PREFACE. EXPERIENCE is beginning to show that teaching, like every other department of human thought and activity, must change with the changing conditions of society, or it will fall in the rear of civilization and become an obstacle to improvement. Teachers imbued with modern thought, in comparing the ideals which such thought suggests with the actual results of their efforts in the ordinary routine of instruction, have become dissatisfied; and intelligent outside observers have seen with great concern the continual divergence of education from practical affairs. Efforts to remove these difficulties have usually been directed toward reforming the methods of presenting the ordinary topics, rather than toward a more radical change; and hence there have grown up a great number of empiric methods, which have found expression in manuals for teachers and in text-books. These have all contributed something to the solution of the problem, and in the aggregate have been of great value to education, especially in the primary grades. But the remedies have proved inadequate, and the |