The most complex acts of intelligence have their point of departure in sensation. Ideas present themselves to the mind of the little child under the intuitive form, and are entirely independent of the words which express them.

These ideas are at first vague, floating; they take consistence and become an integral part of the memory only by a series of strong sensations, which produce more and more profound impressions. The words by which we designate them and which the mother patiently endeavors to make the child retain and repeat, end by awakening in him, when they strike his ear, the idea which they represent, even a long time before he knows how to pronounce them. By degrees he forms his vocabulary and he often creates words for which he afterwards substitutes those of ordinary language. Seeing a dog which is barking, the child imitates his cry and "wow wow" becomes the name of the animal. He repeats it every time he sees a dog, and even when his attention is drawn to a sketch or an engraving that represents one. Mothers' Intuitive Method.

The mother naturally follows the processes of intuitive teaching in the first education she gives to her child. She shows him objects, makes him listen to sounds, inhale odors, touch and handle solid bodies, observe and execute different acts, taste different substances, and at the same time tells him words and makes him repeat them which represent the ideas that arise from these sensations. The child thus learns his substantives, adjectives, verbs, etc., and every word with which his memory is enriched remains intimately associated with a clear and exact notion.

Sensation then is the natural mode of the formation of ideas. Words are only the representative signs of ideas; as Comenius said, they are only the accident, the dress, while things are the substance, the body. The fact that in all languages abstract conceptions are represented by words borrowed from the vocabulary of concrete things, proves that sensation is the origin of all our knowledge. It is only quite late that the child attains to the comprehension of abstractions, relations, scientific or moral laws. He seizes the general or abstract sense of words, only after having attached a concrete sense to them. The passage from the concrete to the abstract is not made hastily. The mind must be long prepared for it, and it is only so prepared when it possesses a certain power acquired by the faculties, by means of a gradual intuitive teaching. It is impossible, for instance, to furnish exact, mathematical notions of the terms: line, circle, cylinder, by the aid of a definition even carefully explained. It is first necessary to attract the attention of the child to the material things which show these forms, to show him the edges of a toy and call them lines, to put a cylinder before his eyes and call it by that name, to make him observe that its basis is a plane, and that the line that limits it is everywhere at an equal distance from the center, etc. The notion will be so much the

more clear if the child has the opportunity to observe many geometric figures, and has constructed a great number, and imagined different ways of combining them. By degrees he will create abstract notions for himself and mathematical concepts, and then he will understand the definitions of them and find them for himself.

All the other conceptions of abstract nature such as those expressed by the words right, goodness, duty, justice, law, etc., could not be understood by children by the aid of a definition or a verbal description. But these words must not be banished from their vocabulary. By using them in a concrete sense according to the opportunities that present themselves during school life, their meaning will be seized. When the notion is once acquired, it may be fixed by a definition.

The culture of the faculties having its point of departure in sensation, we must attach great importance to the perfecting of the senses considered as primitive faculties. The sight is generally the only sense we exercise. We thus deprive ourselves of numerous means of intellectual development which are the source of many usable sensations. Hearing, sinell, taste, touch can alone furnish us with exact and clear notions of a great number of terms of common parlance. M. Const. Delhez, whom death swept away at the very moment when success was about to crown his work, had imagined a gymnastics of the senses which agrees perfectly with the first stage of primary teaching. In this system the senses and consequently the intelligence are exercised by making children observe colors, and their shades, the forms and relations of position of objects, sizes, sounds, tones and qualities of tones, temperatures, weights, savors, odors, etc. This series of exercises is a first intuitive teaching which furnishes innumerable fundamental notions and the exact meaning of the words which represent them.

Subjects of Intuitive Instruction.

All the sciences of observation lend themselves to intuitive teaching. At first sight it seems impossible to teach them in a primary school because it is supposed that the intelligence of the children is not sufficiently developed to comprehend them. There is reason in this view, if science has been looked at as it is conceived in the higher teaching and explained in the books. The science which proceeds by the way of deduction, and which is supported upon hypotheses, definitions, laws, and abstractions is not to be approached in the primary school. Far from being of any use for the culture of the intelligence, it clogs the faculty of observation, and degenerates fatally into a science of words. To begin with abstract notions is intuitive teaching backwards.

The order to be followed in the primary teaching of these sciences is that indicated by the historical development of each one of them. They have gradually arranged themselves. The attentive observation of things and phenomena has been the point of departure of true science. Premature theories and hypotheses have been completely overturned in proportion as observations have become more complete

and have been made with more care.

we must proceed in the primary school.

Thus it is by observation that

We must not seek to accumulate numerous notions in the brain, nor wear out the attention of the child by going into trifles and minutiœ which are not interesting. It is best, on the contrary, to choose in the domain of each science the notions which may most easily lend themselves to the observation, and give opportunity for application which may exercise the initiative,-the spirit of invention.

By concentrating the attention upon fundamental scientific notions in a tangible form, presented in all their brilliancy by interesting experiments, we prepare the understanding for comprehending science.

Zoology-Botany-Mineralogy.

Natural history-animal, vegetable and mineral-offers the most simple exercises which can be suitable for beginners. It is purely descriptive. The principle of intuition is easily applied to it, the programme comprises the knowledge of a series of types put before the eyes of the pupils and studied by way of analysis and comparison.

As much as possible, it is necessary to take living types of animals and vegetables, and have recourse to artificial representations by pictures only when it is impossible to do otherwise; the difficulty of doing it is not insurmountable. An extensive series of animals and vegetables can usually be seen in the locality and its environs wherever a school is situated; school excursions for this part of the programme offer the best means of furnishing intuitive notions. It is very impor tant constantly to attract the attention of children to the gradual transformations of organisms (as in the caterpillar) and which they will see to be a vast series, going by a train of modifications from the most simple existence, the cell, up to the most complex ones. The mind is thus prepared for the conception of modern science and put on its guard against the prejudices which encumber and disturb the rational study of natural history.

The best means to ensure that this teaching shall produce the greatest results consists in exercising the children in making collections themselves during their excursions.

This habit of making collections of objects to be studied obliges the child to pay attention to the special characteristics of objects, to remark their resemblances and their differences; it thus gives not only numerous sensations which help the ideas gained to be more profoundly understood, but it prepares him to understand classification.

Geography-Astronomy-Geology.

Geography, astronomy and geology are also concrete sciences whose study in the primary school is possible by the intuitive process, and which opens the mind to the most elevated conceptions.

The point of departure of the teaching of geography is the notion of orientation furnished by observation of the apparent motion of the sun

and the position of the polar star, and the use of the compass. The sight of the horizon, some experiments that will reproduce the phenomena observed which have for their cause the sphericity of the earth, lead to this last notion as well as to that of the isolation of our planet in space.

The meridians which are at first shown as real lines traced upon the ground in the direction of the shadow of a vertical line at noon, afterwards become the imaginary circles whose notion and utility the child seizes.

The map is made perfectly intelligible if in the beginning the child is made to draw a map of the school-room, then that of the schoolhouse, afterwards adding the surrounding streets. The common names of the vocabulary of geography are learned by the sight of the things they designate, and which are met with in the school excursions or imagined by plastic or graphic constructions. At last real journeys into the country, during which the pupils consult the map, fictitious journeys upon the globe, the dramatic recital of great discoveries made in the presence of pictures representing picturesque views of striking regions. where it is impossible to take the pupils, are so many means of making the teaching of geography intuitive.

The observation of the sun's apparent motion and of the polar star is also the point of departure for the elementary instruction in astronomy, which opens a vast and wonderful field to the attention of children. Few sciences can rival this in the profound influence exercised upon the imagination. How many men there are, even well-informed, who never raise their eyes toward that starry vault which was the first field of observation to primitive nations! This is because neither primary instruction nor secondary instruction prepare the mind for the study of it. We are satisfied with reciting a manual affirming facts and phenomena which neither the professor who teaches, the pupil who listens and repeats, nor often even the author who wrote the book, have observed with their own eyes! The memory is thus burdened with a knowledge of words which has no salutary action upon the intelligence. The primary school can, however, throw out landmarks for this study. It is sufficient sometimes to collect pupils in an evening, make them observe the starry heavens, teach them to know a few constellations at sight, to distinguish the milky way and a few planets, and let them add some simple experiments by which they may verify the apparent and real movements of the stars. It might be possible to create a very elementary observatory in every private school at very little expense. This is an important question which deserves attention.* But without its being necessary to have recourse to special instruments, there are many things which can be made the subject of observation, and which constitute the basis of an elementary teaching

*A very good spy-glass, even an opera-glass, will show the moons of Jupiter and and the rings of Saturn.

of astronomy. The words: sun, planet, satellite, milky way, star, comet, eclipse, and so many others which have entered into common parlance, are to many minds vague terms to which are attached only incomplete or false notions. These would convey their true meaning if in the primary school for six or seven years a few observations of the kind just rapidly sketched could be carefully made. The history of astronomical science, properly presented, would be of use to point out the errors, the prejudices and superstitions which the spectacle of the heavens has inspired in man for the want of correct ideas.

As M. Tempels says: "In the upper classes astronomy leads the teacher to speak of infinity, of the genius of man which has ever been engaged in sounding its depths, of the emotions inspired by this study, of the care with which it must be guarded from the pride of science as well as from the terror of ignorance. Considerations of this nature, even measured by the intelligence of a child, but made with simplicity and luminously, open large horizons and dispose minds for philosophic meditations, for the want of which the mind remains narrow and unprogressive."

Geologic phenomena offer material for considerations of the same kind. Here, again, the treatises upon the science can be of no use except to the instructor who can find in them the suggestions and knowledge he needs. It is in nature itself, that the subjects of the lessons must be sought. Let us draw the attention of the child to the arrangement of the rocks, to their composition, to the fossils they contain, to the action of erosion exercised by the courses of water upon their sides. These intuitions, incessantly repeated during the whole period of primary study, exercise the faculty of observation, give rise to reflections upon the causes of geologic phenomena, and are a provision against the false notions and old theories which fill the little books with which the schools are inundated.

Experiments in Physics and Chemistry.

Physics and chemistry are sciences which treat of matter, but which have for their special object to study its properties. They may be called abstract-concrete, and seem to offer less hold for intuitive teaching, but in the primary school the pupils may be led to physico-chemical generalizations by the path of experiments. The most easy and simple notions are chosen to be rendered intuitive, and by the aid of apparatus, they can be presented in a way to strike the mind of the child vividly. This teaching must be made useful to the pupils by allowing them to make their own experiments. In this science, as in all the others, it is necessary carefully to avoid beginning with definitions and laws. Children cannot comprehend these until nearly the end of their studies and after they have made innumerable observations in the cabinet of physics and in the laboratory. The beginners then will have nothing to do with molecules, atoms, hypotheses upon heat, light, electricity, etc.