Chapter XXI: Part 21

=Colet.= =E.= The passage I refer to on page 80 from Colet is in a little book in the B.M. It is “Joannis Coleti theologi, olim Decani Divi Pauli, editio, una cum quibusdam G. Lilii Grammatices Rudimentis, &c. Antuerpiæ 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. 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 grammar, 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, more availeth 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 Knights’ _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 _Elementarie_ 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; 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 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 foredeal [_i.e._, advantage—German _Vortheil_] 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 dishonouring 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 our 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 Cyclopædia and in Sonnenschein’s. =E.= You would be more successful in Buisson’s. There I see that Claude Marcel was born at Paris in 1793, and died 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 at Cork, and brought up nine children whom he taught entirely himself. In 1853 he published with Chapman and Hall 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 d’Education_; and in 1867 he published in French _L’Études 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 1st aiming at _health_, _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.=—1. 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 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; each should be made auxiliary to the 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 instruction. 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-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 “Encourage 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 “Hath 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 visible symbols of ideas contrasted with the ideas themselves. Those who complain 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 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 Commissioners 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 of 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 that 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 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 most 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, 1.) A. May I ask to whom you are indebted for this erudition? E. To Wuestemann. (_Promptuarium._ Gotha, 1856.)

=Useful Knowledge.=—A. I am inclined to think that now and then you do not attach sufficient 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 recommended 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 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 Æschines (Agnst Ktesip. § 135) which I have seen, not in Æschines, but in J. H. Krause’s “Education among the Greeks” (_Gesch. d. Erziehg bei d. Griechen_). It is so simple that even _you_ may construe it. Διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ οἶμαι ἠμᾶς παῖδας ὄντας τὰς τῶν ποιητῶν γνώμας ἔκμανθάνειν ἵν’ ἄνδρες ὄντὲς αὐταῖς χρώμεθα. 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 continued. 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 _Teachers Manuals_, No. 9), the teacher may read aloud some selected pieces, and let the children separately “give marks” 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. 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 (or 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-Bülow 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, 4_s._ 6_d._) 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 Teaching_ (Longmans, 10_s._); 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 Fitch’s _Lectures on Teaching_ (Pitt Press, 5_s._), 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! 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.”

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_ v.)

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. Bülbring, 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 _Comenius_ and Russell’s Guimps’s _Pestalozzi_. F. V. N. Painter’s _History of Education_ is pleasantly written; but no really satisfactory history of education can be held in one small volume. This objection _in limine_ also applies to G. Compayré’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 very 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. Leitch’s _Practical Educationists_ (Macmillans, 6_s._). 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_ (New York, Kelloggs). Fitch’s more complete book I have named already. A. Geikie’s _Teaching of Geography_ (Macmillans, 2_s._ 6_d._) 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 Training_ (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 Compayré’s _Lectures on Pedagogy_, translated by W. H. Payne, 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_, by H. Latham, Cotterill’s _Reforms 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. What a pity it is that in English we have no name for _Kernsprüche_! 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 _Kernsprüche_ in German. A. Well, German is _not_ 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 themselves. 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 _J. of Ed._, 27th February, 1890.) A. According to you, sayings strike us only when they express our own 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; and having got a good degree they thought (and small blame to them!) how to employ their knowledge of classics so as to secure a comfortable 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; 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 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 future.”

SYLLABUS OF QUICK’S EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS.

_From the International Reading Circle Course of Professional Study._

Pages 1 to 62.

I. THE RENASCENCE.

1. The essential element in literature.

2. Classical literature in education.

3. The educational classes produced by renascence tendencies.

4. How much of the error of the “renascence ideal” still
survives?

5. Is this harm overbalanced by the good influences of that
ideal?

II. STURM.

(_See Painter, pp. 160-162, for Sturm’s Course of Study._)

1. What two or more influences of Sturm’s school would you
mention as most prominently retained in our larger schools of
to-day?

2. How far are these influences good, and in what ways are they
evil?

III. THE JESUITS.

1. Their motive.

2. Their elements of excellence.

3. What value attaches to their provisions for securing
thoroughness?

4. What to their instruction in morals?

5. What to their physical training?

Pages 63 to 171.

RABELAIS.

1. His products of education: wisdom, eloquence, and piety.

2. His emphasis upon the study of _things_.

3. His standard of physical training.

MONTAIGNE.

1. His prime product of education: wisdom, in thought and
action; not knowledge.

2. The practical errors in his theory of educational methods.

ASCHAM.

1. His method of Latin instruction.

MULCASTER.

1. His principles of education as identical with the best of
to-day.

2. His recognition of the need for trained teachers.

RATKE.

1. His practical failure due to the characteristics of the man,
not to faults in his principles of education.

2. Nine cardinal principles of didactics as gathered from his
writings upon method.

COMENIUS.

1. The first to treat education in a scientific spirit.

2. Based educational method upon an understanding of the nature
of the child.

3. Insisted upon the direct study of external Nature, and upon
the learning of words only in connection with things.

4. Recognized education as the development of all the faculties
of body and of mind.

5. Demanded the equal instruction of both sexes.

6. Taught that languages must be learned through practice, not
by means of rules.

7. Made provision for education through the hand as well as
through the eye and ear.

Pages 172 to 218.

THE PORT-ROYALISTS.

1. Purpose and method of Saint Cyran’s “Little Schools.”

2. Actual results of English public-school influences as
opposed to St. Cyran’s theory.

3. Port-Royalists’ restoration of the mother tongue as the
subject-matter of elementary instruction.

4. Literature study as distinguished from grammar study of
Latin and Greek.

5. Logic, or the act of thinking.

6. The principles set forth in the pedagogic writings of the
Port-Royalists.

SOME ENGLISH WRITERS BEFORE LOCKE.

1. Francis Bacon: first great leader of the _realists_—of those
who sought to know the facts of Nature rather than the thoughts
of man.

2. Charles Hoole: “one of the pioneer educators of his century.”

3. Dury and Petty: extending the doctrines of _realism_.

4. Milton: elevating the moral nature to the first place in his
theory of a complete education.

Pages 219 to 238.

JOHN LOCKE.

(See Painter’s History, pp. 218-223.)

1. From the standpoints of reason he rejected the established
methods.

2. His definition of knowledge.

3. Development of body and mind, and formation of right habits
the true aim of education.

4. Locke’s comparison of the child to white paper or wax.

5. The _naturalistic_ school of educational thinkers.

6. Objections to classing Locke as a utilitarian.

Pages 239 to 289.

ROUSSEAU.

1. To be classed with the thinkers, not with the doers, in
educational work.

2. The value of his destructive work.

3. His three kinds of education—from Nature, from men, from
things.

4. The first essential in the work of education is to
understand the mind of childhood.

5. Some characteristics of the mode of acting of the child’s
mind.

6. Evil of over-directing in both discipline and instruction.

7. Right and wrong views of the value of self-teaching.

BASEDOW.

1. His mode of thought and manner of life.

2. The theory outlined in his Elementary and in his Book of
Method.

3. Interesting devices used at the Philanthropinum.

4. The training of the senses and acquirement of knowledge
through the senses pre-eminent both in Rousseau’s and in
Basedow’s theories.

Pages 290 to 383.

PESTALOZZI. I. HIS LIFE.

1. His personal characteristics as shown in his early life and
in his farming venture.

2. His view of the nature and purpose of education.

3. The first experiment at Neuhof and its failure.

4. The orphanage at Stanz.

5. The experiences at Burgdorf.

6. The Institute at Yverdun.

7. The last success at Clindy.

8. Death of Pestalozzi at Neuhof.

II. PESTALOZZI’S PRINCIPLES.

1. The main object of the school not to teach but to develop.

2. The child first to be trained to _love_; moral education.

3. The child next to be trained to _think_; intellectual
education.

4. The child also to be trained to _work_; physical education.

5. The _self-activity_ of the pupil the real force in all true
education.

Pages 384 to 413.

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.

1. The best tendencies of educational thought embodied in
Froebel’s teachings.

2. Froebel imperfectly understood even by the most earnest
students.

3. Influence of his own neglected youth upon his after
consideration for children.

4. His communion with Nature in the Thuringian Forest.

5. His transfer from the study of architecture to the practice
and study of education.

6. His association with Pestalozzi at Yverdun.

7. The influence of his military experience in showing him the
value of discipline and united action.

8. His experiences in teaching prior to his first kindergarten.

9. The edict forbidding the establishment of schools based upon
Froebel’s principles.

10. His death at threescore years and ten.

FROEBEL’S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES.

11. To find in science the expression of the mind of God.

12. To view education as founded upon religion, and leading to
unity with God.

13. To regard the educational process as a process of
development.

14. To seek development, or evolution of power, in the exercise
of those functions, in the use of those faculties, that it is
desired to develop.

15. That the exercise productive of true development must be
in harmony with the function or faculty to be developed, and
proportioned to its present strength.

16. That to be most truly efficient the exercise must arise
from and be sustained by the _self_-activity of the function or
faculty to be developed.

17. That this self-activity must manifest itself not in
receptive action or acquisition alone, but in expressive action
or production.

18. Practically, that children should be busied with things
that they can not only see but can handle and use in the making
or representing of new things to express their growing ideas.

Pages 414 to 469.

JACOTOT.

1. Set pupils to learning by their own investigation and
refrained from giving them direct instruction.

2. Asserted that all human beings are equally capable of
learning.

3. Declared that every one can teach; and, moreover, can teach
that which he does not know.

4. Has done great service by giving prominence to the principle
that the mental faculties must be developed and trained by
being put to actual work.

5. By his doctrine “All is in all,” he gave prominence to the
correlation of knowledge.

6. Made the thorough mastery of a single book and the retention
of it all in the memory his basis of all further accumulation.

7. His methodology summarized: Learn something, repeat it,
reflect upon it, test all related facts by it.

HERBERT SPENCER.

1. The value in the views of one who comes to educational
problems free from tradition and prejudice.

2. The teaching that gives the most valuable knowledge also
best disciplines in the mental faculties.

3. The end and aim of education is to prepare us for complete
living.

4. The test of the relative value of knowledge lies in its
power to influence action in right or wrong directions.

5. In method we must proceed from the simple to the complex;
from the known to the unknown; from the concrete to the
abstract.

6. Every study should have a purely experimental introduction,
and children should be led to make their own investigations and
draw their own inferences.

7. Instruction must excite the interest of pupils and therefore
be pleasurable to them.

Pages 470 to 503.

I. THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

1. The ideal of public-school work is to beget a healthy
interest and pleasure in the doing of hard work.

2. The interest to arise from the nature of the subject itself,
or from the recognized usefulness of the subject, or from
emulation.

3. The value of pictures in the teaching of children as a means
of awakening active interest.

4. The first teaching in reading and number to begin with the
objective method and pass thence to the subjective.

5. In geography and history the lively description and the
interesting story to precede the formal compend.

II. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.

6. Sources and means of the teacher’s influence upon his pupils.

7. Causes of the loss of his good influence.

8. The influence of a few leading spirits among the pupils
themselves.

9. A mode of religious training.

Pages 504 to 547.

REVIEW OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.

1. The good and the ill influences of the Jesuits as the “first
reformers” in educational practice.

2. Rabelais, the first to advocate training as distinguished
from teaching.

3. Comenius, founder of the science of education, recognizing
in his scheme the threefold nature of man.

4. Rousseau, the originator of the “new education” as based
upon the inherent nature of the child.

5. Pestalozzi and Froebel, reformers of the processes of
education, seeking to secure the development of each faculty by
its own activity in appropriate exercise.

INDEX.

Abbott, E. A., on Montaigne and Locke, 231, _n._

— Jacob; Teacher, 544

Accomplishments, 451

Action, the root of Ed., 403

“Advice to a Young Lord” (1691), 234, _n._

Æschines on memorizing, 541

Æsop’s Fables, Locke’s, 238, _n._

Alexander De Villa Dei, 80, 532

All can learn, Jacotot, 416

— Education for, 356

— Education for. Comenius, 515, 522

— is in all. Jacotot, 423

— to be educated. Comenius, 146

Altdorf burnt, 326

Analogies for illustration not proof, 155

Anchoran edits C.’s _Janua_, 163

Andreæ, J. V., 122

_Anschauung_, Pestalozzi on, 360

— Froebel for, 408

Apparatus, 462

Aquaviva and Jesuit schools, 36

Arber, Prof., 82, _n._, 83

Arithmetic, Children’s. Comenius, 145

— for children, 479, 482

Armstrong, Ld., on cry for Useless Knowledge, 78, _n._

Arnauld, his _Règlement_, 189

— the Philosopher of Port-Royal, 187

Arnaulds, The, and the Jesuits, 173

Arnold, Dr., educator of English type, 219

— History Primer, 487

— on citizens’ duties, 447

Arnold, M., 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

Arnstädt, F. A.: _Rabelais_, 69

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, _n._

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, _n._

Banzet, Sara, 408

Barbauld, Mrs., on women’s concealment of knowledge, 98, _n._

Barbier, _La Discipline_, 60, _n._

Bardeen’s _Orbis Pictus_, 168

Barnard, H., _English Pedagogy_, 542

— _Eng. Pedagogy_, 91, _n._, 212, _n._

— on Kindergarten, 409

— Opinion of _Positions_, 91, and _n._

— _The Kindergarten_, 413

Bartle Massey in _Adam Bede_, 507

Basedow and Goethe, 277

_Basedow_, Pinloche’s mentioned, 289, _n._, 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. Mulcaster, 95

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, _n._

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 definitions, 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 _Arrêt_, 187, _n._

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, _n._, 532

Bowen, H. C., on connected teaching, 424, _n._

— on development, 399

— on Kindergartens without idea, 410

Bréal, M., quoted, 286, _n._

— on child-collectors, 429, _n._

— on teachers, 455, _n._

Brewer, Prof., 98

Brinsley, J., 200

— on training teachers, 99, _n._

Brown, Dr. John, _Ed. through senses_, 458, _n._

— _Horæ Sub._, quoted, 169

Browning, Oscar, on Humanists, &c., 231

Buchanan and Infant Schools, 409

Buisson on Intuition, 361

Bülbring, Dr., and Mary Astell, 543

Burgdorf Institute, 341

— Pestalozzi at, 335

Burke, quoted, 437

Buss, 341, 365

Butler, Bp., on Ed., 147, 148, _n._

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, _n._

Campanella, 122

Campe, 287

Capitalizing discoveries, 517

Carlyle about the Schoolmen, 10, _n._

— on divine message, 401

— on History, quoted, 145, _n._

— on Knowledge, 223

— on “nag for sand-cart,” 467

— on teaching religion, 359, _n._

Carlyle’s “mostly fools,” 517, _n._

— “Succedaneum for salt,” 498

Carré 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, 245

_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, 232

Classifiers, Caution against, 232

Class matches, 42, 529

Clindy, Pestalozzi at, 353

Clough, quoted, 358

Colet, Dean, 80, 533

Columbus and geography, 2

Comenius and Science of ed., 512

— Books about, 170

— at Amsterdam, 133

— in London, 126

— criticized by Lancelot, 186, _n._

— stiftung, 119

Compayré, _Hist. of Pedagogy_ and _Lectures_, 544

— on Jesuits, 56

— on Port-Royal, 196

Compendia Dispendia, 169

Complete living, H. Spencer on, 442

“Complete Retainers,” 89, 426, _n._

Composition, 483

Compulsion, Nothing on, 112

Concept, Larger, how formed, 457

Concertations, 42

Concrete, Start from, 461

_Conduct of Understanding_ and Reason, 221

_Conférences pédagogiques_, 362

Connexion of knowledges, 424

_Consolation_, &c., Brinsley, 200

Cooking should be taught, 540

Coote, Edward, _English Scholemaster_, 91

Corporal punishment, Pestalozzi for, 327

Cotterill, C. C., _Suggested Reforms_, 545

Cowley’s Proposition, &c., 202