Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/230

216 speech." Therefore the art of perception must start from this threefold basis—number, form, and speech. We must teach each object to the children as unity, separated from all with which it may seem to be bound. We must then teach them to observe the form of every object, that is, its measure and relations; lastly, we must make them acquainted with the entire circle of the words and names for the objects which they know. It would be of little service to follow Pestalozzi further in this direction. The arrangement of natural phenomena under form, word, and number, contains the fatal error of incomplete classification. There can be no question that form and number are modes of things, but this is a seriously inadequate account of Nature's manifestations. The supreme fact which the world teaches, and which thrusts itself upon us every hour of every day, is the fact of causative energy. Nature's great truth is cause and effect. Pestalozzi took little or no account of this, and consequently dealt with the form and number of objects, to an exclusion of the objects themselves. Pestalozzi had no place for chemistry, or physics, or physiology. Here lies the absurdity of object-teaching as often presented. He who fails to see Nature at work misses the organizing principle of her manifestations, and can not teach according to Nature. The principle of object-teaching was fundamental with Pestalozzi. As concerns this distinguishing feature of his thought, we would say that, because perception is the first step in the unfolding consciousness of a child, it does not follow that perception should be made supremely prominent in the education of the child. Were the child to remain a child, we should have regard solely to those things which might exercise his childish faculties. Since the child is to pass from childhood to manhood, it is well to have care lest over-development of the child-method tend to perpetuate a childish habit of mind.

Pestalozzi distinctly admits that the idea, not the vision, is the distinguishing mark of human reason. He repeatedly says that the child must be brought on to a full possession of the general notion, the concept. If, then, we make object-teaching, or the gaining of distinct sense-impressions, the exclusive work in all early training, we stand in danger of prolonging this childish state, and of failing to furnish the mind with clear, independent ideas. Directly, or indirectly, the movement now under consideration is responsible for one of the greatest evils of our time. I name this the pictorial disease. Everything must be depicted.

Literature, forgetting that grown men and women ought to be able to think, treats them as children, and illustrates. It has come to pass that we can not read a strong article or a strong book. Everything is diluted with pictures. Let me not be misunderstood. True art is the painter's poem—the hero's deed. True art is no llustration, no picture, no copy of Nature. It is Nature herself, as she has taken up her abode in the artist's mind and heart. Here is one who will paint you