INSTRUCTION-as the old proverb says concerning charity-should begin at home. Once firmly seated there, it may expand outwards-the wider the better. To bring the reader at once to our point, we take him to visit a school, in town or village, in which children of the poorer classes -the progeny of peasants and artisans-are instructed. He is to hear the pupils examined by their teacher, and distinguish themselves, as the local newspaper says, " by the promptness and accuracy of their replies, showing a state of advancement creditable alike to themselves and their instructors;" and having done so, he is to put a few simple questions of his own to them. He will probably find that, after they have answered with minute precision about Babylon and Nineveh-perhaps also about Athens and ancient Rome-it is a chance if any of them can tell the name of the county town, and whether or not it is an old cathedral city or a modern manufacturing borough. They have shown a marvellous acquaintance with the Jordan, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Scamander; but ask them about that dingy puddle in which you have seen some of them make-believe to angle, while their mothers are drawing out its fetid waters, and complaining that poor folks can get

VOL. LXXXVII.-NO. DXXXVI.

nothing better, you will find that few of them are acquainted with its bright fountains in the hills, or the manufacturing machinery washed by it in its course; and that none of them can comprehend what has changed it from a pellucid stream to a filthy ditch. Turn over another leaf: you find that these humble scholars have ready answers to give about the priests of Baal, the Oracle of Delphi, and the Temple of Janus; but they know nothing whatever of the halfdozen different religious communities whose temples they pass in their daily walk to school. They are charged with a noble array of "dictionary words" about monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, illus trated by facts about the Council of the Areopagus, Ostracism, the Senate, the Tribunate, and the Comitia; but they know nothing whatever about the select vestry, or the police commission, or in what a parish beadle differs from a member of Parliament, and a colonel of a regiment from both. They can speak so well to the purpose about Aristides, Alcibiades, and Cincinnatus, that you might suppose them to have known the men, or at least to have conducted extensive biographical researches about them; but they don't know the name or function of the chief magistrate, or the sheriff, or the

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chairman of the quarter sessions; they attach no identity even to the distinguished member for the city, nor do they know that such is the position of the man whom everybody is speaking about as having brought forward in Parliament a fiscal measure calculated very materially to influence, whether for good or evil, their future prospects in life. Science is not wanting: there are glib answers about primary and stratified rocks, fossiliferous deposits, and anticlinal axes; but find, if you can, the boy who recognises the hard crystalline causeway as the unstratified granite of the neighbouring mountains, and the softer flagstones of the footpath as sedimentary rock, or who knows that the tough clay in which he flounders home is the close-packed detritus of silicious rocks, which must be enriched by organic mixtures before it can become fruitful mould. If they have learned a smattering of the technicalities of botany, you will probably find that it has not sufficed to make the town-bred ones aware that potatoes are roots and chestnuts seeds.

In the wear and tear of their rough journey through life, the isolated morsels of knowledge thus committed to the memory of those who have to work for bread, grow dim and disappear. They are at best but vague abstractions. They have no real appreciable substance in them --nothing to anchor them to the memory. Between what the workman experiences of practical life within his own narrow round of duties, and these distant generalities, there is fixed a vast gulf of ignorance which he cannot see across. It is otherwise with his more fortunate contemporaries of the middle and wealthy classes. Though much useless knowledge is thrown away on them too, yet they are so saturated with instruction that a portion of it remains, and realises itself through pursuits in after life, which make a nearer approach to a practical connection with the school lessons than the pursuits of the workman are likely to afford. They join the learned professions- they become members of Parliament or statesmen, or at least justices of the peace, town

councillors, select vestrymen, or members of parochial boards. They are merchants, with dealings abroad; or they travel, and thus obtain notions of territorial distance, and difference in climate, ethnology, and institutions, things which are mere vague ideas to those who plod in one mechanical routine at home.

It is difficult to realise to any member of the educated classes how impracticable it is for their less fortunate brethren to acquire the larger and more general facts and doctrines of ordinary science. The difficulty of realising the impracticability arises from this, that for the purpose of isolating in the mind of the experimentalist the idea which he has to realise, there must be a certain blank space or arena of ignorance, or rather uninstructedness, in the midst of which it must be placed. In this highly-enlightened and technological age, it would be extremely presumptuous to profess to discover such an arena in any intellect; and if it were discovered, there might be some question about the politeness of exposing it. We can therefore only modestly ask the reader to run over the sciences and departments of science which occur to him, and fix on that which he least knows. There will naturally occur to him, among a host of other topics, trigonometry, plane and spherical- the calculus, integral and differential-porisms, dynamics, barology, catoptrics, palæozoic entomology, palæography, hagiology, ecclesiology, iconography, the predicates, the sentences, ontology, and porphyrian dichotomy. If in any of these, or in any other that may occur to him, the reader is conscious of some isolated spot to which his instructed intellect has not penetrated, we desire him to take up the most profound and searching work bearing upon the topic, and, without going through any preliminary study, to find the most abstruse formula or theory, or the most erudite technical definition which its pages disclose. Our proposition is, that having done so, he will have about as distinct a notion of the real import of his acquisition as the working man's boy in an ordinary school has about such simple affairs as the four

quarters of the globe, the equator, and the eastern and western hemispheres, the Emperor of China, and the President of the United States. Whether or not he is ever to realise these things, the problem is to get the boy to realise to know in realitywhat he carries in his memory. Let there be a synthetic system-a putting together of parts, that it may be known what they consist of before there is an analysis. Let him have a firm position in geography, by understanding practically the land and the waters close around him, before he is taken to the poles, and carried round the world in circles, none of which come near his own humble door. Let him prove and feel that he lives either in a town or in a country parish, and understand the difference between the two. Let him note the secret of the nature and powers of the authorities who rule over himself and his neighbours, before he masters the dicasts, the Areopagus, and the senate. It is surely possible to open his mind to some further knowledge of the stiff figure who walks the streets in blue coat and glazed hat, than that he is the policeman, and the general enemy of mankind. He may, it is believed, without danger, be instructed in the sources of these solemn functionaries' powers and duties, so as to imbibe some germs of the origin and character of constitutional and responsible power in representative government; and it may not be amiss that he should recognise in the power of the law a praise and protection to those that do well, and not solely a terror to evil-doers.

We are not to suppose that our schoolboy is a thief, or that, if he were, mere school-teaching would convert him to honesty; but still it is a pregnant illustration of the effect of ignorance of the character and conditions of our social institutions, that most criminals have never from childhood had any other notion of the power of the law save that it is the common enemy to be dreaded, and either fought or fled from as occasion serves. Some years ago there appeared among the police reports in the London newspapers a stray notice of a boy committed for theft, who was supposed, from the nature of a coup

let which he had chalked on the wall of his cell, to have made a faint inductive approach towards the philosophy of punishment. This effort at authorship-perhaps it is too simple and quaint to be genuine, but never mind-was embodied in the lines following:

"Him as prigs vot isn't hisn,

Ven he's cotcht, he goes to prisn." The induction is very clearly and neatly put; it gives utterance to a too common occurrence. Thus the jail is the first thing to teach the uninstructed youth the power of the law; and, indeed, without looking exclusively to the criminal portion of our population, it is a sad truth that the humbler and less educated are apt to acquire their first distinct acquaintance with the institutions under which they live by running against them, and suffering in the collision-as dogs find out the places where they should not be, from the kick they get when casually straying in them.

Among the matters important to themselves, about which it were well for the working population that they were trained to a better knowledge, are the ordinary physical materials of their wellbeing, the knowledge that would make them acquainted with the condition of the food they eat, the raiment they wear, and the dwellings they live in. It would perhaps be of still more moment to some of them to have their faculties opened to a perception of the elements of strength, durability, and general fitness for their proper use of those materials which they have to work up into mercantable commodities. In the various fibrous substances which pass unnoticed through their hands in the daily routine of the manufacture of textile fabrics, there is an immense world of peculiarities and nice distinctions to reward, not only with curious knowledge, but practical advantage, the close observer. So, too, of timbers, metals, and stones. A little science might not be thrown away on such matters, provided it is kept within reach of practice. If two stones be alike in colour, the mason will seldom know that the one of crystalline formation is hard and durable, while the other of mechanical

rock is soft and friable: he knows no difference, save what he is conscious of in the course of working; and even that will not teach him that the stone he is hammering on is of a kind to exfoliate, and fall speedily to pieces. It might be as well for him to prove that the sparkling metallic dust so like gold on the block he is smoothing for an ornamental gateway, is in reality a sulphate of iron which will oxidise on exposure, and cover his work with great blotches of tawny red. Handicraft trades are susceptible of numerous practical improvements, which are only likely to suggest themselves to intelligent and observant operatives. On the other hand, traditional practices, which are tedious or ineffective or costly, are repeated from generation to generation for centuries by men who, like most of our workmen, listlessly and blindly follow the routine in which they are trained. A few years ago, when a building was to be erected of freestone in Aberdeen, where the local material is granite, some masons, accustomed to work in the new material, were imported along with it. They remarked with much contempt, that instead of using the mallet and chisel like themselves, the Aberdeen masons dressed the granite with a sharp-pointed hammer like a small pickaxe. The freestone men called on their brethren of the primitive rock to abandon their absurd tool, and adopt a more enlightened method; but the Aberdeen men maintained that granite could not be otherwise dressed than as they did it. Both stood on the traditions of their craft. It did happen, however, with a good fortune unusual to such occasions, that the mallet and chisel were tried on the granite, that they were found completely effective, and that not only was a more perfect dressing than the old spotted surface communicated to the stone, but that dressed granite was ever after a much cheaper commodity than it had been.

In advocating for the working man an education of which he can make practical use, we are not to be set down as questioning the blessings which literary pursuits are capable of conferring on man, if he have a taste for them. Our present dealing is, in fact, rather with

the elements of his physical wellbeing, than of his purely intellectual elevation and enjoyment. By all means let him have books of every kind at his leisure hours, and learn how to enjoy them: such exercise of the mind, spontaneously undertaken, and consequently pursued with relish and purpose, will have a totally different influence over him from the barren technicalities in remote regions of knowledge, which the schoolboy commits to memory at the will of another. Still, limiting our present suggestions to the line of his material advantage and wellbeing, a sort of literature we would not have him totally ignorant of is embodied in those brief compendiums of information on the practical things of the day and place, which are often the only literature of the affluent merchant. There is the Almanac, for instance, which informs him of the working length of the different days in the year, of the terms, of the markets, and of the different local institutions around him. There is the Directory, which, with a variety of other apt information, lets him know how many and what people are in any town giving employment in his own or kindred pursuits, and shows him the way to the door he wishes to find. It is curious to observe how few of the working classes ever seek these prompt methods of finding those with whom they have business concerns. In the newspaper, instead of perusing with flushed face and angry eye the leader which exposes the folly of strikes and combinations, and then throwing down the sheet with a curse at its destitution of all sympathy with freedom and manly aspirations, he might do something to protect himself from those difficulties which lead to the combination and the strike, if he were accustomed to notice the prospects of employment and labour, the condition of markets, and the prices of commodities, whether those which he makes, or those which he buys.

We are not oblivious of the fact that systems of teaching from real objects have been largely expounded in theory-as what good system has not? The names of Pestalozzi, Mayo, and Fellenberg, have only to be men

tioned to call up a series, not only of literary exhortations, but of practical exertions worthy of all attention and praise, and not entirely unproductive of good. Unless, however, there be a great exception, as there seems to be, among the Swiss peasantry in the districts radiating from Pestalozzi's old castle school at Yverdun, it can scarcely be said that object-teaching has had any material influence on the world as yet; and, in fact, for the reason to be presently referred to, it would seem that the teaching from practical objects has degenerated into the lifeless routine of all other cheap and bad teaching. A box is opened, and the articles in it held up one by one. "That is sponge sponge is an animal product-it is amorphous, it is porous. That is caoutchouc or india-rubber; it is soft, it is not brittle; it is elastic, inflammable, insoluble in water," and so on; then the box is shut, and the school dismisses with the impression of having had a lesson more than usually dull.

Voltaire, in his essay on epic poetry, after examining the various theories laid down by preceding authors to account for the absence of high works of this class in the French language, concludes by announcing it as his own opinion, that the reason why France has not a great epic poem, is because France has not had a great epic poet. On a similar principle, we find it more satisfactory to attribute all deficiencies in teaching to deficiencies in the teachers. If we must go a step farther back into causes, it will be to say that the schoolmaster has not his proper position among us; that he is underestimated and under-paid; that instead of being, as he should be, the head and director of the education of the generation under his charge, he is treated as a subordinate who has to carry out the projects and plans of others. Hence, both high and low, teachers are among us too abjectly the slaves of the book. In inferior schools, where their pay is very humble, they are but the mere medium through which the contents of schoolbooks are imparted to their pupils; they neither think nor act as independent instructors. A great

deal of the sort of teaching we have been referring to is not to be imparted by means of books; but when the instructor, instead of a bound volume, has placed in his hand a box of Pestalozzian objects, it does not alter the flat routine of his communication, taken from some work intended for this kind of teaching. In fact, he himself generally knows but little about the matters he professes to teach, except the contents of his books.

As to what these books consist of, or what kind of men make them, the parental world is trustingly indifferent. There are deep prejudices and even keen discussions about the creed and the opinions of the parish schoolmaster, who, poor drudge! only imparts what he finds in the text-books that come in his way: but where is he who deigns to make inquiry about the opinions or the principles of the authors of the text-books themselves, the contents of which are communicated by the jealously-watched teacher with confiding simplicity? Those engaged in the preparation of this large and momentous department of literature, know well that they need never expect any objection or any improvement to be suggested by the teachers who use the books, unless these contain matter very flagrant or deleterious indeed. Some schoolbooks are, in this country, issued under the sanction of Government-in despotic countries, of course, they all are. Others, again, are written by men of note, whose attainments and principles are conspicuous to the world. But probably by far the greater part of them are the work of unknown writers, who probably have prepared them with the perfectly irreproachable motive of earning the wages of hard labour. The parent who is so fastidious about the opinions and character of the schoolmaster to whom he commits his children, does he ever inquire into those of the author whose works are not merely to be read in school, but, if the teaching be thorough, to be absorbed into the creed and understanding of his child? Does such a parent ever peruse the books themselves, to see what principles they inculcate? Not he. They are dry reading, and he is