34. Now, in order to gain an adequate knowledge of each pupil’s capacity for education, observation is necessary--observation both of his thought masses and of his physical nature. The study of the latter includes that of temperament, especially with reference to emotional susceptibility. With some, fear is the first natural impulse, with others, anger; some laugh and cry easily, others do not. In some cases a very slight stimulus suffices to excite the vascular system. We need to note furthermore:-- (1) The games of pupils. Do they in a thoroughly childlike manner still play with any object that comes to hand? Do they intentionally change their games to suit a varying preference? Can distinct objects of persistent desire be discovered? (2) Their mental capacity and processes as shown in their studies. Is the pupil able to grasp long or only short series? Does he make many or few slips in the recitation? Do his lessons find a spontaneous echo in his play? (3) Their depth and consistency. Are their utterances superficial, or do they come from the depths of the soul? A comparative study of words and actions will gradually answer this question. Such observations will take account also of the rhythm of the pupil’s mental life as well as of the character of his store of thoughts. The insight thus obtained determines the matter and method of instruction. The reader will not fail to notice that much of modern child study is anticipated in the foregoing paragraphs. Further important contributions to the same subject are made in paragraphs 294–329. 35. Instruction in the sense of mere information-giving contains no guarantee whatever that it will materially counteract faults and influence existing groups of ideas that are independent of the imparted information. But it is these ideas that education must reach; for the kind and extent of assistance that instruction may render to conduct depend upon the hold it has upon them. Facts, at least, must serve as material for methodical treatment, otherwise they do not enlarge even the scope of mental activity. They rise in value when they become instinct with life and acquire mobility so as to enrich the imagination. But their ethical effect always remains questionable so long as they do not help to correct or modify the ethical judgment, or desire and action, or both. This point calls for a few additional distinctions. Generally speaking, rudeness decreases in proportion to the expansion of the mental horizon by instruction. The mere diffusion of desires over the enlarged thought area causes them to lose something of their one-sided energy. Moreover, if instruction presents ethical subjects of some kind in a comprehensible way, the pupil’s disposition undergoes a refining process so that it at least approximates a correct estimate of the will, that is, the creation of ethical ideas.