teaching throughout England, and so raise the moral, intellectual, and physical well-being of our working classes, than the publication of any quantity of books, the delivery of any number of lectures or speeches on the principles of education. Of making of speeches there is no end; let us now have facts and experiments. Such a school might be established by the School Board; by private subscriptions; or it might be founded, for paying pupils, as a public company,—in which case, as in the High Schools for Girls, a fair dividend might be gained on the subscribed capital. I should esteem myself too much rewarded for the little trouble I have had in bringing before you this description of the Brussels School if the remarks I have made should lead to the establishment of a Model School in this country.-English Journal of Education for Nov., 1880.

INTUITION AND INTUITIVE METHODS.

BY A. SLUYS.

Director of the Model School, Brussels.

QUESTIONS PROPOUNDED BY THE BRUSSELS CONGRESS.

Has experience discovered any rocks to be avoided in the use of intuitive methods? What is the intuitive method?

What are the sciences of observation to be taught?

Is it best in primary schools to co-ordinate scientific notions and group them under the name of the science to which they belong, or to place them under the general denomination of object lessons?

LITTRE defines intuition to be: "sudden, spontaneous, indubitable knowledge, like that which the sight gives us of light and sensuous forms, and consequently independent of all demonstration."

In Kant's system, intuition is: "the particular representation of an object formed in the mind by sensation."

Larousse attributes the same signification to the word; "it applies," he says, "to every clear and immediate perception; and we call the faculties to which we owe perceptions offering this characteristic, intuitive faculties." "These are distinguished from reflective faculties, which, needing the support of knowledge before acquired, or of hypothetical data, only arrive indirectly at their end."

"In 1817," says M. Buisson, "the word intuition made its entrance into the official teaching at the Sorbonne with all the éclat of Mr. Cousin's word."

No French dictionary gives the definition of this term in its pedagogic acceptation.

The Intuitive Method.

The expression intuitive teaching is the equivalent of what the Germans call Anschauungsunterricht, which is sometimes translated teaching by inspection or the sight. These expressions are improper, for the intuition of things is acquired by the other senses as well as by the sight.

Intuitive teaching is that teaching which proceeds in conformity with the laws of the development of human intelligence. It consists in making the child observe things directly by the senses, in teaching him natural history in nature itself, physics with the necessary instruments, chemistry in the laboratory, industry in workshops and manufactories. In intuitive teaching the perceptions and the words that express them are furnished, and then the mind is exercised in judging and reasoning upon the exact notions acquired by observation. It is the opposite of dogmatic and purely literary teaching, which considers language as the principal factor of intellectual development, and which sets forth notions of things under the form of verbal explanations, definitions, rules, laws, formulas, descriptions, reasonings, etc., without

having beforehand prepared the understanding for comprehending them by exercises of direct observation, or by experiments.

The idea of making observation and experiment the basis of the study of nature comes from Bacon, who was the precursor of a radical revolution in science, in teaching and in philosophy. At that epoch what was called science was not worthy of the name. The most absurd things were taught by the dogmatic powers, which consisted in affirming without proof, without demonstration, without serious discussion. Philosophy, confounded with theology, was but a science of words and empty reasonings. Nature was unknown, scholasticism having hidden it under a thick veil of errors, prejudices and superstitions.

No one thought of opening his eyes to observe the most simple facts and phenomena, and man walked about like a blind man in the midst of nature, of which he understood nothing. The smallest phenomena frightened him; he attributed them to occult and supernatural causes, which led him into the strangest aberrations.

As early as the 13th century Roger Bacon had attempted to draw the attention of his contemporaries to nature, but his voice was not listened to, and he passed for a sorcerer. People still continued for ages to live qutside of realities, to nourish their minds exclusively upon the reading of Greek and Latin books, to carry on science according to Aristotle, and to consider the Magister dixit as the supreme reason of all things.

It was the Chancellor Francis Bacon who attempted in the 16th century completely to modify ideas on the subject of method. "It is not in the books of the ancients," he said, "that we are to study stones, plants and animals, it is in nature herself, which alone can redress errors and enrich us with new knowledge." These words were fertile in important results. They were the death sentence of the old scholasticisms. Science was at last to free itself from its leading strings. The illustrious pedagogue, John Amos Comenius, introduced the principle of observation or intuition into his general plan of study. "During the first six years," said he, "put into the child the foundation of all knowledge necessary to life. In nature show him stones, plants, animals, and teach him to make use of his limbs (natural history, physics); to distinguish colors (optics); and sounds (acoustics); to contemplate the stars (astronomy); he will observe his cradle, the room he lives in, the house, the neighborhood, the roads, the fields (geography); make him attentive to the succession of day and night, to the seasons, to the divisions of time, the hours, weeks, months, festival days (chronology); let him learn the administration of the house (politics); let him familiarize himself with the first notions of calculation, sales and purchases (commerce); the dimensions of bodies, their lines, surfaces, solids (geometry); he will hear singing, and his voice will learn to reproduce sounds and musical phrases (singing, music); he will survey the formation and development of his mother-tongue (grammar); he will exercise himself in expressing his thoughts and sentiments by

gestures and the inflexions of the voice (rhetoric). By these means the maternal school will develop the germs of all the sciences and all the arts."

Comenius was the true creator of intuitive teaching. The following principles, taken from his works, characterize this method: "It is a fundamental error to begin teaching with language and to end it with things, mathematics, natural history, etc., for things are the substance, the body; and words are accident and dress. These two parts of knowledge are to be united, but it is necessary to begin with things which are the object of thought and speech.

"We should at first exercise the senses (perception); then the memory, then the intelligence, then the judgment (reasoning); for science begins by observation; the impressions received are then engraven on the memory and imagination; intelligence then takes possession of the notions collected in the memory, and draws from them general ideas; at last draws conclusions from things sufficiently well known, and co-ordinated by the intellect.

"It is not the shadow of things that makes an impression upon the senses and imagination, but the things themselves. It is, therefore, by a real intuition that teaching should be begun, and not by a verbal description of things."

All the pedagogues since Comenius, and almost all the philosophers who have written upon education, have demonstrated that it is necessary to begin it by that of the senses, and have protested against the abuse of verbalism and abstraction in early instruction. In France, Montaigne, Rabelais, J. J. Rousseau and many others, eloquently defended these ideas. Basedow, Francke, Locke, Pestalozzi, Fröbel based their systems of education upon this principle of observation by

the senses.

Pestalozzi, although he understood the capital importance of intuition, and defined intuitive teaching as that in which the study of things and that of words are always closely united, yet did not succeed, in spite of his patient efforts, in a happy application of his theories. Most of his lessons were only mechanical repetitions of words and phrases which the instructor dictated in some way, and the pupils repeated after him.

The continuers of Pestalozzi's system, Von Türk, Grassmann, Harnisch, have recourse to intuitive teaching in order to arrive at the knowledge of language, in order to succeed in expressing correct thoughts correctly. Graser assigns to intuitive teaching a more elevated and more general aim. He considers it an instruction from which all branches ramify. This is the thought of Comenius.

Diesterweg and Denzel, initiated into the experimental psychology of Beneke, also made intuitive teaching the foundation of instruction in all branches, but they also attribute to it great value as a means of development of the intellectual faculties. This is the opinion which is coming to prevail more and more at the present day in Germany.

With these pedagogues, the object which is subjected to the obser

vation of the child is an important educative factor; they think it is to be observed less with the aim of furnishing an item of positive knowledge than with that of exercising the senses, the attention, the spirit of observation, and language. They also guard against that pretended intuitive instruction which consists in endless digressions without end upon the pointer, pen handle, pencil, slate, etc.-which have been so much abused under the name of object lessons, and which have discredited intuitive teaching.

Fröbel brought the thought of Comenius and Pestalozzi to completion. While Comenius stopped in his application of it to show graphic representations (orbis pictus) of the objects to be observed instead of taking the objects themseves, and while Pestalozzi contented himself with attracting the attention of the children to the things found in the school-room, and with making them repeat his phrases about them, Fröbel introduced into his school the spirit of action. In his system the child observes and gives his own account of his observations, and moreover, he imitates, works, combines, creates. The school is no longer some place where a master teaches ex cathedra to pupils who are expected to believe him and repeat his phrases. It is a medium in which the child blossoms out freely according to the laws of his nature; the notions he acquires by observation are immediately utilized by their application in exercises or games that develop the creative faculties. He learns to become acquainted with things, to draw them, to represent them, to construct them, and he is incessantly occupied in finding new combinations and applications of them.

This is the way in which intuition is to be understood. It is not a special branch of the programme, it is a principle which embraces the whole teaching. Intuitive teaching may be defined as that which develops all the faculties by employing them in a useful manner, and which proceeds by means of exercises which are provocative of sensations and excite spontaneity and keep it awake.

Intuitive teaching tends consequently:

1. To exercise the faculties of

the child with the aim of developing them. 2. To furnish exact notions upon the different sciences and to give aptitude in utilizing them. 3. To make known perfectly the signification of terms, by applying them to the ideas furnished by sensation or created by reflection bearing upon the perceptions acquired.

Of these three important points of view, the first should predominate. Indeed the brain of the child is not an empty tablet, or a receptacle to be filled with words, notions, ideas which the educator introduces into it in fragments. The child, on the contrary, is a thinking and acting being, endowed with an initiative, possessing as germs the active faculties which are to be awakened, excited, developed, in order that they may arrive at their complete blossoming; he is destined to become a free man, master of himself and responsible for his acts, capable of perfecting himself.