Chapter XII: Appendix

I give a few extracts from papers received from old pupils, in answer
to the request that they would say, quite simply and unofficially,
what benefits they had derived from a course of economic study.

“I think that learning economics has helped me to take a more
intelligent interest in everyday matters.”

“I consider I have benefited more by that subject than by any other.
There are so many subjects you can take an interest in _if_ you
understand economics, that if you do not, would appeal to you in no
way whatever.”

“It helps us to understand some of the most important subjects of the
day, and gives us a clearer idea of the difficulties of the poor--and
shows us the best way of helping them.”

“The human sympathies cannot fail to be awakened, and narrow-minded
and selfish views cannot long be entertained. Economics often shows
the best methods in the relief of our less fortunate brothers and
sisters.”

“Living as I do, in Ireland, the study of this subject has widened
my interests greatly. Now I can more fully understand the problem of
landlord and tenant.”

“Besides economics being useful, it is also very interesting.”

“It tends to make one speak more exactly and to keep to the point.”

Many more answers to the same effect might be given, but these
are perhaps enough to show that the study of economics is neither
uninteresting nor unpractical.

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

By AMY LUMBY.

[The general aim and method of the teacher.]

“All spirits upon which poetry falls,” says Shelley, “open themselves to receive the wisdom which is mingled with its delight.” To remember these words will help the teacher of literature to bear in mind her double aim--to inspire delight and at the same time to impart wisdom. It is impossible to lay down rules for accomplishing this aim, but we may trace out a few principles by which to guide our course. Literature appeals to the imagination, the faculty of the mind in which emotion and intellect join, and a literature lesson should combine the two elements of feeling and thought. Poetry needs to be enjoyed if it is to be understood, for it is the expression, not of facts which can be demonstrated, but of truth which can only be recognised by those who care for it. So the first aim of the teacher must be to make her class enjoy what they read. Dulness is a bad fault in any teacher; in the teacher of literature it is high treason. No one ought to teach the subject unless she thoroughly enjoys it herself and can communicate her enjoyment. But in trying to inspire delight in her pupils, she must be on her guard against the mental indolence of children who ask only to be amused. In this age of trivial literature and comic papers young people are apt to be impatient of serious reading, to find the _Faerie Queene_ dull and the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ slow, but the teacher must persevere in presenting to them as attractively as may be the very best they are capable of relishing at all, and after a while a better taste will destroy all desire for the worthless rubbish they once found pleasure in.

When once the teacher has roused real enjoyment in her class, her part becomes merely that of the interpreter. She must see to it that her pupils understand the words they read, realise the images that are called up before them, and follow as closely as they can the thoughts that are presented to them. The subject does the rest. For the power of intercourse with great and good thoughts is such that it enlarges and lifts the mind insensibly to better things. If the spirit is but rendered sensitive to poetry, wisdom enters hand in hand with delight. We can give no rules for producing this effect. The power to do it is the special gift required in the teacher of literature. She must possess the faculty of kindling and stirring thought and feeling to respond to the thought and feeling presented to them. Without this she will never make her pupils feel anything of what poetry can teach. In no subject does the mental attitude and the mental furniture of the teacher matter so much.

[The earliest stage--the reading lesson.]

Assuming then a thorough enjoyment and appreciation of the subject, we will consider a little more in detail the method in which it may be treated in one or two typical cases. To begin with the simplest form of literature--the reading lesson--we will suppose that we have to read a poem, say “The Wreck of the _Hesperus_,” with a class of young children. We shall have in our own minds a clear conception of the qualities which make this one of the finest of modern ballads--the extreme simplicity of the theme, the vigour and breadth of the treatment, the pathos of the little human tragedy set against the great background of Nature in storm and tumult. But we shall not burden the children’s minds with this information; with a very few words of preface to prepare them for what they are to expect, we shall first read the whole poem through to them. The reading is a very important point, for on this depends to a large extent the enjoyment they will have in the poem. A harsh voice or a dull delivery is fatal to pleasure; and monotonous reading fails to convey the point of the story, and to suggest the atmosphere of the poem. Every teacher of literature should be a trained reader.

The poem must next be taken verse by verse; the meaning of difficult or unusual expressions, such as “veering flaw,” “lashed to the helm,” “she stove and sank,” should be explained, while those that are peculiarly apt should be noted with appreciation; for instance, “_fairy_ flax,” “a _whooping_ billow,” the vessel “_swept_” towards the reef, and many others. At the same time the class must be made to see the pictures suggested, as they rise: the wintry sea, the skipper beside the helm, the child lashed to the mast, the frozen ship rushing headlong to her doom. And lastly, the whole drift and significance of the poem must be kept before their minds by making them realise the situation; the happy child so suddenly overwhelmed, helpless and at first bewildered, then as calamities thicken, turning for help to prayer; hurried on with the doomed vessel through night and storm, and sharing its fate among the exultant breakers. And they should feel the calm of the close and the survival of the human interest beyond the short-lived triumph of the sea. Of course it will not be possible at first to make young children feel all the force of a poem like this, but our aim must be to rouse their imaginations by bringing the picture it presents vividly before them, so that they gradually become more and more sensitive to the stimulus of poetry.

[The second stage--the detailed study of one of Shakspere’s plays, or some other work in detail.]

A course of reading lessons, graduated in difficulty from the simple ballad to such poems as “The Forsaken Merman,” “Tithonus,” and the “Ode to Duty,” will lead up to the next stage, the reading of a play of Shakspere. Here we must cling very closely to our principle of the importance of enjoyment. Very few people who have read their first play at school are happy enough to have enjoyed it. And why is this? Because a mistaken ideal has been before the teacher’s mind, and a mistaken method has been used to attain it. Careful study and exact understanding of the language of Shakspere is almost a liberal education in itself; but it is not always borne in mind that the understanding of the language is but a means to an end, and that notes, whether philological or historical, are of value only when they really throw light on the meaning of the text. It is worse than useless to burden the memories of children with derivations of words from languages with which they are absolutely unacquainted. When the original or root-meaning of a word is really worth knowing, and a knowledge of it tends to a more accurate use of the word, then it should be learnt, but to make children learn Saxon or Welsh or Sanskrit words simply because an English word is akin to them is a waste of time and power, and this explaining of the vaguely understood by the totally unknown is a subversion of all educational methods. The teacher should exercise a wise discretion in the use of notes, and not disgust her class with Shakspere altogether, as is too often done, by forcing upon the children a mass of dry information which overloads their memories without bringing a ray of illumination with it.

Some care will be needed with young children reading their first play to see that they can really follow the story of it. The dramatic form is puzzling to them; the absence of descriptive matter, together with the constant change of scene, is apt to bewilder them, and it may be necessary to read the story to them in Lamb’s _Tales from Shakspere_, or some such form, before we launch into the play itself. With older pupils this will not be required. With them the kind of preparation we should give would be rather a very simple talk about those moral laws of which Shakspere is the inspired teacher. Children of sixteen years of age, or thereabouts, are easily interested in problems of character, and it is well to explain to them something of what we understand by character and how it may be built up or undermined, rousing their consciousness to realise what their own moral experience has been, so that they look into themselves for confirmation of the facts with which the plays deal. Having done this, however, we must avoid tacking any specific “moral” to a play. Shakspere teaches, like life, by indirection, and we have to consider his plays as pictures of life, not as tracts against particular vices.

In bringing before a class the characters of a play, we should first form a clear conception of them ourselves. Shakspere’s people are so complex that many different views can be taken of them, and no thoughtful estimate is without its value. But it is most important that no statement about a character should be unsupported by evidence from the text. Adherence to this rule will save the teacher from making fancy sketches of her own, and will also make her shun those little text-books which give catalogues of qualities attached to each name, bringing no image whatever before the mind, and destroying all true realisation of the character. We should not be satisfied until we have made the chief characters in the play we are reading so real to our children that they would recognise them if they met them in the street.

When we have clearly realised the characters we shall be able to see the drift and the force of the play, and to show our children how the persons develop and change under the stress of circumstances and according to the absolute decrees of the moral law. To convey this teaching, all steeped in poetry of the richest kind, should be the purpose of a Shakspere lesson; and the notes that are learnt should be subordinate to that end. Our work must not be less thorough than it usually is at present, but it may well be less pedantic.

The reading of a play usually takes up a course of lessons, so that it is impossible in this space to give notes on any particular one, but the same principles which guided us in our treatment of a simple ballad will hold good here, and in the study of such longer poems as may be chosen for the reading of our class. Here as there we must first secure clear understanding of the language, then we must realise the images called up by it, and lastly yield ourselves in intelligent self-surrender to the poet’s thought, not obtruding our own personality but letting him lead us where he will, feeling ourselves, and teaching our class to feel, a deep reverence for what he has to say to us.

The reading of prose may be treated in much the same way, bearing in mind the fact that the emotional element is less marked in prose, the appeal being rather to reason than to feeling. Such prose as has become a part of literature is, however, largely imaginative, and we have to teach the children not only to follow closely a train of reasoning and to criticise it, if need be, but also to appreciate the means by which the writer makes his thought vivid to us, what figures he uses, what light he flashes upon his subject. Some of Macaulay’s _Essays_, Addison’s _Essays_, _Rasselas_, and similar works may well be read at this stage for the sake of the training they give in the right use of language, the first element of literary cultivation.

[The most advanced stage--the study of the history of literature.]

The teaching of a period of the history of literature is a matter on which only broad general principles can be laid down. Children of fourteen to sixteen can hardly be expected to realise clearly differences in style or treatment, or to be able to write criticisms on the poets of the period. With them, it will be best to make them acquainted with the lives of the chief writers, as far as may be necessary, and then to let them read as much as they can of their works. We can teach them to love choice expressions, to recognise beauty of thought, to appreciate true imagination. They may not be able to say why they like these things, but they need not like them the less for that. With older pupils, capable of taking in general ideas as to the drift of thought in any particular age, the period to be studied should be set against its historic background, the first lessons being devoted to discussion of the stage of cultivation reached at the time, and the influences which had tended to produce it. For instance, a course on the Elizabethan period would require introductory lessons on the Renaissance as it affected England, on the Reformation in its bearing on education and freedom of thought, on the discovery of America and the spirit of adventure connected with it, and on the social and political conditions of the times. With clear conceptions on these points to start from, it will be easy to follow the art movement in poetry during the period, the growth of the drama, the development of prose writing in its various branches, and the students will be in possession of information which will help them to understand why Spenser, Shakspere, Bacon and our Authorised Version belong to that age and to no other. Then the chief authors should be read as far as possible at first hand, and the very cheap editions which are published of all our classics make it easy for the class to come provided with their own books. It will not be possible to read many of the longer works through with the class, but selection can be made of the choicest passages, and these can be linked together by a short analysis of the rest.

During this stage the sense of style should be carefully cultivated. Differences in style may be shown by comparing examples of the treatment of similar themes by different writers; for instance, in poetry, “Lycidas,” Gray’s “Elegy,” Adonaïs, and Thyrsis, might be studied with this aim, while in prose, selected essays of Bacon, Cowley, Addison and Lamb might be used in the same way. Taste must also be trained, and it should be made as catholic as possible; each author should be enjoyed for his own special excellence, Dryden for his vigour and common-sense, no less than Sir Thomas Browne for his “moth-like flitting” in intellectual twilight.

A suggestion for reading-courses adapted for girls of different ages is subjoined. It is not, and could not be, in any sense complete, but it may serve to help those who have not yet had much experience to estimate the character and scope of the reading that may be expected from children of various ages. Except in the case of the youngest children, the choice of books has been made so as to include prose and poetry of different epochs, and thus make the intellectual outlook wider than it could be if the reading were restricted to the works of one particular age. A girl who had read through the books mentioned in this course, or any drawn up on similar lines, would have a fair all-round acquaintance with the best kind of literature by the time she was eighteen.

Age.
10-12. _1st year._ Macaulay’s “Lays”; “Marmion”; Kingsley’s “Heroes”;
Keary’s “Heroes of Asgard”.

_2nd year._ “Evangeline” and “Hiawatha”; “Enoch Arden”;
“Ancient Mariner”; Lamb’s “Tales from Shakspere”;
“Ivanhoe”.

12-14. _1st year._ “Midsummer Night’s Dream”; “Lady of the Lake”;
“Deserted Village”; “Gulliver’s Travels”;
“Kenilworth”.

_2nd year._ “Merchant of Venice”; “Childe Harold”; “Morte
d’Arthur”; “Vicar of Wakefield”; Essays from the
“Spectator”.

14-16. _1st year._ “As You Like It”; “Henry V.”; Gray’s “Elegy”; “The
Princess”; “Esmond”; some of the “Essays of Elia”.

_2nd year._ “Faerie Queene,” book i.; “Julius Cæsar”; Milton’s
“Minor Poems”; Macaulay’s Essays on “Clive” and on
“Mme. d’Arblay”; Ruskin’s “Sesame and Lilies”.

16-18. _1st year._ “Macbeth”; “Paradise Lost,” books i. and ii.; “The
Holy Grail”; “Areopagitica”; Burke’s “Speeches on
America”.

_2nd year._ “Hamlet”; “Essay on Man”; “Selections from
Wordsworth”; Bacon’s “Essays”; “Rasselas”; Carlyle,
“The Hero as Poet and the Hero as Man of Letters”.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

By DOROTHEA BEALE.

The third division of Part I. has to do with man as subject, a person, self-conscious, related to other persons and to One All-embracing Personality in whom all live and move and have their being. I am to treat the subject from an intellectual point of view--religion, ethics, philosophy.

[Sphere of school instruction.]

No school, and especially no day-school for girls, is responsible for the whole of the religious education. The school is the link between infancy and mature life, between the home and the world, the secular and the spiritual. The school has to systematise instruction, and bring it to bear on the daily tasks, on the social life, on the developing character; to make the secular and religious life one organic whole.

We have to teach our pupils, so that they may _know_ the truth, _feel_ nobly, and hence _act_ rightly. We have to cultivate the power of thought by instruction, to purify the emotions by the teachings of history and poetry including the Bible and the utterances of heroic and saintly lives, to strengthen the character by the discipline of the mind, heart, will.

[Relation of dogmatics to ethics.]

Emotion and action must be the expression of an intelligent belief. “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him.” We ought to offer the noblest gifts we can--a “reasonable service,” a devotion of heart, which rests upon the truest conception we can form; in the highest of all subjects there should be that clearness of apprehension, that strong conviction, which is necessary, if any truth is to become a practical power. We are so made that we must, if we think at all, theorise, and our acts will depend on our theories; no student of history can doubt this. Our sanitarians have found that we may teach the poor about the value of cleanliness and fresh air, but not until they understand the breathing functions do they act upon it.

So in deeper things, it is ideas that govern the world. When the Apostle would teach the most practical truths of family life and social virtue, he began with the great doctrines of the indwelling Divine life, of our brotherhood in Christ, of our citizenship in a spiritual Kingdom, extending far beyond the regions of sense. We must found Christian teaching upon definite beliefs accepted and felt to be true by the highest reason. We must not be satisfied with cultivating the affections only. There must be something more than an “enthusiasm of humanity,” something which can embrace and fulfil it, else it will blaze up like a bonfire, but soon die down, smothered under the ashes of pessimism. None of our faculties can be isolated from the others; each acts and reacts on each, the thought stimulating emotion, emotions quickening thought, and the life acting and reacting upon both. Ethics springs from dogmatics.

What do we mean by religion? Our age has been fertile in definitions. May we not say it is the power by which we enter into conscious _personal_ relation with the One, the Eternal, the Father of all?

[Religion as related to science and philosophy.]

Though it may be truly said that all knowledge of Nature is knowledge of God, we feel that there is a difference between the teaching of science and the teaching of religion--a distinction between the knowledge of a thing, or an act, which we may know objectively, and the knowledge of a person whom we know subjectively. We might know all the movements of a machine, but we never speak of knowing a machine. It is possible to know the works of God, and not know Him. It is personal sympathetic knowledge which is the chief factor in the education of character--the humanities are educative in a different sense from mathematics and natural science. It is this personal relation to God with which religious teaching has to do; its true end is to draw us into sympathy with the All-Good.

Two things I would here insist on which are sometimes overlooked. 1st. The child knows persons before things, and in the earliest exercises of will-power, it is the will of another that rules his will. 2nd. Through obedience to the higher intelligence, and trust in the love of another, the child is enabled to acquire right habits.

Fröbel’s religious teaching is very beautiful, but he brings out less clearly than Rosmini the priority of the personal; if Nature speaks to a child of the All-Father, it is because he knows that all has to come to him through persons, it is only much later that forces can be hypostatised, and power, justice, spoken of apart from a person; though this is, as Lotze has specially insisted, as inconceivable as is quality without substance--attribute without subject.

[Piety in its double sense.]

First in the old sense of the word the child “worships” his parents and those to whom he looks up, he is miserable when he feels the displeasure of those with whom he is in sympathy, and their approbation is the sunshine of his soul; thus is he early led to think of the Father, to whom he and his parents owe all things, to whom they speak in prayer and whose unseen presence they feel.

Hymns then and prayers, which express the feelings of a child to a father, or the love to Jesus, and the desire to be like Him, are suitable; such as give rather the consciousness of a penitent reprobate, are sometimes heard at children’s missions, to the great sorrow of those who know how dangerous it is to play with the emotions and to excite terrors.

[Consciousness and self-consciousness.]

We must consider first that the conscious life is only gradually developed; perceptions must become apperceptions by the controlling power of attention; very gradual is the dawn of consciousness, marked as Rosmini thinks by the first smile. So too there is an epoch at which self-consciousness seems to awaken. Maurice and other philosophers have marked the dawn of it by the use of the personal pronoun.

The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that “this is I”:

But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of “I” and “me,”
And finds “I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch”.

So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
As thro’ the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined.

Then, as in teaching science or language we first awaken the powers of observation, and lead the child to reflect, so here, in the case of the self-conscious subject, we help the child to interpret the facts of the inner life as well as the outer.

Whilst recognising the danger of forcing the subjective in children, we ought in this, as in other things, to follow the guidance of nature, and surely our own experience, and that of most children, will show how much they are occupied with their own feelings, with the struggles of the higher to subdue the animal nature, and how through contest they are developing the will-power, which is the only safeguard of later life.

It is especially important early to correlate the subjective with the objective in early teaching. Surely much irreligion results in later life from the divorce of the two. As we guide the observing powers in the outward life, so as the power of reflection develops we should do with the inward life: the child is conscious of the pang which comes to all of us, when we act against conscience: that pang which makes our blood run cold, as we feel we have done wrong, is as much a fact of experience, as real, as the sensation of heat, when we touch hot iron. Would people grow up to deny the existence of the spiritual consciousness, if they had been led to question their own experience? A beautiful story is told by Parker and quoted by Armstrong.[22]

[22] _Man’s Knowledge of God._ Swift.

[Conscience.]

“When a little boy in my fourth year, my father took me to the farm and sent me home alone. I had to pass a pond. A rhodora attracted my attention. I saw a spotted tortoise sunning himself in the shallow water at the root of the flaming shrub. I lifted the stick I had, to strike; though I had never killed any creature, I had seen boys destroy birds, squirrels and the like, and felt a disposition to follow their wicked example. All at once something checked my little arm, and a voice within said clear and loud, ‘It is wrong’. I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the new emotion, the consciousness of an involuntary but inward check upon my action, till the tortoise and rhodora both vanished from my sight. I hastened home to mother and asked what it was that told me it was wrong. Taking me in her arms, she said: ‘Some men call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God. If you listen and obey it, it will speak clearer and clearer, but if you turn a deaf ear, it will at last leave you in the dark without a guide: your life depends on your obedience to its voice.’ No event in my life has made so deep and lasting an impression.”

[A witness for the spiritual, the universal.]

The fact that we cannot get rid of the consciousness of wrong, shows that there is a higher Self condemning the self, one other than ourselves; we must not force answers on the child, but we can bring into his consciousness the presence of the holy and righteous God. We may help to make clear and permanent in his consciousness the facts, which he will only later interpret--the conflict of the merely individual, the selfish life, with the larger, the all-embracing life of unselfish love.

We may appeal too to the experience of each child, who suffers punishment rather than disobey conscience. Such victories establish faith, convince us that we are more than creatures of time, that we are sons of God. Every true and self-denying act that a child is able to do is a ground of confidence; “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one”. Each time that the mere animal desires are subdued by the love of truth and righteousness, we prove that we transcend the things of time and space. These are the eternal things, which eye sees not and thought cannot conceive, and yet for the sake of these unseen and eternal things men live and die, and count all earthly things as nought. Do not the hearts of all children “burn within them” as we expound to them the Scriptures which tell of heroes who have done battle, who laid down their lives for righteousness’ sake, of Him who triumphed from the Cross? We can appeal too to the inward experience of those who are naughty; they do not in their inmost heart wish to be so, but they try and fail; nothing is more touching than the penitence of children, when they find that we have seen the good which is hidden, and not only the evil that comes forth--that we know, not only what is done, but what is resisted. We can, as in the old myths, show that their deliberate choice is not for selfish pleasure; they would if offered the things most delightful to the mere animal, refuse all, if they could have it only on condition of becoming wicked and cruel and deceitful. Hauff’s _Cold Heart_ is a beautiful story on the subject. Thus should we base healthy religious experiences upon facts, and foster habits of attention and obedience to the inward voice.

Right ambitions too should be fostered, the desire to enter into the Divine purposes in thought and word and deed, to be a fellow-worker with God. This will take more definite form in the later idealising period of life; still there will be developed sometimes at an early age earnest desires to become wise and good and to do some special work.

[Order of teaching.]

For objective formal teaching the little ones would begin with the stories of the world’s childhood. The lessons first given in a simple form will be expanded in the higher classes. The child who has learned to trust his father, will learn from Abraham’s sacrifice that we can trust God; the higher classes will see how by the frustration of his purpose Abraham learned the true meaning of sacrifice; the Psalms and Prophets will carry on the subjective teaching, and the words of the old prophets will become a fact of experience; “the word of the Lord came unto me”.

The inner meaning of the sacred myths which had once been told as a mere story will now be felt; the story of the flood as interpreted by St. Peter, and quoted in our baptismal service, the deliverance from the bondage in Egypt, typifying redemption from the slavery of sin, the New Testament teaching of the synoptical gospels, especially the parables, will have supreme educative power.

[Written work.]

It is essential that in this, as in other subjects, written exercises which require thought be set, and corrected and criticised--this is often the only subject in which pupils are not required to formulate their thoughts--hence there exists a vast amount of current religious phraseology to which no definite meaning is assigned; the words may be true in themselves, but not true for the person using them. An American writer tells of one who for years was a regular attendant at church, and often encouraged him by her attentive and responsive expression; when he came to know her later, he found to his surprise that she was as ignorant of the fundamental truths as if she had been brought up in a heathen land.

[Sceptical phases.]

The later period, that of ripening experience, of adolescence, will give the maximum of reflective, as the earliest childhood, the maximum of the sensitive power. As the mysteries of their own being are more and more unfolded, the problems of philosophy and metaphysics have an attraction which should not be disregarded: there is a desire to be alone; the young feel that they must work out the problems for themselves, and they resent the attempt to force on them other people’s solutions. They must question ere they can fully believe; we must never give utterance to the profane idea, that God is angry with those who make mistakes in seeking truth, only show that truth like light is a good, that we may not rest in an indolent agnosticism, for we cannot grow vigorous and strong out of the sunlight; we must encourage them, in this as in all studies, to be ever seeking a fuller knowledge of truth, to live by the truth they have attained, and then they will gain more and more, even through the mistakes. The function of the teacher now is as Socrates described it, to be ready to give help, when needed, to bring to the birth the great thoughts which oppress the soul.

[Need of leisure.]

Later the deep spiritual experiences of St. John and the arguments wherewith St. Paul convinced himself, will come home to the religious experience at least in some degree, and the words in which he describes the vision of God as seen from the spiritual heights, which he had reached in his later epistles. But there must be for the ripening of the character time for quiet, and the incessant activities of to-day, the filling up of every hour, the deprivation of quiet even on Sunday, are much to be regretted, and all educators should see that those who need time for spiritual thought, for working out the great questions which come to every thoughtful person, should not be deprived of it, because some would misuse it. There are two excellent articles in the _Pedagogical Review_ for July, 1891, on the “Psychology and Pedagogy of Adolescence,” by E. Lancaster, and another, a study in “Moral Education,” by J. Street, both Fellows of Clark University; the second article is especially emphatic on this subject.

[Systematic reading.]

In the highest classes, some systematic reading regarding the history and foundations of philosophy in general and Christian philosophy in particular should not, I think, be omitted: one cannot do better than begin with Plato; taking the _Apology_, the _Crito_ and parts of the _Phædo_, or the two volumes of selections by Professor Jowett, or some less expensive edition. The _Memorabilia_ of Xenophon is obtainable for 3d. Selections might be made from Aristotle’s _Ethics_, and some good history of philosophy be made accessible, _e.g._, Schwegler’s, edited by Dr. Hutchinson Stirling, which is not too long; and some such inspiring book as Fichte’s _Vocation of the Scholar_ may be recommended; other books I might mention, _e.g._, Henry Jones on Browning; Professor Frazer’s selection from Berkeley; Mackenzie’s _Social Philosophy_ and the series of small hand-books edited by Professor Knight. There might be meetings for discussion and reading under the presidency of one versed in such matters; this would give definiteness to thought, and would at least lead to the kind of wisdom which made the oracle pronounce Socrates the wisest of men; such meetings would be specially useful for the staff. Some effort should be made to establish the primary convictions which alone make life worth living, enable one to possess one’s soul in patience, live in the faith that each is working out the will of the All-Wise and All-Good--if willingly, then with the fullest joy and reward.

[Higher teaching.]

The subject is not ignored at the University Colleges of the States, and there is much of deep interest in the article to which I have referred, _viz._, “Psychology of Adolescence”. In an article by Caswell Ellis, the special training of teachers of religion is insisted on, and the establishment of professorships. “A department of pedagogy cannot be called complete that does not deal with this important part of its field. Religious training is as much a problem for the pedagogue, as is physical or mental training. Surely we cannot entirely separate them. We have already at our command in the Universities, many helps in the study of the Bible, of theology, of philosophy, of psychology, etc.; why cannot there be found some man of broad culture, wide sympathies, reverent spirit, to focalise these in a chair of religious pedagogy, or whatever it may be called? it would give the opportunity while in college to look at the larger phases of the problem of religious training. No subject is more vital, and our best men need not leave college ignorant of the problem or the possibility of its solution--and find in the decline of life that (as editors, preachers, etc.) they have been spending their energies on reformation, while the great work of formation was never considered.”

[Foundations of faith.]

The means of giving a thorough and systematic teaching regarding the strong foundations of faith, is one that should be considered by all educators. It is true that the emotions and affections are, as in the case of all personal relations, the appropriate means of intercommunion; but the religious life, if it is not to become weak and sentimental, needs the bracing power of intellectual study, and the Scriptures, especially the writings of St. John and St. Paul, afford such exercise.

I may perhaps summarise the lines on which the grounds of a rational faith seem to be established, and which should surely be formulated, as we formulate the principles on which we base our faith in matters of science. They may be arranged under two heads--objective and subjective:--

1. Sense compels us to recognise the existence of a universe, to which we can set no bounds of _space_ or _time_. We find everywhere at work forces adapted to produce results immeasurably greater, yet similar in character, to those produced by our own exercise of thought and will; we are unable to conceive of either except as ultimately proceeding from a personal mind and will.

Since our mind interprets the phenomena of sense, which is the language of Nature; since the intelligent mind is related to an intelligible universe, the finite mind must be related to the infinite, man must be the child of God.

The facts of history show us man in all ages renouncing all that the animal craves for, for the sake of the ideal, the transcendent.

2. Man is self-conscious, he can become an object to himself; that he can do this proves him to have a dual nature. The higher sits in judgment on the lower, or animal nature (identified with the individual), seeks to bring it into obedience to the universal. Since we can identify conscience with the universal mind and will, we infer that we are on the one side in communion with God, as on the other with the universe.

Man has the power of sympathy. As we cannot conceive of light without postulating an all-comprehending æther, through which all things are related, so the fact that we are affected, actually feel physically and mentally with others, is inconceivable without postulating one all-embracing Personality.

The faith that good must ultimately triumph is an axiom of the moral life; we find it impossible to believe the reverse.

These are some of the broad bases on which rest the Christian dogmas of the relation of man to God the All-Father, which tell of a perfect Son, and of the power given to all to rise through grace into the spiritual life.

I have dwelt on the subject at some length, because it seems to me that the intellectual relation to God has been too much ignored; we should love with the mind as well as with the heart; with the developing of the physical and psychical life, the soul craves to root itself more firmly on the consciousness of the universal, it desires to be at one with the All-Wise and the All-Good Father of spirits to work out the purpose of its own existence. It seeks to be in harmony with all who are living by the highest ideal; hence the impulse to work in associations, specially in the spiritual life, for life must overflow into action! It seeks evermore to be at one in its being, and to bring the individual self into harmony with the all-embracing Spirit in whom we are one.

I may recommend to teachers the recently published volume on _Religious Teaching in Schools_, by Dr. Bell of Marlborough.