^
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/essaysoneducatioOOquicuoft
IrttematioiTiil ^bitratian ^tntB
EDITED BY
WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL.D.
Volume XVIL
I
THE
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES.
12ino, cloth, uniform binding.
"T^HE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES was projected for the pur-
■*• pose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old,
upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training
for teachers generally. It is edited by W. T. Harris, LL. D., now United States
Commissioner of Education, who has contributed for the different volumes in the way
of introductions, analysis, and commentary. The volumes are tastefully and substan-
tially bound in uniform style.
VOLUMES NOW READY:
I.— THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. By Johann Karl Fried-
rich RosENKRANZ, Doctor of Theology and Professor of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Konigsberg, Translated from the German by Anna C. Brackett.
j Second edition, revised, and accompanied with Commentary and complete
\ Analysis. Price, $1.50.
Vol. IL— A HISTORY OF EDUCATION. By F. V. N. Painter, A. M.,
Professor of Modem Languages and Literature in Roanoke College, Va. Price,
$1.50.
Vol. III.— THE RISE AND EARLY CONSTITUTION OF UNIVER-
SITIES. With a Survey of Medieval Education. By S. S. Laurie,
LL. D., Professor of the Institutes and History of Education in the Univeisity
of Edinburgh. Price, $1.50.
Vol. IV.— THE VENTILATION AND WARMING OF SCHOOL
BUILDINGS. By Gilbert B. Morrison, Teacher of Physics and Chem-
istry in Kansas City High SchooL Price, $1.00.
' Vol. v.— THE EDUCATION OF MAN. By Friedrich Froebei- Trans-
I lated and furnished with ample notes by W. N. Hailmann, A. M., Superin-
tendent of Public Schools, La Porte, Ind. Price, $1.50.
Vol. VI.— ELEMENTARY PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. By
Dr. J. Baldwin, author of " The Art of School Management." Price, $1.50.
Vol. VII.— THE SENSES AND THE WILL. (Part I of "The Mind of
the Child.") By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in Jena. Translated
' from the original German by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the State Normal
School at Worcester, Mass, Price, $1.50.
Vol. VIII.— MEMORY: What it is and how to Improve it. By David
Kay, F. R. G. S., author of " Education and Educators," etc. Price, $1.50.
Vol. IX.— THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. (Part II of
" The Mind of the Child.") By W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology in
Jena. Translated from the original German by H. W. Brown, Teacher in the
i State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. Price, f x.sq.
THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES.— {Continued.)
Vol. X.— HOW TO STUDY GEOGRAPHY. A Practical Exposition of
Methods and Devices in Teaching Geography which apply the Principles and
Plans of Ritter and Guyot. By Francis W. Parker, Principal of the Cooft
County (Illinois) Normal School. Price, $1.50.
Vol. XL— EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES: Its History fronn
the Earliest Settlements. By Richard G. Boone, A. M., Professor of
Pedagogy in Indiana University. Price, $1.50.
Vol. XII.— EUROPEAN SCHOOLS ; or. What I Saw in the Schools of
Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland. By L. R. Klemm, Ph. D.,
Principal of the Cincinnati Technical School, author of " Chips from a Teacher's
Workshop," etc. Fully illustrated. Price, $2.00.
Vol. XIII.— PRACTICAL HINTS FOR THE TEACHERS OF PUBLIC
SCHOOLS. By George Rowland, Superintendent of the Chicago PubUc
Schools. Price, $1.00.
Vol. XIV.— PESTALOZZI : His Life and Work. By Roger de GuimpI
Authorized translation from the second French edition, by J. Russell, B. A.[
Assistant Master in University College, London. With an Introduction b;
Rev. R. H. Quick, M. A. Price, $1.50.
Vol. XV.— SCHOOL SUPERVISION. By J. L. Pickard, LL. D. Price, ?i.oo,
Vol. XVI.— HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN EUROPE. By
Helens Lange, Berlin. Translated and accompanied by comparative statistics!
by L. R. Klemm. Price, $1.00. '
Vol. XVII.— ESSAYS ON EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS. By Robert
Herbert Quick, M. A., Trinity College, Cambridge; formerly Assistant Mas-
ter at Harrow, and Lecturer on the History of Education at Cambridge; late
Vicar of Ledbergh. Only authorized edition 0/ the work as rewritten in iSi^o.
Price, $1.50.
Vol. XVIIL— A TEXT-BOOK IN PSYCHOLOGY. An Attempt to found
THE Science of Psychology on Experience, Metaphysics, and Mathe-^
matics. By Johann Friedrich Herbart. Translated from the original j
German by Margaret K. Smith, Teacher in the State Normal School at'
Oswego, New York. Price, $1.00.
VoL XIX.— PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO THE ART OF TEACHING.}
By Dr. Joseph Baldwin. Price, Si. 50.
Vol. XX.— ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. By W. H. Payne. Price, $1.50.
VoL XXI.-THE MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. By Felix
Adler. Price, $1.50.
Vol. XXII.— ENGLISH EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY AND
SECONDARY SCHOOLS. By Isaac Sharpless, LL.D. Price, $1.00.
Vol. XXIIL— EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. By
Alfred Fouill^e. Price, $1.50.
Circular, describing the volutnes more in detail, mailed to any address on request.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES
ESSAYS OlS
EDUCATIOI^AL REFORMERS
ROBERT HEBEBT QUICK
M. A. TRIN. COLL., CAMBRIDGE
FORMKRLY ASSISTANT MASTER AT HARROW, AND LECTURER ON
THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION AT CAMBRIDGE
LATE VICAR OP SEDBERGH
ONLY AUTHORIZED EDITION OF THE WORK
AS REWRITTEN IN 1890
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1893
Copyright, 1890,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
lA
QS
m5
^
To
DR. HENRY BARNARD,
The first United States Comfnissioner of Education^
WHO IN A LONG LIFE OF
SELF-SACRIFICING LABOUR HAS GIVEN TO THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE AN EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
WITH THE ESTEEM AND ADMIRATION OF
THE AUTHOR.
Oi; yap Zari ntpi orov ffeiorepov avOpanos av QovKfitraiTo^ ^ ir€/il
vroif^eta; Koi t&v avTov Kat Toi>v olKeimv.
(p. 122 B).
1
Socrates saith plainlie, that " no man goeth about a more godlie
purpose, than he that is mindfull of the good bringing up both of hys
owne and other men's children." — Ascham^s Scholemaster. Preface,
[I
Fundamentum tottus reipubhccB est recta juventuHs educatio. \
I
The very foundation of the whole commonwealth is the proper,'
bringing up of the young. — Cic» '
('
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
Many years ago I proposed to my friend Mr. Quick
to rewrite his Educational Reformers, making some addi-
tions (Sturm and Froebel, for example), and allow me to
place it in this series of educational works. I had read
his essays when they first appeared, and noted their great
value as a contribution to the right kind of educational
literature. They showed admirable tact in the selection
of the materials ; the " epoch-making " writers were chosen
and the things that had been said and done of permanent
value were brought forward. Better than all was the run-
ning commentary on these materials by Mr. Quick him-
self. His style was popular, taking the reader, as it were,
into confidential relations with him from the start, and
offering now and then a word of criticism in the most
judicial spirit, leaning neither to the extreme of destruc-
tive radicalism, which seeks revolution rather than reform,
nor, on the other hand, to the extreme of blind conserva-
tism, which wishes to preserve the vesture of the past
rather than its wisdom.
I have called this book of Mr. Quick the most valu-
able history of education in our mother-tongue, fit only
to be compared with Karl von Raumer's Geschichte der
Padagogik for its presentation of essentials and for the
sanity of its verdicts.
viii EDITORS PREFACE.
I made my proposal that he *' rewrite " his book be-
cause I knew that he considered his first edition hastily
written and, in many respects, not adequate to the ideal
he had conceived of the book. I knew, moreover, that
years of continued thinking on a theme necessarily modi-
fies one's views. He would wish to make some changes
in matter presented, some in judgments rendered, and
many more in style of presentation.
Hence it has come about that after this lapse of time
Mr. Quick has produced a substantially new book, which,
retaining all or nearly all of the admirable features of the
first edition, has brought up to their standard of excellence
many others.
The history of education is a vast field, and we are
accustomed to demand bulky treatises as the only ade-
quate ones. But the obvious disadvantage of such works
has led to the clearly defined ideal of a book like Mr.
Quick's, which separates the gold from the dross, and
offers it small in bulk but precious in value.
The educational reformers are the men above all others
who stimulate us to think about education. Every one
of these was an extremist, and erred in his judgment as
to the value of the methods which prevailed in his time,
and also overestimated the effects of the new education
that he proposed in the place of the old. But thought
begins with negations, and originality shows itself first
not in creating something new, but in removing the fetter-
ing limitations of its existing environment. The old is
attacked — its good and its bad are condemned alike. It
has been imposed on us by authority, and we have not
been allowed to summon it before the bar of our reason
and ask of it its credentials. It informs us that it pre-
sented these credentials ages ago to our ancestors — men
EDITORS PREFACE. IX
older and wiser than we are. Such imposition of author-
ity leaves us no choice but to revolt. We, too, have a
right to think as well as our ancestors ; we, too, must clear
up the ground of our belief and substitute insight for blind
faith in tradition.
These educational reformers are prophets of the clear-
ing-up period (Aufkldrung) of revolution against mere
authority.
While we are inspired to think for ourselves, however,
we must not neglect that more important matter of think-
ing the truth. Free-thinking, if it does not reach the
truth, is not of great value. It sets itself as puny indi-
vidual against the might of the race, which preserves its
experience in the forms of institutions — the family, the
social organism, the state, the Church.
Hence our wiser and more scientific method studies
everything that is, or exists, in its history, and endeavors
to discover how it came to be what it is. It inquires into
its evolution. The essential truth is not the present fact,
but the entire process by which the present fact grew to
be what it is. For the living force that made the present
fact made also the past facts antecedent to the present,
and it will go on making subsequent facts. The revela-
tion of the living forces which make the facts of exist-
ence is the object of science. It takes all these facts to
reveal the living force that is acting and producing them.
Hence the scientific attitude is superior to the attitude
of these educational reformers, and we shall in our own
minds weigh these men in our scales, asking first of all :
What is their view of the world } How much do they
value human institutions? How much do they know of
the substantial good that is wrought by those institutions ?
If they know nothing of these things, if they see only in-
X editor's preface.
cumbrance in these institutions, if to them the individual
is the measure of all things, we can not do reverence to
their proposed remedies, but must account their value to
us chiefly this, that they have stimulated us to thinking,
and helped us to discover what they have not discovered
— namely, the positive value of institutions.
All education deals with the boundary between igno-
rance and knowledge and between bad habits and good
ones. The pupil as pupil brings with him the ignorance
and the bad habits, and is engaged in acquiring good
habits and correct knowledge.
This situation gives us a general recipe for a frequently
recurring type of educational reformer. Any would-be
reformer may take his stand on the boundary mentioned,
and, casting an angry look at the realm of ignorance and
bad habit not yet conquered, condemn in wholesale terms
the system of education that has not been efficient in re-
moving this mental and moral darkness.
Such a reformer selects an examination paper written
by a pupil whose ignorance is not yet vanquished, and
parades the same as a product of the work of the school,
taking great pains to avoid an accurate and just admeas-
urement of the actual work done by the school. The
reformer critic assumes that there is one factor here,
whereas there are three factors — namely, (a) the pupil's
native and acquired powers of learning, (I?) his actual
knowledge acquired, and (c) the instruction given by the
school. The school is not responsible for the first and
second of these factors, but it is responsible only for what
increment has grown under its tutelage. How much and
what has the pupil increased his knowledge, and how-
much his power of acquiring knowledge and of doing ?
The educational reformer is always telling us to leave
EDITOR S PREFACE. XI
words and take up things. He dissuades from the study
of language, and also undervalues the knowledge of man-
ners and customs and laws and usages. He dislikes the
study of institutions even. He " loves Nature," as he in-
forms us. Herbert Spencer wants us to study the body,
and to be more interested in biology than in formal logic ;
more interested in natural history than in literature. But
I think he would be indignant if one were to ask him
whether he thought the study of the habits and social in-
stincts of bees and ants is less important than the study
of insect anatomy and physiology. Anatomy and physi-
ology are, of course, important, but the social organism is
more important than the physiological organism, even in
bees and ants.
So in man the social organism is transcendent as com-
pared with human physiology, and social hygiene com-
pared with physiological hygiene is supreme.
To suppose that the habits of plants and insects are
facts, and that the structure of human languages, the logi-
cal structure of the mind itself as revealed in the figures
and modes of the syllogism and the manners and customs
of social life, the deep ethical principles which govern
peoples as revealed in works of literature — to suppose
that these and the like of these are not real facts and
worthy of study is one of the strangest delusions that has
ever prevailed.
But it is a worse delusion to suppose that the study of
Nature is more practical than the study of man, though
this is often enough claimed by the educational reformers.
The knowledge of most worth is first and foremost the
knowledge of how to behave — a knowledge of social cus-
toms and usages. Any person totally ignorant in this
regard would not escape imprisonment — perhaps I should
xii editor's preface.
say decapitation — for one day in any city of the world —
say in London, in Pekin, in Tirabuctoo, or in z. pueblo of
Arizona. A knowledge of human customs and usages,
next a knowledge of human views of Nature and man —
these are of primordial necessity to an individual, and are
means of direct self-preservation.
The old trivium or threefold course of study at the
university taught grammar, logic, and rhetoric — namely,
(i) the structure of language, (2) the structure of mind
and the art of reasoning, (3) the principles and art of per-
suasion. These may be seen at once to be lofty subjects
and worthy objects of science. They will always remain
such, but they are not easy for the child. In the course
of mastering them he must learn to master himself and
gain great intellectual stature. Pedagogy has wisely
graded the road to these heights, and placed much easier
studies at the beginning and also made the studies more
various. Improvements in methods and in grading — de-
vices for interesting the pupil — so essential to his self-
activity, for these we have to thank the Educational Re-
formers.
W. T. Harris.
Washington, D. C, 1890.
PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1868.
" // is clear that in whatever it is our duty to act^ those
matters also it is our duty to study." These words of Dr.
Arnold's seem to me incontrovertible. So a sense of duty,
as well as fondness for the subject, has led me to devote a
period of leisure to the study of Education^ in the practice
of which I have been for some years engaged.
There are countries where it would be considered a truism
that a teacher in order to exercise his profession intelligently
should know something about the chief authorities in it.
Here, however, I suppose such an assertion will seem para-
doxical ; but there is a good deal to be said in defence of
it. De Quincey has pointed out that a man who takes up
any pursuit without knowing what advances others have
made in it works at a great disadvantage. He does not
apply his strength in the right direction, he troubles him-
self about small matters and neglects great, he falls into
errors that have long since been exploded. An educator
is, I think, liable to these dangers if he brings to his task
no knowledge but that which he learnt for the tripos, and
no skill but that which he acquired in the cricket ground or
on the river. If his pupils are placed entirely in his hands,
his work is one of great difficulty, with heavy penalties at-
tached to all blundering in it ; though here, as in the case
XIV PREFACE.
of the ignorant doctor and the careless architect, the
penalties, unfortunately, are paid by his victims. If (as
more commonly happens) he has simply to give a class pre-
scribed instruction, his smaller scope of action limits
proportionally the mischief that may ensue ; but even then
it is obviously desirable that his teaching should be as good
as possible, and he is not likely to employ the best methods
if he invents as he goes along, or simply falls back on his
remembrance of how he was taught himself, perhaps in very
different circumstances. I venture to think, therefore, that
practical men in education, as in most other things, may
derive benefit from the knowledge of what has already been
said and done by the leading men engaged in it, both past
and present.
All study of this kind, however, is very much impeded by
want of books. " Good books are in German," says Professor
Seeley. I have found that on the history of Education, not
only good books but all books are in German or some other
foreign language.* I have, therefore, thought it worth while
to publish a few such imperfect sketches as these, with which
* When the greater part of this volume was already written, Afr.
Parker published his sketch of the history of Classical Education {Essays
on a Liberal Education^ edited by Farrar). He seems to me to have
been very successful in bringing out the most important features of his
subject, but his essay necessarily shows marks of over-compression.
Two volumes have also lately appeared on Christian Schools and
Scholars (Longmans, 1867). Here we have a good deal of information
which we want, and also, it seems to me, a good deal which we do not
want. The work characteristically opens with a loth centuiy description
of the personal appearance of St. Mark when he landed at Alexandria.
The author treats only of the times which preceded the Council of Trent.
A very interesting account of early English education has been given by
Mr. Fumivall, in the 2nd and 3rd numbers of the Quarterly Journal oj
Edtuation (1867). [I did not then know of Dr. Barnard's works.]
PREFACE. XV
the reader can hardly be less satisfied than the author.
They may, however, prove useful till they give place to a
better book.
Several of the following essays are nothing more than
compilations. Indeed, a hostile critic might assert that I had
used the scissors with the energy of Mr. Timbs and without
his discretion. The reader, however, will probably agree
with me that I have done wisely in putting before him the
opinions of great writers in their own language. Where I
am simply acting as reporter, the author's own way of ex-
pressing himself is obviously the best ; and if, following the
example of the gipsies and Sir Fretful Plagiary, I had dis-
figured other people's offspring to make them pass for my
own, success would have been fatal to the purpose I have
steadily kept in view. The sources of original ideas in any
subject, as the student is well aware, are few, but for irriga-
tion we require troughs as well as water-springs, and these
essays are intended to serve in the humbler capacity.
A word about the incomplete handling of my subjects. I
have not attempted to treat any subject completely, or even
with anything like completeness. In giving a sketch of the
opinions of an author one of two methods must be adopted ;
we may give an epitome of all that he has said, or by con-
fining ourselves to his more valuable and characteristic
opinions, may gain space to give these fully. As I detest
epitomes, I have adopted the latter method exclusively, but
I may sometimes have failed in selecting an author's most
characteristic principles ; and probably no two readers of a
book would entirely agree as to what was most valuable in
it : so my account must remain, after all, but a poor substi-
tute for the author himself.
For the part of a critic I have at least one qualification —
practical acquaintance with the subject. As boy or master,
XVI PREFACE.
I have been connected with no less than eleven schools,
and my perception of the blunders of other teachers is
derived mainly from the remembrance of my own. Some
of my mistakes have been brought home to me by reading
works on education, even those with which I do not in the
main agree. Perhaps there are teachers who on looking
through the following pages may meet with a similar ex
perience.
Had the essays been written in the order in which they
stand, a good deal of repetition might have been avoided,
but this repetition has at least the advantage of bringing out
points which seem to me important ; and as no one will
read the book as carefully as I have done, I hope no one
will be so much alive to this and other blemishes in it.
I much regret that in a work which is nothing if it is not
practically useful, I have so often neglected to mark the
exact place from which quotations are taken. I have myself
paid the penalty of this carelessness in the trouble it has
cost me to verify passages which seemed inaccurate.
The authority I have had recourse to most frequently is
Raumer (Geschichte der Fddagogik). In his first two volumes
he gives an account of the chief men connected with educa-
tion, from Dante to Pestalozzi. The third volume con-
tains essays on various parts of education, and the fourth is
devoted to German Universities. There is an English
translation, published in America, of the fourth volume
only. I confess to a great partiality for Raumer — a par
tiality which is not shared by a Saturday Reviewer and
by other competent authorities in this country. But surely
a German author who is not profound, and is almost per-
spicuous, has some claim on the gratitude of English readers,
if he gives information which we cannot get in our own
language. To Raumer I am indebted for all that I have
PREFACE. XVll
written about Ratke, and almost all about Basedow. Else-
where his history has been used, though not to the same
extent.
C. A. Schmid's EncycJopddie des Erztekungs-und-Unfer-
richtswesens is a vast mine of information on everything
connected with education. The work is still in progress.
The part containing Rousseau has only just reached me. I
should have been glad of it when I was giving an account
of the Emile, as Raumer was of little use to me.
Those for whom Schmid is too diffuse and expensive will
find Carl Gottlob Hergang's Pddagogische Reale7icyclopddie
useful. This is in two thick volumes, and costs, to the best
of my memory, about eighteen shillings. It was finished in
1847.
The best sketch I have met with of the general history of
education is in the article on Pddagogik in Meyers Conversa-
tions-Lexicon.''' I wish someone would translate this article ;
and I should be glad to draw the attention of the editor of
an educational periodical, say the Museum or the Quarterly
Journal of Education^ to it.
I have come upon references to many other works on the
history of Education, but of these the only ones I have seen
are Theodore Fritz's Esquisse d'un Systlme complet d'instruc-
tion et d' education et de leurhistoire (3 vols., Strasburg, 1843),
and Carl Schmidt's Geschichte der Pddagogik (4 vols.). The
first of these gives only the outline of the subject. The
second is, I believe, considered a standard work. It does
not seem to me so readable as Raumer's history, but it is
much more complete, and comes down to quite recent
times.
For ray account of the Jesuit schools and of Pestalozzi,
* This article is omitted in the last edition.
^
xvni PREFACE.
the authorities will be found elsewhere (pp. 34 and 383).
In writing about Comenius I have had much assistance from
a life of him prefixed to an English translation of his School
of Infancy^ by Daniel Benham (London, 1858). For almost
all the information given about Jacotot, I am indebted to
Mr. Payne's papers, which I should not have ventured to
extract from so freely if they had been before the public in
a more permanent form.
I am sorry I cannot refer to any English works on the
history of Education, except the essays of Mr. Parker and
Mr. Furnivall, and Christian Schools and Scholars, which are
mentioned above, but we have a very good treatise on the
principles of education in Marcel's Language as a Means of
Mental Culture (2 vols., London, 1853). Edgeworth's
Practical Education seems falling into undeserved neglect,
and Mr. Spencer's recent work is not universally known
even by schoolmasters.
If the following pages attract but few readers, it will be
some consolation, though rather a melancholy one, that I
share the fate of my betters.
R. H. Q.
Ingatestone, Essex, May^ 1868.
PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1890.
When I was a young man (/>., nearly forty years ago), I
once did what those who know the ground would declare
a very risky, indeed, a fool-hardy thing. I was at the
highest point of the Gemmi Pass in Switzerland, above the
PREFACE. XIX
Rhone Valley; and being in a hurry to get down and
overtake my party I ran from the top to the bottom. The
path in those days was not so good as it is now, and it is so
near the precipice that a few years afterwards a lady in
descending lost her head and fell over. No doubt I was
in great danger of a drop of a thousand feet or so. But of
this I was totally unconscious. I was in a thick mist, and
saw the path for a few yards in front of me and nothing more.
When I think of the way in which this book was written three
and twenty years ago I can compare it to nothing but my
first descent of the Gemmi. I did a very risky thing without
knowing it. My path came into view little by little as I went
on. All else was hid from me by a thick mist of ignorance.
When I began the book I knew next to nothing of the Re-
formers, but I studied hard and wrote hard, and I turned out
the essays within the year. This feat I now regard with amaze-
ment, almost with horror. Since that time I have given
more years of work to the subject than I had then given
months, and the consequence is I find I can write fast no
longer. The mist has in a measure cleared off, and I cannot
jog along in comfort as I did when I saw less. At the same
time I have no reason to repent of the adventure. Being
fortunate in my plan and thoroughly interested by my
subject, I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations in
getting others to take an interest in it also. The small
English edition of 500 copies was, as soon as I reduced the
price, sold off immediately, and the book has been, in
England, for twenty years " out of print." But no less than
three publishing firms in the United States have reprinted
it (one quite recently) without my consent, and, except in
the edition of Messrs. R. Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, with
omissions and additions made without my knowledge. It
seems then that the book will live for some years yet,
XX PREFACE.
whether I like it or not ; and while it lives I wish it to be
in a form somewhat less defective than at its first appearance.
I have therefore in a great measure re-written it, besides
filling in a gap here and there with an additional essay.
Perhaps some critics will call it a new book with an old
title. If they do, they will I trust allow that the new book
has at least two merits which went far to secure the success
of the old, I St, a good title, and 2nd, a good plan. My
plan in both editions has been to select a few people who
seemed specially worth knowing about, and to tell con-
cerning them in some detail just that which seemed to me
specially worth knowing. So I have given what I thought
very valuable or very interesting, and everything I thought
not particularly valuable or interesting I have ruthlessly
omitted. I have not attempted a complete account of any-
body or anything; and as for what the examiner may "set,"
I have not once given his questions a thought.
As the book is hkely to have more readers in the country
of its adoption than in the country of its birth, I have per-
suaded my friend Dr. William T. Harris, the United
States Commissioner of Education, to put it into " The
International Education Series " which he edits. So
the only authorized editions of the book are the Eng-
lish edition, and the American edition published by
Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.
R. H. Q.
Earlswood Cottage,
Redhill, Surrey, England,
28th July, iSgo.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Chapter I.— Effects of the Renascence .« .« .« 1-21
No escape from the Past 2
" Discovery " of the Classics 3
Mark Pattison's account of Renascence - 4
Revival of taste for beauty in Literature 5
What is Literature ? ... 6
Renascence loved beauty of expression 7
No translations. The " educated " 8
Spread of literature by printing 9
School course settled before Bacon 10
First defect : Learner above Doer 1 1
Second: Over-estimate of literature 12
Literary taste not common 13
Third : Literature banished from school 14
Translations would be literature 15
The classics not written for children 16
Language versus Literature... 17
Fourth: " Miss as good as a mile .^ 18
Fifth: Neglect of children , 19
Child's study of his surroundings 20
Aut Caesar aut nihil ... 2i
Chapter IL — Renascence Tendencies 22-26
Reviving the Past. The Scholars *, ... 23
The Sc/iolars : things for words 24
Verbal Realists : things through woids 25
Stylists: words for themselves 26
Chapter III.— Sturmius. (1507-1589) .„ .« ... 27-32
His early life. Settles in Strassburg ... .^ .». ... 28
His course of Latin. Dismissed , .« 29
XXll CONTENTS.
Chapter III — continued. page
The Schoolmaster taught Latin mainly ,« ,« .,. 30
Resulting verbalism 31
Some books about Sturm , 32
Chapter IV.— Schools of the Jesuits ... .„ ... 33-62
Importance of the Jesuit Schools 34
The Society in part educational 35
*' Ratio atque Institutio." Societas Professa ^ 36
The Jesuit teacher : his preparation, &c 37
Supervision. Maintenance. Lovi'er Schools 38
Free instruction. Equality. Boarders 39
Classes. Curriculum. Latin only used 40
Teacher Lectured. Exercises. Saying by heart ... 41
Emulation. "iEmuli." Concertations 42
** Academies." Expedients. School-hours 43
Method of teaching. An example ., 44
Attention. Extra w^ork. "Repetitio" 45
Repetition. Thoroughness 46
Yearly examinations. Moral training 47
Care of health. Punishments 48
English want of system 49
Jesuit limitations 50
Gains from memorizing 51
Popularity. Kindness 52
Sympathy with each pupil 53
Work moderate in amount and difficulty 54
The Society the Army of the Church , 55
Their pedagogy not disinterested ... 56
Practical 57
The forces: I. Master's influence. 2. Emulation 57-58
A pupil's summing-up 59
Some books 60
Barbier's advice to new master 61
Loyola and Montaigne. Port-Royal 62
Chapter V.— Rabelais. (1483-1553.) 63-69
Rabelais' ideal. A new start ... ., 64
Religion. Study of Things 65
"Anschauung." Hand-work. Books and Life .„ ,« 66
CONTENTS.
xxiil
Chapter V— continued, page
Training the body ,*. .•• ... .»« •»• .»« 67
Rabelais' Curriculum 68
Study of Scripture. Piety ►. 69
Chapter VI.— Montaigne. (i533-i592.) 7^79
Writers and doers. Montaigne versus Renascence ... 7 1
Character before knowledge. True knowledge 72
Athens and Sparta. Wisdom before knowledge 73
Knowing, and knowing by heart m 74
Learning necessary as employment 75
Montaigne and our Public Schools 76
Pressure from Science and Examinations ... 77
Danger from knowledge 78
Montaigne and Lord Armstrong ... 79
Chapter VIL— Ascham. (1515-1568.) 80-89
Wolsey on teaching ... ,^ „, 8i
History of Methods useful ,„ - 82
Our three celebrities S"^
Ascham's method for Latin : first stage 84
Second stage. The six points 85
Value of double translating and writing 86
Study of a model book. Queen Elizabeth 87, 88
" A dozen times at the least " 88
" Impressionists " and " Retainers ** ^ 89
Chapter VIII.— Mulcaster. (iS3i(?)-i6ii.) ... .^ 90-102
Old books in English on education 91
Mulcaster's wisdom hidden by his style »• 92
Education and " learning " 93
I. Development. 2. Child-study „ ,„ 94
3. Groundwork by best workman .„ 95
4. No forcing of young plants « 96
5. The elementary course. English 97
6. Girls as well as Boys 98
7. Training of Teachers 99
Training college at the Universities 100
Mulcaster's reasons for training teachers loi
Mulcaster's Life and Writings ... ,„ ^ 103
XXIV
CONTENTS.
Chapter IX.— Ratichius. (1571-1635-) •••
Principles of the Innovators
Ratke's Address to the Diet •
At Augsburg. At Koethen
Failure at Koethen ...
German in the school. Ratichius's services ...
I, Follow Nature. 2. One thing at a time
3. Over and over again
4. Everything through the mother-tongue...
5. Nothing on compulsion
6. Nothing to be learnt by heart
7. Uniformity. 8. Ne modus rei ante rem ...
9. Per inductionem omnia
Ratke's method for language
Ratke's method and Ascham's
Slow progress in methods
Chapter X.— Comenius. (1592-1671.)
Early years. His first book
Troubles. Exile
Pedagogic studies at Leszna
Didactic written. Janua published. Pansophy
Samuel Hartlib
The Prodromus and Dilucidatio ... ...
Comenius in London. Parliamentary schemes
Comenius driven away by Civil War
In Sweden. Interviews with Oxenstiern
Oxenstiern criticises
Comenius at Elbing
At Leszna again
Saros-Patak. Flight from Leszna
Last years at Amsterdam
Comenius sought true foundation
Threefold life. Seeds of learning, virtue, piety
Omnia sponte fluant. Analogies
Analogies of growth
Senses. Foster desire of knowledge
No punishments. Words and Things together
Languages. System of schools... ,«, .»«
PAGE
IO3-I18
... 104
loS
... 106
107
... 108
109
... no
III
... 112
"3
... 114
IIS
... 116
117
... 118
119-171
... 120
121
... 122
123
... 124
125
... 126
127
... 128
129
... 130
131
... 132
133
... 134
13s
... 136
137
... 138
139
... 140
CONTENTS.
XXV
Chapter X — continued.
Mother-tongue School. Girls ... .
School teaching. Mother's teaching ...
Comenius and the Kindergarten
Starting-points of the sciences
Beginnings in Geography, History, &c. .
Drawing. Education for all
Scientific and Religious Agreement
Bishop Butler on Educating the Poor ...
Comenius and Bacon
*' Everything Through the Senses " ...
Error of Neglecting the Senses
Insufficiency of the Senses
Comenius undervalued the Past
Literature and Science
Comenius's use of Analogies
Thought-studies and Label-studies
Unity of Knowledges
Theory and the Practical Man
Mother-tongue. Words and Things together
Janua Linguarum
The Jesuits' Janua
Comenius adapts Jesuits* Janua
Anchoran's edition of Comenius's Janua .
Change to be made by Janua
Popularity of Janua shortlived
Lubinus projector of Orbis Pictus ...
Orbis Pictus described
Why Comenius's schoolbooks failed ,.,
" Compendia Dispendia " ,
Comenius and Science of Education ...
Books on Comenius
Chapter XL— The Gentlemen of Port-Royal
The Jesuits and the Amaulds ,-
Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal ,
Saint-Cyran an " Evangelical "
Short career of the Little Schools
Saint-Cyran and Locke on Public Schools
Shadow-side of Public Schools ^
XXVI
CONTENTS.
Chapter XI — continued.
The Little Schools for the few only ,^ ••
Advantages of great schools
Choice of masters and servants. Watch and pray
No rivalry or pressure* Freedom from routine
Study a delight. Reading French first
Literature. Mother-tongue first
Beginners' difficulties lightened
Begin with Latin into Mother-tongue ...
Sense before sound. Reason must rule
Not Baconian. The body despised
Pedagogic writings of Port-Royalists
Amauld. Nicole
Light from within. Teach by the Senses
Best teaching escapes common tests ...
Studying impossible without a will...
Against making beginnings bitter
Port- Royal advance. Books on Port- Royal
Rollin, Compayre, &c.
Chapter XIL— Some English Writers before
Birth of Realism
Realist Leaders not schoolmasters ...
John Brinsley. Charles Hoole
Hoole's Realism
Art of teaching. Abraham Cowley ...
Authors and schoolmasters. J. Dury
Disorderly use of our natural faculties ...
Dury's watch simile
Senses, ist ; imagination, 2nd ; memory, 3rd
Betty's battlefield simile
Petty's realism ... .„
Cultivate observation
Petty on children's activities
Hand-work. Education for all. Bellers
Milton and School-Reform
Milton as spokesman of Christian Realists
Language an instrument. Object of education
Milton for barrack life and Verbal Realism
Milton succeeded as man not master ... ,«
Locke
PAGE
179
180
181
182
183
184
i8s
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
[97-218
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
CONTENTS. XXVll
Chapter YAl— continued. page
He did not advance Science of Education... •« .^ 217
Milton an educator of mankind ... .^ ••« ...218
Chapter XIII.— Locke. (1632-1704.) .^ «• ... 219-238
Locke's two main characteristics ... ... ,« ... 220
1st, Truth for itself. 2nd, Reason for Truth ... ,♦. 221
Locke's definition of knowledge .m ... 222
Knowing without seeing ... ... ... 223
** Discentem credere oportet " 224
Locke's ** Knowledge " and the schoolmaster's 225
** Knowledge " in Geography .^ ... 226
For children, health and habits 227
Everything educative forms habits 228
Confusion about special cases. Wax ^ 229
Locke behind Comenius 230
Humanists, Realists, and Trainers .*. 231
Caution against classifiers 232
Locke and development ... 233
Was Locke a utilitarian ? ... ... 234
Utilitarianism defined ... 235
Locke not utilitarian in education ... .m 236
Locke's Pisgah Vision ... 237
Science and education. Names of books 238
Chapter XIV. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (1712-1778.)... 239-272
Middle Age system fell in i8th century 240
Do the opposite to the usual 241
Family life. No education before reason 242
Rousseau ** neglects " essentials. Lose time ... .^ 243
Early education negative 244
Childhood the sleep of reason .». 245
Start from study of the child ... ... 246
Rousseau's paradoxes un-English 247
Man the corrupter. The three educations 248
The aim, living thoroughly 249
Children not small men 250
Schoolmasters' contempt for childhood ., 251
Schoolroom rubbish ••• ••. ••• • 252
xxvill CONTENTS.
Chapter Xl\—conti7tJted. page
Ideas before symbols - ,*. ••• 253
Right ideas for children 254
Child-gardening. Child's activity 255
No sitting still or reading ► 256
Memory without books 257
Use of the senses in childhood ... .« 258
Intellect based on the senses ... ... 259
Cultivationof the senses... .m 260
Music and drawing 261
Drawing from objects. Morals 262
Contradictoiy statements on morals 263
The material world and the moral 264
Shun over-directing 265
Lessons out of school. Questioning. At 12 266
No book-learning. Study of nature 267
Against didactic teaching 26S
Rousseau exaggerates about self-teaching ., 269
Learn with effort 270
Hand-work. The " New Education " 271
The Teacher's business •> 272
Chapter XV. — Basedow and the Philanthropinum ... 273-289
Basedow tries to mend religion and teaching 274
Reform needed. Subscription for " Elementary " ,» 275
A journey with Goethe 276
Goethe on Basedow 277
The Philanthropinum opened 278
Basedow's " Elementary " and " Book of Method " ... 279
Subjects to be taught 280
French and Latin. Religion 281
** Fred's Journey to Dessau " 2S2
At the PhiJanthropinam 283
Methods in the Philanthropinum 284
The Philanthropinum criticised 285
Basedow's improvements in teaching children 2S6
Basedow's successors ... 287
Kant on the Philanthropinum .„ 288
Influence of Philanthropinists .m .- ..< .*. 289
CONTENTS.
XXIX
Chapter XVI.— Pcstalozzi. {1746-1827.)
His childhood and student-liie
A Radical Student ...
Turns farmer. Bluntschli's warning
New ideas in farming. A love letter
Resolutions. Buys land and marries
Pestalozzi turns to education
Neuhof filled with children
Appeal for the new Institution
Bankruptcy. The children sent away
Eighteen years of poverty and distress
*' Gertrude " to the rescue. Pestalozzi 's religion
He turns author. " E. H. of Hermit "
Pestalozzi's belief
The " Hermit " a Christian
Success of ** Leonard and Gertrude '*
Gertrude's patience tried
Being and doing before knowing
Pestalozzi's severity. Women Commissioners
Pestalozzi's seven years of authorship
** Citizen of French Republic." Doubts
Waiting. Pestalozzi's " Inquiry " ,
Pestalozzi's " Fables "
Pestalozzi's own principles ,
Pestalozzi's return to action
The French at Stanz
Pestalozzi at Stanz
Success and expulsion .►
At Stanz : Pestalozzi's own account...
Value of the five months' experience
Pestalozzi a strange Schoolmaster
At Burgdorf. First official approval
A child's notion of Pestalozzi's teaching
Pestalozzi engineering a new road
Psychologizing instruction
School course. Singing ; and the beautiful
Pestalozzi's poverty. Kruesi joins him
Pestalozzi's assistants. The Burgdorf Institute ,.
Success of the Burgdorf Institute .»
PAGE
290-383
291
... 292
293
... 294
295
... 296
297
... 298
299
... 300
301
... 302
303
... 304
305
... 306
307
... 308
309
... 310
311
... 312
313
"■ 314
31S
... 316
317
318-332
333
... 334
335
... 336
337
... 338
339
... 340
341
... 342
XXX CONTENTS.
Chapter XVI — continued. page
Reaction. Pestalozzi and Napoleon I ,^ ,^ •>•
Fellenberg, Pestalozzi goes to Yverdun
A portrait of Pestalozzi ... .^ «
Pmssia adopts Pestalozzianism
Ritter and others at Yverdun ^, ., 347
Ouses of failure at Yverdun 348
Report made by Father Girard 349
Girard's mistake. Schmid in flight 350
Schmid's return. Pestalozzi's fame found useful 351
Dr. Bell's visit. Death of Mrs. Pestalozzi 352
Works repubhshed. Clindy. Yverdun left. Death ... 353, 354
New aim : develop organism 354
True dignity of man 355
Education for all. Mothers' part. Jacob's Ladder 356
Educator only superintends 357
First, moral development 358
Moral and religious the same 359
Second, intellectual development , 360
Learning by " intuition " 361
Buisson and JuUien on intuition ^ 362
Pestalozzi and Locke 363
Subjects for, and art of, teaching 364
"Mastery" 365
The body's part in education 366
Learning must not be play 367
Singing and drawing , 368
Morfs summing-up 369
Joseph Payne's summing-up 370
The *' two nations." Mother's lessons 371
Mistakes in teaching children 372
Children and their teachers 373
** Preparatory" Schools 374
Young boys ill taught at school 375
English folk-schools not Pestalozzian 376
Schools judged by results 377
Pupil-teachers. Teaching not educating 378
Lowe or Pestalozzi ? 379
Chief force, personality of the teacher ^ ,„ 380
English care for unessentials m. •«• •» m. 3S1
CONTENTS.
XXXI
Chapter XVI — continued.
Aim at the ideal ... ^ ,»,
Use of theorists. Books m* ••
Chapter XVII.— Friedrich Froebel. (1783-1852.]
Difficulty in understanding Froebel
A lad's quest of unity
Froebel wandering without rest ,
Finds his vocation. With Pestalozzi
Froebel at the Universities ,
Through the Freiheits-krieg. Mineralogy
The *' New Education " started ,
At Keilhau. ** Education of Man " published
Froebel fails in Switzerland ,
The first Kindergarten
Froebel's last years. Prussian edict against him. His end
Author's attitude towards Reformers
Difficulties with Froebel
" Cui omnia unum sunt "
Froebel's ideal ... ..•
Theory of development
Development through self-activity
True idea found in Nature
God acts and man acts
The formative and creative instinct
Rendering the inner outer
Care for "young plants." Kindergarten ,^
Child's restlessness : how to use it
Employments in Kindergarten
No schoolwork in Kindergarten
Without the idea the " gifts " fail
The New Education and the old
The old still vigorous
Science the thought of God. Some Froebelians...
PAGE
... 382
383
384-413
38s
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
Chapter XVIII.— Jacotot, a Methodizer. (1770-1840.) 414-438
Self- teaching ...
I. All can learn
3
415
416
XXXll
CONTENTS.
Chapter XVIII — continued,
2. Everyone can teach
Can he teach facts he does not know ?
Languages? Sciences?
Arts such as drawing and music ?
True teacher within the learner
Training rather than teaching
3. ** Tout est dans tout." Quidlibet ex quolibet
Connexion of knowledges
Connect with model book. Memorizing
Ways of studying the model book
Should the book be made or chosen ?
Robertsonian plan
Hints for exercises
The good of having learnt
The old Cambridge "mathematical man"
Waste of memory at school
How to stop this waste
IMultum, non multa. De Morgan. Helps. Staph
Jacotot's plan for reading and writing
For the mother-tongue
Method of investigation
Jacotot's last days ••• •»«
Chapter XIX.— Herbert Spencer ,^
Same knowledge for discipline and use ?
Different stages, different knowledges
Relative value of knowledges
Knowledge for self-preservation
Useful knowledge versus the classics
Special instruction versus education
Scientific knowledge and money-making
Knowledge about rearing offspring
Knowledge of history : its nature and use
Use of history
Employment of leisure hoiirs
Poetry and the Arts
More than science needed for complete living...
Objections to Spencer's curriculum ... ,^
PAGE
417
... 418
419
... 420
421
... 422
423
... 424
425
... 426
427
... 428
429
... 430
431
... 432
433
... 434
435
... 436
437
... 438
.439-469
... 440
441
... 442
443
... 444
445
... 446
447
... 448
449
... 450
451
... 452
453
CONTENTS.
XXXlll
Chapter XIX — continued. page
Citizen's duties. Things not to teach 454
Need of a science of education 455
Hope of a science , 456
From simple to complex : known to unknown 457
Connecting schoolwork with life outside 458
Books and life 459
Mistakes in grammar teaching 460
From indefinite to definite : concrete to abstract 461
The Individual and the Race. Empirical beginning ... 462
Against " telling. " Effect of bad teaching 463
Learning should be pleasurable , 464
Can learning be made interesting ? 465
Apathy from bad teaching 466
Should learning be made interesting ? 467
Difference between theory and practice 468
Importance of Herbert Spencer's work 469
Chapter XX.— Thoughts and Suggestions 470-491
Want of an ideal 471
Get pupils to work hard 472
For this arouse interest. Wordsworth 473
Interest needed for activity 474
Teaching young children „ 475
Value of pictures... .^ 476
Dr. Vater at Leipzig « 477
Dr. Vogel and Dr. Vater 478
First knowledge of numbers. Grube ,* 479
Measuring and weighing. Reading-books 480
Respect for books. Grammar. Reading 481
Silent and Vocal Reading 482
Memorising poetry. Composition 483
Correcting exercises. Three kinds of books „ 484
No epitomes 485
Ascham, Bacon, Goldsmith, against them 486
Arouse interest. Dr. Arnold's historical primer 487
A Macaulay, not Mangnall, wanted 4S8
Beginnings in history and geography 489
Tales of Travelers 490
Results posit ve and negative *.» ^ 491
xxxiv
CONTENTS.
Chapter XXI. —The Schoolmaster's Moral and Religious page
Influence
Master's power, how gained and lost
Masters, the open and the reserved
Danger of excess either way
High ideal. Danger of low practice
Harm from overwo: king teachers
Refuge in routine work. Small schools
Influence through the Sixth. Day schools wanted
Teaching religion in England and Germany ...
Religious teaching connected with worship
Education to goodness and piety
How to avoid narrowmindedness ^
Chapter XXII.— Conclusion ^
A growing science of education m*
Jesuits the first Reformers
The Jesuits cared for more than classics
Rabelais for " intuition "
Montaigne for educating mind and body
1 7th century reaction against books
Reaction not felt in schools and the Universities...
Comenius begins science of education
Locke's teacher a disposer of influence
Locke and public schools. Escape from " idols "
Rousseau's clean sweep
Benevolence of Nature. Man disturbs
We arrange sequences, capitalise ideas
Loss and gain from tradition ,
y Rousseau for observing and following
^ Rousseau exposed *' school -learning "
Function of " things " in education
*• New Education " started by Rousseau „,
Drawing out. Man and the other animals
Intuition. Man an organism, a doer and creator
Antithesis of Old and New Education
Drill needed. Wliat the Thinkers do for us ...
Appendix. Class Matches.
iof T'iachers, &c. ,-
Words and Things. Books
492-S03
493
... 494
495
... 496
497
... 498
499
... 500
501
... 502
503
504-526
505
... 506
507
... 508
509
... 510
511
... 51^
513
... 514
515
... 516
517
... 518
519
... 520
521
... 522
5^3
... 524
525
... 526
527-547
I
EFFECTS OF THE RENASCENCE,
Y § I. The history of education, much as it has been
hitherto neglected, especially in England, must have a great
future before it. If we ignore the Past we cannot understand
the Present, or forecast the Future. In this book I am
going to speak of Reformers or Innovators who aimed at
changing what was handed down to them ; but the Radical
can no more escape from the Past, than the Conservative
can stereotype it. It acts not by attraction only, but no less
by repulsion. There have been thinkers in latter times who
have announced themselves as the executioners of the Past
and laboured to destroy all it has bequeathed to us. They
have raised the ferocious cry, " Vive la destruction ! Vive
la morti Place d Vavenir! Hurrah for destruction!
Hurrah for death ! Make room for the world that is to be !"
But their very hatred of the Past has brought them under
the influence of it. " Do just the opposite ol what has been
done and you will do right," said Rousseau ; and this rule
of negation would make the Past regulate the Present and
the Future no less than its opposite, " Do always what is
usual."
If we cannot get free from the Past in the domain o£
thought, still less can we in action. Custom is to all our
THE RENASCENCE.
No escape from the Past.
activities what the mainspring is to the watch. We may
bring forces into play to make the watch go faster* or slower,
but if we took out the mainspring it would not go at all.
For our mainspring we are indebted to the Past.
§ 2. In studying the Past we must give our special at-
tention to those periods in which the course of ideas takes,
as the French say, a new bend.* Such a period was the
Renascence. Then it was that the latest bend was given to
the educational ideal of the civilized world ; and though we
seem now again to have arrived at a period of change, we
are still, perhaps far more than we are aware, affected by the
ideas of the great scholars who guided the intellect of Europe
in the Revival of Learning.
§ 3. From the beginning to the end of the fifteenth
century the balance was trembling between two kinds of
culture, and the fate of the schoolboy depended on the
result. In this century men first got a correct conception
of the globe they were inhabiting. Hitherto they had not
even professed to have any knowledge of geography ; there
is no mention of it in the Trivium and Quadrivium which
were then supposed to form the cycle of things known, if not
of things knowable. But Columbus and Vasco da Gama
were grand teachers of geography, and their lessons were
learnt as far as civilization extended.
The impetus thus given to the study of the earth might,
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, have engrossed
the mind of Europe with the material world, had not the
leaning to physical science been encountered and overcome
by an impulse derived from another discovery. About the
* The rest of this chapter was published in the September, 1880,
n\ixc\)ti oi Education. Boslon, U.S.A.
THE RENASCENCE.
Discovery of the Classics.
time of the discovery of America there also came to light
the literatures of Greece and Rome.
§ 4. When I speak of the discovery of the ancient lite-
ratures as rivalling that of America, this use of the word
" discovery " may be disputed. It may be urged that though
the Greek language and literature were unknown in the West
of Europe till they were brought there by the fugitives after
the fall of Constantinople in 1453, yet the works of the great
Latin writers had always been known in Italy, and Dante
declares himself the disciple of Virgil. And yet I cannot
give up the word " discovery," In the life of an individual
it sometimes happens that he suddenly acquires as it were
a new sense. The world around him remains the same as
before, but it is not the same to him. A film passes from
his eyes, and what has been ordinary and unmeaning
suddenly becomes a source of wonder and delight to him.
Something similar happens at times in the history of the
general mind ; indeed our own century has seen a remark-
able instance of it. In reading the thoughts of great writers
of earlier times, we cannot but be struck, not only with their
ignorance of the material world, but also with their ignorance
of their ignorance. Little as they know, they often speak as if
they knew everything. Newton could see that he was like a
child discovering a few shells while the unexplored ocean lay
before him ; but in those days it required the intellect of a
Newton to understand this. To the other children the ocean
seemed to conceal nothing, and they innocently thought that
all the shells, or nearly all, had been picked up. It was re-
served for the people of our own century to become aware of
the marvels which lie around us in the material world, and to
be fascinated by the discovery. If the human race could live
through several civilizations without opening its eyes to the
THE RENASCENCE.
Mark Pattison's account of Renascence.
wonders of the earth it inhabits, and then could suddenly
become aware of them, we may well understand its retaining
unheeded the literatures of Greece and Rome for centuries,
and at length as it were discovering them, and turning to
them with unbounded enthusiasm and delight.
As students of education we can hardly attach too much
importance to this great revolution. For nearly three
centuries the curriculum in the public schools of Europe
remained what the Renascence had made it. We have
again entered on an age of change, but we are still much
influenced by the ideas of the Renascence, and the best
way to understand the forces now at work is to trace them
where possible to their origin. Let us then consider what
the Renascence was, and how it affected the educational
system.
J' § 5. In endeavouring to understand the Renascence, we
cannot do better than listen to what Mark Pattison says of
it in his " Life of Casaubon " : — '* In the fifteenth century
was revealed to a world which had hitherto been trained to
logical analysis, the beauty of literary form. The conception
of style or finished expression had died out with the pagan
schools of rhetoric. It was not the despotic act of Justinian
in closing the schools of Athens which had suppressed it.
The sense of art in language decayed from the same general
causes which had been fatal to all artistic perception. Ban-
ashed from the Roman Empire in the sixth century or
earlier, the classical conception of beauty of form re-entered
the circle of ideas after near a thousand years of oblivion
and abeyance. Cicero and Virgil, Livius and Ovid, had
been there all along, but the idea of composite harmony on
which their works were constructed was wanting. The
restored conception, as if to recoup itself for its long sup-
n
THE RENASCENCE.
Revival of taste for beauty in literature.
pression, took entire possession of the mind of Europe.
The first period of the Renascence passed in adoration of
the awakened beauty, and in efforts to copy and multiply it."
§ 6. Here Mark Pattison speaks as if the conception of
beauty of form belonged exclusively to the ancients and
those who learnt of them. This seems to require some
abatement. There are points in which mediaeval art lar
excelled the art of the Renascence. The thirteenth century,
as Archbishop Trench has said, was "rich in glorious creations
of almost every kind;" and in that century our great English
architect. Street, found the root of all that is best in modern
art. (See "Dublin Afternoon Lectures," 1868.)
But there are expressions of beauty to which the Greeks,
and those who caught their spirit, were keenly alive, and
to which the people of the Middle Age seem to have been
blind. The first is beauty in the human form j the second
is beauty in literature.
The old delight in beauty in the human form has never
come back to us. Mr. Ruskin tells us we are an ugly race,
with ill-shapen limbs, and well pleased with our ugliness
and deformity, and in reply we only mutter something
about the necessity of clothing both for warmth and
decency. But as to the other expression of beauty,
beauty in literature, the mind of Europe again became
conscious of it in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The re-awakening of this sense of beauty we call the
Renascence.
§ 7. Before we consider the effect of this intellectual
revolution on education, let us be sure that we are not
" paying ourselves with words," and that we know exactly
what we mean by " literature."
When the conceptions of an individual mind are ex-
THE RENASCENCE.
What is Literature?
pressed in a permanent form of words, we get literature.
The sum total of all the permanent forms of expression in
one language make up the literature of that language ;
and if no one has given his conceptions a form which
has been preserved, the language is without a hterature.
There are then two things essential to a literary work:
first, the conceptions of an individual mind; second, a
permanent form of expression. Hence it follows that the
domain of literature is distinct from the domain of natural
or mathematical science. Science does not give us the
conceptions of an individual mind, but it tells us what every
rational person who studies the subject must think. And
science is entirely independent of any form of words : a
proposition of Euclid is science ; a sonnet of Wordsworth's
is hterature. We learn from Euclid certain truths which
we should have learnt from some one else if Euclid had
never existed, and the propositions may be conveyed equally
well in different forms of words and in any language. But
a sonnet of Wordsworth's conveys thought and feeling
pecuHar to the poet; and even if the same thought and
feeling were conveyed to us in other words, we should lose
at least half of what he has given us. Poetry is indeed
only one kind of literature, but it is the highest kind ; and
what is true of literary works in verse, is true also in a
measure of hterary works in prose. So great is the differ-
ence between science and literature, that in literature, as
the first Lord Lytton said, the best books are generally the
oldest ; in science they are the newest.
§ 8. At present we are concerned with literature only.
There are two ways in which a work of literature may
excite our admiration and affect our minds. These are,
first, by the beauty of the conceptions it conveys to us ; and
THE RENASCENCE.
Renascence loved beauty of expression.
second, by the beauty of the language in which it conveys
them. In the greatest works the two excellences will be
combined.*
Now the literary taste proper fastens especially on the
second of the two, i.e.^ on beauty of expression ; and the
Renascence was the revival of literary taste. " It was," as
Mark Pattison says, "the conception of style or finished
expression which had died out with the pagan schools of
rhetoric, and which re-entered the circle of ideas after a
thousand years of oblivion and abeyance." If we lose
sight of this, we shall be perplexed by the unbounded
enthusiasm which we find in the sixteenth century for the
old classics. What great evangel, we may ask, had Cicero
and Virgil and Ovid, or even Plato and the Greek drama-
tists, for men who lived when Europe had experienced a
thousand years of Christianity? The answer is simple.
They had none whatever. Their thoughts and conceptions
were not adapted to the wants of the new world. The
civilization of the Christian nations of the sixteenth cen-
tury was a very different thing from the civilization of
Greece and Rome. It had its own thoughts, its own
problems, its own wants. The old-world thoughts could
not be thought over again by it. This indeed was felt
though not admitted by the Renascence scholars them-
selves. Had it been the thoughts of the ancients which
seemed to them so valuable they would have made some
effort to diffuse those thoughts in the languages of the
modern world. Much as a great literary work loses by
translation, there may still be enough left of it to be a
• On the nature of literature see Cardinal Newman's "Lectures on
the Nature of a University. University Subjects. II. Litera are."
THE RENASCENCE.
No translations. The "educated.
source of instruction and delight. The thoughts of
Aristotle, conveyed in a Latin translation of an Arabic
translation, profoundly affected the mind of Europe in the
Middle Ages. The Bible, or Book par excellence^ is known
to few indeed in its original form. Some great writers — Cer-
vantes, and Shakespeare, and the author of the "Arabian
Nights" — please and instruct nations who know not the
sound of the languages wherein their works are composed.
If then the great writers of Greece and Rome had been
valued for their matter, their works would have been trans-
lated by the Renascence scholars as the Bible was translated
by the Reformers, and the history of modern education would
have taken a very different turn from that which awaited
it. But it was not so. The Renascence scholars did all
they could to discourage translations. For the grand
discovery which we call the Revival of Learning was, not
that the ancients had something to say, but that whatever
they had to say they knew how to say it.
§ 9. And thus it happens that in the period of change,
when Europe was re-arranging its institutions, developing new
ideas and settling into new grooves of habit, we find the men
most influential in education entirely fascinated by beauty
of expression, and this in two ancient languages, so that the
one thing needful for the young seemed to them an intro-
duction to the study of ancient writings. The inevitable
consequence was this : education became a mere synonym
for instruction in Latin and Greek. The only ideal set up
for the " educated " was the classical scholar.
§ 10. Perhaps the absurdity of taking this ideal, an
ideal which is obviously fitted for a small class of men only,
and proposing it for general adoption, was partly concealed
from the Renascence scholars by the peculiar circumstances
THE RENASCENCE.
Spread of literature by printing.
of their age. No doubt they thought literature would in
the future be a force capable of much wider application
than it had ever been before. True, literature had till
then affected a small class only. Literature meant books,
books meant MSS., and MSS. were rare and costly. Litera-
ture, the embodiment of grand thoughts in grand words,
had existed before letters, or at least without letters. The
Homeric poems, for example, had been known to thousands
who could not read or write. But beauty of expression
naturally got associated and indeed confounded with the
art by which it was preserved ; so the creations of the mind,
when embodied in particular combinations of words, ac-
quired the name of literature or letters, and became almost
exclusively the affair of those who had opportunities of study,
opportunities afforded only to the few. During the Middle
Ages every one who could read was allowed his " privilege
of clergy;" that is, he was assumed to be a clergyman.
Literature then was not thought of as a means of instruction.
But at the very time that the beauty of the ancient writings
dawned on the mind of Europe, a mechanical invention
seemed to remove all hindrances to the spread of literature.
The scholars seized on the printing press and thought by
means of it to give all "the educated" a knowledge of
classics.
§ II. We cannot help speculating what would have been
the effect of the discovery of printing if it had been made at
another time. As there may be literature without books, so
there may be books without literature. If at the time of
the invention of printing there had been no hterature, no
creations of individual minds embodied in permanent forms
of speech, books might have been used as apparatus in a
mental gymnasium, or they might have been made the
lO THE RENASCENCE.
School course settled before Bacon.
means of conveying information. But just then the intellect
of Europe was tired of mental gymnastics. It had taken
exercise in the Trivium like a squirrel in its revolving cage,
and was vexed to find it made no progress.* As for infor-
mation there was little to be had. The age of observation
and of physical science was not yet. So the printing press
was entirely at the service of the new passion for literature
and the scholars dreamed of the general diffusion of literary
culture by means of printed books.
§ 12. For some two centuries the literary spirit had
supreme control over the intellect of Europe, and the
literary spirit could then find satisfaction nowhere but in
the study of the ancient classics. The natural consequence
was that throughout this period the " educated man " was
supposed to be identified with the classical scholar. The
great rival of the literary spirit, the scientific spirit which
cares for nothing but sequences independent of the human
mind, began to show itself early in the seventeenth century :
its first great champion was Francis Bacon. But by this
time the school course of study had been settled, and two
centuries had to elapse before the scientific spirit could
unsettle it again. Even now when we speak of a man as
"well-educated" we are commonly understood to mean
that in his youth he was taught the two classical languages.
§ 13. The taking of the classical scholar as the only
* I see Carlyle has used a similar metaphor in the same connexion :
*' Consider the old schoolmen and their pilgrimage towards Truth ! the"
faithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion ; often great natural
vigour, only no progress ; nothing but antic feats of one limb poised
against the other; there they balanced, somerseted, and made postures ;
at best g)'rated swiftly with some pleasure like spinning dervishes and
ended where they began." — Characteristics ^ Misc., vol. iii, 5,
THE RENASCENCE. II
First defect: Learner above Doer.
ideal of the educated man has been a fruitful source of evil
in the history of education.
I. This ideal exalted the learner aboY.e the doer. As far
back as Xenophon, we find a contest between the passive
ideal and the active, between the excellence which depends
on a knowledge of what others have thought and done and
the excellence which comes of thinking and doing. But
the excellence derived from learning had never been highly
esteemed. To be able to repeat Homer's poetry was
regarded in Greece as we now regard a pleasing accomplish-
ment ; but the dignity of the learned man as such was not
within the range of Greek ideas. Many of the Romans
after they began to study Greek literature certainly piqued
themselves on being good Greek scholars, and Cicero
occasionally quotes with all the airs of a pedant ; but so
thoroughly was the contrary ideal, the ideal of the doer^
established at Rome, that nobody ever dreamt of placing its
rival above it. In the decline of the Empire, especially at
Alexandria, we find for the first time honours paid to the
learned man ; but he was soon lost sight of again. At the
Renascence he burst into sudden blaze, and it was then
discovered that he was what every man would wish to be.
Thus the Renascence scholars, notwithstanding their ad
miration of the great nations of antiquity, set up an ideal
which those nations would heartily have despised. The
schoolmaster very readily adopted this ideal ; and schools
have been places of learning, not training, ever since.
§ 14. II. The next defect I observe in the Renascence
ideal is this : it attributes to literature more direct power
over common hfe than literature has ever had, or is ever
likely to have.
I say direct power, for indirectly literature is one of the
12 THE RENASCENCE.
Second : Overestimate of literature.
grand forces which act on all of us ; but it acts on us through
others, its most important function being to affect great
intellects, the minds of those who think out and act out
important changes. Its direct action on the mass of mankind
is after all but insignificant. We have seen that literature
consists in permanent forms of words, expressing the
conceptions of individual minds ; and these forms will be
studied only by those who are interested in the conceptions
or find pleasure in the mode in which they are expressed.
Now the vast majority of ordinary people are without these
inducements to literary study. They take a keen interest
in everything connected with their relations and intimate
friends, and a weaker interest in the thinkings and sayings
and doings of every one else who is personally known to
them ; but as to the mental conceptions of those who hved
in other times, or if now alive are not known even by sight,
the ordinary person is profoundly indifferent to them;
and of course delight in expression, as such, is out of the
question. The natural consequence is that the habit of
reading books is by no means common. Mark Pattison
observes that there are few books to be found in most
English middle-class homes, and he says : "The dearth of
books is only the outward and visible sign of the mental
torpor which reigns in those destitute regions " (see " Fort-
nightly Review," November, 1877). I much doubt if he
would have found more books in the middle-class homes of
the Continent. There is only one kind of reading that is
nearly universal — the reading of newspapers ; and the
newspaper lacks the element of permanence, and belongs
to the domain of talk rather than of literature.
Even when we get among the so-called " educated," we
find that those who care for literature form a very small
THE RENASCENCE. 1 3
Literary taste not common.
minority. The rest have of course read Shakespeare and
Milton and Walter Scott and Tennyson, but they do not
read th€??i. The lion's share of our time and thoughts and
interests must be given to our business or profession,
whatever that may be ; and in few instances is this con-
nected with literature. For the rest, whatever time or
thought a man can spare from his calling is mostly given to
his family, or to society, or to some hobby which is not
literature.
And love of literature is not shown in such reading as is
common. The literary spirit shows itself, as I said, in
appreciating beauty of expression, and how far beauty of
expression is cared for we may estimate from the fact that
few people think of reading anything a second time. The
ordinary reader is profoundly indifferent about style, and
will not take the trouble to understand ideas. He keeps to
periodicals or light fiction, which enables the mind to loll in
its easy chair (so to speak) and see pass before it a series of
pleasing images. An idea, as Mark Pattison says, "is an
excitant, comes from mind and calls forth mind \ an image
is a sedative;" and most people when they take up a book
are seeking a sedative.
So literature is after all a very small force in the lives
of most men, and perhaps even less in the lives of most
women. Why then are the employments of the school-
room arranged on the supposition that it is the grand force
of all? The reason is, that we have inherited from the
Renascence a false notion of the function of literature.
§ 15. III. I must now point out a fault in the Re-
nascence ideal which is perhaps the most remarkable of all.
Those by whom this ideal was set up were entirely possessed
by an enthusiasm for literature, and they made the mistake
4
T4 THE RENASCENCE.
Third: Literature banished from school.
of attributing to literature a share in general culture which
literature seems incapable of taking. After this we could
little have expected that the new ideal would exclude
literature from the schoolroom, and yet so it has actually
turned out.
As a literary creation contains the conceptions of an
individual mind expressed in a permanent form of words, it
exists only for those who can understand the words or at
least the conceptions.
From this it follows that literature for the young must
have its expression in the vernacular. The instances are
rare' indeed in which any one below the age of fifteen or
sixteen (perhaps I might put the limit a year or two higher)
understands any but the mother tongue. In the mother
tongue indeed some forms of literature exercise a great
influence over young minds. Ballad literature seems
especially to belong to youth, the youth of nations and
of individuals. Aristotle educated Alexander with Homer ;
and we can easily imagine the effect which the Iliad must
have had on the young Greeks. Although in the days of
Plato instruction was not confined to literature, he gives
this account of part of the training in the Athenian schools :
" Placing the pupils on benches, the instructors make them
read and learn by heart the poems of good poets in which
are many moral lessons, many tales and eulogies and lays
of the brave men of old ; that the boys may imitate them
with emulation and strive to become such themselves."
Here we see a very important function attributed to
literature in the bringing up of the young; but the literature
so used must obviously be in the language of the learners.
The influence of a literary work may, however, extend itself
far beyond the limits of its own language. When our minds
THE RENASCENCE. 1 5
Translations would be literature.
can receive and take pleasure in the conceptions of a great
writer, he may speak to us by an interpreter. At the
Renascence there were books in the world which might have
affected the minds of the young — Plutarch, Herodotus, and
above all Homer. But, as I have already said, it was not the
conceptions, but the literary form of the ancients, which
seemed to the Renascence scholars of such inestimable value,
so they refused to give the conceptions in any but the
original words. " Studying the ancients in translations," says
Melancthon, " is merely looking at the shadow." He could
not have made a greater mistake. As far as the young are
concerned the truth is exactly the reverse. The translation
would give the substance : the original can give nothing but
the shadow. Let us take the experience of Mr. Kinglake,
the author of " Eothen." This distinguished Eton man,
fired by his remembrances of Homer, visited the Troad.
He had, as he tells us, " clasped the Iliad line by line to his
brain with reverence as well as love." Well done, Eton ! we
are tempted to exclaim when we read this passage : here at
least is proof that some literature was taught in those days
of the dominion of the classics. But stop ! It seems that
this clasping did not take place at Eton, but in happy days
before Eton, when Kinglake knew no Greek and read trans-
lations. "Heroic days are these," he writes, "but the Dark
Ages of schoolboy life come closing over them. I suppose
it's all right in the end : yet, by Jove ! at first sight it does
seem a sad intellectual fall. . . . The dismal change is
ordained and thin meagre Latin (the same for everybody)
with small shreds and patches of Greek, is thrown like a
pauper's pall over all your early lore; instead of sweet
knowledge, vile monkish doggrel, grammars and graduses,
dictionaries and lexicons, horrible odds and ends of dead
l6 THE RENASCENCE.
The classics not written for children.
languages are given you for your portion, and down you fall
from Roman story to a three-inch scrap of ' Scriptores
Romani' — from Greek poetry down, down, to the cold
rations of *Poetae Grseci,' cut up by commentators and
served out by schoolmasters !" (" Eothen," the Troad.)
We see from this how the Renascence ideal had the
extraordinary effect of banishing literature from the school-
room. Literature has indeed not ceased to influence the
young ; it still counts for much more in their lives than in
the lives of their seniors ; but we all know who are the
writers who affected our own minds in childhood and youth,
and who affect the minds of our pupils now — not Eutropius
or Xenophon, or Caesar or Cicero, but Defoe and Swift and
Marryatt and Walter Scott. The ancient writings which
were literature to Melancthon and Erasmus, as they are
still to many in our universities and elsewhere, can never be
literature to the young. Most of the classical authors read
in the schoolroom could not be made literature to young
people even by means of translations, for they were men who
wrote for men and women only. We see that it would be
absurd to make an ordinary boy of twelve or fourteen study
Burke or Pope. And if we do not make him read Burke,
whose language he understands, why do we make him read
Cicero whose language he does not understand? If he can-
not appreciate Pope, why do we teach him Horace ? The
Renascence gives us the explanation of this singular anomaly.
The scholars of that age were so delighted with the " com-
posite harmony " of the ancient classics that the study of those
classics seemed to them the one thing worth living for. The
main, if not the only object they kept in view in bringing up
the young was to gain for them admission to the treasure
house ; and though young people could not understand the
THE RENASCENCE. 1 7
Language versus Literature.
ancient writings as literature, they might at least study
them as language and thus be ready to enjoy them as litera-
ture in after-life. Thus the subject of instruction in the
schoolroom came to be, not the classics but, the classical
languages. The classics were used as school books, but the
only meaning thought of was the meaning of the detached
word or at best of the detached sentence. You ask a child
learning to read if he understands what he is reading about,
and he says, " I can't think of the meaning because I am
thinking of the words." The same thing happened in the
schoolboy's study of the classics, and so it has come to pass
that to this day the great writers of antiquity discharge a
humble function which they certainly never contemplated.
" Great Caesar's body dead and turned to clay
May stop a hole to keep the wind away."
And great Caesar's mind has been turned to uses almost as
paltry. He has in fact written for the schoolroom not a
commentary on the Wars of Gaul — nothing of the kind —
but simply a book of exercises in Latin construing ; and an
excellent book it would be if he had only graduated the
difficulties better.
§ 1 6. IV. There is yet another weakness about the
Renascence ideal — a weakness from which most ideals are
free.
Most ideals have this merit at least, that he who makes
even a feeble and abortive attempt to reach them is benefited
in proportion to his advance, however small that advance
may be. If he fails to seize the coat of gold, he carries
away, as the proverb tells us, at least one of the sleeves ; or,
to use George Herbert's metaphor —
"... Who aimeth at the sky,
Shoots higher far than he who means a tree,'*
1 8 THE RENASCENCE.
Fourth : Miss as good as a mile.
But the learned ideal has not even this advantage. The
first stage, the study of the ancienf*languages, is so totally
different from the study of the ancient literatures to which
it is the preliminary, that the student who never goes beyond
this first stage either gets no benefit at all, or a benefit which
is not of the kind intended. Suppose I am within a walk,
though a long one, of the British Museum, and hearing of
some valuable books in the library, which I can see nowhere
else, I set off to consult them. In this case it makes no
difference to me how valuable the books are if I do not
get as far as the Museum.* My friends may comfort me
with the assurance that the walk must have done me
good. Perhaps so ; but I left home to get a knowledge of
certain books, not to exercise my legs. Had exercise
been my object I should probably have chosen another
direction.
Now schoolmasters, since the Renascence, have been in
the habit of leading all their pupils through the back slums
of the Seven Dials and Soho in the direction of the British
Museum, with the avowed purpose of taking them to the
library, although they knew full well that not one pupil in
ten, not one in fifty, would ever reach the door. To produce
a few scholars able to appreciate the classics of Greece and
Rome they have sacrificed everybody else ; and according
to their own showing they have condemned a large portion
of the upper classes, nearly all the middle classes, and quite
all the poorer classes to remain "uneducated." And, ac-
cording to the theory of the schoolroom, one-half of the
* This illustration was suggested by a similar one in Prof. J. R.
Seeley's essay " On the Teaching of English " in his Lectures and Essays^
187a
THE RENASCENCE. 1 9
Fifth : Neglect of children.
human race — the women — have not been supposed to need
education. For them " accompHshments " have been held
sufficient.
§ 17. V. In conclusion I must point out one effect of
the Renascence ideal which seems to me no less mischievous
than those I have already mentioned. This ideal led the
schoolmasters to attach little importance to the education of
children. Directly their pupils were old enough for Latin
Grammar the schoolmasters were quite at home; but till
then the children's time seemed to them of small value, and
they neither knew nor cared to know how to employ it. If
the little ones could learn by heart forms of words which
would afterwards "come in useful," the schoolmasters were
ready to assist such learning by unsparing application of the
rod, but no other learning seemed worthy even of a caning.
Absorbed in the world of books they overlooked the world
of nature. Galileo complains that he could not induce them
to look through his telescope, for they held that truth could
be arrived at only by comparison of MSS. No wonder then
that they had so little sympathy with children, and did not
know how to teach them. It is by slow degrees that we are
breaking away from the bad tradition then established, are
getting to understand children, and with such leaders as
Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, are investigating the best
education for them. We no longer think of them as imma-
ture men and women, but see that each stage has its own
completeness, and that there is a perfection in childhood
which must precede the perfection of manhood just as truly
as the flower goes before the fruit. "Childhood," says
Rousseau, "has its own ways of seeing, feeling, thinking;"
and it is by studying these that we find out how children
should be educated. Our connexion with the world of
20 THE RENASCENCE.
Child's study of his surroundings.
nature seems much closer in our early years than ever
afterwards. The child's mind seems drawn out to its
surroundings. He is intensely interested in the new world
in which he finds himself, and whilst so many of us grown
people need a flapper, like the sages of Laputa, to call our
attention from our own thoughts to anything that meets the
eye or ear, the child sees and hears everything, and every-
thing seen or heard becomes associated in his mind not so
much with thought as with feeling. Hence it is that we
most of us look back wistfully to our early days, and confess
sorrowfully that though years may have brought " the philo-
sophic mind,"
** . . . Nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.'*
The material world then seems to supply just those objects,
whether birds, beasts, or flowers, by which the child is
attracted, and on which his faculties will therefore be most
naturally and healthily employed. But the Renascence
schoolmasters had little notion of this. If you think that
the greatest scholar is the greatest man, you will, as a
matter of course, place at the other end of the scale those
who are not scholars at all. An English inspector, who
seems to have thought children had been created with due
regard to the Revised Code of the Privy Council, spoke of
the infants who could not be classed by their performances
in "the three R's" as "the fag end of the school ;" and no
doubt the Renascence schoolmasters considered the children
the fag end of humanity. The great scholars were indeed
far above the race of pedants ; but the schoolmasters who
adopted their ideal were not. And what is a pedant? "A
man who has got rid of his brains to make room for his
THE RENASCENCE. 21
Aut Csesar aut nihil.
learning."* The pedantic schoolmasters of the Renascence
wished the mind of the pupil to be cleared of everything
else, that it might have room for the languages of Greece
and Rome. But what if the mind failed to take in its
destined freight? In that case the schoolmasters had
nothing else for it, and were content that it should go
empty.
• Miss J. D.Potter, in "Journal of Education." London, June, 1879,
22
II.
RENASCENCE TENDENCIES,
§ I. In considering and comparing the two great epochs
of intellectual activity and change in modern times, viz., the
sixteenth century and the nineteenth, we cannot but be
struck with one fundamental difference between them.
§ 2. It will affect all our thoughts, as Sir Henry Maine has
said, whether we place the Golden Age in the Past or in the
Future. In the nineteenth century the "good time" is
supposed to be " coming," but in the sixteenth century all
thinkers looked backwards. The great Italian scholars gazed
with admiration and envy on the works of ancient Greece
and Rome, and longed to restore the old languages, and as
much as possible the old world, so that such works might be
produced again. Many were suspected, not altogether per-
haps without reason, of wishing to uproot Christianity itself,*
that they might bring back the Golden Age of Pericles.
§ 3. At the same time another movement was going on,
principally in Germany. Here too, men were endeavouring
to throw off the immediate past in order to revive the remote
* See Erasmus's Ciceronianus^ or account of it, in Henry Barnard's
German Teachers,
RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. 23
Reviving the Past. The Scholars.
past. The religious reformers, like the scholars, wished to
restore a golden age, only a different age, not the age of the
AntigQne, but the age of the Apostles' Creed. Thus it
happened that the scholars and the reformers joined
in attaching the very highest importance to the ancient
languages. Through these languages, and, as they thought,
through them alone, was it possible to get a glimpse into the
bygone world in which their soul delighted.
§ 4. But though all joined in extolling the ancient writ-
ings, we find at the Renascence great differences in the way
of regarding these writings and in the objects for which they
were employed. A consideration of these differences will
help us to understand the course of education when the
Renascence was a force no longer.
§ 5. Very powerful in education were the great scholars,
of whom Erasmus was perhaps the greatest, certainly the
most celebrated. In devoting their lives to the study of the
ancients their object was not merely to appreciate literary
style, though this was a source of boundless delight to them,
but also to understand the classical writings and the ancient
world through them. These men, whom we may call par
excellence the Scholars, cared indeed before all things for
literature ; but with all their delight in the form they never
lost sight of the substance. They knew the truth that
Milton afterwards expressed in these memorable words:
"Though a Hnguist should pride himself to have all the
tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not
studied the solid things in them as well as the words and
lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned
man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his
mother dialect only." (Tractate to Hartlib, § 4).
So Erasmus and the scholars would have all the educated
24 RENASCENCE TENDENCIES.
The Scholars: things for words.
understand the classical authors. But to understand words
you must know the things to which the words refer. Thus
the Scholars were led to advocate a partial study of things a
kind ot realism. But we must carefully observe a peculiarity
of this scholastic realism which distinguished it from the
realism of a later date — the realism of Bacon. The study
of things was undertaken not for its own sake, but simply in
order to understand books. Perhaps some of us are con-
scious that this kind of literary realism has not wholly passed
away. We may have observed wild flowers, or the changes
in tree or cloud, because we find that the best way to under-
stand some favourite author, as Wordsworth or Tennyson.
This will help us to understand the realism of the sixteenth
century. The writings of great authors have been compared
to the plaster globes ("celestial globes" as we call them),
which assist us in understanding the configuration of the
stars {Guesses at Truths j. 47). Adopting this simile we may
say that the Scholars loved to study the globe for its own
sake, and when they looked at stars they did so with the
object of understanding the globe. Thus we read of doctors
who recommended their pupils to look at actual cases of
disease as the best commentary on the works of Hippocrates
and Galen. This kind of realism was good as far as it went,
but it did not go far. Of course the end in view limited
the study, and the Scholars took no interest in things except
those which were mentioned in the classics. They had no
desire to investigate the material universe and make dis-
coveries for themselves. This is why Galileo could not
induce them to look through his telescope ; for the ancients
had no telescopes, and the Scholars wished to see nothing
that had not been seen by their favourite authors. First
then we have the Scholars, headed by Erasmus.
1
RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. 2$
Verbal Realists: things through words.
§ 6. Next we find a party less numerous and for a time
less influential, who did care about things for the sake of the
things themselves ; but carried away by the literary current
of their age, they sought to learn about them not directly,
but only by reading. Here again we have a kind of realism
which is not yet extinct. Some years ago I was assured by
a Graduate of the University of London who had passed in
chemistry, that, as far as he knew, he had never seen a
chemical in his life : he had got all his knowledge from
books. While such a thing is possible among us, we need
not wonder if those who in the sixteenth century prized the
knowledge of things, allowed books to come between the
learner and the object of his study, if they regarded Nature
as a far-off country of which we could know nothing but
what great authors reported to us.
As this party, unlike the Scholars, did not delight in litera-
ture as such, but simply as a means of acquiring knowledge,
literary form was not valued by them, and they preferred
Euclid to Sophocles, Columella to Virgil. Seeking to learn
about things, not immediately, but through words, they have
received from Raumer a name they are likely to keep —
Verbal Realists. In the sixteenth century the greatest of the
Verbal Realists also gave a hint of Realism proper ; for he
was no less a man than Rabelais.
§ 7. Lastly we come to those who, as it turned out, were
to have more influence in the schoolroom than the Scholars
and the Verbal Realists combined. I do not know that
these have had any name given them, but for distinction
sake we may call them Stylists. In studying literature the
Scholars cared both for form and substance, the Verbal
Realists for substance only, and the Stylists for form only.
The Stylists gave up their lives, not, like the scholars, to gain
26
RENASCENCE TENDENCIES.
Stylists: words for themselves.
a thorough understanding of the ancient writings and of the
old world, but to an attempted reproduction of the ancient
languages and of the classical literary form.
§ 8. In marking these tendencies at the Renascence, we
must remember that though distinguished by their tenden-
cies, these Scholars, Verbal Realists, and Stylists, were not
divided into clearly defined parties. Categories like these
no doubt assist us in gaining precision of thought, but we
must not gain precision at the expense of accuracy. The
tendencies we have been considering did not act in precisely
opposite directions, and all were to some extent affected by
them. But one tendency was predominant in one man
and another in another; and this justifies us in calling
Sturm a Stylist, Erasmus a Scholar, and Rabelais a Verbal
Realist.
§ 9. In one respect they were all agreed. The world was
to be regenerated by means of books. Nothing pleased
them more than to think of their age as the Revival of
Learning.
27
III.
STURMIUS,
1507 -1589.
§ I. The curriculum bequeathed by the Renascence and
stereotyped in the School Codes of Germany, in the Ratio
of the Jesuits, and in the English public school system, was
greatly influenced by the most famous schoolmaster of the
fifteen hundreds, John Sturm, who was for over forty years
Rector of the Strassburg Gymnasium.
§ 2. Sturm was a fine specimen of the successful man :
he knew what his contemporaries wanted, and that was just
what he wanted. " He was a blessed fellow," as Prince Hal
says of Poins, " to think as every man thought," and he not
only " kept the roadway " himself, but he also " personally
conducted" great bands of pupils over it, at one time " 200
noblemen, 24 counts and barons, and 3 princes." What
could schoolmaster desire more?
§ 3. But I frankly own that Sturm is no favourite of mine,
and that I think that he did much harm to education.
However, his influence in the schoolroom was so great that
I must not leave him unnoticed ; and I give some informa-
tion, taken mainly from Raumer's account of him, which is
translated in Henry Barnard's "German Teachers and
2b STURMIUS.
His early life. Settles in Strassburg.
Educators." I have also looked at the exhaustive article by
Dr. Bossier in K. A. Schmid's E7icyklopddie {sub v.)
§ 4. John Sturm, bom at Schleiden in the Eifel, not far
from Cologne, in 1507, was one of 15 children, and would
net have had much teaching had not his father been steward
to a nobleman, with whose sons he was brought up. He
always spoke with reverence and affection of his early teachers,
and from them no doubt he acquired his thirst for learning.
With the nobleman's sons and under the guidance of a tutor
he was sent to Liege, and there he attended a school of the
"Brethren of the Life in Common," alias Hieronymites.
Many of the arrangeinents of this school he afterwards
\ reproduced in the Strassburg Gymnasium, and in this way
J the good Brethren gained an iniluence over classical educa-
\ tion throughout the world.
§ 5. Between the age of 15 and 20 Sturm was at Lyons,
and before the end of this period he was forced into teaching
for a maintenance. He then, like many other learned men
of the time, turned printer. We next find him at the
University of Paris, where he thought of becoming a doctor
of medicine, but was finally carried away from natural science
by the Renascence devotion to literature, and he became a
popular lecturer on the classics. From Paris he was called
to Strassburg (then, as now, in Germany) in 1537. In 1538
he published his plan of a Gymnasium or Grammar School,
with the title, " The right way of opening schools of literature
(De Liter arum Ludis recte aperiendis)" and some years
afterwards (1565) he published his Letters {Classicce Epis-
iolcB) to the different formmasters in his^school.
§ 6. The object of teaching is three-fold, says Sturm,
"gietj, knowledge, and the art of expression." The student
should be distinguished by reasonable and neat speech
3^f,,>,. ..lixi^-.p^
STURMIUS. 29
His course of Latin. Dismissed.
{ratione et oratione). To attain this the hnys in..
hadJia give seven years to the afjqiitfement of a-puxe.X^tin
styie ; then two years more were_devotgdJtQjelegaxi£.e 'i thex^
five years of collegiate life were tn he given ta,-the- art of
Latinjps^ch. This course is for ten years carefully mapped
out by Sturm in his Letters to the masters. The foundation
is to be laid in the tenth class, which the child enters at seven
years old, and in which he learns to read, and is turned on
to the declensions and conjugations. We have for all classes
the exact " pensum," and also specimens of the questions put
in examination by the top boy of the next class above^ a hint
which was not thrown away upon the Jesuits.
§ 7. Sturm cries over the superior advantages of the
Roman children. " Cicero was but twenty when he delivered
his speeches in behalf of Quintius and Roscius ; but in these
days where is there the man even of eighty, who could make
such speeches i Yet there are books enough and intellect
enough. What need we further? We need the Latin
language and a correct method of teaching. Both these we
must have before we can arrive at the summit of eloquence."
§ 8. Sturm did not, like Rabelais, put Greek on a level
with Latin or above it The reading of Greek words is begun
in the sixth class. Hebrew, Sturm did not himself learn till
he was nearly sixty.
§ 9. With a thousand boys in his school, and carrying on
correspondence with the leading sovereigns of his age, Sturm
was a model of the successful man. But in the end " the
religious difficulty" was too much even for him, and he was
dismissed from his post by his opponents "for old age and
other causes." Surely the "other causes" need not have
been mentioned. Sturm was then eighty years old.
§ 10. The successful man in every age is the man who
5
30 STURMIUS.
The Schoolmaster taught Latin mainly.
chooses a popular and attainable object, and shows tre-
mendous energy in pursuit of it. Most people don't know
precisely what they want; and among the few who do,
nine-tenths or more fail through lack of energy. But Sturm
was quite clear in his aim, and having settled the means, he
showed immense energy and strength of will in going through
with them. IJejsaiited-lO restore the language of^Gicero
and Ovid and to give his pupils great power of, elegant
expression in that language. Like all schoolmasters he
professed that piety and knowledge (which in more modern
phrase would be wisdom and knowledge) should come first,
but like most schoolmasters he-trQubledJ)imsel£_iii5=in]y, if
not exclusively, about the art of expression. As an abstract
proposition the schoolmaster admits that to have in your
head something worth saying is more important than to have
the power of expression ready in case anything worth saying
should "come along." But the schoolmaster's art always
has taken, and I suppose, in the main, always will take for
its material the means of expression ; and by preference it
chooses a tongue not vulgar or " understanded of the people."
Thus the schoolmasters with Sturm at their head set them-
selves to teacli words — foreign words, and allowed their
pupils to study nothing else, not even the mother tongue.
The satirist who wrote Hudibras has stated for us the result —
** No sooner are the organs of the brain
Quick to receive and stedfast to retain
Best knowledges, but all's laid out upon
Retrieving of the curse of Babylon.
* * * * %
And he that is but able to express
No sense in several languages
Will pass for learneder than he that's known
To speak the strongest reason in his own."*
• " On Abuse of Human Learning," by Samuel Butler.
STURMIUS. 31
Resulting verbalism.
§ II. One of the scholars of the Renascence, Hieronymu.s
Wolf^ wa&-mse_£nQiigh to see that there might be no small
merit in_a boy's silence: "Nee minima pueri virtus est
tacere cum recte loqui nesciat" (Quoted by Parker). But
this virtue of silence was not encouraged by Sturm, and he
determined that by the age of sixteen his pupils should
have a fair command of expression in Latin and some know-
ledge of Greek.* Latin indeed was to supplant the mother
tongue, and boys were to be severely punished for using
their own language. By this we may judge of the pernicious
effects of following Sturm. And it is a mistake to suppose
that the unwisdom of tilting at the vernacular was not so
much Sturm's, as of the age in which he lived. The typical
English schoolmaster of the century, Mulcaster, was in this
and many other ways greatly in advance of Sturm. To him
it was plain that we should " care for that most which we
ever use most, because we need it mosff The only need
recognized by Sturm was need of the classical languages.
Thus he and his admirers led the unlucky schoolboy
straight into that " slough of Despond " — verbalism, in which
he has struggled ever since ;
** Plunged for some sense, but found no bottom there,
So learned and floundered on in mere despair. "J
• Multum ilium profecisse arbitror, qui ante sextum decimum setatis
annum facultatem duarum linguarum mediocrem assecutus est. (Quoted
by Parker.)
t R. Mulcaster's Positions^ 1581, p. 30. I have reprinted this book
(Longmans, 1888, price \os.).
X Sturm's school " had an European reputation : there were Poles
and Portuguese, Spaniards, Danes, Italians, French and English. But
besides this, it was the model and mother school of a numerous progeny.
Sturm himself organized schools for several towns which applied to him.
32 STURMIUS.
Some books about Sturm.
His disciples became organizers, rectors, and professors. In short, if
Melanchthon was the instructor, Sturm was the schoolmaster of
Germany. Together with his method, his school-books were spread
broadcast over the land. Both were adopted by Ascham in England,
and by Buchanan in Scotland. Sturm himself was a great man at the
imperial court. No diplomatist passed through Strasburg without
stopping to converse with him. He drew a pension from the King of
Denmark, another from the King of France, a third from the Queen
of England, collected political information for Cardinal Cranvella, and
was ennobled by Charles V. He helped to negotiate peace between
France and England, and was appointed to confer with a commission of
Cardinals on reunion of the Church. In short, Sturm knew what he
was about as well as most men of his time. Yet few will be disposed
to accept his theory of education, even for the sixteenth century, as the
best. WTierein then lay the mistake ? . . . Sturm asserted that the
proper end of school education is eloquence, or in modern phrase, a
masterly command of language, and that the knowledge of things
mainly belongs to a later stage . . . Sturm assumed that Latin is
the language in which eloquence is to be acquired."
This is from Mr. Charles Stuart Parker's excellent account of Sturm in
Essays on a Liberal Educaticfiy edited by Farrar, Essay I., On History
of Classical Education, p. 39.
I find from Herbart {Pad. Schriften, O. Wilmann's edition, vol. ij,
229 ff; Beyer's edition, ij, 321) that the historian, F. H. Ch. Schwarz,
took a very favourable view of Sturm's work ; and both he and Karl
Schmidt give Sturm credit for introducing the two ways of studying an
author that may be carried on at the same time — 1st, statarisch, i.e.y
reading a small quantity accurately, and 2nd, cursorisch, i.e., getting
over the ground. These two kinds of reading were made much of by
J. M. Gesner (1691-1761). Ernst Laas \i3& •writXtn Die Fddago^ik /,
Siurms which no doubt does him justice, but I have not seen the book.
IV.
SCHOOLS OF THE JESUITS.
§ I. Since the Revival of Learning, no body of men has
played so prominent a part in education as the Jesuits.
With characteristic sagacity and energy they soon seized on
education as a stepping-stone to power and influence ; and
with their talent for organization, they framed a system of
schools which drove all important competitors from the field,
and made Jesuits the instructors of Catholic, and even, to
some extent, of Protestant Europe. Their skill in this
capacity is attested by the highest authorities, by Bacon*
and by Descartes, the latter of whom had himself been their
pupil ; and it naturally met with its reward ; for more than
* Why did Bacon, who spoke slightingly of Sturm (see Parker, in
Essays on Lib. Ed.)^ rate the Jesuits so highly? ** Consule scholas
Jesuitarum : nihil enim quod in usum venit his melius," De Aug.^ lib.
iv, cap. iv. See, too, a longer passage in first book of De Aug. (about
end of first |), "Quae nobilissima pars priscse disciplinoe revocata est
aliquatenus, quasi postliminio, in Jesuitarum collegiis ; quorum cum
intueor industriam solertiamque tam in doctrina excolenda quam in
moribus inform andis, illud occurrit Agesilai de Pharnabazo, * Talis
cum sis, utinam nost^r esses.
34 THE JESUITS.
Importance of the Jesuit Schools.
one hundred years nearly all the foremost men throughout
Christendom, both among the clergy and laity, had received
the Jesuit training, and in most cases retained for life an
attachment to their old masters.
§ 2. About these Jesuit schools — once so celebrated and
so powerful, and still existing in great numbers, though
little remains of their original importance— there does not
seem to be much information accessible to the English
reader. I have, therefore, collected the following particulars
about them ; and refer any one who is dissatisfied with so
meagre an account, to the works which I have consulted.*
The Jesuit schools, as I said, still exist, but they did their
* (i) Joseph Anton Schmid's "Niedere Schulen derjesuiten :"Regens-
burg, 1852. (2) Article by Wagenmann in K. A. Schmid's " Encyclo-
padie des Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesens." (3) *' Ratio atque
Institutio Studiorum Soc. Jesu." The first edition of this work,
published at Rome in 1585, was suppressed as heretical, because it
contemplated the possibility of differing from St. Thomas Aquinas. The
book is now very scarce. There is a copy in the British Museum.
On comparing it with the folio edition (*'Constitutiones," &c., pub-
lished at Prag in 1632), I find many omissions in the latter, some of
which are curious, e.g.^ under " De Matrimonio :" — ** Matremne an
uxorem occidere sit gravius, non est hujus loci." (4) " Paroenesis ad
Magistros Scholarum Inferiorum Soc. Jesu, scripta a P. Francisco
Sacchino, ex eadem Societate." (5) " Juvencius de Ratione Discendi
et Docendi." Cretineau-Joly's "Histoire de la Compagnie de Jt'sus"
(Paris, 1844), I have not made much use of. Sacchini and Jouvency
were both historians of the Order. The former died in 1625, the latter
in 1 7 19. There is a good sketch of the Jesuit schools, by Andrewes, in
Barnard's American Journal of Education^ vol. xiv, 1864, reprinted
in the best book I know of in English on the History of Education,
Barnard's German Teachers,
THE JESUITS. 35
Society in part educational.
great work in other centuries; and I therefore prefer to
speak of them as things of the past.*
§ 3. When the Jesuits were first formally recognized by
a Bull of Paul III in 1540, the Bull stated that the Order
was formed, among other things, " especially for the purpose
of instructing boys and ignorant persons in the Christian
religion." But the Society well understood that secular was
more in demand than religious learning; and they offered^
the more valued instruction, that they might have the
opportunity of inculcating lessons which, to the Society at
least, were the more valuable. From various Popes they
obtained powers for founding schools and colleges, for giving
degrees, and for lecturing publicly at universities. Their
foundations rapidly extended in the Romance countries,
except in France, where they were long in overcoming the
opposition of the Regular clergy and of the University of
Paris. Over the Teutonic and Slavonic countries they
spread their influence first by means of national colleges at
Rome, where boys of the different nations were trained as
missionaries. But, in time, the Jesuits pushed their camps
forward, even into the heart of the enemy's country.
§ 4. The system of education to be adopted in all the
Jesuit institutions was settled during the Generalship of
Aquaviva. In 1584 that General appointed a School
Commission, consisting of six distinguished Jesuits from the
various countries of Europe. These spent nearly a year in
Rome, in study and consultation ; and the fruit of their
* "L'execution des decretsde 1880 a eu pour resultat la fermeturede
leurs colleges. Mais malgre leur dispersion apparente ils sont encore
plus puissants qu'on ne le croit, et ce serait une erreur de penser que le
dernier mot est dit avec eux." — Compayriy in Buisson^ ij, p. 1420.
36 THE JESUITS.
"Ratio atque Institutio." Societas Professa.
labours was the ground-work of the Ratio atque Jnstitutio
Studiorum Societatis Jesu. This, however, did not take its
final form till twelve other commissioners had been at
work upon it. It was then (1599) revised and approved
by Aquaviva and the Fifth and Sixth General Assemblies.
By this code the Jesuit schools were governed till 1832,
wlien the curriculum was enlarged so as to include physical
science and modern languages.
§ 5. The Jesuits who formed the Societas Professa, />.,
those who had taken all the vows, had spent from fifteen
to eighteen years in preparation, viz., two years as novices
and one as approved scholars, during which they were
engaged chiefly in religious exercises, three years in the
study of philosophy and mathematics, four years of theology,
and, in the case of the more distinguished students, two
years more in repetition and private theological study. At
some point in this course, mostly after the philosophy, the
students were sent, for a while, to teach the " lower studies "
to boys.* The method of teaching was to be learnt in the
* According to the article in K. A. Schniid's ** Encyclopadie," the
usual course was this — the two years' novitiate was over by the time the
youth was between fifteen and seventeen. He then entered a Jesuit
college as Scholasticus. Here he learnt literature and rhetoric for two
years, and then philosophy (with mathematics) for three more. He then
entered on his Regency, i.e., he went over the same ground as a teacher,
for from four to six years. Then followed a period of theological study,
ending with a year of trial, called the Tertiurat. The candidate was
now admitted to Priest's Orders, and took the vows either as professus
quatuor voiorwn, professed father of four vows, or as a coadjutor. If he
was then sent back to teach, he gave only the higher instruction. The
fourth vow placed him at the disposal of the Pope.
THE JESUITS. 37
The Jesuit teacher: his preparation, &c.
training schools, called Juvenats,* one of which was founded
in each province.
Few, even of the most distinguished students, received
dispensation from giving elementary instruction. Salmeron
and Bobadilla performed this duty in Naples, Lainez in
Florence, Borgia (who had been Viceroy of Catalonia) in
Cordova, Canisius in Cologne.
§ 6. During the time the Jesuit held his post as teacher
he was to give himself up entirely to the work.^ His
private studies were abandoned ; his religious exercises
shortened. He began generally with the boys in the lowest
form, and that he might be able to study the character of
his pupils he went up the school with them, advancing a
step every year, as in the system now common in Scotland.
But some forms were always taught, as the highest is in
Scotland, by the same master, who remained a teacher for
life.
§ 7. Great care was to be taken that the frequent changes
in the staif of masters did not lead to alteration in the
conduct of the school. Each teacher was bound to carry
on the established instruction by the estabhshed methods.
All his personal peculiarities and opinions were to be as
* Karl Schmidt (Gesch. d. Pad., iij. 199, 200), says that however much
teachers were wanted, a two years' course of preparation was considered
indispensable. WTaen the Novitiate was over the candidate became a
*^ Junior " {Gallic^ " Juveniste " ). He then continued his studies zw
Uteris human ioribus^ preparatory to teaching. When in the "Juvenat"
or "Juniorate" he had rubbed up his classics and mathematics, he
entered the " Seminary," and two or three times a week he expounded
to a class the matter of the previous lecture, and answered questions,
&c. For this information I am indebted to the courtesy of Father Eyre
(S. J.), ofStonyhurst.
38 THE JESUITS.
Supervision. Maintenance. Lower Schools.
much as possible suppressed. To secure this a rigid system
of supervision was adopted, and reports were furnished by
each officer to his immediate superior. Over all stood the
General of the Order. Next came the Provincial, appointed
by the General. Over each college was the Rector, who
was appointed (for three years) by the General, though he
was responsible to the Provincial, and made his reports to
him. Next came the Prefect of Studies, appointed, not by
the Rector, but by the Provincial. The teachers were
carefully watched both by the Rector and the Prefect of
Studies, and it was the duty of the latter to visit each
teacher in his class at least once a fortnight, to hear him
teach. The other authoritie?, besides the masters of classes,
were usually a House Prefect, and Monitors selected from
the boys, one in each form.
§ 8. The school or college was to be built and maintained
by gifts and bequests which the Society might receive for
this purpose only. Their instruction was always given
gratuitously. When sufficient funds were raised to support
the officers, teachers, and at least twelve scholars, no effort
was to be made to increase them ; but if they fell short of
this, donations were to be sought by begging from house to
house. Want of money, however, was not a difficulty which
the Jesuits often experienced.
§ 9. The Jesuit education included two courses of study,
studia superiora et inferiora. In the smaller colleges only the
studiamferwraviexe. carried on; and it is to these lower schools
that the following account mainly refers. The boys usually
began this course at ten years old and ended it at sixteen.*
* So says Andrewes {American Journal of Education)^ but other
authorities put the age of entrance as high as fourteen. The studia
superiora were begun before twenty-foui.
THE JESUITS. 39
Free instruction. Equality. Boarders.
§ lo. The pupils in the Jesuit colleges were of two kinds :
I St, those who were training for the Order, and had passed
the Novitiate ; 2nd, the externs, who were pupils merely.
When the building was not filled by the first of these (the
Scholastici, or Nostrt, as they are called in the Jesuit
writings), other pupils were taken in to board, who had to
pay simply the cost of their living, and not even this unless
they could well afford it. Instruction, as I said, was
gratuitous to all. "Gratis receive, gratis give," was the
Society's rule ; so they w^ould neither make any charge for
instruction, nor accept any gift that was burdened with
conditions.
§ II. Faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church,
the Society did not estimate a man's worth simply according
to his birth and outward circumstances. The Constitutions
expressly laid down that poverty and mean extraction were
never to be any hindrance to a pupil's admission ; and
Sacchini says : " Do not let any favouring of the higher
classes interfere with the care of meaner pupils, since the
birth of all is equal in Adam, and the inheritance in
Christ."*
§ 12. The externs who could not be received into the
building were boarded in licensed houses, which were always
liable to an unexpected visit from the Prefect of Studies.
§ 13. The "lower school" w^as arranged in five classes
(since increased to eight), of which the lowest usually had
two divisions. Parallel classes were formed wherever the
number of pupils was too great for five masters. The
names given to the several divisions were as follows :
* " Non gratia nobilium officiat culturge vulgarium : cum sint natales
omnium pares in Adam et hsereditates quoque pares in Christo."
40 THE JESUITS.
Classes. Curriculum. Latin only used.
1. Infima 'v
2. Media > Classis Grammaticss.
3. Suprema )
4. Humanitas.
5. Rhetorica.
Each was " absolved " in a year, except Rhetorica, which
required two years (Stockl, p. 237).
Jesuits and Protestants alike in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries thought of little but literary instruction, and
that too connected only with Latin and Greek. The
subject-matter of the teaching in the Jesuit schools was to
be " prater Grammaticam, quod ad Rhetoricam, Poesim et
Historiam pertinet," in addition to Grammar, whatever
related to Rhetoric, Poetry, and History. Reading and
writing the mother-tongue might not be taught without
special leave from the Provincial. Latin was as much
as possible to supersede all other languages, even in
speaking ; and nothing else might be used by the pupils
in the higher forms on any day but a holiday.* To gain
a supply of Latin words for ordinary use, the pupils com-
mitted to memory Latin conversations on general topics,
such as Francis Pomey's " Indiculus Universalis " and " Col-
loquia Scholastica."
§ 14. Although many good school-books were written by
the Jesuits, a great part of their teaching was given orally.
The master was, in fact, a lecturer, who expounded some-
times a piece of a Latin or Greek author, sometimes the
* Even junior masters were not to be much addicted to their own
language. " Illud cavendum imprimis juniori magistro ne vernaculis
nimium libris indulgeat, prsesertim poetis, in quibus maximam temporis
ac fortasse morum jacturam ^c&xQt."—/ouvefi£y.
}
THE JESUITS. 41
Teacher Lectured. Exercises. Saying by heart.
rules of grammar. The pupils were required to get up the
substance of these lectures, and to learn the grammar-rules
and parts of the classical authors by heart. The master
for his part had to bestow great pains on the preparation of
his lectures.*
§ 15. Written exercises, translations, &c., were given in
on every day, except Saturday; and the master had, if
possible, to go over each one with its writer and his
appointed rival or cemuhis.
§ 16. The method of hearing the rules, &c., committed
to memory was this : — Certain boys in each class, who were
called Decurions, repeated their tasks to the master, and
then in his presence heard the other boys repeat theirs.
The master meanwhile corrected the written exercises, f
* " Multum proderit si magister non tumultuario ac subito dicat, sed
quse domi cogitate scripserit. — It will be a great gain if the master does
not speak in a hurry and without forethought, but is ready with what
he has thought out and written out in his own room." — Ratio Studd.,
quoted by Schmid. And Sacchini says : " Ante omnia, quse quisque
docturus est, egregie calleat. Turn enim bene docet, et facile docet, et
libenter docet ; bene, quia sine errore ; facile, quia sine labore ;
libenter, quia ex pleno . . . Memorise minimum fidat : instauret
earn refricetque iterata lectione antequam quicquam doceat, etiamsi idem
ssepe docuerit. Occurret non raro quod addat vel commodius proponat.
— Before all things let everyone be thoroughly skilled in what he is
going to teach ; for then he teaches well, he teaches easily, he teaches
readily : well, because he makes no mistakes; easily, because he has
no need to exert himself; readily, because, like wealthy men he
cares not how he gives. . . . Let him be very distrustful of his
memory ; let him renew his remembrance and rub it up by repeated
reading before he teaches anything, though he may have often taught it
before. Something will now and then occur to him which he may add,
or put more neatly."
t In a school (not belonging to the Jesuits) where this plan was
adopted, the boys, by an ingenious contrivance, managed to make it
42 THE JESUITS.
Emulation. "iEmulL" Concertations.
§ 17. One of the leading peculiarities in the Jesuits'
system was the pains they took to foster emulation — " cotem
ingenii puerilis, calcar industriae — the whetstone of talent,
the spur of industry." For this purpose all the boys in the
lower part of the school were arranged in pairs, each pair
being rivals {cemuli) to one another. Every boy was to be
constantly on the watch to catch his rival tripping, and was
immediately to correct him. Besides this individual rivalry,
every class was divided into two hostile camps, called
Rome and Carthage, which had frequent pitched battles of
questions on set subjects. These were the " Concertations,"
in which the boys sometimes had to put questions to the
opposite camp, sometimes to expose erroneous answers when
the questions were asked by the master* (see Appendix :
Class Matches, p. 529). Emulation, indeed, was en-
couraged to a point where, as it seems to me, it must have
endangered the good feeling of the boys among themselves.
Jouvency mentions a practice of appointing mock defenders
of any particularly bad exercise, who should make the
author of it ridiculous by their excuses ; and any boy whose
work was very discreditable, was placed on a form by him-
self, with a daily punishment, until he could show that some
one deserved to change places with him.
§ 18. In the higher classes a better kind of rivalry was
work very smoothly. The boy who was ** hearing " the lessons held
the book upside down in such a way that the others read instead of
repeating by heart. The masters finally interfered with this arrange-
ment.
* Since the above was written, an account of these concertations has
appeared in the Rev. G. R. Kingdon's evidence before the Schools
Commission, 1867 (vol. v, Answers 12,228 fF.)- Mr. Kingdon, the
Prefect of Studies at Stonyhurst, mentions that the side which wins
in most concertations gets an extra half-holiday.
THE JESUITS. 43
"Academies." Expedients. School-hours.
cultivated by means of " Academies," i.e., voluntary associa-
tions for study, which met together, under the superintendence
of a master, to read themes, translations, &c., and to discuss
passages from the classics. The new members were elected
by the old, and to be thus elected was a much-coveted
distinction. In these Academies the cleverer students got
practice for the disputations, which formed an important
part of the school work of the higher classes.
§ 19. There was a vast number of other expedients by
which the Jesuits sought to work on their pupils' amour
propre^ such as, on the one hand, the weekly publication of
offences per prceconem^ and, on the other, besides prizes
(which could be won only by the externs), titles and badges
of honour, and the like. "There are," says Jouvency,
" hundreds of expedients of this sort, all tending to sharpen
the boys' wits, to lighten the labour of the master, and to
free him from the invidious and troublesome necessity of
punishing."
§ 20. The school-hours were remarkably short : two
hours and a half in the morning, and the same in the after-
noon ; with a whole holiday a week in summer, and a half
hoUday in winter. The time was spent in the first form
after the following manner : — During the first half-hour the
master corrected the exercises of the previous day, while the
Decurions heard the lesson which had been learnt by heart.
Then the master heard the piece of Latin which he had
explained on the previous day. With this construing, was
connected a great deal of parsing, conjugating, declining, &c.
The teacher then explained the piece for the following day,
which, in this form, was never to exceed four lines. The
last half-hour of the morning was spent in explaining
grammar. This was done very slowly and carefully ; ip thu
44 THE JESUITS.
Method of teaching. An example.
words of the Ratio Studd. : " Pluribus diebus fere singula
prsecepta inculcanda sunt" — "Generally take a single rule and
drive it in, several days." For the first hour of the after-
noon the master corrected exercises, and the boys learnt
grammar. If there was timCj the master put questions
about the grammar he had explained in the morning. The
second hour was taken up with more explanations of
grammar, and the school closed with half an hour's concer-
tation, or the master corrected the notes which the pupils
had taken during the day. In the other forms, the work
was very similar to this, except that Greek was added, and
also in the higher classes a little mathematics.
§ 21. It will be observed from the above account, that
almost all the strength of the Jesuit teaching was thrown
into the study of the Latin language, which was to be used,
not only for reading, but also in writing and speaking. But
under the name of " erudition " some amount of instruction
in other subjects, especially in history and geography, was
given in explaining, or rather lecturing on, the classical
authors. Jouvency says that this lecture must consist of the
following parts : — ist, the general meaning of the whole
passage ; 2nd, the explanation of each clause, both as to the
meaning and construction ; 3rd, any information, such as
accounts of historical events, or of ancient manners and
customs, which could be connected with the text ; 4th, in
the higher forms, applications of the rules of rhetoric and
poetry ; 5th, an examination of the Latinity ; 6th, the incul-
cation of some moral lesson. This treatment of a subject
he illustrates by examples. Among these is an account of
a lesson for the first (/.^., lowest) class in the Fable of the
Fox and the Mask : — ist, comes the argument and the
explanation of words ; 2nd, the grammar and parsing, as
THE JESUITS. 45
Attention. Extra work. "Repetitio."
vulpeSj a substantive of the third declension, &c., Hke
proles, eludes, &c. (here the master is always to give among
his examples some which the boys already know) ; 3rd,
comes the eruditio — something about foxes, about tragedy,
about the brain, and hence about other parts of the
head ; 4th, Latinity, the order of the words, choice of the
words, synonyms, &c. Then the sentences may be parodied ;
other suitable substantives may be found for the adjectives
and vice versd; and every method is to be adopted of
showing the boys how to use the words they have learnt.
Lastly, comes the moral.
§ 22. The practical teacher will be tempted to ask, How
is the attention of the class to be kept up whilst all this
information is given ? This the Jesuits did partly by punish-
ing the inattentive. Every boy was subsequently required
to reproduce what the teacher had said, and to show his
written notes of it But no doubt this matter of attention
was found a difficulty. Jouvency tells the teachers to
break off from time to time in their lectures, and to ask
questions ; and he adds : " Variae sunt artes excitandae
attentionis quas docebit usus et sua cuique industria sug-
geret. — Very various are the devices for arousing attention.
These will occur with practice and pains."
For private study, besides written exercises and learning
by heart, the pupils were recommended subjects to get up
in their own time ; and in this, and also as to the length of
some of the regular lessons, they were permitted to decide
for themselves. Here, as everywhere, the Jesuits trusted to
the sense of honour and emulation — those who did extra
work were praised and rewarded.
§ 23. One of the maxims of this system was: "Repetitio
mater studiorum." Every lesson w^as connected with two
6
4^ THE JESUITS.
Repetition. Thoroughness.
repetitions — one before it began, of preceding work, and the
other at the close, of the work just done. Besides this, one
day a week was devoted entirely to repetition. In the three
lowest classes the desire of laying a solid foundation even
led to the second six months in the year being given to
again going over the work of the first six months.* By this
means boys of extraordinary ability could pass through these
forms in eighteen months, instead of three years.
§ 23. Thoroughness in work was the one thing insisted
on. Sacchini says that much time should be spent in going
over the more important things, which are " veluti multorum
fontes et capita (as it were the sources and starting points of
many others) " ; and that the master should prefer to teach a
few things perfectly, to giving indistinct impressions of many
things.! We should remember, however, that the pupils of
the Jesuits were not children. Subjects such as grammar
cannot, by any expenditure of time and trouble, be perfectly
taught to children, because children cannot perfectly under-
stand them ; so that the Jesuit thoroughness is not always
attainable.
§ 24. The usual duration of the course in the lower
schools was six years — />., one year in each of the four
* "The grinding over and ever of a subject after pupils have attained a
fair knowledge of it, is nothing less than stultifying — killing out
curiosity and the desire of knowledge, and begetting mechanical habits."
— Supt. J. Hancock^ Dayton, Ohio. Every teacher of experience knows
how true this is.
t " Stude potius ut pauciora clare distincteque percipiant, quam
obscure atque confuse pluribus imbuantur. — Care rather for their see-
ing a few things vividly and definitely, than that they should get filled
with hazy and confusing notions of many things." (There are few
more valuable precepts for the teacher than this.)
THE JESUITS. 47
Yearly examinations. Moral training.
lower classes, and two years in the highest class. Every
year closed with a very formal examination. Before this
examination took place, the pupils had lessons in the manner
o( it, so that they might come prepared, not only with a
knowledge of the subjects, but also of the laws of writing for
examination (" scribendi ad examen leges "). The examina-
tion was conducted by a commission appointed for the
purpose, of which commission the Prefect of Studies was an
ex officio member. The masters of the classes, though they
were present, and could make remarks, were not of the
examining body. For the vivd, voce the boys were ushered
in, three at a time, before the solemn conclave. The results
of the examination, both written and verbal, were joined
with the records of the work done in the past year ; and the
names of those pupils who had distinguished themselves
were then published in order of merit, but the poll was
arranged alphabetically, or according to birthplace.
§ 25. As might be expected, the Jesuits were to be very
careful of the moral and religious training of their pupils.
**Quam maxime in vitae probitate ac bonis artibus doctrinaque
proficiant ad Dei gloriam." (Ratio Studd.^ quoted by Schmid.)
And Sacchini tells the master to remember how honourable
his office is ; as it has to do, not with grammar only, but
also with the science and practice of a Christian and religious
life : " atque eo quidem ordine ut ipsa ingenii eruditio sit
expolitio morum, et humana literatura divinae ancilletur
sapientiae."*
* Sacchini writes in a very high tone on this subject. The following
passage is striking : " Gravitatem sui muneris summasque opportuni-
tates assidue animo verset (magister). ... * Puerilis institutio
mundi renovatio est ;' hsec gymnasia Dei castra sunt, hie bonorum om-
nium semina latent. Video solum fundamentumque republicas quod
48 THE JESUITS.
Care of health. Punishments.
Each lesson was to begin with prayer or the sign of the
Cross. The pupils were to hear Mass every morning, and
were to be urged to frequent confession and receiving of the
Holy Communion. The Father Confessor was always a
Jesuit, but he was not a master in the school.
§ 26. The bodily health also was to be carefully attended
to. The pupils were not to study too much or too long
at a time. Nothing was to be done for a space of from one
or two hours after dinner. On holidays excursions were
made to farms in the country.*
§ 27. Punishments were to be as light as possible, and
the master was to shut his eyes to offences whenever he
thought he might do so with safety. Grave offences were to
be visited with corporal punishment, performed by a
" corrector," who was not a member of the Order. Where this
chastisement did not have a good effect, the pupil was to be
expelled, t
multi non videam interpositu terrse. — Let the mind of the master dwell
upon the responsibilities of his office and its immense opportunities.
. . . The education of the young is the renovation of the world.
These schools are the camp of God : in them lie the seeds of all that is
good. There I see the foundation and ground -work of the common-
wealth, which many fail to see from its being underground." Perhaps
he had read of Trotzendorfs address lo a school, " Hail reverend
divines, learned doctors, worshipful magistrates, &c."
* *' Circa illorum valetudinem peculiar! cura animadvertat (Rector) ut
el in laboribus mentis roodum servent, et in iis quae ad corpus perti-
nent, religiosa commoditate tractentur, ut diutius in studiis perse verare
tarn in litteris addiscendis quam in eisdem exercendis ad Dei gloriam
ipossint."— J^afz'o Studd.^ quoted by Schmid. See also infra p, 62.
t The following, from the Ratio Studd.^ sounds Jesuitical: "Nee
publice puniant flagitia qusedam secretiora sed privatim ; aut si public^,
alias obtendant causas^ et satis est eos qui plectuntur conscios esse
causarum."
THE JESUITS. 49
English want of system.
§ 28. The dry details into which I have been drawn by
faithfully copying the manner of the Ratio Studionim may
seem to the reader to afford no answer to the question
which naturally suggests itself — To what did the school-
system of the Jesuits owe its enormous popularity ? But in
part, at least, these details do afford an answer. They
show us that the Jesuits were intensely practical. The
Ratio Studlorum hardly contains a single principle ; but
what it does is this — it points out a perfectly attainable goal,
and carefully defines the road by which that goal is to be
approached. For each class was prescribed not only the work
to be done, but also the end to be kept in view. Thus
method reigned throughout — perhaps not the best method,
as the object to be attained was assuredly not the highest
object — but the method, such as it was, was applied with
undeviating exactness. In this particular the Jesuit schools
contrasted strongly with their rivals of old, as indeed with
the ordinary school of the present day. The Head Master,
who is to the modern English school what the General,
Provincial, Rector, Prefect of Studies, and Ratio Studiorum
combined were to a school of the Jesuits, has perhaps no
standard in view up to which the boy should have been
brought when his school course is completed.* The
masters of forms teach just those portion of their subject in
which they themselves are interested, in any way that occurs
to them, with by no means uniform success ; so that when
two forms are examined with the same examination paper, it
is no very uncommon occurrence for the lower to be found
* As the Public Schools Commission pointed out, the Head Master
often thinks of nothing but the attainment of University honouis, even
when the great jnajority of his pujdls are not going to the University,
50 THE JESUITS.
Jesuit limitations.
superior to the higher. It is, perhaps, to be expected that a
course in which uniform method tends to a definite goal would
on the whole be more successful than one in which a boy has
to accustom himself by turns to half-a-dozen different
methods, invented at haphazard by individual masters with
different aims in view, if indeed they have any aim at all.
§ 29. I have said that the object which the Jesuits pro-
posed in their teaching was not the highest object. They
did not aim at developing all the faculties of their pupils,
but mainly the receptive and reproductive faculties. When
the young man had acquired a thorough mastery of the
Latin language for all purposes, when he was well versed in
the theological and philosophical opinions of his preceptors,
when he was skilful in dispute, and could make a brilliant
display from the resources of a well-stored memory, he had
reached the highest point to which the Jesuits sought to lead
him.* Originality and independence of mind, love of truth
* The advantages of learning by heart are twofold, says Sacchini :
** Primum memoriam ipsam perficiunt, quod est in totam setatem ad uni-
versa negotia insestimabile commodum. Deinde suppellectilem inde
pulcherrimam congregant verborum ac rerum : quae item, quamdiu vi-
vant, Usui futura sit : cum quoe setate ilia insederint indelebilia soleant
permanere. Magnam itaque, ubi adoleverint, gratiam Prseceptori ha-
bebunt, cui memorise debebunt profectum, magnamque laetitiam capient
invenientes quodammodo domi thesaurum quem, in aetate cseteroqui
parum fructuosa, prope non sentientes pararint. Enim vero quam syepe
viros graves atque prsestantes magnoque jam natu videre et audire esi,
dum in docta ac nobili corona jucundissime qusedam promunt ex iis
quae pueri condiderunt ? — First, they strengthen the memory itself and
so gain an inestimable advantage in affairs of every kind throughout life.
Then they get together by this means the fairest furniture for the mind,
both of thoughts and words, a stock that will be of use to them as long
as they live, since that which settles in the mind in youth mostly stays
there. And when the lads have grown up they will feel gratitude to
THE JESUITS. 51
Gains from memorizing.
for its own sake, the power of reflecting, and of forming
correct judgments were not merely neglected — they were
suppressed in the Jesuits' system. But in what they attempted
they were eminently successful, and their success went a
long way towards securing their popularity.*
the master to whom they are indebted for their good memory ; and they
will take delight in finding within them a treasure which at a time of
life otherwise unfruitful they have been preparing almost without know-
ing it. How often we see and hear eminent men far advanced in life,
when in learned and noble company, take a special delightinquoting what
they stored up as boys !" The master, he says, must point out to his
pupils the advantages we derive from memory ; that we only know and
possess that which we retain, that this cannot be taken from us, but is
with us always and is alvv^ays ready for use, a living library, which may
be studied even in the dark. Boys should therefore be encouraged to
run over in their minds, or to say aloud, what they have learnt, as often
as opportunity offers, as when they are walking or are by themselves :
** Ita numquam in otio futuros otiosos ; ita minus fore solos cum soli
erunt, consuetudine fruentes sapientum. . , . Denique curandum
erit ut selecta qusedam ediscant quae deinde in quovis studionmi genere
ac vita fere omni usui sint futura. — So they will never be without em-
ployment when unemployed, never less alone than when alone, for then
they profit by intercourse with the wise. ... To sum up, take care
that they thoroughly commit to memory choice selections which will for
ever after be of use to them in every kind of study, and nearly every
pursuit in life. —(Cap. viij. ) This is interesting and well put, but we see
one or two points in which we have now made an advance. Learning
by heart will give none of the advantages mentioned unless the boys
understand the pieces and delight in them. Learning by heart
strengthens, no doubt, a faculty, but nothing large enough to be called
*' the memory." And the Renascence must indeed have blinded the eyes
of the man to whom childhood and youth seemed an " setas parum
fructuosa "! Similarly, Sturm speaks of the small fry "qui in extremis
latent classibus." (Quoted by Parker.) But when Pestalozzi and
Froebel came these lay hid no longer.
* Ranke, speaking of the success of the Jesuit schools, says : ** It
52 THE JESUITS.
Popularity. Kindness.
§ 30. Their popularity was due, moreover, to the means
employed, as well as to the result attained- The Jesuit
teachers were to lead^ not drive their pupils, to make their
learning, not merely endurable, but even acceptable, " dis-
ciplinam non modo tolerabilem, sed etiam amabilem.'*'
Sacchini expresses himself very forcibly on this subject.
"It is," says he, **the unvarying decision of wise men,
whether in ancient or modern times, that the instruction
of youth will be always best when it is pleasantest : whence
this application of the word Indus, The tenderness of
youth requires of us that we should not overstrain it, its
innocence that we should abstain from harshness. . . .
That which enters into willing ears the mind as it were
runs to welcome, seizes with avidity, carefully stows away,
and faithfully preserves."* The pupils were therefore to be
encouraged in every way to take kindly to their learning.
With this end in view (and no doubt other objects also),
was found that young persons learned more under them in half a year
than with others in two years. Even Protestants called back their
children from distant schools, and put them under the care of the
Jesuits."— ZTzV/. of Popes, book v, p. 138. Kelly's Trans.
In France, the University in vain procured an arrit forbidding the
Parisians to send away their sons to the Jesuit colleges: "Jesuit schools
enjoyed the confidence of the public in a degree which placed them
beyond competition." (Pattison's Casauboriy p. 182.)
Pattison remarks elsewhere that such was the common notion of the
Jesuits' course of instruction that their controversialists could treat anyone,
even a Casaubon, who had not gone through it, as an uneducated person.
* ** Sepientum hoc omnium seu veterum seu recentum constant judi-
cium est, institutionem puerilem tum fore optimam cum jucundissima
fuerit, inde enim et ludum vocari. Meretur setatis teneritas ut ne
oneretur : meretur innocentia ut ei parcatur . . . Qu^ libentibus
auribus instillantur, adea velut occurrit animus, avide suscipit, studiose
recondit, fideliter servat."
THE JESUITS. 53
Sympathy with each pupil.
the masters were carefully to seek the boys' affections.
" When pupils love the master," says Sacchini, " they will
soon love his teaching. Let him, therefore, show an interest
in everything that concerns them and not merely in their
studies. Let him rejoice with those that rejoice, and
not disdain to weep with those that weep. After the
example of the Apostle let him become a little one amongst
little ones, that he may make them adult in Christ, and
Christ adult in them . . . Let him unite the grave kind-
ness and authority of a father with a mother's tenderness."*
§ 31. In order that learning might be pleasant to the
pupils, it was necessary that they should not be overtasked.
To avoid this, the master had to study the character and
capacity of each boy in his class, and to keep a book with
all particulars about him, and marks from one to six indi-
cating proficiency. Thus the master formed an estimate
of what should be required, and the amount varied con-
siderably with the pupil, though the quality of the work
was always to be good.
• ** Conciliabit facil^ studiis quos primum sibi conciliarit. Det itaque
omnem operam illorum erga se observantionem ut sapienter colligat el
continenter enutriat. Ostendat, sibi res eorum curae esse non solum
quae ad animum sed etiam quae ad alia pertinent. Gaudeat cum gau-
dentibus, nee dedignetur flere cum flentibus. Instar Apostoli inter par-
vulos parvulus fiat quo magnos in Christo et magnum in eis Christum
efficiat . . . Seriam comitatem et paternam gravitatem cum
materna benignitate permisceat." Unfortunately, the Jesuits' kind
manner loses its value from being due not so much to kind feeling as to
some ulterior object, or to a rule of the Order. I think it is Jouvency
who recommends that when a boy is absent from sickness or other
sufficient reason, the master sh uld send daily to inquire after him,
because the parents will be pleaded by such attention. When the motive
of the inquiry is suspected, th parents will be pleased no longer.
54
THE JESUITS.
Work moderate in amount and difficulty.
§ 32. Not only was the work not to be excessive, it was
never to be of great difficulty. Even the grammar was to
be made as easy and attractive as possible. " I think it a
mistake " says Sacchini, " to introduce at an early stage the
more thorny difficulties of grammar : ... for when the
pupils have become familiar with the earlier parts, use will,
by degrees, make the more difficult clear to them. His
mind expanding and his judgment ripening as he grows
older the pupil will often see for himself that wliich he
could hardly be made to see by others. Moreover, in
reading an author, examples of grammatical difficulties will
be more easily observed in connection with the context,
and will make more impression on the mind, than if they
are taught in an abstract form by themselves. Let them
then, be carefully explained whenever they occur."*
§ 33. Perhaps no body of men in Europe (the Thugs
may, in this respect, rival them in Asia) have been so hated
as the Jesuits. I once heard Frederick Denison Maurice
say he thought Kingsley could find good in every one
except the Jesuits, and, he added, he thought he could find
good even in them. But why should a devoted Christian
find a difficulty in seeing good in the Jesuits, a body of men
whose devotion to their idea of Christian duty has never
* " Errorem existimo statim initio spinosiores quasdam grammaticse
difficultates inculcare . . . cum enim planioribus insueverint
difficiliora paulatim usus explanabit. Quin et capacior subinde mens ac
firmius cum setate judicium, quod alio monstrante penegre unquam
percepisset per sese non rare intelliget. Exempla quoque talium rerum
dum prselegilur autor facilius in orationis contextu agnoscentur et
penetrabunt in animos quam si solitaria et abscissa proponantur.
Quamobrem faciendum erit ut quoties occurrunt diligenter enu-
cleentur.'
THE JESUITS. 55
The Society the Army of the Church.
been surpassed ?* The difficulty arose from differences in
ideal. Both held that the ideal Christian would do every-
thing " to the greater glory of God," or as the Jesuits put it
in their business-hke fashion, " A.M.D»G.," (/>., ad majorem
Dei gloriam). But Maurice and Kingsley thought of a
divine idea for every man. The Jesuits' idea lost sight of the
individual. Like their enemy, Carlyle, the Jesuits in effect
worshipped strength, but Carlyle thought of the strength of
the individual, the Jesuits of the strength of " the Catholic
Church." "The Catholic Church" was to them the
manifested kingdom of God. Everything therefore that
gave power to the Church tended " A.M.D.G." The Com-
pany of Jesus was the regular army of the Church, so,
arguing logically from their premises, they made the glory
of God and the success of the Society convertible terms.
§ 34. Thus their conception was a purely military con-
ception. A commander-in-chief, if he were an ardent patriot
and a great general, would do all he could to make the army
powerful. He would care much for the health, morals, and
training of the soldiers, but always with direct reference to
the army. He would attend to everything that made a
man a better soldier; beyond this he would not concern
himself. In his eyes the army would be everything, and a
soldier nothing but a part of it, just as a link is only a
part of a chain. Paulsen, speaking of the Jesuits, says truly
that no great organization can exist without a root idea.
The root idea of the army is the sacrifice and annihilation
of the individual, that the body may be fused together and
* See, e.g. , marvellous instances of their self-devotion in that most
interesting book, Francis Parkman's Jesuits in N. America (Boston,
Little & Co., loth edition, 1876).
56 THE JESUITS.
Their pedagogy not disinterested.
so gain a strength greater than that of any number of indi-
viduals. Formed on this idea the army acts all together and
in obedience to a single will, and no mob can stand its
charge. Ignatius Loyola and succeeding Generals took rp
this idea and formed an army for the Church, an army that
became the wonder and the terror of all men. Never, as
Compayrd says, had a body been so sagaciously organized,
or had wielded so great resources for good and for evil.*
{See Buisson, ij, 141 9.)
§ 35. To the English schoolmaster the Jesuits must
always be interesting, if for no other reason at least for this —
that they were so intensely practical. ^^ Les Jesuites ne soni
pas des pedagogues assez desintkressh pour nous plaire. — The
Jesuits as schoolmasters," says M. Compayre, "are not
disinterested enough for us." (Buisson, sub v. Jesuites^ ad f.).
But disinterested pedagogy is not much to the mind of the
Englishman. It does not seem to know quite what it would
be after, and deals in generahties, such as " Education is not
a means but an end ;" and the end being somewhat indefinite,
the means are still more wanting in precision. This vague-
* I have referred to Francis Parkman, who has chronicled the
marvellous self-devotion and heroism of the Jesuit missionaries in
Canada. Such a witness may be trusted when he says: "The Jesuit
was as often a fanatic for his Order as for his faith ; and oftener yet,
the two fanaticisms mingled in him inextricably. Ardently as he burned
for the saving of souls, he would have none saved on the Upper Lakes
except by his brethren and himself. He claimed a monopoly of con-
version with its attendant monopoly of toil, hardships, and martyrdom.
Often disinterested for himself, he was inordinately ambitious for the
great corporate power in which he had merged his own personality ;
and here lies one of the causes, among many, of the seeming contradic-
tions which abound in the annals of the Order." — The Discovery of the
Great IVest, by F. Parkman, Ix)ndon, 1869, p. 28.
THE JESUITS. 57
Practical. The forces : i. Master's influence.
ness is what the EngHsh master hates. He prefers not to
trouble himself about the end. The wisdom of his ancestors
has settled that, and he can direct his attention to what
really interests him — the practical details. In this he re-
sembles the Jesuits. The end has been settled for them by
their founder. They revel in practical details, in which they
are truly great, and here we may learn much from them.
^'' Ratio applied to studies" says Father Eyre,* "more
naturally means Method than Principle; and our Ratio
Sttidiorum is essentially a Method or System of teaching
and learning." Here is a method that has been worked
uniformly and with singular success for three centuries,. and
can still give a good account of its old rivals. But will it
hold its own against the late Reformers? As regards intel-
lectual training the new school seeks to draw out the faculties
of the young mind by employing them on subjects in which
it is interested. The Jesuits fixed a course of study which,
as they frankly recognized, could not be made interesting.
So they endeavoured to secure accuracy by constant repeti-
tion, and relied for industry on two motive powers : ist, the
personal influence of the master; and, 2nd, "the spur of
industry " — emulation.
§ 36. To acquire "influence" has ever been the main
object of the Society, and his devotion to this object makes
a great distinction between the Jesuit and most other
instructors. His notion of the task was thus expressed by
Father Gerard, S. J., at the Educational Conference of 1884 :
" Teaching is an art amongst arts. To be worthy of the
name it must be the work of an individual upon individuals.
The true teacher must understand, appreciate, and sympa-
• In a letter dated from Stony hurst, 22nd April, 188a
58
THE JESUITS.
2. Emulation.
thize with those who are committed to him. He must be
daily discovering what there is (and undoubtedly there is
something in each of them) capable of fruitful development,
and contriving how better to get at them and to evoke what-
ever possibilities there are in them for good." The Jesuit
master, then, tried to gain influence over the boys and to
use that influence for many purposes ; to make them work
well being one of these, but not perhaps the most important.
§ 37. As for emulation, no instructors have used it so
elaborately as the Jesuits. In most English schools the
prizes have no effect whatever except on the first three or
four boys, and the marking is so arranged that those who
take the lead in the first few lessons can keep their position
without much effort. This clumsy system would not suit
the Jesuits. They often for prize-giving divide a class into
a number of small groups, the boys in each group being
approximately equal, and a prize is offered for each group.
The class matches, too, stimulate the weaker pupils even
more than the strong.
§ 38. In conclusion, I will give the chief points of the
system in the words of one of its advocates and admirers,
who was himself educated at Stony hurst :
" Let us now try to put together the various pieces of
this school machinery and study the effect. We have seen
that the boys have masters entirely at their disposition, not
only at class time, but at recreation time after supper in the
night Reading Rooms. Each day they record victory or
defeat in the recurring exercises or themes upon various
matters. By the quarterly papers or examinations in com-
position, for which nine hours are assigned, the order of
merit is fixed, and this order entails many little privileges
and precedencies, in chapel, refectory, class room, and
THE JESUITS. 59
A pupil's summing-up.
elsewhere. Each master, if he prove a success and his
health permit, continues to be the instructor of the boys
in his class during the space of six years. * It is obvious/
says Sheil, in his account of Stonyhurst, *that much of a
boy's acquirements, and a good deal of the character of
his taste, must have depended upon the individual to whose
instructions he was thus almost exclusively confined.' And
in many cases the effects must be a greater interest felt in
the students by their teachers, a mutual attachment founded
on long acquaintance, and a more thorough knowledge, on
the part of the master, of the weak and strong points of his
pupils. Add to the above, the ' rival ' and * side ' system,
the effect of challenges and class combats ; of the wearing
of decorations and medals by the Imperators on Sundays,
Festival Days, Concertation Days, and Examination Days ;
of the extraordinary work — done much more as private than
as class work — helping to give individuality to the boy's
exertions, which might otherwise be merged in the routine
work of the class; and the 'free time' given for improve-
ment on wet evenings and after night prayers; add the
Honours Matter ; the Reports read before the Rector and
all subordinate Superiors, the Professors, and whole body
of Students; add the competition in each class and between
the various classes, and even between the various colleges in
England of the Society ; and only one conclusion can be
arrived at. It is a system which everyone is free to admire
or think inferior to some other preferred by him ; but it is
a system." {Stonyhurst College^ Present and Past^ by A.
Hewitson, 2nd edition, 1878, pp. 214, ff.)
§ 39. Yes, it is a system, a system built up by the united
efforts of many astute intellects and showing marvellous
60 THE JESUITS.
Some books.
skill in selecting means to attain a clearly conceived end.
There is then in the history of education little that should
be more interesting or might be more instructive to the
master of an English public school than the chapter about
the Jesuits.*
• The best account I have seen of life in a Jesuit school is in
Erinnerungen eines chemaligen JesuitenzogUngs (Leipzig, Brockhaus,
1862). The writer (Kohler ?) says that he has become an evangelical
clergyman, but there is no hostile feeling shown to his old instructors,
and the narrative bears the strongest internal evidence of accuracy.
Some of the Jesuit devices mentioned are very ingenious. All house
masters who have adopted the cubicle arrangement of dormitories know
how difficult it is to keep the boys in their own cubicles. The Jesuits
have the cubicles barred across at the top, and the locks on the doors
are so constructed that though they can be opened from the inside they
cannot be shut again. The Fathers at Freiburg (in Breisgau) opened a
** tuck-shop " for the boys, and gave " week's-pay " in counters which
passed at their own shop and nowhere else. The author speaks
warmly of the kindness of the Fathers and of their care for health and
recreation. But their ways were inscrutable and every boy felt himself
in the hands of a human providence. As the boys go out for a walk,
one of them is detained by the porter, who says " the Rector wants to
speak to you." On their way back the boys meet a diligence in which
sits their late comrade waving adieus. He has been expelled.
Another book which throws much light on Jesuit pedagogy isby a Jesuit
— La Discipline^ par le R. P. Emmanuel Barbier (Paris, V. Palme, 2nd
edition, 1888). I will give a specimen in a loose translation, as it may
interest the reader to see how carefully the Jesuits have studied the
master's difficulties. *' The master in charge of the boys, especially
in play-time, in his first intercourse with them, has no greater snare in
his way than taking his power for granted, and trusting to the strength
of his will and his knowledge of the world, especially as he is at first
lulled into security by the deferential manner of his pupils.
"That master who goes off with such ease from the very first, to whom
the carrj'ing out of all the rules seems the simplest thing in the world,
who in the very first hour he is with them has already made himseU
THE JESUITS. 6l
Barbier's advice to new master.
liked, almost popular, with his pupils, who shows no more anxiety
about his work than he must show to keep his character for good sense,
that master is indeed to be pitied ; he is most likely a lost man. He
will soon have lo choose one of two things, either to shut his eyes and
put up with all the irregularities he thought he had done away with, or
to break wilh a past that he would wish forgotten, and engage in open
conflict with the boys who are inclined to set him at defiance. These
cases are we trust rare. But many believe with a kind of rash
ignorance and in spite of the warnings of experience that the good
feelings of their pupils will work together to maintain their authority.
They have been told that this authority should be mild and endeared
by acts of kindness. So they set about crowning the edifice without
making sure of the foundations ; and taking the title of authority for its
possession they spend all their efforts in lightening a yoke of which no
one really bears the weight.
** In point of fact the first steps often determine the whole course. For
this reason you will attach extreme importance to what I am now going
to advise :
"The chief characteristic in your conduct towards the boys during the
first few weeks should be an extreme reserve. However far you go in
this, you can hardly overdo it. So your first attitude is clearly
defined.
" You have everything to observe, the individual character of each boy
and the general tendencies and feelings of the whole body. But be sure
of one thing, viz. , that you are observed also, and a careful study is made
both of your strong points and of your weak. Your way of speaking and
of giving orders, the tone of your voice, your gestures, disclose your
character, your tastes, your failings, to a hundred boys on the alert to
pounce upon them. One is summed up long before one has the least
notion of it. Try then to remain impenetrable. You should never
give up your reserve till you are master of the situation.
"For the rest, let there be no affectation about you. Don't attempt to
put on a severe manner ; answer politely and simply your pupils'
questions, but let it be in few words, and avoid conversation. All
depends on that. Let there be no chatting with them in these early
days. You cannot be too cautious in this respect. Boys have such a
polite, such a taking way with them in drawing out information about
your impressions, your tastes, your antecedents ; don't attempt the
7
62 THE JESUITS.
Loyola and Montaigne. Port Royal.
diplomate ; don't match your skill against theirs. You cannot chat with-
out coming out of your shell, so to speak. Instead of this, you must
puzzle them by your reserve, and drive them to this admission : * We
don't know what to make of our new master.'
" Do I advise you then to be on the defensive throughout the whole
year and like a stranger among your pupils ? No ! a thousand times,
No ! It is just to make their relations with you simple, confiding, I
might say cordial, without the least danger to your authority, that I
endeavour to raise this authority at first beyond the reach of assault." —
La Discipline^ chap, v, pp. 31 fif.
In this book we see the best side of the Jesuits. They believe in
their '* mission," and this belief throws light on many things. Those
who hate the Jesuits have often extolled the wisdom of Montaigne, when
he says : " We have not to train up a soul, nor yet a body, but a man;
and we cannot divide him." Can they see no wisdom in this? " Let
your mind be filled with the thought that both soul and body have been
created by the Hand of God : we must account to Him for these two
parts of our being ; and we are not required to weaken one of them out
of love for the Creator. We should love the body in the same degree
that He could love it." This is what Loyola wrote in 1548 to Francis
Borgia (Compayre, Doctrines, dr'^., vol. j, 179). But if we wish to see the
other side of the Jesuit character, we have only to look at the Jesuit as a
controversialist. We sometimes see children hiding things and then
having a pretence hunt for them. The Jesuits are no children, but in
arguing they pretend to be searching for conclusions which are settled
before arguments are thought of. See, e.g., the attack on the Port
Royalists in Les Jesuites Instituteurs, par le P. Ch. Daniel, 1880, in
which the Jesuit sets himself to maintain this thesis : *' D'une source
aussi profondement infectee du poison de I'heresie, il ne pouvait sortir
rien d' absolument bon " (p. 123). One good point he certainly makes,
and in my judgment one only, in comparing the Port Royalist schools
with the schools of Jesuits. Methods which answer with very small
numbers may not do with large numbers: "You might as well try to
extend your gardening operations to agriculture " (p. 102).
-A
RABELAIS
(1483-1553.)
§ I. To great geniuses it is given to think themselves
in a measure free from the ordinary notions of their time
and often to anticipate the discoveries of a future age. In
all literature there is perhaps hardly a more striking instance
of this "detached" thinking than we find in Rabelais'
account of the education of Gargantua.
§ 2. We see in Rabelais an enthusiasm for learning and
a tendency to verbal realism ; that is, he turned to the old
writers for instruction about things. So far he was a child
of the Renascence. But in other respects he advanced far
beyond it.
§ 3. After a scornful account of the ordinary school
books and methods by which Gargantua "though he
studied hard, did nevertheless profit nothing, but only grew
thereby foolish, simple, doited, and blockish," Rabelais
decides that " it were better for him to learn nothing at all
than to be taught suchlike books under suchlike school-
masters." All this old lumber must be swept away, and in
two years a youth may acquire a better judgment, a better
64 RABELAIS.
Rabelais* ideal. A new start.
manner, and more command of language than could ever
have been obtained by the old method.
We are then introduced to the model pupil. The end
of education has been declared to be sapiens et eloquens
pietas ; and we find that though Rabelais might have sub-
stituted knowledge for piety, he did caie for piety, and
valued very highly both wisdom and eloquence. The
eloquent Roman was the ideal of the Renascence, and
Rabelais' model pupil expresses himself " with gestures so
proper, pronunciation so distinct, a voice so eloquent,
language so well turned and in such good Latin that he
seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an ^milius of the time
past than a youth of the present age."
§ 4. So a. Renascence tutor is appointed for Gargantua
and administers to him a potion that makes him forget all
he has ever learned. He then puts him through a very
different course. Like all wise instructors he first endeavours
to secure the will of the pupil. He allows Gargantua to go
the accustomed road till he can convince him it is the
wrong one. This seems to me a remarkable proof of
wisdom. How often does the " new master " break abruptly
with the past, and raise the opposition of the pupil by dis-
praise of all he has already done ! By degrees Ponocrates,
the model tutor, inspired in his pupil a great desire for
improvement. This he did by bringing him into the
society of learned men, who filled him with ambition to be
like them. Thereupon Gargantua " put himself into such a
train of study that he lost not any hour in the day, but
employed all his time in learning and honest knowledge."
The day was to begin at 4 a.m., with reading of "some
chapter of the Holy Scripture, and oftentimes he gave
himself to revere, adore, pray, and send up his supplications
RABELAIS. 65
Religion. Study of Things.
to that good God, whose word did show His majesty and
marvellous judgments." This is the only hint we get in
this part of the book on the subject of religious or moral
education : the training is directed to the intellect and the
body.
§ 5. The remarkable feature in Rabelais' curriculum is
this, that it is concerned mainly with things. Of the Seven
Liberal Arts of the Middle Ages, the first three were purely
formal: grammar, logic, rhetoric ; while the following course :
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, were not. The
eftect of the Renascence was to cause increasing neglect of
the Quadrivium, but Rabelais cares for the Quadrivium
only; Gargantua studies arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,
and music, and the Trivium is not mentioned. Great use
is made of books and Gargantua learned them by heart;
but all that he learned he at once " applied to practical
cases concerning the estate of man." It was the substance
of the reading, not the form, that was thought of. At dinner
" if they thought good they continued reading or began to
discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue,
propriety, efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at
that table ; of bread, of wine, of water, of salt, of flesh, fish,
fruits, herbs, roots, and of their dressing. By means whereof
he learned in a little time all the passages that on these
subjects are to be found in Pliny, Athenseus, &c. Whilst
they talked of these things, many times to be more certain they
caused the very books to be brought to the table ; and so
well and perfectly did he in his memory retain the things
above said, that in that time there was not a physician that
knew half so much as he did." Again, out of doors he was to
observe trees and plants, and " compare them with what is
Wii.ten of them in the books of the ancients, such as Theo-
66 RABELAIS.
" Anschauung." Hand-work. Books and Life.
phrastus, Dioscorides, &c." Here again, actual realism was
to be joined with verbal realism, for Gargantua was to carry
home with him great handfuls for herborising. Rabelais
even recommends studying the face of the heavens at night,
and then observing the change that has taken place at
4 in the morning. So he seems to have been the first
writer on education (and the first by a long interval), who
would teach about things by observing the things themselves.
It was this Anschauutigs-prinzip — use of sense-impressions —
that Pestalozzi extended and claimed as his invention two
centuries and a half later. Rabelais also gives a hint of the
use of hand-work as well as head-work. Gargantua and
his fellows "did recreate themselves in bottling hay, in
cleaving and sawing wood, and in threshing sheaves of
corn in the barn. They also studied the art of painting or
carving." The course was further connected with life by
visits to the various handicraftsmen, in whose workshops
" they did learn and consider the industry and invention of
the trader."
Thus, even in the time of the Renascence, Rabelais saw
that the life of the intellect might be nourished by many
things besides books. But books were still kept in the
highest place. Even on a holiday, which occurred on some
fine and clear day once a month, "though spent without
books or lecture, yet was the day not without profit ; for in
the meadows they repeated certain pleasant verses of Virgil's
Agriculture^ of Hesiod, of Politian's Husbandry.^^ They
also turned Latin epigrams into French rondemix.
This course of study, " although at first it seemed difficult,
yet soon became so sweet, so easy, and so delightful, that it
seemed rather the recreation of a king than the study of a
scholar."
RABELAIS. 6^
Training the body.
In preferring the Quadrivial studies to the Trivial, and
still more in his use of actual things, Rabelais separates
himself from all the teachers of his time.
§ 6. Very remarkable too is the attention he p&ys to
physical education. A day does not pass on which Gargantua
does not gallantly exercise his body as he has already
exercised his mind. The exercises prescribed are very various,
and include running, jumping, swimming, with practice on the
horizontal bar and with dumb-bells, &c. But in one respect
Rabelais seems behind our own writer, Richard Mulcaster.
Mulcaster trained the body simply with a view to health.
Rabelais is thinking of the gentleman, and all his physical
exercises are to prepare him for the gentleman's occupation,
war. The constant preparation for war had a strong and in
some respects a very beneficial influence on the education of
gentlemen in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, as it has had
on that of the Germans in the eighteen hundreds. But to be
ready to slaughter one's fellow creatures is not an ideal aim
in education ; and besides this, one half of the human race
can never (as far as we can judge at present) be affected by
it. We therefore prefer the physical training recommended
by the Englishman.
Mr. Walter Besant by his Readings in Rabelais (Blackwood, 1883),
has put Rabelais' wit and wisdom where we can get at most of it with-
out searching in the dung-hill. But he has unfortunately omitted
Gargantua's letter to Pantagruel at Paris (book ij, chap. 8), where we
get the curriculum as proposed by Rabelais, a chapter in which no
scavenger is needed.
I will give some extracts from it : —
"Although my deceased father of happy memory, Grangousier, had
bent his best endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and
political knowledge, and that my labour and study was fully correspon-
dent to, yea, went beyond his desire ; nevertheless, the time then was not
6S RABELAIS.
Rabelais' Curriculum.
so proper and fit for learning as it is at present, neither had I
plenty of such good masters as thou hast had ; for that time was dark-
some, obscured with clouds of ignorance and savouring a little of the
infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had, wherever they set footing,
destroyed all good literature, which in my age hath by the Divine Good-
ness been restored unto its former light and dignity, and that with such
amendment and increase of knowledge that now hardly should I be
admitted unto the first form of the little grammar school boys {des
petits gritnaulx) : I say, I, who in my youthful days was (and that justly)
reputed the most learned of that age. Now it is that the old knowledges
{disciplines) are restored, the languages revived. Greek (without which
it is a shame for any one to call himself learned), Hebrew, Chaldee, Latin.
Printing {Des impressions) too, so elegant and exact, is in use, which
in mv day was invented by divine inspiration, as cannon were by sug-
gestion of the devil. All the world is full of men of knowledge, of very
learned teachers, of large libraries ; so that it seems to me that neither
in the age of Plato, nor of Cicero, nor of Papinian was there such con-
venience for studying as there is now. I see the robbers, hangmen,
adventurers, ostlers of to-day more learned then the doctors and the
preachers of my youth. Why, women and girls have aspired to the
heavenly manna of good learning ... I mean you to learn the
languages perfectly first of all, the Greek as Quintilian wishes, then the
Latin, then Hebrew for the Scriptures, and Chaldee and Arabic at the
same time ; and that thou form thy style in Greek on Plato, in Latin
on Cicero. Let there be no history which thou hast not ready in thy
memory, in which cosmography will aid thee. Of the Liberal Arts,
geometry, arithmetic, music, I have given thee a taste when thou wast
stil a child, at the age of five or six [Pantagruel was a giant, we must
remember]; carry them on; and know'st thou all the rules of astronomy?
Don't touch astrology for divination and the art of Lullius, which are
mere vanity. In the civil law thou must know the five texts by heart
. . , As for knowledge of the works of Nature, I would have thee
devote thyself to them so that there may be no sea, river, or spring of
which thou knowest not the fishes ; all the birds of the air, all the trees,
forest or orchard, all the herbs of the field, all the metals hid in the
towels of the earth, all the precious stones of the East and the South,
let nothing be unknown to thee.
** Then turn again with diligence to the books of the Greek physicians.
RABELAIS. 69
Study of Scripture. Piety.
and the Arabs, and the Latin, without despising the Talmudists and
the Cabalists ; and by frequent dissections acquire a perfect knowledge
of the other world, which is Man. And some hours a-day begin to read
the Sacred Writings, first in Greek the New Testament and Epistles of
the Apostles ; then in Hebrew the Old Testament. In brief, let me
see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge, for from henceforth
as thou growest great and becomest a man thou must part from this
tranquillity and rest of study , . . And because, as Solomon saith,
wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and science without con-
science is but the ruin of the soul, thou shouldst serve, love, and fear
God, and in Him centre all thy thoughts, all thy hope ; and by faith
rooted in charity be joined to Him, so as never to be separated from
Him by sin."
The influence of Rabelais on Montaigne, Locke, and Rousseau has
been well traced by Dr. F. A. Arnstadt. {Franfois Rabelais^ Leipzig,
Barth, 1872.)
VI.
MONTAIGNE.
(1533-1592.)
§ I. The learned ideal established by the Renascence was
accepted by Rabelais, though he made some suggestions
about Realien* that seem to us much in advance of it.
When he quotes the saying " Magis magnos clericos non
sunt magis magnos sapientes" ("the greatest clerks are not the
greatest sages "), this singular piece of Latinity is appro-
priately put into the mouth of a monk, who represents
everything the Renascence scholars despised. In Montaigne
we strike into a new vein of thought, and we find that what
the monk alleges in defence of his ignorance the cultured
gentleman adopts as the expression of an important truth.
§ 2. We ordinary people see truths indeed, but we see
them indistinctly, and are not completely guided by them.
* I am sorry to use a German word, but educational matters have
been so little considered among us that we have no English vocabulary
for them. The want of a word for Realien was felt over 200 years ago.
" Repositories for visibles shall be prepared by which from beholding
the things gentlewomen may learn the names, natures, values, and use
of herbs, shrubs, trees, mineral-juices [sic), metals, and stones." [Essay
to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen, London, 1672.)
MONTAIGNE. /I
Writers and doers. Montaigne u. Renascence.
It is reserved for men of genius to see truths, some truths
that is, often a very few, with intense clearness. Some of
these men have no great talent for speech or writing, and they
try to express the truths they see, not so much by books as by
action. Such men in education were Comenius, Pestalozzi,
aud Froebel. But sometimes the man of genius has a great
power over language, and then he finds for the truths he
has seen, fitting expression, which becomes almost as
lasting as the truths themselves. Such men were Montaigne
and Rousseau. If the historian of education is asked
"What did Montaigne do?" he will answer "Nothing."
"What did Froebel say?" "He said a great deal, but very
few people can read him and still fewer understand him."
Both, however, are and must remain forces in education.
Montaigne has given to some truths imperishable form in his
£ssays, and Froebel's ideas come home to all the world in
the Kindergarten.
§ 3. The ideal set up by the Renascence attached the
highest importance to learning. Montaigne maintained that
the resulting training even at its best was not suited to a
gentleman or man of action. Virtue, wisdom, and intel-
lectual activity should be thought of before learning
Education should be first and foremost the development and
exercise of faculties. And even if the acquirement of
knowledge is thought of, Montaigne maintains that the
't pedants do not understand the first conditions of knowledge
\ and give a semblance not the true thing. — "// ne faut pas
^ attacker le savoir d, Pafne, il faut Vincorporer. — Knowledge
'^ cannot be fastened on to the mind ; it must become part
and parcel of the mind itself."*
* See the very interesting Essay on Montaigne by Dean R. W.
Church.
72 MONTAIGNE.
Character before knowledge. True knowledge.
Here then we have two separate counts against the
Renascence education : ,
j I St. — Knowledge is not the main thing.
2nd. — True knowledge is something very different from
knowing by heart.
§ 4. It is a pity Montaigne's utterances about education
are to be found in English only in the complete translation
of his essays. Seeing that a good many millions of people
read English, and are most of them concerned in education,
one may hope that some day the sayings of the shrewd old
Frenchman may be offered them in a convenient form.
I § 5. Here are some of them: "The evil comes of the
foolish way in which our [instructors] set to work ; and on the
\ plan on which we are taught no wonder if neither scholars
nor masters become more able, whatever they may do in
becoming more learned. In truth the trouble and expense
of onr fathers are directed only to furnish our heads with
knowledge : not a word of judgment or virtue. Cry out to
our people about a passer-by, * There's a learned man!' and
about another 'There's a good man !' they will be all agog
after the learned man, and will not look at the good man.
One might fairly raise a third cry: * There's a set of num-
skulls !' We are ready enough to ask * Does he know
Greek or know Latin? Does he write verse or write
prose?' But whether he has become wiser or better
should be the first question, and that is always the last.
We ought to find out, not who knows most but who knows
bestr (I, chap. 24, Du Fedantisme^ page or two beyond
Odi homines.')
^ § 6. The true educators, according to Montaigne, were
the Spartans, who despised literature, and cared only for
character and action. At Athens they thought about words,
MONTAIGNE. 73
Athens and Sparta. Wisdom before knowledge.
at Sparta about things. At Athens boys learnt to speak
well, at Sparta to do well : at Athens to escape from sophis-
tical arguments, and to face all attempts to deceive them ;
at Sparta to escape from the allurements of pleasure, and
to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, even
death itself In the one system there was constant exercise
of the tongue, in the other of the soul. " So it is not strange
that when Antipater demanded of the Spartans fifty children
as hostages they replied they would sooner give twice as many
grown men, such store did they set by their country's
training." (Du Fedantisme, ad i.)
§ 7. It is odd to find a man of the fifteen hundreds who j
quotes from the old authors at every turn, and yet maintains
that " we lean so much on the arm of other people that we
lose our own strength." The thing a boy should learn is
not what the old authors say, but "what he himself ought
to do when he becomes a man." Wisdom, not knowledge !
*' We may become learned from the learning of others ; wise
we can never be except by our own wisdom." (Bk. j,
chap. 24).
§ 8. So entirely was Montaigne detached from the
thought of the Renascence that he scoffs at his own
learning, and declares that true learning has for its subject,
not the past or the future, but the present. " We are truly
learned from knowing the present, not from knowing the
past any more than the future." And yet " we toil only to
stuff the memory and leave the conscience and the under-
standing void. And like birds who fly abroad to forage for
grain bring it home in their beak, without tasting it themselves,
to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge
here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their
tongue's end, only to spit it out and distribute it amongst
74 MONTAIGNE.
Knowing", and knowing by heart.
their pupils." {Du Fedantisme.) " We are all richer than
we think, but they drill us in borrowing and begging, and
lead us to make more use of other people's goods than of
our own."* (Bk. iij, chap. 12, De la Physionomie, beg. of
3rd paragraph).
§ 9. So far Montaigne. What do we schoolmasters say
to all this ? If we would be quite candid I think we must
allow that, after reading Montaigne's essay, we put it down
with the conviction that in the main he was right, and that
he had proved the error and absurdity of a vast deal that
goes on in the schoolroom. But from this first view we
have had on reflection to make several drawbacks.
§ 10. Montaigne, like Locke and Rousseau, who fol-
lowed in his steps, arranges for every boy to have a tutor
entirely devoted to him. We may question whether this
method of bringing up children is desirable, and we may
assert, without question, that in most cases it is impossible.
It seems ordained that at every stage of life we should
require the companionship of those of our own age. If we
* Perhaps the saying of Montaigne's which is most frequently quoted
is the paradox Savoir par cceur n^ est pas savoir : ( " to know by heart is
not to htow.") But these words are often misunderstood. The meaning,
as I take it, is this : When a thought has entered into the mind it
shakes off the words by which it was conveyed thither. Therefore so
long as the words are indispensable the thought is not known. Knowing
and knowing by heart are not necessarily opposed, but they are different
things ; and as the mind most easily runs along sequences of words a
knowledge of the words often conceals ignorance or neglect of the
thought. I once asked a boy if he thought of the meaning when he
repeated Latin poetry and I got the instructive answer : "Sometimes,
when I am not sure of the ivords.''^ But there are cases in which we
naturally connect a particular form of words with thoughts that have
become part of our minds. We then know, and know by heart also.
MONTAIGNE. 75
Learning necessary as employment.
take two beings as little alike as a man and a child and
force them to be each other's companions, so great is the
difference in their thoughts and interests that they will fall
into inevitable boredom and restraint. So we see that this
plan, even in the few cases in which it would be possible,
would not be desirable ; and for the great majority of boys
it would be out of the question. We must then arrange
for the young to be taught, not as individuals, but in classes,
and this greatly changes the conditions of the problem.
One of the first conditions is this, that we have to employ
each class regularly and uniformly for some hours every
day. Schoolmasters know what their non-scholastic mentors
forget : we can make a class learn, but, broadly speaking,
we cannot make a class think, still less can we make it
judge. As a great deal of occupation has to be provided,
we are therefore forced to make our pupils learn. What-
ever may be the value of the learning in itself it is absolutely
necessary as employment.
§ II. No doubt it will make a vast difference whether
we consider the learning mainly as employment, as a
means of taking up time and preventing " sauntering," as
Locke boldly calls it, or whether we are chiefly anxious to
secure some special results. The knowledge of the Latin
and Greek languages and the Latin and Greek authors was
a result so highly prized by the Renascence scholars that
they insisted on a prodigious quantity of learning, not as
employment, but simply as the means of acquiring this
knowledge. As the knowledge got to be less esteemed the
pressure was by degrees relaxed. In our public schools fifty
or sixty years ago the learning was to some extent retained as
employment, but there certainly was no pressure, and the
majority of the boys never learnt the ancient languages.
76 MONTAIGNE.
Montaigne and our Public Schools.
So the masters of that time had given up the Renascence
enthusiasm for the classics, and on the negative side of
his teaching had come to an agreement with Montaigne.
Any one inchned to sarcasm might say that on the positive
side they were still totally opposed to him, for he thought
virtue and judgment were the main things to be cared for,
and they did not care for these things at all. But this is
not a fair statement. The one thing gained, or supposed to
to be gained, in the public schools was the art of living, and
this art, though it does not demand heroic virtue, requires at
least prudence and self-control. Montaigne's system was a
revolt against the bookishness of the Renascence. " In our
studies," says he, " whatever presents itself before us is book
enough; a roguish trick of a page, a blunder of a
servant, a jest at table, are so many new subjects." So the
education out of school was in his eyes of more value than
the education in school. And this was acknowledged also
in our public schools : " It is not the Latin and Greek they
learn or don't learn that we consider so important," the
masters used to say, " but it is the tone of the school and
the discipline of the games." But of late years this
virtual agreement with Montaigne has been broken up.
School work is no longer mere employment, but it is done
under pressure, and with penalties if the tale of brick
turned out does not pass the inspector.
§ 12. What has produced this great change? It is due
mainly to two causes :
I I. The pressure put on the young to attain classical
^knowledge was relaxed when it was thought that they could
get through life very well without this knowledge. But
in these days new knowledge has awakened a new enthusiasm.
The knowledge of science promises such great advantages
MONTAIGNE. fy
Pressure from Science and Examinations.
that the latest reformers, headed by Mr. Herbert Spencer,
seem to make the well-being of the grown person depend
mainly on the amount of scientific knowledge he stored up
in his youth. This is the first cause of educational pressure.
§ 13. 2. The second and more urgent cause is the
rapid development of our system of examinations. Every-
body's educational status is now settled by the examiner, a
potentate whose influence has brought back in a very
malignant form all the evils of which Montaigne complains.
Do what we will, the faculty chiefly exercised in preparing
for ordinary examinations is the " carrying memory." So
the acquisition of knowledge — mere memory or examination
knowledge — has again come to be regarded as the one thing
needful in education, and there is great danger of everything
else being neglected for it. Of the fourfold results of
education — virtue, wisdom, good manners, learning — the
last alone can be fairly tested in examinations ; and as the
schoolmaster's very bread depends nowadays first on his
getting through examinations himself and then on getting
his pupils through, he would be more than human, if with
Locke he thought of learning " last and least." A great
change has come over our public schools. The amount of
work required from the boys is far greater than it used to be
and masters again measure, their success by the amount of
knowledge the average boy takes away with him. It seems
to me high time that another Montaigne arose to protest
lliat a man's intellectual life does not consist in the number
of things he remembers, and that his true life is not his
intellectual hfe only, but embraces his power of will and
action and his love of what is noble and right. " Wisdom
cried of old, I am the mother of fair Love and Fear and
Knowledge and holy Hope " (Ecclesiasticiis). In these
8
78 MONTAIGNE.
Danger from knowledge.
days of science and examinations does there not seem some
danger lest knowledge should prove the sole surviver ? May
not Knowledge, like another Cain, raise its hand against its
brethren " fair Love and Fear and holy Hope ?" This is
perhaps the great danger of our time, a danger especially
felt in education. Every school parades its scholarships at
the public schools or at the universities, or its passes in the
Oxford and Cambridge Locals, or its percentage at the last
Inspection, and asks to be judged by these. And yet these
are not the one thing or indeed the chief thing needful :
and it will be the ruin of true education if, as Mark Pattison
said, the master's attention is concentrated on the least
important part of his duty.*
• Lord Armstrong has perhaps never read Montaigne's Essay on
Pedantry; certainly, he has not borrowed from it ; and yet much that
he says in discussing *' The Cry for Useless Knowledge " (Nineteenth
Century Magazine^ November, 1888), is just what Montaigne said more
than three centuries ago. " The aphorism that knowledge is power is
so constantly used by educational enthusiasts that it may almost be re-
garded as the motto of the party. But the first essential of a motto
is that it be true, and it is certainly not true that knowledge is the
same as power, seeing that it is only an aid to power. The power of a
surgeon to amputate a limb no more lies in his knowledge than in his
knife. In fact, the knife has the better claim to potency of the two,
for a man may hack off a limb with his knife alone, but not with his
knowledge alone. Knowledge is not even an aid to power in all cases,
seeing that useless knowledge, which is no uncommon article in our
popular schools, has no relation to power. The true source of power
is the originative action of the mind which we see exhibited in the daily
incidents of life, as well as in matters of great importance. . , ,
A man's success in life depends incomparably more upon his capacities
for useful action than upon his acquirements in knowledge, and the
education of the young should therefore be directed to the development
of faculties and valuable qualities rather than to the acquisition of know-
MONTAIGNE. 79
Montaigne and Lord Armstrong.
ledge. . . . Men of capacity and possessing qualities for useful
action are at a premium all over the world, while men of mere education
are at a deplorable discount." (p. 664).
" There is a great tendency in the scholastic world to underrate the
value and potency of self-education, which commences on leaving school
and endures all through life." (p. 667).
*' I deprecate plunging into doubtful and costly schemes of instruction,
led on by the ignis fatuus that 'knowledge is a power.' For where
natural capacity is wasted in attaining knowledge, it would be truer to
say that knowledge is weakness." (p. 668).
VI I.
ASCHAM.
(151S-1568.)
g I. Masters and scholars who sigh over what seem to
them the intricacies and obscurities of modern grammars
may find some consolation in thinking that, after all, matters
might have been worse, and that our fate is enviable indeed
compared with that of the students of Latin 400 years ago.
Did the reader ever open the Dodrinale of Alexander
de Villa Dei, which was the grammar in general use from
the middle of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth
century? (z;. Appendix, p. 532). If so, he is aware how
great a step towards simplicity was made by our grammatical
reformers, Lily, Colet, and Erasmus. Indeed, those whom
we now regard as the forgers of our chains were, in their
own opinion and that of their contemporaries, the champions
of freedom (Appendix, p. 533).
§ 2. I have given elsewhere (Appendix, p. 533) a remark-
able passage from Colet, in which he recommends the
leaving of rules, and the study of examples in good Latin
authors. Wolsey also, in his directions to the masters of
Ipswich School (dated 1528), proposes that the boys should
be exercised in the eight parts of speech in the first form,
ASCHAM. 8l
Wolsey on teaching.
and should begin to speak Latin and translate from English
into Latin in the second. If the masters think fit, they may
also let the pupils read Lily's Carmen MonitoHum, or (Sato's
Distichs. From the third upwards a regular course ot
classical authors was to be read, and Lily's rules were to be
introduced by degrees. " Although I confess such things
are necessary," writes Wolsey, " yet, as far as possible, we
could wish them so appointed as not to occupy the more
valuable part of the day." Only in the sixth form, the
highest but two, Lily's syntax was to be begun. In these
schools the boys' time was wholly taken up with Latin, and
the speaking of Latin was enforced even in play hours, so
we see that anomalies in the accidence as taught in the As
in prcesenti were not given till the boys had been some time
using the language ; and the syntax was kept till they had
a good practical knowledge of the usages to which the rules
referred.*
§ 3. But although there was a great stir in education
throughout this century, and several English books were
published about it, we come to 1570 before we find any-
thing that has lived till now. We then have Roger Ascham's
Scholemaster^ a posthumous work brought out by Ascham's
widow, and republished in 15 71 and 1589. The book was
* In another matter, also, we find that the masters of these schools
subsequently departed widely from the intention of the great mon who
fostered the revival of learning. Wolsey writes : " Imprimis hoc anum
admonendum censuerimus, ut neque plagis severioribus neque vultuosis
minis, aut ulla tyrannidis specie, tenera pubes afficiatur : hac enim
injuria ingenii alacritas aut extingui aut magna ex parte obtundi solet."
Again he says : " In ipsis sfudiis sic voluptas est intermiscenda ut puer
ludum potius discendi quam laborem existimet. " He adds : *' Cavendum
erit ne immodica ccntentione ingenia discentium obruantur aut lectione
prolonga defatigentur ; utraque enim juxta offenditur."
82 ASCHAM.
History of Methods useful.
then lost sight of, but reappeared, with James Upton as
editor, in 171 1,* and has been regarded as an educational
classic ever since. Dr. Johnson says " it contains perhaps
the best advice that was ever given for the study of
languages," and Professor J. E. B. Mayor, who on this
point is a higher authority than Dr. Johnson, declares that
" this book sets forth the only sound method of acquiring a
dead language."
§ 4. With all their contempt for theory, English school-
masters might have been expected to take an interest in one
part of the history of education, viz., the history of methods.
There is a true saying attributed by Marcel to Talleyrand,
" Zes Methodes sont les maitres des maitres — Method is the
master's master." The history of education shows us that
every subject of instruction has been taught in various
ways, and further, that the contest of methods has not
uniformly ended in the survival of the fittest. Methods then
might often teach the teachers, if the teachers caved to be
taught ; but till within the last half century or so an unin-
telligent traditional routine has sufficed for them. There
has no doubt been a great change since men now old were
at school, but in those days the main strength of the
teaching was given to Latin, and the masters knew of no
better method of starting boys in this language than
making them learn by heart Lily's, or as it was then called,
the Eton Latin Grammar. If reason had had anything to
do with teaching, this book would have been demolished
by Richard Johnson's Grammatical Commentaries published
* Professor Arber is one of the very few editors who give accurate
and sufficient bibliographical information about the books they edit.
All students of our old literature are under deep obligations to him.
ASCHAM. 83
Our three celebrities.
in 1706; but worthless as Johnson proved it to be, the
Grammar was for another 150 years treated by EngHsh
schoolmasters as the only introduction to the Latin tongue.
The books that have recently been published show a
tendency to revert to methods set forth in Elizabeth's reign
in Ascham's Scholemaster (1570) and William Kempe's
Education of Children (1588), but the innovators have not
as a rule been drawn to these methods by historical
inquiry.
§ 5. There seem to be only three English writers on
education who have caught the ear of other nations, and
these are Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. Of a
contemporary we do well to speak with the same reserve as
of " present company," but of the other two we may say
that the choice has been somewhat capricious. Locke's
Thoughts perhaps deserves the reputation and influence it
has always had, but in it he hardly does himself justice as a
philosopher of the mind; and much of the advice which has
been considered his exclusively, is to be found in his
English predecessors whose very names are unknown except
to the educational antiquarian. Ascham wrote a few pages
on method which entitle him to mention in an account of
methods of language-learning. He also wrote a great many
pages about things in general which would have shared the
fate of many more valuable but long forgotten books had
he not had one peculiarity in which the other writers were
wanting, that indescribable something which Matthew Arnold
calls "charm."
§ 6. Ascham has been very fortunate in his editors, Pro-
fessor Arber and Professor Mayor, and the last editions*
* Mayor's is beautifully printed and costs \s. (London, Bell and
Sons.)
84 ASCHAM.
A.'s method for Latin : first stage.
give everyone an opportunity of reading the Scholemaster,
I shall therefore speak of nothing but the method.
§ 7. Latin is to be taught as follows : — First, let the
child learn the eight parts of speech, and then the right
joining together of substantives with adjectives, the noun
with the verb, the relative with the antecedent. After the
concords are learned, let the master take Sturm's selection
of Cicero's Epistles, and read them after this manner :
** first, let him teach the child, cheerfully and plainly, the
cause and matter of the letter ; then, let him construe it
into English so oft as the child may easily carry away the
understanding of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This
done, then let the child by and by both construe and parse
it over again ; so that it may appear that the child doubteth
in nothing that his master has taught him before. After
this, the child must take a paper book, and, sitting in some
place where no man shall prompt him, by himself let him
translate into English his former lesson. Then showing it
to his master, let the master take from him his Latin book,
and pausing an hour at the least, then let the child translate
his own English into Latin again in another paper book.
When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must
compare it with TuUy's book, and lay them both together,
and where the child doth well, praise him," where amiss point
out why Tully's use is better. Thus the child will easily
acquire a knowledge of grammar, "and also the ground of
almost all the rules that are so busily taught by the master, and
so hardly learned by the scholar in all common schools. . . .
We do not contemn rules, but we gladly teach rules; and
teach them more plainly, sensibly, and orderly, than they be
commonly taught in common schools. For when the master
shall compare Tully's book with the scholar's translation,
ASCHAM. 85
Second stage. The six points.
let the master at the first lead and teach the scholar to join
the rules of his grammar book with the examples of his
present lesson, until the scholar by himself be able to fetch
out of his grammar every rule for every example ; and let
the grammar book be ever in the scholar's hand, and also
used by him as a dictionary for every present use. This is
a lively and perfect way of teaching of rules ; where the
common way used in common schools to read the grammar
alone by itself is tedious for the master, hard for the scholar,
cold and uncomfortable for them both." And elsewhere
Ascham says : *' Yea, I do wish that all rules for young
scholars were shorter than they be. For, without doubt,
gravimatica itself is sooner and surer learned by examples
of good authors than by the naked rules of grammarians."
§ 8. "As you perceive your scholar to go better on away,
first, with understanding his lesson more quickly, with
parsing more readily, with translating more speedily and
perfectly than he was wont ; after, give him longer lessons
to translate, and, withal, begin to teach him, both in nouns
and verbs, what is proprium and what is translatum^ what
syjionymum, what diversum^ which be contraria^ and which
be most noXaXA^ phrases ^ in all his lectures, as —
Proprium • Rex sepultus est magnifice.
Translatura . Cum illo principe, sepulta est et gloria et salus
reipublicse.
Synonyma . Ensis, gladius : laudare, prsedicare.
Diversa . . Diligere, amare : calere, exardescere : inimicus,
hostis.
Contraria . • Acerbum et luctuosum bellum, dulcis et Iseta pax.
Phrases • • Dare verba, adjicere obedientiam."
Every lesson is to be thus carefully analysed, and entered
under these headings in a third MS. book.
86 ASCHAM.
Value of double translating and writing.
§ 9. Here Ascham leaves his method, and returns to it
only at the beginning of Book II. He there supposes the
first stage to be finished and " your scholar to have come in-
deed, first to a ready perfectness in translating, then to a
ripe and skilful choice in marking out his six points." He now
recommends a course of Cicero, Terence, Csesar, and Livy
which is to be read " a good deal at every lecture." And
the master is to give passages " put into plain natural
English." These the scholar shall " not know where to
find " till he shall have tried his hand at putting them into
Latin; then the master shall "bring forth the place in Tully."
§ 10. In the Second Book of the Schohfuaster^
Ascham discusses the various branches of the study then
common, viz. : i. Translatio hnguarum \ 2. Paraphrasis ;
3. Metaphrasis ; 4. Epitome ; 5. Imitatio ; 6. Declamatio.
He does not lay much stress on any of these, except
translatio and imitatio. Of the last he says : "All languages,
both learned and mother-tongue, be gotten, and gotten only,
by imitation. For, as ye use to hear, so ye use to speak ; if
ye hear no other, ye speak not yourself; and whom ye only
hear, of them ye only learn." But translation was his great
instrument for all kinds of learning. " The translation," he
says, " is the most common and most commendable of all
other exercises for youth ; most common, for all your con-
structions in grammar schools be nothing else but translations,
but because they be not double translations (as I do require)
they bring forth but simple and single commodity: and
because also they lack the daily use of writing, which is the
only thing that breedeth deep root, both in the wit for good
understanding and in the memory for sure keeping of all
that is learned ; most commendable also, and that by the
judgment of all authors which entreat of these exercises."
ASCHAM. 87
Study of a model book.
§ II. After quoting Pliny,* he says: "You perceive
how Pliny teacheth that by this exercise of double trans-
lating is learned easily, sensibly, by little and little, not
only all the hard congruities of grammar, the choice of
ablest words, the right pronouncing of words and sentences,
comeliness of figures, and forms fit for every matter and
proper for every tongue : but, that which is greater also, in
marking daily and following diligently thus the footsteps of
the best authors, like invention of arguments, like order in
disposition, like utterance in elocution, is easily gathered
up j and hereby your scholar shall be brought not only to
like eloquence, but also to all true understanding and right-
ful judgment, both for writing and speaking."
Again he says : " For speedy attaining, I durst venture a
good wager if a scholar in whom is aptness, love, diligence,
and constancy, would but translate after this sort some little
book in Tully (as De Senettute^ with two Epistles, the first
*Ad Quintum Fratrem,' the other *Ad Lentulum'), that
scholar, I say, should come to a better knowledge in the
Latin tongue than the most part do that spend from five to
six yeais in tossing all the rules of grammar in common
schools." After quoting the instance of Dion Prussaeus,
who came to great learning and utterance by reading and
following only two books, the FhcedOj and Demosthenes de
• " Utile imprimis ut multi prsecipiunt, vel ex Grgeco in Latinum vel
ex Latino vertere in Grsecum ; quo genere exercitationis proprietas
splendorque verborum, copia figurarum, vis explicandi, prseterea imita-
tione optimorum similia inveniendi facultas paratur ; simul quse
legentem fefellissent transferentem fugere non possunt. Intelligentia
ex hoc et judicium acquiritur." — Epp. vii. 9, § 2. So the passage stands
in Pliny. Ascham quotes ''et ex Grseco in Latinum et ex Latino vertere
in Graecum," with other variations.
88 ASCHAM.
Q. Elizabeth. " A dozen times at the least"
Falsa Legatione, he goes on: "And a better and nearer
example herein may be our most noble Queen Elizabeth,
who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her hand
after the first declining of a noun and a verb ; but only by
this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily,
without missing, every forenoon, and likewise some part of
Tully every afternoon, for the space of a year or two, hath
attained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues,
and to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with
such a judgment, as there be few now in both Universities
or elsewhere in England that be in both tongues comparable
with Her Majesty," Ascham's authority is indeed not con-
clusive on this point, as he, in praising the Queen's attain-
ments, was vaunting his own success as a teacher, and,
moreover, if he flattered her he could plead prevailing
custom. But we have, I believe, abundant evidence that
Elizabeth was an accomplished scholar.
§ 12. Before I leave Ascham I must make one more
quotation, to which I shall more than once have occasion
to refer. Speaking of the plan of double translation, he
says : " Ere the scholar have construed, parsed, twice trans-
lated over by good advisement, marked out his six points
by skilful judgment, he shall have necessary occasion to
read over every lecture a dozen times at the least; which
because he shall do always in order, he shall do it always
with pleasure. And pleasure allureth love : love hath lust
to labour ; labour always obtaineth his purpose."
§ 13. A good deal has been said, and perhaps something
learnt, about the teaching of Latin since the days of Ascham.
As far as I know the method which Ascham denounced, and
which most English schoolmasters stuck to for more than
two centuries longer, has now been abandoned. No one
ASCIIAM. 89
" Impressionists " and " Retainers."
thinks of making the beginner learn by heart all the Latin
Grammar before he is introduced to the Latin language.
To understand the machinery of which an account is given
in the grammar, the learner must see it at work, and must
even endeavour in a small way to work it himself. So it
seems pretty well agreed that the information given in the
grammar must be joined with some construing and some
exercises from the very first. But here the agreement ends.
Our teachers, consciously or in ignorance, follow one or
more of a number of methodizers who have examined the
problem of language-learning, such men as Ascham, Ratke,
Comenius, Jacotot, Hamilton, Robertson, and Prendergast.
These naturally divide themselves into two parties, which I
have ventured to call " Rapid Impressionists," and " Com-
plete Retainers." The first of these plunge the beginner
into the language, and trust to the great mass of vague
impressions clearing and defining themselves as he goes
along. The second insist on his learning at the first a very
small portion of the language, and mastering and retaining
everything he learns. It will be seen that in the first stage
of the course Ascham is a " Complete Retainer." He does
not talk, like Prendergast, of " mastery," nor, like Jacotot,
does he require the learner to begin every lesson at the
beginning of the book : but he makes the pupil go over
each lesson " a dozen times at the least," before he may
advance beyond it. As for his practice of double trans-
lation, for the advanced pupil it is excellent, but if it is
required from the beginner, it leads to unintelligent memo-
rizing. I think I shall be able to show later on that other
methodizers have advanced beyond Ascham. ijnfra^ 246 n,)
VIII.
MULCASTER.
(iS3i(?)-i6ii.)
§ I. The history of English thought on education has
yet to be written. In the literature of education the
Germans have been the pioneers, and have consequently
settled the routes ; and when a track has once been estab-
lished few travellers will face the risk and trouble of
leaving it. So up to the present time, writers on the history
of European education after the Renascence have occupied
themselves chiefly with men who lived in Germany, or
wrote in German. But the French are at length exploring
the country for themselves ; and in time, no doubt, the
English-speaking races will show an interest in the thoughts
and doings of their common ancestors.
We know what toils and dangers men will encounter in
getting to the source of great rivers ; and although, as Mr.
Widgery truly says, " the study of origins is not everybody's
business,"* we yet may hope that students will be found
ready to give time and trouble to an investigation of great
interest and perhaps some utility — the origin of the school
* Teaching of Languages in Schools ^ by W. H. Widgery, p. 6i
MULCASTER. 91
Old books in English on education.
course which now affects the millions who have English for
their mother-tongue.
§ 2. In the fifteen hundreds there were published
several works on education, three of which, Elyot's
Governour^ Ascham's Scholemaster, and Mulcaster's
Positions, have been recently reprinted.* Others, such as
Edward Coote's English Schoolmaster, and Mulcaster's
Elementarie, are pretty sure to follow, without serious loss,
let us hope, to their editors, though neither Coote nor
Mulcaster are likely to become as well-known writers as
Roger Ascham.
§ 3. Henry Barnard, whose knowledge of our educa-
tional literature no less than his labours in it, makes him
the greatest living authority, says that Mulcaster's Positions
is "one of the earliest, and still one of the best treatises
in the English language." {English Pedagogy, 2nd series,
p. 177.) Mulcaster was one of the most famous of English
schoolmasters, and by his writings he proved that he was
far in advance of the schoolmasters of his own time, and of
the times which succeeded. But he paid the penalty of
thinking of himself more highly than he should have
thought; and whether or no the conjecture is right that
Shakespeare had him in his mind when writing Lovers
Labour's Lost, there is an affectation in Mulcaster's style
which is very irritating, for it has caused even the master of
Edmund Spenser to be forgotten. In a curious and interest-
ing allegory on the progress of language (in the Elementarie,
* Miich information about our early books, with quotations from some
of them, will be found in Henry Barnard's English Pedagogy, 1st and 2nd
series. Some notice of rare books is given in Schools, School-books, and
Schoolmasters, by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, Jarvis, 1888), but in this
work there are strange omissiona.
92 MULCASTER.
M.'s wisdom hidden by his style.
pp. 66, ff.), Mulcaster says that Art selects the best age of
a language to draw rules from, such as the age of Demos-
thenes in Greece and of Tully in Rome ; and he goes on :
"Such a period in the English tongue I take to be in our
days for both the pen and the speech." And he suggests
that the English language, having reached its zenith, is seen
to advantage, not in the writings of Shakespeare or Spenser,
but in those of Richard Mulcaster. After enumerating
the excellehcies of the language, he adds : " I need no
example in any of these, whereof my own penning is a
general pattern." Here we feel tempted to exclaim with
Armado in Loi^is Labour's Lost (Act 5, sc. 2) : "I protest
the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical : too too vain, too
too vain." He speaks elsewhere of his " so careful, I will
not say so curious writing" {Elemeniarie, p. 253), and says
very truly: "Even some of reasonable study can hardly
understand the couching of my sentence, and the depth of
my conceit" {ib., p. 235). And this was the death-warrant
of his literary renown.
§ 4. But there is good reason why Mulcaster should
not be forgotten. When we read his books we find that
wisdom which we are importing in the nineteenth century
was in a great measure offered us by an English schoolmaster
in the sixteenth. The latest advances in pedagogy have
estabHshed (i) that the end and aim of education is to
develop the faculties of the mind and body ; (2) that all
teaching processes should be carefully adapted to the
mental constitution of the learner; (3) that the first stage in
learning is of immense importance and requires a very high
degree of skill in the teacher ; (4) that the brain of children,
especially of clever children, should not be subjected to
"pressure"; (5) that childhood should not be spent in
MULCASTER. 93
Education and " learning.'
learning foreign languages, but that its language should be
the mother-tongue, and its exercises should include hand-
work, especially drawing ; (6) that girls' education should be
cared for no less than boys' ; (7) that the only hope of im-
proving our schools lies in providing training for our
teachers. These are all regarded as planks in the platform
of " the new education," and these were all advocated by
Mulcaster.
§ 5. Before I point this out in detail I may remark how
greatly education has suffered from being confounded with
learning. There are interesting passages both in Ascham
and Mulcaster which prove that the class-ideal of the
" scholar and gentleman " was of later growth. In the fifteen
hundreds learning was thought suitable, not for the rich, but
for the clever. Still, learning, and therefore education, was
not for the many, but the few. Mulcaster considers at some
length how the number of the educated is to be kept down
(Positions, chapp. 36, 37, 39), though even here he is in the
van, and would have everyone taught to read and write
{Positions, chapp. 5, 36). But the true problem of education
was not faced till it was discovered that every human being
was to be considered in it. This was, I think, first seen by
Comenius.
With this abatement we find Mulcaster's sixteenth-century
notions not much behind our nineteenth.
§ 6. (1&2) " Why is it not good," he asks, "to have every
part of the body and every power of the soul to be fined to
his best?" {PP., p. 34*). Elsewhere he says: "The end o|
education and train is to help Nature to her perfection,
* The paging is that of the reprint. It differs slightly from that of
first edition.
9
94 MULCASTER.
I. Development. 2. Child-study.
which is, when all her abilities be perfected in their habit,
whereunto right elements be right great helps. Consideration
and judgment must wisely mark whereunto Nature is either
evidently given or secretly affectionate and must frame an
education consonant thereto." (^/., p. 28).
Michelet has with justice claimed for Montaigne that he
drew the teacher's attention from the thing to be learnt to the
lear7ier : ^^ Non Vobjet^ le savoir^ mats le sujet^ dest Vhomme.^^
{Nos Fils, p. 170.) Mulcaster has a claim to share this
honour with his great contemporary. He really laid the
foundation of a science of education. Discussing our
natural abilities, he says : " We have a perceiving by out-
ward sense to feel, to hear, to see, to smell, to taste all
sensible things ; which qualities of the outward, being
received in by the common sense and examined by fantsie,
are delivered to remembrance^ and afterward prove our great
and only grounds unto further knowledge."* (^/., p. 32.)
Here we see Mulcaster endeavouring to base education, or
as he so well calls it, "train," on what we receive from
Nature. Elsewhere he speaks of the three things which we
" find peering out of the little young souls," viz : " wit to take,
memory to keep, and discretion to discern." {PP.,, p. 27.)
* Mulcaster goes on to talk about the brain, &c. Of course he does
not anticipate the discoveries of science, but his language is very differ-
ent from what we should expect from a writer in the pre-scientific age,
e.g.^ " To serve the turn of these two, both sense and motion. Nature hath
planted in our body a brain, the prince of all our parts, which by
spreading sinews of all sorts throughout all our parts doth work all
those effects which either sense is seen in or motion perceived by."
(^/., p. 32.) But much as he thinks of the body Mulcaster is no
materialist. ** Last of all our soul hath in it an imperial prerogative of
understanding beyond sense, of judging by reason, of directing by both.
MULCASTER. 95
3. Groundwork by best workman,
§ 7. (3) I have pointed out that the false ideal of the
Renascence led schoolmasters to neglect children.
Mulcaster remarks that the ancients considered the training
of children should date from the birth; but he himself
begins with the school age. Here he has the boldness to
propose that those who teach the beginners should have the
smallest number of pupils, and should receive the highest
pay. "The first groundwork would be laid by the best
workman," says Mulcaster (/*/*., 130), here expressing a
for duty towards God, for society towards men, for conquest in
affections, for purchase in knowledge, and such other things, whereby
it furnLsheth out all manner of uses in this our mortal life, and
bewrayeth in itself a more excellent being than to continue still in this
roaming pilgrimage." (p. 33.) The grand thing, he says, is to bring
all these abilities to perfection " which so heavenly a benefit is begun
by education, confirmed by use, perfected with continuance which
crowneth the whole work" (p. 34.) ''Nature makes the boy toward ;
nurture sees him forward." (p. 35). The neglect of the material world
which has been for ages the source of mischief of all kinds in the
schoolroom, and which has not yet entirely passed away, would have
been impossible if Mulcaster's elementary course had been adopted.
** Is the body made by Nature nimble to run, to ride, to swim, to fence,
to do anything else which beareth praise in that kind for either profit or
pleasure ? And doth not the Elementary help them all forward by pre-
cept and train ? The hand, the ear, the eye be the greatest instruments
whereby the receiving and delivery of our learning is chiefly executed,
and doth not this Elementary instruct the hand to write, to draw, to play ;
the eye to read by letters, to discern by line, to judge by both ; the ear
tc call for voice and sound with proportion for pleasure, with reason for
wit ? Generally whatsoever gift Nature hath bestowed upon the body,
to be brought forth or bettered by the mean of train for any profitable
use in our whole life, doth not this Elementary both find it and foresee
it?" {El.t p. 35). •* The handy the ear^ the eye^ be the greatest instru-
mentSy* said the Elizabethan schoolmaster. So says the Victorian
reformer.
g6 MULCASTER.
4. No forcing of young plants.
truth which, like many truths that are not quite convenient,
is seldom denied but almost systematically ignored.*
§ 8. (4) In the Nineteenth Century Magazine for November,
1888, appeared a vigorous protest with nearly 400 signatures.
* I wish some good author would write a book on Unpopular Truths^
and show how, on some subjects, wise men go on saying the same thing
in all ages and nobody listens to them. Plato said " In every work
the beginning is the most important part, especially in dealing with
anything young and tender." {Rep.y bk. ii, 377 ; Davies and Vaughan,
p. 65.) And the complaints about "bad grounding" prove our com-
mon neglect of what Mulcaster urged three centuries ago : " For the
Elementarie because good scholars will not abase themselves to it, it is
left to the meanest, and therefore to the worst. For that the first
grounding would be handled by the best, and his reward would be
greatest, because both his pains and his judgment should be with the
greatest. And it would easily allure sufficient men to come down so
low, if they might perceive that reward would rise up. No man of
judgment will contrary this point, neither can any ignorant be blamed
for the contrary : the one seeth the thing to be but low in order, the
other knoweth the ground to be great in laying, not only for the matter
which the child doth learn : which is very small in show though great
for process : but also for the manner of handling his wit, to hearten
him for afterward, which is of great moment. The first master can deal
but with a few, the next with more, and so still upward as reason
groweth on and receives without forcing. It is the foundation well
and soundly laid, which makes all the upper building muster, with
countenance and continuance. If I were to strike the stroke, as I am
but to give counsel, the first pains truly taken should in good truth be
most liberally recompensed ; and less allowed still upward, as the pains
diminish and the ease increaseth. Whereat no master hath cause to
repine, so he may have his children well grounded in the Elemetitarie,
Whose imperfection at this day doth marvellously trouble both masters
and scholars, so that we can hardly do any good, nay, scantly tell how
to place the too too raw boys in any certain form, with hope to go for-
ward orderly, the ground- work of their entry being so rotten under-
neath." {PP., pp. 233, 4.)
MULC ASTER. 97
5. The elementary course. English.
many of which carried great weight with them, against our
sacrifice of education to examination. Our present system,
whether good or bad, is the result of accident. Winchester
and Eton had large endowments, and naturally endeavoured
by means of these endowments to get hold of clever boys.
At first no doubt they succeeded fairly well; but other
schools felt bound to compete for juvenile brains, and as the
number of prizes increased, many of our preparatory schools
became mere racing stables for children destined at 12 or
14 to run for " scholarship stakes." Thus, in the scramble
for the money all thought of education has been lost sight
of; injury has been done in many cases to those who have
succeeded, still greater injury to those who have failed or
who have from the first been considered "out of the running."
These very serious evils would have been avoided had we
taken counsel with Mulcaster : " Pity it were for so petty a
gain to forego a greater ; to win an hour in the morning and
lose the whole day after ; as those people most commonly
do which start out of their beds too early before they be well
awaked or know what it is o'clock ; and be drowsy when
they are up for want of their sleep." {PP.^ P- 19; see also
El, xi., pp. 52 ff.)
§ 9. (5) It would have been a vast gain to all Europe if
Mulcaster had been followed instead of Sturm. He was one
of the earliest advocates of the use of English instead of
Latin (see Appendix, p. 534), and good reading and writing
in English were to be secured before Latin was begun. His
elementary course included these five things : English reading,
English writing, drawing, singing, playing a musical instru-
ment. If the first course were made to occupy the school-
time up to the age of 12, Mulcaster held that more would
be done between 12 and 16 than between 7 and 17 ii>
98 MULCASTER.
6. Girls as well as Boys.
the ordinary way. There would be the further gain
that the children would not be set against learning. " Because
of the too timely onset too little is done in too long a time,
and the school is made a torture, which as it brings forth
delight in the end when learning is held fast, so should it
pass on very pleasantly by the way, while it is in learning." *
{PP; 33-)
§ lo. (6) Among the many changes brought about in the
nineteenth century we find little that can compare in impor-
tance with the advance in the education of women. In the
last century, whenever a woman exercised her mental powers
she had to do it by stealth,t and her position was degraded
indeed when compared not only with her descendants of
the nineteenth century, but also with her ancestors of the
sixteenth. This I know has been disputed by some authori-
ties, e.g., by the late Professor Brewer : but to others, e.g., to
a man who, as regards honesty and wisdom, has had few equals
and no superiors in investigating the course of education, I
mean the late Joseph Payne, this educational superiority of
the women of Elizabeth's time has seemed to be entirely
• Quaint as we find Mulcaster in his mode of expression, the thing
expressed is sometimes rather what we should expect from Herbert
Spencer than from a schoolmaster of the Renascence. I have met with
nothing more modern in thought than the following: *' In time all
learning may be brought into one tongue, and that natural to the in-
habitant : so that schooling for tongues may prove needless, as once
they were not needed ; but it can never fall out that arts and sciences in
their right nature shall be but most necessary for any commonwealth
that is not given over unto too too much barbarousness. " {PP. , 240. )
t "Subject to a regulation like that of the ancient Spartans, the
theft of knowledge in our sex is only connived at while carefully con-
cealed, and if displayed [is] punished with disgrace." So says Mrs.
Barbauld, and I have met with similar passages in other female writers.
MULCASTER. 99
7. Training of Teachers.
beyond question. On this point Mulcaster's evidence is
very valuable, and, to me at least, conclusive. He not only
" admits young maidens to learn," but says that " custom
stands for hini," and that "the custom of my country
. . . hath made the maidens' train her own approved
travail." {PP., p. 167.)
§ II. (7) Of all the educational reforms of the nineteenth
century by far the most fruitful and most expansive is, in my
opinion, the training of teachers. In this, as in most educa-
tional matters, the English, though advancing, are in the
rear. Far more is made of " training " on the Continent and
in the United States than in England. And yet we made a
good start. Our early w^riters on education saw that the
teacher has immense influence, and that to turn this influence
to good account he must have made a study of his profession
and have learnt " the best that has been thought and done "
in it. Every occupation in life has a traditional capital of
knowledge and experience, and those who intend to follow
the business, whatever it may be, are required to go through
some kind of training or apprenticeship before they earn
wages. To this rule there is but one exception. In English
elementary schools children are paid to " teach " children,
and in the higher schools the beginner is allowed to blunder
at the expense of his first pupils into whatever skill he may
in the end manage to pick up. But our English practice
received no encouragement from the early English writers,
Mulcaster, Brinsley,* and Hoole.
• John Brinsley (the elder) who married a sister of Bishop Hall's and
kept school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (was it the Grammar School?) was
one of the best English writers on education. In his Consolation for our
Cr.tmmar Schaoles, published eaily in the sixteen hundreds, he says i
lOO MULCASTER.
Training college at the Universities.
As far as I am aware the first suggestion of a training
college for teachers came from Mulcaster. He schemed
seven special colleges at the University ; and of these one
is for teachers. Some of his suggestions, e.g., about
"University Readers" have lately been adopted, though
without acknowledgment; and as the University of
Cambridge has since 1879 acknowledged the existence of
teachers, and appointed a " Teachers' Training Syndicate,"
we may perhaps in a few centuries more carry out his scheme,
and have training colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.*
Some of the reasons he gives us have not gone out of date
with his English. They are as follows : —
"And why should not these men (the teachers) have both
this sufficiency in learning, and such room to rest in, thence
to be chosen and set forth for the common service? Be
either children or schools so small a portion of our
** Amongst others myself having first had long experience of the mani-
fold evils which grow from the ignorance of a right order of teaching,
and afterwards some gracious taste of the sweetness that is to be found
in the better courses truly known and practised, I have betaken me
almost wholly, for many years unto this weighty work, and that not
without much comfort, through the goodness of our blessed God." (p. i.)
** And for the most part wherein any good is done, it is ordinarily effected
by the endless vexation of the painful master, the extreme labour and
terror of the poor children with enduring far overmuch and long severity.
Now whence proceedeth all this but because so few of those who under-
take this function are acquainted with any good method or right order
of instruction fit for a grammar school ? " (p. 2. ) It is sad to think
how many generations have since suffered from teachers "unacquainted
with any good method or right order of instruction. " And it seems to
justify Goethe's dictum, " Der Engldnder ist eigentlich ohne Intelligenz,^*
that for several generations to come this evil will be but partially abated.
* At Cambridge (as also in London and Edinburgh) there is already
a Training College for Women Teachers in Secondary Schools.
MULCASTER. lOI
M.'s reasons for training teachers.
multitude ? or is the framing of young minds, and the train-
ing of their bodies so mean a point of cunning ? Be school-
masters in this Realm such a paucity, as they are not even
in good sadness to be soundly thought on ? If the chancel
have a minister, the belfry hath a master : and where youth
is, as it is eachwhere, there must be trainers, or there will be
worse. He that will not allow of this careful provision for
such a seminary of masters, is most unworthy either to have
had a good master himself, or hereafter to have a good one
for his. Why should not teachers be well provided for, to
continue their whole life in the school, as Divines^ Lawyers,
Physicians do in their several professions? Thereby
judgment, cunning, and discretion will grow in them : and
masters would prove old men, and such as Xenophon setteth
over children in the schooling of Cyrus. Whereas now, the
school being used but for a shift, afterward to pass thence to
the other professions, though it send out very sufficient men
\ to them, itself remaineth too too naked, considering the
\ necessity of the thing. I conclude, therefore, that this
trade requireth a particular college, for these four causes.
I. First, for the subject being the mean to make or mar the
whole fry of our State. 2. Secondly, for the number,
whether of them that are to learn, or of them that are to
teach. 3. Thirdly, for the necessity of the profession; which
may not be spared. 4. Fourthly, for the matter of their study,
which is comparable to the greatest professions, for language,
for judgment, for skill how to train, for variety in all points
of learning, wherein the framing of the mind, and the
exercising of the body craveth exquisite consideration,
beside the staidness of the person." {FP.t pp. 248, 9.)
§ 12. Though once a celebrated man, and moreover
the master of Edmund Spenser, Mulcaster has been long
I02 MULCASTER.
M.'s Life and Writings.
forgotten ; but when the history of education in England
comes to be written, the historian will show that few school-
masters in the fifteen hundreds or since were so enlightened
as the first headmaster of Merchant Taylors'.*
* All we know of his life may soon be told. Richard Mulcaster was
a Cumberland man of good family, an *' esquier borne," as he calls him-
self, who was at Eton, then King's College, Cambridge, then at Christ
Church, Oxford. His birth year was probably 1530 or 153 1, and he
became a student of Christ Church in 1555. In 1558 he settled as a
schoolmaster in London, and was elected first headmaster of Merchant
Taylors' School, which dates from 1561. Here he remained twenty-
five years, />., till 15S6. Whether he then became, as H. B. Wilson
says, surmaster of St. Paul's, I cannot detei-mine, but "he came in"
highmaster in 1596, and held that office for twelve years. Though in
1598 Elizabeth made him rector of Stanford Rivers, there can be no
doubt that he did not give up the highmastership till 1608, when he must
have been about 'j'j years old. He died at Stanford Rivers three years
later. While at Merchant Taylors', viz., in 1581 and 1582, he published
the two books which have secured for him a permanent place in the
history of education in England. The first was his Positions^ the
second "The first part" (and, as it proved, the only part) of his
Eleinentarie. Of his other writings, his Cato Chrisiianus seems to have
been the most important, and a very interesting quotation from it has
been preserved in Robotham's Preface to ihejanua of Comenius ; but
the book itself is lost: at least I never heard of a copy, and I have
sought in vain in the British Museum, and at the University Libraries
of Oxford and Cambridge. His Catechismus Paulinus is a rare book,
but Rev. J. H. Lupton has found and described a copy in the Bodleian.
I
IX.
RATICHIUS.
(1571-1635.)
§ I. The history of Education in the fifteen hundreds
tells chiefly of two very different classes of men. First we
have the practical men, who set themselves to supply the
general demand for instruction in the classical languages.
This class includes most of the successful schoolmasters, such
as Sturm, Trotzendorf, Neander, and the Jesuits. The other
class were thinkers, who never attempted to teach, but
merely gave form to truths which would in the end affect
teaching. These were especially Rabelais and Montaigne.
§ 2. With the sixteen hundreds we come to men who
have earned for themselves a name unpleasant in our ears,
although it might fittingly be applied to all the greatest
benefactors of the human race. I mean the name of
Innovators. These men were not successful ; at least they
seemed unsuccessful to their contemporaries, who contrasted
the promised results with the actual. But their efforts were
by no means thrown away : and posterity at least, has
acknowledged its obligations to them. One sees now that
they could hardly have expected justice in their own time.
It is safe to adopt the customary plan ; it is safe to speculate
how that plan may and should be altered; but it is dangerous
104 RATICHIUS.
Principles of the Innovators.
to attempt to translate new thought into new action, and
boldly to advance without a track, trusting to principles
which may, like the compass, show you the right direction,
but, like the compass, will give you no hint of the obstacles
that lie before you.
(The chief demands made by the Innovators have been :
I St, that the study of things should precede, or be united
with, the study of words {v. Appendix, p. 538); 2nd, that
knowledge should be communicated, where possible, by
appeals to the senses ; 3rd, that all linguistic study should
begin with that of the mother-tongue ; 4th, that Latin and
Greek should be taught to such boys only as would be likely
to complete a learned education ; 5th, that physical educa-
tion should be attended to in all classes of society for the
sake of health, not simply with a view to gentlemanly
accomplishments; 6th, that a new method of teaching
should be adopted, framed " according to Nature."
Their notions of method have, of course, been very
various; but their systems mostly agree in these
particulars : —
I I. They proceed from the concrete to the abstract, giving
' some knowledge of the thing itself before the rules which
refer to it. 2. They employ the student in analysing matter
put before him, rather than in working synthetically
according to precept. 3. They require the student to teach
himself dXidi. investigate for himself under the superintendence
and guidance of the master, rather than be taught by the
master and receive anything on the master's authority.
4. They rely on the interest excited in the pupil by the
acquisition of knowledge, and renounce coercion. 5. Only
that which is understood may be committed to memory
(z;. supra, p. 74, n).
RATICHIUS. 105
R.'s Address to the Diet.
§ 3. The first of the Innovators was Wolfgang Ratichius,
who, oddly enough, is known to posterity by a name he and
his contemporaries never heard of. His father's name was
Radtk^ or Ratkd, and the son having received a University
education, translated this into Ratichius. With our usual
impatience of redundant syllables, we have attempted to
reduce the word to its original dimensions, and in the
process have hit upon Ratich^ which is a new name
altogether.
Ratke (to adopt the true form of the original) was con-
nected, as Basedow was a hundred and fifty years later,
with Holstein and Hamburg. He was born at Wilster in
Holstein in 15 71, and studied at Hamburg and at the
University of Rostock. He afterwards travelled to
Amsterdam and to England, and it was perhaps owing to
his residence in this country that he was acquainted with the
new philosophy of Bacon. We next hear of him at the
Electoral Diet, held as usual in Frankfurt-on-Main, in 161 2.
He was then over forty years old, and he had elaborated a
new scheme for teaching. Like all inventors, he was fully
impressed with the importance of his discovery, and he sent
to the assembled Princes an address, in which he undertook
some startling performances. He was able, he said : (i) to
teach young or old Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, or other
languages, in a very short time and without any difficulty ;
(2) to establish schools in which all arts should be taught
and extended; (3) to introduce and peaceably estabhsh
throughout the German Empire a uniform speech, a uniform
government, and (still more wonderful) a uniform religion.
§ 4. Naturally enough the address arrested the
attention of the Princes. The Landgraf Lewis of Darm-
stadt thought the matter worthy of examination, and he
Io6 RATICHIUS.
At Augsburg. At Koethen.
deputed two learned men, Jung and Helwig, to confer with
Ratke. Their report was entirely favourable, and they did
all they could to get for Ratke the means of carrying his
scheme into execution. " We are," writes Helwig, " in bond-
age to Latin. The Greeks and Saracens would never have
done so much for posterity if they had spent their youth in
acquiring a foreign tongue. We must study our own
language, and then sciences. Ratichius has discovered the
art of teaching according to Nature. By his method,
languages will be quickly learned, so that we shall have time
for science ; and science will be learned even better still, as
the natural system suits best with science, which is the study
of Nature." Moved by this report the Town Council of
Augsburg agreed to give Ratke the necessary power over
their schools, and accompanied by Helwig, he accordingly
went to Augsburg and set to work. But the good folks of
Augsburg were like children, who expect a plant as soon as
they have sown the seed. They were speedily dissatisfied,
and Ratke and Helwig left Augsburg, the latter much dis-
couraged but still faithful to his friend. Ratke went to
PYankfurt again, and a Commission was appointed to con-
sider his proposals, but by its advice Ratke was " allowed to
try elsewhere."
§ 5. He would never have had a fair chance had he not
had a firm friend in the Duchess Dorothy of Weimar. Then,
as now, we find women taking the lead in everything which
promises to improve education, and this good Duchess sent
for Ratke and tested his method by herself taking lessons of
him in Hebrew. With this adult pupil his plans seem to
have answered well, and she always continued his admirer
and advocate. By her advice her brother. Prince Lewis of
Anhalt-Koethen, decided that the great discovery should not
be lost for want of a fair trial; so he called Ratke to Koethen
RATICHIUS. 107
Failure at Koethen.
and complied with all his demands. A band of teachers
sworn to secrecy were first of all instructed in the art by
Ratke himself. Next, schools with very costly apphances
were provided, and lastly some 500 little Koetheners — boys
and girls— were collected and handed over to Ratke to work
his wonders with.
§ 6. It never seems to have occurred either to Ratke or
his friends or the Prince that all the principles and methods
that ever were or ever will be established could not enable a
man without experience to organize a school of 500 children.
A man who had never been in the water might just as well
plunge into the sea at once and trust to his knowledge of
the laws of fluid pressure to save him from drowning. There
are endless details to be settled which would bewilder any
one without experience. Some years ago school-buildings
were provided for one of our county schools, and the council
consulted a master of great experience who strongly urged
them not to start as they had intended with 300 boys. " 1
would not undertake such a thing," said he. When pressed
for his reason, he said quietly, " I would not be responsible
for the boots" I have no doubt Ratke had to come down
from his principles and his new method to deal with
numberless little questions of caps, bonnets, late children,
broken windows, and the like ; and he was without the tact
and the experience which enable many ordinary men and
women, who know nothing of principles, to settle such
matters satisfactorily.
§ 7. Years afterwards there was another thinker much
more profound and influential than Ratke, who was quite
as incompetent to organize. I mean Pestalozzi. But
Pestalozzi had one great advantage over Ratke. He
attached all his assistants to him by inspiring them with
I08 RATICHIUS.
German in the school. R.'s services.
love and reverence of himself. This made up for many
deficiencies. But Ratke was not hke the fatherly, self-
sacrificing Pestalozzi. He leads us to suspect him of being
an impostor by making a mystery of his invention, and he
never could keep the peace with his assistants.
§ 8. So, as might have been expected, the grand ex-
periment failed. The Prince, exasperated at being placed
in a somewhat ridiculous position, and possibly at the
serious loss of money into the bargain, revenged himself on
Ratke by throwing him into prison, nor would he release
him till he had made him sign a paper in which he admitted
that he had undertaken more than he was able to fulfil.
§ 9. This was no doubt the case; and yet Ratke had
done more for the Prince than the Prince for Ratke. In
Koethen had been opened the first German school in which
the children were taught to make a study of the German
language.
Ratke never recovered from his failure at Koethen, and
nothing memorable is recorded of him afterwards. He
died in 1635.
§ 10. Much was written by Ratke ; much has been
written about him ; and those who wish to know more than
the few particulars I have given may find all they want in
Raumer or Barnard. The Innovator failed in gaining the
applause of his contemporaries, and he does not seem to
stand high in the respect of posterity ; but he was a pioneer
in the art of didactics, and the rules which Raumer has
gathered from the Methodus Institutionis nova, . . .
Ratichii et Ratichianorum^ published by Rhenius at
Leipzig in 1626, raise some of the most interesting points
to which a teacher's attention can be directed. I will
therefore state them, and say briefly what I think of them.
RATICHIUS. 109
I. Follow Nature. 2. One thing at a time.
§ II. I. In everything we should follow the order of
Nature. There is a certain natural sequence along which the
human intelligence moves in acquiring knowledge. This
sequence must be studied^ and instruction must be based on
the knowledge of it.
Here, as in all teaching of the Reformers, we find
" Nature " used as if the word stood for some definite idea.
From the time of the Stoics we have been exhorted to
" follow Nature." In more modern times the demand was
well formulated by Picus of Mirandola: "Take no heed
what thing many men do, but what thing the very law of
Nature, what thing very reason, what thing our Lord Himself
showeth thee to be done." (Trans, by Sir Thomas More,
quoted in Seebohm, Oxford Reformer s.")
Pope, always happy in expression but not always clear in
thought, talks of —
'* Unerring Nature, still divinely bright.
One clear, unchanged, and universal light."
{^Essay on C, i, 70.)
But as Dr. W. T. Harris has well pointed out {St. Louis,
Mo., School Report, '78, '79, p. 217), with this word "Nature"
writers on education do a great deal of juggling. Some
times they use it for the external world, including in it man's
unconscious growth, sometimes they make it stand for the
ideal. What sense does Ratke attach to it? One might
have some difficulty in determining. Perhaps the best
meaning we can nowadays find for his rule is : study
Psychology.
§ 12. II. One thing at a time. Master one subject
before you take up another. For each language master a
single book. Go over it again and again till you have
completely made it your own.
no RATICHIUS.
3. Over and over again.
In its crude form this rule could not be carried out. If
the attempt were made the results would be no better than
from the six months' course of Terence under Ratke. It is
*' against all Nature" to go on hammering away at one
thing day after day without any change; and there is a
point beyond which any attempt at thoroughness must end
in simple stagnation. The rule then would have two fatal
drawbacks : ist, it would lead to monotony ; 2nd, it would
require a completeness of learning which to the young
would be impossible. But in these days no one follows
Ratke. On the other hand, concentration in study is often
neglected, and our time-tables afford specimens of the most
ingenious mosaic work, in which everything has a place, but
in so small a quantity that the learners never find out what
each thing really is. School subjects are like the clubs of
the eastern tale, which did not give out their medicinal
properties till the patient got warm in the use of them.
When a good hold on a subject has once been secured,
short study, with considerable intervals between, may suffice
to keep up and even increase the knowledge already
obtained; but in matters of any difficulty, e.g., in a new
language, no start is ever made without allotting to it much
more than two or three hours a week. It is perhaps a
mistake to suppose that if a good deal of the language may
be learnt by giving it ten hours a week, twice that amount
might be acquired in twenty hours. It is a much greater
mistake if we think that one-fifth of the amount might be
acquired in two hours.
§ 13. III. 7'he same thing should he repeated over and
ever again.
This is like the Jesuits' Repetiiio Mater Studiorum; and the
same notion was well developed 200 years later by Jacotot.
RATICHIUS. 1 1 1
4. Everything through the mother-tongue.
By Ratke's application of this rule some odd results were
produced. The little Koetheners were drilled for German
in a book of the Bible (Genesis was selected), and then for
Latin in a play of Terence.
Unlike many " theoretical notions " this precept of Ratke's
comes more and more into favour as the schoolmaster
increases in age and experience. But we must be careful to
take our pupils with us ; and this repeating the same thing
over and over may seem to them what marking time would
seem to soldiers who wanted to march. Even more than
the last rule this is open to the objections that monotony is
deadening, and perfect attainment of anything but words
impossible. In keeping to a subject then we must not rely
on simple repetition. The rule now accepted is thus stated
by Diesterweg : — " Every subject of instruction should be
viewed from as many sides as possible, and as varied
exercises as possible should be set on one and the same
thing." The art of the master is shown in disguising
repetition and bringing known things into new connection,
so that they may partially at least retain their freshness.
§ 14. IV. I^irsi let the mother-tongue be studied^ and\
teach everything through the mother-tongue^ so that thei
learner's attention may not be diverted to the language.
We saw that Sturm, the leading schoolmaster of Renas-
cence, tried to suppress the mother-tongue and substitute
Latin for it. Against this a vigorous protest was made in
this country by Mulcaster. And our language was never
conquered by a foreign language, as German was conquered
first by Latin and then by French. But " the tongues "
have always had the lion's share of attention in the school-
room, and though many have seen and Milton has said
that "our understanding cannot in this body found itself
112 RATICHIUS.
5. Nothing on compulsion.
but on sensible things," this truth is only now making its
way into the schoolroom. Hitherto the foundation has
hardly been laid before " the schoolmaster has stept in
and staid the building by confounding the language."*
Ratke's protest against this will always be put to his credit
in the history of education.
§ 15. V. Everything without constraint. "The young
should not be beaten to make them learn or for not having
learnt. It is compulsion and stripes that set young people
against studying. Boys are often beaten for not having
learnt, but they would have learnt had they been well
taught. The human understanding is so formed that it
has pleasure in receiving what it should retain : and this
pleasure you destroy by your harshness. Where the master
is skilful and judicious, the boys will take to him and to
their lessons. Folly lurks indeed in the heart of the child
and must be driven out with the rod; but not by the
teacher.^^
Here at least there is nothing original in Ratke's precept.
A goodly array of authorities have condemned learning
" upon compulsion." This array extends at least as far as
* Lectures aitd Essays: English in School, hy ]. R. Seeley, p. 222.
Elsewhere in the same lecture {p. 229) Professor Seeley says: "The
schoolmaster might set this right. Every boy that enters the school is
a talking creature. He is a performer, in his small degree, upon the
same instrument as Milton and Shakespeare. Only do not sacrifice
this advantage. Do not try by artificial and laborious processes to give
him a new knowledge before you have developed that which he has
already. Train and perfect the gift of speech, unfold all that is in it,
and you train at the same time the power of thought and the power of
intellectual sympathy, you enable your pupil to think the thoughts and
to delight in the words of great philosophers and poets." I wish this
lecture were published separately.
RATICHIUS. 113
6. Nothing to be learnt by heart.
from Plato to Bishop Dupanloup. "In the case of the
mind, no study pursued under compulsion remains rooted
in the memory," says Plato.* " Everything depends," says
Dupanloup, " on what the teacher induces his pupils to do
freely: for authority is not constraint — it ought to be
inseparable from respect and devotion. I will respect
human liberty in the smallest child." As far as I have
observed there is only one class of persons whom the
authorities from Plato to Dupanloup have failed to
convince, and that is the schoolmasters. This is the class
to which I have belonged, and I should not be prepared to
take Plato's counsel : " Bring up your boys in their studies
without constraint and in a playful manner." {lb.) At the
same time I see the importance of self-activity, and there is
no such thing as self-activity upon compulsion. You can
no more hurry thought with the cane than you can hurry a
snail with a pin. So without interest there can be no
proper learning. Interest must be aroused — even in Latin
Grammar. But if they could choose their own occupation,
the boys, however interested in their work, would probably
find something else more interesting still. We cannot get
on, and never shall, without the must.
§ 16. VI. Nothing may he learnt by heart.
It has always been a common mistake in the schoolroom
to confound the power of running along a sequence of
sounds with a mastery of the thought with which those
sounds should be connected. But, as I have remarked
elsewhere {supra, p. 74, note), the two things, though different,
are not opposed. Too much is likely to be made of learn-
ing by heart, for of the two things the pupils find it the
• R£p. bk. vii, 536, ad/. ; Davies and Vaughan, p. 264.
114 RATICHIUS.
7. Uniformity. 8. Ne modus rei ante rem.
easier, and the teacher the more easily tested. We may,
however, guard against the abuse without giving up the use.
i § 1 7- VII.* U7iiformity in all thi?igs.
Both in the way of learning, and in the books, and the
rules, a uniform method should be observed, says Ratke.
The right plan is for the learner to acquire familiar
knowledge of one subject or part of a subject, and then use
this for comparison when he learns beyond it. If the same
method of learning is adopted throughout, this will render
comparison more easy and more striking. f
§ 18. VIII. The thing itself should come first y then
whatever explains it.
To those who do not with closed eyes cling to the
method of their predecessors, this rule may seem founded
on common-sense. Would any one but a " teacher," or a
writer of school books, ever think of making children who
do not know a word of French, learn about the French
accents ? And yet what Ratke said 250 years ago has not
been disproved since : "Accidens rei priusquam rem ipsam
quaerere prorsus absonum et absurdum esse videtur,"
which I take to mean : " Before the learner has a notion
of the thing itself, it is folly to worry him about its accidents
or even its properties, essential or unessential. Ne modus
rei ante rem.X
• In Buisson {Didionnaire) No. 7 is "The children must have
frequent play, and a break after every lesson." Raumer connects this
with No. 6, and says: "breaks were rendered necessary by Ratke's
plan, which kept the learners far too silent."
+ In the matter of grammar Ratke's advice, so long disregarded, has
recently been followed in the "Parallel Grammar Series," published
by Messrs. Sonnenschem.
X The ordinary teaching of almost every subject offers illustrations of
RATICHIUS. 1 1 5
9. Per inductionem omnia.
This rule of Ratke's warns teachers against a very
common mistake. The subject is to them in full view,
and they make the most minute observations on it. But
these things cannot be seen by their pupils ; and even if the
beginner could see these minutiae, he would find in them
neither interest nor advantage. But when we apply Ratke's
principle more widely, we find ourselves involved in the
great question whether our method should be based on
synthesis or analysis, a question which Ratke's method did
not settle for us.
§ 19. IX. Everything by experience and examination
of the parts. Or as he states the rule in Latin : Ftr
inductionem et experimentum omnia.
Nothing was to be received on authority, and this
disciple of Bacon went beyond his master and took for his
motto : Vetustas cessit^ ratio vicit (" Age has yielded, reason
prevailed"); as if reason must be brand-new, and truth
might wax old and be ready to vanish away.
the neglect of this principle. Take, e.g.^ the way in which children are
usually taught to read. First, they have to say the alphabet — a very
easy task as it seems to us, but if we met with a strange word of
twenty-six syllables, and that not a compound word, but one of which
every syllable was new to us, we might have some difficulty in
remembering it. And yet such a word would be to us -what the
alphabet is to a child. When he can perform this feat, he is next
required to learn tlie visual symbols of the sounds and to connect these
with the vocal symbols. Some of the vocal symbols bring the child in
contact with the sound itself, but most are simply conventional. What
notion does the child get of the aspirate from the name of the letter h ?
Having learnt twenty-six visual and twenty-six vocal symbols, and
connected them together, the child finally comes to the sounds (over 40
in number) which the symbols are supposed to represent.
Il6 RATICHIUS.
R/s method for language.
§ 20. From these rules of his we see that Ratke did
much to formulate the main principles of Didactics. He
also deserves to be remembered among the methodizers
who have tackled the problem — how to teach a language.
At Kothen the instructor of the lowest class had to talk
with the children, and to take pains with their pronunciation.
When they knew their letters (Ickelsam.er's plan for reading
Ratke seems to have neglected) the teacher read the Book
of Genesis through to them, each chapter twice over, requir-
ing the children to follow with eye and finger. Then the
teacher began the chapter again, and read about four lines
only, which the children read after him. When the book had
been worked over in this way, the children were required to
read it through without assistance. Reading once secured,
the master proceeded to grammar. He explained, say, what
a substantive was, and then showed instances in Genesis,
and next required the children to point out others. In
this way the grammar was verified throughout from Genesis,
and the pupils were exercised in declining and conjugating
words taken from the Book.
When they advanced to the study of Latin, they were
given a translation of a play of Terence, and worked
over it several times before they were shown the Latin.
The master then translated the play to them, each half-
hour's work twice over. At the next reading, the master
translated the first half-hour, and the boys translated the
same piece the second. Having thus got through the play,
they began again, and only the boys translated. After this
there was a course of grammar, which was applied to the
Terence, as the grammar of the mother-tongue had been
to Genesis. Finally, the pupils were put through a course
of exercises, in which they had to turn into Latin sentences
RATICHIUS. 117
R.'s method and Ascham's.
r
imitated from the Terence, and differing from the original
only in the number or person used.
Raumer gives other particulars, and quotes largely from
the almost unreadable account of Kromayer, one of Ratke's
followers, in order that we may have, as he says, a notion of
the tediousness of the method. No doubt anyone who has
followed me hitherto, will consider that this point has been
b; ought out already with sufficient distinctness.
§ 21, When we compare Ratke's method with Ascham's,
we find several points of agreement. Ratke would begin
the study of a language by taking a model book, and work-
ing through it with the pupil a great many times. Ascham
did the same. Each lecture according to his plan would
be gone over " a dozen times at the least." Both construed
to the pupil instead of requiring him to make out the sense
for himself. Both Ratke and Ascham taught grammar not
by itself, but in connection with the model book.
But the points of difference are still more striking. In
one respect Ratke's plan was weak. It gave the pupils
little to do, and made no use of the pen. Ascham's was
better in this and also as a training in accuracy. Ascham
was, as I have pointed out, a ** complete retainer." Ratke
was a "rapid impressionist." His system was a good deal
like that which had great vogue in the early part of this
century as the " Hamiltonian System." From the first the
language was to be laid on " very thick," in the belief that
" some of it was sure to stick." The impressions would be
slight, and there would at first be much confusion between
words which had a superficial resemblance, but accuracy
it was thought would come in time.
§ 22. The contest between the two schools of thought
of which Ascham and Ratke may be taken as representatives
1 1 8 RATICHIUS.
Slow progress in methods.
has continued till now, and within the last few years both
parties have made great advances in method. But in
nothing does progress seem slower than in education ; and
the plan of grammar-teaching in vogue fifty years ago was
inferior to the methods advocated by the old writers.*
* See Mr. E. E. Bowen's vigorous essay on *' Teaching by means of
Grammar," in Essays on a Liberal Education^ 1867.
I have returned to the subject of language-learning in § 15 of Jacotot
in the nou. See page 426.
A
COMENIUS.
(1592-1671).
§ I. One of the most hopeful signs of the improvement
of education is the rapid advance in the last thirty years of
the fame of Comenius, and the growth of a large literature
about the man and his ideas. Twenty-three years ago, when
I first became interested in him, his name was hardly known
beyond Germany, In English there was indeed an ex-
cellent life of him prefixed to a translation of his School of
Infancy; but this work, by Daniel Benham (London, 1858),
had not then, and has not now, anything like the circulation it
deserves. A much more successful book has been Professor
S. S. Laurie's John Amos Comenius (Cambridge University
Press), and this is known to most, and should be to all,
English students of education. By the Germans and
French Comenius is now recognised as the man who first
treated education in a scientific spirit, and who bequeathed
the rudiments of a science to later ages. On this account
the great library of pedagogy at Leipzig has been named in
his honour the " Comenius Stiftung."
§ 2. John Amos Komensky or Comenius, the son of a
miller, who belonged to the Moravian Brethren, was born,
120 COMENIUS.
Early years. His first book.
at the Moravian village of Niwnic, in 1592. Of his early
life we know nothing but what he himself tells us in the
following passage : — " Losing both my parents while I was
yet a child, I began, through the neglect of my guardians,
but at sixteen years of age to taste of the Latin tongue.
Yet by the goodness of God, that taste bred such a thirst
in me, that I ceased not from that time, by all means and
endeavours, to latour for the repainng of my lost years;
and now not only for myself, but for the good of others
also. For I could not but pity others also in this respect,
especially in my own nation, which is too slothful and
careless in matter of learning. Thereupon I was continually
full of thoughts for the finding out of some means whereby
more might be inflamed with the love of learning, and
whereby learning itself might be made more compendious,
both in matter of the charge and cost, and of the labour
belonging thereto, that so the youth might be brought by
a more easy method, unto some notable proficiency in
learning."* With these thoughts in his head, he pursued
his studies in several German towns, especially at Herborn
in Nassau. Here he saw the Report on Ratke's method
published in 161 2 for the Universities of Jena and Giessen;
and we find him shortly afterwards writing his first book,
GratnmaticcB facilioris Prcecepta, which was published at
Prag in 1616. On his return to Moravia, he was appointed
to the Brethren's school at Prerau, but (to use his own
words) " being shortly after at the age of twenty-four called
to the service of the Church, because that divine function
challenged all my endeavours (divinumque HOC AGE prae
Preface to the Prodromtu,
COMENIUS. 121
Troubles. Exile.
I
oculis erat) these scholastic cares were laid aside.* His
pastoral charge was at Fulneck, the headquarters of the
Brethren. As such it soon felt the effects of the Battle of
Prag, being in the following year (1621) taken and
plundered by the Spaniards. On this occasion Comenius
lost his MSS. and almost everything he possessed. The
year after his wife died, and then his only child. In 1624
all Protestant ministers were banished, and in 1627 a new
decree extended the banishment to Protestants of every
description. Comenius bore up against wave after wave
of calamity with Christian courage and resignation, and
his writings at this period were of great value to his fellow-
sufferers.
§ 3. For a time he found a hiding-place in the family
of a Bohemian nobleman, Baron Sadowsky, at Slaupna, in
the Bohemian mountains, and in this retirement, his atten-
tion was again directed to the science of teaching. The
Baron had engaged Stadius, one of the proscribed, to
educate his three sons, and, at Stadius' request, Comenius
wrote " some canons of a better method," for his use. We
find him, too, endeavouring to enrich the hterature of his
mother-tongue, making a metrical translation of the Psalms
of David, and even writing imitations of Virgil, Ovid, and
Cato's Disiichs.
In 1627, however, the persecution waxed so hot, that
Comenius, with most of the Brethren, had to flee their
country, never to return. On crossing the border, Comenius
and the exiles who accompanied him knelt down, and
* Preface to Prodromus, first edition, p. 40; second edition (1639),
p. 78. The above is Hartlib's translation, see A Reformation of
Schools, ^c.y pp. 46, 47.
122 COMENIUS.
Pedagogic studies at Leszna.
prayed that God would not suffer His truth to fail out of
their native land.
§ 4, Comenius had now, as Michelet says, lost his country
and found his country, which was the world. Many of the
banished, and Comenius among them, settled at the Polish
town of Leszna, or, as the Germans call it, Lissa, near the
Silesian frontier. Here there was an old-established school
of the Brethren, in which Comenius found employment.
Once more engaged in education, he earnestly set about
improving the traditional methods. As he himself says,*
"Being by God's permission banished my country with
divers others, and forced for my sustenance to apply myself
to the instruction of youth, I gave my mind to the perusal of
divers authors, and lighted upon many which in this age have
made a beginning in reforming the method of studies, as
Ratichius, Helvicus, Rhenius, Ritterus, Glaumius, Caecilius,
and who indeed should have had the first place, Joannes
Valentinus Andreas, a man of a nimble and clear brain ;
as also Campanella and the Lord Verulam, those famous
restorers of philosophy ; — by reading of whom I was raised
in good hope, that at last those so many various sparks
would conspire into a flame ; yet observing here and there
some defects and gaps as it were, I could not contain
myself from attempting something that might rest upon an
immovable foundation, and which, if it could be once found
out, should not be subject to any ruin. Therefore, after
many workings and tossings of my thoughts, by reducing
everything to the immovable laws of Nature, I lighted upon
• Preface to Prodromus, first edition, p. 40 ; second edition, p. 79.
A Reformation f dr'r., p. 47.
COMENIUS. 123
Didactic written. Janua published. Pansophy.
my Didactica Magna, which shows the art of readily and
soHdly teaching all men all things." ^..
§ 5. This work did not immediately see the light, but
in 1 63 1 Comenius published a book which made him and
the little Polish town where he lived known throughout
Europe and beyond it. This was the Janua Linguarutn
Reseraia, or " Gate of Tongues unlocked." Writing about
it many years afterwards he says that he never could have
imagined that that little work, fitted only for children {puerile
istud opusculmn), would have been received with applause
by all the learned world. Letters of congratulation came
to him from every quarter ; and the work was translated
not only into Greek, Bohemian, Polish, Swedish, Belgian,
English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, but also into
Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and even " Mongolian, which is
-familiar to all the East Indies." (Dedication of Schola
Ludus in vol. i. of collected works.)
§ 6. Incited by the applause of the learned, Comenius
now planned a scheme of universal knowledge, to impart
which a series of works would have to be written, far
exceeding what the resources and industry of one man,
however great a scholar, could produce. He therefore
looked about for a patron to supply money for the support
of himself and his assistants, whilst these works were in
progress. "The vastness of the labours I contemplate,"
he writes to a Polish nobleman, " demands that I should
have a wealthy patron, whether we look at their extent, or
at the necessity of securing assistants, or at the expenses
generally."
§ 7. At Leszna there seemed no prospect of his ob-
taining the aid he required ; but his fame now procured him
invitations from distant countries. First he received a call
124 COMENIUS.
Samuel Hartlib.
to improve the schools of Sweden. After dedining this
he was induced by his English friends to undertake a
journey to London, where Parliament had shown its interest
in the matter of education, and had employed Hartlib,* an
enthusiastic admirer of Comenius, to attempt a reform.
Probably through his family connections, Hartlib was on
intimate terms with Comenius, and he had much influence
* Very interesting are the " immeasurable labours and intellectual
efforts" of Master Samuel Hartlib, whom Milton addresses as " a person
sent hither by some good providence from a far country, to be the
occasion and incitement of great good to this island." {Of Education^
A.D. 1644.) See Masson'sZ^ of Milton^ vol. iii ; also biographical and
bibliographical account of Hartlib by H. Dircks, 1865. Hartlib's
mother was English. His father, when driven out of Poland by triumph
of the Jesuits, settled at Elbing, where there was an English " Company of
Merchants " with John Dury for their chaplain. Hartlib came to
England not later than 1628, and devoted himself to the furtherance of a
variety of schemes for the public good. He was one of those rare
beings who labour to promote the schemes of others as if they were their
own. He could, as he says, " contribute but little " himself, but "being
carried forth to watch for the opportunities of provoking others, who
can do more, to improve their talents, I have found experimentally that
my endeavours have not been without effect. " (Quoted by Dircks, p.
66. ) The philosophy of Bacon seemed to have introduced an age of
boundless improvement ; and men like Comenius, Hartlib, Petty, and
Dury, caught the first unchecked enthusiasm. " There is scarce one
day," so Hartlib wrote to Robert Boyle, " and one hour of the day or
night, being brim full with all manner of objects of the most public and
universal nature, but my soul is crying out * Phosphore redde diem I
Quid gaudia nostra moraris? Phosphore redde diem !'"
But in this world Hartlib looked in vain for the day. The income of
;^300 a year allowed him by Parliament was ;i^700 in arrears at the
Restoration, and he had then nothing to hope. His last years were
attended by much physical suffering and by extreme poverty. He died
as Evelyn thought at Oxford in 1662, but this is uncertain.
COMENIUS. 125
The Prodromus and Dilucidatio.
on his career. It would seem that Comenius, though
never tired of forming magnificent schemes, hung back from
putting anything into a definite shape. After the appear-
ance oiiYiQ/anua Linguarum Reserata, he planned 2i/anua
Rerum, and even allowed that title to appear in " the list
of new books to come forth at the next Mart at Frankford."*
But again he hesitated, and withdrew the announcement.
Here Hartlib came in, and forced him into print without
his intending or even knowing it (" praeter meam spem et
me inconsulto "; preface to Conatuum Pansophicorum
Dilucidatio^ 1638). Hartlib begged of Comenius a sketch
of his great scheme, and with apologies to the author for
not awaiting his consent, he pubUshed it at Oxford in 1637,
under the title of Conatuitm Comenianorum Prceludia,
Comenius accepted th^ fait accompli with the best grace he
could — pleased at the stir the book made in the learned
world, but galled by criticisms, especially by doubts of his
orthodoxy. To refute the cavillers, he wrote a tract called
Conatuum Pansophicoruf?t Dilucidatio which was published
in 1638. In 1639 Hartlib issued in London a new duo-
decimo edition of the Prc^ludia (or as he ther^ called it,
Prodromus) and the Dilucidatio^ adding a dissertation by
Comenius on the study of Latin. Now, when everything
seemed ripe for a change in education, and Comenius
himself was on his way to England, Hartlib translated the
Prodromus^ and when Comenius had come he published it
with the title, A Reformation of Schools^ i642.t
§ 8. It was no doubt by Hartlib's influence that
• Dilttcidatw, Hartlib's trans., p. 65,
+ The Dihiddation, as he calls it, is added. All the books above
mentioned are in the Library of the British Museum under Konunsky,
IX
126 COMENIUS.
C. in London. Parliamentary schemes.
Parliament had been led to summon Comenius, and at any
other time the visit might have been " the occasion of great
good to this island," but inter arma silent magistri^ and
Comenius went away again. This is the account he himself
has left us : —
" When seriously proposing to abandon the thorny studies
of Didactics, and pass on to the pleasing studies of philo-
sophical truth, I find myself again among the same thorns.
. . . After the Pansophics Prodromus had been published
and dispersed through various kingdoms of Europe, many
of the learned approved of the object and plan of the work,
but despaired of its ever being accomplished by one man
alone, and therefore advised that a college of learned men
should be instituted to carry it into effect. Mr. S. Hartlib,
who had forwarded the publication of the PansophicB Pro-
dromus in England, laboured earnestly in this matter, and
endeavoured, by every possible means, to bring together for
this purpose a number of men of intellectual activity. And
at length, having found one or two, he invited me also, with
many very strong entreaties. My people having consented
to the journey, I came to London on the very day of the
autumnal equinox (September 22, 1641), and there at
last learnt that I had been invited by the order of the
Parliament But as the Parliament, the King having then
gone to Scotland [August 10], was dismissed for a three
months' recess [not quite three months, but from September
9 to October 20], I was detained there through the
winter, my friends mustering what pansophic apparatus they
could, though it was but slender. , . . The Parliament
meanwhile, having re-assembled, and our presence being
known, I had orders to wait until they should have sufficient
leisure from other business to appoint a Commission of
COMENIUS. 127
C. driven away by Civil Wan
learned and wise men from their body for hearing us and
considering the grounds of our design. They communicated
also beforehand their thoughts of assigning to us some
college with its revenues, whereby a certain number of
learned and industrious men called from all nations might
be honourably maintained, either for a term of years or in
perpetuity. There was even named for the purpose The
Savoy in London ; Winchester College out of London was
named; and again nearer the city, Chelsea College^ inven-
tories of which and of its revenues were communicated to
us, so that nothing seemed more certain than that the
design of the great Verulam, concerning the opening some-
where of a Universal College, devoted to the advancement
of the Sciences could be carried out. But the rumour of
the Insurrection in Ireland, and of the massacre in one
night of more than 200,000 English [October, November],
and the sudden departure of the King from London
[January 10, 1641-2], and the plentiful signs of the bloody
war about to break out disturbed these plans, and obliged
me to hasten my return to my own people."*
§ 9. While Comenius was in England, where he stayed
till August, 1642, he received an invitation to France.
This invitation, which he did not accept, came perhaps
through his correspondent Mersenne, a man of great learning,
who is said to have been highly esteemed and often con-
sulted by Descartes. It is characteristic of the state of
opinion in such matters in those days, that Mersenne tells
Comenius of a certain Le Maire, by whose method a boy
of six years old, might, with nine months' instruction,
acquire a perfect knowledge of three languages. Mersenne
* Masson's Milton, vol. iii, p. 224, Prof. Masson is quoting Opera
Didactica. torn, ii, Introd.
128 COMENIUS.
In Sweden. Interviews with Oxenstiern.
also had dreams of a universal alphabet, and even of a
universal language.
§ lo. Comenius' hopes of assistance in England being
at an end, he thought of returning to Leszna ; but a letter
now reached him from a rich Dutch merchant, Lewis de
Geer, who offered him a home and means for carrying out
his plans. This Lewis de Geer, " the Grand Almoner of
Europe," as Comenius calls him, displayed a princely
munificence in the assistance he gave the exiled Protestants.
At this time he was living at Nordcoping in Sweden.
Comenius having now found such a patron as he was
seeking, set out from England and joined him there.
§ II. Soon after the arrival of Comenius in Sweden,
the great Oxenstiern sent for him to Stockholm, and with
John Skyte, the Chancellor of Upsal University, examined
him and his system. "These two," as Comenius says,
"exercised me in colloquy for four days, and chiefly
the most illustrious Oxenstiern, that eagle of the North
(Aquila Aquilonius). He inquired into the foundations of
both my schemes, the Didactic and the Pansophic, so
searchingly, that it was unlike anything that had been done
before by any of my learned critics. In the first two days
he examined the Didactics, and finally said: 'From an
early age I perceived that our Method of Studies generally
in use is a harsh and crude one {violentum quiddam\ but
where the thing stuck I could not find out. At length,
having been sent by my King of glorious memory [/>., by
Gustavus Adolphus], as ambassador into Germany, I con-
versed on the subject with various learned men. And
when I had heard that Wolfgang Ratichius was toiling at
an amended Method I had no rest of mind till I had him
before me, but instead of talking on the subject, he put
COMENIUS. 129
Oxenstiern criticises.
into my hands a big quarto volume. I swallowed this
trouble, and having turned over the whole book, I saw that
he had detected well enough the maladies of oar schools,
but the remedies he proposed did not seem to me sufficient.
Yours, Mr. Comenius, rest on firmer foundations. Go on
with the work.' I answered that I had done all I could in
those matters, and must now go on to others. ' I know,'
said he, ' that you are toiling at greater affairs, for I have
read your Prodromus Pansophm, That we will discuss
to-morrow, I must now to public business.' Next day he
began on my Pansophic attempts, and examined them with
still greater severity. * Are you a man,' he asked, * who
can bear contradiction?' *I can,' said I, *and for that
reason my Prodroinus or preliminary sketch was sent out
first (not indeed that I sent it out myself, this was done by
friends), that it might meet with criticism. And if we seek
the criticism of all and sundry, how much more from men
of mature wisdom and heroic reason?' He began accor-
dingly to discourse against the hope of a better state of
things arising from a rightly instituted study of Pansophia ;
first, objecting political reasons, then what was said in
Scripture about * the last times.' All which objections I
so answered that he ended with these words : * Into no
one's mind do I think such things have come before.
Stand upon these grounds of yours ; so shall we some time
come to agreement, or there will be no way left. My advice,
however,' added he, ' is that you first do something for the
schools, and bring the study of the Latin tongue to a greater
facility ; thus you will prepare the way for those greater
matters.' " As Skyte and afterwards De Geer gave the same
advice, Comenius felt himself constrained to follow it; so he
agreed to settle at Elbing, in Prussia, and there write a work
130 COMENIUS.
Comenius at Elbing.
on teaching, in which the principles of the Didadica Magna
should be worked out with especial reference to teaching
languages. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of his
English friends, to which Comenius would gladly have
listened, he was kept by Oxenstiern and De Geer strictly to
his agreement, and thus, much against his will, he was held
fast for eight years in what he calls the " miry entanglements
of logomachy."
§ 12. Elbing, where, after a journey to Leszna to fetch
his family (for he had married again), Comenius now
settled, is in West Prussia, thirty-six miles south-east of
Dantzic. From 1577 to 1660 an English trading company
was settled here, with which the family of Hartlib was
connected. This perhaps was one reason why Comenius
chose this town for his residence. But although he had
a grant of £,2po a year from Parliament, Hartlib, instead
of assisting with money, seems at this time to have himself
needed assistance, for in October, 1642, Comenius writes
to De Geer that he fears Fundanius and Hartlib are suffer-
ing from want, and that he intends for them ;£'2oo promised
by the London booksellers ; he suggests that De Geer shall
give them ;^3o each meanwhile. (Benham, p. 63.)
§ 13. The relation between Comenius and his patron
naturally proved a difficult one. The Dutchman thought
that as he supported Comenius, and contributed something
more for the assistants, he might expect of Comenius that
he would devote all his time to the scholastic treatise he
had undertaken. Comenius, however, was a man of
immense energy and of widely extended sympathies and
connections. He was a " Bishop " of the religious body to
which he belonged, and in this capacity he engaged in con-
troversy, and attended some religious conferences. Then
COMENIUS. 131
At Leszna again.
again, pupils were pressed upon him, and as money to pay
five writers whom he kept at work was always running short,
he did not decline them. De Geer complained of this, and
supplies were not furnished with wonted regularity. In
1647 Comenius writes to Hartlib that he is almost over-
whelmed with cares, and sick to death of writing begging-
letters. Yet in this year he found means to publish a book
On the Causes of this {i.e., the Thirty Years) War, in
which the Roman Catholics are attacked with great bitter-
ness— a bitterness for which the position of the writer affords
too good an excuse.
§ 14. The year 1648 brought with it the downfall of all
Comenius' hopes of returning to his native land. The
Peace of Westphalia was concluded without any provision
being made for the restoration of the exiles. But though
thus doomed to pass the remaining years of his life in
banishment, Comenius, in this year, seemed to have found
an escape from all his pecuniary difficulties. The Senior
Bishop, the head of the Moravian Brethren, died, and
Comenius was chosen to succeed him. In consequence
of this, Comenius returned to Leszna, where due provision
was made for him by the Brethren. Before he left Elbing,
however, the fruit of his residence there, the Methodus
Linguarum Novissima, had been submitted to a commission
of learned Swedes, and approved of by them. The MS.
went with him to Leszna, where it was published.
§ 15. As head of the Moravian Church, there now de-
volved upon Comenius the care of all the exiles, and his
widespread reputation enabled him to get situations for
many of them in all Protestant countries. But he was
now so much connected with the science of education, that
even his post at Leszna did not prevent his receiving and
132 COMENIUS.
Saros-Patak. Flight from Leszna.
accepting a call to reform the schools in Transylvania. A
model school was formed at Saros-Patak, where there was
a settlement of the banished Brethren, and in this school
Comenius laboured from 1650 till 1654. At this time he
wrote his most celebrated book, which is indeed only an
abridgment of his Janua with the important addition of
pictures, and sent it to Niirnberg, where it appeared three
years later (1657). This was the famous Orbis Fictus. ^
§ 16. Full of trouble as Comenius' life had hitherto
been, its greatest calamity was still before him. After he
was again settled at Leszna, Poland was invaded by the
Swedes, on which occasion the sympathies of the Brethren
were with their fellow-Protestants, and Comenius was
imprudent enough to write a congratulatory address to
the Swedish King. A peace followed, by the terms of
which, several towns, and Leszna among them, were made
over to Sweden; but when the King withdrew, the Poles
took up arms again, and Leszna, the headquarters of the
Protestants, the town in which the chief of the Moravian
Brethren had written his address welcoming the enemy,
was taken and plundered.
Comenius and his family escaped, but his house was
marked for special violence, and nothing was preserved.
His sole remaining possessions were the clothes in which
he and his family travelled. All his books and manuscripts
were burnt, among them his valued work on Pansophia,
and a Latin-Bohemian and Bohemian-Latin Dictionary,
giving words, phrases, idioms, adages, and aphorisms — a
book on which he had been labouring for forty years.
" This loss," he writes, -" I shall cease to lament only wlien
I cease to breathe."
§ 17. After wandering for some time about Germany,
^
COMENIUS. 133
Last years at Amsterdam.
and being prostrated by fever at Hamburg, he at length
came to Amsterdam, where Lawrence De Geer, the son
of his deceased patron, gave him an asylum. Here were
spent the remaining years of his life in ease and dignity.
Compassion for his misfortunes was united with veneration
for his learning and piety. He earned a sufficient income
by giving instruction in the families of the wealthy ; and by
the liberality of De Geer he was enabled to publish a
fine foHo edition of all his writings on Education (1657).
His political works, however, were to the last a source of
trouble to him. His hostility to the Pope and the House
of Hapsburg made him the dupe of certain ** prophets"
whose soothsayings he published as Lux in Tenebris,
One of these prophets, who had announced that the Turk
was to take Vienna, was executed at Pressburg, and the
Lux in Tenebris at the same time burnt by the hangman.
Before the news of this disgrace reached Amsterdam,
Comenius was no more. He died in the year 1671, at the
advanced age of eighty, and with him terminated the office
of Chief Bishop among the Moravian Brethren.
§ 18. His long hfe had been full of trouble, and he saw
little of the improvements he so earnestly desired and
laboured after, but he continued the struggle hopefully to
the end. In his seventy-seventh year he wrote these
memorable words : " I thank God that I have all my life
been a man of aspirations. . . . For the longing after good,
however it spring up in the heart, is always a rill flowing
from the Fountain of all good — from God."* Labouring in
• Unum Necessarium, quoted by Raumer.
Compare George Eliot : " By desiring what is perfectly good, even
when we don't quite know what it is, and cannot do what we would, we
134 COMENIUS.
Comenius sought true foundation.
this spirit he did not toil in vain, and the historians of
education have agreed in ranking him among the most
influential as well as the most noble-minded of the Re-
formers.
§ 19. Before Comenius, no one had brought the mind
of a philosopher to bear practically on the subject of
education. Montaigne and Bacon had advanced principles,
leaving others to see to their application. A few able school-
masters, Ascham, e,g.^ had investigated new methods, but
had made success in teaching the test to which they
appealed, rather than any abstract principle. Comenius
was at once a philosopher who had learnt of Bacon, and
a schoolmaster who had earned his livelihood by teaching
the rudiments. Dissatisfied with the state of education as
he found it, he sought for a better system by an examination
of the laws of Nature. Whatever is thus established is
indeed on an immovable foundation, and, as Comenius
himself says, " not liable to any ruin." It will hardly be
disputed, when broadly stated, that there are laws of
Nature which must be obeyed in dealing with the mind,
as with the body. No doubt these laws are not so easily
established in the first case as in the second, nor can we
find them without much "groping" and some mistakes;
but whoever in any way assists or even tries to assist hi
the discovery, deserves our gratitude; and greatly are
are part of the Divine power against evil— widening the skirts of light and
making the struggle with darkness narrower. " — Middlemarchf bk, iv,
p. 308 of first edition.
COMENIUS. 135
Threefold life. Seeds of learning, virtue, piety.
we indebted to him who first boldly set about the task, and
devoted to it years of patient labour.
§ 20. Comenius has left voluminous Latin writings.
Professor Laurie gives us the titles of the books connected with
education, and they are in number forty-two : so there must
be much repetition and indeed retractation; for Comenius
was always learning, and one of his last books was Ventilabrum
Sapientice^ sive sapienter sua retradandi Ars — i.e.^ " Wisdom's
Winnowing-machine, or the Art of wisely withdrawing one's
own assertions." We owe much to Professor Laurie, who
has served as a ventilabru7n and left us a succinct and clear
account of the Reformer's teaching. I have read little of
the writings of Comenius except the German translation of
the " Great Didactic," from which the following is taken.
§ 21. We live, says Comenius, a threefold life — a
vegetative, an animal, and an intellectual or spiritual. Of
these, the first is perfect in the womb, the last in heaven.
He is happy who comes with healthy body into the world,
much more he who goes with healthy spirit out of it.
According to the heavenly idea, man should (i) know all
things ; (2) should be master of all things, and of himself;
(3) should refer everything to God. So that within us
Nature has implanted the seeds of (i) learning, (2) virtue,
and (3) piety. To bring these seeds to maturity is the
object of education. All men require education, and God
has made children unfit for other employments that they
may have leisure to learn.
§ 22. But schools have failed, and instead of keeping
to the true object of education, and teaching the foundations,
relations, and intentions of all the most important things,
they have neglected even the mother tongue, a'nd confined
the teaching to Latin; and yet that has been so badly
136 COMENIUS.
Omnia sponte fluant. Analogies.
taught, and so much time has been wasted over granmiar
rules and dictionaries, that from ten to twenty years are
spent in acquiring as much knowledge of Latin as is
speedily acquired of any modern tongue.
§ 23. The cause of this want of success is that the
system does not follow Nature. Everything natural goes
smoothly and easily. There must therefore be no pressure.
Learning should come to children as swimming to fish,
flying to birds, running to animals. As Aristotle says, the
desire of knowledge is implanted in man : and the mind
grows as the body does — by taking proper nourishment,
not by being stretched on the rack.
§ 24. If we would ascertain how teaching and learning
are to have good results, we must look to the known
processes of Nature and Art. A man sows seed, and it
comes up he knows not how, but in sowing it he must
attend to the requirements of Nature. Let us then look to
Nature to find out how knowledge takes root in young
minds. We find that Nature waits for the fit time. Then,
too, she has prepared the material before she gives it form.
In our teaching we constantly run counter to these prin-
ciples of hers. We give instruction before the young minds
are ready to receive it. We give the form before the
material. Words are taught before the things to which
they refer. When a foreign tongue is to be taught, we
commonly give the form, /.<?., the grammatical rules, before
we give the material, i.e., the language, to which the rules
apply. We should begin with an author, or properly
prepared translation-book, and abstract rules should never
come before the examples.
§ 25. Again, Nature begins each of her works with its
inmost part. Moreover, the crude form comes first, then
COMENIUS. 137
Analogies of growth.
the elaboration of the parts. The architect, acting on this
principle, first makes a rough plan or model, and then by
degrees designs the details; last of all he attends to the
ornamentation. In teaching, then, let the inmost part,
i.e.^ the understanding of the subject, come first; then let
the thing understood be used to exercise the memory, the
speech, and the hands; and let every language, science,
and art be taught first in its rudimentary outline; then
more completely with examples and rules ; finally, with
exceptions and anomalies. Instead of this, some teachers
are foolish enough to require beginners to get up all the
anomalies in Latin Grammar, and the dialects in Greek.
§ 26. Again, as Nature does nothing per saliinn, nor
halts when she has begun, the whole course of studies
should be arranged in strict order, so that the earlier
studies prepare the way for the later. Every year, every
month, every day and hour even, should have its task
marked out beforehand, and the plan should be rigidly
carried out. Much loss is occasioned by absence of boys
from school, and by changes in the instruction. Iron that
might be wrought with one heatmg should not be allowed
to get cold, and be heated over and over again.
§ 27. Nature protects her work from injurious influences,
so boys should be kept from injurious companionships and
books.
§ 28, In a chapter devoted to the principles of easy
teaching, Comenius lays down, among rules similar to the
foregoing, that children will learn if they are taught only
what they have a desire to learn, with due regard to their
age and the method of instruction, and especially when
everything is first taught by means of the senses. On this
point Comenius laid great stress, and he was the first who
138 COMENIUS.
I
Senses. Foster desire of knowledge.
did so. Education should proceed, he said, in the follow-
ing order : first, educate the senses, then tjie memory, then
the intellect; last of all the critical faculty. This is the
order of Nature. The child first perceives through the
senses. " NUiil est in iniellectu quod non prius fuerit in
sensu. Everything in the intellect must have come through
the senses." These perceptions are stored in the memory,
and called up by the imagination.* By comparing one
with another, the understanding forms general ideas, and
at length the judgment decides between the false and the
true. By keeping to this order, Comenius believed it
would be possible to make learning entirely pleasant to the
pupils, however young. Here Comenius went even further
than the Jesuits. They wished to make learning pleasant,
but despaired of doing this except by external influences,
emulation and the like. Comenius did not neglect external
means to make the road to learning agreeable. Like the
Jesuits, he would have short school-hours, and would make
great use of praise and blame, but he did not depend, as
they did almost exclusively, on emulation. He would have
the desire of learning fostered in every possible way — by
parents, by teachers, by school buildings and apparatus, by
the subjects themselves, by the method of teaching them,
^:i5^ and lastly, by the public authorities, (il The parents
must praise learning and learned men, must show children
beautiful books, &c., must treat the teachers with great
respect. (2Xjrhe teacher must be kind and fatherly, he
must distribute praise and reward, and must always, where
it is possible, give the children something to look at. (3)
The school buildings must be light, airy, and cheerful, a:
r
Compare Mulcaster, supra^ p. 94.
COMENIUS. 139
No punishments. Words and things together.
well furnished with apparatus, as pictures, maps, models,
collections of specimens. (4) The subjects taught must
not be too hard for the learrler's comprehension, and the
more entertaining parts of them must be especially dwelt
upon. (5) The method must be natural, and everything
that is neft essential to the subject or is beyond the pupil
must be omitted. Fables and allegories should be intro-
duced, and enigmas given for the pupils to guess. (6)
The authorities must appoint public examinations and
reward merit.
§ 29. Nature helps herself in various ways, so the
pupils should have every assistance given them. It should
especially be made clear what the pupils are to learn, and
how they should learn it.
§ 30. The pupils should be punished for offences
against morals only. If they do not learn, the fault is with
the teacher.
§ 31. One of Comenius's most distinctive principles
was that there should no longer be ^^ infelix divortium
rerum et verborum^ the wretched divorce of words from
things" (the phrase, I think, is Campanella's), but that
knowledge of things and words should go together. This,
together with his desire of submitting everything to the
pupil's senses, would have introduced a great change into
the course of instruction, which was then, as it has for the
most part continued, purely Hterary. We should learn, says
Comenius, as much as possible, not from books, but from
the great book of Nature, from heaven and earth, from oaks
and beeches.
§ 32. When languages are to be learnt, he would have
them taught separately. Till the pupil is from eight to ten
years old, he should be instructed only in the mother-
140 COMENIUS.
Languages. System of schools.
tongue, and about things. Then other languages can be
acquired in about a year each; Latin (which is to be
studied more thoroughly) in about two years. Every
language must be learnt by use rather than by rules, i.e., it
must be learnt by hearing, reading and re-reading, tran-
scribing, attempting imitations in writing and orally, and
by using the language in conversation. Rules assist and
confirm practice, but they must come after, not before it.
The first exercises in a language should take for their
subject something of which the sense is already known, so
that the mind may be fixed on the words and their connec-
tions.* The Catechism and Bible History may be used for
this purpose.
§ ZZ' Considering the classical authors not suited to
boys' understanding, and not fit for the education of
Christians, Comenius proposed writing a set of Latin
manuals for the different stages between childhood and
manhood : these were to be called " Vestibulum," " Janua,"
" Palatium" or "Atrium," "Thesaurus." The " Vestibulum/*
" Janua," and "Atrium " were really carried out.
§ 34. In Comenius's scheme there were to be four
kinds of schools for a perfect educational course:— ist,
the mother's breast for infancy ; 2nd, the public vernacular
school for children, to which all should be sent from six
years old till twelve ; 3rd, the Latin school or Gymnasium ;
4th, residence at a University and travelling, to complete
the course. The public schools were to be for all classes
alike, and for girlsf as well as boys.
• Comenius here follows Ratke, who, as I have mentioned above
(p. 116), required beginners to study the translation before the original,
t Professor Masson {Life of Milton, vol. iii, p. 205, note) gives us the
following from chap, ix (cols. 42-44), of the Didactica Ma^tia :—
COMENIUS. 141
Mother-tongue School. Girls.
§ 35. Most boys and girls in every community would
stop at the vernacular school ; and as this school is a very
distinctive feature in Comenius's plan, it may be worth while
to give his programme of studies. In this school the children
should learn — ist^ to read and write the mother-tongue
well^ both with writing and printing letters; ^jid, to com-
pose grammatically; 3rd, to cipher; 4th, to measure and
weigh ; 5th, to sing, at first popular airs, then from music ;
6th, to say by heart, sacred psalms and hymns ; ^jiiy Cate-
chism, Bible History, and texts ; 8th^ moral rules, with
examples ; Qth^ economics and pohtics, as far as they could
be understood; loth, general history of the world; nth.
"Nor, to say something particularly on this subject, can any
sufficient reason be given why the weaker sex [seguior sexus, literally
the later or following sex, is his phrase, borrowed from Apuleius, and,
though the phrase is usually translated the inferior sex, it seems to have
been chosen by Comenius to avoid that implication] should be wholly
shut out from liberal studies whether in the native tongue or in Latin.
For equally are they God's image ; equally are they partakers of grace,
and of the Kingdom to come ; equally are they furnished with minds
agile and capable of wisdom, yea, often beyond our sex ; equally to
them is there a possibility of attaining high distinction, inasmuch as they
have often been employed by God Himself tor the government of peoples,
the bestowing of wholesome counsels on Kings and Princes, the science
of medicine and other things useful to the human race, nay even the
prophetical office, and the rattling reprimand of Priests and Bishops
[etiam ad propheticum munus, et increpandos Sacerdotes Episcoposque,
are the words ; and as the treatise was prepared for the press in 1638
one detects a reference, by the Moravian Brother in Poland to the
recent fame of Jenny Geddes, of Scotland]. Why then should we
admit them to the alphabet, but afterwards debar them from books?
Do we fear their rashness ? The more we occupy their thoughts, the
less room will there be in them for rashness, which springs generally
from vacuity of mind."
12
142 COMENIUS.
School teaching. Mother's teaching.
figure of the earth and motion of stars, &c., physics and
geography, especially of native land; i2t^, general know-
ledge of arts and handicrafts.
§ 36. Each school was to be divided into six classes,
corresponding to the six years the pupil should spend in it.
The hours of work were to be, in school, two hours in the
morning and two in the afternoon, with nearly the same
amount of private study. In the morning the mind and
memory were to be exercised, in the afternoon the hands
and voice. Each class was to have its proper lesson-book
written expressly for it, so as to contain everything that
class had to learn. When a lesson was to be got by heart
from the book, the teacher was first to read it to the class,
explain it, and re-read it ; the boys then to read it aloud by
turns till one of them offered to repeat it without book;
the others were to do the same as soon as they were able,
till all had repeated it. This lesson was then to be worked
over again as a writing lesson, &c. In the higher forms of
the vernacular school a modern language was to be taught
and duly practised.
§ 37. Here we see a regular school course projected
which differed essentially from the only complete school
course still earlier, that of the Jesuits. In education
Comenius was immeasurably in advance of Loyola and
Aquaviva. Like the great thinkers, Pestalozzi and Froebel,
who most resemble him, he thought of the development of
the child from its birth ; and in a singularly wise little book,
called Schola materni gremiiy or " School of the Mother^s
Breast," he has given advice for bringing up children to the
age of six.*
* Translated by Daniel Benham as The School of Infancy. London,
1858.
COMENIUS. 143.
Comenius and the Kindergarten.
§ 38. Very interesting are the hints here given, in
which we get the first approaches to Kindergarten training.
Comenius saw that, much as their elders might do to
develop children's powers of thought and expression, " yet
children of the same age and the same manners and habits
are of greater service still. When they talk or play
together, they sharpen each other more effectually ; for the
one does not surpass the other in depth of invention, and
there is among them no assumption of superiority of the
one over the other, only love, candour, free questionings
and answers" {School of Infancy, vi, 12, p. 38).* The
constant activity of children must be provided for. " It is
better to play than to be idle, for during play the mind is
intent on some object which often sharpens the abilities.
In this way children may be early exercised to an active
life without any difficulty, since Nature herself stirs them
up to be doing something" (lb. ix, 15, p. 55). "In the
second, third, fourth years, &c., let their spirits be stirred up
by means of agreeable play with them or their playing
among themselves. . . . Nay, if some little occupation
can be conveniently provided for the child's eyes, ears, or
other senses, these will contribute to its vigour of mind and
body" {lb. vi, 21, p. 31).
§ 39. We have the usual cautions against forcing.
* Here Comenius seems to be thinking of the intercourse of children
when no older companion is present ; Froebel made more of the very
different intercourse when their thoughts and actions are led by some
one who has studied how to lead them. Children constantly want help
from their elders even in amusing themselves. On the other hand, it is
only the very wisest of mortals who can give help enough and no more.
Self-dependence may sometimes be cultivated by "a little wholesome
neglect."
144 COMENIUS.
Starting points of the sciences.
** Early fruit is useful for the day, but will not keep ; whereas
late fruit may be kept all the year. As some natural
capacities would fly, as it were, before the sixth, the fifth, or
even the fourth year, yet it will be beneficial rather to
restrain than permit this ; but very much worse to enforce
it." " It is safer that the brain be rightly consolidated before
it begin to sustain labours : in a little child the whole
bregma is scarcely closed and the brain consolidated
within the fifth or sixth year. It is sufficient, therefore, for
this age to comprehend spontaneously, imperceptibly and
as it were in play, so much as is employed in the domestic
circle " (lb. chap. xi).
§ 40. One disastrous tendency has always shown itself
in the schoolroom — the tendency to sever all connection
between studies in the schoolroom and life outside. The
young pack away their knowledge as it were in water-tight
compartments, where it may lie conveniently till the
scholastic voyage is over and it can be again unshipped.*
Against this tendency many great teachers have striven,
and none more vigorously than Comenius. Like Pestalozzi
he sought to resolve everything into its simplest elements,
and he finds the commencements before the school age.
In the School of Infancy he says (speaking of rhetoric),
" My aim is to shew, although this is not generally attended
to, that the roots of all sciences and arts in every instance
* Comical and at the same time melancholy results follow. In an
elementary school, where the children *' took up " geography for the
Inspector, I once put some questions about St. Paul at Rome. I asked
in what country Rome was, but nobody seemed to have heard of such a
place. "It's geography!" said I, and some twenty hands went up
directly : their owners now answered quite readily, **In Italy."
COMENIUS. 145
Beginnings in Geography, History, &c.
arise as early as in the tender age, and that on these
foundations it is neither impossible nor difficult for the
whole superstructure to be laid ; provided always that we
act reasonably with a reasonable creature " (viij, 6, p. 46).
This principle he applies in his chapter, "How children
ought to be accustomed to an active life and perpetual
employment " (chap. vij). In the fourth and fifth year their
powers are to be drawn out in mechanical or architectural
efforts, in drawing and writing, in music, in arithmetic,
geometry, and dialectics. For arithmetic in the fourth,
fifth, or sixth year, it will be sufficient if they count up to
twenty ; and they may be taught to play at " odd and even."
In geometry they may learn in the fourth year what are
lines, what are squares, what are circles; also the usual
measures — foot, pint, quart, &c., and soon they should try
to measure and weigh for themselves. Similar beginnings
are found for other sciences ^uch as physics, astronomy,
geography, history, economics, and politics. " The elements
oi geography will be during the course of the first year and
thenceforward, when children begin to distinguish between
their cradles and their mother's bosom" (vj, 6, p. 34).
As this geographical knowledge extends, they discover " what
a field is, what a mountain, forest, meadow, river" (iv, 9,
p. 17). "The beginning of history will be, to be able to
remember what was done yesterday, what recently, what a
year ago."* (/<^.)
§ 41. In this book Comenius is careful to provide
* "A talent for History may be said to be born with us, as our chief
inheritance. In a certain sense all men are historians. Is not every
memory written quite full of annals . . . ? Our very speech is
curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak only to
iiLiirate." (Carlyle on Zr/j/t?ry. Miscellanies.)
146 COMENIUS.
Drawing. Education for all.
children with occupation for ^^ mwd and hand" (iv, 10, p. 18).
Drawing is to be practised by all. " It matters not," says
Comenius, "whether the objects be correctly drawn or
oXh&rmsQ provided that they afford delight to the mind"*
§ 42. We see then that this restless thinker considered
the entire course of a child's bringing-up from the cradle to
maturity ; and we cannot doubt that Raumer is right in
saying, *' The influence of Comenius on subsequent thinkers
and workers in education, especially on the Methodizers, is
incalculable." {Gesch. d. P.^ ij, ** Comenius," § 10.)
Before we think of his methods and school books, let us
inquire what he did for education that has proved to be on
a solid foundation and '* not liable to any ruin."
§ 43. He was the first to reach a standpoint which was
and perhaps always will be above the heads of " the practical
men," and demand education for alL " We design for all
who have been born human beings, general instruction to
fit them for everything human. They must, therefore, as
far as possible be taught together, so that they may mutually
draw each other out, enliven and stimulate. Of the
* mother-tongue school ' the end and aim will be, that all
the youth of both sexes between the sixth and the twelfth
or thirteenth years be taught those things which will be
useful to them all their life long."t
* South Kensington, which controls the drawing of millions of chil-
dren, says precisely the opposite, and prescribes a kind of drawing,
which, though it may give manual skill to adults, does not *' afford
delight " to the mind of children.
t ** Generalem nos intendimus institutionem omnium qui homines nati
sunt, ad omnia humana. * • , Vernaculce (scholae) scopus metaque erit,
ut omnis juventus utriusque sexus, intra annum sextum et duodecimum
■eu decimum tertium, ea addoceatur quorum usus per totam vitam se
COMENIUS. 147
Scientific and Religious Agreement.
In these days we often hear controversies between the
men of science and the ministers of religion. It is as far
beyond my intention as it is beyond my abilities to discuss
how far the antithesis between religion and science is a true
one ; but our subject sometimes forces us to observe that
religion and science often bring thinkers by dififerent paths
to the same result ; e.g., they both refuse to recognise class
distinctions and make us see an essential unity underlying
superficial variations. In Comenius we have an earnest
Christian minister who was also an enthusiast for science.
Moreover he was without social and virtually without
national restrictions, and he was thus in a good position for
expressing freely and without bias what both his science
and his religion taught him. " Not only are the children of
the rich and noble to be drawn to the school, but all alike,
gentle and simple, rich and poor, boys and girls, in great
towns and small, down to the country villages. And for this
reason. Every one who is born a human being is born with
this intent — that he should be a human being, that is, a
iseasonable creature ruling over the other creatures and bear-
ing the likeness of his Maker." {Didactica M. ix, § i.)
This sounds to me nobler than the utterances of Rousseau
and the French Revolutionists, not to mention Locke who
fell back on considering merely " the gentleman's calling."
Even Bishop Butler a century after Comenius hardly takes
so firm a ground, though he lays it down that " children
extendat." I quote this Latin from the excellent article Comenius (by
several writers) in Buisson's Dictionnaire. It is a great thing to get
an author's exact words. Unfortunately the writer in the Dictionnaire
follows custom and does not give the means of verifying the quotation.
Comenius in Latin I have never seen except in the British Museum.
148 COMENIUS.
Bp. Butler on Educating the Poor.
have as much right to some proper education as to have
their lives preserved."*
§ 44. The first man who demanded training for every
human being because he or she was a human being must
always be thought of with respect and gratitude by all who
care either for science or religion. It has taken us 250
years to reach the standpoint of Comenius ; but we have
reached it, or almost reached it at last, and when we have
once got hold of the idea we are not likely to lose it again.
The only question is whether we shall not go on and in the
end agree with Comenius that the primary school shall be
for rich and poor alike. At present the practical men, in
England especially, have things all their own way ; but their
horizon is and must be very limited. They have already had
* In Sermon on Charity Schools, A.D. 1745. The Bishop points
out that " training up children is a very different thing from merely
teaching them some truths necessary to be known or believed." He
oes into the historical aspect of the subject. As since the days of
E izabeth there has been legal provision for the maintenance of th^
poor, there has been "need also of some particular legal provision in
behalf of poor children for their education ; this not being included in
what we call maintenance." "But," says the Bishop, "it might be
necessary that a burden so entirely new as that of a poor-tax was at the
time I am speaking of, should be as light as possible. Thus the legal
provision for the poor was first settled without any particular considera-
tion of that additional want in the case of children ; as it still remains
with scarce any alteration in this respect." And remained for nearly a
century longer. Great changes naturally followed and will follow from
the extension of the franchise ; and another century will probably see
ns with a Folkschool worthy of its importance. By that time we shall
no longer be open to the sarcasm of " the foreign friend :" "It is
highly instructive to visit English elementary schools, for there you
find everything that should be avoided." (M. Braun quoted by Mr. A.
Sonnenschein. The Old Code was in force.)
COMENIUS. 149
Comenius and Bacon.
to adjust themselves to many things which their predecessors
declared to be " quite impracticable — indeed impossible."
May not their successors in like manner get accustomed to
other " impossible " things, this scheme of Comenius among
them?
§ 45. The champions of realism have always recognised
Comenius as one of their earliest leaders. Bacon had just
given voice to the scientific spirit which had at length re-
belled against the literary spirit dominant at the Renascence,
and had begun to turn from all that had been thought and
said about Nature, straight to Nature herself. Comenius
was the professed disciple of "the noble Verulam, who,"
said he, " has given us the true key of Nature." Furnished
with this key, Comenius would unlock the door of the
treasure-house for himself. " It grieved me," he says, " that
I saw most noble Verulam present us indeed with a true
key of Nature, but not to open the secrets of Nature, only
shewing us by a few examples how they were to be opened,
and leave [/>., leaving] the rest to depend on observations
and inductions continued for several ages." Comenius
thought that by the light of the senses, of reason, and of the
Bible, he might advance faster. " For what ? Are not we
as well as the old philosophers placed in Nature's garden ?
Why then do we not cast about our eyes, nostrils, and ears
as well as they ? Why should we learn the works of Nature
of any other master rather than of these our senses ? Why
do we not, I say, turn over the living book of the world in-
stead of dead papers? In it we may contemplate more
things and with greater delight and profit than any one
can tell us. If we have anywhere need of an interpreter,
the Maker of Nature is the best interpreter Himself." (Pre-
face to Naturall Philosophie reformed. English trans., 1 65 1 .)
150 COMENIUS.
" Everything Through the Senses."
§ 46. Several things are involved in this so-called
" realism." First, Comenius would fix the mind of learners
on material objects. Secondly, he would have them acquiie
their notions of these for themselves through the senses.
From these two principles he drew the corollary that the
vast accumulation of traditional learning and literature must
be thrown overboard.
§ 47. The demand for the study of things has been
best formulated by one of the greatest masters of words, by
Milton. " Because our understanding cannot in the body
found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to
the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly
conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same
method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching."
{To Hartlib.) Its material surroundings then are to be the
subjects on which the mind of the child must be fixed.
This being settled, Comenius demands that the child's
knowledge shall not be verbal but real realism, knowledge
derived at first hand through the senses.*
§ 48. On this subject Comenius may speak for himself :
" The ground of this business is, that sensual objects [we
now say sensible : why not sensuous ?] be rightly presented
to the senses, for fear they may not be received. I say, and
say it again aloud, that this last is the foundation of all the
rest : because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless
* "Adhuc sub judice lis est." I find the editor of an American
educational paper brandishing in the face of an opponent as a quotation
from Professor N. A. Calkins' *' Ear and Voice Training": "The
senses are the only powers by which children can gain the elements of
knowledge ; and until these have been trained to act, no definite know-
ledge can be acquired." But Calkins says, "act, under direction (^
the mind."
COMENIUS. 151
Error of Neglecting the Senses.
we first rightly understand all the things which are to be
done and whereof we have to speak. Now there is nothing
in the understanding which was not before in the sense.
And therefore to exercise the senses well about the righfc
perceiving the differences of things will be to lay the grounds
for all wisdom and all wise discourse and all discreet actions
in one's course of life. Which, because it is commonly
neglected in Schools, and the things that are to be learned
are offered to scholars without their being understood or
being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that
the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and
afifordeth little benefit." (Preface to Orbis Pictus^ Hoole's
trans. A.D. 1658.)
§ 49. Without going into any metaphysical discussion,
we must all agree that a vast amount of impressions come
to children through the senses, and that it is by the exercise
of the senses that they learn most readily. As Comenius
says : " The senses (being the main guides of childhood,
because therein the mind doth not as yet raise up it self to an
abstracted contemplation of things) evermore seek their
own objects; and if these be away, they grow dull, and
wry themselves hither and thither out of a weariness of
themselves : but when their objects are present, they grow
merry, wax lively, and willingly suffer themselves to be
fastened upon them till the thing be sufficiently discerned."
(P. to Orbis.) This truth lay at the root of most of the
methods of Pestalozzi ; and though it has had little effect
on teaching in England (where for the word anschaulich
there is no equivalent), everything that goes on in a German
Folkschool has reference to it.
§ 50. For children then Comenius gave good counsel
when he would have their senses exercised on the world
152 COMENIUS.
Insufficiency of the Senses.
about them. But after all, whatever may be thought of the
proposition that all knowledge comes through the senses,
we must not ignore what is bequeathed to us, both in science
and in literature. Comenius says : " And now I beseech
you let this be our business that the schools may cease to
persuade and begin to demonstrate \ cease to dispute and
begin to look ; cease lastly to believe and begin to know.
For that Aristotellical maxim '■ Discentem oportet credere^ A
learner must believe,' is as tyrannical as it is dangerous ; so
also is that same Pythagorean * Ipse dixit. The Master has
said it' Let no man be compelled to swear to his Master's
words, but let the things themselves constrain the intellect."
(P. to Nat. Phil. R.) But the things themselves will not
take us far. Even in Natural Science we need teachers, for
Science is not reached through the senses but through the
intellectual grasp of knowledge which has been accumulating
for centuries. If the education of times past has neglected
the senses, we must not demand that the education of the
future should care for the senses only. There is as yet
little danger of our thinking too much of physical education ;
but we sometimes hear reformers talking as if the true ideal
were sketched in " Locksley Hall :"
"Iron -jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run.
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun,
Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks ;
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books."
There seems, however, still some reason for counting " the
gray barbarian lower than the Christian child." And the
reason is that we are " the heirs of all the ages." Our
education must enable every child to enter in some measure
on his inheritance ; and not a few of our most precious heir-
COMENIUS. 153
C. undervalued the Past.
looms will be found not only in scientific discoveries but
also in those great works of literature which the votaries of
science are apt to despise as "miserable books." This
truth was not duly appreciated by Comenius. As Professor
Laurie well says, " he accepted only in a half-hearted way
the products of the genius of past ages." (Laurie's C, p.
22.) In his day there was a violent reaction from the
Renascence passion for literature, and Comenius would
entirely banish from education the only literatures which
were then important, the "heathen" literatures of Greece
and Rome. "Our most learned men," says he, "even
among the theologians take from Christ only the mask : the
blood and life they draw from Aristotle and a crowd of
other heathens." (See Paulsen's Gesch.^ pp. 312, ff.) So
for Cicero and Virgil he would substitute, and his con-
temporaries at first seemed willing to accept, the Janua
Linguarum. But though there may be much more " real "
knowledge in the JannUy the classics have survived it.*
* "What do you learn from 'Paradise Lost'? Nothing at all.
"What do you learn from a cookery book ? Something new, something
that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you
therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estima-
tion than the divine poem ? What you owe to Milton is not any
knowledge^ of which a million separate items are but a million of
advancing steps on the same earthly level ; what you owe is powers
that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy
with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step
upward — a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to
mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge from
first to last carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise
you one foot above your ancient level of earth ; whereas the very Jirst
step in power is a flight, is an ascending into another element where
earth is forgotten." I have met with this as a quotation from De
Quincey.
154 COMENIUS.
Literature and Science.
In these days there is a passion for the study of things
which in its intensity resembles the Renascence passion for
literature. There is a craving for knowledge, and we know
only the truths we can verify ; so this craving must be
satisfied, not by words, but things. And yet that domain
which the physicists contemptuously describe as the study
of words must not be lost sight of, indeed cannot be, either
by young or old. As Matthew Arnold has said, "those
who are for giving to natural knowledge the chief place in
the education of the majority of mankind leave one im-
portant thing out of their account — the constitution of
human nature."
" We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love,
And e'en as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend."
So says Wordsworth, and if this assertion cannot be
verified, no more can it be disproved ; that the words have
become almost proverbial shows that it commends itself to
the general consciousness. Whatever knowledge we may
acquire, it will have little effect on our lives unless we can
" relate it " (again to use Matthew Arnold's words), " to our
sense of conduct and our sense of beauty." (Discourses in
A?nerica. " Literature and Science.") So long as we retain
our sense for these, " the humanities" are safe. Like Milton
we may have no inclination to study ^' modern Januas," but we
shall not cease to value many of the works which the Janua
of Comenius was supposed to have supplanted.*
* When I visited (some years ago) the **;6cole ModMe" at Brussels
I was told that books were used for nothing except for learning to read.
Comenius was saved from this consequence of his realism by his fervent
Christianity. He valued the study of the Bible as highly as the Re-
COMENIUS. '155
C.*s use of Analogies.
§ 51. "Analogies are good for illustration, not for
proof." If Comenius had accepted this caution, he would
have escaped much useless labour, and might have had a
better foundation for his rules than fanciful appHcations of
nascence scholars valued the study of the classics, though for a very
different reason. He cared for the Bible not as literature, but as the
highest authority on the problems of existence. Those who, like
Matthew Arnold, may attribute to it far less authority may still treasure
it as literature, while those who despise literature and recognise no
authority above things would limit us to the curriculum of the *' Ecole
Modele " and care for natural science only.
In this country we are fortunately able to advocate some reforms
which were suggested by the realism of Comenius without incurring any
suspicion of rejecting his Christianity. It is singular to see how the
highest authorities of to-day — men conversant with the subject on the
side of practice as well as theory — hold precisely the language which
practical men have been wont to laugh at as "theoretical nonsense"
ever since the days of Comenius. A striking instance will be found in
a lecture by the Principal of the Battersea Training College (Rev. Canon
Daniel) as reported in Educational Times ^ July, 1889. Compare what
Comenius said («//ra p. 151) with the following : "Children are not
sufficiently required to use their senses. They are allowed to observe
by deputy. They look at Nature through the spectacles of Books, and
throiigh the eyes of the teacher, but do not observe for themselves. It
might be expected that in object lessons and science lessons, which are
specially intended to cultivate the observing faculty, this fault would be
avoided, but I do not find that such is the case. I often hear lessons on
objects that are not object lessons at all. The object is not allowed to
speak for itself, eloquent though it is, and capable though it is of adapt-
ing its teaching to the youngest child who interrogates it. The teacher
buries it under a heap of words and second-hand statements, thereby
converting the object lesson into a verbal lesson and throwing away
golden opportunities of forming the scientific habit of mind. Now
mental science teaches us that our knowledge of the sensible qualities of
the material world can come to us only through our senses, and through
the right senses If we had no senses we should know nothing about
15^ COMENIUS.
Thought-studies and Label-studies.
what he observed in the external world. " Comenius " as
August Vogel has said, " is unquestionably right in wishing
to draw his principles of education from Nature ; but instead
of examining the proper constitution and nature of man, and
the material world at all ; if we had a sense less we should be cut off
from a whole class of facts ; if we had as many senses as are ascribed to
the inhabitants of Sirius in Voltaire's novel, our knowledge would be
proportionately greater than it is now. Words cannot compensate for
sensations. The eloquence of a Cicero would not explain to a deaf man
what music is, or to a blind man what scarlet is. Yet I have frequently
seen teachers wholly disregard these obvious truths. They have taught
as though their pupils had eyes that saw not, and ears that heard not,
and noses that smelled not, and palates that tasted not, and skins that felt
not, and muscles that would not work. They have insisted on taking
the words out of Nature's mouth and speaking for her. They have
thought it derogatory to play a subordinate part to the object itself."
This subject has been well treated by Mr. Thos. M. Balliet in a paper
on shortening the curriculum {New York School Journal^ loth Nov.,
1 888). * 'Studies, " says he, * * are of two kinds ( i ) studies which supply the
mind with thoughts of images, and (2) those which give us 'labels,' i.e.
the means of indicating and so communicating thought. Under the last
head come the study of language, writing (including spelling), notation,
&c." Mr. Balliet proposes, as Comenius did, that the symbol subjects shall
not be taken separately, but in connexion with the thought subjects.
Especially in the mother-tongue, we should study language for thought,
not thought for the sake of language.
But after all though we may and should bring the young in connexion
with the objects of thought and not with words merely, we must not
forget that the scholastic aspect of things will differ from the practical.
When brought into the schoolroom the thing must be divested of details
and surroundings, and used to give a conception of one of a class. The
fir tree of the schoolboy cannot be the fir tree of the wood-cutter. The
"boiler" becomes a cylinder subject to internal or external pressure.
It is not the thing that the engine-driver knows will burn and corrode,
get foul in its tubes and loose in its joints, and be liable to burst. (See
Mr. C. H. Benton on "Practical and Theoretical Training " in Spectator^
COMENIUS. 157
Unity of Knowledges.
taking that as the basis of his theory, he watches the Hfe of
birds, the growth of trees, or the quiet influence of the sun,
and thus substitutes for the nature of man nature without
man {die objective Naiur). And yet by Nature he under-
stands that first and primordial state to which as to our
original [idea] we should be restored, and by the voice of
Nature he understands the universal Providence of God or
the ceaseless influence of the Divine Goodness working all
in all, that is, leading every creature to the state ordained
for it. The vegetative and animal life in Nature is according
to Comenius himself not life at all in its highest sense, but
me only true life is the intellectual or spiritual life of Man.
No doubt in the two lower kinds of life certain analogies
may be found for the higher; but nothing can be less
worthy of reliance and less scientific than a method which
draws its principles for the higher life from what has been
observed in the lower." (A. Vogel's Gesch. d. Pddagogik
als Wissenschaft, p. 94.)
§52. This seems to me judicious criticism; but what-
ever mistakes he may have made Comenius, hke Froebel
long after him, strove after a higher unity which should
embrace knowledge of every kind. The connexion of
knowledges (so constantly overlooked in the schoolroom)
was always in his thoughts. " We see that the branches of a
tree cannot live unless they all alike suck their juices from
a common trunk with common roots. And can we hope
that the branches of Wisdom can be torn asunder with safety
to their life, that is to truth ? Can one be a Natural Philosopher
loth Nov., 1888). The school knowledge of things no less than of
words may easily be over-valued. It should be given not for itself but
to excite interest and draw out the powers of the mind,
13
158 COMENIUS.
Theory and the Practical Man.
who is not also a Metaphysician? or an Ethical Thinker who
does not know something of Physical Science ? or a Logician
who has no knowledge of real matters ? or a Theologian, a
jurisconsult, or a Physician, who is not first a Philosopher?
or an Orator or Poet, who is not all these at once ? He
deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who
pushes away from him any shred of the knowable." (Quoted
in Masson's L. of Milton vol. iij., p. 213 from the Dehneatio,
[i.e., PansophicE Prodromus\, Conf. J. H. Newman, Idea of
a University^ Disc, iij.)
§ 53. We see then that on the side of theory, Comenius
was truly great. But the practical man who has always been
the tyrant of the schoohoom cared nothing for theory and
held, with a modern English minister responsible for educa-
tion, who proved his ignorance of theory by his " New Code,"
that there was, and could be no such thing. So the reputa-
tion of Comenius became pretty much what our great
authority Hallam has recorded, that he was a person of some
ingenuity and Httle judgment who invented a new way of
learning Latin. This estimate of him enables us to follow
some windings in the stream of thought about education.
Comenius faced the whole problem in its double bearing,
theory and practice : he asked, What is the educator's task ?
How can he best accomplish it ? But his contemporaries
had not yet recovered from the idolatry of Latin which had
been bequeathed to them by their fathers from the Renas-
cence, and they too saw in Comenius chiefly an inventor of
a new way of learning Latin. He sought to train up chil-
dren for this world and the next; they supposed, as
Oxenstiern himself said, that the main thing to be remedied
was the clumsy way of teaching Latin. So Comenius was
little understood. His books were seized upon as affording
COMENIUS. 159
Mother-tongue. Words and Things Together.
at once an introduction to the knowledge of thtftgs and a
short way of learning Latin. But in the long run they were
found more tiresome than the old classics : so they went out
of fashion, and their author was forgotten with them. Now
that schoolmasters are forming a more worthy conception of
their office, they are beginning to do justice to Comenius.
§ 54. As the Jesuits kept to Latin as the common lan-
guage of the Church, so Comenius thought to use it as a
means of inter-communication for the instructed of every
nationality. But he was singularly free from over-estimating
the value of Latin, and he demanded that all nations should
be taught in their own language wherein they were bom.
On this subject he expresses himself with great emphasis.
"We desire and protest that studies of wisdom be no longer
committed to Latin alone, and kept shut up in the schools,
as has hitherto been done, to the greatest contempt and injury
of the people at large, and the popular tongues. Let all
things be delivered to each nation in its own speech."
(Delineatio [Frodromus] in Masson ut suj>ra.)
§ 55. Comenius was then neither a verbalist nor a
classicist, and yet his contemporaries were not entirely
wrong in thinking of him as " a man who had invented a new
way of learning Latin." His great principle was that instruc-
tion in words and things should go together.* The young
were to learn about things, and at the same time were to
acquire both in the vernacular and also in Latin, the interna-
tional tongue, the words which were connected with the
things. Having settled on this plan of concurrent instruction
♦ Ruskin seems to be echoing Comenius (of whom perhaps he never
heard) when he says " To be taught to see is to gain word and thought
at once, and both true." {Address at Camb. Sch. of Art ^ Oct 1858.)
l6o COMENIUS.
Janua Linguarum.
in words and things, Comenius determined to write a book
for carrying it out. Just then there fell into his hands a book
which a less open-minded man might have thrown aside on
account of its origin, for it was written by the bitter foes and
persecutors of the Bohemian Protestants, by the Jesuits. But
Comenius says truly, " I care not whether I teach or whether
I learn," and he gave a marvellous proof of this by adopting
the linguistic method of the Jesuits' Janua Linguarum*
* As far as my experience goes there are few men capable both of
teaching and being taught, and of these rare beings Comenius was a
noble example. The passage in which he acknowledges his obligation
to the Jesuits' yfl««a is a striking proof of his candour and open-
mindedness.
As an experiment in language-teaching ih\s Janua is a very interesting
book, and will be well worth a note. From Augustin and Alois de
Backer's Bibliothhjue des Ecrivains de la C. dejesus^ I learn that the
author William Bath or Bathe [Latin Bateus] was born in Dublin in
1564, and died in Madrid in 1614. "A brief introduction to the skill
of song as set forth by William Bathe, gent." is attributed to him ; but
we know nothing of his origin or occupation till he entered on the Jesuit
noviciate at Tournai in 1596. Either before or after this *'he ran" as
he himself tells us "the pleasant race of study" at Beauvais. After
studying at Padua he was sent as Spiritual Father to the Irish College
at Salamanca. Here, according to C. Sommervogel he wrote two
Latin books. He also designed \}[iQ Janua Linguarum^ and carried out
the plan with the help of the other members of the college. The book
was published at Salamanca "apud de Cea Tesa" 1611,4°. Four
years afterwards an edition with English version added was published in
London edited by Wm. Welde. I have never seen the Spanish version,
but a copy of Welde's edition (wanting title page) was bequeathed to me
by a friend honoured by all English-speaking students of education,
Joseph Payne. The Janua must have had great success in this country,
and soon had other editors. In an old catalogue I have seen "Janua
Linguarum Quadrilinguis^ or a Messe of Tongues, Latine, English,
French, Spanish, neatly served up together for a wholesome repast to
COMENIUS. l6l
The Jesuits' Janua.
This " Noah's Ark for words," treated in a series of proverbs
of all kinds of subjects, in such a way as to introduce in a
natural connection every common word in the Latin lan-
guage. " The idea," says Comenius, " was better than the
the worthy curiositie of the studious, sm. 4to, Matthew Lowndes, 1617."
This must have been the early edition of Isaac Habrecht. I have his
** Janua Linguarum Silinguis. ^r^<f«/zw« (Strassburg), 1630," and in
the Preface he says that the first English edition came out in 16 15, and
that he ha i added a French version and published the book at London
in four languages in 1617. I have seen " sixth edition 1627," also pub-
lished by Liowndes, and edited " opera I. H. (John Harmar, called in
Catalogue of British Museum * Rector of Ewhurst') Scholge Sancti Albani
Magistri primarii." Harmar, I think, suppressed all mention of the
author of the book, but he kept the title. This seems to have been
altered by the celebrated Scioppius who published the book as Pascasii
Grosippi Mercurius bilinguis.
This Jesuits' Janua is one of the most interesting experiments in
language teaching I ever met with. Bathe and his co-adjutors collected
as they believed all the common root words in the Latin language ; and
these they worked up into 1,200 short sentences in the form of proverbs.
After the sentences follows a short Appendix De ambiguis of which
the following is a specimen : " Dum malum comedis juxta malum navis,
de malo commisso sub malo vetita meditare. While thou eatest an
apple near the mast of a ship, think of the evil committed under the
forbidden apple tree." An alphabetical index of all the Latin words is
then given, with the number of the sentence in which the word occurs.
Prefixed to \}ix\% Janua we find some introductory chapters in which the
problem : What is the best way of learning a foreign language ? is con-
sidered and some advance made towards a solution. "The body of eveiy
language consisteth of four principal members — words, congruity,
phrases, and elegancy. The dictionary sets down the words, grammar
the congruities. Authors the phrases, and Rhetoricians (with theii
figures) the elegancy. We call phrases the proper forms or peculiar
manners of speaking which every Tongue hath." (Chap, l ad f.)
l62 COMENIUS.
C. adapts Jesuits' Janua.
execution. Nevertheless, inasmuch as they (the Jesuits)
were the prime inventors, we thankfully acknowledge it, nor
will we upbraid them with those errors they have committed."
(Preface to Anchoran's trans, oi Janua.)
§ 56. The plan commended itself to Comenius on various
grounds. First, he had a notion of giving an outline of all
knowledge before anything was taught in detail. Next, he
Hitherto, says Bathe, there have been in use, only two ways of learning
a language, "regular, such as is grammar, to observe the congruities;
and irregular such as is the common use of learners, by reading and
speaking in vulgar tongues." The " regular " way is more certain, the
** irregular" is easier. So Bathe has planned a middle way which is to
combine the advantages of the other two. The "congruities" are learnt
regularly by the grammar. Why are not the "words" learned regularly
by the dictionary? 1st, Because the Dictionary contains many useless
words; 2nd, because compound words may be known from the root
words without special learning ; 3rd, because words as they stand in the
Dictionary bear no sense and so cannot be remembered. By the use of
i}cC\% Janua all these objections will be avoided. Useful words and root
words only are given, and they are worked up into sentences "easy to
be remembered." And with the exception of a few little words such as
et^ in, qui, sum^fio no word occurs a second time ; thus, says Bathe,
the labour of learning the language will be lightened and "as it was
much more easy to have known all the living creatures by often looking
into Noe's Ark, wherein was a selected couple of each kind, than by
travelling over all the world until a man should find here and there a
creature of each kind, even in the same manner will all the words be
far more easily learned by use of these sentences than by hearing, speak-
ing or reading until a man do accidentally meet with every particular
word." (Proeme afl^/.) "We hope no man will be so ingrateful as
not to think this work very profitable," says the author. For my own
part I feel grateful for such an earnest attempt at "retrieving of the
curse of Babylon," but I cannot show my gratitude by declaring "this
work very profitable." The attempt to squeeze the greater part of a
language into 1,200 short sentences could produce nothing better than
I
COMENIUS. 163
Anchoran's edition of C.'s Janua.
could by such a book connect the teaching about simple
things with instruction in the Latin words which applied to
them. And thirdly, he hoped by this means to give such a
complete Latin vocabulary as to render the use of Latin easy
for all requirements of modern society. He accordingly
wrote a short account of things in general, which he put in
the form of a dialogue, and this he published in Latin and
German at Leszna in 1531. The success of this work, as
we have already seen, was prodigious. No doubt the spirit
which animated Bacon was largely diffused among educated
men in all countries, and they hailed the appearance of a
book which called the youth from the study of old philo-
sophical ideas to observe the facts around them.
§ 57. The countrymen of Bacon were not backward
in adopting the new work, as the following, from the title-
page of a volume in the British Museum, will show : "The
Gate of Tongues Unlocked and Opened ; or else, a Seminary
or Seed-plot of all Tongues and Sciences. That is, a short
way of teaching and thoroughly learning, within a yeare and
a half at the furthest, the Latine, English, French and any
other tongue, with the ground and foundation of arts and
sciences, comprised under a hundred titles and 1058 periods.
In Latin first, and now, as a token of thankfulness, brought
to light in Latine, English and French, in the behalfe of the
most illustrious Prince Charles, and of British, French, and
Irish youth. The 4th edition, much enlarged, by the labour
and industry of John Anchoran, Licentiate in Divinity.
London, Printed by Edward Griffin for Michael Sparke,
dwelling at the Blew Bible in Green Arbor, 1639." The
first edition must have been some years earlier, and the work
a curiosity. The language could not be thus squeezed into the memory
of the learner.
1 64 COMENIUS.
Change to be made by Janua.
contains a letter to Anchoran from Comenius dated " Lessivae
polonorum (Leszna) nth Oct, 1632." So we see that,
however the connexion arose, it was Anchoran not
Harthb who first made Comenius known in England.
§ 58. In the preface to the volume (signed by Anchoran
and Comenius) we read of the complaints of " Ascam, Vives,
Erasmus, Sturmius, Frisclinus, Dornavius and others." The
Scaligers and Lipsius did climb but left no track. " Hence
it is that the greater number of schools (howsoever some
boast the happinesse of the age and the splendour of learn-
ing) have not as yet shaked off their ataxies. The youth
was held off, nay distracted, and is yet in many places
delayed with grammar precepts infinitely tedious, perplexed,
obscure, and (for the most part) unprofitable, and that for
many years." The names of things were taught to those
who were in total ignorance of the things themselves.
§ 59. From this barren region the pupil was to escape
to become acquainted with things. " Come on," says the
teacher in the opening dialogue, " let us go forth into the
open air. There you shall view whatsoever God produced
from the beginning, and doth yet effect by nature. After-
wards we will go into towns, shops, schools, where you shall
see how men do both apply those Divine works to their uses,
and also instruct themselves in arts, manners, tongues. Then
we will enter into houses, courts, and palaces of princes, to
see in what manner communities of men are governed. At
last we will visit temples, where you shall observe how
diversely mortals seek to worship their Creator and to be
spiritually united unto Him, and how He by His Almighti-
ness disposeth all things." (This is from the 1656 edition,
by "W.D.")
The book is still amusing, but only from the quaint
COMENIUS. 165
Popularity of Janua shortlived.
manner in which the mode of life two hundred years ago is
described in it*
§ 60. But though parts of the book may on first reading
have gratified the youth of the seventeenth century, a great
deal of it gave scanty information about difficult subjects,
such as physiology, geometry, logic, rhetoric, and that too
in the driest and dullest way. Moreover, in his first version
(much modified at Saros-Patak) Comenius following the
Jesuit boasts that no important word occurs twice ; so that
the book, to attain the end of giving a perfect stock of Latin
words, would have to be read and re-read till it was almost
known by heart ; and however amusing boys might find an
account of their toys written in Latin the first time of reading,
the interest would somewhat wear away by the fifth or sixth
time. We cannot then feel much surprised on reading this
" general verdict," written some years later, touching those
earlier works of Comenius : "They are of singular use, and
very advantageous to those of more discretion (especially to
such as have already got a smattering in Latin), to help
their memories to retain what they have scatteringly gotten
here and there, and to furnish them with many words which
perhaps they had not formerly read or so well observed ;
* This book must have had a great sale in England. Anchoran's
version (the Latin title of which is Porta not Janua) went through
several editions. I have a copy of Janua Linguarum Reserata
'* formerly translated by Tho. Horn : afterwards much corrected and
amended by Joh. Robotham : now carefully reviewed and exactly com-
pared with all former editions, foreign and others, and much enlarged
both in the Latine and English : together with a Portall ... by G. P.
1647." "W. D." was a subsequent editor, and finally it was issued by
Roger Daniel, to whom Comenius dedicates from Amsterdam in 1659 as
*' Domino Rogero Danieli, Bibliopoloe ac Typographo Londinensi
celeberrimo."
l66 COMENIUS.
Lubinus projector of Orbis Pictus.
but to young children (whom Ave have chiefly to instruct,
as those that are ignorant altogether of most things and
words), they prove rather a mere toil and burden than a
delight and furtherance." (Chas. Hoole's preface to his trans,
of Orbis Ficius, dated "From my school in Lothbury^ London,
Jan. 25, 1658.")
§ 61. The "Janua" would, therefore, have had but a
short-lived popularity with teachers, and a still shorter with
learners, if Comenius had not carried out his principle of
appealing to the senses, and adopted a plan which had been
suggested, nearly 50 years earlier, by a Protestant divine,
Lubinus,* of Rostock. The artist was called in, and with
* Eilhardus Lubinus or Eilert Lueben, bom 1565 ; was Professor first
of Poetry then of Theology at Rostock, where he died in 1621. This
projector of the most famous school-book of modem times seems not to
be mentioned in K. A. Schmid's great Encyklopddie^ at least in the first
edition. (I have not seen the second.) I find from F. Sander's Lexikon
d. Pddagogik that Ratke declared he learnt nothing from Lubinus,
while Comenius recognised him gratefully as his predecessor. This is
just what we should have expected from the character of Ratke and of
Comenius. Lubinus advocated the use of interlinear translations and
published (says Sander) such translations of the New Testament, of
Plautus, &c. The veiy interesting Preface to the New Test., was
translated into English by Hartlib and published as "The True and
Readie Way to Learne the Latine Tongue by E. Lubinus," &c., 1654.
The date given for Lubinus' preface is 1614. L. finds fault with the
grammar teaching which is thrashed into boys so that they hate their
masters. He would appeal to the senses : ** For from these things
falling under the sense of the eyes, and as it were more known, we will
make entrance and begin to learn the Latin speech. Four-footed living
creatures, creeping things, fishes and birds which can neither be gotten
nor live well in these parts ought to be painted. Others also, which
because of their bulk and greatness cannot be shut up in houses may be
made in a lesser form, or drawn with the pencil, yet of such bigness as
COMENIUS. 167
Orbis Pictus described.
I
t
Endter at Niirnberg in 1657 was published the first edition
of a book which long outlived the Janua. This was the
famous Orbis Sensualium Pictus^ which was used for a cen-
tury at least in many a schoolroom, and lives in imitations
to the present day. Comenius wrote this book on the same
lines as the yb!«z^^, but he goes into less detail, and every
subject is illustrated by a small engraving. The text is
mostly on the opposite page to the picture, and is connected
with it by a series of corresponding numbers. Everything
named in the text is numbered as in the picture. The artist
employed must have been a bold man, as he sticks at nothing ;
but in skill he was not the equal of many of his contem-
they may be well seen by boys even afar off." He says he has often
counselled the Stationers to bring out a book "in which all things
whatsoever which may be devised and written and seen by the eyes,
might be described, so as there might be also added to all things and
all parts and members of things, its own proper word, its own proper
appellation or term expressed in the Latin and Dutch tongues'* (pp.
22, 23). " Visible things are first to be known by the eyes " (p. 23),
and the joining of seeing the thing and hearing the name together "is
by far the profitablest and the bravest course, and passing fit and applic-
able to the age of children." Things themselves if possible, if not,
pictures (p. 25). There are some capital hints on teachirue; children
from things common in the house, in the street, &c. One Hadrianus
Junius has made a "nomenclator " that may be useful. In the pictures
of the projected book there are to be lines under each object, and under
its printed name. (The excellent device of corresponding numbers
seems due to Comenius. ) For printing below the pictures L. also suggests
sentences which are simpler and better for children than those in the
Vestibulum, e.g. "Panis in Mensa positus est, Felis vorat Murem."
In the Brit. Museum there is a copy of Medulla Linguce Grcecce in
which L. works up the root words of Greek into sentences. He was
evidently a man with ideas. Comenius thought of them so highly that
he tried to carry out another at Saros-Patak, the plan of a "Coenobium"
or Roman colony in which no language should be used but Latin.
I68 COMENIUS.
Why C/s schoolbooks failed.
poraries ; witness the pictures in the Schaffhausen Janua
(Editio secunda, SchaffhusI, 1658), in Daniel's edition of
t\iQ Janua, 1562, and the very small but beautiful illustrations
in the Vestibulum of " Jacob Redinger and J. S." (Amsterdam,
1673). However, the Orbis Pictus gives such a quaint
delineation of life 200 years ago that copies with the original
engravings keep rising in value, and an American publisher
(Bardeen of Syracuse, New York), has lately reproduced the
old book with the help of photography.
§ 62. And yet as instruments of teaching, these books,
i,e, the Vestibulum and the Janua and even the Orbis Fictus
which in a great measure superseded both, proved a failure.
How shall we account for this ?
Comenius immensely over-estimated the importance of
knowledge and the power of the human mind to acquire
knowledge. He took it for the heavenly idea that man
should know all things. This notion started him on the
wrong road for forming a scheme of instruction, and it needed
many years and much experience to show him his error. When
he wrote the Orbis Fictus he said of it : " It is a little book,
as you see, of no great bulk, yet a brief of the whole world
and a whole language:" (Hoole's trans. Preface); and he
afterwards speaks of " this our little encyclopadia of things
subject to the senses." But in his old age he saw that his
text-books were too condensed and attempted too much
(Laurie, p. 59) ; and he admitted that after all Seneca was
right: "Melius est scire pauca et iis rect^ uti quam scire
multa, quorum ignores usum. It is better to know a few
things and have the right use of them than to know many
things which you cannot use at all."
§ 63. The attempt to give "information" has been the
ruin of a vast number of professing educators since Comenius.
COMENIUS. 169
Compendia Dispendia.
Masters "of the old school" whom some of us can still
remember made boys learn Latin and Greek Grammar and
nothing else. Their successors seem to think that boys
should not learn Latin and Greek Grammar but every tiling
else : and the last error I take to be much worse than the
first. As Ruskin has neatly said, education is not teaching
people to know what they do not know, but to behave as
they do not behave. It is to be judged not by the knowledge
acquired, but the habits, powers, interests : knowledge must
be thought of "last and least."
§ 64. So the attempt to teach about everything was
unwise. The means adopted were unwise also. It is a
great mistake to suppose that a "general view" should come
first; this is not the right way to give knowledge in any
subject. " A child begins by seeing bits of everything — here
a little and there a little ; it makes up its wholes out of its
own littles, and is long in reaching the fulness of a whole ;
and in this we are children all our lives in much." (Dr. John
Brown in Horce Subsecivce, p. 5.) So nothing could have
been much more unfortunate than an attempt to give the
young " a brief of the whole world." Compendia^ dispe7idia,
§ 65. Corresponding to "a brief of the whole world,"
Comenius offers "a brief of a whole language." The two
mistakes were well matched. In " the whole world " there
are a vast number of things of which we must, and a good
number of which we very advantageously may be ignorant.
In a language there are many words which we cannot know
and many more which we do not want to know. The
language lives for us in a small vocabulary of essential words,
and our hold upon the language depends upon the power
we have in receiving and expressing thought by means of
those words. But the Jesuit Bath, and after him Comenius,
I/O COMENIUS.
Comenius and Science of Education.
made the tremendous mistake of treating all Latin words as
of equal value, and took credit for using each word once
and once only ! Moreover, Comenius wrote not simply to
teach the Latin language, but also to stretch the Latin
language till it covered the whole area of modern life. He
aimed at two things and missed them both.
f § 66. We see then that Comenius was not what Hallam
7 calls him, *'a man who invented a new way of learning
^ Latin." He did not do this, but he did much more than
i this. He saw that every human creature should be trained
; up to become a reasonable being, and that the training
■ should be such as to draw out God-given faculties. Thus
I he struck the key-note of the science of education.
The quantity and the diffuseness of the writings of Comenius are truly
bewildering. In these days eminent men, Carlyle, e.g., sometimes find
it difficult to get into print ; but printing-presses all over Europe seemed
to be at the service of Comenius. An account of the various editions of
the _/a«wa would bean interesting piece of bibliography, but the task
of making it would not be a light one. The earliest copy of which I
can find a trace is entered in the catalogue of the Bodleian : "Comenius
J. K. Janua Linguarum, 8vo, Lips (Leipzig) 1632." I also find there
another copy entered "per Anchoranum, cum clave per W. Saltonstall,
London, 1633."
The fame of Comenius is increasing and many interesting works have
now been written about him. I have already mentioned the English
books of Benham and Laurie. In German I have the following books,
but not the time to read them all : —
Daniel, H. A. Zerstreute Blatter. Halle, 1866.
Free, H. Pddagogik d. Cornenius. Bernburg, 1884.
Hiller, R. Lutein Methode d. /. A. Comenius. Zschopau, 1 883.
(v. g. and terse ; only 46 pp. )
Miiller, Walter. Coffienius ein Systematiker in d. Pad. Dresden,
1887.
Pappenheim, E. Amos Comenius. Berlin, 187 1.
COMENIUS. 171
Books on Comenius.
Seyffarth, L. W. J. A. Comenius. Leipzig, 2nd edition, 187 1. (A
careful and, as far as I can judge in haste, an excellent piece of work.)
Zoubek, Fr. J. J. A. Comenius. Eine quellenmdssige Lebensskizzey
(Prefixed to trans, oi Didac. M. in Richter's Pad. Biblwthek.)
For a Port- Royalist's criticism of the /anuUf see infra, (p. 185 note.)
XI.
THE GENTLEMEN OF PORT-ROYAL
§ I. In the sixteen-hundreds by far the most successful
schoolmasters were the Jesuits. In spite of their exclusion
from the University, they had in the Province of Paris some
14,000 pupils, and in Paris itself at the College de Clermont,
1,800. Might they not have neglected "the Little Schools,"
which were organized by the friends and disciples of the
Abbe de Saint-Cyran, schools in which the numbers were
always small, about twenty or twenty-five, and only once
increasing to fifty? And yet the Jesuits left no stone
unturned, no weapon unemployed, in their attack on " the
Little Schools." The conflict seems to us like an engage-
ment between a man-of-war and a fishing-boat. That the
poor fishing-boat would soon be beneath the waves, was
clear enough from the beginning, and she did indeed
speedily disappear; but the victors have never recovered
from their victory and never will. Whenever we think of
Jesuitism we are not more forcibly reminded of Loyola than
of Pascal. All educated Frenchmen, most educated people
everywhere, get their best remembered impressions of the
Society of Loyola from the Provincial Letters.!
* For full titles of the books referred to see p. 195.
t The solitaries of Port-Royal used to vary their mental toil with
manual. A Jesuit having maliciously asked whether it was true that
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 73
The Jesuits and the Arnaulds.
§ 2. The Society had a long standing rivalry with the
University of Paris, and the University not only refused to
admit the Jesuits, but several times petitioned the Parliament
to chase them out of France. On one of these occasions
the advocate who was retained by the University was
Antoine Arnauld, a man of renowned eloquence; and he
threw himself into the attack with all his heart. From that
time the Jesuits had a standing feud with the house of
Arnauld.
§ 3. But it was no mere personal dislike that separated
the Port-Royalists and the Jesuits. Port-Royal with which
the Arnauld family was so closely united, became the
stronghold of a theology which was unlike that of the
Jesuits, and was denounced by them as heresy. The
daughter of Antoine Arnauld was made, at the age of eleven
years. Abbess of Port-Royal, a Cistercian convent not far from
Versailles. This position was obtained for her by a fraud
of Marion, Henry IV's advocate-general, who thought only
of providing comfortably for one of the twenty children to
whom his daughter, Made. Arnauld, had made him grand-
father. Never was a nomination more scandalously obtained
or used to better purpose. The Mere Angelique is one of
the saints of the universal church, and she soon became the
restorer of the religious Hfe first in her own and then by her
influence and example in other convents of her Order.
§ 4. In these reforms she had nothing to fear from her
hereditary foes the Jesuits ; but she soon came under the
influence of a man whose theory of life was as much opposed
Monsieur Pascal made shoes, met with the awkward repartee, "Je ne
sais pas s'il fait des scullers, mais je crois qu'il vous a porti unefameuse
14
174 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal.
to the Jesuits' theory as to that of the world which found in
the Jesuits the most accommodating father confessors.
Duvergier de Hauranne (1581-1643) better known by
the name of his "abbaye," Saint-Cyran, was one of those
commanding spirits who seem born to direct others and
form a distinct society. In vain Richeheu offered him the
posts most hkely to tempt him. The prize that Saint-Cyran
had set his heart upon was not of this world, and Riche-
heu could assist him in one way only — by persecution.
This assistance the Cardinal readily granted, and by his
orders Saint-Cyran was imprisoned at Vincennes, and not
set at liberty till Richelieu was himself summoned before a
higher tribunal.
§ 5. Driven by prevailing sickness from Port-Royal des
Champs, the Mbre Angclique transported her community (in
1626) to a house purchased for them in Paris by her mother
who in her widowhood became one of the Sisters. In Paris
Angclique sought for herself and her convent the spiritual
direction of Saint-Cyran (not yet a prisoner), and from that
time Saint-Cyran added the Abbess and Sisters of Port-Royal
to the number of those who looked up to him as their
pattern and guide in all things.
Port-Royal des Champs was in course of time occupied
by a band of solitaries who at the bidding of Saint-Cyran
renounced the world and devoted themselves to prayer and
study. To them we owe the works of " the Gentlemen of
Port-Royal."
§ 6. It is then to Saint-Cyran we must look for the
ideas which became the distinctive mark of the Port-
Royalists.
Saint-Cyran was before all things a theologian. In his
early days at Bayonne his studies had been shared by a
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. I75
Saint-Cyran an " Evangelical."
friend who afterwards was professor of theology at Louvain,
and then Bishop of Ypres. This friend was Jansenius.
Their searches after truth had brought them to opinions
which in the England of the nineteenth century are known
as " Evangelical." According to " Catholic " teaching all
those who receive the creed and the sacraments of the
Church and do not commit " mortal " sin are in a " state of
salvation," that is to say the great majority of Christians are
saved. This teaching is rejected by those of another school
of thought who hold that only a few " elect " are saved and
that the great body even of Christians are doomed to
perdition.
§ 7. Such a belief as this would seem to be associated
of necessity with harshness and gloom ; but from whatever
cause, there has been found in many, even in most, cases
no such connexion. Those who have held that the great
mass of their fellow-creatures had no hope in a future world,
have thrown themselves lovingly into all attempts to improve
their condition in this world. Still, their main effort has
always been to increase the number of the converted and to
preserve them from the wiles of the enemy. This Saint-
Cyran sought to do by selecting a few children and bringing
them up in their tender years like hot-house plants, in the
hope that they would be prepared when older and stronger,
to resist the evil influences of the world.
§ 8. His first plan was to choose out of all Paris six
children and to confide them to the care of a priest appointed
to direct their consciences, and a tutor of not more than
twenty-five years old, to teach them Latin. "I should
think," says he, "it was doing a good deal if I did not
advance them far in Latin before the age of twelve, and
made them pass their first years confined to one house or a
lyO THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Short career of the Little Schools.
monastery in the country where they might be allowed all the
pastimes suited to their age and where they might see only
the example of a good life set by those about them."
(Letter quoted by Carr^, p. 20.)
§ 9. His imprisonment put a stop to this plan, "but,"
says Saint-Cyran, " I do not lightly break off what I under-
take for God ;" so when intrusted with the disposal of 2,000
francs by M. Bignon, he started the first " Little School," in
which two small sons of M. Bignon's were taken as pupils.
The name of "Little Schools," was given partly perhaps
because according to their design the numbers in any school
could never be large, partly no doubt to deprecate any
suspicion of rivalry with the schools of the University. The
children were to be taken at an early age, nine or ten, before
they could have any guilty knowledge of evil, and Saint-
Cyran made in all cases a stipulation that at any time a
child might be returned to his friends ; but in cases where
the master's care seemed successful, the pupils were to be
kept under it till they were grown up.
§ 10. The Little Schools had a short and troubled
career of hardly more than fifteen years. They were not
fully organized till 1646; they were proscribed a few years
later and in 1661 were finally broken up by Louis XIV, who
was under the influence of their enemies the Jesuits. But
in that time the Gentlemen of Port-Royal had introduced
new ideas which have been a force in French education and
indeed in all literary education ever since.
To Saint-Cyran then we trace the attempt at a particular
kind of school, and to his followers some new departures in
the training of the intellect.
§ 1 1. Basing his system on the Fall of Man, Saint-Cyran
came to a conclusion which was also reached by Locke
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 7/
Saint-Cyran & Locke on Public Schools.
though by a different road. To both of them it seemed
that children require much more individual care and watch-
ing than they can possibly get in a public school. Saint-
Cyran would have said what Locke said : " The difference
is great between two or tliree pupils in the same house and
three or four score boys lodged up and down : for let the
master's industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible
he should have fifty or one hundred scholars under his eye
any longer than they are in school together : Nor can it be
expected that he should instruct them successfully in any-
thing but their books; the forming of their minds and
manners [preserving them from the danger of the enemy,
Saint-Cyran would have said] requiring a constant attention
and particular application to every single boy, which is
impossible in a numerous flock, and would be wholly in
vain (could he have time to study and correct everyone's
peculiar defects and wrong inclinations) when the lad was
to be left to himself or the prevaihng infection of
his fellows the greater part of the four-and-twenty hours."
{Thoughts c, Ed. § 70.)
§ 12. An English public schoolmaster told the Com-
mission on Public Schools, that he stood in loco parentis to
fifty boys. " Rather a large family," observed one of the
Commissioners drily. - The truth is that in the bringing-up
of the young there is the place of the schoolmaster and of
the school-fellows, as well as that of the parents; and of
these several forces one cannot fulfil the functions of the
others.
§ 13. According to the theory or at least the practice of
English public schools, boys are left in their leisure hours to
organize their life for themselves, and they form a community
from which the masters are, partly by their own over-work,
178 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Shadow-side of Public Schools.
partly by the traditions of the school, utterly excluded. From
this the intellectual education of the boys no doubt suffers.
"Engage them in conversation with men of parts and
breeding," says Locke; and this was the old notion of
training when boys of good family grew up as pages in the
household of some nobleman. But, except in the holidays,
the young aristocrats of the present day talk only with other
boys, and servants, and tradesmen. Hence the amount of
thought and conversation given to school topics, especially
the games, is out of all proportion to the importance of such
things; and this does much to increase what Matthew
Arnold calls " the barbarians' " inaptitude for ideas.
§ 14. What are we to say about the efiects of the system
on the morals of the boys ? If we were to start like Saint-
Cyran from the doctrine of human depravity, we should
entirely condemn the system and predict from it the most
disastrous results ;* but from experience we come to a very
* A master in a great public school once stated in a school address
what masters and boys felt to be true. *' It would hardly be too much
to say that the whole problem of education is how to surround the
young with good influences. I believe we must go on to add that if the
wisest man had set himself to work out this problem without the teach-
ing of experience, he would have been little likely to hit upon the system
of which we are so proud, and which we call "the Public School
System." If the real secret of education is to surround the young with
good influences, is it not a strange paradox to take them at the very age
when influences act most despotically and mass them together in large
numbers, where much that is coarsest is sure to be tolerated, and much
that is gentlest and most refining — the presence of mothers and sisters
for example — is for a large part of the year a memory or an echo rather
than a living voice? I confess I have never seen any answers to this
objection which apart from the test of experience I should have been
prepared to pronounce satisfactory. It is a simple truth that the moral
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 79
The Little Schools for the few only.
diflferent conclusion. Bishop Dupanloup, indeed, spoke of
the public schools of France as " ces gouffres." This is not
what is said or thought of the English schools, and they are
filled with boys whose fathers and grandfathers were brought
up in them, and desire above all things to maintain the old
traditions.
§ 15. The Little Schools of Port-Royal aimed at train-
ing a few boys very differently ; each master had the charge
of five or six only, and these were never to be out of his
presence day or night.*
§ 16. It may reasonably be objected that such schools
would be possible only for a few children of well-to-do parents,
and that men who would thus devote themselves could be
found only at seasons of great enthusiasm. Under ordinary
circumstances small schools have most of the drawbacks
and few of the advantages which are to be found in large
dangers of our Public School System are enormous. It is the simple
truth that do what you will in the way of precaution, you do give to
boys of low, animal natures, the very boys who ought to be exceptionally
subject to almost despotic restraint, exceptional opportunities of exer-
cising a debasing influence over natures far more refined and spiritual
than their own. And it is further the simple but the sad truth, that
these exceptional opportunities are too often turned to account, and
that the young boy's character for a time — sometimes for a long time —
is spoiled or vulgarized by the influence of unworthy companions."
This is what public schoolmasters, if their eyes are not blinded by
routine, are painfully conscious of. But they find that in the end good
prevails; the average boy gains a manly character and contributes
towards the keeping up a healthy public opinion which is of great effect
in restraining the evil-doer.
* " The number of boarders was never very great, because to a master
were assigned no more than he could have beds for in his room."
(Fontaine's MemoirCy Carre, p. 24. )
1 86 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Advantages of great schools.
schools. As I have already said, parents, schoolmasters,
and school-fellows have separate functions in education;
and even in the smallest school the master can never take
the place of the parent, or the school become the home.
Children at home enter into the world of their father and
mother; the family friends are their friends, the family
events affect them as a matter of course. But in the school,
however small, the children's interests are unconnected with
the master and the master's family. The boys may be on
the most intimate, even affectionate terms with the grown
people who have charge of them ; but the mental horizon of
the two parties is very different, and their common area of
vision but small. In such cases the young do not rise into
the world of the adults, and it is almost impossible for the
adults to descend into theirs. They are " no company " the
one for the other, and to be constantly in each other's
presence would subject both to very irksome restraint.
When left to themselves, boys in small numbers are far
more likely to get into harm than boys in large numbers.
In large communities even of boys, "the common sense of
most" is a check on the badly disposed. So as it seems to
me if from any cause the young cannot live at home and
attend a day-school, they will be far better off in a large
boarding school than in one that would better fulfil the
requirements of Erasmus,* Saint-Cyran, and I^ocke.
• " Plerisque placet media qusedam ratio, ut apud unum Prseceptorera
quinque sexve pueri instituantur : ita nee sodalitas deerit setati, cui
convenit alacritas ; neque non sufficiet singulis cura Prteceptoris ; at
facile vitabitur corruptio quam affert multitude. Many take up with a
middle course, and would have five or six boys placed with one pre-
ceptor ; in this way they will not be without companionship at an age
when from their liveliness they seem specially to need it, and the master
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. l8l
Choice of masters & servants. Watch & pray.
§ 17. As Saint-Cyran attributed immense importance to
the part of the master in education, he was not easily
satisfied with his qualifications. "There is no occupation
in the Church that is more worthy of a Christian ; next to
giving up one's life there is no greater charity . . . The
charge of the soul of one of these little ones is a higher
employment than the government of all the world." (Cadet,
2.) So thought Saint-Cyran, and he was ready to go to the
ends of the earth to find the sort of teacher he wanted.
§ 18. He was so anxious that the children should see
only that which was good that the servants were chosen with
peculiar care.
§ 19. For the masters his favourite rule was: "Speak
little ; put up with much ; pray still more." Piety was not
to be instilled so much by precepts as by the atmosphere in
which the children grew up. " Do not spend so much time
in speaking to them about God as to God about them :" so
formal instruction was never to be made wearisome. But
there was to be an incessant watch against evil influences
and for good. "In guarding the citadel," says Lancelot,
"we fail if we leave open a single gateway by which the
enemy might enter."
§ 20. Though anxious, like the Jesuits, to make their
boys' studies " not only endurable, but even delightful," the
Gentlemen of Port-Royal banished every form of rivalry.
Each pupil was to think of one whom he should try to catch
up, but this was not a school-fellow, but his own higher self, his
may give sufficient care to each individual ; moreover, there will be an
easy avoidance of the moral corruption which numbers bring." Erasmus
on Christian Marriage quoted by Coustel in Sainte-Beuve, P.Riij, bk,
4, p. 404.
1 82
THE PORT-ROYALISTS
No rivalry or pressure. Freedom from routine.
ideal. Here Pascal admits that the exclusion of competition
had its drawbacks and that the boys sometimes became
indifferent — " tombent dans la nonchalance," as he says.
§ 21. As for the instruction it was founded on this
principle : the object of schools being piety rather than
knowledge there was to be no pressure in studying, but the
children were to be taught what was sound and enduring.
" § 22. In all occupations there is of necessity a tradition.
In the higher calhngs the tradition may be of several kinds.
First there may be a tradition of noble thoughts and high
ideals, which will be conveyed in the words of the greatest
men who have been engaged in that calling, or have thought
out the theory of it. Next there will be the tradition of the
very best workers in it. And lastly there is the tradition of
the common man who learns and passes on just the ordinary
views of his class and the ordinary expedients for getting
through ordinary work. Of these different kinds of tradition,
the school-room has always shown a tendency to keep to this
last, and the common man is supreme. Young teachers are
mostly required to fulfil their daily tasks without the
smallest preparation for them ; so they have to get through
as best they can, and have no time to think of any high
ideal, or of any way of doing their work except that which
gives them least trouble. "Practice makes perfect," says
the proverb, but it would be truer to say that practice in
doing work badly soon makes perfect in contentment with
bad workmanship. Thus it is that the tradition of the
school-room settles down for the most part into a deadly
routine, and teachers who have long been engaged in carry-
ing it on seem to lose their powers of vision like horses who
turn mills in the dark.
The Gentlemen of Port-Royal worked free from school-
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 83
Study a delight. Reading French first.
room tradition. "If the want of emulation was a drawback,"
says Sainte-Beuve, " it was a clear gain to escape from all
routine, from all pedantry. La crasse et la morgue des
regents rHen approchaient pas.^^ {P.R. vol. iij, p. 414.) Piety
as we have seen was their main object. Next to it they
wished to " carry the intellects of their puj)ils to the highest
point they could attain to."
§ 23. In doing this they profited by their freedom from
routine to try experiments. They used their own judgments
and sought to train the judgment of their pupils. Them-
selves knowing the delights of literature, they resolved that
their pupils should know them also. They would banish all
useless difficulties and do what they could to "help the
young and make study even more pleasant to them than play
and pastime." (Preface to Cic's Billets^ quoted by Sainte-
Beuve, vol. iij, p. 423.)
§ 24. One of their innovations, though startling to their
contemporaries, does not seem to us very surprising. It
was the custom to begin reading with a three or four years'
course of reading Latin, because in that language all the
letters were pronounced. The connexion between sound
and sense is in our days not always thought of, but even
among teachers no advocates would now be found for the
old method which kept young people for the first three or
four years uttering sounds they could by no possibility
understand. The French language might have some dis-
advantage from its silent letters, but this was small compared
with the disadvantage felt in Latin from its silent sense.
So the Port-Royalists began reading with French.
§ 25. Further than this, they objected to reading through
spelling, and pointed out that as consonants cannot be
pronounced by themselves they should be taken only in
1 84 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Literature. Mother-tongue first.
connexion with the adjacent vowel. Pascal applied himself
to the subject and invented the method described in the
6th chap, of the General Grammar (Carrd, p. xxiij) and
introduced by his sister Jacquehne at Port-Royal des
Champs.
§ 26. When the child could read French, the Gentlemen
of Port-Royal sought for him books within the range of his
intelligence. There was nothing suitable in French, so they
set to work to produce translations in good French of the
most readable Latin books, " altering them just a little — en
y changeant fort pen de chose" as said the chief translator
De Saci, for the sake of purity. In this way they gallicised
the Fables of Phaedrus, three Comedies of Terence, and
the Familiar Letters [Billets) of Cicero.
§ 27. In this we see an important innovation. As I
have tried to explain {supra pp. 14 ff.) the effect of the
Renascence was to banish both the mother-tongue and
hterature proper from the school-room ; for no language was
tolerated but Latin, and no literature was thought possible
except in Latin or Greek. Before any literature could be
known, or indeed, instruction in any subject could be given,
the pupils had to learn Latin. This neglect of the mother-
tongue was one of the traditional mistakes pointed out and
abandoned by the Port-Royalists. "People of quality
complain," says De Saci, " and complain with reason, that
in giving their children Latin we take away French, and to
turn them into citizens of ancient Rome we make them
strangers in their native land. After learning Latin and
Greek for 10 or 12 years, we are often obliged at the age of
30 to learn French." (Cadet, 10.) So Port-Royal proposed
breaking through this bondage to Latin, and laid down the
principle, new in France, though not in the country of
I
i
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 85
Beginners' difficulties lightened.
Mulcaster or of Ratke, that everything should be taught
through the mother-tongue.
Next, the Port-Royahsts sought to give their pupils an
early and a pleasing introduction to literature. The best
literature in those days was the classical ; and suitable works
from that literature might be made intelligible dy means oj
translations. In this way the Port-Royalists led their pupils
to look upon some of the classical authors not as inventors
of examples in syntax, but as writers of books that meant
something. And thus both the mother-tongue and literature
were brought into the school-room.
§ 28. When the boys had by this means got some
feeling for literature and some acquaintance with the world
of the ancients, they began the study of Latin. Here again
all needless difficulties were taken out of their way. No
attempt indeed was made to teach language without grammar,
the rationale of language, but the science of grammar was
reduced to first principles (set forth in the Grammaire
Generale et Raisofinee of Arnauld and Lancelot), and the
special grammar of the Latin language was no longer taught
by means of the work established in the University, the
Latin Latin Grammar of Despautere, but by a "New Method"
written in French which gave essentials only and had for its
motto : " Mihi inter virtutes grammatici habebitur aliqua
nescire — To me it will be among the grammarian's good
points not to know everything." (Quintil.)*
* Lancelot's "New way of easily learning Latin [Notivelle Methode
pour apprendre facilement la langue Latine)" was published in 1644, his
method for Greek in 1655. This was followed in 1657 by his "Garden
of Greek Roots {Jardin des racines gi-ecgues) " (see Cadet, pp. 15 ff.)
The Port-Royalists seem to me in some respects far behind Comenias,
but they were right in rejecting him as a methodiser in language-
i86
THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Begin with Latin into Mother-tongue.
§ 29. With this minimum of the essentials of the
grammar and with a previous acquaintance with the sense of
the book the pupils were introduced to the Latin language
and were taught to translate a Latin author into French.
This was a departure from the ordinary route, which after a
course of learning grammar-rules in Latin went to the
" theme," />., to composition in Latin.
The art of translating into the mother-tongue was made
much of. School " construes," which consist in substituting
a w^ord for a word, were entirely forbidden, and the pupils
had to produce the old writer's thoughts in French*
learning. Lancelot in the preface to his "Garden of Greek Roots,"
says that the Jamia of Comenius is totally wanting in method. *' It
would need," says he, "an extraordinary memory; and from my ex-
perience I should say that few children could learn this book, for it is
long and difficult ; and as the words in it are not repeated, those at the
beginning would be forgotten before the learner reached the end. So
he would feel a constant discouragement, because he would always find
himself in a new country where he would recognize nothing. And the
book is full of all sorts of uncommon and difficult words, and the first
chapters throw no light on those which follow." Totliis well-grounded
criticism he adds : *' The entrances to the Tongues, to deserve its name,
should be nothing but a short and simple way leading us as soon as
possible to read the best books in the language, so that we might not
only acquire the words we are in need of, but also all that is most
characteristic in the idiom and pure in the phraseology, which make up
the most difficult and most important part of every language." (Quoted
by Cadet, p. 17).
* Lemattre, a nephew of La Mere Angelique, was one of the most
celebrated orators in France. In renouncing the world for Port-Royal,
he retired from a splendid position at the Bar. Such men had qualifi-
cations out of the reach of ordinary schoolmasters. Dufosse, in after
years, told how, when he was a boy, Lemaitre called him often to his
room and gave him solid instruction in learning and piety. " He read
I
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 8/
Sense before Sound. Reason must rule.
§ 30. From this we see that the training was literary
But in the study of form the Port- Royalists did not neglect
the inward for the outward. Their great work, which still
stands the attacks of time, is the Port-Royal Logic^ or the
Art of Thinking {se& Txdins. by T. Spencer Baynes, 1850).
This was substantially the work of Arnauld ; and it was
Arnauld who led the Port-Royalists in their rupture with the
philosophy of the Middle Age, and who openly followed
Descartes. In the Logic we find the claims of reason
asserted as if in defiance of the Jesuits. " It is a heavy
bondage to think oneself forced to agree in everything with
Aristotle and to take him as the standard of truth in
philosophy The world cannot long continue in
this restraint, and is recovering by degrees its natural and
reasonable liberty, which consists in accepting that which
we judge to be true and rejecting that which we judge to be
false." (Quoted by Cadet, p. 31.)*
to me and made me read pieces from poets and orators, and saw that
I noticed the beauties in them both in thought and diction. Moreover
he taught me the right emphasis and articulation both in verse and
prose, in which he himself was admirable, having the charm of a fine
voice and all else that goes to make a great orator. He gave me also
many rules for good translation and for making my progress in that art
easy to me. " (Dufosse's Memoires^ dr'c, quoted by Cadet, p. 9. ) It was
Lemaitre who instructed Racine (born 1639, admitted at Les Granges,
Port Royal des Champs, in 1655).
* In 1670 the General of the Jesuits issued a letter to the Society against
the Cartesian philosophy. The University in this agreed with its rivals,
and petitioned the Parliament to prohibit the Cartesian teaching. This
produced the burlesque Arrit by Boileau (1675). ** Whereas it is stated
that for some years past a stranger named Reason has endeavoured to
make entry by force into the Schools of the University . . . where
Aristotle has always been acknowledged as judge without appeal and
1 88 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Not Baconian. The body despised.
§ 31. To mark the change, the Port- Royalists called
their book not " the Art of Reasoning," but " the Art of
Thinking," and it was in this art of thinking that they
endeavoured to train their scholars. They paid great
attention to geometry, and Arnauld wrote a book (" New
Elements of Geometry ") which so well satisfied Pascal that
after reading the MS. he burnt a similar work of his own.
§ 32. The Port-Royalists then sought to introduce into
the school-room a "sweet reasonableness." They were not
touched, as Comenius was, by the spirit of Bacon, and knew
nothing of a key for opening the secrets of Nature. They
loved hterature and resolved that their pupils should love it
also ; and with this end they would give the first notions of
it in the mother-tongue; but the love of literature still
bound them to the past, and they aimed simply at making
the best of the Old Education without any thought of a
New.
§ $^. In one respect they seem less wise than Rabelais
and Mulcaster, less wise perhaps than their foes the Jesuits.
They gave little heed to training the body, and thought of
the soul and the mind only ; or if they thought of the body
they were concerned merely that it should do no harm.
" Not only must we form the minds of our pupils to virtue,"
not accountable for his opinions ... Be it known by these presents
that this Court has maintained and kept and does maintain and keep
the said Aristotle in perfect and peaceable possession of the said schools
. . . and in order that for the future he may not be interfered with in
them, it has banished Reason for ever from the Schools of the said
University, and forbids his entry to disturb and disquiet the said
Aristotle in the possession and enjoyment of the aforesaid schools, under
pain and penalty of being declared a Jansenist and a lover of innova^
tons." (Quoted by Cadet, p. 34.)
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 89
Pedagogic writings of Port-Royalists.
says Nicole, " we must also bend their bodies to it, that is,
we must endeavour that the body do not prove a hin-
drance to their leading a well-regulated life or draw them by
its weight to any disorder. For we should know that as
men are made up of mind and body, a wrong turn given to
the body in youth is often in after hfe a great hindrance to
piety." ( Vues p. bien Hever un prince, quoted by Cadet,
p. 206.)
§ 34. But let us not underrate the good effect produced
by this united effort of Christian toil and Christian thought.
"Nothing should be more highly esteemed than good sense,"
(Preface to the Logique)^ and Port-Royal did a great work
in bringing good sense and reason to bear on the practice
of the school-room. When the Little Schools were dispersed
the Gentlemen still continued to teach, but the lessons they
gave were now in the " art of thinking " and in the art of
teaching; and all the world might learn of them, for they
taught in the only way left open to them ; they pubhshed
books.
§ 35. Of these writers on pedagogy the most distin-
guished was "the great Arnauld," i.e., Antoine Arnauld,
(161 2-1694) brother of the Mere Angelique. His '■'' Reglement
des Etudes " shows us how literary instruction was given at
Port-Royal. In these directions we have not so much the
rules observed in the Little Schools as the experience of the
Little Schools rendered available for the schools of the
University. On this account Sainte-Beuve speaks of the
Regleme?it of Arnauld as forming a preface to the Treatise
on Studies {Traite des Atudes) of RoUin. In the Reglement
we see Arnauld yielding to what seems a practical necessity
and admitting competition and prizes. Some excellent
advice is given, especially on practice in the use of the
15
190 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Arnauld. Nicole.
mother-tongue. The young people are to question and
answer each other about the substance of what they have
read, about the more remarkable thoughts in their author or
the more beautiful expressions. Each day two of the boys
are to narrate a story which they themselves have selected
from a classical author.*
§ 36. With the notable exception of Pascal, Arnauld
was the most distinguished writer among the Gentlemen 01
Port-Royal. A writer less devoted to controversy than
Arnauld, less attached to the thought of Saint-Cyran and of
Descartes, but of wider popularity, was Nicole, who had
Made, de Sdvign^ for an admirer, and Locke for one of his
translators.
Nicole has given us a valuable contribution to pedagogy
in his essay on the right bringing-up of a prince. {Vues
gknerales pour bien tlever un prince) In this essay he shows
us with what thought and care he had applied himself to
the art of instruction, and he gives us hints that all teachers
may profit by. Take the following : —
§ 37. "Properly speaking it is not the masters, it is no
instruction from without, that makes things understood ; at
the best the masters do nothing but expose the things to the
interior light of the mind, by which alone they can be
understood. It follows that where this light is wanting
instruction is as useless as trying to shew pictures in the
dark. The very greatest minds are nothing but lights in
confinement, and they have always sombre and shady spots ;
but in children the mind is nearly full of shade and emits
* Although so much time is given to the study of words, practice in
the use of words is almost entirely neglected, and the English schoolboy
remains inarticulate.
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. I91
Light from within. Teach by the Senses.
but little rays of light. So everything depends on making
the most of these rays, on increasing them and exposing to
them what one wishes to have understood. For this reason
it is hard to give general rules for instructing anyone,
because the instruction must be adapted to the mixture ot
light and darkness, which differs widely in different minds,
especially with children. We must look where the day is
breaking and bring to it what we wish them to understand ;
and to do this we must try a variety of ways for getting at
their minds and must persevere with such as we find have
most success.
"But generally speaking we may say that, as in children
the light depends greatly on their senses, we should as far
as possible attach to the senses the instruction we give
them, and make it enter not only by the ear but also by the
sight, as there is no sense which makes so lively an impres-
sion on the mind and forms such sharp and clear ideas."
This is excellent. There is a wise proverb that warns us
that " however soon we get up in the morning the sunrise
comes never the earlier." A vast amount of instruction is
thrown away because the instructors will not wait for the
day-break.
§ 38. For the moral training of the young there is one
qualification in the teacher which is absolutely indispensable
— goodness. Similarly for the intellectual training, there is
an indispensable qualification — intelligence. This is the
qualification required by the system of Port-Royal, but not
required in working the ordinary machinery of the school-
room either in those days or in ours. When Nicole has
described how instruction should be given so as to train the
judgment and cultivate the taste, he continues :
" As this kind of instruction comes without observation,
192 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Best teaching escapes common tests.
so is the profit derived from it likely to escape observation
also ; that is, it will not announce itself by anything on the
surface and palpable to the common man. And on this
account persons of small intelligence are mistaken about it
and think that a boy thus instructed is no better than
another, because he cannot make a better translation from
Latin into French, or beat him in saying his Virgil. Thus
judging of the instruction by these trifles only, they often
make less account of a really able teacher than of one of
little science and of a mind without light." (Nicole in
Cadet, p. 204; Carr^, p. 187.)
In these days of marks and percentages we seem agreed
that it must be all right if the children can stand the tests
of the examiner or the inspector. Something may no doubt
be got at by these tests ; but we cannot hope for any genuine
care for education while everything is estimated ''^ par des
signes grossiers et exterieurs."
§ 39. Whatever was required to adapt the thought of Port-
Royal to the needs of classical schools, especially the schools
of the University of Paris was supplied by Rollin (1661-
1741) whose Traite des Etudes or "Way of teaching and
studying Literature," united the lessons of Port-Royal with
much material drawn from his own experience and from his
acquaintance with the writings of other authors, especially
Quintilian and Seneca. Having been twice Rector of the
University (in 1694 and 1695) Rollin had managed to bring
into the schools much that was due to Port-Royal ; and in
his Traite he has the tact to give the improved methods as
the ordinary practice of his colleagues.
§ 40. Much that Rollin has said applies only to classical
or at most to literary instruction ; but some of his advice
will be good for all teachers as long as the human mind
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 93
Studying impossible without a will.
needs instruction. I have met with nothing that seems to
me to go more truly to the very foundation of the art of
teaching than the following :
" We should never lose sight of this grand principle that
STUDY DEPENDS ON THE WILL, and the wiU does not endure
constraint : * Studium discendi voluntate quce cogi non potest
constat' (Quint, j, i, cap. 3.)* We can, to be sure, put
constraint on the body and make a pupil, however unwilling,
stick to his desk, can double his toil by punishment, compel
* RolHn somewhat extends Quintilian's statement : " The desire
of learning rests in the will which you cannot force. " About attempts
to coerce the will in the absence of interest, I may quote a passage
from a lecture of mine at Birmingham in 1884, when I did not know
that I had behind me such high authorities as Quintilian and RoUin :
** I should divide the powers of the mind that may be cultivated in the
school-room into two classes : in the first I should put all the higher
powers — grasp of meaning, perception of analogy, observation, reflection,
imagination, intellectual memory ; in the other class is one power only,
and that is a kind of memory that depends on the association of sounds.
How is it then that in most school-rooms far more time is spent in
cultivating this last and least-valuable power than all the rest put
together? The explanation is easy. All the higher powers can be
exercised only when the pupils are interested, or, as Mr. Thring puts it,
*care for what they are about.' The memory that depends on as-
sociating sounds is independent of interest and can be secured by simple
repetition. Now it is very hard to awaken interest, and still harder to
maintain it. That magician's wand, the cane, with which the school-
masters of olden time worked such wonders, is powerless here or
poweiful only in the negative direction ; and so is every form of punish-
ment. You may tell a boy — ' If you can't say your lesson you shall
stay in and write it out half-a-dozen times !' and the threat may have
effect ; but no * instans tyrannus ' from Orbilius downwards has ever
thought of saying, * If you don't take an interest in your work, I'll keep
you in till you do ! ' So teachers very naturally prefer the kind of
teiiciiing in which they can make sure of success."
194 THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Against making beginnings bitten
him to finish a task imposed upon him, and with this object
we can deprive him of play and recreation. But is this
work of the galley-slave studying? And what remains tc
the pupil from this kind of study but a hatred of books, of
learning, and of masters, often till the end of his days ? It
is then the will that we must draw on our side, and this we
must do by gentleness, by friendliness, by persuasion, and
above all by the allurement of pleasure." (Traite^ 8th Bk.
Du Gouvernement des Classes^ i'® Partie, Art. x.)
§ 41. The passage I have quoted is from the Article
"on giving a taste for study {rendre V etude aimable) f and
if some masters do not agree that this is " one of the most
important points concerning education," they will not deny
that " it is at the same time one of the most difficult." As
Rollin truly says, " among a very great number of masters
who in other respects are highly meritorious there will be
found very few who manage to get their pupils to like their
work."
§ 42. One of the great causes of the disinclination for
school work is to be found according to Rollin and Quintilian,
in the repulsive form in which children first become
acquainted with the elements of learning. " In this matter
success depends very much on first impressions ; and the
main effort of the masters who teach the first rudiments
should be so to do this, that the child who cannot as yet
love study should at least not get an aversion for it from
that time forward, for fear lest the bitter taste once acquired
should still be in his mouth when he grows older."* (Begin,
of Art. X, as above.)
* Here as usual Rollin uses Quintilian without directly quoting him.
He gives in a note the passage he had in his mind. " Id imprimis
THE PORT-ROYALISTS. 1 95
Port- Royal advance. Books on P.-R.
§ 43. In this matter Rollin was more truly the disciple of
the Port-Royalists than of Quintilian. They it was who
protested against the dismal "grind" of learning to read
first in an unknown tongue, and of studying the rules of
Latin in Latin with no knowledge of Latin, a course which
professed to lead, as Sainte-Bcuve puts it, " to the unknown
through the unintelligible." They directed their highly-
trained intellects to the teaching of the elements, and
succeeded in proving that the ordinary difficulties were due
not to the dulness of the learners, but to the stupidity of the
masters. They showed how much might be done to remove
these difficulties by following not routine but the dictates of
thought, and study and love of the little ones.
There is an excellent though condensed account of the Port-Royalists
under "Jansenists" in Sonnenschein's Cyclopcedia of Education. In
vol. ij, of Charles Beard's Port-Royal, (2 vols., 1861) there is a chapter
on the Little Schools. The most pleasing account I have seen in
English of the Port- Royalists (without reference to education) is in Sir
Jas. Stephen's Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography. In French the great
work on the subject is Sainte-Beuve's Port-Royal^ 5 vols. (71 ed., 6 vols.)
The account of the Schools is in 4th bk., in vol. iij, of ist ed. Very
useful for studying the pedagogy of Port-Royal are V Education h Port-
Royal by Felix Cadet (Hachette, 1887) and Les Pedagogues de Port-
Roy al^ by I. Carre (Delagrave, 1887). These last give extracts from
the main writings on education by Amauld, Nicole, Lancelot, Coustel,
&c. The article, Port- Royal, in Buisson's Z?., is the *' Introduction " to
Carre's book. A 3-vol. ed. of Rollin's TraitJ was published (Paris,
Didot) in 1872. The more interesting parts of this book are contained
cavere oportebit, ne studia qui amare nondum potest oderit ; et amari-
tudinem semel praeceptam etiam ultra rudes annos refomddet. (Quint.,
lib. j, cap. I.)"
196
THE PORT-ROYALISTS.
Rollin, &c.
in F. Cadet's Rollin: Traiti des :^tu'ies (Delagrave, 1882). Rollin's
work was at one time well-known in the English trans., and copies of it
are often to be found ** second-hand." The best part comes last ; which
may account for the neglect into which the book has fallen. The
accounts of Port-Royal and of Rollin in G. Compayre's Histoire
Critique are very good parts of a very good book. Verin's '^tude sur
Lancelot I have not seen, and it is only too probable that I have not
given to Lancelot the attention due to him.
XII.
SOME ENGLISH WRITERS BEFORE
LOCKE.
§ I. The beginning of the 17th century brought with it
a change in the main direction of thought and interest. As
we have seen, the i6th century adored Uterature and was
thrown back on the remote past. Some of the great scholars
like Sturm had indeed visions of literary works to be written,
that would rival the old models on which they were
fashioned ; but whether they hoped or not to bring back
the Golden Age all the scholars of the Renascence thought
of it as having been. With the change of century, however, a
new conception came into men's minds. Might not this
worship of the old writers after all be somewhat of a
superstition? The languages in which they wrote were
beautiful languages, no doubt, but they were ill adapted to
express the ideas and wants of the modern world. As for
the substance of these old writings, this did not satisfy the
cravings of men's minds. It left unsolved all the main
problems of existence, and offered for knowledge mere
speculations or poetic fancies or polished rhetoric. Man
needed to understand his position with regard to God and
to Nature ; but on both of these topics the classics were
either silent or misleading. Revelation had supplied what
198
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Birth of Realism.
the classics could not give concerning man's relation to God;
but nothing had as yet thrown light on his relation to Nature.
And yet with his material body and animal life he could
not but see how close that relation was, and could not but
wish that something about it might be known^ not simply
guessed or feigned. Hence the demand for rf<2/ knowledge,
that is, a knowledge of the facts of the universe as distinct
from the knowledge of what men have thought and said.
We have heard of the mathematician who put down Paradise
Lost with the remark that it seemed to him a poor book, for
it did not prove anything ; and it was just in this spirit that
the new school of thinkers, the Realists, looked upon the
classics. They wanted to know Nature's laws : and words
which did not convey such knowledge seemed to them of
little value.
§ 2. Here was a tremendous revolution from the mode
of thought prevalent in the Renascence. No longer was
the Golden Age in the past. In science the Golden Age
must always be in the future. Scientific men start with what
has been discovered and add to it. Every discovery passes
into the common stock of knowledge, and becomes the
property of everyone who knows it just as much as of the
discoverer. Harvey had no more property in the circulation
of the blood, Newton and Leibnitz no more property in the
Differential Calculus than Columbus in the Continent of
America ; indeed not so much, for Columbus gained some
exclusive rights in America, but Harvey gained none over
the blood.
So we see that whereas the literary spirit made the
dominant minds reverence the past, the scientific spirit led
them to despise the past; and whereas the literary spirit
raised the value of words and led to the study of celebrated
.;
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. I99
Realist Leaders not schoolmasters.
writings, the scientific spirit was totally careless about words
and prized only physical truths which were entirely in-
dependent of words. Again, the literary spirit naturally
favoured the principle of authority, for its oracles had already
spoken : the scientific spirit set aside all authority and
accepted nothing that did not of itself satisfy the reason.
(Compare Comenius, supra p. 152.)
§ 3. The first great leader in this revolution was an
Englishman, Francis Bacon, But the school-room felt his
influence only through those who learnt from him; and among
educational reformers, the chief advocates of realism have
been found on the Continent, e.g.^ Ratke and Comenius.*
But the desire to learn by *' things, not words " affected the
minds of many English writers on education, and we find
this spirit showing itself even in Milton and Locke, and far
more clearly in some writers less known to fame.
§ 4. There is a wide distinction in educational writers
between those who were schoolmasters and those who were
not. Schoolmasters have to come to terms with what exists
and to make a livelihood by it. So they are conservatives
by position, and rarely get beyond an attempt at showing
how that which is now done badly might be done well.
Suggestions of radical change usually come front those who
never belonged to the class of teachers, or who, not without
disgust, have left it.
Among English schoolmasters of the olden times the chief
writers I have met with besides Mulcaster are John Brinsley
the elder, and Charles Hoole.
* Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel weie also in this sense realists,
but Ihey held that the educational value of knowledge lay not in itself,
but only in so far as it was an instrument for developing the faculties oJ
the mind.
200
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
John Brinsley. Charles Hoole.
§ 5. John Brinsley the elder, a Puritan schoolmaster at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a brother-in-law of Bishop Hall's, and
father of John Brinsley the younger who became a leading
Puritan minister and author, was a veritable reformer, but
only with reference to methods. His most interesting
books are Ludus Literarius or the Grammar Schools^ 1 6 1 2
(written after 20 years' experience in teaching, as we learn
from the Consolation, p. 45), and A Consolation for our
Grammar SchooUs : or a faithfiill and most comfortable in-
couragement for laying of a sure foundation of all good learn-
ing in our schooles and for prosperous buildi?ig thereupon^
1622. The first of these, when reprinted, as it is sure to
be, will always secure for its author the notice and the
gratitude of students of the history of our education ; for in
this book he tells us not only what should be done in the
school-room, but also what was done. In a dialogue with
the ordinary schoolmaster the reformer draws to light the
usual practice, criticizes it, and suggests improvements.
§ 6. In Brinsley we get no hint of realism ; but by
the middle of the sixteen hundreds we find the realistic
spirit is felt even by a schoolmaster, Charles Hoole,* who
was a kinsman of Bishop Sanderson, the Casuist, and was
master first of the Grammar School at Rotherham, then of a
private Grammar School in London, published besides a
number of school books, a translation of the Orbis I'ict us (date
of preface, January, 165S), and also "A New Discovery of the
old art of teaching schoole . . . published for the general
* Henry Barnard [Enghsh Pedagogy, second series, p. 192), speaks of
Hoole as " one of the pioneer educators of his century." According to
Barnard he was born at Wakefield, in 16 10, and died in 1666, rector of
** Stock Billerica " (perhaps Stock with Billericay), in Essex.
^•c*,.<A.oU WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 20I
Hoole^s Realism.
profit, especially of young Schoolemasters " (date of preface,
December, 1659). In these books we find that Hoole
succeeded even in the school-room in keeping his mind open.
He complains of the neglect of English, and evidently in
theory at least went a long way with the realistic reformers.
"Comenius," he says, "hath proceeded (as Nature itself doth)
in an orderly way, first to exercise the senses well by pre-
senting their objects to them, and then to fasten upon the
intellect by impressing the first notions of things upon it and
linking them one to another by a rational discourse;
whereas indeed we generally, missing this way, do teach
children as we do parrots to speak they know not what, nay,
which is worse, we taking the way of teaching little ones by
grammar only, at the first do puzzle their imaginations with
abstractive terms and secondary intentions, which, till they
be somewhat acquainted with things, and the words belong-
ing to them in the language which ' they learn, they cannot
apprehend what they mean. And this I guess to be the
reason why many greater persons do resolve sometimes not
to put a child to school till he be at least eleven or twelve
years of age . . . You then, that have the care of
little children, do not too much trouble their thoughts and
clog their memories with bare grammar rudiments, which to
them are harsh in getting, and fluid in retaining ; because
indeed to them they signifie nothing but a meer swimming
notion of a general term, which they know not what it
meaneth till they comprehend all particulars: but by this
[i.e., the Ordi's F.] or the like subsidiarie inform them first
with some knowledge of things and words wherewith to
express them ; and then their rules of speaking will be
better understood and more firmly kept in mind. Else how
should a child conceive Avhat a rule meaneth when he neither
202 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Art of teaching. Abraham Cowley.
knoweth what the Latine word importeth, nor what manner
of thing it is which is signified to him in his own native
language which is given him thereby to understand the rule?
for rules consisting of generalities are delivered (as I may
say) at a third hand, presuming first the things and then the
words to be already apprehended touching which they are
made." This subject Hoole wisely commends to the con-
sideration of teachers, "itheing if Ae very basis of our progression
to search into the way of children's taking hold by little and
little of what we teach them, that so we may apply ourselves
to their reach." (Preface to trans, of Orbis Ficttis.)
§ 7. "Good Lord! how many good and clear wits of
children be now-a-days perished by ignorant schoolmasters !"
So said Sir Thomas Elyot in his Governor in 1531, and the
complaint would not have been out of date in the lyth
century, possibly not in the 19th. In the sixteen hundreds
we certainly find little advance in practice, though in theory
many bold projects were advanced, some of which pointed
to the study of things, to the training of the hand, and even
to observation of the " educands."
§ 8. The poet Cowley's "proposition for the advance-
ment of experimental philosophy " is a scheme of a college
near London to which is to be attached a school of 200
boys. " And because it is deplorable to consider the loss
which children make of their time at most schools, employ-
ing or rather casting away six or seven years in the learning
of words only, and that too very imperfectly ; that a method
be here established for the infusing knowledge and language
at the same time, [Is this an echo of Comenius ?] and that
this may be their apprenticeship in Natural Philosophy."*
* A very interesting suggestion of Cowley's is that another house
be built for poor men's sons who show ability. These shall be brought
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 203
Authors and schoolmasters. J. Dury.
§ 9. Rarely indeed have those who either theoretically or
practically have made a study of education ever acquired
sufficient Hterary skill to catch the ear of the public or (what
is at least as difficult) the ear of the teaching body. And
among the eminent writers who have spoken on education,
as Rabelais, Montaigne, Milton, Locke, Rousseau, Herbert
Spencer, we cannot find one who has given to it more than
passing, if not accidental, attention. Schoolmasters are, as I
said, conservative, at least in the school-room ; and moreover,
they seldom find the necessary time, money, or inclination
for publishing on the work of their calling. The current
thought at any period must then be gathered from books
only to be found in our great libraries, books in which
writers now long forgotten give hints of what was wanted
out of the school-room and grumble at what went on in it.
§ 10. One of the most original of these writers that have
come in my way is John Dury, a Puritan, who was at one
time Chaplain to the Enghsh Company of Merchants at
Elbing, and laboured with Comenius and Hartlib to promote
unity among the various Christian bodies of the reformed
faith (see Masson's Life of Milton^ vol. iii). About 1649
Dury published The Reformed Schoole which gives the scheme
of an association for the purpose of educating a number of
boys and girls " in a Christian way."
§ II. That Dury was not himself a schoolmaster is plain
from the first of his "rules of education." "The chief rule of
the whole work is that nothing be made tedious and grievous
to the children, but all the toilsomeness of their business
up " with the same conveniences that are enjoyed even by rich men'
children (though they maintain the fewer for that cause), there being
nothing of eminent and ilhistrious to be expected from a low, sordid,
and hospital-like education."
.t-
204 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Disorderly use of our natural faculties.
the Governor and Ushers are to take upon themselves; that
by diligence and industry all things may be so prepared,
methodized and ordered for their apprehension, that this
work may unto them be as a delightful recreation by the
variety and easiness thereof."
§ 12. "The things to be looked unto in the care of
their education," he enumerates in the order of importance :
" I. Their advancement in piety; 2. The preservation of their
health ; 3. The forming of their manners ; 4. Their pro-
ficiency in learning" (p. 24). " Godhness and bodily
health are absolutely necessary," says Dury ; " the one for
spiritual and the other for their temporal felicitie " (p. 31): so
great care is to be taken in " exercising their bodies in
husbandry or manufactures or military employments.""^
§ 13. About instruction we find the usual complaints
which like " mother's truth keep constant youth." " Child-
ren," says Dury, "are taught to read authors and learn words
and sentences before they can have any notion of the things
signified by those words and sentences or of the author's
strain and wit in setting them together ; and they are made
to learn by heart the generall rules, sentences and precepts
of Arts before they are furnished with any matter whereunto
to apply those rules and precepts " (p. 38). Dury would
entirely sweep away the old routine, and in all instruction
he would keep in view the following end : " the true end of
all human learning is to supply in ourselves and others the
defects which proceed from our ignorance of the nature and
* It would seem as if these Puritans were more active in body than
in mind : even the seniors, like the children at Port-Royal, tombetit dans
la nonchalance. Dury has to lay it down that " the Governour and
Ushers and Steward if they be in health should not go to bed till ten."
(p. 30-)
k
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 205
^ Dury's watch simile.
use of the creatures, and the disorderliness of our natural
faculties in using them and reflecting upon them " (p. 41).
§ 14. " Our natural faculties " — here Dury struck a new
note, which has now become the keynote in the science of
education. He enforces his point with the following
ingenious illustration : — " As in a watch one wheel rightly
set doth with its teeth take hold of another and sets that
a-work towards a third ; and so all move one by another
when they are in their right places for the end for which the
watch is made ; so is it with the faculties of the human
nature being rightly ordered to the ends for which God
hath created them. But contrariwise, if the wheels be not
rightly set, or the watch not duly wound up, it is useless to
him that hath it. And so it is with the faculties of Man ;
if his wheels be not rightly ordered and wound up by the
ends of sciences in their subordination leading him to
employ the same according to his capacity to make use of
the creatures for that whereunto God hath made them, he
becomes not only useless, but even a burthen and hurtful
unto himself and others by the misusing of them " (p. 43).
§ 15. "As in Nature sense is the servant of imagination ;
imagination of memory ; memory of reason ; so in teaching
arts and sciences we must set these faculties a-work in this
order towards their proper objects in everything which is to
be taught. Whence this will follow, that as the faculties of
Man's soul naturally perfect each other by their mutual
subordination ; so the Arts which perfect those faculties
should be gradually suggested : and the objects wherewith
the faculties are to be conversant according to the rules of
Art should be offered in that order which is answerable to
their proper ends and uses and not otherwise."
§ 16. In this and much else that Dury says we see a firm
16
206 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Senses, ist ; imagination, 2nd ; memory, 3rd.
grasp of the principle that the instruction given should be
regulated by the gradual development of the learner's
faculties. The three sources of our knowledge, says he, are
— 1. Sense; 2. Tradition; 3. Reason; and Sense comes
first. " Art or sciences which may be learnt by mere sense
should not be learnt any other way." "As children's
faculties break forth in them by degrees to be vigorous with
their years and the growth of their bodies, so they are to be
filled with objects whereof they are capable, and plied with
arts ; whence followeth that while children are not capable of
the acts of reasoning, the method of filling their senses and
imaginations with outward objects should be plied. Nor is
their memory at this time to be charged further with any
objects than their imagination rightly ordered and fixed doth
of itself impress the same upon them." After speaking of
the common abuse of general rules, he says : '* So far as
those faculties (viz., sense, imagination, and memory) are
started with matters of observation, so far rules may be
given to direct the mind in the use of the same, and no
further." " The arts and sciences which lead us to reflect
upon the use of our own faculties are not to be taught till
we are fully acquainted with their proper objects, and the
direct acts of the faculties about them." So " it is a very
absurd and preposterous course to teach Logick and
Metaphysicks before or with other Humane Sciences which
depend more upon Sense and Imagination than reasoning "
(p. 46).
§ 17. In all this it seems to me that the worthy Puritan,
of whom nobody but Dr. Barnard and Professor Masson
has ever heard, has truly done more to lay a foundation for
the art of teaching than his famous contemporaries Milton
and Locke.
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 20/
Petty's battlefield simile.
§ 1 8. Another writer of that day better known than
Dury and with far more power of expression was Sir
William Petty. He is the " W.P.," who in an Epistle "to
his honoured friend Master Samuel Hartlib," set down his
"thoughts concerning the advancement of real learning"
(1647). This letter is to be shown only " to those few that
are Reall Friends to the Designe of Realities."*
§ 19. Petty sees the need of intercommunication of
those who wish to advance any art or science. He
complains that " the wits and endeavours of the world are
as so many scattered coals or fire-brands, which for want of
union are soon quenched, whereas being but laid together
they would yield a comfortable light and heat." This is a
thought which may well be applied to the bringing up of
the young; and the following passage might have been
written to secure a training for teachers : " Methinks the
present condition of men is like a field where a battle hath
been lately fought, where we may see many legs and arms
and eyes lying here and there, which for want of a union
and a soul to quicken and enliven them are good for
nothing but to feed ravens and infect the air. So we see
many wits and ingenuities lying scattered up and down the
* It is a sign of the failure of all attempts to establish educational
science in England that though the meaning of **rear' and "realities"
which connected them with res seemed established in the sixteen hundreds,
our language soon lost it again. According to a writer in Meyer's
Conversations Lexicon (first edition) **reales " in this sense occurs first
in Taubmann, 16 14. Whether this is correct or not it was certainly
about this time that there arose a contest between Humanismus and
Realismus^ a contest now at its height in the Gymnasien and Realschulen
of Germany. For a discussion of it, see M. Arnold's " Literature and
Science," referred to above (p. 154).
2o8 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Petty's realism.
world, whereof some are now labouring to do what is
already done, and puzzling themselves to re-invent what is
already invented. Others we see quite stuck fast in diffi-
culties for want of a few directions which some other man
(might he be met withal) both could and would most easily
give him." I wonder how many young teachers are now
wasting their own and their pupils' time in this awkward
predicament.
§ 20. "As for . . . education," says Petty, "we
cannot but hope that those who make it their trade will
supply it and render the idea thereof much more perfect."
His own contributions to the more perfect idea consist
mainly in making the study of " realities " precede literature,
and thus announcing the principle which in later times has
led to the introduction of " object lessons." The Baconians
thought that the good time was at hand, and that they had
found the right road at last. By experiments they would
learn to interpret Nature. After scheming a " Gymnasium,
Mechanicum, or College of Tradesmen," Petty says, " What
experiments and stuff would all those shops and operations
afford to active and philosophical heads, out of which to
extract that interpretation of nature whereof there is so
little, and that so bad, as yet extant in the world !"* And
this study of things was to affect the work of the school-room,
and redeem it from the dismal state into which it was
fallen. "As for the studies to which children are now-
a-days put," says Petty, " they are altogether unfit for want
of judgment which is but weak in them, and also for want
of will, which is sufficiently seen ... by the difficulty
• Many of Petty's proposals are now realized in the South Kensington
Museum.
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 209
Cultivate observation.
of keeping them at schools and the punishment they will
endure rather than be altogether debarred from the
pleasure which they take in things."
§ 21. The grand reform required is thus set forth;
** Since few children have need of reading before they know
or can be acquainted with the things they read of; or of
writing before their thoughts are worth the recording or they
are able to put them into any form (which we call
inditing) ; much less of learning languages when there be
books enough for their present use in their own mother-
tongue ; our opinion is that those things being withal
somewhat above their capacity (as being to be attained by
judgment which is weakest in children) be deferred awhile,
and others more needful for them, such as are in the order of
Nature before those afore-mentioned, and are attainable by
the help of memory which is either most strong or unpreoc-
cupied in children, be studied before them. We wish,
therefore, that the educands be taught to observe and
remember all sensible objects and actions, whether they be
natural or artificial, which the educators must upon all
occasions expound unto them."
§ 22. In proposing this great change Petty was in-
fluenced not merely by his own delight in the study of
things but by something far more important for education,
by observation of the children themselves. This study
of things instead of "a rabble of words" would be "more
easy and pleasant to the young as the more suitable to the
natural propensions we observe in them. For we see
children do delight in drums, pipes, fiddles, guns made of
elder sticks, and bellows' noses, piped keys, &c., painting
flags and ensigns with elderberries and cornpoppy, making
ships with paper, and setting even nut-shells a-swimming,
2IO WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Petty on children's activities.
handling the tools of workmen as soon as they turn their
backs and trying to work themselves ; fishing, fowling, hunting,
setting springes and traps for birds and other animals, making
pictures in their writing-books, making tops, gigs and
whirligigs, gilting balls, practising divers juggling tricks upon
the cards, &c., with a million more besides. And for the
females they will be making pies with clay, making their
babies' clothes and dressing them therewith ; they will spit
leaves on sticks as if they were roasting meat; they will
imitate all the talk and actions which they observe in their
mother and her gossips, and punctually act the comedy or
the tragedy (I know not whether to call it) of a woman's
lying-in. By all which it is most evident that children do
most naturally delight in things and are most capable of
learning them, having quick senses to receive them and
unpreoccupied memories to retain them " {ad/.).
§ 23. In these writers, Dury and Petty, we find a
wonderful advance in the theory of instruction. Children
are to be taught about things and this because their inward
constitution determines them towards things. Moreover
the subjects of instruction are to be graduated to accord
with the development of the learner's faculties. The giving
of rules and incomprehensible statements that will come in
useful at a future stage is entirely forbidden. All this is
excellent, and greatly have children suffered, greatly do they
suffer still, from their teachers' neglect of it. There seems
to me to have been no important advance on the thought of
these men till Pestalozzi and Froebel fixed their attention on
the mind of the child, and valued things not in themselves but
simply as the means best fitted for drawing out the child's
self-activity.
§ 24. In several other matters we find Sir William
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 211
Hand-work. Education for all. Bellers.
Petty's recommendations in advance of the practice of his
own time and ours. He advises "that the business of
elucation be not (as now) committed to the worst and
unworthiest of men [here at least we have improved] but
that it be seriously studied and practised by the best and
abler persons." To this standard we have not yet attained.
§ 25. Handwork is to be practised, but its educational
value is not clearly perceived. " All children, though of the
highest rank, are to be taught some gentle manufacture in
their minority." Ergastula Literaria^ literary workhouses,
are to be instituted where children may be taught as well to
do something towards their living as to read and write.*
§ 26. Education was to be universal, but chiefly with
the object of bringing to the front the clever sons of poor
parents. The rule he would lay down is " that all children of
above seven years old may be presented to this kind of
education, none being to be excluded by reason of the
poverty and unability of their parents, for hereby it hath come
to pass that many are now holding the plough which might
have been made fit to steer the state."!
* Later in the century Locke recommended that " working schools
should be set up in every parish," {see Fox-Bourne's Locke, or Cambridge
edition of the Thoughts c. Ed., App. A, p. 189). The Quakers seem to
have early taken up ** industrious education." John Bellers, whose
Proposals for Raising a College of Industry {i6<^6) was reprinted by Robt.
Owen, has some very good notions. After advising that boys and girls
be taught to knit, spin, &c. , and the bigger boys turning, &c. , he says,
" Thus the Hand employed brings Profit, the Reason used in it makes
•wise, and the Will subdued makes them good " {Proposals, p. 18). Years
afterwards in a Letter to the Yearly Meeting (dated 1723), he says, " It
may be observed that some of the Boys in Friends' Workhouse in
Clerkenwell by their present employment of spinning are capable to
earn their own living."
t Petty does not lose sight of the body. The " educands " are to
212 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Milton and School-Reform.
§ 27. From these enthusiasts for realities we find a
change when we turn to their contemporary, a schoolmaster
and author of a Latin Accidence, who was perhaps the
most notable Englishman who ever kept a school or pub-
lished a school-book.
§ 28. Milton was not only a great poet: he was also a great
scholar. Everything he said or wrote bore traces of his
learning. The world of books then rather than the world
of the senses is his world. He has benefited as he says
" among old renowned authors " and " his incHnation leads
him not " to read modern Januas and Didactics^ or
apparently the writings of any of his contemporaries includ-
ing those of his great countryman, Bacon. But, as
Professor Laurie reminds us, no man, not even a Milton,
however he may ignore the originators of ideas can keep
himself outside the influence of the ideas themselves when
they are in the air; and so we find Milton using his
"use such exercises whether in work or for recreation as tend to the
health, agility, and strength of their bodies."
I have quoted Petty from the very valuable collection of English
writings on Education reprinted in Henry Barnard's English Pedagogy^
2 vols. Petty is in Vol. I. In this vol. we have plenty of evidence of
the working of the Baconian spirit ; e.g. , we find Sir Matthew Hale in
z. Letter of Advice to his Grandchildren^ written in 1678, saying that there
is little use or improvement in *' notional speculations in logic or
philosophy delivered by others ; the rather because bare speculations
and notions have little experience and external observation to confirm
them, and they rarely fix the minds especially of young men. But that
part of philosophy that is real may be improved and confirmed by daily
observation, and is more stable and yet more certain and delightful, and
goes along with a man all his life, whatever employment or profession
he undertakes."
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 213
M. as spokesman of Christian Realists.
incomparable power of expression in the service of the
Realists.
§ 29. But brief he endeavours to be, and paying the
Horatian penalty he becomes obscure. In the "few
observations which flowered off and were the burnibhing
of many studious and contemplative years," Milton touches
only on the bringing up of gentlemen's sons between the
ages of 12 and 21, and his suggestions do not, like those of
Comenius, deal with the education of the people, or of both
sexes.* This limit of age, sex, and station deprives Milton's
plan of much of its interest, as the absence of detail deprives
it of much of its value.
§ 30. Still, we find in the Tractate a. very great advance
on the ideas current at the Renascence. Learning is no
longer the aim of education but is regarded simply as a
means. No finer expression has been given in our litera-
ture to the main thesis of the Christian and of the Realist
and to the Realist's contempt of verbalism, than this : " The
end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by
regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to
love Him, to imitate Him, to be like Him, as we may the
nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being
united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest
perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this
body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly
to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly
conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same
method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching.
And seeing ever)' Nation affords not experience and tradition
* " In this respect," says Professor Masson, '* the passion and the
projects of Comenius were a world wider than Milton's." {L. of AL
iij, P- 237.)
214 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Language an instrument. Object of education.
enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught
the languages of those people who have at any time been
most industrious after wisdom ; so that language is but the
instrument conveying to us things useful to be known.
And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the
tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not
studied the solid things in them as well as the words and
lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned
man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his
mother-dialect only."
§ 31. The several propositions here implied have thus
been "disentangled" by Professor Laurie (yb^« Milton in
Addresses^ &c., p. 167).
1. The aim of education is the knowledge of God and
likeness to God.
2. Likeness to God we attain by possessing our souls of
true virtue and by the Heavenly Grace of Faith.
3. Knowledge of God we attain by the study of the
visible things of God.
4. Teaching then has for its aim this knowledge.
5. Language is merely an instrument or vehicle for the
knowledge of things.
6. The linguist may be less learned {i.e., educated) in the
tme sense than a man who can make good use of his
mother-tongue though he knows no other.
§ 32. Elsewhere, Milton gives his idea of "a complete
and generous education; " it "fits a man to perform justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices both private and
public of Peace and War." (Browning's edition, p. 8.)
Here and indeed in all that Milton says we feel that " the
noble moral glow that pervades the Tractate on Education,
the mood of magnanimity in which it is conceived and written,
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 21 5
M. for barrack life and Verbal Realism.
and the faith it inculcates in the powers of the young human
spirit, if rightly nurtured and directed, are merits everlasting."
(Masson iij, p. 252.)
§ 33. But in this moral glow and in an intense hatred of
verbalism lie as it seems to me the chief merits of the
Tractate. The practical suggestions are either incompre-
hensible or of doubtful wisdom. The reforming of educa-
tion was, as Milton says, one of the greatest and noblest
designs that could be thought on, but he does not take the
right road when he proposes for everj' city in England a
joint school and university for about 120 boarders. The
advice to keep boys between 12 and 21 in this barrack life
I consider, with Professor Laurie, to be " fundamentally
unsound ; " and the project of uniting the military training
of Sparta with the humanistic training of Athens seems to
me a pure chimsera.
§ 34. When we come to instruction we find that Milton
after announcing the distinctive principle of the Realists
proves to be himself the last survivor of the Verbal Realists.
(See supra, p. 25). No doubt
** His daily teachers had been woods and rills,"
but his thoughts had been even more in his books ; and for
the young he sketches out a purely bookish curriculum.
The young are to learn about things, but they are to learn
through books ; and the only books to which Milton
attaches importance are written in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew.
He held, probably with good reason, that far too much
time " is now bestowed in pure trifling at grammar and
sophistry." "We do amiss," he says, "to spend 7 or 8
years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin
and Greek as might be learned otherwise easily and delight-
2l6 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Milton succeeded as man not master.
fully in one year." Without an explanation of the
" otherwise " this statement is a truism, and what Milton
says further hardly amounts to an explanation. His plan,
if plan it can be called, is as follows : " If after some pre-
paratory grounds of speech by their certain forms got into
memory, the boys were led to the praxis thereof in some
chosen short book lessoned throughly to them, they might
then proceed to learn the substance of good things and arts
in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly
into their power. This," adds Milton, " I take to be the
most rational and most profitable way of learning languages."
It is, however, not the most intelligible.
§ 35. " I doubt not but ye shall have more ado to drive
our dullest and laziest youth, our stocks and stubbs, from
the infinite desire of such a happy nurture than we have
now to hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest wits to
that asinine feast of sow thistles and brambles which is
commonly set before them as all the food and entertainment
of their tenderest and most docible age." We cannot but
wonder whether this belief survived the experience of " the
pretty garden-house in Aldersgate." From the little we are
told by his nephew and old pupil Edward Phillips we
should infer that Milton was not unsuccessful as a school-
master. In this we have a striking proof how much more
important is the teacher than the teaching. A character
such as Milton's in which we find the noblest aims
united with untiring energy in pursuit of them could not
but dominate the impressionable minds of young people
brought under its influence. But whatever success he
met with could not have been due to the things he taught
nor to his method in teaching them. In spite of the " moral
glow " about his recommendations they are " not a bow for
WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE. 217
He did not advance Science of Education.
every [or any] man to shoot in that counts himself a
teacher."
§ 36. Nor did he do much for the science of education.
His scheme is vitiated, as Mark Pattison says, by "the
information fallacy." In the literary instruction there is no
thought of training the faculties of all or the special
faculties of the individual. " It requires much observation
of young minds to discover that the rapid inculcation of
unassimilable information stupefies the faculties instead of
training them," says Pattison ; and Milton absorbed by
his own thoughts and the thoughts of the ancients did not
observe the minds of the young, and knew little of the
powers of any mind but his own.
For information the youths are not required to observe
for themselves but are to be taught " a general compact of
physicks." " Also in course might be read to them out of
some not tedious writer the Institution of Physick ; that
they may know the tempers, the humours, the seasons, and
how to manage a crudity."
§ 37. Even the study of the classics is advocated by
Milton on false grounds. If, like the Port-Royalists, he had
recommended the study of the classical authors for the
sake of pure Latin and Greek or as models of literary
style, the means would have been suited to the end ;
but it was very different when he directed boys to study
Virgil and Columella in order to learn about bees and
farming. In after-life they would find these authorities a
little out of date ; and if they ever attempted to improve
tillage, " to recover the bad soil and to remedy the waste
that is made of good, which was one of Hercules's praises,"
they would have found a knowledge of the methods of
Hercules about as useful as of the methods of the Romans.
2l8 WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.
Milton an educator of mankind.
§ 38. Milton was then a reformer " for his own hand ; "
and notwithstanding his moral and intellectual elevation
and his superb power of rhetoric, he seems to me a less
useful writer on education than the humble Puritans whom
he probably would not deign to read. In his haughty self-
reliance, he, like Carlyle with whom Seeley has well
compared him (^Lectures and Addresses : Milton), addressed
his contemporaries de haut en has, and though ready to
teach could learn only among the old renowned authors
with whom he associated himself and we associate him.
§ 39. Judged from our present standpoint the Tractate is
found with many weaknesses to be strong in this, that it co-
ordinates physical, moral, mental and aesthetic training.
§ 40. But nothing of Milton's can be judged by our
ordinary canons. He soars far above them and raises us
with him " to mysterious altitudes above the earth " {supra^
p. 153, note). Whatever we little people may say about the
suggestions of the Tractate, Milton will remain one of the
great educators of mankind.*
* Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib (*' the Tractate " as it
is usually called), was published by Milton first in 1644, and again in
1673. See Oscar Browning's edition, Cambridge Univ. Press.
XIII.
LOCKE.
(1632-1704).
§ I. When an English University established an exami-
nation for future teachers,* the ** special subjects " first set
were " Locke and Dr. Arnold." The selection seems to ine
a very happy one. Arnold greatly affected the spirit and
even the organization of our public schools at a time when
the old schools were about to have new life infused into
them, and when new schools were to be started on the
model of the old. He is perhaps the greatest educator of
the English type, />., the greatest educator who had
accepted the system handed down to him and tried to
make the best of it. Locke on the other hand, whose
reputation is more European than English, belongs rather
to the continental type. Like his disciple Rousseau and
like Rousseau's disciples the French Revolutionists, Locke
refused the traditional system and appealed from tradition
and authority to reason. We English revere Arnold, but
so long as the history of education continues to be written,
as it has been written hitherto, on the Continent, the only
Englishman celebrated in it will be as now not the great
schoolmaster but the great philosopher.
* The University of Cambridge. The first examination was in
June, 1880.
220 LOCKE.
Locke's two main characteristics.
§ 2. In order to understand Locke we must always
bear in mind what I may call his two main characteristics;
ist, his craving to know and to speak the truth and the
whole truth in everything, truth not for a purpose but for
itself* ; 2nd, his perfect trust in the reason as the guide,
the only guide, to truth. f
§ 3. I St. Those who have not reflected much on the sub-
ject will naturally suppose that the desire to know the truth
is common to all men, and the desire to speak the truth
common to most. But this is very far from being the case.
If we had any earnest desire for truth we should examine
things carefully before we admitted them as truths; in
other words our opinions would be the growth of long and
energetic thought. But instead of this they are formed for
the most part quite carelessly and at haphazard, and we
value them not on account of their supposed agreement
with fact but because though " poor things " they are " our
own " or those of our sect or party. Locke on the other
* ** Believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth's sake is the
principal part of human perfection in this world and the seed-plot of all
other virtues." L. to Bolde, quoted by Fowler, Locke, p. 120. This
shows us that according to Locke "the principal part of human
perfection " is to be found in the intellect.
t Lady Masham seems to consider these two characteristic? identical.
She wrote to Leclerc of Locke after his death : *' He was always, in the
greatest and in the smallest affairs of human life, as well as in specula-
tive opinions, disposed to follow reason, whosoever it were that
suggested it ; he being ever a faithful servant, I had almost said a slave,
to truth ; never abandoning her for anything else, and following her
for her own sake purely " (quoted by Fox-Bourne). But it is one
thing to desire truth, and another to think one's own reasoning powei
the sole means of obtaining it.
LOCKE. 221
ist Truth for itself. 2nd Reason for Truth.
hand was always endeavouring to get at the truth for its
own sake. This separated him from men in general. And
he brought great powers of mind to bear on the investiga-
tion. This raised him above them.
§ 4. 2nd. Locke's second characteristic was his entire
reliance on the guidance of reason. "The faculty of
reasoning," says he, " seldom or never deceives those who
trust to it." Elsewhere, borrowing a metaphor from
Solomon (Prov. xx, 27), he speaks of this faculty as "the
candle of the Lord set up by Himself in men's minds."
(F. B. ij. 129). In a fine passage in the Conduct of the
Understanding he calls it " the touchstone of truth " (§ iij.
Fowler's edition, p. 10). He even goes so far in his
correspondence with Molyneux as to maintain that intel-
ligent honest men cannot possibly differ.*
But if we consider it from one point of view the treatise
on the Conduct of the Understanding is itself a witness that
human reason is a compass liable to incalculable variations
and likely enough to shipwreck those who steer by it alone.
In this book Locke shows us that to come to a true result
the understanding (i) must be perfectly trained, (2) must
not be affected by any feeling in favour of or against any
* " I am far from imagining myself infallible ; but yet I should be
loth to differ from any thinking man ; being fully persuaded there are
very few things of pure speculation wherein two thinking men who
impariially seek truth can differ if they give themselves the leisure to
examine their hypotheses and understand one another " (L. to W. M.,
26 Dec, 1692). Again he writes : ** I am persuaded that upon debate
you and I cannot be of two opinions, nor I think any two men used to
think with freedom, who really prefer truth to opiniatrety and a little
foolish vain-glory of not having made a mistake " (L. to W. M.,
3 Sept.. 1694).
17
222 LOCKE.
Locke's definition of knowledge.
particular result, and (3) must have before it all the data
necessary for forming a judgment. In practice these
conditions are seldom (if ever) fulfilled ; and Locke himself,
when he wants an instance of a mind that can acquiesce in
the certainty of its conclusions, takes it from "angels
and separate spirits who may be endowed with more com-
prehensive faculties " than we are (C. of U. § iij, 3).
§ 5. It seems to me then that Locke much exaggerates
the power of the individual reason for getting at the truth.
And to exaggerate the importance of one function of the
mind is to unduly diminish the importance of the rest.
Thus we find that in Locke's scheme of education little
thought is taken for the play of the affections and feelings ;
and as for the imagination it is treated merely as a source
of mischief.
§ 6. Locke, as it has often been pointed out, differs from
the schoolmaster in making small account of the know-
ledge to be acquired by those under education. But it has
not been so often remarked that the fundamental difference
is much deeper than this and lies in the conception of
knowledge itself. With the ordinary schoolmaster the test
of -knowledge is the power of reproduction. Whatever
pupils can reproduce with difficulty they know imperfectly ;
whatever they can reproduce with ease they know thoroughly.
But Locke's definition of knowledge confines it to a nmch
smaller area. According to him knowledge is "the internal
perception of the mind." (Locke to Scillingfleet v. F. B. ij,
432). "Knowing is seemgj and if it be so, it is madness
to persuade ourselves we do so by another man's eyes, let
him use never so many words to tell us that what he asserts
is very visible. Till we ourselves see it with our own eyes,
and perceive it by our own understandings, we are as much
LOCKE. 223
Knowing without seeing.
in the dark and as void of knowledge as before, let us believe
any learned authors as much as we will " (C. of U. § 24).*
§ 7. Here Locke makes no distinction between different
classes of truths. But surely very important differences
exist.
About some physical facts our knowledge is at once
most certain and most definite when we derive it through
the evidence of our own senses. " Seeing is believing," says
the proverb. It may be believing, but it is not knowing.
That certainty which we call knowledge we often arrive at
better by the testimony of others than by that of our
own senses.
Miss Martineau in her Autobiography tells us that as a
child of ten she entirely and unaccountably failed to see a
comet which was visible to all other people ; but, although
her own senses were at fault, the evidence for the comet
was so conclusive that she may be said to have known
there was a comet in the sky.
* Compare Carlyle : — ** Except thine own eye have got to see it,
except thine own soul have victoriously struggled to clear vision and
belief of it, what, is the thing seen or the thing believed by another or
by never so many others ? Alas, it is not thine, though thou look on
it, brag about it, and bully and fight about it till thou die, striving to
persuade thyself and all men how much it is thine ! Not it is thine, but
only a windy echo and tradition of it bedded [an echo beddedT^ in
hypocrisy, ending sure enough in tragical futility is thine." Froude's
7'hos. Carlyle^ ij, 10. Similarly Locke wrote to Bolde in 1699 : — " To
be learned in the lump by other men's thoughts, and to be right by
saying after others is much the easier and quieter way j but how a
rational man that should enquire and know for himself can content
himself with a faith or religion taken upon trust, or with such a servile
submission of his understanding as to admit all and nothing else but
what fashion makes passable among men, is to me astonishing,"
Quoted by Fowler, Locke, p. 118.
224 LOCKE.
Discentem credere oportet.
On sufficient evidence we can know anything, just as we
know there is a great water-fall at Niagara though we may
never have crossed the Atlantic. But we cannot be so cer-
tain simply on the evidence of our senses. If we trusted
entirely to them we might take the earth for a plane and
"know" that the sun moved round it.
§ 8. But Locke probably considers as the subject of know-
ledge not so much physical facts as the great body of truths
which are ascertained by the intellect. It is the eye of the
mind by which alone knowledge is to be gained. Of these
truths the purest specimens are the truths of geometry. It
may be said that only those who have followed the proofs
know that the area of the square on the side opposite the
right angle in a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of
the squares on the other sides. But even in pure reasoning
like this, the tiro often seems to see what he does not really
see ; and where his own reason brings him to a conclusion
different from the one established he knows only that he is
mistaken.
§ 9. It must be admitted then that first-hand knowledge,
knowledge derived from the vision of the eye or of the
mind, is not the only knowledge the young require.
Every learner must take things on trust, as even Lord
Bacon admits. Discentem credere oportet. To use Locke's
own words : — " I do not say, to be a good geographer that
a man should visit every mountain, river, promontory, and
creek upon the face of the earth, view the buildings and
survey the land eveiy where as if he were going to make a
purchase " (C. of U., iij, adf.). So that even according to
Locke's own shewing we must use the eyes of others as
well as our own, and this is true not in geography only, but
in all other branches of knowledge.
LOCKE. 225
L/s "Knowledge" and the schoolmaster*s.
§ 10. But are we driven to the alternative of agreeing
either with Locke or with the schoohTiaster ? I do not see
that we are. The thought which underlies Locke's system
of education is this : true knowledge can be acquired only
by the exercise of the reason : in childhood the reasoning *
power is not strong enough for the pursuit of knowledge :
knowledge, therefore, is out of the question at that age,
and the only thing to be thought of is the formation of
habits. Opposed to this we have the schoolmaster's ideal
which is governed by examinations. According to this ideal
the object of the school course is to give certain " know-
ledge," linguistic and other, and to fix it in the memory in
such a manner that it can be displayed on the day of
examination. " Knowledge " of this kind often makes no
demand whatever on the reasoning faculty, or indeed on any
faculty but that of remembering and reproducing what the
learner has been told ; in extreme cases the memory of mere
sounds or symbols suffices.
But after all we are not compelled to choose between these
two theories. Take, e.g.^ the subject which Locke has men-
tioned, geography. The schoolmasters of the olden time
began with the use of the globes, a plan which, by the way,
Locke himself seems to have winked at. His disciple
Molyneux tells him of the performances of the small
Molyneux. When he was but just turned five he could
read perfectly well, and on the globe could have traced out
and pointed at all the noted ports, countries, and cities of
the world, both land and sea \ by five and a half could
perform many of the plainest problems on the globe, as the
longitude and latitude, the Antipodes, the time with them
and other countries, &c. (Molyneux to L., 24th August,
1695.) Here we find a child brought up, without any
226 LOCKE.
"Knowledge" in Geography.
protest from Locke, on mere examination knowledge, which
according to Locke himself is not knowledge at all. It
is strange that Locke did not at once point out to Moly-
neux that the child was not really learning what the father
supposed him to be learning. When the child turned over
the plaster ball and found the word " Paris," the father
no doubt attributed to the child much that was in his
own mind only. To the child " the Globe " (as Rousseau
afterwards said), was nothing but a plaster ball ; *' Paris "
was nothing but some letters marked on that ball. Come-
nius had already got a notion how children may be given
some knowledge of geography. " Children begm geo-
graphy," said he, "when they get to understand what a hill,
a valley, a fidd, a river, a village, a town is." {Supra^
p. 145.) When this beginning has been made, geographical
knowledge is at once possible to the child, and not
before.
Perfect knowledge in geography, as in most other things,
is out of every one's reach. Nobody knows, e.g., all that
could be known about Paris. The knowledge its inhabi-
tants have of it is very various, but in all cases this know-
ledge is far greater than that of a visitor. The visitor's
knowledge again is far greater than that of strangers who
have never seen Paris. Nobody, then, can know everything
even about Paris ; but a child who knows what a large town
is, and can fancy to himself a big town called Paris, which
is the biggest and most important town in France has some
knowledge about it. This must be maintained against
Locke. Against the schoolmaster it may be pointed out
that making an Eskimo say the words : — " Paris is the
capital of France," would not be giving him any knowledge
at all ; and the same may be said of many " lessons " m
LOCKE. 227
For children, health and habits.
the school-room. If a common sailor were to teach an
Eskimo English, he would very likely suppose that when he
had taught the sounds " Paris is the capital of France," he
had conveyed to his pupil all the ideas which those sounds
suggested to his own mind. A common schoolmaster may
fall into a similar error.
§ II, In the most celebrated work which has been
affected by the Thoughts of Locke, Rousseau's Emiie, we
find childhood treated in a manner altogether different from
youth : the child's education is mainly physical, and
instruction is not given till the age of twelve. Locke's
system on first sight seems very different to this, but there
is a deeper connection between the two than is usually
observed. We have seen that Locke allowed nothing to be
knowledge that was not acquired by the perception of the
intellect. But in children the intellectual power is not yet
developed ; so according to Locke knowledge properly so-
called is not within their reach. What then can the
educator do for them ? He can prepare them for the age
of reason in two ways, by caring first for their physical health,
second for the formation of good habits.
§ 12. ist. On the Continent Locke has always been con-
sidered one of the first advocates of physical education, and
he does, it is true, give physical education the first place, a
feature in his system, which we naturally connect with his
study of medicine, and also with the trouble he had all his life
with his own health. But care of the body, and especially
bodily exercises, were always much thought of in this
country, and the main writers on education before Locke,
e.g., Sir Thos. Elyot, Mulcaster, Milton, were very emphatic
about physical training.
In the autobiography of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, we
228 LOCKE.
Everything educative forms habits.
may see what attention was paid in Locke's own century to
this part of education.*
^ § 13. 2nd. "That, and that only, is educative which
moulds forms or modifies the soul or mind." (Mark
Pattison in New Quarterly Magazine, January, 1880.)
Here we have a proposition which is perhaps seldom
denied, but very commonly ignored by those who bring
up the young. But Locke seems to have been entirely
possessed with this notion, and the greater part of the Thoughts
is nothing but a long application of it. The principle which
lies at the root of most of his advice, he has himself expressed
as follows : " That which I cannot too often inculcate is,
that whatever the matter be about which it is conversant
whether great or small, the main, I had almost said only
thing, to be considered in every action of a child is what
influence it will have upon his mind ; what habit it tends to,
and is likely to settle in him : how it will become him when
he is bigger, and if it be encouraged, whither it will lead him
when he is grown up." {Thoughts, § 107, p. 86.)
Here we see that Locke differed widely from the school-
masters of his time, perhaps of all time. A man must be a
philosopher indeed if he can spend his life in teaching boys,
and yet always think more about what they will be and what
they will do when their schooling is over than what they will
know. And in these days if we stopped to think at all we
should be trodden on by the examiner.t
• For Rabelais, see p. 67 supra.
In the notes to the Cambridge edition of the Thoughts Locke's advice
on physical education is discussed and compared with the results of
modem science by Dr. J. F. Payne.
t " Examinations directed, as the paper examinations of the numerous
LOCKE. 229
Confusion about special cases. Wax.
In this respect Locke has not been surpassed. Like his
predecessor Montaigne he took for his centre not the object,
knowledge, but the subject, man.*
§ 14. In some other respects he does not seem so happy.
He makes Uttle attempt to reach a scientific standpoint and
to estabHsh general truths about our common human nature.
He thinks not so much of the man as the gentleman, not so
much of the common laws of the mind as of the peculiarities
of the individual child. He even hints that differences of
disposition in children render treatises on education defective
if not useless. "There are a thousand other things that
may need consideration" he writes "especially if one should
take in the various tempers, different inclinations, and
particular defaults that are to be found in children and
prescribe proper remedies. The variety is so great that it
would require a volume, nor would that reach it. Each
man's mind has some peculiarity as well as his face, that
distinguishes him from all others ; and there are possibly
scarce two children who can be conducted by exactly the
same method : besides that I think a prince, a nobleman,
or an ordinary gentleman's son should have different ways
of breeding. But having had here only some general views
in reference to the main end and aims in education, and those
designed for a gentleman's son, whom being then very little
I considered only as white paper or wax to be moulded and
examining boards now flourishing are directed, to finding out what the
pupil knows y have the effect of concentrating the teacher's effort upon the
least important part of his function." Mark Pattison in N. Quart. M..,
January, 1880.
* Michelet {Kosfils^ chap. ij. adf. p. 170), says of Montaigne's essay :
** c'est d^ja une belle esquisse, vive et forte, une tentative pour donner,
non Pobjet, le savoir, mais le sujety c'est I'homme."
230 LOCKE.
Locke behind Comenius.
fashioned as one pleases, I have touched httle more than
those heads which I judged necessary for the breeding of a
young gentleman of his condition in general." (Thoughts^
§217, p. 187.)
No language could bring out more clearly the inferiority
of Locke's standpoint to that of later thinkers. He makes
little account of our common nature and wishes education to
be based upon an estimate of the peculiarities of the
individual pupil and of his social needs. And no one with an
adequate notion of education could ever compare the young
child to " white paper or wax." Perhaps the development of
an organism was a conception that could not have been
formed without a great advance in physical science. Froebel
who makes most of it learnt it from the scientific study of
trees and from mineralogy. We need not then be surprised
that Locke does not say, as Pestalozzi said a hundred years
later, " Education instead of merely considering what is to be
imparted to children ought to consider first what they already
possess." But if he had read Comenius he would have been
saved from comparing the child to wax or white paper in the
hands of the educator. Comenius had said : " Nature has
implanted within us the seeds of learning, of virtue, and of
piety. The object of education is to bring these seeds to
perfection." {Supra^ p. 135.) This seems to me a higher
conception than any that I meet with in Locke.
§ 15. But if our philosopher did not learn from Comenius
he certainly learnt from Montaigne.* Indeed Dr. Arnstadt
• Pope seems to. contrast Montaigne and Locke :
*• But ask not to what doctors I apply 1
" Sworn to no master, of no sect am I :
** As drives the storm, at any door I knock,
** And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke."
Satires iij., 26,
LOCKE. 231
Humanists, Realists, and Trainers.
{v. supra, p. 69) has put him into a series of thinkers who
have much in common. This succession is as follows :
Rabelais, Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau ; and, according to
Mr. Browning's division, they form a school by themselves.
" Thinkers on education," says Mr. Browning,* " are ist
those who wish to educate through the study of the classics,
or 2nd those who wish to educate through the study of the
works of Nature, or 3rd those who aim at an education
independent of study and knowledge, and think rather of the
training of character and the attaining to the Greek ideal,
the man beautiful and good." To the three schools Mr.
Browning gives the names Humanist, Realist, and Naturalist,
(" nos autres natural istes," Montaigne says). Locke he con-
siders one of the principal writers of the "naturalistic"
school, and says, Locke " has given a powerful bias to natura-
hstic education both in England and on the Continent for
the last 200 years." {Ed. Theories, p. 85.)
This use of the word " naturalistic " seems to me somewhat
misleading, or at best vague, and it is a word overworked
already: so I should prefer to speak of the "developing" 01
" training" school. The classification itself certainly has its
uses but it must be employed with caution. If caught up by
those who have only an elementary acquaintance with the
subject a class of persons apt to delight in such arrangements
as an aid to memory, these divisions may easily prove a
hindrance to light.
§ 16. This subject of classification is so important to
Perhaps as Dr. Abbott suggests he took Montaigne as representing
active and Locke contemplative life.
*Se£ " An introduction to the History of Educational Theoiies," by
Oscar Browning.
232 LOCKE.
Caution against classifiers.
students that it may be worth while to make a few remarks
upon it. The only thoroughly consistent people are the
people of fiction. We can know all about them. Directly
we understand their central thought or peculiarity we may be
sure that everything they say and do will be strictly in
accordance with it, will indeed be explainable by it. To
take a bald and simple instance, directly we know that Mrs.
Jellaby in Bleak House is absorbed by her interest in an
African Mission, we know all that is to be known about her;
and everything she does or omits to do has some reference
to Borrioboola Ghar. But in real life not only are people
much less easily understood, but when we actually have seized
their main idea or peculiarity or interest we must not expect
to find them always consistent : and they will say and do much
? which if not inconsistent with the main idea or peculiarity or
• interest has at least no connection with it. Suppose, e.g.,
you can make out with some certainty that Locke belonged
to the developing school, you must not expect him to pay
little heed to instruction as such. Again, suppose you find that
his philosophy was utilitarian ; you must not suppose that
in everything he says he will be thinking of utility.
Now the historian is tempted to treat real men and women
as the writer of fiction treats his puppets. Having fastened,
quite correctly let us suppose, on their main peculiarity he
considers it necessary to square everything with his theory of
them, and whatever will not fall in with it he, if he is
unscrupulous, misrepresents, or if he is scrupulous, suppresses.
Again, we are too apt to read into words meanings
derived from controversies unknown at the time when the
words were uttered. This is a well-known fact in the
history of religious thought. We must always consider not
merely the words used but the time when they were used.
LOCKE. 233
Locke and development.
What a man might say quite naturally and orthodoxly at one
period would be sufficient to convict him of sympathizing
with some terrible heresy if uttered half a century later.
We find something like this in the history of education.
If anyone nowadays speaks of the pleasure with which as
a young man he read Tacitus, he is understood to mean
that he is opposed to the introduction of " modern studies *'
into the school-room. If on the other hand he extols
botany, or regrets that he never learned chemistry, this is
taken for an assault on classical instruction. But, of course,
no such inference could be drawn if we went back to a time
when the antithesis between classics and natural science
had not been accentuated. In many other instances we
have to be on our guard against forcing into language
meaning which belongs rather to a later date.
§ 17. With these cautions in mind let us see how far
Locke may be said (i) to be a trainer, and (2) how far a
utilitarian.
§ 18. I. Mr. Browning attributes to Rabelais, Montaigne,
and Locke the desire to bring up a well-developed man
rather than a good scholar. But Rabelais certainly craved
for the knowledge of things ; and if he is to be classed at
all I should put him rather with the Realists, albeit he lived
before the realistic spirit became powerful. Montaigne
went more on the lines of developing rather than teaching,
and, shrewd man of the world as he was, he thought a
great deal about the art of living. But his ideal was not
so much the man as the gentleman. This was true also
of Locke; and here we see some explanation why both
Montaigne and Locke do not value classical learning.*
* " History and the mathematics, I think, are the most proper and
234 LOCKE.
Was Locke a utilitarian?
On the Continent classical learning has never been asso-
ciated with the character of an accomplished gentleman;
and, as far as I know, the conception that the highest type
of excellence is found in the union of " the scholar and the
gentleman " is peculiar to this country. In the society
of Locke's day this union does not seem to have been
recognized, and Locke observes : " A great part of the
learning now in fashion in the schools of Europe, and that
goes ordinarily into the round of education, a gentleman
may in a good measure be unfurnished with, without any
great disparagement to himself or prejudice to his affairs."
{Thoughts^ § 94, p. 74.) So Locke sought as the true
essential for the young gentleman "prudence and good
breeding." He puts his requisites in the following order of
importance : — i, virtue ; 2, wisdom ; 3, manners; 4, learning;
and so " places learning last and least." Here he shews
himself far ahead of those who still held to the learned
ideal ; but his notions of development were cramped by
his thinking only of the gentleman and what was requisite
for him.
§ 19. n. Was Locke a utilitarian in education? It is
the fashion (and in history as in other things fashion is a
powerful force), it is the fashion to treat of Locke as a great
champion of utilitarianism. We might expect this in the
ordinary historians, for "when they do agree their unanimity
is " not perhaps very wonderful. But there is one great
English authority quite uninfluenced by them who has said
advantageous studies for persons of your quality ; the other are fitter
for schoolmen and people that must live by their learning, though a
little insight and taste of them will be no burthen or inconvenience to
you, especially Natural Philosophy." Advice to a young Lord written
by his father, 1 691, p. 29.
LOCKE. 235
Utilitarianism defined.
the same thing, viz. — Cardinal Newman. The Cardinal, as
the champion of authority, is perhaps prejudiced against
Locke, who holds that " the faculty of reasoning seldom
or never deceived those who trusted to it." Be this as it
may, Newman asserts that " the tone of Locke's remarks is
condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the general
cultivation of the mind." {Idea of a University. Discourse
vij., § 4 ; see also § 6.) A very interesting point for us to
consider is then, Is this reputation of Locke's for utilita-
rianism well deserved ?
§ 20. First let us be quite certain of our definition.
In learning anything there are two points to be considered ;
I St, the advantage we shall find from knowing that subject
or having that skill, and 2nd, the effect which the study of
that subject or practising for that skill will have on the
mind or the body.
These two points are in themselves distinct, though it is
open to anyone to maintain that they need not be con-
sidered separately. Nature has provided that the bodies of
most animals should get the exercise best for them in pro-
curing food. So Mr. Herbert Spencer has come to the
conclusion that it would be contrary to " the economy of
nature " if one set of occupations were needed as gymnastic^
and another for utility. In other words he considers that
it is in learning the most useful things we get the best
training.
The utilitarian view of instruction is that we should teach
things useful in themselves and either neglect the result on
the mind and body of the learner or assume Mr. Spencer's
law of " the economy of nature."
Again, when the subjects are settled the utilitarian thinks
how the knowledge or skill may be most speedily acquired^
236 LOCKE.
L. not utilitarian in education.
and not how this method or that method of acquisition will
affect the faculties.
§ 21. This being utilitarianism in education the ques-
tion is how far was Locke the utilitarian he is generally
considered ?
If we take by itself what he says under the head of
" Learning " in the Thoughts concerning Education no doubt
we should pronounce him a utilitarian. He considers each
subject of instruction and pronounces for or against it
according as it seems likely or unlikely to be useful to a
gentleman. And in the methods he suggests he simply
points out the quickest route, as if the knowledge were the
only thing to be thought of. Hence his utilitarian reputa-
tion.
But two very important considerations have been lost
sight of.
I St. Learning is with him "the last and least part" in
education.
2nd. Intellectual education was not for childhood but
for the age when we can teach ourselves. "When a man
has got an entrance into any of the sciences," says he, " it
will be time then to depend on himself and rely upon his
own understanding and exercise his own faculties, which is
the only way to improvement and mastery." (L. to Peter-
borough, quoted in Camb. edition of Thoughts, p. 229.)
" So," he says, " the business of education is not, as I think,
"jo make the young perfect in any one of the sciences but so
io open and dispose their minds as may best make them
lapable of any when they shall apply themselves to it."
The studies he proposes in the Conduct of the Understand-
ivg (which is his treatise on intellectual education) have for
heir object " an increase of the powers and activity of the
LOCKE. 237
Locke's Pis^ah Vision.
mind, not an enlargement of its possessions" (C of U.
§ 19, cidf.\
Thus strange to say the supposed leader of the Utilitarians
has actually propounded in so many words the doctrine ol
their opponents.
§ 22. When Locke is more studied it will be found
that the Thoughts are misleading if we neglect his other
works, more particularly the Conduct of the Understanding.
§ 23. Towards the end of his days, Locke was conscious
of gleams of the "untravelled world" which lay before the
generations to come. With great pathos he writes to a
friend : " When I consider how much of my life has been
trifled away in beaten tracks where I vamped on with others
only to follow those who went before me, I cannot but
think I have just as much reason to be proud as if I had
travelled all England and, if you will, all France too, only
to acquaint myself with the roads, and be able to tell how
the highways lie wherein those of equipage, and even the
common herd too, travel. Now, methinks — and these are
often old men's dreams — I see openings to truth and direct
paths leading to it, wherein a little application and industry
would settle one's mind with satisfaction and leave no dark-
ness or doubt. But this is the end of my day when my sun
is setting : and though the prospect it has given me be
what I would not for anything be without — there is so
much truth, beauty, and consistency in it — yet it is for one
of your age, I think I ought to say for yourself, to set
about" (L. to Bolde, quoted by Fowler, Locke, p. 120). But
another 200 years have not suflSced to put us in possession
of the Promised Land of which Locke had these Pisgah
visions. We still "vamp on," following those who went
before us and getting small help from expounders of " Edu-
238
LOCKE.
Science for education. Names of books.
cation as a Science." But as it would seem the days of
vamping on blindly in the beaten track are drawing to a
close. We cannot doubt that if Locke had known the
wonderful advance which various sciences have made since
his day he would have seen in them " openings to truth and
direct paths leading to it " for many purposes, certainly for
education. It is for our age and ages to come to set about
applying our scientific knowledge to the bringing up of
children ; and thinkers such as Froebel will shew us how.
Locke's Thoughts concerning Education and his Conduct of the
Understanding should be in the hands of all students of education who
know the English language. I have therefore not attempted to epitomise
what he has said, but have endeavoured to get at the main thoughts
which are, so to speak, the taproot of his system. Of the Thoughts
there is an edition published by the National Society and another by
the Pitt Press, Cambridge. The Cambridge edition gives from Fox-
Bourne's Life Locke's scheme of "Working Schools'" and from Lord
King's the essay *' Of Study." Of the Conduct there is an edition pub
lished by the Clarendon Press. " F.B." in the references above stands
for Fox-Bourne's Life of Locke.
In the above essay I have not treated of Locke as a methodizer ; but
he advocated teaching foreign languages without grammar, and he
published ' ' ^Esop's Fables in English and Latin, interlineary. For
the benefit of those, who not having a master would learn either of
these Tongues." When I edited the Thoughts fok Pitt Press I did no.
know of this book or I should have mentioned it. \
XIV.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU.
(1712-1778).
§ T. The great men whom we meet with in the history
of education may be divided into two classes, thinkers and
doers. There would seem no good reason why the thinker
should not be great as a doer or the doer as a thinker ; and
yet we hardly find any records of men who have been
successful both in investigating theory and directing practice.
History tells us of first-rate practical schoolmasters like
Sturm and the Jesuits ; but they did not think out their own
theory of their task : they accepted the current theory of
their time. On the other hand, men who like Montaigne
and Locke rejected the current theory and sought to es-
tablish a better by an appeal to reason were not practical
schoolmasters. Whenever the thinker tries to turn his
thought into action he has cause to be disappointed with
the result. We saw this in the disastrous failure of Ratke ;
and even the books in which Comenius tried to work out
his principles, the Vestibulum, Janua and the rest, with the
exception of the Orbis Fichcs, were speedily forgotten. Tn
the world of education as elsewhere it takes time to find
for great thoughts the practice which gives effect to them.
The course of great thoughts is in some ways like the course
of great rivers. Most romantic and beautiful near their
source, they are not most useful. They must leave the
240
ROUSSEAU.
Middle Age system fell in i8th century.
mountains in which they first appeared, and must flow not
in cataracts but smoothly along the plain among the dwell-
ings of common men before they can be turned to account
in the every-day business of Hfe.
§ 2. The eighteenth century was soon distinguished by
boundless activity of thought ; and this thought was
directed mainly to a great work of destruction. Europe
had outgrown the ideas of the Middle Age, and the frame-,
work of Society, which the Middle Age had bequeathed, had
waxed old and was ready to vanish as soon as any strong
force could be found to push it out of the way. As Matthew
Arnold has described it —
*• It's frame yet stood without a breach
** When blood and wannth were fled ;
*' And still it spake it's wonted speech —
**But every word was dead."
Here then there was need of some destructive power
that should remove and burn up much that had become
mere obstacle and incumbrance. This power was found in
the writings which appeared in France about the middle of
the century ; and among the authors of them none spoke
with more effect than one who differed from all the rest, a
vagabond without family ties or social position of any kind,
with no literary training, with little knowledge and in con-
duct at least, with no morals. The writings of Rousseau
and the results produced by them are among the strangest
things in history; and especially in matters of education it
is more than doubtful if the wise man of the world Montaigne,
the Christian philanthropist Comenius, or that " slave of
truth and reason " the philosopher Locke, had half as much
influence as this depraved serving man.
§ 3. The work by which Rousseau became famous was
ROUSSEAU. 241
Do the opposite to the usual.
a prize essay in which he maintained that civilization, the
arts and all human institutions were from first to last per-
nicious in their effects, and that no happiness was possible
for the human race without giving'them all up and returning
to what he called the state of Nature. He glorified the
" noble savage." If man had brought himself to a state of
misery bordering on despair Jay following his own many
inventions, take away all these inventions and you will have
man in his proper condition. The argument seems some-
thing of this kind : Man was once happy : Man is now
miserable : undo everything that has been done and Man
will be happy again.
§ 4. This principle of a so-called " natural " state exist-
ing before man's many inventions, Rousseau applied boldly
to education, and he deduced this general rule : " Do pre-
cisely the opposite to what is usually done, and you will
have hit on the right plan." Not reform but revolution was
his advice. He took the ordinary school teaching and held
it up to ridicule, and certainly he did prove its absurdity.
And a most valuable service he thus rendered to teachers.
Every employment while it makes us see some things
clearly, also provides us with blinkers, so to speak, which
prevent our seeing other things at all. The school teacher's
blinkers often prevent his seeing much that is plain enough
to other people ; and when a writer like Rousseau takes off
our blinkers for us and makes us look about us, he does
us a great deal of good. But we need more than this : if
we have children entrusted to us we must do something
with them, and Rousseau's rule of doing the opposite to
what is usual will not be found universally applicable. So
we consult Rousseau again, and what is his advice ?
^ 5. Rousseau would bring everything back to the
242 ROUSSEAU.
Family life. No education before reason.
"natural" state, and unfortunately he never pauses to settle
whether he means by this a state of ideal perfection, or of
simply savagery. The savage, he says, gets his education
without any one's troubling about it, and so he infers that
all the trouble taken by the civilized is worse than thrown
away. (Girardin's Rousseau, ij., 85.) But he does not fall
back on laisser faire. He..urges on parents the duty of
themselves attending to the bringing up of their children.
"Point de mbre, point d'enfant — no mother, no child,"
says he ; and he would have the father see to the training
of the child whom the mother has suckled.
§ 6. Rousseau's picture of family life is given us where
few Englishmen are likely to find it, enveloped in the Nou-
velle Helo'ise. Here we read how Julie always has her
children with her, and while seeming to let them do as they
like, conceals with the air of apparent carelessness the
most vigilant observation. Possessed by the notion that
there can be no intellectual education before the age of
reason, she proclaims : " La fonction dont je suis chargee
n'est pas d'dlever mes fils, mais de les preparer pour etre
^lev^s : My business is not to educate my sons, but to
prepare them for being educated." {N. Heloise, 5th P.,
Lett. 3.)*
§ 7. There is much that is very pleasing in this picture
of ideal family life ; but when Rousseau comes formally to
propound his ideas on education, he gives up family life to
attain greater simplicity. " Je m'en tiens \ ce qui est plus
simple," says he: "What I stick to is the more sijnple"
He tries to state everything in its lowest terms, so to speak ;
and this method is excellent so long as he puts on one side
• "11 n'y a point avant la raison de veritable Education pout
I'homme." {N. H., Sth P., Lett. 3. Conf. supra, p. 227.)
ROUSSEAU. 243
R. "neglects" essentials. Lose time.
only what is accidental, and retains all the essentials of the
problem. But his rage for simplicity sometimes carried
him beyond this. There is an old Cambridge story of a
problem introducing an elephant "whose weight may be
neglected." This is after the manner of Rousseau. In the
bringing up of the model child, he "neglects" parents,
brothers and sisters, young companions; and though he
says that the needful qualities of a master may be expected
only in " un homme de g^nie," he hands over 6mile to a
governor to live an isolated life in the country.
§ 8. This governor is to devote himself, for some years,
entirely to imparting to his pupil these difficult arts — the
art of being ignorant and of losing time. Till he is twelve
years old, Emile is to have no direct instruction whatever.
" At that age he shall not know what a book is," says Rous-
seau ; though elsewhere we are told that he will learn to
read of his own accord by the time he is ten, if no
attempt is made to teach him. He is to be under no re-
straint, and is to do nothing but what he sees to be useful.
§ 9. Freedom from restraint is, however, to be apparent,
not real. As in ordinary education the child employs all
its faculties in duping the master, so in education "accord-
ing to Nature " the master is to devote himself to duping
the child. " Let him always be his own master in appear-
ance, and do you take care to be so in reality. There is no
subjection so complete as that which preserves the appear-
ance of liberty ; it is by this means even the will is led
captive."
§ 10, "The most critical interval of human nature is
that between the hour of our birth and twelve years of age.
This is the time wherein vice and error take root without
our being possessed of any instrument to destroy them."
244 ROUSSEAU.
Early education negative.
{JEm. ij., 79.) Throughout this season, the governor is to be
at work training the pupil in the art of being ignorant and
losing time. " The first education should be purely nega-
tive. It consists by no means in teaching virtue or truth,
but in securing the heart from vice and the intellect from
error. If you could do nothing and let nothing be done,
if you could bring on your pupil healthy and strong to the
age of 12 without his being able to tell his right hand
from his left, from your very first lessons the eyes of his
understanding would open to reason. Being without pre-
judices and without habits he would have nothing in him
to thwart the effect of your care ; and by beginning with
doing nothing you would have made an educational pro-
digy."*
' " Exercise his body, his organs, his senses, his powers ;
but keep his mind passive as long as possible. Mistrust
all his sentiments formed before the judgment which deter-
mines their value. Restrain, avoid all foreign impressions,
and to prevent the birth of evil be in no hurry to cause
good ; for good is good only in the light of reason. Look
on all delays as so many advantages : it is a great gain to
advance towards the goal without loss : let childhood ripen
in children. In short, whatever lesson they may need, be
* ** La premiere education doit done 6tre purement negative. EUe
consiste, non point a enseigner la vertu ni la verite, mais k garantir le coeur
du vice et I'esprit de I'erreur. Si vous pouviez ne rien faire et ne rien
laisser faire ; si vous pouviez amener votre eleve sain et robuste k I'age
de douze ans, sans qu'il sfit distinguer sa main droite de sa main gauche,
des vos premieres le5ons les yeux de son entendement s'ouvriraient k la
raison ; sans prejuges, sans habitudes, il n'aurait rien en lui qui pdt
contrarier I'effet de vos soins. Bient6t il deviendrait entre vos mains le
plus sage des hommes ; et, en commen9ant par ne rien faire, voii»
auriez fait un prodige d'education." ^m. ij., 80.
ROUSSEAU. 245
Childhood the sleep of reason.
sure not to give it them to-day if you can safely put it off
till to-morrow."*
" Do not, then, alarm yourself much about this apparent
idleness. What would you say of the man, who, in order
to make the most of life, should determine never to go to
sleep? You would say, The man is mad : he is not enjoying
the time ; he is depriving himself of it : to avoid sleep he is
hurrying towards death. Consider, then, that it is the
same here, and that childhood is the sleep of reason."f
§ II. We have now reached the climax (or shall
we say the nadir ?) in negation. Rousseau has given the
coup de grace to the ideal of the Renascence. Comenius was
the first to take a comprehensive view of the educator's task
and to connect it with man's nature and destiny ; but he
could not get clear from an over-estimate of the importance
of knowledge. According to his ideal, man should know all
things ; so in practice he thought too much of imparting
knowledge. Then came Locke and treated the imparting
* " Exercez son corps, ses organes, ses sens, ses forces, mais tenez
son ame oisive aussi longtemps qu'il se pourra. Redoutez tous les sent-
ments anterieurs au jugement qui les apprecie. Retenez, arretez les
impressions etrangeres : et, pour empecher le mal de naitre, ne vous
pressez point de faire le bien ; car il n'est jamais tel que quand la raison
I'eclaire. Regardez tous les delais comme des avantages : c'est gagner
beaucoup que d'avancer vers le terme sans rien perdre ; laissez murir
I'enfance dans les enfants. Enfin quelque legon leur devient-elle neces-
saire, gardez-vous de la donner aujourd'hui, si vous pouvez differer
jusqu'a demain sans danger." ^m. ij., 80.
t *' Effrayez-vous done peu de cette oisivet^ pretendue. Que diriez-
vous d'un homme qui, pour mettre toute la vie a profit, ne voudrait
jamais dormir ? Vous diriez : Get homme est insense ; il ne jouit pas
du temps, il se I'ote ; pour fuir le sommeil il court a la mort. Songez
done que c'est ici la meme chose, et que I'enfance est le sommeil de la
raison." ^m. ij., 99.
246 ROUSSEAU.
Start from study of the child.
of knowledge as of trifling importance when compared with
the formation of character; but he too in practice hardly
went so far as this principle might have led him. He was
much under the influence of social distinctions, and could
* not help thinking of what it was necessary for a gentleman
to know. So that Rousseau was the very first to shake
himself entirely free from the notion which the Renascence
had handed down that man was mainly a learning animal.
Rousseau has the courage to deny this in the most
emphatic manner possible, and to say : " For the first 1 2
years the educator must teach the child nothing"
§ 12. In this reaction against the Renascence Rousseau
puts the truth in the form of such a violent paradox that we
start back in terror. But it was perhaps necessary thus to
sweep away the ordinary schoolroom rubbish before the true
nature of the educator's task could be fairly considered.
The rubbish having been cleared away what was to take
its place ? No longer having his mind engrossed by the
knowledge he wished to communicate, the educator had now
an eye for something else not less worthy of his attention,
viz., the child itself Rousseau was the first to base educa-
tion entirely on a study of the child to be educated ; and by
doing this he became, as I beheve, one of the greatest of
educational Reformers.
§ 13. It was, however, purely as a thinker, or rather as a
voice giving expression to the general discontent that
Rousseau became such a tremendous force in Europe. He
has indeed often been called the father of the first French
Revolution which he did not live to see. But, as Macaulay
has well said, a good deal besides eloquent writing is needed
to cause such a convulsion ; and we can no more attribute
the French Revolution to the writings of Rousseau than we
.i
ROUSSEAU. ^*'^7
R.'s paradoxes un-English.
can attribute the shock of an explosion of gunpowder to' the
lucifer match without which it might never have happened.
(j/. Macaulay's Barrtre). Rousseau did in the world of
ideas what the French Revolutionists afterwards did in the
world of politics ; he made a clean sweep and endeavoured
to start afresh.
§ 14. I have already said that as regards education I
think his labours in destruction were of very great value.
But what shall we say of his efforts at construction ? There
would not be the least difficulty in showing that most of
his proposals are impracticable. It is no more " natural "
to treat as a typical case a child brought up in solitude than
it would be to write a treatise on the rearing of a bee cut
off from the hive.* Rousseau requires impossibilities, e.g.^
he postulates that the child is never to be brought into
contact with anyone who might set a bad example.
Modern science has shown us that the young are Hable to take
diseases from impurities in the air they breathe : but as
yet no one has proposed that all children should be kept
at an elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Yet the advice would be about as practicable as the advice
of Rousseau. A method which always starts with paradox
and not infrequently ends with platitude might seem to
have little in its favour ; and Rousseau has had far less
influence since (in the words of Herman Merivale) "he
was dethroned with the fall of his extravagant child, the
[First] Republic." No doubt the great exponent of English
* **I1 n'y a pas de philosophic plus superficielle que celle qui, prenant
I'homme comme un etre egoiste et viager, pretend I'expliquer et lui
tracer ses devoirs en dehors de la societe dont il est ane partie. Autant
vaut considerer I'abeille abstraction faite de la ruche, et dire qu'^ elle
fceule I'abeille construit son alveole." Renan, La Rcforme^ 312.
248 ROUSSEAU.
Man the corrupter. The three educations.
opinion was right in calling Rousseau *' the most un-English
stranger who ever landed on our shores" {Times^ 29 Aug.,
1873); and the torch of his eloquence will never cause a
conflagration, still less an explosion, here. His disregard
for " appearances " — or rather his evident purpose of
making an impression by defying " appearances " and
saying just the opposite of what is expected, is simply
distressing to us. But there is no denying Rousseau's
genius. His was one of the original voices that go on
sounding and awakening echoes in all lands. Willingly or
unwillingly, at first hand or from imperfect echoes, everyone
who studies education must study Rousseau.
§ 15. As specimens of Rousseau's teaching I will give
a few characteristic passages from the ^mile.
" Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Creator :
everything degenerates in the hands of man."* These are
the first words of the " £mile," and the key-note of Rous-
seau's philosophy.
§ 16. "We are born weak, we have need of strength;
we are born destitute of everything, we have need of assist-
ance ; we are born stupid, we have need of understanding.
All that we have not at our birth, and which we require
when grown up, is bestowed on us by education. This
education we receive from nature, from men, or from
things. The internal development of our organs and
faculties is the education of nature : the use we are taught
to make of that development is the education given us by
men ; and in the acquisitions made by our own experience
on the objects that surround us, consists our education
* "Tout est bien, sortant des mains de I'Auteur des choses; lout
degen^re entre les mains de I'homme."
ROUSSEAU. 249
The aim, living thoroughly.
h
from things."* "Since the concurrence of these three
kinds of education is necessary to their perfection, it is by
that one which is entirely independent of us, we must
regulate the two others. "f
§ 17. Now "to live is not merely to breathe; it is to
act, it is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties,
and of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling
of our existence. The man who has lived most, is not he
who has counted the greatest number of years, but he who
has most thoroughly felt life."J
§ 18. The aim of education, then, must be complete
li^dug.
But ordinary education, instead of seeking to develop
the life of the child, sacrifices childhood to the acquirement
of knowledge, or rather the semblance of knowledge, which
it is thought will prove useful to the youth or the man.
" Nous naissons faibles, nous avons besoin de forces ; nous naisscns
depourvus de tout, nous avons besoin d'assistance ; nous naissons stu-
pides, nous avons besoin de jugement. Tout ce que nous n'avons pas k
notre naissance, et dont nous avons besoin etant grands, nous est donne
par I'education. Cette education nous vient ou de la nature, ou des
hommes, ou des choses. Le developpement interne de nos facultes et de
nos organes est I'education de la nature ; I'usage qu'on nous apprend k
faire de ce developpement est I'education des hommes ; et I'acquis de
notre propre experience sur les objets qui nous affectent est I'education
des choses." £m. ]., 6.
t " Puisque le concours des trois educations est n^cessaire k leur per-
fection, c'est sur celle a laquelle nous ne pouvous rien qu'il faut diriger
les deux autres." £m. ]., 7.
X " Vivre ce n'est pas respirer, c'est agir ; c'est faire usage de nos or-
ganes, de nos sens, de nos facultes, de toutes les parties de nous-memes
qui nous donnent le sentiment de notre existence. L'homme qui a le
plus vecu n'est pas celui qui a compte le plus d'annees, mais celui qui a
le plus senti la vie." ^m. j., 13.
250 ROUSSEAU.
Children not small men.
Rousseau's great merit lies in his having exposed this
fundamental error. He says, very truly, *' We do not under-
stand childhood, and pursuing false ideas of it our every
step takes us further astray. The wisest among us fix upon
what it concerns men to know without ever considering
what children are capable of learning. They always expect
to find the man.in the child without thinking of what the
child is before it is a man. And this is the study to which
I have especially devoted myself, in order that should my
entire method be false and visionary, my observations might
always turn to account. I may not have seen arighj: what
ought to. be done : but I believe I have seen aright the
subject on which we have to act. Begin then by studying
your pupils .better, for most certainly you do not under-
stand them."* "Nature wills that children should be
children before they are men. If we seek to pervert this
order we shall produce forward fruits without ripeness or
flavour, and tho' not ripe, soon rotten : we shall have young
savans and old children. ' Childhood has ways of seeing,
thinking, feeling peculiar to itself; nothing is more absurd
than to wish to substitute ours in their place. "f "We
* " On ne connait point I'enfance : sur les fausses idees qu'on en a, plus
on va, plus on s'egare. Les plus sages s'attachent a ce qu'il importe aux
hommes de savoir, sans considerer ce que les enfants sont en etat d'ap-
prendre. lis cherchent toujours I'homme dans I'enfant, sans penser a ce
qu'il est avant que d'etre homme. Voilk I'etude a laquelle je me suis le
plus applique, afin que, quand toute ma methode serait chimerique et
fausse, on put toujours profiter de mes observations. Je puis avoir
tres-mal vu ce qu'il faut faire j mais je crois avoir bien vu le sujet sur
lequel on doit operer. Commencez done par mieux etudier vos eleves j
car tres-assurement vous ne les connaissez point."
t *' La nature veut que les enfants soient enfants avant que d'etre
hommes. Si nous voulons pervertir cet ordre, nous produirons des froitg
J
ROUSSEAU. 251
Schoolmasters* contempt for childhood.
never kno\» how to put ourselves in the place of children ;
we do not enter into their ideas, we attribute to them our
own ; and following always our own train of thought, even
with syllogisms we manage to fill their heads with nothing
but extravagance and error."* " I wish some discreet
person would give us a treatise on the art of observing
children — an art which would be of immense value to us,
but of which fathers and schoolmasters have not as yet
learnt the very first rudiments."!
§ 19. In these passages, Rousseau strikes the key-note
of true education. The first thing necessary for us is to see
aright the subject on which we have to act. Unfortunately,
however, this subject has often been the subject most
neglected in the schoolroom. Children have been treated
as if they were made for their school books, not their school
books for them. As education has been thought of as
learning, childhood has been treated as unimportant, a
necessary stage in existence no doubt, but far more trouble-
some and hardly more interesting than the state of the
precoces qui n'auront ni maturite ni saveur, et ne tarderont pas k se cor-
rompre : nous aurons de jeunesdocteursetde vieuxenfants. L'enfance
a des manieres de voir, de penser, de sentir, qui lui sont propres ; rien
n'est moins sense que d'y vouloir substituer les notres." J^m. ij., 75 ;
also m JV. H., p. 478.
* "Nous ne savons jamais nous mettre a la place des enfants ; nous
n'enlrons pas dans ieurs idees, nous leur pretons les notres j et, suivant
toujours nos propres raisonnements, avec des chaines de verites nous
n'entassons qu'extravagances et qu'erreurs dans leur tete." ^in. iij.,
185.
t "Je voudrais qu'un homme judicieux nous donnat un traite de
I'art d'observer les enfants. Cet art serait tres-important ^ connattre :
les peres et les maitres n'en ont pas encore les elements." ^//^ iij.,
224.
252 ROUSSEAU.
Schoolroom rubbish.
chrysalis. If some forms of words, tables, declensions,
county towns, and the like can be drummed into children,
this is, say educators of the old school, a clear gain. For
the rest nothing can be done with them except teaching
them to read, write, and say the multiplication table.
But since the publication of the Emile, there has been in
the world a very different view of education. According to
this view, the importance of childhood is not to be measured
by the amount of our knowledge, or even the number of our
words, we can force it to remember. According to this
view, in dealing with children we must not think of our
knowledge or of our notions at all. We must think not of
our own minds, but of the minds of the little ones.*
§ 20. The absurd results in which the opposite course
has ended, Rousseau exposes with great severity. " All the
studies demanded from the poor unfortunates lead to such
things as are entirely beyond the range of their ideas, so you
may judge what amount of attention they can give to them.
Schoolmasters who make a great display of the instruction
they give their pupils are paid to differ from me ; but we
see from what they do that they are entirely of my opinion.
For what do they really teach ? Words, words, for ever
words. Among the various knowledges which they boast
of giving, they are careful not to include such as would be
of use ; because these would involve a knowledge of things,
and there they would be sure to fail; but they choose
subjects that seem to be known when the terms are known
* Rousseau says : " Full of what is going on in your own head, you
do not see the effect you produce in their head : Pleins de ce qui se
passe dans votre tete vous ne voyez pas I'effet que vous produisez dans
la leur." f^tm, lib. ij., %l.)
ROUSSEAU. 253
Ideas before symbols.
such as heraldry, geography, chronology, languages and the
like ; all of them studies so foreign to a man, and still more
to a child, that it is a great chance if anything of the whole
lot ever proves useful to him on a single occasion in his
whole life."* "Whatever the study may be, without the
idea of the things represented the signs representing them
go for nothing. And yet the child is always kept to these
signs without our being able to make him comprehend any
of the things they represent. "f What does a child under-
stand by "the globe"? An old geography book says
candidly, that it is a round thing made of plaster ; and this
is the only notion children have of it. What a fearful waste,
and worse than waste, it is to make them learn the signs
without the things, when if they ever learn the things, they
must at the same time acquire the signs ! (Conf. Ruskin
supra ^. 1^% note.) "No! if Nature gives to the child's
* " Or, toutes les Etudes forcees de ces pauvres infortunes tendent 4
ces objets entierement etrangers a leurs esprits. Qu'on juge de I'atten-
tion qu'ils y peuvent donner. Les pedagogues qui nous etalent en
grand appareil les instructions qu'ils donnent a leurs disciples sont
pay^s pour tenir un autre langage : cependant on voit, par leur propre
conduite, qu'ils pensent exactement comme moi. Car que leur
apprennent-ils enfin ? Des mots, encore des mots, et toujours des mots.
Parmi les diverses sciences qu'ils se vantent de leur enseigner, ils se
gardent bien de choisir celles qui leur seraient veritablement utiles,
parce que ce seraient des sciences de choses, et qu'ils n'y reussiraient
pas ; mais celles qu'on paralt savoir quand on en sait les termes, le
blason, la geographic, la chronologic, les langues, etc. ; toutes etudes si
loin de I'homme, et surtout de I'enfant, que c'est une merveille si rien
de tout cela lui peut etre utile une seule fois en sa vie." ^m. ij., 100.
t " En quelque etude que ce puisse etre, sans I'idee des choses repre-
sentees, les signes representants ne sont rien. On borne pourtant tou-
jours I'enfant ^ ces signes, sans jamais pouvoir lui faire comprendrc
aue*me des choses qu'ils representent." £in. ij., 102.
19
254 ROUSSEAU
Right ideas for children.
brain this pliability which makes it capable of receiving
impressions of every kind, this is not that we may engrave
on it the names of kings, dates, the technical words of
heraldry, of astronomy, of geography, and all those words
meaningless at his age and useless at any age, with which
we oppress his sad and sterile childhood ; but that all the
ideas which he can conceive and which are useful to him,
all those which relate to his happiness and will one day
make his duty plain to him, may trace themselves there in
characters never to be effaced, and may assist him in
conducting himself through life in a manner appropriate to
his nature and his faculties."*
* " Non, si la nature donne au cerveau d'un enfant cette souplesse qui
le rend propre k recevoir toutes sortes d'impressions, ce n'est pas pour
qu'on y grave des noms de rois, des dates, des termes de blason, de
sphere, de geographie, et tous ces mots sans aucun sens pour son age et
sans aucune utilite pour quelque age que ce soit, dont on accable sa
triste et sterile enfance ; mais c'est pour que toutes les idees qu'il peut
concevoir et qui lui sont utiles, toutes celles qui se rapportent k son
bonheur et doivent I'eclairer un jour sur ses devoirs, s'y tracent de bonne
heure en caracteres ineffa9ables, et lui servent a se conduire pendant sa
vie d'une maniere convenable a son etreet k ses facultes." J^m. ij,, 105;
alsoiV. ^., P. v.,L. 3.
Sans etudier dans les livres, I'espece de m^moire que peut avoir un
enfant ne reste pas pour cela oisive ; tout ce qu'il voit, tout ce qu'il en-
tend le frappe, et il s'en souvient ; il tient registre en lui-meme des
actions, des discours des hon\mes ; et tout ce qui I'environne est le livre
dans lequel, sans y songer, il enrichit continuellemenc sa memoire, en
attendant que son jugement puisse en profiter. C'est dans le choix de
ces objets, c'est dans le soin de lui presenter sans cesse ceux qu'il peut
ccnnaltre, et de lui cacher ceux qu'il doit ignorer, que consiste le veri-
table an de cultiver en lui cette premiere faculte ; et c'est par la qu'il faut
taclier de lui former un magasin de connaissances qui servent a son
Education durant sa jeunesse, et k sa conduite dans tous les temps.
Cette methode, il est vrai, ne forme point de petits prodiges et ne fait
ROUSSEAU. 255
Child-gardening. Child's activity.
§ 21. With Rousseau, as afterwards with Froebel,
education was a kind of "child-gardening." "Plants are
developed by cultivation," says he, '* men by education :
On fa^onne les plantes par la culture, et les homraes par
I'education " {Am. j., 6). The governor, who is the child-
gardener, is to aim at three things : first, he is to shield the
child from all corrupting influences ; second, he is to devote
himself to developing in the child a healthy and strong
body in which the senses are to be rendered acute by
exercise ; third, he is, by practice not precept, to cultivate
the child's sense of duty.
§ 22. In his study of children Rousseau fixed on their
never-resting activity. "The faihng energy concentrates itself
in the heart of the old man; in the heart of the child energy is
overflowing and spreads outwards; he feels in him life enough
to animate all his surroundings. Whether he makes or
niars it is all one to him : "it is enough that he has changed
the state of things, and every change is an action. If he
seems by preference to destroy, this is not from mischief;
but the act of construction is always slow, and the act of
destruction being quicker is more suited to his vivacity."*
One of the first requisites in the care of the young is
pas briller les gouvemantes et les pr^cepteurs ; mais elle forme des
hommes judicieux, robustes, sains de corps et d'entendment, qui, sans
s'etre fait admirer etant jeunes, se font honorer etant grands.
* " L'activite defaillante se concentre dans le cceur du vieillard ; dans
celui de I'enfant elle est surabondante et s'etend au dehors ; il se sent,
pour ainsi dire, assez de vie pour animer tout ce qui I'environne. Qu'il
fasse ou qu'il defasse, il n'importe ; il suffit qu'il change I'etat des choses,
et tout changement est une action. Que s'il semble avoir plus de pen-
chant k detruire, ce n'est point par mechancete, c'est que Taction qui
forme est toujours letite, et que celle qui detruit, ^tant plus rapide, con-
vient mieux ^ sa vivacite," J^w, j., 47.
256 ROUSSEAU.
No sitting still or reading-.
then to provide for the expansion of their activity. All
restraints such as swaddUng clothes for infants and "school"
and "lessons" for children are to be entirely done away
with.* Literary instruction must not be thought of.
"There must be no other book than the world," says
Rousseau, " no other instruction than facts. The child who
reads does not think, he does nothing but read, he gets no
instruction ; he learns words : Point d'autre livre que le
monde, point d'autre instruction que les faits. L'enfant
qui lit ne pense pas, il ne fait que lire ; il ne s'instruit pas,
il apprend les mots." {Am. iij., i8i.)t
* It would be difficult to find a man more English, in a good sense,
than the present Lord Derby or, whether we say it in praise or dispraise,
a man less like Rousseau. So it is interesting to find him in agreement
with Rousseau in condemning the ordinary restraints of the school-
room. " People are beginning to find out what, if they would use their
own observation more, and not follow one another like sheep, they
would have found out long ago, that it is doing positive harm to a
young child, mental and bodily harm, to keep it learning or pretending
to learn, the greater part of the day. Nature says to a child, * Run
about,' the schoolmaster says, * Sit still ; ' and as the schoolmaster
can punish on the spot, and Nature only long afterwards, he is obeyed,
and health and brain suffer." — Speech in 1864.
t All this is very crude, and so is the artifice by which Julie in the
Nouvelle Helo'ise entraps her son into learning to read. No doubt
Rousseau is right when he says that where there is a desire to read the
power is sure to come. But *' reading " is one thing in the lives of the
labouring classes to whom it means reading aloud in school, and quite
another in families of literary tastes and habits with whom the range of
thought is in a great measure dependent on books. In such families
the children learn to read as surely as they learn to talk. They
mostly have access to books which they read to themselves for
pleasure ; and of course it is absurdly untrue to say that they learn
nothing but words and do not think. In my opinion it may be ques-
tioned whether the world of fiction into which their reading gives them
ROUSSEAU. 257
Memory without books.
§ 23. If it be objected that, according to Rousseau's
plan, there would be a neglect of memory, he replies :
" Without the study of books the kind of memory that a
child should have will not remain inactive ; all he sees, all
he hears, strikes him, and he remembers it; he keeps a
record in himself of people's actions and people's talk; and
all around him makes the book by which without thinking
of it he is constantly enriching his memory against the time
that his judgment may benefit by it : Sans ^tudier dans les
livres, I'espece de m^moire que peut avoir un enfant ne
reste pas pour cela oisive ; tout ce qu'il voit, tout ce qu'il
en tend le frappe, et il s'en souvient; il tient registre en lui-
meme des actions, des discours des hommes ; et tout ce
qui I'environne est le livre, dans lequel, sans y songer, il
enrichit continuellement sa m^moire, en attendant que son
jugement puisse en profiter." {Am. ij., 106.) We should be
most careful not to commit to our memory anything we do
not understand, for if we do, we can never tell what part of
our stores really belong to us. {Em. iij., 236.)
§ 24. On the positive side the most striking part of
Rousseau's advice relates to the training of the senses.
" The first faculties which become strong in us," says he,
" are our senses. These then are the first that should be
cultivated ; they are in fact the only faculties we forget or
the entree does not withdraw them too much from the actual world in
which they live. The elders find it very convenient when the child can
always be depended on to amuse himself with a book ; but noise and
motion contribute more to health of body and perhaps of mind also.
While children of well-to-do parents often read too much, the children
of our schools " under government " hardly get a notion what reading
is. In these schools " reading " always stands for vocal reading, and
the power and the habit of using books for pleasure or for knowledge
(other than verbal) are little cultivated.
258 ROUSSEAU.
Use of the senses in childhood.
at least those which we neglect most completely." We find
that the young child "wants to touch and handle every-
thing. By no means check this restlessness ; it points to a
very necessary apprenticeship. Thus it is that the child
gets to be conscious of the hotness or coldness, the hardness
or softness, the heaviness or lightness of bodies, to judge of
their size and shape and all their sensible properties by
looking, feeling, listening, especially by comparing sight
and touch, and combining the sensations of the eye with
those of the fingers."*" " See a cat enter a room for the
first time ; she examines round and stares and sniffs about
without a moment's rest, she is satisfied with nothing before
she has tried it and made it out. This is just what a child
does when he begins to walk, and enters, so to say, the
chamber of the world. The only difference is that to the
sight which is common to the child and the cat the first
joins in his observations the hands which nature has given
him, and the other animal that subtle sense of smell which
has been bestowed upon her. It is this tendency, according
as it is well cultivated or the reverse, that makes children
either sharp or dull, active or slow, giddy or thoughtful.
" The first natural movements of the child being then to
measure himself with his surroundings and to test in
everything he sees all its sensible properties which may
concern him, his first study is a kind of experimental
• *' II veut tout toucher, tout manier ; ne vous opposez point k cette
inquietude ; elle lui suggere un apprentissage tres-necessaire. C'est
ainsi qu'il apprend k sentir la chaleur, le froid, la durete, la mollesse,
la pesanteur, la legerete des corps ; k juger de leur grandeur, de leur
figure et de toutes leurs qualites sensibles, en regardant, palpant,
ccoutant, siurtout en comparant la vue au toucher, en estimant k Toeil
la sensation qu'ils feraient sous ses doigts." Mm. j., 43.
ROUSSEAU. 259
Intellect based on the senses.
physics relating to his own preservation ; and from this we
divert him to speculative studies before he feels himself at
l\ome here below. So long as his delicate and flexible
organs can adjust themselves to the bodies on which they
ought to act, so long as his senses as yet uncorrupted are
free from illusion, this is the time to exercise them all in
their proper functions ; this is the time to learn to under-
stand the sensuous relations which things have with us.
As everything that enters the mind finds its way through
the senses, the first reason of a human being is a reason of
sensations ; this it is which forms the basis of the intellectual
reason; our first masters in philosophy are our feet, our
hands, our eyes. Substituting books for all this is not
teaching us to reason, but simply to use the reason of other
people ; it teaches us to take a great deal on trust and
never to know anything.
" In order to practise an art we must begin by getting
the proper implements ; and that we may have good use of
these implements they must be made strong enough to
stand wear and tear. That we may learn to think we must
then exercise our members, our senses, our organs, as these
are the implements of our intelligence ; and that we may
make the most of these implements the body which supplies
them must be strong and healthy. We see then that far
from man's true reason forming itself independently of his
body, it IS the sound constitution of the body that makes
the operations of the mind easy and certain."*
* ** Voyez un chat entrer pour la premiere fois dans une chambre: il
visite, il regarde, il flaire, il ne reste pas un moment en repos, il ne se
fie a rien qu'apr^s avoir tout examine, tout connu. Ainsi fait un enfant
commen9ant k marcher, et entrant pour ainsi dire dans I'espace du
monde. Toute la difference est qu'i la vue, commune k I'enfant et au
260 ROUSSEAU.
Cultivation of the senses.
§ 25. Rousseau does not confine himself to advising
that the senses should be cultivated ; he also gives some
hints of the way in which they should be cultivated, and
many modern experiments, such as " object lessons " and
the use of actual weights and measures, may be directly
traced to him. " As soon as a child begins to distinguish
objects, a proper choice should be made in those which are
presented to him." Elsewhere he says, *' To exercise the
senses is not simply to make use of them ; it is to learn to
judge aright by means of them ; it is to learn, so to say, to
perceive ; for we can only touch and see and hear according
as we have learnt how. There is a kind of exercise
perfectly natural and mechanical which serves to make the
body strong without giving anything for the judgment to lay
hold of: swimming, running, jumping, whip-top, stone
throwing ; all this is capital ; but have we nothing but arms
and legs ? have we not also eyes and ears ? and are these
organs not needed in our use of the others ? Do not then
merely exercise the strength but exercise all the senses
chat, le premier joint, pour observer, les mains que lui donna la nature,
et I'autre I'odorat subtil dont elle I'a doue. Cette disposition, bien ou
mal cultivee, est ce qui rend les enfants adroits ou lourds, pesants ou
dispos, ^tourdis ou prudents. Les premiers mouvements naturals de
I'homme etant done de se mesurer avec tout ce qui I'environne, et
d'eprouver dans chaque objet qu'il apergoit toutes les qualites sensibles
qui peuvent se rapporter ^ lui, sa premiere etude est une sorte de
physique experimentale relative ^ sa propre conservation, et dont on le
detourne par des 6tudes speculatives avant qu'il ait reconnu sa place
ici-bas. Tandis que ses organes delicats et flexibles peuvent s'ajuster
aux corps sur lesquels ils doivent agir, tandis que ses sens encore purs
sont exempts d'illusion, c'est le temps d'exercer les uns et les autres
aux fonctions qui leur sont propres; c'est le temps d'apprendre ^
connaitre les rapports sensibles que les choses ont avec nous. Comme
tout ce qui entre dans I'entendement humain y vient par les sens, la
ROUSSEAU. 261
Music and drawing.
which direct it ; get all you can out of each of them, and
then check the impressions of one by the impressions of
another. Measure, reckon, weigh, compare."*
§ 26. Two subjects there were in which ifemile was to
receive instruction, viz. : music and drawing. Rousseau's
advice about drawing is well worth considering. He says :
" Children who are great imitators all try to draw. I should
wish my child to cultivate this art, not exactly for the art
itself, but to make his eye correct and his hand supple :
premiere raison de Thomme est una raison sensitive ; c'elle qui sert de
base a la raison intellectuelle : nos premiers maitres de philosophie sont
nos pieds, nos mains, nos yeux. Substituer des livres a tout cela, ce
n'est pas nous apprendre k raisonner, c'est nous apprendre k nous
servir de la raison d'autrui ; c'est nous apprendre k beaucoup croire, et
k ne jamais rien savoir. Pour exercer un art, il faut commencer par
s'en procurer les instruments ; et, pour pouvoir employer utilement ces
instruments, il faut les faire assez solides pour resister k leur usage.
Pour apprendre k penser, il faut done exercer nos membres, nos sens,
nos organes, qui sont les instruments de notre intelligence ; et pour
tirer tout le parti possible de ces instruments, il faut que le corps, qui
les fournit, soit robuste et sain. Ainsi, loin que la veritable raison de
I'homme se forme independamment du corps, c'est la bonne constitution
du corps qui rend les operations de I'esprit faciles et sures." £7/1, ij.,
123.
* " Exercer les sens n'est pas seulement en faire usage, c'est appren-
dre k bien juger par eux, c'est apprendre, pour ainsi dire, k sentir ; car
nous ne savons ni toucher, ni voir, ni entendre, que comme nous avons
appris. II y a un exercice purement nature! et mecanique, qui sert a
rendre le corps robuste sans donner aucune prise au jugement : nager,
courir, sauter, fouetter un sabot, lancer des pierres ; tout cela est fort
bien : mais n'avons-nous que des bras et des jambes ? n'avons-nous pas
aussi des yeux, des oreilles ? et ces organes sont-ils superflus a I'usage
des premiers ? N'exercez done pas seulement les forces, exercez tous les
sens qui les dirigent ; tirez de chacun d'eux tout le parti possible, puis
verifiez I'impression de I'un par I'autre. Mesurez, comptez, pesez,
comparez." £m. ij., 133.
262
ROUSSEAU.
Drawing from objects. Morals.
I^s enfants, grands imitateurs, essayent tous de dessiner :
je voudrais que le mien cultivat cet art, non precisement
pour Tart meme, mais pour se rendre Toeil juste et la
main flexible." (-^w. ij., 149). But ;^mile is to be kept
clear of the ordinary drawing-master who would put him
to imitate imitations ; and there is a striking contrast be-
tween Rousseau's suggestions and those of the authorities
at South Kensington. Technical skill he cares for less
than the training of the eye ; so Emile is always to draw
from the object^ and, says Rousseau, " my intention is not
so much that he should get to imiiaie the objects, as get to
know them : mon intention n'est pas tant qu'il sache imiter
les objets que les connaitre." {Em, ij., 150).
§ 27. Before we pass the age of twelve years, at which
point, as someone says, Rousseau substitutes another 6mile
for the one he has hitherto spoken of, let us look at his
proposals for moral training. Rousseau is right, beyond
question, in desiring that children should be treated as
children. But what are children ? What can they under-
stand ? What is the world in which they live ? Is it the
material world only, or is the moral world also open to
them? (Girardin's 7?., vol. ij., 136). On the subject of
morals Rousseau seems to have admirable instincts,* but
* E.g. — ^What can be better than this about family life? "L'attrait
de la vie domestique est le meilleur contrepoison des mauvaises moeurs.
Le tracas des enfants qu'on croit importun devient agreable ; il rend
le pere et la m^re plus necessaires, plus chers I'un ^ I'autre ; il resserre
entrc eux le lien conjugal. Quand la famille est vivante et animee, les
soins domestiques font la plus chere occupation de la femme et le plus
doux amusement du mari. Ainsi de ce seul abus corrige resulterait
bientot une re forme generale ; bientot la nature aurait repris tous ses
droits. Qu'une fois les femmes redeviennent meres bientot les hommes
redeviendront peres et maris." ^m. j., 17. Again he says in a letter
ROUSSEAU. 263
Contradictory statements on morals.
no principles, and moral as he is '*on instinct," there is
always some confusion in what he says. At one time he
asserts that " there is only one knowledge to give children,
and that is a knowledge of duty : " II n'y a qu'une science k
enseigner aux enfants : c'est celle des devoirs de I'homme."
{£m. j., 26). Elsewhere he says: "To know right from
wrong, to be conscious of the reason of duty is not the
business of a child : Connaitre le bien et le mal, sentir la
raison des devoirs de I'homme, n'est pas I'affaire d'un
enfant." (J^m, ij., 75).* In another place he mounts his
hobby that " the most sublime virtues are negative " {j^m.
ij., 95), and that about the best man who ever lived (till he
found Friday ?) was Robinson Crusoe. The outcome of all
Rousseau's teaching on this subject seems that we should in
quoted by Saint-Marc Girardin (ij., 121) — " L'habitude la plus douce
qui puisse exister est celle de la vie domestique qui nous tient plus pres
de nous qu'aucune autre." We may say of Rousseau what Emile says
of the Corsair; — " II savait k fond toute la morale ; il n'y avait que la
pratique qui lui manquat." {^m. et S. 636). And yet he himself testi-
fies : — "Nurses and mothers become attached to children by the cares
they devote to them ; it is the exercise of the social virtues that carries
the love of humanity to the bottom of our hearts ; it is in doing good
that one becomes good ; I know no experience more certain than this :
Les nourrices, les meres, s'attachent aux enfants par les soins qu'elles
leur rendent ; I'exercice des vertus sociales porte au fond des coeurs
I'amour de I'humanite ; c'est en faisant le bien qu'cn devient bon ; je
ne connais point de pratique plus sure." ^m. iv, 291.
* Elsewhere he asserts in his fitful way that there is inborn in the
heart of man a feeling of what is just and unjust. Again, after all his
praise of negation he contradicts himself, and says : *' I do not suppose
that he who does not need anything can love anything ; and I do not
suppose that he who does not love anything can be happy : Je ne con-
5ois pas que celui qui n'a besoin de rien puisse aimer quelque chose ;
je ne con5ois pas que celui qui n'aime rien puisse etre heureux " ^m,
iv, 252.
264 ROUSSEAU.
The material world and the moral.
every way develop the child's animal or physical life, retard
his intellectual Ufe, and ignore his life as a spiritual and
moral being.
§ 28. A variety of influences had combined, as they
combine still, to draw attention away from the importance
of physical training ; and by placing the child's bodily
organs and senses as the first things to be thought of in
education, Rousseau did much to save us from the bad
tradition of the Renascence. But there were more things
in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy,
and whatever Rousseau might say, ^mile could never be
restrained from inquiring after them. Every boy will think;
i.e., he will thivCs. for himself ^ however unable he may seem
to think in the direction in which his instructors try to
urge him. The wise elders who have charge of him
must take this into account, and must endeavour to guide
him into thinking modestly and thinking right. Then
again, as soon as the child can speak, or before, the world
of sensation becomes for him a world, not of sensations
only, but also of sentiments, of sympathies, of affections,
of consciousness of right and wrong, good and evil. All
these feelings, it is true, may be affected by traditional
prejudices. The air the child breathes may also contain
much that is noxious; but we have no more power to
exclude the atmosphere of the moral world than of the
physical. All we can do is to take thought for fresh air
in both cases. As for Rousseau's notion that we can
withdraw the child from the moral atmosphere, we see in
it nothing but a proof how httle he understood the problems
he professed to solve.*
* This part of Rousseau's scheme is well discussed by Saint-Marc
Girardin (/. y. Rousseau, vol. ij.). The following passage is striking j
ROUSSEAU. 265
Shun over-directing.
§ 29. Although the governor is to devote himself to
a single child, Rousseau is careful to protest against over-
direction. " You would stupify the child," says he, " if you
were constantly directing him, if you were always saying to
him, * Come here ! Go there 1 Stop ! Do this ! Don't
do that ! ' If your head always directs his arms, his own
head becomes useless to him." {Em. ij., 114). Here we
have a warning which should not be neglected by those
who maintain the Lycees in France, and the ordinary private
boarding-schools in England. In these schools a boy is
hardly called upon to exercise his will all day long. He
rises in the morning when he must ; at meals he eats till
he is obliged to stop ; he is taken out for exercise like a
horse ; he has all his indoor work prescribed for him both
as to time and quantity. In this kind of life he never has
occasion to think or act for himself. He is therefore without
self-reliance. So much care is taken to prevent his doing
wrong, that he gets to think only of checks from without.
He is therefore incapable of self-restraint. In the English
public schools boys have much less supervision from their
elders, and organise a great portion of their lives for thera-
" How is it that Madame Necker-Saussure understood the child better
than Rousseau did ? She saw in the child two things, a creation and
a ground-plan, something finished and something begun, a perfection
which prepares the way for another perfection, a child and a man.
God, Who has put together human life in several pieces, has willed,
it is true, that all these pieces should be related to each other ; but He
has also willed that each of them should be complete in itself, so that
every stage of life has what it needs as the object of that period, and
also what it needs to bring in the period that comes next. Wonderful
union of aims and means which shews itself at every step in creation !
In everything there is aim and also means, everything exists for itself
and also for that which lies beyond it ! (Tout est but et tout est moyen;
tout est absolu et tout est relatif.)" /. J. ^., ij., 151,
26^
ROUSSEAU.
Lessons out of school. Questioning. At 12.
selves. This proves a better preparation for life after the
school age ; and most public schoolmasters would agree with
Rousseau that " the lessons the boys get from each other
in the playground are a hundred times more useful to them
than the lessons given them in school : les legons que les
^coliers prennent entre eux dans la cour du college leur sont
cent fois plus utiles que tout ce qu'on leur dira jamais dans
la classe." {Em. ij., 123.)
§ 30. On questions put by children, Rousseau says :
"The art of questioning is not so easy as it may be
thought \ it is rather the art of the master than of the pupil.
We must have learnt a good deal of a thing to be able to
ask what we do not know. The learned know and inquire,
says an Indian proverb, but the ignorant know not what to
inquire about." And from this he infers that children learn
less from asking than from being asked questions. {N. H.^
5th P. 490.)
§ 31. At twelve years old Emile is said to be fit for
instruction. " Now is the time for labour, for instruction,
for study ; and observe that it is not I who arbitrarily make
this choice ; it is pointed out to us by Nature herself."
§ 32. What novelties await us here? As we have seen
Rousseau was determined to recommend nothing that
would harmonise with ordinary educational practice ; but
even a genius, though he may abandon previous practice,
cannot keep clear of previous thought, and Rousseau's plan
for instruction is obviously connected with the thoughts of
Montaigne and of Locke. But while on the same lines
with these great writers Rousseau goes beyond them and is
both clearer and bolder than they are.
§ 33. Rousseau's proposals for instruction have the fol-
lowing main features.
ROUSSEAU. 267
No book-learning. Study of Nature.
I St. Instruction is to be no longer literary or linguistic.
The teaching about words is to disappear, and the young
are not to learn by books or about books.
2nd. The subjects to be studied are to be mathematics
and physical science.
3rd. The method to be adopted is not the didactic but
the method of self -teaching.
4th. The hands are to be called into play as a means of
learning.
§ 34. I St. Till quite recently the only learning ever given
in schools was book-learning, a fact to which the language of
the people still bears witness : when a child does not profit
by school instruction he is always said to be " no good at his
book." Now-a-days the tendency is to change the character
of the schools so that they may become less and less mere
*' Ludi Literarii." In this Rousseau seems to have been a
century and more in advance of us ; and yet we cannot
credit him with any remarkable wisdom or insight about
literature. He himself used books as a means of "collecting
a store of ideas, true or false, but at any rate clear" (J.
Morley's Rousseau, j. chap. 3, p. 85), and he has recorded
for us his opinion that " the sensible and interesting con-
versations of a young woman of merit are more proper to
form a young man than all the pedantical philosophy of
books" {Confessions^ quoted by Morley j., 87). After this,
whatever we may think of the merit of his suggestions we
can sit at the Sage's feet no longer.
§ 35. 2nd. Rousseau had himself httle knowledge of
mathematics and natural science, but he was strongly in
favour of the " study of Nature " ; and in his last years his
devotion to botany became a passion. His curriculum for
£mile is in the air, but the chief thing is to get him to
268
ROUSSEAU.
Against didactic teaching.
attend to the phenomena of nature, and " to foster his
curiosity by being in no hurry to satisfy it."
§ 36. 3rd. About teaching and learning, there is one
point on which we find a consensus of great authorities ex-
tending from the least learned of writers who was probably
Rousseau to the most learned who was probably Friedrich
August Wolf. In one form or other these assert that there
is no true teaching but j^^-teaching.
Past a doubt the besetting weakness of teachers is " tell-
ing." They can hardly resist the tendency to be didactic.
They have the knowledge which they desire to find in their
pupils,and they cannot help expressing it and endeavouring
to pass it on to those who need it, " like wealthy men who
care not how they give." But true "teaching," as Jacotot and
his disciple Joseph Payne were never tired of testifying, is
" causing to learn," and it is seldom that " didactic " teaching
has this effect. Rousseau saw this clearly, and clearly pointed
out the danger of didacticism. As usual he by exaggeration
laid himself open to an answer that seems to refute him, but
in spite of this we feel that there is valuable truth underlying
what he says. "I hke not explanations given in long dis-
courses," says he ; " young people pay little attention to them
and retain little from them. The things themselves ! The
things themselves ! I shall never repeat often enough that we
attach too much importance to words : with our chattering
education we make nothing but chatterers.""*" Accordingly
Rousseau lays down the rule that jj&mile is not to learn
* " Je n'aime point les explications en discours ; les jeunes gens y font
peu d'attention et ne les retiennent guere. Les choses ! les choses ! Je
ne repeterai jamais assez que nous donnons trop de pouvoir aux mots :
avec notre education babillarde nous ne faisons que des babillards.*'
£m. iij., 198.
ROUSSEAU. 269
R. exaggerates about self-teaching.
science but to invent it (qu'il n'apprenne pas la science ; qu'il
I'invente) ; and he even expects him to invent geometry.
As 6mile is not supposed to be a young Pascal but only an
ordinary boy with extraordinary /^j^j-fV^/ development such
a requirement is obviously absurd, and Herbart has reckoned
it among Rousseau's Hauptfehler {Pad. Schrifien, ij., 242).
The training prescribed is in fact the training of the intellec-
tual athlete ; and the trainer may put the body through its
exercises much more easily than the mind. Of this the
practical teacher is only too conscious, and he will accept
Rousseau's advice, if at all, only as " counsels of perfection."
Rousseau says : " 6mile, obliged to learn of himself, makes
use of his own reason and not that of others ; for to give
no weight to opinion, none must be given to authority ; and
the more part of our mistakes come less from ourselves than
from other people. From this constant exercise there should
result a vigour of mind like that which the body gets from
labour and fatigue. Another advantage is that we advance
only in proportion to our strength. The mind like the body
carries that only which it can carry. When the under-
standing makes things its own before they are committed
to memory, whatever it afterwards draws forth belongs to it ;
but if the memory is burdened with what the understanding
knows nothing about we are in danger of bringing from it
things which the understanding declines to acknowledge."*
* •* Force d'apprendre de lui-meme, il use de sa raison et non de celle
d'autrui ; car, pour ne rien donner a I'opinion, il ne faut rien donner k
I'autorit^ ; et la plupart de nos erreurs nous viennent bien moins de
nous que des autres. De cet exercice continuel il doit resulter une
vigueur d'esprit semblable k celle qu'on donne au corps par le travail et
par I3 fatigue. Un autre avantage est qu'on n'avance qu'a proportion
de ses forces. L'esprit, non plus que le corps, ne porte que ce qu'il peut
20
270 ROUSSEAU.
Learn with effort.
Again he writes : " Beyond contradiction we get much moie
clear and certain notions of the things we learn thus of our-
selves than of those we derive from other people's instruction,
and besides not accustoming our reason to bow as a slave
before authority, we become more ingenious in finding con-
nexions, in uniting ideas, and in inventing our implements,
than when we take all that is given us and let our minds sink
into indifference, like the body of a man who always has his
clothes put on for him, is waited on by his servants and
drawn about by his horses till at length he loses the strength
and use of his limbs. Boileau boasted of having taught
Racine to find difficulty in rhyming. Among all the admirable
methods of shortening the study of the sciences we might
have need that some one should give us a way of learning
them with effort r*
§ 37. 4th. However highly we may value our gains
from the use of books we must admit that in some ways the
porter. Quand I'entendement s'approprie les choses avant de les deposer
dans la memoire, ce qu'il en tire ensuite est k lui : au lieu qu'en surchar-
geant la memoire, \ son insu, on s'expose k n'en jamais rien tirer qui
lui soit propre." ^m. iij., 235.
* "Sans contredit on prend des notions bien plus claires et bien plus
sures des choses qu'on apprend ainsi de soi-meme, que de celles qu'on
tient des enseignements d'autrui ; et, outre qu'on n'accoutume point sa
raison a se soumettre servilement ^ I'autorite, Ton se rend plus ingenieux
k trouver des rapports, k lier des idees, a inventer des instruments, que
quand, adoptant tout cela tel qu'on nous le donne, nous laissons affaisser
notre esprit dans la nonchalance, comme le corps d'un homme qui,
toujours habille, chausse, servi par ses gens et traine par ses chevaux,
perd a la fin la force et I'usage de ses membres. Boileau se vantait
d'avoir appris a Racine a rimer difficilement. Parmi tant d'admirables
methodes pour abreger I'etude des sciences, nous aurions grand besoin
que quelqu'un nous en donnat une pour les apprendre avec effort."
t.m, iij., 193.
ROUSSEAU. 271
Hand-work. The "New Education."
use of books tends to the neglect of powers that should not
be neglected. As Rousseau wished to see the young
brought up without books he naturally looked to other means
of learning, especially to learning by the eye and by the
hand. Much is now said about using the hand for educa-
tion, and many will agree with Rousseau : " If instead of
making a child stick to his books I employ him in a work-
shop, his hands w^ork to the advantage of his intellect : he
becomes a philosopher while he thinks he is becoming
simply an artisan : Au lieu de coUer un enfant sur des livres,
si je I'occupe dans un atelier, ses mains travaillent au profit
de son esprit : il devient philosophe, et croit n'etre qu'un
ouvrier." {Am. iij., 193).
§ 38. In these essays I have done what I could to shew
the best that each reformer has left us. In Rousseau's case
I have been obliged to confine myself to his words. " We
attach far too much importance to words," said Rousseau,
and yet it is by words and words only that Rousseau still
lives ; and for the sake of his words we forget his deeds. Of
the Amile Mr. Morley says : " It is one of the seminal
books in the history of literature. It cleared away the
accumulation of clogging prejudices and obscure inveterate
usage which ro-^de education one of the dark formalistic arts ;
and it admitted floods of light and air into tightly-closed
nurseries and schoolrooms " {Rousseau^ ij., 248). In the
region of '.bought it set us free from the Renascence ; and
it did more than this, it announced the true nature of the
teacher's calling, *' Study the subject you have to act upon." In
these words we have the starting point of the "New
Education." From them the educator gets a fresh conception
of his task. We grown people have received innumerable
impressions which, forgotten as they are, have left their mark
2/2 ROUSSEAU.
The Teacher's business.
behind in our way of looking at things ; and as we advance
in life these experiences and associations cluster around
everything to which we direct our attention, till in the end
the past seems to dominate the present and to us " nothing is
but what is not." But to the child the present with its
revelations and the future which will be " something more,
a bringer of new things," are all engrossing. It is our
business as teachers to try to realize how the world looks
from the child's point of view. We may know a great many
things and be ready to teach them, but we shall have httle
success unless we get another knowledge which we cannot
teach and can learn only by patient observation, a know-
ledge of " the subject to be acted on," of the mind of our
pupils and what^ goes on there. When we set out on this
path, which was first clearly pointed out by Rousseau,
teaching becomes a new occupation with boundless
possibilities and unceasing interest in it Every teacher
becomes a learner, for we have to study the minds of the
young, their way of looking at things, their habits, their
difficulties, their likes and dislikes, how they are stimulated
to exertion, how they are discouraged, how one mood
succeeds another. What we need we may well devote a
lifetime to acquiring ; it is a knowledge of the human mind
with the object of influencing it
J.
XV.
BASEDOW AND THE PHILAN-
THROPINUM.
§ I. One of the most famous movements ever made in
educational reform was started in the last century by John
Bernard Basedow. Basedow was born at Hamburg in 1723,
the son of a wigmaker. His early years were not spent in the
ordinary happiness of childhood. His mother he describes
as melancholy, almost to madness, and his father was severe
almost to brutality. It was the father's intention to bring
up his son to his own business, but the lad ran away, and
engaged himself as servant to a gentleman in Holstein. The
master soon perceived what had never occurred to the
father, viz., that the youth had very extraordinary abilities.
Sent home with a letter from his master pointing out this
notable discovery, Basedow was allowed to renounce the
paternal calling, and to go to the Hamburg Grammar School
{Gymnasium)^ where he was under Reimarus, the author of
the " Wolfenbiittel Fragment." In due course his friends
managed to send him to the University of Leipzig to prepare
himself for the least expensive of the learned professions —
the clerical. Basedow, however, was not a man to follow
the beaten tracks. After an irregular life he left the univer-
sity too unorthodox to think of being ordained, and in 1749
became private tutor to the children of Herr von Quaalen
274 BASEDOW.
B. tries to mend religion and teaching.
in Holstein. In this situation his talent for inventing new
methods of teaching first showed itself. He knew how to
adapt himself to the capacity of the children, and he taught
them much by conversation, and in the way of play, con-
necting his instruction with surrounding objects in the house,
garden, abd fields. Through Quaalen's influence, he next
obtained a professorship at Soroe, in Denmark, where he
lectnredsfor eight years, but his unorthodox writings raised a
storm of opposition, and the Government finally removed
him to the Gymnasium at Altona. Here he still continued
his efforts to change the prevailing opinions in religious
matters ; and so great a stir was made by the publication of
his " Philalethia," and his " Methodical Instruction in both
Natural and Biblical Religion," that he and his family were
refused the Communion at Altona, and his books were
excluded, under a heavy penalty, from Liibeck.
§ 2. About this time Basedow, incited by Rousseau's
*' Emile," turned his attention to a fresh field of activity, in
which he was to make as many friends as in theology he
had found enemies. A very general dissatisfaction was then
felt with the condition of the schools. Physical education
was not attempted in them. The mother-tongue was
neglected. Instruction in Latin and Greek, which was the
only instruction given, was carried on in a mechanical way,
without any thought of improvement. The education of the
poor and of the middle classes received but httle attention.
" Youth," says Raumer, " was in those days, for most
children, a sadly harassed period. Instruction was hard and
heartlessly severe. Grammar was caned into the memory,
so were portions of Scripture and poetry. A common school
punishment was to learn by heart Psalm cxix. School-
rooms were dismally dark. No one conceived it possible
BASEDOW. 275
Reform needed. Subscription for "Elementary."
that the young could find pleasure in any kind of work, or
that they had eyes for aught besides reading and writing.
The pernicious age of Louis XIV. had inflicted on the poor
children of the upper class, hair curled by the barber and
messed with powder and pomade, braided coats, knee
breeches, silk stockings, and a dagger by the side — for active,
lively children a perfect torture" {Gesch. d. Pddagogik^ ii.
297). Kant gave expression to a very wide-spread feeling
when he said that what was wanted in education was no
longer a reform but a revolution. Here, then, was a good
scope offered for innovators, and Basedow was a prince of
innovators.
§ 3.^Qaving succeeded in interesting the Danish
minister, B^nstorff, in his plans, he was permitted to devote
himself entirely to a work on the subject of education
whilst retaining his inqofne from the Altona Gymnasium.
The result was his " Address to Philanthropists and Men of
Property on Schools and Studies and their Influence on the
Public Weal" (1766), in which he announces the plan of his
"Elementary."* In this address he calls upon princes,
governments, town-councils, dignitaries of the Church,
freemasons' lodges, &c., &c., if they loved their fellow-
creatures, to come to his assistance in bringing out his
book. Nor did he call in vain. When the " Elementary "
at length appeared (in 1774), he had to acknowledge
contributions from the Emperor Joseph II., from Catherme
II. of Russia, from Christian VII. of Denmark, from the
Grand Prince Paul, and many other celebrities, the total
sum received being over 2,000/.
* I avail myself of the old substantival use of the word elementary to
express its German equivalent Elementarbuch,
276 BASEDOW.
A journey with Goethe.
§ 4. While Basedow was travelling about (in 1774) to get
subscriptions, he spent some time in Frankfurt, and thence
made an excursion to Ems with two distinguished companions,
one of them Lavater, and the other a young man of five-
and-twenty, already celebrated as the author of *' Gotz von
Berlichingen," and the "Sorrows of Werther." Of Basedow's
personal peculiarities at this time Goethe has left us an
amusing description in the " Wahrheit und Dichtung ;" but
we must accept the portrait with caution : the sketch was
thrown in as an artistic contrast with that of Lavater, and no
doubt exaggerates those features in which the antithesis
could be brought out with best effect.
" One could not see," writes Goethe, " a more marked
contrast than between Lavater and Basedow. As the lines
of Lavater's countenance were free and open to the beholder,
so were Basedow's contracted, and as it were drawn inwards.
Lavater's eye, clear and benign, under a very wide eye-lid;
Basedow's, on the other hand, deep in his head, small, black,
sharp, gleaming out from under shaggy eyebrows, whilst
Lavater's frontal bone seemed bounded by two arches of the
softest brown hair. Basedow's impetuous rough voice, his
rapid and sharp utterances, a certain derisive laugh, an
abrupt changing of the topic of conversation, and whatever
else distinguished him, all were opposed to the peculiarities
and the behaviour by which Lavater had been making us
over-fastidious."
§ 5. Goethe approved of Basedow's desire to make all
instruction lively and natural, and thought that his system
would promote mental activity and give the young a fresher
view of the world: but he finds fault with the "Elementary,"
and prefers the "Orbis Pictus" of Comenius, in which
subjects are presented in their natural connection. Base-
BASEDOW. 277
Goethe on Basedow.
dow himself, says Goethe, was not a man either to edify or
to lead other people. Although the object of his journey
was to interest the public in his philanthropic enterprise,
and to open not only hearts but purses, and he was able to
speak eloquently and convincingly on the subject of
education, he spoilt everything by his tirades against
prevalent religious belief, especially on the subject of the
Trinity.
§ 6. Goethe found in Basedow's society an opportunity
of " exercising, if not enlightening," his mind, so he bore
with his personal peculiarities, though apparently with great
difficulty. Basedow seems to have delighted in worrying
his associates. " He would never see anyone quiet but he
provoked him with mocking irony, in a hoarse voice, or put
him to confusion by an unexpected question, and laughed
bitterly when he had gained his end ; yet he was pleased
when the object of his jests was quick enough to collect
himself, and answer in the same strain." So far Goethe was
his match ; but he was nearly routed by Basedow's use of
bad tobacco, and of some tinder still worse with which he
was constantly lighting his pipe and poisoning the air
insufferably. He soon discovered Goethe's dislike to this
preparation of his, so he took a malicious pleasure in using
it and dilating upon its merits.
§ 7. Here is an odd account of their intercourse.
During their stay at Ems Goethe went a great deal into
fashionable society. " To make up for these dissipations,"
he writes, " I always passed a part of the night with
Basedow. He never went to bed, but dictated without
cessation. Occasionally he cast himself on the couch and
slumbered, while his amanuensis sat quietly, pen in hand,
ready to continue his work when the half-awakened author
2/8 BASEDOW.
The Philanthropinum opened.
should once more give free course to his thoughts. All this
took place in a close confined chamher, filled with the
fumes of tobacco and the odious tinder. As often as I was
disengaged from a dance I hastened up to Basedow, who
was ready at once to speak and dispute on any question ;
and when after a time I hurried again to the ball-room,
before I had closed the door behind me he would resume
the thread of his essay as composedly as if he had been
engaged with nothing else."
§ 8. It was through a friend of Goethe's, Behrisch,
whose acquaintance we make in the "Wahrheit und
Dichtung," that Basedow became connected with Prince
Leopold of Dessau. Behrisch was tutor to the Prince's
son, and by him the Prince was so interested in Basedow's
plans that he determined to found an Institute in which
they should be realised. Basedow was therefore called to
Dessau, and under his direction was opened the famous
Philanthropinum. Then for the first, and probably for the
last time, a school was started in which use and wont
were entirely set aside, and everything done on " improved
principles." Such a bold enterprise attracted the attention
of all interested in education, far and near : but it would
seem that few .parents considered their own children vilia
corpora on whom experiments might be made for the public
good. When, in May 1776, a number of schoolmasters
and others collected from different parts of Germany, and
even from beyond Germany, to be present by Basedow's
mvitation at an examination of the children, they found
only thirteen pupils in the Philanthropinum, including
Basedow's own son and daughter.
§ 9. Before we investigate how Basedow's principles were
embodied in the Philanthropinum, let us see the form in
BASEDOW. 279
B.'s "Elementary" and "Book of Method."
which he had already announced them. The great work
from which all children were to be taught was the
*' Elementary." As a companion to this was published
the " Book of Method " {Methodenbuch) for parents and
teachers. The " Elementary " is a work in which a great
deal of information about things in general is given in the
form of dialogue, interspersed with tales and easy poetry.
Except in bulk, it does not seem to me to differ very
materially from many of the reading-books, which, in late
years, have been published in this country. It had the
advantage, however, of being accompanied by a set of
engravings to which the text referred, though they were too
large to be bound up with it. The root-ideas of Basedow
put forth in his " Book of Method," and other writings, are
those of Rousseau. For example, " You should attend to
nature in your children far more than to art, The elegant
manners and usages of the world are for the most part
unnatural (Unnatur). These come of themselves in later
years. Treat children Hke children, that they may remain
the longer uncorrupted. A boy whose acutest faculties are
his senses, and who has no perception of anything abstract,
must first of all be made acquainted with the world as it
presents itself to the senses. Let this be shown him in
nature herself, or where this is impossible, in faithful
drawmgs or models. Thereby can he, even in play, learn
how the various objects are to be named. Comenius alone
has pointed out the right road in this matter. By all
means reduce the wretched exercises of the memory."
Elsewhere he gives instances of the sort of things to which
this method should be applied. ist. Man. Here he
would use pictures of foreigners and wild men, also a
skeleton, a hand in spirits, and other objects still more
28o
BASEDOW.
Subjects to be taught
appropriate to a surgical museum. 2nd. Animals. Only
such animals are to be depicted as it is useful to know-
about, because there is much that ought to be known, and a
good method of instruction must shorten rather than
increase the hours of study. Articles of commerce made
from the animals may also be exhibited. 3rd. Trees and
plants. Only the most important are to be selected. Of
these the seeds also must be shown, and cubes formed of
the different woods. Gardeners' and farmers' implements
are to be explained. 4th. Minerals and chemical sub-
stances. 5th. Mathematical instruments for weighing and
measuring ; also the air-pump, siphon, and the hke. The
form and motion of the earth are to be explained with
globes and maps. 6th. Trades. The use of various tools
is to be taught. 7th. History. This is to be illustrated by
engravings of historical events. 8th. Commerce. Samples
of commodities may be produced. 9th. The younger
children should be shown pictures of familiar objects about
the house and its surroundings.
§ 10. We see from this list that Basedow contemplated
giving his educational course the charm of variety.
Indeed, with that candour in acknowledging mistakes which
partly makes amends for the effrontery too common in the
trumpetings of his own performances, past, present, and to
come, he confesses that when he began the " Elementary "
he had exaggerated notions of the amount boys were
capable of learning, and that he had subsequently very
much contracted his proposed curriculum. And even " the
Revolution," which was to introduce so much new learning
into the schools, could not afford entirely to neglect the
old. However pleased parents might be with the novel
acquirements of their children, they were not likely to be
BASEDOW. 281
French and Latin. Religion.
satisfied without the usual knowledge of Latin, and still
less would they tolerate the neglect of French, which in
German polite society of the eighteenth century was the
recognised substitute for the vulgar tongue. These, then,
must be taught. But the old methods might be abandoned,
if not the old subjects. Basedow proposed to teach both
French and Latin by conversation. Let a cabinet of models,
or something of the kind, be shown the children ; let them
learn the names of the different objects in Latin or French ;
then let questions be asked in those languages, and the
right answers at first put into the children's mouths. When
they have in this way acquired some knowledge of the
language, they may apply it to the translating of an easy
book. Basedow does not claim originality for the conver-
sational method. He appeals to the success with which it
had been already used in teaching French. "Are the
French governesses," he asks, " who, without vocabularies
and grammars, first by conversation, then by reading, teach
their language very successfully and very rapidly in schools
of from thirty to forty children, better teachers than most
masters in our Latin schools?"
§ II. On the subject of religion the instruction was to
be quite as original as in matters of less importance. The
teachers were to give an impartial account of all rehgions,
and nothing but " natural religion " was to be inculcated.
§ 12. The key-note of the whole system was to be —
everything according to nature. The natural desires and
inclirations of the children were to be educated and
directed aright, but in no case to be suppressed.
§ 13. These, then, were the principles and the methods
which, as Basedow believed, were to revolutionise education
through the success of the Philanthropinum. Basedow
282 BASEDOW.
"Fred's Journey to Dessau/
himself, as we might infer from Goethe's description of him,
was by no means a model director for the model Institution,
but he was fortunate in his assistants. Of these he had
three at the time of the public examination, of whom Wolke
is said to have been the ablest.
§ 14. A lively description of the examination was after-
wards published by Herr Schummel of Magdeburg, under
the title of " Fred's Journey to Dessau." It purports to be
written by a boy of twelve years old, and to describe
what took place without attempting criticism. A few
extracts will give us a notion of the instruction carried on in
the Philanthropin.
" I have just come from a visit with my father to the
Philanthropinum, where I saw Herr Basedow, Herr Wolke,
Herr Simon, Herr Schweighauser, and the little Philan-
thropinists. I am delighted with all that I have seen, and
hardly know where to begin my description of it. There
are two large white houses, and near them a field with trees.
A pupil — not one of the regulur scholars, but of those they
call Famulants (a poorer class, who were servitors) —
received us at the door, and asked if we wished to see
Herr Basedow. We said * Yes,' and he took us into the
other house, where we found Herr Basedow in a dressing-
gown, writing at a desk. We came at an inconvenient time,
and Herr Basedow said he was very busy. He was very
friendly, however, and promised to visit us in the evening.
We then went into the other house, and enquired for Herr
Wolke." By him they were taken to the scholars. " They
have," says Fred, "their hair cut very short, and no wig-
maker is employed. Their throats are quite open, and
their shirt-collars fall back over their coats." Further
on he describes the examination. " The little ones liave
BASEDOW. 283
At the Philanthropinum.
gone through the oddest performances. They play at
* word of command.' Eight or ten stand in a line like
soldiers, and Herr Wolke is officer. He gives the word in
Latin, and they must do whatever he says. For instance,
when he says Claudite oculos^ they all shut their eyes ; when
he says Circwnspicite^ they look about them ; Imitamini
sartorem, they all sew like tailors ; Imitamini sutorem^ they
draw the waxed thread like the cobblers. Herr Wolke gives
a thousand different commands in the drollest fashion.
Another game, * the hiding game,' I will also teach you.
Some one writes a name, and hides it from the children —
the name of some part of the body, or of a plant, or animal,
or metal — and the children guess what it is. Whoever
guesses right gets an apple or a piece of cake. One of the
visitors wrote Intestina^ and told the children it was a part
of the body. Then the guessing began. One guessed
caput^ another tiasus, another os^ another manus, pes, digiii,
pectus, and so forth, for a long time ; but one of them hit it
at last. Next Herr Wolke wrote the name of a beast, a
quadruped. Then came the guesses : leo, ursns, camelus,
elephas, and so on, till one guessed right — it was mus. Then
a town was written, and they guessed Lisbon, Madrid,
Paris, London, till a child won with St. Petersburg. They
had another game, which was this : Herr Wolke gave the
command in Latin, and they imitated the noises of different
animals, and made us laugh till we were tired. They roared
like lions, crowed Hke cocks, mewed like cats, just as they
were bid."
§ 15. The subject that was next handled had also the
effect of making the strangers laugh, till a severe reproof
from Herr Wolke restored their gravity. A picture was
brought, in which was represented a sad-looking woman,
284 BASEDOW.
Methods in the Philanthropinum.
whose person indicated the approaching arrival of another
subject for education. From one part of the picture it also
appeared that the prospective mother, with a prodigality of
forethought, had got ready clothing for both a boy and a
girl. After a warning from Herr Wolke, that this was a
most serious and important subject, the children were
questioned on the topics the picture suggested. They were
further taught the debt of gratitude they owed to their
mothers, and the German fiction about the stork was dis-
missed with due contempt.
§ 16. Next came the examination in arithmetic. Here
there seems to have been nothing remarkable, except that
all the rules were worked vivd voce. From the arithmetic
Herr Wolke went on to an " Attempt at various small
drawings." He asked the children what he should draw.
Some one answered leonem. He then pretended he was
drawing a lion, but put a beak to it ; whereupon the children
shouted JVon est leo — leones non habent rostrum / He went
on to other subjects, as the children directed him, sometimes
going wrong that the children might put him right. In the
next exercise dice were introduced, and the children threw
to see who should give an account of an engraving. The
engravings represented workmen at their different trades,
and the child had to ex])lain the process, the tools, &c. A
lesson on ploughing and harrowing was given in French,
and another, on Alexander's expedition to India, in Latin.
Four of the pupils translated passages from Curtius and from
Castalio's Bible, which were read to them. "These chil-
dren," said the teacher, " knew not a word of Latin a year
ago." " The listeners were well pleased with the Latin,"
writes Fred, " except two or three, whom I heard grumbling
that this was all child's play, and that if Cicero, Livy, and
BASEDOW. 285
The Philanthropinum criticised.
Horace were introduced, it would soon be seen what was
the value of Philanthropinist Latin." After the examination,
two comedies were acted by the children, one in French,
the other in German.
Most of the strangers seem to have left Dessau with a
favourable impression of the Philanthropin. They were
especially struck with the brightness and animation of the
children.
§ 17. How far did the Philanthropinum really deserve
their good opinion? The conclusion to which we are
driven by Fred's narrative is, that Basedow carried to excess
his principle — ""Treat children as children, that they may
remain the longer uncorrupted ;" and that the Philan-
thropinum was, in fact, nothing but a good infant-school.
Surely none of the thirteen children who were the subjects
of Basedow's experiments could have been more than ten
years old. But if we consider Basedow's system to have
been intended for children^ say between the ages of six and
ten, we must allow that it possessed great merits. At the
very beginning of a boy's learning, it has always been too
much the custom to make him hate the sight of a book, and
escape at every opportunity from school-work, by giving
him difficult tasks, and neglecting his acutest faculties.
" Children love motion and noise," says Basedow : " here
is a hint from nature." Yet the youngest children in most
schools are expected to keep quiet and to sit at their books
for as many hours as the youths of seventeen or eighteen.
Their vivacity is repressed with the cane. Their delight in
exercising their hands and eyes and ears is taken no notice
of ; and they are required to keep their attention fixed on
subjects often beyond their comprehension, and almost
always beyond the range of their interests. Everyone who
286 BASEDOW.
B.'s improvements in teaching children.
has had experience in teaching boys knows how hard it is to
get them to throw themselves heartily into any task what-
ever; and probably this difficulty arises in many cases,
from the habits of inattention and of shirking school-work,
which the boys have acquired almost necessarily from the
dreariness of their earliest lessons.* Basedow determined
to change all this ; and in the Philanthropin no doubt he
succeeded. We have already seen some of the expedients
by which he sought to render school-work pleasurable. He
appealed, wherever it was possible, to the children's senses ;
and these, especially the sight, were trained with great care
by exercises, such as drawing, shooting at a mark, &c. One
of these exercises, intended to give quick perception, bears
a curious likeness to what has since been practised in a very
different educational system. A picture, with a somewhat
varied subject, was exhibited for a short time and removed.
The boys had then, either verbally or on paper, to give an
account of it, naming the different objects in proper order.
Houdin, if I rightly remember, tells us that the young
thieves of Paris are required by their masters to make a
mental inventory of the contents of a shop window, which
they see only as they walk rapidly by. Other exercises of
the Philanthropinum connected the pupils with more
honourable callings. They became acquainted with both
* " Who has not met with some experience such as this ? A child
with an active and inquiring mind accustomed to chatter about every-
thing that interests him is sent to school. In a few weeks his vivacity
is extinguished, his abundance of talk has dried up. If you ask him
about his studies, if you desire him to give you a specimen of what he
has learnt, he repeats to you in a sing-song voice some rule for the for-
mation of tenses or some recipe for spelling words. Such are the results
of the teaching which should be of all teaching the most fruitful and the
most attractive ! " Translated from Quelques Mots^ &.C., by M. Breal.
I
_;
BASEDOW. 287
Basedow's successors.
skilled and unskilled manual labour. Every boy was taught
a handicraft, such as carpentering and turning, and was put
to such tasks as threshing corn. Basedow's division of the
twenty-four hours was the following : Eight hours for sleep,
eight for food and amusement, and, for the children of
the rich, six hours of school-work, and two of manual labour.
In the case of the children of the poor, he would have the
division of the last eight hours inverted, and would give for
school-work two, and for manual labour six. The development
of the body was specially cared for in the Philanthropinum.
Gymnastics were now first introduced into modern schools ;
and the boys were taken long expeditions on foot — the
commencement, I beheve, of a practice now common
throughout Germany.
§ 18. As I have already said, Basedow proved a very
unfit person to be at the head of the model Institution.
Many of his friends agreed with Herder, that he was not fit
to have calves entrusted to him, much less children. He
soon resigned his post ; and was succeeded by Campe, who
had been one of the visitors at the public examination.
Campe did not remain long at the Philanthropinum ; but
left it to set up a school, on like principles, at Hamburg.
His fame now rests on his writings for the young ; one of
which — " Robinson Crusoe the Younger " — is still a general
favourite.
Other distinguished men became connected with the
Philanthropin — among them Salzmann, and Matthison the
poet— and the number of pupils rose to over fifty; gathered
we are told, from all parts of Europe between Riga and
Lisbon. But this number is by no means a fair measure of
the interest, nay, enthusiasm, which the experiment excited.
We find Pastor Oberlin raising money on his wife's earrings
288 BASEDOW.
Kant on the Philanthropinum.
to send a donation. We find the philosopher Kant pro-
phesying that quite another race of men would grow up, now
that education according to Nature had been introduced.
§ 19. These hopes were disappointed. Kant confesses
as much in the following passage in his treatise " On
Psedagogy " : —
" One fancies, indeed, that experiments in education
would not be necessary ; and that we might judge by the
understanding whether any plan would turn out well or ill.
But this is a great mistake. Experience shows that often in
our experiments we get quite opposite results from what we
had anticipated. We see, too, that since experiments are
necessary, it is not in the power of one generation to form a
complete plan of education. The only experimental school
which, to some extent, made a beginning in clearing the
road, was the Institute at Dessau. This praise at least must
be allowed it, notwithstanding the many faults which could
be brought up against it — faults which are sure to show
themselves when we come to the results of our experiments,
and which merely prove that fresh experiments are necessary.
It was the only School in which the teachers had liberty to
work according to their own methods and schemes, and
where they were in free communication both among them-
selves and with all learned men throughout Germany."
§ 20. We observe here, that Kant speaks of the Philan-
thropinum as a thing of the past. It was finally closed in
1793. But even from Kant we learn that the experiment
had been by no means a useless one. The conservatives,
of course, did not neglect to point out that young Philan-
thropinists, when they left school, were not in all respects
the superiors of their fellow-creatures. But, although no
one could pretend that the Philanthropinum had effected a
BASEDOW. 289
Influence of Philanthropinists.
tithe of what Basedow promised, and the " friends of
humanity " throughout Europe expected, it had introduced
many new ideas, which in time had their influence, even in
the schools of the opposite party. Moreover, teachers who
had been connected with the Philanthropinum founded
schools on similar principles in different parts of Germany
and Switzerland, as Bahrd's at Heidesheim, and Salzmann's
celebrated school at Schnepfenthal, which is, I believe,
still thriving. Their doctrines, too, made converts among
other masters, the most celebrated of whom was Meierotto
of Berlin.
§ 21. Little remains to be said of Basedow. He lived
chiefly at Dessau, earning his subsistence by private tuition,
but giving offence by his irregularities. In 1790, when
visiting Magdeburg, he died, after a short illness, in his
sixty-seventh year. His last words were, "I wish my body to
be dissected for the good of my fellow-creatures."
Basedow has a posthumous connexion with this country as the great-
grandfather of Professor Max Miiller. Basedow's son became ** Re-
gierungs Prasident," in Dessau. The President's daughter, born in
1800, became the wife of the poet Wilhelm Miiller, and the mother of
Max Miiller. Max Miiller has contributed a life of his great-grand-
father to the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.
Those who read German and care about either Basedow or Comenius
should get Die Didaktik Basedows im Vergleiche zttr Didaktik des
Comenius von Dr. Petru Garbovicianu (Bucarest, C. Gobi), 1887. This
is a very good piece of work ; it is printed in roman type, and the price
is only u. dd.
Since the above was in type I have got an important book, V Educa-
tion en Allemagne au Dix-htcitieme Sihle: Basedow et le PhilaU'
thropinisme, by A. Pinloche (Paris, A. Colin, 18G9.)
XVI.
PESTALOZZI.
1746-1827,
§ I. Qui facit per alium facit per se. It is thus the law
holds us accountable for the action of others which we
direct By the extension of this rule we immensely in-
crease the personality of great writers and may credit them
with vast spheres of action which never come within their
consciousness. No man gains and suffers more from this
consideration than Rousseau. On the one hand, we may
attribute to him the crimes of Robespierre and Saint- Just ;
on the other Pestalozzi was instigated by him to turn to
farming and — education.
In treating of Rousseau as an educational reformer I
passed over a life in which almost every incident tends to
weaken the effect of his words. With Pestalozzi we must
turn to his life for the true source of his writings and the
best comment on them.
§ 2. John Henry Pestalozzi was born at Zurich in 1746.
His father dying when he was five years old, he was brought
up with a brother and sister by a pious and self-denying
mother and by a faithful servant " Babeli," who had com-
forted the father in his last hours by promising to stay with
his family. Thus Pestalozzi had an advantage denied to
Rousseau and denied as it would seem to Locke; there
PESTALOZZI. 291
His childhood and student-life.
was scope for his home affections, and the head was not
developed before the heart. When he was sent to a day-
school he became to some extent the laughing stock of his
companions who dubbed him Harry Oddity of Foolborough ;
but he gained their good-will by his unselfishness. It was
remembered that on the shock of an earthquake when
teachers and taught fled from the school building Harry
Oddity was induced to go back and bring away what his
companions considered precious. His holidays he spent
with his grandfather the pastor of a village some three miles
from Zurich, where the lad learnt the condition of the
rural poor and saw what a good man could do for them.
He always looked back to these visits as an imjoortant
element in his education. " The best way for a child to
acquire the fear of God," he wrote, " is for him to see and
hear a true Christian." The grandfather's example so
affected him that he wished to follow in his steps, and he
became a student of theology.*
§ 3. Even as a student Pestalozzi proved that he was no
ordinary man. In his time there was great intellectual and
moral enthusiasm among the students of the little Swiss
University. Some distinguished professors, especially Bod-
mer, had awakened a craving for the old Swiss virtues of
plain living and high thinking; and a band of students,
among whom Lavater was leader and Pestalozzi played a
prominent part, became eager reformers. The citizens of
the great towns like Geneva and Zurich had become in
effect privileged classes ; and as their spokesmen the Geneva
magistrates condemned the Contrat Social and the Emile.
* In these visits he observed how the children suffered from working
in factories. These observations influenced him in after years.
292 PESTALOZZI.
A Radical Student.
This raised the indignation of the reforming students at
Zurich; and though their organ, a periodical called the
Memorial^ kept clear of politics, one Muller wrote a paper
which contained some strong language, and this was held
to be proof of a conspiracy. Muller fled and was banished.
Pestalozzi and some other of his friends were imprisoned.
The Memorial was suppressed.
§ 4. It is in this Memorial^ a weekly paper edited by
Lavater who was five years Pestalozzi's senior that we have
Pestalozzi 's earliest writing. We find him coming forward
as "a man of aspirations." No one he says can object
to his expressing his wishes. And *' wishes " with a man of
19 are usually hopes. Among other wishes he says: "I
would that some one would draw up in a simple manner a
few principles of education intelligible to everybody ; that
some generous people would then share the expense of
printing, so that the pamphlet might be given to the public
for nothing or next to nothing. I would then have clergy-
men distribute it to all fathers and mothers, so that they
might bring up their children in a rational and Christian
manner. But," he adds, " perhaps this is asking too much
at a time."
The Memorial was suppressed because " the privileged
classes " knew that it was in the hands of their opponents.
Pestalozzi then and always felt keenly the oppression to
which the peasants were exposed; and he spoke of "the
privileged " as men on stilts who must descend among the
people before they could secure a natural and firm position.
He also satirises them in some of his fables, as, e.g.^ that of
the "Fishes and the Pike." "The fishes in a pond
brought an accusation against the pike who were making
great ravages among them. The judge, an old pike, said
PESTALOZZI. 293
Turns farmer. Bluntschli's warning.
that their complaint was well founded, and that the
defendants, to make amends, should allow two ordinary
fish every year to become pike."
§ 5. By this time Pestalozzi had given up theology and
had taken to the law. Now under the influence of
Rousseau, or rather of the craving for a simple " natural "
life which found its most eloquent expression in Rousseau's
writing, Pestalozzi made a bonfire of his MSS. and decided
on becoming a farmer.
§ 6. There was another person concerned in this decision.
In his childhood he had one day ventured into the shop of
one of the leading tradesmen, Herr Schulthess, bent on pro-
curing for his farthings some object of delight ; but he found
there a little shop-keeper, Anna Schulthess, seven years his
senior, who discouraged his extravagance and persuaded
him to keep his money. Anna and he since those days
had become engaged — not at all to the satisfaction of
her parents. Their intimacy had been strengthened by
their concern for a common friend, a young man named
Bluntschli, who died of consumption. This friend, three
years older than Pestalozzi, seems to have understood him
thoroughly; and in the parting advice he gave him there
was a warning which happily for the general good was in
after years neglected. " I am going," said Bluntschli, " and
you will be left alone. Avoid any career in which you
might become the victim of your own goodness and trust,
and choose some quiet life in which you will run no risk.
Above all, do not take part in any important undertaking
without having at your side a man who by his cool judg-
ment, knowledge of men and things, and unshakable
fidelity may be able to protect you from the dangers to
which you will be exposed."
294 PESTALOZZI.
New ideas in farming. A love-letter.
§ 7. When the friendship with Anna Schulthess had
ripened into a betrothal Pestalozzi spent a year in the
neighbourhood of Bern learning farming under a man then
famous for his innovations. His new ideas Pestalozzi
absorbed very readily. " I had come to him," he says, " a
political visionary, though with many profound and correct
attainments, views, and anticipations in matters political.
I went away from him just as great an agricultural visionary,
though with many enlarged and correct ideas and intentions
with regard to agriculture."
§ 8. During his "learning year" he kept up a corre-
spondence with his betrothed, and the letters of both, which
have been preserved, differ very widely from love-letters in
general. Of himself Pestalozzi gives an account which
shows that in part at least he could see himself as others
saw him. ** Dearest," he writes, " those of my faults which
appear to me most important in relation to the situation in
which I may be placed in after-life are improvidence,
incautiousness, and a want of presence of mind to meet
unexpected changes in my prospects. ... Of my
great, and indeed very reprehensible negligence in all
matters of etiquette, and generally in all matters which are
not in themselves of importance, I need not speak ; anyone
may see them at first sight of me. I also owe you the
open confession, my dear, that I shall always consider my
duties toward my beloved partner subordinate to my duties
towards my country; and that, although I shall be the
tenderest husband, nevertheless, I hold myself bound to be
inexorable to the tears of my wife if she should ever
attempt to restrain me by them from the direct performance
of my duties as a citizen, whatever this must lead to. My
wife shall be the confidante of my heart, the partner of all,
PESTALOZZL 295
Resolutions. Buys land and marries.
my most secret counsels. A great and honest simplicity
shall reign in my house. And one thing more. My life
will not pass without important and very critical undertak-
ings. I shall not forget . . . my first resolutions to
devote myself wholly to my country. I shall never, from
fear of man, refrain from speaking when I see that the good
of my country calls upon me to speak. My whole heart is
my country's : I will risk all to alleviate the need and
misery of my fellow-countrymen. What consequences may
the undertakings to which I feel myself urged on draw
after them ! how unequal to them am I ! and how impera-
tive is my duty to show you the possibility of the great
dangers which they may bring upon me ! My dear, my
beloved friend, I have now spoken candidly of my charac-
ter and my aspirations. Reflect upon everything. If the
traits which it was my duty to mention diminish your
respect for me, you will still esteem my sincerity, and you
will not think less highly of me, that I did not take advan-
tage of your want of acquaintance with my character for
the attainment of my inmost wishes."
§ 9. The young lady addressed was worthy of her lover.
" Such nobleness, such elevation of character, reach my
very soul," said she. With equal nobleness she encouraged
Pestalozzi in his schemes and took the consequences with-
out a murmur during their long married life of 46
years.
§ 10. Full of new ideas about farming Pestalozzi now
thought he saw his way to making a fortune. He took
some poor land near Birr not far from Zurich, and per-
suaded a banking firm to advance money with which he
proposed to cultivate vegetables and madder. In Sep-
tember, 1769, he was married, and six months later the
296 PESTALOZZI.
P. turns to education.
pair settled in a new house, "Neuhof," which Pestalozzi
had built on his land.
§ II. But in spite of his excellent ideas and great in-
dustry, his speculation failed. The bankers soon withdrew
their money. Pestalozzi was not cautious enough for them.
However, his wife's friends prevented an immediate collapse.
§ 12. But before he had any reason to doubt the success
of his speculation Pestalozzi had begun to reproach himself
with being engrossed by it. What had become of all his
thoughts for the people ? Was he not spending his strength
entirely to gain the prosperity of himself and his house-
hold ? These thoughts came to him with all the more force
when a son was born to him ; and at this time they natu-
rally connected themselves with education. He had now
seen a good deal of the degraded state of the peasantry.
How were they to be raised out of it?
§ 13. To Pestalozzi there seemed one answer and one
only. This was by education. To many people in the present
day it might seem that " education," when quite successful,
would qualify labourers to become clerks. This was not the
notion of Pestalozzi. Rousseau had completely freed him
from bondage to the Renascence, and education did not
mean to him a training in the use of books. He looked
at the children of the lowest class of the peasants and asked
himself what they needed to raise them. Knowledge would
not do it. *' The thing was not that they should know what
they did not know, but that they should behave as they did
not behave " {supra, p. 169) ; and the road to right action
lay through right feeling. If they could be made conscious
that they were loved and cared for, their hearts would open
and give back love and respect in return. More than this,
they must be taught not only to respect their elders but also
PESTALOZZI. 297
Neuhof filled with children.
themselves. They must be taught to help themselves and
contribute to their own maintenance. So Pestalozzi resolved
to take into his own house some of the very poorest children,
to bring them up in an atmosphere of love, and to instruct
them in field-work and spinning which would soon partly
(as Pestalozzi hoped, wholly) pay for their keep. Thus, just
at the time when the experiment for himself failed he began
for others an experiment that seemed likely to add indefi-
nitely to his difficulties.
§ 14. In the winter of 1774 the first children were taken
into Neuhof. The consequences to his wife and to his little
son only four years old might have vanquished the courage
of a less ardent philanthropist. " Our position entailed much
suffering on my wife ;" he writes, " but nothing could shake
us in our resolve to devote our time, strength and remaining
fortune to the simplification of the instruction and domestic
education of the people."
§ 15. These children, at first not more than 20 in numbei,
Pestalozzi treated as his own. They worked with him in
the summer in the garden and fields, in winter in the house.
Very little time was given to separate lessons, the children
often learning while they worked with their hands. Pestalozzi
held that talking should come before reading and writing ;
and he practised them in conversation on subjects taken
from their every day life. They also repeated passages from
the Bible till they knew them by heart.
§ 16. In a few months, as we are told, the appearance of
these poor little creatures had entirely changed ; though fed
only on bread and vegetables they looked strong and hearty,
and their faces gained an expression of cheerfulness, frank-
ness and intelligence which till then had been totally
wanting. They made good progress with their manual work
298
PESTALOZZI.
Appeal for the new Institution.
as well as with the associated lessons, and took pleasure in
both. In all they said and did, they seemed to show their
consciousness of their benefactor's kind care of them.
§ 17, This experiment naturally drew much attention to it,
and when it had gone on over a year Pestalozzi was induced
by his friend Iselin of Basel to insert in the Ephemerides (a
paper of which Iselin was editor), an " appeal ... for
an institution intended to provide education and work for
poor country children." In this appeal Pestalozzi narrates
his experience. " I have proved," says he, " that it is not
regular work that stops the development of so many poor
children, but the turmoil and irregularity of their lives, the
privations they endure, the excesses they indulge in when
opportunity offers, the wild rebellious passions so seldom
restrained, and the hopelessness to which they are so often
a prey. I have proved that children after having lost health,
strength and courage in a life of idleness and mendicity have,
when once set to regular work quickly recovered their health
and spirits and grown rapidly. I have found that when
taken out of their abject condition they soon become kindly,
trustful and sympathetic; that even the most degraded of them
are touched by kindness, and that the eyes of the child who
has been steeped in misery, grow bright with pleasure and
surprise, when, after years of hardship, he sees a gentle
friendly hand stretched out to help him ; and I am convinced
that when a child's heart has been touched the consequences
will be great for his development and entire moral character."
' Pestalozzi therefore would have the very poorest children
brought up in private establishments where agriculture and
industry were combined, and where they would learn to work
steadily and carefully with their hands, the chief part of
their time being devoted to this manual work, and their in
PESTALOZZI. 299
Bankruptcy. The children sent away.
struction and education being associated with it. And he
asks for support in greatly increasing the establishment he
has already begun.
§ 1 8. Encouraged by the support he received and still more
by liis love for the children and his own too sanguine disposi-
tion Pestalozzi enlarged his undertaking. The consequence
was bankruptcy. Several causes conspired to bring about
this result. Whatever he might do for the children, he could
not educate the parents, and these were many of them beggars
with the ordinary vices of their class. With the usual discern-
ment of such people they soon came to the conclusion that
Pestalozzi was making a fortune out of their children's labour;
so they haunted Neuhof, treated Pestalozzi with the greatest
insolence, and often induced their children torun away in their
new clothes. This would account for much, but there was
another cause of failure that accounted for a great deal more.
This was Pestalozzi's extreme incapacity as an administrator.
Even his industrial experiment he carried on in such a way that
it proved a source of expense rather than of profit. He says
himself, that, contrary to his own principles, which should
have led him to begin at the beginning and lay a good
foundation in teaching, he put the children to work that was
too difficult for them, wanted them to spin fine thread before
their hands got steadiness and skill by exercise on the
coarser kind, and to manufacture muslin before they could
turn out well-made cotton goods. " Before I was aware of
it," he adds," I was deeply involved in debt, and the greater
part of my dear wife's property and expectations had, as it
were, in an instant gone up in smoke."
§ 19. The precise arrangement made with the creditors
we do not know. The bare facts remain that the children
were sent away, and that the land was let for the creditors*
300 PESTALOZZI.
Eighteen years of poverty and distress.
benefit ; but Pestalozzi remained in the house. This was
settled in 1780.
§ 20. We have now come to the most gloomy period in
Pestalozzi's history, a period of eighteen years, and those
the best years in a man's life, which Pestalozzi spent in great
distress from poverty without and doubt and despondency
within. When he got into difficulties, his friends, he tells
us, loved him without hope : " in the whole surrounding
district it was everywhere said that I was a lost man, that
nothing more could be done for me." " In his only too
elegant country house," we are told, "he often wanted
money, bread, fuel, to protect himself against hunger and
cold." " Eighteen years ! — what a time for a soul like his
to wait ! History passes lightly over such a period. Ten,
twenty, thirty years — it makes but a cipher difference if
nothing great happens in them. But with what agony must
he have seen day after day, year after year gliding by, who
in his fervent soul longed to labour for the good of mankind
and yet looked in vain for the opportunity !" (Palmer.)
§ 21. But he who was always ready to sacrifice himself for
others now found someone, and that a stranger, ready to
make a great sacrifice for him. A servant, named Elizabeth
Naef, heard of the disaster and distress at Neuhof, and her
master having just died she resolved to go to the rescue. At
first Pestalozzi refused her help. He did not wish her to
share the poverty of his household, and he felt himself out of
sympathy with her "evangehcal" form of piety. But
Elizabeth declared she had come to stay, and when
Pestalozzi found he could not shake her determination he
consented, saying, " Well, you will find after all that God
is in our house also."
§ 22. To this pious sensible but illiterate peasant woman
PESTALOZZI. 301
Gertrude to the rescue. P.'s religion.
Pestalozzi was fond of tracing many of his ideas. She was
the original of his Gertrude^ and it was of her he wrote :
" God's sun pursues its path from morning to evening ; yet
your eye detects no movement, your ear no sound. Even
when it goes down, you know that it will rise again and
continue to ripen the fruits of the earth. Extreme as it may
seem, I am not ashamed to say that this is an image of
Gertrude as of every woman who makes her house a temple
of the living God and wins heaven for her husband and
children." (^Leonard and Gertrude), She was invaluable at
Neuhof and restored comfort to the household. In after years
she managed the establishment at Yverdun and married
one of the Kriisis who were Pestalozzi's assistants.
§ 23. Writing of the gloomy years at Neuhof Pestalozzi
afterwards said \ " My head was grey, yet I was still a child.
With a heart in which all the foundations of life were shaken,
I still pursued in those stormy times my favourite object,
but my way was one of prejudice, of passion and of
error." But with Pestalozzi self-depreciation had "almost
grown the habit of his soul," and in his writings at Neuhof
at this period we find no traces of this prejudice, passion and
error from which he supposes himself to have suffered. He
certa'nly did not abandon his love of humanity ; and in
his sacrifice for it he sought a religious basis. In these
Neuhof days he wrote : " Christ teaches us by His example
and doctrine to sacrifice not only our possessions but our-
selves for the good of others, and shews us that nothing we
have received is absolutely ours but is merely entrusted to
us by God to be piously employed in the service of charity."
(Quoted by Guimps. R's trans. 72.) Whatever were his
doubts and difliculties, he never swerved from pursuing the
great object of his life, and nothing could cloud his
22
302 PESTALOZZI.
P. turns author. " E. H. of Hermit."
mind as to the true method of attaining that object. As he
afterwards wrote to Gessner ( Wie Gertrud u.s.w.), '* Even
while I was the sport of men who condemned me I never
lost sight for a moment of the object I had in view, which
was the removal of the causes of the misery that I saw on
all sides of me. My strength too kept on increasing, and my
own misfortunes taught me valuable truths. I knew the
people as no one else did. What deceived no one else
always deceived me, but what deceived everybody else
deceived me no longer. . . My own sufferings have
enabled me to understand the sufferings of the people and
their causes as no man without suffering can understand
them. I suffered what the people suffered and saw them as
no one else saw them ; and strange as it may seem, I was
never more profoundly convinced of the fundamental truths
on which I had based my undertaking than when I saw
that I had failed." (R's. Guimps 74.)
§ 24. Pestalozzi still had a few friends who did not
despise the dreamer of dreams. Among them was the
editor of the Ephemerides^ Iselin. This friend encouraged
him to write, and there soon appeared in the Ephejnerides
a series of reflexions under the title of *' The Evening Hour
of a Hermit." Not many editors would have printed these
aphorisms, and they attracted little or no attention at the
time, but they have proved worth attending to. *' The
fruit of Pestalozsi's past years, they are," says Raumer,
" at the same time the seed-corn of the years that were to
come, the plan and key to his action in pedagogy. . ,
The drawing of the architect of genius contains his work,
even though the architect himself has not skill enough to
carry out his own design." (Quoted by Otto Fischer).*
* In these aphorisms Pestalozzi states the main principles at work in
I
PESTALOZZT. 303
P.'s belief.
}
§ 25. What was the connexion between Pestalozzi's
behef at this season and complete belief in dogmatic
Christianity ? The question is one that will always be asked
and can never, I think, be fully answered. In the days
his own mind ; but this bare statement is not well suited to communi-
cate these principles to the minds of others. For most readers the
aphorisms have as little attraction as the enunciations, say, of a book
of Euclid would have for those who knew no geometry. But as his
future Ufe was guided by the principles he has formulated in this paper
it seems necessary for us to bear some of these in mind.
What he mainly insists upon is that all wise guidance must proceed
from a knowledge of the nature of the creature to be guided ; further
that there is a simple wisdom which must direct the course of all men.
*' The path of Nature," says he, ** which brings out the powers of men
must be open and plain ; and human education to true peace-giving
wisdom must be simple and available for all. Nature brings out all
men's powers by practice, and their increase springs from use." The
powers of children should be strengthened by exercise on what is close
at hand ; and this should be done without hardness or pressure. A
forced and rigid sequence in instruction is not Nature's method, says he :
this would make men one-sided, and truth would not penetrate freely
and softly into their whole being. The pure feeling for truth grows in
a small area ; and human wisdom must be grounded on a perception of
our closest relationships, and must show itself in skilled management of
our nearest concerns. Everything we do against our consciousness of
right weakens our perception of truth and disturbs the purity of our
fundamental conceptions and experiences. On this account all wisdom
of man rests in the strength of a good heart that follows after truth, and all
the blessing of man in the sense of simplicity and innocence. Peace of
mind must be the outcome of right training. To get out of his surround-
ings all he needs for life and enjoyment, to be patient, painstaking, and in
every difficulty trustful in the love of the Heavenly Father, this comes
of a man's true education to wisdom. Nothing concerns the human
race so closely and intimately as — God. *' God ao Father of thy house —
hold, as source of thy blessing — God as thy Father ; in this belief thou
findest rest and strength and wisdom, which no violence nor the grave
itself can overthrow." Belief in God which is a part of our nature, like
304 PESTALOZZI.
The "Hermit" a Christian.
preceding the French Revolution it was a proof of wisdom
to " Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, and cling to
Faith," even though the Faith were " beyond the forms cf
Faith " (see Tennyson's Ancie?it Sa^e). But Pestalozzi did
far more than this. He traced all virtue and strength in
the people to belief in the Fatherhood of God ; and he
saw in unbelief the severance of all the bonds of society.
The " Hermit " does not indeed use the phrases common
among " evangelical " Christians, but that he was indeed a
Christian is established not only by the general tone of his
aphorisms but still more clearly by his last words : " The
Man of God, who with his sufferings and death has restored
to humanity the lost feeling of the child's disposition towards
God is the Redeemer of the world ; he is the sacrificed
Priest of the Lord ; he is the Mediator between God and
God-forgetting mankind. His teaching is pure justice,
educating philosophy of the people ; it is the revelation of
God the Father to the lost race of his children."
§ 26. The "Evening Hour "remaining almost unnoticed,
Pestalozzi's friends urged him to write something in a more
popular form. So he set to work on a tale which should
depict the life of the peasantry and shew the causes of their
the sense of right and wrong and the feeling we can never quench of
jvhat is just and unjust, must be made the foundation in educating the
human race. The subject of that belief is that God is the Father of
pien, men are the children of God. To this divine relationship Pes-
talozzi refers all human relationships as those of parent and child, of
ruler and subject. The priest is appointed to declare the fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of men.
The only text I have seen is that reprinted by Raurcer [Gesch. d.
Pad.). From Otto Fischer {Wichtigste Pddagogen)^ I learn that this is
the edition of 1807, which differs, at least by omission, from the original
of 178a
i
PESTALOZZI. 305
Success of " Leonard and Gertrude."
degradation and the cure. With extraordinary rapidity he
wrote between the Hnes of an old account book the first
part of his " Leonard and Gertrude." The book, which was
complete in itself, and through the good offices of Iselin (of
the Ephemerides\ soon found a publisher, suddehly sprang
into immense popularity, a popularity of which nothing but
the " continuations " could ever have deprived it. In the
works of a great artist we see natural objects represented
with perfect fidelity and yet with a life breathed into them
by genius, which is wanting or at least is not visible to
common eyes in the originals. Just so do we find Swiss
peasant life depicted by Pestalozzi. The delineation is
evidently true to nature ; and, at the same time, shows
Nature as she reveals herself to genius. But for this work
something more than genius was necessary, viz., sympathy
and love. In the preface to the first edition, he says, " In
that which I here relate, and which I have, for the most
part, seen and heard myself in the course of an active life,
I have taken care not once to add my own opinion to what
I saw and heard the people themselves saying, feelings
believing, judging, and attempting." In a later edition
( 1 800) he says, " I desired nothing then, and I desire
nothing else now, as the object of my life, but the welfare
of the i^eople, whom I love, and whom I feel to be miserable
as few feel them to be miserable, because I have with them
borne their sufferings as few have borne them."
§ 27. Wherever German was read this book excited vast
interest, and though it seemed to most people only a good
tale, it met with some more discerning readers. The Bern
Agricultural Society sent the author their thanks and a gold
medal, and Pestalozzi was at once recognised as a man who
unJcrstood the peasantry and had good ideas for raising
306 PESTALOZZI.
Gertrude's patience tried.
them. The book is and must remain a classic, but
Pestalozzi in his zeal to spread the truth added again and
again "continuations," and these became less and less
popular in the method of exposition.*
§ 28. Here and there we get glimpses of the trials
Pestalozzi had gone through in his industrial experiment.
" The love and patience," he writes, " with which Gertrude
bore with the disorderly and untrained little ones was almost
past belief. Their eyes were often anywhere but on their
yarn, so that this would now be too thick, and now too thin.
When they had spoiled it, they would watch for a moment
when Gertrude was not looking, and throw it out of the
window by the handful, until they found that she dis-
covered the trick when she weighed their work at night."
(E. C's. trans., p. 122.) And in this connexion Pestalozzi
preached his doctrine of perfect attainment. " ' What you
can't do blindfold,'" said Harry, " * you can't do at all.'" {ib.)
§ 29. " Gertrude," we are told, "seemed quite unable to
explain her method in words ;" and here no doubt Pestalozzi
was speaking of himself ; but like Gertrude he " would let
fall some significant remark which went to the root of the
whole matter of education." As an instance we may take
* There are now four parts, first published respectively in 1781, 1783,
1785, and 1787 (O. Fischer). The English translation in two small
vols. (1825) ends with the First Part, but Miss Eva Channing has
recently sought to weld the four parts into one (Boston, U.S. — D. C.
Heath & Co.), and in this form the book seems to me not only very
instructive but very entertaining also. Not many readers who look
into it will fail to reach the end, and few are the books connected with
education of which this could prudently be asserted. "All good
teachers should read it with care," says Stanley Hall in his Introduc-
tion, and if they thus read it and catch anything of the spirit of Pesta-
lozzi both they and their pupils will have reason to rejoice.
PESTALOZZI. 307
Being and doing before knowing.
what Gertrude said to the schoolmaster : " You should do
for the children what their parents fail to do for them. The
reading, writing, and arithmetic are not after all what they
most need. It is all well and good for them to learn some-
thing, but the really important thing for them is to be some-
thing." When this truth is fully realized by teachers and
school managers there will be some hope for national
education.
§ 30. " Although Gertrude exerted herself to develop very
early the manual dexterity of her children, she was in no
haste for them to learn to read and write ; but she took
pains to teach them early how to speak : for, as she said,
*0f what use is it for a person to be able to read and
write if he cannot speak, since reading and writing are only
an artificial sort of speech.' .... She did not adopt the
tone of an instructor towards the children .... and her
verbal instruction seemed to vanish in the spirit of her real
activity, in which it always had its source. The result of
her system was that each child was skilful, intelligent, and
active to the full extent that its age and development
allowed." (/^. p. 130.)
§ 31. In this book we see that knowledge is treated as
valueless unless it has a basis in action. " The pastor was
soon convinced that all verbal instruction in so far as it aims
at true human wisdom and at the highest goal of this
wisdom, true religion, ought to be subordinated to a con-
stant training in practical domestic labour So he
strove to lead the children without many words to a quiet
industrious life, and thus to lay the foundations of a silent
worship of God and love of humanity. To this end he
connected every word of his brief religious teachings with
their actual every-day experience, so that when he spoke of
308 PESTALOZZI.
P.'s severity. Women Commissioners.
God and eternity, it seemed to them as if he were speaking
of father and mother, house and home ; in short of the
things with which they were most familiar*' (p. 156). Thus
he built on the foundation laid by the schoolmaster, who
" cared for the children's heads as he did for their hearts,
and demanded that whatever entered them should be plain
and clear as the silent moon in the sky. To insure this he
taught them to see and hear with accuracy, and cultivated
their powers of attention" (p. 157).
§ 32. With all his love for the children, an element of
severity was not wanting. Pestalozzi maintained that " love
1 was only useful in the education of men when in con-
/ junction with fear : for they must learn to root out thorns
/ and thistles, which they never do of their own accord, but
only under compulsion and in consequence of training "
(P- 157).
§ 33- J^st at the end of the book "the Duke'* appoints
a commission to report on the success of the Bonal experi-
ment, and Pestalozzi makes him give the following order :
"To insure thoroughness there must be among the ex-
aminers men skilled in law and finance, merchants, clergy-
men, government officials, schoolmasters, and physicians,
besides women of different ra?tks and condifions of Ife who
shall view the matter with their woman's eyes and be sure
there is nothing visionary in the background " (p. 180). In
this respect Pestalozzi is in advance of us still. No woman
has yet sat on an educational commission.
§ 34. Thus we find Pestalozzi at the age of thirty-five
turning author, and for the next six or seven years he worked
indefatigably with his pen. Most men of genius have some
leading purpose which unites their varied activities, and
this was specially true of Pestalozzi. He never lost sight
PESTALOZZI. 309
P.'s seven years of authorship.
of his one object, which was the elevation of the people ;
and this he held to be attainable only by means of education
properly so called. The success of the first part of Leonard
and Gertrude he now endeavoured to turn to account in
spreading true ideas of education. With this intent he
published Christopher and Eliza ; My Second Book for the
People (1782), which was a kind of commentary on Leonard
and Gertrude, But the public wished to be amused, not
taught ; and the book was a failure. He was thus driven
into the attempt already mentioned to catch the public ear
by continuing Leonard and Gertrude^ thus endangering his
first and, as it proved, his only great success in literature.
§ 35. To gain circulation for his ideas he also started a
weekly paper called the Swiss Journal^ and issued it regu-
larly throughout the year 1782; but the subscribers were
so few that he was then obliged to give it up. I have not
the smallest doubt that it was, as Guimps says, full of wisdom,
but not the kind of wisdom that readers of periodicals are
likely to care for.*
* In the pages of this Journal Pestalozzi taught that it was ** the
domestic virtues which determine the happiness of a nation." Again
he says : " On the throne and in the cottage man has equal need of
religion, and becomes the most wretched being on the earth if he forget
his God." •' The child at his mother's breast is weaker and more
dependent than any creature on earth, and yet he already feels the first
moral impressions of love and gratitude." ^^ Morality is nothing
but a result of the development of the first sentiments of love and grati-
tude felt by the infant. The first development of the child's powers
should come from his participation in the work of his home ; for this
work is what his parents understand best, what most absorbs their
attention, and what they can best teach. But even if this were not so,
work undertaken to supply real needs would be just as truly the surest
foundation of a good education. To engage the attention of the child,
to exercise hisjudgment, to raise his heart to noble sentiments, these 1
310 PESTALOZZI.
"Citizen of French Republic." Doubts.
§ 36. In the Stviss Journal we get a hint of the analogy
between the development of the plant and of the man.
This analogy, often as it had been observed before, was
never before so fruitful as it became in the hands of
Pestalozzi and Froebel. The passage quoted by Guimps is
this : " Teach me, summer day, that man formed from the
dust of the earth, grows and ripens like the plant rooted in
the soil."
§ 37. Between the close of the year 1787 and 1797
Pestalozzi did not publish anything. Though he had
become famous, had made the acquaintance of the greatest
men in Germany, such as Goethe, Wieland, Herder, and
Fichte, and had been declared a " Citizen of the French
Republic," together with Bentham, Tom Payne, Wilberforce,
Clarkson, Washington, Madison, Klopstock, Kozciusko, &c.,
he was nearly starving, and, naturally enough in that state
of affairs both private and public, he was in great des-
pondency. As we have seen, his whole life and work were
founded on religion and on the only religion possible for us,
the Christian religion ; but carried away by his political
radicalism he seems at this time to have doubted whether
Christianity was more than the highest human wisdom. In
October, 1793, he wrote to a friend in Berlin: "I doubt,
not because I look on doubt as the truth, but because the
sum of the impressions of my life has driven faith with its
blessings from my soul. Thus impelled by my fate I see
think the chief ends of education : and how can these ends be reached so
surely as by training the child as early as possible in the various daily duties
of domestic life ?" It would seem then that at this lime Pestalozzi was
for basing education on domestic labour and would teach the child to
be useful. But it is hard to see how this principle could always b«
applied.
PESTALOZZI. 311
Waiting. P.'s "Inquiry."
nothing more in Christianity but the purest and noblest
teaching of the victory of the spirit over the flesh, the one
possible means of raising our nature to its true nobility, or
in other words of establishing the empire of the reason over
the senses by the development of the purest feehngs of
the heart." If this was the lowest point to which Pestalozzi's
faith sank in the days of the Revolution, it remained for
practical purposes higher than the faith of most professing
Christians then and since.
§ 38. At this time we find him complaining : " My
agriculture swallows up all my time. I am longing for
winter with its leisure. My time passes like a shadow."
He was then forty-six years of age and seemed to himself
to have done nothing.
§ 39. Another five years he had to wait before he found
an opportunity for action. During this time, impelled by
Fichte, he endeavoured to give his ideas philosophic com-
pleteness, and after labouring for three years with almost
incredible toil he published in 1797 his " Inquiry into the
Course of Nature in the Development of the Human
Race." This book is pronounced even by his biographer
Guimps to be " prolix and obscure," and, says Pestalozzi,
" nobody understood me." But even in this book there was
much wisdom, had the world cared to learn ; but the world
had then no place for Pestalozzi, and as he says at the end
of this book, " without even asking whether the fault was
his or another's, it crushed him with its iron hammer as the
mason crushes a useless stone." He was, however, not
actually crushed, and a place was in time found for him.
§ 40. The world might be pardoned for neglecting
an Inquiry which even a biographer finds "prolix and
obscure." But why could it see nothing in another book
312 PESTALOZZI.
P/s " Fables.'
which Pestalozzi published in the same year, " Figures to
my ABC Book," or according to its later title, " Fables," a
series of apologues as witty and wise as those of I.essing.*
§ 41. As I have said already {supra p. 239) there seems
a marked distinction between thinkers and doers, at least
in education, and we seldom find a man great in both. But
with all his weakness as a practical man Pestalozzi proved
great both as a thinker and a doer. He not only thought
out what should be done, but he also made splendid efforts
to do it. His first attempt at Neuhof was, as we have seen,
all his own ; so was the next at Stanz ; but afterwards he
had to work with others, and the work would have come to
a standstill if he had not gained the co-operation of the
magistrates, the parents of the children, and his own
* One of these I have already given {supra p. 292). I will give
another, not as by any means one of the best, but as a fit companion to
Rousseau's "two dogs."
**26. The two colts.
" Two colts as like as two eggs, fell into different hands. One was
bought by a peasant whose only thought was to harness it to his plough
as soon as possible : this one turned out a bad horse. The other fell to
the lot of a man who by looking after it well and training it carefully,
made a noble steed of it, strong and mettlesome. Fathers and mothers,
if your children's faculties are not carefully trained and directed right,
they will become not only useless, but hurtful ; and the greater the
faculties the greater the danger."
Compare Rousseau : "Just look at those two dogs ; they are of
the same litter, they have been brought up and treated precisely alike,
they have never been separated ; and yet one of them is sharp, lively,
affectionate, and very intelligent : the other is dull, lumpish, surly, and
nobody could ever teach him anything. Simply a difference of tempera-
ment has produced in them a difference of character, just as a simple
difference of our interior organisation produces in us a difference of
mind." N. Heloise. 5me P. Lettre iii.
1
PESTALOZZI. 313
P.'s own principles.
assistants. • • So he never again had the free hand, or at least
the free thought which bore such good fruit in his enforced
cessation from practice in the years between 1780 and 1798.
It is well then to ask, as his biographer Guimps has asked,
what was the main outcome of Pestalozzi's thought before
he plunged into action a second time in 1798.
§ 42. Festal ozzi set himself to find a means of rescuing
the people from their poverty and degradation. This he
held would last as long as their moral and intellectual
poverty lasted ; so there was no hope except in an education
that should make them better and more intelligent. In
studying the children even of the most degraded parents he
found the seeds, as it were, of a wealth of faculties, senti-
ments, tastes, and capabilities, which, if developed, might
make them reasonable and upright human beings. But
what was called education did nothing of the kind. Instead
of developing the noblest part of the child's nature it
neglected this entirely, and bringing to the child the know-
ledge, ideas, and feelings of others, it tried to make him
" learn " them. So " education " did little beyond stifling
the child's individuality under a mass of borrowed ideas.
The schoolmaster worked, as it were, from without to within.
This Pestalozzi would change, and make education begin in
the child and work from within outwards. Acting on this
principle he sought for some means of developing the
child's inborn faculties, and he found as he says : " Nature
develops all the powers of humanity by exercising them ;
they increase with use." {Evetting Hour, Aph. 22.) No
means can be found of exercising the higher faculties which
can be compared with the actual relations of daily life ; so
Pestalozzi declares : " The pure sentiment of truth and
wisdom is formed in the narrow circle of the relationships
314 PESTALOZZl.
P.'s return to action.
which affect us, the circumstances which suggest our actions,
and the common knowledge which we cannot do without."
And taking as his starting-point the needs, desires, and con-
nexions of actual life he was naturally led to associate the
work of the body with that of the mind, to develop industry
and study side by side, to combine the workshop and the
school. With regard to instruction he was never tired of
insisting on the importance of thorough mastery in the
first elements, and there was to be no advance till this
mastery was attained. (See what "Harry" says, supra
p. 306.) "The schools," he says {E. H., No. 28), '' hastily
substitute an artificial method of words for the truer method
of Nature which knows no hurry but waits."
§ 43. In this account of Pestalozzi's doctrine before 1798
I have as usual followed M. Guimps. According to him
Pestalozzi had discovered " a principle which settles the law
of man's development, and is the fundamental principle of
education." This principle M. Guimps briefly states as
follows : " All the real knowledge, useful powers, and noble
sentiments that a man can acquire are but the extension of
his individuahty by the development of the powers and
faculties that God has put in him, and by their assimilation
of the elements supplied by the outer world. There exists
for this development and the work of assimilation a natural
and necessary order, an order which the school m.ostly sets
at nought."
§ 44. Now we come to the period of Pestalozzi's practical
activity. In 1798 Switzerland was overrun by the French.
Everything was remodelled after the French pattern \ and
in conformity with the existing phase in the model country
the government of Switzerland was declared to be in the
hands of five " Directors." Pestalozzi was a Radical, and
PESTALOZZI. 3 1 5
The French at Stanz.
I
he at once set to work to serve the new government with
his pen. The Directors gladly welcomed such an ally as the
author of Leonard and Gertrude^ and they made him
editor of a newspaper intended to diffuse the revolutionary-
principles among the people. Naturally enough they sup-
posed that he, like other people, " wanted " something ; but
when asked what he wanted he replied simply that he
wished to be a schoolmaster. The Directors, especially Le
Grand, took a genuine interest in education, and were quite
willing that Pestalozzi should be allowed a free hand in his
•* new departure." They therefore agreed to find the funds
with which Pestalozzi might open a new Institution in
Aargau.
§ 45. But the editorship and the plans for the new Insti-
tution came to an abrupt ending. The Catholic cantons
did not acquiesce in giving up their local liberties and being
subjected to a new government in the hands of men whom
they regarded as heretics and even atheists. Consequently
those missionaries of enlightenment, the French troops, at
once fell upon them and slaughtered many without dis-
tinction of age or sex. The French, we are told, did not
expect to meet with resistance ; so their light became
lightning and struck dead the stupid people who could
not or would not see. " Our soldiers " (it is Michelet who
speaks) " were ferocious at Stanz." {Nos Fils^ 217). This
, ferocity at Stanz in September, 1798, was in secret dis-
approved of by the Directors, who were nominally respon-
sible for it. But all they could do was to provide in a
measure for the "in infirm old people, the 169 orphans,
and 237 other children," who were left totally destitute.
Le Grand proposed to Pestalozzi that he should, for the
present, give up his other plans and go to Stanz (which is on
3l6 PESTALOZZI.
Pestalozzi at Stanz.
the Lake of Lucerne) to take charge of the orphan and
destitute children. Pestalozzi was not the man to refuse
such a task as this. He at once set out. Some buildings
connected with an Ursuline convent were, without the con-
sent of the nuns, made over to him. Workmen were
employed upon them, and as soon as a single room could
be inhabited Pestalozzi received forty children into it.
This was in January, 1799, in the middle of a remarkably
cold winter.
§ 46. Thus under circumstances perhaps less un-
favourable than they seemed began the five months' trial of
pure Pestalozzianism. The physical difficulties were im-
mense. At first Pestalozzi and all the children were shut
up day and night in a single room. He had throughout
no helper of any kind but one female servant, and he had
to do everything for the children, even what was most
menial and disgusting. As soon as possible the number
was increased, and before long was nearly eighty, some of
the children having to go out to sleep. But great as were
the material difficulties, those arising from the opposition and
hatred of the people he came to succour were still worse.
To them he seemed no philanthropist, but only a servant
of the devil, an agent of the wicked government which had
sent its ferocious soldiers and slaughtered the parents of
these poor children, a Protestant who came to complete the
work by destroying their souls. Pestalozzi, who was making
heroic efforts in their behalf, seems to have wondered at the
animosity shown him by the people of Stanz; but on
looking back we must admit that in the circumstances it
was only natural.
§ 47. And yet in spite of enormous difficulties of every
kind Pestalozzi triumphed. Within the five months he
PESTALOZZI. 317
Success and expulsion.
spent with them he attached to him the hearts of the
children, and produced in them a marvellous physical,
intellectual, and moral change. "If ever there was a
miracle," says Michelet, " it was here. It was the reward
of a strong faith, of a wonderful expansion of heart. He
believed, he willed, he succeeded." {Nos Fils 223.)
What was the great act of faith by which Pestalozzi
triumphed? According to M. Michelet he stood before
these vicious and degraded children and said, "Man is
good." Pestalozzi does not tell us this himself; and as a
benighted believer in Christianity, I venture to differ from
the enlightened Michelet. As far as I can judge from
Pestalozzi's own teaching the source of his strength was his
belief in the goodness not of Man but of God.
§ 48. But encouraged and rewarded as he was by the
result, Pestalozzi could not long have maintained this fearful
exertion. He was over fifty years of age, and he must soon
have succumbed ; indeed he was already spitting blood when
in June, 1799, the French soldiers, whose action had
brought him to Stanz, drove him away again. Falling back
before the Austrians they had need of a hospital in Stanz,
and demanded the buildings occupied by Pestalozzi and the
children. So almost all the children had to be sent away,
and then at last Pestalozzi took thought for his own health
and retired to some baths in the mountains. But most of
his peculiarities in teaching may be said to date from the
experience at Stanz ; and I will therefore give this experience
in his own words.
§ 49. The following is the account given in his letter to
his friend Gessner. (I have in part availed myself of Mr.
Russell's translation of Guimps, pp. 149/^)
23
3l8 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz : P.'s own account.
" My friend, once more I awake from a dream ; once more I see my
work destroyed, and my failing strength wasted.
"But, however weak and unfortunate my attempt, a friend of
humanity will not grudge a few moments to consider the reasons which
convince me that some day a more fortunate posterity will certainly
take up the thread of my hopes at the place where it is now broken. . . .
•* I once more made known, as well as I could, my old wishes for the
education of the people. In particular, I laid my whole scheme before
Legrand (then one of the Directors), who not only took a warm interest
in it, but agreed with me that the Republic stood in urgent need of a
reform of public education. He also agreed with me that much might
be done for the regeneration of the people by giving a certain number
of the poorest children an education which should be complete, but
which, far from lifting them out of their proper sphere, would but attach
them the more strongly to it.
*'I limited my desires to this one point, Legrand helping me in
every possible way. He even thought my views so important that he
once said to me : * I shall not willingly give up my present post till
you have begun your work.' ....
" It was my intention to try to find near Zurich or in Aargau a place
where I should be able to join industry and agriculture to the other
means of instruction, and so give my establishment all the development
necessary to its complete success. But the Unterwalden disaster
(September, 1798) left me no further choice in the matter. The
Government felt the urgent need of sending help to this unfortunate
district, and begged me for this once to make an attempt to put my
plans into execution in a place where almost everything that could have
made it a success was wanting.
*' I went there gladly. I felt that the innocence of the people would
make up for what was wanting, and that their distress would, at any
rate, make them grateful.
" My eagerness to realise at last the great dream of my life would have
led me to work on the very highest peaks of the Alps, and, so to speak,
without fire or water.
** Foi d. house, the Government made over to me the new part of the
Ursuline convent at Stanz, but when I arrived it was still uncompleted,
and not in any way fitted to receive a large number of children. Bc-fore
anything else could be done, then, the house itself had to be got ready.
PESTALOZZI. 319
At Stanz: P/s own account
The Government gave the necessary orders, and Rengger pushed on the
work with much zeal and useful activity. I was never indeed allowed
to want for money.
** In spite, however, of the admirable support I received, all this
prrparation took time, and time was precisely what we could least
afiord, since it was of the highest importance that a number of
children, whom the war had left homeless and destitute, should be
received at once.
*' I was still without everything but money when the children crowded
in ; neither kitchen, rooms, nor beds were ready to receive them. At
first this was a source of inconceivable confusion. For the first few
weeks I was shut up in a very small room ; the weather was bad, and
the alterations, which made a great dust and filled the corridors with
rubbish, rendered the air very unhealthy.
*' The want of beds compelled me at first to send some of the poor
children home at night ; these children generally came back the next
day covered with vermin. Most of them on their arrival were very
degenerated specimens of humanity. Many of them had a sort
of chronic skin-disease, which almost prevented their walking, or sores
on their heads, or rags full of vermin ; many were almost skeletons,
with haggard, careworn faces, and shrinking looks ; some brazen,
accustomed to begging, hypocrisy, and all sorts of deceit ; others broken
by misfortune, patient, suspicious, timid, and entirely devoid of
affection. There were also some spoilt children amongst them who had
known the sweets of comfort, and were therefore full of pretensions.
These kept to themselves, affected to despise the little beggars their
comrades, and to suffer from this equality, and seemed to find it im-
possible to adapt themselves to the ways of the house, which differed
too much from their old habits. But what was common to them all
was a persistent idleness, resulting from their want of physical and
mental activity. Out of every ten children there was hardly one who
knew his A B C ; as for any other knowledge, it was, of course, out of
the question.
"The entire absence of school learning was what troubled me least,
for I trusted in the natural powers that God bestows on even the poorest
and most neglected children. I had observed for a long time that
behind their coarseness, shyness, and apparent incapacity, are hidden
the finest faculties, the most precious powers ; and now, even amongst
320 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
these poor creatures by whom I was surrounded at Stanz, marked
natural abilities soon began to show themselves. I knew how useful
the common needs of life are in teaching men the relations of things, in
bringing out their natural intelligence, in forming their judgment, and
in arousing faculties which, buried, as it were, beneath the coaiser
elements of their nature, cannot become active and useful till they are
set free. It was my object then to set free these faculties, and bring
them to bear on the pure and simple circumstances of domestic life, for
I was convinced this was all that was wanting, and these natural
faculties would shew themselves capable of raising the hearts and minds
of my pupils to all that I could desire.
"I saw then how my wishes might be carried out ; and I was persuaded
that my affection would change the state of my children just as quickly
as the spring sun would awake to new life the earth that winter had
benumbed. I was not deceiving myself : before the spring sun melted
the snow of our mountains my children were hardly to be recognised.
" But I must not anticipate. Just as in the evening I often mark the
quick growth of the gourd by the side of the house, so I want you to
mark the growth of my plant ; and, my friend, I will not hide from
you the worm which sometimes fastens on the leaves, sometimes even
on the heart.
'* I opened the establishment with no other helper but a woman-
servant. I had not only to teach the children, but to look after their
physical needs. I preferred being alone, and, unfortunately, it was the
only way to reach my end. No one in the world would have cared to
enter into my views for the education of children, and at that time I
knew scarcely any one even capable of it.
** In proportion as the men whom I might have called to my aid were
highly educated just so far they failed to understand me, and were
incapable of confining themselves even in theory to the simple starting-
pomts which I sought to come back to. All their views about the
organisation and requirements of the enterprise differed entirely from
mine. What they specially objected to was the notion that the enter-
prise might be carried out without the aid of any artificial means, and
simply by the influence of nature in the environment of the children,
and by the activity aroused in them by the needs of their daily life.
'* And yet it was precisely upon this idea that I based all my hope of
Success ; it was, as it were, a basis for innumerable other points of view.
PESTALOZZI. 321
At Stanz : P.'s own account.
" Experienced teachers, then, could not help me ; still less boorish,
ignorant men. I had nothing to put into the hands of assistants to
guide them, nor any results or apparatus by which I could make my
ideas clearer to them. Thus, whether I would or no, I had first to
make my experiment alone, and collect facts to illustrate the essential
features of my system before I could venture to look for outside help.
Indeed in my then position, nobody could help me. I knew that I must
help myself and shaped my plans accordingly.
*' I wanted to prove by my experiment that if public education is to
have any real value for humanity, it must imitate the means which make
the merit of domestic education ; for it is my opinion that if school
teaching does not take into consideration the circumstances of family life,
and everything else that bears on a man's general education, it can only
lead to an artificial and methodical dwarfing of humanity.
* ' In any good education, the mother must be able to judge daily, nay
hourly, from the child's eyes, lips, and face, of the slightest change in
his soul. The power of the educator, too, must be that of a father,
quickened by the general circumstances of domestic life.
** Such was the foundation upon which I built. I determined
that there should not be a minute in the day when my children should
not be aware from my face and my lips that my heart was theirs, that
their happiness was my happiness, and their pleasures my pleasures.
** Man readily accepts what is good, and the child readily listens to
it ; but it is not for you that he wants it, master and educator, but for
himself. The good to which you would lead him must not depend on
your capricious humour or passion ; it must be a good which is good in
itself and by the nature of things, and which the child can recognize as
good. He must feel the necessity of your will in things which concern
his comfort before he can be expected to obey it.
"Whatever he does gladly, whatever gains him credit, whatever
tends to accomplish his great hopes, whatever awakens his powers and
enables him truly to say / can^ all this he wills.
** But this will is not aroused by words ; it is aroused only by a kind
of complete culture which gives feelings and powers. Words do not
give the thing itself, but only an expression, a clear picture, of the thing
which we already have in our minds.
*' Before all things I was bound to gain the confidence and the
love of the children. I was sure that if I succeeded in this all the rest
322 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
would come of itself. Friend, only think how I was placed, and how
great were the prejudices of the people and of the children themselves,
and you will comprehend what difficulties I had to overcome."
After narrating what we already know he goes on :
" Think, my friend, of this temper of the people, of my weakness,
of my poor appearance, of the ill-will to which I was almost publicly
exposed, and then judge how much I had to endure for the sake of
carrying on my work.
*' And yet, however painful this want of help and support was to me,
it was favourable to the success of my undertaking, for it compelled me
to be always everything for my children, I was alone with them from
morning till night. It was from me that they received all that could
do them good, soul and body. All needful help, consolation, and
instruction they received direct from me. Their hands were in mine,
my eyes were fixed on theirs.
** We wept and smiled together. They forgot the world and Stanz ;
they only knew that they were with me and I with them. We shared
our food and drink, h had about me neither family, friends, nor
servants ; nothing but them. I was with them in sickness, and in
health, and when they slept. I was the last to go to bed, and the first
to get up. In the bedroom I prayed with them, and, at their own
request, taught them till they fell asleep. Their clothes and bodies
were intolerably filthy, but I looked after both myself, and was thus
constantly exposed to the risk of contagion.
" This is how it was that these children gradually became so attached
to me, some indeed so deeply that they contradicted their parents and
friends when they heard evil things said about me. They felt that I
was being treated unfairly, and loved me, I think, the more for it.
But of what avail is it for the young nestlings to love their mother when
the bird of prey that is bent on destroying themis constantly hoveringnear?
"However, the first results of these principles and of this line of
action were not always satisfactory, nor, indeed, could they be so.
The children did not always understand my love. Accustomed to
idleness, unbounded liberty, and the fortuitous and lawless pleasures of
an almost wild life, they had come to the convent in the expectation of
being well fed, and of having nothing to do. Some of them soon
discovered that they had been there long enough, and wanted to go
away again ; they talked of the school fever that attacks children when
PESTALOZZI. 323
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
they are kept employed all day long. This dissatisfaction, which
showed itself during the first months, resulted principally from the fact
that many of them were ill, the consequence either of the sudden
change of diet and habits, or of the severity of the weather and the
dampness of the building in which we lived. We all coughed a great
deal, and several children were seized with a peculiar sort of fever.
This fever, which always began with sickness, was very general in the
district. Cases of sickness, however, not followed by fever, were not
at all rare, and were an almost natural consequence of the change of
food. Many people attributed the fever to bad food, but the facts soon
showed them to be wrong, for not a single child succumbed.
*' On the return of spring it was evident to everybody that the
children were all doing well, growing rapidly, and gaining colour.
Certain magistrates and ecclesiastics, who saw them some time after-
wards, stated that they had improved almost beyond recognition. , . ,
** Months passed before I had the satisfaction of having my hand
grasped by a single grateful parent. But the children were won over
much sooner. They even wept sometimes when their parents met me
or left me without a word of salutation. Many of them were perfectly
happy, and used to say to their mothers : * I am better here than at
home.' At home, indeed, as they readily told me when we talked
alone, they had been ill-used and beaten, and had often had neither
bread to eat nor bed to lie down upon. And yet these same children
would sometimes go off with their mothers the very next morning.
"A good many others, however, soon saw that by staying with me
they might both learn something and become something, and these never
failed in their zeal and attachment. Before very long their conduct
was imitated by others who had not altogether the same feelings.
"Those who ran away weie the worst in character and the least
capable. But they were not incited to go till they were free of their
veimin and their rags. Several were sent to me with no other purpose
than that of being taken away again as soon as they were clean and
well clothed.
'* But after a time their better judgment overcame the defiant hostility
with which they arrived. In 1799* I had nearly eighty children.
Most of them were bright and intelligent, some even remarkably so.
* Pestalozzi was with the children at Stanz only during the first half
of 1799.
324 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz : P.'s own account
** For most of them study was something entirely new. As soon as
they found that they could learn, their zeal was indefatigable, and in a
few weeks children who had never before opened a book, and could
hardly repeat a Pater Noster or an Ave^ would study the whole day
long with the keenest interest. Even after supper, when I used to say
to them, * Children, will you go to bed, or learn something ? ' they
would generally answer, especially in the first month or two, * Learn
something.' It is true that afterwards, when they had to get up very
early, it was not quite the same.
*• But this first eagerness did much towards starting the establishment
on the right lines, and making the studies the success they ultimately
were, a success, indeed, which far surpassed my expectations. And
yet great beyond expression were my difficulties. I did not as yet find
it possible to organise the studies properly.
** Neither my trust nor my zeal had been able to overcome either the
intractability of individuals or the want of coherence in the whole
experiment. The general order of the establishment, I felt, must be
based upon order of a higher character. As this higher order did not
yet exist, I had to attempt to create it ; for without this foundation I
could not hope to organise properly either the teaching or the general
management of the place, nor should I have wished to do so. I wanted
everything to result not from a preconceived plan, but from my
relations with the children. The high principles and educating forces
I was seeking, I looked for from the harmonious common life of my
children, from their common attention, activity, and needs. It was not,
then, from any external organisation that I looked for the regeneration
of which they stood so much in need. If I had employed constraint,
regulations, and lectures, I should, instead of winning and ennobling
my children's hearts, have repelled them and made them bitter, and
thus been farther than ever from my aim. First of all, I had to arouse
in them pure, moral, and noble feelings, so that afterwards, in external
things, I might be sure of their ready attention, activity, and obedience.
I had, in short, to follow the high precept of Jesus Christ, * Cleanse first
that which is within, that the outside may be clean also ' ; and if ever
the truth of this precept was made manifest, it was made manifest then.
** My one aim was to make their new life in common, and their new
powers, awaken a feeling of brotherhood amongst the children, and
make them affectionate, just, and considerate.
PESTALOZZI. 325
At Stanz : P.'s own account.
** I was successful in gaining ray aims. Amongst these seventy wild
beggar-children there soon existed such peace, friendship, and cordial
relations as are rare even between actual brothers and sisters.
" The principle to which I endeavoured to conform all my conduct
was as follows : Endeavour, first, to broaden your children's
sympathies, and, by satisfying their daily needs, to bring love and
kindness into such unceasing contact with their impressions and their
activity, that these sentiments may be engrafted in their hearts ; then
try to give them such judgment and tact as will enable them to make a
wise, sure, and abundant use of these virtues in the circle which
surrounds them. In the last place, do not hesitate to touch on the
difficult questions of good and evil, and the words connected with
them. And you must do this especially in connection with the ordinary
events of every day, upon which your whole teaching in these matters
must be founded, so that the children may be reminded of their own
feelings, and supplied, as it were, with solid facts upon which to base
their conception of the beauty and justice of the moral life. Even though
you should have to spend whole nights in trying to express in two
words what others say in twenty, never regret the loss of sleep.
** I gave my children very few explanations ; I taught them neither
morality nor religion. But sometimes, when they were perfectly quiet,
I used to say to them, ' Do you not think that you are better and more
reasonable when you are like this than when you are making a noise ? '
When they clung round my neck and called me their father, I used to
say, ' My children, would it be right to deceive your father ? After
kissing me like this, would you like to do anything behind my back to
vex me ? ' When our talk turned on the misery of the country, and
they were feeling glad at the thought of their own happier lot, I would
say, ' How good God is to have given man a compassionate heart ! '
.... They perfectly understood that all they did was but a prepara-
tion for their future activity, and they looked forward to happiness as
the certain result of their perseverance. That is why steady application
soon became easy to them, its object being in perfect accordance with
their wishes and their hopes. Virtue, my friend, is developed by this
agreement, just as the young plant thrives when the soil suits its nature,
and supplies the needs of its tender shoots.
" I witnessed the growth of an inward strength in my children,
which, in its general development, far surpassed my expectations, and
326 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
in its particular manifestations not only often surprised me, but touched
me deeply.
"When the neighbouring town of Altdorf was burnt down, I
gathered the children round me, and said, ' Altdorf has been burnt
down ; perhaps, at this very moment, there are a hundred children
there without home, food, or clothes ; will you not ask our good
Government to let twenty of them come and live with us ? ' I still
seem to see the emotion with which they answered, * Oh, yes, yes ! '
* But, my children,' I said, * think well of what you are asking ! Even
now we have scarcely money enough, and it is not at all certain that if
these poor children came to us, the Government would give us any
more than they do at present, so that you might have to work harder,
and share your clothes with these children, and sometimes perhaps go
without food. Do not say, then, that you would like them to come
unless you are quite prepared for all these consequences.' After having
spoken to them in this way as seriously as I could, I made them repeat
all I had said, to be quite sure that they had thoroughly understood
what the consequences of their request would be. But they were not
in the least shaken in their decision, and all repeated, ' Yes, yes, we
are quite ready to work harder, eat less, and share our clothes, for we
want them to come.'
** Some refugees from the Grisons having given me a few crowns for
my poor children, I at once called them and said, ' These men are
obliged to leave their country ; they hardly know where they will find
a home to-morrow, yet, in spite of their trouble, they have given me
this for you. Come and thank them.' And the emotion of the
children brought tears to the eyes of the refugees.
** It was in this way that I strove to awaken the feeling of each
virtue before talking about it, for I thought it unwise to talk to children
on subjects which would compel them to speak without thoroughly
understanding what they were saying.
** I followed up this awakening of the sentiments by exercises intended
to teach the children self-control, so that all that was good in them
might be applied to the practical questions of every-day life.
" It will easily be understood that, in this respect, it was not possil)le
to organise any system of discipline for the establishment ; that could
only come slowly, as the general work developed.
*' Silence, as an aid to application, is perhaps the great secret of such
PESTALOZZI. 327
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
an institution. I found it very useful to insist on silence when I was
teaching, and also to pay particular attention to the attitude of my
children. I succeeded so well that the moment I asked for silence, I
could teach in quite a low voice. The children repeated my words all
together ; and as there was no other sound, I was able to detect the
slightest mistakes of pronunciation. It is true that this was not always
so. Sometimes, whilst they repeated sentences after me, I would ask
them as if in fun to keep their e^es tixed on their middle fingers. It is
hardly credible how useful simple things of this sort sometimes are
as means to the very highest ends.
" One young girl, for instance, who had been little better than a
savage, by keeping her head and body upright, and not looking about,
made more progress in her moral education than any one would have
believed possible.
*' These experiences have shown me that the mere habit of carrying
oneself well does much more for the education of the moral sentiments
than any amount of teaching and lectures in which this simple fact is
ignored.
"Thanks to the application of these principles, my children soon
became more open, more contented and more susceptible to every good
and noble influence than any one could possibly have foreseen when
they first came to me, so utterly devoid were they of ideas, good
feelings, and moral principles. As a matter of fact, this lack of
previous instruction was not a serious obstacle to me ; indeed, it hardly
troubled me at all. I am inclined even to say that, in the simple
method I was following, it was often an advantage, for I had incom-
parably less trouble to develop those children whose minds were still
blank, than those who had already acquired inaccurate ideas. The
former, too, were much more open than the latter to the influence of all
pure and simple sentiments.
"But when the children were obdurate and churlish, then I was
severe, and made use of corporal punishment.
*' My dear friend, the pedagogical principle which says that we must
win the hearts and minds of our children by words alone without
having recourse to corporal punishment, is certainly good, and applicable
under favourable conditions and circumstances ; but with children of
such widely different ages as mine, children for the most part beggars,
and ail full of deeply-rooted faults, a certain amount of corporal punish*
328 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
ment was inevitable, especially as I was anxious to arrive surely,
speedily, and by the simplest means, at gaining an influence over them
all, for the sake of putting them all in the right road. I was compelled
to punish them, but it would be a mistake to suppose that I thereby, in
any way, lost the confidence of my pupils.
** It is not the rare and isolated actions that form the opinions and
feelings of children, but the impressions of every day and every hour.
From such impressions they judge whether we are kindly disposed
towards them or not, and this settles their general attitude towards us.
Their judgment of isolated actions depends upon this general attitude.
" This is how it is that punishments inflicted by parents rarely make
a bad impression. But it is quite different with schoolmasters and
teachers who are not with their children night and day, and have none
of those relations with them which result from life in common.
** My punishments never produced obstinacy ; the children I had
beaten were quite satisfied if a moment afterwards I gave them my
hand and kissed them, and I could read in their eyes that the final
effect of my blows was really joy. The following is a striking instance
of the effect this sort of punishment sometimes had. One day one of
the children I liked best, taking advantage of my affection, unjustly
threatened one of his companions. I was very indignant, and my
hand did not spare him. He seemed at first almost broken-hearted, and
cried bitterly for at least a quarter of an hour. When I had gone out,
however, he got up, and going to the boy he had ill-treated, begged his
pardon, and thanked him for having spoken about his bad conduct.
My friend, this was no comedy j the child had never seen anything
like it before.
*• It was impossible that this sort of treatment should produce a bad
impression on my children, because all day long I was giving them
proofs of my affection and devotion. They could not misread my
heart, and so they did not misjudge my actions. It was not the same
with the parents, friends, strangers, and teachers who visited us ; but
that was natural. But I cared nothing for the opinion of the whole
world, provided my children understood me.
" I always did my best, therefore, to make them clearly understand
the motives of my actions in all matters likely to excite their attention
and interest. This, my friend, brings me to the consideration of the
moral means to be employed in a truly domestic education.
PESTALOZZI. 329
At Stanz : P.'s own account.
k
*' Elementary moral education, considered as a whole, includes three
distinct parts : the children's moral sense must first be aroused by their
feelings being made active and pure ; then they must be exercised in
self-control, so that they may give themselves to that which is right and
good ; finally they must be brought to form for themselves, by reflection
and comparison, a just notion of the moral rights and duties which are
theirs by reason of their position and surroundings.
*' So far, I have pointed out some of the means I employed to reach
the first two of these ends. They were just as simple for the third ; for
I still made use of the impressions and experiences of their daily life to
give my children a true and exact idea of right and duty. When, for
instance, they made a noise, I appealed to their own judgment, and
asked them if it was possible to learn under such conditions. I shall
never forget how strong and true I generally found their sense of
justice and reason, and how this sense increased and, as it were, estab-
lished their good will.
*' I appealed to them in all matters that concerned the establishment.
It was generally in the quiet evening hours that I appealed to their free
judgment. When, for instance, it was reported in the village that they
had not enough to eat, I said to them, ' Tell me, my children, if you
are not better fed than you were at home ? Think, and tell me your-
selves, whether it would be well to keep you here in such a way as
would make it impossible for you afterwards, in spite of all your appli-
cation and hard work, to procure what you had become accustomed to.
Do you lack anything that is really necessary ? Do you think that I
could reasonably and justly do more for you? Would you have me
spend all the money that is entrusted to me on thirty or forty children
instead of on eighty as at present ? Would that be just ? '
*' In the same way, when I heard that it was reported that I punished
them too severely, I said to them : * You know how I love you, my
children ; but tell me would you like me to stop punishing you ? Do
you think that in any other way I can free you from your deeply-rooted
bad habits, or make you always mind what I say ? ' You were there,
my friend, and saw with your own eyes the sincere emotion with which
they answered, * We don't complain about your hitting us. We wish
we never deserved it. But we want to be punished when we do wrong. '
" Many things that make no difference in a small household could
not be tolerated where the numbers were so great. I tried to make
330 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
my children feel this, always leaving them to decide what could or
could not be allowed. It is true that in my intercourse with them I
never spoke of liberty or equality ; but, at the same time, I encouraged
them as far as possible to be free and unconstrained in my presence, with
the result that every day I marked more and more that clear open look
in their eyes which, in my experience, is the sign of a really lil^eral
education. I could not bear the thought of betraying the trust in me
which I saw shining in their eyes ; I strove constantly to strengthen it
and at the same time their free individuality, that nothing might happen
to trouble those angel-eyes, the sight of which caused me the most
intense delight. But I could not endure frowns and anxious looks ; I
myself smoothed away the frowns ; then the children smiled, and even
among themselves they took care not to shew frowning faces.
" By reason of their great number, I had occasion nearly every day
to point out the difference between good and evil, justice and injustice.
Good and evil are equally contagious amongst so many children, so that,
according as the good or bad sentiments spread, the establishment was
likely to become either much better or much worse than if it had only con-
tained a smaller number. About this, too, I talked to them frankly. I shall
never forget the impression that my words produced when, in speaking
of a certain disturbance that had taken place among them, I said,
* My children, it is the same with us as with every other household ;
when the children are numerous, and each gives way to his bad habits,
the disorder becomes such that the weakest mother is driven to take
sensible measures in bringing up her children, and make them submit to
what is just and right. And that is what I must do now. If you do
not willingly assist in the maintenance of order, our establishment
cannot go on, you will fall back into your former condition, and your
misery —now that you have been accustomed to a good home, clean
clothes, and regular food — will be greater than ever. In this world, my
children, necessity and conviction alone can teach a man to behave ;
when both fail him, he is hateful. Think for a moment what you
would become if you were safe from want and cared nothing for right,
justice, or goodness. At home there was always some one who looked
after you, and poverty itself forced you to many a right action ; but wich
convictions and reason to guide you, you will rise far higher than by
following necessity alone.'
** I often spoke to them in this way without troubling in the least
PESTALOZZI. 331
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
whether they each understood every word, feeling quite sure that
they all caught the general sense of what I said
•• Here are a few more thoughts which produced a great impression on
my children : * Do you know anything greater or nobler than to give
counsel to the poor, and comfort to the unfortunate ? But if you remain
ignorant and incapable, you will be obliged, in spite of your good heart,
to let things take their course ; whereas, if you acquire knowledge and
power, you will be able to give good advice, and save many a man from
misery.'
**I have generally found that great, noble, and high thoughts are
indispensable for developing wisdom and firmness of character.
*' Such an instruction must be complete in the sense that it must take
account of all our aptitudes and all our circumstances ; it must be con-
ducted, too, in a truly psychological spirit, that is to say, simply,
lovingly, energetically, and calmly. Then, by its very nature, it pro-
duces an enlightened and delicate feeling for everything true and good,
and brings to light a number of accessory and dependent truths, which
are forthwith accepted and assimilated by the human soul, even in the
case of those who could not express these truths in words.
" I believe that the first development of thought in the child is very
much disturbed by a wordy system of teaching, which is not adapted
either to his faculties or the circumstances of his life. According to my
experience, success depends upon whether what is taught to children
commends itself to them as true through being closely connected with
their own personal observation and experience
•* I knew no other order, method, or art, but that which resulted
naturally from my children's conviction of my love for them, nor did I
care to know any other.
"Thus I subordinated the instruction of my children to a higher aim,
which was to arouse and strengthen their best sentiments by the relations
of every-day life as they existed between themselves and me. . . .
**As a general rule I attached little importance to the smdy of
words, even when explanations of the ideas they represented were
given.
" I tried to connect study with manual labour, the school with the
workshop, and make one thing of them. But I was the less able to do
this as staff, material, and tools were all wanting. A short time only
before the close of the establishment, a few children had begun to spin ;
332 PESTALOZZI.
At Stanz: P.'s own account.
and I saw clearly that, before any fusion could be effected, the two parts
must be firmly established se^parately — study, that is, on the one hand,
and labour on the other.
*' But in the work of the chilc^.ren I was already inclined to care less
for the immediate gain than for the physical training which, by develop-
ing their strength and skill, was bound to supply them later with a
means of livelihood. In the same way I considered that what is
generally called the instruction of children should be merely an exercise
of the faculties, and I felt it important to exercise the attention,
observation, and memory first, so as to strengthen these faculties before
calling into play the art of judging and reasoning ; this, in my opinion,
was the best way to avoid turning out that sort of superficial and pre
sumptuous talker, whose false judgments are often more fatal to the
happiness and progress of humanity than the ignorance of simple people
of good sense.
'* Guided by these principles, I sought less at first to teach my
children to spell, read, and write than to make use of these exercises
for the purpose of giving their minds as full and as varied a development
as possible
" In natural history they were very quick in corroborating what I
taught them by their own personal observations on plants and animals.
I am quite sure that, by continuing in this way, I should soon have
been able not only to give them such a general acquaintance with the
subject as would have been useful in any vocation, but also to put
them in a position to carry on their education themselves by means of
their daily observations and experiences ; and I should have been able
to do all this without going outside the very restricted sphere to which
they were confined by the actual circumstances of their lives. I hold it
to be extremely important that men should be encouraged to learn by
themselves and allowed to develop freely. It is in this way alone that
the diversity of individual talent is produced and made evident.
" I always made the children learn perfectly even the least important
things, and I never allowed them to lose ground ; a word once learnt, for
instance, was never to be forgotten, and a letter once well written never
to be written badly again. I was very patient with all who were weak
or slow, but very severe with those who did anything less well than they
had done it before.
*' The number and inequality of my children rendered my task easier.
PESTALOZZI. 333
Value of the five months' experience.
Just as in a family the eldest and cleverest child readily shows what he
knows to his younger brothers and sisters, and feels proud and happy to
be able to take his mother's place for a moment, so my children were
delighted when they knew something that they could teach others. A
sentiment of honour awoke in them, and they learned twice as well by
making the younger ones repeat their words. In this way I soon had
helpers and collaborators amongst the children themselves. When I
was teaching them to spell difficult words by heart, I used to allow any
child who succeeded in saying one properly to teach it to the others.
These child-helpers, whom I had formed from the very outset, and who
had followed my method step by step, were certainly much more useful
to me than any regular schoolmasters could have been.
" I myself learned with the children. Our whole system was so
simple and so natural that I should have had difficulty in finding a
master who would not have thought it undignified to learn and teach as
I was doing
" You will hardly believe that it was the Capuchin friars and the nuns
of the convent that showed the greatest sympathy with my work. Few
people, except Truttman, took any active interest in it. Those from
whom I had hoped most were too deeply engrossed with their high
political affiiirs to think of our little institution as having the least degree
of importance.
" Such were my dreams ; but at the very moment that I seemed to be
on the point of realizing them, I had to leave Stanz."
§ 50. Heroic efforts rise above the measurement of time.
As Byron has said, " A thought is capable of years," and it
seldom happens that the nobleness of any human action
depends on the time it lasts. Pestalozzi's five months'
experiment at Stanz proved one of the most memorable
events in the history of education. He was now completely
satisfied that he saw his way to giving children a right
education and " thus raising the beggar out of the dung-hill ";
and seeing the right course he was urged by his love of the
people into taking it. But how was he to set to work?
His notions of school instruction differed entirely from
24 .^
334 PESTALOZZI.
p. a strange Schoolmaster.
those of the teaching profession ; and even in the revolu-
tionary age they had some reason for looking askance at
this revolutionist. "He had everything against him," we
read, "thick, indistinct speech, bad writing, ignorance of
drawing, scorn of grammatical learning. He had studied
various branches of natural history, but without any particular
attention either to classification or terminology. He was
conversant with the ordinary operations in arithmetic, but
he would have had difficulty in getting through a really long
sum in multiplication or division; and he probably had
never tried to work out a problem in geometry. For years
this dreamer had read no books. But instead of the usual
knowledge that any young man of ordinary talent can acquire
in a year or two, he understood thoroughly what most
masters were entirely ignorant of — the mind of man and the
laws of its development, human affections and the art of
arousing and ennobling them. He seemed to have almost
an intuitive insight into the development of human nature,
and was never tired of contemplating it." (C. Monnard in
R.'s Guimps, p. 174.)*
§ 51. This man wished to be a schoolmaster, but who
would venture to entrust him with a school ? No one
seemed willing to do this ; and he would have been at a
loss where to turn had he not had influential friends at
Burgdorf, a town not far from Bern. These got for him
permission to teach, not indeed the children of burgesses but
* As Pestalozzi wrote to Gessner {How Gertrude^ &fc.) : "You see
street-gossip is not always entirely wrong; I really could not write
properly, nor read, nor reckon. But people always jump to wrong
conclusions from such 'notorious facts.' At Stanz you saw that I
could teach writing without myself being able to write properly."
He here anticipates a paradox of Jacotot's.
PESTALOZZI. 335
At Burgdorf. First official approval.
the children of non-burgesses, seventy -three of whom used to
assemble under a shoemaker in his house in the suburbs.
With this arrangement, however, the shoemaker and the
parents of the children were by no means satisfied. " If
the burgesses Hke the new method," they said very
reasonably, "let them try it on their own children." Their
grumbling was heard, and permission to teach was withdrawn
from Pestalozzi.
§ 52. The check, however, was only temporary. His friends
were wiser than the shoemaker, and they procured for him
admission into the lowest class of the school for burghers'
children. In this class there were about 25 children, boys
and girls between the ages of 5 and 8. Here he proved
that he was vastly different from a mere dreamer. After
teaching these children in his own way for eight months he
received the first official recognition of the merits of his
system. The Burgdorf School Commission after the usual
examination, wrote a public letter to Pestalozzi, in which they
said : '* The surprising progress of your little scholars of
various capacities shews plainly that every one is good for
something, if the teacher knows how to get at his abilities
and develop them according to the laws of psychology. By
your method of teaching you have proved how to lay the
groundwork of instruction in such a way that it may afterwards
support what is built on it. . . Between the ages of 5
and 8, a period in which according to the system of torture
enforced hitherto, children have learnt to know their letters,
to spell and read, your scholars have not only accomplished
all this with a success as yet unknown, but the best of them
have already distinguished themselves by their good writing,
drawing, and calculating. In them all you have been able
so to arouse and excite a liking for history, natural history,
336 PESTALOZZI.
A child's notion of P.'s teaching^.
mensuration, geography, &c., that thus future teachers must
find their task a far easier one if they only know how to
make good use of the preparatory stage the children have
gone through with you " (Morf, Pt. I, p. 223).
§ 53. In consequence of this report, Pestalozzi in June
1800 was made master of the second school of Burgdorf, a
school numbering about 70 boys and girls from 10 to t6
years old. With them Pestalozzi did not get on so well.
Ramsauer, a poor boy of 10 who afterwards helped Pestalozzi
at Yverdun and became one of his best teachers, has left us
his remembrances. Two things seemed clear to the child's
mind : ist, that their teacher was very kind but very unhappy ;
2nd, that the pupils did not learn anything and behaved very
badly. Many schoolmasters have smiled in derision at this
account of Pestalozzi's actual teaching; but in reading it
several things should be borne in mind. First Ramsauer as
a child would have a keen eye and good memory for the
master's eccentricities ; but how far the teaching succeeded
he could not judge, for he did not know what it aimed at.
Then again he saw that Pestalozzi's zeal was for the whole
school, not for individual scholars. But the child who knew
of nothing beyond Burgdorf could not tell that Pestalozzi
was thinking not so much of the children of Burgdorf as of
the children of Europe. For Burgdorf— whether it was
pleased to honour or to dismiss Pestalozzi — could not contain
him. His aims extended beyond the town, beyond canton
Bern, beyond Switzerland even ; and he was consumed with
zeal to bring about a radical change in elementary education
throughout Europe. The truth which was burning within
him he has himself expressed as follows :
" If we desire to aid the poor man, the very lowest among
the people, this can be done in one way only, that is, by
\
I
PESTALOZZI.
337
P. engineering a new road.
changing his schools into true places of education, in which
the moral, intellectual, and physical powers which God Jias put
into our nature may be drawn out, so that the man may be
enabled to live a life such as a man should live, contented
in himself and satisfying other people. Thus and only thus
does the man, whom in God's wide world nobody helps and
nobody can help, learn to help himself." "The public
common school-coach throughout Europe must not simply be
better horsed, but still more it must be turned round and be
brought on to an entirely new road." (Quoted by Morf, P.
I, p. 211.)
§ 54. Pestalozzi was now working heart and soul at the
engineering of this " new road." His grand successes
hitherto had been gained more by the heart than by the
head ; but the school course must draw out the faculties of
the head as well as of the heart. Pestalozzi made all
instruction start from what children observed for themselves.
" I laid special stress," he says, " on just what usually affected
their senses. And as I dwelt much on elementary knowledge,
I wanted to know when the child receives its first lesson,
and I soon came to the conviction that the first hour of
learning dates from birth. From the very moment that the
child's senses open to the impressions of nature, nature
teaches it Its new life is but the faculty, now come to
maturity, of receiving impressions ; it is the awakening of
the germs now perfect which will go on using all their forces
and energies to secure the development of their proper
organisation ; it is the awakening of the animal now complete
which will and shall become a man. So the sole instruction
given to the human being consists merely in the art of giving
a helping hand to this natural tendency towards its proper
development ; and this art consists essentially in the means
338 PESTALOZZI.
Psychologizing instruction.
of putting the child's impressions in connexion and harmony
with the precise degree of development the child has
reached. There must be then in the impressions to be
given him by instruction, a regular gradation ; and the
beginning and the progress of his various knowledges must
exactly correspond with the beginning and increase in his
powers as they are developed. From this I soon saw that
this gradation must be ascertained for all the branches of
human knowledge, especially for those fundamental notions
from which our thinking power takes its rise. On such
principles and no others is it possible to construct real school
books and books about teaching " ( Wie Gertrude &c.. Letter I. ).
§ 55. In endeavouring to put teaching, as he said, " on a
psychological basis," Pestalozzi compared it to a mechanism.
On one occasion when expounding his views, he was
interrupted by the exclamation, "Vous voulez m^caniser
I'education ! " Pestalozzi was weak in French, and he took
these words to mean, " You wish to get at the mechanism
of education." He accordingly assented, and was in his
turn misunderstood. Soon afterwards he endeavoured to
express the new thing by a new word and said, " Ich will
den menschlichen Unterricht psychologisieren; I wish to
psychologise instruction," and this he explains to mean
that he sought to make instruction fall in with the eternal
laws which govern the development of the human intellect
(Morf, I, p. 227). But this was a task which no one man
could accomplish, not even Pestalozzi. The eternal laws
which govern the development of mind have not been
completely ascertained even after investigations carried on
during thousands of years ; and Pestalozzi did not know
what had been established by previous thinkers. He made
a gigantic effort to find both the laws and their application,
PESTALOZZI. 339
School course. Singing ; and the beautiful.
but if he had continued to stand alone he could have done
but little, Happily he attracted to him some young and
vigorous assistants, who caught his enthusiasm and worked
in his spirit. They did much, but there was one thing the
Master could not communicate — his genius.
§ 56. Just at this time, before Pestalozzi found associates
in his work, he drew up for a " Society of Friends of
Education" an account of his method; and this begins
with the words I have already quoted, " I want to psycholo-
gise education." Basing^ all^jn-truction on Anschauung
(which is nearly equivalent to the child's own observation),
he explains how this may be used for a series of exercises,
and he takes as the general elements of culture the fol-
lowing : language, drawing, writing, arithmetic, and the art
of measuring. In the education of the poor he would lay
special stress on the importance of two things, then and
since much neglected, viz., singing and the sense of the
beautiful. The mother's cradle song should begin a series
leading up to hymns of praise to God. Education should
develop in all a sense of the beauties of Nature. " Nature
is full of lovely sights, yet Europe has done nothing either
to awaken in the poor a sense for these beauties, or to
arrange them in such a way as to produce a series of
impressions capable of developing this sense. . , If
ever popular education should cease to be the barbarous
absurdity it now is, and put itself into harmony with the
real needs of our nature, this want will be supplied."
(R.'s Guimps, 186.)
§ 57. In the last year of the eighteenth century (1800)
Pestalozzi was toiling away, constant to his purpose but not
clearly seeing the road before him. In March, 1800, he
wrote to Zschokke : " For thirty years my life has been a well-
340 PESTALOZZI.
P.'s poverty. Kruesi joins him.
nigh hopeless struggle against the most frightful poverty. . .
P'or thirty years I have had to forego many of the barest
necessaries of life, and have had to shun the society of my
fellow-men from sheer lack of decent clothes. Many and
many a time have I gone without a dinner and eaten in bitter-
ness a dry crust of bread on the road at a time when even the
poorest were seated round a table. All this I have suffered
and am still suffering to-day, and with no other object than
the realization of my plans for helping the poor" (R.'s
Guimps, 189). It was clear that he could not help others
till he himself got help ; and he now did get just the help
he wanted, an assistant who though a schoolmaster was,
strange to say, perfectly ready to learn, and to throw himself
into carrying out another man's ideas. This was Hermann
Kruesi, a man twenty-five years old, who from the age of
18 had been master of the village school at Gais in
Appenzell. In consequence of the war between the French
and Austrians, Appenzell was now reduced to a state of
famine, and bands of children were sent off to other
cantons to escape starvation. Fischer, a friend of Pesta-
lozzi's, and himself an educationist taught by Salzmann
{supra 289), wrote from Burgdorf to the pastor of Gais,
offering to get thirty children taken in by the people of
Burgdorf, and asking that they might be sent with some one
who would look after them in the day-time and teach them.
In answer to this invitation Kruesi, after a week's march,
entered Burgdorf with a troop of little ones. The children
were drawn up in an open place, and benevolent people
chose which they would adopt. Kruesi was taken into the
Castle which the Government had made over partly to
Fischer, partly to Pestalozzi. In it Kruesi opened a day-
schooL Fischer soon afterwards died; and Pestalozzi
PESTALOZZI. 341
P.'s assistants. The Burgdorf Institute.
t ^^^
proposed to Kruesi, who had become entirely converted to
his views, that they should unite and together carry on the
school in the Castle. By a decree of 23rd July, 1800, the
Executive Council granted to Pestalozzi the gratuitous use
of as much of the Castle and garden as he needed, and
thus was established Pestalozzi's celebrated Institute at
Burgdorf.
§ 58. Very soon Kruesi enlisted other helpers who had
read Leonard and Gertrude^ viz., Tobler and Buss, and
this is his account of the party : " Our society thus con-
sisted of four very different men. . . the founder, whose
chief reputation was that of a dreamy writer, incapable in
practical life, and three young men, one [Tobler] a private
tutor whose youth had been much neglected, who had
begun to study late, and whose pedagogic efforts had never
produced the results his character and talents seemed to
promise ; another [Buss], a bookbinder, who devoted
his leisure to singing and drawing ; and a third [Kruesi
himself], a village schoolmaster who carried out the duties
of his ofhce as best he could without having been in any
way prepared for them. Those who looked on this group of
men, scarce one of them with a home of his own, naturally
formed but a small opinion of their capabilities. And yet
our work succeeded, and won the pubHc confidence beyond
the expectations of those who knew us, and even beyond
our own " (R.'s Guimps, 304).
§ 59. With assistance from the Government there was
added to the united schools of Pestalozzi and Kruesi a
training class for teachers ; and elementary teachers were
sent to spend a month at Burgdorf and learn of Pestalozzi,
as years afterwards they were sent to the same town to
learn of Froebel. This Institute opened in January, 1801,
342 PESTALOZZI.
Success of the Burgdorf Institute.
and had nearly three years of complete success. In it was
carried out Pestalozzi's notion that there should be "no
gulf between the home and the school." On one occasion
a parent visiting the establishment exclaimed, " Why, this
is not a school but a family !" and Pestalozzi declared
that this was the highest praise he could give it. The bond
which united them all, both teachers and scholars, was love
of " Father Pestalozzi.'* Want of space kept the number of
children below a hundred, and these enjoyed great freedom
and worked away without rewards and almost without
punishments. Both public reports and private speak very
highly of the results. In June, 1802, the President of the
Council of Public Education in Bern declares : " Pestalozzi
has discovered the real and universal laws of all elementary
teaching." A visitor, Charles Victor von Bonstetten, writes :
" The children know little, but what they know, they know
well. . . They are very happy and evidently take great
pleasure in their lessons, which says a great deal for the
method. . . As it will be long before there is another
Pestalozzi, I fear that the rich harvest his discovery seems
to promise will be reserved for future ages."
The success of the method was specially conspicuous in
arithmetic. A Niirnberg merchant who came prejudiced
against Pestalozzi was much impressed and has acknow-
ledged : " I was amazed when I saw these children treating
the most complicated calculations of fractions as the simplest
thing in the world."
§ 60. Up to this point Pestalozzi may be said to have
gained by the disposition to "reform" or revolutionise
everything, which had prevailed in Switzerland since 1798.
But from the reaction which now set in he suffered more
than he had gained. Switzerland sent deputies to Paris to
PESTALOZZI. 343
Reaction. Pestalozzi and Napoleon I.
discuss under the direction of the First Consul Bonaparte
what should be their future form of Government. Among
these deputies Pestalozzi was elected, and he set off thinking
more of the future of the schools than of the future of the
Government. At Paris he asked for an interview with
Bonaparte, but destruction being in his opinion a much
higher art than instruction, the First Consul said he could
not be bothered about questions of A, B, C. He, however,
deputed Monge to hear what Pestalozzi had to say, but the
mathematician seems to have agreed with some English
authorities that " there was nothing in Pestalozzi."* On his
return to Switzerland Pestalozzi was asked by Buss, " Did
you see Bonaparte ?" " No," replied Pestalozzi, " I did not
see Bonaparte and Bonaparte did not see me." His pre-
sumption in thus putting himself on an equality with the
great conqueror seems to have taken away the breath of his
contemporaries : but " the whirligig of time brings in his
revenges," and before the close of the century Europe
already thinks more in amount, and immeasurably more in
respect, of Pestalozzi than of Bonaparte.
§ 6 1. As a result of the reaction the Government of
United Switzerland ceased to exist, and the Cantons were
restored. This destroyed Pestalozzi's hopes of Government
support, and even turned his Institute out of doors The
* Years afterwards Napoleon, though he could not foresee Sedan, got
a notion that after all there was something in Pestalozzi ; and that the
aim of the system was to put the freedom and development of the
individual in the place of the mechanical routine of the old schools,
which tended to produce a mass of dull uniformity. With this aim, as
Guimps says, Napoleon was quite out of sympathy, and whenever the
subject was mentioned he would say, " The Pestalozzians are Jesuits ";
thus very inaccurately expressing an accurate notion that there was
more in them than could be understood at the first glance.
344 PESTALOZZI.
Fellenberg. P. goes to Yverdun.
Castle of Burgdorf was at once demanded for the Prefect of
the District ; but Pestalozzi was offered an old convent at
Miinchenbuchsee near Bern, and thither he was forced to
migrate.
§ 62. Close to Miinchenbuchsee was Hofwyl where was
the agricultural institution of Emmanuel Fellenberg.
Fellenberg and Pestalozzi were old friends and corres-
pondents, and as they had much regard for each other and
Fellenberg was as great in administration as Pestalozzi in
ideas, there seemed a chance of their benefiting by co-
operation; but this could not be. The teachers desired
that the administration should be put into the hands of
Fellenberg, and this was done accordingly, " not without
my consent," says Pestalozzi, " but to my profound mortifi-
cation." He could not work with this " man of iron," as he
calls Fellenberg ; so he left Miinchenbuchsee and accepting
one of several invitations he settled in the Castle of Yverdun
near the lake of Neuchatel. Within a twelvemonth he was
followed by his old assistants, who had found government
by Fellenberg less to their taste than no-government by
Pestalozzi.
§ 63. Thus arose the most celebrated Institute of which
we read in the history of education. For some years its
success seemed prodigious. Teachers came from all quarters,
many of them sent by the Governments of the countries to
which they belonged, that they might get initiated into the
Pestalozzian system. Children too were sent from great
distances, some of them being intrusted to Pestalozzi, some
of them living with their own tutor in Yverdun and only
attending the Institute during the day. The wave of
enthusiasm for the new ideas seemed to carry everything
before it ; but there is nothing stable in a wave, and when
PESTALOZZI. 345
A portrait of Pestalozzi.
the enthusiasm has subsided disappointment follows. This
was the case at Yverdun, and Pestalozzi outlived his Institute.
But the principles on which he worked and the spirit in
which he worked could not pass away; and, at least in
Germany, all elementary schoolmasters acknowledge how
much they are indebted to his teaching.
§ 64. Of the state of things in the early days of the
Institute we have a very lively account written for his own
children by Professor Vuillemin, who entered it in 1805 as a
child of eight, and was in it for two years. From this I extract
the following portrait of Pestalozzi : " Imagine, my children,
a very ugly man with rough bristling hair, his face scarred
with small-pox and covered with freckles, an untidy beard,
no neck-tie, his breeches not properly buttoned and coming
down to his stockings, which in their turn descended on to
his great thick shoes ; fancy him panting and jerking as he
walked ; then his eyes which at one time opened wide to
send a flash of lightning, at another were half closed as if
engaged on what was going on within; his features now
expressing a profound sadness and now again the most
peaceful happiness; his speech either slow or hurried, either
soft and melodious or bursting forth like thunder ; imagine
the man and you have him whom we used to call our Father
Pestalozzi. Such as I have sketched him for you we loved
him ; we all loved him, for he loved us all ; we loved him
so warmly that when some time passed without our seeing
him, we were quite troubled about it, and when he again
appeared we could not take our eyes off him " (Guimps,
315)-
§ 65. At this time he was no less loved by his assistants,
who put up with any quarters that could be found for them,
and received no salary. We read that the money paid by
546 PESTAT.OZZI.
Prussia adopts Pestalozzianism.
the scholars was kept in the room of " the head of the family";
every master could get the key, and when they required
clothes they took from these funds just the sum requisite.
This system, or want of system, went on for some time with-
out abuse. As Vuillemin says, it was like a return to the
early days of the Christian Church.
§ 66. We have seen that the first Emperor Napoleon
" could not be bothered about questions of A, B, C." His
was the pride that goes before a fall. On the other hand
the Prussian Government which he brought to the dust in
the battle of Jena (1806) had the wisdom to perceive that
children will become men, and that the nature of the
instruction they receive will in a great measure determine
what kind of men they turn out. How was Prussia again
to raise its head ? Its rulers decided that it was by the
education of the people. " We have lost in territory," said
the king ; " our power and our credit abroad have fallen ;
but we must and will go to work to gain in power and in
credit at home. It is for this reason that I desire above
everything that the greatest attention be paid to the educa-
tion of the people" (Guimps, 319). About the same time
the Queen (Louisa) wrote in her private diary, " I am reading
Leonard and Gertrude^ and I delight in being transported
into the Swiss village. If I could do as I liked I should
take a carriage and start for Switzerland to see Pestalozzi ;
I should warmly shake him by the hand, and my eyes filled
with tears would speak my gratitude . . . With what goodness,
with what zeal, he labours for the welfare of his fellow-
creatures ! Yes, in the name of humanity, I thank him with
my whole heart."
So in the day of humiliation Prussia seriously went to
work at the education of the people, and this she did on
PESTALOZZI. 347
Ritter and others at Yverdun.
the lines pointed out by Pestalozzi. To him they were
directed by their philosopher Fichte, who in his Addresses
to the German Nation (delivered at Berhn 1807-8) declared
that education was the only means of raising a nation, and
that all sound reform of public instruction must be based
on the principles of Pestalozzi.
To bring these principles to bear on popular educatioa,
the Prussian Government sent seventeen young men for a
three years' course to Pestalozzi's Institute, " where," as the
Minister said in a letter to Pestalozzi, " they will be pre-
pared not only in mind and judgment, but also in heart,
for the noble vocation which they are to follow, and will
be filled with a sense of the holiness of their task, and with
new zeal for the work to which you have devoted your
hfe."
§ 67. Among the eminent men who were drawn to
Yverdun were some who afterwards did great things in
education, as e.g.^ Karl Ritter, Karl von Raumer the his-
torian of education, the philosopher Herbart, and a man
who was destined to have more influence than anyone,
except perhaps Pestalozzi himself — I mean Friedrich Froebel.
Ritter's testimony is especially striking. " I have seen,"
says he, *' more than the Paradise of Switzerland, for I have
seen Pestalozzi, and recognised how great his heart is, and
how great his genius ; never have I been so filled with a
sense of the sacredness of my vocation and the dignity ot
human nature as in the days I spent with this noble man.
. . . . Pestalozzi knew less geography than a child in
one of our primary schools, yet it was from him that I
gained my chief knowledge of this science ; for it was in
listening to him that I first conceived the idea of the natural
method. It was he who opened the way to me, and I take
348 PESTALOZZI.
Causes of failure at Yverdun.
pleasure in attributing whatever value my work may have
entirely to him."
§ 68. At this time we read glowing accounts of the
healthy and happy life of the children ; and throughout
Pestalozzi never lost a single pupil by illness. With a body
of very able assistants, instruction was carried on for ten
hours out of the twenty-four ; but in these hours there was
reckoned the time spent in drill, gymnastics, hand-work,
and singing. The monotony of school4ife was also broken
by frequent " festivals."
§ 69. And yet the Institute had taken into it the seeds
of its own ruin. There were several causes of failure,
though these were not visible till the house was divided
against itself.
§ 70. First, Pestalozzi based the morality and disciphne
of the school on the relations of family Hfe. He would be
the " father " of all the children. At Burgdorf this relation
seemed a reality, but it completely failed at Yverdun when
the Institute became, from the number of the pupils and
their differences in language, habits, and antecedents, a
little world. The pupils still called him " Father Pesta-
lozzi," but he could no longer know them as a father should
know his children. Thus the discipline of affection slowly
disappeared, and there was no school disciphne to take its
place.
§ 71. Next, we can see that even at Burgdorf, and still
more at Yverdun, Pestalozzi was attempting to do impossi-
bilities. According to his system, the faculties of the child
were to be developed in a natural unbroken order, and the
first exercises were to give the child the power of sur-
mounting later difficulties by its own exertions. But this
education could not be started at any age, and yet children
of every age and every country were received into the
PESTALOZZI. 349
Report made by Father Girard.
Institution. It was not likely that the fresh comers could
be made to understand that they " knew nothing," and must
start over again on a totally different road. The teachers
might take such pupils to the water of " sense-impressions,"
but they could not inspire the inclination to drink, nor
induce the lad to learn what he supposed himself to know
already. i^Cfr. supra p. 64, § 4.)
§ 72. But there was a greater mischief at work than
either of these. In his discourse to the members of the
Institution on New Year's Day, 1808, Pestalozzi surprised
them all by his gloom. He had had a coffin brought in,
and he stood beside it. " This work," said he, " was
founded by love, but love has disappeared from our midst."
This was only too true, and the discord was more deeply
rooted than at first appeared. Among the brood of Pesta-
lozzians there was a Catholic shepherd lad from Tyrol,
Joseph Schmid by name, and he, in the end, proved a
veritable cuckoo. As he shewed very marked ability in
mathematics, he became one of the assistant masters ; and
a good deal of the fame of the Institution rested on the
performances of his pupils. But his ideas differed totally
from those of his colleagues, especially from those of
Niederer, a clergyman with a turn for philosophy, who had
become Pestalozzi's chief exponent.
§ 73. After Pestalozzi's gloomy speech, the masters, with
the exception of Schmid, urged Pestalozzi to apply for a
Government inquiry into the state of the Institution. This
Pestalozzi did, and Commissioners were appointed, among
them an educationist, Pere Girard of Freiburg, by whom
the Report was drawn up. The Report was not favourable.
Pt^re Girard was by no means inclined to sit at the feet of
Pestalozzi, as he had principles of his own. Pestalozzi, he
2f
350 PESTALOZZI.
Girard's mistake. Schmid in flight.
thought, laid far too much stress on mathematics, and he
drew from him a statement that everything taught to a child
should seem as certain as that two and two made four.
" Then^" said Girard, " if I had thirty children I would not
intrust you with one of them. You could not teach him
that I was his father." Thus the Report, though very
friendly in tone, was by no means friendly in spirit. The
Commissioners simply compared the performances of the
scholars with what pupils of the same age could do in good
schools of the ordinary type, and P^re Girard stated, though
not in the Report, that the Institution was inferior to the
Cantonal School of Aargau. But the comparison of these
incommensurables only shews that Girard was not capable
of understanding what was going on at Yverdun. Indeed,
he asserts "not only that the mother-tongue was neglected,"
but also that the children, "though they had reached a high
pitch of excellence in abstract mathematics, were incon-
ceivably weak in all ordinary practical calculations." This
is absurd. In Pestalozzian teaching the abstract never
went before ordinary practical calculations. The good
Father evidently blunders, and takes " head-reckoning " for
abstract, and pen or pencil arithmetic for practical work.
Reckoning with slate or paper is no doubt " ordinary," but
a distinction has often to be drawn between what is ordinary
and what is practical.
§ 74. Soon after this the disputes between Schmid and
his colleagues waxed so fierce that Schmid was virtually
driven away. In 1810 he left Yverdun, and declared the
Institution " a disgrace to humanity." Great was the dis-
order into whicli the Institution now fell from having over
it only a genius with "an unrivalled incapacity to govern."
The days which " remind us of the early Church " were no
PESTALOZZr. 351
Schmid's return. P.'s fame found useful.
more, and financial difficulties naturally followed them.
For the next five years things went from bad to worse, and
the masters were then driven to the desperate, and, as it
proved, the fatal step of inviting the able and strong-willed
Schmid back again. He came in 181 5, he acquired entire
control over Pestalozzi, and drove from him all his most
faithful adherents, among them not only Niederer, who had
invited the return of his rival, but even Kruesi and the
faithful servant, Elizabeth Naef, now Mrs. Kruesi, the
widow of Kruesi's brother. Pestalozzi's grandson married
Schmid's sister, and thus united with him by family ties,
Schmid took entire possession of the old man and kept it
till the end. His former colleagues seem to have been
deceived in their estimate both of Schmid's mtegrity and
ability. He completed the ruin of the Institution, and he
was finally expelled from Yverdun by the Magistrates.
§ 75. But while Pestalozzi seemed faUing lower and lower
to the eyes of the inhabitants of Yverdun, and so had little
honour in his own country, his fame was spreading all over
Europe. Of this Yverdun was to reap the benefit. In
181 3-14, Austrian troops marched across Switzerland to
invade France. In January, 18 14, the Castle and other
buildings in Yverdun were " requisitioned " for a military
hospital, many of the Austrian soldiers being down with
typhus fever. In a great fright the Municipality sent off
two deputies to headquarters, then at Basel, to petition that
this order might be withdrawn. As the order threatened
the destruction of his Institution, Pestalozzi went with them,
and it was entirely to him they owed their success. On
their return they reported that " no military hospital would
be established at Yverdun, and that M. Pestalozzi had been
received with most extraordinary favour."
352 PESTALOZZI.
Dr. Bell's visit. Death of Mrs. Pestalozzi.
§ 75. On this occasion Pestalozzi took the opportunity of
preaching to the Emperor Alexander on the necessity of
establishing good schools and of emancipating the serfs.
The Emperor took the lecture in good part, and allowed the
philanthropist to drive him into a corner and " button-hole "
him.
§ 76. In 1 81 5 Pestalozzi received a visit from an
Englishman, or more accurately Scotsman— Dr. Bell, who,
however, like most of our compatriots, could find nothing
in Pestalozzi. Whatever we may think of Bell as an
educationist, he was certainly a poor prophet. On leaving
Yverdun he said, " In another twelve years mutual instruction
will be adopted by the whole world and Pestalozzi's method
will be forgotten."*
§ 77. In December, 1815, Pestalozzi was thrown more
completely into the power of Schmid by losing the only
companion from whom nothing but death could separate
him — his wife. At the funeral Pestalozzi, standing by the
coffin, and as if heard by her whose earthly remains were in
it, ran over the disasters and trials they had passed through
together, and the sacrifices she had made for him. " What
in those days of affliction," said he, " gave us strength to
bear our troubles and recover hope?" and taking up a Bible
he went on, " This is the source whence you drew, whence
we both drew courage, strength, and peace."
* Pestalozzi had from this country some more discerning visitors, e.g.^
J, P. Greaves, to whom Pestalozzi addressed Letters^ which were
translated and published in this country ; also Dr. Mayo, who was at
Yverdun with his pupils for three years from 1818 and afterwards con-
ducted a celebrated Pestalozzian school at Cheam. Dr. Mayo in 1826
lectured on Pestalozzi's system at the Royal Institution. Sir Jas. Kay-
Shuttleworth and Mr. Tufnell also drew attention to it in the "Minutes
of Council on Education."
PESTALOZZI. 353
Works republished. Clindy. Yverdun left.
§ 78. The " death agony of the Institution," as Guimps
calls it, lasted for some years, but in this gloomy period
there are only two incidents I will mention. The first is
the publication of Pestalozzi's writings, for which Schmid
and Pestalozzi sought subscriptions ; and the appeal was
so cordially answered that Pestalozzi received ;£'2,ooo.
This sum he wished to devote to the carrying out of a plan
he had always cherished of an orphanage at Neuhof ; but
the money seems to have melted we do not know how.
§ 79. The other incident is that of Pestalozzi's last
success. In spite of Schmid he would open a school for
twelve neglected children at Clindy, a hamlet near Yverdun.
Here he produced results like those which had crowned his
first efforts at Neuhof, Stanz, and Burgdorf. Old, absent-
minded, and incapable as he seemed in ordinary affairs, he,
as though by enchantment, gained the attention and the
affection of the children, and bent them entirely to his will.
In a few months the number of children had risen to thirty,
and wonderful progress had been made. Clindy at once
became celebrated. Pestalozzi was induced to admit some
children whose friends paid for them, and Schmid then
persuaded the old man to remove the school into the Castle.
§ 80. In 1824 the Institution, which had lasted for twenty
years, was finally closed, and Pestalozzi went to spend his
remaining days (nearly three years as it proved) at Neuhof,
which was then in the hands of his grandson. The year
before his death he visited an orphanage conducted on his
principles by Zeller at Beuggen near Rheinfelden. The
children sang a poem of Goethe's quoted in Leonard and
Gertrude^ and had a crown of oak ready to put on the old
man's head ; but this he declined. " I am not worthy of it,"
said he, " keep it for innocence."
354 PESTALOZZI.
Death. New aim ; develop organism.
§ 8i. On 17th February, 1827, at the age of eighly-one,
Pestalozzi fell asleep.
§ 82. "The reform needed," said Pestalozzi, " is not
that the school-coach should be better horsed, but that it
should be turned right round and started on a new track."
This may seem a violent metaphor, but perhaps it is not
more violent than the change that was (and in this country
still is) necessary. Let us try to ascertain what is the right
road according to Pestalozzi, and then see on what road the
school-coach is now travelling.
§ 83. The grand change advocated by Pestalozzi was a
change of object. The main object of the school should
not be to teach but to develop.
§ 84. This change of object naturally brings many
changes with it. Measured by their capacity for acquiring
school knowledge and skill young children may be con-
sidered, as one of H.M. Inspectors considered them, "the
fag-end of the school." But if the school exists not to
teach but to develop, young children, instead of being the
" fag-end," become the most important part of all. In the
development of all organisms more depends on the earlier
than on the later stages \ and there is no reason to doubt
that this law holds in the case of human beings. On this
account, from the days of Pestalozzi educational science
has been greatly, I may say mainly, concerned with young
children. For the dominating thought has been that the
young human being is an undeveloped organism, and that
in education that organism is developed. So the essence of
Pestalozzianism lies not so much in its method as in its aim,
not more m what it does than in what it endeavours to do.
PESTALOZZI. 355
True dignity of man.
§ 85. And thus it Wcas that Pestalozzi (in Raumer's
words) " compelled the scholastic world to revise the whole
of their task, to reflect on the nature and destiny of man,
and also on the proper way of leading him from his youth
towards that destiny." And it was his love of his fellow-
creatures that raised him to this standpoint. He was moved
by "the enthusiasm of humanity." Consumed with grief
for the degradation of the Swiss peasantry, he never lost
faith in their true dignity as men, and in the possibility of
raising them to a condition worthy of it. He cast about for
the best means of thus raising them, and decided that it
could be effected, not by any improvement in their outward
circumstances, but by an education which should make them
what their Creator intended them to be, and should give
them the use and the consciousness of all their inborn
faculties. " From my youth up," he says, " I felt what a
high and indispensable human duty it is to labour for the
poor and miserable ; . . . that he may attain to a
consciousness of his own dignity through his feeling .of the
universal powers and endowments which he possesses
awakened within him ; that he may not only learn to gabble
over by rote the religious maxim that * man is created in
the image of God, and is bound to Hve and die as a child
of God,' but may himself experience its truth by virtue of
the Divine power within him, so that he may be raised, not
only above the ploughing oxen, but also above the man in
purple and silk who lives unworthily of his high destiny "
(Quoted in Barnard, p. 13).
Again he says (and I quote at length on the point, as it
is indeed the key to Pestalozzianism), " Why have I msisted
so strongly on attention to early physical and intellectual
education ? Because I consider these as merely leadmg to
356 PESTALOZZI.
Education for all. Mothers' part. Jacob's Ladder.
a higher aim, to quahfy the human being for the free and
full use of all the faculties implanted by the Creator, and
to direct all these faculties towards the perfection of the
whole being of man, that he may be enabled to act in
his peculiar station as an instrument of that All-wise and
Almighty Power that has called him into life " (To
Greaves, p. i6o).
§ 86. Believing in this high aim of education, Pestalozzi
required a proper early training for all alike. "Every
human being," said he, "has a claim to a judicious develop-
ment of his faculties by those to whom the care of his
infancy is confided" {lb. p. 163).
§ 87. Pestalozzi therefore most earnestly addressed him-
self to mothers, to convince them of the power placed in
their hands, and to teach them how to use it. "The
mother is qualified, and qualified by the Creator Himself,
to become the principal agent in the development of her
child ; . . . and what is demanded of her is — a thinking
love, . . . God has given to thy child all the faculties
of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided — how
shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to
whose service shall they be dedicated ? A question the
answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to
a life so dear to thee. . . . It is recorded that God
opened the heavens to the patriarch of old, and showed him
a ladder leading thither. This ladder is let down to every
descendant of Adam ; it is offered to thy child. But he
must be taught to climb it. And let him not attempt it b>
the cold calculations of the head, or the mere impulse of
the heart ; but let all these powers combine, and the noble
enterprise will be crowned with success. These powers are
already bestowed on him, but to thee it is givea to assist in
PESTALOZZI. 357
Educator only superintends.
calling them forth" (To Greaves, p. 21). "Maternal love
is the first agent in education. . . . Through it the
child is led to love and trust his Creator and his Redeemer."
§ 88. From the theory of development which lay at the
root of Pestalozzi's views of education, It followed that the
imparting of knowledge and the training for special pursuits
held only a subordinate position in his scheme. " Educa-
tion, instead of merely considering what is to be imparted
to children, ought to consider first what they may be said
already to possess, if not as a developed, at least as an
involved faculty capable of development. Or if, instead of
speaking thus in the abstract, we will but recollect that it is
to the great Author of life that man owes the possession,
and is responsible for the use, of his innate faculties,
education should not simply decide what is to be made of a
child, but rather inquire what it was intended that he
should become. What is his destiny as a created and
responsible being ? What are his faculties as a rational and
moral being? What are the means for their perfection, and
the end held out as the highest object of their efforts by the
Almighty Father of all, both in creation and in the page of
revelation ? "
§ 89. Education, then, must consist "in a continual
benevolent superintendence^ with the object of calling forth all
the faculties which Providence has implanted; and its
province, thus enlarged, will yet be with less difficulty
surveyed from one point of view, and will have more of a
systematic and truly philosophical character, than an in-
coherent mass of * lessons ' — arranged without unity of
principle, and gone through without interest — which too
often usurps its name."
The educator's task, then is to superintend and promote
358 PESTALOZZI.
First, moral development.
the child's development, morally, intellectually, and physi-
cally.
§ 90. " The essential principle of education is not
teaching," said Pestalozzi ; "it is love" (R.'s G., 289).
Again he says, "The child loves and believes before it
thinks and acts" (lb. 378). And in a very striking passage
{lb, 329), where he compares the development of the
various powers of a human being to the development of a
tree, he says, " These forces of the heart — faith and love—
are in the formation of immortal man what the root is for
the tree." So, according to Pestalozzi, a child without faith
and love can no more grow up to be what he should be
than a tree can grow without a root. Apart from this vital
truth there can be no such thing as Pestalozzianism.
" Ah yet when all is thought and said
The heart still overrules the head."
It is our hearts and affections that lead us right or wrong
far more than our intellects. In advocating the training of
the minds of the people. Lord Derby once remarked that as
Chairman of Quarter Sessions he had found most of the
culprits brought before him were stupid and ignorant. It
certainly cannot be denied that the commonest kind of
criminal is bad in every way. He has his body ruined
by debauchery, his intellect almost in abeyance, and his
heart and affections set on what is vile and degrading. If
you could cultivate his intellect you would certainly raise
him out of the lowest and by far the largest of the criminal
classes. But he might become a criminal of a type less
disgusting in externals, but in reality far more dangerous.
The most atrocious miscreant of our time, if not of all time,
was a man who contrived a machine to sink ships in mid-
ocean, his only object being to gain a sum of money on a
I
PESTALOZZI. 359
Moral and religious the same.
false insurance. This man was a type of the klite of
criminals, had received an intellectual training, and could
not have been described by Lord Derby as ignorant or
stupid.
§ 91. Pestalozzi then, much as he valued the develop-
ment of the intellect, put first the moral and religious
influence of education ; and with him moral and religious
were one and the same. He protested against the ordinary
routine of elementary education, because " everywhere in it
the flesh predominated over the spirit, everywhere the divine
element was cast into the shade, everywhere selfishness and
the passions were taken as the motives of action, everywhere
mechanical habits usurped the place of intelligent spon-
taneity " (R.'s G., 470). Education for the people must be
different to this. " Man does not live by bread alone ;
every child needs a religious development ; every child
needs to know how to pray to God in all simplicity,
but with faith and love" (R.'s G., 378). " If the religious
element does not run through the whole of education, this
element will have little influence on the life; it remains
formal or isolated " * {lb, 381). And Pestalozzi sums up the
essentials of popular education in the words ; " The child
* The disciple is not above his master, and if parents and teachers are
without sympathy and religious feeling the children will also be without
faith and love. This cannot be urged too strongly on those who have
charge of the young. But there is no test by which we can ascertain
that a master has these essential qualifications. As in the Christian
ministry the unfit can be shut out only by their own consciences. But
let no one think to understand education if he loses sight of what Joseph
Payne has called " Pestalozzi's simple but profound discovery — the
teacher must have a heart." "Soul is kindled only by soul," says
Carlyle ; " to teach religion the first thing needful and also the last and
only thing is finding of a man who has religion. All else follows."
360 PESTALOZZI.
Second, intellectual development.
accustomed from his earliest years to pray, to think, and to
work, is already more than half educated " {lb. 381).
§ 92. Here we see the main requisites. First the child
must pray with faith and love. Next he must think.
" The child must think ! " exclaims the schoolmaster :
" Must he not learn ? " To which Pestalozzi would have
replied, " Most certainly he must." Learning was not in
Pestalozzi's estimation as in Locke's, the " last and least "
thing, but learning was with him something very different
from the learning imparted by the ordinary schoolmaster.
Pestalozzi was very imperfectly acquainted with the thoughts
and efforts of his predecessors, but the one book on educa-
tion which he had studied had freed him from the " idols "
of the schoolroom. This book was the Emile of Rousseau,
and from it he came no less than Rousseau himself to despise
the learning of the schoolmaster. But when he had to face
the problem of organizing a course of education for the
people, Pestalozzi did not agree with Rousseau that the
first twelve years should be spent in " losing time." No,
the children must learn, but ihey must learn in such a way
as to develop all the powers of the mind. And so Pestalozzi
was led to what he considered his great discovery, viz., that
all instruction must be based on " Anschauung."
§ 93. The Germans, who have devoted so much thought
and care and effort to education, greatly honour Pestalozzi,*
and as his disciples aim at making all elementary instruction
* In 1872, a Congress in which more than 10,000 German elementary
teachers were represented, petitioned the Prussian Government for " the
organization of training schools in accordance with the pedagogic
principles of Pestalozzi, which formerly enjoyed so much favour m
Prussia and so visibly contributed to the regeneration of the country.''
PESTALOZZI. 361
Learning by " intuition."
*' anschaulich." We English have troubled ourselves so
little about Pestalozzi, or, I might say, about the theory of
education, that we have not cared to get equivalent words
for Anschauung and anschaulich. For Anschauung " sense-
impression " has lately been tried ; but this is in two ways
defective; for (i) there may be " Anschauungen " beyond
the range of the senses, and (2) there is in an " Anschauung "
an active as well as a passive element, and this the word
" impression " does not convey. The active part is brought
out better by * observation " — the word used by Joseph
Payne and James MacAlister ; but this seems hardly wide
enough. Other writers of English borrow words straight from
the French, and talk about "intuition" and "intuitive,"
words which were taken (first I believe by Kant) from the
Latin intueri^ " to look at with attention and reflection.'^
§ 94. I think we shall be wise in following these writers.
On good authority I have heard of a German professor who
when asked if he had read some large work recently pub-
lished in the distressing: type of his nation, replied that he
had not ; he was waiting for a French translation. If the
Germans find that the French express their thoughts more
clearly than they can themselves, we may think ourselves
fortunate when the French will act as interpreters. I there-
fore gladly turn to M. Buisson and translate what he says
about " intuition."
"Intuition is just the most natural and most spon-
taneous action of human intelligence, the action by which
the mind seizes a reality without effort, hesitation, or
go-between. It is a * direct apperception,' made as it were
at a glance. If it has to do with some matter within the
province of the senses, the senses perceive it at once. Here
we have the simplest case of all, the most common, the
362 PESTALOZZI.
Buisson and JuUien on intuition.
most easily noted. If the thing concerned is an idea, a
reaHty, that is, beyond the reach of the senses, we still say
that we seize it by intuition when all that is necessary is that
it present itself to the mind, and the mind at once grasps
it and is satisfied with it without any need of proof or
investigation. We advance by intuition whenever our mind,
acting by the senses, or by the judgment, or by the con-
science, knows things with the same amount of evidence and
the same amount of speed that a distinct view of an object
affords the eye. So intuition is no separate faculty ; it is
nothing strange or new in the mind of man. It is just the
mind itself ' intuitively ' recognising what exists in it or
around it" (^Les Conferences Fed. faites mix InstitiiteurSy
Delagrave, 1879, p. 331). So the "intuitive method" (to
keep the French name for it) is of very wide application.
" It appeals to this force sui generis^ to this glance of the
mind, to this spontaneous spring of the intelligence towards
truth." It sets the pupil's mind to work in following his
own intellectual instincts. If in our teaching we can use it,
we shall have gained, as M. Buisson says, the best helper in the
world, viz., the pupil. If he can be got to take an active
part in the instruction all difficulty vanishes at once. Instead
of having to drag him along, you will see him delighted to
keep you company.
§ 95. According to M. Buisson there are three kinds of
intuition — sensuous, intellectual, and moral. Similarly M.
Jullien {Esprit de Pestalozzi^ 18 12, vol. j, p. 152) says that
there are " intuitions " of the " internal senses " as well as
of the external : the "internal senses" are four in number:
first, the sense for the true ; second, the sense for the beauti-
ful ; third, the sense for the good ; fourth, the sense for the
infinite.
PESTALOZZI. 363
Pestalozzi and Locke.
§ 96. Without settling whether this analysis is complete
we shall have no difficulty in admitting that both body and
mind have faculties by means of which we apprehend, lay
hold of, what is true and right ; and it is on the use of these
faculties that Pestalozzi bases instruction. No Englishman
may have found a good word to indicate A7zschauung, but one
Englishman at least had the idea of it long before Pestalozzi.
More than a century earlier Locke had called knowledge
" the internal perception of the mind." " Knowing is see-
ing," said he ; " and if it be so, it is madness to persuade
ourselves we do so by another man's eyes, let him use never
so many words to tell us that what he asserts is very
visible " {Supra p. 222).
§ 97. Thus in theory Pestalozzi was, however unconsci-
ously, a follower of Locke. But in practice they went far
asunder. Locke's thoughts were constantly occupied with
philosophical investigations, and he seems to have made
small account of the intellectual power of children, and to
have supposed that they cannot " see " anything at all. So
he cared little what was taught them, and till they reached
the age of reason the tutor might give such lessons as
would be useful to " young gentlemen," the avowed object
being to "keep them from sauntering." His follower
Rousseau preferred that the child's mind should not be
filled with the traditional lore of the schoolroom, and that
the instructor, when the youth reached the age of twelve,
should find "an unfurnished apartment to let." Then came
Pestalozzi, and he saw that at whatever age the instructor
began to teach the child, he would not find an unfurnished
apartment, seeing that every child learns continuously from
the hour of its birth. And how does the child learn ? Not
by repeating words which express the thoughts, feelings, and
364 PESTALOZZI.
Subjects for, and art of, teaching.
experiences of other people,* but by his own experiences
and feelings, and by the thoughts which these suggest to
him.
§ 98. Elementary education then on its intellectual side
is teaching the child to think. The proper subjects of
thought for children Pestalozzi held to be the children's
surroundings, the realities of their own lives, the things that
affect them and arouse their feelings and interests. Perhaps
he did not emphasize interest as much as Herbart has done
since ; but clearly an Anschauung or *' intuition " is only
possible when the child is interested in the thing observed.
§ 99. The art of teaching in Pestalozzi's system consists
in analyzing the knowledge that the children should acquire
about their surroundings, arranging it in a regular sequence,
and bringing it to the children's consciousness gradually and
in the way in which their minds will act upon it. In this
way they learn slowly, but all they learn is their own.
They are not like the crow drest up in peacock's feathers, for
• Did Pestalozzi make due allowance foi the system of thought which
every child inherits? Groom Robertson in "How we came by our
Knowledge " [.Nineteenth Century^ No. I, March, 1877), without men
tioning Pestalozzi, seems to differ from him. Groom Robertson says
that *' Ghildren being born into the world are born into society, and are
acted on by overpowering social influences before they have any chance
of being their proper selves. . . , The words and sentences that
fall upon a child's ear and are soon upon his lips, express not so much
his subjective experience as the common experience of his kind, which
becomes as it were an objective rule or measure to which his shall
conform. . , . He does, he must, accept what he is told j and in
general he is only too glad to find his own experience in accordance
with it. . . . We use our incidental, by which I mean our natural
subjective experience, mainly to decipher and verify the ready-made
scheme of knowledge that is given us en bloc with the words of our
mother- tongue " (pp. 117, iiS).
PESTALOZZI. 365
" Mastery.
they have not appropriated any dead knowledge (" angelernte
todte Begriffe^^ as Diesterweg has it), and it cannot be said
of them, " They know about much, but knotv nothing {Sit
kennen viel und ivissen nichts)." Their knowledge is actual
knowledge, for they are taught not what to think but to
think^ and to exercise their powers of observation and draw
conclusions from their own experience. The teacher
simply furnishes materials and occasions for this exercise
in observing, and as it goes on gives his benevolent super-
intendence.
§ 100. They learn slowly for another reason. Accord-
ing to Pestalozzi the first conceptions must be dwelt upon
till they are distinct and firmly fixed. Buss tells us that
when he first joined Pestalozzi at Burgdorf the delay over
the prime elements seemed to him a waste of time, but
that afterwards he was convinced of its being the right plan,
and felt that the failure of his own education was due to its
incoherent and desultory character. "Not only," says
Pestalozzi, " have the first elements of knowledge in every
subject the most important bearing on its complete outline,
but the child's confidence and interest are gained by perfect
attainment even in the lowest stage of instruction." *
* One of the most interesting and most difficult problems in teaching
is this: — How long should the beginner be kept to the rudiments?
With young children, to whom ideas come fast, the main thing is no
doubt to take care that these ideas become distinct and are made **the
intellectual property " of the learners. But after a year or two
children will be impatient to **get on," and if they seem "marking
time" will be bored and discouraged. Then again in some subjects
the elementary parts seem clear only to those who have a conception of
the whole. As Diderot says in a passage I have seen quoted from Lc
Aeveu de Rameatt^ ** II faut etre profond dans I'art ou dans la science
26
$66 PESTALOZZI.
The body's part in education.
§ loi. We have seen that Pestalozzi would have
children learn to pray, to think, and to work. In schools
for the soi-disanf " upper classes " the parents or friends of
a boy sometimes say, "There is no need for him to work
he will be very well off." From this kind of demoralization
Pestalozzi's pupils were free. They would have to work,
and Pestalozzi wished them to learn to work as soon as pos-
sible. In this way he sought to increase their self-respect,
and to unite their school-life with their life beyond it.*
§ 1 02. Pestalozzi was tremendously in earnest, and he
wished the children also to take instruction seriously. He
was totally opposed to the notion which had found favour
with many great authorities as eg., Locke and Basedow,
that instruction should always be given in the guise of
amusement. "I am convinced," says he, "that such a
pour en bien posseder les elements." " C'est le milieu et la fin qui
eclaircissent les tenebres du commencement." The greatest "coach "
in Cambridge . used to "rush" his men through their subjects and
then go back again for thorough learning. To be sure, the * * scientific
method " suitable for young men differs greatly from the "heuristic" or
" method of investigation," which is best for children. (See Joseph
Payne's Lecture on Pestalozzi.) But even with children we should bear
in mind Niemeyer's caution, " Thoroughness itself may become super-
ficial by exaggeration ; for it may keep too long to a part and in this
way fail to complete and give any notion of the whole" (Quoted
by O. Fischer, Wichtigste Pad. 213).
* Nearly 20 years ago (1871) appeared a paper on "Elementary
National Education " in which "John Parkin, M.D.," advocated making
all our elementary schools industrial, not only for practical purposes,
but still more for the sake of physical education. The paper attracted
no notice at the time, but now we are beginning to see that the body is
concerned in education as well as the mind, and that the mind learns
through it " without book. " The application of this truth will bring
about many changes.
PESTALOZZI. 367
Learning must not be play.
notion will for ever preclude solidity of knowledge, and, for
want of sufficient exertions on the part of the pupils, will
lead to that very result which I wish to avoid by my
principle of a constant employment of the thinking powers.
Actild must very early in life be taught the lesson that
exertion is indispensable for the attainment of knowledge ""*
(To G.J xxiv, p. 117). But he should be taught at the same
time that exertion is not an evil, and he should be encouraged,
not frightened, into it. Healthy exertion, whether of body
or mind, is always attended with a feeling of satisfaction
amounting to pleasure, and where this pleasure is absent the
instructor has failed in producing proper exertion. As
Pestalozzi says, "Whenever children are inattentive and
apparently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should
always first look to himself for the reason "f {Jb.).
* Herliart, when he visited Pestalozzi at Burgdorf, observed that
though Pestalozzi's kindness was apparent to all, he took no pains in his
teaching to mix the dtilce with the utile. He never talked to the children,
or joked, or gave them an anecdote. This, however, did not surprise
Herbart, whose own experience had taught him that when the subject
requires earnest attention the children do not like it the better for the
teacher's "fun." "The feeling of clear apprehension," says he, *'I
held to be the only genuine condiment of instruction " (Herbart's Pad.
Schriften^ ed. by O. Willmann, j. 89).
\ First look to himself, but there may be other causes of failure as
well. The great thing is never to put up contentedly, or even discon-
tentedly, with failure. In teaching classes of lads from ten to sixteen
years old, when I have found the lessons in any subject were not going
well, I have sometimes taken the class into my confidence, told them
that they no doubt felt as I did that this lesson was a dull one, and
asked them each to put on paper what he considered to be the reasons,
and also to make any suggestions that occurred to him. In this way I
have got some very good hints, and I have always been helped in my
effort to understand how the work seemed to the pupils. Every teacher
<
368 PESTALOZZI.
Singing and drawing.
§ 103. But though he took so serious a view of instruc-
tion, he made instruction include and indeed give a promi-
nent place to the arts of singing and drawing. In the
Pestalozzian schools singing found immense favour with both
the masters and the pupils, and the collection of songs by
Nageh, a master at Yverdun, became famous. Drawing loo
was practised by all. As Pestalozzi writes to Greaves (xxiv,
117), "A person who is in the habit of drawing, especially
from nature, will easily perceive many circumstances which
are commonly overlooked, and will form a much more correct
impression even of such objects as he does not stop to
examine minutely, than one who has never been taught to
look upon what he sees with an intention of reproducing a
likeness of it. The attention to the exact shape of the
whole and the proportion of the parts, which is requisite for
the taking of an adequate sketch, is converted into a habit,
and becomes productive both of instruction and amuse-
ment."
§ 104. I have now endeavoured to point out the main
features of Pestalozzianism. The following is the summing
up of these features given by Morf in his Contribution to
Pestalozzi's Biography : —
I. Instruction must be based on the learner's own
experience. (Das Fundament des Unterrichts ist
die Anschauung.)
should make this effort. As Pestalozzi says, ** Could we conceive the
indescribable tedium which must oppress the young mind while the
weary hours are slowly passing away one a^ter another in occupations
which it can neither relish nor understand ... we should no
longer be surprised at the remissness of the schoolboy creeping like
snail unwillingly to school " (To G., xxx, 150).
PESTALOZZI. 369
Morfs summing-up.
2. What the learner experiences and observes must be
connected with language.
3. The time for learning is not the time for judging, not
the time for criticism.
4. In every department instruction must begin with the
simplest elements, and starting from these must
be carried on step by step according to the develop-
ment of the child, that is, it must be brought into
psychological sequence.
5. At each point the instructor shall not go forward till
that part of the subject has become the proper
intellectual possession of the learner.
6. Instruction must follow the path of development, not
the path of lecturing, teaching, or telling.
7. To the educator the individuality of the child must be
sacred.
8. Not the acquisition of knowledge or skill is the main
object of elementary instruction, but the development
and strengthening of the powers of the mind.
9. With knowledge ( Wissen) must come power {K6nnen\
with information (Kenntniss) skill {Fertigkeit),
10. Intercourse between educator and pupil, and school
discipline especially, must be based on and controlled
by love.
1 1. Instruction shall be subordinated to the aim of educa-
tion.
12. The ground of moral-religious bringing up lies in the
relation of mother and child.*
* With Morfs summing-up it is interesting to c )mpare Joseph Payne's,
given at the end of his lecture on Pestalozzi :
' I. The principles of education are not to be devised ad extra ; they
are :o be sought for in human nature.
n^
PESTALOZZI.
Joseph Payne's summing-up.
§ 105. Having now seen in which direction Pestalozzi
w^ould start the school-coach, let us examine (with reference
II. This nature is an organic nature — a plexus of bodily, intellectual
and moral capabilities, ready for development, and struggling to develop
themselves.
III. The education conducted by the formal educator has both a
negative and a positive side. The negative function of the educator
consists in removing impediments, so as to afford free scope for the
learner's self-development. His positive function is to stimulate the
learner to the exercise of his powers, to furnish materials and occasion
for the exercise, and to superintend and maintain the action of the
machinery.
IV. Self-development begins Avith the impressions received by the
mind from external objects. These impressions (called sensations),
when the mind becomes conscious of them, group themselves into per-
ceptions. These are registered in the mind as conceptions or ideas, and
constitute that elementary knowledge which is the basis of all know-
ledge.
V. Spontaneity and self-activity are the necessary conditions under
which the mind educates itself and gains power and independence.
VI. Practical aptness or faculty, depends more on habits gained by
the assiduous oft-repeated exercise of the learner's active powers than on
knowledge alone. Knowing and doing ( Wissen und Kmtien) must,
however, proceed together. The chief aim of all education (including
instruction) is the development of the learner's powers.
VII. All education (including instruction) must be grounded on the
learner's own observation [Ansc/iatiung) at first hand — on his own
personal experience. This is the true basis of all his knowledge. First
the reality, then the symbol j first the thing, then the word, not vice
versd.
VIII. That which the learner has gained by his own observation
(Afischazitmg) and which, as a part of his personal experience, is incor-
porated with his mind, he kiiozvs and can describe or explain in his own
words. His competency to do this is the measure of the accuracy of
his observation, and consequently of his knowledge.
IX. Personal experience necessitates the advancement of the learner's
mind from the near and actual, with which he is in contact, and which
H
PESTALOZZI. 37 T
The "two nations." Mother's lessons.
to England only) the direction in which it is travelling at
present.
§ 1 06. For educational purposes we may, with Lord
Beaconsfield, regard the English as composed of two nations,
the rich and the poor. Let us consider these separately.
In the case of the rich we find that the worst part of our
educational course — the part most wrong in theory and
pernicious in practice — is the schooling of young children,
say between six and twelve years old. Before the age of
six some few are fortunate enough to attend a good Kinder-
garten ; but the opportunity of doing this is at present rare,
and for most children of well-to-do parents there is, up to
six years old, little or no organised instruction. Pestalozzi
would have every mother made capable of giving such
instruction. Froebel would have every child sent to a
skilled "Kindergartnerin." It seems to me beyond question
that children gain immensely from joining a properly-managed
Kindergarten ; but where this is impossible, perhaps the
mother may leave the child to the series of impressions
which come to its senses without any regular order. Ac-
cording to the first Lord Lytton, the mother's interference
might remind us of the man who thought his bees would
make honey faster if, instead of going in search of flowers,
they were shut up and had flowers brought to them. The way
he can deal with himself, to the more remote ; therefore from the
concrete to the abstract, from particulars to generals, from the known
to the unknown. This is the method of elementary education ; the
opposite proceeding — the usual proceeding of our traditional teaching —
leads the mind from the abstract to the concrete, from generals to
particulars, from the unknown to the known. This latter is the
Scientific method — a method suited only to the advanced learnei, who
it assumes is already trained by the Elementary method.
372
PESTALOZZI.
Mistakes in teaching children.
in which young children turn from object to object, like the
bees from flower to flower, seems to show that at this stage
their intellectual training goes on whether we help it or not.
There is no doubt an education for children however young,
and the mother is the teacher, but the lessons have more to
do with the heart than the head.
§ 107. But the time for regular teaching comes at last,
and what is to be done then ? Let us consider briefly what
is done.
Hitherto, the only defence ever made of our school-course
leading up to residence at a University, has been that it
aims not at giving knowledge but at training the mind.
Youths then are supposed to be engaged, not in gaining
knowledge, but in training their faculties for adult life. But
when we come to provide for the " education " of children,
we never think of training their faculties for youth, but
endeavour solely to inculcate what will then come in useful.
We see clearly enough that it would be absurd to cram the
mind of a youth with laws of science or art or commerce
which he could not understand, on the ground that the
getting-up of these things might save him trouble in after-
life. But we do not hesitate to sacrifice childhood to the
learning by heart of grammar rules, Latin declensions,
historical dates, and the like, with no thought whatever of
the child's faculties, but simply with a view of giving him
knowledge (so-called) that will come in useful five or six
years afterwards. We do not treat youths thus, probably
because we have more sympathy with them, or at least
understand them better. The intellectual life to which the
senses and the imagination are subordinated in the man
has already begun in the youth. In an inferior degree he
can do what the man can do, and understand what the man
PESTALOZZI. 373
Children and their teachers.
can understand. He has already some notion of reasoning,
and abstraction, and generalisation. But with the child it
is very different. His active faculties may be said almost
to differ in kind from a man's. He has a feeling for the
sensuous world which he will lose as he grows up. His
strong imagination, under no control of the reason, is con-
stantly at work building castles in the air, and investing the
doll or the puppet-show with all the properties of the things
they represent. His feelings and affections, easily excited,
find an object to love or dislike in every person and thing
he meets with. On the other hand, he has only vague
notions of the abstract, and has no interest except in actual
known persons, animals, and things.
§ 1 08. There is, then, between the child of eight or nine
and the youth of fourteen or fifteen a greater difference than
between the youth and the man of twenty ; and this de-
mands a corresponding difference in their studies. And
yet, as matters are carried on now, the child is too often
kept to the drudgery of learning by rote mere collections
of hard words, perhaps, too, in a foreign language : and
absorbed in the present, he is not much comforted by the
teacher's assurance that " some day " these things will come
in useful.
§ 109. How to educate the child is doubtless the most
difficult problem of all, and it is generally allotted to those
who are the least likely to find a satisfactory solution.
The earliest educator of the children of many rich parents
is the nursemaid — a person not usually distinguished by
either intellectual or moral excellence.* At an early age
* Most parents do not seem to think with Jean Paul, " If we
regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the
world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his
nurse." {Levana, quoted in Morley's Rousseau.)
374 PESTALOZZI.
Preparatory" Schools.
this educator is superseded by the Preparatory School.
Taken as a body, the ladies who open " establishments for
young gentlemen " cannot be said to hold enlarged views,
or, indeed, any views whatever, on the subject of education.
Their intention is not so much to cultivate the children's
faculties as to make a livelihood, and to hear no complaints
that pupils who have left them have been found deficient
in the expected knowledge by the master of the next school.
If anyone would investigate the sort of teaching which is
considered adapted to the capacity of children at this stage,
let him look into a standard work still in vogue (" Hang-
nail's Questions "), from which the young of both sexes
acquire a great quantity and variety of learning ; the whole
of ancient and modern history and biography, together with
the heathen mythology, the planetary system, and the names
of all the constellations, lying very compactly in about 300
pages.*
Unfortunately, moreover, from the gentility of these
ladies, their scholars' bodies are often treated in preparatory
schools no less injuriously than their minds. It may be
natural in a child to use his lungs and delight in noise, but
* I will quote the first paragraph of this work which is still
considered mental pabulum suited to the digestions of young ladies and
children : —
'■''Name some of the most Ancient Kingdoms. — Chaldea, Babylonia,
Assyria, China in Asia, and Egypt in Africa. Nimrod, the grandson
of Ham, is supposed to have founded the first of these B.C. 2221, as
well as the famous cities of Babylon and Nineveh ; his kingdom being
within the fertile plains of Chaldea, Chalonltis, and Assyria, was of
small extent compared with the vast empires that afterwards arose
from it, but included several large cities. In the district called
Babylonia were the cities of Babylon, Barsita, Idicarra, and Vologsia,"
&c., &c
PESTALOZZI. 375
Young boys ill taught at school.
this can hardly be considered genteel, so the tendency is,
as far as possible, suppressed. It is found, too, that if
children are allowed to run about they get dirty and spoil
their clothes, and do not look like " young gentlemen," so
they are made to take exercise in a much more genteel
fashion, walking slowly two-and-two, with gloves ofi*
§ no. At nine or ten years old, boys are commonly put
to a school taught by masters. Here they lose sight of
their gloves, and learn the use of their limbs; but their
minds are not so fortunate as their bodies. The studies
of the school have been arranged without any thought of
their pecuHar needs. The youngest class is generally the
largest, often much the largest, and it is handed over to
the least competent and worst paid master on the staff of
teachers. The reason is, that little boys are found to learn
the tasks imposed upon them very slowly. A youth or a
man who came fresh to the Latin grammar would learn in
a morning as much as the master, with great labour, can
get into children in a week. It is thought, therefore, that
the best teaching should be applied where it will have the
most obvious results. If anyone were to say to the manager
* I shall always feel gratitude and affection for the two old ladies
(sisters) to whom I was entrusted over half a century ago. More
truly Christian women I never met with. But of the science and art
of education they were totally ignorant ; and moreover the premises
they occupied were unfit for a school. As all the boys were under ten
years old, it will seem strange, but is alas ! too true, that there were
vices among them which are supposed to be unknown to children and
•which if discovered would have made the old ladies close their school.
The want of subjects in which the children can take a healthy
interest will in a great measure account for the spread of evil in such
schools. On this point some mistresses and most parents are
dangerously ignorant.
376 PESTALOZZI.
English folk-schools not Pestalozzian.
of a school, " The master who takes the lowest form teaches
badly, and the children learn nothing " ; he would perhaps
say, " Very likely ; but if I paid a much higher salary, and
got a better man, they would learn but little." The only
thing the school-manager thinks of is. How much do the
little boys learn of what is taught in the higher forms ?
How their faculties are being developed, or whether they
have any faculties except for reading, writing, and arithmetic,
and for getting grammar-rules, &c. by heart, he is not so
" unpractical " as to enquire.
§ III. With reference to the education of the first of our
"two nations," it seems then pretty clear that Pestalozzi
would require that the school-coach should be turned and
started in a totally different direction.
§ 112. What about the education of the other "nation,"
a nation of which the verb "to rule " has for many centuries
been used in the passive voice, but can be used in that
voice no longer? A century ago, with the partial exception
of Scotland and Massachusetts, there was no such thing as
school education for the people to be found anywhere in
Europe or America. But from 1789 onwards power has
been passing more and more from the few to the many ;
and as a natural consequence folk-schools (for which we
have not yet found a name) have become of vast importance
everywhere. The Germans, as we have seen, have been
the disciples of Pestalozzi, and their elementary education
in everything bears traces of his ideas. The English have
organised a great system of elementary education in total
ignorance of Pestalozzi. As usual, we seem to have sup-
posed that the right system would come to us " in sleep."
But has it come ? The children of the poor are now com-
pelled by the law to attend an elementary school. What
PESTALOZZI 377
Schools judged by results.
sort of an education has the law there provided for them ?
The Education Department professes to measure everything
by results. Let us do the same. Suppose that on his
leaving school we wished to forecast a lad's future. What
should we try to find out about him ? No doubt we should
ask what he knew ; but this would not be by any means
the main thing. His skill would interest us, and still more
would his state of health. But what we should ask first
and foremost is this, Whom does he love? Whom does
he admire and imitate ? What does he care about ? What
interests him ? It is only when the answers to these ques-
tions are satisfactory, that we can think hopefully of his
future ; and it is only in so far as the school-course has
tended to make the answers satisfactory, that it deserves
our approval. Schools such as Pestalozzi designed would
have thus deserved our approval ; but we cannot say this
of the schools into which the children of the English poor
are now driven. In these schools the heart and the affec-
tions are not thought of, the powers of neither mind nor
body are developed by exercise, and the children do not
acquire any interests that will raise or benefit them.
§ 113. An advocate of our system would not deny this,
but would probably say, " The question for us to consider
is, not what is the best that in the most favourable circum-
stances might be attempted, but what is the best that in
very restricted and by no means favourable circumstances,
we are likely to get. The teachers in our schools are not
self-devoting Pestalozzis, but only ordinary men and women,
and still worse, ordinary boys and girls.* It would be of
* Having watched the "teaching" of pupil-teachers, I find hat
some of them (I may say many) never address more than one child at
a time, and never attempt to gain the attention of more than a single
373 PESTALOZZI.
Pupil-teachers. Teaching not educating.
no use talking to our teachers (still less our pupil-teachers)
about developing the affections and the mental or bodily
powers of the children. All such talk could end in nothing
but silly cant. As for character, we expect the school to
cultivate in the children habits of order, neatness, industry.
Beyond this we cannot go."
And yet, though this seems reasonable, we feel that it is
not quite satisfactory. If so much depends in all of us on
"admiration, hope, and love," we can hardly consider a
system of education that entirely ignores them to be well
child. So, by a very simple calculation, we can get at the maximum
time each child is "under instruction." If the pupil-teacher has but
three-quarters of the pupils for whom the Department supposes him
"sufficient," each child cannot be under instruction more than two
minutes in the hour. The rest of the time the children must sit
quiet, or be cuffed if they do not. What is called " simultaneous "
teaching in, say, reading, consists in the pupil-teacher reading from the
book, and as he pronounces each word, the children shout it after him ;
but no one except the pupil-teacher knows the place in the book.
But perhaps the dangers from employing boys and girls to teach and
govern children are greater morally than intellectually. Whether lie
report on it or not, the Inspector has less influence on the moral
training than the youngest pupil-teacher. Channing has well said :
" A child compelled for six hours each day to see the countenance and
hear the voice of an unfeeling, petulant, passionate, unjust teacher is
placed in a school of vice." Those who have never taught day after
day, week after week, month after month, little know what demands
school-work makes on the temper and the sense of justice. The
harshest tyrants are usually those who are raised but a little way
above those whom they have to control ; and when I think of the
pupil-teacher with his forty pupils to keep in order, I heartily pity both
him and them. Is there not too much reason to fear lest in many
cases the school should prove for both what Channing has well
described as "a scliool of vice"? (R. H. Q. in Spectator^ ist March,
1890.)
PESTALOZZI. 379
Lowe or Pestalozzi?
adapted to the needs of human nature. If Pestalozzi was
right, we must be wrong. We have never supposed the
object of the school to be the development of the faculties
of heart, of head, and of hand, but we have thought of
nothing but learning — learning first of all to read, write,
and cipher, and then in "good" schools, one or more
" extra subjects " may be taken up, and a grant obtained
for them. The sole object, both of managers and teachers,
is to prepare for the Inspector, who comes once a year, and
from an examination of five hours or so, pronounces on
what the children have learnt.
§ 114. The engineer most concerned in the construction
of this machme, the Right Hon. Robert Lowe., announced
that there could be " no such thing as a science of educa-
tion ;" and as when we have no opinion of our own we always
adopt the opinion of some positive person, we took his word
for it. But what if the confident Mr. Lowe was mistaken ?
What if there is such a science, and the aim of it is that
children should grow up not so much to know something as
to be something ? In this case we shall be obliged sooner
or later to give up Mr. Lowe and to come round to
Pestalozzi.* Science is correct inferences drawn from the
facts of the universe; and where such science exists, confident
assertions that it does not and cannot exist are dangerous
for the confident persons and for those who follow them. Even
* Since the above was written, another *' New Code " has appeared
(March, 1890), in which the system of measuring by "passes," a
system maintained (in spite of the remonstrances of all interested in
education) for nearly 30 years, is at length abandoned. We are
certainly travelling, however slowly, away from Mr. Lowe. Far as we
are still from Pestalozzi there seems reason to hope that the distance is
diminishing.
38o PESTALOZZI.
Chief force, personality of the teacher.
if " there is no such thing as a science of education," such
a thing as education there is ; and this is just what Mr. Lowe,
and we may say the EngHsh, practically deny. They make
arrangements for instruction and mete out " the grant "
according to the results obtained, but they totally fail to
conceive of the existence of education^ education which has
instruction among its various agents.
§ 115. In one respect the analogy between the educator
and child and the gardener and plant, an analogy in which
Pestalozzi no less than Froebel delighted, entirely breaks
down. The gardener has to study the conditions necessary
for the health and development of the plant, but these
conditions lie outside his own life and are independent of it.
With the educator it is different. Like the gardener he can
create nothing in the child, but unlike the gardener he can
further the development only of that which exists in himself.
He draws out in the young the intelligence and the sense of
what is just, the love of what is beautiful, the admiration of what
is noble, but this he can do only by his own intelligence and
his own enthusiasm for what is just and beautiful and noble.
Even industry is in many cases caught from the teacher. In a
volume of essays (originally published vaXki^Foruni)^ in which
some men, distinguished as scholars or in literature in the
United States, have given an account of their early years, we
find that almost in every case they date their intellectual indus-
try and growth from the time when they came under the in-
fluence of some inspiring teacher. Thus even for instruction
and still more for education, the great force is the teacher.
This is a truth which all our " parties " overlook. They
wage their controversies and have their triumphs and defeats
about unessentials, and leave the essentials to "crotchety
educationists." In such questions as whether the Church
I
PESTALOZZI. 381
English care for unessentials.
Catechism shall or shall not be taught, whether natural
science shall or shall not figure in the time-table (without
scientific teachers it can figure nowhere else), whether the
parents or the Government shall pay for each child twopence
or threepence a week, whether the ratepayers shall or shall
not be " represented " among the Managers in " voluntary '*
schools, in all questions of this kind education is not con-
cerned ; and yet these are the only questions that we think
about. In the end it will perhaps dawn upon us that in
every school what is important for education is not the time-
table but the teacher, and that so far as pupil-teachers are
employed education is impossible. Elsewhere {infra p. 476)
I have told of a man in the prime of life (he seemed between
40 and 50 years old) whose time was entirely taken up in
teaching a large class of children, boys and girls, of six or
seven years. He most certainly could and did educate them
both in heart and mind. He made their lessons a delightful
occupation to them, and he exercised over them the influence
of a good and wise father. Here was the right system seen
at its best. I do not say that all or even most adult teachers
would have exercised so good an influence as this gentleman ;
but so far as they come up to what they ought to be and
might be they do exercise such an influence. And this of
course can be said of no //////-teacher.
§ 116. As regards schools then, schools for the rich and
schools for the poor, the great educating force is the per-
sonality of the teacher. Before we can have Pestalozzian
schools we must have Pestalozzian teachers. Teachers
must catch something of Pestalozzi's spirit and enter into
his conception of their task. Perhaps some of them will
feel inclined to say : "Fine words, no doubt, and in a sense
very true, that education should be the unfolding of the
27
382 PESTALOZZI.
Aim at the ideal.
faculties according to the Divine idea ; but between this
high poetical theory and the dull prose of actual school-
teaching, there is a great gulf fixed, and we cannot attend
to both at the same time." I know full well the difference
there is between theories and plans of education as they
seem to us when we are at leisure and can think of them
without reference to particular pupils, and when all our
energy is taxed to get through our day's teaching, and our
animal spirits jaded by having to keep order and exact
attention among veritable schoolboys who do not answer
in all respects to " the young " of the theorists. But whilst
admitting most heartily the difference here, as elsewhere,
between the actual and the ideal, I think that the dull
prose of school-teaching would be less dull and less prosaic
if our aim was higher, and if we did not contentedly assume
that our present performances are as good as the nature of
the case will admit of. Many teachers (perhaps I may say
most) are discontented with the greater number of their pupils,
but it is not so usual for teachers to be discontented with
themselves. And yet even those who are most averse from
theoretical views, which they call unpractical, would admit,
as practical men, that their methods are probably suscep-
tible of improvement, and that even if their methods are
■right, they themselves are by no means perfect teachers.
Only let the desire of improvement once exist, and the
teacher will find a new interest in his work. In part, the
treadmill- like monotony so wearing to the spirits will be
done away, and he will at times have the encouragement of
conscious progress. To a man thus minded, theorists may
be of great assistance. His practical knowledge may, in-
deed, often show him the absurdity of some pompously
enunciated principle, and even where the principles seem
PESTALOZZI. 383
Use of theorists. Books.
sound, he may smile at the applications. But the theorists
will show him many aspects of his profession, and will lead
him to make many observations in it, which would other-
wise have escaped him. They will save him from a danger
caused by the difficulty of getting anything done in the
school-room, the danger of thinking more of means than
ends. They will teach him to examine what his aim really
is, and then whether he is using the most suitable methods
to accomplish it.
Such a theorist is Pestalozzi. He points to a high ideal,
and bids us measure our modes of education by it. Let us
not forget that if we are practical men we are Christians,
and as such the ideal set before us is the highest of all.
" Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
The Pestalozzian literature in German and even in French is now
considerable, but it is still small in English. The book I have made
most use of is Histoire de Pestalozzi par R. de Guimps (Lausanne,
Bridel), with its translation by John Russell (London : Sonnen-
schein. Appleton's : N. Yk.). In Henry Barnard's Pestalozzi and
Pestalozzianism are collected some good papers, among them Tilleard's
trans, from Raumer. We also have H. Kruesi's Pestalozzi (Cinci-
natti : Wilson, Hinkle, & Co.). I have already mentioned Miss
Channing's Leonard and Gertrude. The Letters to Greaves are now
out of print. A complete account of Pestalozzi and everything
connected with him, bibliography included, is given in M. J.
Guillaume's article Pestalozzi, in Buisson's Dictionnaire de Pedagogic*
(See also Pestalozzi par J. Guillaume (Hachette) just published.)
4 MA^Y'^^^l-- i^ /^^
XVII.
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL
(1783-1852.)
§1.1 NOW approach the most difficult part of my subject.
I have endeavoured to give some account of the lessons
taught us by the chief Educational Reformers. No doubt
my selection of these has been made in a fashion somewhat
arbitrary, and there are names which do not appear and
yet might reasonably be looked for if all the chief Educa-
tional Reformers were supposed to be included. But the
plan of my book has restricted me to a few, and I am by
no means sure that some to whom I have given a chapter are
as worthy of it as some to whom I have not. I have
in a measure been guided by fancy and even by chance.
One man, however, I dare not leave out. All the best
tendencies of modern thought on education seem to me to
culminate in what was said and done by Friedrich Froebel,
and I have little doubt that he has shown the right road
foi further advance. Of what he said and did I therefore
feel bound to give the best account I can, but I am well
aware that I shall fail, even more conspicuously than in
other cases, to do him justice. There are some great men
who seem to have access to a world from which we ordinary
mortals are shut out. Like Moses " they go up into the
FROEBEL. 385
Difficulty in understanding F.
Mount," and the directions they give us are based upon
what they have seen in it. But we cannot go up with
them ; so we feel that we very imperfectly understand them ;
and when there can be not the smallest doubt of their
sincerity we at times hesitate about the nature of their
visions. For myself I must admit that I very imperfectly
understand Froebel. I am convinced, as I said, that he has
pointed out the right road for our advance in education ;
but he was perhaps right in saying : " Centuries may yet
pass before my view of the human creature as manifested in
the child, and of the educational treatment it requires, are
universally received." It has already taken centuries to
recover from the mistakes made at the Renascence. For
the full attainment of Froebel's standpoint perhaps a few
additional centuries may be necessary.
§ 2. Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel* was born at
Oberweissbach, a village of the Thuringian Forest, on the
2 1 St April, 1783. He completed his seventieth year, and
died at Marienthal, near Bad-Liebenstein, on the 21st June,
1852. Like Comenius, with whom he had much in
common, he was neglected in his youth ; and the remem-
brance of his own early sufferings made him in after life
the more eager in promoting the happiness, of children.
His mother he lost in his infancy, and his father, the pastor
of Oberweissbach and the surrounding district, attended to
his parish but not to his family. Friedrich soon had a
stepmother, and neglect was succeeded by stepmotherly
attention ; but a maternal uncle took pity on him, and for
* This short sketch of Froebel's life is mainly taken, with Messrs.
Black's permission, from the Encyclopadia Bn'tannica, for which I
wrote it.
386 FROEBEL.
A lad's quest of unity.
some years gave him a home a few miles off at Stadt-Ilm.
Here he went to the village school, but like many thoughtful
boys he passed for a dunce. Throughout life he was
always seeking for hidden connexions and an underlying
unity in all things. In his own words : " Man, particularly
in boyhood, should become intimate with nature — not so
much with reference to the details and the outer forms of
her phenomena as with reference to the Spirit of God that
lives in her and rules over her. Indeed, the boy feels this
deeply and demands it " {Ed. of M.y Hailmann's trans., p.
162). But nothing of this unity was to be perceived in the
piecemeal studies of the school ; so Froebel's mind, busy as
it was for itself, would not work for the masters. His half-
brother was therefore thought more worthy of a university
education, and Friedrich was apprenticed for two years to a
forester (i 797-1 799). Left to himself in the Thuringian
Forest, Froebel now began to "become intimate with
nature;" and without scientific instruction he obtained a
profound insight into the uniformity and essential unity of
nature's laws. Years afterwards the celebrated Jahn (the
"Father Jahn" of the German gymnasts) told a Berlin
student of a queer fellow he had met, who made out all
sorts of wonderful things from stones and cobwebs. This
" queer fellow " was Froebel ; and the habit of making out
general truths from the observation of nature, especially of
plants and trees, dated from his solitary rambles in the
Forest. No training could have been better suited to
strengthen his inborn tendency to mysticism ; and when he
left the Forest at the early age of seventeen, he seems to
have been possessed by the main ideas which influenced
him all his life. The conception which hi him dominated
all others was the unify of nature ; and he longed to study
FROEBEL. 387
F. wandering without rest.
natural sciences that he might find in them various applica-
tions of nature's universal laws. With great difficulty he
got leave to join his elder brother at the university of Jena ;
and there for a year he went from lecture-room to lecture-
room hoping to grasp that connexion of the sciences which
had for him far more attraction than any particular science
in itself. But Froebel's allowance of money was very small,
and his skill in the managemect of money was never great ;
so his university career ended in an imprisonment of nine
weeks for a debt of thirty shillings. He then returned
home with very poor prospects, but much more intent on
what he calls the course of "self-completion" (Vervoll-
kommnung meines selbst) than on " getting on " in a worldly
point of view. He was soon sent to learn farming, but was
recalled in consequence of the failing health of his father.
In 1802 the father died, and Froebel, now twenty years old,
had to shift for himself It was some time before he found
his true vocation, and for the next three-and-a half years we
find him at work now in one part of Germany now in
another, — sometimes land-surveying, sometimes acting as
accountant, sometimes as private secretary.
§ 3. But in all this his " outer life was far removed from
his inner life." " I carried my own world within me," he
tells us, "and this it was for which I cared and which I
cherished." In spite of his outward circumstances he
became more and more conscious that a great task lay
before him for the good of humanity ; and this conscious-
ness proved fatal to his " settling down." " To thee may
Fate soon give a settled hearth and a loving wife " (thus he
wrote in a friend's album in 1805); "me let it keep
wandering without rest, and allow only time to learn aright
my true relation to the world and to my own inner being.
388 FROEBEL.
Finds his vocation. With Pestalozzi.
Do thou give bread to men ; be it my effort to give men to
themselves" (K. Schmidt's Gesch. d. Pdd.^ 3rd ed. by
Lange, vol. iv, p. 277).
§ 4. As yet the nature of the task was not clear to him,
and it seemed determined by accident. While studying
architecture in Frankfort-on-the-Main, he became acquainted
with the director of a model school who had caught some
of the enthusiasm of Pestalozzi. This friend saw that
Froebel's true field was education, and he persuaded him to
give up architecture and take a post in the model school.
" The very first time," he says, " that I found myself before
thirty or forty boys, I felt thoroughly at home. In fact, I
perceived that I had at last found my long-missed life-
element; and I wrote to my brother that I was as well
pleased as the fish in the water : I was inexpressibly
happy."
§ 5. In this school Froebel worked for two years with
remarkable success ; but he felt more and more his need of
preparation, so he then retired and undertook the education
of three lads of one family. Even in this he could not
satisfy himself, and he obtained the parents' consent to his
taking the boys to Yverdun, and there forming with them a
part of the celebrated institution of Pestalozzi. Thus from
1807 till 1809 Froebel was drinking in Pestalozzianism at
the fountain head, and qualifying himself to carry on the
work which Pestalozzi had begun. For the science of
education had to deduce from Pestalozzi's experience
principles which Pestalozzi himself could not deduce;
and "Froebel, the pupil of Pestalozzi, and a genius likis
his master, completed the reformer's system; taking the
results at which Pestalozzi had arrived through the neces-
sities of his position, Froebel developed the ideas involved -
FROEBEL. 389
Froebel at the Universities.
in them, not by further experience but by deduction from
the nature of man, and thus he attained to the conception
of true human development and to the requirements of true
education" (Schmidt's Gesch. d. Fad.).
§ 6. Holding that man and nature, inasmuch as they
proceed from the same Source, must be governed by the
same laws, Froebel longed for more knowledge of natural
science. Even Pestalozzi seemed to him not to " honour
science in her divinity." He therefore determined to
continue the university course which had been so rudely
interrupted eleven years before, and in 181 1 he began
studying at Gottingen, whence he proceeded to Berlin. In
his Autobiography he tells us : " The lectures for which I
had so longed really came up to the needs of my mind and
soul, and made me feel more fervently than ever the
certainty of the demonstrable inner connexion of the whole
cosmical development of the universe. I saw also the
possibility of man's becoming conscious of this absolute
unity of the universe, as well as of the diversity of things
and appearances which is perpetually unfolding itself within
that unity ; and then when I had made clear to myself, and
brought fully home to my consciousness the view that the
infinitely varied phenomena in man's life, work, thought,
feeling, and position were all summed up in the unity of
his personal existence I felt myself able to turn my thoughts
once more to educational problems" {Autcb, trans, by
Michaelis and Moore, p. 89).
But again his studies were interrupted, this time by the
king of Prussia's celebrated call " To my people." Though
not a Prussian, Froebel was heart and soul a German. He
therefore responded to the call, enlisted in Liitzow's corps,
and went through the campaign of 1813. His mihtar}'
390 FROEBEL.
Thro' the Freiheits-krieg. Mineralogy.
ardour, however, did not take his mind off education.
" Everywhere," he writes, " as far as the fatigues I under-
went allowed, I carried in my thoughts my future calling as
educator ; yes, even in the few engagements in which I had
to take part. Even in these T could gather experience for
the task I proposed to myself." Froebel's soldiering showed
him the value of discipline and united action, how the
individual belongs not to himself but to the whole body,
and how the whole body supports the individual.
Froebel was rewarded for his patriotism by the friendship
of two men whose names will always be associated with his,
Langethal and Middendorff. These young men, ten years
younger than Froebel, became attached to him in the field,
and were ever afterwards his devoted followers, sacrificing
all their prospects in life for the sake of carrying out his
ideas.
§ 7. At the peace of Fontainebleau (signed in May,
1 8 14) Froebel returned to Berlin, and became curator of
the Museum of Mineralogy under Professor Weiss. In
accepting this appointment from the Government he seemed
to turn aside from his work as educator ; but if not teaching
he was learning. The unity of nature and human nature
seemed more and more to reveal itself to him. Of the
days past in the museum he afterwards wrote : " Here w^as
I at the central point of my life and strife, where inner
working and law, where hfe, nature, and mathematics were
united in the fixed crystaline form, where a world of
symbols lay open to the inner eye." Agam he ssys r ''The
stones in my hand and under my eye became speaking
forms. The world of crystals declared to me the life and
laws of Hfe of man, and in still but real and sensible speech
taught the true life of humanity." " Geology and crystal-
FROEBEL. 391
The "New Education" started.
lography not only opened for me a higher circle of knowledge
and insight, but also showed me a higher goal for my
inquiry, my speculation, and my endeavour. Nature and
man now seemed to me mutually to explain each other
through all their numberless various stages of development.
Man, as I saw, receives from a knowledge of natural
objects, even because of their immense deep-seated
diversity, a foundation for and a guidance towards a know-
ledge of himself and life, and a preparation for the
manifestation of that knowledge " (^2^/^<^. ut supra^ p. 97).
More and more the thought possessed him that the one
thing needful for man was unity of development, perfect
evolution in accordance with the laws of his being, such
evolution as science discovers in the other organisms of
nature.
§ 8. He at first intended to become a teacher of natural
science, but iDefore long wider views dawned upon him.
Langethal and Middendorif were in Berlin, engaged in
tuition. Froebel gave them regular instruction in his
theory, and at length, counting on their support, he
resolved to set about realising his own idea of " the new
education." This was in 18 16. Three years before one
of his brothers, a clergyman, had died of fever caught from
the French prisoners. His widow was still living in the
parsonage at Griesheim, a village on the Ilm. Froebel
gave up his post in Berlin, and set out for Griesheim on
foot, spending his very last groschen on the way for bread.
Here he undertook the education of his orphan niece and
nephews, and also of two more nephews sent him by
another brother. With these he opened a school, and
wrote to Middendorff and Langethal to come and help in
the experiment. Middendorff came at once, Langethal a
392 FROEBEL.
At Keilhau. ** Education of Man " published.
year or two later, when the school had been moved to
Keilhau, another of the Thuringian villages, which became
the Mecca of the new faith. In Keilhau, Froebel,
Langethal, Middendorff, and Barop, a relation of Midden-
dorfPs, all married and formed an educational community.
Such zeal could not be fruitless, and the school gradually
increased, though for many years its teachers, with Froebel
at their head, were in the greatest straits for money, and at
times even for food. Karl Froebel, who was brought up in
the school, tells how, on one occasion, he and the other
children were sent to ramble in the woods till some of the
seed-corn provided for the coming year had been turned
into bread for them. Besides these difficulties the com-
munity suffered from the panic and reaction after the
murder of Kotzebue (1819), and were persecuted as a nest
of demagogues. But " the New Education " was sufficiently
successful to attract notice from all quarters ; and when he
had been ten years at Keilhau (1826) Froebel published his
great work. The Education of Man,
§ 9. Four years later he determined to start other institu-
tions in connexion with the parent institution at Keilhau ;
and being offered by a private friend the use of a castle on
the Wartensee, in the canton of Lucerne, he left Keilhau
under the direction of Barop, and with Langethal made a
settlement in Switzerland. The ground, however, was very
ill chosen. The Catholic clergy resisted what they con-
sidered as a Protestant invasion, and the experiment on the
Wartensee and at Willisau in the same canton, to which the
institution was moved in 1833, never had a fair chance. It
was in vain that Middendorff at Froebel's call left his wife
and family at Keilhau, and laboured for four years in
Switzerland without once seeing them. The Swiss institution
FROEBEL. 393
Froebel fails in Switzerland.
never flourished. But the Swiss Government wished to
turn to account the presence of the great educator; so
young teachers were sent to Froebel for instruction, and
finally he removed to Burgdorf (a town already famous from
Pestalozzi's labours there thirty years earlier) to undertake
the establishment of a public orphanage, and also to
superintend a course of teaching for schoolmasters. The
elementary teachers of the canton were to spend three
months every alternate year at Burgdorf, and there compare
experiences, and learn of distinguished men such as Froebel
and Bitzius.
§ lo. In his conferences with these teachers Froebel
found that the schools suffered from the state of the raw
material brought into them. Till the school age was
reached the children were entirely neglected. Froebel's
conception of harmonious development naturally led him
to attach much importance to the earliest years, and his
great work on The Education of Man^ published as early as
1826, deals chiefly with the education of children. At
Burgdorf his thoughts were much occupied with the proper
treatment of young children, and in scheming for them a
graduated course of exercises modelled on the games in
which he observed them to be most interested. In his
eagerness to carry out his new plans he grew impatient of
official restraints ; and partly from this reason, partly on
account of his wife's ill health, he left Burgdorf without
even actually becoming " Waisenvater " (father of the
orphans).* After a sojourn of some months in Berlin,
where he was detained through family affairs, but used the
* This office was first filled by Langethal and afterwards by Ferdi-
nand Froebel. I learned this at Burgdorf from Hen Pfarrer Heuer,
whose father had himself been Waisenvater.
394 FROEBEL.
The first Kindergarten.
opportunities thus afforded of examining the recently
founded infant schools, Froebel returned to Keilhau, and
soon afterwards opened the first Kindergarten^ or " Garden
of Children," in the neighbouring village of Blankenburg
(a.d. 1837). Not only the thing but the name seemed to
Froebel a happy inspiration, and it has now become
inseparably connected with his own. Perhaps we can
hardly understand the pleasure he took in it unless we
know its predecessor, Kieinkinderbeschdftigungsanstalt,
§ II. Firmly convinced of the importance of the Kinder-
garten for the whole human race, Froebel described his
system in a weekly paper (his Sonntagsblatt) which appeared
from the middle of 1837 till 1840. He also lectured in
great towns ; and he gave a regular course of instruction to
young teachers at Blankenburg.
§ 12. But although the principles of the Kindergarten
were gradually making their way, the first Kindergarten was
failing for want of funds. It had to be given up; and
Froebel, now a widower (he had lost his wife in 1839),
carried on his course for teachers first at Keilhau, and from
1848, for the last four years of his life, at or near Liebenstein,
in the Thuringian Forest, and in the duchy of Meiningen.
It is in these last years that the man Froebel will be best
known to posterity ; for in 1849 he attracted within the
circle of his influence a woman of great intellectual power,
the Baroness von Marenholtz-Bulow, who has given us in
hei Recollections of Friedrich Froebeltht only life-like portrait
we possess. In these records of personal intercourse we
see the truth of Deinhardt's words : " The living perception
of universal and ideal truth which his talk revealed to us,
his unbounded enthusiasm for the education and happiness
of the human race, his willingness to offer up everything he
FROEBEL. 395
F/s last years. Prussian edict against him.
possessed for the sake of his idea, the stream of thoughts
which flowed from his enthusiasm for the ideal as from an
inexhaustible fountain, all these made Froebel a wonderful
appearance in the world, by whom no unprejudiced spectator
could fail to be attracted and elevated."
§ 13. These seemed likely to be Froebel's most peaceful
days. He married again ; and having now devoted himself
to the training of women as educators, he spent his time in
instructing his class of young female teachers. But trouble
came upon him from a quarter whence he least expected it.
In the great year of revolutions, 1848, Froebel had hoped to
turn to account the general eagerness for improvement, and
Middendorfi" had presented an address on Kindergartens to
the German Parliament. Besides this a nephew of Froebel's
published books which were supposed to teach socialism.
True the uncle and nephew differed so widely that " the
New Froebelians " were the enemies of the " Old." But
the distinction was overlooked, and Friedrich and Karl
Froebel were regarded as the united advocates of " some
new thing." In the reaction which soon set in, Froebel
found himself suspected of sociahsm and irreligion; and in
1 85 1 the Cultus-minister 'R^aMvatx issued an edict forbidding
the establishment of schools "after Friedrich and Karl
Froebel's principles " in Prussia. It was in vain that
Froebel proved that his principles differed fundamentally
from his nephew's. It was in vain that a congress of
schoolmasters, presided over by the celebrated Diesterweg,
protested against the calumnious decree. The Minister
turned a deaf ear, and the decree remained in force ten
years after the death of Froebel (/>., till 1862). But the
edict was a heavy blow to the old man, who looked to the
Government of the " Cultus-staat " Prussia for support, and
396 FROEBEL.
His end. Attitude towards Reformers.
was met with denunciation. Of the justice of the charge
brought by the Minister against Froebel the reader may
judge from the account of his principles given below.
Whether from the worry of this new controversy, or from
whatever cause, Froebel did not long survive the decree.
His seventieth birthday was celebrated with great rejoicings
in May, 1852, but he died in the following month, and
lies buried at Schweina, a village near his last abode,
Marienthal.
§ 14. Throughout these essays my object has been to
collect what seemed to me the most valuable lessons of
various Reformers. In doing this I have had to judge and
decide what was most valuable, and at times to criticise and
differ from my authorities. This may perhaps give rise to
the question, Do you then think yourself the superior or
at least the equal of the great men you criticise ? and I
could only reply in all sincerity, I most certainly do not.
If I am asked further, what then is my attitude towards
them ? I reply, it differs very much with different indi-
viduals. I cannot say I am prepared to sit at the feet of
Mulcaster, or Dury, or Petty. In writing of these men I
simply point out very early expression of ideas that following
generations have developed partially and we are developing
still. When we come to the great leaders we see among
them men like Comenius who unite a thorough study of
what has already been thought and done with a genius for
original thinking, men like Locke with splendid intellectual
gifts and a power of happy and clear expression, men like
Rousseau with a talent for shaking themselves free from
"custom" — custom which "lies upon us with a weight,
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life," and besides this
(in his case at least) endowed with a voice to be hearcj
FROEBEL. 397
Difficulties with Froebel.
throughout the world. Then again we have men like
Pestaiozzi who with a genius for investigating, devote their
lives to the investigation, and men like Froebel who seem
to penetrate to a region above us or at least beyond us, and
to talk about it in language which at times only partially
conveys a meaning. From all these men we have much to
learn ; and that we may do this we must come as learners
to them. When we thus come we find that the great lessons
they teach become clearer and clearer as each takes up
wholly or in part what has been taught by his predecessors
and adds to it. Some of these lessons we may now receive
as established truths and seek to conform our practice to
them. But in following our leaders we dare not close our
eyes. Before we can know anything we must see it, as
Locke says, with our mind's eye. The great thing is to
keep the eye of the mind wide open and always on the look-
out for truth. Acting on this conviction I have not blindly
accepted the dicta even of the greatest men but have selected
those of their lessons which are taught if not by all at least
by most of them, and which also seem to evoke " the spon-
taneous spring of the intelligence towards truth " (see p. 362,
supra),
§ 15. In reading Froebel however I am conscious that
this " spring " is wanting. Before one can accept teaching
one must at least understand it, and this preliminary is not
always possible when we would learn from Froebel. At
times he goes entirely out of sight, and whether the words
we hear are the expression of deep truth or have absolutely
no meaning at all, I for my part am at times totally unable
to determine. But where I can understand him he seems
to me singularly wise ; and working in the same lines as
Pestaiozzi he in some respects advances far beyond his great
predecessor.
28
39^ FROEBEL.
" Cui omnia unum sunt.
§ 1 6. Both these men were devotees of science ; but
instead of finding in science anything antagonistic to
religion they looked upon science as the expression of the
mind of God. Their behef was just that which Sir Thomas
Browne had uttered more than 200 years before in the Religio
Medici: "Though we christen effects by their most sensible
and nearest causes yet is God the true and infallible cause
of all, whose concourse [/>., concurrence, co-operation]
though it be general, yet doth it subdivide itself into the
particular actions of everything, and is that spirit by which
each singular essence not only subsists but performs its
operation."* With this belief Froebel sought to trace
everything back to the central Unity, to God. The author
of the De Imitatione Christi has said : " The man to whom
all things are one, who refers all things to one and sees all
things in one, he can stand firm and be at peace in God.
Cui omnia unum sunt, et qui omnia ad unum trahit, et
omnia in uno videt, potest stabilis esse et in Deo pacificus
permanere" {De Ln. Xti. lib. i ; cap. 3, § 2). So thought
Froebel, and his great longing was to refer all things to one
and see all things in one. However little we may share this
longing we must admit that it is a natural outcome from the
Christian religion. If there is One in Whom all " live and
move and have their being," everything should be referred
to Him. As Froebel says, " In AUem wirkt und schafft Ein
Leben, Weil das Leben All' ein einz'ger Gott gegeben. (In
everything there works and stirs one life, because to all One
God has given life.)" So long then as we remain Christians
we must agree with Froebel that all true education is
* For this quotation, and for much besides (as will appear later on),
I am indebted to Mr. H. Courthope Bowen. See his paper FroebeCs
Edtuation oj Man,
FROEBEL. 399
Froebel's ideal.
founded on Religion. Perhaps in the end we may adopt
his high ideal and say with him, " Education should lead
and guide man to clearness concerning hiniself and in
himself, to peace with nature, and to unity with God ;
hence, it should lift him to a knowledge of himself and
of mankind, to a knowledge of God and of Nature, and to
the pure and holy life to which such knowledge leads."
{E. of M.^ Hailmann's t, 5.) "The object of education is
the realization of a faithful, pure, inviolate, and hence holy
life" (/^. 4).
§ 17. This is indeed a high ideal ; and we naturally ask,
If we would work towards it what road would Froebel point
out to us ? This brings us to his theory of development or,
as it has been called since Darwin, evolution. The idea of
organic growth was first definitely applied to the young by
Pestalozzi, but it was more clearly and consistently applied
by Froebel. It has gone forth conquering and to conquer;
and though far indeed from being accepted by the teaching
profession of this age, it is Hkely to have a vast influence on
the practice of those who will come after them. I therefore
give the following statement of it, which seems to me ex-
cellent : —
" The first thing to note in the idea of development is
that it indicates, not an increase in bulk or quantity (though
it may include this), but an increase in complexity of struc-
ture, an improvement in power, skill, and variety in the
performance of natural functions. We say that a thing is
fully developed when its internal organisation is perfect in
every detail, and when it can perform all its natural actions
or functions perfectly. If we apply this distinction to mind,
an increase in bulk will be represented by an increase in
the amount of material retained in the mind, in the
400 FROEBEL.
Theory of development.
memory ; development will be a perfecting of the structure
of the mind itself, an increase of power and skill and variety
in dealing with knowledge, and in putting knowledge to all
its natural uses. The next thing to consider is how this
development is produced. How can we aid in promoting
this change from germ to complete organism, from partially
developed thing to more highly developed thing? The
answer comes from every part of creation with ever-increas-
ing clearness and emphasis — development is produced by
exercise of function, use of faculty. Neglect or disuse of
any part of an organism leads to the dwindling, and some-
times even to the disappearance, of that part. And this
applies not only to individuals, but stretches also from
parent to child, from generation to generation, constituting
then what we call heredity, or what Froebel calls the con-
nectedness of humanity. Slowly through successive genera-
tions a faculty or organ may dwindle and decay, or may be
brought to greater and greater perfection. As Froebel
puts it, humanity past, present, and future is one con-
tinuous whole. The amount of development, then, possible
in any particular case plainly depends partly on the original
outfit, and partly (and as a rule in a greater measure) on
the opportunities there have been for exercise, and the
use made of those opportunities. If we wish to develop
the hand, we must exercise the hand. If we wish to
develop the body, we must exercise the body. If we wish
to develop the mind, we must exercise the mind. If we
wish to develop the whole human being, we must exercise
the whole human being. But will any exercise suffice ?
Again the answer is clear. Only that exercise which is
always in harmony with the nature of the thing, and which
is always proportioned to the strength of the thing, produces
FROEBEL. 401
Development thro' self-activity.
true development. All other exercise is partially or wholly
hurtful. And another condition, evident in every case,
becomes still more evident when we apply these laws to the
mind. To produce development most truly and effectively,
the exercise must arise from and be sustained by the thing's
own activity — its own natural powers, and all of them (as
far as these are in any sense connected with the activity
proposed) should be awakened and become naturally active.
If, for instance, we desire to further the development of a
plant, what we have to do is to induce the plant (and the
whole of it) to become active in its own natural way, and
to help it to sustain that activity. We may abridge the
time ; we may modify the result ; but we must act through
and by the plant's own activity. This activity of a thing's
own self we call self -activity {E. of. J/., § 9). We
generally consider the mind in the light of its three activities
of knowing, feeling, and willing. The exercise which aims at
producing mental development must be in harmony with
the nature of knowing, feeli7ig, and willing, and continually
in proportion to their strength. And, further, it is found
that the more the activity is that of the whole mind^ the
more it is the mind's oivn activity — self-produced, and
self-maintained, and self-directed — the better is the result.
In other words, knowing, feeling, and willing must all take
their rightful share in the exercise ; and, in particular, feel-
ing and willing — the mind's powers of prompting and
nourishing, of maintaining and directing its own activities —
must never be neglected" (H. C. Bowen on Ed. of M.).
§ 18. "A divine message or eternal regulation of the
Universe there verily is, in regard to every conceivable
procedure and affair of man ; faithfully following this, said
procedure or affair will prosper . . . not following
402 FROEBEL.
True idea found in Nature.
this , . . destruction and wreck are certain for every
affair." These words of Carlyle's express Froebel's thought
about education. Before attempting to educate we must
do all we can to ascertain the divine message and must
then direct our proceedings by it. The divine message
must be learnt according to Froebel by studying the nature
of the organism we have to assist in developing. Each
human being, musLlld£y.eLjp,jOcQm-.within>^el£-AQtiYje!^-aAd
free, in accordance with., J;liei,„ eternal -law* This is the
problem and the aim of all education in instruction and
training ; there can be and should be no other " {Ed. of
M.^ 13). For "all has come forth from the Divine, from
God, and is through God alone conditioned. To this it
is that all things owe their existence — to the Divine working
in them. The Divine element that works in each thing is
the true idea {das Wesen) of the thing." Therefore " the
destiny and calling of all things is to develop their true idea,
and in so doing to reveal God in outward and through
passing forms."
§ 19. What we must think of then is the "true idea"
which each child should develop. How is this idea to be
ascertained? In other words, how are we to learn the
Divine Message about the bringing up of children ? This
Message is given us through the works of God. " In the
creation, in nature and the order of the material world, and
in the progress of mankind, God has given us the true type
( Urbild) of education."
§ 20. So Froebel would have all educators lay to heart
the great principle of the Baconian philosophy : We com-
mand Nature only by obeying her. They are to be very
cautious how they interfere, and the education they give is
to be "passive, following." Even in teaching they must
FROEBEL. 403
God acts and man acts.
bear in mind, that " the purpose of teaching is to bring ever
more out of man rather than to put more and more into
him." (Ed, of M,, 279.) Froebel in fact taught the
Pestalozzian doctrine that the function of the educator
was that of ** benevolent superintendence."*
§ 21. But if Froebel would thus limit the action of the
educator he would greatly extend the action of those
educated ; and here we see the great principle with which
the name of Froebel is likely to be permanently associated.
"The starting-point of all that appears, of all that exists,
and therefore of all intellectual conception, is act, action.
From the act, from action, must therefore start true human
education, the developing education of the man ; in action,
in acting, it must be rooted and must spring up. . . .
Living, acting, conceiving, — these must form a triple chord
within every child of man, though the sound now of this
string, now of that, may preponderate, and then again of
two together."
§ 22. Many thinkers before Froebel had seen the trans-
cendent importance of action ; but Froebel not only based
everything upon it, but he based it upon God. "God
creates and works productively in uninterrupted continuity.
Each thought of God is a work, a deed" (£d. of M., % 23).
As Jesus has said : " My Father worketh hitherto and I
* The educator as teacher has his activity limited, according to
Dr. DeGarmo to these two things ; " (i) Tut. preparation of the child's
mind for a rapid and effective assimilation of new knowledge ; (2) The
presentation of the matter of instruction in such order and manner as
will best conduce to the most effective assimilation" {Essentials of
Method by Chas. DeGarmo, Boston, U.S., D. C. Heath, 1889).
Besides this he must make his pupils tise their knowledge both new and
old, and reproduce it in fresh connexions.
404 FROEBEL.
The formative and creative instinct.
work " (St. John v, 1 7). From this it follows that, since
God created man in his own image, " man should create
and bring forth like God " {Ed, of M.^ ib,). " He who will
early learn to recognise the Creator must early exercise his
own power of action with the consciousness that he is bring-
ing about what is good ; for the doing good is the link
between the creature and the Creator, and the conscious
doing of it the conscious connexion, the true living union
of the man with God, of the individual man as of the human
race, and is therefore at once the starting point and the
eternal aim of all education." Elsewhere he says : " We
become truly God-like in diligence and industry, in working
and doing, which are accompanied by the clear perception
or even by the vaguest feeling that thereby we represent the
inner in the outer ; that we give body to spirit, and form to
thought ; that we render visible the invisible ; that we
impart an outward, finite, transient being to life in the
spirit. Through this God-likeness we rise more and more
to a true knowledge of God, to insight into His Spirit ;
and thus, inwardly and outwardly, God comes ever
nearer to us. Therefore Jesus says of the poor, ' Theirs
is the kingdom of heaven,' if they could but see and know
it and practice it in diligence and industry, in productive
and creative work. Of children too is the kingdom of
heaven ; for unchecked by the presumption and conceit of
adults they yield themselves in child-like trust and cheerful-
ness to their formative and creative instinct" {Ed. of M.^
% 23» P- 30-
§ 23. This " formative and creative instinct " which as
we must suppose has existed in all children in all nations
and in all ages of the world, Froebel was the first to take
duly into account for education. Pestalozzi saw the im-
FROEBEL. 405
Rendering the inner outer.
portance of getting children to think, and to think about
their material surroundings. These the child can observe
and search into ; and in doing this he may discover what is
not at first obvious to sight or touch and may even ascertain
relations between the several parts of the same thing or
connexions between different things compared together.
All these discoveries may be made by the child's self-
activity, but only on one condition, viz. : that the child is
interested. But in the search interest soon flags and then
observation comes to an end. Besides, even while it lasts
in full vigour the activity is mental only ; it is concerned
with perceiving, taking in ; and for development something
more is needed ; the organism must not only take in, it
must also give out. And so we find in children a restless
eagerness to touch, pull about, and change the condition
of things around them. When this activity of theirs, instead
of being checked is properly directed, the children are
delighted in recognising desirable results which they them-
selves have brought about; especially those which give
expression to what is their own thought. In this way the
child "renders the inner outer ;" and in thus satisfying his
creative instinct he is led to exercise some faculties both of
mind and body.
§ 24. The prominence which Froebel gave to action, his
doctrine that man is primarily a doer and even a creator,
and that he learns only through " self-activity," may pro-
duce great changes in educational methods generally, and
not simply in the treatment of children too young for
schooling. But it was to the first stage of life that Froebel
paid the greatest attention, and it is over this stage that
his influence is gradually extending. Froebel held that each
age has a completeness of its own (" First the blade, then
4o6 FROEBEL.
Care for " young plants." Kindergarten.
the ear, then the full corn in the ear "), and that the per-
fection of the later stage can be attained only through the
perfection of the earlier. If the infant is what he should be
as an infant, and the child as a child, he will become what
he should be as a boy, just as naturally as new shoots
spring from the healthy plant. Every stage, then, must be
cared for and tended in such a way that it may attain its
own perfection. But as Bacon says with reference to
education, the gardener bestows most care on the young
plants, and it was " the young plants " for whom Froebel
designed his Kindergarten. Like Pestalozzi he attached
the very highest importance to giving instruction to mothers.
But he would not like Pestalozzi leave young children
entirely in the mother's hands. There was something to
be done for them which even the ideal mother in the ideal
family could not do. Pestalozzi held that the child be-
longed to the family. Fichte on the other hand claimed
it for society and the state. Froebel, whose mind, like
that of our own theologian Frederick Maurice, delighted
in harmonising apparent contradictions, and who taught
that " all progress lay through opposites to their reconcilia-
tion," maintained that the child belongs both to the family
and to society ; and he would therefore have children
prepare for society by spending some hours of the day in a
common life and in well-organised common employ-
ments.
§ 25. His study of children showed him that one of their
most striking characteristics was restlessness. This was,
first, restlessness of body, delight in mere motion of the
limbs ; and, secondly, restlessness of mind, a constant
curiosity about w^hatever came within the range of the
senses, and especially a desire to examine with the hand
FROEBEL. 407
Child's restlessness : how to use it.
every unknown object within reach.* Children's fondness
for using their hands was especially noted by Froebel ; and
he found that they delighted, not merely in examining by
touch, but also in altering whatever they could alter, and
further that they endeavoured to imitate known forms
whether by drawing or whenever they could get any kind of
plastic material by modeUing. Besides remarking in them
these various activities, he saw that children were sociable
and needed the sympathy of companions. There was, too,
in them a growing moral nature, passions, affections, and
conscience, which needed to be controlled, responded to,
cultivated. Both the restraints and the opportunities
incident to a well-organised community would be beneficial
to their moral nature, and prove a cure for selfishness.
§ 26. As all education was to be sought in rightly directed
but spontaneous action, Froebel considered how the children
in this community should be employed. At that age their
most natural employment is play, especially as Wordsworth
has pointed out, games in which they imitate and " con the
parts" they themselves will have to fill in after years.
Froebel agreed with Montaigne that the games of children
were " their most serious occupations," and with Locke that
" all the plays and diversions of children should be directed
towards good and useful habits, or else they will introduce
* "Little children," says Joseph Payne, "are scarcely ever contented
with simply doing nothing ; and their fidgetiness and unrest, wliich
often give mothers and teachers so much anxiety, are merely the
stragglings of the soul to get, through the body, some employment for
its powers. Supply this want, give them an object to work upon, and
you solve the problem. The divergence and distraction of the faculties
cease as they converge upon the work, and the mind is at rest in its
very occupation." V. to German Schools.
408 FROEBEL.
Employments in Kindergarten.
ill ones" {Th. c. Ed.^ § 130). So he invented a course of
occupations, a great part of which consisted in social games.
Many of the names are connected with the "Gifts," as he
called the series of simple playthings provided for the
children, the first being the ball, " the type of unity." The
" gifts " are chiefly not mere playthings but materials which
the children work up in their own way, thus gaining scope
for their power of doing and inventing and creating. The
artistic faculty was much thought of by Froebel, and, as in
the education of the ancients, the sense of rhythm in sound
and motion was cultivated by music and poetry introduced
in the games. Much care was to be given to the training
of the senses, especially those of sight, sound, and touch.
Intuition {Anschauung) was to be recognised as the true
basis of knowledge, and though stories were to be told, and
there was to be much intercourse in the way of social chat,
instruction of the imparting and " learning-up " kind was to
be excluded. There was to be no " dead knowledge ; " in
fact Froebel like Pestalozzi endeavoured to do for the child
what Bacon nearly 200 years before had done for the
philosopher. Bacon showed the philosopher that the way
to study Nature was not to learn what others had surmised
but to go straight to Nature and use his own senses and his
own powers of observation. Pestalozzi and Froebel wished
children to leam in this way as well as philosophers.
§ 27. Schools for very young children existed before
Froebel's Kindergarten, but they had been thought of more
in the interest of the mothers than of the children. It was
for the sake of the mothers that Oberlin established them
in the Vosges more than a century ago, his first Condiidrices
de VEnfance being peasant women, Sara Banzet and Louise
Scheppler. In the early part of this century the notion was
FROEBEL. 409
No schoolwork in Kindergarten.
taken up by James Buchanan and Samuel Wilderspin in
this country (see James Leitch's Practical Educationists)
and by J. M. D. Cochin in France. But Froebel's con-
ception diifered from that of the " Infant School." His
object was purely educational but he would have no
"schooling." He called these communities of children
Kindergarten^ Gardens of children, i.e., enclosures in which
young human plants are nurtured.* The children's em-
ployment is to be play. But any occupation in which
children delight is play to them ; and Froebel's series of
employments, while they are in this sense play to the
children, have nevertheless, as seen from the adult point of
view, a distinctly educational object. This object, as Froebel
himself describes it, is " to give the children employment in
agreement with their whole nature, to strengthen their
bodies, to exercise their senses, to engage their awakening
mind, and through their senses to bring them acquainted
with nature and their fellow-creatures ; it is especially to
guide aright the heart and the affections, and to lead them
to the original ground of all life, to unity with themselves."
§ 28. No less than six-and-thirty years ago Henry
Barnard (in his Report to Governor of Connecticut, 1854)
declared the Kindergarten to be " by far the most original,
attractive, and philosophical form of infant development the
world has yet seen." Since then it has spread in all
* I entirely agree with Joseph Payne that where the language spoken
is Hot German, it would be well to discard Kindergarten, Kinder gdrtner,
and Kindergdrtnerin. All who have to do with children should master
some great principles taught by Froebel, but there is no need for them
to learn German or to use German words. The French seem satisfied
with Jardin d'Enfants. but we are not likely to be with Children-
Garden. Playschool might do.
4IO FROEBEL.
Without the idea the "gifts " fail.
civilised lands, and in many of them there are now public
Kindergartens, the first I believe having been established
in 1873 by Dr. William T. Harris in St. Louis, Mo. But
Froebel's ideas are not so easily got hold of as his *' Gifts,"
and the real extension of his system may be by no means
so great as it seems. " The Kindergarten system in the
hands of one who understands it," says Dr. James Ward,
"produces admirable results; but it is apt to be too
mechanical and formal. There does not seem room for the
individuality of a child, to which all free play possible
should be given in the earliest years." (In Parents^ Meview
Ap. 1890.) And Mr. Courthope Bowen has well said:
" Kindergarten work without the Kindergarten idea, like a
body without a soul, is subject to rapid degeneration and
decay." So perhaps it will in the end prove that Froebel in
his Education of Man which is "a book with seven seals"
has left us a more precious legacy than in his " Gifts " and
Occupations which are so popular and so easily adopted.
§ 29. It has been well said that " the essence of stupidity
is in the demand for final opinions." How our thoughts
have widened about education since a man like Dr. Johnson
could assert, " Education is as well known, and has long
been as well known, as ever it can be !"* (Hill's BoswelVs
J. ij, 407.) The astronomers of the Middle Ages might
as well have asserted that nothing more could ever be
known about astronomy.
Was Froebel what he believed himself to be, the Kepler
* Contrast this with what has been said by an eminent thinker of our
time : " No art of equal importance to mankind has been so little in-
vestigated scientifically as the art of teaching." Sir H. S. Maine,
quoted in J. H. Hoose's M. of Teaching.
FROEBEL. 411
The New Education and the old.
or the Newton of the educational system ? Whoso is wise
will not during the nineteenth century lay claim to a " final
opinion " on this point. But the " New Education " seems
gaining ground. F. W. Parker emphatically declares " the
Kindergarten" (by which he probably means Froebel's
encouragement of self-activity) to be " the most important far-
reaching educational reform of the nineteenth century.'*
We sometimes see it questioned whether the " New Educa-
tion " has any proper claim to its title ; but the education
which Dr. Johnson considered final and which seems to us
old aimed at learning ; and the education which aims not
at learning, but at developing through self-activity is so
different from this that it may well be called New. If we
consider the platform of the New Educationists as it stands,
e.g., in the New York School Journal, we shall find that if it
is not all new in theory it would be substantially new in
practice.
§ 30. Let us look at a brief statement of what the " New
Education " requires : —
1. Each study must be valued in proportion as it develops
power ; and power is developed by self-activity.
2. The memory must be employed in strict subservience
to the higher faculties of the mind.
3. Whatever instruction is given, it must be adapted to
the actual state of the pupil, and not ruled by the wants of
the future boy or man.
4. More time must be given to the study of nature and to
modern language and Hterature ; less to the ancient
languages.
5. The body must be educated as well as the mind.
6. Rich and poor alike must be taught to use their eyes
and hands.
412 FROEBEL.
The old still vigorous.
7. The higher education of women must be cared for no
less than that of men.
8. Teachers, no less than doctors, must go through a
course of professional training.
To these there must in time be added another :
9. All methods shall have a scientific foundation, />.,
they shall be based on the laws of the mind, or shall have
been tested by those laws.
§ 31. When this program is adopted, even as the
object of our efforts, we shall, indeed, have a New Educa-
tion. At present the encouragement of self-activity is
thought of, if at all, only as a "counsel of perfection " Our
school work is chiefly mechanical and will long remain so.
*' From the primary school to the college productive creative
doing is almost wholly excluded. Knowledge in its
barrenest form is communicated, and tested in the barrenest,
wordiest way possible. Never is the learner taught or
permitted to apply his knowledge to even second-hand
life-purpose. ... So inveterate is the habit of the
school that the Kindergarten itself, although invented by
the deep-feeling and far-seeing Froebel for the very purpose
of correcting this fault, has in most cases fallen a victim to
its influence." So says W. H. Hailmann {Kindergarten^
May, 1888) and those who best know what usually goes on
in the school-room are the least likely to differ from him.
§ 32. During the last thirty years I have spent the
greatest part of my working hours in a variety of school-
rooms ; and if my school experience has shown me that our
advance is slow, my study of the Reformers convinces me
that it is sure.
Ring out the old, ring in the new 1'
FROEBEL. 413
Science the thought of God. Some Froebelians.
It has been well said that to study science is to study the
thoughts of God ; and thus it is that all true educational
Reformers declare the thoughts of God to us. " A divine
message, o: eternal regulation of the Universe, there verily
is in regard to every conceivable procedure and affair of
man ;" and it behoves us to ascertain what that message is
in regard to the immensely important procedure and affair
of bringing up children. After innumerable mistakes we
seem by degrees to be getting some notion of it ; and such
insight as we have we owe to those who have contributed
to the science of education. Among these there are
probably no greater names than the names of Pestalozzi and
Froebel.
Froebel's Education of Man, trans, by W. N. Hailmann, is a vol. of
Appleton's Series, ed. by Dr. W. T. Harris. The Aittobiography trans.,
by Michaelis and Moore, is published by Sonnenschein. The Mntter-u-
K. -lieder have been trans, by Miss Lord (London, Rice). Reminiscemes
of Froebel by the Baroness Marenholz-Bulow, is trans, by Mr. Horace
Mann. The Child and Child Nature is trans, from the Baroness by
Miss A. M. Christie. The Froebel lit. is now immense. I will simply
mention some of those who have expounded Froebel in English : Miss
Shirreff, Miss E. A. Manning, Miss Lyschinska, Miss Heerwart, Mdme.
De Portugall, Miss Peabody, H. C Bowen, F. W. Parker, W. N.
Hailmann, Joseph Payne, W. T. Harris, are the names that first suggest
themselves. Henry Barnard's Kindergarten and Child Culture is a
valuable collection of papers.
29
XVIII.
JACOTOT, A METHODIZER.
I 7 70-1840.
§ I. We are now by degrees becoming convinced that
teachers, like everyone else who undertakes skilled labour,
should be trained before they seek an engagement. This
has led to a great increase in the number of Normal Schools.
In some of these schools it has already been discovered that
while the study of principles requires much time and the
application of much intellectual force, the study of methods
is a far simpler matter and can be knocked off in a short
time and with no intellectual force at all. Methods are
special ways of doing things, and when it has been settled
what is to be done and why, a knowledge of the methods
available adds greatly to a teacher's power ; but the what
and the why demand our attention before the how, and the
study of methods disconnected from principles leads straight
to the prison-house of all the teachers' higher faculties —
routine.
§ 2. I have called Jacotot a methodizer because he
invented a special method and wished everything to be
taught by it. But in advocating this method he appeals to
principles ; and his principles are so important that at least
JACOTOT. 415
Self-teaching.
one man great in educational science, Joseph Payne, always
spoke of him as his master.
§ 3. In the following summary of Jacotot's system I
am largely indebted to Joseph Payne's Lectures, which he
pubhshed in the Educational Times in 1867, and which I
believe Dr. J. F. Payne has lately reprinted in a volume of
his father's collected papers.
§ 4. Jacotot was born at Dijon, of humble parentage, in
1770. Even as a boy he showed his preference for "self-
teaching." We are told that he rejoiced greatly in the ac-
quisition of all kinds of knowledge that could be gained by
his own efforts, while he steadily resisted what was imposed on
him by authority. He was, however, early distinguished by
his acquirements, and at the age of twenty-five was appointed
sub-director of the Polytechnic School. Some years after-
wards he became Professor of " the Method of Sciences " at
Dijon, and it was here that his method of instruction first
attracted attention. " Instead of pouring forth a flood of
information on the subject under attention from his own
ample stores — explaining everything, and thus too frequently
superseding in a great degree the pupil's own investigation
of it — Jacotot, after a simple statement of the subject, with
its leading divisions, boldly started it as a quarry for the
class to hunt down, and invited every member of it to take
part in the chase." All were free to ask questions, to raise
objections, to suggest answers. The Professor himself did little
more than by leading questions put them on the right scent.
He was afterwards Professor of Ancient and Oriental Lan-
guages, of Mathematics, and of Roman Law ; and he pursued
the same method, we are told, with uniform success. Being
compelled to leave France as an enemy of the Bourbons, he
was appointed, in 181 8, when he was forty-eight years old,
41 6 JACOTOT.
I. All can learn.
to the Professorship of the French Language and Literature
at the University of Louvain. The celebrated teacher was
received with enthusiasm, but he soon met with an un-
expected difficulty. Many members of his large class knew
no language but the Flemish and Dutch, and of these he
himself was totally ignorant. He was, therefore, forced to
consider how to teach without talking to his pupils. The
plan he adopted was as follows : — He gave the young
Flemings copies of Fenelon's " Tel^maque," with the French
on one side, and a Dutch translation on the other. This
they had to study for themselves, comparing the two
languages, and learning the French by heart. They were
to go over the same ground again and again, and as soon
as possible they were to give in French, however bad, the
substance of those parts which they had not yet committed
to memor)\ This method was found to succeed marvel-
lously. Jacotot attributed its success to the fact that the
students had learnt entirely by the efforts of their oivn minds,
and that, though working under his superintendence, they
had been, in fact, their own teachers. Hence he proceeded
to generalise, and by degrees arrived at a series of astounding
paradoxes. These paradoxes at first did their work well,
and made noise enough in the world ; but Jacotot seems
to me like a captain who in his eagerness to astonish his
opponents takes on board guns much too heavy for his own
safety.
§ 5. " All human beings are equally capable of learntJig^*
said Jacotot.
The truth which Jacotot chose to throw into this more than
doubtful form, may perhaps be expressed by saying that the
student's power of learning depends, in a great measure, on
his ivillt and that where there is no will there is no capacity.
JACOTOT. 417
2. Everyone can teach.
§ 6. " Everyone can teach ; andy moreover^ can teach that
which he does not knoio himself. ^^
Let us ask ourselves what is the meaning of this. First
of all, we have to get rid of some ambiguity in the meaning
of the word teach. To teach, according to Jacotot's idea, is
to cause to learn. Teaching and learning are therefore
correlatives : where there is no learning there can be no
teaching. But this meaning of the word only coincides
partially with the ordinary meaning. We speak of the
lecturer or preacher as teaching when he gives his hearers
an opportunity of learning, and do not say that his teaching
ceases the instant they cease to attend. On the other hand,
we do not call a parent a teacher because he sends his boy
to school, and so causes him to learn. The notion of teach-
ing, then, in the minds of most of us, includes giving
information, or showing how an art is to be performed, and
we look upon Jacotot's assertion as absurd, because we feel
that no one can give information which he does not possess,
or show how anything is to be done if he does not himself
know. But let us take the Jacototian definition of teaching
— causing to learn — and then see how far a person can
cause another to learn that of which he himself is ignorant.
§ 7. Subjects which are taught may be divided into
three great classes : — i, Facts ; 2, reasonings, or generalisa-
tion from facts, />., science \ 3, actions which have to be
performed by the learner, /.<?., arts.
I. We learn some facts by " intuition," />., by direct
experience. It may be as well to make the number of them
as large as possible. No doubt there are no facts which are
kno^.vn so perfectly as these. For instance, a boy who has
tried to smoke knows the fact that tobacco is apt to pro-
duce nausea much better than another who has picked up
41 8 JACOTOT.
Can he teach facts he does not know ?
the information second-hand. An intelligent master may-
suggest experiments, even in matters about which he himself
is ignorant, and thus, in Jacotot's sense, he teaches things
which he does not know. But some facts cannot be learnt
in this way, and then a Newton is helpless either to find
them out for himself, or to teach them to others without
knowing them. If the teacher does not know in what
county Tavistock is, he can only learn from those who do,
and the pupils will be no cleverer than their master. Here,
then, I consider that Jacotot's pretensions utterly break
down. "No," the answer is; "the teacher may give his
pupil an atlas, and direct the boy to find out for himself:
thus the master will teach what he does not know." But,
in this case, he is a teacher only so far as he knows. For
what he does not know, he hands over the pupil to the
maker of the map, who communicates with him, not orally,
but by ink and paper. The master's ignorance is simply an
obstacle to the boy's learning; for the boy would learn
sooner the position of Tavistock if it were shown him on
the map. "That's the very point," says the disciple of
Jacotot. "If the boy gets the knowledge without any
trouble, he is likely to forget it again directly. 'Lightly
come, lightly go.' Moreover, his faculty of observation will
not have been exercised." It is indeed well not to allow
the knowledge even of facts to come too easily ; though the
difficulties which arise from the master's ignorance will
not be found the most advantageous. Still there is obviously
a limit. If we gave boys their lessons in cipher, and
offered a prize to the first decipherer, one would probably
be found at last, and meantime all the boys' powers of
observation, &c., would have been cultivated by comparing
like signs in different positions, and guessing at their mean-
JACOTOT. 419
Languages ? Sciences ?
ing ; but the boys' time might have been better employed.
Jacotot's plan of teaching a language which the master did
not know, was to put a book with, say, " Arma virumque
cano," &c., on one side, and " I sing arms and the man, &c."
on the other, and to require the pupil to puzzle over it till
he found out which word answered to which. In this case
the teacher was the translator ; and though from the round-
about way in which the knowledge was communicated the
pupil derived some benefit, the benefit was hardly sufficient
to make up for the expenditure of time involved.
Jacotot, then, did not teach facts of which he was igno-
rant, except in the sense in which the parent who sends his
boy to school may be said to teach him. All Jacotot did
was to direct the pupil to learn, sometimes in a very
awkward fashion, from somebody else.*
§ 8. 2. When we come to science, we find all the best
authorities agree that the pupil should be led to principles
if possible, and not have the principles brought to him.
Men like Tyndall, Huxley, H. Spencer, J. M. Wilson have
spoken eloquently on this subject, and shown how valuable
scientific teaching is, when thus conducted, in drawing out
the faculties of the mind. But although a schoolboy may
be led to great scientific discoveries by anyone who knows
the road, he will have no more chance of making them with
an ignorant teacher than he would have had in the days of
the Ptolemies. Here again, then, I cannot understand how
the teacher can teach what he does not know. He may,
indeed, join his pupil in investigating principles, but he
* Here Jacotot's notion of teaching reminds one of the sophism
quoted by Montaigne — * * A Westphalia ham makes a man drink. Drink
quenches thirst. Therefore a Westphalia ham quenches thirst."
420 JACOTOT.
Arts such as drawing and music ?
must either keep with the pupil or go in advance of him.
In the first case he is only a fellow-pupil ; in the second, he
teaches only that which he knows.
§ 9. Finally, we come to arts, and we are told that
Jacotot taught drawing and music, without being either a
draughtsman or a musician. In art everything depends on
rightly directed practice. The most consummate artist
cannot communicate his skill, and, except for inspiration
may be inferior as a teacher to one whose attention is more
concentrated on the mechanism of the art. Perhaps it is
not even necessary that the teacher should be able to do the
exercises himself, if only he knows how they should be done ;
but he seldom gets credit for this knowledge, unless he can
show that he knows how the thing should be done, by
doing it. Lessing tells us that Raphael would have been a
great painter even if he had been born without hands. He
would not, however, have succeeded in getting mankind to
believe it. I grant, then, that the teacher of art need not be
a first-rate artist, and, in some very exceptional cases, need
not be an artist at all ; but, if he cannot perform the exer-
cises he gives his pupil, he must at least know how they
should be done. But Jacotot claims perfect ignorance. We
are told that he "taught" drawing by setting objects before
his pupils, and making them imitate them on paper as best
they could. Of course the art originated in this way, and a
person with great perseverance, and (I must say, in spite of
Jacotot) with more than average ability, would make con-
siderable progress with no proper instruction ; but he would
lose much by the ignorance of the person calling himself his
teacher. An awkward habit of holding the pencil will make
skill doubly difficult to acquire, and thus half his time might
be wasted. Then, again, he would hardly have a better eye
1
JACOTOT. 42 1
True teacher within the learner.
than the early painters, so the drawing of his landscape
would not be less faulty than theirs. To consider music
I am told that a person who is ignorant of music can teach,
say, the piano or the violin. This seems to go beyond the
region of paradox into that of utter nonsense. Talent often
surmounts all kinds of difficulties ; but in the case of sell
taught, and ill-taught musicians, it is often painful to see
what time and talent have been wasted for want of proper
instruction.
I have thus carefully examined Jacotot's pretensions to
teach what he did not know, because I am anxious that
what seems to me the rubbish should be cleared away from
his principles, and should no longer conceal those parts of
his system which are worthy of general attention.
§ 10. At the root of Jacotot's paradox lay a truth of very
great importance. The highest and best teaching is not that
which makes the pupils passive recipients of other peoples'
ideas (not to speak of the teaching which conveys mere
words without any ideas at all), but that which guides and
encourages the pupils in working for themselves and think-
ing for themselves. The master, as Joseph Payne well says,
can no more think, or practise, or see for his pupil, than he
can digest for him, or walk for him. The pupil must owe
everything to his own exertions, which it is the function of
the master to encourage and direct. Perhaps this may seem
very obvious truth, but obvious or not it has been very
generally neglected. The old system of lecturing which
found favour with the Jesuits, has indeed now passed away,
and boys are left to acquire facts from school-books instead
of from the master. But this change is merely accidental.
The essence of the teaching still remains. Even where the
master does not confine himself to hearing what the scholars
422 JACOTOT.
Training rather than teaching.
have learnt by heart, he seldom does more than offer
explanations. He measures the teaching rather by the
amount which has been put before the scholars — by what he
has done for them and shown them — than by what they
have learned. But this is not teaching of the highest type.
When the votary of Dulness in the " Dunciad " is rendering
an account of his services, he arrives at this climax,
** For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
** And write about it, Goddess, and about it."
And in the same spirit Mr. J. M. Wilson stigmatises
as synonymous "the most stupid and most didactic
teaching."
§ II. All the eminent authorities on education have a
very different theory of the teacher's function. According
to them the master's attention is not to be fixed on his own
mind and his own store of knowledge, but on his pupil's
mind and on its gradual expansion. He must, in fact, be
not so much a teacher as a trainer. Here we have the view
which Jacotot intended to enforce by his paradox ; for we
may possibly train faculties which we do not ourselves
possess, just as the sportsman trains his pointer and his
hunter to perform feats which are altogether out of the range
of his own capacities. Now, " training is the cultivation
bestowed on any set of faculties with the object of develop-
ing them " (J. M. Wilson), and to train any faculty, you
must set it to work. Hence it follows, that as boys' minds
are not simply their memories, the master must aim at
something more than causing his pupils to remember facts.
Jacotot has done good service to education by giving pro
minence to this truth, and by showing in his method how
other faculties may be cultivated besides the memory.
JACOTOT. 423
3. Tout est dans tout. Quidlibet ex quolibet.
§ 1 2. " Tout est dans tout " ( " All is in all " ), is another of
Jacotot's paradoxes. I do not propose discussing it as the
philosophical thesis which takes other forms, as " Every
man is a microcosm," &c., but merely to inquire into its
meaning as applied to didactics.
If you asked an ordinary French schoolmaster who
Jacotot was, he would probably answer, Jacotot was a man
who thought you could learn everything by getting up
Fenelon's " Telemaque " by heart. By carrying your investi-
gation further, you would find that this account of him
required modification, that the learning by heart was only
part, and a very small part, of what Jacotot demanded from
his pupils, but you would also find that entire mastery of
"Telemaque " was the first requisite, and that he managed to
connect everything he taught with that " model-book." Of
course, if " tout est dans tout," everything is in " Telemaque;"
and, said an objector, also in the first book of " Telemaque "
and in t/te first word. Jacotot went through a variety of
subtilties to show that all " Telemaque " is contained in the
word Calypso^ and perhaps he would have been equally
successful, if he had been required to take only the first
letter instead of the first word. His maxim indeed becomes
by his treatment of it a mere paraphrase of " Quidlibet ex
quolibet,^' The reader is amused rather than convinced by
these discussions, but he finds them not without fruit.
They bring to his mind very forcibly a truth to which he
has hitherto probably not paid sufficient attention. He sees
that all knowledge is connected together, or (what will do
equally well for our present purpose) that there are a
thousand links by which we may bring into connexion the
different subjects of knowledge. If by means of these links
we can attach in our minds the knowledge we acquire to
424 JACOTOT.
Connexion of knowledges.
the knowledge we already possess, we shall learn faster
and more intelligently, and at the same time we shall have
a much better chance of retaining our new acquisitions.
The memory, as we all know, is assisted even by artificial
association of ideas, much more by natural. Hence the
value of " tout est dans tout," or, to adopt a modification
suggested by Joseph Payne, of the connexion of knowledges.
Suppose we know only one subject, but know that
thoroughly, our knowledge, if I may express myself
algebraically, cannot be represented by ignorance plus the
knowledge of that subject. We have acquired a great deal
more than that. When other subjects come before us, they
may prove to be so connected with what we had before, that
we may also seem to know them already. In other words
when we know a little thoroughly, though our actual
possession is small, we have potentially a great deal more.*
§ 13. Jacotot's practical application of his " tout est dans
tout" was as follows : — ''^11 faut apprendre quel que chose, ety
rapporter tout le rested ("The pupil must learn something
thoroughly, and refer everything to that.") For language
he must take a model book, and become thoroughly master
of it. His knowledge must not be a verbal knowledge only,
but he must enter into the sense and spirit of the writer.
Here we find that Jacotot's practical advice coincides with
that of many other great authorities, who do not base it on
the same principle. The Jesuits' maxim was, that their
pupils should always learn something thoroughly, however
i
* See H. Courthope Bowen on "Connectedness in Teaching"
{^Educational Times, June, 1890). Mr. Bowen quotes from H. Spencer
— *' Knowledge of the lowest kind is ?/«-z^«//?^t/ knowledge : science is
partially unified knowledge : philosophy is completely unified know-
ledge."
JACOTOT. 425
Connect with model book. Memorizing.
little it might be. Pestalozzi insisted on the children going
over the elements again and again till they were completely
master of them. Ascham, Ratke, and Comenius all required
a model-book to be read and re-read till words and thoughts
were firmly fixed in the pupil's memory. Jacotot probably
never read Ascham's " Schoolmaster." If he had done so
he might have appropriated some of Ascham's words as
exactly conveying his own thoughts. Ascham, as we saw,
recommended that a short book should be thoroughly
mastered, each lesson being worked over in different ways a
dozen times at the least, and in this way " your scholar shall
be brought not only to like eloquence, but also to all true
understanding and right judgment, both for writing and
speaking." In this the Englishman and the Frenchman are
in perfect accord.
§ 14. But if Jacotot agrees so far with earlier authorities,
there is one point in which he seems to differ from them.
He makes great demands on the memory, and requires six
books of " Telemaque " to be learned by heart. On the
other hand, Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, H. Spencer, and
other great writers would be opposed to this. Ratke
insisted that nothing should be learnt by heart. Protests
against " loading the memory," " saying without book," &c.,
are everywhere to be met with, and nowhere more vigorously
expressed than in Ascham. He says of the grammar-school
boys of his time, that " their whole knowledge, by learning
without the book, was tied only to their tongue and lips,
and never ascended up to the brain and head, and therefore
was soon spit out of the mouth again. They learnt with-
out book everything, they understood within the book
httle or nothing." But these protests were really directed
at verbal knowledge, when it is made to take the place of
426 JACOTOT.
Ways of studying the model book.
knowledge of the thing signified. We are always too ready
to suppose that words are connected with ideas, though both
old and young are constantly exposing themselves to the
sarcasm of Mephistophelcs : —
. . . eben wo Begriffe fehlen,
Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein.
• , . just where meaning fails, a word
Comes patly in to serve your turn.
Against this danger Jacotot took special precautions.
The pupil was to undergo an examination in everything
connected with the lesson learnt, and the master's share in
the work was to convince himself, from the answers he
received, that the pupil thoroughly grasped the meaning, as
well as remembered the words, of the author. Still the six
books of " Tel^maque," which Jacotot gave to be learnt by
heart, was a very large dose, and he would have been more
faithful to his own principles, says Joseph Payne, if he had
given the first book only.
§ 15. There are three ways in which the model-book
may be studied. ist, it may be read through rapidly
again and again, which was Ratke's plan and Hamilton's ;
or, 2nd, each lesson may be thoroughly mastered, read in
various ways a dozen times at the least, which was Ascham's
plan ; or, 3rd, the pupil may begin always at the beginning,
and advance a little farther each time, which was Jacotot's
plan.* This last, could not, of course, be carried very far.
* As I have said above (p. 89) these methodizers in language-learning
may, with regard to the first stage, be divided into two parties which
I have called Cornplete Retaijiers and Rapid Impressionists. Two Com-
plete Retainers, Robertson and Prendergast, have, as it seems to me,
made, since Jacotot, a great advance on his method and that of his
JACOTOT. 427
Should the book be made or chosen ?
The repetitions, when the pupil had got on some way in
the book, could not always be from the beginning; still
predecessor Ascham. As I have had a good deal of experience with
beginners in German, I will give from an old lecture of mine the main
conclusions at which I have arrived :— r" My principle is to attack the most
vital part of the language, and at first to keep the area small, or rather to
enlarge it very slowly ; but within that area I want to get as much variety
as possible. The study of a book written in the language should be
carried on pari passu with drill in its common inflexions. Now arises
the question, Should the book be made with the object of teaching the
language, or should it be selected from those written for other purposes ?
I see much to be said on either side. The three great facts we have to
turn to account in teaching a language, are these : — first, a few words
recur so constantly that a knowledge of them and grasp of them gives
us a power in the language quite out of proportion to their number ;
second, large classes of words admit of many variations of meaning by
inflection, which variations we can understand from analogy ; third,
compound words are formed ad infinitum on simple laws, so that the
root word supplies the key to a whole family. Now, if the book is
written by the language-teacher, he has the whole language before him,
and he can make the most of all these advantages. He can use only
the important words of the language ; he can repeat them in various
connections ; he can bring the main facts of inflection and construction
before the learner in a regular order, which is a great assistance to the
memory ; he can give the simple words before introducing words com-
pouncTed of them ; and he can provide that, when a word occurs for tne
first time, the learners shall connect it with its root meaning. A short
book securing all these advantages would, no doubt, be a very useful
implement, but I have never seen such a book. Almost all delectuses,
&c., bury the learner with a pile of new words, under which he feels
himself powerless. So far as I know, the book has yet to be written.
And even if it were written, with the greatest success from a linguistic
point of view, it would of course make no pretension to a meaning.
Having myself gone through a course of Ahn and of OUendorf, I re-
member, as a sort of nightmare, innumerable questions and answers,
such as "Have you my thread stockings? No, I have your worsted
itockings." Still more repulsive are the long sentences of Mr. Prender.
428 JACOTOT.
Robertsonian plan.
every part was to be repeated so frequently that nothing
could be forgotten. Jacotot did not wish his pupils to learn
gast : — *' How much must I give to the cabdriver to take my father to
the Bank in New Street before his second breakfast, and to bring him
home again before half-past two o'clock?" I cannot forget Voltaire's
mot^ which has a good deal of truth in it, — " Every way is good but the
tiresome way." And most of the books written for beginners are inex-
pressibly tiresome. No doubt it will be said, * * Unless you adopt the
rapid-impressionist plan^ any book must be tiresome. What is a mean-
ing at first becomes no meaning by frequent repetition." This, however,
is not altogether true. I myself have taught Niebuhr's Heroengeschichten
for years, and I know some chapters by heart ; but the old tales of
Jason and Hercules a^ they are told in Niebuhr's simple language do
not bore me in the least,
" Ein Begriff muss bei dem Worte sein,"
says the Student in Faust ; and a notion — a very pleasing notion, too—
remains to me about every word in the Heroei^geschichten.
These, then, would be my books to be worked at the same time by a
beginner, say in German : — A book for drill in the principal inflexions,
followed by the main facts about gender, &c., and a book like the
Heroengeschichten. This I would have prepared very much after the
Robertsonian manner. It should be printed, as should also the Primer,
in good-sized Roman type ; though, in an appendix, some of it should
be reprinted in German type. The book should be divided into short
lessons. A translation of each lesson should be given in parallel columns.
Then should come a vocabulary, in which all useful information should
be given about the really important words, the unimportant words being
neglected. Finally should come variations^ and exercises in the lessons ;
and in these the important words of that and previous lessons should be
used exclusively. The exercises should be such as the pupils could do
in writing out of school, and vivd voce in school. They should be very
easy — real exercises in what is already known, not a series of linguistic
puzzles. The object of the exercises, and also of a vast number of vivA
voce questions, should be to accustom the pupil to use his knowledge
readily. (But some teachers, young teachers especially, are always
tfroi J- examining, and seem to themselves to fail when their questions ar«
JACOTOT. 429
Hints for exercises.
simply in order to forget, but to learn in order to remember
for ever. "We are learned," said he, "not so far as we
answered without difficulty.) The ear, the voice, the hand, should all
be practised on each lesson. Wlien the construing is known, transcrip-
tion of the German is not by any means to be despised. A good
variety of transcription is, for the teacher to write the German clause by
clause on the black-board, and rub out each clause before the pupils
begin to write it. Then a known piece may be prepared for dictation.
In reading this as dictation, the master may introduce small variations,
to teach his pupils to keep their ears open. He may, as another exer-
cise, read the German aloud, and stop here and there for the boys to
give the English of the last sentence read ; or he may read to them
either the exact German in the book or small variations on it, and make
the pupils translate vivd voce, clause by clause. He may then ask
questions on the piece in German and require answers in English.
For exercises, there are many devices by which the pupil may be
trained to observation, and also be confirmed in his knowledge of back
lessons. The great teacher, F. A. "Wolf, used to make his own children
ascertain how many times such and such a word occurred in such and
such pages. As M. Breal says, children are collectors by nature ; and,
acting on this hint, we might say, ** Write in column all the dative cases
on pages a to c, and give the English and the corresponding nomina-
tives." Or, ** Copy from those pages all the accusative prepositions
wiih the accusatives after them." Or, " Write out the past participles,
with their infinitives." Or, "Translate such and such sentences, and
explain them with reference to the context." Or, questions may be
asked on the subject-matter of the book. There is no end to the
possible varieties of such exercises.
As soon as they get any feeling of the language, the pupils should
learn by heart some easy poetry in it. I should recommend their learn-
ing the English of the piece first, and then getting the German vivd voce
from the teacher. To quicken the German in their minds, I think it is
well to give them in addition a German prose version, using almost the
same words. Variations of the more important sentences should be
learnt at the same time.
In all these suggestions you will see what I am aiming at. I wish
30
430 JACOTOT.
The good of having learnt.
have learned, but only so far as we remember." He seems,
indeed, almost to ignore the fact that the act of learning
serves other purposes than that of making learned, and to
assert that to forget is the same as never to have learned,
which is a palpable error. We necessarily forget much
that passes through our minds, and yet its effect remains.
All grown people have arrived at some opinions, convictions,
knowledge, but they cannot call to mind every spot they
trod on in the road thither. When we have read a great
history, say, or travelled through a fresh country, we have
gained more than the number of facts we happen to re-
member. The mind seems to have formed an acquaintance
with that history or that country, which is something different
from the mere acquisition of facts. Moreover, our interests,
as well as our ideas, may long survive the memory of the
facts which originally started them. AVe are told that one
of the old judges, when a barrister objected to some dictum
of his, put him down by the assertion, " Sir, I have for-
gotten more law than ever you read." If he wished to
make the amount forgotten a measure of the amount re-
membered, this was certainly fallacious, as the ratio between
the two is not a constant quantity. But he may have meant
that this extensive reading had left its result, and that he
could see things from more points of view than the less
travelled legal vision of his opponent. That po7ver acquired
by learning may also last longer than the knowledge of
the thing learned is sufficiently obvious. So the advantages
derived from having learnt a thing are not entirely lost
when the thing itself is forgotten.*
the learner to get a feeling of, and a power over, the main words of the
language and the machinery in which they are employed.
• I append in a note a passage from the old edition of this book re-
JACOTOT. 431
The old Cambridge " mathematical man."
§ 16. But the reflection by no means justifies the dis-
graceful waste of memory which goes on in most school
ferring to the Cambridge man of forty years ago. **The typical
Cambridge man studies mathematics, not because he likes mathematics,
or derives any pleasure from the perception of mathematical truth, still
less with the notion of ever using his knowledge ; but either because, if
he is "a good man," he hopes for a fellowship, or because, if he cannot
aspire so high, he considers reading the thing to do, and finds a satis-
faction in mental effort just as he does in a constitutional to the
Gogmagogs. When such a student takes his degree, he is by no means
a highly cultivated man ; but he is not the sort of man we can despise
for all that. He has in him, to use one of his own metaphors, a con-
siderable amount of force^ which may be applied in any direction. He
has great power of concentration and sustained mental effort even on
subjects which are distasteful to him. In other words, his mind is
under the control of his will, and he can bring it to bear promptly and
vigorously on anything put before him. He will sometimes be half
through a piece of work, while an average Oxonian (as we Cambridge
men conceive of him at least) is thinking about beginning. But his
training has taught him to value mental force without teaching him to
care about its application. Perhaps he has been working at the gym-
nasium, and has at length succeeded in " putting up " a hundredweight.
In learning to do this, he has been acquiring strength for its own sake.
He does not want to put up hundredweights, but simply to be able to
put them up, and his reward is the consciousness of power. Now the
tripos is a kind of competitive examination in putting up weights. The
student who has been training for it, has acquired considerable mental
vigour, and when he has put up his weight he falls back on the con-
sciousness of strength which he seldom thinks of using. Having put up
the heavier, he despises the lighter weights. He rather prides himself
on his ignorance of such things as history, modern languages, and
English literature. He '* can get those up in a few evenings," whenever
he wants them. He reminds me, indeed, of a tradesman who has
worked hard to have a large balance at his banker's. This done, he is
satisfied. He has neither taste nor desire for the things which make
wealth valuable ; but when he sees other people in the enjoyment of
432 JACOTOT.
Waste of memory at school.
rooms. Much is leamt which, for want of the necessary
repetition, will soon be lost again, besides much that would
be valueless if remembered. The thing to aim at is not
giving "useful knowledge," but making the memory a store-
house of such facts as are good material for the other powers
of the mind to work with ; and that the facts may serve this
purpose they must be such as the mind can thoroughly
grasp and handle, and such as can be connected together.
To instruct is insiruere, " to put together in order, to build ;"
it is not cramming the memory with facts without con-
nexion, and, as Herbert Spencer calls them, unorganisable.
And yet a great deal of our children's memory is wasted in
storing facts of this kind, which can never form part of any
organism. We do not teach them geography {earth know-
ledge^ as the Germans call it), but the names of places. Our
"history" is a similar, though disconnected study. We
leave our children ignorant of the land, but insist on their
getting up the " landmarks." And, perhaps, from a latent
perception of the uselessness of such work, neither teachers
nor scholars ever think of these things as learnt to be re-
membered. They are indeed got up, as Schuppius says of
the Logic of his day, tn spetn futurce oblivionis. Latin
grammar is gone through again and again, and a boy feels
that the sooner he gets it into his head, the better it will
be for him ; but who expects that the lists of geographical
and historical names which are learnt one half-year, will be
remembered the next ? I have seen it asserted, that when
a boy leaves school, he has already forgotten nine-tenths of
what he has been taught, and I dare say that estimate is
quite within the mark.
them, he hugs himself with the consciousness that he can write a cheque
for such things whenever he pleases."
JACOTOT. 433
How to stop this waste.
§ 17. By adopting the principles of Jacotot, we avoid
a great deal of this waste. We give some thorough know-
ledge, with which fresh knowledge may be connected. And
it will then be found that perfect familiarity with a subject
is something beyond the mere understanding it and being
able, with difficulty, to reproduce what we have learned.
By thus going over the same thing again and again, we
acquire a thorough command over our knowledge ; and the
feeling perfectly at home, even within narrow borders, gives
a consciousness of strength. An old adage tells us that
the Jack-of-all-trades is master of none ; but the master of
one trade will have no difficulty in extending his insight
and capacity beyond it. To use an illustration, which is
of course an illustration merely, we should kindle knowledge
in children, like fire in a grate. A stupid servant, with a
small quantity of wood, spreads it over the whole grate. It
blazes away, goes out, and is simply wasted. Another, who
is wiser or more experienced, kindles the whole of the wood
at one spot, and the fire, thus concentrated, extends in all
directions. Similarly we should concentrate the beginnings
of knowledge, and although we could not expect to make
much show for a time, we might be sure that after a bit the
fire would extend, almost of its own accord.*
§ 18. From Joseph Payne I take Jacotot's directions for
carrying out the rule, " II faut apprendre quelque chose, et
y rapporter tout le reste."
* On this interesting subject I will quote three men who said nothing
inepte—De Morgan, Helps, and the first Sir James Stephen. De
Morgan, speaking of Jacotot's plan, wrote : — " There is much truth in the
assertion that new knowledge hooks on easily to a little of the old
thoioughly mastered. The day is coming when it will be found out
tb^t crammed erudition got up for examination, does not cast out any
434 JACOTOT.
Multum, non multa. De Morgan. Helps. Stephen.
I. Learn — i.e.^ learn so as to know thoroughly, perfectly,
immovably {tmperturbablement\ as well six months or twelve
hooks for more." {^Budget of Paradoxes^ p. 3.) Elsewhere he says: —
** When the student has occupied his time in learning a moderate portion
of many different things, what has he acquired — extensive knowledge or
useful habits ? Even if he can be said to have varied learning, it will
not long be true of him, for nothing flies so quickly as half-digested
knowledge ; and when this is gone, there remains but a slender portion
of useful power. A small quantity of learning quickly evaporates from
a mind which never held any learning except in small quantities ; and
the intellectual philosopher can perhaps explain the following phenom-
enon— that men who have given deep attention to one or more liberal
studies, can learn to the end of their lives, and are able to retain and
apply very small quantities of other kinds of knowledge ; while those
who have never learnt much of any one thing seldom acquire new
knowledge after they attain to years of maturity, and frequently lose the
greater part of that which they once possessed."
Sir Arthur Helps in Reading {Friends in C) says : — " All things are
so connected together that a man who knows one subject well, cannot,
if he would, have failed to have acquired much besides ; and that man
will not be likely to keep fewer pearls who has a string to put them on
than he who picks them up and throws them together without method.
This, however, is a very poor metaphor to represent the matter ; for
what I would aim at producing not merely holds together what is
gained, but has vitality in itself — is always growing. And anybody
will confirm this who in his own case has had any branch of study or
human affairs to work upon ; for he must have observed how all he
meets seems to work in with, and assimilate itself to, his own peculiar
subject. During his lonely walks, or in society, or in action, it seems
as if this one pursuit were something almost independent of himself,
always on the watch, and claiming its share in whatever is going on."
In his Lecture on Desultory and Systematic Reading, Sir James
Stephen said : — " Learning is a world, not a chaos. The various accu-
mulations of human knowledge are not so many detached masses.
They are all connected parts of one great system of truth, and though
that system be infinitely too comprehensive for any one of us to compass,
JACOTOT. 435
J.'s plan for reading and writing.
months hence, as now — something — something which fairly
represents the subject to be acquired, which contains its
essential characteristics. 2. Repeat that " something " in-
cessantly {sans cesse), i.e., every day, or very frequently, from
the beginning, without any omission, so that no part may
be forgotten. 3. Reflect upon the matter thus acquired,
so as, by degrees, to make it a possession of the mind as
well as of the memory, so that, being appreciated as a
whole, and appreciated in its minutest parts, what is as yet
unknown, may be referred to it and interpreted by it. 4.
Verify, or test, general remarks, e.g., grammatical rules,
&c., made by others, by comparing them with the facts (z>.,
the words and phraseology) which you have learnt yourself.
§ 19. In conclusion, I will give some account of the
way in which reading, writing, and the mother-tongue were
taught on the Jacototian system.
The teacher takes a book, say Edgeworth's " Early Les-
sons," points to the first word, and names it, "Frank."
The child looks at the word and also pronounces it. Then
the teacher does the same with the first two words, "Frank
and "; then with the three first, " Frank and Robert," &c.
When a Hne or so has been thus gone over, the teacher
asks which word is Robert ? What word is that (pointing
to one) ? " Find me the same word in this line " (pointing
to another part of the book). When a sentence has been
thus acquired, the words already known are analysed into
syllables, and these syllables the child must pick out else-
y^t each component member of it bears to every other component member
relations which each of us may, in his own department of study, search
out and discover for himself. A man is really and soundly learned in
exact proportion to the number and to the importance of those relations
which he has thus carefully examined and accurately understood."
436 JACOTOT.
For the mother-tongue.
where. Finally, the same thing is done with letters. When
the child can read a sentence, that sentence is put before
him written in small-hand, and the child is required to copy
it. When he has copied the first word, he is led, by the
questions of the teacher, to see how it differs from the
original, and then he tries again. The pupil must always
correct himself, guided only by questions. This sentence
must be worked at till the pupil can write it pretty well from
memory. He then tries it in larger characters. By carrying
out this plan, the children's powers of observation and
making comparisons are strengthened, and the arts of reading
and writing are said to be very readily acquired.
§ 20. For the mother-tongue, a model book is chosen
and thoroughly learned. Suppose " Rasselas " is selected.
" The pupil learns by heart a sentence, or a few sentences,
and to-morrow adds a few more, still repeating from the
beginning. The teacher, after two or three lessons of learn-
ing and repeating, takes portions — any portion — of the
matter, and submits it to the crucible of the pupil's mind :
— Who was Rasselas? Who was his father? What is the
father of waters? Where does it begin its course? Where
is Abyssinia? Where is Egypt? Where was Rasselas
placed ? What sort of a person was Rasselas ? What is
* credulity '? What are the ' whispers of fancy,' the * pro-
mises of youth,' &c., &c.?'*
A great variety of written exercises is soon joined with
the learning by heart. Pieces must be written from memory,
and the spelling, pointing, &c., corrected by the pupil him-
self from the book. The same piece must be written again
and again, till there are no more mistakes to correct.
" This," said Joseph Payne, who had himself taught in this
way, " is the best plan for spelling that has been devised,**
JACOTOT. 437
Method of Investigation.
Then the pupil may write an analysis, may define words,
distinguish between synonyms, explain metaphors, imitate
descriptions, write imaginary dialogues or correspondence
between the characters, &c. Besides these, a great variety
of grammatical exercises may be given, and the force of
prefixes and affixes may be found out by the pupils them-
selves by collection and comparison. " The resources even
of such a book as " Rasselas " will be found all but exhaust-
less, while the training which the mind undergoes in the
process of thoroughly mastering it, the acts of analysis, com-
parison, induction, and deduction, performed so frequently
as to become a sort of second nature, cannot but serve as
an excellent preparation for the subsequent study of English
literature " (Payne).
§ 21. We see, from these instances, how Jacotot sought
to imitate the method by which young children and self-
taught men teach themselves. All such proceed from
objects to definitions, from facts to reflections and theories,
from examples to rules, from particular observations to
general principles. They pursue, in fact, however uncon-
sciously, the method of investigation^ the advantages of which
are thus set out in a passage from Burke's treatise on the
Sublime and Beautiful : — " I am convinced," says he, " that
the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to
the method of investigation is incomparably the best ; since,
not content with serving up a few barren and hfeless truths,
it leads to the stock on which they grew ; it tends to set
the reader [or learner] himself in the track of invention, and
to direct him into those paths in which the author has made
his own discoveries." "For Jacotot, I think the claim may,
without presumption, be maintained that he has, beyond
all other teachers, succeeded in co-ordinating the method
438
JACOTOT.
Jacotot's last days.
of elementary teaching with the method of investigation "
(Payne).
§ 22. The latter part of his life, which did not end till
1840, Jacotot spent in his native country — first at Valen-
ciennes, and then at Paris. To the last he laboured inde-
fatigably, and with a noble disinterestedness, for what he
believed to be the " intellectual emancipation " of his fellow-
creatures. For a time, his system made great way in
France, but we now hear little of it. Jacotot has, however,
lately found an advocate in M. Bernard Perez, who has written
a book about him and also a very good article in Buisson's
Diciionnaire,
XIX.
HERBERT SPENCER.*
§ I. I ONCE heard it said by a teacher of great ability
that no one without practical acquaintance with the subject
could write anything worth reading on Education. My own
opinion differs very widely from this. I am not, indeed,
prepared to agree with another authority, much given to
paradox, that the actual work of education unfits a man for
forming enlightened views about it, but I think that the
outsider, coming fresh to the subject, and unencumbered by
tradition and prejudice, may hit upon truths which the
teacher, whose attention is too much engrossed with
practical difficulties, would fail to perceive without assist-
ance, and that, consequently, the theories of intelligent men,
unconnected with the work of education, deserve our
careful, and, if possible, our impartial consideration.
§ 2. One of the most important works of this kind
which has lately appeared, is the treatise of Mr. Herbert
Spencer. So eminent a writer has every claim to be hstened
to with respect, and in this book he speaks with more than
his individual authority. The views he has very vigorously
* This essay, which was written nearly twenty-five years ago, I
leave as it stands. I take some credit to myself for having early recog-
nised the importance of a book now famous. (June, 189a)
440 HERBERT SPENCER.
Same knowledge for discipline and use ?
propounded are shared by a number of distinguished
scientific men; and not a few of the unscientific believe
that in them is shadowed forth the education of the future.
§ 3. It is perhaps to be regretted that Mr. Spencer has
not kept the tone of one who investigates the truth in a
subject of great difficulty, but lays about him right and
left, after the manner of a spirited controversialist. This,
no doubt, makes his book much more entertaining reading
than such treatises usually are, but, on the othdr hand, it
has the disadvantage of arousing the antagonism of those
whom he would most wish to influence. When the man
who has no practical acquaintance with education, lays
down the law ex cathedra, garnished with sarcasms at all
that is now going on, the schoolmaster, offended by the
assumed tone of authority, sets himself to show where these
theories would not work, instead of examining what basis of
truth there is in them, and how far they should influence his
own practice.
I shall proceed to examine Mr. Spencer's proposals with
all the impartiality I am master of.
§ 4. The great question, whether the teaching which gives
the most valuable knowledge is the same as that which best
disciplines the faculties of the mind, Mr. Spencer dismisses
briefly. "It would be utterly contrary to the beautiful
economy of nature," he says, " if one kind of culture were
needed for the gaining of information, and another kind
were needed as a mental gymnastic* But it seems to me
that different subjects must be used to train the faculties at
different stages of development. The processes of science,
* This proposition has been ably discussed by President W. N.
Payne. Contributions to the Science of Education, *' Education
Values."
HERBERT SPENCER. 44 1
Different stages, different knowledges.
which form the staple of education in Mr. Spencer's system
cannot be grasped by the intellect of a child. " The
scientific discoverer does the work, and when it is done the
schoolboy is called in to witness the result, to learn its
chief features by heart, and to repeat them when called
upon, just as he is called on to name the mothers of the
patriarchs, or to give an account of the Eastern campaigns
of Alexander the Great." — {Fall Mall G.). This, however,
affords but scanty training for the mind. We want to draw
but the child's interests, and to direct them to worthy objects.
We want not only to teach him, but to enable and encourage
him to teach himself; and, if following Mr. Spencer's advice,
we make him get up the species of plants, " which amount to
some 320,000," and the varied forms of animal life, which
are "estimated at some 2,000,0000," we may, as Mr. Spencer
tells us, have strengthened his memory as effectually as by
teaching him languages ; but the pupil will, perhaps have no
great reason to rejoice over his escape from the horrors of
the " As in Praesenti," and " Propria quae Maribus." The
consequences will be the same in both cases. We shall
disgust the great majority of our scholars with the acquisition
of knowledge, and with the use of the powers of their mind.
Whether, therefore, we adopt or reject Mr. Spencer's con-
clusion, that there is one sort of knowledge which is
universally the most valuable, I think we must deny that
Ihere is one sort of knowledge which is universally and at
every stage in education, the best adapted to develop the
intellectual faculties. Mr. Spencer himself acknowledges this
elsewhere. " There is," says he, " a certain sequence in which
the faculties spontaneously develop, and a certain kind of
knowledge, which each requires during its development. It is
for us to ascertain this sequence, and supply this knowledge.
442 HERBERT SPENCER.
Relative value of knowledges.
§ 5. Mr. Spencer discusses more fully "the relative value
of knowledges," and this is a subject which has hitherto not
met with the attention it deserves. It is not sufficieit for
us to prove of any subject taught in our schools that the
knowledge or the learning of it is valuable. AVe must also
show that the knowledge or the learning of it is of at least
as great value as that of anything else that might be taught
in the same time. " Had we time to master all subjects we
need not be particular. To quote the old song —
Could a man be secure
That his life would endure,
As of old, for a thousand long years.
What things he might know 1
What deeds he might do !
And all without hurry or care I
But wc that have but span-long lives must ever bear in mind
our limited time for acquisition."
§ 6. To test the value of the learning imparted in edu-
cation we must look to the end of education. This Mr.
Spencer defines as follows : " To prepare us for complete
living is the function which education has to discharge, and
the only rational mode of judging of an educational course
is to judge in what degree it discharges such function."
For complete living we must know " in what way to treat the
body ; in what way to treat the mind ; in what way to
manage our affairs ; in what way to bring up a family ; in
what* way to behave as a citizen ; in what way to utilise
those sources of happiness which nature supplies — how to
use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves
and others." There are a number of sciences, says Mr.
Spencer, which throw light on these subjects. It should,
therefore, be the business of education to impart these sciences.
r
HERBERT SPENCER. 443
Knowledge for self-preservation.
But if there were (which is far from being the case) a
well-defined and well-established science in each of these
departments, those sciences would not be understandable by
children, nor would any individual have time to master the
whole of them, or even "a due proportion of each." The
utmost that could be attempted would be to give young
people some knowledge of the results of such sciences and
the rules derived from them. But to this Mr. Spencer
would object that it would tend, like the learning of
languages, "to increase the already undue respect for
authority."
§ 7. To consider Mr. Spencer's divisions in detail, we
come first to knowledge that leads to self-preservation.
" Happily, that all-important part of education which goes
to secure direct self-preservation is, in part, already provided
for. Too momentous to be left to our blundering. Nature
takes it into her own hands." But Mr. Spencer warns us
against such thwartings of Nature as that by which " stupid
schoolmistresses commonly prevent the girls in their charge
from the spontaneous physical activities they would indulge
in, and so render them comparatively incapable of taking
care of themselves in circumstances of peril."
§ 8. Indirect self-preservation, Mr. Spencer believes,
may be much assisted by a knowledge of physiology.
"Diseases are often contracted, our members are often
injured, by causes which superior knowledge would avoid."
I believe these are not the only grounds on which the
advocates of physiology urge its claim to be admitted into
the curriculum ; but these, if they can be established, are
no doubt very important. Is it true, however, that doctors
preserve their own life and health or that of their children
by their knowledge of physiology ? I think the matter is
4^ HERBERT SPENCER.
Useful knowledge v. the classics.
open to dispute. Mr. Spencer does not. He says very
truly that many a man would blush if convicted of ignorance
about the pronunciation of Iphigenia, or about the labours
of Hercules who, nevertheless, would not scruple to acknow-
ledge that he had never heard of the Eustachian tubes, and
could not tell the normal rate of pulsation. *' So terribly,"
adds Mr. Spencer, " in our education does the ornamental
override the useful !" But this is begging the question. At
present classics form part of the instruction given to every
gentleman, and physiology does not. This is the simpler
form of Mr. Spencer's assertion about the labours of Hercules
and the Eustachian tubes, and no one denies it. But we
are not so well agreed on the comparative value of these
subjects. In his Address at St. Andrews, J. S. Mill showed
that he at least was not convinced of the uselessness of
classics, and Mr. Spencer does not tell us how the know-
ledge of the normal state of pulsation is useful ; how, to use
his own test, it "influences action." However, whether we
admit the claims of physiology or not, we shall probably
allow that there are certain physiological facts and rules of
health, the knowledge of which would be of great practical
value, and should therefore be imparted to everyone.
Here the doctor should come to the schoolmaster's assist-
ance, and give him a manual from which to teach them.
§ 9. Next in order of importance, according to Mr. Spen-
cer, comes the knowledge which aids indirect self-preservation
by facilitating the gaining of a livelihood. Here Mr. Spencer
thinks it necessary to prove to us that such sciences as
mathematics and physics and biology underlie all the
practical arts and business of life. No one would think of
joining issue with him on this point ; but the question still
remains, what influence should this have on education?
HERBERT SPENCER. 445
Special instruction v. education.
"Teach science," says Mr. Spencer. "A grounding in
science is of great importance, both because it prepares for
all this [business of life], and because rational knowledge
has an immense superiority over empirical knowledge."
Should we teach all sciences to everybody ? This is clearly
impossible. Should we, then, decide for each child what
is to be his particular means of money-getting, and instruct
him in those sciences which will be most useful in that
business or profession ? In other words, should we have
a separate school for each calling ? The only attempt of
this kind which has been made is, I believe, the institution
of Handelschulen (commercial schools) in Germany. In
them, youths of fifteen or sixteen enter for a course of two
or three years' instruction which aims exclusively at fitting
them for commerce. But, in this case, their general edu-
cation is already finished With us, the lad commonly goes
to work at the business itself quite as soon as he has the
faculties for learning the sciences connected with it. If the
school sends him to it with a love of knowledge, and with
a mind well disciplined to acquire knowledge, this will be
of more value to him than any special information.
§ lo. As Mr. Spencer is here considering science merely
with reference to its importance in earning a livelihood, it
is not beside the question to remark, that in a great number
of instances, the knowledge of the science which underlies
an operation confers no practical ability whatever. No one
sees the better for understanding the structure of the eye
and the undulatory theory of light. In swimming or
rowing, a senior wrangler has no advantage over a man
who is entirely ignorant about the laws of fluid pressure.
As far as money-getting is concerned then, science will not
be found to be universally serviceable. Mr. Spencer gives
31
44^ HERBERT SPENCER.
Scientific knowledge and money-making-.
instances indeed, where science would prevent very
expensive blundering; but the true inference is, not that
the blunderers should learn science, but that they should
mind their own business, and take the opinion of scien-
tific men about theirs. " Here is a mine," says he, " in
the sinking of which many shareholders ruined them-
selves, from not knowing that a certain fossil belonged to
the old red sandstone, below which no coal is found."
Perhaps they were misled by the little knowledge which
Pope tells us is a dangerous thing. If they had been
entirely ignorant, they would surely have called in a pro-
fessional geologist, whose opinion would have been more
valuable than their own, even though geology had taken the
place of classics in their schooling. " Daily are men induced
to aid in carrying out inventions which a mere tyro in
science could show to be futile." But these are men whose
function it would always be to lose money, not make it,
whatever you might teach them.* I have great doubt,
therefore, whether the learning of sciences will ever be found
a ready way of making a fortune. But directly we get
beyond the region of pounds, shillings, and pence, I agree
most cordially with Mr. Spencer that a rational knowledge
has an immense superiority over empirical knowledge.
And, as a part of their education, boys should be taught to
distinguish the one from the other, and to desire rational
knowledge. Much might be done in this way by teaching,
not all the sciences and nothing else, but the main principles
of some one science, which would enable the more intelli-
gent boys to understand and appreciate the value of "a
rational explanation of phenomena." I believe this addi-
* " The brewer," as Mr. Spencer himself tells us, " if his business is
very extensive, finds it pay to keep a chemist on the premises " — pay a
good deal better, I suspect, than learning chemistry at schooL
HERBERT SPENCER. 44/
Knowledge about rearing offspring.
tion to what was before a literary education has already been
made in some of our leading schools, as Harrow, Rugby,
and the City of London.*
§ II. Next, Mr. Spencer would have instruction in the
proper way of rearing offspring form a part of his curriculum.
There can be no question of the importance of this know-
ledge, and all that Mr. Spencer says of the lamentable
ignorance of parents is, unfortunately, no less undeniable.
But could this knowledge be imparted early in life ? Young
people would naturally take but little interest in it. It is
by parents, or at least by those who have some notion of
the parental responsibility, that this knowledge should be
sought. The best way in which we can teach the young
will be so to bring them up that when they themselves have
to rear children the remembrance of their own youth may
be a guide and not a beacon to them. But more knowledge
than this is necessary, and I differ from Mr. Spencer only as
to the proper time for acquiring it.
§ 12. Next comes the knowledge which fits a man for
the discharge of his functions as a citizen, a subject to which
Dr. Arnold attached great importance at the time of the
first Reform Bill, and which deserves our attention all the
* Helps, who by taste and talent is eminently literary, put in this
claim for science more than 20 [now nearer 50] years ago. **The
higher branches of method cannot be taught at first ; but you may begin
by teaching orderliness of mind. Collecting, classifying, contrasting,
and weighing facts are some of the processes by which method is taught.
. . . Scientific method may be acquired without many sciences being
learnt ; but one or two great branches of science must be accurately
known." {Friends in Council^ Education.) Helps, though by his
delightful style he never gives the reader any notion of over-compression,
has told us more truth about education in a few pages than one some-
times meets with in a complete treatise.
448 HERBERT SPENCER.
Knowledge of history : its nature and use.
more in consequence of the second and third. But what
knowledge are we to give for this purpose ? One of the
subjects which seem especially suitable is history. But
history, as it is now written, is, according to Mr. Spencer,
useless. "It does not illustrate the right principles of
political action." " The great mass of historical facts are
facts from which no conclusions can be drawn — unorganis-
able facts, and, therefore, facts of no service in establishing
principles of conduct, which is the chief use of facts. Read
them if you like for amusement, but do not flatter yourself
they are inslructive." About the right principles of political
action we seem so completely at sea that, perhaps, the main
thing we can do for the young is to point out to them the
responsibilities which will hereafter devolve upon them, and
the danger, both to the state and the individual, of just
echoing the popular cry without the least reflection,
according to our present usage. But history, as it is now
written by great historians, may be of some use in training
the young both to be citizens and men. " Reading about
the fifteen decisive battles, or all the battles in history,
would not make a man a more judicious voter at the next
election," says Mr. Spencer. But is this true ? The know-
ledge of what has been done in other times, even by those
whose coronation renders them so distasteful to Mr. Spencer,
is knowledge which influences a man's whole character, and
may, therefore, affect particular acts, even when we are
unable to trace the connexion. As it has been often said,
the effect of reading history is, in some respects, the same
as that of travelling. Anyone in Mr. Spencer's vein might
ask, " If a man has seen the Alps, of what use will that be
to him in weighing out groceries ? " Directly, none at all ;
but indirectly, much. The travelled man will not be such
HERBERT SPENCER. 449
Use of history.
a slave to the petty views and customs of his trade as the
man who looks on his county town as the centre of the
universe. The study of history, like travelling, widens the
student's mental vision, frees him to some extent from the
bondage of the present, and prevents his mistaking conven-
tionalities for laws of nature. It brings home to him, in
all its force, the truth that " there are also people beyond
the mountain" i^Hititer dem Berge sind auch Leuie), that
there are higher interests in the world than his own business
concerns, and nobler men than himself or the best of his
acquaintance. It teaches him what men are capable of,
and thus gives him juster views of his race. And to have
all this truth worked into the mind contributes perhaps as
largely to " complete living " as knowledge of the Eustachian
tubes or of the normal rate of pulsation.* I think, therefore,
that the works of great historians and biographers, which we
already possess, may be usefully employed in education.
It is difficult to estimate the value of history according to
Mr. Spencer's idea, as it has yet to be written ; but I
venture to predict that if boys, instead of reading about
the history of nations in connection with their leading men,
are required to study only " the progress of society," the
subject will at once lose all its interest for them ; and.
* J. S. Mill (who by the way, would leave history entirely to private
reading, Address at St. Andi-ews^ p. 21), has pointed out that "there is
not a fact in history which is not susceptible of as many different ex-
planations as there are possible theories of human affairs," and that
•* history is not the foundation but the verification of the social science."
But he admits that " what we know of former ages, like what we know
of foreign nations, is, with all its imperfectness, of much use, by correct-
ing the narrowness incident to personal experience." (Dissertations,
Vol. I, p. 112.)
450 HERBERT SPENCER.
Employment of leisure hours.
perhaps, many of the facts communicated will prove, after
all, no less unorganisable than the fifteen decisive battles.
§ 13. Lastly, we come to that "remaining division of
human life which includes the relaxations and amusements
filling leisure hours." Mr. Spencer assures us that he will
yield to none in the value he attaches to aesthetic culture
and its pleasures ; but if he does not value the fine arts
less, he values science more ; and painting, music, and
poetry would receive as little encouragement under his
dictatorship as in the days of the Commonwealth. "As
the fine arts and belles-lettres occupy the leisure part of
life, so should they occupy the leisure part of education."
This language is rather obscure ; but the only meaning I
can attach to it is, that music, drawing, poetry, &c., may
be taught if time can be found when all other knowledges
are provided for. This reminds me of the author whose
works are so valuable that they will be studied when Shaks-
peare is forgotten — but not before. Anyone of the sciences
which Mr. Spencer considers so necessary might employ a
lifetime. Where then shall we look for the leisure part of
education when education includes them all ? *
* It is difficult to treat seriously the arguments by which Mr. Spencer
endeavours to show that a knowledge of science is necessary for the
practice or the enjoyment of the fine arts. Of course, the highest art of
every kind is based on science, that is, on truths which science takes
cognizance of and explains ; but it does not therefore follow that " with-
out science there can be neither perfect production nor full appreciation. "
Mr. Spencer tells us of mistakes which John Lewis and Rossetti have
made for want of science. Very likely ; and had those gentlemen de-
voted much ot their time to science we should never have heard of their
blunders — or of their pictures either. If they were to paint a piece of
woodwork, a carpenter might, perhaps, detect something amiss in the
mitring. If they painted a wall, a bricklayer might point out that with
HERBERT SPENCER. 45 1
Poetry and the Arts.
§ 14. But, if adopting Mr. Spencer's own measure, we
estimate the value of knowledge by its influence on action,
we shall probably rank "accomplishments" much higher
than they have hitherto been placed in the schemes of
educationists. Knowledge and skill connected with the
business of life, are of necessity acquired in the discharge
of business. But the knowledge and skill which make our
leisure valuable to ourselves and a source of pleasure to
others, can seldom be gained after the work of life has
begun. And yet every day a man may benefit by possess-
ing such an ability, or may suffer from the want of it
One whose eyesight has been trained by drawing and
painting finds objects of interest all around him, to which
their arrangement of stretchers and headers the wall would tumble down
for want of a proper bond. But even Mr. Spencer would not wish
them to spend their time in mastering the technicalities of every handi-
craft, in order to avoid these inaccuracies. It is the business of the
painter to give us form and colour as they reveal themselves to the eye,
not to prepare illustrations of scientific text-books. The physical
sciences, however, are only part of the painter's necessary equipment,
according to Mr. Spencer. '* He must also understand how the minds
of spectators will be affected by the several peculiarities of his work — a
question in psychology ! " Still more surprising is Mr. Spencer's dictum
about poetry. " Its rhythm, its strong and numerous metaphors, its
hyperboles, its violent inversions, are simply exaggerations of the traits
of excited speech. To be good, therefore, poetry must pay attention to
those laws of nervous action which excited speech obeys." It is difficult
to see how poetry can pay attention to anything. The poet, of course
must not violate those laws, but, if he has paid- attention to them in
composing, he will do well to present his MS. to the local newspaper.
[It seems the class is not extinct of whom Pope wrote : —
** Some drily plain, without invention's aid
** Write dull receipts how poems may be made. "
Essay on Criticism^
452 HERBERT SPENCER.
More than science needed for complete living.
other people are blind. A primrose by a river's brim is,
perhaps, more to him who has a feeling for its form and
colour than even to the scientific student, who can tell all
about its classification and component parts. A knowledge
of music is often of the greatest practical service, as by
virtue of it, its possessor is valuable to his associates, to
say nothing of his having a constant source of pleasure
and a means of recreation which is most precious as a relief
from the cares of hfe. Of far greater importance is the
knowledge of our best poetry. One of the first reforms
in our school course would have been, I should have
thought, to give this knowledge a much more prominent
place; but Mr. Spencer consigns it, with music and drawing,
to " the leisure part of education." Whether a man who
was engrossed by science, who had no knowledge of the
fine arts except as they illustrated scientific laws, no
acquaintance with the lives of great men, or with any his-
tory but sociology, and who studied the thoughts and
emotions expressed by our great poets merely with a view
to their pyschological classification — whether such a man
could be said to "live completely" is a question to which
every one, not excepting Mr. Spencer himself, would pro-
bably return the same answer. And yet this is the kind of
man which Mr. Spencer's system would produce where it
was most successful.
§ 15. Let me now briefly sum up the conclusions arrived
at, and consider how far I differ from Mr. Spencer. I
believe that there is no one study which is suited to train
the faculties of the mind at every stage of its development,
and that when we have decided on the necessity of this or
that knowledge, we must consider further what is the right
time for acquiring it. I believe that intellectual education
HERBERT SPENCER. 453
Objections to H. S.'s curriculum.
should aim, not so much at communicating facts, however
valuable, as at showing the boy what true knowledge is,
and giving him the power and the disposition to acquire it.
I believe that the exclusively scientific teaching which Mr.
Spencer approves would not effect this. It would lead at
best to a very one-sided development of the mind. It
might fail to engage the pupil's interest sufficiently to draw
out his faculties, and in this case the net outcome of his
school-days would be no larger than at present. Of the
knowledges which Mr. Spencer recommends for special
objects, some, I think, would not conduce to the object, and
some could not be communicated early in life, (i.) For
indirect self-preservation we do not require to know phy-
siology, but the results of physiology. (2.) The science
which bears on special pursuits in life has not, in many
cases, any pecuniary value, and although it is most desirable
that every one should study the science which makes his
work intelligible to him, this must usually be done when
his schooling is over. The school will have done its part
if it has accustomed him to the intellectual processes by
which sciences are learned, and has given him an intelligent
appreciation of their value.* (3.) The right way of rearing
and training children should be studied, but not by the
children themselves. (4.) The knowledge which fits a man
* Speaking of law, medicine, engineering, and the industrial arts, J.
S. Mill remarks : " Whether those whose speciality they are will learn
them as a branch of intelligence or as a mere trade, and whether having
learnt them, they will make a wise and conscientious use of them, or
the reverse, depends less on the manner in which they are taught their
profession, than upon W^ a/ sort of mind they biing to it — what kind oj
intelligence and of conscience the general system of education has deve-
loped in M^w."— Address at St. Andrews, p. 6.
454 HERBERT SPENCER.
Citizen's duties. Things not to teach.
to discharge his duties as a citizen is of great importance,
and, as Dr. Arnold pointed out, is Hkely to be entirely
neglected by those who have to struggle for a livelihood
The schoolmaster should, therefore, by no means neglect
this subject with those of his pupils whose school-days will
soon be over, but, probably, all that he can do is to cultivate
in them a sense of the citizen's duty, and a capacity for
being their own teachers. (5.) The knowledge of poetry,
belles-lettres, and the fine arts, which Mr. Spencer hands
over to the leisure part of education, is the only knowledge
in his program which I think should most certainly form
a prominent part in the curriculum of every school.
§ 16. I therefore differ, though with great respect, from
the conclusions at which Mr. Spencer has arrived. But I
heartily agree with him that we are bound to inquire into
the relative value of knowledges, and if we take, as I should
willingly do, Mr. Spencer's test, and ask how does this or
that knowledge influence action (including in our inquiry
its influence on mind and character, through which it bears
upon action), I think we should banish from our schools
much that has hitherto been taught in them, besides those
old tormentors of youth (laid, I fancy, at last — requiescant
in pace) — the Propria quce. Maribus and its kindred ab-
surdities. What we should teach is, of course, not so easily
decided as what we should fiot.
§ 17. I now come to consider Mr. Spencer's second
chapter, in which, under the heading of " Intellectual Edu-
cation," he gives an admirable summing up of the main
principles in which the great writers on the subject have
agreed, from Comenius downwards. These principles are,
perhaps, not all of them unassailable, and even where they
are true, many mistakes must be expected before we arrive
HERBERT SPENCER. 455
Need of a science of education.
at the best method of applying them ; but the only reason
that can be assigned for the small amount of influence they
have hitherto exercised is, that most teachers are as ignorant
of them as of the abstrusest doctrines of Kant and Hegel.
§ 1 8. In stating these principles Mr. Spencer points out
that they merely form a commencement for a science of
education. " Before educational methods can be made to
harmonise in character and arrangement with the faculties
in the mode and order of unfolding, it is first needful that
we ascertain with some completeness how the faculties do
unfold. At present we have acquired on this point only a
few general notions. These general notions must be de-
veloped in detail — must be transformed into a multitude of
specific propositions before we can be said to possess that
science on which the art of education must be based. And
then, when we have definitely made out in what succession
and in what combinations the mental powers become active,
it remains to choose out of the many possible ways of
exercising each of them, that which best conforms to its
natural mode of action. Evidently, therefore, it is not to
be supposed that even our most advanced modes of teaching
are the right ones, or nearly the right ones." It is not
to be wondered at that we have no science of education.
Those who have been able to observe the phenomena have
had no interest in generalising from them. Up to the
present time the schoolmaster has been a person to whom
boys were sent to learn Latin and Greek. He has had,
therefore, no more need of a science than the dancing-
master.* But the present century, which has brought in so
* Comme vous n'avez pas su ou comme vous n'avez pas voulu
atteindre la pensee de 1 'enfant, vous n'avez aucune action sur son de-
456 HERBERT SPENCER.
Hope of a science.
many changes, will not leave the state of education as it
found it. Latin and Greek, if they are not dethroned in
our higher schools, will have their despotism changed for
a very limited monarchy. A course of instruction certainly
without Greek and perhaps without Latin will have to be
provided for middle schools. Juster views are beginning
to prevail of the schoolmaster's function. It is at length
perceived that he has to assist the development of the
human mind, and perhaps, by-and-bye, he may think it as
well to learn all he can of that which he is em.ployed in
developing. When matters have advanced as far as this,
we may begin to hope for a science of education. In
Locke's day he could say of physical science that there was
no such science in existence. For thousands of years the
human race had lived in ignorance of the simplest laws of
the world it inhabited. But the true method of inquiring
once introduced, science has made such rapid conquests,
and acquired so great importance, that some of our ablest
men seem inclined to deny, if not the existence, at least
the value, of any other kind of knowledge. So, too, when
teachers seek by actual observation to discover the laws of
mental development, a science may be arrived at, which, in
its influence on mankind, would perhaps rank before any
we now possess.
§ 19. Those who have read the previous Essays will
have seen in various forms most of the principles which Mr.
Spencer enumerates, but I gladly avail myself of his assist-
ance in summing them up.
I. We should proceed from the simple to the complex.
veloppement moral et intellectuel. Vous etes le maitre de latin et de
grec." Br^al. Quelques Mots, &^c.y p. 243.
HERBERT SPENCER. 457
From simple to complex : known to unknown.
both in our choice of subjects and in the way in which each
subject is taught. We should begin with but few subjects
at once, and, successively adding to these, should finally
carry on all subjects abreast.
Each larger concept is made by a combination of smaller
ones, and presupposes them. If this order is not attended
to in communicating knowledge, the pupil can learn nothing
but words, and will speedily sink into apathy and disgust.
§ 20. That we must proceed from the known to the un
known is something more than a corollary to the above ;*
because not only are new concepts formed by the combina-
tion of old, but the mind has a liking for what it knows, and
this liking extends itself to all that can be connected with
.its object. The principle of using the known in teaching
the unknown is so simple, that all teachers who really
endeavour to make anything understood, naturally adopt
it. The traveller who is describing what he has seen and
what we have not seen tells us that it is in one particular
like this object, and in another like that object, with which
we are already familiar. We combine these different
concepts we possess, and so get some notion of things about
which we were previously ignorant. What is required in our
teaching is that the use of the know nshould be employed
more systematically. Most teachers think of boys who
have no school learning as entirely ignorant. The least
reflection shows, however, that they know already much
more than schools can ever teach them. A sarcastic
examiner is said to have handed a small piece of paper to a
student and told him to write all he knew on it. Perhaps
* Mr. Spencer does not mention tliis principle in his enumeration,
but, no doubt, considers he implies it.
458 HERBERT SPENCER.
Connecting schoolwork with life outside.
many boys would have no difficulty in stating the sum of
their school-learning within very narrow limits, but with
other knowledge a child of five years old, could he write,
might soon fill a volume.* Our aim should be to connect
the knowledge boys bring with them to the schoolroom with
that which they are to acquire there.f I suppose all will
allow, whether they think it a matter of regret or otherwise,
that hardly anything of the kind has hitherto been attempted.
Against this state of things I cannot refrain from borrowing
Mr. Spencer's eloquent protest. "Not recognising the
truth that the function of books is supplementary — that they
form an indirect means to knowledge when direct means
fail, a means of seeing through other men what you cannot
see for yourself, teachers are eager to give second-hand facts
in place of first-hand facts. Not perceiving the enormous
value of that spontaneous education which goes on in early
years, not perceiving that a child's restless observation,
instead of being ignored or checked, should be diligently
ministered to, and made as accurate and complete as possi-
ble, they insist on occupying its eyes and thoughts with
things that are, for the time being, incomprehensible and
repugnant. Possessed by a superstition which worships the
* "Si Ton partageait toute la science humaine en deux parties, Tune
commune k tous les hommes, I'autre particuliere aux savants, celle-ci
serait tres-petite en comparaison de I'autre. Mais nous ne songeons
gu^re aux acquisitions generales, parce qu'elles se font sans qu'on y
pense, et meme avant I'age de raison ; que d'ailleurs le savoir ne se fait
remarquer que par ses differences, et que, comme dans les equations
d'algebre, les quantites communes se comptent pour rien." — ^milcy
livre L
t This is well said in Dr. John Brown's admirable paper Education
through the Senses. (Horae Subsecivae, pp. 313, 314.)
HERBERT SPENCER. 459
Books and life.
symbols of knowledge instead of the knowledge itself, they
do not see that only when his acquaintance with the objects
and processes of the household, the street, and the fields,
is becoming tolerably exhaustive, only then should a child
be introduced to the new sources of information which
books supply, and this not only because immediate cogni-
tion is of far greater value than mediate cognition, but also
because the words contained in books can be rightly inter-
preted into ideas only in proportion to the antecedent
experience of things."* While agreeing heartily in the spirit
of this protest, I doubt whether we should wait till the
child's acquaintance with the objects and processes of the
household, the streets, and the fields, is becoming tolerably
exhaustive before we give him instruction from books. The
point of time which Mr. Spencer indicates is, at all events,
rather hard to fix, and I should wish to connect book-learn-
ing as soon as possible with the learning that is being
acquired in other ways. Thus might both the books, and
the acts and objects of daily hfe, win an additional interest.
If, e.g., the first reading-books were about the animals, and
later on about the trees and flowers which the children con
stantly meet with, and their attention was kept up by large
coloured pictures, to which the text might refer, the children
* After remarking on the wrong order in which subjects are taught,
he continues, "What with perceptions unnaturally dulled by early
thwartings, and a coerced attention to books, what with the mental con-
fusion pioduced by teaching subjects before they can be understood, and
in each of them giving generalisations before the facts of which they are
the generalisations, what with making the pupil a mere passive recipient
of others' ideas and not in the least leading him to be an active inquirer
or self-instructor, and what with taxing the faculties to excess, there are
very few minds that become as efficient as they might be."
460 HERBERT SPENCER.
Mistakes in grammar teaching.
would soon find both pleasure and advantage in reading,
and they would look at the animals and trees with a keener
interest from the additional knowledge of them they had
derived from books. This is, of course, only one small
application of a very influential principle.
§ 21. One marvellous instance of the neglect of this prin-
ciple is found in the practice of teaching Latin grammar
before English grammar. As Professor Seeley has so well
pointed out, children bring with them to school the know-
ledge of language in its concrete form. They may soon be
taught to observe the language they already know, and to
find, almost for themselves, some of the main divisions of
words in it. But, instead of availing himself of the child's
previous knowledge, the schoolmaster takes a new and
difficult language, differing as much as possible from English,
a new and difficult science, that of grammar, conveyed, too,
in a new and difficult terminology, and all this he tries to
teach at the same time. The consequence is that the
science is destroyed, the terminology is either misunderstood,
or, more probably, associated with no ideas, and even the
language for which every sacrifice is made, is found, in nine
cases out of ten, never to be acquired at all.*
* A class of boys whom I once took in Latin Delectus denied, with
the utmost confidence, when I questioned them on the subject, that there
were any such things in English as verbs and substantives. On another
occasion, I saw a poor boy of nine or ten caned, because, when he had
said that projiciscor was a deponent verb, he could not say what a depo-
nent verb was. Even if he had remembered the inaccurate grammar
definition expected of him, '* A deponent verb is a verb with a passive
form and an active meaning," his comprehension of projiciscor would
have been no greater. It is worth observing that, even when offending
grievously in great matters against the principle of connecting fresh
knowledge with the old, teachers are sometimes driven to it in small.
HERBERT SPENCER. 46 1
From indefinite to definite : concrete to abstract.
§ 22. 2. "All development is an advance from the
indefinite to the definite." I do not feel very certain of the
truth of this principle, or of its application, if true. Of
course, a child's intellectual conceptions are at first vague,
and we should not forget this ; but it is rather a fact than a
principle.
§ 23. 3. "Our lessons ought to start from the concrete,
and end in the abstract." What Mr. Spencer says under
this head well deserves the attention of all teachers.
" General formulas which men have devised to express
groups of details, and which have severally simplified their
conceptions by uniting many facts into one fact, they have
supposed must simplify the conceptions of a child also.
They have forgotten that a generalisation is simple only in
comparison with the whole mass of particular truths it com-
prehends ; that it is more complex than any one of these
truths taken simply ; that only, after many of these single
truths have been acquired, does the generalisation ease the
memory and help the reason ; and that, to a mind not
possessing these single truths, it is necessarily a mystery.
Thus, confounding two kinds of simplification, teachers have
constantly erred by setting out with " first principles," a pro-
ceeding essentially, though not apparently, at variance with
the primary rule [of proceeding from the simple to the
They find that it is better for boys to see that lignum is like regnurrty
and laudare like amare^ than simply to learn that lignum is of the
Second Declension, and laudare of the First Conjugation. If boys had
to learn by a mere effort of memory the particular declension or con-
jugation of Latin words before they were taught anything about declen-
sions and conjugations, this would be as sensible as the method adopted
in some other instances, and the teachers might urge, as usual, that the
information would come in useful afterwards-
32
462 HERBERT SPENCER.
The Individual and the Race. Empirical beginning.
complex], which implies that the mind should be introduced
to principles through the medium of examples, and so should
be led from the particular to the general, from the concrete
to the abstract." In conformity with this principle, Pesta-
lozzi made the actual counting of things precede the teach-
ing of abstract rules in arithmetic. Basedow introduced
weights and measures into the school, and Mr. Spencer
describes some exercise in cutting out geometrical figures in
cardboard, as a preparation for geometry. The difficulty
about such instruction is that it requires apparatus, and
apparatus is apt to get lost or out of order. But if apparatus
is good for anything at all, it is worth a little trouble.
There is a tendency in the minds of many teachers to
depreciate "mechanical appliances:" Even a decent
black-board is not always to be found in our higher schools.
But, though such appliances wall not enable a bad master
to teach well, nevertheless, other things being equal, the
master will teach better with them than without them.
There is little credit due to him for managing to dispense
with apparatus. An author might as well pride himself on
being saving in pens and paper.
§ 24. 4. "The genesis of knowledge in the individual
must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge
in the race." This is the thesis on which I have no opinion
to offer.
§ 25. 5, From the above principle Mr. Spencer infers
that every study should have a purely experimental intro-
duction, thus proceeding through an empirical stage to a
rational,
§ 26. 6. A second conclusion which Mr. Spencer draws
is that, in education, the process of self-development should
be encouraged to the utmost. Children should be led to
HERBERT SPENCER. 463
Against " telling." Effect of bad teaching.
make their own investigations, and to draw their own
inferences. They should be told as little as possible,
and induced to discover as much as possible. I quite
agree with Mr. Spencer that this principle cannot be too
strenuously insisted on, though it obviously demands a high
amount of intelligence in the teacher. But if education is
to be a training of the faculties, if it is to prepare the pupil
to teach himself, something more is needed than simply to
pour in knowledge and make the pupil reproduce it. The
receptive and reproductive faculties form but a small portion
of a child's powers, and yet the only portion which many
schoolmasters seek to cultivate. It is indeed, not easy to
get beyond this point ; but the impediment is in us, not in
the children. " Who can watch," ask Mr. Spencer, " the
ceaseless observation, and inquiry, and inference, going on
in a child's mind, or listen to its acute remarks in matters
within the range of its faculties, without perceiving that
these powers it manifests, if brought to bear systematically
upon studies within the same range, would readily master
them without help ? This need for perpetual teUing results
from our stupidity, not from the child's. We drag it away
from the facts in which it is interested, and which it is
actively assimilating of itself. We put before it facts far
too complex for it to understand, and therefore distasteful
to it. Finding that it will not voluntarily acquire these
facts, we thrust them into its mind by force of threats and
punishment. By thus denying the knowledge it craves,
and cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we
produce a morbid state of its faculties, and a consequent
disgust for knowledge in general. And when, as a result,
partly of the stolid indolence we have brought on, and
partly of still-continued unfitness in its studies, the child
464 HERBERT SPENCER.
Learning should be pleasurable.
can understand nothing without explanation, and becomes
a mere passive recipient of our instruction, we infer that
education must necessarily be carried on thus. Having
by our method induced helplessness, we make the helpless-
ness a reason for our method." It is, of course, much
easier to point out defects than to remedy them : but every
one who has observed the usual indifference of schoolboys
to their work, and the waste of time consequent on their
inattention or only half-hearted attention to the matter
before them, and then thinks of the eagerness with which
the same boys throw themselves into the pursuits of their
play-hours, will feel a desire to get at the cause of this
difference ; and, perhaps, it may seem to him partly
accounted for by the fact that their school-work makes a
monotonous demand on a single faculty — the memory.
§ 27. 7. This brings me to the last of Mr. Spencer's
principles of intellectual education. Instruction must
excite the interest of the pupils and therefore be pleasurable
to them. " Nature has made the healthful exercise of our
faculties both of mind and body pleasurable. It is true
that some of the highest mental powers as yet but little
developed in the race, and congenitally possessed in any
considerable degree only by the most advanced, are indis-
posed to the amount of exertion required of them. But
these, in virtue of their very complexity w^ill in a normal
course of culture come last into exercise, and will, therefore,
have no demands made on them until the pupil has arrived
at an age when ulterior motives can be brought into play,
and an indirect pleasure made to counterbalance a direct
displeasure. With all faculties lower than these, however,
the immediate gratification consequent on activity is the
normal stimulus, and under good management the only
i
HERBERT SPENCER. 465
Can learning be made interesting ?
needful stimulus. When we have to fall back on some
other, we must take the fact as evidence that we are on the
wrong track. Experience is daily showing with greater
clearness that there is always a method to be found produc-
tive of interest — even of delight — ^and it ever turns out that
this is the method proved by all other tests to be the right one."
§ 28. As far as I have had the means of judging, I have
found that the majority of teachers reject this principle.
If you ask them why, most of them will tell you that it is
impossible to make school-work interesting to children. A
large number also hold that it is not desirable. Let us
consider these two points separately.
Of course, if it is not possible to get children to take
interest in anything they could be taught in school, there
is an end of the matter. But no one really goes as far as
this. Every teacher finds that some of the things boys are
taught they like better than others, and perhaps that one
boy takes to one subject and another to another ; and he
also finds, both of classes and individuals, that they always
get on best with what they like best The utmost that can
be maintained is, then, that some subjects which must be
taught will not interest the majority of the learners. And
if it be once admitted that it is desirable to make learning
pleasant and interesting to our pupils, this principle will
influence us to some extent in the subjects we select for
teaching, and still more in the methods by which we
endeavour to teach them. I say we shall be guided to
some extent in the selection of subjects. There are theorists
who assert that nature gives to young minds a craving for
their proper aliment, so that they should be taught only
what they show an inclination for. But surely our natural
inclinations in this matter, as in others, are neither on the
466 HERBERT SPENCER.
Apathy from bad teaching.
one hand to be ignored, nor on the other to be uncontrolled
by such motives as our reason dictates to us. We at length
perceive this in the physical nurture of our children. Locke
directs that children are to have very httle sugar or salt.
"Sweetmeats of all kinds are to be avoided," says he,
" which, whether they do more harm to the maker or eater
is not easy to tell." (Ed. § 20.) Now, however, doctors
have found out that young people's taste for sweets should
in moderation be gratified, that they require sugar as much
as they require any other kind of nutriment. But no one
would think of feeding his children entirely on sweetmeats,
or even of letting them have an unlimited supply of plum
puddings and hardbake. If we follow out this analogy in
nourishing the mind, we shall, to some extent, gratify a
child's taste for "stories," whilst we also provide a large
amount of more solid fare. But although we should
certainly not ignore our children's likes and dislikes in
learning, or in anything else, it is easy to attach too much
importance to them. Dislike very often proceeds from
mere want of insight into the subject. When a boy has
" done " the First Book of Euclid without knowing how to
judge of the size of an angle, or the Second Book without
forming any conception of a rectangle, no one can be sur-
prised at his not liking EucHd. And then the failure which
is really due to bad teaching is attributed by the master
to the stupidity of his pupil, and by the pupil to the
dulness of the subject. If masters really desired to make
learning a pleasure to their pupils, I think they would find
that much might be done to effect this without any alteration
in the subjects taught.
But the present dulness of school-work is not without
its defenders. They insist on the importance of breaking
HERBERT SPENCER. 467
Should learning be made interesting ?
in the mind to hard work. This can only be done, they
say, by tasks which are repulsive to it. The schoolboy does
not like, and ought not to like, learning Latin grammar any
more than the colt should find pleasure in running round in
a circle : the very fact that these things are not pleasant
makes them beneficial. Perhaps a certain amount of such
training may train down the mind and qualify it for some
drudgery from which it might otherwise revolt ; but if this
result is attained, it is attained at the sacrifice of the intel-
lectual activity which is necessary for any higher function.
As Carlyle says, {Latter-Day FF., No. iij), when speaking
of routine work generally, you want nothing but a sorry nag
to draw your sand-cart; your high-spirited Arab will be
dangerous in such a capacity. But who world advocate
for all colts a training which should render them fit for
nothing but such humble toil ? I shall say more about this
further on {v. pp. 472^); here I will merely express my strong
conviction that boys' minds are frequently dwarfed, and
their interest in intellectual pursuits blighted, by the practice
of employing the first years of their school-life in learning
by heart things which it is quite impossible for them to
understand or care for. Teachers set out by assuming that
little boys cannot understand anything, and that all we can
do with them is to keep them quiet and cram them with
forms which will come in useful at a later age. When the
boys have been taught on this system for two or three years,
their teacher complains that they are stupid and inattentive,
and that so long as they can say a thing by heart they never
trouble themselves to understand it. In other words, the
teacher grumbles at them for doing precisely what they have
been taught to do, for repeating words without any thought
of their meaning.
468 HERBERT SPENCER.
Difference between theory and practice.
§ 29. In this very important matter I am fully alive to the
difference between theory and practice. It is so easy to
recommend that boys should be got to understand and take
an interest in their work — so difficult to carry out the
recommendation ! Grown people can hardly conceive that
words which have in their minds been associated with
familiar ideas from time immemorial, are mere sounds in
the mouths of their pupils. The teacher thinks he is
beginning at the beginning if he says that a transitive verb
must govern an accusative, or that all the angles of a square
are right angles. He gives his pupils credit for innate ideas
up to this point, at all events, and advancing on this
supposition he finds that he can get nothing out of them but
memory-work ; so he insists on this that his time and theirs
may seem not to be wholly wasted. The great difficulty of
teaching well, however, is after all but a poor excuse for
contentedly teaching badly, and it would be a great step in
advance if teachers in general were as dissatisfied with
themselves as they usually are with their pupils.*
* Mr. Spencer and Professor Tyndall appeal to the results of expe-
rience as justifying a more rational method of teaching. Speaking of
geometrical deductions, Mr. Spencer says : " It has repeatedly occurred
that those who have been stupefied by the ordinary school-drill — by its
abstract formulas, its wearisome tasks, its cramming — have suddenly had
their intellects roused by thus ceasing to make them passive recipients,
and inducing them to become active discoverers. The discouragement
caused by bad teaching having been diminished by a little sympathy,
and sufficient perseverance excited to achieve a first success, there arises
a revolution of feeling afifecting the whole nature. They no longer find
themselves incompetent ; they too can do something. And gradually,
as success follows success, the incubus of despair disappears, and they
attack the difficulties of their other studies with a courage insuring
conquest."
HERBERT SPENCER. 469
Importance of H. S.'s work.
§ 30. I do not purpose following Mr. Spencer through
his chapters on moral and physical education. In practice
I find I can draw no line between moral and religious
education ; so the discussion of one without the other has
not for me much interest. Mr. Spencer has some very
valuable remarks on physical education which I could do
little more than extract, and I have already made too many
quotations from a work which will be in the hands of most
of my readers.
§ 31. Mr. Spencer differs very widely from the great body
of our schoolmasters. I have ventured in turn to differ on
some points from Mr. Spencer ; but I have failed to give
any adequate notion of the work I have been discussing if
the reader has not perceived that it is not only one of the
most readable, but also one of the most important books on
education in the English language.
XX.
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
J? T. One of the great wants of middle-class education at
present, is an ideal to work towards. Our old public
schools have such an ideal. The model public school-man
is a gentleman who is an elegant Latin and Greek scholar.
True, this may not be a very good ideal, and some of our
ablest men, both literary and scientific, are profoundly
dissatisfied with it. But, so long as it is maintained, all
questions of reform are comparatively simple. In middle-
class schools, on the other hand, there is no terminus ad
quern. A number of boys are got together, and the question
arises, not simply /low to teach, but w/iaf to teach. Where
the marstes are not university men, they are, it may be, not
men of broad views or high culture. Of course no one will
suppose me ignorant of the fact that a great number of
teachers who have never been at a university, are both
enlightened and highly cultivated ; and also that many
teachers who have taken degrees, even in honours, are
neither. But, speaking broadly of the two classes, I may
fairly assume that the non-university men are inferior in
these respects to the graduates. If not, our universities
should be reformed on Carlyle's " Hve-coal " principle with-
out further loss of time. Many non-university masters
b
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 47 1
Want of an ideal.
have been engaged in teaching ever since they were boys
themselves, and teaching is a very narrowing occupation.
They are apt therefore to be careless of general principles,
and to aim merely at storing their pupils' memory with
facts — facts about language, about history, about geography,
without troubling themselves to consider what is and what
is not worth knowing, or what faculties the boys have, and
how they should be developed. The consequence is their
boys get up, for the purpose of forgetting with all convenient
speed, quantities of details about as instructive and enter-
taining as the Fropria quce maHbus^ such as the division of
England under the Heptarchy, the battles in the wars of the
Roses, and Hsts of geogi-aphical names. Where the masters
are university men, they have rather a contempt for this kind
of cramming, which makes them do it badly, if they attempt
it at all ; but they are driven to this teaching in many cases
because they do not know what to substitute in its place.
In their own school-education they were taught classics
and mathematics and nothing else. Their pupils are too
young to have much capacity for mathematics, and they
will leave school too soon to get any sound knowledge of
classics ; so the strength of the teaching ought clearly not
to be thrown into these subjects. But the master really
knows no other. He soon finds that he is not much his
pupils' superior in acquaintance with the theory of the
English language or with history and geography. There
.ot many men with sufficient strength of will to study
.list their energies are taxed by teaching ; and standard
oooks are not always within reach : so the master is forced
to content himself with hearing lessons in a perfunctory
way out of dreary school-books. Hence it comes to pass
tliat he goes on teaching subjects of which he himself is
472 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Get pupils to work hard.
ignorant, subjects, too, of which he does not recognise the
importance, with an enlightened disbelief in his own method
of tuition. He finds it uphill work, to be sure, and is
conscious that his pupils do not get on, however hard he
may try to drive them ; but he never hoped for success in
his teaching, so the want of it does not distress him. I
may be suspected of caricature, but not, I think, by
university men who have themselves had to teach anything
besides classics and mathematics.
§ 2. If there is any truth in what I have been saying,
school-teaching, in subjects other than classics and mathe-
matics (which I am not now considering), is very commonly
a failure. And a failure it must remain until boys can be
got to work with a will, in other words, to feel interest in
the subject taught. I know there is a strong prejudice in
some people's minds against the notion of making learning
pleasant. They remind us that school should be a pre-
paration for after-life. After-life will bring with it an
immense amount of drudgery. If, they say, things at
school are made too easy and pleasant (words, by the way,
very often and very erroneously confounded), school will
cease to give the proper discipline : boys will be turned out
not knowing what hard work is, which, after all, is the most
important lesson that can be taught them. In these views
I sincerely concur, so far as this at least, that we want
boys to work hard, and vigorously to go through the
necessary drudgery, /.^., labour in itself disagreeable. But
this result is not attained by such a system as I have
described. Boys do not learn to work hard^ but in a dull
stupid way, with most of their faculties lying dormant, and
though they are put through a vast quantity of drudgery,
they seem as incapable of thiowiug any energy into it as
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 473
For this arouse interest. Wordsworth.
prisoners on the tread-mill. I think we shall find on
consideration, that no one succeeds in any occupation
unless that occupation is interesting, either in itself or from
some object that is to be obtained by means of it. Only
when such an interest is aroused is energy possible. No
one will deny that, as a rule, the most successful men are
those for whom their employment has the greatest attractions.
We should be sorry to give ourselves up to the treatment
of a doctor who thought the study of disease mere drudgery,
or a dentist who felt a strong repugnance to operating on
teeth. No doubt the successful man in every pursuit has
to go through a great deal of drudgery, but he has a
general interest in the subject, which extends, partially at
least, to its most wearisome details; his energy, too, is
excited by the desire of what the drudgery will gain for
him.*
* On this subject I can quote the authority of a great observer of the
mind — no less a man, indeed, than Wordsworth. He speaks of the
"grand elementary principal of pleasure, by which man knows, and
feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy," he continues,
** but what is propagated by pleasure — I would not be misunderstood —
but wherever we sympathise with pain, it will be found that the
sympathy is produced and carried on by subtile combinations with
pleasure. We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn
from the comtemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up
by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The man of science,
the chemist, and mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they
may have to struggle with, know and feel this. However painful may
be the objects with which the anatomist's knowledge maybe connected, he
feels that his knowledge is pleasure, and when he has no pleasure he has
no knowledge.** — Preface to second edition of Lyrical Ballads. So
Wordsworth would have agreed with Tranio : (T. of Shrew y j. i.)
** No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en ;
In brief, Sir, study what you most affect."
474 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Interest needed for activity.
§ 3. Observe, that although I would have boys take
pleasure in their work, I regard the pleasure as a means,
not an end. If it could be proved that the mind was best
trained by the most repulsive exercises, I should most
certainly enforce them. But I do not think that the mind
is benefited by galley-slave labour ; indeed, hardly any of
its faculties are capable of such labour. We can compel a
boy to learn a thing by heart, but we cannot compel him to
wish to understand it \ and the intellect does not act
without the will (z/. supra p. 193). Hence, when anything
is required which cannot be performed by the memory
alone, the driving system utterly breaks down ; and even
the memory, as I hope to show presently, works much
more effectually in matters about which the mind feels an
interest. Indeed, the mind without sympathy and interest
is like the sea-anemone when the tide is down, an unlovely
thing, closed against external influences, enduring existence
as best it can. But let it find itself in a more congenial
element, and it opens out at once, shows altogether un-
expected capacities, and eagerly assimilates all the proper
food that comes within its reach. Our school teaching is
often little better than an attempt to get sea-anemones to
flourish on dry land
§ 4. We see then, that a boy, before he can throw
energy into a study, must find that study inte7-esiing in
itself, or in its results.
Some subjects, properly taught, are interesting in them-
selves.
Some subjects may be interesting to older and more
thoughtful boys, from a perception of their usefulness.
All subjects may be made interesting by emulation.
g 5. Hardly any effort is made iu some schools to
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 475
Teaching young children.
interest the younger children in their work, and yet no
effort can be, as the Germans say, more " rewarding."
The teacher of children has this advantage, that his pupils
are never dull and listless, as youths are apt to be. If they
are not attending to him, they very soon give him notice of
it ; and if he has the sense to see that their inattention is
his fault, not theirs, this will save him much annoyance and
them much misery. He has, too, another advantage, which
gives him the power of gaining their attention — their
emulation is easily excited. In the Waisenhaus at Halle I
once heard a class of very young children, none of them
much above six years old, perform feats of mental arithmetic
quite, as I should have said, beyond their age, and I well
remember the pretty eagerness with which each child held
out a little hand and shouted, ^^ Mich I Bittel " to gain the
privilege of answering.
§ 6. Then again, there are many subjects in which
children take an interest. Indeed, all visible things,
especially animals, are much more to them than to us.
A child has made acquaintance with all the animals in the
neighbourhood, and can tell you much more about the
house and its surroundings than you know yourself. But
all this knowledge and interest you would wish forgotten
directly he comes into school. Reading, writing, and
figures are taught in the driest manner. The two first are
in themselves not uninteresting to the child, as he has
something to do, and young people are much more ready
to do anything than to learn anything. But when lessons
are given the child to learn, they are not about things
concerning which he has ideas and feels an interest, but
you teach him mere sounds — e.g.^ that Alfred (to him only
a name) came to the throne in 871, though he has no
476 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Value of pictures.
notion what the throne is, or what 871 means. The child
learns the lesson with much trouble and small profit,
bearing the infliction with what patience he can, till he
escapes out of school and begins to learn much faster on a
very different system.
§ 7. "We cannot often introduce into the school the thing,
much less the animal, which children would care to see,
but we can introduce what will please them as well, in
some cases even better, viz., good pictures. A teacher
who could draw boldly on the blackboard, would have no
difficulty in arresting the children's attention. But, at
present, few can do this, and pictures must be provided.
A good deal has been done of late years in the way of
illustrating children's books, and even childhood must be
the happier for such pictures as those of Tenniel and
Harrison Weir. But it seems well understood that these
gentlemen are incapable of doing anything for children
beyond affording them innocent amusement, and we should
be as much surprised at seeing their works introduced into
that region of asceticism, the English school-room, as if we
ran across one of Raphael's Madonnas in a Baptist chapel.*
§ 8. I had the good fortune, many years ago, to be
present at the lessons given by a very excellent teacher to
the youngest class, consisting both of boys and girls, at the
first Burger-schule of Leipzig. In Saxony the schooling
which the state demands for each child, begins at six years
* This remark, I am glad to say, is much less true now ( 1 890) than when
fiist published. Indeed some purveyors of books for children are getting
to rely too exclusively on the pictures, just as I have noticed that an
organ-grinder with a monkey seldom or never has a good organ. Of
large pictures for class teaching, some of the best I have seen (both for
history and natural history) are published by the S.P.C.K.
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 477
Dr. Vater at Leipzig.
old, and lasts till fourteen. These children were, therefore,
between six and seven. In one year, a certain Dr. Vater
taught them to read, write, and reckon. His method of
teaching was as follows : — Each child had a book with
pictures of objects, such as a hat, a slate, &c. Under the
picture was the name of the object in printing and writing
characters, and also a couplet about the object. The
children having opened their books, and found the picture
of a hat, the teacher showed them a hat, and told them a
tale connected with one. He then asked the children
questions about his story, and about the hat he had in his
hand — What was the colour of it ? &c. He then drew a
hat on the blackboard, and made the children copy it on
their slates. Next he wrote the word " hat " and told them
that for people who could read this did as well as the
picture. The children then copied the word on their
slates. The teacher proceeded to analyse the word " hat,
(Jiut)." " It is made up," said he, " of three sounds, the
most important of which is the a (u), which comes in the
middle." In all cases the vowel sound was first ascertained
in every syllable, and then was given an approximation to
consonantal sounds before and after. The couplet was now
read by the teacher, and the children repeated it after him.
In this way the book had to be worked over and over till
the children were perfectly familiar with everything in it.
They had been already six months thus employed when I
visited the school, and knew the book pretty thoroughly.
To lest their knowledge, Dr. Vater first wrote a number of
capitals at random on the board, and called out a boy to
tell him words having these capitals as initials. This boy
had to call out a girl to do something of tLe kind, she a
boy, and so forth. Everything was done very smartly, both
33
478 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Dr. Vogel and Dr. Vater.
by master and children. The best proof I saw of their
accuracy and quickness was this : the master traced words
from the book very rapidly with a stick on the blackboard,
and the children always called out the right word, though I
could not follow him. He also wrote with chalk words
which the children had never seen, and made them name
first the vowel sounds, then the consonantal, then combine
them.
I have been thus minute in my description of this lesson,
because it seems to me an admirable example of the way
in which children between six and eight years of age should
be taught. The method (see Riiegg's Fddagogtk^ p. 360 ;
also Vie Normalwortermeihode^ published by Orell, Fiissli,
Zurich, 1876), was arranged and the book prepared by the
late Dr. Vogel, who was then Director of the school. Its
merits, as its author pointed out to me, are : — i. That it
connects the instruction with objects of which the child
has already an idea in his mind, and so associates new
knowledge with old ; 2. That it gives the children plenty
to do as well as to learn, a point on which the Doctor was
very emphatic ; 3. That it makes the children go over the
same matter in various ways till they have learnt a little
thoroughly^ and then applies their knowledge to the acquire-
ment of more. Here the Doctor seems to have followed
Jacotot. But though the method was no doubt a good
one, I must say its success at Leipzig was due at least as
much to Di Vater as to Dr. Vogel. This gentleman had
been taking the youngest class in this school for twenty
years, and, whether by practice or natural talent, he had
acquired precisely the right manner for keeping children's
attention. He was energetic without bustle and excitement,
and quiet without a suspicion of dulness or apathy. By
THOUGHTS AND SUGGli-bixv.._.
dTQ
First knowledge of numbers. Grub^.
frequently changing the employment of the class, and re-
quiring smartness in everything that was done, he kept
them all on the alert. The lesson I have described was
followed without pause by one in arithmetic, the two
together occupying an hour and three quarters, and the
interest of the children never flagged throughout.
§ 9. Dr. Vater's method for arithmetic I cannot now
recall ; but I do not doubt that, as a German teacher who
had studied his profession, he understood what English
teachers and pupil-teachers do not understand, viz., how
children should get their first knowledge of numbers.
Pestalozzi and Froebel insisted that children should learn
about numbers from things which they actually counted ;
and, according to Grube's method, which I found in Ger-
many over 30 years ago, and which is now extending to
the United States, the whole of the first year is given to
the relations of numbers not exceeding ten (see Grube's
Method by L. Seeley, New York, Kellogg, and F. L.
Soldan's Grube's M.y Chicago). In arithmetic everything
depends on these relations becoming thoroughly familiar.
The decimal scale is possibly not so good as the scale of
eight or of twelve, but the human race has adopted it ; and
even the French Revolutionists, with all their belief in
" reason," and their hatred of the past, recoiled from any
attempt to change it. But in accepting it, they endeavoured
to remove anomalies, and so should we. Everything must
be based on groups of ten ; and with children we should do
well, as Mr. W. Wooding suggests, to avoid the great
anomaly in our nomenclature, and call the numbers between
ten and twenty (/>., twain-tens or two-tens), " ten-one, ten-
two, &c." Numeration should by a long way precede any
kind of notation, and the main truths about numbers should
-.x^uoHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Measuring and weighing-. Reading-books.
be got at experimentally with coynters or coins. In these
truths should be included all that we usually separate under
the " First Four Rules," and with integers we may even from
the first give a clear conception of the fractional parts of
whole numbers, e.g.^ that one third of 6 is 2*
Actual measuring and weighing, besides actual counting,
go towards actual arithmetic for children.
All this teaching, if conducted as Dr. Vater would have
conducted it, would not give children any distaste for
learning or make them dread the sound of the school bell.
§ 10. I will suppose a child to have passed through
such a course as this by the time he is eight or nine years
old. Besides having some clear notions of number and
form, he can now read and copy easy words. What we
next want for him is a series of good reading-books, about
things in which he takes an interest. The language
must of course be simple, but the matter so good that
neither master nor pupils will be disgusted by its frequent
repetition.
The first volume may very well be about animals — dogs,
horses, &c., of which large pictures should be provided,
illustrating the text. The first cost of these pictures would
be considerable, but as they would last for years, the ex-
pense to the friends of each child taught from them would
be a mere trifle.
§ II. The books placed in the hands of the children
should be well printed and strongly bound. In the present
penny-wise system, school-books are given out in cloth, and
* Tillich's boxes of bricks (sold by the B'ham Midland Educational
Supply Company, and by Arnold, Briggate, Leeds), are very useful for
** intuitive " arithmetic : for higher stages one might say the same of
W. Wooding's " Decimal Abacus" with vertical wires.
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 48 1
Respect for books. Grammar. Reading.
the leaves are loose at the end of a fortnight, so that
children get accustomed to their destruction and treat it as
a matter of course. This ruins their respect for books,
which is not so unimportant a matter as it may at first
appear.
§ 12. After each reading lesson, which should contain
at least one interesting anecdote, there should be columns
of all the words which occurred for the first time in that
lesson. These should be arranged according to their
grammatical classification, not that the child should be taught
grammar, but this order is as good as any other, and by it
the child would learn to observe certain differences in words
almost unconsciously.*
Here I cannot resist quoting an excellent remark from
Helps's Brevia (p. 125). "We should make the greatest
progress in art, science, politics, and morals, if we could
train up our minds to look straight and steadfastly and
uninterruptedly at the thing in question that we are ob-
serving. This seems a very slight thing to do ; but prac-
tically it is hardly ever done. Between you and the object
rises a mist of technicalities, of prejudices, of previous
knowledge, and, above all, of terrible familiarity." Perhaps
* The grammar question is still a perplexing one. There are In-
spectors who require children (as I once heard in a remote country
school) to distinguish '*7 kinds of adverbs." Then we have children
discriminating after the fashion of one of my own pupils, (I quote from
a grammar paper,) ** Parse zV." **// is a prepreition. Almost all
small words are prepreitions. " In such cases it is very hard indeed to
find any common ground for the minds of the old and the young. The
true way I believe is to lead the young to make their own observations.
The way is very very slow, but it developes power. I have lately seen
an interesting little book on these lines, called Language Work by Ur,
De Garmo (Bloomington, 111., U.S.A.)
482 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Silent and Vocal Reading.
it is this " terrible familiarity " that has prevented our seeing
till quite lately that reading is the art of getting meaning
by signs that appeal to the eye, not the art of reporting to
others the meaning we have thus arrived at. "Accustoming
boys to read aloud what they do not first understand," says
Benjamin Franklin, " is the cause of those even set tones
so common among readers, which, when they have once
got a habit of using [them], they find so difficult to correct ;
by which means, among fifty readers we scarcely find a
good one." (Essays^ Sk. of English Sch.) It seems to
have escaped even Franklin's sagacity that reading aloud is
a different art to the art of reading, and a much harder one.
The two should be studied separately, and most time and
attention should be given to silent reading, which is by far
the more important of the two. Colonel F. W. Parker,
who has successfully cultivated the power of "looking
straight at" things, gives us in his Talks on Teaching
the right rule for reading. " Changing," says he, " the
beautiful power of expression, full of melody, harmony, and
correct emphasis and inflection, to the slow, painful, almost
agonising pronunciation that we have heard so many times
in the school-room, is a terrible sin that we should never
be guilty of. There is, indeed, not the slightest need of
changing a good habit to a miserable one if we would
follow the rule that the child has naturally followed all his
life. Never allow a child to give a thought till he gets it"
(p. 37). Now that the existence of a thought in children
is allowed for, we may expect all sorts of improvements.
Reading, as a means of ascertaining thought, is second only
to hearing, and this art should be cultivated by giving
children books of questions {e.g.^ Horace Grant's Arithmetic
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 483
Memorising poetry. Composition.
for Young Children)^ and requiring the learner silently to
get at the question and then give the answer aloud.
§ 13. Easy descriptive and narrative poetry should be
learnt by heart at this stage. That the children may repeat
it well, they should get their first notions of it from the
master viva voce. According to the usual plan, they get
it up with false emphasis and false stops, and the more
thoroughly they have learnt the piece, the more difficulty
the master has in making them say it properly.
§ 14. Every lesson should be worked over in various
ways. The columns of words at the end of the reading
lessons may be printed with writing characters, and used
for copies. To write an upright column either of words or
figures is an excellent exercise in neatness. The columns
will also be used as spelling lessons, and the children may
be questioned about the meaning of the words. The
poetry, when thoroughly learned, may sometimes be written
from memory. Sentences from the book may be copied
either directly or from the black-board, and afterwards used
for dictation.
§ 15. Boys should, as soon as possible, be accustomed to
write out fables, or the substance of other reading lessons,
in their own words. They may also write descriptions of
things with which they are familiar, or any event which has
recently happened, such as a country excursion. Every
one feels the necessity, on grounds of practical utility at all
events, of boys being taught to express their thoughts neatly
on paper, in good English and with correct speUing. Yet
this is a point rarely reached before the age of fifteen or
sixteen, often never reached at all. The reason is, that
written exercises must be carefully looked over by the
master, or they are done in a slovenly manner. Anyone
484 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Correcting exercises. Three kinds of books.
who has never taught in a school will say, " Then let the
master carefully look them over." But the expenditure of
time and trouble this involves on the master is so great,
that in the end he is pretty sure either to have few exercises
written, or to neglect to look them over. The only remedy
is for the master not to have many beys to teach, and not
to be many hours in school. Even then, unless he set
apart a special time every day for correcting exercises, he is
likely to find them ** increase upon him."
§ 16. The course of reading-books, accompanied by
large illustrations, may go on to many other things which
the children see around them, such as trees and plants, and
so lead up to instruction in natural history and physiology.
But in imparting all knowledge of this kind, we should aim,
not at getting the children to remember a number of facts,
but at opening their eyes, and extending the range of their
interests.
§ 17. I should suggest, then, for children, three books to
be used concurrently, viz.j a reading book about animals
and things, a poetry book, and a prose narrative or yEsop's
Fables. With the first commences a series culminating in
works of science ; with the second, a series that should
lead up to Milton and Shakespeare ; the third should be
succeeded by some of our best writers in prose.
§ 18. But many schoolmasters will shudder at the
thought of a child's spending a year or two at school without
ever hearing of the Heptarchy or Magna Charta, and without
knowing the names of the great towns in any countr}' of
Europe. I confess I regard this ignorance with great
equanimity. If the child, or the youth even, takes no
interest in the Heptarchy and Magna Charta, and knows
nothing of the towns but their names, I think him quite as
k
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 485
No epitomes.
well off without this knowledge as with it — perhaps better,
as such knowledge turns the lad into a *• wind-bag," as
Carlyle might say, and gives him the appearance of being
well-informed without the reality. But I neither despise
a knowledge of history and geography ; nor do I think
that these studies should be neglected for foreign languages
or science : and it is because I should wish a pupil of mine
to become, in the end, thoroughly conversant in history
and geography, that I should, if possible, conceal from him
the existence of the numerous school manuals on these
subjects.
We will suppose that a parent meets with a book which
he thinks will be both instructive and entertaining to his
children. But the book is a large one, and would take a
long time to get through ; so instead of reading any part
of it to them or letting them read it for themselves, he
makes them learn by heart the table of contents. The children
do not find it entertaining ; they get a horror of the book,
which prevents their ever looking at it afterwards, and they
forget what they have learnt as soon as they possibly can.
Just such is the sagacious plan adopted in teaching history
and geography in schools, and such are the natural con-
sequences. Every student knows that the use of an epitome
is to systematise knowledge, not to communicate it, and yet,
in teaching, we give the epitome first, and allow it to pre-
cede, or rather to supplant, the knowledge epitomised.
The children are disgusted, and no wonder. The subjects,
indeed, are interesting, but not so the epitomes. I suppose
if we could see the skeletons of the Gunnings, we should
not find them more fascinating than any other skeletons.*
Books for a beginner should contain a little matter in much space,
486 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Ascham, Bacon, Goldsmith, against them.
§ 19. The first thing to be aimed at, then, is to excite
the children's interest. Even if we thought of nothing but
the acquiring of information, this is clearly the true method.
and, as they are usually written, they contain much matter in a little
space. Nothing can be truer than the saying of Lakanal, " L'abrege est
le contraire de I'elementaire : That which is abridged is just the
opposite of that which is elementary." When shall we learn what
seems obvious in itself and what is taught us by the great authorities ?
*' Epitome," says Ascham, "is good privately for himself that doth
work it, but ill commonly for all others that use other men's labour
therein. A silly poor kind of study, not unlike to the doing of those
poor folk which neither till, nor sow, nor reap themselves, but glean by
stealth upon other's grounds. Such have empty barns for dear years."
{School Master^ Book ij.) Bacon says (Z?^ Aug.^ lib. vj., cap. iv.),
"Ad padagogicam quod attinet brevissimum foret dictu. . . . Illud
imprimis consuluerim ut caveatur a compendiis : Not much about
pedagogics. . . . My chief advice is, keep clear of compendiums. "
And yet "the table of contents" method which I suggested in irony I after-
wards found proposed in all seriousness in an announcement of Dr. J.
F. Bright's English History : * * The marginal analysis has been collected
at the beginning of the volume so as to form an abstract of the history
suitable for the use of those who are beginning the sttidy,''^
I would rather listen to Oliver Goldsmith : " In history, such stories
alone should be laid before them as might catch the imagination : in-
stead of this, they are too frequently obliged to toil through the four
Empires, as they are called, where their memories are burthened by a
number of disgusting names that destroy all their future relish for our
best historians." (Letter on Education in the Bee : a letter containing
so much new truth that Goldsmith in re-publishing it had to point out
that it had appeared before Rousseau's Emile.) A modern authority on
education has come to the same conclusion as Goldsmith. " The first
teaching in history will not give dates, but will show the learner men
and actions likely to make an impression on him. Der erste Geschichts-
unterricht wird nicht Jahreszahlen geben, sondern eindrucksvolle
Personen und Thaten vorfiihren." (L. Wiese's Deutsche Bildujtgsfragen,
1871.
y
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 487
Arouse interest. Dr. Arnold's historical primer.
What are the facts which we remember ? Those in which
we feel an interest. If we are told that So-and-so has met
with an accident, or failed in business, we forget it directly,
unless we know the person spoken of. Similarly, if I read
anything aboul Addison or Goldsmith, it interests me, and
I remember it because they are, so to speak, friends of
mine ; but the same information about Sir Richard Black •
more or Cumberland would not stay in my head for four-
and-twenty hours. So, again, we naturally retain anything
we learn about a foreign country in which a relation has
settled, but it would require some little trouble to commit
to memory the same facts about a place in which we had
no concern. All this proceeds from two causes. First,
that the mind retains that in which it takes an interest ;
and, secondly, that one of the principal helps to memory is
the association of ideas. These were, no doubt, the ground
reasons which influenced Dr. Arnold in framing his plan of
a child's first history book. This book, he says, should be
a picture-book of the memorable deeds which would best
appeal to the child's imagination. They should be arranged
in order of time, but with no other connection. The letter-
press should simply, but fully, tell the s^ory of the action
depicted. These would form starting-points of interest.
The child would be curious to knew more about the great
men whose acquaintance he had made, and would associate
with them the scenes of their exploits ; and thus we might
actually find our children anxious to learn history and
geography ' I am sorry that even the great authority of
Dr. Arnold has not availed to bring this method into use.
Such a book would, of course, be dear. Bad pictures are
worse than none at all : and Goethe tells us that his appre-
ciation of Homer was for years destroyed by his having
488 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
A Macaulay, not Mangnall, wanted.
been shown, when a child, absurd pictures of the Homeric
heroes. The book would, therefore, cost six or eight
shillings at least ; and who would give this sum for an
account of single actions of a few great men, when he might
buy the lives of all great men, together with ancient and
modern history, the names of the planets, and a great
amount of miscellaneous information, all for a shilling in
*' Mangnall's Questions " ?
However, if the saving of a few shillings is more to be
thought of than the best method of instruction, the subject
hardly deserves our serious consideration.
§ 20. It is much to be regretted that books for the
young are so seldom written by distinguished authors. I
suppose that of the three things which the author seeks,
money, reputation, influence, the first is not often despised,
nor the last considered the least valuable. And yet both
money and influence are more certainly gained by a good
book for the young than by any other. The influence
of " Tom Brown," however different in kind, is probably
not smaller in amount than that of *' Sartor Resartus."
§ 21. What we want is a Macaulay for boys, who shall
handle historical subjects with that wonderful art displayed
in the " Essays," — the art of elaborating all the more telling
portions of the subject, outlining the rest, and suppressing
everything that does not conduce to heighten the general
effect. Some of these essays, such as the " Hastings " and
** Clive," will be read with avidity by the elder boys ; but
Macaulay did not write for children, and he abounds in
words to them unintelligible. Had he been a married man,
we might perhaps have had such a volume of historical
sketches for boys as now we must wish for in vain. But
there are good story-tellers left among us, and we might
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 489
Beginnings in history and geography.
soon expect such books as we desiderate, if it were clearly
understood what is the right sort of book, and if men of
literary ability and experience would condescend to write
them.
§ 22. If, in these latter days, "the individual withers,
and the world is more and more," we must not expect our
children to enter into this. Thein s.yrapathy and their imagi-
nation can be aroused, not for nations, but for individuals ;
and this is the reason why some biographies of great men
should precede any history. These should be written after
Macaulay's method. There should be no attempt at com-
pleteness, but what is most important and interesting about
the man should be narrated in detail, and the rest lightly
sketched, or omitted altogether. Painters understand this
principle, and, in taking a portrait, very often depict a man's
features minutely without telling all the truth about the
buttons on his waistcoat. But, because in a literary picture
each touch takes up additional space, writers seem to fear
that the picture will be distorted unless every particular is
expanded or condensed in the same ratio.
§ 23. At the risk of wearisome repetition, I must again
say that I care as little about driving " useful knowledge "
into a boy as the most ultra Cambridge man could wish ;
but I want to get the boy to have wide sympathies, and to
teach himself ; and I should therefore select the great men
from very different periods and countries, that his net of
interest (so to speak) may be spread in all waters.
§ 24. When we have thus got our boys to form the
acquaintance of great men, they will have certain associa-
tions connected with many towns and countries. Constant
reference should be made to the map, and the boys' know-
ledge and interest will thus make settlements in different
490 THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.
Tales of Travelers.
parts of the globe. These may be extended by a good
book of travels, especially of voyages of discovery. There
are now many such books suitable for the purpose, but I
am still partial to a book which has been a delight to me
and to my own children from our earliest years : — Miss
Hack's -" Winter Evenings ; or, Tales of Travelers " ; or,
as Routledge now calls a part of it, "Travels in Hot and
Cold Lands." In studying such travels, the map should,
of course, be always in sight ; and outline maps may be
filled up by the boys as they learn about the places in the
traveller's route. Anyone who has had the management of
a school library knows how popular " voyage and venture "
is with the boys who have passed the stage in which the
picture-books of animals were the main attraction. Captain
Cook, Mungo Park, and Admiral Byron are heroes without
whom boyhood would be incomplete ; but as boys are
engrossed by the adventures, and never trouble themselves
about the map, they often remember the incidents without
knowing where they happened.
Of course, school geographies never mention such people
as celebrated travellers ; if they did, it would be impossible
to give all the principal geographical names in the world
within the compass of 200 pages.
§ 25. What might we fairly expect from such a course
of teaching as I have here suggested ?
At the end of a year and a half, or two years, from the
age, say, of nine, the boy would read to himself intelligently ;
he would write fairly ; he would spell all common English
words correctly ; he would be thoroughly familiar with the
relations of all common numbers, that is, of all numbers
below 100 ; he would have had his interest aroused, or, to
speak more accurately, not stifled but increased in common
THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 49I
Results positive and negative.
objects, such as animals, trees, and plants ; he would have
made the acquaintance of some great men, and traced the
voyages of some great travellers ; he would be able to say
by heart and to write from memory some of the best simple
English poetry, and his ear would be familiar with the
sound of good English prose. So much, at least, on the
positive side. On the negative there might also be results
of considerable value. He would not have learned to look
upon books and school-time as the torment of his life, nor
have fallen into the habit of giving them as Httle of his
attention as he could reconcile with immunity from the
cane. The benefit of the negative result might outweigh a
very glib knowledge of " tables " and Latin Grammar.
XXI.
THE SCHOOLMASTER'S MORAL AND
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.
§ I. All who are acquainted with the standard treatises
on the theory of education, and also with the management
of schools, will have observed that moral and religious train-
ing occupies a larger and more prominent space in theory
than in practice. On consideration, we shall find perhaps
that this might naturally be expected. Of course we are all
agreed that morality is more important than learning, and
masters who are many of them clergymen, will hardly be
accused of under-estimating the value of religion. Why
then, does not moral and religious training receive a larger
share of the master's attention? The reason I take to
be this. Experience shows that it depends directly on
the master whether a boy acquires knowledge, but only
indirectly, and in a much less degree, whether he grows up
a good and religious man. The aim which engrosses most
of our time is likely to absorb an equal share of our interest ;
and thus it happens that masters, especially those who never
associate on terms of intimacy with their pupils out of
school, throw energy enough into making boys learn^ but
seldom think at all of the development of their character,
or about their thoughts and feelings in matters of religion.
schoolmaster's moral influence. 493
Master's power, how gained and lost.
This statement may indeed be exaggerated, but no one who
has the means of judging will assert that it is altogether
without foundation. And yet, although a master can be
more certain of sending out his pupils well-taught than well-
principled, his influence on their character is much greater
than it might appear to a superficial observer. I am not
speaking of formal religious instruction. I refer now to the
teacher's indirect influence. The results of his formal teach-
ing vary as its amount, but he can apply no such gauge to
his informal teaching. A few words of earnest advice or re-
monstrance, which a boy hears at the right time from a man
whom he respects, may affect that boy's character for Ufe.
Here everything depends, not on the words used, but on
the feeling with which they are spoken, and on the way in
which the speaker is regarded by the hearer. In such
matters the master has a much more delicate and difficult
task than in mere instruction. The words, indeed, are soon
spoken, but that which gives them their influence is not
soon or easily acquired. Here, as in so many other in-
stances, we may in a few minutes throw down what it has
cost us days — perhaps years — to build up. An unkind
word will destroy the effects of long-continued kindness
Boys always form their opinion of a man from the worst
they know of him. Experience has not yet taught them
that good people have their failings, and bad people their
virtues. If the scholars find the master at times harsh and
testy, they cannot believe in his kindness of heart and care
for their welfare. They do not see that he may have an
ideal before him to which he is partly, though not wholly
true. They judge him by his demeanour in his least guarded
moments — at times when he is jaded and dissatisfied with
the result of his labours. At such times he is no longer
34
494 schoolmaster's moral influence.
Masters, the open and the reserved.
" in touch " with his pupils. He is conscious only of his
own power and mental superiority. Feeling almost a con-
tempt for the boys' weakness, he does not care for their
opinion of him or think for an instant what impression he is
making by his words and conduct. He gives full play to
his arbitrium, and says or does something which seems to
the boys to reveal him in his true character, and which
causes them ever after to distrust his kindness.
§ 2. When we consider the way in which masters endeavour
to gain influence, we shall find that they may be divided
roughly into two parties, whom I will call the open and the
reserved. A teacher of the open party endeavours to appear
to his pupils precisely as he is. He will hear of no restraint
except that of decorum. He believes that if he is as much
the superior of his pupils as he ought to be, his authority
will take care of itself without his casting round it a wall of
artificial reserve. " Be natural," he says ; "get rid of affec-
tations and shams of all kinds ; and then, if there is any
good in you, it will tell on those around you. Whatever is
bad, would be felt just as surely in disguise ; and the dis-
guise would only be an additional source of mischief." The
reserved^ on the other hand, wish their pupils to think of
them as they ought to be rather than as they are. Against
the other party they urge that our words and actions cannot
always be in harmony with our thoughts and feelings, how-
ever much we may desire to make them so. We must,
therefore, they say, reconcile ourselves to this ; and since
our words and actions are more under our control than our
thoughts and feelings, we must make them as nearly as
possible what they should be, instead of debasing them to
involuntary thoughts and feelings which are not worthy of
us. Then again, a teacher who is an idealist may say,
schoolmaster's moral influence. 495
Danger of excess either way.
**The young require some one to look up to. In my
better moments I am not altogether unworthy of their
respect ; but if they knew all my weaknesses, they would
naturally, and perhaps justly, despise me. For their sakes,
therefore, I must keep my weaknesses out of sight, and the
effort to do this demands a certain reserve in all our inter-
course."
§ 3. I suppose an excess in either direction might lead
to misciiievous results. The " open " man might be want-
ing in self-restraint, and might say and do things which,
though not wrong in themselves, might have a bad effect on
the young. Then, again, the lower and more worldly side
of his character might show itself in too strong relief; and
his pupils seeing this mainly, and supposing that they
understood him entirely, might disbelieve in his higher
motives and religious feeling. On the other hand, those
who set up for being better than they really are, are, as it
were, walking on stilts. They gain no real influence by their
separation from their pupils, and they are always liable to
an accident which may expose them to their ridicule.*
§ 4. I am, therefore, though with some limitation, in
favour of the open school. I am well aware, however, what
an immense demand this system makes on the master who
desires to exercise a good influence on the moral and re-
ligious character of his pupils. If he would have his pupils
know him as he is, if he would have them think as he thinks,
feel as he feels, and believe as he believes, he must be, at
least in heart and aim, worthy of their imitation. He must
* Dr. Jas. Donaldson has well said of the educator : — ** The most
unguarded of his acts, those which come from the depth of his nature,
uncalled for and unbidden, are the actions which have the most powerful
influence. " Chambers^ Information sub v. Educaiion^ p. 565.
496 schoolmaster's moral influence.
High ideal. Danger of low practice.
(with reverence be it spoken) enter, in his humble way,
into the spirit of the perfect Teacher, who said, ''For Iheir
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in
truth." Are we prepared to look upon our calling in this
light? I believe that the school-teachers of this country
need not fear comparison with any other body of men, in
point of morality, and religious earnestness ; but I dare say
many have found, as I have, that the occupation is a very
narrowing one, that the teacher soon gets to work in a groove,
and from having his thoughts so much occupied with
routine work, especially with small fault-findings and small
corrections, he is apt to settle down insensibly into a kind
of moral and intellectual stagnation — Philistinism, as
Matthew Arnold has taught us to call it — in which he cares
as little for high aims and general principles as his most
commonplace pupil. Thus it happens sometimes that a
man who set out with the notion of developing all the
powers of his pupils' minds, thinks in the end of nothing
but getting them to work out equations and do Latin
exercises without false concords ; and the clergyman even,
who began with a strong sense of his responsibility and a
confident hope of influencing the boys' belief and character,
at length is quite content if they conform to discipline and
give him no trouble out of school-hours. We may say of a
really good teacher what Wordsworth says of the poet ; in
his work he must neither
lack that first great gift, the vital soul,
Nor general truths, which are themselves a sort
Of elements and agents, under-powers,
Subordinate helpers of the living mind. — Prelude^ i. 9.
But the "vital soul" is too often crushed by excessive
routine labour, and then when general truths, both moral
I
schoolmaster's moral influence. 497
Harm from overworking teachers.
and intellectual, have ceased to interest us, our own educa-
tion stops, and we become incapable of fulfilling the highest
and most important part of our duty in educating others.
§ 5. It is, then, the duty of the teacher to resist gravita-
ting into this state, no less for his pupils' sake than for his
own. The ways and means of doing this I am by no means
competent to point out ; so I will merely insist on the
importance of teachers not being overworked — a matter
which has not, I think, hitherto received due attention.
We cannot expect intellectual activity of men whose
mmds are compelled " with pack-horse constancy to keep
the road" hour after hour, till they are too jaded for
exertion of any kind. The man himself suffers, and his
work, even his easiest work, suffers also. It may be laid
down as a general rule, that no one can teach long and
teach well. All satisfactory teaching and management of
boys absolutely requires that the master should be in good
spirits. When the " genial spirits fail," as they must from
an overdose of monotonous work, everything goes wrong
directly. The master has no longer the power of keeping
the boys' attention, and has to resort to punishments even
to preserve order. His gloom quenches their interest and
mental activity, just as fire goes out before carbonic acid ;
and in the end teacher and taught acquire, not without
cause, a feeling of mutual aversion.
§ 6. And another reason why the master should not
spend the greater part of his time in formal teaching is this
- — his doing so compels him to neglect the informal but
very important teaching he may both give and receive by
making his pupils his companions.
^7.1 fear I shall be met here by an objection which has
only too much force in it. Most Englishmen are at a loss
498 schoolmaster's moral influence.
Refuge in routine work. Small schools.
how to make any use of leisure. If a man has no turn for
thinking, no fondness for reading, and is without a hobby,
what good shall his leisure do him ? he will only pass it in
insipid gossip, from which any easy work would be a relief.
That this is so in many cases, is a proof to my mind of the
utter failure of our ordinary education : and perhaps an
improved education may some day alter what now seems a
national peculiarity. Meantime the mind, even of English-
men, is more than a "succedaneum for salt;"* and its
tendency to bury its sight, ostrich-fashion, under a heap of
routine work must be strenuously resisted, if it is to escape
its deadly enemies, stupidity and ignorance.
§ 8. I have elsewhere expressed what I believe is the
common conviction of those who have seen something both
of large schools and of small, viz., that the moral atmosphere
of the former is, as a rule, by far the more wholesome ;t
• " That you are wife
To so much bloated flesh as scarce hath soul
Instead of salt to keep it sweet, I think
Will ask no witnesses to prove."
Ben Jonson : The Devil is an Ass, Act i. sc. 3.
+ I fortify myself with the following quotation from the Book about
Dominies by ** Ascott Hope " (Hope Moncrieff). He says that a school
of from twenty to a hundred boys is too large to be altogether under the
influence of one man, and too small for the development of a healthy
condition of public opinion among the boys themselves. *' In a com-
munity of fifty boys, there will always be found so many bad ones who
will be likely to carry things their own way. Vice is more unblushing
in small societies than in large ones. Fifty boys will be more easily
leavened by the wickedness of five, than five hundred by that of fifty. It
would be too dangerous an ordeal to send a boy to a school where sin
appears fashionable, and where, if he would remain virtuous, he must
shun his companions. There may be middle-sized schools which derive
a good and healthy tone from the moral strength of their masters or the
I
schoolmaster's moral influence. 499
Influence through the Sixth. Day schools wanted.
and also that each boy is more influenced by his companions
than by his master. More than this, I believe that in many,
perhaps in most, schools, one or two boys affect the tone of
the whole body more than any master.* What are called
Preparatory Schools labour under this immense disadvantage,
that their ruling spirits are mere children without reflection
or sense of responsibility.! But where the leading boys are
virtually young men, these may be made a medium through
which the mind of the master may act upon the whole
school. They can enter into the thoughts, feelings, and aims
of the master on the one hand, and they know what is said
and done among the boys on the other. The master must,
therefore, know the elder boys intimately, and they must
good example of a certain set of boys, but I doubt if there are many.
Boys are so easily led to do right or wrong, that we should be very
careful at least to set the balance fairly" (p. 167) ; and again he sa)rs
(p. 170), "The moral tone of a middle-sized school will be peculiarly
liable to be at the mercy of a set of bold and bad boys."
* As I have been thought to express myself too strongly on this point,
I will give a quotation from a master whose opinion will go far with all
who know him. " The moral tone of the school is made what it is,
not nearly so much by its rules and regulations, or its masters, as by the
leading characters among the boys. They mainly determine the public
opinion amongst their schoolfellows — their personal influence is incal-
culable." Rev. D. Edwardes, of Denstone.
t About Preparatory Schools I find I am at issue with my friend the
Head Master of Harrow (See Public Schools, by Rev. J. E. C. Welldon,
in Contemporary R.y May, 1890). I do indeed incline to his opinion that
very young boys should not be at a public school, but I cannot agree
that they should be at a middle-sized boarding school. I hold that they
should live in a family (their own if possible) and go to a day school.
Day Schools have now been provided for girls, but for young boys they
do not seem in demand. English parents who can afford it send their
sons to boarding schools from eight years old onwards. This seems to
me a great mistake of theirs.
506 SCHOOLMASTER'S MORAL INFLUENCE.
Teaching religion in England and Germany.
know him. This consummation, however, will not be
arrived at without great tact and self-denial on the part of
the master. The youth who is " neither man nor boy " is
apt to be shy and awkward, and is not by any means so easy
to entertain as the lad who chatters freely of the school's
cricket or football, past, present, and to come. But the
master who feels how all-important is the tone of the school,
will not grudge any pains to influence those on whom it
chiefly depends.
§ 9. But, allowing the value of all these indirect influences,
can we afford to neglect direct formal religious instruction ?
We have most of us the greatest horror of what we call a
secular education, meaning thereby an education without
formal religious teaching. But this horror seems to affect
our theory more than our practice. Few parents ever
enquire what religious instruction their sons get at Eton,
Harrow, or Westminster. At Harrow when I was in the
Fourth Form there (nearly fifty years ago by the way) we
had no religious instruction except a weekly lesson in Watts's
Scripture History ; and when I was a master some twenty
years ago my form had only a Sunday lesson in a portion
of the Old Testament, and a lesson in French Testament at
" First School " on Monday. Even in some " Voluntary
Schools " we do not find " religious instruction " made so
much of as the arithmetic.
§ 10. In this matter we differ very widely from the
Germans. All their classes have a "religion-lesson " {Religion-
stuTide) nearly every day, the younger children in the German
Bible, the elder in the Greek Testament or Church History;
and in all cases the teacher is careful to instruct his pupils
in the tenets of Luther or Calvin. The Germans may
urge that if we believe a set of doctrines to be a fitting
schoolmaster's moral influence. 501
Religious teaching connected with worship.
expression of Divine revelation, it is our first duty to make
the young familiar with those doctrines. I cannot say,
however, that I have been favourably impressed by the
religion-lessons I have heard given in German schools. I
do not deny that dogmatic teaching is necessary, but the
first thing to cultivate in the young is reverence; and
reverence is surely in danger if you take a class in " religion"
just as you take a class in grammar. Emerson says some-
where, that to the poet, the saint, and the philosopher, all
distinction of sacred and profane ceases to exist, all things
become alike sacred. As the schoolboy, however, does not
as yet come under any one of these denominations, if the
distinction ceases to exist for him, all things will become
alike profane.
§ II. I believe that religious instruction is conveyed in
the most impressive way when it is connected with worship.
Where the prayers are joined with the reading of Scripture
and with occasional simple addresses, and where the congre-
gation have responses to repeat, and psalms and hymns to
sing, there is reason to hope that boys will increase, not only
in knowledge, but in wisdom and reverence too. With-
out asserting that the Church of England service is the best
possible for the young, I hold that any form for them should
at least resemble it in its main features, should be as varied
as possible, should require frequent change of posture, and
should give the congregation much to say and sing. Much
use might be made as in the Church of Rome, of litanies.
The service, whatever its form, should be conducted with
great solemnity, and the boys should not sit or kneel so
close together that the badly disposed may disturb their
neighbours who try to join in the act of worship. If good
hymns' are sung, these may be taken occasionally as the
502 schoolmaster's moral influence.
Education to goodness and piety.
subject of an address, so that attention may be drawn to
their meaning. Music should be carefully attended to,
and the danger of irreverence at practices guarded against
by never using sacred words more than is necessary, and by
impressing on the singers the sacredness of everything
connected with Divine worship. Questions combined
with instruction may sometimes keep up boys' attention
better than a formal sermon. Though common prayer
should be frequent, this should not be supposed to take the
place of private prayer. In many schools boys have hardly
an opportunity for private prayer. They kneel down, per-
haps, with all the talk and play of their schoolfellows going
on around them, and sometimes fear of pubhc opinion
prevents their kneeling down at all. A schoolmaster can-
not teach private prayer, but he can at least see that there
is opportunity for it.
Education to goodness and piety, as far as it lies in
human hands, must consist almost entirely in the influence
of the good and pious superior over his inferiors, and as
this influence is independent of rules, these remarks of
mine cannot do more than touch the surface of this most
important subject.*
§ 12. In conclusion, I wish to say a word on the educa-
tion of opinion. Sir Arthur Helps lays great stress on
* " What s education ? It is that which is imbibed from the moral
atmosphere which a child breathes. It is the involuntary and uncon-
scious language of its parents and of all those by whom it is surrounded,
and not their set speeches and set lectures. It is the words which the
young hear fall from their seniors when the speakers are off their
guard : and it is by these unconscious expressions that the child inter-
prets the hearts of its parents. That is education." — Drummoud'a
Speeches in Parliament,
schoolmaster's moral influence. 503
How to avoid narrow-mindedness.
preparing the way to moderation and open-mindedness by
teaching boys that all good men are not of the same way of
thinking. It is indeed a miserable error to lead a young
person to suppose that his small ideas are a measure of the
universe, and that all who do not accept his formularies are
less enlightened than himself. If a young man is so brought
up, he either carries intellectual blinkers all his life, or,
what is far more probable, he finds that something he has
been taught is false, and forthwith begins to doubt every-
thing. On the other hand, it is a necessity with the young
to believe, and we could not, even if we would, bring a youth
into such a state of mind as to regard everything about which
there is any variety of opinion as an open question. But he
may be taught reverence and humility ; he may be taught
to reflect how infinitely greater the facts of the universe
must be than our poor thoughts cibout them, and how in
adequate are words to express even our imperfect thoughts.
Then he will not suppose that all truth has been taught him
in his formularies, nor that he understands even all the
truth of which those formularies are the imperfect expression.*
* In what I have said on this subject, the incompleteness which is
noticeable enough in the preceding essays, has found an appropriate
climax. I see, too, that if anyone would take the trouble, the little 1
have said might easily be misinterpreted. I am well aware, however,
that if the young mind will not readily assimilate sharply defining re-
ligious formulae, still less will it feel at home among the " immensities "
and "veracities." The great educating force of Christianity I beUeve
to be due to this, that it is not a set of abstractions or vague generalities,
but that in it God reveals Himself to us in a Divine Man, and raises us
through our devotion to Him. I hold, therefore, that religious teaching
for the young should neither be vague nor abstract. Mr. Froude, in
commenting on the use made of hagiology in the Church of Rome, has
shown that we lose much by not following the Bible method of instruc-
tion. (See Short Studies : Lives of the Saints y and Representative Men. )
XXII.
CONCLUSION.
g I. When I originally published these essays (more than
2 2 years ago) the critic of the Nonconformist in one of the
best, though by no means most complimentary, of the many
notices with which the book was favoured, took me to task
for being in such a hurry to publish. I had confessed
incompleteness. What need was there for me to publish
before I had completed my work ? Since that time I have
spent years on my subject and at least two years on these
essays themselves ; but they now seem to me even further
from completeness than they seemed then. However, I
have reason to believe that the old book, incomplete as it
was, proved useful to teachers ; and in its altered form it
will, I hope, be found useful still.
§ 2. It may be useful I think in two ways.
First : it may lead some teachers to the study of the
great thinkers on education. There are some vital truths
which remain in the books which time cannot destroy. In
the world as Goethe says are few voices, many echoes ; and
the echoes often prevent our hearing the voices distinctly.
Perhaps most people had a better chance of hearing the
I
CONCLUSION. 505
A growing science of education.
voices when there were fewer books and no periodicals.
Speakers properly so called cannot now be heard for the
hubbub of the talkers ; and as Hterature is becoming more
and more periodical our writers seem mostly employed like
children on card pagodas or like the recumbent artists of
the London streets who produce on the stones of the pave-
ment gaudy chalk drawings which the next shower washes
out.
But if I would have fewer books what business have I to
add to the number ? I may be told that —
*' He who in quest of quiet, * Silence ! ' hoots,
" Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes."
My answer is that I do not write to expound my own
thought, but to draw attention to the thoughts of the men
who are best worth hearing. It is not given to us small
people to think strongly and clearly like the great people ;
we, however, gain in strength and clearness by contact with
them ; and this contact I seek to promote. So long as this
book is used, it will I hope be used only as an introduction
to the great thinkers whose names are found in it.
§ 3. There is another way in which the book may be of
use. By considering the great thinkers in chronological
order we see that each adds to the treasure which he finds
already accumulated, and thus by degrees we are arriving
in education, as in most departments of human endeavour,
at a science. In this science lies our hope for the future.
Teachers must endeavour to obtain more and more know-
ledge of the laws to which their art has to conform itself.
§ 4. It may be of advantage to some readers if I point
out briefly what seems to me the course of the main stream
of thought as it has flowed down to us from the Renascence.
5o6 CONCLUSION.
Jesuits the first Reformers.
§ 5. As I endeavoured to shovv at the beginning of this
book, the Scholars of the Renascence fell into a great
mistake, a mistake which perhaps could not have been
avoided at a time when literature was rediscovered and the
printing press had just been invented. This mistake was
the idolatry of books, and, still worse, of books in Latin
and Greek. So the schoolmaster fell into a bad theory or
conception of his task, for he supposed that his function
was to teach Latin and Greek ; and his practice or way of
going to work was not much better, for his chief implements
were grammar and the cane.
§ 6. The first who made a great advance were the
Jesuits. They were indeed far too much bent on being
popular to be " Innovators." They endeavoured to do
well what most schoolmasters did badly. They taught
Latin and Greek, and they made great use of grammar, but
they gave up the cane. Boys were to be made happy.
School-hours were to be reduced from 10 hours a day to
5 hours, and in those 5 hours learning was to be made
" not only endurable but even pleasurable."
But the pupils were to find this pleasure not in the
exercise of their mental powers but in other ways. As Mr.
Eve has said, young teachers are inclined to think mainly
of stimulating their pupils' minds and so neglect the repeti-
tion needed for accuracy. Old teachers on the other hand
care so much for accuracy that they require the same thing
over and over till the pupils lose zest and mental activity
The Jesuits frankly adopted the maxim " Repetition is the
mother of studies," and worked over the same ground again
and again. The two forces on which they relied for
making the work pleasant were one good — the personal
influence of the master (" boys will soon love learning when
CONCLUSION. 507
The Jesuits cared for more than classics.
they love the teacher,") and one bad or at least doubtful —
the spur of emulation.
Hotvever, the attempt to lead, not drive, was a great step
in the right direction. Moreover as they did not hold with
the Sturms and Trotzendorfs that the classics in and for
themselves were the object of education the Jesuits were able
to think of other things as well. They were very careful of
the health of the body. And they also enlarged the task of
the schoolmaster in another and still more important way.
To the best of their lights they attended to the moral and
religious training of their pupils. It is much to the credit
of the Fathers that though Plautus and Terence were
considered very valuable for giving a knowledge of colloquial
Latin and were studied and learnt by heart in the Protestant
schools, the Jesuits rejected them on account of their
impurity. The Jesuits wished the whole boy, not his
memory only, to be affected by the master ; so the master
was to make a study of each of his pupils and to go on
with the same pupils through the greater part of their
school course.
The Jesuit system stands out in the history of education
as a remarkable instance of a school system elaborately
thought out and worked as a whole. In it the individual
schoolmaster withered, but the system grew, and was, I may
say />, a mighty organism. The single Jesuit teacher might
not be the superior ofthe average teacher in good Protestant
schools, but by their unity of action the Jesuits triumphed over
their rivals as easily as a regiment of soldiers scatters a mob.
^ 7. The schoolmaster's theory of the human mind made
of it, to use Bartle Massey's simile, a kind of bladder fit
only to hold what was poured into it. This pouring-in
theory of education was first called in question by that
508 CONCLUSION.
Rabelais for "intuition."
strange genius who seems to have stood outside all the
traditions and opinions of his age,
" holding no form of creed,
But contemplating all."
I mean Rabelais.
Like most reformers, Rabelais. begins with denunciations
of the system established by use and wont. After an
account of the school-teaching and school-books of the
day, he says — "It would be better for a boy to learn
nothing at all than to be taught such-like books by such-like
masters." He then proposes a training in which, though
the boy is to study books, he is not to do this mainly, but
is to be led to look about him, and to use both his senses
and his hmbs. For instance, he is to examine the stars
when he goes to bed, and then to be called up at four in
the morning to find the change that has taken place. Here
we see a trainmg of the powers of observation. These
powers are also to be exercised on the trees and plants
which are met with out-of doors, and on objects within the
house, as well as on the food placed on the table. The study
of books is to be joined with this study of things, for the
old authors are to be consulted for their accounts of what-
ever has been met with. The study of trades, too, and the
practice of some of them, such as wood-cutting, and carving
in stone, makes a very interesting feature in this system.
On the whole, I think we may say that Rabelais was the
first to advocate training as distinguished from teaching ;
and he was the father of Anschauungs-unterricht^ teaching
by intuition, i.e., by the pupil's own senses and the spring
of his own intelligence. Rabelais would bestow m.uch care
on the body too. Not only was the pupil to ride and
fence ; we find him even shouting for the benefit of his lungs.
CONCLUSION. 509
Montaigne for educating mind and body.
§ 8. Rabelais had now started an entirely new theory of
the educator's task, and fifty years afterwards his thought was
taken up and put forward with incomparable vigour by the
great essayist, Montaigne. Montaigne starts with a quotation
from Rabelais — "The greatest clerks are not the wisest
men," and then he makes one of the most effective
onslaughts on the pouring-in theory that is to be found in
all literature. His accusation against the schoolmasters of
his time is twofold. First, he says, they aim only at giving
knowledge, whereas they should first think of judgment and
virtue. Secondly, in their method of teaching they do not
exercise the pupils' own minds. The sum and substance
of the charge is contained in these words — " We labour to
stuff the memory and in the meantime leave the conscience
and understanding impoverished and void." His notion of
education embraced the whole man. " Our very exercises
and recreations," says he, "running, wrestling, music,
dancing, hunting, riding, fencing, will prove to be a good
part of our study. I would have the pupil's outward
fashion and mien and the disposition of his limbs formed
at the same time with his mind. 'Tis not a soul, 'tis not
a body, that we are training up, but a man^ and w^e ought
not to divide him."
§ 9. Before the end of the fifteen hundreds then we see
in the best thought of the time a great improvement in the
conception of the task of the schoolmaster. Learning is
not the only thing to be thought of. Moral and religious
training are recognised as of no less importance. And as
" both soul and body have been created by the hand of
God" (the words are Ignatius Loyola's), both must be
thought of in education. When we come to instruction
we find Rabelais recommending that at least part of it
'35
510 CONCLUSION.
17th century reaction against books.
should be " intuitive," and Montaigne requiring that the
instruction should involve an exercise of the intellectual
powers of the learner. But the escape even in thought
from the Renascence ideal was but partial. Some of
Rabelais* directions seem to come from a " Verbal Realist,"
and Montaigne was far from saying as Joseph Payne has
said, " every act of teaching is a mode of dealing with
mind and will be successful only in proportion as this
is recognised," " teaching is only another name for mental
training." But if Rabelais and Montaigne did not reach
the best thought of our time they were much in advance of
a great deal of omx practice.
§ 10. The opening of the sixteen hundreds saw a great
revolt from the literary spirit of the Renascence. The
exclusive devotion to books was followed by a reaction.
There might after all be something worth knowing that
books would not teach. Why give so much time to the
study of words and so little to the observation of things ?
" Youth," says a writer of the time, " is deluged with
grammar precepts infinitely tedious, perplexed, obscure, and
for the most part unprofitable, and that for many years."
Why not escape from this barren region ? " Come forth,
my son," says Comenius. " Let us .go into the open air.
There you shall view whatsoever God produced from the
beginning and doth yet effect by nature." And Milton
thus expresses the conviction of his day : " Because our
understanding cannot in this body found itself but on
sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of
God and things invisible as by orderly conning over the
visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily
to be followed in all discreet teaching."
Tliis great revolution which was involved in the Baconian
CONCLUSION. 511
r
Reaction not felt in schools and UU.
philosophy may be described as a turning from fancy to
fact. All the creations of the human mind seemed to
have lost their value. The only things that seemed worth
studying were the material universe and the laws or
sequences which were gradually ascertained by patient
induction and experiment.
§ II. Till the present century this revolution did not
extend to our schools and universities. It is only within
the last fifty years that natural science has been studied
even in the University of Bacon and Newton. The Public
School Commission of 1862 found that the curriculum was
just as it had been settled at the Renascence. But if the
walls of these educational Jerichos were still standing this
was not from any remissness on the part of " the children of
light" in shouting and blowing with the trumpet. They
raised the war-cry " Not words, but things ! " and the cry
has been continued by a succession of eminent men against
the schools of the 17th and i8th centuries and has at
length begun to tell on the schools of the 19th. Perhaps
the change demanded is best shown in the words of John
Dury about 1649 : "The true end of all human learning is
to supply in ourselves and others the defects which proceed
from our ignorance of the nature and use of the creatures
and the disorderliness of our natural faculties in using them
and reflecting upon them." So the Innovators required
teachers to devote themselves to natural science and to the
science of the human mind.
§ 1 2. The first" Innovators, like the people of the fifteen
hundreds, thought mainly of the acquisition of knowledge,
only the knowledge was to be not of the classics but of the
material world. In this they seem inferior to Montaigne
who had given the first place to virtue and judgment.
512 CONCLUSION.
Comenius begins science of education.
§ 13. But towards the middle of the sixteen hundreds
a very eminent Innovator took a comprehensive view of
education, and reduced instruction to its proper place, that
is, he treated it as a part of education merely. This man,
Comenius, was at once a philosopher, a philanthropist, and
a schoolmaster; and in his writings we find the first attempt
at a science of education. The outline of his science is as
follows : —
"We Hve a threefold life — a vegetative, an animal, and
an intellectual or spiritual. Of these, the first is perfect in
the womb, the last in heaven. He is happy who comes
with healthy body into the world, much more he who goes
with healthy spirit out of it. According to the heavenly
idea a man should — ist, Know all things; 2nd, He should
be master of things and of himself; 3rd, He should refer
everything to God. So that within us Nature has implanted
the seeds of learning, of virtue, and of piety. To bring
these seeds to maturity is the object of education. All
men require education, and God has made children unfit
for other employment that they may have time to learn."
Here we have quite a new theory of the educator's task.
He is to bring to maturity the seeds of learning, virtue,
and piety, which are already sown by Nature in his pupils.
This is quite different from the pouring-in theory, and seems
to anticipate the notion of Froebel, that the educator should
be called not teacher but gardener. But Comenius evi-
dently made too much of knowledge. Had he lived two
centuries later he would have seen the area of possible
knowledge extending to infinity in all directions, and he
would no longer have made it his ideal that " man should
know all things."
§ 14. The next great thinker about education — I mean
CONCLUSION. 513
Locke's teacher a disposer of influence.
Locke — seems to me chiefly important from his having
taken up the principles of Montaigne and treated the giving
of knowledge as of very small importance. Montaigne, as
we have seen, was the first to bring out clearly that educa-
tion was much more than instruction, as the whole was
greater than its part, and that instruction was of far less
importance than some other parts of education. And this
lies at the root of Locke's theory also. The great function
of the educator, according to him, is not to teach^ but to
dispose the pupil to virtue first, industry next, and then
knowledge ; but he thinks where the first two have been
properly cared for knowledge will come of itself. The
following are Locke's own words : — " The great work of a
governor is to fashion the carriage and to form the mind,
to settle in his pupil good habits and the principles of virtue
and wisdom, to give him little by little a view of mankind
and work him into a love and imitation of what is excellent
and praiseworthy ; and in the prosecution of it to give him
vigour, activity, and industry. The studies which he sets
him upon are but, as it were, the exercise of his faculties
and employment of his time ; to keep him from sauntering
and idleness ; to teach him application and accustom him
to take pains, and to give him some little taste of what
his own industry must perfect."* So we see that Locke
• This theory of the educator's task which makes him a disposer or
director of influence rather than a teacher, led Locke to decry our
public schools, for in them the traditions and tone of the school seem
the source of influence, and the masters are to all appearance mainly
teachers. Locke's own words are these: — "The difference is great
between two or three pupils in the same house and three or four
score boys lodged up and down ; for let the master's industry and
skill be never so great, it is impossible he should have fifty or a hundred
514 CONCLUSION.
Locke and public schools. Escape from "idols."
agrees with Comenius in his enlarged view of the educator's
task, and that he thought much less than Comenius of the
importance of the knowledge to be given.
§ 15. We already see a gradual escape from the "idols "
of the Renascence. Locke, instead of accepting the learned
ideal, declares that learning is the last and least thing to
be thought of. He cares little about the ordinary literary
instruction given to children, though he thinks they must
be taught something and does not know what to put in
its place. He provides for the education of those who are
scholars under his eye any longer than they are in the school together,
nor can it be expected that he should instruct them successfully in any-
thing but their books ; the forming of their minds and manners requiring
a constant attention and particular application to every single boy
which is impossible in a numerous flock, and would be wholly in vain
(could he have time to study and correct everyone's particular defects
and wrong inclinations) when the lad was to be left to himself or the
prevailing infection of his fellows the greatest part of the four-and-twenty
hours." But the educator who considers himself a director of influences
must remember that he is not the only force. The boy's companions
are a force at least as great ; and if he were brought up in private on
Locke's system, he would be entirely without a kind of influence much
more valuable than Locke seems to think — the influence of boy com-
panions, and of the traditions of a great school. On the other hand, it
cannot be denied that our public schools used to be, and perhaps are
still to some extent, under-mastered, and that the masters should not
be the mere teachers which, from overwork and other causes, they often
tend to become. The consequence has been that the real education of
the boys has in a great measure passed out of their hands. What has
been the result ? A long succession of able teachers have aimed at giving
literary instruction and making their pupils classical scholars. Both
manners and bodily training have been left to take care of themselves.
Yet such is the irony of Fate that the majority of youths who leave our
great schools are not literary and are not much of classical scholars, but
they are decidedly gentlemanly and still more decidedly athletic.
CONCLUSION. 515
Rousseau's clean sweep.
to remain ignorant of Greek, but only when they are "gentle-
men." In this respect the van is led by Comenius, who
thought of education for all^ boys and girls, rich and poor,
alike. Comenius also gave the first hint of the true nature
of our task — to bring to perfection the seeds implanted by
Nature. He also cared for the Httle ones whom the school-
master had despised. Locke does not escape from a
certain intellectual disdain of " my young masters," as he
calls them ; but in one respect he advanced as far as the
best thinkers among his successors have advanced. Know-
ledge, he says, must come by the action of the learner's
own mind. The true teacher is within.
§ 16. We now come to the least practical and at the
same time the most influential of all the writers on education
— I mean Rousseau. He, like Rabelais, Montaigne, and
Locke, was (to use Matthew Arnold's expression) a " child
of the idea." He attacked scholastic use and wont not in
the name of expedience, but in the name of reason ; and
such an attack — so eloquent, so vehement, so uncompro-
mising— had never been made before.
Still there remained even in theory, and far more in
practice, effects produced by the false ideal of the Renas-
cence. This ideal Rousseau entirely rejected. He proposed
making a clean sweep and returning to what he called the
state of Nature,
§ 17. Rousseau was by no means the first of the Re-
formers who advocated a return to Nature. There has
been a constant conviction in men's minds from the time
of the Stoics onwards that most of the evils which afflict
humanity have come from our not following " Nature."
The cry of " Everything according to Nature " was soon
raised by educationists. Ratke announced it as one of his
5l6 CONCLUSION.
Benevolence of Nature. Man disturbs.
principles. Comenius would base all action on the analogy
of Nature. Indeed, there has hardly ever been a system
of education which did not lay claim to be the " natural "
system. And by "natural" has been always understood
something different from what is usual. What is the notion
that produces this antithesis ?
§ 1 8. When we come to trace back things to their cause
we are wont to attribute them to God, to Nature, or to
Man. According to the general belief, God works in and
through Nature, and therefore the tendency of things apart
from human agency must be to good. This faith which
underlies all our thoughts and modes of speech, has been
beautifully expressed by Wordsworth —
**A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides,
And in the heart of man ; invisibly
It comes to works of unreproved delight
And tendency benign ; directing those
Who care not, know not, think not, what they do.**
PrcludCy V, adf.
But if the tendency of things is to good, why should the
usual be in such strong contrast with " the natural"? Here
iagain we may turn to Wordsworth. After pointing to the
harmony of the visible world, and declaring his faith that
** every flower enjoys the air it breathes," he goes on —
** If this belief from heaven be sent.
If this be Nature's holy plan.
Have I not reason to lament,
^Vhat Man has made of Man ? "
This passage might be taken as the motto of Rousseauism.
According to that philosophy man is the great disturber and
perverter of the natural order. Other animals simply follow
CONCLUSION. 517
We arrange sequences, capitalise ideas.
nature, but man has no instinct, and is thus left to find his
own way. What is the consequence? A very different
authority from Rousseau, the poet Cowper, tells us in lan-
guage which Rousseau might have adopted —
" Reasoning at every step he treads,
Man yet mistakes his way :
While meaner things whom instinct leads.
Are seldom known to stray."
Man has to investigate the sequences of Nature, and to
arrange them for himself. In this way he brings about a
great number of foreseen results, but in doing this he also
brings about perhaps even a greater number of unforeseen
results ; and alas ! it turns out that many, if not most, of
these unforeseen results are the reverse of beneficial.
§ 19. Another thing is observable. Other animals are
guided by instinct ; we, for the most part, are guided by
tradition. Man, it has been said, is the only animal that
capitalises his discoveries. If we capitalised nothing but
our discoveries, this accumulation would be an immense
advantage to us ; but we capitalise also our conjectures, our
ideals, our habits, and unhappily, in many cases, our blun-
ders.* So a great deal of action which is purely mischievous
* I append a note written from a different point of view — '* With
how little wisdom!" certainly seems to cover most departments of life.
Seems ? Yes ; but are we not apt to overlook the wisdom that lies in the
great mass of people ? In some small department we may have inves-
tigated further than our class-mates, and may see, or think we see, a
good deal of stupidity in what goes on. But in most matters we do not
investigate for ourselves, but just do the usual thing ; and this seems to
work all right. There must be a good deal of wisdom underlying the
complex machinery of civilised life. Carlyle's " Mostly fools !" will by
no means account for it. At times one has a dim perception that people
5l8 CONCLUSION.
Loss and gain from tradition.
in its effects, comes not from our own mistakes, but from
those of our ancestors. The consequence is, that what with
our own mistakes and the mistakes we inherit, we sometimes
go far indeed out of the course which " Nature " has pie-
scribed for us.
§ 20. The generation which found a mouthpiece in
Rousseau had become firmly convinced, not indeed of its
in general are not so stupid as they seem. Perhaps a long life would
in the end lead us to say like Tithonus,
" Why should a man desire in any way
** To vary from the kindly race of men ? "
There is a higher wisdom than the disintegrating individualism of
Carlyle. Far better to believe with Mazzini in "the collective exist-
ence of humanity," and remembering that we work in a medium fashioned
for us by the labours of all who have preceded us, regard our collective
powers as "grafted upon those of all foregoing humanity." (Mazzini's
Essays: Carlyle.) This is the point of view to which Wordsworth
would raise us : —
" Among the multitudes
" Of that huge city, oftentimes was seen
** the unity of man,
** One spirit over ignorance and vice
"Predominant, in good and evil hearts ;
** One sense for moral judgements, as one eye
** For the sun's light. The soul when smitten thus
**By a sublime idea^ whence soe'er
** Vouchsafed for union or communion, feeds
" On the pure bliss and takes her rest with God."
Prelude viij, adf.
Though unable to share in " the pure bliss " of Wordsworth we may
take refuge with Goethe in the thought that " humanity is the true man,"
and enjoy much to which we have no claim as individuals. Tradition,
blind tradition, must rule our actions through by far the greatest part of
our lives ; and seeing we owe it so much, we should be tolerant, even
gratefai.
I
CONCLUSION. 519
Rousseau for observing and following:.
own stupidity, but of the stupidity of all its predecessors ;
and the vast patrimony bequeathed to it seemed nothing
but lumber or worse. So Rousseau found an eager and
enthusiastic audience when he proposed a return to Nature,
in other words, to give up all existing customs, and for the
most part to do nothing and " give Nature a chance." His
boy of twelve years old was to have been taught nothing.
Up to that age the great art of education, says Rousseau,
is to do everything by doing nothing. The first part of
education should be purely negative.
§ 21. Rousseau then was the first who escaped completely
from the notion of the Renascence, that man was mainly a
learning and remejftbering animal. But if he is not this,
what is he? We must ascertain, said Rousseau, not a priori^
but by observation. We need a new art, the art of observing
children.
§ 22. Now at length there was hope for the Science of
Education. This science must be based on a study of the
subject on whom we have to act. According to Locke
there is such variation not only in the circumstances, but
also in the personal peculiarities of individuals, that general
laws either do not exist or can never be ascertained. But
this variation is no less observable in the human body, and
the art of the physician has to conform itself to a science
which is still very far from perfect. The physician, however,
does not despair. He carefully avails himself of such science
as we now have, and he makes a study of the human body
in order to increase that science. When a few more genera-
tions have passed away, the medical profession will very
likely smile at mistakes made by the old Victorian doctors.
But, meantime, we profit by the science of medicine in its
present state, and we find that this science has considerably
520 CONCLUSION.
Rousseau exposed "school learning.**
increased the average duration of human life. We there-
fore require every practitioner to have made a scientific
study of his calling, and to have had a training in both the
theory and practice of it. The science of education cannot
be said to have done much for us at present, but it will do
more in the future, and might do more now if no one were
allowed to teach before he or she had been trained in the
best theory and practice we have. Since the appearance
of the Emile the best educators have studied the subject
on whom they had to act, and they have been learning
more and more of the laws or sequences which affect the
human mind and the human body. The marvellous strides
of science in every other department encourages us to hope
that it will make great advances in the field of education
where it is still so greatly needed. Perhaps the day may
come when a Pestalozzi may be considered even by his con-
temporaries on an equality with a Napoleon, and the human
race may be willing to give to the art of instruction the
same amount of time, money, thought, and energy, which
in our day have been devoted with such tremendous suc-
cess to the art of destruction. It is already dawning on the
general consciousness that in education as in physical
science " we conquer Nature by obeying her," and we are
learning more and more how to obey her.
§ 23. Rousseau's great work was first, to expose the ab-
surdities of the school-room, and second, to set the educator
on studying the laws of nature in the human mind and
body. He also drew attention to the child's restless
activity. He would also (like Locke before him), make the
young learner his own teacher.
§ 24. There is another way in which the appearance of
the Emile was, as the Germans say, " epoch-making.**
CONCLUSION. 521
Function of "things" in education.
From the time of the earliest Innovators, we have seen that
" Things not Words," had been the war-cry of a strong
party of Reformers. But things had been considered
merely as a superior means of instruction. Rousseau first
pointed out the intimate relation that exists between children
and the material world around them. Children had till then
been thought of only as immature and inferior men. Since
his day an English poet has taught us that in some ways
the man is far inferior to the child, " the things which we
have seen we now can see no more," and that
** nothing can bring back the hour
** Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower."
Rousseau had not Wordsworth's gifts, but he, too, observed
that childhood is the age of strong impressions from without
and that its material surroundings affect it much more
acutely than they will in after life. Which of us knows as
much about our own house and furniture as our children
know ? Still more remarkable is the sympathy children have
with animals. If a cat comes into a room where there are
grown people and also a child, which sees the cat first? which
observes it most accurately ? Now, this intimate relation of
the child with its surroundings plays a most important part
in its education. The educator may, if so minded, ignore
this altogether, and stick to grammar, dates, and county
towns, but if he does so the child's real education will not
be much affected by him. Rousseau saw this clearly, and
wished to use " things " not for instruction but for educa-
tion. Their special function was to train the senses.
§ 25. Perhaps it is not too much to say of Rousseau that
he was the first who gave up thinking of the child as a
being whose chief faculty was the faculty of remembering,
522 CONCLUSION.
"New Education" started by Rousseau.
and thought of him rather as a being who feels and reflects,
acts and invents.
§ 26. But if the thought may be traced back to Rousseau,
it was, as left by him, quite crude or rather embryonic.
Since his time this conception of the young has been taken
up and moulded into a fair commencement of a science of
education. This commencement is now occupying the
attention of thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, and much
may be expected from it even in the immediate future.
For the science so far as it exists we are indebted mainly
to the two Reformers with whom I will conclude — Pestalozzi
and Froebel.
§ 27. Pestalozzi, like Comenius more than 100 years
before him, conceived of education for all. " Every human
being," said he, " has a claim to a judicious development of
his faculties." Every child must go to school.
But the word school includes a great variety of institutions.
The object these have in view differs immensely. With
us the main object in some schools seems to be to prepare
boys to compete at an early age for entrance scholarships
awarded to the greatest proficients in Latin and Greek. In
other schools the object is to turn the children out " good
scholars " in another sense ; that is, the school is held to be
successful when the boys and girls acquire skill in the arts
of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and can remember a
number of facts — facts of history, of geography, and even of
natural science. So the common notion is that what is
wanted in the way of education depends entirely on the
child's social position. There still Hnger among us notions
derived from the literary men of the Renascence. We still
measure all children by their literary and mnemonic attain-
ments. We still consider knowledge of Latin and Greek
CONCLUSION. 523
Drawing out. Man and the other animals.
the highest kind of knowledge. Children are sent to school
that they may not be ignorant.* Pestalozzi, who had
studied Rousseau, entirely denied all this. He required
that the school-coach should be turned and started in a
new direction. The main object of the school was not to
teach, but to develop, not to put in but to draw out.
§ 28. The study of nature shows us that every animal
comes into the world with certain faculties or capabilities.
There are a set of circumstances which will develop these
capabilities and make the most of them. There are other
circumstances which would impede this development,
decrease it, or even prevent it altogether. All other
animals have this development secured for them by their
ordinary environment : but Man, with far higher capacities,
and with immeasurably greater faculties both for good and
evil, is left far more to his own resources than the other
animals. Placed in an almost endless variety of circum-
stances we have to ascertain how the development of our
offspring may best be brought about. We have to consider
what are the inborn faculties of our children, and also what
aids and what hinders their development. When we have
arrived at this knowledge we must educate them by placing
* Professor Jebb has lately given us the main ideas of the great
Scholar Erasmus. "In all his work," says the Professor, "he had an
educational aim. . . . The evils of his age, in Church, in State, in
the daily lives of men, seemed to him to have their roots in ignoraiue ;
ignorance of what Christianity meant, ignorance of what the Bible taught,
ignorance of what the noblest and most gifted minds of the past,
whether Christian or pagan, had contributed to the instruction of the
human race." (Rede Lecture, 1890.) Erasmus evidently fell into the
error against which Pestalozzi and Froebel lift up their voices, often in
vain — the error of forgetting that knowledge is of no avail without in-
telligence. What is the use of lighting additional candles for the blind ?
524 CONCLUSION.
Intuition. Man an organism, a doer and creator.
them in the best circumstances in our power, and then
superintending, judiciously and lovingly, the development of
their faculties and of their higher nature.
§ 29. There is, said Pestalozzi, only one way in which
faculty can be developed, and that is by exercise ; so his
system sought to encourage the activities of children, and in
this respect he was surpassed, as we shall see, by Froebel.
*' Dead " knowledge, as it has been called — the knowledge
commonly acquired for examinations, our school-knowledge,
in fact — was despised by Pestalozzi as it had been by Locke
and Rousseau before him. In its place he would put
knowledge acquired by " intuition," by the spring of the
learner's own intelligence.
§ 30. The conception of every child as an organism and
of education as the process by which the development of
that organism is promoted is found first in Pestalozzi, but it
was more consistently thought out by Froebel. There is,
said Froebel, a divine idea for every human being, for we
are all God's offspring. The object of the education of a
human being is to further the development of his divine
idea. This development is attainable only through action ;
for the development of every organism depends on its self-
activity. Self-activity then, activity "with a will," is the
main thing to be cared for in education. The educator
has to direct the children's activity in such a way that it
may satisfy their instincts, especially the formative and
creative instincts. The child from his earliest years is to be
treated as a doer and even a creator.
§ 31. Now, at last, we have arrived at the complete
antithesis between the old education and the New. The
old education had one object, and that was learning. Man
was a being who learnt and remembered. Education was a
CONCLUSION. 525
b
Antithesis of Old and New Education.
process by which he learnt^ at first the languages and
literatures of Rome and Greece only ; but as time went on
the curriculum was greatly extended. The New Education
treats the human being not so much a learner as a doer and
creator. The educator no longer fixes his eyes on the
object — the knowledge, but on the subject— the being to be
educated. The success of the education is not determined
by what the educated know, but by what they do and what
they are. They are well educated when they love what is
good, and have had all their faculties of mind and body
properly developed to do it.
§ 32. The New Education then is " passive, following,"
and must be based on the study of human nature. When
we have ascertained what are the faculties to be developed
we must consider further how to foster the self-activity that
will develop them.
§ 33. We have travelled far from Dr. Johnson, who
asserted that education was as well known as it ever could
be. Some of us are more inclined to assert that in his day
education was not invented. On the other hand, there are
those who belittle the New Education and endeavour to
show that in it there is nothing new at all. As it seems to
me a revolution of the most salutary kind was made by the
thinkers who proposed basing education on a study of the
subject to be educated, and, more than this, making the
process a " following " process with the object of drawing
out self-activity.
§ 34. This change of object must in the end be fruitful in
changes of every kind. But as yet we are only groping our
way ; and, if I may give a caution which, in this country at
least, is quite superfluous, we should be cautious, and till we
see our way clearly we should try no great experiment that
36
526 CONCLUSION.
Drill needed. What the Thinkers do for us.
would destroy our connexion with the past. Most of our
predecessors thought only of knowledge. By a reaction
some of our New Educationists seem to despise knowledge.
But knowledge is necessary, and without some knowledge
development would be impossible. We probably cannot
do too much to assist development and encourage " intui-
tion," but there is, perhaps, some danger of our losing sight
of truths which schoolroom experience would bring home to
us. Even the clearest "concepts" get hazy again and
totally unfit for use, unless they are permanently fixed in
the mind by repetition, which to be effective must to some
extent take the form of drill. The practical man, even the
crammer, has here mastered a truth of the teaching art
which the educationist is prone to overlook. And there are,
no doubt, other things which the practical man can teach.
But the great thinkers would raise us to a higher standing-
point from which we may see much that will make the right
road clearer to us, and lead us to press forward in it with
good heart and hope.
FINIS,
APPENDIX.
History of this Book.— Some wise man has advised as never to
find fault with ourselves, for, says he, you may always depend on your
friends to do it for you. So, having looked through the proofs of this
book, I abstain from fault-finding. I fancy I could find fault more
effectively than my friends or even my professional critics. As the
Spectator's ** Correspondent in an easy chair" says very truly, the
author has read his book many times ; the critic has read it at most once.
In fact the critic gives to the book (in some cases to the subject of the
book also) no greater number of hours than the author has given months,
perhaps years. Partiality blinds the author, no doubt, but unless he is
a fatuous person it does not blind him so much as his haste blinds the
critic An author of note said of a book of his, which had been much
criticised: "The book has faults, but I am the only person who has
discovered them," to which a friend maliciously appended: ** Yox faults
read merits.'''' Whatever was the truth here, I am inclined to think
the author has the best chance of putting his finger on the weak
places.
But if I see weaknesses in the foregoing book, why do I not make it
better? Just for two reasons: to improve the book I should have to
spend more time on it and more money. The more I read and think
about any one of my subjects, the more I want to go on reading and
thinking. Perhaps I hear of an old book that has escaped my notice,
or a new book comes out, sometimes an important book like Pinloche's
Basedow. So I can never finish an essay to my satisfaction, and the
only way of getting it off my hands is to send the copy to the printer.
By the time the proof comes in there is something that I should lilce to
add or alter ; but then the dread of a long bill for " corrections " restrains
me. However, now the book is all in type, I see here and there some-
thing that suggests a note by way of explanation or addition, so I add
this appendix. Taking a hint from one of my favourite authors. Sir
Arthur Helps, I throw my notes into the form of a dialogue, but
528 APPENDIX.
being entirely destitute of Helps's drama'.ic skill I confine myself to
E. (the Essayist) and A. (Amicus), who is only too clearly an alter ego.
A. So the Americans have kept alive your old book for you, and at
last you have rewritten it. You at least have no reason to complain
that there is no international copyright. Your book would have bten
forgotten long ago if a lady in Cincinnati had not persuaded an American
publisher there to reprint it. E. Yes, I very readily allow that I have
been a gainer. The Americans have done more for me than my own
countrymen. To be sure neither have "praised with the hands" (.'vs
Moliere's /r^.fjfMr has it) ; and, in money at least, the book has never
paid me its expenses ; but three American publishers have done for
themselves what no Englishman would do for me, viz., publish at their
own risk. In 1868 when my MS. was ready, I went to my old friend,
Mr. Alexander Macmillan ; but he would not even look at it. " Books
on education," said he, "don't pay. Why there is Thring's Edtuation
and School^ a capital book " (I assented heartily, for I was very fond of
it), " well, that doesn't sell." I was forced to admit that in that case I
had little chance. "But," I said, "I suppose you would publish at
my risk ?" " No," said Mr. Macmillan. " The author is never satisfied
when his book doesn't pay." "What would you advise?" I asked.
" I'll give you a letter of introduction to Mr. William Longman," said
Mr. Macmillan ; " I dare say he'll publish for you." With this letter I
went to Mr. William Longman (who has since those days been gathered
to his ancestors, formerly of Paternoster Row). Mr. Longman said he
would put the MS. in the hands of his reader. If the reader's report
was favourable the firm would offer me terms ; if not, they would pub-
ish for me on commission. I sent the MS. accordingly, and soon after
I had a letter from the firm offering to publish "od commission."
When the book was in type, Mr. Longman advised me to have only
500 printed, and to publish at a high price. " I should charge QJ.," he
said. "Very few people will buy, and they won't consider the price."
This was not my opinion, but in such a matter I felt that the weight o
authority was enormously against me. So I consented to the publish-
ing price of *js. 6d. And at first it seemed that Mr. Longman was
right — at least about the small number of purchasers. ^^30 was spent
in advertising, and the book was very generally and I may say very
favourably reviewed ; but when about 100 copies had been sold, it
almost entirely ceased "to move." I think 13 copies were sold in six
months. So to get rid of the remainder of my 500 copies (some 300
of ibem) I put down the price to 3^. 6d. Then it seemed that Mr.
APPENDIX. 529
Longman had made a mistake about the price. Without another
advertisement the 300 were sold in a month or two. Some time after,
I heard that the book had been republished in Cincinnati, and on my
writing to the publishers, Messrs. Robert Clarke & Co., they presented
me with half-a-dozen copies. This proved to be a perfect reprint,
which is more than I can say of those which years afterwards weie
issued by Mr. Bardeen and Messrs. Kellogg. I have therefore from
time to time purchased from Messrs. Clarke and imported the copies
(I suppose about 1500 in all) that have been wanted for the English
market. I hope these details do not bore you. A. Not at all. The
history of any book interests me, and your book has had some odd
experiences. It has lived, I own, much longer than I expected, and
for this you have to thank the Americans. A. In my case the absence
of international copyright has done no harm certainly ; but after all
copyright has its advantages, international copyright included. Specialists
suffer severely from the want of it. Perhaps the " special " public in
this country is so small that an important book for it cannot be published.
If to our special public were joined the special public of the U.S., the
book might be fairly remunerative to its author. Take, e.g. , Joseph
Payne's writings. These would have been lost to the world had not
Dr. Payne published them as an act of filial piety. With an inter-
national copyright these works would be very good property. E. You
think then that in the long run "honesty is the best policy "even
internationally? A. I must say my opinion does incline in that
direction.
Class Matches (p. 42). — A. I think you have had a good deal to
do with class matches ? E. Yes. One must be careful not to overdo
them, but I have found an occasional match a capital way of en-
livening school-work. Some time before the match takes place the
master lets the two best boys pick up sides, the second boy having the
first choice. The subject for the match is then arranged, and to prevent
disputes the area must be carefully defined. Moreover, there must be
no opportunity for the boys to ask questions about unimportant details
that are likely to have escaped attention. When the match is to take
place each boy should come provided with a set of written questions,
and whenever a boy shows himself ignorant of the right answer to a
question of his own he must be held to have failed even if his opponent
is ignorant also. At Harrow, where I had a class-room {** school-
room " as it is there called) to myself, I used to work these matches
very succesbfully in German. Say Heine's Lorelei had been learnt by
530 APPENDIX.
heart. I set as a subject for a match the plurals of the substantives and
the past participles of the verbs in the poem. Or the boys had to make
up for themselves and number on paper a set of short sentences in
which only words which occurred in the poem were used. In this last
case the questioner handed in to the master his paper with both the
English and the German on it, and the master gave the other side the
English, of which they had to write the German. The details of such
matches may of course be varied to any extent so long as the subject
set is quite definite. The scoring will be found best at the lower end,
so that a match stimulates those who need stimulus. A. What did you
call " scratch pairs ?" E. Oh, that was a device for getting up a little
harmless excitement. Knowing the capacities of my boys, I arranged
them in pairs, the best boy and the worst forming one pair, the next
best and next worst the second pair, &c., &c I then asked a series of
questions to which all had to write short answers. I then looked over
the answers and marked them. Finally the marks of each pair were
added together, and I announced the order in which the pairs ** came
in." It was really "anybody's race" for neither I nor anyone could
predict the result. If the number of boys was an odd number the boy
in the middle fought for his own hand and had his marks doubled.
Perhaps on the whole he had the best chance.
Competition. — A. There were then some forms of emulation
which you did not set your face against ? E. There were many, but I
preferred emulation which stimulated the idle rather than the
industrious. Most ** prizes " act only on those who would be better
without them. A. Do you see no danger in encouraging rivalry
between different bodies ? The strife between parties has often been
more virulent than the strife between individuals. E. Yes, I know
well that in exciting party-feeling one is playing with edged tools ;
and besides this, a boy who for any cause is thought a disgrace to his
side, is very likely to be bullied by it. Let me tell you of one form of
stimulus which seemed to work well and was free from most of the
objections you are thinking of. When I had a small school of my own in
which there were only young boys, I put up in the school-room a list
of the boys' names in alphabetical order with blank spaces after the
names. I looked over the boys' written work very carefully, and
whenever I came across any written exercise evidently done with great
painstaking and for that boy with more than ordinary success, I marked
it with a G, and I put up the G in one of the spaces after that boy's
name in the list hung up in the school-room. When the scliool
APPENDIX. 531
collectively had obtained a fixed number of G's we had an extra half-
holiday. The announcement of a G was therefore always hailed with
delight. A. I see one thing in favour of that device. You might by
a G give encouragement to a boy when he has just begun to try. This
is often a turning-point in a boy's life ; and a master's early recognition
of effort may do much to strengthen into a habit what might, without
the recognition, have proved nothing but a passing whim. At the very
least, all such devices have one good effect ; they break the monotony
of school-work ; and monotony is much more wearing to the young
than it is to their elders. Can you tell me of others who have used
such plans ? E. A friend of mine who has a genius for inventing
school plans of all kinds and marvellous energy in working them, has a
boarding-house in connexion with a large school. The marks of every
boy in the school are given out for each week. My friend gives a
supper at the end of the quarter if the average marks of his house
come up to a certain standard. He puts up each week a list of
" Furtherers," i.c^ of the boys who have surpassed the average, and of
**Hinderers," «.^., of boys who have fallen below it. A. No doubt
this is an effective spur, but I should fear it would in practice deliver
the hindermost to Satan. The boy whom nature has made a
** hinderer " is likely to have by no means a good time in that house.
Do you know if such devices as you have mentioned are common in
schools ? E. I really can't say. I have seen in American school papers
accounts of class matches. In the New England Journal of Education
(22nd November, 1888) Mr, A. E. Winship gave an account of some
inter-class matches at Milwaukee. There is a match between three
classes, say in penmanship. If there are seventy boys in the three
classes together, each boy draws a number from one to seventy, and
puts not his name but his number on his paper. The same lesson is set
for all. The papers are collected, divided into three equal heaps, and
looked over and marked by three masters. Finally the average of each
class is taken. In mental arithmetic each class chooses its own
champions. This would be fun, but would do nothing for the lower end
of the class. The principal of McDonough School No. 12, New
OrUans, Mr. H. E. Chambers, gives an account in the New York
School loumal (8th December, 1S88), how he organised sixteen boys
into teams of four, putting the best and worst together as I did in
making up scratch pairs. The match between these teams was to see
which could get the best record for the month. As Mr. Chambers tells
us the sharper boys managed with more success than the master to let
532 APPENDIX.
light into the dull intellects of boys in the same team with them.
This union of interests between the " strong " and the ** weak " as the
French call them, is a very good feature in combats of sides.
The Jesuits. — ^A. What is it that interests you so much in the
Jesuits? E. Two things. First, the Jesuit shows the effects of a
definitely planned and rigidly carried out system of education ; and
next, in such a society you find a continuity of effort which is and must
be wanting in the life of an individual. If ever " we feel that we are
greater than we know " it is when we can think of ourselves as parts of
a society, a society which existed long before us, and will last after us.
For instance, it is a great thing to be connected with an historical
school such as Harrow. We then realise, as the school's poet, Mr.
E. E. Bowen, has said, that we are no mere "sons of yesterday," and
thinking of the connection between the mighty dead and the old school
we join heartily in the chorus of the school song : —
" Their glory thus shall circle us
"Till time be done."
A. I verily believe you expect your share in this "glory" for
having invented the Harrow " Blue Book," which is likely to outlive
Educational Reformers; but if the boys ever thought of the inventor
(which they don't) they would naturally suppose that he was some
contemporary of Cadmus or Deucalion. Sic transit! But what has
this to do with the Jesuits ? E. Only this, that by corporate life you
secure a continuity of effort. There is to me something very attractive
in the idea of a teaching society. How such a society might capitalise
its discoveries ! The Roman Church has shown a genius for such
societies, witness the Jesuits and the Christian Brothers. The
experience of centuries must have taught them much that we could
learn of them. A. The Jesuits seem to me to be without the spirit of
investigators and discoverers. The rules of their Society do not permit
of their learning anything or forgetting anything. Ignatius Loyola was
a wonderful man, but he must have been superhuman if he could
legislate for all time. By the way, I see you say the first edition of the
^a//^ was published in 1585. What is your authority? E. I took
the date from the copy in the British Museum. According to a volume
published by Rivingtons in 1838 {Constitutiones Societatis Jesu) the
Constitutions were first printed in 1558, but were not divulged till " the
celebrated suit of the MM. Lionci and Father La Valette " in 1761.
Alexander's Doctrinale (p. 80). — A. I thought you made it a rule
to give only what was useful. What can be the use of the quotations
APPENDIX. 533
which your old Appendix contained " from a celebrated grammar written
by a Franciscan of Brittany about the middle of the 13th century"?
E. Perhaps I had an attack of antiquarianism ; but I rather think the
quotations were given in order to shew our progress since those days.
The Teachers' art of making easy things difficult is well exemplified in
Alexander's rules for the first declension. But life is short, and folly is
best forgotten.
Lily's Grammar (p. 80). A. Would not your last remark rule out
what you told us about Lily's Grammar? E. As regards Lily's
assertion, ** Genders of nouns be 7," it certainly would. Surely nobody
but a writer of school-books would ever have thought of making a
"gender " out of "hie, haec, hoc, felix" ! But the absurdity did not
originate with Lily. He was all for simplification, and though there
were some changes in the Eton Latin Grammar which succeeded the
" Short introduction of Grammar " known as Lily's Grammar, these
changes were, some of them at least, by no means improvements. The
old book put a before all ablatives and taught that " by a kingdom *
was a regno. If this was not any better than teaching that domino by
itself was *' by a Lord," it was at least no worse. The optative of the
old book (" Utinam situ I pray God I be ; Utinam Essem would God
I were, &c.") and the subjunctive (" Cum Sim When I am, &c.,") were
better than the oracular statement which perplexed my youth, "The sub-
junctive mood is declined like the potential." How often I said those
words, and being of an inquiring mind wondered what on earth " the
subjunctive mood " was 1
Colet. E. The passage I refer to on page 80 from Colet is in a
little book in the B.M. It is "JoannisColeti theologi, olim Decani Divi
Pauli, editio, una cum quibusdam G. Lilii Grammatices Rudimentis, &c.
Antuerpiae 1535. After the accidence of the eight parts of speech, he
says : — " Of these eight parts of speech in order well construed, be
made reasons and sentences, and long orations. But how and in what
manner, and with what constructions of words, and all the varieties,
and diversities, and changes in Latin speech (which be innumerable), if
any man will know, and by that knowledge attain to understand Latin
books, and to speak and to write clean Latin, let him, above all, busily
learn and read good Latin authors of chosen poets and orators, and note
wisely how they wrote and spake ; and study always to follow them,
desiring none other rules but their examples. For in the beginning men
spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, contrariwise, because
men spake such Latin, upon that followed the rules, and were made.
534
APPENDIX.
That is to say, Latin speech was before the rules, and not the rules
before the Latin speech. Wherefore, well-beloved masters and teachers
of grarrifnar, after the parts of speech sufficiently known in our schools,
read and expound plainly unto your scholars good authors, and show to
them [in] every word, and in every sentence, what they shall note and
observe, warning them busily to follow and do like both in writing and
in speaking ; and be to them your own self also speaking with them the
pure Latin very present, and leave the rules ; for reading of good books,
diligent information of learned masters, studious advertence and taking
heed of learners, hearing eloquent men speak, and finally, busy imitation
with tongue and pen, moreavaileth shortly to get the true eloquent speech,
than all the traditions, rules, and precepts of masters." This passage is,
I find, well known. It is given in Ivnights' Life of Colet and is referred
to by Mr. Seebohm. Mr. J. H. Lupton, Colet's latest biographer, has
kindly corrected the date for me : it is indistinct in the Museum copy.
Mulcaster for English (p. 97). A. Except in Clarke's edition,
your extracts from Mulcaster's Eleinentarie have been omitted by your
American reprinters. E. So I see. I should have thought the
Americans would have been much interested by this early praise of our
common language. The passage is certainly a very remarkable one.
and Professor Masson has thought it worth quoting in his Life of
Milton. The Elementarie is a scarce book ; so I will not follow my
reprinters in leaving out this passage : — '* Is it not a marvellous bondage
to become servants to one tongue, for learning's sake, the most part of
our time, with loss of most time, whereas we may have the very same
treasure in our own tongue with the gain of most time? our own
bearing the joyful title of our liberty and freedom, the Latin tongue
remembering us of our thraldom and bondage? I love Rome, but
London better ; I favour Italy, but England more : I honour the Latin,
but I worship the English. ... I honour foreign tongues, but wish
my own to be partaker of their honour. Knowing them, I wish my own
tongue to resemble their grace. I confess their furniture, and wish it were
ours. . . . The diligent labour of learned countrymen did so enrich
those tongues, and not the tongues themselves j though they proved very
pliable, as our tongue will prove, I dare assure it, of knowledge, if our
learned countrymen will put to their labour. And why not, I pray you,
as well in English as either Latin or any tongue else ? Will ye say it is
needless ? sure that will not hold. If loss of time, while ye be pilgrims
to learning, by lingering about tongues be no argument of need ; if lack
of sound skill while the tongue distracteth sense more than half to itself
APPENDIX. 535
and that most of all in a simple student or a silly wit, be no argument
of need, then ye say somewhat which pretend no need. But because
we needed not to lose any time unless we listed, if we had such a
vantage, in the course of study, as we now lose while we travail in
tongues ; and because our understanding also were most full in our
natural speech, though we know the foreign exceedingly well — methink
necessity itself doth call for English, whereby all that gaiety may be had
at home which makes us gaze so much at the fine stranger." Among
various objections to the use of English which he answers, he comes to
this one : — " But will ye thus break off the common conference with the
learned foreign?" To this his answer is not very forcible: — "The
conference will not cease while the people have cause to interchange
dealings, and without the Latin it may well be continued : as in some
countries the learneder sort and some near cousins to the Latin itself do
already wean their pens and tongues from the use of the Latin, both
in written discourse and spoken disputation, into their own natural, and
yet no dry nurse being so well appointed by the milch nurse's help. "
Further on he says : — " The emperor Justinian said, when he made the
Institutes of force, that the students were happy in having such a fore-
deal \i.e..t advantage — German VortheiJ] as to hear him at once, and
not to wait four years first. And doth not our languaging hold us back
four years and that full, think you ? . . [But this is not all.] Our
best understanding is in our natural tongue, and all our foreign learning
is applied to our use by means of our own ; and without the application
to particular use, wherefore serves learning? . . . [As for dis-
honouring antiquity], if we must cleave to the eldest and not the best, we
should be eating acorns and wearing old Adam's pelts. But why not
all in English, a tongue of itself both deep in conceit and frank in
delivery ? I do not think that any language, be it whatsoever, is better
able to utter all arguments either with more pith or greater plainness
than otu: English tongue is. . , . It is our accident which restrains
our tongue and not the tongue itself, which will strain with the strongest
and stretch to the furthest, for either government if we were conquerors,
or for cunning if we were treasurers ; not any whit behind either the
subtle Greek for crouching close, or the stately Latin for spreading
fair."
Marcel's "Axiomatic Truths." — A. I have seen Marcel referred
to as a great authority in education, but I look in vain for his name in
Kiddle's Cyclopoedia and in Sonnenschein's. E. You would be more
successful in Buisson's. There I see that Claude Marcel was born at
536 APPENDIX.
Paris in 1793, ^^'^ tlied in 1876. He was one of Napoleon's soldiers.
After 40 years' absence from France dating from 1825 he went back to
Paris. He had been French Consul ai Cork, and brought up nine
children whom he taught entirely himself. In 1853 he published with
Chapman and Flail his Language as a Means of Mental Culture (2
vols. ). This book was not very well named, for it contains in fact an
analysis of the subject — education. To the study of this subject Marcel
must have given his life, and it seems odd that his contribution to
English (not French) pedagogic literature is so little known. A French
abridgment of his work appeared in 1855 with the title Premiers
Principes (f Education ; and in 1867 he published in French V Etudes
des Languages (Paris, Borrani) of which a translation was published in
the U.S.A. Marcel's notion of education is threefold, viz.. Physical,
Intellectual, and Moral Education : the ist aiming at healthy strength^
and beauty ; the 2nd at mental power and the acquisition of knowledge ;
the 3rd at piety, justice, goodness, and wisdom. According to him the
Creator has made the exercise of our faculties pleasurable. This will
suggest his main lines. He expects to find general assent, for he quotes
from Garrick : —
" When Doctrine meets with general approbation,
" It is not heresy but reformation."
But he has met with less approbation than neglect. His " axiomatic
truths " that I quoted in the old appendix were abused without mercy
by a critic of those days who accused me of ** bookmaking " for putting
them in. On the other hand my last American reprinter singles them
out for honour and puts them at the beginning of the book. After this
I suppose somebody likes them, so here they are :
"Axiomatic Truths of Methodology. — i. The method of nature
is the archetype of all methods, and especially of the method of learning
languages.
2. The classification of the objects of study should mark out to
teacher and learner their respective spheres of action.
3. The ultimate objects of the study should always be kept in view,
that the end be not forgotten in pursuit of the means.
4. The means ought to be consistent with the end.
5. Example and practice are more efficient than precept and theory.
6. Only one thing should be taught at one time ; and an accumulation
of difficulties should be avoided, especially in the beginning of the
study.
7. Instruction should proceed from the known to the unknown, from
APPENDIX. 537
the simple to the complex, from concrete to abstract notions, from
analysis to synthesis.
8. The mind should be impressed with the idea before it takes
cognisance of the sign that represents it.
9. The development of the intellectual powers is more important
than the acquisition of knowledge j each should be made auxiliary to
Ihe other.
10. All the faculties should be equally exercised, and exercised in a
way consistent with the exigencies of active life.
11. The protracted exercise of the faculties is injurious : a change of
occupation renews the energy of their action.
12. No exercise should be so difficult as to discourage exertion, nor
so easy as to render it unnecessary : attention is secured by making
study interesting.
13. First impressions and early habits are the most important, because
they are the most enduring.
14. What the learner discovers by mental exertion is better known
than what is told him.
15. Learners should not do with their instructor what they can do by
themselves, that they may have time to do with him what they cannot
do by themselves.
16. The monitorial principle multiplies the benefits of public in-
struction. By teaching we learn.
17. The more concentrated is the professor's teaching, the more
comprehensive and efficient his instruction.
18. In a class the time must be so employed that no learner shall
be idle, and the business so contrived, that learners of different degrees
of advancement shall derive equal advantage from the instructor.
19. Repetition must mature into a habit what the learner wishes to
remember.
20. Young persons should be taught only what they are capable of
clearly understanding, and what may be useful to them in after-life."
A. What do you think of these ? E. I confess they bring into my
mind the advice given to a learner in billiards : " When in doubt
cannon and pocket the red." First catch your " Method of Nature,"
as Mrs. Glass might have said. As to No. 10 again, who shall say
what "all the faculties" are? And is smelling a faculty that must be
equally exercised with seeing? When the young Marcels went to
Paris I fancy they found there far more that was worth seeing
than worth smelling. A. After what you have said about pupil-
53^ APPENDIX.
teachers I infer you do not advocate the " monitorial principle "?
E. Not exactly. " By teaching we learn." This is very true. But
if we can't teach we can't learn by teaching. A. But may we not
gain by trying to teach ? And short of teaching a good deal may be
done by monitors. E. If by the monitorial principle we mean "En-
courage the young to make themselves useful " it is a capital principle.
Words and Things. — A. In your Sturm Essay you say : " The
schoolmaster's art always has taken, and I suppose, in the main, always
will take for its material the means of expression. " Surely the signs of
the times do not indicate this. Have not the tongue and the pen had
their day, and is not the schoolmaster turning his attention from them,
not perhaps to the brain, but certainly to the eye and the hand ? It has
at length occurred to him to ask like Shylock ** Plath not a boy eyes?
Hath not a boy hands ? " And as it seems certain that the boy has
these organs, the schoolmaster wants to find employment for them.
Till now no scholastic use has been found for the eye except reading, or
for the hand except making strokes with the pen and receiving them
from the cane. But it will be different in the future. Words have had
their day. Things will have theirs. E. You may be right ; but be
careful in your use of terms. As is usually the case with *' cries," if we
want a meaning we may take our choice. The contrast between
** words "and "things "is sometimes between studies like grammar,
logic, and rhetoric on the one hand, and, on the other, Realien^ studies
which in some way have Things for their subject. Then again we have
words as the vocal or vis ible sjnnbols of ideas contrasted with the ideas
themselves. Those who rom plain of the time spent on words are thinking,
some of them, of the time spent on the art of expression, others of the
time given to symbols which do not, to the learner, symbolize anything.
But in our day Words and Things are supposed to represent the study
of literature and the study of natural science. At present there is a rage
for Things, but it is a little early to adjudicate on the comparative claims
of, say Homer and James Watt, on the gratitude of mankind. The
great book of our day on Education, Herbert Spencer's, would make
short work with "words"; and yet two School Commissions, the
Public Schools Commission of 1862, and the Middle Schools Commission
of 1867 have defended "words." The first of these says : " Grammar
is the logic of common speech, and there are few educated men who are not
sensible of the advantages they gained, as boys, from the steady practice of
composition and translation, and from their introduction to etymology.
The study of literature is the study, not indeed of the physical, but of the
APPENDIX. 539
intellectual and moral world we live in, and of the thoughts, lives, and
characters of those men whose writings or whose memories succeeding
generations have thought it worth while to preserve." The Commis-
sioners on Middle Schools express a similar opinion : — "The 'human*
subjects of instruction, of which the study of language is the beginning,
appear to have a distinctly greater educational power than the * material.'
As all civilisation really takes its rise in human intercourse, so the most
efficient instrument of education appears to be the study which most bears
on that intercourse, the study of human speech. Nothing appears to
develop and discipline the whole man so much as the study which
assists the learner to understand the thoughts, to enter into the feelings,
to appreciate the moral judgments of others. There is nothing so
opposed to true cultivation, nothing so unreasonable, as excessive
narrowness of mind ; and nothing contributes to remove this narrowness
so much as that clear understanding of language which lays open
the thoughts of others to ready appreciation. Nor is equal clearness
of thought to be obtained in any other way. Clearness of thought
is bound up with clearness of language, and the one is impossible
without the other. When the study of language can be followed by that
of literature, not only breadth and clearness, but refinement becomes
attainable. The study of history in the full sense belongs to a still later
age : for till the learner is old enough to have some appreciation oi
politics, he is not capable of grasping the meaning of what he studies.
But both literature and history do but carry on that which the study of
language has begun, the cultivation of all those faculties by which man
has contact with man." (Middle Schools Report, vol. i, c. iv, p. 22.)
As Matthew Arnold says, in comparing two things it is **a kind of
disadvantage" to be totally ignorant about one of them ; and I labour
under this disadvantage in comparing literature and science. But I
own I do not expect the ultimate victory will be with those who
may kill, or even cure or carry, the body, and after that have no more
tliat they can do. Milton says of fine music, that it ** brings all
heaven before our eyes. " Similarly fine literature can at least bring all
earth and its inhabitants, and the best thoughts and actions the world
has known. I remember Matthew Arnold in conversation dwelling on
the difference it makes to us what we read. Surely one of the great
things education should do is to enable and to accustom the thoughts of the
young to follow the guidance which is offered us in "the words of the
wise. "
Seneca v. Comenius. — A. I like your quotation on p. 169 from
540 APPENDIX.
Dr. John Brown. After your see-saw fashion, you have, in a note on
P« 365, expressed a fondness for "a notion of the whole." E. I am
there thinking of minute instruction about parts. But in nfiost things
notions of the parts precede the notion of the whole ; and in this
matter I think Seneca was wiser than Comenius : " More easily are
we led through the parts into a conception of the whole. Facilius per
partes in cognitionem totius adducimur." (Ep. 88, I.) A. May I
ask to whom you are indebted for this erudition? E. To Wueste-
mann. {Promptuarium. Gotha, 1856.)
Useful Knowledge. — ^A. I am inclined to think that now and then
you do not attach sufificient importance to the possession of knowledge
and skill. E. Perhaps I do not. What I wish to cultivate is, not
so much knowledge as the desire for knowledge, and further, the activity
of mind that will turn knowledge to account. Knowledge driven in
from without, so to speak, and skill obtained by enforced practice are,
I will not say valueless, but very different in quality from the knowledge
and skill that their possessor has sought for. Knowledge is a tool. He
who has acquired it without caring for it, will have neither the skill nor
the will to use it. A. Does not this apply to the knowledges recom-
mended by Herbert Spencer, knowledge how to bring up children, &c.,
and to the knowledge of physiological facts and rules of health which
you yourself say would be **of great practical value" (p. 444)? E.
Certainly it does, and also to the "domestic economy" of our Board
schools ; still more to the lessons in morality which it seems are, at
least in France if not elsewhere, to supersede religion. If you can get
the learners to care for such lessons, the lessons are worth giving ; if
not, not. Care, not for the thing, but for the examination in the thing,
is different, and can produce only a very inferior article. I expect there
are instances in which care for the examination develops into care for
the subject of the examination ; but these cases are so rare that they
may be neglected. A. I see you would not take a deep interest in
the *' Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge." And yet how
terrible are the results of ignorance ! Herbert Spencer is great on
knowledge for earning a livelihood. It would add, perhaps, three or
four shillings a week to the wages of the working man if his wife had
learnt to cook. In matters of food the waste from ignorance among the
English poor is appalling. E. In this case the school might do much,
as girls would be anxious to learn. And though we cannot lay down
as a general rule that it is "never too late to learn," this rule might
be applied to cooking. I see that in Govan, a suburb of Glasgow, the
APPENDIX. 541
widow of the great ship-builder, John Elder, employs a trained teacher
of cookery to instruct both by demonstrations, and also by visiting
houses to which he (or she?) is invited. The results are said to be
excellent. May this good lady find many imitators !
Memorizing- Poetry. — A. About learning poetry by heart, did
you ever hear of the old Winchester plan of *' Standing up"? In the
regular "exams." ("trials " as we called them at Harrow), each boy
had to state in how much Homer and Virgil he was ready to "stand
up." The master examined into the boy's power of saying this by
heart, and of construing all he said. From the very first the boy
always gave in the same poetry, only adding to it each time. E. I
have heard of it. Why, I wonder, was this plan given up ? A. I
have asked old Wykamists, but nobody seems to know. Perhaps the
quantities learnt became absurdly large. But this method of accretion,
if not overdone, would leave something behind it for life. Let me
show you a passage from ^schines (Agnst Ktesip. § 135) which I have
seen, not in ^Eschines, but in J. H. Krause's " Education among the
Greeks" {Gesch. d. Erziehg bet d. Griechen). It is so simple that
even you may construe it. Ata tovto yap oifxai rjnas 7ra7das ovras rag
Tcov noiTjToju yifcifias eKfiav6dveiv tv' avdpes owes avrais ;fpa)/ie^a.
E. There is very little left of my Littlego Greek, but I will try : " For
it is, I suppose, with this object that, when we are boys, we thoroughly
commit to memory the sayings of the poets — in order to turn them to
account when we are men." I wish the old Greek custom were con-
tinued. I believe in learning by heart what is worthy of it (see supra,
p. 74, n. ). A. But the poetry that appeals to children they grow out
of. E. This cannot be said of the best of it ; but of this best there
is. to be sure, a very small quantity. By "appeals to," I suppose you
mean "written on purpose for." But in a sense much melodious
poetry appeals to children even when they can get only a vague notion
that it has a meaning. I have known children delight in "The
splendour falls on castle walls," and Hohen Linden pleases them much
better than anything of Jane Taylor's. But here, at all events, there
can be no doubt about the wisdom of Tranio's rule : " Study what you
most affect." As I have said in an old paper of mine {How to Train
the Memory ; Kellogg's Teacher's Manuals, No. 9), the teacher may
read aloud some selected pieces, and let the children separately "give
maiks" for each. He can then choose " what they most affect."
Books for Teachers. — A. Don't you think you might give some
useful advice to young teachers about the books they should read ? E.
37
542 APPENDIX.
I had intended giving some advice, but in reading tastes differ widely,
and after all the best advice is Tranio's, " Study what you most affect."
There are three Englishmen who have written so well that, as it seems,
they will be read by English-speaking teachers of all time. These are
Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. If a teacher does not know
these he is not likely to know or care anything about the literature of
education. These authors have attained to the position of classics by
writing short books in excellent English. After these, I must know
something of the student before I ventured on a recommendation. If
he (oi more probably she) be a student indeed, nothing will be found
more valuable than Henry Barnard's vols, especially those of the
English Pedagogy. But the majority of mankind want books that are
readable, i.e.^ can be read easily. I do not know any books on
teaching that I have found easier reading than D'Arcy Thompson's
Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster and H. Clay Trumbull's Teaching and
Teachers (Eng. edition is Hodder and Stoughton's). But some very
valuable books are by no means easy reading. Take e.g. Froebel's
Education of Man (trans, by Hailmann, Appletons). This book is a
fount of ideas, but Froebel seems to want interpreters, and happily he
has found them. The Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow has done good work
for him in German, and in English he has had good interpreters as
e.g.^ Miss Shirreff, Mr. H. C. Bowen, and Supt. Hailmann. In the
case of Froebel there is certainly a want of literary talent ; but even
where this talent is clearly shown, a book may be by no means "easy
reading." It may make great demands on our thinking power, and
thought is never easy. This will probably prevent Thring's Theory
and Practice of Teaching (Pitt Press, 4J. dd.) from ever being a
popular book, though every teacher who has read it will feel that he is
the better for it. Sometimes the size of a book stands in the way of its
popularity. This seems to me the case with Joseph Payne's Science
and Art of Tecuhing (Longmans, lOJ.) ; but this book is popular in
the United States, and I take this as a proof that the American teachers
are more in earnest than we are. All the essentials of popularity are
combined in Y\\.c!ri% Lectures on Teaching (Pitt Press, 5^.), and this is
now (and long may it continue !) one of our most read educational works,
A. But what about less known books? Cannot you recommend
anything as yet unknown to fame ? E. Ah 1 you want me to tell you
what books deserve fame, that is, to —
" Look into the seeds of time
•' And say which grain will grow, and which will not."
APPENDIX. 543
But I have no intention of posing as the representative of the readers of
our day, still less of the future. Indeed, far from being able to tell you
what other people would like or should like, I can hardly say what I
like myself. Perhaps I come across a book and read it with delight.
Remembering the very favourable impression made by the first reading
I go back to the book some years afterwards and I then in some cases
cannot discover what it was that pleased me. A. That reminds me of
Wordsworth's similar experience —
" I sometimes could be sad
To think of, to read over, many a page,
Poems withal of name, which at that time
Did never fail to entrance me, and are now
Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre
Fresh emptied of spectators." {Prelude ▼.)
I suppose this has happened to all of us. We go back and the things
are the same and yet look so different. It is like after the night of an
illumination looking at the designs by daylight. E. Not many of our
designs will bear ** the light of common day." And if we tried to settle
which, we should probably be quite wrong. Of my three English
Educational Classics one can hardly understand why the peoples who
speak English have retained Ascham while Mulcaster, Brinsley, and
Hoole are forgotten. Locke had his reputation as a philosopher to
keep his Thoughts from neglect, and yet at the beginning of 1880 1 found
that there was no English edition in print. Perhaps some of the old
writers will come into the field of view again. E.g..^ my friend Dr.
Biilbring, of Heidelberg, the editor of De Foe's Compleat Gentleman^
talks of reviving the fame of Mary Astell, who at the end of the
seventeenth century took up the rights of women and put very
vigorously some of the pet ideas of the nineteenth century. A. I will
not ask you to " look into the seeds of time," and I will not take you
for a representative person in any way. On these conditions perhaps
you will give me the names of some of the books that have made such
a favourable impression on first reading — at least in cases where that
impression has not been effaced by further acquaintance. E. Agreed.
I ought to begin with psychology, but I must with sorrow confess that
I never read a whole book on the science of mind ; so this most
important section of the subject must be omitted. French and German
books I will also omit unless they exist in an English translation.
About the historical and biographical part of the subject I have already
named many books such as S. S. Laurie's Cojnenius and Russell's
Guimps's Pestalozzi. F. V. N. Painter's History of Edtuation is
544 APPENDIX.
pleasantly written ; but no really satisfactory history of education can be
held in one small volume. This objection in li7nine also applies to G.
Compayre's History of Pedagogy (trans, by W. H. Payne) which is far
too full of matter. In it we find many things, but only a veiy advanced
student can find much. Little has been written about English-speaking
educators, but there are good accounts of Bell, Lancaster, Wilderspin,
and Stow in J. Leilch's Practical Educationists (Macmillans, 6j.).
Turning to books about principles and methods I have found nothing
that with reference to the first stage of instruction seems to me better
than Colonel F. W. Parker's Talks on Teaching (i^evf York, Kelloggs).
Fitch's more complete book I have named already. A. Geikie's
Teaching of Geography (Macmillans, 2s. 6^.) is a book I read with
great delight. For principles Joseph Payne seems to me one of our
best educational writers, and we shall before long have, I hope, the
much expected volume of his papers on the history of education. Some
of the smaller books that I remember reading with especial gratification
are Jacob Abbott's Teacher, Calderwood On Teaching, A. Sidgwick's
lectures on Stimulus (Pitt Press) and on Discipline (Rivingtons), and
Mrs. Malleson's Notes on Early Trainino (Sonnenschein). There
seemed to me a very fine tone in a book much read in the United
States — D. P. Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching. T. Tate's
Philosophy of Education I liked very much, and the book has been
revived by Colonel Parker (Kelloggs). There are some books that are
worth getting ** by opportunity," as the Germans say, good books now
out of print. Among them I should name Rollin's Method in three
volumes, Rousseau's Emilius in four, De Morgan's Arithmetic, Essays
on a Liberal Education edited by Farrar. I know or have known all
the books here named, but my knowledge and time for reading do not
extend as far as my bookshelves, and I see before me some books that
I have not mentioned and yet feel sure I ought to mention. Among
them are Compa3n:^'s Lectures on Pedagogy, translated by W. H. Pa3me,
which seems an admirable compilation (Boston, Heath ; London,
Sonnenschein) ; Shaw and Donnell's School Devices (Kelloggs) in
which I have seen some good "wrinkles"; and T. J. Morgan's
Educational Mosaics (Boston; Silver, Rogers & Co.). J. Landon's
School Management (London, K. Paul) I have heard spoken of as an
excellent book, and I like what I have seen of it. But I set out with a
promise to mention not all our good books, but those which I thought
good after reading them. There still remain some that fall under this
category and have not been mentioned, e.g.^ The Action of Examinations ,
APPENDIX. 545
by H. Latham, Cotterill's Refoj-ms in Public Schools, W. H. Payne's
Contributions, and a pamphlet from which I formed a very high
estimate of the writer's ability to give us some first-rate books about
teaching. I mean A Pot of Green Feathers, by T. G. Rooper.
Professional Knowledge.— A. WTiat a pity it is that in English
we have no name for Kernspriiche I When an important truth has been
aptly expressed, the very expression may be an important event in the
history of thought. Take e.g. Milton's words which I observe you
have quoted more than once, about " the understanding founding itself
on sensible things" (p. 510). Here we have a "kernel-saying" that
might have sprung up and yielded a rich crop of improvements in
teaching if it had only taken root in teachers' minds. Why don't you
make a collection of such *' kernel-sayings " ? E. I have had thoughts
of doing so, and I have a collection of collections of Kernspriiche in
German. A. Well, German is nx)t the language I should choose for
the expression of thought. According to Heine, in everything the
Germans do there is a thought embodied ; and we may add that in
everything they say a thought is embedded ; but I rather shrink from
the labour of digging it out. E. You would find a collection of
** kernel-sayings " in any language rather stiff reading. And after all,
the sayings which strike us are just those which give utterance to our
own thought. This is probably the reason why in reading such a book
so few sayings seem to us worthy of selection. I had intended prefacing
these essays with some mottoes, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson used to do
when he wrote, but finally I have left my readers to collect for them-
selves. A. I should like to know the sort of thing you intended for
your ** first course." E. Here is one of them from Professor Stanley
Hall, of Worcester, Mass. : ** Modern life in all its departments is
ruled by experts and by those who have attained the mastery that
comes by concentration." (New England y. of Ed., 27th February,
1890.) A. According to you, sayings strike us only when they express
our owTi thought. In that case Professor Hall's saying would not make
much impression on the generality of your scholastic friends. Many of
the best paid schoolmasters in England would burst out laughing if
anyone spoke of them as " educational experts." Educational experts?
Why they have never even thought of the art of teaching, leave alone
the science of education. They are "good scholars" who at one time
thought enough of preparing for the Tripos or the Honour Schools ;
anrl having got a good degree they thought (and small blame to them !)
buw to employ their knowledge of classics so as to secure a comfortable
546 APPENDIX.
income for life. Accordingly they took a mastership, and soon settled
down into the groove of work. But as for the science of education they
have thought of it about as much as they have thought of the sea-serpent,
and would probably tell you with Mr. Lowe (now forgotten as Lord
Sherbrooke) that *' there is no such thing." E. No doubt they feel the
force of Dr. Harris's words : " For the most part the teacher who is
theoretically inclined is lame in the region of details of work." It
would be a pity indeed if their ** resolution " to make a good income
were *' sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." A. They had to
think how to prepare for the Tripos ; and before long they will have to
think how to do their work of teaching and educating better than they
have done it hitherto. • The future will demand something more than
** a good degree." Professor Hall is right. The day of the experts is
coming. But does not even Dr. Harris warn teachers against being
*• too theoretical "? E. It is rather jumping at conclusions to assume
with some of our countrymen that if a man does not think, he
does act. Goethe's aphorism which Dr. Harris quotes is this :
"Thought expands, but lames ; action narrows, but intensifies." Now
a good many men who do not expend energy in thought are
by no means strong in action. In education they have no desire
either to think the best that is thought or to do the best that is done.
They won't inquire about either j and they show the most impartial
ignorance of both. Like Dr. Ridding they are of opinion that
professional knowledge is to be sought only by persons without the
advantages of having been at a public school and of "a good degree."
As for reading books about teaching they leave that sort of thing to
national schoolmasters. And yet if teaching is an art, they might get
at least as much good from books as the golf-player gets or the whist-
player. " How marvellous it is when one comes to consider the
matter, that a man should decline to receive instruction on a technical
subject from those who have eminently distinguished themselves in it
and have systematised for the benefit of others the results of the
experience of a lifetime ! " Mr. James Payn who wrote this {Some
Private Views, p. 176) was thinking of books not on teaching but on
whist ; but his words would come home to teachers if they took as'
much interest in teaching as he takes in whist. A. I fancy you have
spotted the real deficiency ; it is want of interest. It is only when a
man becomes thoroughly interested in whist that he desires to play
better, and when he becomes thoroughly interested in teaching that he
desires to teach better. And if only he desires to improve he will
APPENDIX. 547
seek all the professional knowledge within his reach. " Every one,"
says Matthew Arnold, " every one is aware how those who want to
cultivate any sense or endowment in themselves must be habitually
conversant with the works of people who have been eminent for that
sense, must study them, catch inspiration from them. Only in this
way can progress be made." (Quoted by Momerie). Let us hope that
you have incited some young teachers to study and catch inspiration
from the great thinkers and workers in the educational field. E. This
is the object I have aimed at. If I wanted a motto I think I should
choose this from Froebel interpreted by Miss Shirreff :
" The duty of each generation is to gather up its inheritance from
the past, and thus to serve the present, and prepare better things for the
fuJure."
INDEX.
Abbott
Abbott, E. A., on Montaigne and Locke,
231, «.
— Jacob ; Teacher, 544
Accomplishments, 451
Action, the root of Ed., 403
" Advice to a Young Lord " (1691), 234, n,
^schines on memorizing, 541
iEsop's Fables, Locke's, 238, n,
Alexander De Villa Dei, 80, 532
All can learn, Jacotot, 416
— Education for, 356
— Education for. Comenlus, 515, 522
— is in all. Jacotot, 423
— to be educated. Comenius, 146
Altdorf burnt, 326
Analogies for illustration not proof, 155
Anchoran edits C'sjantta, 163
Andreae, J. V., 122
Ansckauung, Pestalozzi on, 360
— Froebel for, 408
Apparatus, 462
Aquaviva and Jesuit schools, 36
Arber, Prof., 82, «., 83
Arithmetic, Children's. Comenius, 145
— for children, 479, 482
Armstrong, Ld., on cry for Useless Know-
ledge, 78, n.
Amauld, his Reglement, 189
— the Philosopher of Port-Royal, 187
Amaulds, The, and the Jesuits, 173
Arnold, Dr., educator of English type,
219
— History Primer, 487
— on citizens' duties, 447
Arnold, AL, about the Middle Age, 240
— Barbarian's inaptitude for ideas, 178
— on importance of reading, 539
— on studying great authorities, 547
— on Words and Things, 154
Arnstadt, F. A. : Rabelais, 69
Beginners
Art learnt by right practice, 420
— of observing children, 252
Ascham against epitomes, 486, n.
— and Jacotot, 425
Ascham's method for Latin, 84
— "six points," 85
" Ascott Hope," quoted, 498, n.
Athletic public schoolmen, 514, «.
Audition, Hint for, 429, n.
Augsburg, Ratke at, 106
Bacon against epitomes, 446, n,
— for Jesuits, 33, n.
— for study of Nature, 408
— on " young plants," 406
— studied by Comenius, 122, 149
Baconian teaching, Effect of, 510
Bahrd, 289
Balliet, T. M., quoted, 156, «.
Banzet, Sara, 408
Barbauld, Mrs., on women's concealment
of knowledge, 98, «.
Barbier, La Discipline^ 60, »,
Bardeen's Orbis P ictus, 168
Barnard, H., English Pedagogy, 542
— Eng. Pedagogy, 91, «., 212, «.
— on Kindergarten, 409
— Opinion oi Positions, 91, and ft,
— The Kindergarten, 413
Bartle Massey in Adam Bede, 507
Basedow and Goethe, 277
Basedow, Pinloche's mentioned, 289, «.,
527
Bateus, 160, n,
Bath, W., 160, n.
Beaconsfield, Ld. His "two nations,"
371
Beautiful, Pestalozzi on sense of the,
339
Beginners shall have best teachers. Mul-
caster, 95
550
Bell
INDEX.
Colet
1
Bell, Dr., at Yverdun, 352
Bellers, John, for hand-work, 211, n.
Benham, D. His Comenius, 119. His
trans, of Sch. of Infancy, 142
Besant, W. Readings in Rabelais, 67, «.
Biographies before history, 489
Birmingham lecture quoted, 193, n.
Blackboard, Drawing on, 476
Blunder of insisting on repulsive tasks,
467
— of not getting clear ideas about defini-
tions, 460
— of giving only book knowledge, 458
— of teaching epitomes, 485
— of teaching words without ideas, 475
— of " cramming " children, 374, 375
— of not beginning at the beginning,
468
— of assuming knowledge in pupil, 468
— of neglecting interest, 464, 474
— of teaching the incomprehensible, 195
— about " first principles," 461
Bluntschli warns Pestalozzi, 293
Bodily health, Jesuits cared for, 48, 507
Bodmer, 291
Body, its part in education, 566
— must be educated, 411
— Rabelais's care of the, 508
Boileau's Arrit, 187, «.
Bookishness of Renascence. Montaigne,
76
Book-learning, connected with life, 459
Books for teachers, 541
" Books, Miserable," 153
— Reaction against, 510
— Respect for, 481
— Rousseau against, 259
— useful in learning an art, 546
Bowen, E. E., 118, «., 532
Bowio, H. C., on connected teaching, 424,
n.
— on development, 399
— on Kindergartens without idea, 410
Brcal, M., quoted, 286, «.
— on child-collectors, 429, n,
— on teachers, 455, «,
Brewer, Prof., 98
Brinsley, J., 200
— on training teachers, 99, n.
Brown, Dr. John, Ed. through sensts, 458,
n.
— Hone Sttb., quoted, 169
Browning, Oscar, on Humanists, &c.,
231
Buchanan and Infant Schools, 409
Buisson on Intuition, 361
Biilbring, Dr., and Mary Astell, 543
Burgdorf Institute, 341
— Pestalozzi at, 333
Burke, quoted, 437
Buss, 341, 365
Butler, Bp., on Ed., 147, 148, tt.
Butler, Samuel, quoted, 30
Cadet on Port-Royal, 195
Calkins, Prof., on learning thro senses,
150, n.
Cambridge exam, of teachers, 219, n,
— man, 40 years ago, 431, ».
Campanella, 122
Campe, 287
Capitalizing discoveries, 517
Carlyle about the Schoolmen, 10, n,
— on divine message, 401
— on History, quoted, 145, tt,
— on Knowledge, 223
— on " nag for sandcart," 467
— on teaching religion, 359, n.
Carlyle s "mostly fools," 517, n.
— " Succedaneum for salt," 498
Carrd on Port- Royal, 195
Cat, Rousseau on the, 258
Cato's Distichs, 81, 121
Chambers, H. E., of N.Orleans, on"teams,*
531 _
Channing, Eva, Trans, of L* and G., 306,
n.
Children and poetry, 541
— care for things and animals, 475, 521
— not small men, 250
Childhood the sleep of Reason, 243
Christopher and Eliza, 309
Church, Dean R. W., on Montaigne, 71,
n.
Citizens' duties, 447
Classics, " Discovery " of the, 3
— do not satisfy modern wants, 7
— in Public Schools, 76
— too hard for boys, 16
Classification, Thoughts on, 23a
Classifiers, Caution against, 23a
Class matches, 42, 529
Clindy, Pestalozzi at, 353
Clough, quoted, 358
Colet, Dean, !>o, 533
Columbus
INDEX.
Eve
551
Coliimbus and geography, a
Comenius and Science of ed., 5x2
— Books about, 170
— at Amsterdam, 133
— in London, 126
— criticized by Lancelot, 186, n.
— stiftung, 1 19
Compayre, Hisi. of Pedagogy and Lec-
tures^ 544
— on Jesuits, 56
— on Port-Royal, 196
Compendia Dispendia, 169
Complete living, H. Spencer on, 44a
" Complete Retainers," 89, 426, n.
Composition, 483
Compulsion, Nothing on, 113
Concept, Larger, how formed, 457
Concertations, 42
Concrete, Start from, 461
Cofiduct of Understanditig and Reason,
22Z
Conferences pedagogiquesi 362
Connexion of knowledges, 424
Consolation, &c., Brinsley, 200
Cooking should be taught, 540
Coote, Edward, English Scholemaster,
Corporal punishment, Pestalozzi for, 327
Cotterill, C. C, Suggested Reforms ^ 545
Cowley's Proposition, &c., 202
Cowper on man and animals, 517
Creative instinct. Froebel, 404
Daniel, Canon, quoted, 155, n.
Daniel, Le P. Ch., quoted, 62, n.
Day-dreams of a Schoolmaster^ 54a
Day-schools wanted, 499
Dead knowledge, 524
Decimal scale universal, 479
De Ganno, Dr., on language work, 481,
n.
— quoted, 403, n.
De Geer and Comenius, 130
De Imitatione, quoted, 398
De Morgan, quoted, 433, n,
De Quincey, quoted, 153, n.
Derby, Ld., on criminals, 358
— quoted, 256, n.
Development, Froebel's theory of, 400
Didactic teaching, Rousseau against, 268
Diderot, quoted, 365, n.
Diescerweg on dead knowledge, 365
Diesterweg's rule for repetition, iij
Dilucidatto of Comenius, 125
Discentem oportet credere, 152
Dislike often from ignorance, 466
Doctrinale, 80, 532
Double Translating, 86
— translation judged, 89
Drawing, Comenius for, 146
— Pestalozzi on, 368
— Rousseau for, 261
Drill, Need of, 526
Drudgery defined, 47a
Drummond, Henry, quoted, 502, «.
Dunciad, quoted, 31, 422
Dupanloup, Bp., quoted, 113
Dupanloup against Public Schools, 179
Dury's Reformed Schoole, 203
— watch simile, 205
Early education negative, 244, 40a
Ecclesiasticus, quoted, 77
Ecole modele, books not used, 154, M,
" Economy of Nature," 440
Education of Man, published 1826, 392
Educational Reformers. History of the
book, 527
— in America, 529
Educations. Rousseau's three, 248
Edwardes, Rev. D., quoted, 499, n,
Elbing, Comenius at, 130
Elementarie. Mulcaster's, 92
Elementary, Basedow's, published, 275
— course. Mulcaster, 97
— studies. Comenius, 141
Elizabeth, Queen, Ascham's pupil, 88
Elyot's Govemour, 91, 202
Emerson, R. W., quoted, 501
Empyrical before Rational, 462
Emulation cultivated by Jesuits, 4a
— Forms of, 530
Encyclopaedia Bri., 385, n.
Endter. Publisher oiOriis Pictus, 167
English, Mulcaster's eulogy of, 534
— party questions, 381
— tongue, Mulcaster on, 92
— without Verbs and Substantives, 460,
n.
Epitomes. Against, 485
Erasmus against ignorance, 323, «•
— for small schools, 180, n.
— the Scholar, 23
Erinnerungen eines Jesuitemoglings, 60
Eruditio in Jesuit Schools, 40
Eve, H. W., on old and young teacheis, 506
552
Evening
INDEX.
Harris
E-vening Hour of Hermit, 302
Evolution and Froebel, 399
Examination of children for scholarships,
97
— knowledge, 540
Examinations cause pressure, 77
Exercises, Correcting, 484
— Hints for, 429, «.
Experience v. Theory, 107
Experts needed in modem life, 545
Eyes, Use of, 411
Eyre, Father, on the Ratio, 57
Fables for Composition, 483
— Pestalozzi's, 312
Faculties, Equal attention to all, 537
Fag-end, Children not the, 354
Faust, quoted, 426, 428
Fellenberg, 344
Fichte and Pestalozzi, 347
Final opinions. Demand for, 410
Fire like knowledge, 433
First-hand knowledge not enough, 234
First impressions important, 194
Fi->cher, O., 366, n.
Fitch's Lectures on Teaching, 542
Folk-schools, Importance of, 376
Forcing, Comenius against, 144
Formative instinct. Froebel, 404
Franklin, B., on reading aloud, 482
Froebel and Bacon, 408
— on preparing better things for future,
547
— showed the right road, 384
Fronde, J. A., on use of hagiology, 503, n,
'' Furtherers" and " Hinderers," 531
Garbovicianu on Basedow, 289, «.
Gargantua s Education, 63
Garrick, David, " When doctrine, &c.,"
536
Geikie, A. : Teaching of Geography, 544
Generalization, 461
General view should not come first, 169
Geography absent from Trivium and Quad-
rivium, a
— Beginnings in, 489
— how begun, Comenius, 145
Gerard, Father (S. J .), quoted, 57
German not a good medium of thought,
545
" Gertrude," Account of, 301
Gesner, J. M., for Statarisch and Curso-
risch, 32
"Gifts." Froebel's, 408
Girard, Pdre, and Pestalozzi, 349
Girardin, St. M., on Rousseau, 264, «.
Gii-ls, Schoolmistresses' blunders about,
443
Giving " G.'s," 530
Goethe and bad pictures, 487
— on Basedow, 276
— on unity of man, 518, n.
— on Voices and Echoes, 504
— on thought and action, 546
Golden Age, in Past or Future ? 29
Goldsmith against epitomes, 486, «.
" Good scholars" as schoolmasters, 545
— spirits needed for teaching, 497
Grammar, 481, n.
— learnt from good authors, Aschara,
85
— Mistakes about, 460
Grant's, H., Arithmetic, 482
" Gratis receive, gratis give." Jesuit rule,
39
Greaves, J. P., at Yverdun, 352, «.
Grounding, Importance of, Mulcaster, 96,
n.
Groundwork by best workman, Mulcaster,
95
Grube's method, 479
Guesses at Truth, quoted, 24
Guillaume's Pestalozzi mentioned, 383, n,
Guimps, 383, n.
Guimps's Pestalozzi, 317, &c.
Habrecht, Isaac, 161, n.
Hack, Miss, Tales of Travelers, 490
Hailmann, W. H., on creative doing, 41a
Hale, Sir Matthew, for realism, 212, ».
Hall, Stanley, about L. <5r» G., 306, «.
— Experts needed, 545
Hallam on Comenius, 158
Halle, Children s Lessons at, 475
Hancock, Supt. J., quoted, 46, «.
Handelschulen, 445
Hands, Children's use of, 407
— use of, 411
— use of, 538
Handwork at Neuhof, 297
— Comenius for, 146
— Petty on, 211
— Rabelais for, 66
— Rousseau for, 271
Harmar, J.. 161, n.
Harris, W- T., on " Nature," 109
I
Harris
INDEX.
Knowledge
553
Harris, W. T., started public Kindergar-
tens, 4T0
— on thought and action, 546
Harrow " Bluebook," 532
— Class-matches at, 529
— Religious instruction at, 500
Hartlib, S., 124, «., 130
Hazlitt, W. C, 91, n.
Helplessness produced by bad teaching,464
Helps, Sir A., for science, 447, «.
— on looking straight at things, 481
— on open-mindedness, 502
— quoted, 434, n.
Herbart at Burgdorf, 367, n,
— on Rousseau, 269
Herbert, Ld., of Cherbury, on physical
ed., 227
Hewitson on Stonyhurst, 59
" Hinter dem Berge," 449
Hints from p«pils, 367, «.
History, Beginiiings in, 489
— H. Spencer on, 448
Home and School, 342
Honesty the best policy, 529
Hoole's A new discovery, &c., 200
— trans, of Orbis P ictus, 166
Humility to be taught, 503
Hymns to be used, 501
Ickelsamer, 116
Ideal, high, 496
— value of, 382
— want of an, 471
Ideas before symbois, 253
" Idols," escape from, 514
Ignorance, Erasmus agst., 523
Ilfautapprendre, &c., Jacotot, 424
•* Impressionists," 89, 426, «.
Improvements suggested by Mulcaster, 92
Inclinations should be studied, 465
Industrial school at Neuhof, 297
" Infelix divortium verum et verborum," 139
Innovators, 103
" Inquiry into course of Nature," 311
Instruct is instruere, 432
Instruction an exercise of faculty, 332
Intellect before critical faculty. Comenius,
138
Interest, Degrees in, 113
— in teaching needed, 546
— needed for activity, 474
— needed for mental exertion, 193, n.
— No success without, 473
Interesting, Can learning be? 465
lxM\i\\\on= Anschauung, 361
— Froebel for, 408
Investigation, Method of, 437
•' Ipse dixit," Comenius against, 152
Iselin, editor of Ephemerides, 298, 302
** Jacob's Ladder," Pestalozzi, 356
Jahn on Froebel, 386
Jansenius and St.-Cyran, 175
Janua, English versions of C's, 165
— Jesuits, i5o, n.
— of Comenius published, 123, 163
Jebb on Erasmus, 523, «.
Jesuit a trained teacher, 37
— course included Studia Superiora et
tvferiora, 38
— exams., 47
— shows effect of planned system, 532
— teaching. An example of, 44
Jesuits. Books about, 34
— the army of the Church, 55
— the first reformers, 506
Johnson, Richard, Grant. Commentaries,
82
Johnson, Dr., on knowledge of education,
410, 525
— on Schoiemaster, 82
Jonson, Ben. " Soul for salt," 498, «.
Jullien on Intuition, 362
Jung, 106
Kant and Intuition, 361
— on the Philanthropinum, 288
Kay-Shuttleworth and Pestalozzi, 352
Kempe, W., Ed. of Children, 83
" Kernspriiche," 545
Kindergarten and Comenius, 143
— a German word, 409, n.
— Froebel on aim of, 409
— Notion of, 406
— The first, 394
Kinglake's Eothen, quoted, 15
Kingsley on Jesuits, 54
Knowing, after Being and Doing, 307
— by heart, 74, n.
Knowledge and Locke, 513
— a tool, 540
— and Comenius, 512
— Danger from, 78
— Desire for, 540
— despised by New Educationists, 526
— Genesis of, 462
— Locke's definition of, 222
554
Knowledge
INDEX.
Masters
Knowledge must not be dead knowledge,
524
— not fastened to mind, Montaigne, 71
— over-estimated by Comenius, x68
•- Perfect, impossible, 226
— spreads like fire, 433
— self-gained, Locke, 515
— Teaching what it is, 453
Knowledges, Relative value of, 44a
— Connexion of, Comenius, 157
Known to Unknown, 457
Koethen, Ratke fails at, 107
Kruesi joins Pestalozzi, 340
Jjancelot on Comenius, 186
— on learning Latin, 185
Landon, J., School Management, S44
Langethal and Froebel, 390
Language-learning, Lancelot on, 186, n.
— Method for, 426, ft.
Language lives in small vocabulary, 169
— not Literature, 17
— teaching, Ratke 's plan, 116
Languages. Comenius on learning, 140
Latham, H., Action of Exam,, 544
Latin, Comenius for, 159
Laurie, S. S., his Comenius, 119
— on books of Comenius, 135
— on Milton, 214
Lavater and Basedow, 276
— and Pestalozzi, 291
Learn, Every one can, Jacotot, 416
Learning as employment, 75
— begins with birth. Pestalozzi, 537
— by heart wrong. Ratke, 113
— by heart. See Memorizing
— for the few, Mulcaster, 93
— may be borrowed, Montaigne, 73
— must not be play, 367
— not Knowledge, Montaigne, 71
Leipzig, Dr. Vater at, 477
Leisure hours, 450
— often useless, 498
Leitch, J., Practical Educationists, 409
— Practical Educationists, 544
Lemaltre, 186, n.
Leonard and Gertrude, 305
l^ssing on Raphael, 420
Leszna sacked, 132
" Letters," Comm. for, 538
Lewis, Prince, and Ratke, xo6
Light from within, Nicole, 190
Likes and Dislikes, Study, 466
Lily's Carmen Mon., 81
— Grammar, 533
Literature and Science, 154 5^
— at Port-Royal, 184
— in education, 539
— or Letters, 9
— What is? 6
" Little Schools," 176
Locke against sugar a^d salt, 466
— and Froebel, 407
— behind Comeniuw, 230
— Books on, 238
— for Working Schools, 211, n,
— on Public Schools, 177, 513
— and Rousseau, 227
— against ordiiiary learning, 234
— predecessor of Pestalozzi, 362
— two characteristics, 220
— teacher disposes influence, 513
— Was he a utilitarian ? 234
Locksley f/ali quoted, 152
Louis XIV and Port-Royalists, 176
Love the essential principle, 358
Loyola on body and soul, 62
Lowe or Pestalozzi ? 379
Lubinus, E., 166, n.
Ludus Literarius, 200
Lupton, J. H., and Colet, 534
Lupton, J. H., on Catechismus P., 102, «.
Lux in tenebris, 133
Lytton, Ld., on mother's interference, 37X
MacAlister, James, and Atischauung,
361
Macaulay on French Revolution, 246
— wanted, 488
" Magis magnos clericos, &c.," 70
Maine, Sir H. S., on studying teaching
scientifically, 410, n.
Malleson, Mrs., Notes on Early Training-^
544
Mangnall's Questions, 374
Manning, Miss E. A., a Froebelian
Manual labour at Stanz, 331
Marcel, C, 53s
Marenholtz-Bulow and Froebel, 394
Marion's fraud, 173
Martineau, Miss, and comet, 223
Masham, Lady, on Locke, 220, n.
Masson, D., quotes Mulcaster, 534
Masson, D., quotes Didac. Mag., 140, «
Masson's Milton, quoted, 127, n.
Masters and religion, 492
I
I
Masters
INDEX.
New
555
Masters, The " open" and the " reserved,"
494
Mastery, 365
Maurice and Froebel, 406
Maurice, F. D., on Jesuits, 54
Max Miiller, a descendant of Basedow's,
289, «.
Mayo, Dr., 352, n.
Mayor, J. E. B., on Scholemaster, 82, 83
Mazziui on humanity, 518, n.
Pleasuring for arithmetic, 480
Mediaeval art excelled Renascence, 5
^^ Melius est scire pauca, &c.," i68
Memorizing, 113
— poetry, 541
— Sacchini on, 50, «.
Memory after senses, Comenius, 138
— alone can be driven, 474
— and interest, 487
— depending on associating sounds, 193,
n.
— helped by association, 424
— Jacotot's demands on, 425
— stuffed, Montaigne, 73
— subservient to other powers, 41Z
— The carrying, 77
— Waste of, 431
— without books, 257
Methodology, Truths of, 536
Methods defined, 414
•' Methods teach the Teachers," 82
Methodus Linguarum, published, 131
Michaelis and Moore, Trans, of Froebel,
413
Michelet on Montaigne, 94
— on Montaigne, 229, tu
— on Stanz, 317
MiddendoriT and Froebel, 390
Middle Age blind to beauty in human form
and literature, 5
Middle-class education without ideal, 470
Middle Schools Comm., quoted, 538
Mill, J. S., against specializing, 453, n,
— for teaching classics, 444
— on history, 449, n.
Milton a great scholar, 212
— a Verbal Realist, 215
and Realism, 23
— on learning through the senses, 150, 213
510
Milwaukee, Inter-class matches at, 531
Mind like sea-anemone, 474
Model book, Ascham for, 87
— Jacotot's use of, 436
— Ways of studying, 426
Molyneux on geography, 225
Moncrieff, H., quoted, 498, n.
Monitorial principle, 538
Monitors at Stanz, 333
Monotony wearing to the young, 53X
Montaigne and Froebel, 407
Montaigne for educating mind and body,
509
— his paradox of ham, 419, n.
Moral development first, 358
Morality is development of infant's grati-
tude, 309
Morals, Rousseau on, 263
Morf, Simunary of Pestalozzi's principles,
368
Morgan, T. J., Educational Mosaics, 544
Mother-tongue, 104
— Everything through, m
— first at Port-Royal, 184
— Jacotot's plan for, 435
— only, till ten, Comenius, 139
— Ratke for, 108
Mulcaster for English, 534
Mulcaster's elementary subject, 97
— Life, 102
— proposed reforms, 9a
— style fatal, 92
Music, Benefit from, 439
— Rousseau for, 261
Naef, Eliz,, at Neuhof, 300
Nageli, 368
Napoleon I and Pestalozzi, 343
Narrow-mindedness, How to avoid, 503
Natural History at Stanz, 332
Natural v. Usual, 516
Nature, Comenius about, 136, 137
— Laws of, 134
— Ratke for, 109
— Return to, 515
Negative education, Rousseau, 519
New Code of 1890, 379, n.
'•New Education" started by Rousseau,
271, 522
— education and old, 524
— Froebel's in 1816, 391, 411
Newman, J. H., on Locke, 235
— on connexion of knowledges, 158
— on nature of literature, 7, n.
New master, Advice to, 60, «.
556
New
INDEX.
Posture
New road, Pestalozzl's, 337
— York School Journal and New Educa-
tion, 411
Nicole on Ed., 190
Niebuhr's Heroengeschichten, 428, n,
Niemeyer on thoroughness, 366, «,
Nihil est in intellectu, &c., 138
N )ah's Ark for words, i6i
Nonconformist, 504
Normal Schools on increase, 414
Nouvelle Heloise, Family life, 242
Number of boarders in Port - Royalist
schools small, 179
Numbers, First knowledge of, 479
Numeration before notation, 479
Oberlin, 408
Observation, Poetry for cultivating, 209
Observing children, 251
" Omnia sponte fluant," Comenius, 136
One thing at a time, Ratke, 109
Opinion, Education of, 502
— Sensible men cannot differ in, Locke,
221, n.
Orbis Pictus published, 132, 167
"Over and over again," Ratke, no
Over-directing, Rousseau against, 265
Overworking teachers, 497
Oxenstiern sees Comenius, 128
Painter, F. V. N., History of Educa-
tion, 543
Parallel Grammar Series, 114, «,
Para;nesis by Sacchini, 34, n.
Parker, F. W., and Kindergarten, 411
— on reading, 482
' — Talks on Teaching, 544
Parker, C. S., in Essays on Lib. Ed., 3a
Parkin, John, 366, n.
Parkman, Francis, on Jesuits, 55, 56
Pascal and Loyola, 172
Past, No escape from the, a
Pattison, Mark, on exams., 228, n.
— on dearth of books, 12
— on what is education, 228
— on Milton
Pattison's account of Renascence, 4
Paul III recognizes Jesuits, 35
Paulsen on Jesuits, 55
■ — on Comenius, 153
Payn, James, on learning from books, 546
Payne, Joseph, on Pestalozzi, 359, «.
— on observation, 361
— on child's unrest, 407, n.
Payne, Joseph, Science and Art of 7 each'
ins, 542
— Papers on History of Ed., 544
— summing up Pestalozzi, 369, n.
— a disciple of Jacotot, 415
— and International Copyright, 539
— on women's ed., 98
Payne, Dr. J. F., notes to Locke, 228, «.
Payne, W. H., Science of Ed., 545
Perez, B., on Jacotot, 438
Perfect familiarity, 433
Pestalozzian books, 383
Pestalozzianism lies in aim, 354
Pestalozzl's school at Neuhof, 296
— talks with children at Stanz, 325
Pestalozzi, a strange schoolmaster, 334
— A portrait of, 345
— and Bacon, 408
— His poverty, 340
— His severity, 308
Petty 's Battlefield simile, 207
— Realism, 208
Philanthropinum, Subjects taught at, 279
Physical education for health, 104
— Ed. neglected by Port-Royalists, 188
— Ed., Rabelais for, 67
Physician's defective science, 519
Picture-book for History, Dr. Arnold, 487
Pictures for teaching, 476
Piety at Port-Royal, 181
Pinloche's Basedow mentioned, 289, n, 527
Plants and education, Rousseau, 255
Plato against compulsion, 113
— on literary instruction, 14
Play and learning different, 367
Pleasant, Learning must be, 138
Pleasurable, Exercise is, 464
Pleasure in learning, Jesuits, 506
— in learning. Ratke, 1 12
— in sch. work. Sacchini, 52
— in sch. work. Mulcaster, 98
— in study at Port-Royal, 183, 194
Poety, Memorizing, 483
Pomey's Indiculus, 40
Pope. /?«««■«</ quoted, 31, 422
— on Locke and Montaigne, 230, M.
— on " Nature," 109
— quoted, 451, n.
Pope's " Little Knowledge," 446
Port-Royal des Champs and the Solitaries,
174
Posture, Importance of, 327
Potter
INDEX.
Ruskin
557
\
Pott.T, Miss J. D., quoted, ai
Pouring-in theory, 507
Practice does not make perfect, 182
Preparatory Schools, 374
Prendergast and language learning, 426, n.
Pressure, Causes of, 77
— Mulcaster against, 97
Principles of the Innovators, 104
— H. Spencer's summing up, 454
Printing, Effect of, 10
— spread literature at Renascence, 9
Private prayer, 502
Prize-giving in Jesuit schools, 58
I'rvdrofntts of Comenius, 125, 126
Prussia adopts Pestalozzianism, 346
Prussian edict against Froebel, 395
Psychologizing ir.struction, 338
Public education must imitate domestic,
Pestalozzi, 321
— schools, 513, «.
— schools Comm., quoted, 531
— school freedom, 265
— schools leave boys to themselves, 177
— schools undermastered, 514, n.
Punishments for moral offences only.
Comenius, 139
— in Jesuit schools, 48
— Pestalozzi on, 327
Pupil teachers, 377, h.
Quadrivium preferred by Rabelais, 65
Queen Louisa on Pestalozzi, 346
Questioning, art of, 428, «.
— Rousseau, on art of, 266
Questions by pupils at Port-Royal, 190
Qutdlibet ex quolibet, 423
Quintilian on rudiments, 195, n.
Rabelais for intuition, 508
— His detachnent, 63 »
— on Curriculum, 67, n.
Racine and Port-Royal, 187
Ramsauerand Pestalozzi, 336
'* Rapid impressionists," 89, 426, n.
" Ratich," 105
Ratio S;udd, Soc. Jesu, 34, ftoie
Ratke and Ascham, 117
Ratke's promises, 105
Raumer on Comenius, 146
Reaction in 17th century against books, 510
Reading after study of things. Petty, 209
— badly taught, 115, n.
— begun with Mother - tongue at Port-
Royal, 183
Reading in elementary schools, 257, ».
— Jacotot's plan for, 435
— Rousseau against, 256
— silent and vocal, 482
Realism, Birth of, 198
— Comenius for, 149 *■
— Rabelais, 66
Rearing offspring, to be taught, 447
Reason, Locke's dependence on, 2az
— No education btfore, 242
Reformation of Schools, 125
Reformers, Attitude towards, 396
Reimarus and Basedow, 273
Rejected Addresses^ quoted, 505
Relative value of Knowledges, 443
Religion and Science, 147
" Religion" lessons in Germany, 501
Religious and moral Training, 359
Religious instruction, 500
Renan, quoted, 247, «.
Renascence defects. See Table of CoD*
tents
— gave a new bend to ideas, 2
— re-awakening to beauty in lit., 5
— settled Curriculum, 4
Repetitio, 45
Restlessness, The Child's, 406
" Retainers," 89
— 426, «.
Reverence to be taught, 503
Richelieu and Saint-Cyran, 174
Richter, J. P, on nurse's influence, 373, M.
Ritter, Karl, on Pestalozzi, 347
Robertson, a methodiser, 426, n.
— Croome, on inherited Knowledge, 364
n.
Rollin's Traits des Etudes, 192
Rooper, T. G., A Pot of Green Feathers,
545-
Rousseau against schoolroom lore, 363
— first shook off Renascence, 246
— His proposals, 267
— His two dogs, 312
— His great influence, 240, 290
— on Common Knowledge, 458, n,
— studied by all, 248
Rousseauism, 516
Rousseau's work, 520
Routine work a refuge, 498
Rudiments not to be made repulsive, 194
Rules, Hooie about, 202
Ruskin on things and words, 159, n.
38
558
Russell
INDEX.
Teacher
Russell, John, translator of Guimps, 317
Sacchini quoted, 39, 41, 46, 47
Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal, 174
Sainte-Beuve on Port-Royal, 195
Salzmann, 287, 289
Saros-Patak. Comenius at, 133
S avoir par caur, &c., 74, «.
Scheppler, Louise, 408
Schmid, Josef, goes to Yverdun, 349
Schmid, J. A., on Jesuits, 34
Schuepfenthal, School at, 289
Schola tnatemi gremiU 142
Scholemaster, When published, 81
School-hours of Jesuits short, 43
Schoolmaster and words, 538
— his test of knowledge, 22a
— in Education, 177
— art led to Verbalism, 30
School means different things, 523
Schoolroom rubbish, 252
Schuppius, in spent, &c., 432
Science of Education dates from Comenius,
512
— of Education denied by Lowe, 379
— of Education growing, 505
— of education, Importance of, 456
— of education like medicine, 519
— of Education, Mulcaster for, 94
— of education, only beginning. H.
Spencer, 455
— the thought of God, 413
Scientific foundation for Method, 412
— knowledge now valued, 77
Scioppius edits /awwa, 161, n.
" Scratch pairs," 530
Seeley, J. R., on language teaching, 460
— on use of tongue, 112, «.
Self-activity, 401
— the main thing, 524
Self-development, H, Spencer for, 46a
Self-education, Locke for, 236
Self-preservation, Education for, 443
Self-teaching : Jacotet, 415
Seneca for knowing few things, 168
— on learning through parts, 540
Sense, Art learnt by. Dury, 206
Senses, Everything through, Rousseau,
859
«— Error of neglf cting, 151
— first, Comenius, 138
— Hoole about, 20
— How to cultivate. Rousseau, 260
Senses, Insufficiency of, 152
— Learning from. Comenius, 149
— Rousseau on training, 257, 258
— Teach by the. Nicole, 191
— Training of the. Mulcaster, 95, n.
Sequences of nature arranged by man, 514
Severity, Wolsey against, 81, n,
Shakespeare and Mulcaster, 91
— " No profit grows, &c.," 473
— quoted, 17
Shaw and Donnell : School Dei/ices, 544
Shirreff, Miss, a Froebelian, 413, n.
Sides, Good of, 532
Sidgwick, A. ; Lectures on Stimulus and
Discipline^ 544
Simple to complex, 456
Singing, 368
Skyte sees Comenius, 128
Small schools worse than large, 179
Societas Professa of Jesuits, 36
Sociology, 449
Sonnenschein's parallel Grammars, 114 «.
" Soul instead of salt," Ben Jonson, 498, «.
Spartan Ed. preferred by Montaigne, 72
S.P.C.K. pictures, 476, n.
'■'■Spectators C. in easy chair," quoted, 527
Spelling, 483
— Jacotot's plan for, 436
Spencer, H., Conclusions about, 452
— his " Economy of nature," 235
Stanford Rivers, Mulcaster at, 102, n.
Stanz, Pestalozzi at, 316, 318,^
— The French at, 315
Starting-points of the Sciences, Comenius,
144
Stephen, Sir J., quoted, 434
Stonyhurst College, by Hewitson, 59
Street for Mediaeval art, 5
Study depends on will, 193
Sturmius. See lable of Contents
Stylists, 26
Sugar needed, 466
Sunrise can't be hastened, 191
Superintendence, the educator's func/ion,
357
Sweetmeats, Locke against, 466
Swiss Journal, Pestalozzi, 309
Talleyrand on methods, 82
Teach, Everyone can, Jacotot, 417
— Meaning of word, 417
Teacher a gardener, 512
— Can he write on Education ? 439
Teacher
INDEX.
Wordsworth
559
Teacher does not begin at beginning, 468
Teachers, Books for, 541
Teachers, College for. Mulcaster, 100
— Harm of overwork ing, 497
— ignorant of principles, 455
— must be trained, 412
— Old, overdo repetition, 506
— Young, neglect repetition, 506
Tearher's business, 272
— personality, Force of, Forutn, quoted,
380
Teaching, causing to learn, 417
— gained from pupils, 497
— Good, escapes common tests, 192
— needs good spirits, 437
Telemaque, 423
" Telling," H. Spencer against, 463
Theorists, Use of, 383
Things before words, 104
— Children's delight in. Petty, 210
"Things" in education, 521
Things, Rabelais for, 65
Threefold life, Comenius, 135
Thring . Theory and Practice o/Teachingy
542
Til lich's bricks, 480, n.
Tithonus, Quotation from Tennyson s, 518,
n.
Tobler, 341
Tone of school and big boys, 500
Tout est en tout, 423
Tradition, loss and gain from, 518
— needed, 182
Trainer better than teacher, 422
Training of teachers, M ulcasier, 99
— of teachers needed, 520
Transcription, Hint for, 429, «.
Translating both ways, 86
Translations at Port-Royal, 185
— discouraged at Renascence, 8
— would be literature, 15
Travelers, Tales of , 490
Trench, Archbishop, on 13th century
art, 5
Trumbull, H. K. Teachingand Teachers,
542
Trivium and Quadrivium, s
— like squirrel's revolving cage, 10
Tyndall on teaching, 468, n.
Uniformity, Raike for, 1 14
Unity, Froeliel s desire for, 398
— of Univerjie, Froebel, 3S9
Universities excluded Baconian teaching,
5"
University men in middle class education,
472
Unum necessarium, quoted, 133
Upton, Editor of Scho/e master, 8a
Useful knowledge, 540
Usual contrasted with natural, 516
Utilitarianism defined, 235
Variations, Prendergastian. 428, n,
Vater, Dr., at Leipzig, 477
Ventilabrum Sapientiae, 135.
Verbal Realism, 25
— Rabelais, 65
Verbalism, Milton against, 213, 214
" Visibles" used for Realien, 70, i».
Vive la destruction, i
Vogel, Dr., at Leipzig, 478
Vogel, A., on Comenius, 156
"Ward, James, on Kindergarten, 410
Weighing for arithmetic, 480
Welldon, J. E. C., on schools for young
boys, 499, n.
Well-educated, When, 555
Widgery, W. H., quoted, 90
Wilderspin and Infant Schools, 409
Will, learning depends on. Jacotct, 41*
— needed for study, 193
Wilson, H. B., on Mulcaster, 102
Wilson, J. M., against " telling," 423
— on training, 422
Winchester, " Standing up," 541
Wmship, A. E., on inter<lass matches, 531
"Wisdom cried of old," &c., 77
Wisdom in " the general," 517, n.
— must be our own, Montaigne, 73
Wolf, F. A., for self-teaching, 268
— on child-collectors, 429, n.
Wolf, Hiero., quoted, 31
Wolsey, 80
Women Commissioners, 308
Women's education, 98, 412
— education, Comenius, 141
— interest in education, ro6
Wooding, W., on numbering, 479, 480, n.
Words and Things, 538
WordS: Learning from, 364, «.
— studying, 154
— taught without meaning, 467
" Words," Various meanings of, 538
Wordsworth on action of man, 516
— ou children's games, 407
56o
Wordsworth
INDEX.
Yverdun
Wordsworth, on general truths, 496
— on need of pleasure, 473, «.
— quoted, 20
— Taste in books changes, 543
— on tendency, 516
— on unity of man, 518, «.
Wordsworth "We live by admirattOB
&c.," 154
Working -schools, Locke's, 211, n.
Worship connected with instruction, 501
Writing, Jacotot's pUn for, 435
Yverdun, Pestalozzi goes to, 344
D, APPLE TON & CO.'S PUBLIOATIONS.
MANUAL OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY. By
W. C. Taylor, LL. D., M. R. A. S. Revised by C. S. Henry, D. D.
8vo. Cloth, $3.50 ; or, in separate volumes, $2.00 each.
Ancient History. — Containing the Political History, Geographical Posi-
tion, and Social State of the Principal Nations of Antiquity, care-
fully digested from the Ancient Writers, and illustrated by the
Discoveries of Modern Scholars and Travelers.
Modern History. — Containing the Rise and Progress of the Principal
European Nations, their Political History, and the Changes in their
Social Condition; with a History of the Colonies founded by
Europeans.
Dryness is generally characteristic of condensed historical outlines ; in the
"jresent case it is avoided by the vigorous style of the author, and the introduc-
tion of interesting anecdotes and episodes that serve to relieve the mind, and
bring out in clear light the peculiarities of individual or national character;
The American edition has been revised throughout by Dr. Henry, and en-
larged by the introduction of an admirable chapter on American history.
THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. A Hand-
book based upon M. Gustave Ducoudra.y's *' Histoirc Sommaire de
la Civilisation." Edited by the Rev. J. Verschoyle, M. A. With
numerous Illustrations. Large 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
" With M. Ducoudray's work as a basis, many additions having been made,
derived from special writers, Mr. Verschoyle has produced an excellent work,
which gives a comprehentsive view of early civilization. . . . As to the world or
the past, the volume under notice treats of Egypt, Assyria, the Far East, of Greece
and Rome, in the most comprehensive manner. It is not the arts alone which are
fully illustrated, but the literature, laws, manners, and customs, the beliefs of all
these countries are contrasted. If the book gave alone the history of the monu-
ments of the past it would be valuable, but it is its all-around character which
renders it so useful. A great many volumes have been produced treating of a past
civilization, but we have seen none which in the same space gives such varied vel'
formation."— A'eif' York Times.
THE HISTORY OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. A Hand-
book also based upon M. Gustave Ducoudray's " Histoirc Sommaire
de la Civilisation." Edited by the Rev. J. Verschoyle, M. A.
Illustrated. Uniform with " The History of Ancient Civilization."
12mo. Cloth, $2.25.
"Such an extraordinarily extensive collection of facta has scarcely, if ever,
been brought together in a work of the same compass. . . . The difficulty seems
at first rather to find out what the book does not contain, than what it does." —
London Literary World.
" The work of author and adapter has been admirably executed, and the result
is that rarest of literary portents— a summary at once comprehensive and read-
able."—London Telegraph.
New York; D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
D. APPLET ON d CO/S PUBUOATIONS.
'■'■For a still higher order of students^ we have a series of '■Classical Writers.
This we can not praise too wwcA."— Westminster Review.
CLASSICAL WRITERS
Edited by JOHN RICHARD GREEN, M. A., LL. D.
16mo, flexible cloth .... 60 cents each.
MILTON. By Stopford A. Brooke.
" The life is accompanied by careful synopses of Milton's prose and poetical
works, and by echolarly estimates and ctiticisms of tbem. Arranged in brief para-
graphs, and clothed in a simple and perspicuous style, the volume introduces the
pupil directly to the author it describes, and not only familiarizes him with his
method of composition, but with his exquisite fancies and lofty conceptions, and
enables him to see practically and intelligently what an expressive and sonorous
instrument our tongue is in the hands of one of its mightiest masters." — Harper''8
Magazine.
EURIPIDES. By Professor J. P. Mahaffy.
" A better book on the subject than has previously been written in English.
He is scholarly and not pedantic, appreciative and yet just." — London Academy.
VERGIL. By Professor H. Xettleship.
"The information is all sound and good, and no such hand-book has before
been within the reach of the young student. Any one who wishes to read Vergil
intelligently, and not merely to cram so many books of the ' ^neid ' for an exami-
nation, should buy Professor Nettlcship's scholarly mouogiaph."— i<?«c?o/i Athe-
nceum.
SOPHOCLES. By Professor Lewis CAi^npBELL.
■"We can not close without again recommending the little book to all lovers of
Sophocles, as an able and eloquent picture of the life and work of one of the
greatest dramatic writers the world has ever seen.'"— London Atfienxum.
LIVY. By Rev. W. W. Capes, M. A.
" Well deserves attentive studv on many accounts, especially for the variety of
its theme and the concise perspicuity of its treatment."— Zoftrfoyi Saturday Review.
DEMOSTHENES. By S. H. Butcher, Fellow of University College,
Oxford.
"This is an admirable little book. Mr. Butcher has brought his finished
scholarship to bear on a difficult but most interesting chapter of Greek literary
history ; . . . the primer is as fresh and attractive in form as it is ripe in learning
and thorough in method."— ion<:?o?i Academy.
New York : D. .yPPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
LANDMARKS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. By Henry
J. NicoLL. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
" The plan adopted in this book has been to deal solely with the very
greatest names in the several departments of English literature— with those
writers whose works are among the most imperishable glories of Britain,
and with whom it is a disgrace for even the busiest to remain unacquainted."
— From the Preface.
" The ' Landmarks of English Literature ' is a work of exceptional value. It
reveals scholarship and high literary ability. Mr. Nicoll has a pioper conception
of the age in which he lives, and or its requirements in the special line in which
he has attempted to work."— iVei^ York Herald.
''We can warmly recommend this excellent manual."- /S'<. James's Gazette.
"Mr. Nicoll is not ambitious, save to state things precisely as they are, to give
the common orthodox judgment on great authors and their places in history, and
he has brought to his task a mild enthusiasm of style and a conscientiousness of
exact statement that can not be overpraised. He writes out of a full mind, and yet
he writes on a level with the ordinary intelligence." — New York Times.
" It would be hard to find any whei-e an example of a more pithy, compact, yet
attractive presentation of the real landmarks of the literature than is comprised in
this duodecimo of 460 pages."— iVew York Home Journal.
" The work abounds in personal incident and anecdote connected with various
authors, which assist the reader in making their acquaintance, and which give to
the book a more lively aspect than one of cold criticism."— iVcw York Obsei-ver.
"A book to be most heartily commended."— jBo«^o;i Traveller.
" It has ample narrative and happy criticisms, and is filled w ith instructive and
entertaining matter admirably presented. It would be hard to suggest improve-
ment in style or arrangement." — Boston Com?nonwealth.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THOUGHT. The
Old English Period. By Brother Azarias, Professor of English
Literature in Rock Hill College, Maryland. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
" In some respects the author has written a text-book superior to any we know
now in use. There arc few v/riters so well prepared in what might be termed the
techuique of Old English historv and literature. His chapter on the Kelt and
Teuton is admirable."— xYezf; York Tim£S.
"The work will commend itself to notice for Its concise and agreeable style,
its logical method, and the philosophic and poetic, as well as historical, treatment
of the theme. The author is master of his subject."— JVoiirfence Journal.
" The author has exhibited great skill In presenting to the reader a clear and
correct view of the literature and condition of things in England at that remote
age, and the work is one of special ii:terest."— ^os^o/i Fost.
"A valuable text-book,"— ^os^on. Globe.
"A work of remarkable mterest.''^— Boston Evening Transcript.
"A book of genuine literary interest and \a\nc.''''— Cleveland Herald.
"Within its covers there is a wealth of erudition, research, and scholarlv labor,
which places the book beside those of Wright, Spalding, and Craik. The English
of the writer is a model for clearness and point."— C/?k;a Daily Observer.
" One of the most thorough and best-arranged books on the subject that we
have seen." — Troy Press.
New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, 5 Bond Street
D. APPLETON & OO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
JAMES SULLY'S WORKS.
OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY, with Special Reference to the
Theory of Education. A Text-Book for Colleges. By James Sully,
M. A., LL. D., Examiner for the Moral Sciences Tripos in the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, etc. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $3.00.
A book that has been long wanted by all who are engaged in the bnsireps of
teaching and desire to master its principles. A new and most desirable feature is
the educational applications that are made throughout in separate text and type.
TEACHER'S HAND-BOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. On the
Basis of " Outlines of Psychology." Abridged by the author for the
use of Teachers, Schools, Reading-Circles, and Students generally.
12mo. 445 pages. Cloth, $1.50.
Contents. — Psychology and Education.— Scope and Method of Psychology.—
Mind and Body.— Knowing, Feeling, and Willing.— Mental Development.— Atten-
tion.— The Senses : Sense Discrimination, Observation of Things.- Mental Repro-
duction : Memory, Constructive Imagination. — Abstraction and Conception. — Judg-
ing and Reasoning.— The Feelings : Nature of Feeling, The Egoistic and Social
Feelings. The Higher Sentiments.— The Will : Voluntary Movement,— Moral
Action : Character.— Appendices.
ILLTTSIOXS: A Psychological Study. 12mo. 3Y2 pages.
Cloth, $1.50.
Contents.— The Study of Illusion.— The Classification of Illusions.- Rlnsions
of Perception.— Dreams.— Illusions of Introspection.- Other Quasi-Presentative
Illusions ; Errors of Insight, Illusions of Memory, Illusions of Belief.— Results.
" This is not a technical work, but one of w ide popular interest, in the princiiiles
and results of which every one is concerned, . . . and may be relied upon as rep-
resenting the present state of knowledge on the important subject to which it is
devoted."— y'opw/ar Science Monthly.
PESSIMISM : A History and a Criticism. Second edition.
8vo. 470 pages and index. Cloth, $4.00.
"... The necessity of giving new form and point to the discussion has called
for this enlarged and essentially new volume. The ]>reface is the brightest possible
sketch of recent discussions on the subject and contributions to it. The bibliog-
raphy which follows is a thorough exhibition of the WiGieXwe.''— Independent.
THE HUMAN MIND. A Text-Book of Psychology. 2 vols. 8vo.
Cloth, $5.C0.
This work is an elaboration of the doctrine set forth in the anther's " Outlines
of Psychology.'" Although the mode of arrangement and of treatment is in the
main similar, the book is a new and independent publication.
"The exposition is wonderfully clear and readable."— iViei^; York Tribune.
" It is sufficient to say that by his treatise on the human mind Mr. Sully fully
sustains his reputation as a psychologist."— A^a/t/rc.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
D, APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLI0ATI0N8.
GEORGE J. ROMANES'S WORKS.
MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN : Origin of Human Faculty.
One vol., 8vo. Cloth, $3.00.
This work, which follows " Mental Evolution in Animals," by the same aa-
ihor, considers the probable mode of genesis of the human mind from the mind
of lower animal?, and attempts to show that there is no distinction of kind be-
tween man and brute, but, on the contrary, that such distinctions as do exist all
admit of beina: explained, with respect to their evolution, by adequate psycho-
logical analysis.
"The vast array of facts, and the sober and solid method of ar/smmeiit em-
Sloyed by Mr. Romanes, will prove, we think, a great gift to knowledge."—
aturdjy Review.
JELLY-FISH, STAR-FISH, AND SEA-URCHINS. Being
a Research on Primitive Nervous Systems. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
*• Although I have throughout kept in view the requirements of a general
reaier, I have also sought to render the book of service to the working physi-
ologist, by brincring together in one consecutive account all the more important
observations and results which have been yielded by this research."— JSc^raci
from Preface.
"A profound research into the laws of primitive nervous systems conducted
by one of the ablest Enirlish investigators. Mr. Romanes set up a tent on the
»each and examined his beautiful pets for six summers in succession. Such
patient and loving work has borne its fruits in a monoirraph which leaves noth-
ing to be said about jelly-fish, star-flah, and sea-urchins. Every one who has
studied the lowest forms of life on the sea-shore admires these objects. But few
have any idea of the exquisite delicacy of their structure and their nice adapta-
tion to their place in nature. Mr. Romanes brings out the subtile beauties of
the rudimentary or_'auisms, and shows the resemblances they bear to the higher
types of creation. Flis explanations are made more clear by a large number of
Illustrations."— iVei^ York Journal of Commerce.
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
"A collection of facts which, though it may merely amuse the unscientific
reader, will be a real boon to the student of comparative p^yclioloiiy, for this is
the first attempt to present systematically the well-assured results of observa-
tion on the mental life of animals."— /Saiurciay Beview.
MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. With a Posthumous
Essay on Instinct, by Charles Darwin. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
"Mr. Romanes has followed up his careful enumeration of the facts of ' Anl-
nal Intelligence,' contributed to the 'International Scientific Series,' with a
work dealing with the successive stages at which the various mental phenomena
appear in the scale of life. The present installment displays the e ime evidence
of indnstry in collectinsi facts and caution in co-ordinating them bj theory && the
former."— 7%« Athenceum.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
D. APPLETON d CO. '8 PUBUOAl fONS.
ALEXANDER BAIN'S WORKS.
THE SENSES AND THE INTELLECT. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.
The object of this treatise is to give a full and systematic account of two
principal divisions of the science of mind— the senses and the intellect. The
value of the third edition of the work is greatly enhanced by an account of the
psychology of Aristotle, which has been contributed by Mr. Grote.
THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. 8vo. Cloth, 85.00.
The present publication is a sequel to the former one on " The Senses and the
Intellect,'' and completes a systematic exposition of the human mind.
MIND AND BODY. Theories of their Relations. 12mo. Cloth,
$1.50.
"A forcible statement of the connection between mind and body, studying
their subtile interworkings by the light of the most recent physiological investi-
gations."— Christian Register.
EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
ON TEACHING ENGLISH. With Detailed Examples and an
Inquiry into the Definition of Poetry. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
PRACTICAL ESSAYS. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
Dr. H. ALLEYNE NICHOLSON'S WORKS.
MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY, for the Use of Students, with a Gen-
eral Introduction to the Principles of Zoology. Second edition.
Kevised and enlarged, with 243 Woodcuts. 12mo. Cloth, $2.50.
THE ANCIENT LIFE-HISTORY OF THE EARTH.
A Comprehensive Outline of the Principles and Leading Facts of
Palaeontological Science. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
" A work by a master in the science who understands the significance of every
phenomenon which he records, and knows how to make it reveal its lessons. As
regards its value there can scarcely exist two opinions. As a text-lx)ok of the
historical phase of palseontology it will be indiepensable to students, whether
specially pursuing geology or biology ; and without it no man who aspires even to
an outline knowledge of natural science can deem his library complete." — The
Quarterly Journal of Science.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
D. APPLETON d CO/S PUBLICATIONS,
Professor JOSEPH LE CONTE»S WORKS.
EVOLUTION AND ITS RELATION TO RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT. By Joseph Le Conte, LL. D., Professor of Geology
and Natural History in the University of California. With numer-
ous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
" Much, very much has been written, especially on the nature and the evi-
dences of evolution, but the literature is so voluminous, much of it so fragmeiit-
arj', and most of it so technical, tbat eveu very intelligent persons have stfll very
vague ideas on the subject. I have attempted to give (1) a very concise account
of what we mean by evolution, (2) an outline of the evidences of its truth drawn
from many different somces, and (3) its relation to fundamental religious beliefs."
—Extract from Preface.
ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY. A Text-book for Colleges and for
the General Reader. By Joseph Le Conte, LL. D. With upward
of 900 Illustrations. New and enlarged edition. 8vo. Cloth, $4.00.
"Besides preparing a comprehensive text-book, suited to present demands,
Professor Le Conte has given us a volum.e of great value as an exposition of the
subject, thoroughly up to date. The examples and applications of the work are
almost entirely derived from this country, so that it may be proiierly considered
an American geology. We can commend this work without qualification to all
who desire an intelligent acquaintance with geological science, as fresh, lucid,
full, authentic, the result of devoted study and of long experience in teaching."
—Popular Scietux Monthly.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE. A Series of Sunday Lectures on the
Relation of Natural and Revealed Religion, or the Truths revealed
in Nature and Scripture. By Joseph Ls Conte, LL. D. 12mo.
Cloth, $1.50.
" We commend the book cordially to the regard of all who are interested in
whatever pertains to the discussion "of these grave questions, and especially to
those who desire to examine closely the strong foundations on which the Chris-
tian faith is reared." — Boston Jounval.
SIGHT : An Exposition of the Principles of Monocular and Binocular
Vision. By Joseph Le Conte, LL. D. With Illustrations. 12mo.
Cloth, $1.50.
"Professor Le Conte has long been known as an original investigator in this
department : all that he gives us is treated with a master-hand. It is pleasant to
find an American book that can rank with the very best of foreign books on this
subject. "—T^e Nation.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 6 Bond Street.
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
New revised edition of BancrofCs History of the United States.
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, from the Discovery
of the Continent to the Establishment of the Constitution in 1789.
By George Bancroft. Complete in 6 vols., 8vo, printed from new
type. Cloth (blue or brown), uncut, with gilt top, $15.00 ; sheep,
marble edge, $21.00; half morocco, uncut, gilt top, $27.00; half
grained morocco, gilt top, $27.00 ; half calf, marble edge, $27.00.
Vol. VI contains the History of the Formation of the Constitution
of the United States, and a Portrait of Mr. Bancroft.
In this edition of his great work the author has made extensive
changes in the text, condensing in places, enlarging in others, and care-
fully revising. It is practically a new work embodying the results of
the latest researches, and enjoying the advantage of the author's long
and mature experience.
" On comparing this work with the corresponding volume of the ' Centena.
ry' edition of 18T6, one is s-urprisefl to see how extensive changes the auihot
has found desirable, even after so short an interval. The first thiua that strikes
ono is the increased number of chapters, resulting from subdivision. The first
volume contains two volumes of the original, and is divided into thirty-einht
chapters instead of eighteen. This is in itself an improvement. But the new
arrangement is not the result merely of subdivision ; the matter is rearranged in
such a manner as vastly to increase the lucidity and continuousness of treat-
ment. In the present edition Mr. Bancroft returns to the principle of division
into periods, abandoned in the ' Centenary' edition. His division is, however,
a new one. As the permanent shape taken by a great historical work, this new
arrangement ia certainly an improvement."— 7%e Nation {New York).
" The work as a whole is in better shape, and is of course more authoritative
than ever before. This last revision will be without doubt, both from its desir-
able form and accurate text, the standard one." — Boston Traveller.
" It has not been granted to many historians to devote half a century to the
history of a single people, and to live lon^ enough, nnd, let us add, to be willing
and wise enough, to revise and rewrite in an honored old age the work of a
whole lifetime." — New York Mail and Express.
" The extent and thorouehncss of this revision would hardlv be guessed with-
out comparing the editions side by side. The condensation of the text amounts
to something over one third of the previous edition. There has also been very
considerable recasting of the text. On the whole, our examination of the first
volume leads us to believe that the thought of the historian loses nothiu'' by the
abbreviation of the text. A closer and later approximation to the best results of
scholarship and criticism is reached. The pixbljc gains by its more compact
brevity and in amount of matter, and in economy of time and money." — The In-
dependent {New York).
" There is nothins: to he said at this day of the value of ' Bancroft.' Its au-
ttorityis no longer in dispute, and as a piece of vivid and realistic hi^^torical
writing it stands amonsr the best works of its class. It may be taken for granted
that this new edition will greatly extend its usefulness."— PMac?e/pAia North
American.
New York : D. APPLETON & CO , 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
D. APPLETON & GO/S PUBLICATIONS.
HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES,
from the Revolution to the Civil War. By John Bach McMaster.
To be completed in five volumes. Vols. I, II, and III now ready.
8vo, cloth, gilt top, $2.50 each.
Scope op this Work.— Zn the course of this narrative much is written of wars,
(conspiracies, and rebellions ; of Presidents, of Congresses, of embassies, of treaties,
of the ambition of political leaders, and qf the rise qf great parties in the nation..
Yet the history of the people is the chief theme. At evei^ stage of the splendid
progress which separates tlie America qf Washington and Adams from the Amer-
ica in which we live, it has been the author''s purpose to describe the dress, the
occupations, the amusements, the literary canons of the tirms ; to note the changes
of manners and morals ; to trace tfie growth of that humane sjnrit which alol-
ished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and of Jails ; to
recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, have multiplied
the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of our race; to describe the
rise and progress of that long series of mechanical inventions and discoveries which
is now the admiration qf the world, and our just pride and boast ; to fell how,
under the benign influence of liberty and peace, there sprang up, in the course qf a
single century, a prosperity U7iparalleled in the annals qf human affairs.
"The pledge eiven by Mr. McMaster, that ' the history of the people shall be
the chief theme,' ia puiictiliously and Batisfactorily fulfilled. He carries out his
promise in a complete, vivid, and delightful way. We should add that the liter-
ary execution of the work ia worthy of the inaefatinrable industry and unceabins:
visrilance with which the stores of historical material have been accumulateff,
weighed, and sifted. The cardinal qualities of style, lucidity, animation, and
energy, are everywhere present. Seldom, indeed, iias a book, in which matter
of substantial value has been so happily united to attractiveness of form, been
offered by an American author to his fellow-citizens." — New York Sun.
" To recount the marvelous procuress of the American people, to describe
their life, their literature, their occupations, their amusements, is Mr. McMas-ter's
object. His theme is an important one, and we consratulate him on his success.
It has rarely been our province to notice a book with so many excellences and
BO few defects."— iVe«o York Herald.
"Mr. McMaster at once shows his grasp of the various themes and his special
capacity as a historian of the people. His aim is high, but he hits the mark." —
New i'ork Journal of Commerce.
"I have had to read a good deal of history in try clay, but I find so ranch
freshness in the way Professor McMaster has treated* his subject tLat it is quite
like a new siory.'"— Philadelphia Press.
"Mr. McMaeter's snccess asa writer seems to ns distinct and decisive. In
th<^ first place he has written a remarkably readable history. Hie style is clear
and vigorous, if not always condensed. He has the faculty of felicitous c< m-
ptirison and contrast in a marked degree. Mr McMat-ter has produced one ol
the most spirited of histories, a book" which will be widely read, and tlie enier-
taining quality of which is conspicuous beyond that of any work of its kind."—
Boston Gazette.
New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street
D. APPLETGN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S (Bart.) WORKS.
THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION AND THE PRIML>
TIVE CONDITION OF MAN, MENTAL AND SOCIAL
CONDITION OF SAVAGES. Fourth edition, ^vith numerous Ad-^
ditions. With Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.
" This interesting work— for it is intensely so in its aim, scope, and the ahil-
ity of its author— treats of what the sciectii-ts denominate anihrofology ^ or the
natural history of tlie human species ; the complete science of man. body, and
soul, including sex, teaiperament, race, civilization, etc." — I-'rovidence Frtss.
PREHISTORIC TIxlIES, AS ILLUSTRATED BY ANCIENT
REMAINS AND THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF MODERN
SAVAGES. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.
"This is, perhaps, the best summary of evidence now in our possession con-
cerning the general character of prehisto ric times. The Bronze Age, The Stone
Age, The Tumuli, The Lake Inhabitants of Switzerland, The Shell Mounds, The
Cave Man, and The Antiquity of Man, are the titles of the most important chap-
ters."—i)r. (7. K. Adams's Manual of Hist07ical Literature.
ANTS, BEES, AND WASPS. A Record of Observations on the
Habits of the Social Hymenoptera. With Colored Plates. 12mo.
Cloth, $2.00.
"This volume contains the record of various experiments made with ants,
bees, and wasps during the last ten years, with a view to test tlieir mental con-
dition and powers of sense. The author has carefully watched and marked par-
ticular insects, and has had their nests uncier observation for long periods— ine
of his ants' nests having been under constart inspection ever since IST^ His
objiervations are made principally upon ants, hecaut^o they show more power aiid
flexibility of mind ; and the value of his studies is that they belong to the de-
partment of original research."
ON THE SENSES, INSTINCTS, AND INTELLIGENCE
OF ANIMALS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INSECTS.
" International Scientific Series." With over One Hundred Illustra-
tions. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
The author has here collected some of hie recent observations on the senses
and intelliirence of animals, and especially of insects, and has attempted to give,
very briefly, some idea of the organs of sense, commencing in each case with
those of man himself.
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE. 12mo. Cloth, 60 cents ; paper,
25 cents.
CONTEiV TS.—TuK Dutt op Happiness. Thb Happiness op DrTT. A
Song op Books. The Choice of Books. The Blessing op Feiends. Thb
Value op Time. Tub Pleasures op Travel. The Pleasures op Hokb.
Science. Education.
I
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
WILLIAM E. H. LECKY'S WORKS.
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY. 8 vols., 8vo. Cloth, $20.00 ; half calf, 836.00.
" On every n^onnd which should render a history of eighteenth-century England
precious to thinking men, Mr. Lecky's work may be commended. The materials
accumulated in these volumes attest an industry more strenuous and comprehen-
sive than that exhibited by Froude or by Macaulay. But it is his supreme merit
that he leaves on the reader's mind a conviction that he not only possesses the
acuteness which can discern the truth, but the unflinching purpose of truth-tell-
ing."—iVea' York Sun.
HISTORY OF THE RISE AND INFLUENCE OV THE
SPIRIT OF RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 2 vols., Svo.
Cloth, $4.00 ; half calf, extra, $8.00.
" The author defines his purpose as an attempt to trace that spirit which ' leads
men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic theology to the dictates of reason
and of conscience, and, as a necessary consequence, to restrict its influence upon
life '—which predisposes men, in history, to attribute all kinds of phenomena to
natural rather than miraculous causes ; in theology, to esteem succeeding systems
the expressions of the wants and aspirations of that religious sentiment which is
planted in all men ; and, in ethics, to regard as duties only those which conscience
reveals to be such."— Z>r. C. K. Adams's Manual of Historical Literature.
THE LEADERS OF PUBLIC OPINION IN IRELAND:
SWIFT, FLOOD, GRATTAN, O'CONNELL. 12mo.
Cloth, $1.75.
"A writer of Lecky's mind, with his rich imagination, his fine ability to appre-
ciate imagination in others, and his disposition to be himself an orator upon the
written page, could hardly have found a period in British history more harmonio'is
with his literary style than that which witnessed the rise, the ripening, and the fall
of the four men whose impress upon the development of the national spiiit of
Ireland was not limited by the local questions whose discussion constituted their
iaiQMi."'—New York Ecening Post.
HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS FROM AUGUS-
TUS TO CHARLE3IAGNE. 2 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $3.00;
half calf, extra, $7.00.
" So vast is the field Mr. Lecky introduces us to, so varied and extensive the
information he has collected in it, fetching it from far beyond the limits of his pro-
fessed subject, that it is impossible in any moderate space to do more than indi-
cate the line he follows. . . . The work is a valuable contribution to our higher
English literature, as well as an admirable guide for those who may care to go
in person to the distant fountains from which Mr. Lecky has drawn for them so
ivQelj.''''— London Times.
POEMS. 18mo. White vellum, stamped in gold. $1.00.
"A dainty little collection. These poema are the productions of many years
and written in many different moods, and are here brought together with no pre-
tense at any arrangement, but with a delightful variety of sequence. Each one is
fragrant with the perfume of some familiar thought clothed in a new and fasci-
nating gaxhy—Prineetonian.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street.
THE
Historical Reference- Book,
COMPRISING
A Chronological Table of Universal History, a Chronological DicHon-
ary of Universal History, a Biographical Dictionary.
WITH GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.
FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND READERS.
By LOUIS HEILPRIN.
New edition, revised and brouR-ht down to 1892. Crown 8vo.
Half leather, $3.00.
" Quite the most compact, convenient, accurate, and authoritative work of the
kind in the language. It is a happy combination of history, biography, and geog-
raphy, and should find a place in every family librarv, as well as at the elbow of
every scholar and writer. . . . The typography remains ideally good for such a
manual."— iVew York Evening Post.
" Oue of the most complete, compact, and valuable works of reference vet rtvo-
iuce^.'^— Troy Daily limes.
" Unequaled in its Geldy— Boston Courier.
"A small library in itself." — Chicago Dial.
"An invaluable book of reference, useful alike to the student and the general reader.
The arrangement could scarcely be better or more convenient."— iVew; York Herald.
"The conspectus of the world's history presented in the tirst part of the book leas
full as the wisest terseness could put within the space.^''—F/iiladelphia American.
" We miss hardly anything that we should consider desirable, and we have not been
able to detect a single mistake or mi&prmV—New York JVation.
"80 far as we have tested the accuracy of the present work we have found it with-
out flaw."— CAmiian Union.
" The conspicuous merits of the work are condensation and accuracy. These points
alone should suflSce to give the ' Historical Keference-Book ' a place in every public
and private library." — Boston Beacon.
" The method of the tabulation is admirable for ready reference." — New York
Home Journal.
" This cyclopaedia of condensed knowledge is a work that will speedily becouie a
necessity to the general reader, as well as to the student.'' — Detroit Free p7^ess.
"For cleanness, correctness, and the readiness with which the reader can find the
Information of which he is in search, the volume is far in advance of anv work of its
kind with which we are &&qaa\ni6A."'— Boston Saturday Evening Oazeite.
"The latest dates have been siven. The geographical notes which accorrvfiany
the historical incidents are a novel addition, and exceedingly helpful. The size also
commends it, making it convenient for constant reference, while the three divisions
and careful elimination of minor and uninteresting incidents make it much easier to
find dntes and events about which accuracy is necessary. Sir William Hamilton avers
that too retentive a memory tends to hinder the development of the judgment by pre-
senting too much for decision. A work like this is thus better than memory. It is a
' mental larder ' which needs no care, and whose contents are ever available."— A«0
York University Quarterly.
New York: D. APPLETON & CO.. 1. 3. & 5 Bond Street.
-^r
LA
91-
Q5
1893
Quick, Robert Hebert
Essays on educational refor-
mers
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
m USE IN
UBRARY ONLY
"Vut^rc
nvy
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11