Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/517

Rh Man in Europe," and "The Antiquity of Man," we have no room to speak. Prof. Winchell deduces a general view, which harmonizes all the phases of evidence, and though contravening the old traditions, must be accepted in proportion as men esteem truth to be more desirable than error. He says:

it is now the latest, so Prof. Johonnot's new work on education is undoubtedly the best manual of school guidance that has yet been prepared. It is better adapted to the present condition of educational progress than any other teachers' manual that we have yet seen. Two things have come prominently forward in the recent development of thought with reference to the work of instruction: 1. Science is gaining a more liberal recognition in our courses of study, and is more and more coming to be the chief thing; and, 2. Teachers are compelled to give more attention to psychological science as an indispensable prerequisite to the intelligent management of school-work. There is still need enough for advancement in both these directions, for there are plenty of schools that are hardly beyond the middle ages in their appreciation of science, and plenty of teachers who are as ignorant of the laws of mind as the untutored savage. But these considerations are surely though slowly emerging into confessed prominence, and are beginning to take that controlling position in the philosophy of education which is bound to be universally conceded to them in the not very distant future.

Prof. Johonnot is by no means a blind admirer of things established in our educational systems. He clearly sees that the whole subject is in movement, that in many respects current education is profoundly imperfect, that a critical spirit widely prevails in regard to it, and that there is plenty of work for reformers in bringing the general practice into harmony with principles that have been definitely worked out. He is not only a practical educator of large experience in the special work of training teachers, but he has his independent views of what is needed, and how to attain it; and his work will accordingly be found fresh, suggestive, and stimulating, to all teachers and school officials who are devoted to organizing and carrying out the best plans of instruction. That he has reached anything like a finality in the policy of school management he would be the last to claim; but we must cordially concede to him the merit of having grasped the problem of practical culture in its latest exigencies and newest developments. In a growing and unfolding subject, methods must be tentative and proximate: it is enough if they are better than their predecessors. Prof. Johonnot has well digested for us the latest theoretical wisdom regarding the principles of teaching, and he has embodied these in an improved system of practice, which has stood the test of experience. Having unfolded the general principles of culture in the earlier and chief portions of his work, the author devotes the last hundred pages to