This table shows that out of 10,000 boys, 7478 on entering the Berlin schools have an idea of the number two; out of 10,000 girls, 7380 have it; out of 10,000 children of both sexes indiscriminately, 7436 have it, etc. Here the concepts are

arranged in systematic order. Mathematics, 1-8; astronomical, 9-13; meteorological, 13-21; animals, 22-31; plants, 32-40; local geography, 41-61; and miscellaneous. Of three fourths of these concepts as objects more girls are ignorant than boys, and those who have not been in the kindergarten are more ignorant than those who have. Some of these objects were doubtless known but had not acquired a name for the child; others they had seen but had not had their attention called to. It is often said that girls are more likely to excel boys in learning concepts, the more general these concepts are. Perhaps we may also assume that the most common concepts are acquired before those possessed by a few individuals only. The greater the number of concepts in the test lists, the more boys seemed to excel girls. The easy and widely diffused concepts are commonest among girls; the harder and more special or exceptional ones are commonest among boys. The girls clearly excelled only in the following concepts: name and calling of the father, tempest, rainbow, hail, potato field, moon, square, circle, Alexander Platz, Frederick's Grove, morning sky, oak, dew, and Botanical Garden. Of all the children the sphere was known to 76 per cent., the cube to 69 per cent., the square to 54 per cent., the circle to 49 per cent., the triangle to 41 per cent. The girls excel in space concepts and boys in numbers. Girls excel in ideas of family, house, and thunderstorms, children from houses of refuge had more concepts than children from families, and those from kindergartens excelled both. The child's characteristic question, What is that? is so poorly answered at home that he comes to school so poor in concepts that instruction must either operate with words, or use pictures, or go back to nature. Thus text-books and other means of instruction assume a knowledge which the child does not possess, and it is hard to find those which are well adapted to a given population. Thus object lessons, excursions, etc.,

are suggested as first steps to fill the gaps in the child's knowledge.

The following table shows the relative number of children who knew four Bible stories and four of Grimm's favorite fairy tales.

God

Children

Boys

Girls

Children from Children Children Per Per Boys Girls from Kinder- from alto- cent. cent. Families garten Refuges gether 7827 5067 6927 5935 5704 6633 6757 4217 5818 5355 5104 5648 61.6 38.4

60.7 39.3

3743 1453 2727 2258

2979 2744 72. 28.

Rothkäppchen 2427 3664 2800 4581
Dornröschen.

3025 2967

39.8

60.2

65.

563 1044 661 1871 808 773 35. Aschenbrödel del). 1784 2897 2182 3871 2032 2270 38.

Average

Religious.
Fairy tales

61.9

5852 3846 5138 4790 4659 5021 60.3 39.7 1734 2654 2020 3677 2032 2137 39.5 60.5

Thus girls excel in fairy tales and boys in religious concepts. As the opportunities to learn both would not probably differ much, there seems here a difference of disposition. God and Christ were better learned at home, and the tales best in the kindergarten. Rothkäppchen was better known than God, and Schneewittchen than Christ. More boys could repeat sentences said to them, or sing musical phrases sung to them, or sing a song, than girls. Kindergarten children come from the richer, refuge children from the poorer, class, while parents between these extremes occupy themselves most with their children. The better off the parents, the stiller and less imitative the child, is a law suggested by the statistics of abilities. Not only method but choice and arrangement of the material of instruction depend on the knowledge the

child has. Further investigations on narrower and more closely related subjects should be chosen. Investigation of six to twelve closely related points is suggested as the best method, and every teacher could occasionally complete such inventories in his or her room.

In Germany it is more common than in our country to connect songs, poetry, reading and object lessons, instruction in history, geography, botany, geology, and other elementary branches with the immediate locality. A school geography of Leipzig, e.g., begins with the schoolhouse and yard, the street, with cross sections of it to show drainage, gas, etc., and then widens out into the world by concentric circles. Stated holiday walks conducted by teachers for educational purposes and for making collections for the schoolrooms are more common. The psychic peculiarities of different school districts of Berlin seemed to be influenced surprisingly by locality.

In 1879 Dr. K. Lange1 urged that a six-year-old child has learned already far more than a student learns in his entire university course. "These six years have been full of advancement, like the six days of creation." Concrete conceptions have been accumulated in vast numbers and the teacher must not assume that a tabula rasa is before him. Both this and the presumption of too much knowledge would be to build upon sand. Children have experienced and learned far more than they can put into words; hence again the need of cross questioning. Lange's table on the following page was based on 500 children entering the city schools of Plauen, and 300 entering 21 country schools in outlying districts, and the figures represent the percentages of those having the concept.

1 See "Der Vorstellungskreis unserer sechsjährigen Kleinen," Allg. SchulZeitung, Bd. 56, pp. 327 et seq. Darmstadt, 1879.