from the concrete to the abstract, from the empirical to the rational; but to satisfy the further requirements, that education shall be a repetition of civilisation in little, that it shall be as much as possible a process of self-evolution, and that it shall be pleasurable.  The fulfilment of all these conditions by one type of method, tends alike to verify the conditions, and to prove that type of the method the right one.  Mark too, that this method is the logical outcome of the tendency characterising all modern improvements in tuition—­that it is but an adoption in full of the natural system which they adopt partially—­that it displays this complete adoption of the natural system, both by conforming to the above principles, and by following the suggestions which the unfolding mind itself gives:  facilitating its spontaneous activities, and so aiding the developments which Nature is busy with.  Thus there seems abundant reason to conclude, that the mode of procedure above exemplified, closely approximates to the true one.

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A few paragraphs must be added in further inculcation of the two general principles, that are alike the most important and the least attended to; namely, the principle that throughout youth, as in early childhood and in maturity, the process shall be one of self-instruction; and the obverse principle, that the mental action induced shall be throughout intrinsically grateful.  If progression from simple to complex, from indefinite to definite, and from concrete to abstract, be considered the essential requirements as dictated by abstract psychology; then do the requirements that knowledge shall be self-mastered, and pleasurably mastered, become tests by which we may judge whether the dictates of abstract psychology are being obeyed.  If the first embody the leading generalisations of the science of mental growth, the last are the chief canons of the art of fostering mental growth.  For manifestly, if the steps in our curriculum are so arranged that they can be successively ascended by the pupil himself with little or no help, they must correspond with the stages of evolution in his faculties; and manifestly, if the successive achievements of these steps are intrinsically gratifying to him, it follows that they require no more than a normal exercise of his powers.

But making education a process of self-evolution, has other advantages than this of keeping our lessons in the right order.  In the first place, it guarantees a vividness and permanency of impression which the usual methods can never produce.  Any piece of knowledge which the pupil has himself acquired—­any problem which he has himself solved, becomes, by virtue of the conquest, much more thoroughly his than it could else be.  The preliminary activity of mind which his success implies, the concentration of thought necessary to it, and the excitement consequent on his triumph, conspire to register the facts in his