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 BMEAU of EDUCATI/ ^rpjjjjj 
 
The Teaching of 
 History and 
 Other Papers 
 
Sherratt & Hughes 
 
 Publishers to the Victoria University of Manchester 
 
 Manchester: 27 St Ann Street 
 
 London : 65 Long Acre 
 
 Is 
 
 3 DEC i 8 
 Copy ^1958 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/teachingofhistorOOwith 
 
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 I 
 
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 The Teaching of 
 History and 
 Other Papers 
 
 
 H. L. WITHERS 
 
 irah Fielden Professor of II... 
 
 ^ in Owens College, Manchester. 
 
 C\ Late Sarah Fielden Professor of Education 
 
 Edited with Biographical 
 Introduction a?td a 
 Selection from his Letters 
 
 BY 
 
 J. H. FOWLER 
 
 Clifton College. 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 At the University Press 
 
 1904 
 
55.^ 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 It has seemed to some of the friends of the late 
 Professor H. L. Withers, that they might honour 
 the memory, and extend the usefulness, of a life that, 
 measured by years, was all too short, if they put 
 together some of his writings on subjects that lay 
 near to his heart, together with such extracts from his 
 letters and such a brief biographical sketch as might 
 suffice to recall to those who knew him a personality 
 of wonderful charm, and give to others at least some 
 faint impression of what he was. 
 
 The Editor owes, and hereby tenders, his best 
 thanks to those who have aided him either by direct 
 contributions to the Memoir or by the loan of letters 
 and permission to make extracts ; to Mr. Hartley 
 Withers, without whose sympathy and assistance the 
 volume could hardly have been undertaken ; to Mr. 
 P. A. Barnett and Messrs. Longmans for permission 
 to reprint the paper on " Ancient History Teaching " 
 from " Teaching and Organisation " ; to the Syndics 
 of the Cambridge University Press and the late 
 London School Board for a similar permission in the 
 case of the two papers that follow ; to the editors and 
 proprietors of tbe Contemporary Review and Child 
 Life for the use of the papers on " New Authorities in 
 English Education " and " Work and Play " respec- 
 tively ; and to Miss Williams, of the Franco-English 
 Guild, for the summary of the lecture on Bacon. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ... ... ... ... ... y. 
 
 I. Memoir ... ... ... ... _, 1 
 
 Childhood, 1 — Schooldays, 2 — Oxford, 
 8 — Fh'st Experiences in Teaching, 15 — 
 Manchester Grammar School, 1 7 — Clifton 
 College, 21 — Isleworth, 24 — Owens 
 College, 32 — Illness and Death, 48 — 
 Conclusion, 49. 
 
 II. Letters ... ... ... ... 57 
 
 III. Ancient History Teaching 103 
 
 IV. Teaching of History in the Nineteenth 
 
 Century ... ... ... ... 1 39 
 
 V. Memorandum on the Teaching of 
 
 History ... ... ... ,_ 165 
 
 VI. The New Authorities in English 
 
 Education ... ... ... ... 203 
 
 VII. The Distinction Between Work and 
 
 Play 235 
 
 VIII. Bacon's Philosophy of Life ... ... 26I 
 
 Index to Letters... ... ... ... 269 
 
M 
 
 emoir 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 Harry Livingston Withers was born in 
 
 Liverpool on Dec. ist, 1864. He was the 
 
 third son of Mr. H. H. Withers 
 
 CHILDHOOD. r o • r- c Tin--i i 
 
 01 Spring Croft. Whilst he 
 was still a child his parents removed to 
 London, and he was sent to Kings College 
 School. He was one of a large family ; and 
 as his father and mother were both members 
 of large families also, he was unusually rich 
 in relations. He grew up with strong attach- 
 ments to his kindred, and his boyish affection 
 for so many relatives of various ages and 
 tastes doubtless fostered the faculty for 
 appreciating and liking almost everyone 
 whom he met which was characteristic of his 
 maturer life. Of his childish tastes the one 
 chiefly remembered is a military ardour 
 which lasted till he was thirteen or fourteen. 
 He was never so happy as when he was 
 given stories of battle or histories of war. 
 His ambition altered later ; before he went 
 to Oxford he seems to have looked forward 
 
2 MEMOIR 
 
 to the career of a schoolmaster. But 
 the interest of his childhood to a certain 
 extent coloured the whole of his after- 
 years. It is scarcely fanciful to trace it 
 in that erect soldierly bearing which left a 
 striking impression upon those who made his 
 acquaintance in early manhood. It was 
 unmlstakeable in his life-long attachment to 
 the Volunteer service, In his study of military 
 history, in the keenness with which he found 
 time to follow all the details of the South 
 African war ; and, finally, In his favourite 
 habit of representing human life to himself 
 and to his pupils under the figure of warfare. 
 Of his life at Kino^'s Colleo^e School It Is 
 fortunately possible to reconstruct some pic- 
 ture from the impressions of 
 SCHOOLDAYS. ... . -, f , ,. , 
 
 two distmguished schooliel- 
 
 lows. Mr. R. McKenna, M.P., writes as 
 follows : — 
 
 ** Not many memories bear so fresh a 
 stamp as the early impressions of an affec- 
 tionate school friendship. In 1880 when I 
 first became intimate with Harry Withers 
 
MEMOIR 3 
 
 at King's College School he was already 
 marked out as the most promising classical 
 scholar we had : not yet at the top, but rising 
 fast, and much younger than most of his 
 competitors. I knew him well by reputation 
 before we came together in the same class. 
 He said good things which were quoted by 
 other boys, very good we thought them, 
 humorous and with a spice of impudence, 
 and they ran the round of the school. He 
 was a little fellow at that time, rather slight 
 and delicate in body, but healthy in colour 
 and always good-humoured and cheery. He 
 had a habit of drollery not a bit in keeping 
 with his strenuous work, and I remember 
 with what surprise I discovered that the 
 underlying tone of his mind was wholly 
 serious. His work was his first thought. 
 With a view to obtaining a scholarship at 
 Balliol he made it his special aim to acquire 
 literary facility, sparing no pains to develop 
 his considerable natural gifts of expression. 
 For example, in conjunction with one of his 
 schoolfellows, he set himself the task of 
 
4 MEMOIR 
 
 writing a weekly essay on some selected 
 topic; each treated the subject independently, 
 and at the end of the week essays were 
 exchanged for the purpose of criticism. Yet 
 his work bore none of the marks of laborious 
 effort ; he had originality, he worked easily, 
 and he found genuine pleasure in his daily 
 task. Very noticeable in him was the 
 absence of ambition in the ordinary sense . 
 when we talked of the future he never 
 expressed any other wish than to learn and 
 to teach. After leaving school we saw each 
 other but rarely — our occupations have kept 
 us apart — but when from time to time we 
 met and talked of the past and the present 
 I used to feel how thoroughly he had realised 
 the purpose which he had put before himself 
 in boyhood." 
 
 Mr. H. W. Blunt, Fellow of Christ Church, 
 who was his contemporary at school and at 
 Oxford, writes : — 
 
 '' I was with H. L. Withers at King's in 
 Middle Third and again in Sixth Form 
 Room. In the former as in the latter he 
 
MEMOIR 5 
 
 was nearly youngest. As a little boy he 
 was not, I think, particularly industrious, rely- 
 ing too much on the possession of a quick 
 brain. He was of a sunny temperament, 
 and a high temper. A bit of a chatterbox. 
 Popular in a rag or a discussion alike, though 
 not athletic and somewhat shy. Later he 
 was a hard worker, his eyes showing tired 
 and strained. A good raconteur but with 
 flashes of silence. The wit rather than the 
 humourist of his circle — a post usurped by 
 his friend R. McKenna. He was somewhat 
 reserved except among his intimates, and 
 these were mostly the butterflies rather than 
 the ants and bees of the sixth. He was in 
 search of a style when he came into the 
 sixth, and the results were curious at first, 
 but the motto ' Let the galled jade wince ' 
 came more and more to be noted and feared. 
 His first successes were in French — where 
 he was for some three years easily first. He 
 acted in the Bourgeois Gentilhomine at Xmas 
 '79, while his first appearance in Greek Play 
 was in the Frogs in '80 in the somewhat 
 
6 MEMOIR 
 
 humble part of Euripides. As early as '80 
 a discerning examiner had picked him out 
 while still in the Under Sixth as the best 
 Latin versifier among the pack of us — and 
 he did not go up to Balliol, if my memory 
 serves me, till %^. It was rather a surprise 
 to us that he did not take more of the 
 University prizes. But I think that his high 
 strung temperament is one that always goes 
 with a certain delicacy of health. Not that 
 he was not sound enough, but he took a 
 great deal out of himself then and always. 
 As to the mark he made in the life of the 
 place, he was not an athlete, his work was a 
 thing he seldom talked about, and he was at 
 all times by preference a laughing philoso- 
 pher. But his friends swore by him. He 
 was not puritanical, and his winged words 
 could be picturesque enough. But they were 
 most unstinted at mean things. He had 
 then, as after, everyone's trust. He wore 
 * the white flower of a blameless life.' Alas ! 
 that 'whom the gods love die young.'" 
 
 Professor J. W. Hales, of King's College, 
 
MEMOIR 7 
 
 took the Sixth Form of King's College 
 School in English literature and essays. To 
 these lessons Withers looked back with a 
 special pleasure and gratitude. *' Writing 
 essays for you," he told Professor Hales in 
 a letter in 1887, ''and listening to your 
 criticisms on the matter and manner of them 
 did more, I think, for my education than 
 anything else." This seems to be the only 
 direct testimony to the influences of his 
 school-days that remains on record ; but those 
 who heard his Inaugural Lecture at Owens 
 College will remember some words of its 
 concluding passage that may appropriately 
 be quoted here : " When we look back at 
 our own school-days we remember that what 
 really signified to us and quickened us was 
 some touch of genius, some stroke of wit, 
 some proof of sympathy, some evidence of 
 genuine passion for what is great in literature 
 or science, or maybe some personal oddity 
 or quaintness in a forcible character." Pro- 
 fessor Hales, on his part, has recorded his 
 impressions of Withers : — 
 
8 MEMOIR 
 
 "He was one of the most brilliant pupils I 
 ever had, and some highly distinguished 
 scholars have passed through the Sixth Form 
 at King's College School, London ; as the 
 Rev. Dr. Gow, now Headmaster of West- 
 minster, the Rev. Professor Chase, D.D., 
 President of Queen's College, Cambridge, 
 Mr. A. W. Pollard, of the British Museum, 
 Mr. Sidney Low, the well-known publicist, 
 and many others of equal or scarcely less 
 note. Withers was both receptive and 
 original in a remarkable degree. He was 
 eagerly attentive always, but at the same 
 time maintained his independence, and 
 thought for himself, not acquiescing in any- 
 thing simply because his teacher said it, or 
 till he had carefully revolved it ; this critical 
 attitude, however, never being in the least 
 impertinent or disrespectful. He was an 
 altogether delightful pupil." 
 
 In November, 1882, Withers was elected 
 
 to an open classical scholarship at Balliol, 
 
 and in October of the following- 
 
 OXFORD. , . . . "^ 
 
 year he went mto residence at 
 
MEMOIR 9 
 
 Oxford. He took a first-class in Classical 
 Moderations in 1884, and a first-class in 
 Liter ae Humaniores in 1887. One of 
 his closest friends at Balliol, Mr. George 
 Macdonald, of Glasgow, has furnished the 
 following account of his undergraduate 
 career : — 
 
 ''When Withers first came up, it would 
 not have been easy to predict where he was 
 ultimately to find his closest friends. Apart 
 from the prestige that naturally attached to 
 him as a scholar, his qualities were such as 
 would have made him popular in any circle. 
 His knowledge of the world and his mastery 
 of the art of good-natured repartee, enabled 
 him to hold his own everywhere, while a 
 quick and instinctive sympathy speedily put 
 him on terms with those whom others found 
 difficile or uninteresting. These charac- 
 teristics were prominent throughout his 
 undergraduate life. While his deepest 
 intimacy was reserved for two or three, he 
 was greatly liked by all, and up to the end 
 he would often be met taking walks with 
 
10 MEMOIR 
 
 men who, but for his companionship, would 
 have been solitary. 
 
 ''The first year and a half witnessed no 
 marked development. He was thoroughly 
 happy in College life and companionship. 
 But the work for Moderations was so well 
 within his powers, that it never appealed to 
 him as very serious. On the other hand, 
 although he several times competed for the 
 Hertford and the Ireland, he had not sufficient 
 interest in ' pure scholarship ' to lead him to 
 devote much time to its cultivation. He 
 cared, indeed, a good deal for Latin poetry. 
 But he had early acquired a love of English 
 literature, and his knowledge of it was 
 constantly deepening. Shakespeare had long- 
 been a favourite, and now he read and 
 re-read him with ever-increasino^ insiorht, 
 carrying off almost as a matter of course 
 the College Shakespeare prize. He read 
 the lesser Elizabethans too, but they failed 
 to stir him to enthusiasm. In novels, as in 
 plays, his appreciation was intense rather 
 than catholic. He certainly had no patience 
 
MEMOIR 11 
 
 with second or third rate work. I have seen 
 him take a novel he did not Hke, and thrust 
 it bodily between the bars of the grate. 
 
 *' So soon as he began to read for Greats, 
 a notable change took place. The work 
 proved deeply interesting, and it speedily 
 absorbed almost all his intellectual energies. 
 The picturesque and human elements in 
 history attracted him, as they had always 
 done. And in philosophy there was a great 
 awakening:. His imas^ination was touched 
 by the possibilities of metaphysical specula- 
 tion. For awhile he seemed to be actually 
 afraid that he would lose his hold of reality 
 altogether. Jowett tried to administer comfort 
 in the shape of the common-sense philosophy 
 in which he had by that time come to believe 
 profoundly. To Withers, however, in his 
 then state of mind, this was simply unmeaning. 
 He had perforce to struggle on until he 
 reached firm ground for himself. His 
 guide was Nettleship, the memory of whose 
 teaching remained for him to the end a 
 never-failing source of inspiration. Once a 
 
12 MEMOIR 
 
 foothold had been gained on the speculative 
 side, he was free to work out the ethical 
 problems which so readily presented them- 
 selves to one of his strong practical turn of 
 mind. It was no surprise to his intimate 
 friends when he decided to begin his teaching 
 career in an elementary school. 
 
 ''As an undergraduate, he took a healthy 
 interest in games of all kinds. But he had 
 not the physical aptitude necessary for very 
 active participation. At tennis, which he 
 played regularly in the summer term, he was 
 handicapped by his shortness of sight. A 
 good match, either at cricket or at football, 
 he would watch with keen enjoyment. He 
 was fond too of the river. But it was 
 perhaps In long walks that he took most 
 real pleasure. Practically every fine Sunday 
 in term time he would start early with one 
 friend or with two, and spend all day in the 
 country, returning to his rooms only In the 
 late afternoon or early evening. On these 
 occasions, at least in his later years at Oxford, 
 the talk turned chiefly on one or other of the 
 
MEMOIR 13 
 
 many philosophical questions In which he was 
 interested. Political matters were sometimes 
 discussed also. In those days he was an 
 ardent Liberal, often speaking on that side in 
 the Brakenbury Debating Society, of which 
 he was in due course president. As a 
 speaker, he was hampered somewhat by 
 nervousness. But in reply he was always 
 effective, and often extremely amusing. So 
 far as I recollect, he never took part in a 
 Union debate, and hardly ever even attended 
 one : to public speaking, for its own sake, he 
 attached little importance. 
 
 " This statement of facts as they present 
 themselves to recollection, seems sadly 
 meagre and inadequate, It fails altogether 
 to convey any idea of that in which the chief 
 strength of his character lay — the happy 
 combination of the ^eoiprjTLKos and the TrpaKTCKos.^ 
 And it has taken no account of the singular 
 charm of his personality — his genuineness, 
 his wit, his quaint humour. All of these 
 were as conspicuous in his undergraduate 
 
 1. ' Philosopher' and ' practical man.' — Ed. 
 
14 MEMOIR 
 
 days as In after life. The spiritual earnest- 
 ness that his most intimate friends were 
 privileged to see, was there too. Lastly, 
 there was an element which naturally had 
 freer play there than was possible afterwards 
 — the high spirits that sometimes broke out 
 when he felt thoroughly well, or was conscious 
 of the sheer joy of living. This was generally 
 when he was in closest contact with Nature, 
 which he loved so well, — away in the open 
 country, or most of all, perhaps, when 
 tumbling in the waters of a lake or of 
 the sea." 
 
 Withers' reverence and affection in later 
 years for R. L. Nettleship, as the Oxford 
 tutor to whom he owed most, may be 
 gathered from the two striking extracts from 
 letters printed below in his correspondence 
 (Nos. III., IV.), Few of his friends will 
 read them without feeling that in describing 
 his master the disciple unconsciously des- 
 cribed himself. There must have been a strong 
 affinity of spirit between the two men, how- 
 ever much of the likeness we attribute to the 
 
MEMOIR 15 
 
 direct influence of the older upon the younger. 
 To another of the Ballloldons, W. H. Forbes, 
 he also became strongly attached, and the 
 friendship lasted through life. 
 
 In the summer of 1887 he took a holiday 
 tutorship in the house of a Harrow sixth- 
 form boy, and then returned 
 FIRST ^ r 1 
 
 EXPERIENCES to Oxford to teach in an 
 
 IN TEACHING, elementary school. He was 
 influenced, partly, it would seem, by the 
 desire to study the problems of education 
 experimentally from the beginning, and partly 
 from the strong democratic sympathy which 
 all his life impelled him, though no one ever 
 made less profession of it, to work for the 
 less fortunate masses rather than for the 
 well-to-do. The course he took was, for an 
 University man, more daring and original 
 than it would be at the present day. It is 
 quite possible that he and his friend F. S. 
 Marvin, now H.M. Inspector of Schools, 
 were the two first University men of distinc- 
 tion in England to become elementary school- 
 masters. It was characteristic of him, too, 
 
16 MEMOIR 
 
 that, in spite of his attachment to the Church 
 of England, in which he had been brought 
 up, he went to teach in a Wesleyan school. 
 Of the headmaster of this school, Mr. 
 Richardson, he always spoke with respect 
 and affection. To this time belongs one of 
 the too fragmentary note-books that survive 
 among his papers. It was to be called 
 *' Sparks from the Anvil," and his intention 
 was to record in it the humours that diversify 
 and enliven the routine-life of an elementary 
 school. One brief entry may be quoted. 
 The inspector had asked a question about 
 "the use of the globes." One urchin alone 
 held up a responsive hand. Receiving 
 encouragement, he answered with the mono- 
 syllable, " Gas." 
 
 After half-a-year of this work Withers 
 accepted a temporary mastership at the City 
 of London School, where his character and 
 ability profoundly impressed Dr. Abbott, 
 then drawing to the close of his long head- 
 mastership. From Dr. Abbott, too, he 
 learnt a good deal, finding himself in close 
 
MEMOIR 17 
 
 sympathy with that headmaster's studies in 
 theology and English literature. 
 
 In the summer of 1888 Dr. (then Mr.) 
 Glazebrook became High Master of Man- 
 chester Grammar School. One 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 GRAMMAR of his first acts was to offer 
 SCHOOL. ^ p^g^ ^^ Withers, whose 
 
 acquaintance he had made in the previous 
 year. For what followed we have Dr. Glaze- 
 brook's own testimony : — 
 
 '' At first he had charge of a number of 
 new boys, who, for various reasons, were not 
 fit for any form. He taught them individually 
 until they could be drafted off into regular 
 classes. Here his experience in all-round 
 teaching at an elementary school proved of 
 great service. He took them in all subjects, 
 and for almost the whole day, but without 
 friction or boredom. Upon some of them he 
 gained an influence which lasted through their 
 school lives. After a short time he took a 
 classical form, and acted as classical tutor to 
 those sixth form boys who were specialising 
 in science or mathematics. His form very 
 
18 MEMOIR 
 
 soon became the most vigorous in the school, 
 both in work and in play. It is hard to des- 
 cribe the nature of his influence on them. He 
 was no athlete, and his calm, slow manner 
 lacked the superficial brightness which boys 
 like. I think his power lay in extreme 
 clearness, in force of character, and, above 
 all, in sympathy. These elements made it a 
 pleasure to hear him give a lesson, although 
 there was nothing brilliant or striking in 
 what he said. The sixth form " barbarians," 
 for whom it was a new thing to do any 
 literary work, were inclined at first to resent 
 his demands upon them. But his quiet, 
 kindly power very soon made them willing 
 subjects." 
 
 The imperfect physique and difficult 
 conditions of life of many of the town-bred 
 boys under his care troubled him, and he 
 devoted much thought to the question of 
 their healthy physical development. In his 
 own classical fourth form he Introduced the 
 practice of "five minutes' dumb-belling" in 
 the middle of an hours' lesson, and he was 
 
MEMOIR 19 
 
 satisfied that he obtained good results from it. 
 In the Easter holidays he used to join a 
 colleague in taking away a small party of 
 Grammar School boys into the country — 
 Derbyshire, the Lake District, the Isle of 
 Man. On these expeditions, or on such 
 flights into the country with colleagues as a 
 short mid-term holiday permitted, he was at 
 his best — the life of the party, full of merri- 
 ment and good-fellowship, full of delight in 
 Nature, yet revealing on occasion his deep 
 interest in literature and philosophy, and his 
 spiritual earnestness. It was a great privilege 
 to be of his company then ; a still greater to 
 be one of the friends who, in those years of 
 growing seriousness, but as yet not of over- 
 whelming stress, shared the long summer 
 holiday with him in Norway or Switzerland. 
 What such a holiday meant to him, how 
 much of himself he gave at these times to 
 his friends and to those who attracted him 
 among the chance companions of travel, may 
 be guessed from the lines he wrote in 
 September, 1891, in imitation of Clough's 
 
20 MEMOIR 
 
 ''Amours de Voyage." They will be found 
 below, among his letters. 
 
 It is to these holidays that one's thoughts 
 return most frequently as one tries to sum up 
 one's impression of what he was, and what 
 he achieved, in those four years of his life at 
 Manchester. After all, his inestimable value 
 to the school lay chiefly in the unconscious 
 influence of a real personality. His geniality, 
 humour, and good-comradeship won for him 
 the affection of many of his colleagues ; the 
 high ideals to which his own life was mani- 
 festly loyal, uplifted all, boys and masters, 
 who came under his spell. One special 
 service which he rendered the Manchester 
 School must not be passed over, even in 
 this brief retrospect. He edited the school 
 magazine Ulula for six months only, but in 
 that short time he infused a new and vigorous 
 life into it which fortunately outlasted his 
 editorship. He saw that the Manchester 
 Grammar School boy was open to literary 
 influences, just as he had been in the days of 
 De Quincey, to a degree very unusual in 
 
MEMOIR 21 
 
 boys ; and he successfully used the magazine 
 to foster that esprit de corps which is, of 
 necessity, a somewhat difficult plant to rear 
 in a large town day-school. His own con- 
 tributions to Uhila included a delightful 
 account of Manchester Grammar School, 
 which he professed to have obtained through 
 " Dr. Wasweissichnicht, of the University 
 of Gottingen," from the report of an envoy 
 despatched from Thibet to report on the 
 chief schools of Great Britain. One of the 
 inspirations of this article is the compound 
 " demon-boil-and-scream-procession-waggon, " 
 with the footnote of the Gottingen Professor 
 that " this word, apparently a Thibetan para- 
 phrase for 'train,' sounds better in German 
 than in English." 
 
 Dr. Glazebrook had been appointed Head- 
 master of Clifton College in the winter of 
 CLIFTON 1890, and he persuaded Withers 
 to follow him there in September, 
 1892. ''Part of his work," Dr. Glazebrook 
 writes, "was to teach boys of nine and ten 
 in our Preparatory School. This he did 
 
22 MEMOIR 
 
 with great success, because he won their 
 hearts by his kindness and their attention 
 by his clear, slow exposition. At the same 
 time he taught history to the classical sixth 
 form. He very soon inspired them with 
 great enthusiasm for the subject, largely, I 
 think, by treating them as collaborators in 
 discovery." He was also house-tutor in the 
 School- House. The impression that Clifton 
 made upon him, and the impression that he 
 made upon Clifton, in the two short terms 
 that he spent there, were both striking. ''In 
 many respects," he wrote afterwards to a 
 friend, "work there is in ideal surroundings. 
 The Boys are, on the whole, I think, the 
 best set of people I ever had anything to 
 do with. The Masters are tremendously 
 good fellows and devoted, body and soul, 
 to the place." To the same friend he 
 expressed his adm.iration of the best boys 
 in the School-House, "strong and serious 
 and quiet, and splendidly devoted to the 
 House and School." His duties in the 
 Preparatory School were the least to his 
 
MEMOIR 23 
 
 taste. '' The little boys in the Preparatory," 
 he wrote, "are nice little chaps for the most 
 part, but I have not yet adjusted myself 
 properly to teaching them, and they try my 
 patience and temper very much." Greatly 
 as he enjoyed the Clifton life, and intensely 
 as he admired the spirit of the place, he did 
 not altogether reconcile himself to the 
 absorbing demands of a public school upon 
 its masters. He had a fear that these 
 demands made it difficult for a man to keep 
 his own intellectual life vigorous. He would 
 never have made the mistake of confining 
 his own interests to the class-room, the house 
 and the close. '' One helps boys more by 
 living one's own life than by continually 
 trying to live down to theirs," had been a 
 saying of his Manchester days. Still, the 
 conflict of duties — the immediate duty to 
 the school, and the duty to oneself, which 
 is indirectly a duty to others and even to 
 one's pupils — was a real one to him. In 
 any event, therefore, he would probably not 
 have cared to remain a public-school master 
 
24 MEMOIR 
 
 for more than a few years. His friends, at 
 least, anticipated that after a period of proba- 
 tion at Clifton he would succeed to the head- 
 mastership of one of the great day-schools, 
 and they took pleasure in the thought of 
 what he might accomplish in such a posi- 
 tion, by achievement and by example, for 
 English middle-class education and the 
 happiness and welfare of English middle- 
 class boys. 
 
 But he was destined to serve the cause of 
 education in other and still wider ways. He 
 
 had been scarcely two terms 
 ISLEWORTH. ^^._ 11 1 
 
 at Chiton when he was urged 
 by Dr. Jowett and others who believed that 
 he possessed the qualifications necessary for 
 a peculiarly difficult post to stand for the 
 Principalship of the Borough Road Training 
 College for Elementary Teachers at Isle- 
 worth. He visited the College, saw the 
 committee, and was elected. On March 12, 
 1893, he wrote from Clifton to the friend 
 who had shared his experience of elementary 
 teaching at Oxford: — "Would I might rise 
 
MEMOIR 25 
 
 to the occasion and do the work as It ought 
 to be done! .... You must now return to 
 your long-abandoned correspondence with 
 me, for we shall have a thousand Interests In 
 common. Would I were worthier of the 
 place ! " Such was the spirit in which he 
 entered upon his ''six strenuous years" of 
 service at Isleworth. His predecessor, 
 Mr. P. A. Barnett, who had administered the 
 college with conspicuous success, continued 
 to reside in the neighbourhood ; and the 
 relations between the two men were marked 
 by a cordiality and Intimacy too seldom found 
 under such circumstances. From the first 
 Mr. Barnett was " guide, philosopher, and 
 friend" to the new Principal, who was 
 never weary of acknowledging his debt to 
 Mr. Barnett's kindly wisdom. What Mr. Bar- 
 nett, on his part, thought of his successor, 
 and of his work at Isleworth, he shall tell us 
 in his own words : — 
 
 ''Withers' association with the systematic 
 training of teachers was very much a matter 
 of accident, but whatever may have been the 
 
26 MEMOIR 
 
 aSi/Aos atrta,! the progress of English educational 
 science and practice has been very consider- 
 ably influenced by it. 
 
 *' He did more than any other man to bring 
 the liberal University spirit into the business. 
 There were men before him trained in 
 English Universities who did good work 
 in the preparation of teachers for their pro- 
 fession ; but most of them had not enough 
 real philosophy, perhaps also not enough 
 courage, to shake themselves free from a 
 rather paltry conception of educational 
 science, and from narrow official traditions 
 which made the colleges a sort of superior 
 'seventh standard.' Withers was not only 
 a student of Literse Humaniores ; he had 
 also the excellent sense to see that nothing 
 but a sound philosophy, a right way of looking 
 at life, a real 'all-roundness,' could settle any 
 of the vexed questions of practical education. 
 And so far as he could work on the material 
 provided for him, he tried to communicate 
 this habit of mind to his pupils. 
 
 1. ' Hidden cause.' — Ed. 
 
MEMOIR 27 
 
 '' When the Headship of the Isleworth 
 College was likely to become vacant, the 
 retiring Principal sent particulars to Jowett 
 and Lewis Nettleship, and asked for their 
 help and suggestions as to a successor. 
 They were aware of what had been already 
 attempted, and were very warm friends of 
 the endeavour to liberalise the curriculum 
 and discipline of the primary training col- 
 leges. Both of them suggested Withers as 
 the right man for the post, and particulars 
 were sent to him. When he came up from Clif- 
 ton to make enquiries about it, we were much 
 struck by his frankness and insight. H e gained 
 immediate goodwill and confidence by asking 
 the right questions ; he always did. 
 
 "He took over a very difficult business. 
 Only those who have tried to run a Training 
 College for teachers in public elementary 
 schools can know how exhausting it is. It is 
 certain that his long six strenuous years at 
 Isleworth shortened his life, making it harder 
 for him to stand the strain of serious illness 
 when it came. 
 
28 MEMOIR 
 
 '•He changed nothing until he had given 
 it a fair trial, and he changed nothing that he 
 did not improve. He was as loyal to his 
 predecessor as to everyone else. It is not 
 easy to make clear to a lay public the signifi- 
 cance of the details of his work. Only those 
 who have had business in those ofreat waters 
 know what it means to make '' notes of 
 lessons " more intelligent, to give reality to 
 "criticism lessons," to systematic school 
 practice, and the careful supervision of 
 teachers. He was no friend of the quacks 
 who suppose that a teacher can be taught to 
 give a lesson in the one and only right way 
 to all and sundry pupils. To make a good 
 teacher he knew that he had to educate the 
 whole man. Nor did anyone ever hear him 
 talk about " cultivating the faculties " — 
 whether of observation or anything else. 
 His conception of his task was to get his 
 teachers to satisfy themselves clearly about 
 the condition of their pupils' minds, and to 
 guide their w^orking sympathetically to new 
 enterprises and effort. 
 
MEMOIR 29 
 
 '' In the administration of his college his 
 merit and his defect was his trustfulness. 
 Himself a right generous man, he made 
 no preparation to deal with meanness : 
 occasionally, therefore, he met meanness that 
 dispirited him beyond understanding. Him- 
 self the most loyal of souls, he was now and 
 then left in the lurch by someone who should 
 have died in a ditch for him and been proud 
 of it. Believing other people to be better 
 than himself, his shyness and reserve often 
 lost him the warm affection which came freely 
 to him from those who knew his truly lowly 
 habit of thought. 
 
 " He rarely spoke severely of anyone ; he 
 would not talk of things he disliked. What 
 he brooked least easily was the vulgarity of 
 the self-seeking professional ' educationist ' of 
 whatever 'grade.' There were some kinds 
 of vulgarity that deprived him of words. 
 
 '' What little remains of his printed work, 
 good as it is, is nothing to the suggestiveness 
 of his talk, whether on educational or other 
 subjects. He often seemed to go straight to 
 
30 MEMOIR 
 
 the root of things when other folk were 
 bemused with somethings that somebodies 
 had said about them. 
 
 "All through his official life he declined 
 the praise and prizes that should have been 
 his, and distributed the leaves of his own 
 proper wreath amongst his friends. To hear 
 Withers talk, you might sometimes have 
 thought that the only man who did nothing 
 for education or his fellows was himself. 
 
 '' Everyone that had dealings with him 
 felt that here was a man. He failed to 
 secure liking only where there was nothing 
 to respond to his own fine qualities. He 
 will be remembered as most great teachers 
 are remembered, not so much by his written 
 words, as by his personal teaching and spirit 
 and example ; and when he is no longer vivus 
 per ora, all grades of Education will be 
 profiting by his good sense and his healthy 
 belief in the systematic training of men and 
 women for the work they have to do. He 
 had not read his ' Republic ' for nothing." 
 
 Of testimony to the fine quality and 
 
MEMOIR 31 
 
 abiding influence of Withers' work at Isle- 
 worth there has been no lack. It was indeed 
 not the less valuable because he did not 
 himself regard it as successful. The 'offences 
 that must needs come,' he took to heart with 
 that intense pain which was inevitable for 
 a nature at once deeply sympathetic with 
 human frailty, and passionately attached to 
 high ideals. Again, he was absolutely sincere 
 in word and deed : it was impossible for him 
 to be guilty of the compromises which most 
 men in positions of responsibility accept as 
 the unavoidable sacrifice to their situation. 
 Nor were his motives, though so singularly 
 honest, always easily intelligible to those he 
 ruled. His mind was 'philosophical' to a 
 degree which the average man can scarcely 
 comprehend. In the simplest decisions on 
 the most ordinary questions he seemed to be 
 always going back to 'first principles.' In 
 this trait he was a true disciple of R. L. 
 Nettleship, who had influenced him more 
 profoundly than any other of his teachers. 
 To himself, then, he seemed unsuccessful. 
 
32 MEMOIR 
 
 '' I have not the kingly qualities," he said, 
 with that touching modesty which confessed 
 itself to his most intimate friends, and remains 
 in their memory as one of his deepest and 
 noblest characteristics. In no sense was his 
 administration of Isleworth a failure ; but if 
 it were, it must still have been one of those 
 ' high failures ' that ' overleap the bounds of 
 low successes.' 
 
 In the autumn of 1899 the Sarah Fielden 
 Professorship of Education was founded at 
 OWENS Owens College, Manchester, and 
 COLLEGE. Withers was invited to fill it. 
 He was eminently fitted for the post, 
 qualified for it, not merely by his singularly 
 wide experience, but by an almost unique 
 combination of sympathy with the scientific 
 spirit in education, the demand for training 
 and method, and a devotion to humane 
 letters and the best elements of the scholastic 
 tradition. Three years (it was all that was 
 left to him of life) is all too short a time in 
 which to leave a permanent mark on English 
 education. But in his new sphere he per- 
 
MEMOIR 33 
 
 formed incredibly much. " Between the two 
 types of university teacher," writes his col- 
 league, Mr, Thiselton Mark, '' by no means 
 mutually exclusive, the one who lives mainly 
 for his subject, and the one who lives mainly 
 for his students — the scholar on the one hand 
 and the teacher and trainer of men on the 
 other — Professor Withers held a sort of 
 middle position." One might almost say that 
 he tried to do the work of both types of men, 
 and the work of a third type, the public man, 
 and broke down under the triple strain. No 
 professor was ever more faithful to the 
 scientific ideal. Confused thinking, lack of 
 arrangement, slipshod generalization — these 
 things were intolerable to him. And no 
 conviction was deeper with him than that the 
 subject of which he had been made Professor 
 needed to be studied as a science with a 
 thoroughness hitherto unknown in England. 
 But, again, the human interest was strong in 
 him, too — the sympathy that made him seek 
 to be helpful to his students in all sorts of 
 ways, and that showed itself in his lectures 
 
34 MEMOIR 
 
 in such practical counsels as " Begin at the 
 boy's end." He threw himself, then, actively 
 into the life of the College. But in the 
 ferment of the educational world he could 
 not be suffered to rest in the duties of study 
 and of teaching. 
 
 The province of the new Professorship 
 was necessarily somewhat undefined, and 
 there was no limit either to the possibilities 
 of usefulness it seemed to present or to the 
 number and variety of the calls that were 
 made upon him. A few only of the special 
 services that he rendered can be mentioned 
 here. He took a large share in organising 
 an education department in connection with 
 the British Association. At the request of 
 the London School Board he drew up the 
 Memorandum on the Teaching of History 
 which is reprinted in this volume. In the 
 University of which he was Professor he 
 obtained the recognition of " Education " as 
 one of the qualifying subjects for a pass 
 degree in Arts, and as one of the optional 
 subjects which may be taken either at the 
 
MEMOIR 35 
 
 intermediate or final stage in a Science 
 degree course. When a Committee for the 
 Registration of Teachers was instituted by 
 the Board of Education, he was nominated 
 a member by the Lord President of Council, 
 and the Committee unanimously elected him 
 to be their first Chairman. He could with 
 difficulty be persuaded to accept the post, 
 but, when once he had consented, he "took 
 up the work," as a colleague on the Com- 
 mittee has said, '' with whole-hearted indus- 
 try, and the time and devotion he gave to 
 the intricate and delicate task of oruidino- the 
 Council in building up the Register must 
 have been a great drain upon even his great 
 powers of endurance." 
 
 But this was not all. He was invited to 
 examine secondary schools and report upon 
 the teaching, to distribute prizes, to deliver 
 addresses to schoolmasters in conference, to 
 advise a multitude of correspondents on a 
 multiplicity of subjects. Too kind-hearted 
 as well as too conscientious to refuse where 
 there seemed a chance of being serviceable. 
 
36 MEMOIR 
 
 he strove to do everything that was asked of 
 him. And the tragedy of it all was that he 
 who laid such stress on method in his teach- 
 ing, and taught it so excellently to others, 
 had little method in his own work ; so that 
 the endeavour to fulfil his ena-ao["ements often 
 put a strain upon him that forethought could 
 have avoided. 
 
 He had never married, and though not a 
 few of his friends were anxious about this 
 ever-increasing strain, none had the power to 
 persuade him to take proper care of himself. 
 Yet social and domestic life meant much 
 more to one of his affectionate nature than 
 to the average man. At Isleworth he had 
 made a home for his father and mother, 
 and his eldest sister had kept house for 
 him. At Manchester he lived in the 
 house of Dr. England, Warden of Hulme 
 Hall (a Hall of Residence for students of 
 Owens College), an old friend, and the father 
 of a favourite pupil of his Manchester 
 Grammar School days. He delighted the 
 Hulme Hall students with his bright talk at 
 
MEMOIR 37 
 
 their dinner-table, his flow of wit, his in- 
 imitable story-telling ; delighted them not 
 less by his skill in the tennis-court, where he 
 was often to be found before breakfast, and 
 by the atmosphere of good fellowship that 
 always surrounded him. When he could be 
 induced to spend a social evening with friends 
 and colleagues, his brilliancy of talk, while it 
 charmed everybody, proved what enjoyment 
 he himself drew from such gatherings. He 
 took a keen interest in the Volunteer move- 
 ment, and, had his life been spared a little 
 longer, he was to have been promoted to the 
 rank of Captain, and given the command of 
 the Owens College Company. 
 
 For literary work he had never found time 
 on a scale on which it would have been 
 possible to do justice to his powers. All that 
 he did, however, is interesting and fully 
 stamped with his own individuality. In his 
 first Manchester period he had edited a small 
 collection of English ballads for a school 
 series of Messrs. Rivington. At Isleworth 
 he had edited the Merchant of Venice for the 
 
38 MEMOIR 
 
 " Warwick Shakespeare," and written the 
 paper on the teaching of history, reprinted 
 in the present volume, for Mr. Barnett's 
 ''Teaching and Organisation," and one on 
 the relation of primary to secondary schools, 
 for Dr. Scott's book, "What is Secondary 
 Education ? " During the tenure of his 
 Professorship, he wrote the article reprinted 
 in this volume from the Contempormy Review, 
 one or two papers on the training of teachers, 
 several lectures, and a few reviews for 
 educational periodicals. 
 
 Professor S. Alexander, who was intimately 
 associated with him in his work at Owens 
 College, has very kindly contributed the 
 following estimate by way of supplement to 
 what has already been said : — 
 
 *' Though Withers' work at the Owens 
 College was unhappily cut so short, he made 
 and left behind him a deep impression. This 
 was due, I think, not only nor even in the 
 larger degree to the positive results which he 
 achieved. It was due rather to the spirit of the 
 man and to the illustration he gave of the 
 
MEMOIR 39 
 
 possibilities of his office. He shewed how much 
 valuable work a man inspired by high ideals, 
 with a genuine faith in his subject, a strong 
 and humane personality, excellent judgment, 
 and large practical experience of schools of 
 many different types, might do in a subject 
 like Education, where science and its practical 
 application go hand in hand. He understood 
 that subject in a large sense. His chief 
 business as a professor was the training of 
 teachers, and as to the importance of this work 
 he never hesitated. But he regarded the 
 training of teachers as one portion of a scien- 
 tific study which included everything that 
 affected the welfare of schools and school- 
 children. 'You know,' he wrote, in a letter 
 which Prof. M. E. Sadler quoted at the first 
 North of England Educational Conference, 
 held at Manchester in January, 1903, 'my fixed 
 idea that what is most wanted and is least 
 understood in this country is a scientific 
 study of Education at the Universities, and 
 professional training of teachers as a sub- 
 section, so to say, of that study. At 
 
40 MEMOIR 
 
 present people speak of training as if it 
 was the acquisition of technical tricks of 
 a dubious kind — the shallowest notion.' 
 A broad conception like this carries with 
 it an obvious danger. A man might spread 
 himself out in many directions, and fail of 
 concentration, and the danger was greater 
 when, as in Withers' case, his office was new 
 and its scope remained for him to determine. 
 Doubtless other reasons as well led to the 
 excessive amount and variety of educational 
 work which he undertook ; but I believe that 
 his conception of his subject accounted for it in 
 large part. When a friend expostulated with 
 him on his doing some inspecting in public 
 schools in the South, he replied that it was 
 most useful for him in his own special work 
 to know what was being done in schools all 
 over the country. If he had lived, he would 
 probably have learned to limit his activities, 
 while retaining his finely large outlook. 
 As it was, there were so many valuable things 
 in Education for a strong man to do that 
 Withers seemed never to have leisure ; and 
 
MEMOIR 41 
 
 there was much of his occupations, like the 
 chairmanship of the Registration Council, 
 so important that his friends, in spite of their 
 anxiety, could hardly wish him to decline. 
 
 '"Outside his teaching the most important 
 single piece of work he did in the University 
 was in securing for Education recognition by 
 the Victoria University (then composed of 
 the three colleges which have now become 
 separate Universities) as a degree subject. 
 Withers was anxious for this for two reasons. 
 In the first place he dreaded the excess of 
 work imposed upon students who had to 
 acquire their professional training at the 
 same time as they did their regular work for 
 their degree. In the second place, and this 
 was his chief reason, he thought that if 
 treated as an extra and professional subject 
 and not as an academic one, Education 
 would never receive from students or the 
 public its proper estimation as a scientific 
 subject of study. 
 
 ''He took a lively interest in the welfare 
 of his students, and not least in their physical 
 
42 MEMOIR 
 
 welfare. He welcomed the institution of a 
 volunteer corps in the College, not only 
 on civic grounds, but also because of the 
 opportunity such a corps offered to the 
 students for collective physical exercise, and 
 he served himself as an officer in the corps. 
 In his teaching he laid stress on everything 
 that helped to form civic and corporate 
 character, and attached much importance to 
 school games. His students in turn were 
 affected by the force and largeness of his 
 character, especially the more serious and 
 thoughtful of them, who could see behind his 
 extreme reserve and a certain shy appear- 
 ance of hauteur which he had. His teaching, 
 from all that I can hear, was admirably direct, 
 practical and free from technicalities, and 
 expressed with such point and brevity, that 
 some of his pupils looked upon his lectures 
 as their models of English style. Withers, 
 I suppose, knew less than some other 
 teachers of the subject of the details of 
 the science. He was still feeling his way, 
 and had much to learn. At no time did he 
 
MEMOIR 43 
 
 use scholastic language, and, like his friend, 
 Mr, P. A. Barnett, he liked to disguise 
 his scientific principles under the name of 
 common sense. But through his sympathy 
 with the needs and the minds of children 
 themselves, little children as well as older 
 ones, through his directness of insight, and 
 his use of his own experience as well as of 
 what he had learnt, his treatment of educa- 
 tional inquiries was, to use the expression of 
 a good judge, luminous. 
 
 "His experience at Isleworth had taught 
 him the advantage of a practising school for 
 a training college, and he would have liked 
 to see one of the elementary schools at Man- 
 chester used for the purpose by an arrange- 
 ment for joint management between the 
 School Board and the College. This did not 
 prove to be practicable. But Withers was 
 keenly interested in the practising school 
 which was afterwards instituted in connection 
 with the Women's Department of the Day 
 Training College, and served on its Com- 
 mittee. His teaching was given both to the 
 
U MEMOIR 
 
 students of the Day Training College (ele- 
 mentary school teachers) and to Diploma 
 Students (secondary school teachers), more 
 largely to the latter class. The problem of 
 securing a supply of trained teachers for 
 secondary schools was beginning to be felt 
 acutely when Withers came to us, and he 
 was very anxious for the extension of this 
 work. He arranged a series of lectures at 
 the College for teachers who were already 
 engaged in schools, and secured the co- 
 operation with himself and his colleagues in 
 Education of several headmasters and head- 
 mistresses of schools in Manchester and the 
 neighbourhood, who lectured upon special 
 topics. H e took a prominent part in organising 
 the conference on the training of secondary 
 teachers, which was held at Cambridge while 
 he lay ill. Withers regarded with favour the 
 experiment of instituting, in addition to the 
 class of students going through a regular 
 course of training in a university, a new 
 class of '' student teachers," to be trained more 
 largely through apprenticeship in a school. 
 
MEMOIR 45 
 
 ''Outside the College walls his work was 
 very various. His services were used for 
 examinations in Education in various Univer- 
 sities, inspection of schools for the Oxford 
 and Cambridge Board, lectures on Education 
 in London, and the like. To speak only of 
 Lancashire : in Manchester he o^ave a course 
 of lectures on the teaching of Scripture for 
 the Sunday School Union of Manchester and 
 District, which, as I understand, were much 
 valued. Scripture teaching was one of the 
 subjects in which he was most deeply in- 
 terested, the others being English Literature 
 and History. He did a considerable amount 
 of inspecting of Secondary Schools for the 
 University, work which was indeed one of the 
 duties of his office. For the new Universities 
 it is of great importance to establish by 
 inspections and any other means the closest 
 relations with the Secondary Schools of their 
 province ; and it was fortunate for us in Man- 
 chester that Withers came at a time when 
 the system of Inspecting by the University 
 was being organised. His work in this kind 
 
46 MEMOIR 
 
 was highly successful. He had the con- 
 fidence of headmasters and mistresses, and 
 they were willing not merely to listen to his 
 suggestions of reform, but to adopt them. 
 Thus, I learn from the head of one of the 
 large schools how valuable his suggestions 
 were towards making greater differences 
 between the methods of teaching children at 
 different ages, towards use of more modern 
 methods and better text-books, towards making 
 the teaching of Latin more like that of 
 modern languages, towards simplifying the 
 teaching of Arithmetic, and the like. He 
 had some of the gifts most important for a 
 good inspector ; besides the trained capacity 
 to see what ought to be done, he had the 
 saving wisdom to know how much could be 
 done. There was in general a statesmanlike 
 quality in Withers' handling of problems 
 which doubtless led to his being entrusted 
 with public work. The knowledge of this 
 deepened the sense of loss which was felt 
 when he died at a time when all manner of 
 educational questions were arising which called 
 
MEMOIR 47 
 
 for both knowledge and practical sagacity. 
 ''He did not take much part in general 
 academic business. In dealing with him as 
 a colleague, you felt his loyalty and good 
 temper and his fairness of mind and con- 
 sideration for others. He was sensitive and 
 reserved, but there was always the suggested 
 strength which did not come forward to the 
 front of the man. In public speech he did 
 not shew enthusiasm, but a restrained serious- 
 ness, which, added to his gift of language, 
 made him impressive in a high degree. It 
 was easy to become acquainted with the 
 gaiety and high spirits and tenderness under- 
 neath the surface. Wherever there was any 
 human interest, he could always be counted 
 on for sympathy. He delighted the char- 
 women at the College by singing to them 
 at a supper which was given to them at the 
 time of the College jubilee. And in friendly 
 intercourse he was the best and most genial 
 of companions, with a vigorous physical 
 enjoyment, and a great love of children, 
 animals, and good English literature." 
 
48 MEMOIR 
 
 One of the attractions of the professorial 
 life is commonly supposed to be the length 
 ILLNESS AND ^f the summer vacation. Pro- 
 DEATH. fessor Withers, however, gave 
 
 himself less and less respite from work, and 
 in the summer of 1902 he had scarcely taken 
 any holiday. He returned to Manchester 
 from the British. Association Meeting at 
 Belfast in indifferent health, and was advised 
 to undergo a slight surgical operation. Ten 
 days after the operation signs of blood- 
 poisoning became evident, and for many 
 weeks he lay between life and death. And 
 while hosts of friends all over the kingdom 
 were asking in breathless anxiety for tidings 
 of hope, the sufferer in the sick-chamber 
 showed — to quote the words of the sister 
 who nursed him with the tenderest devo- 
 tion — "even in his hour of weakness the 
 same sweet qualities, patience, unselfishness, 
 thoughtfulness and care for others," which 
 had distinguished him all his life. The same 
 sister speaks of his " childlike faith and love 
 towards God," and of how he would insist on 
 
 ^ -^v. '.^ -- -^ ' -11^ 
 
MEMOIR 49 
 
 ''the paramount importance of a loving spirit 
 in all our dealings with our fellow-creatures, 
 and of helping them by believing in theniy 
 '' I read aloud to him a great deal," she 
 continues, " but he liked quite simple things, 
 such as Mrs. Ewing's books of which he was 
 intensely fond, and on Sundays he used to 
 choose portions of the Bible for me to read 
 to him." After several rallies and relapses 
 he seemed early in December to be making 
 some real progress towards recovery, when 
 he suddenly became worse, lost conscious- 
 ness, and passed away peacefully on the 
 morning of Friday, December 12. He was 
 buried at the Manchester Southern Cemetery 
 on the following Monday, after a Memorial 
 Service had been held in the large church of 
 S. Chrysostom, Victoria Park, Manchester, 
 which was crowded with colleagues and 
 students of the University, and with personal 
 friends from many parts of England. 
 
 There is the less need to add to this outline 
 of a life that, to human seeming, was so pre- 
 maturely closed, because the 
 CONCLUSION. , •" , 1 r 11 
 
 letters and papers that follow 
 
50 MEMOIR 
 
 will best tell, to those who care to know, what 
 manner of man their writer was. It is true 
 that his published work did not, in the 
 judgment of his friends, represent him at his 
 best. Yet the papers on history, and 
 the Contempormy article on educational 
 authorities, are not only valuable in them- 
 selves, but interesting for the light they 
 throw upon the things he had at heart. 
 He o["ave his life to the cause of educa- 
 tion in England. Passionately convinced of 
 the value of such an education as helps a 
 man 'to see life steadily, and see it whole,' 
 he was oppressed by a sense of the waste 
 and confusion and misdirected views of our 
 educational organization. Two reforms 
 seemed to him to be urgently needed. The 
 first was the infusion of more ' science ' into 
 the Universities, the public schools, and 
 English education generally. Not first, or 
 chiefly, more 'natural science.' Science 
 ment to him ' the whole body of systematic 
 knowledge, whether in the humanities or in 
 nature-studies.' All departments of know- 
 
MEMOIR 51 
 
 ledge, and indeed of human life, call for the 
 scientific habit of mind ; and a man may 
 almost be said to be educated in proportion 
 to the degree in which he has acquired it. 
 What he desired to see, then, was more 
 evidence of a ' trained intellectual habit ' in 
 those who pass through our schools and 
 Universities. And the other need of our 
 schools was 'more humanity.' He would 
 have this attained pardy by the reading of 
 great literature, pardy by the study of history, 
 'Without history,' he said, 'a momentous 
 aspect of human life is blank to the imagina- 
 tion and dark to the reason.' He had, 
 personally, the same sort of vivid historical 
 imagination as Dr. Arnold : he could have 
 told of himself the story he prefers to tell of 
 Arnold — that historical sieges and battles 
 entered into his dreams. To the noblest 
 literature he was equally devoted ; and one 
 or other of the great poets, ancient or 
 modern, was always his companion upon a 
 holiday. With this conviction of the twofold 
 defect of English education dominating him, 
 
52 MEMOIR 
 
 he did not approve, but neither did he wholly 
 despair of, the present trend towards technical 
 studies. It was, in his view, a vein which 
 the nation would work out and emerge from : 
 not a final goal of its endeavour. 
 
 The letters and fragments of letters here 
 collected will give a more adequate idea than 
 the formal writings of a many-sided but 
 harmonious personality. The letter to a 
 former colleague (No. xii.) illustrates his 
 characteristic manner of looking at human 
 life. Evil is 'treachery to comrades': it is, 
 ' from another point of view, disease.' The 
 constitution of his mind forbade him to rest 
 content without a rational basis for relio^ion 
 and morality ; and he found such a basis in 
 the reflection that ' goodness ' alone made 
 action possible : ' conceive all men to be 
 rogues, and the world would come to a stop.' 
 So, if prayer to God could never be demon- 
 st7^ated to be of value by its results, he found 
 a justification for it in what he held to be its 
 conformity with Nature. '' We are so built," 
 he told an audience of Manchester teachers. 
 
MEMOIR 53 
 
 — "our nervous system is such — that we 
 cannot possibly spend a quarter of an hour 
 at the close of each day before retiring to 
 rest thinking earnestly of the duties and 
 responsibilities of the morrow, without 
 gaining more power, more light." Too 
 philosophical to accept any ready-made creed 
 from the churches, he was yet by his 
 philosophy convinced that only through 
 religion was a wholesome explanation of life 
 possible, and this was for him the proof of 
 its validity. " Religion," he said to a friend 
 in the last year of his life, "is the tightrope 
 on which the human soul must dance between 
 the gulfs of superstition and atheism." On 
 some such rational basis he tried to build up 
 religion in his students as the force that 
 should keep their life sweet and strong at the 
 core. And, like Plato, he set a high value 
 on gymnastic as the handmaid of music. In 
 his Divinity lectures at Isleworth he loved to 
 trace analogies between the life of warfare 
 and the Christian life, and to point to 
 St. Paul's frequent metaphors from physical 
 
54 MEMOIR 
 
 training and athletic contests. He would 
 dwell with earnestness upon the close connec- 
 tion between a bad habit of body and morbid 
 states of mind, and urge the helpfulness to 
 right living of a sound physical condition. 
 
 The practical statesmanship which im- 
 pressed so many observers of his public work 
 can only be very partially illustrated by 
 letters, but some extracts here given (Nos. 
 X., xvii., XX.) show at least one side of it — 
 the clearness with which he saw what he 
 wanted in educational matters, the lucidity 
 with which he set it before others. Some 
 reveal his love of Nature, his eye for the 
 picturesque, his power of graphic description. 
 Others recall the often brilliant but always 
 kindly humour of his talk. " Dear old X.! " 
 he once wrote to one friend of another, ''he 
 rides his hobby so unaffectedly that one 
 almost forgets the horse is wooden." He 
 could use no sterner words of a friend's 
 foible. " The severest remark I ever heard 
 him make of anybody," recalled a colleague 
 after his death, " was that So-and-So was an 
 
MEMOIR 55 
 
 owl. And he was an owl!'' From other 
 letters even those who never knew him may 
 divine something of the tenderness and 
 depth of his friendships, or the reality of his 
 affection for children. The letters about 
 R. L. Nettleship (Nos. iii., iv.), as has already 
 been said, are a vivid reflection of the writer's 
 own character — his single-hearted devotion 
 to truth and to duty. Other remembrances 
 his friends cherish as a sacred possession, 
 though no words can impart them to others ; 
 the charm of his frank smile, for example, 
 carrying with it instant conviction of the 
 sincerity and depth and kindness that lay 
 behind ; or the unselfishness which always 
 placed the claims of others above his own 
 and reached in his later years to a height that 
 only the most intimate observers of his life 
 could at all comprehend. But it is time to 
 draw these memories to a close ; and for the 
 final impression left by his personality it 
 would hardly be possible to find better words 
 than his own. "What a conviction besets 
 one of the imperishable life of what we really 
 
56 MEMOIR 
 
 held dearest. And how it helps one to get 
 back to a right scale of values of things. 
 Kindness and courage and work alone seem 
 worth much." 
 
Letters 
 
LETTE RS. 
 
 I. To a Friend. 
 A Holiday Letter. 
 
 Hastings, September, 1889. 
 
 . . . And now I am here witli my youngest sister. 
 It is a jolly house, with extremely pretty grounds, 
 and a sweet view of the sea, which is about a mile 
 away. There is an excellent billiard-room, and 
 indeed only man is vile, or, when not vile, frumpish. 
 I have been leading such a frumpish life myself 
 these last few weeks that I can enter to a certain 
 extent into the feelings of the unfortunates — the 
 defuncta cor^pora vita, whose home is a boarding- 
 house, whose literature a newspaper, whose 
 occupation gossip, whose exercise a lounge, whose 
 recreation dinner. But then, like ^neas in 
 Hades, I am cheered by the thought that I have 
 a return ticket ; and that at any moment I can go 
 back to the world, where there is blood in the 
 veins, and where the horny-handed dock-labourer 
 is happier far than the queen of a myriad semi- 
 animate bath-chair-driven invalids. Indeed, one 
 
 ISI 
 
60 LETTERS 
 
 can take the step any time one goes down to tlie 
 beacli — wliicli my sister and I do very frequently, — 
 for there are crowds of British Philistines enjoying 
 themselves heartily. 
 
 I like this place very well. The country round 
 is beautifully wooded and undulates in a charming 
 fashion. The town is triform; on the east is the 
 old town, originally a mere fishing village, full of 
 dear old wooden houses with beetling upper stories 
 and red-tiled roofs. A little to the west of this, 
 and divided from it by a projecting cliff, is the 
 new town of Hastings, T^ew Askelon, the home of 
 the real Philistine on his holiday trip. Further 
 west again is St. Leonard's, a superior place, with 
 Grecian pillars on the facades of the houses; just 
 like Portland Place : this is the abode of the lords 
 of the Philistines. The place looks vulgar enough 
 at some points, but I had a view of it the other day 
 which was in its way as beautiful as anything you 
 saw at Eigg, I'm sure. I was sculling in a little 
 boat about a mile off the town, on a perfect day, 
 and behind I could see the old town crawling and 
 curling up the sides of the great green hollow 
 between two grey cliffs — in front a pale blue sea, 
 overhead sky ditto, and over all a pearly mist such 
 as you see in Turner's sea-pictures. 
 
 I have been doing a little work at Plutarch ; and 
 pecking away at my favourite authors. I hope 
 
LETTERS 61 
 
 before long to qualify myself (in case of blindness 
 from over-smoking) to go round tbe country 
 reciting tbe sonnets of Wordswortb; wbicb 
 reminds me tbat yesterday my sister and I looked 
 in for a moment at a Roman Catbolic Cburcb 
 during evening service and saw a pretty sigbt for 
 a picture — four Italian women, musicians (prob- 
 ably on concertinas), kneeling in tbe midst of a 
 crowd of Britisb Pbilistines; dark-baired tbey 
 were, and tbeir faces were dusky, but tbeir 
 garments were radiant : radiant still, tbougb worn 
 by tbeir travels ; and tbey knelt tbere not tbinking, 
 no, nor attempting to follow tbe service, but 
 gazing and bearing, gazing at altar and candle 
 and bearing tbe bum of tbe Latin. 
 
62 LETTERS 
 
 IL Amours de Voyage. 
 
 2 Eccles Old Hoad, 
 
 Pendleton, Manchester, 
 
 September 7tli, 1891. 
 
 Here am I back in my rooms all alone, and I feel 
 
 as a boy feels. 
 Gone back to scbool from bis home and liis folk — 
 
 bis affections pulled off tbem, — 
 So that bis beart bangs on wbile witb its tendrils 
 
 broken and writhing. 
 Writhing to feel for the props which it clnng to, 
 
 and played with, and grew from; 
 Or as a p^ppy, alone in a yard for the night, for 
 
 the first time, — 
 1^0 warm mother to romp with when waking, no 
 
 brothers to lie on 
 And to feel sure they are there, when bis sonl is 
 
 down under the blanket : 
 Tinder the blanket of sleep, which he dare not 
 
 creep under without them ; 
 So he sits up on his paws and cries and cannot lie 
 
 quiet. 
 
LETTERS 63 
 
 rive sweet weeks liave we been, tliree friends 
 
 together — in Norway 
 Chiefly — with books and pipes, in the midst of a 
 
 beautiful country. 
 Much have we seen that was noble, the gray North 
 
 Sea deep cloven — 
 Cloven deep into furrows by teams of white-maned 
 
 horses, — 
 And the great cleft running up to the heart of the 
 
 gray granite mountains. 
 Filled with a line of lochs linked one to another by 
 
 rapids, 
 Like huge beads of glass whose ends melt and fuse 
 
 them together; 
 Noble the walks that we took thro' the pinewood in 
 
 view of the fosses. 
 Noble, twice noble, the plunges in swirl of the 
 
 thundering torrent, 
 Noble the trout-like swim through depths of the 
 
 lake' s cool silence ; 
 Yet had we joy still greater in fellowship. There 
 
 in our log-house 
 Dwelt we with fifty others, Norwegian and German 
 
 and English, 
 Shedding each some odd tens of years and playing 
 
 like children. 
 Back, thro' the looking-glass, gladly we fared with 
 
 children to guide us — 
 
64 LETTERS 
 
 Otto and Mossa and Hakon and Baba and Dagar, 
 
 and thee too, 
 TKee, above all, dear Parson, that never bast 
 
 ceased from tby boyhood 
 But goest ever, in bigness a giant, in temper a 
 
 hero. 
 Like St. Christopher, huge and strong, with the 
 
 child on thy shoulders. 
 Child in thy heart ; and thee too, mother and sister 
 
 of children. 
 Fair as a fern that is nourished as well by tears as 
 
 by sunshine. 
 Gilbert, too, was with us, a lad with the soul of a 
 
 blackbird. 
 Saucy and bright, clear-throated, the nimblest of 
 
 hoppers; and with him, 
 Little Fenella, capricious and queer, who tittered 
 
 and trifled. 
 Joked and grimaced, with eyes full of tears and 
 
 heart full of passion. 
 Tender and true, but unwilling to look so, — God 
 
 rest her quick spirit. 
 Many another we knew and loved, — the Gunner, 
 
 of comrades 
 Easiest. Humorous he in phrase, but always 
 
 <700(i-humoured. 
 Sanguine and never, whatever might happen, 
 
 alarmed or beflustered, 
 
LETTERS 65 
 
 Beating fate by calm simplicity, like tliat cool 
 
 soldier, 
 Lord of tlie matcli-box and pipe in the fairy-tale. 
 
 Lastly the Captain, 
 Smart light-infantry driller above, with spiky 
 
 moustaches, 
 Scholar below, with slippers and pipe, and fingers 
 
 inserted, 
 Some in the pages of polyglot lexicons, some in 
 
 the sheets of 
 Subtle war-treatises full of strategic enigmas and 
 
 puzzles. 
 These were some of the friends that we lived with, 
 
 and now is my heart sore, 
 Sore at the severance, mayhap forever, from them, 
 
 and above all 
 Sore at departure from you, companions twain of 
 
 my travel. 
 
^e LETTERS 
 
 III. To a Friend. 
 R. L. Nettleship's Death. 
 
 Blacklieatli, September 4th., 1892. 
 
 Nettleship's loss is a terrible blow to Balliol. 
 Tbe incidents of his death are most sad,* though 
 there is something, too, that recalls your favourite 
 lines : — 
 
 Nothing is here for tears .... 
 
 .... nothing but well and fair. 
 And what may quiet us in a death so noble. 
 
 Yet there comes a terrible feeling of umste in the 
 thought that these great risks were run only for 
 holiday recreation. ... I think on the whole he 
 was the greatest as he was certainly one of the 
 best and kindest men I have ever known well. . . . 
 I suppose a man of such utter truthfulness of 
 thought, feeling and act, never existed, and it was 
 really that great quality which made him, not 
 doubtful, but most careful in statements even 
 about trifles like the weather. His fastidious sense 
 of truth forbade him to use those slipshod proposi- 
 
 * He had perished on Mont Blanc. — Ed. 
 
LETTERS 67 
 
 tions wMcli go to make nine-tentlis of ordinary 
 talk, just as his delicacy of feeling kept him from 
 the sloppy geniality which most folks carry into 
 intercourse with others. But he was neither 
 sceptical nor proud ; and his devotion to common- 
 place duty, and indeed to extra work, self-imposed 
 often with the stupidest people, was of the most 
 splendid character. The ordinary gossip and 
 anecdotes about him are utterly superficial and 
 misleading. But to gas about him is worse, for 
 gas was both intellectually and morally hateful to 
 him. The Manchester Guardian extract you sent 
 me was the only satisfactory notice I have seen 
 yet. 
 
68 LETTERS 
 
 IV. To a Balliol Friend. 
 The same subject. 
 
 September 6tli, 1892. 
 
 It was very jolly to get your long letters and to 
 have an account of all your doings. But liow sad 
 tlie circumstances under wliich. I sit down to reply. 
 This is the sixth sheet of paper on which I have 
 begun to write to you, and hitherto everything I 
 have set down about Nettleship's death, I have 
 torn up immediately. But I am determined to 
 send this away whatever it may be. JFor I know 
 you are in fullest sympathy with me about it all : 
 it is almost the greatest loss that could have 
 happened to us both in common. It is a certain 
 satisfaction to think that we did to some extent 
 realise and try to show our sense of all that he was 
 to us and all that he did for us. But dry words and 
 indeed dry feelings thrown into ordinary mould 
 seem utterly out of place. Nothing but perfectly 
 steady and quiet action, free from all sentiment- 
 ality and exaggeration, can worthily be associated 
 with the memory of him who was so perfectly 
 simple and so absolutely sincere. Yet it is just 
 this power of quiet action which is the hardest 
 thing in the world to win. If only a portion of his 
 spirit might remain with us ! 
 
LETTERS 69 
 
 V. To a Friend. 
 A Holiday Greeting. 
 
 Clifton College, 
 
 March 28tli, 1893. 
 
 I heard from E. this morning that you and H. 
 are taking a party of four to Coniston for Easter. 
 I must send off a line to catch you before you start, 
 so that I may send my good wishes with you. 
 Would I were going too; but we are fast here 
 until the 20th, so that I shall have no further 
 Easter holiday this year than is to be got out of 
 putting up books and pictures, and buying furni- 
 ture. My eldest sister is to keep house for me, 
 and I hope by the time Whitsuntide comes round 
 we shall be so far in a civilised state as to be ready 
 for visitors. 
 
 You may well imagine that as the time draws 
 near for me to leave Clifton, I feel more and 
 more sorry to do so, but under all the circum- 
 stances I believe I have chosen rightly. The whole 
 country here is in a most winning mood; I wish 
 you could have seen it from Penpole Point last 
 Saturday, when the cross-country run was on, and 
 a white thread of runners was stretching over the 
 
70 LETTERS 
 
 fields below, witli Channel and distant mountains 
 behind. 'Twas one of the strikingest scenes you 
 can fancy. 
 
 But you will be in the middle of things far 
 more magnificent very shortly; what a change it 
 will be from last year's Moscow marches if only 
 this weather hold up, as seems most likely. 'No 
 snowballs for E. and W. but rather " nectarous 
 camel draughts " from bedroom jugs and plunges 
 faun-like in the milk-bowl of a torrent, followed 
 by baths of pure sunshine taken on a warm flat 
 rock, such as we had with D. and L. I shall be 
 much about with you in my mind's eye. The 
 Coniston Old Man was one of the first big hills I 
 ever went up, but I have no very clear recollection 
 of it, except of the heaps of slate to be crossed both 
 in the ascent and descent as we did it. 
 
LETTERS 71 
 
 VI. To a Friend. 
 A Holiday Letter. 
 
 Doniocli, ]^.B., 
 
 August 8th, 1893. 
 
 You will see from the map that Dornoch lies at 
 the edge of the Frith of that name. The character 
 of the scenery here is just the opposite of that in 
 jN'orway. The mountains are in the far distance, 
 peaks and shoulders on the horizon; close round 
 are huge flat stretches of tawny sand fringed with 
 sedgy hillocks; further on again green rolling 
 breasts of meadows dotted with copses of fir; in 
 front, a huge bay, flanked by two long promon- 
 tories on which are fishing villages. The " note " 
 of the place is distance,— width of country. You 
 may see in the shifty weather we are having now, 
 three or four types of day in different quarters of 
 the landscape. Mists tumbling over hillsides in 
 one part, sunshine on meadows in another, a 
 steady downpour from blue-black clouds in a third. 
 
72 LETTERS 
 
 VII. To a Friend. 
 A Holiday Letter : Cromer in Winter. 
 
 Cromer, January 5tli, 1894. 
 
 We are very sorry for our sakes tliat you are 
 unable to turn up, but by my soul 'tis bome- 
 keeping weather. We sit bere perched on a beaky 
 promontory, where the shrieking gusts, wild with 
 their race over the plains of Poland and the 
 Grerman Sea, shake us furiously. Indeed, to speak 
 calmly, to look out from these windows over the 
 brown waste of water, and to see the blizzards 
 come from the East, makes one think of nothing 
 so much as a charge of Don Cossacks over a frozen 
 steppe, with snow-dust whirling in front of their 
 lances. Thank Heaven, I have no cold and can 
 defy the weather. But I am glad I am not 
 travelling. 
 
LETTERS 73 
 
 VIII. To a Friend. 
 A Holiday Letter. 
 
 AlnmoutK, Northumberland, 
 
 August 26tli, 1895. 
 
 I am liere with , , and . 'Tis an 
 
 odd little place— still quite unsophisticated— with 
 no names to the half-dozen streets it possesses, and 
 but one hotel, in which we are at this moment 
 located. The Hotel is run with great energy by 
 Mrs. B., the landlady, who has the whole place- 
 including B. himself— under the best of control. 
 The golf-course is a small one— only nine holes — 
 and with none of the thrilling features of the links 
 at Dornoch. But it is for that reason less heart- 
 breaking to the beginner. The beach is flat and 
 sandy, and there is no possibility of a Kopf -sprung 
 except for shrimpS; but the sea— when you 
 ultimately get up to your waist in it, — is as salt 
 and exhilarating as elsewhere. The air is keen 
 and bracing, and must, I suppose, be doing us all 
 good, for we are becoming extremely skittish and 
 silly in our behaviour ; and our appreciation of one 
 
74 LETTERS 
 
 anotlier's jests is becoming generous to a fault. 
 S. is looking extremely thin and worn, but lie is 
 extremely lively and is as rich in reminiscence and 
 reflection as ever. Y. and I are attempting to 
 make some way with volumes of a Shakespeare 
 series which we have respectively undertaken. 
 We also read a good deal of Homer and a little 
 Aristotle. Z. is full of philosophy and revelling 
 in Bradley's " Logic " and " Appearance and 
 llealitv." 
 
LETTERS 75 
 
 IX. To a Friend's Wife. 
 
 Islewortli, January 3rd, 1896. 
 
 If I could put a frontispiece of my own drawing 
 to the book I am sending you, it should be the 
 
 Cbancel of Cburcli just as I saw it yesterday 
 
 with all the prayers and good wishes going up like 
 ^' flights of angels " round you both. 
 
 But I must content myself with a date which 
 will perhaps be a more eloquent inscription than 
 anything else. 
 
 I am sending a volume also to [your husband]. 
 Perhaps a motto might serve for both ; he will — if 
 necessary — interpret for you amori amicitia, or 
 stay, I will construe it myself : " Friendship's 
 Gift to Love." 
 
 With my return to " robust vigour " I hope to 
 get to London for my belated pictures. But the 
 books are memorials, and I take much pleasure in 
 believing them to be both collections so excellently 
 made from such noble literature that they may 
 become something more than a mere token. 
 
76 LETTERS 
 
 X. To a Friend. 
 Secondary School Ideals 
 
 Isleworth, 
 December 19tli, 1896. 
 
 As to your first point; it is just because I wish 
 to prevent tbe School from becoming commercial 
 and teclinical in the wrong sense that I want to 
 get a human and humane person to work it at the 
 start. But, of course, the facts Avill remain : that 
 the boys will be mainly sons of clerks and 
 shopmen, destined to become in their turn 
 shopmen and clerks. 
 
 Nor is there anything involved in the idea of a 
 liberal education which need make them ineffective 
 or incompetent in their particular line of life. 
 Indeed, you will no doubt be of opinion that it is 
 not so much the matter as the method which 
 stamps an education as liberal or illiberal. But 
 we will have nothing to do with Book-keeping or 
 Shorthand as Class Subjects, and we will have no 
 examining body whose methods we cannot trust 
 (which will exclude the Science and Art Depart- 
 ment) . 
 
LETTERS 77 
 
 As to tlie freedom of hand, tliere will be very 
 miicli more of that at the Upper School than else- 
 where. But here also we cannot start '' in vacuo." 
 The freedom of the Head Teacher will consist in 
 using his conditions and instruments to the best 
 advantage. I do not think he w411 find the authori- 
 ties less but more practicable to liberal ends than 
 he would anywhere else. 
 
 The fact that the school is to be a model school 
 makes it essential that — as you say — the interests 
 of the boys should be considered before everything 
 else. The plant will be "observed" but the 
 observation will not include taking it up by the 
 roots or interfering with its growth. And at 
 first — necesarily — little use can be made in this 
 wa3^ 
 
78 LETTERS 
 
 XL Letter to an Isleworth Student pursuing a 
 Third Year Course abroad at Zurich, 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Swiss Primary Schools. 
 
 Isleworth, 
 
 January 12tli, 1898. 
 
 I liave read your last report — on Apparatus and 
 Organisation — with great interest. What you 
 tell of the thorough connectedness of the Zurich 
 system of schools confirms impressions previously 
 made. 
 
 I note with special interest what you say about 
 the greater use of Books by children of Ziirich 
 schools. Do I understand you to mean that Swiss 
 children read more than English? If so, how is 
 this result brought about .^^ 
 
 I should like you to take as the subject of one 
 of your Reports : — To what extent is the Swiss 
 system more successful than the English in 
 forming permanent literary, artistic, and scientific 
 interests and tastes among the people? To what 
 causes do you ascribe any difference in this respect 
 you may have observed? 
 
LETTERS 79 
 
 In connection with this I should be glad to 
 have from you specimens of the Text-Books used 
 in Class by the children; I authorise you to 
 expend money up to £1 in obtaining specimens, 
 though doubtless you will be able to get some 
 given you. You should write inside each the 
 Standard by which the book is used, with the 
 average age of the children. (Primary School 
 
 only.) ^ 
 
 In connection with the same subject also i 
 should like to know what you have seen of the 
 use of School Museums and School Libraries. 
 
 Another point I am greatly interested in is the 
 amount of Home Work done, and the sort of 
 exercise set for Home Work. Any specimens of 
 pupils' actual work— of average merit— would 
 also be very acceptable. 
 
 A report on the Teaching of History and 
 Citizenship would also be valuable. 
 
80 LETTERS 
 
 XII. To a former Colleague. 
 Ethics for Teachers. 
 
 Lowestoft, 
 
 January 2nd, 1900. 
 
 As to your question about Ethics for Teachers, 
 don't yon think that the main object should be to 
 take the subject out of the region of rather unreal 
 " goody goodiness " in which it has commonly 
 remained, and to treat it simply and concretely? 
 I would begin by calling it the Science of Human 
 Action (avoiding all such terms as " morality " 
 and even " conduct "). It would be easy to show 
 that all Human Action implies combination and 
 co-operation, that from the moment of birth 
 onwards we are for ever dealing with other men. 
 The central problem then for Ethics, regarded 
 scientifically, is this : Under what conditions is 
 combined action (i.) possible at all (ii.) effective? 
 
 It is clear that combination implies common 
 agreement, to whch all are bound. Obvious 
 practical illustrations arise out of Games (Cricket 
 and Football) and the life of a School or College. 
 All the main duties of life may be shewn to 
 
LETTERS 81 
 
 illustrate tliis general principle — e.g., honesty, 
 respect for property, self-control, and right 
 dealing with others in every form. All wrong- 
 doing, on the other hand, is of the nature either 
 of shirking, funking, or fouling. A " good " 
 man is one who acts fully up to the tacit agree- 
 ment on which all human combined activity is 
 based. '' Goodness " therefore makes action 
 'possible. Conceive all men to be utter rogues 
 and the world would come to a stop. 
 
 Effectiveness also depends on qualities of 
 character, and among these we ought to include 
 initiative, enterprise, steadfastness, " grit," as 
 well as the negative virtues by which a man 
 abstains from evil. An interesting illustration of 
 this may be taken from international comparisons, 
 e.g., Chinese illustrate ineffectiveness of supersti- 
 tious routine and general dishonesty; French 
 illustrate ineffectiveness of lack of loyalty to 
 leaders, and of power of honourable cohesion in 
 public life ; Germans illustrate power of systematic 
 working to a carefully conceived end; Americans, 
 power of initiation and inventiveness, and so on. 
 
 Similarly history shows how great military 
 powers like Eome have been reduced to ineffective- 
 ness by luxury and self-indulgence. 
 
 The great ethical teachers of to-day are men like 
 Lord lloberts, B.P., Kitchener, Lord C. Beresford 
 
82 LETTERS 
 
 and others, wlio point to the necessity for discipline, 
 loyalty, self-control, and common-sense. Without 
 these qualities no combination can stand. 
 
 Another simple, concrete idea at the basis of 
 ethics is healthiness. Evil is not only treachery 
 to comrades; it is, from another point of view, 
 disease. All criminals are to a greater or less 
 degree abnormal nerve cases, and the study of 
 insanity, epilepsy and the like, shows intimate 
 connection of brain and spine disease with many 
 forms of wrong-doing. This does not destroy 
 responsibility but rather increases it. Here comes 
 in W. James' splendid chapter on habit, a most 
 important ethical conception. 
 
 These points, treated in constant relation to the 
 problems of discipline and character-training in 
 school, carry us a long way, and show the import- 
 ance of physical and moral health. 
 
 Then afterivards may come advanced study 
 such as 
 
 I. Ideals of Character. 
 
 The Greek Ideal (Plato's Republic). 
 
 The Ideals of Chivalry (see the introduction to 
 the Globe Edition of Morte D' Arthur). 
 
 The Ideals of Shakespeare (characters of Portia, 
 Henry Y., etc), "Muscular Christianity" (Kingsley 
 and Tom Hughes), The Christian Soldier 
 
LETTERS 83 
 
 (Gordon, Havelock, Outram and a dozen others) ; 
 and so on with other famous examples of the 
 Good Man. 
 
 II. Ethics as the Science of Action, implies 
 Universal Law and one Mind and Will in the 
 world, and so leads to the grand conceptions of 
 Duty and Heligion, which have been the Inspiration 
 of most great lives and particularly of the Greatest 
 of Teachers. 
 
 You will of course use your discretion as to how 
 far you go. 
 
 But I would say : begin with what all level- 
 headed men of any power of thought and know- 
 ledge of the world would agree upon, and go up 
 from that to the nobler ideas which have made 
 "the wisdom of the world seem foolishness," 
 
 I trust this scribble may be of some service to 
 you. 
 
 Nothing is so much wanted as humanistic teach- 
 ing in our Schools, don't you think? Connected 
 with art and literature it makes a truly grand 
 course to work out. 
 
 All good and pleasant things to you and your 
 work. 
 
84 LETTERS 
 
 XIII. To a Friend. 
 A Letter of Consolation in Bereavement. 
 
 Hulme Hall, Plymoutli Grove, 
 Manciiester, 
 
 February lOth, 1900. 
 
 It was a very kind tliought of yorirs to send me 
 the notice. I have a most grateful memory of 
 your good Father's hospitable welcome to me — 
 was it in 88 or 89? — and of the friendliness with 
 which he received a friend of yours. I remember 
 his keen delight in Scottish antiquities, and the 
 vividness of a knowledge which was first hand and 
 full of personal feeling. Other things, too, I 
 remember, which are sacred to me and must be so, 
 tenfold, to you; signs of a kind and wise soul 
 which has found natural words to express its 
 strongest feelings. I remember how his strength 
 of heart touched me, and reminded me of my own 
 Father : — so different from the dumb, half hearted 
 state of mind into which our own generation seems 
 more and more falling. 
 
 He had finished his course and earned release 
 and rest ; but I know that nothing can take ofi the 
 
LETTERS 85 
 
 poignancy of tKe moment of departure. It will 
 grieve yon deeply. Yet I feel confident, too, that 
 you will find it quite as natural as I do to pass 
 quite sincerely from a grasp of tlie significance of 
 deatli, to a grasp of its msignificance. In any 
 event, how short an interval separates us. And 
 what a conviction besets one of the imperishable 
 life of what we really held dearest. And how it 
 helps one to get back to a right scale of values of 
 things. Kindness and courage and work alone 
 seem worth much. 
 
86 LETTERS 
 
 XIV. To a Friend.^ 
 Literature in Education. 
 
 ^^ovember 30tK, 1900. 
 
 I fear tliat tlie poor type of novel most commonly 
 read is, as it were, a symbol of tbe poor starved 
 training in tbe " bnmanities " wbicli is all that tbe 
 eliildren get, whether in Primary or Secondary 
 Schools. There is so little humanity, so little 
 literature, in onr education ! Matthew Arnold told 
 US all so forty years ago, but what has been done ? 
 ... I hope you and all others who work for 
 education, not in its professional aspect, with 
 examinations in view, but in its relation to life — 
 human life as well as individual life — will continue 
 to fight, heart and hand, for more literature and 
 more humanity in the Schools. 
 
 1. Keprinted from the beautiful and touching tribute to Prof. 
 Withers which appeared in the Atheiueum of Dec. 20, 1902. 
 
LETTERS • 87 
 
 XV. To a former Isleworth Student. 
 Swiss Teachers— Logic Text-books. 
 
 Owens College, 
 
 December 8tli, 1900. 
 
 Many tlianks for the Siviss Teachers' Journal. 
 It is excellent, and one more proof of the high 
 intellectual interest taken by continental teachers 
 in their work. It is a splendid idea of yours to 
 take it in and so keep in touch with your Swiss 
 friends and their work. I hope you will often be 
 able to repeat your trip abroad. 
 
 Isow as to the Logic. I think Jevons' little 
 primer is quite enough to put in the hands of 
 your class, although Welton's " Logical Bases of 
 Education " is useful to the lecturer, especially the 
 last chapter and the chapter on inductive reasoning. 
 
 I certainly don't think the rules for conversions 
 of syllogisms are necessary for teachers. On the 
 other hand, the general principles of sound reason- 
 ing are of great importance, both deductive and 
 inductive. Jevons' adaptation of Euler's graphic 
 method is of great use. A great deal of unsatis- 
 
88 LETTERS 
 
 factory science teaching in object lessons, etc., 
 would be put an end to, if teachers thoroughly 
 grasped the six main rules of the syllogism. 
 Almost all experiments take this form (as 
 ordinarily conducted). 
 
 A is B 
 C is B 
 
 .-. C is A 
 
 and it is most important that teachers should 
 understand why this is invalid reasoning. 
 
 (Exercises in " spotting " fallacies are very 
 useful for your class). 
 
 I think you will find two books helpful, viz. : 
 James' ''Talks to Teachers on Psychology," and 
 ''Psychological Foundations of Education," by 
 W. T. Harris (International Education Series, 
 E. Arnold). The latter has a good deal about 
 logic in it. 
 
LETTERS 89 
 
 XVI. To a Colleague. 
 
 Lowestoft, 
 
 January 4tli, 1901. 
 
 The combined card was a lovely production, and 
 I shall carefully preserve it as a record of tlie 
 Pilgrims and tlieir very merry wit. I am not 
 equal to a reply in kind, so I send you a newspaper 
 with a pretty bad report of a speech of mine 
 delivered yesterday in Norwich to the nationally 
 federated Head Teachers. The good people had 
 brought their fate upon their own heads, and I 
 could have cried that so noble a theme should have 
 to be handled before them by me. However, I got 
 through it, and they seemed pleased, as folks 
 always are until they're told it's all in Herbart. 
 
90 LETTERS 
 
 XVII. To Mr. Graham Wallas. 
 
 History and Citizenship : Proposal to celebrate 
 Special Days in the Schools. 
 
 Owens College, Manchester, 
 
 Febrnary 3rd, 1901. 
 
 Recent events have rather helped us, by rousing 
 a general interest in the history of at any rate the 
 last two generations, and by lifting people out of 
 their customary indifference to the great things 
 happening about them. 
 
 This appears to me to be a particularly favour- 
 able moment to propose the formal celebration in 
 all the schools of certain conspicuous dates, to be 
 chosen by your committee. How would Nov. 9th 
 do for London Day? Could you get the Lord 
 Mayor and the Borough Corporations interested in 
 having some Citizenship Day, on which the growth 
 of London and its old Merchant Companies, and 
 the development of London's Trade might be com- 
 memorated ? 
 
 To this there might be added, say, a King's Day, 
 and an Empire Day. 
 
 The preparation also of a Calendar of Heroes 
 
LETTERS 91 
 
 in Peace and War, National and International, 
 would, I think, excite mucli more interest just 
 now than it would have done three or four years 
 ago even. Such a Calendar might be issued 
 annually by a publisher— the Board agreeing to 
 buy so many hundred on condition that the design, 
 etc., was annually submitted in proof to their 
 committee. There would be plenty of sale outside 
 for it. For the first year or two it might be pre- 
 pared under your directions. 
 
 For all these matters this seems indeed the 
 
 psychological moment. If you could get to 
 
 write to the Times, or better still, write yourself, 
 just at the moment of the appearance of the 
 memorandum, I believe you would have public 
 opinion behind you to a surprising degree, and 
 you could, by its help, brush aside any little re- 
 calcitrance on anybody's part. Indeed, the move 
 may possibly turn out highly popular, if it is put 
 ' in the right light at the beginning. 
 
92 LETTERS 
 
 XVIII. To a Colleague. 
 
 The " Practical Teacher."— The Holy Word 
 " Correlation." 
 
 Hulme Hall, 
 
 June 30tli, 1901. 
 
 The Practical Teacher is excellent; your Forest 
 of Arden charms me and fills me with Wanderlust. 
 The Practical Teacher is surely much the best 
 printed thing that enters the Primary Schools. 
 The weary polemics are kept in something like 
 their true proportion. Your Forest of Arden and 
 the photograph of Winchester Cathedral must he 
 a real refreshment to folks. All blessings on the 
 Paper and its Writers. 
 
 As to the Holy Word "Correlation," I fear we 
 shall have to change it to " Coherence " or 
 "Connectedness," or something else beginning with 
 '"Co." There is something in the present name 
 which leads people to deny, in their fury, the 
 simplest truths of the world and the human mind. 
 But how little avails arguing ! It is when people 
 work and enjoy working, and sing as they work, 
 that people come and stand round the smithy door, 
 and look and listen. 
 
LETTERS 93 
 
 XIX. To a Colleague. 
 Dickens. 
 
 St. Anne's-on-tlie-Sea, 
 
 September 2iid, 1901. 
 
 I am reviewing my Dickens — with pleasure on 
 the whole, but I find I have to skip a good deal 
 that I used to read keenly once. Strange that a 
 man with so amazing a power of humour should 
 also be the victim so often of mere bunkum and 
 false sentiment. It really seems as if there were 
 a strain of Chadband in him as well as of Sam 
 Weller. One notices the same combination in 
 Americans occasionally. And yet humour is sup- 
 posed to save folks from being maudlin. It did 
 not save Dickens. Was it that he only knew, after 
 all, a very narrow part of human life, or are the 
 psychologists wrong about humour? 
 
94 LETTERS 
 
 XX. To a Colleague. 
 Training of Teachers. 
 
 St. Anne's-on-tlie-Sea, 
 
 September 5tli, 1901. 
 
 As to the Diploma students I think it would be 
 well that they should do some teaching from the 
 very first, partly because otherwise they do not get 
 practice enough in the course of the session, and 
 partly because without some practice the books on 
 Education have so little meaning to them. On 
 the whole, I think it best for them to begin with 
 Infants and very small children, and to devote 
 most of their time to tbem during the first term. 
 As for Eeading, I would suggest one simple text- 
 book on the mechanics, so to say, of instruction, 
 such as Salmon's "Art of Teaching," and one good 
 book on the Philosophy of Infant Teaching, such 
 as Herford's Froebel. As they will naturally 
 attend the Criticism Lesson and the Conference 
 they will require enough instruction to explain 
 these, and that will necessitate one lesson a week, 
 at least, on general principles of instruction. 
 
 Three, or at the most four, hours of regular 
 
LETTERS 95 
 
 tuition a week with you should be as much as they 
 can digest, with home-reading set in connexion 
 with it, criticism-lesson, school-practice, and 
 attendance at one or two of the Day Training 
 College Lectures. Besides this they will probably 
 have a course with Professor Alexander, I suppose, 
 and certainly they will come for three hours a 
 week to me. If you will take charge of their 
 practice in the first term, I will, as before, in their 
 
 second and third. Girls in the position of 
 
 appear to wish for personal coaching in teaching, 
 and it is as well that this should begin from the 
 first. 
 
 All this, of course, is by way of suggestion, and 
 I should be glad to know if you think it needs 
 amendment at any point. 
 
 With regard to the politics of our position for 
 next year, you will see that Circular 454 means in 
 the course of the next year or two a delegation on 
 the part of the Government of the work of examin- 
 ing Training College Students to other authorities, 
 such as Universities, etc. This means that we 
 shall have to fight for our own hand without much 
 help from Whitehall. That being so, if we are 
 not in the same sort of position as the teachers of 
 other subjects, we shall continue, as heretofore, to 
 be driven into corners and to fight always at a 
 disadvantage. 
 
96 LETTERS 
 
 Tlie first thing, therefore, is to have Education 
 put on a proper academic footing, with a Board of 
 Studies, in which you, as a University Lecturer, 
 would have a place. 
 
 The next thing is to seek to have our subjects 
 recognised in some way — instead of leaving them, 
 as they are now, pure surplus on the top of a 
 Degree Course. In this way we should do some- 
 thing to remedy the over-pressure which is the 
 worst of all forms of Training for a Teacher, 
 because it strangles the very life of education. 
 The University cannot continue to put Teaching 
 on a less favourable footing than Engineering or 
 Agriculture. 
 
 I must not trouble you with more of this at 
 present. But the work is exciting enough: for it 
 means, the placing of the professional training of 
 teachers on a better administrative basis. 
 
LETTERS 97 
 
 XXI. To a Colleague. 
 
 20, East Beacli, Lytham, 
 
 December 26tli, 1901. 
 
 I am looking over Examination Papers and 
 writing letters in lodgings by myself. My land- 
 lady thinks I am a detective, connected with the 
 Liverpool Bank case. The device of having letters 
 addressed to me as Professor, she regards as well- 
 meant, but transparent, because in other respects 
 I am not like a Professor. It is hopeless to argue 
 with her, because she regards that as a further 
 attempt at disguise. I have been trying to think 
 what would occur, if everybody resolutely believed 
 everyone was somebody else. Perhaps, after all, 
 that is very much what they do. 
 
98 LETTERS 
 
 XXII. To a Colleague. 
 
 20, East Beach, Lytham, 
 
 December 29tli, 1901. 
 
 Please gire my hearty greetings to all your 
 Gesellschaft. I envy yon Ben Lomond, but then 
 he is not propitious to Examination papers and 
 such like labour. I have been doing some general 
 knowledge papers which are really better than I 
 had expected. Of course there are some extra- 
 ordinary folk who put down as among the greatest 
 living writers Marie Corelli, Byron, Annie Swan, 
 and W. M. Thackeray; and another who says she 
 saw, on a visit to the Art Museum, " a statute of 
 Venus and several other Roman beauties." 
 
 All good things to you and your enterprises. 
 
LETTERS 99 
 
 XXIII. To a Colleague. 
 
 Hulme Hall, 
 
 July 20tli, 1902. 
 
 Miss 's note reads well. I cannot enough 
 
 admire people who give themselves to that kind of 
 work; they need to be strong as well as good. If 
 after seeing enough to realise thoroughly what she 
 is going to do, she still abides by her resolve, why 
 then this year of preparation will be arming her 
 for her quest among all the evil results of bad 
 food, bad air, and other perverted conditions of a 
 modern town. This is a pilgrimage of rescue in 
 good earnest, and few would have the wit and the 
 worth to undertake it. 
 
100 LETTERS 
 
 XXIV. To a Colleague. 
 
 Owens College, 
 
 July 29tli, 1902. 
 
 I wish I could have come with you all into 
 Germany. I should like to have heard the Lectures 
 on all the excellent subjects. Pray present my 
 respectful homage to Professor Rein and my hearty 
 greetings to all your party. I will write a human 
 letter when I am free of Exams 
 
 If you can get any nice things for an Education 
 Museum when you are abroad, please think of it. 
 A relic of Herbart, a MS. of Rein, pictures, photos, 
 anything ? Must we not have a Museum now ? Is 
 it in Leipsic they have such.^ Books, appliances, 
 photographs, charts, and relics ! 
 
LETTERS 101 
 
 XXV. To a Colleague. 
 
 Holyhead, 
 
 August 6tli, 1902. 
 
 It was very pleasant to get your letter and to 
 know how things are going in Jena. The Child 
 Study programme is interesting. We ought to 
 make more use of Doctors in England; their 
 method is so well-developed and self-confident, 
 compared with the tentative experiments of 
 Teachers. Prithee send me any more printed 
 matter that comes your way, and let me hear what 
 occurs at your lectures. Are you proceeding upon 
 the Gouin system .^ or the Xeuere Richtung? 
 
 I am staying for a few days at Holyhead. I 
 asked a friend to recommend me a quiet place in 
 IS". Wales, and he said the Station Hotel, Holyhead. 
 It has a railway station on each side and steamer- 
 docks at the back. Anyone falling out of a 
 bedroom-window would alight on the deck of the 
 Dublin Packet Boat. The principal trains have 
 two locomotives each, and they arrive respectively 
 at 2-10 a.m. and 3-30 a.m. Then the people are 
 
102 LETTERS 
 
 driven in flocks like sheep to tlie steamers under 
 the glare of great electric moons, and finally the 
 steamers sound their sirens and swim out into the 
 Irish Sea. There is no garden — still less a Pine- 
 Forest — round the Hotel. After dessert, one drinks 
 one's coffee on a seat in the railway station which 
 happens to be unoccupied at the moment. But the 
 roads round are fair for bicycling ; there is a good 
 bathing-place in the harbour; and the distant 
 views of Snowdon are grand. Xext Monday I go 
 to Stonyhurst to lecture to young Jesuit School- 
 masters for a week, then I go up to Westmorland 
 in search of a substitute for a Pine-Forest. 
 
Ancient History 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 [Reprinted (by permission of Messrs. Longmans) from "Teach- 
 ing and Organisation," edited by P. A. Barnett, 1897.] 
 
 Associations of the Subject with Arnold. 
 
 This subject lias a peculiar personal interest for 
 English students of educational practice and 
 theory. History was a favourite subject with 
 Arnold. He was for ever working at it himself. 
 "" One of the few ^ recollections which he retained 
 of his father was that he received from him at 
 three years old a present of Smollett's ' History of 
 England ' as a reward for the accuracy with which 
 he had gone through the stories connected with 
 the portraits and pictures of the successive reigns." 
 In his professorial chair at Oxford he quoted Dr. 
 Priestley's " Lectures on History " from his re- 
 membrance of what he had read, when he was 
 eight, 2 in the school library at Warminster. ''At 
 Winchester he was a diligent student of E-ussell's 
 ' Modern Europe ' ; Gibbon and Mitf ord he had 
 read twice over before he left school." After his 
 election to a fellowship at Oriel, the first book he 
 took out of the College library was Eymer's 
 " Ecedera." And so to the end. 
 
 1. Stanley's Arnold, chap. i. p. 3 ('Minerva Libraiy' Series). 
 2. Ibid. 
 
106 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 He was not content that history should be " sl 
 plan " ; it must also be " a picture." Towards this 
 end his unceasing research (carried on even in the 
 heaviest stress of school work) among the original 
 authorities for the periods which he taught, was, 
 as he always maintained, a help not to be dispensed 
 with. So lively was his interest that he quite took 
 the events of history to heart and made a personal 
 matter of them. They often troubled his dreams ; 
 he would be "present at the assassination of Csesar, 
 remembering distinctly his conversation with 
 Decimus Brutus, and all the tumult of the scene in 
 the Capitol." Sulla he knew by sight — " with the 
 livid spots upon his face, but yet with the air and 
 manner of Walter Scott's Clave rhouse." ^ 
 
 This intensity of feeling entered, natural and 
 unforced, into his history lessons, and made them 
 unforgettable. In the good or evil fortunes of 
 Rugby, as a self-governing society or common- 
 wealth, he could not help seeing illustrations of 
 the working of all free institutions, whether Greek, 
 E-oman, or English. In these illustrations he 
 recognised the unique opportunity by which, in a 
 public school, the life of the community gives 
 substance and meaning to history, at the same 
 time that history shows the dignity and service- 
 ableness of the organised life of the school. All 
 1. Chap. iv. p. 113. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 107 
 
 this illustrated his favourite idea — tlie oneness of 
 human life, in virtue of which he maintained the 
 great classic writers to be '' modern authors " — 
 cencerned, that is, with a stage of political 
 development analogous to ours. The study of 
 Thucydides he held to be *^not an idle inquiry 
 about remote ages and forgotten institutions, but 
 a living picture of things present, fitted not so 
 much for the curiosity of the scholar as for the 
 instruction of the statesman and the citizen " 
 (Preface to vol. iii. of his 'Thucydides').^ 
 
 Arnold's practice and theory will form the 
 starting-point for the treatment of the subject 
 here. When the rules and first principles of an 
 art are in debate, as is the case in England with 
 the art of teaching, the method of investigation 
 most likely to be fruitful in results and least likely 
 to divide opinion is that which refers constantly 
 to the handling of the art by one of its acknow- 
 ledged masters. 
 
 1. A fine instance of his application of ancient history to 
 the circumstances of school occurs in a letter to a colleague, 
 referring to certain criticisms on Rugby discipline. "When 
 we are attacked, we have some right to say with Scipio, who, 
 scorning to reply to a charge of corruption, said, ' Hoc die cum 
 Hannibale bene et feliciter pugnavi'— ' We have done good 
 enough, and undone enough evil to allow us to hold our 
 assailants cheap." The passage recalls Matthew Arnold's 
 witness to his father's power of making history credible : 
 
 ' Through thee I believe 
 In the noble and great who are gone.' 
 
108 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 Prelimiiiary Questions. 
 
 The inquiry implied in the subject is a double 
 one : 
 
 1. In point of organisation, what place should 
 be given to ancient history in the curriculum of a 
 school ? 
 
 2. In point of teaching, how is the individual 
 teacher to make sure that his pupils get the most 
 they can out of the work ? 
 
 In dealing with the first of these questions it will 
 be necessary to take history as a whole, apart from 
 the divisions into which its subject-matter falls. 
 These are, indeed, quite arbitrary. We may agree 
 with Arnold that the year 500 a.d. is the most 
 convenient date at which to say that ancient 
 history closes, since it is the nearest round and 
 easily remembered number to the period which 
 marked the decisive entry of two new and striking 
 elements into political history — Christianity and 
 the Teutonic races. But the distinction does not 
 affect the question of the place of history in a 
 school curriculum. 
 
 Every time-table is a numerical expression of 
 the relative values of different studies in the sum- 
 total of training. Is history " worth its place " in 
 a time-table, and how big a place shall it have? 
 Which, again, implies the question : Is there any- 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 109 
 
 thing, either in the information conveyed or in the 
 faculty cultivated by the study of history, that 
 should make it an indispensable part of education ? 
 The province of history^ in the kingdom of 
 knowledge is the past of mankind, and more 
 particularly the past of mankind as organised in 
 political communities. In a very vague and wide 
 sense history may be said to include such studies 
 as deal with man individually and socially 
 (anthropology, archaeology, etc.) ; but in its specific 
 sense, and as a school-subject, history is the 
 "biography of political societies." It therefore 
 has so much in common with art — and in particular 
 witli the art of literature — that its aim is to con- 
 struct a representation of human life. But human 
 life in a special aspect is its theme, and this it 
 seeks to reproduce as a series of events in order of 
 time. The use of the order of time and the treat- 
 ment of men as grouped in governments are the 
 specific marks of history. Thus it has so much in 
 
 1. The word itself is interesting ; — originally, of course, 
 icTTopta meant inquiry or investigation of any kind. By Aristotle 
 it is applied to that preliminary collection and record of the 
 ' facts ' of a subject which must precede discovery of general 
 principles ; such, e.g. as his own account of animals, which, 
 imitated by Plinj^ has given vogue to the term ' Natural 
 History.' The specially human sense which the word generally 
 bears now is due perhaps to the influence of the opening- 
 sentence of the Father of History himself : ' H/aoSorov 
 ^AXiKapyrjo-a-T^os IcrropLrj'? aTroSe^ts yjSe. 
 
 ' Story ' is only a truncated form of the same word. 
 
no ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 common with, natural science that it proceeds only 
 after a methodical study of given matter and aims 
 at stating what has actually occurred. To do this 
 it must have canons of evidence, by which it 
 decides whether or no this or that really did 
 happen. 
 
 The importance of the information, then, con- 
 veyed by history seems to lie in this : that without 
 it a momentous aspect of human life must 
 remain blank to the imagination and dark to the 
 reason, and that if we are ever to arrive at an 
 understanding of things as they are, it can only 
 be by a knowledge of the process by which they 
 came to be so. The importance of the faculty 
 which it trains is that it is a faculty constantly 
 required for critical issues in actual life. The 
 importance of the subject might not seem to need 
 enforcing. But it is still only an optional subject 
 in English primary schools, and, in point of 
 fact, greatly neglected as systematic matter of 
 instruction.^ In France the children in primary 
 schools not only receive a thorough grounding in 
 the history of their own country and of its 
 relations to its neighbours, but are also taught in 
 outline some of the main salient facts about the 
 great Eastern civilisations to which we owe the 
 
 1. In the Blue Book for 1895-6, out of 22,765 school depart- 
 ments examined in ' class subjects,' only 3,597, or less than a 
 sixth, are reported as presenting history. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 111 
 
 beginnings of our own. In Germany the scheme 
 is not so elaborate, but insures, even in elementary 
 schools, a clear outline of German history. 
 
 As regards secondary schools, a consideration 
 of the nature of history leads to two corollaries : 
 
 1. That in point of iiiformation an ideal 
 curriculum in history will, as a final result, give 
 some outline, however meagre, of the continuous 
 series of events by which Western Europe has 
 come to be what it now is. 
 
 2. That in point of faculty an attempt will be 
 made with the higher forms to convey a mastery, 
 however imperfect, of the laws of evidence by 
 which a great historian assures himself of the 
 credibility of his ^ facts," of his manner of dealing 
 with a mass of material, and of the descriptive 
 art by which he selects typical points for narration. 
 
 Two Schemes of History Teaching. 
 
 Taking it now for granted that history is to be 
 taught, as an indispensable subject, through all 
 the forms of a secondary school, I shall put in 
 for consideration two schemes of history teaching : 
 one, only in outline, sketched by Arnold in his 
 essay called " Rugby School — Use of the Classics," 
 reprinted in his " Miscellaneous Works " (London, 
 1845) ; the second, that of the Prussian higher 
 schools, as set forth in the "Lehrplane und 
 
112 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 Lehraufgaben fxir die hoheren Schulen" (pub. 
 Berlin, 1896), by Wilbelm Hertz, with tbe 
 authority of tbe Prussian Minister of Education. ^ 
 In regard to the latter it is particularly worthy of 
 note that an identical course is laid down in 
 histoiy for Gymnasien and Eealschulen (classical 
 and modern schools). 
 
 A. — Arnold's Scheme of Historical Study. 
 
 (a) For Young Children 
 
 A series of lessons on pictures or "prints" of 
 scenes from universal history portraying remark- 
 able events in striking fashion. Their main object 
 is to give vivid centres of association round which 
 to group the stories. [Arnold seems to have been 
 conscious that he himself owed much to the 
 method of combining a story picturesquely told 
 with a picture speakingly drawn. See the story 
 given above of his exploit at three years old, and 
 compare the passage in " Stanley," c. iii., p. 100. 
 "In examining children in the lower forms he 
 would sometimes take them on his knee and go 
 through picture-books of the Bible or of English 
 history, covering the text of the narrative with his 
 hand, and making them explain to him the subject 
 of the several prints."] 
 
 1. Officially designated 'The Minister for Ghostly, Educa- 
 tional, and Medicinal Affairs.' 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 113 
 
 (6) For the Middle Forms of Schools 
 
 The study of brief and lively histories of Greece, 
 Rome and England. 
 
 TKe main purpose at this point is to excite 
 curiosity and to stimulate appetite for increased 
 knowledge. 
 
 (c) In the Higher Forms 
 
 The study of some first-rate historian "whose 
 mind was formed in, and hears the stamp of, some 
 period of advanced civilisation analogous to that 
 in which we now live," such, for instance, as 
 Thucydides or Tacitus. In this stage the teacher's 
 object will be to encourage reflection among his 
 pupils by leading them to study (i) the criteria of 
 a credible narrative ; (ii) the causes of events and 
 the history of institutions. They will be trained 
 to look for the important points, to make 
 judgments, and to apply them to analogous 
 circumstances. 
 
 B. — Course of Historical Study for Secondary 
 Schools in Prussia (Classical and Modern 
 alike) arranged for nine Years. 
 
 This falls into three main divisions : 
 (a) First two years, preparatory (in two lowest 
 forms). One hour a week of oral instruction 
 
114 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 without text-book of any sort, firstly, in 
 "picturesque biographies" (''Lebensbilder") from 
 the history of the Fatherland, starting from the 
 children's own time and district; secondly, in the 
 "saga-like" early history of the Greeks and 
 Romans. 
 
 (/3) From the third to the sixth year, intermediate ^ 
 (from "Qua,rta" to "Untersekunda"). 
 
 (i) A general review in outline of Greek history 
 to the death of Alexander the Great, 
 and of Roman history to the death of 
 Augustus, with brief references to the 
 influence of primitive Oriental civilisation 
 on Greece and Rome. Two hours a week 
 for one year, 
 (ii) Starting from the death of Augustus and 
 a sketch of the history of the Roman 
 Western Empire, an outline of German 
 history to the close of the Middle Ages. 
 Two hours a week for one year. 
 (iii) German history from the close of the 
 Middle Ages to the accession of Frederick 
 the Great. Two hours a week for one 
 year. 
 
 1. The forms of German secondary schools are arranged for 
 a nine years' course, every boy nominally remaining a year in 
 each form. The forms are numbered from bottom to top, 
 contrary to the English practice, VI., V.. IV., III. B and A, 
 II. B and A, I. B and A. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 115 
 
 (iv) ^German history from the accession of 
 Frederick the Great to the present time. 
 Two hours a week for one year. 
 
 (y) Advanced, last three years from " Ober- 
 sekimda" to " Ober Prima." 
 
 (i) Revision of the chief events of Greek 
 history down to the death of Alexander, 
 and of Roman history to the fall of the 
 Roman Empire in the West, with a closer 
 study of the causes and effects of the 
 events described, and of ancient institu- 
 tions, political and social. Three hours 
 a week for one year, 
 (ii) Study of ''epoch-making" events of 
 universal history from the fall of the 
 Roman Empire in the West to the close 
 of the Thirty Years' War, with special 
 reference to historical cause and effect. 
 Three hours a week for one year. 
 
 (iii) Study of the chief events of modern history 
 from the close of the Thirty Years' War 
 to the present day, with special reference 
 to the House of HohenzoUern. Three 
 hours a week for one year. 
 
 1 N B —In every case where a period of Germany history is 
 to be studied, the official syllabus lays downs that external 
 history, so far as it is of world-wide importance, is to be taken 
 along with German. The syllabus also insists on the study ot 
 the geographical background of history. 
 
116 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 Prussian IN'otes on Method. 
 
 Tlie official syllabus for Prussian secondary 
 schools defines the general object of the historical 
 course as follows : First, the imparting of a certain 
 knowledge, viz., that of the most striking events of 
 universal history, together with a more detailed 
 account of German and in particular Prussian 
 history; secondly, "the development of the 
 historical sense." 
 
 It appears also from the '' Remarks on Method," 
 which follow the curriculum, that the Prussian 
 Ministry of Education desires to impress upon its 
 teachers the duty of carrying out the present 
 Emperor's wish that the children should be warned 
 against revolutionary methods in politics, and 
 should be encouraged to loyalty and patriotism. 
 The directly practical and national colour given 
 to history teaching in G-erman schools, and its 
 vigorous appeal to feeling, are as strikingly 
 characteristic as the system and the symmetry 
 with which, on the intellectual side, the scheme 
 of instruction has been planned. In these remarks 
 on method special attention is called to the 
 necessity of studying the social and economic 
 aspects of modern history with the older boys. 
 But great stress is laid on the difference of method 
 to be employed in the intermediate and advanced 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 117 
 
 ^ ?s of tlie course. In the intermediate, it is 
 the external and picturesque aspect of history and 
 the personality of great men that are chiefly to 
 be dwelt upon. In the advanced, the study of the 
 causation of events and of the inner life of 
 institutions is to be the main point. ^ 
 
 SlMILAHITlES BETWEEN THE TWO ScHEMES. 
 
 It will be seen that in some points there is a 
 
 remarkable agreement between the courses schemed 
 
 respectively by Arnold and the Prussian Ministry 
 
 of Education. They are at one in recommending 
 
 a triple course, adapted to three stages of mental 
 
 growth; each section roughly to cover the whole 
 
 ground as regards matter, but to take different 
 
 aspects of it, and to treat them in a wholly different 
 
 spirit and method. Arnold's plan, in the third 
 
 stage, of connecting the study of history with the 
 
 literary study of great historical writers, seems 
 
 sounder than the Prussian idea of insisting so 
 
 much upon the present-day political bearings of 
 
 the subject. 
 
 1 The historical curriculum in French Classical secondary 
 schools, as by decree of Jan. 28, 1890, is very similar m_ matter 
 covered to the Prussian course. The history of France is taken 
 in fully as great detail as the history of Prussia. One whole 
 Year (in the 'classe de sixieme' for boys of eleven) is given to 
 the ancient civilisations of the East. But the essential point 
 of the systems, both of Arnold aud the Prussian Ministry, 
 viz. , the double survey of the ground in two stages (after the 
 preparatory stage), is lost in the French system. 
 
118 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 Principle of the two Schemes. 
 
 The princijjle of arrangement is the same in 
 both cases. The subject-matter is arranged, not 
 in the order which would occur to an historian as 
 the "natural" or "logical" order prescribed by 
 the subject itself, but in a "psychological" order, 
 prescribed by the varying interests and capacities 
 of children at different stages of growth. 
 
 Accepting this as the true principle, and having 
 in view the needs of an English secondary day 
 school, of the grammar school or " local " type, 
 such as, on the average, keeps its boys from nine 
 to eighteen, we should accept also the three stages, 
 with a few preliminary notes on them. 
 
 Notes on the Three Stages. 
 
 (a) The preparatory stage will have partly been 
 done at home or in a preparatory school. Pure 
 narrative may to some seem out of place, even in 
 the First Form. But the text-book will be of the 
 simplest. The subject-matter will be mainly 
 biographical, and the lives selected will be from 
 all ages and countries of European history. The 
 effect of the lessons will still mainly depend on the 
 power of the teacher to "tell a story." It has 
 been shown by experiments that dramatic repre- 
 sentations of historical scenes by young children 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 119 
 
 themselves are most effectual in making an 
 interesting and lasting impression. 
 
 (b) In the intermediate stage, from ten to 
 fourteen, boys are ready for history, but with the 
 element of story still strongly marked in it. The 
 picturesque and stirring side of things, movement 
 and adventure, and the good or evil fortune of 
 persons, will interest them most. But their interest 
 in their heroes once awakened, they will, for their 
 sakes, willingly learn a great deal about the tedious 
 matters in which those heroes were engaged. At 
 this stage everything seems to depend on two 
 conditions not easy to reconcile : first, on getting 
 rapidly over the ground and passing boldly from 
 period to period and country to country ; secondly, 
 on giving detail in sufficient abundance to make 
 the narrative imaginable to boys at an age when 
 they see everything " from the small end," in its 
 most concrete and personal form. It will be best 
 perhaps to take chapters of history here and there, 
 the master himself bridging the gaps with needful 
 summaries, but pressing on and keeping the sense 
 of movement always lively. If there is a good 
 middle-school library, and the boys are reading 
 "Hereward" and "Old St. Paul's" and "Wood- 
 stock" and "Erling the Bold" and "The Cloister 
 and the Hearth" and "Ivanhoe" for themselves, 
 there will not be so much need for the master to 
 
120 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 insist on the picturesque aspect of history in form 
 work. 
 
 (c) Accepting Arnold's proposal to connect 
 history at this stage directly with the work in 
 literature, we shall still require, if the history of 
 the people of the Mediterranean and Atlantic sea- 
 boards is to be in any outline, however meagre, 
 present as a continuous series of events to the mind 
 of the pupils at the end of the course, two or three 
 books, such as Freeman's short ^' General Sketch 
 of European History," Bryce's "Holy Eoman 
 Empire," or, in the Fifth Form, C. M. Yonge's 
 excellent " Landmarks of History — Ancient, 
 Mediaeval, and Modern." Books for reference in 
 the school library become only too abundant at 
 this stage. Besides Grote and Mommsen, and 
 Freeman's "Historical Essays," there are Duncker's 
 "History of Antiquity," and some of the volumes 
 of those two excellent series "Story of the iSTations," 
 and " Heroes of the jN'ations " ; and for an introduc- 
 tion to the philosophy of history Maine's "Ancient 
 Law," and Bagehot's "Physics and Politics." 
 
 Connexion of the Study of Ancient History 
 vs^iTH the Scripture Lesson. 
 
 An enormous opportunity and advantage will be 
 thrown away unless, all through the course of 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 121 
 
 Kistory, the Scripture lessons are so arranged that, 
 among other things, and with due respect to the 
 main purpose for which they are given, they may 
 on the historical side help to fill in the outline of 
 ancient history. x^o small part of our life is 
 Semitic as well as Aryan; and the relation of 
 Aryan to Semite is a most fruitful subject of 
 study. The elementary facts of it can best be 
 given through the Biblical lessons. In the history 
 of the Hebrews we come necessarily into contact 
 with the great Eastern Empires — Egypt, Assyria, 
 and Persia. Later, in the period between the Old 
 and New Testament, the age of the Septuagint 
 version and the Apocrypha, boys may get to know 
 something of a most important epoch, which 
 is, perhaps necessarily, neglected in "secular" 
 history, the Alexandrine epoch and the age of 
 the Hellenistic monarchies. Later again they 
 approach the richest possible mine of historical 
 interest in the '^Acts of the Apostles," where East 
 and West meet in the person of St. Paul, a Hebrew 
 of the Hebrews, yet born a citizen of Pome, a son 
 of Benjamin who wrote letters in Greek and quoted 
 Greek poetry and philosophy; arrested in the 
 Temple at Jerusalem for breach of Levitical law; 
 saved from his own countrymen by Poman legion- 
 aries to defend himself before Poman governors 
 and to claim a trial at Pome, in the highest court 
 
HISTORY SCHEME 
 
 Form 
 
 Hours 
 
 n] 
 
 ji. 
 
 W 
 
 III. 2 
 
 IV. 2 J 
 
 Subject-matter 
 
 Some striking scenes 
 from European history, 
 ancient and modern 
 
 Chapters from the his- 
 tory of the English 
 people, from their en- 
 try into Britain to the 
 present day 
 
 First Term. — Britain 
 before the coming of 
 the English. The 
 Romans in Britain 
 
 Second Term. — Chapters 
 from Roman history 
 down to 145 B.C. 
 
 Third Term. — Chapters 
 from Roman history to 
 the invasion of the 
 Teutonic races and 
 the withdrawal of the 
 Roman legions from 
 Britain 
 
 First Term,. — Roman s 
 and Greeks ; Pyrrhus, 
 Flamininus, and the 
 Roman conquest of 
 Greece ; Graeco-Roman 
 life ; Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii 
 
 Second lenn. — Greek 
 history to 145 B.C. 
 
 Third Term. — G reel: 
 history to the capture 
 of Constantinople by 
 the Turks 
 
 To CORRESPOND WITH 
 
 (in the historical part of 
 the Scripture lesson) 
 
 Patriarchs, judges, 
 and kings in the 
 Old Testament 
 
 Chapters from the 
 history of the 
 Hebrews, from 
 the migration of 
 Abraham to the 
 present day 
 
 Hebrew history, 
 from the first 
 alliance of the 
 Maccabees with 
 the Romans down 
 to the destruction 
 of Jerusalem by 
 Titus, along with 
 an outline of 
 the spread of 
 Christianity to 
 500 A.D. 
 
 Hebrew history, 
 from the first 
 king to the time 
 of the Maccabees ; 
 theJews in Baby- 
 lon ; their return 
 under Cyrus; 
 Alexander the 
 Great; Jews and 
 Greeks; the 
 Septuagint ver- 
 sion 
 
HISTORY SCHEME 
 
 Form 
 
 Hours 
 
 ,v. 
 
 ^VI. 3 1 
 
 Subject-matter 
 
 First Term. — A reading 
 in modern history, e.g. 
 England iinder George 
 III., with selections 
 from Burke 
 
 Second and Third Terms. 
 — Rome and Carthage, 
 with readings from 
 Livy and Polybius 
 
 Modern Side. — French 
 history in French 
 authorities 
 
 To CORRESPOND WITH 
 
 (in the historical part of 
 the Scripture lession) 
 
 Hebrew history, 
 from Abraham to 
 Saul ; Israel in 
 Egypt ; Egyptian 
 and Phoenician 
 civilisation 
 
 In the First Term, 
 Classical and Modern 
 Sides together in a 
 short period of English 
 or other modern his- 
 tory, read in connexion 
 with contemporary 
 literature or the work 
 of a great historian 
 
 In the Second and Third 
 Terms, short periods 
 of Greek or Roman 
 history, with corre- 
 sponding authors, 
 along with ' outline ' 
 periods from the his- 
 tory of the same people 
 
 Modern Side. — Similar 
 study of French and 
 German history 
 
 Special books and 
 periods, read in 
 connexion Avith 
 the Septuagint 
 and the Greek 
 Testament ; more 
 especially the 
 Prophets, the 
 Psalms, and the 
 Epistles of St. 
 Paul and St . 
 John, with the 
 Acts of the 
 Apostles 
 
124 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 of appeal, the presence of Csesar himself. Here 
 we liave ancient history of the most important 
 kind — an instance of Roman imperial rule in 
 actual working — with the great advantage that it 
 is history read in an "original source," and that, 
 literature of the highest value. 
 
 It is now possible to conclude the first part of 
 the subject with a suggested scheme of history for 
 a school of the type mentioned above (see preceding 
 page). 
 
 Second Part of the Subject. 
 
 Methods of Teaching. 
 
 Object of Method in History. 
 
 The method, as distinct from the organisation, 
 
 of history teaching has been treated with special 
 
 knowledge by the writer of the chapter on 
 
 " Modern History." I would wish to subscribe 
 
 fully to all that he says upon the necessity of so 
 
 adapting one's method as to train hoys to read for 
 
 themselves,^ and to give a clear and precise account 
 
 of what they have read. Every subject of teaching 
 
 has, like every form of government, a "degenerate 
 
 half-brother" with a misshapen likeness to itself. 
 
 The corruption of history teaching is unintelligent 
 
 cram of unexplained "facts." 
 
 1. 'You come here not to read, but to learn how to read,' 
 Arnold used to say to the Sixth at Rugby. Stanley, c. iii. 
 p. 80. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 125 
 
 Text-eooks. 
 
 Mr. Somervell's method of "preparatory ques- 
 tions," or something very like it, is necessary to 
 train boys to tlie proper use of a text-book. The 
 choice of a text-book is a matter of great difficulty. 
 In the preparatory stage, when we are still at 
 "story" and not yet advanced to "history," we 
 can, if necessary, do without one. In the inter- 
 mediate stage, the first systematic survey of the 
 ground, the text-book should be as short and as 
 simple as possible. In Forms II. to lY. everything 
 must be done to prevent the fremature introduction 
 of difficulties which ought not to arise until later. 
 ]^o time is more grievously and fruitlessly lost in 
 teaching, than that which is bestowed upon elabor- 
 ately explaining to a boy at twelve what — without 
 explanation — will be to him, at sixteen, as plain 
 as way to parish church. In the intermediate 
 stage, then, we should have a short text-book, and 
 fill in details at discretion. 
 
 Note-books. 
 
 The boys will, of course, have note-books for 
 history, even in the Second Form — note-books well 
 bound and of good paper, with a wide page, not 
 too closely ruled. In this they will copy maps and 
 sketches from the blackboard, and will write any 
 
126 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 fuller account of persons or things whicli their 
 master may think it is judicious to give them. 
 
 Illustrations. 
 
 In the middle forms of a school, with boys from 
 ten to fourteen, A^isible objects are scarcely of less 
 importance as an aid to imagination and memory 
 than at an earlier stage. It may be laid down as 
 essential that no history lesson should be given 
 below the Fifth Form without illustration of some 
 sort, whether by way of map or plan drawn on the 
 blackboard, rough colour-sketch mounted on brown 
 paper and pinned conspicuously to the wall, photo- 
 graph, coin (actual or fac-simile), a rubbing from 
 a monumental brass or inscription, or something 
 of the kind.^ 
 
 Care needed in their Use. 
 Discretion and economy are needed in the tise 
 
 1. A museum has been started at the offices of the Teachers' 
 Guild, Gower Street, W.C., where specimens of historical 
 illustrations may be studied. An excellent series of boldly 
 coloured pictures of striking events in European history is to 
 be seen at the S.P.C.K. offices in Northumberland Avenue. 
 Series of magic lantern slides have been carefully prepared by 
 Messrs. G. Philip and Son, 32, Fleet Street, E.G., to illustrate 
 particular text-books. A catalogue of such a set for Fyffe's 
 History of Greece, with notes by the Rev. T. Field, is to be 
 got from Messrs. Macmillan and Co. An organised system of 
 lantern illustrations for history lessons has been worked out by 
 Canon Lyttelton at Haileybury College. A beginner will find 
 no lack of help in obtaining illustrations, vivid and suitable. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 127 
 
 of illustrations. The teaclier will find that the 
 simpler and more strictly relevant to the main 
 point of his lesson he can make them, the greater 
 will be their effect. A clear and striking picture 
 or model makes an admirable starting-point for a 
 lesson in history. A few questions to the form 
 will insure that they are looking at the important 
 points in it; a rough sketch in their own note- 
 books, if the illustration be simple enough, will fix 
 the gist of it still better. At each new section of 
 the lesson a new illustration may appear, but it is 
 well to be sparing with them, else the show may 
 get the better of the substance. Photographs mean 
 little or nothing to young children (with whom 
 colour is a necessary element for full interest and 
 understanding), but they are very useful with the 
 highest forms, and to be had in abundance. 
 
 The Line of Time. 
 
 One indispensable piece of apparatus the boys 
 will make for themselves. This is the Line of 
 Time, by which the grim difficulty of " dates " is 
 to be approached. Every boy should possess a 
 strip of paper 2ft. 4in. in length and Sin. broad. 
 Leaving a margin at each end of lin., he draws a 
 line 26in. long. The right extremity of the line 
 is the present moment in the present year. The 
 
128 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 left extremity is a somewliat uncertain point in tiie 
 "dim and distant" past, to which history can travel 
 by means of the Egyptian monuments. As the 
 line is constantly growing, like a live thing, at 
 one end, and cannot be precisely fixed at the other 
 ('^ an island at the conflux of two eternities"), any 
 boy will see that we can only measure distances on 
 it by taking a point inside it to work backwards 
 and forwards from. We might take any point. 
 Thucydides, for instance, used the point at which 
 the Peloponnesian War came to an end; the later 
 Greeks that at which the first great games were 
 held at Olympia ; the Eomans that at .which they 
 fancied their city was founded, etc., etc. As a 
 matter of fact, we now all agree to use the same 
 point — that which old chronologers assigned for 
 the birth of Christ. A little thought will show 
 that the figure to be assigned to our measuring 
 point must be, wherever we place it, 0. Allowing 
 2in. to represent in space what 500 years are in 
 time, we shall put our point at 7^ /gin. from the 
 right extremity of our line, which will now repre- 
 sent 1897 as near as may be. This will leave 
 IS^/jin. to the left of our measuring point, which 
 will enable us to go back 4,600 years, enough for 
 practical purposes. The 2-in. points are now to be 
 marked off on the line, to show periods of 500 years. 
 Two inches to the right of will be 500 a.d., 2in. 
 
o >* 
 
 o ffl 
 
 Xfl 
 
 H 
 O 
 
 — 4.600 
 
 -4000 
 
 Early Egyptian 
 Dynasties 
 
 — 3500 The Assyrian Monarchy 
 
 -3000 
 
 -2500 
 
 -2000 About this time Abraham 
 migrates to the 
 Holy Land 
 
 1000-700. About this time 
 the Phoenicians trade with 776. The 
 the Hellenes and teach Greeks first 
 them their alphabet hold games at 
 Olympia 
 
 490. Marathon - 
 
 390. Eome burnt by the Gauls - 
 
 202. Zama - 
 
 44. Julius Csesar assassinated - 
 
 Birth of Christ - 
 
 449. The English come into Britain 
 
 1066, The Normans conquer England - 
 
 1492. Columbus lands in America - 
 
 1887. Tomkins major, natus est 
 
 -1500 
 
 -1000 
 
 About this time 
 leads the Hebrews 
 out of Egypt 
 
 Solomon King in 
 Jerusalem 
 
 536, The Jews return from Babylon 
 -500 
 
 < 
 
 500 
 
 600. Mahomet preaches in Arabia 
 
 lOOO 
 
 1096. The Crusades begin 
 
 - 1453, The Turks take Constantinople 
 1500 
 
 - 1517, Luther begins the Reformation 
 
 in Germany 
 
 1897 
 
130 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 to tlie left of it 500 B.C., which we may represent 
 for short by —500. The first date which each boy 
 is to enter on his Line of Time is his own birth, 
 which, if he be ten years old, will clearly be ^/asin. 
 to the left of 1897. So tiny a space he will find 
 difficult to draw. All the more easy will it be for 
 him to draw the moral as to the relative bulk of 
 his own history and that of the rest of mankind. 
 After this first date, he will add others at the 
 discretion of his master. The long strip of paper 
 will be gummed into the last page of his note-book, 
 and neatly folded so as to fit inside its cover 
 without protruding, ready for constant reference. 
 A number of important advantages will flow 
 from the use of some such Line of Time, as com- 
 pared with that of an ordinary "Date Card." The 
 comparative length of modern, mediaeval, and 
 ancient history will be seen at a glance. Dates 
 will no longer be isolated, but — as they ought to 
 be — connected points in a continuous series. The 
 analogy of the Christian era to the meridian of 
 Greenwich, each denoted by the cypher 0, will 
 become clear. A little practice will enable a pupil 
 to "visualise " a date on the Line of Time as surely 
 as he can a longitude on the map of the world. 
 And just as a teacher of geography makes a habit 
 of referring a sectional map to the larger one of 
 which it is a part, so will the teacher of history 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 131 
 
 begin tlie study of any particular period by 
 "locating" it on tbe line of universal liistory, and 
 ascertaining that bis pupils know wbere tbey are 
 before tbey enter upon detailed study. 
 
 Historical Atlas, 
 
 Anotber implement witbout wbicb bistory can- 
 not intelligently be studied is a bistorical atlas. 
 It does not need tbe autbority of Arnold to enforce 
 tbe necessity of a clear view of tbe geograpbical 
 background on wbicb tbe pictures of bistory are 
 to be painted. Several bistorical atlases, fit for 
 class use by tbe boys, good and cbeap, are in tbe 
 market, besides tbe great works of Spruner and 
 otbers, one of wbicb tbe form-master will bave by 
 bim as a book of reference. 
 
 Arrangement of Lessons. 
 
 Tbus armed, master and boys will address tbem- 
 selves to tbe plan of campaign. In tbe Middle 
 Scbool, from Form II. to Form lY. inclusive, of 
 wbicb we are now speaking, tbey will be able to 
 count on about tbirty-tbree weeks in tbe year free 
 of examinations. Tbis will give sixty-six bours 
 for bistory, of wbicb ten may be set aside for re- 
 capitulation. Fifty-six bours will remain for tbe 
 study of new work, witb a certain proportion of 
 
132 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 text-book allotted to each. The form of the 
 individual lesson will naturally vary, but at its 
 beginning will usually come a restatement by one 
 or two of the boys of the main points learnt at the 
 last lesson, and at the end a few minutes will be 
 given to a glance at the portion of the text-book 
 to be read before the next, with "preparation 
 questions " as a guide to reading. The lesson itself 
 will partly talve the form of an account by the boys 
 of what they have read in the text-book for the 
 day, and partly of an illustrated supplement by the 
 master of points requiring special attention or 
 explanation. Every opportunity, of course, will 
 be taken of connecting the history with other parts 
 of the form work, with the construing of Csesar or 
 Xenophon, with the "Scripture" lesson, with 
 English literature, and even with the current news 
 of the day, if so fair a chance presents itself, as, 
 for instance, the famous quarrel between Greece, 
 Turkey, and the "Six Powers" over the future of 
 Crete. 
 
 Subject-Lessons. 
 
 It will be well, for an occasional variety, to take a 
 "subject-lesson" outside the text-book altogether. 
 An excellent theme for one such is the History of 
 the Alphabet. It is amusing to trace back our 
 letter E through Eoman and Greek alphabets to 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 133 
 
 Phoenician, and ultimately Egyptian; the horned 
 snake of the hieroglyphics is still to be recognised 
 in the letters of "Western Europe. Such a lesson 
 connects together hitherto isolated fields of history, 
 and gives a valuable insight into the pedigree of 
 modern civilisation. 
 
 Other subjects may be "The history of some 
 place-names/' " The history of titles, Kaiser, 
 Czar, Emperor, Elector," etc., " Egypt and its 
 conquerors, from the Persians to the English," 
 etc., etc. 
 
 Yisits to museums, or places of historical 
 interest, if carefully led up to, and restricted in 
 scope to a number of points of special importance, 
 may be useful. 
 
 Method in the Advanced Stage. 
 
 In the Y. and YL Forms, Arnold's view that the 
 teaching of history should be directly connected 
 with the study of some great historian presents so 
 many advantages that, once fairly tried, it is likely 
 to be accepted for good. It concentrates attention 
 upon the really fruitful periods of human history.^ 
 History, unexpressed by some great writer, is 
 
 1. ' Perioden die kein Meister beschrieb, deren Geist audi 
 kein Dicliter atmet, sind der Erziehung wenig wert.' Herbart, 
 quoted p. 787 of Rein's EncyMopddisches Handhuch der 
 Pddagogik. 
 
134 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 perplexed, difficult and dull; and — whatever its 
 worth to the "specialist" — has little value in 
 school. The study of a great historian delivers 
 the form from the tyranny of the text-book, which 
 at this stage takes its proper place as servant, not 
 as master. It introduces boys to the material 
 which lies at the back of written history, and puts 
 history itself in its true light, as an investigation 
 no less than a representation. By its means, boys 
 are introduced, in a natural way, to the great 
 questions in the study of which the chief 
 excellence of school-work in history lies. What 
 is the evidence for this or that statement? 
 How far is the writer biassed in his judgment? 
 What light is thrown upon the incident by the 
 comparison of similar cases? The attempt to 
 answer such questions, imperfectly as it must 
 be done, even with a good Sixth Form, yet 
 supplies an inestimable training. It cultivates 
 that " historical sense " or power to weigh evidence 
 and to realise events as a sequence which, as a 
 lasting possession for life, is obviously more useful 
 than any recollection of the subject-matter upon 
 which the faculty was first exercised. It is one of 
 the great advantages of ancient history compared 
 with modern that the materials for historical 
 judgment are usually of such bulk that they can 
 be grasped without a vast expenditure of time. 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 135 
 
 In this way a reading, say, of Thucydicles, Book I. 
 (as edited for schools by W. H. Forbes, and 
 published by the Clarendon Press with reference 
 to the authorities collected in the notes to Grote's 
 History), will make an excellent introduction to the 
 " critical " study of history. So, in a different way, 
 will the study of the early books of Xenophon's 
 "Hellenica." On the side of Roman History a 
 splendid study of this kind is afforded by Livy, 
 Book I., in Seeley's edition, along with lime's 
 little book on ''Early Rome," in the ''Epochs of 
 Ancient History." 
 
 The " Comparative Method." 
 
 Arnold's practice of studying modern history, 
 also, with his Sixth, and of using, wherever 
 possible, the method of comparison, e.g. as between 
 the campaigns of Hannibal and Frederick the 
 Great, has other good results besides that of 
 delivering classical students from too narrow a 
 devotion to antiquity. It is the " comparative 
 method " as used by Niebuhr and others which has 
 in this century thrown so great a light on all parts 
 of history, but particularly on the origin and 
 growth of institutions, such as the Patriciate at 
 Home, and the Archonship at Athens. If one 
 term out of the three be given to modern history, 
 
136 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 the otlier two can be given to ancient. Conversely, 
 on a " modern side," one term will be given to 
 ancient and two to modern history. With this 
 scheme, the critical study of some books of the 
 Old Testament, with reference to the Septuagint 
 Greek, and of the New, in the original, will work 
 harmoniously enough. 
 
 Method of Individual Lessons. 
 
 The method, at least, in the Sixth Form, will 
 
 approximate closely to that of the '' Lecture," and 
 
 the boys will begin to practise the valuable art of 
 
 taking rapid, clear, and businesslike notes. But a 
 
 skilled form-master will take precautions to avoid 
 
 too rigid or monotonous a procedure. The lesson 
 
 will sometimes take the form of an investigation 
 
 into a point of difficulty. One of the elements in 
 
 Arnold's teaching which evidently impressed his 
 
 pupils most was that he himself was for ever 
 
 learning. He would constantly send for books of 
 
 reference and " hunt up " what he wanted to find, 
 
 taking care to express his pleasure at discovering 
 
 something new or correcting a misapprehension of 
 
 his own. 
 
 Essays, etc. 
 
 Sometimes essays will be set on points of history 
 that will need research in the school library. And 
 the Debating Society will often lead to lively 
 historical discussion. Controversy of any sort, if 
 
ANCIENT HISTORY 137 
 
 only interesting enongli, is an effective spur to 
 study. Was Catiline a desperado or a maxtyr? 
 Did Mary Queen of Scots really write the casket 
 letters? Was the assassination of Caesar a crime 
 as well as a blunder? Such ancient problems are 
 new to boys, who readily take sides in such matters, 
 and ihej will not be worse judges later on for 
 having begun by playing the advocate. A world 
 of fascinating reading opens before them as soon 
 as they have knowledge and experience enough to 
 take interest in the theory of government. Selec- 
 tions from Aristotle's "Politics," chapters from 
 Maine's "Ancient Law," and Bagehot's "Physics 
 and Politics " ; Mill on " Pepresentative Govern- 
 ment" and "Liberty," Macaulay's Essays on the 
 "Utilitarian Theory of Politics," have a strong 
 attraction for "politically minded" people in their 
 last year of school, and will lead to more reading 
 afterwards. 
 
 Text-books. 
 
 For periods studied in "outline" a text-book will 
 be used, and happily the choice of such for the Y. 
 and YI. is larger and better than for the lower 
 forms. But the style of some is unfortunate. 
 The influence of Mommsen has had an unhappy 
 result — predicted by Freeman — on the way in 
 which some of the great figures of Roman history, 
 Pompey, and Cicero, and Cato, are habitually 
 
138 ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 written and spoken of. '' The poisonous tendency 
 to modernise " lias also led to a custom of making 
 the Romans and Greeks serve as texts for homilies 
 on details of politics or morals. But there are still 
 text-books to be found that are free from such 
 faults, and are written in a style not unworthy of 
 the heroic dignity of their subject. 
 
 The tradition of Arnold is not extinct, and there 
 are schools in England in which a master's 
 enthusiasm for history communicates a lasting 
 love of the study to his pupils. It is a saying of 
 Stevenson's^ that "to be wholly devoted to some 
 intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life." 
 To this form of success careful teaching in history 
 is at least as likely to lead as that in any other 
 subject. 
 
 1. In TFeir of Hermiston. 
 
 Note on the Literature of the Subject. 
 
 I have been able to find little in English on the theory of 
 history teaching except the section in Fitch's Lectures. There 
 is an American volume in the ' International Education ' series, 
 by Hinsdale, on ' How to study and teach History,' but it 
 contains little that will help English readers. The volume of 
 essays on ' Methods of Teaching and Studying History,' in the 
 ' Pedagogical Library, ed. by G. Stanley Hall (2nd edition, 
 published Boston, 1896), contains one or two helpful papers. 
 ' Studies in Historical ]Method,' by INIary Sheldon Barnes 
 (Isbister, 1897), is enthusiastic. It contains a full bibliography 
 of American literature on the subject. There appears to be no 
 recognised authority on the subject in French. The German 
 literature is, of course, abundant. The article in Rein's 
 ' Encyklopadisches Handbuch der Padagogik ' gives a full 
 account of it. I have got most from Oskar Jager's article 
 ' Geschichte ' in the ' Handbuch der Erziehungs- und Unter- 
 richtslehre' and the same writer's 'Bemerkungen iiber den 
 geschichtlichen Unterricht. ' 
 
Nineteenth Century 
 History Teaching 
 
THE TEACHING OF HISTORY IN 
 
 ENGLAND IN THE 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 [A lecture delivered at the Cambridge University Extension 
 Summer Meeting, August, 1900.] 
 
 Analysis. (1) Connexion of the subject of the Lecture with 
 the central topic of the Summer Meeting, "Life and Thought 
 in England in the Nineteenth Century " — (2) The ' historical 
 method ' and the 'liistorical sense ' distinguish this century from 
 the ' a priori ' philosophy and the unsympathetic treatment of 
 the past which marked the Eighteenth — Examples of this 
 tendency in the Theory of Government, in Theology, and in 
 Literature and Art — The idea of de'velojyment the central idea 
 in the thought of this century — (3) At the opening of the 
 century the striking feature of the studies of our Universities 
 and Public Schools was, with certain exceptions, the supremacy 
 of the single classical curriculum, as instituted at the Revival 
 of Learning — This contained 'implicit History,' although 
 History was not taught as a separate 'subject' — (4^ The 
 Nineteenth Century is marked by the break-up of the single 
 curriculum — History emerges as a substantive subject — 
 attempt of Thomas Arnold to preserv^e unity in the scheme of 
 a liberal education — History the central subject in his system 
 of practice, as it was in Herbart's system of theory — (5) The 
 last third of the century sees ' specialisation ' dominate our 
 studies — The treatment of History in every grade of our 
 schools is unsatisfactory — (6) The great requisite for the pro- 
 gress of our education in the Twentieth Century is a simpler 
 and clearer idea of a liberal education — Place of History in 
 this idea. 
 
 It is sometimes made a point of objection to 
 meetings snch as the one that we are all attending 
 during these weeks at Cambridge, that the lectures 
 
142 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 delivered at them are upon topics so various and 
 so many tKat tlie effect is mainly to bewilder and 
 to distract. The student, it is said, goes from 
 discourses on Dante and the IS'ebular Hypothesis in 
 the morning, to addresses on Bacteriology and the 
 Music of Richard Wagner in the afternoon. His 
 hasty and rather puzzled pilgrimages from one 
 quarter of the town to another are, according to 
 our critics, a fit symbol of his wandering attention ; 
 and the farrago of his note-book is a picture of the 
 confusion of his mind. Such a criticism may have 
 an element of truth in it, although it is based on 
 an exaggerated disbelief in the power of the mind 
 to' deal with and to arrange the material which the 
 mind receives. But we may claim that the 
 Syndicate has on this occasion provided us with a 
 core of thought round which we may group our 
 ideas, and so has given a certain unity of action to 
 our drama. "Life and Thought in England in the 
 Nineteenth Century" is our unifying conception, 
 in relation to which we are to arrange all the 
 multiplicity of our notions on the many subjects 
 of our Time-Table. It is a historical conception 
 and therefore in intimate connexion with the 
 special subject of my own lecture, which is that of 
 the Teaching of History. 
 
 History in its widest sense is perhaps the most 
 characteristic form of intellectual activity in the 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 143 
 
 nineteentK century. Incalculable as lias been tke 
 influence of the study of the natural sciences, it 
 may be doubted wbetber after all the influence of 
 history in all its different forms has not been 
 greater still upon the life of the nation. 
 
 If one contrasts roughly the prominent type of 
 mind towards the close of the eighteenth century 
 with the prominent type in our own generation, 
 one may question whether any difi^erence goes quite 
 so near the centre as this, namely, that in the 
 eighteenth century the historical sense was in a 
 great degree absent or undeveloped. Take the 
 chief spheres of national life and compare them, 
 then and now. In the theory of government and 
 law the eighteenth century dealt with its 
 problems abstractly and metaphysically. Yoltaire, 
 Eousseau, Montesquieu, working out the sugges- 
 tions of Hobbes, produced a yriori doctrines on the 
 nature of Sovereignty, on the Social Contract, on 
 the Eights of Man, which were completely un- 
 historical in character. In England they had their 
 counterpart in Bentham and the Utilitarian 
 School. These theories profoundly influenced the 
 great final movement of that century, the French 
 Eevolution, which was an organised attempt to 
 abolish the history of a nation, and to create a new 
 regime in a vacuum. On the other hand, the 
 nineteenth century has seen the Theory of Govern- 
 
144 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 ment put upon a historical basis. Here, in 
 Cambridge, Sir Henry Maine in his famous work 
 on Ancient Laiv, and many other jurists have 
 worked out the comparative study of politics and 
 the origins of political ideas, and have given us the 
 new conception of the State as a growth from 
 primitive conditions and customs, a growth which, 
 if it is to be healthy, must be gradual and con- 
 tinuous. The practical politics of the century have 
 confirmed this historical conception : those elements 
 of the national life which a priori philosophy in 
 Erance had sought to abolish by decree — the 
 Monarchy, the Nobility, the Church — have proved 
 to be living forces, which the new regime has to 
 struggle with in a bitter war, whereof the issue at 
 this moment hangs in the balance after frightful 
 reverses and frightful victories for one side and 
 the other. By contrast, in England the principal 
 institutions of the State are in a position to-day of 
 far greater security than a hundred years ago, 
 because they are seen in a historical perspective, 
 and their defence is based not upon logic but upon 
 prescription. 
 
 The same general difference between the two 
 centuries is observable in points of theology and 
 religious practice. The Tractarian Movement in 
 the second quarter of this century and the Biblical 
 Criticism of its third and fourth quarters are of 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 145 
 
 a strikingly different cliaracter from tlie Wesleyan 
 movement or the Deistic Controversy of the 
 eighteenth century; and the distinction may be 
 most shortly expressed by saying that in the 
 eighteenth century the main appeal is to a priori 
 arguments and to religious or philosophical dogma, 
 while in the nineteenth it is to history and to the 
 historical method that the disputants turn for their 
 weapons. 
 
 So, also, in Literature and Art, the Romantic 
 Movement which marks the beginning of this 
 century and is associated with the names of 
 Wordsworth and Walter Scott, and the later 
 Pre-Raphaelite movement led by Rossetti, and 
 Holman Hunt, and Millais, and supported in 
 certain aspects by Ruskin, originated in a return 
 to earlier models and in sympathies which we may 
 call historical. Similar influences have inspired 
 our architects and our house furnishers : Pugin 
 and Gilbert Scott and William Morris have 
 gradually altered our national taste by taking us 
 back to medieval examples. In the Drama we 
 have at least so far acquired the historical sense 
 that we should not be able to tolerate a Macbeth 
 in the guise in which David Garrick presented 
 him — a perruque and silk stockings, conspiring 
 with his lady in a hooped skirt and a turban. 
 Even in history itself, the whole tone and 
 
146 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 atmospliere have clianged. Tlie mighty work of 
 Gibbon, however accurate in mere statements of 
 fact, is falsified by a lack of historical sense and 
 historical sympathy, such as incapacitated him 
 from understanding either the early Christian 
 Church or the life of the Middle Ages, One has 
 only to compare liim with Ernest Renan to see 
 the gulf that divides history as we conceive it 
 now, from the unimaginative and unsympathetic 
 treatment which it received 120 years ago. So 
 also our entire conception of the nature of language 
 has been revolutionised within this century by a 
 study of its history and by the consequent discovery 
 at the hands of Schlegel of the Indo-European 
 family of tongues, and of the cousinship of 
 English, and Greek, and Sanskrit. Even the 
 greatest scientific generalisation of the century — 
 the theoiy of evolution — in a sense belongs to, and 
 has itself profoundly affected, the realm of history, 
 since it reveals the long process of infintely slow 
 development by which animal and plant life have 
 come to be what they are. It is, in fact, the idea 
 of development, the central idea of history, which, 
 more than any other single idea, characterises the 
 thought of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Ours then is the century of development, the 
 century of history. It is in accord with this fact 
 that we find that the study of history as a separate 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 147 
 
 subject in our Public Schools and Universities first 
 emerges during this period. It would not indeed 
 be true to say that History was not taugbt at all 
 before 1800. The Professorships of Modern 
 History at Oxford and Cambridge were founded 
 as long ago as 1724 by George I. But these 
 foundations seem to have produced no striking 
 result either in the shape of original research or 
 of influence upon University, studies until the 
 present century. The University of Oxford rather 
 resented the endowment as a Whig political move. 
 "Not Only," says Dr. Stubbs, "did they acknow- 
 ledge the receipt of the King's letter in a most 
 contemptuous way, forwarding their letter of 
 thanks by a bedell, but, when by due pressure and 
 by the example of Ca,mbridge compelled to send 
 a formal answer by a deputation to the King, 
 clothed it in such words as showed that the 
 introduction of the new study was looked on as 
 an unwarranted interference with the educational 
 Government of the place." And it is quite certain 
 that no holder of the Professorship down to the 
 time of Dr. Nares in the early years of this century 
 did anything to overcome the sullen suspicion with 
 which the foundation of the chair was first 
 receiA^ed. At Cambridge the only one of the Poyal 
 Professors of Modern History during last century 
 whose name is remembered in this was the Poet 
 
148 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Gray. So again in regard to the Public Schools 
 it would not be exact to say that there is no trace 
 of History having been taught a hundred years 
 ago. Thus Dr. James, who was Headmaster of 
 Rugby from 1TT8 to 1794, used to devote the first 
 lesson of the week, which began at seven o'clock in 
 the morning, to the subject of Scripture History 
 varied in a regular cycle with Goldsmith's Homan 
 History and the History of England. This was, 
 however, only the case with the Fifth and Sixth 
 Forms. I cannot find that History was taught 
 in the lower part of the school. And the single 
 hour before breakfast given at Eugby appears to 
 have been wholly exceptional. I have not been 
 able to discover anything similar at Eton, Harrow, 
 or Winchester. Even at Rugby one could hardly 
 say that History formed a part of the regular 
 curriculum. So that, speaking broadly, we may 
 say that History as a separate subject formed no 
 part of the course of studies at the Universities 
 and Public Schools in the year 1800. On the 
 other hand, the curriculum, such as it was, 
 embodied some of the most important facts of 
 European History between the age of Pericles and 
 the Revival of Learning, and formed in itself a 
 historical document or relic of an extraordinarily 
 interesting kind. The classical curriculum of our 
 Universities and Schools which continued until 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 149 
 
 well on into this century, practically iinclianged, 
 was itself in its origin a. result of a movement for 
 reform, a movement which like those of our own 
 time assumed the shape of an appeal to the past 
 and a return to earlier models. The history of 
 intellectual progress is marked by a series of 
 revolts against systems of education, in which the 
 human spirit seeks to save itself from being 
 strangled in formularies of its own making, by 
 struggling back to a more primitive and less 
 complex stage in its own development, by 
 appealing from the Rabbis to Moses, from the 
 Aristotelians to Aristotle, from the Fathers to the 
 Apostles. Such a revolt was the substitution of 
 the great classic writers for the works of the 
 Schoolmen, a revolt consummated in England in 
 the sixteenth century. Perhaps the essential 
 advantage of this change was that it put in the 
 hands of schoolboys and students books which, 
 directly or indirectly, contained the history of 
 Mediterranean Europe at its highest point of 
 culture. Scholasticism, as was natural from its 
 deductive methods, had no place in its curriculum 
 for history; classicism, although it did not teach 
 history as a specific subject, yet offered its students 
 historical material of the most precious kind. 
 Thus while it is true that in 1700 history was to all 
 appearances no more recognised as a part of the 
 
150 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 ciirricuKim at Oxford or at Wincliester tlian it had 
 been in 1500, yet we must remember tbat at this 
 later date our ablest scholars read, as a matter of 
 course, tbe great masterpieces of Ancient History 
 as well as tbe great Poets whose works illustrated 
 — as nothing else could illustrate — the history of 
 the age in which they wrote. Thus we may speak 
 of the classical curriculum as Implicit History, 
 because it contained in itself, not consciously 
 disengaged from literature, a mass of historical 
 material. 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth century, however, 
 classicism had in effect fallen too completely into 
 the hands of the commentator and the versifier, 
 and the subject-matter of the great classic writers 
 had ceased to be studied with the enthusiasm of 
 the sixteenth-century scholars. The intellectual 
 life of our Schools and Universities was torpid and 
 unproductive to the last degree ; the great stimulus 
 of the Revival of Learning had spent its force. 
 It may even be doubted whether Oxford at the 
 very close of the scholastic period was quite so 
 profoundly asleep as she was towards the close 
 of the classical period. '' For a moment," says 
 Mr. Rashdall in his great book on the Universities 
 of Europe in the Middle Ages, " for a moment 
 the human world was brought into real and living 
 contact with a new world of thought and action by 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 151 
 
 tlie ' 'New Learning ' : but ere long classical 
 education in turn beca,me arid and scholastic — as 
 remote from fruitful contact with realities— as the 
 education of the Middle Ages. The history of 
 Education is, indeed, a somewhat melancholy 
 record of misdirected energy, stupid routine, and 
 na,rrow one-sidedness. It seems to be only at rare 
 moments in the history of the human mind that 
 an enthusiasm for knowledge and a many-sided 
 interest in the things of the intellect stirs the 
 dull waters of educational commonplace. What 
 was a revelation to one generation becomes an 
 unintelligent routine to the next. Considered as 
 mere intellectual training, it may be doubted 
 whether the superiority of a classical education, 
 as it was understood at the beginning of this 
 century, to that of the medieval Schools was quite 
 so great as is commonly supposed. If in the 
 scholastic age the human mind did not advance, 
 even Macaulay admits that it did at least mark 
 time. The. study of Aristotle and the schoolmen 
 must have been a better training in subtlety and 
 precision of thought than the exclusive study of a 
 few poets and orators." 
 
 If you carry your mind from 1800 to 1900 and 
 survey the period between you will see that the 
 significance of this century in the history of the 
 higher education is that the single uniform 
 
152 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 curricukim of the classics whicli, with certain 
 modifications (as for instance the great attention 
 given in Cambridge to mathematical studies) had 
 been handed down jnst as it was from the age of 
 the Henaissance, has been broken up, that alterna- 
 tive schemes of study have been admitted side by 
 side with the classics, and that even where the 
 classics remain the chief staple of the intellectual 
 training given, other subjects, in particular 
 mathematics, history and m.odern languages and a 
 little natural science have been superadded. The 
 unity of the curriculum in the places of higher 
 learning has been, for the time at any rate, lost 
 and the era of specialisation has begun. The full 
 effect of this immense revolution in our education 
 is but little grasped by any of us as yet. However 
 we are not here concerned with the general theory 
 and history of our higher curriculum but with the 
 fortunes of a single portion of it. 
 
 The great impulse which the Eomantic Move- 
 ment in Literature led by Sir Walter Scott gave 
 to the study of History took effect in general 
 literature, in private reading and in private 
 schools, more particularly in schools for Girls, 
 some time before it touched the general body of 
 the public schools. In the second third of the 
 century, Thomas Carlyle and Macaulay began to 
 exercise their prodigious influence over the 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 153 
 
 Englisli middle classes, an influence wtticli lias 
 perhaps done more than any other single cause to 
 familiarise the national mind with historical 
 images and historical ideas. Neither can be called 
 a professed teacher of history. Macanlay declined 
 the Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge 
 when the Prince Consort offered it to him, and 
 Carlyle lectured, not at a University, but by way 
 of private venture, in the Portman Eooms in 
 London. He gave four series of historical lectures 
 —in 1837, 38, 39, and 40. In this last year his 
 subject was Heroes and Hero-worship, and this 
 was the only series of the four that he ever wrote 
 out and printed. It is with Thomas Arnold that 
 the systematic teaching of History in our public 
 schools begins. His headmaster ship at R^igby 
 lasted from 1829 to 1842. His peculiar glory in 
 the records of our education is that whereas, when 
 he came to Hugby, he found on one side a society 
 of Boys with a strange corporate life of their own 
 with games, institutions, and laws of a spontaneous 
 and irregular growth, and on the other side 
 a system of instruction and religious training 
 entirely without relation to or influence upon that 
 corporate life, he contrived to fuse every part of 
 the school energies into a unity with a central 
 purpose. The self-goA^erning commonwealth of 
 the Boys themselves he retained and confirmed, 
 
154 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 with, certain modincations, but this common- 
 wealtL. was to be so truly ordered as to train its 
 members to take afterwards an active part in the 
 life of tlie larger conimonwealtK of Cburcb and 
 State ; tlie instruction wbetber religious or secular 
 was to interpenetrate and to illumine tlie life of 
 this commonwealth by introducing the boys to the 
 history of other such communities and to the great 
 literatures ancient and modern by which the ideas 
 of those communities at their best, have been 
 interpreted and expressed. In Arnold's concep- 
 tion, the English gentleman must not only learn 
 to rule and to be ruled, and to play football and to 
 speak the truth, but he must also understand the 
 history of his country and the history of Christen- 
 dom, and the literature of Grreece and Rome, which 
 along with the sacred books of the Hebrews lies at 
 the foundation of Christendom. The unity of 
 education, the unity of history are his moving 
 ideas; and we shall fall short indeed of the true 
 estimation of Arnold's work for the study of 
 history, if we confine it to such matters as his 
 co-ordination of geography with history, his 
 constant use of the blackboard in historical 
 instruction, his comparative method of treating 
 ancient and naodern history, or even to the 
 admirably devised cycle of historical lessons which 
 he embodied in his school curriculum. Infinitely 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 155 
 
 more important tlian all these important things 
 was the clearness with which he himself appre- 
 hended and taught others to apprehend, the 
 bearing of literature and of history upon life, and 
 of life, in its turn, upon literature and history. 
 He thus put upon an entirely new basis the claim 
 of the old classical curriculum to furnish the best 
 training for the modern Englishman. Our inner- 
 most intellectual and spiritual life, our laws, 
 politics, religion are charged with forces which we 
 cannot understand nor wisely deal with unless we 
 study them in the light of the single continuous 
 historical process by which they have come to be 
 what they are. Arnold therefore, like Herbart, 
 concentrates and unifies his curriculum; but he 
 does far more, he concentrates and unifies the 
 whole of human life; the core of his circle of 
 studies is active Christian citizenship, and their 
 proportionate value depends upon the degree in 
 which they help to make that citizenship 
 intelligent and earnest. 
 
 Arnold's influence as a teacher of History was, 
 of course, not confined to his work at Eugby. In 
 the last two years of his life, 1841 and 42, he held 
 the office of Professor of Modern History at Oxford 
 and, short as his tenure of the chair was, he roused 
 the greatest interest and enthusiasm by his 
 lectures, and placed the study of History in a 
 
156 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 position of importance which it had never held 
 before. He also profoundly affected the views of 
 his successors and likewise of those who held the 
 corresponding Professorship at Cambridge. Edward 
 Freeman at Oxford and Charles Kingsley at 
 Cambridge in very different ways continued to 
 expound the views of Arnold. The famous saying 
 that " History is past Politics, and Politics are 
 present History " was one of the sides of his 
 teaching upon which they laid most stress, and 
 which in the last quarter of this century Seeley 
 made the central idea of his work as Professor at 
 Cambridge, in this slightly altered form, ^'With- 
 out History, Politics has no root ; without Politics, 
 History has no fruit." This was a view which, to 
 some minds, appeared to have its dangers, and 
 there arose in opposition to it a school which 
 demanded that History should be regarded as a 
 purely abstract antiquarian subject, and that the 
 bearing of the past upon the present should — as a 
 possible cause of prejudice and partisanship — be 
 strictly kept out of its judicial investigations. Of 
 this school Bishop Stubbs, who was appointed 
 Professor at Oxford in 1867, has been the most 
 distinguished representative in England. Under 
 the influence of men of this way of thinking the 
 eiforts of historical students were bent specially to 
 discover the exact and minute truth before any 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 157 
 
 inferences slionld be made from it. Time forbids 
 US to do more tlian mention the immense services 
 performed by tbis scbool of historians and by tbe 
 Public Offices which under their inspiration have, 
 both in England and abroad, issued copies of 
 ancient documents, characters, and records such as 
 have revolutionised our ideas more particularly of 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 This split of the historians into the political 
 school and the antiquarian school was followed by 
 further subdivisions. Social life and customs, 
 details of dress, household furniture and the like 
 and all that we vaguely include under Archaeology 
 or Anthropology, had a greater attraction for 
 some scholars than the history of political or 
 municipal institutions, and we have seen arise in 
 this last third of the century a School of 
 Archaeologists which by its excavations and 
 researches have reconstructed before our eyes the 
 minutest details of ancient domestic life. One 
 might pursue this process of specialisation and 
 subdivision into many other branches, but it is 
 enough to say that the study of History has 
 become a general name for several groups of 
 highly differentiated scholars who work exclusively 
 at special sides of the whole historical field. 
 
 The consequence of this has been one, which is, 
 in a way, a direct contradiction of the view of 
 
158 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Arnold. It has been thonglit necessary to divide 
 History from Literature, and to make it a parallel 
 and as it were alternative subject. A special 
 Tripos in History was established by a Grace at 
 Cambridge in 1873 and the first examination was 
 hekl in 1875. A similar step had been taken some 
 years before at Oxford, where, however, for some 
 time the school of history was combined with the 
 school of law. Henceforth, at both Universities, 
 it became possible to graduate in History, as an 
 alternative to Mathematics or Classics. 
 
 The general upshot of this was a curious one. 
 "We have seen that, up to the time of Arnold, 
 History was practically not taught as a subject at 
 our Public Schools and Universities. His influence, 
 however, was so great, and was backed by such an 
 overwhelming weight of social opinion that 
 History came to be studied more or less thoroughly 
 at both one and the other. This process was, 
 however, an exceedingly gradual one. When the 
 Public School Commissioners published their 
 report in 1864, it was still the case at Winchester 
 that neither '^ ancient nor modern history is 
 taught in set lessons, and ancient history does not 
 enter as a separate subject into any of the school 
 examinations." " I wish," says Dr. Moberly, the 
 Head Master, to the Commissioners, " we could 
 teach more history; but as to teaching it in set 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 159 
 
 lessons, 7 should not know how to do it." It is 
 worth while to compare with, this remark of the 
 good Doctor's a passage in Mr. A. F. Leach's 
 History of Winchester College, where, describing 
 the extreme aridity and dulness of the purely 
 classical studies, even in the Sixth Form, he says 
 that the one or two exceptions to this dnlness live 
 in his memory : as for instance when one day in 
 the year 1866, Dr. Moberly came into the room 
 and told them that war had been declared between 
 Prussia and Austria. He delighted the boys by 
 giving them a vivid account of the relations of 
 those two powers in the past, and of the circum- 
 stances which had brought on the war, and he 
 wound up by hazarding the prophecy that the war 
 would perhaps last the lifetime of some of them. 
 As a matter of fact the war was over in six weeks. 
 This was just two years after Dr. Moberly had 
 said that he should not know how to teach set 
 lessons in history. 
 
 This entire absence of the set teaching of 
 History at Winchester in 1864 may be compared 
 with the account of the elaborate system of 
 teaching of the subject, as now conducted there, 
 given on pp. 220, 221 of the Report of the 
 ATnerican Committee of Seven on the Study of 
 History in Schools. 
 
 Similar particulars might be given with regard 
 
160 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 to other Public Schools, but the main point is that 
 whereas in the first third of the century, history 
 was scarcely taught at all, and that in the second 
 third it was introduced into Rugby by Arnold, 
 and elsewhere by his pupils and followers, as for 
 instance by Yaughan at Harrow, in the third 
 section of the century it practically became 
 universal in Schools, in one form or other, and 
 was made a Special subject at the Universities as 
 one of the alternative avenues to a Degree in Arts. 
 
 The specialist character given by this change at 
 the Universities to the study of History seriously 
 threatens its position as a part of a liberal 
 education. Arnold's view was, as we have seen, 
 that History was essential to a comprehension 
 alike of literature and of life, and must 
 indispensably be taught in appropriate shapes to 
 every class of the School. 
 
 On the other hand, the recent view tends to the 
 specialist conception, namely, that History is one 
 of a number of options which a boy may choose 
 between, as soon, at any rate, as he reaches the 
 age of 15 or 20. While the classical specialist is 
 doing Greek Iambics, the history specialist is 
 reading Mommsen and Stubbs, and the mathe- 
 matical specialist is doing the Binomial Theorem 
 or Trigonometry. 
 
 An exactly similar conception prevailed until 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 161 
 
 this very year 1900, in the Primary Schools. 
 History was an option which might be taken or 
 left at the discretion of the schoolmaster, with the 
 further provision that it must not be taken if any 
 two other class subjects were selected. Thus if 
 Geography and English Grammar were taught at 
 any Elementary School, ipso facto History was 
 excluded. 
 
 This extraordinary view of knowledge — that you 
 can cut it into slices like a melon, and that it is 
 unwholesome for any one person to take more than 
 two or three of these slices for himself, has 
 practically destroyed within the present century 
 the idea of an " all-round '^ liberal education in 
 England. That idea does not exist at our 
 Universities; it does not exist at our Public 
 Schools; it does perhaps exist, though precariously, 
 at some of the Girls' High Schools, through the 
 introduction of the Block Grant in this present 
 year of grace. 
 
 But at the moment we see the paradoxical result 
 that the emergence of History as a distinct subject 
 from Literature, so far from securing it a safe 
 place in the curriculum of a general education, 
 threatens to relegate it to the limbo of alternative 
 specialisms, along with Organic Chemistry and the 
 Integral Calculus. Poor Clio ! scarcely had she 
 once more taken her place among the Muses, 
 
162 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 welcomed by her sisters of Poetry and Science, 
 tlian she and the rest of them are torn from the 
 lovely group in which they moved with arms 
 intertwined, and shut up by the grim inquisitors 
 of mysterious Examination Boards, into separate 
 compartments, where, in spite of their shrieks, they 
 are cut up into subdivisions, such as archaeology, 
 palaeography, anthropology, epigraphy, and I 
 know not what. Every subdivision is carefully 
 dried into mummy, and then labelled Part I. 
 Division II. of Subject xxxiii. (c) in some 
 University Calendar. 
 
 We all of us know the forces which have relent- 
 lessly driven us in this direction. The difficulty is 
 truly a great one. The field of knowledge has 
 been extended and deepened during the last 
 75 years to a degree unparalleled in the previous 
 history of mankind, and the question how to give 
 a general education which shall be at once wide 
 and at the same time not superficial, has been 
 made immensely more complicated. It is to that 
 question, on the solution of which our intellectual 
 vitality in the future more than on any other 
 depends, that we shall have to address ourselves 
 in the twentieth century. I venture to think that 
 Herbart in theory, and Arnold in practice, have 
 done much to suggest the practicable solution. 
 We must lighten our curricula not by throwing 
 
HISTORY TEACHING 163 
 
 away this or that indispensable limb of the organic 
 unity of knowledge, but by making those curricula 
 consciously represent that unity, by showing the 
 organic connection of their different parts and 
 obliging each subject to play into the hands of all. 
 When we seriously set ourselves to carry out that 
 task, we shall find that history, in its widest sense, 
 as the record of the process by which man has 
 come to be what he is, already furnishes a subject 
 by means of which it will be possible to correlate 
 the various aspects of knowledge, as they have 
 in positive fact been correlated in the gradual 
 upward progress of humanity. 
 
History in 
 Elementary Schools 
 
MEMORANDUM ON THE TEACH- 
 ING OF HISTORY IN THE 
 SCHOOLS OF THE LONDON 
 SCHOOL BOARD (1901).* 
 
 It lias become necessary to consider afresh tlie 
 way in wliicli History should be taught in Public 
 Elementary Schools. This necessity arises out of 
 the alterations made last year in the fifteenth 
 Article of the Day School Code, affecting the 
 relations hitherto subsisting between the course 
 of instruction and the method of allotting the 
 Parliamentary Grant. 
 
 I. Position, up to 1900, of the subject of History 
 IN THE Public Elementary School. 
 
 Up to 1900 History has been one of a number 
 of " Class Subjects " on two of which (but not more 
 
 * Note. — The following pages contain the condensed results 
 of much consultation and study. The writer has to thank 
 Mr. M. E. Sadler and his staff in the Department of Special 
 Enquiries at the Board of Education for access to documents 
 relating to schemes of History Teaching in use abroad. Grateful 
 acknowledgment must also be made of the ready and valuable 
 assistance given, both orally and in writing, by officers and 
 teachers in the service of the School Board for London, as well 
 as by personal friends of the writer. 
 
168 HISTORY IN 
 
 tlian two), grants might be claimed in respect of 
 the scholars of a class, provided they reached a 
 satisfactory level of attainment. Thus History 
 has not hitherto been an obligatory subject in 
 English Elementary Schools : it has been one out 
 of a number of alternate subjects. Among these 
 alternatives it has been the least popular. Eefer- 
 ence to the opening pages of the " Eeport of the 
 School Management Committee of the School 
 Board for London for the year ended at Lady-day, 
 1899," shows that in that year out of a total number 
 of 834 school departments under the Board's 
 management which presented children in class 
 subjects, only 158 presented History. The figures 
 are much more striking if the number of children — 
 not the number of departments — is considered. 
 The total average ^ attendance on which grants for 
 various class subjects were allowed was 522,680, 
 while the average attendance in classes earning 
 grant for History was only 20,765 — that is, just 
 about four children out of every hundred took 
 History as a class subject. 
 
 The corresponding figures for England and 
 Wales at large are as follows : the number of 
 school departments taking class subjects in the 
 
 1. N.B. — The figures quoted above are the last available, but 
 they represent an incomplete report. The figures (complete) 
 for the year 1898 are 26,761 out of 581,976, or less than five per 
 cent, taking History. 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 169 
 
 year 1898-99 was 23,041. Out of this total, 21,882 
 took up Object Lessons, 17.049 took Geography, 
 13,456 took English, and only 5,780 took History. 
 [Report of the Committee of Council on Education, 
 England and Wales, 1899.] It has no doubt been 
 the case in many schools, in which History has 
 not been presented as a class subject, that never- 
 theless, lessons in History have been given. And 
 in every school without exception the rule has 
 held good that out of the three reading books in 
 every class above the Second Standard ^ one has 
 been a " History Eeader." But the broad fact 
 remains that systematic instruction in History has 
 not been obligatory in English Elementary 
 Schools, and that it has been given to only a small 
 percentage of the total number of scholars. In 
 these points there has been a contrast between our 
 schools and those of every other civilised nation 
 in the world, so far as I am aware. 
 
 II. Relation of History to the re-organised 
 Curriculum of our Schools. 
 
 It is clear from these figures that History may, 
 for practical purposes, be called a new subject in 
 our schools. Is it to be added, over and above, to 
 the old curriculum? If so, how are time and 
 
 1. Vide Footnote to Schedule I. at the end of the Day 
 School Code. 
 
170 
 
 HISTORY IN 
 
 energy to be found for it, without over-pressure 
 both for scholars and teachers ? 
 
 This question makes it necessary to consider the 
 whole course of instruction as re-modelled under 
 the new system of awarding grants. 
 
 Section (h) of Article 15 in the Day School Code 
 now reads as follows : — 
 
 " The course of instruction in schools for older^ 
 scholars is as follows: — 
 
 (i) English, by which is to be under- ~"i 
 stood Reading, Recitation, Writ- 
 ing, Composition and Grammar, 
 in so far as it bears upon the 
 correct use of language. 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 Drawing — for Boys. 
 
 ' Needlework — for Girls. 
 
 Lessons, including object lessons, 
 on Geography, History, and 
 Common Things. 
 
 ■ Singing, which should as a rule be 
 by note. 
 
 ■Physical Exercises." 
 
 To be 
 
 taken as a 
 rule in all 
 schools." 
 
 After these subjects, which are " to be taken as 
 a rule in all schools," there follows, in paragraphs 
 
 1. " Older scholars" — i.e., above the Infant School. 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 171 
 
 numbers (ii.) and (iii-)j a list of optional special 
 subjects, " to be taken wben tbe circumstances of 
 the school, in the opinion of the Inspector, make it 
 desirable." 
 
 A note is added to paragraph (i.), that " it is not 
 necessary that all these subjects should be taught 
 in every class. One or more of them may be 
 omitted in any school which can satisfy the 
 department that there is good reason in its case for 
 the omission." 
 
 The latter part of this note refers, no doubt, to 
 schools working under peculiar difficulties of 
 staffing and so forth, and not to any school under 
 the management of the School Board of London. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that in the subjects 
 grouped together as " to be taken as a rule in all 
 schools," the Code presents us with a summary of 
 the education which, in the opinion of the Board 
 of Education, ought to be given to every child who 
 passes through the Public Elementary Schools; 
 while in paragraphs (ii.) and (iii.) certain 
 desirable subjects are added which should be 
 taught in the higher classes, if they can be so 
 taught without detriment to the indispensable 
 subjects named above. 
 
 Paragraph (i.) gives us, in a word, the 
 irreducible minimum of a liberal education; that 
 amount of things which everyone, whatever his 
 
172 HISTORY IN 
 
 special occupation is to be, ought to be trained to 
 know or to do, as a free man. 
 
 It is of extreme importance to keep tbis view of 
 tbe matter clearly in mind, because elementary- 
 education, tbus regarded, bas a unity and 
 simplicity wbicb are otherwise only too easily lost 
 sigbt of. If we add religious knowledge (wbicb 
 tbe Code leaves, conditionally, in tbe bands of 
 scbool managers) we bave it as our aim in tbe 
 Elementary Scbools to impart to every scbolar 
 sucb a training in tbe knowledge of God, of man- 
 kind, and of nature as will at least save bim from 
 being a loss and a danger to bimself and to otbers. 
 If tbere is time to go f urtber, so mucb tbe better, 
 but to go tbus far is indispensable. 
 
 Tbe result of tbe previous system was to divide 
 and to complicate tbe course of instruction : tbe 
 result of tbe recent reform sbould be to restore 
 unity and coberence to it. Disconnectedness and 
 scrappiness were tbe consequences of awarding 
 grants on separate '' subjects." ISTow tbat grant is 
 to be given for education as a wbole, it will be 
 possible to arrange a course on lines at once 
 simpler and wider. 
 
 Tbe purpose of elementary education being to 
 enable a man to act intelligently for bimself and 
 otbers in tbe world in wbicb be finds bimself — to 
 ''adapt bimself," as tbe pbrase goes, ''to bis 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 173 
 
 environment " — tlie inclusion of " History " in tlie 
 course ought not to be considered as the addition 
 of a new subject; it ought rather to mean an 
 explanation of the essential facts and forces in the 
 condition of mankind as it is now, and as it has 
 been in the past, an explanation which will serve 
 to put a man into intelligent relations towards the 
 community of which he is to be a member. So 
 little ought this to be felt as an addition to the 
 curriculum, that, if properly carried out, it ought 
 to lessen the difficulty of the remainder of the 
 course, and to throw light upon what would other- 
 wise be perplexing and unintelligible. In other 
 words, it ought to arise quite naturally out of the 
 other "subjects," it ought to answer questions 
 suggested by the study of the mother tongue, or 
 of Geography, or of the actual living world. 
 
 The scholars in our schools are already brought 
 necessarily into contact with a considerable 
 quantity of historical material. The Scriptures of 
 the Old Testament cannot be studied intelligently 
 without some rudimentary knowledge of the 
 ancient empires of Egypt, Assyria, and Persia, for 
 the history of the Hebrews is, to a great degree, 
 an account of their relations with those empires. 
 The story of the Gospels and of the Acts of the 
 Apostles requires no less clearly some summary 
 notions about the Greeks, in whose language the 
 
174 HISTORY IN 
 
 New Testament was written, and about the 
 Eomans under whose government Christianity was 
 founded and spread. A study of Geography, of 
 the chief races of mankind and their territories, 
 cannot be undertaken rationally without the 
 accompaniment of an outline of their history. 
 English Literature and Language are obscure 
 indeed without constant illumination from the 
 History of England and of Christendom. And the 
 events of our own time, with which the older 
 children are familiarised through common talk 
 and the newspapers, suggest a thousand points of 
 contact with the events which stirred their fore- 
 fathers to a pitch of patriotic feeling equal to their 
 own. 
 
 All this material is already to hand : it should 
 be the aim of the lessons in History to organise it, 
 to arrange it clearly, to connect one part of it with 
 another, and to put the scholars in possession of 
 such information as will enable them, if they wish 
 to do so, to pursue the study of the subject after 
 they shall have left school. 
 
 The very wholesome apprehension, therefore, 
 that the new arrangement of the curriculum might 
 lead to further complexity and pressure among 
 competing " subjects," is to be met by the con- 
 sideration that, on the contrary, this arrangement 
 gives an opportunity to unify the curriculum, by 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 175 
 
 closely connecting it with the actual life of the 
 children [that is with their spiritual and in- 
 tellectual life, as well as their physical], and by 
 so linking up the several parts of it as to make one 
 subject play, as it were, into the hands of another. 
 Thus, the practical necessity for economy of time, 
 points in the same direction as the educational 
 necessity, for connectedness and clearness in the 
 matter to be taught. The fact that so short a 
 period of time is all that is available in the 
 Elementary Schools must always be kept in view ; 
 and the conclusion must be drawn from it that 
 we have time only for what is most important and 
 best, and that we are unable to spare any for what 
 is second-rate or trivial. Where it becomes 
 necessary to choose between two things each of 
 which is, in its own way, valuable, it will be 
 necessary to make the choice on grounds not of 
 their abstract value, but of their value to the 
 children concerned. Thus Algebra may, no doubt, 
 be taught in such a way as to provide an excellent 
 mental training; but if the circumstances of any 
 school are such that the choice lies between fore- 
 going History and foregoing Algebra, a sense of 
 educational proportion will decide that History 
 should be retained before Algebra. A man who is 
 ignorant of Algebra cannot be called "uneducated" 
 in the same sense as a man who is ignorant of 
 
176 HISTORY IN 
 
 History, nor is his ignorance likely to be so 
 injurious to liimself and to others . 
 
 It is not easy to calculate precisely wliat amount 
 of time is likely to be available for the lessons in 
 History. In tbe lower standards, tbe claims of 
 the "elementary subjects" are paramount, and 
 Eeading and Writing, in especial, absorb a large 
 number of bours. Above Standard IV. it is 
 possible to transfer a considerable amount of tbeir 
 time to more interesting matter, but on the otber 
 band Manual Training bas to be provided for with 
 the Boys, and Cookery with the Girls. The advice 
 of experienced teachers in the service of the Board 
 has been taken on the point, and some tables 
 showing typical distribution of hours in London 
 Schools are printed as an appendix to this Heport. 
 It will perhaps be safest to say that in Standards 
 III. and IV. the time available for oral lessons in 
 History will vary from about IJ to about 2 hours, 
 and in Standards V., VI. and VII., from IJ to 2-| 
 hours, while in the Higher Grade Schools it may 
 be possible to contrive a minimum allowance of 
 2 hours for History. This time ought to be 
 altogether apart from the time given to Reading 
 Lessons with " History Readers. " 
 
 III. Reference to the Experience of Foreign 
 Countries. 
 How can the short time thus available be used 
 to the best advantage? 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 177 
 
 We have, ready to liand, tlie experience of 
 foreign countries in wliich tlie teacliing of History 
 has long been regarded as a vital part of the 
 national training in the Primary Schools. 
 
 Englishmen, however, while ready to learn as 
 much as possible from foreign examples, more 
 particularly where foreign experience goes back 
 for many years, will feel that there are two points 
 in which such models are not to be followed : — 
 
 (i) History lessons ought not to be made a 
 vehicle either for partisan feeling in home 
 affairs, or for international grudges in the 
 discussion of foreign politics. The English 
 spirit of fair play to opponents condemns 
 alike the republican propaganda carried on 
 in the schools of one great continental 
 nation, and the anti-socialistic crusade 
 which is maintained in the schools of 
 another. International bitterness may be 
 kept alive for generations by unfair or 
 unwise history-teaching. 
 
 (ii) A detailed syllabus precisely uniform for 
 all schools is not advisable, because it leaves 
 too little room for the initiative and the 
 individual interests of the teacher. The 
 highly centralised continental systems tend 
 to depress local variety and personal enter- 
 
178 HISTORY IN 
 
 prise in tlie sclieme of instruction. What 
 is required is ratlier a guide in outline than 
 a minutely prescribed routine. Within 
 the limits of this general outline, managers 
 and teachers should be encouraged to 
 frame their own syllabus. 
 
 With these two points in mind, it should be 
 possible to take full advantage of foreign experi- 
 ence. The syllabus in the French Schools is 
 particularly clear and suggestive; it has been the 
 work of men of great distinction, who have set a 
 high value upon the effects which good instruction 
 in this subject might be likely to produce for the 
 national life. It will be found, translated, in an 
 appendix to this Eeport. In Prussia the features 
 of chief value seem to be : — 
 
 (a) The rich historical element in the religious 
 teaching, extending not only to Hebrew 
 History, but also to the History of Christen- 
 dom in outline; 
 (6) The excellent use made in the lessons on the 
 mother-tongue of pieces of poetry and prose 
 which have a national and historic interest ; 
 (c) The high character of the reading books, 
 which are larger and fuller than the corres- 
 ponding books in England, and are not 
 "written down" in the same way to the 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 179 
 
 supposed level of children, but consist, in 
 the higlier classes at least, of passages from 
 standard authors; 
 
 (d) The use of national songs for school music, 
 including not only patriotic songs (which, 
 in Germany, are of a noble type alike in 
 words and in melodies), but also old folk- 
 songs, relating to the lives of peasants and 
 huntsmen, and so forth, and containing 
 vivid pictures of old times; 
 
 (e) The direct instruction in History is confined 
 to a continuous series of biographies taken 
 from German History between a.d. 1600 and 
 the present time, together with a few repre- 
 sentative biographies from earlier German 
 History. " So far as the children are able 
 to grasp it, the chief features of the progress 
 of civilisation are also to be dealt with." 
 
 The most valuable contribution of Germany to 
 the teaching of History in Schools is to be found 
 in the educational writings of Herbart, whose 
 main principles have been followed in this 
 memorandum. 
 
 In Switzerland, the course prescribed varies in 
 the different cantons; the matter is mainly Swiss 
 History, with just so much of foreign history as 
 bears directly upon it; the method is oral narra- 
 
180 HISTORY IN 
 
 tive reinforced by a reading book. I was present 
 once at an admirable piece of " story-telling" by a 
 Swiss teaclier in a little village-scbool in the 
 Canton de Yaud, and tbe effect of tbe lesson npon 
 the class was so strong that I was able to realise 
 bow pride in a common history, carefully fostered 
 at school, can keep together in political union a 
 number of scattered cantons, separated in some 
 cases by high alps, and estranged from one another 
 hj differences of blood, language, and religion. 
 
 In the United States of America, there is great 
 diversity in different parts of the country in regard 
 to the History instruction. An appendix to the 
 extremely interesting " Report upon History in 
 Schools by the Committee of Seven," published by 
 the Macmillan Company in 1899, shows that expert 
 opinion believes that this diversity is so extreme 
 as to be mischievous. " It is not possible to discuss 
 here," says the writer of the Appendix (p. 159), 
 *'the advantages of uniform curricula within 
 limited areas, but it may be noted that progress in 
 education has invariably followed the adoption of 
 such an uniform course, and that those nations 
 that have uniformity to-day have, as a rule, the 
 best systems of education. With two exceptions, 
 the ten States of the Union that have no uniform 
 course of instruction are among the most backward 
 in America in all matters of public education." 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 181 
 
 Tlie Appendix to this American report con- 
 cludes with a " practicable scheme " for History 
 Instruction in Elementary Schools, which may be 
 outlined thus : — 
 
 Grade III. (children of about 8 years of age). — 
 Stories from Homer, the Sagas, etc. 
 
 Grade IV. — Biographies of great men of all 
 ages and nations. 
 
 Grade Y. — Greek and Roman History to 
 
 800 A.D. 
 
 Grade YI. — Mediseval and Modern European 
 History. 
 
 Grade YIL — English History. 
 
 Grade YIII. (children of about 13 years of 
 age). — American History. 
 
 lY. What purposes is Instruction in History 
 intended to fulfil for the school 
 Children of London? 
 
 Passing now to the problem of the ideal course 
 in History for Elementary Schools in London, we 
 must revert to the opinion already put forward, 
 that the supreme advantage of the new system of 
 awardino^ grants lies in the fact that it restores 
 
182 HISTORY IN 
 
 unity and simplicity to the main body of the 
 curriculum, and enables us to consider a scheme 
 of historical instruction which may be in the most 
 vital and interesting relation (i.) to the actual 
 lives, in school and after school, of the children 
 themselves, (ii.) to the remainder of the school 
 curriculum. 
 
 If it be granted that the main purpose of 
 elementary schooling is to put the scholar in the 
 way of understanding what, in essential points, the 
 environment of his life, physical and mental, is to 
 be, and of acting rightly upon the understanding 
 thus gained, then what we call his ''History 
 Lessons" will have a definite part of this task to 
 accomplish, and the syllabus of history will be 
 adjusted as means to this end. 
 
 The vitally important purposes which the 
 historical part of his instruction has to serve for 
 the scholar may perhaps be summed up as the 
 following : — 
 
 (i) To furnish pictures of human life, connected 
 with tales of human experience and types 
 of human conduct in the chief epochs and 
 anaong the chief races of mankind, and thus 
 {a) to provide the ideas which must be the 
 substratum of all the later work, (6) to 
 suggest and nourish those feelings of human 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 183 
 
 sympatlij and admiration whicli are of sucli 
 vital importance in forming tlie will, and 
 ultimately the character, of the child. 
 Such tales are to be found in the simplest 
 and most appropriate form in primitive 
 folk-stories and poems. 
 
 (ii) To give an outline of the story of the 
 British people, with clear pictures of repre- 
 sentative incidents and representative men 
 and women; and to connect this outline 
 with the state of the nation at the present 
 day. 
 
 (iii) To give some conception of the growth of 
 London and of its position now as the centre 
 of a world-wide commerce, and the capital 
 city of an immense dominion; and to take 
 advantage of every visible monument that 
 connects its present with its past. 
 
 (iv) To convey some idea of the long and difficult 
 process by which human civilisation has 
 come to be what it is, and of the debt under 
 which we lie to the great men of all nations. 
 
 (v) To give rudimentary notions of the way in 
 which the business of a great people is 
 carried on, and of the duties and opportuni- 
 ties which free citizenship implies, both in 
 our local and our national affairs. 
 
184 HISTORY IN 
 
 (vi) To explain, in an elementary way, how 
 History comes to be written, what are the 
 materials for it, and what is meant by 
 "evidence" for a supposed historical fact; 
 how History may be studied, where to look 
 for the best books, and how to carry on the 
 pursuit of it after the school life is over. 
 
 These may be taken as the main purposes of 
 History lessons in the Elementary Schools of 
 London. It is plain that only the most "element- 
 ary" points can be taken under each head, but it 
 is worth while to recollect that "elementary" in 
 this connexion ought not to mean merely the 
 easiest or the most commonplace, but the most 
 essential and the most fruitful parts of the study. 
 Careful selection must needs be made, and those 
 "elements" must be taken which are richest in 
 suggestion, and fullest of interest and of meaning. 
 Half a million of children are receiving instruction 
 under the School Board for London; and for the 
 immense majority of these, the instruction so 
 received will be the only systematic mental training 
 which they ivill get, all their lives long. It seems 
 clear, therefore, that nothing vital can safely be 
 omitted altogether, but at least a beginning must 
 be made of each indispensable topic. 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 185 
 
 By tlie amendment of Bye-Laws passed by tlie 
 Board on 18tli October, 1900, the age for com- 
 pulsory attendance was raised to fourteen, and the 
 standard for exemption was raised to YII. It will 
 therefore be safe to count on the mass of the 
 children remaining through the seven standards. 
 
 The following course of instruction is proposed 
 to meet these various points. 
 
v.— CONNECTED SYLLABUS OF LESSONS IN HISTORY, 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 Standards 
 I. & IL 
 
 *Standard 
 III. 
 
 *Standard 
 IV. 
 
 Standard 
 V. 
 
 Standard 
 VI. 
 
 Standard 
 VII. 
 
 Ex-VII. 
 
 Tales from the great national collections, such as " The 
 Sagas," "The Morte d' Arthur," "The Arabian Nights," 
 " The Poems of Homer," &c., to be illustrated by wall- 
 pictures, and to be told orally. 
 
 Representative scenes and persons from British History : 
 outline of the story of the British -people. 
 
 The same : but vnth fuller details — especially in refer • 
 ence to Scottish and Irish History. 
 
 Heroes and Heroines of European History, ancient and 
 modern, in peace and in war. 
 
 The growth of the British Empire, and of its capital, 
 London ; lives of the great discoverers, inventors and 
 Avarriors. First lessons on Citizenship. 
 
 Visits to the Tower, St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Thirty-five lessons on Citizenship, local and national. 
 Visits continued. 
 
 Thirty-five lessons on a special period of about thirty 
 years {e.g., the reign of Elizabeth, or the Long Parlia- 
 ment, or the Age of Anne), with reference to writings 
 of the time and visits to buildings and monuments ; 
 first notions on the materials of History and the use of 
 evidence. 
 
 Home Reading and the use of Libraries. 
 
 As in Standard VII. Varied series of special periods, 
 ancient and modern, British and Foreign. 
 
 * NOTE.^ — It will be seen that the History work allotted to Standards 
 III. and IV. is an outline of British History, with representative scenes in 
 detail. Some teachers will prefer to break this subject-matter into two 
 sections, and take the History from B.C. 55 to 1500 a.d. in Standard III., 
 and from 1500 A.D. to the present time in Standard IV. Others, adopting 
 
GEOGRAPHY, ENGLISH LITERATURE, AND MUSIC. 
 
 LITERATURE . 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 The same, with simple 
 tales in verse. All exer- 
 cises in " English" to be 
 connected with these. 
 
 Easy explanation of 
 terms arising out of 
 the tales. 
 
 The same, with easy verse, England 
 such as the " Loss of 
 the Royal George," &c. 
 
 The same. 
 
 Selections from the "Lays 
 of Ancient Rome " and 
 easy ballads, 
 
 "Lyra Heroica," 
 Southey's "Life of 
 Nelson," &c. 
 
 Standard works in prose 
 and verse from the 
 great writers of the 
 special period selected. 
 
 As in Standard VII. 
 Home Reading of 
 historical novels. 
 
 The British Isles 
 
 Eur 
 
 ope 
 
 The Port of London, 
 commercial routes, 
 steamer lines, sketch 
 of the British Empire. 
 
 Connexion of Geography 
 and History : influence 
 of climate and soil on 
 national life and in- 
 dustry ; effects of great 
 mountain ranges, seas, 
 and rivers, &c. 
 
 Advanced study of 
 Physical Geography 
 and of the History of 
 Geographical Discovery, 
 
 Commercial Geography. 
 
 Easy old English 
 airs. 
 
 Simple national 
 songs of Eng- 
 land and Eng- 
 lish Life, 
 
 Songs of Eng- 
 land, Scotland, 
 Ireland, and 
 Wales. 
 
 Easy songs of all 
 nations. 
 
 Dibdin's sea- 
 songs, &c. 
 
 More difficult 
 songs of all 
 nations. 
 
 the "concentric method," will prefer to cover the whole ground each 
 year, but with greater fulness and detail in the second than the first. 
 There is much to be said for both plans, and experiments in both should, 
 I think, be encouraged, and the results carefully compared. 
 
188 HISTORY IN 
 
 YI. How SHOULD THIS SyLLABUS BE DEALT WITH 
 
 IN THE Standards? 
 
 Experienced teacliers of tlie two lowest standards 
 seem to be pretty well agreed that oral teacliing 
 centred round large, brightly-coloured pictures is 
 by far tbe most effective. It was in tbis way that 
 Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, taugbt history to little 
 children. A great deal depends upon the selection 
 of the stories to be told. Theory and experience 
 are at one in showing that tales of " the childhood 
 of nations" are the fittest material, told as far as 
 possible in the manner of the old poets and 
 romancers. Such stories cannot be replaced by 
 modern substitutes; they are rich with old fancy 
 and adventure, and preserve the living spirit of 
 earlier ages. For this reason they are ''historical" 
 in a more important sense than any account of 
 actual events can be ; they are the " abstract and 
 brief chronicle of the time." Their spirit and 
 temper are akin to those of children ; the conditions 
 of human life which they depict are simple, 
 striking, and easily imagined. Story-telling of 
 this kind is a fine art, which needs constant practice 
 and the careful study of the great masters of 
 narrative ; but it is an art that delights both 
 teacher and taught, and it makes a lesson in litera- 
 ture as well as in history. Care should be taken 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 189 
 
 that tlie circumstances of tlie stories, tlie old ships 
 and weapons, and lioiises and raiment are fully- 
 realised by tlie children. It would be a great help 
 for such work if several series of pictures could be 
 prepared to illustrate the " Tale of Troy," and the 
 "Arabian Nights," and the " Romances of Chivalry 
 and the Crusades," together with books for the 
 teachers containing the stories in simple form. 
 
 In Standards III. and lY. a History Reader 
 might, for the first time, come into use, giving a 
 bright account of the story of the British people, 
 with a few of the most important scenes in detail. 
 At this stage, as in the two first standards, illustra- 
 tions are an indispensable aid to interest and to 
 memory. The magic lantern for certain purposes 
 is the best of all illustrators. I gather from enquiry 
 among teachers in London that its use has been 
 found to enliven history work as nothing else can 
 do; but if it is to become part of the regular 
 apparatus of the subject, it follows that there 
 should be at least one lantern in every school; 
 that the supply of slides should be abundant, and 
 constantly renewed; and that a record should be 
 kept of those used in the different standards, with 
 notes on their varying effectiveness for teaching 
 purposes. Unless the slides are carefully adapted 
 to the actual lessons given and employed to re- 
 inforce the really important points, they become a 
 
190 HISTORY IN 
 
 mere show, wliicli, so far from leaving any per- 
 manent deposit in ^the mind, may even dissipate 
 attention. The Central and Divisional Offices of the 
 Board have already, I nnderstand, done much 
 valuable work in organising appliances for instruc- 
 tion. This work might with advantage be still 
 further extended, and a number of easily accessible 
 museums or collections of educational apparatus 
 established in different districts. The History 
 section of the Teachers' Guild Museum might yield 
 suggestions. 
 
 In Standard Y. a valuable set of lessons may be 
 given on the lives of representative heroes and 
 heroines of European History. The tendency 
 hitherto has been to confine the attention of the 
 children solely to their own country. Such a 
 tendency cannot be any more defensible in History 
 than it would be in Geography. It cannot but 
 tend to produce insularity of ideas, and to foster 
 that false form of patriotism which ignores or 
 despises other countries. A study of general 
 History, in however rudimentary a form, would 
 reveal the truth that Englishmen are under a debt 
 hardly less great to the people of other races than 
 to their own. A valuable help to teaching of this 
 kind would be afforded by a Calendar of Great 
 Men and Women, if such could be prepared by 
 teachers specially interested in this side of school 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 191 
 
 work. It miglit be grouped under tlie chief depart- 
 ments of liuman activity, and be representative of 
 every phase of the progress of mankind. 
 
 In this connexion, reference must again be made 
 to the valuable effect which might be produced by 
 a careful syllabus of lessons in the historical study 
 of the Scriptures. As three or four hours a week 
 are devoted to Scripture Lessons, it should be 
 possible to provide such a course without encroach- 
 ing on the expository or hortatory side of the 
 teaching of this subject. Indeed, lessons on the 
 history and geography of "Bible Lands" and 
 " Bible Nations " should be a stimulating variety, 
 more particularly if only the most interesting and 
 important points were taken, and if an attempt 
 were made to cover, in bold sweeps, a large stretch 
 of the history of antiquity, on its social and 
 picturesque side. The materials for illustrating 
 historical lessons on the Old and New Testament 
 are abundant and accessible to a degree far exceed- 
 ing those available for any other form of history. 
 The great Missionary Societies, the Exploration 
 Societies of Palestine, Egypt, and other Oriental 
 countries have produced pictures, books, photo- 
 graphs, and lantern slides in endless variety. 
 This is a side of the work in which all denomina- 
 tions, and indeed persons of every way of thinking, 
 could join with complete unanimity. Perhaps a 
 
192 HISTORY IN 
 
 reference to tlie Scripture Syllabus Committee in 
 this matter might lead to tlie drawing up of a 
 series of lessons on these lines, to cover the school 
 course from Standard III. to Standard YII., and 
 to embrace an elementary account of the Eastern 
 Empires and of the Greeks and Romans in special 
 relation to their connexion with the Hebrews and 
 the Holy Land. 
 
 One of the many problems of method which 
 beset a teacher in giving history lessons is this — 
 how are the children to be made active, and not 
 merely receptive, in such lessons. How is it 
 possible to provide them with things to do, corres- 
 ponding with map-drawing in Geography, composi- 
 tion in English Literature, and so forth? This 
 problem may be attacked in Standard Y., 
 partly by making the lesson in History an exercise 
 in the use of hooks of reference, and encouraging 
 pupils to "hunt things up" in dictionaries of 
 biography, and to consult the indexes of larger 
 works on History, kept in the school-library ; partly 
 by getting them to draw chronological charts for 
 themselves of a clear and simple kind, such as 
 Professor Miall describes in his helpful work 
 " Thirty Years of Teaching," or such as are set 
 forth in the essay on "Ancient History," in the 
 volume edited by Mr. P. A. Barnett, called "Teach- 
 ing and Organisation." Experience shows that 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 193 
 
 tlie making of such charts is a great pleasure to 
 scholars in Standard Y. and upwards, and that it 
 puts life and interest into the otherwise dreary 
 subject of ^' dates." 
 
 In Standard YI. the main idea of the course 
 might well be "London, as the Capital of a Great 
 Empire." The correlation of the History and the 
 Greography, which has been kept in mind 
 throughout, becomes specially fruitful here. It 
 should be understood, however, that the Geography 
 (as also the Literature), is meant to be 
 co-ordinated with, and not subordinated to, the 
 course of History lessons. Geography is a substan- 
 tive subject and ought not to be treated as merely 
 auxiliary to History. On the other hand, there is 
 every ground for taking the various topics of both 
 Geography and History in such an order that they 
 may mutually illustrate and reinforce one another 
 throughout the school-life. For these reasons, two 
 courses, of History and Geography respectively, 
 are educationally more valuable than a single 
 course of History and Geography blended. London 
 as a port and as a railway centre can only be 
 understood with constant reference to British 
 Commerce and British Colonies and Dependencies, 
 and these again imply connected notions on the 
 expansion of British Dominion. At this point the 
 children should be old enough, and advanced 
 
194 HISTORY IN 
 
 enough, to profit by visits to great monuments of 
 local and national History. Such visits are already 
 made in a good number of schools, and the teachers 
 with whom I have conversed on the subject speak 
 strongly of their valuable influence in quickening 
 interest and intelligence. I understand, however, 
 that there are difficulties in organising them. 
 Individual application in every case has to be made 
 to H.M. Inspector, and this implies some corres- 
 pondence and possible delay, which, if the visits 
 are to be systematised as a regular part of the 
 instruction in the upper standards, would amount 
 to a considerable impediment. It might be possible 
 to overcome this difficulty by working out a com- 
 plete scheme of such visits for the schools of 
 different districts, and by applying beforehand for 
 the sanction of H.M. Inspector for the arrange- 
 ments of a whole year. Another, and more serious 
 difficulty, is that of expense. In this point also 
 central management and regular contracts might 
 go far to diminish the obstacles in the way of an 
 extended use of this most stimulating means 
 of instruction. If rightly conducted, visits to 
 historical sites and buildings exert an influence 
 which no amount of mere talking or reading can 
 possibly produce. Like the slides of a magic 
 lantern, however, they easily degenerate into a 
 mere show, unless they are carefully led up to by 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 195 
 
 appropriate instruction, unless they are so managed 
 as to concentrate tlie scholars' attention upon 
 selected points of interest, and unless they are 
 made the basis, later on, of exercises in composi- 
 tion, and, wherever possible, in drawing. I have 
 watched experiments conducted in this way, and 
 my own experience confirms that of the London 
 teachers as to their extreme value. Expenses con- 
 nected with them ought to be regarded as in- 
 cidental to "practical" or "laboratory" work in 
 history, inasmuch as such visits bring the children 
 into sensible contact with things which, otherwise, 
 remain mere bookish abstractions. 
 
 In Standard YII. other elements besides those of 
 the picturesque and stirring may properly be intro- 
 duced. At this point, some attempt, however 
 brief and rudimentary, should be given to introduce 
 scholars to the " Science of History," and to some 
 concrete idea of how a history book comes to be 
 written, what materials the historian uses, and 
 what kind of evidence he has for his statements. 
 If visits to historical sites and collections are con- 
 tinued in this standard, lessons of this sort will be 
 easily interwoven with them, and even if only two 
 or three such lessons can be arranged for, will 
 have, as I can testify by experience, a lively 
 interest for the more intelligent of the scholars. 
 At this point systematic lessons on citizenship. 
 
196 HISTORY IN 
 
 local and national, and the liigli and responsible 
 duties wliich free government confers on every 
 Englishman, will come in their natural place, as 
 the practical application of what has been studied 
 in the lower classes. For these lessons the most 
 potent aid will be the corporate life of the school 
 itself. Where a school is so organised that the 
 older scholars have responsible functions in con- 
 nexion with its discipline and the management of 
 its library, clubs, and games, they get a training 
 for public duty, and in the management of common 
 interests, which can be obtained by no other means. 
 Work on committees, the election of officers, the 
 control of funds, the drawing of a balance-sheet of 
 a society's accounts, the management of a school 
 library, the selection of a cricket team — these and 
 similar activities give pupils an opportunity of 
 ruling and obeying, and of understanding, through 
 the government of their small commonwealth, the 
 essential principles of organisation on the grandest 
 scale. It is training of this kind which has formed 
 the most valuable element in the life of our famous 
 " Public Schools." 
 
 With the older scholars it will also be natural to 
 do all that is possible to start them in habits of 
 private study such as may be a life-long pleasure 
 to them. The use of a school-library may do much 
 towards this. But the intelligent study of history 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 197 
 
 in tlie highest classes will constantly entail the use 
 by the boys of a good reference library. Skilful 
 teachers often set questions "to be looked up/' 
 and encourage in every way the habit of consulting 
 books other than mere school text-books, and such 
 work is of great value. So also is the kindly effort 
 of those who form reading circles in connection 
 with the National Home Reading Union, which 
 may be carried on after the boys leave school. Of 
 all the subjects in the school curriculum, History 
 perhaps lends itself better than any to home- 
 reading, and to the cultivation of the reading 
 habit. It would undoubtedly greatly further this 
 desirable end if scholars were freely allowed to 
 take their history books home with them, and, if in 
 the upper classes at least, they were provided with 
 books of a good size, of which it should be under- 
 stood that only parts were to be read in school, 
 and the remainder studied at home. 
 
 Much, also, might be done by strengthening the 
 Teachers' Libraries by the addition of such books 
 as illustrate the original sources of History and 
 methods of teaching it — e.g., Miss Dodd's " Intro- 
 duction to Herbartian Principles of Teaching." 
 Extracts from, and facsimiles of, original docu- 
 ments, photographs, casts of coins and medals, etc., 
 all serve a useful purpose. 
 
 Other subordinate aids have been successfully 
 
198 HISTORY IN 
 
 employed by enthusiastic teacliers. ''History in 
 the Making," ''History Day by Day," "Current 
 Events," are sometimes illustrated by an " Events 
 Board," on wbicli extracts and pictures from news- 
 papers may be posted up. Children readily co- 
 operate in a plan of this kind. 
 
 Of high value, also, are the celebrations — quietly 
 and discreetly carried out — of great national events 
 and national anniversaries. If care is taken that 
 they appeal to the thought and the responsibility 
 of children, as well as to their love of excitement, 
 they may give rise to lasting impressions of a 
 common share in the life of a great human society. 
 Such impressions relieve the routine of the school 
 programme, and help to colour the whole round of 
 school duties. Music and song may be a powerful 
 aid to this purpose, and it will be noticed that in 
 the syllabus proposed an essential element has been 
 the study of old national melodies, many of which 
 are as beautiful as they are simple and strong. 
 Such melodies have a powerful influence, not only 
 in rousing but also in refining the feelings of 
 children. Their value to the school is twofold; 
 they supply a form of music infinitely superior to 
 the fourth-rate tunes specially written down to a 
 mistaken idea of the taste of our schools, and also 
 they illustrate much of our history and of old 
 English social life. Dibdin's "Sea Songs" make 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 199 
 
 a stirring accompaniment to tlie story of Britisli 
 enterprise and adventure. Tlie Jacobite Songs 
 give life to lessons on the first lialf of tlie IStli 
 century. The old Hunting Airs and Country Songs 
 bring a wliolesome and bracing influence into close 
 urban scbool-rooms. So, also, tbe national and 
 favourite melodies of foreign nations may be used 
 to illustrate tbeir characteristics and their history. 
 The abundance, variety, and musical richness of 
 the " Folk Melodies," used in German Elementary 
 Schools, may well attract the attention of English 
 students of education. 
 
 In Higher Elementary Schools and in Evening 
 Continuation Schools, the work of the standards 
 will naturally be continued and deepened, partly 
 by a second complete survey of British History in 
 outline ; partly, by the study of special periods, so 
 far as possible with reference to original authori- 
 ties, both in British and in Foreign, Ancient as 
 well as Modern History ; partly by a more detailed 
 study of economics and of the functions and duties 
 of the English freeman, such as is scheduled in 
 the code for Evening Continuation Schools. A 
 great deal has already been done to make the 
 teaching of History an important subject in the 
 Evening Schools of the London Board. Possibly 
 the use, in a simple form, of "laboratory'' or 
 " research " methods in addition to lectures, would 
 
200 HISTORY IN 
 
 quicken tlie active interest of the scholars in this 
 subject. Here, also, as in the Day School, much 
 depends on the right use of concrete and 
 picturesque illustrations. Throughout the course 
 of study one might take as one's guiding principle 
 a saying of Professor Seeley's slightly modified : — 
 
 "Without History, Citizenship has no root; with- 
 out Citizenship, History has no fruit." 
 
 It is because of its bearing on the future of our 
 civic and national life, even more than an account 
 of its value to the imagination and the under- 
 standing, that the study of History may claim an 
 honoured place on the time-table of our Primary 
 Schools. 
 
 If the syllabus given above is accepted as a 
 " skeleton," it will be for every school to put flesh 
 and blood between its dry bones, by drawing out 
 and submitting schemes of lessons for each 
 standard. These schemes will represent the 
 particular needs of different localities, and of 
 different types of scholars, together with the 
 individual interests and enthusiasms of teachers. 
 They will distinguish carefully between the work 
 done as " reading " with a " Reading Book," and 
 the " lessons " on special topics delivered orally. 
 They will show the variety and freedom which 
 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 201 
 
 alone can make a syllabus live and move, while, at 
 the same time, they will pursue the great chief 
 aims, and conform to the main principles, which 
 should be common to history-teaching in all 
 schools, and which have been expressed in the 
 outline-syllabus. In some such way as this the 
 extremes alike of anarchy and of rigidity in the 
 work may be avoided. 
 
New Authorities 
 in Education 
 
THE NEW AUTHORITIES IN 
 ENGLISH EDUCATION. 
 
 The point whicli England has reached in the 
 task of organising her education is critical. We 
 require to understand exactly what the state of 
 things is now, what the object is that we wish to 
 achieve, and what are the means proposed for its 
 achievement. If we could only secure that English 
 children should be brought up in the best way 
 practicable, it would make a quite infinite 
 difference to them and to the future of the country. 
 About that we are agreed. At present they are 
 being brought up, for the most part, in ways that 
 are far from the best possible, and that might be 
 improved promptly. About that we are agreed. 
 What we want, at this moment, is to look carefully, 
 so that when the time comes we may leap boldly. 
 If we do not look carefully now, it will not save us 
 that, when the time comes, we leap feebly and 
 nervously, or, worse still, haltingly shift our feet 
 on an impossible position. 
 
 We need, then, first, a clear idea of our object ; 
 second, an accurate knowledge of our position and 
 resources (to be reached by a process of comparison 
 with those of other nations) ; and third, a vigorous 
 
206 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 adjustment of every ounce of our means to the 
 achievement of our end; — we need clear strategy, 
 thorougli reconnaissance, appropriate and energetic 
 tactics. Above all, we require, wlien tlie liour for 
 action arrives, to subordinate any " political " or 
 " official " ends to the educational end, just as, in 
 another field, we ought to subordinate them to the 
 military end. 
 
 I. 
 
 Our object is to improve our education. The 
 point in which it most conspicuously calls for 
 improvement is universally acknowledged, although 
 it is somewhat variously expressed and defined. 
 The Earl of Rosebery, in a speech at Chatham on 
 the 22nd January, 1900, puts it in this way: — "I 
 humbly think that in this country we live a great 
 deal too much from hand to mouth. We do not 
 proceed by scientific method. We go on the 
 principle that things have carried us so well so far, 
 that we are a noble nation, that we are pretty 
 numerous, and that we have always muddled out 
 right in the end. . . . But I say this : that 
 we are a people of enormous waste. We waste 
 simply by not pursuing scientific methods. . 
 Germany is infinitely more painstaking and 
 scientific in its methods than we are. ... In 
 commerce, in education, and in war, we are not 
 methodical, we are not scientific, we are not 
 abreast of the more advanced nations of the day. 
 
IN EDUCATION 207 
 
 And if we want to keep our place, we shall have to 
 consider the lessons we have been taught in this 
 respect. Depend upon it, however brilliant you 
 may be, the tortoise of investigation, method, and 
 preparation will always catch up and overtake the 
 hare, which leaves everything to the inspiration 
 and effort of the moment." 
 
 Our education, says Lord Eosebery in effect, like 
 our other activities, suffers from our " hand to 
 mouth " or " rule of thumb " way of doing things, 
 a way which is always dangerously wasteful and 
 clumsy, but is certainly fatal when it has to deal 
 with circumstances wholly new and exceedingly 
 complex, such as have never been thumbed or 
 handled before. What we need, he adds, is 
 '' investigation, method, preparation." 
 
 This is no fresh discovery. A complete 
 generation has passed away since Matthew Arnold 
 proclaimed it, importunely, opportunely, in Blue 
 Books, and Reviews, and wherever he could get a 
 hearing. It is nearly i thirty-two years ago that 
 he wrote as follows: — "The idea of science and 
 systematic knowledge is wanting to our whole in- 
 struction alike, and not only to that of our business 
 class. While this idea is getting more and more 
 power upon the Continent, and while its application 
 there is leading to more and more considerable 
 results, we in England, having done marvels by 
 the rule of thumb, are still inclined to disbelieve 
 
 1. 1868, in "Schools and Universities on the Continent." 
 
208 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 in tlie paramount importance, in whatever depart- 
 ment, of any other. And yet in Germany everyone 
 will tell yon that the explanation of the late 
 astonishing achievements of Prussia is simply that 
 everyone concerned in them had thoroughlj^ learnt 
 his business on the best plan by which it was 
 possible to teach it to him. In nothing do England 
 and the Continent at the present moment more 
 strikingly differ than in the prominence which is 
 now given to the idea of science there, and the 
 neglect in which this idea still lies here ; a neglect 
 so great that we hardly even know the use of the 
 word science in the strict sense, and only employ it 
 in a secondary and incorrect sense." 
 
 What our chief and most dangerous deficiency 
 was, in Matthew Arnold's eyes, in 1868, that it 
 still remains, in Lord Rosebery's, in 1900. Both, 
 in different ways, are exceptionally gifted, and 
 exceptionally experienced observers; both arrive 
 at the same conclusion. What we lack is " in- 
 vestigation, method, preparation," painstaking and 
 scientific method," *'the idea of science, and 
 systematic knowledge." 
 
 It is indispensable, before we go further, that 
 we should be clear as to what both these critics 
 mean by " science " and " scientific method." Tor, 
 most unhappily, what Matthew Arnold called the 
 " incorrect and secondary " sense of the terms is 
 still mainly prevalent in this country. Science 
 ought not to mean "natural science" alone, but 
 
IN EDUCATION 209 
 
 tlie whole body of systematic knowledge, whether 
 in the "humanities" or in "nature-studies." 
 There is a science of history, and of literary 
 criticism, and of law, and of every kind of human 
 activity just as truly as there is a science of 
 zoology or of chemistry. Scientific method, it is 
 true, differs in its applications, though not in its 
 ultimate principles, with the various subject- 
 matters of which it treats. It is of the essence of 
 scientific method (which means the best-informed, 
 the most flexible, the most rational method) that it 
 should so differ. And just because scientific method 
 varies, it becomes essential that a "man of science" 
 should have an all-round liberal training before he 
 devotes himself to his " specialist " study. Other- 
 wise he is likely to be unscientific in every province 
 but his own. 
 
 By " science," then, our two critics mean that 
 intelligent habit of mind which leads to "investiga- 
 tion, method, preparation," a " painstaking and 
 systematic" treatment of the subject, whatever it 
 be, which it is called upon to deal with. In this 
 sense, the " scientifically " minded man is one with 
 a trained power of thought, an aptitude for the 
 careful collection and comparison of data, and an 
 ability for concentrated reflection upon the data 
 so obtained. One can tell in five minutes whether 
 a man has this habit of mind or not, by the way in 
 which he will address himself to a new book or a 
 strange fact. He has a trained instinct for the 
 
210 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 appropriate method required by tlie particular in- 
 vestigation ; if he has not the requisite knowledge, 
 he knows at least that he does not know. And 
 further, he knows where, and how, he can get to 
 know the best that has been hitherto thought and 
 written upon the subject, and what kind and 
 degree of certainty he will be able to reach in 
 regard to the problem which occupies him. He 
 knows that men have arrived at mastery over them- 
 selves and over nature by a severe effort to see 
 things as they truly are and by the play of high 
 imagination and intense reflection upon things 
 thus truly seen. By no other process will he expect 
 results of any value either from himself or from 
 others. 
 
 All this is a thrice-told tale. It was put by 
 Plato and by Aristotle with a clearness to which 
 we " moderns " can add nothing. It is only 
 repeated here in order that we may formulate again 
 what it is that we are aiming at when we say that 
 we want to improve our education. 
 
 We are aiming to produce a certain habit of 
 mind, the habit of "investigation, method, and 
 preparation " applied in their appropriate forms to 
 the various aspects of the whole body of systematic 
 knowledge, a habit which shows itself, first, in a 
 many-sided interest, and secondly, in a many-sided 
 capability, a habit which results in a mastery over 
 self and a mastery over things. 
 
 Such a statement of our end will supply us with 
 
IN EDUCATION 211 
 
 a touclistoiie by wliicli we can very readily judge 
 tlie worth of our present system of education in its 
 different parts, and also the worth of certain 
 proposals which are being made for its improve- 
 ment. But before we proceed to apply the touch- 
 stone, it is necessary to stay for a moment to 
 consider in what sense Englishmen would be 
 willing to accept this as a statement of the end at 
 which they are aiming in their efforts after a better 
 education. It must be admitted at once that 
 Englishmen care little or nothing for such an end 
 viewed as mere " culture," or " knowledge for the 
 sake of knowledge," or under any of the other 
 forms which appeal to the German mind so 
 strongly. It is not natural or attractive to them 
 in such a guise. They view education not as an 
 end in itself, but sometimes as a matter of religion, 
 sometimes as a matter of society, sometimes as a 
 matter of commercial or industrial effectiveness. 
 " Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make 
 you free," appeals to an Englishman. So does, 
 '' He that hateth instruction loves death." He is 
 touched also when he is pulled up short in any of 
 his numerous activities by lack of the requisite 
 knowledge to go further. He hates a "muff" and 
 a blunderer, and he is quick to see when anybody 
 outdoes him in some dexterity by better knowledge. 
 Above all, international rivalry, whether in war or 
 in trade, puts him upon his mettle, and, in time, 
 drives him to " go into training " and to " get the 
 
212 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 thing up." Nor need tlie Englisliman be ashamed 
 of this way of regarding education. It was from 
 the point of view of the "polity" that Plato and 
 Aristotle looked at it; it is in its relation to the 
 "social organism" that much modern speculation 
 looks at it. A community of men, a " social 
 organism," is a living body which must — like any 
 other living body — harmonise its nature with its 
 environment and its environment with its nature. 
 Every living thing is called upon for a ceaseless 
 effort of adaptation; when the effort slackens, the 
 live thing grows old; when the effort ceases, the 
 live thing dies. In a " social organism" this 
 adaptive effort is exerted chiefly upon its still 
 growing tissue, that is upon its younger members, 
 who are, as it were, plastic and susceptible to vital 
 change. Education, thus regarded, is the instinc- 
 tive eifort which the social body makes to adapt 
 itself to vital needs. A right habit of mind then 
 becomes no mere accomplishment or grace, it is a 
 condition of continued national vitality. We must 
 as a nation get to know the truth, and transform 
 ourselves in conformity with it, or else pay the 
 penalty and go under to nations more far-seeing 
 and more energetic. This is the way in which 
 Matthew Arnold put it to us thirty years ago, and 
 this is the way Lord Itosebery put it to us the other 
 day. We must adapt ourselves to our environment, 
 or prepare for senility and death. But consider 
 what an enviro ment that strange organism has 
 
IN EDUCATION 213 
 
 wliicli we call tlie Britisli nation. Its environment 
 is formed not merely by " natural forces," nor by 
 tbe pressure of competing national organisms, but 
 also by its own destiny and tlie position which it 
 has won for itself in the world. Consider its vast 
 complexity : our Oriental religion, our literature, 
 learning, and language drawn in great part from 
 the civilisation of ancient Greece and Rome, our 
 Teutonic constitution and manners, our modern 
 material enterprise, our huge plexus of industrial 
 and colonial activities. Such an environment 
 requires not merely a stupendous output of energy, 
 but, by its constantlv increasing complexity, calls 
 for a more and more complicated and careful 
 study, a growing flexibility and versatility of 
 mind. 
 
 It is this call that our education seeks to answer ; 
 it is because the answer is inadequate that we 
 endeavour to improve our education. We need 
 stability of character, we need energy; but these 
 qualities we may, with some warrant, claim in a 
 great measure to possess, and our education, as it 
 exists, does much to foster them. But we also 
 need a trained intelligence, a power of severe and 
 concentrated reflection, a many-sided interest and 
 a many-sided capability, a habit of mind flexible 
 and versatile, resourceful, and apt for " investiga- 
 tion, method, and preparation." These are qualities 
 which we acknowledge that we plentifully lack. 
 But we must work for them, for they are the pre- 
 
214 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 requisites of successful national vitality in tlie case 
 of a nation with so complex an environment as 
 ours. And we must judge proposed improvements 
 in our education by constantly enquiring how far 
 they are likely to conduce to this desirable habit 
 of mind. 
 
 II. 
 
 We have stated our end, we have got our touch- 
 stone. But before we proceed to apply it to the 
 criticism of proposals shortly to be laid before the 
 country through Parliament, we must first very 
 briefly survey our present position and forces. We 
 must reconnoitre the ground before we can begin 
 satisfactorily to consider how our means are to be 
 adjusted to our acknowledged purpose. 
 
 Our opportunities of making such a reconnaiss- 
 ance are becoming rapidly greater than they were. 
 For primary Education we have the Reports issued 
 yearly by the Education Department. For 
 Secondary Education we have the Report of the 
 Royal Commission (generally quoted as the '' Bryce 
 Commission") in 1895; we have Mr. Graham 
 Balfour's admirable book '' The Educational 
 Systems of Great Britain and Ireland," published 
 in 1898 ; we have the excellent series of '^ Special 
 Reports on Educational Subjects," which, under 
 the editorship of Mr. M. E. Sadler, have served as 
 the Reports of an Intelligence Department for 
 Education. But, if we are to apply here also our 
 
IN EDUCATION 215 
 
 main guiding principle and to admit tliat what we 
 chiefly need is " investigation, method, prepara- 
 tion," and "systematic knowledge," we must a£&rm, 
 at tlie very outset, that what is first wanted is a 
 Central Department for Secondary Education, so 
 manned and equipped that it may give, with 
 authority, and after a clear review of actual facts, 
 such a description of the present state of our 
 Secondary Schools as may enable us to deal with 
 them according to knowledge.^ We have not yet 
 got a lucid and complete account of the different 
 agencies and institutions, private, proprietary, and 
 endowed, which are at work in higher education. 
 We are still labouring largely in the dark, '' hand 
 to mouth," by "rule of thumb," in the hope that 
 we may " muddle out right in the end." 
 
 At the very outset of our reconnaissance, there- 
 fore, we are forced to confess that we do not pro- 
 perly know the country, and that we have no 
 authoritative and trustworthy map of it. The 
 "scientific habit of mind" obliges us to begin by 
 saying that, before anything else is done, we must 
 call for the prompt making of such a map, founded 
 on a survey to be carried out by the only possible 
 authority, viz., an adequately manned and equipped 
 Central Department of Secondary Education. 
 
 Of the schools at the two extremes, it is true, we 
 know fully enough for our purpose. The great 
 
 1. The Education Department Returns of Secondary and 
 other Schools of 1897 and 1898 are admittedly incomplete. 
 
216 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 Public Schools, the so-called non-local schools, 
 whose heads are represented at the Headmasters' 
 Conference, number about 25,000^ pupils. We 
 have ample information about them and their 
 courses of study, and their method of government. 
 The recently published lives of Edward Thring and 
 of R. H. Quick have given us a body of valuable 
 criticism from within. Those who know them best 
 would probably agree that the national defect 
 shows itself conspicuously in them. They have 
 bred generations of men possessed of energy and 
 stability of character and of the power to obey 
 and to command; but they not yet succeeded in 
 communicating to the general body of their pupils 
 a trained intellectual habit, an idea of scientific 
 method, a power of severe and concentrated 
 thinking, a many-sided interest and a many-sided 
 capability. But no one is better aware of it than 
 the masters of these great schools themselves; 
 nowhere more than in these schools has there been 
 of late years an effort made to come at the 
 causes of this defect, and, so far as possible, to 
 remove them. ^ The effort is not systematic, it is 
 not scientific. But the blame for the want of 
 "investigation, method, and preparation" in this 
 respect lies rather with the public at large and the 
 Universities than with the great schools. Oxford 
 
 1. About 24,000 in 1897. Vide " Educational Systems of 
 Great Britain and Ireland" (Graham Balfour), p. 157, footnote. 
 
 2. The recently held Education Exhibition at the Imperial 
 Institute gave ample proof of this. 
 
IN EDUCATION 217 
 
 and Cambridge have only recently begun to move 
 in tlie study of Education, and even now tliey have 
 no properly equipped Board of Studies in the 
 subject. The country has had no one to collect the 
 information and to do the thinking in matters of 
 Education, as it has had in matters of Law or 
 Medicine. A schoolmaster in full work can no 
 more adequately search and reflect upon the theory 
 and practice of his art than a busy doctor with a 
 large connexion can do. For the great schools, 
 what is needed is a thorough study of Education 
 at the Universities by men with sufficient leisure 
 and opportunity to get at the facts and reflect upon 
 them. There ought to be nothing in the genius or 
 the tradition of the great schools that should make 
 it impossible to graft upon the splendid public 
 spirit and energetic character, which they already 
 have, the scientific habit of mind and the idea of 
 systematic knowledge, in which they are still to 
 seek. 
 
 But these schools have all the resources which 
 wealth and influence can give them ; they are ably 
 led; they may be left to work out their own 
 salvation.^ 
 
 Passing from them to the Primary Schools, we 
 
 pass from a group of 25,000 pupils to a group of 
 
 1. I have said nothing about Girls' Schools at this point, 
 because there are no Girls' Schools which quite answer to 
 Eton, Winchester, and the like for boys. The sisters of the 
 I'ublic School boys are not yet to be found, in any great 
 numbers, at the Girls' High Schools, which correspond rather 
 to the great town Grammar Schools. 
 
218 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 5,500,000. Taking boys only, there are at least 
 100 in tlie Primary Schools for one in the Public 
 Schools. This great mass of children are under 
 instruction, roughly speaking, for six years, from 
 their fifth year to their eleventh. The conditions 
 under which this instruction is given are such that 
 it is extremely difficult to develop by its means 
 even the rudiments of that trained mental habit of 
 reasonable method which we have stated to be the 
 main object of our Education. There is no doubt, 
 however, that recent changes have all been in the 
 right direction; the substitution of inspection for 
 examination is greatly in favour of more intelligent 
 teaching. But a vast deal still remains to be done. 
 The curriculum of our Elementary Schools is at 
 once narrow and complicated, and the different 
 "subjects" are dealt with in an artificial and 
 mechanical way. Thus of the four "subjects" of 
 History, Geography, Elementary Nature Know- 
 ledge, and Elementary English, not more than two 
 may be taken in any one school. Yet it must be 
 clear that nothing is so likely to prevent the growth 
 of a " scientific " or " reasonable " type of mind as 
 to teach History without Geography, or Geography 
 without Nature Knowledge, or any one of the three 
 without the rudiments of an understanding of the 
 Grammar of the Mother Tongue. Again, some 
 sort of training in manual arts, treated rationally, 
 not mechanically (as in the Swedish form of wood- 
 work), is for young children an invaluable intro- 
 
IN EDUCATION 219 
 
 duction to sound habits of work in all subjects. A 
 boy wbo can cut cardboard or wood, accurately, for 
 the making of some simple, useful article, to a 
 design drawn and, at least in part, invented by 
 bimself, may be said to liave tbe root of sound 
 method in him. Yet manual training is not an 
 obligatory part of our primary instruction. 
 Drawing is taught in an abstract and dull form, 
 divorced from all connexion with actual life and 
 from concrete visible objects, and with little rela- 
 tion to either use or beauty. The pupil-Teacher 
 system— in spite of the strong recommendations of 
 the Departmental Committee of 1897 — remains, at 
 least in the rural schools, largely unreformed. The 
 employment of wholly unqualified teachers [under 
 Article 68 of the Code] is, in country districts, 
 largely on the increase. Of these teachers there 
 were 8,534 in 1893 and 15,136 in 1898.^ The large 
 use of unskilled labour and of child labonr for the 
 difficult work of instruction is mainly due to the 
 financial necessities of the Voluntary Schools. It 
 is a scandal to our national life that some business- 
 like compromise 2 has not yet been arranged 
 between sensible men of all ways of thinking, by 
 which the ecclesiastical quarrels, which cripple 
 half the schools of the country, might be smoothed 
 
 1. Education Department's Report for 1898-9, p. xxiv. 
 
 2. On some such lines as those suggested by Mr. T. Horsfall, 
 of Manchester, in his important pamphlet " Reforms needed in 
 our System of Elementary Education," published by J. E. 
 Cornish in 1897. 
 
220 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 over or adjusted. As it is, Yoluntary Scliools 
 refuse local control, and thereby siiut themselves 
 out from the aid of local rates. And this necess- 
 arily implies the lack of means for further progress. 
 The denominational difficulty appears again in the 
 inadequate supply of Training Colleges for Primary 
 Teachers. Most of the old Residential Colleges, 
 with the notable exception of those founded by the 
 British and Foreign School Society, were largely 
 built with denominational funds, and they are 
 preserved for denominational purposes by the 
 imposition of a test on entrance. The new type of 
 Training College — the so-called Day Training 
 Colleges, affiliated to Universities — receive a grant 
 at a rate much below that assigned to the old type, 
 and are, therefore, unable to meet at all adequately 
 the lack of accommodation. In the meantime the 
 Primary Schools continue to be staffed to a very 
 large degree by unskilled, or half -trained, teachers. ^ 
 This is strikingly at variance with the state of 
 things in Trance and Germany, and must plainly 
 be remedied, if we are in earnest in wishing to see 
 the " idea of sj^stematic knowledge " more widely 
 diffused among our population. 
 
 Just at this moment, however, public interest is 
 mainly concentrated upon the large body of schools 
 which lie between the great Public Schools on one 
 
 1. The figures for 1898 were 59,874 certificated teachers, 
 26,736 uncertificated assistants, 31,038 pupil-teachers, and 
 15,136 " additional" [i.e., unqualified) teachers, under Article 68. 
 
IN EDUCATION 221 
 
 side and tlie Primary Schools on tlie otlier. This 
 is a dim region, a debatable land, of wbicb, as has 
 already been said, we possess no complete and 
 authoritative survey. Mr. Sadler's Intelligence 
 Department, if one may so call it, has done all that 
 was possible — without full powers — to get at the 
 statistics ; and we may say roughly that, boys and 
 girls together, there are about 300,000 pupils now 
 at work in such schools. The condition of these 
 schools, in respect of curriculum, staff, equipment, 
 and administration, varies enormously. The 
 Endowed Schools have, without doubt, made con- 
 spicuous progress since the Taunton Commission 
 reported in 1869; great things in the last quarter 
 of the century have been done by Proprietary 
 Schools, especially for Girls, under the guidance 
 of such associations as the Girls' Public Day School 
 Company. Some remarkable experiments have 
 been made by Private Schools, such as those which 
 M. Edmond Demolins so vivaciously described in 
 his notable book, "A quoi tient la superiorite des 
 Anglo-Saxons" [Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1897]. But 
 the Eeport of the Eoyal Commission in 1895 again 
 affirmed, upon the evidence collected by them, that 
 which was the common belief of qualified observers, 
 that the condition of our Secondary Schools left 
 much to be desired, and much that was, with 
 proper organisation, capable of prompt improve- 
 ment. The defects might be classified as defects 
 of {a) administration, (6) staff, (c) buildings and 
 
222 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 equipment, (J) instruction. As to (a) tlie main 
 defect arises from want of any connexion or co- 
 ordination between authorities. This is true, not 
 only of the authorities of single institutions, but 
 even of those public authorities which deal with 
 many different institutions. Thus Educational 
 Endowments, yielding an income of about £700,000 
 per annum, are under the general control of the 
 Charity Commissioners, who have issued new 
 schemes for so many of the old Grammar Schools. 
 But the Charity Commissioners have no official 
 connection whatever with another public authority, 
 the School Boards, which in many places have been 
 supplying, through the so-called Higher Grade 
 Schools, a type of education which they believed, 
 rightly or wrongly, that the old Grammar Schools 
 neither could nor would provide. This new type 
 has undoubtedly drawn pupils away from the older 
 schools. Thus in the same district, public authori- 
 ties are, with public money, organising rival 
 institutions — a confused and wasteful system, 
 certainly not "scientific" in Lord Rosebery's sense. 
 There are, however, other authorities in the field, 
 who render the confusion worse confounded. The 
 Science and Art Department, after contenting 
 itself, for some years, with o:ffering certificates and 
 grants to classes, or groups of classes, began in 
 1872 to encourage the formation of Organised 
 Science Schools (now called Schools of Science), in 
 which a continuous course of Scientific Instruction 
 
IN EDUCATION 223 
 
 sliould be given througli several years. At first 
 the growth of these schools was extremely slow. 
 In 1885 there were ^ only three of them ; in 1895, 
 however, there were 112; and in 1897 there were 
 169. By means of the large bounty which the 
 Department had the means of putting on to their 
 own subjects [amounting in Schools of Science to 
 about £6 per pupil per annum] they were able to 
 hold out great inducements to governing bodies, 
 and to enable their schools to compete on very 
 advantageous terms with others which offered 
 either a course mainly classical, or a course mainly 
 in modern languages and in commercial subjects. 
 The hold which the Department thus secured upon 
 the field of Secondary Education was greatly 
 strengthened by the Technical Instruction Act of 
 1889, which makes the Science and Art Department 
 '' the central authority which decides in the case of 
 schools and institutions, or between schools and 
 local authorities, on questions of distribution or 
 grants, sufficiency of provision, and representation 
 on governing bodies." ^ This linked them to the 
 fourth kind of public authority which now entered 
 upon the distracted scene — the Technical Instruc- 
 tion Committees of County Councils, which 
 administer a sum of about £700,000 a year, for the 
 promotion of "Technical" subjects in classes and 
 
 1. Vide "Educational Systems of Great Britain and 
 Ireland," by Graham Balfour, p. 173. 
 
 2. Ibid, p. 181. 
 
224 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 scliools. This link was riveted further by tlie 
 famous Clause YI. of the Science and Art Depart- 
 ment's Directory. Besides these four authorities — 
 Charity Commission, School Boards, Science and 
 Art Department, and County Council Technical 
 Instruction Committees — there are certain examin- 
 ing bodies of high standing which, though they 
 have no funds to administer, or grants to offer (on 
 the contrary, they charge considerable fees for 
 their examinations), yet have great influence over 
 many Secondary Schools, and in practice largely 
 determine their curriculum and methods of study. 
 The chief of these are the Oxford and Cambridge 
 Joint Board, the Oxford Local Examinations 
 Board, the Cambridge Local Examinations 
 Board, the College of Preceptors, and perhaps we 
 might add, in respect of its Matriculation 
 Examination, the University of London. Working 
 with these different authorities there are a multi- 
 tude of public and private agencies, with an 
 endless variety of institutions. Variety and 
 spontaneity in this region of English Education 
 are elements of extreme value, but they are char- 
 acteristics also of an " unweeded garden." It 
 should be quite possible to preserve them, and at 
 the same time introduce some order into the chaos, 
 something more " systematic and scientific," which 
 should at least give us clear information as to 
 the full nature and extent of our resources, and 
 make suggestions as to the most economical and 
 
IN EDUCATION 225 
 
 effectual ways of employing them. If we could 
 only get this wilderness tliorouglily mapped and 
 surveyed, it would be something towards a wiser 
 treatment of it. For tliis purpose we need an 
 adequate central authority for secondary education, 
 linked with adequate local authorities. Each must 
 be so equipped and manned as to take supervision 
 of the whole field, of such high character and clear 
 impartiality as to command the confidence of 
 School Boards, Technical Authorities, Charity 
 Commissioners, Universities, and Schools of all 
 descriptions and types, and of such ability and 
 experience as to be able to give general direction 
 to concentrated efforts after our essential purpose : 
 viz., the creation and diffusion among our people 
 of '' an idea of systematic knowledge," and of 
 '^ sound and intellectual habit." 
 
 Defects (6), (c) and [d), in staff, curriculum, and 
 buildings and equipment, can only very briefly be 
 treated here. It is plain that, as Mr. Bryce pointed 
 out eight years ago (in ^' Studies in Secondary 
 Education") everything must turn upon our 
 gradually obtaining a body of teachers so trained 
 as to make the mental habit, many-sided interest 
 and many-sided capability, the power of con- 
 centrated thought, of ^^ investigation, method, and 
 preparation," the main object of their work, instead 
 of the present ceaseless cramming for unwisely 
 conducted examinations. The registration and 
 training of qualified teachers, the supervision of 
 
226 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 examination and inspection, are clearly functions 
 of a strong central authority for Secondar}^ 
 Education. Without these, we shall have gained 
 little or nothing. The same applies to the registra- 
 tion of efficient schools, and to the inspection of 
 buildings and equipment. These duties need not 
 all be carried out in detail by the central authority, 
 which may very well delegate some of its powers 
 to bodies of competent academic standing. But it 
 is for the central authority to assure itself that 
 their academic standing is competent, and that 
 they are conducting examinations and inspections 
 upon intelligible principles, clearly related to the 
 great end of all our educational efforts. If, in this 
 way, we have once established a high authoritative 
 Department, able to collect and to publish in- 
 formation and to call for explanations, its very 
 existence will put all lesser bodies into some kind 
 of relation to itself, and therefore to one another, 
 and we shall be well on our way to an organised 
 variety of education, as distinct on the one side 
 from our present chaos, and on the other from a 
 dead and monotonous uniformity, such as follows 
 from an " over-centralised " system. 
 
 III. 
 
 When we come to consider, in the light first of 
 the true purpose of educational reform, and second 
 of the existing state of our resources (so far as they 
 
IN EDUCATION 227 
 
 are known), tlie proposed action of the Government 
 in regard to secondary education, we shall have 
 much reason for disquiet and for energetic effort 
 to secure its amendment. The Board of Education 
 Act takes effect from April 1, 1900. By that Act 
 a Central Authority in Education of all grades is 
 created. We have been officially promised (by the 
 Lord President of the Council) that the new 
 Department shall be organised in three sections, 
 with an assistant-secretary at the head of each, and 
 with a secretary-general at the head of the whole. 
 The three sections are to be Primary, Technological, 
 and Secondary. The Primary Section will be 
 practically the same in scope and powers as the 
 existing Education Department, and will administer 
 the Public Elementary Schools, in communication 
 with School Boards and Voluntary Managers, 
 throughout the country. The only point of 
 difficulty that is likely to arise in regard to its 
 '' sphere of influence " will come up in connection 
 with the Higher Grade Board Schools. Are these 
 to be treated as Secondary Schools, or as '' Ecoles 
 Primaires Superieures " ? There is much to be 
 said on both sides, but in all probability least dis- 
 location and confusion will be caused by keeping 
 them under the Primary Section. But it will be 
 one of the most delicate functions of the Secretary- 
 General to secure that these schools may be so 
 administered as not to overlap in a wasteful and 
 mischievous manner with Secondary Schools in 
 
228 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 their neiglibourliood, but to fulfil their true 
 functions as Higher Primary Schools. But as 
 between the other two sections of the new Board- — 
 the Technological and the Secondary — there is 
 grave risk that the Government action may do 
 more harm than good, and may serve to perpetuate 
 just exactly those evils of confusion and mis- 
 understanding which rendered the work of re- 
 organisation so plainly necessary. The functions 
 of a Technological Section are clear. It should 
 deal with pupils whose general, or "liberal," educa- 
 tion is completed, and who have begun to specialise 
 in some special branch of "applied science" — such 
 as engineering, or agriculture, or chemical manu- 
 facture. It is a specialist section, and by its very 
 point of view is precluded from superintending an 
 "all round" course of study, whether that course 
 of study has science as its centre, or whether it has 
 modern languages and commercial subjects, or, 
 again, the " humanities " and literature as its main 
 staple. A technological course pre-supposes a good 
 " all-round " education, and must be ineffectual 
 without it. Everyone is agreed upon that. And 
 in these days when we are being called upon (with 
 some plausibility) to " Germanise " ^ our education, 
 we cannot too often remind ourselves that the 
 German Secondary Schools are not technological 
 in character. Anyone who takes the trouble to 
 
 1. e.g., by Sir Swire Smith, at the meeting of the Associa- 
 tion of Technical Institutes, January, 1900. 
 
IN EDUCATION 229 
 
 read Mr. Sadler's admirable account of the Higher 
 Schools in Prussia (published in the Education 
 Department's '' Special Reports ") can see from the 
 detailed account of curriculum and time-table, and 
 from the statistics of school-numbers, first that the 
 majority of Prussian High Schools are still 
 "Gymnasien," with a course of study mainly 
 classical and humanistic, though wider and more 
 liberal than that of most of our classical schools, 
 and second that the minority, the Real-Schulen, 
 have, as the staple of their course, not so much 
 natural science, though that is thoroughly taught, 
 as modern languages, with history and geography. 
 IsTow, no step could well be more fatal than to 
 ^* technologise " (if one may use a bad term for a 
 bad thing) our Secondary Schools. Nothing could 
 be more opposed to the German practice. The 
 Science and Art Department has hitherto, through 
 no fault of its own, constantly been placed in false 
 positions. It was called upon to draw up schemes 
 of drawing for Primary Schools, knowing nothing 
 of Primary Schools, nor of the very peculiar educa- 
 tional problem which is involved in the devising of 
 schemes of drawing for little children between tho 
 ages of five and twelve. Therefore, its schemes 
 have been, in great degree, a failure, and the 
 Department has very properly been relieved of so 
 inappropriate a function. So again, by the force 
 of circumstances, and in sheer absence of any other 
 central authority, the same Department has had 
 
230 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 Secondary Schools of a certain type under its 
 control. It .was never officered nor equipped to 
 deal with an " all round " education, and therefore 
 its administration of Secondary Schools has been 
 inevitably one-sided, and its examinations have 
 fostered, not the "scientific spirit" and "the idea 
 of systematic knowledge," but the very opposite of 
 these qualities. We need not blame the Depart- 
 ment for this, any more than we can reasonably 
 blame an officer of infantry, who is put to 
 administer the ordnance, if he does not successfully 
 manage artillery. It is the system of organisation, 
 in both cases, which is to blame. In both cases 
 our clear duty is to extricate well-intentioned 
 officials from impossible situations, and to leave 
 them to the discharge of their proper functions. 
 If the Science and Art Department, in its new 
 guise as the Technological Section of the Office of 
 Education is left in charge of the so-called Schools 
 of Science, with a grant at its disposal which 
 enables it to offer a bounty of £5 a head or more 
 per annum on all pupils who adopt its curriculum ; 
 while on the other hand the Secondary Section is 
 inadequately manned and unprovided with funds, 
 then the new organisation will be a cause of much 
 evil to English education. 
 
 Exactly the same danger threatens in another 
 direction. The Government foreshadows, in the 
 Queen's Speech, legislation by which local authori- 
 ties will be established definitely for Secondary 
 
IN EDUCATION 231 
 
 Ediicatioii. The promise is so worded as to suggest 
 tliat it is intended to recognise the existing 
 Technical Instruction Committees of County 
 Councils as the local authorities. But these com- 
 mittees were appointed, and their " organising 
 secretaries " selected, for very di:Kerent functions. 
 It is true that they have done much for Secondary 
 Schools, and much that they have done has been 
 highly beneficial. But it is notorious that in many 
 cases they have adopted a very decided line of 
 educational policy which has brought them into 
 conflict, open or concealed, on the one hand with 
 School Boards and on the other hand with the 
 authorities of Secondary Schools. They have created 
 institutions of their own, which they very reason- 
 ably do their best to foster; but, in so doing they 
 put themselves more or less in competition with 
 other bodies, who also have institutions of their 
 own. These bodies will very naturally be aggrieved 
 if their competitors are, by law, set in authority 
 over them. They have, on the whole, taken a 
 " technological " line, a very useful line, no doubt, 
 but a " specialist " line, wholly distinct from that 
 which is required in dealing with the great bod}^ 
 of Secondary Schools. The ''technological" view 
 is supplementary to a secondary education; if 
 prematurely introduced, it is inimical to a 
 secondary education and incompatible with it. If 
 Matthew Arnold could have foreseen that his re- 
 peated cry, " Organise your Secondary Education" 
 
232 NEW AUTHORITIES 
 
 miglit one day be answered by placing Secondary 
 vScliools under the authority of tbe Science and Art 
 Department, linked to Technical Instruction 
 Committees, he would have stilled his voice, and 
 have chosen the disease rather than the proffered 
 remedy. 
 
 The objection to such a solution of the problem 
 does not lie merely in the fact that these 
 Committees have, quite properly, a special bias of 
 their own and that they stand committed to a 
 particular policy, but also that the areas which 
 they control are not educational areas, in respect, 
 at least, of secondary education. Great towns like 
 Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield drain, 
 as it were, well-defined educational basins, which 
 are not co-terminous with the areas of County 
 Councils and County Boroughs, and which would 
 be cut up in all directions by them. The Councils 
 and Boroughs together make a far larger number 
 of authorities than are necessary or desirable. 
 In France the number of local authorities for 
 secondary education is only 17, and it may well be 
 doubted whether, for England, we require any 
 more. If it is necessary to adopt the existing 
 rating area as the unit, there is nothing, at any 
 rate, to prevent the formation, by statute, of com- 
 binations of such units for purposes of the control 
 of secondary education. The County and Borough 
 Councils might then elect representatives to serve 
 on the combined Board, with the assistance of co- 
 
IN EDUCATION 233 
 
 opted members to represent Universities and 
 Higiier Schools. It should in this way be possible 
 to secure Boards that would take a wide and 
 impartial view of educational problems, Boards 
 such as would command the respect and confidence 
 of every style and stamp of educational institution 
 throughout the country. 
 
 The task of founding adequate educational 
 authorities is a great one, and needs to be 
 approached magnanimously, and with a due sense 
 of the vital issues involved in it for the future 
 well-being of the country. If it is done pettily 
 and on lines of mere official convenience, the pre- 
 sent Government will, by a sin of omission worse 
 than any of commission, shrink from the worthy 
 performance of that which is, perhaps, its highest 
 duty. In their hour of deepest trouble, and of 
 acutest financial stress, first Germany, and later 
 France, turned to their system of education to 
 discover and to remedy the secret of their weak- 
 ness. To improve their education they expended 
 both money, which they could ill spare, and energy 
 which nations less enlightened might have devoted 
 to merely military organisation. They had their 
 reward in an amazing national recovery. Is 
 England to appear incapable of a similar sacrifice 
 and a similar foresight ? If not. Englishmen must, 
 at whatever cost of effort, make sure that their new 
 organisation, local and central, shall possess the 
 character and the efficiency adequate to a most 
 difficult task. 
 
Work and Play 
 
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN 
 WORK AND PLAY.^ 
 
 In a valuable address recently delivered to this 
 Society by Mr. Grabam Wallas,^ emphasis was 
 laid on tbe importance of the distinction between 
 work and play, and tbe criticism of a clever boy 
 upon a Kindergarten was quoted— namely, tbat 
 '' in tbis school they don't work when they work, 
 nor play when they play." The point is vital, and 
 I propose to discuss it with you, in the belief that 
 one can be more useful by following a lead 
 suggested by some previous lecturer than by going 
 off on some wholly new line of one's own, to the 
 destruction of all continuity of thinking. 
 
 To understand the distinction between work and 
 play is of consequence to all students of education, 
 but, in particular, to those who regard Froebel as 
 their master, because he is specially identified in 
 English and American popular opinion with a 
 belief in the educative value of play. Not that 
 this belief originated with him. Eousseau, Locke, 
 Montaigne, among other moderns ; Plato, most 
 conspicuously among the ancients, had written at 
 greater length than Proebel upon the subject of 
 
 1 Summary of an address delivered to the Froebel Society on 
 October 28th, 1901. 
 
 2 Reported in the July number of Child Life, 1901. 
 
238 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 play in education.^ But tlie '^ Anglo - Saxon " 
 mind is impressed not so mucli with, written tlieory 
 on education — of which, indeed, it remains for tlie 
 most part ignorant — as with a working institution, 
 which it can watch in operation. This institution 
 is furnished by the Kindergarten ; and it is, there- 
 fore, with the founder of the Kindergarten that we 
 usually associate the idea that play educates. On 
 this very ground, one of the latest critics of the 
 Kindergarten, the admirable humourist " Mr. 
 Dooley,^' in his " Philosophy," attacks the system 
 for its alleged want of seriousness and grip on the 
 actualities of life. What children mainly need to 
 get, he says, is a " strangle-hold," that is an 
 intense power of concentration on the business in 
 hand, whether it is interesting or not. This they 
 can never acquire by following their own caprices, 
 and playing at work. And " Mr. Dooley " con- 
 cludes with the aphorism that '^ it doesn't matter 
 what you teach children, so long as they don't 
 want to learn it." 
 
 So far as criticisms of this kind are aimed at 
 Froebel personally, they overlook the fact that the 
 Kindergarten embodies only a portion of his 
 educational theory, and was intended to provide 
 for only a comparatively short section of the 
 
 1 For an excellent summary of the opinions of great writers 
 on this matter see " Das Spiel in der Geschichte der 
 Padagogik," which forms the second section of G. A. Colozza's 
 ' ' Psychologie und Padagogik des Kinderspiels " (German 
 translation and notes by Chr. Ufer). 
 
WORK AND PLAY 239 
 
 period of growth. That whole period was divided 
 by him into four stages : — (1) the nursling, up to 
 the age of two and a half or three years; (2) the 
 child, from three to seven years; (3) the boy or 
 girl, from seven to sixteen or seventeen; (4) the 
 youth or maiden, from seventeen to full age. Of 
 these, the child stage, from the age of two or three 
 to that of seven or eight, he calls the stage of play 
 or speech, during which, as he phrases it, the child 
 is chiefly occupied in '' making the inner outer " ; 
 that is, in arriving at self-expression through 
 movement and utterance. The next stage, that of 
 the boy and girl, is specially the work stage, 
 during which the growing mind " makes the outer 
 inner " ; that is, masters its surroundings, learns to 
 understand them, and, in time, to control them. 
 
 Thus our distinction is one on which Froebel 
 himself lays stress. There is nothing in his 
 writings to suggest that he ever confused play and 
 work. Yet manv people would agree with " Mr. 
 Dooley " in saying that, if not Froebel, at least the 
 Froebelians, have been guilty of this confusion. 
 It seems well worth while, therefore, to grapple 
 with the distinction, and to aim at arriving at clear 
 ideas upon four main questions : — [a) In what 
 points does play differ from work? (6) What light 
 have recent biological investigations thrown upon 
 the nature of play and its educative value? (c) 
 What is the relation of play to other educative 
 activities, and what is the specific function of play 
 
240 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 in education ? (d) Wliat is tlie bearing of all tliis 
 on school practice, and especially on tlie practice 
 of Kindergartens ? 
 
 It is evident that, within the limits of a brief 
 address, the questions can only receive incomplete 
 and provisional answers ; yet even answers of this 
 kind may be of some service as a preparation for 
 further study. 
 
 (a) In what points does play differ from work? 
 
 In trying for an answer to a question of defini- 
 tion such as this, we are most likely to arrive at 
 the simplest and broadest truths by following the 
 old Greek method of examining commonly-received 
 ideas embodied in stories, proverbs, and ordinary 
 usages of words. Thus it is striking to find that 
 the conception of tvork is often associated in early 
 forms of religious belief with the idea of a fall, 
 by which mankind passed from a state of innocence 
 to that of a consciousness of good and evil, 
 accompanied by a necessity, till then unknown, of 
 labouring for food. The ancient poets conceived 
 of the earliest Golden Age as one in which there 
 was no work and no exchange of goods, when the 
 earth was untilled and the sea was untravelled. 
 Such an age, they conceived, should some day 
 return, when time had passed through an entire 
 cycle : — 
 
 " Omnis f eret omnia tellus, 
 
 Non rastros patietur humus, non vinea falcem, 
 
 Robustis quoque iam tauris iuga solvet arator." 
 
WORK AND PLAY 241 
 
 Tlius our liuman life was conceived of as lying 
 between a Paradise Lost of innocence and a 
 Paradise Regained of ultimate victory and restora- 
 tion. This intermediate state is one of labour and 
 sorrow in accordance witb the curse — " In the 
 sweat of tby face slialt tliou eat bread" — 
 denounced against the first man who ate of tbe 
 tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Heaven, 
 on tbe otber band, was conceived of as a state of 
 existence in wbicb endeavour was to be replaced 
 by fruition and faitb by love — a state of occupa- 
 tion, no doubt, but of spontaneous and entirely 
 happy occupation, where live the souls in bliss : — 
 
 " In solemn troops and sweet societies 
 That sing, and singing in their glory move." 
 
 Whatever other meaning we may attach to these 
 conceptions, it is clear that they symbolize the 
 spiritual truth that uneasiness and effort are signs 
 of imperfect adjustment; while enjoyable activity 
 is an anticipation of that harmonized service which 
 is perfect freedom; and, further, that in activity 
 of either an extremely simple or of an extremely 
 developed type the distinction between work and 
 play does not arise, or arises only to be absorbed 
 in a self-prompted energy which contains both. 
 This is evidently true of infants, who are intensely 
 and seriously busy in a number of ways, which we 
 cannot classify under either the head of work or 
 
242 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 tlie lieacl of play. It is true also of certain forms 
 of adult activity — e.g., of a mother's laborious 
 tending of her children, of a painter's pre- 
 occupation with his studies, of the ceaseless practice 
 of a devoted musician. Such forms of activity 
 would be called work by some, because they imply 
 responsible effort which it is the duty of the 
 persons engaged in them to expend ; by others they 
 would be called play, because they are in each case 
 the thing of all others that these persons love to 
 do. They are self -expressive ; they are, in the 
 fullest sense of the words, free and spontaneous. 
 The truth seems to be that such higher activities 
 are both work and play in one. In the same way 
 a teacher who is truly fond of children and of the 
 subjects which she teaches never finds her work 
 Tnere work. It is, at least, partly self -expressive ; 
 duty and spontaneity are harmonized in it, and for 
 intervals, at any rate, the teacher is in the Paradise 
 Regained where the distinction is lost. It is only 
 when, owing to some maladjustment or other, the 
 activity becomes sheer strain and drudgery, that 
 she falls to earth again. It is, however, only in 
 the higher arts that such a fusion of work and 
 play becomes possible. In many forms of activity 
 there is so slight an amount of spontaneity and 
 self-expression, that nothing but contract and 
 obligation can avail to keep people steadily 
 employed upon them. The clerk who enters 
 figures all day long in books cannot, unless he is a 
 
WORK AND PLAY 243 
 
 Tim Linkinwater, liave any doubt in his mind as 
 to whetlier lie is really working or playing ; so 
 must it be with a stoker in a stoke-bole, witb a 
 factory-band wbo attends, year in and year out, to 
 a particular corner of a buge piece of machinery, 
 witb a sbop-girl, or a type-writer, or a bricklayer. 
 And tbat is wby leisure and play are of sucb 
 importance to tbese persons, and ougbt to be so 
 largely considered in tbeir education. 
 
 Even so, bowever, it is not easy to come at 
 tbe essential difference between work and play. 
 Herbert Spencer would make it consist in tbis : 
 tbat work bas to do witb wbat directly affects tbe 
 increase of means to live, tbe life-preserving 
 activities; wbile play is concerned witb matters 
 less vital. Tbis is exactly parallel to tbe 
 distinction in economics between productive and 
 unproductive expenditure. Neitber distinction, 
 bowever, will stand investigation. Tbe amount of 
 buman energy or of buman wealtb expended upon 
 simply 'preserving life is relatively small; tbe 
 greater quantity of botb goes to improving life in 
 some way or otber, and, wbetber tbe improvement 
 takes tbe form of a tunnel tbrougb tbe Alps, or of 
 a water-colour painting, or of a sbapely bonnet, or 
 of tbe perfect singing of a song, men will be 
 willing to give something for it, if only, in tbeir 
 opinion^ it makes life better wortb having. The 
 money or the energy expended on the making of a 
 cathedral is just as productive as that spent upon 
 
244 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 ploiigliing a cornfield or making an arm-cliair, 
 since it satisfies a liunian need. It seems vain to 
 look for the difference between work and play liere, 
 unless we are going to take as simple a view of tlie 
 world as a certain tobacconist whom I once over- 
 heard speaking to a cornet-player. The poor 
 minstrel bad been laboriously playing bis instru- 
 ment for twenty minutes in tbe rain outside tbe 
 tobacconist's cosy shop; but, when be asked for 
 money, " No, I've nothing for you," said the shop- 
 man ; " We 'ave to work for what ive gets." 
 
 Still less will it do to say that work is that part 
 of our activity for which we are paid — since this 
 would exclude all that vast quantity of gratuitous 
 labour, which every one would call work, such as 
 that of Sunday-school teachers, or members of 
 Parliament, or governors of hospitals, or officers 
 of Volunteers. 
 
 We might spend much more time in examining 
 other proposed grounds of distinction, such as that 
 play is ''free" and ''pleasurable," while work is 
 "constrained" and "not directly motived by 
 pleasure " ; but our limits compel us instead to 
 state a provisional definition dogmatically, and 
 only to indicate roughly the reasons for its adoption 
 and for the rejections of others. 
 
 Work is an expenditure of energy in pursuit of 
 a required end, an object outside itself. This 
 object may either be set by superior force of others, 
 as in human slaA^ery or in the servitude of domestic 
 
WORK AND PLAY 245 
 
 animals; or it may be arranged by contract and 
 bargain, as in tlie different forms of paid labour; 
 or it may be imposed by tbe worker's own sense of 
 duty or obligation, as in religions or pbilantbropic 
 work ; or it may be fixed by tlie needs or desires of 
 tbe worker, as in the case of a peasant proprietor 
 who tills bis own soil for bis own sustenance, or 
 of a pianist wbo repeats tlie same musical pbrase 
 a thousand times, not because lie specially enjoys 
 it, but to improve bis mastery of bis instrument. 
 
 Play^ is an expenditure of energy witb no 
 further intentional end than the action itself, like 
 the gambols of a kitten or the running and jumping 
 of boys let loose from school. Such an expenditure 
 may be caused by an overflow of accumulated 
 force, or by such an instinctive desire for exercise 
 as appears to be a physiological correlative of 
 growth, or by imitation, or by suggestion, or by 
 other motives. But its characteristic mark is that 
 it is performed for its own sake, and not for an 
 ulterior object : thus spontaneity and a sense of 
 pleasure (which may also accompany work) necess- 
 arily accompany play. But it is important to 
 notice that pleasure is not the object of play. A 
 boy runs because he wants to ru7i, not because he 
 wants to be pleased. The pleasure follows or 
 
 1 The distinction here adopted is, of course, Greek. Play 
 is an avToreAr)? irpa^L?, and so far resembles the highest 
 forms of moral and intellectual activity : it is desirable for its 
 own sake. 
 
246 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 accompanies, does not precede the act. On these 
 grounds the definition of play quoted from Rayneri 
 by Chr. XJfer on page 6 of his translation of 
 Colozza's work appears defective : "Alles dessen, 
 dem sich der Mensch freiwillig zum Yergnugen 
 hingiebt." 
 
 Even with this distinction before us, we shall 
 often find it hard to classify activities. Thus 
 football is a form of play or sport; but when it is 
 compulsory, or is played professionally, it may 
 become work, and sometimes a sordid form of 
 work. Even the element of competition tends to 
 make play less playful, in so far as it is allowed to 
 make the winning of the game more of an object 
 than the splaying of the game. The feeling of 
 many people that '' leagues " and '' cups " and 
 " records " and " averages " tend to injure the 
 character of sport is based on solid ground. 
 Similarly with the element of chance or hazard, 
 an element universally found in some kinds of 
 play — as soon as palpable profit turns upon the fall 
 of the cards or the cast of the die, an ingredient 
 that speedily proves fatal to true " play " has been 
 introduced, an external object which may absorb 
 the whole interest of the so-called " player." So 
 also with the desire for sympathy or applause, a 
 feeling that accompanies most forms of play. This 
 quickly degenerates into '' showing off " and 
 '' playing to the gallery," when the external object 
 dominates the player's mind. 
 
WORK AND PLAY 247 
 
 But, besides this objective distinction, whicli 
 may be expressed by saying that play is a self- 
 contained activity, while work is undertaken with 
 a view to some further end, it is also the case that 
 there is a subjective or psychological difference 
 between the moods of men and animals when at 
 work and at play. The sense of tension and 
 responsibility which enters into the working frame 
 of mind is replaced in play by a feeling of light- 
 heartedness and relaxation. The general truth of 
 this is, indeed, modified by the elements of 
 competition and the desire to excel, combined with 
 the great complexity which distinguishes some 
 modern forms of play. Thus an English public- 
 school boy plays cricket with an intense solemnity 
 and absorption which he does not always bring to 
 bear upon what he calls his " work." And some 
 people would even deny the very name of " play " 
 to such a game as chess, on the ground that the 
 characteristic mood of its " players " is deep 
 concentration, marked by extreme physical 
 immobility. Still, speaking broadly, we may 
 allow that a mental state of freedom and enjoy- 
 ment is characteristic of play, and one of fixity 
 and effort is characteristic of work. In their 
 extremes, where one of the two states becomes 
 generally dominant in a character, there arises, 
 on one side, an habitual irresponsibility and 
 " devil-may-careness " ; and, on the other, a 
 settled anxiety and sternness. These two 
 
248 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 temperaments make a rich contrast, such as we 
 find in history in the types of Cavalier and 
 Puritan; or in literature, as in Shakespeare's 
 comparison of Cassius and Antony, placed in the 
 mouth of Julius Csesar : — 
 
 " Let me have men about me that are fat, 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights. 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; 
 He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. 
 
 He reads much. 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays^ 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music ; 
 Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort 
 As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit 
 That could be moved to smile at anything." 
 
 (b) We must now turn to our second question. 
 What light have recent biological investigations 
 thrown upon the nature of play and its educative 
 value? Eor a full answer to this question we 
 must go to the two great works of Karl Grroos, 
 " The Grames of Animals," and " The Granies of 
 Men," which were published at Jena in 1896 and 
 1899 respectively, and which have both been 
 translated into English. An excellent summary 
 of the theories of Groos will be found in Chr. 
 Ufer's introduction to his translation of the 
 
 1 Games. 
 
WORK AND PLAY 249 
 
 adiiiira,ble book of Colozza's, whicli has been 
 several times referred to — " Psycbologie rind 
 Padagogik des Kinderspiels " (priblislied by Oskar 
 Bonde, at Altenbnrg, 1900). 
 
 Here I can only put one or two main points very 
 briefly. Among animals low down on tbe scale of 
 life, e.g., tlie reptiles, individuals come into tlie 
 world in such, a condition that tbey are fairly well 
 able to take care of themselves. Among these we 
 find few or no traces of play. On the other hand, 
 among animals of more complicated structure the 
 young are born in a helpless state, and take some 
 little time before they can " fend for themselves." 
 During their period of growth we find various 
 forms of " play," bodily movements which are just 
 of the kind best fitted to strengthen the limbs, 
 quicken the senses, and prepare the whole 
 organism for its later activities. Thus, in a beast 
 of prey, like the cat or the weasel, the games of the 
 young ones take the form sometimes of a hunt, 
 sometimes of a sham fight. On the other hand, 
 in animals whose future survival will depend upon 
 their speed, such as deer, rabbits, or wild sheep, 
 the games often assume the form of running, 
 leaping, dodging, and wheeling. Play is thus the 
 active aspect of growth, which gives an animal the 
 fuller and fuller use of its powers; it is the 
 practice, exercise, and experimentation which 
 precede the regular employment of the limbs and 
 senses. The German of Karl Groos puts this main 
 
250 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 point very neatly; plfiy is the Vorvhung and tlie 
 Einuhung whicli must go before Ausuhung. Tlins 
 play appears as tlie functioning of hereditary, 
 innate instincts, whicli can only come to perfection 
 through this preliminary use. In the case of the 
 highest animals, and, above all, of Man, imitation 
 becomes an important element in play, and so also 
 do its gregarious or social aspects. 
 
 It will be realised at once that in these views of 
 Karl Grroos, confirmed as they are by a mass of 
 careful observations, we have a scientific basis for 
 a belief in the educative force of play, such as 
 Froebel could only dimly and imperfectly 
 anticipate; since, as Mr. Graham Wallas showed 
 you, his conception of evolution was that of his 
 own age, and was necessarily defective in that it 
 did not reckon with the influence of environment 
 through natural selection. 
 
 It is an obvious corollary of this view that, in 
 the different forms of play adopted by children in 
 their various stages of growth, the general 
 progress of the whole race is recapitulated, or, as 
 an American writer (L. Grulick, in the October, 
 1898, number of the Po'pidar Science Monthly, 
 quoted by Chr. Ufer) expresses it, '' Play is the 
 ontogenetic rehearsal of the phylogenetic series." 
 This is just an application of the Herbartian 
 " culture epochs " theory to the sphere of play. 
 
 A further, though very different confirmation 
 by recent scientific investigation of Froebel's 
 
WORK AND PLAY 251 
 
 belief in the importance of play is to be found in 
 tlie proofs fiimished by experimental psycbology 
 that pleasurable activity stimulates and beigbtens 
 tbe vitality of cbilclren. This was current opinion 
 long ago; but it is now scientific fact, measured 
 and recorded. 
 
 (c) We must now burry on to our third 
 question : What is tbe relation of play to other 
 forms of educative activity, and what is its specific 
 function in education? As we have seen, the 
 answer to this question, as regards infants, is plain 
 enough. It may be said of them, as of young 
 animals, that play is their education and education 
 is their play. The use of their senses and limbs 
 in tasting, seeing, hearing, and handling is a form 
 of experimentation of which the wise educator, 
 inspired by Froebel and guided by science, will 
 take the fullest advantage. Up to the age of four 
 or five, indeed, it is, perhaps, truer to say (as 
 suggested at the beginning of this address) that 
 the distinction between work and play does not 
 yet arise, but that the movements and utterances 
 of the child, u.nder the watchful care of mother or 
 teacher, are play and work in one. 
 
 Gradually, however, the distinction becomes 
 valuable and even indispensable. For instance, 
 the little child learns to dress and wash itself. At 
 first this is play; but, as the child's strength and 
 skill increase, it must also be work. Even when it 
 no longer amuses the child, as a new sensation, to 
 
252 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 brush its own liair, yet it must continue to do so 
 as work; that is, for the sake of an ulterior object — 
 its own neatness and the approval of others. So 
 with other activities ; practised first of all as play, 
 for their ow^n sake, with the help of impulse and 
 curiosity, they must be kept up as work for the 
 sake of further ends, even when the caprice of the 
 moment is against their performance. Cleanliness, 
 for example, may be an instinct with some 
 children; but with most it is only a habit, which, 
 in its earliest stages, must have a strong element 
 of work in its composition. xlt the same time, 
 common sense and the desire for economy of effort 
 will combine with educational philosophy in 
 recommending that the transition from impulsive, 
 instinctive action to regulated, intentional action 
 should be made as gently as possible, and should 
 be restricted at first to a number of simple and 
 easily intelligible acts, where even an infant can 
 grasp the purpose for which they are to be done. 
 Thus, slowly and distinctly, will the child come to 
 the knowledge of good and evil, the " everlasting 
 yea " and the '' everlasting nay," the thing that 
 must on no account be left undone, and the thing 
 that must on no account be done. Thus, little by 
 little, grows the power of inhibition, and with it 
 the power of attention, the negative and positive 
 poles of the will. Thus is founded the strong 
 character, at once energetic and loyal, full of 
 initiative, yet self-controlled — the character that 
 
WORK AND PLAY 253 
 
 may readily pass tlirougli tlie gates of effort and' 
 obedience into tlie Paradise Eegained of healthy 
 and absorbed activity. 
 
 It is of great importance, therefore, to bear in 
 mind that, when we speak of the supreme value of 
 play at the Kindergarten stage, ive are not thinking 
 of flay in antithesis to loorh, hut rather of ylay as 
 the most convenient name for the total sum of self- 
 activity in the child. This self -activity resembles 
 play, in that it is pursued for its own sake and as 
 the expression of inner impulse; but it resembles 
 work in so far as it is quite earnestly carried on, 
 and is the most strenuous form of action of which 
 the child is, at that stage, capable. 
 
 When once, the antithesis has arisen, and the 
 child's ej^es are opened to know good and evil, then 
 the child must be accustomed from time to time, 
 in gradually lengthened periods, to attack a task 
 with entire attention, and not to take its mind off 
 until that task has been completed. Hence comes 
 the mental grip, the " strangle-hold," which our 
 friend " Mr. Dooley " justly looks for as one result 
 of a sound training. Yet this paradox, that " it 
 doesn't matter what you teach children, so long as 
 they don't want to learn it," is just as certainly a 
 fatal extreme as that excessive indulgence to 
 caprice which it is intended to correct. And from 
 both of these extremes a sound study of Froebel 
 ought to preserve us. Work need never be 
 irrational servitude, and the highest forms of work 
 
254 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 admit of tke greatest amount of self-expression, 
 and therefore of true freedom, relieved from '' the 
 weight of chance desires." Thanks, in great 
 measure, to Froebel, the whole world is coming to 
 see that the work of the little child must be most 
 delicately adapted to its stage of growth, and must 
 give full scope to its budding instincts, its love of 
 muscular movement, of variety, of constructive- 
 ness, of living animals and plants, of pictures, and 
 of cheerful sights and sounds. There is no reason 
 why this should impair the seriousness and the 
 mental concentration which work ought always to 
 imply. On the contrary, the '' strangle-hold " is 
 far easier to get upon some subject which, to begin 
 with, appeals to child -nature. So frail and 
 wavering is the little child's power of continuous 
 attention that we need not be afraid that we can 
 ever make work " too interesting," if it be genuine 
 work, i.e., energy devoted to a definite object. 
 
 On the other hand, there seems no doubt that in 
 m.ost of our schools for children from seven to 
 fourteen the course of study is still far too abstract 
 and ill-adapted to growing minds. The sixth 
 volume of Mr. Sadler's '' Special Reports on 
 Educational Subjects " shows that in many of our 
 chief preparatory schools for boys the merest 
 fragments of time are on the average devoted to 
 such subjects as English language and literature, 
 drawing, geography, history, natural science, 
 manual work, and the other topics which really 
 
WORK AND PLAY 255 
 
 answer to tlie instincts and needs of boys of tliat 
 age. Most of their energy is given to learning 
 three foreign languages from a grammatical point 
 of view. This is an adoption of " Mr. Dooley's " 
 paradox with a vengeance, and its results may be 
 seen in the lack of intellectual interest and 
 keenness in a large proportion of the boys who 
 have had the *' best education that money can 
 buy." 
 
 Truly there is still a vast deal of work to be done 
 by a Froebel Society which works for the spirit 
 and substance, not for the letter and form, of 
 Eroebel's teaching. The elements of self-activity 
 and s elf -"pos session have yet to receive their proper 
 scope in many of our schools for older children. 
 
 These elements — which may, if folks please, be 
 called the play-elements in work — distinguish true 
 work from meaningless and stupefying drudgery. 
 It is all the more essential that they should enter 
 into the work of our schools, because they have, to 
 a large extent, ceased to enter into the play. As 
 Mr. Eooper pointed out long ago in his charming 
 book on " School and Home," the prevalence of 
 some half-a-dozen great games in English schools, 
 to the destruction of all other pastimes, hobbies, 
 and amusements, has had some deplorable results. 
 Cricket and football played upon pitches prepared 
 by " groundmen " are, after all, stereotyped and 
 monotonous, if contrasted with the total range of 
 young activities which they have killed out. 
 
256 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 Grand games as' they are, they give scope to a 
 comparatively few fine qualities, such as courage, 
 decision, and the like; and altogether starve a 
 number of others scarcely less important, such as 
 constructiveness, curiosity, ingenuity, the power 
 of continuous thinking, the power of working to a 
 plan. Now that these games are not merely 
 obligatory on all, but that the day is so arranged 
 that there is very little time or spare energy for 
 anything but compulsory work and compulsory 
 games, certain forms of the play-spirit have 
 deserted these schools altogether, and there is little 
 or no scope in them for variety of occupation, for 
 initiative, for a thoughtful boy's " hobby." It 
 may be seriously questioned whether the minute 
 regulation of a boy's or girl's time-table has not 
 been pushed too far. The experience of the 
 present war has led people to ask whether the 
 devotion of all leisure to slightly different types of 
 games is a good preparation for the difficulties of 
 life, which need versatility, trained attention, and 
 the power of thinking out, and working out, a 
 plan. If Waterloo was won on our playing-fields, 
 may it not be in a certain sense true that Colenso 
 was lost there ? 
 
 These are grave matters, not to be settled 
 lightly. But I feel no doubt that those schools 
 for boys and girls are right which vary the 
 eternal pursuit of games of ball with other 
 occupations, such as the learning of some handi- 
 
WORK AND PLAY 257 
 
 craft, the playing of a musical instrumerxt, simple 
 forms of farm and dairy work, surveying, map- 
 making, cookery, and the like. Sucli forms of 
 play bring into use many dexterities, which, if not 
 exercised in childhood, are apt to perish by 
 atrophy. They lay the foundation of hobbies and 
 tastes which may remain a source of ever-fresh 
 delight, even " forty years on," when football has 
 long ceased to be a possibility. And, at the 
 present moment, they give a boy something 
 pleasant to do, even when he cannot find twenty- 
 one other boys to kick a ball with him.^ 
 
 (d) Our fourth question. How does all this bear 
 upon school practice, and particularly on the 
 practice of Kindergartens? can only be touched 
 upon. To begin with, we have already seen that 
 there is good reason for thinking that a too 
 mechanical conception of work still prevails in 
 many of our schools, and that much can be done 
 to bring the curriculum into closer touch with the 
 instincts and interests of child-nature. A great 
 deal is being attempted already. The neuere 
 Richtung, or reform method of teaching modern 
 languages, is a system conceived entirely in the 
 spirit of Eroedel. So also is the movement 
 for more " practical methods " in teaching 
 mathematics, for which Professor Perry is doing 
 
 1 An interesting account of Bedales School, near Petersfield, 
 which is one of the Schools where other forms of play in 
 addition to "games" are encouraged, will be found in M. 
 Edmond Demolins' book, " La Nouvelle Education." 
 
258 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 so mucli. No doubt tliese methods have tlieir 
 cliaracteristic dangers — tlie '' play " element may 
 easily become too strong, as it does sometimes in 
 so-called " benristic " science methods. But, in 
 contrast with what they replace — the meaningless 
 memorising of misunderstood formnlse — they are 
 an immense improvement, and further experience 
 will show ns how to avoid their dangers. 
 
 As for Kindergai-tens, I would venture to ask 
 whether, in some of them, the development of the 
 spirit of " work " is not artificially delayed later 
 than is advisable, and whether the habit of con- 
 tinuous, absorbed attention gets enough practice 
 among the older children? I would also ask 
 whether the type of " play " often used in action- 
 plays is really '' play " at all, or something 
 invented by "grown-ups" to look like play? 
 Certainly it does not look like Karl Groos's 
 " biological play " ; it is not an anticipation by the 
 young organism of the sort of situations and 
 movements which will afterwards occur in '^ real 
 life." This '' biological play " is found among 
 children when they are left to themselves, and 
 when they act in " make-believe " armies and 
 wedding processions, and Church services, and 
 shopping, and house-building, and the like. But 
 I never saw a child, left to itself, act the part of a 
 daisy, or a tree with the leaves rustling, or any of 
 the other vegetable or inanimate objects which it 
 is supposed to represent in many " action-plays." 
 
WORK AND PLAY 259 
 
 These are not instinctive, self -expressive games; 
 ihej are not play, they are not work. The words 
 in which they are written are often inexcusably 
 feeble and drivelling, and the music with which 
 they are accompanied is sometimes not even tenth- 
 rate. A good many of them want " reforming 
 altogether." 
 
 This is a matter of vital importance to us as a 
 nation. Who can watch a number of young men 
 and women of the working classes let loose for a 
 holiday without feeling that their education — in 
 spite of all our boasted " games " — has not taught 
 them to play.^ They have, in too many cases, no 
 resources, no pastimes, no hobbies, no pleasant 
 and graceful ways of " fleeting time carelessly, as 
 they did in the golden days." Their singing is a 
 discordant yell, their movements are clumsy and 
 violent. They seem wholly without that training 
 for a free and worthy enjoyment of leisure which 
 Plato considered one of the chief aims of educa- 
 tion. Just at the present time every one cries out 
 for " technical and commercial instruction " that 
 our people may learn to work. We have still to 
 discover that, even from the point of view of vital 
 efhciency, it is no less indispensable that they 
 should also be trained in desirable forms of play. 
 
 ^Postscript. — The above article was in type 
 before Mr. Rudyard Kipling's famous poem 
 
 * Added when the above summary was printed as an article 
 in Child Life. 
 
260 WORK AND PLAY 
 
 appeared in the Times of January 4. It is 
 tinfortnnate tliat lie should have put his views of 
 the weak side of our national games in so personal 
 and unrestrained a form. His two main points — 
 namely, that cricket and footbal are not in them- 
 selves an adequate training for the paramount 
 duty of our national defence, and that excessive 
 devotion to them (especially among those who only 
 " look on ") dissipates the power of continuous, 
 constructive, mental application — appear to me to 
 be true, and to require, at the present moment, 
 energetic expression. 
 
Bacon 
 
SUMMARY OF A LECTURE ON 
 
 BACON'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. 
 
 Delivered at the Franco-English Gnild, April 18, 1901. 
 
 1. Introduction. The Guild, an institutioii witli 
 whicli Bacon would tiave sympatliized. His scheme 
 for international communication of ideas. The 
 " Merchant of Light " in the '' New Atlantis." He 
 himself spent two years in France. 
 
 2. Writings in which Bacon's philosophy of life 
 is to be studied : Essays, Letters, " New Atlantis," 
 Apophthegms, " Meditationes Sacrae," " De 
 sapientia veterum." 
 
 3. Criticisms and commentaries for consultation : 
 [a) French : 
 
 (i) Bacon, sa vie etc. C. de Eemusat. 
 (ii) La Philosophic de F. Bacon par Charles 
 
 Adam. 
 (iii) Study of Bacon's Philosophy by 
 Barthelemy St. Hilaire. 
 
 (6) English: 
 
 (i) Collected "Works, ed. Spedding and 
 
 Ellis, 
 (ii) Bacon, by Dr. E. A. Abbott. 
 
264 BACON 
 
 (iii) Macaulay's Essay on Bacon, 
 (iv) E. W. Cliurcli in '' English Men of 
 Letters." 
 
 4. Relation of Bacon's life to his opinion on 
 Human Conduct. B. not a mere ''savant" but also 
 a man of tlie world and a statesman, in an epoch 
 of intense activity. Born 1561, died 1626. His 
 life may be divided into three periods : — 
 
 (a) 1561 — 1603. Forty-two years of compara- 
 tive obscurity during the lifetime of Queen 
 Elizabeth. At Cambridge 1573—1575. In 
 France 1576—1579. Enters Parliament 1584. 
 Intimacy with Essex 1591 — 1600. 
 
 (6) 1603—1621. Eighteen years of busy public 
 life. Eise and fall. Married 1606. Solicitor 
 General 1607. Attorney General 1613. 
 Attaches himself to the rising favourite 
 George Yilliers, afterwards Duke of Bucking- 
 ham 1615. Became Lord Chancellor 1618. 
 Made a Peer 1618. His fall on the charge 
 of having received bribes 1621. 
 
 (c) 1621 — 1626. Five years in Disgrace. 
 Literary and Scientific Activity. 
 
 5. With these three periods correspond the three 
 Editions of the Essays. 
 
 (a) 1597, containing ten only. 
 
 (b) 1612, containing thirty-eight. 
 
BACON 265 
 
 (c) 1625, containing fifty-eiglit. 
 
 Otlier chief literary and scientific works. 
 
 Advancement of Learning 1605, Novum 
 
 Organum 1620, History of Henry YII. 1622. 
 
 De Augmentis and New Atlantis 1623. 
 
 6. In the essays may be traced the influence of 
 
 certain great personalities with whom Bacon was 
 
 brought into close contact, especially. 
 
 (a) His parents, Sir Nicholas Bacon, a trusty 
 statesman and a man of business, and Anne 
 Cooke, an accomplished and learned woman, 
 of strong Puritan opinions and energetic 
 character. 
 (6) Queen Elizabeth, whom he admired and 
 feared, and who seems to have disliked him ; 
 King James I. whose extreme views of the 
 royal prerogative he supported. 
 
 (c) His near relations, the Cecils, crafty and 
 practical politicians. 
 
 (d) Two royal favourites Essex, his friend and 
 champion, a courtier, warrior and scholar of 
 brillant and noble qualities, to whom Bacon 
 was disloyal; Buckingham, dashing, selfish, 
 shallow, to whose evil influence Bacon gave 
 support. 
 
 (c) Sir Edward Coke, his rival in law and in 
 courtship, who overwhelmed Bacon by 
 superior audacity, physical vigour, and 
 practical powers. 
 
266 BACON 
 
 7. From his letters and his life, we may gather 
 that he was precociously solemn ("my little Lord 
 Keeper" as Queen Elizabeth called him as a boy) ; 
 intensely fond of reading; physically delicate; 
 deficient in strength of character, self-respect and 
 courage ; lacking in passion as a lover and a friend ; 
 keenly sensitive and observant ; ambitious and fond 
 of display; inclined to intrigue and not over 
 scrupulous. Starting with lofty ideals, derived 
 from his mother's influence and from his own high 
 imagination and splendid intellectual powers, he 
 lacked the virility and will to carry out these ideals 
 in action. Hence the double vein of feeling in the 
 Essays ; hence a certain sombre tone of discourage- 
 ment, lit up, from time to time, by a glow of the 
 noblest thoughts. Plunged into the life of a court, 
 such as that which Shakespeare's "Hamlet" 
 describes, he resembles Polonius in the excellence 
 of his maxims, in the coldness of his heart, and in 
 the failure of his intrigues. 
 
 8. His Essays should be re-arranged for purposes 
 of study, under certain great heads such as 
 Religion, Politics, Society, etc., etc. They repre- 
 sent " axiomata media," rough generalisations from 
 experience, observations collected with a view to 
 an Inductive and Experimental Philosophy of 
 Human Conduct. They are not meant to be 
 systematic or methodical. In style they are 
 Hebraic, full of allegory and metaphor, condensed, 
 sombre, profound, impersonal. 
 
BACON 267 
 
 9. Bacon, a man of tlie Renaissance, a European 
 as well as an Englisliman. Nationalities and 
 national characteristics less differentiated tlien, 
 than now. Comparison with Montaigne. 
 
 (a) Points of Similarity. Contemporaries 
 (Bacon was 31 when Montaigne died), both 
 studied law, both disliked it and desired its 
 reform and simplification, both went to 
 court ; both showed incapacity for action ; 
 both despised subtle and argumentative 
 erudition and advocated education of the 
 body, the character and the judgment, rather 
 than of the memory; both delighted in 
 anecdote and quotation, and in a style full 
 of images and "picture phrases" ; both were 
 tolerant and large minded. 
 
 (b) Points of difference. Montaigne is talkative, 
 intimate, frank, personal; he admits his 
 own weakness and disarms us by his 
 candour, his friendship for La Boetie is full 
 of poetry and passion. Bacon is more 
 sublime and profound, more objective, more 
 concise; a great thinker, but less sincere 
 and less lovable. 
 
INDEX TO LETTERS. 
 
 Alnmouth^ viii. 
 Amours de Voyage, ii. 
 
 Child-Study, xxv. 
 Clifton, V. 
 Coniston, v. 
 
 Consolation, Letter of, xiii. 
 Correlation, xviii. 
 Cromer, vii. 
 
 Dickens, xix. 
 Dornoch, vi. 
 
 Ethics for Teachers, xii. 
 Examination Papers, xxii. 
 
 Hastings, i. 
 
 Herbart, xvi., xxiv. 
 
 History and Citizenship, xvii. 
 
 Holiday Letters, i., ii., v., vi., 
 
 vii., viii., xxi., xxv. 
 Holyhead, xxv. 
 Humanity in Education, xii. 
 
 Literature in Education, xiv. 
 Logic Text-books, xv. 
 
 Nettleship, R. L., iii., iv. 
 Norway, ii. 
 
 Practical Teacher^ xviii. 
 
 Secondary School Ideals, x. 
 Swiss Primary Schools, xi. 
 Swiss Teachers, xv. 
 
 Training of Teachers, xx. 
 
 Wedding, A Friend's, ix. 
 
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 1 Hulme Street 
 
 Manchester 
 
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