men disregard them. And thus does he, by | tellectual, moral, religious--the most effi

asserting the eternal principles of things and the necessity of conforming to them, prove himself intrinsically religious.

cient study is, once more Science. The question which at first seemed so perplexed, has become, in the course of our inquiry, comparTo all which add the further religious aspect atively simple. We have not to estimate the of science, that it alone can give us true con- degrees of importance of different orders of ceptions of ourselves and our relation to the human activity, and different studies as sevmysteries of existence. At the same time that erally fitting us for them; since we find that it shows us all which can be known, it shows the study of Science, in its most comprehenus the limits beyond which we can know noth- sive meaning, is the best preparation for all ing. Not by dogmatic assertion does it teach these orders of activity. We have not to dethe impossibility of comprehending the ulti- cide between the claims of knowledge of mate cause of things; but it leads us clearly great though conventional value, and knowlto recognize this impossibility by bringing us edge of less though intrinsic value; seeing in every direction to boundaries we cannot that the knowledge which we find to be of cross. It realizes to us in a way which noth- most value in all other respects, is intrining else can, the littleness of human intelli- sically most valuable: its worth is not depengence in the face of that which transcends dent upon opinion, but is as fixed as is the human intelligence. While towards the tra- relation of man to the surrounding world. ditions and authorities of men its attitude Necessary and eternal as are its truths, all may be proud, before the impenetrable veil Science concerns all mankind for all time. which hides the Absolute its attitude is hum- Equally at present, and in the remotest fuble-a true pride and a true humility. Only ture, must it be of incalculable importance the sincere man of science (and by this title for the regulation of their conduct, that men we do not mean the mere calculator of dis- should understand the science of life, physitances, or analyzer of compounds, or labeller cal, mental, and social; and that they should of species; but him who through lower truths understand all other science as a key to the seeks higher, and eventually the highest)-science of life. only the genuine man of science, we say, can truly know how utterly beyond, not only human knowledge, but human conception, is the Universal Power of which Nature, and Life, and Thought are manifestations.

And yet the knowledge which is of such transcendent value is that which, in our age of boasted education, receives the least attention. While this which we call civilization could never have arisen had it not been for We conclude, then, that for discipline, as science; science forms scarcely an appreciable well as for guidance, science is of chiefest element in what men consider civilized trainvalue. In all its effects, learning the mean- ing. Though to the progress of science we ings of things, is better than learning the owe it, that millions find support where once meanings of words. Whether for intellectual, there was food only for thousands; yet of moral, or religious training, the study of sur-these millions but a few thousands pay any rerounding phenomena is immensely superior to the study of grammars and lexicons.

spect to that which has made their existence possible. Though this increasing knowledge of the properties and relations of things has Thus to the question with which we set out not only enabled wandering tribes to grow in-What knowledge is of most worth?--the to populous nations, but has given to the countuniform reply is-Science. This is the ver- less members of those populous nations comdict on all the counts. For direct self-preser- forts and pleasures which their few naked vation, or the maintenance of life and health, ancestors never even conceived, or could the all-important knowledge, is-Science. For have believed, yet is this kind of knowledge that indirect self-preservation which we call only now receiving a grudging recognition in gaining a livelihoood, the knowledge of great- our highest educational institutions. To the est value is-Science. For the due discharge slowly growing acquaintance with the uniof parental functions, the proper guidance is form co-existences and sequences of pheto be found only in-Science. For that inter-nomena-to the establishment of invariable pretation of national life, past and present, laws, we owe our emancipation from the without which the citizen cannot rightly reg-grossest superstitions. But for science we ulate his conduct, the indispensable key is-should be still worshipping fetishes; or, with Science. Alike for the most perfect produc- hecatombs of victims, propitiating diabolical tion and highest enjoyment of art in all its deities. And yet this science, which, in place forms, the needful preparation is still-Sci- of the most degrading conceptions of things, ence. And for purposes of discipline-in-has given us some insight into the grandeurs

of creation, is written against in our theol- | coercive education: the pupil is hampered by ogies and frowned upon from our pulpits. fewer restraints, and other means than punParaphrasing an Eastern fable, we may ishments are used to govern him. In those say that in the family of knowledges, Science ascetic days when men, acting on the greatis the household drudge, who, in obscurity, est misery principle, held that the more grathides unrecognized perfections. To her has ifications they denied themselves the more been committed all the work; by her skill, virtuous they were, they, as a matter of intelligence and devotion, have all the con- course, considered that the best education veniences and gratifications been obtained; which most thwarted the wishes of their chiland while ceaselessly occupied ministering to dren, and cut short all spontaneous activity the rest, she has been kept in the background, with-" You mustn't do so." While on the that her haughty sisters might flaunt their contrary, now that happiness is coming to be fripperies in the eyes of the world. The regarded as a legitimate aim-now that hours parallel holds yet further. For we are fast of labor are being shortened and popular reccoming to the dénouement, when the positions reations provided, parents and teachers are will be changed; and while these haughty sisters sink into merited neglect, Science, proclaimed as highest alike in worth and beauty, will reign supreme.

CHAPTER II.

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.

beginning to see that most childish desires may rightly be gratified, that childish sports should be encouraged, and that the tendencies of the growing mind are not altogether so diabolical as was supposed. The age in which all thought that trades must be established by bounties and prohibitions; that manufacturers needed their materials and qualities and prices to be prescribed; and that the value of money could be determined by law; was an age which unavoidably cherished the notions that a child's mind could be made to order; that its powers were to be imparted by the schoolmaster; that it was a receptacle into which knowledge was to be put and there built up after its teacher's ideal. In this free-trade era, however, when we are learning that there is much more self-regulation in things than was supposed; that labor, and commerce, and agriculture, and naviga tion can do better without management than with it; that political governments, to be efficient, must grow up from within and not be imposed from without; we are also beginning to see that there is a natural process of mental evolution which is not to be disturbed without injury; that we may not force on the unfolding mind our artificial.forms; but that Psychology, also, discloses to us a law of supply and demand, to which, if we would not do harm, we must conform. Thus alike in its oracular dogmatism, in its harsh discipline, in its multiplied restrictions, in its professed asceticism, and in its faith in the devices of men, the old educational regime was akin to the social systems with which it was contemporaneous; and similarly, in the reverse of these characteristics our modern modes of culture correspond to our more liberal religious and political institutions.

THERE cannot fail to be a relationship between the successive systems of education, and the successive social states with which they have co-existed. Having a common origin in the national mind, the institutions of each epoch, whatever be their special functions, must have a family likeness. When men received their creed and its interpretations from an infallible authority deigning no explanations, it was natural that the teaching of children should be purely dogmatic. While believe and ask no questions" was the maxim of the Church, it was fitly the maxim of the school. Conversely, now that Protestantism has gained for adults a right of private judgment and established the practice of appealing to reason, there is harmony in the change that has made juvenile instruction a process of exposition addressed to the understanding. Along with political despotsm, stern in its commands, ruling by force of terror, visiting trifling crimes with death, and implacable in its vengeance on the disloyal, there necessarily grew up an academic liscipline similarly harsh-a discipline of multiplied injunctions and blows for every breach of them—a discipline of unlimited aucracy upheld by rods, and ferules, and the black-hole. On the other hand, the increase But there remain further parallelisms to of political liberty, the abolition of law re- which we have not yet adverted: that, namestricting individual action, and the ameliora- ly, between the processes by which these tion of the criminal code, have been accom- respective changes have been wrought out; panied by a kindred progress towards non- and that between the several states of het

erogeneous opinion to which they have | wrong practices he has joined with it must, by led. Some centuries ago there was uniform-repeated experiment and failure, be explod ity of belief-religious, political, and educa-ed. And by this aggregation of truths and tional. All men were Romanists, all were elimination of errors, there must eventually Monarchists, all were disciples of Aristotle, be developed a correct and complete body o and no one thought of calling in question doctrine. Of the three phases through which that grammar-school routine under which all human opinion passes-the unanimity of th were brought up. The same agency has in ignorant, the disagreement of the inquiring each case replaced this uniformity by a con- and the unanimity of the wise-it is manifes stantly increasing diversity. That tendency that the second is the parent of the third towards assertion of the individuality, which, They are not sequences in time only; the after contributing to produce the great Prot- are sequences in causation. However imp estant movement, has since gone on to pro-tiently, therefore, we may witness the pre duce an ever-increasing number of sects-that ent conflict of educational systems, and how tendency which initiated political parties, ever much we may regret its accompanyin and out of the two primary ones has, in these evils, we must recognize it as a transitio modern days, evolved a multiplicity to which stage needful to be passed through, and be every year adds-that tendency which led to eficent in its ultimate effects. the Baconian rebellion against the schools, Meanwhile may we not advantageous and has since originated here and abroad take stock of our progress? After fifty yea sundry new systems of thought-is a ten- of discussion, experiment, and comparison dency which, in education also, has caused results, may we not expect a few steps to division and the accumulation of methods. ards the goal to be already made good? Son As external consequences of the same inter- old methods must by this time have fall nal change, these processes have necessarily out of use; some new ones must have becon been more or less simultaneous. The decline established; and many others must be of authority, whether papal, philosophic, process of general abandonment or adoptio kingly, or tutorial, is essentially one phenom- Probably we in these vario enon; in each of its aspects a leaning towards changes, when put side by side, similar cha free action is seen alike in the working out of acteristics-may find in them a common te the change itself, and in the new forms of dency; and so, by inference, may get a cl theory and practice to which the change has to the direction in which experience is leadi given birth. us, and gather hints how we may achieve y While many will regret this multiplication further improvements. Let us then, as of schemes of juvenile culture, the catholic preliminary to a deeper consideration of t observer will discern in it a means of ensur-matter, glance at the leading contrasts ing the final establishment of a rational sys-tween the education of the past and of t tem. Whatever may be thought of theological dissent, it is clear that dissent in educa- The suppression of every error is common tion results in facilitating inquiry by the di- followed by a temporary ascendency of t vision in labor. Were we in possession of the contrary one; and it so happened, that aft true method, divergence from it would, of the ages when physical development alo course, be prejudicial; but the true method was aimed at, there came an age when cu having to be found, the efforts of numerous ure of the mind was the sole solicitude-wh independent seekers carrying out their re- children had lesson-books put before them searches in different directions, constitute a between two and three years old-wh better agency for finding it than any that school-hours were protracted, and the getti could be devised. Each of them struck by of knowledge was thought the one thi some new thought which probably contains needful. As, further, it usually happer more or less of basis in facts-each of them that after one of these reactions the next a zealous on behalf of his plan, fertile in expe- vance is achieved by co-ordinating the anta dients to test its correctness, and untiring in onist errors, and perceiving that they are his efforts to make known its success-each posite sides of one truth; so we are now co of them merciless in his criticism on the rest ing to the conviction that body and mi -there cannot fail, by composition of forces, must both be cared for, and the whole bei to be a gradual approximation of all towards unfolded. The forcing system has been the right course. Whatever portion of the great measure given up, and precocity is d normal method any one of them has discov-couraged. People are beginning to see th ered, must, by the constant exhibition of its the first requisite to success in life, is to b results, force itself into adoption; whatever good animal. The best brain is found of lit

present.

service, if there be not enough vital energy to work it; and hence to obtain the one by sacrificing the source of the other, is now considered a folly-a folly which the eventual failure of juvenile prodigies constantly illustrates. Thus we are discovering the wisdom of the saying, that one secret in education is "to know how wisely to lose time."

solves a new case as readily as an old one. Between a mind of rules and a mind of principles, there exists a difference such as that between a confused heap of materials, and the same materials organized into a complete whole, with all its parts bound together. Of which types this last has not only the advantage that its constituent parts are better reThe once universal practice of learning by tained, but the much greater advantage, that rote, is daily falling more into discredit. All it forms an efficient agent for inquiry, for inmodern authorities condemn the old mechan- dependent thought, for discovery-ends for ical way of teaching the alphabet. The mul- which the first is useless. Nor let it be suptiplication table is now frequently taught ex-posed that this is a simile only: it is the litperimentally. In the acquirement of lan-eral truth. The union of facts into generaliguages, the grammar-school plan is being su-zations is the organization of knowledge, perseded by plans based on the spontaneous whether considered as an objective phenomeprocess followed by the child in gaining its non, or a subjective one: and the mental mother tongue. Describing the methods grasp may be measured by the extent to there used, the "Reports on the Training which this organization is carried. School at Battersea " say:-"The instruction in the whole preparatory course is chiefly oral, and is illustrated as much as possible by appeals to nature." And so throughout. The rote-system, like other systems of its age, made more of the forms and symbols than of the things symbolized. To repeat the words correctly was everything; to understand their meaning nothing: and thus the spirit was sacrificed to the letter. It is at length perceived, that in this case as in others, such a result is not accidental but necessary-that in proportion as there is attention to the signs, there must be inattention to the things signified; or that, as Montaigne long ago said -Sçavoir par cœur n'est pas sçavoir.

From the substitution of principles for rules, and the necessarily co-ordinate practice of leaving abstractions untaught until the mind has been familiarized with the facts from which they are abstracted, has resulted the postponement of some once early studies to a late period. This is exemplified in the abandonment of that intensely stupid custom, the teaching of grammar to children. As M. Marcel says:- 66 It may without hesitation be affirmed that grammar is not the steppingstone, but the finishing instrument." As Mr. Wyse argues:-" Grammar and Syntax are a collection of laws and rules. Rules are gathered from practice: they are the results of induction to which we come by long obserAlong with rote-teaching, is declining also vation and comparison of facts. It is, in the nearly allied teaching by rules. The par- fine, the science, the philosophy of language. ticulars first, and then the generalization, is In following the process of nature, neither inthe new method-a method, as the Battersea dividuals nor nations ever arrive at the School Reports remark, which, though "the science first. A language is spoken, and poereverse of the method usually followed which try written, many years before either a consists in giving the pupil the rule first," is grammar or prosody is even thought of. yet proved by experience to be the right one. Men did not wait till Aristotle had conRule-teaching is now condemned as impart- structed his logic, to reason. In short, as ing a merely empirical knowledge-as pro-grammar was made after language, so ought ducing an appearance of understanding with- it to be taught after language: an inference out the reality. To give the net product of which all who recognize the relationship beinquiry, without the inquiry that leads to it, tween the evolution of the race and of the inis found to be both enervating and inefficient. dividual, will see to be unavoidable. General truths to be of due and permanent Of new practices that have grown up duruse, must be earned. "Easy come easy go," ing the decline of these old ones, the most is a saying as applicable to knowledge as to important is the systematic culture of the wealth. While rules, lying isolated in the powers of observation. After long ages of mind—not joined to its other contents as out- blindness men are at last seeing that the growths from them-are continually forgot- spontaneous activity of the observing faculten, the principles which those rules express ties in children has a meaning and a use. piecemeal, become, when once reached by the What was once thought mere purposeless acunderstanding, enduring possessions. While tion or play, or mischief, as the case might be, the rule-taught youth is at sea when beyond is now recognized as the process of acquiring his rules, the youth instructed in principles a knowledge on which all after-knowledge is

based. Hence the well-conceived but ill-con- that if he is made to repeat them as abstracducted system of object-lessons. The saying tions, the abstractions can have no meaning of Bacon, that physics is the mother of for him, until he finds that they are simply sciences, has come to have a meaning in edu- statements of what he intuitively discerns. cation. Without an accurate acquaintance But of all the changes taking place, the with the visible and tangible properties of most significant is the growing desire to make things, our conceptions must be erroneous, the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable our inferences fallacious, and our operations unsuccessful. "The education of the senses neglected, all after education partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, an insufficiency which it is impossible to cure." Indeed, if we consider it, we shall find that exhaustive observation is an element in all great success. It is not to artists, naturalists, and men of science only, that it is needful; it is not only that the skilful physician depends on it for the correctness of his diagnosis, and that to the good engineer it is so important that some years in the workshop are prescribed for him; but we may see that the philosopher also is fundamentally one who observes relationships of things which others had overlooked, and that the poet, too, is one who sees the fine facts in nature which all recognize when pointed out, but did not before remark. Nothing requires more to be insisted on than that vivid and complete impressions are all essential. No sound fabric of wisdom can be woven out of raw material.

While the old method of presenting truths in the abstract has been falling out of use, there has been a corresponding adoption of the new method of presenting them in the concrete. The rudimentary facts of exact science are now being learnt by direct intuition, as textures, and tastes, and colors are learnt. Employing the ball-frame for first lessons in arithmetic exemplifies this. It is well illustrated, too, in Professor De Morgan's mode of explaining the decimal notation. M. Marcel, rightly repudiating the old system of tables, teaches weights and measures by referring to the actual yard and foot, pound and ounce, gallon and quart; and lets the discovery of their relationships be experimental. The use of geographical models and models of the regular bodies, etc., as introductory to geography and geometry respectively, are facts of the same class. Manifestly a common trait of these methods is, that they carry each child's mind through a process like that which the mind of humanity at large has gone through. The truths of number, of form, of relationship in position, were all originally drawn from objects; and to present these truths to the child in the concrete is to let him learn them as the race learnt them. By and by, perhaps, it will be seen that he cannot possibly learn them in any other way; for

rather than painful-a desire based on the more or less distinct perception that at each age the intellectual action which a child likes is a healthful one for it; and conversely. There is a spreading opinion that the rise of an appetite for any kind of knowledge implies that the unfolding mind has become fit to assimilate it, and needs it for the purposes of growth: and that on the other hand, the disgust felt towards any kind of knowledge is a sign either that it is prematurely presented, or that it is presented in an indigestible form. Hence the efforts to make early education amusing, and all education interesting. Hence the lectures on the value of play. Hence the defence of nursery rhymes, and fairy tales. Daily we more and more conform our plans to juvenile opinion. Does the child like this or that kind of teaching? does he take to it? we constantly ask. "His natural desire of variety should be indulged," says M. Marcel; "and the gratification of his curiosity should be combined with his improvement." "Lessons," he again remarks, "should cease before the child evinces symp toms of weariness." And so with later education. Short breaks during school-hours, excursions into the country, amusing lectures, choral songs-in these and many like traits. the change may be discerned. Asceticism is disappearing out of education as out of life; and the usual test of political legislation-its tendency to promote happiness-is beginning to be, in a great degree, the test of legislation for the school and the nursery.

What now is the common characteristic of these several changes? Is it not an increasing conformity to the methods of nature? The relinquishment of early forcing against which nature ever rebels, and the leaving of the first years for exercise of the limbs and senses, show this. The superseding of rotelearnt lessons by lessons orally and experimentally given, like those of the field and play-ground, shows this. The disuse of ruleteaching, and the adoption of teaching by principles-that is, the leaving of generalization until there are particulars to base them on-show this. The system of object-lessons shows this. The teaching of the rudiments of science in the concrete instead of the abstract, shows this. And above all, this tendency is shown in the variously directed ef