suggestion is made with timidity, but I confess that I sometimes fancy that something like it may explain the existence of the curious ruins so widely scattered throughout Oceania.
The Pacific islands can not be mentioned without calling to mind the missionaries who labor among them. Their success has been very great; but, great as it is, I think its magnitude has been exaggerated. The Christianity of the Western Polynesians is not much to boast of; and their present state of civilization is much more owing to frequent intercourse with white men who are not missionaries than is generally admitted. Without missions they would not have advanced so far as they have done; nor with them would the advance have been what it is had no other white men ever gone among them. The same thing is true of Feejee. Some of the "pioneer" missionaries are men of whom every country might feel proud. The influence for good of such men as Mr. Moulton, of Tonga, or Mr. Robertson, of Erromanga, is enormous; but they are men of enlarged views and of even statesman-like capacity, who would be powerful over their fellows anywhere. The same may be said of Messrs, Lawes and Chalmers in New Guinea, and will explain to a great extent their astonishing success. Mr. Chalmers is a born leader of men, and his ascendency over those with whom he is brought in contact is due to a never-failing tact and a nobility of mind which have been rarely equaled.
It is hazardous to forecast the future, but it does not seem that the Pacific islands are likely, for generations yet to come, to be of use to mankind at large. Fertile as they may be, they can only be made productive with labor, of which no man can say where it is to be obtained.
| SOME OUTLINES FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. |
By W. R. BENEDICT.
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.
[Concluded.]
THE institution at Dessau made distinct approaches to object-teaching. It remained for Pestalozzi, however, to give this method philosophical expression and justification. We know how the Pestalozzian idea has been enlarged and improved by Froebel and his followers. Our present purpose is to trace this idea in its beginning and development under Pestalozzi.
The reformer was born January 12, 1746, at Zürich. His first attempts to serve the people were of a literary character, and this as member of the staff of a political newspaper published for the improvement of the masses. He then entered the ministry and made an
