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J. J. P. ºº RSITYCFMC " … " ſae）;ſſſſſſſſſ|IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. ：-（ ：-（（（-- Īſf Tºulmºnitºnºminimummitrillinnºnitºruttuntil Z/3 4×s , Zºéz- / 75 C, 7.5 , P& 4- 0 0 NTRIBUTIONS TO THE 0 A U S E 0 F E D U (, A T I () N. * #. * C O N T R IB UT I O N S To THE CAUSE OF E D U C A TI O N BY JAMES PILL ANS Esq. - PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN TFIE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH LONDON LoNG MAN, BROWN, GREEN, & LoNG MANs MDCCCLVI TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JOHN RUSSELL, THE ABLE, TEMPERATE, AND CONSISTENT ADVOCATE OF ALL THAT TENDS TO MAKE MEN WISER AND BETTER, &### #0 lume #5 (ſwitH germission) respectfully 32bitateh, BY HIS FAITH FUL AND OBEDIENT SERVANT, JAMES PILL ANS. Est animus tibi Rerumque prudens, et secundis Temporibus dubiisque rectus: Windex avarae fraudis et abstinens Ducentis ad se cuncta pecuniae; Consulque, non unius anni, Sed quoties bonus atque fidus Judex honestum praetulit utili. HOR. CARM. Iv. 9. 34. What is the whole business of education, but a practical application of rules, deduced from our own experiments, or from those of others, on the most effectual modes of developing and of cultivating the intellectual faculties and the moral principles?—DUGALD STEwART. PR E F A C E, A MAN who has been five-and-forty years a public teacher, and who cannot accuse himself of having been either inobservant of what was passing around him or unwilling to profit by experience, may reasonably be presumed to have something to say on the subject of Education, not unworthy of a hearing at a time like this, when, next to the absorbing interest of passing events, that subject is likely to claim, and ought to obtain, the largest share of attention from the intelli- gent population of this great Empire. Acting upon this presumption, I have ventured to collect into one volume, and present to my fellow- countrymen, a series of publications which have ap- peared from time to time in the course of the last thirty years. Various as the occasions were which called them forth, one thing at least they have in common, that they all bear directly on what I con- ceive to be the right training of youth ; a term under which I include the children, both of the working classes, and of that comparatively small number of parents, whose circumstances enable them to carry their sons through a course of liberal and profes- sional studies. viii | PREFACE. The Volume is accordingly divided, as the Table of Contents will shew, into two Parts nearly equal : the first containing all that relates to the education of the Many, and the second all that relates to the edu- cation of the Few. The articles are arranged accord- ing to the order of time in which they were written. It may be thought that, in the earlier portion of Part First, I have dealt rather largely in truisms. But they were not truisms when first stated; or at least, if admitted in theory, they were almost universally ignored in practice. The truth is, Education is a subject, in dealing with which it is peculiarly necessary and important, if we aim at doing practical good, to revert to first principles and old truths, and to press them on the reluctant minds of parents and teachers, rather than weave ingenious theories or broach im– practicable schemes. I have appended also, to those discussions and statements which some may think now-a-days too elementary, a brief notice of any pro- gress that has been made in the interval, so as to bring the history of the subjects there treated down to the present time. In all that regards the education of the Few, there is less room and less necessity for any such appendage. CoLLEGE of EDINBURGH, 1st March 1856, 0 0 NTENTS, P A R T FIR, S T : containING what PERTAINS TO THE EDUCATION OF THE MANY. PAGE I. Two LETTERs on TEACHING, addressed to T. F. KENNEDY, Esq., M.P.: 1827–28. Letter First.—Principles of Elementary Teaching, º 5 Letter Second.—Causes and Cure of Imperfect Discipline, 33 Notes and Illustrations to First Edition, . e . 54 PostScript and Appendix to Second Edition, . . 65 Note added, in 1855, . tº e © e ... 101 II. SPEECH on the proposed System of National Education for Ireland, 1832, . © & e tº º . 105 Note added, in 1855, 124 III. Two ARTICLEs in the Edinburgh Review (Nos. 117 and 120, Wols. LVIII. and LIX.) 1. National Education in England and France: 1833, . 131 2. Seminaries for Teachers: 1834, . e e . 167 IV. MINUTEs of Evidence taken before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Education, 1834, . . 189 P A R T S E O O N D : DISCUSSIONS IN REFERENCE TO THE EDUCATION OF THE FEW. PAGE I. THREE LECTUREs on the Relative Importance of Classi- cal Training in the Education of Youth: published in 1836. Lecture First.—The Education required for the Many contrasted with that which is required for the Few, .. 251 Lecture Second-On the Relative Importance of Mathe- matics and Classics in the Higher Instruction, . . 268 Lecture Third.—Statement of the Argument in favour of Classical Training, e & º tº o . 285 b 3. CONTENTS 1823, published in 1851. Preface, . ſº * Cap. I.-Introduction of Monitorial Methods, Cap. II.-Abolition of Corporal Punishments, Cap. III.-Introduction of Private Studies, Cap. IV.-Introduction of Latin Versification, Cap. V.-Other Written Exercises, tº Cap. VI.-Institution of Quarterly Examinations, Cap. VII.-On the Methods employed in teaching Greek, Cap. VIII.-On the Methods employed in teaching Geo- graphy, and the Principles on which they were founded, Cap. IX.-On the Difference in the Modes of Manage- ment between the Classical Schools of England and those of Scotland: the Advantages and Disadvantages of each, . Cap. X-Suggestions and Queries, III. A Word for the Universities of Scotland, and a Plea for the Humanity Classes in the College of Edinburgh: 1848;-brought up to 1856, IV. PREFACES : 1845–1851 :— I.—Preface to Eclogae Ciceronianae, II.-Preface to Eclogae Curtiana 6, III.-Preface to Eclogae Livianae, IV.-Preface to Excerpta ex Taciti Annalibus, W.—Prefatory Notice to a Selection from the Fasti and Tristia of Ovid, W. SELECTIONS from Notes on the Tex A PP E N D IX : & t of Curtius and Livy, CONTAINING NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TEXT. Note on p. 124.—Irish Education,-Remarks on the Minutes of Evidence taken in the Lords' Commit- tee of 1854, . — 263.−School of Arts, Speeche s bearing on the Education of the Many and of the Few, — 342.-Anecdote of Dr Adam, PAGE II. RATIONALE of DISCIPLINE, as attempted in the Rector's Class of the High School of Edinburgh. Written in 307 312 337 350 356 362 371 375 391 399 408 423 471 490 519 539 544 546 563 — 358.-Specimen of High School Verses, Lat English, — 378.-Philosophy of the A Letter on University Reform, lphabet, in and 568 577 578 568 589 PART FIRST CONTAIN ING DISCUSSIONS IN REFERENCE T 0 EDU (, ATION FOR THE MANY. PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING, CHIEFLY IN BEFERENCE TO THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS OF SCOTLAND: IN TWO LETTERS TO T. F. KENNEDY, Esq., M.P. [Reprinted from the Second Edition of 1829] ſº Quod enim mumus reipublicae afferre majus meliusve possumus, quam si docemus atque erudimus juventutem ?—CIO. de DIv. II. 2. IN the circumstances that led to the appearance of these Letters in their present shape the public can feel no interest. I may be permitted, however, to state, as some apology for a production so imperfect, and embracing hasty views of a single department only, though certainly an important one, of Public Instruction, that they were not originally intended for publi- º cation, but solely for the perusal of the gentleman to whom they are addressed, and that of some parliamentary friends of his, who take an interest in the welfare of Scotland. One of these,”—whose name will be felt by my countrymen, and still more by my fellow-townsmen, as adding weight to any recom- mendation of his, having expressed an opinion, that the very agitation of the topics I have discussed might lead to a good result, I resolved rather to send this detached fragment pre- maturely into the world, than miss the chance, however re- mote, of benefiting an Institution, to which my feelings and the habits of my life attach me so strongly. J. P. EDINBURGH, July 4, 1828. * The Right Hon. JAMEs ABERCROMBY, (now LoRD DUNFERMLINE, 1855.) LETTER FIRST. PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. EDINBURGH, 21st October 1827. MY DEAR SIR, I HAVE much pleasure in recollecting the conversations we had, during the short visit I paid you in August, on the subject of the Parochial Education of Scotland. I had often before heard you express a deep interest in that admirable branch of our national institutions; and when you first took your seat in Parliament, soon after the country had sustained so heavy a loss in the death of the late Mr Horner, it was some consolation to find, that you entered warmly into those views for improving the condition of Scottish Schoolmasters, which had been long cherished in the enlightened and truly patriotic mind of that lamented statesman. These views related chiefly to the means of obtaining, for the meritorious class of public servants just mentioned, such provision and remuneration as should correspond, better than the present, with that station which men called to perform so important a duty ought to hold in the country. And when the time shall come, as it soon must, for the subject to be discussed in the House of Commons, whatever is wise and liberal will, I am well assured, find in you a temperate, but firm and unflinching advocate. In order, however, to pave the way for the measure con- templated by Mr Horner and yourself, and to secure its pro- ducing good, both to Scotland and to the Teachers, it has long 6 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. appeared to me necessary, as a preliminary step, to institute an inquiry into the prevailing system of discipline, and manner of teaching. A cursory review of the history of our Parish Schools might justify, at the very outset, some suspicion of imperfection and abuse. A period of nearly a century and a half has elapsed since the institution was first firmly established by an Act of the Scottish Parliament, a boon for which we cannot be too grateful to their memory. But it contains only general pro- visions for the maintenance of Schools; and much attention, indeed, could not be expected, from such a body of men and in such an age, to the details of school discipline. This sys- tem, wise and distinct in its simple outline and general fea- tures, but as to its modes of teaching and management left very much to the mercy of accident, has been in constant operation ever since, without attracting the notice of the British Legislature oftener than once during that long period; and even then with no reference to internal regulation. It was consistent, therefore, with our experience of other human in- stitutions to expect, that upon the faults of original constitu- tion might be grafted the vices incident to old and unreformed establishments, and also that what was good at first might have suffered corruption; to say nothing of disorders and de- fects, not unlikely to result from imperfect adaptation to the altered habits and manners of an advanced and advancing civilization. *** The opportunities of observation which I lately enjoyed, in the course of visiting and examining a very considerable num- ber of Parochial and other Schools in the South of Scotland, have gone far to confirm these very natural conclusions of theory. And, as the statements I submitted to you after this inspection, created in your mind a lively enough interest to make you wish for a more permanent record of them than a passing conversation could furnish, it is in compliance with a request you made to me at parting, that I take up the pen thus early, to communicate in writing the substance of what I said, before the distractions of a College Session withdraw my attention and confound my recollections. The proposition, that there is much to amend in the conduct PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 7 and discipline” of our Schools, will appear both to Scotchmen and to strangers somewhat paradoxical. With the former it will be an unpalatable doctrine, as tending to tarnish one of the glories of their native land; and to the latter it will seem at variance with a fact almost universally acknowledged, that there is no country where the mass of the population is more advanced than our own in moral and intellectual im- provement. This distinction of our country, the title to which I am not disposed to call in question, is the result of a com- bination of circumstances in the civil and religious history of Scotland which were favourable to the formation and deve- lopment of a national character, grave, provident, and thought- ful. One of these circumstances, undoubtedly, is the existence, for more than a century, of a national establishment for the education of the labouring classes, which has produced among the people at large such habits and feelings as to render the schooling of their children not less a matter of prospective cal- culation than their clothing and daily bread. But the exis- tence of such an establishment is no proof that it is perfect; nor the good it has done, that it may not be made to do more. The truth is, that much indebted as all must admit Scotland to be to this institution, it is much farther than is generally imagined from accomplishing the greatest possible good. You will readily spare me the invidious task of describing or alluding to particular instances of mismanagement. My quarrel is with the system, not with individuals. The object I have in view, therefore, will be best attained, by laying down in the first place some general principles in the art of teaching, and then, by inquiring into the causes which have hitherto prevented their being adopted in the practice of our * I cannot but think it a proof of the prevailing ignorance with regard to the fundamental principles of teaching, that the word discipline, as a school- term, should have nearly lost its legitimate and classical sense, correspond. ing to disciplina in the writings of Cicero and Quintilian. These ancients use the word to signify, as well the manner of teaching, as the substance of what is taught; or, in other words, a course or system of instruction, taking in both teachers and learners, in their mutual relations, whether literary or moral. It is thus the word ‘discipline' is used in these Letters, not in the more ordinary sense, which makes it synonymous with castigation and cor- poral punishment, and gives to its derivative, disciplinarian, the meaning, not of a good teacher, but a severe one. 8 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. schools. These principles, at the same time, appear to me so much in the light of axioms, or postulates which might be taken for granted without proof in all discussions on practi. cal teaching, that, in proceeding to state and illustrate them, I run some risk of incurring the charge of dealing in palpable truisms. My apology is, that I have found them almost universally either unknown and never thought of, or disputed and misunderstood; and, at all events, disregarded in the actual business of teaching. I. The first of these principles, which I consider as lying at the foundation of all good teaching, is, That a child, in being taught to read, should be taught at the same time to wnderstand what he reads. That the ultimate object of ac- quiring this art is the power of comprehending the sense of what is read, is an abstract proposition which all will probably assent to ; but by Schoolmasters it will not be so readily admitted, that from the moment a child is acquainted with the form and power of the letters of the alphabet, and begins to join them together in significant sounds, it is the business and duty of his teacher to make him comprehend, first, the force of each term, and then, the sense and connection of the whole. So far, indeed, is such a principle from being generally received, that the very opposite, if not openly avowed, is at least almost invariably acted upon. English reading, accord- ing to the prevailing notions, consists of nothing more than the power of giving utterance to certain sounds, on the per- ception of certain figures; and the measure of progress and excellence is the facility and continuous fluency with which those sounds succeed each other from the mouth of the learner. If the child gather any knowledge from the book before him, beyond that of the colour, form, and position of the letters, it is to his own sagacity he is indebted for it, and not to his teacher. The rule, expressed or implied, which is generally followed in schools, is, that the duty incumbent on the mas- ter is to give the pupil, as speedily as possible, mechanical dexterity in reading, without wasting time or distracting his attention with the sense of what he reads. He may allow it to be desirable that the child should comprehend what he PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 9 reads; but still he thinks it right to sacrifice this object to the more pressing and immediate demand upon him, to return the child to his parents a fluent reader, in a given time. And, doubtless, when it is considered during how short and inter- rupted a period most country children are at school, it may be admitted, that, if the process of carrying the child's under- standing along with what he reads were incompatible with an equally rapid acquirement of the art of reading, though no sensible parent would hesitate in preferring to mere volu- bility of tongue the cultivation of his child’s understanding along with the organs of his voice,—yet a teacher, whose fitness for his task is commonly measured by the fluency of utterance his pupils exhibit, might be excused for pausing, before he altered the mechanical for the intellectual method. But what shall we say, if in both respects the latter be found superior 2 if it shall appear, that the method which insists on the child understanding the sense, and consequently suits what he reads to his comprehension, is not only better adapted, as will be admitted by all, for training to habits of observation and reflection, and thus increasing his stock of useful know- ledge, but also, that it is an infallible means of shortening the term necessary to give facility in reading? That such will be the case, is an obvious enough deduction from the reason of the thing, even if it were not confirmed by experience. When the pupil of a parochial school has a reading lesson prescribed to him, to the sense or scope of which the master has never directed his attention, and which, in all probability, has a meaning quite incomprehensible to a child, the only imple- ment he has, to clear his way through the difficulties that assail him, is his knowledge of the letters;–unless the aid be worth reckoning which he may derive from recognizing, in the longer words, syllables which he has learned in columns of spelling. With such imperfect means, it cannot be surprising if his pro- gress be slow and he find the way uninviting and tedious. He has no faculty to assist him but memory:—and a memory of forms and sounds only, with few and those by no means interesting associations. On the other hand, the child who is taught the habit of carrying the sense along with the sound, is armed with two forces instead of one, to grapple with the 10 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. difficulties he encounters :-the one, his knowledge of the letters and syllables, and the other, his partial acquaintance with the story. And these two so regulate and direct and accelerate each other, that by their joint operation and impulse he arrives at the point desired, sooner by one-half the time at least than by the superficial system. When I say one-half the time, I speak only of the hours devoted to public lessons in school; in a great majority of instances, the time will be still farther abridged by the avidity with which the child, at a very early stage of his progress, will betake himself to reading at home, if intelligible and amusing books are placed within his reach. There may be Schoolmasters who look on the chance of im- provement I have just stated as an Utopian idea, and who laugh at the notion of a child reading much for his amuse- ment; but, be assured, they are utterly ignorant of their art, and of the nature of the young mind. For nothing is more certain than this, that if early training be well conducted, the appetite for reading, and reading, if the principle of the new method be followed, is another word for knowledge—will be as surely felt in a healthy mind, as the desire of food in a sound body. “Plures,” says Quintilian, with no less truth than beauty, “plures reperias, et faciles in excogitando, et ad discendum promtos; quippe id est homini naturale: ac sicut aves ad volatum, equi ad cursum, ad saevitiam ferae gignun- tur; ita nobis propria est mentis agitatio atque Solertia: unde origo animi coelestis creditur. Hebetes vero et indociles non magis secundum naturam homines edumtur, quam prodigiosa corpora et monstris insignia: sed hi pauci admodum.”*— QUINTIL. INST. I. 1. It is painful to think how seldom the truth thus stated by Quintilian, and so often repeated since his time, has hitherto been followed out to its obvious application in the manage- * The great majority of the young will be found quick in apprehending, and ready to learn ; for such is the nature of man; and as birds are born to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to tear and devour, so the characteristics of man are, mental exercise and ingenious thought : whence the belief, that the human understanding is of celestial origin. As to individuals of our species who are dull and unteachable, they are as little according to nature as pre- ternatural births or monstrous conformations; and in truth they very rarely OCCUll". PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 11 ment of Schools. There is a spirit, however, abroad, which appears to me to leave it no longer doubtful, that—like other great truths which have long been making their way silently in the minds of men, and are only now beginning to affect the councils and advance the prosperity of nations—the superior- ity of the intellectual method of teaching, will be not only ere long universally acknowledged, but the practice it recommends very generally adopted. A revolution in School discipline is in progress, the tendency of which is to substitute mental activity and agreeable excitement in the place of the languor, weariness, and dislike to all things scholastic which have hitherto been the most striking features of our country Schools. Those among the teachers who have wisdom to discern the signs of the time, and to anticipate its slow results in their practice, are sure not only to rise in professional reputation and have the first chance of promotion, but to contribute towards raising the character and condition of their order. It is fortunate, indeed, that, little as the doctrines I have been propounding are yet understood or received, examples can be produced sufficiently numerous and of long enough standing to remove all doubt as to their practicability. I might appeal to what was dome in the High School of Edin- burgh, during my own Rectorship, towards giving a taste and love for the business of school, by the simple expedient of cultivating the understanding somewhat more than the mere memory of words. But I forbear, because it may be said that I had to deal there with a higher and more advanced class of boys. It is enough to say that the success attending the practice of the explanatory method in the Sessional School here, has diffused such a spirit of imitation and improvement among the teachers in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, that the opponents of the new system can no longer argue, that its results in this instance are to be ascribed to an individual, and not to the system itself.” It is an obvious deduction from the principle I have been advocating, that considerable judgment is required in selecting and still more in composing elementary books for the use of * See Note A. at end of Letters. 12 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. children. In an enlarged and philosophical view, the art of teaching to read must be regarded as the process by which the infant mind is trained, step by step, to use its powers of ob- servation and reflection. To effect this object, to which the knowledge of alphabetic characters, and their sounds in com- bination, are necessary but subordinate steps,” it is desirable that the books used should contain a series of lessons, corres- ponding to the gradual evolution of the human faculties. They should be of a kind to assist and facilitate the healthy development of the mental powers, so as neither to stunt their natural growth by confining them too long to what is already mastered, nor to baffle and overlay them by plunging into subjects beyond their reach. Sensible objects, and particularly those of sight and touch, as being the most numerous, the most important, and the earliest observed, should be the first with which the learner is made conversant in reading. Descriptions of such objects, whether they be the works of nature or of art, and of such only as the child has either seen, or has it in his power to examine and verify the description of, are the earliest lessons he should learn. Such are, for example, among the works of nature, a mountain, a river, a tree, a cow, and all the varieties of the vegetable and animal creation which he is in the habit of seeing; and—among the products of art, a wheelbarrow, a chair, a cart, a table, a spinning-wheel, &c. Let it not be supposed that, because such objects are familiar to the mind of every child, reading and examination upon them are time and labour thrown away. For, granting even that the boy, without reading or examination, knew all he ought to know of these external objects, still it would be desirable, it is indeed one end of education, that he should acquire the power of clothing his ideas in appropriate words. But to make such a concession, would, in almost every case, be to grant too much. Nature, no doubt, like a provident mother, very soon puts the child, by means of his external senses, in possession of such an amount of knowledge of out- ward objects as is required for the purposes of self-preservation * See Note B. at end of Letters. PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. * 13 and convenience. It is this that prompts and enables him to climb the tree for the fruit that tempts his appetite, and to avoid the cart when he meets it, or mount it when he wants to be carried. But for such uses a very loose and general conception is sufficient, and, accordingly, this is all that nature gives:—the rest is left to the industry of man. The seeds, as it were, and elements of more knowledge are in the mind, but they require care and nursing. It is the business of edu- cation to improve on the hints of nature, and lead the child to analyse his crude, ill-defined notions, so as not only to obtain more accurate information, but to express his know- ledge correctly and audibly. Thus, instead of a vague and indistinct idea of a tree, he should be led to think of it as composed of root, trunk or stem, bark and wood, and branches; and as occasionally exhibiting also leaves, blossom, fruit, and seed. Then, as he advances, he may be taught to explain intelligibly the uses, to the plant and to man, of these several parts. Again, with regard to the cart, he will learn, in like manner, that it is made up of a box or body, shafts, axle-tree, and wheels; the last having each its iron ring or rim, spokes, bush, linch-pin, &c. It is thus that a foundation may be laid for keenness and accuracy of observation, acuteness of perception, precision of ideas, and command of expression. To those who, like myself, had no distinct conception of the five senses and what their organs and objects were, till they attended the lectures of a professor of logic, it may seem to be invading the province of philosophy, to propose that a child should be made acquainted, in the course of elementary teaching, with these parts of the human constitution, a know- ledge of which used to be regarded as a branch of metaphysics. Upon reflection, however, nothing will be found more reason- able, and upon trial, nothing more practicable, than to lead a child, in the very threshold of education, to apprehend the nature and use of those organs of sense by which the materials of all knowledge are acquired. The organs of sense are them- selves objects of sight and touch; and as they belong to the individual and are always within his reach, the curiosity of the child may be very easily awakened to examine their struc- ture, their functions, and their exercise. Now, his future 14 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. progress in acquiring ideas, would, I conceive, be much acce- lerated by starting with some motion of the tools he is to work with ; his information would thus be more full, distinct, and various.* If this view be correct, there must be room for improvement in the present plan of education; for I have scarcely met with a single school—and I have examined a great number—where the pupils were in the least aware that they had any senses at all, or, when the question was asked, what senses they had, were not as likely to answer, the sense of eating, or speaking, or walking, as of seeing or hearing. But while reason and experience, theory and practice, alike enforce the propriety of sedulously cultivating the understand- ing of the pupil during the process of teaching him to read, it may be necessary at the same time to warn teachers against a fault on the other side, which I have occasionally observed a tendency to fall into among those who have adopted the intel- lectual method; that, I mean, of pushing the instruction too far, and overtasking the nascent faculties. The teacher, not knowing where to stop, and measuring the child's capacity by his own, is not content with simple and primary notions of things external which the tyro has either seen or is likely to meet with, but launches into topics that belong to physics or chemistry as a science, and insists upon cramming the child with truths beyond the feeble grasp of his intellect, at a time when he is yet utterly unable to follow the steps by which these truths are arrived at. This is bad in every point of view. It runs the risk, or rather incurs the certainty, of falling into the errors of the old system by substituting words for ideas, and it brushes off, as it were, the bloom of interest and novelty from those sublime discoveries, which should be left to reward the learner at a more advanced period of laborious and suc- cessful study;-a period when he maybe expected to appreciate their importance and beauty, and to be filled with admiration both of the mind that constructed, and of the minds that unfolded and explained, the stupendous machinery of the universe. When there is in the world around us so much to be known * See Note C. at end of Letters. PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 15 that comes home to the business and bosom of the child, it is preposterous to involve him in the intricacies of the solar system, to talk to him of orbit and gravity, parallax and dis- turbing forces, or even of ecliptic, equator, and meridian, at an age when his mind cannot possibly go beyond the figure on the map or diagram ; and when the planetarium itself, if there happens to be one, is to him nothing more than a play- thing. To set children a-chattering about oxygen, hydrogen, caloric, and all the mysteries, as they must be to them, of modern chemistry, is education run mad, and in truth not less to be deprecated than the opposite extreme of the no-meaning method. It requires a considerable share of judgment (and in this an otherwise accomplished teacher may be greatly deficient) to resist the temptation there is to go beyond what is fit for the present use of his pupils;–a temptation likely to be the stronger, the more knowledge he himself possesses. And as his own familiarity with the subject before him is, on the one hand, apt to carry him to the abstruser parts of it, into which the child cannot follow him; so, on the other hand, he is sometimes tempted to feed the vanity of parents, by encourag- ing a display of attainments in their children, which he himself knows to be fallacious. To exemplify this in the instances of the cart and the tree : A teacher would surely be shewing more zeal than judgment, if, not satisfied with those obvious characters which the youngest pupil can examine with his own eyes and hands, he should waste his time in describing the process of smelting the iron of which the wheel-ring is made, or even in explaining, except to his upper and older boys, the reason why it is first heated to redness, applied in that state to the wooden circle, and then suddenly cooled withwater. Norshould I think him better employed, if, instead of making a boy acquainted with the parts of trees, their diffe- rent species and appearances, and their uses in furniture and machinery, he should descant on the process of fructification, or on the circulation of the sap and the vessels by which it is conducted. II. A second fundamental principle on which all good 16 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. teaching may be said to rest, is, That corporal punishment is not to be resorted to till every other method of correction has failed. I ought perhaps to have stated the principle more broadly, That corporal punishment should never be employed &n school; such being my own decided opinion, and feeling confident as I do, that the time is not far distant, when the latter will be received as an established and universal maxim in education. But I have qualified the statement as first given, in order to provide for cases which must occur till the subject be better understood, and an improved system become general. If a child is properly trained from the commence- ment, I deny the necessity of the lash in any instance; but so long as pupils are liable to be transferred from a school on the old system to one on the new, and so long as a teacher must begin on the new with pupils already confirmed in evil habits, both moral and educational, cases may occur where severity of discipline is required for reforming a character obstinately wrong. Yet even in these, I can admit the rod only as a corrective of moral delinquencies. To enforce attention or preparation of lessons by infliction of bodily pain, inveterate as the practice is, I hold to be a solecism in education. Amputation and cautery may be necessary where a member being incurably diseased and endangers the safety of the whole person, but nobody thinks of using them with a view to encrease the power of locomotion, or give ease and grace to the carriage. In like manner, habits of pilfering, dishonesty, and falsehood, of insolence, sullen resistance to authority, tyrannous use of superior strength, and other such immoralities may have been formed, and may require to be extirpated by corporal suffering ; but dislike or hatred of instruction, when it appears to exist, is not the disease but merely symptomatic, and will disappear as soon as the primary cause is removed. Knowledge, as has been observed already, is the food of the mind; and although the craving for it is not, as in the body, a call of physical necessity, yet, when properly administered, it will be rejected only by minds which either by nature or bad nursing are of monstrous con- formation. If a child in a fit of sulkiness refuses its ordinary meal, a prudent mother does not force the food down its throat, PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 17 but exerts herself to remove the pettish humour, not doubting, that if she succeed, appetite will do the rest. My view of the subject is this:—Looking to the brief span of human life and the considerable portion of it that is spent in the sedentary business of school, at an age when nature disposes to muscular exertion and out-of-doors occupation, no one who is accustomed to observe the buoyant light-hearted- ness, the free and graceful movements of childhood before it is put into the trammels of society, can refrain from wishing that, in abridging, as must be done, the natural liberty of a boy, and confining him for a certain space in a school-room with the view of training him to habits that are to be useful in after life, we should set about it in a manner which, while it best secures the end, shall keep him at the same time most active and happy, and give him the very least annoyance or mortification that is consistent with the full attainment of the object. As the vine-dresser lops the wild and gadding shoots that would exhaust the plant and disappoint the hopes of an abundant vintage, so must the little freaks and fancies and erring spirits of the child be gently repressed ; or, to speak more properly, the elasticity of mind and incessant activity of which they are symptoms must be directed into one channel, and made to assist instead of obstructing his improvement. I fear it has sometimes been argued, and still oftener acted upon where the principle was not avowed, that suffering is in itself a good thing for the young:—that unhappiness at school is useful for moral discipline and formation of character, inde- pendently altogether of the effect it may have on their learning; and horrible stories are told, and I can vouch for their truth, of teachers in times past who seem to have adopted the maxim of tyrants, oderint dum metuant. True it is that the character of virtue cannot perhaps receive its highest polish without “the sweet uses of adversity;” but the education of trial and suffer- ing is amply provided for in the changes and chances of this mortal life; and it is not for man to mimic the mysterious and awful dispensations of Providence,—the Divām nimbos et non imitabile fulmen. The lash is a bad instrument of discipline, even were it B 18 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. possible to ensure the application of it according to a gradu- ated scale, and with an intensity accurately corresponding to the heinousness of the offence. It is bad, because it humbles, degrades, and prostrates the understanding of the sufferer, because it establishes disagreeable and disgusting associations with the business of mental cultivation,--because, however equitably the stripes may be doled out in number and severity, they affect very differently different tempers, and are felt most acutely by those least deserving of punishment, because they make a hero in the eyes of his school-fellows of the most hard- ened offender, because the infliction of them with its usual accompaniments consumes time unprofitably,–and because, however administered, they have a tendency to estrange the pupil, not from his books only, but also from his teacher. These exceptions may be taken against the lash, even when used with the strictest and most passionless impartiality. But, to secure a fair and even-handed distribution of stripes, two masters at least would be required, one to pass sentence, and another to ratify and carry it into effect. For we all know the corrupting influence of power privilege and author- ity, and how few minds naturally and habitually good are able to resist it, even when they act in the eye of their fellow- men. How much more liable, then, is power to be abused, when the possessor is left to exercise it over helpless children with no witnesses but them, and under the stimulus of fre- quent provocation | Though corporal punishment, therefore, were liable to none of the weighty objections which I have urged against it even when dispensed according to the exact- est rule of proportion, still it would be a dangerous instrument to trust in the hands of any man who unites in himself the legislative and executive character, who is at once counsel, judge (jury there is none) and executioner; and, very ge- nerally, prosecutor also. It is impossible to reflect without shame and Sorrow on the unbridled licence which under these circumstances may be, and often has been, given to the indulgence of pique, prejudice, partiality, and above all, of anger, and violence, and cruelty. For the master's sake, as well as the pupil’s, it is to be wished that public opinion were strongly and decidedly expressed, not only against the use of FRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 19 what are regarded as the accredited emblems of scholastic discipline, the lash, rod, birch, tawse, ferula, Lvel quocunque alio vult nomine dict, but generally against other modes of corporal punishment which are still more objectionable, be- cause less restricted by use and wont, such as canes, rattans, horse-whips, rulers, and blows from the hand, whether clench- ed or open. This, it may be thought, is talking too seriously, and attaching too much consequence to a matter of little moment, where the question is merely, whether the unruliness of boys shall be curbed by a few stripes more or less, and with more or less warmth in the master's temper. You, I know, will treat this idea with the contempt it merits, being well aware that the moral training received in a well-conducted school, from observing the example of strict and impartial justice in the conduct of the master, his kindness to all, his paternal regard for their improvement, his patience with the slow, his encouragement of the quick, his unruffled serenity of temper, and his reluctance to punish, is far more important to the pupil's well-being in the world and his character as a member of society, than any given amount of literary acquirement. The good or evil lessons which a boy draws for himself, almost unconsciously, from the master's demeanour in school, are more influential and impressive than any direct instruc- tion: and hence the importance of the poet's maxim to teachers as well as parents; + “Nil dictu foedum visuve haec limina tangat Intra quae puer est.”—JUV. XIV. 44. If the Schoolmaster were once stript of those clumsy and inartificial modes of enforcing discipline, which he is tempted to think the best, because they cost him the least thought and trouble in the using, he would be thrown upon his own re- sources, and compelled to fall back on more natural methods of securing attention and silence. A careful study of the young mind will discover to any man of ordinary sagacity, a variety of principles to which he may appeal, with far greater chance of success than it is possible * Let nought, the ear or eye corrupting, stain The sacred walls that boyhood's hopes contain. 20 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. to expect from compulsion and fear. Fear, indeed, is the great corrupter of the young heart; not, of course, that fear which is allied to love and respect, but the dread of doing some- thing unintentionally which may draw down the vengeance of a being possessed of power and using it capriciously, and who measures his inflictions by no standard intelligible to the sufferer. When this slavish fear has once become the prime mover in a school-boy's breast, it not only lowers the general tone of his mind by destroying the pride of independence and conscious rectitude, but it introduces a crowd of other vices, which may well be said, like the diseases that pave the way for death, to be “more hideous than their queen.” Hatred, venting itself in curses not loud but deep, low cunning, dis- simulation, craft, fraud, and lying, are not the least odious of the group. The whole brood will disperse before the light of gentleness and good humour, provided these qualities appear, not fitfully alternating with gloom and storm, but settling in uninterrupted sunshine on the brow. - It is obvious, therefore, that the master must begin the work of reformation with himself. He must, at the very outset, subdue and extinguish those bursts of fretfulness, impatience, over-anxiety and offended pride which find too ready a vent in the use of the rod, and are indeed often engendered by the consciousness of possessing the power to use it. He must be “exact his own defects to scan” both of temper and management, exercising in particular a stern con- trol over the first ebullitions of passion; in order that, being master of the movements of his own mind, he may better understand how to deal with his pupil's. He will then dis- cover, that the lash is not only the most unworthy, but also the most ineffectual of all modes of influencing the youthful mind; that it acts only at intervals, and even then, rather to paralyze than excite ; and that what the public teacher requires is a moving power which shall urge to propriety of demeanour uniformly and steadily, both in school and out of it, and whose constant operation shall be secured by the cir- cumstance, that, if not agreeable in all cases, it is yet always interesting enough to overcome, for the time required, the love of ease or of idle occupation. Such motives he will not seek PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 21 in vain in the desire of distinction among his fellows, and of approbation from his master; in leave to play when the busi- ness prescribed is done, and as soon as it is done; and in the privilege to read what he is able to comprehend. These, and such like motives, come under the description of rewards, and though they are rewards of a very cheap kind, yet, if skilfully bestowed, they are highly valued. With regard to punish- ment, quite enough of it for the ordinary purposes of discipline will be found in the forfeiture, more or less marked, of the privileges and advantages enjoyed by the good. All this may appear a machinery at once too simple and too fine to repress the disorders of a country school; and it may be asked, How are we to contend with the wayward and heedless nature of boys, their indolence and apathy on the one hand, their restlessness and mischievous activity on the other, if the power of repressing them by force be withdrawn? The task certainly is no easy one, where such vices have become prevalent in a school; and success must be the work of time and patient exertion, with well weighed deliberate severity at first. They are vices, however, which spring out of the very system it is proposed to explode, and will there- fore die along with it. They are weeds pampered by mis- management into luxuriant growth, till they over-top and starve the wholesome produce of the soil: but they will in- fallibly disappear under a better husbandry. The common maxim, that idleness is the parent of mischief, is nowhere better exemplified than in a school; and the best receipt for correcting evil habits where they exist, and still more for pre- venting the growth of them, is to keep the mind perpetually, agreeably, and usefully employed. This is the great secret of the art of teaching, and the object to which the efforts of the public instructor should be mainly directed. For there can- not be a doubt that the misery connected with the recollections of school, in most minds trained on the old system, arises almost wholly from having been compelled to sit motionless for hours together, with nothing to do. You will not, I hope, charge me with the pedantry of quo- tation, if, before closing this branch of the subject, I revert to Quintilian. The words and authority of So great a master do 22 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. not merely add grace and lustre to the doctrine of mercy, but prove and establish it. “Caedi vero discentes, (says he,) quamguam et receptum sit, et Chrysippus non improbet, minime velim: primum, quia deforme atque servile est, et certe, quod convenit, si aetatem mutes, injuria: deinde, quod si cui tam est mens illiberalis ut objurgatione non corrigatur, is etiam ad plagas, ut pessima quaeque mancipia, durabitur ; postremo, quod ne Opus erit quidem hac castigatione, si assiduus studiorum exactor ad- stiterit. Nunc fere . . . . . pueri non facere quae recta Sunt coguntur, sed, cum non fecerint, puniuntur.”*—QUINTIL. I. 3. But still, admitting all that has been said to be true, the question recurs, How is this preponderance of evil tendencies baffling all the single efforts of the master, this vis inertiae in schools, so baneful to happiness and proficiency there, and so ruinous to the character in after life, how is it to be counteracted and overcome 2 or how are the motives I have stated to be applied, so as to secure their steady operation ? This question will be best answered in illustrating the next fundamental principle in elementary education. III. The third principle, then, and the last I shall lay down, is the following:—That the office and duty of a public teacher require him so to arrange the business of his school, and the distribution of his time, that no child shall be idle ; or, to use Joseph Lancaster's quaint but emergetic expression of the rule, That every pupil in school shall, at all times, have some- * There is a practice which I cannot tolerate, authorised though it be by custom, and not condemned by (the Stoic) Chrysippus, I mean that of flog- ging children at School. I object to it, first, because it is unseemly and de- grading, and if inflicted a few years later in life, it would be thought by all a cruel outrage; secondly, because, if a boy is born with a mind so grovelling as not to be affected by deserved reproof, he will harden himself against the lash, as the most worthless slaves do; lastly, because, if a preceptor be assidu- ous in his duty, and rigorous in exacting an account of his pupils' studies, there will be no occasion for having recourse to that extremity. The practice at present is too prevalent, to punish boys when the wrong is done, rather than to train them so beforehand, that they cannot chuse but do right.f f This was said more than Reventeen centuries ago, and yet, alas I it is as true now as it was them. PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 23 thing useful to do, and a motive for doing it. The problem which the schoolmaster has to solve is, So to employ a given time with any number of pupils, that none shall be idly or unprofitably employed during the smallest portion of that time. The solving of this problem, unattainable as it may appear to many, will be admitted by all to be desirable. None will deny that it is well to aim at it; and that the schoolmaster is to be preferred who makes the nearest approximation to the solution. Now, I have no hesitation in believing, that by far the most effectual, I should rather say the only way in which this can be done, is by employing some modification of the monitorial method, or, as it is not unfrequently called, “the method of mutual instruction,” (l'enseignement mutuel.)* Without entering into the question about priority of invention and superior excellence, once so warmly agitated between the partisans of Bell and of Lancaster, it is enough for my purpose to state, that the characteristic feature of the monitorial system, is the employment of the scholars to teach one another. It is not meant, of course, that the ignorant are to instruct the ignorant, but that those of superior talent and acquirement shall be employed, under the direction of the master himself, to superintend the less advanced, and bring them up to the point they themselves have reached. These monitors, selected by the master (as it is his interest they should be) from the best scholars and fittest to be teachers, are made the channels of communication, so to speak, between him and his pupils; and thus, to follow out the metaphor, instead of one great and almost overwhelming current being directed, at long intervals, on a limited portion of the soil, while the rest is left dry, it is conveyed and circulated in smaller but more fertilizing streams, numerous enough to keep the entire surface at all times in the most wholesome and productive state. By the simple contriv- ance of training the ablest boys to communicate instruction, in * The intelligent reader will readily perceive, that the plan lately adopted in Schools for the people of having pupil-teachers who are paid by the Com- mittee of Privy Council, is one of these “modifications,” and a very happy one, of the monitorial principle ; and he will smile at the ignorance which those betray who talk of the monitorial system as a thing gone by and entirely superseded. (1855.) 24 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. the way required, to certain portions of the rest, over whom they are appointed inspectors, and for whose improvement they are responsible, the master, as it were, multiplies himself. He obtains in this way a set of assistant teachers, who, being of his own training and entirely under his control, are far more efficient than any he could hire; and with this difference also in favour of the plan—an important one where economy is so much to be studied—that he makes the aid which in the case of an adult assistant must be paid for, itself a reward and distinction to deserving pupils, and consequently a spur to emulation and generous ambition. While, however, I put forward economy as one of the ad- vantages of this method, I must protest against a notion very generally entertained, even by the friends of monitorial disci- pline in Scotland, that its cheapness is its only, or at least its greatest, recommendation; that it is, in truth, no more than an imperfect substitute for a superior method; and that re- course must be had to it—and for nothing beyond elemen- tary instruction—only in the case of those children whose parents can afford no other. On the contrary, I maintain that to apply the Superior knowledge of the abler and more ad- vanced pupils to the instructing of the rest, which is the vital principle of the monitorial system, is a better method as well as a cheaper; that it developes, in its application to the minds of the young, new principles of action and new motives to ex- ertion, peculiarly adapted to operate upon them ; that it infuses fresh life and spirit into the business of learning, banishing languor and listlessness, and substituting cheerful labour and love of study, for weariness and an unnatural dislike of in- struction; and lastly, that it is equally applicable to small schools and to large, and to many of the highest branches of education as well as to the lowest. These opinions are not the results of closet-speculation, but deductions from my own experience in teaching. Instead of following them out to their proof, which would swell this letter beyond all reasonable bounds, I shall content myself with re- curring once more to Quintilian, the greatest practical teacher of antiquity; and I quote this passage, because, though we have no direct proof in the writings of the ancients that the PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 25 monitorial method was ever employed, it contains the germ of the principle on which I maintain its superior excellence, and beautifully illustrates its operations on the youthful mind:— “Incipientibus, atque adhuc teneris, condiscipulorum quam praeceptoris jucundior, hoc ipso quod facilior, imitatio est . . . . . . Proxima amplectuntur magis; ut vites arboribus applicitae, inferiores prius apprehendendo ramos in cacumina evadunt. Quod adeo verum est, ut ipsius etiam magistri, si tamen ambitiosis utilia praeferet, hoc opus sit, cum adhuc rudia tractabit ingenia, non statim onerare infirmitatem dis- centium, sed temperare vires Suas, et ad intellectum audientis descendere. Nam ut vascula Oris angusti superfusam humoris copiam respuunt; sensin autem influentibus vel etiam instil- latis complentur: sic animipuerorum quantum excipere possint videndum est: nam majora intellectu velut parum apertos ad percipiendum animos non Subibunt. Utile igitur est habere quos imitari primum, mox Vincere, velis: ita paullatim et superiorum spes erit.”—QUINTIL. I. 3. I cannot but think it is an obvious deduction from these remarks of Quintilian, that pupils well selected and well trained, may, under proper direction and in particular kinds of mental exercise, be better teachers than the master himself. They are aware of the difficulties which they themselves en- * Beginners, while their faculties are yet feeble, take more pleasure in measuring their strength with their school-fellows, than with their teachers, for this very reason, that it is easier. ***Their emulation applies itself to what is nearest and within reach, just as the young vine, when trained to a tree, hooks its tendrils upon the lower branches first, and thus gradually makes its way to the top. Hence we conclude, that the master himself too, if he prefer the useful to the ambitious in teaching, will make it his business, when he has to deal with faculties yet untutored, not to overload at the outset the weakness of the learner, but to attenuate and temper his own powers, and stoop to the level of his pupil's understanding. For, as a narrow-necked vessel rejects the water altogether, when poured on its mouth profusely, but is easily filled when it enters slowly in a slender stream, or even drop by drop; so attention must be paid to the relative capacities of very young minds. Truths of high import, addressed to minds not yet sufficiently ex- panded to let them in, pass by and make no impression. It is important, therefore, that a boy should have those to imitate first, whom he may hope in due time to surpass. Thus, we shall have well-grounded assurance of higher and higher attainments, 26 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACEHING. countered but lately, and are often able to explain them to their comrades, in a manner more familiar and intelligible, than can be done by an adult teacher, whose habits and ways of thinking are so widely different. I might illustrate and confirm these views, by referring to the evidence I had of their correctness in teaching Greek, the higher branches of Latin, and ancient geography, in the High School of Edinburgh. Foreign though such details be to your usual avocations, it might not be without interest to you, to trace the successive steps by which I felt my way in the application of the monitorial arrangements, till they led, among other agreeable results, to the total abolition of corpo- ral punishments for the last seven or eight years of my rector- ship; the average number of pupils being, throughout that time, not less than 225, all taught without any assistance but that of my own monitors, and all at a time of life when boys are generally, but very unjustly, supposed to be most unman- ageable. I might strengthen my argument, by describing also the good effects of a partial introduction of the same sys- tem into the Humanity Classes in this University. But, wishing to confine my observations, for the present, chiefly to the business of Parochial and Village Schools, I withhold all these details, because the branches taught, and the age and class of the pupils, are so different in my case as to leave room for objecting to any argument drawn from such sources; and the disparity is apparently encreased by the circumstance, that all my pupils were engaged in the same studies, and supposed to have made nearly the same progress. Our present business is with schools varying in numbers from 40 to 180, and composed of pupils in every degree of proficiency, either learning different branches, or in different stages of the same branch, and all going on at the same time, under one master, and in one room. An assistant is sometimes employed, when the numbers are considerable; but this scarcely at all affects the argument. Few situations occur in human life where order and method are more indispensable than in a school of this description. There are probably three or four classes of English reading, as many stages of arithmetic, as many of penmanship, a class PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 27 or two perhaps of Latin, and occasionally classes or individu- als learning some branch of the mathematics. Amidst such a distracting diversity of occupations, if the teacher has no method, the school must unavoidably fall into disorder, and the insubordination which will as certainly follow can only be kept down by a very free and frequent use of the lash. Suppose one class on the floor, saying to the master; another has finished the task prescribed, and having nobody to say it to, abandons itself to strenuous idleness; pupils come from various classes to enquire a word they cannot make out, to complain of a neighbour, to crave leave out, to ask what they are to do next, to shew a copy or cast an account, or to beg a new sum to work. In such a scene of confusion worse con- founded, we need not wonder that the child's progress should be slow and small; the wonder is rather that he should suc- ceed in learning any thing. But allowing the master to be ever so methodical, how is he, by his single efforts, to make even a distant approach to- wards solving the great problem,--to keep every mind busy during every minute of the school hours. The portion of time which the master of a school even of 70 or 80 pupils can de- vote daily to each class, is necessarily very limited, and to each individual, it is next to nothing. The progress, there- fore, of the pupil must depend much more on the manner in which the rest of his time in school is employed, than on the direct instructions of his master. Now, I will venture to affirm, that it is altogether impossible, without some modifi- cation of the monitorial method, either to excite the same intensity of application, or to fill up the long intervals between one saying to the master and another, with useful exertion of any kind. The teacher may be exact and conscientious and orderly in the distribution of his own time; and it is easy for him, when he sends a class to its seat, to prescribe a task, and enjoin the preparation of it before he comes round again, un- der severe penalties; but where is the motive for doing it? The time of the next hearing is distant, very distant to the mental vision of a child: he relapses therefore into indolence or mischievous activity, and thinks as little as possible of his lesson, till the master's foot in the adjoining class, 28 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. reminds him of his danger, whispering in very intelligible accents, “ecquid Ad te post paulo ventura pericula sentis 2 Nam tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet.”—HoR. How, indeed, should he be expected to struggle with the dif- ficulties of a new lesson amidst the hubbub of a crowded room, when he is removed from the master's eye and assailed with temptations to idleness or mischief on every side? It is under the immediate terror of the rod, therefore, that he plies his task; and plies it for no more, probably, than a twentieth part of the interval between each lesson; in a frame of mind, too, by no means the best adapted for vigorous application. Great zeal on the part of the master, and an attention always on the stretch, may abate these evils, but cannot extinguish them, because they have their origin in the very nature of the human faculties: nor can they, I conceive, be remedied by any system of management, the main-spring of which shall not be monitorial division. Let the master, after sufficient trial of temper and acquirements, select the steadiest and best of the same or of a higher class, and place them at the head, each of a certain number of the less advanced, with instruc- tions, daily repeated, what to teach, and how to proceed. Let each of these monitors be made responsible for the conduct and progress of the division assigned to him, and let him know that an account of these will be required from time to time by the master himself. When this arrangement is once formed, provided the master has done his part with even a moderate portion of common sense, sagacity, and confidence, he will almost immediately observe a spirit and alacrity infused into the school, which no zeal of his, singly, can inspire, because it is derived from principles quite independent of his individual exertions. These principles act irresistibly both on the moni- tor and upon his division. The former, who is invested for a time, and under proper admonition and restraint, with the delegated authority of the master, feels an additional spur to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the lessons, and to listen with eager attention to all the instructions delivered, that he may justify the choice made of him, and maintain his PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 29 claim to superior proficiency. Nor is the benefit which ac- crues to the monitor confined to improvement in learning. The manly habits he must acquire in order to approve himself to a discerning master are still more valuable. It is a train- ing to the exercise of cool judgment, prompt decision, strict impartiality, steadiness of purpose, and command of temper, —and a training which it is the master's fault if the boy do not profit by. To be placed thus early in a situation of trust and responsibility, with motives to enforce the performance of the duties, and checks to prevent the abuse of the power, is a course of discipline well fitted to produce a good member of society,+one who — “patriae sit idoneus, utilis agris, Utilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis.”—JUv. xiv. 71. On the other hand, the advantages to the pupils in the division are not less important and certain than to the monitor. I have already endeavoured to show, that those who have but lately acquired knowledge by their own exertions, are, in some respects, the best qualified to make others comprehend it, by guiding them over the same path which they themselves have just travelled. And I may now add, in favour of monitorial teaching, the opportunities it affords of having difficulties solved, and stumbling-blocks removed out of the learner's way, in consequence of the greater familiarity and facility of intercourse of pupils with one another, than of pupils with their master. If all this be admitted, there is nothing absurd in believing, that the teaching by monitors may be essentially a better thing, and more effectual for the great ends of public instruction, than the continued attention, even were that pos- sible, of the principal teacher himself:—particularly when it is considered that monitorial training is not meant to super- sede, but only to introduce and come in aid of the master's. The master cannot be present at the same time in every little department of his school; he moves successively through a very limited sphere of action, where alone there is any mental activity. If, then, there be in his school system, bodies too remote to be affected by his direct influence, is it unreasonable in itself, or inconsistent with the analogies of nature, that he 30 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. should give them the benefit of reflected light from rings and secondary planets? But allowing the master's teaching to be in all cases the best—and few, I know, are disposed to think it is not—still, the drilling, if I may so call it, given by the monitors, is surely preferable, as a means of filling up the interval between each hearing, to that state of inertness and vacancy, which on the present plan, the children are abandoned to, during each long interregnum. For I would confidently appeal to the teacher of any school conducted in the old way, whether the most tremendous denunciation of wrath, even with the sad convic- tion in the poor boy's mind that it is no empty threat, be found, in his experience, to produce steady preparation, or to secure any thing like a keen and continued exercise of mind, during the time that passes between the hearing of each class. There is another view of the subject, from which it will appear that these intervals will be much shorter under the new method, and the hearings by the master consequently more frequent. A set of well-selected monitors, trained to their duties beforehand, will put the divisions they superintend in possession of the business prescribed, so speedily and so fully, that the master will no longer be under the necessity of hear- ing the whole lesson drawled out in large portions by each child successively, thereby rendering his visits to the classes few and far between. He will obtain more satisfactory assu- rance of the state of each class, by first enquiring of the mo- mitor, if he can answer for its being duly prepared, and then putting it to the test, by requiring the hardest words of the lesson to be spelled, explained, and parsed, or the most diffi- cult sentence to be read; it being obvious, that if he find all this done by the slow boys as well as the quick, full posses- sion of the easier parts may be taken for granted. In this way he may multiply almost indefinitely the number of his rounds, and encrease proportionally the efficiency of his la- bours. The emulative principle, too, which on the ordinary plan is awakened in a class only when the master is examining it, is, upon the monitorial, never allowed to be dormant; for in addition to other honourable incitements, the business of pro- f PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. 31 motion according to merit, goes on under the monitor as it does under the master; with this difference, that to ensure fairness and prevent the abuse of power, liberty of appeal is reserved to the pupil, when he thinks himself aggrieved. Let the monitors be enjoined by the earnest admonition, and what is still more effectual, by the example of their mas- ter, to teach patiently and to use their power gently, but firmly and discreetly; and if that master be not utterly devoid of the qualities that fit a man for his profession, he will soon be sur- prised and delighted with the facilities this method will afford him, the variety of purposes it may be made to serve, the addi- tional efficacy it will give to all his exertions, and the happi- ness it will diffuse among the children. It is thus, that an entire school, arranged by an intelligent master according to the principles and method I have briefly described, will go on—be the occupations of the several classes ever so different—with the regularity and uniform movement of clock-work. The wheels of such a machine are of various sizes, and the teeth of each more or less numerous, but every wheel goes round and every tooth is in its place, and all are unconsciously contributing their share towards accomplishing the purpose which the maker had in view in the construction. Little irregularities will occur, and abuses spring up, which it is the business of the master to watch and provide a check for ; but the occurrence, and still more the continuance of these, is no argument against the monitorial system : it only betrays the unskilfulness of the hand that applies it. The difference of spirit that prevails in schools conducted on the old and on the new system, may be compared to that which has been often observed to exist between a free government and a despotism. The latter, how mild soever its character may be, paralyses, or rather never awakens, some of the noblest feelings and principles of our nature. It encourages apathy, and a tranquil enjoyment of the good things within reach, but represses all desire to encrease their number, or im- prove their quality; while, on the other hand, the unceasing activity of free states, where the road to honour and distinction is open to all, gives scope and excitement to worth and talent, and unfolds the germ of every social improvement. In the 32 PRINCIPLES OF ELEMENTARY TEACHING. one, we have the fatness and rank growth of the stagnant pool; in the other, the perpetual agitation, crystal purity, and flowery banks of a perennial fountain. Having thus stated some general principles in the art of teaching, at a length which I fear may have exhausted your patience, though with far less detail than I should think ne- cessary were I addressing myself to practical teachers, I shall allow you a short respite, before I solicit your attention to the causes which have hitherto prevented the universal adoption of these maxims in the discipline of Scottish schools. With regard to the remedies, the bare statement of the cause will in general suggest the cure; and where this is not the case, if any practical remedy occurs to me, I shall take the liberty of pointing it out.—Meanwhile, I am, &c. LETTER SEC0ND. CAUSES WHICH RETARD THE IMPROVEMENT OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE IN SCOTLAND; WITH HINTS ON THE MEANS OF CURE. EDINBURGH, 27th October 1827. MY DEAR SIR, EVERY one acquainted, even slightly, with the present state of popular education throughout Scotland must be aware, that the principles and practices recommended in my former letter, are, to say the least, by no means universally admitted and followed in our parochial and village schools. If it were So, we should be spared the mortification of being obliged to confess, that it is not to them we must look for the model of that always happy because always busy school, of which I lately drew the outline. To meet daily some sixty or seventy children, to keep them together for two or three hours at a time in a state of more or less noisy subordination, which is prevented from breaking out into deafening clamour, or open rebellion, only by the constant fear and frequent application of the lash,_to call up the different classes into which they are clumsily arranged, and hear, with conscientious it may be but ill-directed attention, each pupil in his turn go through his portion of the lesson, while the whole school, that individual and his master excepted, are either practising or meditating mischief, or, what is worse, in all the misery of languor and absolute idleness:–this, I fear, must be admitted to be, upon the whole, a more true and faithful delineation of our ordinary schools. There are honourable exceptions, and these are C 34 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. multiplying daily among schoolmasters who have adopted the new method; and many even who have not yet done so soft- en down the odious parts of the picture by the force of indi- vidual character. But there must be something vicious in the system, or want of system, which makes the sketch I have drawn, generally speaking, so accurate a likeness. A very large proportion of the parochial teachers are men of good education and very respectable attainments, and per- fectly able, both in a moral and intellectual point of view, to carry into execution any plan of amelioration, did not ob- stacles stand in the way over which they have no controul. It is to the investigation of these causes of comparative ineffi- ciency, which none are more interested in seeing removed than the teachers themselves, that I now crave a moment's attention from you as a friend to Scotland and still more as a member of the Legislature; for it is to Parliament we must look for the removal of some at least of the disabilities under which our parochial system at present labours. I. The first cause of inefficiency is one which lies at the root of by much the greater part of the evils that exist:-The total want of all public provision for the professional educa- tion of schoolmasters: Hoc fonte derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit. It would be no cure for this defect in our institutions to ordain, that every candidate for a school should have attended certain classes in a university or have gone through a pre- scribed curriculum of study. What we want in a public teacher is not a large amount of literary or scientific acquire- ment—a very moderate stock may suffice for the ordinary purposes of instruction—but the faculty of selecting from the knowledge he has what is likely to be intelligible and useful to a child, and of presenting it to the young mind in the most impressive and agreeable shape. This, again, pre- supposes an acquaintance with the human mind in the stages of infancy and boyhood, in both of which it differs so ma- terially from the character it assumes in the adult and the CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 35 aged, as to require a particular treatment; and the secret of such treatment can only be learned by previous study, which experience will assist but cannot supply the want of What parent, watching by the sick-bed of a child, would think it enough that the physician in attendance was ac- quainted with all that Hippocrates and Galen had written, and knew what drugs were best fitted to arrest the disease of the little patient, unless he were known to be skilled also in the manner of compounding them, and the doses in which they ought to be administered ? Now, it is a curious fact in the history of our country, (and we might extend the observation to several countries besides our own,) that while ample provision is made for professional training in every other line, it never seems to have occurred to those to whose province it belonged, that any such provi- sion was required for that profession, in which I conceive it is quite as important and indispensable as in any other. In order to qualify a man to be a practising physician, lawyer, or divine, a long probation of preparatory discipline is very properly required. He must study the theory of his profes- sion, and he must witness and engage in the experimental parts of it, before he is admitted to practise it publicly. Nay more, there is scarcely a handicraft, the aspirant to which is not bound to serve an apprenticeship of several years, in order to make himself acquainted with its mysteries. The precautions which we take to have our medicines well compounded, our books well printed and well bound, nay, our very shoes well made, these we utterly neglect when the question is, whether our children shall be well taught. A certificate from a pro- fessor of some university that the youth who bears it has attended a Greek or Humanity class, and a clergyman's attes- tation that he has been a regular hearer in his church and has led a quiet life in his parish, are deemed ample proofs of his fitness to be a schoolmaster; and upon no better evidence are raw lads appointed every day to this difficult and delicate task, which they have never seriously thought of but as a means of subsistence. Yet surely it requires but little reflection to arrive at the conclusion, that the power of teaching well is neither a thing 36 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. that “comes by nature,” nor at all commensurate with the ca- pacity for learning; and that a great stock of knowledge affords no proof, scarcely even a presumption, that the possessor has the faculty of skilfully communicating any part of it to young minds. To stoop from the pride of superior attainment; to conceive even the embarrassments that entangle the beginner; to identify one's self with the feelings and faculties of chil- dren; to anticipate and remove the obstacles in their way to elementary knowledge; to curb and regulate their little pas- sions and tempers, and, what is still more difficult, one's own ; to awaken and sustain attention, and to know when to stop short of fatigue and exhaustion; to lead, by short and easy steps, through a path that to them is a rugged one, bear- ing them, as it were, in arms over the worst of the road, and strewing it with flowers instead of planting it with thorns; to slacken one's own step, in order to keep pace with the pupil, instead of expecting or insisting on gigantic strides from the feebleness of childhood:—to do all this, is not so entirely a matter of instinct in man, that the power may safely be left without culture to its natural development. And with regard to other accomplishments not less necessary, and yet altogether independent of what a man may know of Greek and Latin, or Mathematics, or any other science of the seven, the faculty, I mean, of exciting emulation, encouraging and rewarding in- dustry, inspiring the love of knowledge and of virtue, and so combining and directing the exertions of all in one simultane- ous movement, that the whole school shall resemble a piece of fine machinery, all the parts of which conspire to one great general effect—which, in this case, is the production of the largest possible amount of useful acquirement and virtuous habits;–these, I need scarcely say, are qualifications which it is highly desirable every schoolmaster should possess, and which there is very little chance of his ever acquiring without some previous training. The preposterous absurdity of sending men forth to teach, altogether unacquainted with the art of teaching, and destined consequently to grope their way to some knowledge of it at the expense of several successive generations of children, be- gan to be felt at the time when such an impulse was given to CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 37 gº the public mind in England on the subject of education, by the useful rivalry of Bell and Lancaster, and the speculations to which it gave rise. The partisans of each, when they came to grapple with the practical difficulties of the subject, were Soon made aware of the necessity of training masters to the details of their system, in order to give it any chance of suc- cess and permanence. A training department was accordingly attached, I believe, to both the rival establishments, as is also done, and now in active operation, in the model school of the Society for the Education of the Poor in Ireland. In all this, as practised in London and Dublin, there is much to be commended, and it is an advantage which the sister kingdoms possess over Scotland, where nothing of the kind, as far as I know, has ever yet (1827) been attempted. It is by no means, however, so perfect an institution, as to render it desirable that it should be introduced into Scotland simply and without improvement; even supposing we had model schools like our neighbours, on which it might be readily engrafted. It would, no doubt, be a great benefit to us, who have nothing of the kind; but something more, I conceive, is required, than to bring the future instructor of youth into a school, where he may see the practical details of teaching going on, after the most approved method. An opportunity should also be afforded him of hearing the prin- ciples and theory of the art of teaching laid down and ex- pounded in public lectures, before he sees, or rather while he is employed in observing, the theory illustrated by example. The mind of the future teacher ought to be directed to the profession he has chosen, as early in life as possible, that the branches of knowledge particularly required may be studied, with the object of teaching them kept steadily in view. If we think it an advantage in general (and for obvious reasons it is so,) that a youth should make early choice of a profession, why should that of a teacher, so influential both on individual and national character, be commonly resorted to, either as a temporary expedient in the way to another, or as a last re- source to the broken down and disappointed in every profes- sion? and while there is a prize to run for in all the different race-courses of human life, why should it be necessary to make 38 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. up a purse at the expense of the rising generation for the beaten horses in them all? |Upon the whole, then, it cannot be right, that, while the theory and practice of medicine, and of every liberal profes- sion, nay, of most even of the purely mechanical arts, are taught, often with an unnecessary degree of minuteness and waste of time, the important art which lays the foundation, and ensures the right application, of all subsequent acquire- ment, should be left entirely to chance and individual exer- tion. The results of observation and experience in this, “the noblest, and, in proportion to its value, the least studied of all the arts, the art of teaching,” ought to be digested in a philosophical form, and presented as a regular course of instruc- tion to the future teachers of our youth, in order that their attention may be imperatively drawn to the exercise of a calling, which, hitherto, has unaccountably been thought to require no preparation; and that they may start, at the com- mencement of their labours, from the vantage-ground of knowing what has been done, and what is most approved of, in the principles and practice of their profession. This would be the most effectual mode, both of correcting the low estimate too generally formed of the qualifications necessary for a country teacher, and of counteracting that blind unreasoning attachment of masters no less than of pa- rents to long-established school practices, which is one of the most formidable barriers in the way of any improvement. At the time when the present system of parochial schools was finally adjusted by the Scottish Parliament in 1696, it will” be allowed that the subject of practical education was not so well understood as it now is. The importance of internal or— ganization, and of precise and systematic details, seems to have been so little understood, that while every attention was given to secure, by endowment, the existence of a school in every parish, the discipline was left, in a great measure, to the incumbent teacher. Hence it happened, that certain modes of teaching were either continued from earlier usage, or gradually crept in, it is not always easy to say how; and many prin- ciples and practices have thus got firm footing in our schools, * Dr Thomas Brown, Philos. of Human Mind, Lect, IV, CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 39 which have nothing to recommend them but their antiquity; which are opposed indeed to the most sane and enlight- ened views, both of ancient and modern times. And so great is the tenacity of habit, such the dislike of innovation however reasonable, that improvement moves at a slower pace where such practices have taken root, than where nothing had been previously done. Hence the fact before hinted at, which—though it is pleasant to find poor Ireland enjoying any good of man's bestowing—I have considerable mortifica- tion, as a Scotchman, in stating; that, with a body of paro- chial teachers better educated and of higher general acquire- ments, the elementary schools of Scotland are, upon the whole, worse conducted than those of the same description which have sprung up, within the last five-and-twenty years, in the two sister kingdoms. It would seem that we, having been accustomed to travel, for several generations, on roads neither remarkably well lined at first, nor constructed on the most approved principles of road-making, have sunk so deep in the wheel-tracks of our predecessors that a strong effort will be necessary to heave us out; while our neighbours, less fortu- nate than we during the last century, are, in the present, reap- ing the full and immediate advantage of recent inventions in the art. I cannot better accomplish the object I proposed to myself, when I called your attention to the causes of inefficiency in our schools, than by enumerating some of those imperfect methods and erroneous views which time has introduced and sanctioned among us. They are vices which cling to an old establishment, in other respects intrinsically good; and they are, for that very reason, the more difficult to be eradicated. II. I may mention, then, as a second obstacle in the way of improvement, The character of the books in general use for teaching children to read and understand their own language. The most distinguished of these, and which give name to the highest school class for English reading, are certain Collections, as they are called, consisting of extracts from the most ap- proved writers of our language, in prose and verse. In the prose department will be found, Historical extracts from 40 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon; pieces called Didactic, con- sisting of discourses on Grace of Style, and disquisitions on various topics, critical, moral, and literary, from such writers as Addison and Blair; and Oratorical specimens, made up of such ingredients as fragments of Cicero's Orations, and of speeches in the British Parliament. The poetical portion of the volumes contains soliloquies and scenes from Shakespeare; part of Pope's Essay on Man, and his Art of Criticism; Dry- den's Alexander's Feast; long passages from Milton, the most learned and difficult of poets, and from Young, the quaintest and most obscure. And all these are of course ren- dered doubly uninteresting and unintelligible to a young per- son, by standing apart, cut off from all connection with the play, poem, or discourse to which they belong. These books, in short-and I allude chiefly to Barry's Collection, and Scott's Beauties, which I have found by far the most generally used, —are composed of choice selections, and high-wrought passages from authors who did not write for children, but who bent the whole force of their genius to secure the favourable judgment of the most cultivated minds of their own age, and of all time to come. And in whose hands are these noble compositions placed, to be read, and conned, and got by heart, and recited to applauding auditories?—In the hands of children from eight to twelve years old ! Not reserved for an age when they might be relished and admired, nor even for such individuals of that early age as from extreme precocity, or nice and assi- duous culture, might have some chance of comprehending them; but thrust upon the unwilling attention of rustic youth, at a time when they are no more capable of entering into their meaning, than a man born blind is of conceiving colours. Accordingly, the master, finding these books established in the school, and very seldom possessing the power, even if he had the will, to substitute fitter, fairly abandons the attempt— feeling, as he must do, that it would be a vain one—to make what is read intelligible to the child. Hence all the miseries and disadvantages, which necessarily spring out of discarding from the ordinary process of school reading everything like meaning, and consequently all that is interesting and attrac- tive. It is thus that learning to read becomes to almost all CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 41 children a tedious task; that a rooted aversion to attending school and to the very sight of a book is too frequently pro- duced; and, finally, that a habit is formed of mistaking words for ideas, which cripples the understanding and leaves it for life comparatively inert and obtuse. But I have spoken only of the highest reading class: the pupils, it may be thought, are better off in the lower stages, before they are lifted up to this, which must be to them a bleak and barren, elevation. The general rule is, that after alphabetic and syllabic reading is compassed in a Spelling Book, the child is advanced to the ‘Testament Class,’ and then in due time to the ‘Bible Class;' and these are the three steps which precede his entering the ‘Collection Class.’ And assuredly, both from the New Testament and the Old, pas- sages might be selected of plain and interesting narrative, and of simple and beautiful morality, which, with the running commentary of a judicious preceptor, could not fail to arrest the attention, inform the understanding, and improve the heart of a child. But the old and inveterate practice of our country schools, is to read the Bible straight forward from the beginning of Genesis; or, if they deviate, it is to pick out some chapter of proper names which cannot possibly have any meaning, by way of puzzle, or to shew off the child's skill and proficiency.* In some schools, custom and economy have even sanctioned the practice of using the Assembly's Catechism as the first and only book for learning to read in the earlier stages,f and of superseding it, as the child advances, by an entire Bible, of * If any additional proof were wanting, that, in English reading, the sole object of most schoolmasters is mechanical dexterity, it would be found in the almost incredible, and yet very common absurdity, of assuming the fluent reading of the 10th chapter of Nehemiah as a test of proficiency. + This practice was once almost universal, and would seem to have been sanctioned by some high authority, if one may judge from the singular ac- companiments along with which this admirable digest of Christian doctrine has been circulated, for nearly two centuries, through every school and dwelling-house in Scotland. First comes a title-page, beginning thus : “The A, B, C, with the SHORTER CATECHISM,” &c.; and on turning the leaf, we find first, a close array of Alphabets, in characters capital, common, and italic; them, a flying squadron of vowels and points; and, lastly, a rear- guard of two-lettered meaningless syllables in double-column; by the help 42 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. which the inconvenient weight and small type are serious evils to a young beginner. It would be idle to dwell on the un- reasonableness of such a plan of initiatory instruction. You will find most teachers either fully aware of the objections to it, or if, as is often the case, they never thought of the mat- ter, open at least to conviction. But they are prevented from making any change, partly by the unwillingness of parents to purchase new books so long as the old ones, the heir-looms of the family, will hold together and bear the thumbs of another generation; and partly by that obstinate adherence to former practice which I have already alluded to, and which we shall presently find operating hurtfully in other ways as well as in this.” For, III. The third obstruction in the way of an improved sys- tem of elementary education, is, The prejudices of Parents. The natural anxiety of parents for the right training of their offspring is in no country stronger than in Scotland; and in- deed it is to this long-cherished and hereditary feeling, that the Scotch are mainly indebted for the rank they hold as a moral and educated people. It is a feeling so creditable to them, that one is inclined to treat even its aberrations with tenderness. But it is difficult not to deal severely with that constant teazing interference of parents with the peculiar pro- vince and business of the teacher which they would scornfully resent, if exercised by any of their customers on the practice of their own calling. And yet it may be safely affirmed, that no man is more ignorant of shoe-making or stocking-weav- ing, or any craft but his own, than parents in general are of the business of practical education. Nevertheless, in country parishes, they are perpetually interposing their opinion and directions, always indeed with the best intention, but seldom for good, either to master or pupil. Nay, it would not be going too far to say, that their opposition to the schoolmaster is often the more violent, the more he deserves support and encouragement. For, so wedded are they to old habits and of all which, it was obviously intended that the child should be led on noxt to “What is the chief end of man?” on page third. * See Note D. at end of Letters. CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 43 practices, that not unfrequently the favourite teacher is the man who truckles to their prejudices, and persists in all the follies of an exploded system: while he who ventures to accommodate his practice to the spirit of the age is cried down, and the children withdrawn to the opposition school. Hence, many a schoolmaster, long after his reason is con- vinced of the propriety of alterations, is deterred from intro- ducing them, partly, it may be, in timid and irresolute minds, by the fear of their not succeeding in practice, but more com- monly by the dread of displeasing a majority of parents, on whom he depends for his livelihood. If he attempts selection from the Scriptures where the imme- morial custom has been to read straight forward, parents exclaim against the iniquity of thinking one part of God's Word better than another, overlooking the very obvious consideration, that there is milk for babes, and strong meat for grown men. It is mortifying to be obliged to add, that the master who should announce his intention of banishing the lash, and sub- stituting milder punishments and more generous motives of action, could by no means be always sure that he would not, by so doing, thin his numbers, and give a decided advantage to some sterner and less scrupulous rival. So strangely pre- valent is the notion,-strengthened, perhaps, in the people of Scotland, by the perverted application of a text of Sacred Writ-that there can be no effectual teaching withoutrigorous infliction.* Among these ignorant and presumptuous prejudices of the rural population, there are two peculiarly mischievous, in re- tarding the adoption of a sounder practice in teaching. The one leads them to measure the benefit of School-attendance by the time the child is confined in the school-room; the other disinclines them to any modification of the monitorial system. Each of these requires some illustration. 1. Ill-trained children are so troublesome at home, that mothers feel a preference for the school which keeps them longest out of their sight, provided they have, at the same time, the assurance that they are “out of harm's way;” and # It is not at all uncommon for parents, in entering their child at school, to admonish the master to “be sure and whip him well!" 44 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. fathers, if they have a voice in the matter, feel a general lean- ing to go where they get what they imagine to be “the best pennyworth.”—Hence a sort of competition among teachers, who shall give the longest hours ; which, in many instances that have come under my own observation, are extended during the summer, from nine in the morning till six in the evening, with only one regular hour of intermission Thus are the in- terests of the poor children, both as to health of body and soundness of mind, sacrificed in a contest between the folly and selfishness of parents on the one hand, and the cupidity and imbecility of teachers on the other. So seldom have reason and philosophy been applied to the subject of teaching, that the true doctrine with regard to school hours is scarcely to be found any where reduced to practice. Yet it is founded on considerations obvious enough. A boy has a very acute perception in what affects his immediate inter- est, blind as he generally is to his future and distant good. If then you close him up in a room, with a certainty of remain- ing there an allotted time, and a possibility of being detained longer if he be notoriously idle or ill-behaved, his calcula- tion, it is quite evident, will be, to do just so much work as is necessary to secure himself against the chance of detention, —and no more. The boy does not express all this to himself in words, but the momentum of motive applied propels his mind only so far; and I should no more expect it to carry him farther, than to see a stone thrown from the hand of a child move with the velocity of a cannon ball. On the other hand, propose a certain task or series of tasks to a boy, with the assurance, that when these are thoroughly well done, his time shall be at his own disposal, and he will address himself to the work with an alacrity he never showed before. Such, indeed, will be the rapidity of his execution, as at first to confound and embarrass his incredulous teacher and make him half repent him of the experiment. Experience and repeated trials will alone enable him to guage correctly powers of mind which, till he applied this stimulus, were entirely unknown, both to him and to their possessor. The true doctrine, then, applicable to all schools is, that the hour of meeting should be fixed, while that of leaving CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 45 school should be a moveable point, to be determined by the degree of successful exertion put forth. In the multifarious business of a parish school, this rule cannot always be very precisely adhered to ; but it will be enough that the principle be recognized: and the prospect of half or even a quarter of an hour's play, conveying, as it does, not merely freedom but distinction, will have an influence, like magic, in overcoming the inertness of the youthful mind. This will appear upon trial so clear, both to master and parent, and it is, moreover, so plain a dictate of justice that if the idler be confined after the hour, the clever and industrious should be dismissed before it, —that I am convinced all parties might soon be reconciled to this very material improvement. Even mothers would drop their opposition, if the master took charge, as he ought to do, of the pastimes, amusements, and bodily exercises of his pupils. He may direct those among them who have earned an hour's play, to pass it in manly sports or agreeable recrea- tion, in some adjoining field; for, when the reign of terror is superseded by that of love and respect, a hint from the master will have the force of a command, and will influence the con- duct of the pupil out of school as well as in it: ‘praesens et absens idem erit.” It is one of the endless advantages of the monitorial system, that, by multiplying the number of responsible teachers, ready to hear the tasks when they are done, it increases incalculably the power of pitching a boy against time, and affords great facilities in putting the accuracy of preparation to the test. 2. The other prejudice,—that against the introduction of the monitorial system,--is eminently detrimental to the pro- gress of improvement in scholastic discipline, and prevails not among parents only, but, I am sorry to say, among schoolmas- ters, and, generally, among the uneducated and ill-educated part of the community. The popular and parental feeling is, “We will not send our children to be under other children, instead of being taught by the master;” and this declaration is often coupled or followed up with another to this effect, “We will not encourage the master's laziness at the expense of our children.” An answer to the first form of the ob- jection will, I think, be readily suggested by the observa- 46 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. tions already made. The monitor's teaching is a substitute, not for the master's, of which it has been proved the pupil receives more by the monitorial method, but for no teaching at all. It is a preparatory discipline, capable of being made as valuable as the continued hearing of lessons by the master, perhaps even more so:—and it fills up usefully an unprofitable interval. With regard to the imputation of laziness, if it is proved that twice the work is done and double proficiency made in the same time, hard-hearted indeed must those parents be who would grudge the master a small alleviation of his toil, supposing that such were the result of the new method ; for they must know from their own observation, that no labour has, hitherto at least, been more thankless, harassing, and ill-requited. But it is a mistake to suppose that the labour will be lighter; the teacher's exertions, on the contrary, must necessarily be increased.—A practice, indeed, prevails under the present system, against which the objection might fairly be urged, and from which perhaps it originated. The master avails himself of some pretext to absent himself for an hour or two, and devolves the management of the school upon one of the bigger boys, a proceeding which almost necessarily leads to riot and disorder. But the monitorial arrangement differs widely from this device of indolence or dishonesty. To de- serve the name, it must be organised, regular, and universal; not taken up by fits and starts, in some classes and not in others, so as to appear rather a resource of laziness and a saving of trouble than a well-digested system of discipline. If the thing be done in the right way, the master will certainly be much happier, as well as the pupils; but his happiness, like theirs, will arise from his feeling, not that he has less to do, but that he is more constantly, more actively, and more usefully occupied. So much for the dislike of parents and others to the intro- duction of the monitorial system : from the schoolmasters themselves, though their prejudice against it is strong and general, I never heard any objection of weight enough to be put into a reasonable or intelligible shape, except the want of proper accommodation in their school-rooms. A little more CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 47 space than on the ordinary plan is no doubt required for monitorial subdivision; and where the attendance is numer- ous, some inconvenience would be experienced in a consider- able proportion of school-houses. But, where a strong case is made out that improvement in discipline is prevented by want of room, the heritors, who have so often and so hand- somely provided for the schoolmaster's private accommodation beyond what is enjoined by the letter of the law, would, I am persuaded, be equally liberal, where it was proved that the comfort and progress of the children were concerned. And should this convenience be tardily granted or even refused, a little ingenuity on the part of the teacher will remove, or at least abate, the evil. What, for instance, would be easier, during many months of the year, than to take advantage of a green, or court, or plot of ground, adjoining to most school- houses, for the purpose of monitorial divisions? I have often suggested such a resource to teachers, pointing perhaps to Some spot that might be so appropriated; but the idea, so far from having ever occurred to them, seemed to be with Some difficulty comprehended. Many appeared, by the ex- pression of their countenances, to doubt whether I were seri- ous in proposing such an expedient, and looked very much as a jailor might do, to whom it should be proposed to set his prisoners at large for an hour or two a-day. I was forced to plead in my own defence, that I had often sent 60 or 70 boys to the High School play-ground, to go over the lesson with their monitors, far from my own eye, and yet without one instance having occurred of running away, or of marked mis- conduct, those boys at the same time being advanced to a period of life, when escape from restraint might be supposed to have a higher value than among little boys, as they could make a more fearless use of their freedom. But the idea of lessons going on in the open air, out of the walls of school, and away from the sight of the master or the sound of the lash, was evidently a new one, and the consequences of trying it were contemplated with no small apprehension. So invet- erate is the habit of regarding school as a place of confinement, and so generally have we departed from that agreeable and philosophical notion of it, which the ancient Romans seem to J.8 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISC1RLIN1). have had when they named it ludus literarius —a notion, permit me to remark in passing, to which we cannot too soon revert. For it is demonstrably certain, that where young people are taught as they ought to be taught, they are quite as happy in school as at play, seldom less delighted, may often more so, with the well-directed exercise of their mental energies, than with that of their muscular powers. IV. Among the minor causes that perpetuate imperfect methods, and discourage improvement, may be reckoned, in the fourth place, The little countenance shewn to the teacher, in the discharge of his professional duties, by those classes of the community whose countenance is calculated to cheer and support him. Nothing operates more powerfully, on the one hand, as a reward and encouragement to the zealous and con- scientious teacher, and on the other, as a check to the indulg- ing of indolence, apathy, caprice, fretfulness, and cruelty, than frequent visitation by competent judges and influential per- sons in the neighbourhood. Yet so rare are such visits to our parochial schools, that a decent audience can with dif- ficulty be mustered for an hour or two of an annual public examination; and as to the rest of the year, the appearance of a visiting stranger within the walls of the school-room, scarcely excites less surprise than a shower of stones or the shock of an earthquake. In this, however, the public are not so much to blame as might at first be imagined. The every-day business of a school conducted on the ordinary plan is so tedious and destitute of interest, and not unfrequently, from inattention to cleanliness and ventilation, so disagreeable and offensive to the senses, that nothing but a motive of duty more imperative than can be expected to sway any man not professional will lead to such a sacrifice of time. Nor are Examination-days in general more tempting, being commonly employed, not in exhibiting feats of proficiency and intellect proposed on the spur of the moment, and accomplished by virtue of previous training, but in irksome iteration of the business of the year, and most nauseous spouting of passages not understood;—in all which, memory has much to do, and judgment nothing. That the CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 49 business of school, when it consists of a series of well-con- ducted experiments on the young mind, is not only in itself an interesting exhibition, but capable of attracting and amus- ing a mixed audience, the conflux of inhabitants and strangers to the Sessional School of this city bears ample testimony. But, even if the rational and intellectual system of teaching were universally established in our schools, we could not, I fear, depend on a voluntary visitation of intelligent observers so continued and frequent, as to supply the desired encourage- ments and checks. Duty of this kind is never done with effect, on a great scale and for a series of generations, when it is to be done gratuitously. We must not expect, therefore, that even the Clergy, who are constituted by law the guar- dians and superintendents of parochial education,-excellent and exemplary as they are in their own department, should, as a body, prove an exception to the rule that unpaid labour is ill performed; more especially when, as in this case, it must be always an inglorious and often also an invidious task. I am aware, on the other hand, of the danger that a system of paid inspection should degenerate, in course of time, into inefficiency and jobbing. But I am induced to hint at such a plan, in consequence of having witnessed the admirable results of it in the Irish schools of the Kildare Place Society. These schools are established in all the four provinces of Ireland; and the island, as concerns them, is divided into eight districts, with an inspector for each. The inspectors are appointed each to a different district every year, a circumstance thought to be essential to their efficiency; and their sole business is to visit and examine all the schools in their bounds, to suggest im- provements, to point out defects, to correspond with the Secre- tary in Dublin on local matters, such as the state of the school- houses, and the erection of new ones; and, finally, once a-year to report fully to the Central Committee. With the help of these documents, that body makes an annual digest of the state of the Society's schools, and graduates a scale of merit, accord- ing to which pecuniary gratuities (for there is no fixed salary) are apportioned to the teachers. But whether this plan, or any modification of it, be applicable to the circumstances of Scot- land, or likely to be sanctioned and provided for by Parliament, D * 50 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. I leave to your better judgment to determine; and shall con- tent myself, for the present, with expressing my opinion, that a more efficient system of visitation and inspection than any now exercised is greatly wanted, and ought to be established. W. I proceed, therefore, to the fifth obstacle to the improve- ment of our parochial schools, and it is the last I shall advert to, The depressed condition and small professional emoluments of the masters. It is a very common notion, that this is the primary, nay, the sole cause of all that is wrong in practice; and the panacea generally proposed is an Act of Parliament which shall raise their salaries, and amend some illiberal enactments of the last Bill. But if there be any truth in the foregoing remarks, you will be prepared to join with me in thinking, that there is much to be done before any good result can be expected from such a change of the law. In addressing myself to you, I need scarcely guard this expres- sion against misapprehension, as you may recollect how often, on former occasions, you have agreed with me in deploring the niggardly provisions of the Schoolmasters' Act of 1803. No one indeed, who has his eyes open to what is passing around him, can hesitate as to the necessity there is of elevating the condition of schoolmasters, and making their emoluments bear some proportion, both to the value of their services as the in- structors and reformers of the country population, and to the time, ability, and previous study required to qualify them for the right performance of their important duties. It is by no means creditable to the age we live in, and the paternal character of our government, that labour of so high a description as that ought to be, which is devoted to the right training of the great body of the people, should be worse paid than the most menial offices, worse even, in many instances, than the toil of the hard-handed peasant who drives the plough, or breaks stones on the highway. Is it not, for ex- ample, a disgrace to the Statute-book, that among other ob- noxious clauses in the Act already referred to, there should be one which ordains that “the schoolmaster's dwelling-house shall consist of not more than two apartments?”* * This was no error of the press, as one is tempted to think it, but deli- berately inserted, and quite in accordance with the spirit of the Act. CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 51 But while I am not only ready to admit but anxious to proclaim the inadequate remuneration of our parochial teach- ers, I cannot shut my eyes to the danger that might arise to the interests of education, from an unconditional and indiscri- minate increase of salary. I fear it would be more in the mature of an evil than a boon to the country, if, in granting it, no attention were paid, either to the improvement of the discipline, or to the due balance that ought to be preserved between the fixed income, which nothing can affect, and the moveable one of fees, which is, in some degree, dependent on successful teaching. It is not proposed, nor would it, I think, be advisable, to raise the fees. If the whole increase of emolument, then, is to be in the shape of addition to the fixed salary, is there not, I would ask, a chance, or rather, taking human nature in the gross, is there not a strong probability of its operating as a sedative instead of a stimulant? There are many, very many teachers, on whom, I feel assured, it would act beneficially, in prompting to greater exertion. But it would be much too sanguine a calculation to expect that this result should be general. There are whole classes of schoolmasters, on whom such increase of fixed income would have just the opposite effect.—There is one class, for example, and it is a reproach to the country it should be so numerous, who, being depressed beneath their level in society by the force of circumstances, and not aware of the capabilities of their profession, live under feelings embittered by disappoint- ment. Giving up all hope, at last, of rising to a station which the liberal studies of their youth had taught them to anticipate, they fall into a state of torpor and apathy, from which it is almost impossible to rouse them. They are men of frugal habits, and have few physical wants; and, being sure of their salary, and aware, too, that a certain proportion of children will always frequent the parish school, be it ever so indiffer- ently taught, they abandon the field of competition to a needier rival, and barter the difference of income between the fullest and thinnest attendance, for the enjoyment of a careless and somnolent existence. All bad habits gain strength by indulgence; and none more certainly and rapidly than lazi- ness: augmented salary, it is therefore to be feared, would 52 CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. increase the comforts of such men, without adding to their activity and usefulness.-There is another class of schoolmas- ters, who, having a great flow of animal spirits, and an equal dislike of professional labour or what they contemptuously and ignorantly call the drudgery of teaching, unite in their own persons two or more of the offices of precentor, session-clerk, taker-up of the militia and population lists, and, it may be, land-measurer and cattle-dealer; and thus contrive to make up, along with their salary, an income of which the entire school-fees form but a small part, and the difference between the extremes of attendance but a trifling item. Such men are strongly tempted to regard their primary duty in the light of a subordinate concern, and to do just enough of it to fulfil the letter of the law, while they violate its spirit. To them a simple increase of salary will doubtless be most grate- ful; but it is not so clear that it will increase their efficiency in school. On the contrary, in this, as in the former class, it is far more likely to operate as a bounty on neglect of duty, than as an excitement to the better discharge of it. The answer to all such objections is, that these consequences cannot, at the worst, last above one generation: but I confess myself unable to see by what process schoolmasters are to become better teachers by being better paid, unless they have at the same time a better professional education. The usual arguments, indeed, for a simple increase of sa- lary, in some respects contradict each other. At one time it is argued, that, even were the rate of stipendiary payment doubled, such addition would after all be so trifling, that there is no chance of its acting mischievously. This has been answered already. At another time, it is argued that the great object is first to raise the status in society, and con- sequently the respectability of the schoolmasters, and every- thing else that is wished for will follow. To this I answer: In the first place, if the salary were even doubled,—and there is not much chance of so large an augmentation,-it would make little difference in a man's rank whether he received £20 or £40 in this way; and, in the next place, any such rise would, I fear, give considerably greater scope and activity to those cabals, intrigues, and canvassings for CAUSES AND CURE OF IMPERFECT DISCIPLINE. 53 the post of parochial teacher, which even the present low rate of emolument does not prevent. A parish school is va- cant, and this or the other great man has a dependant to whose son such a situation would be very convenient; and no reasonable objection can be taken, seeing that the youth— though he has not been found exactly fit for any thing else— knows grammar, and has had six months of the college. If such cases have ever occurred, (and who will say that they have not?) their number is not likely to be diminished by the ar- rangement we are contemplating. Increase of salary without security for increase of fitness, would only add to the number of schools, already too great, which might with more propriety be called slaughter-houses of intellect, than places of public instruction. To avoid all these inconveniences, it would be necessary, I conceive, in increasing the salaries, to contrive some means by which, instead of being given in fixed sums, and to all indif- ferently, it should be allocated in proportions, corresponding as nearly as possible to the merits of the respective teachers. I am aware, in this case, as in the former, of the difficulty of securing a strictly impartial and long-continued application of such a scale of desert; but I am far from thinking it impos- sible, and should be glad to see the experiment tried, rather than the obvious risks incurred of the other method. But, having encroached already too far on your time, I will not discuss the best means of making the experiment, nor insist longer on remedies for the evils I have spoken of The first step to amendment is a sense of our errors; and it will be time enough to resume the subject, when it shall appear, that the Schoolmasters of Scotland are as much alive to the vices and defects of the old system of teaching, as they are (and with good reason) to the inadequacy of their present emoluments. I am, MY DEAR SIR, Your obedient and faithful Servant, JAMES PILLANS, Thomas F. KENNEDY, Esq., M.P. NOTES TO LETTERS, NOTE. A., p. 11.—EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL. As it was the method of teaching practised in this Institution which I recommended and endeavoured to explain and comment upon in all the schools I visited, it may be well to give here some details of a process which, though now generally understood, was then, as far as I have been able to learn, altogether unknown in the popular education of this country. Supposing a child to be master of his letters, the next step is to combine and pronounce them in the easiest words, which of course are monosyllables of two letters. They are words, however, significant terms, part and parcel of the English language, and not unmeaning syllables. It is the more necessary to remark this, as the almost uni- versal practice is to carry children through long columns of syllables of two, three, and four letters, which are component parts of words, but have in themselves no signification; it being taken for granted that such syllabic reading is an indispensable preliminary to all that is to follow. In compliance with this pre-conceived motion, the child is de- tained, long after the alphabet is mastered, in spelling and pronouncing b-a, ba ; b-u, bu; b-l-a, bla; b-l-e, ble; S-t-r-a, stra, &c. But it is a truth far too little attended to in teaching—that in the elementary acquisition of language, more especially of one's mother-tongue, it is not necessary to teach every thing. The faculty of speech is so much a part of the human animal, or at least the powers of his mind are so admirably fitted for acquiring it, that he leaps to conclusions by a sort of instinct, and is apt to be retarded and stupified by the minute rules and creeping processes of masters, and spelling-books, and grammars. Accordingly, the wearisome apprenticeship of syllabic reading is dis- pensed with, and the pupil plunged at once in medias res. He begins to spell, pronounce, and give the meaning of, such words as be, me, he, ow, aw, &c. Thus, from the very outset, he is accustomed to attach ideas to words, and acquires insensibly the precious habit of not resting contented with sound, unless it be accompanied with sense. Not that EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL. 55 we are to expect from the tyro accurate definitions of these monosyl- lables, or any definition at all ; at this early stage, examples of their use in ordinary conversation will amply suffice to secure the primary object of taking the understanding along with the eye and the memory. For example, (reverting to the first word named above,) when the child says, b-e, be, and upon the question being asked what he means by be, answers, “if I be good, I shall be happy,”—we obtain an assurance that he has an idea corresponding to the term, and that it is so far correct as not to be confounded, for example, with bee. In such a monosyllable, however, as oac, we may look, even in the youngest, for something more than an example of its use in a sentence, supposing at least that the children have all seen an ox repeatedly. If they be left to themselves, each will describe or characterise the animal according to the circumstances in which he has been accustomed to see it. A butcher's boy will call it, “a beast that is killed to make beef for the market ;” a tanner's son will think of the hide and leather ; a farmer's boy will, in one district, describe it as an animal that eats grass and chews the cud, and in another, perhaps, as the beast that is yoked in the plough or waggon. In this way, it is obvious, the know- ledge of each boy is made available to all. And in all cases it is im- portant to bear in mind, that set forms of description or explanation are avoided; the appeal is always made to the knowledge of things, not to the memory of words. The monosyllabic words of two letters in the English language are only 39, (including the interjections oh ho! ah! ha (); but, though the number be small, and far from exhausting the possible combina- tions of two letters, it is found quite sufficient to guide the child to the rest which occur in polysyllabic words. His next step, then, is to monosyllabic words of three letters. The same process takes place as before : thus, t-e-n, ten. “What do you mean by ten ?” “The number ten,” says the child, or he unfolds his ten fingers. But in this stage, as three-lettered monosyllables are too numerous to be all put down, an additional step is taken, which is well calculated not only to improve his spelling, and enlarge his acquain- tance with his own language, but to sharpen his faculties, excite his curiosity, and extend his knowledge of nature. After explaining ten, he is asked whether he can think of any other word like ten, that is— as we should say to a more advanced pupil—which rhymes with tem. Every little mind in the class is immediately at work, and one brings out men, which is spelled and explained; another, pen, in both senses, to write with, and to close sheep in ; a third, den ; a fourth, fen a fifth, wen; a sixth, hen; and, if the whole class be now at a stand, the master may add ken, explaining its poetical use, and ben, with its Celtic application to a high hill. Thus, also, gem, stem, hem; jug, rug, mug, tug, Zug, &c. It is easy to see, too, what opportunities are in this way afforded to 56 EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL. a judicious teacher, to convey useful information and wholesome coun- sel, not in certain dull hours set apart for general knowledge, but in small portions at a time, and frequently repeated, according as they are suggested by the business in hand, and when they are likely, on that very account, to make a deeper impression and be longer remem- bëred. After a good deal of practice in this exercise, along with the spelling and reading of short significant sentences made out of such words, the pupil is advanced to words of four or more letters, and is not now re- quired to spell the words before or while he reads. And as he proceeds to longer words, and sentences of more continuous meaning, the utmost care is taken that nothing shall be put into his hands which he is either unable to understand of himself, or cannot be led to comprehend by the teacher's explanation. It is not now examples only of the use of words he is called on to give; descriptions and definitions are expected, not according to any regular form either spoken or printed, but spring- ing—it matters not at first how awkwardly or with what homeliness of phraseology and illustration—direct from the idea existing in the mind of the learner. These constant efforts, assisted and corrected by the master, to clothe ideas in words, are the means used in the farther ad- vance of the pupils, which give rise, in a surprisingly short space of time, to those precise and well-expressed statements of the force of particu- lar words, and that perfect comprehension of the scope and tendency of the whole passage read, whether it be marrative or a chain of simple reasoning, which have long excited the astonishment of all visitors, and sent many well-educated persons away with an humbling and almost oppressive sense of their own inferiority. The reader will now, I trust, feel more assured of a truth which he may have thought too broadly and briefly stated in the First Letter, (pp. 9–10.)—that the intellectual method, besides its other admitted ad- vantages, is also a far shorter road to the mechanical process of reading fluently. For who, after these details, can doubt that a child, whose mind is busy in trying to comprehend the sense of what he reads, will, whenever he is puzzled, make shrewd and successful conjectures about what the next word is ? The fact, too, is strictly in conformity with the theory. I cannot better illustrate what has been said above, than by quoting from the Report of a deputation of intelligent persons, sent by the Town Council of Dundee to collect information which might be of use in improving their own Schools. Among other educational establish- ments in Edinburgh, the deputation visited the Sessional School, and were so struck with what they witnessed there, that they made it the subject of a separate report to their constituents; and no one who reads the whole, will doubt the judgment more than the respectability of the Committee. I have myself heard, and assisted in carrying on, exami- nations far more striking than the following; but not having taken the ! EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL. 57 precaution to note them at the time, I willingly adopt it, as a recorded and unexceptionable specimen. The Committee report as follows:— “One instance of the manner in which the highest class was exa- mined in presence of the Deputation, may be necessary for illustration. After reading a sentence from their Collection on any subject, suppose that of Mount Vesuvius, and that this is the passage—‘During the time of an eruption, streams of liquid fire issue from the crater, and descend- ing down its sides, overwhelm and destroy the country through which they pass.’ “What do you mean by the word eruption ?’ ‘It means a breaking out.” “What part of speech is it?’ ‘A substantive noun.” “Is it a simple or compound word 3’ “It is a compound.’ ‘Are there more compounds with a similar termination ?’ ‘Yes, irruption.” “What does that mean 2. ‘A breaking into.” “Any other of the same class?' ‘Yes, interruption.” “What is its meaning?” “A breaking in between ;' and so on. “What part of speech is the word descending?” “It is a participle.’ ‘What is the verb £ ‘To descend.” “What is the mean- ing of the word descending º' ‘Coming down.” “In the expression ‘ descending down its sides, does it appear to you that there is any impropriety, or is there any word in it that might be omitted without weakening the expression, or altering the sense ?’ ‘Yes, the word down might be omitted.’ ‘Do you know any word in the English language that expresses such a repetition of words?’ ‘Yes, tautology.’ “There is a whole family of words having a similar termination, do you remember any of them 3’ ‘Yes, theology, geology, astrology, zoology, ornithology, and so on.” “What parts of speech are these ?’ ‘Sub- stantives.” “Are there any adjectives related to these words?’ ‘Yes, theological, geological,’ &c. ‘What is the meaning of theology?’ ‘The science of divinity.” “What do you call a person who treats of divinity?’ • A theologian.” “What is the distinction between geology and geo- graphy 3 ‘The first means the doctrine of earth—the last means the description of the earth, its countries, seas, inhabitants,’ &c. “In the passage before us, what is the meaning of the word ‘country 3' ‘It means a tract of land.’ ‘Has it any other meaning?’ ‘Yes, an empire or kingdom.” “Any other still?’ ‘Yes, one's native country.” “Amy other meaning still?’ ‘Yes, country as opposed to town.” “What do you call a person who resides in the country?’ ‘A countryman.’ ‘Has he any other name?’ ‘Yes, a peasant.” “When employed in farming operations, what is he called ?’ ‘A swain.” “Is there any other word of a similar signification?’ ‘Yes, a clown.” “Any other?’ ‘Yes, a lout.’ • Any other still?’ ‘A clodpole and a clodhopper,' ‘Is there any verb which signifies to dwell in the country’ ‘Yes, to rusticate.” “Any adjectives of the same class?’ ‘Yes, rustic and rural.’ “Any substan- tives?’ ‘Yes, rusticity,' &c. “What is the distinction between rustic and rural?' 'Rustic is generally attributed to persons, rural to things.' * Give an example.’ ‘A man of rustic manners.’ “Rural scenery.’”— Reports on the State of Edweation in Dwandee, pp. 11, 12. 58 EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL. A solid foundation being thus laid, in the powers and habits acquired, for thorough possession of whatever is read, all that remains in this department of teaching, is to enable the pupil to read aloud so audibly and so gracefully, that the hearer shall listen with pleasure and feel his attention forcibly called to the subject rather than to the manner. This art of attractive, not shewy reading, is an accomplishment acquired with very little trouble, when the child feels an interest in what he reads. On this side the Tweed, no doubt, some pains will be required to conquer provincial accent and vulgarisms of pronunciation; but with regard to pauses, emphasis, and varied intonation, on which so much precious time is often worse than thrown away, an intelligent boy will, under the guidance of nature, shew no want of these. He will infuse into his reading some of the spirit, animation, and propriety of action and delivery, which invariably characterise his narrative when he is telling an adventure of his own to his fellows. How, indeed, is it possible, without imputing blame to our ordinary modes of teaching, to account for the marked and ludicrous contrast observable between the voice, tone, look, and manner of a school-boy, while he is entertaining his comrades with an account of some exploit he has read of or some adventure of his own, and when he is summoned from their presence as they hang on his lips, to read aloud in school a far more interesting narrative in some of our best historians? How instantly he assumes the lugubrious monotony acquired by the early habit of drawling out lessons which he did not understand I shall now touch briefly on the Sessional School manner of initiating in English Grammar. This important branch forms no part of the general business of English classes in our country schools. It is taught occasionally to those pupils only who are thought to be far advanced, and whose parents will be at the expense of purchasing a Grammar and paying an additional fee : and where it is taught, the errors and absur- dities in the manner of teaching it are more flagrant than any I have yet mentioned. Certain definitions and rules are got by heart, with infinite pain and disgust to the learner; and what is called ‘grammar,” consists in repeating these forms of words trippingly on the tongue. As to their meaning or their application in parsing, that is an esoteric doctrine—literally confined to a very few, who, by dint of natural sa- gacity, redeem in some small degree the defects of their teaching. With most of the pupils it is a mere matter of conjecture whether the word in question be a verb or a noun; and whether it be the Verb or the Noun that “signifies to be, to do, or to suffer.” It is generally an even chance that he so describes a noun, and calls a verb “the name of any person, place, or thing,” unless the master save him in time, by opportunely whispering the first word of the right definition; and them comes the rush of words out of the storehouse of memory. I know not whether it was economy that suggested the first idea of dispensing altogether with books of grammar, and economy is a pri- EDINBURGH SESSIONAL SCHOOL. 69 mary object where two or three hundred children of the poorest condi- tion are to be educated upon slender and very precarious funds. But be that as it may, philosophy sanctions the idea, and practical wisdom has made it the ground-work of much useful and judicious culture. It is found possible to convey all the grammatical knowledge in- tended to be given, by viva voce communication;–always adhering strictly to the great principle of leading the boy's understanding to gather knowledge for himself, rather than compelling him to receive it from another, made up and ticketed. “John strikes the table:” such a sentence being proposed to the child, he is invited and led by easy steps to discover that John and table denote a person and a thing: is told that these, and every other word that does so, are names; and is taught to call them so whenever he meets with them. He is then asked, what else there is in the sentence; and with a little assistance, he will find out, and he will express, or at all events he will perfectly comprehend, and remember when you tell him, that there is also the act of striking; and whether “John strikes the table,” or “John eats the apple,” or “John robs the nest,” or John, or any body else, does any thing whatsoever, there is still some act done or suffered, which binds the names together, and without which, there is no sense worth putting into words. The term denoting this act, being indispensable to any complete sentence, may be called, by way of eminence, the word; for we will not yet trouble the boy with verb, any more than with nowm, lest he forget, under cover of these new terms, all that he has been told. This will suffice for a first lesson in grammar. A se- cond will direct his attention to such sentences as, “John eats a sweet apple,” or “strikes a hard table;” and by the like familiar questioning, the boy will be brought acquainted with a set of words that are added to names, to tell something more about them than their mere existence, that is, to express their qualities; and these we shall for the present call ad-names. After practising on this second lesson, and setting the boy to hunt names, words, and ad-names, in his reading-book, we may proceed thus: “When John had bought the cake, John cut the cake, and John gave a bit of the cake to John's brother.” Every boy will feel the clumsiness of this sentence, and will, by the help of ear and habit, alter it to, “When John had bought the cake, he cut it, and gave a bit of it to his brother.” Fix his attention on the words he, it, his ; and he will already have a good notion of the nature and use of the for-name:—pronown will come in good time afterwards. A child trained and exercised in this way is very soon prepared to understand and distinguish the remainiug parts of speech; but if they should never go farther at School than these four, and if some notion be given, in the same easy way, of nwmber, case, and gender, and of the times (i.e. tenses) of the verb, he will have enough for the ordinary pur- poses of the labouring classes, and a great deal more than is acquired by nine out of ten of those who have been dragged through all the rules 60 TEACHING OF THE LETTERS. of declension, conjugation, and syntax, as they are given in ordinary grammars. He will be furnished with materials of thought, valuable in themselves and prompting to more thought. This method requires no apparatus of books, no separation of classes, and includes every pupil. Being incorporated with the other business, it forms, along with spelling and explanation of sense, a part of each day's lesson, and adds much both to its interest and usefulness. NOTE B., p. 12. THERE is a mode of making a child acquainted with the alphabetic characters, not practised in the Sessional School,—which I took occasion to explain in a short course of Lectures which I delivered in College, during the Christmas recess of 1827-8, on the theory and practice of teaching, or what, if I might be indulged in a neologism, I would call DIDACTICs. I proposed to arrange the letters of the alphabet into brotherhoods, according to the organs of voice used in pronouncing them, and to teach the child the knowledge of his letters, at first, and for a long time, in this way only. We should thus avoid the great- est difficulty which the child encounters in learning the alphabet, that of recollecting the sequence or arrangement of the letters. Their order of succession in our common alphabet is entirely capricious, and appears indeed to have been purely accidental. A knowledge of the sequence so far from being indispensable at the outset, is in that stage altogether useless for any practical purpose. Yet, in the ordinary way, the child is arrested and unseasonably detained in the very porch of learning, by being compelled to name, and not to name only but to learn by heart a series of letters, which have no one associating link to bind them in the memory, except juxta-position. It is stringing beads, as it were, on a thread of sand. It may be well he should be acquainted with this alphabetic confusion when he comes to consult a dictionary; but I cannot see the use of it for any other purpose.—On the other hand, by the classification of letters in their cognate relations, the ac- Quisition of them may be made an amusing exercise. The attention of the child being drawn to the organs of voice employed in each set, he makes experiments upon them, by imitating the sounds he hears and the conformation of mouth he observes, and thus obtains a guide to the pronunciation of the letters from the eye and ear at once, a circum- stance which greatly facilitates his acquaintance with their form and power. The reader will find this subject treated at greater length in one of the Notes on the “Rationale,” &c. NOTE. C., p. 14.—ELEMENTARY READINGs. SINCE this letter was written, I have had the satisfaction of finding the idea stated in the text pleasingly confirmed in a little work called ELEMENTARY READINGS. 61 “Lectures Elementaires,” translated from the Italian into French by the late M. Pictet of Geneva. It was composed by the Count Bardi for a school on the monitorial system, which he had himself established at Florence. The following observations, translated from M. Pictet's Prefatory Notice, will at once shew the object of the little work, and the opinion entertained of it by the distinguished philosopher of Ge- Il{}Va. “Of all the works intended for the training of childhood, and appli- cable to the method of mutual instruction, none, it appears to me, will be found more happily conceived, or more successfully executed, than the little work of which a translation is now offered to the public. It was the fruit of the following considerations :— “It is generally agreed, that the moral part of education is the most important, and that it ought to be based on religious principles. And certain it is, that these principles themselves rest on the intimate and constant conviction that there exists a Supreme Being, the creator and preserver of the universe. “There are two ways of presenting to a child this fundamental notion, which it is as important to fix in his head, as it is above the feeble grasp of his unassisted mind. The more usual way, is to make him read and learn by heart in a Catechism, that there exists a Being all-powerful and good, invested with certain perfections that are named; but the child, who knows nothing of the works of creation, can form to himself but a very vague and imperfect idea of the Creator; he per- ceives not the necessity of such a Being's existence; he believes because he is told it, and repeats words without attaching to them any mean- ing. “But if, instead of introducing the idea of a Supreme Being at the outset, or, as the logicians say, a priori, we make it be discovered, and a certain conclusion drawn irresistibly by the child himself, in conse- quence of the gradual and successive unfolding to him of the wonders of animal organization; if he has seen in all this development, means constantly adapted to ends, and the latter always directed towards the preservation, and the greatest advantage of sentient beings, and parti- cularly of man; then, there is no longer any need of saying to the child that God exists, that he is all-powerful, all-wise, all-bountiful, &c. These truths are become to him intuitive; they are the immediate and necessary consequences of an immense series of facts, partly known to the child, who is able to observe them daily in and about himself. He is them as fully persuaded of the existence of God, as of his own ; and the perfections of the Supreme Being become quite intelligible to him, being no more than simple deductions from those facts. “Independently of the obvious advantage of this mode of instruction over that in ordinary use, it ensures another which is not to be despis- ed; viz., that in presenting to the child the facts which are to lead him to the desired conclusion, we give him as it were a course of popular 62 ELEMENTARY READINGS. instruction, containing clear and just ideas on an infinity of objects which it is useful to know : we give him the habit of directing his attention to things around him; we teach him to see, when he uses his eyes, that is, to observe, a faculty which is the parent of all progress in knowledge.” I add the First and earliest of these Elementary Readings, as a speci- men of the work, and a confirmation of my own ideas. “MAN holds himself upright on his feet. His head is erect on his shoulders. Beasts have a long snout. They walk on four paws. Man has two arms. He has two legs. He takes hold of things with his hands. The sole of his foot rests on the ground. “The head turns to the right and to the left. The top and back of the head is called the skull. Upon it is the hair. Within the skull is the brain. It is enclosed there as in a box of bone. This box secures it against blows. On the face are seen the eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and on each side the ears. The eyes are in the middle of the head; they are shut by means of the eye-lids, which shelter them from the air and too much light. The eye is moistened with a fluid called teal’S. “Above the eyes are the eye-brows; higher still is the brow. MAN sees with his eyes what is near him, he sees also what is not too far off. The nose is between the eyes and the mouth ; its two holes are the mostrils; with the nose are perceived smells. The mouth has two lips, both of them are moveable. Under the mouth is the chin. Between the mouth and the ears are the cheeks. Within the mouth are the teeth, the tongue, and the palate. The teeth are fixed in jaw bones. The teeth are ranged in two rows, which are applied to one another. With the teeth we grind our food; the tongue brings the food under the teeth, and at the same time the Spittle moistems it ; it descends afterwards into the throat, and thence into the stomach. While food is in the mouth, the tongue and the palate taste the flavour of it. The mouth serves also for speaking. The voice comes from the lungs; the mouth, the lips, the tongue, the teeth, and the palate, form speech. The sound of other people's voice, and all noises, are heard by the ears. The ears are on each side of man’s head. The skin of the whole body feels that which touches it. Man perceives smell by his nose; tastes by his mouth ; with his ears he hears sounds; with his eyes he sees the colour, form, and motion of bodies; with his skin, he touches them. All these means of perceiving the qualities of objects, are called the SENSEs. Thus, man has five senses; sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. With the hands he touches bodies. The hands have five fingers. The skin covers the whole of man's body; consequently he feels by whatever touches him.” I now add (1855) another impressive lesson to the same effect from the pen of an eminent poet, philosopher, and defender of the Christian faith, the late Dr Beattie of Aberdeen. In a memoir of his son, James ELEMENTARY READINGS. 63 Hay Beattie, he says of him:—“He had reached his sixth year, knew the alphabet, and could read a little ; but had received no particular information with respect to the Author of his being; because I thought he could not yet understand such information; and because I had learned from my own experience, that to be made to repeat words not understood is extremely detrimental to the faculties of a young mind. In a corner of a little garden, without informing any person of the cir- cumstance, I wrote in the mould, with my finger, the three initial let- ters of his name (J. H. B.); and, sowing garden cresses in the furrows, covered up the seed, and Smoothed the ground. Ten days after, he came running to me, and with astonishment in his countenance told me, that his name was growing in the garden. I smiled at the report, and seemed inclined to disregard it; but he insisted on my going to see what had happened. Yes, said I carelessly, on coming to the place, I see it is so; but there is nothing in this worth notice; it is mere chance; and I went away. He followed me, and, taking hold of my coat, said with some earnestness, it could not be mere chance ; for that somebody must have contrived matters so as to produce it.—I pretend not to give his words, or my own, for I have forgotten both ; but I give the sub- stance of what passed between us in such language as we both under- stood.—So you think, I said, that what appears so regular as the let– ters of your name cannot be by chance. Yes, said he, with firmness, I think so. Look at yourself, I replied, and consider your hands and fingers, your legs and feet, and other limbs; are they not regular in their appearance, and useful to you? He said, they were. Came you, then hither, said I, by chance 2 No, he answered, that cannot be ; something must have made me. And who is that something, I asked? He said he did not know. I had now gained the point I aimed at: and saw, that his reason taught him, (though he could not so express it) that what begins to be must have a cause, and that what is formed with regularity must have an intelligent cause. I therefore told him the name of the Great Being who made him and all the world; con- cerning whose adorable nature I gave him such information as I thought he could in some measure comprehend. The lesson affected him greatly, and he never forgot either it, or the circumstance that introduced it.” NOTE D., p. 42. ON the subject of books I am tempted to add, that the Kildare Place Society, which has done so much for the education of the poor in Ireland, has published a school library, the object and use of which deserve the consideration of all persons interested in the improve- ment of our discipline. It consists of sixty volumes, the cost of which is thirty shillings. These volumes, composed, abridged, or adapted for the purpose, by literary gentlemen employed by the Society, embrace almost every variety of reading that can be interest- 64 SCHOOL LIBRARY. ing, and at the same time instructive, to a child. Little stories, des- criptive of the habits, and feelings, and duties, and difficulties, and pleasures of the poor, in town and in the country,+voyages and travels, —obvious and striking parts of matural history, descriptions of the simpler processes of art in different handicrafts; these, and other simi- lar subjects, are treated with so express a reference to the object in view, of making them intelligible to young minds, that something will be found to hit the fancy of every child who has once acquired the power of reading. One of these libraries is attached to every school connected with the Society, and becomes a very powerful instrument, in the hands of a judicious master, both in the way of reward and of punishment. For a boy to have his name put on the library-list, and to carry home, on a Saturday, a volume which he not only exhibits as an honour, but reads with avidity, is a substantial benefit, which the amusement he receives soon teaches him to value, and the forfeiture of which he dreads, not only as a disgrace, but as a serious evil. I have seen no subsidiary means more effectual than this, in giving children a taste for reading, and carrying the business of improvement in know- ledge and goodness to the fireside of every cottage.* * I have mentioned the Juvenile Library, which, since the above was written, has been increased to eighty volumes, because, though the other Kildare Place school-books have been superseded in the National Schools by a set entirely new and of great merit, no substi- tute for the Library has yet appeared, nor indeed is it required. These volumes are in 18mo, bound in sheep, and contain, each on an average, 180 closely printed pages, with cuts; and are sold at the Depot of the Society, Kildare Place, Dublin, and at No. 45 North Hanover Street, Edinburgh. PO STS CRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION, (1829). SINCE the foregoing Letters and Notes were published, they have been made the subject of remark and animadversion in various pamphlets and periodicals. It might be thought failing in the respect due to the Public, if I permitted a Second Edition to go forth without some notice of the arguments that have been brought against the views and doctrines I ventured to advocate. The objections and charges deserving an answer are but few ; and they are winnowed from a mass of vituperation and feebleness, which can do harm to none but its authors. I. The proposal to dispense with the use of the rod, has met with the most vehement opposition, and called forth the loudest expression of dissent. I have said, (p. 18.,) “It is to be wished that public opin- ion were strongly and decidedly expressed” against all kinds of corporal infliction in school. An interpretation has been put upon these words which they cannot well bear; and which they certainly were not intended to convey. I never contemplated any sort of legislation on the subject, either by Government, or by any body of patrons or directors. Such in- terference, in the shape of positive enactment and strict prohi- bition issuing from a higher power, would tend to degrade the master in the eyes of his pupils, and to impair his authority; it would, in fact, be inviting them to insult him. The rare -- E 66 POSTSCRIPT. use and final abolition of the lash, will come with infinitely more effect from the teacher himself, as an act of grace from the juris principium et ſons, than as the mandate of any ex- trinsic and superior authority. The change must not be ef- fected by the arbitrary act or ordinance of another; it must flow spontaneously from the suggestions of a well-disciplined mind. Without surrendering one iota of his power, the master must part with the will to exert it. In him the qual- ity of mercy must not be “strained;” it is only mercy un- compelled that can be hoped to bless both “him that gives and him that takes.” As few situations are less favourable for acquiring the habit of self-control, than that of a schoolmaster armed with ab- solute power, and, in extreme cases only, responsible for the use of it, it is surely desirable to have such checks established, as, without directly interfering with his privilege, or impairing his authority, shall lay a gentle compulsion upon him to give up the most obnoxious part of them. Now, nothing, I con- ceived, was more likely to effect this purpose than the force of public opinion;–that element in the government of nations as well as of schools, which, without dictating to the rulers, and often opposed to their views, silently mixes itself with their deliberations, sways their proceedings, and prompts their measures. This moving power in the moral and political world, slow and noiseless, but irresistible, has already, like a deep and mighty river, borne down and swept away many of the barriers which obstructed the progress of human intellect and happiness. Other triumphs are yet in reserve for it, and among these I hesitate not to reckon, such improvement in the treatment of children, and in the management of schools, as shall banish the servile punishment of the scourge from every place of public instruction. And this triumph will be gained, not by tying up the hands of the schoolmaster without altering his nature, but by the prevalence of a public feeling that the rod may be advantageously dispensed with, and that feeling so widely diffused and so strongly expressed as to com- pel the teacher, for his own sake, to act upon the general conviction. In expressing a wish that the door might be effectually, CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 67 and for ever, closed against the recurrence of such atrocities as have been perpretated on helpless children under the mask of salutary discipline, I did not anticipate—I could scarcely have desired—anything more favourable to its final abolition, than that one of the champions of the lash should have incautiously betrayed the secret of the whole tribe of outrageous flagel- lants. “To me” (says a “Brother Schoolmaster,’) “nothing is more nau- seating than to hear teachers whining and canting about the pain it gives them to chastise children for their faults, and lamenting the dire necessity that urges them to it. For myself, I frankly confess that this part of my duty is frequently performed, not merely without reluctance, but with positive gratification.” That such satisfaction should be felt by a teacher who uses the rod freely, is quite in the order of nature. Not to mention the extreme proneness to make a bad use of power, which in all ages has been common to masters of schools and of king- doms, there is much in the peculiar position of such a teacher to nourish the diseased appetite into portentous voracity. He sets out, as it is manifest this schoolmaster does, on the prin- ciple, that there is no effectual access to the understanding of a child, but through bodily pain,_that in the very porch and vestibule of knowledge,_vestibulum ante ipsum primoque in limine - “Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae :”—Aen. VI. 274.f And it is an obvious inference from his principle that he is performing a duty when he inflicts the pain. Let us suppose, then, that the object of his tender mercies is a timid boy, who resists the unseemly exposure of his person, or, by an involuntary movement, which he repeats more than * See “Letters to the Parochial Schoolmasters of Scotland, concerning the New Method of Tuition, with Strictures on Professor Pillans's Principles of Elementary Education, Montrose, John Mitchell. Edinburgh, A. Mac- redie, 1829.” These Letters, amidst a good deal of very innocuous misrepresentation and abuse, contain some shrewd remarks and amusing anecdotes; and, from the 13th to the 16th letter inclusive, some very useful hints to the parochial teacher. “, - + “There Pain, and Grief, and Cares that never sleep, And fell Revenge, their horrid orgies keep.” 68 POSTSCRIPT. once, withdraws his hand from the lash as it descends with a nicely adjusted momentum: it cannot, in such a case, be matter of surprise, that the baffled wielder of the rod should wax more and more wroth every time he misses his aim et verberat icti- bus auras; and, when he has succeeded, by more fearful threats, or by some mechanical contrivance, in fixing the hand and hitting his mark, we need not be surprised if the blow descend with a weight and velocity inversely proportional to the reason and justice of the case. If, on the other hand, the firmer nerve or more resolute temper of another culprit enable him to bear the pain without flinching, and, while the blows descend like hail, to stand unmoved—the admiration of his school-fellows;–no one will say it is unnatural that, in the master's mind, the excitement of the moment should convert this very fortitude into an aggravation of the original offence; and that, feeling a sort of personal interest in subduing such obstinacy, and in vindicating the omnipotence of the rod, he should grasp more vigorously the caducum fulmen, and arm it with all its terrors. Nay more, it can scarcely surprise us, if a certain manual dexterity in flourishing the lash, and laying in the blows so as to tell, be found to constitute a part of the flagellant's gratification; or, that a successful administration of the condign, (to use a slang word of the tribe,) with its proper accompaniments of howling and writhing, should affect him with a self-gratulation somewhat akin to that which a sports- man feels, when he brings down a distant shot with his fowl- ing-piece.* All these results are produced, in a very natural and obvious way, from the operation of circumstances on the average stock of the frailties and feelings of humanity: for it might as well * The Ferula, (to compare small things with great,) like Virgil's Fulmen, (Aen. viii. 429–432.) is variously compounded; and the ingredients of the two have a striking resemblance. The simplest analysis will detect in the ferula the “fulgores terrificos, somitumque, metumque, flammisque sequacibus iras: Even the nubes aquosa has its parallel in that cloud upon the master's brow, which enables the pupils to trace “The day's disaster in his morning face :” and the imber tortus, which Dryden translates “writhen rain,” must be looked for in the bitter tears wrung from the poor boy by pain, and burning shame, and mortification. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 69 be expected that a fair creation should have sprung out of chaos, without the superintendence of a benevolent intelligence, as that a well-ordered and effective system of school-manage- ment should emanate from a mind, not charged with more than the ordinary elements of human passion, but depending for their direction and impulse on the Evil Principle, that corporal sufferance is the main-spring of school discipline. It is precisely because all these aberrations from right are so natural, and because the satisfaction expressed by the “School- master” is so likely to be general among the whole tribe who adopt the same principle, that all good men and good teachers ought to unite in reprobating the use of an instrument which has such incurable tendencies to evil; or at least, if it be yet premature to proscribe it altogether, in so regulating and ad- justing its application, that the public shall have some security against its ever being employed, except as a corrective of deeply-seated habits, which baffle all reasonable means of extirpation;–some security that it shall be administered in sorrow rather than in anger, not to punish past offences, but to make the warning against a repetition of them more impres- sive and better remembered;—some security that it shall be resorted to only on grave and solemn occasions, at some dis- tance of time after the fault that provokes it is committed, and in the presence of at least one indifferent and adult spec- tator. And this concession I would make in favour of a regulated use of the rod, only in consideration of the coercive system being still the rule among us, and the lenient the exception. As soon as this unnatural order shall be reversed, the frequency of corporal punishment will decrease more and more, till at last vis consil: eapers mole ruet suá. It will then be reserved for those monsters of the moral world, if we must admit the existence of such, who, from innate depravity of disposition, are inaccesssible to kindness and to reason; and on whom, as a last resource, the experiment may be made, upon the prin- ciple— “Ense recidendum, ne pars sincera trahatur.” It will be required perhaps even then too, for a much more numerous class; I mean, the unfortunate victims of the folly * 70 POSTSCRIPT. bound up in the hearts of parents, a folly far greater, and more to be deplored and scarcely less general than that of their children, which, whether it shew itself in the shape of neglect, or of bad example, or of silly fondness and over- indulgence, too often counteracts and nullifies the best efforts of the teacher, and is destined, I fear, to postpone to a more distant day the euthanasia of the lash. Yet even this formi- dable obstacle will yield, in the progress of education, to a more judicious culture of the infant mind. As for individual instances of failure in attempts to dispense with the use of corporal punishment, what do they prove, but the ineptitude of the master that makes them, so long as the principle which condemns it is unassailed and unassail- able, and so long as a single instance of success can be adduc- ed? As well might a dabbler in chemical science deny the composition of atmospheric air, or the existence of potassium, because all his attempts to decompose the one or produce the other had failed :—a single experiment of a Davy or a Hope at once establishes the truth, and silences the bunglers. I will not again revert to any thing done in the High School: in speaking of Village and Parochial Schools, I am willing to discount it, and never indeed did more than allude to it inci- dentally : though, were I disposed to dwell on the subject, it would not be difficult to shew, that boys who had been kept in order in the junior classes by the rod, were not, on that account, likely to be more tractable in the Rector's class, when that instrument of discipline was suddenly withdrawn at an age more impatient of restraint. It may be necessary to remind or inform those who deny the practicability of any effective teaching without the rod, that France, with its population of thirty millions, has long ago reached the point, already spoken of as so desirable, where corporal punishment is the exception, not the rule, in school discipline. The infliction of it is now regarded in that country as an offence contra bonos mores. In government schools, in those for mutual instruction,-in all, indeed, which are under any sort of surveillance, the practice is entirely super- seded. I was strongly impressed with the belief that such was the case, from enquiries made on the spot more than CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 71 twelve years ago; but, in order either to confirm or remove the impression, I wrote lately to the Count de Lasteyrie, a person scarcely less known in this country than in his own, as the accomplished and enlightened friend of general educa- tion, and whose zeal in the cause is attested by his superin- tendence of a periodical work entirely devoted to it.* I requested to be informed, whether, and to what extent, cor- poral punishment was employed in school discipline in France; and in case it did not exist, whether there were any law against it. His answer, dated Paris, 2d February 1829, contains the following passage:—“L'usage de fouetter les enfans, ou de leur donner des férules, était tombé presqu’en désuétude avant la Revolution; il estaujourd'hui totalement réprouvé, comme contraire aux moeurs publiques. Un maitre d'école, quel qu'il fút, serait généralement blamé s'il frappait ses élèves: il serait considéré comme un homme sauvage et brutal, s'il s'avisait d'employer des moyens coercitifs de ce genre. Cet exces peut sans doute avoir lieu dans quelques petites écoles du peuple, par l'emportement ou la grossièreté de certains maitres: mais il est regardé comme un acte de violence. Les frères Igno- rantinst qui, ainsi que les Jésuites dont ils ne sont qu'une émanation, tiennent si fortement a leurs regles, ont été con- traints d'abandonner leur vieux système de châtimens corpo- rels. Un maitre qui frapperait les enfans dans nos écoles d'enseignement mutuel, serait immédiatement renvoyé. Heu- reusement, on n’a pas eu besoin de faire des loix pour proscrire cet usage barbare: la raison publique en a fait justice depuis notre revolution.” This extract appears to me decisive of the question before us, and to leave the advocates of the rod no choice but one of two alternatives, both equally inadmissible. They must either argue, that there is no good and effectual education in France; or, that French children are totally different from Scotch. The former assertion is ludicrously false, as applied to a people who have long ranked among the most polished nations of Europe, and who never stood so high as at the * Journal d'Education; of which 9 or 10 numbers have already appeared. + These are the schoolmasters who call themselves, Les Frères de la Doc- trine Chrétienne; and to whom, from the severity of their discipline, the appellation of frères fouettewrs used to be given in derision, 72 POSTSCRIPT. present moment, when the dear-bought experience of the Revolution, and this very system of mild discipline in which the existing generation has been trained, have already formed them to the love of rational and constitutional liberty, and when a career of improvement is opening to them, in which the severe and very recent lessons of the danger of extremes in government are likely to keep them long progressive. There remains, then, only the other alternative; that French children are so unlike ours, that what may suit the one will not apply to the other : as if the differences, which mark the national character of the adults of the two nations, were equally distinct in the infant population. In the case of adults, the discriminating lines are produced and deepened by the differ- ent circumstances in which the two nations grow up to man- hood; and, at the best, they are but vague and ill defined, and are constantly failing us in application to individual cases. JBut in that of children, it may well be doubted whether these distinctions exist at all; certain it is, they do not, to an extent that can affect the result of any processes which may be fol- lowed in their early education. This confounding of the infant character, where all is the work of nature, with the adult, which is of artificial growth, leads to much false reason- ing. I was met, for example, with this argument from national character, when, happening to be in the company of some very learned and able professors and teachers in Paris, so long ago as the year 1815, I endeavoured to explain and recommend to their adoption the application of mutual instruction to the teaching of the classics. Such arrangements, they thought, might succeed with the sober and sedate character of the Scotch, but never could with the lively, volatile, restless spirit of Frenchmen. And a similar paralogism I have been often condemned to listen to, from teachers of my own country, who seemed to think that any difficulty overcome or improvement introduced among Edinburgh children was no rule to them, nor any reason why they should attempt the same thing with the clodpoles they had to manage: thus laying a flattering unction to their consciences, and being guilty of a libel upon nature, who scatters the gift of talent and power of applica- tion, if not with unsparing, at least with very impartial hand. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 73 But to come nearer home; no one at all acquainted with the numerous schools which have sprung up within the last thirty years in England, and which owe their existence to the conviction borne in on the minds of the influential and benevolent classes, of the Superiority of the new method in conferring the blessings of education on the poor, will be at a loss to find examples of very large school-establishments, where the lash is superseded by other modes of discipline quite unobjectionable. From parish schoolmasters in various parts of Scotland, I have received communications, which are uniform in stating, that since they adopted the practice of interesting the reason and understanding of the child in his school-business, the necessity for corporal punishment has become less and less urgent ; and that, but for bad habits previously acquired, or corrupting example at home, they could part with the rod altogether. Some even, more fortu- nately circumstanced in this respect, look confidently forward to the entire cessation of corporal punishment, and have indeed gone far to effect it already. All subscribe to the principle, and have, with scarcely any exception, acted upon it, that the rod, if used at all, should be reserved solely, either for gross immoralities, or minor misdemeanours so fre- quently repeated, as to threaten degenerating into confirmed and incurable habits. In the great public schools of England, the birch will pro- bably flourish in a sort of green old age, somewhat longer than the tawse will do in ours; not because there is a stronger attachment among our southern neighbours to what is old, in preference to what is reasonable, but because corporal punish- ment is less liable to abuse, where it is awarded, as in those schools, by one teacher and inflicted by another; the other being in general the head-master, who is very unlikely to be swayed by passion, or by any motive but his own notions of strict and impartial justice. Still, it must be considered as a blot on the national institutions, that the high-bred gentlemen of England, at any period of their lives, and most of all within four or five years of the time when they take their seats in Parliament as the legislators of a great empire, should be subjected to the discipline of a cloister. Nothing but venera- 74 POSTSCRIPT. tion for ancient usage, which, in an Englishman, who has so much to be proud of in the history and institutions of his country is a natural and respectable feeling, could have reconciled either the teachers to the infliction, or the young men to the endurance, of a degradation so much at variance with the gentleman-like spirit and tone of good-breeding, which are so eminently characteristic of both.* Various substitutes for the infliction of bodily pain in school have been proposed. The foolish imaginations of Lancaster have long been discarded from practice, and are almost forgotten. The reader will find some brief enactments on the subject, in two decrees passed in 1801 and 1803, con- tained in an interesting collection of all the regulations of the French government concerning education, from 1598 to 1814:f and with regard to the present practice in France, I subjoin another extract from the letter of the same intelligent corres- pondent :—“Les Seules punitions dont on fasse usage dans les écoles, et même dans les collèges de l'université, consis- tent à faire tenir l'enfant désobéissant dans un coin de la Salle, debout ou a genoux; a l'empêcher d’aller a la recréation, a la promenade, ou chez ses parens; ou enfin a lui donner des pensums (poenas.)” It would be easy to multiply observations and directions on this subject; but I would rather confine myself to the general recommendations formerly given, referring the matter princi- pally to the judgment and discretion of the teacher himself. Confinement after school hours, standing in a corner, addi- tional tasks, loss of place, are all penalties less degrading than the rod, if they can be made effectual ; but still a splenetic, capricious, and irritable mind, may contrive to make even these the vehicle of much vexatious and vindictive proceeding. With regard to the last mentioned penalty, loss of place,—if it be used at all, it should be strictly limited to cases of failure in the lessons or exercises prescribed. The facility with which * See some valuable contributions to the cause of the antiflagellants, in the Quarterly Review for February 1829, (pp. 100, &c.) # Recueil des Réglemens concernant l'Instruction Publique, &c. Paris 1814, 4 vols. 8vo.—vol. ii. p. 25, and vol. iii. p. 17. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, 75 this punishment may be inflicted, and the trouble thus saved to the master, can alone account for its frequent application in our schools as a corrective of misdemeanours not connected with, nor evincing, inferiority in scholarship. If a boy come late, if he talk, or titter, or play tricks in school, it is a common practice to make him lose a certain number of places. Such a mode of checking offences of a moral kind, I cannot help thinking very objectionable. It has that bad quality in common with the rod, that it affects different boys very un- equally, and is most severely felt by the best. Many a boy of spirit, who has laboured to maintain a good place in his class, would rather submit to almost any bodily suffering than be turned down eight or ten places, because he has been de- tained or has loitered a few minutes after the hour of meeting, or because he has been betrayed by the liveliness of his nature into a breach of school decorum. But the worst of this punishment, when used for any thing but want of skill or knowledge, is, that the teacher thus defeats his own pur- pose, which is, or ought to be, to make the station each boy occupies in his class, an accurate index of his regular industry and present proficiency. This correspondence between place and scholarship being once established in a numerous class, as it must be wherever there is able and impartial teaching, the master who thrusts a boy below his level for a fault which has nothing to do with ignorance of the lesson, is undoing his own work. He has succeeded, we shall suppose, in con- structing a sort of intellectual barometer, so nicely graduated and delicately adjusted, that it not only shows the general form and pressure of a numerous class, upon a regularly descending scale from the highest to the lowest, but indicates the slight variations from day to day in preparation and industry ; and is it not strange, that, instead of pluming himself upon, and being anxious to preserve, an instrument so creditable to his skill, and so useful in his art, he should, by a voluntary act of his own, disturb and derange it? The best supplanters of the rod and other ignominious pun- ishments, are, a wish in the master's mind to get rid of it, a gentleness of demeanour which nothing can ruffle, coupled with a firmness of purpose which nothing can shake; a sym- 76 * POSTSCRIPT. pathy with the feelings, an interest in the progress, and a parental concern for the present comfort and future welfare of the pupils. If these qualities shine through all the intercourse of the teacher with the taught, the substitutes will not be far to seek; a movement of the finger, an inclination of the head, a look, a word, a frown, will be found more effectual in stim- ulating and repressing than the lash had ever been. Nor let it be supposed, that it will be necessary to supply the absence of the lash by sterner looks or greater exertion of lungs, or that teaching, to be energetic, must be loud and boisterous. I have seen schoolmasters so prepossessed with the idea that a blus- tering tone and manner are necessary to keep up authority, as even to affect violence in their voice and gesture, when their minds are comparatively calm. But such “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” is, to say the least of it, a wasteful ex- penditure of means. The gentlest tone that is distinctly au- dible, with the mildest manner, will be found the most effectual: because slight variations to a higher note, when the master wishes to be peculiarly impressive in reproving, prohibiting, or admonishing, are then perceived and appreciated: just as the man who is chary of his praise or blame, stamps a value on every opinion he delivers, while he who deals in rapturous superlatives on ordinary occasions weakens his power of ex- pressing any thing strongly. The very youngest pupil soon becomes aware whether it be his good that the master has steadily in view, or his own convenience and gratification; and the conviction that the former is the case, produces an un- bounded confidence in all he does, and an entire dependence on his good opinion. This dominion over theminds of his scholars, which, being founded on love and respect, is far more absolute than any influence the system of terror can obtain or secure, ought to be the constant object of the teacher's ambition. Upon the whole, then, in discussing the subject of school discipline, we come always back to the same point; that the reform of it, to be radical, must begin with the teacher's own mind; the proper regulation of which, and the full mastery of his art, can only be ensured, on a large scale, by an education strictly professional. It is no more insulting to the school- master to say, that this is necessary to enable him fully to CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 77 discharge his duty to the public, than it is insulting to the candidate for holy orders to insist that he shall go through his regular attendance at the divinity hall, and deliver his appointed number of trial discourses before the professor first, and then the presbytery, previously to taking upon him the office of the ministry. And, when the public or parliament shall be brought to see the necessity of some provision for such previous train- ing, and shall require the teacher to be educated to his business like the members of every other liberal profession, it is hoped they will dwell on the moral, even more imperatively than on the intellectual part of the preparation; and that, in the ap- plication of tests to determine the fitness of any man to be a public teacher, the great object shall be, after proving his pos- session of a sufficient stock of knowledge in the different branches he is to teach, to ascertain to what extent he possesses the moral qualifications I have already alluded to, zeal and devotedness to his business, tact in the management of the young, and a temper either naturally good, or under severe control; qualities incomparably rarer, and far more essential to his success, than the utmost amount of scientific and literary knowledge that could be looked for. II. Some sensible and assiduous teachers, who are not un- favourable to improvement of discipline, remain yet uncon- vinced of the propriety and expediency of introducing the explanatory method. They insist that the teaching of things as well as words, is not “nominated in the bond:” that they are paid for imparting the mechanical process only: that in making explanation imperative, an additional duty is imposed, requiring various accomplishment and a thorough education, and entitling, therefore, to a nearer assimilation to the minister of the parish in point of income : That, moreover, the time spent in explanation materially subtracts from the time for reading: and that thus, in the race for public favour, they are sure to be left behind by the opposition teacher, who sticks doggedly to the old mechanical process. Now,-not to enter into the question of salary, which all the world admits to have been hitherto inadequate, and which none rejoices more than I do in any prospect of seeing increased,—I entirely agree in 78 POSTSCRIPT. the principle, that more labour, and of a higher kind, demands greater remuneration. This, indeed, is a principle which will always vindicate its own truth in every condition of life; for though individuals may be found in all professions, and in none oftener than in that of a teacher, who will do extraordi- nary duty gratuitously, such works of supererogation cannot be expected from whole classes of men, without additional pay. I admit, that though the new method were demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the teachers themselves, to be the best, still they would have a right (however one might doubt the policy of the measure) to stipulate for an increase of salary before adopting it, if it were proved to imply a greater sacrifice than they had engaged for, of time and labour. But the whole drift of my argument was to shew, (and I confess I have seen nothing to weaken its force,) that the drudgery is actually di- minished, and time saved, by interesting the child in his school exercises: and as to the higher knowledge said to be required, there are very few of the parochial teachers who have not al- ready stock enough for the purpose in view, or at least the means within themselves of acquiring it, if they had but the will and the power to impart it in the most appropriate form. As to the latter part of the argument, it is drawn from the abuse, not from the judicious use of the explanatory method. There is no doubt that the principle of the method may be, and probably has been pushed to extremes, so as to retard the progress of the pupil in easy and elegant reading, and even in familiarity with the forms and sounds of words: and this is apt to occur, when the teacher, enamoured of his new instru- ment, makes it a practice not to be contented with such ex- planation of the word in question, as shall ensure the child's understanding its general import, as well as its meaning in the passage before him; but giving full scope to the principle of association in his own mind, and pleased perhaps with his own ingenuity, pursues every word through all its doublings of derivation, composition, and various application; and not that word only, but goes off on new scents in different direc- tions, till the original word is lost sight of, the mind of the child perhaps bewildered, and much time lost, if not for the CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 79 general improvement of the boy's understanding, at least for the immediate object of learning to read. All this, however, proves nothing but that a good principle may be injudiciously applied. A limit, it is obvious, must be set to extravagance of illustration. In the very early stages, it is scarcely possible to go to excess in illustrating and explaining, so long as the teacher keeps within the bounds to which the child can follow him : because, while he does so, every thing he says and every question he puts enlarge the pupil’s mind, exercise his reason, and awaken his curiosity; and thus tend power- fully to give him the interest in his lessons which makes them a pleasure, and prepares the way for that greatest of all tri- umphs to the public teacher, (and pity 'tis it were so rare 1) when the child takes to reading for its own sake. When the habit is thus established of connecting with words the ideas they represent, when the child insists on understanding what he reads, and is unhappy if he is thwarted in his wish,_and when all this is effected by abstaining from reading what he cannot be made to comprehend, great amplitude of explanation may fairly be desisted from, till he arrive at the highest class, where information of a substantial and more systematic kind should await him. In the intermediate stages, it will be suf- ficient to keep up the habit by such occasional interrogatories as shall ascertain his possession, not only of the sense of indi- vidual expressions, but of the scope and outline of the whole story. If the foundation be well laid in the initiatory class, the child, as he advances, will interrogate his own mind; and if he cannot thence satisfy himself, will ask information of others, monitor or master, according as facilities are afforded him. Meanwhile, it will be the master's business to train him in all those subsidiary branches of the art, which will enable him to place the accent well, to read fluently and agreeably, to spell accurately, to subdivide words correctly into syllables, and to commit to memory, and recite gracefully, choice pas- sages well understood. III. In the account given (Note A., p. 59) of the mode of teaching the first elements of grammar, I suggested the use of terms already familiar to the tyro, in order to follow out 80 POSTSCRIPT. the principle of carrying the understanding along with us in the initiatory processes. There came forth presently from the Sessional School a distinct disclaimer of what was called “the new nomenclature.” I admit the inadvertence, and absolve the teachers from all charge of using it; but I am not the less convinced of the reasonableness of such an attempt to facili- tate the comprehension of the parts of speech. So far from advocating the introduction of a new nomenclature or propo- sing the rejection of the old one, it is solely to avoid the pre- mature use of new words, and to prevent their being voces et praeterea nihil, that I would keep to such as the child is familiar with, and would even compound these in a way which, barbarous as it may appear to the practised gramma- rian, will be found to aid the young mind in recollecting and recurring to the explanations that have been given of the parts of speech. These names, however, were not meant to supersede the common terms noun, verb, pronoun, &c., but only to translate them for the benefit of the mere beginner, in order that the first steps of the child might be as short and little encumbered as possible. On the subject of instruction in English Grammar, I am induced to add, in consequence of some misconceptions that prevail on the subject, (and I do so, without vouching for any one's opinion but my own,) that, in recommending the method of viva voce grammatical instruction, I never meant it should supersede the use of an English grammar at a more advanced stage, or in a higher course, of education. In order to initiate a child in grammar, and bring him to apply his mind to the subject, I would in all cases proceed in some such manner as I have described; appealing at every step to his understand- ing, and confining the instruction to those rules and outlines which may be said to express the laws of human thought, and to those peculiarities of his mother-tongue, which even his limited knowledge of it can be brought to exemplify and con- firm. The child will thus be excited to reflect and reason, and put ideas together; and if such instruction fall upon an inquisitive mind, there is this advantage, that every one who can speak carries about with him the means and materials of farther experiment and enquiry. For the great majority of TEACHING OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 81 parochial children, and those in towns who are destined to the ordinary occupations of life, the information thus orally con- veyed is amply sufficient. But when elementary training is only the foundation on which is to be reared a superstructure of liberal studies, either with professional views, or for the purposes of civilized life and polished society, something of a more precise and definite nature, and branching into greater minuteness of detail, becomes necessary. The pupil must no longer be left floating in the vagueness and uncertainty of oral teaching; he must have a standard to which he can ap- peal,—landmarks and finger-posts to guide him, when the road becomes more intricate, and multiplies in various direc- tions. Where, indeed, we are to look for this standard which shall direct without bewildering, it is not so easy to say: but, that a text-book, constructed on philosophical principles, and presenting in a simplified and methodized form the great rules, exceptions, and peculiarities of the language, is not only de- sirable but indispensable in the progress of grammatical study, —appears to me a truth too obvious to be dwelt upon. If sensible men entertain a different opinion, it must arise, one is tempted to think, from the difficulty they experience in finding any grammar that is not more likely to impede than to forward a comprehension of the subject which it pretends to explain. The English Grammars in general use are constructed on a wrong principle. They bear the marks of being compiled by men whose grammatical notions have been moulded on the Rudiments of the Latin Tongue; who, being blindly pre- possessed in favour of the scheme of declension, conjuga- tion, and flexion, with which their early studies had made them familiar, insist upon applying that scheme to their own language. Hence it is that we find the English noun declined by six cases instead of two; and the English verb, so simple and easy, that the paradigma, if rightly presented, must be widely printed to fill a duodecimo page, is encumbered with an endless retinue of do's and did's, and shall's, and will's, and have's, and might's, could's, would's, and should's; and is thus stretched far beyond its natural dimensions. Neither are the minor branches of punctuation, and sylla- F 82 POSTSCRIPT. bic division of polysyllabic words, to be neglected, even in the early stages. The fashion which seems to prevail in schools on the improved system, of huddling over the spelling of long words without marking the component syllables, is hurtful to orthography, distinct pronunciation, and correct penmanship. IV. There remains one other charge, which, being some- what personal, I should not have deemed worthy of noticing more than many others of the same description, were it not partly out of deference to the quarter whence it proceeds, partly because it brings me upon topics not altogether alien from the main purpose of this book. I am accused, in the “Quarterly Review” for January 1829,-not of having said any thing in disparagement of the merits of Dr Bell but, of not having done him due honour. “How happens it,” it is asked, “that the Madras system should never in a single instance be mentioned,” &c. To this charge it might perhaps be answer enough to say, that my prefatory statement of the circumstances which gave rise to the present publication, is not one of those covers under which authors think themselves privileged to hoist false colours, but a literal account of the facts as they happened; and that, as, in communicating to Mr Kennedy some reflections on what I had lately seen, I never thought of mentioning Dr Bell otherwise than incidentally, so, in hastily preparing these Letters for the press, it really did not occur to me to travel out of the record in search of an opportunity of praising that reverend gentleman, or reviving the old contro- versy which the public had long been sick of. But so anxious am I to disclaim that spirit of detraction, to which the reviewer seems half inclined to attribute the slightness of my allusion to Dr Bell, that I hope to be forgiven for quoting the follow- ing passages from a series of lectures on Public Teaching, written many years ago, and delivered frequently since as part of my College course:– “The mode of mutual instruction, as practised in the native schools at Madras, had been explained at great length by Dr Bell, in a pamphlet published as long ago as the year 1797. MONITORIAL METHOD OF INSTRUCTION. 83 Neither the book, however, nor the method attracted attention till many years after, when the public mind being better pre- pared, the subject was taken up by a less able, but more zealous advocate, Joseph Lancaster; and, in spite of all his blunders and follies, which at any other time would have ruined it, the principle of the new method gained proselytes every day, and became the instrument of much practical good.” In a subsequent Lecture on the same subject, the following passage occurs, in reference to the monitorial method of instruc- tion :- “I prefer this title to every other, both because it expresses in the word monitorial the distinctive feature of the system I recommend, and because it is equally applicable to the various modifications of that system which have been attempted, and thus steers clear of all the disputed points between Dr Bell and Mr Lancaster, and their respective followers. It is well known that these two gentlemen, how widely soever they differ upon minor questions and the little practical details and arrangements of teaching, are perfectly agreed upon the main point, the subdivision of the pupils into classes, each to be regulated and taught (under the direction and superin- tendence of the master) by the most distinguished scholar of its own number, or of some class above. This idea of apply- ing the superior knowledge of the abler and more advanced to the instruction of the rest, is the vital principle of the new method; everything else is subordinate detail, which deserves indeed to be studied by all teachers, as exemplified in the schools of Bell and of Lancaster where it is most successfully practised; not with the view of following them implicitly, but of taking hints, and adapting them to circumstances and local peculiarities. Many, I know, of our countrymen, and parti- cularly schoolmasters, when they hear this principle brought forward as a new discovery, are apt to be contemptuous, and quote sundry instances of Scottish schools where the head boys have been employed to hear the lessons of part of the class, before Bell or Lancaster were ever heard of. But it should be recollected, that this occasional grasping at an expedient to save time and labour to the master, is a very different thing 84 POSTSCRIPT. from a regular, organized system of sub-division adopted, not as an imperfect substitute, but as a superior means of instruc- tion. “Without entering, however, into the question of priority of invention, or whether there was any invention at all, I may remark, that in this, as in every other case of invention and discovery, the person entitled to the gratitude of the public and of posterity, is not he who had the first glimpse of the prin- ciple and failed to push it to its conclusions, but the man who brought it to bear on the business of life, and extorted from it the results of practical utility. Now, there is no denying this highest species of merit to these gentlemen, and particularly to Joseph Lancaster, whose exertions, if they were not always guided by the greatest wisdom, or the most perfect disinterest- edness, were yet so zealous, so indefatigable, and so success- ful, as to entitle him to be considered as a great benefactor of mankind. He did more, perhaps, than a wiser or more pru- dent man might have effected. Let us reflect on the extraor- dinary and anomalous fact, that with an enlightened govern- ment and a free constitution, there is yet no national estab- lishment for the education of the lower orders of England; and that in consequence of this want the English peasantry has been, till very lately at least, the most ignorant in Protestant Europe. If we couple this fact with another not less true, that there is scarcely an English town or village of any note, in which one or more schools for the poor have not been established in consequence of the stir made by Lancaster, we will not allow a few blunders in conduct to cancel the obligations under which he has laid every lover of his country. “The success of the Bell and Lancaster system could not have been expected to be equally brilliant in Scotland, even if it had been the scene of their first efforts. The great superior- ity of the method was stated, at first, to be its economy; and the argument used to recommend and enforce its adoption was, that at a comparatively trifling expense, which the contribu- tions of private benevolence would readily supply, Elementary Education might be afforded to an immense number who at the time had no means of obtaining it. But in Scotland we fº APPLICATION OF THE MONITORIAL METHOD. 85 had enjoyed, for more than a century, a well-organized sys- tem of public instruction, whose ramifications extended to the remotest corners of our country. We had therefore already, under the sanction of legislative enactment, what these gentle- men were labouring to introduce partially among our southern neighbours. This view of the subject is undoubtedly that which led to its cold reception and rare adoption in this coun- try; and the view would be quite correct, if there were no- thing to recommend the new method but its economy, and if it did not furnish the means of doing the thing better as well as cheaper.” I have been induced to tax thus far the reader's patience, not only to prove, that though my admiration of Dr Bell is not quite so intense and exclusive as the reviewer's, I have never been indisposed to bear my testimony to his merits; but also, that I might have the opportunity of disavowing—which, but for some expressions of the reviewer, I should have thought it very unnecessary to do—all claims of my own to invention or discovery. If I were a stickler for such claims, it might bear a question, whether I was not the first who applied the principle of mutual instruction (which Dr Bell has the un- doubted merit of having first promulgated in Britain) to the teaching of the classics, and of ancient geography; seeing that I introduced the monitorial system into the Rector's class of the High School as early as the year 1811. But I would rather have credit for good done, (and to the reviewer I owe my best thanks for the handsome manner in which he gives it,) than for priority in this application of the principle. How I might feel, if I had a well-founded title to the high dis- tinction of being an inventor, I know not; but I can honestly say, that, as it is, I have no desire, either to be or to be thought one. It has been my wish (since I must speak of myself) to be of use to my country as far as my means go, by zealous and faithful service in the ranks of her public teachers. Whether the methods and discipline I employ be of my own contrivance or borrowed from others, I regard as matter of comparative indifference, provided they shall help me to train the youth under my care to good learning and virtuous habits, to store 86 POSTSCRIPT. their memories with useful knowledge, and inspire them with the love of study and the admiration of whatever is high- minded, patriotic, and disinterested in the characters and writ- ings of antiquity, to awaken in their minds an ambition to excel, prompting them to “scorn delights and live laborious days,”—to establish in their heads and hearts the dominion of principle over passion and of duty over selfish and sensual indulgence: and thus to afford them an assured hope and prospect of usefulness and of honour to themselves and their country. I had another object in view in the extracts I have given, —to vindicate the name of Joseph Lancaster from the unjust aspersion thrown upon it by the reviewer, when, in the only allusion he makes to his existence, he calls him “an impudent pretender.” These are hard terms as applied to a man to whom Dr Bell must be considered as indirectly yet mainly indebted for the praise, as well as the more solid benefits, which have been showered on his head;—a man, whose name the intelligent people of England will be more and more in- clined, in proportion as party distinctions die away and the blessings of general education are felt, to associate with that of his rival, in a union which will hereafter be considered as indicating, not opposition and rivalry, but a community of purpose and of interests. I had intended, in this PostScript, to give some additional explanations on the subject of Monitorial Discipline; but, on a closer examination of the objections I have seen or heard, I confess I have been unable to find a single argument, which it would not be insulting the understanding of my reader to detain him in refuting. The conclusion forced upon me is this, that if the opponents of the monitorial method have never tried it, they have no right to speak against the weight of evidence in its favour, deduced both from theory and practice; and if they have made the trial, and come before the public to announce their failure, they are only proclaiming their own incompetency. CoLLEGE of EDINBURGH, 28th February 1829. POSTSCRIPT. 87 [It is the less necessary to go into further details on Moni- torial Discipline, such as I gave in Note C. of Second Edition, as all the directions given there about the best way of select- ing monitors and preparing them for their duties are now superseded by that most wise and judicious improvement upon the monitorial method, the regulated appointment and re- muneration of “pupil-teachers,”—élèves—maitres, as they have been long called in the French écoles d'enseignement mutuel. Note C. is accordingly omitted in this volume.—Coll. EDIN. 1855.] A PPEND IX. CoLLEGE of EDINBURGH, 1855, Having lately recovered, through the kindness of the Right Honour- able Gentleman to whom they were addressed, the original MS. of my “Letters,” I find there several passages which I thought it advisable to suppress at the time of publication for various reasons and particularly out of regard to the feelings of individuals. But as these reasons no longer exist, I am tempted to restore one or two unpublished ex- tracts. They come under the head of Proofs and Illustrations, and fur- nish some facts not without interest to the future historian of Educa- tion in the British Islands. I retain also in the Appendix the extracts formerly given of letters received from Parish Teachers who had attended the Course of Lec- tures to which I have before alluded. They furnish no bad refutation of the objections taken to the views I advocated ; and they appear to me at the same time no unfavourable specimen, both of the spirit and the power of expression which are to be found in that valuable class of public servants: more especially as the letters from which they are taken, were written without any view to their being made public. :* UNPUBLISHED ExTRACTs. I. In one of the best attended schools in the south of Scotland, which is in high repute and much resorted to, in consequence of a bequest of property which yields the head master a larger incomethan generally falls to the lot of Scotch schoolmasters, I heard an advanced class of English scholars engaged in reading the story of Eliza and Eubulus in Barrie's Collection. Irequested the master, who is greatly esteemed in the neigh- bourhood (and as a worthy pains-taking youngman, deservedly so), -togo through every thing which constituted, in the ordinary routine of the business, the saying of this lesson. He did so, till he declared he had APPENI) IX, 89 nothing more to do. I then asked permission to put a few questions myself. It was not the first time the passage had been read, and there were some striking enough facts in the story; yet, not one of a class of 16 or 18 could tell me who Eliza was, or Eubulus, or where they lived, or what happened to either. And there are not ten schools out of the 50 I visited where the result would have been different. So much for an acquired habit of reading without understanding, or being called upon to explain. And if this be the case in an interesting narrative, what are we to expect in the Didactic, Sermonic, Political, Dramatic, and Poetical pieces, which make up the far greater portion of the school-books in use. I mentioned grammar as being occasionally taught in these schools to a few ; but these few are little the better for it. It is made to con- sist, not in an analysis of thought, but in getting by heart certain forms of words which have a hold on the memory, but not on the understanding. A clever boy, though his master never exercise his intellect on grammar, will acquire a sort of mechanical dexterity in applying rightly the rules and definitions; but in general the boys guess, and if they guess wrong, the master sets them on, primes them as it were, with the first word; and when they proceed glibly with the rest, it is mistaken for knowledge. Thus, on one occasion, I asked one of the chosen few, to parse the word “fell,” as it occurred in the expression, “it fell out.” He stumbled on the right answer, and said, “a verb.” But when I followed up the ques- tion with “what is a verb Ž’’ he replied with more hesitation and a less happy conjecture, “a verb is the name of any person,” but before he could finish the sentence, he was cut short with this reproof-º For shame, John,” (the shame I thought was all the master's) “you surely know, A verb is That”—whereupon the boy interrupted in his turn, and screech'd out, “a verb is that which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer,” his notion of a verb remaining of course exactly where it was. II. The conclusion, I was compelled to draw from what I observed is this, that terror is the great, and very often the only, means of produ- cing order and silence, and of enforcing attention. The penal code may be more or less mildly administered, and may now and then have addi- tional clauses and sanctions; but in general, it is a very simple one, and may be summed up in this short and emphatic denunciation, “if you offend, you shall be beaten;” very intelligible too, I should call it, if the meaning of the term “ offend” were always as easy to understand as the term to “be beaten.” Having ascertained in one school, the master of which was rather motorious for severity, that he divided his time, I have no doubt very conscientiously, into considerable portions at once to each class, I ventured to ask what security he had, or what means he took to assure himself, that while one class was saying to him the rest were busy. With much hesitation and some embarrassment, he 90 APPENDIX. stammered out, “We just trust to their honesty, that they will learn the lesson given out.” In the six hours, in many parts of Wigtonshire even nine hours, of confinement in School, with not more than half-an- hour's interval,—the master goes his round of the classes three, four, or five times, according to circumstances; but we shall probably be consi- derably above the truth, if we allow a tythe of the time to be pro- fitably, or at all, employed on the lessons prescribed. The rest is dis- sipated either in playfulness and natural but subdued activity, which the master calls restlessness and mischief, and which he has no means of repressing but the lash. III. Allow me for a moment to crave your attention to a few details of a visit I paid to Ireland in July (1827). I crossed from Galloway, re- solved, as far as my opportunities would permit, to see what was doing in Ireland for the education of the poor. My course was from Belfast along the coast to Giant's Causeway, and back by the direct interior line of road, through Ballymony and Armagh. A second visit to Ireland in September, was limited, as far as education was concerned, almost entire- ly to Dublin, Edgeworthstown, and Hillsborough. The number of schools of all descriptions which I saw and examined was not much less than I visited in Scotland. By far the greater proportion of them were those in connection with, and conducted on the system recommended by the Kil- dare Place Society. They were schools exclusively directed to popular education, and I can affirm, without the least hesitation, though as a Scotchman with no small reluctance and mortification, that they are very much better regulated, and conducted on sounder and more enlight- ened principles, than those I saw in my own country. Not that they are by any means free from objection, or incapable of improvement. But having been organized at a comparatively recent period, (for the Society has not been in activity for more than 12 or 15 years,) they have been enabled to avail themselves of the lights of the present age, instead of being crippled and weighed down by abuses and malpractices that have been allowed to accumulate for more than a century. I had little expectation when I crossed to Ireland, that I should have much of that occupation of visiting schools, which I had acquired such a taste for in Galloway; both because I was ignorant of the extent to which the education of the people was carried there; and because, judging from what I had experienced and observed in Scotland, I an- ticipated difficulties and awkwardness in the way of obtaining admission which I was not prepared to encounter. From my former situation as Rector of the High School and Cashier of the Schoolmasters' Widows' Fund, as well as my present office, I conceived myself to have a right to enter without other introduction any parochial school in Scotland, and, aware of my power to fall back on this resource, I often entered the schoolroom without giving my name, conceiving that the manner in APPENDIX. 91 which I was received as an unknown visitor, would be an element in forming a judgment of the school. In very few cases was I received with cordiality,+almost always with surprise and ill concealed uneasiness, though, I am happy to say, in one instance only with positive incivility. But in Ireland I was an utter stranger, and had no chance of escaping so well, if things were as with us. In this, however, I was agreeably dis- appointed. I met with one of the Kildare Place Society's Inspectors, at the public examination of a school in Belfast, who gave me a number of references to the schools in my way, and one or two introductions to Patrons. But these, except for local information, I found quite un- necessary. The masters are so accustomed to be visited, that they ex- press no surprise at the entrance of a stranger: without any sourness of look or manner they put into his hands, as a matter of course, the day- book which lies on every master's desk, that the visitor may see the number of presents and absents, and the difference struck for every day in the year; with a space left in which he is often invited and always at liberty, to enter his observations and suggestions. He may see also the most minute register of the attendance and pro- ficiency of each individual scholar. The desks at which the pupils sit for business, are not those double ones of our parish schools, where the boys sit face to face, and half of the number at least have their backs to the master, a state of things provocative of idle- ness and mischievous tricks, with the hands across the table, and the feet below. In Ireland they are single and separate desks, where the boys see their neighbours' backs and their master's face; and behind the master's pulpit is a press, containing a school lib- rary of intelligible and entertaining little volumes, to which every pupil’s eye is directed, but access to which he knows to be denied to all but those who are remarkable for good conduct and proficiency. But let us attend to the organization and practical teaching of these schools. Not to weary you with minute details on the former, or dissertation on what I think might be altered for the better, suffice it to say, that there is a uniform, and universally prevailing arrangement of the pupils into a certain number of divisions, and sections of these called drafts —that each of these has a monitor, and that thus provision is made for that grand desideratum, the employment of every pupil at all times. This, of course, will be more or less perfectly done according to the amount of zeal and ability in the individual teacher; but it is a great matter to have the machinery ready to work as soon as a moving power can be got, and under the system of check, encouragement, and control which I found in operation, it is scarcely possible that the machine should stop or do mischief, or that it should fail to produce salutary effects. With regard to the practical teaching—the books used, and the manner of using them, I found them, after what I had seen, in most things positively good, and in all, comparatively admirable. The Bible 92 APPENDIX. is not used, either Old or New Testament, as a book to teach reading by. And in this they are surely right, not only because, when read indiscriminately, it is quite beyond the comprehension of children, and is inconvenient both as to size and character of type; but because such a use of it tends to diminish that reverential regard for its con- tents, which it is one object of popular education to inculcate. In- stead of this, it is read in select portions, daily or twice a week, at the conclusion of the business, by one of those (and they take it in turn according to excellence), who have attained proficiency enough to do it with effect, all other business being stopt, and the children stand- ing. If they are then dismissed without any attempt being made either to make them understand what they hear, or extract any good moral lesson from it, that is not the fault of the schoolmaster or the Society: but is owing to that morbid state of the public mind on the subject of differences in religious opinion, undor which Ireland is labouring. The books used in these schools, for training the child to the art of reading, have been compiled expressly for the purpose, and, as a set, are the best adapted for the purpose I have yet seen. They consist of a spell- ing-book in three parts, (in which there is perhaps a good deal of pre- paratory introduction and syllabic reading that might be dispensed with), and what is called the Dublin Reading Book. In all these compilations the language is simplified, and the subjects of the extracts are such as to interest and attract the infant mind, and extremely well adapted for that kind of elementary training which I explained in the beginning of this interminable letter, as proceeding on the prin- ciple of putting nothing into the hand of a child which he cannot be made to understand and relish—a principle which has been so success- tifully applied in the Sessional School of Edinburgh. It must be observed, however, that no book or set of books will accomplish this object without the active superintendence and skilful examination of the master. A striking proof of this observation occurred in the very schools for which these excellent books were compiled. On en- tering a School, I generally requested the master to proceed with the business he was engaged in at the time. He generally preferred (and I had no objection) to call out his highest class, which, in Ireland, was that of the Dublin Reading Book. The process universally was (and I left it entirely in his own hands), to hear the children read, then to spell from what they had read, and, lastly, to question woon the story they had finished. Now I have two remarks to make on this process, —the one is, that the reading should not be the first step; and the second, that a step, and a most important one, is left out between the second and third. To prove the justness of the last remark, I must crave your patience while I quote an instance, in spite of my promise to avoid minutiae. One of the stories in the Dublin Reading Book begins thus: (it occurred in so many schools that I have it by heart)– “Joseph Rachel, a respectable negro, resided in the Island of Barba- APPENDIX. 93 does. He was a trader, and dealt chiefly in the retail way,” &c., &c. The master being left to himself, and desired to give a specimen of what was done with this passage in the ordinary routine after reading and spelling, proceeded to question, in some cases with shut books, ge- merally with open. Master.—“Who was Joseph Rachel ?” Pupil.— “A respectable negro.” M.—“Where did he live?” P.—“In the Island of Barbadoes.” M.—“How did he deal 2" P.—“Chiefly in the retail way;” and so on. When the master had given me this speci- men, and had nothing more to do, I begged to be permitted to put a question or two. My first was, “What do you mean by Negro 2" and I recollect distinctly a school in an Irish village, where no boy in the class gave me an answer, at least a better one than “a man.” On this I asked, “If I, being a man, was a negro,”—he hesitated, but could not extricate himself. Again, I asked, “What is island 2" no answer Again, “You said he dealt in the retail way,+what is that ?” No an- swer from a pretty numerous class, till one boy's eye glanced as if he had hit it. I appealed to him, and he said exultingly, “Wholesale, Sir!” —that is, it flashed on his recollection that he had seen somewhere over a shop door—wholesale and retail, and this, on the present occasion, he pressed into his service. These things I mention to prove my proposition, that a step is omitted in the Irish process—that of securing the child's understand- ing the individual words of a lesson before he is examined on the facts of the story. The omitted step too is evidently the more important, for the memory of the little events of, it may be, a fictitious narrative, serves for little or nothing beyond that story, while the knowledge of the single words, well mastered, serves for all cases where the words occur again in reading or conversation. If this improvement were made in the Irish system—and I think I convinced the Superintendent of the Kildare Place School, Mr Veevers, that it would be a great one—the steps of business in an English les- son would be:–1. To spell and ask the meaning of words; 2. To read, . because the reading in this order would both be better, from the chifd's better comprehension, and would rivet in his memory all the previous information he had got in spelling and explaining; and 3. To be ques- tioned on the story or train of thought. IV. In increasing the comforts and raising the remuneration of school- masters, we must take care at the same to raise their qualifications, and secure the constant and enlightened application of them to the improve- ment of the young. Now to accomplish this object, two things I am persuaded must be attempted, how difficult soever it may appear to compass them; 1, to make the amount of remuneration in the way of salary, depend on the manner in which the duty is performed;—to make it in short a gratuity, instead of a fixed stipend; and 2. to make 94 APPENDIX. the master removeable when the duty is notoriously ill-done. The for- mer is the practice in Ireland, and the system has hitherto worked beau- tifully. The annual reports of the Inspectors are considered and com- pared, and a graduated list of gratuities made up, corresponding to the merits of the teachers. I know it may be said this could scarcely be made a subject of legislative enactment, and is too delicate a piece of machinery to work for a long time without going wrong. But the object and principle are so important, that it should be tried in order both to destroy the feeling among the masters, that their appointment is permanent, and, unless they resign, secure for life, and to give them on the contrary to understand that they remain where they are, only qwamdiw se bene gesserint. It may be thought that this is already pro- vided for by the power vested in the presbytery to judge and decide without appeal to any higher church court on complaints brought against schoolmasters; a power which extends even to dismissal from office. But this power which excites the indignation of the schoolmas- ters, is, in truth, a dead letter, or acted upon only in cases so flagitious as to raise a fama clamosa in the parish. Nor is this supineness or tenderness on the part of the clergy to be wondered at or severely con- demned. It is an odious thing for any member of presbytery to originate a complaint against a schoolmaster, or, as the phrase is, “to break the poor man's bread.” The likelihood is that unless the case be flagrant, the complainer will stand alone in the presbytery; and that, however pure his motives may be, his interference will be considered as a proof of personal pique, or unnecessary and impertinent meddling. No really useful control can be expected but from a paid and accredited agent, whose business it is to detect and expose abuses. ExTRACTS FROM Correspond ENCE of TEACHERs. “At the conclusion of your Lectures last Christmas on Elementary Teaching, you expressed a wish that the teachers who should adopt the plan you recommended would communicate with you, either to state any difficulty in the system which they wished solved, or to inform you of the results of their experiments. On this footing, therefore, I pre- sume to address you. “I succeeded to this school in April last : my predecessor, I under- stood, had been very popular; yet I am fully prepared, from the state in which I found matters, to corroborate, in almost every particular, the statement you made respecting the defects prevalent in country schools. The pupils were indeed under good subjection, and taken in general, I believe they might have stood a comparison with many schools in this quarter. But their reading was bad,—indistinct, mon- otomous, and without regard to sense or punctuation. Several of the higher boys had been required to explain from a dictionary some of APPENDIX. 95 the more difficult words in their lesson ; such, perhaps, as, observe, to perceive ; palliate, to extenuate, &c. This, imperfect as it is, was all the attempt that had been made at explanation. Some notion of the general ignorance of the scholars may be formed from a circumstance which I had occasion to notice a few days after commencing. In the highest class, consisting of fifteen, some of whom were twelve and fourteen years of age, and were learning grammar, Latin, geography, &c. not one could tell what was meant by the word husbandman, not- withstanding that the whole of them had been brought up in the country, and were the children either of farmers or farm-servants. A small class had gone through Lennie's grammar; but it cost the labour of several lessons to make them understand the first rule of syntax, “A verb must agree,” &c. In short, no attempt had been made to exercise the understanding. These facts I certainly do not mention with any wish to discredit those who were before me, or to mag- nify the difficulties I had to encounter, but to shew how agreeable to my own experience were the observations you had made on the state of education in another part of the country. “Having, for a number of years, been in the habit of occasionally visiting the Edinburgh Sessonial School, and having also heard your Lectures on Education, I did not hesitate to determine on a reformation. —Here, however, I remembered your warning, to be cawtious, and introduce any thing new with as little show of change as possible. At first, I made no perceptible alteration in the way of conducting the business of the school. In the course of a few weeks, by way of intro- ducing monitors, observing the scholars idle, I made them read their lessons in pairs, to prepare for me. By and by, I set the duxes to hear their classes after they had gone over their classes two and two, taking care at the same time to hear them the usual number of lessons myself. By degrees, I substituted for the duxes the best teachers, and made what other changes appeared necessary. Every thing went on smoothly, without the least opposition or dissatisfaction. “The ‘intellectual’ part of the system was a more arduous under- taking. The books were the common School Collections, in which little or nothing can be found level to the capacities, or calculated to excite the interest of boys. A complete change was impracticable. However, I formed a large class—the higher part of the school—in the Sessional School small Collection, consisting of extracts from natural history, &c. In explaining words, my first business is to see that they fully comprehend the idea intended to be conveyed, and then to teach them other words having nearly the same meaning. And I find that the higher boys have a very tolerable knowledge of words, considering the short time they have been accustomed to the exercise. I likewise take occasion to give them such general information as the lesson may suggest. For example, the senses, and what they inform us of; the seasons, to be described by the weather, the length of the days, the 96 APPENDIX, country-work peculiar to each, &c.; the geographical situation of any country mentioned in the lesson; the general outline of the story they have read, and so on ; and the interest the pupils take in these exer- cises, and the knowledge they have actually acquired, are highly en- couraging. “In introducing and carrying forward these changes, I have met with no opposition from the prejudices of the parents. On the contrary they are exceedingly pleased that their children understand so much, and they leave me to my own method of instructing them. I am sen- sible, however, that this is far from being gonerally the case in the country. In many places, a change of system, however warily intro- duced, would be regarded with suspicion and dislike : and I therefore think myself happy in being placed in so quiet a neighbourhood, where I am left unmolested to prosecute what plans I choose.” The same able teacher, after seven or eight months experience in the new School he had been appointed to, writes thus: “My other endeavours after improvement go on apace : and with such success as, small though it may really be, at once delights and encourages me. By purchasing books in the hope of being gradually repaid, I have the School in tolerable keeping in that respect. Indeed, the addition of two dozen of the Dublin Reading Book—a collection I very highly prize”—would effect a total change. Of the happy effects of putting into the hands of children such pieces as they understand and take an interest in, I have, within these few weeks, observed a very striking instance. I had a young class in Barrio's Collection : all the means I could use, had little effect in improving them. They were ‘habit and repute the worst class in the school, and were frequently termed, ‘the awkward squad.' I resolved to try what a change of book would do, and accordingly put them into the second part of the Sessional collection, informing them that I had recourse to that as the last experiment, and if it failed, I would consider their case almost desperate. The fruits of this change soon appeared. They got into a subject they were familiar with, and which afforded them pleasure. In a very short time, they seemed quite different children. Formerly it was the greatest drudgery to hear them drawl out their spiritless prosing; now I go to them with satisfaction, and am welcomed with a smile on every countenance : and their improvement has far surpassed my expectation. The higher classes also go on well. In regard to my Latin scholars, I cannot boast of their proficiency. Nor will this be wondered at, when I state, that in a school of ninety, I have only nine learning Latin in their separate classes, and the fore- * Another correspondent, a most successful Parish Teacher, says of this Collection:-tt I consider this by far the best selection that has yet fallen into my hands, for fixing the attention of the learners, by its instructive and entertaining matter.” LETTERS FROM TEACHERs—(1828–29). 97 moon only is set apart for that language, as they must attend to arith- metic, &c. &c. at the same time. “As to the parents, my reception among them is as flattering as I could wish. By the lowest and the highest, I have been complimented on the progress their children are making. And all agree in considering ‘the meaning as a grand thing to teach them.” One says, “They're like to deave us wi' their reading.” Another, “Ye're making this a clever chield; he's like to fickle us a’.” Another, “They never used to care for ganging to the school; but now they greet if I offer to keep them away.’ These things, as in some sense they may appear to be some- what like boasting, I certainly would not mention, were it not that I conceive they go to prove that the system you recommend, besides being the most beneficial in its consequences, is also the most engaging both to the children and their parents. “It gives me much pleasure to observe, that even in this quarter, there is now a very general interest excited in regard to improvement in education.—The late publications on that subject have produced this. To expect that old prejudices will at once be done away, would be a mistake. Yet I feel convinced that the old system has got its death-blow ; and though many cling to much of it, and all may pro- bably retain some parts, yet the spirit that is now abroad will not subside without producing happy results.” II. “The course I have principally pursued, has been the explanation of words, in which the scholars have acquired a considerable dexterity; and what is rather singular, several scholars who were formerly consi- dered very dull and stupid, have happily made the greatest proficiency; indeed, there generally prevails a much greater spirit of inquiry among the scholars than formerly. Although I was never characterized as a severe disciplinarian (in the corrupted sense,) I have not been altogether able to abolish corporal punishment, and am doubtful whether I shall be ever able to do it away, in consequence of the very irregular manner in which scholars give their attendance at school in the country; how- ever, it has been greatly ameliorated, and I hope to advance still farther in the commendable practice. The situation of my school-house is not very favourable for competition, being placed on the bank of a river, and half a mile from the village; still, however, I have always been increas- ing the number of my scholars, which now amounts to upwards of 130. My class was examined by a committee of the Presbytery of Irvine and a number of the parents, when we had not been more than three months in the practice of your system; and they expressed themselves highly delighted with the method of training.” . * : 98 APPENDIX. . III. o “I introduced at once the monitorial system; and as it was under- stood on all hands, that a mode of teaching different from the former was to be introduced, though its peculiarities were but partially known, I have met, I may say, with no serious opposition; and those who have taken the trouble to think on the subject, are, or seem to be, perfectly satisfied of its utility. “I am happy to say, that your last year's visit to Galloway, in spite of all the fume and spleen that it called forth, has already done much good, and will do more still. The teachers are beginning to look about them; and in several schools which I saw during my vacation, I wit- nessed evident symptoms of the film falling from their eyes.” The same intelligent correspondent, in a letter dated three months later, writes as follows:— “I have found it impossible to dispense entirely with corporal pun- ishment, as I happened to be the successor of a very rigid castigator, whose pupils, however excellent in other respects, had little idea of any motive either to exertion or obedience, but that afforded by the taw86. I have so far succeeded, as now to require no such aid in the way of getting lessons; and whenever it is used, which certainly is very sel- dom, it is for disorderly conduct. I do anticipate the eventual dismis- sion of the obnoxious instrument from the service. As to its ‘operation upon the sufferer,' I do not see that its effects are very beneficial. It is never administered with such severity, as to produce that doggedness which is sure to be the consequence, either of harsh or frequent punish- ment; and, except in a glaring case, I find exclusion from the class for half an hour, a much surer way of procuring good behaviour for the rest of the day.” IV. “I may remark generally, that it is but seldom that I am obliged to have recourse to corporal punishment, and only in cases of wilful mis- chief and direct disobedience of orders. From past and recent obser- vation, I find that I am necessitated to resort to it, principally in the case of such as have attended me comparatively a short time, and who have not been brought to regular and peaceable habits elsewhere. From particular enquiries as to the manner in which the children of different families are allowed to dispose of themselves at home during the evenings, I perceive that any disturbance or irregularity that may occasionally take place during school-hours, originates generally with those, of whose conduct owt of school no particular cognizance is taken, ; LETTERS FROM TEACHERs—(1828–29). 99 and who in consequence do not fail to contract those idle and mischiev- ous habits that are so destructive to the well-being of a school, from passing their time on the streets and elsewhere. The habits, whatever they are, that prevail in the domestic circle, do not fail to manifest themselves in the school in a greater or less degree. As to punish- ments for careless or imperfect preparation of tasks, I never employ the tawse except in a case of obstimate and repeated omission, which seldom occurs. The boy who cannot go through the tasks for repetition, which are always committed to memory at home, and said at an early part of the forenoon meeting, is punished by being obliged to begin by repeat- ing the task in which he failed, on the succeeding day. In a few cases, some boys who, by being removed to a distance from me, were inclined to be idle and talkative with their neighbours, I punish by placing full within my view. The effect of this has been salutary, so much so, that some days ago, upon giving a delinquent in this respect, permission to resume his old seat on account of his much altered attention and behaviour for some weeks back, he requested to remain,-saying that he was afraid to trust himself to his former place.” V. “I think now, as I have done for several years past, that corporal punishment is degrading to the master, and on most occasions unpro- fitable to the scholar, and the more so, from the manner in which it is too often administered. In schools, as in Society at large, order must mecessarily be preserved; but this may be done in a great measure by the exercise of firmness, and by means of judicious management. Cases, however, will occur, where severity may be necessary, in consequence of the violence of the pupil's temper, or previous mismanagement, probably, indeed, from both ; but these violations of order ought to be investigated before a public tribunal, and measures calmly adopted for the reformation of the offenders; gentle, as far as possible, but con- tinued till they become effective. “I am decidedly of opinion, that, but for the foolish interference of parents, boys might be managed under a system of perfect mildness, by a man of talent and temper, and no other ought to be allowed to superintend them. . . . wº “All I have said, however,” (about occasional appeals to the tawse,) “applies to the behaviowr of the boys; I think it not only unnecessary, but pernicious, to inflict punishment for neglect of tasks. All the in- struction required, may be conveyed principally by conversation; and if the master cannot interest his pupils, it is his own fault; only, he must be allowed sufficient influence to command their attention. I do not think corporal punishment is the best ; it is the most exceptional that can be employed.” : : º ; . : ; 100 APPENDIX. : ga : : : VI. “I have been forced to have recourse to corporal punishment only once since I opened school here; and that one instance occurred, in consequence of being annoyed by a boy coming late for a succession of days, who at the same time kept the division in which he was stationed, in an eternal buzz, by playing off little antics when he conceived my attention withdrawn. I watched till he committed a fault, called him up, obtained silence, and proceeded to beat him with a book-strap, hav- ing no tawse nor strap of my own. It is not to the beating that I im- pute the reformation of the boy; it was owing to the manner in which the beating was administered. I went about it with as much good nature and solemnity as if I had been crowning a prince. I said that it gave me great uneasiness to think I was compelled to have recourse to this disgraceful mode of treatment, which was quite repugnant to my own feelings; and I was surprised at this boy behaving ill, as he had no look nor appearance of a bad boy. “Surely some one must have prompted you,” I continued, “to conduct yourself in this extra- vagant way ? who was it that made you do it?” “Nobody, Sir,” the boy replied, and immediately began crying. After beating him, I con- cluded by saying, that I was fully aware this boy would never behave foolishly again ; and he has since verified my prediction. It was on the 20th December that this circumstance took place, (there being at the time 76,) and I can say, that this boy is now the best and most obliging in my school;-even his own mother, who, by the bye, used to drub him extremely, previous to this circumstance, is quite thunder- struck and happy at the reformation of her son. “I have 102 scholars, and an average attendance of 92, and I have never had recourse to corporal punishment since I opened school (on the 10th December), except the solitary instance above alluded to. I contemplate the idea most seriously, of never again adopting that mode of correction. I keep all busy, and consequently happy; and detain, after dismission of school, those who may come late, or may be guilty of any offence; taking care, at the same time, to allow the well-behaved to go away at an early hour on a Saturday, and sometimes giving them Saturday as a holiday. You will observe I am walking up to all your kind injunctions.” : ; LETTER, of DATE 1855. 101 I am permitted to insert the following letter from an intelligent and well qualified observer who inspected in the spring of the present year (1855) a considerable number of Schools in the same district which I visited eight-and-twenty years ago. It will satisfy the reader that even yet much remains to be done. “You requested me to peruse the Letters on Teaching which you published very many years ago, and to state to you in how far the strictures which may be found in them on the state of education in the south-west part of Scotland are applicable to schools in the same localities at the present day. Arranging your remarks under several heads, I would say that, so far as I have observed,— “1. Schoolmasters are now a better educated, better bred, and more enlightened class of men than you seem to have found them. “2. School organization has advanced very little indeed, except in those schools in which the pupil–teacher system is in operation,-a sys- tem which is just an improvement on the monitorial so strongly recom- mended by you, at the period of your visitation, as a powerful aid in school-management. Where pupil–teachers are not found, the whole school, with the exception of the class immediately under the master's eye, is in a state of disorganization under the semblance of learning their lessons. “3. There is a great improvement in the books used, although they are still very far indeed from being suitable for children. The Bible is still, in almost all the schools, read straight through. In some re- mote places the Bible and the Shorter Catechism form the chief lesson- books. “4. The branches taught are now more numerous. Grammar and Geography are almost universally subjects of instruction. “5. The Methods of Teaching have advanced little, except in those schools which are conducted by trained teachers. Even these, how- ever, are much addicted to the rote-system. Questions and the signifi- cation of words are now, it is true, asked in all schools, but this is done unintelligently, the meanings given being vague, and the questions such as can be answered by a simple negative or affirmative. Examination seems to be conducted without any definite object. Grammar, with very few exceptions, is taught in the same unmeaning style as at the period of your inspection ; Geography, although maps are now in general use, is taught as a mere collection of names, to which no idea is attached; instruction in Arithmetic is still given without a glimmer- ing of principle being apparent. I should say that in two schools out of twenty there is really efficient teaching, and that one-third of the remaining eighteen, although very defective, are much more intelligently taught than they were at the time to which your strictures refer, The 102 APPENDIX. remaining twelve would be found by you, now, in much the same condi- tion as you found them in 1827, with this exception, that the range of subjects taught is greater, and books and school-furniture considerably improved. “P.S.—It is to be remembered that I speak from a comparatively limited range of observation.” - IRISH NATIONAL SC HOOLS, (1832.) IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS, IN 1832, the Hon. Mr Stanley (now Earl of Derby) intro- duced into Parliament a Bill for the Education of the people of Ireland, which was based on the principle of having com- bined secular and separate religious instruction. The matter was taken up very warmly in Scotland. A cry was set up against the proposed separation and against the appropriation of public money to the teaching of Popish errors. Many took a different view ; and Public Meetings were held in Edin- burgh both for and against the measure, during its progress through the House. I attended that which was summoned to support the Bill, and being called to take the Chair, spoke as follows:—* GENTLEMEN, WITHOUT wasting your time or exhausting your pati- ence, in vain attempts to express how much I feel the honour you have done me as well as the manner of conferring it, and the deep sense I have of my own inadequacy in every thing but honest zeal to fulfil the duties it imposes, I shall proceed, without farther preface, to lay before you a brief statement of the case, on which we are now called together to deliver our opinion. In this historical view of the question, I need not dwell on the melancholy truth, that Ireland has long been in the con- * The Meeting was held 14th May 1832, and the Speech inserted here was, upon the motion of the late Sir James Gibson-Craig, Bart., ordered by the Meeting to be printed and published. 106 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. dition of a house divided against itself, which the highest au- thority and every day's experience go alike to prove, cannot prosper. This disunion is a fact recorded in the blood of her sons and the tears of her daughters for centuries past; and it has come painfully home to the business and bosom of every one among us, by draining the resources of the empire and paralyzing the skill, industry, and capital which would otherwise, long ere now, have converted that beautiful island into the garden and granary of Britain. These fatal results, it will, I believe, be now admitted on all hands, have arisen chiefly from religious animosities, fanned at times into the flame of civil discord, or, at best, kept Smouldering in grim repose, by a long series of misgovernment and bad legislation. To this state of things, rendered tenfold more difficult to deal with by its long continuance, the successive administra- tions of the country, awakened at last to a wiser and more conciliatory policy, have, for some years past, been endeavour- ing to apply a remedy. The Bill for Catholic Emancipation was the first great, though tardy, step towards a better system : had it been taken a century earlier, Ireland would have been now a prosperous, and perhaps even a Protestant country, the brightest jewel in the Crown of Britain, instead of a blot on her scutcheon. But that wise and salutary measure, from the very circum- stance of its having been so cruelly deferred, has not yet pro- duced its full harvest of public benefits. The disease was too deeply seated; the sores had festered and rankled and been fretted too long, for any remedial measure to effect an imme- diate cure:–particularly as the main part of the evil sprang out of those lofty feelings and aspirations of the human heart, which, while they bear testimony to the dignity and high des- tinies of man's nature, attest also his weakness and corruption by the abuses to which they are liable. It was to soothe the angry passions which this weakness and corruption give rise to, that various schemes were devised and much earnest and patriotic deliberation directed. As long ago as the year 1812, the Kildare Place Society was formed for the express purpose of “diffusing throughout Ire- land a well-ordered system of education of the poor;" and the IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 107 principle they proceeded on was thus announced in the third fundamental law of their code: “The leading principle by which the Society shall be guided is, to afford the same facilities to all classes of professing Christians, without any attempt to interfere with the peculiar religious opinions of any :”—a principle, let it be observed, identical with that on which the present measure is founded. In speaking of the Kildare Place Society, whose name has been so bandied about in the discussions on Irish Education, I have no desire to mention it in any terms but those, not only of courtesy, but of respect and gratitude: of respect, when I think of the many excellent persons, distinguished for rank, character, and ability, whose names are associated with it; and with gratitude, when I reflect on the exertions it has made, and the benefits it has conferred on Ireland. Having a few years ago taken some pains to make myself acquainted with the system of teaching, discipline, and inspection which had been reduced to practice in its schools, I am bound to say that I saw much in it to admire : and my experience, limited as it was, entirely confirmed the testimony borne to the Society by the five Irish Education Commissioners, (who will not be suspected of partiality to the system, seeing they re- commended its being superseded,) when they say, “No fact has come to our knowledge that leads us to doubt their own repeated disclaimers of any intention to proselytize.” Ireland lies under deep obligations to this Society, for in- troducing into her educational system, among other improve- ments, a series of books admirably adapted for the purposes of practical instruction. The Dublin Reading-Book, and the 80 volumes of the Juvenile Library, compiled and published under their direction, are the best devised I have yet seen for supplanting, as they have already greatly tended to do, the low and infamous publications which had long infested the hedge-schools of Ireland. Nor has the benefit of these vol- umes, so delightful and instructive both to young and old, been confined to Ireland. They have been imported into Scotland to a considerable amount, and are now stimulating, while they gratify, the curiosity of her children, and cheering the solitude of many a Highland glen. 108 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. What, then, is the reason, it will be naturally asked, that a Society of which so much good may be justly predicated, should not have fulfilled the expectations which the friends of education in Ireland had formed? Government had been in- duced, by the fair prospect this Society held out of accom- plishing the general education of the Irish poor, to obtain for it annual parliamentary grants, which increased successively from £6000 in 1816–17, to the sum of £30,000, which it reached in 1825–6. So little satisfactory, however, had been the results on the Catholic population, that in 1824 five commissioners were appointed to inquire into the state of Education in Ireland. The information furnished by their Reports, and the increasing unpopularity of the Kildare Place Schools among the Roman Catholics, at last forced upon Government the idea of withdrawing the annual grant, and of making an experiment upon a larger and more comprehen- sive scale. The true account of the disappointment of hopes once so sanguine will be found in another of the fundamental regu- lations of the Kildare Place Society, adopted at first, I sin- cerely believe, with the best intentions and from an honest wish to hold the balance even between the two contending parties; but of which the practical tendency has been to cripple the usefulness of the Society, and confine it too exclu- sively to the Protestant population; who, if any distinction was to be drawn where ignorance was so profound and general, certainly wanted education the least. The regulation to which I allude is in these words: “That the Sacred Scriptures, without note or comment (oral or written,) shall be read in the Society's Schools by all the scho- lars who have attained a suitable proficiency in reading.” Now, though there is not, it would appear, a perfect uni- formity of sentiment among the Catholics on the subject of Scripture reading, and the liberal spirit of the times leads many of them to permit it to their children, yet, beyond all doubt, it is a principle of rigid Catholicism, that the Bible “shall not be employed as a school-book, nor the use of it without note or comment permitted to any person not of ma- ture age and discretion.” IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 109 Accordingly, this Catholic doctrine began by degrees, as the labours of the Kildare Place Society extended, to operate against their diffusive utility. The Catholic priesthood, either actuated by conscientious scruples, or, as by some has been alleged, alarmed at the progress of knowledge, set their faces against the Kildare Place Schools; and, since the year 1826, have very generally prohibited Catholic parents from sending their children to them. Many of the Catholic population had by this time, however, and chiefly through the exertions of the Kildare Place Society, acquired a taste for knowledge and education, and manifested not unfrequently a disposition to attend the schools in spite of the sacerdotal prohibition. This brought down threats of excommunication, denunciations from the altar, and all the thunders of ecclesiastical artillery. The breach was widened between the rival systems of faith; the passions were excited, and assumed the mask of holy zeal; nor is it impossible that the Protestants, provoked by this ap- parently causeless opposition, may have shewn a little of the Orange and even of the proselytizing spirit. Be that as it may, it soon became obvious, that if the annual grant were continued, it would go to benefit chiefly, perhaps at last solely, the Protestant population; to whom, from their superiority in wealth and intelligence, it was least necessary. What, in such circumstances, was the duty of a paternal and patriotic government?—The confidence of the Catholic population was withdrawn from the Society which had been hitherto made the channel of public bounty. The stream was diverted away from the most degraded and ignorant part of the population, and they were in danger of perishing for lack of knowledge. The total number of Roman Catholic children educated at those schools did not exceed one-half of the entire number, instead of amounting to five-sixths or more; which would have been the fairer proportion, considering the relative numbers of each persuasion that required gratuitous education. Could any Government be justified in persevering in such misappropriation of the public money, seeing it redounded almost exclusively to the advantage of those who have all along been the privileged class? Can any Government be blamed for not consenting to such injustice, or for determining •= } 110 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. to make one effort more to diffuse the light of knowledge, equally and indiscriminately, over all the benighted subjects of its sway? So long, indeed, had this misappropriation of public money been felt as an evil, that six or seven years ago several members of the Society who had hitherto been zealous in its cause, and among the rest the distinguished nobleman now at the head of the New Board in Dublin, and then Vice- President of the Kildare Place Society (the Duke of Leinster), felt themselves compelled by a sense of duty to withdraw from their connection with it: and it is no small presumption in favour of the Government plan, that the same nobleman, (whose intelligence and patriotism all the world admit,) after being Vice-President of the Kildare Place Society, should con- sent to preside at the New Board. In forming that Board, and giving to it, instead of a private society, the charge of dispensing the public bounty; and ge- nerally in making arrangements for the new experiment, it was obviously necessary, in the first place, to get rid of that re- gulation which was the stumbling-block in the way of Catholic participation. To be aware how little the cause of education and religion was likely to suffer, by the exclusion of Scripture- reading as practised in the Kildare Place Schools from the conjunct class of Protestants and Catholics, it is only neces- sary to have witnessed, as I have done repeatedly, the perfor- mance of the ceremony. In the Model School of Dublin, for example, the children, just before being dismissed, whileranged on the floor and impatient to be let loose, were compelled to hear one of their number read aloud a chapter of the Bible, concerning which they were aware beforehand that no ques- tions were to be asked, nor any account taken. I leave you to judge how little effect was likely to be produced, by a por- tion of Scripture read under such circumstances, on the minds and morals, and how much less still on the creed and belief, of children. A regulation, practically so inefficient in the cir- cumstances of the case, might Surely have been dispensed with, without impairing the usefulness of the Kildare Place Schools. Nevertheless, as it continued to be acted on, it became the means of preventing the Catholic population from availing themselves of the instruction afforded in these schools; and the IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 111 separation of feeling and interests between the sects was ren- dered more irreconcileable every day, in consequence of the avowed principle of the Catholics, that it is contrary to the religion they profess, to have any Bible, and least of all the Protestant version of it, read by their children. It was in these circumstances, that the present Government, following in the steps, adopting the leading principle, and pro- fiting by the experience of former administrations, resolved to make one attempt more to form a system of national instruc- tion for Ireland which should be neither proselytizing nor exclusive; one by which the resources of the empire might be equally and impartially employed in dispensing the blessings of education to the whole population, without distinction of sect, province, or party;-wisely considering, that if they could combine the Catholic and Protestant children in one uni- form system of literary instruction, they would be taking the most effectual means of extinguishing sectarian animosities, and of multiplying those ties and sympathies that bind men to one another, to their country, and to their institutions. Desirable it would no doubt have been, if to other ties they could have added the bond of a common faith and doctrine; but that experiment having been tried, and having signally failed, there remained to Government but one of two ways of meeting the difficulty and removing the cause of offence,— unless, indeed, the problem of joint education were given up altogether as insoluble. They might either ordain that the school-training common to all the children, should be purely moral and literary, reserving Christian instruction for other places and other occasions; or they might introduce into the schools such extracts from the sacred volume, as would lay the ground-work of Christian doctrine and morality, without touching upon those disputed points, which it must always be a vain and unprofitable attempt to make intelligible to chil- dren. And if, in chusing between these alternatives, Government had preferred that of dispensing altogether with the contentious subject of religion in schools for united education, and had made the instruction strictly of a literary and secular kind, their conduct would have been perfectly defensible; and I 112 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. know not, indeed, whether, in all the circumstances of the case, it would not have been the wiser course.* They could not, by so doing, have justly incurred the blame of any rational and intelligent Christian; for what, I would ask, is more likely to forward the cause of sound Christian doctrine in Ire- land, than to furnish every Catholic peasant with implements that will enable him to work his own way to the Oracles of truth? What greater boon could be conferred on the unin- structed Irish, than to give them the power of reading, and thus secure the final triumph of truth—slow, it may be, but sure—over Ignorance, Priestcraft, and Popery 2 If they will not use our version of the Bible, let them have their own ; if they will not use the entire Bible, let them have selec- tions; if they quarrel even with selections, let them have books simply moral and instructive; but, at all events, let them be taught to read: the omnipotence of truth will in time do the rest. For the battle of truth against error is, in one re- spect, like— “Freedom's fight, which, once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.” It appears, then, that of the only alternatives left, without abandoning the poor Irish altogether, Government adopted the more religious, and that, even at the risk of endangering the efficiency and the very existence of their plan. What are we to think, then, of that storm of vituperation and abuse which has assailed a scheme, having for its object to retain the utmost possible amount of Scriptural reading that is con- sistent with the ends of united instruction? and whose pro- pounders, as a pledge of the sincerity of their wishes, have entrusted the selection of the extracts to the most able, en- lightened, and patriotic individuals of the different religious persuasions? Can any measure be conceived more healing and conciliatory 2 or can any man object to it who is not at the same time prepared to affirm, not merely that his own particular dogmas alone are true, and every shade of difference false and ruinous; but also, that unless those dogmas of his * It has proved so in the end; and the system is regulated accordingly. (1855.) IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 113 be taught in school, it were better to have no schools at all?— a proposition that will not, I apprehend, find many supporters in an assembly so enlightened as this. If the present experiment should fail, as some think it will, from the opposition of the Catholic priesthood, nay, if that body should reject even purely literary instruction in united schools, will no advantage, I would ask, accrue to the cause of truth and Protestant doctrine from making it thus appear that the Catholic priesthood hate the light, and from putting them so completely in the wrong, that their own people will desert them, and indulge, in spite of them, the thirst for knowledge which already begins to be felt 2 Once more, let me ask, what is the grand point of difference between the old plan so much praised, and the new so vehe- mently abused ?. It is simply and literally no more than this: —In the new, it is proposed that the ceremony, for it can scarcely be called more, of reading a chapter before dismissal, shall be discontinued;—not, as it has been ignorantly or basely insinuated, out of disrespect to the Bible, but because it pre- sents an insuperable obstacle to conjunct education;–and that, for a process so ineffectual and fruitless, shall be substituted the use of a selection of extracts from the sacred volume, consisting of such passages, narrative, moral, and religious, as all denominations of Christians delight to honour, and adopt as the foundation of their faith, and the rule of their manners. If a selection can be compiled, which, avoiding all such dis- puted points as no effort of teaching can render intelligible to children, shall embrace the simple narratives so interesting to the young mind, and the sublime truths common to all Chris- tians that take so firm a hold of the understanding and the heart, if such a compilation, I say, can be framed, and shall be found equally acceptable to Protestant and Catholic, shall we reject beforehand this sole remaining chance of a united education in which religious instruction shall have any place at all ? And how great that chance is, may, I think, be gathered from the very constitution of the New Board, and the manner in which its members have hitherto conducted themselves. The board is composed, as I presume you are all aware, of H 114 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. seven members, five Protestant, and two Catholic, all men above the suspicion of having any sinister object in view, all animated with one patriotic wish to heal the wounds of Ire- land, and unite all her children in one brotherhood of Christian love and charity;-all men who are agreed in thinking, that for the sake of attaining so great a good, instruction in those points of doctrine wherein Christians conscientiously differ, may be dispensed with during the hours of literary teaching. And what I should have supposed would render the Board particularly popular on this side the Tweed, a Presbyterian clergyman is appointed to prepare the extracts. The very fact, that seven individuals of different religious persuasions, admitted to be men of high character and great attainments, have undertaken the task of mediating between contending parties, ought to serve as a pledge that nothing will be recommended by them inconsistent with those great principles of religious belief and Christian charity, which are the appropriate food and nourishment of the young mind. There are men, however, it would appear, to whom it seems impossible, there being Roman Catholics in this Board, that they should not have clandestine designs and hatch deep laid plots to propagate their own faith, and establish it on the ruins of the Protestant. I might rest the refutation of such unworthy insinuations on the high character of the two individuals com- posing the Catholic part of the Board, one of whom, a layman, Mr A. R. Blake, I can affirm, from personal knowledge, to be one of the most high-minded, patriotic, and honourable of men ; the other, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Murray, I know only by his public character, and that is as high as benevolence and virtue can make it. But fortunately, we can appeal, not to the authority of names only but to facts in the history of this Board, short as its existence has been. Let me call your attention to the following Lesson, drawn up and presented to the Board by the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, which the Catholic Archbishop moved the adoption of, and which was unanimously sanctioned as one of the les- sons to be fixed up in the schools. “Christians should endeavour, as the Apostle Paul commandeth them, “to live peaceably with all men,” even with those of a different IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 115 religious persuasion, Our Saviour Christ commanded his disciples to : love one another.' He taught them to love even their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and to pray for those who persecuted them. He himself prayed for his murderers. Many men hold errone- ous doctrines, but we ought not to hate or persecute them. We ought to seek for the truth, and hold fast what we are convinced is the truth, but not to treat harshly those who are in error. Jesus Christ did not intend his religion to be forced on men by violent means. He would not allow his disciples to fight for him. If any persons treat us unkindly, we must not do the same to them; for Christ and his Apos- tles have taught us not to return evil for evil. If we would obey Christ, we must do to others not as they do to us, but as we would wish them to do to us. Quarrelling with our neighbours and abusing them is not the way to convince them that we are in the right, and they in the wrong. It is more likely to convince them that we have not a Chris- tian spirit. We ought to shew ourselves followers of Christ, who, ‘when he was reviled, reviled not again,’ by behaving gently and kindly to every one.” Is there one in this assembly who would infuse into this cup of Christian charity any ingredient that might turn the pure draught it contains of ‘the sincere milk of the word' into the gall and bitterness of sectarian controversy, and then com- mend the empoisoned mixture to the lips of innocence and childhood 2 With regard to the selections now preparing, I am happily able, by the kindness of a friend, to give the following very recent and gratifying intelligence. I give it on the authority of a gentleman of high respectability, a good Presbyterian, once a successful teacher in this city, who was patronized and befriended by the late Dr. Andrew Thomson:—a circumstance which I mention the rather, because the name of that orna- ment and regret of the Scottish church, has, I am sorry to observe, been used unfairly in this controversy, and his au- thority appealed to as likely to have been hostile to the plan we are now discussing. To me, it seems far more probable, that the part which his clear, masculine, penetrating, fearless understanding would have acted on the present occasion, would have been to sweep away at once the cobwebs of sophistry and mystification, with which this very simple question has been entangled. Would to God he were among us this day, (as I feel assured he would have been had he 116 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. lived,) to vindicate his fame, and to shew himself, as of old, the zealous friend of education and the unflinching supporter of liberal Government: “Tuque tuis armis, noste, poteremur, Achille.” The letter to which I alluded, is dated from Dublin, May 7. “. . . In reply to this, and all other unfounded calumnies about there being a compromise between the Protestants and Catholics in the preparation of these extracts, I have authority to state, that not one eactract, which, in other respects, seemed proper for a school lesson, has hitherto been kept back lest it showld be obnoaciows to the Roman Catholic members; and that they have not offered a single objection to any pas- sage which has yet been brought forward. On the contrary, they have displayed a spirit of conciliation, and a zeal for the education of the people of Ireland, which has both surprised and delighted those whose duty it is to co-operate with them. Their conduct has read a lesson of charity and good will towards those who conscientiously differ from them in religious belief, which it would be well if others would imitate.” Another passage of the same letter will be not less gratify- ing to this intelligent audience; the information it contains may be relied on as accurate. “The great moral effect of this scheme, in soothing the asperities of political and religious party, has already begun to appear in those dis- tricts from which application has been made for schools. The priests have already begun to use more conciliatory language, and the people of the Roman Catholic persuasion to repose more confidence in their Protestant neighbours, especially in those clergymen who assist in pro- curing grants for their schools. The number of applications for these grants amounted on Saturday (May 5.) to 417. Nearly 200 of these, concerning which answers to queries have been received, are attended, on an average, by 213 scholars each ; so that, according to this cal- culation, application has already been made for means to educate, or assist in educating, upwards of 80,000 children, more than 20,000 above the whole number attending the Kildare Place Schools in 1826.” I shall make no apology for reading to the Meeting another important communication which I had the honour of receiving only a few hours ago. It is from Mr Stanley,” Secretary for Ireland, in answer to some inquiries I took the liberty of making, with a view to this day's discussion. My letter reached him only on Friday last, and the same day, amidst * Now Earl of Derby, 1855. IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 117 the crash of a falling Ministry, of which he was himself a distinguished member, a full and satisfactory answer was re- turned to all my queries. Of this letter, dated Whitehall, May 11, 1832, the follow- ing passage is the most material for our present purpose:– “You will observe that the Government do not propose to take upon themselves, or to lay upon the Commissioners, the management of the internal details of each school. They lay down certain general rules, and furnish assistance to such schools as think fit to comply with them; and from time to time they propose, by inspection and inquiry, to as- certain that those rules are complied with ; but so long as this is the case, the regulation of details must be left to the local supporters of the Schools. Now, one of our principal rules is, that certain hours shall be Set apart for the combined literary and moral instruction of Protestants and Catholics, from which combined instruction religious works shall be excluded, except such as all sects can agree in receiving; that cer- tain other hours shall be set apart for the separate religious instruction of other religions, under the superintendance of their respective pastors. If it be desired to give to the Protestant children in any school daily instruction in the Bible itself, nothing can be more easy, nor more un- objectionable, than that they should meet half an hour earlier, or stay half an hour later, than the Catholic children; assuming always that the parents or clergy of the latter persuasion would object to their at- tendance; and I do not think that this mode could excite, in any degree, the jealousy of the Catholic clergy. This, however, is a matter of con- sideration for the managers of each individual school: What the Com- missioners endeavour at is that the Bible shall not be withheld from any Protestants, and that it shall not be forced woon any Catholics; and that the hours of combined instruction shall be devoted to such studies as all can join in, while ample opportunities are given at other times, for the separate prosecution of the religious education of each persuasion. “There is not at present any work of extracts, prepared by the Board in a state of sufficient forwardness to send to you; but there are many works of the kind, published by Protestants, approved of and sanctioned, and re-edited by the Kildare Street Society, to which I know, from per- sonal experience, that the Catholic clergy make not the least objection.” WITH regard to the clamour that has been set up for the constant reading of the entire Bible in school, I cannot but think that a fallacy has crept into what may be called the Scottish part of the argument of our opponents. They talk as if the reading of the entire Bible, in Scottish schools, were (º i * : i ‘. {} i i 18 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. the sheet-anchor of our faith, and the only means our youth possess of learning to know and reverence the Holy Scrip- tures. They bid us look to Scotland, where we shall find a Bible-class in every parish school; and they point to this fact as the grand source of that respect and veneration for the sacred volume which are so universal among her sons, and of the consequent order and superior morality of her population. I need scarcely say, that even if we admitted all they assert, it has nothing to do with the question of Irish education,- the point at issue being, not the propriety of the thing, but its practicability. But the whole of this argument I conceive to be a very imperfect statement of the truth. Great indeed, I rejoice to say, are the love and veneration in which the Scrip- tures are held throughout Scotland,-and long may that reverential feeling shed its benign influences over the hearts of our countrymen l—But it is a capital mistake, to represent this divine principle as either originally springing from, or mainly dependent upon, any thing that is read or done in the ordinary business of a parish school. There are other Sources of it, prior in time, and far more powerful in operation. It is at home, under the sanctity of the paternal roof, in the invoked presence of that God whom the united family are assembled to worship, in the lowly dwelling, where the artless melody, impressive and affecting from its very simplicity, ascends to heaven with sweeter influences than the “ diapason full” from towered cathedrals and long drawn aisles in which “The pealing anthem swells the note of praise :”— it is in scenes like these, that the youth of Scotland are first imbued with that reverence for the standard of our faith which is so proud a feature in the Scottish character. It is in these that the holy Book is first associated with recollections the most sacred and endearing, and consecrated along with them in the very inmost recesses of the heart. Another source of this reverential regard will be found in the pastoral visitations of the minister to the families of his flock. Surely the efficient and truly admirable manner in which this interesting duty has for ages been performed by the ministers of religion ought to be taken as one element, in accounting for a phenomenon so creditable both to the clergy and to the people of Scotland. IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 119 In prospect of such a visit, the child cons the sacred volume, not in the bustle of a school-room, and, it may be, with the fear of the lash before his eyes, but in the quiet home of his parents, who are as anxious as himself that he should make a decent appearance before the Minister, when the stated time shall bring him back to instruct, to examine, and to pray with them. Again, what a foundation is laid for the reverence we have spoken of, in the solemnity and impressiveness of pulpit ministrations, in the Sabbath morning examinations, and in the Sabbath evening schools, which are now universal over the country ! And yet all these causes, which amply suffice to account for the fact we glory in, are entirely overlooked; and “lamentation loud” is heard from many a rueful lip, as if the pillars of our Church were to be shaken, and the reign of infidelity and antichrist to begin, the moment that the reading of the whole, entire, straight-forward, unmutilated Bible shall be withdrawn from those schools, which, as all the world knows, are intended for general education rather than for religious instruction. And here I cannot but remark, in passing, the dexterity which the opponents of the Government measure have shewn, in kidnapping from the service of the king's English the word mutilate and its little company of deriva- tives, and marching them in their own front rank under false colours. To unmask these deserters, and bring them back to their allegiance, it will be enough to quote the following pas- sage from Archbishop Whately, a member of the New Board, and a man far less distinguished for his rank in the Church, than by the virtues of his life and the solid greatness of his literary reputation. “The word ‘mutilation,’ would be very improperly applied to avowed selections and abridgements; the Church of England, for instance, never having been charged with mutilating the Scriptures, on the ground of the Prayer-book containing selections from them; selections which, even including the Lessons for each day, do not nearly em- brace the whole Bible. A ‘mutilated’ book means, according to all the usage of the language hitherto, one which professes to be entire when it is not ; as, for instance, when any one strikes out as spurious (which some have done) the opening chapters of Matthew or Luke, and then presents the book to us as the New Testament, we should rightly term this a mutilation.” 120 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. I feel confident, that there are few among the intelligent schoolmasters of Scotland, who would not gladly use in their schools a selection of Scripture lessons printed in a manage- able form and in a legible type, rather than encrease the diffi- culties of the learner by the small type and unnecessary weight of an entire Bible. The truth, I believe, is, that the entire Bible was never intended by the reverend fathers of our church to be used as a common school-book. It has crept into use in country parishes, from the circumstance of its being ready at hand, and saving the parent the expense of another book. There are schoolmasters in Scotland who read the Bible straight forward: there are others who select the passages they think best suited to the comprehension of children. The latter class will, I presume, be admitted to act on the wiser prin- ciple: and to them it would surely be a gain, since every thing cannot be read, to have a judicious selection to use. I will venture to affirm, that where the straight-forward reading of the Bible is practised in our schools, its tendency is to im- pair rather than increase that love and reverence for the Book, which are imbibed from the various sources already enumerated. And are not these sources amply sufficient to beet the holy flame 2 Is there no danger of overdoing this kind of instruc- tion, and producing tedium and disgust instead of edification ? What is to become of our intellectual system of training chil- dren, if they are to be carried indiscriminately through pas- sages which do not admit of being explained or made intel- ligible to young minds? In providing the meal; must the strong meats that nourish the vigour and knit the sinews of manhood, be forced on the feeble organs and weak digestion of the child? The truth is, this notion of having the whole Bible, and nothing but the whole Bible, in the hands of children in school, is altogether of recent invention;–got up indeed for the pre- sent occasion, unsanctioned, I believe, by any act or statute of our national church, and in direct contradiction to reason and COIOIſlOIl S6I1S6. Our opponents argue as if a child's time while awake were all spent in school, and as if he had, or ought to have, nothing IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS, 121 else to do there but to read the Bible right forward from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelations:—and to say the truth, if it be a proper thing so to do, it would require all the teaching time a poor child has in school, and a great deal more, to accomplish the object. And, after all, he would come out from that school, not only more slenderly furnished for the ordinary business and duties of life, but with far less knowledge of the sacred volume, and far less imbued with re- werence for it, and for the truths and precepts it contains, than he would have been, had a judicious selection been sparingly, and solemnly, and affectionately used. I have only now to crave your forgiveness for detaining you so long, and preventing you from hearing the Resolutions in which it is proposed to embody our sentiments:–resolutions which originated with one of the most distinguished members of the Secession church,” and which you will presently hear enforced and recommended with an eloquence to which I can make no pretensions. Indeed, when I look around me, and see the Dissenting interest so numerously represented here; and when I reflect on the manly way in which the Dissenters generally have come forward in this discussion, it is difficult to avoid asking how it happens, that there should be so marked a contrast on the present question, as far as we have yet seen, between the sentiments of the Established and of the Dissenting clergy 2 I trust, however, this difference is more apparent than real, the loudest and most forward on such oc- casions being generally the least reasonable. I trust, as a member of the Established Church and warmly attached to her interests, that in the course of the next ten days, the great Assembly of our national church will right itself with the pub- lic of Scotland, and not tempt them to comment too curiously on a fact so extraordinary, if it should turn out to be a fact, that of two ecclesiastical bodies so distinguished for learning, piety, and public usefulness, the one stood directly opposed to the other on an educational and religious question. And now, Gentlemen, after the statements made and the views presented from such authentic sources, you are called on deliberately to express your opinion on a plan, conceived * Dr John Brown. 122 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. in a spirit of Christian benevolence and conciliation, the main object of which is to teach the poor Irish Catholic to read, without scaring him from school by shocking his own preju- dices or those of his priesthood; a plan which leaves it to his clergy to rear him in the faith of his fathers, not because we approve of that faith or are indifferent to our own creed or to his conversion, but simply because, if we attempted, or were suspected of attempting, to convert him, we should have no opportunity of teaching him at all: a plan which—while it proposes to furnish the tools and implements of knowledge to all sects and all parties with that even-handed justice which is the soul and principle of the measure, and the origin, I fear, of much of the hostility it has encountered—invites the clergy and laity of every denomination to train the youth to any use of those implements which they may think the best; the only securities taken being 1. that the books employed in acquir- ing dexterity shall be fraught with useful knowledge and level to the capacities of children; and 2. that separate religious instruction shall not commence till the difference of religious belief shall make it impossible for instruction to be received in common. It deserves also to be remarked, Gentlemen, that the plan differs from that hitherto acted upon, not in principle, but in two particulars only as to the manner of carrying that principle into effect. In the first place, it dis- penses with a practice which has been proved to be little bet- ter, in the circumstances of the case, than an idle ceremony, and which, at all events, cannot be enforced; and secondly, it commits the charge and application of the public money to a Board acting in the eye of the people, and under the con- trol of a Protestant Government, instead of handing it over to an irresponsible, private Society:—both of which altera- tions, it is submitted, are material improvements on the me- thods hitherto employed. Finally, let it be observed, that Government, by adopting this plan, do not ipso facto destroy the Kildare Place Society; that they wish it, on the contrary, every possible success: And all the friends of this measure, as well as its authors, will, I am confident, rejoice to find, that the zeal recently manifested in its cause shall shew itself in subscriptions to IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 123 the fund, large enough to cover the withdrawal of the public grant. Thus, whatever is effected by the new system will be a clear addition to the sum total of Irish Education. The Resolutions finally adopted at this Meeting were the following:— I. That this Meeting, being convinced that the peace and prosperity, as well as the religious and moral improvement of the people of Ire- land, can only be effectually promoted and secured by the general dif- fusion of the blessings of Education equally and impartially among the youth of all classes and of all religious denominations—do most cor- dially approve of the principle and spirit of the measures adopted by Government for establishing a system of national education through- out Ireland, such as may admit to the enjoyment of its benefits every class of his Majesty's subjects, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, without any sacrifice or violation of their conscientious opinions or observances. II. That this Meeting, while they are deeply impressed with a sense of the incalculable advantages to the truest interests of the Irish people, which might be expected to flow from the circulation and perusal of the entire Holy Scriptures, are at the same time fully persuaded, that the compulsory introduction of the whole Bible into the national schools of Ireland would be utterly at variance with the principle and spirit of the proposed measure, and completely fatal to the great object in view ; whereas, on the other hand, a judicious selection of passages from the Holy Scriptures, to be employed as a school book, is not only unobjectionable on general grounds, but, in the circumstances of the case, seems to be the only practicable expedient by which religious instruction can be introduced into a system of general and united Education. 124 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. CoLLEGE of EDINBURGH, August 1855. THOSE of my readers who remember the agitation created in the country by Lord Stanley's Bill,—all, indeed, I may say, who have had patience enough to peruse the preceding pages, —will, it is presumed, be desirous to follow out the history of the measure, and of the great experiment to which it gave birth. This would be most fully accomplished by reading the Annual Reports of the Commissioners, twenty-one of which have been issued, and by wading through the two enormous folio Blue Books (1658 pages of letterpress), which contain the evidence taken before a Committee of the House of Lords in 1854.” But my purpose can be more compendiously attained by quoting the following extract from a letter of Dr James Car- lile, a Presbyterian clergyman, and one of the original mem- bers of the Board of Commissioners; and it is stamped with the highest authority, both from the character of the man and the position which he long held as Resident Commissioner. It will be found at pp. 4, 5, and 6 of Wol. I. of the Evidence. “The system proposed in Lord Stanley's letter was certainly what it has been defined to be in some of the Roman Catholic prints—‘a system of united Secular and separate religious instruction.’t But, before the Board was established, at a meeting of the proposed Com- missioners, held in the Castle of Dublin, a question was put by one of them, whether, if the Commissioners were agreed, any amount of religious instruction introduced into the secular or common instruction * See Note A. at the end of this Volume. f The directions to the proposed Commissioners in Mr Stanley's original letter to the Duke of Leinster are as follows:— “They (the Commissioners) will require that the schools be kept open for a certain number of hours, on four or five days of the week, at the discretion of the Commissioners, for moral and literary education only; and that the remaining one or two days in the week be set apart for giving, separately, such religious education to the children as may be approved of by the Clergy of their respective persuasions. “They will also permit and encourage the Clergy to give religious in- struction to the children of their respective persuasions, either before or after the ordinary school hours on the other days of the week.” IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 125 would be permitted by Government. A good deal of friendly discussion followed, which was summed up and closed by Lord Stanley saying, that whatever the Commissioners were unanimous upon, Government would not object to. This concession considerably altered the original proposed system, and rendered it, instead of being a rigid system of exclusion of all religion from the deliberations of the Board, and the common education of the people, an experiment how far Roman Ca- tholics and Protestants could proceed together with perfect unanimity in introducing scriptural light among the population generally—an experiment, considering what the state of Ireland had been for cen- turies, perhaps the most interesting and important, but at the same time the most delicate and difficult that was ever entrusted to any Commission; and it would have required much more of the sympathy of the country than we enjoyed to enable us to attain to any very great and commanding success. My impression is, that the most respectable Roman Catholics of that day were disposed to lay aside their hostile feelings, and to co-operate with their Protestant fellow-countrymen as far as was at all consistent with the principles of their Church. I need not remind you of the spirit in which Protestants, north and South, received these overtures of peace. The solution of the problem thus placed before the Commissioners fell chiefly to me, simply because I was the only one of them who could give time and labour to it, and to the superintendence of the details of the business of the Board: the secretary's hands were almost instantaneously filled with the corres- pondence, which immediately became extremely voluminous. The only mode of introducing religious instruction into the common educa- tion was by means of the books provided for it. Having no books of our own to commence with, we examined and sanctioned several series of school-books—some after a certain amount of expurgation ; among others, a series was submitted to us by a Roman Catholic institution, under the patronage of the prelates of that Church. These books—to the credit of Roman Catholics be it said—contained a larger portion of religious instruction of a kind altogether unobjectionable to Protestants than any school-books Ihad met with; and after the alteration of a single page and of some insulated expressions, these books received the sanction of the Board. I immediately availed myself of these books as an indica- tion of the amount and nature of religious instruction which Roman Catholics wished to have intermixed with secular instruction ; and in superintending the compiling of books for the Board, I kept these Ro- man Catholic books in view, introducing into the Board's books a large amount of religious instruction, but intermixed with a much larger amount of secular information than the Roman Catholic books con- tained. While the Board’s books were in preparation, the accuracy of my estimate of the wishes of Roman Catholics was tested, by having every half-sheet put into the hands of the Commissioners, and receiv- ing their approbation and signature previous to its being sent to press. 126 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. In regard to the Scripture lessons, before the Board was constituted, I called on all the proposed Commissioners to ascertain how far they would be disposed to sanction such a book. I found Dr. Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, not only willing but anxious for the introduction of such a compilation. He, however, made three stipulations: first, that it should not be extracted exclusively from the authorized worsion, but that he would willingly receive such a book of Scripture Lessons drawn from the two versions, or translated directly from the original languages; secondly, that it should not be in form of chapter and verse, but of school lessons; and, thirdly, that he would require notes, not, however, theological or controversial notes, but notes relating to history, chronology, geography, or other kindred subjects. To none of these stipulations could I object. I found the Archbishop of Dublin had his difficulties on the subject, the chief of which was, that our opponents would say that these extracts were the only religious in- struction that we intended to give, and that it was imperfect, garbled, and mutilated; which prognostic was abundantly verified. I, however, had the pleasure of satisfying him on that and other points; and he afterwards most cordially and zealously co-operated in the compilation of the extracts—no book that we could find fulfilling the stipulations of Dr. Murray. I drew up a half-sheet of lessons from the beginning of Genesis, had it put into type, and laid before the Board. * 1 found that it gave general satisfaction, and was signed by all the Commis- sioners; thus I went on with half-sheet after half-sheet, each one of which was regularly placed in the Commissioners' hands, and left with them for a fortnight, and they were understood to approve of it, if they made no objection. But, with regard to the two Archbishops, no half- sheet was ever put to press without their express authority. Now, what I wish particularly to point the attention of the public to is, that there was no attempt at proselytism in all this. These Scripture Les- sons were prepared, not only with the assent, but at the express wish of Dr. Murray and the other Roman Catholic members of the Board, for the very purpose of being used in the common instruction; and every half-sheet was signed by Dr. Murray with that view, except a few when he was from home, which were signed by a clorgyman autho- rized by him to do so. In truth, we were more violently accused by Protestants of attempting to proselyte the Protestant population over to Roman Catholic principles, by offering to them what they were pleased to call a mutilated Bible, than we were by Roman Catholics. When these extracts were first introduced, they were generally received by schools under Roman Catholic patromage. I made a tour of inspection of the schools in the South and West towards the end of 1836, and I found them in use in all the most respectable schools; in all the teach- ers of which had received any training in Dublin; and uniformly in the nuns’ Schools. A change, however, gradually took place in the minds of many of the Roman Catholic clergy respecting the use of IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. 127 these books—I believe, in consequence of the violent attacks made upon them and upon Dr. Murray by Dr. M'Hale, of Tuam—so that I believe they have been latterly withdrawn from most of the schools under Roman Catholic patronage.” But the intemperate zeal and senseless bigotry of John of Tuam, how mischievous soever it may have been in his own diocese, was powerfully counteracted by the mild, liberal, and conciliatory spirit which marked the whole conduct and cha- racter of Dr. Murray. A considerable amount of the religious element, in the shape of “Scripture Lessons,” and “Evi- dences of Christianity,” was introduced into the combined in- struction, much more indeed than was consistent with the strict principles of Catholicism ; but it did not materially affect the encreasing prosperity of the National Schools, or lead to any disunion among the Commissioners, so long as Dr. Murray was alive. No sooner, however, was Dr. Cullen invested with an authority over the Catholics of Ireland inferior only to that of the Pope, than a change for the worse took place. To a man who reminded one of the virtues of Fénélon suc- ceeded an impersonation of all that was narrow-minded, austere, and ascetic in the monk of the middle ages. War was accord- ingly declared against the National Schools. From the Sy- nod of Thurles—the Vatican of Ireland—a decree went forth, written in barbarous Latin, denouncing the whole system, and warning the Catholic youth against repairing to the fountains of knowledge, polluted as they were in priestly eyes by the “Scripture Lessons” and “Evidences of Christianity.” The consequence was that for the first time there was a schism in the Board of Commissioners. It became necessary, in order to save the institution, to revert to the terms of the original letter of Mr Stanley, and confine the hours of united instruction to literary and moral training. This was not accomplished by the Board without much discussion, which ended in the secession of three very valuable members of the Board, including Archbishop Whately. Yet so great is the vitality of the system, and so eagerly is it embraced by the poor Irish, that in spite of the denunciations of their priesthood, and the very determined hostility which, to their shame be it said, it has all along en- countered from more than two-thirds of the Protestant clergy 128 IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS. of Ireland, it not only maintains its ground, but numbers an annually encreasing attendance of pupils up to the 31st of December last. The number of children on the Roll for the first year of the experiment up to 31st Dec. 1833 was 107,042, for 1839 it was 192,971; and for the last four years, notwithstanding the painful circumstances mentioned above, and the immense emigration, the numbers were in the encreasing ratio respec- tively of 520,401, 544,604, 550,631, and 556,557, for the year 1854!” * See Twenty-first Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, for 1854, p. 4. NATION AL EDU CATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE : AND SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS: BEING TWO ARTICLES REPRDNTED FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, Nos. 117 AND 120. (1833-34.) NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. THE word primary, as applied to instruction, is not yet natu- ralized in our language; but as Education is a subject in which, as in all new sciences, neologisms are pardonable, we shall take leave to use the expression, Primary Instruction, to denote that training of a moral, intellectual, and partly also physical nature, which it is desirable that the whole body of a civilized nation, even the poorest and meanest of its children, should receive;—and receive, not in their parents' houses, or by private tuition, but in Schools where a considerable num- ber of children of the middle and lower classes, from six to fourteen years of age, are assembled, and taught by one or more masters. This is a subject which is rising in importance every day. The question, what primary instruction is, and what it ought to be, continues to be agitated with increasing anxiety. The indifference which has hitherto prevailed almost universally about the education of the people, is giving place to curio- sity and alarm. Fear is becoming a powerful auxiliary to benevolence, in pleading the cause of the uneducated poor. When we contemplate, indeed, the vast masses of manufactur- ing population congregated in our large towns, and think that they have learned the secret of their own power without the knowledge how to use it aright, we may well be apprehensive of danger, and desirous to know by what means it may be averted. And yet, it is not so much means that are wanted, as skill in the application of those we have. Societies spring up and subscribe their money for reforming juvenile vagrants, 132 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. for distributing religious tracts to hardened offenders, for bring- ing criminals to justice, and for doing away with capital pun- ishments;–all very amiable projects, and sometimes, we doubt not, successful. But it does not require much discernment to see, that there is but little chance of making the currents run pure, when the fountain they all flow from is corrupt. The rule that has long been observed as to horses and dogs will soon be found to hold good in man : the animal must be caught and broke in when it is young. The extension of the political franchise has, of itself, given a new aspect to this question; for, without considering whether that privilege is ever to descend lower, we may safely affirm that a large portion of the new electors, actual and prospective, belong to the uneducated and ill-educated classes of the com- munity. It may be thought, that, in making this admission, we cast a reproach on the authors of the Reform Bill, as hav- ing begun at the Wrong end, and inverted the natural course of reason and improvement. But the practical statesman ad- mits the truth of many an abstract principle, which he cannot, and dare not, apply to the business of government. He has elements to deal with, interests to attend to, prejudices to con- ciliate or to combat, and occasions to seize, which baffle all the calculations of theory. As the gods of the ancient philosophers, when about to create a world, were prevented from following the type present to their own pure intellects by the obstinate and intractable nature of the baser materials they had to oper- ate upon, so the wise statesman must take things, not as he could wish them to be, but as he finds them ; and must sacri- fice the distant and ideal best, for the real and immediate good. In the play of human affairs, rare and happy combinations of circumstances sometimes present themselves, which make it possible to push improvement in one direction, while other avenues are closed; and though the practicable line of direc- tion may not be that which he himself would have chosen, it is his business to take amelioration by such instalments as he can get, in the hope that he may use the amended machi- nery to perfect the instrument itself, and to effect improve- ments in other directions, which, but for such means, might have been indefinitely postponed. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 133 In our last Number we gave some account of the Prussian system of general education, as it was reported upon to the French Government by M. Cousin, who had been sent to Ber- lin on a special mission for the purpose of collecting informa- tion. That mission and Report have paved the way for the establishment of a Law of Primary Instruction in France, which, we trust, it will not be unacceptable to our readers to be made acquainted with, both as a matter of general interest and curiosity, and with a view to the final settlement, which cannot be much longer deferred, of the great question of National Education in England. The example set by the French in this matter, attentively and modestly considered, is pregnant with useful admonition. Few nations ever suffered at each other's hands more serious injuries and more bitter humiliations, than the Prussians and French inflicted on each other during the earlier years of the present century; and it was supposed that feelings of exasperation and national antipathy were thus engendered, which, though pent up by the force of circumstances, were ready, on the match being applied, to burst forth in terrible explosion. At the very time, however, when the elements of mischief were believed to be most active in the breasts of a people jealous of their honour, and pecu- liarly sensitive to insult, the French Ministry, with the consent of the King and the Chambers, sent one of their ablest and wisest citizens, not to hurl defiance or demand restitution, but to take lessons in the art of training youth to knowledge and virtue, and to take them in the capital of the very nation whose troops, sixteen years before, had, on a less peaceful mission, bivouacked in the streets of Paris, and planted their victorious cannon at the crossings of her bridges. There are not many facts in the past history of mankind more cheering than this, not many traits of national character more magnanimous, or in- dicating more strikingly the progress of reason. It is, in truth, a marked step in advance to that state of civilization which the world is rapidly tending to, when the intercourse between nations will consist, not in wars and angry protocols, but in a mutual interchange of good offices. There are already indi- cations that Britain is not to lag behind in this noble and generous career. Even in the short interval since our last 134 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. publication, the subject of National Education has been brought forward in Parliament, and its importance and ur- gency admitted on all sides, and by none more readily than his Majesty's Ministers. The Parliamentary grant of L.20,000, as a temporary expedient, to assist the benevolent efforts of Societies already in existence, is a circumstance to which we attach more importance than the smallness of the amount might seem to justify. It is the first sum of money, if we mistake not, that the House of Commons ever voted out of the public purse, for promoting the education of the poor among the people of Great Britain,_the earnest and pledge, we verily believe, of much good to come, and worthy of being remember- ed to the credit of the first Session of a Reformed Parliament. The attention of the Government and of the country has thus been once more awakened to the deplorable and almost incredible fact, that no permanent provision has ever yet been made for securing to the great body of the English people the means of early moral and intellectual culture. In no other country but England, it is true, could so much have been done by individual exertion to remedy the neglect of the Govern- ment; but, from the very nature of such relief, it is partial and temporary, and not always well-directed. It is deficient in amount, as well as in quality: and, accordingly, in spite of it, a large proportion of the soil of England, including all the rick-burning districts, is still covered with an uninstructed population,--a prey to all the misery and disorder which naturally flow from ignorance and vice. There are many, we are aware, who imagine that the means already in operation are nearly commensurate with the wants of the people, and, when reinforced with the Parliamentary grant of L.20,000, will be amply sufficient to make education universal over England and Wales. This delusion—for such, we fear, we must reckon it—has been greatly encouraged by a statement which appeared in the “Companion to the Alma- nac” for 1829; for, coming forth, as that publication does, under the sanction of the “Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,” it could not fail to obtain wide circulation and general belief. The writer testifies his “satisfaction in believ- ing, that there are very few districts in England where the NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 135 children of the working classes may not now obtain instruc- tion.” If this were true, England would be a more univer- Sally educated country than Scotland ; for, in spite of our Parochial and Assembly Schools, there is still a rural popula- tion of half a million, scattered widely over the Highlands and Islands, (to say nothing of the large towns and Lowlands,) of whom 83,397,-a sixth of the whole, are reported this very year as unable to read.” But the data on which the “Com- panion's” conclusion rests are, to the last degree, vague and unsatisfactory. They are founded on returns obtained, in 1828, from 487 parishes, (not a twentieth part, be it observed, of the parishes of England,) as compared with returns from the same parishes in 1818. Finding the number of children returned in 1818 to be 50,000, and in 1828 somewhat more than double that number, the writer applies the rule of doubling to all the rest of the parishes, which gave no returns, and thus makes out a total of a million. Now, we not only distrust this application of the rule of three, but the correct- ness of the returns themselves. For, there being no official check, the numbers were liable to be unduly swelled both from the natural anxiety of committees and teachers to appear well in the eyes of the Central Committee, and from careless- ness in marking the average attendances. Another source of error was the assumption, that where no reports were trans- mitted from places in which National Schools were known to have once existed, the numbers there might be taken at the average of those actually reported on ; whereas it is notorious, that many schools, once flourishing, were allowed to drop for want of patronage, and others were not reported on, solely because they had fallen into a declining state. Again, the writer in the “Companion,” assumes, what the National Society does not affirm, and what indeed is quite inconsistent with the fact, that the vast proportion of Sunday school chil- dren are taught to read. Lastly, we find it impossible to dis- tinguish, in the National Society's Reports, how many of the day scholars also attend the Sunday schools, and are thus reckoned twice over; and this element of uncertainty extends over about half a million of the pupils. * Wide Report of the General Assembly's Education Committee for 1833. 136 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. The “Companion,” however, carries his calculations upon these data still farther, by making the Parliamentary Returns of 1818 the basis of a much more extensive conclusion. Finding, for example, the schools and scholars of the parish of a, in the county A, to have been 4, and 400, respectively, according to the Parliamentary Report of 1818, and these in- creased to 8, and 800, respectively, according to the National School Society Report in 1828, and finding the parish b, in the same county, reported on in the former of those two returns as having 1 school and 100 scholars, but not noticed at all in the latter, he assumes that the schools and scholars must have been doubled in both a and b : whereas it is quite possible, and we know it to be consistent with fact, that many schools reported on in 1818, instead of being doubled, had altogether disappeared in 1828. Thus the populous paper-making vil- lage of High Wycomb, in Bucks, had for several years a flourishing day school, which, for aught we know, existed, and was reported on in 1818; but in consequence of the want of proper premises and the falling off of subscriptions, that school was broken up, and had no existence in 1828. Yet, in the “Companion to the Almanac,” instead of this fact being as- certained, the very opposite is taken for granted, viz. that there were in that year two schools, and twice the number of scholars. It is a very common mistake which this writer also seems to fall into, that whatever is now exhibited in the way of schools and scholars in England by the two great Societies, is to be accounted so much clear conquest from the old domain of ignorance and barbarism. The fact is quite otherwise. A great many old endowments were changed into popular schools on Dr Bell's plan, or incorporated with them; and a still great- er number of private schools were dispersed and broken up on the coming in of the new schools, National and British. Nor did it always happen that every scholar who used to attend the old, became a scholar at the new ; for sometimes a new school on Bell's or Lancaster's principle, would start up, ruin, and disperse some half dozen schoolmasters, and be then allow- ed, by the cooling zeal of the local Committee, to go to pieces itself and disappear ! It is upon such slovenly and objectionable grounds as we NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 137 have just stated that the “Companion” raises the amount of educated poor children in England and Wales to a million and a half. Then taking the whole number of the population that ought to be at school at two millions—which is now, at least, below the truth—he makes up the deficit of 500,000 out of those who attend “the higher schools I’’ and thus again comforts himself with “entertaining a reasonable confidence that no very large portion of the children of the working po- pulation are now wanting the means of instruction.” If this flattering picture were a fair one, how should it have happened that, not two years after this account was printed, out of nearly 700 prisoners put on trial in four counties, up- wards of 260 could not read; only 150 could write, or even read with ease; and nearly the whole number were totally ignorant with regard to the nature and obligations of religion?” If the assertion were true, how should the British and Foreign School Society have come unanimously to the following reso- lution in March 1831?—“That this committee regrets to find, by the inquiries which have been instituted into the state of popular education in those districts which have of late been disturbed by rioters and incendiaries, that a large proportion of the population is still altogether uninstructed, and that many thousands of children are growing up in utter ignorance, not only of the elements of learning, but of all moral and reli- gious obligations.” How should the same Society, in their report for last year (1832) refer “to additional facts, which painfully demonstrate, with accumulating evidence, the enor- mous extent of that ignorance, which spreads itself like a moral pestilence over the land 2 In a circular recently published at Nottingham, it is asserted, that in that town above a thousand children, of an age suitable for school, are growing up in total ignorance; and from a canvass which has lately been instituted by the Committee of the Hereford- shire Auxiliary Bible Society, it appears that, out of 41,017 individuals visited only 24,222 were able to read. Quotations of this description, from letters addressed to the Committee by dissenting ministers and benevolent laymen, might be multi- plied almost indefinitely. They all bear witness to the truth * Wide British and Foreign School Society's Report for 1831, p. 11. 138 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. of the assertion, that, notwithstanding the exertions of your own and kindred societies, “ENGLAND IS YET UNEDUCATED.” Finally, how should the same society, in their Report for the present year, have said, “Your committee cannot close this portion of their report without again urging upon their friends the importance and NECESSITY of INCREASED ExER- TION. The educational statistics of England are far from pre- senting results that can be considered satisfactory to the mind of a Christian philanthropist. Many are the districts of which it may be still said “gross darkness covers the people.’ In the metropolis alone it is estimated that above 150,000 children are growing up without education. From correspondents at nearly 40 different places letters have been received, calling attention to districts in which schools ought to be established without delay. “In one village containing 272 families, consisting of 1467 persons, only 562 were found able to read. In other districts villages are pointed out containing 1000, 1500, or 2000 inhabi- tants, yet unblessed with any efficient school. Whole families are described in many places as having reached maturity with- out any member of them being able to read a single letter; and the tenor of the whole correspondence only proves how justly it was asserted in your last report that ENGLAND Is YET UNEDUCATED.” Statements to the same effect are repeatedly made by the National School Society. One of them concludes thus:– “Hence, unfortunately, in many places containing thousands of families whose parents are members of the Established Church, no provision whatever exists for the education of children according to the principles of that church.”—(Nat. School Soc. Rep. p. 17.) The truth seems to be, that the strenuous exertions of the two societies have scarcely kept pace with the increase of po- pulation during the last ten years. We are in little danger of understating the number, when we say that not more than one-half of the poorer children in England, south of Trent, enjoy the benefit of the edncation, such as it is, that may be called popular. Even in London itself, as we have just secn, in spite of its NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 139 numerous endowments, the many churches and meeting- houses with schools attached to them, and the abundance of public spirit, piety, and wealth, it would not be difficult to prove that, though it be comparatively well provided, much yet remains to be done. But go out of it in any direction, and the rural population, in a circle of from ten to twenty miles round it, will be found in a very unlettered state. Ox- fordshire and Cambridgeshire are no better, in consequence of the extent of college estates, where great tracts of land are without either a resident aristocracy or a resident clergy; the cures being often held by Fellows, who spend their time in their colleges and ride out to do duty of a Sunday. From observations made on the spot, about the very time the author of the “Companion” drew his highly-coloured portrait, we can state, that Hounslow had no school for the poor; nor Tot- tridge and the large and populous district round it; nor St Alban's, Herts; nor a vast tract of country on either side of a line between that town and Windsor. Very lately, indeed, several have been planted by the indefatigable exertions of John Hull, of Hillingdon, near Uxbridge;—one of those per- sons to whom it is only necessary to say, “there are men without employment, children uneducated, sufferers in prison, victims of disease, wretches pining in want, and straightway they will abandon all other pursuits, as if they themselves had not large families to provide for, and will toil days and nights stolen from their most necessary avocations, to feed the hun- gry, to clothe the naked, and shed upon the children of the poor that inestimable blessing of education, which alone gave themselves the wish and the power to relieve their fellow- men.” Tring, in Herts, though surrounded with gentlemen's seats—Aylesbury, the county town of Bucks, with a popula- tion of 5000—and a number of other populous towns and neighbourhoods, stretching all the way to the borders of So- mersetshire, have been saved from a like reproach by the exertions of the same meritorious individual; acting either by himself or with the assistance of the British and Foreign School Society. * Wide Mr Brougham's Speech, May 8, 1818, on the Education of the Poor, 140 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. In Henley on Thames, there had been a tolerable British school. The Committee on the spot, however, were seized with the notion that they should like to have an infant school. The British school was accordingly allowed to drop, but no infant school succeeded it. So precarious is the tenure of unendowed schools. We may mention also, in proof of their liability to accident, a state of things by no means uncommon in the midland counties, in which sons of respectable farmers have grown up to man's estate without even the elements of education. These they were accustomed to receive in Dames' schools; but during the time when prices were high and the farmers prosperous, they sent their children from home to boarding-schools and academies. Bad times, however, re- turned, and the children were recalled ; but the Dames' schools had meanwhile disappeared, and the lads grew up in 1gnorance. We cannot deny ourselves the melancholy satisfaction of comparing these accounts of English popular education, so inaccurate or so discouraging, with what is done in Prussia. The contrast is an humbling, but ought to be a useful one for England. It is extracted from a pamphlet by M. Cousin, on the “ State of Primary Instruction in Prussia at the close of 1831,” published lately as a supplement to his “Report.” All its statements and numbers being taken from official do- cuments issued by the Minister of Public Instruction, after being carefully verified, their correctness is absolute and un- impeachable. The results, therefore, as given by M. Cousin, are valuable, not merely as indicating with certainty what is done for the education of the people in Prussia, but as gene- ralizations of facts, establishing principles and conclusions to which we may appeal, in all attempts that may hereafter be made to clear the wide and dreary interval that separates us from the perfection of that model, which is not the beau idéal, but the beautiful reality we ought to imitate. This is our apology for going into a few arithmetical details. The movements in this great system are so smooth and equal, and so little subject to caprice and accident, that though the reports are scrupulously kept, the grand results are pub- lished only at intervals of six years. The last was in 1831. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 141 The population of the Prussian Monarchy, by the last census, was e © º iº . 12,726,823 Which is somewhat more than a million short of the last census for England and Wales. Of these twelve millions and a half, there are, between the ages of seven and fourteen, which is the period allotted for attending schools, . . 2,043,030 And the return of children actually in attendance in 1831, was © g * tº & . 2,021,421 Difference, º & 21,609 From this statement, so glorious for Prussia, it follows, that every human being in it not only has the means, but actually enjoys the advantage, of a good education; for the small dif- ference of 21,609 is barely sufficient to account for the children of the higher ranks educated at home, for those attending pri- vate schools, and for the boys under fourteen, attending the lower forms of the gymnasia or classical schools; who, in 1832, amounted alone to above 17,000, and are not included, more than the other two classes, in the primary School returns. It is, indeed, impossible that the numbers in the returns of the po- pulation and of school attendance should do otherwise than correspond, in a country where the law compels parents, guardians, and in default of these, the masters to whom the youths are apprenticed, to prove before the competent autho- rities that every child has received, or is then receiving, the benefit either of public or private instruction; and where the clergy are enjoined to admit none to the communion, without producing satisfactory evidence that they have gone through the ordinary course of school discipline. The latter is an arrangement which binds Church and School closely and use- fully together, and calls in religious authority to aid the diffu- sion of useful knowledge. As to the other provision, for compulsory attendance, we could not recommend it in any plan of English education; but should prefer trusting, as the French legislature has done, to persuasion, and the gradual growth of a schoolgoing habit among the people. Indeed, the Prussian law enforces attendance only where it is agree- 142 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. able to the feelings of the people: in the new acquisitions, and particularly in the Rhenish Provinces, the compulsory clause is dispensed with. Some of the other statistical details in this very interesting pamphlet are too curious and important to be omitted. We shall-subjoin them in a note.* We have thus endeavoured to show, that the primary in- struction enjoyed by the English people is, in regard to its diffusion, limited, unsatisfactory, and precarious. It is now time to speak of its quality. The commodity, we have found, is scantily and unequally distributed. We are next to en- quire whether it be intrinsically such as to leave us nothing to wish for, but that it were spread abundantly and universally over the land. Now, truth compels us to say, (and we say it reluctantly, and with becoming diffidence, when we think of the great and venerable names that grace the direction and subscription lists of both,) that neither of the distinguished Societies which have been working so long and so assiduously in promoting the education of the poorer classes, has yet adopted a course of instruction which entirely accords with our motions of what a system of National Education ought to be. And, as Lord Althorp has declared it to be the intention of Govern- ment to divide the parliamentary grant in fair proportions, between the British and Foreign School Society on the one hand, and the Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established Church on the other, —that is, between Schools on the Bell or Madras system, and those originally called Lancasterian,—it may be proper to state * Of the 22,612 schools in Prussia, 21,789 are elementary, and 823 bwrgher schools, the écoles primaires superieures of M. Guizot's Projet de Loi. Of the latter 481 are for boys, and 342 for girls. Now, there are in all Prussia 1021 towns, whereof 26 only have more than 10,000 souls. Hence it appears, that not only all the cities of 10,000 Souls, but three-fourths of all towns whatso- over, have, besides the elementary Schools necessary to the lowest class of citizens, superior schools also for the middle class. The following statement shows the steady improvement in the working of the Prussian system — In 1819, the number of schools was 20,085, taught by 21,895 masters and mistresses. In 1825, 21,623, taught by 22,964 masters and mistresses. In 1831, 22,612, taught by 27,749 do. do. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 143 here our reasons for thinking that some important modifica- tions are required in the administration and discipline of both societies, before they can be held out either as substitutes or as models for a general system of education for the people. Every one, though he may not be old enough to have wit- nessed, has heard at least of the feud which, in the early part of this century, divided the public between the claims of Bell and Lancaster. That Dr Bell was the first in Britain who stated and expounded the principle of mutual instruction as he had seen it practised in the schools in India, there can be as little doubt, as that Mr Lancaster had the merit of reducing it extensively to practice. The system of the latter prevailed pretty generally and was patronized by Royalty itself, before alarm was taken or at least expressed at the fact, that a Quaker—one of a sect most opposed to the ritual of the Eng- lish Church—was organizing schools, and calling them by his name, in all parts of the kingdom. Zealous churchmen thought it was time to bestir themselves: their concern for the instruction of poor children, which had hitherto slumbered, was suddenly kindled into fervour; societies were instituted, and “National” schools established under Episcopal auspices; and that a name might not be wanting, Dr Bell was invited from his retirement to be the champion and apostle of the church-scheme of popular education. - Thus far there was nothing on either side that was not praiseworthy. The public might wonder that the Clergy, with such means in their power, had not sooner taken up arms in this crusade against popular ignorance; but they rejoiced to see two powerful bodies accoutred for the war, who, though they fought under different banners, were arrayed in the same cause. But, as almost invariably happens where poor human nature is concerned, the spirit of generous rivalry was soon alloyed with petty jealousies; misrepresentations and mutual recrimination followed; and the interests of the common cause were sacrificed or held at least subordinate to squabbles on minor points of discipline. On the one side was set up the cry, that the Church, and even Christianity itself, was in danger from the efforts of sectarian and infidel zeal. It was vehemently retorted, on the other, that Christianity is not 144 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE, synonymous with Church-of-Englandism; and that a member of the Society of Friends might be as sincere a believer, and, for children at least, as good an expounder of the word of God, as mitre or surplice could make him. In this strife, each party, having to deal with a population strongly attached to the faith of their fathers, sought to outdo its rival in zeal for religious instruction,-each to outbid the other in the market of public favour, by claiming for itself a greater knowledge and love of the pure doctrines of Christianity; and it may be that, in their zeal for the doctrines, one, if not both, of the parties, sometimes forgot the precepts of the Gospel. It was a natural consequence of this rivalship, that both became more and more theological in their practical instruc- tion; each striving to reach the point where they thought themselves most unassailable by the enemy. Hence the British and Foreign Society sanctioned “the eacclusive use (for school-reading) of those writings which all acknowledge to be divine;” and the National, avowing their object to be the maintenance of the established religion, added to the Scriptures themselves, several histories and abridgements of the Bible, the Prayer-Book, Psalter, and Catechism of the Church of England; but still more scrupulously, in practice at least, than their rivals, excluded all secular instruction, except writing and ciphering, which formed part of the daily instruction under both systems. When we say, “more scrupulously,” we use the expression, advisedly, and after some observation of the actual details of teaching in the best specimens of the schools of both Societies. Although in those of the British and Foreign the catalogue of school-books for reading is by much the less numerous, being, in truth, confined to the single volume of Scripture lessons, yet the daily examination, both on the meaning of individual words, in their spelling lessons, and on the scope of what has been read, is minute and searching; and no opportunity is lost which the occurrence of any word in ordinary use fur- nishes, for branching off into questions on what is curious and useful in the works and processes of nature and art, and of requiring and communicating information of a secular and in- * Wide Pref, to Brit. and For, Society's Scripture Lessons. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 145 teresting kind, which the monitors acquire from their teacher, or from private reading. A library has, of late years, been attached to the Borough Road School, and to others on the same plan, which contains the admirable little volumes of the Juvenile Library, and the coloured maps, published by the Kildare Place Society. This mine the monitors are exhorted to explore, and to bring forth its treasures for the use of their respective divisions; and it is truly wonderful to observe how much is done, with means so limited, to keep the attention alive, and to cherish and gratify the love of knowledge in the youthful mind. In the National Schools, on the other hand, with a greater number of books on their list, nothing can be more meagre and stingy than the allowance of instruction doled out. It is comprized under the heads of Reading, Writing, and Cipher- ing. By the first is to be understood the faculty of pronoun- cing and spelling English words, not of comprehending their import,” still less the structure or grammar of the language: and the reading is rigorously confined to one subject. The cipher- ing goes no farther than the first four rules of arithmetic; the writing may be cultivated to any extent of mechanical dexter- ity; for there is no limitation when the hand and not the head is to be exercised. Such is the sum and substance of the instruction given. The appointed clerical visitors seem much more anxious to enforce the strict rule of the founder, contained in Dr Bell's Manual, than to encourage any devi- ations into more inviting regions of knowledge. It will not be denied, we think, by those friends of the system who know it best, and particularly by the intelligent teachers, that its tendency, if not its avowed object, is to proscribe, as worse than useless, all knowledge which has not a direct and im- mediate reference to religion,-more especially to that form of it adopted by the Church of England; and to dismiss the pupil, after three years' attendance, with the smallest possible amount of acquirement, and the least possible taste for reading. One of the books most commonly used in these schools is Mrs * In one of the best of these schools, not one of a class, "after reading a Scripture lesson they were quite familiar with, in which the word alms occurred, could give any explanation of the meaning of that word, R. 146 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. Trimmer's History of the Old and New Testament, which the author declares in her preface is intended to be used in schools as a sequel to her “Introduction to the Study of Nature,”—a little volume calculated to be particularly attractive and useful to young people; and yet the Sequel is issued to the National schools, and not the ‘Introduction l’ We never met with a teacher in one of them who had even seen the book. In the ca- talogue of school apparatus, and of books made accessible in any shape to the children, we look in vain for any means of convey- ing general information,-any book, for example, of voyages and travels, of natural or civil history, or containing the ele- ments of grammar or geography, -any map, but of the Holy Land, and that not always, any means, in short, to stimulate and gratify the curiosity of a child,—to open his mind to mathematical truth, to make him acquainted with the country he lives in, its soil, surface, productions, traditions, or history, —or to attach him to any of its institutions, except the form of worship of the English Church. So little, indeed, are agreeable associations with the business of instruction culti- vated, that we think it not improbable that many an English peasant, who in his boyhood got all that these schools could give him, should be now unable to read. We propose it as a subject of very interesting enquiry to those who have the means of making it, to ascertain the proportion of persons in the rural population who could once read, and have lost the faculty. In a country where the system of early tuition is what it ought to be, such a return from all the population not insane or fatuous, would be nil. If an accurate report of this kind could be made up, it would be no bad criterion of the comparative merits of the different methods of elementary teaching. That a system of public instruction so limited and exclusive as either of the schemes we have just been considering, would ever have been adopted in England but for the spirit of rivalry and proselytism, we cannot for a moment persuade ourselves, whether we take the common-sense view of the matter, or appeal to the established practice of our own country of Scot- land, and of the States of Germany, both Catholic and Pro- testant ; none of which can be accused of lukewarmness or in- difference on the subject of religious instruction. The founders NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 147 of the educational institutions which have so long adorned and civilized these countries wisely considered, That, though children are destined no doubt to be subjects of a kingdom which the Divine Author of our faith has himself declared to be “not of this world,” and though they ought, therefore, to be deeply imbued with principles and habits that will fit them for such a condition of existence, yet they are doomed to live previously and act their part in the great community of mankind, with a thousand duties to perform, ideas to take in, and habits to acquire, which relate chiefly or solely to the world they live in : That the Bible, being given us not as a digest of all knowledge but as a rule of faith and manners, cannot be expected to contain such information, and embrace such a stock of words and ideas, as it is desirable every child should possess, in order to become useful to himself and others: That it is impossible to keep the faculties of the young in healthful and improving exercise, without occupying them with various objects successively, and familiarizing them with those realities of life and nature which enable them to test, by the evidence of the senses, the amount, import, and truth of the information they have received: That by insisting solely, or even chiefly, on spiritual matters, we must of necessity omit that acquaintance with the powers and properties of external nature, and the displays of Divine wisdom and goodness in the arrangements of the world, which form the appropriate nutriment of the young faculties, and by which alone the mind can be prepared, as its powers expand and strengthen, for more profound and recondite views of religion: That, more- over, great risk is run by indiscreet zeal, of indisposing the youthful mind to divine truth, of associating weariness and disgust with the act of reading and the business of instruction, (as will always be the case where the understanding is not or cannot be exercised), and even of exposing the sacred volume, which should never be handled but with reverence and as a privilege, to be treated too lightly and familiarly, and coupled with vulgar and painful associations. Such were the views of the founders of a scheme of primary instruction, which was acted upon, according to the lights of the time, by our Scottish ancestors, when they burdened the land in perpetuity for the 148 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. maintenance of Burgh and Parochial schools in which the elements of Good Learning, as well as Piety, should be taught. And taught they were then, as they have been ever since,” on the most liberal and comprehensive footing; no branch of knowledge ancient or modern being excluded, which the master could teach and the parents desired for their children. This scheme has been, in later times, more fully developed and embodied into a system by the successors and compatriots of Luther and Melanchthon;–a system not elicited, like those we have spoken of, by the strife and heat of contending fac- tions, but emanating from the calm, dispassionate deliberations of the wisest, the best, and the most religious men of their several communities. That we may not be suspected of over- stating the superiority of the German method of primary in- struction over that of both our British associations, let us con- trast with their meagre list of books and branches of study the statement we formerly madet of what is taught in the Prussian elementary schools. It comprehends, let it be re- membered, (and we repeat the summary, as it is given in another part of the Prussian law, to make the contrast more striking,) “religion, and morality founded on Christian truth; the vernacular tongue, with its grammar and structure; the knowledge of magnitude and number—of nature, including the elements of geography—and of man, including history, par- ticularly that of Prussia;-bodily exercises, or gymnastics;– vocal music, applied to hymns and national songs;–and, finally, drawing and penmanship.” After the details we have given, and the contrast exhibited, it can scarcely, we think, be said that the Government would exact too much, if it required from both the Societies in ques- tion a revision of their course of elementary instruction, and even made it a condition of receiving pecuniary aid for the * It is still a prevailing practice in Scotland, to require, as of old, that the candidate for a parish school shall prove himself tolerably “perſite in Latin,” this acquirment being taken as the test of a good education, and of respect- able attainments in other parts of leaaning. The miserable Scotch school. masters' act of 1803, by giving to the majority of heritors the power of deciding what branches shall be taught in our parish schools, has done its best to im- pair this honour and advantage of our country. f See Edinburgh Review, No. 116, p. 522—3. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 149 erection of new school-houses. The Kildare-Place Society, in Ireland, forfeited their Parliamentary grant by too scrupu- lous an adherence to exclusively Protestant practices, in a scheme professing to be for the benefit of a population chiefly Catholic; and yet their scheme, in its most objectionable form was much more liberal and comprehensive than the system which has been hitherto followed by either of the above Socie- ties. The time, too, we conceive, is particularly favourable for such a process of revision; the heads of the rival systems are removed from the scene; the heats of party zeal have burned out; the public have ceased to take an interest in either body, except as the means of extending education; and the Societies themselves, being composed of almost a new generation, have lost the feeling of mutual hostility, and are more disposed than they ever yet have been to regard each other as labourers in the same vineyard. At the last annual meeting of the British and Foreign Society, the first resolution was moved by a beneficed clergyman of the Church of Eng- land. How much indeed that Society has relaxed from its exclusively religious spirit, is apparent from the following passage in the Report of last year:— “Your Committee feel that their business is simply to give the chil- dren of the labouring poor a plain, useful, and scriptural education; to recognise the depraved state of the affections; and to seek, by means of the Sacred Volume alone, to act at once upon the understanding and the heart. At the same time, they would not shrink from declar- ing their opinion, founded upon experience, that in the present day, instruction of whatever kind ought to be of a much more extended character than formerly. The most abstruse sciences are now so fami- liarly explained, and useful knowledge of every description is so com- pletely broken down to the tastes and capacities of the working classes, that unless in schools for the poor the youthful mind be encouraged to investigate truth, and the reflective faculty be awakened, the instruc- tion which may be imparted will soon come to be neglected and des- pised. In imparting scriptural knowledge, it is no longer sufficient merely to require that a form of sound words be read, or at most com- mitted to memory; the attention must be stimulated, the understand- ing exercised, and the judgment busily employed by constant interroga- tion, as to the meaning of what has been read, or but a feeble impres- sion will be made upon the mind.” A similar acknowledgment of the narrowness and inadequacy 150 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. of the original constitution and present practice of the National Society, is implied in the following extract from the result of an enquiry as to the disposal of the children's time in school, which forms a part of the General Report for the present year, (1833). “The division of time between learning and industry is actually made in the best-conducted schools for females. The boys, however, being rarely provided with any manual occupation, are carried forward to higher degrees of attainment in religious knowledge, as well as in cipliering, writing, &c. But in proportion to the energy and intelli- gence of the schoolmaster, a larger supply of such exercises will be required, otherwise recourse must be had to repetitions of a tedious and uninteresting nature. A conviction of the superabundance of time at the disposal of schoolmasters, has induced the managers of certain schools to seek for variety of employment. Hence the reading of works of History and Natural Philosophy, &c., in addition to the usual school- books, has been introduced in some places; and in others, the study of English Grammar, or the learning of the motes and elements of Music, with a view to improving Psalmody, has been made to occupy a portion of the day. Whatever difficulties may have attended these or similar plans, no complaint has ever been heard of a deficiency of time for carrying them into effect.” These appearances are most auspicious, and make it not alto- gether extravagant to suppose that a committee may be formed of the most active and enlightened members of both Societies, for the purpose of selecting, if such are to be found, and if not, of preparing, a series of Reading Lessons, for what may be called the Secular part of Instruction. These Lessons should not consist of detached, unconnected passages and extracts, but should ascend in a graduated scale from the simple to the more difficult :—taking care, in the latter, not to overstep what is suitable to the years of the scholars, and their pros- pects in life; and with such differences, too, as might be re- quired to adapt them to the wants and wishes of both Societies; —always reserving dogmatic religious instruction to be given apart, according to the views of each. If such a plan were adopted, (and part of the Parliamentary grant could not be bet- ter employed than in promoting it,) both parties would soon be convinced, that that part of school discipline which they are so anxious to inculcate, can only be impressive and effec- tual when delivered at intervals, solemnly and shortly, and NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 151 mixed up with instruction of a more familiar and every-day character. It is a fatal mistake to suppose that children are rendered better or more religious, because the round of school hours, day after day, is filled up, in oral teaching, with religious rehearsals of ‘Chief Truths,’ Catechism, Collects, Command- ments, Prayers and Graces; and as to reading, with nothing else but extracts from the New Testament and the Bible, or Sellon's, Trimmer's, and Ostervald's Abridgements. No mind, old or young, can escape languor, weariness, and dis- gust, in such a process of iteration. How much more true piety, as well as sound philosophy, is shown by the Commit- tee of the General Assembly of our own Church In report- ing the proportions of children in their Highland schools who are learning Gaelic and English reading, writing, arith- metic, geography, mathematics, and latin,-with other branches as they find them in demand,-they are able to boast, that “while they dispense with all diligence the several branches of knowledge above named, they have impressed a religious character on every school connected with their estab- lishment.” Then follows this remarkable declaration, that “if they were to specify such as in that respect have been found the most distinguished, they could not hesitate to name those schools in which the greatest variety of secular instruction has been imparted.” This is not the age in which blind submission and obe- dience without inquiry can be forced on any large portion of the population. There is enough in the habits of the people, and the reason of the thing, to protect the English church against its enemies, if it were but safe from the indiscreet zeal of its friends. They may rest assured, that if its salvation depended on having wisdom shut out from the people by every entrance but one, their church could not be saved, and would not be worth saving. But we hope better things from the present race of the English clergy, who are undoubtedly actuated by a far more liberal spirit than that which presided over the first arrangements of the National Schools. If then the two Societies, either conjunctly or separately, will set honestly about the work of reforming their discipline, 152 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. the strenuous exertions they have made, and their long posses- sion of the field, well entitle them to pecuniary aid, according to the necessities of each. But this, after all, can only be a temporary measure; and so, indeed, it is regarded by Minis- ters. It is impossible that the primary instruction of the great body of the English people can be much longer left to the mercy of accident, and abandoned to the local and capri- cious contributions of private charity, or to the free competi- tion of labour, as in the ordinary branches of gainful industry. It will not do even to devolve it on large associations of pri- vate individuals, who have been brought together by the com- mon desire of diffusing education according to their own peculiar notions of what education ought to be, and who confessedly are animated with a zeal which is apt to be heated by rivalry, rather than tempered with knowledge. What is wanted for England is a well-digested and comprehensive scheme of popular instruction, organized upon one plan in its earlier stages, and diffusing its benefits equally and impartially over all. The principle universally adopted and acted upon in Germany and Prussia is a wise one, that the first stages of school learning should be, all over the kingdom, as nearly as possible identical. Uniformity in the groundwork of the intellectual and moral habits of the people is thus secured, with that unity of feeling and nationality which contribute so much to individual happiness and general prosperity; and these blessings it is vain to expect in any other way than by Legislative interference. The doctrine, that every thing educational should be left to individual competition without the State taking any charge or superintendance, may be ranked among the illegitimate offspring of the Free Trade System. The appeal to Adam Smith's authority gave it temporary currency, till that au- thority was proved to be all the other way; and it is now pretty generally regarded as a heresy scarcely worth refuting. We are aware of the difficulties which stand in the way of any great general measure, and the objections that are urged both to its expediency and its practicability; but what has been done in Scotland, and in Germany, may surely, if due caution is observed, be done in England. In the meanwhile, we NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 153 cannot be better employed than in encouraging discussion and diffusing information on the subject; and with this view we now proceed to render some account of what is doing in France, to repair the grievous errors in this matter, both of the Revolution and the Restoration. Warned by the opposite follies of irreligious vagaries, and the superstition of obsolete and antiquated methods,-extremes between which the edu- cation of France vibrated for forty years, the present Govern- ment of that country has looked abroad, and availed itself of the ripe experience of Germany. And let it not be forgotten, that the distinguishing feature between this and all the pro- jects of the first Revolution, is the re-establishment and recog- nition of the grand principle, that “Religion, that is, Chris- tianity, is the basis and groundwork of all popular education.” It is proper to state this fact at the outset, in order to refute a calumny of Mr O’Connell, who denounced the authors of the Projet de Loi, which we must in charity suppose he never had read, as leagued in a conspiracy to ‘unchristianize' the country;-an assertion which is not only wide of the truth, but directly the reverse of it. The Projet de Loi, or as we should call it the Bill, for regulating Primary Instruction in France, was introduced into the Chamber of Deputies by its framer, M. Guizot, on the 2d of January 1833, and passed into a law on the 28th of June. Its provisions are cast so nearly in the mould of the Prussian law, (and this indeed is its highest praise,) that we may save ourselves much minuteness of detail, after the account we gave of that law in our last Number. At the same time, this si- milarity, amounting often to absolute identity, is one of the most interesting features of the French measure, whether we consider it philosophically, or as bearing on the wants and necessities of Great Britain : and we cannot too strongly com- mend the four chapters and twenty-five sections of this Law to the attentive perusal and study of all who take an interest in the education of England, and more especially of those who are likely to legislate upon it. We can afford room only for a brief mention of the most important enactments, and we shall borrow our materials from the able speech of M. Guizot in proposing his measure, as well as from the law itself. 154 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. The three fundamental questions, with reference to the in- struction of the people, which this Law proposes to settle, are first, The subjects or branches of knowledge which primary instruction ought to embrace; secondly, The nature or de- scription of schools in which it ought to be carried on ; and, thirdly, the authorities which are to preside over these schools, to superintend, control, direct, and maintain them. 1. With regard to the first head, the kind of education— primary instruction (as distinguished from classical and scien- tific) is divided into two degrees or stages. The first or lower degree, being the minimum, must be provided universally— for the humblest village as for the largest city. It compre- hends moral and religious instruction, reading, writing, the principles of the French language, ciphering, and an acquain- tance with the authorized system of weights and measures. Between this minimum, observes M. Guizot, and the classical and scientific education which is given in public schools and colleges, as well as in many private academies, there is a wide interval, which in France has hitherto been an entire blank; leaving a large and important middle class without a power of choosing between pure elementary instruction, and that higher species called sécondaire, which, besides being very costly, im- parts a kind and extent of knowledge not appropriate to their condition in life. To fill up this gap, the new law establishes a higher degree of primary instruction to be given in schools, which, from the middle place they occupy, the French, trans- lating the German Mittelschule, have already named Ecoles Moyennes. These middle schools, besides the branches taught in the lower degree, must teach also the elements of geometry, with its ordinary applications, particularly to linear drawing and land-measuring; the elements of the physical sciences, and of natural history, as they are applicable to the common uses of life; singing; the elements of history and geography, and especially the history and geography of France. The wishes of the fathers must be consulted and complied with, as to their children's participation in the religious instruction. 2. As to the schools by which the two degrees of primary instruction are to be attained, the law ordains as follows: Every commune or parish, either by itself, or jointly with one NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 155 or more neighbouring parishes, is bound to provide at least one primary school of the lowest order, the master of which is to have a suitable dwelling-house, and a money payment, consisting in part of a fixed salary, (never less than 200 francs, L.8, 6s. 6d.);--in part of fees, or quarter-pence, levied on all the parents of the children in attendance who are able to pay the small pittance required. When parents are ascertained to be too poor to pay even that, their children are to be taught gratuitously by the master, in consideration of the salary he receives. From all the rest fees are exacted, in no case by the master himself, but, like the contributions to the State, by a public officer; and in this way much humiliation and loss is saved to the master. The county towns, and every parish (there or elsewhere) having a population exceeding 6000 Souls, are bound, individually or conjointly, to maintain a middle school. As that is for the benefit of persons above want, there is no gratuitous admission, except in the case of extraordinary talent in the poor scholar of the lower grade, who is, so to speak, sent up for good, and receives the advan- tage of a higher education as a reward or bursary. As it is desirable, however, that the school rate in the middle school also should be very moderate, the master is to receive a fixed salary, of which the minimum is 400 francs, (L.16, 13s.) along with the fees. The burden of the salaries in both cases is to fall wholly on the parish, if possible; if not, partly on the department or county; and the state itself is to come in aid in the last resort. Besides the elementary and middle schools, there is a third institution thought necessary to carry on the business of pri- mary instruction, which the Germans and French call Normal Schools. Though this is a term unintelligible to most of our countrymen, because nothing of the kind exists among us, it seems, nevertheless, a very natural and a very reasonable idea, to have the means of training young men to the profes- sion of teachers. For, as M. Guizot justly observes, “all the provisions hitherto described would be of none effect, if we took no pains to procure for the public school thus consti- tuted an able master, and worthy of the high vocation of in- structing the people. It cannot be too often repeated, that it 156 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. is the master that makes the school—autant vaut le maitre, autant vaut l'école elle-meme. And, indeed, what a well- assorted union of qualities is required to constitute a good schoolmaster | A good schoolmaster ought to be a man who knows much more than he is called upon to teach, that he may teach with intelligence and with taste; who is to live in a humble sphere, and yet to have a noble and elevated mind, that he may preserve that dignity of sentiment and of deport- ment, without which he will never obtain the respect and con- fidence of families; who possesses a rare mixture of gentleness and firmness; for, inferior though he be in station to many individuals in the commune, he ought to be the obsequious servant of none;—a man not ignorant of his rights, but think- ing much more of his duties; showing to all a good example, and serving to all as a counsellor; not given to change his condition, but satisfied with his situation, because it gives him the power of doing good; and who has made up his mind to live and to die in the service of primary instruction, which to him is the service of God and his fellow-creatures. To rear masters approaching to such a model is a difficult task; and yet we must succeed in it, or else we have done nothing for elementary instruction. A bad schoolmaster, like a bad parish priest, is a scourge to a commune ; and though we are often obliged to be contented with indifferent ones, we must do our best to improve the average quality. We have, therefore,” continues M. Guizot, “availed ourselves of a bright thought struck out in the heat of the Revolution, and afterwards ap- plied by Napoleon” to the establishment of his central Normal school at Paris. We carry its application still lower than he did in the social scale, when we propose that no schoolmaster shall be appointed who has not himself been a pupil of the school which instructs in the art of teaching, and who is not certified, after a strict examination, to have profited by the opportunities he has enjoyed.” The law bears that there shall be one Normal school for * In his decree, 17th March 1808, for the organization of the University. The idea of a school for masters seems to have been first started in France in 1794, by a decree of the National Convention, which, like so many others of that day, led to no result. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 157 every department, unless it may be necessary at first to make one suffice for two or more; but there is no specification either of its organization, or the appointment, duties, or remuneration of the head master or professor. The council-general of the department is enjoined to see to some of these matters, which appear to be reserved for future regulation. In speaking of the momentous subject of the preparation of masters in the Normal schools, M. Cousin makes the following statement, which we would beg to recommend to the attention of Mr O’Connell: “While, however, we give a suitable allow- ance of time and attention to knowledge connected with science and the arts of life, such as geometry, natural philosophy, and natural history, we must above all keep in view the depart- ment of morals, which is the more important, because it is the heart and dispositions of the child that the master ought above all to form. It is the principles of an upright life that we must be most anxious to plant in the minds of our young Teacher; and with this view, religious instruction—which, to speak precisely, is in other words Christian instruction—must be put in the foremost rank in the course of study in our Normal Schools. Leaving it to the pastor or curate of the place to insist on the peculiarities of each Confession, we must give a place in the whole course of study of the Normal schools to instruction in religion; so that, at the close, the young aspirants to the office of schoolmaster, without being in the least theologians, shall have a clear and precise notion of Christianity, of its history, of its doctrines, and above all, of its morality. Without this preparation, the pupils, when masters themselves, would be unable to give any religious instruction beyond the mechanical repetition of the catechism, which would be altogether insufficient.” 3. As to the third great point, the authorities by which the whole system of primary instruction is superintended, regulat- ed, and directed, the first and most striking feature of the Prussian and French organization, is the existence of a Min- istry of Public Instruction, distinct from the other parts of the Administration. The duties of this office belonged formerly, in both countries, to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The separation was made in Prussia by the 158 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. law of 1819, in France somewhat later; and the result has proved the wisdom of the arrangement. The entire machinery is thus wrought from a common centre, which communicates the first impulse, controls all the movements, and gives unity of action and of character. The prime mover of the whole is a responsible Minister of the Crown—and, in France at this moment, he is one of the seven Cabinet Ministers—who acts with the advice and assistance of a council of ten or twelve. Subordinate to this supreme, whose seat is, of course, in the capital, there are several local authorities, circumscribed in their influence, but increasing in their activity as their sphere of action is narrowed. The organization of the internal ad- ministration of France into Prefectures, Sub-Prefectures, and Mayoralties, with their departmental arrondissemens and mu- nicipal councils, gives great facilities for establishing checks and securing efficiency; and the more popular and represen- tative character which these authorities have assumed since the last Revolution, fits them still better for the exercise of their educational rights and duties. The last and lowest link in this chain of dependent authorities is a local school-com- mittee, chosen out of the municipal or burgh council, with the addition of the priest or pastor of the parish, and one minister of each of the other forms of worship that may exist in the commune, who is elected by the synod or consistory to which he belongs. One of the most essential parts of this system is the power which the Minister reserves of sending commission- ers, chosen by himself, to conduct the examinations of the pupils on entering and leaving the Normal school, and before finally obtaining certificates of capacity. These commission- ers, it is evident, must be not only out of the reach of local influences, but men of education and learning, specially quali- fied for a task irksome indeed but most important, seeing that on the able and impartial discharge of their duty depends the whole efficiency of the system. It is right, therefore, to send these approved agents from head-quarters in the capital, and to leave the nomination of them to the Minister, upon whom rests the heaviest responsibility. It is chiefly by these ex- aminations, and the delegates whom he despatches from time to time on special commissions and inspections, that the Min- NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 159 ister is enabled to inform himself at all times how the machine is working, and to apply a remedy wherever it is wanted. “It is to the active and enlightened interference of these superior agents of the Ministry of Public Instruction,” says M. Guizot, “ that we are indebted for the greatest share of the progress which primary education has of late made in France.” In concluding his very able speech, the Minister expresses himself thus: “In framing this bill, it is experience, and experience alone, that we have taken for our guide. The principles and practices recommended have been supplied to us by facts. There is not one part of the mechanism which has not been worked successfully. We conceive that, on the subject of the education of the people, our business is rather to methodize and improve what exists, than to destroy for the purpose of inventing and renewing, upon the faith of danger- ous theories. It is by labouring incessantly on these maxims, that the Administration has been enabled to communicate a firm and steady movement to this important branch of the public service; so much so, that we take leave to say, that more has been done for primary education during the last two years, (1831, 1832,) and by the Government of July, than during the forty years preceding, by all the former Govern- ments. The first Revolution was lavish of promises, without troubling itself about the performance. The Imperial Go- vernment exhausted itself in efforts to regenerate the higher instruction called ‘secondary;' but did nothing for that of the people. The restored Dynasty, up to 1828, expended no more than 50,000 francs annually upon primary instruction. The Ministry of 1828 obtained from the Chamber a grant of 300,000 francs. Since the Revolution of July 1830, a mil- lion has been voted annually—that is, more in two years than the Restoration in fifteen. Those are the means, and here are the results. All of you are aware that primary instruction depends altogether on the corresponding Normal schools. The prosperity of these establishments is the measure of its pro- gress. The Imperial Government, which first pronounced with effect the words, Normal schools, left us a legacy of one. The Restoration added five or six. Those, of which some were 160 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. in their infancy, we have greatly improved within the last two years, and have, at the same time, established thirty new ones; twenty of which are in full operation, forming in each department a vast focus of light, scattering its rays in all di- rections among the people.” To those who are strongly impressed with the deficient state of popular education in England, it may seem strange that remedial measures have been so long deferred, and quite simple and natural that we should immediately imitate the good example of France. But any one who has attended to the course of the discussions on this matter both in and out of Parliament, will find a clue to the failure of all remedial measures in the very nature of our free institutions, which nourish vehement contention between opposite parties, and array hosts of prejudices in deadly warfare against each other. Imaginary dangers to existing rights and vested interests are conjured up, and importunately dunned into the public ear, till a howl is raised by that very numerous class of persons who have the right, without the power, to form calm and de- liberate opinions; and thus the proposer of a wise and mode- rate measure, assailed and calumniated from opposite sides, and by those whom it was mainly intended and well calculated to benefit, gives up the task in despair, or defers it till a fitter opportunity. This is a state of things differing widely from the absolute monarchy of Prussia on the one hand, where the people are accustomed to obey a rein which is so gently used that they scarcely feel it, and France on the other, unencum- bered as she is with long-established abuses, old preposses- sions, and inveterate habits, and schooled by the sad expe- rience of forty years of ineffectual legislation, to take lessons for the education of her people from other wisdom than her own. For the comparative difficulty we find in introducing improvements, our consolation is (and it is no small one) that what we gain by inches lasts for centuries ;—whereas, a change in the dynasty or in the character of the reigning prince in the one case, and unsettled revolutionary habits in the other, expose to risk systems however well contrived and, to all appearance, firmly established. Since the last signal defeat of the friends of national edu- NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 161 cation in Parliament, twelve years and more have elapsed, during which the subject has scarcely been alluded to ; but in that interval so great a change has taken place in the feelings of the people, the position of the Government, and the rela- tive strength of the parties, that we may reasonably enough indulge the hope of seeing that fitter opportunity arrive, even while some of those who first took charge still survive to pilot the vessel into port which they were constrained to leave among the breakers. It is not, however, to be disguis- ed, that very formidable obstacles still stand in the way of the final settlement, by any great legislative measure, of this momentous question. The difficulty of trimming the balance between the friends of the Established Church and the Dis- senting interest, was that which shipwrecked the Education Bill of 1820. That difficulty still exists, and is, we fear, as little likely to be got over now, as then. A measure more favourable to the Dissenters than that Bill was, might pro- bably pass the House of Commons, but would infallibly be thrown out in the Lords; while a measure originating in the Upper-House of Parliament, which should give to the Estab- lished Clergy the same influence and control which they had by the Bill of 1820, would scarcely pass the Commons, and would certainly not be acceptable to the country at large. And, to take a third supposition, if a measure were introduced which should leave the minuter shades of religious belief to be explained and enforced by parents at home, and by pastors in Sunday schools, in their parochial visitations and from the pulpit—which should confine the part of school instruction regarding religion to the great doctrines which all Christians agree in, and should consider religion, in reference to child- hood, as an affair rather of the heart than of the head, and reli- gious impressions as still more important at that age than religious knowledge—such a measure would in all probabil- ity, meet with furious opposition from the majority of both parties. In these circumstances, and in a country not very able, and still less willing, to bear the additional burden which the establishment of parochial schools necessarily implies, we fear that any attempt to carry through a general measure would L 162 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. still be premature; and, least of all, should we presume to propose any plan in a matter where the foremost men of the age have failed. In spite of every thing that has been said, and done, and written, the ignorance and apathy on this sub- ject among all ranks are so great, that on none other is hasty legislation so much to be deprecated; and, fortunately, it is one which is not likely, from the same cause, to be pressed on the immediate attention of their representatives by popular constituencies. Till the public mind be a little better pre- pared, the safer course is to proceed as Lord Althorp has already pointed the way; and, while a satisfactory plan is maturing, to limit ourselves to temporary expedients for fur- thering the great ends in view, by defining precisely what the extent and limits of primary instruction ought to be in Britain, and by raising the estimate among the population at large, of the value of education.* We have already alluded to one such expedient when we invited the two Education Societies to improve their course of study. In the little room we can yet afford, we shall briefly mention one or two other points, which, in any mea- sure for educating the English people, whether temporary or permanent, ought, we think, to be steadily kept in view. Some of them, particularly the first, we should be glad to see attempted immediately. Of all the preliminary steps, then, to the adjustment of this great question, by far the most important is the appointment of some means for training schoolmasters, not to any set of mechanical evolutions merely, but to a knowledge of the prin- ciples and practice of their profession, and to the able and enlightened discharge of its duties. The want of some such provision is the great vice of our Scottish system. Faults have thus crept into the practice of our parish schools, which nothing but the removal of the cause will eradicate. Our readers are aware what consequence the Prussian lawgivers attached to this object ; wisely considering, that the best * The substance of the above and the preceding paragraph is so applicable to the present time (1855), that it may be well to remind the reader that they were written and published two-and-twenty years ago. So slow and so ob- structive are the educational movements of the English mind. NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 163 plans of teaching are a dead letter, without good and able teachers; and that to expect good teachers without good train- ing, is to look for a crop without ploughing and sowing. In all their regulations on the subject of the Schullehrer semina- zien, there is an anxious consideration of whatever can minis- ter to the moral and intellectual improvement, and even to the personal comfort and happiness of the young teachers, which reminds us more of the tenderness of parental care and admo- nition, than of the stern and authoritative precepts of law. Every Department is enjoined to have one of these seminaries; the pupils to be admitted between sixteen and eighteen, to the number of from sixty to seventy in each; the locality to be in towns of moderate size, that on the one hand, they may be preserved from the corruption of very large ones, and, on the other, have access to schools which they can see and may im- prove in. The course of instruction delivered in these insti- tutions presupposes that of the primary schools. Pupils are admitted, however, with whom it is advisable to go back on the primary instruction; and the first of the three years, which form the complement of attendance for the whole course, is generally spent in revising and giving readier and fuller pos- session of previous acquirements. If that point, however, is already reached, it shortens the attendance by one year, and the pupil proceeds at once to the business of the second, which is employed in giving him just notions of the philosophy of teaching, the treatment of the young mind, the communication of knowledge, the arrangement of school business, the appa- ratus and evolutions necessary for arresting attention and husbanding time; of all, in fine, that pertains to the theory and practice of moral education, intellectual training, and methodical instruction,-technically called Paedagogik, Di- dactik, and Methodik. The third year is more particularly devoted to the object of reducing to practice, in the schools of the place, and in that which is always attached to the semin- ary, the methods and theory he has been made acquainted with. We refer for other details to our preceding Number. It is more to our present purpose to remark, that there does not exist, nor ever has existed, in the island of Great Britain, a single institution of this kind, which the Prussian people 164 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE, think so useful, that they have voluntarily gone beyond the number prescribed by law. There were, at the close of 1831, thirty-three of these seminaries in the monarchy, which is more than one for each department or circle. We cannot but think, therefore, that some effort should be made to apply part, at least, of the Parliamentary grant to the purpose of training schoolmasters, if it were only to mark the opinion of Government of the importance and necessity of such establishments; and to direct public attention to a branch of knowledge which, new and unexplored as it is amongst us, has long taken its place in the circle of the arts and sciences, and long had its literature and its votaries, in Germany. Any thing approaching, indeed, to the universal and permanent organization in that country, (for it is by no means confined to Prussia,) it would of course be vain to expect in this, at least for many years to come ; but means of opening up the subject, and commending it to the attention, not of teachers only and patrons of schools, but of the public generally, need not be regarded as out of our reach. Might not, for example, a lectureship or professorship of the art of teaching (or if a name be wanted for the new subject, of Didactics) be append- ed to one or two of the Scotch universities; and, if such a novelty could not be engrafted on the old establishments of Oxford and Cambridge, tried, at least, in the infant institution of Durham 2 A very small endowment, if any, would be wanted, provided Parliament would make it imperative on candidates for vacant schools, (beginning at first with those of the better kind only,) to produce a certificate of having attended such a course, or even to undergo an examination on the subjects there treated. It is obvious, in contemplating such an arrangement as this, that the greatest difficulty would be to find fit persons for such an office—a difficulty which would scarcely, however, last beyond the first appointment. And even with regard to that, we need scarcely look farther than to the burgh and parochial schoolmasters of Scotland. As a body, indeed, they are not beyond being greatly benefited by attendance on such a course as we propose ; but there are men among them, and the num- ber is on the increase, who, to an enthusiastic attachment to NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 165 their profession, and a large experience of its practical details, add much knowledge of its principles acquired by reading and reflection, and an almost intuitive perception of what is right in the management of the youthful faculties, and in the man- ner of imparting instruction. Philosophy and experience must go hand in hand, to fit a man for the purpose in view. If such lectureships were instituted in places where there was access also to schools in which the doctrines might be illus- trated, the practice exemplified, and the teaching partly con- ducted by the student, we should accept it as the greatest boon that could be conferred on the parochial education of Scotland. There are few, perhaps none, of the defects that still cling to our parish schools which would not disappear under the wholesome influence of such a measure, carried ably and honestly into effect. Next to the Training School, there is nothing more loudly called for to improve our parochial discipline than a plan of authorized Inspection. This, we have seen, is regarded as an essential part of the Prussian and French system, and is executed by delegates appointed by the Minister of Public Instruction. It seems natural that the proposed lecturers, with assistants, if required, should have this arduous duty devolved upon them. Again, a well-arranged succession of school-books is still a desideratum: none would be so likely to supply it well, as men whose lives would be devoted to the study of their art. But if such a project shall appear to Some, as we are prepared to expect, visionary and imprac- ticable, let strenuous endeavours be at least made to multiply the number and increase the efficiency of the model schools we have. There is an endowment for such an institution, called the Barrington School, at Bishop Auckland; and the Metropolitan Schools of both the societies are open, and have been used, for such purposes, as far as their means would go. To improve and assist these would be a far more profitable way of expending the grant, than to build Schools for the pro- pagation of imperfect methods. But in England, where almost every thing is to do, and a great deal to be undone, we doubt whether much can be effected ef permanent utility without a Minister of Public In- 166 NATIONAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE. struction. The duties of the Home Office are already too heavy. The only way to secure unity, promptitude, energy, and, we may add, impartiality, in any organized system of national education, is to lodge the undivided responsibility in the hands of a public officer, and to limit his duties to that great object. SE MINARIES FOR T E A CHERS, (REPRINTED FROM EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR JULY 1834, Vol. 59.) AMIDST the changes that have been going on in our social institutions, the most important, and hitherto the most ne- glected of them all, has not of late remained stationary. A year has scarcely elapsed since a grant of money was, for the first time, voted by Parliament in aid of General Education: and already has an account been rendered of the appropriation of that sum, an additional grant made to the same amount, and a select Committee of the House of Commons charged with an enquiry into the state of education among the poorer classes in England and Wales. The object of last year's grant of L.20,000 was the erection of school-houses, and the principle adopted in apportioning it was, that no aid should be given till one-half of the estimated expense was raised by private contribution. The whole sum has been disposed of.-not, of course, without undoubted evidence that an equal amount, at least, was collected from other sources; and the Lords of the Treasury express their “satisfaction in perceiving, that there exists throughout Great Britain the utmost anxiety, that the funds provided by Par- liament for the purposes of education should be made generally useful; and that private charity and liberality, so far from being checked, have been greatly stimulated and encouraged by reason of the public assistance afforded on the principles laid down in their Minute of 30th August 1833.” So far, indeed, did private contribution outstrip the liberality of Par- liament, that, on the 7th March last, the aid applied for, on the condition prescribed, amounted to L.31,016; while the 168 SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. sum then remaining at the disposal of the Treasury was only L.11,719, 6s. To meet this commendable zeal on the part of private contributors, their Lordships concurred in recommend- ing the additional grant of L.20,000 for the service of the ensuing year. The experiment, therefore, of last session, has been emi- nently successful. It has already added ninety-eight new school-houses to the educational apparatus of the country, at a joint cost of L.48,000; and it holds out the prospect of one hundred and eighty-seven other school-houses being speedily built. It has conferred a greater boon still, by demonstrating how ready the public are to second any well-directed effort of the Government, and thus relieving the apprehension, enter- tained naturally enough and in the very highest quarters, that the interference of Parliament in the matter of national education might paralyze individual exertion, and materially diminish the amount of voluntary contributions. The select Committee appointed early in June, is now sitting; and their choice of Lord John Russell to be their Chairman, is a security to the public, that, on the one hand, the enquiry will be gone into fully and fearlessly, and with large and liberal views; and, on the other, that no act of rash and premature legislation on a subject so momentous and so complicated, will be recommended to the adoption of Parlia- ment in any report of theirs. But while so much is in progress in this almost unexplored path of public economy, and while appearances seem to indi- cate that Government is about to take up the whole subject of national education, it cannot be disguised that a vital ques- tion which had long been considered as set at rest, has been mooted again on very plausible grounds. The strongest doubts have been expressed by persons whose opinion is en- titled to respect, whether the moral condition of the great body of our labouring and manufacturing population be not deteriorated, rather than improved, by any process of teaching or intellectual training that can be applied to it. We have now, it is argued, the experience of one entire generation as to the effects of diffusing a certain amount of instruction, un- equally, it may be, but still pretty widely and generally, SEMINARIES FOR TEACHER8. 169 among the lower classes. And what has been the result 2 Why, that increase of crime has kept pace with the increase of knowledge. From 1810 to 1833, the period certainly of greatest illumination, there has been a progressive advance in the returns of offences at the sessions and assizes, amounting, in the last six years, to an average of thirty-one per cent. Facts, therefore, it is argued, come now in support of theory; and the conclusion is irresistibly forced upon us, that educa- tion, while it sharpens the wits of the poor man, multiplies also his wants, without materially improving his means of honestly satisfying them ; and that, accordingly, intellectual dexterity, acting as pander to the cravings of new appetites, leads to the more frequent perpetration of crime; not per- haps in the shape of brute violence and bloodshed—for crimes of that description, it is admitted, are diminished in number and atrocity—but in all that numerous class of offences, the commission of which pre-supposes ingenuity and acquire- ments. And thus it is considered that a case is made out, of cause and effect. If we could lend ourselves for a moment to the melancholy and almost impious thought, that the more knowledge the people acquire, the less virtue will be found among them, we should be at a loss where to seek for consolation in looking forward to the future destinies of our country, or, indeed, of the human race. The appetite for knowledge has been cre- ated; it is spreading with unexampled rapidity, and will not be satisfied without its appropriate food; nor can any exer- tion or combination of human power now keep the supply, in Great Britain at least, much below the level of the demand. But in all this, thank Heaven, there is matter to rejoice in, not to deplore. No sane mind will be induced by appearances, however alarming, or by reasoning, be it ever so plausible, seriously to believe, that the moral and intellectual training of a whole population is in itself an evil—and an evil, of which the further progress ought to be resisted, and the steps already taken retraced, by every means in our power. Before arriving at a conclusion so monstrous, it would be proper to estimate much more accurately than has yet been done, whe- ther the increase of crime be real or only apparent; how much 170 SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. of it, as it stands recorded in the Calendar, is owing to the in- creased population, which implies a larger absolute amount of crime, even where there may be no relative increase;—how much may be traced to the improvement of the criminal police, which has facilitated the detection and apprehension of the de- linquent and added of course to the catalogue, but not to the real amount, of offences committed;—how much to the grow- ing abuses, now happily about to be removed, of the Poor Law system, which have been busier from year to year in degrading the moral character of the English people, and either indisposing them to the humanizing influence of educa- tion, or placing it out of their reach ;-how much is due to the constantly increasing influx of Irish labourers, enlarging considerably the proportion of the uneducated population, and consequently the number of indictable offences;–how much to that alteration of the law which awards pecuniary indemni- ties in certain cases to the prosecutor, and thus multiplies the inducements to prosecute;—how much to the state of our prisons, which too often converts them into schools of iniquity; —and how much to the successive relaxations that have taken place in the rigour of our Penal Code, which both encourage prosecutions, and secure more numerous convictions. These, and other circumstances in the condition of the country, alto- gether independent of the diffusion of knowledge, may swell the annual aggregate amount of recorded crimes and prosecu- tions, while the actual number of offences may be stationary, or even, as we honestly believe to be the case in our own end of the island, while it is yearly diminishing. But even if it were proved, that, after every deduction which could reasonably be claimed, there still remained a balance of crime, increasing from year to year, and corresponding so ac- curately to the increased facilities for acquiring knowledge, that we could not help regarding the one as the cause of the other, the legitimate inference from such a state of things would surely be, not that education is a curse to the people instead of a blessing, but that it has been hitherto, either con- ducted upon erroneous principles, or exposed to frequent abuse and failure from inadequate means or imperfect machinery and management. SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. 171 We are not disposed to deny that both these causes, error in principle, and defect in execution, have operated to a cer- tain extent in disappointing the sanguine hopes of the friends of popular education. In all that has yet been done, both in school and out of it, with a view to enlighten and direct the minds of the people, we will not say that the preference has not been too decidedly in favour of cultivating the intellect and storing the memory, rather than in favour of laying deep and broad the foundations of moral principle, of cherishing good dispositions and kind affections, and of forming virtuous habits. We would apply this remark even to religious in- struction, which may be, and very often has been, pushed too far with young minds. For, clear as our conviction is, that the moral training we speak of can by no other means be so effectually accomplished as by founding it on Christian truth, and giving it the support and Sanction of Christian motives, we cannot but admit at the same time, that what is purely doctrinal, when peremptorily and unsparingly inculcated on the young, has little or no salutary influence on the conduct and character of the adult. Can we wonder, indeed, that the education of the people should not have produced the full effect that was expected, when its quality, as well as its amount, has been left to the discretion and exertions of individuals, or of societies guided by sectarian views and feelings; and, above all, when no ade- quate provision has ever been made for training schoolmasters to the skilful discharge of their arduous duties? *. The necessity of some such provision had been felt and acted upon in Germany for more than a century, and was proclaimed in this country a considerable time ago;” but it did not attract general attention, till the publication, in 1832, of M. Cousin's Report on the State of Education in Prussia. The discussions to which that Report gave rise, both in and out of Parliament, have awakened the public mind to the im- portance of the subject; the Government has declared itself friendly, and ready to listen to any reasonable proposal; and the intelligence of the country is at last so far enlightened in * Soe particularly Pillans's Letters on Teaching, 2d ed., pp. 52 and 161 ; and Bryce's Sketches of a Plan for the Education of Jreland. 172 SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. this matter, that we deem it unnecessary to go into proof of the very obvious truth, that skilful and effectual teaching will never be the ordinary, far less the uniform practice of schools, till all public teachers be required, previously to their appoint- ment, to go through a regular course of professional discipline, and obtain, upon examination, a certificate of qualification. And to this proposition it is an obvious corollary, that, of all the measures to be thought of in projecting the establishment of one universal system of national education, the foremost, in respect both of time and of importance, is the institution of Seminaries for the training of Schoolmasters. But though the conviction of these truths be now general, so profound and prevailing is the ignorance, both as to what such seminaries ought to be, and as to the means and chances of their being established in Britain, that we make no apology for devoting a few pages to a topic so interesting, and so intimately con- nected with the safety and improvement of our institutions. So much has of late been said and written on the nature and history of Schullehrer Seminarien, as these places of in- struction are called in the parent country of Germany, and the the details have been brought so advantageously before the public by Mrs Austin, in her excellent translation of M. Cou- sin's Report, that we have no intention of recurring to the subject of Prussian schools. It will be at once more novel and more satisfactory, if we confine our attention entirely for the present, to the system of Primary Schools, which the French, borrowing the thing, but not the word, from Germany, have, not very felicitously, denominated Normal. In order to render our details more intelligible, it may be necessary to remind our readers, that, besides elementary schools for children, which have existed for ages in a more or less imperfect state in the towns and villages of France, and in which very important improvements and additions have been effected since 1830,-attempts have been making for some time past to institute other places of education subservient to the great ends of Primary Instruction, where the pupils are not children, but youths of eighteen or twenty years of age, who are looking forward to the business of teaching as their profession for life, and who repair thither for the express pur- SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. 173 pose of acquiring the necessary qualifications. The idea of such institutions was thrown out at an early period of the first revolution, but till the occurrence of the second, it had been but feebly and ineffectually acted upon ; for though it is five-and-twenty years since Napoleon created one, and only one, Normal school which still flourishes in Paris, it has all along been directed solely to the instruction and preparation of professors and teachers of the higher order, and has never had any direct bearing on the education of the people at large. The introduction, therefore, of Primary Normal Schools over France, is comparatively so recent, that it may be re- garded in the light of an experiment still going on ; and, as it is one which our own Government is likely enough ere long to engage in, it may be useful to note what is passing in a neighbouring country, which has made several important steps in advance, in the career we are about to enter upon :--more particularly as we are able, by means of official documents just published, to bring down the account of this experiment almost to the time we write in, and to verify it, in several instances, from personal observation of a date still more recent. The information embodied in these documents, and gleaned from that observation, presents matter of grave consideration on topics not less interesting than Normal schools:—on the pro- gress, for example, of primary instruction in France; on the books read, and methods of teaching employed; and, above all, on a recent publication of M. Cousin, on the present state, in Prussia and France, of that higher kind of instruction which the French express by the term instruction sécondaire, and we of this metropolis call High School education. But these are topics which our limits compel us to postpone for the present. In 1829, the number of Normal schools in France was thirteen , at the close of 1832 it was forty-seven ; in March 1834, sixty-two. Of these sixty-two, fifty-four correspond to the same number of Departments, each department having one; of the remaining eight, each serves for two or more de- partments; so that, out of the eighty-six departments compos- ing the French monarchy, seventy-three have now the certain prospect of drawing their future supply of parochial teachers 174 SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. from a Normal school. Thirteen only are unprovided, and eleven of these were busy in making arrangements for supply- ing the deficiency, when the last returns were made. The sixty-two Normal schools already in activity, are at- tended by 1944 pupil-teachers (élèves maitres), who may be re- garded as the capital out of which vacancies, as they occur in the primary schools, are to be supplied. The entire number of parish schoolmasters in the 73 Departments provided with Nor- mal schools is 26,565, among whom the average annual mortal- ity is ºs, or 1328. A supply of accomplished young teachers, to this amount, can scarcely as yet be expected from the Normal schools, many of which are still in their infancy; but the object of the Government, and they have already secured the means of attaining it, is to adjust, as nicely as possible, the supply of qualified teachers from these institutions to the de- mand created by the death or removal of masters. The sure prospect of an excellent education, and subsequently of employ- ment as schoolmasters, together with exemption from military service, has already begun to make this profession more pop- ular than the clerical; and to attract it to a class of young men who are able, and, for such advantages, willing to pay the whole cost of their maintenance, or the difference at least between that and any little assistance they can obtain in the shape of an exhibition or bursary. The sum required to cover the expenditure, ordinary and extraordinary, of 1834, in carrying into effect the Government plan of Normal schools, is calculated by the Minister of Public Instruction at 1,532,000 francs, or L.60,380;-an amount, we presume, much beyond what will be necessary when the first outlay is over, and the annual charges alone are to be met. Of this sum, raised from various sources, by far the greatest proportion is borne by the Departments. In most cases, they have voluntarily burdened themselves to the full amount re- quired; where negligence or backwardness is shown, the Law arms the Executive with power to enforce payment of their quota from the defaulters. The annual cost of each pupil, including maintenance, education, and every thing else but clothing, is estimated at 400 francs, or L.16, 13s. As one means of meeting this SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. 17.5 charge, Exhibitions or Bursaries are created, one of which, if enjoyed entire, will defray the whole expenses of the holder. But they are generally granted in halves and quarters, the rest of the expense being made up from the pupil's own resources. The Communes, the University, and the Depart- ments, are all expected to found bursaries, which originate also occasionally from the bounty of individual donors and benevolent associations. It is only when all these sources are insufficient, that the State comes in to supply the deficit. M. Guizot states, that of the 1944 pupil teachers now in attendance, 1308 are bursars of the Departments; 118 of the Communes; 245 of the State; and 273 are maintained at their own expense.—(Rapport au Roi, 1834, p. 53.) Every candidate for admission to these institutions, and to the enjoyment of a bourse, or any part of one, must bind him- self to follow the profession of a parish schoolmaster for ten years at least after quitting the institution; and to reimburse it for the whole expense of his maintenance, if he fail to fulfil his decennial engagement. He must have completed his six- teenth year; and, besides the ordinary elementary acquire- ments, must produce evidence both of good previous character, and of general intelligence and aptitude to learn. Most of the bursaries are adjudged upon a comparative trial among com- petitors, who are likely to become every year more numerous: and the examination for admission is so well arranged and conducted, that it tends to raise higher and higher the stan- dard of previous acquirement. The course of instruction and training to which the youth is thus introduced occupies two years of eleven months each, ... e. from the 1st October to the 1st of the ensuing September, and embraces the following objects:— 1st. Moral and religious instruction. The latter, in as far as it is distinct from the former, is given by the clergyman of the particular faith which the pupil happens to profess. 2d. Reading, with the grammar of their own language, generally according to the excellent digest and exercises of Noel and Chapsal. 3d. Arithmetic, including an intimate and practical acquaint- ance with the legal system of weights and measures. This 176 SEMIN ARIES FOR TEACHERS. knowledge is made to hold so prominent apartin the programme of instruction, as affording the best means of introducing that admirable system into the habits of the French people, among whom, from ignorance and prejudice, it is still far from being generally adopted. 4th. Tinear drawing, and construction of diagrams, land- measuring, and other applications of practical geometry. 5th. Elements of physical science, with a special view to the purposes of ordinary life. 6th. Music, taught by the eye as well as the ear. 7th. Gymnastics. 8th. The elements of general geography and history, and the particular geography and history of France. 9th. The pupils are instructed, and, wherever the locality admits, exercised also, in the rearing of esculent vegetables, and in the pruning and grafting of trees. 10th. They are accustomed to the drawing out of the simpler legal forms and civil deeds.” A library for the use of the pupils is fitted up within the premises; and a sum is set apart every year for the purchase of such works as the Council of Public Instruction may judge likely to be useful to the young schoolmasters. The course of study is, for the present, limited to two years, instead of three, which is the term ultimately contemplated as the most desirable. During the second of those years, instruction in the principles of the art of teaching is kept constantly in view; and for the last six months, in particular, the pupils are trained to the practical application of the most approved methods, by being employed as assistants in the different classes of the * A wish was expressed to the Ministry of Public Instruction, by several Prefects of Departments, that the programme of the Normal schools should comprise also a practical course on the best mode of constructing roads and highways, according to the nature of the materials and of the subsoil; and on the dressing of the stones and timber used in the construction and repair of arches and bridges. But the Council of Public Instruction wisely decided, “that it would be improper, in the present state of things, to withdraw the attention of the pupil-teachers, by too great a variety of pursuits, from the principal object they ought to have in view.” They add, however, that “when hereafter the youth shall enter the Normal schools with better and fuller preparation, it will be possible to reconsider a proposal, which might then promise good results.” SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. 177 childrens's schools, which are invariably annexed to the Nor- mal, and form part and parcel of the establishment. The im- mediate control and management of the whole is committed to a director, who is appointed by the Minister of Public In- struction, upon the presentation of the Prefect of the Depart- ment and the Rector of the Academy.* The director, besides general superintendance, is charged with some important branch of the instruction; the rest is devolved on his adjuncts or assistant masters, who reside in the establishment. One of the most important features of the Normal Sys- tem, is the part performed by the Commissions d'instruction primaire, or Commissions d'eacamen, as they are called. They are composed of seven members appointed by the Minister of Public Instruction, upon the recommendation of the Rector of the Academy. Three members at the least must be selected from among those who have already exercised, or are at the time exercising the function of public teachers, and who are most likely to unite ability and integrity. It is recommended that one of the seven be a clergyman. “A minister of reli- gion,” says the Minister, in a circular addressed to each of the twenty-six Rectors, “will doubtless be summoned to act in concert with the three members belonging to the body of Public Instruction in these Commissions d'eacamen. The law has put moral and religious instruction in the foremost rank; the teacher, therefore, must give proof of his being able to communicate to the children intrusted to his care those important ideas which are to be the rule of their lives. Every functionary of public instruction, every father of a family who shall be placed on this commission by your recommen- dation as rector of the academy, will no doubt be fully able to appreciate the moral and religious attainments of the can- didates; but it is, nevertheless, fit and proper that the future teachers of youth should exhibit proof of their capacity in this respect before persons whom their peculiar character and * The whole monarchy of France is called, with reference to educational views and purposes, ‘The University,’ which is divided into twenty-six Aca- demies, each, of course, comprehending several Departments, and presided over, in all that regards public instruction, by a Rector, resident in the chief town, and forming the organ of communication with the central ad- ministration. M 178 SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. special mission more particularly qualify to be judges in this matter.” The most important of all the duties devolved upon these examining commissions, is that of conferring on the pupil, when he quits the institution, a brevet de capacité. Careless- ness, partiality, or ignorance, in the discharge of that duty, would entirely defeat the main object of the Law on Primary Instruction. This brevet, certifying the holder's fitness to be a teacher, either in the lower or higher grade of Primary schools, constitutes his passport to the labours and honours of his pro- fession. With it and his certificate of good conduct in his pocket, he may carry his skill and industry to any market he pleases, without further let or impediment. And this, we may remark, is the true liberté d'enseignment of the Charter, as it is understood and explained by Cousin and Guizot ; not the uncontrolled license contended for by some, which would let loose every shallow and ignorant pretender, to pick up a live- lihood by distorting or extinguishing the faculties of children. One hundred and fifty-six of these Examining Commissions, which is not far short of two for each Department, have been in activity during part of the last and present year. In that space of time they have issued 1891 brevets de capacité, 1655 for the lower degree, and 236 for the higher; and every one of both kinds characterized by the examiners as either très-bien, or bien, or assez-bien 5° and upon these brevets appointments have taken place, within the same period, of 1074 masters to primary schools of the elementary class, and five to those of the superior. We have little doubt, that when the Normal system is matured and its organization complete, the principle of emulation among pupils, subjected to its wholesome and in- vigorating course of discipline, will act so strongly that the number of applications for the inferior degree will be dimin- ished, or that the qualification required for it, which of neces- sity is kept low at the outset, will be raised, The course of instruction and preparation for the office of * See Réglément Sur les Brevets de Capacité, et les Commissions d'Examen, 19 Juillet, 1833; in Guizot's Rapport au Roi, p. 127; or in Code de l'Instruc- tion primaire, p, 127. We regret not having room to give this interesting document entire. f For an explanation of these terms, see the preceding Article. SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. 179 schoolmaster, which we have been endeavouring to explain, differs so widely from anything we have hitherto witnessed in this island, and is so immeasurably superior, that some of our readers may be disposed to think it Utopian, and to look upon it rather as exemplifying a propensity to gasconade and ré- glémens, than as an authentic statement of facts. The suspi- cion, however, we can assure them, is altogether groundless. So wisely have the measures been concerted which M. Cousin recommended in his admirable chapter on the Normal Schools of Prussia, and so temperately and yet promptly have they been carried into execution, that not only have we met, in our own very limited experience, with no proof of over-statement or exaggeration, but several instances occurred where the suc- cess goes beyond the programme. We allude, particularly, to the Ecoles Normales of Versailles and of Rennes. In the primary Normal School of the Academy of Paris, which, in conformity with the general principle already men- tioned, is planted at Versailles, we witnessed, within the last six weeks, above a hundred Élèves maîtres, busily and happily engaged in acquiring a variety of knowledge, interesting in itself to minds of liberal curiosity, and rendered doubly attrac- tive by the bearing it is known to have on their future desti- nation and prospects. In drawing and design, in geography, in knowledge of plants and gardening, and in many little practical details and processes, such as vaccination, which appear likely to add to the influence and usefulness of the village teacher, the course of instruction, as arranged by the intelligent director, M. Lebrun, and conducted under him by eight able and zealous assistants, has gone considerably be- yond the limits of what is strictly enjoined. In this work of supererogation, it is pleasing to recognise the good effects of the following wise provision of the Law : “Selon les besoins et les ressources des localités, l'instruction primaire pourra rece- voir les développements qui seront jugés convenables.” It is inconceivable how much may be done in following the career which this clause opens, when the instructors are fully aware of the powers and energies which slumber in the youthful mind till they are excited and well directed by skilful teach- ing. The pupils are of different ages, from sixteen to thirty. 180 SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. The Director's own experience would lead him to select the two years from eighteen to twenty, as the fittest for profiting by the discipline of the institution. Lectures are delivered from notes, rather in the tone of familiar and conversational intercourse, than in the more distant and formal, but often less impressive, manner of a professor's written discourse. While the discipline is of the strictest kind, the mental occupations are at the same time so varied and interesting, and made to alternate so judiciously with the bodily exercise of gymnastics and gardening, that no time seems to be lost, and no languor to be felt. Even during dinner, one of the pupils reads from an elevated desk some interesting passage, in a tone loud and distinct enough to be audible to all, without preventing an under-current of conversation among those who prefer it. Similar appearances presented themselves at the Ecole Nor- male of Rennes, in which about eighty young men are assem- bked from the four adjoining Departments. One of the pecu- liarities of this establishment is, the appendage of a farm of eight acres, with all the requisite stocking and apparatus. It is ploughed, sown, and reaped by the élèves-maîtres, under the direction of a well-informed and practical manager, who dis- courses to them on the nature of soils and the means of im- proving them, on the best construction of agricultural imple- ments, on the culture of white and green corps, on the man- agement of cattle and beasts of burden, on orchards and vine- yards, and other topics of rural and domestic economy. In the course of the same morning we met one party of the pupils returning from the labours of the field, and found another performing the part of monitors or assistant teachers in a primary school of 300 or 400 children ; and one of their number, a youth of nineteen, supplying most energetically and efficiently the place of the master, who had been absent for some time from indisposition. The conclusion we would draw from the details and illustra- tions we have given is this, That the institution of Seminaries for Teachers is not only an indispensable accompaniment, but a preliminary condition, in any attempt that may be made to introduce a system of National Education. It is in vain to appeal to what has already been done in Eng- SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. 181 land for the training of teachers, as if it superseded the neces- sity of doing more than exerting ourselves to improve and extend it. It differs from the Prussian and French method, not in degree or extent, but in kind and nature. For of what, we ask, does it consist, in the only two places where any such training is attempted,—the central school of the National Society, and that of the British and Foreign 2. In both it is limited to giving attendance during school hours, observ- ing the teaching processes, and, at last, taking some charge in the details of the business. And who are they that are thus trained? Persons differing widely in age and condition of life; not unfrequently such as, having failed in other ob- jects, take to the occupation of teacher as a last resource, and have no previous preparation either of acquirement or habit, or any vocation to the task but the call of necessity. And what is the time allotted to this training? Three, four, or, at the utmost, six months. Three months we have heard pronounced, by a competent and friendly authority, to be amply sufficient to accomplish a novice in all the training which the central National School pretends to give. Three weeks we should think might suffice, if it consist, as we apprehend it will be found to do, in little else but the power of putting children through a set of mechanical evolutions, with the precision and promptitude of military drilling. Walu- able hints and practical directions, we are well aware, are often communicated by the head teachers of these schools, both inter docendum, and in lessons apart, when they are zealous enough to give up their grateful leisure to the task; and it is the farthest thing from our thoughts to depreciate or underrate the good that has been effected over England even by such imperfect training. But to confound these superficial and perfunctory processes with the solid and truly philosophi- cal preparation received under the didactic system we have been describing, would argue gross ignorance of both. The only remaining question, therefore, would seem to be as to the practicability of an experiment which, if successful, would purify popular instruction at the fountain-head, and for ever extinguish all pretext for maintaining, that an increase of crime can be caused by the diffusion of knowledge. 182 SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. This question opens a wider field for discussion than we are at this moment prepared to enter upon ; and we are there- fore content to leave it in the hands of the Education Com- mittee, who must know much better than we can, what ways and means are likely to be made available for so great and so good a purpose. Funds were bequeathed in former times for the endowment of schools; and much of that portion of them which has not been embezzled, or diverted to other purposes than education, is miserably misapplied, in literal accordance with the wills of benevolent but ignorant and narrow-minded testators. If a small part only of these ample funds could be made applicable to the purposes of education generally, by a liberal interpretation of the deeds of gift whose terms are often vaguely expressed, there would, we are persuaded, be no want of pecuniary means for the object proposed. But if this were found impossible, the sum required is not so oppres- sively great as to prevent its being easily raised, if the burden were shared, as in France, by the parish, the county, and the government, with the assistance of private endowment and charity. This will appear manifest, if we consider that there is no necessity for the projected institutions being made dependent upon, or simultaneous with, the establishment of a National System of Education. On the contrary, they ought obviously to be prior in point of time, in order that we may have a stock in hand of the most important and indispensable of all the materials required, and may not expose our National system to the risk of proving abortive, by committing the charge of the new schools to incapable hands. Let us not wait till we can proudly start with a vast and hazardous experiment, the failure of which would replunge England into profounder igno- rance than before; but contenting ourselves with small begin- nings, and advancing, as wisdom directs in all such matters, pedetentim, let us endow, if it were but half-a-dozen Semina- ries for Teachers, planting them over the country in situations where a numerous primary school, already in activity, can be annexed to each of them. If the Committee now sitting were to recommend this, and Parliament to adopt it as a prelimin- ary measure, they would meet with fewer difficulties, and offend SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. 183 fewer prejudices, than they are likely to encounter in any step they can take in a path so obstructed with both ; and the public might rest assured, that in no other manner could so much be done towards paving the way for a full and efficient measure of primary instruction. Ten or twelve intelligent men, knowing something both of the theory and practice of teaching, would suffice to commence with, in this tentative process. They would send forth from half that number of Normal schools a supply of skilful masters, whom they would be employed in training and accomplishing, while churchmen and dissenters were wrangling about catechisms and other preliminaries. In this way a set of accomplished teachers would, in all probability, be ready for their work before the work was ready for them. Even that great rock of offence, upon which so many goodly projects have been dashed to pieces—the ques- tion of religious instruction—would, we think, be less embar- rassing here, than in any general provision for the education of the lower classes. Young men of eighteen—and of that age it is desirable that the bulk of the pupil-teachers should be—have already attached themselves to a particular com- munion; and we cannot for a moment believe, that sensible men of either party would argue for more than the means of confirming them in the great principles of Christian faith and practice, leaving them every facility to follow the particular worship, and receive instruction in the particular doctrines, of the sect they belonged to. Liberty of conscience to that ex- tent seems to be indispensable in such institutions, both upon the general principles of toleration, and in order to secure to parents of different persuasions the means of having an in- structed and acceptable teacher for their children. If we rightly discern the signs of the times, we are fast approaching to a state of public opinion when the school-room will be regarded as neutral ground, on which the youth are to be imbued with the mild precepts and wholesome doctrines of Christianity, unmixed with those topics of schism and exas- peration, which too often alter or impair its benevolent cha- racter in older minds. We cannot quit the subject without putting in a word for 184 SEM.INARIES FOR TEACHERS. our own country, though we are aware that Scotland is not within the scope of the Committee's enquiries; because, if the difficulties in the way of the measure we recommend be found in England more formidable than we anticipate, and fatal to its immediate success, Scotland presents facilities so much greater for trying the experiment, that we can scarcely foresee a chance of failure. Neither the differences in religious belief, nor the violence of sectarian zeal, are so great among us.” Our system of Parochial Schools has long been established over the country and is deeply rooted in the habits of the people; and little is wanting to make it all that the most patriotic Scotsman could desire it to be. Of that little, the most ob- vious and important item is an Institution of the kind that we have been recommending to England; for, though the im- perfections successively entailed upon our Parochial system, in consequence of this capital defect, have been marvellously redeemed by the spirit and intelligence of the people, yet those who know that system best will most readily agree in thinking, that a means of training schoolmasters to their pro- fessional duties is necessary to bring out all its virtues, and to increase the respectability and usefulness of the teachers. We hinted in a former Number at a plan for establishing a Lectureship on Didactics in one or two of our Scottish Uni- versities; and the tone of kindliness in which Ministers, and Members of the House generally, have spoken of popular edu- cation, and testified their desire to see it flourish in every part of the empire, encourages us to return to the subject, and even to extend the recommendation to all the four Universities of Scotland;—being satisfied, that there is no means within our reach that will be found at once so effectual, so little costly, and so practicable, as the institution of four such lectureships. A very moderate endowment would be wanted for three of these, one at Edinburgh, one at Glasgow, and one at Aber- deen; St Andrews may be presumed to have ample powers, and funds too, for such an object, under the settlement and bequest of the late Dr Bell. We are aware, that, even if all this were done, it would accomplish but imperfectly what the * This, however true in 1834, oannot, alas! be affirmed now, (1855). SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. 185 Prussian and French Governments have proposed to them- selves, and have so nearly effected. We could neither expect to have a farm or garden for the use of the students, nor that eleven months' course of training and instruction, nor that daily and watchful superintendance of the pupils, nor that complete insulation from the allurements and contamination of large towns, which form such important parts of the Normal code of Germany and France. Nevertheless, we should con- fidently anticipate incalculable benefits even from what may be stigmatized as a half-measure. A course of lectures on the principles and practice of teaching, continued for four or five months, illustrated by constant reference to the best schools of the place and employing the students as assistants in the teaching, could not fail to diffuse correct notions and improved methods over the country. To secure this result, it would only be necessary to make attendance on one of these courses imperative on every candidate for the situation of a Parochial schoolmaster; and, considering the great number of competi- tors for every vacancy, we see no risk of stinting the supply too much, even as matters now are, and still less, if the salaries of the schoolmasters should be raised. Parliament would do well to imitate the continental governments, by founding along with these lectureships, a certain number of bursaries, and encouraging private individuals and public bodies to do the same; and if the competition for these bursaries were open to all who had the requisite certificates of character and previous acquirement, it is easy to see what a stimulus might be thus applied, by rigid examination and unvarying preference of merit, to the praefervidum ingenium of our young countrymen. It would be advisable to enjoin it upon these professors or lecturers, as a branch of their public duty, to occupy part of their summer vacations in the business of regular and syste- matic Inspection; a process without which no organization of schools, however perfect at first, can be saved from speedily degenerating. Supposing the whole of Scotland to be divided, with reference to Parochial education, into four districts, cor- responding to the four University seats, we might easily secure an efficient inspection of the Parochial schools within a reason- able time. It would be the business of the professors, in 186 SEMINARIES FOR TEACHERS. making their progresses among the schools, not merely to visit, examine, and report on the state of each, but to converse with the schoolmaster on the nature of his duties, to point out wherein they were ill done, and exemplify, in the school-room, a better method of teaching; to hold conferences of school- masters invited from the adjoining parishes and to originate discussions there on school-management; and to deliver, on suitable occasions, discourses on the various topics connected with practical education and scholastic discipline. Thus would the present incumbents, whose circumstances prevented them from attending College, be furnished with the knowledge and the motives requisite for an able discharge of their duties. Such itinerating lecturers, invested with the character of pub- lic functionaries, and enjoined by Government to report annually on what they saw, might be made to serve all the uses of a travelling Commission, at much less expense to the country; while they would exercise, at the same time, a most beneficial influence in exposing abuse, in bringing modest merit into notice, in diffusing information and stirring up a spirit of enquiry about an art, which has been hitherto very generally practised with little or no understanding of its nature or principles; and would thus facilitate, in a variety of ways, the establishment of Seminaries for Teachers on a permanent footing. MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE A SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE STATE OF EDUCATION, (1834.) MINUTES OF EVIDENCE, THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL IN THE CHAIR.” (18TH June 1834.) PROFESSOR PILLANs, CALLED IN; AND EXAMINED. 1. ARE you well acquainted with the system of education pursued in Scotland?—I have paid some attention to it. 2. Have you not had great experience yourself in educa- tion?—I have had now about twenty-four years' experience in teaching, but it was chiefly in the classical department. Half of that time in the High School, and the other half in the University; the subjects in the former being Greek and Latin and Ancient Geography, and in the latter Latin only, and Roman Literature, or what we call Humanity. 3. Has your experience and the attention you have paid to the subject enabled you to state what is the system of educa- tion now pursued in the schools in Scotland?—The system is not very uniform. The Committee are aware that the paro- chial school system of instruction has been established now for a century and a half, in consequence of an Act of the Scottish Parliament. The subjects of that instruction were not prescribed at the time more than in a very general way. The Act of the legislature rather directed the means by * The Committee was composed of the following Members:— Lords—John Russell, Morpeth, Kerry, Sandon, Ashley; Sirs—Robert Peel, James Graham, Richard Vyvyan, Harry Werney, Oswald Mosley, William Molesworth; Messrs—Grote, Poulett Thomson, James Abercromby, Faza- kerly, Vernon Smith, Wm. Ord, Wm. Gladstone, Edward Romilly, Frank- land Lewis, Divett, G. W. Wood, Goulburn, Estcourt, Plumptre, Hawkins, Whitmore, Briscoe, Marshall, Hill, Evans, Sandford, Roebuck, Strutt, Rice, Parker, and Hawes. 190 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE which these schools should be supported, than appointed the manner in which the children should be taught. Hence arose a want of uniformity, and many defects sprang up in the mode of tuition, owing to the circumstance, that no means were at first provided, or have been up to this moment, for the education of Schoolmasters, and that consequently the manner in which each school was taught depended upon the particular charac- ter of the individual master. Nor were the patrons such as to ensure those men being always of high qualification, or even moderately fitted for such a task. 4. By whom are the schoolmasters appointed ?—They are appointed by the heritors (by which term is meant the landed gentry) and the clergy. If an heritor be absent his bailiff or land steward generally votes in his stead, either under his in- structions, or it may be, left very much to local influences. 5. Is not the salary of a schoolmaster fixed by Act of Par- liament?—It is fixed by an Act passed in the year 1803, and under this condition, that the sum for the first 25 years should be as then settled; that at the expiration of the first 25 years, the fiars, as we call it, should be struck, that is, the average taken of the price of corn during that quarter of a century; and that for the next 25 years the sum should be apportioned by that striking of the fiars. This mode of adjusting the salary came into operation for the first time about five or six years ago; and in consequence of the average turning out so high, because it included the dear year of 1812 and the years of high prices before and after, the schoolmasters received a con- siderable increase of salary for the next 25 years, of which five or six are already run: that is to say, the maximum salary, which was £22 and odds, during the first 25 years of that Act, rose upon the new striking of the fiars to somewhat above £34, which is now the maximum and will continue to be so, by the Act, for the remainder of the 25 years. 6. Can you state what is the minimum of the salaries?— The minimum upon the old system was I think about £16, and it is now raised in the same proportion. 7. Have the Schoolmasters other advantages or perquisites in addition to the salary?—Besides the salary they have the fees of the school, and I think a rood of land and a house, and SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 191 there are other advantages which depend upon circumstances. Sometimes the schoolmaster is precentor, but that depends upon his power of voice; sometimes he is session-clerk. Those are the two offices that are occasionally conjoined, and I believe the only two that are conjoinable with the office of schoolmaster. 8. What may be generally the value of the house and rood of land?—It is not much, as will be believed when I mention that the Act of Parliament says that the schoolmaster's habi- tation shall consist of not more than two apartments, or what in Scotland is called a “but” and a “ben.” This has struck many, in reading the Act of 1803, as a technical blunder for not less than two apartments; but the fact is not so. 9. Do you consider that altogether the salary and allowance of the schoolmaster are sufficient or insufficient 2—I think it would be very desirable that the income of the masters were augmented. At the same time there is a limit, in my opinion, to that increase, and for this reason, that as a part of their living is made up by the school-fees, if the salary were in- creased in a very considerable proportion, at least to the men of the present generation, I should dread the effect of it, in making them inefficient: that is to say, if the proportion of the fees to his whole income were but small, and a master felt the business of teaching to be a drudgery, he would not pur- sue it earnestly, but remain content with his increase of salary, his habits having been already formed upon a very moderate scale of living. 10. What is the amount of the fee usually paid at the pa- rish schools?—I should say upon the average, the quarter's fee for the ordinary branches, is somewhere between half-a- crown and three shillings per quarter; half-a-crown may be taken as the most numerous class, that is, 10s. a year; in many places it is lower. 11. From what class of men are the schoolmasters generally chosen 2–It is hardly possible to define them as belonging to any one class. A very large proportion of them are men who, setting out in life with the church in their view, take to teach- ing in the mean time to obtain a livelihood, and losing the hope of being appointed to a church, or perhaps finding it im- 192 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE possible, from want of means, to complete their clerical studies, stop short at a certain point and remain'schoolmasters for life. This is the most numerous and valuable class of our school- masters. Many among the poorer classes are directed to this profession by some natural or accidental incapacity to labour with their hands, and these generally become valuable teach- ers. A considerable proportion of the schoolmasters of Scot- land do contrive to attend the requisite classes and go into holy orders. It has often been made a question whether of he two classes, those who have predetermined to be school- masters for life, or the students who are looking forward to the church or are actually licensed to preach, be the fitter per- sons to be chosen. The patrons of schools, in advertising for a teacher to fill a vacancy, frequently make it a point that he shall not have any views to the church; and I am inclined to think that if we once had the means of accomplishing a school- master for his business, masters of parish schools ought always to be of that description. The only advantage at present in electing a clerical aspirant to the office, is the greater chance of having a person more advanced in age, and more accom- plished in academical studies. 12. It not being the practice to educate men for the pecu- liar duties of schoolmaster, upon what ground is it that it is made a condition that they shall not look to the church 2– That the school may not change masters too frequently, be- cause a young clergyman is seldom there above a couple of years. Nor is it to be expected generally that his heart can be so much in the business of teaching a school when he is looking to ulterior objects in a different profession. It is chiefly, however, to guard against the frequent change of masters, that this condition is imposed. 13. Have any exertions been made in order to procure suf- ficient training to be given to schoolmasters?—I am not aware of any, except the very imperfect means afforded in the Edin- burgh Sessional School, by schoolmasters attending and wit- nessing what is going on. I have myself occasionally delivered lectures upon the art of teaching, and one year in particular, during the Christmas vacation, which generally lasts with us about ten days, delivered a course of twelve or fourteen lec- SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 193 tures to a numerous audience, composed chiefly of schoolmas- ters, and such as were looking forward to that profession. 14. Were you, upon the whole, satisfied with the experi- ment you made 2—I have occasion to know from various communications made to me since that time, that a number of those who heard those lectures were induced to study their profession and to make new and successful experiments, who had previously followed the ordinary routine of school disci- pline; particularly in what I recommended strongly to their attention, the diminution, at least, if not the abolition of cor- poral punishment, and the endeavour to create an interest in the minds of children in the business of school, a feeling which I am afraid has hitherto been but rare in our Scottish schools. 15. Are you acquainted with Mr Wood's school at Edin- burgh 2–Yes; I have visited it repeatedly. 16. Has it been the practice there to give any peculiar in- struction to young men who intend to undertake the duty of schoolmasters, or who have already been in the exercise of that duty ?—I am not aware that it forms any part of the system; I do not think that Mr Wood has any class or any separate hour for the instruction of masters who may come for information, or goes farther than hints that may be sug- gested by him while he is showing the visitors what is done in the school. There is no lecture delivered, and no course of instruction which could be called a means of accomplishing men for the profession of a teacher. It has been and still is, I believe, very much the practice for schoolmasters to visit the Sessional School on the days it is open, but I have heard them complain that they saw the results of the plan of teaching, rather than gained a practical knowledge of the means and processes by which those results are produced. It requires a very particular introduction to be admitted upon any but the days of Saturday and Monday, when the school is open to all. 17. Are you able to state to the Committee the general na- ture of Mr Wood's school, and in what way his manner of teaching differs from that of other schools?—I should say that the point of difference between his and other schools, is one N 194 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE which rather existed formerly than now; because, I believe he has the credit to have first introduced, at least to have per- fected, the method of carrying the understandings of children along with every thing they read, from the very first elements; but that is by no means peculiar to him now. It may be seen in the Borough Road School here as perfectly accomplished as I ever saw it done anywhere else. 18. Is that done by Mr Wood by asking questions of the children with respect to every thing they read, and ascertain- ing that they fully understand the import of what they are learning?—It is so; there are two modes of putting ques- tions; one is, upon the individual words, to define them, not by anything they have learnt by heart, but by the compre- hension they have of the subject; and the other is, to question them upon the facts that are stated in short stories and his- tories that are put into the hands of the children; the first of these modes commences with the very moment they have the command of the letters. In words of one or two syllables he chooses such as have a meaning, and he has dismissed alto- gether the long columns of A-b ab, O-bob, O-c oc, and so on ; selecting words that have a meaning he applies to the child to give any answer which shall show that he has an idea attached to that word; so that while he learns the spelling of it, he has also an idea of the sense. That method, for which I believe the public are indebted to Mr Wood, is now becoming very general in Scotland. Few but the old masters who have been trained on a different system, and whose pre- judices and habits are opposed to it, are now disposed to contest the utility of his method. 19. Are the children enabled to give these answers with respect to the meaning of the words and the facts connected with them, by means of any books to which they have access, or is it chiefly done by monitors who have been previously in- structed, and communicate the instruction to them?—Entirely by monitors; there is no book. I have seen such books, and the answers given according to it, in the Kildare Place Schools, six or eight years ago; and I stated the circumstance as an objection, that they could have no security that the child had an idea of the meaning of the word in his head, when he SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 195 merely repeated what he had found in the dictionary, or the book of explanation. 20. Have you observed any difference in that respect be- tween Mr Wood's school and that of the British and Foreign Society's School in the Borough Road 2–Very little; I find that they have made some slight alterations; for example, they do not begin with the alphabet in the Borough Road School, as I believe Mr Wood does. I conceive it would be an im- provement in both schools to teach the letters, not in the order of the common alphabet, but arranged in classes or brotherhoods, according to the organs of speech with which they are pronounced. 21. In schools where the alphabet is not taught, do they begin with words in the same way as in the Sessional School, or do they learn syllables?—They begin with words, such as, dog, and make the boy explain the term at the same time. 22. Will you state to the Committee whether you have formed any plan, or have any proposition that you think would be useful with respect to the training of schoolmasters for the sole purpose of tuition ?—If I were to speak of the subject generally, independently of the peculiar circumstances of Great Britain, I should say, that the system adopted in Germany, and now adopted also in France, appears to me very nearly that which one would recommend if it were attainable. In France, an institution of that sort which is called Ecole Pri- maire Normale consists of several masters, a director who takes the general superintendance, and under him, masters appropriated to the different branches of knowledge which the law of the country has decided to be most desirable for the élèves-maîtres (that is, candidates for a schoolmaster's situa- tion) to acquire, pushing each branch only to the extent which is considered most profitable to, and attainable by, the po- pulation at large : For instance, in botany, not to attempt so much any scientific classification, or knowledge of exotics, as simply to direct attention to the plants that are the growth and produce of France, to their uses, and to the best mode of cultivation; and so with regard to land-surveying, and vari- ous branches of natural knowledge, always keeping in view 196 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE the object of this training, which is to spread that information among the people. 23. That is, to enable those who are thus taught to convey the information to the population at large 2–Yes. 24. Is it necessary in your opinion, or if not necessary, is it not most useful that those who are in the process of training as schoolmasters should be tried in some large school, with a view of seeing whether they have the capacity of communicat- ing the knowledge they have acquired?—I look upon it as quite indispensable; and accordingly in those schools I speak of, both in Germany and in France, no école normale is esta- blished without at the same time an école primaire, being at- tached to it, that is, a common school for the elementary branches of instruction. It is part of the law that there shall be an ele- mentary school attached to every normal school, and of the two years of normal discipline according to the French law (the German allots three) the last six months are to be devoted almost exclusively to instruction in practical teaching, after being previously instructed in the theory. There is a master whose province it is to deliver lectures and hold conversations upon the art of teaching. I have been present when such lecturers, both in Germany and France, were addressing their instructions on what is there called the Paedagogic art to at- tentive audiences of élèves-maîtres, all of whom were busy taking notes of what was said. 25. Are you aware what is the general age of admission to the normal schools of France and Germany ?—In France as well as in Germany, 16 is the lowest age at which they can be admitted, unless in some cases of extraordinary talents and acquirements. I saw one or two instances of boys under the age of 16; but the directors with whom I conversed, and the masters generally, agree, that 18 is the most desirable age. 26. Are those who are admitted at 16, fitted to become schoolmasters within two years from their admission ?—They are; but I must say that the directors in general regret that it was not made three according to the Prussian model. The intelligent director of the normal school at Versailles, which is considered as one of the best, very strongly expressed that regret to me. At the same time, from what I saw there, I SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 197 should say that in two years very accomplished schoolmasters might be, and are, turned out. He stated that in a competition for a school of considerable value that had happened a few days before I saw him, among a very great number of candi- dates, as soon as they heard that a pupil of his école normale was in the field, the greater part retired, and of those that re- mained, his pupil was facile princeps, and got the situation immediately. 27. Have you formed any opinion yourself, supposing any normal school to be established, what would be the proper limit of age, and what would be the proper time for remaining at the school?—I should say that the most desirable term was three years, but that the thing might be done very well in two with an active superintendance. With respect to the age, I think the French and German regulation of admission at 16 is quite a sound one; it being recollected that certain previous attainments are required there, and that an examination takes place at the entrance into the school as well as on leaving it. 28. What is the nature of that examination ?—To prove that they are already tolerably well acquainted with their own language, that they can read and write and cipher decently well. At the same time, if the reports from the schoolmasters they have been with are strong in their favour, and other cir- cumstances appear to the examiners to require it, they may be admitted even where the person's acquirement is defective; but they are immediately subjected to a very strict teaching on those parts which they have proved themselves deficient before they join the general system of the school. In truth, I may say, that the first year of the two is given almost en- tirely to communicating instruction in those various branches, beginning even with the reading and grammar of their own language, and that the second year is more particularly de- voted to the purpose of enabling them to communicate that knowledge which they have acquired, and to the forming of those moral habits which are necessary, above all, in point of temper, for dealing with children. 29. Are you aware whether in France many in the course of this tuition are rejected as unfit?—There are rejections numerous enough to prove the perfect efficiency of the com- 198 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE mission which examines those candidates. That examination which is necessary in order to entitle a pupil of those schools to what is called a Brevet de capacité is a very serious one, and as far as I have seen cannot be passed without very con- siderable acquirement both as to the quantity of knowledge possessed and the power of communicating it. They have three degrees, number one, two, three, and of those degrees a small proportion obtain the highest. A larger number get number two, and I think I may venture to say there is scarcely any examination upon a large scale in a school of that kind in which some are not remitted at least to their studies. 30. Are you aware whether any religious test is required either in France or Germany, with respect to those who are to become schoolmasters?—I do not think that that is required as to the particular sect to which they belong; an examination will take place upon the religious instruction they have re- ceived, but whether the master shall be Catholic or Protestant, I think they are not interrogated upon that subject, or at least their being either one or the other is no objection to their ob- taining a brevet and an appointment. 31. Are sufficient precautions taken that those who are recommended by a brevet de capacité as schoolmasters should be of a religious and moral character?—Certainly; the great- est precautions are taken upon that subject. 32. In what manner is that done?—By examination; by certificates from the various individuals to whose instructions they have listened, and under whose superintendance they have lived and studied. 33. Are the persons who make those examinations appointed by Government?—They are appointed, or rather their ap- pointment is sanctioned by Government, upon the recommen- dation of the local authorities, confirmed and transmitted by the rector of the academy, upon which local authorities a great part of the Ordinary machinery of education is devolved. The principle of Government seems to be to interfere as seldom as possible; they prefer having the local authorities to make every arrangement consistent with the general principles of the “Loi sur l'instruction primaire.” 34. When you say that they do not require them to belong SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 199 to any particular sect in France or Germany, it is supposed that the schoolmasters of the Protestant faith are sent rather to the schools of Protestants, and the Catholics to Catholic schools?—Certainly; there is a particular provision in the Prussian law for those parts of the monarchy that are Protes- tant, and for those that are Catholic, and with perfect impar- tiality between the two religions. 35. Are you aware what is done in France and in some parts of Prussia, where there are mixed communities of Ca- tholics and Protestants?—My impression is, though I can scarcely speak at this moment from accurate knowledge, that in that case the peculiar doctrines of either form of faith are omitted, and that the parents are recommended, and the mas- ters in conjunction with them, to procure that particular reli- gious instruction from their own pastor. My impression at the same time is, that in such cases the master is enjoined to abstain from inculcating, in the religious part of the instruc- tion, any peculiar doctrines of the one sect or the other, but that that shall be reserved for the minister of the district. 36. Are you aware whether there are any religious obser- vances either general or belonging to any particular creed fol- lowed in the school?—The schools in France are now all taken under the protection and surveillance of the Government. Among these by far the most numerous are the schools of the Brothers of the Christian doctrine, or Frères Ignorantins, as they are also called, which are of very long standing in France under the name of Ecoles des Frères. There is not a town of any size in which there are not more than one of these Ecoles des Frères which are taught, as a matter of duty, and part of the rule and discipline of their order, by Catholic priests. They are now, like all other places of education, under the protection of the Government, which leaves it to them to adopt what part of the new improvements they may think desirable; and some of them have begun to adopt, partially at least, what was hitherto quite foreign to them, the enseignement mutuel. In others again I found that there was a decided prohibition against the masters adopting that method. A good deal seems to depend upon the frère who is the director of that particular district. In general I would say that in the Ecoles des 200 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE Frères, the Catholic religion, as might be expected, is exclu- sively taught. 37. Do you mean that the Roman Catholic doctrines are taught on the week days in those schools?—The Roman Ca- tholic doctrines, as distinguished from the Protestant, are taught daily in the Ecoles des Frères. In the other primary schools, religious instructions are given; but the peculiar doc- trines of the IRoman Catholic faith are not dwelt upon. 38. What support do the schools in France which are ex- clusively under the direction of the frères receive from the Government?—None, I imagine, because they have been so long established that their means are well known and well as- certained, and they are uniformly gratuitous. I presume they either have funds of their own, or receive contributions from benevolent individuals and from the municipality they belong to. 39. In the schools which are supported by the Government, and under the direction of the Government, are Roman Catho- lic children and Protestant children taught there without any infringement of their religious tenets?—Yes, that is my im- pression. I never saw any distinction made. 40. Are you aware of the nature of the religious instruction that is given in those schools?—I have a paper which gives the whole allotment of the time, and the books read in one of the best of them that I saw ; and it is a curious fact that in the elementary schools they have a set of books which, as far as I have looked into them, appear to be good, and these the children are taught in the earliest part of their school dis- cipline: but when they arrive at a certain point in ad- vance, they are put to read the New Testament as the legon de lecture, without note or comment, or explanation, or exa- mination by the master. I asked several of the masters, “Do you ask no questions upon this reading lesson; do you allow the children merely to read and have done with it :” he said, “None; we never think of asking a question on the Bible.” So that the four or five highest divisions in a school of mutual instruction, will read nothing but the Bible, and that without a question being put either as to single words or the general sense and scope of the passage, SELECT COMMITEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 201 41. Are you aware whether there were many children of different sects in that school?—I did not make the enquiry; but it was at Rennes, where the population is almost entirely Catholic. 42. Are you aware what is the system in Germany in that respect?—I should say the arrangements in Germany upon that subject are extremely liberal, and with every anxiety for religious instruction, provide, at the same time, for the cases of different religions with the greatest attention, and with the most perfect impartiality. 43. Are you at all aware, either in France or in Germany, what is done in the case of a different version of the Scriptures between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Scriptures? —No; I cannot say that I have attended to that so far as to speak with certainty upon the subject. 44. Do you consider that it is better that education of that kind in the primary schools should be gratuitous, or that there should be a small payment?—I think it decidedly better that there should be a payment. 45. Upon what ground?—Upon the general ground that people value little what they do not pay for, and also upon the evidence of experience. The gratuitous system was tried in Edinburgh when the Lancasterian school was first established, and it was uniformly found that where the attendance was gratuitous, the proportion of absentees was prodigiously in- creased. At last all those interested in the matter came to the conclusion that payment was indispensable to secure at- tendance, and if any instances occurred, as happened of course not unfrequently, of parents who were unable to advance even the small sum required, 1d. or 2d. per week, the committee of management issued it to the parents in order that the child might come and pay with the rest on the Monday morning. At this moment the master of the original Lancasterian school at Edinburgh, (which is admirably taught, and one of the best examples of popular instruction well conducted that I know anywhere,) is paid entirely by the contributions of the children; he has no other allowance but the 2d. a-week, and he is himself the collector of it. 202 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE 46. What is the amount of that payment?—His school is frequented by above 300 children; he makes a tolerable in- come as compared with others in the same profession; per- haps £100 or £120 a year. 47. In the parochial schools in Scotland do they all pay, or are there some that receive gratuitous education?—They all pay; there are certain schools where legacies have been left, upon condition of teaching a certain number of scholars, and in all the parish schools I believe the clergyman has the power of recommending a certain number of children for gratuitous instruction whose parents are too poor to pay. 48. Will you now state what is the system adopted with respect to the moral and religious character, and other qualifi- cations of the schoolmaster in Scotland, in order to ascertain his fitness for the office?—The means adopted with that view are not by any means perfect; after the appointment by the heritors and the minister, the schoolmaster enters upon his office—they having first taken into consideration the certificates which the candidate or candidates have brought from pro- fessors or teachers under whom they have studied, or from the minister of the parish to which their parents belong, or in which they have been chiefly resident. The certificates of moral and religious character are commonly expressed in very general terms. Upon these certificates, with others which refer to his literary and scientific acquirements, he is inducted into office and begins to teach ; but he cannot properly be considered as a parish schoolmaster, or enjoy his status and some of the privileges attached to it, without being also confirmed by the Presbytery; and when the case comes before them, it is their duty to inquire into all the circumstances, and to ascertain that he is a good moral and religious character. But my impression is, that a consi- derable proportion of the schoolmasters of Scotland do not un- dergo that examination before being inducted into office and entering upon their functions. The present law upon the subject does not, it would seem, make it imperative on the presbytery to take active steps to bring the schoolmaster before them with that view. 49. Does not the minister of the parish take any notice of SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 203 the fact, that the schoolmaster has not been confirmed by the presbytery?—When a question arises, he may, but in general I should say that he does not. 50. Is a schoolmaster bound to teach in the school the Ca- techism or Confession of Faith of the Church of Scotland?— Yes; that is to say, I do not know that he is bound by law, but he is led to do so by the uniform custom and practice; and the clergyman who has the superintendance of the school in his own parish will make a point of it. 51. What course is adopted with respect to children whose parents may be Roman Catholics, or of the Episcopal denomi- nation, or seceders from the Church of Scotland?—I am not aware that any practical difficulty has occurred upon that sub- ject. If a Catholic parent is so attached to his own belief that he will not risk his child in the ordinary parish school, of course he must take his own means to procure instruction for him elsewhere; but I believe the fact is, that a great many Cath- olics do attend those schools, and that the practice has hitherto been to exempt them from the Saturday's examination upon the Catechism. The parents will keep them away that day, and there will be no further inquiry made, and except upon that day there appears to be nothing particularly offensive to the Catholic population of Scotland, at least as far as I know ; I have never lived in any part of Scotland where there is a large proportion of Catholic children; they exist chiefly in the north of Scotland; it is with the south that I am chiefly acquainted. 52. Is the usage uniform to confine the examination upon the Catechism to Saturday ?—It is very general; it is not uniform, because in the schools that are the least advanced, and still more in looking back 30 or 40 years, one often finds that the only books in the school were the Catechism and the Bible; and hence we have in general use a Catechism en- titled, “The A, B, C, with the Shorter Catechism,” the first page being devoted to giving the letters, capital and common, with columns of syllables and other apparatus for alphabetic teaching; and this as preparation for the first reading lesson, which was in the Catechism. This practice is however 204 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE scarcely followed now, except in the remoter parishes where economy in books is a prime object with parents. 53. Is it the uniform practice for parents to send their chil- dren to school 2—Almost universal, wherever they can ; I think the exceptions to the habit are very rare indeed, and can only exist in Scotland among the most depraved part of the population. In the country districts, I should say, there is no such thing; a man would be looked upon as a monster who could keep his child from means of instruction within his reach. 54. Is there any compulsion used for that purpose?—None. 55. Has it not frequently happened that parents have sub- mitted to great privations, in order to enable their children to receive education?—Yes; I believe it is an object which a Scotchman seldom loses sight of, both when he thinks of marrying and settling in life and at every future period—the laying aside of a sum for the education of his children. 56. Do you trace the consequences of that habit among the people of Scotland, in the character of the labouring people of that country?—I think very decidedly, and that we owe the morality of our rural districts in particular almost entirely to that habit handed down from father to son, so that we have scarcely any rural population who are not perfectly aware of the importance of education, and not willing to make sacrifices to secure it to their children. 57. Do you conceive that that opinion, or habit, among the people of Scotland, was established in their minds soon after the Reformation?—I think it was; it is certainly of very long standing. 58. Have you made any observations with respect to France and Prussia in that respect, whether education is very much prized, or whether it is necessary to force and compel parents to send their children to school?—I should say that the law in Prussia, and not in Prussia only, but in Austria and all over Germany, is quite imperative upon that subject, but the necessity for enforcing it is very small; the people in Ger- many are so thoroughly impressed with the idea that their children must go to School, that the regulation which looks so severe and compulsory scarcely requires to be put in execution, SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 205 because the checks upon any man neglecting its provisions are so effectual. No man can even marry in Austria without producing a certificate of having gone through a regular course of elementary instruction; and in aspiring to any official situa- tion, from the highest to the lowest, nothing can be done without producing this certificate, so that in Germany also, as well as in Scotland, it is wrought into the habits of the people; but I should be very far from saying that that is the case in France. On the contrary, the law which insists upon a pri- mary school being immediately erected in every commune in France has not yet taken effect, -and many communes posi- tively refuse to contribute or to form any local establishments at all. They do not seem to be in the least aware of the value of them. Another proof how little value is attached to the thing, is the fact of so many schools being gratuitous; the parents are not sufficiently alive to the value of education to pay for it. 59. In what you have said of Germany do you speak of the Catholic parts of Germany as well as the Protestant?—Yes; in Germany it goes down to the lowest class of both religions. 60. Have you been able to form an opinion whether the habit in Germany is one of old date, or whether it has been created by laws giving advantages to education and showing the benefits to be derived from it?—I should rather say it was of late growth; I think the great law which is now in opera- tion is as late as the year 1819 in Prussia, but I would by no means be understood to say that it then began. This was only an amendment of a former law; the practice of edu- cating the people in the German States is much older than that. 61. Was that a general law throughout Germany in the year 1819?—No ; I spoke of Prussia. 62. Are you able to speak of the date of the law in Austria? —I am not. 63. Are you acquainted with the state of education in the Austrian States, in Italy, in Lombardy ?—Not at all. 64. Are you sufficiently acquainted with the state of edu- cation in the German parts of the dominions of Austria to say, whether the education there given is an efficient and good 206 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE education ?—I am persuaded it is very good; I have looked into many books that are published by authority of the Emperor; I have brought some of them with me which appear to me remarkably good, and directed not to religion only, but of a kind to imbue the children with a love of know- ledge and a habit of observation, such as stories and anecdotes, striking facts in natural history, in physics and the mechanical arts, and descriptions of objects of every day occurrence. Some of the books I speak of are intended for the schools of masters, but it proves that these are subjects that are taught to the children, because they teach nothing in the normal schools which is not meant to be taught to a certain extent to the whole population. 65. Are the primary schools in Austria as generally attend- ed as those in Prussia?—I should say that they are, as far as my information goes; and it may be inferred from the fact I have stated, that no man can enter into any situation of life without giving proof of his having gone through a regular course of instruction and qualifying himself to be a good citizen, and therefore it becomes quite compulsory, even with- out a law to that effect. 66. Did you ever reside for any length of time in any part of Germany?—Not more than a week at a time in any place. 67. You stated, that not considering the peculiar circum- stances of Great Britain, you thought the French and German system nearly approximating to a perfect one; what are the peculiar circumstances of Great Britain, which in your opinion, would prevent the introduction of that system here?—The one that strikes me as most likely to prevent any project of that kind being gone into, is the necessary expense of these normal schools; last year there were already in full operation in France, I think, 54 normal schools, and 16 in progress. The law, in- deed, declares one to be necessary in every department, and the élèves-maîtres are maintained within the walls of the establish- ment, with a considerable number of teachers who are also boarded and lodged; or if they come from an adjoining town, must be paid. The necessary funds for such an establishment, to be effective over the whole country, would, I am afraid, lay the burden where you will, be somewhat difficult to raise. SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 207 68. You stated that they were in the habit, in these normal schools, of conferring a brevet de capacité, and that there are three degrees; can you state the nature of the examination which they are in the habit of making them go through for those degrees 2—The examination is by a commission formed of men quite competent to the task; and it turns upon all the subjects which the pupils have been taught in the course of their education. There are also laid before the commission, records which are kept with great neatness, of every day's attendance; of the progress of each individual in the various branches, and the different marks of merit and demerit. All these are prepared and digested by the master himself; they are laid before the committee, and this committee or commis- sion put them through a very severe examination, and then decide by the majority of votes in which of the classes he is entitled to rank. 69. Is there any beneficial advantage from getting a high degree ?—Very great ; the advantage is that a man who carries the highest, No. 1., is quite sure to be appointed almost without examination; the brevet itself is a complete security. 70. Is he appointed to a peculiarly good situation ?—Yes; a school where the emoluments are superior, which often hap- pens from particular circumstances or endowments, he would be almost sure to gain. 71. Is there a great variety in the nature of the emoluments of the schools?—I presume there is, from facts I have heard upon the subject, though I am not prepared to say what the gradation is, or from whence it arises. I speak chiefly from what the director at Versailles told me, that the situation was a remarkably good one, and that it was the subject of compe- tition on that account. 72. Does this system of conferring degrees, apply exclu- sively to the school at Versailles, or to all the normal schools? —It applies to all the normal schools; they are put under the surveillance of the rector of the academy, who is a person that superintends the whole education of what is called in France an académie, which, the Committee may be aware, means not any institution, but a division of the territory of France, with 208 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE a view to its educational establishment. It comprehends gene- rally three, sometimes four departments, in the chef lieu of which is placed ageneralsuperintendant, whose title is Recateur de l'Académie ; his business is not to teach, though he is gene- rally selected from those who have been public instructors and whose lives have been devoted to science and literature. He remains in the chef lieu, and becomes the organ of com- munication with all inferior masters, and between them and the government. The whole system of education in France, is called the University; and this University, which is co-ex- tensive with France itself, means nothing more than the tout ensemble of all the educational means of the country. France is divided into academies just as it is divided into departments, only the former are much the larger. In every academy there is a rector, whose residence is at the principal town, and gene- rally, unless it be a very large town, the Ecole Normale is situated there also. If it is a large town, they very wisely declare that no Ecole Normale shall exist there. In Paris, e.g. there is none. The Ecole Normale Primaire of Paris, is at Versailles. The principle of this arrangement is, that young men ought to be removed from the chance of contamination in a great city. 73. Did you ever see any computation of the expense of those 54 normal schools?—The expense is given in the report of M. Guizot, of every one of them. 74. Is the account annually laid before the Chamber; the total allotted by the Government for normal and model schools, out of the million and a half voted for education in 1833, was 238,000 francs?—It is; and I believe that the feeling of the Chamber at this moment is such, that the minister, Monsieur Guizot, finds no difficulty in having its sanction for any sum he thinks necessary for perfecting the system of national edu- cation. 75. Has that report been published separately 2—It has ; it is a quarto volume, containing an account of the measures taken to carry the law of 28th June 1833 into execution, up to the date of April 1834. 76. Can Schools of any class be opened without the per- mission of the rector of the academy 2–No. SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 209 77. Is he allowed to prescribe the system on which the school shall be taught?—He can insist that the school shall conform to the general principles laid down in the law itself; the particular details and arrangements are left very much to the discretion of the local authorities, who, with the rector, settle that point, and generally speaking quite amicably. 78. Can no private school be taught without the permission of the rector?—Not for primary instruction. Schools or pen- sions for Greek and Latin and the higher branches are not affected by the law of 28th June 1833. For them an autoris- ation or ordonnance is required; but the subject of the higher kinds of instruction (instruction secondaire) in which there are said to be great abuses, has not yet come before the Chamber during the present reign (Louis Philippe's). 79. In France could any one set up a boarding school?—I think not without an autorisation; I know it to be the opinion of M. Cousin that a brevet de capacité should be required of every man who proposes to establish a pension, as well as in the case of primary schools. 80. Is there any system of controul with regard to tutors in families 2—No ; the Government does not, as far as I know, interfere with domestic education at all. 81. How are the expenses of the normal schools defrayed? —The State requires by the Law that each Department shall have a normal school, the expense to be defrayed by the de- partment out of such funds as it can command, and in parti- cular by imposing a few centimes annually in addition to the general amount of the other contributions to the state. The recommendation of the law is, that all funds which have been appropriated by bequest, or by the benevolence of persons still living, shall be ascertained, and the result transmitted to the rector; and that it shall be supplemented as far as possible by the local contributions, e. g. by the octrol, i. e. tax levied on articles of consumption as they enter a town ; and this in towns is the great source of the means of education. 82. Then what you have alluded to as M. Guizot's esti- mate is for the supplemental expenses?—Yes; because it happens frequently that the return upon the local funds for O 210 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE school purposes is totally inadequate; and in that case the Department is called upon to contribute. 83. Is it competent to the department to decline?—Irather think they have occasionally declined upon the plea of inabi- lity, but the Government is pledged only to furnish the supple- mental sum that may be necessary after it has been proved that there are no further means available in any way. As far as the addition of three centimes upon the amount of the taxes called contributions foncières mobilières et personelles, payment is compulsory; and in various instances it appears in the Report of M. Guizot, that he has been obliged, in his character of Minister of Public Instruction, imposer d'office, 7. e. to compel communes and departments to furnish their quota. 84. Do you happen to know whether any general account has been taken of the funds at the disposal of the Minister of Education which have been left by private individuals?—I should rather think there is no such account; if it has been made up it will appear in the Report I have alluded to. 85. From what you know should you think those funds were large in France?—I have no means of ascertaining that, my own impression is that they are not very considerable. 86. But whether large or not the French Government is going on instructing the people generally?—Going on, I think, very admirably and very rapidly. 87. If there were a country in which those funds were ex- ceedingly large, do you consider it would be much more easy for the Government to carry on the education of the people? —Certainly. 88. Do you not think a great portion of the expense in England might be met, in a great measure, by the application of funds which it is well known have been left by private in- dividuals for the purpose?—There can be very little doubt that if the funds so left were applicable to such a purpose, they would be ample, and we should be able to erect a ma- chinery quite as complete, perhaps more so than in France. 89. Supposing that difficulty got over, do you see any other impediment to the introduction of the German or French sys- tem?—I see difficulties formidable enough at present, but which SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 211 very probably might be overcome in the course of time by prudence and caution. In the first place, supposing the pecuni- ary difficulty to be got over, the next point to settle would be, what subjects are to be taught, what course of instruction is to be followed; and that would raise a question which I am afraid might lead to great embarrassment and dissension. 90. Is the question you allude to, religious instruction ?— It is; and even upon the extent of secular instruction there might be much difference of opinion. I conceive that the great defect in the system which the English Church has patronized hitherto, lies in the extremely limited nature of the information communicated, the object being almost solely to make good members of the Church of England and to inculcate a blind submission to her, instead of imparting, along with religious instruction, that general information and intelligence which alone can make a school ultimately valuable to an individual who is to be in the lower walks of life. So narrow and unattractive is the instruction given in the schools which call themselves, by a misnomer, National, that I think it by no means unlikely that a considerable proportion of the pupils, ten years after quitting them, will be found to have lost the power of reading. So little are their minds imbued with the love of books or of knowledge by the school business, that they have not much temptation in the ordinary circumstances of a life of labour to keep up the acquirement. I conceive that by far the most important point to be considered in a national system of education is the course of instruction that ought to be followed, and that as long as the books perused, and the instructions delivered upon them are of an exclusively religious cast, it is vain to expect that school training will contribute materially to form a moral, religious, and intelligent popu- lation. 91. Then you do not approve of the plan adopted in some of the schools you have been mentioning abroad, where they merely have the Bible read without any sort of examination taking place upon it?—No ; so far from approving, I should think it worthy of all reprobation, inasmuch as it induces the worst of all intellectual habits, that of reading without com- prehending. 212 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE 92. What other books are made use of in those schools?— There are several children's books used in the French primary schools, which on a cursory inspection appeared to me to be good. 93. So that up to that time their minds are imbued with that love of reading which you have spoken of?—I should not say that with regard to the schools I saw upon the system of mutual instruction in France, because they have not, in my opinion, adopted the best practice of that method. They com- pletely separate the initiation of the child in the mere know- ledge of the letters composing the words and the manner of pronouncing them, from the meaning attached to those words, and the explanation of the sense. 94. Have you found that so in Germany?—Not so much, but in neither country is there that training of the intellect of children which we have in this country, and particularly in such schools as Mr Wood's and the Borough Road. 95. Do you prefer the mode of teaching usually adopted in Scotland, to that which you have seen adopted in Prussia?— I should hesitate to do so; because when I praised the system pursued by Mr Wood, I spoke only of the Sessional School over which he presides, which is no part of our parochial system. The method of monitorial instruction has hitherto been intro- duced into very few of our parochial schools. It is gaining ground, but the majority both of parents and masters are opposed to it. 96. On what footing is Mr Wood's school?—They pay I believe 1d. a week; but it is one of a number of schools that were instituted by the Sessions of Edinburgh. Every min- ister of the Church of Scotland has a certain number of the most respectable persons in his congregation who are chosen by him and the congregation jointly to be Elders; and this forms his session; a minister with the Kirk-session has the ecclesiastical authority in each parish. These Sessions in Edinburgh, aware of the vast disproportion of the means of instruction to the wants of the inhabitants, agreed to combine their exertions in order to have, in different districts of Edin- burgh, Sessional Schools for the education of the poor. It is one of these which Mr Wood's exertions have raised into SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 213 well-deserved celebrity. The mode of supporting them is by a small contribution from the children, which does not go a great Way, being but ill paid, and not always exacted; but it is supplemented I believe, by a collection made annually at the church doors, by authority of the magistrates, in all the churches of Edinburgh. This is a comparatively recent institution, and independent of the Scotch system of parochial Schools. * 97. Do you attribute the improvement in Mr Wood's School as much to his mode of teaching as to the individual by whom it is conducted ?—I should say, that in all cases the success of a school depends mainly upon the character of the teacher. No system would work well without a good master; and it is upon that account that I conceive the institution of schools for masters to lie at the very foundation of all improve- ment in national education. 98. You have attributed, in a great measure, to the mode of teaching the lower orders in Scotland, their superior moral character. At what age do children go to school among the agricultural population ?—Generally about six or seven. 99. At what period do they leave?—They leave often at about ten or twelve, as soon as they become useful to their parents. Generally speaking, among the agricultural popula- tion, I should say about eleven or twelve. 100. In that period what does the boy usually acquire?— English reading, writing, cyphering, and probably a little Latin, which, from having had a prominent part assigned to it originally, still prevails in most of the parish schools in Scotland. Latin is taught from a feeling among the people that it is necessary to give their children the character of ‘scholars.’ 101. What is the course of religious instruction?—In many of the parochial schools, the Bible is the school-book for Eng- lish, sometimes the only one besides the Assembly's Catechism. In most of the schools now, there is a spelling-book with a selection of little stories. Then follows a gradation of classes, denominated from the books read in each—the Testament, the Collection, and the Bible Class. 102. Then is the whole system of reading in the Scotch schools religious?—No ; they have a Collection which is made 214 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE up of stories, anecdotes, and passages of a very miscellaneous nature, extracted from approved writers. 103. How long has that been introduced?—The use of Collections is, I believe, almost as old as the institution of parochial schools; but it is only of late, and chiefly in con- sequence of Mr Wood's improvements, that they have been compiled on the principle of being generally intelligible to children. Till then, (and it continues even now in the majo- rity of schools) the bulk of the compilations used were beyond the comprehension of children, and a habit thus became very general of reading without explanation or understanding. 104. Is not the desire for, and the love of reading and in- struction, of very old date in Scotland?—It is. 105. How do you reconcile that with the theory that it is necessary to adopt this new system, in order to give a love of learning?—The system, owing chiefly to the want of a well composed and well arranged series of school-books, was im- perfect, but by no means inefficient. The teachers have al- ways been, generally speaking, shrewd and intelligent per- sons, with considerable acquirement and general knowledge; and these qualities told on the pupils, in spite of the very imperfect routine of school practice. 106. In any of the schools in Prussia or Austria, in addition to the reading and writing, is there any kind of manual indus- try or any labour of any kind?—Not in the schools; there are particular institutions for perfecting young men in parti- cular employments, which go by a special name, what the French call Ecoles des Arts et Metiers; and it is a question whether these should be united under the general superinten- dence of the University, or should belong to the department of Arts et Metiers. They are quite separate at present, ex- cept that the young Schoolmasters of the normal schools are taught to cultivate the ground, as I found them doing on a farm attached to the Ecole Normale at Rennes. 107. Do you think it desirable, as the greater mass of the population are to earn their livelihood by labour, that early habits of labour should be inculcated, in conjunction with teaching reading and writing?—I should think such conjunc- tion an object of the utmost importance. SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 215 108. Should you say that a Scotch lad, who had been edu- cated in one of the parochial schools in Scotland, was likely to lose his reading afterwards, in the same way as you have said with respect to the National Schools in England?—No; I should think that next to impossible: but in many instances I should not trace that effect so much to the influence or asso- ciations of school, as to the general habit of inquiry that characterizes the population. So that a lad having once ac- quired the power of reading, would find so many temptations to read, such a call for the exercise of this talent, that he would be in no danger of losing it. 109. What should you say with respect to the Lancasterian schools; do you think they are equally deficient with the Na- tional Schools?—I should say that the Lancasterian Schools are greatly superior, as far as my observation has gone ; and with regard to those in London, I think there can be no doubt about the superiority, considered in that point of view: there is much more play given to the faculties; there is more spirit in the instruction, and a vastly greater fund of knowledge ac- quired. 110. Do you consider that the instruction at the Borough Road School is quite equal, if not superior, to what is given at Mr Wood's Sessional School at Edinburgh?—I would not say superior; I think it is much of the same description. 111. Do not you think that the inspection of schools is a very important part of the subject?—I think in constructing any system of general education, inspectors would be most important and valuable; I would say indeed an almost indis- pensable part of the machinery. 112. Is there not a gentleman who has lately left a sum of money in Scotland to be devoted to schoolmasters, and whose will has been so interpreted as to enable this system of inspec- tion to be carried on to a certain extent?—A gentleman of the name of Dick left a very large sum, amounting to about L.130,000; it has accumulated from having been contested in Chancery, and has only recently come into operation. The Deed of gift appoints a certain number of Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh, the eight highest upon the list who shall accept the office—to be Trustees; and the terms of the will 216 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE are such as to enable those trustees to divide the annual in- come of this fund, not equally among all the schoolmasters of the three counties to which he bequeathed it, but in propor- tion to their zeal, ability, and success in teaching. To fur- nish the trustees with the means of judging of these, they have appointed an inspector who has already gone his round of the three counties and made his report. 113. Have you got that report?—It is not printed, and is only intended, I believe, for the inspection of the trustees themselves.” 114. If Government were disposed to give a sum of money for the purpose of education, do you think it would be right and proper that the system of inspection should be made a necessary condition of the grant?—I am of opinion that it should; nor would it be altogether a novelty in the British empire. In Ireland, under the management of the Kildare Place Society, and I presume the arrangement is retained in the recent Government plan, the whole of Ireland was divided into eight districts, to each of which one inspector was appointed, who gave his whole time to the inspection of schools and mak- ing his annual report. I accompanied one of them in his visits to several schools, some years ago, and was satisfied that the system worked well. I cannot conceive, indeed, how any extensive system of schools, whether organised by Govern- ment or by societies, can ever be brought to its full efficiency without a regular Inspection. 115. You have stated that you think it absolutely necessary for the establishment of normal schools, that a certain expense should be incurred; but it is also your opinion that with re- spect to other schools they might be made to support them- selves?—I think it possible, after the first expenses of outfit are defrayed. 116. Supposing that by such means you have given a taste for education generally, do you not think it possible that these schools, for the instruction of children, might be made to sup- * Three of these valuable and interesting Reports by the Inspector, Pro- fessor Allan Menzies, have been since printed, (1855.) They are published at intervals of ten years; the last, and perhaps the most important, within this year, (1855), SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 217 port the normal schools also to a certain extent?—I should think not, because it must always be a great object in any system of national instruction, to make the fees as moderate as possible. 117. Do you approve of the Kildare Street selection of ele- mentary books?—I do. I would not say much of the earlier elementary books; they are, I think, too much on the colum- nar plan of unmeaning syllables; but their Dublin Reading Book and Juvenile Library are excellent. 118. You made a remark with respect to the limitation of the subjects of instruction in England, do you apply that re- mark to the British and Foreign School Society, as well as the National School?—I do. 119. You think the course too limited in the Borough Road School?—Yes; but chiefly in this point of view, that the books for reading are too limited. The present teacher (Crossley) does his very best, and he has succeeded to admiration in engraft- ing upon a very limited number of books, a great fund of ge- neral information; but if a master other than he were to sit down with the rules of the establishment before him, and were to limit himself to the regular course of instruction prescribed there, I think it would be very little better than the other. 120. Is it not the fact that the limitation is still greater in the British and Foreign School Society, than in the National School, although the mode of tuition may admit of more com- prehension?—I believe it is so ; that is to say, that in the National School there is a greater variety of religious books. They are both equally exclusive of secular instruction, except what may be introduced indirectly. 121. When you say you approve of the Kildare Street selection of books, do you consider that sufficiently compre- hensive 2—No ; I speak of the reading book, which answers to our school Collection. I think the Dublin reading book is extremely good. Our old Collections in Scotland are the worst that can be imagined; because they consist of extracts from all our best authors, selected as fine specimens of style, and upon subjects generally beyond the comprehen- sion of children, and it is that, in a great measure, which has led to the fact of the children so often reading without 218 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE TRIE understanding. A dissertation on Virtue, or Beauty, or Taste, a speech of Cicero, Demosthenes, or Lord Chatham, a passage from Milton, Shakspeare, or Young, are things beyond the reach of children of eight or ten years old. The Dublin reading book, without pretending to give very choice spe- cimens of composition, presents amusing stories in plain lan- guage, and all of a good moral tendency; and curious facts in natural history. But what I above all refer to in the Irish books, is the library which is generally attached to every one of those schools. There are 64 volumes of little books, cost- ing 6d. each, and embodying much of useful information, adapted to the capacities of children by fit persons employed for the purpose by the society. They are now to be found in many of the General Assembly’s Highland Schools, and in some also of the parochial; and so popular are these volumes with the children, that admission to, or exclusion from, the privilege of having a book from the library almost supersedes the necessity of any other reward or punishment. A record is kept in the Irish schools of the number of applications for the different volumes, and it is curious to observe how those that relate to arts, manufactures, and town trades and occupa- tions are in demand by town-bred boys, while the demand of the rural children is for those that describe the objects, em- ployments, and productions of the country. 122. Are you aware that these books have been used in some of the English national schools?—I believe in some they have been introduced by the local patrons, with whom the central committee do not consider themselves entitled to in- terfere. 123. Is your experience of the two sets of schools confined to the two central schools of the two societies, or has it ex- tended to others?—I have examined them in other quarters, particularly in the north of England. 124. Then your general opinion of education in England is, that it wants secularizing more, and giving general informa- tion ?—Yes. 125. And that a part of each week should be set aside for religious instruction, and all the other instruction should con- sist of general knowledge, all tending to morality and virtue, SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 219 but without presenting it to them in a didactic form 2–Yes; and that upon the principle, that in order to make the popula- tion generally and sincerely religious, care must be taken not to load the young mind too much with instruction of that kind. 126. And that the first thing to make a person good and moral is to employ his mind?—Surely. 127. Is one of these libraries attached to every Irish school? —I rather think it was, to every one of the description before mentioned, and continues, I have no doubt, to be so under the present arrangement 2 128. Do you know what the cost is ?—The 60 volumes, if bought singly, cost only 30s. bound, and in sets for schools an abatement is made. 129. Have you met with any instances in which one of these libraries has been employed by English Schools?—No; but I think it not improbable that they may be. The moni- tors, I think, have the use of them in the Borough Road School. 130. You stated, that there was a disposition among the rural population in Scotland to make great sacrifices for the instruction of their children; do you apply that observation to all classes of the rural population; even those in indigent circumstances?—Certainly. 131. Is there any considerable proportion of the town po- pulation in Scotland in the larger towns whom you suppose to go without education?—I should think not, except perhaps in the very largest. 132. Is the population of the large towns comprehended within the parochial schools?—No ; the misfortune of our country is this, that the parochial system having been esta- blished so long ago, conformably to the wants of the popula- tion of the time, and remaining now precisely as it was then, our population has prodigiously outgrown the means provided by the Parliament of Scotland. It would, therefore, I conceive, be fair, in any educational measure with regard to Scotland, to ask for an additional number of parish schools, to be placed in towns where the population has, still more than in the country, outgrown the appointed means of education; and even in those rural districts where the population has greatly 220 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE augmented. This equitable adjustment of schools to the in- creased wants of the community, and to the intentions of a former Legislature, should be applied both to the towns and densely peopled parts of the country, and to assist the highly meritorious and judicious, but necessarily limited, efforts of the General Assembly in their Highland Schools. 133. Is the greater portion of instruction secular or religi- ous?—I should say the greater portion in our schools is secular. 134. You stated, that the Ecole Normale for Paris is at Versailles; do you consider the Normal School at Versailles the best in France 2—It is excellent; I met with one at Rennes, which is also remarkably good. It may be worth while to mention that there is an Ecole Normale at Paris, not to be confounded with those hitherto spoken of The Ecole Normale of Paris was the work of Napoleon, who was no friend to the education of the masses ; its object is wholly confined to the training of professors and regents for the higher kinds of instruction, and for the upper classes of society. THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL IN THE CHAIR, (20TH JUNE 1834.) PROFESSOR PILLANs, FURTHER EXAMINED. 135. THE object of the Committee is to ascertain the exact situation and extent of Education in England and Wales; can you suggest any means of attaining that end ?–I should think the most likely means for attaining that object would be the institution of a commission, which should not sit in London, but go round the country, take evidence, and ex- amine upon the spot. 136. Do you believe that any means other than this could really convey to any one a distinct knowledge of the existing state of education ?—I should think not. 137. You stated in your last examination that there were various difficulties in the way of introducing a system of edu- SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 221 cation, similar to the Prussian and French system, in England, and among others you mentioned expense; will you state what in your opinion are the other difficulties, besides the mere expense which you consider to be in the way of the in- troduction of such a system?—The first that presents itself to my mind is, the difficulty of settling the point as to the reli- gious instruction of the children. The utmost caution and prudence will obviously be required to avoid bringing into hostile collision the two great parties, the Church and the Dissenters, in any arrangement that may be attempted. The desirable thing would be, if it were possible, to frame such a system as should unite both in cordial co-operation, without compromising the interests of the country or of the youth. 138. Do not you suppose that a sufficient religious educa- tion could be conveyed without the conveyance at the same time of any peculiar religious doctrine 2–I am disposed to think so as regards children; both because it appears to me that the doctrines of our religion, so far as they have a tendency to influence the habits and conduct of the young, may be sepa- rated and kept distinct from the peculiar opinions of any one sect; and because, such opinions embodied in school books I should consider as nearly ineffectual for any good purpose, turning, as they generally do, upon points which are altogether beyond the comprehension of the young mind. And therefore it is that I think it most of all desirable to have a system of religious instruction for schools, founded upon the Scriptures but, directed only to those parts of the sacred volume which have a moral tendency, and which are likely to influence the conduct, cherish the best affections, and regulate the behaviour of the yonng. I am fortified in that opinion by the example of the German States, where the school instruction is founded on this principle, as well as of France, where the law on that head is very nearly a transcript of the German. 139. Has it ever suggested itself to you in the matter of teaching religion, that teaching theology is one thing, and in- culcating religious habits is another?—Yes; I think that is very obvious, though certainly not sufficiently attended to in practice. 140. In the creation of religious habits, do not all sects of 222 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE Christians agree, as far as you have had an opportunity of considering the subject of teaching?—I think so. 141. Supposing that we wanted to teach theology to pupils, the teaching of theology would be like the teaching of any other science?—It certainly requires a matured understanding to deal with subjects so deep and difficult, nor can it be a very profitable employment for the mind of a child to be turned to points of doctrine upon which, from its very mature, it cannot be informed. 142. So that in fact the business of a teacher of the people, considering the matter of national education, would be to form religious habits, and those might be formed in a national school which did not impose any dogmata upon the minds of the pupil?—I should say so, certainly ; at the same time I wish it to be understood that by dogmata I mean the peculiar tenets of any particular sect. The leading and distinctive doctrines of Christianity ought not to be omitted. It is these only, I conceive, that are within the province of the school- master, his vocation being more of a literary than of an ecclesiastical character. 143. Assuming that there is a general coincidence in all Christian sects, those truths might be taught in a national school without trenching upon any religious differences that might exist between them?—I think they might. 144. And therefore, if there were a spirit of forbearance among the Christian sects at this time existing in England, there would in reality be no objection on this score to the in- stitution of a national education ?—Not the least, I should think. There is in the present day, as far as I have observed, less of excitement and mutual hostility between the different sects in Germany and France than in England; and accord- ingly, in the ministerial and official instructions sent out to the prefect of the Circle or Department, as well as to the teachers themselves, they are strongly enjoined to encourage “mixed' schools, where the children may practically learn the principle of toleration and mutual forbearance, and where that cannot be done, the authorities are invited to take every means to provide such religious instruction apart, as shall be thought necessary, or even to form separate schools. The last, how- SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 223 ever, they consider as a resource not to be resorted to unless all means of uniting the two persuasions shall be found una- vailing. 145. Do you not suppose that the teaching of various sects in one school under that system of catholic faith, if it may be so called, would very much tend to promote general kindli- ness amongst the whole population ?—I think so desirable an object most likely to be attained by such a joint and mixed system. Judging both from reason and experience, I should say it is a result that could scarcely fail to take place. 146. Do you not think a true Christian feeling would be created by such a system of national education ?—I do. 147. Do you consider that in any way the interests of reli- gion would be injured by such a system 2–On the contrary, it appears to me that the amount of religious feeling and true Christianity would be increased very considerably by such an arrangement, inasmuch as we are taught to believe, and none can help believing who are familiar with the New Tes- tament, that brotherly love is one of the first of Christian virtues. 148. So that, in fact, the difficulty to which you have allud- ed could no longer exist if persons of the different sects would only learn to forbear?—Certainly. 149. Is there any other difficulty that would be likely to prevent the introduction of the system adopted in France or Germany?—None occurs to me at the moment: I have been accustomed to think that the Poor Laws, as they have long been administered, would present obstacles to a system of na- tional education, and that they would require to be abolished or put upon a better footing as a sort of preliminary step; but as that nuisance is likely soon to be abated, I do not at this moment foresee any other very formidable impediment in the way, besides those already mentioned. 150. Have you read the present Poor Law Bill?—I know little of it, except what I have gleaned from the newspapers. 151. Do you know that in fact it is provided that the Com- mission shall have power over the education of paupers?— That of course will very much facilitate the other object. 152. Do not you suppose that that would do away with the 224 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE difficulties to which you have alluded, in some measure ?—I should think so. 153. Recurring to the state of education in France, of which you gave an account in your last examination, what generally is included within the circle of knowledge which is supposed to be imparted to the people by the primary instruction?—The subjects are enumerated in the law itself. Moral and religious training, comprehending instruction in the duties man owes to his Maker, to himself, to his fellow-creatures, and to the state; reading, with the elements of the French language and gram- mar; writing, cyphering, and knowledge of the legal weights and measures; these form the minimum of instruction required in every primary school, even the lowest. But every encou- ragement is held out to add to these indispensable branches, the elements of geography and civil history, and particularly the geography and history of their own country; singing; ele- ments of physical knowledge, of natural history, and of geo- metry as applied to design and land-surveying; and most of these I have actually seen taught, even in the few primary schools which I visited. In Prussia, where they have had more time for the extension and development of the primary education, these additional branches are more generally and fully taught. In both countries, the course of instruction is still more complete for the élèves-maîtres in the normal schools. 154. In the French schools was there any teaching of their political rights and duties?—I am not aware that there was, more than in the simple and general way implied under the first of the heads above enumerated; I feel pretty confidentin saying, that there is no test of a political or factious kind ap- plied either to master or scholar, that there is no instruction which could be said to tend to any political purpose beyond inculcating, generally, submission to the laws and authorities of the state, and fulfilling the rule of Scripture, “Fear God, and honour the King.” In the detailed account which is given by M. Guizot of the examinations that take place once or twice every year of the pupil-teachers of the normal schools, when they are candidates for brevets de capacité, there is not the slightest allusion to any particular political tenets. The points on which the candidates are to be examined being particularly SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 225 ruled, any individual or commission who should exact more, or travel out of the record, would be acting contrary to law. The examinations turn solely on the courses of instruction which they have gone through. 155. What is the nature of the instruction in singing?— It is founded on a knowledge of the musical notes, and is taught by the eye as well as the ear. In general, it is music of a sacred or serious character which they are taught to chaunt; the lessons are given, in towns at least, by a separate master, two or three times a-week: no value is attached to mere imi- tative vocal music, caught up by the ear only. 156. Is there any teaching of the duties which the law im- poses upon them, or the rights which the law confers upon them?—I should think there was, judging from the titles of some of the books taught, one of which, if I remember right, is Principes de l’Economie Publique. 157. In the teaching of political economy, have you ever seen, in the French schools, any attempt to teach, what may be termed a correct theory of wages?—It has not come under my observation. 158. Is it not possible to suppose that that title takes rather a more general range than political economy properly so called? —I have not seen the book alluded to, but I think it likely to comprehend a statement of the rights of our common nature, and the privileges and duties of man as a member of society, but quite generally. 159. Do not you think the great portion of those duties which arise out of the mere existence of society, might be well inculcated in any scheme of national education ?—I think it would be highly desirable, if done temperately and discreetly. Otherwise it might increase the difficulties and prejudices in the way of a national system of education. 160. Will you explain how you think such teaching would raise up the obstacles you mention?–In recurring to abstract principles in politics, or discussing the ‘rights of man' in a school-room, there might be danger, I conceive, of awakening odious reflections, and arraying against you alarms and fears of revolutionary movements. 161. Do not you think, however, that by careful manage- P 226 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE ment, a great portion of very important instruction, which is absolutely necessary for a labourer to know in his condition, without reference to peculiar creeds, might and ought to be imparted in any system of general education?—That I have no hesitation in assenting to : if you confined it to the great truths of political economy or economics which all the world are agreed upon, it would certainly be most desirable to make that a part of the public instruction; nor should I anticipate objections to that from any quarter worth listening to. 162. Do you not apprehend that it might be absolutely re- quisite either to have books written, or to put books into the hands of the children, which are not now included within the range of those which constitute the school-books of any socie- ties now existing?—It is vain, I conceive, to think of sketch- ing out or adopting any system of national instruction, without regarding the compilation of books for the use of the schools as an object of first-rate importance. 163. In fact, to secure a due teaching of the population upon those points which they ought to be instructed in of their relative social duties, would it not be requisite to have a whole library written?—A well-considered and well-arranged series of school-books would be necessary. 164. And do you consider that sort of teaching as not at all beyond the mark which should be tried to be attained to by any persons who should consider the subject of national education ?—I think it lies in the very threshold of the sub- ject. Both in Prussia and in France, that is a point particu- larly attended to. In the last Report of the French Minister of Public Instruction, he announces that already four manuals upon this principle have been published, and that others are In progress. - 165. Do you happen to know by whom these manuals are written ?– I do not. 166. You do not know whether they are by the great men of France 3–I should think it not unlikely. Perhaps the rec- tors of the academies, who are highly educated men, and many of them known as distinguished writers, would be employed for that purpose. 167. Is it a fact in France, that a philosopher of the highest SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 227 eminence would not deem himself degraded by writing ele- mentary works for the people?—Quite the contrary, I should suppose. 168. Is any reward offered for the production of any other better manuals or elementary books?—That I am not aware of; but as it is an object proposed by the law, and for which funds are provided by the Chambers, there will be found in M. Guizot's Rapport au Roi just printed, an account of the sums that have been applied to that purpose out of the budget of this year, in which the sum total applicable to primary edu- cation is 1,500,000 francs, - L.60,000. 169. That is the aggregate sum voted by the Chambers for the expenses of education ?—Yes. 170. That sum applies only to schools, not to colleges 2– Only to primary education. The subject of the higher educa- tion (‘instruction secondaire’) has not yet been taken up by the Chambers. It should be remarked, however, that this is very far from being the whole sum expended by the public in the education of the people. It is, in point of fact, only a fundin aid of the communal and departmental allocations by which the great bulk of the expenditure is furnished, either in the way of voluntary contribution or assessment. 171. That sum is a grant given in aid of the contributions of the communes and the contributions of the departments?— Yes. 172. Passing from the subjects of instruction to the charac- ter and station of the schoolmasters in France, is it of a higher description than either in England or in Scotland; are the persons held in better estimation ?—It must be recollected that in France the system is quite in its infancy, and that the normal schools as yet have furnished a comparatively small number of teachers; but I have no hesitation in saying, that the system of instruction pursued in the normal schools there, is eminently fitted to produce a set of schoolmasters who can hardly fail not only to confer incalculable benefit on the country, but to command universal respect. 173. Is it not your opinion that any system of education must greatly depend upon the knowledge and ability of the 228 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE schoolmasters?—Certainly, to an amount that almost involves the whole question of efficiency. 174. Do not you believe that ability will, in a great mea- sure, be advanced and improved by the Government under- taking the instruction of schoolmasters, as in France 2—Yes, that is very decidedly my opinion. I do not well perceive how it could be otherwise done in a country like this. 175. So that, in fact, making them public functionaries, as it were, you would exalt their condition, and give them a power of influencing the education of the people, which at present they have not ?—Certainly. 176. And a beneficial power?—Beneficial in the highest degree; and it would add considerably to that effect if the same regulations were made here as in France with respect to the mode of collecting the contributions or quarter-pence of the children, for it is by these, added to the fixed salary of 200 francs at the least, that the income of the teacher is made up. These payments are levied by the collector of the taxes, and handed over to the master, who himself has nothing to do with the collection, and thus a frequent cause of ill blood between the schoolmaster and the parents, and of pecuniary loss to the former, is avoided, and the people are habituated to look up to the teacher as a public functionary, as much as the clergy- man or any other servant of the state. The proportion of children in the primary schools who pay this contribution to the master, and those who receive gratuitous instruction, is stated by M. Guizot to be, payers, 1,277,664; gratis, 377,164. Judging from the schools I visited and the limited inquiries I made, I should have thought the proportion of gratis scholars to be larger. The Ecoles des Frères are, I believe, all gratuitous. 177. With whom does it rest to determine whether the child is to be paid for or not?—It is determined by the local committees who live in the commune, and know the circum- stances of the parent. 178. Is there any distinction made in the school as to the scale of education of the payers and non-payers?—None whatever. 179. Is the attendance at the school compulsory?—No; the French have not yet arrived at that point; they look for- SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 229 ward to it I believe as desirable, but at present it is one of the few points in which the French system differs from the Prus- sian; even the Prussian compulsory clause does not apply to the recently annexed territory, to the states on the Rhine, for example, 180. Do you think it is an advantageous mode to make the salary of the schoolmaster in any measure dependent upon the number of scholars he may have 2—I think it a wise provision, and it exists in Scotland as well as in Germany and France, that the emoluments of the schoolmaster, should consist of a fixed salary paid by the authorities and raised from the land or other sources, and of the quarter-pence of the children, be- cause it stimulates a teacher's exertions when he knows his income is dependent upon the number of his scholars. 181. Does it not tend to produce the existence of an in- ferior race of masters where the population happens to be thin 2 —No doubt it does; but in contemplating a system of national education which the Government should undertake to orga- nize, I should hold it to be one of the indispensable conditions that no master should have leave to teach at all without a certi- ficate of fitness, a brevet de capacité, as the French call it. 182. Although by that means you would reduce the unfit- ness as it were to a minimum in those districts in which there was a very thin population, does not this difficulty still exist, that where there was a thin population you would have infe- rior masters?—Inferior they might be. but not positively bad, and even the best might take these situations in the hope of rising to better; and at all events, if the emoluments were very small, some provision might be made that the salary should be increased in those thinly peopled districts. 183. Following that difficulty out into the higher branches of education, do not you suppose that would prevent the follow- ing out of knowledge that was not popular; for example, sup- pose that in any community there was a necessary portion of knowledge that was not popular, would not that prevent any class of professors from following out that sort of knowledge, because it did not happen to fall in with the feelings of the inhabitants?—No doubt that would be the tendency, but I should hope to see it counteracted on the one hand by a well 230 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE defined law, which should give uniformity to the plan of in- struction and unity to the national character, and on the other by a system of regular inspection, without which any general system of education would, I conceive, be lame and imperfect. If the law were definite as to what the master was to teach, and the master were quite sure that the inspector would visit and examine his school in all the branches within the year, there would be tolerably good security that nothing material should be omitted in the instruction. 184. In a country like England, in which there is such a vast portion of the population in the condition of paupers, do you see any objection to what is ordinarily termed by the offensive appellation of compulsory education?—I do not; I have considered that subject in consequence of being aware that the term is a little offensive to English ears, and that the Prussian drill, as it is called, would scarcely go down in this country; at the same time, upon the abstract principle I en- tertain no doubt whatever, that the Government of a country has as good a right to prevent crime as to punish it, and is as loudly called upon to take precautions as to enact penalties; it is acting a kinder and more paternal part, as well as a wiser one, in the former character than in the latter. 185. And you consider that as a means of prevention education stands pre-eminent 2—So much so, that I conceive a well digested system of national education skilfully carried into execution, would in the course of a generation or two almost extirpate crime. 186. Do you suppose that there would be any great infringe- ment of liberty in compelling such portion of the population to be educated as their parents neglect to educate at all?—Cer- tainly not. 187. For example, supposing a drunken or careless parent let his children run about the streets of London, you do no think it would be an infringement of the proper liberty of the subject, that his children should be compelled to be educated? —I think it would be no infringement, but on the contrary an exercise of an undoubted right on the part of the public. 188. A wholesome exercise of a power which they possess? —Certainly. SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 231 189. Can you conceive any injury that will result to any portion of the population from such an exercise of power?— None whatever, but the greatest good. 190. In Scotland is there any provision made for the edu- cation of the children of the poorer classes in dancing and music? —None whatever. 191. Is there not in Prussia?—For singing, universally. I conceive that regulation to be one which it is most desirable to transfer into any system of national education that may be thought of for this country. I am disposed to estimate very highly the humanizing and improving influence of music, as a part of popular instruction. It should be taught, however, not by mere vocal imitation, but on scientific principles, and not confined to hymns and sacred songs, but extended to airs as- sociated with simple rural ideas and with kindred and country. 192. In fact, you consider that the teaching of the popula- tion upon such a plan would go far to render them more gen- tle and kind in their general habits?—I have no doubt of that; with regard to dancing, I should not say so much ; it is not a part of either the Prussian or the French system, so far as I know, and may be fairly left to chance and opportu- nity. I should greatly prefer to see gymnastics made a part of general education. 193. Although it is no part of the parochial system in Scot- land, is it not very much the habit of the people to send their children to dancing schools?—I believe it is, but that is only where a dancing master happens to be. 194. But the subject of singing, you think of vital impor- tance?—Yes, I think it ought not to be omitted. 195. Would not your principle extend to the teaching them to take a pleasure in the arts generally ; for example, painting and design?—I think it would be desirable if the means ex- isted of doing so. It is a portion of the Prussian system to teach their children to sketch and draw or design, without going the length of painting in colours. 196. Would not that give the population a source of pure and unalloyed pleasure, from looking out upon nature gene- rally?—I think it has that tendency very much ; above all if 232 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE it were coupled with training children from the very outset of life to the use of their senses in observing attentively and discriminating the different properties of the objects around them ; a habit which cannot be too early nor too earnestly encouraged, but which has hitherto been shamefully neglected. 197. Have you paid much attention to infant schools?—I have seen and have thought a little on the subject. The result is, an intimate conviction that there is no instrument of national improvement more powerful, none more likely, if well directed, to have a beneficial influence upon the habits of the population, than establishments of that sort. Salles d'Asyle, as infant schools are called by the French, though not men- tioned in the law on primary instruction, are strongly recom- mended in the circulars of the minister to the prefects of the departments, and the other local authorities. In the year 1833, there were already ten in operation in Paris, and they are spreading among the provincial towns. 198. Have you ever observed, or has it ever been remarked to you, that children who have been at infant schools are either more or less apt to learn, when they are afterwards sent to schools with children of a more mature age?—I have no doubt whatever that children so trained will be more docile, and more likely to profit by a well conducted school. Where it is found to be otherwise, the fault must be either in the one school or the other. My own impression is, that it is the great- est possible advantage for a child, upon entering school, to have gone through the preparation of an infant school, provided always that that school be conducted upon a right principle, which is far from being always the case. 199. Have you ever heard it observed, that the children who have been at an infant school are apt to consider that in- struction should be merely made a matter of amusement, and are for that reason more difficult to be brought under the dis- cipline of severer instruction ?—I never heard the observation made before, and cannot believe it to be founded in fact; such a result, where it does occur, I should take to be an infalli- ble proof that the school the children were transferred to was ill-conducted or on a bad system. The tendency of an infant SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 233 school is to render a child submissive and obedient, and not disposed to resist any of the authorities that are over him. 200. Compared with the best infant schools in England, should you say that those you saw in France were equal 2– That which I visited at Paris, which is attached to a numerous enseignement mutuel school known as Cochin's, is as well conducted as any I have seen in Britain ; it is under sen- sible management, and appeared to me to have hit the true object of an infant school, which the teachers are not always apt to do, nor the parents to understand. I consider that the great aim of an infant school should be, to begin the for- mation of good moral habits and kind affections; and that the amount of knowledge or school learning conveyed ought to be considered as quite subordinate, and only applied as means to arrive at the other end. Attention to moral training, cleanli- ness, and health, and to creating in them a habit of correctly observing external objects and learning their properties, is all that is required in that early age. 201. Upon what footing are the infant schools in France with respect to payment; are they wholly gratuitous 2—I am not prepared to answer that question generally ; I think the one I speak of in Paris is so. 202. Does the Report give an enumeration of the number of them existing in France?—I do not think it does. 203. Are there any infant schools in Germany ?—I believe there are, but I am not prepared to state any thing worth hearing on the subject. 204. Is any portion of the government grant applied to that object in France?—I have no doubt that the Minister is prepared to do so, but I am not aware that it has been done yet. 205. You were understood to say in your former examina- tion that you thought the system of the British and Foreign School Society was defective, inasmuch as it does not teach a sufficient variety of knowledge to the children; are you of opinion, that it would be useful in schools in towns, that the attention of the children should be turned to instruction in mechanics and subjects of that kind, and that in the country information should be given them and questions asked them 234 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE with respect to natural history and agriculture?—I certainly think those are most important objects both as an intellectual exercise, and as a preparation for the trade or handicraft in which the boy is to labour. The Committee are aware that when I formerly said the British and Foreign Society's Schools were deficient in the extent of knowledge they communicated, I referred chiefly to the list of their school books. The amount of information conveyed, in their principal school at least, is very greatindeed, in spite of the limited range of their reading apparatus. 206. Are you of opinion that instruction should be in some degree varied by the situation of the school and the nature of the occupations in which the parents are engaged, so that the attention of the children might be turned to subjects in which they would take an interest, and which might afterwards be of use to them?—I think that an important principle to be laid down in any system of national instruction, leaving it to the local authorities to say how that should be modified in particular instances. 207. Did you ever see the school of Monsieur Fellenberg in Switzerland 2—I saw it a considerable time ago; but in so very cursory a way and so imperfectly, that I am not prepar- ed to give any opinion upon it. 208. Are you at all acquainted with the views of Monsieur Fellenberg with respect to agricultural schools, and the effect of some of those agricultural Schools in Switzerland?—I have a general idea of the objects that he proposes to himself, and I have no doubt that such institutions as his might be very safely and profitably imitated. I may mention more fully, in answer to that question, what I think I alluded to it on the former day, that there is attached to the école normale of Rennes a farm of some extent, if I recollectright about eight acres,-which is worked by the élèves maîtres under the super- intendence of a person well acquainted with the management of ground, and who was kind enough to furnish me with an account of the objects to which he directs the attention of his pupils. The view of the Government in making the grant for this is, that the schoolmaster shall be acquainted theo- retically and practically with agriculture, so as to fit him SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 235 for spreading the best method over the country. In others again, as at Versailles, there is a garden in which the pupils have tasks assigned to them, and the professor goes round with them explaining the nature of the plant and every thing that respects its culture, training, properties, and uses. [The Witness delivered in the following Accounts which were read :] No. I. ECOLE NORMALE PRIMAIRE DE RENNES. TABLEAU DES COURS. Nombre MATIÈRES DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT. "† oBsERvATIoNs, Semaine. º#º et composition fran. 2e année 3 Grammaire française - - 1e id. 5 Arithmétique et Géométrie - 2e id. 5 - Ce Cours est terminé Arithmétique - l-4 - 1e id. 6 | par l'exposition de quel- • • •-l-# ie - ſ 2e -id. 4 | ques principes de phy- Cosmographie et Géographie le id. 2 | sique et de mécanique. Arpentage ºs# º #- $ # # } —Les Leçons d'arpentage $ » : :: se donnent sur le terrein Pédagogie et Méthodes d'en-ſ 2e id. # | dans la belle saison. seignement - ，-4 -\ 1e , id. 3 Instruction religieuse - - 1e et 2eid. 2 º E s Histoire et notions de Droit - •s 2\ |— Les Cours d'histoire, de droit, d'agriculture, et d'histoire naturelle sont suivis particulièrement par les Elèves de 2e année. Agriculture théorique et pratique •e 2 | |— Les Elèves prennent part à toutes les opéra- tions agricoles un peu importantes quiont lieu à Elémens d'histoire naturelle - •; 1 ) | la ferme annexée, No.II. $ id. 2 Lecture perfectionnée - - # † 5 Ecriture •º º •s» # # # Dessin lineaire - ºs - ſ2e id. 2 1e id. 3 |—Tousles Elèves de 2ean- # · ſ 2e id. 2 | née sont exercés journel- Musique vocale º 1e id. 2 | lement à l'enseignement Rennes, le 1er Juin 1834. pratique dans les Ecoles primaires municipales. Le Directeur, J, Callier. 236 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE No. II. ECOLE D'AGRICULTURE annexee a l'école normale primaire de Rennes. PLAN DU COURS D'AGRICULTURE. Etude de la nature des Terres. Amélioration de la nature physique du sol, au moyen des amendemens. au moyen des engrais mixtes. au moyen des engrais végétaux. au moyen des engrais végétaux et animaux. au moyen des engrais animaux. Amélioration des Terres Instrumens. Assolemens. des Céréales. des Plantes sarclées. Culture - - des Plantes à Cônes. des Prairies artificielles. des Prairies naturelles. Bétail, Attelage. Laiterie. Animaux nuisibles et utiles. Pépinières, arbres à fruit, vignes, jardinage. Economie Rurale et Domestique. 209. Are you of opinion that instruction of that kind, judi- ciously given, would be of advantage as well to the health as to the mental improvement and education of the children?— Certainly. 210. You stated in one of your former answers, that you thought it quite essential in a system of national education, that every master who could not pass a certain examination and obtain a brevet de capacité should be prohibited from teach- ing; do not you think that a good deal might be accomplish- ed even without an absolute prohibition of uncertified teachers, by the simple establishment of authorized schools, and pro- ducing a good set of masters so as to supply the wants of the country?—Perhaps that may be a more advisable plan under present circumstances. 211. But you deem it essential to the perfection of the sys- tem that no teachers should be allowed to teach without a brévet de capacité 3—I certainly think so. SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 237 212. Would not you apprehend that if any law or rule were introduced at once, making a brevet de capacité necessary, that any religious sect, say the Wesleyan Methodists for instance, who have a school conducted to their satisfaction, upon their own principles, would be exceedingly jealous if any interference presumed to tell them that their schoolmaster was not sufficient, and that he could not be allowed to teach that school?—I should think that likely enough to happen, and even if such a clause were introduced, it could only be made prospective; it could hardly be applied to masters already in practice. 213. You stated that you thought a good system of inspec- torship was one of the most important points; what system of inspectorship have they in France 2—In every Academie there is a rector who resides in the chef lieu of that department, and under him there are two or even three inspectors who are men of good education and active habits. It is their business to make the round of those departments that are comprehended in the Academy, and to visit the schools and make reports of their condition, which reports are classified and transmitted to the rector who forwards them to the Minister of Public In- struction, with any remarks upon them that may occur to himself. 214. How often do the inspectors make their circuit?—At least once a year; I think about the beginning of summer is one of their periods. 215. It is then considered an essential portion of the estab- lishment of one of those Academies to have two or three in- spectors?—Quite indispensable. 216. Do you know what salary is paid to the inspector ?— I think it is 3,000 francs, the rector himself having 4,000. The situation is an honourable and respected one, rather from the character of the holders than the amount of the yearly salary. 217. Do they go under instructions, or is it left to their own judgment what inquiries they shall make 2–If I re- collect right, a circular of instruction is put into their hands, pointing out the particular line of inquiry, which they must pursue. 238 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE TIIE 218. Have you a copy of those instructions or the letter? —They are in the Rapport au Roi, 219. Do they make a report of the state of each school which they visit 2—Yes. 220. Are those reports published?—I am not sure whether the reports themselves be published, or only the general results. 221. Is any man allowed to teach in Austria without a licence 2—I believe not. 222. Do not you think the system of giving licence is rather liable to lead to intellectual tyranny, and to perpetuate whatever happens to be the dominant opinion of the day?—I think it is quite possible to abuse it to that purpose, but as the examinations of the candidates are all public, and required by law to be publicly announced a fortnight before they take place, and are held only in the chef lieu of the department, it appears to me that the object of the French Government has been to secure the public against such an abuse; because, in the first place, the subjects upon which the students are to be examined are distinctly propounded and promulgated ; in the next place, these examinations are conducted by a commission of seven, whose required qualifications are pointed out, so as to secure able men; and in the third place, they are open to the public at large. I am not prepared to say what the arrange- ments in that respect are in Austria; but in France, the security against abuse seems good. 223. In France is a schoolmaster receiving his brevet de capacité required ever to take any political test of any sort, or to make any profession of his political opinions?—No ; there is no evidence of that upon any of the records or letters or acts of the Government, or any ‘ordonnance du Roi' that I have read, or in any thing I have myself witnessed. 224. Would you think it indispensable in any national education to have some central administration or board respon- sible for the working of the system 2–I should think it indis- pensable; I do not see how it would be possible to accomplish the object without such a board, or a minister of public instruc- tion at the head of such a board, as is the case in both those countries. The Conseil Royal which is the ultimate court of appeal in all matters relating to education sits in Paris, and SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 239 consists of the Minister of Public Instruction, and six or seven others, always the most distinguished men for their talents and literary or scientific acquirements. 225. Is the Minister of Public Instruction now considered to be a part of the Government of the day ?—He is ; I have heard very sensible men in France regret that it was not a fixed office. They looked forward with dismay to any change of Government which should compel the present Minister of Public Instruction (Guizot) to quit his office. 226. Is not it combined with the ‘ministère des cultes?'— There was a time when they were united, but they are now separated. 227. Are you aware whether in Prussia it is a political or a fixed appointment 2—I am not aware. In France, the Minister of Public Instruction is a member of the cabinet. 228. In a national and united system of education applying itself to all sects, do you think that any other plan could be adopted than that which is adopted with a view to religious instruction, namely the reading of the Scriptures?—I do not think the religious instruction is confined to the reading of the Scriptures in either country. There are little manuals of Christian doctrine, and such books as that which I now hold in my hand, called “La Morale en Action,” which is of a moral and religious character. I have not looked through it so as to be able to say that there may not be an inclination towards the peculiar doctrines of Catholicism; but a slight inspection of it is sufficient to show that the object of the book, which is full of stories and anecdotes, ancient and modern, is to influence the moral conduct of the child by every motive, and among the rest religious motives and sanctions. 229. Does it contain stories out of the Scriptures as well as others?—No ; but of a moral and religious description. 230. When a man gets his brevet de capacité, is it asked him what religion he is of 2—I do not think it is a necessary part of the examination; but I presume that it is generally done. It is necessary it should be known ; because whether there be separate schools for Catholics and Protestants, or one mixed, the local patrons will maturally select a master equally qualified, who is of the way of thinking of the majority. 240 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE There are at present in France, since the publication of the law, and in consequence of it, thirty-two purely Protestant schools, a great number also of purely Catholic, and I presume a great number of mixed. 231. Are there any Jewish?—Yes, there are already four ; there is a particular clause authorizing them, if they are numerous in the district, to have a separate school if they wish it. 232. When you said thirty-two purely Protestant schools, you mean ‘6eoles primaires' 2–Yes. 233. Do you know, in those schools of mixed creeds, in what manner they are able to make religion a part of the edu- cation without introducing doctrinal points?—I should think by the reading of a summary of Christian doctrine, in which the points are common to both religions; and as the public feeling is not highly excited upon these subjects, I have not heard that it has led to any practical difficulty. 234. You do not think there would be in point of fact any real difficulty?—There certainly is not, because a very large proportion are mixed, and the Minister, in his letters to the different authorities, urges strongly that they should be mixed. 235. Are you acquainted with the way in which those schools go on in the south of France at Nîmes, and other places where the unfriendly feeling between Protestants and Catholics seems to be much excited ; has any dispute arisen in the schools?—I have not been in that quarter of France, and have not the means of knowing. 236. Have you seen the schools of mixed religions on the Rhine, and under the Prussian Government?—I have not; but the whole of the Prussian law of 1819 is worth reading, were it only on account of the perfect toleration and impartia- lity shown. The different sects are invited to state their claims, and to have the matter of the school arranged entirely accord- ing to the views of the parents and local authorities. 237. Have you any practical experience of the working of the Prussian law with regard to schools of mixed religions?— I was not called upon by anything I saw to attend to that ; it seems to work quite well. 238. Have you been in districts where children of different SELECT COMMITTEE on EDUCATION, (1834.) 241 religions do attend the schools?—Yes; in a very numerous school at Paris, Catholics and Protestants could not but be mixed, there being no sort of exclusion. 239. But your attention was never practically called to the circumstance?—No. 240. You were understood to say, that in your opinion, you could hope to implant true christian feeling, without insisting on any dogmata?—Yes. 241. By dogmata, do you understand doctrines?—I under- stand the peculiar doctrines of particular sects, as distinguished from the leading doctrines of our Christian faith. 242. Do you know whether in the parishes of France, the curé of the parish has any sort of authority over the school?— He is by law entitled to be one of the ‘conseil municipal,” and there is even a clause in the law recommending strongly that he should be upon it. 243. And in the same way where there is a Protestant minister, is he also 2–Yes. 244. Is any portion of the national funds devoted to the Jewish school 2—I have no reason to doubt that masters of such schools would receive the usual appointments. 245. Could you suggest any means of encouraging or stimu- lating the production of better elementary books and manuals, than what exist at present?—I do not think it would be a very difficult matter; there are many individuals in the country extremely well qualified for such a task. It is so important an object that the Government should take it in hand, look out for the best qualified, and pay them for their trouble; I know that the Kildare Place Society did so, and certainly with very great success. A series of books of that kind is un- dertaken by the newly instituted Education Commission in Ireland, some eight or ten of which are already published, beginning from the very elements, and these have received the approbation of the five members of the Commission, of whom two are Catholic, two of the Church of England, and one Presbyterian. 246. When you were in France did you hear that there was much opposition given to the Government system by what may be called the High Church party in France, the Jesuit Q 242 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE THE party?—No, I did not hear of any opposition; I have no doubt that they feel averse to it, but I never heard of any de- monstration of it, further than perhaps that of redoubling their own activity. 247. Did you ever hear that in the parish of a good old Carlist, such a school being introduced would meet with op- position ?—I have no doubt it would. 248. What do you consider should be the minimum salary for the parochial schoolmasters?—If I were to go upon what I stated last day as the salary of the Scotch schoolmasters, I should think, making allowance for England being somewhat more expensive, from L.30 to L.40 for a village schoolmaster would be a fair allowance, with the addition of the fees, and a house and bit of ground: that is the present arrangement in Scotland, the maximum salary being now L.34 and some shillings, besides the house and ground, and the fees. 249. So that the situation of the person would be worth al- together about L. 100 a year?—The average is considerably below L.100 a year, taking into consideration those that have the minimum salary. Many have not an income of more than L30 a year taken altogether. 250. Are there not masters of schools, even in some of the large towns in England, whose income is not so much as L.100 a year?—I should think so. I may mention, in illustration of the lowness of some of the Scotch schoolmasters' emoluments, what I met with in one of those parishes which, being of great extent with a scattered population, have had their parish school divided into three, in terms of the Act of 1803. In one of these, Milton-in-Urr, I found a highly respectable parish schoolmaster, whose whole income from the school he taught did not average more than L.15 a year, and who, to eke it out, was obliged to labour in the harvest-field during the time of his vacation. 251. Do you know what is the expense of the education of each schoolmaster in France per annum ?—I think the expense of each of the élèves mattres, as they are called, every thing included, is 400 francs, which is about L.16. 252. Do you happen to know the number of the élèves maitres in the ‘6coles normales' in France?—There are now educating SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834.) 243 in the normal schools of France 1,542 of what are called in- termes, that is, those who live and are fed in the house, and 402 eacternes, that is, those who come from the adjoining district and take advantage of such means of education, mak- ing in all the entire number of masters qualifying for the office of village teachers 1,944, of which M. Guizot states (and it is a curious fact with reference to the mode of raising the funds) that 1,308 have bursaries from the departments; that is, the departments give to a youth, if he is of remark- able promise, a bourse which is sufficient for his maintenance. More frequently the bourse is divided in halves, and even quarters, to assist a greater number, and the rest made up from other quarters. 253. You said that the expense of educating a master was about 400 francs a year, is that for the ‘internes' or the “ex- ternes?'—The internes alone are included in that, because the externes pay their own expenses. 254. With reference to the monitorial system, is it your opinion that that system is good or bad?—My opinion is that it is by much the best, and that in a system of national in- struction it ought to be recommended at least, very strongly. 255. Have you never heard an objection made to the moni- torial instruction, that children are in the habit of repeating by rote, and that in point of fact they do not understand thoroughly the ideas which are thus inculcated by words which they repeat like parrots?—It is liable to such abuse as well the ordinary mode of teaching, but certainly the nature or tendency of the system is quite the reverse. 256. Have you found, in point of fact, with respect to those children who have been educated in that way, that that educa- tion has not had the effect of confining their minds 2—No; where the system is skilfully administered, it has on the con- trary an extraordinary effect in giving interest to everything that is taught, and fostering a spirit of inquiry and research. If this is proved, as it could easily be, in particular instances, the argument from unsuccessful practice establishes nothing but the incapacity of the teacher. 257. Has not there been a considerable number of small itinerant libraries established in Scotland?—Yes, there has. 244 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE TIME 258. Is it within your knowledge to describe the effects of those itinerant libraries 2—I have no details or particular in- formation to give upon that subject, farther than having heard in conversation, that they were much valued in the districts where they are established, and universally considered as doing a great deal of good; but they are by no means very general. It requires a man of some enterprize, zeal, and acti- vity, to originate a thing of that kind, and some time must be allowed for a practice requiring such combination of means to diffuse itself. 259. Have they any connexion with the system of paro- chial instruction?—None at all. 260. Have you been acquainted with any school supported by voluntary contribution, which has fallen to pieces for want of support?—I have not been acquainted with such schools, but I have it upon the authority of those who have witnessed it, that there have been examples of that kind. 261. Do not you think that such cases are likely to occur, so long as the instruction of the public is left entirely in pri- vate hands?—It can hardly fail to take place, because the impulse which education receives in particular localities from the zeal and benevolence of individuals dies away with them, and then the school falls to pieces; and not only so, but schools of old standing which gave way to, or were incorpo- rated into these temporary ones, are involved in their ruin. 262. Can you give any instances?—I am not prepared at this moment to quote instances, but there is, I believe, no doubt of the fact. 263. What is your opinion upon the subject of corporal punishment in schools?–In the first operation of any system of national education, I certainly should not be disposed to go the length of prohibiting by law the infliction of corporal punishment; but there ought at least to be a very strong re- commendation to schoolmasters and teachers to use it as rarely as possible, and only for offences against morality. Nothing, in my opinion, justifies even this limited use of it but the pre- sent imperfect state of education. When a good system of national education has once been established, and for some time in full operation, under well-trained teachers, corporal SELECT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, (1834). 245 punishment would insensibly disappear, even without an ex- press law against it. Even now a master who habitually uses corporal punishment proves himself ipso facto to be inexpert and incapable; for seeing it has been dispensed with, and without injury to the discipline, in schools of various kinds and of great numbers, the fact is established, that it is practi- cable to do without it, and it is a fair inference that where it continues to be practised, it is the fault of the masters and not of the children. 264. There are some excellent schools in Edinburgh: is corporal punishment ever used in these schools; in Mr Wood's for example?—It is not, I believe, entirely superseded in the sessional school, owing probably to the character of the popu- lation from which the children are taken. But I may men- tion the instance of the Rector's class in the High School of Edinburgh, where perfect discipline was maintained for years among 230 boys of an age not supposed to be the most trac- table, without once appealing to the rod. In country schools the same thing has been done since, and one good instance of a numerous parish school being conducted without the lash, I hold to be decisive as to the possibility of dispensing with it generally. But that cannot be expected till we have institu- tions for training schoolmasters to the knowledge and practice of their profession. 265. Is there any part of your examination that you wish to correct?—Yes; I was asked whether I could cite instances of schools founded by Societies or benevolent individuals being broken up and discontinued, and I stated that I was unable to mention any. That inability is now removed. An example will be found of the breaking up of a National Society School at Stroud, in Kent, which, after absorbing all the dames' schools in the neighbourhood, has ceased altogether for three years; in the case also of a British and Foreign School at Downham, in Norfolk, and in that of a school in Warwick- shire, supported by a benevolent lady; all tending to prove the precarious and capricious nature of schools supported from any voluntary source. A 246 POSTSCRIPT TO EVIDENCE. [In the Questions and Answers of the preceding Examina- tion will be found foreshadowings, as it were, of many im– provements that have been since effected. A Grant of Public Money for educational purposes, which appears not to have been thought of before 1833, was about this time timidly proposed and carried in the House by a narrow majority; and the sum was only £20,000. The grant has since been made annual, and increased from year to year, till now it falls little short of £300,000. Seminaries for Teachers (Normal Schools) have been established. The propriety of adopting the Monitorial Method has been acknowledged by the organization of pupil- teachers. INSPECTORs of SCHOOLS have been appointed over the whole kingdom. The creation of a Minister of Public Instruction,--which was recommended in both the articles from the Edinburgh Review inserted above, has been spoken of approvingly more than once in the House of Commons. Measures are in progress for the improvement of our Parochial Schools.” This is the bright side of the picture. The darker side is eloquently, feelingly, and fearlessly presented in the latter of the two speeches referred to below ; and the facts brought to light in Horace Mann's Official Report of the Educational Census of 1851, and in an able article on that Report in the Edinburgh Review for October 1855, exhibit a melancholy and appalling statement of what remains to be done for the moral and intellectual training of the lower orders of Great Britain, before we can be said, in any sense of the word, to be an edu- cated people. From these documents it appears to be proved, that “more than one half of the population of England and Wales cannot write their own names /?” * Farther details of this progressive movement will be found in a Speech of Lord John Russell, in giving notice of an Education Bill in April 1853, and that of Sir John Packington on a similar occasion in March 1855.] P A R T SEC O N D : C O N T A IN IN G. DISCUSSIONS IN REFERENCE TO EDUCATION FOR THE FE W. THREE L E CTU RES ON THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF CLASSICAL TRAINING IN THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH, DELIVERED IN THE HUMANITY CLASS-ROOM, NOW. 1835. LECT U R E FIRST. DELIVERED MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2. 1835. ON THE EDUCATION REQUIRED FOR THE MANY, CONTRASTED WITH THE TRAINING REQUIRED FOR THE FEW. THE idea of giving school education to the entire people of a country, is altogether of modern, and, comparatively indeed, of very recent origin. In times when the majority of the population were slaves, and belonged as transferable property to masters or dealers, such a notion could scarcely have pre- sented itself even to the Utopian visions of the most romantic philanthropist. In all that Cicero, Quintilian, and Plutarch have written about the training of youth, they contemplate, as the subjects of it, none but the children of free parents in easy and even affluent circumstances. And though domestic slavery disappeared in the new order of things which arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, yet the bulk of the people were still regarded as little better than beasts of burden, whose con- dition might then be considered as having reached the highest point of attainable happiness, when their bellies were well filled, and their backs not overloaded. There was, no doubt, an im- plied recognition of the moral and intellectual nature of all men, in the professions and ceremonies of religious belief; but these were directed, in their practical application, rather to in- culcate a blind, unchallenging submission to the authorities in Church and State, than to enlighten the minds and increase the knowledge of the people. Even so late as the close of the last century, Voltaire, the great champion of innovation, declares it to be necessary that there should be ignorant poor 252 THE RIGHT TRAINING FOR THE in society. “It is not,” says he, “the labourer or operative that is a fit subject for education, but the comfortable burgher, —the easy citizen. Those who live by the labour of their hands, have no time to cultivate their minds; it is enough for them to follow the lead of their betters.” More recently, it has been the policy of free governments to permit, and even encourage, the diffusion of knowledge ; but, for the States of Germany was reserved the glory of establishing it as a first principle of political morality, that every Government is bound to take care that the whole body of the people shall be educated. According to this article of their political creed, the supreme power of a state, by the act of assuming authority and control, comes under a sacred obli- gation to provide the means of having all the subjects of its rule trained to good moral habits, and to as large a measure of useful and entertaining knowledge, as the condition which every one is born to will allow him to acquire. This truly noble and generous principle flows naturally from the Christian injunction, of doing unto others as we would that they should do unto us. It is in truth the politi- cal expression of that divine maxim ; and it requires no gift of prophecy to foretell, that in proportion as civilization and Christianity advance hand in hand, it will influence more and more extensively the policy of nations. To Prussia, perhaps, belongs the honour of having carried the principle most effect- ively into practice. It has been her good fortune, at least, to have that part of her policy most fully explained and widely promulgated over Europe; for it has been proved beyond the possibility of doubt or contradiction, that out of a population of twelve millions, to speak in round numbers, two millions, constituting the sum-total of children of an age to frequent school, (which is reckoned from 7 to 14,) were actually in at- tendance in 1831; in other words, that one in six of the whole population was at school. This proportion of school-going population places Prussia far above the educational condition of our own much boasted country of Scotland, where it seldom exceeds, and very often falls short of, a tithe of the whole population; and in which it is still to be lamented, that a large amount of the inhabi- M.A. NY AND FOR THE FEW, 253 tants of the Highlands receive no regular education at all. The contrast between Prussia and England is still more hu- miliating to the latter. It is singular enough that, while the two other integral parts of the British Empire enjoy the bene- fits of a legislative provision for the instruction of the people, England, which would seem to have the prior claim, should still be without one. No attempt has ever been seriously made in that country to unite all the children of the poor in one common education; and hence it is, that in spite of the unexampled exertions of private benevolence among our south- ern neighbours, the great mass of the lower ranks south of the Trent are still among the least and worst educated populations in Europe. The admirable results of the Prussian system have been ob- tained by a long course of prudent and pains-taking legisla- tion, founded upon the great principle, that Government is responsible for the right education of the people; and this prin- ciple the Prussian lawgiver has followed out to its legitimate consequence, by making it incumbent on parents either to send their children to school, or to give security that means are taken to educate them elsewhere. It is the fashion in this country, to reprobate this “compul- sory system,”—“this odious Prussian drill;” and to denounce it as a vexatious interference with parental rights, character- istic of a military despotism, and intolerable to the spirit of a freeborn Briton. But it is surely a mistake to confound the Prussian regulation with the long-exploded practice of passing sumptuary laws, and imposing restraints on the free and harm- less exercise either of the physical, the moral, or the intellec- tual powers. No man of common sense contends, either in Prussia or elsewhere, that Government should interfere directly with the character or conduct of adults, as long as they refrain from trespassing on the rights and privileges of their fellow- creatures. A good government is contented, as far as regards the individual, with guaranteeing to him the best description of civil liberty, security from wrong. The life and conver- sation of every person arrived at the years of discretion, are matters that rest between God and his own conscience. But in like manner as the Lord Chancellor, who is the head of the 254 THE RIGHT TRAINING FOR THE law, has his wards in Chancery, and has been known to rescue the child from the custody of a wicked parent; so the law itself, and the Government that administers it, may reasonably claim the right to come so far in locum parentis as to save the child, before it is yet a free agent, from being utterly aban- doned to vicious habits. In return for the protection which the State affords the parent in the enjoyment of his individual liberty, it is entitled, as guardian of the public interests, to secure itself against such abuse of that liberty as is likely to endanger the life and property of others, who are equally under the safeguard of the laws. As long as the child is a dependent and irresponsible being, the public has an interest, a sort of property in him, as well as the parents. A man may plead his civil right to have a nest of vipers in his house, or to rear a brood of young tigers; but the police is at least entitled to take precautions that he shall not let them loose upon the neighbourhood. On the same principle that a man is com- pelled to muzzle a ferocious dog, it seems but fair to insist upon precautions being taken that his children shall not become a public nuisance. I would not be supposed, however, to affirm, that, in a country like Great Britain, it is advisable or practicable for Government to proceed in an absolute and summary way, in enforcing all at once this natural right of security and self- defence,—or, to speak more properly, in taking upon itself the discharge of this great duty : but one may be permitted to doubt the propriety, as well as the humanity, of arming the law with the tremendous power of punishing crimes, to the extent of banishment, imprisonment, and even death, while the more god-like prerogative of preventing crime, by taking away the temptation to commit it, is withheld. The truth is, that all the pictures which have been drawn of Prussian children torn from the arms of their reluctant pa- rents, and marched to school by beat of drum, are purely ima- ginary. The compulsory provision exists no doubt on the Prussian statute-book, but the law operates indirectly, by making it imperative to produce certificates of school education, not merely at the threshold of the liberal professions, but before being apprenticed to the meanest employment or craft of the MANY AND FOR THE FEW. 255 labourer or artizan. And the regulation being in itself agree- able to reason, the practice it enjoins has grown into a habit among the people of Prussia. So cordially indeed do they enter into the spirit of the law, that they go even beyond the strict letter of its injunctions. For example, the law says, that every child shall be at school from and after the age of Seven years complete; but it has become a common practice to anticipate this period, and to send children as early as five, and even earlier, since the introduction of infant schools. France has already profited by the example of Prussia. A few years ago, with a forgetfulness of former injuries worthy of all praise and imitation, she sent, to the country which had but recently been her deadliest enemy, a peaceful mission re- questing to be instructed in the art of educating her youth. And if anything can enhance the glory of this conquest over herself, it is the earnestness, the perseverance, and the truly philosophical spirit with which, under the guidance of her en- lightened Minister of Public Instruction,” France is now re- ducing to practice the lessons she then received. In our own island, there is a movement in the public mind on the subject of popular education, which bids fair to leadere long to a similar, perhaps even to a still happier, result. The question of a National Education for the English people, is one that must now rise in importance every succeeding year. Parliament, when it bestowed the elective franchise on so large a portion of the people, came virtually under a pledge to make them more and more worthy of the new privilege, by improv- ing their moral and intellectual condition. The obstacles in the way to a final settlement of the great question, how the whole body of the English people shall be comprehended in one general system of sound and wholesome instruction, are no doubt formidable, and will unavoidably postpone it for many a day; but it can scarcely be deemed extravagant to expect, that, out of the free institutions of this country, under the influence of that unquenchable energy, practical wisdom, and indomitable spirit of enterprise, which have kept Great Britain so long at the head of European civilization and improvement, there will at last emerge, sanctioned and * M. Guizot. 256 THE RIGHT TRAINING FOR THE MANY partially endowed by the State, a system of instruction for the people of England, superior alike to the Prussian and to the French. In witnessing and examining on the spot, as I have done, the practical working of both these systems, it is impossible not to admire the spirit that animates the two governments, and the arrangement of all the administrative part of public instruction ; but there are defects and imperfections in the actual practice of teaching in Prussia and France, which we may hope to see avoided in any system of National Education that shall be established under the sanction of a British legis- lature. To give an example or two. All over Germany a prejudice is entertained, almost as universal as I hold it to be groundless, against any modification of the monitorial method of teaching. The nearest approach to it is, the employing of those who are pupils in the Seminaries for Teachers, to act the part of under masters in the primary schools, which are usually attached to those establishments; but there prevails, not among the people only, but among the educated and enlightened men of that country, a rooted aversion to the employment of one pupil to teach another. Hence the multiplication of masters is their idea of a perfect school. The larger the proportion of masters to the number of scholars, the better the system is con- ceived to be ; and hence a rate of expenditure for the purposes of education, far beyond what can ever be looked for in Great Britain. Nor is the pecuniary objection the only one; for if this were a fit occasion, it would not be difficult to prove, that there is a quickening and improving energy in the monitorial method when it is skilfully applied, which no amount of mas- ters nor increase of expenditure can adequately supply; that it brings into play principles, left dormant under the teach- ing even of good masters, which act most beneficially both on the monitor and his section of pupils, in promoting their progress and preparing them for the business of life; and that if this beneficial tendency has been but rarely exemplified, it is only another proof among many, how little advance can be made in the improvement of education, without the means of training masters to the knowledge and exercise of their pro- fession. AND FOR THE FEW. 257 In France the same prejudice against monitorial teaching does not prevail as in Germany, and great exertions have been made, with the countenance and aid of the government, to encourage and extend it. But, though there can be no doubt that the use of monitors has infused a spirit of alertness and activity into the French écoles primaires, which one feels the want of in the volks-schulen of Germany, yet the monitorial method is far from having attained in France its full develop- ment and efficiency. This is owing, in a great measure, to the notion which has gained ground even among schoolmasters over that country, that boys can be trusted with the teaching of nothing beyond the mechanical processes of reading, spell- ing, and cyphering. Of this opinion we have long had many. practical refutations in Schools established among ourselves, where much intellectual and even moral training is accomplish- ed by means of monitors; and such schools, we may confi- dently anticipate, will serve as models in the preparation of any great legislative measure for the education of the English people. Another and less curable imperfection of popular education in France, is the necessity, as it is thought to be, of inculca- ting upon children at school, in the religious part of early in- struction, all the peculiar tenets of the Roman Catholic faith in their most unmitigated form, -tenets which they can scarcely be expected to hold when they grow up to manhood, or, to say the least, which a vast majority of living adults have long since discarded from their creed. And thus society in France is placed in the false and alarming position, that the youth, of the present generation at least, are taught to believe and reverence what their parents treat with scorn and derision. In Britain, on the contrary, we have the inesti- mable advantage of imbuing our children with a system of re- ligious belief, which not only comes purer from the fountains of truth, but which is, with exceptions and shades of diffe- rence not worth taking into this account, in accordance with the convictions as well as the professions of the whole popula- tion. 258 THE RIGHT TRAINING FOR THE MANY BUT while the public mind in Great Britain is awakening to the important and difficult question, what is, and what ought to be, the education of the working classes, and while results are preparing, which after much altercation and considerable delay will be collected at last, we venture to hope, into a wise and practicable measure;—the question, ‘What is, and what ought to be, the youthful training of the higher and wealthier orders of society 2 has not escaped the spirit of inquiry that is abroad. It is to the consideration of this point that I mean to confine myself, in the observations I have to offer in this and the two following Lectures. It would be difficult to form too high an estimate of the public interests involved in the questions which such an in- quiry opens up. For, though the number of persons subjected to this higher species of discipline be comparatively limited, yet in that small part of the whole mass of the population are contained the surest hopes of the nation,-the true aristocracy of every civilized community. It is the fund upon which the country must draw for its legislators, its divines, its public teachers, its physicians, its gentry, its nobility. They consti- tute that least numerous but most influential class of persons, who impress their character on the age they live in, of whom what is called good Society is composed, and on whom the community at large depends both for embellishment and for impulse. It is manifest, that if there be any thing materially amiss in the system of education in which the youth of this class are reared, the evil consequences will not be at all in the propor- tion of the respective numbers. For unless the root of the evil, if evil should be found to exist, be extirpated,—unless the higher instruction be in unison with the spirit of the age, and move forward with the same accelerated pace as the lower, unless, indeed, it keep always a-head, and that too, not in par- ticular points only, but along the whole line,—there is reason to fear, that the more diffused and the more rational the edu- cation of the people shall become, the greater will be the risk to the State of inconvenience and convulsion. An enlightened and well-informed population could scarcely be expected to go AND FOR THE FEW. 259 on smoothly or cordially with an aristocracy at their head who should have nothing to plume themselves upon but high birth and large possessions. If it should be found that the early culture of this class, had been either so imperfect or so mis- directed, that while one portion of it was imbued with an in- veterate and unnatural aversion to study and to all purely intellectual occupations, the other was employed almost ex- clusively in exercises of mind remote from the business and uses of ordinary life, we could not too soon take the alarm, and look out for the remedy. It is no doubt greatly to be desired, that the more elegant and recondite parts of learning and science should be acquired by those whose circumstances enable them to set apart much time for mental cultivation; but such acquirement must be in addition to, not to the ex- clusion of, those branches of knowledge of which a good sys- tem of National Education is sure to impart a certain measure to the people at large. Of these the higher ranks should pos- sess a still greater mastery, if they wish to obtain credit for whatever else they may know besides. If there is any chance of the frame-work of society being strained or disjointed in consequence of the progress of popular instruction, it is not from the diffusion of knowledge that the danger is to be apprehended, but from the higher ranks being left behind in the race of improvement. And this danger they must ward off, not by supercilious looks and distant de- meanour, still less by the follies and extravagances of selfish indulgence, or by wasteful and profligate expenditure which the very retainers who profit by it have learned to despise them for; but by making good their claim to that superiority of intellect and acquirement, which their command of time and opportunity brings so readily and invitingly within their reach. When superior knowledge is still farther recommended and enhanced in value by that ease of manner and graceful- ness of deportment which are the visible expression of refined taste, benevolent feeling, conscious integrity, unblemished honour, and varied accomplishment; it is then that a charm is thrown over the character and outward bearing, which, more than any thing else, captivates and subdues the great 260 TILE RIG IIT TRAINING FOR THE MANY mass of mankind, to whom their physical condition must for ever render such grace and acquirement unattainable. It is the influence of this combination of birth, station, and personal character, that has been every where acknowledged as of such salutary efficacy in directing the movements and moderating the excitements of the other orders of society:— magno in populo quum saepe coorta est Seditio, saevitcue animis ignobile vulgus ; Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Conspexere, silent, arrectisquo auribus adstant : Iste regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet. An apprehension has been entertained, and of late not unfre- quently expressed, in looking forward to the future history of Britain, that this salutary influence will ere long cease to affect her population. But its foundations lie too deep in the nature of man, and of the British nation in particular, to leave any good ground for such apprehension. It must not however be forgotten, that the weight of character, which the poet makes so effectual in swaying the minds of the populace, is to be ac- quired by arts very different from those which have long been too much in favour with our youthful aristocracy. Hunting and horse-racing, drinking and driving, grouse-shooting and gambling, are all, save the last, innocent enough in their way, if taken in moderation as an occasional pastime, but ruinous to the interests of the individual, and of his order, when pur- sued as a serious and engrossing occupation. In proceeding to speak of the education required for the higher classes, as distinguished from that which it is proposed to bring within the reach of all, it will be proper in the outset to consider well, wherein the distinction consists between these two kinds of instruction,-that which befits the great mass of the working population, and that which is best adapted for the few. This it is the more necessary to do, as much of the plausible speculation which has misled the public mind is indebted for its effect to the wilful or ignorant confounding of the very obvious distinction just stated. It is now-a-days almost universally admitted, that there is an early training, moral and intellectual, which it is desirable to secure to the great body of the people, whether agricultural AND FOR THE FEw. 26i or manufacturing. Now, it is abundantly obvious, that the object to be kept in view in such early tuition is, to take advantage of the brief period of docility which intervenes be- tween the age of helpless infancy and that period of life when the sinews are sufficiently knit for hard and continuous labour, and when the profit of the child's handiwork becomes avail- able for the support of the parent, or for its own. This in- terval, so precious because so brief, amounts often, in large manufacturing towns, to not more than a single twelvemonth, and almost everywhere it is a period of lax and irregular at- tendance; and yet it is all the time that can be depended upon for training the children of the working classes to such habits, tastes, and feelings, as may render them honest, in- dustrious, intelligent, and happy. This end, it is equally clear, will have the best chance of being attained in their case, by presenting knowledge in an easy and attractive form ; by investing school with pleasant associations and endearing re- collections; by imparting, in short, not merely the ability to read, but the love of reading and the desire of instruction, so as to furnish the means of filling up, usefully and agreeably, the short respites from toil that occur in the poor man's life. As means to this end, one can scarcely overrate the impor- tance of Infant Schools. They extend the brief and precious interval just spoken of, by the addition of a still earlier and more susceptible age, during which habits may be formed which will far more than double the benefit to be derived from the later portion of the child's disposable time. And when that still more important improvement shall be introduced, of hav- ing public accredited means of training schoolmasters to the skilful discharge of their professional duties, an improve- ment not altogether so distant and hopeless as it once appeared, —it is not easy to set limits to the progress that may then be made, in forming virtuous habits and spreading useful infor- mation among the great body of the labouring and manufac- turing population. A very different treatment, however, is required, and with higher objects in view, for the classes of society whom birth, or fortune, or extraordinary talent, exempt from manual labour and drudgery, and who are to earn their livelihood, and im- 262 THE RIGHT TRAINING FOR THE MANY prove or adorn their condition, by the feats of the head rather than by the labour of the hand. The studies of this class of youth are extended over a much longer period than those of the labouring population. Time is allowed for following out a systematic course of training, through various stages of progress and for a series of years; and it is a training as dis- tinct in its nature as it is different in its aim. For while no- thing is to be omitted in the longer training more than in the shorter, that tends to form virtuous habits, and inspire the love of knowledge and of nature, there is wanted, for the higher class of youth, a method comprehensive rather than compendious. It must be a course of intellectual discipline, directed, not to stock the mind with ready prepared informa- tion, but to bring out in orderly and healthful succession the several mental faculties, to give to each its appropriate nou- rishment and invigorating exercise, and to teach the possessor the free and dextrous use of them all; that when the time comes for sending him forth into the arduous competition and conflict of human affairs, he may be able to find a way for himself, or to make one. In this case, the point to be aimed at is not a great store of knowledge of which the mind is little better than the passive recipient. The legitimate object of the higher education is, to provide the means of evolving and perfecting the various powers and capacities of man's nature, so as to enable him, in the words of Milton, “to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.’ The object of popular education, as far as the labouring classes and their children are concerned, is to create an appe- tite for knowledge, and a love of reading, and thus to furnish them with such harmless and improving means of mental oc- cupation and amusement, as may save them from brutalizing pursuits, and fence them against the seduction of low and sen- sual indulgences. For that considerable portion of town population whose daily occupations are of a kind involving mathematical or chemical principles, it is desirable that a somewhat higher species of instruction should be provided; and when that in- struction is followed out through a consecutive course of two AND FOR THE FEW. 263 or three years, as is done in the School of Arts” of this city, it can scarcely fail to be attended with the best effects, both on the happiness of the individual, and on the progress of the arts and manufactures of the country. It is an extension of this view of instruction for the people, —and one peculiarly well adapted for, and scarcely practicable indeed but in large towns,—when short courses of public lec- tures on various branches of knowledge are addressed to grown up persons of both sexes belonging to the middle and higher classes of citizens, who have either not had the benefits of re- gular education, or are desirous to renew long-forgotten im- pressions. Such popular views of the great truths and disco- veries of science and art, if judiciously given and made suf- ficiently elementary, form an agreeable and innocent recrea- tion for uneducated or ill-educated adults. They have a ten- dency, no doubt, to fill the minds of this class of hearers with crude and inaccurate notions, to generate conceit and ridicu- lous pretensions, and to engage them in discussing what they do not and cannot comprehend. Nevertheless, all these draw- backs will not prevent them from elevating, in the long run, the character of our city and suburban population ; and, in the mean time, they are excellent substitutes for talking scandal, or wrangling on politics. But in a liberal education, the question is not, how we shall turn to best account a very limited time, or remedy the want of early instruction, or fill up most agreeably an idle hour. It is, by what means we shall best secure the general and, up to a certain point, equable cultivation of the intellectual powers, —they being considered as the instruments by means of which the greatest good is to be effected, both for the individual him- self, and for the community of which he is a member. Obvious as the distinction is which I have now stated, and clearly as it points to a different mode of treatment in the two cases, very little attention has been paid to it in practice; and out of the confused ideas that prevail on the subject, serious errors have sprung, in opposite directions. On the one hand, many of the attempts to enlighten the adults of the labouring classes, both orally and by the press, * See Appendix at end of the Volume, 264 THE RIGIIT TRAINING FOR THE MANY are of a cast much too abstruse and scientific; for it is vain to expect that any considerable number of persons, engaged twelve or fourteen hours a-day in manual labour, are to per- severe in following long demonstrations, or to grapple success- fully with the abstractions of mathematical truth. And with regard to the young, we are doomed too frequently to witness very preposterous attempts to initiate mere children into the mysteries of chemistry and astronomy, at an age when they should scarcely be troubled with the alphabet. On the other hand, a mistake of a different kind has been of late still more prevalent, that of overlaying the mind of the young aspirant to a liberal profession with the facts ascer- tained and the results arrived at by learned and scientific re- search, while he is left unacquainted with the steps and pro- cesses of the proof. We hear it triumphantly stated as evi- dence of the “march of intellect,” that the truths, which it took several ages to pave the way for, and the unceasing labour of a whole lifetime for men of transcendent genius finally to establish and demonstrate, may now be communicatcd in a single hour's lecture; and this statement is repeated and ex- emplified, till the poor youth begins to fancy himself another Newton. He is whirled aloft, so to speak, and set down with- out any exertion of his own upon an eminence, whence he catches a dim and distant view of the regions of science, in- stead of being led step by step to explore, them singly and in succession. In this kind of pastime (for it would be an abuse of terms to call it liberal education) all time is looked upon as lost that is not employed in filling the pupil's memory with scraps of what is called useful, but in truth is only entertain- &ng, knowledge; a process of cramming, which flatters the indolence and vanity of youth, but from which no wholesome digestion or assimilation can be expected to accrue. The youth opens his ears to instruction, so long as it amuses; he must be bribed high with some immediate gratification of a languid curiosity. He will consent to make the circuit of all the sciences, provided it is to be a voyage of pleasure. But, It was not by such loitering and case, That Grecco obtained the brighter palm of art; That soft, yet ardont Athens learned to please, AND FOR THE FEw. 265 To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart: In all supreme, complete in every part 1 It was not thence majestic Rome arose, And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart; For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows; Renown is not the child of indolent repose. Give me the youth who enjoys a satisfaction—altogether independent of immediate reward or prospective advantage— in following out the steps of a long demonstration, or in tra- cing the involutions and conquering the difficulties of a classi- cal author. The sound and healthy condition of the mental faculties is when the student can take for his motto, labor ‘pse voluptas ; not that state of repletion and satiety when the maxim is reversed, and the pleasure itself becomes a wea- riness. The difference is like that between the lazy unwiel- diness of the glutton, and the vigorous frame of him who delights to climb the steep mountain, with no other motive to urge him on but the pleasure of the exercise. This life of ours, to be worth living at all, must be mainly filled up with the details of dry and difficult duties, either self-imposed, or laid upon us by stern necessity; and to the performance of these the youth must advance with their in- tellectual powers disciplined to strenuous and well-directed activity, not with a chaos of ill-assorted facts in their memory. Excursions to the flowery fields of natural history and ele- mentary physics can be but occasional interludes—and the less frequent the more relished—in the serious business of a world like this. Happy they, whom judicious training, and the well-regulated habit of early exertion, have enabled to place their chief happiness, not in the finished performance only, but in the actual discharge, of laborious duties To this number those have but little chance of belonging, who, hav- ing been lured on in the path of knowledge by honeyed sops, can read and listen only so long as they are amused. The excessive anxiety which is at present manifested to make the discoveries and conclusions of modern science level to the comprehension of the young and ignorant has no doubt arisen in a great measure from the prevailing conviction of the propriety of universal education, and the necessity, with that view, of husbanding time, and taking short-hand ways 266 THE RIGHT TRAINING FOR THE MANY to knowledge; but it would be absurd to recommend, and preach up as the best, a system of early tuition, of which the most that can be said is, that it is better than none at all. While no means are neglected of awakening a youth's attention to the wonders of creation and the phenomena of the material world, his ambition should, at the same time, be roused to know and to weigh the evidence on which the con- clusions of science are founded. He should not be tempted to take all upon trust, on the pse dia.it of a lecturer, but should be put through such a course of mental gymnastics, as might enable him to climb the tree and gather the ripe fruit for him- self, rather than have it tossed into his lap in an indigestible state by another. The superficial system indeed applied to the class of youth we are speaking of, does little more than minister to a vain and idle curiosity. It may create and gra- tify a sickly, feverish craving for amusing information and anecdote, but it indisposes—goes far indeed to disqualify—for those severer exercises of the faculties, which alone can pro- duce the finer specimens of the animal endowed with reason and speech, or fit him even for grappling with the ordinary duties and difficulties of life. It is vain to expect that a youth who has gone through this process of pampering and spoon- feeding should buckle to the dry details of a law office or a counting-house, without, at least, passing through a long ap- prenticeship of misery. In every case, therefore, where education proposes to itself a higher aim than to mitigate the deteriorating influence of incessant toil, it is the gradual development of the faculties, and their simultaneous training to healthful and vigorous ex- ercise, that ought to constitute its main design, and not the mere accumulation of facts in the memory, and the devising of easy and compendious ways to the truths and conclusions of science. The important problem, then, to be solved is, What are the best means of applying that intellectual discipline which is justly regarded as indispensable to any education that deserves the name of liberal? In other words, how are we to insure that preparation of the youthful faculties, which, without being strictly professional, ought to be required as a common pre- AND FOR THE FEw. 267 liminary to all the liberal professions, and to all the conditions of life which are independent of any profession? In entering upon this question to-morrow, I shall consider whether the Mathematical method be better entitled than the Empirical to supersede or take precedence of the Classical; and after weighing the relative importance of Mathematics and Classics in a scheme of liberal education, I shall be led to advert to the great schools of England, where the balance between the two has not hitherto been skilfully or impartially adjusted, and to compare them in this respect with the cor- responding institutions of our own City. LECTURE SE CONI), }}ELIVERED TUESDAY, 3D NOVEMBER 1835, ON THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS IN THE HIGHER INSTRUCTION. WITH the view of solving the problem proposed at the close of yesterday's Lecture, various plans have been proposed and acted upon, but they may be all reduced under the two heads of Mathematical and Classical; for after what has been said, we may fairly discount the Empirical method, which deals in conclusions without premises, and is content to give a top- dressing of facts, as it were, without either extirpating the weeds or ploughing the soil. Neither is there any necessity for considering the Classical and Mathematical training as opposed to, or exclusive of, each other. On the contrary, both have hitherto been generally admitted as desirable, though with wide differences of opinion as to the rank and importance they respectively ought to hold in the business of the higher education. The tendency in most of our great public institutions has been all along very decidedly in favour of the classics—in many to the neglect, almost to the exclusion, of every thing else; and this undue preponderance has doubtless contributed not a little to that re-action which now threatens to hurry us as far in the opposite direction, and to banish ancient literature altogether from the curriculum of juvenile study. Not only does it seem to be the wish of many, that the Classical method should be superseded by that which we have described as flattering sloth and cherishing a love of vulgar display, but MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 269 there appears to be a hesitation in the minds of the intelligent public, and even among many who retain their reverence for classical instruction, whether it should not be thrust down to a subordinate place, and mathematics be enthroned as the leading branch in its stead. As the party who favour this change of dynasty have made common cause with the empir- ics, and both are employed in warring against the Supremacy of the classics, it may not be amiss to resume the argument, trite though it be, under the somewhat novel aspect and cir- cumstances of the times we live in, when the minds of men, set free from what remained of mental and political thraldom, are but too apt to run off towards the other extreme, and in their inordinate love of what is new, to abate their respect for what is good in the old. In expressing my own firm conviction, that a serious and irreparable evil would accrue to the higher education of the country, if the classics were driven from the vantage-ground they have hitherto occupied by any system of training, were it ever so perfect, of a purely physical or mathematical kind, it is the farthest thing from my intention to depreciate mathe- matics as a means of disciplining the youthful mind, however much I may think that its importance in this respect has been often overrated. The study of the mathematics is useful, in the first place, as a means of confirming and improving a habit of steady and continued attention. It cannot be said to create the habit; for where the power of attention does not already exist in a certain degree, it will generally be found impossible to engage the mind in mathematical study at all. In the next place, a certain amount of mathematical acquirement, all the world are agreed, is indispensable as a passport to such ac- quaintance with the powers, properties, and phenomena of the material universe, as it is desirable that every man of liberal education should possess. But both these uses can be fully secured, by employing mathematics as an adjunct and auxi- liary, without making it the leading part of the education of a gentleman. To give it the chief place would incur a double risk. There would be, on the one hand, the danger of foundering altogether in the case of minds which, though not destitute of ability, cannot be brought to understand or to re- 270 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF lish the peculiar language and ideas with which the science is conversant. On the other hand, there would be a risk, in the case of minds of great aptitude for the study, of all their time and all their faculties being absorbed in a pursuit which with- draws its votaries into a region of its own, and incapacitates for the ordinary business and duties of life. It is a great mistake to suppose that the mere mathemati- cian, from being accustomed to the long and beautiful deduc- tions of his favourite science, is a better reasoner and less liable to error than other men, in all matters that lie beyond the mathematical pale. On the contrary, it is notorious that the more profound he is in his own science and the more devoted to it, the less is he fitted for the investigation of truth in every other direction, and the more liable to be imposed upon by false reasoning and led astray by specious views, in the com- merce and intercourse of the world. For, as Dugald Stewart observes, and that beautiful writer on metaphysics and morals was himself an able mathematician,—“it unfortunately happens, that while mathematical studies exercise the faculty of reasoning or deduction, they give no employment to the other powers of the understanding concerned in the investiga- tion of truth. On the contrary, they are apt to produce a facility in the admission of data, and a circumscription of the field of speculation, by partial and arbitrary definitions.” I have already said enough to guard myself against the suspicion, that in vindicating, as I shall attempt to do, the just claims of classical tuition, I undertake the defence of the system of instruction which has been hitherto pursued in most of the great seminaries of our country. The education of our ingenuous youth, I am willing to allow, has been too exclus- ively classical, and the classical instruction itself has rarely been conducted on the most approved and enlightened prin- ciples. The cause of sound and wholesome education loses nothing by this concession. The temporary popularity of anti-classical opinions is owing to nothing inherent in the study itself, but to abuses and imperfections in the mode of conduct- ing it; and these it behoves the advocate of the classics, in- stead of defending, to expose, in order that, while he stands * Elements, vol. III. p. 271, 4th edition. MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 271 up for the principle of classical discipline, he may not be made responsible for errors in the practice. This will be my apology for adverting shortly to these practical errors, which in truth form the whole case and argument against us, whether they be found to prevail on the other side of the Tweed or on this. We shall begin with the former. In the great schools of England,-Eton, Westminster, Winchester, and Harrow, where the majority of English youth who receive a liberal and high professional education are brought up, the course of instruction has for ages been confined so exclusively to Greek and Latin, that most of the pupils quit them, not only ignorant of, but with a considerable disrelish and contempt for, every branch of literary and scien- tific acquirement, except the dead languages. It may be said that there are, in the immediate neighbourhood of the College, teachers of mathematics, writing, French, and other accom- plishments, to whom parents have the option of sending their sons. But as these masters are extra-scholastic, mere ap- pendages, not integral parts of the establishment, and as neither they nor the branches of knowledge they profess to teach are recognised in the scheme of school business, it requires but little acquaintance with the nature of boys to be aware, that the disrespect in which teachers so situated are uniformly held extends, in young minds, to the subjects taught, and is apt to create a rooted dislike to a kind of instruction which they look upon as a work of supererogation. And this, we venture to say, is all but the universal feeling at Eton. In this general neglect of all knowledge but classical, it would be some consolation to be assured that Greek and Latin, at least, were acquired;—although it cannot be denied, that the most perfect mastery of those tongues would be but a poor return for a term of service comprehending (if the pupil go through all the gradations of Eton school,) ten of the most docile and valuable years of human life. But it will scarcely be pretended that any such security exists. The grammars, and other initiatory books, are so unphilosophical and repul- 'sive, the methods of instruction so technical and uninviting, —and the temptations to idleness and dissipation so numerous 272 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF among youths removed from the eyes of parents and friends, that we need not be surprised to find a result which has fur- nished plausible grounds for many an attack on classical disci- pline. The result may be stated thus:–A few quit the great schools of England with scholar-like acquirements; a greater number, without being much of scholars, shew a refined taste for the niceties and elegances of Greek and Latin poetry; but a majority, we will not venture to say how great, leave school with a slender enough stock of classical attainments and no disposition to increase it, and in a state of ignorance of every other department of science and literature, foreign or domestic, which would be ludicrous, if it were not lamentable, in the case of young men to whom, from their station in society, independ- ently in a great measure of their talents or acquirements, the destinies of this great country are likely to be committed. This system, so narrow and exclusive in the end proposed, and pursuing that end by methods imperfect and antiquated, is acted upon till within three or four years of the age when young men are qualified by law to be their own masters, and to take their seats in the Legislature of the country. It is not my business at present to consider what the chances are, at the English universities or elsewhere, of the obvious tendencies of such school-discipline being either counteracted or confirmed. Much is no doubt done to remedy its deficien- cies, both before and after quiting school, by the few who are gifted with the mens divinior ; but it cannot be right to peril the safety of the commonwealth on such rare accidents, or to appeal to them as they occur at intervals few and far between, in defence of a system which reason, and common sense, and experience, alike condemn. Great men educate themselves, and become so, not by the discipline of the great schools, but in spite of it. The virtue of any system of school training is shewn, not in exhibiting a few splendid samples, whose very rarity proves that it is not to the system we owe them, but in the large proportion of the whole number of pupils whom it sends forth with a stock of acquirement in various branches of useful and elegant know- ledge, differing no doubt in each individual according to his tastes and capacity, but respectable in all; and it is especially MATIIICMATICŞ AND CLASSICS. 273 shewn in imbuing them with a love of study, and forming habits of application. If tried by either test, the English schools will be found defective. I have no wish to deny, but am rather proud to avow my belief, that these venerable es- tablishments, almost coeval with the constitution and mon- archy of England, have, with all their faults, had a large share in creating and preserving some of the best qualities in the character of an English gentleman ; nor is it difficult to trace their influence, for good as well as for evil, in impressing its peculiar character on the British Parliament, and particularly on the House of Commons. They have helped to infuse into it that mixture of common sense and right feeling, of manly and generous sentiment, of taste and good breeding without pretension or affectation, and that union of boldness in public harangue with courtesy in private intercourse, which have long distinguished the House of Commons, as much as the extent of its power, or the freedom and eloquence of its de- bates. It can scarcely, on the other hand, be denied, that the limited range to which the preliminary instruction of the ma- jority of its members is confined, has seriously affected its usefulness as a deliberative and legislative assembly. Many, even of its ablest speakers and brightest ornaments, have been lamentably deficient in science and philosophy, and parti- cularly in that which so well becomes a statesman,—the science of political economy. They were adjusting choric metres, when they ought to have been studying Adam Smith; and, with regard to the great bulk of the Members, their restlessness and impatience under the infliction of any speech, however transgendent in talent, which deals in subtle argument or in general principles, are melancholy proofs of a narrow and im- perffect education. There have been, and now are, among our representatives, men of the most enlightened views combined with extensive practical experience, and capable of giving those iews the full advantage of clear and eloquent exposition, who condemn themselves to silence, and listen to nonsense without refuting it, rather than encounter unreasonable prejudices, or force themselves on the unwilling ear of the House. RICARDO is the only instance of a man, not in office, who was patiently S 274 - RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF listened to, I dare not say fully understood, by that Assembly, while he expounded and applied the great principles of poli- tical economy; and it was only by long perseverance and im- perturbable temper, that he vindicated that privilege for him- self. For many a day, his rising to speak was the signal for a buzz of small talk in little coteries, or a general rush to the door. The truth is, the system of discipline in the endowed schools of England, which are chiefly to blame for all this, is essenti- ally monastic. They were established centuries ago, when the clergy had all the learning there was, and they were in- tended chiefly, if not solely, as a means of recruiting the different sections of the ecclesiastical profession. And as scarcely any perceptible change has taken place in the school practice since its first institution, it is almost unnecessary to add, that it has long outlived the circumstances and require- ments of the times which gave it birth. At Eton, the schol- ars upon the foundation, who live in college and wear a par- ticular dress, are in number forty; that is, constitute about one-fourteenth part of the boys actually in attendance; the other thirteen parts being composed of sons of the nobility and gentry from every quarter of the Empire, few of whom have any thoughts of entering the church; and yet it is that inconsiderable portion which was alone contemplated in the original endowment of the school. For its sake that course of instruction was contrived and fixed by statute, which has been continued with little or no variation down to the present day, when it is applied indiscriminately to boys of a descrip- tion, and with views, altogether different. \ This system, it is manifest, cannot in these times remain much longer unchanged. At Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and in several of the other endowed schools of England, there is 3. movement towards reform, both in the discipline, and in the course of instruction pursued. But we must not expect º march of improvement in these schools to be rapid. Th head masters may be all, as I know most of them to be, able and enlightened men; but they are hampered by deeds of gift, and impeded by other powers and authorities who must be carried along with them in every change that is proposed, MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 275 but who are seldom willing to go. Indeed, the very inveteracy and enormity of the abuses are impediments in the way of speedy amelioration. It is enough, in the mean time, to have entered a caveat against charging such abuses to the account of classical instruction. In turning from the view just given of the English great schools, to the corresponding institutions in this part of the empire, I shall take as examples the High School and the Academy of our own city. Without entering into any comparison as to the manner of conducting the classical instruction on the two sides of the Tweed, though from such comparison our own institutions have so little occasion to shrink, that I am confident they would gain by it, in the opinion of all impartial judges equally acquainted with both, we may at least venture to affirm, that the avowed objects and known practice of our Edinburgh schools is more in unison than the English with reason and common sense, and better accommodated to the wants and wishes of the community. Arithmetic, geometry, English literature, French, and geography, are incorporated more or less into the system of both establishments, and are taught under the same roof, and enforced by the same sanctions and authority, as the classical department. And if, in the distri- bution of the hours of study, the same or a greater amount of time is not allotted to these subsidiary branches, the arrange- ment proceeds upon two sound principles; first, that in every combined system of instruction, there ought to be a leading subject; and, secondly, that the study of the classics is well entitled to that distinction and pre-eminence. Both these principles require illustration. I. In the first place, then, in every combined system of youthful instruction, there ought to be a leading subject, at once to discipline and inform the understanding, and to give unity and uniformity to the whole curriculum of study. The propriety of this rule has never, so far as I know, been formally called in question in the theory of education. It seems to have been taken for granted, in all speculative dis- cussions on the subject, that among the various sub-divisions of human knowledge through which the pupil must pass before 276 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF he be thoroughly accomplished for the business and duties of life, there must be one which is to serve for the common access and high road to them all. The mind, it has been hitherto universally understood, must be prepared by the progymnas- tic discipline of a course of study, of which the chief and ac- knowledged excellence shall be, not merely, nor so much, to convey solid and serviceable information, as to break in the faculties to their finest exercise, to sharpen the wit, to fix the attention, to strengthen the memory, to promote reflection and self-examination, to unfold and direct the power of ratiocina- tion, to mature the judgment, to awaken the imagination, to refine the taste, and to keep all the faculties in such a state of healthful evolution and equipoise, that they shall be ready in due time for good service in the particular line of any profes- sion or accomplishment. The Homeric aphorism has hitherto been held a good one, and not more true in politics than in public instruction:— w f e p p Ovk a'Ya 60 v Toxvkotpavim. ets ſcoºpavos éo Tw, “Ets Baot)\ews.-Iliad, B. 204. The only doubt has been, who this lord of the ascendant should be. And if the practice among ourselves has of late run counter to this principle, it proceeds, neither from the authority of the rule being disputed, nor from any theoretical assumption that an indiscriminate and simultaneous pursuit of all kinds of knowledge is to be preferred, but simply from a morbid impa- tience, which has become contagious among parents, to have every thing done at once, and in a short time. The natural consequence of the spread of this contagion has been a com- petition among teachers, who vie with and outbid each other in the number and variety of branches which they profess to teach. They are constrained, in self-defence, to pander to the 'short-sightedness and ignorance of parents, who insist upon crowding the whole business of instruction into a few months. Alike unable and unwilling to exercise discretion, either in the choice and sequence of subjects, or in estimating the fitness and capacity of the recipient, they are possessed with the single purpose and resolution, that no son or daugh- MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 277 ter of any of their acquaintances shall have more masters than their own, or more branches in hand at the same time. Mean- while, the little victim, decked out in all the tinsel frippery of superficial acquiremnt, its attention distracted, and its mind dissipated amidst a multiplicity of objects, and with no load- star to steer by through the brilliant confusion—is hurried from subject to subject and from class-room to class-room, paraded before admiring relatives, and sacrificed at last on the altar of parental vanity. II. The other principle which I mentioned as regulating the arrangements of the two great schools of our city, is this, that no branch of instruction is so well entitled to take the lead in a course of liberal education, as the classical. It is a title that rests on the assumption, that a rightly con- ducted classical education, while it cultivates and improves the moral as well as the intellectual faculties, does that office after a manner and in a direction better suited than any other for the use and embellishment of life. For if, on the one hand, we look to the grammatical or philological part of the training, —that which has to do with the flexion of nouns, the conjuga- tion of verbs, the rules of syntax, the derivations and affilia- tions of words, and the analysis, structure, and comprehension of sentences, we shall find, in all these processes, when pro- perly simplified and explained, a constant exercise in practical logic, which brings into play the powers of memory, of judg- ment, of abstraction and combination of ideas, and of reflec- tion on the subjects of our own consciousness;–which induces habits of quick and sustained attention, facility in sifting and comparing evidence, and promptitude in deciding ;-which produces, in short, a general acuteness and activity of the intellectual powers. If, again, we look to what may be called the moral and philosophical part of a classical education,-that which has to do with the scope of the author, with his facts and reasonings, the wisdom of his views and the justness of his sentiments, with the beauty of his diction, the play of his fancy, and the felicity of his allusions,—it is easy to see what an inexhaus- tible fund of topics is furnished to the judicious teacher, of which to avail himself in opening the mind of his pupil to the 278 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF love of knowledge and of virtue, in storing it with the lessons of wisdom and experience, and in forming and refining the taSte. Mathematics, exclusively pursued, either carry their votary to a region of their own, in the empyrean of pure unassailable truth and far apart from the concerns of this nether world; or, if that heaven be not reached, they engage him in re- searches into brute matter, with its various properties, and their various applications;–researches which are no doubt eminently useful and important, but, except when they are sublimed into the theories and investigations of natural philo- sophy as a science, are not of the most refining or elevating character. The study of the classics, on the other hand, even without mathematics, connects the pupil at every step with the sym- pathies of his fellow-creatures,--with the passions, the inter- ests, the duties, the occupations, the history, and the prospects of humanity. If, in arranging the plan of a liberal education, we were not allowed to have both, but compelled to make our election, we would rather have classics without mathematics, than ma- thematics without classics. If both were allowed, we should doubtless avail ourselves of the permission; not hesitating, however, to give the foremost place to that study which exer- cises the greatest number of faculties, touches human affairs in the greatest variety of points, and by making us most fa- miliar with the doings and sufferings of the world we are placed in, prepares us best for the part we are appointed to act in the drama of life. The proofs and illustrations of these assertions I reserve for another and concluding Lecture; and shall content myself, for the present, with placing them under the shelter and sanc- tion of authorities which, on questions relating to education, rank deservedly high. In the first place, the view I have taken is in accordance with the practice of Prussia, in her Gymnasia, as those schools are called where the children of the easy and opulent classes are educated. M. Cousin, so generally known in this country by his “Report on the state of Primary Instruction in MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 279 Germany,’ has since published a similar account of the present state, in Prussia, of what he calls instruction secondaire, that is, the higher or liberal education. After enumerating the different subjects which that education embraces, mathema- tics, geography and history, religion, the German and French languages, les sciences naturellas, and even elements of the philosophy of mind,-he states, as a fact which is true of all the Gymnasia, that, while due attention is paid to the diffe- rent branches just enumerated, it is classical instruction, that is, the study of the languages of Greece and Rome, that takes the lead in the distribution of time and employment:-‘‘c’est toujours l'instruction classique qui domine.” Here, then, we have the conclusion arrived at in the wisest and most enlightened, and, I may add, what is of some weight in the present argument, the most recent legislation which has yet been applied to the subject of the higher education. And this testimony is the more valuable, because in Prussia, and still more in Bavaria, and others of the German States, the very experiment was tried in which it is wished to embark us here, of dispensing with the classics in the training of youth. A war of words was long carried on between the Philanthro- pists, who advocated the abolition of the classics, and the Humanitarians, who supported their claims; which, after a temporary triumph to the former sect, has ended at last in their complete discomfiture, and in the return of the govern- ment and people of these countries to the true classical doc- trine and practice. And that this arrangement has the sanction of the distin- guished philosopher just mentioned, will appear, not only from the earnest and unqualified terms in which he urges his own government to adopt the Prussian system of secondary instruc- tion, as they have already adopted the primary, but also from the testimony which he bears to the worth and importance of classical learning, in the following eloquent passage:– “Not only do I think it expedient to keep up our collegial plan of studies, more especially the philological department of it, but I am convinced that that part of our system ought to be strengthened and extended, in order that, while we main- tain our incontestable superiority over Germany in the physi- 280 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF cal and mathematical sciences, we may be able to cope with that country in the solidity of our classical instruction. Clas- sical studies are, in truth, beyond comparison, the most essen- tial of all, conducing, as they do, to the knowledge of human nature, which they bring us to consider under all the variety of its aspects and relations; at one time, in the language and literature of nations who have left behind them memorable traces of their existence and glory; at another, in the preg- mant vicissitudes of history, which continually renovate and improve society; and, finally, in that philosophy which reveals to us the simple elements, and the uniform organization, of that wondrous being, whom history, literature, and languages successively clothe in forms the most diversified, and yet al- ways bearing upon some more or less important part of his internal constitution. Classical studies maintain the sacred tradition of the intellectual and moral life of our species. To cripple, still more to destroy them, would, in my eyes, be an act of barbarism, an audacious attempt to arrest true civiliza- tion, a sort of high-treason against humanity.” But this is not the age for sheltering an argument under the authority either of enlightened governments or of eminent individuals. It is to Reason we must appeal. Reason, there- fore, we must endeavour to enlist in the service of the classics; and, if I mistake not, we shall find in her our firmest ally. Meanwhile, before quitting the subject of the High School and Academy, I may be permitted to observe, that while no impartial person, equally acquainted with them and the great schools of England, will, I conceive, hesitate to admit that the latter are inferior to our own, both in the distribution of the pupil's time, and in the mode of teaching, it is not so easy to meet an objection which is very generally taken to our Edin- burgh institutions. How does it happen, it is asked, if the system be so good, that so large a proportion of the pupils of both establishments leave school, after a five or six years' course of instruction, without more than a very slender ac- quaintance with the languages to which their time has been chiefly devoted? Admitting this to be the case, (for I can- not see the use of suppressing a fact so notorious,) there are two ways of answering the question. First, it may be said MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 281 that, in any system of school-training to which numerous as- semblages of boys are subjected, there must be some who take the lead, and others who lag behind; and, secondly, that it is an error to imagine that the time and labour bestowed have been lost, in cases where the languages in question may not have been mastered. But though these are propositions, the truth of which can- not be contested, they will not furnish a satisfactory answer to the objection, unless it can be proved that the number of unsuccessful results is not greater than may be fairly accounted for by the natural diversity of talent that must always ex- ist among so many individuals, and by the variety of circum- stances in which they are placed. Now this, I fear, is a ground of defence which it will neither be right nor safe to take. It would be a libel on classical studies to admit, that so long a period as six years is insufficient to impart a knowledge and a love of these pursuits to a greater proportion of the youth than is proved by experience to have acquired them. We must look, I apprehend, for the cause of a fact which it is idle to think of denying, neither in the nature of the studies them- selves, which, when rightly set about, are quite attainable by minds of moderate capacity, and to them of all others most improving, nor in the character of the teachers, who are all men of high and undoubted qualification,--but in circum- stances which would produce a similar result under any set of teachers, and whatever were the leading object of the in- struction. I allude to the long-established practice of carrying forward all the pupils in regular and uniform progression, and without stated examinations, from the lowest stage of the school to the highest, and of thus making the time of attendance, not the amount of proficiency, a passport to the rector's class. The unavoidable consequence of this arrangement is, that the dif- ference between the clever and the dull, the diligent and the idle, which becomes perceptible enough at the end of the first term of study, is increased from year to year, till at the end of the fourth they are handed over to the rector in all the various gradations between good scholarship and comparative 282 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF ignorance. Like ill-matched horses in a race, they start abreast, but soon present a straggling line, which lengthens and separates farther asunder at every step they advance in the course. I am aware of the difficulties that stand in the way of any arrangement for testing the progress of the pupils at certain intervals, with the view of promoting those who should have greatly outstript their fellows, and of checking the advance of those who should be found below the average proficiency. I am aware also, that the call for it is less urgent, in proportion as the numbers are smaller, and the methods improved; but it deserves to be considered whether a different practice might not recruit the numbers, and more than compensate for any in- conveniences that are likely, in the first instance, to result from its adoption. At Eton, and other great schools in Eng- land, “ losing a remove,” and “gaining a double remove,” at the half-yearly examinations, are comparatively rare occur- rences; but the terms are familiar to the pupils, and have a salutary effect on their minds. Such a system of examination and promotion, acting at once by the dread of exposure and the hope of distinction, would, if introduced into our institutions, exert a wholesome influence on every mind in the school, and vivify even the inertest por- tion of the mass. The power, no doubt, of promoting and de- grading, is one which would require to be used discreetly and rarely; but the very knowledge of its existence, and the con- viction of its reality by the occasional exercise of it, would have a marvellous effect in stimulating exertion and repressing languor and idleness, and would go farther to remove all just ground of dissatisfaction and complaint, than any other change or addition that could be made. There might be room for minor improvements, in the simplification of grammars, the perfecting of the monitorial method where it exists, and the introduction of it where it has not been attempted; and in one of the Seminaries, perhaps, a little more attention might be paid to our own language and literature. But so much change has been made there already, (and it may be doubted if always for the bettor,) that a friend to the seminary might MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. 283 well be disposed to compound for all farther alteration, till he saw the effect of that last thought of, but most salutary change of all, which I have been now recommending.” * Since these Lectures were delivered, an innovation has been proposed, and the proposal received with approbation by the Town-Council, the Patrons of the School, the wisdom and propriety of which are somewhat problematical. It has been remitted to the College Committee to organize a plan for having Lectures on Natural Philosophy delivered to the pupils of the High School every Saturday, after the ordinary business of that day, and of the week, is concluded. Such lectures, from the very nature of the audience they are in- tended for, must necessarily be of a superficial character, and rather calculated to captivate the senses than inform or discipline the understanding. It is im- possible that boys, of whom very few have reached fourteen, can be prepared to enter on the wide subject of Natural Philosophy, with the preliminary know- ledge and the habits of thought which alone can give it value. The very allot- ment of a single hour in the week to such a subject, proves that it can be no- thing more than a pastime; and it is one which will encroach, without either necessity or compensation, on the time, already quite short enough, which the boys have for bodily recreation and exercise. Supposing that these Lectures be well got up, attractively delivered, and illustrated by showy experiments, their tendency will be to wean the young student from the other studies of the place, both classical and mathematical, which require a severer exercise of mind, and yield a smaller return of immediate gratification. The mental dis- cipline of laborious tasks will be rendered more and more unpopular among the boys; their eyes will be dazzled, and their minds captivated, with brilliant dis- plays, which, at their age, and with their slender acquirements, are little bet- ter than a phantasmagoria. There is no permanent advantage in forestalling those satisfactions which are reserved for the student, when, having gone through the preparatory discipline of classics and mathematics, he is intro- duced to the powers of nature, and the wonderful phenomena of the universe, with a mind awakened to their grandeur, and able to follow and to appreciate the demonstrations of science. We shall be told, that, as regards many of the pupils, the regular business of education terminates with the High School, and that it is therefore desir- able that this description of boys should get what they can of natural and physical knowledge, before they betake themselves to their different walks in life. But it is a short-sighted policy, which, for an object like this, would ex- pose to risk the character of the school as a place of classical discipline, and overlook the interests of those who frequent it because it is so, and with ul- terior views. And with regard to the boys who go no farther, they will have temptation and opportunity enough to attend Lectures of the kind proposed, without being seduced, by the temptation of such gewgaws, from those habits of application and vigorous thought, which the present training is so well cal- culated to produce. A taste for natural Science is more likely to be created in the minds of the pupils, and with less risk of detriment to the great ends of High School edu- cation, by having knowledge of that sort mixed up with the daily prelection and examination on the lessons. To a skilful and well-informed teacher, oc- 284 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF MATHEMATICS AND CLASSICS. Having thus endeavoured to settle some preliminary points, we are prepared to enter more fully into the long-agitated question concerning the utility of a classical education; to ex- amine the grounds on which its advocates maintain that it is entitled to take the lead in the curriculum of youthful study, and to point out more particularly the steps and processes by which instruction in the classics may be made subservient to the improvement of the young mind. casions are continually arising out of the text of the author in hand, for con- veying information and awakening curiosity. Familiar views and explana- tions, given thus in illustration of the lesson, are delightful to boys. They relieve and reconcile to severer studies; and they cherish the love of know- ledge, without engendering conceit, or indisposing to the labour of the daily task.” * The Plan of Saturday Lectures was carried out by the Town Council, in spite of the re- monstrances of the late Dr Carson, then Rector, and myself, and proved an entire failure. I shall have to speak, in a subsequent part of this volume of more recent innovations, equally questionable, and it is to be hoped, equally ephemeral. LECTURE THIRD, DELIVERED SATURDAY, 7TH NOVEMBER 1835. REASONS FOR THINKING THAT CLASSICAL TRAINING CANNOT WELL BE DISPENSED WITH IN THE IIIGHER EDUCATION. THE question as to the utility of instruction in the Classics is by no means a new one; but it has been agitated of late by the adverse party with more than ordinary earnestness and pertinacity. “Why,” it is asked, “should so much time and care be expended in learning to call the same things by two or three names instead of one? and even admitting such at- tainment to be desirable, why insist that these names (if they must be learned over and above the vernacular terms) shall belong to two languages which have not been spoken, as we wish them to be acquired, for nearly two thousand years? Do we add much to our stock of useful ideas, by learning that that which the word apple tells us, in our mother tongue, is a fruit of certain properties, was called pomum by one people, and pm).ow by another, both of whom, with all their institutions, have long since passed away from the earth? Is there any knowledge in these classics so very much worth having, or so unattainable in our own tongue, that we must devote the best hours of the most precious years of our boyhood, to acquire the power of gathering it with difficulty in the original lan- guage, rather than with ease in our own 2" These are ques- tions which every one has a right to put, and a right to have an answer to. It is in vain that we try to avoid a direct reply, by affecting an air of mystery, -by quoting the fable of the fox and the sour grapes, or by talking of some indescribable 286 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT charm, some nescio quid of excellence and perfection in the language and literature of antiquity, which the initiated alone can apprehend and appreciate; and by refusing, on these grounds, to reason at all with the opponents of classical edu- cation, just as one would decline to discuss colours with a blind man. If we mean to defend either the principle or the practice that has hitherto prevailed, we must descend into the arena and grapple with our antagonists: some firmer ground of defence must be taken than custom or usage can furnish. Proceeding, then, upon this view of the matter, and abjuring all right of appeal to any thing but argument and fair rea- soning, I am ready for my own part to admit, in the fullest extent, that whensoever the teaching of Greek and Latin is directed to no other object, and goes, in point of fact, no farther than to give the power of substituting one word, or set of words, in the place of another; when it is limited to the mere act of transferring the sense of an ancient author into something equivalent in English, including even the more difficult task of converting portions of our own language into something resembling the composition of an ancient;-in all such cases I admit, that the true aim of education has been lost sight of; that the memory has been cultivated far too exclusively, and that faculty itself not in the best direc- tion, nor in the most wholesome exercise; and that, instead of attempting to justify such practice, we cannot too soon alter or amend it. I will admit, also, that for the two or three centuries during which classical acquirement has been made a prime object in the education of the middle and higher ranks over Europe, it has been very generally taught in such a way as to give a colourable pretext to the statements of the objectors. Nor is it possible to deny, and I have in- deed already admitted, that, in contemplating the manner of conducting some of the oldest and most favoured institutions in our own island, we are reminded of the discipline of a cloister, where indeed the system originated, rather than of the training which it is proper the youth should receive who are destined, not to be monks or to spend their lives in conventual libraries, but to take their several ways in life, and be called on to TN FAWOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 287 judge and to act in the infinitely varied relations of modern Society. But while I make these concessions,—while I freely admit that a mere multiplication and heaping up in the memory of words and phrases, is little better than unprofitable waste of time and labour, I am prepared at the same time to contend, that no instrument for training the youth of what may be called the educated classes has yet been invented, which is so well adapted for that purpose as a course of classical instruc- tion conducted on enlightened and philosophical principles. I have not stated the proposition as one of universal applica- tion. If a youth is destined to be a ship's carpenter, an op- tician, a practical engineer, or to pass his days in the details of some mechanical employment, without any higher aim than excellence in his particular department, however scientific that may be ; in all such cases, a course of classical education might fairly be considered as misplaced. But with a view to that general cultivation of the mental powers and capacities, which is to give a man the use of his faculties in their most serviceable state, to bring him up to the level of other men's thoughts, and make him an acute, observant, and intelligent member of the community he belongs to, I am not aware that any method has yet been devised, which either has pro- duced, or in the dispassionate judgment of philosophy is so likely to produce, a succession of citizens at once useful and ornamental to the commonwealth, as a course of intellectual discipline which takes classical instruction for the ground- work. In proof of this position, it will be necessary to enter a little more into detail, and attend to the successive steps and pro- cesses which such a course of instruction consists of. In the first place, then, of all the faculties of the mind, me- mory is that which admits of being earliest exercised, and trained to habits of susceptibility and retentiveness. Now, the initiatory processes of classical discipline are of a kind particularly well fitted to call forth and to strengthen that faculty; for, next to the immediate perceptions of the external senses, language is doubtless the subject in which a young mind feels itself most at home. 288 STATEMENT OF THIE ARGUMENT I have said, next to the perceptions of the senses; for, far be it from the advocate of the classics to consider the study of the languages as opposed to, or exclusive of, a knowledge of external nature. This is the error into which many of our adversaries fall, when they insist on our abandoning ancient literature, and devoting all the attention of our youth to the powers, properties, and appearances of the material world. But why not have both 2 A desire to become acquainted with the objects and phenomena of nature, and a very con- siderable actual amount of such knowledge, it is quite possible, by a judicious system of infant tuition, to impart in a still earlier stage of education than that which we are now referring to;-at a time when the senses, and particularly those of seeing and hearing, being fresh and young, and full of curiosity, should be directed to their appropriate objects, and inured to habits of accurate and discriminating observation. This is all that is desirable, all indeed that is practicable at a very carly age. The demonstrations and deductions of physical science, and the minute classifications of natural history, must come at a much later period. The attempt to anticipate them before the natural development of the faculties at the approach of manhood, might produce a few prodigies of precocity; but, if applied generally, would stunt the mind's growth, which can- not be healthy unless, like that of the body, it be gradual. In the meanwhile, so nearly an instinct is the faculty of speech in man, that the study of language affords the finest instrument for evolving the powers of the youthful intellect, and particu- larly that which it is then most important to cultivate, the memory. There is ample room, at the same time, in the in- itiatory steps, for cherishing the first feeble efforts of the rea- soning faculty and of the judgment, and above all, for bringing out and exercising that reflex power of attending to what is passing in the mind itself, which is the distinctive characteristic of intellectual existence. It is in this preliminary stage, I admit, that the helping hand of philosophy is eminently required, to remove difficulties, to smooth asperities, and to seize and take advantage, in teach- ing, of those analogies and generalizations in language, which, when dexterously presented to a boy's mind, are apprehended IN FAVOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 289 with the rapidity of lightning. There is no doubt that much of the obloquy that has been cast on the study of the ancient languages, and most of the failures that occur in the teaching of them, arise from the want of philosophical views in the con- struction of the grammars generally employed. Instead of following nature, by presenting in strong relief to the young mind the great outlines of the language; instead of illustrating these by comparing or contrasting them with the corresponding parts of the vernacular tongue, and thus fixing indelibly the leading rules by appeals to the testimony of consciousness; it is but too common to confound and appal the pupil at the very outset with an undigested mass of rules without reasons, where the facts of the language, whether they be of the broad and general kind which belong to universal grammar, or whether they be mere peculiarities and idioms which are re- ducible to no principle, are all, rule and exception, huddled together, taught at one and the same time, and confounded in the boy's memory, as if they were of the same description and of equal importance. If grammars for the use of schools were what they ought to be, they would serve as text-books to guide the teacher in eliciting and exercising the finest capacities of youth, and in giving a right direction to what I scarcely hesi- tate to call the noble instinct of speech. The leading facts and general rules in the structure of any language result from the laws of human thought, and, when put into words, are the expression of principles and mental operations common to all mankind, which develope themselves spontaneously, and which begin to be unconsciously acted upon at a very early age. When simply expressed and judi- ciously explained, they find an echo in every breast, and scarce- ly ever fail to interest the attention and command the assent of the young. If too little advantage is taken of this appeal to the principles of our nature in the actual business of teach- ing, the fault lies in our grammars, and furnishes an argu- ment, not against the study itself, but for improving the method of pursuing it. But without dwelling longer on the initiatory steps, let us suppose the boy advanced beyond the threshold, and engaged, after due preparation, and under the guidance of an able T 290 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT and judicious teacher, in perusing the works of the ancient writers. If, indeed, the system adopted in this stage be one of hard, dry construing, involving all the intricacies of parsing, syntax, and prosody, and concluding with a literal version of the passage,_and nothing more; the process, it must be confessed, tends rather to sharpen than to expand the youth- ful faculties, and, if carried no farther, will fall lamentably short of the great ends of education. I would not, however, be understood to undervalue such analysis of sentences, and minute examination and decom- position of words, or to represent it as a part of classical train- ing that can or ought to be dispensed with. On the contrary, it is not less useful and necessary to the young scholar, to- wards becoming familiar with the structure and idiom of a language, than dissection is to the young anatomist; and, when skilfully conducted, is one of the finest exercises of the youthful understanding, admirably adapted for rendering more acute its powers of memory and analysis, for throwing it back on its own resources, and for teaching it to sift, to discrimi- nate, and to decide. Its efficacy in these respects may indeed be justly regarded as one of the most important benefits of a well-ordered education, and one which I know not where else to look for the means of conferring so certainly and so com- pletely. Those of my hearers who are at all conversant with the great prose writers of antiquity, and particularly with Cicero and Livy, will understand what I refer to when I speak of the long and intricate sentences with which those authors abound. Now, let any one select such a sentence, and observe the great variety of parts or clauses of which it consists; the manner in which they are dovetailed into, and made dependent upon, one another; the distance words are placed at, which their use in the sentence and their concord or government prove to be connected; the involution of the sense, one assertion circumscribing and being qualified by an- other, and that again by a third, and the whole wrapt up and infolded, clause within clause, in mutual dependency, like wheel within wheel in a piece of complicated machinery;-and then let him say, whether the analytical process by which these relations and reciprocal bearings of the long period are IN FAVOUR OF CIASSICAL TRAINING. 291 detected and explained, and the form and pressure of the main affirmation with its whole retinue of subordinate parts are exposed in lucid order, be not an exercise of mind which is not merely useful for the particular passage under discussion, or the particular language the pupil is engaged in acquiring, but one which can scarcely fail to excite and quicken his faculties, in a way most conducive to the general improve- ment of his intellectual character. I have no wish to utter a word in disparagement of accurate observation and attentive study of external nature, and of the powers and productions that are known to us by the senses, an employment of the faculties not to be neglected in any stage of education, and which can scarcely, as I observed before, be commenced too soon ; but it does appear to me, that no gathering, naming and ticketing of plants and minerals, no system of pullies and combination of mechanical forces, no watching of retorts and crucibles, can supply the place of the keen and searching ex- ercise of mind which I have just described, or ought to super- sede and supplant it. Great, however, as I conceive the benefits to be of a minute anatomy of sentences, followed up by a version so literal as to vouch for a perfect comprehension on the part of the pupil of all the minutiae of grammar and syntax, I regard this pre- liminary process, after all, as but a subordinate branch of classical instruction,-indispensable, no doubt, as a basis on which to rear what is to follow, on account both of the actual knowledge it conveys and the habits of mind it induces; but no more to be considered as the whole, than a building is thought to be eomplete, when the foundations are laid, and the scaffolding erected. It is common enough, I admit, to stop short with this process, and to think that every thing is done when the pupil has acquired dexterity in the grammatical analysis. But it is to degrade and desecrate the writings of the ancients, thus to make their noblest passages no more than a vehicle for exercising on flexion, conjugation, syntax, and idiom. And to the frequency of such practice we may fairly ascribe the clamour which has been raised, and so far not without reason, against classical education. But we must not argue from the abuse of a thing against the use of it; we are 292 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMIENT not in search of what is wrong in practice, but of what is right in principle. Let us, then, in the next place, survey the wide field that opens before us, as soon as the preliminary work we have spoken of is completed. The pupil is now to be considered as engaged in the perusal of those works of ancient genius, to whose very excellence we owe it, that they did not perish in the flood of barbarism that swept inferior productions into oblivion,-works, therefore, which, having been the admiration of every age since they were written, are invested with a glory and an authority, which time only can bestow upon excellence. And of these works, containing the most matured thoughts of the noblest minds, clothed in a language of peculiar pomp, expressiveness, and melody, it is the teacher's fault if the pupil shall not read the fittest and choicest portions. But how are “the thoughts that breathe, and words that burn,” to be unveiled to the apprehension of the youthful scholar, and so brought home to his understanding, his fancy, and his feelings, as to produce those sensations of wonder and delight, which they never fail to excite in the mind of the adept. The same care, I answer, that presided over the selection, must be exercised also in the illustration, of the passages read. In the first place, obscurities must be cleared up which may arise from allusions to the peculiar manners, customs, and laws, and to the institutions, civil, military, and religious, of an- tiquity. Under this head, it is evident, that frequent oppor- tunities are afforded, not only of throwing light on the most interesting topics of Roman and Grecian antiquities and history, but of comparing or contrasting them with the corre- sponding parts of our own constitutional system, of awakening curiosity to become better acquainted with both, and of intro- ducing the pupil to ever-varying, and to him no less attractive than improving, views of human character and human affairs. In the second place, Scarcely a page of the classics can be read, without some river, mountain, city, or remarkable site, being mentioned or alluded to, -thus presenting occasions, from time to time, of dwelling on the condition, physical and political, of the ancient world,—of comparing it in both respects with the IN FAVOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 293 present, and of thus inspiring a taste for geography and topo- graphy, by investing the study of them with a deeper interest. In the third place, After all kinds of illustration, direct and col- lateral, have been thus brought to bear on the individual pass- age, and its sense has been fully made out, it remains to trace its connection with what goes before and follows, to fit it into its place as an integral part of the whole, and in this way to accustom the youthful mind to connect the several links in a chain of ideas. Accordingly, whether it be history he is en- gaged in perusing, he is led to mark the series of events as they evolve themselves in the narrative, the skill of the his– torian in disposing and grouping them, and the bearing they all have on the main points of the story: or, should an oration of Cicero or of Demosthenes be in hand, he is led to follow the train of the reasoning, and mark the dexterity with which the pleader marshals his arguments, giving prominence and full display to the weighty, and using them to mask the weaker points, and to cripple and break down the array of his adversary: or whether it be a poem that forms the subject of prelection, he is led to admire the beauty of the descriptions and allusions, and the richness of the imagery; and, amidst the ornaments and graces with which the poet's fancy embel- lishes his work, to trace his unity of purpose, and the conse- cutive train of his ideas. And in all these different kinds of composition, and particularly in the last, we shall fail to ex- tract all the good they are capable of yielding, if we do not, in the fourth place, embrace every opportunity of placing along- side of the most striking passages read, parallel ones, either from the same author, or from other classics, or from the dis- tinguished writers of our own country. This is an engaging, no less than an improving exercise for young minds: they require only to be put on the track, and they will hunt out many resemblances of thought and expression; and in the very pursuit, they become acquainted with, and acquire a relish for, the standard poets of their own language. To be thus invited to observe whence and how modern poets have borrowed from or imitated the ancients, and how, without borrowing or imitation, different writers handle the same sub- ject, is one of the best modes of inoculating with the love of literature, and forming the taste. 294 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT And all the various information and mental exercise under the different heads I have described, it is important to observe, are thus presented and conveyed, not in formal lectures and continued discourse addressed to minds indifferently prepared and therefore but little disposed to profit by them, but in short, familiar, and almost conversational notices, listened to with avidity, because they spring out of a passage on which the pu- pil’s attention has been recently bestowed, and which serves as the text to impress and recall the information communicated. The instruction, too, is exactly of the kind and to the amount which excites curiosity without satisfying it, which promotes rather than stifles farther inquiry. It opens up glimpses and vistas of knowledge as diversified as the minds to which they are presented, and thus exposes all to receive an impetus in the direction in which the tendencies of each are most apt to carry him, giving to the pupils an additional interest in whatever they either read or see passing around them, nay, occupying and colouring even their solitary thoughts. Such is the nature and tendency of the oral instruction that flows naturally from a judicious method of teaching the clas- sics. But we are yet far from having exhausted the benefits to be derived from such a course of discipline. For, let us consider what endless variety of themes for written exercises, adapted to every diversity of talent and capacity, must be fur- nished by the discussions and illustrations mentioned above. Of this kind are translations, English and Latin, in prose and in verse, which themselves furnish a theme for valuable infor- mation in the remarks made, and judgments passed on them, by the teacher, abstracts of historical narrative, or of orator- ical argument, dissertations on points treated of by the author in hand,-criticism on the passages read, and summaries of grammatical and philological discussions. The resources of the instructor are thus multiplied an hundredfold. Sparks are constantly struck off from the sacred fire that is ever burning on the altar of ancient genius, which, flying in all directions, light on the susceptible minds of the young, kindle in their hearts the love of freedom and of virtue, and inform their whole thoughts with nobleness. If, in addition to all these different means of illustrating the classics, we make occasional excursions into the field of gen- IN FAWOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 295 eral criticism, and endeavour to ascertain the principles upon which we feel admiration for the masterpieces of antiquity; if, deducing from those principles the rules of judging, and refus- ing to be guided by blind partiality, we venture, not petulant- ly, but with the reverence due to names so sacred, to “hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;” if, to quicken our perception and our relish of what is exquisite in writing, we institute a com- parison between the kindred productions of ancient and modern genius, detecting the imitations which often do equal honour to both, and adjusting their respective claims to our homage and admiration,--we shall be laying the foundation of that refinement and delicacy of taste, which gives the last finish to the character of an accomplished gentleman. After even so brief and hasty a sketch of what may be done for the training of youth by a course of classical disci- pline, I think myself entitled to ask its impugners, what is the process they propose to substitute for this, it being taken for granted that the end in view is not so much to rear a youth for a particular trade, craft, or profession, as to bestow on his mind that general cultivation, and give him that free and dexterous use of his faculties, which will enable him to excel in any. What means, let me ask, shall we have recourse to, differ- ing from those above described, to accomplish the youthful mind for the purposes of life, and give it the culture required for a liberal profession? By what other treatment or mani- pulation shall we prepare so rich a mould, trench it so deeply, pulverize it so thoroughly, plough it and cross-plough it so frequently, give it so effectual a summer-fallow, and Sow so much precious seed, and promising so abundant a crop of all that is required for the use and embellishment of life? It is so much easier to destroy than to build up, and it is, besides, so impossible, I conceive, to meet this question with a direct answer, that the enemies of the classics will probably shift their ground, and evasively reply,–All this is well enough, if it were done; but nobody will pretend that such practice is general; the picture drawn is purely ideal.—But even if the practice were more rare than it is, we cannot, as I have said before, admit the argument against the use of a thing from 296 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT the abuse of it; it is enough for us to show the tendencies and capabilities of the study, and to challenge our adversaries either to disprove their existence, or to show us a course of early discipline which possesses them to a greater extent, and with less chance of imperfection and abuse in the teaching. A single instance of success, and there are many, is as good for our purpose as a thousand. The argument from present prac- tice proves nothing against the principle. But, again, it may be argued, Why might not all this be done, and done more compendiously and expeditiously, by tak- ing the works of our own English authors for the substratum of this intellectual and moral training? My answer is, that with such means, it could not, I think, be done at all. In order to maintain this argument, it is not necessary that one should be an exclusive admirer of ancient literature, and blind to the merits of our own English writers. I claim for the an- cients no faultless excellence,—no immeasurable superiority. The rapture which some people seem to feelin perusing Homer and Virgil Livy and Tacitus, while they turn over the pages of Shakespeare and Milton, Hume and Robertson, with cold- ness and indifference, is either pure affectation or gross self- delusion. For I am fully satisfied that we are in no want of models in our own English tongue, which, for depth of thought and soundness of reasoning, for truth of narrative and what has been called the ‘philosophy of history,’ nay, even for poetical beauty, tenderness, and sublimity, may fairly challenge a comparison with the most renowned productions of antiquity. The languages, however, in which these qualities are em- bodied, are essentially and widely different, not so much in the words or combinations of letters that respectively com- pose them (for in that respect we shall see presently there are resemblances numerous and striking enough to shew to a certain degree identity of origin,) but in genius, in structure, and in idiom. The ancient are languages of flexion and conjugation, expressing the relations of things to one another, and the variations of the verb in time, person, number, mood, and voice, by changes on the terminations of the words; all, or nearly all of which, we express by separate small particles and monosyllables, which, to prevent ambiguity and confusion, * IN, FAWOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 297 have their places fixed, and must stand in juxta-position to the words they are intended to affect. Hence two results; one, that our English sentences admit of very slight and rare deviations from a precise definite arrangement of words; and the other, that modern, and more especially English composi- tion, is necessarily overrun with monosyllables, most of which, in our language at least, terminate in consonants. The an- cient languages, on the contrary, from the circumstance of their incorporating the expression of various relations among objects and ideas into the words themselves, derive two ad- vantages. In the first place, by avoiding a crowd of such little words as encumber our diction, they acquire a pomp, Sonorousness, and condensation of meaning, “a long-resound- ing march and energy divine,” which we cannot look for in our modern dialects: and, secondly, they admit a variety in the collocation of words, and a freedom of transposition, which materially contribute, in the hands of an accomplished writer, both to mould his periods into the most perfect music and me- lody to the ear, and what is of more consequence still, to pre- sent them in the most striking forms to the understanding and imagination of his reader. It is, indeed, a great and just boast of these languages, (which have been called from the circumstance, transpositive,) that this liberty of arrangement enables the speaker or writer to dispose his thoughts to the best advantage, and to place in most prominent relief those which he wishes to be peculiarly impressive: and it is thus that they are pre-eminently fitted for the purposes of eloquence and poetry. To the same peculi- arities in the structure of the ancient languages it is owing, that in them the writers were enabled to construct those long and curiously involved sentences, which any attempt to translate literally serves only to perplex and obscure, but which pre- sented to the ancient reader, as they do to the modern imbued with his taste and perceptions, a beautiful, and, in spite of its complexity, a sweetly harmonizing system of thoughts. I have already alluded to the exertion of mind required to per- ceive all the bearings of such a sentence, as to an exercise well fitted for sharpening the faculties; and this view of the ancient tongues, considered as instruments of thought widely differ- 298 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT ing from, and in many respects superior, to our own, is one which recommends them to be used also as instruments of education. Again, our mother tongue is so entwined and identified with our early and ordinary habits of thinking and speaking, it forms so much a part of ourselves from the nursery upwards, that it is extremely difficult to place it, so to speak, at a suffi- cient distance from the mind's eye to discern its nature, or to judge of its proportions. It is, besides, so uncompounded in its structure, so patchwork-like in its composition, so broken down into particles, so scanty in its inflections, and so simple in its fundamental rules of construction, that it is next to impossible to have a true grammatical notion of it, or to form indeed any correct ideas of grammar and philology at all, without being able to compare and contrast it with an- other language, and that other of a character essentially different. But how much is the title of the ancient languages to the distinction we claim for them strengthened and enforced by the consideration, that to them our own, and most of the other dialects of modern Europe, changed as they are in form and structure, owe a very large portion of their vocabulary. The more immediate descendants of the Latin, the Italian, Spa- nish, Portuguese, and French, are little else than corruptions of the parent stock, altered in shape, and frittered down in the parts, but the same in substance: and the complicated tissue of our own tongue is so wrought up and interwoven, with the Latin chiefly, and also with the Greek, that it is next to impossible to unravel its texture, or understand its nature and uses, without a competent knowledge of both. It may be regarded as a most agreeable and improving exercise to young minds, and one which will engage much of our atten- tion here, to trace English words, through the various forms and significations which they have assumed in the intermediate stages of French and Italian, up to their roots in the Latin or Greek tongues. Indeed, when one considers these venerable forms of speech in connection with the history of Europe from the times in which they were spoken to the present day, one is tempted to IN FAWOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING, 299 compare them to splendid edifices reared by the genius of antiquity, fairly proportioned, and presenting an elevation of squared and polished blocks of the finest marble; but which, at a period when time had begun to impair without destroy- ing their beauty, an earthquake and tempest suddenly coming on, shook from their foundations, and shivered into fragments. Out of these fragments, with whatever other materials came in our way, we moderns, when the storm had subsided, built ourselves habitations, convenient enough in point of accom- modation, and destined to lodge many a gifted tenant, but nevertheless devoid of the grace, and decoration, and exquisite symmetry of the original structure. And if a few specimens of this architecture have escaped the wreck of ages, and sur- vive in all their primitive chasteness and elegant simplicity, shall we not teach our youth to visit them, to admire their fair proportions, to study their cunning workmanship, and to imitate whatever is imitable of their perfection ? In the vo- lumes you have read, or are preparing to read in this place, there are remains of antiquity, nobler, more graceful, and more entire, than the ruins of Paestum and the Acropolis; and while our very antagonists pretend to join in the admiration which these architectural ruins inspire, and to envy those who have had the good fortune to behold them on their site, shall we, by a cruel and infanticidal act, block up the avenue to still holier monuments, those sacred repositories of mind, wherein its brightest manifestations are consecrated, and which, instead of being, like the other, distant and almost inacces- sible, are with us, and about us, and ever ready, when invited, pernoctare nobiscum, peregrinari, rusticari 2 The very difficulties encountered in the way to these trea- sures,-though they ought not to be multiplied, and there is much room and a strong call for diminishing their number, are not without their advantages to the student. There is no royal road to great attainments, nor is it desirable there should be; the labour of acquiring is itself half the reward, both in pleasure and in profit. What is easily learned makes little impression, and is soon forgotten. Hence an advantage in classical education, which may be regarded as an important one; that the variety of aspects in which, as I explained at 300 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT the outset, the portions read are viewed, -grammatical, syn- tactical, antiquarian, historical, mythological, geographical,— are, all, besides their own peculiar uses, just so many means of riveting the sense—when at last brought out in all its fulness —permanently in the memory. And this, indeed, is one of the sources of the secret charm and depth and dignity, which to well-trained minds seem to invest and hover around the choice passages of the classics. It would be impossible to dwell at such length, and with such improving effect, on equal portions of our mother tongue or of any modern language. The Paradise Lost is perhaps, of all modern compositions that which would best admit of being made the ground-work of curious prelection and interesting discussion; and I should be glad to find that divine poem adopted as a text-book in school or college, and taking its place, as it might most worthily do, alongside of the productions of Homer and Virgil. But one circumstance which marks out Milton's poetry for this distinc- tion is, the reverence and devotion he every where shews for those ancient models, in whose steps he was proud to tread. Hence the necessity of recurring perpetually to the classics, if we would enter into the mind of the author, or comprehend one half of his beauties. Strip Milton of his translations and imi- tations of the classics, and still more of those direct and distant allusions to particular thoughts or expressions of theirs, and he will be found, to use a phrase of his own, “shorn of his beams.” I have already spoken of the choice works of the ancients as invested with a dignity and authority which time only can bestow on excellence. Embodying as they do in an accessible form the manly, sagacious, and unfettered spirit of antiquity, and standing apart from all more recent productions, they form, as it were, a court of appeal from the fallacies of popular opi- nion.* They may be reckoned, indeed, among the surest and safest antidotes against the inroads of mesmeric follies, table- turnings, spirit-rappings, hollow hypocrisies, and fanatical rav- ings, which come at times, like cholera visits, to cast a blight over the intellect of a nation. It was they that first roused the human mind from the torpor of the middle ages. To banish them from our schools, our colleges, and our libraries, would * Opinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat.-Cic, IN FAWOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 301 be to surrender one of our best securities against relapsing into the darkness of mediaeval ignorance and bondage. Finally, much as I dislike mysticism and factitious extacies, I am not disposed to overlook or undervalue the delightful asso- ciations connected with compositions, which, though they carry us back to a remote antiquity and an order of things very dif- ferent from the present, are true to the great principles of our common nature; nor am I inclined to quarrel with preposses- sions and preferences for works which are stamped with the approbation of all the intervening ages. Is nothing to be allow- ed to the witchery of a great name? no weight or value to be attached to the evidence of a cloud of witnesses who have tes- tified to the worth of the classics by the use they have made of them, in works of their own imbued with the spirit of the ancients, and breathing, as it were, through their lips? Must we adopt the utilitarian logic so far as to become, henceforth, insensible to all the references and felicitous expressions which our own classics are constantly making to, or borrowing from, those of antiquity, expressions and references so inseparably wrought into the web and tissue of our finest literature, that they give to the whole of it a relative character ? Must we renounce all attempts to execute, and all power even to com- prehend, those delicate touches and happy allusions to things classical which distinguish the speeches of our most eminent orators? Must we doom ourselves never more to hear, or, if we hear, neither to relish nor even understand those appropriate quotations which come like a gleam of light on the landscape, or “rise like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,’ diffusing around an atmosphere of odours ‘redolent of joy and youth,' and filling the mind with noble fancies and cherished recol- lections ? Must such ornaments be discarded in all time to come from our Senate? and where they are already recorded in the published specimens of parliamentary eloquence, as having fallen from the lips of a Burke, a Pitt, a Fox, a Wyndham, and a Canning, are they doomed to become to the next generation a sealed letter? Taste, feeling, public character, all the fond- est remembrances of ancient and modern times, oppose them- selves to so lame and impotent a conclusion. Introduce such a change in the training of our ingenuous youth, and we 302 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT shall soon justify the bitterest taunts of our enemies, by de- generating, in the worst sense of the term, into a nation of shop-keepers. The strongest case against the advocates for classical edu- cation, is the practice that has hitherto prevailed of making it so general, as to include boys of whom it is known beforehand that they are to engage in the ordinary pursuits of trade and commerce; who are not intended to prosecute their education farther than school, and are not therefore likely to follow out the subject of their previous studies much, or at all, beyond the period of their attendance there. I willingly allow, and have already admitted, that a youth who looks forward from the very outset to the practice of some mechanical or even purely scientific art, may employ his time better in acquiring manual dexterity and mathematical knowledge, than in making himself imperfectly acquainted with a dead language. There must be in all very large and populous towns, a class of persons in tolerably easy circum- stances, and whose daily business affords them considerable leisure, but who contemplate for their children nothing beyond such acquirements as shall enable them to follow out the gain- ful occupation, and move in the narrow circle, in which they themselves, and their fathers before them, have spent a quiet and inoffensive life. It was for youth of this sort that the Prussian government, with a sagacity and foresight character- istic of all its educational proceedings, provided what are called buerger and mittel-Schulen, intermediate steps between the volks-Schulen, or primary Schools, and the Gymnasia, or ge- lehrte-schulen ; and France has wisely followed the example of Prussia, by ordaining the establishment of écoles moyennes, called also 6coles primaires supérieures, in all towns above a certain population. It would, no doubt, be a desirable addition to our means of training the young in this city, if an institution were formed, which, without attempting ornament or variety, should profess to give no instruction beyond what an education, strictly me- chanical and commercial, might be thought to require. But with regard to the great bulk of the middle class of easy and respectable citizens, who can contrive to combine the habits IN FAWOUR OF CLASSICAL TRAINING. 303 and details of business with the larger views imparted by soli- tary reading and social intercourse, it were much to be re- gretted that the youth of this description should be precluded from all chance of that general cultivation of the intellectual powers, and that humanizing influence of ancient literature, which result, as I have endeavoured to shew, from a well- directed course of classical instruction. In attending such a course in a public seminary, they have got, it may be, but an imperfect knowledge of Latin; and the little they once had, may eventually be lost. But they have gone through the drill, though they may have forgotten their exercise; and it has given them a firmer step and a more graceful carriage. They cannot, perhaps, construe a classic on opening it; but they have sat on the same benches with the best of the land; they have learned to respect themselves; they have read and dwelt upon the noble passages, stamped as they are with the authority of ages, in which the free and manly spirit of antiquity is embalmed; and they have heard them commented on and illustrated by their teachers, till the sentiments they contain have become part of their nature, and continue to influence their character and conduct long after the words, and even the language in which they were first conveyed, have faded from their memory. If we would have these views confirmed by an appeal to facts and experience, we need not go farther than the town we live in. Nowhere, I will venture to say, shall we find so large a proportion of merchants and manufacturers, nay, even of tradesmen and apprentices, who have gone a certain length in classical education, and know something more of Livy, and Horace, and Virgil, than the name. And yet, instead of the dulness, stupidity, and ignorance which ought, upon the anti- classical hypothesis, to result from such treatment, our fellow- townsmen have earned, from all unprejudiced strangers who have had the means of judging, a reputation for qualities the very reverse. I question much whether, in any town or city of the empire, there will be found a middle class of greater shrewdness and general intelligence. With such facts and reasonings to rest upon, we may well be excused if we turn a deaf ear to those who would persuade 304 STATEMENT OF THE ARGUMENT, &C, us to renounce the discipline in which our fathers and ourselves have been bred. The new-fangled notions and ill-concerted projects which are proposed as substitutes, if they did not fail altogether in the practice, would go no farther than either to train the youth to greater expertness in some handicraft, or to, fill their minds prematurely with scraps of science and philo- sophy; or, at the best, to turn them out good mathematicians, and nothing else ;-a character immeasurably remote from Milton's description of that which a right and generous edu- cation ought to aim at producing. But while we adhere stedfastly to the principle, that a clas- sical education is the best training for the youthful mind, and the finest equipment for exploring the fields of science and for playing our part in life, we must not shut our eyes to the fact, nor our minds to the conviction, that much is yet wanting to improve and perfect the discipline: Hoc opus, hoc studium, parvi properemus et ampli, Si patriae volumus, si nobis, vivere cari. Let us drive the enemy from his last and strongest hold, by applying ourselves, with all earnestness, to rectify what is amiss in our methods of classical instruction, to disencumber the earlier stages of all that is mere rubbish and lumber, to simplify our grammars, and to infuse more philosophy into our treatment of the youthful mind,-adopting whatever is proved to be most effectual for exciting it to healthy action, for increasing its knowledge and invigorating its powers, but rejecting all nostrums that only fill the head with a jumble of words, and dispense with the exercise of every faculty but memory. Let us multiply our holds upon the pupil's atten- tion, and double the interest of his lessons by associating the science and literature of our own country with those of Greece and Rome, thus entwining as it were the most graceful shoots of modern genius around the majestic pillar of ancient learning. It is then we may indulge the hope, that—while we strengthen and multiply the stays and buttresses that give stability to the Temple of our Commonwealth—no sacrilegious hand will be raised successfully against the graceful shaft and Corinthian capital, which at once support and adorn it. RATION A. LE OF S C H 0 0 L DIS 0 IPL IN E. [WRITTEN IN 1823; PUBLISHED IN 1852.] PREF A C E. MUCH has been written on the right training of youth, from the days of Plato and Quintilian down to the present time. The age at which a boy's education should begin—what he should learn, and in what order—what should be taught to all, and what reserved for particular classes and professions— what portion of the religious element should enter into the course of instruction—whether a public or private education should be preferred, are questions which have long divided both the speculations of philosophers and the practice of pa- rents. But the actual details of school management and dis- cipline have rarely been communicated to the world. No sooner is a boy committed to the charge of a domestic tutor or of a public teacher, than the scene closes, and little is heard of what passes, till he come forth in due time more or less of a scholar or a dunce. Like so much raw material thrown into a machine, he is subjected to a long and tedious process: but the principle of the mechanism, the mutual relation of the parts, the modes of working, and the various steps and mani- pulations of the process, have seldom been described, so mi- nutely and intelligibly, as to enable the public to form a judg- ment of their value and efficiency. The art and practice of teaching, as exemplified in the daily intercourse of teacher and pupil, seems, like other crafts and mysteries, to have been reserved for the initiated. This was eminently true down to the close of the last century: but in the course of the present, a willingness, ap- parently ripening into an earnest desire, to be informed on this matter, has been gaining ground. The discussions which 308 PREFACE TO RATIONALE. arose out of the rival pretensions of Bell and Lancaster mainly contributed to give this direction to public curiosity, and in- duced many, not immediately connected with practical instruc- tion, both to witness, and to read about, the internal organiza- tion of large schools. But it was to those schools only, whose professed object was to educate the children of the working classes, that attention was drawn. Foundation schools of older date, where youth of a higher class and less tender age were engaged in the study of the ancient languages, were screened from observation by their very antiquity; and there was, besides, enough of the obscure and the recondite in the subjects taught there to repel inspection and scrutiny: nor indeed was investigation courted either by the teachers or the patrons of such time-honoured institutions. But, seeing so much has been done, during the half of this century that is past, in the creation and amelioration of schools for the poor, and so little for the improvement of those whose very antiquity makes it likely that they require revision, it is time that more light were let into the arcana of the classical school-room, and the public invited to consider, how far the system pursued there is keeping pace with the progressive tendencies of the age we live in. Of these tendencies a striking and gratifying proof has been given, in the superior means of instruction de- vised and provided for the working classes; and, in such cir- cumstances, it is natural to enquire, whether any of the prin- ciples so successfully acted upon in certain stages of education, and with certain descriptions of pupils, may not admit of more extensive application. Taking it for granted that every thing taught in our grammar-schools is well worth the learning, it still remains for us to consider, whether methods of teaching may not be found that shall save the time and give better di- rection to the labour of the pupil, and methods above all, that shall inspire a love of study, open a finer and freer career to early talent, and reduce the number of failures to the smallest possible amount. To these important ends few things seem more likely to conduce, than an intelligible account of the details and results of actual experiments, drawn up by those who have made them. Such results, confirmed or corrected by the experience PREFACE TO RATIONALE. 309 of others, may be expected to lead to the adoption of improved methods wherever there is room for them. Some eight-and-twenty years ago, in one of those long summer vacations which the Scottish University system per- mits Professors to enjoy, the fancy struck me of committing to paper, notes and recollections of the ten years I had taught in the High School of Edinburgh. I was then fresh from the scenes and experiments of which I had a mind to preserve a memorial; and the motive was no higher, at first, than a wish to secure reminiscences of a period of my life, which had been one of considerable exertion as well as of great enjoyment. But as I proceeded with this pastime, I was insensibly led, in recording facts, to fall back upon principles; and on principles which, simple and almost self-evident as they appeared to me, were so far from being universally adopted in practice, or even admitted in theory, that they had scarcely been embodied in words, or made accessible through the press to public discus- sion. It was then it occurred to me, that if the principle were illustrated, as well as the practice explained, I might be pre- paring materials for a work of deeper and more general in- terest than could be felt for the mere details of management in a particular school, were it ever so distinguished or ever so numerously attended. With this view, I arranged my memoranda under separate heads, corresponding to the several new methods and modifi- cations of old ones, which I had ventured to introduce into the organization and discipline of the existing system ; taking care to state under each head, not so much the peculiar cir- cumstances of the High School which called for a change, as the principles on which the changes seemed to me to be requir– ed and justified. In following out this idea, I came more and more to be con- vinced, that if the materials were moulded into a shape fit for the public eye, the result might suggest hints and lead to en- quiries not unimportant in their bearing upon the question of National Education, both as it regards the many and the few; —a subject upon which the public mind was then, as it is now, very much in the dark. Since the period to which these Notes refer, extending 310 PREFACE TO RATIONALE. from 1810 to 1820, much has doubtless been done towards the elucidation and practical application of the rationale of teaching, by the Hills of Hazlewood and Bruce Castle, by Dr Arnold of Rugby, and by the Editors of that truly excellent work, the ‘Quarterly Journal of Education,’ which the British public, not much to their credit, allowed to die prematurely for lack of encouragement. The number of intelligent teach- ers, too, has greatly increased since then, and is daily increas- ing. Nevertheless, it is marvellous and mortifying to reflect, how much still remains of the old leaven, and how little way the art of training the young to learning and virtue has ad- vanced, as a branch of general knowledge, beyond its infancy. When I had taxed my memory to the full extent, and came to look over what I had written currente calamo, the dread of incurring the reproach of egotism, and appearing as the vain- glorious hero of my own tale, put to flight all thoughts of pub- lication. The manuscript was accordingly thrown aside, and has lain by me for more than a quarter of a century. But as I draw nearer to the close of life, I grow less sensitive to what scorners may say, and more desirous to lend my aid, or at least to shew my good-will, in the cause to which my best days have been devoted. I have, therefore, set myself to the task, ere it be too late, of revising the mass of papers, and re- ducing the whole into a readable form, resolved, at last, that it shall go forth on its mission. I have done my best to remedy the defects of the original manuscript, by condensing the sense, improving the diction, lopping off redundancies and repetitions, abridging some de- tails, omitting others, and removing a third set to an appendix of Notes. The arrangement and substance of the whole re- main, however, the same; nor has the manuscript suffered any alteration which can affect its character as a contemporary and authentic document. In describing the new methods introduced into the discipline which I found estabished in the Rector's Class, and in repre- senting them as improvements upon the old, it may be thought that I am disparaging the merits and undervaluing the services of one who was my teacher, as well as my predecessor; and perhaps the fear of incurring such an imputation may have PREFACE TO RATIONALE. 311 had its effect in dissuading me from earlier publication. But there is no good ground for a charge of this kind. In a brief memoir of Dr Adam, printed in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and on sundry other occasions, both public and private, I have spoken of my old master with that affection and reverence, which no pupil of his, and no lover of the Classics, can ever cease to feel for his memory. But the truth is, he began his career as a public teacher at a time when nobody thought of disturbing the long-established routine. Prompted, moreover, by an enthusiastic love of classical learning, and a desire to promote and diffuse it, he commenced early that series of works —his Latin Grammar, his Roman Antiquities, his Summary of Ancient Geography, his Classical History and Biography, and his Latin-English Dictionary, which have earned for him a high and well-deserved reputation, not in this island only, but over Europe and America. The completion of works intended for publication absorbed much of his thoughts, and exercised his indefatigable industry; and it is not, there- fore, to be wondered at, if, with such lofty ends in view, he should have looked upon the teaching of his class, excellent though it was, as a secondary object, one, at least, to which he which he was not required to consecrate the undivided en- ergies of his mind. With me, the case was different. I took, as became me, a less ambitious flight. My public teaching began in an age of innovation and reform; and desirous that I should not be be- hind in the march of improvement, I gave myself wholly up to the business of my class, content with working in an hum- bler sphere for the passing generation, without attempting to leave behind me such lasting memorials as my predecessor had bequeathed to posterity. CoLLEGE OF EDINBURGH, May 1851. RATIONALE OF SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION OF MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. THE High School of Edinburgh, at the time of my prede- cessor's death, consisted, as it had done for ages before, of five Classes or Forms, with one teacher for each of them. The Fifth or highest class was assigned to the Rector. The four Assistants or under Masters began, each in his turn, with a First Class of rudimentary Latin, and carried the same boys forward through the stages of Second, Third, and Fourth Classes, till, at the close of four years, his pupils entered the Fifth Class, and he commenced afresh with a new set of be- ginners. The rule of the School was, that the pupils should remain two years with the Rector, thus making the full complement of attendance a course of six years of classical training. The number of the entire school, during the first ten years of the present century, reached an annual average of 560, and of these the Rector had generally about 150.* There never had been, among the four lower classes, any system of promotion according to proficiency, except that which occurred daily in each individual class, by the taking * See Dr Steven's “History of the High School of Edinburgh,” Appendix, p. 122. According to the Matriculation Register, the number of pupils enrolled in the class which I received from Dr Adam in 1810 was 144; in that of 1820 it was 288. INTRODUCTION OF MONITORIAI, DISCIPLIN E. 313 of places. No amount of industry or ability could shorten the period of four years in the preliminary stages, and no amount of idleness or deficiency extended the time of probation re- quired for the Rector's class. The set of boys who began the elements of Latin in October remained under the same master, without a chance of promotion or detention, till the end of the fourth year. Now it is self-evident that a hundred boys, com- mencing this study at the age of eight or nine, with various degrees of previous culture, and various powers and habits of attention, will soon begin to exhibit considerable differences of aptness and docility; and if they are not sifted and assorted at intervals, but are carried on from stage to stage till the close of the fourth year, the disparity in acquirement will be con- stantly augmenting, till it reach its maximum at the time when they are transferred to the head master. But, in his case, there was an additional element of disparity. The Rector's class, at the October commencement, was made up of two sets of boys;–one set, who had been pupils of his the year before, and the other, who came to him from the fourth class; and both, having been trained under different teachers, were in all the gradations, on the one hand, of ignorance and incapacity, and on the other, of ability and acquirement. Such were the materials and circumstances I had to deal with, and to make the most of: for any attempt to alter the constitution of the seminary would have involved me in endless disputes and heartburnings, both with the patrons and with the teachers, and could only have ended, I was well aware, in bitter disappointment. During the two years I was a pupil in Dr Adam's class, I had myself been struck with the un- manageable nature of such discordant elements. It was too manifest to escape the observation even of a boy, that a con- siderable portion of the school hours was lost time both to the higher members of the class and to the lower. According to my recollection of what took place in the parsing, translating, and examining upon a prescribed portion of an ancient author, —which is the main part of the business of a classical school, —the daily routime may be thus described. The class being assembled in the morning, the lesson was begun to be read, sometimes by inviting to the task the first boy from the foot 314 INTRODUCTION OF of the class who thought he had mastered it, but more fre- quently by calling up some of the fifteen or twenty highest boys. While this first construing and questioning was going on, attention was kept tolerably alive throughout the class by the usual fear of penal consequences. Then followed the re- petition of the same thing, over and over again, in other parts of the class; a process which excited some interest among those immediately below the boy on his legs, but little or none elsewhere. To the upper boys, who felt they had already possession of the lesson, this repeated translation had all the wearisomeness of a thrice told tale. The lower boys, again, lived in the hope that the school time would expire before it came to their turn to say ; and both sets, accordingly, gave themselves up to strenuous idleness. In truth, with a limited time, and a large number of boys, (and the difficulty, of course, increased with the number,) it was next to impossible, were the earnestness and activity of the teacher ever so great, to test the preparation at home and attention in the class-room of every pupil, or to overcome the temptation to neglect a task, which, it was shrewdly conjectured, might never be called for. Such was the general aspect of the Rector's class about the end of last century; and there is no reason to suppose that it was different, or altered for the better, in the first nine years of the present, these being the latest of a long incumbency. With a mind full of these recollections, and the reflections to which they gave rise, I entered on the duties of a public teacher, which were altogether new to me, not merely with an oppressive sense of responsibility, but with feelings little short of despair. I was early and deeply impressed with the notion, that it was incumbent on me to find fit employment, both in school and out of it, for the mind of every boy committed to my charge, and at the same time to supply motives strong enough to engage him in the task; in other words, so to ap- portion the daily lessons, that no boy should find them so diffi- cult as not to be tempted to make trial of his strength, nor yet so easy as to encourage indolence at home and habits of inatten- tion in school. But how was this to be accomplished, when any average that could be struck of work prescribed to be done, was MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 315 sure to be too difficult for one third of the class, and too easy for another? A majority of the boys, during a considerable portion of school-hours, took no interest in what was going on ; some, from thinking they had nothing more to learn, others, because they had little capacity and less inclination to profit by what they heard. From such a state of things what could be expected to result, but either constrained silence, lassitude, and mental inaction, or continual outbreaks of noisy playfulness and petty annoyances, which could only be kept under, and that but for a time, by reproachful vociferation, bursts of real or affected indignation, or the old quack recipe of corporal punishment? And how were evils so deep-seated, and apparently inevitable, to be dealt with remedially 2 Speculations were about this time afloat, as to the possibi- lity of extending the elements of education to the lowest and poorest youthful population of the country, by adopting the method of “mutual instruction.” This method, though not altogether unknown or unpractised before, in some of the grammar and parish schools of Britain, had never attracted attention nor been reduced to a system, till Dr Andrew Bell published an account of its being extensively in use among the Hindoo population of India, and particularly at Madras. Dr Bell's book, however, made little impression, and had been almost forgotten, when Joseph Lancaster took up the cause of popular education; and, supplying by enthusiasm and inde- fatigable activity what was wanting in knowledge and philo- sophy, awakened the public mind to the subject, and organized establishments, where the children of the poor, who had hitherto gone without education at all, were taught reading, writing, and cyphering, either gratuitously, or at a very low rate; and with unexampled rapidity. It does not appear, that either Dr Bell or Mr Lancaster, at this period, contem- plated their new mode of teaching in any other light than as an economical measure, which would confer the boon of ele- mentary instruction in quarters where it could otherwise have been gotten, either very imperfectly, or not at all. Whatever may have been said afterwards, neither of these gentlemen seems at this time to have dreamed of applying the monitorial system to the higher branches of knowledge, or to schools for 316 INTRODUCTION OF the children of the wealthy. Certain at least it is, that no- thing had been done in this way up to the year 1811. Some striking examples, however, had ere then been exhibited of the efficiency of the method, in schools for the poor formed under Lancaster's direction. It occurred to me that the Saving of expense and time was not the only, nor perhaps the most important result which the new method promised, and that advantage might be taken of its main principle, wherever large numbers were to be taught simultaneously; and especially in the class and with the sub- jects which I had to teach. It appeared possible that the difficulties which I had regarded as insurmountable might be obviated, by bringing the superior spirit and knowledge of the higher boys to bear upon the less advanced, and using it to stimulate and inform them. Facilities for carrying out any such plan presented themselves in the established mode of teaching by examination, and the order of sitting and prece- dence in the class. This will be best understood by the fol- lowing details. At the commencement of the session (on the 1st of October), all the pupils entering on their second year of attendance in the Rector's class sat highest, preserving the same places which they had held on the day of public examination in August preceding. Next to them sat, in their class order also, those who came from the fourth class. Lowest of all sat the strangers who joined the class from other places of instruc- tion, and in the order of enrolment. It is obvious that this distribution was very far from indicating the actual proficiency of the newly formed class. The daily examination on the lessons,—in the course of which, when a boy could not answer a question or construe a sentence, the first sitting below who could, took precedence both of him and of all who were equally ignorant, had a tendency to adjust the places to the proficiency of every pupil. Indeed, the order of sitting just mentioned being understood by the boys themselves not to correspond to their scholarship, had a remarkable effect for a while in keep- ing emulation alive. The dullest boys of the second year, feeling themselves suddenly elevated in the class to a height unknown before, made desperate efforts to retain their places, MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 317 and to escape the ridicule they might incur by sinking rapidly below the new comers; while the head boys of the Fourth class were eager to distinguish their early career in the Rec- tor's, by taking precedence of those who were a year in ad- vance of them.* It was so desirable to keep this sentiment alive, that for some time none but the easiest questions were put to the lower boys of the second year, that they might be stimulated to farther exertion in maintaining their new posi- tion, and that at all events their feelings might be spared by letting them gently down. It was necessary, however, to shorten this period of probation, for various reasons, chiefly because, as the class increased in numbers, the time required for this gradual adjustment would have interfered materially with other important objects. In a week or two, therefore, after the meeting of the school in October, when its numbers were nearly complete, I accom- panied the whole of my class to the writing-room, and pre- scribed an exercise, so contrived that it should serve as a test of their actual attainments in Latin. These class-written exercises I carried home, and, having marked and numbered the errors in each, made out a class-list, arranged according to the number of blunders in each, from those whose perfor- mances were faultless, down to those who had failed entirely. Next morning the list of names, beginning with the highest, was slowly read out, and the boys took their places according to it. Supposing the exercise to have been judiciously se- lected, and the performance of it carefully watched, a tolerably accurate scale of present scholarship was in this manner obtained, graduating downwards from the head boy to the lowest. I then proceeded (1811) to subdivide the class into decads, on the principle of having one pupil of superior Scho- larship attached to every nine boys of the class. Taking the number of the class at 200, the twenty best scholars whom the result of the trial exercise had placed at the top, were ranged round the room at equal distances, and to each of them * Hi proprium decus et partum indignantur honorem Ni temeant, vitamgue volunt pro laude pacisci: Hos successus alit; possunt quia posse videntur. AEm. v. 239. 318 INTRODUCTION OF was assigned a division of nine boys, beginning with the 21st, who, with the next eight, constituted the first division, and so on till the whole number was disposed of, and twenty divi- sions of ten each were formed. Three benches, placed trian- gularly, with open corners, were allotted to each division, (for the standing posture after the first twenty minutes is irksome to boys and distracts attention,) so that, sitting thus compactly and facing each other, all might be heard distinctly in their own division, without interfering with the divisions adjoining. Let us now attend to the nature of the power acquired by this simple contrivance,—the way in which the machine worked, and the practical ends to which it was made sub- servient. One of the prime objects of the new arrangement, was to make sure that a considerable portion of the lesson should be said daily by every pupil. The Latin classes in the High School met four hours a day, with two assemblings and two dismissals. Allowing four minutes for each, and deducting these sixteen, the whole disposable time was 224 minutes, or little more than one min- ute per day to each boy. But nothing could have been more unprofitable than to fritter down the hours into such minute fragments in a class so advanced as the Rector's. Among beginners, who are chiefly employed in the declension of nouns and inflexion of verbs, a sort of running fire of questions may be kept up among the pupils; but at a later stage, when dif- ficult classics come to be construed and commented on, a con- siderable portion of the time ought to be occupied, partly by individual pupils, in construing and being fully examined ; partly by the master himself, in explaining and illustrating the lesson in a familiar, discursive, and interesting manner, so as to take possession of young minds, and insensibly fix their attention on the business in hand. It is manifest, therefore, that in following the old plan, few days could pass without leaving a considerable portion of the class unexamined, and of those who were examined, many must have escaped with short and occasional questions, which their previous knowledge of the language enabled them to answer, how idle soever they might have been up to the time they entered the school- MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 319 room. Boys are both shrewd and sanguine calculators: they take their play and neglect their preparation, whenever there is a reasonable presumption that they will either not be called upon, or that they may make a shift to answer an easy question. It will be best seen how far these encouragements to indolence were withdrawn, by explaining at large the manner in which the business was conducted on the new plan. Suppose a lesson, an Ode of Horace for example, to be prescribed for the morrow at the close of the day's business. On this occasion, a few hints were given as to the subject and the poet's mode of treating it, and perhaps also, as to one or two of the difficulties, where to look, and what to look for, in order to obtain a solution of them—the object in all this being to smoothe the way to the willing student, and tempt those to ply their task over night, whom the impossi- bility of their accomplishing it without such aid might dis- courage. On the morrow, the business began in the assem- bled class with calling two or three boys successively to con- strue and be examined on the lesson; and I need scarcely add that no regular order of calling was observed. In this matter, it is necessary to be on one's guard even against contracting a habit of routine, which, however unconscious of it the teacher may be, his pupils will readily find out and calculate upon. If the boy first called declines saying, or attempts the lesson and fails, the first below who succeeds takes his place, as ex- plained in speaking of the old method. After a strict exami- nation on the Ode in all its aspects and bearings, grammati- cal, prosodial, antiquarian, historical, critical, and geographi- cal, it was translated continuously, or at least with less inter- ruption of questioning, and read perhaps a third time without the Latin, a free rendering of the sense being then encouraged. All this exhausted the first of the two morning hours, more or less as might happen: after which, instead of travelling over the same ground with other boys till it became stale and te- dious, the signal was given for the divisions to form. The monitors are instantly at their posts: the lowest divisions, who have least time to lose, moving first, are at work imme- diately, and all in the space of three minutes. Here the busi- ness is to construe the lesson again under the inspection of a 320 INTRODUCTION OF monitor, who is to perform among the nine of his division, as nearly as possible, but less excursively, the same office which he has witnessed the master doing with the assembled class. He is instructed to divide the passage into such portions as that all shall say a part, and to take care it be done accurately; and having thus secured a translation of the whole, to follow it up with as many of the miscellaneous questions as the time will permit. If the object were, to have done with this lesson within the morning meeting, the divisions, after being half an hour employed in the way described, re-assembled in the ge- neral class, and the lesson was once more gone over, the mas- ter selecting those to say, who, as certified by the monitors' reports, made the poorest or the best appearance in the divi- sions. In the afternoons, the same process was gone through with a lesson in a prose writer, such as Livy or Sallust, and next day, before the new lesson was begun, a few minutes were spent in ascertaining that the class generally had mas- tered the old one; the full revisal of the weeks lessons being reserved for Saturday. At the close of every division-time, the monitors were bound to give in a written report, contain- ing the names of the nine, and marks appended to show how each had said; and these slips of papers furnished me with the means of detecting and exposing negligence, as well as of rewarding the diligent with approbation. This was the ordinary way of proceeding with the main bu- siness of the day, that is, literal translation, with parsing, syntax, and miscellaneous questioning and prelecting, and then a free rendering of the text, without the Latin. But the monitorial method is so manageable an instrument, that it admits of an endless variety of applications. Of these it may be worth while to mention a few. 1. When the saying by heart of grammar, or of choice por- tions of the authors read, was part of the business prescribed, it is obvious that, in a numerous class, assurance of every boy's preparation could not be gained upon the old plan, with- out an extravagant and wearisome waste of time: Whereas, by the new method, it was enough for the master to hear the monitors say as much as to satisfy him of their preparation; MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 321 and in divisions, a few minutes sufficed to have an accurate report of every boy's success or failure. 2. In cases where there was a good deal of work to be done in divisions, or when the examination and prelection on the lesson extended beyond the usual limits, it was found an economy of time, to subdivide the class only once a day, and that in the afternoon meeting, so as to have all the lessons gone through in divisions, at one sitting. 3. Another variety in the application of the monitorial method was the following. On the first assembling of the class, the divisions were ordered to form immediately, with the view of having the lesson for the day gone over in them for the first time; it being understood, that nothing was required on such occasions but a simple and intelligible translation of the passage. This translation was done upon the responsibility of the monitors, who were constituted judges ad interim, whether or not the meaning were correctly given. Still farther to ensure previous preparation on their part, they were enjoined to translate in the hearing of their division, part, sometimes the whole, of the new lesson. This simple translation, interrupted by no questions but such as were ne– cessary for the comprehension of the syntax, was speedily performed; not half an hour elapsed before I was made aware, by reports from the monitors, what boys professed the new lesson, who did not, and who succeeded or failed in the at- tempt. On re-assembling, appeals were heard, i. e. all those who had objections to the interpretation given, or allowed to be given without correction, by the monitor of their division, were invited to state them. When the appellant rose, the monitor of his division rose also in self-defence; and the dis- cussion that ensued never failed to prove interesting, being on a topic which had so recently been under the view of all, and on which every one had already formed an opinion. It was a sure result of this arrangement, that the obscure and ambi- guous passages of the lesson were brought under review, and the attention of the class fixed upon them till the true sense was rivetted in their memory. More was done in this way towards a full comprehension of the passage, than could have been effected by any number of translations upon the old plan, X 322 INTRODUCTION OF where little or no discrimination was made between what was difficult and what was easy, the one repeated as often as the other, and both usque ad nauseam. When the stumbling-blocks were thus removed, the lesson was construed entire in the hearing of the assembled class, and opportunity taken to convey collateral information, tending to cultivate the taste and open the mind to a comprehension of the author's main object, and a perception of his beauties. And all this was impressed on the memory by once more con- struing in divisions, with all the additional lights acquired by the intervening illustrations. 4. There is another variety in the application of the moni- torial method, which was occasionally employed, and with the best effect, in the latter part of my incumbency, when the average number of the class was 250. Besides the 25 regular monitors, the next 23 boys, forming the first, second, and part of the third divisions, were appointed pro tempore monitors, and, taking their places each at the head of a division, pro- ceeded to go over the lessons of the day before; while the re- gular monitors, whose mastery of the old lesson could not be doubted, were taken apart into an adjoining room, and strictly examined by me on the new lessons of the day. As such pupils are quick of apprehension, a summary short-hand way was enough to put them speedily and fully in possession of the les- son, and of all I wished to be taught to, and impressed upon, the boys in division; and being thus charged with the neces- sary knowledge, they took off their several ways, to distribute it over the minds of their school-fellows; the deputy monitors meanwhile resuming their ordinary places, and reporting at the end of the hour, how the old lesson had been said. But, now that I have described the principal modes of em- ploying this educational instrument, it is natural to enquire, how its efficiency was to be maintained, and how the mischie- vous tendencies which it is easy to prognosticate and denounce were to be guarded against. The natural indolence of the human mind, it may be ar- gued, and its aversion to follow a continued train of thought in a line prescribed, will suggest to boys thus withdrawn from the direct superintendence of the master, a thousand ways of MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 323 defeating his purpose, and indulging those propensities of their nature. It must often happen, it may be thought, that by mutual compact between the monitor and the pupils, the lessons will be slurred over and imperfectly said, nay, often neglected altogether, and the time furtively occupied in trifling, or in telling stories. The monitors, again, if you arm them with too much power, will abuse it, and become partial, ca- pricious and tyrannical; if with too little, they will be despised, and the division will fall into confusion and suffer all the evils of anarchy. There may be encouragement also, some will think, to the indolence of a master, in the facility and the temptation he will have, to shift the burden of teaching from his own shoulders to those of his monitors. These are all dangers to which it was not difficult to foresee that the new plan was exposed. It was in truth no more than being aware, that methods of teaching, like machinery, however well contrived and conducted, cannot be expected to work effectually without a system of checks and balances, as well as a moving power; and that constant vigilance is re- quired to prevent the whole from going out of order. They are all dangers, too, which turned out formidable rea- lities, in the large schools for the children of the poorer classes, formed under the auspices of Dr Bell and of Mr Lan- caster. For, great as was the impression made on the public mind by their promulgation and first application of the method of mutual instruction, and manifold as were the benefits which it conferred on the commonalty of England for many years subsequent to the enthusiasm created by its first introduction, it was nevertheless easy to see, that the organization estab- lished by them, when contemplated as a permanent system of popular instruction, contained within itself the seeds of decay and dissolution. The children on whom the experiment was tried, sprang from a class of parents, who more frequently counteracted than assisted the good lessons received at School; their home-training was always imperfect and often positively bad; their attendance was irregular; they were too young to be trusted with delegated authority; and, worst of all, those who, from age, ability, and trustworthiness, were the fittest for monitorial duties, were, for that very reason, withdrawn 324 INTRODUCTION OF by their parents, to be put to some gainful employment. There is besides a constantly increasing difficulty, in finding trained and intelligent masters.” Among the boys I had to deal with, I found no such elements of mischief, no such ten- dency to degenerate; but quite the reverse. From year to year, up to the last of my rectorship, the system became more and more efficient; nor is it difficult to acount for the contrast. The constituent members of the Rector's class were the sons of parents of a higher grade than those of the Bell and Lan- caster children; they had been accustomed to obedience and school-discipline for several years; and they were of an age when not only is the intellect more developed, but the finer feelings and higher principles of our nature begin to emerge, and it becomes possible to appeal successfully to the sense of honour and propriety,+a mighty engine for good, in hands that know how to use it. I hold it to be clearly demonstrable, by reason no less than from my own experience, that the mo- nitorial method is more applicable, and may be applied with a greater certainty of good results, in schools of large numbers, where the higher branches of knowledge are taught to ad- vanced pupils, than it is to the immature, unformed, and often ill-conditioned minds of the offspring of the humbler classes. Accordingly, when, in consequence of the increasing num- bers in the Rector's class, it was thought by the patrons of the school that it must become unmanageable in the hands of one man, I was given to understand, in a private communication from one of the most influential members of the municipal body, that if I made a formal application to the Town Coun- cil for a paid assistant, it would be favourably listened to. I declined doing so, on the ground that I had already secured the services of twenty unpaid assistants of my own training, and more if I wanted them, in whom I had greater confidence than I was likely to feel in a hired one. * These disturbing influences, observable enough at the date of my manu- script (1823), became at last so apparent and so subversive of the ends in view, that the Committee of Privy Council on Education were induced to supersede the plan of mutual instruction as hitherto practised in schools re- ceiving pecuniary aid from Parliamentary grants, and to substitute for their monitors, what are called apprenticed teachers. The change was a wise and judicious one, and is producing the very best effects. MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 325 The opinion I have stated as demonstrable receives no small confirmation from a fact, which has never been even alluded to in the public discussion of the question. It is this, that a practice, much akin to monitorial discipline and based upon the same principle, subsisted, for many generations before Bell and Lancaster were born, at Eton, Rugby, and other great schools coeval almost with the monarchy, which have been re- sorted to for ages by the youth of the best blood that England has to boast of. I allude to the institution of Prepostors, who, being themselves pupils in the highest forms of those schools, are invested with delegated authority, and exercise it over their school-fellows, in a way which may be called the moral police of the establishment. They are not employed, as my monitors were, in teaching, or in what the French schoolmas- ters call répétition, but they are officers of discipline; and, in the hands of such men as Dr Arnold, they were organs of an influence, both moral and intellectual, which extended, not only to the regulation of the school games, but to the repress- ing, by impositions, and in the lower school even by corporal inflictions, of misdemeanors, breaches of the laws of the school, and offences against good manners or gentlemanlike conduct. Let us hear no more, then, of the monitorial discipline, as of ‘a thing that has been tried and found wanting,'—as ‘a popular delusion which has had its day, and is fast passing into oblivion,-so long as the method has never been tried, fully or generally, in that department of education where its capabilities are greatest, and in which it is the object of this book to prove that it has once at least been tried with success. That in the great English Schools it has been employed only as a sort of watch and ward over conduct, and not for literary training as well as school-discipline, is owing chiefly, I appre- hend, to the constitution of those establishments, wheretheboys are under the superintendence of the masters, out of school as well as in it. But in both, the principle is the same, the de- legation of authority to one set of present pupils, to be exer- cised over their fellows who are less advanced in age and standing. To those who are still sceptical as to the applicability of monitorial discipline to the teaching of Greek, Latin, and the 326 INTRODUCTION OF cognate branches, and who regard as Utopian any project for rendering such application general, there is one concession which I am not only willing to make, but anxious to proclaim. I fully admit the impossibility of combining it with the old and inveterate habit of objurgation, coercion, and corporal punish- ment. To give the monitorial method a fair chance of suc- cess, there must be a feeling of kindliness and confidence between master and scholar, which can only spring up in the breast of a boy from a strong conviction that his teacher is also his friend, and wishes to be of use to him. Between him and his monitors, above all, there must be a sentiment of mutual respect and regard. His intercourse with them must be such as to impart the feeling that they are his fellow-work- ers in a great cause. Whatever their previous habits and manners may have been, he must treat them as gentlemen, and they will speedily become so. As boy-nature, then, how- ever individual characters may differ, is everywhere alike, it is upon the teacher that the responsibility rests of carrying out the principle rightly into practice. One successful ex- periment, upon a great scale, is good in argument against a thousand failures. It was vain, however, I was well aware, to hope for success, without anticipating, and providing against, all the chances of failure. In education, as in every human institution, we must be content to take account both of advantages and inconve- niences, and to abide by the result which gives the largest balance of benefits. Let us then trace the working of the system on the two com- ponent parts of the class, the monitors, and the divisions. The monitors had numerous and strong inducements to perform their part ably and conscientiously. There was implied in the duty enjoined more than an accidental and ephemeral connection. They were appointed, each to a particular divi- sion, for a fortnight at least, and were bound at the end of that time to give in a general statement in writing, of the manner in which the lessons had been said during their time of office, and lists of the Division as it stood when they received it, and as it stood when they resigned it: a list too of those boys who had fallen to a lower division, or risen to a higher, or passed MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE, 327 through from more remote divisions upwards or downwards. To secure the means of making such accurate returns, there was required a habit of strict and unremitted attention. Any inaccuracy seldom failed to be detected and exposed when the master came to read out publicly the conclusions he had come to from the inspection of the final reports. It was gratifying to a monitor when a member of his division took a higher place in the examination of the assembled class; and part of the honour redounded to him, if a considerable number had done so. If he were imperfectly acquainted with the lesson himself, two consequences were likely to follow, both of which he held in abhorrence,—exposure of his ignorance, and loss of place. For he well knew, that after the divisions broke up and the class was re-assembled, there would be a general in- vitation to those to stand up who had an appeal to make against the monitor for a mistranslation, either committed by him or allowed to pass uncorrected in the division. On such occa- sions, four or five appellants generally rose, and the monitor of their respective divisions rose at the same time; and if any of them made his point good against the monitor, (and the arguing of such points was an instructive and amusing exer- cise,) he rose pso facto to the head of his division, and the monitor lost a place to the next below him, against whom no appeal had been made. To ensure the unceasing operation of the principle of gen- erous emulation, the monitor was armed with the power of ‘putting up or down,' that is, of making boys gain or lose places as they acquitted themselves well or ill; and the place they gained in the division they retained in the general class. This power may be thought a dangerous prerogative; and it would have led infallibly to abuse and favouritism, had it not been kept in check by permitting the right of appeal. With the fear of appeal before his eyes, favouritism on the part of a monitor was impossible, and careless preparation nearly so. The division was a sort of jury, whose verdict expressed or understood, was itself a bar to unfairness; but the grand pre- ventive of all tendency to indulge partialities or dislikes, was the pupil's right of appeal to the master himself. This right was sometimes exercised in the division, as I went my rounds, 328 INTRODUCTION OF and decided there, if it regarded merely the loss of a place or the value of a slight correction. If it involved a nicer and important question about the sense and construction, the ap- pellant was advised to reserve it for a hearing in the presence of all. Again, if there was any unnecessary delay in proceed- ing with the business prescribed, arising from idle talk or telling stories, it was sure to be detected, either by the master himself or by a trustworthy general monitor, whose business it was to go round the divisions and note irregularities. The truth is, that as all the divisions advanced at a pretty equable pace, any one division being greatly behind, led to an imme- diate investigation, and the truth never failed to come out. The temptation to idleness was doubtless greatest in the rooms where the master was not present at the time,” and idleness wss more difficult of detection there, as on the least hint of the master's approach all was silence and apparent attention. A case or two of this kind having come to my knowledge, I availed myself of certain openings in the ceiling, which had been made to promote ventilation, and employed them for a very different purpose. Mounting to the garrets, with which these apertures communicated, I was enabled to view what was passing in the room below, without being visible myself. So good was the conduct of the divisions, that I long looked in vain for any overt act. At last the temptation of a longer than usual absence elicited one or two frivolities. To the utter consternation of the guilty, I told them minutely what they had been about ; and, with these witnesses to vouch to their school-fellows for the fact, I publicly and good-humour- edly announced the means I had of detection ; and this in- visible agency had so powerful and permanent an effect, that I had seldom or never occasion to employ it again. To prevent loss of time in unprofitable discussion or wrang- ling about places, the monitors were empowered and enjoined to put a stop to these, by saying to the next boy, “Go on,” and referring the complainer to me if he chose. As to the danger to the Monitor of conceit, which might be apprehended from his being thus dressed in a little brief authority, it exists nowhere but in the imagination of the There was a suite of three rooms on the floor. MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE, 329 theorist. Any tendency to such a fault was speedily counter- acted, by the feeling of severe responsibility, by the number of persons who enjoyed the same distinction, and by the abso- lute equality which the monitor's fellows vindicated for them- selves the moment they were out of school. The apprehen- sion is equally groundless, that the seeds would be sown of jealousy and ill-will towards the monitors. When a monitor's conduct was fair, manly, conciliatory, and yet firm, no feeling of that sort ever prevailed; and if it was not so, some mani- festation of such feeling was no bad means of correcting his faults, provided the master acted his part well in applying the remedy. All these preventive checks on monitors and pupils, require to be watched and enforced by the master himself, who, so far from being relieved of duty when the divisions are formed, ought to consider that as the busiest, and not the least impor- tant portion of his whole day. It is then that he feels a de- sire, as it were, to multiply himself, that he may hear and see what is going on everywhere. At no time is his post less of a sinecure. The divisions are, indeed, to him a sort of Normal School, where the best means are afforded him of studying the nature of boys, and the motives that actuate them, and of making himself acquainted with the individual char- acters of his pupils, with a view to improve them. He is the last resort in all appeal cases; and appeals, being made not merely against monitors, but more frequently when monitors decline to decide, often involve points of considerable nicety and novelty, which nothing but long habit can enable the teacher himself to determine on the spur of the occasion, as satisfactorily and speedily as the urgency requires. The moments of interval from this duty he employs in attaching himself, now to one division, now to another, observing the manner in which the business is conducted, forming a judg- ment by comparison of the different monitors, commending the pupils who do their tasks well, and enquiring into the causes of failure. At another time, he is examining slips of paper sent in by the monitors, containing the names of those who failed in the lesson, and, from his previous knowledge of the habits, abilities, and opportunities of his pupils, he is tak- 330 INTRODUCTION OF ing hints from the returns, to admonish one privately, to re- prove another in the presence of his division, and to put a third to open shame, by calling upon him to construe in the general class. One of Lancaster's absurdities was his maintaining, that a school arranged on his principle was like a clock wound up, which would go of itself. Without thinking worse of boy nature than he did, I deemed it as well not to tempt it beyond what it might be able to bear. Once or twice I made success- ful experiments in this way, but always found that things went on the better, the more vigilant the superintendence; and when exhaustion or slight indisposition led to a little relaxation on my part, I have often felt Non aliter, quâm qui adverso vix flumine lembum Remigiis subigit, si brachia forte remisit, Atque illum in praeceps prono rapit alveus amni. In truth, what the poet says in the same passage, of the vege- table world and its habits, is equally true of the moral and intellectual,— Vidi lecta diu et multo spectata labore Degenerare tamen, ni vis humana quotannis Maxima quaeque manu legeret —sic omnia fatis In pejus ruere et retro sublapsa referri. Virg. Georg. I, 197, HAVING explained the organization of monitorial tuition, as adopted in the Rector's class in 1811 and subsequently modified, the manner of its application, and the checks and securities taken against abuse, it remains to point out the ad- vantages accruing from this method, as compared with the mode formerly in use. It will, I presume, be admitted on all hands that, supposing the literary acquirements upon either system to be in the end equal, the preference is due to that method which accomplishes its end with the smallest amount of annoyance and privation to the learner. There are indeed schoolmasters, and fathers too I fear, who act towards the young persons committed to their care, as if they looked upon brow-beating and blows as an in- dispensable and beneficial part of their training. For myself, when I reflect how considerable a portion of our brief span of MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 331 life is spent in school, and at an age when novelty gives a Zest to enjoyment, I cannot but regard it as a question of some interest, whether it shall be passed in active and happy exertion, or in a state of uneasiness and depression, which makes the associations with a school-room to differ but little from those of a prison-house. But when it is further consi- dered, that the manner in which that period of boyhood is spent materially affects the moral habits of the man, to say nothing of his intellect ; that there is nothing so debasing, nothing so souring to the temper and destructive of good feel- ing, as to be treated with unkindness and subjected to alter- nations of listlessness and corporal suffering, it becomes still more important that the ends of public education should be obtained, with the least possible imposition of hardship, or infliction of pain that savours of injustice. On what plea, or in virtue of what right, does a full-grown man arrest the young of his species, who hold life and liberty by a charter from nature herself, immure them in a school-room, subject them there to the control of another, and condemn them for hours together to the irksomeness of bodily inaction; and that, at a time of life when the increasing vigour of their muscular frame fits and disposes them to enjoy a wild and active indepen- dence? If such a question were asked, it might be answered, and satisfactorily answered, that reason and experience prove the necessity, on a fair calculation of the chances of human life, of evolving certain faculties, and inducing certain habits, the existence and exercise of which are indispensable for se— curing even a moderate amount of happiness and usefulness in the world; and that these ends are never so attainable as in boyhood, though not even then without a considerable abridgment of natural liberty. But the very terms of the answer imply, that the amount of constraint, privation, and infliction, which natural law and common sense permit to be interposed, ought to be precisely the smallest that is consistent with the full accomplishment of the end proposed. Yet so little is this principle understood or acknowledged, that hard- ship and coercion are too often deemed per se a blessing to youth. Masters, it is thought, may err in the number and severity of their stripes, but it is always a comfort to think, 382 INTRODUCTION OF that the boys will be all the better for it. To reprobate such notions and practices, is not to plead for a delicate and over- indulgent treatment. On the contrary, my prime object was to stimulate to strenuous exertion and patient industry, and to form habits of continued and accurate thinking. But I conceived that this intense exercise of the faculties, which boys cannot reach by their unassisted efforts, is itself a state of happiness and enjoyment, when they are guided to it by a judicious and affectionate hand. The effects produced by the introduction of the method which has been explained were alike beneficial to the moni- tor and to the pupil. 1. On the old plan of teaching, the motive which the head- boys had for attending to the business in hand was never very strong, and was almost entirely withdrawn after the first con- struing. The rest of the time was spent by them either in a dreamy kind of listlessness, or in practising all manner of school-boy tricks and frivolities, till, encouraged by impunity to greater audacity, the noise and disturbance rose at length to a pitch that attracted the master's notice, and a scold or the lash produced a temporary suspension of mischievous activity. But no sooner is a head-boy invested with the responsibility of the monitorial office, than a desire springs up, not to expose himself, by want of the lesson, to the contempt of the better prepared in his division, and to the animadversion of his master. If he be ignorant, he can no longer flatter himself that his ignorance will remain undetected. He is impelled by the strongest motives, not only to learn at home, but to give attention to whatever he hears in the class-room that may rectify and confirm his acquaintance with the lesson, knowing that it will soon be required at his hands. Thus love of distinction combines with dread of exposure, to rivet his attention on all that is passing, up to the moment the divisions are formed ; and when that moment arrives, other duties devolve upon him, which subject him to a discipline not less important as a pre- paration for life than any learning he can acquire. He may go to his division in perfect possession of the lesson; yet, if he be deficient in command of temper, in firmness of purpose, in rigorous impartiality, in sound judgment and discretion, in MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 333 promptitude of decision, and in conscientious principle, the deficiency will soon be apparent, and he will lose proportion- ally in the estimation of his comrades. Here, then, while he is dispensing knowledge to others, he is himself put, as it were, to a preparatory school of human life, where he is trained by the most cogent motives that can act on the mind of ingenu- ous youth to curb his passions and regulate his temper, and where he acquires the rudiments of the moral and intellectual habits which are most essential to the character of a respectable citizen and a happy man. To secure this result more certainly, I did not always adhere to the rule of appointing a monitor to the division corresponding to his number from the head of the class, but contrived matters so that, in the course of the year, the head boys should successively act as monitors in different divisions, in order that every pupil might have an opportunity of comparing and judging of their respective merits at the close of the year; and sometimes a prize was awarded by the votes of the class to him who was thought by the majority to have acted his part best as monitor. So much for the effect of sub- division on the head-boys who acted as teachers. 2. If we consider, again, its effect on the great body of the taught, we shall find equal reason to think well of it. In a numerous class the principle of emulation acts very feebly, particularly among the lower boys, where its influence is most desirable. Its force may be estimated as in the inverse ratio of a boy's distance from the top; and after the first thirty or forty places below that elevation, it ceases to be a motive of very abiding strength, till, as we approach the lower region, it disappears entirely, or is perceived only in momentary flashes which soon relapse into apathy. In a class of 250, or even half that number, so long as a boy can measure his place in the class only by his numerical distance from the unattainable height of dua, what can it matter to him whether he stand 210th or 211th ? nay, is there anything to stir his ambition, ensure his attention, or keep him from his play, when the only question is, whether among the nineties he shall be the first or the last? But the monitorial sub-division introduced an entirely new element into a boy's calculation. When he felt himself but 334 INTRODUCTION OF as one atom of an immense whole, he may have looked to the top of the class with despair, and to his own place in it with indifference; but in a division, he found himself matched against eight of his equals, and to be dua (a magical word in a boy's ear) in his own division, seemed an elevation quite within his reach. Accordingly, if there were a spark of emu- lation within him, it was elicited by that prospect. Nor was there any chance of the spark being quenched by his reaching the head of his division and remaining there; for if he did so for two days successively, he acquired a right to take his seat on the third day in the division above; and if he gained places there, he remained permanently in the higher division, and the lowest boy went to supply his place in that which he had left. It is needless to say that the same motive urged him upwards in his new position; and thus it not unfrequently happened, that a boy who had entered the lowest in the class at the commencement worked his way to the summit. And this upward movement it was easy to accelerate by questions proposed in the assembled class. On the other hand, a boy who remained lag of his division for a certain time, was liable to be thrown off to the division below, and supplanted by the highest boy there. These arrangements made it unnecessary and inexpedient to adopt the large divisions of 36 each, so strenuously recom- mended to me by the late Dr Bell, and the want of which made him eye all else in my class with indifference. It is quite possible, that, in the ordinary schools on the plan of mutual instruction, the larger number may be found more effectual in keeping alive the principle of emulation than the number 10, but it should be remembered that my entire class was in truth a division of 250, in a school of 800; and that my decads were mere convenient and ready contrivances for enabling merit to rise to its level. In this point of view, they were, I conceive, decidedly preferable to larger subdivisions, because in the latter, a boy might linger a long time; while in one of ten, his hopes of rising were kept continually alive; and the principle of emulation was so equally and universally diffused, that I have repeatedly seen tears come into the eyes of a member of the lowest division upon the loss of a place, MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE. 335 and have often wished I could make a boy lose half a place, so intense was his regret at the loss of a whole one. No sooner was this new organization in full operation, than the change of feeling was manifested by the very outward ap- pearance of the boys. Instead of the languor and relaxed features, the lounging and collapsed state of body, into which a boy naturally sinks when compelled to remain long in the same position with nothing to interest him, the attitude was erect, the countenance full of animation and alacrity, and the eye, that used to be either expressive of weariness or exchang- ing significant looks and stolen glances with its partners in mischief, was open as day and beaming with intelligence. The very act of locomotion, at the forming of divisions, was an unspeakable relief both to mind and body; to the mind, by breaking the dull monotony of repeated and unvaried con- struing; and to the body, by removing that strain on one set of muscles and total inaction of another, which creates so strong a feeling of fatigue.* The diligent boy was cheered by the prospect of never labouring in vain, while the certainty of being called to say, and being reported upon, kept the idler in check. Fervet opus ; a buzz or subdued noise prevailed, very unlike the profound silence maintained in the assembled class, but it was the hum of business; and though the unac- customed ear of an occasional visitor might be offended by the confusion of tongues, every boy was attending only to that part of it which concerned himself. The ardour of the pupils was apt to raise the tone of speaking, and snatches of sound rose now and then above the rest in the keenness of conten- tion; but it was easy for the master to regulate all this. When the eagerness of competition made the noise too great, a signal produced silence, and the business recommenced in a subdued tone. One of the difficulties to contend with in giving full efficacy to the monitorial system, was to ensure from the monitors a strict and faithful report of delinquencies. Where power is delegated, it must always be, to a certain extent, discretion- ary: and in the case of monitors it is desirable it should be * Hence a strong argument for going into divisions every meeting, two hours being rather too long for boys, especially very young ones, to sit in one posture. 336 INTRODUCTION OF MONITORIAL DISCIPLINE, so, to prevent perpetual reference to the master on every minute point. In regard to the lessons, the danger is that the moni- tor will conceal, in his written return, the poor appearances of some of his division; and he may do so, either from good nature and facility of disposition, or from particular favour to- wards an individual. As this is a failing that leans to the side of mercy, it is not a subject of much regret if it cannot be en- tirely removed, particularly as it shews itself only in occasional aberrations. There were abundant checks, however, upon in- accurate reports, in the unremitting observation and vigilance of the master, who called up, in the general class, those most likely to be unprepared, and thus confronted them as it were with the monitor's return,-in the jealousy of the division itself, which would not submit to any flagrant instance, either of culpable lenity or undue partiality,+and finally, in a feeling which prevailed among the monitors themselves, that they were bound to the fearless deliverance of an unbiassed opinion, and that to do otherwise would be a breach of confidence, in- dicating either dishonesty or cowardice. With such a feeling it is not difficult for a master to imbue his pupils by a few words of occasional exhortation, by recommending them to take for their motto—“Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur,”—and above all, by proving that he acts always on that principle himself.t * AEm. I. 574. f Among those of my readers who have had the courage and patience to go through the details of this long chapter, there may be some who feel interest enough in the subject to desire further information, and others, who, being accustomed to look on the dark side of boy-nature, may be disposed to regard what they have read as the sanguine views of a visionary pro- jector. To both I would recommend the perusal of two papers, which Dr Steven has inserted in his History of the High School, (pp. 173 and 195). They appear to have originated, like my own Notes, from a wish to retain a memorial of school-days. The writers were both head-boys of the school and Medallists in the Rector's class; the one at the time when monitorial discipline was first thought of, there ; the other, ten years after, when it had been brought to the state in which I left it (1820.) Both have predeceased their teacher, quod contră decuit, as Cato says of his dead son;*—and this must be my apology for referring to documents which, when their old master is spoken of the warmth of youthful feeling and affection has coloured too highly. * Cujus a me corpus crematum est; quod contra decuit ab illo meum,_Cic, de Senect, cap. xxxiii. CHAPTER II. A BOLITION OF CORPORAL PUN ISH MENTS. Maxima debetur puero reverentia.-Juv. XIV. 47. THE adoption of the monitorial method presented great facili- ties for diminishing and finally abolishing the use of the rod. That mode of discipline I found firmly established in all the five classes; rarely indeed to the extent nudandi inter cives corpora,” but to the full length of frequent and angry inflic- tions. The recollection of what I had myself witnessed in my boyhood, and my knowledge of well-attested instances, not yet wholly forgotten, of extreme severities practised in former periods of High School history, made me earnestly desirous to diminish, and if possible to root out altogether in my own class, a practice so servile and degrading; not doubting that its extirpation there, would at least lessen its frequency in the other classes. The arrangements and mode of procedure in our public seminaries in Scotland had made the use of the rod as an in- strument of discipline peculiarly liable to abuse. In most of the great schools of England, several classes or forms are taught by their respective masters, at the same time and in the same apartment. This arrangement, though not without its inconveniences, as I shall afterwards shew, has this emi- ment advantage that, as the masters teach in presence of each other, they are under a control which checks violent paroxysms of anger. The indulgence of passion or ill-humour at the ex- pense of the pupil is still farther guarded against by the regu- lation, that the same master who awards the penalty is not * Cicero. Y 338 ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. permitted to inflict it. His power extends no farther than to insert the culprit's name in a list which is handed over to the head master, and he it is who administers the punishment. Now, as he is not the person directly offended, it is not likely he should be influenced by passion, or overdo the castigation. According to our Scottish system, on the other hand, each class was taught in a separate room by a single master, unre- strained by the presence of his equals in age, and, as far as regards his conduct to his pupils, amenable to no tribunal but his own conscience and public opinion. The former of these a man of irritable temper contrives easily to silence, and the latter he does his best to defy or elude, by making it a point of honour with his boys not to tell at home what happened in the school-room. In such circumstances, where the master is at once party, judge, and executioner, where there is no court of review, and no liberty of appeal, it is alike contrary to rea- son and experience to expect that abuses will not creep in, so long as corporal punishment is the chief means of enforcing silence and attention. Nothing, in school as elsewhere, is so corrupting to the possessor as irresponsible power. The pro- |blem of wise legislation, in Schools as in kingdoms, cannot be considered as solved, till such checks and limitations be esta- blished as shall take from the depositary of power all tempta- tion to do, and all means of doing, any thing but good. Ac- cordingly, if the secrets of the prison-house were disclosed, the annals of the High School, in going back to the last cen- tury, and within the memory of many now living (1823), might furnish tales of inexcusable severity, and even wanton cruelty, which the milder maxims and perfect publicity of the present day make almost incredible. It is not, indeed, easy to conceive how, upon the old sys- tem, a master can avoid having recourse to the lash. The uninteresting nature of the business, and the discomfort of sitting long in one posture, a thing unnatural at that age, produce a sensation of ennui so overpowering, that the poor boy is driven for relief to restlessness, loquacity, and all man- ner of unprofitable activity. While he is suffering under this physical uneasiness and trying to get rid of it, it is vain to talk to him of the duty of attending to his book, or even to ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. 339 threaten him with coming vengeance; nothing but the actual descent of the rod will avail. Even that is soon forgotten. To many boys of firm nerve and inextinguishable muscular mobility, corporal suffering is more tolerable than the con- straint and torpor to which they are condemned. There is, besides, a certain glory in bearing stripes without flinching; and though this indifference to pain has generally the effect of provoking the master to heavier infliction, yet with his school-fellows the sufferer is a hero. It is, indeed, no small aggravation of the charges against the rod as an instrument of discipline, that it confers a sort of distinction on the great- est dolts and idlers, and elevates them among their fellows above the clever and well-behaved, whose more sensitive na- tures shrink from these barbarities, and are apt to betray more reluctance to submit to them than their comrades can well sympathize with. Besides, as the delinquent’s offence is more heinous in the eyes of the master than in those of his scholars, a reaction takes place, in favour of the sufferer and against the inflicter, which is fatal to that mutual respect and good understanding, which never fail to exist when the disci- pline is good, and without which, indeed, no discipline can be perfect. The English penal code, which makes the head- master the general executioner, alleviates, but by no means removes, the evil. All my experience leads me to dissent from an opinion, which passes with many on both sides of the Tweed for an acknowledged truth, that a competent knowledge of Greek and Latin can only be secured to a boy by fogging it into him. ‘Can it be,” one might ask on hearing this proposition, ‘ can it be, that when mental labour and continuous exertion are re- quired of the youthful mind, there is no purer principle to appeal to, no stronger motive to work upon, than the slavish fear of the lash 2’ The finer specimens of the brute creation even—the dog and the horse—feel and resent the indignity of the scourge; a kind word and look, or the plausa sonitus cer- vicis,” act on them more effectually than the whip or the spur; * Virg, Georg, III, 185–The poet recommends that the war-horse be taught— — magis atque magis blandis gaudore magistri Laudibus, et plausae somitum cervicis amare; 340 ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. and shall the youth of our own species, long after they have passed the breaking-in of childhood, be treated worse than we treat beasts of burden 2 Surely not l—not, at least, till we have had recourse to every other less clumsy expedient and less humiliating stimulus. No teacher is entitled to answer in the affirmative the questions I have put, who has not made a study of the youthful mind and of the motives that sway it, and who has not modesty and self-diffidence enough to lead him to suspect, that when things go amiss in the school-room, the fault may be in himself more than in his pupils. I would not be understood as affirming, that the schoolmaster will never meet with boys who seem utterly inaccessible to the motives and influences which act upon the bulk of man- kind. There are, it would appear, mal-conformations of con- science and intellect, as well as of physical structure, in the human subject. Without stopping to inquire whether such mental misdirection be owing to nature or bad training, I see no reason why these anomalous varieties of the species should not, by way of giving them a last chance of amendment, be subjected to the treatment we apply to a vicious or ill-broken horse. Examples have occurred within my own knowledge, of cases where a boy, deaf to the voice of reason and kindly remonstrance, and apparently without the moral sense, has, after resisting all other means, been brought to a better mind by the solemn, severe, and passionless use of the rod. But every schoolmaster should act on the conviction, that such cases are not more frequent in man's mental constitution, than is congenital distortion of the feet in his bodily frame. THE monitorial arrangement having infused fresh life and spirit into every part of the class, I found so copious a stock of honourable motives at my disposal, that there was no temp- tation to employ brute force. Seeds of generous emulation, love of approbation, dislike of blame, desire of distinction, and Indifferently translated by Sotheby— “Teach him to love thy praise, and proudly stand, And arch his crest beneath thy flattering hand :” Better perhaps by Delille— Au Seul son de ta voix que son allégresse éclate, Qu'il frémisse au doux bruit de la main qui le flatte. ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. 341 fear of exposure, existed no doubt before in the minds of the pupils; but they were imperfectly and fitfully developed; whereas they were now in constant and vigorous operation. So abundant were the means of animating and repressing, that recourse to more unworthy stimulants and correctives was at last found altogether unnecessary. For the right use and application of these ample means, prudence and discretion are doubtless required in a public teacher. He must neither squander nor hoard his capital, but practise that even economy of praise and blame, reward and punishment, which is not the least important lesson he has to teach himself. Whether in commending or reproving, he should cautiously select the most appropriate and well-weighed expressions. If the word be always suited to the action, and every gradation on the side of merit and demerit be candidly and distinctly characterized by the terms employed, and by the tone and look with which they are delivered, such an as- cendancy may be gained over the minds of youth, that a word or significant gesture will have more weight and make a deeper impression than angry expostulation or heavy blows. Praise and blame, when sparingly and judiciously dealt out, are engines of incalculable power. But, on the other hand, if a master, for some trifling misdemeanour, pours forth a volley of abusive epithets, he has nothing, of course, in reserve for hein- ous offences but flagellation; and if, on the other hand, he is either extravagant or partial in his commendation, it will have little or no value. I would push the economy of praise and reproof so far as to pitch the tone of both a note or two below the natural scale. This is a useful rule in commending, because it enhances the value of a strong expression. But it is in reprimand and punishment that its importance is best seen, though I fear I must add, in practice least understood. There prevails among schoolmasters such a dread of relaxing wholesome discipline, that, when a public example is to be made, even the most temperate and conscientious think themselves called upon to colour the offence a little highly, and to express even more in- dignation against the culprit than they actually feel. This I conceive to be a capital blunder, The very reverse of it is a 342 ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. great secret in the management of youth. No infliction can benefit the sufferer, or serve as a warning to others, which is not felt and acknowledged to be just by the great body of his school-fellows. The moment it exceeds the measure which the impartial spectator can sympathize with, it generates compas- sion for the offender, and dislike of the punisher. And if such injustice be often repeated, Scholar is arrayed against master and a hostile feeling produced which is ever ready to betray itself, if not in open rebellion, at least in every kind of thwart- ing and vexatious annoyance. The boy most ingenious and suc- cessful in mischievous devices, which his fellows think no more than acts of just retribution, is a general favourite; the breach between the boys and their teacher becomes wider and wider, and ends at last in a sort of guerilla warfare, in which the ad- verse parties are both busy in devising means, the one to do what is prohibited, and the other to prevent it. On the other hand, there is nothing that so completely dis- arms the bad and unsocial passions of a boy as kindliness; nothing so popular as stopping short of the severity which strict justice might award. Nor will such forbearance, if it appear to flow from enlightened principle and affection, ever tempt to a repetition of the offence. If a low rate of punish- ment is found to increase the frequency of sinning, it is only where it is not systematic but capricious, and is either known to proceed from that excessive facility of nature which invites delinquency and insult, or appears to result from the appre- hension of resistance and rebellion. Extreme moderation is especially advisable when the offence has the semblance of being committed against something said or done by the master himself, and may be construed into a personal insult to him. It is in such cases, when more than ordinary anger and ven- geance are expected, and are thought, from what boys feel in their own breasts, to be natural, that they are most surprised and most captivated by acts of forgiveness.” Then is the time to state calmly the nature of the offence, in strong but temper- ate language; to explain the principles on which it ought to be condemned and reprobated, but at the same time to find * Sce Note A, at the end of the vol. ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. 343 Some alleviating circumstance, either in the offender's igno- rance or thoughtlessness; or at the worst, to rally him good- humouredly, and perhaps raise a smile (it should never be a laugh) among his fellows at his expense. The effect of this manner of treating a misdemeanour is electrical: the boys immediately range themselves on the master's side. They feel as if he had done a magnanimous thing; and if there be any touch of meanness or ill-breeding in the conduct of the culprit they will take justice, as it were, into their own hands, and will teaze and torment him out of school. I have more than once been obliged to interfere between the offender and his in- dignant school-fellows, and to bind them over to keep the peace; reminding them that the fault was expiated by the notice I had taken of it, and the offender put upon his good behaviour: in short, that he must be free from all farther an- noyance till he should offend again. These reforms in the long-established modes of punishment required to be gradual; for bold and rash innovations, at all times dangerous, would in this case have been fatal; and if attempted before proper substitutes were provided, and a cer- tain ascendancy acquired over the minds of the youth, might have ended in the still greater evils of turbulence and misrule. The first marked step in this progress was, to dispense with corporal punishment in all minor school offences, and to reserve it for cases of moral delinquency or turpitude, against which, as being of pernicious example and apt to be contagious, boys require to be solemnly and impressively warned. Of the lat- ter kind were deliberate lying, dishonesty, wanton cruelty, indecency in word or deed; of the former, neglect of prepara- tion,-failing to answer questions, or to say by heart, com- ing late, being inattentive or talkative in school-time, teazing a school-fellow, &c. To repress such misdemeanours as these, or to make them less frequent at least than I will venture to say they had ever been under the reign of terror, I found no very difficult matter, in consequence of the facilities afforded me by the monitorial method, many of which will be readily understood from the details already given. The ordinary motives to exertion and preparation were, as 344 ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. has been shewn, incalculably strengthened by the certainty of all being called to say lesson every day, and more than once every day, and by the double relation in which each stood as a member of the united class and one of a particular division. But besides these, I had recourse to various modes of exhor- tation, excitement, reprimand, and penalty. A few of these may be worth enumerating. If a boy was reported by the monitor to be unprepared on the lesson, the gentlest interfe- rence on my part was to call him out of the division, and admonish him privately. If he could assign no reason for his failure, he was dismissed with a word of advice, and a hope that this negligence would not occur again; but at the same time, with an assurance that if it did, Ishould feel it incumbent on me to reprove him in presence of his division. This had never, probably, occurred to him as an aggravation of disgrace, but the very mention of it was sufficient to make him think it so, and he returned to his place resolved to avoid it, and not perhaps without a sentiment of thankfulness for the attention to his feelings implied by this preliminary warning. But it more frequently happened that a reason was assigned for fail- ure in the lesson ; and it was one of the most gratifying proofs of the efficiency of the system, that in the majority of cases that came before me, I was able to make out, by a brief con- fidential conversation, that some accidental and unusual cir- cumstance in the domestic history of the preceding evening accounted, more or less satisfactorily, for the want of prepara- tion. There had been a party at home and his presence was required; or his room was put in requisition, and he had no place to study in ; or he had been taken a-visiting by his parents; or the family was moving to another house, and all his books and implements of study were thrown into con- fusion : and all these details were confided to me with a can- dour, simplicity, and reluctance, which sufficiently guaranteed the truth of the statement. The next step in increase of severity, was to reprimand before the whole division, care being taken, in this as in all other cases, that reproof should be administered more in sorrow than in anger. This mode of reprehending was that most frequently practised, because it gave an opportunity of in- ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. 345 structing and warning others, though it was often exchanged for the gentler mode of giving the boy an audience apart, when I read in his eye that he had a private reason to assign, which he was unwilling to impart to any ear but mine. For minds of less sensibility, or greater tendeney to go wrong, there remained a reproof before the assembled class, mild or sharp, as suited the character addressed. Occasion for this reproof was taken, by calling such boys to say in the class, as soon as the divisions broke up. And here it may be remarked, that when a master has once acquired the confidence of his pupils, he may constitute almost any thing he pleases reward or disgrace, so completely will their ideas be moulded on what he expresses or seems to feel; and hence an argument against severe inflictions of every kind, seeing that mild ones, husbanded and well applied, may be made equally or even more effectual. A regret expressed that it should be necessary to make such an exposure of a boy who possessed many good qualities, and of whom better things were hoped, had a powerful effect both on the culprit and his fellows, and often rendered any ulterior measures unnecessary. But if a first, or even a second, admonition of this kind failed, there was another kind of public notice which I found to be much dreaded. I have already mentioned that a monitor once appointed retained his particular division for a fortnight, some- times for three weeks, and that the day before the new ap- pointment, he was enjoined to give in a general written report of all the res gesta, during his incumbency. This was for my private information; and I seldom did more in public than read extracts from these reports, and more copious from the praise than the blame side, that there might be as little chance as possible of scattering the elements of discord and ill-will. But when the report of the monitor coincided strikingly with my own observations, and particularly, when a boy had fallen out of his original division, and appeared in more than one report in the descending series, there was an opportunity of putting him to the blush, which he seldom had a wish to en- counter a second time. On the other hand, to be read out on such occasions, as having mounted upwards in the same inter- 346 ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. val through one or more successive stages, was both a reward and a stimulus. But as there must, of course, be many in a numerous class, either too sluggish or too thoughtless and playful to be per- manently or uniformly affected by any of these motives, the last resort was to what was technically called a poena, or written imposition. The name as well as the practice was borrowed from some of the great English Schools, where it is used in aid of corporal punishment, not to supersede it alto- gether. Nothing can be more equitable than that a boy who fails to prepare a lesson at home, or give attention to the construing in the class-room, should be obliged to write it out, and be cur- tailed of his play. It was an improving exercise too, and thus accomplished the most desirable ends of punishment, correction and warning. By insisting that both Latin and English of the day's lesson should be written, a certain amount of annoyance was secured, and it was possible to trench upon play-hours to almost any extent, by exacting much and care- ful penmanship. To make this task at once useful and for- midable, it was usual to appoint one of the best scholars in- spector of poenas, who, for every gross error committed, made the writer lose a place; and reported to me when there was ground to suspect that the poena was not written by the culprit himself. When this substitute for the punishment of the rod was first introduced, the general feeling seemed to be that it was an acceptable exchange : but ere long the poena was found to be the more annoying of the two; and many an idler would have willingly compounded for a few stripes, rather than have to sneak out of sight of his friends and playmates, to perform a task which he had no wish they should know that he had incurred. By suffering pain manfully, there was credit to be gained, and at all events it was soon over; but no glory ac- crued from the writing of a poena: and the task rode him like a nightmare the whole evening. The substitution, nevertheless, was popular among the boys, as every regulation will be which is at once rational and mer- ciful. Hence it became a point of honour to write the poena prescribed; and this view of the matter being once established, ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. 347 was adopted by every succeeding class. If it was neglected, a double poena was imposed, and in refractory cases, which oc- curred but rarely, the offender was left with pen, ink, and paper, to finish it in the schoolroom after the rest of the boys were dismissed. For a considerable time after these various methods had completely superseded corporal punishment in all that regard- ed the lessons, it was still had recourse to now and then, as the appropriate means of deterring from grave acts of immo- rality. Let it not, however, be supposed, that in these cases it ever went farther than a few stripes on the hand; to go beyond that, not to speak of its indecency, would have been useless barbarity. For, the marked distinction of punishments which reserved the last disgrace solely for cases, not of literary deficiency, but of moral turpitude, made the mere application of the rod, however slight, so severe an infliction, that at last even that was given up. In the earlier portion of my rector- ship, a few cases occurred which I thought flagrant enough to be invested with the solemnity, and stamped with the repro- bation, of corporal chastisement. On such occasions, I avail- ed myself of the opportunity which the unhappy incident afforded of explaining the nature of the offence, and the grounds on which it was condemned. In this way boys' minds were set right on many of those points of moral con- duct, for breaches of which they are, too often, punished by teachers who have taken no pains to inform and forewarn them. The great Secret in this, as in the instance of minor misdemeanours, is to estimate fairly the gravity of the offence so long as it is spoken of in the abstract, and to fix its place correctly in the scale of demerit; while at the same time the individual culprit is allowed the benefit of all the circumstances which can be homestly urged in extenuation. When the master seems to take pleasure in dwelling on these, the punish- ment he does inflict will appear to be extorted from him, as it really is, by the demands of justice, and will create no feeling in the breast either of the sufferer or the spectator which is not friendly to virtue. Precept thus enforced by example, is the most impressive of all moral lessons, But so regularly did the dread of corporal chastisement 348 ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. increase in proportion to its mildness and rarity, that during the latter half of my rectorship, it was entirely discontinued; partly, and chiefly, in consequence of the manifest improve- ment in the morality of the boys; partly, because the feeling of honour had become so nice, as to make it too severe an in- fliction for any school offence that could be committed. The solemnity, and the lecture, were still continued when occasion offered, but instead of stripes, an extraordinary penal exercise was imposed, not for the next day only, but to be given in every morning, for a week, month, or longer term, according to the character of the offence. This poena was inspected daily by one of the head boys appointed for the purpose, re- turned to be corrected, the whole dated and preserved by the writer, and the volume presented to me, at the expiration of the term, as his title to a sentence of acquittal. But this long poena was necessary only in very bad cases. The mere notice of any immorality before the whole class came at last to be an effectual means both of punishment and prevention: and to a class of boys whose feelings of honour had been culti- vated, exposure of misconduct became the severest part of every sentence, and the fear of it the surest bar against serious offences. Among the various substitutes for corporal punishment, I have made no mention of one which was and is in very com- mon use; that of turning a boy down in his class, making him lose ten or twenty places at a time, not in consequence of the better saying of those below him, but by the fiat of the master. To him this mode of deterring and punishing recommends itself by the tempting facility of applying it. It is generally used in cases of talking or trifling in the class-room, or being late. For the former it is admissible, if preceded by a demand for the next word, or an order to repeat the clause last con- strued. As to being late, a fault to which boys are so liable that it must be sharply dealt with, it was checked, not by loss of place, but more effectually by stationing the general censor outside the door, to collect the names of the late as they ar- rived and note them for a poena to be delivered next morning. Forfeiture of place for such offences is both unjust and inex- pedient. It is unjust, because it is unequal; for there are ABOLITION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS. 349 Some boys to whom it is the greatest, and others to whom it is the lightest of punishments. It is inexpedient, because the master must thereby counteract his own object, which ought to be, to make the arrangement of places in the class corres- pond as exactly as possible to the combined talent and ac- quirement of each individual. But if he thrust down a boy a dozen places because he comes late or is talking in school, or to the bottom of the class for some moral delinquency, it is obvious that he is deranging the graduation of his own scale, and wantonly damaging an instrument which it should be his pride to construct and preserve. CHAPTER III. INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE STUDIES. IT is an evil incident to all schools where there are large classes and long hours, that idleness or something worse is apt to prevail among a large proportion of the boys, arising from the want of sufficient motive to stir the sluggishness of some natures, and to repress and direct the indomitable activity of others. I explained in the first chapter the means taken to overcome those evil tendencies, and to make an approach at least to what every public teacher ought to aim at, that “every boy in school should at all times have something to do, and a motive for doing it.” And nothing certainly could be more striking than the contrast between the drowsiness and languor of the old method, and the vivacity and alertness under the new system. The hours of school passed without a moment of weariness either to master or pupil, and the pro- blem was solved which had at first so much perplexed and appalled me, how to find constant occupation for minds of attainments and capacities so widely different. But though that object might appear to have been accom- plished with regard to the hours which the boys spent in school, it was easy to see, that the same inequality of talent and scholarship would lead to their expending very different portions of time at home upon the lessons prescribed. The same task which, to a boy of average capacity, would require two hours of earnest application, would be mastered in one by the abler boys, while the slower would find four hours little enough. This incºluality was in part remedied by the greater accuracy of preparation and extent of collateral information which were expected of the upper boys, and which the higher INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE STUDIES. 351 value they attached to their places in the class made impera- tive. Impelled by emulation and the love of knowledge, they pushed their inquiries to every topic connected, however re- motely, with the passages prescribed, and got up, for the exa- mination of next day, an amount of information, historical, antiquarian, geographical, and philological, truly astonishing. But after all, such is the elasticity of talent, when stimulated to industry by proper excitement and reward, that the ordi- mary business of the class was a field too narrow for developing all its energies. Pitch the average tasks as one may, the prime portion of every large class will still have a considerable capital of unappropriated time, which, if it be not invested in some useful and profitable adventure, runs the risk of being squandered and misemployed. To make that risk less, I pro- posed a course of voluntary readings to those who found they had time to spare after all other demands upon it were satis- fied. In order to tempt the student into this new path, and sccure him some reward of immediate gratification, it was de- sirable that voluntary reading should be in books somewhat easier than those from which the ordinary tasks were taken, that the student might be encouraged to persevere, by the sa- tisfaction enjoyed in making out, with no aid but his grammar and dictionary, the sense of a Latin classic;-an intellectual feat which, to a schoolboy, is a subject of honest pride, and gives him a feeling of self-respect which has a favourable in- fluence on the formation of his character as well as on his pro- gress in learning. With this view I prepared and had printed for the use of my class, and especially of the private students, the greater part of the text of the history of Alexander the Great by Quintus Curtius. This work has the advantage of being written on a very engaging subject. The events of the Gre- cian expedition against Persia, the chivalrous character of the Macedonian Prince, and the fate of Darius and his family, have all the interest of a novel: and even the blemishes of the author's style, his ornate and poetical descriptions of lo- calities, his rhetorical flourishes, and his ambitious embellish- ments, however inconsistent with the fidelity and severe sim- plicity of history, serve rather to recommend him to the ima- 352 INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE STUDIES. gination and enthusiasm of the youthful mind. His sentences are generally short, and have on that account little of the in- volved and intricate construction which forms so great an im- pediment to the youthful reader of Livy. All who intended to profess PRIVATE STUDIES (such was the term applied to this work of supererogation,) were instructed to proceed in strict accordance with a rule laid down, in order that, when the test of examination was applied, no one boy might have any ad- vantage over another, except what he owed to Superior ability and industry. Every private student was bound to keep a journal of his readings, wherein he recorded the difficulties which his grammar and dictionary had not enabled him to solve ; and to a solution of these he was entitled before he was examined on what he had done. The incentives to enter this career were neither numerous nor costly. They were addressed to the same principle of our nature which makes titles of honour, ribbons, and coronets, objects of pursuit and contention among grown men. . The very condition implied, of having a surplus of time to dispose of, in- vested the private student with a sort of distinction not unlikely to captivate a boy of spirit, and make him feel as if he be- longed to a privileged order. He was besides entitled to a Saturday's holiday, provided he acquitted himself creditably in the trials he was subjected to during the preceding week. The success of this experiment was complete. A consider- able number from the very outset enrolled their names in the honourable list of private students; and subsequently, the proportion advanced to a fourth and even a third of the entire class. Such a spirit, indeed, prevailed among the youth, that permission to engage in private studies was regarded as a re- ward and a privilege, instead of a task. Petitions were re- peatedly addressed to my private ear for leave to read Curtius, by boys low in the class. If the request was granted, and it appeared by the reports of the monitor that the boy failed considerably in the daily business, the permission was with- drawn, and he was advised to prove himself fitter for the duties incumbent on all, before he aspired to the distinction of the few. But it was necessary in this, as in all the other business, to INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE STUDIES. 353 take precautions against abuse, and to devise a system of exa- mination and inspection which should detect and expose false pretences to preparation, and teach even the honest and dili- gent what strictness of preparation was required. To find time for applying this test was no easy matter: for as private studies were a thing eactra ordinem, in which but a portion of the class took part, it was difficult to have two kinds of busi- ness going on at once. The following is given as an approxi- mation, at least, to a solution of the problem. On the day appointed for examination on private studies, some interesting narrative was selected from Curtius, to be translated and examined on in the hearing of the whole class; it being understood that what they heard read by the private students would be considered as part of the lesson for next day. Having tested the state of preparation by one or two such public construings, the private students were formed into divisions under the most approved of their number in a sepa- rate room, with a general monitor to superintend, while I was engaged with the bulk of the class in the ordinary business. In these divisions, registered difficulties were stated and solved, and several rounds of construing and translating gone through and reported on. With these reports in my hand, I went round the ordinary divisions on the Friday, and announced the names of those private students in each whose appearances and well-kept registers entitled them to a Saturday's holiday. A farther security was taken from the private students, by insisting that the difficulties recorded in their registers which which had been solved in the class or in divisions, should be engrossed in those registers and shewn the following day: and as difficulties often remained which could not be solved viva voce for want of time, the registers containing the state- ment of them were consigned to the most advanced boys. The solutions were written by them on a slip of paper, and returned to the owner to be inserted in his book, if he was satisfied with them ; if not, to appeal to the Rector. The activity produced by opening up the wide field of pri- vate studies, and the amount of classical reading thus accom- plished, were things not a little satisfactory. Many pupils live in my memory who not only mastered, by voluntary Z : : 354 INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE STUDIES. study, the whole of the Curtius, but a book or two of Livy, in addition to the ordinary lessons; and that in the course of the school year of ten months. The spirit thus diffused co-operated powerfully with the monitorial arrangement, in producing an effect never more clearly exemplified than in the classes I taught—the uniformly quiet and orderly demeanour of the head-boys. This fact I am induced to mention, because it is at variance with an opinion generally entertained, that the clever boys of a school are the idlest and most unruly. Wherever this hap- pens, it is the fault of the teacher, not of the pupil. Such boys, being more disposed to activity, more ingenious and in- ventive than the bulk of their school-fellows, if they have no fit arena for the display of their noble endowments, betake themselves to less worthy occupations, and expendin mischiev- ous tricks, frivolous pursuits, and, it may be, in organising resistance and rebellion, those energies for which it was the master's duty to find a more appropriate field and more whole- some aliment. I state the fact broadly, and without fear of contradiction from any of the numerous living witnesses, that the head-boys most distinguished, not merely for patient and successful industry, but for superior ability and genius, were also the best behaved, the most honourable in conduct, and not only the most intelligent in comprehending, but the most exact and obedient in executing every order, and complying with, and even anticipating, every wish of their teacher. Nor were these qualities accompanied with any overstrained no- tions of the duty of submissiveness. The discipline had no tendency to produce demure little men, ‘full of wise saws and modern instances.’ The pupils I speak of, like other boys of their age, were fond of power, privilege, distinction, and above all, of occupation; and all these they found it easiest to obtain by following the course of conduct recommended. A little prudent management is all that is required to make such boys as obedient to the rein and curb as a well-trained colt, and yet to leave them all the grace and playfulness natural to their time of life. They were so far from declining labour, and so alive to the stimulus of praise and distinction, that I have often felt it a duty to restrain their ardour and enjoin INTRODUCTION OF PRIVATE STUDIES. 355 more moderate exertion. And this, in some cases, was done in consequence of remonstrances from parents themselves, com- plaining that they could not prevail on their sons to take healthful exercise and their natural rest, or to go to bed in good time. I used not unfrequently, when employed in the class-room in revising the lessons of the year during the summer months, to send a detachment of the higher boys for a few hours to Arthur's Seat, a hill in the neighbourhood of the city, on the understanding that they were to spend them in sport and return at a time fixed, which they never failed to do. - - CHAPTER IV. INTRODUCTION OF LATIN VERSIFICATION. THE method by which I had been taught Prosody when a pupil in the High School, and which I found there, when, after an interval of eighteen years, I returned as head- master, was confined to the learning by heart a selection of Ruddiman's Rules for the quantity of syllables, and the ap- plication of these in the scanning of Virgil, Horace, and Buchanan's Psalms. For a century at least, Latin versifica- tion had formed no part of the regular exercises in the High School. - In the course of a long residence in England, I had an op- portunity of witnessing how differently most of the great schools there were conducted in this respect. I found the composition of Latin verses taking precedence of almost every- thing else, exacted rigorously from every pupil in all but the lowest forms of the school, often to the extent of two or three ‘copies' a week, and made the standard by which a boy's pro- gress was ascertained and his place fixed. Reflecting on the ex- treme diversity of the two systems, and their comparative advan- tages, I felt myself constrained to come to the conclusion, that the one erred as much in excess, as the other fell short of the proper medium. I could not persuade myself that it was right altogether to neglect the elegant art by which the Buchanans and Melvilles of former days had gained so much credit for themselves and for Scotland, and in which Milton and Gray had rivalled the ancients; while, on the other hand, it seemed clear that, to insist upon every pupil above the lowest forms composing original Latin verses, was to exact more than could reasonably be expected,—more indeed than was desirable, at INTRODUCTION OF LATIN VERSIFICATION. 357 the sacrifice of time which even moderate success in this kind of exercise required. The result of my reflections was this, that certain elementary parts of the art might be taught with advantage to the whole class, but that all beyond was a career which none should be urged to enter by any motive but the stirrings of talent, taste, and honourable ambition. Before a boy can act on these impulses, he must have gone through a process of mechanical verse-making, the steps of which were then utterly unknown in Scotland. When the class had been drilled in the preliminary stage, and the abler boys had learned the use of the instrument and were familiar with the necessary conditions of Latin hexameters and pentameters, a subject was prescribed, couched in a quo- tation from some classic which served as a theme or motto, and a few hints were suggested as to the mode of treating it. Such was the success of this experiment, that the very boys whose first attempts, even in the lowest and easiest stage, had been feeble and unsuccessful, executed in the course of the year original compositions in Latin verse, which, imperfect as they were, might have done credit to more experienced prac- titioners and more enlightened instruction. I was surprised no less than delighted—I might almost say intoxicated—with a result so unlooked for; and the very year after the experi- ment was begun, I printed a small volume of specimens, as a proof to my fellow-teachers in Scotland of what might be dome in a short space of time in this neglected field. For any purpose but this, the publication was premature; and the performances, if read without bearing in mind that they were those of boys about fifteen years of age, not one of whom seventeen months before (many of them not seven months before) knew how to make even a ‘nonsense verse,'— could not fail to appear lame and impotent, and a very uncalled for addition to the stock of indifferent Latin poetry already extant. But success so unexpected hurried me into this im- prudence; me quoque pectoris Tentavit in dulci juventa Fervor, et in celeres iambos Misit furentem. 358 INTRODUCTION OF LATIN VERSIFICATION. Accordingly the publication, having attracted the notice of some English critics, who were not bound to make any of these allowances, was treated with an asperity which, in the view they naturally took of it, was not undeserved. But I was the less disposed to complain of the castigation, as I got from the Review some useful hints and wholesome counsels, and acted on the Virgilian maxim—fas est et ab hoste doceri. If the contents of the volume published in 1812 be compared with the specimens of later date printed in Dr Steven's His- tory of the High School, and particularly with that last and best of all in 1820,” it will, I think, be admitted by English scholars that I had profited by experience. I was led by the result of this experiment to adopt exercises in Latin verse as a regular branch of school business. Various considerations, however, dissuaded me from giving it that paramount importance and universality which it has obtained in most of the English schools, public and private. Of these considerations some were suggested by the status and con- dition of my pupils, a very large proportion of whom were destimed for professions and would be placed in situations, where such an accomplishment would be much less useful to them than other acquisitions to which I could devote the time it required. But my chief argument against the English practice was drawn from considerations of a more general nature, and to my mind conclusive in reference to any assemblage whatever of British youth. The objects proposed in teaching the dead languages are manifold; but it will be readily conceded, that one of the foremost is to give facility in comprehending the sense of the authors who write in them;-to make the pupil familiar with productions, whose intrinsic merit in respect both of diction and of thought, enhanced as it un- doubtedly is by their antiquity and their being embodied in noble and difficult idioms, has long entitled them to be re- garded as standards of taste, and the most approved vehicles of manly sense, exalted sentiment, and liberal opinion. Now if this title be acknowledged, it seems to follow, that after con- quering the first difficulties of grammar, the aim of the teacher should be to analyze accurately, and read extensively; and to * That copy of verses I have inserted in Appendix, Note on p. 358. t INTRODUCTION OF LATIN VERSIFICATION. 359 accompany those processes with such prelection and illustration as to create an appetite for useful knowledge, and inspire a relish for what is doing at the time, and a desire to do more in the same direction. But how is all this to be effected, if the youth, before he can find his way securely through the labyrinth of declension, conjugation, and syntax, while his vocabulary is yet scanty and his fancy yet undeveloped, shall be condemned, with such tools and such materials, to hammer out verses in a foreign language 2 Is not his failure next to a certainty ? and even in the rare case where he succeeds, can we look for more than versus inopes rerum nugaeque (not always) canorae 2 Is it not better to wait till a stock of words and ideas be gleaned from a wider field of classical reading, and some symptom appear of the judgment ripening, and the im- agination being awakened, and then to accelerate the march of both, by proposing to the youthful aspirant an imitation of those beauties which he has learned to admire? And can such imitation be reasonably expected, even after the most skilful preparation, from every pupil of a large school, whatever be his turn of mind, his powers of invention, or his possession of the language? Suppose a teacher of the French language, willing to follow the example of the most approved mas- ters of the great English schools, were to give notice that he considered it as the most important of all the exercises and acquirements of his pupils, to write verses like those of the Henriade or the Ver Wert; that in his academy, facility in translating, and even speaking French would be held sub- ordinate to the art of versifying, and that exercises in that de- partment were to be twice as numerous as in any other, and more rigidly enforced,—how would parents receive such an intimation ? And yet there is nothing in it more absurd than the established practice in the classical seminaries of England of longest standing and highest repute. The mysteries of French verse, its masculine and feminine rhymes, its pauses, its absorptions and elisions of vowels, are as nothing compared to the difficulties and dangers that environ the young Latinist; and they are in themselves quite as well worth knowing as the niceties of Greek and Roman versification, were it not for the fictitious value the latter has acquired by the practice I 360 INTRODUCTION OF LATIN VERSIFICATION. now venture to condemn. I object to the making of Latin verses being made imperative on all, not merely as being an exercise of comparatively little value, but as a thing altogether impracticable. It is no easy matter to compose lines in one's own language, which shall have even the lowest requisites of poetry—cadence and rhyme. What then is likely to happen when copies of original Latin verses, on a topic not familiar, in a language differing widely from their own in structure and idiom, and in which they are still novices, are required of all but the lower forms of a large school? What, but that the manufacture of the article will be confined to the few who have acquired the knack, and established a traffic of barter, or gratuity, which the master will be obliged to wink at, because the rule of the school, forsooth, compels him to exact an im- possibility.* Moved by these considerations, I never made composition of Latin verses on a theme given, more than a voluntary ex- ercise. But as a “copy of verses,” correct in quantity and structure, elegant in Latinity, and original in conception, was understood to be one of the greatest achievements which a boy could perform, and led to the highest distinction, there was always a considerable number (generally, I would say, from 15 to 20,) who were ready to enter the lists. It contributed to raise the importance attached to this exercise, and conse- quently to add to the pains bestowed, that it never was pre- scribed oftener than once afortnight. Every alternate Friday, the subject was proposed in the hearing of the whole class; and to give the matter more dignity in their eyes, as well as greater facility, I generally read from notes of my own, a few hints as to the topics to chuse, and the train of thought to follow out. The verse exercises were given in on Tuesday, and on Wednesday they were publicly spoken of according to the scale of merit, and returned with faults in quantity and concord marked, and a general character affixed,—satis bene, bene, admodum bene, and in rare cases, optime;-a judgment which carried a boy ipso facto to the head of the class. The writers were instructed to correct the blunders marked, and * It was calculated in my time, that about 70 boys ground the verses of the whole five or six hundred, INTRODUCTION OF LATIN VERSIFICATION. 361 shew a fair copy on the following Friday, and this secured them a holiday on the morrow. The best of these improved copies were suspended for inspection (promulgated was the term,) during the following week, and the boys likely to profit by it were sent to peruse them, in parties of eight or nine at a time, while some easy business was going on in the class. The high character that had been given of these exercises made them be read with interest, and many who would have considered making out the sense of an equal number of lines not more difficult to construe of Ovid or Virgil, as a task, were eager to be allowed to read these productions of their school-fellows, and were often fired with the ambition of rivalling what brought such honour and distinction to the writers. - Some again, unable perhaps, from imperfect previous train- ing in the language, to accomplish the Latin verse, but hav- ing a turn for versifying in English, would volunteer their services to translate into English couplets the Latin verses which had been much commended, or which they themselves took a fancy for; and these English couplets, when good, were hung up alongside of the original.” No Latin verses were ever commended or promulgated, till I had satisfied myself that they were the genuine production of the boy who gave them in. Deception, indeed, upon this point was scarcely possible, Latin versification being, at that time, altogether unknown, except to those whom I had myself trained; and as the task was a voluntary one, the disgrace of detection, had it been possible to borrow, would have acted as a preventive. * One specimen both of original and translation is given in Appendix to p. 358. CHAPTER W. OTHER WEITTEN EXERCISES PRESCRIBED. IN order to give scope to talent in the different directions which it takes, the writing of other exercises was prescribed; some to the whole class, others of greater difficulty, to those who had a mind to try. The rule was, that there should be two written exercises every week, -one, a translation into English of some choice passage in a classic, and the other, the turning of a few sentences of English narrative into Latin prose. As the former was generally part of what had already been construed as a class lesson, and was mainly intended to give the habit of English composition, an option was not un- frequently given to the head boys to try, instead of it, some feat of more difficult accomplishment. And even when Latin into English prose was made the exercise common to all, scope was given for superior industry and excellence, by recom- mending a free version, accompanied with notes critical and explanatory; or if the passage was from a poet, there was an invitation to attempt it in English couplets. The weekly ex- ercise now spoken of was written at home, and given in on the Tuesday morning. The other, and more difficult one— English into Latin prose—was the only regular weekly exer- cise which I found established in the practice of the school, though sentences of Mair's Introduction, and an English ver- sion of a classic, were occasionally prescribed. The Latin week- ly exercise was called the Friday—or Low School—version; because it was written on that day in the presence of the mas- ter, in the writing-room attached to the school. This practice of my predecessor I faithfully followed, as an excellent means of levelling all distinctions but those of proficiency and ability. OTHER WIKITTEN EXERCISES. 363 A portion of English was taken down from my dictation, and, a few hints being given how to select phrases and avoid angli- cisms, the class proceeded to render it into Latin. Meantime the strictest silence was observed, that every boy might be left to his own resources. It was necessary, of course, to pro- portion the length and difficulty of the exercise to the average power of execution; and hence it was, that the abler boys had finished it before the majority had got half way. These rem- nants of time were employed, in the earlier part of the school year, in practising the elementary steps of Latin versification. Here the struggle was, who should append to his prose Latin, the greatest number of hexameters and pentameters, mean- ingless, but correct in measure and quantity, and in euphony. At a later period in the session, four lines of English sense were dictated, to translate into the Ovidian distich ; and last of all, if this too were accomplished, they were to add a coup- let or two of their own sense in continuation of the subject.— I have gone into this detail, as a specimen of the various op- portunities which occurred, and were taken advantage of, in the teaching of a numerous class, for putting to profit frag- ments of time, when the attention of the higher boys was not required to the business going on, and for employing them in feats of intellect which put their powers to the full stretch. But now that the nature of these two weekly exercises of the whole class has been explained, it may be asked, how they were disposed of. It was obviously a labour which no man could overtake or submit to, to read and mark the errors in 400 exercises every week, and examine them a second time to see that the errors were duly corrected; more especially when it was found that the work of correction and revision might be done, if not always so accurately, at least more profitably for all parties, by having recourse to a division of labour. Here again the monitorial arrangement presented great facilities. By correcting the exercises of the monitors myself, and re- turning them, I could entrust to them the task of examining and marking the rest, each those of his own division. The number, not exceeding nine to each monitor, was not oppressive, and the consciousness of knowledge and pride of superior sagacity easily reconciled them to this addition to 364 OTHER WEITTEN EXERCISES. their labour; and many felt it to be a real gratification. At the same time, as they might be tempted by the press of other business to neglect this duty, the careful performance of it was secured by precautions which made evasion difficult: and the monitors who had versions to correct might plead exemp- tion from preparing the lessons for the following day. The correction of errors being secured, and every boy hav- ing his amended exercise in his hand on an appointed day, I proceeded to enumerate and comment upon the “prevailing errors,” that is, those which had been committed in a large proportion of the exercises as originally written. This pre- lection experience proved to me to be the most profitable way of communicating grammatical knowledge, inasmuch as it ensures a singular degree of attention, interest, and intelli- gence on the part of the pupils. By inspecting the exercises of the monitors, and of a few in different parts of the class, I was able to detect various processes of thinking that must have gone through the heads of the writers before they fixed on the exact turn of expression employed. While I inter- preted these and gave them back, as it were, the reflected image of their own thoughts; while at the same time I ex- plained the principles that should have guided them to one phrase or guarded them against another, not only were they amused and interested, but the rules and elegancies of both languages, English and Latin, were much more deeply im- printed on their memory than could have been effected by a dry lesson on grammar, or a discussion of knotty points or various readings in the text of a classic. After this prelection, a correct edition was read over slowly once or perhaps twice, and a fair copy ordered to be shewn on a future day. There are few things which I deem more important in the conduct of a school, than the ‘second shewing,' that is, the presentation of the written exercise in an amended form; and I would dwell upon the teacher's duty to enforce it, because it is a duty which is too frequently neglected. It seems often to be thought that enough is done, if a certain number of ex- ercises be written and received. The task of correcting them, not being the most agreeable of the master's duties, is left unperformed, and by a sort of tacit compact between master OTHER WRITTEN EXERCISES. 365 and scholar, the exercises so rigorously called for at the first shewing are huddled into some corner, and no more heard of. Even the pains-taking, conscientious master, when he has once gone through the principal work of correction, is too apt to think his task over, and to forget that, unless he can engage the mind of the boy to reconsider and improve his written performances, the writing of them is more likely to confirm him in error, than improve him in knowledge. It is only by setting up the errors of the original copy as beacons to warn and guide him in transcribing and amending it, that any prac- tieal benefit can arise from writing versions. First copies are the rude material out of which precise and accurate knowledge is to be elaborated. They are the means of attaining an end; and if not so employed, are useless. These views pressing upon me more forcibly as my exper- ience in teaching increased, I attached greater importance every succeeding year to the second shewing; and as, in the crowd of business, it was not easy to find time for everything, a compendious way was sometimes adopted for securing atten- tion to the task of correction. It was made imperative to have a list of errata at the end of the original exercise, as is usual in a printed book; one column containing the error, and the other the correction; so that, by the mere inspection of these columns, the monitor or the teacher could see whether all that was formerly wrong was now understood and corrected in the manuscript.* I am far from meaning to affirm that the employment of monitors to inspect exercises, secures an equally perfect cor- rection of what is wrong, as might be made by an assiduous master. But this I have no hesitation in saying, that though mistakes and omissions will not unfrequently occur, the method * One other method of extracting the full amount of benefit from written exercises, I have not alluded to in the text, because it was an after-thought, and first introduced some twelve or fifteen years ago, into the discipline of the Humanity Classes in the University, where it has been continued ever since with signal advantage. The members of the class are instructed, when commencing the business of the Session, to write every exercise prescribed on paper of the same size, to leave an inside margin, and to preserve them, that towards the close, they may be stitched together, with a title-page and table of contents, and put into my hands, to be inspected and have a general character affixed. 366 OTHER WIRITTEN EXERCISES. described is nevertheless much more effectual than any other in making written exercises, not indeed things for exhibition, blurred over as they must often be with repeated alterations, but a means of substantial improvement. The master him- self, at an enormous expense of time and toil, may correct and improve them; but these amendments excite, in the boys who receive them, a degree of attention by no means commensurate with the labour which the teacher has bestowed. As the pupil presumes not to doubt the pse diacit of his master, all the cor- rections pass unquestioned, and give rise to little or no de- liberation or reflection in the mind of the writer. But the case is widely different when a school-fellow is the critic. Every marked word or imputed blunder undergoes a scrupu- lous and inquisitorial investigation; no effort is spared to find the monitor at fault, and the latter must defend his act by in- controvertible reasons, before a single point of attack is sur- rendered. Hence considerable latitude was allowed for argu- ment and reply in the division, because more knowledge circulated in the keen contention of boy with boy, than any exertion of a master could diffuse. To have an error, or even half an error, deducted by discussion or appeal from the number marked against him, was a triumph, to obtain which a boy would explore grammar and dictionary, and hunt out authorities, as long as there was any chance of succeeding;- unconscious all the while, that in the very search, however unavailing it might be for its immediate object, he was sure to be a gainer. Let it be observed, however, that the vicarious mode above described of dealing with exercises, was applied only to those which were common to the whole class. The more recondite and difficult exercises, which were reserved for advanced boys and were of course more manageable in point of number, were not entrusted to monitors, but put into my hands and inspected only by me. Such trials of strength were of various kinds, springing often out of, or suggested by, the particular authors and subjects in hand or some excursive prelection into which I had been led; but of those that most frequently occurred, I shall mention a few, in justice both to the character of the pupils and to the discipline of the High School. OTHER WRITTEN EXERCISES. 367 I have already spoken of Latin and English verses, as be- longing to the superior class of exercises which were expected only from a few. But there were besides, some of this des- cription which required more thought and application than even the most careful husbander of time could command, in the daily and weekly routine of school business. They were therefore reserved for the three brief recesses which occur in our scholastic year of ten months, one, of eight days, at Christmas, and two, each of five days, in the beginning of November and of May. 1. One of the most common of these was called Abridged Narrative.—Suppose the class to have been engaged for a considerable time in construing daily portions of Livy or Sal- lust,--it was prescribed as an exercise for one of these re- cesses, to write a succint account of the events embraced in that portion of the historian's narrative; and to do it under the following restrictions. The writer was at liberty to per- use the Latin original, as often as he chose, before he took pen in hand; but on beginning to write a first copy, the book was to be laid aside, and never referred to in transcribing the fair copy, unless it were to fill in a date or a proper name. Such an exercise brings into play the faculties of memory and judg- ment, and furnishes a measure of the predominance of the one faculty or the other in the mind of the writer. I take up, for example, one exercise, and trace in it proofs of a tenacious memory in the minuteness and fidelity of the details, while there is a manifest deficiency in the power of combining, ar- ranging, and condensing the materials supplied by the me- mory, so as to sink minor details, and preserve in due relief and relative proportion the prominent points of the story.-I take up another, and am at first disappointed by its brevity as compared with the former, but come at last to give it a de- cided preference, upon finding in it a masterly sketch of what is essential in the succession of events. I am now not so much inclined to complain of some omissions and even inac- curacies in the facts, as to admire the compass of mind which could take in the whole subject in one view, and place it, so to speak, at such a distance from the mind's eye, that the minuter parts were thrown into the shade, and the main facts 368 OTIIER WRITTEN EXERCISES. preserved in good keeping and harmony.—I take up a third, and I am soon satisfied that the writer is exceedingly consci- entious and pains-taking, but deficient both in memory and judgment. After many ineffectual struggles, he has felt him- self obliged to have recourse to his Livy; and thus, with far more trouble to himself than either of the other two, he abridges the contents of each succeeding chapter, with pur- blind accuracy and without discrimination. An abstract, done under such conditions, I conceive to be a much better introduction to the difficult art of composing in English prose, than the Themes so commonly set in English Schools. In these Themes, some apophthegm or moral maxim, the exponent of an extensive and philosophical survey of hu- man affairs, such as “Virtue is its own reward,” “Evil com- munications,” &c., “Money is the root of all evil,” is to be proved by argument and example, and objections answered; and this is expected from boys without experience, without knowledge either of men or books, utterly incapable of specu- lating on any general topic, and least of all upon ethics. Hav- ing no stock of their own to draw from, what else can they do but borrow from some book common-places which they can ill comprehend, or purloin old copies which have become a sort of heir-looms in the school 2 On the other hand, in making his abstract of a narrative, the boy works on a subject already familiar to him, and level to his understanding, and being re- lieved from the painful effort of beating about for ideas in a field where there is no game, he is more likely to succeed in clothing the ideas he has in appropriate language, and even takes pleasure in the mental exercise. 2. Abstracts of narrative of a similar kind, but in Latin prose, were occasionally prescribed to the best scholars, and, if certified to have been done with closed book, were received as a substitute for verses, and ranked as high : for it is a task not less difficult to write good Latin prose, than to compose an equal amount of correct Latin verses, 3. Another variety of these exercises for the few deserves to be mentioned. The best scholars of the class were taken into an adjoining room, having nothing with them but pen, ink, and paper. Then, calling to their recollection the sub- OTHER WRITTEN EXERCISES. 369 ject of a story or anecdote which they had read as lesson in Curtius or Livy some weeks or months before, I left them to write the narrative, each in his own way, but as fully and as much in the words of the classic as they could. On the first announcement of such an exercise, surprise, bordering on de- spair, was depicted on many a countenance; but that feeling Soon gave way to an expression of intense thought, indicated by assuming unusual attitudes, by an unconscious stare, knitting of brows, and rubbing of foreheads. This is an exer- cise, which not only improved the memory and strengthened the judgment, but stored the minds of boys with a stock of choice Latinity; an effect which was greatly promoted by calling upon them to collate their own abstract with the origi- nal of Livy or Curtius, and amend the exercise accordingly. 4. Another mode occasionally resorted to for improving in English composition, was technically called amplification. From a few short hints in Sallust or Livy, given as the sub- stance of what somebody had said, it was required to put into the mouth of that person a speech of considerable length, in which every argument was used which the circumstances could suggest.* 5. Another good exercise of mind for boys who have made some progress in their Latin studies, is to turn one of the speeches which abound in the Roman historians, from what is called the direct into the oblique or reported form. No one can read the debates in Parliament without being aware of the difference between the two modes, nor without observing how ill adapted our language is for the indirect form, which is that generally employed in newspapers, the * On one occasion of such an exercise, a youth, who had been much in the habit of writing in English verse, gave in what he very honestly believed to be a prose speech; and nobody was more surprised than the writer him- self, to be told that it ran in blank verse, with the exception of two lines, which had the rhythm of verse, but had each two redundant syllables. Like Pope, he —lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came, and might have said with Ovid, Sponte suá numeros carmen veniebat adaptos, Et quod tentabam dicere, versus erat. But this writing in blank verse, without knowing it, is no more than Mr Dickens has dome, in his earlier works at least. 2 A 370 OTHER WRITTEN EXERCISES. he and the him constantly requiring the parenthetic insertion of proper names, to prevent confusion and ambiguity. The Latin, on the other hand, is admirably fitted for this purpose. It has two sets of pronouns, one (sui, sibi, se,) to express the speaker, and the other, (is, ille, &c.,) the person or persons who were addressed or spoken of. It has also a peculiarity of construction appropriated to this form of speech, which consists in the use of the infinitive mode with an accusative before it in the main clauses, and the subjunctive in the subordinate, to the exclusion of the indicative mode in any verb which comes after that which introduces the report, and which in- deed the whole report is subordinate to, and affected by.* This doctrine is now beginning to be taught in grammar schools; but it was little understood and less attended to in teaching, till the late Dr Carson, then one of the masters of the High School, brought the subject before the public in a little unpretending volume, published in 1818, which attracted the notice of, and received high commendation from, that distinguished scholar, the late Dr Samuel Parr. From that date to the end of my connection with the High School, I made the conversion of one of these forms of a speech into the other an occasional exercise for the higher boys, as I have done ever since in College. The turning of the direct into the oblique or reported form is a mental exercise, more difficult than at first sight it may appear: requiring not only a thorough comprehension of the construction alluded to, but a nice consideration of the proper tenses, modes, and pro- nouns. To steer the right course, amidst the multitude of perplexing questions that arise, requires considerable power both of discrimination and abstraction, and some familiarity with the practice of the classics themselves. * No such form of speech is now known to the English language; but it may be regarded as a proof that it once existed there and is founded on the principles of human nature, that in the dialect of the Scottish peasantry we can still trace the use of it, in rendering an account of any occurrence, when they wish to be understood as not vouching for the truth of what they report. In such cases, all verbs used in that part of the narrative are modified by the sign, süd,—the sollte of the German;–" It seems, he sud ha’ done” so and so. CHAPTER VI. INSTITUTION OF QUARTERLY EXAMINATIONS. ONE of the prime objects in the contemplation of a High School boy was the day of the annual public Examination and distribution of prizes, in the beginning of August. It took place in the presence of the Magistrates, who are Patrons of the school, of City Clergy, Professors of the University, parents of the boys, teachers from the town and neighbour- hood, and the friends of education generally. It lasted four or five hours, and was understood to consist of a review of the entire business of the preceding ten months, a full statement of which was laid before the examiners. It was their pro- vince to select the books and passages to be read, to hear them translated, and to question upon them ; though the latter duty generally devolved upon the teacher himself. At the close of the business, the presiding Magistrate distributed prize-books (called premiums,) to the thirty or forty highest boys, and ad- journed the re-assembling of the school to the 1st of October. The prospect of the dreaded day, and all its accompani- ments, was not unproductive of beneficial effects. From the time a boy entered the class, every place he gained or lost had an importance in his eyes, not only for its immediate results, but in reference to its bearing on the place he was to hold at the “Examination.” To be high enough to receive a pre- mium was like taking a degree with honours at College : and the emulation was still further kept alive by the gold medal which awaited the head-boy of the Rector's class, who was dua, of the whole school. The appearance each was to make before his friends and the public on that day had a sensible influence in quickening his diligence. Nor was its effect on the 372 INSTITUTION OF QUARTERLY EXAMINATIONS. masters to be overlooked. They, too, were in some sense put upon their trial. As the examination of all the classes went on simultaneously, the visitors moved about from one room to another, and formed their own conclusions from what they witnessed, as to the zeal, ability, and success of the respective teachers, and the state of discipline among the boys. And the opinions thus formed, circulating in various directions, materially affected the resort to their classes, and consequently the amount of their emoluments. But considerable as these advantages were, and disposed as I was from my own boyish recollections to rate them high, I soon found that there was an alloy of evil. As regarded the master, for example: though the prospect of the Examination kept him on the alert, it tended to give his diligence a wrong direction. On the parents and the great mass of the audience, facility and promptitude in answering made the deepest im- pression. To them hesitation and thought looked like imper- fect knowledge. Few were able to appreciate the superior value of an answer, slowly and deliberately drawn from deep- laid principles, as compared with an answer brought from the ready store-house of an over-cultivated memory. Quick firing was more prized than deliberate aim ; and the master's watch- word to every boy on his legs was —cave me titubes, mandataque frangas.-Hor. Ep. I. 13. 19. Hence arose the custom which I found established in all the classes, of dedicating the two months which preceded the public Examination to revisal, that is, to a repetition of the lessons which had been gone over since the first day of Octo- ber. This process produced in the teacher no less than in the pupil a sensation of weariness, made still more distressing by the enervating effect of summer heat in a crowded room. Mind and body, alike jaded, required the stimulus of novelty to save both from sinking into apathy. In such a state of things, there was nearly an end of all preparation of lessons at home. In order to have the business of eight months re- vised in two, lessons of inordinate length were prescribed, which the good Scholars, feeling or presuming themselves to be masters of all that had been read, seldom or never looked INSTITUTION OF QUARTERLY EXAMINATIONS. 373 * at ; while the indifferent or careless were discouraged from at- tempting in the gross what they had learned but imperfectly in detail. Hence it was that the good habits acquired, of labour at home and attention in the class-room, were endanger- ed; and the love of study, which had been fed in the former part of the year by constant accessions of interesting know- ledge, waxed cold in this process of rumination. Another evil tendency of annual Examinations was, to en- gender a morbid sensibility to loss of place, which led occa- sionally to painful exhibitions of selfishness and ill-will ; nor could the most even-handed justice on the part of the master always secure him from suspicions of undue partiality. It was with the view of remedying some of these evils and palliating others, that the plan was adopted of having Quar- terly Examinations. The last week of every third month was devoted chiefly to revising the lessons of that quarter; and the last day but one of the trimestre was employed in a public Examination on the business done. As an audience was essential to give this examination dignity and effect, parents were invited to be present, and the attendance was secured of some friends of my own, whose names were as well known as their characters were universally respected. In such a presence, it was easy and it was important, on the one hand, to expose the idler's past negligence and warn him for the future; and on the other, to afford the assiduous student opportunities of earning his fair reward of praise and encour- agement. And, indeed, for such a purpose the Quarterly was in many respects better fitted than the Annual Examination. The latter took place on the last day of the school-year, and was immediately followed by a vacation of two months; so that any delinquency or misdemeanour on that day was not likely ever to come up in judgment against the culprit. But in the quarterly examination all that passed was noted and made the subject of animadversion, next day: failures and poor appear- ances were noticed and deplored; and the prospect held out, of retrieving character that day three months, if the interven- ing time were well spent. Having thus prevented the accumulation of matter to be revised, by confining the business of each quarter within itself, * 374 INSTITUTION OF QUARTERLY EXAMINATIONS. I could dispense with much of the irksome but necessary duty of revision. Had I the thing to do now, I should content myself with the quarterly retrospects, and not attempt to go over again, at so inauspicious a season, the entire lessons of the year. As it was, the evil was abated by selecting the finest passages only for revisal and employing every alternate day in lessons altogether new. Another way of relieving the superior scholars from the intolerable irksomeness of listening to indifferent construing of old matter familiar to them, was the following: In prescribing on Tuesday a considerable sec- tion of Livy or Sallust for Thursday, the higher boys had the option to write an abridged narrative of the whole passage, it being understood, that if they produced it on the morning of that day at nine, they should have play while the rest were engaged with the old lesson. The few who embraced this offer earned more of glory than play by the exercise, and more of solid improvement than of either. This method of reward- ing meritorious exertion is also a very sensible relief to the master, if he feels it (as he ought to do) a reproach to himself that the higher boys are compelled to sit still doing nothing, or counterfeiting an attention which they cannot command to the crambe repetita of an old lesson. It is probable, that in the course of a few years more, for it was a late innovation, I should have made these quarterly re- trospects so popular and so well attended as to have answered all the purposes of the annual examination; and that thus the latter occasion might have been made, what, to me, seems to be its proper object, a day, not of examination but of exhibi- tion. In that case a single specimen, from each division, of proficiency in construing might suffice; or even that might give place to a display of remarkable feats of ability, the pub- lic reading of exercises of the first quality, and the declaiming of fine passages in the classics; and time be thus reserved for giving all proper celebrity to the distribution of prizes in pre- sence of the whole school. CHAPTER VII. ON THE METIIODS EMPLOYED IN THE TEACHING OF GREEK IN THE RECTOR'S CLASS. In order to understand the difficulties I had to contend with in this branch of classical discipline, it is proper to premise, that the High School of Edinburgh, by its original constitu- tion, was a school for teaching the Latin language only ; and that, in point of fact, nothing else was ever taught there before Dr Adam was appointed Rector in 1768. The new practice, first introduced by him, of teaching the elements of Greek in his class was resisted by the Senatus Academicus as an en- croachment on the privileges of the University | A memorial and petition were actually presented to the Town Council or Corporation of Edinburgh, who are the Patrons of the Col- lege as well as of the High School, praying that they would lay an interdict upon this innovation. But the municipal body had the good sense to pay no regard to this remon- strance; and Dr Adam continued to give lessons in elementary Greek to those of his pupils whose parents wished them to learn it. It was thus a sort of private class of his own ; the business of which he could not well mix up with that of the general class, seeing that a small minority only attended the Greek. He was obliged, therefore, to take a separate hour for teaching it; and as he instituted a class about the same time for the no less important subject of Ancient Geography, which, for the same reason, required to be taught apart, it was arranged that, of the five additional hours in the week which he gave to those branches, two should be allotted to Greek and three to Geography. The portion of time given to Greek was obviously too small for much to be done in that depart- 376 GREEK DISCIPLIN E. ment, especially with boys who came to the Rector's class ignorant of the alphabet of the language; and little accordingly was done, as I can testify from my own recollections as a pupil. About the year 1805, the Patrons so far recognised the propriety of introducing Greek as to ordain, that its elements should be taught by the several Masters, in the fourth year of their course, to as many as chose it. But as they pro- vided no additional emolument when they imposed additional labour, it was not to be expected that the Masters, having no profit and little credit to gain, would display much zeal in their new task. Nor am I aware that this arrangement in- creased to any sensible amount the taste for, or knowledge of, that noble language. THE efforts which I made to extend and improve the study of Greek in the Rector's class of the High School, and of which I am about to give some account, had this at least to plead in their behalf, that they awakened the public mind to the importance of instructing boys in that language, and dif- fused among parents a more general desire that their children should receive the elements of that instruction at school. This result was proved by an increase of numbers, which was proportionally greater in the Greek class than even in the Latin. During the latter part of last century the average number of Greek pupils was below thirty; and in the first decad” of the present, it had seldom reached fifty; it was not so high at least when I took charge of it in 1810. It increased regularly from that time forwards; till, instead of one third or less, it numbered upwards of two thirds of the entire class, attendance on Greek being still optional, and paid for by a separate fee. Any attempt to make it imperative on all who entered the Rector's class to learn Greek, would, at that time, have been premature and abortive; but the constantly increas- ing majority of boys who enrolled their names for both lan- guages, made it necessary that Greek should assume greater * Dr Samuel Johnson led the way to the prevailing orthography of this word “decade,” which is contrary to reason and all analogy, as may be seen in Monad, Triad, Chiliad, Myriad, Iliad, Troad, Pleiad, &c. (#REEIX. DISCIPLINE. 377 importance in the school business, and be no longer considered in the light of a private class and a subordinate branch of study. Nevertheless, the multiplicity of business in the Latin class, and the increase of its numbers, rendered it a matter of no small difficulty, even admitting it would have been strictly just, to withdraw from the Latin any portion of its allotted hours. Nor was the very limited time, two hours a week under Dr Adam, the only obstacle to the improvement of Greek discipline. A very formidable impediment presented itself in the variety of stages of progress among the boys who com- posed the Greek class at its formation each October. The differences were wider and more marked than those which I formerly described as existing in the Latin class. For, besides the ordinary diversities among boys who have gone through the same course of instruction, the Rector's Greek class, at the commencement, consisted of three distinct sets of pupils;– one, who had been members of my own Greek class the for- mer year; another, who had been taught more or less Greek under their master of the fourth year; and a third set, forming always a large section of the whole, who had learned no Greek, and knew not even the alphabetic characters. To blend those three sets into one class would have been to risk the proficiency of all; and to find time to teach them separately was no easy problem to solve. The means I took to meet the difficulty will be understood from the statements which follow. It had been customary, in Dr Adam's time, not to assemble the classes of Greek and Geography for a month after the meeting of the school. Of this interval I availed myself, to form a class of the mere beginners, and to meet them for a short time every day; the object being, to simplify the ele- mentary parts of Greek grammar to such an extent as to en- able them to overtake the least advanced of the other pupils, and to be classed with them at the end of the month. And the prospect held out of being so classed, and allowed to cope with those who were a whole year's teaching a-head of them, had no small effect in animating the exertions of these beginners. Being aware, however, that very little could be accomplished 378 GREEK DISCIPLINE. in so short a time by proceeding in the ordinary way from page to page of a printed grammar, I tried a more compendious method; and if I enlarge on this topic of elementary teaching at greater length, both in the Text and in the Appendix, than is quite consistent with the object I had in view in penning these Notes, it is from the hope that, should they ever see the light, the discussions may not only have some interest for readers who are fond of speculations on General Grammar, but may suggest hints to teachers in circumstances like my own, for facilitating elementary instruction in other languages besides Greek, and above all in their own. Had I found in the hands of the boys, or elsewhere, a Greek horn-book sufficiently short and simple, I might have been tempted to use it; but a large black board served my purpose still better. On it I wrote in chalk the Greek letters and the words which were to furnish the text of each day's demonstra- tion. In this process of instruction, at once oral and visual, I confined myself to the barest outline of elementary Greek. The prevailing methods of declension and conjugation were explained from an example exhibited on the board; but all exceptions were for the present omitted, unless they could be classed under a head scarcely less comprehensive than the general rule itself. In this preliminary stage, I considered my object to be gained, when I had enabled a beginner, in the first place, to know the Greek alphabetic characters, their names and their value as signs of sound; secondly, to distin- guish the declensions, to decline nouns and adjectives not very anomalous, and to have a few notions of the genders of nouns as indicated by the terminations, and of the rules for contract- ing concourses of vowels; and lastly, to be quite at home in the voices, modes, tenses, numbers, and persons of the verb. By the time these three points were gained, I do not say with all, but with a considerable portion of the mere beginners, the month had expired, and the business of the Greek class re- quired to be begun. The means taken to communicate the elementary principles of Greek grammar in the way described were simple enough, and for that very reason are apt to be overlooked; some of GREEK DISCIPLINE. 379 them may be even thought whimsical and childish fancies, but thought so only by those who are not aware how importantitis, in the outset of a dry study, to disencumber it of all extrinsic difficulties, to remove obstructions, and to help the novice over the threshold. Moor's Grammar was that which I found in use in the school; but of grammars, as yet, I took little or no account. Tabular views on the board supplied their place, and enabled me to inculcate the first principles and processes, by the combined and simultaneous exercise of the two senses of seeing and hearing. Each lesson consisted of a prelection on what was before the eyes of every learner in strong relief; and this prelection was only interrupted by occasional ques- tions, to ascertain how far my explanations had been under- stood. If the first boy asked gave no answer, I tried another, and a third; if still in vain, I concluded that the fault was mine, and repeated the demonstration more slowly and fully. The very novelty of all looking on one board, instead of each on his own book, had its effect in sustaining attention. I re- commended to the beginners to make themselves familiar at home with the form and power of the Greek letters; but I did not require, because I set no value upon the learning of the alphabet by heart. In all alphabets, and the Greek among the rest,” the letters succeed each other in a sequence so purely arbitrary, that it appears to have been the work of accident; nor is it at all necessary for the learner to know that sequence, till he begin to consult a lexicon. Instead, therefore, of exacting the pain- ful, and, at this stage, needless effort of committing to memory the alphabetic series of characters, I placed before the pupil, as my first lesson on the board, the Greek letters in the order which nature and philosophy appeared to me to dictate. The vowels came first, seeing that they are mere emissions of sound from the larynx and open mouth, slightly modified by the position of the lips and tongue. They are in truth the first step, and scarcely a step, beyond the inarticulate cries of the lower animals. With regard to the consonants, the natural order seems to be, that they should be classed according to the organs of * See Note on p. 379, “On the Greek Alphabet.” 380 ARRANGED GREEK ALPHIABET. voice employed in pronouncing them, and that precedence should be given, in the alphabetic enumeration, to the letters of each class, according as the organs recede from the lips in- wards, first to the tip of the tongue, and then to the root of it. These considerations produced on the board the following pro- gramme of the Greek alphabet.* WOWELS. CONSON ANTS. LETTERS. Short, e, 0 || ||Labial, (lip sounds) tº, 3, p, q}|Vowels, 7 Long, m, 0) É Linguo-palatal, (tip of Mutes, 12 Doubtf. a...,0) = \ , the tongue sounds) v. 6, 8, & Liquids, 4 Guttural, (root of tongue Sibilant, 1 sounds) -4 - X, Y, X, 5 - Liquids, or Semivowels, - A, p, y, p 24 Sibilant, - - - Ç This superseding of the common alphabet—by an arrange- ment of letters founded on a principle the truth of which every one could prove to himself by appealing to his own organs of voice and his own consciousness, found great favour with the pupils, and invested with interest a part of learning which is generally thought the most repulsive. The principle is equally applicable, and the advantage of applying it experimentally still greater, in the teaching of our own alphabet; but so little was the philosophy of teaching understood in those days, that, to the successive pupils even of a Rector's class, this view of the subject had all the attraction of novelty. For example, the propriety of applying the term mute to the initial letter in each of the three orders, t, t, z, - (i)p, (i)t, (i)k, was proved by inviting them to pronounce these letters without the help of any vowel either before or after them. One might then observe, in the attempt at t, a gen- eral compression of the lips, and in the case of t and x, the * The vowels were sounded as in the Scotch mode of reading Greek, which is nearly the European; and, in the consonants, the force of the letter was brought out by prefixing, not by appending, the vowel, as ()ar, which is the true way to shew the value of consonants in all elementary teaching: ip, it, ik, are more likely to convey to the mind of a child the force of the letters p, t, and k, than pee, tee, and ka; and so with the rest.—See the subject of the Alphabet discussed at greater length in Note on p. 380 in Appendix. GREEK DISCIPLINE. 381 lips more and more parted, and a muscular effort made, by the pressure of the tongue on the palate, to give out a sound; but in all the three cases, the effort was of no avail. This attempt at utterance, to which effect could be given only by prefixing or subjoining a vowel, they were instructed to con- sider as the radia, or primitive element of the other letters of the same order ranged alongside of it;-all of which spring from that radia by the superinduction of certain sounds, consequent upon certain modifications of the organs of voice. Writers of grammars enumerate, some nine, some, as in the above formula, twelve Greek characters under the head of Mutae, (quae volentem eloqui mutum reddunt ;) but the truth is, that there are, strictly speaking, not more than three letters in the alphabet, whether it be ancient or modern, to which the term mute can be properly applied ; those, to-wit, which stand the first in each of the Orders—t, t, z. Of none but these three is it correct to affirm, that no attempt to give them audible utterance, without the help of a vowel before or after, will succeed. The letters originating from each of the three as their primordial element, are formed respectively in the manner following:— The second letter in the labial order of mutes, 3, springs from the first, by preluding to the articulation of T. with a dull, heavy, inarticulate sound, produced by an act of the will, in the region of the throat.* That the addition of this hollow muffled sound constitutes the difference between it and 8, (p and b), any one may satisfy himself by first attempting com- pressis labris to pronounce the letter p, and then observing what takes place when a similar effort is made to pronounce the letter b, which may be called the labial grave sound. In making the effort, he will find that the hollow murmur pre- * This sound might be called, in Latim, grave murmur; in French, whbruit sourd. It is a sound which the native population of Wales, either from mal- conformation or early habit, find it difficult or impossible to utter, and accord- ingly pronounce words in which b, d, and g occur, as if they were spelt with p, t, k, Shakespeare avails himself of this peculiarity to make the character of Fluellen, in the play of Henry V., more ridiculous. The same defect is observable among the Celtic population of our own Highlands. ‘By God's blessing,' comes from the lips of a Welshman or a Highlander in the shape of 'Py Cot's plessin'.' 382 GREEK I) ISCIPLINE. cedes the act of opening the lips to give utterance to p-ee. By a similar addition of the grave murmur to t and x, (t and k), the gravelinguo-palatal and guttural, 6 and Y, (d andg), are formed. The third letter in the labial order, p, is elicited by moving the lips toward each other as in it or 3, but, before they meet, giving egress to the voice in that peculiar breathing, which we designate by the alphabetic character h, and the Greeks by the spiritus asper; and the result is the labial aspirate p = ph, or, with the grave addition, the English v. The fourth letter, or rather character, 4, (for 4, &, 8, are not letters but double consonants,) in the labial order of mutes, is formed by suddenly opening the compressed lips with the hissing sound c, giving utterance to what may be called the sibilant. The same process applied to the linguo-palatal t and guttural x, originates the sound of Č and 8. Thus we have the absolute mutes t, t, z, which may be denominated the acute, each with its accompaniment of grave, aspirate, and sibilant. By those of my readers who are impatient of this long dis- cussion, it may be thought impossible to excite interest among boys in treating such a subject, and difficult for the teacher himself to escape a smile at his expense; but even if these elementary minutiae were less fruitful than they are in infer- ences and practical results, it would still be profitable to young minds to be led to observe for themselves, and to reflect; and if the master be animated by that enthusiasm which is more important to the discharge of his duties than profound erudi- tion, a sympathy will be established by look and gesture be- tween the teacher and the taught, which will give to the voa: viva of the former a fervour and felicity of illustration which he never can reach in the coldness and seclusion of his study. The importance of such preliminary notions is made appa- rent in the subsequent study of Etymology. In tracing the affiliations and derivations of words in all languages, one can- not fail to observe, how often the letters belonging to the same order of mutes run into, and are interchanged with, each other, and how rarely the letter of one order lapses into the letter of another, in any derived or compounded word. Of this truth we find constant illustrations in the inflexions of Greek verbs. GREEK DISCIPI,IN E. 383 For example, we have the four labials, t, 3, p, q}, forming, each in its turn, the characteristic letter in different parts of the verb 3)a t too, 3)a q 0), fleft\a ‘p a, e3No. 3 oy; and each of the four gutturals in the perf. pass. of Xe Y 0,—AeMe Y pat, Xexe 5 al, NeXe X toº—AeAe X 8oy ; and, in both cases, without a single deviation into the mute of a different order. The same rule holds in tracing the descent of Latin words into the vocabularies and dialects of modern time. The dif- ferent nations of Europe affect certain letters in preference to others; and accordingly, in words deduced from the Latin, we find them ringing the changes upon the different letters of the same order of mutes, each people following out its own predilections and habits of pronouncing, but seldom or ever stepping anomalously from one order into another. Thus the Latin Sapo gives the Italian Sapone, the French Savon, the German seife, and the English soap. A striking proof of the same principle in language we have in the words which a child first uses to express the relation of parentage. Its earliest attempt to articulate is in pronouncing the letters m and p, which are the simplest of lip-sounds, and to the infant the easiest also, because he is guided to the imitation of these sounds by the eye as well as by the ear. Hence the words mama and papa, or slight modifications of them, are in the mouths of babes and sucklings, in every country and climate, and in all the dialects pepotov avºpotay. The papa from the lips of the infant is the ground-work of all the varieties which have crept into the language of adults to express the relation of paternity; which varieties, however, are confined to mutes of the same order. Thus we have pater in Latin and Greek, abba in Chaldee, père and padre in French and Italian, father in English, and vater in German ; and in the last three examples, similar interchanges of t, d, th may also be remarked. In noting the maternal relation, it is a sin- gular but not unaccountable fact, that the labial m is almost invariably and universally employed—mater, madre, mere, mutter, mother, mama, mammie, &c. So much for the Greek Alphabet. THE next lessons on the board were schemes of the declen- 384 GREEK DISCIPLINE. sions of Nouns, the first, the second, and the third declension successively. In these tabular views every unnecessary letter was dismissed; the terminations only were given, first of the nominatives in all their variety, and them of the oblique cases in the three numbers; and the tyro was accustomed to decline nouns while his eye was on the board, till he was able to do the same with the board reversed. The tabular view of the Adjective exhibited the most ordi- mary varieties of termination in the nominative: as to the ob- lique cases, they were rendered easy by the familiarity already acquired with the declension of nouns. Additional facility was given by declining adjectives with nouns of different de- clensions, as pskaya voog. The Comparison of Adjectives, the Article, and the Pronoun, did not detain us long. Thus, after mastering a very moderate number of tabular lessons, the beginners were prepared to face the formidable array of the Greek Verb. Whether the paradigma of the verb be arranged, in any of our grammars, in a way that would have satisfied a learned Greek of the ancient world, may fairly be doubted: but with that question I had nothing to do in the High School. My task was to make my pupils adepts in the example given in Moor's Grammar. The least difficult part of that task was, to accustom the ear of the tyro to the constantly recurring sounds in the flexion of the modes. There is a sort of cadence, in the -o), -etc, et, &c. and 0, jº, ), &c. to which the organs of voice speedily adapt themselves; and very little practice suf- fices to enable a boy to run down the numbers and persons, when he has once got hold of the first person singular of the modes and tenses. It was to this point, then, the ready re- collection of the first person singular of every mode and tense, and the nominative masculine of every participle, that our efforts were mainly directed. With this view a scheme was sketched in chalk on the board of each of the three voices suc- cessively, similar to that which is found in the Eton Greek Grammar, but which, strange to say, was omitted in Moor's. The first tabular view exhibited all the first persons singular of the active voice of totto, written at full length within the little compartments or squares, formed by lines horizontally GREEK DISCIPLINE. 385 and perpendicularly, like a multiplication table. Above the uppermost horizontal line were the names of the modes, and and on the left margin of the perpendicular were the names of tenses; so that the eye could easily read off any mode and tense that were called for, thus: Ind. Subj. Opt. Imp. Inf. Partic. Pres. Imperf. 1. Fut. 1. Aor. 2. Fut. 2. Aor. Perf. Plup. The second view of the verb was to present a board with no- thing in each little square but the terminating letters; so that it became a means of exercising upon any verb in 0). A third stage in the process was to dismiss even the terminations, and put nothing in the squares but short lines, to indicate that the part was not wanting. These indicating lines were in chalks of different colours—blue, green, pink, and yellow—and in pairs of the same colour: the present and imperfect of one colour; the 1st future and 1st aorist of another ; the 2d future and 2d aor, of a third, and the perfect and pluperf. of a fourth. 2 B 386 GREEK DISCIPLINE. This was no idle or fanciful distinction, but founded on af- finities real and important to the learner. Each pair of tenses has the same characteristic letter: T in totto, and etottow ; } in to 90 and etopo, ; it again in totö), etotov; and p in tetopo. and stevoſpely; and these characteristic letters belong all to the same order of mutes. The identity of colour in the cognate tenses linked them together in the memory; and the diversity served to distinguish the rest from each other. The board in this stage exhibited nothing but intersecting lines of white chalk, dividing the whole space into squares, within which were short lines of different colours, but no letters. It served, therefore, as a means of examining on all the three Voices. Nothing but experience will carry conviction of the facility which this contrivance gave to the learner who had gone through the previous steps. While his eye was intently fixed on the board, the coloured lines conjured up, as it were, to his mental vision the words which he used to find in the same spot on the lettered board. Each coloured line was the sym- bol of three words, differing according to the Voice examined on ; and one boy at the board pointing with a rod, while an- other and another in different parts of the class were called to answer, formed not only a searching, but an amusing mode of examination. The last part of the process for mastering the Greek verb was, to dispense with the board altogether and examine vivá voce ; and those who had gone through the pre- vious steps successfully found in this no difficulty. Another tabular view of the Greek verb, in which the tenses were arranged, like a family tree, according to their supposed affili- ations, one to another, was reserved for the whole class, at a later period of the Session. Thus ended the summary process of initiation in the ele- ments of Greek. IWAS now enabled to arrange the whole body of Greek stu- dents into two classes, an Upper, and a Lower; the former consisting of the pupils of a second year's attendance, the lat- ter made up of those of the first year who had learned a little Greek in the fourth class and the novices who had gone through the tabular process. As it happened not unfrequently GREEK DISCIPLINE. 387 that the best of the new comers were superior to the worst of my second year's pupils, examinations and trials were insti- tuted to adjust the scale of talent and progress; and at no period of the year, except the close, was it impossible for a boy high in the lower class to be promoted to the upper, or an idler of the upper to be motus tribu. The business of the Junior class was grammar and simple construing, with accurate parsing. After the tabular teaching of the first month, Moor's Grammar was commenced with the now united sections. The most important rules were pre- scribed to be got by heart, in the way required for pupils who were in progress to the University; for which this class might be considered as a nursery. One set of the rules, however, I omitted altogether, those for the contraction of syllables; and as this is generally considered as the most successful part of Professor Moor's Grammar, it may be well to account for the Omission. Moor's rules for contraction are, I admit, ingeniously con- ceived, and neatly expressed; and as a scheme embracing every concourse of vowels, it is perhaps unrivalled. Never- theless, in practical teaching, I found it unmanageable. To learn the rules by heart and acquire the habit of applying them readily, demanded a sacrifice of time which appeared to me much too great for an object so subordinate. Accordingly, in search of something more useful in practice, I set out upon the principle, that it is not necessary to have a rule for every contraction. There are certain concourses of vowels, the con- tracting of which is so obvious that it may be safely left to the guidance of the car. Such, for example, are pºsto into pº, pºssic into pºsi; ; pºsoqº into pºopſ pºsooga into 'pºojaa. In what cases a rule might be dispensed with, I did not determine by my own opinion or authority, but appealed to experiment, by pronouncing the word and calling for its contracted form from the dullest novices. When they did it without hesitation, and all in one way, it seemed to me that a rule was not required for what nature herself dictated in- fallibly. Leaving out, therefore, self-evident and unmistakeable forms as well as some others of exceedingly rare occurrence, I re- 388 GREEK DISCIPLINE. duced the ten pages of Moor's Grammar to the following for- mulae, so short and simple as to be easily remembered and readily applied, and amply sufficient to guide the young Hel- lenist through the labyrinth of Greek contractions. In this part of grammar, and the same thing may be said of many other parts, it is a mistake to burden the memory of boys with rules which they will seldom or never have occasion to apply.* Rare cases and exceptions are better left to be explained, when they occur, inter docendum. CONTRAHUNTUR 1. oo et 02 in Ö), - - - - tºp.o.opsy—tpāpsy. Amtoo—Amto. 2. so et os et oo in ÖU - tº º ôoteoy—éotočy. eóm\0s—eomNö0. yOOg—yotic. 3. ea in j - gº * * tº Yeo-Yij. ſº ; , s ſ IIepaleo-Hepató. sed so purum et pea primae in Ö. top popea—top pupå. 4. es (e duplex) in si #º &=% wº (pt)\este—pt)\eite 5. Ge et an in a tº- *m. gº wº et poe—etſuo. Tipaſ)—ttpo. 6. Accusativus pluralis contractus est similis nominativo con- tracto—nom. Cºmèeeg—ösic,+acc. ºffbeac—a).7%tc. f In the course of November, the two sections of the Lower Greek, brought together under the circumstances I have stated, were completely amalgamated, and many of those who had begun the alphabet in October, stood high in the united class * Take, for one example among a thousand, the conclusion of Ruddiman's Latin rule for the gender of nouns in n, —Sindon petit haec et agdon, Alcyonem juages, data postea queis comes icon. How many of those who were punished, as many there were in my young days, for not learning by heart these difficult and barbarous lines, ever had occasion to apply the rule to any of the four words for which it is given 2 It was right in Ruddiman to state the fact; but the wisdom of teaching it to tyros may well be questioned. - + A 7th Rule may be left to the discretion of the teacher. 7. If there be three vowels before contraction, and the last be either 1 or v, it is discarded altogether, unless when the contracted form admits of the , being subscribed, as two.ov–7126, 3n20sly-ºn-ovy, rigo.org-riggai, GREEK DISCIPLINE. 389 before Christmas. Nor did they find much difficulty in mas- tering the lessons of that class, which were confined to Greek Testament, and Dalzel's Analecta Minora. The Upper Greek, being composed of boys of good pro- mise who had made considerable proficiency, presented more striking shades of difference and greater capabilities of ad- vancement. With them the standard books were Homer's Iliad, and the prose volume of the Collectanea Majora which contains extracts from Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, &c. To secure accurate preparation among the senior boys, and habituate them to refer every compound word to its root, (and in Greek, above most other languages, etymology is important and fruitful in results,) they were required to shew, along with every day's preparation, written derivations, as they were called, that is, the parsing and parentage of every important word in the lesson. The mere inspection of these manuscripts by a master who was known to be on his guard against im- position, gave the strongest assurance of pains bestowed. In spite of the demands on their time by the various busi- ness of the Latin class, there was always a select band among the Upper Greek, so fond of the language and so proud of their proficiency in it, that they took up Private Studies with great avidity. The book prescribed for these voluntary read- ings was the Iliad; and the quantity prepared continued in- creasing from year to year, as the system was improved and the taste for Greek diffused, till, at the Examination in 1817, two pupils professed the whole Iliad, on which they were publicly examined by very competent judges, and on passages of their selection. In 1819, there were three who professed the Iliad; in 1820, four-besides one, (the late John Brown Paterson*) who, having read the Iliad the session before, professed and was examined on the whole nine books of Herodotus. The private readings in the Iliad were under- stood to be performed without the assistance of a Latin version; and if such version was appended to any student's copy of Homer, he was bound to shew it sealed up, before he began, and again, with the seal unbroken, at the close of the Session. º: quem, non virtutis egentem, Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo, 39() GREEK DISCIPLINE. Every Greek scholar knows, that if one book of Homer be read with very strict attention to the parsing, and every word pursued through all the forms and phases which the master genius of the poet compels it to assume to give fit utterance to his noble conceptions, the preparing of the rest becomes comparatively easy. Accordingly, the readers of the Iliad were enjoined to have a paper-book with a page or two allotted to each letter of the Greek alphabet; and for easy reference, to have an Index Alphabet catching the eye, on the outer margin, like a merchant's ledger. After they had acquired some familiarity with the diction of Homer, they were advised to insert in this little lexicon, every word that was new to them, and for which they were obliged to have recourse to Schrevelius or Hederic. These vocables (if I may be allowed to use a Scotch word which deserves to be English,) gradually accumulated till the little lexicon almost superseded the use of any other for Homer. A well-kept and well-filled register of this kind was one of the proudest distinctions of a Greek student, CHAPTER VIII. --- GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE. THE introduction of Ancient Geography into the curriculum of High School study, was, like that of Greek, a happy in- novation of my predecessor's upon its original constitution. But as the manner of teaching geography which I was led to adopt differed materially, not only from his plan, but from any other, so far as I have been able to learn, which till then had been practised in the public schools of Britain, it is right that I should preface the details of geographical discipline with an exposition of the principles on which I proceeded, especially as I conceive them to lie at the foundation of all successful teaching of geography, whether it be ancient or modern.” “I. In studying the geography of any country, the first * Here follows, in the MS. of 1823, a long dissertation, intended to eluci- date the first principles of the art of communicating geographical instruction in such a manner as to interest the minds of the young. But with this dis- cussion I shall not try the patience of the reader; partly, because the views it presents have no longer the novelty which they possessed when I first began to apply them in practical teaching ; and partly, because I have stated the substance of them pretty fully in the Introduction to “Elements of Phy- sical and Classical Geography,” published in 1854. The portion of memo- randa omitted in the text was expanded long ago into some Lectures on the subject, which are now delivered in the Junior Humanity Class in the Univer- sity. I shall, therefore, confine myself in the text to a condensed enuncia- tion of the principles alluded to, such as may enable the reader to understand and judge of the methods of teaching which I am about to describe. And as I had the honour of delivering one of these lectures lately to the Edin- burgh Local Association of the Educational Institute of Scotland, and the Secretary, once a distinguished pupil of my own, gave an official report of the lecture to the Institute, I have adopted that document into the text, as embodying, substantially and lucidly, the statement which I wished to re- sent to my readers, - 392 GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE, thing to be done, after settling its boundaries, its length and breadth, and its latitude and longitude, is to acquire a know- ledge, not of its civil divisions, which are conventional and fluctuating, but of its physical characters. Of these characters, which are permanent and impressed on the globe by the hand of nature, the most striking are the following:— “1. The line of coast, where the country is maritime: 2. The mountains, either single, or in groups, or in long ranges: 3. The rivers, with their complement of tributary streams: and, 4. The valleys or basins which are scooped out and enclosed between the mountain ranges, and are at Once watered and drained by the rivers and their tributaries. To be made acquainted with these physical features of a country, their names, numbers, and relative positions, is as necessary to the young geographer as a knowledge of the bones and great blood-vessels of the human frame is to the young ana- tomist. It is, in both cases, the foundation on which subse- quent acquirements ought to be reared. “II. When the learner has been thus made acquainted with the physical aspect of the country, with the principal chains of mountains, and with the names and courses of the main rivers, the next step is to follow each of these rivers from the source downwards, observing as we go along what cities or towns of importance are found either divided by it, or close upon it, or at a moderate distance from either bank. If the same process be adopted with the principal tributary streams, and if, in addition, the towns and ports on the sea-coast, where the country is maritime, be noted and named in their order, it will be found that very few places of consequence have been omitted, and that their positions are advantageously fixed in the memory when they are thus associated with the rivers, and seas, and basins, to which they belong. “III. It is not till we have completed this outline of what has a real substantive existence in nature, that the attention of the pupil ought to be called to those divisions and sections of the territory into provinces, circles, counties, and shires, which are purely arbitrary, and have no natural character or assured permanence. “IV. In teaching Geography as a branch of general know- GEOGRAl’HICAL DISCIPLINE. 393 ledge, it is a mistake to aim at great minuteness of detail. The subject ought not to be exhausted. “V. As, on the one hand, the memory should not be over- loaded with a multitude of mere names, so, on the other, as many impressive associations as possible should be connected with the details which are given. In the case of towns, for example, the striking peculiarities, both in their natural, civil, political, and commercial history—all that can serve to paint them to the imagination, and distinguish them from one an- other by something more than the name—should find a place either in the text-book itself, or in the oral demonstration of the teacher. “WI. With the same view of giving to the knowledge communicated a firmer hold on the memory, Modern Geogra- phy should go hand in hand with Ancient, and each be made to throw light upon the other. A very great number of modern names of places are corrupted forms of the ancient appellations, sometimes so altered that the identity of the two is not readily detected; and the modern name may often be traced back, through various changes, to some peculiarity in the natural or civil history of the place. “WII. Finally, it will contribute to give additional interest and impressiveness to geographical instruction, as well as to improve the taste, and store the mind with rich imagery and pleasing associations, if a selection of passages from the poets of antiquity, or of modern times, in which they describe or allude to the local peculiarities or the mythological and political history of the places and scenes enumerated,—be brought under the eye of the learner, and made so familiar to him as to recur along with the names, and even to be com- mitted to memory.” There is, no doubt, an immense extent of the surface of the globe, to which the river-and-basin system just explained can- not be profitably applied. In the Karroos and sandy deserts of Africa, in the parched solitudes of Arabia and Persia, in the table land of Central Asia, in the Llanos and Pampas and Savannahs of America, in the Steppes of Russia both European and Asiatic, and even in the northern parts of Germany and 394 GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE. Prussia, it would be in vain to look for either river or basin, But these interminable wastes, condemned apparently to ever- lasting sterility, possess no interest to the young geographer, beyond the fact of their existence, and their position relatively to the habitable parts of the earth. Still less claim have they on the attention of the youthful student of the classics, seeing that to the ancients they were entirely unknown. The countries inhabited, subdued, colonized and civilized by them, all, with two exceptions,” touched in some point or other the waters of the Mediterranean, or of its cognate seas; and from the shores of the Mediterranean have come to us, as Dr John- son long ago remarked, all our religion, almost all our laws, almost all our arts, almost everything that sets us above savages. Now, to the countries bordering on those inland seas, fertilized as they are and beautified by innumerable streams, and where scarce ‘a mountain rears its head unsung,' —the river-and-basin system is eminently applicable; and as it was with those countries I had chiefly to do, it occurred to me that I might take advantage of it, to give interest and im- pressiveness to my geographical lessons. If the soundness of the principles stated above be admitted, it follows that an engraved map, having its full complement of provinces, counties, and towns, with their names at full length in letters of all sizes, its dotted lines of boundary, its meridians, and its parallels of latitude,-is not the proper in- strument to use in teaching the geography of a country; but that it ought to be reserved, like dictionaries in learning a language, for occasional consultation and reference. Accordingly, I placed before my pupils, instead of a crowded and perplexing map, a large black board, having an unpolished non-reflecting surface, on which was inscribed in bold relief a delineation of the country, with its mountains, rivers, lakes, cities, and towns of note. The delineation was executed with chalks of different colours. The outline of coast was drawn with white chalk, faintly shaded on the outside with blue; light green was employed for the mountains, light blue for the rivers and lakes, and pink for the towns. There was no * Britain, and the Conquests of Alexander the Great. GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE. 395 marking on the board which did not indicate some existing reality, something that had visible and tangible properties; and of such objects, those only had a place which were in- tended to be taught. No line, letter, or name appeared,—no index of any thing which had not a prototype in nature, un- less crosses of red chalk here and there, to point out the site of a famous battle, be considered as an exception. There was thus exhibited on the easel a sort of fac-simile of the country, so limited however in the number of details, as neither to distract the eye, nor confound the understanding, nor overload the memory. The varieties of colour, each ap- propriate to the visible appearance of the object represented, were themselves no small help, both to the imagination and the memory, in picturing out and recalling to the learner's mind the principal features of a country. The teacher, then, while every boy's eye was fixed on the board, directed his pointer to the mountain ranges, with their highest peaks and offsets, not failing to notice any peculiarity in their appearance and structure. He next traced the courses of the main rivers and their principal tributaries, from fountain-head to embou- chure. Then, remounting to their sources, he named, as he descended with the current, the towns that were upon their banks, and, along with their names, mentioned also such par- ticulars concerning them as were worth knowing and likely to be remembered, their ancient and modern designations, the sieges they had sustained, the battles fought under their walls, the remains of antiquity they contained, the distinguished men they had given birth to, and anything else remarkable in their matural or civil history which might tend to give them individuality, and take a hold on the memory. It contributed not a little to the same effect, that each town was no longer an insulated locality, with nothing to refer it to but the county or province to which it belonged: it was associated now with the river it was upon ; and the rest of the towns farther down the river, as they succeeded each other, were bound together in the memory, as it were by a common tie. To prove how much the system I have been endeavouring to explain tends to simplify and give interest to the study of Geography, I will take, as an example, the first country which 396 GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE. presents itself in making our proposed circuit of the Mediter- ranean from one pillar of Hercules (the rock of Gibraltar), to the other (the African Ceuta);-I mean the Spanish Peninsula. Were a traveller to land at Santander, a sea-port on the Bay of Biscay, in the province of Asturias, with the intention of making his way directly south to Gibraltar, he would have to cross successively five ranges of mountains, running all from north-east to south-west, at great distances from each other; and in travelling across each of the intermediate spaces, he would find himself alternately descending and ascending, and would have, as he descended, the current of all the mountain torrents and tributary streams with him, and, as he ascended, all against him, travelling, in the former case secundo flumine, and adverso flumine in the latter. And, ere he reached the end of his journey, he would have traversed four basins or broad valleys, each having a large river occupying its lowest level, running parallel to the mountain ranges which enclose it, and receiving all the streams that flow down their sides. And he might add to his enumeration of basins what is equivalent to a fifth, the declivity which he first ascended from the shore of the Bay of Biscay, and the slope which brought him at last to the shores of the Mediterranean. Again, let us suppose that our traveller crosses Spain in a different direction,-from west to east,-and that he starts from Lisbon, bound for Valencia. Instead of the frequent ascendings and descendings of his former journey, he will now follow the course of the Tagus upwards by a long and gentle ascent, noting a number of remarkable towns in his way, till that river gradually dwindles to a slender filament of water, and he reaches at last its fountain-head on the side or summit of the lofty mountain called Sierra Molina. Pursuing his course eastward, he will not have advanced far till he fall in with another rivulet, but flowing in a direction opposite to that which he has left. This is the infant Turia, the modern Guadalaviar, by following the course and current of which he arrives at Valencia, on the eastern coast of the Mediterra- nean. The Sierra Molina is thus proved to be one of the sum- mits of that crest of mountain and high ground which, stretch- ing from north to south, forms the water-shed of the Peninsula, GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE. 397 sending forth streams from its eastern declivity to the Medi- terranean, and from its western to the Atlantic. It is from this back-bone of the country that those ranges of mountains spring, like ribs from the spine, which he crossed in his Southern journey. - It was not till now, when, by views and processes such as I have described, there had been erected in the mind of the learner a sort of frame-work or effigies of the Peninsula as it came from the hand of nature, that, before quitting the tabu- lar delineation of Spain, I marked off, with dotted lines, the kingdoms and principalities into which it had been subdivided by man, from the time when it was a Roman province down to the present day; and took occasion to follow chronologi- cally the fortunes of its inhabitants through the different epochs of their history, under the successive visitations of the Car- thaginians, the Romans, the Goths, Visigoths, Wandals, and Saracens. Though I was sanguine enough in my anticipations of good from this new mode of teaching Geography, yet the actual results far exceeded my expectation. Not only were the finer spirits of the class attracted, but many boys who, from indif- ferent previous instruction, had conceived a rooted aversion to Latin and Greek, sprang forward with alacrity in this new career, and shewed, by their attitude and eye, a degree of at- tention and interest which I had in vain attempted to excite in them when the other lessons were in hand. Every particle of information I had given concerning any locality, every anecdote I had told, was forthcoming the moment the board was exhibited and the pointer was on the spot ; even the illustrations quoted from the Latin classics or our own poets, were hunted out and committed to memory. Nor was this all ; boys—often from the lowest benches in the class— accepted the invitation to construct skeleton-maps of their own in imitation of those on the board ; and they arrived by practice at a surprising degree of accuracy and neatness of execution. The best of these performances were fitted upon pasteboard, and hung round the room ; and when the head- knowledge of the drawer was found equal to his skill in the handiwork, he was privileged to act as monitor, and to teach 398 GEOGRAPHICAL DISCIPLINE. the substance of his own map to his fellows. So captivating was the instruction conveyed in this shape, that boys often petitioned for leave to remain in the school-room during play- hours; some for the sport of examining one another on the skeleton map, others to practise the art of making chalk out- lines on a black board. And such dexterity and expertness did they acquire in the use of the crayons, that I abandoned the practice of drawing on this board myself, and substituted the beautiful specimens produced by my pupils for my own clumsy performances. Not a few, becoming enamoured of the study, executed maps in Indian ink, with a fuller comple- ment of localities, and with the names inserted; and several of these, finished off with consummate taste and skill more than thirty years ago, may still be seen adorning the walls of the Humanity class-room.* * For a particular detail of the manner in which this mode of teaching Geography was applied to the other countries bordering on the Mediter- ranean, and in particular, how it was brought to bear on the explanation and illustration of the classics, I must again refer the reader to the volume men- tioned in the Note on p. 391. CHAPTER IX. ON THE DIFFERENCE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF CLASSICAL SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND AND IN SCOTLAND, AND THE ADVAN- TAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF BOTH. THE acknowledged difference of national character on the opposite sides of the Tweed may be considered partly as the cause, and partly as the effect, of the very marked diversity in the modes of public education, and the fashion of public schools in the two countries. All the great schools of England, how widely soever they may differ in the details of teaching, agree in this respect, that the boys are separated from their parents and their homes, and form, with the head-master and his assistants, a sort of small community apart. If it be an old endowed school, such as Eton or Westminster, the boys on the foundation are boarded and lodged in a Dormitory or Long Chamber, and the rest are placed either with certain of the masters, or in what are called Dames' Houses, which are so far under control and superintendence, that each of them is visited every day by one of the masters, who calls a muster-roll of the inmates and sees that they be locked up for the night. An imaginary line round the place marks the ‘bounds,’ beyond which it is against the law of the school to go, however consistent it may be with the practice of the scholars to trespass. There are certain amusements too, such as riding, driving, shooting, and ang- ling, which are prohibited under severe penalties. The mas- ters, in short, act as superintendents of the general conduct of the pupils, as well as of their proficiency in classics, and a vigilant police is kept up by frequent calling of ‘absences.’ In Scotch grammar Schools, on the other hand, the school- 400 PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN boys are all what are called in England “home-boarders” or “day-scholars”—a description of pupils little known there, and not encouraged. Our public schools are places of resort to the youth during the hours of teaching, after which they separate, each to his home; and whether that home be the dwelling-place of his parents, or of some friend, or a common lodging-house, he is equally removed from all cognizance of the master, whose charge of him extends not beyond the pre- cincts of the school. The most obvious consequence of the English arrangement is, a much more intimate society among the boys themselves. They dwell, sometimes to the number of eighty or ninety, in the same boarding-house, and all the boarding-houses are within so small a compass, that every boy in school is known to every other. They encounter one another so frequently in the daily intercourse of life, that character is rapidly developed and formed in this little world. A boy who has been spoiled at home, and arrives at school with an extravagant estimate of his own consequence, meets with such rebuffs at every turn, that his self-importance is soon abated, or he is fain at least to conceal it ; nay, as he gains experience, he becomes in his turn an acute observer of the foibles and follies of his neigh- bours. Thus, by constant attrition as it were, the angulari- ties of character are rubbed off, and a boy acquires a know- ledge of mankind, and a self-possession, which, it must be admitted, betrays itself occasionally in petulance, proneness to quiz, and knowingness in vice; but, in the better class of pupils, is shewn in ease and manliness of manner, in freedom from presumptuousness and affectation, and in a perception of the ridiculous in conduct and character, which, though strong enough to observe it in others, is mainly exercised in avoiding it themselves. In short, a boy feels very early his place in society, and that he must not expect others to yield more than is his due in their estimation, not in his own;–a lesson of no small importance to the sons of the rich and the high-born. To this we may trace much of the influence which these schools have had in moulding the aristocracy of England, and cor- recting many of the faults to which the condition of their birth exposes them. Few things, indeed, have contributed more ENGLAND AND SCOTLANI). 401 to produce that peculiar phasis of human character, of which an English gentleman is so admirable a specimen. The practice of fagging, that is, of every member of the higher forms of the school having a general command over the services of the lower boys, and having one boy in particular attached to him as a sort of domestic, is so interwoven with English habits, that it is scarcely possible, even were it desi- rable, to abolish it. It is that part of the system which appears most objectionable in theory; and instances are quoted of the abuses which it has given rise to. But it ought to be remem- bered, that it is of the abuses only that we hear, while the salutary effects are mixed up with the general results of the whole discipline, and are neither so striking nor so easily stated. Like so many of the time-honoured usages and insti- tutions of England, it may be said to work well, against all reason and all theory. But as this is a dangerous principle to admit, and may be pleaded in vindication of every abuse, it is better to rest the defence or apology of fagging on this argument; that in large assemblages of boys living in close contact and far from their natural guardians, a regulated and well-defined authority—such as in a vast majority of cases will be exercised according to a certain law, unwritten indeed but not the less binding—is greatly to be preferred to the un- restricted right of the strongest. Big boys are doubtless now and then found who make a cruel and capricious use of their power, but there is a check to this abuse in the custom of the school. In numberless instances the older boy is the protec- tor and asserter of the rights of his fag , and though he him- self may occasionally maltreat him, he will allow nobody else to do so. Besides, to the numerous pupils of these schools who are born to affluence, and doomed to be surrounded with obsequious dependents, this is often their only chance, at the time when the character is being formed for life, of profiting by the “sweet uses of adversity.” There are disadvantages, however, attending the English system of school-management, which it is impossible to over- look. Among these I fear we must reckon the danger of early initiation into vice. Such congregations of boys, associating only with one another, are a fit soil for “things rank and 2 C 402 PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN gross in nature” to spring up in ; and though the purer spirits come out from the test to which their principles and good ha- bits are subjected, like gold seven times tried, yet the greater proportion of ordinary minds run considerable risk of receiv- ing a taint, from which they do not easily recover. The same condition of things is apt to engender an indif- ference, and even aversion, to the studies they are sent to prosecute. Boys collected in great numbers in one place, far from home and the Society of those who have a matural influence over them, are but too apt to employ their time and talents in inventing schemes of active amusement or playful mischief, and to make the sedentary occupations of the desk and the study a subordinate and very summary process. This tendency is not a little favoured by the obligation the masters are under to proscribe and if possible prevent many sports, innocent and healthful in themselves, which the boys are ac- customed to engage in at home, in their fathers' company, during the holidays. The very prohibition begets a desire to enjoy them, and disposes boys to regard their masters in the light of so many tyrants arrayed against theirs interests, debarring them from pastimes which even they must look upon as harmless, and forcing upon them instruction for which they have no relish. Hence the prevalent feeling is, to take as little as may be of the learning, and have all they can of the amusement, to reduce the former to the minimum, and raise the latter to the maa'imum. And hence, too, the danger of a struggle between master and pupil, each pulling opposite ways. The seeds are sown of a hostility which is only prevented by the strictest school-discipline from shewing itself in open resistance to authority. This proneness to rebel may act, indeed, as a check in preventing abuse of power on the part of the master; but the evil preponderates. Some dexterity and a happy temperament are required in the teacher to save him from being an object of general dislike. One of his best securities against it, is to impress his pupils with the idea that he is acting, not spontaneously nor always with a willing mind, but as the instrument, and under the compulsion, of a stern necessity. In this way, even while he is inflicting pun- ishments, which it would be difficult to reconcile with his own ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 403 notions of what is reasonable and just, he may stand acquitted of vindictiveness, by appearing as the minister of fate, ap- pointed to enforce a system of discipline which has been es- tablished for ages, a system which, for that very reason, is submitted to, by young Englishmen as well as old, without examination and without complaint. It is of general tendencies to evil that I speak: there are of course numerous and honourable exceptions,—many who, were the system ever so bad, would turn out well, not by that system, but in spite of it; but the prevailing notion on the subject undoubtedly is, that teachers are task-masters, who are to be thwarted, eluded, mystified, and outwitted by every lawful, or rather, by every possible means. The boy who is at all times ready to embark in any scheme of strenuous idleness, and the readier if it has a seasoning of mischief in it, is a ge- neral favourite. Want of lesson brings no discredit. High talent, indeed, displayed in the business of the school, is om- nipotent with boys, and never fails to attract universal and unenvying admiration; but the assiduous student who makes no blaze must carefully conceal his love of study, if he would escape having an opprobrious epithet coupled with his name. One means of counteracting a tendency so manifest would be, to convey instruction in a very attractive form. But to this the nature of the school-room arrangements at Eton is a bar. The plan of teaching several forms or sections of the school in one room, has been already adverted to as a security against excess in punishment or indulgence of passion; but it is evident that, upon this plan, the business can scarcely go beyond plain, dry construing and parsing: so that, however well qualified a master may be to captivate the minds of youth by apt and varied illustrations, and to communicate the en- thusiasm which he himself feels, the thing is next to impos- sible, not only from the conversational tone assumed to prevent interference, but from the presence of other masters, and the dread of being laughed at both by them and his pupils.” * I have spoken, in the text, of things at Eton as they were known to me more than forty years ago. Much, I am aware, has been done to counteract evil tendencies under the able management of the present Provost and Head-master; and, ſor the removal of whatever else is amiss, we may look 404 PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN The Scottish school system admits of no such mutual and general acquaintance. The boys of one class are scarcely known, even by name, to those of the other four classes; and even members of the same class, if it be very numerous, re- main so little acquainted as to pass each other on the street without recognition, unless some other tie bring them together than the mere circumstance of being both taught by one and the same master. This was the case in the Rector's class also, up to the time when the adoption of monitorial divisions more thoroughly intermingled the members of it, by bringing them into closer and more frequent intercourse, and thus pre- senting opportunities of becoming acquainted, and of develop- ing character. Still, however, this intercourse was within the walls of the school-room, where there could be little of that free and unreserved intercommunication of thought which cements boyish friendships; and the play-ground was too confined, and had too few facilities for youthful sports, to tempt many boys to linger or re-assemble there at play-hours; so that unless proximity of dwelling, or the mutual acquaint- ance of their parents, brought them together at other times, the bond which connected all the pupils of the same class was but slight, and led to few intimacies. If, however, by this system boys have less frequent occasions of acquiring an early knowledge of the world, and a certain easy and unembarrassed demeanour, they escape also, it must be allowed, some risk of evil and contamination. For, in the first place, there is no tendency with us to cabal against the master; not only because the boys are less together, but because he, not being called on to interfere with their amusements, or with their manner of employing the hours they are out of School, is not so liable to incur their dislike or aver- sion. If, on a whole holiday, he meet one of his pupils on horseback, in a gig, with a fishing-rod in his hand, or even a gun over his shoulder, he wishes him a pleasant ride, or good sport, and passes on. This, no doubt, takes the responsibility of the boy's moral conduct, in a great measure, off the shoulders hopefully to those authorities of the school who have already succeeded in abolishing the ridiculous farce of Montem, and in substituting the “Eton Geography and Atlas” for the maps and text of Pomponius Mela. ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 405 of the master, and lays it more heavily on the parent's, tutor's, or guardian's; and of this burden one or all of these may pos- sibly complain. But to the master it is an incalculable advan- tage, not merely by relieving him of a very odious and irksome duty, but by putting it more in his power to secure the affec- tions, and through them to influence the conduct and accelerate the proficiency of his pupils. Again, the boys of a Scotch Class, having no projects in common to which the master is not a party, are more likely to regard the school business as of prime importance, and to have it uppermost it their thoughts, both in school and at home. When school is over for the day, the English youth repair, either to the play-ground in large bodies, or in little groups, each to pursue its own object; and, towards evening, all retire to their respective boarding-houses, where they are con- signed to study or each other's company for the rest of the day. Scotch schoolboys, on the contrary, disperse in all directions after school-hours, and see no more of each other till next morning. That part of the interval which is not given to preparation for the morrow, or to play with their particular associates, is spent in the society of their parents. This may be thought but a bad exchange for the company of their equals; and when one considers the folly and ignorance, the extremes of indulgence and severity, so common among parents where their children are concerned, one is tempted to think that, for their mutual benefit, they can scarcely see too little of each other. Nevertheless, the growing intelligence of the age, and the importance now generally attached to the right training of youth, secure, upon the whole, a reversion of good from this daily intercourse between the old and the young. And if this be true generally, I may say, without undue partiality to my native place, that nowhere is this reversion of good likely to be greater than in Edinburgh, not only from the general diffu- sion of education among the people of Scotland, but from the peculiar circumstances of that city. The proportion of the population who follow liberal professions is nowhere else so great. The town derives so much of its wealth and consequence from being the seat of the Courts of Law and of the Univer- sity, and so little from trade or manufactures, that literature is 406 PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN the fashion of the place; and among the society which a boy meets with at his father's house, he is likely to imbibe much useful knowledge, or, at least, to hear such importance attached to the possession of it, and such respect paid to intellectual distinction, as can hardly fail to quicken his exertions to ob- tain it. This effect I could distinctly trace, among the succes- sive members of the Rector's class, in the profound attention with which every kind of general information was listened to. I was encouraged, by observing this appetite for knowledge, to dilate occasionally on topics rather suggested by, than bear- ing upon, the lesson of the day. Classical scholars do not re- quire to be told how frequently, in construing and prelecting on the choice writers of antiquity, opportunities present them- selves to the teacher of awakening the spirit of inquiry, and giving proper direction to the moral perceptions of the young. By commenting on the events and characters which come be- fore them in the course of the daily readings, boys may be guided, the more surely because insensibly, to correct notions and abiding impressions of the right and the wrong in prin- ciple and in conduct:—a moral training much more effectual than any formal array of precepts and rules for good behaviour; to which, when addressed directly to them, and professedly for their especial benefit, boys are but too apt to turn a deaf ear. I have spoken only of what may be called the external con- formation of the schools in the two countries, as it affects the habits, and feelings, and manners of the youth. To describe and compare the didactic part of the discipline, the details of the school-room, the number and nature of the subjects taught, the books used, the modes of teaching, and the professional preparation, condition, and character of the teachers, in both countries, would require a volume of itself, and would be foreign to the purpose of this chapter. A school organization which should embrace the advantages, and steer clear of the inconveniences, of the Scotch and English system of management, is a thing to be wished rather than looked for. Diversity of national character, the prepossessions of each people in favour of its own plan, local arrangements not easy to alter, and perhaps a remnant of national jealousy still surviving in some minds from the feuds and antipathies ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 407 of former days—all conspire to prevent such a consummation. But a study and comparison of the two may suggest hints for partial and local improvement. It would be no less ineffectual than presumptuous in me to speculate on the means of ameliorating the public schools of England: but I can scarcely be considered as stepping out of my province, if I submit, for the consideration of the autho- rities who preside over the grammar schools of Scotland, a few suggestions, or rather queries; with special reference, however, to that seminary which I was so long connected with, both as pupil and teacher.” * I have omitted after this a considerable portion of the original MS., which relates to some local changes in the old High School building, and certain class arrangements consequent thereon; an omission which even the author regards as a hiatus non valde defendus. In what follows, something is no doubt left which the reader will think had been better consigned to the same category. But my wish at least has been, that in speaking on a sub- ject in itself local and temporary, and the interest of which is gone by, no- thing should be retained which did not involve some principle that might be useful hereafter in the erection and management of schools. 1855.] CHAPTER X. SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. THE master evil in the discipline of the High School has al- ways been the want of classification according to proficiency, in the classes subsidiary to the Rector's. This defect I spoke of, in the first chapter, as meeting me at the very outset of my labours, and acting injuriously on the compo- sition of the Rector's class, inasmuch as it sent up to the highest form in the school, a number of pupils very imper- fectly acquainted with the first principles of Latin grammar, who nevertheless had been, during the four previous years, members of the same classes which furnished me with some of my best scholars. It has often been tauntingly asked, by those who are not friendly to classical education, how it comes to pass that so large a proportion of the pupils of the High School leave it, after a course of five or six years' instruction, without more than a smattering of the language to which the chief part of their time had been devoted. Admitting the truth of the al- legation, and there is no use in denying a fact so notorious, one may conceive a defender of the school to argue in reply, with a fair show of reason, in the first place, that, in any sys- tem of scholastic training to which numerous classes of boys are subjected, there must always be some who take the lead and others who lag behind, be the subject taught what it may; and, Secondly, that, even when the language in question has not been mastered, it by no means follows that the time and labour of the student have been thrown away. There is much truth in the argument; but it cannot be considered as a satisfactory answer to the question put, unless it could be SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. 409 proved, that the number of failures is not greater than may be fairly accounted for, by that unequal distribution of talent and capacity which must always shew itself among a great num- ber of individuals. Besides, it is a dangerous line of defence to take. It would give the enemy a vantage-ground, from which we should find it difficult to dislodge him. For it would be a libel on classical studies, considered as a means of training youth, to admit, that so long a period as six years does not suffice to impart a knowledge of the classics to a lar- ger proportion of the youth than is proved by experience to have acquired it. We must look for the cause of the admitted fact, neither in the nature of the studies themselves, which, when rightly pursued, are quite attainable by minds of mode- rate ability, nor in the character of the teachers, who are all men of high and acknowledged qualifications, but in circum- stances which would lead to a like result, under any set of teachers, and whatever were the leading object of the instruc- tion. The main cause, I apprehend, will be found, as I stated before, in the long established practice of carrying forward the pupils of all the classes, from the lowest stage of the school to the highest, without applying any test of proficiency beyond the skirmishing for places in the class itself. There are no stated periods for comparative trial between the members of the different classes, no proof of attainment required before passing to a higher status in the school. Each master, at the commencement of his quadriennial course, enrols in his class, we shall suppose, a hundred pupils. These he regards as his peculium, his little flock, which it is his busi- ness to keep his hand about, and do his best to see that no one stray from the fold, till, at the close of his fourth session, he make over the whole to the charge of the Rector. Thus it appears that it is the time of attendance, not the amount of proficiency, which gives a passport to the highest class. It is an unavoidable consequence of this arrangement, that the dif- ference between the clever boys and the dull, the diligent and the idle, which is perceptible enough at the close of the first year, continues to increase up to the end of the fourth. Like ill-matched racers, they start abreast, but soon present a 410 SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. straggling line, which lengthens and shews wider intervals at every step they advance in the course. Now, this is one of the cases in which we might take a lesson from our southern neighbours. At Eton, at Rugby, and at most, I believe, of the public schools of England, half-yearly examinations are held to determine who are fit to take the next regular step in advance. Moderate progress is sufficient to secure this step, and a boy is then said to have “got his remove.’ An extraor- dinary degree of diligence and ability is rewarded by two steps in advance instead of one, and he is then said to have ‘gained a double remove.’ On the other hand, a boy greatly below the average attainment is liable to ‘lose his remove,’ and remain where he was for another semestre. This forfeit– ure, and this double promotion, are things of but rare occur- rence; the great body of the pupils pass on; but such events are known to happen occasionally, and the consequence is, that hope on the part of some, and apprehension on the part of others, produce a most salutary effect on the discipline of the school and the exertions of the boys. It may be asked how it was, that, with a full conviction, from reason and observation, of the importance of such an ar- rangement, I did not make this one of my innovations upon the established discipline of the High School. My answer is, that I saw difficulties in the way which I was not prepared to encounter. They arose in part from my colleagues. It was easy to foresee, and I was not left in doubt on the subject, that they would take the alarm at the prospect of any change which seemed to threaten an immediate diminution of their emoluments, which were already much too small. The his- tory of the High School, within my own recollection, furnished more than one example of jealousies, and even open quarrels among the teachers, injurious alike to the efficiency of their instructions, to their personal comfort, and to the character of the seminary. Such petty squabbles I was desirous to avoid; and very unwilling to break up, or even endanger, the good understanding which had subsisted all along between my col- leagues and myself. Difficulties still greater were to be apprehended on the part of the patrons, whose consent was indispensable. The con- SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. 411 templated change could only have been effected in one of two ways, either by adding to the staff of teachers, or by guaran- teeing the existing masters against suffering any diminution of income by the new arrangement. But these were things which it was vain to look for from the Town Council, in the labouring state of the city finances which continued during the whole time of my rectorship.” Even with these obstacles, however, formidable as they were, I should have thought it my duty to grapple, had things continued long as bad as I found them. But the introduction of the monitorial method abated the evil to such an extent, that the balance of good seemed to me to preponderate in fa- vour of leaving things as they were, and waiting for more favourable circumstances. And, indeed, so far as regarded boys of superior ability and proficiency, I could not but think that I had discovered a remedy for the evil, when I devolved on them the duties of the monitorial office, and opened up the boundless career of “private studies.' Even with the more sluggish and backward, there was a decided and manifest im- provement. Still, however, in the lower parts of the class, there always remained a considerable number, doomed, by the state of preparation in which they joined the class, to take little or no interest in much of the business. These boys it would have been a harsh proceeding to reject, even had Ibeen armed with the power to do so, and thereby to inflict a stigma on them in their progress towards a profession, in which they might afterwards acquit themselves, as many I know have done, very respectably. The most I could do for pupils of this description was to simplify the business as much as pos- sible, to bring them over the elementary principles once more by prescribing a private course of Mair's Introduction, and to read with them an easier book, such as Quintus Curtius, in- stead of Livy or Cicero. For this subdivision of business, and adaptation of lessons to different capacities, the monitorial method afforded facilities altogether unattainable without it, in a large class under one teacher. Still, much time was lost to the lower boys, in listening to what they could not compre- * These pecuniary embarrassments led at last to the bankruptcy of the * Guid Toun,' 412 SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. hend, and I was obliged to draw what consolation I could from the reflection, that if they were making little progress in clas- sical learning, they might be profiting by the occasional discussions they heard on topics of a more general and to them interesting kind, and might be stimulated to exertion by being brought to a sense of their own deficiencies; and that, even at the worst, they might be improved in moral feeling and deportment, by being subjected to the regular discipline of the class, and by associating with well-conducted and studious comrades:— Est quadam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra. I am aware, too, that something has been done in the sub- sidiary classes, where the evil begins, to lessen it, and to carry the grammatical instruction to the very lowest boys. Credit and popularity, not unmerited, have accrued to masters when their pupils of the lower forms, down even to the foot of the class, made a respectable appearance on the day of the annual examination ; while it has happened that the master, who brought his distinguished pupils prominently forward, and did not venture to weary the audience with the lame performances of his lowest boys, was less of a general favourite. But suc- cess in drilling the lower boys to make a decent figure before the public, is not always gained without a sacrifice. It is paying much too dear for it, if it be purchased at the cost of keeping back the finer spirits of the class and leaving them unemployed. It must, at the same time, be admitted, that the danger is greater in the opposite direction; and the greater, perhaps, the more ingenious and accomplished the teacher. For to such a teacher the temptation is strong to give an undue proportion of his time and attention to the training of the clever boys, it being a much more agreeable task to pour instruction into apt and willing minds, than either to deal patiently and tenderly with the feeble capacities of some boys, or to contend with the sullenness and dogged indifference of others. But in spite of all that has been done in the Rector's and the other classes to abate the evil, the root of it still re- mains, and ever must remain, till a plan similar to that which SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. 413 I have mentioned as existing in the English schools be adopted. If the pecuniary embarrassments of the Municipal Body should ever be removed, and the Patrons have both the means and the wisdom to do something for the improvement of a semi- nary, the sound and healthy state of which must always be an important element in the prosperity of the city over which they preside, they could not more effectually promote that object than by taking measures for the redress of a grievance, which parents and the public are so well entitled to complain of. The first step in these beneficial measures would be to meet the objections of the existing masters, (for with their successors they could make their own terms,) by tendering to them a distinct guarantee, that the change contemplated should not be allowed to reduce their incomes. If such security were given, and the prospect held out of a small addition to the miserable pittance which the teachers receive under the name of salary, it is difficult to conceive that there should be any reluctance, on their part, to adopt an arrangement which would contribute so much to their success in teaching, and so greatly elevate the character of the school. Nor would the experiment, the Patrons might be assured, be to them a costly one. To carry out this improvement, it would be requisite that half-yearly examinations should take place in the four classes subsidiary to the Rector's, with the view of ascertaining the progress which every boy had made in the preceding six months. It would then be decided, whether it was such as to justify his going forward in the regular progression of time; —how many, by shewing extraordinary diligence and ability, merited a double promotion ;-and whether any, in conse- quence of a very manifest want of those qualities, should be condemned to pass six months more in the same stage of their studies. It would not be necessary, in order to secure the full benefit of such an ordeal, that the examples of promotion and deten- tion should be numerous : the great body of the class would move on; but the occasional occurrence of the honour and the disgrace, and the uncertainty hanging over the results, would act powerfully, where stimulus is most wanted, upon the torpid 414 SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. and thoughtless, and would develop much talent, which at present lies comparatively dormant. The semestral examina- tions should be conducted by the Rector himself, and his la- bour in this responsible task might be easily lightened, by making the trials consist of exercises written in school, under his eye, and corrected in the first instance by the advanced boys of his own class. And as it would be only among the extremes of excellence and deficiency that a selection would be made, such preliminary sifting would narrow the field of competition, and mitigate the demand on the Rector's time. To give to the occasion greater solemnity and impressiveness, it might be well to announce the results of the examinations to the assembled classes in the presence of one of the patrons. With the view of facilitating this arrangement, as well as for other weighty reasons, would it not be desirable to make the summer vacation commence earlier in the High School, as it does in so many other seminaries throughout the island 2 The pupils of the school would be gainers, both in health and proficiency, by shifting the day of public examination to the first week in July. It is about that time that the courts of law break up for the autumn, and many of the parents con- nected with the legal profession are desirous to leave town. The days are then longer and fitter for youthful sports and rural excursions. The masters, too, would be gainers. They, even more than the boys, have need of relaxation, and for the purposes of recreation and travelling, July would be a good exchange for September. Both masters and pupils would escape the enervating effects of hard work in the month of July, coming as it does at the close of a long term of exertion; and both would begin with renewed vigour in September, in a temperate atmosphere, and with a good length of evenings at home, which is by much the most favourable time for study. The year, too, would be thus pretty equally divided by Christmas, and the week of holidays at that time would afford a good opportunity for settling the business of “re- moves.” How the arrangement recommended could be made without increasing the number of masters, would be matter of grave deliberation. Supposing the Christmas trials to be directed SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. 415 to the forming of each class into an upper and lower division, as is the case in many forms of the English Schools, it might then be desirable to have an usher to assist in carying on oc- casionally different kinds of business. Desirable, I have said, —not indispensable; for it is quite practicable to reserve two or three hours a-week for distinct lessons to the two divisions, and to have one heard by monitors while the other should be saying to the master. And even if the municipal body should never be both able and willing to advance money, or to give the proposed guar- antee, the masters might nevertheless go into the new arrange- ment with perfect confidence, that the mutual exchanges of pupils which might follow the semestral examination would be confined to a very small number, and that the balance of pecuniary gain or loss would be so near an average equality, that no master would be a loser in the long run. Nay, he might be well assured, that any temporary loss of emolument would be more than compensated in another way, by the im- proved character of the school, and the consequent increase of its numbers. THERE are certain other changes in the state and condition of the seminary as I found it and as I left it, which, though inferior in importance to that of which I have just spoken, would contribute much to improve the discipline. These, however, though I often felt the want of them, I never thought of with any hope of obtaining, because they were incompatable with the plan, the extent, and the fitting-up of the building as it now stands, (1823.) Nor should I have alluded to them at all, were there not reasonable grounds for expecting that a new High School will ere long be erected in some more eligible situation than the present. A Common Hall, one may rest assured, will form a promi- nent part in any architectural design that may be submitted to the patrons, and it is equally sure, in some shape or other, to be sanctioned by them. It happened to me to know expe- rimentally, what it was both to have such an accommodation and to be without it, and I may therefore be thought qualified to speak, not only of the uses that were made of it while it re- 416 SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. mained, but of those prospectively to which it may be turned, and of the principles on which it should be constructed in the new building. When I began to teach the Rector's class in 1810, the building was of two stories, of which the upper was partitioned into five class-rooms, the Rector's occupying the centre, flanked on each side by two Masters' teaching-rooms, and all the five rooms having doors of communication opening into each other. On the ground-floor, a space equal to nearly three-fourths of the length, and the whole breadth, of the building, was allotted to the Hall, the remaining fourth part being divided between a school library at one end, and a writing-room at the other. The use, and the only use, to which this large hall had ever- been applied, was to the assembling of all the classes every morning for prayers. On these occasions, each of the five mas- ters officiated as chaplain by turns, for a week at a time, while the other four stood at the head of their respective classes. This is a custom which it is highly desirable should be kept up, both as an impressive act of social worship, and as a check on the irregular attendance of the teachers. Thirty or forty years ago, when, owing to some misunderstanding among the Teachers, the morning meetings in the Hall were discon- tinued, (and this was the case when I was a pupil in one of the under classes,) the want of punctuality showed itself to an extent that became a reproach to the school. But an indolent or unprincipled master, who could slip unobserved into his separate class-room half an hour behind his time, or send an incompetent substitute to keep the boys together when he had a mind to be absent himself, would hardly have ventured on such practices, had he been aware that they must be known to his colleagues every time they occurred. Another use of the common hall, which I had occasion to mention in a former chapter, was for the accommodation of my monitorial decads. The whole space being unencumbered, with no furnishing but a pulpit and moveable benches, the recesses of the windows were convenient places for the divi- sions to form in : and the pulpit was a station, from which the eye commanded the whole of the busy groups. The hall was very convenient also for communicating information, giv- SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. 417 ing directions, and addressing admonitions, which concerned the whole school. This was generally done from the pulpit, after prayers, before the boys separated to their several class- rooms. There were occasions, too, when serious faults had been committed, or mischievous practices seemed to be gaining ground,-on which I thought it right, for the sake of giving Solemnity and impressiveness to the warning, to convoke the boys of all the classes into the Hall, that they might hear the case stated, the rule of conduct explained, and the penalties for infringing it announced by the head-master. But as the numbers continued to increase in all the classes as well as mine, it became necessary not only to build an ad- dition to the Rector's class-room, but to transfer two of the other classes, in which the pressure was the greatest, to the ground-floor, and to partition the Hall into two apartments to accommodate them. Accordingly, since the year 1816, when this change took place, there has been no assembling of the whole school in one room. As far as concerned myself, I was no loser by the alteration; for I succeeded to the two vacated class-rooms which were on the same floor with my own, and I had thus a greater facility than ever in arranging and manoeuvring my divisions. But the interests of the school suffered by this partition in more ways than one. It is greatly to be wished, therefore, that, in the plan of the new building, the uses of the Hall which I have already enumerated, should not be lost sight of I mean, the convocation of all the classes on solemn occasions for admonition and discipline, the moni- torial subdivisions, and the morning muster of boys and of teachers. There are, besides, two prospective uses to which the common Hall may be made subservient, which deserve consideration. One of these is, to make it serve for an annual exhibition and distribution of prizes at the close of the school session, in the presence of the parents, the public, and the magistrates of the city. No argument is required to recommend this being kept in view in the new plan; the danger rather is, that every other use of the Hall will be sacrificed to a display so grati- fying to all the parties concerned. But if it could be obtained only by such a sacrifice, I should think it too dearly purchased, D 418 SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. For, as concerns the pupils, whose interests ought to be para- mount to every other consideration, I am not disposed to rate high the benefits accruing from the pomp and circumstance of such a display, nor even from the distribution of prizes. In a thoroughly well conducted classical school—‘that faultless monster which the world ne'er saw’—there would be motive and stimulus enough, without either dread of punishment, or prospect of material reward. But till the philosophy of teach- ing be fully understood and brought home to the business and bosoms of school-masters, this point may be conceded to the vanity of parents and the curiosity of amateurs, provided it can be done without interfering with other and more impor- tant uses of the Hall. There is another appropriation of the projected Hall to which, if it were practicable, I should attach more importance than to the annual show, but which, I fear, is less likely to find support from the Patrons, or favour with the public. So many petty difficulties, indeed, stand in the way, that I shall content myself with propounding it as a matter worth consider- ing, Whether the Common Hall might not be so constructed as to admit the whole boys to breakfast together every morn- ing before school-time. Such an arrangement would secure to our youth much of the advantage which I formerly described as resulting to English boys from their familiar intercourse with one another. A meeting like this, indeed, would have little effect in bringing men closely together and making them better acquainted; but with boys, who stand less upon reserve and ceremony and formal introductions, half an hour spent daily in this intercourse of good fellowship, and in the sociality of a meal, would act powerfully in developing character, in cultivating the social affections, and in improving the manners and address. Some regulation and superintendence might be required at first, to set the thing a-going in the proper spirit, but the presence of a popular master as the custos morum would suffice to give the tone; and even his attendance might soon be dispensed with. If this experiment were ever tried, there ought to be no distinction observed, either of places or of classes; the grouping of the little parties might be left to the free action of natural affinities and elective attractions. SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. 419 Having said so much of the Common Hall and its uses, a few remarks may not be out of place on the subject of Class- rooms in the contemplated edifice. For a class-room I con- sider the quadrangle as a better form than the square. When a considerable number of boys are to sit for two hours conse- cutively—and that twice in the course of their daily attendance —listening to the instructions of a master, or the “saying' of a schoolfellow, it is by no means a matter of indifference what sort of benches they shall sit on, and how those benches shall be disposed; the object being that all shall hear distinctly whatever is said either by master or pupil. When I attended the school as a pupil, the seats, or forms as they were called, were simple deal planks, without support for either book of back: and when I came back as Rector, I recognised my old acquaintances. The discomfort a young person feels from sit- ting long in one position, is not a little aggravated by having a book to carry in his hand, and nothing to lean his back against. To continue sitting erect in such circumstances re- quires a considerable muscular effort; and tiring of this very soon, he sinks into a state of collapse, leans his elbow or his book on his doubled knee, rounds his shoulders, narrows his chest, and arches his spine ; and is thus in a fair way to con- tract a habit of slouching and stooping which may last him for life. To counteract habits no less detrimental to the health than to the carriage of a boy, I proposed to the College Committee, who take charge of such matters in the first instance, a plan which, at a trifling expense, would go far to remove the evil. It was, that a ledge or bar of wood, rounded off at the upper side, should be erected upon iron rods attached to the benches, and at such a height above the seat as to receive and support the back. It was agreed that the experiment should be tried upon one or two of the benches; and the Committee having reported favourably, the fitting-up was extended to all the seats of my class-room,” and proved a great relief to a serious inconvenience. * Forms of the construction described in the text have been since adopted, not only in the other classes, but in the Edinburgh Academy, and many other schools and places of public assembly. 420 SUGGESTIONS AND QUERIES. Again, as to the best arrangement of the benches for the facility of hearing, it is obvious that if they be all disposed in parallel rows in front of the master's desk, as is very generally done, what he says is well heard, but the boys in the front rows, while they face the master, turn their backs upon the great body of the class, who, if the voice of the speaker be a weak one, hear not a word, and consequently give themselves up to idleness. The result of my experience in this matter is, that the most convenient collocation is in the form of the Greek letter II, the master's desk being at the open end, and the rows of benches ranging parallel to the two sides. Thus the boys on the opposite sides front each other, and the cross benches face the desk; while the open space in the middle is reserved for the master's principal statio, or rather ambulatio, (for a public teacher should seldom be sedentary, inter docen- dum.) By this arrangement every boy who is called to say, presents his face to two of the sides, and the seats on his own side can never be so many deep as to prevent his being heard by those behind him.* The perfection of the arrangement perhaps would be, that the benches should be fixed in the position described, and rise gently from the level of the floor, one behind another, like the sedilia in the Roman amphi- theatres. * I am aware that, when boys are thus placed face to face, there is a temptation to idlers to correspond across by signs and gestures: but of two evils I would chuse the least, and at the same time the most easily re- medied. A WORD FOR THE UNIVERSITIES OF SC 0 TL AND; A N D A PLE A • FOR TRIE HUMANITY CLASSES IN THE COLLEGE OF EDINBURGH. (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1848.) A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. [ATTEMPTS were made some seven years ago, by two anony- mous writers in the “Scottish Press” and “Scotsman” news- papers, to throw discredit upon the Scottish Universities, and particularly upon the Faculties of Arts. These attempts gave rise to the following observations. The pamphlet con- taining them might have been consigned to the oblivion which has long since overtaken the newspaper articles themselves, had not the substance of these articles been recently presented to the public in a Letter to the Patrons, “On the Advance- ment of Learning in Scotland,” by Professor Blackie. Of my own pamphlet, published long ago, I have retained in this volume only so much as I deem a sufficient answer to this crambe repetita of former charges. Decr.1855.] A Bill of Indictment has been presented against the Scot- tish Universities, of which the numerous and scattered charges may be arranged under two principal Counts. I. The first is a general and sweeping sentence of con- demnation; That they are unworthy of the name, seeing that they forget their real vocation, and “keep down learning to as low a point as they possibly can :” and that their charac- ter of inefficiency is so notorious, that they are the scorn and derision of all Europe. II. The second Count is specially directed against the Pro- fessors of Greek and Humanity, who are arraigned as guilty of “indifference” to the progress of improvement, or as one of the writers calls it, “the onward movement that is going on /* 424 A worD AND A PLEA, &c. —an indifference amounting apparently to “a resolution to be stationary.” They are charged, moreover, with “degrad- ing their College Classes into schools, whose place they are yet totally unable to supply.” These imputations seem to me to require, if they admit of, an answer. I should indeed blush for the University in which I was a learner before I was a teacher, if it could be affirmed with truth hacc opprobria nobis Et dici potuisse, et nom potwisse refelli. I. On the first count of the indictment, I shall be brief; and, leaving the other Universities of Scotland to defend them- selves as they best may, I shall limit myself, in the little I have to say, to the University of Edinburgh, which, it is ob- vious, the accusers had chiefly in view. I shall say little, not because the theme is a barren one, or deficient in materials for a triumphant vindication; but because my alma mater stands * Here are a few specimens of the charges, repeated again and again with ‘damnable iteration,’ both in the periodicals mentioned above, and still more offensively in the recent pamphlet of Professor Blackie (1855). “Our Universities are revealed before our eyes, as clad in rags of motley mediocrity, and inhabited by a spirit of elementary puerility, to which scarcely the most ill-educated countries in Europe afford a parallel.” “The Universities, in fact, in the curriculum of Arts, are, as at present constituted, we cannot too often repeat, merely bad schools, and bad schools in operation for only five or six months out of the twelve.” “The extreme puerility and contemptible mediocrity which characterises our whole University system, &c.” “So long as the Humanity Classes are peopled by (sic /) mere boys, it is a mockery to talk of Universities. In the Faculty of Arts, Scotland has at this moment no Universities that have any legitimate claims to the appella- tion. She has only schools, we repeat and desire to press it seriously as a last word on our readers, of a very inadequate and insufficient description.” These specimens are from the same pen that returned to the charge a month ago, in such terms as the following:— “I feel myself constrained by a sacred regard to truth,” (i. e. what Pro- fessor Blackie troweth,) “to make the broad assertion, that Scotland at the present moment is, in no sense of the word, a learned country; specially, that in our Universities learning is at the lowest possible ebb, and is, in many branches, systematically discouraged, while in others it is altogether ignored.” A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 425 in no need even of a less feeble hand than mine to defend her. Proud in the recollections of the past, and of the great names that adorn her annals—Maclaurin, Playfair,Robison, the Stew- arts (Matthew the father, and Dugald the son), Ferguson, Brown, Principal Robertson, Dalzel, Leslie, Cullen, Black, Gregory, Thomson—and counting among her Professors even now, some not unambitious and by no means unworthy of being added to the number, the University of Edinburgh can well afford to treat with contemptuous silence the squibs and crackers of newspaper artillery. I may be permitted however to say, that I am quite at a loss to conceive in what corner of the civilized world these writers heard the expres- sion of that ridicule and scorn of the College of Edinburgh, with which, as they would have us believe, all Europe rings from side to side. I have been in Paris both before and since I was one of its Professors; and in the intercourse I had with the Biots, the Says,” the Guizots, the Cousins, the Villemains, the Gay Lussacs, the Thénards, the Aragos of that metropolis, I never heard the University of Edinburgh spoken of but in terms of profound respect. Then, as to Germany, I have conversed with Schwartz and Böttiger in their studies, and with Hase and Hermann in their class-rooms after listening to their public lectures: I made a voyage of three days from Hamburg to Heligoland on board the same vessel with Encke, * Since writing the above, in turning over some old correspondence, I stumbled accidentally on a letter of that distinguished man, Jean Baptiste Say, (written in answer to one of mine, in which I had mentioned my re- moval from the High School to the College,) of which the first paragraph is as follows:— “Wous me vous étes point trompé, Monsieur, en jugeant que j'apprendrais avec plaisir vos nouveaux succès. Wous voilà attaché à l'Université d’Ed- imbourg, corps célèbre, et qui reflechit sur chacun de Ses membres une partie de la gloire des moms qui l'ont illustrée.” And yet, in the estimation of Say, Glasgow perhaps stood still higher than Edinburgh among the Universities of Scotland, as being that in which had flourished the great object of his admiration, Adam Smith, of whose doctrines, indeed, Say is the ablest ex- pounder that France has produced. He declared to me in Paris, 1815, that he hoped “to make a pilgrimage before he died,” (and he made it out,) “to the country that gave birth to Adam Smith :”—that Smith whom he character- izes in the Discours Préliminaire to his Traité d'Economie Politique (p. xLv1), as “sorti de cette école Ecossaise qui a donné tant de littérateurs, d'historiens, de philosophes, et de Savans du premier ordre.” 426 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. and Oken, and Tiedemann, and Moll;* and I spent the rest of the same week in daily intercourse with the learned and scien- tific persons who were assembled at Hamburg at the great Meet- ing of the Naturforscher in 1830; and, on that occasion, as on all the rest, stranger as I was, without letter of introduction, without celebrity or notoriety of any kind, I was treated with a deference and consideration which could only arise from the fact being known, that I held a Professor's Chair in a Uni- versity which, we are told, is the laughing-stock of Europe. “Look at Germany l’” “There, if we will have models, let us fix our admiration : from Germany, if we wish to take our University stature fairly, let us borrow our standard.” I have “looked at Germany” and her Universities, both with my own eyes, and by the lights derived from the recorded testimony of intelligent and impartial observers. Of the German people I have every disposition to think well. I have recorded more than once my admiration of the educational in- stitutions of Germany; and to her literature I confess myself indebted for much pleasant and profitable reading. But I have never been able to trace any part of the excellencies she is justly proud of, to her Universities. The larger than ordinary proportion of remarkable men who, in the early part of the present century, almost created the Literature of Ger- many, and whose names now adorn it, may be fairly consid- ered as a particular instance of what, in looking to the past history of mankind, one can scarcely help regarding as a law of nature;—that great men appear in groups or clusters, at distant intervals, especially among a people whose intellect has long been dormant, while in neighbouring countries it has been already well developed. In so far as Germany is indebted for eminent men to her educational institutions, the debt is due to her excellent system of school training. By its nicely graduated steps her youth are carried, under the superinten- * This distinguished Professor and Astronomer of Utrecht, made a pil- grimage to Scotland like Say, and urged by the same motive; although his recollections and admiration dwelt less perhaps on Adam Smith than on Maclaurin and Neper of Merchistoun. In a letter now before me, which I received from Moll soon after his visit, he says:–" The days which I passed in Auld Reekie are certainly amongst the happiest in my life.” A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 427 dence of paternal governments, from the elements of learning up to the gymnasia. But with the gymnasia the wholesome influences of public instruction may be said to terminate ; and with her Universities begins the process of undoing in a great measure all the good effects of the previous discipline. There has grown up in process of time, among the Academic or Collegial youth of Germany, a system of manners and conduct, not less in contrast with the salutary restraints of the gymnasia than inconsistent with their farther proficiency in good learning, and with the guiding and controuling influence of their public instructors. It is a system that has sprung, not from regulation or public authority, but from mere acci- dent and the force of circumstances, till at last it has become traditionary, inveterate, and apparently ineradicable. Habits prevail, and practices are indulged in, during all the waking hours of the Student's College life except the few he passes in the lecture-room, which the Professors disapprove of and deeply lament, but which they find themselves altogether powerless to prevent. Such is the tyranny of usage and prescription, that the College authorities are compelled to wink hard and pass unnoticed acts of indiscipline, immorality, and insubordi- nation, which, if they were attempted in our University seats, would be checked by the strong hand of the civil magistrate, and visited with fine and imprisonment. With all this “chartered libertinism,’ it seems to be part of the Burschen code, or the etiquette at least among the students, to be well- behaved in the class-room—to purchase, as it were, a licence for the rest of the day by quiet and orderly demeanour, and all decent proprieties, during the academical hour. But even then, what are they engaged in doing? As far as my own observation extended, I should say, in taking down the very words of the lecture: so slavishly indeed and me- chanically, that some of the Professors deliver their lectures with measured slowness and regular pauses, apparently for the very purpose of their being accurately noted. Now, to any one conversant with the art of communicating instruction effectually it is unnecessary to prove, that this is the most un- profitable way of attending a course of lectures, even in those cases where the writing process is speedily followed by an 428 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. oral examination upon the doctrines delivered. But what shall we say of its utility when it is known, that no such ex- amination takes place ; and that the only opportunity the student can ever have of proving that he has turned his vo- luminous notes to any account, is at the close of his College course, when, being about to take his Degree, a disputation is held before the Rector Magnificus, which in general is little better than an idle formality? Accordingly, at the end of the college hour, the student consigns his handiwork (for head- work there can be little or none,) to the dead-letter office, and according to the immemorial practice of his predecessors, de- votes his afternoons and evenings, the former, to renowning, which, in the vulgar tongue, means “kicking up a row,” and the latter, to smoking tobacco and drinking beer. From the united fumes of these two German luxuries the whole party emerges at a late hour, to commence a new “row” or take up the old one, or, it may be, with a very pretty quarrel or two upon their hands;–quarrels which are to be settled next morn- ing before breakfast, horá locoque solitis, by duel with lethal weapons, and not unfrequently with a full staff of seconds and surgeons, and always with due observance of the punctilios of gentleman-like single combat, as the rules of Burschen-craft prescribe.* Such was the impression I received from what I saw and heard in 1830. To have this impression either modified or confirmed, I took an early opportunity of looking into a book which I had an indistinct recollection of having read when it was first published, ten years before, in Constable's Miscellany. “Russel's Tour in Germany' is the work of a clever, intelligent, and impartial Member of the Bar. From his full and graphic account of German Universities, I shall make only one extract: —“The class-hour is spent in listening, and it is left entirely to the young men themselves to make what use they may think proper, or no use at all, of what they have heard. There * I was invited to be present at one of these matins of the Heidelberg students, by an old pupil of my own who had caught the Burschen inſection: I judged so at least by the pipe in his mouth, the cherished profusion of his long hair, and the interest and enthusiasm with which he spoke of those sports, which he was desirous I should witness, for the honour of his adopted college. A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 429 is no other superintendence of their studies than that of the professor in his pulpit, telling them what he himself knows; there are no arrangements to secure in any degree either at- tendance or application. The received maxim is, that it is right to tell them what they ought to do; but that it would be neither proper nor useful to take care that they do it, or prevent them from being as idle and ignorant as they choose. “Once outside of the class-room, the Burschen shew them- selves a much less orderly race; if they submit to be ruled one hour daily by a professor, they rule him and every other person during all the rest of the four-and-twenty. The duels of the day are generally fought out early in the morning; the spare hours of the forenoon and afternoon are spent in fencing, in renowning, that is, in doing things which make people stare at them,-and in providing duels for the morrow. In the evening, the various clans assemble in their commerz- houses, to besot themselves with beer and tobacco; and it is long after midnight before the last strains of the last songs die away upon the streets. Wine is not the staple beverage, for Jena is not in a wine country, and the students have learned to place a sort of pride in drinking beer. A band of these young men, thus assembled in an ale-house in the even- ing, presents as strange a contrast as can well be imagined to all correct ideas, not only of studious academical tranquillity, but even of respectable conduct; yet, in refraining from these nightly observances, they would think themselves guilty of a less pardonable dereliction of their academic character, and a more direct treason against the independence of Germany, than if they subscribed to the “Austrian Observer,’ or never attended for a single hour the lectures for which they paid.” It is not likely that any effectual attempt has been made to get rid of a system which was thus denounced so long ago as 1820; for twenty or thirty years are as nothing in reckoning the duration of old institutions, particularly when they are bad, as well as old ; and there is no want of competent authorities to bring down the history almost to the present day, and to shew that both Professors and Governments have exerted themselves in vain to reform these abuses. Some few students there no doubt are who have courage 430 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. enough, and not a little courage is required, to brave the ridi- cule and annoyance which fall to the lot of those who refuse to take part in these orgies. They belong to the class of young persons, who, at Eton and Westminster Schools, and after- wards at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, are called saps or muzzes.* I met with one or two specimens of this rare genus at Munich; but the principle which seemed to guide the studies of these youths was not so much Quod verum atque decens curo et rogo, et Ommis in hoc sum, aS quo me duce, quo Lare tuter 2 They appeared to me to concern themselves less about the acquisition of knowledge, and the free exercise of their facul- ties in the investigation of truth, than about the modifications which Schelling had made of late in his philosophical creed, as compared with his own former tenets or with the present doctrines and views of Hegel; and how the ipse dia.it of the one master differed from the ootog eq/m of the other. I am aware that out of the anomalous discipline or want of disci- pline described above, have come forth the Goëthes and Schil- lers, the Niebuhrs and Schmitzes, who do honour to the coun- try they were born in. But for this we have to thank, not the Universities, but their own previous training, and that inborn talent, rectitude of judgment, and singleness of purpose, which, by a happy temperament, enable some minds to resist and repel all malignant influences, and to come out from the midst of them like gold seven times tried. Nor do I think it impossible, that this curious and singular phasis of juvenile life, and the scenes these men were compelled to take a part in, being, after all, more akin to fun and frolic than to vice or improbity, may have had a salutary influence in stirring up dormant faculties, and developing intellectual power. But upon the average of youthful intellect and youthful probity, * I am not aware of there being any corresponding term of reproach in tho students' vocabulary at the College of Edinburgh. Things here are in this respect much as they were when Sir James Mackintosh declared that “it is not easy to conceive a University where industry is more general, where reading is more fashionable, where indolence and ignorance are more disre- putable.” A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 431 the effect can scarcely fail to be injurious, impairing the habits of diligence and the love of knowledge which had been im- planted in the gymnasium, dulling the sensitiveness of con- Science and endangering that supremacy of principle, the up- holding of which ought ever to be a prime object in the moral culture of youth. - Is it then, I ask, with the view of having our academic youth initiated into such practices as have just been described, that we are invited by these educationists to “look to Ger- many” as the type and model of all that is excellent in Col- lege discipline 2 If so, then, in the name of my country, of the University to which I belong, of my pupils, past, present, and to come, I reject the proffered boon, and exclaim with Horace, {{ horum Semper ego optărim pauperrimus esse bonorum.” The description of accademic youth in Scotland, correspond- ing to the Burschen of German universities, are the students of the Faculty of Arts, that is, those who are engaged in the study of the Ancient Languages, Mathematics, Logic and Metaphysics, Rhetoric, Natural Philosophy and Moral Philo- sophy. Of these students, each, of course, has his particular friends and associates, but there is no general society among them—no facilities for forming a comprehensive band of bro- therhood, nor indeed have they any occupation in common, except that of attending leetures, preparing for the daily public examinations, and composing Exercises. The demands upon their time are so great, and the inducements to union or gene- ral combination for any purpose of amusement or mischief so few, that nothing can be more noiseless and inoffensive than the tenor of their way.* # It may be thought that the credit I have given to the youth of the Scotch Universities is forfeited by the occurrence of such disturbances as took place lately in Edinburgh, at the College gates. But, in the first place, the extreme rarity of such occurrences is itself a proof of our superiority, upon the old maxim, eacceptio probat regulam. What would our Civic Rulers say, if they were told that duels with lethal weapons, such as are fought among the German students, were enacted every other morning in Brunts- field Ilinks or Hunter's Bog, by the students of the College of which they are the Patrons 2 In the second place, when such things do occur, they are unpremeditated, 432 A worD AND A PLEA, &c. Of this period of academical life in Germany it is not too much to say, that it nullifies in a great measure the good effects of previous training, and introduces the inexperienced youth to feelings and fashions, to maxims and modes of thinking and acting, which are at variance alike with common sense and with the usages of civilized society. And it is thus, I conceive, that we are enabled to account for a fact in the history of the educated classes of that country, scarcely less remarkable than the existence of the University system itself. It is this, that the very Renowners whose antic tricks might entitle them to take for their device, “Coelum ipsum petimus stultitiã,” have no sooner laid aside the cap and gown, than they sink at once into the mediocrity of ordinary life. The bluster and swagger of their college days are forgotten; and henceforth they quietly conform to the prosaic occupations of every-day existence. The Bursche is like a fiery meteor, fed with ex- halations from ‘the smoke and stir of this dim spot which men call earth,’ that mounts aloft, sputtering and flaring for a season, but soon “Drops from the zenith like a falling star,” and is heard of no more. On the other hand, the young Scotchman, with far less chance than the German of good preliminary training, is launched from college into the tide and current of human affairs with, it may be, a slender enough stock of acquired knowledge in any particular department, and little or none of that kind which is called Erudition, but at the same time with an impulse communicated to his mind by college lectures and college studies, and kept up by the sort of intellectual atmo- accidental, and insignificant, and Swelled into a brief importance and noto- riety only by the unnecessary interference of the civic authorities. What at first was mere frolic would die out with the occasion, if the seizure of one of the frolickers by the officers of Police did not excite his friends and fellow- students to defend or rescue him. Then it is that “hae nugae seria ducunt In mala.”—Perhaps, if the Regulations for Professional Degrees required a previous degree of Master or even Bachelor of Arts, it would then be found that the maxim is as true now as it was when Ovid expressed it so well,— Ingemuas didicisse fideliter Artes Emollit mores, nec simit esse feros. A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 433 sphere wherein he lives and breathes and has his academical being;-an impulse which carries him on in the path and orbit of duty with undeviating regularity and a certainty like that of planetary gravitation. If we trace the history of the im- mense majority of the German youth, of all indeed but the “pauci quos aequus amavit Jupiter, atque ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,”—we shall find the Bursche, so long as he is at college, either frightening landladies from their propriety, or fighting out his not always bloodless battles, or bearding his professors when they venture to interfere with his consue- tudinary sports. But when we follow him from the University into life, we find him sinking into the sleek, sober, guttling clerk, or attorney, or shopkeeper, or small proprietor, nor shall we discover in one among a thousand an aspiration beyond the narrow circle of duties and enjoyments in which choice or accident has placed him :—quam sibisortem, Seuratio dederit, seu fors objecerit, illā Contentus vivit. If, again, we turn our eyes to the corresponding portion of the Scottish youth, we find instances without end of the alumni of our Universities either gathering renown of another sort among the mountains of Spain and on the banks of the Sutlej and Indus; or, if they remain at home, taking the lead among the Southrons in all competitions where the earnest application of talent and industry is required. This different result is no doubt owing in part to our free institutions, and the numerous outlets provided by the wide- spread and multifarious relations of the vast empire of Great Britain and her dependencies; but I hold it to be equally cer- tain, that the singularly large proportion of individuals whom Scotland furnishes to supply the demand of the country for intelligent, accomplished, and energetic servants, is mainly due to the impressions received and the impetus communicated by their attendance at college. It is not so much learning, as impulse in a right direction, that a young man is likely to receive at our colleges. We do not much affect profound disquisition about various readings, or indulge in the laborious trifling which earned for the medi- aeval scholar the title of celsissimus et eruditissimus. This de- ficiency in what was once valued so highly, our impugners 2 E 434 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. are quite welcome to ascribe either to the shallowness of the teacher, or the incapacity of the taught, or to a due proportion of both, provided they leave us the praise, which can hardly be denied us, of imparting more frequently than other seats of learning, that which we regard as more practically useful, - the habit and the love of excrtion, a taste for reading, a relish for the beauties of the classics, and an energy of purpose, which carries through difficulties and discouragements of every kind to distinction and to fortune. Nor is it the lectures alone, and the apparatus of written exercises and searching examination, that give this impulse. No small part of the momentum is doubtless due to the “Debating Societies,” which are nowhere so numerous and influential as in the University of Edinburgh. They may be described as Voluntary Associations of Students under laws and regulations of their own enacting, in which the knowledge they have acquired from the lectures of their Professors, and from their own reading and reflection, is brought into play, sifted, examined, and impugned, till, by the collision of argu- ment and opinion, it is rendered clearer and more precise, and finally made a part of their intellectual being. These arenas of mental training are not merely connived at, but countenanced and protected, by the Senatus Academicus. The meetings are held within the walls of the College, with the sanction of the patrons and the professors; both being apparently well aware that no better means exist for testing the accuracy and extent of a student's knowledge, for stimulating him to the acquisi- tion of more, for teaching him to clothe his thoughts in appro- priate words, and, if not to attain grace, at least to avoid what is offensive, provincial, and ridiculous, in the outward manner and the tone and gesture in which he delivers his sentiments to others:—an accomplishment which, in a free country like this, is almost indispensable to all educated men. According- ly, the Speculative Society, which has existed for more than fourscore years, had apartments assigned to it in the plan and building of the new college, and these it has occupied ever suneo, "Phe pre-eminence it soon acquired made it serve as a model for others: and thus have arisen, and exist now in full activity, “Societies,' originated and organised by the young A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 435 men themselves, in which they are trained at an early period of life to vigorous exertion, and to the use of their own minds. They are, in truth, schools of mental gymnastics, where the diffident are encouraged to put forth their hidden strength and exercise their sluggish or dormant faculties among their fellow-students and friends, and where the forwardness of the more presumptuous is checked and controuled by generous conflict with equal or superior minds. To the pleasant re- membrance of these conflicts, and their influence on the future lives of the combatants, ample testimony is borne by many of the most distinguished men of the present century, who began their literary career as members of the Speculative Society.— Among these may be mentioned, Sir Walter Scott, Sir James Mackintosh, Francis Horner, and Lord Jeffrey; the last of whom declared, at the seventieth anniversary of the Society's existence, that “he could hardly conceive any thing in after life more to be envied than the recollection of the first burst of intellect, when, free from scholastic restraint, and throwing off the thraldom of a somewhat servile docility, the mind first aspired to reason, and to question nature for itself; and, half wondering at its own temerity, first ventured without a guide into the mazes of speculation, or tried its unaided flight into the regions of intellectual adventure, to revel uncontrolled through the bright and boundless realms of literature and science.” These societies meet generally, during the College Session, * See “History of the Speculative Society, printed for the Society, at Edinburgh, MDCCCXLV,” p. 28., one of the most interesting works that have been lately given to the world. It contains, besides some curious prefatory matter, a complete catalogue of the Members since the origin of the Society in 1764, arranged in the order of time, and containing authentic notices of each, of the essays he read in the Society, and of the part he acted in life. It contains also the whole of the subjects or questions debated in the Society from 1764 to 1845, with the names of the speakers who opened the debate on each side. I have been told by persons who were in the habit of attending these debates towards the end of the last century, and the early years of the present, when Dr John Thomson, John Allen, the present Lord Lansdowme, Benjamin Constant, Francis Horner, Henry Brougham, and Francis Jeffrey, were names on the roll of active members, that they heard Speeches at that period, particularly from the two last mentioned, which have hardly been surpassed by the splendour of their subsequent appearances. 436 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. one evening every week; and whatever time can be spared from the studies of the classes which the student is attending, is devoted to reading and preparation for the discussion that has been announced. Now and then, perhaps, the proper business of some class may be encroached on, either by the absorbing interest of the question proposed, or when it is a member's turn, either to read one of those Essays with which the business of the evening commences, or to lead off in the debate, on the side of the question allotted to him as the opener. Such are the intellectual feats and strivings which, among our academic youth, hold the place, and fill up the time, of the renownings and duellings of the German Burschen. Let the parents and teachers who prefer the latter to the former, send their sons, and recommend their pupils, when they have done with school, to migrate to Bonn, Jena, Leipsic, Heidel- berg, or any of the numerous universities where these scenes are enacted, but— Let us be fix’d, and our own masters still. I have been betrayed, not by the necessity of defence, but by the interest of the subject, to say much more than was perhaps required on the general charge of uselessness and bad repute brought against the Scottish Universities. II. In the Second Court, the Indictment is laid against the Faculties of Arts in those Universities, and specifically against the classes and the professors of Greek and Humanity. Now, I have no intention of imitating the conduct which I condemn in others, by speaking either in praise or in blame of what I have not seen and examined with my own eyes; and the members of those Faculties throughout Scotland are abun- dantly able to defend themselves, if they should think it worth their while to enter the lists with such antagonists. For my- self, I deem it due, not merely to my own character, but to the Chair which I have the honour to fill, that unfounded misrepresentations and railing accusations against it should be exposed and repelled. When such charges have been A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 437 brought forward, the public have a right, and ought to have a desire, to be made acquainted with the manner in which the duties of that Chair are performed. It is painful for a man who has seen a little of the world, and is not yet arrived, in the journey of life, at the stage of semility, to speak so much of himself and have recourse so frequently to the use of the obnoxious pronoun as I shall be compelled to submit to in the course of my argument. No- thing would have wrung from me the details on which I am about to enter, but a sense of injustice done to the Humanity Class and to myself. They are forced from me by a feeling that I have suffered a wrong, and that the tendency of these Letters (for I am willing to acquit the writers of any such purpose) is to thrust me below the place, humble as it may be, which I conceived myself to occupy in public estimation, and which, on the plea of long and faithful service, I think myself entitled to hold. The first charge is that of ‘indifference,’ and indifference little short of dislike and aversion, to all improvement. This charge I meet with an averment, that of the eight-and-thirty years during which I have been a public teacher, (with the exception of a period of lingering ailment which took from me, for the time, the power, without diminishing the desire, of progressive amelioration,) not one year has elapsed without finding me earnestly and almost exclusively devoting my thoughts to the means of improving the discipline of my clas- ses. Of the High School, and the attempts made, during the first part of the long period mentioned, to perfect the old methods of teaching in that seminary, and to introduce new ones, I say nothing, because it is the manner of conducting Classes in Universities, not in Schools, that is the question at issue. But, with regard to the duties incumbent on me in the College of Edinburgh, I am not conscious of having gone through one academical session without frequent and anxious deliberation on the means of rendering more effective the methods and materials I had to work with : a deliberation not confined to the object of putting into the hands of the youth the most select portions and the most accurate texts of the classical authors, and of increasing their familiarity with the 438 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. Latin language and literature; but directed also to the still more important ends of forming habits of accurate thinking and of earnest and steady application, and of cultivating a taste for all that is beautiful in nature and in art, and all that is correct in conduct and principle. It is indeed singular enough, that the present year should have been selected to involve me in a general charge of apathy and indifference, seeing that it is the last of three, in the course of which, influenced by no motive but the desire of aiding that “onward movement” which I am accused of resisting, I have edited—1. a Selection from the Letters, Orations, and Philo- sophical Dialogues of Cicero, in 1845: 2. a Selection from the historical work of Quintus Curtius, in 1847: each accompan- ied with a Preface and Notes, in the former of which I have shewn no disposition to remain contented with things as they are, in classical training. Again, twelve months ago I pub- lished “Outlines of Ancient Geography,” a work of some labour, and the fruit of thirty years teaching: and within the last month, (April 1848,) I have selected and edited Excerpts from the Annals of Tacitus, which, if I mistake not, will ren- der the most interesting part of that author's works both more acceptable and more popular than it has hitherto been. But without claiming for that or the other publications I have named any merit beyond that of ordinary school-books, it seems to me that if they prove nothing else, they may at least be admitted as evidence of the interest I have taken in the advancement of education and of classical learning. Is a Professor to be charged with indifference in the dis- charge of his public duties, who, being bound by the terms of his commission from the patrons, and by the uniform practice of his predecessors in office, to lecture and teach fifteen hours a-week, has, for the last three sessions, to go no further back, met the Humanity Classes nineteen hours and a half between Sunday and Sunday?—an arrangement adopted voluntarily, with no conceivable motive, no prospect of advantage accruing from it, beyond the satisfaction of doing his best for the im- provement of the youth ; and which, though it has existed for many years, is, I will venture to say, as little known, even to A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 439 the intelligent population of Edinburgh, as it appears to have been to the writer in the ‘Scottish Press.” Having disposed of the charge of ‘indifference' as regards myself—and where is the Humanity Chair in any of the four University seats of Scotland, for which an equally triumphant defence could not be made?—I proceed to speak of the charges brought against the Humanity classes, as those charges are Summed up in what I have called the Second Count of the In- dictment. They amount to this, that the Humanity classes are no better than schools, and very bad schools too, every way inferior to those, particularly the High School and Academy of Edinburgh, where the masters are “both able and willing” to teach the youth far better, and from which they are set before their time to college, where they speedily unlearn and forget all they have acquired in those superior seminaries. Hence it comes to pass, according to these gentlemen, that the Humanity Classes are filled with pupils who are mere child- ren, or have not, at least, “outgrown the shoes of boyhood;’ that the Professors are compelled to teach the merest elements, (and seem indeed, good easy men l to be quite contented so to do,) and that pupils are withdrawn from the Rector's classes prematurely, to feed on beggarly scraps instead of the rich fare they leave untasted behind them, the parents being se- duced by the prospect of gaining a year in their sons’ progress through the course of study which is prescribed for admission to the bar, the pulpit, or the medical profession.* In order to shew how far these representations are consistent with the truth, it will be necessary to enter into some details as to the composition of the Humanity Classes, and the nature of the studies in which the members of them are employed. The reader may be presumed to know, that there are two Humanity Classes, Junior and Senior, made up of two sets of Students, meeting at different hours and engaged in different courses of reading and prelection. These shall be separately considered; and I begin with the Junior. As the exact age of every student is registered by me at the time of his entering, I am able to affirm upon the most un- * The letter writer is evidently not aware that for two of these professions mo certificate of attendance on any Literary class is required. 440 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. questionable evidence, that the average age of the Junior Class, taken at the opening of the late session, and checked by an inquiry instituted in February, was exactly seventeen years complete in November last :—and there was nothing peculiar or anomalous in the Class of Session 1847–48 to lead one to suppose that the result would be different in any other year. Now it will surely be admitted that seventeen is no improper age for entering a University, the practice of doing So at that time of life being common enough in England, as well as in the different countries of Europe.* To make, how- ever, the average struck consistent with a fact which I have no wish to conceal, that there is always a considerable portion of the Junior Humanity Class under seventeen, it will be pro- per to mention what manner of persons they are of whom the Junior Humanity Class is composed. They are chiefly of two kinds: 1st, Those who have had their Latin training in the Burgh and Parochial Schools that exist all over the country, from Galloway to Orkney inclusive; consisting generally of the pupils who have distinguished themselves, and, for that reason, are deemed by their parents or guardians to be fit subjects for a college education: 2dly, Young men, much beyond, not only the age of schoolboys, but even that which I have stated as the average, many of them teachers themselves, who have either had no opportu- nity of attending a public school, and could not do so now on account of their age, or who have acquired a taste for literature and a liberal profession in youth or early manhood, rather than in their boyish days. Students of these two descriptions make up about four-fifths of the Junior Class. And though some of them, particularly of the more advanced in age, bring with them a smaller amount of grammatical knowledge of Latin * For the present session 1855-56 the statement of age in November, is as follows: In the Junior Class, only three are of fifteen years and under, one- fifth of the class are in their sixteenth year; so that a very large majority are in their eighteenth up to their twenty-fourth year. In the Senior again, only six are in their sixteenth year and under, eighteen are in their seven- teenth year, and the rest, forming a large majority of the class, are in their eighteenth up to their thirty-third year. And yet the glaring inaccuracies of the newspaper statements in 1848, are repeated in 1855 with utter disregard of the facts now stated, which Professor Blackie, iſ he did not know them, ought to have ascertained, before the publication of his “Letter to the Patrons.” A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 441 than even the lower forms of the Rector's classes in our metro- politan schools; they have that in which fifth-and sixth-form boys there are generally deficient, an ardent and insatiable thirst for knowledge, an inextinguishable desire to redeem the time which they feel they have lost. The extraordinary exertions and rapid proficiency of this numerous class of pupils are to me a perpetual source at once of surprise and delight. They require the curb rather than the spur, Sponte suá properant : labor est inhibere volentes. So true is this, that I deem it my duty to warn them repeat- edly, in the course of a session, against being too assiduous in their studies, and to recommend relaxation and exercise in the open air.” And to those in the younger division of the class, whose age is as much below seventeen as that of the others is above it, when they happen to have good abilities and to have been tolerably well trained at School, the admonition to alter- nate hard study with air and exercise, is not less necessary than it is to the older students. This is a fact in the history of pupils of so tender an age, that will scarcely be credited by persons—among whom it is to be lamented that many teachers must be reckoned—who are not aware how much may be done with the youngest by liberal and gentleman-like treatment, and how surely the chords of the youthful heart will be “touched to fine issues,” when they are made responsive to the tones of kindness and encouragement. Pupils are not unfrequently found in the Junior class under the age of fifteen, whose scholarship, as far as regards acquaintance with Latin Gram- mar, leaves scarcely any thing to wish for. * It is among this description of Students, I presume, that Professor Blackie finds those whom he rather unhandsomely denounces as “crude, unkempt, lumbering clowns,” “raw ploughman's sons,” &c. Before the Professor has taught as long as I have done in the College of Edinburgh, he will discover that the vestigia ruris which some of our alumn; bring with them to college, soon disappear under the genial influences of academic discipline; and that those very men have not long quitted their alma mater, till they are in demand for the schoolmaster's desk, the clergy- man's pulpit, the professor's chair, and the missionary's labours; and that, not in Scotland only, but from Canada West to Peru in the New World, and, in the Old, — a Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangen, and from Southern Africa to the China Sea “ and utmost Indian Isle Zaprobúne,” 442 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. Let it not be supposed, that in making this statement, I countenance or recommend the practice of sending boys so young to college. Insinuations are thrown out as if the professors were not averse to this practice; nay, it is broadly hinted, that one principal reason for their instructions being kept so “low and elementary,” as the writer would have the public believe they are kept, is, that the professor may replenish his numbers at the expense of the High School and Academy.* Without thinking it necessary to disclaim the purpose thus charitably imputed, it may be right to state, that I have uniformly dis- couraged the practice, and tried to dissuade not only the youths themselves, but their parents and guardians, from taking such a step. Nor have I been deterred from doing so by examples that have now and then occurred, of boys entering the Junior Humanity from the Fourth Class of the High School, who outstript many Fifth and Sixth form pupils;–a fact not dif- ficult to account for when we consider, that the highest boys of a well-taught fourth class are likely enough to know more of Latin grammar than those of the lower grades of a rector's class. But such exceptional cases furnish, I conceive, no argument for so early a transition from School to college; be- cause, in order to profit to the full extent by a college course of instruction, it is not mere accuracy of grammatical know- ledge that is required, but a certain amount of intellectual development, which can scarcely be looked for in boys so young. I cannot, at the same time, refrain from bearing my testimony, founded on long experience, to the beneficial effects resulting from the meeting, on the arena of the Humanity Class-room, of two descriptions of students so different in age and attainments; the one having memories stored with gram- mar rules, and with an alertness, promptitude, and acuteness which they owe to the drill of a public school, and the other composed of young men with minds more fully developed, and * This insinuation is conveyed in a still more offensive way in Professor Blackie's Letter to the Patrons, where he states it as a “naked truth,” and prints it in capitals, “that the Professors of the Faculty of Arts in the Scot- tish Universities are supported in a great measure by poaching on the schools, and are only saved from starvation by making a compact with dis. grace l’’ (1855.) A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 443 of greater general intelligence, but who have yet to learn the minutiae of concord and government. The latter class are feelingly and constantly reminded of what they have missed by beginning so late, and are thus furnished with an incentive to redoubled application; while, on the other hand, the sedate deportment, profound attention, and indefatigable industry of the older students, have the happiest effect in repressing the volatility of the young, and inducing habits of thoughtfulness and sustained exertion. The good results of this collision and conflict of mind with mind in the daily business of the class, are, above all, conspicuous, when the whole students are sub- divided into little groups, for the purpose of having the lesson, which has been translated and commented on in the general class, construed in each of the subdivisions. The business in these is limited strictly to what the French call répétition, that is, a translation of the lesson literal enough to vouch for possession of the sense of the author and the construction of the passage. Nor is this grouping ever allowed to encroach upon any part of the regular class-hour. It is confined to an extra time which, being freely bestowed by me, and the attend- ance voluntary, I have a right to dispose of as I think fit. As to Practical Teaching, considerable experience in that can scarcely fail to be acquired in carrying into effect the fol- lowing arrangements, which have been in use in both classes for many years.-The whole class, which in number averages about a hundred, is, twice a-week, distributed into divisions of six, and in each little group there is one to preside, the most advanced in age and proficiency, upon whom is devolved the responsible duty of seeing that the lesson, previously pre- lected upon by me and gone over in the general class, be con- strued and translated again. This is required to be done ac- curately, not freely or elegantly. When any member of the division fails in making out the sense, or does not comprehend the construction, the explanation and clearing up of the diffi- culty fall to be undertaken by the Inspector himself. The appearances made by each student are carefully noted, and a report of them is rendered to me on a slip of paper, which I avail myself of in future examinations of the class, and in form- ing an estimate of the general state of preparation and pos- 444 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. session of the business. The inspectors continue in office a month, and at the expiry of their term, give in a general report of the progress and conduct of each individual. Every portion of the classics read during the session undergoes this process of repétition, in which every student is called on re- peatedly to say, and his manner of saying reported on. The certain prospect of this cnforces attention on all, inspector as well as member of division; and thus we get rid of the old and well-founded objection against college classes, that, owing to the shortness of the time and the employment of much of it in prelection and lecture, an idle youth is encouraged in his idleness by the certainty of being seldom or never called on to say. It is obvious, that among the other advantages of this method, the inspector is thus put in the way of receiving useful hints for the management of a school, of acquiring busi- ness habits, and of learning how to communicate instruction and husband time. The little groups of six may be so arranged by a judicious admixture of the component parts, as to assist incalculably in the improvement of the pupils, and to make the Humanity Class a sort of normal school of a higher description, or, at least, for a kind of instruction different from what amy normal school has been yet applied to, except the Ecole Normale de Paris. This modification of the monitorial system is free from the objections which have of late been urged, plausibly enough, against the application of that method to elementary and po- pular schools, where the tender age of the pupils makes it difficult to find fit monitors among them,--a difficulty which has led to the adoption by the Council of Education of that admirable plan of having apprenticed pupil–teachers, which, if rightly understood, and honestly acted on, will more than compensate for the very serious drawbacks and objections which threaten to make the Government measure of educa- tion ineffectual and unpopular in Scotland. The distin- guished members of a college class are both able and willing to execute the task enjoined. They are bound to the perfor- mance of the duty by the tie of mutual respect and good un- derstanding that subsists between Teacher and Taught, and A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 445 by the honest pride they feel in being placed in an office of trust, where they are both aiding the purpose of the Professor, and materially promoting their own improvement. So much for the statistics of the junior class. The compo- sition of the Senior Class differs in several respects from that of the Junior, and will be spoken of presently. Meanwhile, it is time to say something of the business, or mode of filling wp the time in the Junior Class, for if we are to believe the two writers, it would be an abuse of words to call it a ‘course of instruction:’ “puerilities, elementary trifling, school-boy drilling, and very bad drilling,” are terms, according to them, much more appropriate. To superficial observers, this view of the matter is apparently countenanced, and was perhaps originally suggested by the fact that a considerable portion of the hours of meeting for the first week or two of the session is devoted in the Junior Class to oral examination, with “Mair's Introduction to Latin Syntax” as a text-book. It is quite natural that a presumptuous and conceited sciolist, when he learns that so elementary a work is used in a college class, should break forth into lamentations over the degeneracy of the times, and the sad fate of those hopeful youths who thumbed Mair years ago in some burgh or parochial school, and then proceeded to what, by courtesy, or rather by igno- rance, was called reading Horace and Sallust and Livy, and who are now ‘turned back' to mere child's play. Such, however, will not be the view taken by the scientific teacher, who has perused Dr Hunter's Appendix to Ruddiman's Rudi- ments, and his notes to the first five books of Livy ; and who is aware that that eminent scholar took the key-note of his philological speculations—the germs of which occurred to him inter docendum—from the turning of Mair's sentences in the Humanity Classes of St Andrew's University. In humble imitation of such a model, I have, for twenty years and more, made Mair the text and ground-work of prelections upon the principles of the Latin language, and illustrations of its pecu- liarities and idioms. Faulty as I found the work to be in many respects, it was already in the hands of the youth, or not costly if they had to purchase it; and it served my pur- pose as well as a better book. The manner of using it is as 446 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. follows:–Without prescribing any lesson, or at least doing more than announcing the rule or rules on which I mean to examine next day, a certain number of students, say six, are called up to the platform, and each in his turn puts the words of Mair into correct Latinity, or what he thinks so. He is heard to an end without interruption, or any indication from me or any one else, whether errors have been committed or not. The question is then put to his fellow-students on the platform, whether they observed any blunders, and what they are: and the formula of the answer required is this: “such a thing was said, and it ought to be so and so, because,” &c.; for no correction is made, or alteration proposed, without quoting a rule, or, what is better, assigning a reason for the change. If the students on the platform fail to note any or all of the errors committed, an appeal is made to the general class, and those rise in their places who have any thing to propose or suggest by way of amendment. This appeal to the class to amend, is often made even when the Latin had been correctly turned, that an opportunity may thus be afforded of having mistaken notions set right, as well as positive blun- ders corrected. And when all the mistakes have been thus brought above board, explained and rectified, the original de- faulter is called upon to enumerate the errors he fell into, and the corrections made, and to state the reasons for the change. By this simple process, as will be apparent to any practical teacher, the prominent points of Latin syntax and idiom are brought successively into view, and topics are thus furnished for discussions, which make the deeper impression, and are the more readily called to mind and applied to use afterwards, because they have for their text a sentence, the mode of turning which into right Latin has been just listened to by all with attention and critical ears. I have no hesitation in stating it as the result of my experience in teaching Latin, that there is no pupil in any stage of his advance to the high- est point of scholarship to which our best grammar schools can carry him, who is not likely to profit by these prelections, and who would not be frequently puzzled and thrown out by these oral questions and extempore examinations. It is by making this exercise written as well as oral, that I very soon A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 447 become aware of the present acquirements and actual profici- ency of the classes I receive in November. Their grammati- cal attainments are tested, in one of the first days of each ses- sion, by having an exercise written in the class-room, under my own eye. And it must be admitted, that come from what School or quarter the pupils may, with a few honourable ex- ceptions, the previous acquisitions, as far as regards precise and accurate knowledge of Latin syntax and idiom, are found, at this stage, to be slender enough. After preluding to the Course in the manner I have described, and for a longer or shorter time as circumstances and previous progress may re- quire, it becomes necessary, that I may not encroach on the proper business of the session, to remand the class to private study at home of as much more of Mair as may be thought necessary to lay or re-lay the groundwork of accurate elemen- tary knowledge. These private studies in Mair are understood to be conducted in the following manner:—Each student is enjoined, first to weigh attentively the meaning and scope of each rule, and of the notes appended to it; and then to satisfy himself as to the right mode of turning every sentence given by Mair under the rule, so as to be able to stand a public examination. If any point occur in his preparation which he cannot determine for himself, he is to make a reference to it in pencil on the mar- gin for farther enquiry. Having prepared in this way a por- tion of Mair every evening (for there is a virtue and a charm in the rule which the great Painter prescribed to himself, NULLA dies sine lined, from Monday to Friday inclusive, he reserves the Saturday for revising the work of the previous days; and, if the difficulties marked on the margin remain difficulties still, he inserts a reference to them in a Register, which con- tains a record or journal of his doings during the five previous days. In this register he is also enjoined to write, on the Saturday, one sentence under each rule, by way of certifying his comprehension of its meaning and application. No parti- cular quantity of Mair is prescribed to be prepared and written in this way, every student being left to determine the amount for himself, according to the time he has at his disposal, the proficiency he has made, and the advantage he feels himself 448 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. to derive from the exercise. The Registers, containing the Difficulties and Written Sentences of the more advanced stu- dents, are put into my hands on the day appointed for the showing, and being returned in a corrected state to the Writers, enable them to do the same office to the less advanced, that is, to act as Inspectors of their exercises. In doing this, they are enjoined to point out rather than rectify the blunders, the correction being left to the writer himself, from the informa- tion he receives in the class-room. Appeals are permitted against the markings and judgment of the Inspectors; these are heard in presence of the class; and thus another occasion arises of bringing under discussion and throwing light upon, not merely what may be thought elementary, but some of the most important and delicate questions of syntax and idiom.* The almost conversational tone and manner in which philolo- gical topics are discussed and prelected upon coram discipulis, appear to me preferable to any other; reason and experience having taught me that this mode of treatment, when subjects are suggested by sentences familiar to the minds of the hear- ers, and when doubts and difficulties are solved, which they have already grappled with in private, is far more intelligible, and consequently more impressive and effectual, than formal written lectures delivered out of black leather cases, and pre- ferable even to such class-books as Crombie's and Kerchever Arnold's, excellent as those books are for the student's private perusal and reference. The great Bacon sagaciously observes, # Take, for crample, the short sentence of Mair under Rule 8, beginning, “Not to know,” &c. The questions involved in the mode of changing accido, nascor, and puer, and the settling of the point, which is the nominative to the substantive verb and which the nominative after it, are not likely to be best answered by those who talk slightingly of Mair as a purely elementary book. I have heard, in a public class, the last word puer, not merely per- mitted, but directed to be put in the nominative case. # Of the good effects of this kind of exercise on Mair, I constantly receive the most gratifying proofs. One of the older members of the class of 1847-8, in giving in his last fortnight's reading, and the whole of his liber studiorum in Mair, accompanied it with a note, of which the following is an extract:- “Permit me, in giving this journal, to express my gratitude for the benefit I have derived from the study of Mair, and in particular for the instructive discussions to which it has given rise in the class. “When I entered the class, I knew nothing at all of Mair. I had not made even a form of going through more than six or eight rules, and was as A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 449 that “knowledge drawn freshly, and in our view, out of par- ticulars, knoweth the way best to particulars again ; and it hath much greater life for practice, when the discourse attend- eth upon the example, than when the example attendeth upon the discourse.” These studies and oral examinations on Mair during the early part of the Session are gradually reduced in frequency, —to alternate days, to one hour a week, and at last entirely superseded, except at long intervals, when the record of pri- vate studies in Mair is shewn. And so general does the con- viction become of the utility of this exercise, that almost all the class voluntarily go on with it at their homes, till they have gone over the whole of Mair, and written in their regis- ter one sentence under every rule; not committing any thing to memory, like school boys, but endeavouring to comprehend the rules as principles in the language. Meanwhile, the re- gular and legitimate business of the class has been proceeding, till at last it occupies nearly the whole time. That business consists of prelection and examination on select portions of some approved author. The classics prelected and examined upon publicly in the Junior Class have generally been Curtius, Livy, Virgil or Ovid, and Horace; Curtius being also used as private studies with the more advanced and ambitious of the youth. I have found no works of the ancients more easily made the vehicle to young minds of useful and entertaining instruction than Cur- tius's History of Alexander the Great, and the Fasti of Ovid. CURTIUS is an author who has hitherto been unaccount- ably overlooked in the classical education of British youth. The unbroken interest of the narrative, the exhibition of extraordinary talent, sagacity, indomitable spirit and activity, and the union of these in the same character with enga- ging and almost feminine tenderness and humanity, with an admixture too of human frailties and passionate excesses, all tend to captivate the youthful mind, and fill it with wonder ignorant when I left off as when I began it. Although I am not yet very familiar with it, I am considerably wiser than I was two months ago. “As your pupil, I have thought it my duty to make these statements; and am sure that very many in the class could give the same testimony." 2 F 450 A worD AND A PLEA, &c. and delight. For such, on the one hand, is the general clear- ness and transparency of his style that it allures forward the least advanced Latinist; and such, on the other, is the depth of thought and occasional obscurity of expression, that abun- dant scope is left for the exercise of any amount of ingenuity and proficiency that may come from the very best of our grammar schools. The ‘Fasti’ of OVID, again, a selection from which is now in the hands of the Junior Class, is, of all the works of that charming poet, not excepting even the Me- tamorphoses, the most agreeable and instructive. Journeying with the sun through the first six signs of the Zodiac, and through the different days and anniversary festivals of the corresponding months, the poet touches with inimitable grace upon many of the most interesting events and characters in the history, antiquities, and mythology of Rome. It may be said of Ovid, as it has often been said of Shakspeare, that he has given to the history of his country an interest which the grave chronicler fails to awaken ; and the truth is, that the early history of Rome is a fitter subject for Ovid and Macau- lay, than for Niebuhr and Schmitz. Moreover, there is no book of which so dexterous a use can be made as of the Fasti, in introducing the pupil to an acquaintance with Latin versi- fication, in all that regards not only the mechanism, cadence, and structure of the elegiac and epic measure, but the higher departments of taste and imagination. Of HoRACE, the practice in this class is to read two or three Books of the Odes; those selected being the choicest speci- mens of qualities of diction, versification, and sentiment which have made that poet so universal a favourite, and which pos- sess a charm alike for opening manhood, for mature age, and for the decline of life. The ingredients out of which that charm is compounded are, partly, that singularly nice choice and happy collocation of words and phrases, which Petronius called curiosa felicitas; partly, the grace and ease and versa- tility which the poet displays, whether he soar aloft with all “the pride and ample pinion That the Theban Eagle bare,” or whether he touch the strings of the Teian lyre, and — sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair; A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 451 or whether he — stoop to truth and moralise his song, embodying, when he does so, the dictates of wisdom and the lessons of experience in “brief sententious precepts,” which meet us at every turn and corner of human life, and make Horace, of all poets, the easiest to remember and the aptest to quote. These are beauties, however, which can be but very imperfectly perceived or appreciated in boyhood, nor even in early manhood can they be discovered by the unas- sisted labour of the solitary student. He must be led to the discovery under the guidance—ductu et auspiciis—of an ad- miring and enthusiastic instructor. Proceeding upon this principle, I recommend attention over night to the Ode prescribed for the next day, so far as to have some idea of the general import and of the main difficulties of the con- struction, but I seldom call upon a student to translate it publicly, till he has heard it prelected upon from the Chair. This prelection is accompanied with a running commentary, and with such illustrations as may be drawn from mythology, geography, antiquities, and parallel passages in the poetry of ancient or modern times, and at the same time with expan- sions and paraphrases of the sense—with every thing, in short, that is likely to arrest the attention and make the ode memorable. It is not till the youthful mind is thus im- bued and penetrated and impressed that I expect the lesson to be conned and accurately prepared at home, and that I hear it next day construed and translated on the platform and in divisions. Ancient Geography forms also a part of the Junior Course.* The student is carried, in an imaginary journey, over all the countries that touch in any point the Mediterranean, or any of its cognate seas, and is thus introduced to an acquaintance with all that is most worth knowing as connected with the reading of the classics, in Hispania, Gallia, Italia, Dalmatia, Graecia, the shores of Pontus Euxinus, Asia (Minor), Syria, and the Northern Coast of Africa; the localities named being * The text-book now used (1855) is a little volume entitled ‘First Steps in the Physical and Classical Geography of the Ancient World,’ published in 1853, (A. & C. Black.) 452. A worD AND A PLEA, &c." confined—to the spots “in quibus eorum quos diligimus aut admiramur adsunt vestigia,”—to the mountains, which our earliest dreams have dwelt upon, and to the plains and val- leys and cities that have been dignified by displays of wisdom, of bravery, and of virtue. These summary weekly demonstra- tions (for I am obliged to limit them to one hour a-week) are listened to with intense interest, and stimulate to exertions of industry and ability, which can leave no doubt on any reason- able mind that the time of the class could not have been more usefully employed. Written exercises are performed, weekly, throughout the session; connected chiefly with Mair in the outset, and consist- ing frequently of the substance of remarks that have been made in the class-room in the turning of his sentences. But these are varied, and at last superseded, by exercises of different kinds: e.g. 1. Translations into English of striking passages of the authors in hand; 2. Short Essays on topics discussed in the class-room; and, 3. Exercises in Latin verse and in Latin prose. The Translations prescribed are almost always of passages not new to the student, but which have previously formed part of the business of the class; because it is meant that these performanees shall not merely vouch for the pas- sage being understood, but shall be a means of training to the practice of English composition. The best of these exercises, having been corrected by me over night and the expression amended, are read publicly next morning, both the original and improved version, and the principles are explained on which the changes were made. This, upon the principle quoted above from Bacon, I hold to be one of the best possible methods of directing the attention of youth to the proprieties of English speech; and the object is still further promoted by requiring that no translation-exercise be presented without an English Introduction, explanatory of the subject, and com- posed by the student himself. But, be the Weekly exercise what it may, the rule is absolute, that after inspection and correction it be shewn a second time in its amended form; and that all be preserved, stitched together, and exhibited at the close of the session, in order to be again revised, and to have a general character affixed to them by me. All this is accom- A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 453 plished by a system of inspectorship, into the details of which it is not necessary for my present purpose to enter. The outline now given may suffice to convey a general idea of the course of study in the Junior Humanity Class. In the SENIOR CLASS, possession of elementary and gram- matical knowledge being taken for granted, the business is of a more discursive and multifarious kind. Conceiving that attendance on this class is likely to be the last chance that most of its members will have of imbibing a taste for, and improving their acquaintance with, the literae humaniores, I endeavour to open up as many sources as possible of literary and intellectual improvement. This is done in the hope that, if neither the previous proficiency nor the time admit of their being trained to profound and critical scholarship, they may acquire at least a respect and relish for classical and scholar- like accomplishments: and that thus, having the stores of ancient learning unlocked to them, specimens of the articles exhibited, and the key put into their hands, they may go into their different walks of life, if not thoroughly furnished unto every good work, at least with agreeable recollections of their youthful studies, with a high estimate of the pursuits in which they have been initiated, and with a purpose of resuming and prosecuting them farther, whenever time and opportunity shall Serve. The course of study pursued in the Senior Humanity Class, as well in all the classes of the different Faculties, was sketch- ed, in outline, in the “Edinburgh University Almanack’ for 1833; a publication intended to be annual, but of which no number has appeared but the first. As the book is little known, and the course laid down there has undergone some modifi- cations in the intervening period, I shall, as in the case of the Junior, describe briefly the business of the session just closed, which, varied though the course of reading is from year to year, may serve as a sample of the thing. The reader will thus be enabled to judge, how far the account of the Humanity classes in the Universities of Scotland, in news- papers and pamphlets already quoted from, tallies with that 454 A worD AND A PLEA, &c. which I am now to give, of the Senior Humanity Class in the College of Edinburgh. I may premise, that little or nothing of a purely syntactical kind, nothing of simple and regular parsing, none of those apparently elementary processes which are gone through in the Junior Class, are allowed to occupy the time of the Senior. In the course of the first week of the session, a trial exercise is per- formed in the class-room under my own eye, comprehending a series of things to be done, from the less to the more difficult; the object of the whole being to enable me to form, in a rough way, a scale of comparative proficiency at the date of entering. But though this preluding exercise too frequently betrays lamentable deficiencies, I think myself exempted, by the very fact of the existence of a Junior Class, from ministering to the wants and necessities of ill-qualified students, whom their own vanity or that of their parents—not unfrequently that of their former teachers—thrusts prematurely into the Senior Class. I can only admonish such persons of what they ought to do in private for themselves, if they mean to profit by the business of the session. In describing briefly the occupations of the Senior Class it is proper to mention the books that are required to be in the hands of every student. These are, 1. ‘Eclogae Cice- ronianae, consisting of certain Orations, Philosophical Dis- courses, and Epistles of Cicero, selected upon the principle of avoiding those of all the three kinds which have, time out of mind, been alone read in school and college, and of intro- ducing the lover of the classics to some specimens of that author's writings, equally good and less hackneyed. The volume comprizes also a selection of the younger Pliny’s Letters, to render Cicero's more interesting by comparison and contrast: 2. Excerpts from the “Annals of Tacitus,’ forming one of the Parker Series of Classical Texts, in which occasion is taken to introduce extracts from Suetonius and Juvenal: 3. ‘The Satires and Epistles of Horace:’ 4. Auxi- liary to the above, ‘Curtius,' read only as private studies: and, 5. ‘Adam's Roman Antiquities.’ The names of the Classics just enumerated—Cicero, Horace, A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 455 Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, Juvenal,—are a sufficient guarantee that something more is aimed at in the ordinary business of the Senior class than school-boy reading, and as the manner of construing and prelecting differs but little, mutatis mutan- dis, from those practised in the Junior class, it is unnecessary to dwell longer on this head. Dr Adam’s ‘Roman Antiquities' is required as a book of reference, scarcely less indispensable than Grammar and Dic- tionary. As a class-book, it is chiefly used for training the student to the habit of understanding Latin when spoken, and of speaking it himself. Interesting portions of the work are given out weekly to be carefully read at home, and the examination upon them is carried on, by way of question and answer, in Latin. It remains for me to speak of the Written Lectures, the delivery of which, and the examination upon them, form an item in the distribution of class time. In answer to the alle- gation reiterated usque ad nauseam, that “as to philology, cri- ticism, the mythology, the religion, public institutions, arts and sciences of the ancients, every thing in short beyond mere school training, they are subjects hardly mentioned at all in the curriculum of our colleges;” I have to say that for the last twenty years, it has been my practice to deliver written courses of lectures, on the following subjects:— “1. ON THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES.—Part First. Introduction. Early part of Roman history; its credibility. Attempt to distinguish the events attested by sufficient evi- dence, from those which are unworthy of belief. Historical sketch of the former class, as introductory to some account of the institution of the Decemvirs, the establishment of their Code, and of the most remarkable of its surviving enactments. The question of its Greek origin examined.— Part Second. Analysis of particular enactments of the Decemviral Law. The text exhibited to the eye in the old Orthography and Latinity, and accompanied with illustrations of the language, manners and customs, character, and legislation of the Romans. Among the heads or chapters of the Law selected for analysis and illustration are: the first clause of the First Table, regu- lating the form of Procedure in summoning before a court: the 456 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. laws respecting Marriage and Succession to property : penal statutes: sumptuary laws, &c. “2. ON THE MANUSCRIPT COPIES (Codices Manuscript) OF THE ANCIENT CLASSICS; The causes which led to the destruction of so many, and to the preservation of those that are still extant: the substance or materials used : the Her- culanean MSS. : notice of the most remarkable of the manu- scripts whence we have our printed texts, and where they are now deposited. “3. OBSERVATIONS ON THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ODES OF HORACE: The various readings and disputed meanings: their beauties as compositions: parallel passages in ancient and modern writers, &c. : with an account of the Poet's life. “4. A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF TITERATURE AND SCIENCE AMONG THE ROMANs, from their first dawning to the days of Claudian. “5. LECTURES on topics of interest in Syntax, History, Antiquities, Public and Private Teaching, &c.” 6. The preceding five are all shorter courses than that on GENERAL GRAMMAR, the sketch of which as given in the Alma- nack is too long for insertion here. Suffice it to state, that, treating as it does of the origin of language, both spoken and written, and of the mechanism of human speech, it is found interesting and attractive to all whose intellects are in any degree developed, and is made to bear constantly upon the ordinary prelections of the class. After this brief and necessarily very imperfect sketch of the occupations of my students, I do not well see how any one can believe, that the picture which our impugners draw of the Humanity Classes has been taken from the life, or that it indicates a careful study of an original which they were bound to view in all its aspects and bearings, before they ventured to exhibit their handiwork to public view. If the occupations described above be “puerilities,” what, I should be glad to know, are the virilities?” Let us have a leaf out of some German Almanack or Jahrbuch, that we may look * This question was put in 1848, and I naturally looked for an answer, if not sooner, at all events in Professor Blackie's Letter to the Patrons of 1855. But I have looked in vain. After occupying several pages in telling A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 457 on this picture and on that, and mark the vast superiority of Teutonic University discipline.* In one of the newspaper thrusts in the dark (1848), it is declared to be “utterly impossible for a Professor to exercise over his pupils that controul, or come into such close contact with their minds, as a teacher at a school, who is occupied with his pupils during four or five hours every day.” Now both of these ‘impossibilities, I am bold enough to affirm, I have accomplished. 1. By controul, I presume is meant the power of fixing the us what Learning is not, he comes at last to the point, and winds up with the following definition of what it is:— “We demand a scholarship with a large human soul, and a pregnant social significance, which shall not seek with a studious feebleness to avoid, but rather with a generous vigour to find contact with all the great intellectual and moral movements of the age!” * We are favoured at last with this leaf, and it is thus announced:— “Let us exhibit the matter in a tabular form, and bring the potent shapes that rule the imagination as much as may be under the domination of the fingers. The branches of Learning, strictly so called, cultivated in the best European Universities at present, may be catalogued under the following heads:— “1. Civil History. “2. Church History, and the History of Theological Opinion. “3. The History of Philosophy. “4. The History of Science, and the special History of the Sciences. “5. The History of the Fine Arts. “6. The History of Poetry and of General Literature. “7. The special History of Latin, Greek, German, Sanscrit, Arabic, Ice- landic, and other noted literatures, ancient and modern. “8. The History of Language; Philology, special and comparative; Ethnography. “9. The Exposition and Interpretation of Ancient Documents; Palaeo- graphy; Criticism; Philology in the narrower sense. “10. The History of Ancient Monuments; Archaeology; Numismatics: Greek Vases.”—Wide Professor Blackie's Letter to the Lord Pro- vost, p. 15. Let the reader observe that of these ten ‘potent shapes,” nine are neither Science, nor Art, nor Literature, but the History of some branches of these : and this, it seems, is what we are to substitute for the subjects themselves. To retort upon the Professor his own quotation, this is indeed “a beggarly account of empty boxes.” It is to give us the husk instead of the kernel. 458 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. attention, and of restraining, not only from all acts of insub- ordination, but from all the levities and frivolities, the whis- perings and communications, oral or written, which are incon- sistent with the perfect stillness and respectful silence that become a place of public instruction. It will, I believe, be admitted, that the discipline of the Rector's Class was never in a more wholesome and efficient state, before or since, than from 1811 to 1820, the year in which it attained its maxi- mum of numbers and minimum of punishment: and yet I confidently aver, that the discipline of the Humanity Class, has been, and is now, superior even to that of the High School in its best days; and that it is impossible to produce in any part of the island an example of an equally numerous class more entirely under controul, than both the Humanity Classes now are.* 2. As to “the coming into contact with the minds” of the pupils, it must, of course, be admitted that the “Teacher at a school” is longer in the presence of the taught than a Pro- fessor, both as to the amount of hours in each day, and the amount of days in each year. But it does not necessarily follow that the teacher becomes better acquainted than the professor with the progress, abilities, and dispositions of indi- viduals. Such acquaintance depends on the manner in which the time is employed by each. Supposing the numbers to be equal in the school and college class, and that the monitorial method is employed in both, then the opportunities, ceteris paribus, are decidedly in favour of the Schoolmaster. But the reverse may be the case if a modification of that method be adopted in the college class and not in the school. It is in the subdivision of the class into little groups which the use of that method implies, that the teacher has it in his power to make himself familiar with the characters and capacities of his pupils, by attaching himself to this or that division, and conversing with one or other of the individuals composing * The discipline and general demeanour of both wele always good, (with the partial exception alluded to before) but never so entirely sans peur et sans reproche, as in the last two or three sessions, since I adopted the ex- pedient of putting into the hands of every student at his enrolment a printed paper containing the “Regulations of the Humanity Classes." A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 459 it, apart from the rest. So long as the class is kept all in one, and the teaching is simultaneous only and never divi- sional, it is evident that the contact spoken of must be, to say the least, more operose and difficult. I have now spoken to every point I proposed to myself, except that which regards the statistics and composition of the Senior class. These are in several respects less favour- able for obtaining good results than in the Junior. The average age of this class is but a trifle higher than that of the Junior. A large proportion join the Senior, as already hinted at, without having attended the Junior, and many who ought not to have done so. These are persons whose fitness for the Senior is measured, not by the proficiency they have attained, but by the time they have attended school, or whose choice is made for them by the convenience of the hour of meeting; or, lastly, of those who, by a comparatively recent bye-law of the Society of Writers to the Signet, are privileged to get over the two years of college attendance required, while at the same time they are employed as apprentices in a writer's office. By this very questionable arrangement, parents peril the results of a most important epoch in the formation of their sons' character. Distracted between the business of the Class and that of the office, they are apt to do neither well. If they are conscientious in the discharge of both duties, their health is endangered, and neither is performed as well as it might be. But the temptation is great, and too often yielded to, to neglect the less imperative duty; and the leaving of any duty undis- charged or imperfectly done, is the worst lesson a young man can learn, and the worst habit he can acquire, at that turning point of his character for life. Let no parent or guardian flatter himself that a period of six months' college attendance, being prescribed by the Society's Regulations, is a thing that must be complied with, but is in the particular case nothing but a mere form. The period, short as it is, will be most Influential for good or for evil: and this mistaken economy of time is, they may be assured, what Shakespeare calls ‘bad husbandry.” * In consequence of a strong representation which I made to the Society upon this matter, it has been ordained that none shall commence their appren- 460 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. [The pamphlet of mine, of which the preceding discussion is the first part, contains, in the second, too much matter of local and temporary interest to be worth reprinting in this volume. As, however, the Patrons (i.e. the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Council, forming the Municipal Corporation of the City of Edinburgh) have been induced to sanction a preliminary ex- amination before entering the Junior Greek class in the Uni- versity, and as this regulation has been thought by some of their own body as well as by others to have worked so inju- riously that a motion has been made in the Town Council to rescind or modify it, it may be worth while to lay before the reader the authorities and arguments with which a similar pro- posal was met in 1826, when it was submitted, by one of their own number, to the Royal Commission,--a body of men which, under the Presidency of the Earl of Aberdeen, comprised a large amount of talent, learning, and practical wisdom. In their General Report was embodied a full and final judgment upon all the matters that came under their consideration. From that printed document I extract the following paragraph which contains the only answer or allusion made to the pro- posal of an entrance examination in the Greek, Latin, and Mathematical classes:— “It is essential to keep in view the peculiar and beneficent character of the Scottish Universities; that they are intended to place the means of the highest education in Science and Philosophy within the reach of persons in humble ranks of life, while, at the same time, they are equally adapted to edu- cate and enlighten the youth of the highest class of society. We should consider it to be one of the greatest misfortunes which could be inflicted upon Scotland, if, with a view to im- provements of one description, any material bar should be op- posed to the full participation of the benefits of University education by all, whose means and prospects can render such education of the smallest use to them.”—General Report, p. 9. There is a very different species of Preliminary Examina- tion, recommended by the Royal Commission, which, sofar from being disposed to quarrel with it, I have long regarded as one ticeship, or be employed in Writers' Chambers without presenting their Col- lege tickets and certificates of regular attendance, for two College Sessions., A worD AND A PLEA, &c. 461, of the most salutary Regulations that have yet been devised, and one, the adoption of which would greatly improve Univer- sity discipline. It is thus expressed; (p. 30, General Report). “All students professing themselves on entering the Uni- versity to be competent to commence with the second (i.e. senior or advanced) Latin and Greek Classes, shall be subject to a private examination by the examiners for Degrees; and if, in the opinion of the examiners, their proficiency is suffi- cient, they shall be entitled to become public students in these classes, with the same privileges as if they had attended the classes of the first year.” The Commissioners further enjoin, “ that the examination be strict, because among regular stu- dents many who may not be sufficient scholars, may be desi- rous of obtaining so important a step : but if due security be taken to prevent improper indulgence, this regulation will, in their opinion, give great encouragement to the study of the ancient languages before students enter college. The proposal lately revived and acted upon, was submitted at the time to the several Faculties of the University; and I had the honour of being charged with the duty of drawing up a report which should embody the conclusions which the Fa- culty, after long and anxious deliberation, had arrived at with- out a dissentient voice. That part of the Faculty Report which relates to the proposed entrance examination I have thought it right to preserve. 1855.] “The FACULTY OF ARTs, to whom the Provisional Resolu- tions of the Royal Commission, as far as regards their depart- ment, were referred by the Senatus Academicus, has agreed to the following general Report; reserving to each of its Members the privilege of stating more fully, in what manner he con- ceives the changes proposed would affect his own Chair in particular. “The Members of the Faculty, in entering on the consi- deration of measures which, if carried into execution, would so materially affect the Universities of Scotland, have endea- voured to examine the subject in all its bearings, in a spirit of calm and dispassionate enquiry, and to discharge from their minds all improper bias in favour of a system of public in- 462 A worD AND A PLEA, &c. struction, to which, as a whole, they profess themselves firmly attached, without being blind to its defects, or unwilling to see them removed. “At the same time, in speaking of an Establishment of ancient date, which has grown up along with the other insti- tutions of the country sharing in, as well as contributing to their progress, and gradually accommodating itself to the wants and necessities of the community, they cannot disguise their opinion, that innovations, in order to be improvements, ought to be introduced cautiously and slowly, and accompanied with practical ameliorations in the earlier stages of Public Education, with which the efficiency of College Discipline is indissolubly bound up. “It has been recommended ‘that the Elementary Greek Classes in the different Universities be discontinued.” “The Faculty agree with the Provisional Resolution in thinking it desirable that the first Elements of Greek should be taught elsewhere than within the walls of the University: And they have the satisfaction of being able to state, that in the College of Edinburgh at least, the Junior Greek class has been gradually assuming such a character as promises in time to render purely elementary teaching unnecessary. This in- ference they think may be drawn from the following circum- StanceS :— “1. That the number of those who enter the Junior Greek, totally unacquainted with that language, has for the last twenty years been regularly decreasing; and in the present Session, out of a class little short of 120, does not exceed 20; and 2dly, That in consequence of this change for the better, the Professor is now in the habit of beginning to construe Greek Authors within ten days after the commencement of the Session. They are aware that this change is principally owing to the greater attention that has been paid, within the time mentioned, to the teaching of Greek in the great schools of the Metropolis. “But the Faculty, at the same time, are of opinion, that until the primary schools are placed on a better footing, it would be highly injurious to the general education of the country, to close the door against those who go to College to A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 463 obtain what they cannot procure at home, and to debar the Professor from directing Students of this class to the means of supplying by diligence, and private study, deficiencies which are their misfortune and not their fault. “The Faculty will sincerely rejoice in any measure tending to accelerate the improvement which the facts now stated seem to indicate in the preparatory teaching of Greek; but such a measure, it appears to them, must begin with the Pa- rochial and Burgh schools. These schools, established so generally over Scotland, have always been regarded as nur- series, out of which the youth of promising talent might be transferred to the Universities; the College being thus un- derstood to come in aid of the imperfect means of initiatory instruction afforded by the country schools. And it ought not to be forgotten, that in these seminaries, the sons of the Clergy, and of the middle and lower ranks of our rural po- pulation, who constitute a great majority of the Divinity Stu- dents, receive their school education. In order, therefore, to render the instruction in Colleges less elementary, it appears to the Faculty indispensable, that the means of better pre- paration be provided in the anterior stages; and this, they conceive, can only be done by so raising the condition of Parochial Teachers, as to attract to the profession men of superior attainments. For, if the entrance qualification in Greek be raised (as the Provisional Resolutions propose) far above the point which the primary schools are capable of reaching, it will not only cut off the present supply of Alumni to the Universities, but it will dry up the very sources from which that supply is drawn; because the existence of such a class of Students as that referred to is continued solely by the opportunity which the Universities now afford, of tak- ing up the instruction where the country schools leave it. To those pupils who bring higher attainments to College, the senior and third Greek classes are open, without the necessity of attending the junior : And the very fact of such numbers joining the latter in preference to the former, is a proof of the incompetency of the preparatory schools. Till reform, there- fore, begin in the right quarter, and be left to operate slowly and silently, the Faculty foresee nothing but mischief from 464 A worD AND A PLEA, &c. the adoption of the measure proposed. If such reform be ju- diciously set about, where alone it can be effectual, the Faculty feel confident that the Professor of Greek will not be found backward in adapting his instructions to the improved attain- ments of his pupils. “All the arguments against the abolition of the Junior Greek, apply still more forcibly to the proposed discontinuance of the First Mathematical Class. Elementary Geometry has always been esteemed an appropriate subject of Academical instruction. Even in Cambridge, where the exact Sciences are in such repute and demand, it must be known to the Royal Commissioners, that the tuition of an Under-Graduate begins with the Axioms of Euclid; and that the Tutors do not consider it essential that the pupil should have received any previous training in Mathematical knowledge. “It appears to the Faculty, that the system of previous examination proposed would infallibly exclude from a College education a numerous class of youth, who now resort to the University from all parts of the country, with very moderate acquirements indeed, but with the strongest desire of improve- ment; who claim nothing but admission to the means of ob- taining that knowledge which is not to be had in the districts they come from ; and who, in a majority of instances, make excrtions and attain a proficiency in the course of the first Session, which cannot well be conceived or appreciated by those who have not watched their progress. “The Faculty may be permitted to mention one instance among many which are familiar to all of them, of what may be accomplished by Students of this description, whom the proposed regulations would consign to the poverty and igno- rance from which they are just beginning to emerge. A youth of twenty entered the Junior Humanity Class, in the end of October 1826, who had previously studied Latin only eighteen months at a remote parish school, and eight or ten weeks more, under circumstances far from favourable. His knowledge of the language was of course extremely scanty and imperfect—such, indeed, as would have insured his im- mediate rejection by any board of Preliminary Examiners. Of Prosody, for example, he was so ignorant, that it was ne- A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 465 cessary to explain to him the meaning of the words Dactyle and Spondee. Yet so rapid was his progress, that in the month of March of the same Session, he took the lead in almost every branch of the business, and gained the two highest prizes. In the Senior Class of the following Session, his proficiency may be judged of, from the fact of his having carried off the first prize for Latin verses, against a very for- midable array of competitors, from English as well as Scotch Schools. The Faculty cite this as a strong but by no means a Solitary example of extraordinary proficiency in the class of youth whom the proposed resolution would exclude from the benefits of a College Education. They state with confidence, that a large proportion of the creditable certificates which they sign at the close of each Session are granted to individuals of this class, whose prospects would have been irretrievably blasted by the establishment of an Entrance Examination. Many would be deterred, by the very name of such a tribunal, from going to College at all; and if it were any thing more than a name, most of those who did come would be sent back with a stigma affixed. And yet it is out of the description of youths now spoken of, that our pulpits and schools are at present supplied with their greatest ornaments, and to which the general literature and intellectual character of our country have been deeply indebted. “2dly. The Resolutions enjoin, that intending Students, previously to entering the Junior Greek and Latin Classes, shall undergo a strict Examination, inter alia, on the first three Books of the Anabasis or Cyropaedia of Xenophon; and on the Odes of Horace, or first five Books of Livy. Now the Faculty are of opinion; That it is impossible so to define what is to be understood by a strict Examination, as not to leave its interpretation very vague and loose; so that, accord- ing to the particular views, acquirements, or humour of the Examiner, it might be made to comprehend any thing, from the parsing and verbal translation of an easy passage, to questions that might puzzle the best scholar : That there is, therefore, no security against this Examination being used, either to exclude the most of those who might have the cour- age to present themselves, or to admit all without exception: t 2 G 466 A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. That, if all were admitted, (the result likely to be least inju- rious to the interests of learning,) the new scheme would lapse into total inefficiency; if, on the other hand a rigor- ous Examination were to be insisted on, the practical effect would be to exclude the modest and most deserving of en- couragement. “3dly. The Faculty are of opinion, that to raise the quali- fications for admission into the Language Classes, without hinting at any projected improvement in the primary schools throughout the country, is somewhat preposterous; and they cannot perceive how the cause of Literature and Science is to be promoted, by leaving the schools demonstrably incapable of giving the preparation required, and at the same time pre- cluding the Universities from employing the only means left of palliating the evil.” The truth is, that the means of erecting a high standard of education throughout the country lie far deeper than the advocates of an entrance examination suppose. We must raise the condition of the Parochial Teacher, by ac- complishing him for the duty required, and by making his situation an object of competition to men of acquirement and ability. We must have regulations emanating from high authority, to secure a graduated system of progressive advancement, and a uniform and well-arranged series of books and classical texts. We must have a repeal of the penurious and disgraceful Act of 1803, which confines the parish teacher's income within limits that can never exceed, and very generally fall short of, the sum that can be earned by the hard hands of peasants or well-employed labourers; which ordains that the master's habitation shall consist of not more than two apartments, and which, in the same breath, and very consistently, requires in the candidate for a parish school no college training, no knowledge of the classical languages, no qualification beyond what will satisfy heritors and kirk-ses- sions. We ought to have also a LECTURESHIP ON DIDACTICS attached to the Faculty of Arts in the four University seats of Scotland. And all these things should be effected by the en- actment and provision of a wise and enlightened Government, A WORD AND A PLEA, &c. 467 —not left to the caprices and idiosyncrasies of sects and indi- viduals, armed, each with his own favourite nostrum and with deadly hatred of every body's else, and agreeing in nothing but a nervous and morbid dislike of all State interference; as if it were not the first duty of a Legislature to look after the education of the youth, so as to prevent crime rather than punish it, and to rear the greatest number of citizens fit for all the offices of peace and war. P R. E. F. A C E S TO SELECTIONS FROM CICERO, CURTIUS, LIWY, AND TACITUS, Ille se profecisse sciat cuivalde Cicero placebit.—Quintilian. PREF A C E S. [In page 438, mention is made of published Selections from the works of Cicero, Curtius, and Livy, and of Introductory Observations prefixed to each under the title of Prefaces. As these prefaces embrace many topics more likely to be read with interest by adult scholars, and by the educated public, than by the youths for whose benefit the selections were made, I have included them among the “Contributions, with some omissions and alterations. A few of the Notes upon Livy and Curtius are also added, but such only as contain discussions and speculations not immediately bearing on the sense or construction of a particular sentence.] PREFACE TO SELECTIONS FROM CICER0, IN PRESENTING to the Public a new Selection from the Works of Cicero, when so many are already in circulation, Some apology may be deemed necessary. These ‘Eclogae,’ ar- ranged in three distinct divisions, are intended to give the stu- dious youth a specimen of Cicero's compositions, in different aspects of his character: first, as an Orator; secondly, as a Man of the World and a Member of Society; and thirdly, as a Philosopher. On each of these portions of the book, I shall offer a few observations. I. THERE is a certain number of the Speeches of Cicero, which, by a sort of prescriptive right, have been read almost from time immemorial, as the substratum of instruction and prelection in the art of Oratory, in the Schools and Col- 472 PREFACE TO CICERO. leges, not of our own island only, but of Europe. Innumer- able editions of his ‘Select Orations' have issued from the press, all, with little or no variety, containing the pleadings in behalf of Archias, of Milo, of the Manilian Law, of Ligarius, of Marcellus, and, strange to say, of Deiotarus,” along with the four against Catiline, and perhaps the second against An- tony. I will venture to say, that of the youth of Great Britain who are most familiar with the oratorical works of Cicero, not one in a hundred has extended his reading beyond the Ora- tions just enumerated, or can say that his attention was di- rected to any other in the course of his school or college edu- cation. The titles of these Orations, and of these only, are familiar to our youth ; and any distinct notion they may have of Cicero's powers as an orator is derived from the perusal of one or more of the usual selections. If one were not aware of the universal genius of the writer of the following sentences, of his versatile and indefatigable intellect, and of his acquaintance with the whole range of literature, ancient and modern, one might be tempted to be- lieve, that his estimate of Cicero's oratorical productions was founded on the impressions he had received when he read the “Orationes Selectae” in the Rector's Class of the High School of Edinburgh. “If,” says Lord Brougham, in his Inaugural Address to the Students of Glasgow College, “a further reason is required for giving the preference to the Greek ora- tors, we may find it in the greater diversity and importance of the subjects upon which their speeches were delivered. Compare them with Cicero in this particular, and the contrast is striking. His finest oration for matter and diction together, is in defence of an individual charged with murder, and there is nothing in the case to give it a public interest, except that the parties were of opposite factions in the state, and the de- ceased a personal as well as political adversary of the speaker.f “His most exquisite performance in point of diction, perhaps the most perfect prose composition in the language, was ad- * Oratiunculam pro Deiotaro, quam requirebas, tibi misi: quam velim sic legas, ut causam inopem et tenuem, nec scriptione magnopere dignam.–CIC, EPIST, AD DIV. x, 12. ad Dolabellam. f The speech Pro Milone, PREFACE TO CICERO. 473 dressed to one man, in palliation of another's having borne arms against him in a war with a personal rival.” Even the Catilinarians, his most splendid declamations, are principally denunciations of a single conspirator; the Philipics, his most brilliant invectives, abuse of a profligate leader; and the Ver- rine orations, charges against an individul governor. Many, indeed almost all the subjects of his speeches, rise to the rank of what the French term causes célèbres ; but they seldom rise higher.” To this I cannot but think that a conclusive answer will be found in two of the speeches printed here; both of which, for political interest, and discussions on topics affecting the wealth of nations, the principles of public law, the theory of legisla- tion, and the details of executive administration, will, it is believed, bear a comparison, much to the advantage of the Roman orator, with the most esteemed productions of Demos- thenes. Let us take, for example, that pleading against the Agrarian Law of Rullus, to which the elder Pliny so strikingly alludes in his Natural History, when, in his survey of the animal creation, he comes to the species Man; and after enumerating, prosaically enough, many of the finest specimens of the ani- mal, he at last breaks forth into the following apostrophe to the genius of Cicero:-‘‘Quo te, M. Tulli, piaculo taceam? quove maxime excellentem insigni praedicem? quo potius quam universi populi illius gentis amplissimo testimonio, et e tota vita tua consulatās tantum operibus electis? Te dicente, legem agrariam, hoc est, alimenta sua, abdicaverunt tribus. . . . Salve, primus omnium Parens Patriae appellate, primus in toga triumphum linguaeque lauream merite, et facundiae La- tiarumque literarum parens: atoue (ut dictator Caesar, hostis quondam tuus, de te scripsit) omnium triumphorum lauream adepte majorem, quanto plus est ingenii Romani terminos in tantum promovisse quam imperii.”—HIST. NAT. Lib. VII. 30. It is not easy to conceive that either this apostrophe of Pliny, or the speech so pointedly referred to, could have been present to the mind of the Lord Rector of Glasgow College, when he penned or spoke the passage quoted above. For * The speech Pro Ligario. 474 PREFACE TO CICERO. where shall we find, amidst the petty squabbles of the Gre- cian Republics or the fierce ebullitions of their personal animo- sities, any position so commanding as that which was presented by a Roman Consul, the foremost man of the first Empire in the world, when he mounted the Rostra, at the very outset of his Consulship, and harangued the assembled multitude of the still free citizens of Rome, on a question so momentous? Or where shall we find an occasion so inviting, and so dexter- ously employed by the orator, to lay down the great principles on which depend the distinctions of rank, the security of pro- perty, and the necessity of watching and checking the designs of ambitious demagogues, who, under the mask of patriotism, are for ever meditating the destruction of the constitution, and their own aggrandizement? The facts of the case were these :—The Tribune Rullus had proposed and promulgated an Agrarian Law for dividing the public lands among the very men whom Cicero was about to address;–a measure which for ages had been a favourite one with the lower orders of Rome. And yet Cicero had the courage to confront this Tribune in the midst of his applaud- ing partisans. He undertook to prevail upon the people of Rome to reject a Law which was professedly intended to raise their condition, and make them independent proprietors of the soil. And the memorable fact, to which it will be diffi- cult to find a parallel in the history of Eloquence,—is this, that with such a host of prejudices and self-interests arrayed against him, Cicero was not merely listened to, but was trium- phant. The Tribune's proposition was rejected, and Rome thereby saved from convulsion and revolution. In this remarkable speech, he begins by expressing the ob- ligations he was under to the Roman People whom he was addressing, for all the honours of his life, reverting to his own history, and the steps by which he had risen, through the favour of his fellow-citizens and without any recommendation of high rank or ancient family, from the condition of a novus homo, to be the first magistrate of the republic. And it is thus he paves the way for the declaration, which he not only makes now in an Assembly of the people where it was sure to be well received, but had already made in the Senate-house PREFACE TO CICERO. 475 where it was not likely to be acceptable, That he meant to conduct his consulship on popular principles—“popularem se futurum esse Consulem.” Having thus imperceptibly insinuated himself into the good graces of the multitude, and put himself, so to speak, at the head of the popular movement, he proceeds with inimitable tact and skill, first to throw suspicion on the motives of Rullus in proposing such a law, then to discuss its different heads and clauses, gradually to pull off the mask which conceals their mischievous tendency, and at last boldly to denounce the mover as a traitor to their cause, and engaged in a conspiracy to sub- vert their liberties, to transfer the seat of government from Rome to Capua, and there to establish himself as the head of a rival power. The consummate art with which he manages this difficult argument, can only be understood from a perusal of the speech itself; which will prepare the reader, as the de- livery of it prepared the Roman people, for the conclusion to which he comes towards the close of the peroration:—“Ex quo intelligi, Quirites, potest, nihil esse tam populare quam id, quod ego vobis in hunc annum, Consul popularis, aftero, pacem, tranquillitatem, otium. . . . Pro certo polliceor hoc vobis, atque confirmo me esse perfecturum, ut jam tandem illi qui honori inviderunt meo, tamen vos universos in consule de- ligendo plurimum vidisse fateantur.” Few readers, I think, will rise from the perusal of this speech, without catching some spark of the elder Pliny’s en- thusiasm, and pronouncing it “a strain of a higher mood” than any cause célèbre, or legal pleading in Westminster Hall. With equal confidence I appeal to the Defence of Sextius, perhaps the most finished exposition, first of facts and then of motives, that is to be found in the annals of spoken elo- quence; and I appeal to it, not only as an additional answer to the conclusions of the passage quoted, but also as a satisfac- tory refutation of another assertion of the same distinguished nobleman,—that “in all the speeches which Cicero delivered, hardly two pages can be found which a modern assembly would bear.”* * Inaugural Addresses, &e, p. 48,-Glasgow, 1839. 476 PR.EFACE TO CI(XERO. I participate cordially, though not extravagantly or ex- clusively, in the admiration which Lord Brougham and the purists in oratory express, for what he calls “closeness, and, as it were, density of argument,” and “the habitual sacrifice of all ornament to use,” which he praises in the Greek Orators; but I cannot consent to place in a subordinate rank to this meagre, and peremptory, and summary species of pleading, that somewhat excursive style of eloquence, where the rich stores of the speaker's mind overflow into and permeate the texture of his argument, not only adorning whatever they touch, but adding weight to the reasoning, by enlisting in the cause all the generous feelings of the audience, and of the Judges. I can admire the clear, argumentative, unimpassioned statements, seasoned with Attic salt, of a Tierney, and even the minute and dry details of a Joseph Hume; but I must re- tain my predilection for the flowing periods, the exuberant fertility, the discursive but most effective illustration, the large, benevolent, and patriotic views, which distinguish the speeches of Burke, and no speeches more than those of the noble Author himself, whose opinions I now presume to con- trovert. Again, it appears to me, that the latter part of the speech pro Seactio, beginning at Ch. 45, comes nearer to the style and manner, and to the topics and interests of our own Parliament, than any passage of the same length in the harangues of De- mosthenes. As a specimen, I take leave to translate at some length from the concluding chapters; entreating my reader to bear in mind, that in point of diction, the version can give but a faint idea of the original. The accuser of Sextius had contemptuously enquired, “quae esset nostra natio” optimatium.” “You put a question,” replies Cicero, “on a subject impor- tant for the youth of my country to know, and not difficult for me to explain. On this topic, Judges, I shall dwell briefly, and in doing so shall say nothing, methinks, that will not be t * e g g * “In malam partem vel in contemptum interdum sunlitur natio."— Facciolati. PREFACE TO CICERO. 477 profitable to those who listen to me, nothing inconsistent either with my official duty, or that which I owe to my client. “THOSE who, in this state of ours, take an interest in public affairs, and are ambitious of acting a conspicuous part in politics, have always been divided into two great parties; the one, attached to the interests of the multitude and desirous to please it, and hence called Populares ; and the other, the Optimates, advocating measures that tend to secure the pro- perty, to encrease the influence, and to be sanctioned by the approval of the higher classes. Who then constitute the latter party? I answer, all that deserve to be called ‘good citizens.’ If you ask me their number, it is past reckoning; if it were not so, the state would fall to pieces. In this class we find the foremost men in the councils of the nation, and their followers; we find the men whose rank entitles them to a seat in the senate: we find the burgesses of free towns, and the Roman yeomanry : we find the great body of merchants; we find even freed-men. Its members are scattered far and wide, and among various conditions of society: but, as a party in the the state, it requires, to prevent misunderstanding, to be briefly and accurately defined. “All those, then, belong to the party of Optimates, who are neither criminals, nor by nature depraved, nor insane, nor involved in domestic embarrassments. Let it be understood, that the class to which you have applied a contemptuous term, comprehends all who are of unimpeachable character, of sound mind, and in easy circumstances. All who agree with those men in their principles, who promote the same useful objects, and who hold the same opinions as to the mode of conducting the government, are accounted supporters of this political party. The heads of the party are themselves reckoned the most influential and distinguished citizens and the leading men of the state. What then is the point proposed to these pilots of the Commonwealth, which they are bound to keep in view and steer their course by ? Just that, which is the consummation to be desired by all men of probity, in- telligence, and property,+the enjoyment of tranquillity with- out loss of dignity. All, whose wishes are directed to this point, belong to the party of the Optimates: but those who / 478 PREFACE TO CICERO. carry out the general wish to its accomplishment, are the true nobles and conservators of the country. For it is not fitting, on the one hand, that men should be so captivated with the dignity of high office as not to have an eye to the mainten- ance of public tranquillity; nor, on the other hand, is it fitting that they should cling to tranquillity even when it requires the sacrifice of honour. Now the foundations and constituent parts of this dignified tranquillity, which those at the head of affairs are bound to maintain and to defend even at the risk of their lives, are, the Established Religion, the Observance of Auspices, the Powers and Privileges of official men, the Autho- rity of the Senate, the Statute and Common Law of the land, the Courts of Law, the Administration of Justice, Public Credit, the Provinces, the Allies, the Glory of the Empire, the Military Force, the Exchequer. To be the defender and protector of concerns so multifarious and so vast, requires a man amply endowed with magnanimity, talent, and persever- ance. For, in so great a population, there is no want of per- sons who, either from the consciousness of crimes and the dread of punishment, are on the watch for revolutionary move- ments and changes of government; or, on account of some innate depravity of mind, have a diseased appetite for civil broils and insurrection; or who, being on the brink of bank- ruptcy, would rather perish in a general conflagration than sink separately in the wreck of their own fortunes. These men, when they have found instigators and ringleaders of their wicked inclinations, produce in the commonwealth such agi- tations, as to require watchfulness on the part of those who have placed themselves at the helm of the State, and to impose upon them the necessity of exerting all their sagacity and diligence; in order that, without exposing to risk the funda- mental institutions of the country, they may enable the vessel of the state to keep her course, and reach the haven of digni- fied repose. “Were I to deny that this way of life is rugged and toilsome, full of dangers and pitfalls, I should be saying what is untrue, and expressly contrary not only to my uniform convictions, but to a more than ordinary amount of personal experience. “In assailing the established order of things, greater means PREFACE TO OICERO, 479 and resources are brought into action at first, than are avail- able in defending it; and for this reason, that audacious and unprincipled men are always at the beck of a single conspira- tor, and have, themselves, an alacrity of movement against the commonwealth : whereas the well disposed, I know not how it is, are slower in their motions, and, neglecting to crush the first seeds of mischief, are at last roused to exertion only by dire necessity; so that not unfrequently, from this hesita- tion and tardiness, while their aim is to keep the peace even at the risk of losing character, they end with making shipwreck of both. Of the men disposed to take part with the republic, the fickle are apt to change sides, the timid to sneak away; the brave spirits only remain, who are ready to submit to every thing in the cause of their country. Such were-'', - and then Cicero goes on to commemorate some of the worthies of the olden time, who —“stuck i' the wars, Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw, And saving those that eyed them ;’ and then proceeds thus:— “Let these bright examples, I conjure you, be your guides, —you, whose ambition it is, to attain to dignity, honour, and glory. These are ennobling, unfading, divine; they are blazoned abroad by fame, embalmed in the records of history, —consigned to the praises of all time to come ! . . . . . . . It deserves, however, to be remarked, that the rule which these men prescribed to themselves in the conducting of public affairs, was attended with more danger then, than it is now, seeing that in their time the body of the people had set their hearts on the passing of measures, which were com- pletely at variance with the welfare of the state. A project for taking the votes by ballot was proposed by Lucius Cassius. The people thought their liberties concerned in that measure being carried. But the leading men of the state disapproved of it, dreading its effects on the security of the higher classes which were likely to flow from the headstrong rashness of the multitude, and the unrestrained licence of the ballot. Tiberius Gracchus promulgated an Agrarian Law. The people were delighted: the fortunes of the poorer citizens seemed to be 480 PREFACE TO CICERO. made. The higher classes opposed the passing of the Act, because they saw that endless discord would ensue, and were persuaded that, if the rich were expelled from their long en- joyed possessions, the commonwealth would thus be stript of its best defenders. Caius Gracchus brought forward a Corn Law, a great boon, it was thought, to the commonalty of Rome: for food was to be supplied in abundance without labour. The sound part of the community, however, resisted the proposed enactment, thinking that the lower classes would be thus seduced from industry to idleness, and foreseeing that the finances of the state would suffer by a drain upon the treasury.” Cicero then contrasts with those troublous times the present tranquillity, and the good understanding that prevails among all ranks. He proves and illustrates this general harmony by referring to the unanimity with which the Decree for his recall from banishment, and all the subsequent acts of indemnity and compensation, had been carried, and the cordial manner in which he had been received in the assemblies of the people, at the public games, and in the amphitheatre. Then, as he draws towards a conclusion, he expresses him- self as follows:— “But, that this pleading of mine may at last come to a close, and that I may cease to speak, before you cease to listen, as you have done, with profound attention; I will resume my observations on the conservative” party in the state, (whose principle it is, to preserve all that is good, and venerable from its antiquity, in the laws and administration,) and on those stays and buttresses of the constitution who are at the head of that party. I will stir up the youth of my country, and the nobles of the land, to imitate their forefathers; and those among you who have it in their power to attain to high station by genius and virtue I will earnestly exhort to follow that line of con- duct, by which many men without family claims, without rank, or connection, have risen to high office and great repu- * I need scarcely say that I use the term conservative in no invidious or factious sense. Every intelligent reader of Cicero must at once perceive, that, under his definition of Optimatism (if I may be allowed to coin a word where it is much wanted) has at all times comprehended the whole body, without exception, both of Whigs and Tories in Great Britain. PREFACE TO CHCERO. 481 tation. The only way, be assured by me, that leads to praise and honour and dignity, is to earn the commendation and esteem of the good, the wise, and the highly gifted by nature; to make yourselves acquainted with the frame and details of that civil polity which was most wisely established among us by our ancestors, at a period of our history when, refusing to sub- mit to the tyranny of kings, they created annual magistrates, and resolved, at the same time, to have a deliberative body to be a permanent council of state; that the members of that councilshould be chosen into it by the whole body of the people; and that admission to that supreme order of the commonwealth should be accessible to industry and virtue. They appointed the senate as the guardian, the presiding body, the strong tower of the republic: they ordained that all public officers should submit to its authority, and be as it were the executive of this most respected assembly. It was their intention also that the senate should be raised to still higher consideration by the splendour of the orders of the state immediately below it, while the liberties and comforts of the people should be maintained and encreased. “The men who are ever ready manfully to stand forward in defence of these blessings, belong to the conservative party, whatsoever be their rank in the social scale; while those who hold high office, and bear on their shoulders the burden of public affairs, have always been regarded as the leaders of that party,+the originators and preservers of our civil polity. This description of persons have, I admit, many political op- ponents, many private enemies, many envious rivals; many are the dangers that beset them ; many the wrongs and insults they are exposed to ; strenuous are the exertions required of them; severe the toils they must undergo. But what of that?—my discourse is addressed to manly virtue, not to siren Sloth, to self-respect, not to sensual indul- gence; to those who think they were born for their coun- try and their fellow-citizens, for praise, for glory, not for sleep, and feasting, and frivolous amusement. As for those who are seduced by pleasure, and who have given themselves up to the allurements of vice and the pandering of the passions, let all such bid adieu to the honourable labours of office; let 2 H 482 PREFACE TO CICERO. them not profane with their touch the ark of the common- wealth; let them be content to bask in the sunshine of that ease which the toils of worthier men enable them to enjoy. Those to whom the immediate jewel of their souls is a good name among the good, which alone can truly be called glory, let them feel it to be their paramount duty to procure repose and gratification for others, not for themselves. They must earn comforts for the many, by the sweat of their brow; they must incur enmities; they must brave many a storm in the cause of the commonwealth. They must grapple with bold, bad men, and not unfrequently with most influential adversaries. “These are the principles and views which—as we have heard with our ears received by tradition and read in our annals—guided the counsels, and moulded the conduct of our most distinguished characters. Those are not the men that are regarded as praiseworthy who have at any time stirred up the minds of the people to insurrection, or who have dazzled the eyes of the unskilful with profuse bribes, or who have brought into temporary odium brave and distinguished persons that have deserved well of their country. The men of Rome have always regarded such characters as slight, daring, un- principled, and mischievous citizens. Those, on the other hand, who have repelled their assaults, and confounded their devices; who, by the influence of authority, of honour, of firmness and magnanimity, have withstood the designs of reckless villains,—such men have always been looked up to as the respected leaders and guides and advisers of this order; —as the bulwarks that secure the dignity of the common- wealth.” Lord Brougham knows the House of Commons better than most men; yet I cannot persuade myself, in spite of the judg- ment he has recorded, that even he would pronounce a Speech after this fashion to be a thing which the present House “would not bear.” Sure I am, that it would have been, not only listened to but applauded to the echo, in the times of Burke and Sheridan, Fox and Pitt, Wyndham and Canning, —aye, and of Brougham too in his House of Commons days. True, Cicero speaks more about himself and his personal his- tory in the pro Seactio, than would suit the fastidious ears of PREFACE TO CICERO. 483 many a modern audience. But Cicero is not the only ancient that differed from the fashion of modern times, and certainly no man was better entitled to dwell on the events of his own life than Cicero, mixed up as they were with the material of Roman history at one of its most interesting epochs; nor had any one a stronger claim to take for his motto, “sumo super- biam quaesitam meritis.” Accordingly, he could not speak of the various incidents of his eventful life, and particularly of those connected with the history of his banishment, with- out presenting pictures and naratives in which he himself is necessarily the principal figure. There is one other claim of superiority which Lord Brougham puts in for Demosthenes, which I regard as not better founded than the rest. “Where,” asks his Lordship, “in all the orations of Cicero, shall we find any thing like those thick successions of short questions, in which Demosthenes oftentimes forges as it were, with a few rapidly following strokes, the whole massive chain of his argument?” And then he quotes an example of this from what he calls “The Chersonese.” When Lord Brougham made that quotation from the Greek orator, which really con- tains in it nothing very remarkable, could he have forgotten the memorable instance of this beauty (for a beauty we admit it to be, when dexterously and sparingly used) in the speech pro Ligario, which he had so lately alluded to ? or will he not have candour enough to admit, when his attention is drawn to the following example, that it is superior to the Greek, not only in the number of successive queries, which is a minor consideration, but far more in the effectiveness of the inter- rogation, and in the admirable use the pleader makes of it, when, out of pure humanity it would seem, he “checks his thunder in mid-volley,” as if to spare the confusion and blushes of his adversary 2 Tubero, who accused Ligarius of having been in Africa with the remnant of Pompey's party, had himself borne arms against Caesar, at Pharsalia; a fact which Cicero reminds him of, thus: “Quid enim, Tubero, des- trictus ille tuus in acie Pharsalicã gladius agebat? cujus latus ille muero petebat? qui sensus erat armorum tuorum ? quae tua mens? oculi ? manus 2 ardor animi ? quid cupiebas 2 484 PREFACE TO CICERO. quid optabas?—Nimis urgeo: commoveri videtur adolescens: ad me revertar.” Does not this exquisite passage recal to the classical reader, much more vividly than the example quoted or any other from Demosthenes, the description which Virgil gives of Entellus when he pushes his advantage over Dares, in the pugilistic contest (Aen. W. 457.)— “Nunc dextrá ingeminans ictus, nunc ille sinistrá, Nec mora, nec requies: quam multà grandine nimbi Culminibus crepitant, sic densis ictibus heros, Creber utrāque manu pulsat versatque Dareta.” Upon the whole, then, whatever conclusion may be come to, as to the comparative excellence of the closely argumenta- tive and the more diffuse and excursive style of oratory, (for I am unwilling to follow out the general argument against so consummate a master of the oratorical art,) there will, I should conceive, be no difference of opinion upon one point, the ten- dency of the Orations contra Rullum and pro Seactio, to interest, impress, and elevate the minds of youth ; to nourish in them a love of their country, its laws, and its institutions; to awaken in them a fondness for study and a desire of honest fame, ‘that last infirmity of noble minds,’ and to reconcile them, in pursuing it, To scorn delights, and live laborious days. And if this tendency is admitted, it may well be considered as an equivalent for logical acuteness and dexterity of argu- mentation, even supposing, what is very far from the truth, that there were no excellent specimens of both in these Discourses. Why these noble orations should have been omitted in every public course of Ciceronian readings, and speeches far less interesting substituted in their place, can only, I con- ceive, be accounted for by the fact, that the ordinary selections contain those orations which, for some reason or other, were the favourites of the Monks in the middle ages and used by them in their schools. These Pleadings therefore not only had the chance of being better preserved, and with fewer hiatus and corrupt readings in consequence of the multiplica- tion of the manuscript copies, but also were much annotated and commented upon. These facilities tempted subsequent Editors to adhere to the beaten track of the monks. So much for the First Part of this Selection. PREFACE TO CICERO. 485 II. The next set of Extracts is intended to present some touches of the character of Cicero in the various relations of life, as a Man and a Member of Society. The materials for forming a judgment of his character in this respect are more abundant and complete than is the case with any other of the great men of antiquity. For, a collection is preserved of Letters of his, written at every period and in every crisis of his busy, varied, and agitated life, and written without the remotest view to their being made public,+in which he unbosoms to his wife, his children, his brother, and his numerous friends of all shades of political opinion, the inmost feelings of his heart, and the views he took upon almost every subject of human interest. It is from these letters that the enemies of his fame have most ungenerously extracted the poison, with which they point the shafts of ridicule and vituperation, so liberally used in assailing his memory. I say, most ungenerously; for where is the man whose unsifted correspondence,—continued for as long a time upon so large a scale as Cicero's was, with such an endless variety of individuals, and in times so troubled, could be published indiscriminately, without affecting his character more seriously, than the voluminous collection of Cicero's letters affects him, in the estimation of posterity? Foibles and frailties, maculae quas humana parwm cavit natura,_are no doubt to be found by the unfriendly searcher; but they are so few, and withal of so venial and even so amiable a cast, that they inspire his reader with an interest and fellow-feeling, warmer and more cordial than he could have had with the unapproachable faultlessness of a Stoic Philosopher. This, however, is too tempting and too copious a theme to be enlarged on here; I shall only therefore express my belief, that it will be next to impossible for any public teacher, to read with his pupils the Letters of Cicero contained in this volume, without making their task, with the help of a little illustration and commentary, an attractive and delightful OIlê. I have appended to the Select Letters of Cicero, a consider- able number of the younger Pliny's. They will be found amusing and profitable reading, both to young and old, and 486 PREFACE TO CICERC). will derive an additional interest when compared and contrast- ed with those of Cicero. They will be of use also in a gram- matical and philological point of view, as enabling the teacher to point out, and the scholar to trace, the first symptoms of the decline of taste and of the purity of the Latin language, in the silver age of Roman literature. III. As to the Third Part of the Extracts, intended to in- troduce the Student of Humanity to the philosophical writings of Cicero, and to his sect and character as a philosopher, I have selected for this purpose, the first two of what are com- monly known to the English reader as the Five Books of Tusculan Questions, conceiving these two to be, upon the whole, the finest and most unbroken specimens of that com- bination of the utile and dulce in philosophical discussion, which it is most desirable to place in the hands of our youth. The First Book discusses the question, Whether death be an evil. It contains the argument for the immortality of the soul, pushed as far as human reason can carry it, and stated more simply, eloquently, and intelligibly, than has been done, I need not say by any other Roman classic, but, I will ven- ture to affirm, in any work of the Greek Philosophers; while, at the same time, the difficulties and doubts, the “clouds and darkness” that are acknowledged by Cicero to rest upon the subject, demonstrate most forcibly the grand truth, that “Life and Immortality were brought to light by the Gospel.” The Second Book, On the endurance of pain,_De Toler- ando Dolore, appears to me one of the best examples anti- quity has left us of common sense applied to philosophy, and admirably calculated to fortify and brace up the youthful mind to the unflinching performance of arduous duties, and to tempt all who have been entangled in the sophistry and subtleties of the opposite extremes of Epicurus and Zeno, to exclaim with Beattie— “Bless'd be the day I'scaped the wrangling crew, From Pyrrho's maze and Epicurus' stye; And held high converse with the godlike few, Who to the enraptured heart, and ear and eye, Teach Beauty, Virtue, Truth, and Love, and Harmony.” PREFACE TO CICERO. 487 A few words will suffice, to explain the principles that have guided me in giving the text of Cicero as it is found in this volume, and in restricting the number of notes to the smallest possible amount. The Text almost uniformly adhered to, (for I have occasion- ally ventured to differ,) is that of Orelli, whose Edition of Cicero's Works, published at Zurich, (1826–1838) in 10 large volumes 8vo, is now, I believe, generally admitted to be the most accurate and judicious that has ever yet seen the light. This is eminently true in all that regards the settling of the Text. By a few conventional marks, explained at the end of his Preface, and easily remembered, Orelli has condensed within a small compass, not occupying generally above a fourth or fifth part of the page to which the notes are appended, the pith and marrow of the endless and, the greater part of it, useless annotation of the earlier critics and editors. He has felt, though not perhaps so strongly as we are beginning to feel, that the viri celsissimi and eruditissimi,_the Hotomanni, the Ursini, the Verdungi, the rabid Wakefield, and even the Coryphaeus of them all, the “slashing Bentley,'—have passed away for ever. These pioneers of the classics did good service in their day, by extricating with indefatigable industry from widely scattered, imperfect, and perishable manuscripts, the genuine text of the ancient writers, and thus enabling the Art of Printing to place the precious relics beyond the reach of farther accident. But their occupation is gone; the codices manuscript; have been all, with very trifling exceptions, un- earthed, and scrupulously examined and collated; and the scaffolding, by the aid of which the fair edifice of ancient learning was erected, may now be taken down. The writ- ings of the classics can now be put to a better use, than to furnish the subjects of incessant bickerings and wrang- ling among editors. The age we live in is no longer tol- erant of those interminable notes, in which not only all the erudition of the writers, but all the rancour of polemical con- troversy and personal animosity, are embodied. Their device may be found in the Horatian line— Caedimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem. The process which has led to the production of the monster 488 PREFACE TO CICERO , brood of what are called the Variorum Classics, may be thus described:—Some vir doctissimus propounded, centuries ago, a theory as to the right reading and interpretation of a dis- puted passage, and supported it with a long array of quotations, and much shew of Ciceronian argumentation; interlarding the whole with vehement abuse or contemptuous sneering at for- mer commentators, who had taken a view of the passage dif- ferent from his own. This testy note is responded to in a still longer and testier note by a subsequent editor, who sets up a reading of his own, doomed in its turn to be vilified, re- jected, and supplanted by a third; and these three hostile and contradictory notes, with all their self-gratulation and malig- nity, the next editor publishes at full length in his Apparatus Criticus, either giving no opinion himself, and thus leaving the bewildered and impatient reader without rudder or com- pass, or taking refuge in the hackneyed quotation, non nostrum est tantas componere lites; or, at the best, setting up some nostrum of his own, which he begins the defence of, by consigning in good set terms all his predecessors in the same line to everlasting infamy and con- tempt.* This lumber of learning, with all its vituperative epithets, and flowers of rhetoric, Orelli cuts down to its proper dimensions, remanding the substance of it to the bottom of each page of the text. There the final decision of the annotators is given, and either approved of or condemned by the aid of his conventional marks; and that, in half as many lines as the notes themselves had occupied pages. Often, without even deigning to do them this scanty honour, he contents himself with giving a new reading without note or comment, which recommends itself to the reader by its ease and simplicity. And thus, with the help of dexterous punctuation and slight alteration of a doubtful text, the Swiss editor sheds a flood of light on passages, which have been a bone of contention for ages. In- stead, therefore, of tiring the reader with an enumeration of all the arguments for and against particular readings, I have imitated (on a scale indeed infinitesimally small even in the # Examples of this species of Logomachy may be found passim in Wake- field's Lucretius, and Bentley's very clever Notes upon Horace ; of which see an amusing instance in the long note on line 441 of the Ars Poetica. PREFACE TO CICERO. 489 minute portion of Cicero I had to do with) the labour and in- dustry of Orelli, and have in general merely given the results in the Text, passing sub silentio the hours and eye-sight that were expended in the researches that led to them; or, leaving at least whatever of these researches may be worth mention- ing, to be prelected upon in the College Class for whose use they were originally undertaken. The accompanying notulae are short, and few in number, being intended chiefly either to help the student to the interpretation of a difficult passage, or to point out a locus deploratus, where the reading is incurably corrupt, and which no existing codea. manuscriptus can help us to mend. I do not think it fair to the student to admit a reading into the text which is acknow- ledged to be unintelligible, merely because it has MS. autho- rity, and appears in former editions; thus engaging him in fruitless efforts to extract a meaning from words that are not susceptible of any. I have therefore pointed out such passages to the reader, that he may be spared any unnecessary waste of the precious hours, “quae pereunt, et imputantur.” PREFACE TO SELECTIONS FROM CURTIUS, THE works commonly called the LATIN CLASSICs were all composed by men, and mainly intended for adults of their own sex. In the literature of ancient Rome that is now extant, there is nothing that was written expressly for the young, —no author, or class of authors, corresponding to our Bar- baulds, and Edgworths, and Marcets, who wrote books adapted to the earlier stages of the human understanding, with the view of assisting in the development and directing the appli- cation of the youthful faculties. Hence arises the difficulty of finding compositions fit to be read and expounded, in beginning a course of classical train- ing; and hence also the obligation which every conscientious teacher feels himself under, of selecting, as far as he can, what may be at once level to the comprehension, and not inconsis- tent with the purity, of the youthful mind. It is only by so doing that he can avoid the double danger, of tasking the learner's capacity above its might, and of infringing the rule, which no one has so shamefully and gratuitously violated as the poet who expresses it so well, Nil dictu foedum visuve haec limina tangat Intra quae puer est.—Juv, xiv. In modern times, various attempts have been made to Supply a want in ancient literature so generally felt and acknowledged. Such, for example, is Willymot's ‘Century of Maturinus Corderius's Colloquies,’ long familiarly known in Scotland under the name of Cordery. A selection from the Dialogues PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 491 of Erasmus is used for the same purpose in many schools of the Continent. Such also is a little work, which, though less known than either of the above, may justly be regarded as the most successful attempt of them all. It is entitled De Viris Illustribus Urbis Romae a Romulo ad Augustum, and was executed, upwards of seventy years ago, by M. L'Homond, then emeritus professor in the University of Paris. The object of this book, we learn from the preface, is to present the tyro with a series of facts interesting in themselves and important to be known, and to arrange them in a Latin narrative so simple, as not to be without attraction to young minds. And, as there is abundance of such materials in Roman story, nothing, he conceived, is required but a little discretion on the part of the compiler, to direct him to a suit- able selection from Livy, Valerius Maximus, Florus and other historical writers. Traits of heroism, rather than long des— criptions of battles, examples of disinterestedness, of mag- nanimity, of beneficence,—were, he thought, best adapted for stimulating the curiosity of the young, and forming their characters. “The prime difficulty,” he adds, “was to bring down to the level of their understanding, what in the original work is beyond their reach. To succeed, one must study and be familiar with the animus puerilis, and act towards it as the nursery-maid does, who carefully removes out of the child's way, when she is teaching him to walk, every thing that may impede or trip him up. I have, therefore, felt myself con- strained to curtail long and intricate sentences, to derange a little the collocation of the Latin words, and to make, sparingly, such slight alterations as the genius of our language and the slender capacity of the boy seemed to require. The raciness of Latin style may lose something in this process; but that is not what we have to do with in the lowest forms of school: it is enough that the expression be proper and precise, and the Latinity pure. Taste in style will be formed and culti- vated afterwards, when the works themselves of the ancients shall be placed in their hands. A series of detached tableaua, succeeding each other in chronological order, appeared to me preferable to a continuous uninterrupted narrative, if it were only because it affords a resting-place for the eye and the at- 492 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. tention of the learner. It accorded also better with the object I had in view, of working on the model of Cornelius Nepos, taking care, however, to give to my extracts the element of fa- cility and perspicuity, in which that authoris deficient, so that my book should be for the tyro what his is for the advanced student.” But as this little work, with all its merits, does not profess to exclude rigorously all words, phrases, and constructions, that are not found in the authors selected from, there may be doubts whether it would be generally acceptable, were it even better known in this country than it is. There has always been in the public mind, and particularly of late, a strong prejudice, and a very natural and pardonable one, against employing, as the substratum of instruction in schools, any thing but the ipsissima verba of the Classics themselves. Now, it must be admitted, on the grounds stated in the outset of this discourse, that the range of ancient original authors fit to be employed, or actually in use at least, in the initiatory steps of classical education, is extremely limited. In proof of * In translating the above extract, I had before me the identical copy of the tiny volume, (printed at Paris in 24mo, 1788,) which my revered precep- tor, Dr Adam, was in the habit of employing when he dictated to the boys of his class an English passage, of which they were required to write a Latin version under his own eye. I well remember the external appearance of its vellum back, and the longings I felt, when a member of his class in the High School of Edinburgh, to see its interior; having a shrewd suspicion that the Rector was translating vivá voce the Latin that was before him, into the English he dictated to us. The fact that Dr Adam So used it is no small recommendation of the work; and I willingly add any weight there may be in my testimony to its merits, as one of the best books that can be put into the hands of the young Latinist, more especially when a private and domsetic education is preferred to a pub. lic one. In adapting it for the use of classical schools and academies, iſ that were thought of, it would be advisable, as the book contains more matter than is likely to be read in such seminaries, that all, or nearly all, should be omitted except what the compiler sclected and adapted from the text of Livy. We should thus have a book of small dimensions and low price, which, while it attracted the young by interesting anecdotes about the noblest cha- racters of Roman story, would at the same time imbue their memory with the pure Latin phraseology of Livy—so much superior to that of either Nepos or Sallust—without at the same time bewildering them in those long and intricate sentences of his, which are quite beyond the comprehension of a beginner, though, for the advanced pupil, the study of them forms the finest training to mental analysis, PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 493 this statement, it may not be unprofitable to pass in review the series of prose classics, (for with prose we must, or at least we ought to, begin,) which are successively put into the hands of boys, in the earlier stages of our grammar-school discipline. Such a review will not only demonstrate the paucity, or rather the entire absence, of classical works appropriate for early tuition, but it will go far to prove, that of those which are still extant, we have neither made the most judicious selection, nor arranged them in the most natural and profitable sequence. And when it is considered how many thousands of our educa- ted youth are dragged through portions of the authors about to be enumerated, without being apprized of who those authors were, when and where they lived, or anything else concerning them but their names, I may be excused for accompanying the mention of their names with occasional notices of their lives and characters. The prose writers of antiquity, whose works are in use, more or less, in the lower forms of school on both sides of the Tweed, are, Eutropius, Cornelius Nepos, and Caesar; and in some few instances, Phaedrus. I. EUTROPIUS, whose Abridgment of Roman History was at one time extensively in use, and is still employed as a First Book in many of our grammar-schools and academies, need not detain us long. He is by courtesy called a Classic, though he lived as late as the Christian Emperors, and served under Julian (the Apostate, as he is called) in his Asiatic expedition, about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era. It is matter of surprise, no doubt, that he should express him- self with such purity and propriety of Latin diction, consider- ing the period in which he wrote; but still there is an alloy of the brazen age : his Latinity is not that which one would propose as a model for the young humanist. It is, however, not so much the diction of Eutropius that renders him unfit for beginners, as the mature and contents of his work. Its very title, (Breviarium Romanae Historiae,) which seems to have moved teachers to adopt it, ought rather to have warned them against the use of it. So rapid and so meagre an outline of history as Eutropius gives, is altogether devoid of interest 494 PREFACE TO CURTIUS, or attractiveness for boys. Their delight is in graphic and minute details; whereas the book in question is little better than a table of contents. Long and eventful reigns are dis- patched in single short paragraphs, which, presenting no dis- tinct picture, take little hold of a boy's memory. Open the book where you will, the page bristles with proper names, which pass rapidly and unimpressively across the mind. It is the mere dry bones of a skeleton, without muscle, sap, or flavour, and cannot be too soon discharged from the seminaries where, owing either to the early prepossessions and partialities of the teacher, or to the interference of local authorities, it is still permitted to linger. II. The classic which, more generally than Eutropius, is first put into the hands of the learner, after passing through the preliminary processes of flexion, conjugation, and syntax, is the Vitae Eccellentium Imperatorum of CORNELIUS NEPOs. In a book professing to be “The Lives of Illustrious Com- manders,” the tyro is entitled to look for something of similar interest with those favourites of British youth, Southey's Life of Nelson, or Campbell's Lives of British Admirals. Yet so far is this from being the case, that, with one or two excep- tions, and those the most rarely read in school, Nepos's “Lives,” as they have come down to us, are brief, imperfect, abrupt, disjointed, fragmentary sketches, more resembling re- marks or annotations on the lives and characters of certain individuals, or summaries of their transactions, than full, con- tinuous, and interesting biographies. Accordingly, it was maintained by more than one of the eminent scholars who flourished in the century after the invention of printing, among the rest, by Barthius, -that what passes now as the work of Nepos is nothing more than Epitomes of his Vitae. Others, on very plausible grounds, regard them as extracts and fragments pieced together in their present shape, and not without alterations and interpolations of his own, by a certain AEmilius Probus, who lived so late as the emperor Theodosius, in the fourth century of our era. This compilation he dedicates to that emperor in some bad elegiac couplets, from which we learn that he gave it out as his own, and without allusion to PREFACE TO CURTIUs. 495. any other authorship.” From this time it was no more heard of till after the invention of printing, when the Editio princeps was published at Rome, bearing the name of Æmilius Probus as the author, in 1471, and in the numerous impressions that followed for nearly a century after, no doubt was entertained as to this Probus being the author. It was not till 1569, that Dionysius Lambinus started the theory, and gave plausible reasons for believing, that it was the production of Cornelius Nepos, or at least the only part we had of a work which he certainly wrote. This by no means improbable account of the existing text of Cornelius Nepos enables us to explain, not only the abrupt transitions, the ill-woven tissue, and the ap- parent incompleteness of many of the “Lives,” but also the striking contrast between the general Augustan purity of the style, and the strange expressions, the uncouth and almost barbarous phraseology, which now and then occur. For ex- ample, in regard to single words, we have citharizare, and amissus as a noun of the fourth declension, both & Co.: Aeſoueya;f we have impraesentiarum, ea advorsus, ingratiis, Actaei for Attici, trieris for triremis, and other expressions which we look for in vain in Nepos's contemporaries, Cicero and Livy. Again, we find such constructions and forms of speech as, verum est ut,í &c. celare alicut, consensionis globus, (a knot of * Here is a specimen of the elegiacs:– Wade, Liber, nostri fato meliore memento : Cum leget haec Dominus, te sciat esse meum. Sirogat auctorem, paulatim detege nostrum Tunc Domino nomen: me sciat esse Probum. Corpore in hoc manus est genitoris avique meique: Felices dominum quae meruère manus. Wid. SchöELL. Hist, de la Literature Romaine, II, 6. + I use this term, as being the voc (or phrasis) signata employed, univer- sally I believe, in the discussions of modern Critics and Commentators; although the propriety of Greek specch would seem to require Xexeyaeva, or rather perhaps #16% ºvo. # Si verum est, quod nemo dubitat, ut Populus Romanus omnes gentes superárit, (instead of Populum Rom, omnes gentes superásse.) It will not do to quote in justification of this construction, the following passage of Cic. Tusc. III, 29. “Praeclarum illudest, et, si quaeris, rectum quoque et verum, ut eos, qui nobis carissimi esse debeant, aeque ac nosmetipos amemus:” for, to say nothing of the clause (ut eos—amemus) being, not the expression of a 496 PREFACE TO CU RTITS. conspirators,) rursus resacrare, (to free from a curse,)—the latter word being again a 6tto: Meſógeyov, or at least used only once by Plautus, and that in a quite different sense,_Aulul. Iv. 7, 4.—These, and many other words and phrases, which the reader meets with in the midst of a style and diction gen- erally melioris notae, strongly indicate that a later and less able hand has been busy in abridging and garbling the origi- nal work, which by some accident lay hid for more than four centuries after it was written. But an objection still more formidable than any of these, against putting Nepos into the hands of mere beginners, is the difficulty of the Latin style. It is full of idiomatic phrases and allusions to manners and customs altogether different from our own, which makes it a fitter book for the more advanced stages of classical tuition than for the earliest. At Eton, ac- cordingly, Nepos is among the text-books reserved for the Fifth Form, that is, as far as regards the majority of the pupils, the highest form in the school. And it is to be regretted that —in consequence of the incorrect notion which prevails on this side the Tweed that Cornelius Nepos is a book for mere beginners—the Scottish youth who receive a classical educa- tion and are looking forward to a libaral profession, seldom think of reading the longest, the most perfect, the most au- thentic, and by far the most interesting production we have of Cornelius Nepos, -his life of T. Pomponius Atticus. Antiquity has left us few things that deserve more to be made familiar to the thoughts and memories of the young, than the character of that noble Roman. He was the intimate friend and constant correspondent of the great Cicero. Keep- ing aloof from the high honours and offices to which his birth, his talents, and his vast wealth paved an easy way, he devoted the means and facilities which these advantages afforded him, fact, but the enunciation of a maxim implied and wrapt up, as it were in the pronoun illud, and dependent on praeclarum est, it is obvious that verum is not used here to verify a statement or assert a fact, but to affirm the propriety and truth of a doctrine. Cicero's use of it here is the same as Horace's in the line, “ nil Grosphus nisi verum orabit et aequum.”—Bpist. I. 23. A better defence of the construction verum est ut, with which Nepos has been so often reproached, (vid. Proem. to Tzchucke's Edition of Corn. Nepos, pp. 22-23.) will be found in Varro, de Re Rust. I. 2, 26, and in Cic. pro Roscio, c. 40. PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 497 to the cultivation of his own mind and the enjoyments of social and intellectual intercourse, with friends of habits and pursuits congenial with his own. And these friends he was ever ready to entertain with splendid hospitality, to sympathize with in their joys and sorrows, and to assist, as circumstences might require, with advice, consolation, and unbounded munificence. Nepos knew Atticus personally and thoroughly; and the Life he has left of him is the full-length portrait, drawn by a friendly but faithful hand, of a character which surpasses, no less than it differs from, that of the blood-stained warriors, and the selfish and heartless intriguers for political power, who form the staple commodity of Roman history, of all history indeed, whether ancient or modern. It is a character, towards the admiration and imitation of which modern civili- zation is gradually tending, as the art and practice of war be- come more and more discredited ; and examples of which the mild influences of Christianity will contribute to multiply and still farther to exalt and refine, when its pure light shall emerge, as we are permitted to hope it will, from the dense and “sanguine clouds” of bigotry, superstition, and sectarian rancour, which have long obscured, and threaten even now to quench, its lustre.* III. The Classic neart in succession as a book for the Latin training of boys, and, where Eutropius and Nepos are not used, the first that is put into their hands in our grammar- schools and academies, is CAESAR’s GALLIC WAR. To the integrity of the text of that work, the purity of the Latin dic- tion, and the accuracy of the historical details, it is impossible to take any exception. Yet, when we regard it in the light of a school-book for the use of boys from the age of seven or eight to twelve, it not only abours under the disadvantage common to all the classics, of having been composed, not for boys, but for grown men; but, if I may judge from my own * “Fond impious man think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the Orb of Day? To-morrow he repairs the golden flood, And warms the nations with redoubled ray.” GRAY's Bard, ad fin. 2 I 498 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. recollections as a school-boy, as well as from my experience as a teacher, the Commentaries on the Gallic War either fail to create any interest at all in the minds of the young, or if they do, it is an interest not always in the most desirable direction. It is impossible for an intelligent boy to read, with understand- ing, the Gallic campaigns of Julius Caesar, without one of two things happening. Either, on the one hand, he will take part with the brave Gauls, exposed as they were in the homes of their fathers to the hostile and unprovoked aggressions of a merciless conqueror, whose disciplined troops were superior to their adversaries in every thing but valour and devotion to their fatherland and to freedom: or, on the other hand, he will imbibe from his familiarity with the battles and victories of Caesar and the interest he takes in them, an undue admiration of military prowess, and will be dazzled with the pomp and circumstance of war. To minds of the latter class, a soldier's life is invested by the perusal of Caesar with a charm that does not belong to it. A spirit of adventure is engendered, which indisposes to the ordinary pursuits of industry and the every-day work of the world we live in. But, not to attach more importance to this view of the matter than it deserves, (for to some parents this captivating effect may appear an ad- vantage,) one may be permitted to regret, that, owing partly to the nature of the subject, partly to the author's jejune man- ner of treating it, the Gallic War affords few or no opportuni- ties, either in what proceeds from the writer himself, or what may be suggested by natural inference and deduction on the part of the teacher, of presenting to, and impressing upon, the susceptible minds of the young, those maxims of moral conduct and lessons of wisdom and experience, to the inculcat- ing of which every thing a boy reads in school should, more or less, be made subservient. For it is a truth to which the public mind of Great Britain is just beginning to be alive, that the schoolmaster, be his erudition ever so profound, is but a bungler in his craft, who, being wholly intent upon the dis- section of words and the syntax of sentences, overlooks the numerous occasions which a well-ordered course of classical readings presents, of introducing his pupils to a knowledge of nature and an acquaintance with life and manners. He has PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 499 done but half his duty to his pupils, and not the most impor- tant part of it, if he fail to equip them out of the noble and abundant armoury of which he has the key, with weapons and tools, by the help of which, in the struggles of this con- tentious world, they may be able aut invenire sibi viam aut facere. Besides, these Commentaries have no pretension, and in- deed make none, to be considered as the laboured and finished productions of the extraordinary man who penned them. There are marks of negligence and even slovenliness in the composition, which leave on the reader's mind the impression of their being memoranda taken down in the heat and hurry of a campaign, rather than an opus ad unguem redactum in the retirement and leisure of the closet. It was Caesar's own wish, as we learn from the best authority, that his Commen- tarii should be regarded merely as notes and materials for the future historian—memoires pour servir à l'histoire, as they are called by the French, whose literature abounds with such por- ductions. “Commentarios,” says Cicero, (Brut. c. 75,) “quos- dam scripsit (Caesar) rerum Suarum, Valde quidem probandos; nudº enim Sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis, velut veste, detracto. Sed voluit alios habere parata, unde sumerent qui vellent scribere historiam.” Now, the severe and naked simplicity of Caesar's style—the simplea, without the munditiae —is a quality which boys of so tender an age are little able to appreciate or admire; and all the less so, because they are constantly meeting with passages in the Gallic War of great length and much complexity in sense and construction. IV. PHAEDRUs has a claim to be enumerated among the classics that are occasionally used to initiate boys in the prac- tice of construing; and that, chiefly in consequence of Dr Carson, late Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, having published many years ago a selection of Phaedrus's “Fables after the manner of Aesop,” accompanied with a very full and accurate vocabulary. The advantages this volume undoubt- edly possesses as an initiatory book is mainly due to the circumstance, that the fables selected are principally those which have been familiar to us all in our mother tongue, even 500. PREFACE TO CURTIUS. from the nursery. This previous acquaintance has a wondrous effect in smoothing a boy's way through the intricacies and difficulties of the Latin. Were it not for the vantage-ground he is thus placed on, the same objection would lie against the Iambics of Phaedrus, and the stronger because they are Iambics, which was before stated against the phraseology of Nepos, that it is too idiomatic and allusive to be easily appre- hended by beginners. It is singular that an obscurity similar to that which we re- marked as to the Vitae of Nepos, and of which we shall have to mention presently another example, hangs over the Fabulae of Phaedrus. Though the learned are now generally agreed that Phaedrus was a Thracian or Macedonian slave who be- came a freedman of Augustus, as set forth in the title-page of the book, “Phaedri, Augusti liberti, Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque,”—yet, strange to say, not only is this work wholly unnoticed by any author anterior to Avienus in the fourth century of the Christian era,” but Seneca distinctly mentions fabellas et Aesopios Logos, as being intentatum Ro- manis ingeniis opus. Nevertheless, such is the intrinsic evi- dence in the style and phraseology of Phaedrus, which are not unworthy of the Ovidian period, and such the combined force of other arguments which, taken singly, have little weight, that he is now very generally, and it would seem justly, ad- mitted into the number of Latin classics. The title and sub- ject of his book naturally lead one to expect that we shall find in him the very thing stated at the outset as a desideratum in the literature of Rome. But no one who has gone through the whole of the Five Books of Phaedrus's Fables, will enter- tain for a moment the idea that the author meant them for the perusal of the young. The very circumstance of their being composed in verse,_though of a kind the least removed from prose and ranking among the sermoni propiora of Horace,— must necessarily lead to constructions and forms of expression not a little puzzling to a beginner. Notwithstanding, how- * There is an apparent contradiction to the above statement in a line of Martial, (Lib. III. Ep. 20), “An aemulatur improbi jocos Phaedri.” But there is nothing to identify this Phaedrus with the freedman of Augustus. + Seneca, Consolatio ad Polybium, cap. 27. t PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 501 ever, these formidable objections, such is the temptation held out by having short familiar stories clothed in pure and idiomatic Latinity, that a teacher of ordinary judgment will find Dr Carson's little work an important adjunct in the earlier parts of Latin discipline; more particularly as it secures to him the benefit of a selection judiciously made, and accom- panied with a vocabularium of no ordinary merit and value. The very relief which the reading of these extracts will afford amidst the dry prosaic details of Caesar, is a boon to the young by no means to be disregarded: Cosí a l’egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi Di soave licor gli orli del vaso : Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve, E dall'inganno suo vita riceve.* TASSo, Gierusalemme Liberata, C. I. St. 3. SUCH, then, is the meagre assortment of ancient authors, Nepos and Caesar—for Eutropius is not to be tolerated, and Phaedrus is admitted only as an auxiliary—to which the stu- dies of the young Latinist are directed during the first three years of his course. With a stock of intellectual provender so scanty, and of a kind not the most palatable or nutritious for young stomachs, we need not wonder that teachers should have become sensible of the deficiency. Some of them have accordingly bestirred themselves to find out a remedy, and a remedy so contrived as not to depart from the established rule, that boys shall construe nothing but the very words of a classic. In compliance with this rule, various attempts have been made to form a selection from Latin authors of such ex- tracts as may suit the capacities of the young, and introduce them by easy steps to the perusal of a connected series of the classics. These extracts are known as Delectus, Selectae Sen- * Tasso was indebted to Lucretius for the thought conveyed in these exqui- site lines, in which it appears to me that he has not much fallen short of the original. The lines, familiar as they are to every scholar, are worth quoting here — Sic, veluti pueris absinthia tetra medentes Quum dare comantur, prius oras pocula circum Contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore, Ut puerorum aetas improvida ludificetur Labrorum temus ; interea perpotet amarum Absinthi laticem, deceptaque non capiatur, - Sed potius tali facto recreata valescat, Lucret. i. 985, 502 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. tentiae, Selecta Latine,” &c., and one or other of them has been adopted in most of our classical seminaries. One of the best and most frequently used in Scotland is the Edinburgh Aca- demy Delectus. But all of them appear to have been formed upon the very questionable principle, that the shorter the sentences are, the better for the learner. Simplicity of con- struction, and variety of vocables,t seem to be the sole aim of the compiler; and this end is followed out by beginning with the shortest sentences that can be found making a complete sense. The unavoidable consequence of acting on this prin- ciple is, that there is put into the hands of children just emer- ging from the difficulties of declension, and syntax, a string of oracular sayings culled from Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Ovid, Horace, Juvenal, and such authors. They consist generally, either of poetical expressions of natural phenomena, or of apophthegms, moral maxims, acknowledged truths in ethics or metaphysics, directions for conduct in the various relations of life, and sentimental reflections. All these are tersely and beautifully expressed, when addressed to cultivated and ma- tured intellects: but their true import no effort on the part either of the teacher or of the taught can make intelligible to the neophyte. Accordingly, no such effort is made. These sentences, exponents of the collected experience and wisdom of ages, which it requires the observation and reflection of half a lifetime to feel the force and appreciate the value of * A little work, with one of these titles, got up, it appears, by an associ- ation of Scottish schoolmasters, does not belong to the class of books I now speak of, inasmuch as a great part of it consists of extracts in very bald Latinity from a modern translation of the Testament, or an Epitome of Sacred History. It is quite unworthy of the intelligent body of men which has ap- parently given its sanction to this publication. There is one not unlike it in plan and execution called Jectiones Selectae, which, in 1846, had reached the fifteenth edition. How far it deserves the extensive circulation this fact implies, may be judged of from the following specimen.—“Deus odit omnes, qui dicunt mala verba, et faciunt malas acti- ones. Erunt infelices dum vivunt, et, post mortem, expellentur ab eo ad locum tenebrarum. Habebunt nullos alios comites nisi Diabolum et malos spiritus.” † This word, though not found in Johnson's Dictionary, and not acknow- ledged south of the Tweed, is so convenient in philological discussions, that I venture to predict, it will ere long be naturalized in England, as it has long been in Scotland. PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 503 are employed as a medium for verbal analysis, and serve as mere vehicles of examination on parsing, concord, and govern- ment. It is obvious, too, that the sentences are rendered still less intelligible, by being detached from their connection with what goes before and follows, and placed like enunciations of Propositions in Euclid, without demonstration and without corollary. When the boy does make an attempt to compre- hend the sense of what he is reading, his attention is painfully distracted by the multiplicity and diversity of objects that solicit it, which succeed each other like the colours and figures in a shifting kaleidoscope.* * The following examples are taken from an “Introductory Latin Delectus,” professing to be still more elementary than the larger one, (pp. 5 and 6):— “Properat vivere nemo satis.-Non timet is mortem, qui scit contemnere vi- tam.—Fortiorest, qui se, quam qui fortissima vincit oppida.-Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.—Homo doctus in se semper divitias habet.—Umbra terrae, soli officiens, noctem efficit.—Semel emissum volat ir- revocabile verbum.—Sperne voluptates.—Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.—Obsequium amicos, veritas odium, parit.—Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.—Dum vitant stultivitia, in contra- ria currunt.—Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.-In formica non modo sensus, sed etiam mens, ratio, memoria est.”—These are hard morsels for the digestion of boys under the age of ten years, not certainly among the crustwla dealt out to boys by —blandi Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima. A different lesson is taught in “Principles of Elementary Teaching.” But there are many truths, simple enough, which the world is long in learning. It furnishes indeed a melancholy proof how little philosophy is yet infused into the business of elementary teaching, when we find that a man of so acute a mind as the late Dr Andrew Thomson composed, and that schoolmas- ters still teach, his Lessons for Schools. These lessons seem to have been formed (such indeed was the explanation he himself gave me) by picking out from a dictionary or vocabulary the words which he wished the child to learn, and then agglomorating round each of them, according to his own fancy, other words that should exemplify its use and signification. Hence it follows that the sentences have no bond or connection one with another. Horace's picture of incongruities, at the opening of the Ars Poetica, is inge- niously realized — — “velut aegri somnia, Vanae Finguntur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni Reddatur formae.” The following sentences, and exactly in this order, are taken from Part II. p. 5; and of such passages a large portion of both Parts is made up —“Pork is the flesh of swine. Put coals in the grate. My shoes are cheap; they 504 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. As the Delectus proceeds, the extracts increase in length; and, by a sort of hysteron proteron in arrangement, become more easy and intelligible as the reader advances. This is, indeed a natural consequence, when, instead of brief sentences that, to the tyro, have all the obscurity of oracular responses, he is presented with historical anecdotes and short familiar stories.* - In the earlier stages of mental training, the two kinds of reading that are most attractive, because most intelligible, are narrative and description :-narrative, where the story is sim- ply told, and not uninteresting in its details, and where the natural sequence of events keeps curiosity alive and enables it to combat successfully the suggestions of indolence; and de- scription, provided it be expressed, not in technical or scienti- fic terms but, in plain and ordinary language, and be confined to objects which, if not familiar, are at least not entirely removed beyond the sphere of the reader's power of observa- tion: that term being taken to mean the exercise of those senses which nature has provided him with, as the inlets of knowledge. Of both kinds of writing, narrative and descrip- tive, good English examples may be found in the charming little book called “Evenings at Home.” But in the Latin classics, for the reasons already assigned, reading of neither kind can be said to exist. Now, to supply the deficiency in simple narrative, which, in early training, is the greater desi- deratum of the two, a method has been adopted which appears cost no more than half-a-crown. The race-horse is fleet. Will you give me some whey to drink? Those who are good will go to Heaven. Do you know the use of the tongs, the poker, the shovel, and the fender P He is in his twelfth year. The cows graze. There was a chink in the wall. A chime of bells, God will judge the world.”—Can anything be more vexa- tious and baffling to a beginner than to be thus whirled from one subject to another—tossed in a blanket, as it were, between heaven and earth, without knowing where he is to alight 2 The truth is, the effort to follow the sense is so irksome and unavailing, that it is soon given up, and the reading of the lesson is reduced to a purely mechanical process, little better than reading down the columns of a dictionary. * Although, however, the Academy Delectus seems to me but ill adapted for early tuition, the book may be of essential service to the more advanced pupils, by furnishing, in the earlier part, themes for essays in Latin or Eng- lish, in prose or verse, and in the latter, subjects for written exercises, for extempore translation, and for annotation and commentary. PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 505 to me eminently to deserve the attention of teachers. It consists in the use of a little volume which Dr Woodford, late classical master in Madras College, St Andrews, prepared for his pupils. It may be described in one word as a simplifted Caesar. The process of simplification is accomplished by leaving out such clauses as are not essential to the continuity of the narrative. Without altering a single word or phrase, or dislocating the ordo verborum, Dr W. relieves the text from qualifications, conditions, and collateral information contained in the sub- sidiary pendicles of the sentences. Now, these dependent clauses, introduced as they are by relative pronouns, by ad- verbs of time or place, or by ablatives absolute, occur contin- ually and to such an extent in Caesar, that they complicate many a period to such a degree as to distract and bewilder the beginner, until he loses altogether its drift and connection. These bewildering clauses Dr W. dismisses from his text, except where they are indispensable, as may now and then happen, to the understanding of the narrative. Thus it is that the thread of the story is preserved unbroken, and the facts stand out in sufficient relief and detail to interest, with- out puzzling, the most common-place capacity. Even adult scholars, who have read with ordinary attention the earlier portions of the Gallic War, will find that a perusal of Dr W.'s little work has given them a clearer perception than they had before, of the order and connection of the res gestae. His ob- ject is to furnish the young Latinist with a first book, which, without departing a hair's-breadth from the text of the original classic, shall yet be level to every variety of intellect, even the lowest. And in performing the task, he has shewn so much judgment and so intimate an acquaintance with the nature of the young mind, that I have no hesitation in pro- nouncing the book to be, as far as I know and am able to judge, the best means yet devised for initiating the pupil into the practice of construing Latin. It has the additional and important recommendation of being the best possible prepara- tion for what ought to be the next step in the boy's progress, the perusal of the undiminished text of the Gallic War. For, the conscious possession of the leading facts increases the 506 PREFACE TO CURTIUS, desire to know all the details, and greatly facilitates its grati- fication. Thus, without having recourse either to modern Latin com- positions,—to the meagre outline and questionable Latinity of Eutropius, to the difficult idiomatic phraseology and unsatis- factory biographies of Cornelius Nepos, or, finally, to the quaint and racy iambics of Phaedrus except as a sort of hors d'oeuvre, we have, in Dr W.’s Epitome, employment in every way suited for the beginner, simple and interesting in the first steps, and those steps paving the way and making the transi– tion easy to the more difficult; and amply sufficient, along with the constant iteration of the Grammar and the regular use of Turner's Grammatical Exercises, to fill up profitably, and imbue with the purest Latinity, the first two years of a boy's classical education, and, with the aid of Phaedrus, a considerable part also of the third. During the last year of this triennial course, it may be possible, in favourable cir- cumstances, to introduce the learner to Ovid, the easiest and not the least delightful of ancient poets. This might be done by reading and prelecting upon select portions, either of his Elegiac couplets, and of that measure he is the master and model,-or of the Metamorphoses. Such readings, while they would please the fancy and enlarge the vocabulary of the pu- pil, might enable the teacher at the same time to carry him over the elementary steps in prosody. HAVING thus disposed of the earlier parts of Latin educa- tion, let us consider what is to come next. The universal rule and practice in our public schools and academies is, that the Catilinarian or Jugurthine War of SALLUST shall succeed the Gallic War of CAESAR. And if nothing better could be done, if no intermediate classic could be found to facilitate the tran- sition from the lucid simplicity of Caesar to the affected arch- aisms and sententious brevity of Sallust, his sententiae ampu- tatae, et verba ante easpectatum cadentia,” we should only have to submit to it as a necessary result of the fact stated at the outset of this discussion,-that the requirements and progres- sive development of the youthful faculties were objects never * Seneca's words; and applied by him to Sallust. PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 507 contemplated in any work of the ancients now extant. But there is, I conceive, a classic, hitherto unaccountably over- looked, whose work might with ēminent advantage precede, or, if thought fit, accompany, the use of Sallust as a text-book —I mean the History of the Exploits of Alexander the Great, by QUINTUS CURTIUS RUFUs. Before speaking of the merits or demerits of this work, and its fitness to be used as a school-book, let me request my reader to think for a moment of the interest of the subject, as compared with that of any of the works hitherto named, and of the influence it is likely to exert in captivating and im- proving the youthful mind. The hero of the tale is a man whose life was chequered by the brightest lights and darkest shades of human character. Instead of a stern conqueror, like Caesar, who seems never to have felt, who never at least be- trays, the slightest emotion of pity, compunction, or even com- mon humanity, towards the victims of his unprovoked aggres- sion,--we have, in Alexander, a prince, who had an apology for his hostilities in the insults and injuries which the Persian monarchs had repeatedly inflicted upon the Greeks,—who made his career of conquest like the triumphal progress of a beneficent and civilizing potentate; founding cities; improv- ing the condition of his new subjects; commanding their ad- miration by numberless deeds of gallantry, noble daring, and princely generosity; gaining their affections by the most de- licate and chivalrous attentions to the family of their former king, and the most earnest solicitude for the safety and the honour of every female captive; exhibiting, in short, on every occasion, in the early part of his brief but eventful career, a conduct and character, the delineation of which is well calcu- lated to plant in youthful breasts many a generous wish and virtuous resolution, and to “inform their whole thoughts with nobleness.” On the other hand,-from the extravagancies and enormities into which even such a man, was betrayed in the latter and shorter period of his life, by an uninterrupted and unexampled course of prosperity and the corrupting in- fluences of an enervating climate and Asiatic luxury, there may be drawn lessons and admonitions, which a judicious and high-principled teacher will find it easy to make most influen- 508 PREFACE TO CURTIUS, tial for good, in the formation of character. And these les- sons, whether tending to exhort or to deter, are not left, in the work of Curtius, to be deduced or extracted from the narrative by the teacher. They are placed in prominent relief by the author himself, and that too with a frequency and fulness which, though far from being trite, obtrusive, or wearisome, have yet been imputed to him as a fault by the purists in his- torical composition. But even if this charge of moralizing more than the strict canon of criticism requires were admitted to have some foundation, the practice nevertheless would be eminently advantageous, in a book intended for the perusal of the young; more especially as the aphorisms and moral con- clusions from the course of events are drawn by Curtius with a propriety of inference, a rectitude of judgment, and a cor- rectness of moral perception, that would do honour to a Chris- tian philosopher. They are conveyed, too, in a way to sink deep into the hearts and memories of youth, as precepts are always most likely to do when they are recommended and en- forced by present examples. Objections have been taken by hypercritics as to the purity of his style and diction, on the plea of some half-dozen words, or uses of words, which are not deemed of high classical authority. But these objections are either frivolous, or founded on accidental interpolation. In general, the Latinity of Curtius is both elegant and simple. His style is no doubt occasionally ornate, rhetorical, and de- clamatory, and chargeable with a gaudy and unnecessary minuteness of descriptive detail. But “even his failings lean to virtue's side;” for how much soever such minutiae and poetical embellishments may offend the fastidiousness of learned taste, they make a deep and agreeable impression on the minds of the young. Curtius, it is true, is guilty of such atrocities as confounding Caucasus and the Tanais with Paropamisus and the Taxartes, —the town of Celaenae with Apamea Cibotos, and (proh pudor /) of sending the stream Acesines into the Ganges, in- stead of making it a tributary of the Indus, with “twenty mortal murders on his crown” of a similar description It is not wonderful that a work in which enormities so appalling are committed, should have been proscribed by the martinets PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 509 in classical discipline. But I cannot see with what reason Cur- tius, dealing with times and countries so remote, should have been excluded from our classical seminaries for a few sins in the matter of the when and the where, while Xenophon, whose geographical and chronological blunders in the Cyropaedia are still more extravagant, should escape with impunity, and be, as he well deserves to be, a universal favourite. The Hyr- cani, the Cadusii, and the Sacae, were tribes which all ancient authorities place, the two former on the Caspian, the latter conterminous with the Dahae and Massagètae in the remotest north-east corner of Asia; yet Xenophon leaves us to con- clude that they are all three situated to the west of the Eu- phrates Again, in assigning the boundaries of the vast empire of Cyrus, he sets all geographical exactness at defiance. To the North, he gives no boundary but the Euxine; to the East, the Erythrean Sea; to the South, Ethiopia; and to the West, Egypt and the Isle of Cyprus / as if one should say that Tuscany is bounded to the west by the island of Corsica. Such is a specimen of Xenophon's blunders in Geography.— In regard to what has been called the other Eye of History, Chronology, it is true that Curtius is occasionally at fault, and that, generally speaking, his dates are neither very frequent, nor always very precise; but, notwithstanding, it would be difficult to convict him of such anachronisms as Xenophon has committed when he makes a mistake of twenty years in the date of the taking of Sardes, and of twenty-eight in that of Babylon.* Yet I doubt whether most of my readers ever be- fore heard of such charges against the Attic Bee; and fewer still will think that the fact of their being well founded is any reason for refusing to our studious youth the enjoyment of its honeyed sweets,t * Wide Xen. Cyrop. Lib. VIII. cap. 8. † For an illustration of Xenophon's palpable errors in geography and chronology, which it is equally difficult to account for, whether we suppose the author meant the Cyropaedia to be a genuine history or a historical ro- mance, see Nouvelles Observations sur la Cyropédie, par Sainte Croix, in- serted in the first vol. of Schneider's excellent edition of Xenophon's Works, in 5 vols. 8vo, Leipsic, 1815–It will be sufficient to justify what I have said in the Text, to quote two sentences from this very learned Discourse — “Xenophon s'est donné à l'égard de la position de plusieurs peuples une liberté qu'on aurait peine à Souffrir dams une poème épique.”—“Les limites 510 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. * In fine, let it be granted that Curtius is confused and in- correct in his geography and in his chronology; that his des- criptions of battles betray an imperfect acquaintance with the art of war, and are sometimes not more intelligible than Livy's account of the battle of Cannae; and that some of his facts appear to have been derived from sources to us unknown, and less authentic, perhaps, than the prosaic details of Arrian,—it by no means follows that we are to exclude our youth from the pleasure and profit they cannot fail to derive from a well-direct- ed perusal of his history. To do so, would scarcely be less absurd than if, upon the plea that Télémaque is a fictitious narrative, we were to debar the young student of French from that storehouse of moral and political wisdom, so full of the mitis sapientia of Fénélon, and in its stead, to engage him in the dull realities and disgusting atrocities of the League and the Fronde. Those who take offence at the inconsisten- cies and inaccuracies of Curtius, his imperfect acquaintance with military tactics, and his blunders in time, place, and cir- cumstance, may have recourse to the learned works of Bishop Thirlwall, Archdeacon Williams, and above all, to M. de Sainte Croix's Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens d’Alexandre-le-Grand: but let them leave us, for the instruc- tion of our youth, the fine morality, the sage maxims and pregnant reflections, the beautiful estimate of character, the vivid pictures of life and manners, which abound in his work, —to say nothing of the felicitous choice of his subject:-by all of which they will be put in the way of learning to be gentlemen as well as Scholars; and that too, without any ap- preciable damage either to the extent or accuracy of their geographical and historical knowledge. The fate of Curtius as an author, since the revival of letters, has been a singularly hard one. Like almost all the ancient writers, he was so little of an egotist that in the course of a long work he has dropt no hint of his personal history. He que donne Xénophon à l'empire de Cyrus, demontreront au plus incrédule combien cet écrivrin a neglige l'exactitude géographique.” And Fréret, one of the ablest and most acute of French critics, has proved (Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom. vii.) “que Xénophon a fait un Anachro- nisme de vingt-six ans sur la prise de Sardes, et un de wingt-huit sur celle de , Babylone.” PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 511 makes allusion, indeed, to the times in which he lived, in two passages; but they are of so general a kind, that scarcely two writers are agreed as to the epoch or emperor to which they refer. His name even has not been mentioned by any ancient writer now extant, in such a way at least as to prove that it belongs to the historian of Alexander. Thus it happens, that by some critics he has been thrust down to the times of the later empire, even so low as those of Constantine the Great, in the first half of the fourth century, and by others proscribed as a supposititious modern. Some again with more shew of reason assign him to the reign of Claudius, A.D. 54, or to that of Vespasian, A.D. 69; others to the time of Augustus him- self. More recently, he has found in one of his latest editors and ablest commentators, Schmieder, whose edition bears the date of 1803,-not the indulgent proneur of his author, as editors generally are, and often to an extravagant pitch of admiration and praise, but a crabbed, ill-natured critic, who omits no opportunity of exposing and dwelling upon what he deems his author's inaccuracies. He is ever ready to repri- mand Curtius for his errors in Geography, which are great, doubtless, but excusable enough ;-in Narrative, whenever it differs from Arrian's;–and in Diction, when it does not come up to his own standard of correctness and purity. Lemaire too, in the very handsome and amply annotated edition of Curtius which forms part of his Biblioteque Classique Latine, (Paris, 1822,) is not more lenient in his judgment, taking the tone of vituperation and harshness, it would appear, from his immediate predecessor. Very different, however, was the estimate formed of the merits of Curtius by the illustrious scholars who flourished during the two centuries that followed the revival of learning and the invention of printing. A long array of their opinions of Curtius is prefixed to Snakenburg's copious and excellent edition (Leyden, 1724). It will not be deemed foreign to the subject of this discourse, to quote a few of these testimonia veterum. Erasmus, the most tasteful and Ciceronian of modern writers of Latin prose, speaks of our author thus:–“Curtium itineris ac navigationis comitem adjunxi, qui mihi olim puero mire candidus actersus est visus: nec alius sane visus est ex 512 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. tanto regustatus intervallo. Dolet, auctorem lectu dignissimum &xépa)\ow nobis superesse:”—alluding, in the latter clause, to the loss of the first two books. Lipsius, no mean authority, testifies in his favour as follows: “Curtius, me judice, probus est legitimusque Historicus, si quisquam fuit ; et assidue Principibus in manu sinuque habendus. Mira in sermone ejus facilitas, in narrationibus lepos; adstrictus idem ac pro- fluens : subtilis et clarus ; verus in judiciis, in orationibus supra quam dixerim facundus.” Casaubon calls his work “Historia elegantissime scripta.” J. F. Gronovius says: “Curtius, uberrimae et suavitatis et prudentiae historicus.” Bernartius, in recommending a course of training for the young, expresses himself thus: “Caesari comitem do Q. Curtium, quem adeo inter selectos recensere non dubito, ut inter optimos locum illi fidenter tribuam :” And, in one of his notes upon Statius, (Theb. x. 487.) he calls him historicorum ocellus. Snakenburg himself, in his preface, speaks of him thus : “Semper inter bonos cultae antiquitatis scriptores mihi ver- satus fuit Curtius.” And let it not be imagined that the severity of Schmieder's verdict is the result of the new lights of modern philology or antiquarian research. HEEREN, one of the latest and bright- est lights of German Philosophy and Criticism, in speaking of his youthful studies, says: “Cornelius Nepos I found a great plague, but Q. Curtius was my darling.” Professor Zumpt of Berlin, whose literary labours have made his name familiar in Great Britain to every student of the Classics, one might almost say to every schoolboy, was in the habit of employing as a class-book, for more than thirty years, the elegantissimum opus, as he calls it, of Curtius. In 1826, he published an amended text of his favourite author in a modest 8vo. of 400 pp., announcing it as the precursor of a larger edition, with a full complement of commentary and apparatus criticus, on which he has been working ever since. There is prefixed to this volume of Zumpt a Latin discourse, which is so excellent in itself, and so germain to my purpose in recommending the use of Curtius to the Burgh and Paro- chial Schools of Scotland, and to the Classical Institutions and Academies of the empire, that I deem no apology neces- PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 513 sary for borrowing from a composition little known and less read ºn this country, some remarks which throw light both on points already touched upon, and on others that may be new to my readers. After a brief and interesting account of the labours of preceding editors, from the Editio princeps, printed at Venice in 1471, down to that of Schmieder in 1803,-Zumpt enumerates the superior advantages he had himself enjoyed for detecting interpolations, and re-adjusting the text. He then enters at some length upon the vea'ata quaestio as to the age in which Curtius lived. The whole question is generally made to turn on the consideration of two passages of the origi- nal, in which the historian is thought to have given a clue to the age he lived in.* The one Zumpt very properly dismis- ses as too vague to lead to any legitimate conclusion; and with regard to the other, he says: “I find nothing in it which may not be applied to Augustus, and some things that can refer only to him. I am particularly struck with the use of the word invidia, an appropriate term after the recent establish- ment of an absolute monarchy, and indicating a feeling not unlikely to disturb the succession or bring back the republic, but inapplicable to the long-accustomed bondage of an old despotism.” Again, in the clause, “‘Wherefore the Roman people justly and deservedly acknowledge that they owe their preservation to their prince, there is a tribute of temperate praise altogether different from the servile adulation of a later age. And this tribute, in the case of the first Roman emperor, was suggested as well as justified by the fact, that the title of Princeps in its imperial sense was itself then a novelty; and that it was not till he assumed it that Octavianus, laying aside * The passages are as follows:—Multis ergo casibus defuncta et post ex- cidium remata (Tyros), nunc tamen, longá pace cuncta refovente, sub tutelä Romanae mansuetudinis acquiescit.—Curt. IV. 19. Jure meritoque Populus Romanus salutem se princip; suo debere profitetur, qui noctis, quam paene supremam, habuimus, novum Sidus illuxit. Hujus, hercule ! non solis, ortus lucem caliganti reddidit mundo, cum sine suo capite discordia membra trepidarent. Quot ille tum extinxit faces ! Quot condidit gladios Quantam tempestatem subita Serenitate discussit ! Non ergo re- virescit solilm, sedetiam floret, imperium. Absit modó invidia, excipiet hujus seculi tempora ejusdem domâs, utinam perpetua, certe diuturna posteritas.- Lib. x. C. 28. 2 K 514 PREFACE TO CURTIUS. a name which called to mind the atrocities of his early career, began to place his highest glory in rescuing the people from the miseries of civil war, and securing, over the whole Roman world, a state of permanent tranquillity. In conformity with this idea, we have such inscriptions as the following on the coins and medals of Augustus that remain : “‘Salus generis humani,” “Parenti Conservatori suo S.P. Q.R.,’ &c. (vid. Eckhel Doctrina Numm. Wet. VI. 108.) By the use of the word noctis in the clause that follows, Curtius may be thought to have had in view the diminished splendour of the sun, and the gloom and darkness which brooded over the earth during the year of Caesar's assassination. The fact Virgil alludes to in Georg. I. 466 :- [Sol] etiam exstincto miseratus Caesare Roman, ; Quum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, Impiaque aeternam timuerunt secula noctem. Tibullus makes a similar allusion, in II. 5. 75. Ipsum etiam solem defectum lumine widit Jungere pallentes nubilus annus equos. And Ovid, Met. xv. 785: Phoebi quoque tristis imago Lurida solicitis praebebat lumina terris. Zumpt subsequently adds, “I see nothing to prevent us from concluding, in accordance with F. A. Wolf, and several eminent scholars, that Quintus Curtius Rufus, author of the History of Alexander the Great, is identical with the Rhetori- cian of that name, of whom Suetonius wrote a Life which has not come down to us, but whose name appears in the catalogue he gives of men distinguished as professors of eloquence. In that catalogue, the name of Curtius Rufus occurs between that of M. Porcius Latro, who died two years B.C., in the 55th year of his age, and L. Valerius Bimanus. The mould in which the style and manner of the work of Curtius are cast, appears to me not inconsistent with the profession and age of the rhetorician so named by Suetonius. It is easy, for ex- ample, to see that the writer was particularly fond of adorning his narrative with speeches and public harangues; and those speeches are marked with a degree of power and effectiveness, than which scarcely any thing in that species of writing ap- PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 515 pears to me more excellent: and not to me only does it so ap- pear, but to Lipsius also, and Perizonius, the latter of whom calls them disertissimas, and the former supra quam dicere possis facundas. The last sentence of the passage quoted above from Book X. of Curtius is thought, with great pro- bability, to refer to the two grandsons of Augustus, Gaius and Lucius, which would fix the date of the composition to be be- fore the year of the city 855; for that was the year of their death. As to the elegance of Curtius's style, so much has it been admired by our forefathers, (I do not mean the common herd of literati, who extol to the skies whatever bears the stamp of antiquity, but men of the highest place in literature,) that they have judged it not greatly inferior to the perfection of Cicero himself. The peculiarities by which we trace the incipient degeneracy of the Latin language, such as poetical diction introduced into prose, the force of certain particles over- looked or distorted, the less precise and accurate employment of moods and tenses, the ambition of expressing every thing pointedly and strikingly, and a certain counterfeit semblance of brevity betraying itself in the omission of the particles that connect discourse and of the forms of the substantive verb:- of all these, in forming a general estimate of Curtius, one will not so much detect quotable instances, as receive an impres– sion in perusing him, that the period of such degeneracy is not far distant. To this head belong perhaps the occasional omission in Curtius of the prepositions in and ab, the use of poetical words, such as juventa and saevus,” and other pecu- liarities which, being still slighter departures from absolute propriety, are more easily felt than described in words. He is apt to touch his descriptions of places and countries with poetical colouring; but when he returns to the narrative, he resumes the ancient simplicity and perspicuity of his diction. And I may remark, that these qualities particularly distinguish the portraiture he draws of the character of Alexander him- * It must, however, be observed, in mitigation of this criticism of Zumpt lenient as it is, that both these words, juventa and saevus, are found in writers of the very highest authority: we find juventa in Livy, B. VI. 8, and xxxv. cap. 42, et alibi; and saevus, in XXVIII. 18: and the latter word occurs re- peatedly in Cicero, as in Att. B. v. ep. 12; Rep. Frag. II. p. 213, Mos. edit. 516 PREFACE TO CURTIUS, self; a topic which any of the writers pejoris aevi would doubt- less have handled in a style of more ambitious display and ingenious pretension.” With such weight of modern authority and of intrinsic ex- cellence in favour of Curtius; recommended as his work is by the unity and interest of the subject, and by the all but Augustan purity of his idiom and phraseology; abounding with orations delivered on appropriate occasions, which are scarcely inferior to those we are accustomed to admire in Livy and Thucydides; distinguished by a tone of moral purity equal to any, and superior to most, of the Roman writers; and the whole conveyed in a style intermediate between the obscure brevity of Sallust, and the intricate, long-winded periods of Livy;-one may well wonder how it should have happened, that the historical work of Curtius was never, so far as I am aware, employed as a text-book in school or col- lege on this (I believe I may say on either) side of the Tweed, up to the time, now more than forty years ago, when I adopt- ed it as part of the course of study in the Rector's Class of the High School of Edinburgh. After what has been said as to the comparative facility there is in construing and understanding this classic, its in- troduction into the business of the highest form of the metro- politan Grammar-School of Scotland, may seem to require a few words of explanation. And that explanation, at the risk of being charged with egotism, I am tempted to make, be- cause it gives me an occasion of briefly noticing—what I have already had an opportunity of adverting to—a method and practice which, if generally adopted, could scarcely fail to exert a very beneficial influence on the educational training of the upper classes of society. Conceiving Curtius to be an appropriate author for the fourth year of High School study, rather than for the fifth and sixth, which fall to the Rector's charge, I did not incor- porate the reading of his work into the regular daily business of the class, but reserved the preparation and examination upon it for those boys who, finding the daily tasks which were apportioned to the average ability of the pupils not suffi- cient to occupy their whole time, were able and willing to en- PREFACE TO CURTIUS. 517 gage in a course of voluntary readings, in addition to the ordinary lessons. The conditions attached to such readings were, that they should be prosecuted in private, recorded in a journal of work done, the difficulties found to be insurmount- able registered, and the whole examined upon in the class- room at certain intervals of time. The experience of many years in the High School convinced me of the utility of the practice I had introduced. Its ad- vantages were these:–It presented an object which seldom failed to interest the finer and more ambitious spirits of the class; it imbued them with a love of encountering and con- quering difficulties; it filled them with an honest pride in per- forming the self-imposed task; and it animatcd them with a generous emulation, which ran less risk than in any other part of the business, of being alloyed with envy. It not only increased greatly their familiarity with the language, but con- ferred the still more valuable boon of reconciling them to labour by making the labour itself a pleasure; and finally, it taught them the value of time and the art of husbanding every fragment of it. Accordingly, when removed from the High School to the University in 1820, I carried with me into the Humanity Classes, what was equally a novelty there, the practice of prescribing PRIVATE STUDIES; adopting, in the Junior Class, the selections from Curtius which are now pub- lished, but of which several class editions had from time to time been printed for the use of my pupils. I found the Junior Humanity Class in College more advanced in age than the Rector's was in the seminary I had left: but, owing to the want of means and the imperfect discipline of the schools from which a large proportion of the students came, the former were less acquainted with the principles of the Latin tongue, and less familiar with any of its writers, than the latter. And as the difference between the best scholars and the worst was even more marked in College than in the High School, the same good results followed in the University, and even to a greater extent, from the adoption of the system of private studies. In order, however, to Secure any considerable amount of voluntary exertion in this most salutary direction, it would scarcely have sufficed to hold out the ordinary incentives of 518 PREFACE TO CURTIUS, honour, character, and public prizes to be gained, had I not been able at the same time to prescribe, for the voluntary task, a course of private reading neither discouraging from its difficulty nor devoid of interest and amusement in its details. These conditions I found amply fulfilled, as the reader may conclude from what has been already said, in the account which Curtius gives of the Eastern Expedition of Alexander the Great. Accordingly, in order to create, and to sustain throughout, the interest which naturally attaches to the history of Alexan- der, there was prefixed an introductory Narrative in English, followed up with the entire Text of the first three books ex- tant of Curtius, viz. the Third, Fourth, and Fifth, with Ex- tracts from the remaining five so ample as to comprise, in full detail, the most remarkable passages in the life of the Mace- donian hero.” * Thc substitute for the lost books of Curtius is extracted from Bishop Thirwall's History of Greece. The last ten pages of the Preface to Eclogae Curtianae (2d Ed. 1850), are omitted here, as of less interest than the preceding, to the general reader. PREFACE TO THE SELECTIONS FROM LIWY. AMONG the prose writers who flourished in the golden age of Roman literature, LIVY is the most difficult for the youthful student fully to comprehend. There are two main sources of this difficulty. The first arises from that author's frequent allusions to manners and customs, habits and practices, which had grown up from generation to generation among the people whose history he wrote, and were interwoven with the very frame and tissue of Roman society in his own time. Now, these traditionary characteristics of the public and private life of the Romans, differing, as they did, very widely from the corresponding features of modern society, Livy seldom thinks of explaining or accounting for. His mind being possessed with the belief that Rome and all her institutions were to be eternal, he deemed it unnecessary to dwell on matters that were then, and could not fail to be in time coming, familiar to all the world. The second source of difficulty to the student, is the fre- quent recurrence of long and intricate sentences. In these the leading proposition, which, denuded of its adjuncts, rarely consists of more than three words, is variously compounded, modified, extended, or restricted, by the insertion, between the subject and the predicate, of subordinate propositions which themselves include subsidiary and qualifying clauses; and the result is an entire period resembling a piece of com- posite machinery, in which the multiplied and mutually de- pendent movements are all subservient to one common end. These difficulties, however, are by no means of a kind to deter the ardent and ingenious youth, or to discourage the ju- 520 PREFACE TO LIWY. dicious teacher. They do not spring, as is frequently the case with the difficulties in Tacitus, from quaint peculiarities of diction, affected archaisms, unusual constructions, or pro- found philosophical reflections condensed into obscurity;-for what can be more pure, simple, and flowing, than the “ lactea wbertas' of Livy’—such long periods are with him the natural expression of thought in a mind full of its subject and delight- ing rather to embody its thoughts in the voluminous and graceful folds of a majestic language, and to expatiate therein, than to break them down into the sententiolae vibrantes, which occur so frequently in the writings of Sallust and Seneca. The difficulties of both kinds render Livy almost a sealed book to the indolent, the unambitious, and the incurably sto- lid; but on the patient and industrious student their effect is to rouse him to exertion, and engage him in exercises of mind alike interesting and profitable. The obstacles in his way, of the first kind, he surmounts by studying, with the help of ADAM and SMITH,” the laws and peculiar usages of Rome; and thus he becomes familiar with subjects, the knowledge of which is not only an indispensable part of classical scholarship, but cannot fail to prove useful alike to the statesman, the man of business, and the man of the world. * As to the difficulties that occur in the extrication, analysis, and comprehension of long and involved sentences, they will be found a very effectual means of training the youthful facul- ties to those habits of intellectual exercise which come most into play in the business of life and its keen competitions,— untiring perseverance, sustained attention, nice discrimination, logical precision, minute accuracy in details combined with a power of mastering, and taking in at one view, all the bear- ings of a complicated question. To grapple successfully with one of these many-sided periods of Livy, decked out in all its beauty and bravery with a full complement of dependent clauses, is one of the best preparatives for attaining general accomplishment as well as professional eminence. * Dr Adam's, or Professor Ramsay's, Roman Antiquities and Dr William Smith's two Dictionaries; the one of Greek and Roman Antiquities and the other of Biography and Mythology. PREFACE TO LIVY, 52ſ These views may be rendered more intelligible, and the student assisted in threading his way through the involved periods that abound in Livy, by setting before him an ex- ample of a sentence constructed in the manner above described. In Book XXII. c. 3, we are told that Hannibal, being apprized of the fiery and impatient character of Flaminius, the Roman commander and consul, and being anxious to bring on an en- gagement, kept ravaging the rich country round the Thrasy- mene Lake, in order to provoke his hot-headed antagonist to give him battle. The result is thus stated:— “Flaminius, qui ne quieto quidem hoste ipse quieturus erat, tum vero, postguam res sociorum ante oculos prope Suos ferri agique widit, suum id dedecus ratus, per mediam jain Italiam vagari Poenum, atque, obsistente nullo, ad ipsa Romana moenia ire oppugnanda; ceteris om- nibus in consilio salutaria magis quam speciosa suadentibus, collegam exspectandum, ut conjunctis exercitibus, communi animo consilioque rem gererent, interim equitatu auxiliisque levium armorum ab effusa praedandi licentia hostem cohibendum,_iratus se ex consilio proripuit, signumque simul itineris pugnaeque proposuit.” The subject of this sentence is announced in the very out- to be Flaminius ; but the predicate, the verb that is to con- vey the main proposition which the writer had in view in the construction of the period, is precisely the last word, as the subject is the first, in a sentence composed of no fewer than eighty-five words.” Flaminius pugnae signum proposuit, “Flaminius displayed the signal for battle,” is the leading proposition, the simple grammatical enunciation, the key-stone that locks the arch of the sentence. But there were peculiar circumstances in the character of the consul, and in the state of affairs both in the immediate neigh- bourhood and within his own camp, which hurried Flaminius on to the fatal act; and the historian, regarding these as the * There are at the close, grammatically speaking, two principal verbs, proripwit and proposuit; but the former in the narrative is quite subordinate, and might have been expressed by the participle proripiens leaving out the que attached to signum. A sentence of 74 words, in which there is but one main verb, occurs in Lib. XXV. c. 24: Epicydes convertit agnen are the three terms, and constitute the simple proposition. The first sentence of the Sixth Book is also an excellent example of the same kind, as will be seen in the Note on p. 521 in the Appendix. 522 tº REFACE TO LIVY. predisposing causes of the measure adopted, throws them in between the noun and the verb, and thus contrives to put the reader at once in possession of the different steps of the process by which the consul was impelled to his rash and ruinous re- Solution. Let us attend to these circumstances more closely. First of all, to the name of Flaminius is appended a relative clause, explanatory of the restlessness of his disposition, which would have made it difficult for him to abstain from action even had the enemy remained quiet, but which, now that he saw them employed almost before his eyes in laying waste the property of his allies, made him think it a disgrace and personal affront, that the Carthaginians should be allowed to wander at will through the centre of Italy, and advance un- molested to the very bulwarks of Rome. Then comes a clause intimating that, while he is in this frame of mind, a council of war was held, the members of which were unanimously of opinion that he should wait the arrival of his colleague, in order that both consuls might act in concert with united for- ces; and that he should content himself in the mean time with repressing the ravages of the enemy: but, in the present humour of the Consul, we are not surprised to hear that in a rage he broke up the council, and gave the signal to engage. Now, it is quite possible to break down this aggregation of thought into a series of unconnected propositions, and so, doubtless, it would have been treated by Sallust or Tacitus. Nor does Livy often indulge in periods of such extraordinary length and involution: a strong case has been chosen to show the manner of the author. But the intelligent reader will, I think, be satisfied, that if the sentence quoted were taken to pieces and reconstructed after the Sallustian fashion, the mutual dependency of the various parts of the narrative, and the relative importance of the different causes, could neither be so clearly perceived, nor so fully appreciated. One thing at least I can speak to from personal and long-remembered experience, both as a student and a teacher of the Classics, that there is much more pleasure, and much more improvement too, in conquering the difficulties of such a passage as this, and grasping the whole in one intuitus mentis, than in puzzling over the docked little sentences of Sallust and Tacitus, hunt- PREFACE TO LIVY. 523 ing after some peculiar use of a common term, or conjecturing what is understood and requires to be supplied in an elliptical expression, and having at last the mortification to find oneself baffled by anything so short, and apparently so simple. Though, to a person moderately well acquainted with the Latin language, there is no obscurity in the sentence quoted, yet were he to attempt to translate it, I do not say literally, (for that must necessarily be intolerable,) but with any degree of freedom he pleased, burdened however with the condition, that there should be, as in the original, one main affirmation only, and all the rest be managed by subsidiary and relative clauses, he would find the English language break down under him : no single proposition could, in our language, bear such a load of adjuncts without producing a period, which no Eng- lishman could endure to read. In such a case, we have no resource but either to resolve the passage into separate sen- tences, or, if we insist on preserving it as one, to compose it of several distinct members, connected by conjunctive particles, each with a principal verb of its own. For example, in rendering into English the sentence under consideration, we should be constrained to proceed in some such manner as the following: “Flaminius was not of a disposition to remain quiet, even had the enemy been so disposed. But when, on the contrary, he saw them actively engaged in pillaging the allies of Rome, he thought it disgraceful to him personally, that the Cartha- ginian should wander at will through the heart of Italy, and proceed, without encountering resistance, to make an attack on the very walls of the capital. The other officers, however, when assembled to deliberate, were unanimous in recommend- ing safe rather than shewy measures. They urged him to wait the arrival of his colleague, that the two consuls might then act in concert with combined forces and one common pur- pose, and in the meantime to repress the enemy's depredations by means of the cavalry and the light-armed auxiliaries. But all this only served to exasperate Flaminius; and quitting the council with hurried step, he ordered the signal to be displayed for marching to battle.” These considerations might of themselves perhaps secure a 524 PREFACE TO LIVY, favourable reception to any attempt that should be made to extend and facilitate the study of a Classic, whom, in despite of the pentameter of Martial paraded on the title-page of al- most every edition of Sallust,” I have no hesitation in pro- nouncing the Prince of Roman Historians.t But, with all my predilections in favour of Livy, I should scarcely have thought of protesting against, or attempting to disturb, the routine that has been long established in our schools and colleges, had I not been swayed by other motives and views, to the exposition of which I now crave the attention of the reader. As the lost Pleiad has long been a theme of wonder to the astronomer, and of eloquent lamentation to the poet, so have * Primus Romană Crispus in Historiá.—Mart. Lib. xiv. ep. 191. f This judgment may appear strange and extravagantly laudatory to those who have read the lately published and deservedly popular work of Mr Stan- ley, “The Life and Correspondence of Dr Arnold.” The dislike of Livy which the Doctor omits no opportunity of giving vent to, is so strong and so un- reasonable, that Mr Stanley derives it from “feelings of personal antipathy towards him;” an expression which, coming as it does from the pen of an indulgent and admiring biographer, carries with it severer censure than any words of mine could convey. “Personal antipathy” to a man of acknow- ledged worth and probity who lived nearly two thousand years ago, and of whom scarcely any thing is known but the fact that he is the author of a work which all the world admires, except Dr Arnold! Verily, this may be reckoned one example out of many, of the eccentric, very decided, and not always very consistent opinions which that remarkable and most meritorious person held on various subjects—literary, political, and religious. His aver- sion to Livy seems to have sprung, by Some unaccountable process, out of his profound admiration of Thucydides. On the style and manner of Livy, Dr Arnold delivers the following judgment:-" As to Livy, the use of read. ing him is almost like that of the drunken helot. It shews what history should not be in a very striking manner; and though the value to us of much of ancient literature is greatly out of proportion to its intrinsic merit, yet the books of Livy which we have, relate to a time so uninteresting (sic!), that it is hard to extract a value from them by the most complete distillation: so many gallons of vapid water scarcely hold in combination a particle of spi- rit;”+—as if the comparatively petty contentions of the Greek states, told in the somewhat dry narrative of Thucydides, were immeasurably superior in interest to Livy's graphic delineation of the fortunes of Rome, and of her struggle for the empire of the world with her Carthaginian rival! This is out-heroding Herod l The “drunken helot” himself, in his merriest and most exemplary mood, could not have blurted out anything so laughable, • Stanley’s “Life,” &c., p. 158, 6th Edition. f Stanley's "Life,” &c., p. 341. PREFACE TO LIWY. 525 the lost Decads of Livy furnished matter, not of wonder, for the wonder is rather that so many should have survived the wreck of the dark ages, but of deep regret and disappointment, not less to the statesman, the antiquary, and the philosopher, than to the historian. But although, out of more than fourteen decads which we know the work to have consisted of, three and a half only remain, even that mere fragment of so gigantic an undertaking, is much too voluminous, unwieldy, and expen- sive, to admit of its being used entire, in a course of classical instruction. Accordingly, it never has been so employed. The work of Livy is accommodated to the curriculum of youthful study in one or other of two ways; either by select- ing portions of interesting narrative from all parts of his his- tory, or by publishing in a separate volume a connected series of three, four, or, as is more frequently the case, of five conse- cutive books. Of the former mode we have examples in the Eton school-book called Scriptores Romani, in the Lateinisches Elementarbuch of Jacobs and Döring, and in Gray's, Gilles- pie's, and Fairbairn's Latin Selections: and of the latter mode, in the numberless editions of the first Five Books that have appeared from time to time in all parts of the Empire. Of the two ways of applying Livy to educational uses, a selec- tion of striking passages, or a series of consecutive books,— the latter is much to be preferred, whether we would do jus- tice to the author or to the student. To form a judgment of the style and manner of Livy as the great historian of his country, it is not enough to have a book of patch-work, where unus et alter Assuitur pannus:— we must accompany him in his progress from year to year, and make his acquaintance in the different phases of his cha- racter as an historical writer: while at the same timeit is only thus that the student can be interested in the fortunes of Rome, and in marking the steady advance of that mighty power to universal empire. In Scotland, time out of mind, nothing of Livy but the first Five Books had been used, down to the commencement of the present century. In the year 1809, Dr John Hunter, Professor of Humanity in the University of St Andrews, 526 PR.EFACE TO LIVY, edited the first half of the Third Decad (XXI-XXV inclusive), with a few excellent notes; and the book professed to be for the use of Schools and Colleges. Into both these it made its way, in several instances:—a victory over the vis inertice of teachers, for which it was indebted partly to the high scholar- like character of the Editor, partly to the interesting nature of that portion of Roman history, which, commencing with the Carthaginian invasion of Italy, contains the details of a war pronounced by Livy to be, “omnium quae unquam gesta Sunt maxime memorabile.” When I mention the first Five Books of Decad First, and the first Five of Decad Third, I have enumerated the only consecutive portions of Livy's History that have ever been published, in a separate form, for the use of the studious youth on either side of the Tweed. And yet, it may fairly be made a question whether these two sections, in particular, be the best selection that could have been made out of the five-and-thirty Books that are still extant. With regard to the section which Dr Hunter was the first to intro- duce, (XXI-XXV), it is by no means desirable that that volume should be discarded from the list of standard school-books; for assuredly, it would be difficult to find, in any age of the world or in any historical composition, a succession of events more memorable, or pregnant with more important conse- quences to the fortunes of mankind, than the second Punic war. Nobody can wish that our youth should be debarred from the stirring interests of that eventful period, or should miss the chance of becoming acquainted with such characters, and so well pourtrayed by Livy, as Hannibal, Fabius Max- imus, Marcellus, and the elder Scipio Africanus. But the argument in favour of the first Five Books of Livy is by no means so strong. I readily admit the propriety of having some of the earlier books embodied in a shape accessible to our youth; and there is no choice but between the two halves of the First Decad, the Second (x1-XX inclusive) having ut- terly perished. But I am not without hopes of convincing my readers, that we have hitherto chosen the wrong half of the first Decad. I. Among my reasons for thinking so, the foremost place is due to that which Livy himself states distinctly and empha- PREFACE TO LIWY. 527 tically in the very first sentence of the Sixth Book. He there represents the transactions of the Roman people at home and abroad, which it had till then been his duty to record, as in- volved in doubts and obscurities which no effort of his had been able to dispel. And this he accounts for, partly from the - dimness incident to their remote antiquity; partly from the rarity and scantiness of written documents, may even of tabular inscriptions, in those early times; and partly from the fact, that of the few which once existed, a great majority had per- ished in the burning of the city by the Gauls. And in the next sentence, he congratulates himself on having escaped out of this region of darkness and fable into the comparative clear- ness and certainty of the era he has just arrived at :—an era which, as Rome was then rising from her ashes, he seems to regard as the proper historical origin of the Eternal city. Now, since it is to portions only of Livy's work that we must confine ourselves in arranging a course of classical in- struction, it is surely more advisable to put into the hands of our youth, instead of a tissue of fables and uncertainties, the authentic details of a history, which requires no aid from the marvellous and untrue to render it interesting. The narrative of the earlier books consists in a great measure, either of what may possibly be true, or of what must necessarily be false. The fabulous portion, no doubt, is intimately connected with the traditions and the poetry of the Romans, and for the sake of throwing light upon them, ought to be known to every scholar; but with the outline of these myths the student is made familiar at an earlier stage of his education, in the pages of Goldsmith or Keightley or Arnold; and for fuller information, he may fairly be referred to Virgil, Ovid, and Macaulay, who are the proper expounders and adorners of those fictions, which, in the early times of Rome, as of all nations, supplied the place of History. And with regard to that early portion of Roman story which may be true, because it does not bear upon the face of it the impress of fabulous, the great bulk of it is occupied with a succession of wars and battles waged, on a theatre not larger than the area of an English county, between infant Rome and the petty tribes around her, the Rutuli, the Hernici, and above all, the Æquans and Wolscians, those 528 PREFACE TO LIWY. everlasting Æqui et Volsci, who appear and re-appear on the field of battle so often, and after so many exterminating de- feats,” that they remind one of the fable of the dragon-teeth of Thebes, Ex quarum sulcis legiones dentibus anguis Cum clypeis mascuntur, et horrida bella capessunt Continuo.—Juven. xiv. 241. Instead of these unimportant, disjointed, and very question- able details, which even the graphic pen of Livy cannot always make interesting, we have, in the second moiety of the First Decad, (VI—x incl.), not only a more authentic, but a far more entertaining and instructive history. For in it, to say nothing of other matters, we have the origin and progress of the war with the Samnites; a war, in which the Romans, after subdu- ing the weaker states round them, came at last into collision with the hardy mountaineers of Samnium, and found in them a numerous, united, and warlike people, devota mort; pectora liberae, prepared to defend to the last their fastnesses and their freedom against hostile aggression. Nor am I prepared, (in estimating the comparative value, in an educational point of view, of the two sections of the First Decad,) to regard as an imaginary evil, the tendency which the earlier Roman story has to make the young mind familiar with, and ready to admit as true recorded events which violate the order of nature, and are inconsistent with the great physical laws by which this world is governed. The credu- lous spirit of boyhood receives with equal and implicit belief the facts, and the fables which are gravely related as facts, and is thus predisposed to become a dupe to the endless delu- sions which have infested the human mind in all ages; delu- sions which exclude the mass of mankind from what Virgil seems to have regarded as the prime felicity, and which leave them, not only in bondage to “fears of the brave, and follies * See Livy's attempt to reconcile their apparent resurrection with the ordinary laws of human reproduction and mortality, B. VI. c. 12; and again, in ch. 19, he says, “Volscos velut sorte quadam prope in aeternum exercendo Romano militi datos.” + Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari-Georg. ii. 590. PREFACE TO LIVY. 529 of the wise,” but a prey to all the vagaries of a disordered im- agination and a distorted intellect, Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala.-Hor. Ep. ii. 2, 208. 2. A second ground of preference I conceive to be this, that of all the sections of Livy's History, the latter half of the First Decad is that in which the fullest development is given, and the finest examples occur, of those excellencies of human character which we intend to represent and embody, when we describe a person of modern times as “a man of Roman Virtue.” Under that term we comprehend, not only the more ordinary quality of courage in war, but qualities which are far more rare and precious—an entire abnegation of self, a readiness to sacrifice when the public welfare requires it the dearest possessions in life, may life itself, and, what is dearer even than life to uncivilized man, the gratifica- tion of private revenge, unswerving integrity,+incorruptible faith, both in treaties with states and in contracts between man and man,—a strict and straightforward truthfulness, and a patriotism, which, abjuring all thought of personal profit or advantage, feels no pride and sees no honour, no praise, no fame, apart from the prosperity and glory of the Fatherland. It is impossible not to feel a desire that this truly magnani- mous aspect of human nature, this embodiment of all that is generous, highminded, and unselfish in character and con- duct, should be held up to the admiration and imitation of British youth. It is a combination of noble qualities, of which the candid and considerate of every country will be ready to admit that no such specimen has been produced in modern times, as they find at this day in the government and people of Great Britain. If her sons fall short of the loftiness and self-immolation of the old Romans, the defect is more than compensated by her superiority in moral refinement, and the softer light which the prevalence of a purer faith has shed over her. Now it is remarkable that Livy himself singles out the very period of which the last moiety of the First Decad is the chronicle, (comprising the latter half of the fourth and the 2 L 530 PREFACE TO LIWY. first half of the fifth century from the building of the city), as an age than which no other, of the eight centuries he had to treat of, was more fruitful in virtues: aetas, (he says of it,) quá nulla virtutum feracior fuit.—B. IX. c. 16. adult. The truth is, that previously to the period he thus signa- lizes, there existed in the Roman mind a roughness and sever- ity bordering upon ferocity; while, even as early as the second Punic War, which commenced in the year of the City 532, the noble simplicity of the Roman character was somewhat impaired by the introduction of Greek literature and the in- fluence of Grecian manners. The seeds of corruption were sown, and had already begun to yield their bitter fruits. Between these two epochs intervenes the golden age of Roman virtue; and nowhere do we find more numerous examples of it than in the Books that furnish the text of the present volume. Among the ravages of time on the works of the ancients, few are more to be regretted than the entire loss of the second decad of Livy, for it has left incomplete the picture so beauti- fully begun in the latter half of the first. But unfinished as it is, it enables us to dwell on that which must always be regarded as one of the sublimest and most imposing attitudes that humanity has ever exhibited in the history of our race. 3. Again, in estimating the comparative value of the earlier portion (I-V) and the later (XXI-V), it has been urged in fa- vour of the former, that in it there is a better opportunity of introducing the pupil to a knowledge of what is called “Roman Antiquities;’ that is, of making him acquainted with the origin of the laws, the nature and changes of the government, and the manners and customs of the people, which differed in many respects so widely from our own. There is weight in the argument; and it was this consideration, if I mistake not, which induced my immediate successor in the High School to revert, during part of his Rectorship, to the old practice of using the First Five Books only. But if Dr Carson had been able to choose between the first Five and the second Five Books of Livy, both being equally accessible, I am persuaded he would have preferred the latter. Certain it is, that the second half of the First Decad, in addition to the other claims it has on our attention, is, to say the least of it, in no degree FREFACE TO LIVY. 531 inferior to the first half in antiquarian interest. In the earlier portion are comprehended, it is true, some enactments of the kings, regiae leges, the downfall of the monarchy, -the in- stitution of the consular government, the enactment of the Twelve Tables of laws, the first rise of the Plebs into dis- tinction and influence,—the heart-burnings between the ple- beians and patricians on account of debts incurred,—the earliest attempt to carry an Agrarian law, the secession to the Mons Sacer, that first great stand for popular rights, the consequent creation of the tribuneship, and the passing of the law permitting intermarriage between the different orders. All these are doubtless points of great interest in the earlier history. But that interest is not greater than will be found in the books that follow, (VI-X). In them we have the pro- gressive advances of the popular cause,_concession after con- cession wrung from the reluctant patricians,—rights established and privileges successively gained by the people,_the whole presenting one of the finest and most instructive examples which history affords of the great truth that Freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Tho' baffled oft, is ever won. It is in the second half of the First Decad that we have the details—more interesting because more circumstantial and more authentic than the records of the first half—of the struggles between an oligarchy long in possession of power and unwilling to surrender any part of it, and a people be- coming every day more alive to its rights, and more deter- mined to assert them. And it is in the course of these right- eous and successful struggles, as described in the Latin text of the present volume, that we see the Roman Plebs patiently and perseveringly engaged in wresting from the Patricians one privilege and immunity after another, till at last every badge of the hereditary bondage they had suffered disappears. Their first conquest commemorated in these Books is, eligi- bility to one of the two consulships, and soon after, to both : then follows admission to the censorship, to the newly created dignity of praetor, and at last to the dictatorship itself. The various enactments of the Licinian Rogations, so fiercely con- 532 PREFACE TO LIWY. tested by the nobility, whether relating to admissibility to offices, to the regulation and extinction of the debts of the people, to a limitation of the right of possessing more than 500 jugera of the ager publicus or feeding on it more than a certain number of cattle, or to the election of decemviri sacrorum, five plebeian and five patrician, instead of the former patrician duumviri, were all so many victories over the oligarchy and so many gains to the popular cause; and they all belong to the period embraced in this volume. Last of all came the Porcian Law, “that no one should bind, scourge, or kill a Roman citizen,” (Lib. x. 9.); and thus the triumph of the people was completed, and the enjoyments of their rights se- cured. It appears then, from the facts stated, that the contest be- tween the humble and the mighty, the many and the few, begun in the first half of the decad, is carried out in the second; and in such a manner that, in perusing the latter, occasions constantly present themselves for recapitulating the history of the various steps in the great struggle for freedom. Of these occasions it will require but little dexterity on the part of the Teacher so to avail himself, as to give a decided advantage to the second half of the Decad, as a school-book, over the first, even in regard to the point now at issue. -- I have thus endeavoured to prove that, as compared with the only consecutive portions of Livy's History which have yet been published for the use of schools and colleges, the portion which I have selected for the present Publication is the most fully fraught with the combined qualities of instruc- tiveness and interest.—It is now time to say a few words in explanation of what is peculiar in the plan upon which the Selection has been executed. - The reader will readily perceive that the Arabic numerals at the head of each chapter are not in regular sequence. In the Sixth Book, for example, chapters 5, 9, 10, 21, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, are purposely omitted. The principle on which these and similar omissions in the other books have been made, I shall endeavour to explain and to justify, In the History of Modern Europe, parcelled out as it has ever been, with few and trifling exceptions, into large monar- PREFACE TO LIWY. 533 chies, the chronological epochs, which serve as land-marks to guide the course of the historian's narrative, are the reigns of the respective sovereigns; and within the limits of each mon- arch's life, the current of events flows smoothly and uniformly along. The whole events of that period of time form a stock of materials which the historian is at liberty to dispose of and arrange as may best suit his purpose. The different passages in his history, in so far as they are comprised within the com- pass of one reign, he may follow out in an unbroken narrative, extending often over many years; and the narrative of con- temporaneous events may be resumed and continued in the same way to their conclusion. - But in the government of Republican Rome, and, to a great extent, of Imperial Rome also, (for the forms of freedom were kept up, when the spirit was gone,) the annual election of consuls was the starting-point of a new though brief era, and all accounts behoved to be settled with the bygone year, up to the 31st of December, before entering on a fresh annus con- sularis. Hence history was, in a manner, compelled to be written in the form of annals, and to become, in point of fact, a chronicle or register of all the events worth recording that happened in the course of the 365 days during which each pair of consuls was in office. Hence arose the necessity—and both Livy and Tacitus complain of it—of snapping asunder, as it were, an interesting narrative, in order that the historian might include within the year a variety of subordinate and unconnected incidents which had occurred in the course of it, in different quarters of the wide and ever-widening circuit of the Roman territory. There is no denying that this almost unavoidable peculiarity of ancient history must have consider- able influence in distracting the attention and diminishing the interest of the reader;-of the modern reader more especially, to whom a large proportion of the contemporaneous events, which the historian felt himself bound to record, are matters of indifference, serving only to disturb and perplex, and quenching any anxiety he may feel to follow out the main thread and leading interests of the story. In the case of the youthful student, above all, it is desirable that his curiosity should not be thus suspended or baffled. He gets so slowly 534 PREFACE TO LIWY. over the ground in the daily lessons, that nothing but a con- tinuous narrative has much chance of engaging his serious attention. If the natural sequence of the main story be inter- rupted by the frequent insertion of insulated events which happened simultaneously in distant parts of a great empire, the probability is, that when at last, after wading through these, he returns to the main story, he will have little recol- lection and less concern about the matter. With all due deference for those undistinguishing admirers of antiquity who cry out against any process of curtailment as a mutilation of the divine originals, it does appear to me that the suppression of certain subordinate portions of the text of many ancient historians, with the view of bringing the main story more prominently forward and giving to it greater unity and impressiveness, is a process that may be advantage- ously adopted in our scholastic discipline. It is no part of the process here recommended, to exclude rigorously all that does not pertain to the staple of the principal narrative. On the contrary, I would retain even unconnected anecdotes, when they are such as to create an interest or to point a moral. Still less would I omit digressions, dissertations, and discus- sions, of which the famous episode concerning Alexander the Great, which extends over three long chapters, (IX. 17, &c.) is a good example. But I would lop off, as redundancies, ill suited to the purpose in view, all miscellaneous occurrences which stand out, as it were, from the body of the work; such as outbreaks in petty states and subject provinces, generally beginning with a popular tumult, and ending with a battle and a defeat, which have no bearing or influence on either the past or the future portions of the history. Swayed by these considerations, I have omitted many notices in Livy of insulated and unimportant parts, and have compressed the five books into moderate compass. By this process, I am satisfied that the reader, whether he be young or old, teacher or pupil, who takes up this little volume with . a candid mind and a competent knowledge of the Latin tongue, will rise from the perusal of it with a clearer com- prehension of the course of events, and a livelier interest in the story, than he would have received from reading the en- PREFACE TO LIVY. 535 tire text of the author; and while he finds his knowledge and admiration of Roman virtue encreased by the striking ex- amples recorded of its exercise, he will at the same time be led to form a higher, and therefore a juster, estimate of Livy's merits as an historical writer. With regard to the NOTES appended to the volume, the ob- ject proposed was to remove such difficulties as might be likely to repel the willing student, without, at the same time, giving him such facilities as to supersede strenuous exertion, or dispense with the exercise of those faculties, which it is the boast of classical discipline to cultivate and improve. It would be no very difficult task, with the help of Crevier, Stroth, Doering, Ruperti, Bekker, and above all, by digging in the rich mine of Drakenborch, to serve up an apparatus criticus of various readings and different interpretations of the text, garnished with conjectural emendations and severe strictures on the timidity, or audacity, or stupidity, of preced- ing commentators. But the time for such displays of pro- found erudition and irritable temper, of patient pioneering and dextrous cutting and thrusting, is nearly gone by. The Her- culean labours of the early editors and annotators of the Classics, from the revival of Letters and the invention of Printing to the days of Bentley, Cunningham, and Wakefield, and down even to Orellius, the Ultimus Romanorum of the present day, have succeeded, to an extent that calls alike for our admiration and gratitude, in clearing away the soil and rubbish with which ignorance and carelessness had incrusted the jewel of antiquity, and have thus settled the text of the classics, as far as manuscript authority and indefatigable in- dustry could effect a settlement. The chances are diminish- ing every year of discovering Codices Manuscript hitherto unknown; and with regard to a great majority of the ancient writers, any such discovery may be looked upon as absolutely hopeless. There is no terra incognita to speculate upon, and the ground already occupied has been so poached, that little prospect remains of starting fresh game in this field of intel- lectual exercise. Even in the still wider field of conjectural emendation, ingenuity itself is at fault, or goes off in erratic 536 PREFACE TO LIWY. courses; and the circle within which it can hope to throw light, or to earn laurels, is becoming daily narrower. Nevertheless, in turning over the ponderous tomes of the viri doctissimi of the olden time, it is possible to gather some flowers not without fragrance, and of a kind to attract the youthful student, and to lighten his task. Even in the dreary wilderness of ‘Various Readings' there are bright spots, where occasion may be taken for critical discussions, tending, not merely to unfold the sense of the author, but to improve the sagacity and cultivate the taste of the young. Of these dif- ferent sources of illustration I have availed myself, as far as space, and means, and the nature of the work, would permit. The Notes on the First Book in this volume may appear to some too numerous and too elementary; but this will not be the opinion of practical teachers. With them it may rather be a question whether I have not erred on the other side. They know the proneness of young minds to leap to hasty conclusions, to rest satisfied with the superficial contents of a sentence, and to hold in abhorrence that mental process, which the French language expresses so well by the word approfon- dir; and, believing the utility of the process to the young to be still greater than their dislike of it, the good teacher will not think those appliances superfluous which aim at conquer- ing this aversion, and inducing a habit of sifting a sentence or a subject to the bottom. If a student who is something more than a mere novice in the language (for Livy is not a school-book for any but the higher forms,) will set himself earnestly and doggedly, with the helps here afforded him, to enucleate the construction, to apprehend the force, and to dis- cern the connection of every word and clause in every sentence of the Sixth Book, the bearing of every sentence upon the chapter to which it belongs, and the scope of every chapter as part of the narrative, or argument, to the completion of which it contributes, he will advance through the other four books with increased speed and greater alacrity. Nay more, he will have taken an important step, and in the right direction, to- wards attaining—not indeed the logic of the schools, with its major and minor propositions, its enthymemes and syllogisms, and all the technicalities and mysteries of Aristotelian dialec- PREFACE TO LIVY. 537 tics, but—that logic of life which makes a man more acute and sharp-sighted in the intercourse of society, and more dis- criminating in his judgments of men and things. To have been minute and particular, even to the same ex- tent, on the other four Books, would have swelled the volume to an inconvenient thickness, and have interfered with one of the purposes I had in view, that of making a thorough com- prehension of the Sixth Book the means of facilitating, and tempting to, a perusal of the remainder. To promote this ob- ject still farther, I have appended a few notes to the other Books, upon passages where the difficulty seemed likely to appal or discourage the willing student. I had thoughts at one time of subjoining to this volume, an alphabetical List or Vocabulary, not of single words of rare occurrence or peculiar use, because on these a good Latin Dictionary will furnish the explanation wanted, but of those forms of expression, in which words and particularly verbs of common occurrence are used in uncommon senses, constituting what in this country we call phrases. Livy abounds in terms of this kind, set apart to denote the usages, civil, religious, and military, of the Romans, or some idiosyncrasy in their habits, manners, and practices. These voces signatae, to the interpretation of which the primitive and ordinary signification of all the words they contain affords no clue, are among the difficulties which the student finds the most embarrassing. For example, agere is to drive. This is the original sense of the word, as it was of the Greek áYety, in that stage of society when, to lift the cattle, and carry off the portable property of a neighbouring tribe—áſsy xoi ºpew—were the chief modes of earning distinction, and made one man &Yo0öc, good, amother, ‘péptspoº, better, and a third leptotog v. 4 splotoc, the best of all, —the very Rob Roy of all the country round.* Then came the use of agere in a wider sense,_to be active, to do. But neither do nor drive, which are its ordinary meanings, will help us to understand agere, when prefixed to one or other of * Thucydides (B.I. c. 5.) describes a state of society in early Greece, closely resembling that of Scotland two centuries ago. 538 PREFACE TO LIWY. the following words: agere ambages, causam, radices, cuni- culos, undam, animam, alias res, forum;-agere lege in ali- quem; libertas agitur; actum est de libertate, de pace; cum illo bene actum est, &c. Such a vocabulary of phrases would doubtless be a valuable addition to the equipment with which the young student takes the field in the not inglorious sport of hunting down the diffi- culties of Livy. But a book already in the hands of our youth so nearly answers this purpose, that I must content myself, for the present, with referring to it. The twenty pages of Dr Adam's Grammar immediately after the Rules of Syntax, “On the various signification and construction of verbs,” if used in conjunction with his “Roman Antiquities,” will supply almost all the information required. CoLLEGE OF EDINBURGH, 1st January 1850. PREFATORY NOTICE TO EXCERPTS FROM THE ANNALS OF TACITUS.” OF the works of TACITUs now extant, that which is entitled Annales, though not preserved in its full integrity, is by much the longest; and to that circumstance may in part be owing the fact, that it seldom forms the subject of prelection even in those of our Schools and Colleges where his ‘Life of Agricola' and his ‘Manners of the Germans' are included in the course of study. And yet, there can be no doubt that it is to the Annals we must look, if we wish to form for ourselves, or to convey to others, a full and correct idea of the peculiar cha- racteristics and high excellencies of that remarkable writer. The Agricola is a piece of interesting biography, and an af- fecting tribute to the memory of a near relative, who was at the same time a distinguished public man. The De Moribus Germanorum is a philosophical treatise, deserving to be studied by those who are engaged in tracing the history of nations and the progress of civil society, but rather dull and unprofit- able reading for the young. It is in the Annals, and in the fragment we have of the History, which may be regarded as a continuation of the Annals, that Tacitus appears in the cha- racter by which he is best known, that of a Philosophical Historian. It is there—in that latest surviving and most matured production of his intellect—that we find him dedu- cing from the drama of human life, which in his time was a deep tragedy with now and then a comic scene between the acts, lessons of wisdom and of virtue. It is in the Annals * One of Parker's series of “Classical Texts." London, 1848. 540 PREFATORY NOTICE TO TACITUS. that he shews himself both a profound thinker, and an able expounder of the thoughts of others; a graphic delineator of place, of circumstance, and of character; and, above all, a severe and indignant moralist, who, seated, as it were, in the chair of justice, summons into his presence the princes and potentates who have abused their power, sums up the evidence against them, and pronounces the sentence which delivers them over to the contempt or execration of posterity. On the other hand, it is there we find him rescuing from oblivion and consecrating to everlasting remembrance, the rare examples which occurred in those disastrous times, of intrepid and high- minded persons, whose genius and virtues seem to derive ad- ditional lustre from contrasting them with the general depra- vity of the age they lived in. Such were Germanicus and his wife the elder Agrippina, Burrus, Seneca, Paetus Thrasea, Soranus and his daughter Servilia, Helvidius Priscus.* With all these recommendations, however, in favour of this work, there are two circumstances which have operated more effectually than the length of it, in preventing its being read so much as it deserves to be, either in the closet or in the teaching-room. 1. Owing to the very nature of the composition, as indicated by the term Annales, the transactions recorded are strictly confined to the year in which they occurred: whence it neces- * For an affecting notice of Servilia, see Ann. xvi. 31 : and as to the last named, I am here tempted to travel beyond the ‘Annals,’ and insert a pass- age from the ‘History,’ (IV. 5), as affording a fine example of those tributes to departed worth— Per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis Post mortem ducibus.-- - “Helvidius Priscus, Tarracinae municipio, Cluvio patre, qui ordinem pri- mipili duxisset, ingenium illustre altioribus studiis juvenis admodum dedit; non ut plerique, ut nomine magnifico Segne otium velaret, Sed quo firmior adversus fortuita rem publicam capesseret. Doctores sapientiae sequutus est, qui sola bona, quae honesta ; mala tantum, quae turpia : potentiam, no- bilitatem, ceteraque extra animum, neque bonis neque malis adnumerant. Quaestorius adhuc, a Paeto Thrasea gener delectus, emoribus soceri nihil aeque ac libertatem hausit ; civis, Senator, maritus, gener, amicus, cunctis vitae officiis aequabilis, opum contemptor, recti pervicax, constans adversus metus. Erant, quibus appetentior famae videretur, quando etiam sapienti- bus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur.”—[Milton may have had the latter clause in his mind when he calls the love of fame—“That last infirmity of noble mind.”—Lycidas, v. 71.] * PREFATORY NOTICE TO TACITUS. 541 sarily happens, that the narrative of important affairs, the in- terest of which spreads over a series of years, is continually broken off and the reader's curiosity painfully suspended, to make way for anecdotes and insulated events, which have no bearing, or a very slight one, on the concerns of the empire at large, and which relate chiefly to obscure individuals, of whom the modern reader knows nothing beyond what is told in the chapter where they are named. Such minor matters being of recent occurrence, and exciting a momentary interest among the historian's countrymen and contemporaries, were thought by him to require a place among the transactions of the year; but, for us who are removed by so wide an interval both of space and of time from all the local and political associations which gave them importance in the days of Tacitus, it is scarcely possible to help regarding these facts as unseemly excrescences on the body of the work, which divert our atten- tion from the leading interests of the period. 2. Another circumstance which may have contributed to exclude the Annals from School and College, is the number of interruptions and long blanks that occur in the text of the work, in consequence of portions of all the manuscripts having been damaged or destroyed in the Middle Ages.-The four reigns, of which Tacitus proposes to record the transactions from year to year, are those of TIBERIUS, CALIGULA, CLAU- DIUs, and NERO. The first of these reigns we have in a per- fect state as far as to the time when the notorious Sejanus was at the height of his power, and when Tiberius, having retired to the Isle of Capreae, devolved the entire management of affairs at Rome upon his favourite minister. But all the manuscripts fail us at the very moment when Sejanus fell under the displeasure of the jealous tyrant, and the Imperial rescript—the “verbosa et grandis epistola”—was despatched to Rome, which gave up that Minister of State to a populace who were thirsting for his blood.—After this provoking hiatus, we recover the text of Tacitus; and it carries us down to the death of Tiberius, at the close of the Sixth Book. The Seventh and three following Books, and the first part of the Eleventh, are wholly lost; and we are thus deprived of our author's account of the entire reign of Caligula and the first 542 PREFATORY NOTICE TO TACITUS. six years of that of Claudius, comprehending altogether an interval of ten years. What is extant of the Eleventh Book, and the Twelfth which is unmutilated, give us some interest- ing particulars of the latter part of Claudius's reign ; and the Twelfth closes with the announcement of Nero's accession. The Thirteenth and three following Books are filled with the absurdities and atrocities of Nero's tyranny ; but the Six- teenth breaks off at the very time when, as in the case of Se- janus, the measure of Nero's iniquities being full, the reader is longing to learn, from the powerful pen of Tacitus, the signal retribution that awaited him at the close of his guilty Careef’. Of these two obstacles in the way of the popularity and ac- ceptance of the Annals, I have endeavoured to remove the for- mer, by leaving out all mention of those trivial and unconnected events, which even the genius of Tacitus cannot elevate into importance. By this process of elimination, the way is cleared for a continuous narrative of the lives and fortunes of those memorable persons who impressed a character on the age they lived in, and whose names are familiar to the merest tyro in history. The story of the reigns of Tiberius and of Nero is thus invested with an interest which it is difficult for any one, and impossible for the youthful reader, to feel in the Annals themselves; and the present libellus comes out from the pro- cess, (if I may be pardoned for coining a word to suit the occasion and to perish in the using,) Tacito ipso Tacitior. Thus, too, instead of perplexing the reader with the multi- farious and unconnected topics that form the argument or table of contents prefixed to each Book, it is enough to indicate them, as I have done, by one or two names, such as GERMAN- ICUs and AGRIPPINA; or incidents, such as, the Rise and Fall of SEJANUs; and in this manner we keep up the liveliness and unity of interest of a consecutive narration. The process of elimination has been followed in every Book except the First, which is given entire: partly, that the reader may have a specimen of the interruptions I speak of, and partly because there is a more pervading and unbroken interest in the narrative of this Book than in any of the rest. In all the others, I have preserved the numbers of the chapters PREFATORY NOTICE TO TACITUS. 543 selected, for the sake of easy reference, and also to shew how much has been thrown out that the continuity of the story may be preserved. Not a few digressions, however, are re- tained, where the author suspends his narrative, not to relate contemporaneous facts, but to indulge his fondness for specu- lation and philosophy. Such, for example, are the four chapters (III. 25–28), in which, having to record the relaxa- tion by Tiberius of the Lex Papia Poppaea, which was enacted by Augustus to discourage celibacy, Tacitus takes occasion to remount to the first principles of statutory law, and to trace the steps by which the Roman Code of his day had become so bulky and so complex. Such is the long letter of Tiberius to the Senate, on the propriety of a sumptuary law, and the observations of the author himself on the subject (III. 52–55). Such is XI. 14, on the origin of alphabetical characters; such, too, is the remarkable chapter (VI. 22,) where Tacitus, having been engaged in recording a long series of crimes, and expos- ing with bitter scorn the credulity and abject superstition of the selfish and relentless Tiberius, pauses as it were to take breath, alike saddened and disgusted with the character of this ‘monstrum nullā virtute redemptum,’ and with the gen- eral aspect of a time when vice, in its most odious forms, sat in high places, and virtue was neglected or oppressed. In this frame of mind, despairing of the fortunes of his race and the condition of humanity, the historian gives way to doubt and despondency, and is half inclined to mistrust the existence of wisdom and benevolence in the government of a world so worthless. The other objection to the Annals being adopted in School or College, I have endeavoured to obviate by filling up the two most to be deplored of the hiatus with extracts from other classical authors, whose treatment of the same subjects has been preserved. And it happens fortunately that the Greek historian Dion Cassius, and the Latin biographer Suetonius, enable us to complete both the imperfect narratives. Of the Fall of Sejanus, Dion supplies a very full account, which, with a few omissions, will be found in the original Greek, and Suetonius in the extract I have inserted describes the last days and miserable end of Nero, and both, in a style and manner 544 PREFATORY NOTICE TO TACITUS, that would do no discredit to Tacitus himself. To make the supplement of Sejanus's history more complete, the striking passage concerning him in the Tenth Satire of Juvenal is ap- pended to the Second Book, and along with it the celebrated imitation of it by Samuel Johnson. t The Text of Tacitus principally followed in the Evcerpta, is that of Dr Carson, late Rector of the High School, published at Edinburgh 1818, in one 8vo volume. It is without note or comment, but has several excellent emendations on the text and punctuation of Ruperti, whose edition of the Annals was at that time, and is still, of the highest authority. The prin- ciple of these emendations Dr Carson has explained in a Latin Preface, to which I gladly refer the learned reader. He will find it not more remarkable for the ingenuity and caution which it displays in adjusting the text of Tacitus, than for the classical simplicity and purity of diction in which it is written. It is but rarely I have ventured to dissent from such high authorities as Ruperti and Carson, and chiefly in the punctua- tion, which I have accommodated more to the practice of our own language and country: and perhaps it may be found that I have facilitated to the British student the understanding of this difficult author, by reducing to our own ordinary standard the pointing of the German editions, which Dr Carson, I con- ceive, has followed rather too implicitly. - I shall wind up these Prefatory Notices with the few obser- vations prefixed to a Selection from the Fasti and Tristia of Ovid, printed for the use of the Humanity Class in 1851. AMONG the writings of the ancients there are few that lose less and gain more by judicious selection, than the FASTI and TRISTIA of Ovid. The former is a work, professing to give an account, in the order of time, of the Festivals and Holy-days of the Roman year; and as, among these, the only bond of connection is the accidental coincidence of time, there can be no continuity of parts, no pervading interest, no beginning, middle, and end, PREFATORY NOTICE TO THE FASTI AND TRISTIA. 545 in the poem considered as a whole. It is necessarily a conge- ries of insulated memoranda, of which a large portion is em- ployed in describing, or alluding to, obscure ceremonies and ritual observances; a portion valuable no doubt to the anti- quarian and chronicler of dates, yet little more attractive to the modern reader than the enumeration of saints' days in the Romish Calendar, or the notices attached to days of the month in an almanac. But the anniversaries, as they occur, of the great events and noble deeds in Roman story, fire the genius of the poet, and give birth to some of the choicest passages of ancient poetry.* The Five Books of the TRISTIA, again, with the copious appendage of the Pontic Epistles, are made up of Elegiac com- positions, the almost unvarying theme of which is the misery of the poet's condition as an exile on the shores of the Black Sea. He contrives, indeed, to adorn and diversify surprisingly the story of his misfortunes; but the dismal key-note of dis- tress and suffering falls at last heavily on the ear, and the sympathy of the reader gives way to languor and weariness. No such feeling, however, is likely to come over him, if his reading be confined to a ‘Selection,’ in which the tenderness of sorrow is more apparent than its selfishness, and the querulous uniformity of grief is relieved, at one time, by descriptions of the country the poet was banished to, and the manners of its inhabitants; at another, by a narrative of the incidents of his own early life, by tributes of flattery and well-turned com- pliment to the obdurate Emperor, and by affectionate remi- niscences of the friends he had left behind him at Rome. * Take, for example, this tribute to the first astronomers — Quid vetat et stellas, ut quaeque oriturque caditGue, Bicere? promissi pārs fuit ista mei. Felices animos, quibus haec cognoscere primis, Inque domos superas scandere cura fuit { Credibile est illos pariter vitiisque locisque Altius humanis exseruisse caput. Non Venus et Vinum sublimia pectora fregit, Officiumve fori, militiaeve labor: Nec levis ambitio, perfusaque gloria fuco, Magmarumve fames solicitavit opum. Admovëre oculis distantia sidera mostris, Aetheraque ingenio Supposilere suo-Fast, I, 295. 2 M. NOTES ON CURTIUS AND LIWY. To the Latin text of these authors, as it is given in the pub- lished ECLOGAE, I appended Notes “for the use of the studious youth.” Of these notes I have selected a few for insertion here, of a description such as I thought not unlikely to be ac- ceptable to a certain class of my readers, who, without being curious in lectiones variantes, or caring much to take the trouble of extricating an author's meaning in a difficult sentence or a disputed passage, retain nevertheless a taste for classical discussions and illustrations of a more discursive kind. I. NOTES ON CURTIUS, BOOK THIRD. CAP. 2, sentence beginning ‘Ceterum,’ &c., “undique om- nes copias (Alexander) contrahit, totis viribus tanti belli dis- crimen aditurus.’ The future participle active is a favourite with Curtius and Livy, and is used to conclude clauses and periods, with various shades of meaning besides that of simple futurity; in no sense more frequently than to intimate, as here, a resolution or fixed purpose to do a thing. The clumsy way in which the Latin participle in -rus is expressed in English (going to do a thing, or about to do) makes one more alive to the singular beauty and pathos of such uses of it as in Hor. Od. II. 3. 4.—moriture Delli: and in Aen. IV. 519, where Virgil says of Dido, Testatur moritura Deos. SELECTION OF NOTES ON CURTIUS. 547 CAP. 10. Alexander fauces jugi, quae Pylae appellantur, intravit, “the gorge of the mountain.' It seems natural that men, in the formation of their voca- bulary, should employ the terms that express the neck or throat and its contents, to denote mountain-passes or ballochs. Hence came, among Latin authors, such uses as we find here of fau- ces, and even of collum :* just as in English we have gorge (borrowed from the French, gorge, the neck, which is also ap- plied to a mountain pass,) and gully, (from Latin gula, the gullet or meat-pipe, the oesophagus); and in Scotch, gowl, (Windy Gowl, near Edinburgh), a corruption doubtless of the French word gueule, the throat. The halse or ‘hass o' the hill' (from the German hals, ‘the neck’), is a common expression in some parts of Scotland for a mountain-pass; in like manner as, all over the Lowlands, we find the German hals in its proper sense, in such phrases as ‘pap of the hass,’ for the uvâla ; and when a crumb of bread has got into the wind-pipe, we say, “it has gone down the wrang hass.’ The Asiatics, following a different analogy, seem to have looked on these mountain- passes as gates, which the Greeks translated Tokai, and the Romans Pylae, e.g. Pylae Syriae, Amanicae, Caspiae, &c. Again, Swyra, swira, is Anglo-Saxon for collum, cervic, and hence swyre or swire, a word which Chaucer uses for “neck,' means also the hollow or defile near the summit of a hill.f Dr Jamieson, in his Dictionary, in voce ‘Sware, swire, swyre, defines it, “A hollow or declination of a mountain or hill near the summit;' and Sibbald (Glossary) calls it, “A steep pass between two mountains.' One of the most memo- rable of the Border forays was the ‘Raid of the Reed Swyre,’ i.e. of the pass or gorge, at the head of Reed Water (Nor- thumberland), by which the public road from Elsdon and Otterburn now crosses the Carter Fell into Roxburghshire. With regard to jugum, it signifies properly the crowning ridge of a mountain range—the long continuous summit— which forms the divortium aquarum, the water-shed, where * Frondea colla Parnassi, Stat. Theb. IX. 643; and the passes of the Alps, both on the French and Italian side, are called Cols, as Col de Pertuis, Col di Tende, &c. + See Brocket's Glossary of North Country Words. 548 SELECTION OF NOTES ON CURTIUS. wind and water shire, i. e. divide, and rivers ‘dispart to dif- ferent seas.” This line of separation is called in some old Cartularies condosum,” the latter part of which word may, I conceive, be traced to the Latin dorsum, (dorsum immane mari summo, Aen. I. 88.) The French dos, about the deri- vation of which from dorsum there can be no doubt, is applied in a similar way: Le dos du bassin de la Garonne, du Rhône, du Rhin, de la Loire, &c., means the high ground forming the water-shed that encloses the basins of those rivers. CAP. 11, ad med. ‘Ingens solicitudo, ae paene jam luctus in castris erat.' Luctus, ut de mortuo. Cicero (Tusc. Quaes. IV. 8.) defines the word thus:—‘Luctus est aegritudo ex ejus qui carus fuerit interitu acerbo.’ In Juvenal's long and appalling catalogue of the miseries of old age, we find these lines, Haec data pocna diu viventibus, ut, renovatā. Semper clade domas, multis in luctibus, inque Perpetuo moerore, et nigrá veste senescant.—Sat. x. 243. The perpetuus moeror is the dreary tenor of sorrowful exist- ence, broken only by the occasional shocks and wailings (luc- tus) on the death and bereavement of friends. CAP. 28. ad fin. ‘Tunc vero impotentis fortunae species conspici potuit.’ Impotentis here is equivalent to—potentiam suam immoder- ate exercentis. The in in composition, when it corresponds . to the Greek a privative, may be thought not privative here, (the proper sense of impotens being powerless,) but rather in- tensive, as in aquilo impotens, the blustering North wind, Hor. Od. III. 30.3, and again, Epod. XVI. v. 54, nullius astri Gregem aestuosa torret impotentia. Yet the privative force of in may be traced in all its uses. Homo impotens sui, is a man who has no power over himself, * The following expressions occur in a grant of land by Walter Fitzalan to the monks of Melrose : Sursum usque ad caput ipsius burne et inde versus orientem per condosum montis sicut aquae descendunt, &c.—Wide Cartulary of Melros, No. 74, et saepe alibi. SELECTION OF NOTES ON CURTIUS. 549 d. e. of ungovernable passions:—a character the reverse of that so finely pourtrayed by Horace, (Od. III. 29, 41.) Ille potens sui Laetusque deget, cui licet in diem Dixisse, ‘Wixi; cras vel atrá Nube Polum Pater occupato, Vel sole puro ; non tamen irritum Quodcumque retro est efficiet, neque Diffinget infectumve reddet Quod fugiens semel hora vexit.' Of these lines Dryden has given the spirit very happily, as follows, Happy the man, and happy he alone, He, who can call to-day his own : He who, secure within, can say, ‘To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to day. Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of Fate, are mine ; Not Heav'n itself upon the past has power, For what has been has been, and I have had my hour.' Milton expresses the thought of the penult line thus, P. L. IX. 926 : The past who can recall, or done undo? Not God Omnipotent, nor Fate. CAP. 32, adult. In Alexander's visit, after the battle of Issus, to the tent of Darius where the Queen Mother, the Queen, and the infant Son of Darius were prisoners of war, Curtius says of him, Rex bonum animum reginas habere jussit: Darii deinde filium (a boy six years old) collo Suo admovit. Atque nihil ille conspectu (regis) tune primum a se visi conterritus cervicem ejus manibus amplectitur. Motus ergo rex constan- tia pueri, Hephaestionem intuens, “Quam vellem,' inquit, ‘Darius aliquid ex hac indole hausisset!' The passing remark of Alexander to his friend Hephaestion is ridiculed by Schmieder, who asks sneeringly, “Credine potest, Alexandrum serio optasse, ut graviorem habuisset hos- tem?' Nor is it in truth easy to see the drift of the expres- sion, obvious as the translation of it is. Diodorus gives a plainer and more probable account of the incident: á ſtaig Óy #3 &tiv xod tây &petiv Štip tiy Myſay tºpopolyov, toº fleXtſuy ãot toč tatpóg. 550 §ELECTION OF NOTES ON LIVY. II. NOTES ON LIVY, BOOK SIXTH.* The first Sentence in the Sixth Book is as follows :— * Quae, ab condita urbe Roma ad captam eandem urbem, Romani, sub regibusprimum, consulibus deinde ac dictatoribus, decemvirisque ac tribunis consularibus, gessere, foris bella, domi seditiones, quinque libris exposui;—res quum vetustate nimia obscuras, velut quae magno ex intervallo loci vix cer- nuntur, tum quod parvae et rarae per eadem tempora literae fuere (una custodia fidelis memoriae rerum gestarum); et quod, etiam sif quae in commentariis pontificum aliisque pub- licis privatisque erant monumentis, incensa urbe pleraeque interiere.' This sentence is one of those long and complex periods which are spokem of in the preface to Livy as characteristic of that author's style, and of which am example is there given and commented om. We have here a single sentence, consisting of 78 words, in which there is but one main verb, and one simple proposition, on which all the rest hang with various degrees of dependemcy. The bare enunciation of the principal pro- position is contained in these words: Quae Romanâ gessere quinque libris eæposui ; or, more briefy still, in a strictly grammatical point of view, with nothing but the primary ele- ments indispensable to the completion of every sentence, * Ego eæposui res.' It differs, however, from the sentence quoted in the Preface in this respect, that in it three persons, Or sets of persoms, were mentioned—Flaminius, his council of war, and the ememy—concerning each of whom something is affirmed, and each of whom is the subject of one or more subordinate propositions; whereas, in the sentence before us, no persom is spoken of but the historian himself; the word even which ex- presses Livy as the subject must be supplied, in order to make out the grammatical construction ; and the ego, which corres- * T. LIVIUM, quum in narrando mirae jucunditatis clarissimique candoris, tum in concionibus supra quam enarrari potest, eloquentem.—Quintiliam, x. c 1. + Etiamsi is in all the editions I have seem, from Drakenborch down- wards : it were better to print it separately etiam si. SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIWY. 551 ponds to the Flaminius of the other example, unlike it, stands alone, without adjunct or qualification. Every word and clause beyond the naked proposition is descriptive or explana- tory of the res or gesta Romanorum, and is employed, partly, in noting the period of time these transactions occupied, the place they occurred in, and the character of the events them- selves as remote, obscure, and uncertain; partly, in illustrating that character by a simile drawn from the laws and pheno- mena of vision, and, finally, in accounting for it from what took place when the city was set on fire by the Gauls. It is owing to this simplicity of structure that it is possible to bring the entire meaning of the sentence within the com- pass of one English period, without the necessity of having more than one main affirmative verb, and without danger of confusion or embarrassment. For example: “In the preced- ing Five Books, I have been employed in setting forth the transactions of the Roman People, from the foundation of the City down to its capture, their foreign wars and their do- mestic feuds,-first under Kings, then under Consuls, Dicta- tors, Decemvirs, or Consular Tribunes;–events involved in an obscurity attributable, partly, to their remote antiquity, (just as, among visible objects, the very distant are but dimly descried,) partly to the paucity and scantiness* of that docu- mentary evidence which is the only sure means of preserving the remembrance of the past,-and partly to the fact, that any historical aids to be found in the Commentarii of the Pontiffs and other public or private muniments, were almost all lost in the firing of the City by the Gauls.” This sentence is lum- bering enough, but not difficult to follow the sense of. In the Latin sentence, the strict order of construction and the depen- dency of words are worth attending to. The clause velut . . . cernuntur, is a parenthetic illustration of the word obscuras, quum (both, partly) nimia vetustate, that is, ob nimiam vetus- tatem, tum (and, partly) quod rarae . . . . fuere, et quod . . . . pleraeque literae interiere. Thus, three reasons are assigned for the obscurity, the distant date, the scantiness of written documents, and the destruction of most of those which once existed. All that follows the word obscuras in the text, is * Parvae alludes to the meagre details of tabular inscriptions. 552 SELECTION OF NOTES ON Ll WY. descriptive and explanatory of the use and application of that epithet. In the same ch. ad finem, in sent, beginning “ Tum,’ &c., Livy speaks of “diem ante diem decimum quintum Kalendas Sea:tiles' (i.e. the 18th July) as of a day “duplici clade in- signem ; quo die ad Cremeram Fabii caesi, quo deinde ad Alliam cum exitio urbis foede pugnatum.”—It is a remarkable fact, and not easily accounted for, that Livy and Ovid, while they agree in other particulars, differ widely as to the date of the two memorable defeats on the Cremera and on the Allia. Livy and other prose authorities assign them both to the 18th July, (diem ante diem decimum quintum Kal. Sextiles,) while Ovid makes the dies Cremerensis to be the 13th February : Haec fuit illa dies (Idus Febr.) in quá Veientibus arvis Ter centum Fabii, ter cecidere duo.—Ov. Fast. II. 195. Niebuhr (Hist. of Rome, vol. II. p. 194,) supposes that Ovid mistook the day of their departure for that of their destruction; a very improbable supposition when the couplet just quoted is considered. In the next sent. of ch. 1, beginning ‘Quidam,’ &c., it is mentioned, ‘quod postridie Idus Quinctiles (14th July) Sul- picius non litásset.”—Litare (for luitare) a frequentative from luo, means, cum bono eventu sacrificare, ‘to have a favourable answer to one's prayers;’ Plautus says (Poen. II. V. 41,) Tum me Jupiter faciat, ut semper sacrificem, nec unquam litem: and in Martial we find this beautiful line, Non quâcumque manu victima caesa litat.—x. 78. CAP. 2, past the middle. ‘Tantum Camillus auditus im- perator terroris intulerat,’ &c. This clause is a good example of a very common Latin idiom, according to which, Camillus, the proper grammatical nominative to the verb, does not indicate the real subject of the predicate; for that subject virtually resides in the parti- ciple passive of the verb. It was not Camillus that had struck so much terror, but the report having reached the enemy's camp that he was made commander-in-chief—The latter part of this chapter furnishes a striking proof and example of what is said in the Preface, page 521. The concluding trait of SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIVY. 553 Roman virtue deserves to be noted, where Livy describes all the six members of an equally divided authority, in general so apt to be jealous of each other, as * laudem conferentes potius in medium, quam ex communi ad se trabentes:' £. e. laudem quaerentes, nemo sibi prae reliquis, sed omnes com- muniter reipublicae. CAP. 15, sent. beginning “Quod,' &c., the clause * sive quod et ipse in parte praedae sis, sive quia vanum indicium est,' is the subject of a long note of Drakenborch, and is noticed also by Ruperti. In the first place, there is a dispute whether we should read quod or ut, and there is MS authority, it seems, for both, though the weight of it is in favour of the quod. Bauer, a judicious critic often appealed to and quoted by Ru- perti, makes the following remark on this subject : * Quòd, vt, utrumque commodum : quòd sis, veram rem et praesentem significat : ut sís, consilium et futuram conditionem, “ ut tibi aliquid largiantur, ac silentium redimant.” Haereo, utrum praeferam.' And Drakenborch, who, when he speaks in his Owm person, is eminently worth listening to, remarks On the two readings, quod and ut : * Parum interesse videtur primo intuitu, utro modo legas : si tamen diligentius attendatur, dis- crimen apparebit in sensu, inter hanc et illam lectionem. Qui facit ut sit in parte praedae, nondum particeps est, sed faciendo spem habet, se participem fore. Sed qui facit quod sit in parte, jam in partem receptus est.' This, so far as it goes, is well enough ; but neither of these commentators, nor any other I have seem, attempts to explain why quod, which is the ap- proved reading, should be followed by the subjunctive sis and the quia (its synonyme) by the indicative est. The only allusion to the fact I have met with, is in the following re- mark of Drakenborch : * Nom displicet quod modo subjunctivo, modo indicativo, jungi: id enim et alibi a Livio factum esse novi ; ut lib. XXVI. c. 21 :' * Super haec exercitus Romanus iratus, partim quod cum imperatore non devectus ex provincia esset, partim quod in oppidis hibernare vetiti erant, segni fun- gebantur militia.' It will be observed that Drakenborch is content with quoting this additional authority for the indiscri- minate use of quod with the indicative or subjunctive, without 554 SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIWY. hinting at any reason or regulating principle in either. But such indiscriminate and capricious use of modes is unworthy of Livy, and in itself incredible. It is not difficult in these and similar cases to find a principle. In the quotation just given, for example, it is easy to see that quod esset, &c., is Livy's report of the army's reason for feeling angry, while the latter clause, quod . . . erant, is the simple statement of a fact by the historian. And in the case before us, there is an obvious distinction between the contingency or supposition, that Manlius may have agreed ‘to go snacks’ in the division of the spoil, and the statement of a fact which was the belief of the speaker:—‘because you may be an accomplice, or because there as no truth in the statement.” For another fine example to the same effect, see Cic. Fam. ix. I. succenserem and subpudebat. I have dwelt on this apparently minute matter, because it seems to me that considerable light has been thrown, since the time of Drakenborch and editors of a much later date, on the direct and reported form of Latin speech, Carsone mos- tro, ni fallor, facem praeferente : vid. Dr Carson's Qui, quae, quod, &c., and his Preface to Tacitus. See also Johnston's Life of Dr Parr, VIII. p. 533, and VII. pp. 498 and 522. CAP. 17, ad med. ‘Fingerent mentitum ante, atque ideo non habuisse quod responderet.”—Here are two verbs, both in what we call “imperfect tense, subjunctive mood;’ but so put for different reasons, and requiring a different process of analysis and interpretation. 1. Fingerent is the reported form of the imperative mood. Had this speech of Manlius been direct, like that which he delivers in the latter half of chap. 15, and not as it is, reported,” the form would have been Fingite. There is a similar use of fingerent in Liv. XXI. c. 30. 2. Responde- ret, again, is an example of that use of the imperf. Subj. in which it may be called the future of the past, somewhat in the same way as in our language should, would, and could are the past tenses of shall, will, and can. ‘Let them suppose,’ i. e. “admitting that on the former occasion he stated an untruth, and consequently when questioned had no answer to give,’ * For a luminous statement of the difference between the direct and re- ported forms of spech, see Dr Carson's Treatise already referred to. SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIWY. 555 (nothing that he should or could say in reply), I ask cui servo, &c., “what slave even has ever been put in fetters for uttering a falsehood P’ CAP. 24, sent, beginning ‘Jam,’ &c., clause “Camillus, subjectus a circumstantibus in equum, i.e. lifted up on horse- back,' &c. So Virg. Aen. XII. 288,-corpora saltu Subjici- wnt in equos. This use of sub in a sense apparently the very reverse of its ordinary signification has given occasion to learned discussions; one of the most remarkable speci- mens of which will be found in Dr Parr's Note on the ety- mology of the word sublimis, appended to Dugald Stewart's Philosophical Essays. Mr Stewart, in his Essay on the Sublime, had condemned the account commonly given in our dictionaries of the composition of sublimis, quasi supra limum, and that for two reasons: 1. As deriving it from a mean and degrading origin; and, 2. As ‘giving an anoma- lous and inexplicable extension of the preposition sub to convey a meaning directly contrary to that in which it is ge- nerally understood.” The first of these objections Dr Parr combats, successfully and to the satisfaction of the objector himself, in a long communication addressed to Mr Stewart, who published the chief part of it in the second edition of his Essays. In dealing with the second objection, Dr Parr has not succeeded so well. He displays, indeed, abundance of learning and dexterity; and his explanation seems to have satisfied Mr Stewart, as it probably did most of his readers, till Dr John Hunter of St Andrews took up the subject. That eminent scholar and truly philosophical grammarian, with his characteristic modesty and indifference to fame and notoriety, threw into a note appended to a school edition of Virgil, a long, acute, and triumphant refutation of Parr's laboured hypothesis, and has substituted a theory of his own, full of ingenuity, learning, and masterly argumentation.f * Stewart's Collected Works, edited by Sir William Hamilton. Vol. W. p. 455. + This fine sample of critical acumen, with much of the learning and none of the bitterness of Bentley, was in danger of being merged and lost sight of altogether. It had been heaved overboard as lumber by the publishers of many an edition of “Hunter's Virgil, in usum scholarum,' and the first edi- 556 SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIVY. CAP. 24, sent, beg. ‘Neque,’ &c.—Among the long sentences which abound in Livy, there are some in which the syntax is incomplete or anomalous, and which cannot be reduced to the ordinary laws which govern the structure of periods. Such sentences are numerous enough to have been collected by the critics and classified under the title of anacolitha (avoxo),00%. and awaytarodota,) i.e. inconsequentia and apodósi carentia, ‘wanting a main verb;' and such, naturally enough, was the undistinguishing admiration of every thing ancient among the early editors and commentators, that these imperfections were accounted beauties rather than blemishes, or attributed at the most to a grata negligentia. Many of the commentators regard the sentence, which I give entire below,” as an example of anacoluthon, but that this is a mistake, will appear from what follows: The two clauses or corresponding members of the sentence opposed to one another, are castigando and totus versus ad preces, and orare (for orabat) is the main verb; but that verb being applicable only to the latter clause (versus ad preces,) we must extract, as it were, out of orare another verb, such as agere, appropriate to the word castigando, which cannot be coupled with ‘orabat.” The sentence therefore is complete in its structure, and serves to illustrate the economical use of one verb in Latin where two are required in English. CAP 24, sent. beg. ‘Erant,’ &c., “clause,' . . . . . ‘nihil, neque apud duces, neque apud milites, remittitur a summo cer- tamine animi."—It is a common notion that, in Latin, two negatives are equivalent to a positive, as nec non senserunt, which Milton has imitated in Paradise Lost in the phrase, “Nor did they not perceive,’ i.e. ‘ and they perceived.” But this rule is far from being absolute. There is no want of ex- amples, both in Livy and Cicero, where the double negative tion, printed at Cupar-Fife, is now a scarce book; but I am glad to see the note (on Ecl. x. l. 75.) restored in Oliver & Boyd's edition of 1848. * Neque alter tribunus rei deſuit; sed, missus a collega, restituente peditum aciem, ad equites, non castigando, (ad quam rem leviorem auctorem eum cul- pae societas fecerat) sed, ab imperio totus ad preces versus, orare singulos universosque, ut se, rcum fortunae ejus diei, crimine eximerent. SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIW Y. 557 makes the negation stronger, as it does in Greek: e.g. Epicrates debebat nullum nummum nemini (Cic. Verr. II. c. 24), reminds one of the Cockney boast, “I owes no money to nobody.” In Livy, XXIX. c. 12, ‘Neque enim ne ipsius quidem regis ab- horrebat animus.” See also Liv. xxx. c. 30, and xxxi. c. 38; and Cic. Att. v. 14. CAP. 35. This and the six chapters that follow, (36–41), contain an account of the promulgation, discussion, and fate, for the time, of the bill first moved by the tribunes, Licinius Stolo and Sextius, in the year of the City 377, and called, from the names of its proposers, Lex Licinia Sextia. The object of this Rogation was three-fold. The First Chapter related to a compromise or adjustment of the debts due by the poorer plebeians to the richer patricians, which, by the in- ability of the former to pay, and the consequent accumulation of interest, had become an intolerable burden. The Bill pro- vided, first, That the interest already paid should be deducted from the principal, and that the remaining capital should be paid up in three years by three equal instalments. By Chap- ter Second of the Lex Licinia, it was provided, That no citizen should acquire, or remain in possession of, more than 500 jugera of ager publicus, the public or conquered lands: and by Chapter Third, That consuls should be elected instead of the six military tribunes with consular authority, and that one of the two consuls should, of necessity, be a plebeian. It is against the Third of these proposals only that the very remarkable and powerful argument of Appius Claudius Crassus, the grand- son of the decemvir and of a family that had always been highly conservative, is directed. The Agrarian Chapter of the Bill proved a constant theme of agitation for three centuries; for it was in Cicero's Consulship, A. U. C. 690, that he made the celebrated speech to the people against the Agrarian Law of Rullus, which Pliny the elder reckons one of the greatest feats of his genius. It would be difficult to select from the writings of the ancients two finer specimens of Conservative argument and eloquence than the speech of Cicero to the People de Lege Rulli, and that which Livy puts into the mouth of Appius in Ch. XL, and XLI. of this Book. The opposite ar- 558 SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIWY. gument of the tribunes for having one plebeian consulship is given in the reported form, in Chaps. XXXVI. and XXXVII.” CAP. 39, past the middle, ‘Non esse modestiae populi Ro- mani id postulare, ut ipse foenore levetur et in agrum injuria possessum a potentibus inducatur; per quos ea consecutus sit, senes tribunicios, non sine honore tantum, sed etiam sine spe honoris, relinquat.’—The omission of et or et simul eos before per is a common enough example of asyndeton, but the notice of it here may facilitate the understanding of a sentence, which is somewhat perplexing; the perplexity arising partly from what is either an oversight of Livy, or a corruption of the text. Here, as in a former example, it may be observed, that the thing inconsistent with the moderation and candour of the Roman people was, not the insisting on relief from usury, and on being put in possession of the land-unjustly usurped by those who had the power, but ‘the act of leaving men, who had grown old in the tribuneship, and to whom they were in- debted for these prospects, not only without present promo- tion, but with no chance of obtaining it.' If Livy wrote relinquat to correspond to inducatur, it was doubtless per in- curiam: it ought obviously to be relinquere, to correspond to postulare. Postulare ut relinquat, which the syntax requires, betrays the mistake by making nonsense of the clause. I have long thought that we have only a choice of the same alternative, the incuria of Livy, or the blunder of the tran- scribers—in a passage which has not, more than the above, attracted the notice of any editor. In the speech of the Sici- lian deputation to Marcellus, Livy xxv. c. 29, praying him to spare the city of Syracuse, which was now at his mercy, the following passage occurs: “Famae ne credivelis, quanta urbs a te capta sit, quam posteris quoque eam spectaculo esse, (quo quisque terra quisque mari venerit, nunc nostra de Athenien- sibus Karthaginiensibusque tropaea, nunc tua de nobis osten- dat) incolumesque Syracusas familiae vestrae sub clientela nominis Marcellorum tutelaque habendas tradas.’ It is strange that the unpleasant àpototekeptov at the close of this sentence should not have led any of the editors of Livy hith- * For a radical speech of Marius in the same spirit, vid. Sall. Jug. 85. SELECTION OF NOTES ON LIVY. 559 erto mentioned, Drakenborch, Crevier, Stroth, Doering, Ru- perti, Ruddiman, or Bekker, to question the reading, and restore it to what Livy wrote, or at least ought to have written —habendas tradi. The latter was the reading I adopted in construing this chapter with my pupils in the rector's class, High School, more than thirty years ago; and it was only in the course of writing this note, that I found tradi suggested, in a note of J. F. Gronovius inserted among a mass of others by Drakenborch in his long article on this passage, but which suggestion is not adopted by himself, and is passed sub silentio by all subsequent commentators. It is a change recommended alike by sound, sense, and syntax: Nevelis credi famae quanta urbs capta (et direpta) sit a te (potius) quâm (velis) eam esse spectaculo, . . . et Syracusas tradi habendas, &c. I may add, that I printed the whole sentence exactly as it is in the Text of Ruperti, in deference to an editor of Livy whose Notes are the most satisfactory I am acquainted with for the thorough understanding of that author.” According to him the sentence is dissuasive, ne velis, “do not chuse,’ &c. But I rather incline to the reading of those editors who look upon the sentence as interrogative, and print Famaene credi velis, &c., concluding with ? instead of Ruperti's full stop. ‘Can you prefer,’ &c. * These valuable Notes (Commentarius Perpetuus, as he himself calls them) were published apart from the Text by Priestly, of London; and the 5th and 6th vols. of the Gottengen Edition of 1807, containing this Commen- tary may be purchased separately. A PP E N DIX. A PPEND IX, NoTE A. ON PAGE 242, (IRISH EDUCATION, 1854.) THE Blue Books mentioned in the text are made up entirely of the examinations, by question and answer, which took place in 1854, before a Select Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to in- quire into “the Practical Working of the System of National Edu- cation in Ireland.” There is no REPORT from the CoMMITTEE itself. I have gone through a considerable portion of these folios, and, while their contents strengthen the high opinion I always enter- tained of that admirable Institution, and satisfy me that the ob- jections urged against it, in and out of Parliament, are “frivolous and vexatious,” they have, at the same time left upon my mind the conviction, which as a Protestant I am bound to call a painful one, that the evidence of the Catholic witnesses, lay and clerical, is given in a more humane, liberal, and truly Christian spirit than that of the Clergy of the Established Church of Ireland.” And this * I should rather perhaps have said, of that section of it, commonly distin- guished by the epithet ‘Orange,” which forms, I fear it must be owned, a large majority of that priesthood. There are, however, many honourable exceptions. Such, for example, is Dr Warburton, Dean of Elphin. Speaking of the Church Education Society and its Schools, which their supporters avow to be “an- tagonistic to the National System,” the Dean expresses himself thus:— “Giving credit to its supporters for the best intentions, I cannot escape from the conviction, that they have done more, within the last few years, towards retarding the progress of education, than any other body of men in the kingdom. I believe their schools in general to be extremely inefficient, and that, by occupying the place of an efficient system, they have deprived many, and especially members of the Established Church, of educational ad- vantages which are far superior to any they can offer them. This opinion is grounded partly on my own experience and observation, and partly on the confessions of the supporters of the Church Education Society. When ap- pointed to this Deanery nearly four years since, I found in connection with 564 APPENDIX.—IRISH EDUCATION, 1854. impression coincides with that which I had received eight or ten years ago from personal intercourse with clergymen of both deno- minations. The following extracts are from the evidence of Mrs Julia Camp- bell, a Catholic lady. At the time of her examination (June 1854) she was Superintendent of the Female Training and Model Na- tional School in Marlborough Street, and had filled that situation for 21 years, after having acted in a similar capacity in the Kildare Place Society's Schools, for 11 years :- Question 9705. What are the ages at which young women are gene- rally received by you ?—From about 18 to 25. 97.12. During the time that you have been at the Marlborough Street School, how many of these candidates for the office of teacher have passed through the school 2–Upwards of 1,400. 97.17. (Lord MonTEAGLE of Brandon).--While they are under your superintendence, are they either occasionally or systematically employed in such a way as to prepare them for the ordinary duties of women?— They are; the greater part of the domestic arrangements, except those of the very humblest character, is performed by them. For example, they make their own beds, sweep their own rooms, lay their own break- fast, wash up their own cups and saucers, and put them by in the nicest order. The same takes place as to dinner and tea; there is also a cottage kitchen. In this kitchen they are taught plain cookery, the making of plain soups, and the making of bread, both oaten bread and wheaten bread. They do not wash their clothes, because their time would not admit of it, considering the number of matters they have to learn. it a Church Education School which had been in operation for many years. I naturally thought that here, if anywhere, I should find some practical ad- vantages accruing from the system, and which might tend to reconcile me to the violation of the rights of conscience it involves. Until within a few years the residence of a Bishop, the Parish of Elphin appeared to afford no ordinary advantages for the working of the Church Education Society. What was the result 2 Why, the school was wretchedly attended, and the few children who did attend were lamentably deficient in useful knowledge, whether secular or religious. Not wishing to form a hasty judgment of their attainments, I attended at the half-yearly examination, held by a clergyman of the diocese on behalf of the Society, and nothing could have been worse than the answering: And what is the consequence with regard to the poorer members of the Established Church P Why, that with some the season for instruction had passed away, and there was not in the parish a Protestant youth who could have kept the accounts of a village trader; nor were these children more advanced in Scriptural than in secular knowledge. In grasp- ‘ing at the shadow of a scriptural school, the patrons lost the substance, which they might have had under the National Education Board.”—Minutes of Evidence, p. 887. APPENDIX.—IRISH EDUCATION, 1854. 565 However, every Friday afternoon, eight of them are employed in wash- ing, making up, and ironing their collars and small articles of dress. 9725. (Earl of WICKLow).--When you first entered the Model School of the National Board, did you find the system adopted there to be in- ferior or superior to that which you had previously seen practised under the Kildare Place Society?–It is not perhaps for me to form an opinion on that subject. I should be diffident in expressing any. I look upon the system of the National Board as a more extended system of edu- cation. When the Kildare Place Society began its operations, educa- tion was in a very backward state in Ireland; and I may say, it displaced a very bad system, by introducing a greatly improved one. The books in use in the schools, were more restricted in knowledge than those which are in use under the National Board, but they had a valuable compilation of books, very entertaining and useful, with which they sup plied the schools. This little library consisted of voyages and travels and other improving books. I think the National Board took a step beyond that. They found that a great advance had been made during the time the Kildare Place Society had been at work, and in my opin- ion, they made an improvement upon it. The Kildare Place Society made the first move ; and the National Board took a step in advance, and I have no doubt we shall see at Some future time, a still further improvement as education progresses. 4. 9734. (Lord MonTEAGLE).-With respect to the young persons who are trained, from your own experience of 21 years, what has been their general moral character and demeanour?—With great truth and plea- sure, I should say it has been most excellent. During that long period, I never knew nor heard of a single instance which I could have cause to feel regret about. On the contrary, the teachers have been most ex- emplary and excellent young women, coming up to our establishment from the country innocent and well conducted, receiving instruction from us and going home improved. The greatest harmony has subsisted among them. * 9735. In many cases do you keep up an intercourse with those girls whose education you have superintended ?–I do ; I have had number- less letters from them, which I have never shown, because it must have appeared egotistical. Their young hearts are so affectionate, that any little attention or kindness shown them, they seem never to forget. 9736. Are they accustomed ever to communicate with you, and ask your advice in any position in which they may require it?—Con- stantly. 9739. What proportion of those young women who are under your care are Protestants 2—I should say about one-fourth are Protestants. 9741. Does your evidence as already given, both with rospect to the conduct of those young women, and with respect to their affectionate and grateful recollection of your services, apply equally to those belong- ing to the Protestant persuasion as to Roman Catholics?—It does in- 566 APPENDIX.—IRISH EDUCATION, 1854. deed; I could not speak too strongly upon that subject. Though I am convinced that the members of each sect are firm in their belief, and have every attention paid to their religious instruction in the establish- ment by the clergy of each denomination, who have a full opportunity of giving it at stated periods, I never saw, when they came together again, anything but that common Christian feeling which every one would like to observe among Christians,—sisterly love and affection. I recollect one instance of two little girls, one of whom afterwards died; they were scarcely ever seem together but the arm of one was round the shoulder or neck of the other : I do not think the element of religious difference had the slightest influence upon their feelings. 97.42. Were those two girls of different persuasions?—One was a member of the Establishment, and the other was a Roman Catholic. 9743. Have any instances occurred, during the 21 years that you have had the superintendence of that establishment, in which there has been any suspicion of interference with the religious faith of the young people of any denomination ?—No, there has not been the slightest suspicion of it. That was the great perfection of the system, that entire confidence was established in the mind of every body. Every party felt perfectly satisfied there was no wish to interfere with or change the religious tenets of any of the pupils. + 9744. Was the principle of confidence and of affection purchased at the price of any indifferentism with respect to religious belief and practice 2—I certainly think not ; I could not tell what the private opinions of individuals might be, but I felt and do feel confident that they were all sincere Christians according to their respective tenets. IEvery one of them attended at the religious ordinances of her Church; it was, in fact, a part of their duty, and they did it with good will and cheerfulness, and as young women should. 9745. Are ample opportunities afforded in your training establish- ment for the religious instruction of the young women?—Ample oppor- tunity is afforded; the clergy of different religious communions come there ; in fact, I do not think anything more liberal, nor, so far as I can judge, more successful could be devised than the plan which has been pursued in our training establishment. 9749. Have you any complaints made by the ladies to whom you have furnished teachers of the conduct of the teachers who were sent to them ?—I never heard a single instance of it; no patroness ever com- plained of a teacher who was sent to her. 9774. (Earl of WICKLow.)—You take care that the young women shall have abundant exercise ?—Yes; I observe that there is sometimes a reluctance to it on their parts: when I send them out to walk in the play-ground, if I am occupied or going out, I find them sitting or at their studies; as they are very anxious about their classification, they evince a strong desire to raise themselves in the school and to be pre- APPENDIX.—IRISH EDUCATION, 1854. 567 pared in their classes for the following day; and I very often find them at their books during the time allotted for recreation. 9776. Do they go to their places of religious worship on Sunday ?— Constantly, besides receiving special religious instruction in the estab- lishment. These views and sentiments, as well as the Dean of Elphin's quoted in the note, are in accordance with those which I heard from the lips of the late Catholic Bishop of Derry, when he was acting as parish priest in a district on the east side of Lough Swilly, where he had been mainly instrumental in organizing no less than seven Schools on the national system, some of which I visited along with him. The methods and results presented in Mrs Campbell's evidence, I can certify from personal inspection, and from intercourse with the professors and teachers, are equally predicable of the corresponding male department of the National Schools of Ireland. And yet, this is the system which has been perseveringly thwarted in every possible way,+denounced, and petitioned against by the great body of the Established Clergy of Ireland, from the prelates downwards through all the gradations of the priesthood. As a contrast to what has been quoted above, we have only to turn to the evidence of the Rev. Hamilton Verschoyle, Chancellor of Christ Church, Dublin, &c., who would seem to be the mouth-piece of the Orange party. It is a melancholy exhibition of narrow-minded– ness and wrong-headed bigotry. One specimen must suffice. He had just stated that “the pith and marrow” of the “conscientious objection” which he and his brethren had to the national system was the exclusion of Bible reading from the hours of united instruc- tion, and the confining of it to hours set apart. The Lord President (Earl Granville) considerately puts his question in this form — 6766. It has been stated to the committee, that however sincere this conscientious objection may be on the part of the clergy, it is plainly unreasonable; for that in fact the rules of the Board do not oblige them to teach anything which is erroneous, but merely restrain them in some respects from teaching what they believe to be important and true; and that however a man may plead a conscientious objection against a rule which would require him to teach error, there is no ground of conscien- tious objection against a system which merely restrains from teaching what he believes to be important and true. To this Mr Verschoyle answers, in his own name and that of his Orange brethren:— I believe the clergy feel that that restraint is, in effect, as great a * 568 APPENDIX. grievance to their consciences as if it were imposed upon them to teach errors | It is in the same examination that Mr Verschoyle mentions tri- umphantly the melancholy fact that 1700 of his clerical brethren have appended their names to a petition to Parliament against the national system, and embodying such doctrine and opinions as this. If the reader is desirous to carry the contrast farther, let him compare the evidence of the two Catholic clergymen, at the beginning of Vol. II. of the Lords' Report, with the whole of Mr Werschoyle's examination which immediately follows theirs; or with the quirks and quibbles of another oracle of the Orange party, the Rev. Mor- timer O'Sullivan. See Vol. II., p. 1233. NoTE ON F. 263, (EDINBURGH SCHOOL or ARTs, &c.) This excellent Institution, which is now of more than 30 years' standing and has a reputation almost European, altered its designa- tion lately, upon occasion of the inauguration of a statue of James Watt, erected in front of the building in 1854. It came to be my duty, as President of “the Watt Institution and School of Arts,” to say something to the multitude assembled to witness the unveil- ing of the statue. However unworthy of the subject what I then Said and now insert here may be, it has a bearing on popular educa- tion; and I am unwilling to lose the credit of having done my endea— vour to imbue the minds of the young artizans of Edinburgh with due respect and admiration for a man, to whom they and the world at large are so deeply indebted. What I said was as follows: “Friends, brothers, and countrymen I We are assembled here this day to do honour to the memory, by inaugurating the statue, of James Watt—of whom we run no risk of exaggeration or contradiction when we affirm, that he has done more towards increasing the material well-being of his fellow-creatures than any other man that ever lived. “In the earliest dawn of civilization, the men who first introduced the arts of life—the sowing of corn, the planting of esculents and fruit-trees, the baking of bread, the rearing of cattle, and the building of houses— were, in the dim traditions of posterity, invested with celestial honours, and worshipped as divinities. But the great man who is uppermost in our thoughts at this momeut is not enrollèd, as they were, among the gods of Olympus. They have long since passed from the region o popular belief to that of poetry and mythological history: He is en- shrined in the hearts of his countrymen, and consecrated to everlasting remembrance by the admiration and gratitude of all civilized nations, SPEECH AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE WATT STATUE. 569 “But it is not doing full justice to Watt to say, that he did more than ever mortal man did to add to the material comforts and physical en- joyments, the external conveniences and luxuries, of human life. His inventive genius has contributed more largely to the moral and intel- lectual progress of the species than Orpheus when he tamed the tigers and drew after him the listening oaks by his melodious strains, or Amphion when he made the charmed stones dance into their places in the walls of Thebes. The Railway and the Steamboat have been more effective than the lyre of Apollo himself, in knitting men together in the bonds of good fellowship, in rooting out prejudices and antipathies both national and individual, in diffusing knowledge, in advancing Science, and in accelerating the progress of peace and good-will among FºlòIl. “It is satisfactory to think that one who conferred so many and such important benefits on his fellow-men enjoyed, in his own person, a prolonged and happy existence. He was born in 1736, and died in 1819; and during by far the greater part of that long period of four- score and three years—having raised himself by industry and virtuous exertion to easy circumstances—he had time to commence and carry on that work of self-improvement (for he owed little or nothing to school or college training) which he continued unremittingly through life: and so far was it from being confined to his favourite scientific pursuits, that it took in almost every branch of literary and philosophi- cal inquiry. As a proof of the general cultivation of mind which Watt bestowed upon himself, it may be worth while to mention that, in his frequent visits to Edinburgh, in the decline of life though still in a green and vigorous old age, the society he courted most, and was most frequently found in, was that of the galaxy of talent and accomplishment which adorned the bar of Scotland during the early part of the present century. In these visits he was sure to honour with an early call— because he was a prime favourite—one of that galaxy, a man not less remarkable for his legal and antiquarian knowledge than graced with all the accomplishments of a scholar and a gentleman—the late Thomas Thomson ; who never failed, on such occasions, to summon a knot of the wits of the Edinburgh bar to meet the veteran philosopher. To these ‘nights and suppers of the gods’ I was sometimes admitted, not as being either a lawyer or a wit, but solely in virtue of being Thom- son’s friend and brother-in-law. Now, in these noctes catnaequé deitm I have heard Watt discourse agreeably and instructively on every variety of topic, from the latest discovery in science to the merits of the last new poem or even the latest novel—especially if it happened to be one of that series of works of fiction with which the Great Unknown was them—that is, full five and thirty years ago—delighting and aston- ishing the world. Walter Scott—himself a star of the first magnitude in the constellation of the Scottish bar of that day—was no unfrequent guest at these evening parties; and he has contrived to describe, in his 570 APPENDIX. preface to the ‘Monastery, the impression that Watt made upon him. A few sentences of this description I cannot resist the temptation of quoting, so strongly do they confirm, under a higher authority than mine, the idea. I had formed of James Watt's multifarious acquire- ments:—‘There were assembled to meet Watt,” says Sir Walter, “about half a score of our northern lights. . . . . Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear again. In his eighty-first year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man had his attention alive to every one's question—his information at every one's command. His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a deep philologist—with him he talked on the origin of the alphabet as if he had been coeval with Cadmus ; another, a celebrated critic—you would have said the old man had studied political economy and belles lettres all his life. Of science it is unnecessary to speak—it was his own dis- tinguished walk. I have little apology,’ adds Sir Walter, ‘for troub- ling you with these things, excepting the desire to commemorate a de- lightful evening.” Nor was Watt's modesty, on these occasions, less remarkable than his intelligence. He seldom originated a subject; and though all were ever ready to give way to him, and to hang on the lips of ‘the old man eloquent,’ he never took more than his share of the conversation, and was himself as patient a listener as he was an accep- table speaker. “In considering the character of Watt—so full of candour, benevo- lence, and simplicity, so abhorrent from anything like pretension or display—it is natural to suppose that, among the monuments that have been raised to his honour, there is no site, not even excepting Westminster Abbey, which he would have preferred to that where he now reposes before us. It would doubtless have been congenial to his manly and practical spirit that a statue—if his modesty allowed him to think of such a thing at all—should be erected to him on a spot, where it was likely to be most frequently seen by those, who were beginning life in circumstances and with views similar to what his own were, and where the sight and remembrance of him would stimulate many to follow in his steps. And, if there be any in the assembly I am now addressing, who, conscious of talent and ambitious of distinction and usefulness, are ‘struggling hard with fortune to be just,’ and feeling how truly the poet has said— ‘Slow rises worth by poverty depressed’— let not their hearts sink within them, or dwell despondingly on their Scanty means, poor accommodation, and the incessant toil that absorbs their time. Rather let them revert to the first steps in life—still more unpromising than theirs—of that pattern and exemplar of moral and intellectual greatness that is now before them—the man who rose from the ranks to be the captain-general and commander-in-chief of the in- dustrial forces of the whole human race. They may not reach such an INAUGURATION OF THE WATT STATUE. 571 elevation as his; it may indeed be confidently predicted that they never will;—for one can scarcely conceive that nature should have still in reserve, to reward the ingenuity of future inquirers, secrets as important in themselves, and as pregnant with results, as those which crowned the labours and have immortalised the name of James Watt. But his in- dustry, his perseverance, his sustained untiring energy, his exemplary conduct in the various relations of life, and the other elements of moral wisdom which enter so largely into his character—these are qualities which may be successfully imitated by all; and they are qualities which, though they will not lead to so extended a reputation, will go far to secure a useful and happy life, with a considerable chance of professional eminence and distinction. Let then, the youthful aspirant after such desirable objects—as he passes and repasses to his daily and, it may be, irksome labour, draw comfort and encouragement, when he looks upon the countenance and attitude of this statue, in which the sculptor has so well preserved an expression of the patient thought and virtuous intelligence of the original. Still more deeply will these lessons be im– pressed by the view of the statue, when it catches the eye of the stu- dent of the Watt Institution, as he wends his way to the lecture-room where he is to hear of the wonderful achievements of that genius who was nurtured like himself in humble circumstances, and under difficul- ties and impediments greater than his own. He had no Lees, no Pryde, no George Wilson to expound to him the mysteries of Science, and —— ‘to light with intellectual day The mazy wheels of nature, as they play'— no inviting and most accessible library in which to slake his thirst for knowledge. He had few of those facilities which the Founders and Di- rectors of this Institution have provided in such abundance, and for a payment—lectures and all—which the most ordinary industry can readily command. They have done their part well. If there be any actual or intending student of the School of Arts whose ‘breast is pregnant with celestial fire, the Directors have taken care that it shall not be said of him that — ‘knowledge to his eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll.' And if what he hears in the lecture-room of Watt's mighty doings should have the effect—an effect not unlikely to follow in minds most akin to his—of inducing despair rather than stimulating exertion, let him turn to the numerous examples, recorded in the annals of the school, of individuals who, having gone with credit through the curri- culum of study prescribed, have proved themselves worthy followers of the illustrious Watt; and, in consequence of their success here, as they are ever proud to avow, have risen to stations of great respectability and emolument. So numerous, indeed, have these instances become, and so widely spread their influence, that, in the market of skilled labour 572 APPENDIX, throughout the country, the pupils of this Institution are at a premium. Its fame has even crossed the sea, and has sent back an echo in the last Annual Report of the Industrial Department of the Belgian Go- vernment, in which ours is described as the earliest and the best of the Mechanics’ Institutes of Great Britain. A more substantial proof of its increasing reputation, and nearer home, has been recently afforded by our own Government, not in the way of a pecuniary grant (for they still leave us the satisfaction of keeping up the funds of the school, and even call on the citizens of Edinburgh for fresh contributions), but by instituting a bursary or scholarship. The object of this boon is to draft off to London from time to time the best specimens we are able to pro- duce of ability and acquirement, to provide them with the means of maintenance there, and to give them free access to the lectures, collec- tions, and other sources of instruction at the command of the Govern- ment department of science and art; thus putting the selected student in the sure way of promotion and of turning his talents to the best ac- count. This day, therefore, may well be considered as the commence- ment of a new and brilliant era in the history of the Institution. For thirty years the School of Arts laboured in secret, encountering many a difficulty and weathering many a storm ; it is now rewarded openly. It is honoured with the patronage of his Royal Highness Prince Albert, which is not only a guarantee of its future prosperity, but an attesta- tion of its past services and public usefulness: for it is well known that his Royal Highness does not lavish this honour indiscriminately, but bestows it only after a searching inquiry into the character and ma- nagement of the institution that Solicits it. In the next place, there is now a noble object of ambition held out to our students by an enlight- ened Administration. And, finally, the name of the School is for ever associated with that of the great benefactor of his species—the express image of whose person is now permanently fixed on its pedestal of gra- nite—a block of stone almost as imperishable as the fame of him whose statue rests upon it. That statue will henceforth be our genius locł– the inspiring and tutelary genius of the Edinburgh College of Artisans.” I hope to be forgiven by the “gentle reader,” if–following the prevailing fashion of the day to make and to print public ora- tions,—I insert here another speech, delivered on occasion of a dinner given to their old teacher, by upwards of a hundred of the survivors of those who had been pupils of his in the Rector's Class of the High School, between 1809 and 1820. It is the last fragment of autobiography which I am ever likely to be guilty of, and may find indulgence on that score. The dinner took place on the 1st of June 1853, Lord NEAVEs in the Chair, * A l’EAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 573 “It is a singular and almost unprecedented circumstance in this meet- ing, that among the multitude around me who have assembled here this evening, to make good cheer, to recal the associations of boyhood, and to do honour to their old master, there cannot be one who had not arrived at the last stage of his school education at least three-and-thirty years ago, some three-and-forty, and the remainder at one or other of the intermediate stages. This is not, then, a sudden burst of youth- ful enthusiasm, but the deliberate purpose of manhood. You have all reached that midway station in the journey of life, when, the bodily powers and mental faculties being fully developed, and guided in their exercise by the lessons of experience, man attains the perfection of his nature, a state equally removed from the freaks and follies of youth and the infirmities of age. Many who started abreast with you ‘in life's morning march’ have been swept into a premature grave, while you have stood erect and unscathed amid the changes and chances of this mortal life, and have risen, some to eminence and distinction, and all to com- petence, respectability, and status in society—buffeting with brave hearts, when duty or necessity required, the storms of adversity. Many, too, I know there are, contemporaries of yours, and once pupils of mine, scattered over every quarter of the Old and New World, who, hav- ing escaped all moving accidents by flood and field, would gladly have joined this band of brothers, had distance of time and place permitted. And what shall I say of the only guest in the room?—the old boy who has shot so far ahead of you all, who, -though it is long since he stept over the key-stone of the arch on which you stand, though he has passed the meridian on which you are culminating, and ‘towards life's descent now slopes his westering wheel,'— yet freshly looks and overbears attaint.” Self is a difficult and ungracious topic for a man to deal with. To dwell upon it, even so briefly as I intend to do, in any other assembly or on any other occasion but this, would justly be considered, not as symptomatic of approaching senility, but as positive proof of an advanced stage of that infirmity. But, addressing myself as I now do to those to whom, thirty or forty years ago, it was my duty no less than it was a pleasure to communicate the innermost and most matured thoughts of my mind—of which, that they have no ungrateful recollection their very presence here to-day is a proof.-I may, methinks, without losing that rospect which every man owes to himself as well as to his hearers, avail myself in addressing old pupils, of that privilege which Cicero claims when pleading the cause of his old master—paullo logw; liberius ; and may flatter myself that I shall be listened to with indulgence and even with interest, while I dwell shortly on some of the feelings of my mind and some of the facts of my history which are naturally suggested by an occasion so peculiar as this. I am not one of that pretty numer- ous class of persons who, as life advances, are constantly reverting, in melancholy mood, to the pleasures of boyhood and early youth ; the burden of whose doleful ditties ever is— 574 APPENDIX. “O golden time o' youthful prime, Why com'st thou not again º' I was as happy, I suppose, as other boys are in those restless and un- reflecting days when— “Rushing forth like colt untamed, the reckless truant boy Wanders through greenwoods all day long, one mighty heart of joy,' But there are joys of a riper age that far outweigh this joy even in the scenes where boyhood is supposed to have the advantage. For the poet from whom I have quoted goes on to say—and I feel entirely as he does— “I’m soberer now—I’ve had some cause,_but O ! I'm proud to think That each pure joy-fount loved of yore, I yet delight to drink; Leaf, blossom, blade, hill, valley, stream, the calm unclouded sky, Still mingle music with my dreams as in the days gone by.' And who will not join in his last aspiration ? “O ! ne'er may Nature's loveliness fall on me dark and cold ; I could not bear life's heaviest curse, a heart that has grown old.' And as, on the one hand, I have no sympathy with the sickly senti- mentalities which embitter the present with vain regrets for the past, so, on the other hand, I have no fellow-feeling with those who are per- petually sighing and whining over the “woes of eld.” Of these Juvenal (Sat. x.) has given us an appalling catalogue, enough to make the heart of a man quail who has felt a tithe of them in his own person. But my ‘withers are unwrung.” For, though I have more than filled up the measure of three score and ten, which is generally reckoned the latest period of endurable or at least enjoyable existence, yet I suffer from none of the miseries which the poet has drawn up in such fearful array. So, I turn from Juvenal to Cicero, and say, as he makes old Cato say in his eightieth year—nihil habeo quod incusem senectwtem. So true is it that I have no complaint to make of old age that, if I were given the choice of Seven consecutive years to spend over again exactly as they had been spent, I would select out of a long, and, upon the whole, a very happy life, the three years on each side of the three score and ten—the seventieth itself being included. There is one of Juvenal's penalties, indeed, which long-livers must inevitably incur—the dropping off, one by one, of their oldest and dearest friends— * Haec data poena diu viventibus, ut renovata Semper clade domſs, multis in luctibms, inque Perpetuo moerore, et migra veste semescant." Even in such bereavements, however, I have learned the happy art of dwelling less on the personal privation I have sustained, than on the virtues and estimable qualities of the departed, and on the opportunities I have had through life of seeing them displayed. Submitting to the great law of mortality, if not without pain, at least with resignation, and giving way to no murmur or complaint which would savour of sul- A FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPIſ Y. 575 lenness against nature, I cherish their memory and surround myself with their likenesses, ‘studioseque etiam eorum sepulcra contemplor.’ “Pope has said, and really with no very extravagant stretch of poeti- cal licence, that— — ‘life can little else supply, Than just to look about us, and to die;’ and Shakspeare has called human life a ‘brief candle.' Now, admit- ting the justness of the latter similitude, I can only say for myself, that by trimming and pruning it, and, above all, by not burning the candle at both ends, I have done my best to make it last— ‘To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting"— not “by repose,’ as the poet has it, but by straining every faculty to the top of its bent, short of fatigue and exhaustion,-such active exer- tion being, to my mind, a much better receipt for keeping the flame alive than the languor of repose. Thus it is that, by a little common prudence, coming in aid of the blessing of God and the inheritance of a sound constitution, I have outlived so many of my contemporaries with whom I used to take ‘Sweet counsel together,'—so many, indeed, that I seem to myself ‘the fragment of a former world.” In another point of view, I am the very Nestor of the Iliad in everything but his wisdom and his eloquence; for Homer, as you remember, tells us that Nestor had reigned over two generations of articulate-speaking men, and was then ruling over the third. Now, this is precisely my history. You are here the representatives of the first generation ; not a few of your sons have been subject to my sway during two-and-thirty years of professorial rule, this makes the second generation ; and if I mistake not, sons of theirs, your grandchildren, have already commenced the third generation of my subjects. Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that there is a crop of youngsters, sons of your sons, who are now in the various stages of preliminary training, and are looking for- ward to the time when they are to put on the toga virilis, and com- mence their academical studies with the Humanities. So that, if not already, the time at least is imminent, when it may be said of me as Homer says of Nestor—“And he was then reigning over the third generation,'—tºro. 3s retreroicly avaraty. “I said a little while ago, at the risk of being charged with egotism and senility, and trusting to the interest you might be supposed to take in your old teacher, that I should speak freely of some feelings in my mind, and some facts in my history. The latter part of the task that I set myself remains to be performed; and to that part of my history I shall advert which alone can have any interest for you—the part which bears on the High School rectorship. “In the month of December 1809, I happened to be residing in Lon- don, in the neighbourhood of Grosvenor Square, and having some busi- mess to transact in the City, I started early, and took breakfast on my 576 Al’PENDIX, way, as I was in the habit of doing, with my old school-fellow and friend, Francis Horner, at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn. I found several guests at his table, among the rest “Conversation’ Sharp—a gentleman who had earned that appellation by his great conversa- tional powers, and who was, moreover, a very chronicle of the times. In this latter capacity he mentioned, as the latest news he had heard, the death of Dr Adam ; and as most of the company were Scotchmen, and had been the Doctor's pupils, the intelligence gave rise to not a few expressions of affectionate regret for the loss of so amiable a man, and so excellent a teacher. When the party broke up, I went on my errand. Returning home in the evening, I found a note from Mr Horner, conceived in these few words—‘Have you any thought of being Dr Adam's successor ? Would you like it 2 and have you any friends in Edinburgh who could assist you in the canvass 3’ This was the turning point of my fortunes, and to that lamented statesman I have ever looked, and ever must look, as the origin of my prosperity and happiness in life. To all his queries I was disposed to reply in the negative. For though, at the time, I was hanging very loose upon the world, being on the point of closing a tutorial engagement, without the prospect of anything better, yet I had no predilection—rather, indeed, a rooted aversion—to the profession of a public teacher; and even had I liked it, the rectorship of the High School seemed to me a situation as much above my abilities to fill, as it was beyond my power to reach. Such were my first impressions; but the Note led to a conference with my friend, and cheered on by his counsel, and aided by his powerful support, I timidly took the field, and I need not tell you that, by the exertions of my friends, my canvass was successful. The difficulties I had to encounter in the first year of my incumbency were considerable. I had no experience in public teaching, having never taught more than a pupil or two at a time. I had made no study of the art of teaching; and I was introduced at once to a class of 150 boys in a state of the most riotous insubordination. This was no doing of Dr Adam: it arose out of a strange blunder of the patrons of the school, who, anticipating a protracted contest for the rectorship, instead of dismiss- ing the youths to be under their parents' roof till a rector were appointed, summoned to the interim charge of the vacant office a former master of the school, who, under the growing infirmities of age, had sometime be- fore resigned his charge of one of the younger classes. The interregnum lasted rather more than a month, and that was quite space enough to foster and bring to maturity the seeds of evil and mischief. By a little management, however, by one or two examples of well-timed severity, but above all, by the conviction which gradually gained ground among the youth, that they were in the hands of a man devoted to his own duty and their service, the elements of evil were subdued, and the sterling good qualities of the Scottish youth (among which the love of know- ledge is the most conspicuous) came into play, and soon converted the APPENDIX. 577 irksome ask into an interesting and absorbing occupation. The ad- mixture of a new class in October with the best members of the old made all my difficulties vanish, and the school term of 1810-11 was the first of effective teaching during my connection with the High School. With regard to the res gestae of the next ten years in that seminary, are they not written in the Book of the Rationale of High School Disci- pline?—a book with which it is to be presumed that many of the present company are more or less familiar. I will not, therefore, inflict upon them the weariness of a twice-told tale. Those who have yet to read it will, when they do so, be able to understand how it came to pass that a man, who had no pretensions to profound erudition, who entered upon his rectorial duties with a very slender stock of knowledge of any kind, without experience, without previous notoriety, should yet have earned golden opinions among the parents, the pupils, and the public of the last and present generations—opinions which doubled the number of the rector's class in ten years, and have led to this demonstration of respect and affection which I regard as the greatest honour that ever was conferred upon me, and the remembrance of which will gladden my declining years as long as memory shall hold her seat. It was by dispensing my small stock with zeal and assiduity, by adding to it from day to day by private study and research, by never entering the class- room without having previously studied with care the lessons of the day; but, above all, by the simple expedient of treating the youth committed to my care as reasonable beings, and contriving that every member of the class should at all times have something to do, and an honourable motive for doing it. If I have done anything to make my name remembered for one generation after I am gone, the encomium I should most covet to deserve and to receive, would be the admission, that I contributed to lessen the frequency of corporal punishment in school, and led the way to that final abolition of it which is reserved for another age; and that I substituted the supremacy of honour, of principle, and of affection, for the reign of terror and the prostration of fear.” NOTE ON P. 342. The following anecdote was communicated to me by a gentleman who was a member of the class when the thing happened. I insert it here, both as an illustration of the truth of the principle stated in the text, and a proof of the kindliness of Dr Adam's nature:– “A boy on nicking (a schoolboy term) an object to another, inad- vertently soiled the sleeve of the well-kept coat of the Rector, whose 2 O 578 APPENDIX, back was turned at the time. On perceiving the circumstance, he turned calmly round, and, addressing his numerous class of about 130 scholars, stated, ‘that he was about to do what he had never done before in his class-room;’ at the same time taking off his coat and carefully wiping it. Having again put it on, he proceeded from the top of the class, inquiring at each boy individually, if he was the guilty person. On coming to the offender, he at once admitted the fact. To the asto- nishment of all, Dr Adam gently patted the boy on the head, and said, * Stand forward, this is a good boy, he has told the truth.’” NoTE on P. 361.—SPECIMEN OF HIGH SCHOOL ExERCISEs, 1820. Of the copy of verses alluded to, (which was written on the pre- scribed theme, “Sideribus novere vias.”—Lucan, Ix. 495), I insert that portion which describes a traveller left alone in the sandy deserts of Africa, and the phenomena of the Mirage and the Simoom. * * * * * Dum peragrat lassus sine tramite regna viator, Immotum frustra simul auribus aéra captans Atque oculis ponti flaventis littora quaerens, Nil cernit praeter coelum undique, et undique arenas: Quas tacitis asterna. Quies superincubat alis, Longinquum tonitru resonat nisi forte leonis, Aut trifido serpens horrendum sibilat ore, Aut—qua mercator, Sabuli discrimina tentans, Coelo noscit iter saxove Aquilonis amico— Rauca camelorum Vox dira silentia rumpit. Advena perculsus vix se jam wivere sentit, Mortua cum circă prorsus Natura videtur. Hic tamen interdum procul aequor amabile cernit, AEthere caeruleo longe sua caerula miscens, Riparumque toros virides, non qualis Oasis, Raro permulcens oculos spe fontis et umbră, Wix flavum varians campum, Sed ubique patentes Elysios campos. En praemia digna laboris I Laetitiã praeceps exul ruit, advolat, instat, Jamgue tenet, gelidas jam Sese immergit in undas, Quum Subito ex oculis vanescunt omnia lapsu, Statolue miser campi medio sine limite adusti. Quod si consurgens quando Neptunus arenae Jungit equos Venti, et rapidas molitur habenas, APPENDIX. 579 Effugit ecce Quies; praeceps Discordia sævit : Ante rotas Regis gaudens exultat Eremus, In chaos antiquum tanquam se funderet orbis. Ille, colummato provectus turbine curru, Horrisono gestit stridore, regitgue procellam, Dum fluctus infra torquentur gurgite vasto, Desuper et coelum fulvis obtexitur umbris. Tune miser, occurrit savi qui Numinis irae Nec fuga, nec votum, nec vis profecerit illi. Forsan et infelix, membris languore solutis, Sese errare putat quâ fons argenteus undā. Laetificat patrios campos, aut Scandere colles, Quorum gaudebat juvenis super ardua miti. Heul minimè reputas tibi quâm Sors ingruat atra : Somnus enim, mentem qui illudit imagine pulchrä, Est Consanguinei praenuntius; altior instat Umbra, Soporgue caput languens jam ferreus urget. Quin properas? venti veloces indue pennas, Si tempestatem possis vitare sequacem. Nequicquam —assequitur non eluctabile fatum, Atque indefletus jam mergitur exul arenå. Excitus, ad saevum vertit semel aethera vultum, Et patriae dulcis moriens reminiscitur agros. I820. JoANNES BRowN PATTERSON. The foregoing lines were translated as follows by a grandson of the late Sir Harry Moncreiff, J. F. Stoddart, at that time fifteen years of age, and a member of the same class with the Writer.” Mr Stoddart had already distinguished himself as a Judge in Ceylon, when he died at Colombo, in 1839, in the 35th year of his age. The traveller, where'er he turns his eyes, Sees nought but barren sands and torrid skies; O'er which her wing dread Silence ever spreads, Save where the waste the roaring lion treads, Or hissing serpents to the sun unfold Their scales that glisten with refulgent gold. Haply afar blue waters seem to rise, And blend their colouring with the azure skies, While verdant fields on every side are seen : —Not as the desert's gem, Oasis green, (Like some blest island in the sandy main) Ç Ambo His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere ! * 580 APPENDIX. Scarce rears her head above the scorching plain, - But far and wide Elysian meads extend. See, traveller, see here all thy toils must end. Onward he flies to reach the blissful glades; Swift from his sight the flattering vision fades. But if the Neptune of this sea of sand Yoke to his winged car with furious hand The horses of the Wind,-before him haste, Exulting, the dark spirits of the waste; Peace flies, and maddening Discord sweeps the plain, As if old Chaos would resume his reign : While He—the god throned on his pillar'd car, Delights to guide the elemental war; And widely round the heaving billows rise, Till clouds of fiery sand exclude the skies. Then wretched he, the angry god who dares; Him will avail nor force, nor flight, nor prayers. And haply, too, when sunk in sweet repose He tastes a short-lived respite from his woes— His native mountains he in fancy sees, And feels his mative mountain's freshening breeze. Alas, poor sleeper little dost thou deem How fate prepares to terminate thy dream; This sleep, that cheats thee with illusions blest, Is the sure herald of a deeper rest. Haste, trav’ller Sleep’s twin brother, Death, is nigh, Oh haste thee! take the lightning's wing and fly. In vain I warn,-sunk 'neath the sandy wave, Nor force can rescue him, nor speed can save : Starting from dreams of bliss, he sees his doom, Thinks of his home, and, sighing, finds a tomb. 1820, John FREDERICK STODDART. NoTE ON P. 380.-ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ALPHABET. I am tempted to add here to the brief notice in the Text, a fuller explanation of opinions and views which have been extended and somewhat modified since it was written. They are the re- sults, not of reading, but of being placed, as I have been for the last forty years, in a position affording ample opportunities of ob- servation and experiment upon young minds: and the fruits of these PHILOSOPHY OF THE ALPHABLT. 581 are put down here, without knowing, or much caring, whether any thing, or all, which I am about to say, has been said before, or not. It requires but a moment's reflection to satisfy even those whose attention has not been called to the subject before, that nothing can be more fortuitous and unphilosophical than the order in which the letters of all our alphabets succeed one another. Vowels and consonants are intermixed, and in a sequence for which it is im– possible to assign a reason: the whole is a chaos of atoms, jumbled together without regard to any principle of selection or succession. The anomaly and disorder could not have been greater, if the sepa- rate characters had been thrown like dice from a box, and picked up at random to take their places. Most true indeed it is, that never, in the history of human intel- lect, was a more marked step made in advance, than when spoken language was resolved into its ultimate and indivisible elements, and when those elements, hitherto addressed only to the ear, were designated to the eye by external and visible symbols. But the same master spirit of analysis, which first proved that the infinite diversities of human speech were all compounded out of a few simple pulses of the voice, cannot be supposed to have presided over the disposing of the alphabet as we now have it, and as it has come down to us, with slight variations, from ancient times. Grammarians, indeed, when grammar became a science, set them- selves to classify and arrange the letters of existing alphabets; but this was done too late to supersede the inveterate habit of using the series which chance appears to have at first directed. An Alphabet constructed upon purely philosophical principles, Ought to contain a full complement—neither more nor less—of visible signs or characters, to represent those elementary sounds of the human voice which go to the formation of articulate speech and are not susceptible of farther analysis or separation of parts. If this definition of a perfect alphabet be admitted as true, and if we measure by it our present European alphabets, we shall find them all, and, in an especial manner, our own, falling far short of the standard. They are all deficient in some respects, and redun- dant in others. For example, the list of English Vowels (to begin with that class of letters) errs egregiously in both ways. Out of the six, there are three only which express simple uncompounded sounds,-a, e, and o, of the other three, i and u are not vowels but diphthongs;–equivalent, the former to the Greek diphthong at, as in the personal pronoun I, and sometimes to et, as in ice, the latter resolvible into è-00 pronounced rapidly: and y, in all its uses, is a 582 APPENDIX. supernumerary. Again, there is in the English alphabet no single appropriate character, as there ought to be, for the sound of the Italian a, as in stava, or in the English word, far ; and yet this is the simplest sound emitted by the human voice, and the type of all the other vowels. We have no sign, either for the vowel-sound which is heard in the bleat of the sheep and in the Scotch mode of pronouncing the Greek letter m,” or for the simple sound which we, on this side the Tweed, give to the Greek v,-a sound unknown to the English, but occurring constantly in French, either short, as in nalheur, or long, as in gravure. Finally, we are without an alpha- betic character appropriated to the simple vowel-sound u, as it ap- pears in the Italian who, or in the English too. And w, which is not unusually inserted in the list of English vowels, is as much a supernumerary as y : for there is no use of that character which would not be served by the single u if we had it, or by our present use of the double o : will is just oo-ill, uttered quickly. Then, as to the class of CONSONANTs, our alphabet exhibits not a few examples both of Superfluities and Deficiencies. Of Super- fluous characters we have instances in c, both in its soft sound, equivalent to s, and its hard, identical with k; and q, which is al- ways followed by u, differs in no respect from the sound k, with u or w after it. Again, x, being obviously not a simple sound, but a mere symbol either of ks, as in awe, or of gz, as in easample, is no more entitled to a place in the alphabet than &, the convenient old abbreviation of and. Equally inadmissible in a philosophical al- phabet, are j and g soft. As sounds, they are identical in value; and the sound itself is not a simple one, being resolvible into dzh. On the other hand, of Deficiencies in our consonantal alphabet we have examples in our want of a single character to express four out of the six aspirate letters, (two belonging to each order of Mutes,) and yet all the four are simple uncompounded sounds. The two as- pirates for which we have alphabetic characters are the labial, f, v.; but to express the aspirates of the second and third order, whose or— gans are respectively the tip and the root of the tongue, our alphabet has no separate letter, though they are as well entitled to one as the lip-sounds. Thus, the sounds of the th in thin and thine,—the one the aspirate of t and the other of d-are both expressed by th With regard to the aspirates of k and g hard, they are sounds unknown in the present use of the English tongue, though one of them * That this is the true sound of n is proved by the following line of the Greek comic poet Cratinus, quoted by Suidas — 'O 3 #xíðios @wºrse régaroy, 6%, gº, 2.Éywy 323i's. PHILOSOPHY OF THE ALPHABET 583 (kh–the Greek x as pronounced in Scotland,) is familiar to the German and Scotch ear; the other, the aspirate of g, which has a character assigned to it in the Sanscrit alphabet, is nowhere found in the British Islands, except among the Celtic population. It is a lugubrious sound, common in Gaelic, and other rude dialects, and Somewhat akin to that mode of pronouncing the letter r called the Northumberland “burr, which consists in employing the root, instead of the tip, of the tongue in giving utterance to that letter. But supposing that all redundancies in our alphabet were lopt off, and all deficiencies supplied, so that there should be sepa- rate and single characters assigned to every uncompounded pulse of the human voice, it could not even then be called ‘a philosophi- cal alphabet, until the letters composing it were arranged in a series that should be in strict conformity with the order of nature. What that natural order is, in other words, what is the proper sequence of alphabetic characters, it seems to me not difficult to determine. I. In the first place, I should say that precedence is due to the Vowels, for the reason assigned in the text, viz. that the sounds which they represent have the common characteristic of being sent forth from the open mouth (aperto ore,) and are distinguished from each other only by slight modifications in the posture of the tongue and lips. They are emissions of Sound, not applications of organs. It is not easy to give an exhaustive catalogue of such vowel-sounds as are entitled to have a separate character in a philo- sophical alphabet. All of them admit of many scarcely percepti- ble variations, not only when they are taken singly and pronounced apart either as long or short, but in syllables, according as they precede, or are enclosed between, certain consonants: so that it would not be difficult to multiply vowel-sounds to an almost inde- finite extent, which would tend greatly to the confusion and embar- rassment of the subject. In fixing the number of simple vowels at seven, my object was to steer a middle course between excessive multiplication and undue retrenchment. Even for the whole of the small number to which I have reduced these vowel-sounds, it is impossible to find appropriate characters in our modern alphabets, and I have accordingly had recourse to the Greek for three char- acters out of the seven—e, m, v, ascribing to these letters respect- ively the sound which is given to them in all the schools and col- leges of Scotland, and in most, if not all, of the schools and colleges of Europe, except those of England. To express the remaining four, I retain the letters of our own alphabet, a, i, o, u, using them however to represent the European sound of those characters, not 584 APPENDIX. the English, which differs from the European in all of them except the letter O. The Vowels then would stand foremost, occupying the first seven places in our proposed alphabet, and in the following order: a, e, 7, i, o, u, v. Next in the alphabetic series would come the CoNSONANTS which are the ground-work of articulate speech as distinguished from the calls of the lower animals. The most obvious and the most philo- sophical arrangement of . Consonants is into three Orders, or Brotherhoods, corresponding to the vocal organs which are employed in giving them utterance. The organs of voice we understand to be, 1. the lips, 2. and 3. the tongue, both tip and root, and these three are all moveable; and 4. the palate, which is a fixture, the anvil, as it were, on which the lingual sounds are fashioned. Under each of the moveable organs, the lips, the tip of the tongue, and the root of the tongue, five letters range themselves, and these five of each Order have, one with another, a striking and beautiful analogy. Let us take the organs of speech, then, in the sequence which is the most natural, beginning with those external, and proceeding inward and backward. We shall thus have them in the following order:- Five lip-sounds, (Labials,) viz. e e p, b, f, v, II]. Five tip o' th' tongue sounds, (Linguo-palatals,”) viz. . ... t, d, 6, dh, Il. Five root o' th' tongue sounds, (Gutturals,) viz. . e • k, g, X, gh, Ing. * In Greek Grammars, the order of mutes consisting of r, 3, 4, are, I con- ceive, miscalled dentals: For, as it is the first letter in each of the three orders that gives origin to the rest and a name to the whole, and as the teeth are no way concerned in pronouncing any but the aspirate 4, (the t and the d bring- ing into play the tongue and palate alone,) there appears to me to be an im- propriety, according to our mode of giving utterance to these letters, in calling them dentals. As to the origin of the misnomer, my conjecture is this: It was in Italy, and in the days of Bocaccio and Petrarch, that the study of the Greek language began to revive, after the darkness of the middle ages; and in the first Greek Grammars composed by Italians, the order of mutes which I have called Linguo-palatal, received the name of dentals for this reason, that the letter t is pronounced in Italy somewhat differently from the same letter with us. In our utterance of that letter the tongue and palate only are con- cerned : whereas in the Italian t, there is an approximation of the tip of the tongue to the roots of the upper row of teeth, so as to bring the two slightly PHILOSOPHY OF THE ALPHABET. 585 In these three Orders, the first letter of each series expresses the radical articulation, whence spring the other letters of that order. It is the primitive type on which the rest are formed, either by modification or addition. The manner of their affiliation and de- rivation may be inferred from the following statement:— It is usual, in Greek and other grammars, to speak of three Orders of mutes, and to enumerate three or more letters under each : but the truth is, that it is to the first letter only of each order—p, t, k,+that the term mute is strictly applicable. Of these and these Only can it be affirmed with truth, that all attempts to produce the Sound which belongs to them, without the assistance of a vowel either before or after, will prove abortive, serving only to fix the into contact, and thus to lead, naturally enough, to the epithet dental. Of this process in Italian pronunciation any one may satisfy himself, by listening to an educated Tuscan or Roman, when reciting the first line of Tasso,+ Canto l'arme pietose e'l capitano. It will be found that his pronunciation of the t, in Canto, differs from ours of the Latin canto in this, that it gives a softer sound, intermediate between the acute t and the aspirate th, to effect which the tongue barely touches the teeth. As, however, there is no ground for thinking that the ancient Greeks gave this soft sound to the letter ºr, and as it is a sound unknown in our own Tongue, the epithet “dentales,’ commonly applied to that order of ‘mutae,’ serves only to embarrass the learner, and might be well exchanged for lingwo-palatal, which indicates the organs employed in pronouncing all the eleven letters of this order except the aspirates of t and d. It might be thought, on a cursory view of the Greek Alphabet, that it is en- titled to rank as high above other alphabetsin copiousness and precision, as the language itself is admitted to be superior in these respects to all other forms of speech and the most nearly perfect medium for the communication of thought; and the idea might seem to be countenanced by its possessing two pairs of vowels long and short, and a sibilant attached to each order of mutes. But so far from deserving this distinction, the Greek is chargeable, not only with the same want of philosophical arrangement and sequence of letters as tlie rest of European alphabets, but also with still more numerous instances both of redundance and deficiency in its characters. Among the redundant letters must be reckoned J-ars, & =rs or 3s, and # = x3. These are not alphabetic characters, but contracted forms; and the short o and long w are merely different characters for the same organic sound, convenient indeed in use, but out of place in a strictly philosophical alphabet. They are not even certain guides in prosody, seeing that it is quite common in Homer to find a and even º' the terminating short syllable of a dactyle. The characters wanting in Greek are more numerous still. It has no single character for the Italian u = English oo; nor for v, d, sh, zh, gh, and ng. Discarding, therefore, the double consonants, and leaving one character for the vowel o, we reduce the Greek alphabet to twenty; leaving it mine short of the signs required in the Text. Whether the sounds of these nine were wanting in the oral use of their language by the ancient Greeks, or whether they gave different func- tions to the same letter, are points which I do not pretend to determine. 586 APPENDIX. organs in such a position as to obstruct altogether the egress of sound. If, while they are so fixed, we produce in the throat or fawces, by an act of the will, the hollow muffled sound de- scribed at page 381, and there called the grave murmur, and then add a vowel to the mute, we shall give utterance to the second letter in each series, viz. b, d, g hard, which are distinguished from the type of each solely by the addition of this inarticulate sound in the throat. As to the three aspirates, namely Ø, 6, x, they are modifications effected by forcing the breath through the fixed posi- tion which the organs assume in p, t, and k : and if we add to these three aspirates the grave murmur, we have then the aspirates of b, d, and g, namely, V, dh, and gh. In producing the nasal sound of the three orders—m, n, and ng—the fixed position of the primary type is retained, and the sound is produced by throwing the volume of it into the cavity of the nose. But inasmuch as the tip of the tongue is the most flexible part of the vocal instrument, and most conveniently situated for taking advantage of the palate in eliciting diversities of sound, we need not be surprised if—in addition to the five linguo-palatals on page 584, which correspond so beautifully to the same number in the Order before and after—we find a considerable number also of simple sounds peculiar to this organ, and as such, requiring single charac- ters to denote them in a philosophical alphabet. Of these I conceive there are not less than six, in three cognate pairs, viz.: the liquids, l, r ; the sibilants, s, z, and sh, zh.” Thus the number of letters under the second order turns out to be eleven, and under all the three orders, twenty-one CONSONANTs. One character remains, as yet unattached to any class or order, —the letter h. It is a sort of middle term between Vowel and Consonant; but as it approximates to the nature of the former rather than of the latter, it may be appended to the list of Vowel sounds; and thus we shall have the following enumeration and classification of 29 primitive, uncompounded, indivisible elements of human speech, which we propose as an attempt to construct a Philosophical Alphabet. * Although the last two elementary sounds are represented by adding h to s and z, I hesitate to call them aspirates of s, z: they are rather modi- fications of them, and such as some persons, and even whole tribes of people, are unable to pronounce. The sh was a common sound among the Hebrews, and their alphabet has a single character for it; but to the Ephraimites it was a foreign sound which they could not compass; and their want of this power appears to have cost their lives to two-and-forty thousand of them.— See Book of Judges, c. xII, V, 6. PHILOSOPHICAL ALPHABET. 687 Vowels. a, e, m, i, o, u, v, h, wº © © & & 7+1 = 8 CoNSONANTs. Orders— I. Lip-sounds, (Labials,) . o p, b, f, V, m, 5 II. Tip o' th' tongue sounds, (Linguo-palatals,) . t, d, 6, 8, n, {} =11 l, r, s, z, sh, zh, 6 J T III. Root o' th' tongue sounds, (Gutturals,) e • k, g, X, gh, ng, wº 5 29* * If we adopt the perpendicular or columnar arrangement of the letters, as commonly given in Grammars, the proposed Alphabet will stand thus: Vowers. o, A, the Italian a, as in stava, or the English in father—a middle term be- tween äll and Sãd. s, E, the English a, whether short, as in Čipe, or long, as in acorn. n, the bleat of the sheep, whether the sound be short, as in émmet, or long, as in Čmbryo. i, I, not the English i, but the European, as we have it in the French ivre, the German ihre, and the Italian sia. o, O, whether short, as in Ödd, or long, as in Öld, or both long and short, as in gooris. u, U, the Italian win who, the vowel-sound in “truth,' but generally denoted in English by oo, as sååth, så0thé. v, Y, a sound unknown in English ; but common in French, as, in bonhéwr short, in clötüre long, and familiar to the Scottish ear. h, H, the spiritus asper of the Greek, as jangos, Homer. CoNSONANTs. p, P, labial mute. à k, K, guttural mute. # , b, B, do. grave. § # g, G, do. grave. # ( f, F, do, aspirate of p. # = \ X. X, do. aspirate of k. a v, V., do. aspirate of b. # 3 gh," the aspirate of g hard. & C sº * m, M, do. nasalized. 23 ng,” the guttural nasalized: t, T, linguo-palatal mute. * The two last have each a single charac- º d, D, do. grave. ter in Sanscrit, but in no European alphabet # 4, G), do. aspirate of t. that I am aware of. 3 d, do. aspirate of d. f The English sound of this guttural, as in § n, N, do. nasalized. bang, is different from the nasal sound of the F. ( 1, L d French an, inasmuch as the latter expires in $3 y --→y O. } liquids, the nose, without any application of the root 3 | ". R, do. of the tongue to the palate. Hence it is that # S; S, do. tº º º Restaut, a high authority in French grammar, 8 z, Z do sibilants. includes an, with its correlatives in, en, on, un, H w y Heb ign for sh in his enumeration of vowel Sounds. I have V - GDrew sign Of S . not been able to find a simple character for this j, J, French sign for 2h, j'ai. sound, either in its French or English phasis, 588 APPENDIX. I have been led, in the foregoing Note, to indulge in speculations which have no direct bearing on the elementary teaching of our own vernacular tongue. It was, nevertheless, with a view to suggest hints for simplifying and facilitating that first step on the threshold of learning, that the discussion was introduced here. To teachers, who have not already adopted something of the kind, I would ven- ture to recommend the experiment of imparting to beginners a knowledge of the English alphabet, not by insisting in the usual way on their committing to memory the names of the letters as they stand there, but by making them familiar with their forms and sounds, as they are classified on the principle already explained, and arranged in cognate sets according to the organs of voice employed in pronouncing them ; care being taken to commence with those in which the child, in his first efforts to learn by imitation, shall have the advantage both of hearing the sound, and of seeing the con- formation of the organs of the teacher. To give the experiment a fair chance of success, it would be advisable to revert to the practice, in use among our forefathers, of prefixing the vowel required to give issue to the sound, instead of subjoining it; to say, for example, ip, āb, it, id, ik, ig, &c. instead of pee, bee, tee, dee, ka, &c. all of which throw the main sound into the back-ground, while thought and me- mory naturally dwell upon the last letter pronounced. A requisite no less necessary, perhaps, for the success of the ex- periment would be, that the schoolmaster should have courage to contend with the ignorance, presumption, and prejudices of parents, who are apt to think that the first and most indispensable step in their child’s ‘schooling' is, that he shall be able to say the common alphabet trippingly on the tongue, from a to Z; an effort which to a child is equally painful and useless;–painful, because there is no tie to hold the letters together in the memory, and useless, because he never meets with the letters again in the same sequence, till he come to consult a dictionary. There is much indeed to be said in favour of a plan of teaching to read, according to which the learning of the letters individually is postponed to a later period, and syllabic substituted for alphabetic teaching. It may assuredly be made a question, whether the ordi- nary practice of naming separately the single letters which compose a syllable, before the child is required to pronounce it, do not compli- cate instead of simplifying the process and do not add a fresh difficulty instead of smoothing the way to the learner. It cannot fail to have this effect so long as the single letters are pronounced according to the method generally adopted. Is the child assisted, it may well be TEACHING OF THE ALPHABET. 589 asked, in arriving at the right pronunciation of the word jug, by being taught to say first ‘dzha, ć-oo, dehee ?? Or why should it be thought a necessary forerunner to the pronouncing of the word gig, that he should say ‘dzhee, &-ee, dehee—Gig º' And might not these pre- liminary processes be dispensed with, and the child taught at once to connect the visible signs jug and gig, with the sound of the word, and, where it can be done, with the figure of the object placed before him P It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader against supposing that, in throwing out these hints, I intend them to be regarded in any other light than as grammatical speculations, or that I con- template the possibility or desirableness of our present alphabet be- ing superseded by that which I have submitted to his judgment as a theory of elementary sounds. Still less would I be supposed to give any countenance to what is called phonetic teaching, the prin- ciple of which (as explained in a periodical called the Fonetic Nuz,) is, to spell the words according to the sound of the letters. Such a scheme, if we conceive it to be acted on, would entirely change our present orthography, which, with all its anomalies, is so frequently a key to etymology, and would render all books hitherto printed illegible to the next generation. The only practical deductions I would draw from the discussion are, that the child's understanding and powers of observation should be trained along with his memory in acquiring a knowledge of the letters; and that the sequence or succession of characters, as they stand in our alphabet, need not be learned by heart till a later period, when it would be acquired with comparative facility. A Circular was issued some time ago by an ASSOCIATION for im- proving the Universities of Scotland, to which, in compliance with the request made, the following Answer was returned — College of EDINBURGH, 31st January 1854. DEAR SIR, I have been tardy in acknowledging the receipt of your Circular-not so much because I think the objects proposed to be unattainable, as because I am sceptical as to any good result, if all which the Association deem desirable were carried into effect. An addition to the endowment of most of the existing Chairs, if it were only to compensate for the loss of income from diminished 590 APPENDIX. attendance, (a falling off which has arisen from no want of zeal or ability in the teachers, but from the altered circumstances of the times,) is, I think, indispensable, if it is wished to maintain the character and efficiency of the Metropolitan University. I am also of opinion that the endowment of a chair of Political and Social Economy would be an important addition to our means of public usefulness. The same thing might perhaps be said of a Chair of English Language and Literature, as preparatory for that of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. And no less important, I conceive, would be the institution of a Lectureship on the Theory and Practice of Teaching, which might in due time be erected into a Chair of Didactics. Further than to this point I should not be inclined to go at pre- Sent. There are, I apprehend, risks likely to be incurred by the multi- plication of Professorships, which require to be well considered and guarded against. Observation and experience confirm me in the belief that in the actual state of the public mind (and I see no reason to expect a change in this respect), it is vain to expect that any course of College Lectures will be permanently attended by either professional or amateur students, attendance on which is not made imperative as a qualification, not only for graduation, but for enter- ing one or other of the liberal professions. Now, to require attendance on the whole, or any considerable portion of the courses suggested in your Circular, from the students of all or any of the four Faculties, would go far to swamp the Uni- versity altogether. On the other hand, to have Chairs endowed so largely as to be objects of ambition to men of distinguished learning or science, and upon subjects not expected to command a profitable enrolment of pupils, would end in nothing but a multiplication of sinecures. To look for any other result is to take too sanguine a view of human nature. At intervals, few and far between, an enthusiastic professor might be found, who, out of zeal for his favourite pursuit, would attempt to muster a class, and might succeed for a season,-- or he might throw light on the department assigned to him by his lucubrations in the closet. But even supposing, what we have no right to suppose, that the appointments were always fairly and skil- fully made, and no jobbing, the great majority of incumbents of such Chairs would do less for literature and science with the endow- ment than they would have done without it. To secure permanence and usefulness even to the new Chairs I APPENDIX. 591 have named, it would be necessary to make certificates of atten- dance indispensable to certain classes of the youth. The course of English Language and Literature, should, I think, embrace every matriculated student, to whatever profession he was tending; that of Political and Social Economy should be required of every one aspiring to the honours of the bar; and the course of Didactics I would make imperative on every candidate for a burgh school, and for all the higher grades of the profession of a public instructor. With every wish for the success of the Association in the objects which appear to me at once desirable and attainable, I remain, Your obedient Servant, JAMES PILLANS. CHARLEs MoRTON, Esq., W. S., Secretary of the Association. * H. A N D J. P I L L A N S, PR IN T E R s, E D IN B U R G H. n * w Pages. - - - - - eS. Agriculture and Rural Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary 18 Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary 18 i Affairs. Pages. Richardson's Art of Horsemanship 18 Riddle's Latin Dictionaries . . - 18 Bayldon. On valuing Rents, &c. - 4 Riddle's Latin Dictionaries - - 18 Rogers' Essays from Edinb. Review, 19 ; Qaird's Letters on Agriculture - 5 Roget's English Thesaurus - - 19 Roget's English Thesaurus - - 19 i Cecil's Stud Farm - - - 6 Rowton’s Debater - sº º - 19 Russell’s #. Hachel) Letters - 19 Loudon's Agriculture -, - - 13 Short Whist - - - - - 20 “. ife of Lord W. Russell 19 Low's Elements of Agriculture - 14 Thomson's Interest Tables - - 22 Schmitz's History of Greece - 19 “. . Domesticated Animals - 13 Webster's Domestic Economy - 22 Smith's Sacred Annals - - - 20 | M“Intosh & Kemp's Year-Book ſor West on Children's Diseases - - 24 Southey's Doctor -, -, -, -, - 21 | the Country - - - - 14 Willich's Popular Tables - - 2. Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biog:aph: : : Wilmot's Blackstone - - - 24 * Lectures on French Bºstory 3. Arts, Manufactures, and g Sydney Smith's Sºw ks ; Architecture. Botany and Gardening. tº g $ºrks - ; Arnott on Ventilation - - - 3 Hooker's British Flora - - - 9 tº 6 Memoirs * - 20 ! Bourne On the Screw Propeller - 4 ... Guide to §ew Gardens - ? Taylor's Loyola - - - - 21 Brande's Dictionary of Science, &c. 4 - p sew i. * 1. “ Wesley - * * - 21 “ . Organic Chemistry- - 4 Lindley S łºś - ; ny 13 Thirlwall's History of Greece - 21 Chevreul on Colour - - - - 6 ... Theory gſ Horticulture - 13 Thornbury's Shakspeare's England 22 Cresy's Civil Engineering - - 7 Loudon S Hortus #ſº i. 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Dict. of Bible 3 Scrivenor on the iron Trade. - 19 Blair's Qhronological Tables - 4 #.; * l * * : Stark's Printing - , -, - . , ; 23 Brewer's Historical Atlas - - - 4 É. §§: y and Atlases - 5 Steam Engine, by the Artisan Club 4 Bunsen s.Angient Egypt - - 5 gº º - & * * * 23 Tate on Strength of Materials - 21 Haydn's Beation s Index - - 9 Ş. §: ºnes, &c. * * 23 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c. - 22 Jaquemet's º; ------ | 1 ºs lºg - - - Johns & Nicolas' Calendar of Victory,ll Hughes's Australian Colonies - 23 ography. Nicolas's Chronology of History - 12 #º. º Gazetteer - # - * evis's Englis 1VerS - - l \rago's ºbiºphy... ... - % Commerce and Mercantile M“Culloch's Geographical Dictionary 14 y Lives of Scientific Men - 3 Affair & 8 Russia and Turkey - 23 todemstedt and Wagner's Schamyl 23 airs. Milner's Baltic Sea - - - 16 Muckingham's (J. S.) 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History of England - 14 Literature; - Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia - 12 M’Culloch sGeographicall)ictionary 14 Austin s Sketches of German Life 3 Maunder's . of Knowledge 15 Manstein's Memoirs of Russia - 14 Şārlisle 8 Lectures and Addresses 23 { { Biographical Treasury l; Maunder's Treasury of History - lº Chalybteus Speculative Philosophy 6 & ſº Scientific Treasury - 15 Memoir of the Duke of Wellington 23 Defence of Eclipse of Faith . - 7 * & Treasury of History - 15 Merivale’s History of Rome - - }} Eclipse 9ſ Faith : - - 7 { { Natural History - - 15 - * Roman Republic - - 15 Greg's tolºgical and Social Essays 8 Piesse's Art of º - - - 1 S Milner's Church History - - 16 Gurney's Evenang Recreations - 8 Fiscator's Cookery of Fish - - 18 Moore's Thomas) Memoirs, &c. - 17 Hassall on Adulteration of Fc oi - 9 Pocket and the Stud - - - 9 Mure s, reek Literature - * 1 # #. * Bºok of Dignities - - 9 Pycroft's English Reading - - 18 Raikes's Journal - - -, - . Ho land § Menºl Physiology - 9 Reece's Medical Guide - - - 18 Ranke's Ferdinand & Maximilian 23 Hooker's Kew Guides - - 9 3 Catalogue TUBLISHED BY 39, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. C L ASSIFIED *.*.** IND EX, LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, NEW WORKS IN GENERAL LITERATURE, CLASSIFIED INDEX, Laneton Parsonage * - Letters to my Unknown Friends - “ on Happiness - - - Long's Inquiry concerning Religion, Lyra Germanica - - - Maitland's Church in Catacombs - Margaret Percival - - - - Martineau's dhristian Life - - Milner's Church of Christ - - Montgomery's Original Hymns - Moore. On the Use of the Body - & 4 “ Soul and Body - ** 's Man and his Motives - Mormonism m. ºn * - Neale's Closing Scene - - - Newman's (J. H.) Discourses - Ranke’s Ferdimand & Maximilian Readings for Lent * - - , “ . 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Catlow's Popular Conchology - .6 Ephemera and Young On the Salmon 8 Gosse's Nat. Hist, of Jamaica – 8 Kerop's Natural Hist. of Creation 23 Kirby and Spence's Entomology - 1) I,ee's Elements of Natural History Mamm on Reproduction - 14 Maunder's Natural History - - 15 Turton's Shells of the British Islands 22 Von Tschudi’s Sketches in the Alps 23 Waterton's Essays on Natural Hist, 23 Youatt's The Dog - - - - 34 & & The Horse - - - 24 1—Volume Encyclopædias and Dictionaries. Arrowsmith's Geogr. Dict. of l{laume's Rural Sports - Brande's Science, Literature, & Art 4 Copland's Dictionary of Medicine - 6 Crésy's Civil Engineering - 7 Gwilt's Architecture - - - 8 Johnston's Geographical Dictionary ll Loudom's Agriculture - - - 13 { { Rural Archutecture - 13 & 6 Gardening - - - 13 & & Plants - - - - 13 & & Trees and Shrubs - - 13 M“Culloch's Geographicul Dictionary 14 & 4 Dictionary of Commerce 14 Murray's .*. of Geography - 17 Sharp's British Gazetteer. - - 20 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c. - - 22 Webster's Domestic Economy - 22 Religious & Moral Works. Amy Herbert - - - - 19 Arrowsmith's Geogr. Dict. of Bible 3 Bloomfield's Greek Testament - 4 & Annotations on do. - 4 Bode's Bampton Lectures - - 4 Culvert's Wife's Manual - - 6 Cleve I-l.ill - - - - - 19 Conybeare's Essays - - – 6 Conybeare und. Howson's St. Paul 6 Dale's Domestic Liturgy - - 7 Defence of Eclipse of Frith - - 7 Desprez On the Apocalypse - 7 Discipline - - - - - 7 Earl's Daughter (The) - - - 19 Eclipse of Faith -, - - 7 Englishman's Greek Concordance 1 Englishman's Heb.&Chald. Concord. . . Experience of Life (The) - 19 Gertrude - - - * - 19 Harrison's Light of the Forge - 8 Hook's Lectures on Passion Week 9 Horne's Introduction to Scriptures 10 Abrids ment of ditto - 10 “ Communicant's Companion 9 Jameson's Sacred Legends - - 1 1 & 4 Monastic Legends - - ll <& Legends ºf the Madonna 11 & 4 Sisters of Charity - 10 Jeremy Taylor's Works - - - Kalisch's Commentary on Earodits- Katharine Ashton - - | 1 11 - - 19 könig's Pictorial Life of Luther - 8 Bible 3 - 4 Political Economy and Statistics. Caird's Letters on Agriculture - Census of , 851 - * - - Dodd's Food of London * - Greg's Political and Social Essays Laing's Notes of a Traveller - ... - M“Culloch's Geog. Statist. Kc. Dict. & © Dictionary of Commerce gº Zondon - - - Marcet's Political FConomy - - Rickards On Population & Capita Tegoborski's Russian Statistics - Willich's Popular Tubles - - 23 14 14 23 15 18 2] 24 The Sciences in general and Mathematics. Arago's Meteorological Essays - & Popular Astronomy - - Bourne On the Screw Propeller - Brande's Dictionary of Science, &c. “ Lectures on Organic Chemistry Brougham and Routh's Principid Cresy's Civil Engineerin - - Dela Beche's Geology of Cornwall,&c. De la Rive's Electricit - - Faraday's Non §e Elements Grove's Correla, of Physical Forces Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy Holland's Mental Physiology Humboldt's Aspects of Nature - g4 Cosmos - - - Hunt. On Light tº- * - Kemp's Phasis of Matter - - Lardner's Cabinet Cycloptedia - Mamm on Reproduction - - - Page 8. Marcet's (Mrs.) Conversations us 15 Moseley's Engineering&Architecture 17 f - 17 Qwen's Lectures on Comp. Anatomy Our Coal Fields and our Coal Pits 28 Pereira on Polarised Light - - 17 Peschel's Elements of Physics - 17 Phillips's Fossils of Cornwall, &c. 18 ** Mineralogy - - - 17 * , , Guide to Geology - - 18 Portlock's Geology of Londonderry 18 Powell's Unity of Worlds - - 18 Smee's Electro-Metallurgy – Steam Engine (The) - - , - Tate On Strength of Materials Wilson's Electric Telegraph - Rural Sports. Baker’s Rifle and Hound in Ceylon Berkeley's Reminiscences - Blaine's Dictionary of Sports Cecil's Stable Practice - - “ Records of the Chase - ** Stud Farm - - - The Cricket-Field - - - Davy's Piscatorial Colloquies- Ephemera. On *º - te &&. Book of the Salmon Hawker's Young Sportsman - The Hunting. Field - - Idle's Hints on Shooting -- Pocket and the Stud - - Practical Horsemanship * Richardson's Horsemanship - Stable Talk and Table Talk - Stonehenge On the Greyhound The Stud, for Practical Purposes - - 9 I l 2 Veterinary Medicine, &c. Cecil's Stable Practice ** Stud Farm * Hunting Field (The) - Miles's Horse-Shoeing - “ () m the Horse’s Foot ; Pocket and the Stud - Practical Horsemanship , , §iº son's Horsemanship º . I Stable Talk and Table Talk • Stud (The) - - Youatt's The Dog - - & 4 The Horse * 2 24 Voyages and Travels. Allen's Dead Sea - - Baines's Vaudois of Piedmont Baker's Wanderings in Ceylon Barrow’s Continental Tour - Barth's African Travels * Burton's Medina and Mecca - Carlisle's Turkey and Greece De Custine's Hussia. * Duberly's Journal of the War Eothen - - - - * Ferguson's Swiss Travels - Forester's Rambles in Norway Gironière's Philippines - - Gregorovius's Corsica. - - Hill's Travels in Siberia * Hope's Brittany and the Bible * Chase in Brittany, - .23 Howitt's Art Studeilt in Munich - 10 “ (w.) Victoria - - - 10 - 2 2 ; : Huc's Chinese Empire - ; , ; ; 10 Huc and Gabet's Tartary & Thibet. 2 Hughes's Australian Colonies - 23 Humboldt's Aspects of Nature ... -i \0 Hutchinson's African Exploration #3 - 9 Jameson's Canada - - - 23 Rennard's Eastern Tour = - \l Jerrmann's St. Petersburg - - ?3 Laing's Norway - - - - -, - - 33 & 4 Notes of a Traveller - {3 M“Clure's North West Passage - 4 Marryat's California . ,- - - 5 Mason's Zulus of Natal. - - % Mayne's Arctic Discoveries - - ?: Miles's Rambles in Iceland - - 23 . Monteith's Kars and Erzeroum - 16 Ffeiffer's voyage round the World 23 4 & Second ditto - - - 17 Scott's Danes and Swedes - - 19 Seaward’s Narrative - - - 20 Weld's United States and Canada- ?? Werne's African Wanderings - 23 wheeler's travels of Herodotus - 24 Wilberforce's Brazil & Slave Trade 23 whitingham's Pacific Expedition 24 Works of Fiction. 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