e establishment
of that aggregate of means necessary and sufficient to incite to
auto-education.

This is the experimental preparatory work, which establishes those
means of development, those external _impressions_, necessary to
unfold the inner life, and an _exact_ correspondence to the psychical
needs of _formation_ is essential in their construction.

Up to a certain point, they might correspond with the so-called
didactic or objective material of the old methods. Their significance,
however, is profoundly different. The objective material of the old
schools was an aid to the teacher, in making his explanations
comprehensible to a collective class listening passively to him. The
objects were related solely _to the things to be explained_, and these
were chosen at random, that is to say, without any scientific
criterion of their relation to the psychical needs of the child.

Here, on the other hand, _the means of development_ are experimentally
determined with reference to the psychical evolution of the child; and
their aim is not to give mere instruction; they represent the means
which induce a spontaneous interpretation of the internal energies.

The external material is then offered, and _left freely_ to the
natural individual energies of the children. They choose the objects
they prefer; and such preference is dictated by the internal needs of
"psychical growth." Each child occupies himself with each object
chosen for as long as he wishes; and this desire corresponds to the
needs of the intimate maturation of the spirit, a process which
demands persevering and prolonged exercise. No guide, no teacher can
divine the intimate need of each pupil, and the time of maturation
necessary to each; but only leave the child _free_, and all this will
be revealed to us under the guidance of nature.

* * * * *

=Psychical truths=.--It is necessary to adopt a scientific point of view
in order to interpret the facts that reveal themselves in children
when they are developed upon this system, and to divest oneself
completely of the old scholastic conception according to which the
progress of the child is assessed according to his proficiency in the
various subjects of study. Here, almost like the naturalist, it is
essential to observe the development of certain phenomena of life. It
is true that we prepare special "external conditions"; but the
psychical effects are directly bound up with the spontaneous
d