Some distinguished foreigners have called my attention to the Manuals of Moral and Civic Instruction which circulate in our schools, thinking with reason that they mark perhaps the most important reform in public teaching. There have been published in France a dozen or more during the last ten years or so. The clerical party has thundered against these little books: it had good reason for alarm, for they aim at nothing less than to take the place of the catechism.

How do they replace it? What is their inferiority, or, what their advantages? What is their principle, their disposition? This can be sufficiently judged of by the five we have before us, signed by names more or less known, those of PAUL BERT, PIERRE LALOI, CHARLES BIGOT, MME. HENRY GRÉVILLE, and GABRIEL COMPAYRÉ.[139]

[139] Paul Bert, L'Instruction civique À l'École,
Picard-Bernheim, Pub.; Pierre Laloi, La premiÈre annÉe
d'instruction morale et civique, Armand Colin, Pub.; Charles
Bigot, Le petit FranÇais, Weill et Maurice, Pub.; Mme.
Henry GrÉville, Instruction morale et civique des jeunes
filles, Weill et Maurice, Pub.; Gabriel CompayrÉ, ElÉments
d'instruction morale et civique, Paul Delaplane, Pub.

The manuals of MM. Paul Bert and Laloi, are models of style: the one in familiar, easy dialogues; the other in simple and clear precepts, set off and illustrated by pleasant stories. Lists of questions facilitate the use of the book by the master. The divisions or chapters relate to special subjects,—the military service, taxes, the fatherland, the parliament, the law, the government, etc. So much as to the form; let us look at the groundwork.

The catechism imparted general moral precepts which concerned the man, and particular commands which concerned the Christian. Our manuals also tend to form the man; but in the man, above all, the good Frenchman. We find there glowing pages on the love of one's native land, and on the beauty of one's country, which we must love. Far be it from me to cast censure on this noble sentiment. Nevertheless, I do not think exaggeration on that point is desirable, lest we should seek a cause of patriotism even in the acknowledged superiority, from a gastronomic point of view, of the hare of France over the hare of Germany! Our writers, undoubtedly, have too much tact to lay themselves open to this ridicule. It is very striking, though, that the notion of the moral man considered as a Frenchman, German, Englishman, or Italian, is narrower than that of the Christian man: this reversion into the folds of nationality is a characteristic phenomenon of our old world in this latter end of the century. If our encyclopÆdists had hit on the idea of writing a laic catechism, the tone of it would have been different. Our authors of to-day alas! have only too much excuse to wish to form at first the little Frenchman, and to promote the reaction against a cosmopolitanism which had become dangerous to our national existence. They have done it, however, with sufficient caution, and without detriment to justice.

I shall not say as much for M. Paul Bert, in relation to his manual dedicated to the Revolution. Still here, undoubtedly, it is necessary to make allowance for the political necessities of the present time. But what a danger to sanctify at any cost the sanguinary epoch of our democracy; what an error to date the French era from 1789, and to make our children believe that our fathers should have had hardly the sentiment of public virtue! The worst is not that their young souls are thus embittered, but that their judgment on the facts of history is falsified. We are here only too much inclined to disregard the necessity of human evolution, and to imagine that it suffices to change the label of the sack to improve the merchandise. M. Bigot and M. Laloi, at least, have more wisdom, more prudence in this respect.

The ambition of the catechism, on another point, seems to go beyond that of our manuals. It offered an explanation of the world, a complete conception of human destiny, in a word, a doctrine which returns into itself. This doctrine holds no longer, it is known nevertheless, and it is necessary now to replace it. Unfortunately scientific morality has not yet found its formula in a practical book, and the divergences of views are confessed in our manuals, where the conception of a fundamental ensemble almost entirely fails. It is sufficient to read the tables of contents to convince oneself of this. The work of M. CompayrÉ, who addresses himself especially to the "middle and higher grades," changes suddenly in Book III. entitled La Nature humaine et la morale. What signifies the definition, that "morality is nothing more than the ensemble of the laws that nature has engraved in your soul before human legislators inscribed them in their codes"? What is doing here the vain affirmation of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, and this "let us contemplate and adore" which sums it up? In the mouth of M. CompayrÉ it is only a concession and an avowal of infirmity. A frank spiritualist will resolutely establish his moral conception on his belief; but nominal deism causes God to play the rÔle of an ignominious personage who has no longer a suitable occupation on the scene.

After all is said, however, our manuals have the advantage over the catechism in the clearness of their definitions (not all correct, it is true) and in the immediate value of the instruction. For example, M. Laloi gives information as to the placing out of money, reproduces the formulas in use in the ordinary acts of life, etc. I should take care not to blame, either this good practical sense, or this manner of instructing the child according to his capacity to understand himself and understand the world which surrounds him. In the modest articles of our little class-books, is found summed up, definitively, the secular experience of human societies, and this also has an aggregative value.

* * * * *

Numerous are the works written among us by distinguished authors to introduce youthful minds into the various sciences. The BibliothÈque utile already includes several, and among them one of the best will always be the book of ADOLPHE COSTE, La Richesse et le Bonheur,[140] with which that library is about to enrich itself. M. Coste has reproduced here, in order to express them in a simple form, the doctrines expounded in his large works. But there is also contributed something new, as to what he calls property, for example. The Manuals of which I just spoke base all property on labor alone. Mme. Henry GrÉville defines it "a right, based on the difficulty that any one has had in acquiring a thing." It would be proper to add—"and to save a thing," in taking account of the more exact analysis made by M. Coste. For if it is true that "consumable goods" are always due to labor in some manner, it is no less true that "productive capital," can only be acquired by putting a part of these goods outside of the current consumption, that is to say by saving something of that which one possesses. Saving is to-day the only regular source of accumulation of wealth; it is one of the indispensable factors of property. The usual definition sees only the other factor of wealth, labor, and opens thus the road to the dangerous sophism of which the workmen make a weapon, when they claim that they alone ought to possess, as they produce.

[140] Publisher of the BibliothÈque utile, F. Alcan.

Let us quote the passage. It is exact. "By his labor man takes possession of the fruits, he enters into the enjoyment of his part of the product: this is in some sort only a personal right which disappears at once with consumption. But from the time that this man saves something from consumption and establishes capital, he becomes a proprietor, he acquires a social right. Fundamentally, property is the public acknowledgment of the service rendered to the community by the increase of the productive capital" (p. 25).

I will notice further, in the work of M. Coste, the difficulty that it describes, and that greatly embarrasses economists, of reconciling the value of labor, due to individual effort, with the value of exchange, imposed by the general needs. As to the relations between Wealth and Happiness, he judges them intimate enough: happiness resides chiefly, according to him, in activity, which has for its principal forms the acquisition of wealth and the productive employment of wealth. The question would appear undoubtedly more complex, from the psychological point of view. But we could very well content ourselves with this notion, clear and sound, of an economical happiness.

One has always pleasure in reading M. Coste, because he has just ideas, because he approaches questions of political economy as a naturalist and studies the facts in their evolution. It is the best method for understanding the subject. The deductive economists have never failed to deceive us. I would wish in the public interest for numerous readers of treatises of this kind.

* * * * *

Some day or other, the occasion will present itself for us to speak somewhat fully of pedagogy. Certainly, if the passion of magister was ever exaggerated, it is in our day, and, through logic and principles, it will become in time more difficult to make a little boy eat his porridge than to govern an empire. In all that has been done, I see some good, but much evil; I am afraid that little artificial prodigies will in time be produced, and that we shall be given hot-house oranges instead of fine fruit ripened in full sunshine. Books follow books, and mistakes succeed mistakes. There is everywhere an embarrassment of talents, scarcity of characters. Have the causes of it been unravelled and the remedy discovered? In order to judge the results, let us wait half a century!

M. EUGENE MAILLET, whose work—L'Education, Elements de psychologie de l'homme et de l'enfant appliquÉe À la pÉdagogie—I have formally to announce,[141] will readily excuse, I hope, this quarter of an hour's bad humor. It is not from him that I take it, and his work gives evidence of too much experience, too much study, that a high value should not be placed on it. The present volume is only the first part of it; "the second part will have for its object education itself, considered at first in its idea, then in its various forms,—physical education, education of the heart, education of the mind, education of the will and of the character, finally in the general principles of logic and morality which ought to dominate it and without which the rules of a wisely graduated methodology or of a rational discipline cannot be established."

[141] Belin frÈres, Publishers.

In these Elements of Psychology, M. Maillet shows himself acquainted with new studies and methods. It is regrettable only that he does not enter into them with sufficient freedom. He has not consented to rid himself of the old terminology, he preserves the outlines almost of spiritual psychology, and appears even to seek in the affirmation of spiritualism the indispensable completion of a science of education. His work will perhaps be better welcomed for it by the university public; but we should have preferred, for our part, that he had remained less "classic," while retaining his entire freedom of criticism.

With this limitation we can recommend his work without mental reservation; some portions of it are excellent, and many readers will profit by consulting it. It is written with order, clearness, and good sense.

* * * * *

Here now is a curiosity, the first number of the Annales des sciences psychiques, recueil d'observations et d'expÉriences, appearing every two months, founded under the patronage of M. Charles Richet, with M. Dr. Dariex as editor.[142] This magazine will publish "Observations relative to so-called occult facts, telepathy, lucidity, presentiment, objective apparitions, etc." Experiences,—there can hardly yet be any question of them except in appearance; M. Richet so avows with good grace in a letter forming an introduction,—a very curious letter, rich in excellent advice which will perhaps not be sufficiently listened to, and with a declaration of principle which has a chance of being far too much so.

[142] Felix Alcan, Publisher.

"We have the firm conviction," writes M. Richet, in effect, "that there is, mixed up with the known and described forces, forces that we do not know; that the simple, vulgar mechanical explanation will not suffice to explain all that passes around us; in a word, that there are occult psychic phenomena, and, if we say 'occult,' it is a word intended to express simply what is unknown."

What is meant here by the word forces? We are told "for three hundred years electricity was an unknown force." But it is always occult, as force; and if science is become positive, it is because it has neglected the vain entity, in order to see only a new group of empirical data, a new series of facts, that it is more or less easy to translate into unities of heat and of work. What then would forces be subtracted from mechanics, if not occult forces, with "chimerical functions"? The expression vulgar mechanics, does not suffice to correct the sense of the phrase and rather aggravates it, in allowing to be supposed that there exist two kinds of forces, one of which has no measure. But the comparison, then, is not worth anything, and it is not necessary to speak of electricity or chemical affinity in this matter.

As to the "observations," of what value are such as are presented to us? But little, after all, and many other facts will be necessary to lead us to accept the non-fortuitous relation of certain hallucinations with an objective event. Notwithstanding the wise reservations of the editor, it is to be regretted that we find already in this first number, under the title of Une chambre hantÉe, a real ghost story. Story for story, I would prefer much to read the Chambre bleu of MÉrimÉe; so also, I doubt not, would M. Richet.

This little censure is not meant in jest, which would be out of place. There is always advantage in collecting facts, on condition that they are chosen with care, and that haste is not made to interpret them. MM. Richet and Dariex insist on this point with the greatest force. Curious readers will not be wanting for these Annals, even among sceptics. It has always been necessary to carry the lamp to cause the phantoms to vanish.[143]

[143] Reference may be made to the first number of the Revue mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie de Paris, published by the Professors at the Librairie Alcan. In this number will be found a lecture by M. AndrÉ LefÈvre, under this interesting title: Du Cri À la Parole.

LUCIEN ARRÉAT.

II.

THE SCIENCE OF PEDAGOGICS IN GERMANY.

In view of the great care with which The Monist cultivates psychology, I may be permitted in my first letter, consistently I judge, to speak of the most important application of this science—its application namely to pedagogics.

Psychological pedagogics, in the true sense of the word, exists with us in Germany only since the days of J. F. Herbart who abandoned the ancient psychological theory of the faculties and discovered in ideas the sole component elements of all psychical activity, derived feelings and volitions from the interrelation and interoperation of ideas, thus denied the absolute freedom which the possibility of formation of will, or education, excludes, and upheld the determinability of the will by the ideas.

Although Herbart himself applied his system of psychology pedagogically, yet it bore in the life-time of its author only scanty fruit in this direction. Psychological pedagogics was not developed beyond its original generality and unprofitableness of character until Professor STOY of Jena and especially Professor ZILLER of Leipsic took up, with an energy that equalled their tact, the practical construction of psychological pedagogics.

Pedagogics now exerted a reactive promotive influence, if not on the further development of psychology, yet on its study. After the psychological writings of Herbart, it was eminently the Empirical Psychology[144] of M. W. DROBISCH, sustained in the Herbartian spirit but written more in agreement with "scientific" (i. e. inductive) methods, that supplied psychological pedagogists with nourishment. The last-named work, which in many respects possesses value even to-day, was received with especial favor, since it avoided happily the metaphysical tendencies which Herbart rather assiduously employed. A like excellence and a like favorable reception were the merit and reward of the large work, later appearing, of LAZARUS: Das Leben der Seele in Monographien. Subsequently, were effective two little books by I. DRBAL and by LINDNER: Lehrbuch der empirischen Psychologie and Handbuch der empirischen Psychologie. Lindner's treatise has recently appeared in an English translation, published by Heath of Boston, under the title of "A Manual of Empirical Psychology as an Inductive Science. A Text-book for High Schools and Colleges. By Dr. G. A. Lindner, of Prague. Translated by Chas. de Garmo." The English edition of this book received an unfavorable review in the London Academy (Nov. 1, 1891); yet in one respect the criticism was in our opinion justified. Too little use, namely, has been made of the results of experimental psychology.

[144] Leipsic, 1842.

This is, moreover, not only true of Lindner's book but holds for all the psychological books that have exerted any considerable influence in pedagogical circles, is true in fact of the great Lehrbuch der Psychologie by VOLKMANN, the latest edition of which, prepared by Cornelius, is not in this respect abreast of the position of the times.

Neglect in such a matter in the country of a Wundt appears striking at first glance; yet it has its good reasons. The labors of the school of Wundt were antagonistic to the Herbartian psychology and the pedagogics founded thereon, to the extent that a goodly portion of the old theory of the faculties has been re-introduced into those labors. The English association-psychology could have counted on a much more welcome reception. Happily, there has appeared within the last few months a remarkably clear, and withal handy, volume which will succeed in introducing into the pedagogical circles of Germany this association-psychology. It bears the modest title of Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie (The Elements of Physiological Psychology, Jena, Fischer, 1891), and consists of lectures delivered by PROF. DR. ZIEHEN at the University of Jena. In many respects the book of Ziehen is like the recent work of Dr. Paul Carus[145]: except that everything of a speculative character is lacking in the former, of which from our point of view we cannot approve.

[145] The Soul of Man, Chicago, 1891.

Now that I am speaking of pedagogics particularly, I will mention still another work of Lindner, to whom I referred above, which is the first of its kind in Germany. Its peculiarity appears from its title: Grundriss der PÄdagogik als Wissenschaft, auf Grund der Entwickelungslehre und der Sociologie neu aufgebaut (Outlines of Pedagogics as a Science, Newly Constructed on the Basis of the Doctrine of Evolution and of Sociology, Vienna, 1890). The endeavor of the author of this work has been, to make fruitful within the domain of the Herbartian system the principles of evolution and of the science of sociology; and though he has not been successful in this respect as regards all the details of educational methods, the book nevertheless represents a good beginning.

CHRISTIAN UFER.