m, we should only need to pass a law, enabling the blind
to see and the deaf to hear, in order to restore "poor humanity" to
health.

Our honesty ought to make us recognize one day that the fundamental
rights of man are those of his own "formation," free from obstacles,
free from slavery, and free to draw from his environment the means
required for his development. In short, it is in education that we
shall find the fundamental solution of the social problems connected
with "personality."

Deeply instructive is the revelation made to us by the children, that
"the intelligence" is the key which reveals the secrets of their
formation, and is the actual means of their internal construction.

The hygiene of the intelligence thus assumes cardinal importance. When
intelligence is recognized as the means of formation, the pivot of
life itself, it can no longer be exhausted for dubious ends, or
oppressed and suffocated without discernment.

At a not-far-distant day, the intelligence of children must become the
object of treatment much wiser and more elaborate than that which we
now bestow on their bodies, to adjuncts of which, such as teeth,
nails, and hair, we devote costly and laborious processes. When we
reflect that a mother who is perfectly conscious of the dangers and
remedies connected with the hair of her child, can oppress and enslave
his intelligence quite unknowingly, we are at once obliged to admit
that the new road leading to civilization must needs be a long one, if
such contrasts in our attitude to the superfluities and the essentials
of life are still possible at the present day.

* * * * *

What is intelligence? Without rising to the heights of the definitions
given by the philosophers, we may, for the moment, consider the sum of
those reflex and associative or reproductive activities which enable
the mind to construct itself, putting it into relation with the
environment. According to Bain, the consciousness of difference is the
beginning of every intellectual exercise; the first step of the mind
is appreciation of "distinction." The bases of its perceptive
functions towards the external world are the "sensations." To collect
facts and distinguish between them is the initial process in
intellectual construction.

Let us try to infuse a little more precision and clarity into the
analysis of intelligence.

The first characteristic which presents itself to us as an indication
of intelle