CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRAINING OF THE MIND--EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY.
A great deal has been said and written about the physical and mental differences shown by the young; and one of the most oft-repeated of all the charges which we hear brought against the current methods of teaching is that all children are treated alike.

The point is carried so far that a teacher is judged from the way he has or has not of getting at the children under him as individuals.

All this is a move in the right direction; and yet the subject is still so vague that many of the very critics who declaim against the similar treatment which diverse pupils get at school have no clear idea of what is needed; they merely make demands that the treatment shall suit the child.

How each child is to be suited, and the inquiry still back of that, what peculiarity it is in this child or that which is to be "suited"-- these things are left to settle themselves.
It is my aim in this chapter to indicate some of the variations which are shown by different children; and on the basis of such facts to endeavour to arrive at a more definite idea of what variations of treatment are called for in the several classes into which the children are divided.

I shall confine myself at first to those differences which are more hereditary and constitutional.
_First Period--Early Childhood._--The first and most comprehensive distinction is that based on the division of the life of man into the two great spheres of reception and action.