Forty-six lecture courses of 30 hours each, 5 laboratory courses of 60 hours each, and one course of 4 lectures, were offered in Washington. Forty-six lecture courses, 6 laboratory courses, and one course of 4 lectures, of similar grade, made up the Dubuque program. For this work 28 instructors were engaged in Washington, and 26 in Dubuque, a teaching staff of 54, 30 of whom are connected with the regular corps of instructors of the Catholic University, 8 are of the Dubuque College, and the remaining are additional instructors obtained for the summer session.

The only departure from the program as published in the Sisters College Messenger for April, were the omission of the course of Methods of Teaching Religion both in Washington and Dubuque, and the addition of a course of 30 hours on Economics, given in Washington by Dr. Frank O'Hara.

The students at Washington were privileged to hear on the evening of July 12, a special lecture on "St. Francis of Assisi" by the Right Reverend Rector, Bishop Shahan.

P. J. MCCORMICK,

Secretary.

FEELING AND SENSE TRAINING IN TEACHING

The presence in consciousness of appropriate feeling is indispensable to mental assimilation.

To confirm the foregoing principle, let us briefly consider what we here understand by feeling. All conscious states are either cognitive or affective; through the former we know or have knowledge of something we are made cognizant of, as we say, but how we are affected by this knowledge is a phase of consciousness called the affective state, or more commonly known as feeling.

Feelings play a leading rôle all through life and greatly determine individual conduct. In the developmental stage when instincts make their appearance, we find that in a large measure, it is the affective conscious state or feelings which decide whether the instincts will be inhibited or reenforced; in other words, whether or not the innate tendency is to become a permanent constituent of the living organism. If the first impression is agreeable, or at least does not produce any repulsive results, the instinct tends to become incorporated in the living structure as a habit; and, even in the acquisition of habits that do not emerge from instinct, we find such habits are either retarded or energized in proportion to the nature of the affection they produce.

Now the affective element of consciousness, which we shall hereafter speak of as feeling, is not only engaged with such activities as instincts and habits, but we find it a very significant factor in the more complex work of ideational processes; nor must we pass over the fact that in the automatic activities, as respiration, secretion, circulation, and digestion, which do not usually involve consciousness, even here when an unusual disturbance occurs, such disturbances are centered in consciousness, and we are aware of painful, or at least disagreeable feelings; however, we are chiefly concerned now with feeling in as far as it enters into the intellectual processes.

The function of education is to minister to the processes of growth and development, and how this ministration will take place is a question very well agreeing with our principle

the presence in consciousness of appropriate feeling is indispensable to mental assimilation.

It is through the senses that the mind gains intelligence of the outer world, and while the intellect is superior to sense, it is nevertheless roused to activity by the senses. The sense organs act as a transportation medium conveying stimuli to the mind. When the stimulus is of the right sort, and is properly assimilated, it becomes as functional and productive in the growing mind as does nutritious food when physical assimilation takes place.

How the mind is affected by the material received through the senses will be in proportion to the nature of the feelings involved. Our principle states that the feelings evoked must be appropriate in order to secure assimilation; it is obvious that when they are otherwise, the higher activities engaged in the intellectual processes make no response and act very much the same as the neural organism, withdrawing from the stimuli which produce unpleasant or unsuccessful results.

It is very important that the right kind of stimuli reach the sense organs-stimuli which will call forth appropriate feeling. To effect this the teacher must be a live wire, as it were, so that the contact of her mind with those of her pupils will act as a generator, producing currents that will reach the growing mind of the child. Again, the teacher should be penetrated with her subject, feeling its every phase, so that her children will be quickened by the spirit of life and animation with which her illustrations will ring; their feelings will then be aroused and the mental processes furthered by the agreeable affective state, will continue through the light and growth which have been effected, to seek new truths in wider realms; and, so the work goes on, each successive incorporated truth becoming functional in the mental structure.

Not only is it necessary to implant the germinal thought in the young mind in such a way as to awaken proper feelings, but the same law must be followed when dealing with the more matured mind which also grasps the thought with greater ease when the way is prepared by concrete examples which arouse emotion and feeling. The teacher who realizes this truth will not fail to make use of living, rather than

inanimate, material; she will first present the familiar commonplace facts that lie nearest the matter to be taught, gradually working her way to what is obscure. Very often when a new topic or a new phase of a subject is to be presented the non-relation or the transition is only apparent, and if there really is a transition the chasm may be bridged by links that are so successive that the pupil finding himself amidst familiar surroundings while crossing the bridge will hardly realize that there has been an exodus, and will therefore enter with greater confidence and spirit into what otherwise would have been abstract and tedious.

The well-founded maxim, "There is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses," should be kept continually in view by the teacher, for she will then study the best means of appealing to the senses, not, indeed, to pamper these organs, but that they may be used as a means to an end. Illustrations, as side lights, will be tactfully thrown on the subject, anecdotes that provoke feeling and that have some bearing on the work will be ingeniously interwoven; in fine, every available means must be used to hold the attention and make the desired impression.

Brother Azarias, in his "Phases of Thought and Criticism," gives us a paragraph which will serve to illustrate our point. "Take a Raphael or a Murillo," he says. "We gaze upon the painted canvas till its beauty enters our soul. The splendor of the beauty lights up within us depths unrevealed, and far down in our inner consciousness we discover something that responds to the beauty on which we have been gazing. The more careful has been our sense culture, the more delicately have our feelings been attuned, the more readily do we respond to a thing of beauty and find in it a joy forever." How well this passage agrees with the principle on which our subject is based; for instance, "we gaze upon the painted canvas till its beauty enters our soul," in other words, through our sense of sight, our feelings and emotions are stirred up, we appreciate the value of the work for "depths are lighted up" and the inward vision is impressed on the mind as a joy forever.

It is not alone in the teaching of the branches of the curric