Chapter XVII: Part 17

§ 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 live 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—1st, 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 evidently 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 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 education 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.”[211] So we see that Locke 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 to remain ignorant of Greek, but only when they are “gentlemen.” 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 little ones whom the schoolmaster 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. Knowledge, 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 uncompromising—had never been made before.

Still there remained even in theory, and far more in practice, effects produced by the false ideal of the Renascence. 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 Reformers 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 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?

§ 18. 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.”

_Prelude_, v, _ad f._

But if the tendency of things is to good, why should the usual be in such strong contrast with “the natural”? Here again 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,
What 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 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 language 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 blunders.[212] So a great deal of action which is purely mischievous 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 prescribed for us.

§ 20. The generation which found a mouthpiece in Rousseau had become firmly convinced, not indeed of its 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 _remembering_ 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 generations 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 increased the average duration of human life. We therefore 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 contemporaries 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 success 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 absurdities 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.” 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 education. 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, 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 linger among us notions derived from the literary men of the Renascence. We still measure all children by their literary and mnemonic attainments. We still consider knowledge of Latin and Greek the highest kind of knowledge. Children are sent to school that they may not be ignorant.[213] 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 circumstances 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 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 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 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 “intuition,” 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.

FOOTNOTES

[1] When the greater part of this volume was already written, Mr. 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 10th century 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. Furnivall, in the 2nd and 3rd numbers of the _Quarterly Journal of Education_ (1867). [I did not then know of Dr. Barnard’s works.]

[2] This article is omitted in the last edition.

[3] The rest of this chapter was published in the September, 1880 number of _Education_. Boston, U.S.A.

[4] On the nature of literature see Cardinal Newman’s “Lectures on the Nature of a University. University Subjects. II. Literature.”

[5] 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 gyrated swiftly with some pleasure like spinning dervishes and ended where they began.”—_Characteristics_, Misc., vol. iii, 5.

[6] 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_, 1870.

[7] Miss J. D. Potter, in “Journal of Education.” London, June, 1879

[8] See Erasmus’s _Ciceronianus_, or account of it, in Henry Barnard’s _German Teachers_.

[9] “On Abuse of Human Learning,” by Samuel Butler.

[10] Multum ilium profecisse arbitror, qui ante sextum decimum ætatis annum facultatem duarum linguarum mediocrem assecutus est. (Quoted by Parker.)

[11] R. Mulcaster’s _Positions_, 1581, p. 30. I have reprinted this book (Longmans, 1888, price 10_s._).

[12] 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. 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 Granvella, 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. Wherein 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 Education_, edited by Farrar, Essay I., _On History of Classical Education_, p. 39.

I find from Herbart (_Päd. 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._, 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 has written _Die Pädagogik J. Sturms_ which no doubt does him justice, but I have not seen the book.

[13] 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 1/4), “Quæ nobilissima pars priscæ disciplinæ revocata est aliquatenus, quasi postliminio, in Jesuitarum collegiis; quorum cum intueor industriam solertiamque tam in doctrina excolenda quam in moribus informandis, illud occurrit Agesilai de Pharnabazo, ‘Talis cum sis, utinam noster esses.’”

[14] (1) Joseph Anton Schmid’s “Niedere Schulen der Jesuiten:” Regensburg, 1852. (2) Article by Wagenmann in K. A. Schmid’s “Encyclopädie 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., published 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) “Parænesis ad Magistros Scholarum Inferiorum Soc. Jesu, scripta a P. Francisco Sacchino, ex eâdem Societate.” (5) “Juvencius de Ratione Discendi et Docendi.” Crétineau-Joly’s “Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus” (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 1719. 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_.

[15] “L’exécution des décrets de 1880 a eu pour résultat la fermeture de leurs collèges. Mais malgré 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.”—_Compayré, in Buisson_, ij, p. 1420.

[16] According to the article in K. A. Schmid’s “Encyclopädie,” 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 _Tertiorat_. The candidate was now admitted to Priest’s Orders, and took the vows either as _professus quatuor votorum_, 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.

[17] Karl Schmidt (Gesch. d. Päd., iij. 199, 200), says that however much teachers were wanted, a two years’ course of preparation was considered indispensable. When the Novitiate was over the candidate became a “Junior” (_Gallicè_ “Juveniste”). He then continued his studies _in literis humanioribus_, 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.), of Stonyhurst.

[18] 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-four.

[19] “Non gratia nobilium officiat culturæ vulgarium: cum sint natales omnium pares in Adam et hæreditates quoque pares in Christo.”

[20] Even junior masters were not to be much addicted to their own language. “Illud cavendum imprimis juniori magistro ne vernaculis nimium libris indulgeat, præsertim poetis, in quibus maximam temporis ac fortasse morum jacturam faceret.”—_Jouvency._

[21] “Multum proderit si magister non tumultuario ac subito dicat, sed quæ 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, quæ quisque docturus est, egregie calleat. Tum enim bene docet, et facile docet, et libenter docet; bene, quia sine errore; facile, quia sine labore; libenter, quia ex pleno.... Memoriæ minimum fidat: instauret eam refricetque iterata lectione antequam quicquam doceat, etiamsi idem sæpe 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.”

[22] In a school (not belonging to the Jesuits) where this plan was adopted, the boys, by an ingenious contrivance, managed to make it 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 arrangement.

[23] 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.

[24] “The grinding over and over 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.

[25] “Stude potius ut pauciora clare distincteque percipiant, quam obscure atque confuse pluribus imbuantur.—Care rather for their seeing 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.)

[26] Sacchini writes in a very high tone on this subject. The following passage is striking: “Gravitatem sui muneris summasque opportunitates assidue animo verset (magister).... ‘Puerilis institutio mundi renovatio est;’ hæc gymnasia Dei castra sunt, hic bonorum omnium semina latent. Video solum fundamentumque republicæ quod multi non videant interpositu terræ.—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 commonwealth, which many fail to see from its being underground.” Perhaps he had read of Trotzendorf’s address to a school, “Hail reverend divines, learned doctors, worshipful magistrates, &c.”

[27] “Circa illorum valetudinem peculiari cura animadvertat (Rector) ut et in laboribus mentis modum servent, et in iis quæ ad corpus pertinent, religiosa commoditate tractentur, ut diutius in studiis perseverare tam in litteris addiscendis quam in eisdem exercendis ad Dei gloriam possint.”—_Ratio Studd._, quoted by Schmid. See also _infra_ p. 62.

[28] The following, from the _Ratio Studd._, sounds Jesuitical: “Nec publicé puniant flagitia quædam secretiora sed privatim; aut si publicé, _alias obtendant causas_, et satis est eos qui plectuntur conscios esse causarum.”

[29] As the Public Schools Commission pointed out, the Head Master often thinks of nothing but the attainment of University honours, _even when the great majority of his pupils are not going to the University_.

[30] The advantages of learning by heart are twofold, says Sacchini: “Primum memoriam ipsam perficiunt, quod est in totam ætatem ad universa negotia inæstimabile commodum. Deinde suppellectilem inde pulcherrimam congregant verborum ac rerum: quæ item, quamdiu vivant, usui futura sit: cum quæ ætate illa insederint indelebilia soleant permanere. Magnam itaque, ubi adoleverint, gratiam Praeceptori habebunt, cui memoriæ debebunt profectum, magnamque lætitiam capient invenientes quodammodo domi thesaurum quem, in ætate cæteroqui parum fructuosa, prope non sentientes parârint. Enim vero quam sæpe viros graves atque præstantes magnoque jam natu videre et audire est, dum in docta ac nobili corona jucundissime quædam promunt ex iis quæ 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 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 knowing it. How often we see and hear eminent men far advanced in life, when in learned and noble company, take a special delight in quoting 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 always 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 quædam ediscant quæ deinde in quovis studiorum genere ac vita fere omni usui sint futura.—So they will never be without employment 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 “ætas 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.

[31] Ranke, speaking of the success of the Jesuit schools, says: “It 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.”—_Hist. of Popes_, book v, p. 138. Kelly’s Trans.

In France, the University in vain procured an _arrêt_ 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 _Casaubon_, 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.

[32] “Sapientum hoc omnium seu veterum seu recentum constans judicium est, institutionem puerilem tum fore optimam cum jucundissima fuerit, inde enim et ludum vocari. Meretur ætatis teneritas ut ne oneretur: meretur innocentia ut ei parcatur ... Quæ libentibus auribus instillantur, ad ea velut occurrit animus, avide suscipit, studiose recondit, fideliter servat.”

[33] “Conciliabit facilè studiis quos primùm sibi conciliârit. Det itaque omnem operam illorum erga se observantionem ut sapienter colligat et continenter enutriat. Ostendat, sibi res eorum curæ esse non solum quæ ad animum sed etiam quæ ad alia pertinent. Gaudeat cum gaudentibus, nec dedignetur flere cum flentibus. Instar Apostoli inter parvulos 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 should send daily to inquire after him, _because the parents will be pleased by such attention_. When the motive of the inquiry is suspected, the parents will be pleased no longer.

[34] “Errorem existimo statim initio spinosiores quasdam grammaticæ difficultates inculcare ... cum enim planioribus insueverint difficiliora paulatim usus explanabit. Quin et capacior subinde mens ac firmius cum ætate judicium, quod alio monstrante perægre unquam percepisset per sese non raro intelliget. Exempla quoque talium rerum dum praelegitur autor facilius in orationis contextu agnoscentur et penetrabunt in animos quam si solitaria et abscissa proponantur. Quamobrem faciendum erit ut quoties occurrunt diligenter enucleentur.”

[35] See, _e.g._, marvellous instances of their self-devotion in that most interesting book, Francis Parkman’s _Jesuits in N. America_ (Boston, Little & Co., 10th edition, 1876).

[36] 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 conversion 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 contradictions which abound in the annals of the Order.”—_The Discovery of the Great West_, by F. Parkman, London, 1869, p. 28.

[37] In a letter dated from Stonyhurst, 22nd April, 1880.

[38] The best account I have seen of life in a Jesuit school is in _Erinnerungen eines chemaligen Jesuitenzöglings_ (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1862). The writer (Köhler?) 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 is by a Jesuit—_La Discipline_, par le R. P. Emmanuel Barbier (Paris, V. Palmé, 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 carrying 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 himself 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 to 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 with 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 diplomate; don’t match your skill against theirs. You cannot chat without 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 ff.

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 (Compayré, _Doctrines, &c._, 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 Jésuites Instituteurs_, par le P. Ch. Daniel, 1880, in which the Jesuit sets himself to maintain this thesis: “D’une source aussi profondément infectée du poison de l’hérésie, 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).

[39] 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.)

[40] See the very interesting _Essay on Montaigne_ by Dean R. W. Church.

[41] Perhaps the saying of Montaigne’s which is most frequently quoted is the paradox _Savoir par cœur n’est pas savoir_: (“to know by heart is not to _know_.”) 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 words_.” 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.

[42] 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 regarded 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 knowledge.... 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).

[43] In another matter, also, we find that the masters of these schools subsequently departed widely from the intention of the great men who fostered the revival of learning. Wolsey writes: “Imprimis hoc unum 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 studiis sic voluptas est intermiscenda ut puer ludum potius discendi quam laborem existimet.” He adds: “Cavendum erit ne immodica contentione ingenia discentium obruantur aut lectione prolonga defatigentur; utraque enim juxta offenditur.”

[44] 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.