ion as Formation. We now come to a type of theory which denies
the existence of faculties and emphasizes the unique role of subject
matter in the development of mental and moral disposition. According to
it, education is neither a process of unfolding from within nor is it
a training of faculties resident in mind itself. It is rather the
formation of mind by setting up certain associations or connections of
content by means of a subject matter presented from without. Education
proceeds by instruction taken in a strictly literal sense, a building
into the mind from without. That education is formative of mind is not
questioned; it is the conception already propounded. But formation here
has a technical meaning dependent upon the idea of something operating
from without. Herbart is the best historical representative of this type
of theory. He denies absolutely the existence of innate faculties. The
mind is simply endowed with the power of producing various qualities in
reaction to the various realities which act upon it. These qualitatively
different reactions are called presentations (Vorstellungen). Every
presentation once called into being persists; it may be driven below the
"threshold" of consciousness by new and stronger presentations, produced
by the reaction of the soul to new material, but its activity continues
by its own inherent momentum, below the surface of consciousness. What
are termed faculties--attention, memory, thinking, perception, even the
sentiments, are arrangements, associations, and complications, formed
by the interaction of these submerged presentations with one another and
with new presentations. Perception, for example, is the complication of
presentations which result from the rise of old presentations to greet
and combine with new ones; memory is the evoking of an old presentation
above the threshold of consciousness by getting entangled with another
presentation, etc. Pleasure is the result of reinforcement among the
independent activities of presentations; pain of their pulling different
ways, etc.

The concrete character of mind consists, then, wholly of the various
arrangements formed by the various presentations in their different
qualities. The "furniture" of the mind is the mind. Mind is wholly a
matter of "contents." The educational implications of this doctrine are
threefold.

(1) This or that kind of mind is formed by the use of objects which
evoke this or that kind of reaction a