220. It is difficult to deal with the rare instances of tardy development unless we find that they are due to neglected health, or to lack of assistance in enlarging the range of experience, and to failure to change the mode of instruction. Here an attempt may be made to supply what is wanting. But even where the rate of progress becomes more rapid at once, the teacher’s efforts will have turned out favorably only when the boy gives also clear proof of a vigorous striving for advancement. 221. To revert to fundamental ethical principles, particular mention of the ideas of justice and equity needs to be made in this connection. These ideas issue from reflection on human relations; they are consequently less accessible to early childhood, which finds itself subordinated everywhere to the family. The boy, on the other hand, lives more among his peers, and the necessary corrections are not always administered so promptly as to leave no time for independent judgment. Not infrequently voluntary association takes place among boys, personal authority plays a part, and even usurpation of power is not rare. Now, education has to provide for clear ethical concepts and for government and training besides. But not only that; it must also furnish the kind of instruction that will exhibit similar but remote relations, for purposes of unbiassed contemplation. Such instruction must borrow its material from poetry and history. 222. To history we are referred by still another consideration. As has already been shown (206–211), the idea of good-will points to the necessity of religious culture; and this relies for support on stories, old stories at that. The expansion of the pupil’s power of thought which is here demanded must be generally attained, even though very incompletely, in every course of instruction, that of the village school included. 223. Another fixed goal, the importance of which exceeds even that of reading and writing, is furnished by arithmetic, which gives clearness to the common concepts of experience, and is indispensable in the practical affairs of life.