History of this Book.—Some wise man has advised us never to find fault with ourselves, for, says he, you may always depend on your friends to do it for you. So, having looked through the proofs of this book, I abstain from fault-finding. I fancy I could find fault more effectively than my friends or even my professional critics. As the Spectator’s “Correspondent in an easy chair” says very truly; the author has read his book many times; the critic has read it at most once. In fact the critic gives to the book (in some cases to the subject of the book also) no greater number of hours than the author has given months, perhaps years. Partiality blinds the author, no doubt, but unless he is a fatuous person it does not blind him so much as his haste blinds the critic. An author of note said of a book of his, which had been much criticised: “The book has faults, but I am the only person who has discovered them,” to which a friend maliciously appended: “For faults read merits.” Whatever was the truth here, I am inclined to think the author has the best chance of putting his finger on the weak places.

But if I see weaknesses in the foregoing book, why do I not make it better? Just for two reasons: to improve the book I should have to spend more time on it and more money. The more I read and think about any one of my subjects, the more I want to go on reading and thinking. Perhaps I hear of an old book that has escaped my notice, or a new book comes out, sometimes an important book like Pinloche’s Basedow. So I can never finish an essay to my satisfaction, and the only way of getting it off my hands is to send the copy to the printer. By the time the proof comes in there is something that I should like to add or alter; but then the dread of a long bill for “corrections” restrains me. However, now the book is all in type, I see here and there something that suggests a note by way of explanation or addition, so I add this appendix. Taking a hint from one of my favourite authors, Sir Arthur Helps, I throw my notes into the form of a dialogue, but being entirely destitute of Helps’s dramatic skill I confine myself to E. (the Essayist) and A. (Amicus), who is only too clearly an alter ego.

A. So the Americans have kept alive your old book for you, and at last you have rewritten it. You at least have no reason to complain that there is no international copyright. Your book would have been forgotten long ago if a lady in Cincinnati had not persuaded an American publisher there to reprint it. E. Yes, I very readily allow that I have been a gainer. The Americans have done more for me than my own countrymen. To be sure neither have “praised with the hands” (as MoliÈre’s professeur has it); and, in money at least, the book has never paid me its expenses; but three American publishers have done for themselves what no Englishman would do for me, viz., publish at their own risk. In 1868 when my MS. was ready, I went to my old friend, Mr. Alexander Macmillan; but he would not even look at it. “Books on education,” said he, “don’t pay. Why there is Thring’s Education and School, a capital book” (I assented heartily, for I was very fond of it), “well, that doesn’t sell.” I was forced to admit that in that case I had little chance. “But,” I said, “I suppose you would publish at my risk?” “No,” said Mr. Macmillan. “The author is never satisfied when his book doesn’t pay.” “What would you advise?” I asked. “I’ll give you a letter of introduction to Mr. William Longman,” said Mr. Macmillan; “I dare say he’ll publish for you.” With this letter I went to Mr. William Longman (who has since those days been gathered to his ancestors, formerly of Paternoster Row). Mr. Longman said he would put the MS. in the hands of his reader. If the reader’s report was favourable the firm would offer me terms; if not, they would publish for me on commission. I sent the MS. accordingly, and soon after I had a letter from the firm offering to publish “on commission.” When the book was in type, Mr. Longman advised me to have only 500 printed, and to publish at a high price. “I should charge 9s.,” he said. “Very few people will buy, and they won’t consider the price.” This was not my opinion, but in such a matter I felt that the weight of authority was enormously against me. So I consented to the publishing price of 7s. 6d. And at first it seemed that Mr. Longman was right—at least about the small number of purchasers. £30 was spent in advertising, and the book was very generally and I may say very favourably reviewed; but when about 100 copies had been sold, it almost entirely ceased “to move.” I think 13 copies were sold in six months. So to get rid of the remainder of my 500 copies (some 300 of them) I put down the price to 3s. 6d. Then it seemed that Mr. Longman had made a mistake about the price. Without another advertisement the 300 were sold in a month or two. Some time after, I heard that the book had been republished in Cincinnati, and on my writing to the publishers, Messrs. Robert Clarke & Co., they presented me with half-a-dozen copies. This proved to be a perfect reprint, which is more than I can say of those which years afterwards were issued by Mr. Bardeen and Messrs. Kellogg. I have therefore from time to time purchased from Messrs. Clarke and imported the copies (I suppose about 1500 in all) that have been wanted for the English market. I hope these details do not bore you. A. Not at all. The history of any book interests me, and your book has had some odd experiences. It has lived, I own, much longer than I expected, and for this you have to thank the Americans. A. In my case the absence of international copyright has done no harm certainly; but after all copyright has its advantages, international copyright included. Specialists suffer severely from the want of it. Perhaps the “special” public in this country is so small that an important book for it cannot be published. If to our special public were joined the special public of the U.S., the book might be fairly remunerative to its author. Take, e.g., Joseph Payne’s writings. These would have been lost to the world had not Dr. Payne published them as an act of filial piety. With an international copyright these works would be very good property. E. You think then that in the long run “honesty is the best policy” even internationally? A. I must say my opinion does incline in that direction.

Class Matches (p 42).—A. I think you have had a good deal to do with class matches? E. Yes. One must be careful not to overdo them, but I have found an occasional match a capital way of enlivening school-work. Some time before the match takes place the master lets the two best boys pick up sides, the second boy having the first choice. The subject for the match is then arranged, and to prevent disputes the area must be carefully defined. Moreover, there must be no opportunity for the boys to ask questions about unimportant details that are likely to have escaped attention. When the match is to take place each boy should come provided with a set of written questions, and whenever a boy shows himself ignorant of the right answer to a question of his own he must be held to have failed even if his opponent is ignorant also. At Harrow, where I had a class-room (“school-room” as it is there called) to myself, I used to work these matches very successfully in German. Say Heine’s Lorelei had been learnt by heart. I set as a subject for a match the plurals of the substantives and the past participles of the verbs in the poem. Or the boys had to make up for themselves and number on paper a set of short sentences in which only words which occurred in the poem were used. In this last case the questioner handed in to the master his paper with both the English and the German on it, and the master gave the other side the English, of which they had to write the German. The details of such matches may of course be varied to any extent so long as the subject set is quite definite. The scoring will be found best at the lower end, so that a match stimulates those who need stimulus. A. What did you call “scratch pairs?” E. Oh, that was a device for getting up a little harmless excitement. Knowing the capacities of my boys, I arranged them in pairs, the best boy and the worst forming one pair, the next best and next worst the second pair, &c., &c. I then asked a series of questions to which all had to write short answers. I then looked over the answers and marked them. Finally the marks of each pair were added together, and I announced the order in which the pairs “came in.” It was really “anybody’s race” for neither I nor anyone could predict the result. If the number of boys was an odd number the boy in the middle fought for his own hand and had his marks doubled. Perhaps on the whole he had the best chance.

Competition.—A. There were then some forms of emulation which you did not set your face against? E. There were many, but I preferred emulation which stimulated the idle rather than the industrious. Most “prizes” act only on those who would be better without them. A. Do you see no danger in encouraging rivalry between different bodies? The strife between parties has often been more virulent than the strife between individuals. E. Yes, I know well that in exciting party-feeling one is playing with edged tools; and besides this, a boy who for any cause is thought a disgrace to his side, is very likely to be bullied by it. Let me tell you of one form of stimulus which seemed to work well and was free from most of the objections you are thinking of. When I had a small school of my own in which there were only young boys, I put up in the school-room a list of the boys’ names in alphabetical order with blank spaces after the names. I looked over the boys’ written work very carefully, and whenever I came across any written exercise evidently done with great painstaking and for that boy with more than ordinary success, I marked it with a G, and I put up the G in one of the spaces after that boy’s name in the list hung up in the school-room. When the school collectively had obtained a fixed number of G’s we had an extra half-holiday. The announcement of a G was therefore always hailed with delight. A. I see one thing in favour of that device. You might by a G give encouragement to a boy when he has just begun to try. This is often a turning-point in a boy’s life; and a master’s early recognition of effort may do much to strengthen into a habit what might, without the recognition, have proved nothing but a passing whim. At the very least, all such devices have one good effect; they break the monotony of school-work; and monotony is much more wearing to the young than it is to their elders. Can you tell me of others who have used such plans? E. A friend of mine who has a genius for inventing school plans of all kinds and marvellous energy in working them, has a boarding-house in connexion with a large school. The marks of every boy in the school are given out for each week. My friend gives a supper at the end of the quarter if the average marks of his house come up to a certain standard. He puts up each week a list of “Furtherers,” i.e., of the boys who have surpassed the average, and of “Hinderers,” i.e., of boys who have fallen below it A. No doubt this is an effective spur, but I should fear it would in practice deliver the hindermost to Satan. The boy whom nature has made a “hinderer” is likely to have by no means a good time in that house. Do you know if such devices as you have mentioned are common in schools? E. I really can’t say. I have seen in American school papers accounts of class matches. In the New England Journal of Education (22nd November, 1888) Mr. A. E. Winship gave an account of some inter-class matches at Milwaukee. There is a match between three classes, say in penmanship. If there are seventy boys in the three classes together, each boy draws a number from one to seventy, and puts not his name but his number on his paper. The same lesson is set for all. The papers are collected, divided into three equal heaps, and looked over and marked by three masters. Finally the average of each class is taken. In mental arithmetic each class chooses its own champions. This would be fun, but would do nothing for the lower end of the class. The principal of McDonough School No. 12, New Orleans, Mr. H. E. Chambers, gives an account in the New York School Journal (8th December, 1888), how he organised sixteen boys into teams of four, putting the best and worst together as I did in making up scratch pairs. The match between these teams was to see which could get the best record for the month. As Mr. Chambers tells us the sharper boys managed with more success than the master to let light into the dull intellects of boys in the same team with them. This union of interests between the “strong” and the “weak” as the French call them, is a very good feature in combats of sides.

The Jesuits.—A. What is it that interests you so much in the Jesuits? E. Two things. First, the Jesuit shows the effects of a definitely planned and rigidly carried out system of education; and next, in such a society you find a continuity of effort which is and must be wanting in the life of an individual. If ever “we feel that we are greater than we know” it is when we can think of ourselves as parts of a society, a society which existed long before us, and will last after us. For instance, it is a great thing to be connected with an historical school such as Harrow. We then realise, as the school’s poet, Mr. E. E. Bowen, has said, that we are no mere “sons of yesterday,” and thinking of the connection between the mighty dead and the old school we join heartily in the chorus of the school song:—

A. I verily believe you expect your share in this “glory” for having invented the Harrow “Blue Book,” which is likely to outlive Educational Reformers; but if the boys ever thought of the inventor (which they don’t) they would naturally suppose that he was some contemporary of Cadmus or Deucalion. Sic transit! But what has this to do with the Jesuits? E. Only this, that by corporate life you secure a continuity of effort. There is to me something very attractive in the idea of a teaching society. How such a society might capitalise its discoveries! The Roman Church has shown a genius for such societies, witness the Jesuits and the Christian Brothers. The experience of centuries must have taught them much that we could learn of them. A. The Jesuits seem to me to be without the spirit of investigators and discoverers. The rules of their Society do not permit of their learning anything or forgetting anything. Ignatius Loyola was a wonderful man, but he must have been superhuman if he could legislate for all time. By the way, I see you say the first edition of the Ratio was published in 1585. What is your authority? E. I took the date from the copy in the British Museum. According to a volume published by Rivingtons in 1838 (Constitutiones Societatis Jesu) the Constitutions were first printed in 1558, but were not divulged till “the celebrated suit of the MM. Lionci and Father La Valette” in 1761.

Alexander’s Doctrinale (p. 80).—A. I thought you made it a rule to give only what was useful. What can be the use of the quotations which your old Appendix contained “from a celebrated grammar written by a Franciscan of Brittany about the middle of the 13th century”? E. Perhaps I had an attack of antiquarianism; but I rather think the quotations were given in order to shew our progress since those days. The Teachers’ art of making easy things difficult is well exemplified in Alexander’s rules for the first declension. But life is short, and folly is best forgotten.

Lily’s Grammar (p. 80). A. Would not your last remark rule out what you told us about Lily’s Grammar? E. As regards Lily’s assertion, “Genders of nouns be 7,” it certainly would. Surely nobody but a writer of school-books would ever have thought of making a “gender” out of “hic, hÆc, hoc, felix”! But the absurdity did not originate with Lily. He was all for simplification, and though there were some changes in the Eton Latin Grammar which succeeded the “Short introduction of Grammar” known as Lily’s Grammar, these changes were, some of them at least, by no means improvements. The old book put a before all ablatives and taught that “by a kingdom” was a regno. If this was not any better than teaching that domino by itself was “by a Lord,” it was at least no worse. The optative of the old book (“Utinam sim I pray God I be; Utinam Essem would God I were, &c.”) and the subjunctive (“Cum Sim When I am, &c.,”) were better than the oracular statement which perplexed my youth, “The subjunctive mood is declined like the potential.” How often I said those words, and being of an inquiring mind wondered what on earth “the subjunctive mood” was!

Colet. E. The passage I refer to on page 80 from Colet is in a little book in the B.M. It is “Joannis Coleti theologi, olim Decani Divi Pauli, editio, una cum quibusdam G. Lilii Grammatices Rudimentis, &c. AntuerpiÆ 1535.” After the accidence of the eight parts of speech, he says:—“Of these eight parts of speech in order well construed, be made reasons and sentences, and long orations. But how and in what manner, and with what constructions of words, and all the varieties, and diversities, and changes in Latin speech (which be innumerable), if any man will know, and by that knowledge attain to understand Latin books, and to speak and to write clean Latin, let him, above all, busily learn and read good Latin authors of chosen poets and orators, and note wisely how they wrote and spake; and study always to follow them, desiring none other rules but their examples. For in the beginning men spake not Latin because such rules were made, but, contrariwise, because men spake such Latin, upon that followed the rules, and were made. That is to say, Latin speech was before the rules, and not the rules before the Latin speech. Wherefore, well-beloved masters and teachers of grammar, after the parts of speech sufficiently known in our schools, read and expound plainly unto your scholars good authors, and show to them [in] every word, and in every sentence, what they shall note and observe, warning them busily to follow and do like both in writing and in speaking; and be to them your own self also speaking with them the pure Latin very present, and leave the rules; for reading of good books, diligent information of learned masters, studious advertence and taking heed of learners, hearing eloquent men speak, and finally, busy imitation with tongue and pen, more availeth shortly to get the true eloquent speech, than all the traditions, rules, and precepts of masters.” This passage is, I find, well known. It is given in Knights’ Life of Colet and is referred to by Mr. Seebohm. Mr. J. H. Lupton, Colet’s latest biographer, has kindly corrected the date for me: it is indistinct in the Museum copy.

Mulcaster for English (p. 97). A. Except in Clarke’s edition, your extracts from Mulcaster’s Elementarie have been omitted by your American reprinters. E. So I see. I should have thought the Americans would have been much interested by this early praise of our common language. The passage is certainly a very remarkable one, and Professor Masson has thought it worth quoting in his Life of Milton. The Elementarie is a scarce book; so I will not follow my reprinters in leaving out this passage:—“Is it not a marvellous bondage to become servants to one tongue, for learning’s sake, the most part of our time, with loss of most time, whereas we may have the very same treasure in our own tongue with the gain of most time? our own bearing the joyful title of our liberty and freedom, the Latin tongue remembering us of our thraldom and bondage? I love Rome, but London better; I favour Italy, but England more: I honour the Latin, but I worship the English.... I honour foreign tongues, but wish my own to be partaker of their honour. Knowing them, I wish my own tongue to resemble their grace. I confess their furniture, and wish it were ours.... The diligent labour of learned countrymen did so enrich those tongues, and not the tongues themselves; though they proved very pliable, as our tongue will prove, I dare assure it, of knowledge, if our learned countrymen will put to their labour. And why not, I pray you, as well in English as either Latin or any tongue else? Will ye say it is needless? sure that will not hold. If loss of time, while ye be pilgrims to learning, by lingering about tongues be no argument of need; if lack of sound skill while the tongue distracteth sense more than half to itself and that most of all in a simple student or a silly wit, be no argument of need, then ye say somewhat which pretend no need. But because we needed not to lose any time unless we listed, if we had such a vantage, in the course of study, as we now lose while we travail in tongues; and because our understanding also were most full in our natural speech, though we know the foreign exceedingly well—methink necessity itself doth call for English, whereby all that gaiety may be had at home which makes us gaze so much at the fine stranger.” Among various objections to the use of English which he answers, he comes to this one:—“But will ye thus break off the common conference with the learned foreign?” To this his answer is not very forcible:—“The conference will not cease while the people have cause to interchange dealings, and without the Latin it may well be continued: as in some countries the learneder sort and some near cousins to the Latin itself do already wean their pens and tongues from the use of the Latin, both in written discourse and spoken disputation, into their own natural, and yet no dry nurse being so well appointed by the milch nurse’s help.” Further on he says:—“The emperor Justinian said, when he made the Institutes of force, that the students were happy in having such a foredeal [i.e., advantage—German Vortheil] as to hear him at once, and not to wait four years first. And doth not our languaging hold us back four years and that full, think you?... [But this is not all.] Our best understanding is in our natural tongue, and all our foreign learning is applied to our use by means of our own; and without the application to particular use, wherefore serves learning?... [As for dishonouring antiquity], if we must cleave to the eldest and not the best, we should be eating acorns and wearing old Adam’s pelts. But why not all in English, a tongue of itself both deep in conceit and frank in delivery? I do not think that any language, be it whatsoever, is better able to utter all arguments either with more pith or greater plainness than our English tongue is.... It is our accident which restrains our tongue and not the tongue itself, which will strain with the strongest and stretch to the furthest, for either government if we were conquerors, or for cunning if we were treasurers; not any whit behind either the subtle Greek for crouching close, or the stately Latin for spreading fair.”

Marcel’s “Axiomatic Truths.”—A. I have seen Marcel referred to as a great authority in education, but I look in vain for his name in Kiddle’s CyclopÆdia and in Sonnenschein’s. E. You would be more successful in Buisson’s. There I see that Claude Marcel was born at Paris in 1793, and died in 1876. He was one of Napoleon’s soldiers. After 40 years’ absence from France dating from 1825 he went back to Paris. He had been French Consul at Cork, and brought up nine children whom he taught entirely himself. In 1853 he published with Chapman and Hall his Language as a Means of Mental Culture (2 vols.). This book was not very well named, for it contains in fact an analysis of the subject—education. To the study of this subject Marcel must have given his life, and it seems odd that his contribution to English (not French) pedagogic literature is so little known. A French abridgment of his work appeared in 1855 with the title Premiers Principes d’Education; and in 1867 he published in French L’Études des Languages (Paris, Borrani) of which a translation was published in the U.S.A. Marcel’s notion of education is threefold, viz., Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Education: the 1st aiming at health, strength, and beauty; the 2nd at mental power and the acquisition of knowledge; the 3rd at piety, justice, goodness, and wisdom. According to him the Creator has made the exercise of our faculties pleasurable. This will suggest his main lines. He expects to find general assent, for he quotes from Garrick:—

But he has met with less approbation than neglect. His “axiomatic truths” that I quoted in the old appendix were abused without mercy by a critic of those days who accused me of “bookmaking” for putting them in. On the other hand my last American reprinter singles them out for honour and puts them at the beginning of the book. After this I suppose somebody likes them, so here they are:

“Axiomatic Truths of Methodology.—1. The method of nature is the archetype of all methods, and especially of the method of learning languages.

2. The classification of the objects of study should mark out to teacher and learner their respective spheres of action.

3. The ultimate objects of the study should always be kept in view, that the end be not forgotten in pursuit of the means.

4. The means ought to be consistent with the end.

5. Example and practice are more efficient than precept and theory.

6. Only one thing should be taught at one time; and an accumulation of difficulties should be avoided, especially in the beginning of the study.

7. Instruction should proceed from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, from concrete to abstract notions, from analysis to synthesis.

8. The mind should be impressed with the idea before it takes cognisance of the sign that represents it.

9. The development of the intellectual powers is more important than the acquisition of knowledge; each should be made auxiliary to the other.

10. All the faculties should be equally exercised, and exercised in a way consistent with the exigencies of active life.

11. The protracted exercise of the faculties is injurious: a change of occupation renews the energy of their action.

12. No exercise should be so difficult as to discourage exertion, nor so easy as to render it unnecessary: attention is secured by making study interesting.

13. First impressions and early habits are the most important, because they are the most enduring.

14. What the learner discovers by mental exertion is better known than what is told him.

15. Learners should not do with their instructor what they can do by themselves, that they may have time to do with him what they cannot do by themselves.

16. The monitorial principle multiplies the benefits of public instruction. By teaching we learn.

17. The more concentrated is the professor’s teaching, the more comprehensive and efficient his instruction.

18. In a class the time must be so employed that no learner shall be idle, and the business so contrived, that learners of different degrees of advancement shall derive equal advantage from the instructor.

19. Repetition must mature into a habit what the learner wishes to remember.

20. Young persons should be taught only what they are capable of clearly understanding, and what may be useful to them in after-life.”

A. What do you think of these? E. I confess they bring into my mind the advice given to a learner in billiards: “When in doubt cannon and pocket the red.” First catch your “Method of Nature,” as Mrs. Glass might have said. As to No. 10 again, who shall say what “all the faculties” are? And is smelling a faculty that must be equally exercised with seeing? When the young Marcels went to Paris I fancy they found there far more that was worth seeing than worth smelling. A. After what you have said about pupil-teachers I infer you do not advocate the “monitorial principle”? E. Not exactly. “By teaching we learn.” This is very true. But if we can’t teach we can’t learn by teaching. A. But may we not gain by trying to teach? And short of teaching a good deal may be done by monitors. E. If by the monitorial principle we mean “Encourage the young to make themselves useful” it is a capital principle.

Words and Things.—A. In your Sturm Essay you say: “The schoolmaster’s art always has taken, and I suppose, in the main, always will take for its material the means of expression.” Surely the signs of the times do not indicate this. Have not the tongue and the pen had their day, and is not the schoolmaster turning his attention from them, not perhaps to the brain, but certainly to the eye and the hand? It has at length occurred to him to ask like Shylock “Hath not a boy eyes? Hath not a boy hands?” And as it seems certain that the boy has these organs, the schoolmaster wants to find employment for them. Till now no scholastic use has been found for the eye except reading, or for the hand except making strokes with the pen and receiving them from the cane. But it will be different in the future. Words have had their day. Things will have theirs. E. You may be right; but be careful in your use of terms. As is usually the case with “cries,” if we want a meaning we may take our choice. The contrast between “words” and “things” is sometimes between studies like grammar, logic, and rhetoric on the one hand, and, on the other, Realien, studies which in some way have Things for their subject. Then again we have words as the vocal or visible symbols of ideas contrasted with the ideas themselves. Those who complain of the time spent on words are thinking, some of them, of the time spent on the art of expression, others of the time given to symbols which do not, to the learner, symbolize anything. But in our day Words and Things are supposed to represent the study of literature and the study of natural science. At present there is a rage for Things, but it is a little early to adjudicate on the comparative claims of, say Homer and James Watt, on the gratitude of mankind. The great book of our day on Education, Herbert Spencer’s, would make short work with “words”; and yet two School Commissions, the Public Schools Commission of 1862, and the Middle Schools Commission of 1867 have defended “words.” The first of these says: “Grammar is the logic of common speech, and there are few educated men who are not sensible of the advantages they gained, as boys, from the steady practice of composition and translation, and from their introduction to etymology. The study of literature is the study, not indeed of the physical, but of the intellectual and moral world we live in, and of the thoughts, lives, and characters of those men whose writings or whose memories succeeding generations have thought it worth while to preserve.” The Commissioners on Middle Schools express a similar opinion:—“The ‘human’ subjects of instruction, of which the study of language is the beginning, appear to have a distinctly greater educational power than the ‘material.’ As all civilisation really takes its rise in human intercourse, so the most efficient instrument of education appears to be the study which most bears on that intercourse, the study of human speech. Nothing appears to develop and discipline the whole man so much as the study which assists the learner to understand the thoughts, to enter into the feelings, to appreciate the moral judgments of others. There is nothing so opposed to true cultivation, nothing so unreasonable, as excessive narrowness of mind; and nothing contributes to remove this narrowness so much as that clear understanding of language which lays open the thoughts of others to ready appreciation. Nor is equal clearness of thought to be obtained in any other way. Clearness of thought is bound up with clearness of language, and the one is impossible without the other. When the study of language can be followed by that of literature, not only breadth and clearness, but refinement becomes attainable. The study of history in the full sense belongs to a still later age: for till the learner is old enough to have some appreciation of politics, he is not capable of grasping the meaning of what he studies. But both literature and history do but carry on that which the study of language has begun, the cultivation of all those faculties by which man has contact with man.” (Middle Schools Report, vol. i, c. iv, p. 22.) As Matthew Arnold says, in comparing two things it is “a kind of disadvantage” to be totally ignorant about one of them; and I labour under this disadvantage in comparing literature and science. But I own I do not expect the ultimate victory will be with those who may kill, or even cure or carry, the body, and after that have no more that they can do. Milton says of fine music, that it “brings all heaven before our eyes.” Similarly fine literature can at least bring all earth and its inhabitants, and the best thoughts and actions the world has known. I remember Matthew Arnold in conversation dwelling on the difference it makes to us what we read. Surely one of the great things education should do is to enable and to accustom the thoughts of the young to follow the guidance which is offered us in “the words of the wise.”

Seneca v. Comenius.—A. I like your quotation on p. 169 from Dr. John Brown. After your see-saw fashion, you have, in a note on p. 365, expressed a fondness for “a notion of the whole.” E. I am there thinking of minute instruction about parts. But in most things notions of the parts precede the notion of the whole; and in this matter I think Seneca was wiser than Comenius: “More easily are we led through the parts into a conception of the whole. Facilius per partes in cognitionem totius adducimur.” (Ep. 88, 1.) A. May I ask to whom you are indebted for this erudition? E. To Wuestemann. (Promptuarium. Gotha, 1856.)

Useful Knowledge.—A. I am inclined to think that now and then you do not attach sufficient importance to the possession of knowledge and skill. E. Perhaps I do not. What I wish to cultivate is, not so much knowledge as the desire for knowledge, and further, the activity of mind that will turn knowledge to account. Knowledge driven in from without, so to speak, and skill obtained by enforced practice are, I will not say valueless, but very different in quality from the knowledge and skill that their possessor has sought for. Knowledge is a tool. He who has acquired it without caring for it, will have neither the skill nor the will to use it. A. Does not this apply to the knowledges recommended by Herbert Spencer, knowledge how to bring up children, &c., and to the knowledge of physiological facts and rules of health which you yourself say would be “of great practical value” (p. 444)? E. Certainly it does, and also to the “domestic economy” of our Board schools; still more to the lessons in morality which it seems are, at least in France if not elsewhere, to supersede religion. If you can get the learners to care for such lessons, the lessons are worth giving; if not, not. Care, not for the thing, but for the examination in the thing, is different, and can produce only a very inferior article. I expect there are instances in which care for the examination develops into care for the subject of the examination; but these cases are so rare that they may be neglected. A. I see you would not take a deep interest in the “Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.” And yet how terrible are the results of ignorance! Herbert Spencer is great on knowledge for earning a livelihood. It would add, perhaps, three or four shillings a week to the wages of the working man if his wife had learnt to cook. In matters of food the waste from ignorance among the English poor is appalling. E. In this case the school might do much, as girls would be anxious to learn. And though we cannot lay down as a general rule that it is “never too late to learn,” this rule might be applied to cooking. I see that in Govan, a suburb of Glasgow, the widow of the great ship-builder, John Elder, employs a trained teacher of cookery to instruct both by demonstrations, and also by visiting houses to which he (or she?) is invited. The results are said to be excellent. May this good lady find many imitators!

Memorizing Poetry.—A. About learning poetry by heart, did you ever hear of the old Winchester plan of “Standing up”? In the regular “exams.” (“trials” as we called them at Harrow), each boy had to state in how much Homer and Virgil he was ready to “stand up.” The master examined into the boy’s power of saying this by heart, and of construing all he said. From the very first the boy always gave in the same poetry, only adding to it each time. E. I have heard of it. Why, I wonder, was this plan given up? A. I have asked old Wykamists, but nobody seems to know. Perhaps the quantities learnt became absurdly large. But this method of accretion, if not overdone, would leave something behind it for life. Let me show you a passage from Æschines (Agnst Ktesip. § 135) which I have seen, not in Æschines, but in J. H. Krause’s “Education among the Greeks” (Gesch. d. Erziehg bei d. Griechen). It is so simple that even you may construe it. ??? t??t? ??? ??a? ??? pa?da? ??ta? t?? t?? p???t?? ???a? ??a????e?? ??’ ??d?e? ??t?? a?ta?? ???e?a. E. There is very little left of my Littlego Greek, but I will try: “For it is, I suppose, with this object that, when we are boys, we thoroughly commit to memory the sayings of the poets—in order to turn them to account when we are men.” I wish the old Greek custom were continued. I believe in learning by heart what is worthy of it (see supra, p. 74, n.). A. But the poetry that appeals to children they grow out of. E. This cannot be said of the best of it; but of this best there is, to be sure, a very small quantity. By “appeals to,” I suppose you mean “written on purpose for.” But in a sense much melodious poetry appeals to children even when they can get only a vague notion that it has a meaning. I have known children delight in “The splendour falls on castle walls,” and Hohen Linden pleases them much better than anything of Jane Taylor’s. But here, at all events, there can be no doubt about the wisdom of Tranio’s rule: “Study what you most affect.” As I have said in an old paper of mine (How to Train the Memory; Kellogg’s Teachers Manuals, No. 9), the teacher may read aloud some selected pieces, and let the children separately “give marks” for each. He can then choose “what they most affect.”

Books for Teachers.—A. Don’t you think you might give some useful advice to young teachers about the books they should read? E. I had intended giving some advice, but in reading tastes differ widely, and after all the best advice is Tranio’s, “Study what you most affect.” There are three Englishmen who have written so well that, as it seems, they will be read by English-speaking teachers of all time. These are Ascham, Locke, and Herbert Spencer. If a teacher does not know these he is not likely to know or care anything about the literature of education. These authors have attained to the position of classics by writing short books in excellent English. After these, I must know something of the student before I ventured on a recommendation. If he (or more probably she) be a student indeed, nothing will be found more valuable than Henry Barnard’s vols. especially those of the English Pedagogy. But the majority of mankind want books that are readable, i.e., can be read easily. I do not know any books on teaching that I have found easier reading than D’Arcy Thompson’s Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster and H. Clay Trumbull’s Teaching and Teachers (Eng. edition is Hodder and Stoughton’s). But some very valuable books are by no means easy reading. Take e.g. Froebel’s Education of Man (trans. by Hailmann, Appletons). This book is a fount of ideas, but Froebel seems to want interpreters, and happily he has found them. The Baroness Marenholtz-BÜlow has done good work for him in German, and in English he has had good interpreters as e.g., Miss Shirreff, Mr. H. C. Bowen, and Supt. Hailmann. In the case of Froebel there is certainly a want of literary talent; but even where this talent is clearly shown, a book may be by no means “easy reading.” It may make great demands on our thinking power, and thought is never easy. This will probably prevent Thring’s Theory and Practice of Teaching (Pitt Press, 4s. 6d.) from ever being a popular book, though every teacher who has read it will feel that he is the better for it. Sometimes the size of a book stands in the way of its popularity. This seems to me the case with Joseph Payne’s Science and Art of Teaching (Longmans, 10s.); but this book is popular in the United States, and I take this as a proof that the American teachers are more in earnest than we are. All the essentials of popularity are combined in Fitch’s Lectures on Teaching (Pitt Press, 5s.), and this is now (and long may it continue!) one of our most read educational works. A. But what about less known books? Cannot you recommend anything as yet unknown to fame? E. Ah! you want me to tell you what books deserve fame, that is, to—

But I have no intention of posing as the representative of the readers of our day, still less of the future. Indeed, far from being able to tell you what other people would like or should like, I can hardly say what I like myself. Perhaps I come across a book and read it with delight. Remembering the very favourable impression made by the first reading I go back to the book some years afterwards and I then in some cases cannot discover what it was that pleased me. A. That reminds me of Wordsworth’s similar experience—

I suppose this has happened to all of us. We go back and the things are the same and yet look so different. It is like after the night of an illumination looking at the designs by daylight. E. Not many of our designs will bear “the light of common day.” And if we tried to settle which, we should probably be quite wrong. Of my three English Educational Classics one can hardly understand why the peoples who speak English have retained Ascham while Mulcaster, Brinsley, and Hoole are forgotten. Locke had his reputation as a philosopher to keep his Thoughts from neglect, and yet at the beginning of 1880 1 found that there was no English edition in print. Perhaps some of the old writers will come into the field of view again. E.g., my friend Dr. BÜlbring, of Heidelberg, the editor of De Foe’s Compleat Gentleman, talks of reviving the fame of Mary Astell, who at the end of the seventeenth century took up the rights of women and put very vigorously some of the pet ideas of the nineteenth century. A. I will not ask you to “look into the seeds of time,” and I will not take you for a representative person in any way. On these conditions perhaps you will give me the names of some of the books that have made such a favourable impression on first reading—at least in cases where that impression has not been effaced by further acquaintance. E. Agreed. I ought to begin with psychology, but I must with sorrow confess that I never read a whole book on the science of mind; so this most important section of the subject must be omitted. French and German books I will also omit unless they exist in an English translation. About the historical and biographical part of the subject I have already named many books such as S. S. Laurie’s Comenius and Russell’s Guimps’s Pestalozzi. F. V. N. Painter’s History of Education is pleasantly written; but no really satisfactory history of education can be held in one small volume. This objection in limine also applies to G. CompayrÉ’s History of Pedagogy (trans. by W. H. Payne) which is far too full of matter. In it we find many things, but only a very advanced student can find much. Little has been written about English-speaking educators, but there are good accounts of Bell, Lancaster, Wilderspin, and Stow in J. Leitch’s Practical Educationists (Macmillans, 6s.). Turning to books about principles and methods I have found nothing that with reference to the first stage of instruction seems to me better than Colonel F. W. Parker’s Talks on Teaching (New York, Kelloggs). Fitch’s more complete book I have named already. A. Geikie’s Teaching of Geography (Macmillans, 2s. 6d.) is a book I read with great delight. For principles Joseph Payne seems to me one of our best educational writers, and we shall before long have, I hope, the much expected volume of his papers on the history of education. Some of the smaller books that I remember reading with especial gratification are Jacob Abbott’s Teacher, Calderwood On Teaching, A. Sidgwick’s lectures on Stimulus (Pitt Press) and on Discipline (Rivingtons), and Mrs. Malleson’s Notes on Early Training (Sonnenschein). There seemed to me a very fine tone in a book much read in the United States—D. P. Page’s Theory and Practice of Teaching. T. Tate’s Philosophy of Education I liked very much, and the book has been revived by Colonel Parker (Kelloggs). There are some books that are worth getting “by opportunity,” as the Germans say, good books now out of print. Among them I should name Rollin’s Method in three volumes, Rousseau’s Emilius in four, De Morgan’s Arithmetic, Essays on a Liberal Education edited by Farrar. I know or have known all the books here named, but my knowledge and time for reading do not extend as far as my bookshelves, and I see before me some books that I have not mentioned and yet feel sure I ought to mention. Among them are CompayrÉ’s Lectures on Pedagogy, translated by W. H. Payne, which seems an admirable compilation (Boston, Heath; London, Sonnenschein); Shaw and Donnell’s School Devices (Kelloggs) in which I have seen some good “wrinkles”; and T. J. Morgan’s Educational Mosaics (Boston; Silver, Rogers & Co.). J. Landon’s School Management (London, K. Paul) I have heard spoken of as an excellent book, and I like what I have seen of it. But I set out with a promise to mention not all our good books, but those which I thought good after reading them. There still remain some that fall under this category and have not been mentioned, e.g., The Action of Examinations, by H. Latham, Cotterill’s Reforms in Public Schools, W. H. Payne’s Contributions, and a pamphlet from which I formed a very high estimate of the writer’s ability to give us some first-rate books about teaching. I mean A Pot of Green Feathers, by T. G. Rooper.

Professional Knowledge.—A. What a pity it is that in English we have no name for KernsprÜche! When an important truth has been aptly expressed, the very expression may be an important event in the history of thought. Take e.g. Milton’s words which I observe you have quoted more than once, about “the understanding founding itself on sensible things” (p. 510). Here we have a “kernel-saying” that might have sprung up and yielded a rich crop of improvements in teaching if it had only taken root in teachers’ minds. Why don’t you make a collection of such “kernel-sayings”? E. I have had thoughts of doing so, and I have a collection of collections of KernsprÜche in German. A. Well, German is not the language I should choose for the expression of thought. According to Heine, in everything the Germans do there is a thought embodied; and we may add that in everything they say a thought is embedded; but I rather shrink from the labour of digging it out. E. You would find a collection of “kernel-sayings” in any language rather stiff reading. And after all, the sayings which strike us are just those which give utterance to our own thought. This is probably the reason why in reading such a book so few sayings seem to us worthy of selection. I had intended prefacing these essays with some mottoes, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson used to do when he wrote, but finally I have left my readers to collect for themselves. A. I should like to know the sort of thing you intended for your “first course.” E. Here is one of them from Professor Stanley Hall, of Worcester, Mass.: “Modern life in all its departments is ruled by experts and by those who have attained the mastery that comes by concentration.” (New England J. of Ed., 27th February, 1890.) A. According to you, sayings strike us only when they express our own thought. In that case Professor Hall’s saying would not make much impression on the generality of your scholastic friends. Many of the best paid schoolmasters in England would burst out laughing if anyone spoke of them as “educational experts.” Educational experts? Why they have never even thought of the art of teaching, leave alone the science of education. They are “good scholars” who at one time thought enough of preparing for the Tripos or the Honour Schools; and having got a good degree they thought (and small blame to them!) how to employ their knowledge of classics so as to secure a comfortable income for life. Accordingly they took a mastership, and soon settled down into the groove of work. But as for the science of education they have thought of it about as much as they have thought of the sea-serpent, and would probably tell you with Mr. Lowe (now forgotten as Lord Sherbrooke) that “there is no such thing.” E. No doubt they feel the force of Dr. Harris’s words: “For the most part the teacher who is theoretically inclined is lame in the region of details of work.” It would be a pity indeed if their “resolution” to make a good income were “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” A. They had to think how to prepare for the Tripos; and before long they will have to think how to do their work of teaching and educating better than they have done it hitherto. The future will demand something more than “a good degree.” Professor Hall is right. The day of the experts is coming. But does not even Dr. Harris warn teachers against being “too theoretical”? E. It is rather jumping at conclusions to assume with some of our countrymen that if a man does not think, he does act. Goethe’s aphorism which Dr. Harris quotes is this: “Thought expands, but lames; action narrows, but intensifies.” Now a good many men who do not expend energy in thought are by no means strong in action. In education they have no desire either to think the best that is thought or to do the best that is done. They won’t inquire about either; and they show the most impartial ignorance of both. Like Dr. Ridding they are of opinion that professional knowledge is to be sought only by persons without the advantages of having been at a public school and of “a good degree.” As for reading books about teaching they leave that sort of thing to national schoolmasters. And yet if teaching is an art, they might get at least as much good from books as the golf-player gets or the whist-player. “How marvellous it is when one comes to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently distinguished themselves in it and have systematised for the benefit of others the results of the experience of a lifetime!” Mr. James Payn who wrote this (Some Private Views, p. 176) was thinking of books not on teaching but on whist; but his words would come home to teachers if they took as much interest in teaching as he takes in whist. A. I fancy you have spotted the real deficiency; it is want of interest. It is only when a man becomes thoroughly interested in whist that he desires to play better, and when he becomes thoroughly interested in teaching that he desires to teach better. And if only he desires to improve he will seek all the professional knowledge within his reach. “Every one,” says Matthew Arnold, “every one is aware how those who want to cultivate any sense or endowment in themselves must be habitually conversant with the works of people who have been eminent for that sense, must study them, catch inspiration from them. Only in this way can progress be made.” (Quoted by Momerie). Let us hope that you have incited some young teachers to study and catch inspiration from the great thinkers and workers in the educational field. E. This is the object I have aimed at. If I wanted a motto I think I should choose this from Froebel interpreted by Miss Shirreff:

“The duty of each generation is to gather up its inheritance from the past, and thus to serve the present, and prepare better things for the future.”