the same way as they themselves visit European countries, straining to
get a bird's-eye view of everything, and settling on nothing long
enough to know it intimately and to enjoy it deeply. They justify
Herbert Spencer's remark to the effect that he would have known no
more than a great many other persons, if he had read as many books as
they had.

The difficulty has been that teachers, with the center of gravity of
the school within themselves, have lacked a standard for determining
their pupils' normal rate of advance. The curriculum that they have
outlined has been merely the sum of those things that they have deemed
good, that they would like to have the children know; and the children
have been set to work to consume all these good things, just like
gourmands.

With the center of gravity in the child, however, and with the proper
method of study in the lead, the learner's real power of assimilation
becomes the standard for his rate of advance. And, since assimilation
is a very slow process, including much discrimination among ideas as
well as their use, comparatively few topics can be undertaken.
Appreciation of proper study then makes extensive eliminations so
evidently necessary that they become compulsory. So long as we did not
look closely at the minds of children, and they seemed to thrive
physically, we have lacked proof that they were surfeiting; attention
to study reveals the fact too plainly for it to be ignored.

It is not merely the teacher, either, that will be emboldened to cast
aside subject-matter. The pupil himself, under the influence of
specific purposes, a clear notion of thoroughness, and his own
conception of values, will quickly pass over many of the facts that