merit. The "best scholar," according to the generally accepted standard, the one held up as the ne plus ultra of the school, is ever the one who most successfully represses the exuberance of youthful spirit, and the most readily learns and recites his lessons. Original investigation and inventive skill are merits which have no place for recognition in the schools of to-day.

Fifth, It is unjust in that it discriminates in favor of those who are seeking to prepare for work where intellectual attainments alone are required. Little as it does for these, it does practically nothing for the pupil who expects to earn a living by manual labor. The briefest consideration of the necessities for comfort and happiness in any civilized community, suffices to show that we are vastly more dependent upon the skillful hand-workers than upon the skillful brain-workers, for those things which make life worth living. The state does injustice to itself, therefore, in giving a helpful hand only to those who are destined to become the least useful members of society. While decrying the modern methods by which it is sought to enforce the aristocracy