became uneasy when any one, even without his knowledge, brought a silver spoon near him.

The American Indians, as is well known, whose mode of life is little better than that of animals, surpass most Europeans in the keenness of their senses; and thus, according to Rousseau and Guts Muths, the Caribs and Iroquois should be valued as our models. They might equally as well have proposed the eyes of a lynx, the nose of a hound, &c., as ideals. I have expressed my views already upon such doctrines as to bodily training, particularly that of the senses, in the following aphorisms, in which I have described an ideal of the cultivation of the senses.

The ancient legends clearly expressed the difference between mere animal strength of body and the human intellectual strength of body, by making their giants-huge, stupid, uncouth masses of flesh— be conquered by knights, smaller in body, but of keener intellects. Are then tigers models for springing, apes for climbing, and birds for flying? are they inaccessible ideals, to which the gymnast should look up with resignation and longing? We might like very well to fly, but not in the form of a crow or a stork; we would be angels. We would prefer to live imperfect, in a higher grade of existence, with the sense of capacity for development, than to fall back into a more complete but lower grade, behind us and below us. Cæsar despised being the first man in a small village, because he felt himself capable of being the first man in Rome. In like manner, the Turning system contemns a lower animal development, because a higher human one is accessible to it.

If the eye were only a corporeal mirror of the visible world, it would represent equally well or equally ill the most different things, according to the bodily health and strength, or sickness and weakness, of its condition. But it is an organ of intellectual susceptibility; of not only a bodily but also an intellectual union with things. And accordingly it is a well-grounded usage in language by which we say "to have keen eyes;" and "to have an eye for" particular things, such as plants, animals, &c. The former indicates bodily health and strength; the latter points to an original spiritual relation between the eye and certain things, trained by close study.

The art of cul

The same is more or less true of the other senses. tivating the senses has only to a very small extent any thing to do with what increases their corporeal strength-as, for instance, with medical rules for taking care of and strengthening the eyes.

It has much more to do with the cultivation of the intellectual susceptibility of each of the senses. Therefore it begins not with

the arbitrary, one-sided cultivation of one sense, which tends to diminish the susceptibility of the others; and still less does it direct one sense arbitrarily to one single class of objects, as the eyes to plants or animals exclusively. For this would cripple the intellectual application of the senses to things of other kinds. But if the teacher has begun, as the universal microcosmic character of every well-organized child requires, with as general a cultivation of all his senses as is possible, and then observes a prominent and stronger activity in one sense, or an especial applicability of it to some one department of the visible world, as of the eye to minerals, &c., then only may he undertake the cultivation of that one sense or susceptibility, as a peculiar talent.

If now the intellectual senses are supplied by the external senses with an abundance of intuitions of all kinds, the impressions thus received gradually ripen, and desire to be brought to the light of day. Thus a little child speaks words which it has often heard its mother use, then sings what it has often heard sung, and tries to draw what it has often seen.

With every receptive organ nature has coupled a producing or representing one, or even more; in order that man may not be solitary in the midst of his inward wealth, but may communicate with others. He can, in many ways, represent a known object, whose picture is visible to his mind; he can describe it in writing, act it, &c. The development of the susceptibility to impressions must naturally precede that of the power of representing. Hearing must precede speaking and singing; seeing, painting, &c. There exists a sympathy, as is well known, between the susceptible organs and the corresponding representing ones; of the organs of hearing with those of speech, of those of vision with the hand, &c. The use of the receiving organs seems to produce a secret, quiet growth of the representing ones, though these latter be not directly practiced.

In many trades, the apprentice is made to look on for a whole year, before putting his hand to the work. When his eye thus becomes intelligent, the hand follows it sympathetically. It is to be wished that the example might be followed in all the cultivation of the senses.

The teacher who tries to cultivate receptivity and power of representing together, who requires the pupil to furnish an expression immediately after the impression is made, mistakes Nature, who requires a quiet, undisturbed condition of the senses for their receptive office, and usually a slow development of the power of representing.

It is said of some of the North American Indians that the development of their senses furnishes, for those who would combine them

with bodily exercises, a model which never can be equaled. It is true that, according to the accounts of travelers, they surpass Europeans in keenness of sight, hearing, and smell. But are they therefore models of the cultivation of the senses?

This is confusing the idea of a human cultivation of the senses with an animal one; corporeal perfection of the senses with intellectual. The preceding observations have shown how different these are; examples will make the difference still more evident.

There are many men who have hearing so keen as to distinguish faint sounds at a very great distance, but who have no feeling at all for pure or beautiful music. There are most accurate piano-tuners and music-masters, who can distinguish every fault in any instrument amongst a full orchestra; but who, notwithstanding this fineness of ear, are so destitute of an intellectual ear for music as to prefer the most vulgar sort of it.

There are, again, others who can not tune any instrument accurately, and still less guide an orchestra; who are inspired by good music, and show distinct dislike to bad. Contrast with these keen and delicate hearers, Beethoven, who was almost deaf; and, again, there was another great harmonist, who said that perusing the score of a composition gave him more pleasure than the execution of the music, because the latter never equaled his ideal. He was thus capable of intellectual musical pleasure, even had he been completely deaf.

The case is similar with the eyes. Among my mineralogical pupils, I found some with very healthy bodily organs, who could perceive the smallest objects, and still were incapable of comprehending forms, of distinguishing like from unlike; in short, they had eyes, but did not see. On the other hand, there were others, whose eyes were weak, and who were as it were blind to small crystals, but who felt all the beauty of the larger ones, and closely followed all their varieties of color. So, I have known exceedingly short-sighted young men, who still had the greatest taste for pictures. And, again, there are many very keen-sighted persons, who gaze without emotion on the most magnificent pictures, sculptures, and churches.

The great distinction between the bodily and the intellectual senses might be illustrated by many other examples.

Surely these animal sharp eyes and ears of the Indian are not our models. It is the spiritually-illuminated eyes of a Raphael, a van Eyck, an Erwin von Stein, the divinely-consecrated ears of Handel and Leo, which are the noblest specimens of the cultivation of the human senses, which are the divine models for men.

Regard was had in the schools to the cultivation of the senses quite a long time ago; or at least so it would appear. So-called "Intuitional Exercises were introduced; Pestalozzi giving them an impulse, especially in his "Book for Mothers." "The child," says Pestalozzi, "and indeed man universally, must be first made acquainted with what lies next him, before he can attend to the acquiring a knowledge of what is further off. The nearest visible object to the child is his own body, and this he should first of all observe, under the direction of the mother. She must, with him, follow the 'Book for Mothers,' step by step, going through every division and subdivision of it, step by step, to the furthest details."

Thus, for instance, we find in that work:

"The first joint of the middle toe of the right foot. The middle joint of the middle toe of the right foot. The last joint of the middle toe of the right foot. The first joint of the middle toe of the left foot. The second joint of the middle toe of the left foot. The last joint of the middle toe of the left foot.

"My body has two limbs above and two below.

"My two upper limbs have two shoulders, two shoulder-joints, two upper-arms, two elbows, two elbow-joints, two fore-arms, two wrists, and two hands.

"Each of my two upper limbs has one shoulder, one shoulder-joint, one upper-arm, one elbow, one elbow-joint, one fore-arm, one wrist, and one hand.

"My two hands have two wrists, two palms, two thumbs, two forefingers, two middle fingers, two ring-fingers, and two little-fingers.

"Each of my two hands has one wrist, one palm, one thumb, one fore-finger, one middle-finger, one ring-finger, and one little-finger. "My two palms have two balls of the thumbs; each of my two palms has one ball of the thumb."

"My two great toes have four joints, two front and two back; four knuckles, two front and two back; and four joint-lengths, two front and two back.

"Each of my two great toes has two joints, one front and one back; two knuckles, one front and one back; and two joint-lengths, one front and one back.

"The ten fingers of my two hands have twenty-eight joints, ten first, eight middle, and ten last; twenty-eight joint-lengths, ten first, eight middle, and ten last; and twenty-eight knuckles, ten first, eight middle, and two last.

"The five fingers of one hand," &c., &c.

It is evident how infinitely wearisome and unnatural such a mode of observing and naming over all the parts of the body must be, both

to young and old. And it is an error to take his own body as the first object which comes under the notice of the child. Without some natural or artificial mirror, man would not see his face, and some other portions of his body, all his life long. A child is much. more attracted by objects which stimulate his senses by color, brightness, smell, or taste. He would very much prefer cherries or apples to "the middle joint of the little toe of the right foot."

Several detected Pestalozzi's error. But, taking his principle as true, that it is necessary to begin with what is nearest at hand, they took subjects from the school-room; and the doors, windows, walls, seats, and desks were observed, described, and named, down to their smallest parts. I give an example.*

"The school-room and what it contains.

a. Enumeration of objects contained in and about the school-room. 1. Without detailed definition.

2. With detailed definition; as, immovable, movable, simple, compound, how compound? within reach; necessary; accidentally pertaining to the room.

b. Use of articles in and about the room.

c. Description of individual things, by their color, their form, their parts, the connection of their parts.

d. Materials of which the separate things and their parts are made." The description of the windows alone fills two closely-printed pages. It says, among other things:

"The teacher should now have each of the separate parts of the window given in their order; as, the panes, the sash, the putty, the pulley, the button, the catch, the sash-bolt; lastly, the whole window, the window-frame, the molding. * * * Thus the whole window has been analyzed, and its parts considered. reconstruct it."

It only now remains to

It would be much better, instead of all this wearisome, pedantic enumeration and hyper-pedantic reconstruction, to say, “The windows in the school-room are long and four-sided."

That such a methodical and wearisome method of instruction would throw active children either into despair or sleep, is clear. They had better jump about over the desks and seats in sport, than to describe them in this insufferably-affected way; they had better analyze perhaps not a whole window, but now and then a pane, in their play, and let the glazier "reconstruct" it, than to analyze and construct it in words.

It is a pity that something can not be found to use as a subject of instruction in the school besides what the boys naturally learn in From Denzel's " System of Education,” (Erziehungslehre,) 3, 32.