inadequately or loosely rendered, and discover by questioning whether the construction was really apprehended. And we find that the spirit of the author is better appreciated by this training than if we encouraged men to interpolate their translation perpetually with a-a-a-a-a, and to interlard every clause with grammatical elucidations.

All the foregoing remarks have been made to illustrate the attitude of the Dublin University with regard to Courses of Instruction. It is not possible to do this without discussing special questions as I have done, and the special question which is now occupying public attention is that of classical teaching. Everybody is agreed as to the importance of scientific study. Everybody is convinced that we must pay more attention to the study of nature. The real quæstio vexata is this: can the study of classics be made practically useful in education? If so, how? If not, shall it be continued?

I have been trying to show that in the intermediate system adopted in Dublin, there are elements which may satisfy the utilitarian, while they offer the high classical scholar a better compromise than he deserves. There are many reasons to believe that the intermediate system is being developed at Oxford, and when supported by her great authority, will spread over the rest of the kingdom.

There are, however, other important University questions, upon which the evidence to be obtained in Dublin is of great moment. We have here long since combined the examination system of the London University with the lodger system now introduced at Oxford and with the old system of residence and supervision within colleges. But our lodgers are far better off than the same class promise to be at Oxford; they indeed more closely resemble the students at the German Universities; and they can obtain in Dublin the advantages of a large and cultivated society beyond the university. Then there are the questions of university government and of university restrictions in religion, both of which we have been obliged to settle long ago in a practical way. On all these points we are ready to give an answer to the all-important question: How will they work? at least as far as our own experience has taught us; and such an answer, though given from Ireland, may be nearly as valuable as the problematical conjectures of English savants. It is becoming fashionable to seek advice from the Continent on these subjects, and among others Mr. Arnold has written a very interesting book about a visit he paid (during their holidays) to French, German, and other universities. He seems to have heard of the Scotch Universities; but our ultima Thule is still beyond the range of his vision.

301

Reviews.

Essays on Educational Reformers. By ROBERT HEBERT QUICK. Longmans. 1868.

THE unpretending title of this book gives a very inadequate idea of the value of its contents. These cannot fail to be deeply interesting, not only to those who are personally engaged in education, but to all those who regard it in its true light as the destined civilizer of mankind. Education, thus considered, is of course only a general term to express all influences whatsoever that tend to convert the raw material of human nature into intelligent, moral, and religious man. These influences, as we know, begin to operate on the child from the earliest moment of consciousness, and they are wielded and directed, at first, by the greatest and most powerful of all teachers-Nature. But Nature, as we also know, after bestowing these "early lessons" impartially on all her children of every race and clime, leaves them to procure advanced education for themselves. Her method, indeed, with all the means and appliances of instruction, she still affords to all who seek them; but they must be sought; she no longer imposes them on her pupils unsolicited.

However it may be accounted for, the fact is undoubted, that man left to Nature's teaching alone still remains a savage; with out a thought apparently, or a desire, leading to self-elevation. It is a truism, then, to remark that all the civilisation with which we are acquainted is the result of that action of mind upon mind which takes up and carries forward Nature's teaching-in other words, of what we usually call Education. Thus viewed, how vastly important is the function that it has to discharge; and how noble is the teacher's position with regard to the age in which he lives! Too many, however, of those who hold that position are very inadequately impressed with its responsibilities, and fail to appreciate therefore both its dignity and its duties.

It is with a view to rouse the languid ambition of such men, and inform their minds with interesting and important facts, that Mr. Quick has composed this valuable work, which describes the enlightened theoretical opinions as well as the practical schemes of those who, from time to time, have broken in upon the routine of education-and whom Mr. Quick therefore styles "Educational Reformers." Beginning with the "Schools

of the Jesuits," in the sixteenth century, he passes in review the notions and systems of Ascham, Montaigne, Ratich, Milton, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Jacotot, and Herbert Spencer; and concludes with two very able and important essays, conveying his own views on "Teaching Children," and on "Moral and Religious Education." His treatment throughout of the immense variety of topics, both theoretical and practical, involved in such a review, is eminently satisfactory. Even where the reader may feel compelled to differ from the author's judgments, he cannot fail to appreciate the candour, simplicity, intelligence, and earnestness, with which they are maintained. In addition, however, to the qualifications just enumerated, and which might be displayed by a writer who had merely "got up" the subject, Mr. Quick has the immense advantage over many of those who nowadays treat such topics -that he knows thoroughly well what he is talking about. He has had long experience as a teacher, and has nourished and matured his experience by the means which in this book he recommends to others. Having himself acted in the spirit of the pregnant maxim of Dr. Arnold, which he quotes in the very commencement of his work, that "it is clear that in whatever it is our duty to act, those matters also it is our duty to study," he invites other teachers to do the same. There can be no doubt that in this land of liberty-where every man is free to take upon himself, without any test of qualification whatever, the solemn responsibilities of Nature's representative, the educatorit is especially important to insist on the duty of "studying " those things in which it is our "duty to act ;" and this book affords the amplest means for doing so.

There are two classes of teachers especially to whom the thoughtful study of such a work as this must be especially usefulroutineers, and merely practical teachers. The first class comprehends those whose entire scheme of instruction consists in "hearing lessons" which have been committed to memory. So they were "taught" in days gone by; they have never seen nor thought of any better method, and therefore the humdrum repetition of the routine which made them what they are, is the be-all and the end-all of their notions of teaching. To them spelling is committing to memory columns of words; geography, the same process applied to lists of names of places; history the same, only exchanging places for persons and dates; while grammar, as consisting almost entirely of technicalities and abstractions, and therefore removed from the common walk of observation, is looked on as a sort of fetish, whose sacredness no one must venture to question.

Such slaves to routine as these will find in Mr. Quick's book

freedom and enlightenment. They will discover that the teacher has a far nobler function to perform than that of merely hearing lessons," and both teachers and pupils will thenceforth benefit by the discovery.

The second class of teachers, though of a much higher grade than those just characterised, would also derive much benefit from the study of this work. This class consists of those who are instructors without being educators. Such men are expert in practice; their plans of teaching are good, and they carry them out successfully, as far as the end which they aim at is concerned. That end, however, is not the highest. It is limited to instruction, properly so called, and does not embrace the higher field of education. Such teachers are not themselves, in the strict sense here intended, educated men. They have much faculty and much energy; they know perfectly well what to do, and how to do it. Yet with all this they have not learned, by thought and study, the principles which underlie their practice; they know the how, but not the why, and therefore they are, though instructed, still uneducated. But teachers with views thus limited would of course limit the range of true education in their pupils. The want they had not felt in themselves they would not, of course, appreciate in those whom they taught; and their pupils, therefore, however well instructed, would not in the true sense be educated. It is sometimes said that education is "drawing out," and instruction "putting or building in," a distinction which fails to point out their true difference, as end and means. Instruction must precede education, as facts and practice must precede principles and theory; and a man may be a good, though not the best instructor, who cannot lay claim to the higher position of an educator. The difference between training to practice, and training to principles, is indeed of great importance. It is the latter only which gives true life and power,—the life which can kindle life in others; the power which is not daunted in cases where routine fails; the power which can not only direct the established machinery, but repair it when it is deranged, and adjust its action to new emergencies. It is the duty then of every teacher worthy of the name not to be satisfied with his pupils' well-doing as an end, but to lead them from practice to principles and, if he have not done so already, to begin the course of training with himself. He who has been hitherto contented with the mere routine imposed on him by association, and he who, more advanced, has nevertheless looked on instruction as the end of teaching, should each investigate the foundation of principles on which his practice rests, should compare both principles and practice with those of others distinguished in his own

profession, and thus enlarging his own personal experience by theirs, and repeating in his own practice the secret—if he has detected it-of their success, should endeavour to rise from the rank of routine, or merely instructed, to that of educated, teachers. Any who are touched with this noble ambition will find much to aid and stimulate them in Mr. Quick's book. There will, of course, always be something in the notions or practice of even the greatest authorities on Education which may not commend itself to the theoretic views or every-day experi ence of the earnest teacher; but he should not on that account believe that it is of no use to study carefully what such men as Ratich, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Jacotot, have said and done. Education is really, when properly viewed, the largest subject ever brought under the attention of men. It concerns them

more or less at every moment of their lives, and touches every point of body, soul, and spirit. We need scarcely wonder then that a subject so vast in its details has not yet received that attention which it deserves. Even the facts which are generally recognised are not yet arranged and systematised, much less generalized, into a harmonious theory. The scientific method. indeed has not yet been applied to education, and it therefore remains in a crude and unorganized condition. In time, however, teachers will begin to record their observations, to make experiments with a view to establish the best practice; methods of teaching will gradually be improved by the elimination of all that is objectionable and useless; nature's methods will be studied more and more; and at last, out of the chaos of conflicting traditions, usages, routine, &c., will arise-never yet seen

a true Art of education on which the Science will be established. Every earnest teacher may help to accomplish this desirable result by working in the spirit of the great authorities before cited.

The question of more or less in a work like this, which does not profess to be a complete treatise on Education, must of course be matter of discussion; but it certainly does seem remarkable that in any list of Educational Reformers the names

*This distinction between the instructed and the educated man-the man of faculty and the man of laws and principles-is enforced in the following passage from "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table:"-"All economical and practical wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical formula: 2+2 = 4. Every philosophical proposition has the more general character of the expression a + b = c. We are mere operatives, empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters instead of figures."