rs, excursions into the country, amusing lectures, choral
songs--in these and many like traits the change may be discerned.
Asceticism is disappearing out of education as out of life; and the
usual test of political legislation--its tendency to promote
happiness--is beginning to be, in a great degree, the test of
legislation for the school and the nursery.

What now is the common characteristic of these several changes? Is it
not an increasing conformity to the methods of Nature? The
relinquishment of early forcing, against which Nature rebels, and the
leaving of the first years for exercise of the limbs and senses, show
this. The superseding of rote-learnt lessons by lessons orally and
experimentally given, like those of the field and play-ground, shows
this. The disuse of rule-teaching, and the adoption of teaching by
principles--that is, the leaving of generalisations until there are
particulars to base them on--show this. The system of object-lessons
shows this. The teaching of the rudiments of science in the concrete
instead of the abstract, shows this. And above all, this tendency is
shown in the variously-directed efforts to present knowledge in
attractive forms, and so to make the acquirement of it pleasurable. For,
as it is the order of Nature in all creatures that the gratification
accompanying the fulfilment of needful functions serves as a stimulus to
their fulfilment--as, during the self-education of the young child, the
delight taken in the biting of corals and the pulling to pieces of toys,
becomes the prompter to actions which teach it the properties of matter;
it follows that, in choosing the succession of subjects and the modes of
instruction which most interest the pupil, we are fulfilling Nature's
behests, and adjusting our proceedings to the laws of life.

Thus, then, we are on the highway towards the doctrine long ago
enunciated by Pestalozzi, that alike in its order and its methods,
education must conform to the natural process of mental evolution--that
there is a certain sequence in which the faculties spontaneously
develop, and a certain kind of knowledge which each requires during its
development; and that it is for us to ascertain this sequence, and
supply this knowledge. All the improvements above alluded to are partial
applications of this general principle. A nebulous perception of it now
prevails among teachers; and it is daily more insisted on in educational
works. "The method of nature