' "-?! 0^^ V a\^ .N^^ ^. »o^ ,0o , V .■^- o^^ OO^ ■.A'^ v\^" 'ct cj -p. .^^' ,v^ % .^ -^ o A '^ x""^-^ o> X^ ci-- .0- 'V .<^- % ^. c^^' ^v^^^r^ .^^ '■^ ESSAYS ON EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS BY ROBERT HEBERT QUICK M. A. TRIN. COLL., CAMBRIDGE FOK.V.ER!,Y ASSISTANT MASTER AT HARROW, AND LECTURER ON THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION AT CAMBRIDGE LATE VICAR OF SEDBERGH OMY AUrHORlZED EDITION OF THE WORK AS REWRITTEN IN iSoo NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1896 Copyright, 1890, By D. APPLETON ANB COMPANY. Gift from Mrs. Ed war b N. Dlnglay Jury 11 1932 To DR. HENRY BARNARD, The first United States Co7mnissioner of Education, WHO IN A LONG LIFE OF SELF-SACRIFICING LABOUR HAS GIVEN TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AN EDUCATIONAL LITERATURE, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, WITH THE ESTEEM AND ADMIRATION OF THE AUTHOR. Ov yap t(TTt jrepi otov dciorepov avBpamos av dovKevaaiTo, ij Ttffii nM^eias Koi rav avTOV Kai rayv olKfiav. Plato in initio Thcagis (p. 122 B). Socrates saith plainlie, that " no man goeth about a more godlie purpose, than he that is mindfull of the good bringing up both of hys owne and other men's children." — Ascha77i^s Scholemaster. Preface. Futidamenfum totius reipiihlic(F est recta jiiventutis educatio. The very foundation of the whole commonwealth is the proper bringing up of the young. — Cic. EDITOR'S PREFACE. Many years ago I proposed to my friend Mr. Quick to rewrite his Educational Reformers, making some addi- tions (Sturm and Froebel,'for example), and allow me to place it in this series of educational works. I had read his essays when they first appeared, and noted their great value as a contribution to the right kind of educational literature. They showed admirable tact in the selection of the materials ; the " epoch-making " writers were chosen and the things that had been said and done of permanent value were brought forward. Better than all was the run- ning commentary on these materials by Mr. Quick him- self. His style was popular, taking the reader, as it were, into confidential relations with him from the start, and offering now and then a word of criticism in the most judicial spirit, leaning neither to the extreme of destruc- tive radicalism, which seeks revolution rather than reform, nor, on the other hand, to the extreme of blind conserva- tism, which wishes to preserve the vesture of the past rather than its wisdom. I have called this book of Mr. Quick the most valu- able history of education in our mother-tongue, fit only to be compared with Karl von Raumer's Geschichte der Padagogik for its presentation of essentials and for the sanity of its verdicts. Vlli EDITOR S PREFACE. I made my proposal that he " rewrite " his book be- cause I knew that he considered his first edition hastily written and, in many respects, not adequate to the ideal he had conceived of the book. I knew, moreover, that years of continued thinking on a theme necessarily modi- fies one's views. He would wish to make some changes in matter presented, some in judgments rendered, and many more in style of presentation. Hence it has come about that after this lapse of time Mr. Quick has produced a substantially new book, which, retaining all or nearly all of the admirable features of the first edition, has brought up to their standard of excellence many others. The history of education is a vast field, and we are accustomed to demand bulky treatises as the only ade- quate ones. But the obvious disadvantage of such works has led to the clearly defined ideal of a book like Mr. Quick's, which separates the gold from the dross, and offers it small in bulk but precious in value. The educational reformers are the men above all others who stimulate us to think about education. Every one of these was an extremist, and erred in his judgment as to the value of the methods which prevailed in his time, and also overestimated the effects of the new education that he proposed in the place of the old. But thought begins with negations, and originality shows itself first not in creating something new, but in removing the fetter- ing limitations of its existing environment. The old is attacked— its good and its bad are condemned alike. It has been imposed on us by authority, and we have not been allowed to summon it before the bar of our reason and ask of it its credentials. It informs us that it pre- sented these credentials ages ago to our ancestors — men EDITOR'S PREFACE. IX older and wiser than we are. Such imposition of author- ity leaves us no choice but to revolt. We, too, have a right to think as well as our ancestors ; we, too, must clear up the ground of our belief and substitute insight for blind faith in tradition. These educational reformers are prophets of the clear- ing-up period {Aufkldrung) of revolution against mere authority. While we are inspired to think for ourselves, however, we must not neglect that more important matter of think- ing the truth. Free thinking, if it does not reach the truth, is not of great value. It sets itself as puny indi- vidual against the might of the race, which preserves its experience in the forms of institutions — the family, the social organism, the state, the Church. Hence our wiser and more scientific method studies everything that is, or exists, in its history, and endeavors to discover how it came to be what it is. It inquires into its evolution. The essential truth is not the present fact, but the entire process by which the present fact grew to be what it is. For the living force that made the present fact made also the past facts antecedent to the present, and it will go on making subsequent facts. The revela- tion of the living forces which make the facts of exist- ence is the object of science. It takes all these facts to reveal the living force that is acting and producing them. Hence the scientific attitude is superior to the attitude of these educational reformers, and we shall in our own minds weigh these men in our scales, asking first of all : What is their view of the world } How much do they value human institutions? How much do they know of the substantial good that is wrought by those institutions ? If they know nothing of these things, if they see only in- X EDITOR S PREFACE. cumbrance in these institutions, if to them the individual is the measure of all things, we can not do reverence to their proposed remedies, but must account their value to us chiefly this, that they have stimulated us to thinking, and helped us to discover what they have not discovered — namely, the positive value of institutions. All education deals with the boundary between igno- rance and knowledge and between bad habits and good ones. The pupil as pupil brings with him the ignorance and the bad habits, and is engaged in acquiring good habits and correct knowledge. This situation gives us a general recipe for a frequently recurring type of educational reformer. Any would-be reformer may take his stand on the boundary mentioned, and, casting an angry look at the realm of ignorance and bad habit not yet conquered, condemn in wholesale terms the system of education that has not been efficient in re- moving this mental and moral darkness. Such a reformer selects an examination paper written by a pupil whose ignorance is not yet vanquished, and parades the same as a product of the work of the school, taking great pains to avoid an accurate and just admeas- urement of the actual work done by the school. The reformer critic assumes that there is one factor here, whereas there are three factors — namely, (a) the pupil's native and acquired powers of learning, (3) his actual knowledge acquired, and {c) the instruction given by the school. The school is not responsible for the first and second of these factors, but it is responsible only for what increment has grown under its tutelage. How much and what has the pupil increased his knowledge, and how much his power of acquiring knowledge and of doing? The educational reformer is always telling us to leave EDITOR S PREFACE. XI words and take up things. He dissuades from the study of language, and also undervalues the knowledge of man- ners and customs and laws and usages. He dislikes the study of institutions even. He " loves Nature," as he in- forms us. Herbert Spencer wants us to study the body, and to be more interested in biology than in formal logic ; more interested in natural history than in literature. But I think he would be indignant if one were to ask him whether he thought the study of the habits and social in- stincts of bees and ants is less important than the study of insect anatomy and physiology. Anatomy and physi- ology are, of course, important, but the social organism is more important than the physiological organism, even in bees and ants. So in man the social organism is transcendent as com- pared with human physiology, and social hygiene com- pared with physiological hygiene is supreme. To suppose that the habits of plants and insects are facts, and that the structure of human languages, the logi- cal structure of the mind itself as revealed in the figures and modes of the syllogism and the manners and customs of social life, the deep ethical principles which govern peoples as revealed in works of literature — to suppose that these and the like of these are not real facts and worthy of study is one of the strangest delusions that has ever prevailed. But it is a worse delusion to suppose that the study of Nature is more practical than the study of man, though this is often enough claimed by the educational reformers. The knowledge of most worth is first and foremost the knowledge of how to behave — a knowledge of social cus- toms and usages. Any person totally ignorant in this regard would not escape imprisonment — perhaps I should Xll EDITOR S PREFACE. say decapitation — for one day in any city of the world — say in London, in Pekin, in Timbuctoo, or in 2,pueblo of Arizona. A knowledge of human customs and usages, next a knowledge of human views of Nature and man — these are of primordial necessity to an individual, and are means of direct self-preservation. The old trivium or threefold course of study at the university taught grammar, logic, and rhetoric — namely, (i) the structure of language, (2) the structure of mind and the art of reasoning, (3) the principles and art of per- suasion. These may be seen at once to be lofty subjects and worthy objects of science. They will always remain such, but they are not easy for the child. In the course of mastering them he must learn to master himself and gain great intellectual stature. Pedagogy has wisely graded the road to these heights, and placed much easier studies at the beginning and also made the studies more various. Improvements in methods and in grading — de- vices for interesting the pupil — so essential to his self- activity, for these we have to thank the Educational Re- formers. W. T. Harris. Washington, D. C, 1890. PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1868. " // is clear that in whatever it is our duty to act, thosi matters also it is our duty to study" These words of Dr. Arnold's seem to me incontrovertible. So a sense of duty, as well as fondness for the subject, has led me to devote a period of leisure to the study of Education, in the practice of which I have been for some years engaged. There are countries where it would be considered a truism that a teacher in order to exercise his profession intelligently should know something about the chief authorities in it. Here, however, I suppose such an assertion will seem para- doxical ; but there is a good deal to be said in defence of it. De Quincey has pointed out that a man who takes up any pursuit without knowing what advances others have made, in it works at a great disadvantage. He does not apply his strength in the right direction, he troubles him- self about small matters and neglects great, he falls into errors that have long since been exploded. An educator is, I think, liable to these dangers if he brings to his task no knowledge but that which he learnt for the tripos, and no skill but that which he acquired in the cricket ground or on the river. If his pupils are placed entirely in his hands, his work is one of great difficulty, with heavy penalties at- tached to all blundering in it ; though here, as in the case XIV PREFACE. of ihe ignorant doctor and the careless architect, the penalties, unfortunately, are paid by his victims. If (as more commonly happens) he has simply to give a class pre- scribed instruction, his smaller scope of action limits proportionally the mischief that may ensue ; but even then it is obviously desirable that his teaching should be as good as possible, and he is not likely to employ the best methods if he invents as he goes along, or simply falls back on his remembrance of how he was taught himself, perhaps in very different circumstances. I venture to think, therefore, that practical men in education, as in most other things, may derive benefit from the knowledge of what has already been said and done by the leading men engaged in it, both past and present. All study of this kind, however, is very much impeded by want of books. " Good books are in German," says Professor Seeley. I have found that on the history of Education, not only good books but all books are in German or some other foreign language.* I have, therefore, thought it worth while to publish a few such imperfect sketches as these, with which • When the greater part of this volume was already written, Mr. Parker published his sketch of the history of Classical Education ^Essays on a Liberal Education, edited by Farrar). He seems to me fo 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, 1S67). Here we have a good deal of information which we want, and also, it seems to me, a good deal which we do not want. The work characteristically opens with a loth 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 oj Education (1867). [I did not then know of Dr. Barnard's works.] PREFACE. XV the reader can hardly be less satisfied than the author. They may, however, prove useful till they give place to a t>etter book. Several of the following essays are nothing more than compilations. Indeed, a hostile critic might assert that I had used the scissors with the energy of Mr. Timbs and without his discretion. The reader, however, will probably agree with me that I have done wisely in putting before him the opinions of great writers in their own language. Where I am simply acting as reporter, the author's own way of ex- pressing himself is obviously the best ; and if, following the example of the gipsies and Sir Fretful Plagiary, I had dis- figured other people's offspring to make them pass for my own^ success would have been fatal to the purpose I have steadily kept in view. The sources of original ideas in any subject, as the student is well aware, are few, but for irriga- tion we require troughs as well as water-springs, and these essaj's are intended to serve in the humbler capacity. A word about the incomplete handling of my subjects. I have not attempted to treat any subject completely, or even with anything like completeness. In giving a sketch of the opinions of an author one of two methods must be adopted ; we may give an epitome of all that he has said, or by con- fining ourselves to his more valuable and characteristic opinions, may gain space to give these fully. As I detest epitomes, I have adopted the latter method exclusively, but I may sometimes have failed in selecting an author's most characteristic principles ; and probably no two readers of a book would entirely agree as to what was most valuable in it : so my account must remain, after all, but a poor substi- tute for the author himself. For the part of a critic I have at least one qualification — practical acquaintance with the subject. As boy or master, XVI PREFACE. I have been connected with no less than eleven schools, and my perception of the blunders of other teachers is derived mainly from the remembrance of my own. Some of my mistakes have been brought home to me by reading works on education, even those with which I do not in the main agree. Perhaps there are teachers who on looking through the following pages may meet with a similar ex perience. Had the essays been written in the order in which they stand, a good deal of repetition might have been avoided, but this repetition has at least the advantage of bringing out points which seem to me important ; and as no one will read the book as carefully as I have done, I hope no one will be so much alive to this and other blemishes in it. I much regret that in a work which is nothing if it is not practically useful, I have so often neglected to mark the exact place from which quotations are taken. I have myself paid the penally of this carelessness in the trouble it has cost me to verify passages which seemed inaccurate. The authority I have had recourse to most frequently is Raumer {fieschichte der Pddagogik). In his first two volumes he gives an account of the chief men connected with educa- tion, from Dante to Pestalozzi. The third volume con- tains essays on various parts of education, and the fourth is devoted to German Universities. There is an English translation, published in America, of the fourth volume only. I confess to a great partiality for Raumer — a par tiality which is not shared by a Saturday Reviewer and by other competent authorities in this country. But surely a German author who is not profound, and is almost per- spicuous, has some claim on the gratitude of English readers, if he gives information which we cannot get in our own language. To Raumer I am indebted for all that I have PREFACE. XVH written about Ratke, and almost all about Basedow. Else- wliere his history has been used, though not to the same extent. C. A. Schmid's EncycJopddie des Erziehungs-und-Unter- riihtswesens is a vast mine of information on everything connected with education. The work is still in progress. The part containing Rousseau has only just reached me. I should have been glad of it when I was giving an account of the Emile, as Raumer was of little use to me. Those for whom Schmid is too diffuse and expensive will find Carl Gottlob Hergang's Pddagogische Reah7icydopddie useful. This is in two thick volumes, and costs, to the best of my memory, about eighteen shillings. It was finished in 1847. The best sketch I have met with of the general history of education is in the article on Pddagogik in Meyers Conversa- tions-Lexicon* I wish someone would translate this article ; and I should be glad to draw the attention of the editor of an educational periodical, say the Museum or the Quarterly Journal of Education^ to it. I have come upon references to many other works on the history of Education, but of these the only ones 1 have seen are Theodore Fritz's Esquisse d'un Systtme complet d'instruc- tion et d' education et de leur histoire (3 vols., Strasburg, 1843), and Carl Schmidt's Geschichte der Pddagogik (4 vols.). The first of these gives only the outline of the subject. The second is, I believe, considered a standard work. It does not seem to me so readable as Raumer's history, but it is much more complete, and comes down to quite recent times. For my account of the Jesuit schools and of Pestalozzi, • This article is omitted in the last edition. -^Vlll PREFACE. the authorities will be found elsewhere (pp. 34 and 383). In writing about Comenius I have had much assistance from a life of him prefixed to an English translation of his School of Infancy, by Daniel Benham (London, 1858). For almost all the information given about Jacotot, I am indebted to Mr. Payne's papers, which J should not have ventured to extract from so freely if they had been before the public in a more permanent form. I am sorry I cannot refer to any English works on the history of Education, except the essays of Mr. Parker and Mr. Furnivall, and Christian Schools and Scholars, which are mentioned above, but we have a very good treatise on the principles of education in Marcel's Latiguage as a Means of Mental Culture (2 vols., London, 1853). Edgeworth's Practical Education seems falling into undeserved neglect, and Mr. Spencer's recent work is not universally known even by schoolmasters. If the following pages attract but few readers, it will be some consolation, though rather a melancholy one, that I share the fate of my betters. R. H. Q. Ingatestone, Essex, May, 1S68. PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1890. When I was a young man (z. e., nearly forty years ago), I once did what those who know the ground would declare a very risky, indeed, a fool-hardy thing. I was at the highest point of the Gemmi Pass in Switzerland, above the PREFACE. XIX Rhone Valley ; and being in a hurry to get down and overtake my party I ran from the top to the bottom. The path in those days was not so good as it is now, and it is so near the precipice that a few years afterwards a lady in descending lost her head and fell over. No doubt I was in great danger of a drop of a thousand feet or so. But of tais I was totally unconscious. I was in a thick mist, and saw the path for a few yards in front of me and nothing fnore. When I think of the way in which this book was written three and twenty years ago I can compare it to nothing 'but my first descent of the Gemmi. I did a very risky thing without knowing it. My path came into view little by little as I went on. All else was hid from me by a thick mist of ignorance. When I began the book I knew next to nothing of the Re- formers, but I studied hard and wrote hard, and I turned out the essays within the year. This feat I now regard with amaze- ment, almost with horror. Since that time I have given more years of work to the subject than I had then given months, and the consequence is I find I can write fast no longer. The mist has in a measure cleared off, and I cannot jog along in comfort as I did when I saw less. At the same time I have no reason to repent of the adventure. Being fortunate in my plan and thoroughly interested by my subject, I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations in getting others to take an interest in it also. The small English edition of 500 copies was, as soon as I reduced the price, sold off immediately, and the book has been, in England, for twenty ) ears " out of print." But no less than three publishing firms in the United States have reprinted it (one quite recently) without my consent, and, except in the edition of Messrs. R. Clarke & Co., Cincinnati, with omissions and additions made without my knowledge. It seems then that the book will live for some years yet, XX PREFACE. whether I like it or not ; and while it lives I wish it to be in a form somewhat less defective than at its first appearance. I have therefore in a great measure re-written it, besides filling in a gap here and there with an additional essay. Perhaps some critics will call it a new book with an old title. If they do, they will I trust allow that the new book has at least two merits which went far to secure the success of the old, ist, a good title, and 2nd, a good plan. My plan in both editions has been to select a few people who seemed specially worth knowing about, and to tell con- cerning them in some detail just that which seemed to me specially worth knowing. So I have given what I thought very valuable or very interesting, and everything I thought not particularly valuable or interesting I have ruthlessly omitted. I have not attempted a complete account of any- body or anything ; and as for what the examiner may " set," I have not once given his questions a thought. As the book is Ukely to have more readers in the country of its adoption than m the country of its birth, I have per- suaded my friend Dr. William T. Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education, to put it into " The International Education Series " which he edits. So the only authorized editions of the book are the Eng- lish edition, and the American edition published by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. R. II. Q. Earlswood Cottage, Redhill, Surrey, England, 28th July, iSgo. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGB Chapter I.— Effects of the Renascence .« .« .^ 1-21 No escape from the Past ... ... ... ... ... 2 " Discovery " of the Classics ... ... ... ... 3 Mark Pattison's account of Renascence ... ... ... 4 Revival of taste for beauty in Literature ... ... ... 5 What is Literature ? ... ... ... ' ... ... ... 6 Renascence loved beauty of expression ... ... ... 7 No translations. The " educated " ... ... ... ... 8 Spread of literature by printing ... ... ... ... 9 School course settled before Bacon ... ... ... ... 10 First defect : Learner above Doer... ... ... ... il Second: Over-estimate of literature ... ... ... ... 12 Literary taste not common ... ... ... ... ... 13 Third : Literature banished from school ... ... ... 14 Translations would be literature ... ... ... ... 15 The classics not written for children 16 Language versus Literature.. ... ... ... ... 17 Fourth : " Miss as good as a mile .« 18 Fifth: Neglect of children 19 Child's study of his surroundings 20 Aut Caesar aut nihil ... ... ... ... ... ... 21 Chapter IL — Renascence Tendencies ...22-26 Reviving the Past. The Scholars ... ... .« ... 23 The Sc/io/ars : things for words ... .„ ... ... 24 Verbal Realists : things through words ... ... ... 25 Stylists: words for themselves... ... ... ... ... 26 Chapter IIL— Sturmius. (1507-1589) .., ... ... 27-32 His early life. Settles in Strassburg ... .„ .„ ... 28 His course of Latin. Dismissed 29 xxu CONTENTS. Chapter III — continued. pack The Schoolmaster taught Latin mainly .„ .„ ... 30 Resulting verbalism ... ... ... .., ... ... 31 Some books about Sturm ... ... ... ... ... 32 Chapter IV.— Schools of the Jesuits ... .^ ... 33-62 Importance of the Jesuit Schools ... ... ... ... 34 The Society in part educational ... ... ... ... 35 " Ratio atque Institutio." Societas Professa... ,.., ... 36 The Jesuit teacher : his preparation, &c. ... ... ,». 37 Supervision. Maintenance. Lower Schools... ... ... 38 Free instruction. Equality. Boarders ... ... ... 39 Classes. Curriculum. Latin only used ... ... ... 40 Teacher Lectured. Exercises. Saying by heart ... 41 Emulation. ".(Em^li." Concertations 42 "Academies." Expedients. School -hours ... .v. 43 Method of teaching. An example ... ... ... ... 44 Attention. Extra work. "Repetitio" ... ... ... 45 Repetition. Thoroughness ... ... ... ... ... 46 Yearly examinations. Moral training ... ... ... 47 Care of health. Punishments ... ... ... ... ... 48 - English want of system ... ... ... ... ... 49 Jesuit limitations ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 50 Gains from memorizing ... ... ... ... ... 51 Popularity. Kindness ... ... ... ... ... ... 52 Sympathy with each pupil ... ... ... ... ... 53 Work moderate in amount and difficulty ... ... ... 54 The Society the Army of the Church ... ... ... 55 Their pedagogy not disinterested ... ... ... ... 56 Practical ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 57 The forces : i. Master's influence. 2. Emulation 57-58 A pupil's summing-up ... ... ... ... ... 59 Some books ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 60 Barbier's advice to new master ... ... ... ... 61 Loyola and Montaigne. Port-Royal ... ... 62 Chapter V.— Rabelais. (1483-1553.) 63-69 Rabelais' ideal. A new start ... ... ... ... ... 64 Religion. Study of Things... ... ... ... ... 65 " Anschauung. " Hand-work. Books and Life ... .» 66 CONTENTS. xxiii Chapter V— continued. page Training the body .^ .^ .«. ... 67 Rabelais' Curriculum 68 Study of Scripture. Piety 69 Chapter VI.— Montaigne. (i533-i592.) • ...7o-79 Writers and doers. Montaigne versus Renascence .„. "]! Character before knowledge. True knowledge ... ... 72 Athens and Sparta. Wisdom before knowledge ... ... 73 Knowing, and knowing by heart 74 Learning necessary as employment... ... ... ... 75 Montaigae and our Public Schools ... ... ... ... 7^ Pressure from Science and Examinations .► 77 Danger from knowledge 7^ Montaigne and Lord Armstrong 79 Chapter Vn.—Ascham. (1515-1568.) 80-89 Wolsey on teaching ... ... ... ... ... ... 81 History of Methods useful .„ 82 Our three celebrities 83 Ascham's method for Latin : first stage ... ... ... 84 Second stage. The six points ... ... ... .». 85 Value of double translating and writing ... ... ... 86 Study of a model book. Queen Elizabeth ... ... 87, 88 " A dozen times at the least " ... ... ... ... ... 88 " Impressionists " and " Retainers " ... ... «. 89 Chapter VIII. — Mulcaster. (i53i(?)-i6ii.) ... .^ 90-102 Old books in English on education ... ... ,♦, 91 Mulcaster's wisdom hidden by his style 92 Education and " learning " , ». 93 I. Development. 2. Child-study ... ... ... ... 94 3. Groundwork by best workman ... ... ... ... 95 4. No forcing of young plants ... .„ 96 5. The elementary course. English ... ... ... 97 6. Girls as well as Boys ... ... ... ... ... 98 7. Training of Teachers ... ... ... ... ... 99 Training college at the Universities ... ... 100 Mulcaster's reasons for training teachers ... ... ... loi Mulcaster's Life and Writings ... .» m. ... ... 103 XXIV CONTENTS. Chapter IX.— Ratichius. (1571-1635.) Principles of the Innovators ... ... .« Ratke's Address to the Diet... .^ .. At Augsburg. At Koethen ... m. ... Failure at Koethen German in the school. Ratichius's services ... I. Follow Nature. 2. One thing at a time 3. Over and over again ... 4. Everything through the motber-tongue... 5. Nothing on compulsion 6. Nothing to be learnt by heart 7. Uniformity. 8. Ne modus rei ante rem ... 9. Per inductionem omnia Ratke's method for language Ratke's method and Ascham's Slow progress in methods ... Chapter X.— Comenius. (1592-1671,) ^ Early years. His first book Troubles. Exile Pedagogic studies at Leszna Didactic written. Janua published. Pansophy. Samuel Hartlib 1\i^ Prodromus 7m^ Dilucidatio Comenius in London. Parliamentary schemes Comenius driven away by Civil War In Sweden. Interviews with Oxenstiem Oxenstiern criticises ... Comenius at Elbing At Leszna again Saros-Patak. Flight from Leszna Last years at Amsterdam Comenius sought true foundation Threefold life. Seeds of learning, virtue, piety Omnia sponte fluant. Analogies Analogies of growth ... ... ... ... Senses. Foster desire of knowledge No punishments. Words and Things together . Languages. System of schools... .«, .« CONTENTS. XXV Chapter X — continued. Mother-tongue School. Girls ... School teaching. Mother's teaching ... Ojmenius and the Kindergarten Starting-points of the sciences Beginnings in Geography, History, &c. . Drawing. Education for all Scientific and Religious Agreement Bishop Buller on Educating the Poor ... Comenius and Bacon " Everything Through the Senses " Error of Neglecting the Senses Insufficiency of the Senses ... ... Comenius undervalued the Past ... Literature and Science ... Comenius's use of Analogies Thought-studies and Label-studies Unity of Knowledges Theory and the Practical Man ... Mother-tongue. Words and Things together Janua Linguarum The Jesuits' Janua ... Comenius adapts Jesuits' Janua Anchoran's edition of Comenius's Janua . Change to be made by Janua ... Popularity of Janua shortlived Lubinus projector of Orbis Pictus ... Orbis Pictus described Why Comenius's schoolbooks failed ... " Compendia Dispendia " ... Comenius and Science of Education ... Books on Comenius ... Chaptet XI.— The Gentlemen of Port-Royal The Jesuits and the Arnaulds Saint-Cyran and Port-Royal ... Saint-Cyran an " Evangelical " .„ Shoi-t career of the Little Schools Saint-Cyran and Locke on Public Schools Shadow-side of Public Schools , PAGE 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 .. 162 163 164 165 ... 166 167 168 169 170 171 171-196 173 .- 174 175 176 177 ... 178 XXVI CONTENTS. Chapter XI — continued. The Little Schools for the few only «. « Advantages of great schools Choice of masters and servants. Watch and pray No rivalry or pressure. Freedom from routine Study a delight. Reading French first Literature. Mother-tongue first Beginners' difficulties lightened Begin with Latin into Mother- tongue ... Sense before sound. Reason must rule Not Baconian. The body despised Pedagogic writings of Port- Royalists Amauld. Nicole Light from within. Teach by the Senses Best teaching escapes common tests Stud}'ing impossible without a will... Against making beginnings bitter Port- Royal advance. Books on Port-Royal Rollin, Compayre, &c. ... Chapter XIL — Some English Writers before Birth of Realism Realist Leaders not schoolmasters ... John Brinsley. Charles Hoole... Hoole's Realism Art of teaching. Abraham Cowley Authors and schoolmasters. J. Dury Disorderly use of our natural faculties ... Dury's watch simile Senses, ist ; imagination, 2nd ; memory, 3rd Patty's battlefield simile Petty's realism Cultivate observation ... Petty on children's activities Iland-work. Education for all. Bellers... Milton and School-Reform Milton as spokesman of Christian Realists Language an instnnnent. Object of education Milton for barrack life and Verbal Realism Milton succeeded as man not master ... .« Locke CONTENTS. XXVll Chapter "Xll— continued. He did not advance Science of Education... Milton an educator of mankind ... -^ Chapter XIII. — Locke. (1632-1704.) Locke's two main characteristics 1st, Truth for itself. 2nd, Reason for Truth Locke's definition of knowledge Knowing without seeing *' Discentem credere oporlet " ... Locke's " Knowledge " and the schoolmaster's " Ivnowledge " in Geography ... For children, health and habits Everything educative forms habits Confusion about special cases. Wax Locke behind Comenius... Humanists, Realists, and Trainers... Caution against classifiers Locke and development Was Locke a utilitarian ? Utilitarianism defined Locke not utilitarian in education Locke's Pisgah Vision Science and education. Names of books Chapter XIV. — Jean- Jacques Rousseau. (1712 Middle Age system fell in i8th century Do the opposite to the usual Family life. No education before reason Rousseau "neglects" essentials. Lose time Early education negative Childhood the sleep of reason Start from study of the child Rousseau's paradoxes un-English ... Man the corrupter. The three educations The aim, living thoroughly ... Cliildren not small men... Schoolmasters' contempt for childhood Schoolroom rubbish ... .^ ... ... PAGE 217 218 ... 219-238 220 221 ... 222 223 224 =25 226 227 228 229 ... 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 -1778.)... 239-272 240 241 242 243 24+ 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 xxvill CONTENTS. Chapter XW—contimied. Ideas before symbols... ... ... ... Right ideas for children ... ... ... Child -gardening. Child's activity ... No sitting still or reading Memory without books ... ... Use of the senses in childhood ... .►. Intellect based on the senses ... Cultivation of the senses... Music and drawing ... Drawing from objects. Morals Contradictory statements on morals The material world and the moral Shun over-directing ... Lessons out of school. Questioning. At 12. No book-learning. Study of nature Against didactic teaching Rousseau exaggerates about self-teaching ,.. Learn with effort .. . Hand-work. The " New Education " The Teacher's business ... Chapter XV.— Basedow and the Philanthropinum ... 273-289 Basedow tries to mend religion and teaching... ... ... 274 Reform needed. Subscription for " Elementary " ., 275 A journey with Goethe ... ... ... ... ... ... 276 Goethe on Basedow ... ... ... ... ... ... 277 The Philanthropinum opened ... ... ... ... ... 278 Basedow's " Elementary " and " Book of Method " ... 279 Subjects to be taught ... ... ... ... ... ... 280 French and Latin. Religion ... ... ... ... 281 *' Fred's Journey to Dessau " ... ... ... ... ... 282 At the Philanthropinum ... ... ... ... ... 283 Methods in the Philanthropinum ... ... ... ... 284 The Philanthropinum criticised ... ... ... ... 285 Basedow's improvements in teaching children ... ... 286 Basedow's successors ... ... ... ... ... 2S7 Kant on the Philanthropinum ... ... ... 288 Influence of Philanthropinists .^ 289 CONTENTS. XXIX PAGE Chapter XVI.— Pestalozzi. (1746-1827.) ._ .^ 290-3S3 His childhood and student-liie ... ... .... ... 291 A Radical Student ... ... ... ... ... ... 292 Turns farmer. Bluntschli's warning ... ... ... 293 New ideas in farming. A ICve letter ... ... ... ... 294 Resolutions. Buys land and marries ... ... ... 295 Pestalozzi turns to education ... ... ... ... ... 296 Neuhof filled with children ... ... ... ... ... 297 Appeal for the new Institution ... ... ... ... ... 298 Bankruptcy. The children sent away ... ... ... 299 Eighteen years of poverty and distress... ... ... ... 300 " Gertrude " to the rescue. Pestalozzi's religion ... 301 He turns author. " E. H. of Hermit " ... ... ... 302 Pestalozzi's belief ... ... ... ... .» ... 303 The " Hermit " a Christian ... ... ... ... ... 304 Success of " Leonard and Gertrude " ... ... ... 305 Gertrude's patience tried ... ... ... ... ... 306 Being and doing before knowing ... ... ... ... 307 Pestalozzi's severity. Women Commissioners ... ... 308 Pestalozzi's seven years of authorship ... ... ... 309 " Citizen of French Republic." Doubts ... ... ... 310 Waiting. Pestalozzi's " Inquiry " 311 Pestalozzi's " Fables " 312 Pestalozzi's own principles ... ... ... ... ... 313 Pestalozzi's return to action ... ... ... ... .. 314 The French at Stanz ... 315 Pestalozzi at Stanz ... ... ... ... ... ... 316 Success and expulsion ... ... ... ... ... 317 At Stanz : Pestalozzi's own account... ... ... 318-332 VaJue of the five months' experience 333 Pestalozzi a strange Schoolmaster 334 At Burgdorf. First official approval 335 A child's notion of Pestalozzi's teaching ... ... ... 336 Pestalozzi engineering a new road ... ... ... ... 337 Psychologizing instruction 338 School course. Singing ; and the beautiful 339 Pestalozzi's poverty. Kruesi joins him ... ... ... 340 Pestalozzi's assistants. The Burgdorf Institute ... .♦. 341 Success of the Burgdorf Institute ... ... 34a XXX CONTENTS. Chapter XVI — continued. page Reaction. Festal ozzi and Napoleon I .« .» m« 343 Fellenberg, Pestalozzi goes to Yverdun ... ... ... 344 A portrait of Pestalozzi , 345 Prussia adopts Festal ozzianism ... ... ... ... ... 346 Ritter and others at Yverdun ... ... .. .» 347 Causes of failure at Yverdun ... ... ... ... ... 348 Report -made by Father Girard 349 Girard's mistake. Schmid in flight 350 Schmid's return. Pestalozzi's fame found useful... ... 351 Dr. Bell's visit. Death of Mrs. Pestalozzi 352 Works republished. Clindy. Yverdun left. Death ... 353, 354 New aim : develop organism ... ... ... ... ... 354 True dignity of man ... ... ... ... ... ... 355 Education for all. Mothers' part. Jacob's Ladder 356 Educator only superintends 357 First, moral development ... ... ... ... ... 358 Moral and religious the same ... ... ... ... 359 Second, intellectual development ... ... ... ... 360 Learning by " intuition " ... ... ... ... ... 361 Euisson and Jullien on intuition ... ... ... ... 362 Pestalozzi and Locke ... ... ... ... ... 363 Subjects for, and art of, teaching ... ... ... ... 364 "Mastery" 365 The body's part in education ... ... ... ... ... 366 Learning must not be play ... ... ... ... ... 367 Singing and drawing ... ... ... ... ... ... 368 Morfs summing-up ... ... ... ... ... ... 369 Joseph Payne's summing-up ... ... ... ... ... 370 The " two nations. " Mother's lessons ... ... ... 371 Mistakes in teaching children ... ... ... ... ... 372 Children and their teachers ... ... ... ... ... 373 " Preparatory " Schools 374 Young boys ill taught at school ... ... ... ... 375 English folk-schools not Festalozzian ... ... ... ... 376 Schools judged by results ... ... ... ... ... 377 Pupil-teachers. Teaching not educating ... ... ... 378 Lowe or Pestalozzi ? ... ... ... ... ... ... 379 Chief force, personality of the teacher... ... .^ ... 3}ia English care for unessentials .«. .^ >» .^ 38 1 CONTENTS. XXXI Chapter XVI — continued. Aim at the ideal ... Use of theorists. Books PAGE 382 Chapter XVII.— Friedrich Froebel. (1783-1852.) ... 3S4-413 Difficulty in understanding Froebel 385 A lad's quest of unity ... 386 Froebel wandering without rest ... ... ... ... 387 Finds his vocation. With Pestalozzi 388 Froebel at the Universities 389 Through the Freiheits-krieg. Mineralogy ... ... ... 390 The " New Education " started 391 At Keilhau. " Education of Man " published ... ... 392 Froebel fails in Switzerland 393 The first Kindergarten 394 Froebel's last years. Prussian edict against him. His end 395 Author's attitude towards Reformers 396 Difficulties with Froebel 397 " Cui omnia unum sunt " ... ... ... ... ... 398 Froebel's ideal ;^99 Theory of development ... ... ... ... ... ... 400 Development through self-activity ... ... ... ... 401 True idea found in Nature ... ... ... ... ... 402 God acts and man acts ... ... ... ... ... 403 The formative and creative instinct 404 Rendering the inner outer ... ... ... ... ... 405 Care for " young plants. " Kindergarten ... ... ... 406 Child's restlessness : how to use it,.. ... ... ... 407 Employments in Kindergarten ... ... ... ... ... 408 No schoolwork in Kindergarten ... ... ... ... 409 Without the idea the " gifts " fail 410 The New Education and the old 411 The old still vigorous ... ... ... ... ... ... 412 Science the thought of God. Some Froebelians 413 Chapter XVIII.— Jacotot, a Methodizer. (1770-1840.) 4^4-438 Self- teaching ... I. All can learn 415 416 XXXll CONTENTS. Chapter XVIII — continued. 2. Everyone can teach ... ... ... . Can he teach facts he does not know?... Languages? Sciences? Arts such as drawing and music ? True teacher within the learner ... Training rather than teaching ... 3. " Tout est dans tout." Quidlibet ex quolibct Connexion of knowledges Connect with model book. Memorizing ... Ways of studying the model book Should the book be made or chosen ? Robertsonian plan Hints for exercises ... The good of having learnt The old Cambridge " mathematical man " Waste of memory at school How to stop this waste Multum, non multa. De Morgan. Helps. Stephen Jacotot's plan for reading and wnting For the mother-tongue Method of investigation Jacotot's last days ... ... Chapter XIX. — Herbert Spencer Same knowledge for discipline and use ? Different stages, different knowledges Relative value of knowledges ... Knowledge for self-preservation Useful knowledge versus the classics ... Special instruction versus education Scientific knowledge and money-making Knowledge about rearing offspring... Knowledge of history : its nature and use Use of history Employment of leisure hours ... Poetry and the Arts ... More than science needed for complete living. Objections to Spencer's curriculum CONTENTS. XXX iii Chapter XIX — continued. pack Citizen's duties. Things not to teach 454 Need of a science of education ... ... ... ... '455 Hope of a science ... ... ... ... ... ... 456 From simple to complex : known to unknown ... ... 457 Connecting schoolwork with life outside 458 Books and life ... ... ... ... ... ... 459 Rfistakes in grammar teaching ... ... ... ... ... 460 From indefinite to definite : concrete to abstract... ... 461 The Individual and the Race. Empirical beginning ... 462 Against "telling." Effect of bad teaching ... ... 463 lyearning should be pleasurable... ... ... ... ... 464 Can learning be made interesting?... ... ... ... 465 Apathy from bad teaching ... ... ... ... ... 466 Should learning be made interesting ? ... ... ... 467 Difference between theory and practice ... ... ... 468 Importance of Herbert Spencer's work ... ... ... 469 Chapter XX. — Thoughts and Suggestions 470-491 Want of an ideal ... ... ... ... ... ... 471 Get pupils to work hard... ... ... ... ... ... 472 For this arouse interest. Wordsworth ... ... ... 473 Interest needed for activity ... ... ... ... ... 474 Teaching young children .„ ... ... ... ... 475 Value of pictures... ... , 476 Dr. Vater at Leipzig 477 Dr. Vogel and Dr. Vater 478 First knowledge of numbers. Grube ... 479 Measuring and weigliing. Reading-books ... ... ... 480 Respect for books. Grammar. Reading... ... ... 481 Silent and Vocal Reading 482 Memorising poetry. Composition... ... ... ,,. 483 Correcting exercises. Three kinds of books 4S4 No epitomes 485 Ascham, Bacon, Goldsmith, against them ... ... ... 486 Arouse interest. Dr. Amc.'d's historical primer ..', ... 487 A Macaulay, not Mangnall, wanted ... ... ... ... 488 Beginnings in history and geography ... ... ... 489 Tales of Travelers ... ... ... ... ... ... 490 Results positive and negative ... ... ... ,^ 491 XXXIV CONTENTS. Chapter XXI.— The Schoolmaster's Moral and Religious page Influence 492-503 Master's power, how gained and lost ... ... ... 493 Masters, the open and the reserved ... ... ... ... 494 Danger of excess either way... ... ,,. ... ... 495 High ideal. Danger of low practice ... ... ... ... 496 Harm from overworking teachers ... .^ ... ... 497 Refuge in routine work. Small schools ... ... .., 498 Influence through the Sixth. Day schools wanted ... 499 Teaching religion in England and Germany 500 Religious teaching connected with wor;,hip 501 Education to goodness and piety ... ... ... ... 502 How to avoid narrowmindedness .^ 503 Chapter XXII.— Conclusion .^ A growing science of education m. Jesuits the first Reformers The Jesuits cared for more than classics ... Rabelais for " intuition " Montaigne for educating mind and body ... 17th century reaction against books Reaction not felt in schools and the Universities... Comenius begins science of education ... Locke's teacher a disposer of influence Locke and public schools. Escape from " idols " Rousseau's clean sweep Benevolence of Nature. Man disturbs We arrange sequences, capitalise ideas ... Loss and gain from tradition Rousseau for observing and following Rousseau exposed " school-learning " ... Function of " things " in education " New Education " started by Rousseau Drawing out. Man and the other animals Intuition. Man an organism, a doer and creator Antithesis of Old and New Education Drill needed. What the Thinkers do for us ... 504-526 505 506 507 508 509 510 Sii 512 513 514 51S 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 Appendix. Class Matches. Words and Things. Books for Teachers, &c — «. m. ... S27-547 I EFFECTS OF THE RENASCENCE. § I. The history of education, much as it has been hitherto neglected, especially in England, must have a great future before it. If we ignore the Past we cannot understand the Present, or forecast the Future, In this book I am going to speak of Reformers or Innovators who aimed at changing what was handed down to them ; but the Radical can no more escape from the Past, than the Conservative can stereotype it. It acts not by attraction only, but no less by repulsion. There have been thinkers in latter times who have announced themselves as the executioners of the Past and laboured to destroy all it has bequeathed to us. They have raised the ferocious cry, " Vive la destruction ! Vive la mort I Place a Vavenirl Hurrah for destruction! H'Krah for death ! Make room for the world that is to be !" But their very hatred of the Past has brought them under the influence of it. " Do just the opposite of what has been (lone and you will do right," said Rousseau ; and this rule of negation would make the Past regulate the Present and the Future no less than its opposite, " Do always what is usual." If we cannot get free from the Past in the domain of tliought, still less can we in action. Custom is to all our THE RENASCENCE. No escape from the Past. activities what the mainspring is to the watch. We may bring forces into play to make the watch go faster or slower, but if we took out the mainspring it would not go at all. For our mainspring we are indebted to the Past. § 2. In studying the Past we must give our special at- tention to those periods in which the course of ideas takes, as the French say, a new bend.* Such a period was the Renascence. Then it was that the latest bend was given to the educational ideal of the civilized world ; and though we seem now again to have arrived at a period of change, we are still, perhaps far more than we are aware, affected by the idea? of the great scholars who guided the intellect of Europe in the Revival of Learning. § 3. From the beginning to the end of the fifteenth century the balance was trembling between two kinds of culture, and the fate of the schoolboy depended on the result. In this century men first got a correct conception of the globe they were inhabiting. Hitherto they had not even professed to have any knowledge of geography ; there is no mention of it in the Trivium and Quadrivium which were then supposed to form the cycle of things known, if not of things knowable. But Columbus and Vasco da Gama were grand teachers of geography, and their lessons were learnt as far as civilization extended. The impetus thus given to the study of the earth might, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, have engrossed the mind of Europe with the material world, had not the leaning tc physical science been encountered and overcome by an impulse derived from another discovery. About the • The rest of this chnpter was published in the September, 1880, number of Education. Boston, U.S.A. THE RENASCENCE. Discovery of the Classics. time of the discovery of America there also came to hght the literatures of Greece and Rome. § 4. When I speak of the discovery of the ancient lite- ratures as rivalling that of America, this use of the word " discovery " may be disputed. It may be urged that though the Greek language and literature were unknown in the West of Europe till they were brought there by the fugitives after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, yet the works of the great Latin writers had always been known in Italy, and Dante declares himself the disciple of Virgil. And yet I cannot give up the word " discovery." In the life of an individual it sometimes happens that he suddenly acquires as it were a new sense. The world around him remains the same as before, but it is not the same to him. A film passes from his eyes, and what has been ordinary and unmeaning suddenly becomes a source of wonder and delight to him. Something similar happens at times in the history of the general mind ; indeed our own century has seen a remark- able instance of it. In reading the thoughts of great writers of earlier times, we cannot but be struck, not only with their ignorance of the material world, but also with their ignorance of their ignorance. Little as they know, they often speak as if they knew everything. Newton could see that he was like a child discovering a few shells while the unexplored ocean lay before him ; but in those days it required the intellect of a Newton to understand this. To the other children the ocean st^e.raed to conceal nothing, and they innocently thought that all the shells, or nearly all, had been picked up. It was re- served for the people of our own century to become aware of the marvels which lie around us in the material world, and to be fascinated by the discovery. If the human race could live through several civilizations without opening its eyes to the THE RENASCENCE. Mark Pattison's account of Renascence. wonders of the earth it inhabits, and then could suddenl7 become aware of them, we may well understand its retaining unheeded the literatures of Greece and Rome for centuries, and at length as it were discovering them, and turning to them with unbounded enthusiasm and delight. As students of education we can hardly attach too much importance to this great revolution. For nearly three centuries the curriculum in the public schools of Europe remained what the Renascence had made it. We have again entered on an age of change, but we are still much influenced by the ideas of the Renascence, and the best way to understand the forces now at work is to trace them where possible to their origin. Let us then consider what the Renascence was, and how it affected the educational system. § 5. In endeavouring to understand the Renascence, we cannot do better than listen to what Mark Pattison says of it in his "Life of Casaubon": — "In the fifteenth century was revealed to a world which had hitherto been trained to logical analysis, the beauty of literary form. The conception of style or finished expression had died out with the pagan schools of rhetoric. It was not the despotic act of Justinian in closing the schools of Athens which had suppressed it. The sense of art in language decayed from the same general causes which had been fatal to all artistic perception. Ban- iished from the Roman Empire in the sixth century 01 earlier, the classical conception of beauty of form re-entered the circle of ideas after near a thousand years of oblivion and abeyance. Cicero and Virgil, Livius and Ovid, had been there all along, but the idea of composite harmony on which their works were constructed was wanting. The restored conception, as if to recoup itself for its long sup' THE RENASCENCE. Revival of taste for beauty in literature. pression, took entire possession of the mind of Europe. The first period of the Renascence passed in adoration of the awakened beauty, and in efforts to copy and multiply it." § 6. Here Mark Pattison speaks as if the conception of beauty of form belonged exclusively to the ancients and those who learnt of them. This seems to require some abatement. There are points in which mediaeval art tar excelled the art of the Renascence. The thirteenth century, as Archbishop Trench has said, was "rich in glorious creations of almost every kind;" and in that century our great Enghsh architect, Street, found the root of all that is best in modern art. (See "Dublin Afternoon Lectures," 1868.) But there are expressions of beauty to which the Greeks, and those who caught their spirit, were keenly alive, and to which the people of the Middle Age seem to have been blind. The first is beauty in the human form ; the second is beauty in literature. The old delight in beauty in the human form has never come back to us. Mr. Ruskin tells us we are an ugly race, with ill-shapen Hmbs, and well pleased with our ugliness and deformity, and in reply we only mutter something about the necessity of clothing both for warmth and decency. But as to the other expression of beauty, beauty in literature, the mind of Europe again became conscious of it in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The re-awakening of this sense of beauty we call the Renascence. § 7. Before we consider the effect of this intellectual revolution on education, let us be sure that we are not "paying ourselves with words," and that we know exactly what we mean by " literature." When the conceptions of an individual mind are ex- THE RENASCENCE. What is Literature? pressed in a permanent form of words, we get literature. The sum total of all the permanent forms of expression in one language make up the literature of that language ; and if no one has given his conceptions a form which has been preserved, the language is without a literature. There are then two things essential to a literary work: first, the conceptions of an individual mind; second, a permanent form of expression. Hence it follows that the domain of literature is distinct from the domain of natural or mathematical science. Science does not give us the conceptions of an individual mind, but it tells us what every rational person who studies the subject must think. And science is entirely independent of any form of words : a proposition of Euclid is science ; a sonnet of Wordsworth's is literature. We learn from Euclid certain truths which we should have learnt from some one else if Euclid had never existed, and the propositions may be conveyed equally well in different forms of words and in any language. But a sonnet of Wordsworth's conveys thought and feeling peculiar to the poet; and even if the same thought and feeling were conveyed to us in other words, we should lose at least half of what he has given us. Poetry is indeed only one kind of literature, but it is the highest kind ; and what is true of literary works in verse, is true also in a measure of literary works in prose. So great is the differ- ence between science and literature, that in literature, as the first Lord Lytton said, the best books are generally the oldest ; in science they are the newest. § 8. At present we are concerned with literature only. There are two ways in which a work of literature may excite our admiration and affect our minds. These are, first, by the beauty of the conceptions it conveys to us ; and THE RENASCENCE. Renascence loved beauty of expression. second, by the beauty of the language in which it conveys them. In the greatest works the two excellences will be combined.* Now the literary taste proper fastens especially on the second of the two, i.e., on beauty of expression ; and the Renascence was the revival of literary taste. " It was," as Mark Pattison says, "the conception of style or finished expression which had died out with the pagan schools of rhetoric, and which re-entered the circle of ideas after a thousand years of oblivion and abeyance." If we lose sight of this, we shall be perplexed by the unbounded enthusiasm which we find in the sixteenth century for the old classics. What great evangel, we may ask, had Cicero and Virgil and Ovid, or even Plato and the Greek drama- tists, for men who lived when Europe had experienced a thousand years of Christianity? The answer is simple. They had none whatever. Their thoughts and conceptions were not adapted to the wants of the new world. The civilization of the Christian nations of the sixteenth cen- tury was a very different thing from the civilization of Greece and Rome. It had its own thoughts, its own problems, its own wants. The old-world thoughts could not be thought over again by it. This indeed was felt though not admitted by the Renascence scholars them- selves. Had it been the thoughts of the ancients which seemed to them so valuable they would have made some effort tc diffuse those thoughts in the languages of the modern world. Much as a great literary work loses by translation, there may still be enough left of it to be a • On the nature of literature see Cardinal Newman's " Lectures on the Nature of a University. University Subjects. II. Litera.ure." THE RENASCENCE. No translations. The "educated. source of instruction and delight. The thoughts of Aristotle, conveyed in a Latin translation of an Arabic translation, profoundly affected the mind of Europe in the Middle Ages. The Bible, or Book par excellence, is known to few indeed in its original form. Some great writers — Cer- vantes, and Shakespeare, and the author of the " Arabian Nights" — please and instruct nations who know not the sound of the languages wherein their works are composed. If then the great writers of Greece and Rome had been valued for their matter, their works would have been trans- lated by the Renascence scholars as the Bible was translated by the Reformers, and the history of modern education would have taken a very different turn from that which awaited it. But it was not so. The Renascence scholars did all they could to discourage translations. For the grand discovery which we call the Revival of Learning was, not that the ancients had something to say, but that whatever they had to say they knew how to say it. § 9. And thus it happens that in the period of change, when Europe was re-arranging its institutions, developing new ideas and settling into new grooves of habit, we find the men most influential in education entirely fascinated by beauty of expression, and this in two ancient languages, so that the one thing needful for the young seemed to them an intro- duction to the study of ancient writings. The inevitable consequence was this : education became a mere synonym for instruction in Latin and Greek. The only ideal set up for the " educated " was the classical scholar. § 10. Perhaps the absurdity of taking this ideal, an ideal which is obviously fitted for a small class of men only, and proposing it for general adoption, was partly concealed from the Renascence scholars by the peculiar circumstances THE RENASCENCE. Spread of literature by printing-. of their age. No doubt they thought literature would in the future be a force capable of much wider application than it had ever been before. True, literature had till then affected a small class only. Literature meant books, books meant MSS., and MSS. were rare and costly. Litera- ture, the embodiment of grand thoughts in grand words, had existed before letters, or at least without letters. The Homeric poems, for example, had been known to thousands who could not read or write. But beauty of expression naturally got associated and indeed confounded with the art by which it was preserved ; so the creations of the mind, when embodied in particular combinations of words, ac- quired the name of literature or letters, and became almost exclusively the affair of those who had opportunities of study, opportunities afforded only to the few. During the Middle Ages every one who could read was allowed his " privilege of clergy j" that is, he was assumed to be a clergyman. Literature then was not thought of as a means of instruction. But at the very time that the beauty of the ancient writings dawned on the mind of Europe, a mechanical invention seemed to remove all hindrances to the spread of literature. The scholars seized on the printing press and thought by means of it to give all "the educated" a knowledge of classics. § II. We cannot help speculating what would have been the effect of the discovery of printing if it had been made at another time. As there may be literature without books, so there may be books without literature. If at the time of the invention of printing there had been no literature, no creations of individual minds embodied in permanent forms of speech, books might have been used as apparatus in a mental gymnasium, or they might have been made the lO THE RENASCENCE. School course settled before Bacon. means of conveying information. But just then the intellect of Europe was tired of mental gymnastics. It had taken exercise in the Trivium like a squirrel in its revolving cage, and was vexed to find it made no progress.* As for infor- mation there was little to be had. The age of observation and of physical science was not yet. So the printing press was entirely at the service of the new passion for literature and the scholars dreamed of the general diffusion of literary culture by means of printed books. § 12. For some two centuries the literary spirit had supreme control over the intellect of Europe, and the literary spirit could then find satisfaction nowhere but in the study of the ancient classics. The natural consequence was that throughout this period the " educated man " was supposed to be identified with the classical scholar. The great rival of the literary spirit, the scientific spirit which cares for nothing but sequences independent of the human mind, began to show itself early in the seventeenth century : its first great champion was Francis Bacon. But by this time the school course of study had been settled, and two centuries had to elapse before the scientific spirit eould unsettle it again. Even now when we speak of a man as " well-educated " we are commonly understood to mean that in his youth he was taught the two classical languages. § 13, The taking of the classical scholar as the only • I see Carlyle has used a similar metaphor in the same connexion : *• Consider the old schoolmen and their pilgrimage to«-ards Truth ! the failhfullest 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 j at best gyrated swiftly with some pleasure like spinning dervishes and ended where they began." — Characteristics , Misc., vol. iii, 5, THE RENASCENCE. II First defect: Learner above Doer. ideal of the educated man has been a fruitful source of evil in the history of education. I. This ideal exalted the learner above the doer. As fai back as Xenophon, we find a contest between the passive ideal and the active, between the excellence which depends on a knowledge of what others have thought and done and the excellence which comes of thinking and doing. But the excellence derived from learning had never been highly esteemed. To be able to repeat Homer's poetry was regarded in Greece as we now regard a pleasing accomplish- ment ; but the dignity of the learned man as such was not within the range of Greek ideas. Many of the Romans after they began to study Greek literature certainly piqued themselves on being good Greek scholars, and Cicero occasionally quotes with all the airs of a pedant ; but so thoroughly was the contrary ideal, the ideal of the doer, estabhshed at Rome, that nobody ever dreamt of placing its rival above it. In the decline of the Empire, especially at Alexandria, we find for the first time honours paid to the learned man ; but he was soon lost sight of again. At the Renascence he burst into sudden blaze, and it was then discovered that he was what every man would wish to be. Thus the Renascence scholars, notwithstanding their ad miration of the great nations of antiquity, set up an ideal which those nations would heartily have despised. The schoolmaster very readily adopted this ideal ; and schools have been places of learning, not training, ever since. § 14. II. The next defect I observe in the Renascence ideal is this : it attributes to literature more direct power over common life than literature has ever had, or is ever likely to have. 1 say direct power, for indirectly literature is one of the 12 THE RENASCENCE. Second : Overestimate of literature. grand forces which act on all of us ; but it acts on us through others, its most important function being to affect great intellects, the minds of those who think out and act out important changes. Its direct action on the mass of mankind is after all but insignificant. We have seen that literature consists in permanent forms of words, expressing the conceptions of individual minds ; and these forms will be studied only by those who are interested in the conceptions or find pleasure in the mode in which they are expressed. Now the vast majority of ordinary people are without these inducements to literary study. They take a keen interest in everything connected with their relations and intimate friends, and a weaker interest in the thinkings and sayings and doings of every one else who is personally known to them ; but as to the mental conceptions of those who lived in other times, or if now ahve are not known even by sight, the ordinary person is profoundly indifferent to them ; and of course delight in expression, as such, is out of the question. The natural consequence is that the habit of reading books is by no means common. Mark Pattison observes that there are few books to be found in most English middle-class homes, and he says : " The dearth of books is only the outward and visible sign of the mental torpor which reigns in those destitute regions " (see " Fort- nightly Review," November, 1877). I much doubt if he would have found more books in the middle-class homes of the Continent. There is only one kind of reading that is nearly universal — the reading of newspapers ; and the newspaper lacks the element of permanence, and belongs to the domain of talk rather than of literature. Even when we get among the so-called " educated," we find that those who care for literature form a very small THE RENASCENCE. 1 3 Literary taste not common. minority. The rest have of course read Shakespeare and Milton and Walter Scott and Tennyson, but they do not read them. The lion's share of our time and thoughts and interests must be given to our business or profession, whatever that may be ; and in few instances is this con- nected with literature. For the rest, whatever time or thought a man can spare from his calling is mostly given to his family, or to society, or to some hobby which is not literature. And love of literature is not shown in such reading as is common. The literary spirit shows itself, as I said, in appreciating beauty of expression, and how far beauty of expression is cared for we may estimate from the fact that few people think of reading anything a second time. The ordinary reader is profoundly indifferent about style, and will not take the trouble to understand ideas. He keeps to periodicals or light fiction, which enables the mind to loll in its easy chair (so to speak) and see pass before it a series of pleasing images. An idea, as Mark Pattison says, "is an excitant, comes from mind and calls forth mind ; an image is a sedative;" and most people when they take up a book are seeking a sedative. So literature is after all a very small force in the lives of most men, and perhaps even less in the lives of most women. Why then are the employments of the school- room arranged on the supposition that it is the grand force of all? The reason is, that we have inherited from the Renascence a false notion of the function of literature. § 15. III. I must now point out a fault in the Re- nascence ideal which is perhaps the most remarkable of all. Those by whom this ideal was set up were entirely possessed by an enthusiasm for literature, and they made the mistake 14 THE RENASCENCE. Third: Literature banished from school. of attributing to literature a sliare in general culture which literature seems incapable of taking. After this we could little have expected that the new ideal woyld exclude literature from the schoolroom, and yet so it has actually turned out. As a literary creation contains the conceptions of an individual mind expressed in a permanent form of words, it exists only for those who can understand the words or at least the conceptions. From this it follows that literature for the young must have its expression in the vernacular. The instances are rare indeed in which any one below the age of fifteen or sixteen (perhaps I might put the limit a year or two higher) understands any but the mother tongue. In the mother tongue indeed some forms of literature exercise a great influence over young minds. Ballad literature seems especially to belong to youth, the youth of nations and of individuals. Aristotle educated Alexander with Homer ; and we can easily imagine the effect which the Iliad must have had on the young Greeks. Although in the days of Plato instruction was not confined to literature, he gives this account of part of the training in the Athenian schools : •' Placing the pupils on benches, the instructors make them read and learn by heart the poems of good poets in which are many moral lessons, many tales and eulogies and lays of the brave men of old ; that the boys may imitate them with emulation and strive to become such themselves." Here we see a very important function attributed to literature in the bringing up of the young; but the literature so used must obviously be in the language of the learners. The influence of a literary work may, however, extend itself far beyond the limits of its own language. When our minds THE RENASCENCE. 1$ Translations would be literature. can receive and take pleasure in the conceptions of a great writer, he may speak to us by an interpreter. At the Renascence there were books in the world which might have affected the minds of the young — Plutarch, Herodotus, and above all Homer. But, as I have already said, it was not the conceptions, but the literary form of the ancients, which seemed to the Renascence scholars of such inestimable value, so they refused to give the conceptions in any but the original words. " Studying the ancients in translations," says Melancthon, " is merely looking at the shadow." He could not have made a greater mistake. As far as the young are concerned the truth is exactly the reverse. The translation would give the substance : the original can give nothing but the shadow. Let us take the experience of Mr, Kinglake, the author of " Eothen." This distinguished Eton man, fired by his remembrances of Homer, visited the Troad.- He had, as he tells us, " clasped the Iliad line by line to his brain with reverence as well as love," Well done, Eton ! we are tempted to exclaim when we read this passage : here at least is proof that some literahire was taught in those days of the dominion of the classics. But stop ! It seems that this clasping did not take place at Eton, but in happy days before Eton, when Kinglake knew no Greek and read trans- lations. "Heroic days are these," he writes, "but the Dark Ages of schoolboy life come closing over them, I suppose it's all right in the end : yet, by Jove ! at first sight it does seem a sad intellectual fall, . . . The dismal change is ordained and thin meagre Latin (the same for everybody) with small shreds and patches of Greek, is thrown like a pauper's pall over all your early lore ; instead of sweet knowledge, vile monkish doggrel, grammars and graduses, dictionaries and lexicons, horrible odds and ends of dead l6 THE RENASCENCE. The classics not written for children. languages are given you for your portion, and down you fall from Roman story to a three-inch scrap of ' Scriptorea Romani' — from Greek poetry down, down, to the cold rations of 'Poetae Grseci,' cut up by commentators and served out by schoolmasters !" (" Eothen," the Troad.) We see from this how the Renascence ideal had the extraordinary effect of banishing literature from the school- room. Literature has indeed not ceased to influence the young ; it still counts for much more in their lives than in the lives of their seniors ; but we all know who are the writers who affected our own minds in childhood and youth, and who affect the minds of our pupils now — not Eutropius or Xenophon, or Caesar or Cicero, but Defoe and Swift and Marryatt and Walter Scott. The ancient writings which were literature to Melancthon and Erasmus, as they are still to many in our universities and elsewhere, can never be literature to the young. Most of the classical authors read in the schoolroom could not be made Hterature to young people even by means of translations, for they were men who wrote for men and women only. We see that it would be absurd to make an ordinary boy of twelve or fourteen study Burke or Pope. And if we do not make him read Burke, whose language he understands, why do we make him read Cicero whose language he does not understand? If he can- not appreciate Pope, why do we teach him Horace ? The Renascence gives us the explanation of this singular anomaly. The scholars of that age were so delighted with the "coro. posite harmony " of the ancient classics that the study of these classics seemed to them the one thing worth living for. The main, if not the only object they kept in view in bringing up the young was to gain for them admission to the treasure house ; and though young people could not understand the THE RENASCENCE. 1/ Language versus Literature. ancient writings as literature, they might at least study them as language and thus be ready to enjoy them as litera- ture in after-life. Thus the subject of instruction in the schoolroom came to be, not the classics but, the classical languages. The classics were used as school books, but the only meaning thought of was the meaning of the detached word or at best of the detached sentence. You ask a child learning to read if he understands what he is reading about, and he says, " I can't think of the meaning because I am thinking of the words." The same thing happened in the schoolboy's study of the classics, and so it has come to pass that to this day the great writers of antiquity discharge a humble function which they certainly never contemplated. " Great Caesar's body dead and turned to clay May stop a hole to keep the wind away." And great Caesar's mind has been turned to uses almost as paltry. He has in fact written for the schoolroom not a commentary on the Wars of Gaul — nothing of the kind — but simply a book of exercises in Latin construing ; and an excellent book it would be if he had only graduated the difficulties better. § 1 6. IV. There is yet another weakness about the Renascence ideal — a weakness from which most ideals are free. Most ideals have this merit at least, that he who makes even a feeble and abortive attempt to reach them is benefited in proportion to his advance, however small that advance may be. If he fails to seize the coat of gold, he carries away, as the proverb tells us, at least one of the sleeves ; or, to use George Herbert's metaphor — "... Wlio aimeth at the sky, Shoots higher far than he who means a tree." D THE RENASCENCE. Fourth: Miss as good as a mile. But the learned ideal has not even this advantage. The first stage, the study of the ancient languages, is so totally different from the study of the ancient literatures to which it is the preliminary, that the student who never goes beyond this first stage either gets no benefit at all, or a benefit which is not of the kind intended. Suppose I am within a walk, though a long one, of the British Museum, and hearing of some valuable books in the library, which I can see nowhere else, I set off to consult them. In this case it makes no difference to me how valuable the books are if I do not get as far as the Museum.* My friends may comfort me with the assurance that the walk must have done me good. Perhaps so ; but I left home to get a knowledge of certain books, not to exercise my legs. Had exercise been my object I should probably have chosen another direction. Now schoolmasters, since the Renascence, have been in the habit of leading all their pupils through the back slums of the Seven Dials and Soho in the direction of the British Museum, with the avowed purpose of taking them to the library, although they knew full well that not one pupil in ten, not one in fifty, would ever reach the door. To produce a few scholars able to appreciate the classics of Greece and Rome they have sacrificed everybody else ; and according to their own showing they have condemned a large portion of the upper classes, nearly all the middle classes, and quite all the poorer classes to remain "uneducated." And, ac- cording to the theory of the schoolroom, one-half of the * This illustration was suggested by a similar one in Prof. J. R. Seeley's essay " On the Teaching of English " in his Lectures and Essays, 1870. THE RENASCENCE. 1 9 Fifth : Neglect of children. human race — the women — have not beensupposed to need education. For them " accomplishments " have been held sufficient. § 17. V. In conclusion I must point out one effect of the Renascence ideal which seems to me no less mischievous than those I have already mentioned. This ideal led the schoolmasters to attach little importance to the education of children. Directly their pupils were old enough for Latin Grammar the schoolmasters were quite at home; but till then the children's time seemed to them of small value, and they neither knew nor cared to know how to employ it. If the little ones could learn by heart forms of words which would afterwards " come in useful," the schoolmasters were ready to assist such learning by unsparing application of the rod, but no other learning seemed worthy even of a caning. Absorbed in the world of books they overlooked the world of nature. Galileo complains that he could not induce them to look through his telescope, for they held that truth could be arrived at only by comparison of MSS. No wonder then that they had so little sympathy with children, and did not know how to teach them. It is by slow degrees that we are breaking away from the bad tradition then established, are getting to understand children, and with such leaders as Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, are investigating the best education for them. We no longer think of them as imma- ture men and women, but see that each stage has its own completeness, and that there is a perfection in childhood which must precede the perfection of manhood just as truly as the flower goes before the fruit. "Childhood," says Rousseau, "has its own ways of seeing, feeling, thinking;" and it is by studying these that we find out how children should be educated. Our connexion with the world of 20 THE RENASCENCE. Child's study of his surroundings. nature seems much closer in our early years than ever afterwards. The child's mind seems drawn out to its surroundings. He is intensely interested in the new world in which he finds himself, and whilst so many of us grown people need a flapper, like the sages of Laputa, to call our attention from our own thoughts to anything that meets the eye or ear, the child sees and hears everything, and every- thing seen or heard becomes associated in his mind not so much with thought as with feeling. Hence it is that we most of us look back wistfully to our early days, and confess sorrowfully that though years may have brought " the philo- sophic mind," "... Nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower." The material world then seems to supply just those objects, whether birds, beasts, or flowers, by which the child is attracted, and on which his faculties will therefore be most naturally and healthily employed. But the Renascence schoolmasters had little notion of this. If you think that the greatest scholar is the greatest man, you will, as a matter of course, place at the other end of the scale those who are not scholars at all. An English inspector, who seems to have thought children had been created with due regard to the Revised Code of the Privy Council, spoke of the infants who could not be classed by their performances in "the three R's" as "the fag end of the school ;" and no doubt the Renascence schoolmasters considered the children the fag end of humanity. The great scholars were indeed far above the race of pedants ; but the schoolmasters who adopted their ideal were not. And what is a pedant ? "A man who has got rid of his brains to make room for his THE RENASCENCE. 21 Aut Caesar aut nihil. learning."* The pedantic schoolmasters of the Renascence wished the mind of the pupil to be cleared of everything else, that it might have room for the languages of Greece and Rome. But what if the mind failed to take in its destined freight? In that case the schoolmasters had nothing else for it, and were content that it should go empty. • Miss J. D.Potter, in "Journal of Education." London, June, 1879 22 II. RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. § I. In considering and comparing the two great epochs of intellectual activity and change in modern times, viz., the sixteenth century and the nineteenth, we cannot but be struck with one fundamental difference between them. § 2. It will affect all our thoughts, as Sir Henry Maine has said, whether we place the Golden Age in the Past or in the Future. In the nineteenth century the "good time" is supposed to be "coming," but in the sixteenth century all thinkers looked backwards. The great Italian scholars gazed with admiration and envy on the works of ancient Greece and Rome, and longed to restore the old languages, and as much as possible the old world, so that such works might be produced again. Many were suspected, not altogether per- haps without reason, of wishing to uproot Christianity itself,* that they might bring back the Golden Age of Pericles. § 3. At the same time another movement was going on, principally in Germany. Here too, men were endeavouring to throw off the immediate past in order to revive the remote • See Erasmus's Ciceronianus, or account of it, in Henry Barnard's German Teachers, RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. 23 Reviving the Past. Tlie Scholars. past. The religious reformers, like the scholars, wished to restore a golden age, only a different age, not the age of the Antigone, but the age of the Apostles' Creed. Thus it happened that the scholars and the reformers joined in attaching the very highest importance to the ancient languages. Through these languages, and, as they thought, through them alone, was it possible to get a glimpse into the bygone world in which their soul delighted. § 4. But though all joined in extolling the ancient writ- ings, we find at the Renascence great differences in the way of regarding these writings and in the objects for which they were employed. A consideration of these differences will help us to understand the course of education when the Renascence was a force no longer. § 5. Very powerful in education were the great scholars, of whom Erasmus was perhaps the greatest, certainly the most celebrated. In devoting their lives to the study of the ancients their object was not merely to appreciate literary style, though this was a source of boundless delight to them, but also to understand the classical writings and the ancient world through them. These men, whom we may call par excellence the Scholars, cared indeed before all things for literature ; but with all their delight in the form they never lost sight of the substance. They knew the truth that Milton afterwards expressed in these memorable words: " Though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only." (Tractate to Hardib, § 4). So Erasmus and the scholars would have all the educated 24 RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. The Scholars: things for words. understand the classical authors. But to understand words you must know the things to which the words refer. Thus the Scholars were led to advocate a partial study of things a kind of realism. But we must carefully observe a peculiarity of this scholastic realism which distinguished it from the realism of a later date — the realism of Bacon. The study of things was undertaken not for its own sake, but simply in order to understand books. Perhaps some of us are con- scious that this kind of literary realism has not wholly passed away. We may have observed wild flowers, or the changes in tree or cloud, because we find that the best way to under- stand some favourite author, as Wordsworth or Tennyson. This will help us to understand the realism of the sixteenth century. The writings of great authors have been compared to the plaster globes (" celestial globes " as we call them), which assist us in understanding the configuration of the stars {Guesses at Truth,]. 47). Adopting this simile we may say that the Scholars loved to study the globe for its own sake, and when they looked at stars they did so with the object of understanding the globe. Thus we read of doctors who recommended their pupils to look at actual cases of disease as the best commentary on the works of Hippocrates and Galen. This kind of realism was good as far as it went, but it did not go far. Of course the end in view limited the study, and the Scholars took no interest in things except those which were mentioned in the classics. They had no desire to investigate the material universe and make dis- coveries for themselves. This is why Galileo could not induce them to look through his telescope ; for the ancients had no telescopes, and the Scholars wished to see nothing that had not been seen by their favourite authors. First then we have the Scholars, headed by Erasmus. RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. 2$ Verbal Realists: things through words. § 6. Next we find a party less numerous and for a time less influential, who did care about things for the sake of the things themselves; but carried away by the literary curient of their age, they sought to learn about them not directly, but only by reading. Here again we have a kind of realism which is not yet extinct. Some years ago I was assured by a Graduate of the University of London who had passed in chemistry, that, as far as he knew, he had never seen a chemical in his life : he had got all his knowledge from books. While such a thing is possible among us, we need not wonder if those who in the sixteenth century prized the knowledge of things, allowed books to come between the learner and the object of his study, if they regarded Nature as a far-off country of which we could know nothing but what great authors reported to us. As this party, unlike the Scholars, did not delight in litera- ture as such, but simply as a means of acquiring knowledge, literary form was not valued by them, and they preferred Euclid to Sophocles, Columella to Virgil. Seeking to learn about things, not immediately, but through words, they have received from Raumer a name they are likely to keep — Verbal Realists. In the sixteenth century the greatest of the Verbal Realists also gave a hint of Realism proper ; for he was no less a man than Rabelais. § 7. Lastly we come to those who, as it turned out, were to have more influence in the schoolroom than the Scholars and the Verbal Realists combined. I do not know that these have had any name given them, but for distinction sake we may call them Stylists. In studying literature the Scholars cared both for form and substance, the Verbal Realists for substance only, and the Stylists for form only. The Stylists gave up their lives, not, like the scholars, to gain 26 RENASCENCE TENDENCIES. Stylists: words for themselves. a thorough understanding of the ancient writings and of the old world, but to an attempted reproduction of the ancient languages and of the classical literary form. § 8. In marking these tendencies at the Renascence, we must remember that though distinguished by their tenden- cies, these Scholars, Verbal Realists, and Stylists, were not divided into clearly defined parties. Categories like these no doubt assist us in gaining precision of thought, but we must not gain precision at the expense of accuracy. The tendencies we have been considering did not act in precisely opposite directions, and all were to some extent aftected by them. But one tendency was predominant in one man and another in another; and this justifies us in calUng Sturm a Stylist, Erasmus a Scholar, and Rabelais a Verbal Realist. § 9. In one respect they were all agreed. The world was to be regenerated by means of books. Nothing pleased them more than to think of their age as the Revival of Learning. 27 III. STURMIUS. 1507 -1589. § I. The curriculum bequeathed by the Renascence and stereotyped in the School Codes of Germany, in the Ratio of the Jesuits, and in the English public school system, was greatly influenced by the most famous schoolmaster of the fifteen hundreds, John Sturm, who was for over forty years Rector of the Strassburg Gymnasium. § 2. Sturm was a fine specimen of the successful man : he knew what his contemporaries wanted, and that was just what he wanted. " He was a blessed fellow," as Prince Hal says of Poins, " to think as every man thought," and he not only " kept the roadway " himself, but he also " personally conducted" great bands of pupils over it, at one time " 200 noblemen, 24 counts and barons, and 3 princes." What could schoolmaster desire more? § 3. But I frankly own that Sturm is no favourite of mine, and that I think that he did much harm to education. However, his influence in the schoolroom was so great that I must not leave him unnoticed ; and I give some intorma- tion, taken mainly from Raumer's account of him, which is translated in Henry Barnard's "German Teachers and ZH STURMIUS. His early life. Settles in Strassburg. Educators." I have also looked at the exhaustive article by Dr. Bossier in K. A. Schmid's Encyklopddie {sub v.) § 4. Johji Sturm, born at Schleiden in the Eifel, not far from Cologne, in 1507, was one of 15 children, and would net have had much teaching had not his father been steward to a nobleman, with whose sons he was brought up. He always spoke with reverence and affection of his early teachers, and from them no doubt he acquired his thirst for learning. With the nobleman's sons and under the guidance of a tutor he was sent to Liege, and there he attended a school of the " Brethren of the Life in Common," alias Hieronymites. Many of the arrangements of this school he afterwards reproduced in the Strassburg Gymnasium, and in this way the good Brethren gained an influence over classical educa- tion throughout the world. § 5. Between the age of 15 and 20 Sturm was at Lyons, and before the end of this period he was forced into teaching for a maintenance. He then, like many other learned men of the time, turned printer. We next find him at the University of Paris, where he thought of becoming a doctor of medicine, but was finally carried away from natural science by the Renascence devotion to literature, and he became a popular lecturer on the classics. From Paris he was called to Strassburg (then, as now, in Germany) in 1537. In 1538 he published his plan of a Gymnasium or Grammar School, with the title, " The right way of opening schools of literature {De Liter arum Ludis recte aperiendis)" and some years afterwards (1565) he published his Letters {Classicce Epis- tolce) to the different form-masters in his school. § 6. The object of teaching is three-fold, says Sturm, " piety, knowledge, and the art of expression." The student should be distinguished by reasonable and neat speech STURMIUS. 29 His course of Latin. Dismissed. {ratione et oratione). To attain this the boys in his school had to give seven years to the acquirement of a pure Latin sty Classis Grammaticse. 3. Suprema ) 4. Humanitas. 5. Rhetorica. Each was "absolved " in a year, except Rhetoiica, which required two years (Stockl, p. 237). Jesuits and Protestants alike in the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries thought of Httle but literary instruction, and that too connected only with Latin and Greek. The subject-matter of the teaching in the Jesuit schools was to be " praeter Grammaticam, quod ad Rhetoricam, Poesim et Historiam pertinet," in addition to Grammar, whatever related to Rhetoric, Poetry, and History. Reading and writing the mother-tongue might not be taught without special leave from the Provincial. Latin was as much as possible to supersede all other languages, even in speaking ; and nothing else might be used by the pupils in the higher forms on any day but a holiday.* To gain a supply of Latin words for ordinary use, the pupils com- mitted to memory Latin conversations on general topics, such as Francis Pomey's " Indiculus Universalis " and " Col- loquia Scholastica." § 14. Although many good school-books were written by the Jesuits, a great part of their teaching was given orally. The master was, in fact, a lecturer, who expounded some- times a piece of a Latin or Greek author, sometimes the • Even junior masters were not to be much addicted to their own language. " Illud cavendum imprimis juniori magistro ne vernaculis nimium libris indulgeat, pniesertim poetis, in quibus maximam temporis ac fortasse morum jacturam ia.CQxci."—Jouve}uy. THE JESUITS. 41 Teacher Lectured. Exercises. Saying by heart rules of grammar. The pupils were required to get up the substance of these lectures, and to learn the grammar-rules and parts of the classical authors by heart. The master for his part had to bestow great pains on the preparation of his lectures.* § 15. Written exercises, translations, &c., were given in on every day, except Saturday ; and the master had, if possible, to go over each one with its writer and his appointed rival or cemulus. § 16. The method of hearing the rules, &c., committed to memory was this : — Certain boys in each class, who were called Decurions, repeated their tasks to the master, and then in his presence heard the other boys repeat theirs. The master meanwhile corrected the written exercises, t * " Multum proderit si magister non tumultuario ac subito dicat, sed quae 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 Sttidd.^ quoted by Schmid. And Sacchini says : " Ante omnia, quae quisque docturus est, egregie calleat. Turn enim bene docet, et facile docet, et libenter docet ; bene, quia sine errore ; facile, quia sine labore ; libenter, quia ex pleno . . . Memorise minimum fidat : instauret earn refricetque iterata lectione antequam quicquam doceat, etiamsi idem ssepe docuerit. Occurret non raro quod addat vel commodius proponat. — Before all things let everyone be thoroughly skilled in what he is going to teach ; for then he teaches well, he teaches easily, he teaches readily : well, because he makes no mistakes ; easily, because he has no need to exert himself; readily, because, like wealthy men he cares not how he gives. . . . Let him be very distrustful of his memory ; let him renew his remembrance and rub it up by repeated reading before he teaches anything, though he may have often taught it before. Something will now and then occur to him which he may add, or put more neatly." t In a school (not belonging to the Jesuits) where this plan was idopted, the boys, by an ingenious contrivance, managed to make it 42 THE JESUITS. Emulation. "JEmuli." Concertations. § 17. One of the leading peculiarities in the Jesuits' system was the pains they took to foster emulation — " cotem ingenii puerilis, calcar industrise — the whetstone of talent, the spur of industry." For this purpose all the boys in the lower part of the school were arranged in pairs, each pair being rivals {ccmuli) to one another. Every boy was to be constantly on the w^atch to catch his rival tripping, and was immediately to correct him. Besides this individual rivalry, every class was divided into two hostile camps, called Rome and Carthage, which had frequent pitched battles of questions on set subjects. These were the " Concertations," in which the boys sometimes had to put questions to the opposite camp, sometimes to expose erroneous answers when the questions were asked by the master* (see Appendix : Class Matches, p. 529). Emulation, indeed, was en- couraged to a point where, as it seems to me, it must have endangered the good feeling of the boys among themselves. Jouvency mentions a practice of appointing mock defenders of any particularly bad exercise, who should make the author of it ridiculous by their excuses ; and any boy whose work was very discreditable, was placed on a form by him- self, with a daily punishment, until he could show that some one deserved to change places with him. § 18. In the higher classes a better kind of rivalry was work very smoothly. The boy who was " hearing " the lessons held the book upside down in such a way that the others read instead of repeating by heart. The masters finally interfered with this arrange- ment. * Since the above was written, an account of these concertations has appeared in the Rev. G. R. Kingdon's evidence before the Schools Commission, 1867 (vol. v, Answers 12,228 fif.)- Mr. Kingdon, the Prefect of Studies at Stonyhurst, mentions that the side which wins in most concertations gets an extra half-holiday. THE JESUITS. 43 "Academies." Expedients. School-hours. cultivated by means of " Academies," i.e., voluntary associa- tions for study, which met together, under the superintendence of a master, to read themes, translations, «&:c., and to discuss passages from the classics. The new members were sleeted by the old, and to be thus elected was a much-coveted distinction. In these Academies the cleverer students got practice for the disputations, which formed an important part of the school work of the higher classes. § 19. There was a vast number of other expedients by which the Jesuits sought to work on their pupils' a??iour propre, such as, on the one hand, the weekly publication of offences per prceconem, and, on the other, besides prizes (which could be won only by the externs), titles and badges of honour, and the like. "There are," says Jouvency, " hundreds of expedients of this sort, all tending to sharpen the boys' wits, to lighten the labour of the master, and to free him from the invidious and troublesome necessity of punishing." § 20. The school-hours were remarkably short : two hours and a half in the morning, and the same in the after- noon ; with a whole holiday a week in summer, and a half holiday in winter. The time was spent in the first form after the following manner : — During the first half-hour the master corrected the exercises of the previous day, while the Decurions heard the lesson which had been learnt by heart. Then the master heard the piece of Latin which he had explained on the previous day. With this construing, was connected a great deal of parsing, conjugating, declining, &c. The teacher then explained the piece for the following day, which, in this form, was never to exceed four lines. The last half-hour of the morning was spent in explaining grammar. This was done very slowly and carefully : in thu 44 THE JESUITS. Method of teaching. An example. words of the Ratio Studd. : " Pluribus diebus fere singula prsecepta inculcanda sunt" — "Generally take a single rule and drive it in, several days." For the first hour of the alter- noon the master corrected exercises, and the boys learnt grammar. If there was time, the master put questions about the grammar he had explained in the morning. The second hour was taken up with more explanations of grammar, and the school closed with half an hour's concer- tation, or the master corrected the notes which the pupils had taken during the day. In the other forms, the work was vei7 similar to this, except that Greek was added, and also in the higher classes a little mathematics. § 21. It will be observed from the above account, that almost all the strength of the Jesuit teaching was thrown into the study of the Latin language, which was to be used, not only for reading, but also in writing and speaking. But under the name of " erudition " some amount of instruction in other subjects, especially in history and geography, was given in explaining, or rather lecturing on, the classical authors. Jouvency says that this lecture must consist of the following parts : — ist, the general meaning of the whole passage ; 2nd, the explanation of each clause, both as to the meaning and construction ; 3rd, any information, such as accounts of historical events, or of ancient manners and customs, which could be connected with the text ; 4th, in the higher forms, applications of the rules of rhetoric and poetry ; 5th, an examination of the Latinity ; 6th, the incul- cation of some moral lesson. This treatment of a subject he illustrates by examples. Among these is an account of a lesson for the first {i.e., lowest) class in the Fable of the Fox and the Mask : — ist, comes the argument and the explanation of words ; 2nd, the grammar and parsing, as THE JESUITS. 45 Attention. Extra work. "Repetitio." vulpes, a substantive of the third declension, &c., h'ke proles, eludes. Sic. (here the master is always to give among his examples some which the boys already know) ; 3rd, comes the eruditio — something about foxes, about tragedy, about the brain, and hence about other parts of the head ; 4th, Latinity, the order of the words, choice of the words, synonyms, &c. Then the sentences may be parodied ; other suitable substantives may be found for the adjectives and vice versa; and every method is to be adopted of showing the boys how to use the words they have learnt. Lastly, comes the moral. § 22. The practical teacher will be tempted to ask, How is the attention of the class to be kept up whilst all this information is given ? This the Jesuits did partly by punish- ing the inattentive. Every boy was subsequently required to reproduce what the teacher had said, and to show his written notes of it. But no doubt this matter of attention was found a difficulty. Jouvency tells the teachers to break off from time to time in their lectures, and to ask questions ; and he adds : " Variae sunt artes excitandae attentionis quas docebit usus et sua cuique industria sug- geret. — Very various are the devices for arousing attention. These will occur with practice and pains." For private study, besides written exercises and learning by heart, the pupils were recommended subjects to get up in their own time ; and in this, and also as to the length of some of the regular lessons, they were permitted to decide for themselves. Here, as everywhere, the Jesuits trusted to the sense of honour and emulation — those who did extra work were praised and rewarded. § 23. One of the maxims of this system was : "Repetitio neater studiorum." Every lesson was connected with tv/o 46 THE JESUITS. Repetition. Thoroughness. repetitions — one before it began, of preceding work, and the other at the close, of the work just done. Besides this, one day a week was devoted entirely to repetition. In the three lowest classes the desire of laying a solid foundation even led to the second six months in the year being given to again going over the work of the first six months.* By this means boys of extraordinary ability could pass through these forms in eighteen months, instead of three years. § 23. Thoroughness in work was the one thing insisted on. Sacchini says that much time should be spent in going over the more important things, which are " veluti multorum fontes et capita (as it were the sources and starting points of many others) " ; and that the master should prefer to teach a few things perfectly, to giving indistinct impressions of many things.! We should remember, however, that the pupils of the Jesuits were not children. Subjects such as grammar cannot, by any expenditure of time and trouble, be perfectly taught to children, because children cannot perfectly under- stand them ; so that the Jesuit thoroughness is not always attainable. § 24. The usual duration of the course in the lower schools was six years — i.e., one year in each of the four * "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 knowi how true this is. t " Stude potius ut pauciora clare distincteque percipiant, quam obscure atque confuse pluribus imbuantur. — Care rather for their see- ing a few things vividly and definitely, than that they should get filled with hazy and confusing notions of many things." (There are few more valuable precepts for the teacher than this.) THE JESUITS. 47 Yearly examinations. Moral training. lower classes, and two years in the highest class. Every year closed with a very formal examination. Before this examination took place, the pupils had lessons in the manner of it, so that they might come prepared, not only with a knowledge of the subjects, but also of the laws of writing for examination ("scribendiad examen leges"). The examina- tion was conducted by a commission appointed for the purpose, of which commission the Prefect of Studies was an ex officio member. The masters of the classes, though they were present, and could make remarks, were not of the examining body. For the viva voce the boys were ushered in, three at a time, before the solemn conclave. The results of the examination, both written and verbal, were joined with the records of the work done in the past year ; and the names of those pupils who had distinguished themselves were then published in order of merit, but the poll was arranged alphabetically, or according to birthplace. § 25. As might be expected, the Jesuits were to be very careful of the moral and religious training of their pupils. "Quam maxime in vitse probitate ac bonis artibus doctrinaque proficiant ad Dei gloriam." {Ratio Studd., quoted by Schmid.) And Sacchini tells the master to remember how honourable his office is ; as it has to do, not with grammar only, but also with the science and practice of a Christian and religious life: "atque eo quidem ordine ut ipsa ingenii eruditio sit expolitio morum, et humana literatura divinae ancilletur sa\uentiae."* * Sacchini writes in a very high tone on this subject. The following passage is striking : *' Gravitatem sui muneris summasque opportuni- tates assidue animo verset (magister). . . . ' Puerilis institutio mundi renovatio est ;' hsec gymnasia Dei castra sunt, hie bonorum om- nium semina latent. Video solum fundamentumque republicse quod 48 THE JESUITS. Care of health. Punishments. Each lesson was to begin with prayer or the sign of the Cross. The pupils were to hear Mass every morning, and were to be urged to frequent confession and receiving of the Holy Communion. The Father Confessor was always a Jesuit, but he was not a master in the school. § 26. The bodily health also was to be carefully attended to. The pupils were not to study too much or too long at a time. Nothing was to be done for a space of from one or two hours after dinner. On holidays excursions were made to farms in the country,* § 27. Punishments were to be as light as possible, and the master was to shut his eyes to offences whenever he thought he might do so with safety. Grave offences were to be visited with corporal punishment, performed by a "corrector," who was not a member of the Order. Where this chastisement did not have a good effect, the pupil was to be expelled.! multi non videant interpositu terras. — Let the mind of the master dwell upon the responsibilities of his office and its immense opportunities. . . . The education of the young is the renovation of the world. These schools are the camp of God : in them lie the seeds of all that is good. There I see the foundation and ground-work of the common- wealth, which many fail to see from its being underground." Perhaps he had read of Trotzendorfs address to a school, " Hail reverend divines, learned doctors, worshipful magistrates, &c." * "Circa illorum valetudinem peculiar! cura animadvertat (Rector) ut et in laboribus mentis modum servent, et in iis quae ad corpus perti- nent, 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. t The following, from the Ratio Studd., sounds Jesuitical: "Nee publice puniant flagitia qusedam secretiora sed privatim ; aut si publice, alias obteiidant causas, et satis est cos qui plectuntur consci(js esse causarum." THE JESUITS. 49 English want of system. § 28. The dry details into which I have been drawn by faithfully copying the manner of the Ratio Studiorn?n may seem to the reader to afford no answer to the question v/hich naturally suggests itself — To what did the school- system of the Jesuits owe its enormous popularity? But in part, at least, these details do afford an answer. They show us that the Jesuits were intensely practical. The jRaiio Studiorutn hardly contains a single principle j but what it does is this — it points out a perfectly attainable goal, and carefully defines the road by which that goal is to be approached. For each class was prescribed not only the work to be done, but also the end to be kept in view. Thus method reigned throughout — perhaps not the best method, as the object to be attained was assuredly not the highest object — but the method, such as it was, was applied with undeviating exactness. In this particular the Jesuit schools contrasted strongly with their rivals of old, as indeed with the ordinary school of the present day. The Head Master, who is to the modern English school what the General, Provincial, Rector, Prefect of Studies, and Ratio Stiidiorum combined were to a school of the Jesuits, has perhaps no standard in view up to which the boy should have been brought when his school course is completed.* The masters of forms teach just those portion of their subject in which they themselves are interested, in any way that occurs to them, with by no means uniform success ; so that when two forms are examined with the same examination paper, it is no very uncommon occurrence for the lower to be found * As the Public Schools Commission pointed out, the Head Master often thinks of nothing but the attainment of University honouis, even when the great majority of his pupils art not going to the University. 50 THE JESUITS. Jesuit limitations. superior to the higher. It is, perhaps, to be expected that a course in which uniform method tends to a definite goal would on the whole be more successful than one in which a boy has to accustom himself by turns to half-a-dozen different methods, invented at haphazard by individual masters with different aims in view, if indeed they have any aim at all. § 29. I have said that the object which the Jesuits pro- posed in their teaching was not the highest object. They did not aim at developing all the faculties of their pupils, but mainly the receptive and reproductive faculties. When the young man had acquired a thorough mastery of the Latin language for all purposes, when he was well versed in the theological and philosophical opinions of his preceptors, when he was skilful in dispute, and could make a brilliant display from the resources of a well-stored memory, he had reached the highest point to which the Jesuits sought to lead him.* Originality and independence of mind, love of truth * The advantages of learning by heart are twofold, says Sacchini : " Primum memoriam ipsam perficiunt, quod est in totam setatem ad uni- versa negotia inaestimabile commodum. Deinde suppellectilem inde pulcherrimam congregant verborum ac rerum : quae item, quamdiu vi- vant, Usui futura sit : cum quse astate ilia insederint indelebilia soleant permanere. Magnam itaque, ubi adoleverint, gratiam Prasceptori ha- bebunt, cui memorise debebunt profectum, magnamque lastitiam capient invenientes quodammodo domi thesaurum quern, in aetate cseteroqui parum fructuosa, prope non sentientes pararint. Enim vero quam sspe viros graves atque preestantes magnoque jam natu videre et audire est, dum in docta ac nobili corona jucundissime quredam promunt ex iis quDe 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 h.ive grown up they will feel gratitude to THE JESUITS. 51 Gains from memorizing. for its own sake, the power of reflecting, and of forming correct judgments were not merely neglected — they were suppressed in the Jesuits' system. But in what they attempted they were eminently successful, and their success went a long way towards securing their popularity.* the master to whom- they are indebted for their good memory ; and they v.ill take delight in finding within them a treasure which at a time of life otherwise unfruitful they have been preparing almost without know- ing it. How often we see and hear eminent men far advanced in life, when in learned and noble company, take a special 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 librarj', 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 futures otiosos ; ita minus fore solos cum soli erunt, consuetudine fruentes sapientum. . . . Denique curandum erit ut selecta qujedam ediscant quae deinde in quovis studiorum genere ac vita fere omni usui sint futura. — So they will never be without em- ployment when unemployed, never less alone than when alone, for then they profit by intercourse with the wise. . . . To sum up, take care that they thoroughly commit to memory choice selections which will foi ever after be of use to them in every kind of study, and nearly every pursuit in life. — (Cap. viij. ) This is interesting and well put, but we see one or two points in which we have now made an advance. Learning by heart will give none of the advantages mentioned unless the boys understand the pieces and delight in them. Learning by heart strengthens, no doubt, a faculty, but nothing large enough to be called " the memory." And the Renascence must indeed have blinded the eyes of the man to whom childhood and youth seemed an "setas parum fiuctuosa"! Similarly, Sturm speaks of the small fry "qui in extremis latent classibus." (Quoted by Parker.) But when Pestalozzi and Froebel came these lay hid no longer. * Ranke, speaking of the success of the Jesuit schools, says : " It 52 THE JESUITS. Popularity. Kindness. § 30. Their popularity was due, moreover, to the means employed, as well as to the result attained. The Jesuit teachers were to lead, not drive their pupils, to make theii learning, not merely endurable, but even acceptable, " dis- ciplinam non modo tolerabilem, sed etiain amabilem." Sacchini expresses himself very forcibly on this subject. " It is," says he, " the unvarying decision of wise men, whether in ancient or modern times, that the instruction of youth will be always best when it is pleasantest : whence this application of the word Indus. The tenderness of youth requires of us that we should not overstrain it, its innocence that we should abstain from harshness. . . . That which enters into willing ears the mind as it were runs to welcome, seizes with avidity, carefully stows away, and faithfully preserves."* The pupils were therefore to be encouraged in every way to take kindly to their learning. With this end in view (and no doubt other objects also), was found that young persons learned more under them in half a year than with others in two years. Even Protestants called back their children from distant schools, and put them under the care of the Jesuits." — Hist, of Popes , book v, p. 138. Kelly's Trans. In France, the University in vain procured an arrit forbidding the Parisians to send away their sons to the Jesuit colleges : " "Jesuit schools enjoyed the confidence of the public in a degree which placed them beyond competition." (Pattison's Casauhon, p. 182.) Pattison remarks elsewhere that such was the common notion of the Jesuits' course of instruction that their controversialists could treatanyone, even a Casaubon, who had not gone through it, as an uneducated person. * " Sapientum hoc omnium seu veterum seu recentum constans judi- cium est, institutionem puerilem turn fore optimam cum jucundissima fuerit, inde enim et ludum vocari. Meretur setatis teneritas ut ne oneretur : meretur innocentia ut ei parcatur . . . Quoe libentibus auribus instillnntur, adea velut occurrit animus, avide suscipit, studiose recondit, fideliter serval." THE JESUITS. 53 Sympathy with each pupil. the masters were carefully to seek the boys' affections. " When pupils love the master," says Sacchini, " they will soon love his teaching. Let him, therefore, show an interest in everything that concerns them and not merely in their studies. Let him rejoice with those that rejoice, and not disdain to weep with those that weep. After the example of the Apostle let him become a little one amongst little ones, that he may make them adult in Christ, and Christ adult in them . . . Let him unite the grave kind- ness and authority of a father with a mother's tenderness."* § 31. In order that learning might be pleasant to the pupils, it was necessary that they should not be overtasked. To avoid this, the master had to study the character and capacity of each boy in his class, and to keep a book with all particulars about him, and marks from one to six indi- cating proficiency. Thus the master formed an estimate of what should be required, and the amount varied con- siderably with the pupil, though the quality of the work was always to be good. • " Conciliabit facile studiis quos primum sibi conciliarit. Det itaque omnem operam illorum erga se observantionem ut sapienter colligat et continenter enutriat. Ostendat, sibi res eorum curse esse non solum quae ad animum sed etiam quae ad alia pertinent. Gaudeat cum gau- dentibus, nee dedignetur flere cum flentibus. Instar Apostoli inter par- vulos parvulus fiat quo magnos in Christo et magnum in eis Christum efficiat . . . Seriam comitatem et paternam gravitatem cum materna benignitate permisceat." Unfortunately, the Jesuits' kind manner loses its value from being due not so much to kind feeling as to some ulterior object, or to a rule of the Order. I think it is Jouvency who recommends that when a boy is absent from sickness or other sufficient reason, the master sh uld send daily to inquire after him, because the parents will be pleaied by such attetitioti. When the motive of the inquiry is suspected, th parents will be pleased no longer. 54 THE JESUITS. Work moderate in amount and difficulty. § 32. Not only was the work not to be excessive, it was never to be of great difficulty. Even the grammar was to be made as easy and attractive as possible. " I think it a mistake " says Sacchini, " to introduce at an early stage the more thorny difficulties of grammar : . . . for when the pupils have become familiar with the earlier parts, use will, by degrees, make the more difficult clear to them. His mind expanding and his judgment ripening as he grows older the pupil will often see for himself that which he could hardly be made to see by others. Moreover, in reading an author, examples of grammatical difficulties will be more easily observed in connection with the context, and will make more impression on the mind, than if they are taught in an abstract form by themselves. Let them then, be carefully explained whenever they occur."* § 33. Perhaps no body of men in Europe (the Thugs may, in this respect, rival them in Asia) have been so hated as the Jesuits. I once heard Frederick Denison Maurice say he thought Kingsley could find good in every one except the Jesuits, and, he added, he thought he could find good even in them. But why should a devoted Christian find a difficulty in seeing good in the Jesuits, a body of men whose devotion to their idea of Christian duty has never * " Errorem existimo statim initio spinosiores quasdam grammaticje difficultates inculcare . . . cum enim planioribus insueverint difficiliora paulatim usus explanabit, Quin et capacior subinde mensac firmius cum setate judicium, quod alio monstrante peracgre unquam percepisset per sese non raro intelliget. Exempla quoque talium rerum dum prselegilur autor facilius in orationis contextu agnoscentur et penetrabunt in animos quam si solitaria et abscissa proponantur. Quamobrem faciendum erit ut quoties occurrunt diligenter enu* cleentur.' THE JESUITS. . 55 The Society the Army of the Church. been surpassed ?* The difficulty arose from differences in ideal. Both held that the ideal Christian would do every- thing " to the greater glory of God," or as the Jesuits put it in their business-like fashion, " A.M.D.G.," {i.e., ad mnjorem Dei gloriam). But Maurice 'and Kingsley thought of a divine idea for every man. The Jesuits' idea lost sight of the individual. Like their enemy, Carlyle, the Jesuits in effect worshipped strength, but Carlyle thought of the strength of the individual, the Jesuits of the strength of *' the Catholic Church." "The Catholic Church" was to them the manifested kingdom of God. Everything therefore that gave power to the Church tended " A.M.D.G." The Com- pany of Jesus was the regular army of the Church, so, arguing logically from their premises, they made the glory of God and the success of the Society convertible terms. § 34. Thus their conception was a purely military con- ception. A commander-in-chief, if he were an ardent patriot and a great general, would do all he could to make the army powerful. He would care much for the health, morals, and training of the soldiers, but always with direct reference to the army. He would attend to everything that made a man a better soldier; beyond this he would not concern himself. In his eyes the army would be everything, and a soldier nothing but a part of it, just as a link is only a part of a chain. Paulsen, speaking of the Jesuits, says truly that no great organization can exist without a root idea. The root idea of the army is the sacrifice and annihilation of the individual, that the body may be fused together and * See, e.g. , marvellous instances of their self-devotion in that most interesting book, Francis Parkman's Jesuits in N. America (Boston, Little & Co., loth edition, 1876). 56 THE JESUITS. Their pedagogy not disinterested. so gain a strength greater than that of any number of indi- viduals. Formed on tliis idea the army acts all together and in obedience to a single will, and no mob can stand its charge. Ignatius Loyola and succeeding Generals took up this idea and formed an army for the Church, an army that became the wonder and the terror of all men. Never, as Compayr^ says, had a body been so sagaciously organized, or had wielded so great resources for good and for evil.* (See Buisson, ij, 14 19.) § 35. To the English schooLiiaster the Jesuits must always be interesting, if for no other reason at least for this — that they were so intensely practical. ^'- Les Jesuites ne sont pas des pedagogues assez desinteresses pour nous plaire. — The Jesuits as schoolmasters," says M. Compayr^, "are not disinterested enough for us." (Buisson, sub v. Jesuites, ad f.). But disinterested pedagogy is not much to the mind of the Englishman. It does not seem to know quite what it would be after, and deals in generalities, such as " Education is not a means but an end ;" and the end being somewhat indefinite, the means are still more wanting in precision. This vague- • I have referred to Francis Parkman, who has chronicled the marvellous self-devotion and heroism of the Jesuit missionaries in Canada. Such a witness may be trusted when he says: "The Jesuit was as often a fanatic for his Order as for his faith ; and oftener yet, the two fanaticisms mingled in him inextricably. Ardently as he burned for the saving of souls, he would have none saved on the Upper Lakes except by his brethren and himself. He claimed a monopoly of con- version with its attendant monopoly of toil, hardships, and martyrdom. Often disinterested for himself, he was inordinately ambitious for the great corporate power in which he had merged his own personality ; and here lies one of the causes, among many, of the seeming contradic- tions which abound in the annals of the Order." — The Discovery of tht Great West, by F. Parkman, London, 1869, p. 28. THE JESUITS. 57 Practical. The forces : i. Master's influence. ness is what the English master hates. He prefers not to "Touble himself about the end. The wisdom of his ancestors has settled that, and he can direct his attention to what really interests him — the practical details. In this he re- sembles the Jesuits. The end has been settled for them by their founder. They revel in practical details, in which they are truly great, and here we may learn much from them. '■'■Ratio applied to studies" says Father Eyre,* "more naturally means Method than Principle ; and our Ratio Studiorum is essentially a Method or System of teaching and learning." Here is a method that has been worked uniformly and with singular success for three centuries, and can still give a good account of its old rivals. But will it hold its own against the late Reformers? As regards intel- lectual training the new school seeks to draw out the faculties of the young mind by employing them on subjects in which it is interested. The Jesuits fixed a course of study which, as they frankly recognized, could not be made interesting. So they endeavoured to secure accuracy by constant repeti- tion, and relied for industry on two motive powers : ist, the personal influence of the master; and, 2nd, "the spur of industry " — emulation. § 36. To acquire "influence" has ever been the main object of the Society, and his devotion to this object makes a great distinction between the Jesuit and most other instructors. His notion of the task was thus expressed by Father Gerard, S. J., at the Educational Conference of 1884 : " Teaching is an art amongst arts. To be worthy of the nam<^ it must be the work of an individual upon individuals. The true teacher must understand, appreciate, and sympa- • In a letter dated from Stonyhurst, 22nd April, 1880. 58 THE JESUITS. 2. Emulation. tbize with those who are committed to him. He must be daily discovering what there is (and undoubtedly there is something in each of them) capable of fruitful development, and contriving how better to get at them and to evoke what- ever possibilities there are in them for good." The Jesuit master, then, tried to gain influence over the boys and to use that influence for many purposes ; to make them work well being one of these, but not perhaps the most important. § 37. As for emulation, no instructors have used it so elaborately as the Jesuits. In most English schools the prizes have no effect whatever except on the first three or four boys, and the marking is so arranged that those who take the lead in the first few lessons can keep their position without much effort. This clumsy system would not suit the Jesuits. They often for prize-giving divide a class into a number of small groups, the boys in each group being approximately equal, and a prize is offered for each group. The class matches, too, stimulate the weaker pupils even more than the strong. § 38. In conclusion, I will give the chief points of the system in the words of one of its advocates and admirers, who was himself educated at Stonyhurst : , " Let us now try to put together the various pieces of this school machinery and study the effect. We have seen that the boys have masters entirely at their disposition, not only at class time, but at recreation time after supper in the night Reading Rooms. Each day they record victory or defeat in the recurring exercises or themes upon various matters. By the quarterly papers or examinations in com- position, for which nine hours are assigned, the order of merit is fixed, and this order entails many little privileges and precedencies, in chapel, refectory, class room, and THE JESUITS. 59 A pupil's summing'-up. elsewhere. Each master, if he , prove a success and his health permit, continues to be the instructor of the boj^s in his class during the space of six years. ' It is obvious.' says Shell, in his account of Stonyhurst, 'that much of a boy's acquirements, and a good deal of the character of his taste, must have depended upon the individual to whose instructions he was thus almost exclusively confined.' And in many cases the effects must be a greater interest felt in the students by their teachers, a mutual attachment founded on long acquaintance, and a rnore thorough knowledge, on the part of the master, of the weak and strong points of his pupils. Add to the above, the ' rival ' and ' side ' system, the effect of challenges and class combats ; of the wearing of decorations and medals by the Imperators on Sundays, Festival Days, Concertation Days, and Examination Days ; of the extraordinary work — done much more as private than as class work — helping to give individuality to the boy's exertions, which might otherwise be merged in the routine work of the class ; and the ' free time ' given for improve- ment on wet evenings and after night prayers; add the Honours Matter ; the Reports read before the Rector and all subordinate Superiors, the Professors, and whole body of Students ; add the competition in each class and between the various classes, and even between the various colleges in England of the Society ; and only one conclusion can be arrived at. It is a system which everyori.e is free to admire or think inferior to some other preferred by him ; but it is a system." {Stonyhurst College, Present and Past, by A. Hewitson, 2nd edition, 1878, pp. 214, fif.) § 39. Yes, it is a system, a system built up by the united efforts of many astute intellects and showing marvellous 6o THE JESUITS. Some books. skill in selecting means to attain a dearly conceived end. There is then in the history of education little that should be more interesting or might be more instructive to the master of an English public school than the chapter abou* the Jesuits.* * The best account I have seen of life in a Jesuit school is in Erinnerungen eines chemaligen Jesuitenzoglings (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1S62). The writer (Kohler ?) says that he has become an evangelical clergyman, but there is no hostile feeling shown to his old instructors, and the narrative bears the strongest internal evidence of accuracy. Some of the Jesuit devices mentioned are very ingenious. All house masters who have adopted the cubicle arrangement of dormitories know how difficult it is to keep the boys in their own cubicles. The Jesuits have the cubicles barred across at the top, and the locks on the doors are so constructed that though they can be opened from the inside they cannot be shut again. The Fathers at Freiburg (in Breisgau) opened a " tuck-shop " for the boys, and gave " week's-pay " in counters which passed at their own shop and nowhere else. The author speaks warmly of the kindness of the Fathers and of their care for health and recreation. But their ways were inscrutable and every boy felt himself in the hands of a human providence. As the boys go out for a walk, one of them is detained by the porter, who says " the Rector wants to speak to you." On their way back the boys meet a diligence in which sits their late comrade waving adieus. He has been expelled. Another book which throws much light on Jesuit pedagogy isby a Jesuit — La Discipline, par le R. P. Emmanuel Barbier (Paris, V. Palme, 2nd edition, 1888). I will give a specimen in a loose translation, as it may interest the reader to see how carefully the Jesuits have studied the master's difficulties. . " The master in charge of the boys, especially in play-time, in his first intercourse with them, has no greater snare in his way than taking his power for granted, and trusting to the strength of his will and his knowledge of the world, especially as he is at first lulled into security by the deferential manner of his pupils. "That master who goes off with such ease from the very first, to whom the 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 THE JESUITS. 6 1 Barbier's advice to new master. liked, almost popular, with his pupils, who shows no more anxiety about his work than he must show to keep his character for good sense, that m(..sler 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 atlempl ihe 62 THE JESUITS. Loyola and Montaigne. Port Royal. diplomate ; don't match your skill against theirs. You cannot chat with- out coming out of your shell, so to speak. Instead of this, you must puzzle them by your reserve, and drive them to this admission : ' We don't know what to make of our new master.' " Do I advise you then to be on the defensive throughout the whole year and like a stranger among your pupils ? No ! a thousand times, No ! It is just to make their relations with you simple, confiding, I might say cordial, without the least danger to your authority, that I endeavour to raise this authority at first beyond the reach of assault." — La Discipline, chap, v, pp. 31 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 (Compayre, Doctrines, &^f., 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 JJsiiites Instituteurs, par le P. Ch. Daniel, 1S80, in which the Jesuit sets himself to maintain this thesis : " D'une source aussi profondement infectee du poison de I'heresie, il ne pouvait sortir rien d' absolument bon " (p. 123). One good point he certainly makes", and in my judgment one only, in comparing the Port Royalist schools with the schools of Jesuits. Methods which answer with very smyll numbers may not do with large numbers: "You might as well try lo extend your gardening operations to agriculture " (p. 102). V. RABELAIS, (1483-1553.) § I. To great geniuses it is given to think themselves in a measure free from the ordinary notions of their time and often to anticipate the discoveries of a future age. In all literature there is perhaps hardly a more striking instance of this "detached" thinking than we find in Rabelais' account of the education of Gargantua. § 2. We see in Rabelais an enthusiasm for learning and a tendency to verbal realism ; that is, he turned to the old writers for instruction about things. So far he was a child of the Renascence. But in other respects he advanced far beyond it. § 3. After a scornful account of the ordinary school hooks and methods by which Gargantua " though he studied hard, did nevertheless profit nothing, but only grew thei'iby foolish, simple, doited, and blockish," Rabelais decides that "it were better for him to learn nothing at all than to be taught suchlike books under suchlike school- masters." All this old lumber must be swept away, and in two years a youth may acquire a better judgment, a better 64 RABELAIS. Rabelais' ideal. A new start. manner, and more command of language than could ever have been obtained by the old method. We are then introduced to the model pupil. The end of education has been declared to be sapiens et eloquen: fietas ; and we find that though Rabelais might have sub- stituted knowledge for piety, he did caie for piety, and valued very highly both wisdom and eloquence. The eloquent Roman was the ideal of the Renascence, and Rabelais' model pupil expresses himself " with gestures so proper, pronunciation so distinct, a voice so eloquent, language so well turned and in such good^Latin that he seemed rather a Gracchus, a Cicero, an ^milius of the time past than a youth of the present age." § 4. So a Renascence tutor is appointed for Gargantua and administers to him a potion that makes him forget all he has ever learned. He then puts him through a very different course. Tike all wise instructors he first endeavours to secure the will of the pupil. He allows Gargantua to go the accustomed road till he can convince him it is the wrong one. This seems to me a remarkable proof of wisdom. How often does the " new master " break abruptly with the past, and raise the opposition of the pupil by dis- praise of all he has already done ! By degrees Ponocrates, the model tutor, inspired in his pupil a great desire for improvement. This he did by bringing him into the society of learned men, who filled him with ambition to be like them. Thereupon Gargantua " put himself into such a train of study that he lost not any houi in the day, but employed all his time in learning and honest knowledge." The day was to begin at 4 a.m., with reading of "some chapter of the Holy Scripture, and oftentimes he gave himself to revere, adore, pray, and send up his supplications RABELAIS. 65 Religion. Study of Things. to that good God, whose word did show His majesty and marvellous judgments." This is the only hint we get in this part of the book on the subject of religious or moral education : the training is directed to the intellect and the body. • § 5. The remarkable feature in Rabelais' curriculum is this, that it is concerned mainly with things. Of the Seven Liberal Arts of the Middle Ages, the first three were purely formal: grammar, logic, rhetoric ; while the following course : arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, were not. The effect of the Renascence was to cause increasing neglect of the Quadrivium, but Rabelais cares for the Quadrivium only ; Gargantua studies arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, and the Trivium is not mentioned. Great use is made of books and Gargantua learned them by heart ; but all that he learned he at once " applied to practical cases concerning the estate of man." It was the substance of the reading, not the form, that was thought of. At dinner " if they thought good they continued reading or began to discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety, efificacy, and nature of all that was served in at that table ; of bread, of wine, of water, of salt, of flesh, fish, fruits, herbs, roots, and of their dressing. By means whereof he learned in a little time all the passages that on these subjects are to be found in Pliny, Athenseus, &c. Whilst they talked of these things, many times to be more certain they caused the very books to be brought to the table ; and so well and perfectly did he in his memory retain the things above said, that in that time there was not a physician tha,. knew half so much as he did." Again, out of doors he was to observe trees and plants, and " compare them with what is written of them in the books of the ancients, such as Theo- ^ RABELAIS. " Anschauung." Hand-work. Books and Life. phrastus, Dioscorides, &c." Here again, actual realism was to be joined with verbal realism, for Gargantua was to carry home with him great handfuls for herborising. Rabelais even recommends studying the face of the heavens at night, and then observing the change that has taken place at 4 in the morning. So he seems to have been the first writer on education (and the first by a long interval), who would teach about things by observing the things themselves. It was this AnscJiaiiungs-prinzip — use of sense-impressions — that Pestalozzi extended and claimed as his invention two centuries and a half later. Rabelais also gives a hint of the use of hand-work as well as head-work. Gargantua and his fellows " did recreate themselves in bottling hay, in cleaving and sawing wood, and in threshing sheaves of corn in the barn. They also studied the art of painting or carving." The course was further connected with life by visits to the various handicraftsmen, in whose workshops " they did leani and consider the industry and invention of the trader." Thus, even in the time of the Renascence, Rabelais saw that the life of the intellect might be nourished by many things besides books. But books were still kept in the highest place. Even on a holiday, which occurred on some fine and clear day once a month, "though spent without books or lecture, yet was the day not without profit ; for in the meadows they repeated certain pleasant verses of Virgil's Agriculture, of Hesiod, of Politian's Husbandry." They also turned Latin epigrams into French rondeaux. This course of study, " although at first it seemed difficult, yet soon became so sweet, so easy, and so delightful, that it seemed rather the recreation of a king than the study of a scholar." RABELAIS. 67 Training the body. In preferring the Quadrivial studies to the Trivial, and still more in his use of actual things, Rabelais separates himself from all the teachers of his time. § 6. Very remarkable too is the attention he pays to physical education. A day does not pass on which Gargantua does not gallantly exercise his body as he has already exerci sed his mind. The exercises prescribed are very various, and include running, jumping, swimming, with practice on the horizontal bar and with dumb-bells, &c. But in one respect Rabelais seems behind our own writer, Richard Mulcaster. Mulcaster trained the body simply with a view to health. Rabelais is thinking of the gentleman, and all his physical exercises are to prepare him for the gentleman's occupation, war. The constant preparation for war had a strong and in some respects a very beneficial influence on the education of gentlemen in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, as it has had on that of the Germans in the eighteen hundreds. But to be ready to slaughter one's fellow creatures is not an ideal aim in education ; and besides this, one half of the human race can never (as far as we can judge at present) be affected by it. We therefore prefer the physical training recommended by the Englishman. Mr. Walter Besant by his Readings in Rabelais (Blackwood, 1883), has put Rabelais' wit and wisdom where we can get at most of it with- out searching in the dung-hill. But he has unfortunately omitted Gaigantua's letter to Pantagruel at Paris (book ij, chap. 8), where we get the curriculum as proposed by Rabelais, a chapter in which no scavenger is needed. I will give some extracts from it : — "Although my deceased father of happy memory, Grangousier, had bent his best endeavours to make me profit in all perfection and political knowledge, and that my labour and study was fully correspon- dent to, yea, went beyond his desire ; nevertheless, the time then was not 68 RABELAIS. Rabelais' Curriculum. so proper and fit for learning as it is at present, neither had I plenty of such good masters as thou hast had ; for that time was dark- some, obscured with clouds of ignorance and savouring a little of the infelicity and calamity of the Goths, who had, wherever they set footing, destroyed all good literature, which in my age hath by the Divine Good- ness been restored unto its former light and dignity, and that with such amendment and increase of knowledge that now hardly should I be admitted unto the first form of the little grammar school boys {des petits grimaulx) : I say, I, who in my youthful days was (and that justly) reputed the most learned of that age. Now it is that the old knowledges {disciplines) are restored, the languages revived. Greek (without which it is a shame for any one to call himself learned), Hebrew, Chaldee, Latin. Printing {Des impressions') too, so elegant and exact, is in use, which in mv dav was invented by divine inspiration, as cannon were by sug- gestion of the devil. All the world is full of men of knowledge, of very learned teachers, of large libraries ; so that it seems to me that neither in the age of Plato, nor of Cicero, nor of Papinian was there such con- venience for studying as there is now. I see the robbers, hangmen, adventurers, ostlers of to-day more learned then the doctors and the preachers of my youth. Why, women and girls have aspired to the heavenly manna of good learning ... I mean you to learn the languages perfectly first of all, the Greek as Quintilian wishes, then the Latin, then Hebrew for the Scriptures, and Chaldee and Arabic at the same time ; and that thou form thy style in Greek on Plato, in Latin on Cicero. Let there be no history which thou hast not ready in thy memory, in which cosmography will aid thee. Of the Liberal Arts, geometry, arithmetic, music, I have given thee a taste when thou wast stil a child, at the age of five or six [Pantagruel was a giant, we must remember]; carry them on; and know'st thou all the rules of astronomy? Don't touch astrology for divination and the art of Lullius, which are mere vanity. In the civil law thou must know the five texts by heart . . . As for knowledge of the works of Nature, I would liave thee devote thyself to them so that there may be no sea, river, or spring of which thou knowest not the fishes ; all the birds of the air, all the trees, forest or orchard, all the herbs of the field, all the metals hid in the bowels of the earth, all the precious stones of the East and the South, let nothing be unknown to thee. " Then turn again with diligence to the books of the Greek physicians, RABELAIS. 69 Study of Scripture. Piety. and the Arabs, and the Latin, without despising the Talmudists and the Cabalists ; and by frequent dissections acquire a perfect knowledge of !he other world, which is Man. And some hours a-day begin to read the Sacred Writings, first in Greek the New Testament and Epistles of the Apostles ; then in Hebrew the Old Testament. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge, for from henceforth as thou growest great and becomest a man thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study . . . And because, as Solomon saith, wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and science without con- science is but the ruin of the soul, thou shouldst serve, love, and fear God, and in Him centre all thy thoughts, all thy hope ; and by faith rooted in charity be joined to Him, so as never to be separated from Him by sin." The influence of Rabelais on Montaigne, Locke, and Rousseau has been well traced by Dr. F. A. Arnstadt. (Fraitfois Rabelais, Leipzig, Barth, xSja.) VI. MONTAIGNE. (1533-1592.) § I. The learned ideal established by the Renascence was accepted by Rabelais, though he made some suggestions about Realien* that seem to us much in advance of it. When he quotes the saying " Magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes" ("the greatest clerks are not the greatest sages "), this singular piece of Latinity is appro- priately put into the mouth of a monk, who represents everything the Renascence scholars despised. In Montaigne we strike into a new vein of thought, and we find that what the monk alleges in defence of his ignorance the cultured gentleman adopts as the expression of an important truth. § 2. We ordinary people see truths indeed, but we see them indistinctly, and are not completely guided by them. * I am sorry to use a German word, but educational matters have been so little considered among us that we have no English vocabulary for them. The want of a word for Realien was felt over 2cx> 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 tJu Antient Education of Gentlewomen. London, 1672.) MONTAIGNE. 7 1 Writers and doers. Montaigne u. Renascence. It is reserved for men of genius to see truths, some truths that is, often a very few, with intense clearness. Some of these men have no great talent for speech or writing, and they try to express the truths they see, not so much by books as by action. Such men in education were Comenius, Pestalozzi, aud Froebel. But sometimes the man of genius has a great power over language, and then he finds for the truths he has seen, fitting expression, which becomes almost as lasting as the truths themselves. Such men were Montaigne and Rousseau. If the historian of education is asked "What did Montaigne do?" he will answer "Nothing." "What did Froebel say?" "He said a great deal, but very few people can read him and still fewer understand him." Both, however, are and must remain forces in education. Montaigne has given to some truths imperishable form in his Essays^ and Froebel's ideas come home to all the world in tlie Kindergarten. § 3. The ideal set up by the Renascence attached the highest importance to learning. Montaigne maintained that the resulting training even at its best was not suited to a gentleman or man of action. Virtue, wisdom, and intel- lectual activity should be thought of before learning Education should be first and foremost the development and exercise of faculties. And even if the acquirement of knowledge is thought of, Montaigne maintains that the pedants do not understand the first conditions of knowledge and give a semblance not the true thing. — " // ne faut pas atiacher le savoir d Pdme, il faut Vincorporer. — Knowledge cannot be fastened on to the mind ; it must become part and parcel of the mind itself."* * See the very interesting Essay on Montaigfte by Dean R. W. Church. 72 MONTAIGNE. Character before knowledge. True knowledge. Here then we have two separate counts against the Renascence education : ist. — Knowledge is not the main thing. 2nd. — True knowledge is something very different from knowing by heart. § 4. It is a pity Montaigne's utterances about education are to be found in English only in the complete translation of his essays. Seeing that a good many millions of people read English, and are most of them concerned in education, one may hope that some day the sayings of the shrewd old Frenchman may be offered them in a convenient form. § 5. Here are some of them: "The evil comes of the foolish way in which our [instructors] set to work ; and on the plan on which we are taught no wonder if neither scholars nor masters become more able, whatever they may do in becoming more learned. In truth the trouble and expense of our fathers are directed only to furnish our heads with knowledge : not a word of judgment or virtue. Cry out to our people about a passer-by, 'There's a learned man!' and about another 'There's a good man !' they will be all agog after the learned man, and will not look at the good man. One might fairly raise a third cry: 'There's a set of num- skulls !' We are ready enough to ask ' Does he know Greek or know Latin? Does he write verse or write prose?' But whether he has become wiser or better should be the first question, and that is always the last We ought to find out, not who knows most but who knows ^es/" (I, chap. 24, Du Pedantisme, page or two beyond Odi homines^ § 6. The true educators, according to Montaigne, were the Spartans, who despised literature, and cared only for character and action. At Athens they thought about words, MONTAIGNE. 73 Athens and Sparta. Wisdom before knowledge. at Sparta about things. At Athens boys learnt to speak well, at Sparta to da well : at Athens to escape from sophis- tical arguments, and to face all attempts to deceive them ; at Sparta to escape from the allurements of pleasure, and to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, even death itself In the one system there was constant exercise of the tongue, in the other of the soul. • " So it is not strange that when Antipater demanded of the Spartans fifty children as hostages they replied they would sooner give twice as many grown men, such store did they set by their country's training." {^Dti Fedantis??ie, ad f ) § 7. It is odd to find a man of the fifteen hundreds' who quotes from the old authors at every turn, and yet maintains that " we lean so much on the arm of other people that we lose our own strength." The thing a boy should learn is not what the old authors say, but "what he himself ought to do when he becomes a man." Wisdom, not knowledge ! " We may become learned from the learning of others ; wise we can never be except by our own wisdom." (Bk. j, chap. 24). § 8. So entirely was Montaigne detached from the thought of the Renascence that he scoffs at his own learning, and declares that true learning has for its subject, not the past or the future, but the present. " We are truly learned from knowing the present, not from knowing the past any more than the future." And yet " we toil only to stufi' the memory and leave the conscience and the under- standing void. And like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain bring it home in their beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young, so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there out of several authors, and hold it at their tongue's end, only to spit it out and distribute it amongst 74 MONTAIGNE. Knowing, and knowing by heart. their pupils." {Du Fedantisme.') "We are all richer than we think, but they drill us in borrowing and begging, and lead us to make more use of other people's goods than of our own."* (Bk. iij, chap. 12, De la Fhysiotioniie, beg. of 3rd paragraph). § 9. So far Montaigne. What do we schoolmasters say to all this? If we would be quite candid I think we must allow that, after reading Montaigne's essay, we put it down with the conviction that in the main he was right, and that he had proved the error and absurdity of a vast deal that goes on in the schoolroom. But from this first view we hav& had on reflection to make several drawbacks. § 10. Montaigne, like Locke and Rousseau, who fol- lowed in his steps, arranges for every boy to have a tutor entirely devoted to him. We may question whether this method of bringing up children is desirable, and we may assert, without question, that in most cases it is impossible. It seems ordained that at every stage of life we should require the companionship of those of our own age. If we * Perhaps the saying of Montaigne's which is most frequently quoted is the paradox Savoir par cocur ri' est pas savoir : ( " to know by heart is ViQiio 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 1 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. MONTAIGNE. JS Learning necessary as employment. take two beings as little alike as a man and a child and force them to be each other's companions, so great is the flifference in their thoughts and interests that they will fall into inevitable boredom and restraint. So we see that this plan, even in the few cases in which it would be possible, would not be desirable ; and for the great majority of boys it would be out of the question. We must then arrange for the young to be taught, not as individuals, but in classes, and this greatly changes the conditions of the problem. One of the first conditions is this, that we have to employ each class regularly and uniformly for some hours every day. Schoolmasters know what their non-scholastic mentors forget : we can make a class learn, but, broadly speaking, we cannot make a class think, still less can we make it judge. As a great deal of occupation has to be provided, we are therefore forced to make our pupils learn. What- ever may be the value of the learning in itself it is absolutely necessary as employment. § II. No doubt it will make a vast difference whether we consider the learning mainly as employment, as a means of taking up time and preventing *' sauntering," as Locke boldly calls it, or whether we are chiefly anxious to secure some special results. The knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages and the Latin and Greek authors was a result so highly prized by the Renascence scholars that they insisted on a prodigious quantity of learning, not as employment, but simply as the means of acquiring this knowledge. As the knowledge got to be less esteemed the pressure was by degrees relaxed. In our public schools fifty or sixty years ago the learning was to some extent retained as employment, but there certainly was no pressure, and the majority of the boys never learnt the ancient languages. ^6 MONTAIGNE. Montaigne and our Public Schools. So the masters of that time had given up the Renascence enthusiasm for the classics, and on the negative side of his teaching had come to an agreement with Montaigne. Any one inclined to sarcasm might say that on the positive side they were still totally opposed to him, for he thought virtue and judgment were the main things to be cared for, and they did not care for these things at all. But this is not a fair statement. The one thing gained, or supposed to to be gained, in the public schools was the art of living, and this art, though it does not demand heroic virtue, requires at least prudence and self-control. Montaigne's system was a revolt against the bookishness of the Renascence. " In our studies," says he, " whatever presents itself before us is book enough ; a roguish trick of a page, a blunder of a servant, a jest at table, are so many new subjects." So the education out of school was in his eyes of m,ore value than the education in school. And this was acknowledged also in our public schools : " It is not the Latin and Greek they learn or don't learn that we consider so important,"' the masters used to say, " but it is the tone of the school and the discipline of the games." But of late years this virtual agreement with Montaigne has been broken up. School work is no longer mere employment, but it is done under pressure, and with penalties if the tale of brick turned out does not pass the inspector. § 12. What has produced this great change? It is due mainly to two causes : I. Th6 pressure put on the young to attain classical knowledge was relaxed when it was thought that they could get through life very well without this knowledge. But in these days new knowledge has awakened a new enthusiasm. The knowledge of science promises such great advantages MONTAIGNE. 'J'J Pressure from Science and Examinations. that the latest reformers, headed by Mr. Herbert Spencer, seem to make the well-being of the grown person depend mainly on the amount of scientific knowledge he stored up in his youth. This is the first cause of educational pressure. § 13, 2. The second and more urgent cause is the rap'.d development of our system of examinations. Every- body's educational status is now settled by the examiner, a potentate whose influence has brought back in a very malignant form all the evils of which Montaigne complains. Do what we will, the faculty chiefly exercised in preparing for ordinary examinations is the "carrying memory." So the acquisition of knowledge — mere memory or examination knowledge — has again come to be regarded as the one thing needful in education, and there is great danger of everything else being neglected for it. Of the fourfold results of education — virtue, wisdom, good manners, learning — the last alone can be fairly tested in examinations ; and as the schoolmaster's very bread depends nowadays first on his getting through examinations himself and then on getting his pupils through, he would be more than human, if with Locke he thought of learning "last and least." A great change has come over our public schools. The amount of work required from the boys is far greater than it used to be and masters again measure their success by the amount of knowledge the average boy takes away with him. It seems to me high time that another Montaigne arose to protest tjiat a man's intellectual life does not consist in the number of things he remembers, and that his true life is not his intellectual life only, but embraces his power of will and action and his love of what is noble and right. " Wisdom cried of old, I am the mother of fair Love and Fear and Knowledge and holy Hope " {Ecclesiasticus). In these 78 MONTAIGNE. Danger from knowledge. days of science and examinations does there not seem some danger lest knowledge should prove the sole surviver ? Maj not Knowledge, like another Cain, raise its hand against its brethren " fair Love and Fear and holy Hope?" This is perhaps the great danger of our time, a danger especially felt in education. Every school parades its scholarships at the public schools or at the universities, or its passes in the Oxford and Cambridge Locals, or its percentage at the last Inspection, and asks to be judged by these. And yet these are not the one thing or indeed the chief thing needful : and it will be the ruin of true education if, as Mark Pattison said, the master's attention is concentrated on the least important part of his duty.* * Lord Armstrong has perhaps never read Montaigne's Essay on Pedantry; certainly, he has not borrowed from it ; and yet much that he says in discussing " The Cry for Useless Knowledge " {Nineteenth Century Magazine, November, 1888), is just what Montaigne said more than three centuries ago. "The aphorism that knowledge is power is so constantly used by educational enthusiasts that it may almost be re- garded as the motto of the party. But the first essential of a motto is that it be true, and it is certainly not true that knowledge is the same as power, seeing that it is only an aid to power. The power of a surgeon to amputate a limb no more lies in his knowledge than in his knife. In fact, the knife has the belter 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 po'X'er is the originative action of the mind which we see exhibited in the daily incidents of life, as well as in matters of great importance. . . . A man's success in life depends incomparably more upon his capacities for useful action than upon his acquirements in knowledge, and the education of the young should therefore be directed to the development of faculties and valuable qualities rather than to the acquisition of know- MONTAIGNE. 79 Montaigne and Lord Armstrong. ledge, . . . Men of capacity and possessing qualities for useful action are at a premium all over the world, while men of mere education are at a deplorable discount." (p. 664). " There is a great tendency in the scholastic world to underrate the value and potency of self-education, which commences on leaving school and endures all through life." (p. 667). " I deprecate plunging into doubtful and costly schemes of instruction, led on by the ignis fatuus that 'knowledge is a power.' For where natural capacity is wasted in attaining knowledge, it would be truer to say that knowledge is weakness." (p. 66S). VII. ASCHAM. (151S-1568.) § I. Masters and scholars who sigh over what seem to them the intricacies and obscurities of modern grammars may find some consolation in thinking that, after all, matters might have been worse, and that our fate is enviable indeed compared with that of the students of Latin 400 years ago. Did the reader ever open the Doctrinale of Alexandei de Villa Dei, which was the grammar in general use from the middle of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century? (&." Appendix, p. 532). If so, he is aware how great a step towards simplicity was made by our grammatical reformers, Lily, Colet, and Erasmus. Indeed, those whom we now regard as the forgers of our chains were, in their own opinion and that of their contemporaries, the champions of freedom (Appendix, p. 533). § 2. I have given elsewhere (Appendix, p. 533) a remark- able passage from Colet, in which he recommends the leaving of rules, and the study of examples in good Latin authors. Wolsey also, in his directions to the masters of Ipswich School (dated 1528), proposes that the boys should be exercised in the eight parts of speech in the first form, ASCHAM. 81 Wolsey on teaching". and should begin to speak Latin and translate from English into Latin in the second. If the masters think fit, they may also let the pupils read Lily's Carmen Monitorium, or ('ato's Distichs. From the third upwards a regular course ol classical authors was to be read, and Lily's rules were to be introduced by degrees. " Although I confess such things are necessary," writes Wolsey, " yet, as far as possible, we could wish them so appointed as not to occupy the more valuable part of the day." Only in the sixth form, the highest but two, Lily's syntax was to be begun. In these schools the boys' time was wholly taken up with Latin, and the speaking of Latin was enforced even in play hours, so we see that anomalies in the accidence as taught in the As in prcesetiti were not given till the boys had been some time using the language ; and the syntax was kept till they had a good practical knowledge of the usages to which the rules referred.* § 3. But although there was a great stir in education throughout this century, and several English books were published about it, we come to 1570 before we find any- thing that has lived till now. We then have Roger Ascham's Schole/naster, a posthumous work brought out by Ascham's widow, and republished in 157 1 and 1589. The book was * In another matter, also, we find that the masters of these schools subsequently departed widely from the intention of the great men who fostered the revival of learning. Wolsey writes : *' Imprimis hoc anum admonendum censuerimus, ut neque plagis severioribus neque vultuosis minis, aut ulla tyrannidis specie, tenera pubes afficiatur : hac enim injuria ingenii alacritas aut extingui aut magna ex parte obtundi solet." Again he says : " In ipsis sfudiis sic voluptas est intermiscenda ut puer ludumpotiusdiscendiquamlaboremexistimet." He adds: "Cavendum erit ne immodica ccntentione ingenia discentium obruantur aut lections prolonga defatigentur ; utraque enim juxta offenditur." n 82 ASCHAM. History of Methods useful. then lost sight of, but reappeared, with James Upton as editor, in 17 ii,* and has been regarded as an educational classic ever since. Dr. Johnson says "it contains peihaps the best advice that was ever given for the study of language^," and Professor J. E. B. Mayor, who • on this point is a higher authority than Dr. Johnson, declares that " this book sets forth the only sound method of acquiring a dead language." § 4. With all their contempt for theory, English school- masters might have been expected to take an interest in one part of the history of education, viz., the history of methods. There is a true saying attributed by Marcel to Talleyrand, '■'■ Les Methodes sont les tnaitres des maitres — Method is the master's master." The history of education shows us that every subject of instruction has been taught in various ways, and further, that the contest of methods has not uniformly ended in the survival of the fittest. Methods then might often teach the teachers, if the teachers caved to be taught ; but till within the last half century or so an unin- telligent traditional routine has sufficed for them. There has no doubt been a great change since men now old were at school, but in those days the main strength of the teaching was given to Latin, and the masters knew of no better method of starting boys in this language than making them learn by heart Lily's, or as it was then called, the Eton Latin Grammar. If reason had had anything to do with teaching, this book would have been demolished by Richard Johnson's Grammatical Commentaries published * Professor Arber is one of the very few editors who give accurate and sufficient bibliographical information about the books they edit. All students of our old literature are under deep obligations to him- ASCHAM. 83 Our three celebrities. in 1 706 ; but worthless as Johnson proved it to be, the Grammar was for another 150 years treated by Engh"sh schoolmasters as the only introduction to the Latin tongue. The books that have recently been published show a tendency to revert to methods set forth in Elizabeth's reign in Ascham's Scholemaster (1570) and William Kempe's Education of Children (1588), but the innovators have not as a rule been drawn to these methods by historical inquiry. § 5. There seem to be only three English writers on education who have caught the ear of other nations, and these are Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. Of a contemporary we do well to speak' with the same reserve as of " present company," but of the other two we may say that the choice has been somewhat capricious. Locke's Thoics,hts perhaps deserves the reputation and influence it has always had, but in it he hardly does himself justice as a philosopher of the mind ; and much of the advice which has been considered his exclusively, is to be found in his English predecessors whose very names are unknown except to the educational antiquarian. Ascham wrote a few pages on method which entitle him to mention in an account of methods of language-learning. He also wrote a great many pages about things in general which would have shared the fate of many more valuable but long forgotten books had he not had one peculiarity in which the other writers were wanting, that indescribable something which Matthew Arnold calls "charm." § 6. Ascham has been very fortunate in his editors, Pro- fessor Arber and Professor Mayor, and the last editions* * Mayor's is beautifully printed and costs \s. (London, Bell and Sons. ) 84 ASCHAM. A.'s method for Latin : first stage. give everyone an opportunity of reading the Scholemaster. I shall therefore speak of nothing but the method. § 7. Latin is to be taught as follows : — First, let the child learn the eight parts of speech, and then the right joining together of substantives with adjectives, the noun with the verb, the relative with the antecedent. After the concords are learned, let the master take Sturm's selection of Cicero's Epistles, and read them after this manner : " first, let him teach the child, cheerfully and plainly, the cause and matter of the letter ; then, let him construe it into English so oft as the child may easily carry away the understanding of it ; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done, then let the child by and by both construe and parse it over again ; so that it may appear that the child doubteth in nothing that his master has taught him before. After this, the child must take a paper book, and, sitting in some place where no man shall prompt him, by himself let him translate into English his former lesson. Then showing it to his master, let the master take from him his Latin book, and pausing an hour at the least, then let the child translate his own English into Latin again in another paper book. When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must compare it with Tully's book, and ^lay them both together, and where the child doth well, praise him," where amiss point out why Tully's use is better. Thus the child will easily acquire a knowledge of grammar, "and also the ground of almost all the rules that are so busily taught by the master, and so hardly learned by the scholar in all common schools. . . . We do not contemn rules, but we gladly teach rules; and teach them more plainly, sensibly, and orderly, than they be commonly taught in common schools. ' For when the master shall compare Tully's book with the scholar's translation, ASCHAM. 85 Second stage. The six points. let the master at the first lead and teach the scholar to join the rules of his grammar book with the examples of his present lesson, until the scholar by himself be able to fetch out of his grammar every rule for every example ; and let the grammar book be ever in the scholar's hand, and also used by him as a dictionary for every present use. This is a lively and perfect way of teaching of rules ; where the common way used in common schools to read the grammar alone by itself is tedious for the master, hard for the scholar, cold and uncomfortable for them both." And elsewhere Ascham says : " Yea, I do wish that all rules for young scholars were shorter than they be. For, without doubt, grammatica itself is sooner and surer learned by examples of good authors than by the naked rules of grammarians." § 8. "As you perceive your scholar to go better on away, first, with understanding his lesson more quickly, with parsing more readily, with translating more speedily and perfectly than he was wont ; after, give him longer lessons to translate, and, withal, begin to teach him, both in nouns and verbs, what is proprium and what is translatum, what synonymum, what diversiim^ which be contraria, and which be most notable phrases, in all his lectures, as — Proprium . Rex sepultus est magnifice. Translatum . Cum illo principe, sepulta est et gloria et salus reipublicje. Synonyma . Ensis, gladius : laudare, praedicare. Diversa . . Diligere, amare : calere, exardescere : inimicus, hostis. Contraria . . Acerbum et luctuosum bellum, "dulcis et Iseta pax. Phrases . . Dare verba, adjicere obedientiam." Every lesson is to be thus carefully analysed, and entered under these headings in a third MS. book. 86 ASCHAM. Value of double translating and writing. § 9. Here Ascham leaves his method, and returns to it only at the beginning of Book II. He there supposes the first stage to be finished and " your scholar to have come in- deed, first to a ready perfectness in translating, then to a ripe and skilful choice in marking out his six points." He now recommends a course of Cicero, Terence, Caesar, and Livy which is to be read "a good deal at every lecture." And the master is to give passages " put into plain natural English." These the scholar shall " not know where to find " till he shall have tried his hand at putting them into Latin; then the- master shall "bring forth the place in Tully," § 10. In the Second Book of the Scholemaster, Ascham discusses the various branches of the study then common, viz. : i. Translatio linguarum ; 2. Paraphrasis-j 3. Metaphrasis ; 4. Epitome ; 5. Imitatio ; 6. Declamatio. He does not lay much stress on any of these, except translatio and imitatio. Of the last he says : "All languages, both learned and mother-tongue, be golten, and gotten only, by imitation. For, as ye use to hear, so ye use to speak ; if ye hear no other, ye speak not yourself ; and whom ye only hear, of them ye only learn." But translation was his great instrument for all kinds of learning. " The translation," he says, " is the most common and most commendable of all other exercises for youth ; most common, for all your con- structions in grammar schools be nothing else but translations, but because they be not double translations (as I do require) they bring forth but simple and single commodity : and because also they lack the daily use of writing, which is the only thing that breedeth deep root, both in the wit for good understanding and in the memory for sure keeping of all that is learned ; most commendable also, and that by the judgment of all authors which entreat of these exercises." ASCHAM. 87 Study of a model book. § II, After quoting Pliny,* he says: "You perceive how Pliny teacheth that by this exercise of double trans- lating is learned easily, sensibly, by little and little, not only all the hard congruities of grammar, the choice of ablest words, the- right pronouncing of words and sentences, comeliness of figures, and forms fit for every matter and proper for every tongue : but, that which is greater also, in marking daily and following diligently thus the footsteps of the best authors, like invention of arguments, like order in disposition, like utterance in elocution, is easily gathered up ; and hereby your scholar shall be brought not only to like eloquence, but also to all true understanding and right- ful judgment, both for writing and speaking," Again he says : " For speedy attaining, I durst venture a good wager if a scholar in whom is aptness, love, diligence, and constancy, would but translate after this sort some little book in Tuliy (as De Senectitte, with two Epistles, the first *Ad Quintum Fratrem,' the other *Ad Lentulum'), that scholar, I say, should come to a better knowledge in the Latin tongue than the most part do that spend from five to six yeais in tossing all the rules of grammar in common schools." After quoting the instance of Dion Prussaeus, who came to great learning and utterance by reading and following only two books, the Phcedo, and Demosthenes de • " Utile imprimis ut multi prsscipiunt, vel ex Grseco in Latiniim vel ex Latino vertere in Grsecum ; quo genere exercitationis propnetas splendorque verborum, copia figurarum, vis explicandi, prseterea imita- tione optimorum similia inveniendi facultas paratur : simul quae legentem fefellissent transferentem fugere non possunt. Intelligentia ex hue et judicium acquiritur." — Epp. vii. 9, § 2. So the passage stands in Pliny. Ascham quotes ' V/ ex Grseco in Latinum et ex Latino vertere :n Grsecum," with other variations. 88 ASCHAM. Q. Elizabeth. " A dozen times at the leasf Falsa Legatione, he goes on : " And a better and nearer example herein may be our most noble Queen Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her hand after the first declining of a noun and a verb ; but only by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, without missing, every forenoon, and likewise some part of Tully every afternoon, for the space of a year or two, hath attained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues, and to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with such a judgment, as there be few now in both Universities or elsewhere in England that be in both tongues comparable with Her Majesty." Ascham's authority is indeed not con- clusive on this point, as he, in praising the Queen's attain- ments, was vaunting his own success as a teacher, and, moreover, if he flattered her he could plead pre%'ailing custom. But we have, I believe, abundant evidence that Elizabeth was an accomplished scholar. § 12. Before I leave Ascham I must make one more quotation, to which I shall more than once have occasion to refer. Speaking of the plan of double translation, he says : " Ere the scholar have construed, parsed, twice trans- lated over by good advisement, marked out his six points by skilful judgment, he shall have necessary occasion to read over every lecture a dozen times at the least; which because he shall do always in order, he shall do it always with pleasure. And pleasure allureth love : love hath lust to labour ; labour always obtaineth his purpose." § 13. A good deal has bean said, and perhaps something learnt, about the teaching of Latin since the days of Ascham. As far as I know the method which Ascham denounced, and which most English schoolmasters stuck to for more than two centuries longer, has now been abandoned No one ASCHAM. 89 " Impressionists" and " Retainers." thinks of making the beginner learn by heart all the Latin Grammar before he is introduced to the Latin language. To understand the machinery of which an account is given in the grammar, the learner must see it at work, and must even endeavour in a small way to work it himself. So it seems pretty well agreed that the information given in the grammar must be joined with some construing and some exercises from the very first. But here the agreement ends. Our teachers, consciously or in ignorance, follow one or more of a number of methodizers who have examined the problem of language-learning, such men as Ascham, Ratke, Comenius, Jacotot, Hamilton, Robertson, and Prendergast. These naturally divide themselves into two parties, which I have ventured to call " Rapid Impressionists," and " Com- plete Retainers." The first of these plunge the beginner into the language, and trust to the great mass of vague impressions clearing and defining themselves as he goes along. The second insist on his learning at the first a very small portion of the language, and mastering and retaining everything he learns. It will be seen that in the first stage of the course Ascham is a " Complete Retainer." He does not talk, like Prendergast, of " mastery," nor, like Jacotot, does he require the learner to begin every lesson at the begiiming of the book : but he makes the pupil go over each lesson "a dozen times at the least," before he may advance beyond it. As for his practice of double trans- lation, for the advanced pupil it is excellent, but if it is required from the beginner, it leads to unintelligent memo- lizing. I think I shall be able to show later on that other methodizers have advanced beyond Ascham. {Infra, 246 n.) VIII. MULCASTER (i53i(?)-i6ii.) *§ I. The history of English thought on education has yet to be written. In the Hterature of education the Germans have been the pioneers, and have consequently settled the routes ; and when a track has once been estab- lished few travellers will face the risk and trouble of leaving it. So up to the present time, writers on the history of European education after the Renascence have occupied themselves chiefly with men who lived in Germany, or wrote in German. But the French are at length exploring the country for themselves ; and in time, no doubt, the English-speaking races will show an interest in the thoughts and doings of their common ancestors. We know what toils and dangers men will encounter in getting to the source of great rivers ; and although, as Mr. Widgery truly says, " the study of origins is not everybody's business,"* we yet may hope that students will be found ready to give time and trouble to an investigation of great interest and perhaps some utility — the origin of the school • Teaching of Languages in Schools, by W. H. Widgery, p. 6. MULCASTER. QI Old books in English on education. course which now affects the millions who have English for their mother-tongue. § 2. In the fifteen hundreds there were published Bcveral works on education, three of which, Elyot's Gotiernour, Ascham's Scholemaster, and Mulcaster's Positions, have been recently reprinted.* Others, such as Edward Coote's E/iglish Schoolmaster, and Mulcaster's Eletnentarie, are pretty sure to follow, without serious loss, let us hope, to their editors, though neither Coote nor IMulcaster are likely to become as well-known writers as Roger Ascham. § 3. Henry Barnard, whose knowledge of our educa- tional literature no less than his labours in it, makes him the greatest living authority, says that Mulcaster's Positions is "one of the earliest, and still one of the best treatises in the English language." {English Pedagogy, 2nd series, p. 177.) Mulcaster was one of the most famous of English schoolmasters, and by his writings he proved that he was tar in advance of the schoolmasters of his own time, and of the times which succeeded. But he paid the penalty of thinking of himself more highly than he should have thought ; and whether or no the conjecture is right that Shakespeare had him in his mind when writing Love's Labour's Lost, there is an affectation in Mulcaster's style which is very irritating, for it has caused even the mastei of Edmund Spenser to be forgotten. In a curious and interest- ing allegory on the progress of language (in the Eletnentatie, * Much information about our early books, with quotations from some of them, will be found in Henry Barnard's English Pedagogy, 1st and 2nd series. Some notice of rare books is given in Schools, School-books, and Schoolriiasters, by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, Jarvis, 1888), but in this work there are strange omissions. 92 MULCASTER, M.'s wisdom hidden by his style. pp. 66, ff.), Mulcaster says that Art selects the best age of a language to draw rules from, such as the age of Demos- thenes in Greece and of Tully in Rome ; and he goes on : "Such a period in the English tongue I take to be in our days for both the pen and the speech," And he suggests that the English language, having reached its zenith, is seen to advantage, not in the writings of Shakespeare or Spenser, but in those of Richard Mulcaster. After enumerating the excellencies of the language, he adds : " I need no example in any of these, whereof my own penning is a general pattern." Here we feel tempted to exclaim with Armado in Lov^s Labour's Lost (Act 5, so. 2) : "I protest the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical : too too vain, too too vain." He speaks elsewhere of his " so careful, I will not say so curious writing" {Elemeniarie, p. 253), and says very truly: "Even some of reasonable study can hardly understand the couching of my sentence, and the depth of my conceit " {ib., p. 235). And this was the death-warrant of his literary renown. § 4. But there is good reason why Mulcaster should not be forgotten. When we read his books we find that wisdom which we are importing in the nineteenth century was in a great measure offered us by an English schoolmaster in the sixteenth. The latest advances in pedagogy have established (i) that the end and aim of education is to develop the faculties of the mind and body ; (2) that all teaching processes should be carefully adapted to the mental constitution of the learner; (3) that the first stage in learning is of immense importance and requires a very high degree of skill in the teacher ; (4) that the brain of children, especially of clever children, should not be subjected to "pressure"; (5) that childhood should not be spent in MULCASTER. 93 Education and "learning." learning foreign languages, but that its language should be the mother-tongue, and its exercises should include hand- work, especially drawing ; (6) that girls' education should be cared for no less than boys' ; (7) that the only hope of im- proving our schools lies in providing training for our teachers. These are all regarded as planks in the platform of " the new education," and these were all advocated by Mulcaster. § 5. Before I point this out in detail I may remark how greatly education has suffered from being confounded with learning. There are interesting passages both in Ascham and Mulcaster which prove that the class-ideal of the " scholar and gentleman " was of later growth. In the fifteen hundreds learning was thought suitable, not for the rich, but for the clever. Still, learning, and therefore education, was not for the many, but the few. Mulcaster considers at some length how the number of the educated is to be kept down {Positions, chapp. 36, 37, 39), though even here he is in the van, and would have everyone taught to read and write {Positions^ chapp. 5, 36). But the true problem of education was not faced till it was discovered that every human being was to be considered in it. This was, I think, first seen by Comenius. With this abatement we find Mulcaster's sixteenth-century notions not much behind our nineteenth. § 6. (i & 2) " Why is it not good," he asks, "to have every part of the body and every power of the soul to be fined to his best?" {PP., p. 34*). Elsewhere he says: "The end of education and train is to help Nature to her perfection. * The paging is that of the reprint. It differs slightly from that of first edition. 94 MULCASTER. I. Development 2. Child-study. which is, when all her abilities be perfected in their habit, whereunto right elements be right great helps. Considerat ion and judgment must wisely mark whereunto Nature is either evidently given or secretly affectionate and must frame an education consonant thereto." (^/., p. 28). Michelet has with justice claimed for Montaigne that he drew the teacher's attention from the thing to be learnt to the learner : " JVon Fobjet, le savoir^ inais le sujet, dest rhovune.^'' {Nos Fits, p. 170.) Mulcaster has a claim to share this honour with his great contemporary. He really laid the foundation of a science of education. Discussing our natural abilities, he says : " We have a perceiving by out- ward sense to feel, to hear, to see, to smell, to taste all sensible things ; which qualities of the outward, being received in by the common sense and examined by fanisie, are delivered to remembrance^ and afterward prove our great and only grounds unto further knowledge."* (^/., p. 32.) Here we see Mulcaster endeavouring to base education, or as he so well calls it, "train," on what we receive from Nature. Elsewhere he speaks of the three things which we " find peering out of the little young souls," viz : " wit to take, memory to Iceep, and discretion to discern." {PP-t p. 27.) * Mulcaster goes on to talk about the brain, &c. Of course he does not anticipate the discoveries of science, but his language is very differ- ent from what we should expect from a writer in the pre-scientific age, e.g., " To serve the turn of these two, both sense and motion, Nature hath planted in our body a brain, the prince of all our parts, which by spreading sinews of all sorts throughout all our parts doth work all those effects which either sense is seen in or motion perceived by." {EL, p. 32.) But much as he thinks of the body Mulcaster is no materialist. " Last of all our soul hath in it an imperial prerogative of understanding beyond sense, of judging by reason, of directmg byboth^ MULCASTER. 95 3. Groundwork by best workman. § 7. (3) I have pointed out that the false ideal of the Renascence led schoolmasters to neglect children. Mule aster remarks that the ancients considered the training of children should date from the bjrth; but he himself begins with the school age. Here he has the boldness to propose that those who teach the beginners should have the smallest number of pupils, and should receive the highest pay. " The first groundwork would be laid by the best workman," says Mulcaster {FF., T30), here expressing a for duty tov/ards God, for society towards men, for conquest in affections, for purchase in knowledge, and such other things, whereby it furnisheth out all manner of uses in this our mortal life, and bewrayeth in itself a more excellent being than to continue still in this roaming pilgrimage." (p. 33.) The grand thing, he says, is to bring all these abilities to perfection "which so heavenly a benefit is begun by education, confirmed by use, perfected with continuance which crowneth the whole work" (p. 34.) "Nature makes the boy toward ; nurture sees him forward." (p. 35). The neglect of the material world which has been for ages the source of miischief of all kinds in the schoolroom, and which has not yet entirely passed away, would have been impossible if Mulcaster's elementary course had been adopted. " Is the body made by Nature nimble to run, to ride, to swim, to fence, to do anything else which beareth praise in that kind for either profit or pleasure ? And doth not the Elementary help them all forward by pre- cept and train ? The hand, the ear, the eye be the greatest instruments whereby the receiving and delivery of our learning is chiefly executed, and doth not this Elementary instruct the hand to write, to draw, to play ; the eye to read by letters, to discern by line, to judge by both ; the ear Xz call for voice and sound with proportion for pleasure, with reason for wit ? Geneially whatsoever gift Nature hath bestowed upon the body, to be brought forth or bettered by the mean of train for any profitable use in our whole life, doth not this Elementary both find it and foresee it?" (El., p. 35). " The hand, the ear, the eye, be the gt-eatest inst^u- ments," said the Elizabethan schoolmaster. So says the Victorian reformer. g6 MULCASTER. 4. No forcing of young plants. truth which, like many truths that are not quite convenient, is seldom denied but almost systematically ignored.* § 8. (4) In the Ni7ieteeiith Century Magazine for November, 1888, appeared a vigorous protest with nearly 40c signatures^ • I wish some good author would write a book on U7rpopular Truths, and show how, on some subjects, wise men go on saying the same tiling in all ages and nobody listens to them. Plato said "In every work the beginning is the most important part, especially in dealing with anything young and tender." {Rep., bk. ii, 377 ; Davies and Vaughan, p. 65.) And the complaints about "bad grounding" prove our com- mon neglect of what Mulcaster urged three centuries ago : " For the Ekmentarie because good scholars will not abase themselves to it, it is left to the meanest, and therefore to the worst. For that the first grounding would be handled by the best, and his reward would be greatest, because both his pains and his judgment should be with the greatest. And it would easily allure sufficient men to come down so low, if they might perceive that reward would rise up. No man of judgment will contrary this point, neither can any ignorant be blamed for the contrary : the one seeth the thing to be but low in order, the other knoweth the ground to be great in laying, not only for the matter which the child doth learn : which is very small in show though great for process : but also for the manner of handling his wit, to hearten him for afterward, which is of great moment. The first master can deal but with a few, the next with more, and so still upward as reason groweth on and receives without forcing. It is the foundation well and soundly laid, which makes all the upper building muster, with countenance and continuance. If I were to strike the stroke, as I am but to give counsel, the first pains truly taken should in good truth be most liberally recompensed ; and less allowed still upward, as the pains diminish and the ease increaseth. Whereat no master hath cause to repine, so he may have his children well grounded in the Elemetitarie. "Whose imperfection at this day doth marvellously trouble both masters and scholars, so that we can hardly do any good, nay, scantly tell how to place the too too raw boys in any certain form, with hope to go for- ward orderly, the ground-work of their entry being so rotten under- neath." {PP., pp. 233, 4.) MULCASTER. • 97 5. The elementary course. English. many of which carried great weight with them, against our sacrifice of education to examination. Our present system, whether good or bad, is the result of accident. Winchester and Eton had large endowments, and naturally endeavoured by means of these endowments to get hold of clever boys. At first no doubt they succeeded fairly well ; but other schools felt bound to compete for juvenile brains, and as the number of prizes increased, many of our preparatory schools became mere racing stables for children destined at 12 or 14 to run for " scholarship stakes." Thus, in the scramble for the money all thought of education has been lost sight of; injury has been done in many cases to those who have succeeded, still greater injury to those who have failed or who have from the first been considered "out of the running." These very serious evils would have been avoided had we taken counsel with Mulcaster : " Pity it were for so petty a gain to forego a greater ; to win an hour in the morning and lose the whole day after ; as those people most commonly do which start out of their beds too early before they be well awaked or know what it is o'clock ; and be drowsy when they are up for want of their sleep." {PP.., p. 19; see also EL, xi., pp. 52 ff.) § 9. (5) It would have been a vast gain to all Europe if Mulcaster had been followed instead of Sturm. He was one of the earliest advocates of the use of English instead of Latin (see Appendix, p. 534), and good reading and writing in English were to be secured before Latin was begun. His elementary course included these five things: English reading, English writing, drawing, singing, playing a musical instru- ment. If the first course were made to occupy the school- time up to the age of 12, Mulcaster held that more would be done between 12 and i6 than between 7 and 17 iu 98 MULCASTER. 6. Girls as well as Boys. the ordinary way. There would be the further gain that the children would not be set against learning. " Because of the too timely onset too little is done in too long a time, and the school is made a torture, which as it brings forth delight in the end when learning is held fast, so should it pass on ver}' pleasantly by the way, while it is in learning." ♦ {PP. 33-) § lo. (6) Among the many changes brought about in the nineteenth century we find little that can compare in impor- tance with the advance in the education of women. In the last century, whenever a woman exercised her mental powers she had to do it by stealth, f and her position was degraded indeed when compared not only with her descendants of the nineteenth century, but also with her ancestors of the sixteenth. This I know has been disputed by some authori- ties, e.g.^ by the late Professor Brewer : but to others, e.g.^ to a man who, as regards honesty and wisdom, has had few equals and no superiors in investigating the course of education, I mean the late Joseph Payne, this educational superiority of the women of Elizabeth's time has seemed to be entirely • Quaint as we find Mulcaster in his mode of expression, the thing expressed is sometimes rather what we should expect from Herbert Spencer than from a schoolmaster of the Renascence. I have met with nothing more modern in thought than the following: "In time all learning may be brought into one tongue, and that natural to the in- habitant : so that schooling for tongues may prove needless, as once they were not needed ; but it can never fall out that arts and sciences in their right nature shall be but most necessary for any commonwealth that is not given over unto too too much barbarousness. " {.PP., 240.) t " Subject to a regulation like that of the ancient Spartans, the theft of knowledge in our sex is only connived at while carefully con- cealed, and if displayed [is] punished with disgrace." So says Mrs. Barbauld, and I have met with similar passages in other female writers. MULCASTER. 99 7. Training of Teachers. beyond question. On this point Mulcaster's evidence is very valuable, and, to me at least, conclusive. He not only " admits young maidens to learn," but says that " custom stands for him," and that "the custom of my country . . . hath made the maidens' train her own approved travail." {FF., p. 167.) § II. (7) Of all the educational reforms of the nineteenth century by far the most fruitful and most expansive is, in my opinion, the training of teachers. In this, as in most educa- tional matters, the English, though advancing, are in the rear. Far more is made of " training " on the Continent and in the United States than in England. And yet we made a good start. Our early writers on education saw that the teacher has immense influence, and that to turn this influence to good account he must have made a study of his profession and have learnt " the best that has been thought and done " in it. Every occupation in life has a traditional capital of knowledge and experience, and those who intend to follow the business, whatever it may be, are required to go through some kind of training or apprenticeship before they earn wages. To this rule there is but one exception. In English elementary schools children are paid to " teach " children, and in the higher schools the beginner is allowed to blunder at the expense of his first pupils into whatever skill he may in the end manage to pick up. But our English practice received no encouragement from the early English writers, Mulcaster, Brinsley,* and Hoole. • John Brinsley (the elder) who married a sister of Bishop Hall's and kept school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (was it the Grammar School?) was one of the best English writers on education. In bis Consolation for ouf Grammar Sckooles, published early in the sixteen hundreds, he says j lOO MULCASTER. Training college at the Universities. As far as I am aware the first suggestion of a training college for teachers came from Mulcaster. He schemed seven special colleges at the University ; and of these one is for teachers. Some of his suggestions, e.g., about "University Readers" have lately been adopted, though without acknowledgment ; and as the University of Cambridge has since 1S79 acknowledged the existence of teachers, and appointed a " Teachers' Training Syndicate," we may perhaps in a few centuries more carry out his scheme, and 'have training colleges at Oxford and Cambridge.* Some of the reasons he gives us have not gone out of date with his English. They are as follows : — "And why should not these men (the teachers) have both this sufficiency in learning, and such room to rest in, thence to be chosen and set forth for the common service? Be either children or schools so small a portion of our " Amongst others myself having first had long experience of the mani- fold evils which grow from the ignorance of a right order of teaching, and afterwards some gracious taste of the sweetness that is to be found in the better courses truly known and practised, I have betaken me almost wholly, for many years unto this weighty work, and that not without much comfort, through the goodness of our blessed God." (p. i.) * ' And for the most part wherein any good is done, it is ordinarily effected by the endless vexation of the painful master, the extreme labour and terror of the poor children with enduring far overmuch and long severity. Now whence proceedeth all this but because so few of those who under- take this function are acquainted with any good method or right order of instruction fit for a grammar school?" (p. 2.) It is sad to think how many generations have since suffered from teachers "unacquainted with any good method or right order of instruction." And it seems to justify Goethe's dictum, " £>fr EngUinder ist eigentlich ohtie Intelligenz" that for several generations to come this evil will be but partially abated. * At Cambridge (as also in London and Edinburgh) there is already a Training College for Women Teachers in Secondary Schools. MULCASTER. 101 M.'s reasons for training teachers. multitude ? or is the framing of young minds, and the train- ing of their bodies so mean a point of cunning ? Be school- masters in this Realm such a paucity, as they are not even in good sadness to be soundly thought on? If the chancel have a minister, the belfry hath a master : and where youth is, as it is eachwhere, there must be trainers, or there will be worse. He that will not allow of this careful provision for such a seminary of masters, is most unworthy either to have had a good master himself, or hereafter to have a good one for his. Why should not teachers be well provided for, to continue their whole life in the school, as Divines, Laivyers, Physicians do in their several professions? Thereby judgment, cunning, and discretion will grow in them : and masters would prove old men, and such as Xenophon setteth over children in the schooling of Cyrus. Whereas now, the school being used but for a shift, afterward to pass thence to the other professions, though it send out very sufficient men to them, itself remaineth too too naked, considering the necessity of the thing. I conclude, therefore, that this trade requireth a particular college, for these four enures. I. First, for the subject being the mean to mp.ke or mar the whole fry of our State. 2. Secondly, for the number, whether of them that are to learn, or of them that are to teach. 3, Thirdly, for the necessity of the piofession, which may not be spared. 4. Fourthly, for the matter of their study, which is comparable to the greatest professions, for language, for judgment, for skill how to train, for variety in all points of learning, wherein the framing of the mind, and the exercising of the body craveth exquisite consideration, beside the staidness of the person." {PP., pp. 248, 9.) § 12. Though once a celebrated man, and moreover the master of Edmund Spenser, Mulcaster has been long 102 MULCASTER. M.'s Life and Writings. forgotten; but when the history of education in England comes to be written, the historian will show that few school- masters in the fifteen hundreds or since were so enlightened as the first headmaster of Merchant Taylors'.* • All we know of his life may soon be told. Richard Mulcaster was a Cumberland man of good family, an " esquier borne," as he calls him- self, who was at Eton, then King's College, Cambridge, then at Christ Church, Oxford. His birth year was probably 1530 or 1531, and he became a student of Christ Church in 1555. In 1558 he settled as a schoolmaster in London, and was elected first headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, which dates from 156 1. Here he remained twenty- five years, i.e., till 1586. Whether he then became, as H. B. Wilson says, surmaster of St. Paul's, I cannot determine, but "he came in" highmaster in 1596, and held that office for twelve years. Though in 1598 Elizabeth made him rector of Stanford Rivers, there can be no doubt that he did not give up the highmastershlp till 1608, when he must have been about 77 years old. He died at Stanford Rivers three years later. While at Merchant Taylors', viz., in 1 581 and 1582, he published the two books which have secured for him a permanent place in the history of education in England. The first was his Positions, the second " The first part " (and, as it proved, the only part) of his Ele7nentarie. Of his other writings, his Cato Christianus sttms to have been the most important, and a very interesting quotation from it has been preserved in Robotham's Preface to ihtjanua of Comenius ; but the book itself is lost: at least I never heard of a copy, and I have sought in vain in the British Museum, and at the University Libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. His Catechismus Paulinus is a rare book, but Rev. J. H. Lupton has found and described a copy in the Bodleian. IX. RATICHIUS. (1571-1635.) § I. The history of Education in the fifteen hundreds tells chiefly of two very different classes of men. First we have the practical men, who set themselves to supply the general demand for instruction in the classical languages. This class includes most of the successful schoolmasters, such as Sturm, Trotzendorf, Neander, and the Jesuits. The other class were thinkers, who never attempted to teach, but merely gave form to truths which would in the end affect teaching. These were especially Rabelais and Montaigne. § 2. With the sixteen hundreds we come to men who have earned for themselves a name unpleasant in our ears, although it might fittingly be applied to all the greatest benefactors of the human race. I mean the name of Innovators. These men were not successful ; at least they seemed unsuccessful to their contemporaries, who contrasted the promised results with the actual. But their efforts were by no means thrown away : and posterity at least, has acknowledged its obligations to them. One sees now that they could hardly have expected justice in their own time. It is safe to adopt the customary plan ; it is safe to speculate how that plan may and should be altered; but it is dangerous 104 RATICHIUS. Principles of the Innovators. to attempt to translate new thought into new action, and boldly to advance without a track, trusting to principles which may, like the compass, show you the right direction, but, like the compass, will give you no hint of the obstacles that lie before you. The chief demands made by the Innovators have been : ist, that the study of things should precede, or be united with, the study of words {v. Appendix, p. 538) ; 2nd, that knowledge should be communicated, where possible, by appeals to the senses; 3rd, that all linguistic study should begin with that of the mother-tongue ; 4th, that Latin and Greek should be taught to such boys only as would be likely to complete a learned education ; 5th, that physical educa- tion should be attended to in all classes of society for the sake of health, not simply with a view to gentlemanly accomplishments; 6th, that a new method of teaching should be adopted, framed "■ according to Nature." Their notions of method have, of course, been very various ; but their systems mostly agree in these particulars : — I. They proceed from the concrete to the abstract, giving some knowledge of the thing itself before the rules which refer to it. 2. They employ the student in analysing matter put before him, rather than in working synthetically according to precept. 3. They require the student to teach himself a.nd investigate for himself under the superintendence and guidance of the master, rather than be taught by the master and receive anything on the master's authority. 4. They rely on the interest excited in the pupil by the acquisition of knowledge, and renounce coercion. 5. Only that which is understood may be committed to memory {v. supra, p. 74, n), RATICHIUS. 105 R.'s Address to the Diet. § 3. The first of the Innovators was Wolfgang Raticliius, who, oddly enough, is known to posterity by a name he and his contemporaries never heard of. His father's name was Radtke or Ratk^, and the son having received a University education, translated this into Ratichius. With our usual impatience of redundant syllables, we have attempted to reduce 'the word to its original dimensions, and in the process have hit upon Ratich, which is a new name altogether. Ratke (to adopt the true form of the original) was con- nected, as Basedow was a hundred and fifty years later, with Holstein and Hamburg. He was born at Wilster in Holstein in 1571, and studied at Hamburg and at the University of Rostock. He afterwards travelled to Amsterdam and to England, and it was perhaps owing to his residence in this country that he was acquainted with the new philosophy of Bacon. We next hear of him at the Electoral Diet, held as usual in Frankfurt-on-Main, in 16 12. He was then over forty years old, and he had elaborated a new scheme for teaching. Like all inventors, he was fully impressed with the importance of his discovery, and he sent to the assembled Princes an address, in which he undertook some startling performances. He was able, he said : (i) to teach young or old Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, or other languages, in a very short time and without any difficulty ; (2) to establish schools in which all arts should be taught and extended; (3) to introduce and peaceably establish throughout the German Empire a uniform speech, a uniform government, and (still more wonderful) a uniform religion. § 4. Naturally enough the address arrested the attention of the Princes. The Landgraf Lewis of Darm- stadt thought the matter worthy of examination, and he I06 RATICHIUS. At Augsburg. At Koethen. deputed two learned men, Jung and Helwig, to confer with Ratke. Their report was entirely favourable, and they did all they could to get for Ratke the means of carrying his scheme into execution. " We are," writes Helwig, " in bond- age to Latin. The Greeks and Saracens would never have done so much for posterity if they had spent their youth in acquiring a foreign tongue. We must study bur own language, and then sciences. Ratichius has discovered the art of teaching according to Nature. By his method, languages will be quickly learned, so that we shall have time for sefence ; and science will be learned even better still, as the natural system suits best with science, which is the study of Nature." Moved by this report the Town Council of Augsburg agreed to give Ratke the necessary power over their schools, and accompanied by Helwig, he accordingly went to Augsburg and set to work. But the good folks of Augsburg were like children, who expect a plant as soon as they have sown the seed. They were speedily dissatisfied, and Ratke and Helwig left Augsburg, the latter much dis- couraged but still faithful to his friend. Ratke went to Frankfurt again, and a Commission was appointed to con- sider his proposals, but by its advice Ratke was " allowed to try elsewhere." § 5. He would never have had a fair chance had he not had a firm friend in the Duchess Dorothy of Weimar. Then, as now, we find women taking the lead in everything which promises to improve education, and this good Duchess sent for Ratke and tested his method by herself taking lessons of him in Hebrew. With this adult pupil his plans seem to have answered well, and she always continued his admirer and advocate. By her advice her brother. Prince Lewis of Anhalt-Koethen, decided that the great discovery should not be lost for want of a fair trial; so he called Ratke to Koethen RATICHIUS. 107 Failure at Koethen. and complied with all his demands. A band of teachers sworn to secrecy were first of all instructed in the art by Ratke himself. Next, schools with very costly appliances were provided, and lastly some 500 little Koetheners — boys and girls — were collected and handed over to Ratke to work his wonders with. § 6. It never seems to have occurred either to Ratke or his friends or the Prince that all the principles and methods that ever were or ever will be established could not enable a man without experience to organize a school of 500 children. A man who had never been in the water might just '-as well plunge into the sea at once and trust to his knowledge of the laws of fluid pressure to save him from drowning. There are endless details to be settled which would bewilder any one without experience. Some years ago school-buildings were provided for one of our county schools, and the council consulted a master of great experience who strongly urged them not to start as they had intended with 300 boys. " / would not undertake such a thing," said he. When pressed for his reason, he said quietly, " I would not be responsible for the boots" I have no doubt Ratke had to come down from his principles and his new method to deal with numberless little questions of caps, bonnets, late children, broken windows, and the like ; and he was without the tact and the experience which enable many ordinary men and women, who know nothing of principles, to settle such matters satisfactorily. § 7. Years afterwards there was another thinker much more profound and influential than Ratke, who was quite as incompetent to organize. I mean Pestalozzi. But Pestalozzi had one great advantage over Ratke. He attached all his assistants to him by inspiring them with I08 RATICHIUS. German in the school. R.'s services. love and reverence of himself. This made up for many deficiencies. But Ratke was not like the fatherly, self- sacrificing Pestalozzi. He leads us to suspect him of being an impostor by making a mystery of his invention, and he never could keep the peace with his assistants. § 8. So, as might have been expected, the grand ex- periment failed. The Prince, exasperated at being placed in a somewhat ridiculous position, and possibly at the serious loss of money into the bargain, revenged himself on Ratke by throwing him into prison, nor would he release him till he had made him sign a paper in which he admitted that he had undertaken more than he was able to fulfil. § 9. This was no doubt the case; and yet Ratke had done more for the Prince than the Prince for Ratke. In Koethen had been opened the first German school in which the children were taught to make a study of the German language. Ratke never recovered from his failure at Koethen, and nothing memorable is recorded of him afterwards. He died in 1635. § 10. Much was written by Ratke ; much has been written about him ; and those who wish to know more than the few particulars I have given may find all they want in Raumer or Barnard. The Innovator failed in gaining the applause of his contemporaries, and he does not seem to stand high in the respect of posterity ; but he was a pioneer in the art of didactics, and the rules which Raumer has gathered from the Methodus Institutionis nova .... Ratichii et Ratichianorum, published by Rhenius at Leipzig in 1626, raise some of the most interesting points to which a teacher's attention can be directed. I will therefore state them, and say briefly w-hat I think of them. RATICHIUS. 109 I. Follow Nature. 2. One thing at a time. § II. I. In everything we should follow the order of Nature. There is a certain natural sequence along which the human int-'Higence tnoves in acquiring knowledge. This sequence tnust be studied, and instruction must be based on the knowledge of it. Here, as in all teaching of the Reformers, we find *' Nature " used as if the word stood for some definite idea. From the time of the Stoics we have been exhorted to " follow Nature." In more modern times the demand was well formulated by Picus of Mirandola : " Take no heed what thing many men do, but what thing the very law of Nature, what thing very reason, what thing our Lord Himself showeth thee to be done." (Trans, by Sir Thomas More, quoted in Seebohm, Oxford Reformers.) Pope, always happy in expression but not always clear in thought, talks of — " Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged, and universal light." {^Essay on C, i, 70.) But as Dr. W. T. Harris has well pointed out {St. Louis, Mo., School Report, '78, '79, p. 217), with this word "Nature" writers on education do a great deal of juggling. Some times they use it for the external world, including in it man's unconscious growth, sometimes they make it stand for the ideal. What sense does Ratke attach to it ? One might have some difficulty in determining. Perhaps the best meaning we can nowadays find for his rule is : study Psychology. § 12. II. One thing at a time. Master one subject before you take up another. For each language master a single book. Go over it again and again till you have completely made it your own. no RATICHIUS. 3. Over and over again. In its crude /orm this rule could not be carried out. If the attempt were made the results would be no better than from the six months' course of Terence under Ratke. It is "against all Nature" to go on hammering away at one thing day after day without any change; and there is a point beyond which any attempt at thoroughness must end in simple stagnation. The rule then would have two fatal drawbacks: ist, it would lead to monotony; 2nd, it would require a completeness of learning which to the young would be impossible. But in these days no one follows Ratke. On the other hand, concentration in study is often neglected, and our time-tables afford specimens of the most ingenious mosaic work, in which everything has a place, but in so small a quantity that the learners never find out what each thing really is. School subjects are like the clubs of the eastern tale, which did not give out their medicinal properties till the patient got warm in the use of them. When a good hold on a subject has once been secured, short study, with considerable intervals between, may suffice to keep up and even increase the knowledge already obtained ; but in matters of any difficulty, e.g., in a new language, no start is ever made without allotting to it much more than two or three hours a week. It is perhaps a mistake to suppose that if a good deal of the language may be learnt by giving it ten hours a week, twice that amount might be acquired in twenty hours. It is a much greater mistake if we think that one-fifth of the amount might be acquired in two hours. § 13. III. 7'he same thing should be repeated over and over again. This is like the Jesuits' Repetitio Mater Studiorum; and the same notion was well developed 200 years later by Jacotot. RATICHIUS. Ill 4. Everything through the mother-tongue. By Ratke's application of this rule some odd results were produced. The little Koetheners were drilled for German in a book of the Bible (Genesis was selected), and then for Latin in z play of Terence. Unlike many " theoretical notions " this precept of Ratke's comes more and more into favour as the schoolmaster increases in age and experience. But we must be careful to take our pupils with us ; and this repeating the same thing over and over may seem to them what marking time would seem to soldiers who wanted to rtiarch. Even more than the last rule this is open to the objections that monotony is deadening, and perfect attainment of anything but words impossible. In keeping to a subject then we must not rely on simple repetition. The rule now accepted is thus stated by Diesterweg : — "Every subject of instruction should be viewed from as many sides as possible, and as varied exercises as possible should be set on one and the same thing." The art of the master is shown in disguising repetition and bringing known things into new connection, so that they may partially at least retain their freshness. § 14. IV. First let the mother-tongue be studied, and teach everything through the mother-tongue, so that the learner's attention may not be diverted to the language. We saw that Sturm, the leading schoolmaster of Renas- cence, tried to suppress the mother-tongue and substitute Latin for it. Against this a vigorous protest was made in this country by Mulcaster. And our language was never conquered by a foreign language, as German was conquered first by Latin and then by French. But " the tongues " have always had the lion's share of attention in the school- room, and though many have seen and Milton has said that "our understanding cannot in this body found itself 112 RATICHIUS. 5. Nothing on compulsion. but on sensible things," this truth is only now making its way into the schoolroom. Hitherto the foundation has hardly been laid before " the schoolmaster has stept in and staid the building by confounding the language."* Ratke's protest against this will always be put to his credit in the history of education. § 15. V. Everything without constraint. "The young should not be beaten to make them learn or for not having learnt. It is compulsion and stripes that set young people against studying. Boys are often beaten for not having learnt, but they would have learnt had they been well taught. The human understanding is so formed that it has pleasure in receiving what it should retain : and this pleasure you destroy by your harshness. Where the master is skilful and judicious, the boys will take to him and to their lessons. Folly lurks indeed in the heart of the child and must be driven out with the rod; but not by the teacher." Here at least there is nothing original in Ratke's precept. A goodly array of authorities have condemned learning ** upon compulsion." This array extends at least as far as * Lectures and Essays: English in School, hy]. R. Seeley, p. 222. Elsewhere in the same lecture (p. 229) Professor Seeley says: "The schoolmaster might set this right. Every boy that enters the school is a talking creature. He is a performer, in his small degree, upon the same instrument as Milton and Shakespeare. Only do not sacrifice this advantage. Do not try by artificial and laborious processes to give him a new knowledge before you have developed that which he has already. Train and perfect the gift of speech, unfold all that is in it, and you train at the same time the power of thought and the power of intellectual sympathy, you enable your pupil to think the thoughts and to delight in the words of great philosophers and poets." I wish this lecture were published separately. RATICHIUS. 113 6. Nothing to be learnt by heart. from Plalo to Bishop Dupanloup. "In the case of the mind, no study pursued under compulsion remains rooted in the memory," says Plato.* *' Everything depends," says Dupanloup, " on what the teacher induces his pupils to do freely: for authority is not constraint — it ought to be inseparable from respect and devotion. I will respect human liberty in the smallest child." As far as I have observed there is only one class of persons whom the authorities from Plato to Dupanloup have failed to convince, and that is the schoolmasters. This is the class to which I have belonged, and I should not be prepared to take Plato's counsel : " Bring up your boys in their studies without constraint and in a playful manner." {lb.) At the same time I see the importance of self-activity, and there is no such thing as self-activity upon compulsion. You can no more hurry thought with the cane than you can hurry a snail with a pin. So without interest there can be no proper learning. Interest must be aroused — even in Latin Grammar. But if they could choose their own occupation, the boys, however interested in their work, would probably find something else more interesting still. We cannot get on, and never shall, without the 7nust. § 16. VI. Nothing may be iearnt by heart. It has always been a common mistake in the schoolroom to confound the power ol lunning along a sequence of sounds with a mastery of the thought with which those sounds thould be connected. But, as I have remaiked elsewhere {supra, p. 74, note), the two things, though different, are not opposed. Too much is likely to be made of learn- ing by heart, foi of the two things the pupils find it the * Rep. bk. vii, 536, adf. ; Davies and Vaughan, p. 264. i 114 RATICHIUS. 7. Uniformity. 8. Ne modus rei ante rem. easier, and the teacher the more easily tested. We may, however^ guard against the abuse without giving up the use. § 17. VII.* Uniformity in all things. Both in the way of learning, and in the books, and the rules, a uniform method should be observed, says Ratke. The right plan is for the learner to acquire familiar knowledge of one subject or part of a subject, and then use this ^or comparison when he learns beyond it. If the same method of learning is adopted throughout, this will render comparison more easy and more striking.f § 18. VIII. The thing itself should come first, then whatever explains it. To those who do not with closed eyes cling to the method of their predecessors, this rule may seem founded on common-sense. Would any one but a " teacher," or a writer of school books, ever think of making children who do not know a word of French, learn about the French accents? And yet what Ratke said 250 years ago has not been disproved since : "Accidens rei priusquam rem ipsam quaerere prorsus absonum et absurdum esse vidttur," which I take to mean : " Before the learner has a notion of the thing itself, it is folly to worry him about its accidents or even its properties, essential or unessential Ne modus rei ante rem. \ • In Buisson i^Dictionnaire) No. 7 is "The children must have frequent play, and a break after every lesson." Raumer connects this with No. 6, and says: "breaks were rendered necessary by Ratke's plan, which kept the learners far too silent." + In the matter of grammar Ratke's advice, so long disregarded, has recently been followed in the " Parallel Grammar Series," published by Messrs. Sonnenschem. X The ordinary teaching of almost every subject offers illustrations of RATICHIUS. 115 9. Per inductionem omnia. This rule of Ratke's warns teachers against a very common mistake. The subject is to them in full view, and they make the most minute observations on it. But these things cannot be seen by their pupils ; and even if the beginner could see these minutiae, he would find in them neither interest nor advantage. But when we apply Ratke's principle more widely, we find ourselves involved in the great question whether our method should be based on synthesis or analysis, a question which Ratke's method did not settle for us. § 19. IX. Every tiling by experience and examination of the parts. Or as he states the rule in Latin : Per inductionem et experimentum omnia. Nothing was to be received on authority, and this disciple of Bacon went beyond his master and took for his motto : Vetusias cessit, ratio vicit ("Age has yielded, reason prevailed"); as if reason must be brand-new, and truth might wax old and be ready to vanish away. the neglect of this principle. Take, e.g., the way in which children are usually taught to read. First, they have to say the alphabet — a very easy task as it seems to us, but if we met with a strange word of twenty-six syllables, and that not a compound word, but one of which every syllable was new to us, we might have some difficulty in remembering it. And yet such a word would be to us what the alphabet is to a child. When he can perform this feat, he is next required to learn the visual symbols of the sounds and to connect these with the vocal symbols. Some of the vocal symbols bring the child in contact with the sound itself, but most are simply conventional. What notion does the child get of the aspirate from the name of the letter h ? Having learnt twenty-six visual and twenty-six vocal symbols, and connected them together, the child Jifially comes to the sounds (over 40 in number) which the symbols are supposed to represent. 1 16 RATICHIUS. R.'s method for language. § 20. From these rules of his we see that Ratke did much to formulate the main principles of Didactics. He also deserves to be remembered among the methodizers who have tackled the problem — how to teach a language. At Kothen the instructor of the lowest class had to talk with the children, and to take pains with their pronunciation. When they knew their letters (Ickelsam.er's plan for reading Ratke seems to have neglected) the teacher read the Book of Genesis through to them, each chapter twice over, requir- ing the children to follow with eye and finger. Then the teacher began the chapter again, and read about four lines only, which the children read after him. When the book had been worked over in this way, the children were required to read it through without assistance. Reading once secured, the master proceeded to grammar. He explained, say, what a substantive was, and then showed instances in Genesis, and next required the children to point out others. In this way the grammar was verified throughout from Genesis, and the pupils were exercised in declining and conjugating words taken from the Book. When they advanced to the study of Latin, they were given a translation of a play of Terence, and worked over it several times before they were shown the Latin. The master then translated the play to them, each half- hour's work twice over. At the next reading, the master translated the first half-hour, and the boys translated the same piece the second. Having thus got through the play, they began again, and only the boys translated. After this there was a course of grammar, which was applied to the Terence, as the grammar of the mother-tongue had been to Genesis. Finally, the pupils were put through a course of exercises, in which they had to turn into Latin sentences RATICHIUS. 117 R.'s method and Ascham's. imitated from the Terence, and differing from the original only in the number or person used, Raumer gives other particulars, and quotes largely from the almost unreadable account of Kromayer, one of Ratke's followers, in order that we may have, as he says, a notion of the tediousness of the method. No doubt anyone who has followed me hitherto, will consider that this point has been brought out already with sufficient distinctness. § 21. When we compare Ratke's method with Ascham's, we find several points of agreement. Ratke would begin the study of a language by taking a model book, and work- ing through it with the pupil a great many times. Ascham did the same. Each lecture according to his plan would be gone over " a dozen times at the least." Both construed to the pupil instead of requiring him to make out the sense for himself. Both Ratke and Ascham taught grammar not by itself, but in connection with the model book. But the points of difference are still more striking. In one respect Ratke's plan was weak. It gave the pupils little to do, and made no use of the pen. Ascham's was better in this and also as a training in accuracy. Ascham was, as I have pointed out, a "complete retainer." Ratke was a " rapid impressionist." His system was a good deal like that which had great vogue in the early part of this century as the " Hamiltonian System." From the first the language was to be laid on " very thick," in the belief that " some of it was sure to stick." The impressions would be slight, and there would at first be much confusion between words which had a superficial resemblance, but accuracy it was thought would come in time. § 22. The contest between the two schools of thought of which Ascham and Ratke may be taken as representatives Il8 RATICHIUS. Slow progress in methods. has continued till now, and within the last few years both parties have made great advances in method. But in nothing does progress seem slower than in education ; and the plan of grammar-teaching in vogue fifty years ago was inferior to the methods advocated by the old writers.* * See Mr. E. E. Bowen's vigorous essay on "Teaching by means of Grammar," in Essays on a Liberal Education, 1867. I have returned to the subject of language-learning in § 15 of Jacotot in the note. See page 426. X. COMENIUS, (1592-1671). § 1. One of the most hopeful signs of the improvement of education is the rapid advance in the last thirty years of the fame of Comenius, and the growth of a large literature about the man and his ideas. Twenty-three years ago, when I first became interested in him, his name was hardly known beyond Germany. In English there was indeed an ex- cellent life of him prefixed to a translation of his School of Infancy ; but this work, by Daniel Benham (London, 1858), had not then, and has not now, anything like the circulation it deserves. A much more successful book has been Professor S. S. Laurie's John Affios Comenius (Cambridge University Press), and this is known to most, and should be to all, English students of education. By the Germans and French Comenius is now recognised as the man who first treated education in a scientific spirit, and who bequeathed the rudiments of a science to later ages. On this account the great library of pedagogy at Leipzig has been named in his honour the " Comenius Stiftung." § 2. John Amos Komensky or Comenius, the son of a miller, who belonged to the Moravian Brethren, was born, 120 COMENIUS. Early years. His first book. at the Moravian village of Niwnic, in 1592. Of his early life we know nothing but what he himself tells us in the following passage : — " Losing both my parents while I was yet a child, I began, through the neglect of my guardians, but at sixteen years of age to taste of the Latin tongue. Yet by the goodness of God, that taste bred such a thirst in me, that I ceased not from that time, by all means and endeavours, to labour (or the repainng of my lost years; and now not only for myself, but for the good of others also. For I could not but pity others also in this respect, especially in my own nation, which is too slothful and careless in matter of learning. Thereupon I was continually full of thoughts for the finding out of some means whereby more might be inflamed with the love of learning, and whereby learning itself might be made more compendious, both in matter of the charge and cost, and of the labour belonging thereto, that so the youth might be brought by a more easy method, unto some notable proficiency in learning."* With these thoughts in his head, he pursued his studies in several German towns, especially at Herborn in Nassau. Here he saw the Report on Ratke's method published in 1612 for the Universities of Jena and Giessen; and we find him shortly afterwards writing his first book, GrammaticcB facilioris Fracepta, which was published at Prag in 16 16. On his return to Moravia, he was appointed to the Brethren's school at Prerau, but (to use his own words) " being shortly after at the age of twenty-four called to the service of the Church, because that divine Junction challenged all my endeavours (divinumque HOC AGE prae Preface to the Prodromut. COMENIUS. 121 Troubles. Exile. oculis erat) these scholastic cares were laid aside.* His pastoral charge was at Fulneck, the headquarters of the Brethren. As such it soon felt the effects of the Battle ol Frag, being in the following year (1621) taken and plundered by the Spaniards. On this occasion Comenius lost his MSS. and almost everything he possessed. The year after his wife died, and then his only child. In 1624 all Protestant ministers were banished, and in 1627 a new decree extended the banishment to Protestants of every description. Comenius bore up against wave after wave of calamity with Christian courage and resignation, and his writings at this period were of great value to his fellow- sufferers. § 3. For a time he found a hiding-place in the family of a Bohemian nobleman. Baron Sadowsky, at Slaupna, in the Bohemian mountains, and in this retirement, his atten- tion was again directed to the science of teaching. The Baron had engaged Stadius, one of the proscribed, to educate his three sons, and, at Stadius' request, Comenius wrote " some canons of a better method," for his use. We find him, too, endeavouring to enrich the literature of his mother-tongue, making a metrical translation of the Psalms of David, and even writing imitations of Virgil, Ovid, and Cato's Distichs. In 1627, however, the persecution waxed so hot, that Comenius, with most of the Brethren, had to flee their country, never to return. On crossing the border, Comenius and the exiles who accompanied him knelt down, and * Preface to Prodromus, first edition, p. 40 ; second edition (1639), p. 78. The above is Hartlib's translation, see A Reformation of Schools, &'£., pp. 46, 47. 122 COMENIUS. Pedagogic studies at Leszna. prayed that God would not suffer His truth to fail out of their native land. § 4. Comenius had now, as Michelet says, lost his country and found his country, which was the world. Many of the banished, and Comenius among them, settled at the Polish town of Leszna, or, as the Germans call it, Lissa, near the Silesian frontier. Here there was an old-established school of the Brethren, in which Comenius found employment. Once more engaged in education, he earnestly set about improving the traditional methods. As he himself says,* " Being by God's permission banished my country with divers others, and forced for my sustenance to apply myself to the instruction of youth, I gave my mind to the perusal of divers authors, and lighted upon many which in this age have made a beginning in reforming the method of studies, as Ratichius, Helvicus, Rhenius, Ritterus, Glaumius, Csecilius, and who indeed should have had the first place, Joannes Valentinus Andrese, a man of a nimble and clear brain ; as also Campanella and the Lord Verulam, those famous restorers of philosophy ; — by reading of whom I was raised in good hope, that at last those so many various sparks would conspire into a flame ; yet observing here and there some defects and gaps as it were, I could not contain myself from attempting something that might rest upon an immovable foundation, and which, if it could be once found out, should not be subject to any ruin. Therefore, after many workings and tossings of my thoughts, by reducing everything to the immovable laws of Nature, I lighted upon * Preface to Prodromus^ first edition, p. 40 ; second edition, p. 79. A Reformation, St'c, p. 47. COMENIUS. 123 Didactic written. Janua published. Pansophy. my Didactica Alagna, which shows the art of readily and solidly teaching all men all things." § 5. This work did not immediately see the light, but in 1631 Comenius published a book which made him and the little Polish town where he lived known throughout Europe and beyond it. This was the Janua Li?}guarum Reserata^ or " Gate of Tongues unlocked." Writing about it many years afterwards he says that he never could have imagined that that little work, fitted only for children (J)uerih istiid opuscuhmi), would have been received with applause by all the learned world. Letters of congratulation came to him from every quarter ; and the work was translated not only into Greek, Bohemian, Polish, Swedish, Belgian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, but also into Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and even *' Mongolian, which is familiar to all the East Indies." (Dedication of Schola Liidus in vol. i. of collected works.) § 6. Incited by the applause of the learned, Comenius now planned a scheme of universal knowledge, to impart which a series of works would have to be written, far exceeding what the resources and industry of one man, however great a scholar, could produce. He therefore looked about for a patron to supply money for the support of himself and his assistants, whilst these works were in progress. " The vastness of the labours I contemplate," he writes to a Polish nobleman, " demands that I should have a wealthy patron, whether we look at their extent, or at the necessity of securing assistants, or at the expenses generally." § 7. At Leszna there seemed no prospect of his ob- taining the aid he required ; but his fame now procured him mvitations from distant countries. First he received a call 124 COMENIUS. Samuel Hartlib. to improve the schools of Sweden. After declining this he was induced by his English friends to undertake a journey to London, where Parliament had shown its interest in the matter of education, and had employed Hartlib,* an enthusiastic admirer of Comenius, to attempt a reform. Probably through his family connections, Hartlib was on intimate terms with Comenius, and he had much influence * Very interesting are the " immeasurable labours and intellectual efforts" of Master Samuel Hartlib, whom Milton addresses as " a person sent hither by some good providence from a far country, to be the occasion and incitement of great good to this island." {Of Education, A.D. 1644.) See Masson'sZz/9 of Milton, vol. iii ; also biographical and bibliographical account of Hartlib by H. Dircks, 1S65. Hartlib's mother was English. His father, when driven out of Poland by triumph of the Jesuits, settledat Elbing, where there was an English" Company of Merchants " with John Dury for their chaplain. Hartlib came to England not later than 1628, and devoted himself to the furtherance of a variety of schemes for the public good. He was one of those rare beings who labour to promote the schemes of others as if they were their own. He could, as he says, " contribute but little " himself, but "being carried forth to watch for the opportunities of provoking others, who can do more, to improve their talents, I have found experimentally that my endeavours have not been without effect." (Quoted by Dircks, p. 66.) The philosophy of Bacon seemed to have introduced an age of boundless improvement ; and men like Comenius, Hartlib, Petty, and Dury, caught the first unchecked enthusiasm. " There is scarce one day," so Hartlib wrote to Robert Boyle, " and one hour of the day or night, being brim full with all manner of objects of the most public and universal nature, but my soul is crying out ' Phosphore redde diem I Quid gaud ia nostra moraris ? Phosphore redde diem !' " But in this world Hartlib looked in vain for the day. The income of ;^300 a year allowed him by Parliament was ;^700 in arrears at the Restoration, and he had then nothing to hope. His last years were attended by much physical suffering and by extreme poverty. He died as Evelyn thought at Oxford in 1662, but this is uncertain. COMENIUS. 125 The Prodromus and Dilucidatio. on his career. It would seem that Comenius, though never tired of forming magnificent schemes, hung back from putting anything into a definite shape. After the appear- a:ice oi \hQ /anua Ltnguarum Rcserata, he planned dijanua Rerum, and even allowed that title to appear in " the list of new books to come forth at the next Mart at Frankford."* But again he hesitated, and withdrew the announcement. Here Hartlib came in, and forced him into print without his intending or even knowing it ('* prseter meam spem et me inconsulto "; preface to Conatiium PaJisophicorum Dilucidatio, 1638). Hartlib begged of Comenius a sketch of his great scheme, and with apologies to the author for not awaiting his consent, he published it at Oxford in 1637, under the title of Conatuum Comenianorum Prczludia. Comenius accepted tht fait accompli with the best grace he could — pleased at the stir the book made in the learned world, but galled by criticisms, especially by doubts of his orthodoxy. To refute the cavillers, he wrote a tract called Cofiatuum Pansophicorum Dilucidatio which was published in 1638. In 1639 Hartlib issued in London a new duo- decimo edition of the Prceludia (or as he then called it, Prodromus) and the Dilucidatio, adding a dissertation by Comenius on the study of Latin. Now, when everything seemed ripe for a change in education, and Comenius himself was on his way to England, Hartlib translated the Prodromus, and when Comenius had come he published it with the title, A Reformation of Schools, 1642. f § 8. It was no doubt by Hartlib's influence that * Dilticidatio, Hartlib's trans. , p. 65. t The Dilucidation, as he calls it, is added. All the books above mentioned are in the Library of the British Museum under JComensky, 126 COMENIUS. C. in London. Parliamentary scliemes. Parliament had been led to summon Comenius, and at any other time the visit might have been "the occasion of gi'eat good to this island," but inter artna silent tnagistriy and Comenius went away again. This is the account he himsell has left us : — " When seriously proposing to abandon the thorny studies of Didactics, and pass on to the pleasing studies of philo- sophical truth, I find myself again among the same thorns. . . . After the Pansophiie Frodrotnus had been published and dispersed through various kingdoms of Europe, many of the learned approved of the object and plan of the work, but despaired of its ever being accomplished by one man alone, and therefore advised that a college of learned men should be instituted to carry it into effect. Mr. S. Hartlib, who had forwarded the publication of the Pansophicz Pro- dromus in England, laboured earnestly in this matter, and endeavoured, by every possible means, to bring together for this purpose a number of men of intellectual activity. And at length, having found one or two, he invited me also, with many very strong entreaties. My people having consented to the journey, I came to London on the very day of the autumnal equinox (September 22, 1641), and there at last learnt that I had been invited by the order of the Parliament, But as the Parliament, the King having then gone to Scotland [August 10], was dismissed for a three months' recess [not quite three months, but from Septembei 9 to October 20], I was detained there through the winter, my friends mustering what pansophic apparatus they could, though it was but slender. . . . The Parliament meanwhile, having re-assembled, and our presence being known, I had orders to»wait until they should have sufficient leisure from other business to appoint a Commission of COMENIUS. 127 C. driven away by Civil War. learned and wise men from their body for hearing us and considering the grounds of our design. They communicated also beforehand their thoughts of assigning to us some college with its revenues, whereby a certain number of learned and industrious men called from all nations might t>e honourably maintained, either for a term of years or in perpetuity There was even named for the purpose T/ie Savoy in London ; Winchester College out of London was named; and again nearer the city, Chelsea College, inven- tories of which and of its revenues were communicated to us, so that nothing seemed more certain than that the design of the great Verulam, concerning the opening some- where of a Universal College, devoted to the advancement of the Sciences could be carried out. But the rumour of the Insurrection in Ireland, and of the massacre in one night of more than 200,000 English [October, November], and the sudden departure of the King from London [January 10, 1641-2], and the plentiful signs of the bloody war about to break out disturbed these plans, and obliged tne to hasten my return to my own people."* § 9. While Comenius was in England, where he stayed till August, 1642, he received an invitation to France. This invitation, which he did not accept, came perhaps through his correspondent Mersenne, a man of great learning, who is said to have been highly esteemed and often con- sulted by Descartes. It is characteristic of the state of opinion in such matters in those days, that Mersenne tells Comenius of a certain Le Maire, by whose method a boy of six years old, might, with nine months' instruction, acquire a perfect knowledge of three languages. Mersenne * Masson's Mil/on, vol. iii, p. 224, Prof. Masson is quoting Opera Didactica, torn, ii, Introd. 128 COMENIUS. In Sweden. Interviews with Oxenstiern. also had dreams of a universal alphabet, and even of a universal language. § lo. Comenius' hopes of assistance in England being at an end, he thought of returning to Leszna ; but a lettei now reached him from a rich Dutch merchant, Lewis de Geer, who offered him a home and means for canying out his plans. This Lewis de Geer, " the Grand Almoner of Europe," as Comenius calls him, displayed a princely munificence in the assistance he gave the exiled Protestants. At this time he was living at Nordcoping in Sweden. Comenius having now found such a patron as he was seeking, set out from England and joined him there. § II. Soon after the arrival of Comenius in Sweden, the great Oxenstiern sent for him to Stockholm, and with John Skyte, the Chancellor of Upsal University, examined him and his system. "These two," as Comenius says, " exercised me in colloquy for four days, and chiefly the most illustrious Oxenstiern, that eagle of the North (^Aquila Aquilonius). He inquired into the foundations of both my schemes, the Didactic and the Pansophic, so searchingly, that it was unlike anything that had been done before by any of my learned critics. In the first two days he examined the Didactics, and finally said : * From an early age I perceived that our Method of Studies generally in use is a harsh and crude one {viole?itum quiddam), but where the thing stuck I could not find out. At length, having been sent by my King of glorious memory [?>., by Gustavus Adolphus], as ambassador into Germany, I con- versed on the subject with various learned men. And when I had heard that Wolfgang Ratichius was toiling at an amended Method I had no rest of mind till I had him before me, but instead of talking on the subject, he put COMENIUS. 129 Oxenstiern criticises. into my hands a big quarto volume. I swallowed this trouble, and having turned over the whole book, I saw that he had detected well enough the maladies of our schools but the remedies he proposed did not seem to me sufficient. Yours, Mr. Comenius, rest on firmer foundations. Go on with the work.' I answered that I had done all I could in those matters, and must now go on to others. ' I know,' said he, ' that you are toiling at greater affairs, for I have read your Prodromiis Pansophice. That we will discuss to-morrow, I must now to public business.' Next day he began on my Pansophic attempts, and examined them with still greater severity. ' Are you a man,' he asked, ' who can bear contradiction?' 'I can,' said I, 'and for that reason my Prodromiis or preliminary sketch was sent out first (not indeed that I sent it out myself, this was done by friends), that it might meet with criticism. And if we seek the criticism of all and sundry, how much more from men of mature wisdom and heroic reason?' He began accor- dingly to discourse against the hope of a better state of things arising from a rightly instituted study of Pansophia ; first, objecting political reasons, then what was said in Scripture about ' the last times.' All which objections I so answered that he ended with these words: 'Into no one's mind do I think such things have come before. Str.nd upon these grounds of yours ; so shall we some time come to agreement, or there will be no way left. My advice, however,' added he, 'is that you first do something for llie schools, and bring the study of the Latin tongue to a greater facility; thus you will prepare the way for those greater matters.' " As Skyte and afterwards De Geer gave the same advice, Comenius felt himself constrained to follow it; so he agreed to settle at Elbing, in Prussia, and there write a work 130 COMENIUS. Comenius at Elbing. on teaching, in which the principles of the Didactica Alagna should be worked out with especial reference to teaching languages. Notwithstanding the remonstrances cf his English friends, to which Comenius would gladly have listened, he was kept by Oxenstiern and De Geer strictly to his agreement, and thus, much against his will, he was held fast for eight years in what he calls the " miry entanglements of logomachy." § 12. Elbing, where, after a journey to Leszna to fetch his family (for he had married again), Comenius now settled, is in West Prussia, thirty-six miles south-east of Dantzic. From 1577 to 1660 an English trading company was settled here, with which the family of Hartlib was connected. This perhaps was one reason why Comenius chose this town for his residence. But although he had a grant of ;^3oo a year from Parliament, Hartlib, instead of assisting with money, seems at this time to have himself needed assistance, for in October, 1642, Comenius writes to De Geer that he fears Fundanius and Hartlib are suffer- ing from want, and that he intends for them ;^2oo promised by the London booksellers ; he suggests that De Geer shall give them ;^3o each meanwhile. (Benham, p. 63.) § 13. The relation between Comenius and his patron naturally proved a difficult one. The Dutchman thought that as he supported Comenius, and contributed something more for the assistants, he might expect of Comenius that he would devote all his time to the scholastic treatise he had undertaken. Comenius, however, was a man of immense energy and of widely extended sympathies and connections. He was a " Bishop " of the religious body to which he belonged, and in this capacity he engaged in ccn- troversy, and attended some religious conferences. Then COMENIUS. 131. At Leszna again. again, pupils were pressed upon him, and as money to pay five writers whom he kept at work was ahvays running short, he did not decline them. De Geer complained of this, and s'vipplies were not furnished with wonted regularity. In 1647 Comenius writes to Hartlib that he is almost over- whelmed with cares, and sick to death of writing begging- letters. Yet in this year he found means to publish a book On the Causes of this {i.e., the Thirty Years) War, in which the Roman Catholics are attacked with great bitter- ness — a bitterness for which the position of the writer affords too good an excuse. § 14. The year 1648 brought with it the downfall of all Comenius' hopes of returning to his native land. The Peace of Westphalia was concluded without any provision being made for the restoration of the exiles. But though thus doomed to pass the remaining years of his hfe in banishment, Comenius, in this year, seemed to have found an escape from all his pecuniary difficulties. The Senior Bishop, the head of the Moravian Brethren, died, and Comenius was chosen to succeed him. In consequence of this, Comenius returned to Leszna, where due provision was made for him by the Brethren. Before he left Elbing, however, the fruit of his residence there, the Methodus Liiiguarum Novissima, had been submitted to a commission of learned Swedes, and approved of by them. The MS. went with him to Leszna, where it was published. § 15. As head of the Moravian Church, there now de- volved upon Comenius the care of all the exiles, and his widespread reputation enabled him to get situations for many of them in all Protestant countries. But he was now so much connected with the science of education, that even his post at Leszna did not prevent his receiving and 132 COMENIUS. Saros-Patak. Flight from Leszna. accepting a call to reform the schools in Transylvania. A model school was formed at Saros-Patak, where there wai a settlement of the banished Brethren, and in this school Comenius laboured from 1650 till 1654. At this time he wrote his most celebrated book, which is indeed only an abridgment of his Janua with the important addition of pictures, and sent it to Niirnberg, where it appeared three years later (1657). This was the famous Orbis Pictus. § 16. Full of trouble as Comenius' life had hitherto been, its greatest calamity was still before him. After he was again settled at Leszna, Poland was invaded by the Swedes, on which occasion the sympathies of the Brethren were with their fellow-Protestants, and Comenius was imprudent enough to write a congratulatory address to the Swedish King. A peace followed, by the terms of which, several towns, and Leszna among them, were made over to Sweden ; but when the King withdrew, the Poles took up arms again, and Leszna, the headquarters of the Protestants, the town in which the chief of the Moravian Brethren had written his address welcoming the enemy, was taken and plundered. Comenius and his family escaped, but his house was marked for special violence, and notliing was preserved. His sole remaining possessions were the clothes in which he and his family travelled. All his books and manuscripts were burnt, among them his valued work on Pansophia, and a Latin-Bohemian and Bohemian-Latin Dictionary, giving words, phrases, idioms, adages, and aphorisms — a book on which he had been labouring for forty years. "This loss," he writes, "I shall cease to lament only when I cease to breathe." § 17. After wandering for some time about Germany, COMENIUS. 133 Last years at Amsterdam. and being prostrated by fever at Hamburg, he at length came to Amsterdam, where Lawrence De Geer, the son of his deceased patron, gave him an asylum. Here were spent the remaining years of his life in ease and dignity. Compassion for liis misfortunes was united with veneration for his learning and piety. He earned a sufficient income by giving instruction in the families of the wealthy ; and by the liberality of De Geer he was enabled to publish a fine folio edition of all his writings on Education (1657). His political works, however, were to the last a source of trouble to him. His hostility to the Pope and the House of Hapsburg made him the dupe of certain " prophets " whose soothsayings he published as Lux in Tenebris. One of these prophets, who had announced that the Turk was to take Vienna,' was executed at Pressburg, and the Ltix in Tenebris at the same time burnt by the hangman. Before the news of this disgrace reached Amsterdam, Comenius was no more. He died in the year 1671, at the advanced age of eighty, and with him terminated the office of Chief Bishop among the Moravian Brethren. § 18. His long life had been full of trouble, and he saw little of the improvements he so earnestly desired and laboured after, but he continued the struggle hopefully to the end. In his seventy-seventh year he wrote these memorable words: "I thank God that I have all my life been a man of aspirations. . . . For the longing after good, however it spring up in the heart, is always a rill flowing from the Fountain of all good — from God."* Labouring in * Unum Necessarium, quoted by Raumer. Compare George Eliot : " By desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is, and cannot do what we would, we 134 COMENIUS. Comenius sought true foundation. this spirit he did not toil in vain, and the historians of education have agreed in ranking him among the most influential as well as the most noble-minded of the Ro- formers. § 19. Before Comenius, no one had brought the mind of a philosopher to bear practically on the subject of education. Montaigne and Bacon had advanced principles, leaving others to see to their application. A few able school- masters, Ascham, e.g., had investigated new methods, but had made success in teaching the test to which they appealed, rather than any abstract principle. Comenius was at once a philosopher who had learnt of Bacon, and a schoolmaster who had earned his livelihood by teaching the rudiments. Dissatisfied with the state of education as he found it, he sought for a better system by an examination of the laws of Nature. Whatever is thus established is indeed on an immovable foundation, and, as Comenius himself says, "not liable to any ruin." It will hardly be disputed, when broadly stated, that there are laws of Nature which must be obeyed in dealing with the mind, as with the body. No doubt these laws are not so easily established in the first case as in the second, nor can we find them without much " groping " and some mistakes ; but whoever in any way assists or even tries to assist in the discovery, deserves our gratitude; and greatly are are pari of the Divine power against evil — widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower." — Midd/emarcA, bk. iv, p. 30S of first edition. COMENIUS. 135 Threefold life. Seeds of learning, virtue, piety. we indebted to him who first boldly set about the task, and devoted to it years of patient labour. § 20 Comenius has left voluminous Latin writings. Proft'ssor Laurie gives us the titles of the books connected with education, and they are in number forty-two : so there must be much repetition and indeed retractation ; for Comenius was always learning, and one of his last books was Ventilabnim Sapienii(B, sive sapienter sua rdractandi Ars — i.e.^ " Wisdom's Winnovving-machine, or the Art of wisely withdrawing one's own assertions." We owe much to Professor Laurie, who has served as a ventilabrum and left us a succinct and clear account of the Reformer's teaching. I have read little of the writings of Comenius except the German translation of the " Great Didactic," from which the following is taken. § 21. We rive, says Comenius, a threefold life — a vegetative, an animal, and an intellectual or spiritual. Of these, the first is perfect in the womb, the last in heaven. He is happy who comes with healthy body into the world, much more he who goes with healthy spirit out of it. According to the heavenly idea, man should (i) know all things; (2) should be master of all things, and of himself; (3) should refer everything to God. So that within us Nature has implanted the seeds of (i) learning, (2) virtue, and (3) piety. To bring these seeds to maturity is the object of education. All men require education, and God has made children unfit for other employments that they may have leisure to learn. § 22. But schools have failed, and instead of keeping to the true object of education, and teaching the foundations, relations, and intentions of all the most important things, they have neglected even the mother tongue, and confined the teaching to Latin; and yet that has been so badly 136 COMENIUS. Omnia sponte fluant. Analogies. taught, and so much time has been wasted over grammar rules and dictionaries, that from ten to twenty years are spent in acquiring as much knowledge of Latin as is speedily acquired of any modern tongue. § 23. The cause of this want of success is that the s)stem does not follow Nature. Everything natural goes smoothly and easily. There must therefore be no pressure. Learning should come to children as swimming to fish, flying to birds, running to animals. As Aristotle says, the desire of knowledge is implanted in man : and the mind grows as the body does — by taking proper nourishment, not by being stretched on the rack. § 24. If we would ascertain how teaching and learning are to have good results, we must look to the known processes of Nature and Art. A man sows seed, and it comes up he knows not how, but in sowing it he must attend to the requirements of Nature. Let us then look to Nature to find out how knowledge takes root in young minds. We find that Nature waits for the fit time. Then, too, she has prepared the material before she gives it form. In our teaching we constantly run counter to these prin- ciples of hers. We give instruction before the young minds are ready to receive it. We give the form before the material. Words are taught before the things to which they refer. When a foreign tongue is to be taught, we cOir.i.ionly give the form, i.e., the grammatical rules, before we give the material, i.e., the language, to which the rules ajjply. We should begin with an author, or properly prepared translation-book, and abstract rules should never come before the examples. § 25. Again, Nature begins each of her works with its inmost part. Moreover, the crude form comes first, then COMENIUS. 137 Analogies of growth. ihe elaboration of the parts. The architect, acting on this principle, first makes a rough plan or model, and then by degrees designs the details ; last of all he attends to the ornamentation. In teaching, then, let the inmost part, i.e., the understanding of the subject, come first; then let the thing understood be used to exercise the memory, the speech, and the hands; and let every language, science, and art be taught first in its rudimentary outline; then more completely with examples and rules ; finally, with exceptions and anomalies. Instead of this, some teachers are foolish enough to require beginners to get up all the anomalies in Latin Grammar, and the dialects in Greek. § 26. Again, as Nature does nothing per saltupi, nor halts when she has begun, the whole course of studies should be arranged in strict order, so that the earlier studies prepare the way for the later. Every year, every month, every day and hour even, should have its task marked out beforehand, and the plan should be rigidly carried out. Much loss is occasioned by absence of boys from school, and by changes in the instruction. Iron that might be wrought with one heatmg should not be allowed to get cold, and be heated over and over again. § 27. Nature protects her work from injurious influences, so boys should be kept from injurious companionships and books. § 28. In a chapter devoted to the principles of easy teaching, Comenius lays down, among rules similar to the foregoing, that children will learn if they are taught only what they have a desire to learn, with due regard to their age and the method of instruction, and especially when everything is first taught by means of the senses. On this point Comenius laid great stress, and he was the first who 138 COMENIUS. Senses. Foster desire of knowledge. did so. Education should proceed, he said, in the follow- ing order: first, educate the senses, then the memory, then the intellect; last of all the critical faculty. This is ihe order of Nature. The child first perceives through the senses. "A"///// est in inielledu quod non prius fucrit in sensu. Everything in the intellect must have come through the senses." These perceptions are stored in the memory, and called up by the imagination.* By comparing one with another, the understanding forms general ideas, and at length the judgment decides between the false and the true. By keeping to this order, Comenius believed it would be possible to make learning entirely pleasant to the pupils, however young. Here Comenius went even further than the Jesuits. They wished to make learning pleasant, but despaired of doing this except by external influences, emulation and the like. Comenius did not neglect external means to make the road to learning agreeable. Like the Jesuits, he would have short school-hours, and would make great use of praise and blame, but he did not depend, as they did almost exclusively, on emulation. He would have the desire of learning fostered in every possible way — by parents, by teachers, by school buildings and apparatus, by the subjects themselves, by the method of teaching them, and lastly, by the public authorities. (i) The parents must praise learning and learned men, must show children beautiful books, &c., must treat the teachers with great respect. (2) The teacher must be kind and fatheily, he must distribute praise and reward, and must always, where it is possible, give the children something to look at. (3) The school buildings must be lights airy, and cheerful, and • Compare Mulcaster, supra, p. 94. COMENIUS. 139 No punishments. Words and things together. well furnished with apparatus, as pictures, maps, models, collections of specimens. (4) The subjects taught must not be too hard for the learner's comprehension, and the more entertaining parts of them must be especially dwelt upon. (5) The method must be natural, and everything that is not essential to the subject or is beyond the pupil must be omitted. Fables and allegories should be intro- duced, and enigmas given for the pupils to guess. (6) The authorities must appoint public examinations and reward merit. § 29. Nature helps herself in various ways, so the pupils should have every assistance given them. It should especially be made clear what the pupils are to learn, and how they should learn it. § 30. The pupils should be punished for offences against morals only. If they do not learn, the fault is with the teacher. § 31. One of Comenius's most distinctive principles was that there should no longer be '•'■ infelix divortium rerum et verborum, the wretched divorce of words from things" (ihe phrase, I think, is Campanella's), but that knowledge of things and words should go together. This, together with his desire of submitting everything to the pupil's senses, would have introduced a great change into the course of instruction, which was then, as it has for the most part continued, purely literary. We should learn, says romenius, as much as possible, not from books, but from the great book of Nature, from heaven and earth, from oaks and beeches. § 32. When languages are to be learnt, he would have them taught separately. Till the pupil is from eight to ten years old, he should be instructed only in the mother- I40 COMENIUS. Languages. System of schools. tongue, and about things. Then other languages can be acquired in about a year each ; Latin (which is to be stidied more thoroughly) in about two years. Eveiy language must be learnt by use rather than by rules, i.e., it must be learnt by hearing, reading and re-reading, tran- scribing, attempting imitations in writing and orally, and by using the language in conversation. Rules assist and confirm practice, but they must come after, not before it. The first exercises in a language should take for their subject something of which the sense is already known, so that the mind may be fixed on the words and their connec- tions.* The Catechism and Bible History may be used for this purpose. § 33- Considering the classical authors not suited to boys' understanding, and not fit for the education of Christians, Comenius proposed writing a set of Latin manuals for the different stages between childhood and manhood : these were to be called " Vestibulum," " Janua," " Palatium"or "Atrium," "Thesaurus." The "Vestibulum," "Janua," and "Atrium " were really carried out. § 34. In Comenius's scheme there were to be four kinds of schools for a perfect educational course:— ist, the mother's breast for infancy ; 2nd, the public vernacular school for children, to which all should be sent from six years old till twelve ; 3rd, the Latin school or Gymnasium j 4th, residence at a University and travelling, to complete the course. The public schools were to be for all classes alike, and for girlsf as well as boys. * Comenius here follows Ratke, who, as I have mentioned above (p. 116), required beginners to study the translation before the original. t Professor Masson {Life of Milton, vol. iii, p. 205, note) gives us the following from chap, ix (cols. 42-44), of the Didactica Magna: — COMENIUS. 141 Mother-tongue School. Girls. § 35. Most boys and girls in every community would stop at the vernacular school ; and as this school is a very distinctive feature in Oomenius's plan, it may be worth while to give his programme of studies. In this school the children should learn — ist, to read and write the mother-tongue well, both with writing and printing letters ; 2nd, to com- pose grammatically; 3rd, to cipher; 4th, to measure and weigh ; 5th, to sing, at first popular airs, then from music ; 6th, to say by heart, sacred psalms and hymns ; 7th, Cate- chism, Bible History, and texts ; 8th, moral rules, with examples ; 9th, economics and politics, as far as they could be understood; loth, general history of the world; nth, "Nor, to say something particularly on this subject, can any sulTicient reason be given why the weaker sex [iegiiior sexiis, literally the later or following sex, is his phrase, borrowed from Apuleius, and, though the phrase is usually translated the inferior sex, it seems to have been chosen by Comenius to avoid that implication] should be wholly shut out from liberal studies whether in the native tongue or in Latin. For equally are they God's image ; equally are they partakers of grace, and of the Kingdom to come ; equally are they furnished with minds agile and capable of wisdom, yea, often beyond our sex ; equally to them is there a possibility of attaining high distinction, inasmuch as they have often been employed by God Himself (or the government of peoples, the bestowing of wholesome counsels on Kings and Princes, the science of medicine and other things useful to the human race, nay even the pr.iphetical office, and the rattling reprimand of Priests and Bishops [eliam ad propheticum munus, et increpandos Sacerdotes Episcoposque, are the words ; and as the treatise was prepared for the press in 1638 one detects a reference, by the Moravian Brother in Poland to the recent fame of Jenny Geddes, of Scotland]. Why then should we a;imit them to the alphabet, but afterwards debar them from books? Do we fear their rashness? The more we occupy their thoughts, the less room will there be in them for rashness, which springs generally from vacuity of mind." 142 COMENIUS. School teaching. Mother's teaching. figure of the earth and motion of stars, &c., physics and geography, especially of native land; 12th, general know- ledge of arts and handicrafts. § 36. Each school was to be divided into six classes, corresponding to the six years the pupil should spend in it. The hours of work were to be, in school, two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, with nearly the same amount of private study. In the morning the mind and memory were to be exercised, in the afternoon the hands and voice. Each class was to have its proper lesson-book written expressly for it, so as to contain everything that class had to learn. When a lesson was to be got by heart from the book, the teacher was first to read it to the class, explain it, and re-read it ; the boys then to read it aloud by turns till one of them offered to repeat it without book; the others were to do the same as soon as they were able, till all had repeated it. This lesson was then to be worked over again as a writing lesson, &c. In the higher forms of the vernacular school a modern language was to be taught and duly practised. § 37. Here we see a regular school course projected which differed essentially from the only complete school course still earlier, that of the Jesuits. In education Comenius was immeasurably in advance of Loyola and Aquaviva. Like the great thinkers, Pestalozzi and Froebel, who most resemble him, he thought of the development of the child from its birth ; and in a singularly wise little book, called Schola materni greniii, or " School of the Mother's Breast," he has given advice for bringing up children to the age of six.* * Translated by Daniel Benham as The School of Infancy, London, 1858. COMENIUS. 143 Comenius and the Kindergarten. § 38. Very interesting are the hints here given, in which we get the first approaches to Kindergarten training. Comenius saw that, much as their elders might do to develop children's powers of thought and expression, " yet children of the same age and the same manners and habits arc of greater service still. When they talk or play together, they sharpen each other more effectually ; for the one does not surpass the other in depth of invention, and there is among them no assumption of superiority of the one over the other, only love, candour, free questionings and answers" {School of Lifancy, vi, 12, p. 38).* The constant activity of children must be provided for. " It is better to play than to be idle, for during play the mind is intent on some object which often sharpens the abilities. In this way children may be early exercised to an active life without any difficulty, since Nature herself stirs them up to be doing something" {lb. ix, 15, p. 55). "In the second, third, fourth years, &c., let their spirits be stirred up by means of agreeable play with them or their playing among themselves. . . . Nay, if some little occupation can be conveniently provided for the child's eyes, ears, or other senses, these will contribute to its vigour of mind and body" {lb. vi, 21, p. 31). § 39. We have the usual cautions against forcing. • Here Comenius seems to be thinking of the intercourse of children when no older companion is present ; Froebel made more of the very different intercourse when their thoughts and actions are led by some one who hns studied how to lead them. Children constantly want help from their elders even in amusing themselves. On the other hand, it is only the very wisest of mortals who can give help enough and no more. Self-dependence may sometimes be cultivated by "a little wholesome neglect." 144 COMENIUS. Starting points of the sciences. " Early fruit is useful for the day, but will not keep ; whereas late fruit may be kept all the year. As some natural capacities would fly, as it were, before the sixth, the fifth, or even the fourth year, yet it will be beneficial rather to restrain than permit this ; but very much worse to enforce it." *' It is safer that the brain be rightly consolidated before it begin to sustain labours : in a little child the whole bregma is scarcely closed and the brain consolidated within the fifth or sixth year. It is sufificient, therefore, for this age to comprehend spontaneously, imperceptibly and as it were in play, so much as is employed in the domestic circle " {lb. chap. xi). § 40. One disastrous tendency has always shown itself in the schoolroom — the tendency to sever all connection between studies in the schoolroom and life outside. The young pack away their knowledge as it were in water-tight compartments, where it may lie conveniently till the scholastic voyage is over and it can be again unshipped.* Against this tendency many great teachers have striven, and none more vigorously than Comenius. Like Pestalozzi he sought to resohe everything into its simplest elements, and he finds the commencements before the school age. In the School of Ljfancy he says (speaking of rhetoric), " My aim is to shew, although this is not generally attended to, that the roots of all sciences and arts in every instance • Comical and at the same time melancholy results follow. In an elementary school, where the children "took up" geography for the Inspector, I once put some questions about St. Paul at Rome. I aslcod in what country Rome was, but nobody seemed to have heard of such a place. " It's geography !" said I, and some twenty hands went up directly : their owners now answered quite readily, "In Italy." COMENIUS. 145 Beginnings in Geography, History, &c. arise as early as in the tender age, and that on these foundations it is neither impossible nor difficult for the whole superstructure to be laid ; provided always that we act reasonably with a reasonable creature" (viij, 6, p. 46). This principle he applies in his chapter, "How children ought to be accustomed to an active life and perpetual employment" (chap. vij). In the fourth and fifth year their powers are to be drawn out in mechanical or architectural efforts, in drawing and writing, in music, in arithmetic, geometry, and dialectics. For arithmetic in the fourth, fifth, or sixth year, it will be sufficient if they count up to twenty ; and they may be taught to play at " odd and even." In geometry they may learn in the fourth year what are Hnes, what are squares, what are circles ; also the usual measures — foot, pint, quart, &c., and soon they should try to measure and weigh for themselves. Similar beginnings are found for other sciences such as physics, astronomy, geography, history, economics, and politics. " The elements oi geography will be during the course of the first year and thenceforward, when children begin to distinguish between their cradles and their motfier's bosom" (vj, 6, p. 34). As this geographical knowledge extends, they discover " what a field is, what a mountain, forest, meadow, river" (iv, 9, p. 17). "The beginning of history will be, to be able to remember what was done yesterday, what recently, what a year ago."* (//'.) § 41. In this book Comenius is careful to provide * " A talent for History may be said to be born with us, as our chief irheritance. In a certain sense all men are historians. Is not every memory written quite full of annals . . . ? Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak only to narrate." (Carlyle on History, Miscellanies.) L 146 COMENIUS. Drawing. Education for all. children with occupation for ^^mii'datid /ia?id" (iv, 10, p. 18). Di awing is to be practised by all. " It matters not," says Comenius, " whether the objects be correctly drawn cr oihcxw'xnQ pjvvided that they afford delight to the mind."* § 42. We see then that this restless thinker considered the entire course of a child's bringihg-up from the cradle to maturity ; and we cannot doubt that Raumer is right m saying, " The influence of Comenius on subsequent thinkers and workers in education, especially on the ]\Ielhodizers, is incalculable." {Gesch. d. F., ij, ''Comenius," § 10.) Before we think of his methods and school books, let us inquire what he did for education that has proved to be on a solid foundation and "not liable to any ruin." § 43. He was the first to reach a standpoint which was and perhaps always will be above the heads of " the practical men," and demand education for all. "We design for all who have been born human beings, general instruction to fit them for everything human. They must, therefore, as far as possible be taught together, so that they may mutually draw each other out, enliven and stimulate. Of the ' mother-tongue school ' the end and aim will be, that all the youth of both sexes between the sixth and the twelfth or thirteenth years be taught those things v.'hich will be useful to them all their life long."f • South Kens'ngton, which controls the drawing of millions of chil- dren, says precisely the opposite, and prescribes a kind of tl rawing, which, though it may give manual skill to adults, does not "affoid delight " to the mind of children. t "Generalem nos intendimus institutionem omnium qui homines nati sunt, ad omnia humana. . . Vernacular (scholar) scopus metaque eiit, ut omnis juventus utriusque sexus, intra annum sextum et duodecimum" Beu decimum terlium, ea addoceatur quorum usus per tot.am vitam s« COMENIUS. 147 Scientific and Religious Agreement. In these days we often hear controversies between the tren of science and the ministers of religion. It is as far beyond my intention as it is beyond my abilities to discuss how far the antithesis between religion and science is a true one; t)tit our subject sometimes forces us to observe that religion and science often bring thinkers by diiferent paths to the same result ; e.g., they both refuse to recognise class distinctioiis and make us see an essential unity underlying superficial variations. In Comenius we have an earnest Christian minister who was also an enthusiast for science. Moreover he was without social and virtually without national restrictions, and he was thus in a good position for expressing freely and without bias what both his science and his religion taught him. " Not only are the children of the rich and noble to be drawn to the school, but all alike, gentle and simple, rich and poor, boys and girls, in great towns and small, down to the country villages. And for this reason. Every one who is born a human being is born with this intent — chat he should be a human being, that is, a reasonable creature ruling over the other creatures and bear- ing the likeness of his Maker." {Didadica M. ix, § i.) This sounds to me nobler than the utterances of Rousseau and the French Revolutionii^ts, not to mention Locke who fell back on considering merely '• the gentleman's calling." Even Bishop Butler a century after Comenius hardly takes so firm a ground, though he lays it down that " children extendat." I quote this Latin from the excellent article Comenius (by several writers) in Buisson's Dictionnaire. It is a great thing to get an author's exact words. Unfortunately the wtitei in the Dictionnaire follows custom and does not give the means of verifying the quotation. Comenius in Latin I have never seen except in the British Museum. 148 COMENIUS. Bp. Butler on Educating the Poor. have as much right to some proper education as to have their hves preserved."* § 44. The first man who demanded training for every human being because he or she was a human being must always be thought of with respect and gratitude by all who care either for science or religion. It has taken us 250 years to reach the standpoint of Comenius ; but we have reached it, or almost reached it at last, and when we have once got hold of the idea we are not likely to lose it again. The only question .is whether we shall not go on and in the end agree with Comenius that the primary school shall be for rich and poor alike. At present the practical men, in England especially, have things all their own way ; but their horizon is and must be very limited. They have already had * In Sermon on Charity Schools, A.D. 1745. The Bishop points out that " training up chihhen is a veiy diilerent thing from merely teaching them some truths necessary to be known or believed." He oes into the historical aspect of the subject. As since the days of E izabeth there has been legal provision for the maintenance of the poor, there has been "need also of some particular legal provision in behalf of poor children for their education ; this not being included in what we call maintenance." "But," says the Bishop, ''it might be necessary that a burden so entirely new as that of a poor-tax was at the time I am speaking of, should be as light as possible. Thus the legal provision for the poor was first settled without any particular considera- tion of that additional want in the case of children ; as it still remains with scarce any alteration in this respect." And remained for nearly a century longer. Great changes naturally followed and will follow from the extension of the franchise; and another century will probably see us with a Folkschool worthy of its importance. By that time we shall no longer be open to the sarcasm of "the foreign friend:" "It is highly instructive to Nisit English elementary schools, for there you fmd everything that should be avoided." (M. Braun quoted by Mr. A. Sonnenschein. The id Code was in force.) COMENIUS. 149 Comenius and Bacon. to adjust themselves to many things which their predecessors declared to be " quite impracticable — indeed impossible." May not their successors in like manner get accustomed to other '' impossible " things, this scheme of Comenius among them ? § 45. The champions of realism have always recognised Comenius as one of their earliest leaders. Bacon had just given voice to the scientific spirit which had at length re- belled against the literary spirit dominant at the Renascence, and had begun to turn from all that had been thought and said about Nature, straight to Nature herself. Comenius was the professed disciple of " the noble Verulam, who," said he, "has given us the true key of Nature." Furnished with this key, Comenius would unlock the door of the treasure-house for himself. " It grieved me," he says, " that I saw most noble Verulam present us indeed with a true key of Nature, but not to open the secrets of Nature, only shewing us by a few examples how they were to be opened, and leave [i.e., leaving] the rest to depend on observations and inductions continued for several ages." Comenms thought that by the light of the senses, of reason, and of the Bible, he might advance faster. "For what? Are not we as well as the old philosophers placed in Nature's garden? Why then do we not cast about our eyes, nostrils, and ears as well as they ? Why should we learn the works of Nature of any other master rather than of these our senses? Why do we not, I say, turn over the living book of the world in- stead of dead papers? In it we may contemplate more things and with greater delight and profit than any one can tell us. If we have anywhere need of an interpreter, the Maker of Nature is the best interpreter Himself." (Pre- face to Naturall Fhilosophie reformed. Engl ish trans., 1 65 1 .) 1 50 COMENIUS. " Everything Through the Senses." § 46. Several things are involved in this so-called "realism." First, Comenius would fix the mind of learners on material objects. Secondly, he would have them acqu'ie their notions of these for themselves through the senses. From these two principles he drew the corollary that the vast accumulation of traditional learning and literature must bo thrown overboard. § 47. The demand for the study of things has been best formulated by one of the greatest masters of words, by Milton. " Because our understanding cannot in the body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so cleaily to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching." (To Hartlib.) Its material surroundings then are to be the subjects on which the mind of the child must be fixed. This being settled, Comenius demands that the child's knowledge shall not be verbal but real realism, knowledge derived at first hand through the senses.* § 48. On this subject Comenius may speak for himself : " The ground of this business is, that sensual objects [we now say sensible : why not sensuous ?] be rightly presented to the senses, for fear they may not be received. I say, and say it again aloud, that this last is the foundation of all the rest : because we can neither act nor speak wisely, unless * "Adhuc sub judice lis est." I find the editor of an American educational paper brandishing in the face of an opponent as a quotation from Professor N. A. Calkins' " Ear and Voice Training " : '* The senses are the only powers by which children can gain the elements of knowledge ; and until these have been trained to act, no definite know- ledge can be acquired." BSt Calkins says, "act, under direction of the mind." COMENIUS. KI Error of Neglecting the Senses. we first rightly understand all the things which are to be done and whereof we have to speak. Now there is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the sense, And therefore to exercise the senses well about the right perceiving the differences of things will be to lay the grounds for all wisdom and all wise discourse and all discreet actions in one's course of life. Which, because it is commonly neglected in Schools, and the things that are to be learned are offered to scholars without their being understood or being rightly presented to the senses, it cometh to pass that the work of teaching and learning goeth heavily onward and affordeth little benefit." (Preface to Orbis Fktus, Hoole's trans. A.D. 1658.) § 49. Without going into any metaphysical discussion, we must all agree that a vast amount of impressions come to children through the senses, and that it is by the exercise of the senses that they learn most readily. As Comenius says : " The senses (being the main guides of childhood, because therein the mind doth not as yet raise up it self to an abstracted contemplation of things) evermore seek their own objects; and if these be away, they grow dull, and wry themselves hither and thither out of a weariness of themselves : but when their objects are present, they grow merry, wax lively, and willingly suffer themselves to be fastened upon them till the thing be sufficiently discerned." (P. to Orbis.) This truth lay at the root of most of the methods of Pestalozzi; and though it has had little effect on teaching in England (where for the word anschanlich there is no equivalent), everything that goes on in a German Folkschool has reference to it. § 50. For children then Comenius gave good counsel when he would have their senses exercised on the world 152 COMENIUS. Insufficiency of the Senses. about them. But after all, whatever may be thought of the proposition that all knowledge comes through the senses, we must not ignore what is bequeathed to us, both in science and in literature. Comenius says : " And now I beseech you let this be our business that the schools may cease to persuade and begin to demo?istrate ; cease to dispute and begin to look ; cease lastly to believe and begin to know. For that Aristotellical maxim '• Discentein oportet credere, A learner must believe,' is as tyrannical as it is dangerous ; so also is that same Pythagorean '■Ipse dixit, The Master has said it.' Let no man be compelled to swear to his Master's words, but let the things themselves constrain the intellect." (P. to Nat. riiil. R.) But the things themselves will not take us far. Even in Natural Science we need teachers, for Science is not reached through the senses but through the intellectual grasp of knowledge which has been accumulating for centuries. If the education of times past has neglected the senses, we must not demand that the education of the future should care for the senses only. There is as yet little danger of our thinking too much of physical education ; but we sometimes hear reformers talking as if the true ideal were sketched in " Locksley Hall :" " Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun, Wliistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks ; Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books." There seems, however, still some reason for counting " the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child." And the reason is that we are " the heirs of all the ages." Our education must enable every child to enter in some measure on his inheritance ; and not a few of our most precious heir COMENIUS. 153 C, undervalued the Past. looms will be found not only in scientific discoveries but also in those great works of literature which the votaries of science are apt to despise as "miserable books." This tiulh was not duly appreciated byComenias. As Professor Laurie well says, " he accepted only in a half-hearted way the products of the genius of past ages." (Laurie's C, p. 22.) In his day there was a violent reaction from the Renascence passion for literature, and Comenius would entirely banish from education the only literatures which were then important, the "heathen" literatures of Greece and Rome. " Our most learned men," says he, " even among the theologians take from Christ only the mask : the blood and life they draw from Aristotle and a crowd of other heathens." (See Paulsen's Gesch., pp. 312, ff.) So for Cicero and Virgil he would substitute, and his con- temporaries at first . seemed willing to accept, the Janua Lingiiariim. But though there may be much more " real " knowledge in the Janua, the classics have survived it.* * "^^^lat do you learn from 'Paradise Lost'? Nothing at all. ^^^lat do you learn from a cookery book ? Something new, something that you did not know before, in eveiy paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery book on a higher level of estima- tion than the divine poem ? What you owe to Milton is not any kiioioledge, of which a million separate items are but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level ; what you owe is power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of s}'mpathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upward — a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to \nysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge from first to last carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth ; whereas the very yfrj/ step in power is a flight, is an ascending into another element where earth is forgotten." I have met with this as a quotation from De Quincey. 154 COMENIUS. Literature and Science. In these days there is a passion for the study of things which in its intensity resembles the Renascence passion for literature. There is a craving for knowledge, and we know only the truths we can verify ; so this craving must be satisfied, not by words, but things. And yet that domain which the physicists contemptuously describe as the study of words must not be lost sight of, indeed cannot be, either by young or old. As Matthew Arnold has said, "those who are for giving to natural knowledge the chief place in the education of the majority of mankind leave one im- portant thing out of their account — the constitution of human nature." " We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love, And e'en as these are well and wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend." So says Wordsworth, and if this assertion cannot be verified, no more can it be disproved ; that the words have become almost proverbial shows that it commends itself to the general consciousness. Whatever knowledge we may acquire, it will have httle effect on our lives unless, we can "relate it" (again to use Matthew Arnold's words), "to oui sense of conduct and our sense of beauty." {Discourses in America. " literature and Science.") So long as we retain our sense for these, "the humanities" are safe. Like Milton we may have no inclination to study " modern Januas," but we Lhall not cease to value many of the vi^orks which the Janua of Comenius was supposed to have supplanted.* • When I visited (some years ago) the "Ecole Modele" at Brussels I was told that books were used for nothing except for learning to read, Comenius was saved from this consequence of his realism by his fervent Christianity. lie valued the study of the Bible as highly as the Re- COMENIUS. 155 C.'s use of Analogies. § 51. "Analogies are good for illustration, not for proof." If Comenius had accepted this caution, he would have escaped much useless labour, and might have had a better foundation for his rules than fanciful applications of nascence scholars valued the study of the classics, though for a veiy different leason. He cared for the Bible not as literature, but as the highest authority on the problems of existence. Those who, like Matthew Arnold, may attribute to it far less authority may still treasure it as literature, while those who despise literature and recognise no authority above things would limit us to the curriculum of the " Ecole Modele " and care for natural science only. In this country we are fortunately able to advocate some reforms which were suggested by the realism of Comenius without incurring any suspicion of rejecting his Christianity. It is singular to see how the highest authorities of to-day — men conversant with the subject on the side of practice as well as theory — hold precisely the language which practical men have been wont to laugh at as "theoretical nonsense" ever since the days of Comenius. A striking instance will be found in a lecture by the Principal of the Battersea Training College (Rev. Canon Daniel) as reported in Educational Times, July, 1889. Compare what Comenius said {stipra p. 151) with the following : "Children are not sufficiently required to use their senses. They are allowed to observe by deputy. They look at Nature through the spectacles of Books, and through the eyes of the teacher, but do not observe for themselves. It might be expected that in object lessons and science lessons, which are specially intended to cultivate the observing faculty, this fault would be avoided, but I do not find that such is the case. I often hear lessons on objects that are not object lessons at all. The object is not allowed to speak for itself, eloquent though it is, and capable though it is of adapt- hig its te;iching to the youngest child who interrogates it. The teacher buries it under a heap of words and second-hand statements, thereby converting the object lesson into a verbal lesson and throwing away golden opport inities of forming the scientific habit of mind. Now mental science teaches us that our knowledge of the sensible qualities of the material world can come to us only through our senses, and through thft right senses If we had no senses we should know nothing about 156 COMENIUS. Thought-studies and Label-studies. what he observed in the external world. "Comenius" as August Vogel has said, "is unquestionably right in wishing to draw his principles of education from Nature ; but instead of examining the proper constitution and nature of man, and the material world at all ; if we had a sense less we should be cut off from a whole class of facts ; if we had as many senses as are ascribed to the inhabitants of Sirius in Voltaire's novel, our knowledge would be proportionately greater than it is now. Words cannot compensate for sensations. The eloquence of a Cicero would not explain to a deaf man what music is, or to a blind man what scarlet is. Yet I have frequently seen teachers wholly disrep^ard these obvious truths. They have taught as though their pupils had eyes that saw not, and ears that heard not, and noses that smelled not, and palates that tasted not, and skins that felt not, and muscles that would not work. They have insisted on taking the words out of Nature's mouth and speaking for her. They have thought it derogatory to play a subordinate part to the object itself." This subject has been well treated by Mr. Thos. M. Balliet in a paper on shortening the curriculum {JVew Yo)-k School Journal, loth Nov., 1888). "Studies," says he, "are of two kinds (i) studies which supply the mind with thoughts of images, and (2) those which give us 'labels,' i.e. the means of indicating and so communicating thought. Under the last head come the study of language, writing (including spelling), notation, &c." Mr. Balliet proposes, as Comenius did, that the symbol subjects shall not be taken separately, but in connexion with the thought subjects. Especially in the mother-tongue, we should study language for thought, not thought for the sake of language. But after all though we may and should bring the young in connexion with the objects of thought and not with words merely, we must not forget that the scholastic aspect of things will differ from the practica'. When brought into the schoolroom the thing must be divested of details and surroundings, and used to give a conception of one of a class. The fir tree of the schoolboy cannot be the fir tree of the wood-cutter. The " boiler " becomes a cylinder subject to internal or external pressure. It is not the thing that the engine-driver knows will bum and corrode, get foul in its tubes and loose in its joints, and be liable to burst. (See Mr. C. H. Benton on "Practical and Theoretical Training " in Spectator^ COMENIUS. 157 Unity of Knowledges. taking that as the basis of his theory, he watches the life of birds, the growth of trees, or the quiet influence of the sun, and thus substitutes for the nature of man nature ivitJioiit man {die objective Naiur). And yet by Nature he under- stands that first and primordial state to which as to our original [idea] we should be restored, and by the voice of Nature he understands the universal Providence of God or the ceaseless influence of the Divine Goodness working all in all, that is, leading every creature to the state ordained for it. The vegetative and animal life in Nature is according to Comenius himself not life at all in its highest sense, but me only true life is the intellectual or spiritual life of Man. No doubt in the two lower kinds of life certain analogies may be found for the higher; but nothing can be less worthy of reliance and less scientific than a method which draws its principles for the higher life from what has been observed in the lower." (A. Vogel's Gesch. d. Pddagogik ah Wisse7jschaft, p. 94.) §52. This seems to me judicious criticism; but what- ever mistakes he may have made Comenius, like Froebel long after him, strove after a higher unity which should embrace knowledge of every kind. The connexion of knowledges (so constantly overlooked in the schoolroom) was always in his thoughts. " We see that the branches of a tree cannot live unless they all alike suck their juices from a common trunk with common roots. And can we hope that the branches of Wisdom can be torn asunder with safety to their life, that is to truth? Can one be a Natural Philosopher ioth Nov., 18SS). The school knowledge of things no less than of words may easily be over-valued. It should be given not for itself but 10 excite interest and draw out the powers of the mind. 158 COMENIUS. Theory and the Practical Man. who is not also a Metaphysician? or an Ethical Thinker who does not know something of Physical Science ? or a Logician who has no knowledge of real matters? or a Theologiau, a jurisconsult, or a Physician, who is not first a Philosopher? or an Orator or Poet, who is not all these at once ? He deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who pushes away from him any shred of the knowable." (Quoted in Masson's L. of Milton vol. iij., p. 213 from the Delineatio, [i.e., Pansophice Prodro!nus\. Conf. J. H, Newman, Idea oj a University, Disc, iij.) § 53- ^Ve see then that on the side of theory, Comenius was truly great. But the practical man who has always been the tyrant of the schoolroom cared nothing for theory and held, with a modern English minister responsible for educa- tion, who proved his ignorance of theory by his " New Code," that there was, and could be no such thing. So the reputa- tion of Comenius became pretty much what our great authority Hallam has recorded, that he was a person of some ingenuity and Uttle judgment who invented a new way of leainmg Latin, This estimate of him enables us to follow some windings in the stream of thought about education. Comenius faced the whole problem in its double bearing, theory and practice : he asked, What is the educator's task ? How can he best accomplish it? But his contemporaries had not yet recovered from the idolatry of Latin which had been bequeathed to them by their fathers from the Renas- cence, and they too saw in Comenius chiefly an inventor of a new way of learning Latin. He sought to train up chil- dren for this world and the next; they supposed, as Oxenstiern himself said, that the main thing to be remedied was the clumsy way of teaching Latin. So Comenius was Uttle understood. His books were seized upon as affording COMENIUS. 159 Mother-tongue. Words and Things Together. at once an introduction to the knowledge of things and a short way of learning Latin. But in the long run they wei e found more tiresome than the old classics : so they went out of fashion, and their author was forgotten with them. Now that schoolmasters are forming a more worthy conception of their office, they are beginning to do justice to Comenius. § 54. As the Jesuits kept to Latin as the common lan- guage of the Church, so Comenius thought to use it as a means of inter-communication for the instructed of every nationality. But he was singularly free from over-estimating the value of Latin, and he dera:aided that all nations should be taught in their own language wherein they were born. On this subject he expresses himself with great emphasis. "We desire and protest that studies of wisdom be no longer committed to Latin alone, and kept shut up in the schools, as has hitherto been done, to the greatest contempt and injury of the people at large, and the popular tongues. Let all things be delivered to each nation in its own speech." {DeliJicatio \Prodro7nus\ in Masson ut si/J)ra.) § 55. Comenius was then neither a verbalist nor a cLihsicist, and yet his contemporaries were not entirely wrong in thinking of him as " a man who had invented a new way of learning Latin." His great principle was that instruc- tion in words and things should go together.* The young were to learn about things, and at the same time were to acquire both in the vernacular and also in Latin, the interna- tional tongue, the words which were connected with the things. Having settled on this plan of concurrent instruction * Ruskin seems to be echoing Comenius (of whom perhaps he never heard) when he says " To be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true." {^Address at Camb. Sch. of Art, Oct 1858.) l6o COMENIUS. Janua Linguarum. in words and things, Comenius determined to write a book for carrying it out. Just then there fell into his hands a book which a less open-minded man might have thrown aside on account of its origin, for it was written by the bitter foes and persecutors of the Bohemian Protestants, by the Jesuits. But Comenius says truly, " I care not whether I teach or whether I learn," and he gave a marvellous proof of this by adopting the linguistic method of the Jesuits' Janua Linguarum* * As far as my experience goes there are few men capable both of teaching; and being taught, and of these rare beings Comenius was a noble example. The passage in which he acknowledges his obligation to the Jesuits' Janua is a striking proof of his candour and open- mindedness. As an experiment in language-teaching \\i\% Janua is a very interesting book, and will be well worth a note. From Augustin and Alois de Backer's Bibliothique des Ea-ivaiiis de la C. de Jesus, I learn that the author William Dath or Bathe [Lalin Bateus] was born in Dublin in 1564, and died in Madrid in 1614. "A brief introduction to the skill of song as set forth by William Bathe, gent." is attributed to him ; but we know nothing of his origin or occupation till he entered on the Jesuit noviciate at Tournai in 1596. Either before or after this "he ran" as he himself tells us " the pleasant race of study " at Beauvais. After studying at Padua he was sent as Spiritual Father to the Irish College at Salamanca. Here, according to C. Sommervogel he wrote two Latin books. He also designed Xhe Janua Linguarum, and carried out the plan with the help of the other members of the college. The book was published at Salamanca "apud de Cea Tesa" 1611,4°. Four years afterwards an edition with English version added was published in London edited by Wm. Welde. I have never seen the Spanish version, but a copy of Welde's edition (wanting title page) was bequeathed to me by a friend honoured by all English-speaking students of education, Joseph Payne. The Janua must have had great success in this country, and soon had other editors. In an old catalogue I have seen ^^ Janua Linguarum Quadrilinguis, or a Messe of Tongues, Latine, English, French, Spanish, neatly served up together for a wholesome repast to COMENIUS. l6l The Jesuits' Janua. This " Noah's Ark for words," treated in a series of proverbs of all kinds of subjects, in such a way as to introduce in a natural connection every common word in the Latin lan- guage. " The idea," says Comenius, " was better than the the worthy curiositie of the studious, sm. 4to, Matthew Lowndes, 1617." This must have been the early edition of Isaac Habrecht. I have his ^^Jaiiua Linguarttm Silinguis. yfr,;'ra, p. 135.) This seems to me a higher conception than any that I meet with in Locke. § 15. Butif our philosopher did not learn from Comenius he certainly learnt from Montaigne.* Indeed Dr. Arnstiidt * Pope seems to contrast Montaigne and Locke : " But ask not to what doctors I apply ! " Sworn to no master, of no sect am I : •* As drives the storm, at any door I knock, "And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke." Satires iij., 26. LOCKE. 231 Humanists, Realists, and Trainers. {v. supra, p. 69) has put him into a series of thinkers who have much in common. This succession is as follows : Rabelais, Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau ; and, according to Mr. Browning's division, they form a school by themselves. •' Thinkers on education," says Mr. Browning,* "are ist those who wish to educate through the study of the classics, or 2nd those who wish to educate through the study of the works ot Nature, or 3rd those who aim at an education independent of study and knowledge, and think rather of the training of character and the attaining to the Greek ideal, the man beautiful and good." To the three schools Mr. Browning gives the names Humanist, Realist, and Naturalist, ("nos autres naturalistes," Montaigne says). Locke he con- sider? one of the principal writers of the "naturalistic" school, and says, Locke " has given a powerful bias to natura- listic education both in England and on the Continent for the last 200 years." {Ed. Theories, p. 85.) This use of the word " naturalistic " seems to me somewhat misleading, or at best vague, and it is a word overworked already: so I should prefer to speak of the "developing" or " training" school. The classification itself certainly has its uses but it must be employed with caution. If caught up by those who have only an elementary acquaintance with the subject a class of persons apt to delight in such arrangements as an aid to memory, these divisions may easily prove a hindrance to light. § 16. This subject of classification is so important to Perhaps as Dr. Abbott suggests he took Montaigne as representing active and Locke contemplative Hfe. *See " An introduction to the History of Educational Theories," by Oscar Browning. 232 LOCKE. Caution against classifiers. students that it may be worth while to rgake a few remarks upon it. The only thoroughly consistent people are the people of fiction. We can know all about them. Directly we understand their central thought or peculiarity we may be sure that everything they say and do will be strictly in accordance with it, will indeed be explainable by it. To take a bald and simple instance, directly we know that Mrs. Jellaby in Bleak House is absorbed by her interest in an African Mission, we know all that is to be known about her; and everything she does or omits to do has some reference to Borrioboola Ghar. But in real life not only are people much less easily understood, but when we actually have seized their main idea or peculiarity or interest we must not expect to find them always' consistent : and they will say and do much which if not inconsistent with the main idea or peculiarity or interest has at least no connection with it. Suppose, e.g., you can make out with some certainty that Locke belonged to the developing school, you must not expect him to pay little heed to instruction as such. Again, suppose you find that his philosophy was utilitarian ; you must not suppose that in everything he says he will be thinking of utility. Now the historian is tempted to treat real men and women as the writer of fiction treats his puppets. Having fastened, quite correctly let us suppose, on their main peculiarity he considers it necessary to square everything with his theory of them, and whatever will not fall in with it he, if he is unscrupulous, misrepresents, or if he is scrupulous, suppresses. Again, we are too apt to read into words meanings derived from controversies unknown at the time when the words were uttered. This is a well-known fact in the hiscory of religious thought. We must always consider not merely the words used but the time when they were used. LOCKE. 233 Locke and development. What a man might say quite naturally and orthodoxly at one period would be sufficient to convict him of sympathizing with some terrible heresy if uttered half a century later, We find something like this in the history of education. If anyone nowadays speaks of the pleasure with which as a young man he read Tacitus, he is understood to mean that he is opposed to the introduction of " modern studies " into the school-room. If on the other hand he extols botany, or regrets that he never learned chemistry, this is taken for an assault on classical instruction. But, of course, no such inference could be drawn if we went back to a time when the antithesis between classics and natural science had not been accentuated. In many other instances we have to be on our guard against forcing into language meaning which belongs rather to a later date, § 17. With these cautions in mind let us see how far Locke may be said (i) to be a trainer, and (2) how far a utilitarian. § 18. I. Mr. Browning attributes to Rabelais, Montaigne, and Locke the desire to bring up a well-developed man rather than a good scholar. But Rabelais certainly craved for the knowledge of things ; and if he is to be classed at all I should put him rather with the Realists, albeit he lived before the realistic spirit became powerful. Montaigne went more on the lines of developing rather than teaching, and, shrewd man of the world as he was, he thought a great deal about the art of living. But his ideal was not so much the man as the gentleman. This was true also of Locke ; and here we see some explanation why both Montaigne and Locke do not value classical learning.* * " History and the mathematics, I think, are the most proper and 234 LOCKE. Was Locke a utilitarian ? On the Continent classical learning has never been asso- ciated with tlie character of an accomplished gentleman j and, as far as I know, the conception that the highest type of excellence is found in the union of " the scholar and the gentleman " is peculiar to this country. In the society of Locke's day this union does not seem to have been recognized, and Locke observes : " A great part of the learning now in fashion in the schools of Europe, and that goes ordinarily into the round of education, a gentleman may in a good measure be unfurnished with, without any great disparagement to himself or prejudice to his affairs." {Thoughts, § 94, p. 74.) So Locke sought as the true essential for the young gentleman "prudence and good breeding." He puts his requisites in the following order of importance : — i, virtue ; 2, wisdom ; 3, manners; 4, learning; and so " places learning last and least." Here he shews himself far ahead of those who still held to the learned ideal ; but his notions of development were cramped by his thinking only of the gentleman and what was requisite for him. § ig. IL Was Locke a utilitarian in education? It is the fashion (and in history as in other things fashion is a powerful force), it is the fashion to treat of Locke as a great champion of utilitarianism. We might expect this in the ordinary historians, for "when they do agree their unanimity is " not perhaps very wonderful. But there is one great English authority quite uninfluenced by them who has said advantageous studies for persons of your quality ; the other are fitter for schoolmen and people that must live by their learning, though a little insight and taste of them will be no burthen or inconvenience ta you, especially Natural Philosophy." Advice to a young Lord written by his father, 1 691, p. 29. LOCKE. 235 Utilitarianism defined. the same thing, viz. — Cardinal Newman. The Cardinal, as the champion of authority, is perhaps prejudiced against Locke, who holds that " the faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceived those who trusted to it." Be this as it nuy, Newman asserts that "the tone of Locke's remarks is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the general cultivation of the mind." i^Idea of a University. Discourse vij., § 4 ; see also § 6.) A very interesting point for us to consider is then, Is this reputation of Locke's for utilita- rianism well deserved ? § 20. First let us be quite certain of our definition. Ill learning anything there are two points to be considered ; ist, the advantage we shall find from knowing that subject or having that skill, and 2nd, the effect which the study of that subject or practising for that skill will have on the mind or the body. These two points are in themselves distinct, though it is open to anyone to maintain that they need not be con- sidered separately. Nature has provided that the bodies of most animals should get the exercise best for them in pro- curing food. So Mr. Herbert Spencer has come to the conclusion that it would be contrary to " the economy of nature " if one set of occupations were needed as gymnastics and another for utility. In other words he considers that it is in learning the most useful things we get the best training. The utilitarian view of instruction is that we should teach things useful in themselves and either neglect the result on the mind and body of the learner or assume Mr. Spencer's law of " the economy of nature." Again, when the subjects are settled the utilitarian thinks how the knowledge or skill may be most speedily acquired, 236 LOCKE. L. not utilitarian in education. and not how this method or that method of acquisition will afifect the faculties. § 21. This being utilitarianism in education the ques- tion is how far was Locke the utilitarian he is generally considered ? If we take by itself what he says under the head of " Learning " in the Thoughts concertiing Education no doubt we should pronounce him a utilitarian. He considers each subject of instruction and pronounces for or against it according as it seems likely or unlikely to be useful to a gentleman. And in the methods he suggests he simply points out the quickest route, as if the knowledge were the only thing to be thought of. Hence his utilitarian reputa- tion. But two very important considerations have been lost sight of. ist. Learning is with him "the last and least part" in education. 2nd. Intellectual education was not for childhood but for the age when we can teach ourselves. "When a man has got an entrance into any of the sciences," says he, " it will be time then to depend on himself and rely upon his own understanding and exercise his own faculties, which is the only way to improvement and mastery." (L. to Peter- borough, quoted in Camb. edition of Thoughts, p. 229.) " So," he says, " the business of education is not, as I think, to make the young perfect in any one of the sciences but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them capable of any when they shall apply themselves to it." The studies he proposes in the Conduct of the Understand- ing (which is his treatise on intellectual education) have for their object " an increase of the powers and activity of the LOCKE. 237 Locke's Pisgah Vision. mind, not an enlargement of its possessions" (C. of U. % 19, adf.). Thus strange to say the supposed leader of the Utilitarians has actually propounded in so many words the doctrine o! their opponents. § 22. When Locke is more studied it will be found that the Thoughts are misleading if we neglect his other works, more particularly the Conduct of the Understanding. § 23. Towards the end of his days, Locke was conscious of gleams of the " untravelled world " which lay before the generations to come. With great pathos he writes to a friend : " When I consider how much of my life has been trifled away in beaten tracks where I vamped on with others only to follow those who went before me, I cannot but think I have just as much reason to be proud as if I had travelled all England and, if you will, all France too, only to acquaint myself with the roads, and be able to tell how the highways lie wherein those of equipage, and even the common herd too, travel. Now, methinks — and these are often old men's dreams — I see openings to truth and direct paths leading to it, wherein a little application and industry would settle one's mind with satisfaction and leave no dark- ness or doubt. But this is the end of my day when my sun is setting : and though the prospect it has given me be what I would not for anything be without — there is so much truth, beauty, and consistency in it— yet it is for one of your age, I think I ought to say for yourself, to set about" (L. to Bolde, quoted by Fowler, Locke, p. 120). But another 200 years have not sufficed to put us in possession of the Promised Land of which Locke had these Pisgah visions. We still " vamp on," following those who went t»cfore us and getting small help from expounders of " Edu- 238 LOCKE. Science for education. Names of books. cation as a Science." But as it would seem the days of vamping on blindly in the beaten track are drawing to a close. We cannot doubt that if Locke had known the wonderful advance which various sciences have made since his day he would have seen in them " openings to truth and direct paths leading to it " for many purposes, certainly for education. It is for our age and ages to come to set about applying our scientific knowledge to the bringing up of children ; and thinkers such as Froebel will shew us how. Locke's Thoughts concerning Education and his Conduct of the Understanding should be in the hands of all students of education who know the English language. I have therefore not attempted to epitomise what he has said, but have endeavoured to get at the main thoughts which are, so to speak, the taproot of his system. Of the Thoughts there is an edition published by the National Society and another by the Pitt Press, Cambridge. The Cambridge edition gives from Fox- Bourne's Life Locke's scheme of "Working Schools"' and from Lord King's the essay " Of Studj\" Of the Conduct there is an edition pub- lished by the Clarendon Press. " F.B." in the references above stands for Fox-Bourne's Life of Locke. In the above essay I have not treated of Locke as a methodizer ; but he advocated teaching foreign languages without grammar, and he published " ^sop's Fables in English and Latin, in terlineary. For the benefit of those, who not having a master would learn either of these Tongues. " When I edited the Thoughts for Pitt Press I did not know of this book or I should have mentioned it. XIV. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAD. (1712-1778). § I. The great men whom we meet with in the history of education may be divided into two classes, thinkers and doers. There would seem no good reason why the thinker should not be great as a doer or the doer as a thinker ; and yet we hardly find any records of men who have been successful both in investigating theory and directing practice. History tells us of first-rate practical schoolmasters like Sturm and the Jesuits ; but they did not think out their own theory of their task : they accepted the current theory of their time. On the other hand, men who like Montaigne and Locke rejected the current theory and sought to es- tablish a better by an appeal to reason were not practical schoolmasters. Whenever the thinker tries to turn his thought into action he has cause to be disappointed with the result. We saw this in the disastrous failure of Ratke ; and even the books in Avhich Comenius tried to work out his principles, the Vestibuhwi, Janua and the rest, with the exception of the Orbis Fictus, were speedily forgotten. In the world of education as elsewhere it takes time to find for great thoughts the practice which gives effect to them. The course of great thoughts is in some ways like the course of great rivers. Most romantic and beautiful near their sourcej they are not most useful. They must leave the 240 ROUSSEAU. Middle Age system fell in 18th-century. mountains in which they first appeared, and must flow not in cataracts but smoothly along the plain among the dwell- ings of common men before they can be turned to account in the every-day business of life. § 2. The eighteenth century was soon distinguished by boundless activity of thought ; and this thought was directed mainly to a great work of destruction. Euiope had outgrown the ideas of the Middle Age, and the frame- work of Society, which the Middle Age had bequeathed, had waxed old and was ready to vanish as soon as any strong force could be found to push it out of the way. As Matthew Arnold has described it — ■ " It's frame yet stood without a breach "When blood and warmth were fled ; "And still it spake it's wonted speech — •' But every word was dead." Here then there was need of some destructive power that should remove and burn up much that had become mere obstacle and incumbrance. This power was found in the writings which appeared in France about the middle of the century ; and among the authors of them none spoke with more effect than one who differed from all the rest, a vagabond without family ties or social position of any kind, with no literary training, with little knowledge and in con- duct at least, with no morals. The writings of Rousseau and the results produced by them are among the strangest things in history; and especially in matters of education it is more than doubtful if the wise man of the world Montaigne, the Christian philanthropist Comenius, or that " slave of truth and reason " the philosopher Locke, had half as much influence as this depraved serving man. § 3. The work by which Rousseau became famous was ROUSSEAU. 241 Do the opposite to the usual. a prize essay in which he maintained that civilization, the art? and all human institutions were from first to last per- nicious in their effects, and that no happiness was possible for the human race without giving them all up and returning to what he called the state of Nature. He glorified the " noble savage." If man had brought himself to a state of misery bordering on despair by following his own many inventions, take away all these inventions and you will have man in his proper condition. The argument seems some- thing of this kind : Man was once happy : Man is now miserable : undo everything that has been done and Man will be happy again. § 4. This principle of a so-called " natural " state exist- ing before man's many inventions, Rousseau applied boldly to education, and he deduced this general rule : " Do p' e- cisely the opposite to what is usually done, and you will have hit on the right plan." Not reform but revolution was his advice. He took the ordinary school teaching and held it up to ridicule, and certainly he did prove its absurdity. And a most valuable service he thus rendered to teachers. Every employment while it makes us see some things clearly, also provides us with blinkers, so to speak, which prevent our seeing other things at all. The school teacher's blinkers often prevent his seeing much that is plain enough to other people ; and when a writer like Rousseau takes off our blinkers for us and makes us look about us, he does us a great deal of good. But we need more than this : if j^e have children entrusted to us we must do something with them, and Rousseau's rule of doing the opposite to what is usual will not be found universally applicable. So we consult Rousseau again, and what is his advice ? § 5. Rousseau would bring everything back to the 242 ROUSSEAU. Family life. No education before reason. "natural " state, and unfortunately he never pauses to settle whether he means by this a state of ideal perfection, or of simply savagery. The savage, he says, gets his education without any one's troubling about it, and so he infers that all the trouble taken by the civilized is worse than thrown away. (Girardin's Rousseau, ij., 85.) But he does not fall back on laisser /aire. He urges on parents the duty of thrmselves attending to the bringing up of their children. " Point de mere, point d'enfant^no mother, no child," says he ; and he would have the father see to the training of the child whom the mother has suckled. § 6. Rousseau's picture of family life is given us where few Englishmen are likely to find it, enveloped in the Noic- velle Helo'ise. Here we read how Julie always has her children with her, and while seeming to let them do as they like, conceals with the air of apparent carelessness the most vigilant observation. Possessed by the notion that there can be no intellectual education before the age of reason, she proclaims : " La fonction dont je suis chargee n'est pas d'elever mes fils, mais de les preparer pour etre ^lev^s : My business is not to educate my sons, but to prepare them for being educated." {N. Helo'ise, 5th P., Lett. 3.)* § 7. There is much that is very pleasing in this picture of ideal family life ; but when Rousseau comes formally to propound his ideas on education, he gives up family life to attain greater simplicity. "Jem'entiens k ce qui est plus simple," says he : " What I stick to is the more simple^ He tries to state everything in its lowest terms, so to speak ; and this method is excellent so long as he puts on one side * " 11 n'y a point avant la raison de veritable education pom I'h -mine." (N. H., Sth P., Lett. 3. Conf. supra, p. 227.) ROUSSEAU. 243 R. "neglects" essentials. Lose time. only what is accidental, and retains all the essentials of the problem. But his rage for simplicity sometimes earned him beyond this. There is an old Cambridge story of a problem introducing an elephant " whose weight may be neglected." This is after the manner of Rousseau. In the bringing up of the model child, he " neglects " parents, b] others and sisters, young companions; and though he says that the needful qualities of a master may be expected only in " un homme de g^nie," he hands over Emile to a governor to live an isolated life in the country. § 8. This governor is to devote himself, for some years, entirely to imparting to his pupil these difficult arts — the art of being ignorant and of losing time. Till he is twelve years old, Emile is to have no direct instruction whatever. "At that age he shall not know what a book is," says Rous- seau ; though elsewhere we are told that he will learn to read of his own accord by the time he is ten, if no attempt is made to teach him. He is to be under no re- straint, and is to do nothing but what he sees to be useful. § 9. Freedom from restraint is, however, to be apparent, not real. As in ordinary education the child employs all its faculties in duping the master, so in education "accord- ing to Nature " the master is to devote himself to duping the child. " Let him always be his own master in appear- ance, and do you take care to be so in reality. There is no subjection so complete as that which preserves the appear- ance of liberty ; it is by this means even the will is led captive." § 10. "The most critical interval of human nature is that between the hour of our birth and twelve years of age. This is the time wherein vice and error take root without our being possessed of any instrument to destroy them." 244 ROUSSEAU. Early education negative. {All. {]., 79.) Throughout this season, the governor is to be at work training the pupil in the art of being ignorant and losing time. "The first education should be purely nega- tive. It consists by no means in teaching virtue or truth, but in securing the heart from vice and the intellect from error. If you could do nothing and let nothing be done, if you could bring on your pupil healthy and strong to the age of 12 without his being able to tell his right hand from his left, from your very first lessons the eyes of his understanding would open to reason. Being without pre- judices and without habits he would have nothing in him to thwart the effect of your care ; and by beginning with doing nothing you would have made an educational pro- digy."* " Exercise his body, his organs, his senses, his powers ; but keep his mind passive as long as possible. Mistrust all his sentiments formed before the judgment which deter- mines their value. Restrain, avoid all foreign impressions, and to prevent the birth of evil be in no hurry to cause good ; for good is good only in the light of reason. Look on all delays as so many advantages : it is a great gain to advance towards the goal without loss : let childhood ripen in children. In short, whatever lesson they may need, be * " La premiere education doit done etre purement negative. Ella consiste, noi point a enseigner la vertu ni la verite, ma"is ^ garanlir le cceur du vice et I'esprit de I'erreur. Si vous pouviez ne rien faire et ne rien laisser faire ; si vous pouviez arcener votre eleve sain et robuste b. I'age de douze ans, sans qu'il sut dibtingiier sa main droite desa main gauche, des vos premieres le9ons les yeux de son entendement s'ouvriraient a la raison ; sans prejuge?, sans habitudes, il n'aurait rien en lui qui pflt contrarier I'effet de vos soins. Bientot il deviendrait entre vos mains le plus sage des hommes ; et, en commen^ant par ne rien faire, voiu aurit^z fait un prodige d'education." £m. ij., So. ROUSSEAU. 245 Childhood the sleep of reason. Bure not to give it them to-day if you can safely put it off til! to-morrow."* ** Do not, then, alarm yourself much about this apparent idleness. What would you say of the man, who, in order to make the most of life, should determine never to go to sleep ? You would say. The man is mad : he is not enjoying the time ; he is depriving himself of it : to avoid sleep he is hurrying towards death. Consider, then, that it is the same here, and that childhood is the sleep of reason,"f § II. We have now reached the climax (or shall we say the nadir ?) in negation. Rousseau has given the coup de grace to the ideal of the Renascence. Comenius was the first to take a comprehensive view of the educator's task and to connect it with man's nature and destiny ; but he could not get clear from an over-estimate of the importance of knowledge. According to his ideal, man should know all things ; so in practice he thought too much of imparting knowledge. Then came Locke and treated the imparting * " Exercez son corps, ses organes, ses sens, ses forces, mais tenez son ame oisive aussi longtemps qu'il se pourra. Redoutez tous les sent- ments anterieurs au jugement qui les apprecie. Retenez, arretez les impressions etrangeres : et, pour empecher le mal de naitre, ne vous pressez point de faire le bien ; car il n'est jamais tel que quand la raison I'eclaire. Regardez tous les delais comme des avantages : c'est gagner beaucoup que d'avancer vers le terme sans rien perdre ; laissez murir I'enfance dans les enfants. Enfin quelque Ie9on leur devient-elle nece? • saire, gardez-vous de la donner aujourd'hui, si vous pouvez diffcrer jusqu'a demain sans danger." Em. ij., 80. t " Effrayez-vous done peu de cette oisivete pr^t endue. Que diiiez- vous d'un homme qui, pour mettre toute la vie a profit, ne voudrait jamais dormir? Vous diriez : Cet homme est insense ; il nejouitpas du temps, il se I'ote ; pour fuir le sommeil il court a la mort. Songez done que c'est ici la meme chose, et que I'enfance est le sommeil de la raison." ^w. ij., 99. 246 ROUSSEAU. Start from study of the child. of knowledge as of trifling importance when compared with the formation of character; but he too in practice hardly went so far as this principle might have led him. He was much under the influence of social distinctions, and could not help thinking of what it was necessary for a gentleman to know. So that Rousseau was the very first to shake himself entirely free from the notion which the Renascence had handed down that man was mainly a learning animal. Rousseau has the courage to deny this in the most emphatic manner possible, and to say : "For the first 12 years the educator must teach the child nothing." § 12. In this reaciion against the Renascence Rousseau puts the truth in the form of such a violent plradox that we start back in terror. But it was perhaps necessary thus to sweep away the ordinary schoolroom rubbish before the true nature of the educator's task could be fairly considered. The rubbish having been cleared away what was to take its place ? No longer having his mind engrossed by the knowledge he wished to communicate, the educator had now an eye for something else not less worthy of his attention, viz., the child itself Rousseau was the first to base educa- tion entirely on a study of the child to be educated ; and by doing this he became, as I believe, one of the greatest of educational Reformers. § 13. It was, however, purely as a thinker, or rather as a voi^e giving expression to the general discontent that Rousseau became such a tremendous force in Europe. He has indeed often been called the fadier of the first French Revolution which he did not live to see. But, as Macaulay has well said, a good deal besides eloquent writing is needed to cause such a convulsion ; and we can no more attribute the French Revolution to the writings of Rousseau than we ROUSSEAU. 247 R.'s paradoxes un-English. can attribute the shock of an explosion of gunpowder to tlie hicifer match without which it might never have happened. {z>. Macaulay's Barrlre). Rousseau did in the world of ideas what the French Revolutionists afterwards did in the w'orld of politics ; he made a clean sweep and endeavoured to start afresh. § 14. I have already said that as regards education I think his labours in destruction were of very great value. But what shall we say of his efforts at construction ? There would not be the least difficulty in showing that most of his proposals are impracticable. It is no more " natural " to treat as a typical case a child brought up in solitude than it would be to write a treatise on the rearing of a bee cut off from the hive.* Rousseau requires impossibilities, e.g., he postulates that the child is never to be brought into contact with anyone who might set a bad example. Modern science has shown us that the young are liable to take diseases from impurities in the air they breathe : but as yet no one has proposed that all children should be kept at an elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. Yet the advice would be about as practicable as the advice of Rousseau. A method which always starts with paradox and not infrequently ends with platitude might seem to have little in its favour ; and Rousseau has had far less influence since (in the words of Herman Merivale) "he was dethroned with the fall of his extravagant child, the [First] Republic." No doubt the great exponent of English * "II n'y a pas de philosophic plus superficielle que celle qui, prenant I'homme comine un etre egoiste et viager, preten:! I'expliquer et lui tracer ses devoirs en dehors de la societe dont il est ane partie. Autant vaut considerer I'abeille abstraction faite de la ruche, et dire qu'k elle fceule I'abeille construit son alveole." Renan, La R^ forme ^ 312. 248 ROUSSEAU, Man the corrupter. The three educations. opinion was right in calling Rousseau " the most un-English stranger who ever landed on our shores" {Times., 29 Aug., 1S73); and the torch of his eloquence will never cause a conflagration, still less an explosion, here. His disregard for "appearances" — or rather his evident purpose of making an impression by defying " appearances " and saying just the opposite of what is expected, is simply distressing to us. But there is no denying Rousseau's genius. His was one of the original voices that go on sounding and awakening echoes in all lands. Willingly or unwillingly, at first hand or from imperfect echoes, everyone who studies education must study Rousseau. § 15. As specimens of Rousseau's teaching I will give a few characteristic passages from the Emile. " Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Creator : everything degenerates in the hands of man."* These are the first words of the " Emile," and the key-note of Rous- seau's philosophy. § 16. "We are born weak, we have need of strength; we are born destitute of everything, we have need of assist- ance ; we are born stupid, we have need of understanding. All that we have not at our birth, and which we require when grown up, is bestowed on us by education. This education we receive from nature, from men, or from things. The internal development of our organs and faculties is the education of nature : the use we are taught to make of that development is the education given us by men ; and in the acquisitions made by our own experience on the objects that surround us, consists our education • "Tout est bien, sortant des mains de I'Auteur des choses ; lout degen^re entre les mains de Thomme." ROUSSEAU. 249 The aim, living thoroughly. from things."* "Since the concurrence of these three kinds of education is necessary to their perfection, it is by that one which is entirely independent of us, we must regulate the two others."t § 1 7. Now " to live is not merely to breathe ; it is to act, it is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, and of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of our existence. The man who has lived most, is not he who has counted tlie greatest number of years, but he who has most thoroughly felt life."J § 18. The aim of education, then, must be com.plete living. But ordinary education, instead of seeking to develop the life of the child, sacrifices childhood to the acquirement of knowledge, or rather the semblance of knowledge, which it is thought will prove useful to the youth or the man. " Nous naissons faibles, nous avons besoin de forces ; nous naisscns depourvus de tout, nous avons besoin d'assistance ; nous naissons stu- pides, nous avons besoin de jugement. Tout ce que nous n'avons pas a notre naissance, et dont nous avons besoin etant grands, nous est donne par I'education. Cette education nous vient ou de la nature, ou des hommes, ou des choses. Le developpement interne de nos facultes et de nos organes est I'education de la nature ; I'usage qu'on nous apprend a, faire de ce developpement est I'education des hommes ; et I'acquis de notre propre experience sur les objets qui nous affectent est Teducation des choses." £ni. j., 6. t " Puisque le concours des trois educations est necessaire k leur per- fection, c'est sur celle a laquelle nous ne pouvous rien qu'il faut diiigei les deux autres." Em. ]., 7. + " Vivre ce n'est pas respirer, c'est agir ; c'est faire usage de nos or- ganes, de nos sens, de nos facultes, de toutes les parties de nous-memes qui nous donnent le sentiment de notre existence. L'homme qui a le plus vecu n'est pas celui qui a compte le plus d'annees, mais celui qui a leplus senti la vie." Efn. j., 13. 250 ROUSSEAU. Children not small men. Rousseau's great merit lies in his having exposed this fundamental error. He says, very truly, " We do not under- stand childhood, and pursuing false ideas of it our eveiy i,tep takes us further astray. The wisest among us fix upon what it concerns men to know without ever considering what children are capable of learning. They always expect to find the man in the child without thinking of what the child is before it is a man. And this is the study to which I have especially devoted myself, in order that should my entire method be false and visionary, my observations might always turn to account. I may not have seen aright what ought to be done : but I believe I have seen aright the subject on which we have to act. Begin then by studying your pupils better, for most certainly you do not under- stand them."*^ "Nature wills that children should be childrefi before they are 7ne7i, If we seek to pervert this order we shall produce forward fruits without ripeness or flavour, and tho' not ripe, soon rotten : we shall have young savans and old children. Childhood has ways of seeing, thinking, feeling peculiar to itself; nothing is more absurd than to wish to substitute ours in theii place."t "We * " On ne connait point I'enfance : sur les fausses idees qu'on en a, plus on va, plus on s'egare. Les plus sages s'attachent a ce qu'il iniporte aux hommes de savoir, sans considerer ce que les enfants sont en etat d'ap- prendre. lis cherchent toujours I'liomme dans I'enfant, sans penser k ce qu'il est avant que d'etre homme. Voila I'etude a laquelle je me suis le plus applique, afin que, quand toute ma methode serait chimerique et fausse, on put toujours profiler de mes observations. Je puis avoir tres-mal vu ce qu'il faut faire ; mais je crois avoir bien vu le sujet sur lequel on doit operer. Commencez done par mieux etudier vos eleves ; car tres-assurement vous ne les connaissez point." + " La nature veut que les enfants soient enfants avant que d'etre hommes. Si nous voulons pervertir cet ordre, nous produirons des fruits ROUSSEAU. 251 Schoolmasters' contempt for childhood. never knoM how to put ourselves in the place of children ; we do not enter into their ideas, we attribute to them our own ; and following always our own train of thought, even tvilh syllogisms we manage to fill their heads with nothing but extravagance and error."* " I wish some discreet person would give us a treatise on the art of observing children — an art wliich would be of immense value to us, but of which fathers and schoolmasters have not as yet learnt the very first rudiments."! § 19. In these passages, Rousseau strikes the key-note of true education. The first thing necessary for us is to see aright the subject on which we have to act. Unfortunately, however, this subject has often been the subject most neglected in the schoolroom. Children have been treated as if they were made for their school books, not their school books for them. As education has been thought of as learning, childhood has been treated as unimportant, a necessary stage in existence no doubt, but far more trouble- some and hardly more interesting than the state of the precoces qui n'auront ni maturite ni saveur, et ne tarderont pas k se cor- rompre : nous aurons de jeunes docteurs etde vieuxenfants. L'enfance a des manieres de voir, de penser, de sentir, qui lui sont propres ; rien n'est moins sense que d'y vouloir substituer les notres." E/n. ij., 75 ; also in JV. H., p. 47S. * " Nous ne savons jamais nous mettre a la place des enfants ; nous n'enlrons pas dans ieurs ideas, nous leur pretons les nolres; et, suivant loujonrs nos propres raisonnenients, avec des chaines de verites nous n'enlassons qu'extravagances et qu'erreurs dans leur tete." li.in. iij., 185. t " Je voudrais qu'un homme judicieux nous dcinnat un traite de I'art d'observer les enfants. Cet art serait tres-important a connaitre : les peres et les maitres n'en ont pas encore les elements." ^m. iij., 224. 252 ROUSSEAU. Schoolroom rubbish. chrysalis. If some forms of words, tables, declensions, county towns, and the like can be drummed into children, this is, say educators of the old school, a clear gain. Fyi the rest nothing can be done with them except teaching them to read, write, and say the multiplication table. But since the publication of the Emile, there has been in the world a very different view of education. According to this view, the importance of childhood is not to be measured by the amount oi our knowledge, or even the number oi our words, we can force it to remember. According to this view, in dealing with children we must not think of our knowledge or of our notions at all. We must think not of our own minds, but of the minds of the little ones.* § 20. The absurd results in which the opposite course has ended, Rousseau exposes with great severity. " All the studies demanded from the poor unfortunates lead to such things as are entirely beyond the range of their ideas, so you may judge what amount of attention they can give to them. Schoolmasters who make a great display of the instruction they give their pupils are paid to differ from me ; but we see from what they do that they are entirely of my opinion. For what do they really teach ? Words, words, for ever words. Among the various knowledges which they boast of giving, they are careful not to include such as would be of use ; because these would involve a knowledge of things, and there they would be sure to fail; but they choose subjects that seem to be known when the terms are known * Rousseau says : " Full of what is going on in your own head, you do not see the effect you produce in tlieir head : Plains de ce qui se p:isse dans votre tete vous ne voyez pas I'effet que vous produisez dans la leur." {^m. lib. ij., 83.) ROUSSEAU. 253 Ideas before symbols. such as heraldry, geography, chronology, languages and the like ; all of them studies so foreign to a man, and still more to a child, that it is a great chance if anything of the whole lot ever proves useful to him on a single occasion in his whole life."* "Whatever the study may be, without the idea of the things represented the signs representing them go for nothing. And yet the child is always kept to these signs without our being able to make him comprehend any of the things they represent. "f What does a child under- stand by "the globe"? An old geography book says candidly, that it is a round thing made of plaster ; and this is the only notion children have of it. What a fearful waste, and worse than waste, it is to make them learn the signs without the things, when if they ever learn the things, they must at the same time acquire the signs ! (Conf Ruskin supra 1^. i^g, note.) "No! if Nature gives to the child's • " Or, toutes les etudes forcees de ces pauvres infortunes tendent k ces objets entierement etrangers a leurs esprits. Qu'on juge de I'atten- tion qu'ils y peuvent donner. Les pedagogues qui nous etalent en grand appareil les instructions qu'ils donnent k leurs disciples sent payes pour tenir un autre lang.ige : cependant on voit, par leur propre conduite, qu'ils pensent exactement comme moi. Car que leur apprennent-ils enfin ? Des mots, encore des mots, et toujours des mots. Parmi les diverses sciences qu'ils se vantent de leur enseigner, ils se gardent bien de choisir celles qui leur seraient veritablement utiles, parce que ce seraient des sciences de choses, et qu'ils n'y reussiraient pas ; mais celles qu'on paralt savoir quand on en sait les termes, le blason, la geographie, la chronologie, les langues, etc. ; toutes etudes si loin de rhomme, et surtout de I'enfant, que c'est une merveille si rien de tout cela lui peut etre utile une seule fois en sa vie." £m. ij., ick>. T " En quelque etude que ce puisse etre, sans I'idee des choses repre- sentees, les signes representants ne sent rien. On borne pourtant tou- jours I'enfant k ces signes, sans jamais pouvoir lui fahre coniprendre auoune des choses qu'ils representent." Mm. ij., 102. 254 ROUSSEAU Right ideas for children. brain this pliability which makes it capable of receiving impressions of every kind, this is not that we may engrave on it the names of kings, dates, the technical words of heraldry, of astronomy, of geography, and all those words meaningless at his age and useless at any age, with which we oppress his sad and sterile childhood ; but that all the ideas which he can conceive and which are useful to him, all those which relate to his happiness and will one day make his duty plain to him, may trace themselves there in characters never to be effaced, and may assist him in conducting himself through life in a manner appropriate to his nature and his faculties."* * " Non, si la nature donne au cerveau d'un enfant cette souplesse qui le rend propre k recevoir toutes sortes d'impressions, ce n'est pas pour qu'on y grave des noms de rois, des dates, des termes de blason, de sphere, de geographic, et tous ces mots sans aucun sens pour son age et sans aucune utilite pour quelque age que ce soit, dont on accable sa triste et sterile enfance ; mais c'est pour que toutes les idees qu'il peut concevoir et qui lui sont utiles, toutes celles qui se rapportent a son bonheuret doivent I'eclairer un jour sur ses devoirs, s'y tracent de bonne heure en caracteres ineffa9ables, et lui servent a se condiiire pendant sa vie d'une maniere convenable k son etreet a ses facultes." Em. ij., 105; also A^. H., P. v., L. 3. Sans etudier dans les livres, I'espece de memoire que peut avoir un enfant ne reste pas pour cela oisive ; tout ce qu'il voit, tout ce qu'il en- tend le frappe, et il s'en souvient ; il tient registre en lui-meme des actions, des discours des hommes ; et tout ce qui I'environne est le livre ^ans lequel, sans y songer, il enrichit continuellemenc sa memoire, en attendant que son jugement puisse en profiter. C'est dans le choix de ces objets, c'est dans le soin de lui presenter sans cesse ceux qu'il peut ccnnaltre, et de lui cacher ceux qu'il doit ignorer, que consiste le veri- table an de cultiver en lui cette premiere facuUe; et c'est par la qu'il faut tacher de lui former un magasin de connaissances qui servent k son Education durant sa jeunesse, et k sa conduite dans tous les temps, Cette methode, il est vrai, ne forme point de petits prodiges et ne fait ROUSSEAU. 255 Child-gardening. Child's activity. § 21. With Rousseau, as afterwards with Froebel, education was a kind of "child-gardening." "Plants are developed by cultivation," says he, " men by education : On fagonne les plantes par la culture, et les homines ])ar I'education " {Em. j., 6). The governor, who is the child- gardener, is to aim at three things : first, he is to shield the child from all corrupting influences ; second, he is to devote himself to developing in the child a healthy and strong body in which the senses are to be rendered acute by exercise ; third, he is, by practice not precept, to cultivate the child's sense of duty. § 22. In his study of children Rousseau fixed on their never-resting activity. "The failing energy concentrates itself in the heart of the old man ; in the heart of the child energy is overflowing and spreads outwards; he feels in him life enough to animate all his surroundings. Whether he makes or mars it is all one to him : it is enough that he has changed the state of things, and every change is an action. If he seems by preference to destroy, this is not from mischief; but the act of construction is always slow, and the act of destruction being quicker is more suited to his vivacity."* One of the first requisites in the care of the young is pas briller les gouvernantes et les precepteurs ; mais elle forme des hommes judicieux, robustes, sains de corps et d'entendment, qui, sans s'etre fait admirer etant jeunes, se font honorer etant grands. * " L'activite defaillantese concentre dans le coeurdu vieillard ; dans celui de I'enfant elle est surabondante et s'etend au dehors; il se sent, pour ainsi dire, assez de vie pour animer tout ce qui I'environne. Qu'il fasse ou qu'il defasse, il n'importe ; il suffit qu'il change I'etat des choses, et tout changement est une action. Que s'il semble avoir plus de pen- chant a detruire, ce n'est point par mechancete, c'est que I'actior: qui forme est toujours lente, et que celle qui detruit, etant plus rapide, con' vient mieux ^ sa vivacite." ^m. j., 47. 256 ROUSSEAU. No sitting still or reading. then to provide for the expansion of their activity. All restraints such as swaddling clothes for infants and "school" and " lessons " for children are to be entirely done away with.* Literary instruction must not be thought of. "There must be no other book than the world," says Rousseau, " no other instruction than facts. The child who reads does not think, he does nothing but read, he gets no instruction ; he learns words : Point d'autre livre que le monde, point d'autre instruction que les faits. L'enfant qui lit ne pense pas, il ne fait que lire ; il ne s'instruit pas, il apprend les mots." {J^m. iij'., i8i.)t * It would be difficult to find a man more English, in a good sense, than the present Lord Derby or, whether we say it in praise or dispraise, a man less like Rousseau. So it is interesting to find him in agreement with Rousseau in condemning the ordinary restraints of the school- room. " People are beginning to find out what, if they would use their own observation more, and not follow one another like sheep, they would have found out long ago, that it is' doing positive harm to a young child, mental and bodily harm, to keep it learning or pretending to learn, the greater part of the day. Nature says to a child, ' Run about,' the schoolmaster says, 'Sit still;' and as the schoolmaster can punish on the spot, and Nature only long afterwards, he is obeyed, and health and brain %\xiiQr"—Sfeeck in 1864. t All this is very crude, and so is the artifice by which Julie in the Nouvelle HeLnse entraps her son into learning to read. No doubt Rousseau is right when he says ihat where there is a desire to read the power is sure to come. But " reading " is one thing in the lives of the labouring classes to whom it means reading aloud in school, and quite another in families of literary tastes and habits with whom the range of thought is in a great measure dependent on books. In such families the children learn to read as surely as they learn to talk. They mostly have access to books which they read to themselves for pleasure ; and of course it is absurdly untrue to say that they learn nothing but words and do not think. In my opinion it may be ques- tioned whether the world of fiction into which their reading gives them ROUSSEAU. 257 Memory without books. § 23. If it be objected that, according to Rousseau's plan, there would be a neglect of memory, he replie:; : " Without the study of books the kind of memory tluit a child should have will not remain inactive ; all he sees, all he hears, strikes him, and he remembers it; he keeps a record in himself of people's actions and people's talk; and all around him makes the book by which without thinking of it he is constantly enriching his memory against the time that his judgment may benefit by it : Sans ^tudier dans les livres, I'espece de memoire que peut avoir un enfant ne reste pas pour cela oisive ; tout ce qu'il voit, tout ce qu'il entend le frappe, et il s'en souvient ; il tient registre en lui- meme des actions, des discours des hommes ; et tout ce qui I'environne est le livre, dans lequel, sans y songer, il enrichit continuellement sa memoire, en attendant que son jugement puisse en profiter." {Em. ij., 106.) We should be most careful not to commit to our memory anything we do not understand, for if we do, we can never tell what part of our stores really belong to us. {Em. iij., 236.) § 24. On the positive side the most striking part of Rousseau's advice relates to the training of the senses. " The first faculties which become strong in us," says he, " are our senses. These then are the first that should be cultivated ; they are in fact the only faculties we forget or the entree does not withdraw them too much from the actual world in which they live. The elders find it very convenient when the child can always be depended on to amuse himself with a book ; but noise and motion contribute more to health of body and perhaps of mind also. While children of well-to-do parents often read too much, the children of our schools "under government " hardly get a notion what reading is. In these schools " reading " always stands for vocal reading, and the power and the habit of using books for pleasure or for knowledge (other than verbal) are little cultivated. 8 258 ROUSSEAU. Use of the senses in childhood. at least those which we neglect most completely." We find that the young child "wants to touch and handle evcrj^- thing. By no means check this restlessness ; it points to a very necessary apprenticeship. Thus it is that the child gets to be conscious of the hotness or coldness, the hardne^^s or softness, the heaviness or hghtness of bodies, to judge of their size and shape and all their sensible properties by looking, feeling, listening, especially by comparing sight and touch, and combining the sensations of the eye with those of the fingers."* " See a cat enter a room for the first time; she examines round and stares and sniffs about without a moment's rest, she is satisfied with nothing before she has tried it and made it out. This is just what a child does when he begins to walk, and enters, so to say, the chamber of the world. The only difference is that to the sight which is common to the child and the cat the first joins in his observations the hands which nature has given him, and the other animal that subtle sense of smell which has been bestowed upon her. It is this tendency, according as it is well cultivated or the reverse, that makes children either sharp or dull, active or slow, giddy or thoughtful. " The first natural movements of the child being then to measure himself with his surroundings and to test in everything he sees all its sensible properties which may concern him, his first study is a kind of experimental * " II veut tout toucher, tout manier ; ne vous opposez point k celte inquietude ; elle lui suggere un apprentissage tres-necessaire. Cest ainsi qu'il apprend k sentir la chaleur, le froid, la durete, la moliesse, la pesanteur, la legerete des corps ; a juger de leur grandeur, de leur figure et de toutes leurs qualites sensibles, en regardant, p^lpant, ccoutant, surtout en comparant la vue au toucher, en estimant k I'oeil la sensation qu'ils feraient sous ses doigts." J^m. J., 43. ROUSSEAU. 259 Intellect based on the senses. physics relating to his own preservation ; and from this we divert him to speculative studies before he feels himself at home here below. So long as his delicate and flexible organs can adjust themselves to the bodies on which they ought to act, so long as his senses as yet imcorrupted are free from illusion, this is the time to exercise them all in their proper functions ; this is the time to learn to under- stand the sensuous relations which things have with us. As everything that enters the mind finds its way through the senses, the first reason of a human being is a reason of sensations; this it is which forms the basis of the intellectual reason ; our first masters in philosophy are our feet, our hands, our eyes. Substituting books for all this is not teaching us to reason, but simply to use the reason of other people ; it teaches us to take a great deal on trust and never to know anything. " In order to practise an art we must begin by getting the proper implements ; and that we may have good use of these implements they must be made strong enough to stand wear and tear. That we may learn to think we must then exercise our members, our senses, our organs, as these are the implements of our intelligence ; and that we may make the most of these implements the body which supplies them must be strong and healthy. We see then that far from man's true reason forming itself independently of his body, it IS the sound constitution of the body that makes tlic operations of the mind easy and certain."* * " Voyez un chat entrer pour la premiere fois dans une chambre: il visite, il regarde, il flaire, il ne reste pas un moment en repos, il ne se fie a rien qu'apres avoir tout examine, tout connu. Ainsi fait un enfant commandant a marcher, et entrant pour ainsi dire dans I'espace du monde. Toute la difference est qu'k la vue, commune k I'enfant et au 26o ROUSSEAU. Cultivation of the senses. § 25. Rousseau does not confine himself to advising that the senses should be cultivated ; he also gives some hints of the way in which they should be cultivated, and many modern experiments, such as " object lessons " and the use of actual weights and measures, may be directly traced to him. " As soon as a child begins to distinguish objects, a proper choice should be made in those which are presented to him," Elsewhere he says, '• To exercise the senses is not simply to make use of them ; it is to learn to judge aright by means of them ; it is to learn, so to say, to perceive ; for we can only touch and see and hear according as we have learnt how. There is a kind of exercise perfectly natural and mechanical which serves to make the body strong without giving anything for the judgment to lay hold of: swimming, running, jumping, whip-top, stone throwing ; all this is capital ; but have we nothing but arms and legs ? have we not also eyes and ears ? and are these organs not needed in our use of the others ? Do not then merely exercise the strength but exercise all the senses chat, le premier joint, pour observer, les mains que lui donna la nature, et I'autre I'odorat subtil dont elle I'a doue. Cette disposition, bien ou mal cultivee, est ce qui rend les enfants adroits ou lourds, pesants ou dispos, etourdis ou pradents. Les premiers mouvements naturels de I'homme etant done de se mesurer avec tout ce qui I'environne, et d'eprouver dans chaque objet qu'il aper^oit toutes les qualites sensibles qui peuvent se rapporter 4 lui, sa premiere etude est une sorte de physique experimentale relative i sa propre conservation, et dont on le detourne par des etudes speculatives avant qu'il ait reconnu sa place ici-bas. Tandis que ses organes delicats et flexibles peuvent s'ajuster aux corps sur lesquels ils doivent agir, tandis que ses sens encore purs sont exempts d'illusion, c'est le temps d'exercer les uns et les auties aux lonctions qui leur sont propres ; c'est le temps d'apprendre 4 connaitre les rapports sensibles que les choses ont avec nous. Comme tout ce qui entre dans I'entendement humain y vient par les sens, la ROUSSEAU. 261 Music and drawing-. which direct it ; get all you can out of each of them, and then check the impressions of one by the impressions cf another. Measure, reckon, -weigh, compare."* § i6. Two subjects there were in which Emile was to receive instruction, viz. : music and drawing. Rousseau's advice about drawing is well worth considering. He says : " Children who are great imitators all try to draw. I should wish my child to cultivate this art, not exactly for the art itself, but to make his eye correct and his hand supple : premiere raison de I'homme est une raison sensitive ; c'elle qui sert de base a la raison intellectuelle : nos premiers maitres de philosophie sont nos pieds, nos mains, nos yeux. Substituer des livres a tout cela, ce n'est pas nous apprendre k raisonner, c'est nous apprendre k nous servir de la raison d'autrui ; c'est nous apprendre k beaucoup croire, et h ne jamais rien savoir. Pour exercer un art, il faut commencer par s'en procurer les instruments ; et, pour pouvoir employer utilement ces instruments, il faut les faire assez solides pour resister a leur usage. Pour apprendre a penser, il faut done exercer nos membres, nos sens, nos organes, qui sont les instruments de notre intelligence ; et pour tirer tout le parti possible de ces instruments, il faut que le corps, qui les fournit, soit robuste et fain. Ainsi, loin que la veritable raison de I'homme se forme independamment du corps, c'est la bonne constitution du corps qui rend les operations de I'esprit faciles et sures." Em. ij., 123. * " Exercer les sens n'est pas seulement en faire usage, c'est appren- dre a bien juger par eux, c'est apprendre, pour ainsi dire, ci sentir ; car nous ne savons ni toucher, ni voir, ni entendre, que comme nous avons appris. II y a un exercice purement naturel et mecanique, qui sert a rendre le corps robuste sans donner aucune prise au jugement : nager, ccurir, sauter, fouetter un sabot, lancer des pierres ; tout cela est foit bien : mais n'avons-nous que des bras et des jambes ? n'avons-nous pas aussi des yeux, des oreilles ? et ces organes sont-ils superflus a I'usage des premiers ? N'exercez done pas seulement les forces, exercez tous les sens qui les dirigent ; tirez de chacun d'eux tout le parti possible, puis verifiez I'impression de I'un par I'autre. Mesurez, comptez, pesez, comparez." Em. ij., 133. 262 ROUSSEAU. Drawing from objects. Morals. Les enfants, grands imitateurs, essayent tous de dessiner : je voudrais que le mien cultivat cet art, non precisement pour I'art meme, mais pour se rendre I'oeil juste et la main flexible." {Em. ij., 149). But Emile is to be* kept clear of the ordinary drawing-master who would put him to imitate imitations ; and there is a striking contrast be- tween Rousseau's suggestions and those of the authorities at South Kensington. Technical skill he cares for less than the training of the eye ; so Emile is always to draw from the object, and, says Rousseau, " my intention is not so much that he should get to imitate the objects, as get to fino7v them : mon intention n'est pas tant qu'il sache imiter les objets que les connaitre." {Em. ij,, 150). § 27. Before we pass the age of twelve years, at which point, as someone says, Rousseau substitutes another Emile for the one he has hitherto spoken of, let us look at his proposals for moral training. Rousseau is right, beyond question, in desiring that children should be treated as children. But what are children ? What can they under- stand ? What is the world in which they live ? Is it the material world only, or is the moral world also open to them? (Girardin's R., vol. ij., 136). On the subject of morals Rousseau seems to have admirable instincts,* but * E.g. — What can be better than this about family life ? "L'attrait de la vie domestique est le meilleur contrepoison des mauvaises moeurs. Le tracas des enfants qu'on croit importun devient agreable ; il r