k on some other, we must take the fact
as evidence that we are on the wrong track. Experience is daily showing
with greater clearness, that there is always a method to be found
productive of interest--even of delight; and it ever turns out that this
is the method proved by all other tests to be the right one.

With most, these guiding principles will weigh but little if left in
this abstract form. Partly, therefore, to exemplify their application,
and partly with a view of making sundry specific suggestions, we propose
now to pass from the theory of education to the practice of it.

* * * * *

It was the opinion of Pestalozzi, and one which has ever since his day
been gaining ground, that education of some kind should begin from the
cradle. Whoever has watched, with any discernment, the wide-eyed gaze of
the infant at surrounding objects knows very well that education _does_
begin thus early, whether we intend it or not; and that these fingerings
and suckings of everything it can lay hold of, these open-mouthed
listenings to every sound, are first steps in the series which ends in
the discovery of unseen planets, the invention of calculating engines,
the production of great paintings, or the composition of symphonies and
operas. This activity of the faculties from the very first, being
spontaneous and inevitable, the question is whether we shall supply in
due variety the materials on which they may exercise themselves; and to
the question so put, none but an affirmative answer can be given. As
before said, however, agreement with Pestalozzi's theory does not
involve agreement with his practice; and here occurs a case in point.
Treating of instruction in spelling he says:--

"The spelling-book ought, therefore, to contain all the sounds of
the language, and these ought to be taught in every family from the
earliest infancy. The child who learns his spelling book ought to
repeat them to the infant in the cradle, before it is able to
pronounce even one of them, so that they may be deeply impressed
upon its mind by frequent repetition."

Joining this with the suggestions for "a nursery method," set down in
his _Mother's Manual_, in which he makes the names, positions,
connections, numbers, properties, and uses of the limbs and body his
first lessons, it becomes clear that Pestalozzi's notions on early
mental development were too crude to enable him to devise j