In such schools, the power of the third element, _imitation_, is very great, for the pupil is generally more influenced by the example of his numerous associates in the school and family, with whom he is continually in contact, than by that of his teacher. To get the full benefit of imitation requires not only the influence of well-trained schoolmates, but systematic exercises in reading, singing, declamation, and deportment, the teaching being given by example. When a boy or girl is taught by example to express a noble sentiment in a natural manner, he is thereby compelled to feel the sentiment in some degree with sincerity. When he is required to imitate and practice certain forms of politeness which express the best sentiments, those sentiments must gradually become a part of his nature. The acts of respect, of kindness and courtesy to which he may be naturally averse, cannot be daily practised without rousing in his nature the sentiments to which they correspond. VALUE OF DANCING. Among the many disciplinary methods which have been neglected in our educational systems, I would give a high rank to _dancing_. Rightly conducted, it embodies so much of grace, dignity, cheerfulness, playfulness, health, and the desire of pleasing, as to entitle it to a high rank in the promotion of health and virtue. Dancing is one of the imitative arts, and involves the amiable influence of imitation, as well as the more lively sentiments. The hostility of the orthodox churches to this refining exercise is probably the effect of the infernalism of their theology, which places mankind upon the brink of hell, in full view of the infinite agony of their friends, relatives, and ancestors, so as to render every sentiment but that of gloom and terror inappropriate. How bitter their hostility to all gaiety! "Yes, dance, young woman," said a famous Methodist preacher about twenty years ago, "dance down to hell!" At the same time, his own private record did not indicate any deep sincerity in his fear of hell. The same hostility is still kept up, and overflows in the popular harangues of Rev. Sam Jones, and many others. Popular Christianity, in the majority of the churches, is therefore one of the greatest hindrances to a normal educational system, and to social refinement, notwithstanding its support of some of the essential virtues. THE REVOLUTIONARY METHOD. The fourth method, of _passive sympathy_, is the most scientific, the most novel and the most powerful of all,--the most competent to grasp the helpless, hopeless, half idiotic, and half criminal classes and restore them to normal intelligence and virtue. It was not mentioned in the "New Education," for fear of alarming the orthodox stolidity of the medical college and the church, but it will appear in future editions. It is the method of bringing the subject into absolute sympathy and absolute subordination under the operator.