One of the most characteristic features of Herbart’s thinking, and that feature of it which constitutes a new school of educational thought, is, that he rejects the notion of separate mental faculties. The earlier reformers, notably Pestalozzi and Froebel, divide the faculties up with something of the precision of a phrenologist, and a chief business of education is, according to them, “to develop the faculties.” There is a certain pleasing neatness in this idea which is very attractive. We want to know, definitely, what we have to do. Why develop the perceptive faculties here, the conceptive there, the judgment in this lesson, the affections in the other, until you have covered the whole ground, giving each so-called faculty its due share of developmental exercise! But, says Herbart, we have changed all that. The mind, like Wordsworth’s cloud, moves altogether when it moves at all. Now this appears to be but a slight fundamental difference, but it is one upon the recognition of which education changes front. The whole system of beautifully organised lessons, whose object is to develop this or that, is called into question. For the _raison d’être_ of specialised intellectual gymnastics is gone when we no longer recognise particular “muscles” of the mind to be developed. The aim of education must be something quite other, and, if the aim is other, the methods must be altered, for what is method but _a way to an end_. So far we are entirely with Herbart; we do not believe in the “faculties;” therefore we do not believe in the “development of the faculties;” therefore we do not regard lessons as instruments for this “development”: in fact, our whole method of procedure is altered. Again, we are with the philosopher in his recognition of the force of an idea, and especially of those ideas which are, as we phrase it, in the air at any given moment. “Both the circle of the family and that of social intercourse are subjected to forces that are active in the entire social body, and that penetrate the entire atmosphere of human life in invisible channels. No one knows whence these currents, these ideas arise; but they are there. They influence the moods, the aspirations, and the inclinations of humanity, and no one however powerful can withdraw himself from their effects; no sovereign’s command makes its way into their depths. They are often born of a genius to be seized upon by the multitude that soon forgets their author; then the power of the thought that has thus become active in the masses again impels the individual to energetic resolutions: in this manner it is constantly describing a remarkable circle. Originating with those that are highly gifted, these thoughts permeate all society, reaching, in fact, not only its adult members, but also through these its youth, and appearing again in other highly gifted individuals in whom they will perhaps have been elevated to a definite form.