Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/434

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
414
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

latter of these qualifications. It consists of plain and detailed directions for teaching a knowledge of the earth's surface. The general forms of river basins are first taught with the aid of diagrams. The structure of each of the continents is then shown in the same way. Next, attention is drawn to a large number of points which together give a view of the world as a whole, among these being the relative positions of the continents, relations of continents to oceans, distribution of heat, ocean currents, winds, distribution of moisture, of vegetation, of animals, of races of men, and of minerals, and political divisions. A brief outline of a course of study is given, and this is followed by a chapter of general suggestions and directions. One direction which the author ranks above all others is that the pupil should form the habit of "locating every place, natural feature and country, mentioned in reading and study," the best chance for this being found in the study of history. He indorses the use of relief maps, after considering the objections to them, and recommends map-drawing. He maintains that "in the art of questioning is concentrated the art of teaching," hence the "Notes on the Course of Study," which occupy about half of the volume, largely consist of questions. These may be used as they stand by the teacher in giving lessons, and should also serve the higher purpose of a model from which the teacher may learn the art of original questioning. The course of study is marked out in grades, and the "Notes" are followed by a list of books and maps suitable for supplementary reading and reference in each grade. Essays on "Spring Studies in Nature," "Weather Observations," "The Study of Geography," and "Relief Maps and their Construction," by various writers, are appended. This book can not fail to be an important aid to the teacher in changing geography lessons from a mere drudgery for the memory to a real study of the earth's surface.

The Mind of the Child, Part II. The Development of the Intellect. By W. Preyer. Translated from the German by H. W. Brown. New York: D. Appleton & Co. "International Education Series." Pp. 317. Price, $1.50.

The former volume of the relation of Prof. Preyer's investigations on the mind of the child contained those parts devoted to the development of the senses and of the will. The present volume contains a third part, which treats of the development of the intellect. Three appendixes are added, containing supplementary matter. The author, considering that the development of the power of using language is the most prominent index to the unfolding of the intellect, devotes the greater part of the volume to that branch of the subject. The question whether there can be thought without words, which Max Müller has made a living one, holds a first place in the discussion. The author's opinion on this subject is clear and expressed without reserve, and is opposed to the view which Dr. Müller maintains. The thinker, who has long since forgotten the time when he himself learned to speak, can not give a decided answer to the question; for he can not admit that he has been thinking without words, "not even when he has caught himself arriving at a logical result without a continuity in his expressed thought. . . . But the child not yet acquainted with verbal language, who has not been prematurely artificialized by training and by suppression of his own attempts to express his states of mind, who learns of himself to think, just as he learns of himself to see and hear—such a child shows plainly to the attentive observer that long before knowledge of the word as a means of understanding among men, and long before the first successful attempt to express himself in articulate words—nay, long before learning the pronunciation of a single word, he combines ideas in a logical manner—i. e., he thinks." This position is sustained by numerous illustrations and citations of incidents; and the case of uneducated deaf-mutes is regarded as demonstrating that thought-activity exists without words, and without signs for words. In our own only half-remembered experiences, the author says, "it was not language that generated the intellect; it is the intellect that formerly invented language; and even now the new-born human being brings with him into the world far more intellect than talent for language." The acquisition of speech belongs to the unsolved physiological problems. As a help to the investigation, a parallel is drawn between the child that does not yet speak and the diseased adult who