=Education by absorption.=—­This subject of absorption has not received the careful attention that its importance warrants.  In the social consciousness education has been so long associated with books, and formal processes, that we find it difficult to conceive of education outside of or beyond books.  If, as we so confidently assert, education is a spiritual process, then whatever stimulates the spirit must be education, whether a landscape, a flower, a picture, or a person.  The traveler who sits enrapt before the Jungfrau for an hour or a day is becoming more highly educated, even in the absence of books and formalities.  The beauty of the mountain touches his spirit, and there is a consequent reaction that fulfills all the claims of the educational processes.  In short, he is lifted to a higher plane of appreciation, and that is what the books and the schools are striving to achieve.

=The principle illustrated.=—­In the presence of this mountain the tourist gains an ideal of grandeur which becomes his standard of estimating scenery throughout life.  A boy once heard “The Dead March” played by an artist, and when he was grown to manhood that was still his ideal of majestic music.  A traveler asserts that no man can stand for an hour on the summit of Mt.  Rigi and not become a better and a stronger man for the experience.  A writer on art says that it is worth a trip across the ocean to see the painting of the bull by Paul Potter; but that, of course, depends upon the ideals of the beholder.  All these illustrations conform to and are in harmony with the psychological dictum that in the educational process the spirit reacts to its environment.

=The teacher as environment.=—­But the environment may include people as well as inanimate objects, mountains, rivers, flowers, and pictures.  And, as a part of the child’s environment, the teacher takes her place in the process of education by absorption.  A city superintendent avers that there is one teacher in his corps who would be worth more to his school than the salary she receives even if she did no teaching.  This means that her presence in the school is a wholesome influence, and that she is the sort of environment to which the pupils react to their own advantage.  It might not be a simple thing to convince some taxpayers of the truth of the superintendent’s statement, but this fact only proves that they have not yet come into a realization of the fact that there can be education by absorption.

=The Great Stone Face.=—­The people of Florence maintain that they need not travel abroad to see the world, for the reason that the world comes to them.  It is true that many thousands visit that city annually to win a definition of art.  There they absorb their ideals of art and thus attain abiding standards.  In like manner the child may sojourn in the school to gain an ideal of grace of manner and personal charm as exemplified by the teacher, and no one will have