THEORIES OF EDUCATION. IMPORTANCE OF THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. DEAN COLET. ROGER ASCHAM. PROGRESS OF EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE 181H CENTURY :-LADY MARY MONTAGU; DEAN SWIFT. SUNDAY SCHOOLS :-ROBERT RAIKES. THE MONITORIAL SYSTEM :-DR. BELL; JOSEPH LANCASTER. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT :—1870. PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION :-DR. ARNOLD. INFANT SCHOOLS :- -JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS :-MARY CARPENTER. WORK AND WORKERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL IT FIELD. T is recorded to have been the opinion of Socrates that the duty of man is to learn how to do good and avoid evil, ὅττι τοι ἔν μεγάροισι κακόντ ̓ ἀγαθόντε τέτυκται. In a similar spirit, Dr. Johnson remarks, in his "Life of Milton," that the great aim and end of education is to enable us to live as true men; that is, to live purely, truthfully, and manfully, with our feet in the straight path and our eyes towards the light. We fear, however, that in a very large number of our English schools this end and aim is not kept very constantly in view. Indeed, the common notion of education seems to be realized by the provision of a certain amount of instruction, more or less elementary, in certain branches of knowledge—not including, however, that self-knowledge which the old Greek sage thought of so much importance; and if in our high-class "academies a separation be made between the "classical" and "commercial divisions, and young gentlemen are specially prepared for the Civil Service and other examinations; or if in our schools for the poor a master can show that 80 or 90 per cent. of his pupils have passed successfully in "Standard III.," it is assumed that education is really flourishing amongst us, and that we have really got hold of the great secret for making the next generation wiser and bette than the present. I think it probable, however, that the compilers of our Church Catechism were nearer the truth when they proposed to teach the young "their duty towards God, and their duty towards their neighbour." The Church bids us learn "to hurt nobody by word or deed, to be true and just in all our dealings, to have neither malice nor hatred in our hearts, to keep our body in temperance, soberness, and chastity;" but the Legislature steps in with the injunction that none of these things shall be taught, and substitutes the latest edition of the Revised Code. To those who adopt Dr. Arnold's view of education, and hold that it applies equally to mind, and heart, and soul,-that something more is necessary than the mere discipline of the intellect to prepare the young student for playing a noble part in the battle of life, the general tone of public discussion on this subject cannot but be mortifying. The public, and the men who write for the public, seem incapable of rising above the commonplaces of Utilitarianism, and argue as if an acquaintance with reading and writing, and Latin and mathematics, were all that it is necessary for the young mind to gain. In this sense a "good education” means nothing more than just enough learning to pass a competitive examination, or to fit a youth for entering one of the great professions, or, in the humbler walks of life, for a stool in a merchant's counting-house, or a post behind a tradesman's counter. And hence we find the "principals" of our high-class establishments boasting, not that they have educated their pupils in the honour of the Queen and the love of God; not that they have made them good citizens and good Christians; not that they have taught them to love all that is true and just, generous and hospitable, and to despise the false, the mean, and the selfish; but that so many have "passed" at this or that examination, have distinguished themselves at Woolwich or Sandhurst. We do not say that such success is not very desirable and creditable, but that it is by no means a proof or a consummation of a "good education." And, in like manner, we feel that whatever may be said in favour of the Government educational secret of "payment by results," it cannot be pretended that one of these results is to train up a generation of men and women to believe in the Christian faith and to live the Christian life. We hold that in our higher schools as in our lower, the education given is too pretentious, and, therefore, too superficial; that it aims at too much, and therefore, accomplishes too little; that it is worldly in tone and worldly in object; that it dwells too largely upon words, and too little upon things; that it is addressed too exclusively to the intellect, at the expense of the affections and the imagination; and, above all, that it is wholly and completely a failure, when and so far as it is not based upon religion, or inspired with a religious spirit. The reader will not be displeased, perhaps, if I pause to examine very briefly Milton's loftier and more generous idea of MILTON'S PLAN OF EDUCATION. 13 education as it is developed in his celebrated "Letter to Mr. Hartlib," and to see whether the great Puritan poet and thinker can help us to any useful general principles. He describes it as a "voluntary idea of a better education, in extent and comprehension far more large, and yet of time far shorter, and of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice." Such an idea is surely worth considering at a time when education, so called, is more expensive than ever it was, and yet, by common consent, is also more inefficient; when our scholarship is daily growing more imperfect, and a system of "cramming" is rapidly taking the place of careful intellectual and moral training; when all that comes of greater educational facilities and revised codes is an increase of materialistic belief, a constant disregard of the rules and canons of political economy, and a lamentable indifference to Christian doctrine; when all that comes, among the higher classes, of a vast machinery of collegiate institutions, academies, special classes, courses of lectures, and the like, is a superficial acquaintance with many studies and a competent knowledge of none; musicians who cannot play, and artists who cannot draw; linguists who are ignorant of their own language, and can read and write no other; a taste for the meretricious in art, the chimerical in science, and the sensational in literature; a constant yearning after luxury and pleasure, and a cowardly shrinking from self-denial and pain; short, an abandonment of the old paths trodden by the feet of the great and good, for new ways that lead only into cloudland and confusion. This, of course, is speaking generally; but that the indictment is, on the whole, a true one, must be admitted by all who consider the present pursuits of our young patricians, or the condition of the modern stage, or the popularity of an unwholesome and unclean literature, or the amusements of fashionable society, or, in fact, any of the straws on the surface, which show the direction of the great currents of thought and feeling among us. The principle which formed the corner-stone of Milton's educational system was thoroughness. He was no advocate of the art of beating out a thin leaf of gold to cover with deceptive tissue the greatest possible amount of insincerity and unreality. And, therefore, in teaching languages, he would have the teacher go at once to the best books in those languages, and use them as his |