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We take it for granted that there is a rational order of development in the course of the sciences, and that it ought to be followed in the course of common education. Starting from these assumptions, we seek to find what that order is, and arrive at the conclusion that there are five great studies for the human spirit-Mathesis, Physics, History, Psychology, and Theology-which must be pursued in the order in which we have here named them. This circle of five points must be embraced in every scheme of education, whether for the nursery, the subprimary school, the primary school, the grammar school, the high school, or the college. No one of them is to be omitted, in any school, until the student enters the professional school in which he is to prepare directly for the exercise of his profession or calling in life.

We also take it for granted that there is a natural order of development in the human powers, and that studies should be so arranged as to develop the powers in this order. Starting from this assumption, we arrive at the conclusion that the ability to receive impressions, that is, the perceptive power, first shows itself; next, a power to conceive or imagine; thirdly, the power of reasoning; fourthly, the power to decide and act upon the decisions of reason. Moreover, these faculties are called out in their proper order of development by taking the five branches of study in their proper order—and this harmony of the results of our two lines of inquiry is a presumptive proof of their correctness.

These are the conclusions at which we have arrived, and which we propose to illustrate somewhat at length in the present paper. Their great breadth and generality, and the demand which they make, upon those who accept them, to change the whole character of our education from the hour of the child's birth to the day of his gradation from college, must be our apology for the length of our remarks, and for our request that the reader should not dismiss them from his mind without a candid consideration of their value.

It is manifest that the faculties which are first developed should be first exercised by a judicious training. It is true that, in one sense, all the faculties are developed together-that glimmerings of reason, and faint indications of a will, are perceived in the youngest infant. Thus, also, in education, the child is to be treated from the beginning as a reasonable and free agent. But the perceptive powers become perfected in their action long before the reason is matured, or the will strongly developed. For the first few years of a child's life its principal occupation is that of learning to recognize material things by their forms. This natural education in geometry begins through the eye at the age of a few days; and, during the whole of childhood, the attention is strongly directed to those characteristics of bodies which appeal to the senses. By the age of fifteen the perceptive powers are frequently in their highest state of development. The powers of imagination are not usually manifested at all until the age of two or three years; never in a distinct form before the age of seven or eight months, and seldom, if ever, attain their fullest vigor before the age of twenty. The reasoning powers can not usually be shown to exist entirely distinct from the other faculties until the age of ten or twelve years, and seldom reach their perfection before the age of thirty. The will manifests itself, and comes to maturity no earlier than the power of reasoning.

Hence, nature herself indicates that the studies of the child should follow in such succession that his perceptive powers should first be exercised more than any other; that his imaginative powers should next be called into play; and that those studies which require reasoning, and those which treat of his responsibilities, should not be given him at too early an age. A man must first learn facts, then conceive hypotheses, before he can reason of abstract truths, and deduce laws of duty.

It is also self-evident that there must be a natural sequence or order of truths, or, as it has been called, a hierarchy of sciences. In our view of the whole field of knowledge, we see it divided into five great branches; Mathesis, Physics, History, Psychology, and Theology. Theology treats of the uncreated Creator, and of our special relations to Him. Psychology treats of man, who may be called the created creator. History deals with the thoughts and deeds of men; that is, with the creations of the created. Physics treat of the material world, that is, of the creations of the uncreated, with the creation in the usual sense of that word. Physics thus bear the same relation to Theology that History does to Psychology, and may

hence be called Natural History. Mathesis treats of that field of space and time in which the deeds of History and of Natural History are wrought; that is, if we consider time and space as having objective reality, Mathesis deals with the uncreating uncreated.

Now, all possible objects of human thought are comprised under one or another of these five heads, and these five studies logically precede each other in the order we have indicated. Mathematics must precede Physics, because conceptions of form, time, and number, necessarily precede any conceptions of material phenomena, which are subject to the laws of form, time and number. In other words, Mechanics treats of motion in straight lines or in curved orbits, of the transfer of force in various directions subject to the conditions of geometry, of the strength of materials in various forms, and of the adaptation of those forms to the purposes of art; all of which implies geometrical knowledge. Chemistry deals with definite proportions, with the laws of multiples, and of combinations, so that it necessarily requires a knowledge of arithmetic. Botany and Zoology in their morphology require both geometry and arithmetic; in their physiology, chemistry, and in both departments, mechanics.

As Mathematics thus necessarily precede Physics, so Physics must precede History. All that men do must be done in this world of ours, upon these materials set before us, while subject to the conditions of our material frame. All the thoughts of men must be expressed either by word, by symbol, or by a work of art; and of these even words imply a knowledge of the outward world, for all words were originally figurative. Hence, every historical study must be preceded by the knowledge of a certain amount of physical truth, that is, of Natural History. We might add that while the deeds of men are wrought by physical agents, a great deal of the thought of man has been expended upon physical theories; so that a just appreciation of human thought and action requires a knowledge of that material world which has been the theatre of men's actions, and the object of so many of their thoughts.

Again, Psychology requires a knowledge of Physiology and of History. We know nothing of the human soul save through its actions, interpreted by our own consciousness; including in its actions its thoughts as uttered in words. Lastly, Theology requires a knowledge of Psychology and of Natural History. For we can know nothing, by nature, concerning the Creator, in whose image we are made, except by first studying his works, and especially that image of Himself which He has placed within us. We may have religion with but little theology, but we can not have any theology at all, without some previous knowledge of ourselves, and of the other works of God.

It must be evident, therefore, that the Mathematics logically take the lead as the great and indispensable foundation of all learning. It is not only impossible to dispense with them, but impossible to place them any where else than at the beginning of all intellectual education. No man can

possibly attain to the knowledge of any thing in the world without first attaining some mathematical knowledge or power. That mathematical knowledge may have been gained unconsciously, and may not have arranged itself in a distinct scientific form in his mind; but it must be there, for there can not possibly be any intellectual life whatever upon our planet which does not begin with a perception of mathematical truth. A natural method of education requires us, therefore, to pay our earliest attention to the development of the child's power to grasp the truths of space and time.

Mathesis would naturally divide itself into three great branches, treating of space, of time, and of number. Geometry unfolds the laws of space; algebra those of time; and arithmetic those of number. Other branches of Mathematics are generated by the combination of these three fundamental branches. Now, geometry, arithmetic, and algebra, should be taught in a natural order. There is a difficulty in deciding, simply from the logical sequence, what that order is, because the fundamental ideas of the three studies are so nearly independent of each other. Pure algebra, as the science of time, can not, however, be evolved without reference to number and space; it will, to say the least, in the very process of its evolution, generate arithmetic. But geometry can be evolved without the slightest reference to time, although not, to any extent, without reference to number. The idea of number is one of the earliest abstractions from our contemplation of the material world.—American Journal of Education.

(To be Continued.)

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.

SINOE the organization of schools and systems for the spread of knowlledge, and the improvement of mind, there has been, perhaps, no one subject upon which more has been said and written, than that of the high responsibilities and duties of school teachers, while comparatively little has been considered with reference to the duties and obligations of school patrons.

The office of teacher is, indeed, one of high and sacred trust. God only can know the weight of responsibility felt by the true teacher. The greatness, the extent, and, at the same time, the complexity of the work overwhelm the soul, and cause the heart-searching inquiry, "who is sufficient for these things?" If to prepare the mind for the reception of knowledge -to break up the fallow ground of natural dullness and incapacity-to stir

up and present to the warming, quickening, and enlivening rays of light and truth the dormant strength and productive powers of the mind, and implant therein the healthful seeds of knowledge and virtue, were the only work assigned the teacher; then, even then, were their task arduous and great. But Oh! the weeds! the weeds! those noxious plants of vice and folly, which either choke out, and destroy utterly, or render deformed and sickly the precious plants of wisdom and virtue. How! oh, how! shall they be eradicated? how kept out from those tender and receptive soils, while strewn and nourished there by daily influence beyond the teacher's control? How, we ask, is this mighty task to be accomplished? How are those fetters upon the efforts of teachers-these clogs upon the wheels of the chariot of knowledge-these almost insurmountable hindrances to the triumph of light and right on earth, to be removed without an awakening on the part of parents and guardians as to their share in the work, and the absolute necessity of their co-operation with the teacher for its accomplishment?

An awakening, we say, for we do not think that the manifest neglect and deficiency in duty, on the part of patrons, arises, generally, from a willful desire to escape the yoke, but, as before intimated, from want of due consideration of the subject-a real sense of obligation.

To the parent the infant mind comes fresh from the hand of the Creator, pure, spotless, innocent-soft and impressible, receiving as readily and irerasably the impressions of truth, of virtue, of humanity, of nobleness, of manly integrity, of moral courage, perseverance, energy, and industry, as the blighting stamp of the opposite qualities. Whose fault is it, then, if at an early age the child reaches the school-room, already advanced in knowledge of evil. Why has the love of vanity and idleness taken the place in that young heart of the love of learning; that innate principle of the human mind, manifest in the young child by its countless "whys" and perplexing "what-fors," concerning every thing it sees or hears; a principle which, if rightly nourished, would grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength.

Whose fault is it if the teacher finds it impossible to make that child love study? or, with the minutest explanations, more than half understand the plainest propositions of science? At whose door lies the charge of that child's training? Why is half its time spent in the street, or other common resorts of those whose communications corrupt young minds and hearts, as well as good manners? Who's to blame if such "child left to himself" (a part of the time, at least) brings his parents to shame, and becomes vain and negligent, and often perverse?

Christian parent! take thy child with thee to thy closet, and with its little hand clasped in thine, bow in the presence of thy God, and ask thy soul whose fault it is? And if ever that delicate plant expand in worth and beauty, in the light of knowledge and truth, whether the teacher alone must labor for it.

MILWAUKEE, 1859.

C. A. ALWARD.

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